0:05 Who are you and where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, leadership practices, all to distill from them lessons that we can apply to our businesses and
0:41 professional practices. So today our topic is uh winning without fighting every battle. And um I I think um for those of us who come out of a out of a military background uh th this this is a somewhat challenging lesson to absorb. Even though uh today's show is based on one of if not the best known example of why this
1:16 is so important and why in a military context it it saves lives. So I know for myself I I tend to want to fight every battle um e either because well often because the battles I'm fighting are not really for my own benefit. they're for my client's benefit and having a fiduciary responsibility to those clients generally the estate of a deceased person and so the beneficiaries of that estate I feel like I can't
1:51 really quit when what I'm you know uh what I'm working on it it's not benefiting me it's benefiting these other people uh nonetheless There are there have been in the last year and a half times when the economic cost of continuing to fight was greater than what I could ever have hoped to um to gain by continuing the fight. And so it required me to recognize that
2:28 sometimes winning the war means not fighting every battle. And the the historic example I'm using uh to illustrate this concept is the the history of of General Douglas MacArthur's island hopping strategy uh during World War II. So to set the scene a little bit, uh after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the US was was faced with
3:04 what by any measure I is is an enormous was the enormous challenge of uh defeating the Imperial Japan across you know the entire well not literally the the entire Pacific Ocean, but across much of the Pacific Ocean and and and the fact that Japan had numerous hundreds of islands that they had occupied in their sweep east from the Japanese islands themselves.
3:39 They controlled many of these islands and originally the US strategy was to reclaim every single one of those islands. Now the problem problem with that was that it was very costly to take an island in the Pacific when it was being defended by a military force. So for the Japanese who conquered these islands, generally speaking, they were faced with the natives living there
4:14 and the Japanese easily overwhelmed them and then they fortified these islands in a way that made in essence taking them away from the Japanese very costly in terms of lives. So, while the United States did a a tremendous amount of training in amphibious warfare, nonetheless, when you're sending Marines and soldiers to storm a beach and they are faced with well- entrenched and placed machine gun fire, mortar fire,
4:53 um all kinds of booby traps. So, you know, hundreds in some cases thousands of lives were lost, not to mention the number of of men wounded in in attacking each one of these islands. And it became clear fairly early on that this was not a viable strategy. Um so what what uh what what Douglas MacArthur decided and he was the so uh to set the scene a little further um while General
5:28 MacArthur wanted to control the entire Pacific theater in during World War II. Uh Roosevelt was was did not go along with that. Now I think there were several reasons. One was that uh MacArthur was known for being extraordinarily egotistical uh and he didn't get along with Roosevelt. Uh MacArthur himself was a Republican and of course FDR was a Democrat and unlike a lot of the um
6:03 military leaders at the beginning of World War II who had no interest in getting involved in politics. It seemed pretty clear that MacArthur had political aspirations and so FDR was loathed to create a situation where he in essence built up a political rival uh who could potentially defeat him in a presidential election. And so rather than giving uh mu uh General MacArthur the entire command over the
6:39 entire uh Pacific Ocean or the entire Pacific theater of operations in the way that he did with uh Dwight Eisenhower, who by the way was also a Republican uh but um was very quiet about his politics um number one and number two no interest in running for president while he was in the army. Uh Dwight Eisenhower was given sole command of the European theater of operations. So it it
7:15 wasn't that FDR was philosophically opposed to one leader having command of an entire theater of operations. His objection was to MacArthur himself. Uh and and one one could, I think, make the case that MacArthur in in many ways was his own worst enemy uh when it came to attempting to gain that command position. And so instead of giving General MacArthur uh sole command of the Pacific theater operations, FDR split it
7:51 uh between uh between General MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimttz. Now that's not to say that it was only an anti- MacArthur move. Uh the Navy led by Admiral Ernest King felt very strongly that the Navy had should have sole command of the Pacific theater of operations because it the Pacific Ocean is an ocean, right? It's it's it's a waterbased it was a water-based area of
