Jocko Underground: Physically Put Yourself In a Place of Discomfort.

Physically put yourself in a place of discomfort. Hygiene and etiquette in Jiu Jitsu. The value of collective punishment. Living up to a father's expectations and standards. How to gracefully leave a job. What to do when your job superiors are taking advantage of you. 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. It's number 86.

• 0:05Jocko Willink?

  Eighty-sixth, it's a term. You had that in the, in the, what, the bar community?

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  The nightclub community?

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  That's Echo Charles, talking on the other side. Did you ever get eighty-six from a bar?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  I have never been eighty-six. I have never been kicked out of a bar. I've never been anything, yeah. No, I was always a very well behaved patron.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  Jack, alright, well, that makes one of us. So, speaking of which, I got asked by a buddy of mine this weekend, if I didn't get assigned to SEAL Team One when I graduated BUDs,

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  would I be different?

• 0:48Jocko Willink?

  And I just wrote back, he was texting me, and I wrote back, "Yes."

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  So, the basis of the question is, and you may have heard me talk about this back in the day,

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  otherwise known as, back in the day, and it's not like this anymore. SEAL Team One used to be known as Stalag Team One. And the reason they called it that was because it was the most militant team,

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  on the west coast anyways. It had uniform inspections, it had haircut inspections. It was kind of like the equivalent of SEAL Team Two on the east coast, which is the second team that I went to, and there's a reason why I wanted to go to SEAL Team Two when I left SEAL Team One. But, he, he knew me. This is, this is a friend of mine that was also in the Navy, but it's someone that who I knew growing up. We knew, we were childhood friends. So, he understood the Navy, he understood the differences. He'd actually been to Coronado, understood, you know, the Navy, understood that the different teams had different cultures. And so, he knew that SEAL Team One was kind of regarded as like the strict of the SEAL Teams. I remember at some point, he had, this is back in the 90s.

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  Back in the 90s, he like saw some picture and it was some SEAL and he had like a skateboard.

• 2:12Jocko Willink?

  Sticker on his gear, right? Skullskates, by the way. I don't know if they're still around, but he was kind of like, whoa, that's kind of crazy. I go, yeah, it's not. They're not from SEAL Team One. I kind of was like, hey, bro, we're not doing that over here. So this friend was asking me, do you think it'd be the same if you didn't go to SEAL Team One? And the answer to me is no, which seems obvious because I was young and impressionable, impressionable and malleable as a 19 year old BUDS graduate checking in to Team One.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  But I was also, and this is sort of just the kind of known factors of my life is I was a rebellious kid. I have a rebellious streak. I've always had a rebellious streak. I have that psychological reactance, don't like to get told what to do. I've told the story about the fact that when I joined the Navy, my dad was like, you're going to hate it because you hate authority and you don't like listening to people. He's a hundred percent right. He was a hundred percent right. So I was a rebellious from birth, had that rebellious streak. I grew up, I was way into hardcore music, very rebellious attitude, the hardcore attitude. Listen to Cro-Mags, listen to Bad Brains, listen to Agnostic Front. That's what I was doing.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Anti-social, anti-societal, I was outside the realm.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  And so what turns out, well, the way it turned out, I think I actually got what I needed from SEAL Team One. I think that if I would have been at a team that had inherently a more rebellious attitude, I would have been totally out of control. I would have taken them and been like, oh, that's what we're doing? Okay, I got it. So if I went to a team that would have been more laid back, I would have been like, oh, it's cool to have long hair? Cool. Oh, it's cool to be a biker? Cool. Oh, we're fighting everyone? Like, okay, right on. And look, SEAL Team, all the SEAL Teams had some of that stuff going on. But when I went to team one, there was at least a, at that time,

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  there was an underlying culture of military professionalism. Like an underlying culture. I mean, when we got there, we were going on our first run as new guys. And one of my buddies wore a visor. You know what visor is? It's like a hat without a thing.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, without the top.

• 4:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, without the top. Well, that's not part of military uniform. And the master chief, master chief of the command, so like the senior enlisted guy there, sees him, walks up to him and says, like, if you ever wear a visor again, at SEAL Team One, I'm gonna have you sent to the fleet.

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  I was like, God, like, that was insane. Like, thinking about getting sent to the fleet after you graduated from BUDS and checked into a team, and now you're getting sent to the fleet, like, this is insane. And he's a master chief, and he means it. He wasn't like, trying to be hyperbolic. He was serious. Like, I will send you to the fleet if I ever see you wearing a visor again. So, military professionalism was held in high regard. And there was a chance that I could have, like, rebelled again, that I'd be like, this place sucks. But like, no, because I was, it's weird, I was rebellious, but I was also young and malleable. Like, okay, that's, that's what the master chief is saying, that's what we're doing. We're wearing the right uniform, that's... So, I think it helped me.

