Jocko Underground: Accepting Painful Reality. Alcoholic Spouse. The Most Helpful Thing a Wife Can Do.

Accepting a painful reality. How to control a rowdy bunch of 13 y/o. Dealing with an alcoholic spouse. When it clicks that you're on THE PATH. The most helpful thing a wife can do. 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 21 with Echo and me, Jocko. And we had a

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  an event take place a couple, a week ago, I guess. A guy by the name of Jim Searlsley, he was on Podcast 200, just an awesome guy. He was a Vietnam veteran. He was severely wounded in, in 1969, about a month before he was done with his tour in Vietnam. He ended up as a triple amputee and lost both of his legs and lost one of his arms.

• 0:47Jocko Willink?

  And he, he just died. He just died on, on May 30th. It's 2021 right now. And it, obviously horrible, it was unexpected.

• 1:00Jocko Willink?

  But his story, when he came on the podcast and what he lived through, there was some, some layers to it. When he'd come home from Vietnam with this, you know, triple amputee, went to rehab for nine months and, you know, he learned all the things that you have to learn when you lose both your legs and one arm. How, you know, how are you going to get by? What are you going to do? What are you going to do to get around the house? How to use a wheelchair, an electric wheelchair, a regular wheelchair? How are you going to get in and out of that thing? What you need to be careful of? What you gotta do to keep yourself as healthy as you can? And he went to that thing for nine months. And then he carried on and he carried on with his life. He, he started a roofing company.

• 1:45Jocko Willink?

  He went to college. He started doing real estate. He ended up being the, the National Commander of the Disabled American Veterans, you know, later in his life. But he, he basically just carried on. And just an amazing, an amazing human, an amazing person and, and obviously hugely inspirational for anybody. Because he's doing all that and he's doing it with these, with, as a, as a guy with one arm.

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  And it was interesting because when we got done with that podcast, we were, we, we ended up sitting around and talking for a while. And one of the things that he brought up was he said, have you ever heard of a guy named Louis Puller? And he, he obviously hadn't listened to the fact that we had done a podcast about Chesty Puller, the most iconic Marine of all time. And then we did a podcast about Louis Puller, his son, who was also wounded in Vietnam, severely wounded in Vietnam. He lost both of his legs. He had massive damage

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  done to his hands. Louis Puller did. This is Chesty Puller's son. And he came home and eventually some, well, in 1993, Louis Puller Jr. Killed himself. And, and he wrote an incredible book and we covered the book on the podcast, on podcast 122. The, the book is called Fortunate Son. And so with that background, which, which Jim Surzly didn't know, he says, have you ever heard of a guy named Louis Puller? And I said, yes, sir. Absolutely. I, I have. We did a podcast on him. I know about him. And he

• 3:41Jocko Willink?

  said, you know, I was in rehab with Louis Puller, which was obviously very, I mean, a very interesting connection that he was, he knew him. And then he made this point, Jim Surzly made this point, that he said Louis Puller never accepted a hundred percent in his heart, what had happened to him. He said, he, look, he, he accepted at 98, maybe

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  99%, but he never accepted 100% what had happened and never, never accepted that reality and moved on with it. And he said, and that's what, that's what killed him is.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  We, we have to be able to accept reality. And look, I'm not saying I could do it. I'm not making that claim.

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I'm saying Jim Surlesley did it and he said he did it. And he's saying that Louis Pollard Jr. Didn't do it.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  But we have to at least try and do that. And you know, we did one of these a little time ago where I was talking about the fact that, you know, everybody's a little bit insane, right? Everybody's a little bit crazy because we all paint our own reality. Because the actual definition, the clinical definition of someone that's is insane is someone that doesn't, their reality doesn't match actual reality. Well, guess what? We all have different varying levels of what reality is. Some of us are pretty close. Some of us are a little further up and you meet someone that's, they think they're in a better situation than they're in, or they think they're in a worse situation. They're like their reality isn't quite matched up.

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  And it goes all the way from people that are really closely aligned to what reality is. That's I, I think probably the best place to be to people that are definition, by the definition of insane, where their reality is totally different from actual reality. But you know, you meet some people that are like, oh, I'm gonna,

• 5:55Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be a football player. And you're like, hmm. You know, like their reality isn't there. You know what I'm saying? Or whatever, whatever you pick, you pick a thing that somebody thinks is happening, or they think someone, they think someone cares about them. And I know they care about me. It's like, that's not really the reality and they're just not there, right? They're not insane. They're not over on the far side of the spectrum where the reality totally doesn't match, but you can tell it's off a little bit. So we have the possibility of doing that as well when it comes to accepting reality.

• 6:34Jocko Willink?

  And accepting where we're at 100% and accepting things the way they unfolded 100%. And again, I'm not trying to say I could do this. I have no idea. I've never been in a situation like that.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  But I'm gonna say that we do have to look around. I've never been in that extreme of a situation, but I've been in some tough situations.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  And when you get in those tough situations.

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't help to keep that little 2%, 3%, 4%, 1% that's different from reality. It doesn't help. That little thing will eat away at you when you wish that this wouldn't have happened, or you wish you would have made a different decision, you complain about it, you blame, you know, other people, you blame the circumstances, and you get eaten up by that stuff. Stop doing that. Stop doing that. It's not, it's not beneficial to you. It's not beneficial to me. This is a, this is really a tentative of extreme ownership, right? I know I can't control everything, but I can control how I respond to it. I know bad things happened,

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  and I could sit there and blame other people. I could wish that it didn't win a different way. I could wish that it would have never happened. I could wish I would. 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 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

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  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 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.