Jocko Underground: Using Time as a Weapon

Temporal motivation theory. Teaching others to have thick skin. All or nothing fallacy. The Path, The Code, The Evaluation. What is this? Joining the military while disapproving of Government decisions. Getting over your ex as you start a new chapter in life. 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 119, sitting here with Echo Charles EC. You mentioned something to me.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  The temporal motivation theory.

• 0:15Jocko Willink?

  And when I started looking to what this is, I realized that it's an opportunity for us, you know, we people to utilize time as a weapon. Utilizing the temporal motivation theory. So doing some interweb research, Wikipedia, what's the deal with Wikipedia? Marginal, like,

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  yeah, trust but verify, I think.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  It's a trust but verify scenario.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of like the friend that kind of knows a lot about a lot, you know?

• 0:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  And you're like, oh, what up?

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  Occasionally just drop some rando.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, yeah, maybe once in a while they'll grab some wrong info. I don't know.

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  I think there's certain areas that you can faithfully kind of utilize.

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  Wikipedia.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04Jocko Willink?

  And something like this is pretty much in the zone of, yeah, no one's trying to out, no one's out there trying to confuse or propagandize temporal motivation theory.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14Jocko Willink?

  If this was some political thing or something, then you got a whole nother situation you got to go through.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of times about, if it's about people.

• 1:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if it's about people, you're definitely.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's might be some question marks sometimes.

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  But it's a place to start, right? That's what we're doing. And look, we're not investing in temporal motivation theory with money. We're not making any claims. We're not putting this in a book. We're just discussing something. So here's what Wikipedia had to say. Temporal motivation theory is an integrative motivational theory developed by Pierce Steele and Cornelius J. Koenig. The theory emphasizes time as a critical motivation factor. I totally agree with that. And you and I have talked about this before. If you, if it's a, if it's a, let's say it's a Tuesday, and I got a flight and I got to leave the house at six for the flight. I get up and do that workout's going to be good, fast, focused.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  I wake up on a Sunday. I don't have to be, I don't have to be at open mat until 10.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  That's five and a half hours from when I wake up, right? I got all kinds of time. I be stretching, contemplating, maybe making a new playlist on the music app, right? There's all kinds of things. The, the, the, the, the time is not on my side in that case. So the temporal motivation theory formula can be applied to human behavior, procrastination and goal setting. According to Lord Diefendorf Schmidt and Hall, the theory quote, models the motivating power of approaching deadlines. Arguing that the utility, that the perceived utility of a given activity increases exponentially as the deadline nears.

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  These and similar ideas have been applied to the pervasive phenomenon of procrastination, end quote. So as the deadline approaches, you're going to be more focused. Look, we all figured that. Well, when I was in like high school and you had to study for something, you didn't study for it. You know, the test is in two weeks, right? You're not studying. There's 14 days in two weeks. You're not studying until day 13.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Then you're studying.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  Now, when I was in college, bro, I was, I was so freaking disciplined. Bro, I would have like a 20-page paper due in a month.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  I would write like two pages a day for 10 days, have the whole thing done, edit it. I would be done with it.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  Completely done.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  How old were you in college?

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  I was 28, dude.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  28, okay.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  This is unfair, totally unfair.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Anything past 25 that you're going to shift into that kind of mode for sure.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  I would hope so.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, one would hope for sure. But 18, yeah, that's the whole, like this temporal motivation theory. That's what it's called, right? Yeah. Is like the whole reason words like cramming exist or whatever.

• 4:10Jocko Willink?

  There's a whole, there's a whole freaking verbiage around that.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Community, whole culture, if you will. Oh, yeah. You know, yeah, yeah. Writing papers, like all that kind of stuff, whatever. Actually, the classic one, I think, even with grown adults is the.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  You know how you're you were like maybe on a weekend or whatever spring clean. I don't know whatever. You're like, oh, I'm gonna clean up around here. Just, you know, I just, it's just time, right? And you, you know, you clean up some stuff as you clean, like you, you see a hat you had. Let me put this hat on. You're looking at like you doing also, but let somebody be coming over. If somebody's coming over, I, man, my wife is like, I'm sure a lot of wives are like this too. But yeah, she's highly uh susceptible to this temporal motivation theory when it comes to cleaning up. When people are coming over, she's like freaking boom boom. And here's the thing, it actually works pretty good. You can clean up pretty solid when someone's coming over, you know? But yeah, man, that's real.

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  You can clean in seven minutes or seven hours. Outcome looks the same, just about.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? You're breaking, you find some old book that you once thought about reading and yeah, so.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Know exactly what to do with it.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Another thing it says here to see, and this is a good example, probably just kind of similar to what we just talked about. But to see how temporal motivation theory can be applied in example, consider a student given one month to study for a final exam. The student is given two options, studying and socializing. The student enjoys socializing but needs to achieve a good grade. The reward of studying is not immediate. This is a key point. The reward of studying is not immediate. It's a month away. So since it's not immediate, thus at the beginning of the student's study period, the motivation to study is lower than the motivation to socialize. Because you can get that reward from socialization, socializing immediately. Like, oh, it's good, we're gonna have a party, meet this girl, like all these fun things are gonna happen. You don't get any of that.

• 5:59Jocko Willink?

  You get no gratification from studying immediately, within the next month, no, no gratification. However, as the study period diminishes from several weeks to several days, the motivation to study will surpass the motivation to socialize, which it does. Cause now the person's cramming, they're not even there to skip that party now. So this is a factual kind of thing. So what does it mean to us? I think there's a couple of things. Number one, we talked about this with Kalipa too. Uh, setting a timer, right? Setting a timer on your workout definitely will, will help the workout. Saying that you will get done by this certain time, even scheduling something. So like, hey, I'll be done, I'll be driving, I'll be doing this, I'll be leaving, I'll be whatever I'm doing, I'm gonna get it done by this time.

