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- [00:01]
A
Good morning. This is the JP Donnell podcast, episode 141. I am JP Donnell, and as always, I have Lucas with me. What's up, buddy?
- [00:07]
B
What's going on, man?
- [00:08]
A
How are you?
- [00:08]
B
I'm. I'm good. I'm freshly shorn.
- [00:10]
A
Yeah.
- [00:11]
B
I got a. Got a little bit of a haircut, and my. My barber told me he was like, I'm gonna leave a little bit more on the top than I usually do so that it's not as noticeable.
- [00:18]
A
Like, bro. That's very nice of him.
- [00:21]
B
Yeah, I just. You know what it means? It means I'm gonna have to go get another haircut quicker, so. So I. I think this is his return clientele scheme and less about not
- [00:30]
A
a bad might look.
- [00:32]
B
We'll find out. I'm about to just go with a weed whacker and just. Yeah, yeah. Be done with it. Yeah, I fire it before it quits on me. You know what I mean?
- [00:40]
A
Yeah. Had a good weekend. You know, last week was Amanda's birthday.
- [00:44]
B
Happy birthday, Amanda. 39.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah, 39 plus 6. You know, turned 45. And we had a good week. You know, we went to the. The North America semifinal rodeo on Friday night for the whole day. Yeah. Which is the rodeo. I'm sorry. It's the super bowl of rodeo. It was awesome to be able to go there. Brent, who's been on the podcast before, he was going there with his daughter, one of his daughters from California was in visiting, and so he told me about that. I'm like, oh, that'd be awesome to go. And, you know, typical Brent fashion, like, very thorough following up. Sends me the link and a screenshot of his tickets. And I was just talking. Yeah. You know, want to do a date night with Amanda on Friday? And I was talking to, man, I'm like, hey, do you want to go to the rodeo? That'd be fun. She goes, yeah, that would be awesome. Just. Just the two of us. And so I was telling Brent, I'm like, yeah, you know, we're going to do a date night down in Fort Worth, and maybe we can see you guys before you guys go to the rodeo and. Because I thought it was going to be in Fort Worth, because all the other rodeos in the Fort Worth area was down at the. Either the Coliseum or the stockyards.
- [01:55]
B
Yeah.
- [01:56]
A
And which is funny because he assumed the same thing. And so we were planning on. All right, time frame. When are you and your daughter gonna be down there? Maybe we can grab dinner, then link up and then working through stuff. Well, I wanted to surprise him and just go and show up, right? And. And so I. I click on the link. I'm looking through stuff. Tickets in his section weren't available. I'm like, dang it, man. So I, you know, filtered through on Ticketmaster, like, best available seats, and then kind of looking through, and his section popped up. I'm like, oh, he's in section two. Section two is available. He's in row 11. I'm like, all right. So I'm looking through. I'm like, row 12's available. I'm like, okay, awesome. Yeah. I was like, well, we'll be close, you know, because what. I didn't. I mean, I wanted to go, and it would be fun because we could see each other before and in between and after, whatever, even if we couldn't get close to each other. And. And so I'm looking. I'm like, oh, row 12. I'll be, like, right behind them. This will be awesome. And. But the way Ticketmaster goes is you can't, like, pick your seats. Like, you just. You can pick the row.
- [02:58]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [02:59]
A
I was like, okay, cool. So two tickets. Pick. Boom. Confirming payment. And the two seats right behind them were.
- [03:07]
B
Oh, that's awesome.
- [03:08]
A
Yes. Secure. Well, you have to set up the Ticketmaster account. Like, all right, cool. I do that. And it's like, you need to update your password. I'm like, okay. So I updated my password. Well, the whole time it's holding the tickets, it's counting down the time because it only will hold it for so long. And then it's like, all right. Update payment info. Okay. And of course, like, one of the very few times, I actually don't have my fanny pack with me. That's why I wear a fanny pack. I have all my stuff with me at all times. It's in the bedroom. I run in there. Amanda's like, you okay? I'm like, yeah, I gotta get my card. So I pull my. Grab the fanny pack, run out there, put the card, put the information in, and it's like, you have to verify this purchase with Citibank app. Please open the app. So then I open up the Citibank bank, verify it, click back on. Sorry, timed out.
- [03:51]
B
I'm like, start this whole process over.
- [03:55]
A
Like, cool.
- [03:56]
B
This is why everybody loves Ticketmaster, and they haven't had any issues in the last five years.
- [04:04]
A
So I go back through the whole process. Seats aren't available naturally. Okay. Because they're holding them still. I'm like, all right. So I refresh, refresh. A few times going into. And I'm like, all right, I'm make sure my whole ticket master account is, like, set up, ready, confirmed. Did all the email stuff, whatever, go back through those seats were available, like, cool. Purchase bot told Amanda, like, sweet. It's the whole time, like, I'm texting Brent. This was on Thursday night.
- [04:35]
B
Okay.
- [04:35]
A
Roadie was on Friday. Got him. Friday, we're texting, and Amanda brings up. Because she was looking at the tickets, she's like, this isn't in Fort Worth. This is where we took Hayden to the baseball game. Like, really? Well, it makes sense since it's such a large event. It's that it was at the Globe Life arena in Arlington. It's a large rodeo.
