Jocko Underground: Jealousy and Insecurity. Break Ups. Control Rowdy Kids. Using Influential Words.

Jealousy and Insecurity. Break ups. Controlling your kids. Using the right words for influence. Choosing between kids and self-improvement. 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, Echo Charles.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 0:04Jocko Willink?

  And me, Jocko Willink. So,

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  I got a question kind of indirectly. And it was about feeling jealous, which can be a big problem for some people. And it can be, let's face it, there's all kinds of different jealousy that's floating around. You can be jealous of a, of a girl, or jealous, you know, of your girl. If you're, if you're a man, you can be jealous of your woman. If you're a woman, you can be jealous of a man. I mean, of your man, or whatever, whatever relationship you're in. I guess we're going to cover all the bases. You can be jealous of your significant other. Is that right? Are you jealous of them?

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  What is it technically called?

• 0:46Speaker 01

  I think you're jealous. I don't know. Yeah. You're jealous of the other person, not your, not your spouse or girlfriend, boyfriend. It's the other person that they're interacting with usually, right? That's the scenario.

• 1:00Jocko Willink?

  So you get filled with jealousy. I guess is what happens. You can also be jealous of people's position in life. You can get jealous of people's success. You can get jealous of material objects. So there's all kinds of stuff you can get jealous of. Or that can make you feel this jealousy. And

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  I can say that I've never been a very jealous person. In fact, I would say I'm not jealous. I don't get jealous. And I have, so, why do I feel that way? How do I feel that way? I think that, I think that jealousy is a manifestation of being insecure. And your ego is threatened. And you have low self-esteem. And so you're nervous, right? You're nervous. You see your little bit of paranoia and whatnot. And I feel like I'm, you know, I'm pretty confident with whatever.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  And, and not only that, I'm okay with. Like there's some people that are better than me. You know, as much as it's nice to say, well, you know, I'm a confident person, so I don't really get jealous. That's cool, but I'm also, I feel like, hey, there's people that are better than me. At whatever, you name it, there's people that are better than me. There's people that are smarter than me, there's people that have more money than me, there's people that are more athletic than me. There's people that are in better positions than me, like there's all these things.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  And I think more than just saying, oh, well, but I'm still confident. It's like, no, I'm humble enough to say, hey, you know what, there's people that are better than me on a bunch of different things. And that's okay.

• 2:46Jocko Willink?

  Now, to get to the point of, hey, how do you not be jealous? Here's where I think, I think you're gonna like this mentality or approach. As far as, and because it reminds me of one of your stories that you told me a long time ago, which you just told us on the, I told everyone on the podcast. Which was, I think it was, you, you read the book Mind Games, is that your book? And it said, if you get mad.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have low self-esteem.

• 3:13Jocko Willink?

  You have low self-esteem.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  It usually comes from low self-esteem.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  And so you were like, oh dang, I shouldn't get mad anymore. And that was the mental trick that you played on yourself to get you to a point where you viewed being angry as sort of a weakness that you didn't want to partake in anymore. I think you can use the same mind trick on jealousy. Which is, hey, if I'm getting jealous, that's me being insecure. And here's the thing, and this is why, this is why I think it's even more effective. Because, I want you to think about this. I want people to think about this, not you necessarily, you Echo. But if you get jealous,

