546: The Myth of Being in Control: Marine Corps Doctrine on Command and Control

Summary

Jocko Podcast 546: The Myth of Being in Control — Marine Corps Doctrine on Command and Control

Date: June 24, 2026
Host: Jocko Willink
Guest: Kerry Helton

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the realities of command and control as outlined in the Marine Corps’ Doctrinal Publication 6 (MCDP 6). Jocko Willink and Kerry Helton explore foundational military (and universal) leadership concepts: the impossibility and danger of thinking you’re “in control,” the role of decentralized command, the critical importance of feedback, and the real meaning of authority. Using both military and civilian analogies, they share hard-earned lessons on leadership, accountability, and the limits of micromanagement. Throughout, they stress that genuine influence (not robotic control) is at the heart of leadership — whether in war, business, family, or personal growth.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Decentralized Command: Letting Subordinates Think (00:06–03:48)

• Jocko opens with a 1905 U.S. Army regulation:
  "An order should not trespass on the providence of the subordinate... it should lay stress upon the object to be attained and leave open the means to be employed."
  This quote highlights that even over a century ago, effective command gave freedom for subordinates to innovate and solve problems as they saw fit.

• Decentralized Command Requires Risk
  Allowing subordinates to act can yield results better than a leader alone could achieve — but it inherently carries the risk of mistakes or missteps.

  “There’s risk with decentralized command. Occasionally it’s going to bite you... but most of the time, they do something better than you could have done.” (A/Jocko, 01:34)

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2. Command and Control in Life, Not Just War (05:06–11:42)

• Jocko relates the Marine Corps doctrine to everyday scenarios, not just warfare:

  • You’re always operating in “a realm of uncertainty,” whether deciding where to eat with your spouse or facing market competition.
  • Command and Control is Universal:

    "Any system comprising multiple interacting elements, from societies to sports teams... needs some form of command and control." (A/Jocko, 09:32)

• Time as the Critical Factor:
  Leaders must assess how much time they have and best utilize it — time is the one resource that cannot be regained.

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3. The Power of Context and Intent (11:42–16:55)

• Understanding Context Changes Everything:
  Jocko uses the "Sixth Sense" movie as a metaphor: context transforms interpretation.

  "When you watch it the first time, things are going on... Once you get to the end, it all makes sense. Looking back. Now when you watch it again, you see even more... Context is important." (A/Jocko, 11:43)

• Commander’s Intent Over Specific Instructions:
  Clearly stated intent allows subordinates to adapt and act, even when detailed plans fail.

  “If I don’t give you any other part of the brief and you have the commander’s intent, you should be able to go out and execute.” (A/Jocko, 15:03)

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4. Authority: Official vs. Personal (21:43–25:09)

• Dual Nature of Authority:

  • Official Authority: Based on title/rank.
  • Personal Authority: Based on influence, skill, character, and respect.

  “Most effective commanders also possess a high degree of personal authority. So many people think... because they have the rank and position, they’re in charge... But if you don’t have the reputation, skill, or character, it doesn’t matter.” (A/Jocko, 23:43)

• Validation for Frontline Contributors:
  Anyone with strong personal authority (“the E5 mafia,” as Jocko calls them) can become the heart of a successful team, regardless of formal rank.

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5. Responsibility: True Ownership (25:30–27:45)

• Responsibility Goes Both Ways:
  Where there is authority, there must be accountability; conversely, those responsible for outcomes must have some authority to act.

  “If that’s what you need to be successful, it’s going to be problematic in the long run... There’s nothing more impressive to me than someone that goes, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll roll and take over that project... I got it.’” (A/Jocko, 26:35)

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6. Command and Control Is Feedback, Not Just Direction (32:02–37:31)

• Rethinking “Control”:
  Traditional command = top-down direction. But true “control” is really feedback flowing up from subordinates and the situation on the ground.

  “We suggest a different and more dynamic view... command as the exercise of authority, and control as feedback about the effects of action taken.” (A/Jocko, 32:13)

• Mutual Influence and Adaptation:
  Effective command means taking in information from all levels, adapting, and issuing guidance—not micromanaging.

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7. The Delusion of Being In Control (37:31–47:09)

• Jocko stresses you will never “control” every variable — in combat or life. Most factors are out of reach; a leader’s real job is to influence, not direct every action.

  “It’s a delusion to believe that we can truly be in control of the enemy or the situation. And this is a very important thing to remember, because so much of life is not in your control.” (A/Jocko, 39:59)

• Micromanagement vs. Real Leadership:
  Obsessive control feels good at first but is a trap. When problems or chaos arise, only adaptable teams and leaders prevail.

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8. Analogy: Basketball Team over Chess Board (47:09–49:46)

• Flexible, Cooperative Control:

  “...a looser form of influence, more akin to the willing cooperation of a basketball team than to the omnipotent direction of the chess player.” (A/Jocko, 46:32)

  • Applying too much control stifles initiative; letting go enables people to act and adapt.

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9. Danger of Micromanagement (49:46–53:35)

• Micromanagement is seductive for leaders; early “success” from hands-on control encourages over-involvement… until chaos strikes and the leader can’t keep up.

  "You can directly control four or five guys... once you get to a platoon... your ability... approaches zero very quickly. What you have to use is leadership." (A/Jocko, 50:19)

• Empowering Subordinates:
  Teams excel when leaders give guidance (commander’s intent), not minute orders.

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10. Feedback Loop and Real-World Application (53:35–55:52)

• In both military and business (and even family life), Jocko stresses:

  • Provide clear intent.
  • Listen for feedback.
  • Step in only when necessary.

  "Imagine if all of your fire team leaders were doing something smart and were heading in the direction that you wanted them to head. Just imagine that." (A/Jocko, 54:04)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Risk and Decentralized Command:
  “There’s risk when employing decentralized command. Occasionally it’s going to bite you. But most of the time, they do something better than you could have done.” (01:28, Jocko)

• On Feedback as Control:
  “Feedback is the mechanism that allows commanders to adapt to changing circumstances, exploit fleeting opportunities, respond to developing problems...” (33:32, Jocko)

• On Authority:
  “Official authority provides the power to act, but is rarely enough. Most effective commanders also possess a high degree of personal authority.” (23:36, Jocko reading MCDP)

• On the “Sixth Sense” Effect:
  “When you understand things at a greater level... all of a sudden things start to make more sense. The movie the Sixth Sense makes more sense when you watch it the second time...” (11:43, Jocko)

• On the Real Meaning of Control:
  “It is a delusion to believe that we can truly be in control of the enemy or the situation... so much of life is not in your control.” (39:59, Jocko)

• On Micromanagement:
  “You have cursed yourself with being inundated with questions and, ‘Hey, I need your feedback or I need you’... And now that’s your job.” (53:01, Kerry)

• On Letting Go:
  “If you try and hang on too tight, you’re gonna end up in a bad scenario. You’re gonna end up losing control of what you are trying to control, by the way...” (47:09, Jocko)

• On The Only Thing You Truly Control:
  “There is one thing that you can control, and that’s you: what you do, how you behave, how you respond...” (48:30, Jocko)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• Decentralized Command and Its Risks: 00:06–03:48
• Universal Need for Command & Control: 05:06–11:42
• “Sixth Sense” and Context: 11:42–12:35
• Commander’s Intent: 15:00–16:55
• Official vs. Personal Authority: 21:43–25:09
• Responsibility and Ownership: 25:30–27:45
• Redefining Control (Feedback as Control): 32:02–37:31
• The Illusion of Control: 37:31–47:09
• Basketball Team vs. Chess Pieces Analogy: 46:32–49:46
• Micromanagement Pitfalls: 49:46–53:35
• Empowering Teams/Feedback Loop: 53:35–55:52

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Closing Wisdom

On Leadership and Life:

“We can’t control everything. We can’t control what the enemy does. We can’t control what the competitor does... But what we can control is us. And that’s the best we can do. Influence the rest as positively as we can. But don’t hold on too tight or you’ll get taken for a ride you don’t want to be on.” (Jocko, ~69:40)

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Summary Takeaways

• True leadership is not about precise control, but about creating conditions for initiative and adaptability.
• Command and control is about setting purpose, stating intent, and then receiving and responding to feedback — not issuing endless detailed orders.
• Relying on official authority alone is insufficient; personal influence, reputation, and example are critical.
• Micromanagement traps leaders, stifles teams, and eventually leads to chaos or bottlenecks.
• The only things you can truly control are your own actions and responses; everything else is about intelligent influence and guidance.

