How Great Leaders Are Built | Navy SEAL Leadership Lessons | JP Dinnell Podcast Episode 137

Summary

JP Dinnell Podcast Episode 137: How Great Leaders Are Built | Navy SEAL Leadership Lessons

Released: May 8, 2026
Hosts: JP Dinnell and Lucas Pinckard

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Episode Overview

This episode of the JP Dinnell Podcast delves into the foundations of great leadership—what traits to look for when selecting and training leaders, how humility and ownership drive high-performing teams, and how lessons from elite SEAL teams and business apply to any organization. Drawing from frontline experience under Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, JP shares hard-earned wisdom on cultivating effective leaders, building robust cultures, and fostering genuine relationships within a team.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nutrition, Discipline, and Ownership (00:00-08:12)

• Lighthearted opening: Lucas jokes about "genetically converting carbs to protein" through muffins; leads to a practical reflection on calorie tracking and intentional eating.
• Lessons from food tracking: Small changes often arise simply from tracking intake, subtly reinforcing ownership.
• Parallels to leadership: Changing habits, whether personal or professional, begins with awareness and owning your actions.
  • Quote [03:28]: JP: “They’re not telling you to do that. You chose to do it. You're therefore taking ownership over these choices.”

2. Q&A: Supplements and Tactical Nutrition (08:12-10:50)

• Lucas shares his experience with Jocko Fuel’s Pro Series pre-workout, emphasizing moderation and the value of melding healthy practices into daily family life (incorporating high-quality supplements into kids' snacks).
  • Quote [10:15]: Lucas: “I feel like I’m getting away with something… I’m having them eat health food and they think it’s chocolate.”

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Leadership Deep Dive

3. Selecting & Training Great Leaders (10:50–25:47)

The Core Traits That Matter

• Competence is necessary, but humility, coachability, and drive are essential.
  • Quote [11:50]: JP: “First you have to be good at your job... But more important, is that person humble? Are they coachable and teachable and are they passionate?”
• Humility does NOT mean lacking confidence. The best salespeople, military leaders, and project managers balance confidence and humility—allowing for learning and team growth.
  • Quote [18:18]: JP: “You can’t have humility if you don’t have confidence. That’s the reason why Jocko and Leif wrote Dichotomy of Leadership: ‘Humble, not passive.’”

Examples from the SEAL Teams

• Rank does not guarantee knowledge. OICs (officers) are often the least experienced; chief petty officers and seasoned enlisted personnel become invaluable resources. The best leaders solicit input from across the team.
  • Quote [19:31]: JP: “Jocko is empowering us to step up and lead. That’s humility… he was asking, ‘Hey, what do you guys think we should do?’”
• Legacy-building: Elite teams train replacements and invest in growth, always focusing on leaving the organization better than found.
  • Quote [39:19]: JP: “A good platoon chief takes care of his leadership, his team. They’re building their replacement…”

Promoting from Within vs. Hiring Outside

• Advantages of promoting from within: Cultural knowledge, relationships, understanding of the product/company.
• When hiring from outside: Focus on onboarding, culture, and training. Make expectations explicit and provide resources/support.
• Consistent communication & hard conversations are vital for successful transitions and cultural assimilation.

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4. Integrating Leaders into Culture (25:47–38:41)

How to Get New Leaders Engaged

• Set clear cultural expectations from Day 1. Outline what embracing the culture looks like, and support with regular feedback/check-ins.
  • Quote [28:53]: JP: “We expect our leaders to be ingrained into the culture… This is who we are, this is why we do what we do.”
• Probation & feedback: Use a clear probation/evaluation period (ex: 60-90 days), coupled with frequent, honest feedback meetings.
  • Quote [31:55]: JP: “If there’s some course corrections they need, now is the time to have that hard conversation.”

The Importance of Relational Leadership

• Leaders must “get out from behind the desk” and proactively build relationships.
  • Quote [34:21]: Lucas: “You don’t need to have an open door policy, you need to have the EMP chair policy—where you’re out there doing stuff with them.”
• Specific guidance for frontline and mid-level leaders: Don’t rely on email check-ins; address known team dynamics directly and in-person.

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5. Legacy, Team Mindset, and Lasting Culture (38:41–46:23)

Building Up and Down the Chain of Command

• Care for your people is non-negotiable—whether your motivation is self-serving or team-oriented, your success is directly tied to the team's.
  • Quote [41:51]: JP: “If you want to succeed in life, you have to take care of your people. But if you can switch to, ‘I want to make sure my people get theirs,’ the impact… is far greater.”
• SEAL principle: Leave it better than you found it. Organizations win long-term by investing in their people at every level, living out “one team, one fight” and extreme ownership philosophies.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On humility vs. passivity
  • JP [18:18]: “You can’t have humility if you don’t have confidence… ‘Humble, not passive.’”
• On empowering teams
  • JP [19:31]: “Jocko is empowering us to step up and lead. That’s humility.”
• On integrating new leaders
  • JP [28:53]: “We expect our leaders to be ingrained into the culture that we have here. This is who we are. This is why we do what we do.”
• On legacy and succession
  • JP [39:19]: “A good platoon chief takes care of his leadership, his team, and is building his replacement… It’s about leaving it better than you found it.”
• On culture vs. strategy
  • JP [46:13]: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast… Culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command.”

