Pod Insights Jocko Podcast Jocko Underground: How to Win Any Argument. Talking News and Politics. The Path Can Be Lonely About this episode How to win any argument.
Manage being a leader in a new position.
The Path is Lonely.
Talking News and Politics with disagreements.
Teaching daughters life skills.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast. Echo Charles, sitting here with me, Jocko Willink. How to win arguments? Seems like something people would want to know. Hell, yeah. And if that hits you, if that's one of those topics that you say, oh, yeah, here we go. This is really for you. It's really for you. And there's some people that were like, well, I don't seem to argue that much. Good. Good for you. Because step number one to winning arguments is not to get in arguments. Right? And here's the thing. Who gets in more street fights? Somebody that's a skilled martial artist that trains jiu-jitsu, boxing, Muay Thai and wrestling?
0:45 Jocko Willink? Or someone that is insecure about themselves and someone that is intimidated by other people? And someone that feels they need to prove their point to someone else? Who gets in more street fights? We know. So if you hear this question, you're like, oh, yeah, I definitely need to know because I'm in arguments a lot. This is already an indicator that we're probably in the wrong spot. You are probably in the wrong spot because you're the person that's out getting in street fights. Why are you getting into street fights? Because you're insecure. You don't feel confident. You don't actually have skills. So you're throwing haymakers in the street. So we don't want to be arguing with people. How do we avoid arguments?
1:29 Jocko Willink? How do we maneuver around arguments? A bunch of things, and this is a long, this is, we could talk about this forever. And I've been talking about this a lot. Obviously, a lot of this ties into the indirect approach. Right? And here's the thing. Here's the thing. The indirect approach, as soon as you say it, some people are like, oh, I can see weakness. Right? Oh, if you're, if you're, hey, if I could do something that's out of line, I just need to go direct and tell them to stop it. And you think that's more efficient and you think that's tough and it's dumb. It doesn't work good. It doesn't work.
2:06 Jocko Willink? May you occasionally get there? Can someone do something that's so out of line that they need to be directly confronted? Yes, it does happen. It happens 1% of the time. Just like in combat, 1% of the time, and look, we don't have any choice. We gotta do a frontal assault on this enemy position. This is the only option we have. We have to take this position, this hill, this, this beachhead. We have to take it in order to win. We, the only option we have is a frontal assault. So here's what we're gonna do. That happens 1% of the time. 1% of the time Echo Charles is so out of line, or whoever is so out of line, that you have to say, hey, stop. You can't do that. You have to take the direct approach.
2:49 Jocko Willink? By the way, if it's people you're interacting with, you should build a relationship with them where they already know not to take that approach. So that's like the way to win. We're doing, trying to do all these things. We're trying to win without having to fight. The best way to win an argument is the other person doesn't even know there was an argument taking place. That's how we're looking to win. That's what we wanna do. So here's some little things to think about as you go through your day. Look for common ground with other humans. What, what common ground can I find? Because if you're on one side and I'm on the other side of the abyss, we're not together. We're not agreeing on things. And we can't even reach across the abyss because it's too big. So I'm looking for some common ground.
3:33 Jocko Willink? I look to start off when someone wants to discuss something with me, which means they wanna argue something with me. My first effort is to agree with some point that they're bringing to me. And I'll actually agree with them harder if I can. Harder than? Harder than they came at me, I'm gonna take an even harder approach on myself. I had somebody, I was talking to somebody the other day and they were bringing up the fact that America, hey, America is evil. Not quite evil, but America's evil.
4:15 Jocko Willink? And they brought up the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, right? Where the people were taking, the soldiers were taking pictures of them, stacking them up, doing, putting them in uncomfortable positions. They brought that up. I agreed harder than that. I go, wait, that's nothing compared to the Meili massacre. That's nothing compared to the San Creek. So I took their point and emphasized it even harder. And yeah. So now I'm even more on their side than they are. Right, right. That's good. I crossed that abyss and got to their flank before they even could say another point.
4:52 Jocko Willink? So I'm looking to agree. If I'm looking for someone to agree, guess what I need to do? I need to listen to what they're saying. I need to truly listen to what they're saying. And as I'm listening to what they're saying, that's when I can get to find something that we can agree on, that I can build a little foothold, that I can start to build a relationship with them where they see that I'm on their side, and then they can start to listen to what I'm saying. Cause before that, if we're on the opposite sides, we can't get across the abyss. We're just gonna argue. How? We've had this conversation before about social media. I think I actually said on Rogan's podcast, like, how many times has someone on Twitter said, you know what? Great point. I really appreciate you sharing that perspective. I've changed my mind.
5:37 Jocko Willink? Like, that doesn't happen. And it doesn't happen. It happens so rarely. It happens so rarely. That means this is an ineffective approach. That's the direct approach. Say, actually, you're wrong. In the past 14 months, there's been this many whatever, whatever, whatever. I hit you with some facts. And you go, oh, thank you for pointing that out. I really appreciate it. Now I've been enlightened and now I've shifted my mind. That doesn't happen. So we're not doing that because we don't make real progress. Our ego might feel good that I told you what was up.
6:08 Jocko Willink? So instead, think about how you can find some common ground, listen to what people have to say, agree with what they're saying, agree harder if you can, which is actually not as hard as it sounds. You make some point to me, I'll probably, I can probably think of a more extreme example of what you're talking about and talk about how I do agree with that's wrong.
