509: The Need to Lead: Lessons from Dogfights, Dunker Drills, and Ego Checks. With Dave Berke.

Summary

Jocko Podcast 509: The Need to Lead—Lessons from Dogfights, Dunker Drills, and Ego Checks

With Dave Berke
Date: October 8, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink welcomes friend, Marine Corps fighter pilot, and Top Gun instructor Dave Berke to discuss Berke’s new book, The Need to Lead: A Top Gun Instructor’s Lessons on How Leadership Solves Every Challenge. The conversation draws from Berke’s high-stakes experiences in dogfights, water survival training, and on-the-ground combat leadership—exploring how the universal principles of leadership apply in war, business, and life. The episode is a deep dive into the mindsets and attributes required for effective leadership, including humility, the dangers of ego, the necessity of detachment, and the reality that perfection doesn't exist—but relentless self-improvement absolutely does.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Writing The Need to Lead: Process and Inspiration

• Dave Berke's transition to author:
  • Initially wrote in a dry, after-action style, lacking emotional resonance ([04:26–05:49]).
  • Jocko’s feedback was essential: “People learn through stories” ([05:49]).
  • Learned the craft by iteration, realizing that storytelling is a more powerful way to teach lessons.
• Cover & Title Choices:
  • Multiple fighter jets adorn the cover—each meaningful to Berke ([07:03–07:47]).
  • The title, “The Need to Lead,” borrows from the classic Top Gun quote, but also reflects a genuine truth in leadership ([22:56–24:08]).

2. Leadership Lessons from Air Combat—“It’s Not About You”

• Opening Dogfight Story ([09:15–15:18]):
  • Berke believed his own skills would determine the mission’s success, but a dogfight humbled him—his wingman saved the day, and he learned it’s team execution (not individual heroics) that wins.
  • Jocko links this to the four Laws of Combat: “Cover and Move,” “Prioritize and Execute,” “Decentralized Command,” and “Simple.”
  • “This was the moment that dispelled the myth that leadership is about doing everything yourself. If you’re doing it well, you’re not the one out in front—the team is.” —Dave Berke ([15:18]).

3. The Universal Nature of Leadership

• From cockpit to family life:
  • “Flying is leadership. The attributes required to successfully lead a flight are the same ones that allow someone to lead anywhere.” —Berke ([21:00])
  • Jocko and Dave discuss how principles of military leadership directly apply to families, sports teams, nonprofits, and business ([30:03–33:19]).

4. Four Core Beliefs of Leadership (Echelon Front Doctrine) ([25:24–39:04])

1. Everyone is a leader
   • “It’s foundational...it’s not based on your position in the org. It’s for everybody.” —Berke ([26:31])
2. Leadership exists in every capacity
   • “There’s no uniqueness to the environment… The things you do to be successful with your team apply in every aspect of your life.” ([32:23])
3. Every problem we face is a leadership problem
   • “If every problem is a leadership problem, then by definition, the answer is leadership.” —Berke ([36:32])
4. Leadership is a skill
   • “That person you put on a pedestal—they learned those skills, which means you can learn them too.” ([39:04])

5. The Power of Story: Key Chapters Highlighted

Every Problem Is a Leadership Problem

• Combat Story—Pinned Down in Crossfire ([39:04–46:29]):

  • Inaction paralyzes. Only by choosing to act—though it’s risky—can a leader influence the outcome.

  • Quote:
    “Even when circumstances feel completely beyond our control, we still must act.” —Jocko ([49:03])

• Business Example—The Blame Shift ([51:47]):
  • Leaders blaming “them” or “they” are dodging responsibility.

Humility Is the Most Important Attribute

• Peer Review Gut-Check at Basic School ([54:09–61:53]):
  • Despite being top-ranked, Berke’s peers saw arrogance:
    “Lieutenant Burke would be one of the best Marines in the platoon if he didn’t already think he was.”
  • ego blinds self-awareness. Only when shocked into humility did he become a true team player.

Complacency Is a Killer

• Dogfight with “Trim”—Top Gun CO ([68:06–76:49]):
  • At the peak of his career, Berke was complacent, assuming victory—trim snatched it away with skill and experience.
  • Quote:
    “Be unrelenting. Leave nothing to chance… coax every inch out of that jet. It could save your life.” —Trim ([73:47])

Detachment Is a Superpower

• Water Survival “Dunker Drill” ([80:03–91:40]):
  • Underwater panic is the most literal test. You must detach from emotion and assess objectively, or you fail.
  • Key to applying detachment everywhere: recognize your own “red flags” (clenched fists, raised voice, withdrawing, etc.) ([89:03]).

Perfection Is a Lie

• Carrier Landings (“Wave Off, Bolter”) ([96:06–114:36]):
  • Under stress, Berke tried to hide deviations, chasing perfection instead of making small, constant corrections.
  • “The sooner you accept your deviations, the faster you’ll fix them… There is no perfect pass. I’m just looking for corrections.” —Chip, LSO ([112:29])
• Standards:
  • The highest grade a landing gets is merely “OK”—perfection doesn’t exist.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Leadership Beyond Combat

• “The attributes required to successfully lead a flight are the same ones that allow someone to lead anywhere.” —Dave Berke ([21:00])

• “If every problem is a leadership problem, then the answer is leadership. And that’s the most liberating...Because you can go, here’s 30 things I can do differently.” —Dave Berke ([36:32])

On Ego and Humility

• “Lieutenant Burke would be one of the best Marines in the platoon if he didn’t already think he was.” —Peer feedback ([57:34])
• “Self-awareness was zero.” —Dave Berke ([58:24])

On Complacency

• “99.9% of the time, what you had would have been enough to win. But not this time. Be unrelenting. Leave nothing to chance.” —Trim ([73:47])

On Perfection

• “There is no perfect pass...the sooner you accept your deviations, the faster you’ll fix them.” —Chip, LSO ([112:29])

On Detachment

• “If you freak out underwater, you 100% are going to fail. There’s no—you will fail.” —Jocko ([82:12])

On Learning and Growth

• “Leadership is a skill. That person you put up on a pedestal—they learned those skills, which means you can learn them too.” —Dave Berke ([39:04])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–04:26] — Introduction, Berke’s background, The Battle of Ramadi, origins of the book.
• [09:15–15:18] — Opening dogfight story; lessons in teamwork and humility.
• [21:00–32:23] — Leadership in and out of combat; principles are universal.
• [36:32–39:04] — Every problem is a leadership problem; choosing ownership.
• [54:09–61:53] — Ego check, peer review, humility, and the journey to true leadership.
• [68:06–76:49] — Dogfight with Top Gun CO; confronting complacency.
• [80:03–91:40] — Water survival (Dilbert Dunker); learning detachment under stress.
• [96:06–114:36] — Carrier landing story; perfection is a myth, value of self-correction.
• [114:36–End] — Book promotion, advice, wrap-up, and closing quotes.

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Key Takeaways

Fundamental Leadership Mindsets:

• Every problem is a leadership problem: Don’t focus on external causes—take internal ownership.
• Humility over ego: Greatest growth often comes from painful self-assessment.
• Combat complacency: Past success breeds risk; relentless vigilance is key.
• Detachment is essential: Emotional panic, whether under fire, underwater, or in conflict, blinds leaders.
• Perfection is a myth: Constant, honest correction beats the pursuit of flawlessness every time.

Universal Application:

• The principles forged in combat and cockpit are equally vital in business, family, and ordinary life—leadership is always the answer.

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For Further Learning

• The Need to Lead by Dave Berke available for pre-order—releases October 21, 2025.
• Visit Echelon Front or ExtremeOwnership.com for leadership training, development, and resources.

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Final Words

“Keep our egos in check and keep trying to improve… Without that brutally honest self-assessment, failure becomes imminent.” —Dave Berke, The Need to Lead ([126:02])

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Transcript

[A]

This is Jocko, podcast number 509 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. In the Battle of Ramadi 2006, every single operation conducted by coalition forces was critical. It was an all hands on deck. Violent insurgents controlled two thirds of the city, regularly launching complex, coordinated attacks on friendly forces. Every day, American service men and women were wounded or killed. To overcome the enemy, or even to survive, we needed to work together. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines brought their specialized equipment, skills and war fighting ability to the fight. During that battle, I was the commander of SEAL Team 3's Task Unit Bruiser. For a small unit, we had a relatively powerful and unique capability. Highly trained snipers, forceful breachers, aggressive machine gunners, crafty point men, and elite combat medics. But in order to maximize our effectiveness in this battle, we had to integrate with the conventional units of the army and the Marine Corps. These were the circumstances in which I met Dave Burke. He was a distinguished graduate of the rigorous Marine Corps Basic school. He finished at the top of his class in flight school and became a naval aviator. Based on his stellar performance during flight training, he was selected to become a fighter pilot. As a Marine Corps single seat F A18 fighter pilot, he was selected to attend the Top Gun School. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, he flew countless combat missions as a pilot and landed hundreds of times on that tiny patch of steel in the ocean called an aircraft carrier. The Marine Corps then chose Major Burke to return to Top Gun as an instructor, where he was eventually selected to be the lead instructor at the Top Gun School. But I didn't know any of this about Dave Burke when I met him in 2006, and I wouldn't find out about any of it for years. He didn't mention a hint of this impressive pedigree when we met. Instead, he simply said, I'm Dave from Anglico. We're here to help you guys out however we can. And we certainly needed his help. And that right there is an excerpt from the Forward, which was written by me for a new book which is called the need to Lead. A Top Gun Instructor's Lessons on How to Leadership Solves Every Challenge and is written by my friend, my coworker, and my brother in arms from the battle of Radi, Dave Burke. And he is joining us to discuss his book and some of the lessons from his experiences flying fighter jets, supporting troops on the ground, serving in ground combat, and of course, leading Marines. Dave, thanks for joining us. It's good to be here. Yeah, man. I guess that I am somewhat to blame for this book. Is that a fact that's valid? Yeah. I was encouraging you to write it. You know, you and I would talk about. We'd be at events, we'd talk about leadership, and you would give your perspective on something. And I eventually said, hey, man, you. You know, you should. You should write a book. And you eventually complied with that. And I kind of regretted giving you that advice after I got the first draft of the first chapter or whatever it was, because you wrote like, a military after action report. You wrote like someone who was a Marine Corps officer for 24 years. Not a lot of. Not a lot of emotion in your writing. So, you know, we had a bunch of conversations about that, and, man, it got better and better each iteration. So glad you wrote it. It's fantastic. It's. It's way better than I could have hoped for it to be. And here we are. What methodology did you use when you were writing it? Were you like a hour a day guy? Like, I am.

[B]

I. I started like that, and. And to be honest with you, I. It didn't work, at least not for a while, because I'd get these fits and starts. Like, if I had stuff on my mind I wanted to write, I'd sometimes write two, three hours at a time. Other times I sit there and I'd write for 15 minutes, and I'm like, this is just garbage. So I didn't have the same discipline approach, and you had given me your advice on how to do it, and I tried to do that. And then other times when I got into it, I was able to, like, I'm gonna bang out an hour every day. And it got easier to do that over time.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. You kind of have to escape gravitational pull, and once you get in your groove. That's probably a really good point. Yeah, I never really thought of that before. So in the beginning, were you hunkering down and, like, all right, I just got to try and write this thing? You probably got caught. Did you get caught up in, like, rereading what you wrote and be like, ah, this actually sucks. I got to do it again or not really?

[B]

No, constantly. Yeah, absolutely. I knew, like, I wasn't. I never thought of myself, like, as a good writer. I know it wasn't, like, a naturally good writer, but I didn't. I totally underestimated how hard it would be to write this book the way that it was written, and also just do what you said, which was just tell a story. In fact, I'VE gone out of my way most of my time to, like, I'm not going to waste my time with the details. Here's the chronological, you know, the sequence of events and here's the outcome, like an after action report. So I didn't really know how. How else to write. And it was really evident at the beginning.

[A]

Yeah, people learn through stories. I mean, that's why, that's why that's a. That's the best methodology for teaching. Right. Storytelling. And so, yeah, the first copy I got or the first iterations that you. And what's cool about computers is you can see all these drafts. Like, we have the original drafts of Extreme Ownership and they're awful. They're just awful. Like, we didn't know what we were doing. We wrote it in the third person. Did you know that? We wrote it in the third person. So it was like we were talking about, you know, Leif, you know, I was talking about Jocko Willink, then did this. And it's like, bro, that's not how you convey a story, is by telling in the third person. But that's what we did. How'd you feel when you first got a copy in the hand. In your hands for the first version?

[B]

This version?

[A]

Yeah. Were you. Were you pumped?

[B]

I was. I mean, I was pretty stoked because. Not, not just because the time it took into it, but I. I'll be honest with you. Like, this is not something I ever thought I would do, ever. So when I. You had a book, it's got, you know, your stories and your name on it. It's kind of cool. I mean, it's. It's super cool. It also was a. It also meant like, hey, I was done. Like, I got it to a place where the editors, the publishers, people like you and I gave this to, you know, like, hey, you got to read my book. Is this any good? That meant it got to a place that it was good enough for the. To get out to the world.

[A]

The COVID of the book has some. What is it, five jets flying through the sky. It's got an F22, an F18 and F35. What am I missing? F16 and F16. Yeah, there you go. It's got all your jets on there.

[B]

Does indeed.

[A]

You feel good about that, don't you?

[B]

That part is pretty cool.

[A]

They snuck that in there. Did you advise them on that?

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah, you did.

[B]

I did not, man. It was. Somebody had a cool idea of, of, hey, we want to put, you know, we want to. It was some Top Gun Reference. Want to put some planes in the COVID And when they mentioned that, I'm like, okay, well, can I get them all on there? So I contributed to that, but it was somebody else's idea of using that. And then they gave me an example and had like, like Russian airplanes on there. I'm like, okay, well, if we're going.

[A]

To do this, we're going to do.

[B]

It, then this is how we should do it. Yeah.

[A]

My wife's friend Maggie was in town and so I ended up in preparation for this podcast with watching the original Top Gun. And yeah, I can.

[C]

That's.

[A]

That was your inspiration. So I can see where you got it from.

[B]

Indeed.

[A]

How often do you watch that? Do you watch that once a year with your son or anything like that?

[B]

I don't have a. There's no tradition of watching it, but I'll tell you, like, there's opportunity. It comes on here and there. Like, it's just, it's out there. You'll see it. It's, it's. I don't, I don't have like a date where I watch it with my.