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 00:00–08:12 — Nutrition, discipline, ownership, and parallels to leadership awareness
• 08:12–10:50 — Q&A: Supplements and tactical nutrition in family life
• 10:50–25:47 — Main topic: Selecting leaders, humility, leadership training, SEAL team examples, hiring vs. promotion
• 25:47–38:41 — Assimilating new leaders, onboarding, building relationships, feedback loops
• 38:41–46:23 — Legacy, “taking care of your people,” platoon chief analogy, culture as the foundation
• 46:23–end — Final thoughts, “Culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command”

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Final Takeaways

• Humility, coachability, and passion are non-negotiable traits in great leaders.
• The best leaders empower others, listen deeply, and give ownership back to the team.
• Strong cultures aren’t accidental—they’re built on explicit expectations, frequent communication, and personal investment top-to-bottom.
• Legacy is built by preparing your replacements and leaving organizations better than you found them.
• “Culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command.”

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This episode is a roadmap for anyone looking to build, develop, or become a great leader—on the battlefield, in business, or anywhere a team strives for more.

Transcript

[A]

Good Morning, this is JP Donnell podcast episode 137. I am JP Donnell and as always, I have Lucas with me. What's up, buddy?

[B]

What's going on, man?

[A]

How are you?

[B]

I'm good. I'm working the first in program. Jonathan and I have negotiated on. On something because I have a theory. It's a working theory. So I'm testing it out that my body.

[A]

Really good.

[B]

My body can actually assimilate carbohydrates as though they were proteins. And particularly if it comes in the form of cupcakes or nerds. So I. And muffins. Muffins are a big player at our house right now and two things have happened. One, I've lost weight and gotten bigger. I'm counting that as one thing. And two, my muffin consumption has gone up. And so I think based off of this scientific study that I'm conducting and we'll be Publishing on PubMed, that that happens. Also, my kids are getting huge and they're eating mostly muffins right now.

[A]

So. Muffins, milk, beef.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, duh. Okay, so we're. They've. They've shifted. They're off beef.

[A]

What? Why?

[B]

Yeah, because they've. They've discovered dark meat chicken and they, they like the. You know, because they're tiny. So they're tiny little drumsticks. A chicken drumstick looks like it came off of a giant.

[A]

So it looks like a turkey leg.

[B]

Yeah. In. In the hand of my child.

[A]

I could see that.

[B]

So, yeah, but I don't think that that's it. I think it's whatever. These muffins are nerds.

[A]

So you.

[B]

I think those two things are helping.

[A]

So you think that you somehow have passed on this genetic ability to convert crappy carbs.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Into refined carbs, into protein, into muscle.

[B]

Right. That they're not.

[A]

It's a. I mean, I mean, yes,

[B]

I think it's a genetic thing, you know, and I'm going to continue to test this and I'm not going to bind to the barbecue sauce coated lines.

[A]

Bro, can we just scratch this and start over? All right. Good morning.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's. In all actuality though, I have been counting carbs and stuff. I've lost a little bit and then kind of come back up. But I'm feeling like it's that muscle, like that initial loss and then the recoup balance thing. Not like I'm regaining.

[A]

Technically, you are counting carbs, but it's not carbs. It's. You're counting your calories and be Mindful of what you're eating.

[B]

Yeah, 100%.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And that's, you know, we've talked about that with doing the stuff with first in. And so some of the stuff just naturally happens, like whenever you've got to put down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Hey, I had a whataburger and it was like, oh, this is 500 calories for that. Or you know what, when I was at In N Out, I ordered a medium Dr. Pepper. Like, oh, that's 300 calories.

[A]

It's crazy. What exactly. You realize how many just empty calories you're consuming when you start tracking stuff. And that's why I think it's smart the way first and nutrition does it. The first week with them, you just track, they tell you, hey, just track everything you're eating. Don't change anything. And guess what? You subconsciously do.

[B]

You start changing 100%.

[A]

And what's cool about it is they're not telling you to do that. You did it. You chose to do it. You're therefore taking ownership over these choices. And so the likelihood of you sticking with that is. Is greater.

[B]

Yeah. And this whole episode is not going to be about food. But I will say it has also changed the way that I evaluate what we purchase because now I'm looking much more. And this was a cool thing that I saw on the sofa. Feels kind of revamped. Their site, especially now they came out with the pro series, is that it's got on there like what you're paying per serving, that's on the thing. And whether it's that or whether it's, you know, buying like chicken quarters. Right. Because you can get chicken quarters right now for super cheap. Like they're like 79 or 80 cents a pound versus like a chicken breast which is like almost 2 bucks a pound and some places a little more. But you can get a bag of chicken quarter like a 10 pound bag of chicken quarters for 79 cents a pound. So it's nuts. But then evaluating like, all right, so how much protein is that per dollar?

[A]

Right. That's cool.

[B]

And so, yeah, we've been, we've been looking a little bit more at that. And then Kirsten hit the. Now I have to eat something when I first get up and what I really want to eat is muffins. And that's when. Well, things changed because of the breakfast muffin.

[A]

Well, your wife.

[B]

320 calories.

[A]

Yeah. Well, your wife can get away with that right now. Yeah.

[B]

Because she's growing another human.

[A]

Yeah. You are not.

[B]

I might look like I'm growing another human.

[A]

But if I.

[B]

If I stay.

[A]

But here's the deal. If you offset that, if you offset that with enough protein, like, you can do things like that.

[B]

Yeah. And it's been good to get back on there. I'm feeling like. Feeling like I'm getting quality rest again, which has been a big thing. Like, I haven't been in the sleep apnea part yet. I never hit that. I didn't hit the, like, snoring or anything like that, but just in general body function when I'm sleeping and knowing when to eat. What has been a cool thing.

[A]

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I know Q's. And as I know, we're not talking about food and diet and all that stuff.

[B]

Carbohydrate experiment. I'll keep you guys posted. Other NCCs might be able to do the same thing.

[A]

No, no, they should not. They should. Do not. Listen to what Lucas just said. Do not adopt the muffin.

