Navy Seal On Warfare: Trump vs Biden, Civil War, Putin vs Ukraine & Israel-Hamas | Jocko Willink

war is a test of Wills Israel is very determined to completely eradicate Hamas it's going to cause years and years of strategic problems people are going to seek revenge on them if I was an enemy of this country I would do everything I could to fuel the fires of division within this nation do you think that China is doing that with Tik Tok yes why do you think so many people want you to run for president I would say probably if anyone wants me to run for president it's probably because they look at the current choices and think just about anything would be better so that's that's probably has something to do with it I will say that you are a strong man with strong character and if I had to guess that that's what people are going for um I know you don't want to run for office but does that resonate do can you see why people would gravitate towards that at this moment you are correct that I do not want to run for office I definitely don't want to be in in politics I I have friends that are in politics it looks absolutely horrible their lives look terrible it does not look like the kind of the the way I would want to spend my time because of how people go after them or something else the whole nine yards I mean just having to travel to live in DC a bunch of the year there's pragmatic selfish reasons that I look at it and think but yeah do I want to do I want to go and do that and and the answer that I usually give is if things got bad enough in the country then clearly I I love America and if that was required then I would step up and and do something and then people of course say to me well how much worse can it get and I usually say listen it can get a lot worse things can get a lot worse everyone right now has a phone and they have food and we're we're doing pretty well comparatively to countries that fall apart so would I do it at some juncture if things got bad enough yes would I do it if I was maybe older and didn't H still have you know kids I I got one daughter left in in high school so it's I wasn't around much for my other kids cuz I was deployed all the time so it's nice to be around a little bit more and yeah and I think that I would say that actually probably the reason that people might look at me and think hey he might not be bad at that job is because I'm pretty levelheaded I would think I don't fly off the handle I can open my ears and my eyes and and take in a bunch of different perspectives and understand people's perspectives and why someone might be saying one thing and why someone might be saying something else and how they're both probably got some points that make sense and so I've spent I spent the my entire adult life really in leadership positions so I've constantly been collecting data points and making decisions and driving things forward and and I think that probably is visible to someone on the that that looks at me so that might be why they're thinking that and I I apologize for letting them down but I I really don't want to do that that kind of job I can get that I certainly not that a single person has ever said I should run for office but I likewise would not want that role but the thing that makes that question interesting because I've heard your answer about not wanting to do it though we will get to the warlord part uh at some point today but the I think it says something really interesting about what either people covet in a leader full stop or what they covet in a leader right now um okay so you laid out sort of why you think people might be responding to you but let me ask who would be the ideal person you would like to see in real life like who ideally would you like to see run for president I think right now what we need is is someone that's less polarizing and has a more open mind and is more concerned about or looking more to find Solutions and compromise and figure out how to make things work rather than hey here's what the party that put me in this position wants to have happen and therefore that's what I'm going to do my best to make happen because what that results in is oftentimes nothing happening so if we can't come to a compromise and figure out how to move forward we don't make any decisions we don't make any progress so I I would like to see someone that said oh yeah there's some good aspects to this idea there's some good aspects to this opposing ideas what can we do to take those ideas and pull the best components from that and put together an idea that's new that will function correctly and and look you could say uh there's some saying oh if you're in the middle of the road you're going to get run over right there's a saying like that but look that's the the reality of life is there's there's different there's different beliefs there's different ideas and and everyone that has an idea there's going to be some good components to that idea and there's going to be some things that won't really work out and in a leadership position you've got to say okay what will what will function how can we move forward and how can we make compromises that that will benefit everybody that all feels like the right gravitational Center but if you had to pick somebody uh like so what prompted this question was somebody came up to you at the Arnold Classic wearing a shirt I think that said Rogan hannes and you were like something affirmative I'm here for that or you know whatever um maybe ingest or maybe serious but the people that you know that have that ability to bring people together that have an ability to think through a problem and look for Solutions and not get caught up in the drama to not become beholden to their base which I think is part of what people love about Rogan is that he is um he'll have whatever he thinks to be true he's going to tell you and whether that gets him in hot water or not he does not seem to care um I'm certainly not feeding you that as the answer but I'm just curious if there's somebody that you know in your life or a public figure that you're like l really that person yeah I mean Rogan's a good example of someone that has an open mind and he listens to different people's perspectives and he also changes his mind he changes his perspective when he gets new data in he says oh yeah I was wrong about this subject and you can he'll he'll openly say oh this is what I thought before now I've learned this here's what I'm thinking now and even when he says he's thinking something now he doesn't say this is what's correct now he says no this is what I'm thinking now so having that kind of an open mind that's the kind of person that I think would do a good job in that position I I can just about guarantee you that Joe Rogan does not want to be president of the United States of America but yes someone with an open mind like that that's going to that's going to bring in new information and and put those data points into the calculus of a decision-making process that's that's what I think someone would be good in that position I don't know if there's any public figures that I can think of off the top of my head that that sort of come to mind I mean uh I'm friends with Tulsi gabard I think she's a very squared away woman with a an open mind and she brings in data points and she's very articulate I I was honestly quite quite surprised when she got so obliterated by the Democratic party because I thought she was a a good candidate but I think you know she's a she's a veteran she's got a great perspective she's got a great attitude I think I think she would have been a good candidate I have no idea what happened there what happened oh Tulsi gabard so she was she was uh a Democrat and she was running as as a Democrat and she didn't agree with everything that the Democratic party was saying and she spoke about the fact that she didn't agree with everything that the Democratic party was saying and the Democratic party just turned on her and obliterated her so it was it was was very interesting to watch from the outside and they did the same thing to Bernie Sanders you know Bernie Sanders was very popular within the Democratic party but he he he got obliterated by the Democratic party so it's uh it's been interesting to watch that yeah yeah politics right now strikes me as very weird and as I try to zoom in on uh what I think people should be doing when they're looking at their leader versus what they're doing uh it gets very jarring so I'm I'm currently exploring an idea that is I think we've stopped stopped using philosophy because philosophy became a standin for something up in the air sort of pointless it's not grounded why are we talking about this when in reality if you get rid of philosophy which I see as it is the Bedrock from which your thinking grows if you get rid of that philosophy now you just have a bunch of random either facts or thoughts and there's nothing that congeals it nothing stated that congeals it and so when people debate you get this sort of shows that we're getting right now where it's name calling ad homonym people even if they're talking about facts they're not recognizing that they have different value systems which is what I mean when I talk philosophy to me philosophies philosophy is values plus beliefs so they're not recognizing we have different values and so when we look at the same facts we come up with wildly different conclusions and because nobody stops them and goes hey why do you believe what you believe not what you believe we've already heard that you've been screaming it for the last 45 minutes why do you believe what you believe so looking at that gravitational Center I think becomes critical so what I want to see people do is say this is my stated philosophy this is what I believe and this is what I'm trying to achieve so I'll give you mine just by way of example human flourishing is my aim and thinking from first principles is My Philosophy like one ought to build up literally starting with physics and then everything from there is about predictive capabilities so if I believe uh that politicians are going to vote in their long-term best interest of getting reelected am I able to better predict their choices or can I predict them less better if I assume that um politicians are going to stand by their morals can I better predict or Worse predict their um their actions less right and so that that is sort of mind in a nutshell what would you say is your Bedrock upon which you build your thought process my thought process from a political aspect or just my thought proc a political person so that seems like a wasted question so I'll say in life well I I I I agree that you don't very often hear politicians talking about these are the principles that I believe in and you could you you could even take that further so there's some goals right that if you pull any politician out of Congress and you say hey do you think that people should have access to healthare I mean I can pretty much tell you that 100% of the people in the US government would say yeah I believe that people should have access to healthcare they all think that like there's a sick kid they would want to help that sick kid there's a s sick Grandma they'd want to help that sick Grandma the the disparity comes in when how do you get that healthare to those people right because on one side of the spectrum it's like we need to give it to them for free on the other side of the spectrum is if you give everyone free health care then the health care is ends up being pretty worthless so these people say nope we need to charge top dollar for the healthare the other people say oh no we need to give that healthcare for free and what needs to happen is some kind of a balance right but unfortunately often times it just turns into an argument I think it should be for free I think it should be top dollar and that's what you end up with is like I like I said earlier you end up in a situation where no one is compromising no one's trying to figure out an actual solution to the problem and so not knowing what the what like you're saying not knowing what the philosophy of a human being is now we don't we don't we doesn't matter what end goal they're going to towards because how are they going to get there we don't know what measure they might take so I I think we have to be I think we should be discussing those things I I would I I would love to hear a debate between people where instead of spouting off like what you said hey here's some facts and figures which the data is all manipulated and we all know you can take that and you can make it say whatever you want but hey what's the end state that you're trying to achieve and what's your belief and how you think we should get there and there's going to be changes because no one can come up with a plan that's perfect to execute anything so you come up with a flexible plan and you start to move in that direction and then you iterate and make changes to the plan as you get closer but you're still sticking within the principles that you believe and still going towards the end state that you're trying to reach that's what a leader should be doing and that's what leaders should be doing instead of well it's not what I wanted so I'm going to burn it down which is what we get a lot of right now yes why do you think we get that by the way well part of it is what you mentioned right we got people that their their goal is to make sure that they stay in their position of power so that's what they're going to that's that's the way they're running their business that's the way their business being being a politician so when they go in front of a camera what do they want they want to get a little more popular well what kind of what kind of things get viewed in social media or on the media right now what what gets viewed what gets shared it's it's emot things it's quick sound bites that insult someone really bad or make someone look really stupid or make me look really good or dunk on someone all that so that's what they do that's what they're trying for hey I'm going to go out there and make a statement that's going to get shared and that's going to get my name out there and it's going to keep me in this position of power so instead of someone saying well you know I've never really thought about that before let me get back to you does that get shared no that doesn't get shared so they they have some some remark that they're going to say it's GNA it's going to be inflammatory and it's going to make the rounds and so they're going to keep themselves in power and then of course they're going to vote for things that are going to keep them in power they've got lobbyists that are putting money in their pockets it's it's a it's it's a system that's it's a system that's in many ways is corrupt yeah yes it is and very troubling so right now our corrupt or corrupt adjacent system is most likely going to be putting forward two potential candidates for CEO of America uh Trump and Biden if you came into a company and Trump was the CEO what advice would you give him to improve his leadership abilities to do the things that you've laid out which to consolidate uh you want somebody who is solution oriented somebody who understands that you're going to have to compromise to bring Unity uh somebody that oper Ates on a goal plan uh execution pattern somebody that understands that there's going to be messiness and you're going to have to work within that system somebody that has principles that are articulable that are knowable uh that they operate on you said all of that and I'll add one thing that I think you implied even when it's hard so even when the sexier thing that's going to get you farther would be to um be more salacious so that it goes viral to not do that and instead to Anchor around principles um I have a feeling my audience will resonate with that very much I certainly do so assuming that you're Consulting Trump as the potential CEO of America with all of that as your center of gravity what would you knowing what he's like what would you advise him to do or a CEO like him clearly he gets himself in a lot of trouble because he's very Brash that and he gets himself in a lot of trouble because he's very Brash he also is very popular because he's very Brash and I think that the brashness is one of the things that got him into the situation you know that got him elected in the first place once he was elected I thought and I would advise him once you get elected you've used this brashness we understand it we understand that you use sound bites we understand that that's that makes you very popular but now that you're in this position what we want to do is we want to build relationships with with the with the with everybody so that we listen to what other people say we make sure that we're moving in the same direction um and so yeah I would say let let's let's build some relationships you've you've you've said a lot of things you've done a lot of things and actually really he says a lot of things that that one one part of the country finds glorious and he says a lot of things that one part of the country finds completely offensive and so once he was elected I would say all right let's let try and let's try and say things that are a little bit more Center let's try and say things that are a little bit more uniting instead of saying things that are very divisive now that brashness is one of the main things that that made him so popular because he stood up to people that that that one part of the country never gets to talk back to and he he stood up to him and they supported that so once that again once that election takes place and you're in that position now all right let's look to let's look to unite people instead of divide them so one of the things I think that makes Trump um really appealing to people is this idea of a strong man it's one of the reasons I think as I said earlier that people are so drawn to you but you're a much more interesting variant where I feel like I can track your principles seems like you're always operating in accordance with them uh but Trump is very much a strong man like he is not afraid to Brash to bully to chastise he said something I think the first go round which which love Trump or hate Trump I think this is brilliant um I may be a bully but I'm your bully and I think people so hunger for that to be able to draft off somebody it's what I call the Invincible winner when you believe somebody's an invincible winner you always want your big brother to be an invincible winner you want your dad when you're a little kid that's the fantasy dad's an invincible winner and and there is nothing more traumatic than watching your dad who you think of as an invincible winner get his ass kicked like that that's that would be a transformative moment for a child to witness that like whoa the foundation upon which my world was built just came crumbling down so I think that's a big part of the appeal to Trump is nobody's been listening to me and I don't want to derail on the whole Elites versus everybody else but I think that's very real so understand everything I'm saying is in that context where people are just like my life is being run by people I don't understand I make a living uh in a more middle class working class way and this guy's basically telling everybody to [ __ ] off like he's just potentially a WWE wrestler but he nonetheless is your bully um how do we take somebody that has those Tendencies and is known for firing people inside their cabinet and creating that instability would you sit him down and say uh tell me your principal and standards because this is something I know you do when you go into a company would we start there where we're just trying to get him hey so that you're not constantly just firing from the hip and saying crazy [ __ ] like we need to outline what what do you really believe in you as the real human or is there another First Step so in doing what you're saying because that's essentially the idea but a big piece for me is getting people to think strategically instead of tactically so in in the military there's there's three level levels of combat you've got tactical operational and strategic I don't really talk about operational very much because it's confusing to the civilian world but tactical is what we're doing right now this gunfight that I'm in right now there's machine gun bullets flying at me how do I get out of here strategic is oh we've got a war to win we've got we've got brigades and divisions to maneuver we've got supply lines to fill we've got local populace that we need to get on board that's strategic thinking it's long-term thinking versus tactical of short-term thinking so for a guy like Trump and