John Ʌ Konrad V
@johnkonrad • 158,291 subscribers
CEO @gCaptain | US Merchant Marine | Ship Captain | Pentagon Press | Author: Fire on the Horizon | Shipbuilder | Blacklisted by Wikipedia | K5HIP 🇺🇸
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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 views • 20 days ago
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 V2,187,474 views • 5 months ago
1.5 MILLION VIEWS on a Fake News post from the Wall Street Journal. Well, unlike Dave, I actually studied Naval Architecture for three years before I built some of the world’s most technologically advanced ships. So let me deconstruct Dave Brown’s fake news…
John Ʌ Konrad V114,957 views • 23 days ago
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 V991,381 views • 9 months ago
“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 views • 5 months ago
“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 views • 3 months ago