Jocko Underground: SANITY CHECK. You Can't Accurately See The Mob if You are Part Of The Mob | How to Overcome Fear

You Can't Accurately See The Mob if You are Part Of The Mob. Dealing with the clowns in everyday society. Dealing with a person who always runs late. How to succeed in an industry when you have no experience. How to get over Fear. How to deal with a person in the group who is supremely disrespectful and egotistical. 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 89, sitting here with Echo Charles. I was talking to one of my, one of my SEAL buddies a few weeks ago, and he was running through some quotes from me, but it was from years ago. I was, we were in trade at together and he was saying, he just like rattled off a few of them, and one of them was like, oh, that's a pretty good one. He, he said, I said, "You can't sanity check things you are a part of. You can't sanity check things that you are a part of."

• 0:34Jocko Willink?

  This is an early manifestation of detachment, which I also talk about a lot back then, but it's similar to also what I've been talking about, I've been talking about this a bit on, on the academy, the Extreme Ownership Academy, and I've talked about it at Gettysburg. Anyways, it's a topic that comes up a lot. I talk about when you're in a leadership position, you're in charge of a mob, and the mob is going to act like a mob, which means they have a mob mentality, which means they're going to have group think, which means they're all going to get in the same, they're going to, the emotions are going to spread throughout that mob, and if they do something good, and they start feeling good about it, they're

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  all going to feel good about it, and they're going to become arrogant if they're not careful. The leader's the one that has to put the stop to that. It can also go in the other direction if the, you know, if they do something bad, or they lose a game, or they do a bad mission, or you fail at a project, or you don't get the client that you wanted to get, and all of a sudden, the negativity starts to spread, and morale starts to decline, and it becomes a crisis of confidence. That's also something that the leader has to put a stop to. But the leader can only do that. They can only see the direction of the mob and understand if the direction of the mob is correct if they're not in the mob. The leader has to be outside the mob if they're going to see if something is right or wrong, or see if

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  the mob is heading in the right or wrong directions, direction. So this is- Critical to think about. That's why when you watch a mob on TV, it's like, you understand that what they're doing is bad, but they don't, they kind of do, but why, why are they doing it if they know it's bad? Like if they know they could get arrested, if they know they could, they could go to jail, if they know they could, they're damaging property that has nothing to do with whatever they're pissed about. You know, all those things, but when you're in that mob, you're still just picking up a chair and throwing it through a window like that's what they're doing.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  Mob mentality. So you can't be in the mob. You have to be very careful as a leader of, of being in the mob. Now, this term, this thing that I said clearly was about planning because

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  that's a common term that we used to use in the SEAL teams with sanity check. I think it's a common term, term anywhere, but we definitely would use. Yes, common term sanity check. Hey, give this thing a sanity check.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:00Jocko Willink?

  Like, am I crazy? Is this a crazy idea?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  It made sense, but I never, I don't know if I heard.

• 3:04Jocko Willink?

  Well, we use it a lot, you know, be, hey, chief, can you check out, can you just sanity check this for me? Or maybe the chief would come to lieutenant, hey lieutenant, can you sanity check this for me? Like it was a common term to say, but, but that part of the idea is that if you're part of what's happening, you can't sanity check it. You can't, you don't, you're not capable of doing it. It's not possible. Unless you're really good at detachment, then it becomes a little bit possible, but, but here's, so, so here's the takeaways from this. Number one, when you're in a leadership position, if you can avoid it, don't be a part of the granular planning. Don't get into it. Cause once you're into it, you can't see a bunch of it. You're part of the mob now. Then you can't see what's happening. So delegate the planning to the troops.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  Delegate the planning to the team, delegate the planet to your subordinate, planning to your subordinate leaders. So they can, they can come up with a plan and then you get to look at it. And I wrote about this in the book, Extreme Ownership. Then you get to stand back and be the tactical genius. Then you get to stand back and they present the plan to you and you go, hey, that's pretty good. Here's two things that you missed. And those are really important things. And you know, this is what I think actually that's life's chapter in Extreme Ownership. He's talking about me and how I would sit there and look at his plan. And I'd be like, hey, life is really good plan, but you missed this piece of high ground over here. You know, what's Chaco tactical genius? How does he know this? It's because I wasn't all caught up in it.

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  So delegate the planning to the troops, stand back and be the tactical genius. That's number one. Number two, equally important, but it's the opposite. If you are.

• 4:36Jocko Willink?