I've had this conversation with many leaders over the years hey you and I get an argument and I tell you like all right I've heard enough from you Tom shut up and get out of my office and shut up and leave the meeting right so I just do that to you in front of 15 people we've got in this meeting tactically I feel great I showed my power let out some emotions other people are going to know they better not mess with me right so a good tactical win feels good what happens after the meeting people are sitting around going I can't believe he did that to Tom Tom was just trying to make a point you're now saying that guy won't even listen to me now we got your three or four close friends are saying he's not going to listen to any of us and now what we end up with is a problem a long-term strategic problem because we've got a division inside of our of our company in inside of our team remember the good old days when you'd eat a bll of cereal every morning but with Magic's Moon you can now enjoy your childhood favorites again again magic spoon reinvented and upgraded cereal so it's got the same great taste that you 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rapid you're get your information out there but it's not a longstanding image that you give it's just a tactical oh I dunked on this person I made that person look bad I made myself look good in this moment but it doesn't help you strategically in the long term so I would be talking to him about okay how are we going to think about building these relationships strategically over the next four years so that when you go and you present something that makes sense you actually get support there's a there's a a term there's one one term called Psychological reactants which is when I tell you what to do most people they don't like that they don't like that but there's also a psychological mechanism that we have that when I don't like you for whatever reason oh Tom he's he's he's he never says hi to me in the morning he treats me bad he looks down on me he he made those couple comments to me in that meeting and now you come into a meeting and you present an idea I have an instinct a psychological instinct to be oh I don't like your idea your idea is bad Tom's idea is bad I don't like Tom so I don't like Tom's ideas and it doesn't matter what your idea is and we have we saw that you see that in politics all the time I mean that is basically the way politics runs is oh if you're a Democrat and Trump came up with an idea it's awful if you're a Republican and Biden came up with an idea it's awful we hate it and that's the way that's the way it the the country is operating right now instead of saying hold on a second what is the what's the what's the value of this idea what's the Strategic value of this idea where is this going to put us in the long term I don't really care where it came from is it a good idea or is it a bad idea but they take wholesale everything that TR Trump does or wholesale everything that Biden does and say I hate it all I don't support any of it and you end up with no progress there's no progress there so that's what we need to watch out for so if I was talking to Trump I'd be saying listen you got to build these relationships so when you present an idea that by really any metric makes sense people will say yeah you know what that makes sense let's move forward with it and in order to do that you got to you got to build some relationships if you don't have relationships you're just going to you're just going to get hatred and that's kind of where that's kind of where America is right now unfortunately how do you build relationships with people that are on the opposite team there's five components in my opinion there's five components to a relationship trust listen respect influence and care and so in order to if look if I don't trust you and you don't trust me we don't have a relationship if if you don't listen to me and I don't listen to you we don't have a relationship if I don't respect you and you don't respect me we don't have a relationship if I have no influence over you and you have no influence over me we don't have a relationship and if I don't care about you and you don't care about me we don't have a relationship so I want to build those things how do I build those things and the the original idea the original kernel of this this concept came to me when people would ask me all the time how do I get this person to listen to me and you know how do you get how Tom if I want you to listen to me what do I do you're not listening to me what do I do do I talk louder do I start to yell at you no actually it's very counterintuitive if I want to listen to me I need to listen to you I need to listen to what you say and by the way if I want you to respect me I can't say I'm the boss you better respect me I actually need to give you respect if I want to have influence over you I actually need to allow you to influence me if I want you to care about me I need to care about you if I want you to trust me I have to put trust into you so if you're going to build relation ships with people what you have to do is you have to listen to them you have to treat them with respect you have to allow their ideas to influence you and if you do those things then that will open up their mind and now you can have an actual conversation and you can try and figure out a good solution as opposed to just stonewalling each other not listening to each other and closing up our minds that all feels incredibly right to me the one thing I worry about is that we are living in a time where uh some portion of the half of the country that hates the other candidate which is very fascinating to me I feel that it's breaking along evolutionary lines but that's a conversation for another day but you have left and right uh and so if you're on the left you're going to hate the right candidate if you're on the right you're going to hate the left candidate now partly because of social media we are now at a stage where people actually believe that the other side represents an existential threat so very smart very intelligent people I have listened bang on about the fact that Trump is a legitimate existential threat to the country uh one do you think he's an existential threat do I think he's an existential threat to America yeah okay so you and I agree on that and and and nor do I think Joe Biden is an existential threat to America America is a big strong giant Empire and one of these people is not going to take down this this country now could we get to at some point maybe in our lifetimes where we we reach some kind of a point of no return where yeah this this downward spiral that we're on right now is now Beyond hope could we get there in our lifetimes I guess we'd have to do we'd have to continually do dumb things and America's done all kinds of dumb things but normally thankfully when we do dumb things we look around and we go that was kind of dumb we need we need to fix this that's why we get the kind of classic pendulum going from the left to the right we kind of get that that swing going back and forth we do dumb things we we get ourselves squared away we take that too far we do something else dumb we go back in the other direction but America is a strong country the the people of the country the other thing you got to remember is you talk about social media right and the fact that you'll see on social media that the the left thinks that Trump is an existential threat and the right thinks that Biden is an existential threat to the country that's what you hear on social media look I have a consulting company I travel around this country I talk to businesses and and and industries all the time all the time all over the place uh energy companies insurance companies construction companies manufacturing companies all these different companies and you know what those people talk to me about they talk to me about how they can build a better product how they take care of their client how they can take care of their people what they can do to unify their team they're not talking about these these polarizing political situations they're talking about how do they make their company and their world better so that's the vast majority of the country now are there a bunch of loud mouths that sit on social media and and attack each other yes there absolutely are there absolutely are and by the way if you get the chance like if if you get the chance to go to the mountains and you don't look at your social media for 7 days while you're in the mountains when you come back nothing will have changed those people will still be yelling at each other you didn't get any aggravation from it it didn't impact what happened and it's going to be fine so we could shut down those things right now and it wouldn't make that big of a difference it's really interesting it's a great point about detaching uh I have in myself many times not knowing about something is the same as it not happening at least from your perspective uh so okay uh you don't think either side poses an existential threat but going back to what triggered this in my mind uh we're Consulting Trump and you're telling him look we have to be more um unifying we've got to bring people together love the brashness you got yourself elected totally respect your ability to do that with the media uh but that's not going to fly now we have to stop being tactical we need to start being strategic we're going have to bring people together however the other side does think he's a problem and whether it's just that they want to win as a team and they're going to use a faux sense of you're an existential threat as as the push back the reason to shut the door whatever they're going to do that but I really believe the thing that you laid out is absolutely true about what has to be done so in terms of building a relationship so now the question becomes when you have somebody who I mean just swimming with sharks right so how do you befriend a shark somebody who is politically motivated to never give an inch with you let's also have you ever seen those um compilations where they have the past I don't know probably 20 elections where people are saying this is the most critical election in the history of our democracy and our democracy at stake for sure they're going to keep saying this so let's not get too crazy there our our democracy is going to be okay and like I said could there be some things that we could do where we could get to a point where yeah we can't recover we could get there we're not even close we're not even close to that right now okay so now I've got someone that is a complete antagonist to me just wants me out of that job wants to take care of themselves what do I have to do I've got to do the same protocols that I just talked about you've got problems with me Tom come in and let's talk about those problems you I'm going to listen to you I'm going to allow what you're saying I'm going to try and understand your perspective I'm going to actively try and allow you to influence what my plan is I'm going to make that happen I'm also going to consistently and repetitively ask you why you want to do something what is the outcome that you're looking for why why do you want to do that why do you wanna spend money in that marketing campaign right if you and I are working together you come in look Joo you're shutting down all of our marketing we need to put money into this marketing campaign okay well talk to me about why well because that is a a group we've never talked to before okay do you what makes you think they're going to want our product well I got this Market data oh okay so you just taught me something I didn't know about this Market tell me more and all of a sudden when I open my mind and I started listening I and say oh I didn't know that we had Market let me see that market data oh you're right this this would have a good impact for us here's something I didn't tell you Tom the reason we pulled back all of our marketing budget is because we're losing money and we don't have much left oh so now you're thinking how can I do this more effect effectively and efficiently and save money while still addressing this new market that we have an opportunity in so now we start having a conversation and guess what we start doing we start solving the problem so if I go yeah you know what Tom's just a he just always wants to spend money a maniac he's going to come into my office and you say hey I'd like to spend some Morey we're losing money you're talking about spending money we're losing money it's because you don't understand get out of here it's a fail but if I say all right Tom tell me tell me what you want to do tell me why you want to do it let's let's try and find a solution to What's Happening Here our country doesn't do that right now and look you don't have to go back that far 15 20 30 years where these these government officials these elected representatives on both side of the aisle they were friends they had conversations they talked to each other they went to Banquets together like that's what they used to do they don't really do that anymore so we've completely thrown these relationships out and it's a problem so if you want if you're in an organization which as you said the the government is an organization and you're trying to solve problems you have to work together so guess what I have to do as the leader I have to put my ego in check look Tom did everything in his power to make sure I didn't get elected he said nasty things about me he said horrible things he lied he tweeted a bunch of stuff he brought up stuff from my past he's he he hates me guess what I have to do I have to say okay you know what what's more important than my ego our country what's more important than mudslinging our country so you've got people in our government that put their own agenda their own ego their own personality their own election above the most important thing which is America our country so until well there's two things until those people in those offic in those positions recognize that and until we as voters recognize that what we need is someone that's going to affect change not someone that's going to yell and scream so I want to vote for someone that is going to build relationships and and affect change I I'm not voting for someone the reason oh I'm voting for this guy because I saw him on social media and he really blasted the other side he really made the Republicans look like idiots or he really made the Democrats look like idiots I'm gonna vote for that person no it's like wait wait a second what did you what did you accomplish have you you know I don't know when this is coming out but we just signed like a $1.3 trillion bill and I just really quickly on my way up here was going through it to see you know like what we're spending money on trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars that that we're spending money on it's a bill that's a thousand pages that has to be voted on like today yeah or tomorrow no one has time to discuss that and I get it that there's staffers that run the numbers and put those things together but guess what when I'm in a POS when I'm in a leadership position of course yeah I have my staffers and my subordinate leadership put things together and I trust them but I still need to go through those numbers and assess what we're spending the money on and that's clearly not happening you can't do it you can't do that on a thousand page bill in 24 hours you can't do that so that's what that's that's what's happening inside of our government right now and we as voters apparently we're okay with it because we keep voting the same people in there yeah that that becomes a complicated question as to why we keep going for it I think a big part of it's not the only part and in a conversation like this there's a certain amount of simplification you have to do just to have the conversation but the velocity and volume of information can be leveraged as a weapon I see people do it on social media all the time Trump is a master at this where he's just going to give you another crazy thing to deal with you know 45 minutes later and so each thing more crazy than the next and just you just sort of get numb to it same thing you give somebody a thousand page bill in 48 hours to go through it uh you're going to skim you're just going to try to find out like what are the things that I know they're trying to sneak in here I'm going to look at that I'm going to ignore everything else and then once it's a part of the government man getting rid of it is very hard now you said something though that I want to go back to um so you were saying that what's more important than my ego America this is where I start to get distressed so I grew up in the 80s and be America was the best as an American obviously and I always believed if you live in England you should think England is the best if you're in Japan you should think Japan is the best India India is the best but if you're in America you should think America's the best it's your team and it that was just like obvious that America was the best it was in all the movies I mean the just the the Heyday of all of those movies where PS it was a guy with an accent nine times out of 10 Schwarzenegger whoever that was American so you know it wasn't n necessarily homegrown but it was this ideology that we could all believe in around freedom and that you could rise from the bottom to the top all of it so that idea is tied to something I can't remember where I first heard this but the idea that we all need to kneel before something and if there's nothing to which you will kneel you're you're going to get caught up in your ego and so I'm very curious to know one what is it that you think people ought to kneel before whether it's the family unit the American flag whatever and then in a world now where you have Americans that hate America so much there was a kid I forget what um what school but there was a a high school kid who was told he had to remove the American flag from his car because it was considered offensive I was just like what that's crazy if I was to try and figure out something that I think people should kneel before I would say freedom and the reason I say that is because there's some people that there's some people that would choose to kneel before God there's some people that would choose to kneel before the country there's some people that would choose to kneel before a different God there's some people that would choose to kneel before science and Academia and and I don't think that I or anyone else has the authority to tell people what they worship what they look look up to and what they kneel before so therefore there's only one thing that protects you to do any of those things and that's Freedom so if you're going to kneel before one thing in my opinion it should be freedom and you have the freedom to kneel that gives you the freedom to kneel before whatever you want so that's what I think on that case on the other case of why people might start to [Music] lose sight of the fact that America is a is an awesome place is because they're spoiled we're we're super spoiled we're super spoiled in America it's It's amazing And if you you know if you've got like I've got kids and if you know I think if my kid says the Wi-Fi the Wi-Fi in my bedroom is I only got two bars in there guess what I'm I'm a good dad you know what I'm saying right if if if we're complaining about like oh the Wi-Fi in my bedroom isn't that good you go to another country there's no Wi-fi there's no bedroom there's no bed so we're at that point where we as a nation some people in this nation are complaining about the fact that they don't have Wi-Fi in their bedroom or they don't have strong enough Wi-Fi signal in their bedroom when they forget the fact that there's some people that don't have Wi-Fi some people don't have bedrooms some people don't have beds some people don't have houses some people don't have roofs so metaphorically look what what what is going on in this country well all kinds of stuff there's all kinds of people with all kinds of different ideas and they're saying wild things and they can say them and they have the right to say them and that's okay so what protects people's ability to say those things freedom and what protects Freedom America it's your first amendment right you could say what you want that's what's happening so just like a spoiled kid that you know I I wanted the convertible Mercedes dad right that that actually happens you go and talk to like some rich 18-year-old kid that got a Mercedes for their birthday and it wasn't the convertible they're mad so do we have some of that in America