Jocko Underground: There's An Area Of Optimal Stress That Results in Optimal Performance: Yerkes-Dodson Law | Afraid to Share Political Views

Yerkes-Dodson Law: The Area of optimal stress provides optimal results. I have a weak boss. How to lead on the lower levels. Afraid to share political views in social settings. Instilling confidence in your daughter. Gaining control over an unruly dog. How to be successful when everyone else has "jumped-ship". 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 70, sitting here with Echo Charles. Echo Charles. Sure. EC. Sure. All the above. And the Jocko. So on the last Underground, we talked about choking. Not the jujitsu choking, but the performance choking. And I mentioned something called the individual zones of optional optimal functioning. Which is that level of attentiveness and pressure that actually makes you perform better. I talked about surfing and how surfing without a leash, I could feel that I'm more focused.

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  I can feel it's a more enjoyable rush. More enjoyable feeling. A more focused feeling. Cause if you mess up, your board's gone. It's probably gonna get smashed by the rocks. You have to swim far. At a minimum, you gotta swim, which is a gut check. So everything is more focused. So that that level of stress is good. So there's a closely related psychological theory or psychological law related to this. It's called the Yerkes Dodson Law. Maybe it's the Yerkeses, but the Yerkes Dodson Law, named after a couple of psychologists, Robert Yerkes and John Dodson.

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  And it says something very similar, basically that you have an area of optimal stress that results in optimal performance, right? So with too little stress, your performance will be subpar due to lack of attention, due to lack of interest, due to lack of focus. This is when, you know, when a parent's like, oh yeah, my kid's really smart and he's getting an F in school or whatever. And it's because they're bored. That's what this is, right? Not enough stress. So.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  Not enough interest, not enough attention, not enough focus. Cause there's not enough stress. The other end of the spectrum, we got too much stress. And now we have a subpar performance. Because there's anxiety, there's overstimulation, there's chemicals getting released into the body. There's a bunch of things that are going on that if you get too much stress, you're going to have a subpar performance. And this, this original experiment,

• 2:23Jocko Willink?

  the way they conducted it, the original experiment was with mice and the mice were

• 2:29Jocko Willink?

  allowed to enter one of two boxes, two boxes.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  And the mice would enter into one of these boxes. One was black, one was white. If they went into the black box, there was no shock. If they went in the white box, they were getting electrocuted. Like not electrocuted, but they were getting, yeah, I guess they were getting a shock. And I'm sorry, everybody, this is a experiment from like 1900 or 1905 or 1906. So I apologize that the mice were harmed in this situation.

• 3:00Jocko Willink?

  With a really weak shock in the white box, it took them a long time to figure out the deal.

• 3:12Jocko Willink?

  With a really strong shock, it took them a long time to figure out the deal. With a medium shock, they figured out the deal quickest. So like not enough stress, like I don't really care. Went in this box, didn't really faze me.

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  With too much shock, they walk in the box, ah, what the hell just happened? Oh my God, what's going on? Too much. But when they gave them a shock that they discomfort, they didn't like, but it didn't freak them out. That's where they learned.

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  The quickest. That's where they, for lack of a better word, performed optimally. Now, this is where this gets complicated a little bit. It gets more complicated when the task gets more complicated. Cause this is what they figured out eventually for humans. You, if it's a simple task, you can maintain good performance even with high stress. If it's a complex task, that's where things fall apart under stress. I mean, this is common sense, right? It's common sense. And you know, there's, there's an old school version of self-defense from like World War II.

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  And their whole theory was based on gross motor movements. Meaning I'm just gonna like, big giant sweeping punches and big giant sweeping stabs. Big giant gross motor movements. So I'm not gonna try and grab like your fingers and manipulate, cause it's too. If we're fighting to death in combat, I've got all this stress. I'm not gonna be able to perform these micro movements, these complex detailed movements. I'm gonna just get you with a big giant, you know, clothesline to the neck.

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  So that kind of reminds me, that's actually a good theory that they have there.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  Now, all that being said, and again, a lot of stuff is common sense, but it's worth thinking about.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  We can improve the performance under stress of a complex task if we practice, if we rehearse, if we repeat. So

• 5:29Jocko Willink?

  that's why, you know, shooting, shooting a pistol, shooting a rifle. You practice it. I mean, it's fairly complex. It's fairly complex if you're someone that's never shot before and you gotta line the front sight with the back sight. You gotta, you know, hold good position with your hands. You gotta do a good sit. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of individual movements that are happening. And yet, once you get good at pistols, not even a thought, it's something you do. It becomes very, very simple.

• 5:59Jocko Willink?

  So that's what, that's what we want to, that's what we want to do. Now, there's a lot, just FYI, if anyone wants to freak out and, and tell me that, you know, this, this psychological theory has been disproven and the experiment and the scientific protocols and the methods of accuracy, there's, there's a lot of, there's some people that are criticizing it and they morph this law over time, but this much we know.

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  And this much is important, not all stress is bad.

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  Right? Not all stress is bad.

• 6:42Jocko Willink?

  Some stress is good. No stress at all is bad. It doesn't stimulate. And this is something to think about from a leadership position. If you're, if you're not putting any challenges in front of your team, they're not going to get in the game.

• 6:58Jocko Willink?

  And when you're a leader and you put too much stress on your team, they're gonna be overwhelmed. So you've got to find that optimal level of stress. And then when you've got a team and you want them to get good at doing something under stress, you gotta rehearse it, they gotta practice it. And that includes leadership. Again, the primary goal of the training that I used to run for SEAL teams was to actually overwhelm the leaders.

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  Massive stress.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  So that they could become accustomed to it. So they could come up with little protocols on how to prioritize and execute.

• 7:42Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go.

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  Don't think of stress as something you need to fight against. Think of it as something you need to work with to find the optimal level of stress with yourself, with your team, so that everyone can perform better.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  They say that uh, I don't know, it was something about the current state of children being spoiled or something like this, I don't know, something like that is in an application of that, they were saying,

• 8:13Speaker 01

  when kids are spoiled, it's, it's not, I forget what it's not, but all essentially in its, on its base level, it's a low uh, stress tolerance. Or, sorry, a low distress tolerance. So like, if you're used to getting what you want at every turn, and then the moment you don't get what you want, that causes distress and they have low tolerance because they don't have any practice in being distressed throughout life. So they react irrationally. That's what it is.

• 8:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Low distress tolerance. Despite exercise is so good, man, because that's something like, you kind of learn the idea of discomfort and pain in exercise, like if you go hard, or even playing sports and all this other stuff. I kind of, you kind of as an adult, you kind of reflect on those things and be like, you realize the value of that.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  Totally valuable.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Distress tolerance.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  Yup. Alright.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Q and A. Q and A, first question, Jocko, if I, if I have...

• 9:13Jocko Willink?

  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 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 are doing this so we don't have 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,

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  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 eight dollars and 18 cents 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.