Jocko Underground: You Either Talk About it.. Or You BE About it.

. Talking about it.. VS. Being About it. How to teach kids appreciation in life. Can't figure out why my colleague doesn't seem to like me. Should you take it easy in Jiu Jitsu training if you're physically superior? Building trust in the Police force, along with accountability. Rectifying a wrong professional decision. Getting onto a better path. 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 100, sitting across from Echo Charles.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  Talking about it versus being about it. Look, this is kind of a clear what we prefer, right? Kind of, it should be known. Everyone should know that it's being about it. We're not just talking about it. That's what we're doing. There, now, that being said, there is this idea about putting your goals out there like publicly. You've heard this idea before, right?

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  You know, you, you tell all your friends, "I'm gonna run a marathon, right, this day," or "I'm, I'm starting to train," or "I'm gonna write a book," or whatever thing you're gonna do. You, you tell everyone. You post about it, right? Yeah. And then that, you know, now you start to feel the social pressure that you told everyone. I think the problem with that is, what are the consequences?

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  To me, the answer is, there's no consequences. There's no friend that comes up to you

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  13 months later and is like, "Hey, I thought you were running that marathon." And, and then what you have is you're like, "Yeah, you know, I was going to, but I, you know, I ended up getting shin splints after two weeks, and then I started that new job, and it's just, I'm gonna do it next year, right? No problem. Oh, I thought you were writing a book. Yeah, you know, I am, but I was, I started going down, but then I got a better idea, so I'm like, kinda letting that thing ferment a little bit, but I'm got a new one." So, you're just lying to yourself, you're lying to your friends, and basically, there's no consequences for it. Cause you're able to lie your way out of it. Uh, my daughter was teaching jujitsu class the other day. Sure. And this, this little boy, like, after class, said, "Uh, my father died."

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  And my, just kinda randomly, my father died, and he was kinda misbehaving in class or whatever. So, she thought, you know, she's thinking to herself, "Oh, that's so sad," and she's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that." And then she's thinking, "Oh, you know, maybe some of his behavioral issues, maybe he's, you know, going through some stuff, he's a little emotional, whatever." And then, she sees the boy walking with like, a grown male. And she asked Coach Adam, she says, "You know, hey, is that, is that his uncle?" Or, he's like, "No, that's his father." And my daughter didn't understand why this was happening. Well, it turns out that the little boy, you know, we're talking like six years old.

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  Told my daughter that her dad, that his dad died so that he wouldn't get in trouble. The kid wouldn't get in trouble. He know he, he knew he was misbehaving. So he didn't want the, like, there's, you know. So what I'm saying is people lie. You, you, that's instinctively, right? You're a six year old kid and you'd rather tell a instructor that you've known for one week. That your father is dead than, than chance getting in trouble. Think about how, that's what people are like. That's what kids are like. That's what people are like. So when someone asked me 13 months, say, hey, how was that marathon you were gonna run in July? And I'm like, oh, actually I ended up not running it. I had shin splints. I had this. I had that. The book, same thing.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  So we're just gonna lie. We're gonna lie to everyone and there's no consequences. And, and you got a little credit, right? You got a little credit. When I tell you like, hey Echo, I'm gonna write a book. You're kind of like, dang dude, Jocko's kind of getting after it. I say, hey Echo, I'm gonna run a marathon. You're like, wow, dude, I kind of like, I kind of get a little credit from you. And I get a little actual reward of dopamine. Cause we talked about this with Huberman. Like I get a reward of, of dopamine when I say, hey Echo, I'm getting ready for, I'm gonna run a marathon. In July. Yeah, that gives me a little dopamine. You kind of, you get fired up. You kind of look up to me a little bit like, oh yeah, dude, Jocko's getting after it.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  So I get rewards from talking about it. The actual physiological rewards of dopamine hit. I get the little, the little assurance and credit from my friends. And in the end, it doesn't matter because I'm just gonna lie about it in the end anyways.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  So, so we're not talking about it. We're about it, right? Right, yeah. I noticed this too. This is a weird memory for me to have, but in SEAL training, there were some guys, like, we would go to a restaurant on Saturday, right? And there'd be, this is in first phase, you don't know who's making it, but you're going to get food because the chow hall sucks, whatever. So it's a Saturday, you're gonna go to get food, like some restaurant. Some all-you-can-eat restaurant, preferably, right? Sure. What was that one called? Sizzler? Sizzler. We rolled down to Sizzler. It's not there anymore, but hit that buffet. You know, you bring nine freaking young dudes to a buffet, we're getting our money's worth, boy. But you know, we're in there, so wherever, wherever we had a buffet, we're in there.