yes we do yes we do there's places in the world right now if you go into those places you do not have these freedoms you do not have these freedoms you can't kneel before this God or that God you can't participate in Academia there's all kinds of parts of the world where you don't have these freedoms so I would recommend when someone when I talk to someone like that I don't say you're an idiot and I say well what is it you don't like about America CU America is far from perfect America's flawed just like any person's flawed we're America's made up of humans human beings are flawed human beings make mistakes there's there's all kinds of things that America has done that are absolutely terrible absolutely terrible yeah and while we when we do things that are terrible what what do we do do we continue down those paths no we try and fix ourselves we try and fix ourselves and if someone you know if Tom was a drug addict and now he's clean and you come to apply to a job for a job with me do I say you sorry you were a drug ad I I I don't trust you I don't like you or maybe you just failed out of you dropped out of high school and then you went back and you got your GED and now you graduate n no you you quit high school so that means you're no good to me no people make mistakes and we as a country have made mistakes but we try we strive for we strive to be better and on top of striving for to be better that whole time we've done our best to protect Freedom human Freedom that's the most valuable that's the most valuable thing in in in life is is freedom so we it's very easy to forget that it's very easy to forget that in America especially it's it's so easy to forget that because we abs absolutely take it for granted we absolutely take it for granted we do whatever we want you know it's interesting I I I gave a speech the other day and I was talking about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that that's that's that's what we're founded on and I was talking to some veterans and and what I was saying is that that's what veterans put on the altar of sacrifice life liberty and the pursuit when you join the military you're not it's not about your Pursuit of Happiness anymore you're going to do this job that's what's going to happen Liberty you're not going to do what you you don't have freedom they they they it's shocking that's the shocking thing about going to boot camp in the military is your your freedom is gone your freedom is gone your Pursuit of Happiness is gone you're no longer look and I'm talking about boot camp of course eventually you I have had I had the best times ever with my friends in the military but you go to boot camp that Pursuit of Happiness Is Gone the freedom that you had you you're going to get dictated what you're going to do what time you're going to wake up what time you're going to go to bed what you're going to do all day that's going to get dictated to you and finally life you are going to put you're going to you're going to possibly sacrifice your life for Freedom so that's what the military does very small percentage of people join the military normally normally military people appreciate Freedom why do they appreciate freedom because they had it taken away they were put into a job where it's like you you don't have very much Freedom anymore and like I said eventually in the military there's you have to have an open mind to have Victory like there's there's a bunch of things but when you go to boot camp all those things are taken away from you that's one of the reasons why military people generally are very patriotic they've had those things taken away from them part one part two they've gone to other parts of the world and they've seen what other parts of the world are like especially parts of the world that are run by tyrants that have have no freedom and when you see that you get home and you're very thankful so what do I kneel before or what do I recommend people kneel before or what could we universally kneel before I think the answer is freedom are you surprised that we have tried to bring freedom and democracy to countries that don't seem to want it am I surprised no because just like any other leadership situation if I try and impose my way of life on you you're not going to like it that's not freedom and that's what happens we've we've we've done a poor job in some cases when we gradually introduce things when we when we allow freedom to flourish without forcing it down someone's throat look what's your favorite food let's just go with Chinese to make it easy like specifically oh orange chicken and so egg fried rice I'm going to take orange chicken and EG egg fried rice and I'm going to cram it down your throat that's less fun doesn't no matter how good a food tastes it doesn't taste good when you cram it down someone's throat so when we go in and we try and impose our culture on other cultures they reject it of course they do we're trying to force it down their throat when we gradually or when freedom is gradually exposed to other cultures over time they nod their head and they say yeah that looks like a good deal we we want to get in on that and that's why that's that's that's what caused the spread of democracy throughout the world not we didn't spread democracy through the sword when we try to spread democracy through the sword it doesn't work or it seldom Works what you have to do is show people what's out there show people the opportunities and and allow them to find their own path yeah agreed values have to find their way into culture otherwise and freedom I would say is is simply a value that we happen to hold very aggressively in the west the thing that maybe makes me more pessimistic than you um long term I think we're going to be fine but I really do for the first time in my life anyway feel that in the west specifically here in America we are adopting ideas and values that do not lead to human flourishing so uh if if somebody's trying to map my thinking they they have to understand that's what I'm pointed at and then they would have to understand what I think leads to that freedom being just a huge part of it and I believe any culture that doesn't have that is not as close to human flourishing as they could be I'm not saying that it's a bad place to be I've been to some countries that don't have that uh and certainly it's lovely but I think there is a reason that um we've been able to create the things that we've created the level of prosperity the level of growth the fact that so many people from all over the world want to come here uh is for the ability to choose what they kneel before I think that's a a really important concept uh but I'm watching what's happening in America and I see people that the value system that's burning through culture is now one of I would much rather be safe and in fact I want to step back what do you think people are trading freedom for right now if you agree that it is its Primacy as the defining value of America is slipping uh which I certainly believe that it is what are they trading it for is it safety is it power is it something else I would say that you have to have limitations on things and that's just a constant it's a constant sort of balancing act between freedom and I guess for lack of a better word discipline but but law you have to have Law and Order and and and that has there has to be some level of structure and rules that people are going to follow and that that component expands and contracts you know with like I said a pend a pendulum that's going to swing back and forth it expands and contracts and sometimes they impose more laws and once laws start getting imposed usually at a certain juncture people say wait a second you've gone too far with these laws we don't we don't want these laws anymore and you go back in the other direction to where all right now we wait wait somebody needs to put some restrictions over here because this is totally out of control so it's a balancing act and and what we have to realize is that we're going to bump up against the guard rails and it happens and and laws get put into place that shouldn't get put into place and and then they get rejected and all laws get removed and all of a sudden things get a little bit out of control so I I think what you're witnessing I don't I would say that it's not necessarily A a drift towards tyranny which sounds like you're talking about a drift towards tyranny very much so yeah I think that there's a the guard rail that prevents us from going into tyranny we we'll bump into it and when we bump into it we get straightened we get straightened back out there's there's plenty of Americans that recognize when that when the when the control and the order is being imposed on them and it's getting to be too much and they push it back and say yep that that one we're not buying into I it was an interesting you know during the the during the pandemic the level got I think I I think it kind of reset some some parameters because there was a level of control that was imposed and I think most Americans had grown trusting enough of the government that they said well I guess the government's trying to help out here and you could see that in the beginning that's kind of what most people thought the government's trying to help out they're doing their best and then as time went on you start to get the people the guard rail that protects Freedom they started to get louder and louder and say hold on a second and and I mean what do you think would happen if they said hey there's another variant of covid right now and we're going to lock everyone down again what do you think would happen uh I think there would be massive protests I think there would be no lockdown I think there would be no lockdown I don't think that I think it would become hyper Regional I think that uh if you're in a predominantly Blue State like California where people still sometimes wear masks here which I'm I'm just what uh so I think it would become tribal and people that back themselves into a corner by saying no I stand with it it had to be this way and all that now they have congruence they will lock down other places will be like absolutely not Over My Dead Body never again and now you've got the people that like there were those guys that had the gym that just refused ref and refuse and refuse I don't know if they finally got arrested they were find and stuff and now you have them to look to so you can be like okay I want to be like that I'm not going to be tricked this time so I think it you you would have rival factions now there's I I always want to remind myself things how how big are the factions percentage wise well so the country breaks almost exactly 50/50 so then the question becomes how intense is the Spectrum on either side I think it's a very small number of people that will take to the streets but living in La man in 2020 from my balcony I actually watched La Burn yeah and somebody posted uh an image of my house and said burn the rich and so it was like this is real like you you can feel like when a mob breaks did you see that recent footage of the um girl that got her head beat against the pavement I saw it there's something that happens when the crowd snaps oh for sure and for however long period of time they're not human per se it it just becomes the mob and so I agree with you I think our democracy's robust I actually don't have fears about that I think those fears are way overblown but I do think at the street level it could get pretty nasty pretty fast and maybe it's just these quick spikes punctuated but um yeah I I can feel that we're testing the veracity of the guard rails and that makes me nervous I won't even say that I see the bolts wobbling which I think some people look at January 6 and they're like the bolts are about to Shear off I don't have that same sense but it does make me uncomfortable and this is exactly what happens Joo here is my worldview MH everything is is uh built up from the ideas that a populace takes on board and makes their invisible value system they don't realize they've done it it just becomes an idea and this is why when you ask them about it most people they can't answer and their argument falls apart and people laugh and like oh look how dumb they are that's the wrong way to look at somebody that is a person who is in the grips of a bumper sticker they heard an idea that's memeable because it's simple and therefore it can spread and now when you ask me I have a simple retort and I just say the whatever the slogan is that's what happens and so when freedom is the slogan I feel great when Live Free or Die is the slogan I'm here for it uh when it becomes authoritarian slogans which I'm beginning to hear I get very uncomfortable and so again things are almost never as bad as you think they're going to be they're Never As Good As you hope they will be so you're probably right that we just bash up and against these things but I'm a a just obsessive student of history when it breaks it breaks so terrifyingly that I I have made myself a promise that I will not be one of the people that remains silent and so maybe I'm speaking up a little early maybe it's a little ridiculous but if you read the gulg archipelago or ma the unknown story and you realize 100 million people killed like in horrible ways humans are capable of tremendous evil and I never want to lose sight of that yeah um there's a lot of there there has to be there's a lot of personal sacrifice that would have to occur that to to to for things to to actually break like for instance it's it's shocking the American Revolution is shocking because the guys that led the American Revolution were willing to sacrifice their way life which was they were a bunch they like the wealthy land owners they were the rich guys they were making money for the most part and they decided you know what we're not going to be under this Tyrant anymore we're going to fight they they normal normal humans go eh dude I'm not look I you know I'm going to kind of stick with what I got that's how that's how things do slowly drift over time but I when you've got a a plentiful food supply when the people that are rioting because they've because of the misjustice they've suffered but they're doing it with a $1,200 cell phone that they're filming everything with there's a lot of things that there's a lot of sacrifice that would be have to be made that people aren't aren't people don't people wouldn't be willing to make they might make it for a night and they you know during during the riots and everything there was like those sacrifices might have got made for a night but that was about it that's actually a really uh comforting take I remember when the Chaz chop yeah thing was happening and it was like this is not going to end well this is going to devolve but I never read it as oh yeah they stopped having fun pretty quick and they backed off no other reason than that actually when it happened as it was happening I was like oh yeah let's see how long this lasts because people people take for granted the infrastructure that we have in the country people take for granted the the remember the couple scenes from the Chaz or the chop or whatever when something bad was happening people in the chopper yelling call the cops call the cops it's like yeah so people talk a big game but there's a lot of sacrifice that would personal sacrifice that would have to be made and and in my mind the people that are that would actually be willing to make that sacrifice is the ones that would stand up to protect freedom and people that are would trying to impose tyrannical rule in America I don't think they I don't think they would have the willingness to sacrifice it's a really interesting take um George Washington is certainly who I thought of when you were talking about the um people that fought the British because to your point he was wealthy uh and I remember there was a period where he was like Bill building a new foyer or something in his uh house back in Virginia um to host parties and things like that and he's literally looking at plans on the battlefield and sending it back home and for him it was this is this is my only way to sort of stay sane is to remind myself I'm G to do this I'm G to fight for our freedom because it matters that much to me but one day I really do want to get back to that and it becomes comes this really magical moment in our history and and look just so I don't have to I try to to predict the comments whenever I can yes I'm well aware that George Washington was a slave owner uh obviously horrendous that that is a cultural moment more than anything else anyway we'll set that aside I I understand that but you also had a guy that for years and years and years lived in the muck in the cold constantly risking his life putting himself out front there were times where bullets would go through his jacket like this is not somebody that you know stood at the back and let his men um be at risk when they had to cross back over the river and in one fight in the uh in the mist and everything because they were trying to escape because they knew they were about to get slaughtered he was like I will not cross over until I'm the last person to do so and people were freaking out and they're like please like we need to protect you have to get AC cross he wouldn't do it anyway becomes the first president has the opportunity to affect L become the king of America people ask him to they want him to stay uh and he does his terms and he says no I I remember that space that I was building that I used to fantasize about on the Battlefront I'm now going to go do that thing I don't want the power and that's the kind of thing like it's like in The Lord of the Rings when the one elf holds it for a second she turns into like almost like a demon all powerful and then she calms herself down and hands the ring back and said I needed to know if I could pass that test where I could hold the ring know that I am now in this moment all powerful I could kill everybody before me and go rule the universe but no I'm going to I'm going to hand the ring back and those values to me like the things I just said like that borders on pornography for me I'm just like that's so rad like I want to I want to be that kind of person and I will not claim to be but man do I aspire to that that to me is really cool and yet I know if I were to hang an American flag outside my house you and I know a person I won't call him out on this podcast uh he was here at the house and he was like oh I hung an American flag at my house I was like that's going to get ripped down and he goes it already has and I was like I hated that that was predictable and then I hated that it had come true but all the things that I just said is what the American Flag represents for me but because I believe bad ideas are sweeping across the youth mostly the American flag now represents the one part of that conversation where I was like yes I acknowledged that he was a slave owner and so if I'm right that ideas matter then it becomes very important that the right ideas get propagated because the bolts in the guard rails in my estimation are the ideas that people believe in and if those ideas go the guard rails go well I guess I have a little bit more of a posit attitude than you and the fact that I I really I believe in Freedom and I believe that freedom wins I believe that I believe that freedom wins and so as I see the guard rail get hit as I saw the see the bolts start to come loose as I see people's minds start to explore the idea of tyranny and control and authoritarianism I believe that freedom and light defeats that Darkness all day and look it's a battle it's a battle but it's a battle that that freedom wins because I think that inherently human beings especially Americans H but human beings want to have freedom and is there a part of human beings that wants is there part of some human beings that wants to control other human beings yes there is there is is there a part of some human beings that wants to make sure that other human beings are free yes there are and in again this is these are my beliefs you asked about my principles and and my guiding philosophy I believe that freedom is superior it's the superior mode of human existence and because it's the superior mode of human existence it wins it it just wins and again it can be tumultuous it it's a battle it's a fight there's blood but it wins is that in the long Arc of History it wins or in the any one human's lifetime they can expect it to win it's the long Arc of of humanity and look it can get snuffed out for extended periods of time well I mean we've we have seen that in our lifetime you know we got to see the Berlin Wall come down we