Transcript

The Secret Skill of Top Gun | Dave Berke’s Leadership Protocool

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 52 min · 10,874 words · 112 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Secret Skill of Top Gun | Dave Berke’s Leadership Protocool", an episode of Ryan Hawk published October 18, 2025 (52 min, about 10,874 words). It mentions 20 people, works and ideas, including CEO's ego, Big Cat, Extreme ownership (concept), Top Gun, Detachment.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Top Gun, David Anthony Burke, Detachment, Learning Leader Show
  2. – 10:00: Corporal Chris Leon, Matthew Leon Burke, The Inside of the Need to Lead, The Need to Lead
  3. – 15:00: Top Gun
  4. – 20:00: Cover and move, Extreme Ownership
  5. – 25:00: Echelon Front
  6. – 35:00: Extreme Ownership
  7. – 40:00: Detachment, Echelon Front
  8. – 45:00: Detachment
  9. – 50:00: The Way of the Warrior Kid
  10. – 51:59: The Need to Lead, Top Gun

Notable quotes from "The Secret Skill of Top Gun | Dave Berke’s Leadership Protocool"

  • Dave, Burke,, Marine, Corps, fighter, pilot, Top Gun instructor, Top Gun senior instructor, and you scrap in the sky.
    about Top Gun · at
  • Dave, man, it is so great to have you back on the Learning Leader Show.
    about Learning Leader Show · at
  • I, want, to, get, to, the, inside, of, the need to lead your most recent book.
    about The Need to Lead · at
  • Yeah,, so, Chris, is, is, Corporal, Chris, Leon and Chris was on my team. So just backing up, I left the cockpit for a year. I was a forward air controller and led an Anglico team, air naval gunfire.
    about Corporal Chris Leon · at
  • Incredible personal obligation to keep his memory alive. My son is Chris named after Chris. My son is Matthew Leon Burke. Took Chris's last name and gave that to my son because I wanted his legacy to continue.
    about Matthew Leon Burke · at
  • Have a framework for that. And one of the things we teach which came out of the book Extreme Ownership that Jaco and Leif wrote is what we call the laws of combat. And the…
    about Extreme Ownership · at
  • Wonderful thing. It's almost like an obligation when our company Echelon Front interacts with other companies. We're talking about every industry and every layer of leadership…
    about Echelon Front · at
  • Question a lot because Joo has done this amazing job. He's got an entire kid series of leadership books called The Way of the Warrior Kid. So, we have people at a really young…
    about The Way of the Warrior Kid · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

  • F-5 — Product · 1 mention
  • F/A-18 — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • CEO's ego — Concept · 22 mentions
  • Extreme ownership (concept) — Concept · 8 mentions
  • Top Gun — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
  • Detachment — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
    Why, is, detachment, a, superpower?, One,, it tells you how hard it is. Almost nobody can do that. And two, if you can do it can be massively influential.
  • Cover and move — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Combat. And the first of those four laws of good leadership is we call it cover and move, but it's it's about teamwork. It's just the team is more important than the…

Full transcript with timestamps

Quite frankly, very simply, humility is the most important attribute in a leader. Of all the attributes, humility is number one.

Dave, Burke,, Marine, Corps, fighter, pilot, Top Gun instructor, Top Gun senior instructor, and you scrap in the sky.

I, want, to, get, to, Top, Gun. Flying, is, leadership., The, skill, of leadership is the ultimate difference maker in all aspects of your life.

There, aren't, mavericks, or, lone, wolves out there. It's about the team. What does it mean to be a leader who takes ownership?

When, you, take, ownership,, you, take ownership of everything. You want people to do something that has meaning to them. You have to believe in what you're doing.

Why, is, detachment, a, superpower?, One,, it tells you how hard it is. Almost nobody can do that. And two, if you can do it it can be massively influential. Achieving the outcome is less about how you do it and more about what happens in the end. All people are leaders. All of us. Dave, man, it is so great to have you back on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome.

It's, good, to, be, here,, man. I, uh, smiling, because, I, could, have, had that off-air conversation with you for another hour, but I I thought it's probably best to hit record. So, okay. Um, I want to go to a moment, actually a moment in your life, and that is it's July 2001 and you get a panicked radio call from your wingman, and that call is Showtime 11. Break right.

Yeah. What, happened, next? Yeah., Um,, I, can, remember, that, call., It's Showtime One is the way he said it. It just burned into my head.

Oh,, my, bad., Sorry. No,, no,, no,, man., You, know,, that's, the the nuance pilot speak. The point to that is like the way you described it is I can take myself back to that that moment. I can even draw on a map like where it was, where I was heading, all that sort of thing. I'm in the the last flight at Top Gun as a student. The graduation exercise, it's a big deal. Uh I was the flight lead for my classes graduation exercise. And that call where my wingman's yelling at me to to turn is basically a way of saying it's like there's a guy that snuck in behind us into our formation. Um which is a huge bummer. It's a massive disruption, but it's something you can't really ignore.

And that call, I would say, completely changed the entire flow and outcome of that entire mission.

What, happened? So,, there's, this, airplane, called, an, F5. It's a little jet. It's a tiny little jet. It's painted like in desert brown was essentially part of the training is they, want, to, test, that they, can, sneak, up on you. And they're testing what's called your visual lookout. Are you just staring down at your radar or are you looking up and out? And as you can imagine, uh, the fact that I didn't see him gives you the answer of what I was doing. My wingman was doing a good job and saw him. And he's kind of over my right shoulder, uh, low, and I look, and I don't actually see him at first, but I basically turn into that direction hoping to see him. And my plane just essentially has to fall out of the sky looking for this guy. And instead of being out in front of the formation, I'm now at the very back of the formation because everybody else keeps going to the target. Uh, and end up in this

what's called a prolonged engagement where I'm just spinning around with this guy. uh because I can't kill him because he's a really good pilot.