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For listeners in any leadership position: the Marine Corps’ lessons on command and control extend well beyond the battlefield. They are blueprints for building resilient, empowered teams in every field of life.

Transcript

[A]

This is Jocko podcast number 546 with Kerry Helton and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Kerry.

[B]

Good evening.

[A]

An order should not trespass on the providence of the subordinate. It should contain everything which is beyond the independent authority of the subordinate, but nothing more. It should lay stress upon the object to be attained and leave open the means to be employed. That's a little quote right there from U.S. army field regulations from 1905. 1905. So, you know, people, they think, oh, well, back in the day, the military, you just told. You just told everyone what to do, and they did it. And sure, you can go back to, you know, Napoleonic times, but even then, Napoleonic times, they didn't want rope. They wanted the soldiers to be robotic in their movement, but they wanted the people. Napoleon wanted his people to think quick and make things happen. And this. This concept right here, your order shouldn't. Shouldn't trespass on the providence of the subordinate. Meaning we want that person to think for themselves. It shouldn't. It shouldn't contain them. It should contain everything which is beyond the independent authority of the subordinate. So, look, I'm giving you, hey, if you got to do this here, you got to ask me if you got to do that. This is what I want you to do. But other than that, it's up to you, man. But nothing more. It literally says, but nothing more. It should lay stress upon the object to be attained. So this is what. This is what I want you to get done, but leave open the means to employ. So I don't really care how you do it. This is 1905. 1905. So we need our troops to make things happen. We know our troops to step up and get things done. This is. This is obviously. This is decentralized command. When. That being said, when people go make things happen, sometimes they. They do things that we don't expect, and sometimes the things that they do that we don't expect are good. You give somebody some leeway, and they go out to make something happen, and they do a better job than you could have done yourself because they're on the ground and they're thinking, and it's the only thing that they're focused on. And most of the time, they do something good. Most of the time they do something better than you could have done. However, sometimes they do things that maybe aren't quite that good. Sometimes they do things that are outside the box and not in a good way. That. Because there is risk with. With decentralized command. And I always try and explain to people, there's risk with decentralized command. Therefore, when you are employing decentralized command, occasionally it's going to bite you. Occasionally it's going to bite you. It's like going to certain restaurants and getting certain food, like real high spicy food. And occasionally you get bit. You know what I'm saying? Occasionally it goes sideways. It's a very similar thing with decentralized command. So I was reading through the Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 6 MCDP 6. It's called Command and Control. And like most Marine Corps manuals, which are just outstanding, it had some great points on leadership that not only apply to combat and not only apply to leadership, but they apply to life. And I think this knowledge is the kind of thing that can make us all better. And the manual, which I'm not part of, the manual, which I'm not going to cover today, is like a fictional story of a big combat operation that shows some various leadership examples. It's cool, it's good to read, but I'm going to jump into some of the meat of the information, which starts in chapter one, for some guidance. So chapter one, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication six, Command and Control. How long are you in the Marine Corps for?

[B]

Four years.

[A]

Four years. Did you ever see this manual?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Oh, you did?

[B]

Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was a part of one of the just foundational courses you do as an enlisted guy that you knock off every so often to try to get closer to your promotional cutting score.

[A]

The Marine Corps manuals are outstanding. And I actually, because war Fighting, which is. It's one of the best pieces of reading a human can do. I mean, I covered it in one of the first podcasts we did early, early, early on. But it's so good, it's so concise. It's so clear, it's so simple. It's so, so straightforward. And I, I had like a lead on the guy that wrote it. Like, there's a dude, he was like a, he was like a major or something, and he was just a really smart guy and he understood the concepts and they, they gave him the, the K run with this. And he did just an outstanding job. So I still got to try and track that because I'd love to sit down with him and, and go through that manual kind of. Even the writing process, you know, writing things is, there's a, there's a process to writing things when you chop it down and you make it clear, but you got to add that one thing and then how important is this And I would just like to see what his process was because it came out freaking dialed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And a lot of times in the military, stuff is written by committee. And I can always tell when you get something that's written by not. Not edited by committee, because that can happen. You know, hey, if I write it, then you look at it, then your boss looks at. And his boss looks at it. I get it. But a lot of times, you know, you get nine different people working on the whole thing and you end up with a Pontiac Aztec. You know the Pontiac Aztec. No pont. Pontiac Aztec is the vehicle that they use in Breaking Bad.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But it was a kind of a flop of a vehicle. And apparently there was, you know, 19 different designers. And one guy liked this little piece and this other guy like this little thing. And they. When they put it all together, they're like, yo, what is this thing? But it's too late in the car world, they're like, we're making it. So you gotta. When you're writing, if you have somebody that's good, clear language, which that guy clearly did in war fighting. Great manual. But this manual a similar vein. So let's get into it. This is chapter one, the Nature of Command and Control, and starts off with a quote from Clouse Witz. War is the realm of uncertainty. Three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. The commander must work in a medium which his eyes cannot see, which his best, best deductive powers cannot always fathom, and with which, because of constant change, changes, he can rarely become familiar. Now, I would love to tell you that that's just a quote about war, but that's a quote about everything in life. I mean, you are always operating. I mean, even human nature. Human nature is a medium that you. You cannot see with your eyes. I mean, I guess you can see people's emotions, but you can't see what people are thinking. You can't see, in many cases, their ego flare up. You can't see what their emotions are. Again, can you sometimes see that in their face? Sure. But can you always know can see some of it. And so. And not to mention what's going on with the market, what's going on with the competition. There's all these things that you can't see what's what about your family. I was going off about this the other day. The amount of factors that come into play for you to decide where to go out for dinner with your wife is if you really broke that down if you really broke down. My wife and I, big H and I are going to go out for dinner. She turns to me and says, where are we going to go? Can you imagine the amount of, the amount of decision factors that fall into that? Well, what about the time two years ago where we went to this one restaurant that I liked that she didn't like and she was in a bad mood for three days? Or what about the fact that she thinks that I am a hard headed guy and she only. I only want to go to this round. What about the financial factors? What are we lean on money right now or we got a ton of money right now? Or what about how much time we have? Like do we have a lot of time to go, hey, what, what if she's going on a trip or I'm going on a trip, we're not going to see each other. There's so many things. What about the dog? What are we doing with the dogs? We take, we want to bring the dog with us. We go into dog food like just, just to go to dinner with your wife. So when you're starting to talk about more complex decisions, which basically almost all other decisions are more complex than that. They're all get these factors upon factors upon factors that you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on and make a decision. And war is kind of the, the ultimate of those because now you got people trying to kill you. So the stakes are high. But regardless of what you're doing, you don't, you're. We are all operating in a realm of uncertainty, all of us, varying levels. All right, skip ahead a little bit. How important is command and control? No single activity in war is more important than command and control. Command and control by itself will not drive home a single attack against an enemy force. It will not destroy a single enemy target. It will not affect a single emergency resupply. Yet none of these essential war fighting activities or any others would be possible without effective command and control. Without command and control, campaigns, battles and organized engagements are impossible. Military units denigrate, degenerate into mobs. And subordination of military force to policy is replaced by random violence. In short, command and control is essential to all military operations and activities. And again, apply this to your company, apply this to your family. You're going to go to the supermarket with the famous. This could very easily, what's the word they use? Degenerate into chaos if you don't have some command and control. Continuing on with command and control, the countless activities a Military force must perform, gain purpose and direction. Done well, command and control adds to our strength. Done poorly, it invites disaster. Even against a weaker enemy, command and control helps commanders make the most of what they have. People, information, material, and often most important of all, time. Time, the most important factor. When I came up with the extreme ownership leadership loop, the first thing in that loop is time, because that's the, that's the thing we have the least control over in, in the world. The, the talk. The clock is ticking and you need to assess, how much time do I have? And as a leader, you need to assess how can I best utilize this time that we have? In the broadest sense, command and control applies far beyond military forces and military operations. Any. Here we go. Any system comprising multiple interacting elements, from societies to sports teams, to any living organism needs some form of command and control. I bet. So the living organism, that would be like your hormonal responses and stuff like that, that makes your body react to things. Simply put, command and control in some form or another is essential to survival and success in any competitive or cooperative enterprise. Command and control is a fundamental requirement for life and growth, survival and success for any system. So there you go. And it's funny, some of you might be hearing these words for the first time. Some of you guys might be thinking about this for the first time now. Now as you hear it, you might start to go, oh, yeah, that's happened to me. Or I have done that before, kind of unknowingly, or maybe I haven't done that before and I should be doing it. So recognizing what's happening is very important. It's like when you watch the movie the Sixth Sense. You've seen this movie?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

