Jocko Underground: The Cure To Self Doubt. Exercise, New Baby, and Jocko is the New Chuck Norris.

Self doubt is helpful and hurtful. Exercise. Life with a new baby. 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, sitting here with EC, Echo Charles. And me, Jocko Willink.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  The open mind,

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  which is good, and self doubt. Self doubt. So people freak out a little bit about self doubt, and sometimes it consumes them, right? Some people will try and discourage you from having any self doubt, like you gotta believe in yourself, right? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, sitting here with EC, Echo Charles. And me, Jocko Willink. The open mind,

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  which is good, and self doubt. Self doubt. So people freak out a little bit about self doubt, and sometimes it consumes them, right? Some people will try and discourage you from having any self doubt, like you gotta believe in yourself, right? For me, self doubt is not only, not only okay, but kinda good, in a way. And, and I was listening to BJ Penn on Joe Rogan's podcast, and Rogan started talking about Mike Tyson, who was training with Custom Auto, and Custom Auto was,

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  actually, that's, that whole thing is crazy. You start, that, I guess they're, they're turning that into a movie right now? I don't know how they're gonna pull it off, but Custom Auto was,

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  he guided Mike Tyson so, like, perfectly to become the champ

• 1:47Jocko Willink?

  by talking to him and by explaining things psychologically, and kinda like hypnotizing him and just influencing him so.

• 1:58Jocko Willink?

  So powerfully, you know, that Mike Tyson was a machine, right? He turned into a machine. So one of the things he said was, was, and again, this is a quote from Rogan, which is a quote from Gus Costamato. So who knows how, uh, it's perfect I'm gonna get it. But the basic quote is fear is like fire. It can warm, it can warm and cook your food, warm you, and it can cook your food. Or it can burn your house down, right? So this is also clearly a dichotomy, right? But I think it's the same with self doubt. Because if you're, if you have some self doubt, it's gonna be good because you're pushing, you're like trained a little extra. You're gonna prepare a little bit more. But it can also, right?

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  So if you, if you're going in a jujitsu tournament and you have self doubt, you're gonna like train extra hard and do some cardio and you're gonna lift weights and you're gonna work on your wrestling, doing work. If you think you're gonna go in there and dominate, you know, you're backing off and it's the same thing with anything in life. But also you could not enter the tournament, right? You could be so freaked out that you're not gonna enter or you're not gonna go for the job interview or you're not gonna go talk to your boss about getting a raise. Like none of that stuff's gonna happen because you're doubting it. And so you gotta find that balance. But so, so now to kind of go a little tangential for me, I have another kind of self doubt, which is also kind of positive in my opinion,

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  which is when someone pushes back against me, when someone's got some other idea that I don't agree with, I think to myself, okay, what do I, what do I not understand? So if I say, hey, Echo, here's the plan for what we're gonna do tonight. And you say, I don't like that plan. I don't think you're bad. I don't think you're an idiot. I think what is it that I don't see? Why don't, why, why does Echo see something that I don't see? And this actually opens my mind. So for me, self doubt is a, is a state of mind that actually opens up my mind and allows me to listen.

• 4:07Jocko Willink?

  Now here's, here's, here's the thing about having the open mind. I've been talking to a lot of people, a lot of clients about this. Your mind is the natural mode of operating for your mind is to close. That's the natural mode of operating. Why? Cause it's safer. Cause it's easier, cause it's more comfortable. So the minute you have to open your mind up to someone else's ideas, it gets gonna get uncomfortable. The minute you open up your mind to someone else's ideas, things are gonna harder because you gotta take in what they're saying. You gotta do this calculus. Just like bacteria, right? We have, we have a, we're afraid of bacteria. We're afraid of snakes.

• 4:49Jocko Willink?

