Jocko Underground: You're Not Realizing That You're OVER-Correcting. Motivation to Stay on THE PATH. Jiu Jitsu for Law Enforceament.

Avoid over-correcting. Smash through plateaus. Having trouble staying on THE PATH. Jiu Jitsu for Law Enforcement. Surfing. Should teens be wanting to join up? 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 25. I'm sitting here with Echo Charles, allegedly.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Sure, allegedly.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  So I wanted to talk to something today to kick this off, something I used to call the classic team guy overcorrection. So what this is, is guys would make a mistake, right?

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  A platoon would, or a platoon leader, or you know, a squad leader, or a fire team leader, someone would make a mistake on a run. This is, this is in the advanced SEAL training.

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  And I'd give them some kind of corrective measures, right?

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  I would give them some feedback and some corrective measures that they could take. And nine times out of 10, they would do an overcorrection. Which, which I would then call the classic team guy overcorrection, because that would be the next thing I'd tell them. I'd be, "Hey, you just did a classic team guy overcorrection."

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  They would overcorrect it. If I told them they need to be more aggressive, they'd be freaking psychoaggressive. If I told them their plan was too simple, they'd go hyper complex. If I told them their plan was too complex, they'd make it so simple, it wouldn't get you anywhere. If I told them they were too loud moving to the target, they would be so quiet that it would take them an extra hour and it would fail. If I told them they were moving too fast, they would slow to a snail's pace. If I told them they were moving too slow, they'd freaking go Mach 9.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  Classic team guy overcorrection slash overreaction.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  So there's, this, this doesn't only apply to SEALs, this applies to us as just humans. And what I think applies to humans is we overcorrect, we overreact. That's what we do.

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  You hear something. Or someone says something to you, or something happens, and your initial reaction is going to be an overreaction. Or an overcorrection of what you're doing. And what I'm saying is, don't, don't do that. I know this is really simple advice. But don't do that. The way that you avoid doing this is by actually, by actually being aware that it's a thing. Right? So that's what I would tell the guys. I'd say, listen.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  You're, I'm telling like, don't over correct this. Don't overreact to what I'm telling you. Be, just make a small adjustment and that is going to, more likely going to be enough.

• 2:38Jocko Willink?

  The first report from the battlefield is always wrong. This is just another additional statement. When you hear something for the first time, it's probably wrong. And I've talked before about the reasons it's wrong. It's wrong because you're hearing one person's perspective. So if something happens out on the battlefield and you give me a report, the only angle that you see is your angle. So how can that angle possibly see everything? Or give a complete picture? The answer is it can't. What about the fact that you're super emotional? That's all wrapped up in the first report. So. The first report's not right. And so when you hear something for the first time, don't overreact to it. Don't overcorrect it. What else happens? The emotional part? That's the driver of your reaction.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  So it's already out of control. Something happens and you react to it. It's an emotional response. That's the initial response is an emotional one. So it's too much.

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  So guess what we have to do? We have to, we have to counter that.

• 3:41Jocko Willink?

  We have to counter the overreaction. Guess what happens when we counter the overreaction? We overreact in the other direction.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  And we end up porpoising, which I explained to Dave Burke the other day.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes. We end up, we're a little too deep in the water on our dive rig. So we come up. And when we come up, we over correct and now we're too shallow in the water. So then we over correct going back down. We end up porpoising, wasting a bunch of time and energy. And it's bad. So what I'm saying here is stay balanced. Don't, don't stay calm, stay balanced, stay calm. Don't overreact. It's really, it's a really.

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  It's a really simple concept. And it makes a big difference in the way your world goes forth.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  That's uh caught something you said, which kind of made a lot of sense. When you gotta be aware, like be aware of the the circumstances in which you are reacting.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  In all likelihood, overreacting, right? Just being aware of it.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  Being aware.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Like, that's kind of the the biggest step. Because it's like, simple, but not easy, right? It's not easy, because that thing creeps out of nowhere sometimes.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  So you want to create a trigger in your mind that when something happens, you gotta say to yourself, don't overreact.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Okay, so yeah, so I thought about that. The very next question is like, when do you like, you kind of do this pretty naturally. Um, I'm assuming you've been doing this for a long time. Where you could essentially detach, right? Like, remember, you know how we will talk off air about how detaching is essentially a superpower?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Um, so when, when did you realize, oh, yeah, I'll just detach? From an emotional standpoint, when you're just talking to like, people. I guess, yeah, like, when do you, when did you realize that? Because you can be like, think about like, oh, yeah, I just I just detach. But then it's like, what do I think about detaching all day, every day? No, that's not realistic. So it's like, what like, what are the triggers? Like, what, when did you realize, like, okay, I can do this?

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  I realized I needed to detach when I wrote about in Leadership Strategy and Tactics on the oil rig, all that stuff. And but then I very quickly realized that it paid off in every situation, including having conversations with another human being, including anytime I started getting emotional and because you think about, why were all those guys staring down their weapons?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:10Jocko Willink?

  Because they were, they were engrossed in what was in front of them. And I realized that was a bad thing, so I just stopped doing that.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  The temper thing and the the emotional thing, I mean, how many times? I guess, you know, really, when I saw the platoon commander that we had a mutiny against and we. He was real emotional and I knew I recognized how bad that was. And then when Delta Charlie came in, not emotional, cool. And I realized how cool it was to be cool.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Okay, there you go. That is exactly what I was wondering. Cause so that contrast in that environment where you were just paying attention. And then you get that contrast, those two situations back to back. It's like, oh, man.

• 6:53Jocko Willink?

  The thing that's hard for me to explain or hard for me to pinpoint is why I was paying attention. That's the thing that's a little bit strange. Maybe puts me a little bit outside the ordinary box.

• 7:06Jocko Willink?

  Not saying good or bad. I'm just saying the fact that I was paying attention to that is a little strange.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like when you kind of put it all together, it does make sense. Not to say that this is the explanation, but you know how like you said, you're, you were always aware that you just wanted to be a good seal. And then you'd like look at people and be like, oh, I don't want to be like that. Or oh, like that. Cause it kind of like you were looking for the model of good seal. You had like some kind of ambiguous model in your head.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  Had an idea.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  Then tried to hone it.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then when you saw actual people, you're like, oh, that, there it is. And you're almost like mentally taking notes the whole time. Cause you had that innate like desire to know that. And you know how that works with kind of everything, you know, if you want to know about something or you're interested in something, you're always on the lookout for it kind of thing. So then you get this guy who you're just taking notes on how not to be. Then you get that stark contrast. You're like, oh, I see, you know? Yeah. So it's like just seared in your brain, you know? A little bit more. That makes sense. And the oil rig story, I, I remember that and I'm like, cool. But then like, I guess translating that into like an emotional kind of situation where like, you know, just even everyday stuff with your friends or like with your wife

• 8:18Speaker 01

  or whoever, and they say some thing, use the wrong tone with you or some, something. Come on, bro. It's not as obvious.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  I just saw so many loser situations like that. You know what I'm saying? Even in like a, so that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  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 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

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  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.