got to see you know we got to see what it was like when you don't have freedom and as as John F Kennedy said we've never built a wall around America to keep people in we don't have to do that here they have to do that in those countries or they had to do it in those countries they still do it in let's say North Korea right you're not allowed to leave we don't have to do that in America we have to build a wall to keep people out because everybody wants to come here so that idea of freedom is is a powerful thing and I believe that it is the I believe it's I believe it's part of human nature and yes there's part of human nature that wants to that that there's some part of human nature and some human beings that want to control their people but they don't have the they don't have the for lack of better word they don't have the right they don't have the right to do that and so you can try look and and if we break this down to a smaller scale you work for me I'm your boss I can rule you tyrannically right I can say I want you showing up at 6: in the morning I want you to have this stuff done for me you better work you you don't leave a minute before 5:00 at night I can be a tyrannical leader like that for you and I can control you and by the way if we have 20 employees and I can be a tyrannical leader for all of them and guess what they will have to listen to me for a while but eventually you go hey man I'm going to start my own company you guys want to come with me and every single person says yep and what happens in these tyrannical countries over time eventually and and and like I said The more Extreme Measures that are used by the authoritarians to keep and subdue human Freedom the longer they can the the more they can prolong their eventual downfall and so when I look at a country that's being run in a tyrannical manner I think yeah they're going to prolong they if they're very authoritarian if they're not afraid to use violence if they're not they're not afraid to just kill people like they did in the Soviet Union hundreds of millions of people or in China like oh we we're going to people are going to die we don't care if they do that they can suppress they can suppress the the the Instinct for Freedom that human beings have for a certain period of time but I don't believe that they can actually extinguish the flame of freedom I don't believe it's possible to extinguish the flame of Freedom infinitely that that flame can't you can subdue it you can suppress it and you can do that for generations and maybe I don't I don't know if this has happened maybe you can you can get control of that of that instinct and subdue do it to a point where where it becomes a a nominal Factor but even then even then man you know there's people in the world that that little Ember of freedom is like what is in their soul and it doesn't matter what you do to them I mean we know these these these are our Patriot Patriots that formulated this country that said Give me liberty Give me liberty or give me death that's what they said you couldn't under threat of death you couldn't extinguish the Ember that was burning in their soul for Freedom so can you tamper it down yes do I worry about anybody or any system truly being able to extinguish the spark of freedom in the soul of mankind I don't really think that's possible I don't think that's possible I love that man and maybe the slight pessimism I have is only one of time scale um I again just you look at enough history and you start to see uh guess what nature does not care about any one person's life and so yeah there might be the long Arc of History I actually do believe bends towards Justice it's just that is of cold comfort to one of the people people that is you know snuffed out at 15 or whatever because the tyrannical government comes in was like we didn't like something your dad said at Parliament today and so now you're dead too um there's just so many crazy stories like that so I'm I am very inspired by what you were saying like literally I could hear music playing in my mind as you were talking like I am so motivated by that stuff um and am very much a person Lord knows I hope I'm never tested um but I like to believe that I am a person that would sooner die fighting for freedom than that would just roll over and accept a tyrannical government um I don't beat that drum too hard because untilt tested I'll just assume I'm uh G to be weak in in the wrong moment but I do need to remind myself not not the path I want to walk uh so yes all of that's amazing I just think it's it's a very cold comfort and so in any one moment I think um it matters whether we have a lot of people like you or we have who who would die clearly willing to Die For Freedom in fact let me ask you when you were in radi were you fighting for Freedom or was that something else yeah we were we were and on a strategic level that we were talking about earlier was that what we were fighting for no we weren't fighting for freedom on a strategic level there was no threat to my family's freedom in America so from a strategic level we were implementing the policy of the United States government that's what we were doing however on the ground at a tactical level in the city of raditi there was extreme tyrannical elements that eventually became Isis but at the time was known as al-Qaeda in Iraq and what they were doing was oppressing violently oppressing the local populace in that City that cowered in fear because they did not have the capability to stand up to the insurgents and we did we did have the will we had the capability and we also had the capability to help train the local populace to step up and eventually handle the violence and the insurgence within their own city so we liberated that City from the insurgents and when I say we I mean the incredible soldiers and marines that were on the ground with us the Iraqi soldiers that were on the ground with us the Iraqi police that eventually took over that prevented their the insurgence from coming back into ratti the local tribes that United with Coalition forces to stand up and take care of their own neighborhoods because they wanted to be free so were we fighting for freedom in radi yes we were and we won yeah I would imagine that would be very hard to do something so dangerous to see people dying to take life and not have a pretty extraordinary why um did you guys talk about that like would you rally around like this is a battle for Freedom these are the bad guys they are oppressing raping murdering and we're going to stop them no r y was a very simple one the enemy the insurgents in that city were killing Americans first and foremost they were killing US soldiers and Marines then you go to two or three Memorial services for a 23y old Soldier or a 19-year-old Marine you recognize that there's sacrifices that are being made and we know that we could help and then on top of that the civilian populace in the city of ratti you know there's like two components of your emotions that get pulled at one of them is oh they killed a a freaking 19-year-old marine or a 23-year-old Army Sergeant or a 30-year-old Army Captain who has a family and then on top of that you see what they do to the civilians you see what they do to a a 14-year-old girl where they rape an abuse her then they then they behead their father and then they skin the mother alive that's what they did Jesus so it it doesn't take if you're if you're a good human being and you're over there the wise is self-evident it's evident as soon as you see these things that are happening and you're part of a part of a a task unit a sealed task unit you're part of a army company or Marine platoon or whatever you see that happening and there's there's no need to sit down and do a daily discussion about why we're doing this you know why we're doing this we we're doing this because there's evil and the evil needs to be stopped and we're here we have the power to stop it we have the capability to stop it and we're going to stop it that is super heavy when somebody dies if you're consoling whether it's their fellow brothers in combat or their family members um me as the outside lay person who's never actually gone through that it's interesting my brain goes to they died to protect Freedom right something that in the reality of is hopelessly generic what do you actually turn to is it um they were courageous they protected their brothers they like in that moment where somebody who loved them comes smack up against the the just pain of it all how do you make sense of it yeah it's it's yes I've had those conversations and yes the answer is number one they're protecting their friends and brothers that's what that's what they're doing and on top of that they were doing the right thing for the right reasons trying to protect the civilian populace from from demonic evil and that's what it is you know you and it got it became more clear when you saw the activities of Isis what they what they did in in mosul but those same elements came from raditi they came from fuah before that they so the these were the same people they just got a different they they rebranded so yeah that's what it is how do people become evil I mentioned earlier that there's some people that have you know the tyrannical bent to their personality and they want to control other people I don't I don't know where that comes from I don't know where that comes from I don't know whether it's nature or nurture or combination of both I I would imagine it's some kind of combination of both but it's there do you enjoy history I do enjoy history so have you read about um the wild west and as America begins her expansion and especially coming up against the commanches have you read that part um that I mean look this is me God it's always interesting having these conversations with you because you've lived it and for me it's just stuff in books but um that opened my eyes maybe more than anything to the circumstantial cruelty of humans and what would happen on both sides of that was horrendous in ways I can't imagine from skinning people alive raping them kidnapping them killing them torturing them like on both sides uh finding a pregnant woman and cutting her fetus out and um slicing it up in front of her I mean just what is happening things that I would otherwise not my it is a pure failure of my imagination like I never would have thought through those things so it's interesting uh it feels to me so Soulja niton um for people that don't know him wrote a book called The gulg archipelago he was in the Russian Googs and uh he writes this book about his experience and he he creates the what is now a pretty famous line the line between good and evil runs through the center of every human heart and I found that distressing when you start looking at history at okay how do people break bat and I think I mean going back to my central thesis I think think people get caught up in ideals and there's no doubt the Meli Massacre shows you can have one guy that's like what are you doing stop killing immediately and then everybody stops but you also have those same ordinary men two minutes before killing innocent civilians and it's it maybe some of the slight difference that we see this in is that like I'm so afraid of how the mob breaks I'm so afraid of how an idea can Gra a person or a group of people and for a minute they just are suddenly doing horrendous things that you can't imagine uh there's a book called Ordinary men uh about I think it was a Polish I forget it it was they went to Poland okay they were cops before that and then they get sucked in by um Hitler's forces and they're trained to kill people in just the most horrendous ways humanly possible um and and they end up doing it and going from ordinary men to just savages savages on a level that I can't comprehend so yeah I do think that maybe I think that the human psyche is maybe more fragile than you think it is or maybe I'm just focused on a more narrow timeline because I swear I am optimistic I love people uh but even I like as I have more of these conversations find myself representing the more like I'm a little unnerved part of the camp well the both those cases this a leadership and you're right in in the mili Massacre there was a leader Lieutenant William C and he his attitude was he had a terrible attitude he had obviously a a a vein of evil in his soul and he led those guys to rape mutilate and murder about 500 innocent people in that Village and so all those people were so malleable the troops were malleable to go along with that and as you mentioned it was Hugh Thompson who was a helicopter pilot that flew over saw what was happening intervene went back to headquarters and said hey they're out there massacring people right now you need to stop it they made one radio call and said stop killing people and everyone immediately stopped so what does that mean that means that when leadership leads people in the right direction they will do good things or they will do evil things and that that's exactly what happened there now a little bit more positive thing is when when those events are viewed from the outside people recognize that it's ter it's it's it's atrocious it's a war crime it's so it's horrible and and same thing when we now what what what is it that intrigues us about the the book ordinary men what why is it why is it read to this day because people look at it and go okay we got to watch out for that everyone says we got to watch out for that as an individual human and as a group we don't say how do we do that again that's not what we're saying so we say oh that's a warning Unit 731 have you read that book about the Japanese what the Japanese did to the to the Chinese that's it's the same It's actually an even more extreme level of evil it's it's medical experimentation absolutely heinous so when you have leadership that's evil they will lead people in an evil direction and you know in those cases they get viewed from the outside when people when people get out of that mob they look at it and say this was wrong even the guys that were in mili the the young 20-year-olds that were in Mei like yeah we I lost my mind it's obviously it's horrible they didn't look at it and say oh no it's kind of cool they didn't say that so again a little bit of a you might think that the mob leans a little bit breaks a little bit bad I'm GNA in my opinion look can the mob break bad for period of time yes and this is something I teach leaders all the time when you're in charge of an organization you're a mob leader you're in charge of the mob but you can't be in the mob because if you're in the mob and the mob starts doing things that are they shouldn't be doing and you're in the mob you won't see it you can't be in the mob you've got to be outside the mob look sometimes when you're a mob leader and the mob starts doing they start doing positive things you've done it in your companies where everyone's doing the right things everyone's moving in the right direction you don't have to restrain the mob you can even encourage the mob a little bit but even then you can't get into the mob you need to take a step back you can't be in the mob when you're in a leadership position you need to be outside the mob then if they do start to turn start doing something negative you can stop it immediately so as a leader you can't get caught up in the mob you need to be step back you need to be detached if you're not detached you're going to be emotional you be caught up in the Mayhem and you're going to allow things to happen that shouldn't be happening you're not going to see what you should see so we as leaders have to take a step back detach look at what's happening and and actually lead not follow all comes back to leadership so let's step back we uh did some Consulting for Trump let's do some Consulting for Biden so you walk in to this company called America and the CEO is Biden what advice do you have for him well I I think it might become pretty evident at this point that the things that I'm going to tell Biden are the same things that I was going to tell Trump I I'm but is that in reality because if the what I expected you to say was this is going to be hard with somebody that I'm not sure is functioning at the level that he needs to function yeah okay well from that perspective yeah I I guess I kind of jumped the jumped ahead a little bit or I gave the benefit of the doubt that you know I had somebody that was had the cognitive capability to to to understand what we were talking about and yeah um I what I would probably do is talk to him and see where he's at certainly from the from the outside it it doesn't look like he's got a great you know cognitive awareness of what's happening so I would want to yeah want to talk to him and do an assessment of where he's at from from a mental perspective and and see what we're dealing with I think that's pretty straightforward all right let's assume that it's like okay uh we can see over the years you're obviously off a step but let's say that his ability when there's not a lot of stress he can still process the information he's still able to lead in accordance with his own principles and all that so you walk away saying okay I you know we're we're not dealing with Dementia here we're dealing with Decline and so we're going to manage that how would you um I've heard you talk before like know thyself you have to understand what you're good at what you're not and so yeah what would you say assuming for the sake of the argument it's not it isn't dementia but it is it's a performance decline well actually I think I think that conversation whoever consulted with that Administration is already doing that because clearly you don't see Biden out answering questions he he doesn't do press conferences like they're not exposing him to scenarios where he's going to have the opportunity to say things and and and not say things that are going to really be bad and so he just has you know he's very insulated from from interacting openly with other people and you know I watched the State of the Union Address like I was I was surprised that he was able to actually carry the whole thing so they did a good job of getting him some good rest getting him some good supplementation or something to to get him very kind to get him up to a point where he could deliver you know an hourong address and you know he's reading from a teleprompter so it's not that hard but you know they were able to pull that off I think I think that it's back into hiding and yeah if I was if I was the if I was the consultant that was brought in I would say yes let's keep him from the public view keep him from interacting in any large capacity because when he does speak when he does get out there when he does get asked questions he's not he's not really he's not that coherent and so it I I would I would mitigate that as much as possible yeah makes sense let me ask if you knew that we were going to go to war with a country and you wanted to use psychological warfare either to um nullify them completely or at least weaken them a little bit what would be certain ideas values beliefs you would try to pump into that country to weaken them militarily is this a leading question uh not really but I find that it is it's really again the driving force for me is ideas this is all ideas okay and so yeah um here's what I would do I would I would not put a single value into that country what I would do is I was put opposing values into that country and I would try and divide them so they're arguing with each other so they hate each other so they rip each other apart that's what I would do I would fuel the fire of divisiveness as much as possibly could so whatever little granules they had that separated them I would emphasize those I would grow those and I would cause a civil war that's what I would do how often are you checking your credit score afraid of identity theft or account breaches we all use the internet every single day for important things like Personal Banking and remote work so why not protect yourself with our sponsor Aura Aura is an all-in-one cyber security service that keeps you safe online Aura identifies data broker ERS exposing your info and submits opt out requests on your behalf Ora also monitors your credit tracks your passwords for data breaches and secures your online activity with VPN and anti malware protection you can try Aura for free for 2 weeks by clicking the link in the description or scanning the QR code yeah I suppose it did turn into a leading question do you see uh any of those similar traits happening right now with social media being sort of the self inflicted wound 100% 100% that's we're we're destroying ourselves when someone is