Jocko Underground: Is Comparison Really The Thief Of Joy? |

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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 102, sitting with Echo Charles. Echo Charles, I have two quotes for you, equivalent quotes, I guess, same thing. One of them is comparison is the thief of joy, that's Teddy Roosevelt. The other one, comparison is the death of joy, Mark Twain. Mark Twain's 20 years old, so giving him the credit. But do I agree with that? Just dichotomy, hate to say it, because listen, competition's a good thing, right? Competition's a good thing. You and I competitive, right? We train jiu-jitsu, right? If you catch me, I want to catch you, right?

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  In jiu-jitsu, if you are able to beat me, or if I'm able to beat you, you want to beat me, right? It's competitive. We just don't go there and like hug it out, you know what I mean?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  No, we don't.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  We're trying to fight. That's competition. Makes me work harder, makes you work harder, maybe. But you know, when you're, let me ask you this, when you're doing a Metcon, do you ever think during the Metcon that you're going to be training with me?

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  Check, see, you see what I'm saying?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yes, I do.

• 1:15Jocko Willink?

  You push yourself a little more, I do the same thing, not so much about you, but about some other people.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Thank you for that honesty on that one.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I've seen in some comments, people take that stuff real seriously. No, some people, some people know I'm kidding, but some people think I'm like, you know, Jocko talks about being humble, but he just rags on Echo and I'm like, dude, you need to watch that video because we're laughing.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  There's a psychological game within the game.

• 1:42Jocko Willink?

  What's that?

• 1:44Speaker 01

  It's an expression, like there's more to it than just you're just razzing me and I'm just getting razzed, you know? There's a lot more.

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  There's more going on there?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  There's all big time.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay, alright.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  See, see, that's a tactic too.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  By the way.

• 2:00Jocko Willink?

  So we're pushing harder because we compare with each other. Um, but that being said, I do understand where this comment comes from for sure. Probably because even though the competitive thing and you know, in the SEAL teams, everything's competitive. Like it doesn't matter if you're like doing a beach run, you're competing, you're shooting, you're competing. Everything that you're doing, you're competing. And it's good, it's healthy 90% of the time. But in life, I think it's actually not healthy. I would say like maybe 50% of the time, maybe it's just an even split. Sometimes this comparison, this competition can bring out the worst in us. It can bring, make people cheat.

• 2:42Jocko Willink?

  It can prevent us from being happy.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  Your buddy gets a nice new car.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  How does that make you feel?

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, there's some people that when their buddy gets a nice new car, they're kind of jealous and pissed.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  Uh, that was one of my favorite stories about Stoner. I bought a house in a cool location that was by our surf spots.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  And when he, I texted him to meet me there, like I didn't say anything about it because I didn't want to jinx it. You know what I mean? Is that superstitious?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So I was being superstitious, but I didn't want to jinx it and tell him, bro, I got us a spot like, I got a spot, like we're going to be set for surfing. And so finally I got the keys.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  That's when you know.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  And I texted him, I said, hey, come see the new house. And he's like, send the address. So I sent the address and he was like, oh shit. And so I got there and I'm waiting for him. He comes up the stairs and he walks in, he goes, dude, we are set.

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  It wasn't even his house, bro, but he knew we were set. You know what I'm saying? He knew he was never gonna have to like not have a surfboard on location and wet suit and shower and just be good to hook. But I had some other friends came over and what they pointed out was the negatives of this house. Like, oh, you've wiped all over here and like, where's your gun? Hating. And oh, yeah. And it's just a bummer. You know what I mean? So if you ever feel that way, it's a little red flag you gotta watch out for. And it, and it can build up that resentment and that resentment is just terrible for you. And it's this, it's this Cain and Abel story, right? It's the Cain and Abel story. Both Cain and Abel made sacrifices to God.

• 4:38Jocko Willink?

  And for whatever reason, unclear, God didn't appreciate Cain's gift as much as he appreciated Abel's sacrifice or gift, right? Just for whatever reason, not even, it's not in the Bible. It's not clear why. But Cain was furious about this and he killed his own brother. He killed his own brother.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  Because his brother got praise. That's why he killed him.

