Jocko Underground: What's Up With Military Recruiting, Recruiting Videos |

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Getting young, talented, but arrogant team members on board with the system. What's Up with the current state of Military recruiting? How to navigate good training for a fulfilling Jiu Jitsu experience. Loyalty VS My career. Solving recurring problems in my day to day professional life. 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 159, sitting here with Echo Trolls, and we've got some questions and some answers for the people.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Cool. We're ready. Okay, good. First question. Hello, sir. I recently retired from the National Guard. I was a very successful recruiting leader, even after COVID. All my success came from using your leadership concepts. As I'm trying to figure out my next step, I can't help to see on the news, the recruiting issues our military is having. I believe the answer is in leadership. I'm sending this, I'm sending the message because I would love to be able to impact this need and need guidance on how or where to start. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  Right on. First of all, I'll say this, in the past couple of days, maybe past week or so, recruiting numbers are back up. So there's some new leadership in the military, there's some new leadership in the government, and it seems like that is helping our recruiting numbers. So it seems like we're moving in the right direction there.

• 1:06Jocko Willink?

  But that being said, I'm sure if you were a good recruiter while you were in, I'm sure you'd still have, bring some, bring some value. And so what I would do honestly is

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  look for job opportunities in that environment. So I real quick went to USAjobs.gov. There's a website where you can apply for civilian jobs. And there was a bunch of jobs on there. Training officer, these are civilian jobs, training officer for the National Guard, human resources assistant. What does a human resources assistant, you think they do? Recruiting's gotta be in there. A public affairs officer for the National Guard. Again, these are civilian positions that you could get into.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  As a government employee, working with the National Guard as a public affairs officer. So, so think about that. If you're working public affairs and you're out there, you, what are you doing? You're basically, you can do a lot of recruiting. And then there's a bunch of other ones. I mean, there's intel officer mechanic, really like, you know, target repair. There's a bunch of other types of jobs. But what I'm saying is you retired from the National Guard. There are opportunities to still work in, inside the system. So in the SEAL teams, like at Trade Det, we have like a deputy ops guy that's a civilian. So he was in the teams. Most of the times he was in the teams and retired from the teams and then gets a job as a civilian.

• 2:39Jocko Willink?

  So that way, because military people move around so much, you need some continuity there. You need someone there that has eight, 10 years worth of knowing the training sites, knowing the issues we're going to face, knowing how to deal with this, that, and the other thing. That's why you have these civilians. It's the same thing in basic SEAL training. There's civilians that work there that keep the continuity together. So that's what I would do if I were you. I would look for recruiting type jobs if they come up, but also just public affairs jobs, training officer jobs, human resources jobs. Because I think all those would probably lend you to an opportunity where you'd be able to carry on your career in the National Guard, but as a civilian.

• 3:19Jocko Willink?

  So that's what I would do. Thanks for your service. Go get some.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  How often do you see like, uh, military videos on TV? You? What do you mean by military video on TV? You know, like recruiting, you know, if you, the proud, you know? I don't know, because I don't watch a lot of TV. So I don't even know if they, do they have recruiting things on TV? I'd have to go to YouTube and watch them. Yeah, like, I, I know that.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I'm thinking back, the UFC would have

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, UFC did some Marine Corps stuff and some Air Force stuff and some National Guard stuff. Yeah, yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, some of the army stuff is really good, but from a video standpoint, but I don't know. I always felt like sometimes those videos can be real compelling, you know, they look like blockbuster movies and it's kind of like, cause you know, I don't know. When, when I was young, when it, when it came down to like joining the military, it was kind of like, that was like the gen, that was the feel. Where it's like, yeah, you can go and go out and go on these.

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, they're getting back to that kind of recruiting now too.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  Because for a while, the recruiting videos were not very, uh, they were recruiting, I don't know who they were trying to recruit, but they wouldn't recruit a dude like me.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  Like I joke about it, dude, when I showed up to recruiter, when I realized you, oh wait, you'll pay me money to carry a machine gun, sign me up. I'll, I'll go right now. What? Let's go. So, but if they would have showed me the, like some of the advertisements from, from a few years ago, where it was like weird, they weren't talking about being a warrior.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  They were talking about being something else.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  You know, I've, as I've said, I didn't become a ballet dancer.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  The reason I didn't come ba- a ballet dancer, isn't because they didn't have good ballet recruiting ads. It's because I didn't want to be a ballet dancer. I wanted to carry a machine gun. So when I saw my, uh, ads for guys carrying machine guns, that's sign me up.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:14Jocko Willink?

  If you show me an ad for somebody that's not carrying a machine gun, why would I go there?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:17Jocko Willink?

  You don't show me that. I don't want to be a cook. Like you could put a cook, uh, a chef thing, advertisement on the TV. I don't want to be a chef. I don't like cooking.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  It's not speaking to you.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  No, it doesn't speak to me.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 5:29Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, if you were, if you showed me, here's what you could do. You could trick me, right? You want me to be a chef?