- [04:57]
B
Yep.
- [04:58]
A
Okay, that. That makes sense to me. And so I'm texting Brad, and I'm like, hey, are you headed to Fort Worth for dinner and then going to the rodeo? Because I was just looking at your tickets, and it says Globe Life. I was like, I just want to make sure we have plans. I was like, or if you guys are doing dinner. And so we're going back and forth. He's like, oh, nope, scratch that. He goes, y', all. Y' all enjoy date night. You know, we'll see you later, or whatever. And so anyways, long story short, we go down there, we park, we're walking up. See one of my old buddies, Dan from Jiu Jitsu used to train at peak. He now trains at six blades. He freaking came out of nowhere and, like, went to blast, like, a double leg on me. And I don't know it's him. All I know is that now somebody is super close to me, crouched down, touching my legs. And so I go to shoot my hands down to stop a double leg. As I'm getting ready to, like, knee or elbow, whatever is in front of me. And as I'm looking down, he then backs away. His hands are out, though, to block all of that stuff. And he just. I see him, like, smiling, and he's just laughing. I'm like, bro, you almost caught a knee or an elbow. And he's laughing. He goes, I know. He goes. That's why he goes, originally, I was going to arm drag you. He goes, but I figured if I arm dragged you, I was going to catch an elbow. I was like, headbutt or elbow for sure, 100%. He goes. And I knew that. He goes. So I figured I could fake a double leg or get close but have my hands out to block. He's like, I knew a knee was coming first. He goes, so I did that. And so anyways, I go level 10 right away, recognizes him and I'm like,
- [06:40]
B
yeah, now you gotta come down.
- [06:41]
A
Just try to come down. So we sat, we talked for a while. It was, it was awesome getting to see him and his wife and, and catch up and just talk life and jiu jitsu and, you know, his kids were there and total really cool God story about, you know, his, his kid navigating some health issues and good to go, man Was like trending in a bad direction and through a lot of prayer and God's grace, it was really cool to see his kid. Just good to go.
- [07:08]
B
That's awesome.
- [07:08]
A
So that was refreshing for Amanda and I, and it was cool. We were walking off to go to our section, they went their section. Amanda's like, it was so good seeing them. She's like, I remember the night they met. She's like, I remember the night. I remember the first night we met them. And you know, I was thinking about that. I was like, I love that about Amanda, her intentionality with remembering those things for other people. I didn't say it to her at the time, but I was just thinking, I was like, man, I. I need to be better at that. You know, that's what, like Lake Babin's memory on stuff like that is unreal. Like I told you, it's like he's like a sub vought. He had a. We had a guy in an FTX and he's bringing up, you know, the field training exercise that we run at Echelon Front, and it was one of the individual FTXs and the guy was sharing his debrief. It was one of the FTXs that Leif was at with Cody and I. And Leif goes, if I remember correctly, when you were at this previous FTX about two, three years ago, you have the same similar situation and he's like walking the guy through it. And I remember, I look over at Cody and we're all kind of like, how did he remember? Like, he remembered this business owner's question and business situation from three years prior. And it's not like Leif's not working with companies all the time because he is, you know, so that intentionality, right, the intentionality of remembering those things is awesome. Amanda has that skill set and gift as well when it comes to, like, life moments for people and all these other things. And I was just thinking like, man, it's such a cool skill set to have as a leader of just being intentional when you're listening and then just being able to file those things away.
- [08:54]
B
Yeah.
- [08:54]
A
Because when you're able to bring those things up or talk about them, it shows somebody that you're genuinely listening and caring about them, and that's only going to strengthen the relationship. So we make our way down to the seat. We sneak in behind Brent, and we're sitting behind him, and I'm like, you know, leading up to him, like, how are the. How are the seats? Are they decent? You know, and he sends a picture. I'm like, oh, dang. Those are nice seats.
- [09:19]
B
You can really see the dirt from where you are.
- [09:21]
A
Yeah. And. And so we're going back and forth. I'm like, how is he? Like, oh, man, it's awesome. And we're literally watching all of, like, the riders as we're making our way down there. And we sit down, and I'm texting him. I take a picture of him and his daughter and send it to him, and he gets it. And you can see he kind of did this, like, partial turn. He went to turn, but, like, didn't. And then you responded back with, like, a question mark. So then Amanda took a picture and then sent it.
- [09:53]
B
Nice.
- [09:53]
A
And he finally turns around, and he's like. He just sees us smile, and he, like, laughs and smiles, and it was really cool.
- [09:59]
B
That's awesome.
- [10:00]
A
To meet his daughter. And, you know, we had a really good time that night. But it was funny because he. He was telling us later. He's trying to process. He's like, okay, I know that that's clearly me and my daughter. JP's on a date night in Fort Worth, who's sitting behind me that knows JP and knows me that I didn't recognize. And so he was like. It was just really funny, him going
- [10:22]
B
through the Rolodex, like, trying to figure it all out.