[B]

The muffin diet. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Unless you want a muffin top, then. Cool, go ahead and do that. That's good. Yeah, you like that?

[B]

That looks nice.

[A]

So I was thinking about as you're talking is like, as you start. That's why I loved doing 75 hard. Aiden's on 75 hard right now.

[B]

So I'm at Jiu Jitsu today.

[A]

Yeah. And he's doing well. He's training. And yeah, it's cool because he's learning more about tracking food and being mindful of meals. And you know, my brother Corey and I were talking with him and Josh the other night. We're at dinner after Jiu Jitsu about like, hey, if, you know you're gonna want to go do something later for dinner or a meal, pre plan it, put it in there. Like, just put that. Hey, you want to go to Chipotle and you know you're going to get guacamole and there's going to be a bunch of fat in that. Okay, cool. Then put that in there and then reverse engineer the rest of your day. Yeah, so it's, it's, you know, tactical versus strategic thinking. And as you're looking at like, okay, cool, I can get these for 79 cents a pound instead of $2. That's incredible.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, a $21 per pound savings is.

[B]

It's massive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Especially when we're. We're feeding a family of four and a half now.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

And then, you know, walking by because. Yeah, okay, so we got muffins because that's what she wants. But we also got those little mini cookie sandwiches where it's two miniature chocolate chip cookies that are full of icing and those are 210 calories a piece. And if I'm going to have that, I know I'm going to like if you give a mouse a cookie. Oh, don't you, don't you tell me that. But yeah, you know the if you give a mouse a cookie books. Like if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll probably want a glass of milk. If he has a glass of milk. It's going to. Actually they're cute kids books. Our kids have all of them.

[A]

I believe you.

[B]

Right. So that is the way that I look at cookies. Like if I see a cookie, I'm going to want a glass of milk. So now I get this 2:10. I got to figure in this other whatever. And I know that I'm going to want that for dessert with the voice. So I'm like, cool. I got to save 400 calories out of my day so that I can.

[A]

And if it's worth it, cool. Do it. But it's not something you're doing all the time.

[B]

It's enough.

[A]

Not.

[B]

And it's not worth it. But I'm. I'm doing it anyway because I need to see if these carbs gonna give me those Boulder shoulders. Like 1999 Marcus rule. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[A]

That was pretty guys.

[B]

Epic. Well, let's get into some Q A.

[A]

Do you like the jockey fuel pro series pre workout.

[B]

The pros. So I like it as a half scoop right now because it's a big scoop. It's a 30 gram scoop which is not typical of a pre workout.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's several hundred grams of or several hundred milligrams of caffeine in there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I am on the half scoop because I'm taking it nice and easy. Flavor is great. It's like a blue looking nitro pop thing that's on the, on the front of it. That scuba jocko creatine. And then the blue raz hydrate pack.

[A]

Great combo.

[B]

Everything you need in there. Drinking that and then that gives me like a full 16 ounces of water instead of just eight that comes with pre workout. Mix that up at the house Shaker goes in the car. Soon as we're on the. Once the headlights on the car turn on when I put it in reverse is when the headlights on the truck turn on and we're pulling out of the driveway at 4:40 in the morning. By the time we get to the gym that's down. It's doing its thing. Yeah, that's good. The focus I've really enjoyed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is something I've seen help on. And the new 2.0 stuff has some mood enhancers too, which I'm. I'm stoked I haven't gotten to try

[A]

one of those yet.

[B]

I'm gonna check that out. But, yeah, the new, new pro series that. We've been using the pro series protein at the house too, and we've been doing that with. With Greek yogurt and mix that in there. If you use like the full fat Greek yogurt, whenever you mix it in there, the macros on it are great, but it also makes like a mousse. So the boys are having it and it's a good little snack for them. The pediatrician's like, hey, they need good gut bacteria. Especially since we've been doing traveling and stuff and they've been eating stuff that's like out of the norm for them, like, make sure that they've. Their gut biome is good. So we're. We're hitting them with that stuff and they're like, I want the. I want the chocolate yogurt dinner. And I'm like, cool.

[A]

Yeah. And you don't feel bad?

[B]

I don't. And I. I feel like I'm getting away with something.

[A]

Like, I'm.

[B]

I'm having them eat health food and they think that it's chocolate. One of these days they're going to find out that this whole time that they've been growing up, they've been given.

[A]

They're not going to care.

[B]

Healthy alternatives.

[A]

That's what my parents did with us. Yeah. And we're like, oh, this is awesome. We're eating healthy, getting more protein than most kids our age would. And it's going to be like that

[B]

first lava cake, though. That first lava cake they have, they're going to be like, what is this? This is real chocolate. Yeah. And those carbs, they're going to make you grow.

[A]

I mean, yes, carbs do make you grow, but different.

[B]

Different kind of growth.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So one of the things we've been asked about a lot lately and that we were going to dive into on this episode is selecting leaders and training leaders and the difference between those two things. Right. So we have a lot of listeners who have asked on kind of like best hiring practices, but we face this in our church and with the organizations that I work with. You, obviously, at Echelon Front, you guys have the same thing that there are sometimes when you promote a leader from within and sometimes when you're looking at outside candidates in order to do that. So the first thing I want to talk about is characteristics of the leaders that you want to promote. Like, if you're looking from within, like, what characteristics are you looking for in. In those leaders if you know you're wanting to move them up into position or they're going to be a candidate for, for a new role?

[A]

Well, first you have to be good at your job.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So you have to have the skill set. But more important that is that person humble? Are they coachable and, and teachable and are they passionate? Like that's what you want. That's really hard to develop within somebody if they don't want that, if that's not who they are, if they're not a humble person, it's really difficult to humble somebody and make them a humble person.

