Jocko Willink- NAVY SEAL Leadership Strategies

when it comes down to building leaders are you more from the thought of I find leaders and I direct them are you more coming from the place up I build leaders for both both that's one of those questions that gets brought up all time is it nature or nurture that turns someone into a leader and our leaders born or our leaders made and the answers both when you see people in these hard situations that's when human nature gets revealed and the more you can understand human nature the better leader you're gonna be so if you know one thing about me I like reading books and every month in our company we choose a book to read in December of 2017 I chose the book extreme ownership by jakka willing and so I read an obviously prior to that and I told every leader in the company to read we run we bought a thousand copies and everybody was going through it and debriefing with each other would you take from here what was this what was that what do you think about the part he talks about standards and then after that I said I just got to meet this guy one because when you look at his face he looks like he's ready to kill somebody at any moment and enemy he's just got one of those looks of what you would call a badass that's a look that he's got to 20-years Navy SEAL gets in at 18 years old serves 20 years part of the task unit bruiser battle of Ramadi SEAL team 3 during 2006 I believe it was April to November some timeline like that going against Iraq which for me obviously is a big deal because living in Iran for 10 years we got bombed 167 times one day in from Iraq and for me I experienced all of those emotions that stayed so when I saw the statue of Saddam Hussein coming down there was a relief you know when I saw that taking place oh brother thank you for your service and I'm coming on to by a team of with us chuckle when did you know you wanted to be a Navy SEAL well specifically the SEAL team part of it wasn't until I figured that out but when I was a little tiny kid you know five six the only thing I could remember was one to be some kind of commando you knew that from that point from from birth basically that was it because pops or an uncle or grandpa was in a military or grandfather was in the army and he was retired from the army but that wasn't really it I just instinctively was putting camouflage on my face and carrying on sticks and carving him to look like machine guns when I was a little kid for no reason so that's just kind of now are you from a big family do you have siblings two sisters two sisters an older one younger did they also go into military or not at all so just you just me so from five years old you knew so when you won in high school everybody's asking you what are you gonna do after high school you knew you're going in the military yep no ifs and buts nothing about it not really was there a movie that you watch that was like this is my favorite movie hundreds of hundreds of them what's your favorite my favorite movie now I would say it's not really a movie but the Pacific which is a miniseries that was on HBO about the Marine Corps campaign and the army campaign in the Navy campaign in the Pacific it's a great great series now when you went into the Navy SEAL was it you and a couple buddies or just you by yourself just me just by yourself how was the entire experience when you went in it was awesome yeah what I wanted to do and it's a lot of fun was it tougher was it what you expected was it easier for you it was what I expected it's hard it's fun there's no doubt it's a challenge it finds you weak this is the initial training that you go through the screening process if I thought what your weaknesses are and a lot of really kind of squared away people don't make it and so really school to what people don't make oh yeah what do you mean by this quarter would people don't make I mean you know two examples I bring up all the time is I had a guy that was an NCAA water polo player captain of a team and I had another guy that was a Olympic alternate gymnast and they're both in my training class and both of them quit so those guys were infinitely better athletes and I was but apparently they didn't want to be there as bad as I did did you say sense at rent from people that actually went in and made it through it was there a certain trend you saw amongst those guys I made it if I could solve that riddle of who's gonna make it I'd be a I'd be in a totally different world because they tried to solve that riddle they try and figure I was gonna make it and you just don't know because you know I talked about these really good athletes and really smart dyes that quit but there's also guys that were not good athletes at all worse athletes than me and they'd make it through and it's really hard to predict who were you in high school but were you big at them obviously you look at you you're six to the $1 234 average I was like an average athlete maybe maybe slightly below average athlete I wasn't that into school I didn't get great grades I was kind of a rebel you know I was a pretty rebellious kid I liked I liked hardcore music and heavy metal music and that's what I was into so when you went in you you you went into as a Navy SEAL what was the first time where you were deployed you had your first project coming out what was the first time you had something to go out on the first time I ever fired my weapon at the enemy was 13 years later in 2003 so there's 13 years of you know just training hard wow I did deployments we did seizures of vessels in the Persian Gulf so that was you know it's a real mission and I guess something bad could happen but nothing bad ever did happen and other than that it was not until I went to Iraq in 2003 for my first combat deployment how was that awesome awesome you know I had a friend of mine the Army's there was his name is Jeff Bradford he's 18 years old he would tell me Pat I'm gonna go straight to the top of the military so what do you mean by that I said you're gonna go Green Beret says no no whatever is the highest I'm going to it I said come on Bradford Jaco he was determined that he's gonna get then his answers was similar to yours 20 years later similar thing on his level of determination on what he wants to do and how determine he was he I think ended up being a master sergeant by the time he was anything go dia to say when and became a master sergeant so from your entire experience that you had one of the topics I want to tackle with you is leadership and obviously you know your book on extreme ownership I think chapter one the first thing you talk about is extreme ownership number two I think is standards keeping standards and you talk about the mission then there's four other items you have in there out of the seven that you cover when it comes down to leadership to me running a business and I see downstairs by the way if you don't know when you come into this place he runs a gym and it's right across the street from 24-hour fitness the moment I walk first of all the parking lot is jam-packed the cars are getting towed in the back it says you can park in a Windham parking lot right I would hate to be Windham I walk in the place is hot with 200 people in the gym I asked her from this clerk I said are you guys always this busy she says sir we're not busy tonight I said what did you say she says we're