Jocko Underground: Can you REALLY Learn Something From Anyone?

Is it true that everyone around you has something to teach? Can you forgive a child molester if he feels remorse? Does my size matter in joining a fighting force? What if you don't want to accept a promotion? I think I'm weak, but I still want to be a high-speed operator. 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 Jocko Underground Podcast, number 99, sitting here with EC, Echo Charles. You know, we kind of touched on this on the last podcast, at least I mentioned this idea. But the idea, and this is, it lined up with one of the recommendations, questions, suggestions of topics that you wanted to talk about.

• 0:24Jocko Willink?

  What's with the idea that everyone around you has something to teach? So this is kind of close to or in the same realm as that you're the product of the five people that you hang around, that type of thing. They brushed up against each other a little bit. But this idea that everyone around you has something to teach, is that even true? For me, this is pretty straightforward. For me, this is a yes. I think that you can learn from just about every person that you meet.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  I know that I personally learned a lot, not only from good leaders that I worked for,

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  and good operators that I worked with, but also I learned a lot from bad leaders that I worked with and bad operators that I worked with. So, you know, I had a platoon commander that was bad, egotistical, ended up getting fired. I learned a lot from him. I learned a ton from him about what not to do, how not to act. Learned about humility from him because he was not humble. I saw what that felt like, I felt what that felt like. I saw how it impacted everybody. So I learned a lot from it.

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  It's, I think it's a little bit of a stretch sometimes. You can learn a lot from a white belt. Have you ever heard somebody say that? Yeah. I think that is actually a little bit of a stretch. I might be wrong. Have you ever truly learned something from a white belt?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  And actually use explaining that whole thing kind of opened my brain thinking to maybe another level of what you might mean by learn like like not like you know like of a higher belt when you're a white belt when you're a lower belt and they teach you something they're teaching you something directly in line with with what you're trying to learn consciously and then you're talking about like you know learning how not to do something it's kind of like an incidental learning you know it's like which is a massive part of learning in fact that's most of the time the majority of learning

• 2:26Jocko Willink?

  The thing is a majority for you to learn from a white belt you already kind of knew because you were a white belt too so you you don't watch a white belt and go whoa he spazzed out I don't I shouldn't you already knew it you don't look at a white belt and think oh he lifted up both of his hips and got the other person got both their feet trapped underneath it you already knew that like there's very little so even when I I've even said it like oh I learned from white belts it's actually you might you know what you might learn from a white belt you know what you might learn from a white belt when they ask you a question and they say hold on a second how do you get the how do you keep their arm over there and you go and you really haven't thought about it and you go well I do this and you kind of explain it and you actually learned by answering the question

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, but what did he learn though?

• 3:09Jocko Willink?

  Learned that actually technically what you're doing this has actually happened to me a bunch

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Right, but don't you already know it now you just can articulate it more

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  No, you might not know how you do it

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Consciously, obviously if you did it, you know how to do it, you know, kind of and I get what you're saying it opens up another level of knowing or knowledge or whatever Exactly, man, exactly right and it's true so in that case yes you learn a lot from a white belt especially when you only train with black belts all the time and go train with a big athletic white belt he's gonna be doing all this weird stuff giving you and it's less about giving you trouble he's gonna do unpredictable stuff while you train with a black belt even if he's way better than you for the most part it's all predictable stuff like he's gonna defend in a number of ways that you're gonna be like okay I see that makes sense to me you know meanwhile this guy's turning his back and like bench pressing you off and you're like right you're all confused in a way you know because you're so used to this black belt all these

• 4:04Speaker 01

  so then they teach you that in that way as well which in the same sense is just another level of you know acquired knowledge you know so yeah, I guess

• 4:14Jocko Willink?

  I was went surfing when my son was a little kid probably

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  Between, well, no, he must have been at least seven, seven or eight years old. Early morning, we go down to the parking lot. And we park and there's a freaking meth head tweaker getting rolled up by the cops. And he's totally out of his mind. He yelling, screaming, the cops have to rough him up, like get control of him. And we're, we're just sitting there watching this whole thing, right? See this guy freaking out swearing, going mental, they finally tackle him, they, they cough him. They put a spit bag on his head, right? As he's just yelling, screaming. And I told my son, I was like, the, that guy uses drugs.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  That's what drugs does to you. And I'll tell you what, dude, that left a mark, I think that left a mark on my kid. But what I'm saying is even from a meth head tweaker, criminal, like criminally insane person that's doing wild stuff can learn from it.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:25Jocko Willink?

  The, all of this is only true if you have the right learning mindset. The, the Marine Corps has a manual called learning and it's just about the, the idea of learning. They have some key principles of learning.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Know yourself and seek improvement, be ready and willing to learn, understand why you are learning. Provide and receive constructive feedback. Learning is purpose driven to develop professional competence. I think a lot of that is based on being humble. Cause if you're not humble, you're not learning from anybody. You're definitely not learning from white belts if you're not humble. You're definitely not learning from a meth head if you're not humble.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  You're definitely not learning from your peers if you're not humble. You're not even learning from, you're not learning from anybody if you're not humble. So being humble, I believe is the key to the learning mindset. And I think if you have that mindset, you can indeed learn from everyone around you.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yep, and that's not to, I mean, that's at the same time, or with that, like even, okay, learning from a white belt, like what, you know how you learn basic moves as a white belt? And then, let's say you, you have not been a white belt since, what, thirty, twenty-five years ago? Like, how, when were you, when did you get your blue belt?

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  Got my blue belt, nineteen ninety-six.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's been a long time.

• 6:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  So, you, the way you learned all those fundamentals and all those basics, do you think there's any additions to those in thirty years?

• 6:58Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Twenty, so, yeah, exactly right. So what if this white belt is like, oh, I do it, I do it this way. And then the way he learned it was like, there's all these additions, all these efficient, like, additions to it. And you're like, oh, huh.

• 7:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you watch Dean teach like an arm lock, you learn something every time.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  I'll learn something today. If he taught a straight arm lock that I learned when I was a white belt, actually.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:18Jocko Willink?

  I was still gonna learn like eight different things.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So the chances of a new white belt kinda, maybe he's not taking charge of the class, but I got something to teach. No, it's not that. It's just like, oh, almost threw up maybe a question scenario. Like, hey, I did it this. What do you think about this? I did this.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  That's my point.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Interesting. And it could have been a white belt.

• 7:35Jocko Willink?

  Could have been a white belt, yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  So yeah, you can learn from a white belt for sure. Many situations, but yeah, cool, man.

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  All right, let's get to some questions.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Greetings, Echo and Jocko. I have a relative business and slash business partner who, of who I just learned that over twenty years ago.

• 7:55Jocko Willink?

  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 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.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  More control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.

• 8:43Jocko 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,

• 9:03Jocko 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.