0:00 is from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time that's uh 1M on the East Coast for for uh for those of you who uh um you know are not here in California with me so um we um we we get together each Tuesday to talk about military history military Doctrine the practices of great military leaders and translate those into things we can do in our businesses
0:35 in order to make them run better and um um have you know better relations with with our team members and and those kind of things so today um my topic is using uh training to um to kind of unite your team and and build a spre a core so um for for people who have been in the military um training is uh um how how shall I put
1:10 this um you know some of it is fantastic and other parts of it yeah we we could do without so I'm going to start with the stuff we could do without so um every every year there are mandatory what are called CBT computer-based trainings that every uh service member has to take and there are things like cyber security um uh human trafficking avoidance um um sexual assault
1:45 training and often every year it's the same training and and frankly the quality of the training was was never good it was mediocre at best and so while these trainings were supposed to um help service members deal with um problems and issues within the military and and the problems were were real um I'm not saying that you know the military is is free of all problems but using this computer-based training to deal with
2:21 them was um really I think a way for the military to be able to say to Congress oh no see we're doing something about it when in fact they weren't really doing anything about it so most of us would just click through the training as quickly as we could um in some cases there wasn't any kind of quiz or anything so if you could just quick click through the training and get the certificate bang you were done and that was that was really the goal there was no learning going on um there was no understanding of a problem um and and and this is this is an example of the
2:58 kind of training that hopefully people in in the civilian sector avoid like the plague because it's not not only is it completely useless but it actually um degraded morale um and and unit cohesion because uh it was it was so bad frankly and um once in a while they would come up with a new training that was that was good um but that was that was a rare occurrence um the flip side is and the
3:34 area where the military does a a a a good job in training is in pardon me what's called physical Readiness so in the Navy and the Marine Corps we have something called the PRT the physical Readiness test and uh it changes from time to time but when I was in the Navy so the physical Readiness test consisted of four things okay first was you had to be able to touch your toes which may sound silly but it was a
4:11 test of sort of flexibility if you will um and actually I think by the time I got out of the Navy um they weren't having you do that anymore because people were hurting their backs by you know touching their toes which is I think silly but whatever another part of the physical Readiness test was doing push-ups okay and that's just you know the same kind of push-ups that you typically saw now what was interesting was you had to have your hands pretty much directly below your shoulders okay
4:49 you couldn't widen your uh your hands which which seems strange because it's harder to do push-ups with your hands farther apart so if for a service member who who was was putting his hands out farther he was actually making it more difficult on himself but whatever that was you know that was the rules of the game and that's how you did it the next thing was situps or I mean they were really more like like crunches so the rules of the
5:25 situps were that you you put your hands over your chest like this so your your arm had to touch your legs which were were bent um and your shoulder blades had touched the ground okay so so they that's why they called them sit-ups although like I said they were really more like crunches um and then depending on um your your age your sex um there was a a minimum score and a maximum score um that you could get and um and
6:03 and based on the number of push-ups and sit-ups that you did and then the fourth part was a one and a half mile run okay now the interesting thing about the Run was uh you had certain conditions for what the the layout of the Run was so one of them was that you weren't supposed to have to make any U turns now by the way this was widely ignored at least when I was in the Navy I would say in at least half the prts I did uh there there was a U-turn now of course the
6:38 problem with a U-turn is to make that U-turn you have to slow down so it it you know it caused people's scores to be a little bit lower than than what they otherwise might be but anyway so the the toe touching was kind of like a pass fail thing the other three you got a score based on your performance um within your age and sex category and and that gave you your um your PRT score now you know you would you would there were a lot of there were well I won't say that all people you know
7:14 enthusiastically participated in the PRT a lot of people didn't like it and in fact there were people who would um get them do whatever they could to get a doctor's note saying they were excused from it I mean there's always there's always going to be people like like that but for most people um in the military we we we took it pretty seriously um and um some people even you know train for it now you took the PRT basically every six months so my attitude toward it was I'm gonna always stay in training because um it's it's it didn't make
7:51 sense to sort of you know Slough off for three months and then try to get back in shape it for three months or two months or whatever it was and and that was really the idea was it was an incentive to keep in shape all the time right so on the day of the PRT everybody would be out everybody in the it was done on a unit byun basis and um everybody would be out there in in their PT gear they you know you had to wear the the official PT gear for the for the Navy it was these sort of blue shorts blue nylon shorts with the word Navy on them and this sort of gold um you know wicking
