Jocko Podcast - 003 Jocko Manual: You Must Accept it. And.. Don't Accept it.

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground< Some things in life you just need to accept... fully. But some things, DON'T ACCEPT. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the manual podcast. Number three, Musashi, the sword fighter. He's got a quote, accept everything just the way it is. And he's got an adjacent quote, truth is not what you want it to be. It is what it is.

And you must bend to its power or live a lie. So we have to accept things. And I like those statements from Musashi. leave those statements from Musashi. I support those statements from Usashi and I have spent a decent amount of time backing them up, right? And probably the premier case I have of that was when I talk, was when I talk about Jim Sorlesley and Lewis Polar Jr. Right. Jim Surlesley, who was wounded in Vietnam, lost both of his legs just below the hip, lost one arm. And he was able to thrive in his life.

and the other counter example is Lewis Puller Jr. who was also severely wounded, lost both of his legs, had severe damage to his hands. But he did not thrive. He struggled with alcohol. He just struggled in a bunch of different categories. And he eventually spiraled down and killed himself. And when we talked,

to Jim Surlesley they had been roommates or not roommates but they they were both in rehab at the same time and Jim Surlesley had completely followed Musashi's advice and just accepted the situation he was in and he said that Lewis Polar Jr. didn't quite get there. He didn't quite get there. So we have to accept things that you have to and in fact I even even from a leadership perspective Like people get in a bad situation and they try and ignore it. They try and act like it's something that it's not. It's like, no, actually you're losing money or you're out of money or your product is failing or whatever the case may be. And people will, I don't know if it's like, no, no, no, no, actually this is the situation.

You have to accept it. And once you accept it, now we can start doing a good assessment of the true circumstances. You're not going to waste any time fighting things that you can't change, right? It's going to allow you to faster adapt to whatever the situation is. It's going to help you be responsive instead of reactive. It's going to reduce frustration and anxiety because you get frustrated when you can't change the thing. You think it can be changed. You think it's not the thing and it is.

So you have to. accept things. And this will also, believe it or not, so also give you the ability to say good in bad situations, to look at the situation and say, oh, this is a problem. Things didn't go the way I expected. I'm out of money. My employees are leaving. No one likes my product. Good. Now I can make adjustments. Good. Now I don't have to try that same product again. Good. Now I can tighten up my budget, right? It gives you the ability to try and figure out what good is going to come from the situation that you're in. So as a rule, like Musashi says, you have to accept things the way they are, just the way they are. Got to accept it. And this is, it's, it's so bizarre

to have these totally contrary views, right? To say you have to accept things, but there are things that you do not have to accept. There are situations that occur where you have to find another way. I think a great example of this is Ernest Shackleton, who was on his ship. The endurance was crushed by.

This is a book that we have never. covered on the podcast. And I've always said I would cover it on the podcast. But first I'm going to cover another expedition, which is the Greeley expedition, which went to the North Pole or attempted to go to the North Pole. And they ran into problems and they were caught in ice. And they completely like did not succeed. And they, there's reports of cannibalism.

They killed each other. Like it was the opposite of Shackleton. You know, Shackleton was this incredible leader. But he did not accept the situation. that they were in. Like their ship gets crushed by ice. There's 27 men stranded. They abandon the ship.

They take whatever they can. They live on these like ice flows. But then the ice starts to break up. And finally they take the lifeboats. They paddle the lifeboats and sail the lifeboats to this place called Elephant Island. And then Shackleton in five, again, this is all just, I'm not accepting this. I'm not accepting that are, that we're going to die because our ice or because our vessels trapped.

We're going to get out and we're going to set up business on these ice flows. Oh, those things are cracking and breaking up and sinking. Cool. We're not going to accept that. We're going to get in these lifeboats. We're going to get somewhere. Oh, we're going to get to this elephant island. Once we get to elephant island, unoccupied.

Oh, what are we going to do there? Die? No. We're going to set up camp. We're going to start working. We're starting. We're going to make things work. And by the way, eventually, Shackleton's going to say, you know what?