  We stay away from them. That's what a new idea is. It's a snake that's gonna get in your head. So the natural thing to do is to close our minds.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  And so it's difficult to go through life because if you don't pay attention, your minds, your mind is constantly just trying to get closed back up and trying not to let any other ideas in.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  And clearly this is a pandemic right now out in the world because people's minds are just boom, boom, closing, closing, closing. And it's, it's, you have to pay attention to it. So you actually have to detach to see that your mind is closed, right? You won't see it on your own. You won't see it. If you're not thinking about it, if you're not consciously trying to pull back and check where your brain is at, where your mind is at, it's gonna be closed. And you can just be running around just not knowing that your mind is closed. You're just, how will you know it? You won't know it.

• 5:48Jocko Willink?

  You won't know it. It's like there's no interference coming in to let you know, hey, your mind is closed. And occasionally you get rocked with some radical idea. I mean, can you imagine the guys that were doing like whatever traditional martial art in 1989?

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  And how crazy it was for someone to come in and take them down and choke them with a jiu jitsu.

• 6:15Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, how crazy was it when they threw their magic strike? And they, it didn't work at all. And then this guy just grabbed him and hip tossed him or double legged him. And then all of a sudden, they're getting choked. And they, their, their mind is so closed. You know what they say immediately? Let's try that again. You know how many people I've had say that to me, especially in the early days of jujitsu? Like, I would roll with somebody and they, let's try that again. Their mind couldn't, couldn't even accept what's happened. Normally, I don't know what you found, it would be like three to five submissions before someone actually understands that there's something going on here that they don't get.

• 6:54Jocko Willink?

  Before their mind even cracks barely open, it takes them getting submitted three to five times before they even recognize this.

• 7:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Uh, makes sense. Um, but yeah, I don't have a concrete number there.

• 7:08Jocko Willink?

  You've never, I mean, how many times do you have somebody look, oh, let's see?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, the only, to be honest, the only time that's ever happened where someone would be like, oh, let's go again, like they didn't like believe it or they thought, oh, I just fell down in a bad spot or something like that. It's like at, at like a party or something at a barbecue, that kind of stuff.

• 7:22Jocko Willink?

  It just counts, man.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  Well, I would definitely end up in more, uh, let's say, direct. Cause you know, I'm in the, I'm in the, so we got everyone that's thinking that they know some stuff. Especially because dude, I mean, I'm in the teams with guys that were, you know, eighties guys. And nineties guys that are like, hey, we learned that if you do this, you're a hundred percent gonna go down. It's like, okay, do it to me.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:49Jocko Willink?

  Double leg, rear naked choke.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:52Jocko Willink?

  But it take, so, so you, you, you choke someone once, twice, three times, their mind's not even open yet. They're still like, that was, like you said, you just fell down, you got lucky. And it would take that multiple attacks and submissions before their mind even gets a little bit open. And then normally like a half an hour, like, oh, let's go one more. They like, it closes back up again. So that happens to all of us and it's, it's unnatural to keep your mind open. It's unnatural. It's not, it's not the human mode of operating to open up, to listen to what other people have to say. And.

• 8:30Jocko Willink?

  Yet, if you can do it, if you can go through life, keeping that thing, like taking a stick and putting it in your mind, so that the little hatch is pried open and it's stuck open, you're gonna be, you're gonna have such a easier time

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  understanding other people, understanding other ideas, and coming to a better conclusion. That's, that's going to be, that's gonna make everything in your life better.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, just knowing that, I think is the,

• 9:04Speaker 01

  because you forget, just like how you said, like your mind, even if, because even if you do open your mind for a second, but okay, I'll have an open mind on this one, and then you accept the idea, then it closes right back up. Even if you accept the idea, as like, oh yeah, I had an open mind, I accepted the idea, why even change my mind? Look how mature, look at my growth, and then you just close your mind again. It's like a, it's an ongoing campaign, you gotta kind of keep your mind open, or be getting the habit of keeping it open.

• 9:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, what's crazy now is, you know, when you watch the divisiveness in the country, people are,

• 9:34Jocko Willink?

  people will get presented with quote facts, and here's the thing, they'll like those facts.