[B]

So I want to talk about this because, like, there are a lot of people who have incredible aptitudes to do a job. Right. Especially in the sales world. Like when I was working sales, we had some guys who were incredible salesman, but almost, it feels like by nature, by virtue of the industry, whatever that industry is, if you're in sales, the, the challenge then is keeping your own ego in check. Yeah. Because there's also a certain thing about, like sales.

[A]

If.

[B]

And it's not about humility, we might couch it that way. Right. But if I have a couple of bad weeks or if I have a bad month or maybe a couple of bad months in a row, like my self image starts to go, and, and if I don't have enough confidence, I'm not gonna make sales. So in an industry like that where you, you have to have a lot of confidence, you have to be confident about the product that you're selling. You have to be competent about your knowledge of the product. Right. Like, how do you identify humility in an industry or in an area where kind of that, that sort of confidence and arrogance is almost like key to success?

[A]

Well, I mean, so if somebody knows the industry and the products, that's obviously ideal if they're in a leadership sales manager role.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But you don't have to have that. If you have leadership skill sets and background and you've led teams, your team that you're leading, they're the ones actually going out there and doing the work. Right now there's a lot of different ways companies do these things. You know, when I was doing sales, I got promoted to sales manager. So I Knew the industry, I knew what we were selling, and I got promoted sales manager. And I knew how to lead the team because of what I did in the SEAL teams. But these guys that I was working with and leading knew it far greater than I did. And so I was still learning a lot from them when I was in that sales manager position. And I love those guys and I still keep in contact with those guys and we'll text them occasionally, just checking in and, you know, whatnot. Because they were great guys. They were super humble but driven. So they had big egos, but they had a healthy balance of their ego. And at times it would get a little flared up, like every single human. But ultimately, like, these guys are super humble. Yeah. And that's what made them really good at their job. So you can bring somebody from the outside that doesn't know your industry if they know how to lead people.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And there's a difference between managing and leading, which we can dive into another time. But, like, if you know how to lead people, you don't need to know the job.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You should learn the job as fast as you can. So I look at it like in the. In the SEAL teams, you have the structure. You have the oic, the officer in charge. So they're on their second, maybe third platoon, the aoi. And so they're. Then they are the number one in the platoon, the aoic, the assistant officer in charge. They're the number two. They're a brand new officer out of SEAL qualification training.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Number three is the platoon chief. Who is the guy. And the platoon chief in E7 has the knowledge, the experience. They're considered the tactical genius because they are on their, like, 4th, 5th, 6th, maybe 8th or 9th platoon.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Which is crazy if you think about that.

[B]

And so they've probably got the most, like, actual experience in the team of anybody on the team at that time.

[A]

100%. Yeah. Well, 99% of the time there might be a senior E6 who maybe never wanted to make chief and so failed the exams on purpose or maybe got in trouble and got busted down in rank. And so they have more time in the SEAL teams. But the chief. Outrageous. But that's so rare, right? That is like, I would say 98% of the time that platoon chief, maybe even 99, 99% of the time that platoon chief is going to have that experience. Well, that platoon chief, the number three, has more experience than the OIC and the AOIC combined times two or three. But the OIC and AOIC are In a leadership position. They have gone through leadership training as an officer of how to lead enlisted guys and lead other junior officers. And so an AOIC doesn't know squat about a platoon or combat operations or mission planning. I mean, they know a little bit from their advanced training that they went through. And that training got better and better because after Ramadi, you know, Jocko took over trade at Leif, went to that program like training the leaders between. Between BUDS and sqt to prepare them how to lead. And I mean, big improvement in the leadership development. But even still, you know, and then they would also have some senior enlisted guys there as well, which is brilliant.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, I have buddies that were senior enlisted SEALs that were at the Naval Academy.

[B]

Oh, that's right.

[A]

Teaching leadership and, you know, at the different war colleges and everything else. Because it's like, why would you not want a senior enlisted guy helping teach the officers how to lead enlisted guys?

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so the military definitely does that. Well, a lot of organizations, they don't understand that as deep as they should and could in regards to, hey, you have to develop your leaders. And if you're bringing in outside leaders, they better be humble, they better be coachable, teachable, and they better be passionate and driven.

[B]

I want to kind of define what, what you mean by humility, because I think that this, that I think in general. Yeah, when we think about humility, it. It almost has, like, the word. Almost gets a bad rap that, like, to be humble means like, oh, it's a person that's. That maybe like they. They're constantly deflecting or it's a person with no confidence or any of those kinds of things.

[A]

And yeah, that's. That is not that'. Yeah, that's not humility. Because you can't have humility if you don't have confidence.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

That's the reason why Jock and Leif wrote Dichotomy of Leadership. Humble not passive. That's literally one of the chapters they wrote about humble not passive. And so I'll give you a good example.

[B]

We're ready.

[A]

Okay. Leif Babin, Charlie Batun, oic, not passive. He's a. He's an aggressive go getter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Very intelligent, hard worker, knows his job,

[B]

great voice for audiobooks.

[A]

Yes. He's on his second platoon. Okay. He's oic, the officer in charge now. He went to the Naval Academy, spent some time in the regular fleet Navy. So he has some. A good amount of leadership background, comes in 2nd Platoon BTF. Tony is his platoon chief. Leif Outranks Tony by far as a senior.03. Yeah. Tony's an E7. Tony's been in the. In the team for a while. Leif would lean on Tony all the time. Hey, chief, what do you think we should do? Hey, what do you think we should do? Hey, what do you think we should do? Hey, Jeremy, their lpo. Jeremy, what do you think we should do? All the way down to the junior guys. Look at what, you know what Jocko did with me. Pulled me aside. Hey, I need you to be my go to guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's our task unit commander. He has more experience than all the guys.