I'm going to go get us help. And he's going to go 800 miles in a freaking lifeboat. And once he gets to a place called South Georgia, he lands, but there's no one there. So he has to cross this mountainous, unmapped, uncharted terrain and get to an old whaling town, a little whaling station, not even a town, a little whaling station, and convince people that, hey, we need to go rescue these 20, whatever, 20 guys are left on this elephant island. And he organizes the rescue. and they go and save everybody and everyone survives. So there's like 14 times when, you know, well, the situation is we're all going to die.

And he said no. So there are times when you are going to be caught off guard. Things are going to occur that you don't expect, that you don't like, you're going to fall short. you're going to hit an obstacle that you didn't expect. That's going to happen. And although Musashi says you've got to accept everything just the way it is,

sometimes you've got to say, no, I don't accept that. And this is something that you pointed out that I do. Don't accept it. There are times where you have to say, no, I'm not going to accept this. I'm going to do something different. And then it's very important to be able to take a step back and detach and reassess the situation. Reassess the situation that you're in.

And assess the path and assess your goal and assess your resources and find a freaking way. You have to do that. But what's difficult about this in life is you have to be able to discern which is which. That's what you have to do. And in order to do that, you have to get out of procedural memory mode.

You have to remove your unconscious habit. You have to take away your behavioral inertia. And you have to go into manual mode. Because you can look at a big obstacle and say, oh, I'll never be able to get over that because you've never made it over that obstacle before. And you're used to that. And if that's the way you operate,

you're not going to make the changes that are required. So you have to switch into manual mode. You have to decide, actively decide what you need to accept because something is truly unchangeable and you're going to have to change your course. You're going to have to change your being or you're going to have to figure out what you need to reject what things you will not accept. and then you've got to impose your will or you've got to open your mind which are again these are two opposite things i'm going to impose my well i'm going to get through it or open my mind and say wait

how can i get around this how can i avoid this both those options are there and if you allow your your behavioral inertia just to guide your life you you're there's going to be things that you're just going to you're just going to accept and you're just going to go with what happens and then there's going to be opportunities where you could have rejected things that were occurring in your life. And you don't. You just accept them. And that's not good. That is not good.

Sometimes you have to stand up and say, no, I don't freaking accept this thing. It's not happening. Watch this. That was the, especially when we actually talked about it, I always felt this. Because remember, you know, the part of the case. Right one that one day we're rolling and in Jiu Jitsu we're training you know it got it got heated But it kind of got heated and then I you and me yeah what's a long time ago they got put it this way you know there's a good roll it was a good roll and it started to get escalate as far as like intensity will say and I my knee did you want to fight me no not not not not mentally or emotionally just kind of a physical good role good rule this is all like and my knee hit you in the face not the kind

like glat like it heat you in the face so enough it was hard yeah I felt it to me so I stopped you know you stopped

you stop the roll out of courtesy you know like hey oh shit are you good like you know whatever and you looked at me and you said what what happened

like as if you didn't feel like which I said of course you felt it but I saw what you're doing I was like ooh that is some cool shit if I can

use this. And it didn't really like gel with me, but I always remembered that where I'm like, oh, I see what you're doing. But it's like, by, you know how useful that is? If you can do that to yourself, you know, where and then like later on, like years later, which was more on the recent side of things where I'm like, Brian, you know who you are? It's right. It was like now that you're like older, we'll say, for lack of better term.

I said, you don't accept like certain stuff. You know like this. Okay. So this idea, this old idea of being over the hill. You know that, right? I was like, yeah, I'm over the hill, so I'm going to spend less time doing X, Y, Z, or whatever, you know, kind of a thing. But a big part of that is just kind of giving up, you know, on yourself, you know, kind of a thing, like accepting like, oh, yeah, I can't, you know, I can't work out as often as I could before, whether it, because I'm physically, I physically gave up or because, like, my schedules and my responsibilities are a little bit more, you know, more robust nowadays. So I'm going to, you know, I'm going to give up on this other thing.

