Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: In a Critical Situation, Would You Choke? | Self Discipline--How to Fight The Urge To Be Lazy and Complacent

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Choking in critical situations.Getting a promotion and not feeling ready for it.Wanting kids and spouse does not want kids. What to do.When a wife reveals she's attracted to women.Self discipline Fighting the urge to be complacent and lazy.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 69 sitting here with EC, Echo Charles. Yes. Echo Charlie, sometimes referred to. That me, Jocco, we'll link up. So we're going to talk about choking. But normally we talk about choking. We're talking about the Jujits, right? That's when we think of choking, that's what we think of,

but there's another form of choking. And that's when the chips are down. You know what I'm saying? The stakes are high. The stakes are high. choking in sports or in any kind of event. You know, you can choke in a debate. You can choke in a confrontation with someone, an argument.

But what it is is failing to perform as one is expected to perform based on how they have performed in the past and the skill level that they have. So because here's the thing. If someone loses or someone who loses all the time or isn't that good doesn't make any goals and now they miss a game winning shot, that's not that's not choking. Yeah, yeah. That's just true. That's just someone that sucks. Right. But when someone is good and someone does perform well and they do score goals and they do that historically and consistently and then that moment comes for them to make that game winning shot and they miss it.

Yeah. That's true. It happens in every sport. Happens in basketball, right? Especially foul shots. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes, I do.

One of my best friends in the Dames, he was, he was playing in, like, he was either, I think it was the state finals. And he had a foul shot to make for the win. And he missed the finals. We missed it. And they lost. Field goals in football? Bro. JV were playing against Waymaea.

Cake Nuts was the kicker for Wymia, by the way. Our cake nuts. So you guys are on opposing teams. Opposing teams, and they're better than us, straight up. But we held them to zero, zero, the whole game. So they had the ball. Last play of the game, one second left. Field goal time for them.

Cake Nuts. Runs up on the field. Like, looking at this guy, and Keknav's good. And you guys are friends right now. At this point, at that point, at that point, you were friends. Friends. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, not as much as we were like, you know,

later on. Yeah, this is JV time. Actually, we weren't friends. Okay. I didn't meet him until, like, I met. I knew him, but we didn't become friends, friends until 10th grade. So, yeah, he runs over the fields, kick him out to this little run.

He used to play for Hana Pepe, too, by the way, which is in Pop Warner. Anyway. So he gets up on there, he lines up, freaking, and it wasn't that far of a field goal. Like 20 yards? Not even. 15, maybe.

Yeah. So he gets on there and bro, he kicks it. Makes it. Oh, he made it. Did not choke. Okay. Well, there you go. But I thought he was going to choke out because, you know, like it was so poetic. They were supposed to beat us so bad.

He didn't choke though. Kinknuts for the win. Hunting. Archery. This is a total, like, this will be revealed. You know, to use Echo Charles' second favorite word, revealed. You're, you know, there's guys. You shoot.

Go out and shoot your bow, 70, 80, 90, 100 yards, 110 yards. Yeah. Just out there, you're just dialed in hitting that, me and Josh Hall. Josh Hall and I have the got to hit that paper plate at 60 yards every time, right? So that's where you're at. Yeah. And if you can hit a paper plate at 60 yards, you should be able to hit that elk in the kill zone at 60 yards. But then all of a sudden a guy will come out, they'll go out and they'll miss at 30 yards.

Yeah. You know, it is it is tough and there's all kinds. So what's causing that? You got heightened anxiety. There's adrenaline going through. So you got the chemical cocktail that could be going through your system. You got the the anxiety. You got could have the negative thoughts like if I miss, you might be worrying about things that you can't control.

You might be over processing all the things that are happening. You got one thing to think about. Yeah. You got the social expectations. Yeah. Right. Like, you're, if there's a crowd. I mean, what are I?