[B]

Or were you like 19, 20, whenever he's asking you to do this?

[A]

I just turned 22 and Iraq on my first deployment. Come back, meet him. So I'm the youngest guy in my platoon. The most junior. Yeah. Youngest and most junior ranked guy. And actually, Eric, we were like, like the same age. So anyways, me and my buddy Eric, we're Both young dudes, 22 years old. Yeah. And Jocko is empowering us to step up and lead. That's humility. Could Jocko have dictated everything that we did? Yes, because he had the knowledge, he had the background, he had the position. But it was always he was asking Seth and Leif, hey, what do you guys think we should do? Hey, in this mission planning, you know, putting myself and Ryan Jobe in charge of mission planning and putting Eric and other. You know what I mean? Like, just constantly pushing it down to the guys. And Seth did that with us all the time. Benny is a freaking stud and SEAL teams. He was a stud and Benny was in E6. Seth is a senior 03 and our platoon chief. Humble dude. He's a senior E7. He's a platoon chief. And he looked to Benny and the other E6s and he'd be like, hey, guys, what do you think we should do for this? He didn't. They didn't need the credit. They didn't want the credit. They didn't care as long as the job got done. And so when you're coming into as an outside leader, that is exactly what you should do. When I talk to construction companies, a big issue that a lot of companies have is they have these project managers because it's somebody who went to college, had a degree, they come in, and now they're over the laborers who have been doing it for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. Yeah.

[B]

And so these, sometimes they're subcontractors who own their own companies doing this exact thing.

[A]

Exactly. And I Tell every single one of these. I say kids because they're in their mid-20s running multimillion dollar jobs. Which, by the way, when people are like, oh, the younger generation, I'm like, who are you talking about?

[B]

I saw a hilarious video about that that I'll share with you. And we may have to cut it out, but I think you'll find it funny.

[A]

Here's the other thing. You were also that younger generation at one time, buddy. So just chill. You know what I mean?

[B]

Like, not always the rock star you thought you were, Right?

[A]

Exactly. And so I just tell these young leaders, like, you need to be humble, coachable, teachable. You need to get to know the job as much as you can. You need to be a hard worker. You need to have passion and drive and show these guys that you're there to support them. And I said, why? Why would you need to be the person that comes up with a plan? They can never answer that. So I just push back to them and say, hey, the best thing you can do to gain respect from your guys is give them respect. Yeah. Drive ownership back to them. Hey, guys, here's a project we're working on. What do you guys think we should do? And if they're like, oh, you're the boss, you tell us. No, no, no. Hey, you guys have the skill sets. You guys have the knowledge in regards to how to do this. My job is. Is to facilitate what you guys need to support you and provide top cover. Yeah. What do you guys want to do? How do you want to do this? And so that's. If you're bringing in outside leaders, the best thing you can do for these outside leaders is to set that standard and example right away. Hey, you're here to support these guys. You work for them. Like, that's a mindset that I think people need to get, is like, hey, when you're in a leadership position, you work for your people and you work for your leadership, which it goes up and down the chain of command. And in order for me to come in and say, hey, I'm here to support and serve. Right? Serve my team and serve my leadership and serve my peers, it frames. I'm sorry, it changes the way you frame and think about things. You are there to support them, which is, if I know I'm here to support you, why would I come in and say, hey, Lucas, is what you need to do. That's not supporting you. Supporting you is saying, hey, what do you have going on? How can I help you? And, you know, and so Bringing in outside leaders, setting those expectations and standards. And this is not just like a one time conversation. We need to have these conversations with our people all the time. And it's just a reminder, hey, this is what's expected of you as a leader in this organization. Now if you are hiring from within, promoting from within, it's the same thing. That person's got to be good at their job, but they have to be humble, they have to be coachable, teachable, passionate, driven. They have to have good relationships with the people around them. Because that's another thing. We'll get that question a lot of times at the musters or when I'm doing one on one coaching things at the muster or strategic coaching with clients through Echelon Front is, hey, I have this guy or this gal, they're really good at their job. But we had to pass them up for a promotion because they just, they don't have a lot of good relationships with the people around them. If we put them in a position of leadership, it's going to cause a bunch of issues and drama because nobody likes working with them. Nobody's going to like working for them. What should we do? Well, okay, why has this conversation never been brought up to that person? Yeah, you're doing them a disservice by not having the hard conversation. And so that's one of the things that we also did at Sean Fry is teaching people how to have those hard conversations, how to use the extreme ownership framework. But if you are a company that's heavy on, hey, I want to promote from within, then you need to make sure you're developing your people before it's time for them to be put in a leadership position. Like there should be a leadership progression pathway that you develop for their growth. And so then that way you can hire from within. And that's going to have the advantage because if somebody's being hired from within, what do they know really well? The culture, the product, the people, all those things. Yeah. And then if you're bringing somebody from the outside, then okay, cool. We know what we need to really focus on, which is getting them up to speed with the culture, our processes, the people, our product and all those things. And it comes down to training whatever way it is. Like you have to invest into the development of your people.

[B]

Yeah. One of my really good friends came from like he switched industries, right. So he managed a bunch of service techs in the alarm industry, like doing alarm installations and was looking for a new gig, got recruited by a company that does big Machinery. And he was like, well, you know, I don't know anything about it, but they're like, oh, you're just managing service techs, right? So one you were doing installs, these guys are going to be out on the big machinery. The guys were calling in, asking him for stuff and he had no clue what anything was.