When you watch it the first time, things are going on. You don't really. It doesn't really mean much. But once you get to the end, it all makes sense. Looking back. And now when you watch it again, you see even more things that are happening. So this is very important because when we understand things at a greater level, when we see the bigger picture, all of a sudden things start to make more sense. The movie the Sixth Sense makes more sense when you watch it the second time, because all these little things that you missed the first time, you notice them, but they don't. There's no context. Context is important. Part of the world having context, or

[B]

they read as something different than you thought they were, Right?

[A]

True.

[B]

Now with that little piece of knowledge, you understand, oh, that wasn't him being cold to the other person. He wasn't There, you know what I mean? So it's how we may misinterpret things without that additional piece of information.

[A]

Yeah. Our perception.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Can be totally wrong. We got a question that I read last night for the underground work we're going to be discussing. But a guy was talking about a. What is it? A sex offender moved into his neighborhood. And he was asking, hey, I saw the guy. I have whatever, he's got like two daughters and a son or something like that of the age that this guy is. Was arrested for and went to jail for. And he says, you know, I walked by him and I ignored him. But I know that that's not the right thing to do as a Christian. And I was like, no, 100% ignore. And, you know, there's a whole bunch of varying things we could talk about and we'll, we'll talk about it on the underground. But there's no question that you are totally good to go to ignore because you want that person, that individual to recognize he should not come near you or your family in any way, shape or form. And we'll, we could discuss. Does that mean you approach him? Does that mean you talk to him? Say, hey, listen, I know who you are. I know what you did. If I see you anywhere near my family, you will be in trouble. Trust me. Like, the only thing. Which is probably a good move, but you gotta remember when you interact with people, all of a sudden you have a relationship with them.

[B]

You've opened a door.

[A]

You've opened a door.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So depending on that individual's personality, it. That might not be the right move. So I wouldn't make a jump like that out of the gate. I would do like full ignore. Because when I full ignore, you realize like, I'm not even a human. You know what I mean? I don't even. I'm not even a human being. I don't look at you and I don't acknowledge you. Your existence. That is not a human thing to do. I'm not a human, so stay the. Away from me and my family is where we're going now. Sometimes again, when you, when you have any interaction, if I have inner. Even if my interaction is like, hey, you better stay away from me and my family. That's a human being. That's a human interaction. And some people see that as a little way in. So you're not going to see me as a human. That's what we're doing. My point in saying all this out the context of what's going on and where what are we doing and how, how, what does that behavior look like? So yeah, sixth sense, get some next phase here. What is command and control? We often think of command and control as a distinct and specialized function like logistics, intelligence, electronic warfare or administration, with its own peculiar methods, considerations and vocabulary and occurring independently of other functions. But in fact, command and control encompasses all military functions and operations, giving them meaning and harmonizing them into a meaningful whole. Everything's working together. This is a common, a common discrepancy that we run into with businesses at Echelon front where they are not all working together. You know, here they're talking logistics, intelligence, electronic warfare, administration. In, in the business world, we have marketing, we have operations, we have sales, we have legal, we have hr. So we have all these components as well. And if they get separated, there's a problem. And one of the things that unifies them is command and control, harmonizing them into a meaningful whole. That's what we're heading for. Command and control is the means by which a commander recognizes what needs to be done and sees to it that appropriate actions are taken. Cool. And it kind of goes into this thing about the various types of the various forms that can take. It can be a conscious command decision. It can be immediate action drills. Immediate action drills are command and control. Like hey, I train you, Carrie, as a mortarman. And when this happens, here's your reaction with your mortar team. Now, I don't have to say anything, but it's still part of command and control. Talks about rules based procedures, it talks about even, even technical things like computer weapon systems are a form of command and control because they can be pre programmed to do things in certain scenarios. And then there's some that are only can be executed by people that have experience to devise a tactic and make a decision. Right. So there's a whole bunch of different ways that command and control can be implemented. And then it goes on to say sometimes command and control occurs concurrently with the action being taken. Real time guidance. And sometimes it can happen beforehand. That's what a plan is. Right. So. So command and control is a lot broader than I think. Sometimes people understand or think of it as. And then it says this commander's intent. A commander's intent expressed clearly before the evolution begins is an essential part of command and control. Likewise, analysis after the fact, which ascertains the results and lessons of the action and so informs future actions and contribute to command and control. Yeah, the commander's intent, the most powerful part of a brief in the military, it's supposed to be the most powerful part. Supposed to tell the, the troops what we're trying to accomplish. This is my overall intent. And if I don't give you any other part of the brief and you have the commander's intent, you should be able to go out and execute. I didn't tell you what time. I didn't tell you what weapons to bring. I didn't tell you how many people to take. I didn't tell you where to approach the target. I didn't tell you any of that. I just gave you, hey, this is, this is the target. We need secure and we need it done by this time. And if I tell you that, you can make it happen. That's why commander's intent is so important. And yet it gets left off a lot because people think, well, if I tell Kerry, hey, here's. Here's the target I want you to take. Here's who I want you to take. Here's how I want you to hit it. Here's the weapons I want you to use. Here's the approach I want you. If I tell you all that stuff, I think, oh, well, now he's gonna go do it. But when that plan gets tripped up, for whatever reason, downed vehicle, enemy security force you didn't anticipate weather problems, like, there's all kinds of problems that can come up that interfere with this detailed plan that I gave you. And when that happens, you can't execute anymore because the plan got derailed. But if you knew what it was you were trying to do, what that intent was, overall, you could make it happen. You'd figure out another way why it's so important. Some forms of command and control are procedural. Others deal with overall conduct of military operations, large or small scale, involving formulating concepts, deploying forces, allocating resources, supervising, and so on. And again, I work with all kinds of different companies, including my own companies. And like, there you go. This is like CEO C suite level stuff, right? Formulating concepts, deploying forces, allocating resources. Where are we going to spend this marketing money? Where are we going to spend this other capital that we have right now? Big parts of capital, like that's, that's what we're doing at the strategic level. And that is part of command and control. And the overall conduct of military operations is our primary concern in this manual, unless otherwise specified. This is, this is what we're talking about. So it kind of explains that this applies to everything. But they're talking about warfare, because you know what, it's the Marine Corps that's their business. Their business is war. Since war is a conflict between opposing wills, we can measure the effectiveness of command and control only in relation to the enemy as a practical matter. Therefore, effective command and control involves protecting our own command and control activities against the. Against enemy interference and actively monitoring, manipulating, and disrupting the enemy's command and control activities. That's a. That's an interesting target, right? Our target is not this building. Our target is not this bridge. Our target is not this piece of terrain. Our targeting isn't even securing the populace. Our target is interfering with the enemy's command and control activities. It's interesting. I did that kind of stuff. We would have that kind of stuff. Interfere with the. With their freedom of maneuver, interfere with their communication systems, interfere with their financing. That's all command and control that you're trying to interfere with, which is a more strategic target than, hey, we're gonna go open up this bridge or shut down this bridge or take this one individual, unless that individual is very senior.

