Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Corner Yourself With No Other Options... and Execute

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

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This is the Jocko underground podcast number six with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. And also, once again, Dave Burke, good evening, Dave. Good deal, Dave. This is a good deal. Okay. Just to make it sure. So when I did the Jocco Live events that we did pre-COVID, I called the events decisively engaged.

which is a term from military doctrine that I always liked I always liked that term now the definition of that word if you go into the 101 tack five tack one operational terms and graphics which is a great if you're in the military you should have that book if you're going in the military you should get that book you can just get it online it's just a big PDF but it's it's how to learn the language of the military 101 tack five, tack one, operational terms and graphic.

I used to have a copy there keep by my bed and like as I was falling asleep I would just read through it. And when you look in there for the definition of decisive engagement, it is this.

In land and naval warfare, an engagement in which a unit is considered fully committed and cannot maneuver or extricate itself. In the absence of outside assistance, the action must be fought to a conclusion and either won or lost with the forces at hand. In some situations, this is a desired result in order to hold key terrain, defeat a specific

enemy force, or secure a specific objective. In this situation, the unit can receive additional forces or support to be able to disengage. And that last part, they have it defined as like army. So I think that's also a cool definition. Right. Is that definition cool? Not only is it decisively engaged cool sounding, but it's also a very cool definition. I can't get out of this.

I've got to win. I can't even move. I've got to just win. So when I named that event, I named it for a few reasons, number one, because it sounds cool. Number two, because it's a play on words, right? Because an engagement, you know, oh, we've got an engagement tonight. It's another word for an event. So there's a nice little play on words, right?

And the last one is because it's something that I actually like to do to myself. I actually like to put myself in situations where I don't really have a choice. And I realize this. I realized this because I was getting, I got to ask this question the other day on something. You're talking to a client. I think I was talking to a client. And basically was, you know, it's the classic question of, you know, how do you get stuff done? And just, you know, new book coming out.

How do you, how do you write that book? How do you do all this stuff? You know, how do you getting all this stuff done? And it's a really common thing that people talk about in this day and age. What's the culture? Echo Charles, hustle culture. Right. Right.

Grind culture. Grind culture. Which, right, that culture is a common thing to talk about. Well, how, you know, what are your, what's your process? Productivity. What's the productivity hack we've got, right? Yeah, the hack. The hack.

We're looking for the hack over here. And as I thought through this question, because, as you know, Dave, when somebody asked me a question, even though nine words into it, I'm pretty sure I already know the answer. I will not allow myself to jump to that conclusion. So as this guy asked me a question, I've heard this question a thousand times. What's my productivity thing? What's my hint? What's my one thing? All that stuff.

And it was some version of that question. and I said, okay, let me reassess what this question is. Let me reassess. Let me think about the answer. And I realized that this word decisively engaged is a tool that I actually utilize to force myself to do things. I put myself into situations that I have to win, that I can't get out of. And, you know, part of this is, you know, we've been covering competition or competing the Marine Corps manual. We've been talking a ton about strategic versus tactical.

And you can get caught up in these tactical wins. You know, I'm waiting tactically, I'm winning, but you're losing strategically. And I don't really want to equate this to that. That's kind of like what triggered my thought about being decisively engaged. Because I think of myself, well, that's like a tactical situation that you're in, that you can't get out of. But I use it. And so here's how I use it.

I put myself in a scenarios where I have no choice. What is an example of that? Here's an example. talking to my publisher and they say, okay, we want, you know, I know you want to do another book. Can you get it to us by this date? And I say, yes. That's what I say. Now, once I say yes, I'm going to hit that due date.

I am going to hit that due date. I am going to hit it. I know that once I say yes to that book, I know what I have to do. I know it's going to be a thousand words a day. I know I owe 85, 90,000 words, whatever the case may be. I backtrack and I realize, okay, now I got to start writing. This is what I have to do. By the way, there's edits and all these other things you've got to do.

So there's something here that I feel. I feel looming. I'm not looming like Pete from origin that's up there on a loom, an actual loom. I feel things that loom over me. And what looms over me, for instance, if I owe a book, what I don't want to do, what looms over me is, hey, two and a half weeks and you have to write a whole book. That looms over me, I do not want that feeling.

I don't want, oh, I've got three weeks to write a whole book. I don't want that feeling. Not only is it not possible because there's no way I could carve out that much time in every single day to write 10,000 words a day, whatever, for eight days and get a book. done but you're what's your product at the end of writing 10,000 words a day for 10 hours what's your product your product is crap so I have that looming over me so I sign up for it I sign up to have this thing loom over me because I know

that then what I'm gonna do is start to work to get the discipline in place to write the thousand words a day as early as starting tomorrow I'll start tomorrow by the way when I tell you hey when I tell my publisher yep I'll have a book to you by this date tomorrow I'm writing a thousand words and I'm going to write a thousand words until I'm done. And I'll be done three months early, two months early, start to edit all that. But I think it's important to hate what looms over you, to hate the feeling of things looming over you. Here's another, here's, I'm trying to think of examples.

Here's another little example. Let's say I'm reading. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jocco underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way.

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