Jocko Underground: When Your Disciplined Life Has Left You Lonely w/ No Social Connections

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe When your disciplined lifestyle has left you lonely and lacking social connections. Meeting The Standard To Be Prepared For Service And Life. What to do: I committed my life to a career I don't like. Establishing boundaries with parents and in-laws. Moving to up to the "Political" level in your job--Things to be aware of. 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 215, sitting here with Echo Charles.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  Did I get that right?

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. Thank you.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  And we have some questions from the field, from the front lines, from where the rubber meets the road, and we will offer some recommendations, some answers, and at a minimum, some courses of action you can take to proceed and find your way through the maze of life.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  As some people like to.

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  As Echo Charles refers to it, "The maze of life."

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  All poetic.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Okay, alright.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  That's the best you could come up with.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Well, well, it is one of the, one of the options.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Whatever, bro.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  The life, life is sometimes a maze. You don't know, I'm just saying, okay?

• 1:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Did you come up with that yourself? Did you consult with your, your ancestors or something? Is that ChatGPT or something? Where'd that come from? Did you get it in a dream?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  First question.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Jocko, I recently graduated college where I was a Division One athlete, a science major, and also in ROTC. My days were completely structured around academics, training, the gym, and preparation for the military. Because of that, I missed out on a lot of the social side of college. Team hangouts, weekends, weekends out, etc. I don't regret the, the accomplishments, but now that I've graduated, commissioned, and started working full-time, I feel like I have no close friends. I went from being around 30 teammates every day to suddenly feeling isolated. And while I try to keep in touch, it feels like they

• 1:53Speaker 01

  all got closer without me, and no one seems to reach out. How do I navigate life after college when I'm disciplined and accomplished, but also feel lonely and disconnected? Love the podcast. Thank you.

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  So I think a couple of key points here. Well, one key point is that you quote unquote recently graduated, which means you just showed up to your unit, your military unit, which means you don't know anyone and no one knows you. And guess what? When you show up somewhere and you're new and you don't know anyone, you're going to feel a little bit of like isolated, you'll be left out. That's the way anybody feels when they show up. When my daughter, Coach Rana, started training in San Luis Obispo at Paragon. And she called me like after the first few days. She's like, I, I don't know anyone. No one wants to train with me. And I go, oh yeah, just train for four more days and like someone will start training and then you'll be fine. And she's like, I don't know. And I was like, yep.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  And then she called me four days later and she's like, yeah, I met this really cool blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's all done. But she was, she was feeling the exact same way. Isolated and lonely. Cause you know, it's weird, dude. You go on the mat and like no one wants to roll with you because they don't know who you are or whatever. Okay. So, um, that's the way you feel. Takes a little bit of a while. Takes a little while. But there's no doubt you're in the military. No doubt in my military mind that you're going to form friendships with people at your unit, man, fellow officers, your troops, your senior enlisted, like you're gonna, this is, that's the way it is. You're doing work with them. You're doing, uh, training with them. You're going out in the field with them.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  That's, you're gonna, relationships will form and you will end up with some bros.

• 3:42Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you, you played D1 athletics. I don't know which one. Maybe 30 teammates, football? Does that sound right? No? No. How many teammates would he have in football? Hundred. Damn. Okay. So maybe he's soccer, hockey, could be anything, right? But you don't have that anymore. Guess what? Oh, you can probably guess my next bit of advice. Go to a jujitsu gym and start training, right? And listen, if jujitsu ain't your thing, okay, which should be, number one, especially if you're in the military. You'll make friends there and again, it'll take a week. You're not going to go in there and someone's going to go like, oh Fred, welcome here. Why don't you be, no, no, it doesn't work like that.

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  But you're going to train with people and you're going to sweat and you're going to work hard and you're going to form relationships. You're going to go grab a dinner and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, watch the UFC at their house. That's what we're doing.

• 4:34Jocko Willink?

  So join a jujitsu gym or join a strength and conditioning gym or join a rock climbing gym. Like there's, just go and go out into the world. There's a whole, a whole social world of people to hang out with, especially that now that you have the time. You're not studying, you're not training for your specific sport. You're not conducting ROTC drills. You have a job, cool, I get it. The military is busy, you're a young officer, you're going to get tasked with that. But still, I guarantee you on a Saturday night or a Saturday morning, you can go train some jujitsu. And then after, after, let's call it four weekends of training, you will know three people's names. And one of them is going to be like, dude, I saw your car outside. Is that a whatever? And you're like, yeah, he's like, dude, I actually know how to over to bar.

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  You're like, and all of a sudden you'll be talking about stuff, you know?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  So just put yourself out there in some places where there's people and so you can interact with people and you'll form bonds and you'll look back in a couple of years. Probably actually in like six months, you'll look back and be like, kind of surprised that you even asked this question. Cause it sounds like you kind of had ready made friends wherever you went because you had the sports. You know, that's just like ready made friends, but military kind of has that too. And you just knew.

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  But you'll be surprised that you asked this question.

• 5:50Jocko Willink?

  Meeting people and building those bonds is a great part of life. So enjoy it. That's what we got.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's almost like a starting, a starting over scenario after. Yeah, that's true though. You know, ran a scenario or whatever with the, with the, oh, no one wants to roll with me and kind of lonely or whatever. That's like, that's to me, that's almost like a hundred percent of the time, almost when you go to a whole new place. Unless you go with your friends or something like this, where it's like, yeah, it's okay. You're starting all over, which is fine.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  And as long as you're open to it, cause I, what he said was actually kinda real where he was like, oh, I'm so focused on freaking discipline and preparing for this and preparing for that. Cause I, I seen guys like that in college where you could tell they were just locked into college, which is sweet, you know, and then, but they would never be hanging out. So the social element, I understand how some people can straight up just miss it and be like, dang, I kinda missed that whole thing, you know? So that's real, but yeah, it's just a matter of being open, open to it and not being like, oh dang, I suck. This sucks, you know?

