Pod Insights Jocko Podcast Jocko Underground: The Political Climate-Are We Headed For Another Civil War in America? The Indirect Approach for the Win. The Fear of Blood? About this episode The indirect approach wins. The direct approach loses.
Are we headed for another civil war in America?
Dealing with a poor superior.
Dealing with the fear of blood.
Jiu Jitsu: I may have a substandard academy and not know it.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 19 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.
0:07 Speaker 01 Good evening.
0:07 Jocko Willink? All right. So last week I posted, I think it was last week, it was a few weeks ago, a few weeks ago, I posted something from Gettysburg where I was talking about the indirect approach to things. And the specific thing I was talking about is that in the Civil War, in, in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson convinced General Lee to take that, that he should take the indirect approach in this battle. He should take his troops and walk 14 miles to get to the flank of the Union. Instead of just doing a frontal assault, which was a half a mile. So either go right at him, go right at the Union Army, or
0:46 Jocko Willink? come in from the flank after doing a walk in 14 miles. He was able to convince General Lee to do that. And once they had the flank, they won the battle very quickly with minimal casualties. So this is the indirect approach. And I was talking about the fact that it works with people and you should use it 99% of the time. It's the better approach. And it might seem like it's going to be harder because it's longer, but ultimately it's more efficient and it's more effective. And then as I looked, you know, as I posted it, whatever, no big deal, and looked at some of the comments that people wrote. And, you know, most people were like, yeah, absolutely makes sense. And then some people
1:29 Jocko Willink? wrote things like, it's not good to be deceitful and things like you shouldn't lie to your teammates. And if you aren't direct, that'll hurt the trust that you have. So they made these kinds of comments. And
1:42 Jocko Willink? I understand, I actually understand their misunderstanding because there's a difference between leadership and manipulation, right? It's, it can be seen like, oh, I'm just manipulating you. And one of the big differences between manipulation and leadership is if, when I'm, when I'm leading you, I'm getting you to do something that's good for you and good for the team. If I'm,
2:05 Jocko Willink? if I'm manipulating you, I'm trying to get you to do something that's good for me, right? So that's one of the differences, but.
2:15 Jocko Willink? Let me break this down a little bit. Being direct with someone, and that's the term like you should be direct. If you're not being direct, that's the term that they use. You should be direct with people. And there's a synonym for the term direct, which is truthful. Like, hey, just tell me the truth, or hey, just tell me direct, right? So there's a little synonym there. So therefore, if I say be indirect, that must mean that I'm talking about lying. And so I can see that you can extrapolate and get to that conclusion that what Jacque was saying is be indirect, so he's saying lie. And that's not what I'm saying at all. Not what I'm saying at all. And
2:52 Jocko Willink? if the way I mean it and the way it is intended and the way it works is not by lying, it's by...
3:03 Jocko Willink? Look, if I'm talking to Leif, and if I'm trying to get him to use a plan, or I'm trying to, we're trying to establish a plan for an operation,
3:15 Jocko Willink? being indirect with him doesn't mean that I'm gonna lie to him. It doesn't mean I'm gonna make up like intelligence reports that are wrong, just so, so we go with my plan. It doesn't mean that I say, hey, Leif, you know, I already ran this up the chain of command and it's already been approved, so we're going with my plan. Like, those are lies, and that's not what I'm talking about. It doesn't mean I make up a timeline and say, well, you know, the target's only gonna be there for tonight, so we have to go tonight. So we have to follow my, my plan. Like, those are lies, and that's freaking absolutely not what I'm talking about.
3:44 Jocko Willink? Direct would be, Leif, here's the mission, and here's the plan, get on board with my plan. That's direct. Being direct, right? What does that impact have on Leif? Well, now Leif is being like, feels like he's being micromanaged. He feel like he has no input. He also feels like he has no ownership of the plan, and all those things are bad. And when something goes wrong, it's not gonna turn out well. And he's not gonna do his best to push through and make things happen because it's not his plan, he doesn't have ownership of it. So all those things are bad. The indirect, so that being direct has a bunch of negative aspects to it. Being indirect, if I take an indirect approach, I, I, I tell Leif what the objective is that we're trying to accomplish and then say, hey, how do you wanna do it?