listening to this right now and they're a far right person or they're a farle person and they're listening to this right now and they're saying um I can't believe that Joo said that about Trump I can't believe Joo said that about Biden I can't believe Tom is is hinting when you have this anger and it and it's polarizing you you're you're just you're you're falling a victim you're falling a victim to it instead of being like Oh Tom's got an interesting perspective there well gez what that must be weird when you see a picture of your house and City's on fire and they're saying kill the rich and you're a rich person in one of the houses that they're identifying that damn that that must feel weird instead of saying you're damn right what do you need all that money for Tom right so we that's what that's what social media's been doing and again it's just playing on human psychology because if someone said put a picture of your house and said that's I bet that person worked hard no one's retweeting that no one really cares but if someone puts a picture of your house and says kill the rich people are going to ret that that's emotional it's going to strike a nerve saying oh that's a good architecture no one no one's retweeting that very few people so we're we're trained and we're psychologically impulsive to retweet what makes us emotional either very angry or very triumphant if your house was on fire hell yeah here's a picture this rich person's house they're losing their house hell yeah that's triumphant I'm going to repost that so yes social media is not helping our country and if I was an enemy of this country I would do everything I could to fuel the fires of division within this nation do you think that China's doing that with Tik Tok yes oh [ __ ] this is actually an issue I haven't thought about uh tell me more well it's not just Tik Tok I think that when any of these you know what I'm sure you've heard these figures that the groups there's groups on Facebook that 90% of of their members come a Russian bot farm and youve I'm sure you heard those stories Rogan had guests on there that talked about they set up like a like a patriot march across the street from a black lives matter March and in somewhere in Texas two group these uh social media groups some some patriotic people on one side and some black lives matter folks on the other side they set up Marches On like the same street it was all just fabricated and then supporters of those two elements going to show up going to cause problems but the the the the the pages that set up those marches were not Americans so this is what's happening and we're buying into it Americans are buying into it Americans are buying into saying don't listen to that side don't listen and our politicians are fueling it too because they're trying to shore up their support as rigidly as they possibly can so they fuel it as well and they say Trump's the threat to democracy and Biden's the threat to democracy and that's what they're doing dude wait Biden's a threat to democracy all right Trump's a threat to democracy oh all right so our own politicians are fueling it social media fueling it foreign interest absolutely fueling it everyone has a big ego so they think they know everything even when they don't know anything so they dig in in their positions and once they're dug in their positions they get attacked so that makes them dig even more it's it's uh that's the phenomenon that we're living in right now do you see I don't buy into it by the way like when I see some some rhetoric inflammatory rhetoric it has no impact on me I go oh yeah I can see that's inflammatory rhetoric I always say I'm a when it comes to like online sales or even salespeople like trying to sell me I'm the worst person to sell anything to you know when they hit me with all these things it's like yeah I I know what you're doing I hope that more people start to recognize what is happening to them when they have a strong emotional reaction to something that's been created to give them a strong emotional reaction you shouldn't be having a strong emotional reaction to things that don't involve your immediate family how's that sound that's interesting is that a rule for you no I set it off the top of my head but if I'm looking at a piece of news it's propaganda it's propaganda there's very few sources of information right now that aren't aren't woven with some kind of propaganda and some kind of agenda in them so therefore if you know that you learn to look at that for what it is it's a piece of information that has been doctored or spun or manipulated to give you an emotional reaction to affect your assessment of what's actually happening and if you don't know that you're going down the path following a leader that's leading you to a horrible place if you recognize oh I see what's happening this is clearly written in a way to make me emotional to make me share it and retweet it and comment on it that's how they wrote it that's what they did that's what they did and they're good at it that's why you're seeing it so stop it look at it detach from it don't get emotional about it try and understand what the facts are but don't allow their perspective and not even just their perspective it's not their perspective you want to understand other people's perspective don't allow their warping of information to warp the way you think that's what people I think a lot of us in America are falling victim to that and the the the fact that it's so readily available the the idea of an infinite scroll the the idea of likes and dislikes the idea of clicks the whole nine yards it's all it's all led us to to this point where what we're producing for consumption of information is highly emotional highly polarizing and that's what's selling for lack of a better word right now yeah I think the average person is is ridiculously easy to manipulate because the human mind works in a certain way you're very famous for this idea of Detachment uh that's clearly going to be part of the answer to what I'm about to ask but how do you form your opinions so that you're not just sucked into what has the most emotion what's most viral what's most simplistic um how do you take in data actually seek to understand the other side and then still form an opinion what does that process look like I I think one of the premises that I kind of avoid is actually forming an opinion or having an opinion that's formed because that means it's not moving anymore and I don't like to do that I want to have an open mind I want to say I I want to look at any any idea or any situation or any piece of information that comes in and think that this is a perspective that's going to change I I talk a lot about a statement about being in the military which is the first report is always wrong and there's a reason that the first report is always wrong because Tom when you're in the field and you send me a report that says we're under attack we're going to get overrun there's hundreds of other enemy out here that report is going to be wrong not going to be completely wrong but it's only your perspective you only see you're only seeing what you're seeing you're being impacted by the emotions of the situation that you're in because you're scared and you're adrenaline fueled and you're emotional because you just lost two guys like there's a lot of reasons why what you're telling me is going to be through a lens that is not 100% focused and it's not it's it's not able to capture everything that's actually happening so that's what that's what goes on with the news the first report comes in I look at it it's like okay there's a report I don't know if it's right or wrong there's some data points guess what in a little while there's going to be more data points and a little while after that there's going to be more data points and I'm going to start to see some granularity in a picture eventually but even when that picture appears to be clear I know that there are other components and perspectives that I'm not seeing so I don't complete that picture in my head I have an image and I recognize that that image is probably going to change and that issue whatever it might be is probably going to morph still in my head okay so you've got all these ideas flying at you how do you uh you're aware of the potential manipulation you're aware you don't want to close your mind but I assume you also know that at some point you have to make a decision on how you're going to act so how do you decide what ideas to keep and what ideas to reject I call this the iterative decision- making process which means I'm going to make the smallest decision that I can I'm going to take the smallest step that I can and then I'm immediately going to reassess the feedback that I get from that decision that I made and what does my view look like now so this is this has been this was very helpful for me when I was in the military this has very been very helpful for me with my civilian companies and it's very helpful when I'm thinking about issues that come up in the news so when I see something I go oh I guess I got to make a small decision you know if we're out in the field and we start taking fire I don't say hey everyone run away no I say oh everyone let's Tom go to the rooftop and tell me what you see so you go to the rooftop and you get a better picture you say oh Jo there's just one guy with an AK-47 cool all right cool we don't need to run away in fact we can move forward and I can continue to make small steps like that in the business world you don't go hey there's a a part of town we're not in right now I'm going to go buy a building hire nine employees to run the retail area no I'm not going to do that I'm going to put a kiosk on one of the corners down there that's what I'm going to do I'm going to see what kind of crowd we get and see what kind of product we sell and then if that goes well yeah in you go two years maybe I buy a building cuz it's a a hot market after I put five kiosks in all the neighborhoods and realize it was great and it's the same thing with these whatever issues we might be discussing from a political perspective or what what should we do in Ukraine what should we do in Gaza what oh I don't say well just run away from Gaza let let let the let Hamas have it or I contrarily I don't say oh just level Gaza because Hamas attacked no it's like oh well let's do an assessment how about we get for control over the situation same thing with Ukraine well okay Ukraine got invaded what should we do attack Russia well that doesn't sound like a good idea world war3 the ukrainians how can we support them how much support do we give them if we continue to support them what's the outcome look like it's going to be is it going to be significantly better if we support them or might it get to a point where it's not better and I'm going to make small decisions I'm not going to make big giant decisions I'm going to make small decisions and I'm going to continually assess and that's what I'm doing all the time and that's what a good leader does do is looks and makes small adjustments and pays attention to the feedback and this is where our egos get involved because I say oh we gotta this happened in oh we we took fire Tom we're going to attack and now we start to attack and Tom starts going hey actually Joo I think there's a lot more people than I thought there was going to be and I say doesn't matter I said attack we're going to attack and we keep going forward and we all get killed because I didn't take the feedback of oh Tom first said there was one bad guy up there now he's saying there's 38 now he's saying there's 300 and we only have 30 guys that's not good odds we don't want to get in that fight but I made the decision so we're going forward and people do this stuff all the time instead of saying oh you know what I was actually wrong about this hey I was wrong about putting in kiosk in that neighborhood yeah yeah there that's not our Market we're going to shut that thing down it's going to cost us another eight grand because we had to rent the kiosk and everything but we're shutting it down it's not like oh I dumped $4 million into this building and we're going to make this work we're losing money we're losing money we're losing money we got a business we're bankrupt why because I didn't make small decisions and make adjustments based on those decisions yeah it's very intriguing to me that you're so known for your military career but this stuff is now applying so directly to business and it really really tracks the idea of um the first note I took when you were talking about that is just getting the information you're trying to figure out what's what and so being humble enough to know I don't have enough data points and so I'm going to gather data with an open mind I'm going to figure out what's going on I'm going to place a small bet but as small as I can to get a realistic answer before we you know overcommit really really smart um you brought up Ukraine and Russia um obviously knowing that you're very much on the outside of this but how in terms of the small moves that you'd want to see made um how do you want that to play out if that feels like something you can talk to or how do you think it's going to play out well how do I want it to play out I want there to be peace and I don't want any more of these kids to get killed even if we have to compromise they have to compromise well yeah I think you you have to compromise you have to compromise and I think that they will end up compromising whether they want to or not the ukrainians and it's going to be a huge price and blood and treasure for the ukrainians and and for the Russians as well so it's a terrible situation it's a terrible situation and it's you know it's it's a lot of lives being destroyed um because people couldn't sit down and talk and figure out a solution war is a test of wills and the reason you go to Wars because you're not sure whose will is stronger because if you knew whose will is stronger you'd settle it at the table and not on the battlefield and we we make mistakes on interpreting other people's wills and how strong their will is and you know the Vietnam Wars an example I like to give on this is the the battle of the idang valley was one of the first big battles that took place and Americans killed the the Vietnamese the North Vietnamese on a scale of about 150 to1 whoa yeah and after that battle the the thought was oh well we can win because we just have to kill 150 of them for every one of us to die and that's how we'll win the war we just Prov we can do it and what we didn't realize is R1 meant more to us than their 150 meant to them so they were willing to sacrifice they had the will to sacrifice at a much greater rate than we did and we killed millions of Vietnamese and we lost 58,000 and every one of those is a tragedy and at the end we said yeah we're we're leaving and you can have you can you can have this country is basically what we said we didn't say that but in effect that's what we said so when you sit here and you look at Russia and Ukraine it's a test of Wills well the ukrainians this is their home this is their home this is their freedom which I talked about earlier so how strong is their will going to be it's going to be as it's going to be strong it's going to be as strong as imaginable and then on the other side you have Russia how much does Russia how much does Putin care about the level of sacrifice that's made we don't know but we're starting to see I I would say we kind of know we're more familiar now that he's not that concerned so that's what we have we have a test of Wills because each side thought their will was going to be a little bit stronger and and guess how we find out we find out by fighting and we find out by killing each other until it's over so again I think that the ukrainians are their will is absolute but they also lack the numbers and unfortunately they're in a war of attrition because when you ask me what I think of it or what I think would be the outcome I was in the beginning of the war thinking that Ukraine would fight a Guerilla War an asymmetric war and they have entered in more of a of a conventional war and this is this is a conventional War for the most part very quickly turns into a war of attrition and now it's we have more people than you we can make our ammunition faster than you and look America can keep sending bombs and guns but at a certain point somebody's got to wield those bombs and guns and it's if it becomes a war of attrition which it is absolutely morphing into that outcome is not going to be good for the ukrainians because they don't have the same number of soldiers stilling the same number of people what sucked them into a traditional conflict I I think it happened because they they were able to achieve some some what appeared to be and what felt like conventional victories so I'm sure you saw images of of of patrols and convoys of Russian Vehicles going in and being bombed and being and and it looked as if oh this almost looks like conventional Warfare It's these tanks against a smaller number of Tanks but against conventional type forces maneuvering against the Russians and they were winning which they did but when you knock out 20 Russian tanks and you feel like it's a win and it is a win until the Russia sends 20 more tanks or when you kill 50 Russian soldiers and you lost Five Guys you think hey that's a win and it is a win it's a tactical win but then the Russians send 50 more soldiers and 50 more soldiers and 50 more soldiers and 50 more soldiers so War should be the absolute last option and I I think it got moved up in the in the in the list of options unfortunately yeah it does not feel globally like uh people are waiting until the last second for war right about now uh I would have said 10 years ago probably that maybe we really are at the end of History that's certainly how it felt didn't feel like there was going to be any of these sort of conquering Nation Vibes uh anymore and obviously that that tweet would have uh aged very poorly had I sent it so the question becomes how do we get them to pull back so again you talk about Detachment so they're trying a strategy probably not going to work if you went in to advise them I assume it would go something like uh guys play this one out doesn't end well you're not going to be able to match them troop for troop so I get it a lot of reputations on the line that this was the right play but we just have to look at the data and say this isn't going to work then what go go back to gorilla Warfare would that be their only shot gorilla Warfare yep gorilla Warfare and do you think there's just too much much political Machinery in the way for that to happen or why haven't they figured that out themselves I mean and don't get me wrong they are doing some Guerilla type Warfare but they also get drawn into oh this is our city we're going to hold it is that the problem like it's a raccoon trap that type of thing that type of thing has happened this is our city we're going to hold it we're going to fight for it it's like if you fight for it and you kill a thousand Russians but you lose a 100 ukrainians okay there's going to come a thousand more Russians and I'm sure you've seen pictures the the young kids that are now putting their uniforms on in Ukraine and they're going to go fight this is this is what happens human capital and yes if I was there advising them I would be telling them to fight a gorilla war no Guerilla War doesn't feel good if you're if you're a country like Ukraine these are proud soldiers in a country that has a trained military it is it is the it's almost the antithesis of the way they would think to fight and the way they would want to fight they would want to fight manto man on the battlefield and Guerilla Warfare is not manto man on the battlefield it's roadside bombs it's snipers that's what it is and if you've been on the receiving end of roadside bombs and snipers it's horrifying so but you'd have to kind of culturally change them to have the attitude that we're going to fight an asymmetric war against a numerically Superior enemy which is what they're facing who's the greatest Guerilla force in history that you've studied the greatest Guerilla force in history uh there's there's there's tons of them I mean you already mentioned some of the some of the Native Americans that out there on the planes they were they were outstanding obviously you know the the the Viet Kong they were outstanding They Carried train uh tanks over a mountain range that's insane to me yep yep and I mean the history is just filled with I mean look look at Afghanistan that was they didn't that wasn't a conventional war that was we left