[A]

Kids, but have you sat there next to them on the couch and watched.

[B]

Totally 100 how fired up is your son when like the start of those movies are just kind of cool. They're just, you know, the music and the build up, then it goes right into carrier flying. So it's hard not to think it's. It's awesome.

[A]

Yeah, it's super fun. Have you ever seen that? Like the actual recruiting numbers that the Navy did from Top Gun?

[B]

I don't think it's got to be epic. It. I mean, I've never seen the numbers, like officially the number of times I've heard someone tell the story about it. And I don't care who. You're like, if you're flying airplanes in the military right now, I mean, whether you were 14, like I was at the time, or you weren't even born, that movie has led a lot of people down the path of joining the military.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Which is awesome.

[A]

Cool. Let's get into the book here. Obviously, I'm not going to read the whole thing. And you did the audiobook, so I.

[B]

Did recorded the audiobook.

[A]

And so you can get the audiobook. The problem with the audiobooks, Look, I'm a fan of audiobooks, but this is the kind of book where get the audiobook. Cool. But you're going to want to highlight, you're going to want to put little tags on there, on little sections. You want to refer back to get that first edition going. Are you going to sign books if it's not first edition in the future can be walk away. So yeah, the book comes out October 21st. It's available for pre order right now. So pre order the book. Meanwhile, we're going to go through some of it right now and again I'm just going to kind of hit some of the highlights of of the book and then we'll get into it. This is you, your final mission as a Top Gun student right here and let's see how it goes. Tally one. I grunted through the strain of the GS. Within seconds I'd spotted the lone F5E Tiger, a tiny aircraft covered in chameleon brown camouflage paint, which was from my vantage, was the size of a thumbtack and had all but vantage against the desert floor below. This was the exact same plane used in the 1986 movie Top Gun. That gave Maverick and his wingman Goose similar problems, only this wasn't a Hollywood set. This plane was maneuvering for the kill against me. Showtime 11 is engaged. I, alerted to my wingman, resigned. I knew I had no choice but to maintain a turning fight with the F5, abandoning the plan to stay out in front of my larger formation. Fortunately, compared to the dominant F A 18 Hornet I controlled, the Tiger was a mediocre machine and I and one I expected to dispose of quickly. I'll end this in one turn and get back to business, I thought as I maneuvered for a shot. But my misplaced confidence was soon demolished by a magnificent counter maneuver by the supposedly inferior enemy, dashing any hopes of a quick kill. Despite my expectations, my adversary was exceedingly worthy and it was clear a prolonged fight was unfolding. For a moment I considered ignoring the voice in my head telling me this wasn't going well. Showtime 11 is offensive would have been the ideal call, announcing to the formation that I was about to dispose of the meager Tiger and return to my rightful place at the tip of the spear. I was anything but. In fact, the pilot at the controls of the F5 moved in a way I had never seen and made it impossible to kill. So I accepted. So I accepted reality detached from my initial frustrations and took on a new role. My job now was to tie up the Bandit in a close in dogfight, allowing my wingman the opportunity to shoot at him so we could try and get back to the formation. Around and around the Tiger and I went, plumbing plummeting toward the earth. Showtime 12 Fox to my wingman Called out, mercifully announcing that he launched a simulated missile against the Tiger. Terminate. Terminate the Tiger, which I eventually learned was flown by a Top Gun graduate called his theoretical demise. My wingman. And we had been in an actual. My wingman, had we been in an actual dogfight, landed what should. What would have been a direct hit. Showtime 11 terminated. I acknowledged the successful, albeit hypothetical, kill and was relieved that my wingman had at last ended this unplanned engagement. Now we could return to the larger mission. So there you go. You're flying this big formation. You get in this dogfight, you think you're going to kick this guy's ass really quickly. It doesn't happen. It takes some time. Your wingman has to come in and save you, and now you got to go get back to this formation that you're in charge of. But your formation had left you behind. They were on their own. And you end up being able to catch them, and you end up as tail and Charlie, meaning you're just bringing up the rear. And they go and accomplish this mission, and you don't fire a shot at the actual target you're going after. And yet the whole thing is a big success. And the mission got accomplished, and your team had dominated. And you go on to say that the final mission proved to be a perfect case study for many of the key lessons taught at Top Gun. Nothing ever happened the way I anticipated. Missions never went as briefed. Chaos reigned everywhere. And though I expected my skills in the cockpit to be the main determinant, flight leadership was absolutely the most important factor in my success. So there you go. Your opening story. That opening story right there, which I found very interesting. And you talk about the fact that you expected that what your job, you know, as a badass Top Gun, freaking maverick pilot up there, that you're gonna win the day. Yeah. And you talk about that in the book. And get the book so you can get all these details, but it doesn't matter. Like, what you did was a tiny fraction of what it took to get the mission done. And interestingly, cover and move is completely. That's. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah. Like, not only did your wingman have to cover and move with you, but you guys had to cover move for the rest of the formation. So that law of combat is very clear in this example. Prioritize and execute. Once again, you had to prioritize getting that guy away from the rest of the formation so that they could carry on and execute the mission. And then clearly Decentralized command. You're not giving orders anymore. The, the team is out there executing the mission and you're over here, you know, messing around with this, this tiger. So the principles of combat leadership and simple, you know, clearly, that one's, you have a simple plan going into it that the people know to execute. So you got all those bases covered. This was sort of like almost a eureka moment of, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm. This isn't about me.

[B]

I mean, I can picture that. I think that was. You have these moments in your career that dispel these, like, not just myths, but I think images. And we've talked about this on this podcast all the time. Like, there's this image of leadership which is like, all right, I'm in charge. Everybody just listen to what I'm going to say. I'm going to get up on the podium and I'm going to brief the team. They're all going to be super fired up and I'm going to lead them to victory. And it looks so cool. It's like this amazing image. And when I was the flight lead for this mission, I'm like, that's what I'm doing. I'm a student Top Gun. It's a graduation exercise. I'm leading it and I'm going to like, lead the team to victory. And that whole thing just gets blown up and like, there's a bunch of stuff's not in the book, but like, you know, we, we, we brief, we take off, we get ready, we kind of rally, we, we, we get in our formation, the bad guys take off, like, okay, everybody's ready. We make this big announcement and then like we start. And I bet you like, that was like 90 seconds into a 30 minute, 40 minute flight. But this thing, the whole whole thing falls apart. And at the time you're just like, this whole thing gets shattered in your head. And so there's all the detail that's inside the book. But part of it was like walking back to the debrief, like, thinking this was a disaster. And in the end, it was like, this thing was a total success. This thing was a total success, except I didn't do all the things I thought I was supposed to be doing. And the reason it was a success because of all the four things you just said, because a cover move, simple, productize, execute, and decentralized command. But this was the moment that dispelled the myth of, like, leadership is that you're doing everything and leadership is, you're out in front, leadership is you're the one, the team is following you. And in fact, if you're doing it well, it's all exact opposite is there out in front doing all those things. So it was a really strong visual lesson. I mean you literally, when you say tail, I'm like, I can still in my mind's eye, like see the four jets that I was following like 15 miles in front of me. I can see little silhouettes, I can see them on radar. I'm like, spent the whole day just like chasing down my team that's out there just getting after it and killing everybody and dropping bombs and doing all the things they're supposed to do. And I was just like cruising behind them. And that at the time was like, you feel kind of like a failure until you get to the outcome. Like, oh my God, they totally like crushed it. The team just totally dominated.

[A]

Roger, you go in a little bit of your, some of your past here. You talk about your, your once you saw the movie Top Gun, you're like, that's what I'm gonna do. And your mom, props to mom. She said someone's got to do it, might as well be you. And then you go into this mode of hey. And everything that you're doing is just focused on becoming a pilot. Becoming a. And you were up by Marine Corps base. So Marine Corps pilots seemed like the logical one. You, you just followed the required steps. Graduate high school, go to college, go to Marine Corps officer candidate school, get commissioned. And then it's the basics goal you say. For the next two years I was trained, evaluated and ranked against my student pilot peers. We competed in head to head to be selected for the same incredibly precise goal. The chance to fly Hornets off of a carrier. So flying Harriers off of a carrier. It's again, you and I talked about this before you how hard it is to land on a carrier. And we're going to get into that story at some point because this is a huge deal. It's kind of crazy that you would volunteer a human being. Not just you necessarily, Dave Burke. But it's kind of crazy you think about, hey, what, what you're going to do is you're going to volunteer for this job where you're gonna do this insanely dangerous thing over and over and over again for a 25 year career. That's when you think about that, like, hey, here's what you're gonna do. We're gonna give you this insanely difficult thing that requires all kinds of mental and physical skills. And it's insanely dangerous. And that's what you're volunteering to do for 25 years of your life. This is kind of a crazy thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Eventually you're assigned to a single seat carrier based F18 squadron stationed in Southern California, the exact one I told my mom about a decade earlier. Mission accomplished, you say, or so I assume. In a profession where being technically outstanding was the norm, what made a truly great pilot was how well they could lead. And again, I'm reading the introduction of this book, and you're. What you're kind of setting up is that being a pilot and being a Marine Corps pilot isn't just about being a pilot. There's, something that's, as you just mentioned, more important. What makes a truly great pilot is leading. And then you go on to say that there's all kinds of issues you got to deal with. Right. As a pilot. Complex formations, bad weather, enemy weapons. Like, all those things are hard. And this is what's interesting. The attributes required to successfully lead a flight are the same ones that allow someone to lead anywhere. And as a fighter pilot, you realized that flying is leadership. That's the. I would say it were. My guess is that recognition of that must have been, you know, what I could. We're talking about, like, the idea of writing a book when you started to recognize, oh, yeah, these things that I did in the cockpit are the same things that I did over here when I was leading Marines. That must have been a little, again, a little bit of a eureka moment.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. And certainly backtracking from the beginning, like when you're a little kid wanting to be a pilot. And then when you're going through all the training and stuff, they're not really talking about flight leadership. They're just talking about, can you do the things inside the cockpit and make the airplane do what it want? Like, can you be a pilot? So you spent all these years just like, thinking that's what flying is, and you've gotta be good at this skill and that skill, and you learn all sorts of how to navigate, how to drop bombs, how to fly in formation, how to fly at night. You. All this stuff you learn. And then at the end, they're like, okay, you're done. You, you, you graduated. You, you have your wings, you're, you're a qualified pilot. You have completed the syllabus, you are officially a pilot. And like, almost overnight, like, the next day you show up in a regular squadron and you're thinking, oh, I'm good. I know how to do, like, hey, Everybody is good at flying an airplane. Nobody cares about that here. Like, it's. It's. It's so assumed that nobody's going to give you any props for being what your grades were in flight. Nobody cares. They want to know how can you. Can you lead? And so then you have this discovery of. Of what flying really is about. And then at one point, you.

[A]

You.

[B]

And it took me a while. You make the link of, like, it's all leadership, is just leadership. And you get so wrapped up in the cockpit sometimes of thinking that this setting is so different, this environment is so different, this scenario is so hard to relate to that it must be different. And it's not. It's exactly. Exactly the same.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit. While the title of this book, the need to Lead, invokes the classic Top Gun movie quote. Echo. Charles. What? Do you approve? Disapprove. Totally approve, 100%. 1986 is back. Coming back strong big time. The need to Lead invokes the classic Top Gun movie quote. It is. Who thought of the title need to Lead? Is that you?

[B]

The idea came from two different people that I totally resisted initially. I'm like, that's just. I'm not doing that.

[A]

I remember you resisting this. You presented it to me. Yeah. As like a course of action you did not want to follow. You're like, hey, I'm hearing this. But I just. That's too. I think that's too. Too much. Yeah. How did they sway your mind? Who thought of it?

[B]

It's two different people I was doing some edits with. And. And the phrase inside the book, like, had been like, you need to lead your way through this. Or what's needed here is leadership. Like, the connection of needing to lead was all. It's all throughout the book. The whole book is like, you need to lead here, you know, or some. Some variation of that. And two. Two friends that I was working with, both at the same time, like, separately. And I thought the. The fact that it happened that they weren't coordinating with each other. And they both said it. I'm like, wow. I heard the exact same thing yesterday from. From my buddy who said that I knew there was something inside there, and they were like, people are gonna love it. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm not. I get fined for using Top Gun quotes. I can't use a Top Gun quote. Once I made the link between. It's a cool reference, and it's also 100% true. I was. I very quickly jumped on board with that idea.

[A]

The need to lead, invokes the classic Top Gun movie quote. It's undeniable truth. I experience it as a Marine Corps officer, fighter pilot, ground combat leader, husband and father. This book's purpose is not only to help the reader be a better leader, but also to understand that leadership is a universal requirement for success, no matter the environment. It is intended for anyone who seeks every day to improve themselves as a human being and to improve their team. Every person needs to lead in order to succeed. And then you ask the question, so, how do we develop these necessary skills? You kind of give a little background on how we all started working together, because you talk a little bit about you and me and Leif being on the ground in the Battle of Ramadi, what I opened up this thing with and what we were doing there, and then how we kind of connect, reconnected again. And you jumped into Echelon Front, what Echelon Front is. And, you know, you go through. And I think this is the first person. Well, this is. This isn't any. In any of my books. You go through the four core beliefs that underline our organizational leadership philosophies at Echelon Front. So the first one, everyone is a leader. Tell me about that one.

[B]

I mean, you cannot make it more straightforward. And, you know, I. Man, I could talk for a long time about what I learned about being a part of Echelon Front. And it's super obvious that, you know, I'm a leadership instructor, so I'm teaching with, and I'm working with clients, helping them solve problems. But the biggest part of that experience is what I have learned and what we as a team have learned about ourselves and about our company and about what we do over time. And, you know, I can't pinpoint the first time you said it. I can't look back and define a moment where that hit me. But the idea that you have had from the beginning is that every single person's in a leadership role. Every person is a leader.

[A]

And it's. You can go back and look at, like, a PowerPoint slide that I had from 2007, and it'll say, decentralized command. Everybody leads. Yeah. So it's like. But. But what's interesting is I bet there is the moment that you might have a hard time pinning down is like, at some point, you know, you probably heard me say that a hundred times. And then one time you went, oh, oh, I know what he's talking about. Yeah, like that kind of.