- [10:24]
A
Yeah.
- [10:24]
B
Yeah.
- [10:25]
A
So then rest of the weekend was awesome. Chill. You know, just my thing on Memorial Day is, you know, I think, you know, most people, I feel like, have really good intentions with Memorial Day. And, you know, here's the deal. There's no. There's no protocol for, like, hey, this is what you have to do for Memorial Day. The intent for Memorial Day is to think about and Honor center are fallen service members.
- [10:53]
B
Yeah.
- [10:54]
A
My thing is that's what you should be doing and whatever that means for you, like, if you're doing stuff with your family, if you're. You know, if you just want to be in solitude that whole weekend and just think, if you want to reach out to the family members of those fallen members, like, it's fine, you know, So I think for a while, we were trending where, you know, veterans were, and I get it. There's a lot of emotions involved with this weekend, but it was just like, if you, you know, enjoy your barbecues and all your things and blah, blah, blah, and it's like, yeah, guess what? Our fault. Guess what my teammates would want us to be doing. Enjoying time with family, doing stuff, whatever. I think if people are out there doing those things, you're not dishonoring our fallen service members. And at the end of the day, everybody is going to live their lives however they want. My thing is, all right, am I living my life to honor them? And it's not just for a weekend. It's not just for Memorial Day. It's like, these are things I should be thinking about every day. And for me, just having an intentional weekend with my family, church on Sunday, family time, running errands. And then, you know, there's one of our pastors. Last year, he put it together, a Murph workout, and it was something the church was like, yeah, if you guys want to host it here, cool. You know, and we had. Last year, there was, like, over 70 people that showed up.
- [12:22]
B
Right.
- [12:23]
A
I didn't go last year. I'm not a big fan of the Murph workout. Not because of the workout. The reason why I wasn't really a fan of it for a while is because everybody made Memorial Day about Murph, and I'm like, this is not about him. This is about all of the fallen service members. And so I would do my own thing to honor all of those veterans.
- [12:47]
B
Yeah.
- [12:48]
A
You know, and I. I didn't know Michael Murphy. I have a lot of friends that knew him, and I obviously respect him and everything that he did in the SEAL teams, but I wasn't going to do something for one guy on a day that represents everybody.
- [13:02]
B
Yeah. Especially when you've lost, you know, your own team members.
- [13:05]
A
Yes. Right.
- [13:06]
B
Like, guys that you. That you had very strong and very deep relationships with both while you were serving and then after, you know, they got out of the teams.
- [13:18]
A
Yeah.
- [13:18]
B
You know, with. With Mark, with. With Chris, with Mikey, with all of those.
- [13:25]
A
Ryan. Yeah, Ryan. Like, all of those guys who were. Yeah, yeah.
- [13:28]
B
Who were. Who were part of that. And, you know, guys like Brad and. And those others, that. That has a lot more meaning to you than I think it even would for the average service member who maybe hasn't lost, you know, as. As many people that Were close to them.
- [13:46]
A
Yeah.
- [13:46]
B
During their time.
- [13:47]
A
Now I will say I like that the way. So I like and I dislike the way that CrossFit made Murph such a big thing. The dislike portion I just shared because it became about one person on Memorial Day, at least from my perspective. And here's the deal. My perspective is flawed. I know that again being very clear, not saying anything bad about him. It was the way people ran with this workout and making it about one person. And for a while we trended away from Memorial Day being about all the veterans.
- [14:23]
B
It was Murph Day. I mean it did. It became that for.
- [14:26]
A
It was.
- [14:27]
B
That's where a little crazy that when CrossFit.
- [14:28]
A
Absolutely crazy.
- [14:30]
B
Yeah. When CrossFit hit it its peak. And there were. I remember Memorial Day used to be more about. There was a period in time, at least in the. So it. It is important to say that like part of this is niched. Right. And to like the. The people that are in the fitness community or in the veteran community or adjacent or those kinds of things that we saw a ton of stuff about the Murph. Whereas like your average Joe who, you know, is. Is maybe catching, you know, whatever is on their normal feed news or whatever, they're probably not seeing it in the same way that. That we are. Right. So.
- [15:05]
A
Yeah.
- [15:05]
B
So from a subtext thing that. But Memorial Day ended up in my feed a few years ago. It was all debates on the right way to do the Murf. Whether or not. Yeah. Whether or not it was supposed to be partitioned or anything like that. And there'd be like five of those. And then one post about like, hey, here are the, you know, the. The teammates that we want to honor. You know, remember your veterans.
- [15:28]
A
Yeah. On.
- [15:28]
B
On today. Don't say Happy Memorial Day. Like all of those posts would happen, but they were like 1 in 5 of people arguing about the right way to do the Murph, which is crazy.
- [15:37]
A
When I started seeing that, that's what I really was like, cool. I'm just not for doing this. Like I'll do my own workout. That's a gut check even I have some. I know I share with you that I created for Mikey and Seth and Mark and different guys that are way worse than Murph. Yeah, like way worse. But it's a long grudge session and that's what I like. It's a long session of suffering. And so I didn't go last year. And Pastor Chris Lerma from Milestone, he runs our McKinney campus, you know, reached out to me. He's like, hey, man, you good? Like, you know, because a lot of guys expect me to be there, you know, I would.
