Jocko Underground: Would You Have What it Takes to be in SOF?

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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 181, sitting here with Echo Charles. We've got a series of questions from you all, which we will provide answers or courses of actions or recommendations. Let's get into it.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Jocko, I work for a web publishing company that just laid off 12% of the staff, including growing segments while protecting declining ones. Leadership only gave a vague email and slashed freelance budgets despite strong ROI. It won't address the questions. Our financial reports show revenue up, costs flat and cash strong, yet concerns are dismissed, leaving me worried about both my job and the company's future. Should I move on? Push for answers or just keep my head down? Thank you.

• 0:53Jocko Willink?

  Should I move on, push for answers, or just keep my head down? The answer is yes. You should do all three of those things. You should keep your head down. What does that mean? You should work hard, perform well, try and help the company win. You should do that for sure. At the same time, you should also push for answers. Try and figure out what's happening. Ask some earnest questions, bring it up the chain of command and the all hands, maybe send an email to your, to your direct superior. Ask him what's happening. Ask if you get some more information. Ask some direct questions about like, hey, where are we at with this and what, what's going on with that?

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  And, and don't accuse them. Just say, hey, look, I want to be able to support the mission here. I'm wondering if we could find out why this budget got cut.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  And then while you're doing that, you should also, yes, prepare your resume and have an exit strategy. You know, reach out to some of those relationships that you have in the industry. Talk to them. Hey, how is everything going over there? You know, what positions do you guys have coming available? Hey, you just, you know, just keep things on the ready. Cause these are not good signs that we're seeing, but there is a chance that, you know, they're going to get a major investor that's going to come in and they want them to focus on this other thing. And so they're getting rid of some of the other stuff. Like there's a possibility that everything's cool, but we don't know yet. So I would do all three of those things. I would work hard, perform well, try and help the company win. I would ask earnest questions and try and figure out what the hell is going on and I would prepare my resume.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  That if we need to leave and form some, some relationships with some other companies. So I'd have a, an exit strategy. That's what I do.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  You watch the movie Office Space?

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Classic, right?

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  Classic.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  It kind of seems like that's what it, you know, like a scenario, you know, where they come in and they start making these changes or whatever. Efficiency experts, right? So basically when this guy comes with that in or finds himself in that interview. Where he's like, what is it you'd say? You do here. That's when you know right there.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  You know me, I don't know. All right. Next question. Jocko, I'm 24, always wanted to join the military, but family discouraged me. So I'm, so I studied engineering. The job is soul sucking and I know army special forces would make sense. I'm active, outdoorsy. I love languages and history, but my PT stats lag despite constant training. I'm tall and lean like Israel Adesanya.

• 3:22Jocko Willink?

  Damn, okay.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Strong and rocking and grappling, but struggle with pushups, pullups and high volume work. My question, what kinds of guys succeed in special operations? Do I need to drop everything and just train PSD numbers? Or have you, have you seen guys struggle with stats, but still make it?

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, quite frankly, unless you can pass the PSD with authority, you won't be going to selection. So I don't know what you really mean by struggle with pushups, pullups. I don't know what you mean by that. Like, can you, by struggle, do you mean you can only do 20? Pullups and that's kind of a struggle or by struggle, do you mean you can do three?

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  By struggle, do you mean you can do, like it's hard for you to get 100 pushups in two minutes? Or by struggle, do you mean you can only do 22 pushups? You see what I'm saying? There's a big difference there. Um, and if you can't do the numbers, you can't go to selection. So yes, if you want to go to selection, you got to focus on the numbers, you got to train them. And by the way, the better that you do with the numbers, the better chance you have in making it through selection. So special forces, pushups. Minimum standard, 49 in two minutes. It's minimum standard. Recommended is 80. So if you're having trouble getting 80, eh, you know what?

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  But you're still, but you're doing, you know, 72 or you're doing 68. So you're kind of, you're beating the minimum standard, cool. Minimum standard for situps, 59 in two minutes. Recommended is 80 plus, the same thing. Pullups, minimum standard of six, recommended is 15 to 20. So can you only do seven pullups? If you're doing seven pumps, that's a problem.

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  You, you gotta get your numbers up.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  You can go down the list. It sounds like you're a good runner. Um, sounds like you can rock well, so that's cool. So to answer your question, what kinds of guys succeed in soft? They're going to be able to do a lot of pullups, pushups. They're going to be able to run, rock, like you gotta be good at stuff. Can have major, you can have some areas where you're weaker, but you can't have areas that are weak. Period.

• 5:48Jocko Willink?

  So yes, you have to focus on it. Yes, you have to train it. And the better your numbers are, the better chance you have of making it through training. So it's the same thing with SEAL training. Like they single biggest identifier of people that are going to, going to make it through is like their runtime and swim time. Like just doing, I think it's sub, sub nines, sub nine swim and sub nine run for, what is it? A mile and a half? In the run and 500 yard swim, if those things are sub nine, you got like a much better chance of making it through. And I think pull ups they throw in there too. 20, 20, 20 to 25 pull ups is like solid. You have a much better chance of making it through. If you can do eight

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  pull ups, bro, you, you're gonna have problems. Freaking rope climbs, obstacle course. How are you gonna pass the obstacle course if you can't do more than freaking 15 or 20 pull ups? Or if you can't do at least 50 to 20 pulls, you ain't gonna pass it. So it's the same thing here. That's what you gotta do. You gotta get good at this stuff. And it's weird because he says,

• 6:54Jocko Willink?

  despite, he says something about despite working on it, right?

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah, despite constant training. So you gotta get your training in order. Cause if you're training hard in pull ups, you will get better at pulls. You do a lot of pulls, you'll get to do more pulls. You do a lot of pushups, you get to better at pushups. So if I were you, if you want to make it through this training, you gotta do well on the PST, I would start training a bunch of pull ups, a bunch of pushups, situps, rope climbs, lunges, squats, burpees. 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 Jocko Underground dot com and subscribe. And we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  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. 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 Jocko Underground dot com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance

• 8:26Jocko Willink?

  at Jocko Underground dot com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.