Russia left Russia left England left so three and0 are they good at what they're doing yeah they're good at what they're doing it also shows you how powerful asymmetric Warfare is because uh a force that's untrained that doesn't have the technology but they have time I'm sure you heard that about the Afghans it's like the Afghans were like oh yeah you guys have bullets you guys have bombs we have time this is where we live that's what the that's what the ukrainians have that's where they live they have time and to try and fight the Russians in that way is bad and then once that happens the Russians what the Russians should do is say hey look we don't want this kind of beef we don't want because you try and occupy a country which is what Russia would have to do or occupy those those regions now you've got occup OCC ation forces occupation forces get picked off for a year 3 years 5 years 10 years and eventually they go all right we don't want to do this anymore that's what America said in Vietnam that's what America said in Afghanistan look we we don't want to do this anymore so that's the way and and I actually you ask me how I think this will play out I think that is how it will play out it's just going to take a much larger amount of casualties to get there because I don't think the ukrainians are going to surrender or anything but they're going to get to a point where they can no longer attempt to to fight face to face against the Russians so they're going to be forced into a into a Insurgency and then it'll be a long drawn out process I that was when people had originally asked me about what was going to happen I said this is going to be a 15-year War it's going to be an Insurgency by the ukrainians in the occupied zones of the Russians and that didn't happen it didn't happen because it turned into a a conventional War very much a conventional War not a total but a much more conventional war that is not as advantageous to the ukrainians do you have a read on Putin what do you think are his Ambitions there's been much debate about um is he an imperialist who's not going to stop until he's gobbled up all of Ukraine is he really just trying to create a border from uh NATO do you have a sense I could tell you my sense I don't know I don't I don't wouldn't put much weight on my assessment um so I whether it's worth even chiming in on I I don't know I I mean we the West definitely pushed Putin and cornered him and Putin is the type of guy that you can't corner you need to give him a way out you need to give him a a way to save face and I don't think we did a good job of doing that um he's a proud guy and when you corner someone that's proud this is why people are worried about him using nuclear weapons because they know that much about him he's a proud guy he's proud of his country and you Corner a guy like that you don't get him a way out they do dumb things ego right yes indeed all right I have to ask because I actually want to know uh you get elected president and and uh Putin's like all right I I'm going to beat this guy in Jiu-Jitsu and then we we can call the whole thing off mhm can you take him yeah yeah he's he's he's a j he's a judo practitioner and so he's gonna be very good skilled on the feet and he's gonna have Judo also has excellent groundwork as well but how old is Putin right now I think he's 70 or pushing yeah yeah he's gonna have real problems with me if that's what it's going to come down to um but I think yeah I I I I would take I would take Putin now somebody uh I asked for uh fans of yours for things they wanted to ask that nobody's ever asked and one of them was how hard do you choke so since we're talking about uh tapping Putin how hard do you choked uh I mean till people tap yeah I mean it's it's not that big of a deal that it's weird you know for you like choking is a big deal but for people that do Jitsu it's just it's like how hard do you shake someone's hand it's like that's just the way things go and that's life and you get choked and and Putin's an old guy and if a 70-year-old guy had to fight me it would be a bummer you know like if I had to fight a 27y old Jiu-Jitsu Champion it'd be a problem for me right and and I actually do that pretty regularly and it's usually a problem so uh all right so there are two major conflicts in the world right now um what's your take on what what's going on with Israel Palestine uh is that going to play out tactically as um they just keep bombing from the air have they already started backing off from that I think I heard they had um are the tunnels going to be the problem like how does this one play out the way it's going to play out I I think that Israel is very determined to completely eradicate Hamas do you think they have a metric by which they judge that like they obviously don't have a roll call of who everybody is and you go find them and when the checklist is done you're done or do they um I bet they have pretty good Intel I mean there's once you start having Intel sources inside of a country like you can know a lot about what's going on and I bet you they have a pretty good roster you know whether they have a roster that's down to a man I don't know but they they know and I think they've determined that they need to eradicate Hamas and I think they're going to eradicate Hamas and I don't it certainly does not appear through their current actions that they're going to relent at all until they've gotten Hamas eradicated do you think the international pressure for them to uh dramatically drop the body count will force them to go tunnel by tunnel house by house or do you think they're just going to be like ah [ __ ] it like we're just going to keep bombing the bomb you still once you bomb you still have to go in so they're going to have to go in one way or the other and so I I think they're going to make the judgment on that question question not based on International pressure I think they're going to make that judgment based on when they are tactically ready they feel like they've got it to a point where they can go in and do the street to Street hous to house tunnel clearance then then then they'll do it but I don't I think the inter the international pressure came so quickly that it didn't like Mount the international pressure didn't mount it just it pegged it redlined and it's just staying there and I think Israel's sort of saying okay well that's the international pressure it's redlining but we're going to keep doing what we're doing until we get this threat completely eliminated do you have fears of that escalating it's going to cause years and years of strategic problems for Israel because they're going to have to you know people are going to seek revenge on them for the next hundred years so do I think it's going to be an issue yep might it be some short-term thinking for them yep is that the mode that they're in right now after they have their you know people massacred yep how close have you looked at that situation in terms of the historical context decently is this intractable on anything remotely approaching a realistic timeline like sure maybe over a thousand years it unwinds but is this something that can unwind in the next two generations no not there's zero options zero options what is the sticking point um lack of forgiveness and egos so if you and I have a problem and whatever happened in the past we can't forgive each other we will not have resolution and there's been a is on both sides and there's enough people on each side that will not forgive that the people that will not forgive and will not move forward will continually drag the rest of those both sides down will they drag them down or will they suck them in suck them in drag them down whatever you want to call it yeah well it's interesting to me there's a very big uh Chasm between those two ideas so idea number one is that hatred is so powerful and I can rally you around your hatred and the misery the squalor that you live in and I can pull that front and center and I can say they've done this to you and not only um as as an act of divine Justice must you strike them down um but it's the only way forward for us to finally have what God wants us to have we have to do this that's sucking them in um sucking them down would be uh hey please stop don't don't strike them again for the love of God like let us just live our lives and then they go strike anyway and then you get bombs and so I I am not close enough to that problem to understand like whether the populace is like no we we elected them this is who we want to lead us and they are right and this is just and this what's happening to us now is is merely more proof of the Injustice of of these people that have held us down for so long uh I don't know if that's how they read it or if it really is like oh my God like if we could just get leadership in here that wasn't um constantly provoking them we could finally achieve balance of some kind the answer is yes both those things are occurring and there's there's both people that are wishing that they there's people in in both Israel and in Gaza that are wishing that the damn governments would stop and we could just like carry on with our normal lives and and Shake Hands there's people in both those elements I mean you see protesters you see protesters in Israel you don't see them so much in in Gaza right now uh but there is there is there was like I saw images and videos of people in Gaza lashing out at Hamas especially when it comes time for Aid to get delivered so there's there's people on both sides that that that would just assume hey we've had enough of this let's shake cans and let's carry on and there's also people that are completely so what was that well that was sucked in or is that sucked down okay that's sucked down and there's also people that are sucked in on both sides that are like nope the only way that this is what they did the Israelis right now October 7th and whatever other the countless other atrocities and then the the Palestinians and their land and their atrocities and you take both those things things and they're not going to stop they're not going to forgive they're not going to forget and they're going to fight all right let's say that you were living in a portion of America that became qualitatively like Palestine is right now that feels like warlord territory for me which you have somewhat jokingly said if things ever got bad enough I would just become a benevolent warlord uh I would take over and you at one point you said something like I wouldn't say that I was stoked if we were at end of days but uh I'm ready for it um what what would you actually do like so I you may not know this about my background but uh I actually came up as a writer film guy uh I've written screenplays comic books all kinds of stuff like in and I love the quote about a science fiction author that your job is not to forecast the automobile it's to forecast the traffic jam so you're trying to figure out like okay what I know know about humans how how is this going to play out so it I get I'm asking you to imagine a fictional scenario but in said fictional scenario knowing what you know about you and other people and what it would be like because I'm going to assume you'd be trying to lead people to something better and more hopeful and um but that you actually have the ability to be violent to be dangerous to um back down the the dogs at the door so what would that really look like if there was some sort of an apocalyptic event that took place where where legitimately I mean I'm trying not to say what would if you were in Palestine what would you do but like if you were in a situation just like that where you've got bad Warlords and they are holding the population Hostage to some extent uh it's rubbled the [ __ ] out man I mean this place is just you're you're literally getting MREs dropped from the sky and that is the only way that you guys are subsisting you just watched however many years of billions of dollars of Aid pour in and it all went to military tunnels and stuff like that there did not go to projects that make the people's lives better uh knowing that you're um the core thing that you build up from is freedom um ready go do you start like being that charismatic leader that organizes people or do you find the person that's going to be the mouthpiece I would say you've got so much credibility I'd expect it to be I I hate to um drill down like this but are you talking about a hypothetical situation where there's a apocalyptic event and now there's Mayhem going on or you talking about if I was a Palestinian right now in Palestine or sorry in Gaza what would I do those are like very different questions then then we'll start with you're in Gaza right now but you're you are Palestinian so that you're you're one of the people what would you do well the the other assessment or the other assumption that we have to make is that I'm Palestinian I'm in Gaza but I have an open mind right so I I my mind is my mind is is free to assess what's happening so yeah if I was there right now what I would do is I would start looking around going okay the situation that we're in is absolutely horrific and we cannot continue down this road what is happening all right do the through the Palestinian people around me my friends my family what what what's happening with them right now what do we need to do so that we can secure and stabilize our lives and our like small area our building our city block whatever the case may be I'm going to get that thing stable and secure and one of the ways that I'm going to be able to do that is my family my friends my close friends we're going to start to secure my area and then guess what I'm going to go across the block to the next people over say hey what's going on with you guys where where you at how many people you got how many how many able humans do you have here because we got to make some things happen number one we got to figure out a way to get the food that's getting dropped onto the beach I want to help us get that done and I want to do it in a in a way that we can help as many people as we can right now we got injuries happening because people are fighting each other for that stuff so let's get some control over that so that's what I would do I would start very small with my family and my immediate friends and getting some kind of control over a small area once I have control over that small area now I'm going to start expanding that and what we're going to be looking to do is we're going to be looking to stabilize things as opposed to dis destabilize things and and so what do I have to do that means the Hamas guys that are down the street will be like hey you guys you guys are getting bombed you're not going to get us bombed so you don't come over here if you go come over here we're going to have a problem and I'm going to go to the border and talk to the Israelis and say hey you guys are bombing us don't bomb here this is going to be a problem if you bomb here so don't here's where we're at so I would start to try and communicate and I would start to try and build relationships with these two opposing elements so that I could best support the people that I'm trying to now take care of man uh I love that this is the beginning of something very interesting so I don't know how far we'll be able to take the hypothetical but at each of the things you're describing I'm able to track how you view the world in a really interesting way uh so your first safety right so maso's hierarchy of needs we're going to just make sure everybody's sheltered they've got food they've got water uh then we're going to try to stabilize access to the resources that we're going to need then we're building alliances whether it's with the person next door or whether it's with with the um the other military and in fact as you were going to first Hamas and then the Israeli military I could feel you reaching out to who are the bodies that matter like what what swings the needle here let me identify those things go out and do it it's what's so interesting about that analysis is that is exactly what you do in business except nobody's shooting at you um but in terms of like okay where are we at now we need to stabilize we need to gain access to and business capital I need the resources I need to know what my run rate is how far how long can I either lose money or how much profit am I making to be able to scale and grow um keeping an open mind getting ego out of the way knowing who to talk to but also there's a little bit of threat in the [ __ ] that you say which uh I just come back to is I think a big part of the reason that people you're an archetype for people and that they keep wanting you to run for president because they hunger for that archetype they hunger for a strong man with the tactical and strategic ability to do that who has a set of morals which I think is so important which I think you've called principles um yeah that's kneeling before something which you didn't specifically say in this but it feels like you're kneeling before the family the people on your team I'm here to serve you I'm going to make sure you guys are okay I have to imagine that would be a lot of the rhetoric as your Coalition building like look treat us well don't do anything [ __ ] stupid we've got your back you're going to be well taken care of um how am I doing so far yeah trying to get people to think more strategic about what's happening and and hey this is where we are right now we can lash out over here or lash out over there but where does that get us in the long run where does that get us strategically and if it's not going to help us strategically then we shouldn't be doing it so that that ties into what I would be saying to my people what would you do because here's the thing I think in reality you would run into um you have an implicit goal in that which is I want everyone here to thrive that's my goal and so that's what I'm working towards uh you're going to run up against people who their goal is to punish the enemy what would you do when it's they understand your goal they just don't buy into it they have a totally different goal how would you handle that yeah what's what's your long-term strategic goal look like because you're saying you want to hurt the enemy what does that do where does that get us because we can go hurt the enemy tonight and hey we can go hurt the enemy on October 7th right that's exactly what they did they they hurt Israel badly where's it gotten them so that's what it's it's getting people to think strategic instead of think tactically and getting people to think with logic instead of think with their ego and their emotions which is not easy and you can't just you can't just say don't get emotional you can't you can't pull emotion and ego completely out of the completely out of the calculus of your decision-making but you have to wait them a lot less because I've got people same thing with the Israelis the Israelis can't be like hey they attacked us so but you know we can't get emotional we need to have a measured response like no it's like you have to put that emotion into the calculus my wife and daughter and son were just murdered and we need to do something about it now like okay we got to we got to take this it's real the emotion is real so you got to put that in the calculus at the same time you also can't let emotions be the heaviest weight in your decision-making process you can't let your country's ego be the biggest weight in your decision-making process do does it have to have weight in there yeah but it can't be the biggest weight that's now driving you to do things that don't make sense in a long-term strategic way yeah that's why to me this all comes down to goals uh because if your goal is simply to hurt and kill as many people as you can on your enemy side and that death for you is perfectly acceptable there is no problem with that uh in fact it is simply the gateway to Eternal Paradise that's where it gets tricky uh and probably part of why this is so difficult to unwind because in the emotion of they must be hurt Justice must be served Divine Justice and if I die in the service of that Justice that's fine um you now have a loop because you you don't have a way to back them out of that by saying well I have a better goal for you right look at your son your daughter because my initial reaction and I still believe the following statement is true but it's probably incomplete and probably a little naive uh but when I think about whatever the solution is going to be the solution is going to involve Palestinians believing that their kids have a bright future and the they don't believe they have a bright future all hope is lost now them