Jocko Underground: In a Critical Situation, Would You Choke? | Self Discipline--How to Fight The Urge To Be Lazy and Complacent

Choking in critical situations. Getting a promotion and not feeling ready for it. Wanting kids and spouse does not want kids. What to do. When a wife reveals she's attracted to women. Self discipline Fighting the urge to be complacent and lazy. 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 69, sitting here with EC, Echo Charles. Echo Charles, sometimes referred to, that me Jocko will link up. So, we're gonna talk about choking. But normally, we talk about choking, we're talking about the jujits, right? That's our, that when we think of choking, that's what we think of, but there's another form of choking. And that's when the chips are down. You know what I'm saying? Stakes are high. The stakes are high. Choking in sports, or in any kind of event, you know, you can choke in a debate, you can choke in a confrontation with someone, an argument.

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  But it's, what it is, is failing to perform as one is expected to perform

• 0:50Jocko Willink?

  based on how they have performed in the past and the skill level that they have. So, because here's the thing, if someone loses, or if someone who loses all the time, or isn't that good, doesn't make any goals, and now they miss a game-winning shot, that's not, that's not choking. Yeah, yeah. That's just, that's just someone that sucks. Right? But when someone is good, and someone does perform well, and they do score goals, and they do that historically and consistently, and then that moment comes for them to make that game-winning shot, and they miss it? Yeah. That's choking.

• 1:31Jocko Willink?

  Happens in every sport. Happens in basketball, right? Especially foul shots. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes, I do. My, one of my best friends in the dabs, he was, he was playing in like, he was either, I think it was the state finals. And he, and he had a foul shot to make for the win. And he missed the finals. He missed it, and they lost.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  Field goals in football?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Bro, JV were playing against Wema. Cake nuts was the kicker for Wema, by the way.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Our cake nuts.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  So you guys are on opposing teams?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Opposing teams and they're better than us, straight up, but we held them to zero zero the whole game.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  So they had the ball, last play of the game, one second left, field goal time for them.

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  Cake nuts.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Cake nuts runs up on the field, like looking at this guy and cake nuts is good.

• 2:24Jocko Willink?

  And you guys are friends right now, at this point, at that point in time?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  At that point, we were friends. Friends, yeah, yeah, for sure. Not, I mean, not as much as we were like, uh, you know, in

• 2:33Jocko Willink?

  Later on.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Late, yeah, this is JV time. Actually, we weren't friends.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  I didn't meet him till, like, I met, I knew him, but we didn't become friends, friends till 10th grade. So, um, so, yeah, he runs over the fields, cake nuts with his little run. He used to play for Hanapepe Duke, by the way, which is in Pop Warner. Anyway, so he gets up on there, he lines up freaking, and it wasn't that far of a field goal.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  Like 20 yards?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Not even, 15 maybe. Yeah, so he gets on there and, bro, he kicks it, makes it.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he made it?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Did not choke.

• 3:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, there you go.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  But I thought he was gonna choke out because, you know, like, he was so poetic. They were supposed to beat us so bad. He didn't choke though, cake nuts for the win.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  Hunting, archery. You, this is a, this is a total, like, this will be revealed.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  To use Echo Charles' second favorite word, revealed. You're, you know, you, there's guys, you shoot, you go out and shoot your bow, 70, 80, 90, 100 yards, 110 yards.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  Just out there, you're just dialed in, hitting that, me and Josh Hall. Josh Hall and I have the, gotta hit that paper plate at 60 yards every time. Right? So that's what, that's where you're at.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  And if you can hit a paper plate at 60 yards, you should be able to hit that elk in the kill zone at 60 yards.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  But then all of a sudden, a guy will come out, they'll go out and they'll miss at 30 yards.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  You know, it is, it is tough. And there's all kinds. So what's causing that? You got heightened anxiety. There's adrenaline going through. So you got, you got the chemical cocktail that could be going through your system. You got the, the anxiety. You got, could have the negative thoughts like, if I miss. You might be worrying about things that you can't control. You might be over processing all the things that are happening. You got one thing to think about.

• 4:25Jocko Willink?

  You got the social expectations. Right? Like.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  You're, if there's a crowd, I mean, when the crowds there, right? Everyone's watching. Where I go hunting normally. Everybody knows, like you come back to camp and everybody knows what happened. There's no hiding it.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  So those are the kind of things that can cause problems, right? That can cause you to choke. Now, what's interesting is there is something called the individual zones of optimal functioning and that is, what that means is in certain amount of stress is good.