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  That's very helpful, but that means you gotta give yourself some kind of a reward too. If I do this, if I get it done by then, then I'll allow myself to do this other thing, you know? Uh, I was on a flight. I wanted to watch some thing. What was it? I forget what I was gonna, I wanted to watch something. I had, I had like a cross-country flight, six-hour flight, right? And I had some downloaded thing I wanted to watch. And I said, all right, I'll watch that as soon as I get done writing four thousand words.

• 7:12Jocko Willink?

  So that take took me three hours and thirty minutes or something, three hours and forty minutes. But I powered through it because I wanted to watch this thing. Now, if I'd done it the other way around. Who knows what watching one thing might have led to? You know what I'm saying? But it's interesting. I was truly like writing fast. Normally I'm a thousand words an hour. I was under my normal time, kind of pushing the pace a little bit, trying to get it done. Good stuff. Was the quality there? You gotta edit stuff anyways, bro, when it comes to writing.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:41Jocko Willink?

  So let's get the words out.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, that's the risk you run regardless, right? The quality, like if you're.

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  You're, when you're writing, you can't, you can't get too focused on the quality of your writing while you're writing.

• 7:55Jocko Willink?

  The first phase of writing is making the clay.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:00Jocko Willink?

  Look, when you're making the clay, you can't expect the clay to be perfect. When you're building a house, your framing is not gonna be perfect. It's just not. That's why you do finish work. You hone it. You, you edit it. That's what you're doing when you're, you frame the house. You ever framed a house before?

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Well, I helped my dad frame.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So when you're framing a house, it's rough, you know, it's like, yeah, it's pretty close. Like it's in there. But then when you're doing drywall, it gets closer. And then when you tape and mud the drywall, it gets perfect.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  That's funny how that, that, that sequence is like, kind of with everything, like a lot of stuff.

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  Does it do that? Do you do that with video editing?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. Yep. And the CGI stuff too. Yeah.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  It starts kind of rough. Oh, yeah. Cause I've seen like, you know, Beeple?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Bleeple?

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  Is it bleeple?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I thought.

• 8:49Jocko Willink?

  The video, uh, digital artist. Yeah, sometimes he'll post sort of the progression of something. And so you'll see like a. Weird looking shape, doesn't have much detail. So yeah, there's the draft.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. You get the main motion and the main this and the main that they need. Yeah, yeah. Exactly right. That's interesting.

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, I would say most things have that, but setting a timer and then giving yourself some kind of reward to meet the time is a very positive thing. And here's another thing I've been talking about lately with people is doing strategic things first. Doing the things that don't give you the immediate gratification. So for instance, this is a good setup for life. You know, there's something that you want to do that's going to give you immediate gratification.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  What is that thing? Whether it's going to jujitsu, whether it's eating. Right? Whether it's, well, this is two good ones, right? Eating, going to jujitsu, maybe. Yeah, let's just use those two. Look, I'm not going to go to jujitsu until I get done writing. Or I'm not going to go to jujitsu unless I already worked out. Or I'm definitely not going to eat until I've earned it by lifting.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, of course, with all due respect, I think a more understandable, relatable one is I'm not going to like, watch my favorite show that I got recorded or whatever, something like that.

• 10:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you don't see jujitsu as that much of a reward?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I don't, I think sometimes jujitsu can be viewed as like one of those things you gotta put in work, like part of the work. But yeah, in your case, and actually after you stop competing and stuff like that, it does become that what you're saying for sure. But some people, if they're not into jujitsu necessarily, they might not, that might not land on them on a, on a real level.

• 10:32Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Watching something that's gonna allow your brain to be inactive and absorbing and like non-productive.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:45Jocko Willink?

  Non-taxing, it's going to get like, it's going to get like, it's not a massage because a massage is beneficial. It's almost, it's almost like getting drunk.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  Like your mind's gonna get a break. It's gonna be able to do nothing.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  That's what watching TV is.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's essentially like.

• 11:01Jocko Willink?

  Watching Netflix is.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I guess for lack of a better term, it's like, and I think it does, it is beneficial to kind of categorize this in your own brain where it's like, there's like passive consumption and there's like active consumption. So like, if you have something that's really like, in your case surfing, right? Surfing is like active consumption where it's like, brother, there's not, sometimes when you're surfing and you know, whether it be snowboarding, surfing, whatever, something that you do, there is a development of skill in the whole process of it, like over time. But at the same time, you do it just because, man, just being in this moment, like the immediate gratification is high level as well, you know? So that's active consumption. Passive is like, yeah, you're watching Netflix or something like where you're just laying there and it's all coming into your eyes or even going on like a tour.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  You know how like people go on vacation and they go on like some tour on a tour bus or a tour cruise or something like this? That's passive. As opposed to like, oh, I'm going on a hunting vacation or a freaking snowboarding vacation.

• 11:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, dude, my, my vacations don't ever feel like I'm cruising.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  It's not passive. No, no.

• 12:04Jocko Willink?

  They feel like I'm gonna be doing more work.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes when I get done with a vacation, I'm like, yo, I need a vacation.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 12:12Jocko Willink?

  Check. So those are some good things, but you doing this, so regardless of what the, what you use as sort of your reward, maybe it's watching TV, maybe it's eating. 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

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  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 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.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.