Jocko Underground: What to do When You're At a Low Point In Life with No Options and Surrounded by Toxicity.

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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 199, sitting here with Echo Charles. And we just got done with some jujitsu training. We back, we back to Victory MMA is now, the original Victory MMA is now open and new and glorious. So the mats were utilized in a big way. So now we are back to the, the mental aspect of the game. You, as troopers, have sent us questions. We have some answers, some recommendations, some courses of actions at a minimum that you can take to get yourself and keep yourself on the path of justice. So let's get to it. Question number one.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, very, very useful to not ignore keeping yourself on the path. Cause once you say, oh, this doesn't apply to me, I don't need that, whatever. So yeah, good tip there. All right. First question. I'm writing because I, I need advice and don't have anyone else to turn to. Your podcast played a major role in changing my life after my daughter was born in 2023 and getting me on the path, including starting jujitsu. I have a two-year-old daughter. Her mother and I have had a volatile relationship from the beginning. Early on, I was wrong and became physical during arguments. Later, she had people come to our home and assault me, resulting in hospitalization and a year-long protection order that caused me to miss my

• 1:26Speaker 01

  daughter's early life. We've tried to make it work for two years, but now I believe the relationship is destructive and must end. I'm 26, living with toxic parents, buried in debt, facing possible court again without a car, and afraid of losing time with my daughter. I feel trapped and overwhelmed. What guidance would you give me to move forward and take responsibility without collapsing?

• 1:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's not, you just made like a noise of like, um, um, you know, oh no, right? It's a lot. What are we gonna do? It's a lot, right? But, but in my mind, I think of the, uh, the quote of like, hey,

• 2:08Jocko Willink?

  we're surrounded. Good. Now we know where the enemy is, right? So that's where you are, right? You're, you're just surrounded on all sides. So what you have to do is you have to begin to square your situation away. Right? This means you have to fix your immediate world that you are in. Now, to start off here,

• 2:32Jocko Willink?

  with your daughter's mom, um, I would be professional. Don't be emotional, be polite, but you have to make a little bit of distance because you guys have got bad, bad blood, right? There's bad, there's bad emotions there. It's not good. We, you, you have to say, hey, listen, I don't want to bother you anymore. Um, I, I, I wish you the best. You may, may not even want to verbalize those things. You just start to act this way. Cause if you say, hey, I don't want to bother you, what do you mean? You don't bother me? You want to see? You just be like, just start to be more professional, non-emotional, and create a little bit of distance. Then what you have to do is you have to get a job. You have to work hard. You have to get a job. I don't care if you get a job at Wendy's. I worked at Wendy's, right? And if you work at Wendy's and you work hard, you will move up the chain of command.

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  If you go to Home Depot and you get a job, you work hard, you move up the chain of command. You start making more money. Like this will happen. Don't buy anything stupid. Save your money.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  You, in order to save money, I hate to say this, you're probably gonna have to continue to live with your, what you call your toxic parents. I would just, you know, again, don't be overt about it, but just isolate yourself as much as you can with them, but from them, right? So you don't want to get caught up in their toxicity, but you want to live there? Cool. Go to your room, try and spend time out, you know, don't spend a bunch of time there. Spend job, work in overtime. Spend your time working overtime. Right? You got 40 hours a week? What? You can work, you can work 80 hours a week. You can easily work 80 hours a week. Get overtime, get two jobs. Whatever you gotta do. Don't spend time in the house. Go to there to sleep. Isolate from them a little bit.

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  And in a little bit of time, you're gonna have enough money to get a dirt place, you know, a dirt cheap place to live. That's fine. Let's like rent a room from somebody for a few hundred bucks or something like that. During this time, You're gonna talk to your daughter, you know, like when you can. Well, I don't know what kind of legal situation you're in with her, whether you're allowed to visit her, but you're gonna follow the rules. You're gonna stay positive, no negativity, not gonna say anything negative about her mother, not gonna say anything negative about life, concentrate on her. You know what? Does she care that you don't have money, that you don't have problems or that you have problems that you have this? You don't have, does she care about any of that? Uh, not as much as she cares about the fact that, you know, she's got crayons and this, you know, she's coloring a flower and you can help her color the flowers, man.

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  That's what you focus on with her. You do kid stuff with her. Let her world be bright and beautiful. You shelter her from the misery and the darkness of the world. That's what you do, that's what dads do.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  Continue your job at Wendy's or Home Depot or wherever you're working. Find some kind of a trade that you're interested in. Electrician, plumber, welder, carpenter, you find one of those things, which one you're interested in. They're all cool jobs. It's all very gratifying to wire a place, to put plumbing in a place, to weld something together, to build a house or whatever.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  And then, once you figure out which one you're slightly interested in, you find one of those companies that does that and you go and get job there. So you're gonna take a minimum wage pay. Whatever you're getting paid at Wendy's, you're getting paid at Home Depot, you're gonna say, listen, I will do, I will, I will be labor for you. I'll do whatever you need me to do for minimum wage. And then you're gonna bust your ass and you're gonna keep saving money and you're gonna, you know, you're trying to pay off debts, I don't know if you're gonna have enough money yet to pay off debts. Learn whatever skill it is, electrician, you're gonna start to learn that, you're gonna watch YouTube. You're gonna, you're gonna read books about this stuff, you're gonna go to the library, read books about being an electrician. Again, you're maintaining a positive relationship with your daughter, cuz that's what we bring to our daughters. Positivity and good and light and, and, and kid stuff and flowers and rainbows.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  That's what we bring to our kids, our daughters. Pure positivity.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  Eventually, you figure out where you, what qualifications you need to be an electrician. What do you gotta do? What's, what do you need to do to get that piece of paper that says you're an electrician? You're gonna go to that school. Cuz you saved your money, that's what you're saving your money for, you're continuing to work hard. You're not wasting any money, you're continuing to pay your debts.

• 6:31Jocko Willink?

  And you look up and in three years, and it's gonna be a long, hard three years, but in three years.

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  You're going to be in a relatively good situation.

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  You're going to have a steady job. You're going to have an employer that appreciates you, that you show up early, that you stay late, that you work hard, that you're clean, that you do what you're supposed to do, you do it on time, you take the extra initiative.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  You're going to have some money from that. You're going to have a marketable skill because you went and got that, whatever that certification is. You're going to find a place to live. You'll have bought a $2,800 vehicle that's fairly reliable.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  And now your daughter's five, she's not two anymore. And by the way, when she's between two, three, four, five,

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  she's not going to remember a lot of that stuff. So that's why we're not too worried about it. Look, you're a loving dad. You do, you bring, you bring the light when you can.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  But by the time, three years from now, she's going to be five. And that's when she'll actually know and she'll remember and appreciate your interactions with her. And then you're slowly, with the permission of her mom, you're going to get a little bit more integrated with her. And you're going to continue, again, you're going to be, always be professional. You're, you're in a business relationship with you, with her mom. That's what you are, professional business relationship with her. Now, no emotions, no crazy, no. 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 jacoodunderground.com and subscribe.

• 8:05Jocko Willink?

  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're 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

• 8:46Jocko Willink?

  strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jockounderground.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.