[A]

That's hard.

[B]

Yeah. Like didn't know anything about any of it. And one day he, he decided he was going to go out onto one of the job sites and go and figure things out. And just when he went out there, the tech that was out there was training somebody. And those two guys he won over by being out there on another meeting.

[A]

Not rocket science.

[B]

No.

[A]

Go spend time with your people.

[B]

Yeah, there was a tech meeting that they had and they had like a bulldozer or something in the back and he decided he was going to let them teach him how to run the bulldozer.

[A]

That's awesome, dude.

[B]

It was now for him, it was a nerve wracking, but exhilarating 15 minutes. But he won the loyalty of all of his guys because they knew he didn't know anything about it. And instead of pretending like he was in charge and doing that, that was it. And so that was a way, like coming into an organization, he did stuff to try to integrate himself into the culture, ingratiate himself to, or endear himself to the guys that he was leading. When it's in the reverse, they're like, when we're trying to help somebody that is focused on the wrong things, right? And I want to make sure that I'm clear, not that they're focused on bad things, right. So they get hired into an organization, right. And they're focused on all of the sales stuff. They're focused on hitting the metrics, they're looking at, you know, all of the stuff on the spreadsheets. But when it's time to lead, they're focused on the wrong things because they haven't made sure that they've got the, the relationships in their team. Maybe they're not in a place where, you know, you're, you're 30 days in and maybe you've, you know, you've got a 90 day trial period. You're 30 days in and you're realizing like, hey, they're not integrating themselves into the company culture. Well. Right. So you now you've got that, that decision to be made of. Like, do we hit the eject button and say, hey man, this isn't working out? Yeah. Or is this something that, you know, in A lot of situations, like, hey, we want to give them the full grace period of this. We go to them, we have the conversation like, you know, we want you to get more involved in the company culture. How do you get somebody excited about being part of your organization's culture?

[A]

Yeah, that's a good question, and thank you. You know, so this can be difficult if, you know, ideally, you have somebody who is happy for the opportunity that they have.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And they're gonna embrace a culture and all those things, man. It's about setting proper expectations.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Hey, we expect our leaders to be ingrained into the culture that we have here. This is who we are. This is why we do what we do. And, you know, I did an episode with the Lead Win podcast that we have at Echelon Front, and I was,

[B]

you know, you, Leif. And Jamie.

[A]

And Jamie. Yeah. And, you know, we got on the subject about, you know, the phrase that I said was. It was something along the lines of, you know, when you're telling people, like, hey, you need to be energetic, and, you know, like, hey, you should be the one to, like, pump your people up.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I brought it up because people were like, well, that's. You know, I don't want to be a false cheerleader. And I said, well, don't. You should be genuine. This should be a major red flag to yourself. If you're not excited about the company that you work for and the culture that you have, you can find a way to be happy about that culture and the opportunity that you have. If, at a bare minimum, are you at least thankful for the job that you have and the opportunity that you have? Because guess what? You get to choose your attitude. And so as a leader, I'm gonna try my darnest to have a good, positive attitude every interaction I have. Am I gonna do that all the time? No. Nobody does that. We're all flawed humans. But if I can control my attitude, which is contagious, then guess what? That creeps onto the people around me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And this is a campaign with people. Just because you have a good attitude when you're hiring somebody doesn't mean that they're gonna quickly adapt to it. We don't know. We don't. We don't know the baggage that they're coming from. You know, you're now trying to establish trust with somebody, and they need to see your consistency. And so if I'm trying to get somebody excited about the culture, I'm going to explain to them why I love the company. What I love about it. And that's what I'm going to focus on is the positive aspects of that culture of the organization, the opportunities that they have for progression and growth here at the organization. And if I keep doing that consistently. And by the way, something you said is one of the things that we recommend when people are like talk, asking us about hiring, you should have some sort of a temporary window evaluation. Yeah, hey, 90 day probation, 60 day probation, 30 day, whatever. Right? There should be a probation period when you're hiring somebody. And that's clearly explained and defined at the very beginning. Hey, we have a 60 day probation, nary period. Here's the things that we evaluate. The relationships you build, the interactions that you have, embracing the company culture and obviously job performance. And you can fill it in with whatever other things are important to your organization. Cool. So I give somebody 60 days. Do I wait until day 60 to tell them, like, hey, sorry, you're not a fit.

[B]

You better not.

[A]

No, that would be horrible. So, okay, cool. I'm going to do it every 20 days. Hey, here's where you're at. Here's what we're seeing. And if there's some course corrections that they need, now is the time to have that hard conversation. Hey, you know, you've been doing a really good job here. Some of the things that is concerning that I want to address you is A, B and C. Yeah, what can we do to better support you? Do you need more training? Do you need more resources? Are you spread too thin or do you have enough? Do you not have enough? Like, ask them genuine questions and create a culture where your people are comfortable to talk to you about what they need and what's good and what's bad in that organization. Say, all right, cool. Hey, I'm gonna follow up with you in 10 days. Day 30, you follow up with that person. If there's progression and growth in the right direction. Awesome. Say, hey, this is going good. You're trending in the right direction. Hey, you have 30 days left of the probationary period. If you keep doing things the way you're doing it, I really look forward to hiring you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If it's a different conversation, then guess what? Escalation of counseling, hard conversation. And nothing also says that you have to keep that person there full 60 days.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because if they're making mistakes at day 20 and keep making it day 30, day 40 as well. Cool. I'm going to cut my losses. And you're able to do that if you set the proper expectations, you prepared them properly with the right resources, the training, and if you're willing, which you should be, to have those hard conversations to help course correct. There's plenty of times in my SEAL career when I was a young seal, Seth would pull me aside and have those conversations with me. Hey, bud, you can't be doing that. Hey, this is what you need to be doing. My first platoon commander, Matt Mosden, had a few of those with me because I was a wild kid in the SEAL teams and I believe a liberty risk.