What, what, did, you, learn, from, that experience? You, know,, it's, interesting, because, in one sense there was this very important tactical lesson about, you know, looking out and finding the threats and and those are all Topkin does a great job of teaching good tactical things. The thing I took away from that lesson was I had this image in my mind of how that day was going to go. this big exercise that we'd been planning for a couple days and it happened nothing like I had planned. Like we executed totally different from my planned. But the interesting about that Ryan was like the outcome was still really good. We fought our way into the target. We got rid of the bad guys. We we had these simulated targets where like it went really well except it was nothing like I thought it was going to be. And the ultimate lesson for me is what you're planning for is the success of the outcome as of achieving the

mission, not how you're going to go about doing that. Because things get in the way. This got in the way. And one of the things I struggled with is first was the mission was a success, but I was frustrated because I didn't do the things I thought I was supposed to be doing. And I realized like that's just not how life works. And that was an important lesson for for me, which is achieving the outcome is less about how you do it and more about what happens in the end. and the team won and they were successful and I just wasn't out in front leading him when we did it. H

how, has, this, impacted, you, now?, Let's, go outside of the military where essentially you could use the Mike Tyson quote, right? Everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face or uh from the military, right? You still need to have the brief. You still need to have the plan. You still need to have objectives. And then in the debrief you go through and say, "Oh my god, basically nothing in the pre pre- op brief happened. Fortunately, maybe we did achieve the mission, but it didn't go anyway according to plan." How what have you taken from those life experiences where in your case they've been life and death experiences, right? At war, in the military, flying planes, like all that.

I mean, crazy stuff. How what have you taken from that into your now everyday life? Well, I've I've learned that lesson repeatedly. I'd love to tell you that on that day, like, okay, I had it all figured out moving forward. I learned the lesson and life moved on. I relearned that lesson many times. And I think the ultimate takeaway from that and where I really try to apply that in my own head is in all facets of my life is you got to be really, really fluid and loose with your plans. What you really want to be deliberate in making sure you and the team, whoever that team is, your team at work, a sports team your family, whatever it might be, is you want to get aligned on the outcome you're trying to achieve. But how you get there, man, you have got to be flexible with how you get there. And in fact, the best thing you can do is if you align on an outcome, we want to achieve this mission. We want in in

combat, like there's an objective you want to reach in flying, there's a place you want to get to, whatever it might be. If you get align on the outcome and think about it with your families. I want to raise my kids to be productive constructive members and be successful in their own lives. Whatever that outcome is, if you can align on that the best thing you can do is give your people, your team, the people around you the things they need to do it the way that they want to to achieve that success. So I learned is if you can align on the mission and align on the outcome and you are very open-minded there's a lot of different ways to get there, you're far more likely to be successful. And I'm like, Ryan, this is how we're doing it. Step one, step two step three. You better follow the steps.

That actually makes it much less likely to achieve that outcome and get to that destination.

I, want, to, uh, get, to, the, inside, of, the need to lead uh your most recent book. Uh really well done. Um and when I saw it, you had it. By the way, I love the fact, that, your, team, I, don't, know if, you even know this, your team sent me a copy of the book as a Microsoft Word document. I I that rarely happens. I love that. I I felt like, oh, I'm reading like Dave's personal journal. Like it felt like that. Anyway, but at the the beginning of it, you dedicate the book, and this may get a little bit more serious here, you dedicate the book

to, a, couple, of, people., And, um, I, I, enjoy like learning about like really important people um in your life. And that is Chris, who you said made the ultimate sacrifice. You taught me what it means to be brave. and to Cat who endured the unimaginable. You taught me what it means to be strong. I hope you are both proud. Can you tell me more about Chris and Cat?

Yeah,, so, Chris, is, is, Corporal, Chris, Leon and Chris was uh on my team. So just backing up, I left the cockpit for a year. I was a forward air controller and led an Anglico team, air naval gunfire liazison company. I was a ground combat leader whose mission for that team was to use airplanes to call in air strikes and use air support. So I was on the ground. I had a 13-man team and Chris was a member of that team of this Anglico team I was leading and he was a radio operator on on June 20th, 2006. Chris was killed in Iraq. He was killed by an enemy sniper. He was the first Anglico Marine killed in Iraq. uh happened to be my Marine and obviously the first time I had lost anybody in my combat experience. So that represented the lowest point of my certainly professional life as a Marine. The hardest day of my life in my career and the most challenging leadership environment I'd ever been a part of was

losing a Marine in combat. But Chris's loss was a was a selfless act of of not just selfless but also of bravery where he he put himself in a position to be exposed. Um and unfortunately he gave his life in doing that. And that's something that I guarantee you has been repeated countless times. It just so happens to be my personal experience with that is having a Marine being willing to put him put his team ahead of himself and he made the ultimate sacrifice in doing that. I have this incredible personal obligation to keep his memory alive. My son is Chris uh named after Chris. My son is Matthew Leon Burke. Took Chris's last name and and gave that to my son because I wanted his legacy to continue.

And obviously this is a hard thing to talk about and you can imagine that. But one of the amazingly wonderful things that came out of that awful tragedy was Chris's mom cat and I are very close.

She, is, a, aunt, cat, to, our, family., She, is a member of this family. She is someone who I've maintained a closeness with to this day and always will as a result of her losing her only son to war. And I always say that I really deep down wish I didn't know Cat because that would have meant Chris came home and life just went on. But that's not what happened. And I can preserve his memory not just for me but also for her with my relationship with her. And so Chris taught me bravery because what Chris did was the ultimate act of bravery. But Cat taught me strength because she had to endure his loss and carry on her life in a way that almost seems impossible and is certainly remarkable. And so I hold them both in the highest regard. And that dedication to me was obvious is obviously the dedication to Chris and what he sacrificed, but also to his mom who has endured for 20 years and is someone, that, I, consider, one, of the, most

important people in my life as a result of what she's gone through. And it's a remarkable story.