not busy there's bodies on top of bodies so obviously you're not just a Navy SEAL guy where you know military was the whole thing you couldn't bring it out and put it into business you've also been able to put that into the business side of things which is a big part of the audience on value tainment when it comes down to building leaders are you more from the thought of I find leaders and I direct them are you more coming from the place f I build leaders or both both both that's one of those questions that gets brought up all time is it nature or nurture that turns someone into a leader and our leaders born or our leaders made and the answer is both because you and I both know there's some people that just have a lot of really good natural leadership characteristics and they have an easier time stepping up into a leadership position there's some people that don't have those characteristics and for me it's like you ever seen a video game where they have like your strength for a different character in a video game they have this level a strength level 9 and an intelligence level 7 they get all these rankings so it's the same thing with leadership and so there's different skills that you have to make you a good leader whether it's being the ability to lead people the ability to articulate well the ability to look at complex problems and get them solved these are skills and some people have higher levels in some of those skills than other people and some people when you start to train them they can get better at some of those skills and so yes you can get better you start at a baseline whatever that you are as a human being you start there and you can definitely improve there's only one type of human being that can't improve as a leader and that's the that's the person that lacks you military because when someone lacks humility you can't teach them the so you're leading me the only person that cannot improve this I like humility and you like humility no in me if you lack humility you can't really do not like I can't help so let me ask you what else do you look for outside of that say for instance you got a group of 20 guys okay that they're part of your unit I mean obviously you were a commander on a unit you were not a Brit about battalion you were commander still you had people that are reporting to constantly how can you differentiate between somebody that could be a leader of your universe is somebody that needs a lot of hand-holding were there trends that you saw were there certain things that you were looking at again this is one of those things where I mean you know you can look at a person you can do an assessment and I do pretty good with my assessment you've been in business for a long time you you do per year in the army you know you do pretty good with your assessment but you're you're only baton 60 said how many times you've hired somebody thought was gonna knock it out of the park and two months later you end up firing them a long list it's a long list right how many times you've yeah you know what I'll give a guy a shot and then they end up being a great person you know you get right some of the times you know probably 60 70 percent of the time maybe even more but you definitely can't guarantee anything and that's why I look at everyone with an open mind I look at people an open mind so not only do you know I want you to be humble if you want to learn but I'm looking at you with an open mind I'm not looking at you putting you in a box and thinking oh he doesn't really have this capability I'm looking like okay let's hope he has the capability and if he does we're gonna build on it we're gonna turn them interest into it into a solid leader did you watch the movie Moneyball with Billy Beane the whole story of you know did you ever see that or no with so in in this movie Moneyball it's a story of Billy Beane and he figured out through data on what is the most important stat in baseball to bring players in this guy said it's not the most important that is not homerun hitters the most important data is on-base percentage what percentage of the time this kid makes it on the first base segment that's what we're looking for right so is there a most important data that you look at outside of humility well humility is definitely the number-one thing but now for starting to talk about data I'm gonna look at what their track records like I'm gonna look at what kind of person they were where they come from what have they done before did they play sports were they successful how were their grades now obviously this for me is like a bad example because like I told you I wasn't great at sports my grades weren't great now when I went to college my grades were awesome but that was later right if you would have looked at me coming out of high school you said huh I don't know about this guy you probably wouldn't hired me coming out of high school you said I doesn't have great grades doesn't look that disciplined you know what we'll take a pass on this guy however and this is why you got to be careful this is right leadership is so hard sure you can get 70% right you can get 80% right there's 20% that you don't know what they're gonna do and that's up and down the chain of command what I do is I have an open mind when I deal with people and I slowly start to put responsibility on them and see where they take it there's a part of it I think I saw you talked about the fact that in leadership building relationships is very very important sometimes you're just looking at the whole texting thing you know and all and I remembered like why we're doing the interview he says I'm gonna put my phone on airplane mode he said it he didn't just do it these are small things that I pay attention to so you said sometimes too much text ink is not a way you can lead people sometimes we need to sit down and talk to them face-to-face so one of the things I talk about is first you got to go through a buddy phase which the person's got to trust you because if you don't have trust we have low speed then you go through mentoring phase I'm directing you then it becomes you become a leader you got a challenge we got to push them you got to test them right so for you when it comes up to relationship what was your process of building relationship with your teammates relationships and trust are almost the same work right a relationship is something that we've built trust now you have a bad relationship and what does that mean that means there's no trust there I don't trust you we have a bad relationship how do I build trust with someone the way I build trust with people is I give them trust so if you're working for me I say hey you know I want you to do this mission Patrick come up with a plan I'm showing you that I trust what your plan is gonna be now I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure that your plan is good I'm gonna review it but I'm gonna give you a lot of autonomy I'm gonna give you trust and when I give you trust what's your reaction you think yourself this guy trusts me yep and then the way I build trust and reverses when you make a mistake instead of me jumping down your throat and hanging you out to dry instead I say okay you know what my fault I should have given I should have give you a better direction here's what we do - next time so now you look at me you go hey I screwed this thing up