[B]

And I think that's how this stuff happens. I think that's how these lessons form. Toos is listen, every now and then something happens. It's just like, you know, a lightning strike. But a lot of the times you got to reflect back on these things and what it means. And one of the things I noticed, especially when we're working with clients, is, oh, we're bringing in this company to talk about leadership as, you know, the things that we teach and be like, oh, I'm not leadership. That's. That's my boss or my supervisor or that's the vice president or whatever. And all these frontline individual contributors are thinking, oh, this doesn't apply to me. You're like, no, no, no. This is for. This is for all of us. This is for everybody. These are universal things that we all need to understand. And at some point you realize, like, it's foundational to Echelon. Front is what we teach. It's not based on your, like, position in the org. It's for everybody. Every single person is a leader. And that's almost something. You can almost take that for granted. It's like, no, this is a core belief. Like, this is central to what we are and what we do. And it has to be written to down. It has to be explained. And. And when people hear that, they go, oh, man, like, their whole demeanor changes. Their whole point of view. When they're listening and participating, they're realizing this isn't about somebody else, this is about them. That is a powerful thing.

[A]

Yeah. There's something to be said about what I think when I think that Eureka moment comes for people is when they start to see the principles in the context of what they're doing. You know, like I said, you might have heard me say that a hundred times before. You were like, oh, wait a second. When I was that flight lead, even though I was the guy in charge, those other people. Oh. And it's like it crystallizes in people's minds, getting the context around the principles. And that's why I think this book is very powerful, because it contextualizes the principles into stories where you go, oh. And it just. It brings it one step closer. Brings the principles one step closer to someone being able to self. Contextualize.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What the principle is. Because if you don't feel it or see it in your world, it's very hard to understand it from a detached perspective where you go, oh, yeah, oh yeah. Everybody leads you kind of like, oh, yeah, okay, that's, that's cute or whatever. But when you actually go oh, wait a second. I'm on a construction site and my foreman didn't show up, and my next in the line started stepping up and other people started doing their jobs and making things happen. Oh, yeah.

[B]

Oh, oh.

[A]

Or they didn't do that, in which case nobody led, in which case nothing got done. So I think that's a powerful thing in. In the book. And it's, quite frankly, that's sort of the same format as Extreme Ownership in the dichotomy of leadership and leadership strategy and tactics. It's like, oh, here's a principle, and here's a story that's going to help you contextualize it. And, And. And unfortunately, you can't. Like, I can't just convey it, the context to you 100%. You just can't do it. You can't do it. You people have to open their minds enough to put it in their own context and make it work. But the more angles they can hear something from, the better chance they have of being able to apply it in their own lives. And I think that's why having all these books is great, because it might, you know, Echo might not understand one story that you told, but he might really understand one that Leif told, and he goes, okay, now I get it. Or vice versa. So I think that's what you're doing here in the book, which is awesome. Next, leadership principle. Leadership exists in every capacity.

[B]

Yeah, we. We spent time thinking about that, too, is the obvious case when we're at Echelon Front, working with a client is business leadership. A company calls us and we work with them, and they're our partners, and we're working through their challenges, we're training their people, we're dealing with whatever issues they have. And it's so front and center that you're talking about your professional life. And of course it applies there. We know that, but we've noticed this for a long time at Echelon Front, and I started to pay more attention to it as it happened more often was people would. They have so much gratitude for what the book Extreme Ownership did and what Echelon Front did to help them in their business. And then they go, hey, but can I ask you. Can I ask you a different question? And you're like, yeah, what's up? And they would tell a version of a challenge, and they, hey, this is great. You know, my team has been really good with this. You know, we've been doing decentralized command. It's been really helpful. They've been stepping up and Then they would say, but. And they tell a story like, you know, my kids really. They're really giving me a run for my money. They're really not. And all of a sudden, the question they'd be asking where they're really struggling was, was how does this work outside of work? Because they were doing great in their professional lives, and they walk in their front door, and things would kind of start to fall apart, and they'd be frustrated. And what we were able to recognize, but that you've known and we know is like, hey, this. These things that you're supposed to do, these things apply everywhere. There's no uniqueness to the environment. It's certainly combat leadership or principles for business and life, but the things that you do to be successful with your team apply in every aspect of your life. Now, it could be much harder to do at home. We know there's challenges inside there about detaching from your kids and all the frustrations that goes along with that, but the principles are the same. And it really, as you were just talking about a minute ago about how you have to have that moment of you recognize it for yourself when you make the recognition that, oh, my gosh, this is what I need to be doing in my personal life, in my family life, and the positive benefit that has that, to me, it was even more powerful than when it was at work, because it was in this environment that was giving the biggest challenges and to be quite frank, about the people they cared about the most. So you see the linkage, like, hey, this isn't just being successful in your corporate life. It's every aspect of life at home, at work, in your communities, and within yourself. Easier said than done, but it's undeniable truth. Those principles, they apply everywhere.

[A]

Yep. Whether it's a sports team, whether it's your family, like another. Another funny example that we'll get is I'll get someone that'll ask me, you know. Well. Well, you know, I. I actually run a nonprofit, and so it's different. It's like, oh, oh, well, you know, I can't fire them. Oh, oh. So when you're in a profit company, you know, you can just fire everybody. Oh, they.

[B]

You didn't.

[A]

They didn't want you. They didn't do what I wanted to do, so I just fired them all. It's like, no, you don't do that in. In any organization. Oh, in the seal teams, you can just. Oh, you can just fire someone. Oh, oh, really?

[B]

You.

[A]

You can just get rid of someone immediately. No, oh, you got to do, you got to walk them through, you got to give them the documentation, you got to do the same thing. And, and so these leadership principles, family, non profit sports team, you know, well, I work with, you know, 10 year old kids and when I, you know, when I tell them to do something, they don't do it. Freaking. It's, you know, I just, what am I supposed to do? It's like, oh, would you yell at them more?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Or bark orders at them and demand that they respect you because you're older than them and you're the coach, you know, like, like you can do that and you're going to get the results, you know, that you're going to get. You know, there'll be three kids that are scared of you, there'll be two kids that quit. There'll be one, you know, one family member dad that comes and talks to you like, why are you yelling at my kids? Another family member will come and you need to yell at them more. But you're not getting what you want from the team because you haven't established the culture correctly. So yes, it doesn't matter what organization you're in. Family team, non profit, for profit, military first responder. What's a potluck supper leader? Remember on the office, what was it? The office? They'd have the party committee. Right. It's a lot of drama around that. Party committee on the office. Um, leadership exists in every capacity and it's the same principles. And are there, are there nuances? Of course there's nuances. Of course there's nuances. Of course it's going to be a little bit different, but the differences are in your use of the tools, not in the tools themselves. But once you know the tools, then you got to work on learning how to use the tools. For sure. I wrote about that. Leadership strategy and tactics like woodworking tools. Hey, you gotta use a saw a little bit differently on a piece of pine than you do on a piece of oak. It's a dip. It's the same tool, but you got to use it a little bit differently. So that's what we're doing Next one. Every problem we face is a leadership problem.

[B]

Yeah, I mean you talk about core of why the book is what it is and why we say it would say is. I mean there's so much human nature involved here that we, when you run into a problem, everything inside you is going to try to attribute to something else. Oh, that's, that's that other person. That's the, the Economy or. Or that was the weather, or. The list is. Is. Is infinite of all the reasons why certain things have happened a certain way. And I think when you look at problems and you attribute them to things that are, like, beyond your control, two things happen. One is like, you feel good for a minute because you're like, oh, cool, this isn't my fault. This is a good feeling. Like, obviously it doesn't last very long, but there's a little bit of satisfaction of like, oh, this problem, not my problem. Nothing I can really do about that. And it's something I can't control. And it. There's some comfort that sits inside there. And then, of course, the next thing that happens is that that problem persists, which is the worst, because that. That immediate gratification of attributing the problem to something external actually doesn't help you. And so that feeling you get comes and goes very quickly. And what you're. What it's replaced with is the reality of that problem is there forever, which sucks. But if you change that point of view and like, if you look at everything through the lens of leadership, like, every problem, even problems with the weather, even problems with the economy, even problems with how other people are interacting, if you go, oh, those are all leadership problems, it stings a little bit. Like, oh, dang, that means it's me. I mean, it's the way I've communicated.

[A]

I'm the leader.

[B]

I'm the pro. Yeah, it's my problem. Right. And it sings for just a split second to have that. That recognition of, oh, this isn't those. This is a reflection of me. And what's that? What. What happens right after that is you are presented with the answer. And that's the best part about it, because the answer. If every problem is a leadership problem, then by definition, the answer is leadership. And that is the most liberating. That is the best feeling in the world. Because you can go, oh, here's. Here's 30 things I can now do differently. Here's different ways I can behave, different ways I can communicate, different ways of using that tool. And if you look at it like that, then all of a sudden these problems beyond your control becomes. They become solvable problems. And then people go, oh, I just led my way through this. That problem got better. My life got better. And it is just a core belief of, you got to look at every problem as a leadership problem. And if you do, leadership will be presented as solution, which is what you want.

[A]

Fourth component, leadership is a skill.

[B]

Yeah. That ironically, sometimes is the hardest one to. To. It's a. It's a hurdle to get over sometimes because, you know, we live in a world where if you. If you admire someone and people do it to you all the time, they put. Jocko's my leadership role model. And oftentimes it's like, must be nice, you know, to be born with all these amazing things that he's got and just, you know, you can put some up on a pedestal and think that somehow, like, you were born with all these skills. You were just naturally from birth. All the things that we teach, detached, humble, building, good relationships and all the. We admire those things. I mean, they're very easy to. To look up and aspire to, but sometimes you got to look at it and go, oh, how did that person get to be able to do those things? And what you realize is like, we're all in the same boat. We're all born with the same, for the most part, same tendencies, the same natural actions, the same natural behaviors. Now, we know this, like, with any skill. Like, there's some people, like, people are pretty musical. Put a. Put an instrument in front of. Some kids are better than others. Some kids are athletic. They're. They're good at certain sports. But if you look at leadership as a skill, learning to play an instrument, learning to play a sport, it doesn't matter what your talent is. You can have zero talent. If you practice it, you're going to get better. And we teach the skill of leadership, the behaviors and actions and the mindsets that you can apply. And if you apply them, you will get better. And if you look at it as a skill, it means you can improve. And all of a sudden, that person you put up on a pedestal of thinking, boy, they were just, I wish I could be like that, but I can't, because they were born like a. No, that's a normal human being. That person learned those skills, which means you can learn them too, which means you can become a good leader as well.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It would be crazy to say, oh, just this person just pick up a guitar and now they can play guitar. Like, it doesn't work. Now, like you said, there can be a person that can. They have really good ears for tone, and they can. They can start to pick out notes and be like, oh, I recognize that song. That is. That is a type of person. But, like, they're going to have to practice it. They're just not born with it, being able to play guitar. And it's the exact same thing with leadership. It is A skill you can definitely get better in, but you got to focus on it. That was all from the introduction, by the way, getting into the part one of the book, which is the Mindsets of a Good Leader. Chapter one. Every problem is a leadership problem. We roll right into Ramadi, Iraq. Foot patrol, May of 2006. Go into the book. A massive torrent of enemy machine gun fire erupted from the west over my right shoulder. Dozens of bullets buzzed just above my head. Tracers ripped past me, their telltale orange hue still visible despite the daylight. As they strafed the air, they forced me down and to my left in a prone position, flat on my stomach, putting the source of bullets directly behind me, almost in unison. The same thing happened from the east. Tracer flashes and bullets cracked over the top of me from the opposite direction, with waves of bullets crisscrossing directly above and beside me. I was the meaty part of a crossfire sandwich. In an instant, I lost control of the situation, and I was no longer able to do anything because I had done nothing to that point. I was now exposed. Being the stellar Marine he was, Mo constantly mirrored my movements. So he was right there when I needed him. And. And the radios. Having followed my cues that day, Mo was now in the exact predicament. I was exposed in an open area, pinned to the ground, and unable to move. My inaction had put him in danger. Doc was already 30ft ahead of me. He had pushed further up after the initial volley to get more to a more advantageous and protected location. Now he was safe, positioned at a huge behind a huge tree and kneeling in a small irrigation ditch that gave him cover from enemy fire. He was frantically gesturing and screaming for me to move to his position. The hell did you get your guys into?

[B]

Well, this is like the beginning of chapter one, and it sets the theme for every chapter, which is maybe one of the hardest parts for me was to write this book, was there are no, like, hero stories in this book. There's no story about me doing something right. And it was just forcing myself to look back on the things that I learned, the lessons I wanted to teach, and they all came from, like, really bad decisions. And, you know, the. The precursor of this giant. I want to call it a firefight, but I wasn't. I wasn't doing anything. I was just laying there. It was pretty brutal.

[A]

And by the way, I read an excerpt, like, get the book and you'll get the full story totally.

[B]

But the precursor to that was, like, a mortar attack. And you know this as well As I do. I mean, we do move them into contact. And like, there was always a mortar attack. And I convinced myself that, you know, that mortar attack, which the mortars probably landed hundreds of meters away, which might as well have been miles away, it was just kind of almost, in my mind, meaningless, is I had been presented a few minutes earlier in this situation that when we had taken this incoming fire, albeit like indirect and inaccurate, what I should have done was like, I don't know, basic leadership stuff, like called in the airplane, talk to the platoon leader, like, done things. And what I did was nothing. And there's a bunch of detail about what, why I did nothing. But all of it was like, there's nothing I can do about this mortar attack, right? Like, we always get mortar, so there's nothing to do. And so if there's nothing to do, you do nothing, which is the worst thing to do, which is a terrible thing. And here I am, like, doing nothing, and then that situation deteriorates. And by the time I come to the conclusion, like, oh, this is a really bad situation, I should do something, it's too late. I'm pinned down. There's more detail in that, obviously, but it was. It was bad. In fact, I'm lucky to be here talking about it, how bad that situation was. And I just remember laying there just swelling with regret, like, why didn't I just ask myself, like, why. Why didn't I do anything? And. And in retrospect, it's because I knew this was a problem I couldn't control. I was sure of it. So I didn't do anything. And that means the problem got infinitely worse, way more dangerous. And then I was now putting other people at risk. So the takeaway from that was like, dude, you, like, if you're dealt with a problem, lead your way through it, there's no guarantee that you're going to control every aspect of the outcome. That's not even the point.

[A]

But.

[B]

But doing nothing ended up being almost like, costing me and a couple of people that are lives. I'm lucky to be able to tell the story, and I wrote about it, but every problem is a leadership problem, and you gotta lead your way through it if you want to be successful.

