Jocko Underground: What Should I Do With My Professional Life?

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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 154, sitting here with Echo Charles, and we have some questions from the troopers at this time. Let's get into it.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  First one, I'm a 28-year-old, married male. For a long time, I've been trying to figure out what to do with my life, career-wise. My current job is intrinsically meaningful, but I feel it's not for me. I sit at a desk all day, and a big part of me feels I should be doing something more physical, a more physical job. I'm in, I'm in great shape and would like to be in a career where I can be more active and problem solve. My dad is a retired cop and my brother is a former Marine. I've considered a career in law enforcement for a long time. The sense of duty, camaraderie, and mission are attractive to me, but each time I get ready to pursue it, I have a bunch of mental roadblocks. Fears of how the day-to-day will affect me and my eventual family.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  The shift work, dangers, etc., all enter my mind. I've thought about this for years, and I can't tell if I'm coming up with excuses, holding myself back, or if that particular career is really not for me. I've struggled with accepting not having a quote-unquote badass job to, and find myself envious of those I've, who pursue things like military, police, fire, etc.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  But I wonder if that is more of a fantasy I've created, or if I need to stop with excuses and get after it. Any thoughts you and Echo have would be greatly appreciated.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  So, one thing I want to say is like, we, you don't hear a lot of information about, for instance, police that are perfectly fine.

• 1:42Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? Like PTSD, look, do, do police get PTSD? Yep, they do.

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  Did some quick, you know, research, 35% of police get PTSD.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  Right. Um, now normally it's only seven percent of the population. So there's an increased chance, but there's also a bunch of police that don't get PTSD. You know what I'm saying? There's like 10% higher levels of stress and whatever. Uh, problems are associated with stress, mental stress and, and what that does to your health. So there's like a 10% higher when you're for a police officer, but there's a lot of police officers that are totally freaking normal. There's a lot of police officers that are like, yeah, oh yeah, someone got shot today. It's what my job is. I did my best to process through it. We got the person that, you know what I mean? Like there's people that get away with it or not, or get on with it. Uh, there's people that have squared away family lives

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  that are police officers. A lot. Divorce rate is 2% lower than the national average for police officers. There you go. You always hear like the police are getting, okay, okay. Just a little reality check. So the percentages of some of those are, look, the PTSD thing is definitely higher, but also like PTSD doesn't necessarily mean you have like a ruined life. It just means you got some stuff you gotta work through, you know, like you might get, uh, you know, you get some kind of a little injury. You gotta, oh, I can't do this certain part of the exercise. I gotta work my range of motion a little bit. I gotta warm up more, whatever. It's like you just, you, it doesn't ruin your life. Cause you got a bum elbow. You know, you can't lock out your bench press. Okay. Can't go as heavy as you used to, but

• 3:19Jocko Willink?

  you're still doing bad. You see what I'm saying? So we have to call it like it's the worst thing in the world. We figure out police, military, learn how to work through that stuff. Um, now like, like, so here's my, my point here. Um, surfers, people that surf, account for 38% of all shark attacks on the west coast. 11% are swimmers, 46% are divers and 5% are kayakers.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  Now I surf, I swim, I dive and I kayak. I do all those things. Look, do I kayak a lot? No, but I have a kayak at my house and I will go out.

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  I try not to dive anymore, but do I go out snorkeling and yeah, with my mask and fins out? Yes, I do. Swim, do I love, do I swim a lot? No, but do I swim? Yeah. So I do all the surf, of course. So I do all the things. I do all the things. So even though there's a risk, 36% chance or a much higher risk for all the water activities I do of getting eaten by a shark, I don't care and I still do it. Knock on wood. Hopefully I don't, but you see what I'm saying? There's risk in anything you do. Like you could, you know, jujitsu. What are the, I should have looked this up too. Like what are the, what are the injury rates in jujitsu? There's an injury rates in jujitsu. Guess what else there's injury rates in? Pick up basketball games.

• 4:42Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's a huge, you know, it's a huge injury causing sport right now. Pickleball? Pickleball. Huge injury causing sport right now. A sport that's designed not to injure you. Little tiny court. They can't run very much, not much of a bunch of lateral movement. But these people that haven't exercised very much, they're freaking getting aggro with their pickleball. And they're getting injured. So regardless of what you do, there's some kind of risk. There's always going to be some kind of like quote unquote downside. But then what are the upsides, right? You could look at that. So here's what I'd do if I were you. I would weigh the risks a little bit. Um, and one of the ways I would take a iterative step is go become a reserve police officer

• 5:25Jocko Willink?

  or go become a volunteer firefighter or join the army reserves or join the national guard and see what you think of it. You're only 28 years old. You had all kinds of, you know, not all kinds of time, but you have time to go, oh, let me see what it's like being an army reservist. Let me go to bootcamp this summer. Let me go to A I T. Or maybe he has a degree. Maybe you can get some kind of a reserve officer commissioning, right? So do something or volunteer firefighter. I was a volunteer firefighter when I was a little kid. Putting on Indian tanks and walking up and fighting brush fires.

• 5:57Jocko Willink?