and jock would still trust me I trust him and that's how I build trust I give it you give it I give trust to build trust if I'm really putting in effort but my plan may be not the best plan you're still gonna give me second chances to work on and get better at it I will micromanage you more I can't trust you as much we do a business deal or we're in business I don't send you out with the biggest client I've got when it when I just met you and say hey I trust you know I'll give you a little client and I say hey go go go make this happen and you come back and you say hey look I did it I say great and you trust me a little bit more or maybe you screw that one up and I say okay let me review what you do what mistakes got made and you say oh well I did this and okay we correct that but I don't I don't come down hard on you because I'm trying to build a relationship with you if I come down hard on you do you even want to work for me do you if I come down this is pathetic you screwed this up this is your fault you're looking for another job tomorrow whereas if I say okay let's look at what we can do better then I'm building the trust but can't you know you might be very trustworthy for many years and then all of a sudden you go out and you do something underhanded with a client you try and rip them off or rip me off yeah I mean we're not gonna have trust for me anymore so I like that when you're talking about that but you know your second point and this is this is this is one thing that I'm curious on why you either present this or how do you maintain this because you know sometimes you're working and you either get a little too close to team member a little too close and it becomes from where they're kind of sloppy a little loose with you then you don't have the same level of certainty with them when you're leading them but you'll like them and you want to get closer to them because they're friendly you're almost kind of lonely as a leader so I'm like wait a minute but this guy's also my boy but I also gotta lead them in a military that was I mean many times my best friend was my sergeant we'd go out and then at the same time Monday morning formation he's trying to discipline me and I'm thinking wait a minute I'm kind of I'm I don't know if I'm looking at you as the same way buddy you're my boy so how did you balance that yourself so the last chapter in the book extreme ownership is called the dichotomy of leadership and it talks about balancing these opposing forces that exist all over there's so many things that you can go too far in one direction the other one example the one you just gave right you and I are friends if we start going out for dinner every night and then we're hanging around we're having beers and all of a sudden we're Bros but we come into work on Monday and I say hey you know what I want you to get started on this project you got come on man I don't want to do that project and all of a sudden I feel awkward so I got too close the other side is I don't know you at all don't know what drives you don't know what your motivations are don't know that you've got a sick kid or or or a wife that's giving you problems or whatever the case may be and I don't know that so now when I come in and say okay get this project done and you go come on man and I don't realize that they're States going on your life so I have to balance this dichotomy and it's it's not just with relationships it's with everything because I just talked about micromanagement right if I micromanage you and I don't let you make any decisions yourself well you're never gonna step up and learn how to lead because you don't get to make any decisions for yourself if I don't manage you at all and you don't know what direction to go in well now you don't know what you're doing and you're lost with no direction so so that's problematic so I got a balance let's do it's got to be in the middle that's a constant theme all the time I just got done literally today with the final edits for my next book I wrote with laith and the name of that book is the dichotomy of leadership because as we continue to work with leaders with our consulting company these are the problems that they have they don't balance it well and a lot of times they don't even recognize that they need to balance right and and it's one of the things I make a joke about it in the new book the title extreme ownership it's very powerful and it definitely exemplifies and clarifies that you need to take ownership of what's going on your world they start applying that extreme idea into other things like I'm gonna be extreme in my discipline or I'm gonna be extreme in the way I talk to people that doesn't work as a leader it just doesn't work a leader has to be balanced one of the best advice I got early on a mic I think I was 24 years old and I was just this tough military type of a guy running my agency and one guy pulled me aside one day says listen sometimes to lead a big army you have to be a little bit more like a willow tree instead of like an oak tree he says you're being too firm and not everybody's gonna be able to develop around you got to loosen up a little bit for people to be able to come up as well so Chuck oh you've been in many different situations and as a leader I think one thing I struggled coming up was how many contradictions there are in leadership you could say one thing on one side and it could be an absolute contradiction on another point that you're trying to make get close to them don't get too close and you're talking about right now the the balance is mentally while you're going through it yourself how are you processing the contradictions or is it one of those things that you can't read about you just kind of have to go through to understand the balances on the contradictions you have to deal with as a leader for me it's about awareness and once a lot of people aren't even aware right they are aware of the fact that they can get too close they aren't aware of the fact that they can be too far away and they aren't aware of the indicators right and by the way this goes through everything like as a business leader right you got to take risk if you take too much risk what happens you fail if you take no risk you don't grow and you fail as well mm-hmm there's so many examples here's another good one communicating in a direct manner can you be too direct with your people everyone says no you got to tell them what's going on no actually you can be too direct you can be too direct with your people and you can make them defensive you can make them gun-shy right so you have to find about now can you be not direct enough absolutely you can be not direct enough if all I'm saying he was like to start lifting your numbers up a little bit that'd be helpful that that's not direct enough I need to actually say but if I go look if you don't get you you're fired well that's too direct there are personalities that are Barack Obama personalities just very easygoing personalities and then they're Gregg Popovich type of personality I know you don't follow sports a lot but Gregg Popovich is a little bit more of an intense guy better example is Phil Jackson Popovich you know both personalities you're a pretty intense dude first of all you look intense you got piercing eyes that you're trying to look through somebody's soul and spirit you're already intimidating