[B]

There was also a document we covered a while back that was about, like, sabotage, you know, and it was very much these things. It was, like, frustrating all these little command and control.

[A]

That's the. That's. That's a CIA document that we covered.

[B]

That's what it was.

[A]

Simple sabotage.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And what's funny is I work with businesses that. That's what they have going on. Literally what the CIA would tell. Let's call them. Let's call them actors inside, like spies inside of a foreign country. Oh, we got a spy inside of a foreign country. They're making a bunch of military stuff. Here's some things you can do to disrupt it. Ask a bunch of questions in a meeting, hold a bunch of meetings that make no sense, slow down the production. Like, there's all these things that happens all the time in regular businesses. And, yeah, so that's command and control getting jammed up by bad actors slash spies. So for sure, that is an attack on command and control. A subtle attack, but, damn, it's a draining one. Think about all the social media that's. That's just inbound into everyone's head right now, coming from all sides. And your algorithm, by the way, gets exponentially evolved in a direction that you already are already a little bit biased towards. That's what's happening. So the information warfare, that's getting to you. You have no idea what's happening. You have no idea what's happening. It's crazy. So we got to be careful that. What is the base next what is the basis of command and control? The basis for over. The basis for all command and control is the authority vested in a commander over subordinates. Authority derives from two sources. Official authority is a function of rank and position and is bestowed by an organization and by law. And boy, do some people like that kind of authority. Personal authority is a function of personal influence and derives from such factors as experience, reputation, skill, character, and personal example. It is bestowed by the other members of the organization. Official authority provides the power to act, but is rarely enough. Most effective commanders also possess a high degree of personal authority. So this is kind of the paragraph when I read this, I was like, I'm gonna put this on the podcast because so many people don't understand this. So many people think that they have the rank and position and therefore they're in charge and they don't have the personal authority. They don't have the reputation, they don't have the skill, they don't have the character. And the other members of the team have not designated them as the leader in their head. Sure, you can show me on paper all day long, you got the rank, you got the whatever, but I don't care. I don't respect you. You don't have the character. You're not setting a good personal example. All those things just goes out the window. So where you at? Where you at? And by the way, one of the. If you're sitting here nodding your head right now going, you know, I think I got those things. You probably don't. If you're not a little bit paranoid thinking, man, I hope I'm setting a good enough example. Man, I hope my reputation is solid. I hope my character is strong enough that people respect it. If you're like, no, my character's great. My reputation's awesome, and I set a great example. If that's where you're at, you're probably in trouble. You're probably in trouble. You're walking around thinking you got a bunch of leadership capital. You don't. You don't.

[B]

And it should. It should also be a little validating for those frontline individual contributors too. Right? Because the. The authority doesn't necessarily come from the rank, title or position. You that has personal relationships and, and authority amongst your peers. That. That gives you power. It gives you authority as well.

[A]

100 and this was a. What should I call this? It was very obvious. It became very obvious to me. So when I was running trade at, you know, you got platoons coming through. And at first I thought, well, you know, either the Platoon chief or the platoon commander will be good to go, and they'll kind of be like the leader. And then I was like, well, because that didn't always happen, but we'd still have a good platoon. Why do you still have a good platoon? Oh, well, the LPO is a super stud, and then sometimes you or the assistant platoon commander, super stud. So you still got a strong platoon. Sometimes you'd get. We call those the top four. So the platoon commander, the platoon chief, the assistant platoon commander, and the leading petty officer. We would call those in a platoon the top four some. And if you. If you have a strong one in there, that's egos under check, right? Because sometimes you can have someone that's strong, but their ego's out of control and they ruin everything. But if you have one of those guys, one of the top four strong, I was like, oh, yeah, this solid platoon. But eventually I realized if you just had what you just said, a dude in the E5 mafia that had this kind of personal authority, and an important component is you. If you had that and then you had the top four, that. That were humble enough to recognize that this dog, this E dog was going to make happen and. And give him the leeway to make it happen, you'd be good to go. You have a great platoon, a great platoon with a E5 gangster that was just running things that could happen all day long. Now, if you had a platoon OIC or a platoon chief. Oh, thank that guy. I've been longer than. Then you're gonna have problems, gonna get rebellion, you're gonna have issues. But you're 100% right. If you have that personal authority and you're respected and you have a good reputation and you have good experience and you have strong character and you're skilled and you set a good personal example that right there. You can do all kinds of leadership inside of an organization, regardless of where you are in the chain of command. And by the way, when you just have rank and you don't have any of those things I just talked about, well, first of all, you should go about trying to earn them, which takes time, but you should be actively trying to earn them, and you should recognize that these are difficult things to earn. But if you think you can just flex your official authority, you're wrong. I mean, you're right to an extent. Can run around, yell and scream and make people. Force people to do what you want them to do, force them to follow your little plan. I don't recommend it. It won't last. Long continuing on. Responsibility or accountability for results is a natural corollary of authority. Where there is authority, there must be responsibility in, like measure. Which again, that's why when you have a junior person that's running things, they also take ownership. They. They might not be technically responsible. No, hey, boss, that's on me. Conversely, where individuals have responsibility for achieving results, they must also have the authority to initiate the necessary actions. Continuing on. And that's a. That's an interesting one, because what they're saying is like, hey, if I'm in charge of this project, then I need to have the authority to tell Kerry to do this thing. Right? And that is true to an extent. I will tell you, and there's many examples of this, that if that's what you need to be successful, it's going to be problematic in the long run. If you need this kind of organizational authority, official authority, in order to get people on board with your program, it's going to be a problem in the long run. There's nothing more impressive to me than someone that goes, oh, yeah, I'll roll and take over that project. Well, you're actually going be reporting to the guy that's been failing. That's cool. I'll figure it out 100%. And there's a lot of people that will. If they're not working for me, I'm not. I can't take over for that. You know what I mean? That's. That's weak, honestly. And I see where people. I understand, but when someone nods their head and goes, yeah, I got it. Yep. Cool. Oh, you. Oh, you want me to go work for Kerry. And he's there. The project is failing right now. You want me to go. Go in there and get it straightened out? Cool, I got it. But you're. You're still going to work for Carrie. Yeah, that's cool. It's no factor. There's no factor. We'll make it happen. As I need the authority. I need the authority. I need to be. I need to outrank Carrie if you want me to get this problem fixed. And listen, I get it. If carries a. Like a real arrogant asshole himself. And I come in with, hey, you know, here's this might work better. And you shut up. I'm the guy in charge. Okay. We might have some problems, but even that, I'm gonna. I'm gonna at least gather that information. I'm not just gonna say, well, no, I need a funnel. Okay, cool. Let me figure out what's Kerry pissed about? Carrie might be pissed about Some legitimate stuff. Maybe the guy that was working for him, he had to be an authoritarian because the guy was a knucklehead. And that's why you got me now. Okay, I'm rolling in there. We'll get it handled. Next, and this is another kind of traditional debate. What is the relationship between command and control? The traditional view of command and control sees command and control as operating in the same direction from the top of the organization toward the bottom. Again, this is the traditional view, not the correct view. The traditional view, commanders impose control on those under their command. Commanders are in control of their subordinates and subordinates are under control of their commanders. And again, I'm going to point this out again. This is the United States Marine Corps Devil dogs. Right, The Marine Corps. Tell me about the Marine Corps rank structure. When you are a corporal and you are interacting with a lance corporal, how's that going down?

