Jocko Underground: You Care Too Much About Other People's Opinion About You

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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 139. Sitting here with Echo Charles, getting into some Q and A. Proceed, sir.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Oh, right off. Yeah, yeah. Advice for the people.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  That's what we're calling it.

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's also a reflection or, or an analysis of what's happening in life. You know, what, what other people are going through, we can kind of apply.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  I'm one of those.

• 0:24Jocko Willink?

  To our world, you and me both.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  You and me both. Alright, cool.

• 0:27Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Let's go. Alright, first, um, subject of inquiry, we'll say. Hi Jocko, I'm on the path to becoming a Navy SEAL. Jiu Jitsu, weightlifting, running and swimming are all part of my routine. I just turned 18 and talked to a recruiter on my birthday. However, though I have strong discipline in these areas, I don't know how to stop caring about what other people think about me. I hold people's opinion too high sometimes. I understand that it's important to be humble and accept correction and wisdom for my good, for my good, but what about people who want to take you down a notch? What about people who insult you with insults that aren't even true? Uh, I want to stop fearing other people and to become a courageous man.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  How did you do it, Jocko? PS, love your podcast so much. You and Echo Charles are awesome. God bless.

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  So, not, not to be kind of harsh on this, just out of the gate, but you just gotta get over that stuff. Like, you gotta get over it. You will get annihilated. Annihilated in training, even in boot camp, if you take things personally. In boot camp, they'll attack you. Go watch any, you know, Full Metal Jacket, Officer and a Gentleman, anything where they portray any boot camp scenario. It's just personal attacks. That's what's happening. That's what we're going through. So if you're gonna let this stuff bother you, you're gonna fail. You're gonna freak out. So, just, you, you gotta, you gotta just move on. You gotta get over this kind of thing.

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you have some weird insecurities in your mind that you don't think you're good enough or something like that. And what, what can you do to overcome those things is just keep working out, keep training, keep getting stronger and faster and study. And so you become smarter and keep training jiu jitsu so you know how to fight.

• 2:23Jocko Willink?

  And then you should become secure enough in yourself because this is a real sign of insecurity. Am I wrong?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  I think you're right.

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a real sign of insecurity where someone is so focused on what other people think that inside their own mind, they think that same thing and they get mad even when it's things that aren't true. Like it's just, it's just not good. So how, so how are you going to deal with these things? Some actual methodologies? Well, number one is ignore them, but ignoring can kind of backfire because if I'm, if I tease you, I know you like the word tease. If I tease you about something and you like ignore it kind of to the extreme, I know it got you and I'm going to do it more, right? You can kind of change the subject, which it might be a little bit less obvious than straight ignore. You know, if I say echo, you're bald and ugly and you go, ah, and then you say, hey,

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  hit the record on that thing over there. You know, it's kind of like, it didn't really impact you. It wasn't that big of a deal. Uh, if I say echo, you're bald and ugly and you're like, oh, a hundred percent. Can you hit record? You see what I'm saying? So you can also kind of acknowledge it and sort of be unfazed by it.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  Agree with it. I think that's kind of the most magic one is when someone says, hey, you're bald and ugly and echo Charles says, honestly, that's a good assessment. I, I agree with you. Like these are, that's a, that's a really good one. You use that online one time.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  Someone laid into you in a real scathing kind of way too.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:53Jocko Willink?

  In a not funny, in a not, in a not, I'm having fun kind of way. Like they were really trying to get you.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  They said something, you know, why is this guy even on the podcast? He brings nothing and nothing he says matters. It's a waste of airtime.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  And you replied, honestly, that's a fair assessment. Took the wind out of his sails. Kind of, and in its own right, kind of let us know why you're here in the first place. You know what I mean? It was a double edged, it was a double attack. I liked it. Uh, so agree, you know, nod, smile like, yeah, I am ugly and bald. And then finally, you know, laugh, laugh it off in the way the warrior kid.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  Nathan James is calling Mark plate face. Cause he's got a round face, plate face, plate face. And it's not until Mark goes, oh, that's pretty funny. My face is getting round. And then he realizes that those words don't have as much power as he. Nathan James realizes that the words didn't have as much power as he'd hoped.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  And so also you just gotta recognize that you're not perfect. Right? You're not. Even though you're doing jujitsu and even though you're disciplined in all these things. You're still just a dude. You know, we talked about this on the last underground podcast, the fact that being an Eagle Scout can be really good. It can also be really bad. So if you are disciplined, weightlifting, running, doing jujitsu and swimming, and you want to be a Navy SEAL and you think that makes you better than everyone else, it's a problem.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't make you better than anybody else, just make, means that you're doing certain things.

• 5:29Jocko Willink?

  Also, this is kind of weird. Don't, do you not have friends? Like that also make fun of the, the other guys and make fun of you and everyone kind of teases each other and, and that's what's happening? Like it's weird to me a little bit. That there's no, you know, they make fun of my friends and me, or my friends sometimes make fun of me, or my friends make fun. It's just this guy by himself. So

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  I'm just saying, you know, hang out with some other people that you can kind of have some banter with and it's fun. By the way, I was talking about SEAL training in a SEAL platoon. Though it's, it's on like Donkey Kong. I mean, it's 24 seven, we're going. Anything that, any mistake that you make or don't make, any imperfection that you have, or perceived imperfection that you have, will be addressed aggressively, regularly.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  Um, you know, another thing to think about is people that are like coming at you, they have their own little issues. Here's like the full psychological thing is, you know, if Echo is making fun of me for being whatever. If you make fun of me for not having money, it's because actually you don't really have that much money. Or you make fun of me for being bald. Well, it's actually because you're bald. You see what I'm saying? It's that whole thing. Or even it's not even, it's not even that you're bald, but you're bald and you see that I'm not. So you make fun of, you know, my car, you, you find a way because you're insecure. So there's that too. You could look at other people. Well, that's kind of what I think. If someone's, if someone's legitimately coming after me, it's like, well, dude, that guy's got problems. You know, that guy, that person's got problems. So just remember that.

