John Ʌ Konrad V
@johnkonrad • 158,848 subscribers
CEO @gCaptain | US Merchant Marine | Ship Captain | Pentagon Press | Author: Fire on the Horizon | Shipbuilder | Blacklisted by Wikipedia | K5HIP 🇺🇸
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My month-long California vacation is over. I spent most of it on my yacht—but I also stayed in a number of motels. Yes. Motels. Cheap motels. I normally stay at Hiltons. The first week of my vacation, I did. Then I woke up sweating in the middle of the night because of lousy AC controlled by a gaslighting thermostat (post below), took a weak shower, and discovered I’d paid $35 a night to park at a highway hotel surrounded by acres of empty asphalt. So I tried an experiment: forget the brand. Prioritize cold AC, hot showers, and good reviews. My criteria were simple: Giant AC unit visible in the photos. Recently remodeled. No horrifying guest photos. Rating above 8/10. In one month, I saved $1,359. And it’s been glorious. I did walk into one terrible room. But it cost less than half the Hilton rate, so I ate the charge, walked out, and booked another cheap motel. Will I do this again next trip? I don’t know. There are three major drawbacks: Every motel smells like lemon Lysol. Most of the lighting has all the warmth of a police interrogation room. The walls are sometimes approximately three molecules thick. But I’ll take all three over waking up drenched in sweat, then standing under a low-pressure Hilton shower wondering why I paid 3x for the privilege. So what did I choose for my last night in California? The Vagabond Inn in San Luis Obispo. It’s clean and the AC could preserve a cadaver. The shower has the water pressure of a fire hose. Five stars. No notes. Now I just have to explain to my wife why our credit-card statement looks like I spent a month in California having a string of affairs with truck stop barmaids. 💀
John Ʌ Konrad V862,765 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
Can I say something without pissing everyone off? Look at this loser. Short, chubby, with his gelled back hair, fake Ray Bans and whatever the F is happening with that lower lip happy trail and white undershirt to hide his lack of chest hair. Loser. And it gets worse. He’s a single dude who snuggles with his cat before clocking in at a tire store. Couldn’t even get a like on a dating app. Loser. And it’s worse. He’s got some spinal thing making him a partial cripple and a pronounced learning disabilities. Loser. Does that piss you off? Does telling the truth anger you? Am I not allowed to say the blatantly obvious online? Does saying the truth EVERYONE is thinking make me a judgmental, ableist prick? Screw you for judging me. Stop being aholes to people with the balls to tell you the unvarnished truth. If this guy had called me, a experienced mariner with the highest USCG license imaginable, and told me his plan to buy a shit ass boat and sail it around the world I would have told this loser he was going to fail. But he didn’t call me. He took the official motto of American mariners to heart. Acta Non Verba Actions not words. He wrote a letter not to Garcia but to himself. And if he had called me, how dare I “kill” his dream? How dare me for saying I would have told him he’d fail? Because fail he did. He only made it to Hawaii. With his cat. A cat. Loser? Fuck no. He failed. At sea. An unforgiving sea that doesn’t give a shit about your dreams or aspirations or whatever the F is happening with that lower lip happy trail. A sea that rewards experience and gives absolutely no bonus points because you couldn’t afford better gear because you work in a tire store. And failure brings experience. And failure makes you figure out how to beg, borrow or steal that equipment you can’t afford. Failure by a working class loser and his cat inspired millions to fund a second attempt. Did he take that money and drop it on a perfect boat? Nope. Did he drop the boat he did purchase at a boatyard and say “fix it”? Nope. He spent months on the hard building out the systems himself. Now he’s making a solid go. And if he called me today and asked for advice… what would I say? Well he wouldn’t call me, I have decades of experience but he’s in another league. Above me. Screw Lionel Messi Screw Keanu Reeves Screw LeBron James Screw whatever sports star or politician or activist or actor you admire most. This guy is above them. Now I’m not saying Lionel or Keanu or whoever isn’t worthy of admiration. I deeply respect their talent and work ethic. But they aren’t tire guy loser sailing with his cat AROUND THE F WORLD nonstop alone: Fewer people have done that than climbed Everest and he has zero sherpa’s to help. And nearly every other dangerous sport in earth you’ll get to a hospital in a few days if injured. Not this guy. He is far beyond the max cruising range of any rescue helicopter. Meet Oliver Widger Loser turned THE coolest guy on planet earth IMHO Patriot Daredevil Poet Philosopher of the sea Inspiration From tire store rags to the riches of purpose filled life. Bravo Zulu Oliver Widger. I am truly and passionately impressed 🫡