[B]

There is zero room for misinterpretation as to who is the higher rank or senior. I will say, because even amongst, even amongst the same grade, you've got the senior lance corporal on deck.

[A]

And that's timing grade. Yeah, this is timing grade.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

[A]

And, and how long. If you and I showed up, were to stand watch, and you and I are both corporals, how, how long does it take before, you know, we have to establish who's the senior lance Corps or the senior corporal?

[B]

Immediately.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah, immediately. There. In, in. That's, you know, that, that's just ingrained in the Marine Corps. You know, there is, there is the chain of command.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

And you fall somewhere in that. And we're going to establish that, that hierarchy out of there.

[A]

This is what we're doing. That's why I'm pointing this out. I don't know. I'm not sure if there is an organization that has a more clear cut chain of command than the Marine Corps. I'm not sure. The army, certain, certain units in the army, like a, like Rangers, they, they, they're in that, in that zone as well. At least the ones I've seen and worked with. But it is as tight as it gets. And what's interesting about that is that they are calling that here, first of all, that's, that, that doesn't, that, that undermines the idea of, of official authority. Right? It's like, hey bro, you can be outrank me all day long, but if you don't have that respect and you don't have that skill, you don't have that experience, you don't set the Right. Example doesn't matter. That's what the Marine Corps is saying right here. As, as strict as they are, even they have to admit that that's not enough. And now they're calling out the traditional view, which is, hey, I'm the commander. I'm in control, and you're subordinate, so therefore you're under my control. But they don't believe that. The United States Marine Corps doesn't believe that. I'm going to tell you, they literally say that. We suggest, back to the book, we suggest a different and more dynamic view of command and control, which sees the command as the exercise of authority and control as feedback about the effects of action taken. So they're using the term, they're almost replacing the word control with the word feedback. So the commander commands by deciding what needs to be done and by taking and by directing or influencing the conduct of others. Control takes the form of feedback, the continuous flow of information about the unfolding situation that returns to the commander, which allows the commander to adjust and modify command action as needed. So the commander is going to put out the word, and then he's going to keep his ears open for feedback, and then he's going to adjust his word, adjust and modify command. Feedback indicates the difference between the goals and the situation as it exists. Feedback may come from any direction and in any form. Intelligence about how the enemy is reacting. Information about the status of subordinate or adjacent units, or revised guidance from above based on, develop, based on developments. One thing, they don't listen here, which they should. Feedback is also just what your boys are telling you. What's going on? That's what, that's what I'm looking for. Like, sure, we're gonna get into. What do they say? They say intelligence, they say information about status. And I guess technically all those things would be coming from your subordinates. So I guess we're good. I won't have to write the Marine Corps to get this thing changed. Feedback is the mechanism that allows commanders to adapt to changing circumstances, to exploit fleeting opportunities, respond to developing problems, modify schemes, or redirect efforts. So, yes, there, I spoke too soon. All this stuff is what your subordinate is telling you. In this way, feedback controls subsequent command action. So we could be saying command and feedback because the, the control is the feedback. In such a command and control system, control is not strictly something that seniors impose on subordinates. Rather, the entire system comes under control based on feedback about the changing situation. So if you're in a leadership position, you better have open ears and an open mind to Listen to that feedback that you're getting because that's the true control. Command and control is thus an interactive process involving all the parts of the system and working in all directions. The result is a mutually supporting system of give and take, in which complementary commanding and controlling forces interact to ensure that the force as a whole can adapt continuously to changing requirements. So this really upends the traditional idea. And they have a graph in here that shows, like the bad version, they call it the typical view of command and control. And it's just the commander at the top and just word is going down. Both the command and control are both going down. And in the proper one, they show the commander at the top and they show command going down, but then they say the control going back up. And this is what we should be looking for. This is, this is how you really establish control, by listening, listening to feedback. Says here, what does it mean to be in control? The typical understanding of effective command and control is that someone is, that is, someone is in command, should also be in control. Typically, we think of a strong coercive type of command control as sort of push button control by which those in control dictate the actions of others and those under control respond promptly and precisely. As a chess player controls the movements of the chess pieces, because those chess pieces do exactly what you tell them to do. You move them from G4 to H9. I'm going out on a limb there. I don't even know if it goes

[B]

to H.

[A]

But given the nature of war, can commanders control their forces with anything even resembling the omnipotence of a chess player? We might say that a gunner is in control of a weapon system or a pilot is in control of an aircraft. But is a flight leader really directly in control of how the other pilots fly their aircraft? Is a senior commander really in control of the squads of Marines actually engaging the enemy, especially on a modern battlefield on which units and individuals will often be widely dispersed even to the point of isolation? Those are some rhetorical questions. Clearly not. Yeah, you control your aircraft, but you don't control the other pilot and the other aircraft. Yeah, you control your machine gun, but you, you, if you're a, if you're a leader, you can't control exactly what the machine gunner is going to do. You might think you can, but you can't. And you probably can for six seconds in a gunfight, but that's not going to last. And eventually that guy's going to have to think and make decisions and give you feedback. We are also Fond of saying that commanders should be in control of the situation or that the situation is under control. The worst thing that can happen to a commander is to lose control of the situation. But are the terrain and weather under the commander's control? Are commanders even remotely in control of what the enemy does? Good commanders may sometimes anticipate the enemy's actions and may even influence the enemy's actions by seizing the initiative and forcing the enemy to react. But it is a delusion to believe that we can truly be in control of the enemy or the situation. And this is a very important thing to remember. It's a very important thing to remember because so much of life is not in your control. And look, there is a lot of life we can control. There's a lot of things we can take ownership of, but there are certainly things that we cannot take ownership of. There are certainly things that we cannot control. And how do you feel about that? And what does it do to you? What does it do to your personality? What does it do to your ego? What does it do to your emotions? Can be very problematic. It can disrupt people's whole pattern of thought when they lose control of something, go completely sideways. This is why, you know, the kind of the stereotypical military leader that has everything highly disciplined and organized and people are going to do what I say and fly off the handle when things aren't going my way. Those people, generally speaking, are not good in combat. Generally speaking, they're not good in combat. It's. Combat is too crazy for them. They can't handle it. Like, I'm not saying you should be. You know, when you walk into someone's office and everything is like perfectly set up and there's nothing, no, nothing out of place. Right? It's kind of like, you ever go into someone's house and the term is, it doesn't look like it's lived in. Right? Hey, it doesn't even look like someone lives here or a gym. Like, you go to a gym. It doesn't look like anyone uses the gym. Like, if there's not some chalk on the floor, I'm suspect. But. And again, this is. Of course, there's examples of people that are very neat. But if you have someone that's obsessively neat and all of a sudden things are not neat, combat is not neat. Business is not neat. And if that disrupts your chain of thought, it can be very problematic. So we have to be careful continuing on. The truth is that given the nature of war, it is a delusion to think that we can control with any sort of certitude or precision. And the further removed commanders are from the Marines actually engaging the enemy, the less direct control they have over their actions. We must keep in mind that war is at base, a human endeavor. In war, unlike chess, pieces consist of human beings, all reacting to the situation as it pertains to each one separately, each trying to survive, each prone to making mistakes, and each subject to the victim vagaries of human nature. We could not get people to act like mindless robots even if we wanted to. And by the way, we shouldn't want to. We shouldn't want to because the robots cannot think. It's, it's, this is funny with AI right now, you know, like how many prompts does it take to get the damn thing to do what you actually wanted it to do? I got into an argument with which one is on Microsoft? Which one is on Microsoft? Copilot. Check Copilot. So I had been sent something, a document. And I wanted to put the document, it was in a PDF. I put the document into Word and I haven't really used the AI yet, so and I just, when I, when I copied the text from the PDF, I put it into this Word document and it was all kind of jumbled up, you know, the font and the, it was, it was a bulleted list. So it was all. And I, I said, oh, let me try this co pilot thing. And I said, hey, you know, make this into a bulleted list. And then everything had a bullet. And I said, well, make it into a bullet list. And the things that are bigger, make them, you know, the title. Boom. And then there was a blue shading on all the subheadings. And I said remove the blue shading from the subheadings. And it thought. And then it said there, I moved it. And I said, no you didn't. And it said I'll do it again. And I said do it. And it tried to. And it couldn't do it. And it couldn't do it and it couldn't do it. Any six year old human would have understood what I was talking about and would have made a good decision, but the AI was, was letting me down. I finally had to just go in and change it myself manually. It thought he was doing it. So, so if I tell Kerry, if I tell Corporal Kerry to take his fire team and go take out that machine gun nest, charge up that hill and take out that machine gun nest and as soon as you put your heads up from the foxhole, you guys are under withering enemy fire. I don't want you to continue. I want you to come up with a different plan. I don't want you to just stand up and in, whatever, eight seconds, you're all dead. I want you to go, oh, too much fire. We need to do something else. We need to set some. Let's get some close air support on him. Let's put down some covering fire. Let's maneuver around to the flank. But I want you to think so. We don't want people to act like mindless robots. We're not good enough at giving them the correct prompt. Prompt to make things happen. I mean, we can't even. I couldn't even do it with my damn word processor. You know what I'm saying? And now you want me to do this on the battlefield. Can you imagine the kind of stupid shit that would be going out on the battlefield? If you're trying to. They were just following the exact orders that you had. No, it doesn't work. Things are too dynamic, so you got to be careful with that kind of thing. And then to close out this little section and this topic for the day, it says, given the nature of war, the remarkable thing is not that commanders cannot be thoroughly in control, but rather that they can achieve much influence at all. We should accept that the proper object of command and control is not to be thoroughly and precise in control. This is such a good lesson to learn. I'll say it again. We should accept that the proper object of command and control is not to be thoroughly and precisely in control. The turbulence of modern war suggests we need a looser form of influence, something more akin to the willing cooperation of a basketball team than to the omnipotent direction of the chess player. And this is something. I have a jiu jitsu comparison to this. We have a guy which used to train with, who's a big and strong and really good at jiu jitsu. And if I got top position on him and he. He could basically just roll, he would just. Basically be able to roll me over. He would just grab a hold of something, and when he turned, I would just go with him. He was just too big and strong. And what I realized is when he wanted to move, instead of me stopping him from moving, I needed to let him move. Let him move, because if he turns to his stomach, if I. If I hang on to him and he turns to his stomach, I'm now on the bottom.