8:26 command. And so, uh, Admiral King put a tremendous amount of pressure on FDR to give com to give, um, an admiral, uh, sole command of the Pacific theater. And, and Chester Nimttz was sort of the, you know, the admiral who was, um, probably best um, the best fit for such a command. Um but FDR was reluctant to uh so obviously slap the army in the face and so he ended up creating a
9:03 divided command. So uh Douglas MacArthur was given command of the forces in the southwest Pacific which is basically kind of the southern Pacific, Australia, um New Guinea, etc. and Chester Nimttz was given command of the central Pacific, basically starting from midway and moving through the central Pacific um heading toward uh the Japanese islands. And this divided command um many people argued was was
9:39 clearly not optimal. It it was it was based as much on political considerations as it was military considerations. But you know there there you have it. And so both commanders faced with the reality of the huge losses they would suffer in in in personnel taking you know every single island. uh the I they they they came up with the idea of only taking the islands that it was strategically necessary to take. And the idea was that
10:17 by hopping over actually most of the islands and only taking those that would advance the strategic objective of defeating of of basically getting to the point where they could invade the Japanese home islands. they would cut off the uh Imperial Japanese Navy's ability to resupply the islands that were skipped over. Excuse me. And and in so doing, those islands would
10:53 wither on the vine was was the term that they used. And and in the event that is what happened. And so uh what what they did was they uh they looked at what were the strategically important locations. So for example uh Papau New Guinea was a strategically po important uh location. There was a huge debate over whether the Philippines were strategically important in this plan as
11:29 opposed to skipping over the Philippines and going straight to Taiwan. Um and and there were there in many people thought there was a much better case for skipping the Philippines. General MacArthur would not hear it, having been essentially kicked out of the Philippines at the beginning of the war and pledging that I, you know, I will return the famous uh line that MacArthur made. He felt it would have been a betrayal to the people of the
12:05 Philippines to skip the to skip over the Philippines. And so there there was I think certainly from MacArthur's standpoint no question that the Philippines would be one of the was a strategically important location uh with with the added benefit that it it allowed him to redeem his pledge to the Philippine people. Uh and so you know the decisions were made about which islands were strategically important. Okay. Um those that were included Tinian, Guam, uh the Marshalss,
12:43 the Gilberts. Um and so you have you know famous battles like uh like Guam um the the battle for uh um Euima was was one of the most famous battles where the the iconic image of raising the American flag on on Mount Surabachi. Uh and and and then finally Okinawa uh which was kind of the last step before what uh would have been an invasion of the Japanese home islands
13:18 and and and hundreds of islands were skipped over. It's it's why uh if you've ever watched TV programs like for example uh Gilligan's Island where you know it's a obviously it's fictional this you know this the seven uh um um people who were on the the the the SS Minnow they ended up getting stranded on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific and one day they find this you know Japanese soldier uh sort of hiding out in the jungle. So for years after
13:54 World War II, uh there were Japanese soldiers on these islands that were skipped over who didn't know that the war was over and and from their perspective they they their intention was to keep fighting. Uh so that's where that sort of uh image come from came from and and indeed it it it was uh true. There were you know soldiers left behind who didn't know the war was over. So on the islands that were actually invaded. So um they were they were first of all chosen on the basis of airfield
14:31 potential uh so that uh aircraft could be staged on that island in in preparation for the invasion of the next strategically important island. Uh they also looked at how easily could the island be resupplied? Did it have any kind of natural harbor that made resupply uh easier? What was the tactical and operational factors uh that would make the island more or less
15:07 difficult to conquer? And and finally uh how did it overall support future operations? So um if if if you recall uh the dropping of the atomic bombs by the Inola Gay or of the atomic bomb I should say it didn't drop more it dropped one the the dropping of the uh um atomic bomb on Hiroshima u by the Anola gay that that plane left from an airfield on a small