[A]

I had. One of the. One of the elements in Ramadi was going out and going out to, like, northern Ramadi and taking a. Like a rural presence patrol. And they were kind of showing me the route. And, you know, I said, hey, well, it looks like you're going to go, you know, across this big open area and he's like, well, yeah, you know, if we were to try and skirt this, it would take a really long time and blah, blah, blah. And plus, it's not that good a terrain. So we think the best thing to do is just go across this open area. And I said, okay. I said, yeah, you know what? I said, do me a favor. Like, when you get to that open area, keep some guys in the tree line and, you know, the other guys can maneuver across that way if they get contacted, you'll have guys you'll. You'll be able to cover move out of that situation. And sure enough, the exact thing happened. And sure enough, they had really good suppressive fire and were able to get the guys out of the middle of the field. But very similar thing, but that's. That's the preemptive ownership which you talk about in the book. Like, okay, wait a second. As a leader going into the situation, what can I control? Do I need to get every one of my guys in a exposed area right now? No, I don't actually have to do that. I can. There's no rules. I can leave guys back over here. I can put some guys on this little berm, get a little high ground, be able to cover for their movement. Unless you just say, well, if we get mortar, because that group actually started with a mortar attack, you know, well, we're gonna get mortar. There's nothing you can really do about it. Well, maybe there's a little bit you can do.

[B]

Yeah, there definitely is. And that. That story is, like, the first in the book. And it was a. It was a hurdle for me as I first started writing, and at some point, I just kind of just cleared the hurdle, like, all right, this is what it's going to be. It's just I have to write a story about something I'm not proud of. I'm kind of embarrassed by. It was a huge mistake, but that's where I learned the lesson. Or to your point earlier, that's where that lesson really stuck in my, like, okay, that's when it really crystallized or solidified, and I had to recognize I was going to write a book that just tells a bunch of stories, that I'm kind of an idiot, and it sucks. But that's the moment that I. That really. And from that moment on in my life, I can tell you I reflect back on that constantly. When something happens, I don't make that mistake again. I lead. I don't always do the right thing, but. But I. I am able to recognize.

[A]

It'S Better than sucking mud. Yeah. Well, that's.

[B]

Yeah. So good times.

[A]

Give us real quick 2 liner on how you got out of it. Okay, maybe a 12, dude.

[B]

So I'm laying on the ground. I'm looking at Mo, my ready operator. He's looking at me. And I go through like 50 different iterations of what I should do. And everyone, as I calculate, I'm like, you're gonna die. Can't put your head up, can't move. Like you. We were like, you could not move. And as the, as the bullets are hitting in the dirt between us, you can feel, you know this, like, you can feel bullets movement, like shifting around, volume of fire. You can feel where it's going. It's going left, going right, going up. And it started to shift towards me. And I would say it probably got like three feet. I'm like, okay, this is it. And I, I, I'm. I'm 100 sure I'm gonna die. And I kind of drift off. I start, I start laughing a little bit like, like that, like that kind of laugh. Like, you gotta be kidding me, man. I'm kind of chuckling. And I say it out loud. As it shifts to my left arm the bullets, you could feel it shift up maybe two or three feet. And what I equate, if you can picture how far away these guys probably were shooting at us. The guy holding the machine gun, like, probably leaned back like 2 or 3 inches and it raised. The trajectory of the bullet a foot or two based on the distance, went up directly over my head and then started hitting the dirt to my right. And there is no explanation other than it's clearly beyond my control that that happened. And I looked at Mo, he kind of looks at me. I look up at Doc, and I'm like, we. And we both got up and ran the probably 20, 30ft that was there, dove into this ditch. There is no reason I, that there is no reason I should be here telling the story other than the divine intervention of those bullets and that shooter lifting its trajectory up and over my body, giving me another 10 seconds to get to cover, which I did. By the time I'm in the ditch, I'm laying on my back, Mo's on top of me. We're like bear hugging each other, bullets going directly over the top of him, missing him by, you know, a foot or so. That time frame window I can't account for other than beyond my control, man.

[A]

Well, I can actually completely attribute it. That's freaking poor muzzle control by the enemy machine gunner cuz you know, when you shoot a machine gunner, when you shoot a machine gun, it starts to go up. And so that guy just had poor. And even, even when you're a really good machine gunner, it's like you lean into it, but it's really hard even for the best machine gunner to keep that thing like completely dialed. You know, it's gonna, it just, it's just you kind of have to let it go in order to force it back down. So you got that little benefit of his poor muzzle control at that moment.

[B]

I'm glad he was so bad.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit. Getting to the principle here. The lesson we need to lead. Even when circumstances feel completely beyond our control, we still must act. Only then will we be. Will we be positioned to exert our influence, which will drive us closer to determining the outcome. By leading, we can overcome the feeling of victimization and instead understand the range of options within our power. By taking control of our preparation, reaction, and response to problems, we become a leader. When we reframe our mindset and see situations through the lens of leadership, we understand that things don't have to remain as they are. We can anticipate the challenges we may face, assess what our options are to solve them, and then take action and execute. It can be scary to accept the responsibility of leadership because our actions or inaction may endanger others and worsen the situation. But good leaders, those who choose to step up and act, are rewarded with the most critical component, the solution. Yeah, and I, we were recently talking about this fact that there's. You say that, hey, things don't have to remain as they are, and there are things that are going to remain as they are. And usually that the number of things that are going to remain as they are, that you cannot change. Usually that's a pretty small number of things. But the other things, man, you don't have to accept that. Just don't accept it. Like, we're just not doing that. Now look, does that. Can you change the terrain? No, you can't change the terrain. The mountain is going to be the mountain. But do you have to go over the mountain? No, you don't have to. You can go around it. You can, you can call for fire on the other side of the mountain. There's a bunch of other ways to solve that problems. And then, so then, like I said, like extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership, we now roll into like a business example, which is so such a good move because I think that the combat examples, because there's so much such high consequences. They really make you feel it. But then the business examples allow people to get the context that applies closer to their world so they can see it more clearly. So they feel it from the combat example, but they see it in their own world from the business example, which is a pretty epic way to convey a principle. This one starts off with and I don't know if you recognize this when you do this, but a lot of your real world application, your business start with a quote from someone in the someone in the scene. This one starts off with they don't care. And and it's just classic. You know, you talk to some leader and they're like, oh, what's going on with your team?

[B]

They don't care.

[A]

What's wrong with you? They don't care. It's just a classic quote to start off with. And I'm sure there's a millions of people that read this are going, oh yeah, I know exactly who he's talking about. Fast forward a little bit. I was working with a utilities company based in the Midwest that had hired us to train their team. They were sizable, had a good reputation by industry standards. This being a company town, their local war first workforce was robust. Many employees were second and third generation and some had been with the company for decades. These were hard working folks doing unappreciated work that literally kept the lights on. Over the past three years, accident rates had started to creep up. It was an unsettling shift after the previous 10 years had been the safest on record. Senior management noticed the unfortunate trend and wanted to stop it before it got worse than the recent near fatal incident that had occurred. A newer young employee was fortunate to have survived a fall that led to a broken bones and a stint in the hospital. Thus, I found myself in front of Ken, a manager who had a few incidents happen on his watch and was struggling with team morale. This new generation is all the same. They're on their phones constantly. They show up and expect things to magically happen. It's nuts. Ken continued, don't get me started on their work ethic. They don't care about anything. And again, what is he, what is Ken doing in that scenario? It's them, it's they. And it has nothing to do with him. And what you are able to convey to him in the story is actually Ken. It's not about what problems they have.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's a leadership problem. Yeah. And you help them solve it. And that's what this big. His book is filled with. Next Chapter Humility is the most important attribute as a leader. This possibly is my favorite chapter in the book. It's got one. It's definitely has, I think my favorite line in the book. So starts off with this word two, the number two. And you go on to explain that that's how many pilot slots there are. Because when you, when you join the Marine Corps or any military branch, you just don't say, hey, I want to be an F18 fighter pilot here, put me in the pilot program. No, you got to jump through so many hoops and wickets to get there. And you're in a class of what, 250 people? 250. 250 people. And there's two slots. Two slots to be a fighter pilot. A fighter pilot or just a pilot?

[B]

Just go to flight school.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Just to get into flight school, dude.

[A]

The Wickets, you and I sat down one night, we were having, or one night we were eating dinner, having lunch or something. But I remember we were talking about, about the wickets that you got to get through to be a fighter pilot. F18 single seat fighter pilot in the Marine Corps. Those are some freaking wickets. And you're like, well, you know, the seals have. I go, no, no, there's not as many wickets. There's just not. The Wickets are insane to get to the slot that you were in. And some luck because sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, there's no slots. We don't need any F18 pilots right now. You're going to fly this other aircraft. That's the way it is. So you, you know, you join the Marine Corps, which, what do you get when you join the Marine Corps? What's the guarantee that. What can they guarantee you when you join the Marine Corps? You're going to be a Marine. That's what you're gonna get. And if that ain't enough for you, we don't really need you. So you break it down. You go to OCS, you go to the basic school. 250 lieutenants are broken into six platoons, roughly 40 people. There's some people that have, I guess they have like a flight contract. So they get guaranteed, hey, you're going to be a Marine and you're going to be a pilot of some kind.

[B]

You're at least going to go to go to flight school.

[A]

You're just going to get a flight school. Yeah, that's kind of like my contract to join the Navy was you. You're going to get, you're not going to be a seal. It wasn't even you're going to go to buds. It was a contract guarantee that you're going to get to take the test to go to buds. Yes, that was the guarantee. That doesn't mean, by the way, that's what that is. So some guys had that. You weren't, you weren't one of those people. So you were just straight up, hey, I'm going in the Marine Corps to be an officer.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

No other stipulations around your contract? None. That's freaking ridiculous. So tbs, you're assessed in three different categories. The three different categories are military skills, physical fitness and leadership. So the military skills is like cleaning, rifle, shooting. Right. Radio frequencies into it. You kind of go through some of that stuff. So it's, it's military stuff. The next one's physical training. Obviously we know what that is. Obstacle course, combat conditioning course, endurance course. These are things that you're going to get graded on. And then the final one is leadership acumen. And the way they judge this is you get put in leadership positions and you might be, you might be in charge of a four person team, you might be in charge of a 250 person company, but you're going to be in charge and then they're going to grade you. And everything that you're doing is getting graded all the time. And this is the environment you're in. And by the way, you were working at Target like six months prior. You're working at freaking Target as a stock boy. Yep. So. And you have no guarantee whatsoever, which is freaking crazy as far as I'm concerned. So you're getting judged. And then you also talk about this part of the leadership grade. At tbs, a unique element of our leadership grade came compliments of our peers. Twice during the course, each lieutenant filled out an evaluation and assigned a score to every other member in the platoon. This grade directly affected our overall leadership standing. I knew the subjective ranking was part of our assessment and I wasn't concerned at all. In fact, I was looking forward to my first peer review debrief from Cub. This is your what, company commander? Yes, this guy Cub. He was going to be impressed and I awaited his praise. I can't wait to see what they say about me, I thought as I walked into Cub's office. So again, just to set this up, you're doing a peer evaluation. And as you do this peer evaluation, you're thinking about, well, this is just be another bonus for you.

[B]

I know what my ranking is. So I'm.

[A]

Wait, I'm excited because your ranking is what at this point, eight out of 250. So you're eight out of 250. This could be a nice little bump. Cub began by telling me that my grades were excellent, that I currently ranked among the top of the entire company, and that he felt as though I'd make a fine Marine one day. As anticipated, I felt great. I want to read you what I think is the best summary of what your platoon thinks. He said. Keep it coming. I thought Lieutenant Burke would be one of the best marines in the platoon if he didn't already think he was. So there you go. That's my favorite line from the book. That had to sting. Totally blindsided too.

[B]

Totally. It totally blindsided.

[A]

Self awareness was zero. Zero.

[B]

That's always the negative. If you could like have a negative score of like you were on the opposite, like, that's where I was.

[A]

God, that is a scary thing. And you know, from the aviation world, like not knowing that you're off track or not knowing that you're off course or not knowing that you're losing altitude, like not knowing that you're losing speed. Those are, those are kiss of death.

[B]

All of them, every one of us. You're 100% right. And I look back and like, I mean, you and I have known each other for a long time. We've known each other really well. I am 21 in this, like this 21. Just picture 21 year old Dave Burke and the, the, the concept of self awareness wasn't even in my head. Just, just the concept of it. So forget about like being realistic. It was so far when he said that. I mean, you could not have been more blindsided and shocked. And it was like, like my ear started ringing. Like I started sweating. I like, it was, it was, was brutal for me. It was awful.

[A]

Yeah, that's. It's such a difficult thing, that self awareness thing, because it's horrible because you don't know it's happening. Like, you're just completely unaware. I've always been very suspect of myself, you know, like, oh, and even, you know, leadership strategy and tactics. Same thing happened with me where my platoons, like my platoon chief's like, hey, dude, you're ostracizing yourself from the platoon. And I'm kind of like, what are you talking about, dude? I'm hardcore. What do you do? What do you, what do you think? You're crazy. Like, what do you do? What are we, what are we talking about here? And that's what makes it so difficult when people get caught in this vacuum where they have no, self awareness. And it's very, very sad to watch and very disturbing. And you go on to talk about it here. Self awareness can be a bitter pill. For the first time in my life, I realized my ego had become a problem, and it was time to become better acquainted with the word humility. I needed to reassess what it meant to be part of the team, putting myself and my wins aside and putting others first. And you can go on to say quickly, my behavior changed. Instead of being frustrated with the poor performers, because you go get the books, you can get all these details. Like, you were the guy that was like, oh, you don't know. You don't know how to do this. Cool. Good luck on the test. Yeah. Instead of being like, oh, you know how to do this. Let me help you.

[B]

In my mind, your losses were my wins. Oh, you know what I mean? Like, and I. What I took on was this. This, like, almost like. Like I was the judge of whether you belong here. So if we went and did some skill, some exercise, and you weren't as good as me, I'm like, oh, you're not very good. You must not be very good. You might not even belong here. And I had this air of judgment of, like, if you didn't meet my personal standard, you were unsafe, sad. And it was like my little running mates.

[A]

My.