• 7:11Jocko Willink?

  The other people that are coming at you, they're making fun of you. They're just trying to cover up for something themselves, trying to make themselves feel better. So don't worry about it.

• 7:22Jocko Willink?

  Another thing you could do is do an analysis of what they're saying. Like it, it sounds to me like this guy in many respects is pretty squared away. He does jujitsu, he lifts weights, he runs, he swims. That means he's probably in pretty good physical shape, right?

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  It sounds like he's got discipline, so he's not like a slob, right? So he's probably looking pretty squared away.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  So what are they making fun of? You know what I mean? Like what are they picking on? And then, well, if they're picking on you because you don't have any friends, but you're sitting at the lunch table alone. Bro, go, go say hi to some folks. If they're making fun of you because uh, you're awkward when you talk, cool, then go get better at speaking to people. You see what I'm saying? Like they could be right about some stuff. You know, I've had people criticize me, you know, it's a pretty good point. That's a pretty good point. You know, when, when uh, my friend Griz died and my friend Chris came to me and said, you know, he didn't just die for you. Meaning I was like acting like the, it was, you know, my, I was the most important friend that he had.

• 8:27Jocko Willink?

  It was totally wrong. He said that to me. I was like, oh dang, you're right. Totally. I realized it a hundred percent. And so sometimes you gotta listen to what people are saying and go, oh, this is accurate. This is an accurate statement. So.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of where I'm at. What can you do to take some of that statements that are being made towards you? If they're true, analyze them, make some adjustments. And then also you just got to accept that this bantering and tearing down of people and of things is 100% a part of life. In fact, I'll go further than that. Tearing things down is easier than building things up. So that's the kind of, that's the default human thing. The default human thing is to tear down.

• 9:16Jocko Willink?

  Rather than to build. So expect that what people are going to do is tear you down. Don't get arrogant. There is an easy way to get arrogant too. Like, oh, they're just, they're just jealous of me, right?

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  Don't do that. Just accept that people are going to come at you. They're gonna come at you. They're gonna try and tear you down. It's part of life. It's easier to tear down than, than build up and they're gonna try and tear you down. That's what people are gonna do in life. People at work, people at school, people in your SEAL platoon. Everywhere. So just be ready for that and then just rise above and carry on. That's what you gotta do.

• 9:52Jocko Willink?

  That's what I got.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, rise above and carry on. I feel like that's like a good. Good general approach.

• 10:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's a real good general approach.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Of a B. I think that there's like a couple of things though, only because I, to say. I'm be honest, I kind of understand what this guy's saying when they care too much.

• 10:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Like, you know, if someone's like, cause I mean, they kind of play off each other when it's like, I hold people's opinions too high sometimes, right? Like almost like. Almost like it really bothers you if someone doesn't like you only be in.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Not necessarily because you gotta be liked by everyone, but just because. And I'm only speaking from experience. I don't, I can't read this guy's mind, you know, I'm not a mind reader. You know that about me, but

• 10:41Speaker 01

  if there's any overlap here, it's more because I think I've gone around thinking like, hey, I don't have bad intentions towards people. Like, why would they have it bad intentions towards me? And it didn't like compute, you know? And it bothered me. Maybe I did something and I didn't know, you know? And it'd always come down to, or one of the things it would always come down to is like, then maybe I don't take certain things as seriously as I should, you know? Cause you know how you can get mad at someone if you're like in a serious spot mentally, but something serious is going on and then someone's joking around. Like that can really like be bad. So I'd always be like, shit, was I like joking around too much? I don't know. Did I do something unlike? That I didn't realize I did. And this person's just like, doesn't like me now.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And for whatever reason, I always felt like I was overly sensitive to that. Like, oh shit, this person's mad at me. Did I do something wrong? Like that kind of thing. And it, but it was like, it didn't feel like, I felt like I was too sensitive. I didn't feel like it was appropriate.

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  So did you, did you mature out of this or like what? Are you still there?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Put it this way, I'm still living with it.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Getting by, but um, put it this way, I think when you kind of self reflect.

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  I think and accept certain things like, yeah, people are like, you can't read everyone's mind. You don't know what's going on with people. So it's like, you can't, you can't just take it like that. There's a lot more going on. And from there, I just figure, man, I'm just gonna do my best, you know?

• 12:04Jocko Willink?

  And there, there is clearly there's a spectrum because you know, when you hear someone say, don't care about, don't worry about what anyone else thinks.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, then you can be crazy. You can do stuff that's unacceptable, right? And yet if you're just afraid to do anything because you're just too scared because of what people will think. And now you don't make any moves. You don't want to stand out. You don't want to state your own mind and you're just kind of being. 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 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

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  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 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,

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  we will see you mobilized underground.