[B]

Is that what we.

[A]

Yeah, a little bit, yeah. You know, but I had good leaders like my buddy Pepper I told you about, and even Benny on his second platoon just giving me corrections. My buddy Steve Tyrer that I talked about, like all, you know, just leaders that made a legitimate impact in my life.

[B]

Right.

[A]

By having the hard conversations with me, pulling me aside to where it never got to the point where it's like, hey, man, you're done.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's the same thing that you have to be able to do in an organization, setting proper expectations and standards from day one and then consistently talking about those things.

[B]

I was gonna say that the thing that stood out to me the most and what you were, where you were saying is that you, as the leader are going to the other person. We've talked a lot about. You don't need to have the open door policy. You need to have the EMP chair policy where you're out there doing stuff with them. And I want to kind of highlight the importance when we talk about hiring from within or hiring from without for a leadership position, especially if it's somebody that's going to be in, in the middle, right. When you're not, you know, it's not a board that's hiring somebody in the C suite, but it's also not, you know, you're not hiring your. Your most frontline guy. You're hiring somebody who's going to have to report up and down a chain of command the importance of going to them versus just sending the email. Because if you send the email of like, hey, how are you settling in? They're going to say that they're doing great, even if they're overwhelmed.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Doing good.

[B]

Yeah. Loving it. Thanks for the opportunity, like whatever, versus when you go and whether it's an evaluation or going with specific questions, and we've talked about this before, and I think this has been incredibly beneficial for me is, you know, if, if I know there is a, an opportunity for improvement, I'm going to ask about that. Or if I know that there's something that's difficult to handle. Maybe there's a difficult person that they're having to manage where you go to them and you're like, hey, how are you settling in? Oh, I'm doing great. So how's your relationship with Bob? Like. Ah, yeah. So about Bob, right? You've got the institutional knowledge that, like, Bob's great at his job, but Bob's also a jerk. Yeah, yeah. Bart, Bob's. Bob's a tough nut. Like, he's. He's hard to deal with, or he's maybe a particular way of doing things or interacting with people. And if they tell you after 10 days that, oh, you know, yeah, stuff with Bob is great. Okay. Why do you have a great relationship with Bob and nobody else does or what?

[A]

Could be. They might actually do.

[B]

Yeah, they could actually. But it also might show you, like, oh, you haven't talked to Bob yet.

[A]

Yeah, there's so many different ways that you could pull that and go with it. And it's. But the important part of what we're talking about, you can't get that intel by not spending time with your people 100%. You have to spend time with your people. One of my best friends, he's been on the podcast, just got a new job, and it's a lot. And it's a great, great company. Big company to work for. Great opportunity.

[B]

Super stoked for him.

[A]

Yes. It's legit. I was talking to him today, and I was down working with this company with another little group there, and we were just talking, and one of the engineers that reports to him, like, came up to him today and was just talking to him, you know, and this guy's, you know, he's funny, witty, pretty, you know, direct to the point in the right way. Right. And he told me that the reason why the guy came to him is the guy said, we usually don't hire from. From the outside for these types of position. I just wanted to meet you. Okay. How awesome is that?

[B]

Yeah, that's pretty rad.

[A]

And my buddy was, like, cool. Like, he was sweet. Yeah, here's my dog. Yeah. And, you know, he said this guy was like, hey, if you. If you need anything from me, let me know. And my buddy was like, oh, I'm going to need a lot from you for sure. Thank you. So now, guess what? That relationship had been established, and he's already also in the process of going and meeting all of his people, but he's also getting onboarded and trained, and he's drinking through Fire hose right now. But how cool is that that somebody recognized, hey, we brought in a senior leader from the outside. What's this guy like? Because this organization does not do that often. Obviously tells you the caliber of this guy. Freaking stud. Like, just, they are lucky to have him, by the way. But it was already happening from within, and he was already making plans of going and meeting all these people and talking with them and interacting and sitting all these things. And so when you have that culture integrated in your company, it bridges a gap so much faster.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because now it's not just him going out there, it's both ends, which is amazing.

[B]

Yeah. And it really does make all the difference in the world. And part of integrating somebody into a company culture, whether it is the leadership culture, because they are moving up into a new position and now they've got a new group of peers that they've got to integrate into and learn new dynamics, or if it's somebody coming from outside, part of integrating them into a culture properly in that assimilation process is making sure that your other leaders, the support leaders, the people around them are going to them and letting him know that, like, hey, we're here to support you and whatever.

[A]

