There's 200 people or 150 people that start the class.
There's 100 helmets of people that quit.
Grown men whose dream it was to be a SEAL
that get there
that did all this physical training and all this preparation
and sign that dotted line and committed to six years
and they show up there and they get to that training
and they ring that bell.
No one knows who's gonna make it through that program.
The only way to know what's in the core of a human being
is to rip that thing apart and see what's in there.
And until you rip it apart and see what's in there you don't know.
What does it take to not ring the bell?
Don't quit
people always ask me what should I concentrate on?
What's- what's your advice for me going to BUD/S?
Don't quit
Like, train hard, don't quit.
Well, if you want to be a good leader
you have to understand human nature.
And the places where human nature reveals itself most clearly
are times of extreme
suffering and inhumanity
I had a bunch of hard-headed
very determined
thick skulled guys
that you know, I had to get them to do what I wanted them to do
had to get them to want to do.
Trust is built on relationships, relationships are built on trust.
If you don't trust me we don't really have a relationship.
My first platoon
we were doing a training operation,
we get into this tactical situation
everyone in my platoon is focused on one area.
Everyone's looking down their weapons
waiting for a threat to expose itself
which means you got 16 guys looking down their weapons
and I’m waiting for someone to make a call.
I was a new guy
I’m waiting for someone above me in the chain of command to say
Hey! move here or hey! move forward or make some kind of a decision.
And as I’m waiting no one's doing it.
So, I’m a new guy
I’m scared to say anything
and I know I shouldn't say anything so I'm just waiting
and no one's giving an order, no one's giving any direction.
So, I wait longer
and this goes on for probably 30 seconds or a minute
which is a really long time
when you're trying to take down a target
and finally I said to myself, "all right, I'm gonna see what's going on"
so I actually point my weapon at the ceiling
and I take a step back and I just look around
and and I see that every single person in my platoon
including my platoon commander,
including the assistant platoon commander,
including the platoon leading petty officer
everyone is just focused on their weapons
and no one's making a decision
and I can see this
and because I’m looking around
and I’m detached from the scenario
just by, just by eight inches I stepped back
stepped back to look around
I can see what decision needs to be made.
And so, I summoned up as much courage as I could as a new guy
because new guys don't make decisions.
And I said
HOLD LEFT, CLEAR RIGHT
which is a basic command
that we had rehearsed and you would practice
and I expected someone to say you know,
shut up, shut up Jocko
but instead they repeated the command.
They all said, HOLD LEFT, CLEAR RIGHT which means we were going to execute it
and sure enough, the guys in the left held and the guys in the right cleared
and we got done
and instead of someone saying hey! you need to keep your mouth shut
one of the more senior guys said, hey! good job up there.
Way to make a call.
So I looked at it, I said wait a second
how could I have...
as a new guy have made a decision in that situation
that was better than what the more senior more experienced guys were making.
And I realized it was because I took a step back and detached from it.
So at that moment I said to myself, okay,
from now on,
when I get into these tactical scenarios
I’m gonna take a step back
and I’m gonna try and look around
and I’m gonna try and detach myself from the chaos and the mayhem.
And I started doing it all the time
in every tactical situation in the land warfare,
in the mountains, in the urban environments I was doing it all the time.
And I was able to like see what was happening.
It was like a superpower to be able to see what was happening
and make decisions.
And so, then I actually started doing it
when I was having conversations.
And if you and I were in disagreement
and you started getting emotional
instead of me getting emotional back at you
I would just take a step back and be like, oh okay,
he's really, he's really concerned about this
why is he so concerned?
What does he see that I don't see?
And I started to actually- just detaching all the time
and that became a very powerful tool
in leadership that I used to this day.
My second platoon, our platoon commander
the guy actually in charge of the whole platoon.
he's not very experienced,
he didn't listen, he didn't take advice, he didn't take guidance.
Everything was like his way or the highway.
And we had a mutiny
inside of our platoon
we went to our commanding officer and said
hey, sir, we don't want to work for our platoon commander
he- he doesn't listen, he's arrogant.
And eventually what ended up happening was
this guy got fired
as our platoon commander.
And that left an impact on me because as I’m watching this going
I’m thinking myself why don't we like this guy?
Why doesn't anyone want to listen to this guy?
Why don't we want to follow this guy?
And the reason because he was arrogant and he didn't listen
and he didn't give us any ownership of everything, everything was about him.
And that would, that would have
made an impression on me, that would have left a mark but
the mark got left even more clearly
because when that guy got fired the guy that came in and took over for him
was- was like
I hate to use the word legendary but he was a pretty legendary Seal
had a ton of experience, he'd come up through the ranks
and he had been stationed at every different kind of Seal team
and he took over as our platoon commander.
And I kind of thought to myself
well he's going to take over because we're a bunch of mutineers
and they need to put someone really strong that's going to like
whip us back into shape.
So I was anticipating that
we were gonna have this super hardcore guy.
And- and this guy shows up
and he's got a nice smile on his face
and he's super humble
and I remember one of the first things he said to us was like
I look forward to working with you guys.
And I was
that word right there,
I’m gonna work with you guys
not- not I’m in charge, I’m glad I’m taking over,
I’m glad to be your commander
He was nothing like that, he said, hey, I’m looking forward working with you guys.
So all of a sudden it was totally different
and he started putting us in charge of things
instead of him coming up with a plan
he would say- hey you guys, come up with a plan
and let me know how you want to do it.
And all of a sudden we had all this ownership
and that made me reflect
on the way the first guy had acted compared to the way this guy had acted.
And I realized how important it was to be a humble leader
and to listen to other people
and to give ownership to other people.
In the third platoon,
it was a good solid platoon and we had a good platoon commander
and we were out in the desert doing some training and
some targets popped up
and we start engaging the targets like we're supposed to and everyone gets
in the prone position and is returning fire.
And I did what I had been doing this whole time which was detached
I kind of took a step back, took- shot a couple rounds then
kind of pulled back and looked to see what was going on.
And I saw the call that needed to be made.
And I gave the platoon commander a couple seconds to make a call
and he didn't make it
so you know, I call, I made the call.
Peel left
and everyone said, okay, peel left and we peeled left and
we left the scenario and we got our distance and
then we stopped the training exercise
and we did a little debrief.
And during the debrief
the platoon commander you know, he said to me
why did you make that call?
And I said well, I could see what we needed to do, you know, and
you hadn't made a call so, you know, I made the call.
And he goes well I actually didn't want to peel left I wanted to assault the target
And- and right there in that split second, I kind of thought to myself
well like part of my ego
flared up and I was kind of thinking
I could have said something along the lines of...
Well, you need to make a call faster
if you're not going to step up and lead, then I’m going to do it,
I could have said that
but I realized at that moment in time
wait a second, I didn't need to make a call
the problem could have developed more
but for some reason I thought that I needed to be the guy.
And I said, no, you know what, you don't need to be the guy
your leader, you need to support your leader
and it's not about you
and what you have to do is subordinate your ego
and be supportive of the person that's in charge
and you move forward together as a team.
Because that's what it's about.
It's not about me
it's about the team.
There's a word that people bring up a lot
and I think they're pretty interchangeable and it's relationships and trust
Trust is built on relationships
relationships are built on trust.
If you don't trust me
we don't really have a relationship.
But if you want to be a good leader
you have to understand human nature.
And the places where human nature reveals itself most clearly
are times of
extreme sorrow,
pain,
suffering,
and inhumanity.
And if we don't recognize
what causes that, where that comes from
and that it's actually possible
then
it's bound to happen again.