Jocko Underground: Taking Pleasure in Other Peoples Pain | Guys Looking to Start Trouble Everywhere You Go

Taking pleasure in other people's pain: SchadenFreude. You might be the lightning rod. Managing a long-distance relationship during college years. Should you attend Jiu Jitsu class even if you can't participate? Getting the team to be motivated to do hard things. Dealing with opposing financial philosophies in a marriage. 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, and we actually have an Echo Charles topic, which is strange because you've sent, you always send me topics. And look, I open them with the, I, you know, you'll send me an email, it'll say, "UG Topics", and I'll open it up with a good attitude, I'll have a positive attitude.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 0:22Jocko Willink?

  But it's been pretty rare so far that they make the cut. Now, maybe one of our topics could be Echo Charles Topics. Matter of fact, maybe we'll do that next time, I'll just go through the topics and see what you were thinking when these came to mind. Also, I'd like to say this, if there's something that a listener is, that you'd like to hear us discuss, send it in, not just a question, but say, "Hey, we'd like to hear your discussion on this topic." So, the topic that you sent me was Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude, I think that's how you say it, Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude, you sent me this topic, "Hey, well, let's talk about this",

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  and it's a pretty, it's a pretty popular topic, yeah, maybe popular is strong words, you hear it occasionally. It's a German word, that's the combination of two words, the first word is Schaden, which is damage or harm, and Freude, which is joy. So, this is when you, as a person, are finding joy in someone else's suffering.

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  So, I, it seems to be something that people like to experience on the interwebs, right? You can kind of watch bad things happen to people. I mean, there's whole, there's a thing called fail, like fail TV and fail army, right? Just watching people eat shit in a bunch of various different ways, on skateboards, on mountain bikes, on water skis, in vehicles. That's, that's sort of the ultimate form of Schadenfreude, right? It's kind of the, well, I mean, maybe not the, it's, it's a pure form. You are literally watching people suffer.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yep, or like when a kid, here's a classic one where the kid swings a bit, you know, the dad and the kid, right? And then the baseball bat, or they're playing baseball or whatever, kid hits the baseball and it hits the dad in the nuts.

• 2:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  That's the classic one.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  Classic. So those are kind of, quite frankly, those are kind of like a little bit innocent kind of funny humorous versions of this, but there are some, you know, when I, when I was looking this up, trying to, trying to just get a little more of a better understanding of it, drive the psych, the psychological driving forces, because this can be a real thing. Psychological driving forces are aggression, rivalry, and sometimes justice, you think about that one. Well, like when you see, here's a classic one, going back to the same kind of knucklehead stuff. You see the person that's driving and they do some asshole move and then they hit a freaking, you know, a bridge abutment or whatever. Kind of, you know, like I got what you deserved.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  So when I worked at the nightclub downtown, you'd see, you know, people show out downtown, right? And

• 3:12Jocko Willink?

  Did you say show out?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Show out like a

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  Getting all dressed up and whatnot?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  No, it's like

• 3:18Jocko Willink?

  Is it, is it different than show off?

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  What's the difference?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Show out means like essentially, for lack of a better way of putting it, making a scene.

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Good or bad.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  You know? Um, yeah. So guys would like, when they leave, they'll peel out, right? Making it all smoky and loud, making this just showing out, right? And they peel out, right? And then you'd see sometimes, because a lot of cops downtown, you'll see the cop, woo, turn on his light, you know, and go chase them. Everyone would cheer. It's weird. Everyone on the streets cheering.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  Just schadenfreude.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  All day, man.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  Justice. Justice for that person. So that can do it. And so why did you, what, what made you want to discuss this?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Um.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  Was it some particular case that you saw?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  No, no, it was just like the, like a psychological kind of condition that's like, it seems bad, but then there's, it probably goes so deep in which to me, I didn't know. I didn't realize all of this stuff that you already said.

• 4:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, here's what, when you asked about it, it's like, okay, cool. So we'll talk about what it is, and I think everyone can kind of understand it. But here, I wanted to take something, I don't want to say positive way from it, but I wanted to get a legitimate lesson learned from it. Here's the legitimate lesson learned as I started thinking about this feeling. It is such a good indicator of your own station in life, your own security, your own confidence, your own, for lack of a better word, happiness, right? So if I'm seeing Echo and I see you freaking whatever, you get, you crash your car and I'm like, I kind of feel good about it, what does that say about me?

