Jocko Underground: Strategize Your Entire Future

Strategizing your future for ultimate success. How much protein is good for kids? Situational awareness tips, even if you have ADHD. Dealing with OVERLY emotional people. The fix to the "work from home" attitude causing problems. Dealing with the idea of death. 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 109, sitting with Echo Charles EC in the house. So I said something the other day I want to share, share with the, share with the people. Sure. Our people. Think strategic, which you probably heard me say a thousand times, right? In fact, you made a clip of it because at the muster, a few musters ago, it was actually probably quite a few musters ago. And some guy, well, during the Q and A, some guy says, how often I should be, should I be thinking strategic? Because we had done a presentation talking about thinking strategic instead of tactically. Strategic is long-term, tactically, short-term. The guy says, how often I, should I be thinking strategic?

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  And I said, you should be thinking strategic all the time. And I got all fired up and blah, blah, blah. So cool. We, we've driven that point for the last few years. Yeah. I said something the other day, though, with a group. I said, think strategic, act tactically.

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  Tactical action.

• 1:07Jocko Willink?

  Why is that? Okay. So we get that we need to think long-term, strategic about everything, about everything that you're doing, about your health. But you need to think strategic about your health because short-term thinking for health is like, oh, I'm gonna eat this donut. Or I'm gonna, you know, get on this freaking steroid or whatever that's going to get me totally jacked. And I'm going to die at 44 years old, right? That's not a long-term solution. Uh, relationships. Oh, I can win this argument right now, but now we're, have a bad relationship. So there's, there's all the time, everything that we're thinking about, we need to think strategic, long-term. But here's the thing, here's why thinking strategic, we need to also act tactically.

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  Because people have a tendency not to act. They have a tendency not to do anything. They have a tendency not to do the day-to-day tactical things that they need to do in order to win and accomplish the long-term strategic mission. Look, this is so obvious, right? It's so obvious.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  But it's something that I found that this connection is being helpful with people. Because I tell you, hey, hey, you need to think strategic. Cool. You start thinking strategic. Great. Now you're thinking. You're thinking about, oh, I'm gonna make, do this financially. I'm gonna get in this health condition and you're thinking about, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna improve my relationships. Those are my strategic goals. Great. You have those strategic goals. That's awesome. And you need to be thinking that way. Because if you're only thinking short term, then it's like, oh, I'm just gonna eat this donut. Oh, I'm just gonna spend this money and put it on the, get this new, what the, what's the newest kind of television set? Like LED? No, there's something beyond LED now.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  L M E O or something like this.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Oh damn.

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  So I'm gonna get the L M E O TV set. Just put it, it's three thousand two hundred dollars. I don't have that money right now, but I was gonna put it on my credit card. Cause I want immediate gratification. So there's all these things that

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  we, we can, if we, if we just think tactically, boom, you're just failing. You're, you're not, you're not gonna end up where you want to end up. So it's like, okay, you gotta think strategic. Great. Now we got people thinking, but they're not doing the right things. They're not behaving tactically, the way they need to behave tactically, the action they need to take today.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  So

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  that's what we need to do. Uh, think strategic, act tactically, write down what those strategic goals are. Write them down. Review them. You can review them every day. Listen, do you need to review them every day? You don't necessarily need to, if they're front of mind, in your mind anyways. If you have consistent, long-term strategic goals, like I don't need to wake up every day and say like, be healthy. I don't need to read that. I, that's in, that's inherent in my existence, strategic goal is be healthy. I don't need to wake up every day and be like, oh, I need to watch my money. I need to be frugal. I don't need to do that. I'm already frugal. It already takes me an extended amount of effort to blow some money.

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  I'm getting a little better at it, but it's like, yeah, it's hard. You know, I'll research the dumbest thing and nine different types of that dumb thing before I'm like, all right, I think this is the one. Why do I do that with?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Well, when you buy something?

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  When I buy something. When I buy something. It's yeah, it's like, well, I don't know which is the best cheese grater. Let me read the reviews. Let me see how this one works. I would thought you know, oh, this one's not good with, you know, if you're doing salad, the chunks are a little big, but it's good for a pizza thing. Oh, this one does well. You know, you see what I'm saying? I can spend the time wasted. I can actually waste time. But I don't need to wake up and tell myself, hey, you need to watch your money. You know what I mean? I don't need to do that. That's part of my existence. I don't need to wake up and be like, I need to make sure I have good relationships with my wife and my kids and my, the people I work with. I don't need to tell myself that. That's inherent in my life.

• 5:10Jocko Willink?