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  Because you have to focus more like, here's, here's one. I, most of the time surf without a leash, without a rope. Leashes are for dogs.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Well, right. I don't know. No, not just for dogs, but you know.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  So here's the thing, when, when I, this is one of those things that, you know, there's certain things that you can feel, like you can actually feel them. Like, let's say, what do you? Like, let's say you work on a computer a lot, right?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  If your computer's lagging, like you'll notice it. I probably wouldn't notice it. If I was trying to do something, I wouldn't notice it because you're so good at working your computer that you're going to notice when it's lagging. So when you can actually identify something, I actually feel like when I'm surfing and I don't have a leash on. Actually, I feel it more when I, when I, if I have a leash on, I'm like, you just feel this like crazy carefree, like I'll just do whatever. And you feel a lot looser and a lot less focused. When you're out on a big day with no rope, you, your shit is tight. You are focused. You have to be, because if you blow it, your board's gone. You may, you might have to swim for it. You may lose it. This is, you may never see it again. So that.

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  That's what you want a certain amount of stress in the scenario. So how the question is like, how do we overcome choking? What can we do? What can we do to stop that? Well, obviously detach. Take you can't get all caught up in your head. Breath, take a breath, right? Breathe.

• 6:49Jocko Willink?

  Take a breath, man. Calm down. You gotta calm down. Here's another critical thing. Have a protocol. Like a protocol. When we would learn to shoot, we would some, some guys would make like a little ditty. Is that word? Is that a civilian word? Does anybody know what that means?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a little thing.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  Like a little, a little, it doesn't rhyme, but it's like a certain.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Little chant.

• 7:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a little chant.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Little something.

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  I, when I first started archery, I had it.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Oh, for real?

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, I, I mean, I definitely had it for shooting before, but the most recent little ditty that I had was for archery. And it was just like, I went through the whole, you know, starting at my feet. I was like feet in position and I went all the way up to like pinky on the, I, I would touch my, to keep my front hand, you believe it or not, when you shoot a bow, your front hand is like loose. You don't grip. Cause then that torques the bow. So you're front. So I'd be like pinky touch. And I would just like touch my pinky onto the, onto the bow itself. Because I knew that if I went to touch it and I was gorilla gripping, I'd be like, oh, you're gross. So, so you, so you make these little ditties. And they will, they will help you with that. And, and look, you can also have things that are protocols. Like when someone goes to take a foul shot in basketball.

• 8:03Jocko Willink?

  Did you play basketball?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:04Jocko Willink?

  So I played basketball, you know, you go out and I had like, if it was a foul shot, I'd have my little like spin the ball, bounce, spin the ball, bounce, bounce, bounce. Shoot. So you have a little protocol that you're going through. That's really good.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  What can you do to put yourself in pressure situations? Cause the more you get into pressure situations, the better you're going to be handling them. That's when I was running SEAL training, it was like, we're going to put you in insane pressure situations, mayhem situations. And you're going to start to learn how to do these things. And of course practicing.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  Which is because a lack of confidence can trigger you to choke because you lack confidence and you choke. How do you get more confident? You get good. You practice. The more you practice, the more your confidence increases. Even doing mental rehearsals of what you're gonna do is gonna help out.

• 9:02Jocko Willink?

  I would say, I heard this originally,

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  that it had to do with Tiger Woods' coach, Tiger Woods' mental coach. And his thing was, it's not your last shot. You can't think about your last shot. You can't think about your next shot. You just have to like, clear your mind and think about this shot right here. Where this becomes very evident is if you're shooting drills, like pistol,

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  and you're shooting six headplates. If you miss one of those, this is where you see where a guy's head is at, right? Because he goes, he goes ping, ping, ping, bang, and like miss. So it's like hit, hit, hit, miss. A guy that's good, just no factor, takes another shot at that target, moves right on down the line. No factor. But you'll see sometimes, guys, it's just, everything falls apart. It's like, hit, hit, hit, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, mag change. You're just like, oh my god. So, that, that is one of the things that I think really applies.

• 10:09Jocko 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,

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  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 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.

• 10:51Jocko Willink?

  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. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.