  You get a feel for it.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  You can become a reserve police officer in some states. Cool. Go figure that out. Go do a bunch of ride alongs. Like, go, go check it out. And see what then see what you really think. Cause you're, cause that's what essentially this question is. Am I being like, do I really want it or not? Well, go see what it's really like. Get closer to it and figure it out. And I think that's a good iterative step.

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  Go learn more. And then once you learn more and you go, oh dang, I really like that volunteer firefighter. I like really like doing that. Okay, cool. Maybe you like being a police, you try the police thing, try doing a couple of ride alongs. You're like, I didn't really like that. Or you do a firefighting thing and you go out and you do a bunch of ambulance runs for, you know, morbidly obese drug addicts that are throwing up all over themselves. You're like, well, I didn't really like that job as much as I thought I would. Or maybe you get to put out a car fire and you're like, yo, that was cool. Maybe you watch these firefighters go out and get after it in a building, like they saved victory MMA. Went out and fought that fire. So maybe you'll get fired up or maybe you'll join the army reserves and you'll go and be like, dude,

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  I'm glad I'm only reservist because I don't want to do that for a living. Or maybe you're like, I'm ready to go active duty.

• 7:12Jocko Willink?

  So that's what I would do. Um, I would also train jujitsu, just saying, it doesn't sound like you trained jujitsu. And the last thing is, I would say this.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  If you don't like what you're doing as a job, I would find an exit strategy. Like you're 20 years old, don't spend the rest of your life, eight hours a day, five days a week, doing something that you don't like. To me, that doesn't sound like a good plan. You say it's intrinsically meaningful. And if that's good enough, okay, cool. If it's something that like, oh, as you get older, you can pick up some hobbies on the outside and you'll still enjoy it and you still get to, you know, let's say, let's say your desk job is you're, uh, uh, finding, helping raise money for kids that are sick. Like, okay, you're doing that from a desk job, but you're doing something really cool and that's great. And it makes you feel like you're accomplishing something. Keep doing it and go figure some physical stuff on the part time. But if you actually don't like your job, don't, don't keep doing it, man. Don't keep doing it.

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  That's what I got. It doesn't sound like he has a family either. He said something about future family, right? Don't have a family yet. Take some risks while you don't have a family. Why you don't have a, a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  That's that's my

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yep, no family yet. He uh, he's married, so.

• 8:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  But yeah. Do you think, and I, cause I feel like this is natural, but do you think that this and kinda be it being a common thing where it's like, you know, the whole, uh, the grass is always greener kind of a thing?

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Grass is always greener.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  That I'll feel, I'll feel like that every once in a while. Okay, we were doing a video shoot the other day, right? You know, you were part of this video shoot.

• 8:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Yep, yep.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  I'm driving home from the video shoot and remember Casey Ryan, spider monkey?

• 8:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  So he's a cop now, by the way.

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, is he really? Oh, that's cool. So you don't want to get rolled up, do you? Actually, you do want to get rolled up by him.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Very capable.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Physically and a very nice guy, you know, in my experience. So anyway, I'm driving home. I see a bunch of cops handling business. Casey Ryan's there.

• 9:18Jocko Willink?

  No kidding?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I see him, right? First time I seen him in uniform. So I'm like, okay, cool. You know, obviously I don't like bother or nothing, but I seen him and they're just, you know, that just that look, that whole scene. You know, it's like, bro, those, they're handling business. I'm coming from a silly video shoot. Look, it was a great video shoot. I get it. But when you kind of compare in the moment, you start to see like, oh my gosh, they, that, that job, what Casey Ryan and all his freaking colleagues are doing is way more meaningful than my video shoot that I just did. You know, it's like, you feel that in the moment. So it's like, that's an example of like the, in the moment, the grass is always greener. Like they're doing something way more cool, way better. They're solving problems and crimes and stuff. And I'm over here pressing freaking record on a thing, you know, it's like different. But at the same time, it's like,

• 10:03Speaker 01

  you kind of got to look at the big picture a lot of the time, you know, and I think,

• 10:08Speaker 01

  I think that this guy might be doing that only because he says it's intrinsically meaningful. And then he's looking at the badassness of something else, you know, and, and whatever.

• 10:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but that is kind of a bummer if you don't ever get to experience that other thing.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:22Jocko Willink?

  If that.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  I could see that.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  That could be, that could end up being a bummer. I have, uh, when my son was like little, and when I say little, I mean between the ages of like, six and eighteen.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  If there was something going on in the hood in our neighborhood.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  Like ambulances, fire trucks.

• 10:40Jocko Willink?

  Whatever.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:41Jocko Willink?

  Like, he was getting on his bike to go check it out, and I was going with him, right?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:45Jocko Willink?

  And guess what? He's gone. Like, he's, you know, he doesn't live at home anymore. Fire trucks, ambulance has happened, I'm on my bike, go to check it out. I'm a grown man.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:56Jocko Willink?

  I'm fifty-three years old. So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen,

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  go to jacoundground.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're 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

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

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

• 11:46Jocko 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 jacoundground.com. It costs eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. And if you can't afford to support us,

• 12:06Jocko 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.