Jocko Underground: Making The Mental Shift Upward

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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 202, sitting here with Echo Charles. You have sent questions and we have possibly answers, possible recommendations, at a minimum, courses of action that you can follow to proceed forward.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Courses of action, that's true. All right.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  First question, good morning, Jocko Echo. My name is Max and I'm reaching out for guidance on both mindset and practical business growth. I dropped out of college 2022 to pursue an online business I started. It has allowed me to support my family and purchase two houses, but I realized it isn't scalable beyond its current level. Over the past year, I started a junk removal and foreclosure clean out business, which has now replaced my income and presents far greater growth potential. What I find challenging is the mental shift from operating as one man business to building and leading a real company with employees. I've only ever been surrounded by middle and working class environments.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  I understand how to work extremely hard and push forward, but scaling into something larger is unfamiliar territory. How can I strengthen my mindset to take that next step? From a practical standpoint, what advice would you give someone transitioning from solo operator to building a team? Thank you for your time.

• 1:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, right on, man. Well, first of all, congratulations. It sounds like you're making things happen, which is, which is kind of awesome. And you have the foresight to recognize that the most challenging thing about a business, it's not the market, it's not the product, it's not the supply chain, it's not the regulations, it's not the science, it's not the financing. Nope, it's the people. People are always the biggest challenge. And of course, that's why it pays the biggest reward. And it's how we accomplish great things is through leadership. But it's good that you're recognizing the situation that you're going into. And one nice thing here is you, this is not going to happen overnight.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  In other words, you're not hiring a hundred people into your team tomorrow. You're going to hire two or three and then you're going to get four, four or five, and then you're going to get eight, and you're going to have 10 and 12 and then 15, and that's where you're going to grow. So it's going to grow and it's going to give you some time to learn to lead. And listen, I, I don't know any other way to say this. Um, I would start off immediately by getting the book Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. And I would immediately open up to a page 157, 158. I would read those and then I would go read that whole book. And then I would use that book as a reference. I would then read the book Extreme Ownership and then I would read the book,

• 2:43Jocko Willink?

  The Dichotomy of Leadership. And listen, you're, you're asking the questions about leadership and the answers are what we wrote the books about, right? This is why we wrote those books. They are filled with the answers to your questions. So, you know, read those books. And then what I think is, is, is the part that can help you, that I can give you right now, is you have to take the context that you're in and overlay the principles of what you read so that you understand how they

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  impact. Right? A lot of times people think of it too abstractly, like, oh, Extreme Ownership is a principle that I read about, but they never say, wait a second, the situation that I'm in right now, how do I apply cover and move in this situation right now? How do I apply building relationships in this situation that I'm in right now? So you gotta take it out of the abstract and out of the theoretical, it's a book, you gotta drag it out of there and you gotta put it into the situation that you're in. And you need to do that on like an, almost like a twice a day, like, once in the morning, once at lunch, maybe three times a day, you look at the end of the day and do a review and see how do these things fit in there? Cause it's not natural. Leadership is counterintuitive,

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  right? So, so you have to kind of constantly force yourself back on track. And then, you know, so do that. Obviously, listen to the podcast, um, listen to the debrief podcast, good things on there, listen to this podcast, obviously you already are, you know, join, join the Echelon Front Online Academy, extremeownership.com. Like, that's, we have people all the time that are on there. We're ask, answering questions, giving feedback to, there's a bunch of courses on there to take. Again, all this will help you build this framework that then you can put the context of your world into.

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  So those are like, like, this is a giant question, you know? Hey, what advice do you have for for leadership? Bro, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. It's not, it's not instinctual. It's not easy. You're not born to, you actually have to learn it.

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, you actually have to learn it. If someone said, hey, uh, Jocko, this question, if it said, uh, hey, Jocko, what I'm, I'm, uh, got to write a report on the Civil War. What can you tell me about the Civil War? You know what I mean? Like, that's a huge question. That's a huge question. Or like, hey, Jocko, I just got a guitar. What should I do? Yep, you should get a, you should get a book about how to play guitar. That's the one that's a little bit different because it's like guitars.

• 5:32Jocko Willink?

  But you, you're going to need to learn how to tune the guitar. You're going to learn how to know what the chords are. Like, there's things you're going to have to do.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Because it's a big subject. And leadership is a bigger subject than either of those. Bigger subject than the Civil War, bigger subject than playing guitar. So get those books. And then, you know, th- those things will be helpful. And just to get you started here, like, what's the vision that you're looking for? Make sure the people understand what the mission is. Make sure you know what the mission is. Right? Make sure you know what it is you're trying to do.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  And then, you know, when you hire people, build relationships with them. And you've heard me say it on here, trust, listen, respect, influence and care. That's what we're doing. And you build a good relationship with people and you're going to build a solid team and you take care of them and they're going to take care of you. And things are going to be good to go. So that's where we're at, man. Just, just know those principles and then force yourself to apply them into the world that you're living in.