15:43 island known as Tinian and and Tinian was uh one of the reasons why Tinian was retaken was because it did present the opportunity to be build an airfield where the the larger bombers that were flown toward the end of World War II could be staged for bombing raids on the Japanese uh mainland. And the idea was to capture Tinian and and
16:18 basically do these continual not well not literally continual but these uh almost daily uh bombing raids of the Japanese main islands in order to break the will of the Japanese people and create pressure for the for Japan, Imperial Japan. man uh to surrender. In the event uh despite the the firebombings and and the the destruction of of you know
16:55 Japanese cities, the killings, the killing of thousands, tens of thousands of civilians by conventional bombing. There doesn't appear to be much evidence if any that that this bombing campaign had an impact on uh the the final decision by the emp by the Japanese emperor to uh to surrender. In fact, it really was the dropping of the atomic bombs and and the threat of further atomic bomb bombings um that convinced
17:32 the emperor that that further uh further resistance was was fruitless. His people would only be needlessly destroyed. Uh but but the the capture of Tinian as an example is one that shows that the strategic thinking of the United States that although the strategy t the strategy of conventional bombing of the home islands, the Japanese home islands uh it in the end probably was ineffectual but the reason for taking Tinian was to pursue that particular
18:09 strate strategic objective. Ive so uh the um I I mentioned um a number of the the key campaigns the Philippines, New Guinea, Okinawa. So especially on these these larger locations like New Guinea, like uh the Philippines. So uh sort of rear bases, large rear bases were built in these locations, moving the main u ability to supply and
18:44 and fight the war ever closer to the Japanese main islands. And so it wasn't just a matter of taking smaller islands like like Tinian uh that allowed the the island hopping to continue, but to have to go back to say the Hawaiian islands for example for resupply just didn't make sense. And so larger islands had to be taken where supply depots and training bases and such uh rest facilities uh could be
19:22 created and so that the the pace of military operations uh could be maintained. So the there there were uh selections made of of strategic islands to take both large and small depending on the particular strategic need of or the it really as part of the overall strategy but depending on the particular tactical and operational needs for actually pursuing that strategy. less critical
19:57 islands were were bypassed and the and the Japanese forces were stranded there. They you know pretty quickly ran out of supplies. Um the Japanese did attempt in some cases to resupply them using submarines. In general that effort was not successful. uh this is of course the submarines got through at times uh but but as a resupply strategy it really was not effective and and so this idea of island hopping and not fighting every battle
20:34 but winning the war in the end uh it it it worked out it and it worked out quite effectively. Uh so um in the end it allowed the United States to advance much more rapidly uh in in defeating Imperial Japan. It saved in terms of American lives, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of American lives potentially. And most importantly, it uh it it it showed that
21:13 uh the idea of of the sort of um so the the the the the style of warfare or not style is kind of a poor word, but the the mode of warfare uh being used in Europe, the the sort of blitz blitz to use the German name for it. The rapid advancing, you know, warfare that that uh General Patton used uh where you just rolled over an area
21:48 and recapturing a big swath of land and there was nothing left unliberated in, you know, in in in between. that was not the right mode of warfare uh for the Pacific theater. and and you know this this is while this is not the focus of today's show I think it is an important lesson for us to keep in mind that the strategy we use in a particular situation that works shouldn't be assumed to be
22:24 the the best strategy in a different situation business just like military strategies need to be tailored for the circumstances faced in in a particular battle or war. So too in business the strategy that we pursue in a business needs to fit the particular circumstances. There is no no onesizefitsall and this this is something that I see quite often when when I look at uh different uh recommendations on how to
23:00 use social media. uh for whether it's social media advertising, whether it's um you know podcasts like like I do these kinds of things. So what what is a a successful strategy for me is not necessarily going to be a a successful strategy for you and your business. Presumably, we don't have the same clientele. We don't have the same business goals. we don't face the same obstacles. We have different sets of uh