believing that their children have a bright future now that comes down to definition of bright future uh and a bright future is being a martyr that becomes more problematic uh so anyway I fully acknowledge that I'm thinking through this I'm so early in my thought process I do not have enough of the information but I do think it's valuable uh for people to leave breadcrumbs about how they think through a problem um so yeah very very interesting all right uh I want to go back to something that you said a minute ago you were saying I would go over and ask how many able-bodied people do you have you didn't say men and I'm assuming you didn't say men for a reason what are your thoughts about female leadership in battle well in a situation like that where we've got a limited number of people and I can take females and put them on sniper rifles and put them into positions where they can utilize their skill sets that they have that's of course in any when you have an existential threat you're going to you're going to need everybody so I mean that's one of the reasons Israeli the Israeli military does have prominent female um members I mean everyone serves male and female and Leadership specifically do you see any difference in um ability at just a general level well yes all leaders have various levels of ability but that's what I mean like on on aages so average male average female um certainly there's strength discrepancies but are there leadership propensities that differ you know I work with all kinds of male and female leaders and the good male leaders and the good female leaders all have the same fundamental characteristics and they follow the same principles and all the bad leaders that are male and female all have the same terrible idiosyncrasies and and Egos and emotional issues and so it's more based on the individual human being than it is based on what uh whether they're male or female uh do you find that guys have a problem following a female Superior I'm sure some guys have a problem following a female Superior and I can also tell you factually that there are many many guys that have a problem following male right superiors so if some if if you're a guy with a big ego you don't like listening to anybody and you'll find whatever thing it is about them oh freaking Tom is not you know he's he hasn't been to college or Tom he hasn't done this job before or Tom he doesn't even know what it's like to whatever I can find plenty of reasons that I shouldn't have to listen to you and if I can make it because you have uh brown hair or whatever or make it because you're a female it's all it's all just ego talking and it's you're going to find that that person that doesn't want to be led by a female is going to have whatever kind of beef with whatever kind of person is in that situation if you were would you have a problem following a female leader no yeah no I mean I've got so uh well three of the bigger companies that I have um Joo fuel which is a supplement company our our coo is is a female Echelon front which is a leadership consulting company our our coo is a female so and and then origin USA which is a clothing Manufacturing Company our coo is a female So In fairness though you're the CEO of all those companies so while you clearly have high level leadership that are women uh if if you and let's put it on the battlefield if you had a um high- performing very competent female leader platoon leader sure uh would you have any problem falling in line and following her the way that you would follow any male leader of similar competence so hold on a second you're asking me right now if there was a highly competent leader yep that I had to work for would I have any problem with it yes if it was female like this is no Factor this it's it's no Factor yeah I I agree violently I don't understand why anybody looks at anything other than competence so if if a woman if a anything can lead me to where I'm trying to get to that is all I care about I find it very weird that people don't use as their North Star utility efficacy like is this going to work or not I mean the discrepancy that you already mentioned which is the discrepancy in combat is the is the physical component that's the discrepancy in in a combat situation is uh generally speaking females are smaller and weaker and so in combat that depending on your job that can be a significant issue and sometimes your job isn't what you expect your job to be because sometimes your job is picking up your friend that weighs 200 lb and then another 200 another 70 pounds with gear on and that's a problem so so for for when you're talking about specifically in combat there's a there's a physical discrepancy that that that causes women to very seldomly have the physical capability to be in combat units it's why they they're not a ton of them in combat units I mean there's been some females have went have gone through Ranger school um so I think there's been yeah so obviously there's females have gone through Airborne School but there's there's I think there's there's an infantry Marine right now female I I believe but I'm not 100% sure but that's that that boils down doesn't boil down to their um cognitive capacity or anything like that or their leadership capability it just boils down to their their biological uh structure yeah I mean I partly asked just so that people can hear you somebody obviously that they will really respect at this level um say the the north star's competence yeah I think is very very wise as we move forward as a country there is a very big potential that we could face China as a a either cold war or flirting with a hot War if something kicks off in Taiwan is that something that you think about uh is it is it something that you think is plausible would you ever want to see American boots on the ground in Taiwan definitely not I definitely wouldn't want to see that but I don't think it I don't think the I think the Chinese will wait I think the Chinese will wait and let us let us um let us go to war with ourselves first and when we're going to war with ourselves even not not even a hot war in America but just a a cold war in America a cold Civil War which is like sort of what we're in the beginning of right now and you know it's funny now that I think about it you know I mentioned that hey These people aren't willing to sacrifice in a hot War but we could definitely get into a cold Civil War here where we can't progress we can't make decisions and if China can do wait until we're at kind of the height of a of a cold Civil War they could probably get away with anything and they know that yeah ch is patient uh that is for sure they think in much longer time Cycles than we do um yeah it it will be very interesting given how much technology comes out of Taiwan it's so critical it really will become a question I think of uh if XI ever feels like he's got time pressure on him and he needs to make a move um I don't I'm not close enough to that whole thing and how X thinks but um certainly talking to enough highlevel people that there's some concern even if it's not necessarily foot on the gas My Hope Is that the Chinese economy has taken a big enough hit uh right now that they're just not going to be in a position where now would be the time we'll see we'll see uh I don't like kicking the can down the road for somebody else just to have to deal with it I'd rather figure out a way around the problem certainly felt a lot better when we were a far more Global Society uh but the unwinding of that is very interesting speaking of that in fact uh you manufacture in the US so this it is that in some ways a reaction to the gutting of American manufacturing as we globalized or it's 100% it's 100% a reaction to that we took our manufacturing and we sent it overseas and we are bringing it back to America so it's 100% a reaction to that and is that for uh we need a thriving middle class what's the what's the on the ground result you want to achieve bring manufacturing back to America because that means you have a thriving minute uh middle class it means you have the ability to manufacture it means you don't have to rely on on people overseas to make things for you which is almost where we were at so there's a whole plethora of reasons I mean I grew I grew up in New England in New England all the manufacturing jobs were sent overseas especially in in the clothing industry they were sent overseas and we have literally bought machines from overseas and brought them back to America so we are 100% bringing it back so that we as a nation can become self-sufficient again not to mention if you care about look I mentioned Freedom a little bit during this if you care about Freedom at all and you're supporting companies that manufacture in overseas sweat shops whereas basically slave labor that's a problem and if you support environmental causes well when you manufacture stuff overseas they don't care about the environment at all they get done dying a pair of blue jeans and whatever's left over they dump it in the river which goes to the ocean kills everything they don't care when they have to put something in the wash to to to break down some of the material there's chemicals in that wash what do they do with that when it's done they dump it in the ocean they don't care they don't care at all they don't care about their workers getting injured they don't care about anything and so if you care about Freedom if you care about the environment if you care about the economy if you care about America being self-sufficient if you care about those things your goal would be to one of your one of the primary ways you could do that is to bring manufacturing back to this country and that's exactly what we're doing okay so self-reliance uh is something I am getting as one of your drivers I'm IM imagining you standing before the people that work at your company there I have done this at my own company so I know what this is like and one of the things I always tried to do was paint what does it mean to work at the time Quest right what does it mean to work there what what is the part of your identity that I want to breathe life into what's the galvanizing identity if you have one that you try to give your workers and I imagine that the sort of America American Spirit is part of that literally everything I just said and everybody that works for us knows and understands and believes in what we're doing and in what they're doing because they're what make it possible you you have to have people ready to work and that's what we have we have an incredible force of people that are that have these skills that are learning these skills and that are going to take these skills and continue to grow with us so they all they all innately understand understand the importance of this 100% that's what we're doing that's that's why we're doing it and that's what we're doing that's why we're doing it and those people are the why the the people that that that work with us they are the why we are the why it's America they all know that they all understand that there's this is and and it's actually been awesome to see because now I'm starting to see a lot more other companies are trying to bring manufacturing back I'm supporting as much as I can but everybody is starting to look around and say oh yeah we need to bring manufacturing back to America and it's happening it's it's absolutely happening and look Co helped out with that as well right because all of a sudden you had the shipping problems you had the Customs problems all that stuff made people realize how weak our supply chain was and good companies looked around and said that's not a that's too vulnerable of a position to be in and it is too vulnerable of a position to be in not only for a business not only for an economy but for a nation you can't be riant on other countries especially adversarial countries to to allow you to buy goods from them that's insanity but our corporations corporations in this country they decided that profit was more important they decided that if they could make a pair of blue jeans for $2 less and make $2 more and fire a bunch of American workers and shut down our supply chain they decided it was worth it and they did it and then they lied because they lied they lied to us and have said we don't have the ability to do that anymore that's a lie that's a lie this is America this is America we can make anything and we will and we're going to show the world that's dope man so as somebody who also manufactured here in America at the beginning of quest I can't speak to it now because I left but um when I was there all of it in America and it was awesome now the crazy thing is I don't know if this is true for you as well but we were Manufacturing in Compton city of Industry like places where people came up hard hard and to be able to give people a legitimate business where they had opportunity to grow and to get health insurance and um just be a part of something and especially in the early days when nobody knew who we were and it was just like all right we're here to do something like we're because we as a company had a mission that we were really trying to turn Health around and that we so my wife and I uh have said for a long time it doesn't matter who you are today it only matters who you want to become and the price you're willing willing to pay to get there and so we were talking and I was like do we really mean that or is that just some cool rhetoric and we were like no we we really do mean that and I was like okay then if we mean that we should be willing to consider somebody for employment even if they have a felony conviction and she's like yeah so I was like went to my partners I'm like what do you guys think they're like yeah let's do it so we decided to tell people hey even if you have felony conviction we'll consider you for employment we had people lined up around the building to interview I had to interview people in groups there were so many people coming in we were growing so fast and I remember telling them at one point I started what I called quest University and I said I will teach you anything you want to know about entrepreneurship and the reason I'm going to I'll come in early I'll stay late I'll teach you how to build a competitive nutrition company and the reason I want to do it is I really believe that if you understand that I care more about your future than your own mother that you're probably going to stay here and if you if the more empowered you get the more likely you are to leave one fine like if you can go off and do amazing things in this world I'm here for it but I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to retain a ton of you just because you're like yo this really matters and this means something to me and thank you and dude it ended up being exactly that like seeing that moment where somebody thinks um because I remember one kid came in and told me cuz I would give them like guys you have to understand like you see an after picture of who I am now you don't know who I used to be and it's just a set of ideas it always comes back to that for me that took me from when I was broke and had no idea how to control my life to now running this billion- dollar company and I can teach you those ideas and it will have a similar impact on your life and this one kid came to me and he's like but I you know I I just have a hard time believing in this because my mom told me that people look that look like me uh the world doesn't want them to succeed and I was like homie listen you cannot think like that and Kobe Bryant has this incredible quote booze don't block dunks and I was like you can get so good at something that even if people want you to fail they can't stop you and so the goal is just to get that good get so good that nobody can stop you from doing this thing and so just so many of these guys went on to change their lives and do incredible things and obviously Quest ends up becoming this historic uh run and partly because we just had so many people there bleeding to make it happen it it really was extraordinary so from the outside hopefully people want to bring manufacturing back to America but when you're in the middle of it it is intoxicating of like the sense of Pride and creating something and being a part of something it's it's really pretty incredible I see the exact same thing on all fronts I mean ashon front our consulting company we got people traveling around the country in the world teaching people these leadership principles that's going to make their life and their business so much better the the supplement company Joo fuel the the extent that we went through to make the cleanest possible product was extraordinary and everybody on the team knows that the standard is so high it's unmatched um the the the energy drink here like this is just to give you an indication I didn't want to have chemical preservatives in it and so the only way to overcome that was to pasturize pasteurize the drink which means heat up and there was no lines that had pasteurization tunnels to make the drink in America at all at all so we pushed back our timeline almost a year and had a line built that had the pasturization in it so we could put the cleanest product out there that and my standard is like the the anecdotal standard for me is I want my kids to have this so my own kids I want them to drinking this it I don't want to make I'm not going to make anything that I wouldn't be happy that my kids are drinking or consuming and that's the standard so everybody knows it there and then yeah at origin USA say same thing everybody knows and they know they've got an opportunity especially you know you go up into well we got factories in North Carolina we got factories in Maine those are areas that were decimated decimated and now no jobs and now we've got people that were from that industry are now coming back and they're taking that knowledge and passing it on to the next generation and is just phenomenal and you have the the the feeling that you get and we we do the same thing like hey we we invest as much as we can into our people and sure they can look around and go I think I could go do this myself okay I'll invest if you you want to go try this go but most actually almost every one of them says no we want we're we're in we're on the we're on the train let's go so it's uh it's an amazing it's an amazing opportunity and a blessing to be able to have this opportunity but I think that this mentality is is is spreading because people recognize again due to covid due to what's going on in the country I mean one of it's one of the problems that we have why are people sitting around looking at social medias because they don't even they don't have a career that they are invested in they don't have a skill set well if you come and you learn how to work Al Loom and you learn how to weave material all of a sudden you got a a job and a skill and value and that's awesome so I I think these things they're going to have impact and they're going to continue to have impact not just you know from an economic perspective but really from a cultural perspective inside the country So speaking to that meaning and purpose finding that at work one thing I've heard you say that um we're looking at the same data and we're seeing something very different is you say I hear all the time that young men are really struggling there's something unique going on there's nothing unique going on this always been an age that people go through whether you're back in the 40s 80s whatever it doesn't matter you're always going to see it um I look at the data and the data seem to suggest that there really is uh something unusual happening I wrote a bunch of the statistics down um so according to Mission Readiness um 75% of 17 to 24 year olds uh back in 2009 were ineligible for military service due to lack of Education obesity and other physical problems that numbers declined to 71% but hasn't exactly uh gone to a great number the former under Secretary of the army Joe reer said imagine 10 young people walking into a recruiter's office and seven of them getting turned away we cannot allow today's Dropout crisis to become a national security crisis men are physically weaker than they were 30 years ago grip strength is down 26 lbs for men age 25 to 29 obesity rates uh for young men have Skyrocket for young people have skyrocketed skyrocketed fewer young men are having sex that one's a big trigger for me uh more men are committing suicide which obviously is terrifying anxiety and depression rates are off the charts uh and the military in general just has a recruiting problem largely for the thing that I said above but also there's just a negative sentiment against