Jocko Underground: The VIOLATIONS of a Lack of Self-Awareness |

Dominating life despite life-changing injuries. Defensive tactics for smaller people in law enforcement. Getting a middle child back on track for success in life. Prioritizing and executing self-improvement. Dealing with being fired and everyone turning their back on you. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 80 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Link. Echo Charles, sitting across from me. What's up EC? What's up? Want to address something, man. And sure, this is something we talk about, and we're going to talk about it again.

• 0:17Jocko Willink?

  One of the biggest problems that you can have as a human being is a lack of self-awareness.

• 0:28Jocko Willink?

  That is one of the biggest problems that you can have as a human being. And what's crazy about it is, if, let's say there's someone, Fred. Fred has no self-awareness. If Fred sees something, if Fred sees someone else doing what he's doing, he immediately sees it's a violation. Yeah. Hundred percent, he's like, oh wow, could they be doing that? He's thinking violation. But when Fred does it himself, he doesn't see it. He either doesn't see it himself, which means he's totally lacking self-awareness, or he doesn't think other people can see what he's doing.

• 1:06Jocko Willink?

  So you really, truly have to learn to detach. And we talk about how to get that done. We talk about taking a step back. We talk about writing things down. We talk about ways to separate your actions from your assessment of those actions. You talk, we talk about ways to separate what you're doing and pulling yourself out so you can actually see what you're doing and not be the one doing it. So you can, like Fred, when the time calls for it, you can say, oh, I'm violating basic principles right now. I'm being dumb.

• 1:45Jocko Willink?

  If you think, right now, if you're, if you're listening and you think like, oh, I don't ever lose self-awareness, this is for you. This is, that's a, that's a little mind trick that's happening, right? Where you think you're always, can see everything? That's when you actually can't. If you think, if you think that no one can ever see the moves that you're making, this is for you.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  This is for you. If you think, if you're, if right now you're like, dude, Jock was a little bit wrong. He's a little bit wrong here. I, no one can see these moves that I'm making. No one can tell that I'm taking care of myself right now. If you're thinking that right now, you're who I'm talking to. Everyone can see it. They can see it. They do see it. Sometimes people can be so unaware that they don't even consider what other people are thinking. They just carry on. Like you see Fred, he's just doing what he's doing. He can't even comprehend that someone else could see it. Does not even part of the equation at all. It's not like, hey, they probably don't see it or, hey, this is what I'm doing and it's, but they can't, no, they, they don't even

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  recognize that that could be a thing. I've known people that are that lacking in self-awareness. So you have to be on the watch for that. We have to be careful.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  Think about what other people are thinking, right? This is the, this is the dichotomy of like, I don't care what anybody else thinks, which is in some ways a really good attitude to have. And in some ways it's a really horrible attitude to have.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Right? In some ways it's great to say, hey, you know what? I don't care what they think. Also, if you think that and you act like that, you're probably being seen as a, by a bunch of people as someone that's looking out for themselves, as someone that's an egomaniac, as someone that they don't want to hang around with. Like that's what's happening.

• 3:42Jocko Willink?

  So how are we going to detach?

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  What, you know, I always talk about writing as a tool for detachment because when you write things down, you are physically detached. You can see the words on the page now. But here's what I want you to write down. I want you to write down your intent. When you're doing something, when you're going into a meeting, what's your intent? Your true intent. What is it?

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  Write that thing down. Write that thing down. And now, once you've written it down, imagine that you're walking into this meeting and you have that intent printed on your forehead.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yep, that's a good one.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  You might as well.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:17Jocko Willink?

  You might as well. Because if you go in there thinking that they're not gonna know your intent, they're going to. Now, listen, they might not know your exact intent, but as we say, intent has a smell, and they're damn sure gonna smell it. And they know it smells bad. They, you put some perfume over it, right? Put some, what's the cologne, if you're a dude, right? Put the cologne or the, or the deodorant, put that on, you can mop that on there.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:44Jocko Willink?

