Jocko Underground: How to Surround Yourself With The Best People - Best Questions Answered

Best way to build character How to surround yourself with good people Bullying and how to deal with it. Snitching VS doing the right thing. 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?

  On this episode of Jocko Underground, we'll explain the best way to build character and how to surround yourself with good people. We'll also explain bullying and discuss some methods to deal with it effectively. And lastly, we'll go over the difference between snitching on your teammates and doing the right thing. This is the Jocko Underground Best Questions Answered. And remember, you can subscribe to hear the whole episode with the link in the notes or at JacoUnderground.com.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Four-part question about character development.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  What are your-

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  Let's go one at a time. We'll go one at a time. What do we got?

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Okay, so the first one is, what are your ambitions for your character?

• 0:48Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Actually, a simple way to talk through this is when I think about characters and values, I think about what I wrote in the Way of the Warrior Kid book series and putting together the Warrior Kid code and referencing other codes in there. Here's the way the Warrior Kid character development. Here's what I wanted my kids to have for character. And you gotta remember, these are simplified and these are for kids. But if you extrapolate out what these mean to an adult, that's what I'm talking about. A warrior kid wakes up earlier in the morning. What does that imply? It implies discipline, it implies schedule. It means getting out of your comfort zone.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  Warrior kid studies to learn and gain knowledge and ask questions if he doesn't understand. What does that imply? It implies humility. It implies an open mind to try and learn. The Warrior Kid trains hard, exercises, and eats right to be strong and fast and healthy. Yes, is that part of character? Yes, it is. Is it easy to train hard? No, it's not. Is it easy to exercise every day? No, it's not. Is it easy to eat right all the time? No, it's not. So we are going to develop our character to be able to withstand the impact of hard training.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  The Warrior Kid trains to know how to fight so he can stand up to bullies and protect the weak. Well, a whole bunch of things embody that. The character of a person that's not a bully but actually fights against bullies. That's a beautiful characteristic to have.

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  Protecting people that can't protect themselves. The Warrior Kid treats people with respect, doesn't judge them, and helps out others whenever possible. What kind of a character do you want to have? Treat people with respect, don't judge, help other people out whenever possible. There you go. The Warrior Kid keeps things neat and is always prepared and ready for action. Look, are we talking about cleaning your room? Sure. We talking about making your bed? Sure. We talking about being prepared as a human being?

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  The Warrior Kid stays humble and stays calm. Warrior Kids do not lose their tempers. So that means we want to be a character that has control over our emotions. We want to be, have the characteristic of humility.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  The Warrior Kid works hard, saves money, and is frugal, doesn't waste things, and always does his best. Okay.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  Hard work. It's a characteristic I will definitely aspire to. Doing my best in everything I do. That's a characteristic I definitely aspire to. Being frugal, not being a big spender, wasting a bunch of money on everything.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  And the last one is, I am the Warrior Kid and I am a leader. So, want to have the characteristic where we don't mind stepping up and leading. And so that's the Warrior Kid code, and that certainly is a, like a rudimentary, six, seven, eight, nine, 10-year-old person. Get those characteristics and they formulate the senior characteristics that you would want as an adult. And I put a bunch of other character traits in the first book. I took them from a bunch of other warrior codes throughout history. From the SEAL Code, I talked about loyalty, honor, integrity, responsibility, the never quit attitude. From the Viking Laws.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  Be brave and aggressive, be prepared, grab all opportunities, do not promise what you can't keep, ask for advice. Again, these are all in the Warrior Kid book. All great characteristics for a person to have. From the Ranger Creed, uphold the prestige, honor, and esprit de corps. Be ready to move farther, faster, and fight harder than any other soldier. I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong, and morally straight. I will display intestinal fortitude. What great characteristics for humans to have.