[B]

He.

[A]

He could move me when I held on to him. So what you have to do is you have to let him go a little bit. And then he turns to his stomach, turns to his side. I'm still on top. I'm still in the dominant position. And this is very similar with leadership. If you try and hang on too tight, you're going to end up in a bad scenario. You're gonna end up losing control of what you are trying to control, by the way, because in leadership, if I'm hanging on that tight to one thing, there's a bunch of other things that are happening that I'm not paying attention to. So that's why we have to do something more akin to the willing cooperation of a basketball team than to the omnipotent direction of the chess player that provides the necessary guidance in uncertainty, disorderly, disorderly time, competitive environment without stifling the initiatives of subordinates. That's what we're trying to do. Got to give people room. Hey, is there risk when you're doing this? Yeah, there's absolutely risk. There's absolutely risk when you're doing this kind of thing. But is the risk outweigh the reward? No, the rewards are. Are way superior. Way superior. Yeah. And you're gonna. The ball is gonna get dropped sometimes. Things are gonna go sideways from time to time. And by the way, if things start going sideways too much in one particular avenue, then you're gonna have to get into that avenue a little bit. It's no big deal. But this, just like war, isn't something that you can't completely control. Life is the exact same way. There. There's just so many variables, so many things that are impossible to predict. And that being said, there is one thing that you can't control, and that's you. What you do, how you behave, how you respond when things go wrong, or how you respond when things go right. But if you try and hang on to every detail and you try and hang on and micromanage the world, you fail, you'll fail. It gives you a little bit of comfort. There's a little bit of comfort in micromanage. Have you ever had the comfort of micromanagement? You ever felt that?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You like there's got it.

[B]

There's a pull to it. In fact, you know, where you kind of feel like, ooh, you know, my feedback is necessary and critical here and valued. And, you know, it's a trap.

[A]

Oh, it's a big trap. The, one of the toughest traps about it is that it's successful at first. You know, it's like it's a win because the things Went the way I wanted them to go. And you get sucked into that trap where, okay, I guess what I'm the. My direct involvement is the reason for success. And then you got to figure out, okay, how many things can you be directly involved with? And, you know, there's a. There's a point that I make. I was talking about this at the last muster, you know, you. The fire team is four or five guys, right? You can directly control four or five guys. There's a reason that a fire team is four or five guys, because it takes me very little leadership to control four or five guys. Because you. As a machine gunner, if I'm your fire team leader, I can literally grab you and put you where I need you. And if the grenadier is next to you and the rifleman, I can. I can physically directly put you guys where I need you to be. As soon as I'm in. As soon as I'm a squad leader, bro, there's a couple guys that are out of my reach, and they're out of my voice, right? I could barely yells at squad. You can kind of talk to a squad. You can cut in a gunfight, not so much. But you might be able to catch the attention of the guys. You can. Once you get to a platoon, your. Your ability to directly control things, it approaches zero very quickly. The difference between fire team and platoon, you. You approach zero direct control because you can only. If you're a platoon leader, you can only get to three or four guys. You can't get. So what you have to use. What you have to use is leadership. That's what you have to. You have to lead through leadership. You can't lead through direct control. And so when you're young and you're in charge of a fire team, what you learn is direct control. That's not the right lesson. You. It's good that you're learning the tactics. Like, okay, I should put my machine gun in here. I should put my rifleman here. Like, it's good that you're learning where to place people, but you're not learning how to lead yet. You're not learning. You're learning the fundamental basic of leadership, which is barely even leadership. You're more just. You're more a director. And then now a good fireteam leader, he's going to have to do a lot less good. Fire team leader, he says, hey, we're going north. And the fire team gets in position pretty good. Positions are like 80% right. Maybe adjust this guy's field of fire. A little bit, but we're good. You got a platoon. You can't do that anymore. You have to use true leadership. So if you continue to try and lead by positioning each person in a platoon, it. You're, you're dead. Not only are you not going to be capable of doing it, but since you haven't allowed your troops to grow, that they're not thinking for themselves. And so when you tell, when you've got a robot that only responds to what you tell it to do, and then you don't tell it to do anything because there's nine, there's 20 other people that you're trying to direct. They're not doing anything, not going anywhere. It's a failure.

[B]

Or, or the other side of the coin, once you get those reps in of micromanaging, and that person expects you to micromanage them now, now when something does go wrong, that person's coming to you. And now they need you to approve or give direction or whatever. And that's. And then you multiply that by four or five guys and. Or by 12. You know, now you, you have cursed yourself with being inundated with questions and, hey, I need your feedback or I need you. And. And now that's your job.