And it's like, no, Brad, you don't have to accept that. You can still do that stuff. If you, if you don't accept that, you know? And if that's like your normal way of doing it, you'd be surprised what you can do. Yeah. And there's a little, it's like a little psychological trick too. Because let's face it, you're going to get older. Yeah, yeah.

100%. But to just accept that without. like scrapping. Yeah, like don't do that, man. And you're gonna, you know, you might have something

happening in your life and your world. It's like, hmm, maybe it's a, maybe it's a battle that you're going to lose. Yeah. But doesn't mean you have to accept it. Doesn't mean you have to roll over.

Yeah. And listen, are there some things in life where, you know, you're going to lose your business because you screwed up and you're in the hole and you're upside down, you're a whole bunch of people and you try and hang on as best you can.

Right? And a certain point you go, you know what? This is not working. And you, you're better off just to walk away. Does that happen? Of course it does.

But there's also situations. You ever notice, you ever been in a, I was rolling with a dude the other day. And I had him in a, in a, like a cobra choke. Yeah, yeah. And I was like stabilized, you know, just fully stabilized. Stabilized. And he ended up tapping.

But it was like, it was like when he did. And he goes, dude, I was just. like he was like hanging on right and I almost let go yeah you know what I mean because it's just well I mean is he gonna tap I'm wasting strength I need to improve my position so that's that stuff happens where it's like if I can hold on just a little bit longer just a little bit longer you never know what's gonna change yeah so but if you just accept and same thing like that guy if he held on a little bit longer I might let go yeah now I was stabilized but you know you're stabilized you're like oh I'm not not going anywhere so but if he held on maybe I'm like

now I'm starting to get like maybe I start to lose position a little whatever the case may be so how long can you actually just hold on you ever you know there's stories about people in boxing I think there's one when Muhammad Ali and I forget who it was he was saying hey cut my gloves off I'm done and whoever's corner man's like no you go you're going to keep going And then the other guy didn't answer the bell. Yeah, those Hicks and that happened to Hicks and too. Remember, was Zulu, I think? Oh, that happened with him?

Yeah. Oh, that's right. Where he was like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And then finally got convinced or whatever. Yeah. And the guy could have got it up. So you hold on just a little bit longer.

Yeah, that makes sense. Just hold on a little bit longer. They're freaking hurting too. But that's just fighting, man. This is life. And sometimes you just got to not accept these things. Just don't accept them. Yeah, this is what it feels seems like the differentiator is between like accepting things the way they are like Musashi. That's like facts in the moment. You know, like where if it's like, hey, like we're losing money. We lost money again today. That's a fact. So you got to accept that. Don't turn your back to these things like now, but don't accept the future. You know, this potential future. Don't just start accepting the negative parts of it. Is you what I'm saying? It's like it's like a the course of the what do you call the path of least resistance.

It's almost kind of a thing where it's like, well, you know, I lifted today. I did, let's say I did shoulder press today and I couldn't get my normal 10 reps is what I deal with from time to 10. And shit, I only got like nine and I was kind of struggling. Well, I'm 48 now. So I guess, you know, that's not really, that's not really for me anymore. You know, it's like I'm over the hill and I just accept it. No, no. This is what I'm going to accept.

I accepted the fact that I only got nine today. I'm going to accept that as it is. But I don't accept the fact that that's my fate. See what I'm saying my that's a that's a potential future. So it's like yeah if you don't accept the negative potential you know downhill potential future or whatever I feel like that's where you can succeed that's where you can um yeah change that that trajectory or sorry keep the successful trajectory regardless of that painful day. I think to sum up what you're saying accept your circumstances but don't accept your fate.

fate. So that's what we're doing. You've got to be in manual mode to discern those things. You have to be in manual mode to discern those things. You have to consciously think about that. Accept your circumstances. This is where you're at. But don't accept your fate.

Fight it. That's all I've got for tonight. And if you want to support, you can go to joccofuel.com, origin, usa.com. jocco store.com or esplanfront.com. Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.