how do you know that you have to come a little bit back and a person who's not needs to come a little bit more to be more assertive how did you become self-aware that at what point was there a certain situation for you growing up in the military and seeing the way other people react to leadership and seeing someone that's a super hard-ass that comes down strong on everyone and seeing what that produces because it doesn't produce good results you know when I first first started doing this when I first started my leadership consulting company one of the very first clients I had I'm talking to CEO on the phone and he says I can't wait you to come here and whip my people in the shape and I said you know if you're looking for someone to whip your people in the shape you should really look for someone else because I'm not gonna whip anyone into shape and by the way whipping people in the shape doesn't work it doesn't it doesn't turn them into what you want them to do it doesn't make them like a dog you beat a dog sure it'll it'll get off the couch right now and you can beat it when it you know when it barks and you can beat it when it does something else wrong but eventually you just have a broken dog that's not gonna protect your house anymore you have to balance it and you know you talk about military leadership and I you know in my podcast I talk about military leadership all the time and I go very deep with all kinds of historical famous military leaders but the most kind of leaders that were considered to be the harshest and most disciplinary they always all of them have a side to them that is very soft and really knows how to connect with people I mean I just did a couple podcasts on chesty puller the famous marine M hmm you know the most famous marine ever and he's known as a complete hard-ass disciplinarian but when you read about the way he treated his troops he loved those guys and they knew it and he could be hard on him and even though he's being hard on him he had he had a way of making that connection and he knew how to balance that dichotomy of being too hard and being too soft so what I think is important is to start to recognize the signs of when you're going too far in one direction the other so if you're working for me I'm looking at you and I'm telling you what to do and you're showing no initiative right you're just you're coming in to work and you're waiting for me to come in and you're waiting with your pen and paper you want to do a good job yeah and when I tell you what to do you go out and you execute it but I'm not seeing any initiative from you that's an indicator to me that how micromanaging you and I'm giving you too much direction and I'm not letting you grow so I want to do good but I'm not taking initiative so it's not like I'm not showing up I'm not working but I'm not taking initiative because you're telling me everything to do so my muscle to take initiative to do it is gone I had a guy that worked for me as a radio man and you know he was kind of a little bit lost that's big by the way what he just said right so I borrow I don't know if you caught that part I don't even know if you read a lot about what he just said right now so this idea this idea of the dichotomy of leadership is in everything and no one's talked about it before I mean they they haven't talked about in this kind of this kind of detail I have never seen anyone talk about it but that one that that that we just mentioned so I had a guy that worked for me and this is when I was a young radio man I was a radio man opportun I had a secondary radio man and he was a little bit it wasn't too confident with what was going on he didn't really know quite what to do and so I'd tell him give him some guidance and he wouldn't make it happen he wouldn't really wouldn't know how to figure out so everyday I started giving up yellow sticky that said checkboxes and what I wanted to do that name and I would give it to him and he would nail it he'd knock it out of the park but the next day I'd come in and instead of him thinking oh well I had to do it yesterday maybe I should do today he didn't think that he got in the habit of waiting for me to give him a yellow sticky that said what he needed to do on it so I hadn't developed any initiative from from it so I realized you know what I got to stop doing that so then I started saying hey you tell me what you're gonna do tomorrow he's taking her back like well what do you mean you tell me what you know what operation we got coming up you tell me what you're gonna do tomorrow and then he started growing and getting that initiative and again this happens you know another good one you have your company you go into a meeting you show up 10 minutes late to a meeting for whatever reason there's eight people in the meeting and they're sitting there like this with their notebooks waiting for you to come in you're 10 minutes late they just been sitting there waiting for you they are being micromanaged and they don't have any initiative other side of the spectrum you show up 10 me 10 minutes late for your meeting there's supposed to be eight people in there there's four left the other four took off two of them are talking about something and two of them are starting to plan a project that you don't know anything about that you don't even want them to do that means you're not managing them enough because what you should see is you show up ten minutes for meeting the second person in the chain of command is in there and he says hey Patrick we already started I'll debrief you afterwards if you want to take a seat and listen up and okay Mike why don't you go over that again so somebody took initiative took control and stepped up and lead and you should be hey great you know what debrief me later I'm going to leave you need to be there anymore you created situations like that is what you're saying create situations like situations like that see where you're gone as your your people and then you see them their spirit enlarges they feel more confident I'm taking ownership so in issue is that is that how you're giving birth to person that creates initiative is that what is that what you're talking about the same thing if you have to because some people they they're born with initiative some people you got to hold them back some people you got to pull in the reins which is great and I'd rather have those people that I gotta fall in the reins so talk about standards I think it's the second one do you talk about your book are there ever times where you are not as strict or you're like Ray Dalio I don't know if you read the book Ray Dalio principles it's a fascinating book and to him is here's the principles we're not compromising these principles where do you stand yourself with what standards the immediate impression that everyone would consider of me and I hear this all the time is that jakka would allow no slack whatsoever no mercy on anything right you're out of you're out of regulations I'm gonna drop the hammer on you well the fact the matter is that doesn't work as a leader in the military you know people wear patches on their uniforms well the SEAL Teams has a reputation for being very unprofessional don't really know how to wear our uniforms well we don't wear our uniforms a lot we have mix and match gear we buy civilian gear we wear that we just have a bad reputation and one