Jocko Podcast - 380: How Ancient Wisdom Tells Us Exactly What To Do

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Exploring ancient wisdom to gain understanding on the best approach to life. I Ching. FuXi. Yin Yang.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 380 with Echo Charles and me Jocker Willink. Good evening echo. Good evening. So recently on the underground podcast, we covered one quote from the E Ching, which is a ancient script, E Ching from China. And E means change. It actually looks like it says I. That means change. And Ching means script.

So this book is commonly called the Book of Changes. Original author unknown. It got modified over the years. Confucius, I think, is the most famous person that kind of added to it. Some other guy, another character slash myth slash legend, Fu Shi. And again, I'm not any kind of an expert on this stuff. I just wanted to kind of touch it from the surface here

But he created the yin-yang symbol So the yin-yang is a symbol that everybody knows from Well, at least from town and country surfboards TNC But also it's just a common simple you see all It's in every cheesy martial arts movie, right? We get a little yin-yang in there It's in kind of new age spirituality

You'll get that yin-yang going We've seen a lot of yin and yang tattoos, right? Especially from back in the day, I'm going to say 80s, 90s, you know. So there was some yin-yang tattoos. They could still be happening, but they were pretty popular back then. So we got that common symbol of yin and yang. And the story behind that is before the universe, before there was anything, there was just stillness and there was emptiness. And then these two energies, these two cheese, chi, chie, collided, made the universe.

That's yin and yang. So in this book, Eiching, it's made up of these little characters, not language characters, but stacks of lines, literally stacks of lines. A broken line is yin, and a solid line is yang. And these two, when you stack these lines, you can stack them in ways that represent the eight fundamental natural parts of of earth, really, fire. So it's fire, water, wind, thunder. One of them says river, but I think it's like river lake, maybe even ocean in there,

mountain, earth, and heaven. If you put these three things together, there's a way of writing this out. You're basically drawing lines, stacking lines. And here's where I'm getting with this. They made this thing for divination, which is the predicting of the future. So divination is something that we do in America, believe it or not. You ever drive down the road and you see like Palm Reader?

Sure. That's it. That's divination. That's I'm going to predict the future. Or astrology, you read in the newspaper? That's divination. Like, oh, I was born in October. So when the seventh moon is in the dark side,

that means that I should move. on my new you know theories or whatever yeah sure uh crystal ball yeah like there's people that read crystal balls that's called scrying you can read mirrors you can read crystal balls numerology you ever heard about these people that would base their i think nancy reagan was in a numerology where it's like well you know what this today is the 13th of this you know seventh month and therefore that equals 20 and 20 is my lucky number so you know what i mean that kind of thing are called divination. And that's sort of what the E. Ching has become in a way or it became.

And you end up with this thing where they call these things hexagrams, where basically it looks like six stacked lines. And it's all these different arrangements. And so you have these, so it's a solid line and a broken line. All right. So you have like a solid line. or a broken line. Those are the two types of lines you can have.

It's binary. You can have one or the other. And they stack these lines in different ways, and it means different things. Gotcha. So the top three lines might mean water and the bottom three lines might mean Earth. And from that combination,

you can predict different things, right? That's what it is. So, like, for instance, hexagram five, which is waiting. But it's not just waiting. its inner certainty. It leads to perseverance that brings good luck. So that's what it is.

That's how this works. And what you end up with is really like a bunch of sayings. And you can do it with throwing coins. Again, to predict these things. I don't want to go too deep in this because, frankly, I'm not a believer. Okay? I'm not a believer in palm reading.

I'm not a believer in astrology. I'm not a believer in this kind of stuff. I'm not a believer in throwing, they do it with pennies or with whatever coins and like a head is one and a tail or something else and that's how you can predict. So if you ponder your question and then you throw the coins

and then it tells you what kind of line to draw and it's going to work it out for you. Okay, so again, I'm not into this kind of thing. But here's the thing. There is some basic philosophical guidance in the E Ching, that completely makes sense. That's why we covered, look, I was, I, some, I had some copy of it. And when we did, we did one quote on the underground podcast.

And I was like, you know what, there's a lot, there is a lot of, almost want to use the word wisdom, but I also just want to use the word common sense. And sometimes common sense and wisdom are very similar. They're very close to each other. You know, when something seems like common sense, yeah. That person that's executing some real common sense moves probably has a decent amount of wisdom and Some of these things in the I Ching Represent some pretty good wisdom and at the same breath you could also say well that's common sense

Yeah, hey I get it right You can and you know this also Boils down to like the old oracles yeah, you know in ancient times there would be oracles that would make prediction and like the famous one is you know The big leader comes and says, should we go to war with the enemy? And the Oracle says, if you go to war, a powerful nation will fall. Yeah.

And so a person's like, oh, cool, we're going to win. Yeah. But it actually doesn't predict anything, right? Also, too, you mentioned the common sense thing where that is real, I think. I believe that the ancient wisdom is almost like it's rooted in common sense. Yes. So, like, you know, like the old school, what was it?

I don't know who said. I forget. But they said, do not kill mosquito with bazooka or something. Yep, there you go. It's like that kind of stuff. Ancient wisdom and common sense. Yeah. But at the same.

So it seems like common sense. Wait, in ancient times, did they have bazook? No, that was on, what was that movie with Sean Connery? I have no way. Oh, entrapment. Anyway, he said, so yeah, do not kill mosquito with bazooka, right? whatever. Obviously, that was made up because...

We didn't have that saying in the SEAL teams, by the way. It was like... And it's like, yeah, everyone knows that. But at the same time, what that means probably applies to a bunch of things that, man, if you just stop and think, it's like, okay, you know, it can probably help you out in a lot of situations. It's like ancient, quote unquote, philosophy that applies. Sure, said simply, which is kind of part of the wisdom.

Yes. Can apply to a bunch of things if you just stop and think. So everything that you're saying right now is why when I read through the E. I was like, you know what? This is worth covering because there's some, quote, ancient wisdom or, quote, common sense that if you utilize, it's going to help you. And look, could I be in the zone? Could I, could you take my, what I kind of things that I say and turn it into a powerful divination that would help you? Like we could create some kind of like a magic eight ball.

Sure. Remember that magic eight ball? Hell yeah. Magic eight ball is same thing, right? Magic eight ball is divination. We should have brought that up as a form of divination. Because you shake the magic eight ball and it says the outcome is certain, right? And it just gives you these things that have no meaning.

But what's interesting about them is let's say you were like, oh, should I, you know, ask that girl on a date? And you shake and it says the outcome is certain. Dude, yeah. Hell yeah. Yes, it's going to work. Well, the outcome also might be certain that she rejects you, but you don't really know that. You have a good attitude so you go ask her out. She says yes.

Maybe she says no. Yeah. But, you know, we could make like a magic eight ball with, you know, ancient jaco wisdom in it, right? And you shake the eight ball and it says, work hard. Yeah. That's a good answer. Like, hey, I'm really having a problem with my, with my job right now. What should I do?

Work hard. Oh, I'm really having a problem with my relationship right now. What should I do? Work hard. I'm really having a problem staying in shaking. right now what should I do work hard be disciplined right oh well you know I just seems like I'm really having a hard time getting or getting forward at my job be disciplined like it's gonna be a good answer eat clean hey I'm having a hard

time getting focused eat clean I'm having a hard time falling to sleep eat clean like you see what I'm saying like these are just do jiu jitsu what's sad what's funny about you just not sad like on the under underground podcast, when people have things going on in their life, at least 50% of the time, I have to throw in there do jih Tijuana because it's actually accurate. Yeah. It's going to make things better if you're doing jiu jitsu. So eat clean, you know, work hard, be disciplined.

Do jiu jih Tzu. Those kind of things you could put on a magic jocco eight ball and they would make sense and they would actually help you. They would actually help you. Do not make excuses. Do not make excuses. Boom. That's another one.

You know, so those things. I mean, what would you say? What's the opposite? Would you say like, hey, beat. You be lazy. Is that advice you're going to give someone? No. Or you're going to eat junk.

You're going to tell that to someone? No, it doesn't make any sense. So there's a certain amount of common sense to these things, just like there's a bunch of common sense of stuff that I say, just like there's a bunch of common sense of things that when people get traction about how to live better, normally it's like when you look at it, it's, there's definitely some common sense advice in there. And again, everything that we're talking about is why, as I read through the

I thought you know what this is there's there's definitely some ancient wisdom or common sense depending on how you want to look at it and you don't have to get spiritual you don't have to believe in the divination and draw the Yarrow sticks there's a bunch of different ways you can do it it's all yeah there's a bunch of different ways that you can use this stuff but I think if you just read what they say you're gonna end up in a pretty good spot so let's get into this this is the Iching And so each one of these things, and I'm not going to waste a bunch of time. No, sorry, I'm not going to waste time.

I'm not going to go over what the little hexagram looks like. But in your mind, just picture that every one of these things could be either six solid lines. Or six lines, either solid or broken lines. That's what you get. All right. So hexagram one. Heaven above, heaven below. So it says the universe is united in power.

So too the wise person executes his actions with power and creativity. Exceptional progress comes by correct persistence. Is that earth shattering? It certainly is not. But this is what I think is so interesting about this. Let's say you are concerned about, you know, where you're at with your health, fitness, family, whatever. Like take a pick of what issue you're running into in your life. And it says, hey, execute your actions with power and creativity.

And exceptional progress is going to come from persistence. Okay, that's good advice. You're going to get better. Next one. The receptive earth is in power. The wise person follows the natural path of calmness and correct persistence. others may lead while you support their goals. This is like, as soon as I got to that one,

I was thinking to myself, there's, look, others may lead while you support your goals. I tell us people all the time at Eshlam Front. I tell us people at least twice a week, I'm telling them let them take lead. Hey, if someone's got a good plan, cool, go, go help them, provide support. We have it in dichotomy leadership.

Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow. That's good. That's exactly what they're saying. Others may lead while you support their goals. That's a good thing. There's no rocket science there for sure. Hey, and I'm skipping the part where it says hexagram three, water above, thunder below. The overall word is confusion.

So I'm skipping that kind of part just to get to the meat of these statements, at least most of the time. Undertake no distant goal but organize support. concern yourself with problems of the moment. Now what's interesting about this one is this is a little bit of prioritized and execute, right? There's a little bit of prioritized and execute, which is, hey, there's problems that are right now right in front of your face. You got to get those problems solved. I don't like the idea of undertake no distant goal. But this is a common theme throughout this, throughout the E Ching, which is more focused on what's right in front of you.

I think there's a little bit of the sort of the east. and philosophy of like living in the present, living in the moment, I think there's a lot of that in here, which I think actually the opposite of make sure you're thinking strategic, make sure you're thinking long term. That one strikes me as the old,

you know, the thing you hear like, like don't worry or focus on the outcome, focus on the procedure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The destination is not the journey, or the focus on the journey, not the destination. Yep, that's, you're right.

So there you go. That's an interpretation. that everybody says right now, right? You got to, wait, what do they say? You got to love the process. Love the process. You got to love the process. Everybody wants that Mercedes right now,

but you got to love the process, right? That's a thing. And that's, you're right. That is a better take than what I said. Undertake no distant goal, but organize support. Oh, you know what that means? I'm worried about that long term.