Um,, thank, you, for, sharing,, man., Um,, I feel like, yeah, when when you dedicated to them, so I would have imagined that there's a lot to it. I appreciate that. Um,

I, want, to, get I'm, always, happy, to, tell, that, story, Ryan. That means I get to keep his memory alive. So

I, love, it., That's, very, cool. Yeah,, absolutely., Uh,, I, want, to, get, to um Top Gun. Okay. Uh, by the way, the 1986 version of Top Gun is my favorite movie of all time to this day. I still I love the sequel, too. But um Top Gun the the the the the type of pilot that you see in that movie um from my experience from talking to you and talking to other pilots, whether in the Air Force or Navy is it just is uh it's it's it's a cool movie, but it's not really an accurate representation of how the guys and girls who fly fighter fighter jets actually are. Can you talk to me about the importance of the actual team, right, of coming together and how there aren't mavericks that even if someone may have that name, there aren't mavericks or or or lone wolves out there when it comes to flying airplanes. It's about the team and what you learned

when, you, became, a, pilot,, when, you, went through Top Gun, when you taught at Top Gun, that it's really more about the team than the individual.

Yeah,, you're, you're, saying, that, exactly right. and and uh I'm right there with you. The the impact that the original Top Gun had on my life is I can't overstate the impact. It is it is the most impactful. I watched that movie I'm like, I want to do that. And my entire life was built around the fantasy that was created by that movie on the screen when I was 14 years old. And so I'm there with you and I have I have nothing bad to say about that movie. But to your point, in terms of what they were depicting in in real life, and I actually will give credit, Brian, the the the sequel did a better job of depicting more accurately the understanding of the of the impact of you on the team. They did that really well. If you remember that last mission was bringing that team together to go fly this incredibly difficult mission.

Yeah. One, thing, that, is, I, learned, and, I, even talked about it in my book a little bit. I think there's used a quote that flying is leadership. One of the drawbacks and and I guess maybe pitfall might be a better way to describe it that I had to navigate through is if you follow the path that I followed which was a single seat carrierbased fighter pilot. All that work in my my my life career goal of becoming a single seat F-18 pilot is centered around yourself. Your grades in flight school, your performance, how good you are in the jet, how well you fight it, how well you drop bombs, all these things. And ultimately the reward is you then get your own airplane and you go to combat and you're in that machine by yourself.

A lot of it has this appearance of it being about you. And I like most people there was certainly ego-driven components of that. And my dream of flying fighters was at the beginning the origins of that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to do this for myself. Something the Marine Corps does, and you've seen this in sports, you've seen this in all different organizations, is that it is not to diminish the value of the individual. In fact, we want the best individual part of that team, but ultimately it is undeniably your contribution to the team that matters. And you could take a really good single seat fighter pilot and if he's so self-centered that he thinks of himself ahead of the team, he will do more damage to the team that a slightly less capable or slightly less effective pilot that really is a team team player.

And my guess would be is that you've seen this and we've talked about this in sports all the time is the best athlete is not always the best teammate. In fact, if the best athlete is a bad teammate, he can hurt that team. And if there's ever a team sport that's out there, it's going into combat with your with your team. And your job as a pilot is how you contribute to other people. It took me a long time to learn that. And I'm glad that I did, but I don't want anybody to think that that somehow came naturally to me. And I think the character depiction of that first movie really represented the potential pitfall we fall into, which was this is about me. And it's just not. It is not. And as cliched as it sounds, it's not about you. It's about the team. And again back to we, you know, I wrote a chapter on that talking about it just carrier landings and how it seems like you're the center of the universe by yourself

in that jet and you're just not. There's so many other things going on that is the team that is really why you're there. That's a tough lesson for that I learned. I learned it the hard way a few times, but it's really as accurate as it can be, as cliche as it sound. It's not about you. It's about the team. I think one of the universal elements of teams of businesses that want to have an excellent culture to go strive to make a difference in the world to achieve their goals etc. is you have to it's got to be built on a foundation of trust and in your case again you're putting your life literally in your teammates's hands. you need them to do what they're supposed to do. And so there's a lot of trust involved with that or like if you don't trust them, I can't even imagine what that would be like. What are ways that both you learned in the military and now maybe that you do outside of the military to help teams to help people, a

group of people maybe even if they haven't been together for a while, but what do you do to help teams and people develop trust with each other? Yeah, you you are hitting the nail on the head and I don't think there's a more critical component to the strength of a relationship than the amount of trust that resides inside of it. And so you probably know this about our company. We are we are a leadership consultancy. We teach the skill of leadership and we have a curriculum. We have a framework for that. And one of the things we teach which came out of the book Extreme Ownership that Jaco and Leif wrote is what we call the laws of combat. And the the first of those four laws of of good leadership is we call it cover and move, but it's it's about teamwork. It's just the team is more important than the individual. You got to take care of each other. But what sits underneath that is if you want to

have a good team, what you have to have is good relationships. You cannot have a good team without good relationships. And what's interesting about relationships is it's a word that gets thrown around a lot. And if you ask someone, do you know what a relationship is? that most of us will say yeah I know what a relationship is and you have a sense in your mind we do this in in a literal teaching sense if I have let's say 30 people in in a room we talk about cover and move teamwork good relationships if I say what is a relationship I'll get a lot of different answers because as you start to think about it it's harder to describe than it is in your head if I say what's a relationship you might throw out some words that make sense but the person next to you might use different words so in our sense of teaching it we tried to codify it not because we thought there was a right and wrong way but you have

to have some some framework of what a relationship is and the way we teach a relationship is trust respect listening and influence and the first one is trust for a reasons what you said is trust is the cornerstone if you don't trust me I could be good at so many things right I could be good at so many things but if there is a trust gap there's going to be I could be the best communicator in the world if there is a trust gap there is a problem in the relationship and there's going to be a problem with the team. And what we teach and you alluded to it very well which is there's some sort of mechanical sense is as I'm interacting with you trying to strengthen this relationship I have to think about the word trust. Trust is not a description of our relationship. It's not an adjective. It's an action I have to take. I have to earn your trust by what I do. It doesn't describe the relationship. It defines the actions you

have to take to build the relationship. Which means in the example we used before, if you're working for me, we have a, project,, I, go,, you, know what, Ryan, you know, you've done this a few times. Why don't you take lead on building the plan to execute that? That's my way of showing you that I trust you.