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  The Navy and Marine Corps values of honor, courage, and commitment. The US Army Warrior ethos, I will never quit. I'll never leave a fallen comrade behind. There's more, but these are, I'm highlighting some of them. The Bushido code, compassion, respect, honor, honesty, and sincerity. Sincerity, great characteristics, duty and loyalty, incredible characteristics. So when I answer that question, that's what I, the easiest way for me to do it is to talk about the way the warrior kid and the characteristics that I wove throughout the story. Because they're characteristics that I have ambitions towards and that I would want my kids and other kids to be raised with and adults to behave with.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  So that's question number one.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  So question number two, who are the five closest people to you that have shaped your character and what have they contributed?

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  Um, you know, who had, one person that had a huge impact on me that I talked about leadership, strategy and tactics, the guy that I called Delta Charlie. And what he taught me, what he contributed to me was to remain humble at all times. Uh, Hackworth, clearly I didn't ever know him. I can't say I was close to him, but he has had a massive, probably the biggest impact on me as a person, just in, in leadership, period. So that's what he contributed. He contributed to me understanding and wanting to take care of the team and wanting to, when

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  required, step up and be able to lead in a way that isn't leading for me, but is leading for the troops.

• 6:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I had a friend named Alton Lee Grizzard, who was one of my assistant platoon commanders. He was killed in 1993, but man, he was fun. And we had a, we had a really good time and enjoyed life. And when he was killed, it taught me, contributed to me, the characteristic of the clock is ticking and you gotta make sure that you, that you enjoy life. And then I guess the last people I would say, speaking of leadership, strategy and tactics book, uh,

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  The dedication in that book. I'll just read it. It says, "This book is dedicated to the men of SEAL Team Three, tasked in a bruiser, who taught me how to lead, especially Mark Lee, who taught me the value of life. Mikey Mansour, who taught me the meaning of sacrifice. Ryan Jobe, who taught me true perseverance. Chris Kyle, who taught me about devotion to duty. And Seth Stone, my brother, who taught me about loyalty and friendship and never let me down ever."

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  So, those individuals have had a huge impact on me and I think about them every day.

• 7:56Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Do you actively seek out relationships with people who improve your character and inspire you?

• 8:05Jocko Willink?

  I, I, no. I mean, I, I can't say that I actively seek out people that I think will improve my character. That seems like a, look like I'm looking for a, a, a one-sided bargain, right? Like I'm, like I'm going to latch on to somebody that's gonna, that's gonna make, help me. Uh, so I don't really do that. I think I just end up hanging out with people based, based through some level of mutual attraction to their personality. They seem like a good person. You know, as you get to know them, there's bonds develop and, and that's what I do. But I don't go around like trying to hang out with people. I don't know. That seems a little weird. Is that weird?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, especially when you put it like that. Yeah. Like when it's.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm, I'm reframing this in a negative way a little bit, I think, by accident or in, uh, not on purpose.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so I get, yeah, I'm, you, I think you're right. I think that depends on what you mean by do you seek out relationships? I don't know. It sounds pretty straightforward. Like, it sounds like, if it's like, hey, that guy, Jim Smith or whatever, like, he, he seems like a good guy to be friends with. I'm gonna go try to be friends with him and then you go and now you're hanging around more and maybe you look up, oh, he likes basketball. I'm gonna start playing basketball too to sort of be his friend.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  We're both saying this in a weird way.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  That's what it feels like.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  But.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  I guess if I see someone that's kicking ass, I might try and hang out with them because they're kicking ass, right? I mean, here's a, here's a, just a stupid example. If I'm training jujitsu and I see you jacking people up, I want to roll with you.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're gonna make me better.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:42Jocko Willink?

  And so I guess you could apply that to, you know, anything. If I see someone that's doing well, like, hey, hey, nice to meet you. It looks like you're kicking ass. I, I guess that's, that seems cool.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  I guess, yeah, but it's like one of those things where they, again, depends on what he mean. Because you bring up jujitsu, that's like a, it's weird because you meet a lot of friends through jujitsu. So we're all there for jujitsu. You see a guy, he rolls good. He'd be a great training partner. That's true. But I think that just gets you initially close to him, you know? In a way like gets you past maybe like, I don't know, some barrier or something like this. But they're a good training. I'm sure you have a lot of good training partners who you won't necessarily want to hang out with.