of the things that once the war started and we started getting these high speed camouflage uniforms with Velcro everywhere well guys started making their own patches and the patches were you know some of them were just cooled you know whatever some skull or a knife or one dirham betcha guys make their own patches here's here's a typical one there's one that guys would make that's a fun meter and it would be a meter that's pegged like okay we're maxed out on fun here that's a typical kind of the type of thing that people would make well I knew from working with the conventional force is that the way you appear in the uniform is very important you know you were in the Army especially at an Airborne Division I mean you wear the same PT uniform you wear the same uniform you square it away all the time that's the way it is yeah and I knew that also soldiers and officers in in the army and Marines and Marine Corps when they look at someone that's the uniform they look at that person system this guy can't even put on a uniform right how am I gonna trust him out on the battlefield that's just them not mindset that they have it's a good mindset right if you don't have attention to detail on that stuff that's a problem well in SEAL Teams were real slack about that I said to my guys look we're not wearing patches no patches and my two platoon commanders they said okay you don't find no patches we won't wear patches but they really wanted to wear patches so behind my back they went and they got patches made task unit bruiser patches what they would do is if they were going on an operation that I wasn't going on when they'd roll out the wire they'd make a call on the radio and say patches on and they pull out their patches and put their patches on they basically disobeyed a direct order from me would have been fine except for there was a certain operation that they went on there was an embedded photographer on and the pictures came back and I had all the pictures and I see all my guys with patches that I told not to wear you know what I did I didn't do anything you didn't bring it up I didn't bring it up I realized number one we were fighting in a very hard environment where troops were getting wounded and killed every single day where will you at this time we were Ramadi okay for me to focus my leadership capital on something that small was a complete waste of my leadership capital number two I realized that these guys that was a boost in their morale that made them feel like a tighter unit they gave these patches out the army guys that was a big deal for them and it meant a lot to him and so for me to go in and rip that morale away from him would have been a down step in their vision of me and their respect for me and it would have antagonized our relationship I didn't come out and say hey guys I saw the patches you're fine to wear him and Lafe was talking about this you know he thought I was just gonna drop the hammer on him and I didn't say anything and the guys continue to do it and it was not a big deal now they didn't wear any inappropriate patches the patches that they wore were all the same so it was uniform but the answer to your question which is probably the opposite of what a lot of people think I'm gonna say is like what are you gonna waste your leadership capital on now the other side of the spectrum if you get someone that's doing something that's illegal bets immoral that's that's strategic that's gonna impact you strategically yeah I will not bail John on something that is that important to me or is that important to them how urgent are you about address in that immediate immediate I'm not I'm not talking about urgency of addressing it guess what there is no urgency the guys already know the priorities they already know that they're not gonna do this thing they already know that they're not gonna make this move so there's no me saying hey wait a second we don't do that here no no they already knew it if they're doing something that's outside the box of what I'm okay with yeah they're there way outside the box how much of the way you build a team had a code of honor that everybody followed was it a code of honor where I can call him out he can't call him out without you being there was it that kind of an environment because not everything was predicated on you having to be there was it an open call-out environment well there's no you know what I'm talking about right well the answer that everyone wants to hear is like look hey we're just totally transparent and will come back from the operation and say hey you screwed this up and that was your fault Patrick and if you do something that's really egregious right and and we got a debrief it absolutely if we got to learn we got a debrief we got to have hard tough conversations with each other so yes absolutely the caveat to that is that doesn't give you permission to be disrespectful sure jerk sure and that's the way it is GE CEO wrote an article for Harvard Business Review beautiful article this was about eight months ago he had a conference called number for all his C type executives CEO CSO so you know you know the CEOs okayed all the Chiefs and anytime he was having an issue with your business related that you and I are having I'm the CEO you're the CFO we're having a conversation maybe not necessarily you know in public information that cannot be leaked to other departments different but just general stuff that you and I can talk about it was done on a conference call number that all the C type employees had access to which means if I'm having to call out with you and I'm saying hey jackal what happened this last quarter I'm looking at some of the numbers here there's some mistakes that we made you what happened there he's the CMO he can get on the call to hear our dialogue and so what happened he says when I first presented that to the culture to the community people in were initially they were not receptive to it right he says all of a sudden because it was like oh my gosh did you see what happened there did that they uh listen he solves on three six twelve months but nobody was get on these calls can only give a it's like listen I got it we're all we're all having issues but it became so open and transparent where everybody realized what the culture was so the level of accountability started going together cuz they were on the same page what do you think about an approach like then obviously I'm not saying what do you think about with this CEO did I'm just asking you in a general setting woody thing about an approach like this goes back to balance because what you're trying to do is build a relationships amongst your team so the minute you're calling someone out in a really negative way and you're making someone look bad and you're offending their ego look there's no one in the world that enjoys taking criticism or let's say there's point zero one percent of people that really enjoy taking criticism people don't enjoy it it's it's hard you can further that you can make it easier for people and you definitely get in the SEAL Teams we definitely got to a point where you know you have to have frank conversations with people for sure collective or individual collective and individual I know if the platoon screws up an operation we're gonna be briefing and it's gonna come out and everyone's gonna know it's gonna come out who screwed