• 5:08Jocko Willink?

  And some guys, like a waitress would be like, "Oh, you need some more tea?" "What do you guys do?" You know, that kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, fully. Some guys would be like, "We're in SEAL training." Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. They kind of got that little dopamine hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me, I wasn't even thinking about saying that. Yeah.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  And seems to me, those dudes that kind of get that little, they quit. They didn't make it, man. They didn't make it because they got their reward. They got their reward. Their reward is be able to tell people they're in SEAL training. And I, my bet that after, they still tell, "Well, you know, I was in SEAL training." And they get a little bit of credit for that, too. And then they have whatever lie that they're gonna make up. "Well, I do make it because I had chinsplint tonight, this night." That's bullshit. You quit. That's what happened. Very few guys will just be, say, "Oh, I quit because it was really hard." They lie. And they, they, even when they quit, they lie. Because they'll say, "I quit because I had a girlfriend, I had this, I had that, I had..." "I realized it wasn't for me. I realized that that's not the job. What SEALs do actually isn't what I want to do." They have all kinds of lies, they tell themselves.

• 6:10Jocko Willink?

  Some guys are like, "Yo, I quit. It was super freaking hard." That's a very rare person. I respect that person. Most people, they gotta lie. So...

• 6:19Jocko Willink?

  We are not talking about it. We're being about it. Here's the other thing about talking. Talking is risk free. It's basically risk free. You and I can sit around and plan for a marathon. In six months, we can talk about it. We can go on a, you know, marathon training website and like look through it and go, hey dude, what do you think? This program seems pretty good. No, I'd rather this program. We can come up with plans and all this stuff. There's no risk to it. There's no risk. When you take action, now we go out, we run, we get, we can't make it. We fail to finish. Like there's a serious risk. Oh, I'm going to write a book. You write a book. You spend hours and hours and hours and hours writing a book. You send it to the publisher. They just say, yeah, this isn't good later.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  That happens all the time, by the way. So, action is, takes risk. When you take action, it takes risk. It also takes discipline.

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  Whereas, talk is totally cheap. It takes no discipline whatsoever. It's really free, actually. You can just say whatever you want. Which is kind of pathetic. Uh, I do think, I was thinking about, there's a little bit, a little bit of an intermediate step. Writing it down. It's a little bit of an intermediate step because you're detached from it. You have to put it on paper. You're looking at it now. Those words, look, in three weeks, I don't know what I said to you.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? And you're like, hey, did you say, didn't you say 13 months ago, you were going to run a marathon? I'm like, no, I was thinking about it. I told you I was thinking about it. No, I was fired up that day, but I didn't really mean it. You can just literally say, I didn't really mean it. When you write down, I am going to run a marathon on July 13th and whatever. That's hard to back away from. That's why we have contracts and stuff, right? Cause you know, Echo and I were talking about our new business. We were going to split everything. And then I'm like, whoa, who's going to split everything with you?

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just spitballing.

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  No, I was a spitball. The reality is. So it's the same thing. If you have to write something down, I think that's a little bit of a step. But writing things down is still a far cry from action because I've known people that make checklist every freaking day and they don't execute what's on them.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:27Jocko Willink?

  It's harder to not execute what's on them. It's easier to not execute on something you said you were gonna do. Right? That's pretty easy. You know, pretty easy for people to go, eh.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Planning.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I'm gonna work out tomorrow morning.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  If they say that, there's a, there's an eighty-seven percent chance that that workout's not happening.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Sure, sure.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  Actually, there's a whole nother category here. I'm not saying anything. I'm just doing it. That's a whole nother category. I'm not saying anything. I'm just doing it. So you got that. But, and I think that's the final. The final call here is to take action to do something. Even if you're doing something small, even if you're like, hey, I'm gonna run a marathon in July, I'm starting training today by walking one mile. Which is gonna take me, how long does it take to walk one mile? Ten minutes? Eleven minutes?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. It depends on how fast you walk, but I don't know. I think, yeah, twelve to fifteen.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  Twelve to fifteen minutes. You're gonna walk one mile today. Even if that's what you do today, even if it's a half mile because you only have seven minutes. So you say, you know what? I'm gonna run a marathon. I'm starting training today.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  Not by, wait, not by talking about it more, not even by writing anything down, not very, but I am gonna start today by doing something. I'm gonna make some actual action to to move towards this goal.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:45Jocko Willink?

  If you don't do that, just kiss it goodbye.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  So think about that. Keep that in mind. Don't talk about it. Be about it.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yes. And remember how I accused you a while ago? A few years ago?

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  What was it about?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  About.

• 9:59Jocko Willink?

