Jocko Underground: Blast Past Old Mistakes and Get Respect at Work

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Getting past your past mistakes to get back on the track to excellence. My woman brings me stress and refuses to change. Lets talk about people who claim to be progressive, but disparage the troops. What to do if you ruined your reputation in a certain community. If you are anti-social media, listen to this last one. 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 172, sitting here with Echo Charles. We have gotten some questions. We've received some questions from you, the troopers. And we are going to provide some courses of action, some iterative decisions you can make. And in some cases, some straight up answers to your scenario.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:22Jocko Willink?

  So let's get into it.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Comprehensive, I see it as guidance.

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 0:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, 100%. That's a good, good comprehensive assessment.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Look, guidance, it is leadership, which is according to the Marine Corps credo.

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Manual. I forget the numbers. Um, the most important thing.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  Leadership.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:47Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  I know some other outfits who believe the same thing. And I believe the same thing, too. See what I'm saying? So yeah, comprehensively, that's what this is. It's leadership, guidance.

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  First question. Lately, work has been rough. I'm an electrician and have made a few costly mistakes. Others have too. Our boss didn't take it well, yelling, swearing, threatening to fire people, not by name. It was bad. He later apologized at a meeting, but still made a sarcastic comment about our writing or wiring skills. Clearly, he's still angry. Now I'm losing sleep, afraid of messing up again. I want to improve, but I'm walking on eggshells and it's draining. Deep down, I fear I don't belong in this field and that my bosses lost faith in me. People say, just keep going, but I'm struggling to believe it'll get better. How do I let go of the past mistakes and self doubt?

• 1:44Speaker 01

  How can I move forward when I'm not sure my boss believes in me anymore?

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, speaking of this outfit, you know what you're gonna do. You're gonna lead here by taking ownership of your mistakes, right? That's what we're leading with. Apologize to the boss. Tell him, hey, I messed this up. I recognize that I messed this up. Don't talk, you say others did too. Don't worry about others. Don't worry about that. It's about you. Tell him you want to get better. Tell him you're focused. Tell him you want to learn. And tell him you're just ready to work. Work hard.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  And then also aggressively figure out what it is that you did wrong. Right? Whatever you did wrong aggressively figured out and what's the root cause of why you did it? You know, what is the reason that this mistake happened? And then how can you prevent it from happening again? Another thing I would actually prefer that you do that before you roll in to talk to the boss. Right? You want to have a plan.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  Then you're going to study and train and you're going to like show them a video. You're going to send them a YouTube channel. Hey, a YouTube video. Hey, this is what we messed up. We didn't know we were supposed to do this. I see it wasn't code. Now that we know the code, it won't happen again. And by the way, here's the code book. I got all the things I wrote them down. I got a I made a short note thing. I put it on chat GPT. I got the one. You see what I'm saying? Get aggressive.

• 3:09Jocko Willink?

  And then what you do is you go into just full.

• 3:13Jocko Willink?

  Just full trooper mode.

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  Show up early, stay late, be organized, look sharp. Right? Haircut, clean shave. You don't think it's a big deal. Haircut, clean shave.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  Good, clean work clothes. Remember Jason Wilson was on? He was talking about when he was a contractor doing tile. He's like, oh yeah, put on a clean shirt, look sharp, getting the job. Look like a dirtbag, get no job. So put it get some clean squared away clothes.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  Haircut, clean shave, clean like work. If you have a workspace or a truck or your toolbox should be dialed in. Should be dialed in.

• 4:01Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent dialed in. It doesn't have to be new, but it has to be clean. It has to be organized. That's professionalism.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  Take notes.

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  Right? Take notes, be writing things down, take pictures of your work. Sometimes people post up their plumbing job and tag me in it. Cause they want me to see that work's getting done and it's getting done right. Some people have sent me some electric boxes.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  Some fuse boxes with 80 million wires going in there, but they're all dialed in. They're all squared away.

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  Take pictures of your work, make it clean, make it organized, be proud, double check things, and then triple check the important things. Whatever you drop the ball on this other mistake, triple check that.

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  Keep taking ownership. If something messes up, fix it. Take ownership of it and fix it. Stay humble, stay hungry, keep working hard. Here's the deal. Your boss needs good, quality, reliable, skilled electricians. People that show up on time, people that are organized, people that are squared away, people that look sharp. You're an electrician, I mean, your boss, I guarantee he needs people like that because every company needs people like that. All of them.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  Be one of those people. Just be one of those people.

• 5:28Jocko Willink?

  And you won't have anything to worry about. You've got this. That's what I got.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I learned early on that the taking extreme ownership ship sequence, the whole process is very, has very important elements to it that are all required. Otherwise, it is simply not taking extreme ownership. So like, you know, admitting it was, or saying it was your fault or because of you, you know, it's your responsibility. Saying what you're gonna do to fix it and then actually fixing it.

• 6:05Jocko Willink?

  Yep. You gotta do it all.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the, a lot of times, I gotta be honest, I have witnessed firsthand

• 6:14Speaker 01

  people going through the whole sequence except for the not actually fixing it. So it's like, you know, things stay the same, but there is a whole lot of, no, that's my fault, you know? And this is what I'm gonna do to fix it. And then they don't fix it, they kind of, you know? And so it's just kind of a bunch of things and then it ceases to become extreme ownership. So I think that, yeah, after, after a certain amount of time when you, okay, yeah, you mess up, you make this big costly mistake, you create this new reputation of being like super extra squared away, easy to work with, the whole thing.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  The costly mistake that you made fades.

• 6:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, it'll fade over time. It'll take some time, but it'll fade.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Be nothing but a memory. Next question. Jocko, I've always had a thirst for adventure and craving to live a challenging and meaningful life. My father passed away 20 years ago and it really affected me. My girlfriend, who I met nine years ago, was the first person I allowed to get close to me since my father passed. She has severe bipolar disorder and refuses to seek help for it. I've tried everything to keep her happy and I left myself with nothing. I work 12 hours a day, six days a week for the government. My work vehicle has holes in it from shootings. The area I am in all day long is extremely stressful and dangerous. I'm definitely tough enough to endure long physical days where shootings occur, but

• 7:37Speaker 01

  when I'm at home, which is not much, I have no peace. She refuses to change or give our home peace. I know it's time to leave for my own well-being, but she's still, but she will lose everything without my financial help. I fear regret and that's why I haven't left yet. What do you think?

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  So like my immediate instinctual answer in that is leave.

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  Just to kind of think through that a little bit more, it sounds like you have tried everything. You tried different approaches.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  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 jockounderground.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. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize

• 9:02Jocko Willink?

  to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jockounderground.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.