up it's gonna come out who's screwed oh this is not all the time if it was minor mistakes and things that could be corrected it'll be a gentler debrief and because my goal is to have people like each other we don't like each other when we're calling each other out then making each other look bad we also don't like each other when we're failing because we're not taking corrective measures because we're not bringing up what's more annoying loosen or not being liked well a mission doesn't account for it for instance let me give you an example what I mean by this somebody calls me and they'll say hey Pat I cannot believe how Mari was doing this this this is that I said okay so what do you want to do about it are you just calling me because you need somebody to talk because I listen to you but are you expecting me to do something about it you want to call Mario he says no but I don't think it's right when Mario did okay why don't you go deal direct have you done that yet I have not yet then you have one of two choices you either have to let it go or call him up and deal direct but if it's that important of an issue when you're calling me and bitching me about it then call him up and have a private conversation with them and have a sit-down with them yeah well it's affecting my business if you came to me complaining about Mario you'd have a real hard time getting me to talk to Mario without I'd be looking at you going okay go straighten it out yeah that's right that's what I'm saying okay you know we're on the same saying you want me to go - not at all no no I want you to go Mario so we're saying the same thing I like that environment because one you know this one guy was telling me all this stuff something like ten minutes and four guys are gone two guys are time on another project these are the two guys or you know playing games or whatever and finally I said one guys taking charge will debrief to you all the sense of you're allowing to take initiative for me I want to I want you to take initiative on not being afraid of having real conversation - being disrespectful - calling out character - calling out a dislike to the human being because everyone's gonna have some flaws but if there's a behavior that affected the team responsibility and the goals we gotta make sure we accomplish our mission here so you can't let that go and say I don't want to be disliked by everybody the question that you posed to me would you rather win or be like liked well I'm gonna tell you those aren't opposites in my mind and I'll tell you from everything I've ever seen the team that likes each other they win the team that is battling each other thing that's all they lose I don't know if it's all the time there you know about liking each other all the time by the way oh do we do you have disagreements absolutely right right but if we find like what it's like I'm saying we get along we have a relation of course what's more important to in team building trust or like trust obviously but I don't like people that I don't trust so those two things aren't opposites either you're not you're not hanging around with me I'll give you a story here my parents got a divorce okay but my mother's family whenever they had money they wanted to give somebody to take care of they always call my dad they didn't like my dad but they trusted my dad more than her own family make sense that they said listen give him the million dollars it's Gabriel everybody knew that money ain't going nowhere he's gonna take care of it now he'll tell you off he'll tell you to go screw yourself he'll tell you all this other stuff on how you made the money what you did but you knew that money's gonna stay there the challenge was for my dad to say yes I'll go ahead and take care of the money that's the part where sometimes when it came down to doing business certain times on the trust side the example comes up but obviously in a perfect environment I'll give you example on what we're going on right now with our business the last four months in a row we broke our record back to back to back to back this is not small numbers we're not talking four hundred policies a month we're talking 3500 4000 insurance policies in a month so this takes a lot of skill we probably like each other the most right now and we probably trust each other the most right now more than ever every single thing you do is a battle against everyone else inside the platoon and you have no idea how much I missed and loved that course so ok let's go to the next part was there every times where you had a guy that was a great soldier but maybe he wasn't the best most competitive guy that you had but you still wanted to retain them it's a bell curve and you're gonna get people at the high end of the spectrum that are total studs and you're gonna get people at the bottom end of the spectrum that are not if I get someone that's not that competitive ok well what's gonna make them do better what's gonna make them drive harder there's a difference when I'm in a military and and a lot of time when military folks come out and they go to business there's a struggle for the first few years this isn't the army this isn't the Marines this isn't the Navy SEAL you know this isn't like dude relax a little bit calm down a little bit they've never been in that environment where you're being a little too intense you're too high-strung this is too crazy was there an adjustment you had to make on the way you led seal on the way you lead your businesses today no truly truly no adjustment no just let me ask you is there a different way you lead the seals is it a different way you lead your business is it a different way you lead your 18 year old and your 17 year old all the same the farthest outlier is family and I'll tell you why because one of the most important things that you need to be able to do as a leader is you need to be able to detach you need to be able to step back and not get emotional God and that way you make good decisions and if you're working for me and I see you going off track and I care about you you know I definitely care about you and I want you to do well and you don't listen to me well I'll say listen Patrick you really got it this is work that's what we got to do I want you to win and you still don't listen to me but you're still getting the job done you're not reaching your your best but you're still functioning right your kids you Loosli you want them to have the best possible life so it's very difficult to put your emotions in check how do you handle your family once you realize the more emotions you put into it the more pressure you put on your kids to act one way or another the less effective it is this does not mean that you never show emotions you work for me okay and your operations to partner a salesperson the operations department drop the ball on something and you come to me and you lost the client and you lost the deal and you lost money and you come to me and you're fuming mm-hmm you've been working on this for months you're fuming and you come this is this crap these guys are horrible they didn't support me now if I look at you and go calm down Patrick your reaction is gonna be to get even madder I'm on the other team because I'm telling you to calm down don't be mad you come in all screaming I'll be are you serious that happened oh that's ridiculous I've got to give you