8:29 shirt I think it also said Navy on it if I recall um and uh and and then you know you you you you paired off to do the the the push-ups and the sit-ups and then you know you ran the the Running part of it on your own so um I I won't say it was exactly fun but but it was a challenge and you know you would like with your whoever you were paired up with you know you would try and do better than the other guy um a a little sort of you know friendly competition there um and you know there would you
9:06 know one of the things like if if you who whoever you were partnered with so the person who was doing the exercise the other person would count right so but you had to be careful that they were counting correctly right so again a little kind of friendly competition but also that the person who was counting would kind of look around and see you know like like with the with the push-ups especially people would get to the point where they even though had you had you did as many as you could in two minutes and same with the sit-ups so there are people who after a minute and a half they just couldn't do anymore right and so you you'd keep your you know if you were kind of like helping
9:42 your partner out you'd like keep a hey you know keep going keep going you're you're like Last Man Standing kind of thing you know that kind of stuff right um and like some of these young guys were were were pretty impressive they'd be like really cranking out the push-ups right and and you know after a minute and a half most most people were were done I mean My Philosophy was I I would I would know what the maximum number I had to do was to get the top score um and I would bang that out as quickly as I possibly could and that was it and normally I could do it in less than two minutes and I wasn't going to do more than that because it I didn't need to it
10:18 wouldn't increase my score and there was no sense tiring myself out doing more push-ups than I needed to and and you know and then then not doing as well for example on on the sit-ups or something like that so so but but some of these young guys you know where where the the maximum number was very high they'd like be cranking out as fast as they could in two minutes and and um it was really it was really pretty cool to to watch them do it right and so you you you got camaraderie there because everybody is sort of going through the somewhat you know painful not not like
10:53 painful like oh I'm hurting but but just you know difficult this difficult you know testing evolution um and and um and so it it was fun in that respect the typically the most fun was was the run at least for the people who are into running which which I I I've been a runner for many many years and um you know you it was it was a race for sure you know I mean it was a mile and a half which you say wow that's a long way but but for runners a mile and a half really isn't that long and and for those of us
11:28 who really were runners in competitive so we would I I don't want to say we would literally Sprint the whole mile and a half but we would run pretty fast for the whole mile and a half and for the last quarter mile or so it was probably an allout Sprint right and and again you know you wanted to get of course the best score you could but you also wanted the bragging rights of having beaten you know somebody you know like a buddy or whatever um and I you know one of one of my probably my best PRT was when I was with the Seal team and here I am at the time I was in my 50s
12:04 let's see I was I was in my late 50s um at that point um or mid-50s I guess is yeah mid-50s and I'm thinking to myself I'm GNA get clobbered by all these operators I mean these are seals right they're like the most fit people in the world um and when it came to the the push-ups and the sit-ups yeah they pretty much clean my clock but then we we we got ready to do the run um and um you know knowing I was a pretty good runner so the idea was the best
12:39 Runners would be in the front and the slowest would be in the back when you started because the timer didn't actually start until the last Runner crossed the starting line it was you know so you could gain the system by a few seconds right so the fast Runners we we take off and um it was it was pretty clear there were about I don't know eight or 10 of us that were you know in in the front group and we're running and the the pace going out was was pretty fast and we were on this sort of L-shaped um track if you will not literally a track but course is the word
13:14 I'm looking for we need to go out turn to our right go down make a uturn come back and turn to our left and and and across the the starting line which became the Finish Line right and so I'm I'm you know doing my best keeping up keep keeping up keeping up and and and and as we come around that turn at the 3/4 mile Mark I'm still pretty much in this group and I'm thinking okay well now here it comes they're gonna take off and leave me in the dust um and and an interesting thing happened um the front people in the group really started going faster and so I did my best to keep Pace
13:51 with them and two or three four of the people sort of started dropping back and I'm like how could this possibly be right and so there's four of us left in the front group right and I'm and I'm like this this is crazy right and I'm I'm dogging this one guy and he's probably half my age at best right and and and he's like I can't let this old man beat me I can't he's like he's like pounding pounding pounding and we get down all the way to the thing where we're going to turn left and as we're turning left I got inside of and I got in front of him and as we crossed the
14:26 Finish Line I was third out of out of our Seal Team right um and and the guy I I edged out he was he was so ticked off he wouldn't even speak to me and I'm thinking to myself how could this possibly be right and so I I went up to the guy who who came in first and I'm like I'm like hey man that that was a great run you know with with you setting the pace I I ran faster than I think I've run in in years and he's like hey man I'm you know good good job kind of thing we're just sort of chatting I'm like I'm like to be honest with you I don't understand how someone my age