John Ʌ Konrad V49,786 görüntüleme • 3 gün önce
BREAKING: US Navy will not open the Strait of Hormuz Trump gives nations who import oil from the Middle East three options: 1) Buy your oil from US and Venezuela instead 2) Secure the Strait themselves with limited US support Or 3) Wait for Hormuz to reopen naturally
John Ʌ Konrad V2,187,755 görüntüleme • 6 ay önce
This is a critically important tip from Jocko Willink. A lot of boys today are insecure. Modern culture gives them plenty of reasons to doubt themselves. One surprisingly effective antidote is cockiness, not arrogance, but the kind that’s funny, deliberate, and just ridiculous enough to take the pressure off. I started doing this with my son when I taught him to ski. Here’s the problem: I’m afraid of skiing. I cofounded one of the biggest ski websites on the planet, but I suck at skiing. So how do you teach your kid something when he can plainly see you’re terrible at it? How do you project confidence when you’re about to eat shit directly in front of him? Cockiness. Find ONE tiny aspect of the activity you can dominate. Then own the hell out of it. “NOBODY takes a fall like me.” Say it with complete conviction. Eventually your kid asks the obvious question: “Dad, why should I listen to you?” “Well, son, someday you may be a better skier than me. But you will NEVER take as many spectacular faceplants as I have.” He’ll laugh. You don’t. Then you fall. You get up, look him dead in the eye and say: “TOLD YOU.” Ask if he got that EPIC faceplant on camera. If he didn’t, chastise him for missing the shot. We have the most fun doing this with mini golf. I’m decent at mini golf—usually a little under par—but I act like I’m Tiger Woods on Sunday at Augusta. We spent a weekend at Lake George and played something like two dozen rounds. Why am I good but not great? Because I know one secret: EVERY. HOLE. MATTERS. I’m locked in on every single putt. It drove my son insane. After a dozen rounds, he’s nearly broken. “You’re too good, Dad. I can’t beat you.” Next course? Kid shoots FIFTEEN UNDER PAR. That’s the other reason cockiness works: it’s FUN. You can’t perform at your best when you’re terrified of looking stupid. A little ridiculous confidence removes that fear. Suddenly you’re laughing, competing and pushing yourself harder. And here’s the best part: EVERYONE wants to correct a cocky guy. I was at a rifle competition last month acting cocky. Nine guys enjoyed the show. The best shooter there did not. Eventually he pulls me aside. “You think you’re so good, but you screwed up X, Y and Z.” Then he proceeds to explain, in excruciating detail, every mistake I made and exactly how I should fix it. So I pulled out a notebook and started taking notes. Afterward, I found him again. “Can you show me?” He gave me 30 minutes of personal instruction. The best shooter there had just become my private coach. The same thing happens constantly on X. Post something timidly and people scroll past. Post it with absolute confidence and suddenly experts pour out of the woodwork to explain—in extraordinary detail—every single thing you got wrong. Perfect. Take notes. Cockiness doesn’t have to mean believing you’re better than everyone else. Sometimes it means being confident enough to look ridiculous, confident enough to fail spectacularly, and confident enough to let someone prove you wrong. And if you’re going to faceplant anyway? Make damn sure somebody gets it on camera. P.S. how do you know when you crossed from cockiness to arrogance. People stop laughing. When you are cocky you’ll piss a few people off but when you are arrogant then everyone will tire of you. Remember I’m not saying I’m better than you at everything, and I’m open to criticism at what I got wrong, but I am saying I am better than you at something specific.
