Jocko Underground: Your Life Is Dragging Because Of The Undone Small Things.

Life drags from the small undone things. Reluctant to take that promotion. Dealing with anger. Having trouble getting along with my peers my age. Advice to an aspiring professional artist. How to successfully manage multiple projects or businesses. 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 66. Echo Charles with me. Dave Berke also here. Guest appearance. We just got done recording a podcast, so you figured you might as well stay in the seat. Hang out. Hang out a little bit longer. Just stay here long enough to get caught in traffic on the way home. No. Yeah, that's what you get for moving to Carlsbad.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  You say you're gonna move to San Diego, you move to Carlsbad. I know. You got issues. I, I, what I want to do is put myself on report today. Put myself on report. Cause I had something take place that normally doesn't happen to me. Normally I'm pretty good. But the fact that this went on for as long as it did, I have to like reveal and, and take ownership of the situation. So I don't want to make it too crazy, but here's the deal. So in my, in, at our gym, Victory MMA, I have a locker. We all, the instructors, we have lockers. I actually have two of them, top and bottom. So I got like one locker thing. They're pretty big lockers. They're not like a little tiny school locker,

• 1:11Jocko Willink?

  but it's where I keep all my jiu-jitsu gear, you know, t-shirts, knee pads, shorts, whatever, headgear if you need it. You know, gies, so all this stuff. My top, the top locker is the one I usually use. So I have to bend down and like get on my knee, you know, super comfort. Sure. But there's some items that you're not using all the time. And so I bought for my top locker years ago, I bought a little shelving unit from Home Depot, which is three minutes from here. It's probably 10 years ago. I bought a little shelving unit for my top locker. Maybe eight years ago. Went, built it. All of a sudden it saves so much space. It's great.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  About three years ago, I bought another shelving unit for my bottom, my bottom locker.

• 2:03Jocko Willink?

  And it sat in the bottom locker, the shelving unit, unassembled. Just sat in the bottom locker for three years. And I didn't, didn't follow through and carry out actually building this shelving unit for the bottom locker. Just so everything would be squared away and everything be organized. Just, just so, just, just so everything could be squared away and everything could be organized. Which is so nice in life. So for the past three years, I've just had the top one kinda squared away, but not really because there's stuff that need to be moved in the bottom one. But I didn't because it was kinda cluttered already because I didn't have a shelf in there.

• 2:46Jocko Willink?

  And I just dealt with it. And you know, it's probably about a 20 minute job. Right? And I knew that in my head because I've done it before. It's gonna take me 20 minutes to build out this bottom shelf for my bottom locker. For three years, I didn't do it. For three, I could've come in 20 minutes early. And you know what? It actually would save you about probably one to two minutes every day. Because you gotta kinda jam stuff in there a little bit to get it locked. You know, the top locker, I'm only using the top one. So, but now I gotta like push something back in or something's kinda slips out. So it's kind of a pain.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  And finally, the other day I got done rolling at six o'clock at night and I'm getting ready to go home and my daughter was teaching class. And she's like, sees me and she's like, hey dad, can we roll? And I go, well, I'm heading home. She's like, oh, come on, I'm heading, she was heading back to college soon. I said, okay, what time you done with class? She goes 6:30. So I have a half an hour to kill. So I'm like, oh, I roll in there and I just get to it. And I get it done in 18 minutes. And these two lockers became 10 times more squared away. 10 times, maybe 12 times more squared away.

• 4:05Jocko Willink?

  And every time I've come into the gym since that time, which has now been like a month. Every time I've come in, I've had like a sense of relief and satisfaction.

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  I didn't do it though.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Why didn't?

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  The thing that's weird is I am not a procrastinator, right? Like, I know there's times when I procrastinate. It's like, oh, I got squat day. Sometimes I'll be like, stretched for an extra fifteen minutes and I know it's happening and I actually will build that into my schedule a little bit.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  But I'm not, I'm not a person that goes, oh, maybe not now, you know, I don't really do that. And here's something that I did it for three years. Three years of pathetic procrastination to do a task. Part of it was because the, let's face it, a minute a day, a minute of inconvenience. I just was like, ah, it's not that big of a deal.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  And it's pathetic. My point in saying this is, what is going on in your life? That could take a fifteen, a twenty minute investment, or maybe it's a one day investment, or maybe it, you know, because sometimes that stuff happens too. You got something at your house. You're like, hey, if I, if I pull down this fence and install a better gate, I can get in and out of it with the groceries and it's going to make my life easier for, forever.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  But it's going to take eight hours for me to pull down this old gate and put up a new one. And you just hold off, hold off, hold off. It reminds me, unfortunately,

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  in Iraq, like I went to a, we, we hit a big target in Iraq. And the place we went into is like, you know, this family's house and it was just all jacked up and the, the, the shit trench was right next to the sink where they prep food. And I was like, eh, if I lived here, I would start fixing this right now. If I moved in there, I would immediately start fixing this. When we would go and take over like a building to go live in, in Iraq, we would immediately start fixing stuff, like immediately like, oh, we can, I could put this over here. I can, I can, I can build a little thing. I can build a desk. I built desks for myself, built beds for my, everyone did this. You just immediately start improving stuff. So here I was for three years not improving my situation.