[A]

I told many task unit commanders,

[B]

you

[A]

know, coming back from just a big disaster out training in land warfare or, or urban combat training scenarios, come back and say, you know, total chaos, total confusion. And, and it's all the direct result of micromanagement. Like they're, they, they would have their platoon trained up or their platoons trained up to where they only respond to being told what to do, and it would just fall apart through the, everything that we've just said. But I would tell these guys, like, imagine if all of your fire team leaders were doing something smart and were heading in the direction that you wanted them to head. Just imagine that. Just imagine that all your fire team leaders were doing something smart that was heading in the direction that you wanted them to head. Because right now you're telling them, hold that door. Hey, you guys punch across the street. They'll do that. That one fire team's gonna hold the door. The other fire team's gonna punch across the street. But now what's the other six fire teams doing? What are they doing? They're not doing anything. They're waiting for you to tell them what to do. If you were to say, hey, we need to secure that building on the corner, and then all your fire teams start to do something smart that's moving in that direction, and they'll coordinate with each other. They'll figure out that they need to coordinate with you. Hey, you cover. Hell, I got this. Hey, you punch out over here, okay? And they will start to do things. And guess what? Your job will be nothing other than the overall strategic call of, hey, we're gonna go and secure that building on the corner. Strong point that building. Okay, cool. You don't need a. I'm a fireteam leader, bro. You tell me to. Strong point of building, I'm good to go. I don't need. You don't need to tell me a damn thing. Nothing. Don't tell me anything. I got it. And by the way, I'll. If my other fire teams aren't understanding what's going on or don't know what to do, I'll handle them, too. And there's always a couple nugs like that ready to get it on. You know what I'm saying? It's so badass. It's so badass. You just, you know, you need to be. Now, listen. Do people sometimes need to be told what to do?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's when you flex down, you get some confusion going on, and you occasionally got to flex down and say, hey, what? We're holding this building. I need two fire teams across the street. Now. Do you need to do that sometimes? Yes, absolutely. It happens in business. Things will be going sideways. Oh, I got to get in there. I got to make a decision here. That's what I need to do right now. I need to give guidance the team. The fire team leader, he's not looking. He's not seeing everything that you're seeing. He's not seeing the enemy troops to the north. He's not seeing the. The coalition troops to the south that are heading our way. They're going to be able to handle the situation for us or support us. They can't see that. They're just going, dude, we're getting overwhelmed right now. Yeah. Hey, don't worry. We're gonna strong point this building. We got coalition forces inbound. We got a QRF inbound. Oh, okay, cool. Until you tell him that, he doesn't know. He's worried about the freaking. Get his pig back up. You know, get that fucking gun up. You know, that's what he's thinking about, God bless him. And he's thinking about, where am I going next? He'll make a decision if you don't tell him. But when you see the bigger picture, which you should cool. And you give him that broad overall Guidance of what? Where we're trying to go. He's going to get you there. And occasionally you got to get down in there, but most the time, give them that direction of what you're doing. They'll make it happen. But if you try and micromanage, you, you. You'll fail. So in order to truly maintain command and control, you have to influence what you can. You have to give broad guidance. You have to train people so that they will actively try and do some smart shit that is in support of what we're doing, which, by the way, a fireteam leader wants to do that like your team leader at your insurance company or your construction company. Your. Those team leaders want. They want to be doing something smart. They don't want to waste time. They don't want. They want to be efficient. They want to do a good job. So when you show up to work and they haven't moved, it's not their fault. It's your fault that you haven't given them the direction that they needed. That's what's. That's what's happening. That's what's happening. You have not given them direction that they needed. And therefore, or you've trained them to be responsive to what you tell them. And some people, that's a think that's a dream come true. It's not a dream come true. It's not a dream come true to have robots working for you? I'm sorry. Elon Musk. I'm sorry. These AI companies, you don't. You don't want that. Hey, look, are there menial tasks they can do? Sure. Can the robot wash my dishes? Cool. What's the worst case scenario? Who washes my dishes and breaks one? Like, we're all going to live, but if there's a fire in your house, do you want the robot going in there to try and figure some shit out that they haven't been programmed for? This is a tricky one. I'll take that firefighter all day that's gonna figure out how to make this, make this work. It's gonna pick up on things that no robot's gonna understand. So to maintain command and control, first of all, you have to control yourself. Control your ego. Boy, your ego doesn't. Boy, your ego wants to be in control of everything. It's actually disturbing. It's actually disturbing how much your ego really wants. Just impose your will on people. Don't let that happen. So get control of yourself and free your people. That's what we're doing. Check all Right. One thing that we can definitely take command and control over is our physical activity. And that's what we're doing. That means we're getting after it. We're running, we're lifting, we're boxing, wrestling, Jiu jitsu. Guitar. Is guitar a physical activity? Are you still playing guitar?

[B]

No.

[A]

Well, how far, how deep did you get? Gcd? Yeah, gcd A go. Good to go.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah. I got some minors in there too.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But I haven't, I haven't been giving it the attention it deserves, man.

[A]

Well, you know, you're acting all. Like you're disappointed the world I've. I've been on that program for. Since I was 14. I'm still there, homie.

[B]

Still there. I did, I did write like a three note song.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That I'm pretty proud of.

[A]

Okay, check. What's the name of the song?

[B]

I. I just, I wrote the music. I'll say. I haven't given it like lyrics or name or anything.

[A]

What's the, what's the tone? What's the scenario? Is it a sweet song for your lady or what? G Money,

[B]

I can tell you the. It's down, down, down, up, up, up, down, down, down. That's like the, the. The strumming pattern, I guess. But it's. Yeah, it's D to E to G. Possibly.

[A]

Have you ever seen the things where they break down? Like how many songs are just the same? Gcd? Oh, yeah, it's just. That's what. That's what it is.

[B]

Cowboy chords.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No shame in that, my brother. Yeah, no shame at all. But there's a physical activity kind of, you know, it's good for your coordination. So let's throw it on the. Let's throw it in the mix. We should probably get a little more guitar on all of us. But regardless of what you're doing physically and mentally, you're gonna need some fuel.

[B]

We.

[A]

We strongly recommend Jocko fuel. We got everything that you need. I am one go deep right now. One go. And it feels really good. I'm also one hydrate deep because I, I got after it this morning. And we got protein, we've got muscle drive. We've got. We've got everything that you need, technically speaking.

[B]

Yeah. And the flavors are just on a different level now. Like the, the across the board go protein shakes. Especially the raspberry gelato. That's out right now. The fruity cereal flavor.

[A]

That raspberry gelato is kind of a hitter.

[B]

Oh, dude. Summer, I'm going to say it. Refreshing. Yeah. Like it just is, it feels, it, it feels good after.

[A]

And then there's the nostalgic glory of fruity cereal. The fruity cereal protein shake with no downside whatsoever. Isn't it crazy to, to, to do something that has no downside? There's no downside.

[B]

There's literally a one word question. When people try the, the fruity cereal and we tell them the macros, it's how, how, how. And I always say science because that's

[A]

so that's what we have. We have the best products with no downside. So that you can be mentally, physically and spiritually straight up in the game. That's what we're doing. Check out jockofield.com or just go to your, go to your store, Go to your grocery store. Go to your convenience store, Go to your vitamin store. We, we're, we're kind of, kind of taking over. We're in 50,000 stores right now. If they don't, if you don't see it, ask for it and they will reach out to us and we'll make it happen. So jockofuel.com or wherever you shop, we got you also origin USA. We make American made American made clothing and gear. So jeans, boots, hoodies, T shirts, Jiu jitsu gear, Jiu Jitsu GI's. I just gave Rana her brown belt. An origin brown belt. You know you're gonna give your American daughter her brown belt. It's got to be an orange in one, right? Just think of that. It's glorious. American made belts, American made rash guards, American made shorts. We got everything. And it's all 100American made. This is. And look, I'll tell you right now, I'm happy to see that American Americans are refocused on American manufacturing. We're seeing people investing and building in America. Thankfully. It's great to see, but we've been doing this the whole time. We've been investing in America since day one. We didn't take the blood money, the slave money, the environmental disaster money. We didn't take that money. We did it the right way. From day one, we led the charge on American manufacturing, restoring American manufacturing, bringing back these communities that were broken by corporate sellouts. We did not play that game. We kept it American. We kept it real. Built by freedom here. So support America. Support our economy. Support our workers. Support supportoriginusa.com go get some.