- [16:17]
B
In a situation like that, your absence is felt.
- [16:20]
A
Yeah. And part of it also was I didn't go because last year, my back was crazy. Like, really, like, seizing up. The day before, I was on muscle relaxers and painkillers because it was just. I couldn't stand up straight. I was like, this is stupid. I'm not going to go do this. I physically can't do the workout, and I'm not going to go because of that reason and because of it being about the Murph. Not for Memorial Day. Now, my church wasn't doing it that way, but it was still my perspective at the time.
- [16:49]
B
So you had that stigma in your mind.
- [16:50]
A
Yeah. And so a few guys reach out to me. Pastor Drew, Pastor Josh, Pastor Tyron, Mike Mitchell, just, you know, checking in, like, hey, man, I know it was a hard day. You good? You didn't see you here today. I'm like, yeah, just, you know, back's not doing well. Really can't do much. And they're like, all right, cool. Pastor Chris, his gift of discernment is unreal. And so I told him all that stuff. He's like, yeah, all right, but why didn't you show up? I'm like, well, you know, I. Given the same reason. He's like, okay, but why did you not, like, really? Like, why did you not show up? And so I explained to him, like, the whole, like, I. It's. This has been about one person. I don't like that. It's about Memorial Day, everything. So we. I talked through everything. He's like, all right, that's valid. He's like, your feelings are valid. Absolutely. He goes, I just want you to think about this. What if you just showed up to support the other veterans that were there? He's like, you're not expected to do the workout. You're not expected to do anything. But there's a good amount of veterans that you being there would have supported them doing what they were doing.
- [18:02]
B
Yeah.
- [18:02]
A
I was like, all right, yeah, that's valid. And it was just that perspective shift that I needed from somebody just asking me some questions and guiding me down, like, to the right answer. And so this year, still same thing. But I was like, you know what? No, I'm. I'm going to change my heart posture. I'm going. Because I have friends that are going to be there. And even pulling up there, you know, I had My kit. Because I was like, well, if I'm doing a workout, I'm going to do it in my gear. You know, I had my, you know, hand taped up and everything because I didn't. I didn't even know what work I was going to do. I wasn't even sure, hey, I might just do my own thing while everybody's doing this. And then I just really had a heart posture change. And I'm like, no, this is a. About doing a workout with a group of friends as I think about and honor my fallen teammates.
- [18:52]
B
Yeah.
- [18:52]
A
And family members that serve that are no longer here. Like both my grandparents. Right. Served no longer here. And just really, like, shifting my mindset to, like, this is about them. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. And that's what I was alluding to earlier. The weekend's about thinking about them, honoring them. It doesn't matter if I want to rent a boat and go out on the weekend for three days in a row with my family and just think about and reflect those guys and knowing that I have the freedoms to rent a boat and hang out with my family and Cool. That's what I'm going to do.
- [19:28]
B
Yeah.
- [19:28]
A
If I'm going to sit in my backyard and do a bonfire and grill out. Cool. If I'm going to do a workout and then do the. It doesn't really matter. It's about the heart posture.
- [19:39]
B
Right.
- [19:39]
A
And you know, that is what I really took from Chris's conversation with me last year was my heart posture wasn't correct. And so that's what I wanted to finish on is because I know some people listen to me at the very beginning thinking what I was saying was in a negative fashion towards Michael Murphy. It's not. Yeah, it was. My heart posture was not correct. And here's the deal. If you want to do Murph, you should do Murph. I did it.
- [20:09]
B
Yeah.
- [20:09]
A
I enjoyed doing it with my friends.
- [20:11]
B
You sore?
- [20:13]
A
Yeah. Because I did full reps, full range of motion for the whole thing, even with my bicep not being where it should. Now thank God, truly, for our friend Aaron Archer with Archer performance, because last night after Jiu jitsu, he had a nice session. Nice.
- [20:33]
B
Worked it out for you.
- [20:34]
A
Yeah, it was good. And I'm very thankful that I did it. And I look forward to doing it next year.
- [20:43]
B
Yeah.
- [20:43]
A
With a larger group of people.
- [20:45]
B
Well. And you know that it's one of those things that, like this, like so many things, becomes about something that it was never supposed to be about. And even, you know, within a lot of people in the fitness community, it's less even about Murphy and more about, like, what was your Murph time? And, and right. And so now, now it gets to where it's not even about honoring the guy the workout is named after anymore. Now it's about, you know, making sure on Memorial Day what I do is I, you know, three months before Memorial Day, I start training for the Murph. And then, you know, now I'm gonna crush my Murph time from last year and everybody's posting their, their times and it becomes even more detached from, you know, what, what it was meant to be.
- [21:33]
A
But even in that world, there can still be good heart posture and bad heart posture. Yeah.
- [21:37]
B
Yeah.