[B]

My boys, like, we were tight. We were all the squared away guys. And in. Instead of looking at it like, oh, that person's struggling, needs some help. I was just like, oh, that person doesn't belong here. And like I said, like, it's so hard. It's so embarrassing to write. This is. This is who I was. This is. That's how I thought. That was my behavior. Thank God. Cub. Cub. Marion sits down, is like. And. And slaps me across the face like, hey, man, you have to change the way you see the world and yourself in it. And had I not had that conversation, I don't know where I would have gone, but it would not have been good.

[A]

On podcast five, I read a counseling that I gave to a young SEAL lieutenant. And it was awful. Just, like, the most straightforward counseling. Listen, your ego's giant. No one likes you the whole nine yards. He got fired. Like, he eventually got fired. He did. Despite me just telling him the exact same thing. He just thought, oh, well, it looks like Jocko's wrong too. Like, everyone's just wrong. You know, I have a bad fitness report, bad evaluation. I'm getting bad feedback from the training detachment. They're all obviously wrong. Oh, now Jocko wants to talk to me. Oh, Jocko's wrong too. You know what I mean? Like, it's crazy people. But the lack of self awareness was epic. And this is when you know this would be like, you're losing altitude and your instruments are going. You're losing altitude and you're losing altitude and you're losing altitude and you're just like, I don't think that the instrument is right. And then whatever the secondary backup instrument says, you know, you're danger, danger, danger. Like, oh, that thing's wrong too. And then finally your wingman says, dave, pull up, pull up, pull up. And you go, dude, what's wrong with him? What an idiot. Just ignoring it all. But luckily, like I said, you say quickly, my behavior changed. Instead of being frustrated with poor performers, I tried to find ways to help them. I would carry or carry a heavier weapon on patrol if someone couldn't manage it. I cleaned extra gear after a week in the field. If my squad was falling behind, I reviewed questions to prepare someone unsure of the material for a test. So you became a team player. Two months later. Fast forward a little two months later. The second round of peer reviews reflected that I was more humble, likable, and a better teammate. The change in me had been measured and noticeable and not just by others. I felt better about how I conducted myself as a Marine. There was a tremendous satisfaction in being of service to someone other than myself. And that shift in attitude ended up giving me more than I could have anticipated. There is no greater pride than seeing someone you've helped succeed. A few weeks before graduation, every lieutenant in Alpha Company lined up according to rank to select their mos. As the eighth Marine to step up to the board, Cub shook my hand, looked me in the eye and said, congratulations, Lieutenant Burke. You've earned your shot at the cockpit of an F18 Hornet. You're going to Pensacola to start flight training. I'd pulled the second pilot billet for my class. I was two of two. And the reason that is you were number eight. But not everybody wants to be a.

[B]

Pilot, so some guys are had air slots or whatever. Like thank God, the math, you know, of the 250, I don't know what the final math was. It's still some crazy number but there plenty of guys are already going and plenty guys shockingly didn't. They wanted to be infantry officers or whatever, so, and you know, they fail the, the, the, the flight physical. They don't have the eyes, you know, there's a weeding out process but ultimately even the two is a small number. It's like to get that second slot was, was a huge day for me.

[A]

Who, who got the first slot?

[B]

Dave. D.C. anderson. Dave Anderson. My, my roommate, who shockingly two guys in the, in the company were. The two. The first two guys were, were me and my roommate, Dave Anderson.

[A]

Was he, what number was he? Was he number 1, 2, 3, 4?

[B]

I, I mean a little memory, but like he was probably like five something great. Like he was just a couple ahead of me at the time, you know. And I remember there's a little I didn't write about in the book, but there's still like three weeks of TBs after you get your spot. And my rank like plummeted from like 8 down to like 24th or something like that because I'm like, oh, I got that hair slot. You know, the complacency chapter is next. But ultimately like when I got that, like it was a huge burden lifted and I might not have put a quite, quite the same effort in. So I still finish as like a, you know, distinguished graduate. But I was like eight like, and he was like fifth and both of us kind of like tapered off a.

[A]

Little bit at the end there. I got mine, I got mine.

[B]

Lots of lessons for 21 year old.

[A]

Dave Burke back in the day. It's kind of funny when you picture you sitting around as a stock boy in Target. It's actually pretty impressive that you like when you go to the military indoctrination courses, whether it's boot camp or ocs, whatever. There's, there's like people in there that they were in the junior ROTC program in high school or they were a prior enlisted guy. Like there's some people that have, or they're, you know, 24 years old, they have a couple more years of experience. So that's pretty impressive to do that well as a freaking target stock boy lesson. When our ego, when our ego gets out of control, our leadership suffers. You must recognize the sound of your own ego and keep it in check, hear what it is telling you and actively choose to disregard what it says. When you refuse to listen to your ego, you not only subjugate your selfish interests, but also prioritize the team's well being ahead of your own. And that's certainly contrary to many people. What's that will tell you? To look out for number one. And if you look out for number one, that'll work for a little while, right? Like it did for you in the beginning of ocs. You were like Helping your friends, they were helping you a little bit. And like you guys were dominating. But then it caught up with you 100%. Don't let that happen. You have a little balance assessment exercise from Echelon front in here. It's pretty impressive to see. And your real world application. And again, you start with some quotes here. This, this quote you start with is. I'm just being honest. If they can't handle the truth, that's on them. Once again, when it's a good little filter for us as leaders is when we hear the word they. The words they or them. When you're saying that, it's just a little indicator. You might want to check yourself. You might be a little off track there. Next chapter. Complacency is a killer. And as you said, this is the next chapter. Naval Air Station found about. And this one, there was something that I really liked about this chapter too because, well, we'll get to it, but this is another great chapter. Naval air Station Fallon, Nevada Top Gun training range May 2005 so you are, you are Top Gun student in this one or.

[B]

You know, I'm the c. I'm the training officer. I'm the senior instructor.

[A]

Oh, that's right. I got mixed up because this is when you're. But you're gonna scrap, right?

[B]

Yes, I'm gonna scrap with the guy that this commanding officer of, of Top Gun Viper. Trim Downing.

[A]

Is that Viper equivalent of Viper.

[B]

That's his, that's, that's him in the movie Echo.

[A]

You tracking?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah, cuz there's Viper and then Jester. Yeah, this is Jester's. Jester is an instructor. Yeah, this is Viper. This is the man. Fast forward a little bit. My opponent was Tom Downing, the commanding officer, CEO of Top Gun, call sign Trim. He was the stuff of legend. A three time instructor and my current boss and closest mentor. He enjoyed one of the best reputations in all of naval aviation. Working for and with him was something I didn't take for granted. Now you go through like you kind of set this up and I'll fast forward a little bit. Fights on. We both barked into the radio as we screamed past each other and oh, it was on. And that's the way you guys set up your fights. You go at each other, right? Yep. And then is it a mutual thought or is it when you pass each other? Fights on.

[B]

It's set up. There's a bunch of different ones. This one was. It's designed to be neutral. We, we don't want to. You don't want to give it an advantage because you're trying to assess a perfectly neutral start. So you set it up where it's going to be the same altitude, the same speed. Everything's the same. So when you say fights on, you are starting at a level playing field. So the outcome is like, there is no. Oh, he was faster. Like, it's. It's a neutral start.

[A]

What aircraft is he flying?

[B]

We're both in F18s.

[A]

Oh, okay. So this is like, this is.

[B]

This is as man in the box. Is it ever gonna get.

[A]

Check. Full scrap. I slammed both throttles forward to full afterburner. Get some 8.1 G's maximum performance. Get that. Giant vapor clouds exploding. Dude. Okay. When I was like, preparing for this podcast, I had this in mind. I'm going to do it. 8.1g Maximum performance, giant vapor clouds exploding. Keep the blood where you need it most in your head. Jet speed, G bank, angle, altitude, air speed, micro adjustments, change in angle, horizon, stick pressure. I wanted this win. Swung around high. ASPAC merge win again. Fire engines. Two dragons sizing each other up. You see where I'm going, going with this. I just, like, pulled out like, keywords, and it's freaking epic. So get the book, everybody. There you go. There's your clip for a book. Advertisement. My advantage grew. So you explain like, the little things that are going on. My advantage grew. Stomped full left rudder. Slam the stick to the left. Redefinition. This is another thing. This is a term that I love from aviation that I learned from you. More speed offensive. I set my jet up for the loop. Extra speed attack position. Approached the apex. I looked back over my shoulder. So all that those like, freaking power words, bro. Freaking hype. Now I'm have to read a little bit. Knowing his exact location would help me reorient my nose as I came back around the other side of the loop and aligned my grip. Gun sight. He wasn't there. I flashed over the other shoulder. Not there either. My head shot back and forth once more, trim had vanished. I craned my neck as far as it would bend, looking directly behind me, verifying that the impossible hadn't happened. Only it had. There was trim perched precisely 1,000ft behind me as if attached to my plane like a glider by a tether, latching him into the tail. Textbook position to finish the fight. The nose of his hornet presenting a view I'd seen many, many times before but didn't want today. He was in the gun envelope as I brought my jet up after the last merge. He had looped along with me, reversed his flight path, and turned tightly inside the arc. I had flown through the sky, bringing his jet to rest in the only place he could shoot me. Game over. Trim, old school fighter pilot, legend, part time comedian and father figure to every instructor at Top Gun, keyed the microphone. He didn't gloat. He wasn't calling his shot, verifying his accuracy, or announcing me dead like standard radio protocol dictated. All I heard was laughter, and it was awful. Come on. That's freaking epic, dude. Humility, right? You know, you and so, so very humbling situation. You get to the debrief with Trim and, oh, this was good. He says, don't chalk it up to me being better than you. Don't let that be your excuse. I didn't do anything you couldn't have done. You just didn't consider all the possibilities or you would have entered that last turn different, differently. Instead of Max performing the jet like you had the entire day, you were a little lazy. You just floated over the top of that loop. You could have done more with it, but you were content with what you had. Because 99.9 of the time when what you had would have been enough to win. It's pretty rare given how good we've gotten, but that can be the difference. Be unrelenting. Leave nothing to chance.

[B]

Ever.

[A]

Coax every inch out of that jet. It could save your life. I know that next time you will be prepared for that. He closed by bellowing the signature line he used anytime he expected more from someone. Come on, man. And that was that. What a freaking story of complacency. Yeah. Now, when he said that to you, are you like, bro, I was doing the best I could, or you like, oh, no, he's freaking. Knows 100. I did not push it the way I should have.

[B]

Yeah. This is the only chapter in the book. Well, every chapter is like I said. You want to. You want to read embarrassing stories about Dave? Buy this book. Because every chapter is like, this guy's an idiot. This one was really, really important that I got the details right because I was. There's so much detail in these dog fights. And he and I are still close. He's close. I sent him the chapter. And like, please read this, edit and make sure it's right, because I really want to capture. I can't use all the words he used in the book because kids might read this book, but ultimately I'm catching the sentiment. And he. He kind of walked me through that. And we. And we reminisced about a little bit, but he remembers it well, too, because it was a pretty epic fight, and he and I had a really, really good relationship. There was. I don't mean this in an arrogant way. There's nothing he said that I didn't already know. It was just like, I'm like, I'm still doing this. I am. I am the training officer at Top Gun. I am the most senior pilot. I am flying more than anyone. I'm as. I'm the. It is the best I will ever be at dog fighting an airplane at the peak. And I'm. I'm still learning the same lesson I've been. Been taught since I was like, five years old. Like, so there's a sense of frustration, but not a sense of resistance of. Of the accuracy of what he was saying. And I just like, gosh, damn. And that's why he's like, come on, man. Like, yeah, you know better.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But to his point, I had been doing this so long and with gotten so comfortable that as I start that last loop, I'm like, I know what's going to happen. I. Nobody. I know what's going to happen. And to be quite honest, if it was anybody else, it would have happened exactly how I thought. And. But not him. And so part of it is him, like, dude, come on, man. Like, and there's obviously a bunch more detail in there, but I didn't push back and resist. It was 100% true.

[A]

Yeah, it's very, very similar to jiu jitsu, right? And, like, there's those moments, like, wrestling coaches are really into this. Like, they'll say, you keep wrestling, right? Like, you keep wrestling. And if Echo and I are going and, like, we're in a scramble, and there's movement, and there's movement, and there's movement, and there's movement. There's like, the minute one of us backs off just a slight little tiny bit, the other person's going to get the upper hand. And, you know, like, wrestling coach will be like, you got to keep wrestling until you get. Get the thing you want. And it sounds like that one. Like, you're like, oh, I'm in a position where I'm pretty much good to go. And then, boom, you get caught. Yeah.

[B]

And you. You. It's funny because I'm. You reading my words, I'm hearing. It's so cool to listen to you read it. But before you started going in the book, you were talking about the idea of the moment. Like, I forgot the word use, like, crystallizing or coalescing or the awareness that you have. I had learned complacency a thousand times. I probably taught other people complacency a thousand times. This was the one. Of all the times I learned it, this is the one that stuck. This is where it stuck. This is the moment I'm like. And it's not because I'd never heard it before or didn't know I was subjected to it. It was because this is the one that stuck in that moment. And this was the easiest one to write about because it's like. It's a lesson I'd heard a thousand times. I heard the word complacency a thousand times a my life. This is the one that stuck.