And, if, I, do, the, opposite,, which, is,, hey, listen, Ryan, you know, I've done this longer than you have. I kind of know the the best way to do it. What I'm really saying is I don't trust you. And so trust isn't a description of a relationship. It's an action we take to strengthen it. And I don't think there's anything more important. The way you said it is without trust, you're going to have problems.

Yeah., It's, um, it, it, it's, a, neverending skill, a never- ending trait that needs to be a part of all relationships, all important relationships. And certainly when you're trying to build a team and and push and try to hit big goals, I think um I think that's super important. Um, I think you you mentioned you're you're teaching leadership and again I could go so deep on just like a I want to sit in the classroom and and listen to you do what you do, man. Like sometimes it's even hard to to uh uh to to do this like interview style because I start getting in the mode of just being a student with you, man. I love the way that you

I, saw, you, writing, things, down., That's awesome. Well,, I, mean, I, I, can't, help, all, of, a sudden I'm like, "Wait a second. I forgot I'm doing a podcast here. I just want to listen to Dave talk the whole time." Um but but but there is so much noise out there with leadership. There's a million people doing the types of things that we do, right? Go out and teach leadership to others. What have you found once you like actually get inside of a company are some of the biggest leadership issues? Like when you're out in the real world, you're with actual companies, you and your team, your your instructors. What are some of the biggest leadership issues you you see people facing right now?

Yeah., And, I, think, you, said, that, well. And listen, I don't discourage anyone from trying to take the lessons they've learned in their life and share them and help people. I think it's a it's a wonderful thing. It's almost like an obligation when our company Echelon Front interacts with other companies. We're talking about every industry and every layer of leadership you can imagine. One thing that I have discovered is universally a challenge for all teams is and again I know this sounds how cliche this sounds but when I see challenges inside organizations it's almost always connected to someone's individual ego whether they we talked about the component of trust whether they don't want to listen what other people had to say whether they don't want to take responsibility for something whether they don't think that their idea um you know someone else's ideas should be listened to. Our egos tend to wreak

havoc at each level of the organization. And so, as we talk about building good leadership behaviors and good leadership skills, one of the things that we've learned we have to really unpack is the recognition that our egos from birth our natural tendency for what our ego is saying usually drives us down the wrong path. Our ego is really good at protecting us. And so, if you and I, we talked, about, this, before,, we, we, have a mission. You've got a plan. and I've got a plan and we are in a little bit debate, a little discussion over whose plan we should go through. As you and I are debating the merits of our plan, my ego in my own head is saying you're right, he's wrong. That's what my ego is saying. Your plan is better than Ryan's plan. And my tendency most of our tendency is to listen to our ego. And when we listen to our egos, we run into problems. And so part of building what good leadership is, is

managing our egos. And that to me, Ryan is universal. There has not been a company in the world and an individual leader in the world that doesn't have the challenge of dealing with their own ego. We say quite frankly, very simply humility is the most important attribute in the leader. Of all the attributes humility is number one. And we don't waffle on that. We don't kind of him and haw. We just say it. You have to be humble to be an effective leader. And in almost every case, when you see friction between teams, when you see challenging communication, when you see empowerment of other people not really happening you're not letting other people lead ego plays a part in almost all of that.

And so the attribute of humility to learn that is so so so hard, but it is central, to, success, no matter, what, you are doing and where you are. And we see that everywhere. Humility sadly infects almost everything. It's a problem uh to keep your ego in check. Can we describe humility? Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

No,, I, was, just, going, to, say, like, it's funny. Uh it's chapter two. That's the title of it, right? Humility is the most important

attribute in, a, leader., And, so, the, the, kind, of, the question I had written prior to us getting together was it's interesting you say that because I think of these warriors literally that's what you guys are. You're in your gear. You're going out to get the the the the enemy like you know these again life and death situations. You got to have a swagger and you guys do and you got to have belief and confidence that borders on arrogance. And so for for you guys, the guys literally who have lived that out to say nah, no, no, no, no. It's not confidence or courage, right? It's humility is is a little surprising.

Yeah,, it's, saying, a, lot,, I, think,, to, the value of that and what you're describing. I live that. So I left the cockpit. I go onto the ground to lead this team and I end up working really closely with Jaco and Leif Seals Jask Bruiser. And so basically every major operation at the height of the insurgency that they were on, I was with them. And I'm looking at the biggest toughest strongest smartest fittest. The list of attributes is long. And these guys had all of them. And they were miraculous. The thing that stands out, and I think if you had Jo on this podcast, I I'm telling you, he would tell you the exact same thing, the attribute that is most critical to success is humility. And that is the ability to listen, the ability to learn the ability to be flexible, the ability to change, the ability to admit that you're wrong, the ability to go with someone else's plan. And you can see how

and and even humility affects your fitness level, how fast you're running. Are you humble enough to say that you can get better? Should you be working out more? You can see it touches everything. And so it's not to diminish the value of all those other attributes. But it is humility that allows you to strengthen those attributes. And without humility, you listen less. You don't train quite as much. You're not quite as concerned about the enemy. You find yourself getting complacent. And there's a connection between humility and complacency. They're not the same, but they're linked. Humility touches all of that. And so it doesn't try to diminish the meaning and value of all those other attributes. But without humility, none of other stuff happens and it doesn't work. And so we are steadfast in our belief that humility is the attribute that is most critical to allow those other things that you need to happen.