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  And it reminded me that that's common. It can be very common and it reminded me not to let it happen again. So I wanted to put myself on report in order to free up.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  The brains and lives of everyone.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's real. I mean, I was about to say, hey, don't be too hard on yourself, but I'm not gonna say that cuz hey, do what you did. You sound like you solved your little problem there. But it's like, I figured it out. I figured what, as you could probably imagine, that happens to me all the time. Very common for me. One was like, um, you know how like in your kitchen, you have cupboards, right?

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Some are up top, some are down low. Usually down low, well, in my case, there's like pots and stuff down there, right? So I had this one where kinda what do you call the hinge was like off, like the screw like came out of the thing. Not fully, just you know how there's two hinges is one talked about, it was on the top. So you could open it a little bit, but if you open it all away, like the door will like fall all the way off. And you kinda know that, right? But if all you gotta do is open it and just sort of hold it there. See what I'm saying? As you grab the pots and stuff, you close it, you're good to go. So, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to hold it. But once you're done, this is why, this is why, same thing with you. Right? You're not thinking about that all day. Probably grab pots one time a day, maybe. See what I'm saying? Just like you, you, you, whatever, and you go roll, you don't think about that thing. So you're like, whatever.

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  That's a good point.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Even though every single encounter with it, it's like that little pain in the ass, that little pain in the ass. And it's a spectrum, certain things are, you know, play a bigger role in your day for sure, but that's what I was feeling. I was like, whatever. And then I literally forget about it. Then one day I was just like, man, for a while, I don't even know why I did it. But I was like, all right, and I went and grabbed another screw, took out the old one, made another hole.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  Three minutes.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally like three minutes. And just like you, every time I go to get the pots, I'm like, oh, this is so luxurious. It seems, I don't know if it saved me time necessarily, but effort, I'll tell you, mental energy. But it's like we have this mental like momentum. That's why. Cuz we're like, hey, if I'm gonna grab some pots or you're gonna go roll jujitsu, you're thinking about training. You're not thinking about putting together a shelf, shelving.

• 8:34Jocko Willink?

  And then you get done rolling and I get, get in there and I'm like, well, I'm gonna go.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Time to go home.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  Get, get home, get food, get, start working, whatever.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Exactly right. You don't wanna stop that momentum and then put together a Ikea shelving unit. Bruh, it's not time for that right now. Some other time. But the thing is, it never works like that. You never wake up and be like, you know what? Today, I'm gonna put together that shelving, you know, the thing that inconvenienced you for like one minute.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  So it's like, you gotta kinda like how you said, you gotta consciously check yourself.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Understanding and appreciating the improvement in your life is important.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Is important. Here's some, here's some, I, I, I thought of three while you're explaining three that I.

• 9:18Jocko Willink?

  Three what?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Other scenario.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh gosh, this is like a lifestyle for you.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 9:26Jocko Willink?

  Dave, do you even have one scenario or are you just on it?

• 9:29Speaker 02

  No, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking more generically on why I'm, what I'm willing to procrastinate about and what I'm not. And I guess partially to come to your defense a little bit.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  If there's something that needs to get done that impacts like the life of my wife specifically and to a large degree, my kids and I try to balance that a little bit. That stuff just gets done. It just gets done and, and, and I don't do it because I like, think I'm a great husband or a great dad, but I have this sense of like, dude, I gotta get that thing done. If it's something that solely benefits me and I can't really draw the connection, I am, I will sit on things. Like, as super random as it sounds, I have a towel bar in the bathroom of the office that I use that has been off the hook of the wall. And the towel just sits on the, on my counter, the, the bathroom counter.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  My daughter came in like four days ago, the towel bar had pulled off from the hinge of the wall and she came into my office. I was working. I, I wasn't like with a client, but I was working and she's like, hey, this thing broke. And I'm like, I went downstairs, got the screwdriver, got the drill, got the new anchors and like, you know, 17 minutes later, whatever, five minutes later. My thing is still just sitting on my, my kitchen or my bathroom counter. I, I don't know when I'm going to do it, even though I should. So I rationalize it by going, oh, it doesn't help anybody else. I'm not going to do it.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  So you could rationalize your words like, ah, it's just for me, it's not really putting me out much, right? But it's kind of like, what if every time like I saw you, not when we're talking, but when we weren't talking, I'd like jab you in your rib or something. And it's like, hey, like whatever, it doesn't, but if the day I stop jabbing you, bro, you're going to feel a lot better. I'll tell you that right now.

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Bruh, it's true. Throwing things away. A lot of people procrastinate because you know, maybe you gotta cut it up. You gotta break it down. It's a, you know, it's a five-minute job to throw this thing away. But once you throw it away, it'll be gone. Then you can park your car.

• 11:23Jocko Willink?

  What kind of things are you hoarding, by the way?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Stuff in the garage, which brings me to number two. So like a lot of times, you know, you put, you buy something or something old.

• 11:32Jocko Willink?

  But while I'm, while I'm up here, just, just put myself on report. 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. And we're doing it

• 12:17Jocko Willink?

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