Jocko Underground: The Protocol In Your Head Is Probably Wrong

Having the correct protocol for dealing with stressers. Doing good but unfulfilled as a young man. How to recover from making a terrible impression. Follow the money? Or follow the passion? Dealing with an environment full of gossip. How to raise your kids to be confident and self-assured. 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 97, and sitting here with Echo Charles. I was talking with my daughters, my middle and youngest daughter.

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  And we were talking about the fact that, and I was explaining to them, quite frankly, that you create a path in your head of how you are going to deal with stress and challenges.

• 0:29Jocko Willink?

  You kind of create like a protocol in your head. You don't know this. You've never thought of this about this one time in your life, Echo. You've not thought about this one time in your life that you, oh, you feel stressed. It's possible that you've never thought about this before. But you have. You've created a protocol when you're in a stressful situation, when there's a challenge in front of you. You created some kind of an internal protocol that you go through

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  to deal with that challenge, or deal with that stress, or deal with that issue.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  And the more you recognize that, the better that protocol can become. And it's something that you have to pay attention to because you, because you can create a protocol in your head that like, oh, I'm going to go through something right now. I know it's going to hurt, but here's where I need to go mentally to get through it. And once I get through it, it's going to make me feel this way. So you have a whole pathway that's traveled, well-traveled. It's going to be easy for you to get down that path. You, oh, I'm in this bad situation again. Okay, cool. I know what I need to do. I know the mindset I need to get, and I can move forward. You can also develop a pathway that's bad.

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  Like you know something's going to be hard, and you immediately like go, oh, this is going to be hard. It's going to be terrible. And you get, start thinking about why it's so bad, and thinking about what's going to happen if it goes wrong, and think about how long it's going to last. And you focus on the negative, and you can develop a path like that. And you see people in life that develop a path like that, anything bad, and you also see, be like, oh, God. Right? They have two different directions that you can go.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  These paths have protocols in your head. Uh, do you ever do sauna activities?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, sauna, hell yeah.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  You ever do like aggressive, hostile sauna?

• 2:13Speaker 01

  I would never call any of my sauna sessions hostile nor aggressive.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay. I do some pretty hostile,

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  aggressive sauna, uh, things. Where, you know, the temperature's max, you're pouring on the water, it's painful. If you have the wrong mindset,

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  It's a nightmare.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33Jocko Willink?

  If you have a good mindset, it's fine.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I dig it.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  Almost to the point where you think, you're like, wait, what's the temperature? You almost think it's cooler. You almost think it's shorter.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43Jocko Willink?

  Like if you weren't following the protocol, you, the, the sauna protocol, or the lifting protocol, or the whatever, like if you're, it's squats.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  You can get caught in a bad place. You know what I mean? I've had conversations with myself.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  Where I've literally said, I don't care if I'm strong. I don't care anymore.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  I just wanna stop this.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Jocko Willink?

  That's a voice in the head.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  You gotta power through that. But your protocol, you can, you can go down that path where you stop. You can develop a habit of like, okay, well, it's hard, so I'm just gonna get off this. Stop the sauna, stop the squatting, stop the whatever. Um, I think that you probably did this with claustrophobia. Did you? You figured out that like, oh, this is gonna end, hang on, don't freak out.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  Don't get caught in a negative place, cuz you used to freak out.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  Seven years ago, maybe?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  You'd get like, you'd tap, you actually would tap.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  Like submit and quit. Because someone like me was cross-eyed on you.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't remember anyone else ever doing that.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Aside from you.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, that's one.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  There you go. It's true though, yes.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  But, but yeah, and you, you couldn't deal with it, like you hated it.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  And then you got used to it, you, you actually found a different path in your head. You did what I'm talking about here. You went from like, look, whoa, and Doc is gonna, I'm gonna, never gonna get out, it's gonna suck, he's gonna sweat on my eye, like this is terrible, I can't breathe. You took all that and you said, you know what, he's not, I can't die. I'm not going to die. He can't put any more weight on me than he's putting on me, it's just not gonna get, he's can't get any heavier in the next three minutes.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  He's not submitting me, so he's not really winning. He's just putting pressure. The pressure can only get so much, and if I can hang on, he's gonna have to try something else.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  You figured that out. You carved out this other path. So, once you realize that you have these paths and your protocol in your head, once you recognize them, you can adjust them. And if you have a good path that you can go down, you can actually go, "Oh, I see what's happening right now." You can, you can say, "Oh, left turn, right turn, uh, go 60 miles an hour, press the brakes. Alright, now I'm through it."

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:10Jocko Willink?

  You can actually do that.

• 5:14Jocko Willink?

  These are things, a- and by the way, if you have a bad path, you can say, "Oh, hold on a second. The right turn doesn't get me anywhere. Good, stop, go left."

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  The straightaway, "Don't go down the straightaway. It seems real easy, but it's not the place to go." Take that left exit, get off the straightaway, take the left exit, come to a stop sign, take a right at the light. You can adjust your path so you're getting somewhere good. Some people, they have like the freeway that goes straight to hell, right? They hit challenges.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  We don't wanna do that.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  So, if you, if you recognize that, you can change it, you can inherently develop it over time. And then, when the stress hits, you can get better at it.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  Right? You can recognize that.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  And that's a positive thing. So you see that the stress is increasing, the emotions are increasing, the negative thoughts are running wild, you can take a step back, you can breathe. You can think through the worst-case scenarios, you can make adjustments. You can pre-plan these things, you can think through them. What is the protocol going to be in a challenging situation? You can figure out a protocol for yourself. And then you can resort to the protocol. You can resort to the protocol. It's like

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  shooting. When you have a jam on your weapon, you don't think about it.

• 6:40Jocko Willink?