[B]

We've also got jockostore.com if you've ever thought to yourself, man, I would really like a shirt that says good or discipline equals freedom. That I can just rep when I'm going through my day. That's where you can find them. Got all kinds of gear on jocko store.com.

[A]

is it true that there's a, a certain percentage of personal discipline that increases when you are representing?

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, if you get caught eating a donut wearing a Deaf Core T shirt, is that like.

[B]

And that's a real consideration.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. You know, you can't go, there's a percentage.

[B]

You're not stopping by Krispy Kreme and a sugar coated lye shirt. You're just not doing it.

[A]

Yeah, there's a legitimate increase in personal discipline.

[B]

Standard deviation increase for sure.

[A]

You're going to be. You're gonna be just. You have to be. Yeah, you have to be 100. It's a little bit of that. You had to hear that Turk, about like the talk about your identity. Like, what do you identify?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

How do you identify? And then your identity does not allow.

[B]

Right. This, like it's contrary to the identity.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, Yep. There's a big transition that kids make when in their life when they go from my parents told me to do this or my parents told me not to do this to I don't do this. Right. So when you're a kid, like when I was a kid and I didn't drink and I didn't do drugs and it wasn't really for me, it wasn't really because of my parents, it was because. Because the hardcore stuff. Yeah, that's what we're doing. And. But there was a big difference between a kid that would say, well, I don't want to get in trouble. Hey, well, hey, do you want a beer? No, I don't want to get in trouble or my parents are going to come home or whatever. There's a big difference between that kid who is obeying someone else and me and my friends that were like, no, I don't drink. This is me. You see what I'm saying? There's a huge difference. So I didn't. That was part of my identity was like, oh, that's not my thing. You know what I do, I work out. I try and be strong. I try and be mentally clear. That's what I'm doing. So when you represent, it's a real thing. And I'll tell you, like, you know, when I got the SEAL teams, unfortunately, the big. I wanted to be a good seal. That what, what? My identity changed unfortunately, of, oh, we're drinking. Cool. Then let's Go. And I kind of adopted that weakness.

[B]

But

[A]

overall, if you consider who you are and who you want to be and you make that a thing, then all of a sudden it's a lot harder to waiver. Becomes a lot harder to waiver because you don't want. It's not you. So I recommend represent.

[B]

And hey, if, if you got a kid that's on the path and wants to represent too, we've got Discipline Equals Freedom shirts for kids. We've got Warrior Kid shirts for kids. Let's build that identity. Yeah, get some.

[A]

Build that identity for your kids. Help them build that identity. It's huge. It's huge. Now listen, that's also challenging when you're an adult because when you're a parent, because your, your children have to rebel against you. They have to. They have to rebel against you because they have to leave the house. They have to leave the nest. And psychologically, if they are always obeying you and following you, psychologically, they can't ever leave. And you don't, you don't want them to be like that. So there's going to be some form of rebellion. That's why the things that you want to teach them, a lot of times it's easier to have someone else teach them those things. And even in the Warrior Kid books, that's one of the reasons why it's Uncle Jake and not dad. Because kids don't listen to dad. They have to rebel against him a little bit. They have to. They have to rebel against Mom a little bit. That's why you get those frictions, those teenage frictions. But you can help them build the correct identity by giving them the right information.

[B]

Because

[A]

the word brainwashing, right? Bad connotation, right? We don't want to brainwash people because we want them to think for themselves. But I am, I regret to inform you they're getting brainwashed. They're getting brain. We are getting brainwashed. Because when you're, when you're allowing inputs into your brain, it's having an impact. So what are you gonna allow into their brain? There's some stuff you're not gonna have any control over. I mean, you can't lock them in a room and, you know, only have them listen to Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual for the rest of their life. That'd be problematic. There's gonna be other influences, but what are gonna be strongest ones? So get those kids the Warrior Kid books, by the way. Way of the Warrior Kid.

[B]

Also check out that shirt locker. New shirt every month. Def core. Cool. Designs, creative designs a little more out of the box. A lot of good feedback.

[A]

I just went on that whole. That whole freaking tantrum and you just. You had to bring it back to the shirt locker echoes. You're like, I can't drop the ball with this. Hey, by the way, shirt locker jocko's over here trying to help save children from weakness. But, hey, Echo, over here. We got the subscription guy. He's got the subscription scenario. All right, cool. Hey, by the way, Sherlocker, check that out, too. Sometimes you got to know, bro, hey, if the vibe ain't there, he's got. I don't know if Texas. I don't know if Echo's going to text you up like, yo, you didn't mention the subscription scenario. He's going to hammer you for that. But no, now he's going to be like, hey, thanks for getting it done. Yeah, I'm sure that's going to have a big impact. So there you go. Yeah, subscription scenario. Doggo store for the sheer locker. Also got a bunch of books. I wrote a bunch of books about for adults as well. Discipline equals freedom. Field manual, by the way. Haven't mentioned that one in a bit. Extreme ownership dichotomy. Leadership. Leadership strategy and tactics. And then we got Dave Burke. He wrote the need to lead. We got put your legs on by Rob Jones. If you need steak, go to coloradocraftbeef.com and get some steak. Check out Echelon front. We have the muster coming up July 8th through the 10th, 2026. July 8th through the 10thth, 2026, here in San Diego, California. It's in the summertime, it's after the 4th of July. If you want to. This is an opportunity for you to bring your fam out. Check out SD, check out SeaWorld, check out the Wild animal park, check out the San Diego Zoo, check out the USS Midway, Check out the Navy SEAL Museum, the UDT SEAL Museum in downtown San Diego, which is epic. All these opportunities, if you bring your fam out to San Diego, that's one of the reasons why we did a little summer muster. So if you want to do that, check out echelonfront.com or if you and your organization need some kind of help with leadership, then check out echelonfront.com and we got you covered. We also have a online training program, which is extremeownership.com teaching the skills of leadership online. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org also check out Heroes and Horses.org also check out Jimmy May's organization Beyond the Brotherhood.org also Warriors in Need. Warriors in Need.org they've got, they're taking military aviation technicians and bringing them into the civilian world to, well, quite frankly to fill 30,000 job vacancies that are in the aviation world. So check out warriors in need.org and then stronghold rescue.org and single parent project. We got a lot of orgs trying to help all these people out. If you want to connect with us, check out jocko.com and then on social media, I'm Ocko Willink carriesarihelton. Just watch out for the algorithm and the little brainwashing that's going on. The micro brainwashing. A little bit at a time. A little another little, another little thought been put in your head leading you in a bad direction. Be careful, that's a real thing. It's happening. It's happening to you. It's happening to me. Fight it. Thanks all our service members around the world right now taking command and control of our peace and security. Thank you for your service. 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 supplying us with peace, peace and security on the home front and everyone else out there. Just keep it in mind. The world's a big place and it's filled with unpredictable things. The weather, the wildlife, the tectonic plates which apparently in California are built up to thousand year highs. Right now it's coming. But least predictable of all, the world is filled with human beings and we can't control everything. And we can't control what the enemy does. We can't control what the competitor does. We can't control what the market does. But what we can control is us. And that's the best we can do. Influence the rest as positively as we can. But don't hold on too tight or you'll get taken for a ride you don't want to be on. We cannot make everything perfect, but what we can do is lead. That's all we've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Carrie and Jocko out.