Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Don't Trust The "Breaking News". People Get Under Your Skin. Regret.

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

The first report is always wrong.Regretful for not taking an important opportunity.Getting the most out of your reading.Passing on credit and making it genuine.Dealing with your co-worker who is annoyed by you.Getting back on track with your confidence.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 39. I'm sitting here with Echo Charlie, as they say. So we're getting inundated with a lot of information these days all the time. And it made me think about the fact that one of the things, the lessons that I learned in the military was that the first report was always wrong. And this, I'm going to expand on that. First report is always wrong, meaning you get a report from the field or you get it, you're in the field and you get a report from one of your troops.

And you've got to, you've got to listen to what they say, clearly. But you also need to recognize that what they're saying to you is probably going to be wrong. Why? Why is that? Well, there's a bunch of reasons. Number one, the perspective that they're giving you is only their perspective.

So whatever they're involved in, whatever this report that they're yelling about or screaming about or, Giving you emotionally, it's just their perspective. They can only see something from their perspective at that time. What are the chances that when you take a look at a problem, at a situation from one angle that you see the whole thing? What are the chances of that? Very low. Very low.

So they're not wrong, but they're only seeing a small part of whatever's happening. Second, I already mentioned the word emotional. They're emotional about what's ever happening. They're scared. They're angry. They're upset. Whatever. So those are impacting the report that they're giving you.

Also, there's a decent chance that when you mentioned perspective, you also have to think about their proximity to the problem, which means they're too close to it, which is also a distorted perspective because when you're standing so close to something, you don't see it. All. So what that leads you to learn. in the military is that when somebody tells you something, I shouldn't say that their first report is always wrong because that's too strong.

The first report is not all the information you're going to need. So what you learn to do is you learn to take a step back, you learn to detach, you learn to take information with a grain of salt, which is an expression I had to, we all know what it means, but I didn't really know where it came from. And I guess in there's an ancient book, where they talk about taking an antidote to a poison.

And part of the antidote was to take the antidote with a grain of salt. Literal grain of salt, which tells you that probably whatever you're being told, whatever the poison, probably isn't that bad. So if, you know, you take this antidote, including a grain of salt, it's probably not that big of deal. That's one interpretation of where it may have come from

and neither one of these are confirmed. The other one is that the word sal, I don't know if I'm saying that right, Latin, S-A-L, it means either salt, so grain of salt, or also wit, as in, like, witty. But wit also means good sense or good judgment. So take this, hey man, take this with some good judgment. So either one of those, but we know what grain of salt means, and that's something that you learn something that I learned from the military is when you get a report take with a

grand assault realize that there's emotions involved realize that there's only one perspective realize that there's probably some proximity distortion going on which is all important when it comes to moving forward in the military but it also applies to life so what do we get today what do we get today is we get inundated inundated all the time with news. We get inundated all the time with social media. We get inundated with the story about COVID, the story about politics, the reactions that someone had.

All these things hit us all the time, 24 hours a day, by the way, 24 hours a day. It's actually more than 24 hours a day. Think about it, all the news, 24-hour cable news stations that are all running 24 hours a day. So you take 24 and you multiply it times 100, 2400 hours a day. And then you talk about all the news. news sites you can go to. So it's more than 24, it's thousands of hours a day of information coming at you. And what do we tend to do is freaking freak out on each and every single one of them.

Oh my God. This is, and so what you need to do is when you get information out there in the world, whether it's from news, whether it's from social media, whether it's from one of your kids tells you something going on. What you need to do is learn to detach. Take that information with a grain of salt. I'm not saying that that information is wrong. but it's probably very likely not going to be the whole picture. So don't treat it as if it's the whole picture. Don't treat it as if it's gospel. That's another thing.

We don't, I don't want to make a decision based on information that I know there's going to be additional information. At least I'm not going to make a big decision. I might make a little decision. You tell me I think there's enemy coming. I might say, I'm not going to say, get all mine and attack. No, because I don't even know what's. happening but I might say hey boys you know get your gear on you I've said that many

times hey get your gear on hey get the trucks lined up that's a good one that's a good one that's like a that's like a good feeling I just got when I said that I could tell you get the trucks lined up which means you know there's something coming down the pipe we want to be a little bit you know stage because you keep the you keep the trucks in sort of what's it called like a carport scenario you have the roof right so it's not getting a beat down from the sun little protected from the elements. But then it's like, hey, get the trucks lined up.

It's like, yeah. And then the, you know, guys start doing the pre-maintenance checks. So we're getting ready to rock and roll. But do I say get in the trucks and launch the trucks and start driving? No, because we don't even know what's going on yet. So you want to get the trucks lined up? Okay. Don't launch until you gather more information.

So I think this is, I see a lot of people, a lot of time. I mean, God, especially if you go into social media, but the news does it all the time. Everyone's freaking out about stuff. People are drastically porpoising, going up and down and up and down emotionally over stuff. And it's crazy. Don't do that.

Don't get crazy. Detach. Understand why people are saying what they're saying. Listen to what they have to say, but please keep it in perspective. So what's an example of like when you get some, let's say everyday life, right? You talk about the news cycle, right? So what is an example? Like solely, maybe if some news report comes in about something and then what you just

immediately go to social media repost it and say disgraceful or something like that? Yeah, exactly. There you go. And then someone's going to react to what you just posted. Yes. On both sides, by the way. That's not disgraceful. That's standing up for himself.

I can't believe. And the other side is, I can't believe that that person did that. You know what I'm saying? So that's what everybody does 24 hours a day. And then you add to the fact that everyone wants to get the big freaking clicks and likes and retweets and all that. So that makes everyone insane. Yeah.

So don't do that. Yeah, with the news, when things come out on the news, don't freak out about it. Listen to what people have to say. Understand, you should see grain of salt. What is it? Skeptical. That's another synonym for the, for the term. grain of salt is skeptical look at something to be okay yeah I get it yeah echo saying

that you know the sky's falling the sky is falling or or or echo saying that hey everyone at the gym's got ringworm like okay okay I'm sure some people have it I don't think everyone has it right yeah I don't think we gotta shut this thing down no First of all, we don't need to shut it down. Second of all, not everyone has it. A couple people got ringworm, got a little ringworm. Don't die to ringworm that I know of. People, COVID right now, Omicron, Omicron.

Right. It's spreading very quickly. Oh, no, okay, cool. Spreading quickly. There's a lot less hospital cases from it. You know, the first report is, this is spreading like mad. The second report was like, well, yeah, It's spreading, but it's also less, what is it, less vicious than Delta variant.

Whatever. Hell you. So let's not freak out about things. Let's listen. Let's absorb. Can you make a small decision? Sure. You can make a small decision.

Because someone's saying, well, you might miss out. You might be stuck. You know, when they say, oh, there's a fire in California. What does that mean? Or there's a fire in your neighborhood. Does that mean abandoned ship and run away? No, it doesn't mean that. But does it mean, hey, you better check your security system.

You better make sure your vehicle has fuel in it to make sure if you got to go. You got to go. I mean, if you're below half tank for sure, we like to keep it above three quarter tank. But you know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. I do. Is your go bag good to go? Like just normal things.

Yeah. Does it mean get crazy? No, doesn't mean get crazy means you know give the family the pro word for Prep level three Defcon nine So there you go it's a very important that all it is a very important thing to practice it really truly is a very important thing to practice with your team with your family with your employees Being when someone the it is a beautiful

way to sort of practice this is just so that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the jaco 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 jocco podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now

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