Jocko Underground: How to Honor Your Commitments When It Gets Hard

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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 183. Sitting here with Echo Charles. We've got some questions from you troopers, and we are going to provide some courses of action, some recommendations on how you can handle these scenarios. Let's get into it.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Before that, this idea of, and this is something to keep in mind, it sounds obvious, but I think a lot of times we forget it, where if you have a course of action, you can get to a better place.

• 0:24Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? And just knowing that, you're already, you're already better off.

• 0:28Jocko Willink?

  Yes. And just to expand on that point a little bit, one of the, I would say, very nice blessings that I've had in my life is that I always got a decent amount of gratification, knowing that I was just making steps towards being where I wanted to be. So for instance, when I lived in a 934 square foot house with my wife and three children, but I knew that I was gonna own that house one day, and I would be able to build a little bit of an addition on it. I was okay with that.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, so it was, I was suffering currently, but I knew that I was going in the right direction. And so that seemed to make things very good for me, because I never minded, I was very good at suffering tactical pressure, because I knew my strategic goal would be achieved. And that's why oftentimes, when we answer questions here, I'm, I'll say, oh, if that's what's happening, you need to start to put together a long-term strategy. And maybe I need to make this more clear when I answer these questions. You need to plot out the course to escape the scenario that you're in. And for me, if I'm

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  in prison, it's like Shawshank Redemption, right? I'm in prison, I'll get gratification every day that I've whittled away just a little bit of that wall. You know, it just, that's, and I'm okay with that, because I know at the end of this, I'm gonna get out of here. And so, if you're, if you ask a question, what you want is an immediate answer that now your problem that took you three years, five years, eight years to get into.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  It's not going to be solved overnight. And you've got to take some level of gratification over the fact that, okay, at least now, I'm moving in the right direction.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  So yes, courses of action.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, the, you know, this idea of past, present and future, it's we, it's weird how we over index so much on the past and the present and some for a lot of people anyway, and not on the future. So like, you could probably remember fricking elementary school, junior high, high school. If you went to college, I remember those years and blah, blah, blah. I remember this happening. You remember so much about it and you, you know, you can think about it, you whatever. And then we think about how we're feeling right now and oh, I'm miserable about this or I hate this, that this is going this and then, but we don't, sometimes we don't expand that same energy for the future, for steps into the future.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Like if you were to consider, you know how they say at the end of the old school, uh, what's your five year plan? What's your 10 year plan, right? Like long term and short term, like goals or whatever. Bro, I think, I don't know, I'm thinking about myself, but I never really indexed on those a lot of the time, you know? And then the moment where I realized how important that was, it's like.

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, that's where I always say I got very lucky joining the military because when you join the military, it's like, oh, you already have a 20 year plan.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  Or a 25 or a 30 year plan. But for me, I was like, oh, well, now I'm doing, know what I'm doing for at least the next 20 years.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:41Jocko Willink?

  And for me, it was like, I'm probably going to be in this gig for 30 years. So here, you know, follow this path.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you pick up little things which are kind of the normalized situation, which is, oh, well, you're going to live in here in San Diego, you need to get a house here. Okay, that's just a normal, cool, get a house. And then for some reason I'd be like, oh, maybe I could get two of them or three of them. You know what I mean? So you make these little things, you kind of grasp on. And, and for me, it wasn't so much like, hey. Here's my five year, 10 year plan. I was like, hey, this makes sense to do. I, I didn't think about how it played out in the future, but I knew that right now. If I make these moves, these investments in health, in, you know, real estate, in, you know, uh, relationships, I knew that if I did that now, I knew it'd pay off in the future.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  So I had, I, I didn't have like, hey, I'm going to write this down. But I knew that the, these investments, these long, that the moves that I'm making are long-term, good moves.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  I, oh, I kinda always had that.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And that fundamentally, especially if that drives you, like makes you take these actual, cause it's, there's a difference between, oh yeah, I know that, but I don't do it, you know?