the military um but you look at that and you think same as it ever was well you know according to your numbers it's not same as it ever was so if you think you're a person that's listening to this right now and you might be on that list for one reason or another I got some ideas for you go to the gym start training Jiu-Jitsu clean up what you're eating try and figure out a skill that you want to learn go learn that skill go be productive go make money go meet some girls apparently if you've got some issues where you're not having sex so I think these are all things that you can you can remedy I mean they're clearly things that you can remedy and as far as the military goes what they probably need to do is some kind of a program where we take people that aren't physically ready for the military and put them through a program for four weeks and you could probably get just about anyone ready for the military in four weeks of training maybe six weeks so yeah that's uh it's sad to hear those things you know it's probably the reason that I don't see a lot of it is because well I own a gym in San Diego California called Victory MMA I own a gym and guess what the Gym's filled with a bunch of people that are trying to get better a bunch of men and women and girls and boys that are in there training learning Jiu-Jitsu lifting weights doing pull-ups like it's that's what I see and it's and it's a lot of them and then obviously the supplement company you see people all the time we sell a lot of product why we doing that well because people want to get better they want to eat healthier they want to be they want to have clean fuel in their system so that indicates to me that people are shifting in the right direction and ashalon front we do events all over the country often times when we do those events the questions that we get asked are about being being physically in shape how to manage your health how to stay on the right path so even though there's some anecdotal information and it's not even anecdotal even though you've got some facts there that paint a pretty sad picture I would go so far as to say we might be at some kind of a bottom of the trough right now and people have recognized that that's where we're at and now people have turned the corner and recognized that we got to get back into shape get off of your phones get out into the gym get into the field get outside go walk go hike go run GO train Jiu-Jitsu and go get after it and I think that is again I would venture to say that we are probably at the bottom of a trough right now and we're climbing out of it and we're about to rebound and end up higher on the other side how's that for some positivity coming at you I like it it was good it was very as well that's what I see all the time that's what I see I see these people I I I have a gym I go to I see these people every single day and there's new people signing up every single day we sell supplements that make you stronger and healthier and people buy them all the time that's a huge indicator of where people's minds are I think Co helped because I think during Co people started doing research people started to recognize how important it was to be healthy so I think there's some things that are going to swing swing us out of this trough and we're going to be stronger faster and smarter than we ever were in this country I love it I'll sign up for that message uh when people ask me hey I want to get into business what should I do the first thing I will tell them very often is get in the gym and get in shape why do you want to see people uh get control of their body that's using my language but why do you want to see him get in the gym because everything else in your life will get better everything everything else in your life will get better everything else in your life why do you think that happens you know take take your car to the shop and get it tuned up it's it's going to do better it's going to do everything better it's going to accelerate better it's going to break better the radio is going to sound clear everything's going to be better going to smell better why do I need my body to be in shape yeah it's it's it's it will help everything that you do if you start to exercise and I recommend look exercise whenever you can you got to make it work I recommend you exercise in the morning I recommend you get up you get out of bed you go exercise get on a program it doesn't matter what the program is and if you're if you haven't worked out in 20 years and you're totally out of shape cool start by start by walking start by doing a 10minute walk 15 minute walk then a 20 minute walk then a f minute Jog and then a 10-minute Jog and then get yourself a pullup bar and start hanging on that thing and then start doing a couple push-ups like just start to build and every part of your life is going to get better it's it's not just oh this knucklehead jonco sitting here saying your life is going to get better no you will be healthier you will be more cognitiv cognitively aware of what's going going on like your brain is sharper when you're exercise your you will sleep better you will think more clearly everything's going to be better you'll perform better at your job no matter what that job is so yeah go get after it yeah I I really agree this is one of those um I think the best thing I ever did for getting good at business was get control of my body uh one to get control of your body you first have to get control of your mind that helps and then there's also this really fascinating thing that happens that when you realize I showed up every day consistently I pushed myself to failure I did things that were hard that were I was very awkward in the beginning and my body changed I was able to you know um bend over and pick up a weight that when I first came into the gym I could not do it's really hard to track when you're getting mentally more capable it's very easy to see that you're getting physically more capable and so those two things correlate for sure they correlate so when you become more physically capable you will become more mentally capable when you become physically more resilient you'll become mentally more resilient that that is a that is what will happen that is what will happen for sure um talk to me about fear and compartmentalizing that so this idea of get after it I love that again another thing I think people are Intoxicated by with your personality is um as you've said many times but people look at Buds and and it is this mental thing of could I do it right the number of times I've asked myself whether would I make it uh I think 15% or something make it um so that's part of this um but also just you've been in a situation where bullets are flying at your head and you've had to be calm and detach and step back and tell people where to go and face that I could make a call that gets somebody killed um that you're not playing a game that on the other end of your gun is a a human whose life you are actively trying to take and victory is killing them it's surreal it's something that that operators touch a lot but the rest of us man that that is like the most unfathomable I can't believe this actually happens to people kind of thing and so the fact that you can control your mind in that situation is unbelievable how how do you control your mind is it just exposure H how do you get yeah there's certainly some exposure therapy behind it and and that's one thing I learned once I once I was towards the end of my career in the SEAL Teams and I was teaching and I was instructing and I was running the advanced SEAL training what I got to see was I got to see I got to watch How I could put somebody that doesn't have much experience into a pressure situation and I could watch them fall apart and then I could talk to them we could rehearse some things and you put them in another pressure situation and they'd be a little bit better and then you do it again they're a little bit better and usually there would be a moment of sort of a profound moment where I don't know what's a good uh it's almost like riding a bike you know how you can't ride a bike and then you can that's that's what I feel happens with the ability to detach and take a step back it's like you can't ride a bike and then you can or you you you can't you never stood up on a surfboard and then you did it's like that kind of thing so I'd see guys get a little bit better and then all of a sudden there'd be a switch that would go and they'd be able to take take a step back toach they'd be calm and how do we do that we put them in those pressure situations repetitively talk them through sometimes I'd have to be like there's Mayhem going on it's a training scenario but there's Mayhem going on there's paint ball flying everywhere there's explosions going off and I'm looking at you and you're the leader and you got a look on your face you're totally overwhelmed and sometimes I would literally say hey Tom come here and I I'd take you I'd pull you into the into the corner of a building where there's no paintballs gonna hit you and I go take a breath and dude take a breath all right look around take a look around all right what's your next move G to be and just by doing that you'd realize oh my gosh 25 seconds ago I was totally focused on that one window over there where I think we're taking fire from and I had this guy yelling over here and I didn't know what to do with him and I I I got someone was calling me on the radio and I didn't know what that was about I took a step I got myself into a spot where I could look around I took a breath and now I can see yep we need to flank the guy in that window the wounded guy is yelling a lot but he's going to be okay and I need to get my forces Consolidated on this building and it would be that clear so sometimes I would have to kind of hold someone's hand as they're detaching or I'd have to pull them out of the scenario a little bit so they would de facto be detached from it sometimes we take it if you were having a real hard time as a leader I'd be like all right Tom you you're coming with me as from the instructor Viewpoint and now you're not in the firefight anymore now you're looking around like why don't they just go over there you and I would literally be standing one foot away from the leader that's supposed to be making the call and you'd say to me hey why do why don't they just go over there and I'd say well it's easy to see right now isn't it yeah it's so so obvious why is that cuz your your your subordinate leader that's right there right next to us can't see this most obvious thing why because he's all emotional he's all caught up in the scenario he's panicking and you since you're not in the scenario you're one foot away and you can easily see the solution and so can I so what you need to do Tom is you need to learn that when you're in that Mayhem you need to learn to detach take a step back and look around take a breath and then make a call that's what you're going to do and that would help guys to have that Eureka moment where they went from being a panicked emotional overwhelmed human to being a calm detached squared away leader yeah I think that's really powerful and um that's something I want to train more in myself uh I think it's something that either I am I have just a mild natural advantage or uh just maybe business has put me in that situation so many times but I'm very sad that the following is a true story um a couple years ago Christmas Eve Man Of All Times we are having a party and uh the guy that we were gonna play poker and pay a professional dealer he comes in he brings a table all that set up the table I go in the kitchen to get a drink and my wife comes running in and she's like you have to hurry uh the Dealer's having a heart attack and I come running into the room and the only thing is to do nothing or deal with it there there's no gunfire or anything it's just this one person is now in a very bad situation and it was fascinating to see the different reactions in the room there were some people that just moved away the fact that they came to get me instead of dealing with the situation was already like okay that's interesting so I go into the room and you just go into uh I'm I'm a big believer Solutions ultimately are all the matter so it's just like okay one we need to assess what's going on because I looked at him I'm like he's not having a heart attack I'm like he's having a stroke and so stop identify and then you start telling people what to do you call 911 and come back I remember being trained on that call 911 and come back I don't know why that always stuck with me uh and then it was you know the person on the call is like hey you need to start doing chest compressions and and you just do the thing but it was I really had this strong impulse in me I don't want to be dealing with this and so I had to like step past that and I needed to have thought a million times before that moment just always look for the solution what's the solution move towards it so obviously you have to first know your goal to know what the solution is save this guy's life okay cool save his life what now are the Solutions in order to do that but it was interesting to me that there's still this tremendous amount of friction from the moment that my wife came in and said he's having a heart attack I wasn't like hurah I'm not that guy right I wasn't like oh my God this is great I get approved what you're just like I hold myself accountable in this moment to overcoming this friction becoming solution oriented and doing the thing but I was like if people don't sort of pre- rehearse have a plan train for whatever life is going to throw at you if they feel the same amount of friction I feel to not wanting to be in a situation where somebody is having a stroke it's [ __ ] terrifying uh they're going to back off and so you could just see that happen in the room where there was uh a small number of us that had obviously mentally rehearsed these kind of moments and so we handled it and then there were people for whom their rehearsal was I know who to get if anything ever kicks off and so they acted accordingly it's very very interesting and so um how do like for the average person that's never going to be in combat what are the things that they can do to answer questions like will I show up in that moment would I do myself proud they're never going to know if they'll do themselves proud in buds but will I be able to do myself proud in moments where they get hard like um Mark Divine does something coco or I don't know do you know Mark Divine I I know who he is maybe SE uh runs a sort of um buds for the average person who just wants to see if they can make it and it's done over three days or whatever um what can we do to better prepare ourselves to know who we will be in moments of difficulty do hard things whether that's uh you know waking up every day and working out whether that's going to Jiu-Jitsu class whether that's going to some kind of environment where there's going to be a stress that you're not used to what what what kind of thing makes you afraid oh Heights makes you afraid cool let's learn how to parachute oh public speaking makes you afraid cool let's go do some public speaking going out of your comfort zone and overcoming the butterflies that are going to be in your stomach and the little mini panic attacks that you're going to have go do those things and do them as often as you possibly can and you will get used to all these little feelings that that that arise when some pressure situation unfolds and it it's funny you said that you you had like a friction of when you're what well they came in and said hey something's wrong and you went into the mode of like okay well we're going to go solve the problem that's what you're used to doing you know you were the CEO of a company how many times say the manufacturing there's we got a call from the customer the shipping didn't happen you you dealt with a lot of problems a lot of problems and no they weren't like someone's life was at stake like it was in this particular moment but the process that you go through through we've got a bad situation okay I can run away from it that's not going to help I can complain about it that's not going to help I can Panic that's not going to help I can find a solution that's going to help that's what I'm going to go do and so you go out and you do things that are challenging and you will build some muscle memory of what to do in pressure situations so you don't panic you don't do dumb things and there's companies out there uh you know Tim Kennedy's got a company called sheep dog response and they do this kind of training my friend Mike Glover has a company called fieldcraft survival and they travel around the country doing events where you're going to put get put in pressure situations we have an event at echam front which is we call it the FTS a field training exercise so we we it's very leadership focused but it also provides some Panic scenarios because we're going to put you into simulated combat situations we have a really highspeed it's basically a laser tag system but it's a really high speed laser tag system we have role players we have explosions going off Smoke Filled air Mayhem going on missions to go accomplish and we get to see people panic people freak out we also get to see the switch turn where they go oh yeah I know I can't panic I know I can't freak out I know what I need to do is lead Step Up make decisions this is how I do it this is my protocol take a step back take a breath look around make a call we teach people how to do that that's what we do so the from a leadership perspective and from an individual perspective that's why we created a program like that field training exercise Echelon front boom you go in there you learn some basic tactics but it's not a tactical course it's a course to learn how to handle stress and how to lead in stressful Dynamic environments and when we get done with that when we when someone gets done with that course where they're they got a hostage to rescue there's explo expion going off they they're missing people out on the battlefield there's down men there's screaming there's yelling they go back to work on Monday morning and it's like okay you something's wrong with the supply chain all right talk to me talk me through the problem let's get a solution it puts everything in perspective and most important they learn a protocol of how to deal with stress and how to detach from that stress and how to lead in those stressful environments Joo may we never need need you as a warlord but good Lord I am so glad that you spend so much time talking to people and running companies and doing all this it's really incredible where can people follow along on your incredible journey jco.com that's that's real simple and then yeah I'm on I'm on all the this social media atjo willink so Instagram Twitter X I call it Twitter X now uh Twitter x Facebook I'm on all those things uh don't spend too much time on them you want to come on there and check it out then check it out but don't get sucked into those algorithms they're trying to they're trying to polarize you and send you flying in some extreme Direction don't let it happen that they are so yeah then joof fuel.com origin USA so I didn't I don't know if I mentioned the name of the company manufacturing stuff in America it's origin usa.com you can get Jiu-Jitsu GES jeans boots t-shirts hoodies all made 100% in America hunt gear all made 100% America so yeah origin usa.com and then ashon front I just talked ason front ason front.com that's where we do leadership Consulting leadership training and outstanding company I love it right on man all right everybody if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care peace if you like this conversation check out this episode to learn more where World War II looks different than World War II is that World War II is being fought through these proxy wars Third Country battles oftentimes poor or imp battles

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 483,185

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Jocko Willink, Impact Theory, interview show, podcast, mindset, success, motivation, personal development, empowerment, transformation, growth mindset, self improvement, leadership, social media manipulation, bot farms, political polarization, propaganda impact, emotional detachment, leadership influence, cognitive abilities assessment, psychological warfare, Putin's ambitions, nuclear threat, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, guerrilla warfare, asymmetric conflict

Id: L_PKYpZihqQ

Length: 182min 23sec (10943 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024