Jocko Underground: What is The Mark of a Man?

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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 148 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. We have some Q and A from members of the underground.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  What do we got?

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Some guidance for life, which is very beneficial. All right, first question, thank you for everything you do. I'm giving hope to so many people, including myself. I have a simple question. What is the measure of a man? I'm sitting here 45 years old. I never joined the military, never done anything for the country, for the community. Is there some measure of endurance or some feat that you would consider the mark of a man? Spartans had their rituals. We don't have any rituals. What if you walked from San Diego to Canada? What if you did military type training? I'm looking for some kind of meaning, I guess. Is there some act that when done, you could look back and say, damn, that was manly of me? Climb a mountain? I don't know, I'm rambling now.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Thanks for all your help.

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of an interesting thought. My first thought was there's a scene in Caddyshack. You ever seen Caddyshack?

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08Jocko Willink?

  Where Chevy Chase, who's a tall guy? And he's talking to one of the golf, like leader of the club. And he says, you know, what'd you shoot yesterday? He's like, I don't really know. What do you mean you don't know? He's like, I really don't keep score. And the guy goes, how do you measure yourself against other golfers? And Chevy Chase goes, by height.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  And it's, well, the thing that's funny about that quote is it's like, it's arbitrary. And it's something that Chevy Chase is tall, this guy's short. I measure by height. You know what I mean? Which is kind of applicable here. Like, what are you into? And, and look, there's some stuff that, that people might think of, right? Whether it's. Like some kind of military activity, whether it's some kind of exploration, whether it's some kind of physical or mental feat that you do, whether you're, you know, you win the freaking chess championships of the world, chess.com, Echo Charles, what's your, what's your call sign?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  All day, Echo Charles 24.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  So if you're just going up in the rankings and you become the number one player in a game that's very, takes a lot of cerebral horsepower. Okay, that's cool. Or if you, you're Alex Honnold and you climb LCAP with no ropes, free solo, you know, that was at a big deal. Yeah, it's an awesome bill. There's some people that don't even understand what that is, by the way. There's some people that are out of that ecosystem. There's some people that would literally say that's stupid.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, fully.

• 2:31Jocko Willink?

  There's some people that say, oh, you spend all your time doing chess. Why don't you go and study how to cure cancer? Right? That's, we understand that's, there's some people that look at a person climbing up a, a 3,000 foot granite face with no ropes and go, that's, what are you pursuing this for? Why would you risk death?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Thought you're relevant.

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  Your life is, so, so what's your perspective here? You know, I, I think if I was to try and boil this down to say, you know, what are you doing to be a good man, to be a good human? Help other people. Because I think at the end of the day, even when, when we look at the military and you say, that's, that's a heroic thing to do. Why is it heroic? Is it heroic if you're out doing bad things?

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not heroic at all. It's supposed to be heroic because you're out helping.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Saving.

• 3:22Jocko Willink?

  You're saving your teammates. You're helping kill the bad guys so that you can save the oppressed people. Like that's what makes it heroic. And I don't know, I'm, I can see that I'm subconsciously avoiding the term manly.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  Cause it seems a little strange, you know, to me, like manly.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 3:42Jocko Willink?

  It's like, like there's negative connotation behind it in my mind. Like, oh, you know, like someone say, oh, you, you, you're so, you think you're so manly.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  Just seems like a weird term to me. But I kind of understand, but I understand what the intent of his word is like, hey, how can I look back at my life and say, I, I did honorable things as a person, things that are respectable, things that have meaning. And I would say, if you were talking about honor and meaning and respect, I would go to what I was talking about, helping other people, you know?

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  And, and so if like, like what does an explorer do? Why is an explorer admirable? Cause they take risk to open up new horizons. They find the new world. They go to the moon. They go to Mars. That's exploring and opening new horizons for humanity.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  And even someone like Alex Honnold, who's, he's doing something that is expanding the capability of humans, showing the potential of humans, inspiring other humans. So it's actually, if you're, as long as you're not one of the people that's saying, well, you could die, so it's stupid. A lot of people look at it and go, he really proved what humans are capable of. He inspired people. He helped people in, in the world. So I think if you, but I think if, if you were trying to break it down and you really want to look back at your life and say you did things that are good and honorable and respectful and meaningful, I would say the apex of that mountain to climb is helping other people out.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Whether it's elderly people that need help, that are sitting alone in a, in a freaking old folks home. What do they call those?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Old folks home.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  There's another name for it, a more like politically correct name.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know. Senior living care. Yeah, something like, they have a, they have a better, nicer name for it now. Uh, or maybe it's some kids, right? Maybe it's some kids that are, you know, in a bad situation and they need guidance. They need mentorship. They need help. They need someone to teach them how to throw baseball, whatever the thing is.

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  Maybe, you know, so there's people out there that are underprivileged people out there. There's people that are in need. If you can help those people,

• 5:57Jocko Willink?

  I think that's the honorable, I think that's the most meaningful, honorable, respectable thing that you could do. And if you want to throw the word manly on that, go ahead. That's my perspective.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, seems like a.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Like as a man, I don't know, this could be just my bias, but it seems like the more useful you are, like I just how you said to others, you know, so like fixing stuff, saving people, helping out in a way that needs to be done, you know, like that's the thing. I think, um, I think you might've been thinking along the lines of like, what is there like a mark, like a big one, you know, like a rite of passage almost kind of a thing that kind of is like, hey, that's manly of you. That's a like, you're a man now that you did this kind of a thing.

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Go out, contribute to society and sustain yourself and build a family.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:47Jocko Willink?

  You know, take care of your family.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It feels like, you know, yeah, I think we're kind of all enamored. Hey, we all are in one way or another. When it's like, you know, especially, you know, when you look on TV and the news and like all the stuff and you have these like seemingly larger than life heroes, you know, guys winning the medal of honor. It's kind of like, well, then you look at yourself, you're like, I don't win no medal of honor. I haven't done anything even close to that, you know? And then I think that kind of precipitates into like these feelings, you know, of like, shoot, what did I do? And you kind of go down the list and you're like, kind of confused, wait, I did this, but not that, you know? So it's kind of makes sense that you'd want to that.

• 7:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And when, when people earn the medal of honor, they do it by helping people. You know, they save other people's lives. They're able to push forward so that a battle can be won. They drag someone, you know, back. 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 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 are doing this so we don't have to be under the control

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.

• 8:12Jocko 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 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.