4:30 Jocko Willink? And I listen to his ideas, and I have him present a plan to me. And then I ask earnest questions that might reveal some shortfalls of his plan if they're already. All these are indirect, right? All these are indirect.
4:45 Jocko Willink? And it's not, it's also not like, um, I'm not faking it. I'm not asking you these questions. I'm not allowing him to influence me with his plan to get him to do something. No, I'm actually, if he's got a good plan, I'm gonna go with it. By the way, if he comes up with a better plan than me, we're gonna use it. There's no, there's no lies, there's no manipulation. It's truthful. The truth is, his plan's better than mine. I'm gonna go with his plan. Sounds good. The truth isn't like, I'm not lying to him like, well, your plan won't work because the intelligence says, and I make something up. That's a freaking lie. And that's not what I'm talking about. That being said, if my plan is better and I ask Leif questions and he sees that
5:28 Jocko Willink? that maybe a different idea would work better, then it becomes revealed to him and it's more powerful. And I'm not having to impose my plan on him, the direct method of imposing my plan on him and offending his ego. And implying that I don't trust that he can get the job done because I'm imposing my plan. Like, if I trusted him, why don't I just let him use his plan? I'm implying that I don't trust him. So there's all these freaking negative aspects and I don't like it. And also, I've been talking about for the last six months, especially on EF Online. Listen, influence, trust and respect. To get these things, you gotta give those things, right? You want somebody to listen to you? Listen to them. You want somebody, you wanna influence somebody?
6:11 Jocko Willink? Allow them to influence you. You want somebody to trust you? You have to trust them. You wanna get treated with respect, then treat other people with respect. You can't impose trust on someone.
6:23 Jocko Willink? In fact, when you try and impose trust on somebody, I'm gonna, this is such a good example. I'm trying to sell you a car and I say, hey, just trust me. Trying to impose trust on you, does that increase your trust for me at all? The answer is no. I can't demand respect from someone. Doesn't work. You better respect me. Does that work? How often you go, okay, great. Okay, thanks for telling me. Cool, now I respect you.
6:46 Jocko Willink? And influence.
6:48 Jocko Willink? Forcing influence on someone because you outrank them? That's not influence, that's just freaking orders. That's what that is. So, and the last thing is, I can bark at you and I can yell at you, but does that make you listen to me? No. I mean, you might hear what I'm, you might, you might, you might, the word, the noises might go into your ears, you can hear it, but you're not necessarily going to listen. If I want you to listen, you have to listen to me. So, that's what I mean by the indirect approach. Um, with that, it is the underground. So, let's get to some Q and A.
7:21 Speaker 01 It is true. All right, first question. This question is not meant to highlight one side is more right than the other. Obviously, every American has their belief, but this question is not about whose side is right and whose side is wrong. But to be a heated question, I think.
7:38 Speaker 01 Right now in America, we have politically charged climate where each side hates each other. Each party has deep distrust and skepticism and all around cynical view of the other party, for the most part.
7:51 Jocko Willink? Lots of, well, that's, he says in parentheses, the most part. But where are you getting this from? Well, you're getting this from if you go look at social media, right? If you go look at social media and even, not just social media, media. Because the media wants you to watch what they're making and you only want to watch what they're making if it seems a little bit exciting. And the only thing that's exciting is emotions and hatred and chaos. So, that's what we're selling. So, that's what's clicking. And I work with companies all over America all the time and the companies are out there making things happen. And the workers, you know what they're concerned about? You know what the employees are concerned with? You know what the leadership is concerned with? They're concerned with improving their market share and delivering good stuff to the, to the consumers. That's what the vast, that's, that's most people. That's for the most part.
8:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah. And that's a critical point right there. Easy to forget too, by the way.
8:42 Jocko Willink? I have to explain this to people all the time, especially, you know, uh, talking to Ben Shapiro. Like, in his mind, it's mayhem. Because that dude's at point blank, you know, uh, ground zero for political activities. And thoughts and comments and hostility. He's, he's ground zero. That's all he sees all day long. I can't even imagine what the world looks like through his eyes.
