Jocko Underground: Your Problems Don't Magically Go Away When You Take Responsibility.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Your Problems Don't Magically Go Away When You Take Extreme Ownership. Jiu Jitsu as an older guy with some skill. In depth. Solving problems with a a co-owner who is set in his ways. Double down on your passion? Or what you're talented at? What to do when people are rude to your kids. Managing bad nights of sleep to maximize the day. 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 127, sitting here with Echo Charles. I wanted to tell you that extreme ownership does not in itself make problems go away. Wanted to tell you that.

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  Here's the thing, sometimes incorrectly, people believe that when they take ownership, they're absolved of the wrongdoing. This is not the case. And it's, it's actually kind of funny because we joked about this in the teams before I solidified and crystallized the idea and understood completely the idea of ownership. I'd seen it, you know, Delta Charlie taking ownership of everything, right? So you, you're seeing it, but you're not aware of it. You ever see, you ever have somebody in Jiu Jitsu, they're doing something to you? And you know, something's happening and it's working, but, but then after the roll or two rolls or three rolls, you're like, hey, what are you doing when I'm over here? And they're like, I'm, I'm pushing your hip out and you're like, oh.

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  So eventually, you know, you have that realization. Well, but I was watching guys like Delta Charlie just taking ownership. I thought that was just kind of how he was winning, but I didn't really understand how he was winning. But in the teams, we would joke about it because even before I had that comprehension, guys would say like, you know, come back for the debrief after doing a, an iteration of CQC, close quarters combat, or a immediate action drill out in the desert or something. Come back and, you know, trade that. Would say like, hey, who, you know, hey, who moved up on that berm over there? And a guy back, hey, that was my bust.

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  And expecting like, and there, there kind of was like, if you acknowledged, hey, it was my bust or, hey, I'll take the hit on that one. Hey, why'd you guys push down that hallway? Hey, I, I'll take the hit on that one. You know what I mean? And it's like, oh, okay. Well, you understood, you made a mistake. But you almost thinking that now you're okay. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, maybe now you don't have to do a tire pull, because that's what used to happen back in the day. You mess up, you do a tire pull. Yeah. Or you have to do a buddy carry, like something like this. So when you are thinking to yourself, hey, my bust, you then need to think about, okay, and? Like, what else? What are you gonna do about it? How are you gonna make sure that doesn't happen again? Do you understand the ramifications

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  of your actions? Do you even understand what you messed up? Because sometimes people are like, oh, you know, I just pushed down the hallway. And they're like, yeah, you separated all the forces. You caused a bunch of confusion. We had bad guys in between friendly forces, which is terrible. But, but they're like, oh, I'll take the hit on that one, and that's it. Yeah, yeah. So what, do you truly understand the gravity of the situation? Because when you say, oh, that was my bust. Hey, I'll take ownership of that. Okay. Oh, you do? Do you understand the ramifications?

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  So extreme ownership by itself doesn't make problems go away.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  It's merely the first step. You, you have to proceed. You have to apologize. You have to ask for forgiveness. You have to explain what corrective measures that you're gonna take.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  And you still aren't necessarily absolved

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  from repercussions or from consequences. So we had the blue on blue in Ramadi. I took ownership, but my boss still could have said like, yeah, you're right. It was your fault. You're fired. He 100% could have said that. Wait. And luckily, I had a good relationship with my boss. Luckily, I had a good understanding of what had happened, and I understood the ramifications. And I understood why it happened. And I understood how to prevent it from happening again. And I was able to explain and articulate those things to my boss and what new deconfliction methodologies we're gonna put as standard operating procedures. So he got a comprehensive look like, all right, dude, like, we can see that this guy understands. And

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  it's almost preferred to have me in that position because I'm gonna be hyper aware of it. Yeah. So I was able to keep my job. But if you make a mistake, if you, but, but the point is, if you make a mistake, owning it will not make it go away.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  Here's an extreme example. Uh, you are drunk driving and you kill a kid on the street, right? So you go to the parents and you say, hey, this is my fault. I shouldn't have been drinking and driving. I got a little carried away at the party and I should have known better. This is a hundred percent on me.

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  Is that, I mean, is that, that barely moves the ball forward at all. Like it's better than saying, well, you know, your kids shouldn't have been playing in the street, right? It's, it's definitely better than that, but it, it's like point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, one. Progress. Cause you created a terrible situation. And ownership is the first part of being able to somehow fundamentally move in a positive direction from that. Cause otherwise it's all downhill.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  So, does that solve anything? No, the parents aren't going to be like, oh, thank you so much for taking ownership. We really appreciate that. No, they're not even talking to you. They may never forgive you. You may never forgive yourself.

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  So that's an extreme example. But it still applies with less extreme examples. You, something happens, you have to own it. You have to figure out what the solution is. You have to figure out how you're going to prevent it from happening again. And then you have to implement that solution. So that's what we have to do. Now, this also brings to the forefront, a little something that I wrote about in a book called, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, and that's preemptive ownership. Because the, one of the problems with extreme ownership is it's after the fact. Like I already screwed up and now I'm going to take ownership and get it fixed. Well, preemptive ownership, you look at the situation and you know that if you mess it up,

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  you're going to be the one that's totally responsible for it. And therefore you go to a higher level of tenacity in making sure that there's no problems. So instead of, you know, when you're, when your subordinate comes to you and says, you know, I think we're going to do it this way. And you shrug yourselves shoulders and go, ah, might work. Go ahead. You know what I mean? You can do that. But if you have preemptive ownership, you're like, hold on, let's talk through this. Because you know that if it fails, you're, you can't go, well, my subordinate made that call. No, no, I own this. I'm the overall person in charge. So if there's a problem, it's on me.