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  I did have a commanding officer literally tell me, hey, you, you should buy a house. And then I had a friend, when I came to San Diego, back to San Diego from Virginia Beach, and I was looking for a rental property and I saw him and he goes, why are you renting? Buy something. And I was like, well, I don't know, you know, he's like, you'll buy something. And then those two guys combined, one guy was telling me, buy a house, wherever you get stationed to buy a house immediately. And then my buddy that said, why are you renting a house? Buy a house. And I was like, oh yeah, long-term, that makes more sense. Cool. So.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, man. Just thinking, just thinking about the future.

• 5:29Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Thinking about it, you know? You gotta consider these things, cause it's coming.

• 5:33Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Where we, where will you be and what will you have done up until that point?

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  The future is coming.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  All right. First question. Good morning. I've been training for my first marathon October, since June. I've done several halves, half marathons before and lots of distances below that. I've loved running for many years of my life and I'm happy I found it and helped me tremendously on my weight loss journey. However, I despise marathon training. I truly do not think running this type of distance is for me. I re, I realized this back in July, but I thought I just needed to push through. And it was because of fatigue. But now it's impacting me more and more. I stopped lifting weights because I no longer have time or energy. I'm eating a lot of carbs and sugar for, for fuel. I'm gaining not muscle, but I'm gaining weight.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  My long runs take three to four hours and then I can't do anything for the rest of the day because I'm so tired. My question is, is it even worth doing this marathon? The only reason I haven't quit is that my cousin runs marathons and is doing the race with me. And I don't want to disappoint him that I don't love the marathon like he does. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

• 6:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, um, at a certain point specializing in something makes you good at that one thing and not good at a lot of other things. And that's true. Some people make that choice, you know, that's called professional athletes, right? Um, and that's fine. I've always leaned kind of towards, I guess the term is general physical preparedness, right?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  GPP, which means you can run, not going to win the race, but you can run the race. You can lift, you're not going to lift the most, but you can lift some. In calisthenics, you can move, like all those things, you can, you're, you're a good functional, physical unit, right? Okay, so I hear you and clearly I think that's where you're headed. Um, and I think that's good. I think you're headed back in that direction where, you know, maybe you'll run a little bit, but you'll, you know, start working lifting again and all that stuff. But your, the actual question is, you say, is it even worth doing this marathon?

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  This is kind of where I'm at. Um, and you, you, you may, you may disagree with me on this one, Echo Charles. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think if you've been training since June, right? And, and now it's whatever, September, June, July, August, September. You've been training three and a half months for this thing. You probably already paid for the freaking thing.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  You've sacrificed for it. And it's one of those things that many people see as like a bucket list scenario. And an achievement, a bucket list achievement. So I think a good compromise would be to back off, back off all the crazy running, normalize your life at some level, start lifting again, clean up your diet and see how you feel and come October, go out and run the freaking, you know, go out and run, walk the marathon, you know, go out and just get it done.

• 8:51Jocko Willink?

  You don't need to set any records, you just whatever record you, what you were trying to do a sub four, a sub three, a sub four, three and a half, a sub five, whatever your thing was, just forget about it. Don't let your ego get involved. Don't get injured. You know, if like you get 12 miles in or 18 miles in and you are gonna injure yourself, not hurt, you know, not like you're hurt, you got some blisters, wah wah, but if you're gonna injure yourself, then don't complete the thing, don't just, don't, don't wreck your life, but go out there and give it a shot. You know, push hard.

• 9:26Jocko Willink?

  You've been training, you probably get it done. If you've been, if you're this deep into it, you probably be able to get it done and then you can, you know, celebrate at the end and you never have to do another marathon. That's, that, that, and you can get back to your normal activities. That's kind of where I'm at. Now, this is a little bit, I'm, I'm assuming that you're, that your complaints about like being tired is like, yeah, you're, you're not like exhausted level and that you're gaining some weight. I'm not like, you're not ridiculous and you're losing some muscle, like you're not completely withering. I'm, I'm taking your complaints

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  to be moderate complaints. Cause if you're, obviously if you're screwing up your health and don't, don't, you know, stop. If you're screwing up your health, stop doing it. But if you're, if your body is, you know, not optimum for what you want, but you're still kind of. You still can keep going, then I'd kind of look at doing it. I don't know. What do you do? You think I'm wrong?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  No, I think you're correct.