  And people smell that, and they even still say.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  No, when they put the, the little pine tree, right, in the taxi cab, you get in there, man, it still smells terrible. Like, it smells pine needles and whatever else.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Funk.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  Not good, funk.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  So you can try and cover it up, but you can't. So write down what your intent is. So you can detach from it, so you can see it. And once you see it,

• 5:10Jocko Willink?

  know this. That intent that you have, it flows into how you carry yourself, it flows into the way the words come out of your mouth. It's part of you.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  It's truly part of you, and you can't cover it up. And I've seen people that think they can do this. And it's

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  the lack of self-awareness is, is horrible. You know, it's like you see someone that has, you ever heard a report from someone that's, um, oh, I have a great relationship with that person? And the other person literally hates them.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  That's how unaware they are.

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  I have a great relationship with Fred. Fred hates me, despise me, and I think I have a great relationship. That's, that's how bad it gets.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta be more suspect of yourself. You gotta be more suspect of yourself. You don't sound as cool as you think you do. You don't sound as slick as you think you do, by the way. You really don't. Right? I talk about Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro. You're not Meryl Streep. You're not Robert De Niro. You're not acting. You're not fooling anybody. You aren't that good at acting. Doesn't work.

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  So if you sit down and you write down your intent and your intent is bad.

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  And if you, if you would feel ashamed to walk into the meeting with your intent written on your T-shirt.

• 6:48Jocko Willink?

  Hey, my goal in this meeting is to get, is to look good in front of the boss so I can get promoted. If that's how you, if that's what your intent is, and listen, everybody knows it. If that's what your intent is, you need to do some soul searching and change your intent. Your intent is bad. Your intent is bad. You should change your intent to, okay, I am going to

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  help with the mission. I'm going to put the team first. That's my intent. Now, yes, where people get, get messed up, they get jammed up. Jammed up. Is I think, well, but I really want to get promoted. Okay, so you walk into that meeting with that intent and guess what? Everyone can see it. No one wants to work with you. Your boss thinks you're an ass kisser. It's all bad. If you're, if you change your intent, you go, you know what? Okay, I don't care about getting promoted. What I want to do is help the team, put the team first and accomplish the mission. Imagine you walk in with that on your shirt and the other teammates go, I put the team first. They see that. They smell it. They go right on. The boss smells, oh, Jocko really cares about the team. Oh, okay, he really wants to get the mission done. Okay.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  They smell that. Now they get a positive impression. Now they're like, oh, we want to help. The rest of the team's like, yeah, we want to help you too.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  You know what you end up doing? You end up getting promoted. That's a byproduct. That's the byproduct of what's going on. So if you're into, write down your intent. Do some soul searching. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie on that piece of paper. By the way, this is kind of piece of paper. You better hide. Right? Cause you don't want your freaking, you know, someone rummaging through your office and they say, my intent for this meeting is to get promoted. Right? So, write down your intent. And if your intent is not a pure, positive, selfless intent, become a better person.

• 8:50Jocko Willink?

  Become a better person. And that will absolutely help you. It'll help your team. It'll help you accomplish the mission and it'll help you win. So there you go. Something to think about.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we'll talk about like obvious little things like name dropping and you know, like someone trying to one up somebody, whatever. It's like, this is all like, I used to have conversations with my brother about this kind of stuff where,

• 9:20Speaker 01

  so he would start debates with people.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. Jay Charles.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And after a while, like,

• 9:27Speaker 01

  and let's face it, sometimes it's fun, you know, it depends on who you're hanging around with, but sometimes straight up, like some people don't want that. Some people.

• 9:33Jocko Willink?

  Hey, most people are cool with it for half an hour.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  More like 10 minutes, but yeah, you make a good point. But, and yeah, put it this way, the point is, different people like it to varying degrees, right? Some people, but they don't like that stuff, right? And after a while, it's kind of like, hey, you might rub people the wrong way. It's always trying to start debating and way, but you, you know? So anyway, we'd have these conversations when we, I talked to him about that kind of stuff. Um, and the way I put it, which actually you put it better, but the way I put it is what you're saying is correct. Like the words that you're saying, like all your little points that you're making, that's all correct. So what you're saying is right, but what you're doing is wrong. And he's like, oh yeah. And then I'm like, so why the heck? Cause I'm sure I've done it before too. I'm sure like, you know, we, it's not like this rare thing.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  So I'm thinking, why is that kind of hard sometimes? And? The intent having a smell is the perfect way to put it, put it because it doesn't have a look. It doesn't have a sound, you know, maybe some tones here and there, but you can more smell it than anything.