9:05 Speaker 01 I know, right? It's falling apart. And even then, even Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, you know, these, even then, it's the majority of it, if not all of it, is from the internet or the news.
9:17 Jocko Willink? Oh, yeah. You know, it's, and it's, that's the way it looks, you know, um, when you look at Rachel Maddow, it's the same thing. She's at ground zero for all this stuff. So it doesn't matter. You can pick your ground zero. And the way the world looks through their lens is like freaking total mayhem.
9:34 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
9:35 Jocko Willink? Total freaking mayhem.
9:36 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
9:37 Jocko Willink? And what do they talk about? They, that's what they talk about is total freaking mayhem. So this individual that's writing this question, they're looking at the world and going, oh, my God, I got Rachel Maddow on one side and I got freaking Sean Hannity on the other side. And that's the world.
9:53 Speaker 01 Chaos. Yep. But let's start in, in, in the spirit of that, just trying to maybe start from a place of more accuracy, if even possible. I don't know. We all live different lives. I get it. But yeah, let's say you exclude that. Let's say you exclude any political news and then exclude social media and the internet thing. Exclude that. And then when you go outside, you go to work, you go to the store, post office, jujitsu, lifting at the gym or whatever. Bro, there's nobody yelling in your face.
10:26 Jocko Willink? I was about to say there's someone yelling. I was like, bro, we just, there's, you know, a thousand people at Victory MMA and Fitness. I haven't heard anybody talk about any of this stuff.
10:32 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. In fact, like you, you can drive on the street and you can see like someone's bumper sticker. I support Biden or I support Trump or whatever. And you're almost like, bro, calm down over there. We're over here just kind of crazy, you know, and you're over here representing. The thing is, it doesn't, everyone has a right to do that for sure. But I'm saying that's how mild it is in real life. Outside of the internet, where you can see someone expressing themselves and they seem out of place.
10:59 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
10:59 Speaker 01 That's how it is in real life, quote unquote. Again, depends on where you live, depends what you do for a career. If you're Ben Shapiro, you go to the office and the guys and, you know, I get it. But day to day, man, I don't know. This simply doesn't seem true outside of the internet.
11:15 Jocko Willink? But we'll, let's continue with the question. I cut you off.
11:17 Speaker 01 Cause it doesn't mean that it's not true.
11:18 Jocko Willink? Yeah, because obviously there are parts of the, parts of the, the world and parts of the country. On those two left and right flanks that are freaking fired up.
11:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, and in regard, and each party has deep distrust and skepticism and all the same. The thing is, the internet is the real part of life. That's the thing.
11:36 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
11:37 Speaker 01 So, yeah, people are fired up. It has a lot to do with the internet, but at the end of the day, they're fired up.
11:42 Jocko Willink? Yeah.
11:42 Speaker 01 You know, so, okay, so we'll see the question. Okay, so the question continues. Lots of people in these parties assume the worst of the other and do not fill information gaps with trust. And not just the politicians themselves, but also the American population. Obviously, these are bad dispositions to hold and have already produced violence. The last year in America has been crazy and violent for a myriad of political, politically charged reasons. The question I have is, do you foresee a civil war in America anytime in the near future? And if not full-blown civil war, perhaps pockets of conflict here and there across the country? We've already seen things such as autonomous zones, which have become militarized and violent, and almost, and almost seem like a succession.
12:28 Jocko Willink? So, that's a, that's a logical question right now. Um, you know, you're seeing all this, like, like, like we just talked about. You're seeing all this extremism on the left and on the right, and you think, well, geez, if that's what's happening, could we, could we be heading for a civil war? First of all, we've been through a lot worse, a lot worse. First, I mean, the actual civil war.
12:51 Jocko Willink? You know, we've been through an actual civil war where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed. Going, so that's a, a huge example, but I mean, even you go back to the late 60s, early 70s, and you had the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army and the Sibian, Sibian East Liberation. That is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.
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