• 5:34Jocko Willink?

  And this is what I was thinking about that after my buddy asked me this question.

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  If I would have been the authoritarian type, it would have been better for me to go to a team that was a little bit more lax and a little bit more open-minded about things. Because essentially, what I think happens is, in the teams, the way you, now, look, the teams are all kind of the same now. They're very much more the same than they used to be. Not that they were all, like, totally different, but there is definitely, you had a culture at each one of the teams. And now the teams are much more... The same because people get switched more like you used to like I spent freaking seven years at SEAL Team One like seven years, bro. I mean, I got there and they just stayed there. And that was very common. There was a lot of guys. They were just Team One guys. There was

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  Team Five guys. There was Team Three guys out on the East Coast. There was guys. There was guys when I got to Team Two. There was guys that had been SEAL Team Two for like 20 years, bro. They were in the game. They weren't going anywhere.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Wait, so you can just so it's more you think it's more common to jump not jump but just

• 6:36Jocko Willink?

  Nowadays, you'll do like two tours at Team One, two tours at Team Three, two tours at Team Five, or two tours at Team Eight. Then you'll go and you'll do like you'll go to trading trade debt, then you go back to eight and you won't be like all like dude, I'm not I'm waiting to go to to Team One. No one's saying that. They're like, oh, I can get orders. I can do a platoon chief or I can do my LPO slot over at Team Two. Cool. I'll go. They're not like, hey, I'm I want to go to this team. They don't really care as much as they used to. Again, the teams, they're still obviously tradition and history at the teams. But it's not as there's not as much of the differentiating differentiating culture as there used to be.

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  But this is the thing that I think is cool is if you if you leaders that want to control everything, you will find out that you can't control everything. And that's a positive thing. The other end of the spectrum is leaders that want to pull the that don't want to pull the reins in and just kind of like, oh, I'm kind of laid back. I'm just everyone's cool. Eventually, you'll watch things get totally out of control. So depending on the type of leader that you are, it's good to go into the environment that's the opposite. You see what I'm saying? So if I would have been like a super crazy leader or a crazy just a crazy

• 7:56Jocko Willink?

  guy, it was good. And I kind of was a little bit, right? I was kind of rebellious. I went to Team One. It was very good for me. If I would have been like a like a very militant person that was like, oh, I went to a military school, it probably would have been better for me to go to another team where it's like, hey, dude, you need to chill out. Like occasionally, they would take guys and they'd send them officers. They'd send them to Ranger School. Ranger School is totally militant, totally strict. And sometimes they would come out of that and it would enhance their militaristic attitude. And you'd be like, bro, this ain't the Rangers. Like you don't, we're not doing that. And some guys were so wild, you'd have to send them to Ranger School and it was good for them because they'd be like, bro, this is the military.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:39Jocko Willink?

  You're not just able to do whatever you want. So I got put into an environment as a rebellious cocky kid. That kind of corrected that attitude. And if I would have been a militaristic tyrant.

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  If I would have been a militaristic tyrant type of guy.

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  Team one would have been good for me in the short term, like, like I would have been like, heck, yeah. And then I would have been the type of person that's like, hey, you need to get a haircut, right? And I was never like that. Even though I came from team one and even though like in Task Unit Bruiser is like, hey, we need to wear squared to wear uniforms. I did it for the mission. I wasn't doing it for my own authority. You see what I'm saying? There's a huge difference. Like when we were on Camp Markley, I didn't care what you wear. I didn't care at all. I didn't care what you uniform. I wasn't like, hey, Leif, when you come into my office to talk to me, you better be in a freaking uniform. No, dude, you roll in with flip flops, surf shorts. Shirt is optional, like we're in the team, bro. I don't care. When we go out and talk to a battalion commander, be freaking squared away. That's the way it is.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  But if someone has a militaristic tyrannical attitude, it might be good for them in the short term because they fit in. But in the long term, in the long term, it doesn't develop them as a person.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  So I had kind of an open mind. And team one focused my mind a little bit, right? If I would have had a closed mind, it would have been better for me to go to a team where the atmosphere opened up my mind. And the reason that I'm saying all this, this is a long way of me, for me to get to this point. Is that it's good to put yourself in environments that challenge you and your belief systems. It's good to put yourself in that type of environment. Now, that being said, there is a, I just got lucky that I got sent to team one. No one was like, let's do a personality assessment of Jocko. Oh, this guy listens to freaking hardcore and punk rock music and he's a wild kid and

• 10:36Jocko Willink?

  we, we need to give him some more military. They didn't say that. They just randomly, I got team one. Me and Giff going over to team one. Actually, a bunch of guys from my class went to team one. And a bunch of guys went to the other teams as well. But what I'm saying is, you see, you don't necessarily get a chance to select your environment, but. Pay attention to if you are comfortable in that environment. Because if you're comfortable in that environment, it may not be conducive to your own growth as a person. You may be, you know, it's like we're doing jujitsu. And there's like a class where they're doing a lot of takedowns.