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  So you show like a guy walking through the kitchen, carrying a machine gun. I'd be like, whoa, whoa, oh, wait a second. That could be cool. So I go sign up. Now you got me there and you hand me a spoon and a bowl.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  A knife.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  And a knife. And you're like, okay, you're going to, you know, do food prep. Dude, I don't want to do that.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  So now I'm pissed. I wanted to carry a machine gun. You showed me, here's a guy with a machine gun in the kitchen. I thought that was what we were doing.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  I thought there was people that need to get whacked in the kitchen. No, they don't. We're making soup. No, I don't want to make soup. So.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  I think they're doing the right thing now. You wanna show someone carrying a machine gun, going to war, cuz that's what you are trying to recruit.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:14Jocko Willink?

  Not trying to recruit a ballerina or a chef. Now, if you wanna be a cook in the military, cool, you can go and apply. That's a nuanced job. And you can learn that skill set if that's what you want. Good. Cuz now if you, if you sign up to be a cook in the Navy, now you get on the Navy ship and they're like, oh, cool. Here's what you'll be cooking. You'll be cooking all this breakfast and it's cool. Man, you'll learn to cook really well. For massive amounts of people with, you know, troubling circumstances. You know, because you don't always have the, all the supplies you need. You gotta figure out how to make things work and you're on a ship and there's like, right? So you become a good cook, if that's what you wanna do. But you gotta be real with what you're doing. That's my point. You gotta be real with what you're doing.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It feels like if someone's advertising wanting to recruit a cook or chef. And they advertise the guy with the machine gun.

• 7:08Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And they get you in there. And you go in there expecting the machine gun, expecting all this stuff. You get the, you know, the, the, the Gintu knife and the spoon and the bowls and stuff. It feels like that that restaurant might not be as successful.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, they're gonna have problems with me.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  They have some problems with you and everyone else like you.

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz they recruited a bunch of people.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  The wrong people.

• 7:31Jocko Willink?

  They got me and Tonya Fraddy and they're, they're telling us to make salad, right?

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:35Jocko Willink?

  It's happening, bro.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. Meanwhile, they needed, uh, what's the guy, diner, diners, drive-ins and dimes? Guy Fieri.

• 7:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they need that guy.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  They need that guy.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  Dude, that guy likes to cook, bro.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. All day.

• 7:46Jocko Willink?

  I've given up on like the whole, you know, for a while it was like, oh, you know, maybe cooking, you know, like barbecue and stuff.

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  It seems like a cool thing to like, like to do, right?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 7:58Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yes, I do.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  People are like, oh, it's, looks like fun.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  It's fun.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  Hey, barbecue, we're gonna get some stuff.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:03Jocko Willink?

  For a while I was like, okay, well, let's, it seems like this is supposed to be fun.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  It's not fun for me. It's not my thing. No. It's not my, it's not my jam. I'll eat it.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  You don't say.

• 8:13Jocko Willink?

  Like, late Babin comes to my house and spends three hours prepping food.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Prepping, hell yeah.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  Or, or John Dudley. John Dudley be prepping food forty-eight hours in advance. Squared away, dude.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Next level.

• 8:24Jocko Willink?

  Tastes delicious. I'm totally down for that.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:26Jocko Willink?

  But I don't want to do it. Not because I'm lazy, but I don't get any, I don't, it doesn't make me feel good. I would ju, I get as much gratification from making a ham sandwich as I do from making a, a good steak. But by the way, my ham sandwiches are good. They take me three minutes.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I'm sure they're.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  My steak is not that great. My wife makes a prime rib. Takes her a few hours to make the prime rib. It's, it's good, man. It's really good. But if I was left to my own devices, I would never have prime rib. Cause I'm not gonna take four hours to prep and do all the stuff.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  It's not who you are.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yes, so the point being, even me, not in the military, probably past any kind of military age, as far as being in my prime.

• 9:12Jocko Willink?

  Are you thinking about getting in the game?

• 9:13Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 9:13Jocko Willink?

  What I'm hearing over there?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  What I, no, what you're hearing is me saying, sometimes when I'd watch those videos, like.

• 9:19Jocko Willink?

  You get fired up.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  It was mainly like, yeah, the, it was mainly the army, if I'm not mistaken.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  Marine Corps does, doesn't play around either. Marine Corps does a great job.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  In fact, I think it's army and marine.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sure.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Those videos were like, okay, and they'd have different messages, you know, like, go on a mission, be elite, um, travel the world. They were all like, really legit videos. To me, as a customer, or an avatar, as they might say.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  They almost got you.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  It were, it was working. The, that kind of PR slash advertising slash marketing, whatever, was working.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  These other videos that you're referring to, I've never seen in real life, but I've seen, you know, on the internet, I've seen like, you know, these guys, they'll talk about them.

• 9:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause people are putting, they were just, juxtaposing, uh, juxtaposing, uh, Russian recruiting video.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  And like the American recruiting video.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:05Jocko Willink?

  And the Russian recruiting video was recruiting hard. 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.

• 10:48Jocko 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.