• 10:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and even the words can be the opposite of the smell. But the smell matters.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Exactly, right.

• 10:44Jocko Willink?

  The smell matters more.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  And that was part of my point when I said, what you're saying is literally correct, what you're saying. But what you're doing is wrong. So, this is why it's hard, this is why I think anyway. Because you sometimes don't even consciously, you're not thinking of your intent. Sometimes you are, but sometimes you're not. The thing is, it doesn't matter, but because you think it's in your head, they can't see it, they can't hear it. All they can hear is your words, right? So you think, there's the message, there's a message they're picking up on, right?

• 11:12Jocko Willink?

  That stinks.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, it stinks badly too. And you know, and so yeah, that, and that's again, that's like the good way to put it where it's like, it, it has a smell. And no matter what you do, no matter what, how you cover it up, I like the cologne analogy too. Because when you put cologne on that stink, it's just yet another stink smell. And it's actually worse because now they, they picked up on your original intent. And the fact that you're trying to cover it up with some other like in disingenuous stuff. So I was like, man, we gotta keep, keep that under wraps, man. And I guess that's like an exercise, right? Like you gotta kind of.

• 11:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's the exercise. Write it down.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  That's the exercise. And what's interesting is like you said, a lot of times people don't even recognize that they have an intent, but you do. It's running in, it's, there's a decent chance that it's running in the background. Like the operating system is running in the background for this meeting, for this life, for this, this job, this family. Like imagine you're going to talk to your wife and you have your intent written on your head.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Well.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 12:13Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm saying?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, yep, yep.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  And she's gonna smell that.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:17Jocko Willink?

  And if it's not a good intent, she's gonna know.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:20Jocko Willink?

  Your kids, same thing, they're gonna know. And they're also gonna know if you're doing something good. They're also gonna know if you're, if you're doing something for the right reason.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, you work, let's say somebody, you're working with somebody, maybe they, they.

• 12:38Jocko Willink?

  They have a relationship, you know, a work relationship with someone else that you don't get along with. If you're like, well, I'm gonna sneak around and, you know, try and make a maneuver. Everyone's gonna smell that. But if you're just like, hey, man, good to meet you. You know, good to meet you, Fred. Hey, what can I do to support? If that's your intent, truly, but if you're like, hey, Fred, what can I do to support you? And they're gonna know that, oh, you're just trying to, you know, make a maneuver here. No. Don't let that happen. Clean your intent. Be a good human. This will help you. This will help you in the long run. These little conniving moves that you're making are not gonna help you in the long run. Hey, they might get you that one promotion. Everyone hates you.

• 13:24Jocko Willink?

  Right? They might get you that one promotion, but they don't get you the next one. You have to leave that company. It's just a disaster. Like Jordan Peterson talks about psychopaths. They have to leave. Like they have to live in Detroit, then they... And these aren't like, I'm not talking about psychopaths that are murderers. I'm just talking about like the, the non-murdering psychopaths. People that are just, you know, they're screwing people over and they're, and they have to leave. They can only do nine months in Detroit, then they gotta go to Chicago for six months. Then they go to Cincinnati. They just got, they gotta go from place to place. There's burning bridges everywhere.

• 14:00Jocko Willink?

  So don't do that.

• 14:03Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Let's take some practice though, because there are some innocent situations, like let's say...

• 14:11Jocko Willink?

  You want to debate with me?

