Jocko Underground: I'm Looking For Purpose In Life.

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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 164, sitting with Echo Charles, going to provide some insight, hopefully, some courses of action for you all. What do we got? Let's get some questions from the, from the troopers.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Courses of action, okay. Jocko, I'm looking for a purpose in my life. I want to help people and feel like I have aligned with my strengths as an individual to where my income is from, is from something I really enjoy and I feel like I'm making a difference. I have a beautiful wife and one-year-old son and I work as a wildland firefighter. I enjoy the physicality of the job and the team aspect, but I don't feel like it's my true purpose. It's hard on my family to be gone for a good portion of the summer as well. I wanted this job because I want to make California safer and enhance the health of the forest. I'm taking forestry classes at a local college and I'm on the path to get a good job. Before my family or my job as a firefighter, I had a dream to be a stand-up comedian. I felt

• 0:55Speaker 01

  a lot of passion and purpose in the pursuit of that goal. However, as life has gotten busier, that dream has got pushed to the side. I'm not sure with, I'm not sure which direction to go now. I'm squared away in life, have good discipline, and I just need, need a direction. I'm trying to listen closely to my intuition as to where to go next. I'm starting back at comedy. I'm doing it very consistently now and I've given myself this year to see if it's still something I want. I don't see myself dropping everything for it, though. I have a family to provide for. I've always dreamed of owning some type of, type of business that helps people or really just play into my strengths to help at a job that I really believe in. I know firefighting, you're helping and giving. I just don't think

• 1:40Speaker 01

  it's for me long-term. Any advice would be appreciated.

• 1:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, starting off, thanks your service as a wildland firefighter. That's a freaking rough job and especially if you've been out here in California, you've had a busy season. So, thank you. Here's, I guess my thoughts are like, okay, you like the comedian thing? I would say, keep trying the comedian thing.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  But entertainment is hard and I I don't know the percentage. But I'm going to guess that 99% of people that try and be comedians cannot make a living by being a comedian. Most people aren't going to make it. And so that's why when you have that little thing about, uh, I'm starting back in comedy doing consistently to see if it's something I still want. You also have to, you have to, uh, see if it's something that you have potential in. And it takes a long time to become a successful comedian too. Like, I want to say Theo Von was like a comedian for, for 15 years before anybody heard of him. Or before anybody like in the mainstream heard of him before he could make a good living from it.

• 2:49Jocko Willink?

  You know, like in this case, you got a wife and kid, probably got more kids coming. He wasn't supporting a family. I can tell you that much. So, um, I would say keep, see where that takes you, what kind of opens up, you know? Maybe you start, you know, getting your name out there and people are really into it. Cool. So that's, I think you just, I think you, that's something you do is on the side, right? That's just a side thing and you see where it goes. Sometimes it works for people. Sometimes people are doing something on the side. They're making music on the side, they're painting on the side, they're, uh, they're shaping surfboards on the side. They're building guitars on the side, they're doing some side thing. And it can grow. Dude, you did that. Remember when you were making videos as a side thing?

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  Totally. Then it became your real thing. Real thing. So I would say that's what you do with comedy. You do it on the side, you practice, you train, but you know, you don't, you don't quit your job to go be a comedian. Now as far, same thing as far as being a business owner and growing it, just start a business, man. Like, you know, start shaping surfboards, start being a builder, you know, building decks for people, uh, woodworking. Start a food truck, uh, be a landscaper, start catering. I don't know, like, what are you into?

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? What are you into? Cause as a firefighter, you got some time to start some stuff and this day and age, you buy the URL. Hell yeah. You know, uh, uh, landscapefirefighter.com.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden you got a little business.

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  Just whatever, but you just start a little business. You know, you got a little bit of income. You don't, don't over invest in it, but you start a little something. You see how it does.

• 4:36Jocko Willink?