John Ʌ Konrad V486,381 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce
Driving home from Thanksgiving, I was listening to this with my son & had to pull the car over. It hit that hard. Jocko Willink said that being prior enlisted meant he learned to “speak E-5.” Then he became an officer and had to learn to “speak officer.” Later, as an admiral’s aide, he learned to “speak GOFO.” He became trilingual. That’s his unfair advantage. It hit me: that’s the single greatest factor behind every success I’ve had in my life. Early in my career I learned this the hard way. The hardest way possible. My father was dying. My grades at USNA weren’t great but above the line. My roommate, a young Black mid with a 0.8 GPA, got summoned to the Admiral. His congressman had prepped him taught him exactly what to say, how to frame his struggle, how to speak “FOGO” He walked out with an emergency summer tutoring plan. A week later it was my turn. The Chaplain told the Superintendent about my dad & he wanted a meeting. “Family is most important,” he said. “Go home and be with him.” I got angry. I told him the best thing for my dad’s health was me graduating. He didn’t budge. I thought he didn’t care. I didn’t understand the language he was speaking. Years later I learned Adm Larson was quietly pushing certain groups out & keeping others in. But I’ve never blamed him or DEI or anything but my inability to speak flag officer. I took ownership. The truth was simple: coming from an enlisted family, I could barely speak ‘officer,’ never mind ‘admiral.’ I got a Presidential nomination & didn’t have a congressman to teach me the FO dialect. Bill Clinton sure as hell wasn’t calling to coach me. So I left for Maritime College, with a much lower reputation but a higher attrition rate & more difficult course load. In the Merchant Marine my career exploded. Captain. Youngest Distinguished Alumnus. Guinness World Records. Bestselling book. Built the most visited maritime website in the world. Now I’m worth millions and have a life I couldn’t have imagined, a beautiful family, my work makes an impact on the maritime world. I’m blessed but I still think about that horrible day in the Admirals office every day (which is why my haters always bring it up). I motivates me. My secret? I became a student of languages. All of them Most captains avoid the engine room I practically lived in it. Learned how engineers think & talk. Earned favors. I sat in union halls just to absorb how unions talk. Spent nights in drilling shacks offshore listening to that culture. Took ships with international crews Moved to Silicon Valley to embed myself with early Facebook employees. Embedded with NYT and NPR reporters—NOT enjoyable— because I wanted to learn the language of the people who shape narratives. More recently, I’ve been in DC learning how the top civilian leaders talk. And now my son is studying aeronautics and space. My advice to him is simple: Join the rocket club. Join the startup club. Sit in on nuclear engineering classes. Hang out at the ATC simulator. You don’t have to be the top 1% in any of these fields. You need to speak just enough of their language to call one of the top 1% and make them want to help you. That’s the real secret Communication is a perishable skill. I write long posts and editorials every day because I never want to stand in front of a GOFO again and lose an opportunity to simply be understood. So here’s the lesson: Be at least trilingual. Learn the enlisted language. Learn the officer language. Learn the executive language. Don’t get trapped inside your comfort zone. People say, “I’ll never be CEO. I’m not ruthless or connected enough.” Fine. You don’t need the job. You just need to be able to stop the CEO as the elevator doors close & explain, clearly in HIS language, why your idea matters. You do that by volunteering to serve coffee in the board room. That’s it. That’s all you need. And Jocko’s right the SECNAV does notice. His office called me Tuesday to “discuss” my frigate post 😜
John Ʌ Konrad V991,916 görüntüleme • 10 ay önce
US Navy warship USS Constitution salutes the USS Merchant Marine ship TS Patriot state… with flyover 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
John Ʌ Konrad V316,325 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce
“Unprepared for drones,” Meet Admiral Cooper, THE guy running the Iran war Former CO of the Navy’s 1st Drone & AI Task Force. Commander of Red Sea ops where drones attacked 170 soft targets. How do I know? Because I WATCHED HIM SAY IT ON 60 minutes 2y ago you bafoons 👇👇
John Ʌ Konrad V563,452 görüntüleme • 7 ay önce