- [21:38]
A
Because some people are like, all right, cool. This is something I want to train for. I'm going to do. It's good intention. And we just, we all as humans have to be careful of, like, what's our heart posture? Like, why are we really doing these things? If you, you know, I saw, you know, Mike, Nicholas and I were talking actually during Murph and then after Murph, and you see this all the time and saw it in the group. And initially, again, this is, I'm bringing this back to my heart posture because I, I was watching people do the workout and I'm like, no rep, no rep, no rep. Like, this is crazy. Those aren't pull ups.
- [22:19]
B
Yeah.
- [22:20]
A
Those aren't push ups. Those aren't squats.
- [22:22]
B
What do you know about it?
- [22:23]
A
And they're just knocking them out. And they're just like knocking out, not the reps, but knocking out numbers. And they're just going, you know, like pull ups. And if you're on YouTube, you can see a pull up instead of going from a dead hang chin over the bar all the way back down. I. I'm not joking. I saw a lot of these, like, just little partial.
- [22:41]
B
Those are my favorite kinds.
- [22:43]
A
Okay. So my initial thing was. That's bull.
- [22:47]
B
Yeah.
- [22:47]
A
Like, that's not a pull up. You're you. There's no reason why on bodyweight squats you should not be able to go down to 90 degrees unless you have some crazy limitation from an injury or a surgery. But nobody there had those. And then like the partial push ups where you're just bobbing your head, that's not a push up, like all the way down. I was watching Aiden do his push ups. He's doing hand release push ups for every rep. Just absolutely legit, great form doing pull ups. Here's the deal.
- [23:17]
B
What a jerk to be so young and have such high tea.
- [23:21]
A
Is it okay to kip on your pull ups? Yeah, yeah, go for it. Yeah. If you need those extra little kip at the end, that's cool. That's fine. But I was watching and again, I had to challenge my, myself because my heart posture, because I'm like getting frustrated with them not doing it the right way. And then I recognize, hey, you know what? They're here. At least they're doing the work. Showed up. They showed up versus a lot of people that said they're gonna be there and didn't show up that morning. And so again, I bring, I say that to share, like it was a good day for me just to really challenge my heart posture because at the end of the day. All right, cool. You know, you didn't do the full workout. That's okay. You were still there. Now the, the problem I have is when the people that don't do the full reps and they don't do the right way, but then post their time as if they killed the Murph.
- [24:16]
B
You mean they're still in valor times?
- [24:22]
A
Yeah. I was talking to Aaron last night about it because he's asking about how is, you know, we were just talking about the Murph as he was working on me. Yeah. And I was just trying to talk just to think through the pain of some of, you know, as he's working out, some of just issues with my biceps still. And I was like, yeah, no, at the end of the day, I'm. I'm glad they're there and they're putting in the work. And Aaron's like, yeah, that's awesome. He goes, but there's standards for a reason, though, and people need to have high standards for themselves.
- [24:55]
B
Yeah.
- [24:56]
A
And that's another reason why I'm sharing that is, hey, I applaud you for doing the work, but just realize you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. If the first time you're doing the Murph, you can only do partial reps. Awesome. Your goal should be next time, how many of them can I do? Perfect reps and then the rest partial and then continuously improve. Right. There needs to be this internal drive to continuously improve your abilities and your performance all the time, whether that's physically, spiritually, or as a leader. These are things that we need to continuously be developing. And yeah, I was just talking with a client earlier doing a debrief call and they, you know, in the construction world, we do a lot of work with construction companies. And it's awesome because there's so many similarities between the construction world and the seal teams and what we teach at Echelon Front. And it just, you know, one of the things we're talking about is, is standards. Like, we have to establish standards, maintain standards. And it's not just a one time thing. You can't just address it once and be like, all right, hey, here's our expectation and our standards. These are things that we should be continuously talking with our people to help them create new habits, to change behaviors and tendencies. Because some people will adapt to these new things that we teach. Like, so what we teach at Echelon Front, they're not new things. There's nothing new under the sun. But when we come work with a company that's never worked with us, we. These things can seem new and you'll have always a handful that adapt right away and then some that adapt but then go back to their old ways and then some that are resistant to that. And I know we've gotten some similar questions to that about people that are resistant to change. Yeah.
- [26:41]
B
Or that revert back. And that was one of the things I wanted to kind of get at today is that particularly with your heart posture, whenever it had to be changed, it needed to be called out. That it wasn't what it was supposed to be.
- [26:58]
A
Yes.
- [26:58]
B
And then the change happened. But let's say six months from now, Right. You end up in the place where you're now you're back to this. I don't want to do it. Your heart posture has reverted. This is the kind of thing that we see happen a lot of times in not just in people's lives. Right. Whether it's a relapse, something like that. Like those kinds of things happen with people who are struggling with addiction. We have that happen a lot with people that we've trained in, in leadership. And so I'm curious, like with. I'll give you a scenario.
- [27:33]
A
Okay.