• 10:28Jocko Willink?

  I would say that, because I tried to, I tried to think of a different environment because you're right. Jujitsu is a weird example. Yeah. Because you might not, you might want to roll with someone, but you wouldn't necessarily want to hang out with them. But if I was in a SEAL platoon and there was a guy that was really good, I think I would be not, here's the difference, I think. He's saying actively seek out. I would, I don't think I would actively seek it out. I think my subconscious would be like, dude, Echo's a badass. I want to go hang out with that guy. Hey, man, what are you doing? You want to, you want to work out after work or hey, you want to go shooting or hey, can you review this thing with me? Just, it wouldn't be like, hey, I'm going to try to get better. It'd be like, hey, bro, this guy's got some knowledge. I want to, I want to partake in.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is kind of like a great, like a hazy line. There's no, yeah, it usually like happens like any friendship though. It's like, it just happens naturally, kind of a thing, but I don't know.

• 11:22Jocko Willink?

  So yes, I guess I don't actively sink it out, but I think I subconsciously would. I, I think, I think we, I think I am subconsciously attracted to someone that is, that is of high character. And look, you can meet some people that have high character, but they're dorks, right?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:42Jocko Willink?

  So you know, like, there's, there's like, someone just a dork. It doesn't mean, you know, oh, I'm gonna hang out with Echo. He's over there being a dork, right? I'm gonna hang out with you because you're cool.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:54Jocko Willink?

  So I gotta do a little bit of assessment, the dork assessment.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:58Jocko Willink?

  You know, you might be peeking out my meter over here.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  But I, but I think you're right. I think there is a, like, a line, a fine line that, because you know how, you know, like, I don't know.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  You moved to a new state.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  And this happens with dating a lot, from what I understand. I'm not dating right now. So, uh, or friends, like, let's say, oh, I'm, I'm in a new town. I need to make some friends to hang out with. Now I go actively, I join a church, or I join a jujitsu thing for the, for the active, like, the per, the front-running purpose of making friends. Not join jujitsu because, shoot, I wanna learn jujitsu. Sure, that'd be cool, but I'm there to make friends first. You know, there's, it's, there's, it's different, you know? Versus, oh, I'm gonna go to, go take some jujitsu, and then, oh, I happen to meet all my friends and.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  Although it's weird, because if someone's like, hey, I just moved to, if we, if someone asked a question, hey, I just moved to a new town, I don't know anybody, what do you recommend? I'd be like, go to, go start training jujitsu.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yep, I would, yeah. But that's because it's such an, like, a common secondary, um, effect of jujitsu is like, you meet a bunch of, and I, I don't think because only cool people take jujitsu, even though that's debatable, but I don't think that it's that. I think that so many different types of people join jujitsu, you're bound to come across and talk to someone.

• 13:13Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna meet a surfer, you're gonna meet a computer dork, you're gonna meet a salesperson, you're gonna meet a firefighter, you're gonna meet a marine, you're gonna meet everybody.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Exactly, right.

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  And you, and you already automatically have a common, shared interest.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's a big one, too, you know? So, so, so, yes, there's a fine line, or when dating, you know how, like, And look, man, approach dating however you want. That's the way I see it at the end of the day. But when someone's like, oh, I'm like lonely, or I need to find a man if they're trying to date me. Or I would imagine if a guy's like, I need to find a girl. And that's like, you can kind of smell it on them like, oh, they, they just want a boyfriend. They don't care if it's me or anyone else within this like realm of acceptability. It's like, it doesn't come as attractive as far as the scenario goes. It's usually like, oh, you're kind of around somebody like, oh, yeah, that person's whatever. You know, like I like them or whatever.

• 14:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, check.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, feels like it.

• 14:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, okay, so bottom line is, let's, let's just say, hey. 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 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.

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  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 jacood underground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance at jacood underground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.