  I don't remember.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Actually, this is fresh in my mind because I was talking to a friend.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I'll remember the beat down I gave you, but.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was actually a pretty effective yet simple beat down, but. By basically when got into this argument about debate, whatever, maybe got kind of heated, maybe it didn't, I don't know, but I said, I said, bro, you oversimplify things. And I had my debate, I had my argument laid out in my head, like you oversimpl, I mean, there's a difference between just simplifying it and oversimplifying it. Oversimplify means like, hey, you're, you're leaving out some critical stuff.

• 10:31Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Those critical complexities and then you won the debate by just looking at me and going, or am I?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  I was like, but you're right. Cause you know, you don't oversimplify. I think the rest of us just over.

• 10:45Jocko Willink?

  Complicated.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, complicated. Exactly. Right. So anyway, this might be one of the ones that you're, you're not over. So you're simplifying it for, for sure. But so there's different like, um, like talking about being about it. You're right on both of them or whatever. But so you're, if you're talking about something that you're gonna do, then that's like a whole thing where yeah, people, a lot of times like, uh, social accountability is kind of a helper, a little spot. Right. It can be.

• 11:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes. Exactly right. If you have, if you're, if you're gonna lie.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:15Jocko Willink?

  Which you probably are, then it doesn't really matter.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  It's possible.

• 11:18Jocko Willink?

  If you're the type of person that, but if you're the type of person that's gonna feel so guilty about it, like I let my friends down.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:24Jocko Willink?

  You didn't even have to say anything.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:26Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I feel like the, I don't, I don't have that much. Yeah. I don't have that much experience with, with that part of things.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  Where committing to anything.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Not publicly. So well, publicly it's more of like a social, um, you pay a social price, right? Whether you know it or not, like if you're, if you do it once, you say, I'm gonna run a marathon and then you don't. And then they say, I thought you were gonna run that marathon. Hey, what happened with that? And you say, well, you know, I this and that, everyone knows, everyone feels it from you for the most part. And then if, so even if you do that once, you did pay that price versus if you didn't say anything and you just didn't do it. Then you don't pay any price at all where no one knew, no one, no one held you kind of even this much.

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  That, uh, think of the reward that you got.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:10Jocko Willink?

  You know, you got, let's, let's put it in dollars, right? You got like a, like a $4 reward.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the moment. Yeah.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  And then 13 months later.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  You spent that shit.

• 12:19Jocko Willink?

  13 months later, you get, they, they come and take money from you because you didn't do it. That only costs you like $2, right?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:26Jocko Willink?

  Because it's been 13 months and you have a couple of excuses that if you just said, I, if you, if you said, hey, Uh, I didn't do it because I'm actually a lazy piece of shit. That's why I didn't do it. If you said that, you would actually get you. You'd probably get a little bit of extra credit. You at least owning up to it. But what I'm saying is you got $4 for your, for your statement. You're only going to get charged two. So net, you're making two bucks.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Like in your own mind.

• 12:53Jocko Willink?

  In your own mind, you're making two bucks. And even to that person, they're kind of like, well, it is kind of a big deal to run a marathon and Jocko's real busy. So I can see why he probably didn't have time to do it. So everyone, you know, your true friends are kind of on your side. Of course, there's a hater over here. It's like, you said you're going to run it. You're, you didn't do it, but you know, you see what I'm saying?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  I, I feel like the other people's thoughts about it usually in our minds is less very, it's not very relevant. Given the, the dollar analogy, because the payoff you get when you say it, like I'll say it's $4. Like it's like, that's, that's true. It's absolutely true. Cause and now until it's time to run the marathon, you're rolling with that four bucks in your pocket. You know, whatever.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I know people that have a lot of money.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  Like a lot of that kind of money.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. But here, when they ask, hey, what up with that marathon? You know, how did that go or whatever? And then in your own mind, you, you're like, oh, that $4 that I had this whole time, I gotta give back like two maybe.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you give back $2.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  You gotta backpedal a little bit, but in your mind, it's like a little, you know, it'll come off as a valid excuse. You think, you believe that, you know, and it doesn't, but like you think, so you gotta give back at least some of it. But at least I was on the path for a little bit, you know, kind of a thing, like it kind of lasts in a way.

• 14:04Jocko Willink?

  True too. And then you got your friends and then like you got two different types of friends. Some of your friends like, yeah, of course. And they didn't really want you to run the marathon anyways, because then you make them look bad. So they're kind of like, yo dude, and they actually, they take like 50 cents from you. They might even give you another dollar.

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  There's people that just want to drag you down. They don't want you to do something good. There's absolutely like people like that. There's also people that are. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 14:39Jocko 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

• 15:24Jocko 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.