op-ed: I’ve spoken with multiple senior Pentagon officials and others indirectly involved in the Maduro raid. Two things stand out. First: the operation was far more impressive than the public realizes. Second: in my assessment as an observer, the decisive factor behind its speed and success was set months earlier at Quantico when Trump and Hegseth delivered a blunt message directly to ALL the generals and admirals: “You can take more risk because we have your back.” I see no hard, on-the-record evidence that the Rules of Engagement were formally loosened in the Maduro raid (maybe they were, maybe they weren’t). What I do see is overwhelming evidence that the units involved internalized that message. Historically, ROEs are drafted by senior JAGs, tightened by senior administrators, then tightened again at every level down the chain until, in some cases, platoon commanders can barely return fire while under attack. This time, more trust was placed in officers closer to the fight. This administration trusts warfighters. It trusts that well-trained men and women on the front lines have the judgment and ethical compass to make real-time decisions to protect themselves and civilians in complex combat environments. Ironically, that trust reduces civilian casualties and the risk of war crimes because enemy fighters are stopped before they can use civilians, including children, as shields. This isn’t a new problem. My father, a medic in Vietnam, talked about it often. Civilians brought to him with horrific wounds by soldiers who saw the enemy coming but weren’t allowed to fire. Angry, frustrated troops. An enemy soldier burned alive because base security was authorized only to fire warning flares as he crossed the wire. This is one reason we’ve struggled in wars since Korea, a conflict that ended in a draw largely because every time we gained overwhelming advantage, negotiations followed and ROEs were tightened. Tightened by our own generals pursuing peace without learning that you can’t negotiate in good faith with communists. How many have suffered in North Korea because our forces were restrained while they were winning? We have struggled in wars since Korea except the Gulf War where Powell and Schwarzkopf told the American public they wanted an unfair fight. To be clear: I don’t have hard, on-the-record proof. But after covering many failed missions where overly rigid ROEs were the most common complaint, slowing operations and endangering both warfighters and civilians, this is one complaint I’m simply not hearing from anyone today. The Maduro raid is what the American military is capable of when Admirals and Generals let the warfighter do their job.
John Ʌ Konrad V726,385 görüntüleme • 9 ay önce
The Navy has no National Guard. No reserve unit with a ship. They even stab the Sea Scouts in the back. BUT Secretary Sean Duffy controls the Ready Reserve Fleet, yes it’s a rusty, broken mess, but Congress could fund it & actually buy ships that matter AND these
John Ʌ Konrad V539,350 görüntüleme • 8 ay önce
“He did something jaw-dropping to me. He read a statement from his phone.” That is the issue right there. Scott Pelley was not making an argument. He was applying emotional blackmail to CBS. It is the same tactic that works so well in corporate HR today: frame composure as coldness, preparation as cowardice, and discipline as moral failure. But serious people write things down when the words matter. Priests read from notes at funerals. Presidents read prepared statements. Officers read casualty notifications. Judges read verdicts. They do it because mistakes are unacceptable. That has been true since the beginning of parchment. The disciples took notes after the death of Jesus and carried those words around the world. Reading carefully is not weakness. It is reverence you imbecile.
John Ʌ Konrad V276,672 görüntüleme • 4 ay önce
This is what so many women chasing power miss. Feminism has undermined female influence and has ushered in safetyism, endless HR rules, and a culture of “niceness” instead of real strength. Once, women held the deepest influence in our society not by grabbing titles, but by inspiring their men to fight fierce battles for them in politics, war, and life itself. When great men of the past said, “I owe everything to my mother and my wife,” they meant it. Those women pushed them to take risks, to lead, to sacrifice and the great ones listened. Not all but the great ones served their wives. But today? Risk-taking at work is punished, ambition is blunted, and the greatest men I know are exhausted. Not because they stopped listening to women, but because they’re forced to listen to everyone—mothers, wives, bosses, colleagues, committees. A cacophony that drains rather than inspires. The irony is, this isn’t anti-feminist. It’s pro-woman. Our society was stronger when women didn’t trade their unique power for imitation authority—when they inspired men to be great, and in serving them, men built greatness.
John Ʌ Konrad V756,733 görüntüleme • 1 yıl önce