Jocko Underground: Corner Yourself With No Other Options... and Execute

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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 six, with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And also, once again, Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. Good deal, Dave.

• 0:17Jocko Willink?

  This is a good deal. Okay, check. Just making sure. So, so, when I did the Jocko Live Events that we did pre-COVID, I called the, the events "Decisively Engaged", which is a term from military doctrine that I always liked. I always liked that term.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  Now, the definition of that word, if you go into the 101 Tac 5 Tac 1 Operational Terms and Graphics, which is a great, if you're in the military, you should have that book. If you're going in the military, you should get that book. You can just get it online. It's just a big PDF, but it's, it's, it's how to learn the language of the military. 101 Tac 5 Tac 1 Operational Terms and Graphic, Graphics. I used to have a copy that I would keep by my bed and like, as I was falling asleep, I would just read through it. And, and when you look in there for the definition of decisive engagement, it is this: "In land and naval warfare, an engagement in which a unit is considered fully committed and cannot maneuver or extricate itself.

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  In the absence of outside assistance, the action must be fought to a conclusion and either won or lost with the forces at hand. In some situations, this is a desired result in order to hold key terrain, defeat a specific enemy force, or secure a specific objective. In this situation, the unit can receive additional forces or support to be able to disengage." And that last part, they, they have it defined as like, "Army." So, I think that's also a cool definition, right? Is that definition cool? I think so. Not only is it decisively engaged, cool sounding, but it's also a very cool definition. I can't get out of this. I've gotta win. I can't even move. I've gotta just win. So, when I named

• 2:13Jocko Willink?

  that event, I named it for a few reasons. Number one, because it sounds cool.

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  Number two, because it's a play on words, right? Because an engagement, you know, oh, we've got an engagement tonight. It's another word for an event. So there's a nice little play on words, right? And the last one is because it's something that I actually like to do to myself. I actually like to put myself in situations where I don't really have a choice. And I realize this. I realize this because I was getting, I got asked this question the other day on something. So you're talking to a client. I think I was talking to a client and, and, and basically was, you know, it's the classic question of, you know, how do you get stuff done?

• 3:03Jocko Willink?

  And I just, you know, new book coming out. How do you, how do you write that book? How'd you do all this stuff? You know, how, how do you getting all this stuff done? And it's a really common thing that people talk about in this day and age. What's the culture? Echo trust hustle culture, right? Right. Grind culture. Grind culture, which, right? That culture is, is a common thing to talk about. Well, how, you know, what are your, what's your process? Productivity. What's your pro? Oh, there's a, what's the productivity? What's the productivity hack we've got, right? Yeah. The hack. We're looking for the hack over here. And as I thought through this question, cause as you know, Dave, when somebody asked me a question, even though nine words into it, I'm pretty sure I already know the answer. I will not allow myself to jump to that conclusion.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  So as this guy asked me a question, I've heard this question a thousand times. What's my productivity thing? What's my hint? What's my one thing, all that stuff? And it was some version of that question. And I said, okay, let me reassess what this question is. Let me reassess. Let me, let me think about the answer. And I realized that this word decisively engaged is a tool that I actually utilize to force myself to do things. I put myself into situations that I have to win, that I can't get out of. And, and you know, part of this is, you know, we've been, we've been covering competition or competing the Marine Corps manual. We've been talking a ton about strategic versus tactical.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  And you can get caught up in these tactical wins, you know, I'm winning tactically, I'm winning, but you're losing strategically. And I don't really want to equate this to that. That's kind of like what triggered my thought about being decisively engaged, because I think to myself, well, that's like a tactical situation that you're in, that you can't get out of.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  But I use it. And so here's how I use it. I put myself in a scenario where I have no choice. What is an example of that? Here's an example. Talking to my publisher and they say, okay, we want, you know, I know you want to do another book. Can you get it to us by this date? And I say, yes. That's what I say. Now, once I say yes, I'm gonna hit that due date. I am going to hit that due date. I am going to hit it. I know that once I say yes to that book, I know what I have to do. I know it's gonna be a thousand words a day. I know I owe 85, 90,000 words, whatever the case may be. I backtrack. And I realize, okay, now I gotta start writing. This is what I have to do. By the way, there's edits and all these other

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  things you gotta do. So there's something here that, that, that I feel.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  I feel looming. I'm not looming like, you know, Pete from Origin, that's up there loom, on a loom, an actual loom. I feel things that loom over me.

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  And what looms over me, if I owe, for instance, if I owe a book, what I don't want to do, what looms over me is, hey, two and a half weeks and you have to write a whole book. That looms over me. I do not want that feeling. I don't want, oh, I've got three weeks to write a whole book. I don't want that feeling. Not only is it not possible, because there's no way I could carve out that much time in every single day to write 10,000 words a day, whatever, for eight days and get a book done. But you're, what's your product? At the end of writing 10,000 words a day for, for 10 hours, what's your product? Your product is crap. So I have that looming over me. So I sign up for it. I sign up to have this thing loom over me, because I know that then what I'm gonna do is start to work.

• 6:47Jocko Willink?

  Get the discipline in place to write the thousand words a day as early as starting tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow, by the way. When I tell you, hey, when I tell my publisher, yep, I'll have a book to you by this date. Tomorrow, I'm writing a thousand words and I'm gonna write a thousand words until I'm done. And I'll be done three months early, two months early, start to edit, all that. But I think it's important to hate what looms over you, to hate the feeling of things looming over you.

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  Here's, I'm trying to think of examples. Here's another little example. Let's say I'm reading. 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 jacood underground.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.

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us.

• 8:11Jocko 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 jacood underground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us,

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  we can still support you. Just email assistance@jacood underground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.