• 10:29Jocko Willink?

  Really? I kind of thought you might think that I was wrong on this one.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Well, would you think that I would think?

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  Like, oh dude, don't do it. Like you get, you know, you're losing weight, you're gaining fat, you're losing muscle, gaining fat. You're tired, your energy's low. Like, I know those are all red flags in the, in the Echo Charles book of rest and recovery.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  That is true, but those are all separate issues though. So running the marathon, okay, first off, yeah, I, you're, you're not wrong because I would never be in a position to run the marathon. I don't see that as any type of bucket list scenario, which you know, that's, that's, but that's a preference thing, you know? So let's say it was something that I was like, no, hell yeah, I'm down for this. I want to have done it and you know, bucket list scenario. I, I agree with you. I think if the, if training like this is a problem, then solve that problem. If you gaining weight, because you shouldn't be gaining weight, not, you should not be gaining fat from this. So then solve that problem. So that's a diet problem that you just need to solve. It's not that hard. You can actually just look it up.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Be like, hey, I weigh this much, freaking I run this much. I'm gaining fat. What up? What should I be eating? They'll give you some guidelines, not hard. So if you just treat each of these little issues as individual issues and you solve, I, I think you're absolutely right. Are you going to run it? You'll be absolutely fine. You don't even have to train this much. I mean.

• 11:46Jocko Willink?

  The only one concern has, he's got a weight loss journey written in there. So I don't know if he's one of these dudes that, you know, used to be 500 pounds and now he's, you know, 380 or something. You know, that, you know, if he, if his weight loss journey was he was 250 and now he's 190, like that's, that's a lot. That's no factor.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if, if, just like I said, if he, if he's risking, like legitimately risking his health or, you know, do the injury or something like this, then yeah, it's. I, I personally don't think it's worth it.

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  Of course, no.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Some bucket list thing is not worth it. So if that's the case, but, um, but yeah, all things being good to go, um, aside from these things, yeah, no, do it.

• 12:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, even if you have to freaking jog and then kind of walk the thing.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so I don't see the marathon as being the problem. I see these little individual

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  And also like eating a lot of carbs and sugar for fuel. Like at what point you ever had that thing where you got like open mat tomorrow and you're like, well, it's, you know, Saturday night, I got open mat tomorrow. You know, we're gonna be getting after it.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  Kind of clear how's that thing looking over, you know what I mean? So now if you're running all and you're feeling, that's another thing is like, you're feeling tired, but your diet is junk.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  And that ain't good, you know?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 12:59Jocko Willink?

  I had a freaking cookie, like a big chalk, not a milk cookie.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:09Jocko Willink?

  But a big ass freaking for breakfast, like

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  for breakfast, bro.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  A lot of times pancakes are so.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, my, one of my kids brought by like the, you know, those places that just make like sick cookies?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  So one of my kids brought one of those things by and they're like, oh, you gotta have this guy. So I was like, cool. You know, I was like training, you know, I was like, no, no factor. Bro, I ate a cookie bomb. And apparently these cookies have like a thousand calories.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

• 13:39Jocko Willink?

  I didn't know that. And also, you know, like it's discipline and freedom, right? Okay, here's some freedom, right? Got broke out the milk.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's real.

• 13:46Jocko Willink?

  Ate this big ass chocolate chip cookie, bro. I felt like I got hit upside the head with like a baseball bat. I just got tired. And part of it's because I don't, you know, that's not normal for me to just gut bomb a thousand calories worth of sugar.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:02Jocko Willink?

  But dude, I was like, it was gnarly and I felt I fell asleep, you know, like sat down on the couch for a little while because I got, I got done working out, ran, took a shower, gut bomb. Sugar bomb. And like I was sitting there and it was, you know, it was on a weekend and I was like, wow. And I just like fell asleep. Just insulin bomb. So so that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 14:39Jocko Willink?

  Go to jockounderground.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

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jockounderground.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.