Jocko Underground: Is Your Job Security Joyless? | What Changes after Marriage?

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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 175, sitting here with Echo Charles, about to review some of your questions about leadership in life and give you some courses of actions, perhaps some guidance, perhaps some advice to follow. And that's what we've got. Let's get into it.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  I'm 24. I'm 24. I've been on the path since 2018 and always wanted to become a pararescuerman. After having a year and a half medical dispute of a few minor injuries with the air force, and starting a family at the end of it left me with no mission after 10 years of thorough planning of a job career in the US military. I followed your advice and became a volunteer fireman in 2022. It has become my passion. I work out three days, three times a week and wash the trucks after my workouts to show my commitment. In the past year, I've been trying out for career departments, since this is an industry I love. One particularly

• 1:00Speaker 01

  with steady benefits and near my home, with a slight risk of termination if not obtaining a paramedic license after three years. However, I currently work with or work in a lime plant with steady benefits, good coworkers, the fully paid for bachelor's degree, a high chance of obtaining management in five years, and job security. My question is, do I leave a steady job that rarely gives me joy for a career that I enjoy part-time, or there's uncertainty if I will love it full-time? 24 on, 48 off?

• 1:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that comes out as a little concern there at the end is, you know, deciding if you, how are you going to put up with that lifestyle, right, of 24 on, 48 off? That's a different type of lifestyle. And I know firefighters and they don't do 24 on, 48 off, but they'll do, yeah, they do 24 on, then like two days off, then 24 on, then four days off. It's a weird schedule. And you got to figure out if, you know, if you like that type of lifestyle. And that's a huge part of it. I think what I would do if I were you is I would volunteer to go do a ride along for like, A weekend for like a full 24 hour period like go uh you know Friday afternoon and stay

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  until Saturday afternoon and then do that the next weekend as well and kind of get a feel for what it's like for real to do that job full time. Maybe even take a few vacation days. You know what I'm saying? Maybe take a few vacation days and go and do it to see what it's like. Um, and i- if you happen to be like, oh yeah, that was awesome. I really loved doing it. And 24 hours was cool. It took me, you know, 10 hours of sleep. The next day I was able to recover and I felt good and I was back on track and it didn't mess me up too bad. And I still got to see my family a bunch because on the two days that I had off, I had to, you know, some, so see what it's like.

• 2:56Jocko Willink?

  And if you really love that lifestyle, that's awesome. Keep volunteering for it. Get your EMT, by the way, get your paramedic's license. You can do that through whatever school and then just keep applying for the full time job while you keep your job at the lime plant. And then eventually, I would imagine with your record and becoming a paramedic and becoming an M EMT and volunteering a bunch, eventually I would imagine you would get picked up. And then when you do get picked up, you can go full time. And if you don't get picked up, well, then cool. Continue, you're continuing to uh volunteer and be a volunteer firefighter

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  and do as much as you can and and have a good job at the line plant and do good work there. Um, or if you decide that when you go down and you do a ride along for 24 hours and you're like, yo, eight hours was okay, 16 hours kind of sucked, 24 hours is too much, then cool, continue to be in a volunteer firefighter and continue working at the line plant. It kind of concerns me that you say you have a steady job that rarely gives me joy. Like, that's a little bit concerning to me. Because you don't want to work, you're 24 years old, you don't want to spend 30 years doing a job that rarely gives you joy. Like, there's a lot of, you know, I worked construction as a kid, I loved doing that. Like, it's cool. You're building something, you can see your, what you did every day, you're learning a skill, you're outside, you're swinging a hammer, you're doing cool stuff.

• 4:26Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's kind of cool.

• 4:29Jocko Willink?

  So there's jobs that you can do, that you should find, and, and at least at a minimum, the people that you're working with. Hey, we're having a good time. We, we laugh it up, we, you know, we go to lunch together, like, I have good relationships with people, like, that's, that's cool, you got a hard job, cool, but we get the hard job done together. So, you know, I would just kind of pay attention to that. The, the other part of it is,

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  I don't think,

• 4:56Jocko Willink?

  I think in many cases, joy doesn't find you, you have to find joy. And I know that if you re, kind of reframe your job, and I don't know what specifically you do at the lime plant, but, you know, if you reframe it in your mind, that what you have to do is something that you get to do, and you get to do it to the best of your ability, and whatever the measure of success there, you strive to do a great job, and you're proud of your work, and I, I always like to talk about the fact that I get, like, social media posts, and people will share with me,

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  they're a plumber, and they put in, you know, dug in a pipeline, and everything's clean and squared away, like another electrician, and everything's totally dialed in. Or they're a mason, and their, their block work is freaking awesome. And those are all hard jobs, or linemen that are up, you know, sending videos of them flying helicopters onto power lines, getting the things fixed and squared away, like, those are hard jobs. What's the word, they're not, there, there's not much thanks for those job. Like, people don't, every time I turn on the light in my house, I don't thank a lineman, you should. You should, every time you flush the toilet, you don't thank a plumber, but you should. So, but there's people that are proud of those jobs, and they find joy in those jobs, what I was gonna say is, I don't think joy finds you, I think you have to find joy in what you're doing.

• 6:17Jocko Willink?

  I'll say that again. I don't think you find, I don't think joy finds you. I think you have to find joy in what you're doing. I always found joy. And look, being in the SEAL teams, you hear me say a thousand times, the best job ever. But if you think freezing your ass off, sitting on a beach, after you swam over the beach, and you're waiting for 12 hours for the Marines to land in an administrative situation, it's the best job ever. If you think that that right there is really fun, you're wrong. It sucks. But I found joy in

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  that. Like, we're doing this. It's kick ass. So be an awesome at the line plant, whatever you do there. What can you move up into a leadership position? Can you, can you manage the line from, you know, can you become a leader of some kind there? Can you become an expert in some kind of some kind there? Like, what can you do so that the job, you love the job? Because that makes me worried. When I, I don't want to hear from someone that they rarely get joy from their job. That I don't like the sounds of that. But if you found out that you didn't really get a lot of joy from 24 hours of firefighting, then you may not want to step into it full time. You might want to stay in the reserves,

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  and you may want to figure out what the right, real career for you is, or find joy in the current career that you have. And that's what I'm doing. Thanks for your service as a firefighter. Much appreciated. That's what I got.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Next question. Do you have any advice on getting after it to maintain fitness and show up early, stay late mindset, while having a wife and kids that depend on you? I have two, I have a two-year-old son with autism, and I've been happily married four years. And I couldn't have done it without you guys. Thank you.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, so one thing, I'm kind of, I'm kind of have to read into this question a little bit.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  Getting after it to maintain fitness and show up early, stay late mindset. It seems like you kind of know what the answer is as far as home.

• 8:35Jocko Willink?

  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 jockounderground.com and subscribe and 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 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.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  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 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.