23:36 knowledge uh skills and experience. And so all of these mean that we need to tailor our strategy for our particular business. And and MacArthur's island hopping strategy was the the correct strategy for the Pacific theater of operations. such a strategy would not have worked in Europe. It it just would not have. It was a land-based war, not a water-based war. And and it it just wouldn't have worked to leave active
24:12 uh units of the enemy's military behind while while your force moved on would only mean that you were going to be end you're going you were going to end up fighting at least a two-front uh campaign. one, the one in front of you, and two, the one with the the the, you know, the units of the military, the the the enemy military that you left behind. Even with conquering every, you know, every town and city along the way, there was there was still guerilla activity
24:47 that would arise in some cases uh because it could uh whereas in the Pacific theater, once an island was bypassed, it was very it it was essentially not possible for that island to mount some kind of attack on the American forces as they moved forward. board. Okay. So, so that that is, you know, the context of uh of General MacArthur's island hopping strategy. And of course, as I said a moment ago, it worked. Uh the Imperial Japan
25:23 surrendered. Uh let's see, it would be 70 years ago, I believe, this month. Um yeah, 70 years ago. Yeah, because I believe it was I want to say September 6th maybe that Imperial Japan surrendered in a um and uh and then subsequently there was a ceremony on board the US USS Missouri the battleship USS Missouri in which of the final uh surrender was was signed. So then what are the you know more specific
25:58 lessons right that that we can learn from this idea of not fighting every battle on our way to you know winning I don't want to call business the war but in in in the way on the way to um a winning business uh strategy or or or you know our our businesses expanding and growing. Uh what are the individual lessons that we can take from the idea of of island hopping in the Pacific theater of operations? So uh the first
26:35 one I came up with is that uh we need to focus on strategic targets not every single opportunity. So, as I just related, MacArthur ignored the islands that didn't contribute to the broader goal. Okay? And from a business standpoint, okay, companies shouldn't pursue every lead or market, what they should focus on is high impact opportunities.
27:12 So, I know in my own business, um, I get inquiries, it seems like every day. It's probably not that frequent, but but you know, during the week for, oh, you know, you know, we want you to do this, we want you to do that. I get them through LinkedIn, I get them through email, and they're just distractions. it makes no sense at all for me to pursue those opportunities. And uh you know, and as much as I know
27:47 this, uh sometimes I I still sort of, you know, fall uh prey to this happened a few weeks ago. Um I I I got a uh LinkedIn message from uh someone that I thought I knew, which is why I responded. and he said, you know, um, you know, would would you like, you know, essentially to, you know, increase your your income, right? And so I, you know, I pinged him back and I said, "Well, what do you have on your on your mind?" He said, "Well, I've got a number of positions,
28:23 uh, that I think, you know, based on your profile, you would be right for." And and my response was, I'm not looking to be an employee. So if you have uh clients who would be interested in hiring me or hiring my company, right, then it might be, you know, for the things that I'm already doing, then that might be something for me to consider. It took three two or three more rounds to get him to absorb the idea that I was not going to take a job. I have my
28:58 company. I'm not looking to become an employee. a a complete waste of my time. A complete waste of my time. And now, you know, it just reinforces when I get these inquiries, I I just, you know, arguing. No, I'm not interested. Not going to have the conversation, not going to get involved in you convincing me that I'm better off, I don't know, closing my business and that sort of thing. uh it it just makes no sense uh for me to even engage in those conversations uh even if they're you know just through
29:34 emailing or you know messaging. So, you know, to look at a perhaps a better known situation, right? When you think about a company like Amazon today, it seems to be into everything. But I think it's important to remember that when Amazon started, it was focused only on selling books. Okay? and and it and and Jeff Bezos worked hard to create a successful online book seller and
30:10 that's he kept that focus very narrow. He didn't get distracted by other opportunities. Okay? So he kept a focused goal until he had until really he became and still is the dominant book seller not just in the United States literally in the world. Okay. And it wasn't until he had achieved that strategic objective that then he looked farther a field and started getting into other areas of