[A]

Yeah. And this is like, when I was reading this, you know, you and I were talking before Hit Record today. You're like, dude, I don't know if this is a good book or not. Like, I can't tell. And I understand that. I understand that. That. That thought pattern of like, well, you know, you wrote it. It's hard to judge something, right? But when I was reading that chapter, I was like, oh, hell yeah, this is a good book. Like this. That's a great. That's a great freaking story. And it's written great, and the characters are great. It's like, you know, you can just picture when you got to that part, the nice little setup with, like, he didn't follow the protocol. He didn't say terminate. He just was laughing. And I can just. Oh, man, that's. This is like the perfect. There was a time there was a guy when we would do simunition fighting, and there was a guy, he was a one of the SEAL cadre. This was Seal Team 2. And one of the cadre instructor cadre was this freaking awesome guy. And he was. We would do simulation against him. He would always be OP for because he was in the country. And we called him Simmy Timmy because. Because he, like, you could tell he liked, like, this ammunition. But, like, we'd be clearing a house or something, and you'd hear him, like, cackling. You'd hear him, like, laughing like he knew we were coming and hear him laughing. And you're like, oh, damn. Or like, you see two guys go into a room, and then you'd hear, like, a bunch of simunition fire. And then you'd hear him laughing, and you'd be like, yo, this is going to suck. So props to Simmy Timmy, wherever you are these days. We appreciate the good training and props to Trim keeping It real lesson, complacency must be resisted at all times. Real world application. Again, you begin with a quote. Joe's in the hospital. The room went dead silent. Someone, as someone made the announcement. The ambulance got him there in record time, but we don't know what's going on just yet. It's not good. And here you are working with energy company and. And it's like, you know, I'm not going to go into the whole story. Get the book. But, you know, the. One of the things that gets said quickly, relatively quickly, is. Looks like it was a freak accident. And guess what? Can you do anything about a freak accident? Not really. Can you? Can you do anything about an accident? Sure, you can put protocols, but freak accident, you're kind of like not. Maybe not all that responsible anymore, but let's not play that game.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So this next one, Chapter four detachment is a superpower naval air station Pensacola. Water survival training. Which way is up? How much time do I have? Being upside down feels disorienting on dry land. Underwater, it's wholly unnatural. I tried to get free, but it was taking longer than I thought it would. Relax. As much as I. As much as I craved being out of this contraption, nothing was going to change the fact that I was still submerged. My movements became erratic. Time raced. My heart rate did the same. I flailed around the confined metal box, as spooked as a bird trying to escape the clutches of something grabbing it. Everything about my movements telegraphed panic. In theory, all I had to do was tilt my head down toward my waist to locate and unhook a simple metal buckle. From there, a few faint wiggles of my shoulder would have released the straps that were keeping me attached. Once loose, I could have gently let momentum carry me for a few feet deeper under the cockpit so I could swim free, kick a little to the side, and glide to the surface with ease. But rather than following the slow and methodical technique we were shown, I reached up in a panic, grabbed the top of the cockpit railing, pulled my way harder than I needed, and smashed my helmet into the rail. It shifted violently on my head, covering my eyes, and cracked the bridge of my nose, shrouding me in darkness. So there you go, little Hilo. Is that Hilo Dunker or is that Cockpit Dunker?

[B]

That's. That's the deal. That's a cockpit, cockpit dunker. Right before the heel dunker.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And. Wasn't going well.

[B]

Did not go well.

[A]

Water is such an incredible educator. And really, you know, this is one of those Things where you hope that guys in SEAL training make the connection the way that you pass. Because you go through things that are 10, 10 times, or if not 20 times worse than this thing right here in SEAL training. It's freaking ridiculous. And what you learn is, like, if you freak out, you 100% are going to fail. Like, there's no. You will fail.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And you do that over and over and over again. And what you have to do is learn to go take a breath, relax, and detach. Yeah. And that's what that's like. Just the importance of that is crazy. The crazy thing is, though, my point in saying all that is it's no guarantee that a SEAL takes that methodology and applies it to going crazy on the ground or someone yelling and screaming at them or their freaking spouse, you know, raising their voice at them. Like, all these things where you could apply the same protocol, but you never got taught. Like, hey, by the way, the way the. What you have to do when you're underwater, you got to do the same thing when you're getting in an argument with your platoon chief or you're getting in a command, an argument with your platoon commander. Like, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. You're not going to improve your situation if you freak out. It's not going to happen. Do they. Did they ever refer back to this when they were teaching you? Like, hey, you're gonna have multiple bogeys. You're gonna be panic. Did they ever refer back to this or is it also disconnected like it is in the SEAL teams? Yeah, this.

[B]

This one is. Is. Everybody does this. So there's this, like, common understanding and appreciation of this. The thing that's crazy about this story is like, that Dilbert Dunker is what they call it. It's just the single place Cockpit Dunker. It didn't even count. Like, it was like. They called it an exposure event. Like, you couldn't actually even fail it. Even if you failed it, you couldn't, quote, unquote, fail. Now what you could do is draw a lot of attention to yourself, which I did. And that's part of the rest of it. But this, this thing was, like, kind of, like, irrelevant by the time I got there. Like, aged out it'd been in 30, 40 years and they were getting rid of it, and so they let us do it, but it wasn't, like, scored and I still screwed it up. And something I've always, always liked, when you and I talk, just kind of war stories and history is the Uniqueness for the seals and special operations and uniqueness for the carrier and aviation is the water. It just. There's nothing else like it. It's the great equalizer that is an environment that you cannot replicate. And how you behave underwater is a great barometer of, like, how well you can do the things you just said. And this one was like, oh, this is going to be fun. I can't wait. I saw this and then I. Movies. It's in An Officer and a Gentleman. This can be super cool. It doesn't count. It's all cool. And like, 10 seconds into it, I'm like, freaking out so much. So then, you know, I was. My nose got, like, bloodied a little. Like it was a thing. And like, the divers see this kid, like, whoa, this. Hey, pay attention to this kid. Watch this kid. Watch this guy. So things got sideways pretty quick. The water is the. I don't think there's a better teacher in the world. In the world's where we came from. The water is the best teacher. It will. It will. It will cause you problems if you don't handle it correctly.

[A]

Officer and a Gentleman. Did you see that prior to going in?

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Did that come out? That's pre Top Gun, right?

[B]

That's like. I think it's 70s. Yeah, it's definitely pre Top Gun. But we all knew it was guys that, you know, guy went to Pensacola to fly jets. So we all. We'd all seen that movie.

[A]

That's a good movie. Echo. Charles, you've seen An Officer and a Gentleman?

[C]

Yeah, when I was super little.

[A]

So you got to see it again. I think it. I think it actually. What's that expression? It kind of keeps up or whatever was.

[C]

Oh, yeah, holds up.

[A]

It holds up. Yeah, it holds up. Have you. Yeah, check that one out. Officer and a Gentleman. The thing. The reason that I think seals know about officer and gentlemen is because the term DOR is heavy in that movie. You. I want. You want mayonnaise do. But otherwise you would never use that term. In the civilian world, it's not even a thing. But in buds, it's a dor. It's drop on request. You know, you're quitting. So.

[B]

Yeah, we. That's what they at ocs. That's. It was do. That's what. That's what quitting was. So that. That. That's in the. In the vernacular, the movies. In the vernacular especially, you want to. You'll be fly jets. My grandmother wants to fly jets. And like, the guy was a Marine gunnery sergeant. So we all had a little connection to that, for sure.

[A]

My, my point, and the point in the book is taking that protocol from the water. And it's the. It's the kind of most mechanical and obvious form of detachment. But taking that and then being able to apply it to the rest of your life is the point that you're trying to make in this book. Yeah, and it's a very obvious example. If you freak out underwater, if you get wrapped up in the emotions of it, if you get wrapped up in the panic of it, you are going to die or at least fail. And the same exact emotions that you can feel, or maybe not the same exact emotions, sometimes the same emotions, sometimes sort of adjacent emotions, anger, frustration. Those similar emotions will cause you the same problems from a leadership perspective. And that's why we have to learn to detach from our emotions and detach from our ego. And that's exactly what you say here in the lesson. When we can't detach from our ego, emotions and point of view, the team suffers. So the physical. And for me, for me, I got to see it. It was a physical detachment. Like, I didn't. I didn't connect the water piece of it. I connected it to. And I told the story in leadership tragedy and tactics, like being on a skirmish line and like, no one making any decisions and taking a step back and looking around going, oh, okay, cool. It was for me, a physical detachment. And then when I saw other people physically detach and see them be able to open up their field of view and do a better job of leading, that's where I really saw it for the first time. And I kind of post that connected it back to. Well, man, when you're in the water in the SEAL teams, you learn to relax. And by the time you're skydiving, because skydiving is the same thing. Like, if you freak out when your parachute doesn't work, you start to panic, dude, you're not going to survive. You're going to freaking die. So this idea of taking what happens in the physical world that forces you to detach, because when you're detaching from your emotions, you can't see those. When you're attaching from your ego, you can't see that. But you have to learn to identify those things and then detach from them. And that's what you know, that's the critical point in your book. And you actually outline some of the red flags that people need to have that let people know that, look, it's not a physical thing, but there's some physical indicators, indications that you might get like. And you've got the list here. Grinding your teeth, clenching your fists, raising your voice, that probably should be number one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Getting warm by the way. There's also some people that when they get mad they stop talking or they start getting quieter. But even more than that, they're just not like, just, I'm not going to respond to that, you know, so they just sit there. So if you're not talking anymore, oh, that could be your emotions getting warm, flushed, red faced. Yep, that can happen. Withdrawing from a conversation. There you have it. Whatever you identify in yourself, that marks the first escalation of those emotions. So getting to know yourself well enough that when you start losing your temper or becoming wrapped up in your emotions or becoming wrapped up in your ego. For me, one thing I like about the ego one is a lot of times your ego, the, the insult to your ego isn't oftentimes isn't a direct assault in the moment. Right. Sometimes it's like, oh, Dave sends me an email, hey Jonko, I looked at your plan and there's a couple things that I, I don't think are going to work well. Like you're not yelling at me, we're not in each other's face. You just sent me an email. Right. But I have time to go, Dave's talking. But I have time to go tell us. Dave's. He think he is. We've got him the first freaking CEO of this company. His ideas don't even actually matter. You know what I'm saying? Like you can go through all those things and you go, hold on a second. Oh, oh, I see what this is. This is my ego. And I love those moments where I'm able to go, oh, oh, what could this be? What could this negative feeling of I'm feeling right now, could this be that, that little nasty thing? Yes. So recognizing that you have sometimes you have a little bit more time to recognize that it's your ego, sometimes your emotions catch people just way off guard and they've lost their minds, they've yelled and screamed and it's like, whoa, okay, well hold on a second here. Sometimes you gotta, so you gotta be more proactive in learning what those things are so that you don't get caught by them.

[B]

Yeah. And you talk about like seeing in other people. I think the cool part about you go from the Dilbert Dunker, you're by yourself in this little cockpit mockup underwater. The next thing you're in this fake helicopter and there's eight of you. And that's when it's like, I'm looking, I'm like, holy cow. Like, people, they all reacted. And some guys are totally good to go, but the guys that were not, I mean, they're a full blown freak out in this thing. And you can see that.

[A]

You're like, whoa.

[B]

So a lot of that was just the observing how other people are reacting in the same environment as you and I go through in a bunch of detail. But part of that Hilo dunker is like, dude, that dude is completely losing his mind right now underwater. And you can see that. And like, oh, man, you got it. You got it. You got to detach. You got to step away from that thing or it's gonna. It's gonna run you into the ground.

[A]

Can I tell a quick. Can I tell a quick adjacent story? So my platoon is going to Fallon back in the day, and we're going up to do a bunch of, you know, sees our missions and call for fire and cast and all that stuff. And my platoon commander has the idea of like, hey, if I can get the guys backseat rides in the F18s, they'll understand what it's like on the ground. Blah, blah, blah. Good call. So in order to do that, we have to go to Miramar and we have to get training, right? So we go through. I don't remember if we did the. I think we did do. No, we didn't do the Dilbert Dunker, but we did ejection sheet training, totally.

[B]

So Dilbert's probably long gone by then. But yeah, the water survival stuff is all there in Miramar.

[A]

So we did the thing where you sit in a. In a. In a flight seat and you pull the freaking ejection handle. We do that. We do the. The helo dunker. We did. And the first thing we did in the morning was we went to classes. But the classes were kind of like, oh, you got to go, but you got to go classes. But in order to get in the cockpit, you got to do the ejection seat thing and you got to do the Dunker thing. Well, one of my friends, we'll call him Zulu, which was his nickname, the Zulu Cat. He shows up late. Like, whatever he partying or whatever. He shows up late. He misses the classes. Well, in the classes, you learn how to breathe. Like, you learn how to push the blood up into your head when you're doing. When you're flying in. Geez. And so he missed those classes and we didn't, you know, we didn't think anything of it. We're just like, oh, whatever, you know, like, he shows up late. We're. Now we're in the dark. And he gets the call. So he has the piece of paper so he can go in the aircraft. And we get up there. He went on an. On an F18 ride. And he just passed out the whole time. He just didn't know how to breathe. And so he's just like passing out. And he was like, hey, do you remember it? He's like, no, he's just. The little video of him just passing out over and over again. Every time they hit G's, he was just passing out. So go to those classes. It's one of the rare cases where it's like, hey, you might want to be in that class. Real world application once again starts with a quote. If I hear one more about one more discount, I'm gonna lose it. Mary was a sales manager, large commercial flooring firm that we had been consulting with for several months. Sales had recently increased and their business looked solid. But lately some conflicts had developed between the sales team and the rest of the firm. Mary was not happy and didn't hold back. Boom. So we get some information there about some mistakes that Mary made and how we can proceed in a better direction. Let's cover one more chapter today. This is chapter five. And this was another chapter, you know, so now that I'm. Now that I'm like, reassessing these chapters, freaking good lessons. Really good lessons. I'm gonna have to reassess, which if I force rank these chapters, I'm gonna have to reassess my force ranking. This one's called perfection is a lie. And it says wave off. Wave off. The landing signal, officer, LSO snapped at me in a frustrated voice bordering on disgust. A wave off is an unsafe landing pass that needs to be discontinued. His word, his words rattled around in my head as I reflexively accelerated my F18 in response to the call and started my climb up and past the aircraft carrier, dumbfounded. I hadn't even started the final descent of my very first landing, and the LSO was already sending me away to try it again. Did that just happen? I silently asked myself as I wrestled to regain my composure. So that's the opening. And after that, you give like a. Like a little what it means, what the. How the. All this crazy ass situation that it is. Landed one of these things, it's freaking nuts. And you go through a bunch of that and you're talking about how you get to this Point. You've got a little graph in here of the, of the ball and what that looks like. Is this your first time landing on an aircraft carrier here?

[B]

No. I had already been to the boat in training in the T45. I had done, I don't know, 12 or some. Some day. Number of landings I'd already been to the carrier.

[A]

In what aircraft?

[B]

The T4 trainer. T45 is a jet trainer. It's. It was in flight school. It was the last thing you do in flight school before you finish flight training.

[A]

Now is the. That like. Is it kind of like training wheels? Is it an easier aircraft to fly or is it the same difficulty?

[B]

It's not any. It's may be even a little bit harder than the Hornets. Really. Once you get figured out, it's pretty easy jet to fly. But the T45 is a pretty what sort of very forgiving airplane. So it's really well positioned for a student taken to the boat to the first time. T45 is a really good airplane for a student by himself. And I'd already done that in, in flight school before I finished.

[A]

That's like 12 times 10 or 12 day landings I'd already done on an.

