Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: How To Deal With Public Transgressions Against You from Someone.

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

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This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 213, sitting here with Echo Charles. We have some questions from the field, from the front lines, from the go zone. The go zone. And we are going to attempt to supply you with answers, guidance,

or at a minimum, courses of action to follow. All right, first question. I try to live by letting small transgressions go, like not speeding up to come. Cut someone off when slowing down gets the same result. But I recently had a situation that made me question where the line is between letting things go and standing up for myself. My wife and I went along checkout line at a busy big box store.

We got behind a woman with a few items and her husband suddenly rolled up with a flat bed full of stuff and started unloading. I told him, hey, bro, you can't just do that. He told me to shut up and mind my own business. I asked the cashier if she was really going to allow it. And she looked overwhelmed. A manager came over and instead of addressing him, he moved me to another checkout line. I felt embarrassed afterward and realized I probably should have let it go. But my question is, where is the line?

And at what point do you stand up and say that's not okay? If no one confronts disrespectful behavior, won't people keep doing it? How do you balance self-respect with knowing when to walk away? Well, all right. Let's break this down. This is actually a very, a very important question. So just to clarify, because there was a part that were, okay, so he was in line. A lady was in front of him with a few items.

Yeah. Meanwhile, that lady with a few items, her husband was apparently shopping still picking up a, you know, a final few. items which happened to be a truck glow. Sounds like a bunch, yeah. Yeah, a bunch of them. And just started unloading. So she hit the line first, got the little place in line in a way, started, you know, unloading.

And then he came in edit with some additional stuff, check. Which technically, I guess, maybe you think I'm going to start to review cueing etiquette. Right? Right. Because that's the thing, right? We could go there and start talking about, like, is that a, is that a violation? Right. Yeah.

Do you think it's a violation? Put it this way. I could get there to look, if I was tasked with finding the violation in this very specific scenario, in general, I could probably find it. But at the end of the day, in a practical sense, when you're there and it's happening, it's not a violation. Like if I wouldn't be like, it wouldn't move me. I wouldn't feel disrespectful.

Sure, sure. Okay. I have a situation like this, which I'll go over after. We'll see what you say. Well, it's just interesting because. there are, let's say, perhaps unwritten rules that make this a violation or not a violation. Right?

And really it depends on who you are. It depends on where you grew up. It depends. There's a bunch of things that roll into this scenario. But I'm not gonna talk about that at all because it doesn't really matter. Yes, that's not even the question. You know what I mean?

So the question is where's the line? And I'll tell you what, very, if I try to draw, very distinct line. Like you want to know where the line is? Because it's very easy to sit here and go, well, you know, you, oh, someone does that. It's kind of, well, if you want to actually draw a line to me, it's physical threat to the safety of my family or my friends or me or an innocent like a bystander, right? Meaning someone is going to, someone is in the act of or indicating that they are intentionally

going to harm someone, right? Attack someone. Okay, so cool. Like, if they cross that line, I'm going into action. By the way, they're not going to know it. I'm not going to talk about it. There's not going to be any words. Nothing's going to come out of my mouth.

I'm going to handle the situation. With total hostility and aggression, and it's not going to last very long for that person. Now, here's where we start to break this down, this little feeling that he's got going on. A good thing to think about in this scenario is I will not put myself in a scenario, in a situation where some other person's action

determines the outcome of the scenario. So I'm gonna say that again. I am very, extremely cautious, extremely cautious that I don't put myself into predicaments where someone else's behavior determines the outcome of where I end up. And I'll tell you why, because I can't control other people and I have no idea what they're going to do.

And I might think I have an idea what they're doing, they're going to do, but I don't. I don't have any idea what someone else is going to do. I know how they're going to respond. I don't. And I can give my suspicions. This person looks like they're rational. This person looks like they're crazy. This person's behaving erratically.

This person's behaving. behaving normally, right? And you could make those assessments about anybody and you can think you're right and you might not be. You might even be batten, you might even be bat 90% 95%. I bet you, I bet you that I bat, I bet you I bat 90%. I bet you I bat 90% if I assess someone's like where they're at kind of from a mental stability. I bet you I'm at a solid like 90%.

Cool. That other 10% outlier is a real problem if you let it be. So here's the thing. When you confront someone immediately, immediately when you confront somebody, their response is now the controlling mechanism of the situation. Right? Because if I confront someone and they don't respond the way I expect them to,

now I have to engage. I have to escalate. And when I escalate and my suspicion is, well, if I escalate a little bit, then they'll back down or then they'll take an action that I anticipate, which is what I want. But that's no guarantee. And how do you know what this person went through that day? And how do you know what's going through their head? And how do you know what trauma they've been through in their life or not? You don't know any of that shit.

So let me ask you this. Are you willing to kill a person because they cut you in line at Costco or at Walmart? I'm gonna say that again. Sounds really stupid, sounds really stupid, right? That sounds dumb, right? Are you willing to kill a person because they cut the line in Costco or they cut the line at Walmart?

Are you willing to kill them? Because if someone doesn't back down, at some point, you either have to back down, which is not what you had in mind when you opened your mouth, or you have to escalate until they're dead. Am I being extreme here? Yes, I'm being.

somewhat extreme but you you understand what I'm saying like this is a legitimate thing to think about it it might be it's a straw man of an argument right it's you this is right in your your your your area of expertise just throw in the straight straw man this is a straw man argument so I understand so you understand fully but if you take that premise and you actually apply it it's going to keep you out of a lot of situations that are stupid so when we when we confront someone in the streets we have a hope that they give us the response that we expect and the hope that someone hoping that someone else is going to do something that you expect is not a good move it is infinitely smarter and better that the

outcome of the situation is based on what I do right I don't I don't give away I don't Give away that leverage to people. Right? I'm not giving that away. And by the way, this is not only applicable in the streets, but it's applicable in anything that you do in life as often as you possibly can. Don't put yourself into situations where you rely on other people and you're trying to predict their actions and you're trying to account for their idiosyncrasies and their ego

and their agenda and their trauma and their psychopathy, right? These are all things that can come into play. Don't do that. That's a bad move. You have to set yourself up in situations where you get to determine the outcome. Your behavior determines the outcome and you don't rely on someone else's behavior to determine the outcome. That's that's the bottom line. So that that's part one now does this make sense?

Do you understand what I'm saying? Totally makes sense. Like walking down the street someone Uh, you know does something inappropriate. They can't call my wife. Okay, cool. Turn around, walk back and fight them.

or tell them, hey, you better, you know, better apologize. Watch your mouth. Cool. My expectation is they say, oh, sorry. But they're not going to do that. Or they may not do that. And then what do we do? Hey, you better say you're sorry or I'm going to kick your ass.

Now they think, oh, I don't want to keep my ass because, oh, I'm sorry. No, they don't do that. They say, fuck you. I'll say whatever I want. Now what do you do? Okay. Now you're getting in their face and you're pointing your finger in their face. And you're expecting maybe that close intimidation is going to make them back down.

They don't give a shit. They don't care at all. They actually want this kind of engagement because they're crazy. And you can see where I'm going. So now you got to, now you got to hit this person, choke this person, whatever. Now the cops are there. Or now you got stabbed or now. There's just like all these things, which what we've talked about since day one, these street fighting scenarios.

But it's also like any interaction that you have with people. You get into a negotiation. Like negotiation. when I put the ball in your court, the ball's in your court. The next move is yours. It's not mine. So why am I going to do that?

I'm going to keep the ball with me. I'm not going to overexpose myself. I'm not going to give you leverage. And I know that this can be tricky for people to comprehend. 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 Jocko Underground.

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