30:45 ecommerce. Okay. Now, uh, Amazon is the dominant e-commerce company in the world. Maybe Alibaba out of China is is number two or maybe maybe Teu. Um, but but uh, Amazon is is dominant. Now, here's the interesting thing. knowing online commerce as well as they did. For some reason, Amazon for a while thought that they should get into conventional stores, so-called bricks and mortar stores,
31:21 and the endeavor was not successful. I saw one of the stores was in a mall not too far from where I live, a a really wonderful mall in in Century City. It's open air. It's it's a it's a well sometimes it's a pleasure to walk around there. Sometimes the music is just too bloody loud. Uh and I visited the Amazon store a couple of times. It it it was not a good place to shop. There was nothing interesting there to buy. Uh I mean the books that they were featuring were just not anything that I was interest in in which I was
31:57 interested. And um as far as I could tell, the this very I mean to have space in this mall in Century City was an an expensive proposition. I don't know what the rents are, but I suspect they were somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 to $10 per square foot per month. Okay. So my my guess is, you know, Amazon could easily have been paying something somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 to $100,000 per month for that store, right? And it
32:34 and all it was was really a place for people to return. It was like an Amazon return outlet. That's that's what I used it for, right? So when Amazon pursued an opportunity that didn't make sense for its company, it lost out, right? It Now, of course, nobody died, right? Like would have happened uh in in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II if an island that didn't need to be taken was taken. Uh, nonetheless,
33:10 um, there was, you know, a a loss of, uh, of of of money, a loss of strategic focus, uh, that I think was, you know, detrimental, uh, in at least some way for Amazon, right? It was not it was not a success. Okay. in in distinction to other things in which Amazon has gotten involved. Uh that that was not uh now what'll be interesting Amazon acquired it was either one medical or I think it was one medical um which is a a
33:47 concierge healthc care company. I I haven't heard really how well uh one medical is doing under Amazon's uh control. Um Amazon has is is getting more and more into health care uh selling prescription medications etc. So it'll be interesting to see uh healthc care is I mean it has an online aspect to it um but it's not an online business like the other areas in which Amazon has historically been successful. So again,
34:23 focus on strategic targets. Don't get distracted by chasing after every opportunity. That's that's lesson number one. Okay, let's take a break. America is a maritime nation. Our freedom and security depend on strong sea services. The Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League stands with our Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine through community support, education, and advocacy. For over 120 years, Americans of all walks of life
35:00 have heeded our call. No prior military services required to join our mission. The Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League of the United States. Help us support those who serve at sea. Visit navyleague.org. So this is Business Lessons from the Military and I'm your host Kevin Bemel. We're talking about uh the the strategy pursued by uh Douglas MacArthur and and really by uh Admiral Ches Chester Nimmits as well in the Pacific theater of World War II where instead of taking
35:37 every single island, they actually only uh in retook the islands that were strategically significant in defeating uh Imperial Japan. And so looking at the business lessons we can we can draw from that. So the first one is to focus on strategic targets not every opportunity. Next conserve resources by avoiding costly battles. So the direct assaults, the direct amphibious assaults on
36:13 heavily fortified islands uh were avoided to save lives and material. So while of course the lives were much more important than you know the the the you know loss of of material. Nonetheless, uh it wasn't as if the United States had, you know, endless numbers of of small arms, machine guns, rifles, grenades. Um it wasn't as if, uh the US
36:48 had unlimited number of tanks, uh or for that matter even landing craft. So, one of the big dilemmas in World War II uh wi-i which came into focus um during the planning of operation overlord which was the invasion uh of the Europe of of Europe um by uh the allies in particular the United States, Great Britain and Canada was uh was having enough landing craft and and
37:23 So, while it would seem like the the Pacific Theater should have had the priority for landing craft because that's they had to have them in order to make an amphibious assault on an island. The reality is they were just as crucial for Overlord and because there was not an unlimited number, they had to be in in some ways allocated between the two theaters of the war. And so the and and and a lot of these landing craft would be damaged or destroyed in the um in the