• 6:50Jocko Willink?

  And another like thing that is probably a real challenge for many, many people is executing this right here. Hey, how's it going? My name's Fred.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  Like that's, that seems like, especially nowadays, because when you're standing in line at the DMV or you're standing in line at the grocery store, you don't look at anyone else. You just look at your phone. Or you're just listening to a podcast. You don't, you don't have to interact with anybody. You don't, you don't even say anything to a clerk at a store, cause you just have it delivered to your house. And the guy, they, they have that thing. You like, leave it at my step. I don't wanna talk to a person. So how is anyone, especially a young guy like this, gonna be like, hey, how's it going? My name's Fred. I never, I just, I'm just starting jujitsu for the first time, or I've never, I've never, uh, rock climbed before, but I, I wanna learn. Hey, can you tell me what kinda shoes you think I should get? Like that right there is like a huge barrier to some people, but the weird thing is

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  when people do that to you, you don't think they're weird. You actually just think they're normal, right? When someone goes, hey, how's it going? And you go, oh, not bad. And they go, where are you coming in from? And you go, I'm, I'm from San Diego. Oh, that's cool. What are you doing out here? Well, I'm actually out here for some work, but, uh, you know, like to train. Oh, cool. Boom. Like it's not that big of a deal. You're not a freak. You're a human. And when you go and talk to other humans, they're humans too.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  That's true, huh? And jujitsu makes you way, any group setting really, just, it's almost like a little soft approach, you know?

• 8:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Cause there's a, yeah, like a soft lead. Like a warm lead.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, warmly.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  You're in this room and I'm in this room. And we both came to this room for a very specific reason, by the way.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  That was my echo Charles vernacular right there. For a very specific reason, by the way. Normally you point at me when you do that. A very specific reason, by the way.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Hey, we gotta know.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  What's the purpose of by the way? Emphasis?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Like I'm trying to make this other, this point over here and there's some additional stuff, you know, that might either back up the point or, or maybe part of a whole nother point that I could go into, but I'm not gonna, but I could.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  You could if you wanted to.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  If I wanted to. Which, which would be very interesting, by the way, but I'm not gonna do it.

• 9:10Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's the way you use it is it's, it's a subtle reinforcement of your main point.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:15Jocko Willink?

  You use it as a subtle, you'll throw in this other thing that you're not gonna go into, by the way.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  But you could if you wanted to.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Uh, or I could start talking about how important that is for this story. I'm not gonna, I could, but I'm not gonna.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  It's sort of like a paper tiger.

• 9:33Jocko Willink?

  It's like a paper tiger because it has like, no one drills down on that thing that you just threw out there.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  We kind of just accept it, but you kind of lean on it like it could bite if.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  It could.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Hey, sometimes it enhances the clarity.

• 9:52Jocko Willink?

  No, someone puts together a compilation because I took that from you and I'll throw it in there. And I've always done it in a kind of a way where it's like a, it's like a quiet, uh, a quiet nod to your style.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  And I've done, and usually I do it a little, just a little bit over the top. Sure. Just do it a little bit over the top, you know? I'll say, and that's a whole nother book, by the way, you know, I'll kind of put a little stank on it, right?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, good, good.

• 10:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 10:16Jocko Willink?

  So there we go. Now we know, now we know the deal.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, can't, can't say like enough about jujitsu and the social part of it, which I understand.

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can definitely say a lot about that. To you, that's 90% of the game.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  I'm here to tell you, bro, I'm here to tell you. Um, because even that, like, yeah, even if you're a shy person, people are gonna, you know, you, you partner up with someone, whether it be rolling or just drilling or whatever, when you partner up with someone, boom, there you go, temporary friend. It's up to you now, ball's in your court. See what I'm saying? Like for the time being, and it's, so it's up to you and that's kind of like, probably ever, and not to go too deep into the social element, but we're gonna, little bit. You know what speed dating is? You know what that is?

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  It's like, uh, you meet like 10 people.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever actually do that or just saw a TV show?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  So at the nightclub I used to work at, we'd have speed dating on like Monday afternoon.

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Right, right when we open, yeah.

• 11:10Jocko Willink?

  Is the bitter end still open?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  The bitter end is now called the Tipsy Crow.

• 11:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nonetheless, they did have speed dating there and I was like, what the hell's speed? Dating like well, bro, what is this and people come in and they, you know, it's but it's the yeah, it's like a dating kind of workshop almost kind of not a workshop. You don't learn, but it's like almost like a game you play and you have tables with people and you have like a minute or a certain fixed amount of time to just talk to someone and then you're then you're done off to the next table to talk to the next person. See what I'm saying? And then if it's like if you kind of made a connection, then you can hang out afterwards, you know, and buy drinks or whatever, or go home, whatever you want to do, right? And I remember thinking like, oh, that's kind of weird, but I really kind of imagined like, no, you it's just like a little temporary. I just meet some people. Hey, I remember, you know, you can run into someone a week later and be like, hey, remember I met you at speed dating? That was fun, blah,

• 11:57Speaker 01

  blah, blah. It's like you get a warm lead. See what I'm saying? Jiu Jitsu is like speed dating, if you ignore the Jiu Jitsu part of it. It is, but from a friend's standpoint, not romantic.

• 12:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's very important.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  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 Jocko Underground dot 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

• 12:55Jocko Willink?

  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 Jocko Underground dot com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us,

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  we can still support you. Just email assistance at Jocko Underground dot com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.