I'm worried about that Mercedes right now. Yeah. Worry about the process. Yes. It feels like the use of the word goal is just, like slightly slightly different than maybe one might feel the use of the word goal is like now today with us. You know, it's like when you say, hey, let's set some really good goals, you know, set some goals. That's like things you want to aim for more so than a very specific outcome, you know.

It's not totally different, but it's slightly different. It feels like. And plus, you know, sometimes different languages have totally different words that mean like, it's close. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Carlos is Who Mendez? Yeah. He's redoing the Spanish version of extreme ownership to make it highly accurate

because Carlos obviously he was in the SEAL teams. He's a fluent Spanish speaker. He's instructor at Eslam Front. He teaches now the material in Spanish to our Spanish-speaking clients. And he, you know, he's pointed out to me. He says, hey, here's what this means in Spanish.

It technically does mean what you say in English. but it technically means it, but it actually means a little bit different. And here's the better word. Yeah. Yeah, that's so true. So if you put it through chat GPT and just said, translate this,

it would just translate spit out whatever the English word and translate it to that direct closest matching Spanish word that it knows out of context. Right. So that's what we got going on right now. We're actually going to republish the Spanish version of that. And we're going to do a Spanish speaking where Carlos is going to. to do the the audio book in Spanish.

It's awesome to have, you know, a fluent speaker of Spanish to be able to go that deep. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a, that's a important distinction because how you said, you said, GPT or Google translate or whatever when you're like, oh, I heard this word in this sentence in this other language. Hey, what does that word mean there? You, you, you Google translated or whatever.

And it spits out this word and you're like, wait a second. then why would they use that word? It doesn't make sense. But you translate the whole expression. They're like, okay, that's like a whole expression that happened to use that word. Just like because of the very reason that you just said where it's the word, what do they call? It's like literal translation, right? They call it.

But then the expression has a translation kind of almost in a way separate from a little translation. You know what to be fun. When that book comes out, we'll have Carlos on and we'll talk through the different words that and why this. This is the best word. That helps so much because, you know, like I always tell you like in Hawaii, and this is just Pigeon, this technically English, but it's pigeon. There's different expressions that just like how you said, man, it's like it's similar, but it's different.

Like when you're expressing a whole expression, like you're going to be saying different things and they say like the idea of slippers, right? In Hawaii, slippers is flip flops. That's what slippers are in Hawaii. When you say slippers, you mean flip flops, right? In the mainland. What do you say when you want to refer to slippers? Like, what do you say when you want to refer to something you're wearing around their house that are, like, furrowing it?

House slippers. Yeah, but here's the thing, though. And this is probably, I don't know exactly where, but I'm sure it has something to do with this idea. People don't wear house slippers in Hawaii. They go barefoot. They take off their shoes in Hawaii. So there's a house slippers really rare you're going to see in Hawaii, generally speaking. So there's no real expression unless you're, okay, house slippers then.

House slippers are different than that. All right. But even, I would think, I don't know, I could be wrong, but given my. experience in Hawaii if you said house slippers if I didn't have any experience like with the mainland like house slippers and you just live in Hawaii you'd be like what you have an extra pair of slippers that you wear in the house which makes no sense because why would you keep shoes on in the house doesn't make sense you know no one really does that is it or are we taking off the shoes like in every time you go to a house yeah that's yeah that's customary that is how yeah for sure and then

also the idea of no shame, right? I tell you that one all the time. No shame. In Hawaii, no shame means don't be shy. But in the mainland, it's like, it's more of a negative thing. Like he had no shame. Like, he should be ashamed of himself, but he had no shame, you know, kind of a thing. It's kind of that's different.

So in certain contexts, if you're trying to convey whatever message it is in your, in Hawaiian, you say, oh, yeah, no shame. It'll be more like, hey, he wasn't being shy, you know. But in the mainland, he was like, well, you had no shame. It'd be like, oh, that guy should have been ashamed of himself. And he wasn't, you know, kind of a thing. So it's weird. But yeah, so you need that kind of stuff.

Yeah. So some of these words like goal. Yeah. Who knows what direct translation really would be. And then look, I might be translating it to English and you might be translating it to English. And even if both of us were fluent in Chinese and fluent in English, we still might, you know, my vibe might be a little bit different than yours, you know. So I might pick the word discipline and you might pick the word cruising. No.

I don't know. All right. Next one. As water collects at the base of the quiet mountain, the enlightened person finds his level through learning, decisiveness, and correct persistence. So this is basically telling you to get better. The idea of correct persistence, by the way,

is also, it's in here a lot, correct persistence. And what's interesting about that is that's throwing a, a caveat on persistence. Because it's not like, hey, you just keep going no matter what. That would be just persistence. Hey, I'm just going to be persistent. But at a certain point, correct persistence is, you know what? Maybe that's not quite the right thing to keep going after.

Like you didn't get it done. You can't get it done. You're wasting a bunch of time, resources, expenses. So you want to use correct persistence. Not just persist, but correct persistence. So that's in here a lot. But to think that you're going to find your level in life by learning, That's smart wisdom.

We should listen. Next one. Do not be anxious, but wait with confidence. The moment will arrive when correct persistence brings progress. Again, if you were shaking your eight ball, like, I don't know if I should keep going to college. What does it tell you? Hey, correct persistence is going to bring progress. Be patient.

Don't be anxious. Okay. Or you're working on a project. And it feels like it's overwhelming. You shake your magic eight ball or you throw your your coins and it tells you, hey, the moment will arrive on correct persistence. Okay, great. I'm going to keep going. So this is just common.

It's a nice way of telling you. Hey, freaking keep working, bro. Yeah. That's what it's saying. Yeah. Next one. Heaven and water. Strength and profundity conflict.

Avoid confrontation. Yield with caution. Persist not against obstacles. And this is so good. It's so good. Like avoid confrontation. That's smart. That's smart.

Now, sometimes people paint that in a negative way. Like, oh, that person avoids conflict, right? That person's going to avoid confrontations. But if you're doing something that I don't like and I choose to build a relationship with you and use an indirect method and gain your trust and confidence and you start to listen to me and I start to listen to you. and then I can get you to stop doing something that doesn't make that I don't like. Great. That's good.

And that's what they're talking about here. You guys, you, Carlos Mendes is one of the proliferators of this expression. Kim from me is nothing good has ever come from an antagonistic relationship. So it's essentially that, right, where the idea of like conflict, like avoid conflict in a good way. Like no one's saying fear conflict. No one's saying that because that's the way we all feel like. Oh, he just likes to avoid conflict, you know, like out of fear. What it should be is avoid conflict because there's a better way to resolve the situation

that's going to be more efficient, faster, and it's going to end up with a better result. That's what it should be. Sure. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because people hear, oh, avoid confrontation. Okay, joggers is a pushover. No, I'm actually going to win in the long run in a more effective way.

We're going to have a better relationship and things are going to work out better overall in the end. That's what I'm doing. Now, you can go and confront people all day long and build a bunch of bad relationships and have antagonistic. feelings with the people that you work with you can do that yeah and you might think you're being directed is really helpful but it's not and it's interesting too that the next thing it says avoid confrontation but then there's a dichotomy to that because the next thing it says is yield with caution so I'm not just like oh you know Echo wants to do it this way oh I got to go okay it's that the smartest thing to do so there's a nice

little balance between avoiding confrontation and yet still paying attention to when you yield and then not against obstacles. Now clearly, well, not clearly, but my assumption is that means sort of like an impassable obstacle. What are you going to do? Keep beating your head against the wall? No, don't persist against an obstacle that's there. Instead, find another way around it.

Don't waste a bunch of energy. Ancient wisdom coming at you. Don't beat your head against the wall. Next one, the wise person will find strength in the company of many fellows. Oh, be a part of a big group. build a team with leadership there will be

correct persistence and good fortune yep work together as a team have good leader you're gonna go everything's gonna go good everything's gonna go good yeah

so I was thinking about the idea of leadership on the way down here by the way what was I don't know into your fucking head but but

it's crazy because I'm literally thinking about leadership almost 24 hours ago but you know okay so part of the reason why it's so valuable to you is because you've

come to pretty much as far as I understand, pretty much 100% of understanding what leadership is and the value of it. So a lot of people, they don't. A lot of people, a lot of people, they think how you guys put that traditional leader. And I want to be the, if someone wants to be the leader or is interested in leadership for themselves, they think, oh, I want to be the boss. I want to be the guy in charge. I want to be the, you know, so it's almost like maybe like a little, maybe an ego or narcissistic or like power hungry or whatever kind of a thing, an idea. Don't make me start talking about the psychology of. military and confidence right now authoritarian mindsets don't make me do that okay we can do it we

done it for four podcasts but okay keep in mind even if you think of the idea of the benevolent leader you still have a lot some flavors of oh you want to be in charge you want to be the hero you want to be like that's the that's how it lands i think generally speaking but leadership is not that oh right hey if i showed up to the new team and it's like hey guys don't worry i'm a benevolent i'm a benevolent I'm a benevolent leader. It's the same type of arrogance that comes across. Right. At least some hints of some smells of that, for sure.

But here's what leadership actually really is more comparable to. So let's say you've played Legos. Yeah. Well, actually, okay. My parents, no, no, I'm just going to say this. No big deal. Of course. Legos were like the high end thing.

My freaking parents got me something called lock blocks. So here's the deal. And they might still be around. I don't know. But lock blocks, here's what sucked Was lock blocks did not go with Legos So like when all your friends would get together To build some cool shit

Like some giant buildings Maybe some Star Wars stuff I don't know they're building big stuff Yeah I'm over here in the corner with like 38 lock blocks Building Jack Can't even participate in the game right Can't even participate with the team Yeah I'm sorry so I'm sorry

So there you go So yeah I played with I got close I was I was Lego adjacent There you go. So you understand. You know what Legos. Kind of a sore spot over here. I know,

real, did you have real Legos? Legos were a massive part of my whole life. I still currently have a lot of my kids do now, but I participate 100%. Oh yeah. I got my kids for real Legos. Legit Legos.

Oh, yeah. Well, there's different sizes too. There's like the norm on the lockbox scene. No. No. I can't wait to Google lockbox and see if they're still around. Yeah. Legos,

Toolbox, anything where you have essentially, okay, so Legos I like, I liked the analogy because Legos are like, if you know how to use Legos, you know how they work, you know how they interact with each other, and how they might not interact with certain parts

and how they do interact with certain parts. And you have a direction and a goal or whatever, and the more Legos you have and the more different types of pieces of Legos that you have, the more cool stuff you can build. So you can be like, hey, I want to build a rocket ship. cool do I have the Lego pieces or at the very least enough Lego pieces to make a rocket ship

how big or small whatever like you can kind of do anything with the right Lego pieces but if you don't know how they work if you know how to put put them together if you don't have like any direction or whatever they're just a bunch of Lego pieces no matter how cool or capable that those Lego pieces are so in leadership it's essentially you can have a great team of people this guy's so good at this this guy's so good at the other thing like a football team I've always thought was a a really good representation of a team with leadership. Because everyone has their different roles, right? You can have the best quarter, the best wide receivers,

the best running about all this stuff. If they don't work together, if three guys are pissed, four guys hate this guy, this guy's jealous of that guy, they just won't work together. The same way you can't put together any kind of Lego construction if you don't know how the pieces work together, if you don't know where they fit together. You know?