38:00 taking of any particular island. And so uh the the conserving of material was important so that the war could continue to be prosecuted. So in business two, right, um if we can avoid a head-to-head conflict in in areas where the costs of entry are very high, uh we we can hopefully find alternative routes to success. So, one of the uh
38:38 aspects um I' I've mentioned uh you know from time to time my my friend uh Bill Gross who's one of the top probate real estate agents here uh probate real estate agents in the country. Uh so Bill and I talk about what is the most effective way that we can uh grow the audiences for our respective shows and we've looked at different aspects. So, if you go online and you you look at the uh the YouTube videos on how to grow
39:13 a YouTube channel, they focus on things like, oh, um optimizing your thumbnails um and and uh you know, oh, your video should be X time long or Y time long, all the you know, all these kinds of things. So what what we've found is that uh the bottom line is for what we can spend on YouTube ads to grow our audience and and and extend our reach is far less than what we would spend um
39:51 infinitely trying to optimize thumbnails and and and trying to predict just what is the right length of of a of a particular show that we're doing. So, uh we've we've concluded that if we're producing good content, which is content that informs people, that's useful for them in their professional lives or in my case uh because I have a my shows also help out um people who are involved in their own estate planning and administration. So, individual lives. Uh
40:30 that's really what's most important. So number one, create good content. Number two, promote it. Let let Google promote it or well YouTube. Google YouTube YouTube of course is is part of Google, part of Alphabet anyway. And and the fact of the matter is they YouTube can target and promote content far better than Bill or I can, far better than anybody can, right? They spend, you know, a huge amount of time figuring out how to how to serve up
41:05 content that people want to watch. And so, uh, you know, for us to, um, use resources in these other areas, uh, you know, presumably, I don't know, fighting it out with other content providers. Doesn't doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense. And and I think, uh, so another I'll give you another example. Uh um I had to make a choice about uh 3 4 months ago. Um I had an I have an estate and one of the
41:42 properties had a loan on it and the lender chose to call the loan when the when the owner died. Uh they didn't have to um but they decided to do so. Uh and I I tried for quite some time to refinance the loan. Couldn't find anyone to do so. the lender got antsy and they started to threaten foreclosure and the fact of the matter is uh the lender had acted in bad faith. Um I found out later that this was their pattern because a colleague of mine had a very similar incident happen with the
42:19 same lender. So the the question was, do I spend resources fighting the lender and attempting to prove that they had acted in bad faith? And so then essentially forcing them to wait out the administration of the probate and and until I could find another lender to refinance them out or just go ahead and pay them off since the estate had the resources to do so. And in the end, it wasn't worth the the resources I
42:55 would have had to have spent fighting the lender even if I had won because it was unlikely that I I would have gotten uh reimbursement of most, let alone all of the legal fees I would have had to have paid. And in the end, I was still going to have to pay off the loan. um the loan the maturity date of the loan was about a year um a year from when um this whole is issue came to a head. So the best thing that I could hope for was to um you know essentially delay having
43:32 to pay the loan for another 12 months. And in the event at the point where I paid it off, it was another I think eight or nine months, you know, until the loan matured. And and at that point, whether they had acted in bad faith or not, the lender was entitled to be paid off. they they wouldn't have been allowed to be to foreclose because the property was in probate, but it would have become a very uh difficult legal situation. And so it wasn't worth it for me to uh to to continue to fight that battle and to devote more resources to
44:09 it at that point. Just pay them off, send them on their way. And indeed, unfortunately, this is what this is how some uh organizations I want to say people because the lender is not was not a person, it was a bank. This is just how some banks look at it. They they don't care whether what they're doing is right or moral. All they care about is do we think this is going to be to our financial advantage? And and if they if they deem that it is, then that's it. that's that's the end of it from their standpoint, right? And so sometimes we