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  If I see, if you get fired from your job, if your girlfriend dumps you and I kind of feel good about it, why, why is that? Well, it's because I'm insecure. It's because I'm not happy and I want you to be suffering as well. You know, I got for a while thinking that, that you know, certain guys in the SEAL teams wouldn't want to see other guys succeed. I told you that story about Seth wanting to go to Princeton and guys like, no, you shouldn't go to ruin your career. I'm like, bro, how is going to Princeton going to ruin your career? What are you, that's insane. Like, go to Princeton, you'll have a degree, but people didn't want to get that leg up, right?

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  So it's sort of like a check engine light for your soul. And if you're walking around and you see other people suffering and it brings you joy, you got issues that you need to look at for yourself and you need to check yourself. Now there's, once I got in the rabbit hole of this thing, there's another word, another tough to pronounce German word, but it's related. It's called glückschmerz. And what this is, this is when you're mad about someone else's good luck. Oh, Echo got a new job. You're mad about it. You know, oh, Echo just freaking got a new house and you're mad about it. Same thing, in my opinion, if you feel this way, you need to check your soul.

• 6:22Jocko Willink?

  This is a red light and to check engine light on your soul. I, when I got the house that I live in now, which was a long time ago, it was actually 10, almost 12, almost 11 years ago, I got the house I live in now. House I live in now is in a cool, very cool location. I could barely afford it. I did crazy things to get into that house. And one of the, you know, not like a close friend, but of, you know, friend of the family type individual had stopped, you know, was walking down the street and knew that we had got or whatever and walked in there. And immediately started telling me like, oh, but the traffic, you know, is gonna be loud.

• 7:03Jocko Willink?

  It's a lot of salt corrosion because by the, like, just point out all these negative things.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Started hating on it.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, was hating. Thank you for bringing to the parlance of our times, right? Was hating on it. You could not be mad at this house. I mean, unless you're, you could not be. You know, it's, you could not be. And I remember thinking, damn, this dude is bummed that I got, that I got this house in this location. So what's, so what's the, the location, right? The house was kind of crappy.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  Wasn't that crappy, though? I mean, it was not bad. Wasn't heinous.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:39Jocko Willink?

  Was livable. You know what I'm saying? But the location was good to go. So, but then the funny thing is stoner came by. And I was like, hey, dude, I got, I got, because I didn't want to jinx it. And so I told him, I'm like, hey, man, I'm, I'm in escrow for a house. He's like, where is it? I'm like, I, and I was like, oh, it's, it's down by the water will be, you know? But I didn't want to tell him because I want to jinx it, superstition style. So finally I got, I go, I go, hey, man, come and see the new house. And he's like, where is it? And I sent him the, like, the pin drop. And he's like, damn. So he comes over and I'm already there. And he walks in, dude, and you could see like big, ear to ear smile on his face. He's like, dude, we're set.

• 8:21Jocko Willink?

  For him, it was like we bought, it was our house. You know what I'm saying? But he was like, super stoked. He had the opposite of gluck smurts.

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  So if you're one of these people, if you're getting bitter, then, then you have an issue.

• 8:41Jocko Willink?

  And where I, I, again, you kind of sent me a little bit of a thought tornado. Cause here's what's going on in my opinion. Once again, if I'm looking at you and I'm kind of mad that you're getting lucky. When I look at myself, I realize there's, I'm not, I'm letting myself down somehow, right?

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  Um, I'm bummed. Like I remember actually, you know, Stoner ended up getting a house in the neighborhood that I was in. And it wasn't quite as badass, but it was freaking legit. And I was so stoked for him. So he was stoked for me, I was stoked for him, right? That's the way it's supposed to be. Some people be all bummed out when their friends are winning. If you're bummed out when your friends are winning, you're probably, you got issues, but I think the issue that you have is you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're not working hard. You're not reaching your potential. And that is, so you have the pent up aggression towards people that are being successful. And that's a bummer.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  So watch out for this. Again, I think both these things, they're good things to pay attention to. Because if you're feeling them, if you're feeling joy when someone is suffering, or you're feeling anger when someone is winning, you got issues. Pay attention to it.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Do you feel like a little bit of that is natural?

• 10:12Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's the thing. There are natural psychological driving forces that I, that I read about, which is, you know, our natural human aggression, right? Like we're sizing each other up. We're, we're, we're competitors in life, right?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  That's what it feels like.

• 10:29Jocko Willink?

  So that is a natural thing that we're going to have. We have a natural rivalry for resources and for, you know, mates at an animal level. 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

• 11:13Jocko Willink?

  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. 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.