- [27:33]
B
Let's say you're just like in the Murph. Your guys that are doing it for the first time, man, they may not be doing perfect reps, but they've got all the energy in the world. They're doing it with perfect energy and perfect intent. Right. So like my frontline guys are working, they're bought into what we're doing, 100% bought into it. The senior level guys are 100% bought into it. My guys in the middle, my middle management, my middle leaders, the guys who are kind of the glue in Keeping my company together, man. They're in it from the very beginning. They're completely bought in and ready to go. But, you know, six months down the road, they start slipping back into bad habits. They start reverting back to, you know, we talked about culture a couple of weeks ago. They start internalizing what they're doing and kind of viewing it through the old lens and they're like, hey, you know what? Now I can kind of skate and go back to some of the shortcuts that I used to take or those kinds of things. How do you get those people back on board? How do you get the guys that are, you know, the third or fourth year guys who, like, the first year they just did the Murph. The second year they were perfect, and now they're slipping back into old habits. How do you do it with a guy whose heart posture changes or the guy that relapse? They're all sort of this same person, you know, the right thing to do. And yet after a while, you start moving back to a place where now you're becoming either ineffective or destructive for yourself or your industry or you're the people around you. How do you coach them back from there?
- [28:57]
A
Yeah. So this is aligned with the things that, you know, I know Jocko talks about this all the time. And, you know, I mean, he wrote a book, Discipline Equals freedom. Field manual for a reason. We, we teach it as shown front. Discipline equals freedom. One of the mindsets for victory, it's a lack of discipline. People allow that complacency to creep back in because is just a lack of discipline. Now, ideally, people are imposing discipline upon themselves to keep them on the path and to continuously, you know, have high standards and be doing things the right way every single time. But we also have to understand that that is. That is something that nobody can actually do. We all are going to lack discipline. We all are going to fall short. We're all going to allow that complacency to come in. So we have to actually really think about and address these things. And if you're in a leadership position that is part of your responsibility is to maintain high standards for yourself and for your people. When you're in a leadership position, you have to understand that how you conduct yourself is going to be, is going to be reflected upon your people. Your attitude is contagious. Your work ethic is contagious. Your discipline is contagious. You have to maintain high standards because there is a burden that you are carrying in a leadership position. So, one, you have to Understand, like, you have to do these things before you can expect your people to do them.
- [30:31]
B
Yeah.
- [30:31]
A
So if your people are falling short on these things, you have to look at yourself first and you have to do an honest self assessment. And then I'm going to look at my people and ask myself, where have I failed as a leader to maintain high standards? Where have I failed to maintain regular communication? Where have I failed to maintain time in the field with my people? Observing them, watching them, working with them. Right. And so you have to really, it's you observing and analyzing. Where is your ownership in this? You pull the thread long enough, guess who it always comes back to? Yourself.
- [31:11]
B
Yeah.
- [31:12]
A
And this is a big thing in the construction world because they're implementing all these changes all the time. What I've seen is that the field personnel, the craft, they are more, they are more likely to adapt to these changes that we, that we bring on at echelon front than senior management.
- [31:38]
B
Yeah.
- [31:39]
A
Because if you look at somebody in construction, they are dealing with change nonstop. They plan out their day schedule changes. They plan out their day subcontractor that they're working with is running late. They have to change and adapt. They're ahead of schedule. They have to change and adapt. The general contractor that they're working with is now having to make changes because who the customer is changing the deadlines or changing requirements, all those things run back down to them. Cool. Change, change, change. They're constantly having to innovate and adapt to get the job done. Yeah, weather's rolling in, gotta change. You know, issue with our gear, maintenance, downtime, what. There's all of these things that are continuously changing. So the men and women out in the field, typically in the construction world, are more capable of adapting and changing to these principles that we teach than the senior leadership. Because senior leadership, they understand it, it makes sense, they buy in, they start implementing it and that complacency creeps in and they, they stop doing those date those daily disciplines and they go back to what they know. They go back to their old ways because their old ways have gotten them to where they're at. Yeah, we're trying to go past that in construction. We're trying to go past that and move to excellence in everything that we're doing. And you can't do that if you just keep falling back to your old ways. And so there has to be this continuous communication about the laws of combat. The mindsets of victory apply to everything that we do and every conversation. If you're in a leadership, I Was doing a debrief call with a client earlier today and very similar scenario that you, you talked about was brought up and we were talking through this and you know, and he was like, okay, what I want to do is I want to be, you know, when I bring him in, I talk to him like telling them like, hey, this is law of combat that you need to be focused on. I'm like, that's great. We need to shift from that to hey, which law combat do you think applies to this current problem right now so that he can be teaching his people how to think instead of dictating the law of combat? Like, hey, the problem you're dealing with right now on this job is decentralized command and cover move. Okay, well I can fix it. I can tell you, hey, it's decentralized command and cover move. But what I'm doing is now it's my idea, my plan. Now you're creating a plan based off the guidance I gave you. So there is some ownership there. But if I want you to have complete ownership over really thinking and solving a problem in a very dynamic situation and environment like construction and gas and electric and like all these high risk jobs that are very similar to what we had to deal with in the SEAL teams. Human life. You're dealing with human life.
- [34:40]
B
Yeah, yeah. One mistake can cost somebody their, their life.