The only thing I really like that analogy, It's a really close. My only problem with that analogy is... The Legos. I understand. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. What kind of person looks at Legos and says,

I can't understand how these things work. Like that's... I wish there was something, there was some component of that thing, that there was some sort of understanding of what you had because anyone can look at a Lego and say, oh, they fit together like this. Now I understand you get these high-end sets,

which I kind of... I'm more like a traditional Lego dude, right? I think you should get like the regular ones, maybe some long, skinny ones, maybe some long, the little flat ones, maybe some angular, 45 degree angles. And then you can work with that, right? You don't need to be getting all with the things

that get real specific, like custom, almost like a custom Lego. Right. But your analogy is correct. And leadership is the person that's going to take these pieces and get them to all build something great. Yes, you are correct. Yeah. So if you, um, where you know, okay, the idea of, it's like, you know, it would be

a little bit better of an analogy is chemistry. Sure. You know, a chemist can look at these different elements and say, oh, I need to add this element, this element and this element, like in the book Blood Meridian, they're out of gunpowder. And the judge knows how to make gunpowder. And so they are able to create gunpowder. No one else could take the various components and create gunpowder. He could.

So that's a little bit better in an example than just Legos. Sure. Because Legos, yeah, you don't like Legos. No, no, no. It's not that I don't like, I don't like it. Legos, but anyone can figure out, you're like, you can figure out how to put Legos together. I mean, dude, you got to be a real ignorant person, not figure out how the things work.

I feel that as well, but I just have a lot of experience with Legos. But again, and then again, look, But they Think about it. Try to call me out on my Lego skills. Yes, sir. But,

and look, I'm not hard to them. Do they have Lego competitions? They have competitions for everything, right? Do they have Lego competitions? They must. I wonder what the challenges.

I imagine so. You'd be cool if it was an engineering challenge where it was like, oh, you got to build a, you know, a three foot span of bridge and it's got to carry this much weight. There's your Lego challenge. Because any times you make something, oh, it's just going to how good it looks, you're kind of whack. I would imagine. with something as versatile as Legos or Lockblocks as the case may be, it would depend on the kind

of challenge. Like how you said, like if it's an engineering challenge, that's a different kind of challenge than just a quote unquote general Lego challenge. Like who what? Who can make this spaceship? Because you know how Legos come in sets, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who can make that spaceship the quickest? Yeah, or whatever. Or who can make the biggest? Yeah. So I don't know. And I think so. My answer that comes to my head, you sure, this Lego competition. And I'm not going to see it here in what do you call beer wait how about the Lego movies you must be into those no have you not seen them i've seen some my kids watch them and stuff there's yeah i've watched a decent amount of the Lego i think the first Lego movie with president business which i think is one of the

old-time classic names and it's a interesting movie because it's about creativity and having an open mind which is very important thing to teach young kids and interestingly what i don't like about that is there's some people, people have various levels of that open-mindedness. People have various levels of creativity. And to sort of hold that as a standard for a kid and be like, hey, it's sort of like if they made a movie about being tall, you know, there's some kids that are not tall, right? And where do you draw that line? So it's really cool to say like, hey, have an open mind and be creative and create new things a lot of people don't have that knack right yeah they and that's okay you know it's the last podcast that we did talked about that and it talked about it in a real politically

incorrect way oh for real politically incorrect way which is like oh if you score this score on the standard test that we're giving to all people in the army actually i don't even know if we covered this on the podcast because i might have just skipped or i might have not covered it But they had like a standardized test that you took in 1941. Wait, are you still talking about the Lego movie or no? Well, I'm about to. Okay, okay. Which was, oh, you take the standard test and you have a certain level capacity to learn, to do math.

And they go, okay, if you got this on the test, you can be an engineer in the military. If you don't, you can't be an engineer. And by the way, if you're really low on this scoring, you're going to be on the bottom end. of the jobs that we have for you. You might be a person that's peeling potatoes. I mean, we talked about this when we talked about the IQ test that they lowered in the Vietnam War and they started taking people that were mentally disabled and allowing them to be in the army.

And that's horrible. And Jordan Peterson, I want to say something like 10% of the population has a IQ of less than 85. And then it's really hard to. employ somebody that has an IQ of less than 85 now they can be employed but you've got to find a job that is very suitable for them so when you're making the Lego movie and you're exalting creativity what's exulting like saying this is the best way you want to be super creative okay there's some people that don't because because by the way you're not you can test people for intellect but you can also test them for hand-eye coordination you can test them for you can test them for you You can test them for creativity. You can test them for problem solving.

And so we're exalting this one type of thing. Yeah. And some people might think that's the path they need to go down and yet they don't have that capability. You know, a good one is music, right? Yeah. Some people can hear. Now you can train and get better, but some people can naturally hear a C note.

They can naturally, I think Jamie Cochran can sing a C, right? Because she went to college and she was a singer. And so she can sing a C. She can you can say, you know, Jamie, give me C flat and she'll be, whatever, right? Hell yeah. But there's, and there's a certain amount of natural capability. We talked about the, now this I know we did talk about on the podcast, the tonal languages, right? So some people cannot hear tone.

Now listen, I guess if you grow up with a tonal language, you would be trained. So maybe it's something that you just didn't get and you can't figure it out. But the fact remains if they wanted if I was a failure at picking up tone and then they watched a movie and said, hey, everyone should join the military and the most elite thing you can do is go learn Vietnamese. And I'm like, yeah, that's the best job you can get. And so now I go and I can't do it. Instead of looking at me and saying, hey, you might be good at this, but you might be good at that. You might be strong. You might be fast.

You might be smart. You might be good at math. But when we exalt one thing, and you know what, I might be between being too harsh on the Lego movie. That was sort of the impression that I remember was I was like, oh, that's cool. They're trying to teach people. Just don't follow what the package says. Yeah. Just don't follow the directions every single time and create what everyone else created.

Create something new. You know, there's a whole thing about the gluing of the pieces together. That's what's going on in the movie. Like there's people that just, they want to glue that thing together. can never change. We made this thing. We just want this structure to stand. And other people are like, hey, man, let's mix it up. They're exalting creativity. Again, there's nothing wrong with exulting creativity. But if you're a person that lacks creativity and now you're forcing yourself to try and become a creative person when what you should be, you know, let's take engineer versus artist.

Right. There's some people that are going to be a better artist. There's some people that are going to be a better engineer. If all we do is exalt artists, the people that should be going to become an engineer might not get there. Yeah. Or they might feel bad when they get there. Right. And I think that's the key there where, and I don't remember the message of the Lego movie. I just remember it was on. Kids are watching it.

I liked the effects. Hey, watch it next time. Watch it for real. It's a good movie. Yeah, yeah. I understand. And even just what you said, I was like, kind of that makes sense. But keep in my, I don't know, maybe I'm just sort of maybe being a devil's advocate

in this way where if there, it depends how they're exulting the creativity. So if they kind of start with, hey, the mainstream is. People following the directions gluing the pieces together and like these other people who Or some version of this where the other people they're like hey, I don't want to necessarily do that I've because I'm feel toward I'm pulled towards this other thing to start experimenting to do that First off, that's how Legos really are in real life. You put together the thing and then after that you break it apart and then you just start making what I in fact you're not gonna follow the directions more than once We're about to go down. We're about to go down. It's about to go down here's the thing I think lately

We've been exulting creativity so much that people are just trying to be different for the sake of being different. And the reason I can bring this up right now is because as we read through the E Ching, you're going to say, you're going to see that a lot of what they're saying is like, be normal. Be normal is a positive thing. Now, it kind of bummed me out because when I was going to college, there was a woman there that was a Buddhist monk. and when I was in college, I had to take classes about religion and you get that vibe from Buddhism which is like, hey, don't stand out, you know, fit in

like you just want, and that's why when you go to, you know, when I was in Thailand and we'd see the Buddhist monks, guess what? All the Buddhist monks dressed the same. They all have shaved head. They all wear the same outfit. They all eat the same. They walk.

Like, that's part of the gig. That's part of the thing. Hey, I'm not trying to stand out. I'm not trying to be a big individual. But there was this, woman that was a monk at my college and if she was obeying Buddhism, guess what she would have done? In my opinion, in my judgmental opinion, which I certainly can be extremely judgmental. I would look at her.

She'd be walking around. She had a shaved head and she was walking around in the Buddhist outfit, right? And I was thinking, and she was a Western woman. You know, she was from Canada or something like this. And I was thinking, oh, if she was really on board, then wouldn't you just want to, like, quote unquote, fit in with everybody else? Maybe.

Look, I'm not a Buddhist. I don't know. But I definitely got that thought in my mind. Now, there might be some part of Buddhism that I don't know, which is, hey, you need to represent so other people can see it. I don't know. Maybe, right? There's some religions that you've got to dress a certain way.

Yeah. Because you want other people to see that you are representing the religion or cult because you know what Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh is? Do you know what that is? Oddly, yeah, I kind of do, yeah. Okay, well, they made a documentary about it, wild, wild country. Did you see it? No.

Well, I was very interested in it because when I was growing up, one of my friends, parents were into that. They were like, and they would wear these orange or whatever purple outfits. And that was part of the, is it okay? call that a cult right now? I think it might be. Yeah. Okay.

So they were, that was part of the cult. It was like you got a dress that way so other people can see that you represent the cult. Yeah. I don't think Buddhism is like that. I don't know either. Like I know there's all these like surface level things that you're like,

wait a second. You know, there's a lot of questions for sure. Now with that, of course, with superficial observations, all your questions, it's like,

man, if you don't look into it, how are you ever going to get the answers to the questions? I get it. So I get it's like a little thought exercise, which is very useful. but I know you're just joking, but obviously there's no merit to cast any judgment if you don't know all this stuff, right? It's like judgment out of ignorance, whatever.

So the Buddhism could be, I don't know if it is or not. You're just going down. It could be like, hey, because you know, Buddhist people out there. I'm sorry. It's like, you know, you're letting go of like certain like real world materials like stuff, right? And one is hair like, and just like how you said, hair is just here to look good. We don't need it. We're here for, you said, they win.

But Buddhism might be like, hey, we're here for different reasons, you know? So here, we're not going to let that be part of our earthly possession or pride or ego or whatever, right? There's that. There's like all this other stuff just like fashion and just like there's probably a bunch of stuff that Buddhism lets go of. So you got to wear that certain thing as a representation of that. That's currently what we arrived at. That's our best representation of it. It could be, I don't know, but it could be, hey, if.

By the way, when you say our best representative, you mean that's what you and I, a couple idiots, a couple idiots on a podcast talking to each other. That's how we are interpreted at this time. Actually, I'm even just saying mine, really. Yeah, because you don't want to lump me into your mayhem. Yeah, it could be way off. Probably am. But either way, it stands to reason to some degree or whatever.

Hey, that might be it, right? That might be how, or maybe they're like, hey, if you can find a better representation of this idea that goes super deep or whatever, if you can find a better representation, then, hey, we'll do that. But right now this is currently what we're at and this is what we're doing for these very specific reasons. and boom. To bring this back a little bit,

what I'm saying is, if you are exulting, being different, and that becomes the main focus of everybody, then people that want to kind of conform are now feeling like in order to be successful in life, their main goal should be to be different

than everybody else. And it becomes a focus of life to be different, when maybe you should focus on getting better, maybe you should focus on creating, maybe you should focus on participating, maybe you should focus on being a productive member of society. Because if you could be, like if you,

for instance, someone that has a less creative mind, and they could be a really incredible construction worker, they could be really incredible in a factory, they could be really incredible, being an engineer, being a doctor, right? Does a doctor require creativity?

