Jocko Underground: Don't Trust The "Breaking News". People Get Under Your Skin. Regret.

The first report is always wrong. Regretful for not taking an important opportunity. Getting the most out of your reading. Passing on credit and making it genuine. Dealing with your co-worker who is annoyed by you. Getting back on track with your confidence. 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 39, I'm sitting here with Echo Charles, as they say. So, we're getting inundated with a lot of information these days, all the time, and it made me think about the fact that one of the things, the lessons that I learned in the military was that the first report was always wrong. And this, we're going to expand on that. First report is always wrong, meaning you get a report from the field, or you get it, you're in the field and you get a report from one of your troops, and you've gotta, you've gotta listen to what they say, clearly. But you also need

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  to recognize that what they're saying to you is probably going to be wrong.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  Why? Why is that? Well, there's a bunch of reasons. Number one, the perspective that they're giving you is only their perspective. So whatever they're involved in, whatever this report that they're yelling about, or screaming about, or giving you emotionally, it's just their perspective. They can only see something from their perspective at that time. What are the chances that when you take a look at a problem, at a situation, from one angle, that you see the whole thing? What are the chances of that?

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Very low.

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  Very low. So, they're not wrong, but they're only seeing a small part of whatever's happening. Second, I already mentioned the word emotional. They're emotional about whatever's happening. They're scared, they're angry, they're upset, whatever. So, those are, those are impacting the report that they're giving you. Also, there's a decent chance that when you mention prox, when you mention perspective, you also have to think about their proximity to the problem, which means they're too close to it, which is also a distorted perspective, because when you're standing so close to something, you don't see it. All. So that what that leads you to learn in the military is that when somebody tells you something,

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  I shouldn't say that their first report is always wrong because that's too strong. The first first report is not all the information you're going to need.

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  So what you learn to do is you learn to take a step back, you learn to detach, you learn to take information with a grain of salt, which is an expression I had to, we all know what it means, but I didn't really know where it came from. And I guess in there's an ancient book where they talk about taking an antidote to a poison. And part of the antidote was to take the antidote with a grain of salt.

• 2:42Jocko Willink?

  Literal grain of salt, which tells you that probably whatever you're being told, whatever the poison probably isn't that bad. So if you know, you take this antidote, you have including a grain of salt, probably not that big of a deal. That's one interpretation of where it may have come from and neither one of these are confirmed. The other one is that the word sal, I don't know if I'm saying that right in Latin, S A L. It it it means either salt. So grain of salt or also wit as in like witty. But wit also means good sense or good judgment. So take this, hey, man, take this with some good judgment.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  So either one of those, but we know what grain of salt means and that's something that you learn. Something that I learned from the military is when you get a report, take with a grain of salt. Realize that there's emotions involved, realize that there's only one perspective, realize that there's probably some proximity distortion going on.

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  Which is all important when it comes to moving forward in the military, but it also applies to life. So.

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  What do we get today? What do we get today is we get inundated inundated all the time with news. We get inundated all the time with social media. We get inundated with the story about COVID, the story about politics, this, the reactions that someone had, all these things hit us all the time, 24 hours a day, by the way. 24 hours a day. It's, it's actually more than 24 hours a day. Think about it, all the news, 24 hour cable news stations that are all running 24 hours a day. So you take 24 and you multiply it times 100, it's 2,400 hours a day. And then you talk about all the news sites you can go to. So it's more than 24, it's thousands of hours a day of information coming at you. And what do we tend to do is freaking freak out on each and every single one of them.

• 4:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh my God, this is... And so what you need to do is when you get information out there in the world, whether it's from news, whether it's from social media, whether it's from one of your kids tells you something going on, what you need to do is learn to detach, take that information with a grain of salt. I'm not saying that that information's wrong, but it's probably very likely not going to be the whole picture. So don't treat it as if it's the whole picture. Don't treat it as if it's gospel. That's another thing. We know, I don't want to make a decision based on information that I know there's going to be additional information. At least I'm not going to make a big decision. I might make a little decision. You tell me, I think there's enemy coming. I might say, all right, guys, lock and load your weapons.