Yeah. So when that guy, when he told me that that guy came to him, it just reminded me of, like, what the good platoon chief does. He takes care of his leadership. He takes care of his team. That's what makes the difference in the SEAL teams is those platoon chiefs that look at their officers and say, those are my. That's my officer. Yeah, that is my officer. That is my other officer. I'm going to take care of them. I'm going to grow them, I'm going to develop them, because they're in charge of the platoon. Why would you not want your leadership to look good and perform at a high level? Like, it's crazy why anybody would not want to take care of their leadership. And then the good platoon chief is building his replacement through that LPO, the leading petty officer, which is a senior E6, who, if the LPO does his good job and then passes the E7 exam and it works out to be within that time cycle of like, hey, you did the lpo bill it. You passed. Cool. You're now a platoon chief. It's a legacy play because he's building his replacement so that that LPO can be a good platoon chief one day. And when that LPO is looking at his platoon chief that's taking care of his leadership, guess what? They got LPO that becomes a good platoon chief. Is going to do, take care of his leadership and build his replacements. And it's. I just love the way that they would do that in the SEAL teams because it's about leaving it better than you found it. And I think if organizations could adopt what we teach at Echelon Front, first, take ownership right over everything that affects your team, your life, just everything. Just take ownership. And then if you also believe in the one team, one fight mentality that's going to guide you to do the right things, to take care of people, and that's how you build a lasting legacy, is because you care about the organization, you care about the team, you care about the mission. Well, guess what? In order for you to accomplish all those things, you have to take care of your people. And even for the selfish people, if you want to succeed in life, you have to take care of your people. Yeah, but if you can switch from that selfish mindset of like, no, I want to get mine, I want to get mine. Which, by the way, for you to get yours, you still have to take care of people. But if you can switch to get away from the I got mine, I'm going to get mine, too. I want to make sure my people get theirs. Man, the impact that you're going to have is going to be far greater than anything else, 100%.

[B]

And that's one of the things that makes this podcast work, is that it's not just you and me. There's other people behind the scenes doing things to help and support us. And that starts with the folks over at Echelon Front. So if you want to learn more about how to implement the laws of combat, if you want to look at like maybe how to create a culture of extreme ownership in your company, go check out echelonfront.com you can sign up for that Extreme Ownership Academy. They've got online courses as well as our Wednesday afternoon calls where you can hop on, get a leadership lesson from the instructors. Maybe it'll be JP Jocko, Carlos, who we've had on the show. Rob Jones leads them. Cody is part of them. Periodically, there's all kinds of incredible folks that are there and get live feedback from them. If you got a question, you can ask that there. So go check those things out. Also, we mentioned first in nutrition, you go to firstinnutrition.com JP Pod you can get four free weeks of nutrition coaching. We talked a little bit about the. The new Jocko Fuel products. One of the things I didn't mention is my kids are crazy about the New Warrior Kid line. The Warrior Kid protein shakes are amazing. So you can check those out. If you go to jockofuel.com, use code JP Pod20, save yourself 20. At checkout, we're both rocking some Origin gear. Origin is the manufacturing company that brought manufacturing back to America. From seed to shirt. That's where it started was Jiu Jitsu gear. Now they have a new line of women's wear. So if you haven't seen it already, go to originusa.com go check it out. This will be two days before mother's Day, so what you can do is you can go, go to your wife's closet, it, grab her favorite pair of pants, look at the tag, figure out what size she likes, and then, you know, give her the little picture of the, the Origin jeans and say, listen, this is what's coming to you for Mother's Day. It's going to be a couple of days. But honey, you just supported America in her 250th year. So what? No better way to do that. So get yourself something for Mother's Day. Support the podcast, support the folks over at Origin. Support the United States of America. And then obviously our folks over at on the Path Printing for all your apparel printing needs. Go get yourself some Origin blanks and send them over to us. We'll put some cool stuff them. And then the folks over at Little Cattle Co. It's the mosquitoes are out. The sun is coming back out. Our little guys are mosquito magnets. We were, we were outside feeding the goats and the chickens and we were out there for maybe 10 minutes. And the kids, one one of them looked like they just had chickenpox. They just got attacked by mosquitoes. He had like five bites in less than 10 minutes. The little Cattle Co Anti Itch cream. Boom. On it. No, no major itches. No scratches and stuff on their neck or anything like that. Also, the after sun care, because the sun's out and if you're in Texas, it's a, It's a brisk 90 degrees right now, but that 111, it's on its way and you don't want to be out working in the sun all day and then come home crispy whenever you're time for that cold shower. So make sure that you're getting that stuff. Get yourself taken care of. Bruiser Arms, they do the, you guys do the cool stuff that's out there.

[A]

We have a lot of things changing. Also, we're having different options for gear packages, which super simple, different price points. And then Also, we can provide training to law enforcement agencies, individual groups. You want to do a team building event, you want to just. If you want to get a small group together, do some rifle, pistol shooting, some long range shooting, we can do that. I know. Getting ready to connect with the PD that wants to put together a package. And so it's going to be cool. It's gonna be a hybrid. We're trying to. Leif and I are going to try to figure out how that looks. I think it'll just be two separate contracts, but it'll will be co exist co existing with leadership training and then also actual tactical combatives type of training as well through Bruiser Arms.

[B]

Right on. And if you want to recover from that stuff, click the link for Relive Health company that can do blood work. They'll give you a full blood worker. Probably the most comprehensive blood panel you'll ever have done in your life.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And then on top of that, they can ship nationwide the. The peptides and stuff that will keep you healthy, keep you recovering well, and make sure that you can, you can make it from Jiu Jitsu to your Bruiser arms training and then take a shower, put on your origin gear and take your wife out to dinner with her brand new origin jeans for Mother's Day. Boom. We did it. Jp, final thoughts.

[A]

You know, Matt Hasbi and I did a training recently with a company. It was our third iteration. We did a training once a month, two days, two different groups. So between him and I, you know, we put all these, you know, four different groups through three series of trainings. And then the last one, we close out with one of the culture modules that we teach. So at first it was introduction to extreme ownership based off the feedback, the interactions that we got. The second one was our communication module and then we did the culture module. And you know, what we were talking about earlier is it's all about culture, man. And culture eats strategy for breakfast. I'm sure you've heard that quote before. And. And at the end of the day, culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command. Culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command. So build a strong culture rooted in extreme ownership, the laws of combat, the mindsets of victory, and you will win. Hope this episode has been a reminder to go do the work that's needed to put in the effort to build your legacy and to never settle. This has been the JPD now podcast, episode 137.