Is, that, a, skill, that, you, can, learn? 100%. How, do, you, you, probably, come, across, you and your team come across and this probably happened in the military too. the the opposite end of the spectrum of being humble from time to time. The CEO who is not humble. Um how do you help that person who has a very high uh thought of I guess the nicest way is like thought of themselves

to, be, more, humble. Yeah,, you, are, getting, I, mean, these questions are so good man. And I think you're asking what I think are the central challenges we deal with all the time because while on one hand we could all agree that being humble is a good thing. I don't nobody ever says no to that

right? But, if, you, let's, say, hypothetically you're the one with the ego, you're that CEO or whoever it is and your ego is out of control. The one thing I can't do is tell you to be humble. I can't tell you that. And so as you're asking like how do you teach humility? I can't tell you your ego is a problem because your ego is such a problem. It's like my ego is not the problem. Your ego is the problem. In fact, the way we teach it is the biggest challenge with someone else's ego is not their ego. It's your ego's response to it. And so, if I challenge you, the issue with that is your response to that. So, the last thing I can do to someone with a big ego is say keep your ego in check. It just doesn't work. And so you have to look for these very indirect non-threatening ways to help people's egos diminish. And the best way to do that, and this is one of the hardest things we teach, and one

of the biggest challenges is if you and I have a clash of our egos, and I don't like the way your attitude and your ego what I have to do is I have to subordinate my ego to yours.

It's, the, absolute, most, counterintuitive opposite thing that your ego is saying. Who does Ryan think he is? He thinks he's so smart. He thinks he knows everything. But he doesn't. And I want to come at you and attack your ego. And that's the worst thing I can do to teach you humility. In fact, the best thing I can do is go, "Oh, hang on. Let me try to lower my ego a little bit." And what normally happens, not always there Listen, there are people that cannot learn humility. It's just a a thing.

But, if, I, can, lower, my, humility, and subordinate my ego to yours and go "Hey, you know what, Ryan? I've been really pushing back hard on your ideas and I don't think I realize I'm not listening to what you're saying and I really need to. And I subordinate my ego and go, "Hey, tell me what's on your mind. Walk me through your plan." The natural reaction you're going to have is, "Oh, this guy Dave's he's he's listening to me a little bit. He's not coming at me so hard and he's" and what will happen is your ego will start to drop down a little bit. And if I do that well and we we start to collaborate more and work a little bit more and we're less threatening to each other and we're we're in this process of subording each other's egos in relationship to one another, over, time, you, go, you, know what Dave and I killed it on that last project. We we we were we did that's the best we've ever done. We had the best

profit like and you start to what you start to connect is you start to connect success to your ability to control your ego. When we say humility it is the measurement of how much control you have over your ego. And if I can subordinate mine, the natural reaction, the reciprocal reaction is that will happen to you. That's one of the best ways to teach you that is, oh, that was our path to being successful. That's how we win. And I'm telling you, it's not easy. It's not easy. Mostly because of us, but that is one of the best ways to teach humility is let people experience that by suborting your ego and seeing what the natural reaction is to theirs.

Normally, not always, yours drops down with me a little bit. And over time, we start to learn to work better with each other. our teams thrive and the outcome is, oh, this has been this has been better than when we were going at each other the whole time in this clash of egos, which nobody wins in that.

Yeah., I, mean,, it's, such, an, advanced skill and I wonder how frequently that actually works because I we all draw from our own personal experiences like I had an egoomaniac for a boss back in the day

and, one, of the, ways, I, dealt, with, it, was just to make sure he always got all the credit, right? because if not he's just so mad and it was life was miserable for all the people that reported to me and I was in a VP role so it was a big job lots of people he was in a bigger job right and it just just it stemmed from insecurity and all the things that you normally see

and, and, it, and, it, was, like, man, this, is not I just I I don't know if I had the advanced skills to handle it that well the only thing I I I just thought short term and like all right just give them all the credit you know and if it goes bad take the blame but give them all the credit hey this worked because of you this work, you did this. Remember when you said this? And he had never said it but I would I was like just trying to survive. And and and and I think like that's the thing is you hope that like they actually have the awareness to realize that and and and unfortunately they they don't always have that.

They, don't., You're, right., There, is, no guaranteed way to get someone to learn humility.

Yeah. That's, how, strong, our, egos, are. Yeah., And, listen,, there, are, people, whose egos are strong enough that they would rather lose than admit that they're wrong.

They'd, rather, fail, than, be, wrong., And the ego is a powerful thing. And by the way, that why we talked earlier why we say humility is is the most important attribute is

how, powerful, a, force, that, it, is., The, way you described it though, even though you might not have had success in that scenario, that's still correct. It's still the lesson you want the people to take away from it is that was an example of you subordinating your ego.

Yeah., Hey,, my, boss, is, this, that., Okay, cool. I want my I want my boss to win. And I do that by going I'm going to supporting my ego. I'm not going to have a clash. It's a way to protect and help your team. And over time, what we say is leadership is a it's counterintuitive. The opposite of my intuition. My intuition says you're coming at me, I'm going to come right back at you. Your ego is a problem. I'm going to push on that ego. It's counterintuitive, which is like, oh, if this dude's ego is out of control, I have to subord it in lower mind. It's no different than the other attributes. If I can't get my people to listen to me, my intuition says talk more and talk louder. But that's wrong.

If my people aren't listening to me, I need to talk less and listen more. And the natural byproduct, which is the other part, is it's reciprocal.

What, I, give, is, usually, what, I, get., Does that work 100% of the time? No. There are some crazy people out there with massive egos that you can't fix. And sometimes it's best to just go get another job. But across the board, most of the time, most people, most scenarios, what you give is what you get. If you subordinate your ego, you'll get the same thing. If you listen they'll listen. If you're respectful they'll be respectful. If you give them trust, they'll return that trust. And so, you can see the connection there.

But we have to have reasonable expectations, too. People struggle with that. people.

The, other, thing, is, if, you're, in, one, of those middle middle management roles which most people are, not many are the actual CEO or the person in charge of everybody, whe if it's a military unit.