No, they're a mechanic for your body. So there's all these jobs that don't require this for you to be different and quote, think different. And yet we're exulting those things to the point where someone instead of saying, oh yeah, you know what, this looks like a good job. This looks like something I could be good at. I actually enjoy doing that kind of thing.

I'll just go do that. Instead, we're saying, no, you got to do something special. You got to do something different. And I'm just saying, in my opinion, that's a problem. Instead of and and where where you get a to your point if you've got someone that has different thoughts and wants to be different and is naturally different when we're trying to force them into ? Conformity each one of those two ways is equally wrong trying to take someone that is just should be normal and trying to get forced them to be different is just as bad as taking someone that's different and trying to force them to be normal. Yes and I think right now Now we're on the pendulum side of everyone lets you know you're different be different don't conform

Yeah, there's a and again we're gonna get into this this this and that's why I'm like cleared hot talking this topic There's a lot of it you know like I Hey I I Like you're talking about what you wear sure or what I wear what a human being wears yeah for me I don't want to wear something that that people would notice You know what I mean like I I don't like to try someone gave me a you know a purple and pink

Tie to wear yeah I don't want to wear that I don't want anyone to say oh That's a weird tire. That's a nice tire that I don't want them to even notice that I'm wearing a tie Like what's the normal color tie to wear it's a you know it's a black and red tie with the will stripes on it That's a normal that's the normal that's the normal thing yeah I want to be normal yeah right I'm not wearing flashy sunglasses I wear the normal sunglasses. That's kind of like, and when I see somebody that's wearing stuff that is specifically made for attention, I'm always like, okay. You know, it's a little bit of a little bit of a thing.

Yeah. Right. So I could even say that if you're a Buddhist monk and you're in a university setting where everyone is wearing, you know, the professors are wearing whatever, a pair of slacks or whatever, you know, like a, there's a, let's face it, there's a uniform for a. college professor it's pretty wide range but there is a uniform right you're wearing pants or if you're a female maybe you're not wearing pants but you're wearing a whatever a skirt type thing or a dress you know what I mean there's a there's a there's a window that you're going to fit in and wearing a Buddhist monk outfit isn't in that window so if you're wearing it you're definitely going to draw attention and if you're trying attention well that might

not be representative of trying to conform and fit in. So there you go. Yeah. I mean, and then again, we don't know what Buddhism is. It sounds like I'm defending Buddhism. But I'm saying is we can't just assume we know. Like what if the intention to fit in or stand out isn't part is it's the intention, not the result, you know? We'll get someone on here.

We'll get a Buddhist on here to talk to us through this because I don't want to sit here and we're discussing. No, we're discussing things that we don't know anything about. Yeah. We'll be quiet. We're sorry. But real quick with the Lego movie, and I say this because this is kind of a very, is an important distinction where if they're exulting creativity, like as if to say, like, hey, being creative is better than being less creative or whatever or following the instructions

or whatever. If they're saying that, then, okay, that's bad. But if the message overall is, and again, I forget the actual message, but if the message is, hey, we're all used to this. And there's a number of people who aren't very happy with this. and they're really pulled to do this other sort of creative thing. As I said, that message is fine. Yeah.

The message is fine to say, hey, if you're feeling creative or you feel like a creative person and you want to do things that are different, that's cool. Yeah. But to tell everyone in that group that putting the glue on the Legos and building things that are going to be stable and structured is bad. That's not right. Yeah, I agree.

That's not right. So let's not get crazy with it. Let's not take anything to an extreme. Let's be balanced. Yep. So there's also a movie and you will not want to necessarily talk about this and so bear with me there's a movie called tall girl because you mentioned height you can't control height right so there's a movie called tall girl and it's a you know the classic story

girl and you know junior high and she's taught way taller than him like way taller and it's one of those things where it's like they made the movie obviously one of the reasons was because hey like there are some people who they're not quote unquote average height and they feel left out they feel weird you know and the movie basically sheds light on the idea that hey if you're a tall girl you can still live life or whatever don't feel weird Is what I'm saying like hey let's not and that's why I asked like what does exalt mean? Because does that mean like hey let's shine a light on and then show that it's not terrible It's not you're not a monster if you're tall you're not or it doesn't mean like hey if you're tall you're actually better

Yeah average people that you know that would be the that would be the obviously no one would say hey that's a great movie Telling people that are taller that they're better right exactly that's the point We don't want to do that right so even so I don't know if the Lego movie said that or At what for one thing? Being tall. Yeah. Right. So I don't know if the Lego movie is saying being the person who makes different stuff with

different legs is better than the people who don't. It definitely paints the creative person as the more heroic person. Okay. So that's why I'm calling it out. We can't go. We don't want to do that. And the weird thing is like, let's say you're a parent. What do you want your parent to be?

What do you want your kid to be? You want your kid to be all creative and special and all that stuff. Instead of being like, oh, I want my kid to do what. is natural for them. Some people naturally will be better as an engineer than an artist. And don't try and force people to do something that they're not. And don't say, well, can't you just be more creative, child? Why are you trying to follow the rules all the time?

You know, like that kind of thing. Yeah. You know what I think in the grand scheme of things? I do think. I do not know what you think of the grand scheme. No. With what you just said. I think that parents want their kids to be.

safe more than they want them to be like, of course, creativity. That's a good thing to be helped and fostered and all that stuff or whatever. But, you know, I'd say this, this story, this quote unquote, like hypothetical story is more common. This is what it feels like anyway for you. The story is usually the parents want the kid to do something that keeps them safe and more secure for success and like that kind of stuff more so than hell yeah, take some chances if you're pulled towards that.

They're going to be mad like so many stories. It's like, yeah, they, they, I went to college for my parents and now, you know, I I don't want to do that. I quit college because that wasn't my thing. That wasn't my thing. I want to go off the tracks. I want to do, you know, like stuff that I want to do. I want to take risks.

I want to do the creative stuff. Meanwhile, my parents just wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer, whatever. So I feel like the parents, that's usually the case. They want them to be safe. I would say that you have one, you know, you're looking at one perspective because there's definitely parents out there that, you know, are pushing their kids to be different.

Yeah. There's no, especially right now. Right now, there's definitely parents. that are pushing their kids to be, their primary goal is to make them different. And that's not good. You got to, your kids, let your kids be who your kids are.

Yeah. Yeah, that different for the sake of being different. Yeah, you know, it's funny is when you meet guys, like in the military, you'll meet people that they're like, they'll have,

usually have some weird name. Especially, I can't speak on it. Yeah, so when I was, especially when I got in to the military. So like, we're talking 90s. You'd meet some guy's name, would be like whatever freaking haiku sure anyway oh your parents hippies yep yeah like

you'd know that their parents are hippies like I'm one of those yeah you're one of those people so yeah your name is haiku uh yeah there's people so my point is that their parents wanted the kid to be different free spirited but the kids like dude I'm joining the freaking army you know what I'm saying get me away from these freaking weirdos that's a good point yeah so all right Next one. The need for unity and collective awareness of the goal. So that one right there, this is just a good leadership advice. Make sure everyone understands and is unified towards a collective goal. Everyone needs to know what we're doing and be on board. And the next one says,

do not procrastinate. So if you shook that magic eight ball every day and it said, do not procrastinate, that'd be good advice. And then join with others and return to the plan. Okay, that means focus on the mission. Next, restraint brings progress and satisfaction. I've heard people say that discipline equals freedom. Restraint brings progress and satisfaction. Yes, discipline equals freedom. Make minor changes and conceal all actions.

I can't make minor conceal all actions. Maybe that's a little bit sketch. And by the way, I'm not reading all these, although I read a lot of them. wise leader benefits from harmony good fortune approaches this is fortune cookie stuff right there like oh I'm not really sure what's going to happen with this next project we're doing oh we should work together harmony yeah it's like good good advice good good good job yeah the fortune cookie thing I think jams you up because we as individuals think the fortune cookies made specifically for us but what all of these things are

Well, that's what but it's okay here's something I used to do So I'd be like out of talking to a girl and she'd be like what sign are you? Yeah, and I'd be like Sagittarius, but you're not a Sagittarius but they would say like oh I knew it. Oh, okay And then then they'd say no I'd let him talk for five minutes about how much of a Sagittarius I was And then I'm just kidding, I'm not Sagittarius. I'm you serious? What are you? And I'd be like a scorpion and oh my god. I knew it It's what a Scorpio would do. But I'm not a Scorpio. You see what I'm saying?

And I would trap them with that too. So all these things are made for everybody. It's kind of like who's going to win the war. Right. Or no, what will happen if I invade this country? Oh, a great nation will fall. Okay, great. I'm going to do it.

Yeah, you end up falling and you think, what was wrong with the Oracle? The Oracle is right. War causes the fall of a nation. Just don't know which one. So I guess in a way, it's kind of like, in a way it's kind of like marketing in a way where it's this is the general term that's widely beneficial right this these philosophy these elements of philosophy right where it's like hey

don't make excuses right but me as the individual I'm coming to you with a specific problem don't tell me some widespread philosophy I need the one from my problem right I open the fortune cookie I come to ancient jaco the ancient master you shake the eight ball yeah I shake the eight pole you ever seen the Jamaican ones where they They have the bones. Yeah. It's like a jay. And they throw it on the, you know, and they throw it on the surface.

Because when you go down in New Orleans, yeah. There's like voodoo going on. Oh, hell. Yeah. And they might throw some bones too. Same deal. They can tell you that same thing where this is ancient wisdom that applies everywhere. But hey, I come to you with my problem.

So like, hey, give me the answer to my specific problem. And then yours like make no excuse you just grab from the group bucket, gave it to the individual and it landed weird, right? It's gonna land. That's the thing that you don't know. It's gonna land. Oh, yeah. If you come to me with your problem and I say be disciplined, that's going to land.

You're going to be like, yeah, I need to be more disciplined. It's going to solve your financial problems. It's going to solve your health problems. It's going to solve your relationship. Everything, I solved that problem. But because you came, even when you read about how to throw the coins or draw the sticks for this, it says, you know, think deeply. And it also says you might get an answer that's wrong because you weren't really thinking about. You were thinking about something else.

So anyways. All right. Next one. Strong persons give way to the inferior. Good advice, right? I give that people, that leadership advice all the time. It's called listening.

Listen to other people. Listen to your subordinates. The enlightened person remains reserved to avoid misfortune. Yes. Don't make yourself stand out. Don't wear your freaking pink and orange jacket. Next one. Reorganize the dependence of all upon their fellows.

Say that again. Reorganize the dependence of all upon their fellows. What does that mean? Everyone's got to work together. Cover and move. The wise person seeks collective flow to gain advantage. Yes, we cover and move for each other. Work together.

Resist evil. Exalt good. Proper leadership brings great progress. This is, but hey, if you got to shake your eight ball every day, you know you got a you're you got a drug problem you're addicted to alcohol you have opportunities to do things that are nefarious and it says resist evil exalt good guess what good advice these are all this is all good advice this is all good advice this is all good advice progress comes by equality of extremes what does that mean it means be balanced

Next so from harmony with supporters does the wise person gain advantage. Yeah Yeah harmony with the people with your supporters for sure that's gonna help you Next one's about flexibility the enlightened person adapts Leads from leads the way from darkness to comfort so you got to adapt In fact the whole this is lake above thunder below this is flexibility be flexible That's what they're saying cultivate action in others to bring about Prepare and great progress. Hmm.

