Jocko Underground: Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys. When your boss's tactics are wrong way to to it, and you can prove it. Wife want me to take ownership of things that are her responsibility. Should you wash your belt. BJJ. Understanding loyalty. Co-workers not taking too much advantage of small work injuries. 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 121, sitting here with Echo Charles. Have you ever heard this expression before? Not my circus, not my monkeys. Oh, okay. I actually hadn't heard it before either, until very recently. It's apparently a Polish proverb, because I looked it up. And in a way, what this means is the opposite of extreme ownership. Because where you use the expression is like, hey, there's some wild stuff going on over there. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Like, that's where, so if you and I are working together and you're in charge of one department, I'm in charge of the other department, and your department has some issues, and I'm like, hey, not my circus, not my monkeys. That's, that's,

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  that's counter to extreme ownership. Extreme ownership is like, hey, Echo, it seems like you've got some issues going on with your department. Can I give you some help? Can I offer you some people? Can we, is there anything I can do to support you? That's what we do. So, normally, I would say, ah, this, this, this proverb is not my gig. But, I was talking to a friend the other day, and his world is not in the best situation, right? Some things going on in his world, been through some, a lot of stuff in his lifetime, going through some issues, having some problems, you know, with money and friendships and relationships and, and, and, and really with basic day-to-day life, right?

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  And so we're talking, you know, and, um, he was very, very focused, and this is a long conversation, a very long conversation. He was very, very focused on

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  the government,

• 1:43Jocko Willink?

  various laws, powerful families,

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  fiat-based currency, as opposed to like currency that's based in gold, organized crime and their influence.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  Insider trading that happens on Wall Street, Wall Street, uh, uh, social media monopolies and how they control messaging and narratives and control the algorithms and big corporations and their control of the food supply and the farmlands in America being bought up by foreign entities and housing being bought up by big corporations and pharmaceutical companies and vaccines and electoral college and he, so he's focused on a lot of these things. And this is what he's, I mean, we talked, we probably talked for a couple, probably an hour and a half, right? And we're talking about all these things.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  And that's what he's focused on. And

• 2:40Jocko Willink?

  I get it, right? There's some very disturbing and unfair and unsettling things that are going on in the world and the country. And these are things that do need to be addressed and need to be changed.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  Or at least contended with, right? But this friend of mine,

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  for lack of a better way to say it, his own house wasn't really in order. You know, by his own admission, this is me calling him out like, oh, you're, no, he was telling me these are problems that he's having on a personal level, right? And, you know, his finances weren't quite straight, his relationships weren't in order, he's having some trouble from, like from a psychological perspective, right?

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  And every time I kind of brought those things up,

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  like, hey, what about your, you know, what do you do with your friends? What, how's this relationship? Like every time I talked about those things, he went back to, you know, the history of

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  mob families and how they're tied into the corporations and when they transition to the, to the government and the social media, like every time we were going back to that stuff. And eventually I, I'm like, listen, man, I get it. All those things. There's problems there. I, I, I understand it.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  But you can't worry about all these other things right now.

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  First of all, you can't change those things overnight. I can't change those things overnight. Those are big, significant problems, big, significant ship that needs to be turned over time. We're not going to steer that ship very quickly.

• 4:17Jocko Willink?

  So don't focus on those things. Focus on your world.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  Focus on what you can control. And he, he mentioned extreme ownership, almost like to say to me, well, aren't we supposed to take ownership of what's going on? And I said, hey, man, yes, we are. But we have to own our world before we can try and take ownership of the rest of the entire world. And he, and he, you know, thankfully, he, he was listening, you know, he's trying to do better and wants to do better and wants to be better. And he said to me, he goes, oh,

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  not my circus, not my monkeys. I said, what do you mean? He goes, well, like, I can't worry about those other things. I can't worry about that circus over there and those monkeys, those monkeys aren't mine. That circus isn't mine. I need to worry about what's going on in my world. And I said, yes, that's a hundred percent. And I never heard it before, but um, I understood it. So

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  my point in saying this is, and this is kind of like when we, when I talk about fear, you've heard me talk about fear and I say like, don't concentrate on the things you can't control. Concentrate on the things you can control. So

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  same thing in life. Look, do we take ownership of what, what impacts our mission? Yes, we do. But does the fact that there's a

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  a law in America that prevents you from whatever it is that you think you should be able to do? Yep. And it's, and it's throwing you off. You can't really do what you did, you wanted to do. Okay, so.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  Can you control that law? Well, directly, no, you can't. Like, can you vote for people that you think will change that law? Yeah, you can do that. You can campaign for them. You can donate money. That's all stuff you can do. But you're not going to be able to like directly impact that law right now. Now, if you got your whole world squared away, your world squared away, your house is squared away, your finances are squared away, your relationships squared away. Now I'm gonna look at that law and be like, okay, cool. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make some changes here. But if your house and your finances and your relationships aren't squared away, we can't be focused on this law. Or this organized crime syndicate. Or this pharmaceutical company. Look, I get all those things are a problem. But you gotta focus on your circus and your monkeys.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  And once we get our circus under control and we get our monkeys all trained up and they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, then we can worry about the other circus and the other monkeys. So, just wanted to talk that up. I know that this can be, it can be a, it can be a nice little distraction. It's almost like, uh, uh, when people go into the infinite scroll on their, on their, on their phone, right? Like, I'm just looking at for a distraction. I don't want to think about the task I've got to do. Don't want to think about the dishes. Don't want to think about the workout I'm supposed to do. Don't want to think about getting underneath the squat rack right now. No. What I want to do is just like have this dopamine keep hitting my brain as I scroll through this thing. That's what I'm looking for. So what's another version of that? Oh, there's a big

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  freaking multinational corporation that's trying to buy up the houses in Nashville.

• 7:30Jocko Willink?

  What are they doing that for? You can go down that road. But let's make sure we got our house in order.

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  So, that's what I'm saying. So we got not my circus, not my monkeys. And look, can that happen at work? It can. You know, look, we try and take ownership of what's going on, but could we be like, oh, there's something going on at work that's all jacked up and instead of, but you're, and your department's not squared away? And you're like, well, you know, the freaking other division over there, they're all jacked up. Why are you worried about me? No, it's like, not my circus, not my monkeys. You know what? My world's gonna be awesome. Yeah. My world's gonna be awesome. So get your world awesome, then worry about other circuses and other monkeys.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  That's an easy one to fall into, right there. So you kind of think like, oh, wait, where in my routine, my life, am I being distracted by these circuses and monkeys? Like, what am I concerned about that? I'm like, hmm, maybe that should be a little bit more lower on the priority list.

• 8:34Jocko Willink?

  Maybe a lot lower on the priority list.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  And look, look, am I saying you ignore that there's things that are happening politically that you need to pay? Of course. Yeah, sure. Are there some laws that you want to get out the word on? You want to go down and collect signatures down at the local grocery store? So you can put up, yeah, awesome. Great. You want to educate people about some pharmaceutical companies that are doing things that you don't think are right? Yeah, huh, well, I'm down. Environmental things are happening? Cool. So 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 JacoUnderground.com and subscribe. And we're

• 9:19Jocko Willink?

  doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we're 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, 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. 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

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  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.