• 11:22Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, dude, I love takedowns. I wrestled in high school. This is awesome. You're stoked, right? But then once you get to the ground, hey, we're just gonna stand it back up. You're kind of stoked on that. So you go to that class more often. That's what I'm saying. What you need to do is you need to go get engaged in those classes where they're doing a lot of groundwork. Or vice versa. You're like, hey dude, I'm a jujitsu guy. I'm not a wrestler. Well, okay. Well, that's, you need, still need to get some takedowns on. So you can't just conform and accept what feels good. You need to push back on yourself. You need to feel some resistance in the world. And if you can't, if you don't feel any resistance in the atmosphere that you're at, that you're in, then you need to check it and make sure you develop some resistance.

• 12:03Jocko Willink?

  And you think about things from an outside perspective that you detach. So that you can use that resistance. You might have to create some resistance like, hey, man, look, I, I know I could just skip the warm up and skip the takedown part of this class. But that's not the right thing to do. I can do it, but it's not the right thing to do. You know, I'm gonna get in there. I'm gonna make it happen. I mean, that's what we want to do. We use that resistance to get better. Because we don't improve if we are staying in an environment that's not forcing us to reassess where we're at. Kind of a long way for me to say that, but yeah, does that make sense?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, fully. So you know how, and I guess the, what's the idea, right? The saying, there's no growth in the comfort zone, but you're, it was interesting. I never really thought about this until right now, like this very specific thing. It might've been, came to my mind before, but not really think about it where you're talking about from a physical perspective, like physically placing yourself in an environment or being in an environment that challenges you outside of your comfort zone. Like even like a day to day or just like, just in life, you see what I'm saying? You ever watched the movie American History X?

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  That was a solid one. So, so remember, right, where, uh, what was his, what was his name? Started with a D, right? Was it Darren?

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Either the main character, Ed Norton.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  Ed Norton.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he goes to jail.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  And he's a white supremacist dude. He goes to jail and he does not like black people at all. Dislikes, obviously, white supremacy. You know the gig. Alright, so he goes and he gets paired up in the laundry room, right, with a black guy. And this black guy's like, kinda on the surface, like, real stereotypical. He's talking a lot. He's doing all this stuff. And he's like, he doesn't like him. He won't even say one word to him. But he has to work in that environment. Gotta work with him. So over time, because the guy's talking, he's making jokes, all this stuff. Over time, he kinda like, essentially, in a nutshell.

• 14:01Jocko Willink?

  Slowly opens his mind.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Slowly opens his mind. Maybe these black people aren't as bad as I thought, kind of a thing. This one right here is making jokes. We're actually, and they become friends. And his mind slowly gets open. He gets to stretch like that. You know what I'm saying? But physically, being in that environment, you're right, man. You're right. It's funny, like, I used to go to competition training with Dean Lister at other schools. And that's kind of the same gig. Where, you know, when you're a stranger in a

• 14:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Oh, they bring that heat. If you're a teammate, if you're

• 14:33Jocko Willink?

  Target practice. Like, you're a target. You might as well just be a grappling dummy.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's more stuff on the line, too. So, like, think about it. In your, back in our competition days. You come to the main spot. You come to Victory for competition training. You know the guy. I'm Jocko, Andy, all these guys, know these guys. You know, there's no, there's an element of comfort in that, no matter how hard the training is. But you go to the, if you're a stranger in another, you know, academy, and they're doing competition training, that level of comfort is gone. Straight up gone. But you get used to it, and you can actually feel it when you go back home to Victory. You're kinda like, oh, this is like, real, kinda cruise. It's easier, to be honest with you. And it's more from a mental standpoint.

• 15:13Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  It's easier.

• 15:15Jocko Willink?

  Unless you're a foreigner coming into Victory, and then you're like, oh, these guys are out to get me.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Oh, right, which is the same gig, just flipped around. Yeah, exactly right. So, yeah, you apply that kinda in life, where, yeah, put yourself in those physical. Physically put yourself in those.

• 15:26Jocko Willink?

  The weird thing, too, is, and we've covered this on the psychology of military incompetence, but a lot of times, people that are attracted to So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So, if you want to continue to listen.

• 15:44Jocko 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

• 16:29Jocko 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.