- [34:43]
A
Yeah. At a minimum, one, if not a crew.
- [34:46]
B
Yeah.
- [34:46]
A
It's crazy. Very dangerous, very dynamic. The stakes are very, very high in this world, just like it was in the SEAL teams. That's why when you know and implement the laws of combat, it makes you more efficient, more effective and safe. It will make you safe. And that's the number one thing, is safety.
- [35:08]
B
The number one asset that we have at any organization is safety. Is the people.
- [35:12]
A
Is our people.
- [35:13]
B
Yeah.
- [35:13]
A
100% it's. It's the people. And maybe this is a conversation for another time and actually I'd like to get a guy on to interview, but that's a big issue that I'm dealing. I'm helping my clients in the construction world navigate is as they're being acquired by private equity companies. Is private equity is transaction, transaction, transaction number, number, number, margin, margin, margin, spreadsheets. Construction is people, people, people, people.
- [35:37]
B
Yeah.
- [35:37]
A
And so how do we help teach them to bridge the gap? So that's another thing I've been working on in the construction world is helping bridge the gap between construction and private equity to where they have unity and alignment. Because like you said, our number one asset is always our People. Okay, well, since our number one asset is our people, how do we ingrain and embed the laws of combat into our people? Well, one, we invest into them. We invest into the leadership development and training of our people. We educate them on the laws of combat, the mindsets of victory, and then we help them connect the dots back to what they do.
- [36:10]
B
Yeah.
- [36:10]
A
So this leader, good intent. And it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad for initial, like, hey, I'm trying to help shift the culture of, hey, this is what's going on. I'm going to identify the law of combat that helps them solve it. Okay, that makes sense initially. Yep. Initially you should. But I challenged him. I said, as fast as you can, you need to shift to, hey, which, Lucas, which one of these laws of combat do you think applies to this problem on the job site right now? And then I listen and I walk you through them because I also told them every big problem in business and in life one. But most of the time, all of the laws of combat are in play.
- [36:57]
B
Yeah.
- [36:57]
A
If you initially think it's just a decentralized command problem. Okay, yeah, decentralized command is the biggest one. But in order for decentralized command to work, especially in the construction world, or instead of saying construction world, I should say in the industry where the stakes are high and there's a lot of stress, pressure, lives can be on the line. Yes, decentralized command is going to help you navigate that. But in order for me to properly use decentralized command, I have to also be using the other laws of combat. There has to be relationships. Right. Cover, move, Communication has to be simple, clear and concise. We have to be doing rebacks to maintain alignment, which is going to keep people safe and understand their priorities. And when I'm able to sit and assess and decentralize my command, meaning that there's multiple people doing different things, working together. That means that there's also multiple priorities that at times can be in competition with each other.
- [37:52]
B
Yeah.
- [37:52]
A
So helping navigate that, mitigate that. But the stronger the relationships are that we have out there with our people, the easier it is for me to detach from my emotions and shifts and say, oh, hey, you know what? Lucas's priorities are a bigger priority than ours. Ours are important, but theirs are number one right now. And so helping them navigate that. And so anyways, we're working through that call. And the gentleman, he's very successful business leader. He. He read extreme ownership when he was at another company, implemented the principles in that company. Massive change we're actually in an unwantable situation according to the customer and business. Got a core group of his leaders on board with the principles of extreme ownership. Always pulled it back to like, all right, what can we own? What can we own? What can we own? What can we own? And they freaking crushed that project.
- [38:46]
B
Really?
- [38:46]
A
Yep. And it was just a really cool story he shared with his people before we kicked it off. But then it was just awesome also during the debrief call to just remind them, like, hey, go back to guiding your people to where they are thinking, assessing and identifying. All right, what's the problem? Which of these laws of combat do I need to focus on to solve this problem? And you do that enough times, they will start to do that themselves.
- [39:12]
B
Yeah, 100%. If you want to learn more about the stuff that JP's talking about, go check out the books. Extreme Ownership Dichotomy of Leadership Discipline Equals Freedom. Field manual, also Leadership strategy and tactics. It's got bite sized versions of all of this stuff that you can look up. It's another field manual which if you've never looked at a field manual before, you can read it cover to cover and that's fine. But oftentimes the best thing to do is go to the back and say, you know, this is the issue that I'm dealing with. Look it up in the index and then just go read that section. All of those are great. If you want to learn more about those things, you've read the books, you want to go a little bit more in depth, go check out echelonfront.com you can join the Extreme Ownership Academy. There's a mustard coming up in July and in sunny San Diego right after America's 250th.
- [39:54]
A
Yeah, in San Diego, July 9th and 10th. I believe that Thursday, Friday, the meet and greet will be on Wednesday night. Registration, meet and greet, all that stuff. Here's the deal. Tell me if you have not gotten your mustard ticket and you want to go and you're listening to this podcast, send us a message and I will personally make sure there is a very heavy discount coming your way. I've been in trouble before.
- [40:31]
B
Yeah.
- [40:32]
A
What's that line from Inglourious Bastards?