  You just resort to the protocol. That's what you do.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  And then, once you've figured out what your protocol is gonna be, put it to some kind of test. And there's a lot of good ways to test it. Jiu Jitsu, by the way, is a good way to test stressful situations. Hard exercise, competition, trying things that are new.

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  Some people, whatever you're afraid of, you're afraid of speaking, go speak. So you have a lot of control over your reactions to things. Probably a lot more control than you think you have over reactions to things.

• 7:18Jocko Willink?

  And if you recognize that, you can

• 7:22Jocko Willink?

  take even more control over it. You can implement some positive protocols, train around those protocols, and you can become a better human being.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  So what these paths of, um, protocols that that you kind of formulate in your head, you're talking like subconsciously.

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, most automatic. Of course, we've, you develop like habits.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  Like habitual ways of dealing. And what you can tell is like with a, with a kid, that whatever they experienced when they were young, and the way they handled it was to start crying, or curl up in a ball, or use their temper, or they develop, and guess what? When they lost their temper, their mom backed off and they kind of got what they wanted.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  It worked in one way or another.

• 8:04Jocko Willink?

  It worked in one way or the other. It, it, it stopped the stressful situation.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  Maybe it was because they quit, right? Maybe it's because they quit and they just don't have to deal with it anymore.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  You're correct.

• 8:15Jocko Willink?

  So, these things get developed. We, we learn, like, up, we learn a methodology to deal with stress. I feel very lucky because I feel like when I was a kid, I just, whatever stress I came across, I figured out a way, kind of threw it. And then in the, you know, I didn't think about this, I didn't think about this until three days ago. Like, going through SEAL training? Why do people quit? It's because their protocol is like, oh, this is gonna suck. I don't know how long it's gonna last. I don't want to do this anymore and they quit. For me, I was like, oh, this is gonna end someday. Like, whatever, I want to do this, so let's go. I can't even tell you what my protocol was, but my protocol was something along the lines of, I don't care, bring it.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Yep, that makes sense to me.

• 9:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Well, you, okay, so you're, you're different and this is so beneficial and so were you and you've always come off like this to me. I don't know, I can't read your mind, but this is what it seems like. That you're kind of almost like, that's part of your sense of pride, like the more stress you can just put on yourself to endure, it's almost like you, you. It's like a sense of like value almost, kind of like the more extreme something is on yourself, the more you're, you're kind of like happy with it, you know, kind of the thing.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  I will say this. I like, and this is a, this is a, be careful what you wish for.

• 9:37Jocko Willink?

  I like when things are chaotic and crazy. And I'm not talking about self-induced. I'm talking about like when the world, when there's mayhem, I kind of like it.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, and that you've always seemed like that in this way where, and not in a psychopathic way, nothing like this, but like.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the thing. I don't want to be like, oh, like I want to jump into the fire because I, I want, you know.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not masochistic.

• 10:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's not masochistic.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  It, it just seems like you're always into and you, by your own admission, like into hardcore, like, you know, like you're hardcore, me like hardcore, like that's pretty extreme, that's extreme. And it's like you embrace that part of things like as in, as like an internal interest almost, you know, so you kind of bring it on yourself and it's kind of like part of it. Or normal people not like that. So, but I think that formulated itself to be like such this strong asset. What, because it's so useful in way in like outlasting, enduring certain things, which is a necessity for certain types of success. Or pretty much all kinds of success, pretty much. But, but a normal person, I would say, you know, in one way or another, this, it feels like this is kind of the, the formula in your head. Where stress comes and you, and you recognize stress as being a bad thing.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  And then you just start reaching for the relief, like really reaching for the relief of that stress. Like, you know, you think of a little kid where, I don't know, the kid gets in trouble or gets embarrassed or whatever. And his, his protocol will say is to. Run in the closet and lock the door or something like that, right? Where that's his first reaction that he might have done other stuff before, but that was the first one that found just a little bit of relief from that stress. So, oh, that's what we're doing. And it gets like cemented in their little brain back there. And it just sort of builds, you know? And whatever, it's like a weird little mutated version of like evolution in the back here. But the mistake is there's a greater like if you can endure certain types of stress,

• 11:31Speaker 01

  it'll give you a greater payoff than that one. Just in giving up and quitting is a big, big part of it. Whether it be jujitsu, whether it be SEAL training, whatever, where it's like, hey, endure this stress. Yeah, you feel like you want to quit. You feel you want the relief from the stress for sure. But if you endure it, that relief is going to come way, way more. You'll have more of a payoff than that one little short term one. See what I'm saying? So, but in your little protocol, that little subconscious protocol doesn't work like that. You gotta train it to work like that. And that's in the, I thought that it was clear as day when you're describing my little claustrophobia thing, which is exactly what happened by the way. Where that was, that's what was going to work. Like I'm thinking to myself, why the fricking like, first off, other people don't have this problem like this that I can see. I'm sure they do.

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, Jocko hasn't killed anyone by being cross eyed.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  No one's died.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, so why am I letting myself believe that I'm going to die? Cause really that's kind of the feeling of claustrophobia. Like you'll never, the thing is, bro, I'm not stuck here. I have the, it's complete. Why do I feel like this? So you logic, just like how you mapped out right there. You logically go through it. Like, what do I think? Like Jocko's not going to smash my ribs right now and injure me. I'm not going to die. It's jujitsu, you like, you know, it's like you, you walk through it consciously. And then over time, you slowly start to train yourself out of that, that weird pattern, you know? Into the new pattern. That's good.

• 12:53Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  I'm going to do it.

• 12:55Jocko Willink?

  Something for everyone to learn. You have patterns developed. You have habits.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  And you need to pay attention.

• 13:05Jocko Willink?

  So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 13:15Jocko Willink?

  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 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

• 14:00Jocko Willink?

  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.