Get people to go. It's like good advice. So the, next, so the enlightened person willing to teach and learn from others. Progress comes through persistence. They're big on persistence. But yes, willing to teach, willing to learn. Yes, that's a positive thing. That makes sense.

The rulers of old traveled the world. They visited its regions and contemplated its many cultures. Explore new ideas. That's always going to help you. Next, achieve progress through reform. Administrative justice. Those are positive. Next, the wise person perceives and avoids disputes.

That's really good advice to give people. Oh, there's a dispute's going to happen. I'm going to avoid that. Again, we can go down the, that doesn't mean we're fearing any, you know, confrontation and we're never going to do it. But we're probably going to, we should find a better way. We should find a better way. that's what we should be doing.

That's what I recommend doing. Enlightened people stabilize their lives through generosity toward the needy. Beautiful. Help other people, especially people that need it. The enlightened person studies the past wisdom to develop his own character. Yes, I think we made an entire podcast about that,

about studying the past wisdom to develop our own character. Yes, that's a hundred, 100% what we should be doing. Support goals that are above question, but be cautious in expression and avoid the negative. Correct persistence brings one good force. And that's, you know, as I'm reading these, when it talks about persistence in some of these predictions, it's telling you be persistent. Like there's some of them that don't have that. The ones that say correct person, so then you'd be encouraged. But there's very few of them that say, do not persist. There's very few

of these that say that most of them are encouraging to keep going the enlightened person withdraws from progress withdraws from the world to progress toward an independent goal stress is imminent what do I like about that if you've got goals you got things you want to get done there's going to be stress stress is imminent be ready for it that's a good thing when you when someone tells you you know when you go set out to do something I'm like hey man it's gonna be it's gonna be hard yeah that steal if I tell you psychologically this impact on you if I say oh yeah here's an example hey you know if you came up to me and said hey jaco if you rolled with Fred yet that new black belt from

this academy yeah and he wrestled in college have you rolled with him yet I go yeah man he's he's not he's not as good as you think and he's not very strong you'd be like okay cool and then you wrestle with him or you train with him and he's like actually strong Actually, regardless of how strong he is, he's going to feel stronger because your mindset was he was weak. If I told you, hey, this guy's a killer. He's freaking strong as hell. He's going to feel weaker than you anticipated in most cases. Yeah.

In most cases. Yeah, that idea of getting caught off guard with certain things that you never really thought about, you know, the small detailed things. Like fasting was one that, you know, when you fast, it's like, oh, you're going to feel hungry or you're going to feel like the certain feelings that come along with fasting. If you're not ready for him, you'd be like, oh, and you won't be able to deal with it. But yeah, being able to kind of brace for impact in a way, you know? You got to set the right expectations. The right expectations. It's just like when someone tells you like a movie is awesome.

Yeah. That's the worst thing you can tell somebody about a movie. Actually, you know, I was going to see Little Birds with Elgin James. Sure. Hell, yeah. I was going to the preview. So it wasn't out yet. And we're driving to it.

And I say, hey, man, I was like, so what's the story with this? And he goes, oh, you know, he goes, there's two girls, and they're living out in Nileland, California, and out by the Salt and Sea, and they want to get out of that town. And he's like, it was like, me and you grown up, and I was like, oh, that's awesome. I go, so then what happens? He goes, well, then they go to, he goes,

then they go to L.A. and shit goes sideways. And, you know, dude, I'm not even thinking about this. Like, oh, what goes sideways? I'm like, what happens? This is as we're driving to see this. Like a seven-minute drive. I go, so what? I was like, oh, what goes sideways?

And he goes, I'll just let you see. And when he said that, I was, I was kind of like, dude, like, are you serious right now?

You know what I mean? I was kind of like, bro, like, just tell me this is no big deal. Like, I don't care about your silly movie or whatever. You know what I mean?

Kind of like that. Like, of course, you know, like, I just, but I was just like, okay.

My mind was okay. But I said like, okay. You know, I was trying to be cool about it. Yeah. And then when the movie was over, I was like, thank you so much for not telling me how that went down. Because it is like very impactful.

Yeah. And if you know it's coming, it's not going to hit you the same way. Yeah. Boy, it hits you, boy. Movies Little Birds by Elgin James. I think you can get it on, you know, the streaming platforms. I think you can get it on Apple. Yeah.

What is Apple TV? Yeah. I think it's not a brand new movie though. No, no, no. It's right. So have you seen Little Birds? No. Oh.

I saw the trailer. Yeah. It is one of those movies where you definitely, you're not going to feel comfortable or good about things when you're done. True. Yeah. No, you'll feel okay. At the end of it, you'll be like, all right, we're going to be okay. But in the middle, towards the end of it, you don't feel good about the world, you know.

You're kind of not feeling good about the world. And I guess that's sort of the little uplift. at the end. There's a little bit of an uplift at the end. You walk out of the theater. But you definitely, yeah, so Littlebirds. Don't spoil it, yeah. You know how, and just like what you essentially were saying,

you want to go in fresh to these movies. Yes. And Elgin James, you know, good on him where he wanted you to go in fresh. He kept me fresh. Yeah. But the weird thing is like, this is my bro. Yeah. Like, you know, he would literally tell me anything.

I would literally tell him anything. That's why when he's like, I'll just let you see the movie. I was kind of, bro. Wait, what were you thinking? I was thinking he was gonna tell me like oh yeah this is what happens oh you were mad he didn't tell you I was kind of like yeah it was almost look this is a guy that I grew up you know like we've been together right and I we tell each other whatever like every every little detail so it was probably the first time in my life that that I he was like not gonna tell me something yeah and you're offended not offended and I was slightly offended I was like slightly offended I was like slightly offended Like, bro, are you serious right now? Yeah.

Like, you know, we know everything. Yeah. We would tell, I would literally tell him everything. Yeah. For my whole life. And now all of a sudden he's like, well, you can wait and find out. I mean, it's just jacked up. Keep it up at the time.

It's messed up. But so, but what he was doing was actually, you weren't offended by that. You weren't offended by like, what you say about this movie is not going to affect me either way. So you should just say it wasn't that. It was just the fact like, oh, I thought you were my bro. You're not going to tell me. Bro, you told me literally everything that's happened in your whole life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I've told you everything that happened in my whole life. Everything. And now you made a silly movie. Yeah, yeah. And you're not going to tell me what the plot is. And I'm going to watch it. This is a seven minute ride, by the way. It wasn't like we were in the car for an hour.

Like, we were going to start watching the movie. So I was like, I was frustrated that he was going to tell me. Like, maybe we had a four hour car ride you could see. But I only had to wait six more minutes to get to watch the actual movie. But it's very interesting. the way those expectations set you set you can set yourself up with expectations whether you think this guy's gonna roll good or this guy's gonna roll bad or you know you can really put yourself in a good spot or a bad spot based on what what your

expectations are and you have to be very careful with your team when you do that when you tell someone on your team oh we're gonna dominate this presentation oh I've worked with this client before they don't ask any hard questions okay cool now people don't prepare it the first question is gonna be a doozy Right. So you got to pay attention to that. The wise person learns confidence through danger. Remain calm in mind.

Keep all actions virtuous. Again, read that to yourself every morning, right? And confidence through danger, I think we could probably, my interpretation of the Chinese word is discomfort, right? Or putting yourself in situations that you're not used to. That's how you gain confidence, right? You gotta be outside your stress level. Now this doesn't mean you go out, you know,

if you wanna get more confidence in fighting, you don't go and challenge the freaking, you know, two-time state champion wrestler from California, that's a black belt and jujitsu. And you don't talk smack to him. No. You start by training with someone that's a little bit better than you

and you start to gain confidence. Eventually you can train with people that haven't been training as long as you and you get more confident. So yes, you have to push yourself beyond what you're, capable of in order to gain competency and confidence. Keep all actions virtuous.

Hey, amazing. Ancient wisdom or common sense. I don't care. Do it. Next, the enlightened person cultivates intelligence and gains progress through correct persistence. Align yourself with goals that bring enlightenment. Yeah, don't do dumb shit.

I think we just did a podcast about that. Marriage. Brings good fortune. I had to put some question marks by that one because that is not a known true statement Again, this is when you when you read these now and you think of them as predictions as you were gonna roll or flip the coins And you're like should I marry? You know Jessica and then it says marriage brings good fortune. You're like okay. I'm in But here's the thing if you're asking that question in the first place was that good or bad? Yeah, you know, sign, I guess. Except others and act openly.

I think that's a great advice. All change is eminent. Yep, things are going to change. Activity and change teach well the value of endurance. Stand firm and move with persistence toward a goal. This thing leans toward being persistence. Persistent. That's what it leans toward.

And that's a good way to lean in life. A good way to lean in life is keep going. Now, listen, let's say you were the guy that made this thing up. up in order to make some money by doing predictions for people. You could probably say be persistent eight times out of 10. And then two times out of 10, you're like maybe push the pump the brakes a little bit. And what happens? Let's say you say, oh, I want to try a new business venture.

I'm like, yep, be persistent. And it's not doing very well. And you're like, should I keep going? And I say, yep, be persistent. And you say, wait a second. It's really hurting me. Should I keep going? And by now you get one that says, hey, pump the brakes.

You know what I'm saying? So it's best to be persistent for. while and then if you keep having asked that question maybe it's time to pump the brakes so that's why they put correct persistence yeah that's another reason you know the that whole thing and you know you always talk about this uh idea of um giving up versus pivoting versus you know like the idea of like hey tactical retreat yes tactic so it's more like if you understand uh your end goal you're not giving up on the brick wall you're just hey let's not beat our head against it let's go around it or let's do this, you know.

So there's always that puzzle to sort of to solve. So like correct persistence is one of them where it kind of seems, actually straight up, does seem like persistence, not like beating your head against the brick wall. Yeah. Right. So it's like, okay, like, yeah, I got to get past this wall to my other goal to then get my, my overall goal, right? You got a brick wall, then you got maybe a hill, right?

Then you got the other goal. I can't get through this brick wall. Correct persistence is like keep beating your head and keep trying to whatever. Correct persistence is, hey, hit it once, hit it twice. As you say, not 27 times. Let's maybe take a quote unquote longer way and it'll be quick. So around the brick wall, now we've got a hill. We still going up the mountain.

Yeah. So basically correct persistence is, hey, don't give up on the overall goal. Yes. Don't stop with it. Don't say, hey, it's too hard for me and whatever. Be like, hey, correct persistence. is let's not get hung up on these little challenges in the same way. We've got to be creative with these and change our, like, methods or whatever,

as long as we get to that overall goal. So persistence doesn't mean beat your head against the brick wall. It doesn't mean correct persistence. Freaking walking 10 steps up the hill and falling back down 100 times. Correct persistence is don't give up on the end goal. You can change all these little tactical things in between. It's exactly what I wrote about in the book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual.

Yeah. So this is a good one, very similar. Same vein, the tranquil mountain. Occasionally, hexagram 33, heaven above mountain below. Retreat. The tranquil mountain remains quiet under heaven's gaze. So does the enlightened person maintain dignity in retreat. Like, hey, sometimes you got to back out.