enough that you realize I'm on your side did you have to work on that I was paying attention to it and I got lucky I don't even know why I don't even know why but I was paying attention to leadership all the time now I didn't really start thinking about it until I was in a leadership position so I was an enlisted guy at first and then I moved to became an officer the first time you were actually in a in a leadership position was a decade later a decade after I came in so Jack oh let me ask you this what's the difference between the 28 year old Jocko 38 year old Jack oh and now the 47 year old Jack Oh what is the difference between those three leaders the older I get the less I know one of the things that I realized in a leadership position is that the words that you say matter mm-hmm the actions you take matter people are listening people are watching people are respecting or disrespecting you based on how you carry yourself earlier you use the word that I think we can talk about for three hours on we obviously we won't the one topic you said detach right you said detached what did you use to mentally prepare your guys to say guys we love sergeant Jones or we loved but we still have to move on how did you mentally and emotionally get your soldiers your troops to say we got to go with the mission and finish this off well there was no preparation for that when we deployed to Iraq in 2006 we'd been fighting since 2003 and we'd had very few casualties in the SEAL Teams the amount of guys that had experienced their teammates killed in action was miniscule and so there was no preparation other than what I had taken away from reading about combat for my whole life what I did was what I knew how to do which was work and and that's literally what I told my guys was we've we've crossed a line and there's no there's no possible way to replace or describe or overcome the amount of just heart wrenching sadness that you feel when you lose a teammate I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what to say first time first time second time third time irrelevant boot time what I did was and I told my guys I don't know what to do and don't know what to tell you the only thing that I know to do is to go back to work and I do know this if Mark was here he would want us to go back to work and so we're gonna lock and load our weapons and we're gonna go do what we do would you say those are some of the things that the only way you can pick up on that and learn about it and even find out how you handle it is to experience it I think that understanding history and reading and knowing how people have gone through this before just the fact that you know when we we we had a small number of casualties you know we lost three guys from task unit bruiser each one of them is an epic loss to us and to humanity and at the same time in World War two in World War one there would be days where thousands upon thousands were killed and so that offered me a small bit of perspective to think to myself that human beings we can feel like we're special and we can feel like no one's ever been through what I've been through and the world is hard for me and easier for everyone else well the reality is that's not true and we're not special and the things that people go through other people have gone through most likely much much worse and much more significant so that to me was a it gave me at least some level of perspective to realize that other warriors had gone through this before this was my turn and this is how I'm gonna try and handle it did you take it as a responsibility meaning the men that came before me handled this I'm gonna set the same example as well I would I wouldn't say that I consciously thought about that but I definitely knew that were seals we're military guys I mean in Ramadi there was there was there were soldiers and Marines getting killed just about everyday wounded for sure everyday and killed I mean there was there was it was bad it was a reality for me I mean I knew that as bad as it was there the chances of making it through a whole deployment without losing someone would have been very very small and and I knew that and that's the reality of of combat it's a reality of combat it's it's you say it like that but also at the same time to watch you you got four kids and it's not like you didn't have kids while you're going through this and sometimes as a leader with somebody in your position people forget that you're not only leading troops you have kids back at home maybe you haven't seen for a while your troops are going through the same exact thing you have your own emotional stuff you're trying to take care of and people are still expecting you to lead because sometimes you know how people ask you a question I'm sure been asked this before chuckle how do you hold everything down how do you keep it together what did you do to keep yourself a level-headed as much as possible for you to be able to make the best decisions as a leader well number one is prioritize and execute right look at what's the most important thing and how are you gonna handle that and the other big one is being able to detach so that you don't get emotional bad stuff and I'll tell you I mean I detached significantly from my family when I was in Ramadi significantly I wasn't to call my family I didn't talk to him very much if I had the opportunity to call once a week send an email here and there I wasn't having pictures of him hanging up on the wall the priority was to take care of my my guys that was the priority my family is back here in California they're fine I don't need to worry about them I need to worry about the guys that are in my charge and and that's what I did and that's what I focused on and you know that that's probably an answer that some people don't want to hear because it seems cold-blooded but yeah actually the opposite is true and you know you got guys that also have families to go home to and so for me to be focused on anything other than taking care of those guys is wrong and so that's what I focus how did your wife feel about that supportive good to go I got very lucky chuckle who was the best leader you saw that you worked under they said that's a guy I would a my modeling some of his habits after there was a guy that it was a very interesting situation I got very very lucky I was in my second seal platoon so I was 21 or 22 years old we had a mutiny in the platoon a mutiny in to push mutiny we were volted against our leader he was a bad leader he was arrogant he was egotistical he tried to make everything conform to his ideas we went before our commanding officer and told our commanding officer we don't want to work for this guy Wow yeah the commanding officer fired a commanding officer leaned towards new commanding officer supported us and he did in a very tactful way he was a great commanding officer he actually told us get out of my office and you go do your jobs and then a week later the guy disappeared and in came the new commander and the new platoon commander was the opposite of this guy complete opposite he was extremely experienced and instead of him trying to run everything he let us run everything so an enlisted guy's a guy that came in up through the ranks you would think the prior enlisted guy that's been on the ground that's done the grunt work that's come up through the ranks they're always