6:31 Jocko Willink? And then we want to look at the way that these things are framed. How can you frame things with people so that they see them from a different perspective? How do you take a strength and turn it into weakness? Or how do you take weakness and turn it into a strength?
6:48 Jocko Willink? When, when, you ever heard me talk about the fact that the SEAL teams didn't really have a lot of doctrine? So, the Army, the Marine Corps, they have doctrine. This is how you do a raid. This is how you do an assault. This is how you do an ambush. They have, they had legitimate, and we've covered some of those documents on here.
7:06 Jocko Willink? Some of those field manuals. When I first heard, the first time I heard people say that the SEAL teams didn't have any doctrine, it was, it was an attack. It was a, you guys don't have any doctrine. You don't know how to do stuff.
7:24 Jocko Willink? And I, this was a young me, younger, wasn't that young, but I immediately reframed it in a positive way, not as a counter attack, but as a, yeah, you're right. We don't have good doctrine on how to do things. And there's a lot of situations where that hurts us. And if you have a new guy officer that's never done an assault on a target before, he has no reference point. Great, great point you're making. And that's when I had to reframe the fact, but you know, you know where it does help out sometimes? Again, it's a soft, is that if we get tasked with a mission that not only we not done before, but no one's done before,
8:10 Jocko Willink? we've practiced creating an idea on how to execute that mission. So even though not having doctrine is definitely a weakness, there's also a sense where it becomes a strength. So now all of a sudden, you can't really argue with that, but it's a reframing of the argument. We do this as leaders, problems, turning problems into opportunities.
8:34 Jocko Willink? Turning problems into opportunities. Hey, the, uh, the supplier said they can't deliver us any more of this type of metal. Okay, cool. Guess what? Oh, great. Now this gives an opportunity to try this with a carbon fiber. Right? Instead of saying, oh no, what are we gonna do? Problem? No, it's an opportunity for us to make an adjustment. Another one is, and this is a reframing, you get tasked to do something and it, it seems like it's impossible. And maybe it is impossible. So we need to tell your team, hey, here's the task, here's the, here's the project, here's the mission that we've got. It's impossible. Or do you reframe it to say, look, it barely seems like this is a feasible idea. But you know what?
9:18 Jocko Willink? We're going to get as close to it as we can. So now we've reframed an impossibility as a challenge.
9:26 Jocko Willink? Here's another one.
9:29 Jocko Willink? That you can reframe. Somebody came and told our department that our last project was was ineffective. It was inefficient and ineffective. Oh. Well, guess what? Maybe they don't fully understand how the project was put together. So we're taking their attack and their negative attitude and turning it into our fault for a little misunderstanding that we haven't done a good job. You probably heard me do that 10,000 times. Yeah, probably, yeah.
10:06 Jocko Willink? Here's another thing you can do. You're talking to someone. Reframe their emotional status. So.
10:18 Jocko Willink? Someone's mad. And this really, this is a little bit of reflect and diminish. Reflect and diminish is, hey, I'm going to show you a little bit of anger too, but I'm going to diminish it. But also, you ever been in a conversation where someone makes a well timed? Minor joke to ease the scenario and lighten up the attitude from everybody. Right? We're going to reframe our sadness. We're going to reframe our anger into a little bit of levity. Now, look, can you be over the top and start cracking jokes when there's a serious? No, but if you can, if you can, that's why it's like reflecting diminish is a good way of thinking. You don't take it and do the 180 out, but you you you make a little adjustment on it.
11:01 Jocko Willink? Uh, another way to reframe things is to ask questions, earnest questions, that force someone, and that's a strong word, I shouldn't say that word, that
11:18 Jocko Willink? that require someone to answer the question that reveals something to them that you know, or you think you know, because we're being earnest, I think Echo might not see the big picture here. So when Echo says, "Hey, we're gonna order 50,000 t-shirts."
11:42 Jocko Willink? And I say, "Have you run the math on what that's gonna cost us to order 50,000 t-shirts?" That's an earnest question, because maybe he has.
11:53 Jocko Willink? And maybe he's about to say, "It's no, 50,000 over the next two years." Maybe that was part of what you were gonna tell me, but if I immediately just go, "Do you even know how much? We'd care for 50,000 t-shirts? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard." "Where are we gonna put inventory? Where's all that inventory?" I can come at you like that. Or I can ask a real earnest question and say, "Hey, do we have enough storage for 50,000 t-shirts?" And there's a chance that you go, "Oof, that's a good point. We don't want to have to rent more space." But there's also a chance you say, "Hey, Jocko, no, not 50,000 right now. I'm talking about 50,000 t-shirts in the next four months. We on average move this many, that means we'll have this many at each time.
12:36 Jocko Willink? We won't need any more storage space, but we'll have the inventory coming and we will never be sold out. That sounds like a good plan." So by asking some good questions, you can reframe. I can also reframe the where it works if I say, "Hey, 50,000 shirts, where are we gonna get? Where are we gonna put all those?" And you go,
12:57 Jocko Willink? and maybe I even say, "Well, do you think we should rent more space?" And I'm putting that question to you and you go, Plus, you kind of sound like you're on board automatically. I'm kind of on board, man. I'm kind of on board. I'm on your side. I reframed it, so instead of you saying like, "We'd order 50,000 shirts," and me saying, "We, that's the dumbest idea."
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