15:02 could be competitive with you know you guys you're all operators you're all in the field all that kind of stuff I mean make it doesn't make any sense to me and he said well he said just keep in mind that we don't train for Speed we train for endurance for the most part and he said so you know doing a mile and a half run is essentially a speed run for us and that's that's not what we do he said if we were doing a 10-mile run you know we would probably frankly clobber you and I'm like yeah for sure you would right so but it just goes to show you
15:37 that you know it it really was a bonding experience it was a um you know a morale building experience for us um and and for me you know I I kind of had bragging rights for a day or two that you know I came in third you know in the PT for a Seal Team right um so my my point in telling you about this is this was an experience that everybody in our unit had it didn't matter from the most Junior to the most senior the the commanding officer who commanding officer of a seal team is a um a Navy
16:14 Commander um and we actually had some Navy captains who were part of the Seal team they were part of um sort of little branches of the team if you will everybody had to take the PRT it didn't it didn't matter what your rate or rank was didn't matter what your um your rate was you know as as an enlisted guy didn't matter whether you were a um an operator you were an enabler like I was did didn't matter everybody took the PRT twice a year um now by the way there there are exceptions when when a unit was um deployed on a ship so then the
16:50 the the the PRT would be cancel because it's it's too difficult to do among other things a mile and a half run on a ship it's for a ship that's you know whatever uh carrier is about a thousand yards long at the deck it's like you're going to you know run back and forth whatever how many many times it's you know five times or something it's it doesn't make any sense it's too dangerous can't interrupt flight operations all that kind of stuff but but aside from an exception like that um everybody does the PRT twice a year and and everybody like I said goes to this kind of um somewhat annoying somewhat
17:25 painful challenging training Evolution once a year so I think that that you know while if people had their choice they probably wouldn't have done it um the the flip side is that because it it was a requirement you know people sort of made made of it what it what it could be and so I think we could take this idea and translate it into our businesses so I was was was you know thinking about an
18:00 example so I mean you could do by the way a physical fitness example um obviously you don't want to break your people but but no matter what business you're in keeping your people physically fit is is important right and so it could be you know a fun thing to do now can you make it mandatory maybe you can't literally make it mandatory um you know in in a civilian business um but but you could you could incent advise your employees to take part in it um and in so doing um make it re you know
18:38 attractive for them to be a part of this and and if you make it a great experience even if when you start it a lot of you know a lot of people don't participate if the ones who do participate really en enjoy it they enjoy the camaraderie they enjoy a little bit of competition so then you know other people may may join in um and and and and so in that way you can you know build on your success and kind of you know make it a thing but you know maybe physical fitness is just you know not the way to go um with your organization that doesn't mean that you
19:14 can't build some kind of training Evolution that will benefit your company so um I have a a friend who's a data scientist and he he does these things called kaggle compet itions and I think they're basically like a they're like a programming uh challenge um that that you do among people like him who do coding and data data science and that sort of thing um now the kaggle competitions I I from what I understand are are very competitive they're very
19:50 challenging um but I I think that we could all take some aspect of our business and turn it into a some something of a game something of a competition so um you know if you're lawyers you could do maybe a you know a research uh you know contest you know game or or a document writing game or even do like a what do they call it moot Court I think it's called where where you you know you you you have a moot Court competition with within your firm um same with accountants you could you know you could do uh you know the best
20:27 tax return give them um you know a set of information about a a you know a a um um like a madeup taxpayer right and and have a competition to see you know who could come up with um you know the best tax return right and and um you know you could have you could have a panel of judges and and you know people maybe you know are um you know they may want to use things that are more likely to get off ative that kind of thing you could build all that stuff into it um and it
21:02 could be it could be a lot of fun um you know for people in financial services you know same kind of thing um do you know like do a a give everybody a $100,000 to do a sample portfolio and over a month period you know whoever has the most valuable portfolio wins or something like that or you could and you could have different you could have different things you could have a portfolio which one generates the most income which one has the greatest capital appreciation um you know you could you
21:37 can set up other metrics for these kind of portfolios right um so no no matter what your business is you can set up these kind of trainings now these are different than contests right so like in in fast food restaurants I think sometimes they'll have you know who can upsell the most french fries or something like that so that that's different that's a contest and those can be fine um but that's not the same thing a training is an opportunity for your people to learn how to do something better really working as as kind of a
22:13 team right so like with the PRT Although our individual performance is what counted that we all did it together gave us a chance to encourage each other to sort of compete against each other in order to get the best performance out of each other to train for it together in advance of the contest those kind of things right and so all of those are are a spree building functions okay that that are built into the nature of it so I think the key to doing this in the civilian world would be to build in some of those same things