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm not going to say, get all mine and attack. No, because I don't even know what's happening. But I might say, hey, boys, you know, get your gear on. You, I've said that many times. Hey, get your gear on. Hey, get the trucks lined up. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's like a, that's like a good feeling I just got when I said that. I could tell you. Get the trucks lined up, which means, you know, there's something coming down the pipe. We want to be a little bit, you know, staged because you keep the, you keep the trucks in sort of, what's it called? Like a carport scenario, you know, we have a roof, right? So it's not getting beat down from the sun, a little protected from the elements. But then it's like, hey, get the trucks lined up.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  And then this may, you know, guys start doing the pre-maintenance checks, getting ready to rock and roll. But do I say, get in the trucks and launch the trucks and start driving? No, because we don't even know what's going on yet.

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  So you want to get the trucks lined up? Okay. Don't watch until you get gather more information. So I think this is, I see a lot of people, a lot of time. I mean, God, especially if you go into social media. But the news does it all the time. Everyone's freaking out about stuff. People are drastically porpoising, going up and down and up and down emotionally over stuff. And it's crazy. Don't do that. Don't get crazy. Detach. Understand why people are saying what they're saying. Listen to what they have to say, but please keep it in perspective.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  So what's an example of like when you get some, let's say everyday life, right? You talked about the news cycle, right? So what is an example like so late? Maybe if

• 7:04Speaker 01

  some news report comes in about something and then what you just immediately go to social media repost it and say disgraceful.

• 7:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly. There you go. And then that then someone's going to react to what you just posted.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  On both sides, by the way, that's not disgraceful. That's standing up for himself. I can't believe it. And the other side is I can't believe that that person did that. You know what I'm saying? So that's what everybody does 24 hours a day. And then you add to the fact that everyone wants to get the big freaking clicks and likes and retweets and all that. So that makes everyone insane.

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  So don't, don't do that. And yeah, with the news, when things come out in the news, don't freak out about it. Listen to what people have to say. Understand your, your first, you should see grain of salt. What is skeptical? That's another synonym for the, for the term grain of salt is salt is skeptical. Look at something to be, okay, I get it. Echoes saying that, you know, uh,

• 8:03Speaker 01

  The sky is falling.

• 8:03Jocko Willink?

  The sky is falling or, or, or echoes saying that, hey, everyone at the gym's got ringworm.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  Like, okay, I'm sure some people have it. I don't think everyone has it. Right? I don't think we gotta shut this thing down. No, first of all, we don't need to shut it down. Second of all, not everyone has it. A couple of people got ringworm, got a little ringworm. Don't die to ringworm that I know of.

• 8:33Jocko Willink?

  People, COVID right now, Omicron, Omicron.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  Right, sure. It's spreading very quickly. Ah, no. Okay, cool. It's spreading quickly. There's a lot less hospital cases from it. You know, the first report is this is spreading like mad. The second report was like, well, yeah, it's spreading, but it's also less, what is it, less vicious than Delta variant. Whatever.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Hell yeah.

• 9:01Jocko Willink?

  So, let's not freak out about things. Let's listen. Let's absorb. Can you make a small decision? Sure, you can make a small decision. Cause someone's saying, well, you might, you might miss out. You might be stuck. You know, when they say, oh, there's a fire in California. What does that mean? Or there's a fire in your neighborhood. Does that mean abandon ship and run away? No, it doesn't mean that. But does it mean, hey, you better check your security system? You better make sure your, your vehicle has fuel in it to make sure if you gotta go, you gotta go. I mean, if you're below half tank for sure. We like to keep it above three quarter tank, but you know what I'm saying?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, I do.

• 9:46Jocko Willink?

  Is your go bag good to go? Like, just normal things?

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  Does it mean get crazy? No. Doesn't mean get crazy. Means, you know, give the family the pro word for prep level three.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  DEFCON nine. So, there you go. It's a very important, it is a very important thing to practice. It really truly is a very important thing to practice with your team, with your family, with your employees.

• 10:20Jocko Willink?

  Being with someone, it is a beautiful way to sort of practice this. It's just... So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So, if you want to continue to listen...

• 10:38Jocko 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

• 11:23Jocko 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.