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  So this happens with people. You know, I worked harder than that company's worked or, you know, I made the sacrifices. You know, why does he get the recognition? Why does he get the money? Why is that? This, this stuff happens.

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  And it's very disturbing.

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes in some cases, comparison and competition can drive resentment and negativity. And those are absolutely yes, terrible things.

• 5:34Jocko Willink?

  So don't be that person. You should be happy when other people win. Should be happy for them. Should be stoked. And in fact, hopefully you reach a point where when other people win, you get joy out of it. Makes you feel better than if you won yourself. You'll get to seal that with, you get to feel that with your kids. You know, when your kids are doing well, you'll be more happy than if you did well. Like you see your kid, something as simple as you see your kid catch a good wave. And you, you're more happy, more stoked when they catch a good wave than when you catch a good wave. Or they catch it good. They catch like a heel hook on a fool. You know what I mean? And it's like, yo, got that heel hook.

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  So you that's how you should feel when other people when your friends, the people around you, they win. What it should feel like is your comparison should be like stoke. I'm glad they got that. Instead of hatred and resentment and jealousy. So be be careful of comparison. That's my overall assessment here. I'm not going to go that it's the death of joy or it's the thief of joy. It can bring joy. It can also bring resentment and frustration and hatred. So just be careful with these things. Be careful. And if that's what it does to you, if you can't sleep at night because you're pissed off that Echo got a freaking new car and you think you deserve, if that's where you're at, man, check yourself.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  You're just insecure. Your ego is insecure. You got issues.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. A lot where it was kind of told to me that that like indicates a lack of gratitude, right? So the. Cause like if you get a new car. At the very minimum, it shouldn't make me feel anything at the minimum. If I like you, then yeah, I should be happy for you ideally, right? But if I have no gratitude, you getting the new car isn't you getting the new car. It's me not getting a new car. See what I'm saying? So it's like it it's I'm looking at it backwards in a way.

• 7:39Jocko Willink?

  Wait, if you have gratitude?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm like, okay, I'm thankful for what I have. What you have has no bearing on me, except for you're my friend. So you're happy. I'm happy. You're happy because I like you and you're my friend. That's that's kind of the baseline. But to someone who lacks gratitude, meaning like. I am not thankful for what I have or whatever, just the baseline or whatever. It's not, it doesn't land on you like. They got a car and it's some other person getting a car. It's you. Almost like you got your car taken away, almost kind of a kind of a thing, but it's you not getting a car.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  That's how that's how jacked up human beings can be. Yeah. Think about how jacked up that is.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  You're so jacked up that one of your friends gets a new car. And you get pissed about it.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  You're mad.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  Even if your enemy gets a new car.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:24Jocko Willink?

  You should be like, dude, good job.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  It can get so bad, you can literally get a new car for free and your neighbor buys a new car nicer than yours by your own opinion, not his, your own opinion and you're mad. That's how deep it can go. See what I'm saying? And you know, they have an expression for it, right? Keeping up with the Joneses. Yeah, I was gonna say Kardashians, but you know, that's another thing. Actually, it's the same thing. Same thing. That's where the name came from. Keeping up with the Joneses, right? It's like, oh yeah, I have my new house. I'm so happy. I got my car, got my kids and then my neighbor gets like a bigger house and a bigger cars. Oh, my car sucks all of a sudden, you know? It's like a weird psychological phenomenon. Right? It can be the thief of joy, straight up.

• 9:04Jocko Willink?

  You know what else is funny is when some people, when it doesn't bother you and Echo rolls in in his new Cadillac and I was like, oh, cool. Nice car, but they're not mad. You're mad because I'm not jealous. That's like next level. That's next level, dude.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Level, the double.

• 9:22Jocko Willink?

  When I didn't even ask you how much it costs, right?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Brutal.

• 9:25Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, you're like, dude, I paid cash for this thing. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. You're trying to get me to say. 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 JacoUnderground.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

• 10:06Jocko Willink?

  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 JacoUnderground.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.