• 14:12Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying, I believe that you are 100% correct. I'm saying, if you keep it in mind, you'll probably understand that, hey, you might have to really keep... You have to put some effort into this stuff sometimes because, let's say I make some coffee for my wife or whatever. Oh, no. How about this? Let's say I clean the living room or something. You know, I clean it up nice because I know she likes it clean. But let's say she walks by the living room, she didn't even, she didn't even see. You know, I want her to see the clean living room and be happy, you know? But I still want that credit too, you know?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  So she walks by it, walk right out the door. And I'm very compelled to flag her down and be like, hey, did you notice the living room I cleaned up? You know, I want that, you know, I want that praise or credit or whatever.

• 14:56Jocko Willink?

  Aggressive with that, like, you know what I mean?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  I've, I've seen situations where people are aggressive about wanting that credit.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 15:04Jocko Willink?

  By the way, as soon as you're aggressive about wanting the credit, the credit's worthless. Totally worthless. Like when you're like, hey babe, did you see I cleaned the living room? She's like, she's mad. Like you just went negative.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Right. And then, again, on the innocent side, it's like, I wouldn't approach it, or put it this way.

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  Because as soon as you say, hey babe, didn't you see I, that's when you wrote your intent on your T-shirt. I wanted credit.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Exactly right. But I wouldn't approach her all like, hey, like mad. I would be like, like in a good way, but still the intent is kind of, but yeah, fully. But the point is, you really want that, like you want it so it'll come so natural to be like, wait a second, look at the living room, you know, or like, you know, like, you know, at work, you'd give these examples all the time at work where, you know, this project is turned in and you did like literally half the work, right? And you know, you advise, which again, takes practice, but I, I agree is ideal to be like, no, no, no. You give the credit to your team, right? Even though you did have to work or three quarters of whatever. But when you're new to.

• 16:04Jocko Willink?

  Intent when you say that, even though you did have to work, see?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Sometimes all of it, but the, the, um, the compulsion to like want the credit, right? Especially to like a boss that you really want him to like.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  Strong.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Like respect you and respect your work or whatever. It's strong. And it's not even necessarily evil or malicious. You just like, I want to be represented accurately in the, in the results of this project, kind of a thing, you know? So it's like so natural to be compelled to be like, hey, but then just like I said, once you jump out there and start saying, hey, I want basically this is what you're doing. What you're saying is correct. Yeah, sure, Echo, you did have to work. Correct. But what you're doing, jumping in the limelight and saying, wait, what about the, my praise? Cause I want my praise too from you. That's what you're doing. It's not correct.

• 16:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  It's not good.

• 16:49Jocko Willink?

  Whenever you try, and that, when you have that feeling, I mean, we're going, there's a whole new rabbit hole to go down. Because now we're getting resentful.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  Right? And once you get resentful, then you go Cain and Abel. And next thing you know, you're killing your brother. Because you didn't get the credit that you wanted, right?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 17:06Jocko Willink?

  What happens?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  Because your intent is bad. Because when Cain made his sacrifice to God, he did it because he wanted to look good. He didn't do it just as a pure sacrifice like Abel did. Abel was like, hey, thank you, God, but here's my sacrifice. Cain was like, here's my sacrifice. Isn't it light? Can I get a little, can I get a little head nod over here? Big G man.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:29Jocko Willink?

  But no, it was, uh, not enough. If he wrote his intent, it would say, I'm making sacrifice to God so that I can be, so I can go into his light. Abel said, I'm making a sacrifice to God because I want to support him. Not about me.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this. This kind of has something to do with it. Made me think of it. So, you know, bragging, right? Bragging. And then there's like humble bragging, right? Which is like kind of that, right? Where it's like, like they're making, anyway, so.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Are there, like, can you, can you brag about something? Is it ever like kind of cool or fine for someone to brag about something, you think, from an ideal standpoint?

• 18:17Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I think the answer is no. I mean, I'm sure, look, we could parse the world apart and find a place where it makes sense. But I can't really think of one, man. I can't think of one where that adds, gives you credit.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:31Jocko Willink?

  I can't give you, I can't give you a situation where, you know what? It's a, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jacood underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is, free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.

• 19:15Jocko Willink?

  And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's JacoUnderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.