Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: How Can You Say "GOOD..." When Real Tragedy Strikes?

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

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This is the Jocco Underground podcast number 140 sitting here with Echo Charles, and we have some questions to answer from the people. Yeah. Good advice, by the way, for the people. These are good questions on the song. Yeah. All right. So good.

Going to the first question is, so I'm a Marine in well over 20 years of federal law enforcement and both of my sons are Marines. Er. Both amazing, good men with excellent character. We share some of the same reads as well as push each other. Push each other on the fitness journeys so good comes up. It's like that word makes you laugh while applying it, but inside it resonates with you. My younger son, 20 years old, active duty, recently came back from Norway, Arctic weather training.

Had a cough, was a little tired and losing weight. He was immediately told he has cancer. Within three weeks, he was transferred to Walter Reed and diagnosed with advanced stage three. Classic Hodgkins lymphoma. The treatment won't be easy. but they say it's still curable. The kid has been a beast, but he's down 45 pounds and starts chemo in five days. For the last couple weeks, we've just looked at each other and said, good.

Yesterday we sat down with the doctors and got the full diagnosis. The treatment strategy, I mean all the good, the ugly, all on the table. It was just, it was a tough day. My fucking kid still found the time to reflect on how everyone has something going on in their life. Some worse, some not so bad. but it's their fight. This is just his. We didn't say good yesterday,

but we need to moving forward. So can you help me finish this line? You were diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma advanced stage three. Good. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Yeah, that's rough, obviously. That being said, good, you're still here.

Right? Like, you're still here. What could have happened in, what could have happened in Norway? You're doing Arctic weather training. You're flying a helicopter. It goes down. Everyone dies.

That happens, but that didn't happen. You're still here. Oh, by the way, good. It's curable. It's curable. How many people get that diagnosis for whatever disease they've got and it's not curable? So good. Yours is curable.

Oh, by the way, good. You can return to full health, right? You can get back to where you are right now or where you were. You can get back there. So that's awesome. That's good. Oh, by the way, good. You get more years of life because there's some people, whatever happens to them, their life's over.

Whether they get in an accident, whether they get in a helo crash, whether they get in a car accident, where they get a disease that rapidly deteriorates. And they don't get years to live. Maybe they get seconds. Maybe they get minutes. Maybe they get hours. Maybe they get weeks. But you've got years. So that's good.

Oh, by the way, good. you get to maintain your your mental faculties right you're you've got you can carry on conversation still you can still think through processes you can still strategize some people get in either diseases or accidents where they lose their their mental faculties well that didn't happen to you good by the way you get to keep your memories too of your life which is awesome and by the way good you got this instead of someone in your family who's weaker and might not be able to handle it. Right? What trade got made?

Is there some nephew or cousin or parent in the family unit or in the extended family that this would devastate them? Yeah. But you got it. Good. And I can tell from this note, three Marines in the family, Semper Phi, I can tell the family unit here is strong and good this family can push through it better than most we can support each other good and by the way you get to watch the sunset tonight and you get to watch the sunset tomorrow and you get to appreciate those things even more good oh and by the way you lost 45 pounds

good you get to do a full bulking phase steak pizza burgers fries milkshakes put back on 45 pounds good let's go and when you wrap up that bulking phase good you are now going to value your health more than ever you are going to cherish physical fitness more than ever good so you are diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma advanced stage three good i get to live and i will not waste a second of this life so definitely sorry you hear about this uh thanks for the service of you and your boys in the Marine Corps, stay strong, fight on. Semperified, do or die. Keep getting after it.

That's what I got, man. Next question. I'm a junior officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, and I'm looking for advice on something that I'm observing in my unit. Many of our journeymen level workers, corporals, are not interested in getting promoted and taking on leadership roles within the unit, despite the fact that they demonstrate potential to be accepted.

leaders. This happens so often that when we even have we even have a name for it known as the quote quote corporal for life. And in the Marine Corps, the terminal lance. These junior ranks members are often extremely skilled at their jobs and they really enjoy the specialized work that they do. They don't know they know that if they get promoted and take on leadership rules, they will spend less time actually doing the work that they enjoy and the more time and more work time managing people and doing other administrative tasks. The problem is if none of my best performing corporals are interested in being promoted, we will have to promote less experience and less capable workers into those leadership positions

because they might be the only ones who are willing to take on the administrative duties and trade the doing for leading. As our platoon commander, how can I take extreme ownership of this problem and help motivate my high performing corporals to accept promotions and to start the transition from doer to leader? Thanks for your help. Yeah, good question. There are definitely some things that you can do to try and help them. Number one, well, thanks for your service, but number two,

let's make sure that they understand that leadership is a skill, just like any other job. And they think that whatever their job, they could be anybody, right? They could have any kind of job. They could be infantrymen. They could be in the motor pool. They could be cooks. There's any job that you could have inside the military.

And they think that getting, good at their skill and that particular thing is how they do their job well. And at some point, you've got to make them realize that leadership is a skill. You've also got to help them see that being a good professional soldier of any kind includes being a leader. If you're in the military, it doesn't matter where you are and doesn't matter what your job is. Part of that job is being a leader. That's part of the job. Doesn't matter if you're the lowest ranking person. Part of your job is being a leader. And the more you progress, the more important leadership becomes.

But even at the lowest level, if you're the person that works on the engine in the motor pool, what works on the engines of the vehicles in the motor pool, you're the lowest ranking guy. 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 jaco underground.com and subscribe. and 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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will see you mobilized underground Thank you.