44:45 have to do a costbenefit analysis and and and oftentimes the better decision is to conserve resources by avoiding costly battles. And that was certainly part of a large part of why uh MacArthur and Nimttz adopted the islanding island hopping strategy. it was to avoid those those costly battles. Okay. Next, cut off competitors supply lines. So, as I mentioned in talking about how the
45:20 island hopping strategy worked, the idea was that by hopping over a lot of the islands that were still garrisoned by Imperial Japanese troops, they would be cut off. They couldn't be resupplied. And so they didn't pose any kind of danger of, you know, American forces being attacked essentially from the rear, right? So the islands were were were isolated and they withered on the vines. So they were neutralized without having to retake the islands or or face,
45:58 you know, a costly amphibious operation. And so one of the strategies that we can use is to disrupt a a competitor's access to to resources to distribution channels or or to customers in a way that weakens them indirectly. Right? And so, uh, one of the one of the things that that I've seen, um, is that, uh, when another business is, um,
46:36 um, pursuing a strategy that doesn't look to me to be one that's going to financially pay off, the best thing I can do is just let them go on and in essence wound themselves, put themselves behind a a financial uh eightball, so to speak. So, not in this iteration of my career, but when I had my real estate company uh um prior to my joining the Navy in the in the late mid 1980s through mid 2000s. So there was a a a
47:14 large company that was one of my competitors and they were very very aggressive. Uh and and typically among management companies it's considered I mean when I entered the property management business it was bad form to literally try to steal your competitor's clients. So if if somebody had a management contract with a client, okay, so you didn't contact them. Or if you contacted them and said, "Well, I already have a management company," it was okay, that's fine. Um, you know, if
47:50 if you, you know, for some reason ever decide uh you you you know, want to consider a different company, if you'd like to take my number, great. And if not, you know, thank you so much for your time. That that was kind of it. this particular company, they would just say the most horrendous lies in order to convince uh you know the the client of one of their competitors to leave their competitor and come come you know into their company. And you know it it worked in the beginning
48:26 until clients until their customers their clients figured out that number one what they were saying about their competitors was really what they were doing i.e. that they were uh they were not acting in any kind of ethical way. number one. And number two, they couldn't deliver on what they promised their clients they would do, right? And so they were essentially cutting their own throat. Today, this huge company barely exists
49:02 anymore. At one time, they were the dominant property management and leasing company of retail properties here in the greater Los Angeles area. Today they are virtually nothing and other companies that operated on an ethical basis have continued to operate. They've seen no appreciable shrinkage in business probably have grown. Okay. And this other company has essentially essentially imploded. So
49:38 that's that in in a way, you know, by not taking them not taking them on headon, but letting them um follow their own sort of um disreputable policies. Okay? They they selfdestroyed their distribution channels. They self-destroyed their customers, weakening themselves and eventually collapsing, right? And so this is sort of using jiujitsu on them, if you will,
50:14 by in essence cutting letting them cut off their own supply lines of new clients. Okay, so a little I I know a little bit of a convoluted example, but um you know the philosophy is never get in never get in the way of your competitor when they're cutting their own throat. That's basically what it comes down to. So whether whether you're taking active steps to cut them off from customers, clients, supplies, distribution channels, or whether they're doing it to themselves and you just stand back and let them do it, the
50:50 strategy is to cut off your competitors from their supply lines. Okay. All right. Next, um build uh well, actually, we're we're going to run short on time here. Let me just see which ones I want to. Okay, I'm going to talk about I'm going to skip a couple of them. The last one is keep the end goal in sight. Okay, this is the most important aspect of the island hopping strategy is uh Nimttz and MacArthur kept the end goal which was the defeat and surrender
51:28 of Imperial Japan. That was the goal. The goal was not to capture a whole bunch of islands. The goal was to get Japan to surrender. Now, people have argued that MacArthur taking the Philippines was a distraction from that. I I I'm as as much as I'm I'm not a partic if you watch the show, you know, I'm I'm a big fan of of General Patton, not a big fan, frankly, of Douglas MacArthur. uh later in his career to digress for a moment uh he was actually fired by Harry S. Truman when Truman was