  Part of that mob, you have to reach out and get an outside opinion, right? You have to make the effort to say, hey, can you come take a look at this? And tell me if this makes sense or not? Because I'm part of this mob over here and my thinking might be corrupted by the mob, which is entirely possible. So you've got to ask for that input and then you actually have to listen to it. Because a lot of times people don't like to listen to anybody else. Especially when you've got a mob of seven people on your team that are all like, oh, this is gonna be the best thing ever. And then one outside opinion says, well, that's not gonna work too well because of this. And you go, you don't know who you're talking about. So you gotta just be careful of that. When you're part of the mob, you're, you, you listen to the mob. You're part of the mob.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  So be careful about that. You're a little bit crazy. When you're in a leadership position, don't be part of the mob. That's what I got for today.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that mob thing is real. And I've told you this before where when I was a bouncer and this is what they kind of teach you in.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  Bouncer Academy?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Bouncer Academy, yeah. Actually, it's like you get, it's, it's a security, like certification course.

• 5:45Jocko Willink?

  Professor Dalton comes in?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Maybe. For your guard card, you get your guard card.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it's a legit course?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:56Jocko Willink?

  Who teaches it? Is it at a university or is it like a state run or what is it?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Like, I think county, maybe. I don't know. I don't know who runs it, but you know, yeah, yeah.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  So you're kind of a fish?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  You need this certification card to work.

• 6:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, Echo Charles Certified Bouncer, alright.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Literally, yeah. Anyway, it's what they teach you with.

• 6:15Jocko Willink?

  How long is the course?

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  Something tells me it's three hours?

• 6:22Jocko Willink?

  Is it more than one day?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I think it's one day. I don't know. I forget.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  So it's like the.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Cause I've taken it multiple times. So I forget if it was.

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  Concealed carry class, which is like a day.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, I would compare it to that, yes.

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  So.

• 6:36Jocko Willink?

  So you're in this doctorate.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  What they teach you, one of the many things they teach you is, actually the stuff in there is, I still remember it pretty much. Like as a citizen, it helps you a lot, even as a normal person. So anyway. In a case of emergency, right, like a fire scenario, he's like, hey, they need you. It's actually kind of, it's leadership in a way where, not in a way it's straight up is because they say, hey, in a fire, people's automatic instinct is to go out where they came in. Like, there can be an exit, a fire exit, right here. And I used to, I worked in this club where there's three levels or whatever. And they came in the, it was called the bitter end. Now it's called the tipsy.

• 7:12Jocko Willink?

  I remember the bitter end.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right across the street from Maloney's. But, um, so they, he said, hey, they need you. Otherwise, it's gonna be like panic and people are all gonna rush for that main exit because most of them came in that way. So you have to essentially be the brain of the whole group.

• 7:30Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  The group think and, um, and direct them towards the exit and you better be loud because it's like they have a mind of their own, you know, kind of a thing. And I was like, huh, that makes sense because even like imagining myself in this situation, I would go through the, the main exit too. I wouldn't like look for the escape. Now I would, but it's same thing.

• 7:49Jocko Willink?

  We should cover the course at some point, what you learned from the guard card.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  But they tell you how to do a citizen's arrest. They do like all this stuff like it's, there's a lot of like legal stuff where it's like a lot of technical stuff. So you can like maneuver your way through. It's actually pretty clever. I thought.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  It's like a warning though, right? Like when you get your CCW and everything's a warning.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  Like if you do this, you're gonna go to, you're gonna get fined this, you're gonna go to jail for that.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  Basically, if you, if you are CCW, meaning you have a concealed carry license, which you and I both have, and you shoot someone, they're like, you're going.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Get ready. Oh, yeah.

• 8:26Jocko Willink?

  Get ready. You're getting arrested.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  That's essentially it. It's, it's, what did they say? I think you might've said this, maybe the instructor did where they said, if you fire the, you're like, if you're, if you fire your weapon, just pretend that it has your name, address, social security number and bank account on that bullet. Just imagine like that.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they don't play around.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  So buckle up, man. And yeah, they offer all kinds of legal stuff or whatever. It's so, um. It they're so sketch about it.

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  Was this Guard Card or CCW?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  CCW. Where they're like, hey, if anyone sees that on you, get ready. They're like cops are gonna come because they don't know, you know, like it just because you have that license, you can't just be like, no, I have a license. Like people are gonna see you with a gun and they're gonna get scared.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  And they're gonna panic.

• 9:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, there's huge deconfliction to be done too, because think about it. You're in a shooting, a shooting situation. And you're in civilian clothes and you just pull out your gun and start shooting people, even if it's a bad guy. And a cop comes up, what is he thinking? He you're getting shot.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  So it's a real, you gotta really think about what you're doing. So a lot of the advice. 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 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 of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.

• 10:12Jocko 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 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.