That's cool. So again, you came to me with your little business that you're trying and I kept telling you persist. And then finally I'm like, retreat is okay. Seven out of ten times, you're good. Occasionally, you got to retreat. Eight out of ten times, maybe you're good. But occasionally got a retreat. The wise person acts within convention and with persistence.

Use influence wisely. Hey, this is one of getting back to like act within. There's a lot of that undertone in the E Ching of like conform. Act within convention. This is the advice that it gives a lot. And guess what? if I'm trying to give you advice that percentage-wise are going to work out the best, most of the time I'm going to say, hey, take the conventional route, right?

You know what I'm saying? If you're like, hey, you know, Jocko, I don't know if I want to be an engineer or a movie star. I'm like, hey, work within the convention. You know, and that's probably going to be the best advice to give. There's a small chance you're going to miss out on being a movie star, which I'm sure you're probably pretty good one. But most of the times seven out of ten eight out of ten nine out of ten times telling someone to do what's being done is a good move Let's not try and reinvent the wheel next So does the enlightened person reveal virtue

Conditions favorable for progress again. That's like telling you about your specific question that you're going through Conceal goals but do not abandon them trying conditions but correct persistence brings one to advantage yeah yeah hey man keep going maybe conceal your goals a little bit but keep going the enlightened person acts in an orderly and substantial way faith and loyalty must be nurtured good advice the enlightened person only acts in small matters maintain individuality the enlightened person examines and perfects his his own behavior to gain strength. This is incredible advice.

Have you shook the magic eight ball or opened your fortune cookie? And it said, perfect your own behavior to gain strength. That's good advice. You should do that. The enlightened person finds good fortune in quick action to restore normal conditions. Forgive others of faults. What incredible, strong advice. Forgive people when they mess something up, forgive them for the faults that they may or may not have, and take action.

Take action to get things fixed. And again, you see that little idea of returning to normal. Normal's a thing. I like normal. I like normal. I think normal is good. There's a reason why things are normal because it works. I'm not addicted to normal.

I don't maintain normal for all. situations, but normal is a really good baseline for life. Yeah. And even the word normal does is very multi-dimensional, if you will, where change in and of itself is normal. Like it's pretty abnormal for something to be the same. No matter what it is, be the same. But yeah, that abnormal stuff can jam you up.

It's like predictable, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't. Normal sort of in in right today 2023 sometimes taken as offensive Sometimes yeah if I say oh this is normal and then all of a sudden if you're not that you have a problem right? Yeah Wait it's offensive if you're not normal or right normal is bad so if I was like like that movie you're talking about tall was it called tall girl Hey you're not normal right because you're tall right that can be offensive yeah but you could apply that to like any thing that is actually not normal what is normal is there a percentage for normal hey 80% of people

80% of people are between 80% of girls at age 12 are between the heights of whatever 4 2 and 4 8 or whatever it is but whatever it is is it's taller than that oh I don't know But whatever it is, that's actually, you could prove that that's what normal is. Right. But now if I say that's normal, just say, oh, well, that's not. You're like, like, let's say you took your kid to the doctor and they did the weight or sorry, the height measurement. And they said, oh, your kid's not normal. You'd be a little bit mad?

No, no, I feel like, this couldn't be just. But I think it's general where normal is still one of those real in the middle of the road words that's like It really depends on how you're saying it like if your kids act in Surinian and you say hey act normal then normal is gonna be good I'm I guess I've seen enough like triggered videos of like That's not that why do you know what normal is like that kind of thing right right right What's like no no no no I'm saying that you know when we talk about the percentage of people that have this characteristic It's 87% of people are this way. Yeah. And that means that is actually normal. Yeah. So if don't be, you can't get mad at that. Yeah. I think I think people get mad at that. Yeah. You know what I'm not considered normal when it's just a I'm sure there's some kind of a mathematical right. Yeah. You know, calculation to figure out what normal is is normal? Is normal? Look, is normal 70%? I bet we all I bet if you ask people. what percentage is, what percentage constitutes normality?

Yeah. You probably get, oh, it's probably between 68. Like if you asked a thousand people, what percentage makes something normal? I think people would say 70 or 75%. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to, then again, I could be wrong about this. But normal feels like more of a feeling.

So it's like what you're used to in my environment. Just because, you know, the norm. But I'm saying that feeling. that you're talking about, if you tried to isolate it or at least get a bracket around it, I bet that most people... Should to measure it? Yeah, if you try to measure it, most people's feeling about what normal is would probably be around 75%. Yeah.

And the reason that I say, and I would agree with you, but the reason I'm saying it's a feeling is because technically, if you have 100 people and let's say let's go 50 people, and let's say, let's go 50 people. percent actually let's go 40 percent 40 percent have this one quality very specific quality out of about you know 30 qualities 30 percent of them even I'll even go down 30 percent have this one quality the rest of them have a bunch of different other qualities almost like the majority versus that you know yeah the non-majority or minority I still don't think that's normal right okay okay cool cool but where is the line drawn you know so I just said it so but here 70 percent okay let's go 70 percent

Let's go it. Let's say there's 5% variation across the board, all 100 people. They're all different by a factor of 5%. Like 5% of this, 5% of this other thing, whether it be tall, short, whatever. The idea that every. So there's 20 variants and they're all equal. Yeah. There's 20 variants and they're all equal.

They're all. Yeah. They're different. Right. But there's 20 variants. Let's say you could have 20 different eye colors. Yeah, yeah. And there's, and they're all five.

Yeah, more or less. Yeah, there's no majority or minor or they're just dispersed evenly, right? Where are we going with this? Pretty evenly in this town. Okay. Right. For everyone to make a for every new podcast called the hypothetical echo. Okay. The idea or the fact that the idea that everyone has all kinds of different eye colors right is normal for that town. Yes. But if you go to the town one more town right next to where everyone has the same color eye color having different eye color in that town is not normal okay so you're saying so normality goes it's like it's I don't know it's like a real flowy real

fluid kind of feeling depending on your environment's what it feels like yeah like what's the norm in that first town was you have different colored eyes yeah the norm and the second town is you have the same colored eyes yeah that's the norm or the very that's very specific color eyes yeah that's what I'm saying when you make a group of people and they all have something that and 70% of them have some specific thing. Yeah. That thing is normal.

Yeah. Normal. So, okay, so what do you say? Are you thinking or saying or whatever that you feel like nowadays normal is kind of looked at as bad? Yes. If you're not normal, then that means you're different and different is bad. He's bad in that way. Yeah.

It always says, obviously, we're different. So we go through different things. But it lands on me that it really like 100. percent depends on what the context is. So if it's like, oh my gosh, you, uh, like someone, okay, so I saw on the news, this girl, um, they said her name. I forget, but anyway, she's a freshman in high school. She's on the track, on the varsity track team, varsity softball team gets a 4.6 GPA, right? This little girl. And she's, I think she's like one of the top sprinters on the team or whatever. None of that is normal. Nope. But, but,

it's abnormal, we'll call it, in a good way. So if someone's like, wait a second, they read this girl's paper. So your point is, which I think this is your point, normal, people think that means good and not normal means bad. When I don't think that, I think that there is such a thing as normal though, right?

There is such a thing. Most girls, freshman year, are not making the varsity track team and they're not making the varsity whatever. So that's what normal is. So if your daughter, when she gets to high school and she doesn't make varsity track, you can be like, that's okay. That's normal. And she shouldn't be like, so I'm just normal?

Or if she does make it and you're like, whoa, you made it. That's not normal. Wait, I'm not normal. You see what I'm saying? People hype this word a little too much. And I think there's a benefit to knowing and understand what normal is. And there's a benefit to sometimes saying, hey, I don't want to be normal. And there's a benefit to sometimes saying, I want to be.

normal and that's where I want to get to yeah it makes it right on I it's like a political party there could be a political party there should be a political party that's called normal I'm just a normal person you got these extreme views over here you other people got some extreme views over there I'm not extreme on this shit what's my political party normal yeah so I'm just a normal person and actually I'm American I'm a normal American yeah We could probably get with 80% accuracy what a normal American thinks politically. And then there'd be 20% of fringe elements yelling and screaming and going crazy.

And the way we have it right now, there's no normal. There's only one, there's only either Democrat or Republican. And there's a, there's an overlap for sure that they, that they could find a common ground on. But because of the areas that don't overlap, they just hate each other. Yeah, it's essentially this. I'm going to make a political party called normal. But see, people would be so pissed at that. Well.

Because anyone then that is not normal would be mad at you for saying that you're normal and they're not. Yeah. Do you ever think, and this is what I think. And I could be wrong because I know about maybe 10 people to that degree. So I think on the internet, anything that makes the news. Yeah. I think in everyday life, I think, of. course there's two parties of course there's some overlap but I think even within the

two parties they have different philosophies different approaches to how the country should be or run or you know all this stuff but there I think they're pretty normal even by by normal standards I think people are normal I think so when I travel around this country and I and I travel around this country and I made people from all over this country from the blue states from the red states from the from the you know, most liberal areas to the most conservative areas. I meet them all. Most of those people from those extreme places are normal.

Same exact. Same here, man. And I don't go to all as many places. But there's no political party for them to join. Yeah. They can't vote normal. Like if normal doesn't get a vote. Yeah.

Isn't that like the nature of a party nowadays anyway? Nowadays. In general where it's like, hey, if you're, now you just join the group. Because everyone's so different in all kinds of different ways. There's going to be, you know, five.

or six issues that it's like what do you feel but I feel it's this and then there's levels within the issues and it's all going to fall within like a realm of like oh I see why you're you think that I see why you think that I think but if you don't know the person and you and you're only listening to the extreme people on the internet who's yelling the loudest all this stuff or whatever yeah it'll seem like that but I think in real life just like how you said in real life you you might have a politically charged person but that'll probably even be normal yeah they're more normal than they think I mean they might be not normal on one little political issue but most of them they're pretty normal yeah so but they have no one to vote for right you can't vote for someone there's no

normal person to vote for if I was in a political party I'd be in the normal one I'd be like yep I'm normal I'm just average like I'm an average person yeah hey should we have no taxes no you got to pay taxes pay for infrastructure we have extremely high taxes no I just want normal taxes you know That's how you hey should we dump all for money into defense? No, but we need to have a good defense. Okay, cool. How much should we put into defense? Normal amount? Do you know what I'm saying? Like these people are crazy. They're not normal. There's no one there's no one for a normal American to vote for. Yeah. And guess what? When someone is acting normal, they get called abnormal by the extremes on both sides. It's crazy. That's what? normally happens. All right, next. The enlightened person acts with moderation. Boom. That's what they're telling you to act normal. Act with moderation. Avoid anger. Develop confidence. Sacrifice brings good fortune, freedom from error. Again, beautiful advice for any human in any situation.

Act with moderation, avoid anger, develop confidence. If you sacrifice, you're going to get fortune. There you go. Great advice. Next, an enlightened person sees the good action of his fellows. Imitate them and correct their mistakes to make progress toward a goal. Okay. You see someone doing good? You should do that thing too.

You know, correcting their mistakes. If you're doing that for yourself, so if I'm watching Echo and I see how his life is going and I can imitate those good things and I can correct whatever mistakes you're making, I can learn from it. That's all they're saying. Great advice. imitate people that are doing good and if they're doing something that's messed up,

correct it when you do it yourself. Next, do not use force but rely on fair judges. Know your goal, tell your supporters. The idea of, look, if I have to impose and force you to do this, there's something wrong. There's something wrong.