If, your, when, your, people, see, you, working really hard to kind of clear the path or to block them from the egoomaniac

they'll, they'll, they'll, run, through, a wall for you. They'll do whatever it takes and you'll achieve your objectives. It might not be fun all the time because you're you're you're blocking and tackling and doing all those things in order just to keep the person away. But sometimes that's that's the job, you know. Sometime that's part of the job of saying, "Hey, I got a I got a talented team here. I've got good leaders. I've got good individual contributors. I got good soldiers. We're we're we're tough. The only thing that could get in our way maybe is ourselves." And that's somebody who's above. As as a leader, I need to put my people in the best possible position to succeed. And sometimes that's blocking someone from our own team from getting in their way. And when you do that, I've seen your your people will literally do anything. They will they they will go to battle for you if they see that you're

trying really hard to do that for them. So um the the phrase or the word ownership or take ownership is highly associated with you guys at Achelon Front. I think Jaco helped popular popularize that maybe more than anybody in the world and it's chapter six is titled take ownership which is in part two the actions of a good leader.

Dave,, what, does, it, mean, to, you, to, be, a leader who takes ownership? Yeah., Inside, that, chapter, was, was, a, very humbling story of me thinking I really understood what ownership was until I read the chapter of the book extreme ownership that Joo wrote in the very first chapter which was when you take ownership you take ownership of everything.

Now, listen, I, want, to, just, caveat, that real quick. If if it rains it's not your fault that it rains. We're not talking about taking ownership of things that you literally do not control. But the degree of ownership is recognizing that you have ownership over everything, even if it just means how you react to something.

And, I, think, what, was, humbling, about reading the book Extreme Ownership and then why I felt compelled to write a story of ownership in my own book really is twofold. One is I don't think you can write a a leadership book without talking about ownership. But I don't want to just repeat what Jaka was saying. I wanted to convey how that story of ownership affected me as a leader and something that is universal I think for all leaders which is the idea that you have to take ownership of everything you possibly can. And the story that I wrote about in there was the story of Chris getting killed. And one of the things I was comfortable doing in when it happened in 2006, and by the way, I read the chapter 10 years later, is I reflected back on the idea that I would tell my team, hey, listen it is heartbreaking that we lost Chris and it was a tragic event. And it was.

But what I was willing to do then was like, hey, that's that's war. That's the world we're living in. There's nothing we can do about that. I want to keep moving on and just recognize that these are external forces beyond our control. The problem with that isn't that it's not necessarily true because that is going to happen in war is that when I embraced the idea that it wasn't completely my responsibility that meant I didn't have as much to change

and, what, I, should, have, done, is, like, hey what is everything every little thing we can do to make sure this doesn't happen again or a step further what didn't I do that I can do next time to make sure this doesn't happen at all and so the concept of ownership is a really hard thing for us to fully embrace because our egos and our minds want to tell us there's certain things that you have no control over. And while that is true you have to be careful with that because what you're looking for is everything you can take ownership of is a chance to fix, solve, or more importantly prevent a problem. And our tendency is to undersshoot ownership. Our tendency is not to overdo it. That's why the book is called what it is is try to take that is Max Puzzle. Try to take that to the extreme. Look for everything you could take ownership of. And listen, Ryan it's not everything. I can't control

certain things. People get sick. The weather changes. The world around us has a lot of influence. But if I can take ownership of everything I can control, I get more control. I get more influence. I can influence the outcome more, which is what I want. And that was a tough lesson for me. I had no choice but to write that chapter of learning that lesson well after the fact in my career as a marine. I wish I wish I could have gone back in time and learned learned it sooner, but it was a power powerful lesson for me that I think applies to all leaders.

Um,, again,, I, could, go, with, go, with, you all day on ownership. I want to get to a couple other things from the book. In part one, the mindsets of a good leader chapter 4, I was curious to go a little bit deeper here. Detachment is a superpower.

Why, is, detachment, a, superpower?, Well, you can see at Echelon Front, we have some some little cliches, some catchphrases. Humility is the most important attribute of the leader is one of them. Detachment is a superpower. The point behind that phrase, that saying is to convey how powerful detachment is for two reasons. One, it tells you how hard it is. Almost nobody can do that. And two, if you can do it, it can be massively influential. And what we're saying about detachment is being in control of our emotions. What we know is when you put people in difficult situations and there's a lot of priorities, a lot of pressures, a lot of forces bearing down on them, 2, three four, five, 10, 15 different priorities.

People tend to get emotional when they feel overwhelmed, when there's a lot on their plate. And by the way, every employee at every company I've worked with, and by the way, my 12-year-old feels like this, my teenage girls feel like this, I feel this, everybody feels like there's too much going on because there is.

There's, too, much, to, do, and, don't, have time to do it. The problem with that is what's universal is we all tend to have an emotional reaction to that. Some people get angry and frustrated, some people shut down, some people get fearful, some people get insecure. You could see the range of emotions. Now while the emotions may be different what's unique or what's universal is we all get emotional. And when we react emotionally, we tend to make bad decisions. If I act out of frustration chances are it won't be a good decision.

Any conversation I've had with my wife where I was upset or frustrated or angry typically wasn't my best self. And so what we teach is you have to learn the skill of detaching from that emotion. Not to be devoid of emotion. We are human beings. Human beings have emotions and we should, but don't let those emotions dictate to you. One of the most common things we see is when we have a problem at work, we tend to focus on that problem. People talk, you probably heard the saying you, you know, I'm putting out fires all day.

Yep. I've, got, this, plan., I, come, in, and, all, of a sudden, I, hear,, you, know,, down, in, this department and I I'm and when there's a problem, people tend to go down into that problem. They focus on that problem. they get engaged and invested in that problem, which seems like a good idea, but more often than not, it's the wrong response. What you should do if there's a problem is get away from it detach from it. Because what getting away from it lets you look around and see what's really causing it.

