Jocko Underground: What Would You Do If Someone Steals From You?

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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 204, sitting here with Echo Charles. We have some questions from you out in the field and we're going to provide answers, recommendations, courses of action for you to help you on this little journey. That's what we're doing.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  If you're in just in a random part of a maze and you had four potential like ways to go,

• 0:27Speaker 01

  then magically you had somebody tell you of those four ways, here's three things, three ways you don't go. And this is the way you should go. I can't tell you the whole maze, but you should go through this one

• 0:41Speaker 01

  corridor to start. That would be helpful.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it would be.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  That's kind of what you're doing.

• 0:47Jocko Willink?

  I thought you were asking me a question.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm not. I'm just drawing a metaphor. Anyway, speaking of questions, first question. Jocko, what's a correct, quote unquote, correct thing to do in this situation? My son had an e-bike. His mother, my wife, left it on the front porch one night at a condo we were renting near the beach and it got stolen.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Since then, she'd been shopping around for a replacement on OfferUp and other places. She then came across an e-bike that we both believe is my son's that was stolen. The seller is not providing a charger and he's in the same area it was stolen from. My wife wants to go buy it back from this person. The price is way lower than we got it for. So she sees it as as sort of a quote unquote dumb mistake tax. I want to go kill the guy, but I realize that's not the move. Besides, we're not a hundred percent sure that it's the stolen bike. What would you do in this situation?

• 1:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  I understand that that when someone steals, we take a violation and it's very,

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  it's possible to get quite emotional about that.

• 1:59Jocko Willink?

  Because it is like a violation. You had it on your condo, like this is part of your, you know, your area of control and someone just went in there and took something from you that you worked hard to get. Right? So there you go. You can get all amped up about that. And but here's the thing, detached perspective, look, we want to get the bike back. We found, we located the bike. It's cheap. There's a, so we're going to end up paying some dumb, dumb tax. Right? Cool. Um, we also aren't.

• 2:27Jocko Willink?

  Sure. If this is the guy that stole it, right? You know, did he, did someone else steal it and they joy rode it for a while and then left it somewhere? And this guy picked it up. I was like, oh, you know, doesn't look like, uh, did he buy that off of, you know, someone else for cheap? And now he used it for a little bit. Now he's selling it again. Or maybe he did steal it. And if he did steal it, this is like a real rookie move, putting it right back on offer up. Like that's a rookie move. This is, so it's kind of, it's kind of a suspect move to steal something from a local area and then put it immediately up because the cops, everyone's looking right there. So this is a rookie move. So that makes me question if it's actually the guy that stole it.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you could check with the police, you know, and by the checking with the police, like, do you have a friend that's a cop? Off record where you could say like, hey, man, what do you recommend we do right now? I got this guy. Here it is. Um, you could go to the guy like, yeah, hey, we want to buy that bike. Cool. Go and get their information, get the Venmo or whatever, the Zelle account. Like you're going to get their number to transfer that cash. Once you have that, cool. Maybe then you say, I don't, you know, cool. Thanks for the bike. And then maybe you reverse or don't send the transfer of money through or something like that. And then show some pictures. Here's my son on this exact same bike. Where'd you get it from? We, you know, I think we need to call the police because I think, you know what I'm saying? So you could escalate it that way. Now, look, you could also get shot doing that.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So then you ask if it's worth it. Somebody selling your bike back for a hundred bucks? You're like, uh, um, all that. So all that's a possibility, but even though it's a scenario where we want, uh, justice and revenge, the price of justice and revenge in this particular case,

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  it's probably not worth it. It's probably like, if you buy this bike back for 200 bucks, if you think about the amount of time and effort you will take, it's filling out a form with the police and the court system and going to small claims court or whatever criminal court to show, press charges to get like, all this, all this stuff. Now, you know, this is not to mention you get shot, you get stabbed, you get hit in the head with a bike lock or something, like all that stuff, shit, drama. Or it's like 200 bucks. But the amount of things I would pay $200 to just get out of. You know what I'm saying? Just get it over with like uh when I was a member of the AAA. You know what that is?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  Back in the day and and they would process your DMV stuff for you.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  I think it's all digital now, so I don't really, but I remember back in the day, you know, this was in the Navy too. I wouldn't have an excess of money, but whatever that AAA costs like forty nine dollars a year or something like that. To have them go do the DMV stuff all day, all day. So you want, you want, you give me the choice between paying two hundred dollars and having to go to the police station, fill out a court thing and look, this guy deserves justice, all that stuff. He's gonna get away with it. It's gonna encourage him like all that stuff. Yeah, no, it's not gonna change his life. Cause I was not gonna be like, you know what? I think you're right. I was really a bad person when I did this. No, they're dirtbag. They're a scumbag and so they're not gonna change.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  So I just don't uh think it's it's worth all that. Now, if you were to say, man, just so you know, like, I know this is my bike. Here's the two hundred bucks. I know this is my bike. Uh, you're an idiot and I have your Venmo information. I'm gonna report you to the cops. If anything like this happens again, I'll see you later. You know, you wanna do something like that where you kind of mitigate, okay? But yeah, I'm just looking at the ROI on this thing. The ROI is not solid. Hey, the emotional I R O I of of capturing this guy and getting him busted and having him go to small claims court and having you reimburse like

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  it's hard for me to, it's hard for me to rationalize this. When I look at it from a logical perspective, I'm just gonna do whatever I can to get this over with.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, when you put it like that, it cut, it seems real clear. It's kinda like you just think, okay, what do I want? What do I want the outcome to be? Which is usually the question I would ask, but what do I want that, but then this one, it seems like, you know, you're imagining like you're in the situation. And it's like your kid's bike too, you know, this mother. But it's like, okay, cool. Okay, that's, those are the facts, you know, like, what do you want the outcome to be? And then you gotta kind of be realistic. I mean, what are you gonna do like freaking cowboy western style? You're gonna go freaking? Yeah, or like you, obviously we're not gonna do that. And you know, in your, the elements of your fantasy world probably aren't gonna come to fruition. You gotta understand that, you know?

• 7:13Speaker 01

  And then see, okay, and then just like how you're saying.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Okay, is he gonna stab you or shoot you? Maybe, maybe not, but the, the fact that you have to kind of take that into consideration. But that, that's a big cost right there, especially when you compare it to the 100, $200, whatever that is, you see what I'm saying? So it's kind of like in a way.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  What if he wants $500 to buy the bike back?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  He didn't mention the price.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you gotta kind of mention the.

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta, you gotta start to think like, okay, if it's $500, now I might be like, okay, yeah, let me give, let me venue my, let me get your phone number. And as soon as he gives me the phone number, like, hey, I'm actually not paying you. I'm calling the cops right now.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:52Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  I guess really though, as far as like really being in the situation, you gotta find out if it's the, the bike, bruh.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  True too.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Cause like, but you look dumb.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  If it's stolen, if it's stolen and you say, hey, listen. Like this is my bike and here's the receipt where I bought it and the serial number's on the receipt.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  You know, you can have.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  If there's some provable, yeah.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  There should be some information, but uh, I guess the main thing here, detach, don't. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 8:28Jocko Willink?

  Go to jacood underground.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.

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  More control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.

• 9:06Jocko 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 jockounderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us,

• 9:26Jocko Willink?

  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.