Jocko Underground Best Questions Answered: Losing Faith In Humanity

How to salvage your relationship if possible. How to light a fire under your kid's ass to get motivated. Should you choose passion or money for a career motive? Losing faith in humanity. Is the military worth joining now days? 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?

  In this episode on the underground, we cover a few of the most common questions I come across, saving relationships, motivating and disciplining your kids, the eternal struggle between money and passion in your career, questioning faith in humanity, and the modern considerations of joining the military. These tips will help you out in life.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Hello, I'd really appreciate some advice on how to help codependent spouse who has recognized the problem of her own volition and is willing to change but doesn't know where to begin. It is destroying the relationship, but we both feel like it's not insurmountable and worth trying to salvage. Overt suggestions are ineffective and I'm looking for subtle hints and paths to steer her down without ordering her to do X, Y, Z. Where can I start?

• 0:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so what this scenario looks like to me is you need to get some professional help for the codependent spouse. Now, how do you get a codependent spouse professional help without ordering them, "Hey, you need to go get professional help"? What you need to do is say, "Hey, listen, I think we need help together," and explain the fact that there's people that actually know how to handle these things and how to help a couple get through these scenarios. And then you roll in there and you start going to some kind of therapy, and obviously the therapy will start to help her and overcome this

• 1:34Jocko Willink?

  thing. The whole idea of the brain mechanics, which I've talked about before, there's people that know how to handle these things, just like a mechanic of a vehicle knows how to handle that knocking in the engine. There's psychologists that know how to handle codependent people and how to get them back on track and out of that cycle. So, I would say you do that. You say, "Listen, we need some help. I know that I want this to work. I think the best thing we could do is go get someone that knows how to handle this stuff and help us through it professionally, us through this professionally." And you start it out, and you know what? You will get some help. You will get some help out of it, too. It's not just for the spouse. So, nothing wrong with that, man.

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  Nothing wrong with that.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  That feels like such a big part of it where it's like, oh yeah, she's on the road to recovery. She recognizes this or whatever, but like, you know, like in your relationship, it's a two way street kind of thing and we ignore or tend to or can ignore our own role. So I learned about this term called extreme ownership. Smart outfit, I dig it. Where if you can really like, kind of get in touch with that, like what can I do? Or what did I do? Doesn't matter, you can, you can evaluate the situation.

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're kind of, at a minimum, you're enabling it, right?

• 2:55Speaker 01

  That's what, yeah, exactly right. So if you look at it as 10 factors that, that are creating this problem and literally she, quote unquote, she did nine of them. Look for that one that you did and just, just hammer that. Don't worry that much about this other nine stuff about her or whatever. Just focus and change that one. And a lot of time that one is gonna, it's gonna like dominoes really solve the problem can.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and what's interesting about this is part of codependency is like, everything's my fault. So she's going, eh, or we're assuming it's her, I think it is. Uh, it's my fault, it's my fault. It's part of the, it's part of the problem is like, oh, it's, it's my fault. So definitely there's, there's, there's ownership that needs to be taken on both sides. And that's why you go get professional help. That's what it is. It'll uncover both the corrective measures that both parties can take in this scenario.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. A lot of times too, as a guy, it's hard to be like, I don't know, I'm totally stereotyping right now. But sometimes we'll say, as a guy, it's like, oh, I don't need some person telling me how to act with my wife or whatever. I just want her to shape up almost kind of thing.

• 4:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, part of the, part of the answer that I gave was sort of to.

• 4:14Jocko Willink?

  Was to trick the guy into going because look, he's gonna get help. So if you're there, I just revealed my, my, my strategy is to say, yeah, you know, the best thing for you to do is go and take her to, you know, you go, we need help. You do, you need help. There you go. So go get it.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  It's like a Trojan horse, right?

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Take her to get help.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't gonna tell him that.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Surprise, you got help too. All right. Next question. I'm currently on episode 245 from episode one of your podcast. I have a nine-year-old son and USAC quarter midget racing. What is that?

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  This is like, um, kinda go-kart type little cars with a, with a roll cage on them. And so he's a, you know, racing those cars. Pretty cool.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Uh, he has great deal of talent and we've won some races.

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  We have run some races.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  We've won some.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  It's a team effort.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  The team effort.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Where he struggles is the emotional strength department.