  But if you're not, if you're new to the game and you've been doing a short term game for the last five, six, seven, 12, 15 years, you've been like, that's why you're kind of treading water. And we don't want to be treading water. Treading waters, look, treading water is better than drowning, but you're not making progress towards the shore. Where you can have coconuts.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? Where you can be on the beach, you can relax. If we're only treading water, eventually we're gonna drown. You need to make progress. So we've got to look to the seashore and go, oh, I see palm trees. I see a beach. I'm going there. I might be making slow, slow progress, but I'm making progress. If we're just looking around treading water, it ain't gonna work out. So if you have to write down the fact, hey, listen, I want to be more financially secure. I want to build a better relationship. I want to be healthy, whatever these, and these are three really like, kind of prominent goals that human beings have. If you've got to write those down, cool. And then you've got to write down the tactical moves that you need to do today, like no donuts.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  You, if you're the type of person that's been eating a donut when it's in the office every day for the past 18 years, 14 years, 12 years, 30 years. You need to, you might need to write that down in a review in the morning. Listen, no sugar, no sugar coated lies. Don't eat donuts. Boom. You might need to write that down.

• 6:31Jocko Willink?

  So there's some people that they're a donut, like they get uneasy if there's a donut in the next room. They're like, yo. So depending on where you're at, you might have to write this stuff down. The strategic goals, you might also have to write down your tactical goals. But that's what you need to do. You need to think strategic and then you need to act tactically. Think strategic, strategic thinking, tactical action. If you want to move towards the shore where you can have a coconut and you can get some sunshine and you're not going to drown. That's where we're at?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's um, I don't think that's like a natural thing like you kind of got it going. It's not an automatic thing. So it's like you gotta kind of put the mode on manual, you know, like remember?

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  I don't forget when, but.

• 7:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cruise control doesn't work.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:17Jocko Willink?

  Cruise control is like gonna drive you off the road.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the actually, you know, it's weird, it's funny, it's interesting, we'll say is if you set up the correct criteria, you can actually get on a solid cruise control routine.

• 7:30Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you can.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  So, bro, I was, so I was working out and I worked out outside and I saw this little centipede. And I was like, look, I was like, oh, teeny tiny centipede, like maybe one inch, maybe, maybe three quarters of an inch.

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  Did he have a leg day?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  He was doing my leg day, by the way. So I looked at, I was like, oh, that's great. You know, he's just a random centipede on the cement right here. So I looked close and it's not, it wasn't a centipede. It was two ants connected to each other going like going. And I was like, bro, what are these two ants doing? They're probably not, they don't even know what they're doing.

• 8:04Jocko Willink?

  Face to face?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  No, no, no, like.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  In a train?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Like a little train, yeah.

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  But it was like two of them, like they were lost from a bigger train or something and they were just sort of going. And then, so you know, you get to thinking, you know, when you get, no, no one else was around. So I'm thinking, I was like, brother, what are these ants thinking right now? They're probably not thinking anything. One ant's just exploring, the other ant's like, well, this is where we're going. And they kind of have like just this automatic what's in front of their face. That's what they're doing. You know, I'm following this guy and this guy, I don't even know what he's doing, but it doesn't matter. I'm following this guy. It doesn't matter. Haven't thought beyond that kind of a thing. And they're going in perfect unison, like literally when one would curve, the other one would curve, right? They're like doing the exact same thing. So it's like right in front of your face. Only the stuff in front of your face you pay attention to, that's your routine. So if you're on automatic, you have no goal, you'd be probably just like these ants just running around,

• 8:49Speaker 01

  doing what's in front of you. And I'm, I'm sure, I don't know, I can't read ants' minds. You know that about me? I'm sure that they, I'm sure the one, especially the one in the back was kind of like, hey, kind of. Doing it, you know, kind of doing what he thinks he's supposed to be doing. You know, he's like, oh, we're going here, then I guess we're going here, you know, kind of a thing. So it's like, that's the same mindset as just doing no strategy, only tactics. It's like, what do I feel like? Oh, I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat. What sounds good? You know, you hear that, what sounds good to eat right now? That should matter a lot less than what is good to eat for you right now, given, you know, what you're trying to do or whatever, what you're trying not to do.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent.

• 9:30Jocko Willink?

  I used to say this in the teams, people don't care about a problem until it punches them in the face. Which like, there, there's some big problem creeping up. And they don't care about it until it punches them in the face. They're like, oh damn, we got this problem. That's number one. And number two, just on what you're saying, there's been a couple of crashes with, I want to, I want to say the Blue Angels, you know, you're familiar with, we'll have to ask Dave Burke about this. Yeah. There's been crashes where they basically, the lead guy makes a mistake and like the other aircraft just follow them into the ground. And there, it's the same thing, right? Um, that you know, terrible situation, but yeah, you gotta be like heads up and looking around and thinking about where you're going.

• 10:11Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's, it's very easy. Like you said, you, can you set up such good parameters and change your instincts as a human to where your instincts are correct? And you can kind of be on cruise control? Yes, you can. You can. I, I actually have a decent amount of things like that in my life that are. 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 jacood underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control.

• 10:53Jocko 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.

• 11:14Jocko 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, 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.