• 6:40Jocko Willink?

  So keep that in mind that ownership doesn't solve problems, ownership doesn't absolve you from what you've created. It just gives you the, the control and the footing to find solutions and then move forward and implement them. But it's certainly not easy and it doesn't, it doesn't even remotely guarantee that you won't face consequences and it doesn't remotely guarantee that there won't be ramifications. The best you can hope for, if something really bad has happened because of a mistake that you've made, is that you can mitigate some of those things.

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  But it's not going to mitigate all of them.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  But that certainly is better than the alternative. So just wanted to bring that up.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  Extreme ownership, hey, my busts, hey, I'll take the hit on that one. Can we, can we move on to the next subject? Doesn't work like that.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  So I fell into this long time ago, you know, before this outfit was developed.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  And, and I, but I actually-

• 7:52Jocko Willink?

  What was the scenario? Can you brief the scenario?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, fully. So I got in trouble. Um, I was a bouncer. I got in trouble for taking money.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  For, at the front door to let, let someone skip the line.

• 8:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Is that legal or no?

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, it's legal, but, but it was against the policy, the rules or whatever. So, and this is how I got caught. So in the industry, and they have this in a lot of industries where they'll have what's called secret shoppers. Have you heard of this?

• 8:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  It's basically an undercover person, but it's for the sake of the establishment, just to kind of give you an accurate run of their experience, you know? And they give you a full report, the owner of their restaurant or bar in this case, they give you a full report, like this person at this time-

• 8:33Jocko Willink?

  Did you get rolled up by the secret shopper?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Actually, I didn't get rolled up. My friend coworker got rolled up and then he told on me too.

• 8:41Jocko Willink?

  Ratted you out?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he, um-

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  Cause you, that, he ratted you out for that scenario or broadly speaking, like, well, Echo does that all the time?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know exactly what he said.

• 8:50Jocko Willink?

  Was Echo doing that all the time?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  No, no. You sure about that? I'm sure. You sure about that? Sure. Thank you, though, for asking, but no. So what happened was that I was part of the report, but my name wasn't in it. Because they, they, like, the more particulars were done on this other guy. But I was in the report as doing it as well. My name, just name wasn't in it. And then my friend said, no, that was Echo who did it too. Whatever. So whatever. Though, you know, the owner, the thing is, I made up, it even says in the report, oh, yeah, we, we still had to pay cover. He just allowed us to skip the line. So I didn't steal from the club or nothing like that. It was just like, bro, it was freaking crowded. And they want to skip the line. They hook me up, I hook them up, they pay cover, the club gets their money. What's the difference? You know, that was, that was my justification anyway. And, and actually, it was correct, as it turns out, but either way.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  So I get busted. My, my coworker, we both get busted. I mean, I'm like, I feel terrible because I'm kind of the junior guy at this time. But I'm still at the front door. So, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get fired. So I tell, I go to my manager, any kind of chance I got, man, I'm so sorry, like, for putting you in this situation and all that. Because we had kind of a cool relationship. So I keep saying, so I thought, hey, if I come in humble, like, hey, I'm so sorry for putting you on a personal level into that position. I'm, I mean, I was literally, I was expecting him to be like, hey, don't worry about it, bro, you know, all good. So I was thinking that. I was thinking, I'll just take responsibility and then I'm no longer in trouble. Fuck, this has to work, you know, in this thing. That's exactly the mindset I'm talking about. Exactly, right. And I remember, and this guy, and his name was Ashley Blake, that was my manager.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  And we're totally cool, of course. I thought he was gonna be like, hey, don't worry. He goes, he goes, well, it's a tough position to be in. Like, and I was like, brah, that was not the answer I wanted, so fuck, I was just scared. But, you know, a little, as it ended up, um, the other guy got fired. He didn't get fired, but they were gonna fire him. So he was like, oh, I, I quit, you know, I resigned, this isn't the place for me or whatever. But he was about to get fired. Yeah. And I did not. In fact, I got promoted very, very soon after. Um, and they said, that's why. They were like, hey, you're like, you're like a stand-up person. And just in general, and, you know, you're the kind of guy we want up here, whatever. And then, as far as the system, the owner came back and was like, hey, actually, I don't really see that much wrong with what you did.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  In fact, let's get a system going where, hey, if people want to skip the line, they can pay you however much you want to charge for the system, as long as I get my cover. That's what he said. And we got a little system going. There you go. Handle it the right way, but so it did work, but in that moment that's that was my mindset. It was like, oh, I'll just, I'll just say, sorry. It is my fault. I totally did it. And then I'm no longer in trouble and bro, I was in trouble for a while, you know? And that's real.

• 11:35Jocko Willink?

  That happens. It's for real. I used to tell guys like, hey, you can make a mistake that I can't help you with.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  Like in the SEAL teams, they crack down on DUIs a lot.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:45Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, hey, guys. If you get a DUI, I can't help you. Like, there's nothing I can do for you. You're just gonna go before the man and you're gonna get whatever punishment he deems fit. There's no, you know, if you get into some, someone's get some fight out in town, like I can kind of help with that. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen,

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  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 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

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  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,

• 13:12Jocko Willink?

  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.