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  Look at nine years old. If you're not emotionally strong, you get a, okay. Sorry. I'm going hot. I had too much discipline go at this point.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  You, you did the right thing. I constantly have to try to, try and light a fire under his ass to get him focused on the upcoming race. These races are over quick and you must be ready to go as soon as they start. He runs a mile a day. He runs a mile daily and now I have to have him doing pushups, situps and lunges. He's eating very clean and getting good rest. What else can I do to make him more of a predator rather than a, rather than prey?

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  All right. So first of all, make sure that he wants to do this stuff, right? And make sure that he enjoys doing it and enjoys doing it a lot. Speaking of BJ Penn and Joe Rogan, listening to that podcast, they asked, they asked, or Joe Rogan asked BJ Penn, how he got his black belt in three years, which is one-third of the time it would take for a normal person that was really getting after it. Takes 10 years to get your black belt, man. That's just kind of what everyone will say that. You ask anybody how long it takes to get your black belt in jiu-jitsu, they're gonna say 10 years.

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  BJ Penn got it in three years, but he didn't just get it. He was the world champion. He won the world championships in Brazil. First American, by the way.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and Joe Rogan says, oh, you know, was it disciplined? Were you, your level of commitment? Was your athleticism? And BJ Penn gave a brilliant answer. He said, because it was fun.

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  Cause he loved doing it. And so. If you're committed to this kind of thing, well, it's because you enjoy doing it. So what does your son? Get from winning? Why is it important to win? And I kind of jokingly said, we, cause just, just make sure this isn't, you're not for, uh, living out your fantasies through your son. Let's make sure that, and I know you probably don't want to hear that, but I have to say it anyways.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  Why is it important for him to win? How do these skills? Going to help him in his life? What are they going to do for his future? And you should be explaining those things to him.

• 7:35Jocko Willink?

  You know who pushed Tony Hawk to be a great skateboarder?

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  Tony Hawk. His dad would say, hey, his dad would say, hey, we gotta get out of here. Be like, let me just do this trick a couple more times.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  You know, push Michael Jordan to be Michael Jordan?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Michael Jordan.

• 7:51Jocko Willink?

  Michael Jordan. So you're going to have some intrinsic motivation that champions are going to have. That you as a parent, if you think you can get them to that level of intrinsic motivation. It's going to be difficult.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  Because if, well, the best thing to do, and you've heard me say this about jiu jitsu before, is make it fun. If you don't make it fun, they're not going to like it. And if it's not, if they don't like it, then they're not going to do it. This isn't, this is not just coming from me. This is, this is the book.

• 8:28Jocko Willink?

  Outliers, right? And Malcolm.

• 8:33Jocko Willink?

  What's his name? McDowell? No. Malcolm Gladwell, Malcolm Gladwell, his book outliers, they, the what makes the kids good at hockey, what makes the kids good at soccer, what makes the kids good at computer programming? And he's talking about like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and stellar hockey players is that it was fun for them. Hockey players, why was it fun for them? Because they were a little bit older. The guys that were older that got put into the league, the guys that were born January 1st, a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger, a little bit more mature. Then when they played, they kind of dominated because they were a little bit bigger. So they had fun. So when they had fun, they practiced more. When they practiced more, they got even better. And it's a compounding effect. So make sure that you're putting,

• 9:16Jocko Willink?

  that your kid is having fun because the more fun he has, the more he's going to practice, the more he's going to be into it. If you're making him not like it, because you're like, oh, you could have done better. Oh, all of a sudden, he's not having fun. He's not practicing. He's not training. He's not thinking about it. So don't do that. Make it fun for him. Okay. So that's part one. Part two is if you want to get people to get stronger and tougher, put them in tough situations, not overwhelming situations. Even in the SEAL Teams, we couldn't take like a platoon and just crush them out of the gate. We had to, we had to go, oh, they're okay, run this type of training mission. Okay, you did good.

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  Then we ramp up the pressure a little bit. Oh, oh, what do we do? Okay, we got it figured out. Okay, cool. Confidence grows. They get a little bit better at it. Boom. Do it again. Oh, no. Okay, okay. And so, and even when we had Huberman on the podcast, which should be coming out this week, he gave us the number. The number is 80% of the time win, 20% of the time learn slash lose, right? That's the goal. So put this individual, put your son. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  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 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

• 11:22Jocko Willink?

  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.