- [40:34]
B
I've been yelled at before.
- [40:35]
A
I've been yelled at before.
- [40:36]
B
Yeah, I've been yelled at before.
- [40:37]
A
But I'm being serious.
- [40:38]
B
Yeah.
- [40:39]
A
If any of our listeners have been thinking, you know, I really want to go check out a muster. I really want to see Jocko and Leif, meet them in person. The rest of the instructors. And I get it. It's the week after 4th of July. Do what I'm doing. If you can bring your family. My whole family's coming. We're making it. Just. That's what we're doing this summer.
- [41:04]
B
Yeah.
- [41:04]
A
As a family. I know Leif Babin's doing the same thing. I know Jamie's doing the same thing. Jan Tarantino is doing the same thing. Cody's doing the same thing. There's a. We have a lot of people that are just like, you know, we're. We're bringing our families.
- [41:17]
B
Yeah. They can go to the beach while you get some of the best leadership instruction on the planet.
- [41:22]
A
The brand new Gaylord in San Diego where we're having the Mustard.
- [41:26]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [41:27]
A
You don't even have to leave that place.
- [41:28]
B
That's what I'm talking about.
- [41:29]
A
The water park there for your family. It's unreal. We'll be there all day Saturday, by the way, chilling out. If you want to come join us and me and my family. But serious, if you've been wondering about the muster and if you have the ability to come to the muster, whether it's just yourself or you want to bring a small team or a large team, send us a message on the Instagram page, the P. Dennell Instagram page.
- [41:55]
B
At JP Dennell, you can do jpdonell
- [41:57]
A
or at jpodcast JPD podcast, because my personal one filters messages and I don't see them, but that's unfiltered.
- [42:04]
B
Correct.
- [42:05]
A
We get every message all in one inbox.
- [42:07]
B
Oh, boy, do we ever.
- [42:09]
A
Okay, cool. So if you do that, send us a message and then I will connect you with our operations team for a beautiful discount just for.
- [42:21]
B
Just for podcast listeners.
- [42:22]
A
So. Yep.
- [42:22]
B
Thanks. Thanks for liking subscribing. Thanks for all the reviews. And this is just a cool way for us to be able to give back to you guys. Make sure that you look in the show notes. We've got a bunch of links of people who also support. Support the podcast, like our folks over at first in Nutrition. If you go to the Mustard in San Diego, you'll get to meet Jonathan and Anne, who do our nutrition coaching. If you go to firstindnutrition.com jppod, they'll give you four free weeks of nutrition coaching as well so that you can get on the path with your health. Like what we're doing. Make sure that you go check out jesusandjujitsu USA.com we've got some amazing seminars and things coming up. It's A ministry that JP and I both belong to where we give away opportunities to attend super high level Jiu Jitsu training all over the country so that you can get some training in and then also learn to build a bible based community around your Jiu Jitsu school. We've got LittleCattle Co where you can get all of the great deals off the beef tallow products they're doing. Because it is summer, you need that after sun Sun Care, you need that anti itch cream because the mosquitoes are in full force and they're freaking brutal where we are. Like I'm telling you, some of these have straws for noses. It's not just like regular old mosquitoes anymore. So check all of that stu out on the path printing to do all your apparel printing needs. And then jp, Leif and Jocko, you've heard about them here, you've heard about their experience that they've had in the teams. If you go to Bruiser Arms, they put together custom gear packages and custom training so that you can have the stuff that you need in order to protect yourself in your home. And then last to our folks and you, I'm going to show this right here on the camera. This is the new sour Apple Jocko Fuel 2.0 can. It's got to. I want to make sure that I read this thing right. Saladropure, which is a thing that helps with mood regulation, which is something that's part of this energy drink that's super rad. It only has the amount of caffeine that one cup of coffee does. And you're like, oh, that doesn't seem like that's that much. Well, when you get this uber processed nasty caffeine that all these people are putting in these other energy drinks just to boost their caffeine numbers, you're really not getting any more than that anyway. What you're doing getting is a bunch of junk in your body. Not that way with Jocko Fuel. Go check out the new Proline products, the creatine. I was actually talking to a buddy of mine about this today that his, his wife is in a memory care facility and so she's having to get on. They're having to do stuff. I was like, check out creatine. He looked at the studies. Unbelievable what creating can do. Use code JP Pod20 to save 20% there. And then lastly, our folks over at Origin, they've already started dropping the new gear that they've got for the 250th anniversary. They've got more stuff coming out on the jiu jitsu line with Dennis and all those guys so sure that you check that stuff out. Jp, you got any final thoughts for us?
- [45:10]
A
Man, these principles apply to any aspect of our life. We just have to take the time to educate ourselves on the laws of combat, the mindsets of victory, and then really just step back, detach from our emotions and ask ourselves, okay, what is my problem? Which, which of these mindsets or laws of combat can help me navigate that problem? And then take a small iterative step in that direction and keep doing it over and over and over. And the more you do that, the stronger your leadership skill sets will be, because leadership is a skill set and we have to be intentional with developing that skill set every single day. I 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 JP DNL podcast episode 141.