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  that means you're insecure, and here's the, here's the clincher. Everybody knows it. That's the thing. Everybody knows it. When you're jealous and you start freaking out, what are you doing talking to him? Everybody knows, oh, you see that person as a threat. You're threatened by this other person. That's why you're getting jealous because somewhere you think you're weaker, poorer, dumber, inferior to this other human. So don't, and then guess what you look like? Guess what your significant other now thinks? Now they think, oh, why would, why would he be jealous of this guy? This guy must have something that Jocko doesn't have. Instead, don't do that.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  Don't allow yourself to get in that trap. When you're jealous, it means you're insecure and everybody can see it. So don't act that way, even if you have to just gut through it.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  Even if you just have to gut through it, that is 10 times better than saying, oh, I don't want you to go talk to that guy right now. Hey man, oh yeah, cool. I'll be over here. What? Wait a second, why aren't you jealous? Oh, I'll tell you why. Because I'm not threatened. You want to go with that guy over there? Cool. Yeah, go ahead. That's cool. I'll be over here. That's fine.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  That's what I'm saying. So if you want to, if you want, so you can apply this to anything, right? You can apply this to anything. You're at work and someone's trying to butter up to the boss. And you're like, wait a second, why are you talking to the boss for? Everybody can see it. And somebody like, yeah, you can talk to the boss all you want, of course. Yeah. Oh, you want to go above me in the chain of command? You want to go check in with the CEO? Cool. Yeah, go ahead. Of course. Go talk to him. Go find out what's going on. Yeah, I have no problem with that. Because I'm secure in my position. The minute I'm like, oh, I don't want you talking to him. Everybody can see that now, oh, you don't want to be found out as the weak leader. You don't want anyone talking to the CEO and ratting you out. Why? Because I'm paranoid. Why am I paranoid? Because I'm insecure.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  And here's the key part. Everybody can see it. Everybody can see it.

• 6:11Jocko Willink?

  This stupid, what a jackass driving that nice car.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  Everybody can see it. You think that you're actually fooling someone and thinking you don't like nice cars. Everyone can see that you're jealous of the nice car. Everyone can see it.

• 6:28Jocko Willink?

  So restrain yourself. Cause it's a bad look and it doesn't help you and it puts you in an inferior position in life.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  It is a bad look, huh? Yeah, like, you know, guys will be like, or people, whatever, they'll be like, uh, what's he compensating for? You know, like if they have a nice car or a nice whatever, what's he compensating for? Yeah, it's real obvious, yeah, but I guess, okay, so the jealousy, and you kind of brought up a good kind of point there, where if it's like, if it's with your, let's say, okay, just typical relationship, we'll say your girlfriend. I don't know. And she's talking to like another guy. Yeah, is that jealousy technically, or is it just simply insecurity?

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, it can be both. If I'm insecure, I go, hey, what are you doing? Hey, Jessica, why are you talking to him right now? Yeah, you're not only insecure, you're also jealous. It's both.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so insecure.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  They're like, they're intertwined.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, huh. I'm actually not that mad at certain, or insecurity in certain points of a relationship. To me, the relationship part of it gets a little bit more, like hard to just switch it on and off for some reason.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  I don't understand what you mean.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Okay, so like,

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  Expand.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  If someone's jealous, and I don't know, this just could be my bias, which probably is, I don't know, but, if, let's, let's say someone's doing better than you in XYZ, I don't know, some activity in life, maybe in their career or something. It's easy to like, okay, if you feel, if you're feeling some kind of jealousy or whatever, it's easy to switch that off with that kind of stuff, I think. It's like, it's really easy, I think, for whatever reason, but if you're in a relationship, especially a newer relationship.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  And you actually really like the person?

• 8:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. So, so what you're talking about is the thing that I have to often talk about when it comes to leading teams and leading people compared to leading to your family. Compared to leading your family. When you're dealing with your family, when you're dealing with the, the loved one, you got emotions and the emotions are what you have to try even harder to keep in check. Cause you might be a little bit upset with your employee if they do something that they shouldn't have done, but you might be totally irate with your kid if they do something they shouldn't have done. So we gotta keep our emotions in check and it's even more so when it comes to this idea of someone, you know, potential partner going with talking to someone else or doing, you know, you gotta be even more controlled over your emotions. And here's

• 8:56Jocko Willink?

  the thing, your girlfriend, boyfriend, significant other, they think less of you when you get jealous.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  That's what's happening.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  And if you can do the opposite, it's going to be better for you and it's 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

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  you 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 Jocko Underground.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.