52:04 president. Welldeserved uh firing by the way. Uh MacArthur like I said was just had an enormous egotist. He he in some ways he made Patton look humble. So um but in I think that his his insistence on uh retaking the Philippines was the uh correct thing to do. um it it it was too large a target to leave uh behind. Number one. Number two, uh the Philippines, unlike a lot of the other
52:40 islands, the Philippines was essentially an American protectorate. And so the the United States had a a a different relationship with the Philippines that they did with other islands that that that that we skipped. and the the uh Americans and Philippines were fighting uh together guerilla operations against the Japanese and had the Philippines been uh hopped over and Japan had realized it could no longer uh it could
53:16 no longer resupply its Philippines garrison, there's a good chance that uh the Japanese, as brutal as they were in the Philippines could have been even more so. And so to again to leave the Philippines behind I think uh didn't make sense. And so um I I wouldn't I don't think that uh retaking the Philippines represented losing sight of the end goal on MacArthur's part. Uh I I I think he his while, you know,
53:51 redeeming his own pledge to return was certainly part of his motivation, there were strong strategic reasons and strong moral reasons for the United States to recapture the Philippines um and and prevent even more uh harsh depradations on on the Philippine uh people on the part of Imperial Japan. So uh in as we look at our businesses hopefully we have an end goal that developed for our business. I mean if
54:27 our goal end goal for our business is just to keep growing it at infinitum. I I I think that that is not a goal. Okay. It's not specific enough. So to go back to the example of Amazon for a moment, their initial end goal was to become the number one book seller presumably in the country. They end up as I mentioned of course being coming becoming the number one book seller in the world. So they stayed focused on that end goal and did not get distracted from it. Okay? and
55:03 and in doing so um they they were able to focus all their energy on obtaining that end goal. So another example of that is is Tesla. Now while you know one could I think fairly credibly make an argument that not so much Tesla but Elon Musk at this point in his uh career has lost focus because he has so many things going on between Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink
55:38 uh um X right he has all these companies in which he's involved uh not to mention foray outside of the of the business world that he's lost focus. But when he started Tesla, his end goal was to create a an actual viable electric vehicle uh and and a a profitable successful company to supply those vehicles and he was very focused on that goal. There
56:13 are, you know, the legendary stories of when he was having trouble meeting production targets and such. He would he slept on the floor of his office for week after week and all those kind of things, right? So that is all demonstrative of Elon Musk's goal to keep the end goal in sight. Right? And he did build a very successful car manufacturing company. Now he's facing more competition in particular from China uh and and you know there's been backlash from some of his uh you know political activities by
56:50 people who um either have already bought Teslas or who would have but then didn't because they didn't like his all that kind of okay fine that's but in in the in its original uh version Elon Musk was very focused on making Tesla the premier electric car company. And the reality is it still has that place. Okay. China is trying to overtake it. Um but but it hasn't yet. Now it may soon. We'll have to see. Uh there appears to be Alon Musk
57:26 appears to be refocusing uh his his attention on Tesla. Uh unfortunately I think um there's still all these other things all these other companies in which he's involved. So um it will be interesting to watch uh h you know how effectively he he is able to get back to keeping the end goal for Tesla in sight. Okay. So those are I think some of the uh lessons that we can learn from uh MacArthur's island hopping strategy in the Pacific theater of operations during
58:02 World War II. Be interested to hear your your questions, comments, criticisms. Um, social media links will be in the show notes uh after this episode posts. Actually, it's already in the show notes on on YouTube. I figured out how to update them uh before a show airs. Uh, and so love to hear them. Thank you very much for joining me today, especially my live viewers. And let's see, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show, People Making Money. On Thursday at 5:00 p p.m. Pacific time is my show Jiggers's
58:38 Place. We'll sit back and have a cocktail and a smoo. And then next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show Trusts and Estates Weekly. And I'll be back a week from today with the next edition of Business Lessons from the Military. So, thanks again for watching and signing off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.