  And just like comedy, probably not quite as harsh as entertainment because a lot of people want to be entertainers, right? They want to be movie star. They want to be in a movie. They want to be uh, write a movie, make a movie. They want to write a TV show. They want to write a song. They want to do a bunch of entertainment stuff.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  Less than 1% of people actually ever make it in that industry.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  Business

• 5:03Jocko Willink?

  is also difficult. 25% of businesses fail in the first year, 50% fail in the first five years and 65% are dead in the decade.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  So that's not great percentages.

• 5:17Jocko Willink?

  And you got a family. So you keep your job and you, you don't let go of your job as a wildland firefighter. Until one of these things, it just gets so much traction that you're like, all right, cool. I got something else going on. So you're doing that. And then on top of that. I think you, it doesn't sound like you want to be, it doesn't sound like you want the profession of being a firefighter long-term. So then, you know, you say you're taking classes right now, keep taking classes. And you figure out what your other new career could be, whether it's being in forestry, maybe you could be in the the park ranger scenario, you know, live up there Yosemite with your family. It's pretty cool.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  Or you learn how to weld, or you learn uh, dentistry or electrical, like there's a bunch of different actual jobs you could get that you're into.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you're, if you're an electrician, you get to be outside. Especially big commercial electrician, you know, you're kind of outside working on buildings. You're inside a little bit too much, but maybe you're a framer, like there's a bunch of jobs you get, so study and figure out which other career path you might like.

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  So that's my recommendation. Keep your options open.

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  Open some doors and keep chasing your dreams without abandoning reality.

• 6:46Jocko Willink?

  That's my rec, my overall recommendation. Chase your dreams for sure, but don't abandon reality.

• 6:53Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I got.

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  You like that one?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  I very much like that one, yeah.

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  But what about the person that says, yeah, but if you don't commit a hundred percent to your dreams, then you're, you won't make it. I call bullshit on that. Because there's 24 hours in a day. And you can, you can, if you commit those hours that you're not working or sleeping, you can get a lot of stuff done.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:23Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like a lot of times though, that, that sounds good because under some circumstances, I, I would believe that that is correct. Where it's like, hey, let's just go all in a hundred percent. But I think the reality, like in real life, you can still commit, like, for example, you want to be a stand-up comedian, you can still commit to that.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  You don't have to just burn your, what do you go burn the boats, right? You don't have to burn the boats. But if you're committed, you're committed.

• 7:51Jocko Willink?

  There's very few instances where I can think that burning the boats is the right move. Because I actually think you'll end up in a worse spot. Greg Train. When he came to me and was like, hey dude, I got this opportunity to go to the school and learn, uh, what is it, x-ray tech? Or I can commit a hundred percent to MMA. And he had all kinds of potential. Because he's a badass wrestler, he's freaking strong as hell, he's a good striker, he was great jujitsu. And so he was like, you know, what should I do? And I said, well, how many, you know, you've heard me say it before. How many hours a day can you train? I don't know, maybe four, five at the most? Okay.

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  So how many hours do you go to school? And we just broke down the numbers. And you could, and not have to worry about food, not have to worry about health insurance, because you're an x-ray tech now. You've got a paycheck coming in, you can get the best food, and you can still train five hours a day, no problem.

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  No problem. Now, would it be optimum if you could spend those eight hours that you were at work, you know, getting massage and doing saunas and ice baths to recover? Sure, that'd be optimum. But guess what? When you're doing that, now you don't have good food because you can't afford it.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  So I guess people like if you're, if you want to move to LA or New York because you want to be a actor, right? Like, okay, I gotta move to LA. Okay. But when you get to LA, man, like now you're worried about food. You're not, you can't really commit so much because you gotta work as a waiter. So I'm just saying be careful.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and agree. That's all true. And that's exactly what I mean where it's like, I see how that could kind of be beneficial to be like, fuck yeah, burn the boats. And I see, but I think generally speaking, no, like if you're committed to something, you can make iterative decision, decisions in the direction of that commitment 100%. And that's actually the smarter way to do it. Most of the time. I think you're right about that.

• 9:52Jocko Willink?

  I was committed. I wrote Extreme Ownership in airplanes, in hotel lobbies, on trains. 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're 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

• 10:33Jocko Willink?

  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 assistance at jockounderground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.