[B]

Aircraft, on a regular buyer, like full up, full up round normal carrier landings. I'd already done it, had that check in the block.

[A]

Do you just land and then take off again? Yeah.

[B]

You do.

[A]

Are you at sea for a little while?

[C]

No.

[B]

Like my recollection in my T45, like, I flew out on like on one day, got six, went home, went out the next day, got six, went home and I was done. Never spent the night in the shift, just did six landings, went back to the beach, as they say, did it two days in a row and I was good to go.

[A]

Because that's like sometimes when a student is really jacked up, they'll do something like make them wear an orange helmet or something like that. This seems like an orange helmet situation.

[B]

It's a little bit different because you got. You have to do day and night. So you just spend the night. You're spending several days on the. On the carrier. The day stuff in the training command is mostly just out and back.

[A]

But if you had to land on the aircraft and hang out, they'd see you getting out of your T4.45 and they're like kind of. You're just a red helmet. Oh my God, totally. So now, is this your first time landing an F18 on the carrier?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This is at your first go.

[B]

First day, first landing attempt. Of my very first carrier approach in the F18.

[A]

And you get the wave off.

[B]

I'm like, halfway through the approach, he's like, go away. Come back. Do it again.

[A]

Okay, you circle back around, going to the book here. Another approach. Six seconds. Crap. Too much power. I was floating. Three seconds. No way this can be salvaged. The ball was shooting off the top of the lens. And you explain what all that means. Barely visible. Then bam. My plane forcefully rebounded off the flight deck and right back into the air. Bolter, bolter, bolter. The LSO said in a not so subtle, mocking voice, extending the O sound and laying on the snark nice and thin, thick. This was all in an effort to tell me what I was already. What was already so completely obvious. Although a bolter is a safe pass, my jet didn't come to a stop. I missed the wires and had to come around yet again. Oh, my God, not again. My mind went berserk. So a bolter's not. A bolter is safe? Yeah.

[B]

There's nothing too crazy about a bolter. You just got a little high. You missed the four wires. You hit the land, you hit the deck, and you go back up. It's not. It's not the most dangerous thing in the world.

[A]

And just a little high. Do you know that you missed the wires? Yeah, like, there's no.

[B]

They don't need to say bolter because you're not like, oh, I wonder if I'm gonna stop. Like, you stop the second you. You touch the deck and you're getting in the wires. It's instantaneous. So the bolter is like. It's just kind of laying it on. And. And the way that they're like, bolter, bolter, bolter. Like, like. And it's on the prime radio. Everybody in the world hears it. It's just kind of like they're just, like, laughing at you, basically.

[A]

Hey, how do your wheels do? Your wheels go over the wires?

[B]

Well, I mean, it depends on how you. How high you are, but, yeah, if you miss all four wires, your. Your tires will. Will land just past that fourth wireless, and you just hit the ground and bounce right back up.

[A]

But when you do successfully land, you're. You'll just go right over the correct.

[B]

You're rolling over the cables. Yep, that's right.

[A]

So now this ain't good. What part of. What part of this was your own, like, personal humiliation and what part of it was real humiliation? In other words, are they like, oh, my God, what a piece of shit. No, Are they Just like, hey, this guy's a new guy. Hey, whatever. Bolt or bolt. They're making fun of you a little bit. But in your mind is it.

[B]

It's 100% internal. It's a hunt. Like there is. Listen, landing a horn on the boat is especially the first time is dead serious. They're not even messing around. They, they have nothing but your best interest in mind. And so even these calls, like I'm probably in my own mind, like I'm magnifying them dramatically. And I talk about in the book later, like, what even happened on these two. Like, to them, they're like, dude, this is. Yeah, you're in training, bro. Like, this is. It's okay. But in my mind I'm like, my life is over. My life is over. And keep in mind 14 year old Dave Brooks. Like, I'm gonna land planes on boats. I do all the wickets you talked about. I'm on the la. The it's. And I mean literally this is the last I had done every other flight there ever was. I will have two days at the carrier and I'm done. And all I want to do is go to a boat squadron. So up to this point, like, all right, everything's good. Just prove to us you can land on a boat and you're gonna, you're gonna get to the go to that your childhood dream is gonna come true. And I'm like out of the gate.

[A]

Over to what's the attrition rate of people that can't get aboard? And I'm using that expression because I really like that expression. That expression, Echo Charles, is like, there's sometimes some people, they cannot land on an aircraft carrier.

[B]

100%.

[A]

And what's the percentage?

[B]

It's, it's higher in flight school. Like, I don't know what the number is, but plenty of dudes wash out of flight school because of the boat. And guys that have done everything right until the very end can't land on a boat. They go fly C130s, they go fly helicopters, or they just get washed out of aviation altogether. It's not a big number, but it's, it's plenty of guys. Like, I remember when I went to the boat in training, in my class of probably eight, two guys didn't finish. And that's like, damn, it's not 25%. And, and not to mention, like it's at the very. It's the last thing you see. The amount of training's gone into that in the Hornet. It's a little bit lower the interesting about the Hornet for the Marine Corps, unlike the Navy, is that most of the Hornet squadrons in the Marine Corps are not boat squadrons. So if it turns out like being around the carrier isn't quite your thing, you can be a really good Hornet pilot in a land based non carrier squadron. No factor. That's not what I wanted. I wanted to be in a boat squadron. So this, this build, this is a built. This is.

[A]

How many boat squadrons are there at.

[B]

The time that were four in all.

[A]

Of the Marine Corps. How many are there now?

[B]

Maybe, maybe two. It's a small, it's.

[A]

It's.

[B]

That is kind of like you talk about wickets. Marine carrier squad. That's like, that's, that's. There's nothing more narrow. Yeah, that's it.

[A]

Golden. What is it? What's the Blue Angel?

[B]

Very different. I meant from like training to get to the squadron you want to go to. And Top Gun balloons are very different. But like the wickets of what squad you want to end up in. Like you talk about splitting hairs. Like the squadron right next to that squadron is a single state land based squadron. Like who, what. The margin for that is just like immeasurably small. It's a wicket you could barely account for.

[A]

And it is weird, you know, as we talked about the fact that, you know, everyone's got different skills and like someone has good musical ears and someone else has a good, good reaction time, that they're bonuses a little bit better at baseball or whatever. You can go down the list of these things. And then the same thing happens in the SEAL teams where someone makes it through buds and they, there's some skill that they just, they just can't do. Maybe it's shooting a pistol, maybe it's like one out of every probably 300 people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just can't get qualified on the weapons. And that's. You can't be a SEAL if you can't shoot a weapon. Or there's like close quarters combat. When you go through that for the first time, that has an attrition rate and sometimes it's like you know, someone to get rolled once. But if you get rolled, if you get rolled once and then you have to get rolled again, like are you really, is this really, this the right job for you? But it's probably not the right job for you. So occasionally someone that goes through every wicket and suffers all the suffering, but they just don't have that last little thing to get the job done. All right, so let's pick this up now. You're Going to go on your third approach, or you're getting ready to start your third approach and you say emotion tried to overtake me. By the way, this could have been the detachment chapter, right? I mean, I was like, connected. Yeah, it's. This is a really good detect. And I was kind of bummed that the detachment chapter was already over because you clearly had to freaking reset your brain. Emotion tried to take over. Emotion tried to overtake me. I was at the same time angry, embarrassed, frustrated, and full of doubt. If I didn't pull it together immediately, I'd seal my fate. I calculated I needed six perfect passes to get me out of this hole. And I mean perfect. Another bolter or wave off would spell doom. Is that in your head?

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Much like I needed to stop overreacting to my current emotions, I also had to stop overreacting to the movement of the ball. I had to be smoother on the throttles, more subtle, more. The more erratic I was, the more the LSO would see I wasn't cut out for carrier life. What was the LSO actually thinking like, oh, new guy, he'll get it dialed. But in your mind, that guy's not fit for carrier life. Totally. The ship was no place for frayed nerves, unpredictable reactions, or subpar flying. It was a place for perfection, and I was going to show that I could deliver it. Starting right now. I relaxed. Man, I wish you put it. I should have caught this. You should have put detached there. I detached. And once again, my downwood downwind checks were complete. Fast forward a little bit. 2, 3. 3. Hornet ball 3.9. Roger ball. Cadence started. Don't overreact. Here comes the ramp. Six seconds. Three seconds. Bam. Tug and I just read some keywords because I like these keywords I'm getting from this book. And then it's time to get fuel. And you went through almost exact repeat of the previous. And you start doing this over and over again. You do three more landings and you get done. What else? What I missed there.

[B]

You got it.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

Get my. I get my. I get my next six or seven, whatever, what the number was. And I finished my. What in my mind is like my.

[A]

Day requirements, daytime requirements are done. Now, is it worth saying right now what were you doing to make sure that you made that happen?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, there's a. There's. I mean, it's very obvious. You've noticed it, like, each chapter is. The principle doesn't, like, live by itself. And so, you know, the. The ego chapter is connected to the complacency chapter connected to the. You know, the. The detachment connected to this concept of perfection. In my mind, I am so afraid of revealing my inability to be what I think is required for the ship, which is essentially as close to perfection as possible. That what I tell myself is like, hey, just. Just calm down. Which is in some sense a really good thing. The point that I make in my head is like, if it's a little bit low or a little bit high, like, it's okay. Don't. Don't, like, overreact to that because then it's going to get really erratic. So just be smoother. Be a little more calm. Be a little more subtle in my corrections. And I tell my. Like, that's the. That's the answer here. Because before I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, all over the place. I'm so high or so out of the norm. The LSO is like, hey, dude, go away. You're unsafe. Try this again. I'm like, not. Not this time. I'm going to be much more smooth and subtle and much less reactive to the deviations.

[A]

So you end up. It's time for a little bit of a debrief. And you say, I was met by the lone senior LSO chip, which is your call sign Chip. That was not the performance I expected from you. He said without so much as a greeting, handshake, or customary welcome aboard. The. That acknowledges a career milestone. Is that a real thing?

[B]

You land on the boat? The first thing they'd say is, welcome.

[A]

Aboard is that after you do it six times and, like, you're qualified, or is it just like the first time you do it?

[B]

First time you get out of the jet on a carrier, it's like, that had never happened to me before because.

[A]

You'Re going to get it. You're getting out of the jet for the first time on a career.

[B]

You were aboard the ship. You get out of a carrier, out of your jet, and you're on a carrier. You go into like a ready room or a state room, like, this is my first. First time I've ever set foot on a boat.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

And you know this. The customary thing is like, welcome aboard. And it's kind of like.

[A]

It's a little.

[B]

Little like, hey, hey, you're here. Good job.

[A]

But you don't get that.

[B]

I don't get that.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit. You were low. He agreed emphatically. What. What I can't figure out is why would you keep the ball low all day? As soon as you see that ball Drop below the datums. What does it tell you? So explain to me what was happening. You explained in the book, but just give me. I don't want to read your whole.

[B]

Short version is like, so as I'm. The ball is always moving up and down. It's never, like, perfectly steady. It's constantly moving a little bit, hopefully. And what I was seeing was like, as the ball went low, like a tiny, like. And you can see perceptibly. Pretty small amount of. I'm like, barely low. I'm like, oh, that's fine.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like, what's a quarter of a.

[A]

Of a.

[B]

Of a datum low? It's, you know, it's almost imperceptible.

[A]

And in your mind, is it. If you're. If you're a little bit low.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're gonna hit, you're gonna land, you're gonna be fine. Yeah. Whereas a little bit. A little bit high. Do you miss? No.

[B]

They're both a little bit of. Either thing is totally fine in your brain, right. And what you're thinking is like, so here's the thing. If the ball is in the middle, they called a centered ball. You're gonna go right into the right. The target wires, like, just before the three wires. If it's a tiny bit high, you might still get the three, and if it's sort of high, you'll still get the four. And if it's a little bit low, you'll get the two. So you've got some wiggle room there. And I explained it's not a lot, but you've got some. And you can be pretty precise in it. I had gotten to a place where I was like, if I take a little low and I overreact and it goes really high, that's like, I'm erratic and I'm inconsistent, and that's. Then I'm going to miss again. I'm going to go around again for the third time. So when. When I see that low, I'm like, I'll just kind of ride that thing in a little bit. And I. And if you kind of just stabilize it and keep it from dropping, you know, you're a little low. Okay. A little low. And that's. Those are all the things in my head. Like, don't overreact, which is also, like, don't let them see that you're freaking out. Just be cool, be calm. And what I did was, be cool.

[A]

Be perfect.

[B]

Yeah. And don't. Because if I move it, that means I was. I'm revealing that I'M making a correction, which is, I didn't want to do that. I want to show that I was off, and I kind of, like, just accepted it.

[A]

He goes on to tell you, bolters will happen. It's no big deal, especially at this point in your career. But if you get in the habit of dragging that. Dragging in that low, pretending it's okay, not making constant adjustments one way and then the other, one day you'll meet the ramp. And then he delivered the kicker. And do you think I wouldn't see that you were low. He stopped talking, letting that sink in. Why did I think I could hide that from him? Who did I think I was fooling? After he knew his point had landed, he continued. Chip, there is no perfect pass after hundreds of pasta practice pause passes at the field. You know that you've been. You've been to the ship before. You know that you are making adjustments and correct corrections to your errors all. All the time. In fact, the sooner you accept your deviations, the faster you'll fix them and the better you will get. I'm not looking for perfect. I'm just looking for corrections. The worst thing you can do is hide from making them, especially at the ship.

[B]

I mean, it's so. It's so painful hearing you read my words and recounting that story.

[A]

And.

[B]

And you can. You're doing. You're being nice in terms. You picture that. He's like, chip, what are you doing? Like, he's so mad at me. He's so, like, annoyed at me.

[A]

Yeah, I'm being me.

[B]

You're being.

[A]

You're being me.

[B]

You can picture this guy. He's like, dude, what did you think I was gonna see it? Like, he's so frustrated because he's telling me something that he knows I know. And he's like, bro, did you think in your second first day in the Hornet ever? I wouldn't. The guy has waved thousands and thousands and thousands of landing. Like, you're going to sneak this by me. So he's kind of looking at me, like, incredulous, and. And just, like, it's such a hard thing to have to recount because his debrief to me was just like. He's so disappointed that I thought I was doing the right thing when deep down I knew that I wasn't. And he's like, what are you doing? And it's that whole point of, like, if I'm a if, and I'm talking, like, in my mind, like, I'm just a tiny bit low. It's like, nobody sees this.

