Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Accept That The People Around You May Not Want To Do Their Best

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground< Accept That The People Around You May Not Want To Do Their Best How to have the best relationship with your family members when they do not want to improve themselves.How to influence people to be a better version of themself.If you're struggling with balance and have an addictive personality.The 1-5 system of evaluating your performance on ANYTHING.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 185, sitting here with Echo Charles. You all have sent us some questions from the field, and we will provide you with some guidance, some recommendations, some answers, or at a minimum, some possible courses of actions that you can follow. So here we go. Let's get into it. Here we go. First question. I'm a high school principal. I spent the last decade working towards being the best version of myself, reading, lifting, training, and eliminating most anything that is not productive.

to my quest to achieve personal excellence. Where I struggle as a leader is watching others around me be okay with mediocrity. Their lack of desire to improve daily fuels me to be the very best I can be, but frustrates me that I see so much more in them than they see in themselves. Do I continue to keep my foot on the gas in an effort to influence them to see they are just floating through life? or do I accept that 10% of my staff going to fall short of my expectations of them and the true potential they have as educators and leaders in my school?

Keep the rad designs coming for the shirtlocker teas, thank you. Jack. He's what it is. And he says that 10% of his staff is about, of his staff is about 10 to 12 people. So, um, welcome to reality.

This is a reality right here. There's a bell curve. There's a bell curve in the world. There's a bell curve in any organization. You've got your top performer, formers. You got like that top 10% of the top performers. And then you got the whole big middle area of the bell curve.

And there, you know, there's people that are like, do a little bit better in the middle of the bell curve. And people that do a little bit worse in the middle of the bell curve. And then there's a bottom 10%. And that's just the way it is. And everyone thinks like in the most elite places that no in a seal platoon there's a bell curve

In a seal team there's a bell curve in any organization. There's a bell curve and you got some front running pipe peters at the top end that are crushing you got the middle people that are doing their job to varying levels and then you got some turds So what should you do? I mean first of all your question is do I continue to keep my foot on the gas? Yes, because in an effort to influence them, yes. To see they're floating through life. Well, you know, it doesn't matter. That shouldn't affect the way you're getting after it, right? So I think you're good there.

Keep getting after it. We know that. Listen, I would invest, you know, invest in the top performers. You know, how much can you help them? How can you help them grow even more? Because they're getting after it. How can you make the middle performers into top performers? And I wouldn't, you know, I'm not going to abandon the dot.

bottom 10% I just don't write them off and never think about them again but I recognize it okay I'll check in with them every well you know uh once a quarter once a quarter you know maybe hey you still you still you still good to go hey did you want to did you want to you know think about that you know running that thing for the school council or whatever no it's just extra collateral duty do you get paid for it well no you don't get paid but it's going to give you some good experience I don't want to do it okay cool you see what I'm saying but maybe after three years You go, hey, you want to run that little student council thing? And there's no pay for it, as you know, but are other teachers, you know, taking over this other project.

So if you want to do it. And maybe in three years, they go, yeah, you know, I wouldn't mind doing that. You know, so you don't abandon them checking with them periodically. But you also can't, like, expend a bunch of energy trying to get them to freaking get on board with being like a better performer. Because they're getting their paycheck. This happens in every industry. Every industry. Oh, these people, they just collect a paycheck.

they don't really care. Yep, cool. Welcome. That's the way the world is. Also, don't get frustrated about this. Like, you can't get frustrated. It's just the way people are. It's the phase of their life.

You can ask them earnest questions. You can try and influence them. Listen, you can't go, would you want to be a loser? Nope, they'll be like, I'm not a freaking loser. Screw you. The principal sucks.

You know what I'm saying? You build a relationship with them. So this boils down to. Build a relationship with them. Trust, listen, respect, influence and care. And if you do that and you ask earnest questions, earnest questions, where do you think you're going to be in 10 years?

That's not an earnest question. It's like, hey, you, you love teaching in the classroom so much that that's kind of what you want to do for your whole career. And they might say, yeah, actually it is. And you go, okay, cool. And they might say, well, I think so. And then three weeks later or three months later, they go, you know, you asked me if I always wanted to be in the classroom.

I was thinking about it. And I do, but I think I want to do it. You know, I think I want to eventually get to become a college professor. Oh, so you got to go take some more classes. You know, all of a sudden you got, you know, so do that. And do your best to help the people out, but don't overinvest in them. That's kind of what I got, you know. This is life.

This is the way people are. You're going to find them no matter where you are. Don't let them hold you back. But, and don't let them uninspire you. to keep getting after and keep setting an awesome example. And build relationships with them. Build relationships with them. That's what we're doing across the board.

It seems like you do a good job of in these situations. Because I see, you know, you can kind of see it. Not, you know, I think I do anyway. But you do, it comes off to me that you do a good job of not judging people who are like not performing, you know, not getting after it as hard as maybe the next area, whatever. I don't bro because people are interested in different things yeah yeah what I mean like you know what's it one man trash another man's treasure sure well one man's triumph is another person's like we don't give a shit yeah you know what I mean like have you ever told someone like I'm a jiu jihitsu black belt they're like no I don't think what is that but in their mind they're

literally thinking karate yeah yeah they're thinking rexquando they're like whatever dude yeah my eight year old son has a black belt too yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah my my nine-year-old just got his black belt you guys are the same now but like it's true that with everything right yeah you're right like uh well you know i spent 20 years in the military oh cool whatever you know uh oh i wrote some books oh i wrote a new york times bestseller oh oh bro i don't care you know so when someone is not interested in stuff that I'm interested in, it doesn't, like, I, I, I, I 100% expect that. And I don't think that anything that I've done is like, oh, look what I did. Yeah. And you can't help but, because I've been in a situation where actually pretty recently, dude, I barely

could I have a black belt. I wrote books. You know what I mean? I don't really care. But I've been a situation on the other side of things where I'm like, bro, it's, it's not that serious, bro. And you can tell like this person's really into what's going on like and I'm and it's just right on the front of my mind as if this is my feeling was like bro life is way bigger than this thing you know kind of a thing and the thing is that can be true for anything even if you're at work literally at work what you do for a quote unquote living there's more of life than this job and a lot of people are in a position and just their opinion of life their approach to life there's more of life than just freaking like making sure you got this report okay you know so actually I'm

gonna like I'm the opposite of you there because I'm kind of like dude that's awesome like good job good job when someone's really into what they're doing whatever it is I'm kind of stoked for yeah yeah so and again I'm not saying that part isn't the part I'm talking about I'm just saying if someone's too into it and having this expectation expectation on to you that you should be into it the same way I am, it's, you'll have a big disconnect there. It's not, you know, it's not constructive, you know, so don't be that person in a judgmental way. See what I'm saying? Hey, be fired up. Hell yeah, all day. And, you know, but don't be like, hey, you should be in my lane too. And if you're not, like, I'm angry. We got beef. And we got beef, you know, see what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

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