So, solving, that, little, fire, might, be good in the short term tactically, but it's not a good strategic decision because you don't know what caused that fire. You don't know what caused the problem.

It's, the, skill, of, the, detachment, that lets you see that. And there's like a very simple military example that we teach all the time, which is if I see an enemy, an enemy position, and they're shooting at me, which happens in combat my tendency is to focus on that. I get emotional. That guy's shooting at me. He's pointing his gun at me. That team is pointing at my team. And I'll focus on that, which is normal emotional reaction. But it's usually a bad one because what that team is actually hoping happen is I do focus on you.

Because the minute I focus on you, Ryan guess, what, you're, going to, do, with another member of your team? you're going to send them on a little what we call a little flanking maneuver, a little end run, a little maneuver to get me from the side, they're banking on me focusing on you.

But, if, I, can, detach, and, go,, "Hang, on, hang on. Let me step away from this. Let me take a step back and I I'll see I'll still see you, but I'm going look around." I'll go, "Oh, I see Ryan's in that little group out there in a little flanking maneuver." And what I'm able to do is if I'm detached from that, I can actually see the future. That's the superpower. go, "Oh, if I do nothing in about 30 seconds, that team's going to be on our left flank." And I go, "I'm not going to let Hey team, I know what's about to happen. I can see the future."

That flanking maneuver, it's coming our way. Get a team, go up on the left side get ready for them. We're going to flip the the script on them a little bit. That comes from the skill of detachment. You can apply it in all aspects of life. When you get emotional, you tend to look down and in, you make bad decisions. When you detach from emotion, you look up and out. You see the big picture. you see what's happening and you can do a better job planning and preparing for it. We say that as a superpower because so few people can detach because emotions are so overwhelming. But when you do, you see so much more and your decisions are so much better. So we teach that skill of detaching from those emotions.

Is, that, more, like, I'll, make, it, personal for, a, second., So,, like, you, have, a disagreement with your wife or in my case, this happened recently, like uh one of your kids leaves a dirty dish in the sink and that's that's not a cool thing to do in my house. Like there's put it wash it yourself or put it in the dishwasher. If you use it, clean it right? Leave it better than you found it. Very basic stuff. So when it happens, there have been times when if there was a video camera on me, I would be very embarrassed if you were to watch that video of how I reacted, not responded, how I did not detach and got emotional, even though it's in the grand scheme of life, it is nothing. It's a dirty dish of stink, right? But you wouldn't think that by the way I reacted. So, so in like those situations, what's like an actual tactical thing you would do if you're having a disagreement with your wife or

you know you you reacted bad to to something that actually isn't that big of a deal, but it but but my reaction then caused a much bigger deal than it should have been. What what do you how would you better handle that?

Well,, listen,, I, can't, really, relate, Ryan. That's never happened to me. I've heard of other people struggling with that. Obviously, I'm totally joking. I could put myself in the literally the exact same scenario in in the same situation. the the dirty dish on the table or the sink. And and I I think we can all relate to that normal.

And, by, the, way,, it's, I, think, it's magnified at home dramatically. Yeah. You are much more likely to have a hard time controlling your emotions ironically, with the people you care about the most.

So, true,, man. So, you're, dude,, you, are, in, good, company. I'm right there with you. I think everybody watching and listening knows exactly what you're talking about. In that case, I think about one of the things that we teach, and it's kind of easy to do it in retrospect, is if I were to just say, "Hey, Ryan," and and I could ask myself the same question, you could, ask, me,, it's, going to, be, the, same answer, is how often do those emotional reactions

get, the, outcome, you're, looking, for?, And the answer is it's hardly ever, right? Like, and listen

there, are, times, you, want, to, heighten, up that emotion. If your kids making bad decisions like running across you without looking, you heighten that emotion, tells them like, "Hey, this is a problem." You want to be really careful with how often you do that because you don't want to desensitize them to dad's emotional reaction. Sometimes it's required to go, "Oo

dad's, not, happy, about, that., I, better, pay attention." And if you're like that with everything, you lose the ability to be compelling in that time. Where I struggle, and I think what something that we teach is what you have to be able to do is understand where you are in that escalation of your emotions. What I'm telling you, I think, is also like, is there time to convey emotionally? Yes. But it should be you should be aware that it's happening. Not that you're out of control and your emotions have gotten the best of you.

And the best way to recognize that is know what your own personal red flags are. Most people don't go from zero to 100. They they have steps along the way. Maybe they came in, they had a long day at work. Maybe their flight was delayed coming back. Maybe they didn't do well in a meeting. Maybe they had to get gas. Little things have ticked up that your steady state of zero is actually a four or a five, which means that dirty dish is likely to put you to a seven than if you came in and everything was kind of good to go. And so you have to have this running meter in your own head of where you are on this emotion scale. And quite frankly, one of the things we have to admit to ourselves is as adults, we should be better at it than we're not.

When I ask the question, we talk about this with clients is, "Hey, what kind of people can't control their emotions?" And the answer is children. Children can't control their emotions. They're not capable of doing it. Any parent seen a child throw a full-on temper tantrum. They do it in private. They do it in public. They cannot control their emotions. But adults are supposed to be in control of their emotions. Now, you and I both know it doesn't happen all the time. You and I both know that. But one of the skills is Ryan should know what Ryan's scaling looks like. You should know and and I know when I start getting frustrated, my traps start to tighten up. I I tend to like tense up a little bit. I have seen people like their nose turns red, their ears turn red. They have these little indicators.

And I think the reason those indicators are so important, those red flags are so important is if you're in a level eight and you're taking that dish and you're yelling at your son, which hey, no shame in that because we've all been there. If I go, "Oh, hey Ryan. Ryan, just calm down and detach from your emotions right now." it's going to make it worse. And anybody that's ever told their wife to calm down when she's upset knows exactly what I'm talking about. But if you're at a level one or two and I go, "Oo, I see where this is going to go." And you can intervene, then you are in control of your emotions, not the other way around.