If I have to force you to do this, there is something wrong. So don't let that happen. Did you see that PBS clip? They had Dr. Fauci going through Baltimore. I think it was Baltimore. Anyways, and they're trying to convince people. Did you see this viral video clip?

And this guy's like, hey, if this vaccine was good, you wouldn't be trying to force me to do this right now. You wouldn't be trying to pay me to do this thing. I would just want to do it. The guy's like, there's something suspect about that. And Fauci's trying to, you know, he tries for a little bit to convince him. And then he just moves on.

He just gets met with full resistance. And he can't. Here's the interesting thing. You know, I've been talking a lot about this explanation effort meter, which is how, if it's really hard for me to explain something to you, they might not be such a great idea. So listen, if I'm trying to get you to do something and you're presenting arguments to me and I can't overcome them,

maybe my idea is wrong. Maybe my idea is wrong. So rethink it And you can see when this happens And you see it on that video Because you got Fauci's trying to convince it It's trying to explain to him And the person's like well

Doesn't this not actually prevent you from getting the disease? And he's like well it kind of does well kind of You know? It's like this is one of these things So be careful for yourself When it's really hard for you to explain something Some idea some plan if I'm like okay echo here's what we're gonna do and you ask me a question and I have a hard time answering or I can't answer it and you ask me another question I'm like hey echo I want to sell these widgets

You know and I'm like well and you say well how much do they cost to make and I'm like well It's not important about the cost and you're like well it kind of is because if you You don't make a good you know price point on them and then we can't sell them to anybody and no one will buy them Then we make something we can't sell don't you think that's wrong and I'm like no no but they're really cool Yeah like be careful when you're explanation effort meter is in the red shouldn't be that hard to explain this is what happens with public transportation like in california the public transformation sucks it's not good they can try and get you to use it but it's not good so as much as they try and convince you

it does not effective because it's not good whereas in london it's easier to get into town if you take the tube in new york city it's easier to get around because you could the subway because there's no traffic on the subway. So if something is good, you just voluntarily do it. That's the way things are supposed to be. That's where a new methodology should happen. Oh, this way that I'm trying to get you to do something is better. Let me show it to you. Now, listen, if I'm trying to get you to use a new process in our company, there might be a time where you're less efficient at this new process. Like, hey, you've been using some video editor and I say hey echo there's a new video editor out and it's way better and you look at the

the components of it and you say oh yeah that is better so now you adopt it for a little while you're going to be worse yeah because you haven't developed the skills yet over time you know you're going to get better that can happen in any organization you start doing something new people efficiency is going to go down but if efficiency doesn't get back up there's something wrong with me If I can't show you this new video editor where you're like, oh, yeah, that's a really easier way to do that. And oh, yeah, that's much more effective. And then you go, okay, give it to me. I want to do it.

But if I'm like, hey, no, this, here, all you have to do is click these 47 buttons and you can copy the video thing. And you're like, well, I can do with one click on the other thing. Yeah, but you know the, see, I'm trying to explain something. It's real hard. Yeah. So just be careful. Pay attention to your explanation effort meter. A ruler issues commands that become well known.

not create a relationship with powerful persons or ideas exert discipline it's always good to exert discipline I was kind of wondering about the do not create a relationship with powerful persons or ideas and I think what I took away from that is don't be married to your ideas right don't just be like no this is my idea don't fall in love with your own plan and be careful about when your boss has a plan you know you don't want to be a yes man good advice unite with others make sacrifices and act with correct persistence to achieve a goal. Boom.

Act with sincerity, avoid suspicion, and join with a wise leader. Wisdom or common sense. You be the judge. I think it's both. Gradual change nourished by the receptive earth produces a path to virtue. The enlightened person persists in small matters to gain a fortune. Yep. Little steps.

That's what we're doing. We're doing little steps. The enlightened person gains progress through courage. Adversity needs risks to achieve fortune. Speaking alone is ineffective, is ineffective. But those are great. The enlightened person gains progress through courage. You gotta take some risks to achieve fortune.

Good advice. Truth is never exhausted, yet never the same. The enlightened person gains insight into truth and assists others to achieve it. If the truth is not heated, bad fortune follows. What I like about that is I like the idea of assisting other people to achieve truth as opposed to ramming truth down their throat or punching them in the face with the with the truth because that doesn't doesn't help doesn't work if that worked then you could go on Twitter and you could change people's minds by presenting the facts The enlightened person appreciates past experience and present opportunity. Confidence and confidence and progress only after change is past.

Appreciate past experience and present opportunity. Yep. I'm happy where I've been. Hey, be thankful that you went through some struggle and look for opportunities right now. The wise person aligns himself with established order. It's going back to it. Hey, be normal. Just be normal.

It's a good place to start. It's a good place to start. The enlightened person seeks to improve himself and take advantage of the unpredictable. Great advice. Oh, there's a lot of mayhem going on. Cool. Take advantage of it. The enlightened person turns his back upon the larger situation and loses self-awareness.

If you, this is the opposite of some of these things that talk about the small goal. This is saying if you turn your back on the larger situation, you're going to lose self-awareness. It's not going to go good. You have to pay attention to the larger situation, the strategic vision. The enlightened person improves life through good conduct and correct resistance. Boom. So it's, yes, we want you to follow these things. Intelligence combined with activity.

This is the zenith of achievement. The enlightened person trusts his own judgment and makes progress. Do not fear decline, but shine like the sun. There's going to be setbacks, everybody. It's okay. shine like the sun the wise person is clear-minded and not detained by disputes isn't it nice to just move on some little issue some little spat maybe it's even a big issue maybe it's a big disagreement cool move on the enlightened person acts gradually towards small goals consistent theme in here

the wise person exchanges ideas with others to find cooperation open your mind open your mind solid rulers meet with their subordinates great leadership advice advantage in cooperation correct persistence and the company of fellows yep join a team and hang out with your team meet with your subordinates the wise person develops sound restraints and decides proper conduct extreme limitation though is no virtue so this is getting discipline equals freedom and dichotomy into one little sentence right develops sound restraints and you'll figure out what what direction to go into you'll you'll know the proper conduct when you have the right restraints when you have discipline it's going to point you in the right direction but extreme limitation if you go overboard with

something it's not going to be good it's no virtue from a distance the wise person gains understanding oh detach everybody from a distance the wise person gains understanding yes please detach take a step back get some altitude get some perspective moderate disputes and must avoid rigidity don't be stuck in your ways open your mind free your mind as the mountain as occasionally I'm reading the thunder above mountain below attention to detail as the mountain remains tranquil in activity so the wise person conducts himself with dignity and control don't be an emotional idiot be remorseful in losses and frugal and expenses when birds fly too high none hear their song stay grounded you know what I'm saying is that what they mean by the

expression down to earth you know down to earth down to earth person's down to earth yeah you know I never I never knew what that meant down to earth I thought it I thought it meant like um he's real uh like a you know like in touch with reality kind of a I think well that is that is a pretty good it's close right it's like humble right it's not they're not trying it yeah it's definitely humble but you could be let's say I was like hey echo uh you you want to go to Vegas with me and you're like yeah I know it's like okay I'm I'm flying up there on my jet tomorrow so just meet me up there when you can with your jet you know what I mean right it would be like I was not down to earth yeah so that's what I thought it well then again I don't know maybe right now I don't know really what

it means or maybe it's both I don't know I thought down to earth was like someone who's really easy to understand and relate with but then what I thought I understood later currently is that down earth means like humble in touch with like basically a king in his top is gonna be talking about king stuff meanwhile everyone else is talking about comment or stuff right so you're like both things that you said are correct yeah down to earth means like oh easy to understand humble not talking about like well you know the thing is when you get a private jet you got to really focus you know what I mean like that's just that's not very down to earth no you know

so down to earth yes it's humble it's also like relatable right oh so it's both then yeah it's both it's like humble very specific, relatable way, easy to get along with, kind of a deal. Totally. That's down to earth. It's a very positive thing. All right, we've got two more of these hexagrams to cover. The enlightened person defends against forthcoming adversity.

Great. Great idea. Mike Glover approves. Progress only in small matters. Confusion is imminent. Okay. So there's going to be some confusion out there. And last one.

The wise person attends his position. and progress carefully. Progress with great vigilance. Yep, pay attention. There you go. You can see that a lot of these things are common sense. But here's the thing. If these things are such common sense,

why are we not doing these things? Right? And it's interesting that psychologically, even if we flip a coin and it tells us to do the right thing that kind of pushes us in the right direction, to take action, right? to trust like all these things like that little flip the coin or in this case the drawing of the

yaro sticks or the the drawing of these uh this divination form will push you in the right direction my advice would be you know don't wait for the flip of the coin just do the right things and and and you actually know what they are it's common sense but it's common sense versus ego it's common sense versus laziness it's common sense versus habit don't wait for the flip of a coin These are things that you actually know. So just do them. I know why we don't do them. Laziness, ego, habit, what?

Well, yeah, these are all like within the, you know, in the spirit of jocco simplifying things or whatever. We're distracted from it. That's why. So, and there's a bunch of things that can distract you for sure. But the main ones are entertainment or your mood, right? Like how you feel. So ego, I guess it's not mood, but like how you feel.

So working out of it. Now, for example, everyone, if you're on the internet, or let's say if you're in America, pretty much everyone knows that working out is better for you than not working out. Everyone knows that factually. Then why does that everyone work out? Like everyone.

Lazy. Lazyness is in there. I'm sure laziness is in there for sure. It's in there for sure. But the- Think about it, you're actually gonna be a better human being. You're gonna live longer, you're gonna be healthier. Everything in your world's gonna be better

and you don't do it. There's a lack of discipline, laziness. It's a horrible thing. Yeah. So, and hey, occasionally there's someone out there that like doesn't have time. They got three kids. They're a single mom. They're working two and a half jobs. Like, I get it.

They're not working out. I get it. Oh, I get all reasons why people. I get why that's the case. But here's the thing. I'm just saying what keeps someone from making the decision to not work out versus to work out? Because we all know now a workout can be 10 minutes versus zero minutes. It can even be five minutes versus zero minutes.

We know like you do burpees as many as you can for five minutes. Yep. That's a workout. A work out and it's going to depend. So we all know this, right? So but what is it that makes us make the decision, the actual conscious decision down on the street level to be like, I'm not going to do that right now or to not even think about it. You seem to know. What's your answer?

Being distracted. You're distracted by something, whether it be your feeling, your mood, something else. Here's where I don't. You're not paying attention. Here's where I kind of don't agree with you at least on some level. there's times where you look distraction would mean oh man I forgot to work out like I was watching Instagram oh I was fell into like nine YouTube movies and now I didn't work out yeah that can happen allegedly right it can happen you can let the window close but let's face it when you're letting

the window close and if you're not don't remember what I'm talking about we used to talk about the jiu jitsu window is closing like hey you know classes at 430 and you're trying to wrap something up And if you don't get it done by four, you know, by three, 35, you're going to be late. And then you just kind of let that window close and you're not training. Yeah. So when you get there. The window closed for sure. Yeah.

But I don't think that's distraction. I mean I forgot about it. I don't think that happens. And you are correct, but I'm talking about it on a deeper level. So I'm saying, for real, on a conscious decision-making level down on the streets. Uh-huh. Your mood will distract you from the idea that knowing the right thing to do is to work out. But what would make you think, hey, right now, what's driving my decision is causing me to do the wrong thing, literally the wrong thing.