22:51 so um you know maybe if you if if if you're lawyers and you do a mood court so then um you know you you you give your um your various teams the opportunity to do research over a certain period of time and um you know you could you could even um have like two people or whatever or three people or one person in The Firm they can be the the client right and they they know what they're you know what they're being advised about um but then each team you know gets to meet with them as the client and and depending on how good the
23:28 team is at asking questions and and relating to the client that may determine you know how how well they perform you know down the road or something like that so all of these can be built in um to to the training that you do um and the training will be much more powerful than computer-based training so what I can tell you from my experience in the military is like anytime we had to do CBT it was like oh you know nobody wanted to do it um
24:06 and it was it was just a complete drag on everybody um but for you know being outside that kind of stuff so I mentioned that I was with a Seal Team so when I would be down on duty um sometimes I would see um the What's called the buds training going on buds is basic underwat something or other it was the the basic training that new recruits went through in order to determine whether they were actually going to become a seal so one of the things they would do is they
24:42 would run with this it looked like a telephone pole on their shoulders right a whole group of them a whole a whole buds unit would be doing that another this is this is one of the weirdest things I ever saw um another group of of seal recruits was pushing I I think it was a truck down the road you say well okay that's fine yeah the wheels weren't turning right I it was it was it was the funniest thing one of the funniest
25:17 things I've ever saw because they're like like these this group of guys and they're pushing this truck and I'm thinking to myself this shouldn't be that hard with that many guys right and then I noticed the wheels weren't turning they were pushing the truck even though the wheels were were stationary and they're like you can see the skid that it was causing in the road right um another training Evolution they had was um they took it I think it was a 50 pound um uh barbell you know one of those round plates that you put on the the bar to lift weights and there was a
25:53 chain um strung through it and then on the other end of the chain it was looped with this um leather pad on it and they would sling the pad over their shoulder and they would run dragging this 50 lb barbell behind them from one end of the the course to the other they pull the thing off hand it to the next guy he put it on and he' pull it the other way and they had two or three teams dragging this thing you know back and forth I mean right and and they're they're you know yelling come on come on move move move you that kind of stuff right and I I Remember by the way the time I I happened to see this I was I was
26:29 actually taking a a class um on Special Operations and most of the members of the class were a um Green Beret um um I forget what it's called it's like a Green Beret team um and I'm standing on this access balcony outside the classroom and we're watching this and one of the Green Berets turns to me at one point he looks at me he goes he goes wow sir they're just animals you know because that's kind of the attitude that the Green Beret have like these seals that they're just all you know brwn um and and the the Green Berets really sort of Pride themselves on being kind of the
27:05 brainy you know special operators that kind of thing but it was but it was funny because you're just dragging this this 50 pound weight across you know a concrete you know U patio basically is what it was so so all again all of these things were obviously the goal of the physical training is to build up muscles and and endurance and all that kind of stuff that's all good but it was also to build a spree decor and we can do the same thing with our training in the business world in the civilian world if
27:40 we give it some thought right Beyond just like being in the classroom and having some a lecture us or or you know going on a computer and doing some kind of computer-based training getting out and doing things together you know as a group um with some competition in it really builds is free to core okay and as long as the training is really relevant to what we do in our business so then I think people will engage in it um willingly right and they'll they'll
28:17 enjoy it and and it'll become kind of a thing in your company right so that's that that's that's why I encourage you to think about this how can you really make training Vivid make it active okay and and again people may not want to do it in the beginning you'll you'll get some people who will do it of course um but then you know build on that and and once people see that it's fun and and it's to a good purpose I think you'll see you know a lot a lot um lot more acceptance of it so that's that's our show for today um
28:52 you know G gave me the opportunity to tell a couple little C stories which which are always fun tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday uh is my show people making money we're going to be talking about various types of leases so we've we've I've had a I've done a couple of shows over the last few weeks on real estate investing we're going to get into one of the more um complex topics okay so that you can really understand how how does a property generate income and that's different
29:27 depending on the type of property the type of leases and so it's it's important to understand these so that you are able to manage a property as efficiently as possible make it as profitable as possible so please do join me tomorrow again at 10 amm Pacific time then next Monday at 10: am is my show uh trust and Estates weekly and then a week from today will be the next edition of business lessons from the military so I thank you very much for joining me hope you enjoyed the topic today and wish you
30:04 a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie darling you are my bell all the best