[A]

Don't.

[B]

And don't do anything. Just leave it. And he's looking at me like, are you. Are you kidding me? Did you actually think as a student in your first trip of the carrier, you're so smooth and so like. He's like, what's wrong with you? Just. Just fly the way I taught you how to fly. And he was just. He was so. It was like, you know, like, when your dad is not. Like, he wasn't mad. He was disappointed in. In my own stupidity. Having to recount that story at that stage of my career is like, really hard lesson to have to admit. Because he's looking like you. He's like, he could not believe how dumb. And it just passed after pass. I get seven in a row, the same thing thing. But they weren't unsafe. Like, I'm going to hit the ship. So they didn't. He just kind of watched me. Like, he's probably leading those ones. Like, this idiot's going to do it again, isn't he? Boom, same thing. Boom, same thing. Boom, same. And I'm like, oh, they don't see it. I'm so good to go. I saved, I salvaged it. And clearly they did the exact opposite.

[A]

When I went to ocs, you, you know, you get into the chow hall and they're like, don't look at your meal. Right? They're like, don't look at you. You're not allowed to look at your food. They call it squaring your meal. You look straight ahead and you put your fork down. You grab whatever you can in your peripheral vision, then you bring it up to you. Did you do that at ocs? What?

[B]

Different thing. Yeah, we definitely stared at our food.

[A]

Oh. So they called it squaring your meals. And you went. You had to look straight ahead and you could move your fork at a 90 degree angle out from your head and then 90 degree angle down to your plate, get food on it through your peripheral vision, bring it straight up in front of you, and then bring it straight back to your mouth. And they're yelling at us. It's like literally day one of ocs. And so we're sitting down to eat and they're yelling, don't look at your food. And I'm sitting there, I'm going, dude, there's no way they're gonna be able to tell that I look down at my food because I gotta see what I'm putting on my fork, you know? So I just like. Which my eyes only just like glanced down And I mean, I might as well have just shot off a red star cluster. These freaking DI's were all over me and I was like, oh damn. And then fast forward 13 weeks or 12 weeks. Now I'm one of the students, student, whatever, officer leader guys. And sure enough, like they might as well shoot off a red star cluster. And that's kind of reminds me of this story you're thinking you're all like sneaky smooth. Yeah. Lesson here is perfection doesn't exist, so don't demand it. One thing I loved about this is so. And you and I had a discussion about this before. The landing grades on a aircraft carrier. There's one that's called cut pass. And this is an unsafe pass with unacceptable deviations. This is like you probably. Are you getting written up for that?

[B]

Yeah, that's like cut pass is very rare. You have a cut pass, there's a decent chance you're going to get kicked off the ship. It's that bad. It's, it's like you're going to die if we don't inter intervene and you can't do that.

[A]

The next one is a wave off, which is an unsafe pass that needs to be discontinued. So yep, you're on the wrong approach or whatever. Too fast, too slow, something like that. The next one is no grade and this is a pass with larger deviations, poor corrections, or no response to LSO calls. So that's called no grade, meaning like that's not good, not good. Then you have a bolter, which we discussed, a safe pass where the jet doesn't come to a stop. And then you have fare which is a pass with some safe deviations and appropriate corrections. And the best grade that you can possibly get that they will give you is an okay. And an okay is a pass with only minor deviations because no matter how perfect you think they are, they're all going to have minor deviations. So perfection is a lie. And that is the lesson for this one. Close out with this one today. This is the, the real world application. And once again you start with a quote. Did you think you were starting with quotes every time or just something until you. It didn't.

[B]

It was not a design technique. It's just me recalling, okay, what was this conversation? And it's always like them, like, yeah, just blurting something angry. Like that's the start of the conversation.

[A]

Each time it's them completely violating the principle in one sentence. That's the open reach time. That's why it works so well. And here's this example, these small mistakes are killing us. It has to stop. Mitchell said, every time, it's something else. I can't believe this keeps happening. This is like, again, just the opposite of the application or the principal. Go on to say, here it. Is it really possible to be perfect? I finally asked. And do you think they hear that when you say that? Mitchell thought for a moment. That's not really what I'm saying, but I see what you mean. He said, you're building some intricate stuff here. Each build looks so unique and requires different materials and finishes. So is uniform perfection really possible? Mitchell didn't respond, so I continued. As of now, what happens when they do make a mistake? What are your debriefs like? How do you improve once those mistakes are discovered? And do your employees say something or are they more likely to hide it? He was speechless. And to get the rest of the story, you need to get the book. We'll cover the rest. That's the first five chapters. We have 10 chapters, 10 principles that you talk about in the book. Good place to stop for today. And like I said, these are the lessons, the first five chapters. These are the lessons about the mindset of a leader and what it is. Every problem is a leadership problem. Humility is the most important attribute. Complacency is a killer. Detachment is a superpower. Perfection is a lie. The next part of the book is the actions of a leader, and we'll get into those next time. Thanks for writing it, man. I'm really glad you wrote it, especially now that, you know, we were kind of talking about this earlier today. When I was originally doing the podcast, I would, you know, I'd read a book at home, prep it, you know, outline or highlight the stuff that I'm gonna read. And it would be like, oh, this is a, this is a. I would never think to myself, this is powerful, you know, but then I'd get on the podcast and have the headset on and you're hearing yourself read and you're like, in the moment. You're like, sometimes it's like heart wrenching stuff or super powerful stuff. And that's definitely, I, I. But as time went on, I got better and better at judging, like, oh, yeah, this is a really powerful moment, or, hey, this is going to be heavy on the podcast or stuff like that. And this one, same thing, I would be like, I was like, oh, this is, this is a good one right here. Oh, this is powerful. And so, yeah, I think people are gonna, people are definitely gonna like reading this book. So awesome job writing it. If you're listening, order the book. Need the need to Lead by Dave Burke. The forward. Incredible. Forward.

[C]

Incredible.

[A]

Yep. Written by Jocko Willink. From what I understand, pretty amazing. They're going to help you. It's going to help your ability to lead. It's going to help your brain. You're going to become better. We're not just helping our brains, though. Echo. Charles. Yeah, I helped my brain today with a go. I see Dave Burke's about done with that go that he's got going on there. Need to fuel our brain. Need to fuel our bodies, fuel our recovery. Yeah, you like that one?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Fueling your recovery big time.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That just might have become a new thing. Fuel your recovery.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, you know, we got protein. Jockofuel.com check it out. Whether you need protein, whether you need joint supplements, whether you need energy, whether you need hydration. We got you covered. Check out jockofuel.com if you want to get engaged in that activity. That's my recommendation. Did I tell you about my. Did I tell you about my little thing? Check this out.

[C]

Don't think so.

[A]

Check this out. I figured something out. There's a. There's various companies right now that are making protein ice cream familiar. A couple different brands out there.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I believe the one I'm currently engaging is something called Protein pints.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

So what I figured out is take a milk cookie.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And you put protein pints in between. Bulk cookie. Two. Two malt cookies.

[C]

Ice cream sandwich, bro.

[A]

Yeah. With like 38 grams or something of protein.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's a legit evolution.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's really. You notice how, you know, like, certain flavors, when you put them together, they're just. They're just. Next.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The sum is great.

[A]

The sum is greater than the parts. Yes. That's the situation. So get yourself some protein ice cream of some kind and then get a couple malt cookies. Stack them up, bro. My wife was looking at me. I was. I was having it for breakfast because there's no. It's just. There's no. Is there something wrong with you? Hey, if you have a protein ice cream sandwich with malt cookies for breakfast, are you a bad person? Like, if I. If I straight up busted you having a chocolate chip cookie with some freaking Breyer's vanilla between it in the morning, I'd be like, bro, you got issues.

[C]

It's different.

[A]

Yeah, it's different.

[C]

You're right.

[A]

But all day I can get away with this, right? Breakfast, like 10 o' clock it's bold.

[C]

9:30, but amen. Sounds good to me.

[A]

100% down.

[C]

I'm down now.

[A]

Check out the Jocko Fuel cookies. Check out the protein, the milk. This is the stuff. You can get it all over the place. Walmart, Hyvee, H E B Meyer, all kinds of different stores. Check it out. Or check out jockofuel.com. we got you covered. We got the good stuff. Also, origin.usa.com. we are making jeans, boots, hoodies, T shirts, pants. Because not just. It's not just jeans.

[B]

No.

[A]

You ever see me on stage at Echelon Front?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. From time to time.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Guess what I'm wearing? Origin pants.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Do they look. Do they look good to go? They're good to go. Squared away.

[C]

Squared away.

[A]

Professional.

[C]

Professional.

[A]

But not over the top.

[C]

Not. Yeah, doing. Doing a lot, but not. Not too much. Not too little.

[A]

Look at that guy. So all this stuff is 100American made. Check it out. Or originusa.com get some.

[C]

Yeah, it's true. Also, Jocko is a store Dave Burke happens to be representing, by the way, called jockostore.com so we can represent another shirt.

[A]

I don't have.

[C]

Discipline equals.

[A]

That's just kind of FYI. When you make anything with runes on it and you don't give it to me. Violation.

[C]

Violation. Okay.

[A]

All right.

[C]

Good tip. Yeah, I kind of. That makes sense to me completely. But, yeah, it's a good one. Anyway. Yeah, discipline equals freedom when we're representing, you know, this way we can get our stuff. Some. Some new stuff. Get after it. Stand by to get some new stuff. Yeah, new stuff coming up. No, I know, but they're new.

[A]

Dated.

[C]

Yeah. New. New. Anyway, look at you coming up.

[A]

Getting nuts.

[B]

Give me like a week or so.

[C]

You know, they'll be ready. Yeah. Also, shirt locker. That's what Dave's wearing. New design every month. This is the current month. I think this is this month's one, right? Just came in.

[B]

I think so.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, cool designs. Jocko seems to like them, apparently. But anyway, it's all on jockostore.com so you can get it.

[A]

Check those out. Books. Obviously, there's a book called the need to Lead. Dave Burke. It is officially live October 21, 2025. Ten years after the book Extreme Ownership came out. So. And it's actually 10 years to the day that I left Ramadi, so that's just coincidence. But I don't think it's coincidence that it's releasing 10 years after extreme Ownership. That's planned. So Check out the book. Get the first A dish. You know, not having a first edition. Just lame. So order the first edition. I. I want this book to crush. Because there's a lot of good messages in it. So check it out. Also, I've written a bunch of books about leadership. You can check those out as well. And a bunch of Kids Books. 1. One series of kids books getting turned into a movie. How much of the movie have you seen? Echo Charles?

[C]

Half. Roughly half of the draft.

[A]

What's your judgment?

[C]

Because so far, so good. In fact, it was so good I told you this that I didn't want to watch the other half because it was so good.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I like to, you know, I like to get the whole brunt of the whole deal.

[A]

You want the whole thing?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, you did.

[A]

You saw enough of it to see yourself in it, though.

[C]

Yes, sir.

[A]

How'd you feel about that? Because it kind of like, you know, you know, you were kind of like sitting in your. In the couch. Yeah. And then you kind of sat up. You know, you kind of like. There it was, bro. Freaking hype was. Hype level was real.

[C]

Hey, look, all the. The people who made that movie really did a good job on that part. All parts, really. But, you know, that was a standout.

[A]

Part for me from my experience. Check. Dave Burke, you've seen. I've seen a bunch of assessments.

[B]

It's. I cannot wait. It's so good.

[A]

Check. Well, in the meantime, because that movie's not going to be out for a while, because that's the way the world works. Just like the publishing industry with books. Like, when did you. When were you done with this book?

[B]

This is years.

[A]

Yeah, a year old. Like, you were done with it a year ago.

[B]

This book was completed a year ago.

[A]

Yeah. So that's the way it works. That's the way the industry works. The same thing with the movie. But you don't have to wait for the movie for your kids. You can get in these books right now and have that impact. Also, Echelon front, the lessons that we talked about today, leadership lessons. This is what we do for a living. We teach leadership. We teach those leadership skills that we talked about, and we do it inside all kinds of organizations, from literally the biggest organizations in the world to little tiny organizations and teams around the world. So if you need help inside your organization with problems that you have, those problems are leadership problems. We will help you solve them. Go to ashlomfront.com we can also help you with your skill set online. We have an online training platform, extreme ownership.com it's where we teach these skills and we teach them via an online training protocol. So check that out as well. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help out their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org also check out heroes and horses.org Micah Fink's got his program up in Montana helping veterans straighten out their souls. And then Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org check that one out. Ramadireeunion20.com this is important. So if you were in Ramadi when the 1:1 ad was there, if you were an attachment, if you were actively underneath the 1:1 ad, if you served there in any capacity or your family member served there, if you're a Gold Star family, everybody would love for you to show up in Texas. January 16th and 17th, 2026. It is the 20th anniversary of that battle and the 11 AD is hosting a massive reunion down in Texas. So check out ramadireunion20.com and register because we got to figure out how many hotel rooms to book and all that kind of stuff. And General McFarland, who was our leader there, is leading this charge as well. So please, if you have a family member that fought in Ramadi in 06, then let them know we're trying to spread the word. We want to see you all down there. I think we got several hundred right now but want to see everybody. So check that out. Ramadi reunion20.com Also if you want to connect with us, Dave, he's on Twitter X, he's on Instagram @DavidRB Burke. And for us, check out jocko.com and on social media I'm at Jocko Willink Echoes echo Charles, Just be careful because there's a damn algorithm that's trying to crush your soul and steal your mind. Don't let that happen. Thanks to all of our uniform services, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps. Thanks for, well, thanks for feeling the need to lead and then stepping up and doing it and protecting our way of life. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. Thanks for stepping up as well and leading in order to protect us here on the home front and for everyone else out there. Here's one more quote from Dave Bergsbo. Book it says, if Celsius. If self assessment had a nemesis, it would be the ego. The ego does not suppose any problem might lie within, but instead seeks to place blame externally. Shoving the ego aside, we can successfully ask ourselves, what is truly going on? Where is my responsibility and ownership in this situation? Can I be doing something differently? How can I improve? Where am I out of balance? How can I have be of service to my fellow Marines instead of thinking I am superior to them? All the questions we must ask ourselves get stifled when our egos take over. And without that brutally honest self assessment, failure becomes imminent. End quote. So that's what we got to do. Keep our egos in check and keep trying to improve. And that's all we've got for tonight. Until next time. This is Dave and Echo and Jocko.