gonna be a better officer hmm not true there's multiple ways that you can get your commission multiple ways to become an officer you can go to a service academy like West Point or the Naval Academy you can go to ROTC while you're in college or you can finish college you can go to OCS or you can be prior enlisted so those are the four basic ways to become an officer I've worked in every one of those I've worked with the best officers I've work with the worst officers it doesn't matter it's it's who that person is it's what kind of character that was the odds that a guy that was enlisted slightly higher than the others odds even if it's slightly higher here's what happens with some prior enlisted guys I already know everything I know how to do this better than you and so you get prior enlisted guys that they're kind of arrogant so then they don't know how to develop other leaders because they think they know everything so nobody can there's a shadow they can't coexist at a drill sergeant Green I'll never forget the guy we had an ms-13 guy at our unit and Sergeant at that time they don't know what a mr. T was so the guy walks he's got a big ms-13 he says so what's ms-13 is my mother's initial in us the street I lived on so it's you know it's I keep it all my thoughts no problem at that time and then it was me him and a couple other guys from LA and drill sergeant green says he was five eight maybe 145 150 he says look you guys are tough guys you guys are the toughest guy the unit yes yes yes drill sergeant I want to take you guys and show you something there's no prompt so we get in the Humvee takes us to the back forty and he gets out there and he you know how his mannerisms was he talked very slow Chako what were the instructions that were given that was his approach so he wasn't like the other drill sergeant with their hat on your face you know constant hitting it he takes off his jacket he hangs it up on the side mirrors he says who wants to go first this is what do you mean now every one of us are bigger denim sister wants to go first one by one by one and he took every one of us down okay he says look when we go back this stays here I'm not gonna embarrass you but I just want you to know you're not as tough as you think you are let's go back and make our unit the best unit we went back Jackel we were you know when this guy said something we were all in with them so here's a question for T for leadership seeing what you would say about this part what was a mistake you made in leadership that once you made it you learnt from it you came out and you grew from it the most so I was just analyst a guy in a seal platoon we were out doing some drills out in the desert there was a moment where the officer didn't make a call quick enough I was pretty confident at this point pretty cocky at this point we were doing the drill and I didn't give him really any time I just made a call boom and everyone did it cuz that's what you know if somebody makes a call we do it and when we got done with that iteration and he like pulled me aside and he said hey I'm the officer you need to let me make the calls and that was it was he wasn't even that harsh about it but what the key thing that I realized in that moment there's a there's a line that you can cross and you can step on people's toes and they don't like it if you get too aggressive as a subordinate and you start stepping on your your leaders toes they're gonna push back on you the ability to say okay I can push this far but if I go too far I'm problematic I worked for idiots and I worked for some of the best tactical and strategic and human being leaders that I've ever could imagine and my relationship with these guys and with these guys and with everyone in between was the same my relationship was the same with all of them and that is that they trusted me they gave me what I needed to do my job and they let me go do my job you ever read the book 40 loss of power I've seen the book and I and I I've had a lot of people talk to me about the book but I have not read it have you read his other book 33 strategies of war every single book that I've read is an actual account of war by someone that fought so god I don't really read books God by people that didn't decide 40 laws of power you know what law number one is never outshine your master Jack all most influential book to you I know you owe everybody everything you bread has to do with somebody in war what's the most influential book to you know called about-face written by colonel david hackworth it is about a guy that's just an incredible military leader and it's not a book about leadership and he and he doesn't really talk specifically about leadership in the book and it's an 850 page book and every single page is about leadership your podcast I think 2016 was ranked top 12 podcast I think was number 12 podcast or some number like that for traffic talk a little bit about your podcast and how people can find your podcast podcast is called jaakko podcast it's found everywhere and it's about human nature through the lens of war and leadership and human struggle I cover a lot of topics some of them are very harsh some of them are very hard to listen to I've had incredible guests on the podcast Mike Thornton who's a seal from Vietnam was awarded the Medal of Honor just an absolute incredible story when you see people in these hard situations that's when human nature gets revealed and the more you can understand human nature the better leader you're gonna be I love that if you're a veteran if you're serving today or your veteran you're thinking about going into business and you're wondering who to follow you have to follow this guy and secondly it doesn't matter if you're veteran or not you need a lot of the mindset here because a lot of times you guys watch by a team and say Pat you know you give it strong and you give it directly you don't hold back and all this other stuff on what things we need to do with business this mindset is needed a lot to be able to make it in business a lot of people who don't make it in business is because of emotional mental toughness so his book it doesn't matter if you were ever in the military before or not extreme ownership go get it read through it it's fascinating he's gonna pick up a lot from it and I last but not least chuckle what's your handle on Twitter at Chaco willing I want you to send Jocko a tweet and tell them what you picked up from today's interview I we covered so many different spectrums of leadership today just tells you how deep he can get on that topic from the experience that he has Jocko brother thank you so much for your service man and your time truly thank you thanks for your service well thank you thanks for having me

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 397,550

Rating: 4.9136596 out of 5

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur Motivation, Entrepreneur Advice, Startup Entrepreneurs, valuetainment, patrick bet david, jocko willink, extreme ownership, extreme ownership jocko willink, jocko willink podcast, jocko willink navy seal, navy seals, battle of ramadi, war, iraq, marine, army, navy seal training, jocko willink leadership, kevin hart, mark cuban, dallas texas, texas, new york, la, los angeles, military

Id: Vgxvz8vgPIA

Length: 48min 36sec (2916 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 07 2018