When a crowd's there. Right? Everyone's watching. Where I go hunting normally. Everybody knows. Like, you come back to camp and everybody knows what happened. There's no hiding it. Yeah.

So those are the kind of things that can cause problems. Yeah. Right? That can cause you. to choke now what's interesting is there is something called the individual zones of optimal functioning and that is what that means is in certain amount of stress is good because you have to focus more like here's here's one um i most of the time surf without a leash without a rope leashes are for dogs well right i don't know no not just for dogs but you know so

Here's the thing when I this is one of those things that you know there's certain things that you can feel like you can actually feel them Like let's say what do you like let's say you work on a computer a lot right? Sure if your computer is lagging Yes, like you'll notice it. I probably wouldn't notice it I understand if I was trying to do something I wouldn't notice it because you're so good at working your computer that you're gonna notice when it's lagging So when you can actually identify something I actually feel like when I'm surfing and and I don't have a leash on. Actually, I feel it more when I, if I have a leash on, I'm like, kind of you just feel this like crazy carefree,

like I'll just do whatever. And you feel a lot looser and a lot less focus. When you're out on a big day with no rope, your shit is tight. You are focused. You have to be. Because if you blow it, your board's gone. You may, you might have to swim for it.

You may lose it. This is you may never see it again. So that, that's what you want a certain amount. of stress in this scenario. So how the question is like how do we overcome choking? What can we do? What can we do to stop that? Well, obviously, detach, take you can't get all caught up in your head.

Breath, take a breath, right? Breathe calm down. You gotta calm down. Here's another critical thing. Have a protocol, like a protocol. When we would learn to shoot, we would, some guys would make like a little Diddy? Is that word? Is that a civilian word? Does anybody know what that means? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like a little thing. Like a little

It doesn't rhyme, but it's like a certain. A little chant. Yeah, a little chant. A little chant. I, when I first started archery, I had it. Oh, for real. You know, I mean, I definitely had it for shooting before. But the most recent little ditty that I had was for archery. And it was just like, I went through the whole, you know, starting at my feet. I was like, feet in position. And I went all the way up to like pinky on the, I had. I had, would touch my to keep my front hand you believe it or not when you shoot a bow your front hand is like loose you don't grip because that torques the bow so you're fun so i'd be like a pinky touch and i would just like touch my pinky onto the onto the bow itself because i knew that if i went to touch it and i was gorilla gripping i'm oh you're gross so you so you make these little ditties and they will they will help you um with that and and look you can also have things that are

protocols like when someone goes take a foul shot in basketball did you play basketball no so I played basketball you know you go out and I had like if it was a foul shot I'd have my little like spin the ball bounce spin the ball bounce bounce bounce shoot so you have a little protocol that you're going through that's really good what can you do to put yourself in pressure situations because the more you get in a pressure situations the better you're being handling that's when I was running seal training, it was like, we're going to put you in insane pressure situations, mayhem situations. And you're going to start to learn how to do these things. And of course, practicing, which is because a lack of confidence can trigger you to choke because you lack

confidence and you choke. How do you get more confident? You get good. You practice. The more you practice, the more your confidence increases. Even doing mental rehearsals of what you're going to do is going to help out. I would say I heard this originally that it had to do with Tiger Woods coach, Tiger Woods mental coach. And his thing was it's not your last shot. You can't think about your last shot. You can't think about your next shot.

You just have to clear your mind and think about this shot right here. Where this becomes very evident is if you're shooting drills like pistol. and you're shooting six headplates. If you miss one of those, this is where you see where a guy's head is at, right? Because he goes, he goes, ping, ping, ping, bang, and like a miss. So it's like hit, hit, hit, miss. A guy that's good, just no factor takes another shot at that target, moves around down the line.

No factor. But you'll see sometimes, guys, it's just everything falls apart. It's like hit, hit, hit, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. Miss, miss, mag change. You're just like, oh my God. So that is one of the things that I think really applies. 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 jaco underground.com and subscribe.

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