And it's your mood. So to accommodate this mood is distracting me from a better decision. Yeah. It's like a, it's like if you want to use that form of distraction, then that, then I understand what you're saying. I do want to use it. Okay. You're allowed to use it. You can use it.

Because let's face it. there's no there's maybe you once in a while you you get distracted where you go oh dang it's already freaking 645 in the morning and I had to jump on for an email and then I started watching a YouTube video and then I went down the rabbit hole and I got literally distracted where I didn't but I I actually can tell you this I have never in my life gotten distracted and missed a workout yeah so I might have chosen and said like bro You know, it's leg day and I'm gonna watch more YouTube videos right now. We're gonna put this thing off.

Yeah, I get it. But it didn't happen in a subcont distraction to me is a subconscious thing where it's like, oh, I got distracted. Yeah. Oh, I was driving and texting. Yeah. That's distracted. I hit a freaking tree. Yeah, I get it.

And that's true. I didn't, I didn't wasn't texting and now I missed a workout. That didn't happen, bro. I know, bro. I get it. And, yeah. I am not saying that you're wrong, but in the spirit of understanding,

not I'm right and you're not right, or I'm more right than you. That's not the spirit. The spirit is in the spirit of understanding. So distraction is more odd. It's on the level. You can go with it. All right.

What made sense is when you said, you can allow yourself to be, you can choose to be distracted instead of choosing to do what you should be doing. But I think on some kind of other mental level, it's more of the idea. And think of it as an concept, right? The idea of keeping

your eyes on the prize, right? You know that idea? Yeah, yeah. So keeping the eyes on the prize, right? Oh, okay. So the prize is the benefits of working out, right? And even if you're not a fitness person, and in fact, you've never worked out in your life,

you're going to know at least one benefit of working out, right? You're going to know it's better to do it than to not do it. People are going to know that stuff. So let's say that's the prize, the benefits, right? If you keep your, if you take your eyes off that prize and look at another prize, your eyes kind of got distracted from the price. So you'm saying? So on that level is what I mean,

like by distracted or whatever. That's why I said in that form, you can use it. And I understand what you're saying. And you're correct. Yeah. Kind of like real minor kind of way you're right. So,

hey, I'll take it. I'll take it, I'll take it. Thank you. So let's not get distracted. Let's try to, but it's hard.

It's hard. Yeah. Because even in the real, I should say, direct away, it's easy to get distracted. And it's on purpose, too. That's what I,

see, that's what I think. You choose. You choose to get distracted. Like you can easily choose to sit down and watch some YouTube videos or flip through your Instagram, right? And then you add on top of that fact that the dopamine is getting in you. And it's just dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.

And then now you're just like more dopamine, more dopamine, more dopamine, no, dopamine, dopamine, no. You do this, right? Or I don't know, maybe you don't. I'm pretty sure you said he did this. So, you know, like if, for example, you're going to do some hard workout thing. and you're like I don't know some 20 rep squad or I don't know some hard workout thing and you're like looking around

stretch another round they'll do a warm up on the bike let me uh oh wait wait let me check that email on my phone real quick it needs you know I'm hoping that there's a freaking tragedy at one of my companies that I gotta go deal with so I don't have to do your 20 ret spot workout bro I'll find little things that like need to be done

you know like I'll be like oh man I'm you know there's like this weird routine before a workout if I'm really not feeling like it like so I'll drink a water right So while I'm drinking water, I'm like, oh, wait, oh, shoot, that little corner needs to be clean real quick. You know, so, and it kind of like, it's like a form of, like purposeful distraction and procrastination mix together. Totally. Well, the E. Chang says, don't procrastinate. So take action.

Good advice. All right. Well, we want to stay on the path. We don't want to get distracted. Let's make sure we're fuel in the path correctly. Get yourself some jaco fuel. Joccofuel.com. Get yourself some of these energy drinks, which are for a godsend.

Yep. I hear there's like a looks like the Nobel Prize is going to be awarded to the team of Jocko Fuel for making these They weren't a hundred percent sure until they made the ready to drink milk and now it's just they they realize that it's a recognition is deserved So get yourself some Jocko fuel energy drinks that have no downside No downside It's not like well I need energy right now I'm gonna I'm gonna sacrifice future energy for current energy That's what the other guy guys do they sacrifice future energy for current energy we will give you current energy and

you'll still have the future energy no crash new tropics 95 milligrams of caffeine sweetened with monk fruit taste freaking delicious there you go get some of that get yourself some moke get on the moke train oh yeah that RTD one just keeps paying dividends you know you want to talk about getting distracted when it comes to like for me the effort meter for food prep. I have a low, I have a high bar for what I'm going to put into it. Like you,

you want to talk to Lafabin and you like, hey, you want to eat dinner? He's like, yeah, man, he'll, he'll fire up the grill at two o'clock. I'll start marinating food tonight. He's going to be on that grill for two hours. Like, he's putting effort into it.

I'm not doing that. It's not me. It's not my thing. John Dudley? Yeah. Dude, this, this dude will have a plan like three, four, five days in advance.

We, you know, he's turning on the Traeger at, you know, at 9 o'clock in the morning. He's turning on the trigger. He's putting the meat. It takes in six hours to cook. You know what I'm saying? Yep.

None of this. I'm not doing any of this. I'm opening up tin chicken and putting mayonnaise in it. It took me 30 seconds to make my meal. So I have a very high bar as far as the effort that I'm going to put into to prep food. The RTD milk is a complete game changer. It's the healthiest thing you can just rock and roll in that right now. And just get stronger while having dessert.

Yeah, it's true. Joccofuel.com. Also can go to Wawa, go to vitamin shop, go to the military commerce. It's Haniford, dash stores in Maryland, Wake Fern, ShopRite, H.E.B. And Tejas, Meyer. Those are the big retailers. Hey, thanks for going into H.E. Thanks for going into Meyer.

We're dominating in there. Dominating in the vitamin shop as well. So I don't think the results are out yet. but we're either the number one brand or the number two brand in vitamin shop, which is awesome. Some people voted for that. It was a voting situation.

Brand v. brand. Yeah. So I saw that too. And so I went on there. Did you vote? Yeah. Of course. I have a very strong opinion.

And actually, when I looked at it, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm voting. And maybe I overthought this whole thing. Or maybe I did. Maybe I put the perfect amount of thought into it. So I'm looking right.

And it's like, It was ready to drink, right? RTD was like, and the go was in that. So I'm like, cool. And I'm, you know, I'm checking my bias, you know, because I'm a responsible human being in my mind. So I scroll and I see who else is here, though. You know, like what else?

I'm looking at this other one. Just like, we're winning. I was like, bro, I would never vote for any of these things. I would only vote for this one, the healthy one, the good one. You're winning. Yeah. So I'm like, all right. So it's, yeah, I think it's justified is what I'm saying.

So it's not one of those things where it's kind of like, hey like it sucks but hey I like you Jocko but it's like it's factually better than all this other stuff so good good on you Jockfuel.com go get it um origin USA.com also you're going to need some jihitsu in your life right because jihitsu is one of that magic eight ball solutions to problems is train jihitsu we encourage it we also make jeans we make hunt gear and we make it all in America which is a big deal. It's a big deal because there is ecological disasters going on in the world. And there's slavery, modern day slavery. That's happening right now in a sweatshop in China. And you can go

support that. You can go support enslaving another human being or you can go to origin usa.com and you can get some American made, the highest of quality. gear for your entire life t-shirts sweatshirts boots hoodies jiu-jitsu geese look can you wear your ghee to work you can right to me it's sort of like wearing a you know being a Buddhist monk at a university and dressing like that I don't I don't think you should I'm not gonna hold it against you it was probably the one kind of outside-the-box uniform so if I saw you wearing I'd be like you know what we'll go with it right you want to wear that ghee probably wear a black key be less obvious

than a white ghee you know as far as going to work in depending on where you work yeah I guess if you worked in a hospital you could wear the white ghee and that might look pretty dope but if you worked in a in some kind of a financial industry I'd probably wear just a black ghee you know just a little bit more subdued you know you're going into a meeting you know you don't want to be standing out with a bright white ghee no no only with that black Yeah, yeah. You wear a rash guard underneath, you know? Yeah.

That's my more normal. If you wear your ghee to work, tag me in a picture. I want to see it. Yeah, I just want to see kind of maybe in a little video. Jiu-Jitsu instructor as a job does not count. Jiu-suitors a job does not count. You're gonna have some kind of normal job. Yeah.

Oh. Let's face it, Jiu-jitsu instructor. Is that a normal job? Nope. No, there's no box. Right. Like when you go to a survey, it doesn't say Jiu-and-U-I instructor. Jiu Jitsu instructor there's no box that says you know it says are you in service

industry are you in the financial industry then there's no box on there it says are you in the jihitsu instructor industry it's not normal it's not a normal job yeah they would have to kind of in a way kind of shoehorn it into another industry like um fitness sport yeah even fitness that doesn't tag like sports maybe but not everyone competes so it's like you're just a jiu jizu instructor it's not normal we support you though we support get yourself some get yourself some get yourself an origin USA gie Best gees in the world by the way

Origin USA.com. Also Jocco's a store, it's called Jocco store. This is where Hey man on this path, it's hard. It's hard, but there's other people there's other people on the path with you. Anyway, if you want to represent, it's where you can get your shirts and hats and hoodies and a lot of good stuff on there.

So yeah, check that out. That's what we've been hearing. Yes. The word on the street. That's the reports from the field as it were. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to Jocco Underground. Subscribe to the YouTube channels get psychological warfare go to flipside canvass.com get some cool stuff to hang on your wall from Dakota Meyer Get one of the books that I've written or published go to extreme ownership.com and learn how to lead This is not something you learn in a day. It's something you got to follow up with that's where you made that online

Training Academy go check that out and that is of course through echelon front which is our leadership consultancy Just got back from Gettysburg the hallowed ground to Gettysburg the thing was sold out. That's the thing you got to watch out for. The stuff that we do is sold out. And so if you want to come to one of our live events, you have to register early in order to go. So go to echelonfront.com. Check out our live events or check out if you need leadership consultant, consulting in your team. You got to go there as well. And we will take care of you. And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. You want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom.

Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization that is doing an incredible job helping our warriors and their families. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org. And also don't forget about Micah Fink, who apparently right now is skinning a mountain lion with his bare hands that he killed with a tree branch while he was a horseback. and if you and he's doing he's showing he's showing veterans and first responders i think he's got first responders in there now too he's showing them how to find themselves by losing themselves out in the wilderness horses and heroes sorry heroes and horses dot org go check that out if you want to connect with us echo charles at echo charles jaco willink at jocco willink but be careful

because it's a distraction platform it's meant to take your eyes off the prize don't let that agal rhythm grab a hold of you and thanks to our military men and women in uniform that are out there around the world sacrificing their freedom to protect ours thank you for what you do and the same goes to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all first responders you all also make sacrifices every day to keep us and our family safe and we thank you for what you do and everyone else out there Speaking of what you do, you know what to do. You know what to do.

You know what the ancient wisdom says. You know what the common sense thing is. And you don't need a coin toss or a palm reading or a tarot card to tell you what to do. You already know. And that is to get up and go get after it. And until next time, Zeko. and jocco