And you're more likely to not let that scenario push you over the edge. So, what, an, adult, does, is, learns,, okay, I'm an emotional guy. I tend to get frustrated at certain things, but I have the awareness to know where I am on that scale. And if I'm a four, you got to intervene then

because, if, I, at, the, end,, I, will absolutely detaching is not going to happen at a level 10. You got to do that early on. That's the difference between kids and adults is you should know and you have to learn what are your red flags and you can be a good part good partner too with your wife or your kids and see where they're escalating up and try to intervene earlier. Sometimes I've learned to even use specific words to myself. Words like pause and breathe breathe. And if you actually take a big breath, it's helped me. Little things like that's actually a big can become a big thing of dude, it's not that big of a deal, you know like

like, little, things, like, that, can, can, can be that's that's quite a bit different than when you're at war. I get that. But like we're talking about life now. And those little things can turn into really big bad things. And I think what you're saying is super helpful to help us not get to that point. Let's let's cut it off before we get there. Dave, one more before we run. Man, let's say you're meeting with somebody who's

like,, I, don't, know,, right, out, of college, early to mid20s. They want to leave a positive dent in the world, but they're not really sure how they're going to do that. What are some general pieces of lifec career advice you'd give to them? Yeah, there's probably two things that immediately pop into mind. We, as you can imagine, get this question a lot because Joo has done this amazing job. He's got an entire kid series of leadership books called The Way of the Warrior Kid. So, we have people at a really young age asking us leadership questions where it used to be kind of like an adult, older professional level type uh environment.

And so, now we got kids in like middle school, high school, college that are asking those really insightful questions. And I I love that you're asking that. I think two things really matter to me that I'm trying to convey and I'm trying to do this with my kids too and by the way it's easier said than done and so it's no automatic answer but there's two things. One is you want people to do something that has meaning to them. You have to believe in what you're doing. And I come from this place of like and I'm sure you have similar thing like this convenience of oh I was a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps. Like who wouldn't love to do that? I think what made me good as a Marine Corps fighter pilot is I really believed in that. I really loved and wanted to do that and I found value in that. What I've discovered is is there is meaning and value in all sorts of things and it really doesn't matter what

it is as long as it's something you find meaning in. And my point to that is if you're doing a job that seems like it's really cool or really impressive or something people would want and you don't believe in it, you are going to struggle. I don't care what it is. I went to flight school with guys whose heart just wasn't in flying airplanes and they struggled. So what is powerful and important and meaningful to you is unique keywords and you want to help them explore that and be confident that no matter, what, it, is, if, they, believe, in that that's a really critical attribute is you have to believe in what you're doing and there's meaning and value in all sorts of things. The second is as simple and as cliche as this sound is that the skill of leadership is the ultimate def differencemaker in all aspects of your life. All the things that you and I have talked about today all the things we talked about before we

hit record, all the things you're talking about with the people you're engaged with and and mine too is the skill of leadership, building good relationships, being a good communicator, staying in control of your emotions, helping your people be successful. Those are leadership skills that apply everywhere. And it kind of dispels the myth like is combat different? I guess the environment a little bit, but the attributes are the same. And so the conversation with your son about the plate in some ways is exactly what it's like to be in a firefight when you're getting overwhelmed. But it's exactly the same.

And the skills that we teach to make someone a good leader will apply in every aspect of their life. There is a myth there's a misrepresentation that leadership is about like you get to a certain place and now you're a director or a manager or a certain rank and you have people now you become a leader. That is not true. All people are leaders. All of us, no matter where we are and no matter what job we have. And if we learn to embrace the concept that leadership is the differencemaker and it will apply to everything. The earlier they figure out that out the better that this is a skill they can learn.

And, if, they, learn, those, skills,, their life will get better no matter where they are, what they're doing, or who they're doing it with. And those two things that I think combined can be really powerful to put someone on the path of discovering for themselves whatever they want, whatever they think is important. But the skills needed to be successful are universal in all aspects of life.

So, good,, man., The, book, is, called, The Need to Lead, a Top Gun instructor's lessons on how leadership solves every challenge. So well done, Dave. Thank you to you and your team for sending me a copy. I'm pumped for you, man. I am a massive fan of of all that you do and just love the way you show up with authenticity whether we're recording or not. Emailing, texting, whatever, man. I'm just a big fan. I I love that you guys are crushing it. Like it just it shows the importance of leadership and it shows like to me it's so easy to root for good people to have good things happen to them and that's what you and your company does, man. So, thank you for doing this and I know we're going to continue our dialogue as we both progress man.

I can't thank you enough, man. The feeling is absolutely mutual and and just being in a space where we get to have this kind of impact and contribution and you being a part of that. I love our connection, man. And I I'm super grateful for this.

Thank, you, so, much,, Dave., Appreciate, it, man.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Secret Skill of Top Gun | Dave Berke’s Leadership Protocool"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Dave Berke (Guest), Chris Leon (Guest), Jocko Willink (Guest), Leif Babin (Guest).

What is discussed in "The Secret Skill of Top Gun | Dave Berke’s Leadership Protocool"?

In order: 0:00 Top Gun, David Anthony Burke, Detachment, Learning Leader Show; 5:00 Corporal Chris Leon, Matthew Leon Burke, The Inside of the Need to Lead, The Need to Lead; 10:00 Top Gun; 15:00 Cover and move, Extreme Ownership; 20:00 Echelon Front; 30:00 Extreme Ownership; 35:00 Detachment, Echelon Front; 40:00 Detachment; 45:00 The Way of the Warrior Kid; 50:00 The Need to Lead, Top Gun.

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

20 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including CEO's ego, Big Cat, Extreme ownership (concept), Top Gun, Detachment, Extreme Ownership. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Secret Skill of Top Gun | Dave Berke’s Leadership Protocool"?

The episode runs 52 min; the transcript is about 10,874 words in 112 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 4, 2026.