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  That's what we got.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  You said something that was actually more important than I feel like a lot of us realize. And that is like, where do you, where do you want to go? You know, like, what's the, so back when I was a personal trainer, they, uh, through certification, they tell you like, this is a very important element of, of being a trainer. When someone's like, hey, I want to get in shape. I want to, I need a personal trainer. Or is this a good exercise? Or whatever, you know, any question that someone asks a potential client or client asks you. And supplies to this, you always have to ask them, what are your goals for this thing? Cause they're.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you still do that. I mean, anybody sends, anytime someone's talking about working out, you're always like, well, what are, what's their goals?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  What are we trying to do? Exactly. Right. Um, and it, it's, and it's not just habits. It's like, it's absolutely true. Just like this, where it's like, hey, what advice do you have? It's like, oh, well, depends, bro, you know, totally depends. Um, so eight, identifying where you, where you wanna go and, you know, being conscious of where you are now. And then kind of reverse engineering it, kind of a thing. And then yes, using all the, all the strategies and tactics for sure. But, cause a lot of times, bro, even in just everyday life, sometimes we can forget these things. So like, when you're like, um, hey, where do I wanna be? Like, bro, when I was young, you know how people ask you, like, where do you wanna be in five years? I was like, bro, I don't think I ever thought about that. Five, five years? That's a long time from now. Like, I don't think about that kind of stuff. I'm thinking about today.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Or ten, let alone ten years. So, but if you kind of like, hey, just take a minute and be like, bro, where do you wanna be in however long? Would it be five years or whatever? It's like, oh shit, that kind of turns on some light bulbs there. See what I'm saying? I said, okay. And then, you know, you can get little, uh, tactics, which one that I heard that I was like, oh, that's a useful, just little thing to ask yourself. It's like, hey, where do you, what do you have to get done today for it to be, what they call, you know, a win? Or what do you have to do today to make it a successful day? It's kind of like that. Like, we don't like, I don't think about that kind of stuff back before, like a long time ago. I just think about, okay, I got something to do and I'm too busy quote unquote, doing it, rather than like stopping and be like, okay, where do I wanna be? And kind of mapping it out. You see what I'm saying?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Then you can start to make appropriate decisions. Otherwise you're just with your head down, going through fricking, you see what I'm saying?

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  Gotta look up, gotta have a plan. You gotta know where you're going.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  And then that iterative steps thing, and you mentioned it where it's like, don't hire a hundred people. Just be like, hey, if I know where we wanna be next week. And I can see the discrepancy between where I am now and where I want to be. I can be like, okay, I can do this, this, this. That's it though. See what I'm saying? And then we'll reevaluate next week. See what I'm saying?

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  You ever get asked like, hey, if you could, if you could learn one thing as a white belt, what would the one thing be? You know, I get those kinds of questions, you know? Going into SEAL training, what's the one thing you would like? People are always looking for a kind of a shortcut or kind of that distilled like thing. And really, it's very, it's very difficult to answer that question properly because who am I talking to? Because if you're a dude that habitually over trains and like goes overboard and gets hurt, and you come to me and I don't know you and you say, hey, you know, I'm just starting jujitsu. What, what, what's the one thing that I should do? And I'm like, make sure you, make sure you train as much as you can. And you go, cool, got it. And you train for two months and you're injured.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:52Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Or burnt out or like, I didn't like it. It's like, I don't like it that much.

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  Or, uh, you know, hey, what's the one thing you should do to get ready for SEAL training? Well, if you're a crappy runner, you should run. If you're a crappy swimmer, you should swim. If you're a great runner and I'm like, you know what the most important thing is running? And you go, cool. And you run more, but you forgot to do pull-ups. You see what I'm saying? So it's like with this leadership questions, like, well, you know, what's, what's the most important guidance when I start a new bit? Well, it depends on who you are. Maybe you're a type of person that builds great relationships with people. Cool. And I tell you, hey, relationships are the most important. But then you get buddy, buddy with everyone and there's no lines and no knows who's in charge. You don't have any plans. So really, that's why I can't give this just kind of simple, hey, when you, even the thing that you just said, like, hey, you got to make sure you come up with a plan. Cause there's some people that have already been planning.

• 10:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, 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 jockounderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this, 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, 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

• 11:24Jocko Willink?

  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 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.