Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys. When your boss's tactics are wrong way to to it, and you can prove it. Wife want me to take ownership of things that are her responsibility. Should you wash your belt. BJJ.Understanding loyalty. Co-workers not taking too much advantage of small work injuries.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Janko Underground Podcast number 121. Sitting here with Echo Charles. Have you ever heard this expression before? Not my circus, not my monkeys. Oh, okay. I actually hadn't heard it before either until very recently. It's apparently a Polish proverb because I looked it up. And in a way, what this means is the opposite of extreme ownership.

Because where you use the expression is like, hey, there's some wild stuff going on over there. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Like that's where, so if you and I are working together and you're in charge of one department, and I'm in charge of the other department, your department has some issues and I'm like, hey, not my circus, not my monkeys. That's, that's counter to extreme ownership. Extreme ownership is like, hey, echo, it seems like you got some issues going on with your apartment. Can I give you some help? Can I offer you some people?

Can we, is there anything I can do to support you? That's what we do. So normally, I would say, ah, this, this, this. This proverb is not my gig. But I was talking to a friend the other day. And his world is not in the best situation, right? Some things going on in his world, been through a lot of stuff in his lifetime, going through some issues, having some problems, you know, with money and friendships

and relationships and really with basic day-to-day life, right? And so we're talking, you know, and he was very, very focused. And this was a long conversation, a very long conversation. He was very, very focused on the government, various laws, powerful families, fiat-based currency, as opposed to like currency that based in gold organized crime and their influence insider trading that happens on Wall Street, Wall Street social media monopolies and how they control messaging and narratives and control the algorithms and big corporations and their control of the food supply

and the farmlands in America being bought up by foreign entities and housing being bought up by big corporations and pharmaceutical companies and vaccines and electoral college. So he's focused on a lot of these things. And this is what he's talking. I mean, we probably talked for a couple, probably an hour and a half, right? And we're talking about all these things. And that's what he's focused on.

And I get it, right? There's some very disturbing and unfair and unsettling things that are going on in the world and the country. And these are things that do need to be addressed and need to be changed. Or at least, contended with, right?

But this friend of mine, for lack of a better way to say it, his own house wasn't really in order. You know, by his own, his admission, this is me calling him out like, oh, no,

he was telling me, these are problems that he's having on a personal level, right? And, you know, his finances weren't quite straight. His relationships weren't in order. He's having some trouble from, like,

from a psychological perspective, right? And every time I kind of brought those things up, like hey what about your you know what do you do with your friends how's this relationship like every time I talked about those things he went back to you know the history of mob families and how they're tied into the corporations and when they transition to the to the government and the social media like every time we were going back to that stuff and eventually I'm like listen man I get it all those things there's problems there I understand it but you can't worry about all these other things right now they first of all you can't change those things overnight I can't

change those things overnight those are big significant problems big significant ship that needs to be turned over time we're not going to steer that ship very quickly so don't focus on those things focus on your world focus on what you can control And he mentioned extreme ownership, almost like to say to me, well, aren't we supposed to take ownership of what's going on? And I said,

hey man, yes, we are. But we have to own our world before we can try and take ownership of the rest of the entire world. And he, you know,

thankfully he was listening, you know, he's trying to do better and wants to do better and wants to be better. And he said to me, he goes, oh,

not my circumstances. Not my monkeys. I said, what do you mean? He goes well like I can't worry about those other things I can't worry about that circus over there and those monkeys those monkeys aren't mine that circus isn't Mine I need to worry about what's going on in my world and I said yes, that's a hundred percent and I never heard it before But I understood it so My point in saying this is and this is kind of like when we when I talk about fear you've heard me talk about fear and I say like don't concentrate on the things you can't control Constrain the things you can't control So same thing in life.

Look, do we take ownership of what impacts our mission? Yes, we do. But does the fact that there's a law in America that prevents you from whatever it is that you think you should be able to do? Yep. And it's throwing you off. You can't really do what you did as you want to do. Okay. So can you control that law?

Well, directly, no, you can't. Like, can you vote for people that you think will change that law? Yeah, you can do that. You can campaign for them. You can donate money. That's all stuff you can do. But you're not going to be able to directly impact that law right now. Now, if you've got your whole world squared away, your world's squared away, your house

is squared away, your finances are squared away, your relationships are squared away. Now I'm going to look at that law and be like, okay, cool. I'm going to make some changes here. But if your house and your finances and your relationships aren't squared away, we can't be focused on this law. or this organized crime syndicate or this pharmaceutical company. Look, I get all those things are a problem, but you got to focus on your circus and your monkeys.

And once we get our circus under control and we get our monkeys all trained up and they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, then we can worry about the other circus and the other monkeys. So just wanted to talk that up. I know that this can be, It can be a nice little distraction. It's almost like when people go into the infinite scroll on their,

on their, on their phone, right? Like I'm just looking at for a distraction. I don't want to think about the task I've got to do. Don't want to think about the dishes. Don't think about the workout I'm supposed to do. Don't think about getting underneath the squat rack right now.

No. What I want to do is just like have this dopamine keep hitting my brain as I scroll through this thing. That's what I'm looking for. So what's another version of that? Oh, there's a big. freaking multinational corporation that's trying to buy up the houses in Nashville. What are they doing that for?

You can go down that road. But let's make sure we got our house in order. So that's what I'm saying. Yes, we got. Not my circus, not my monkeys. And look, can that happen at work? It can. You know, look, we try and take ownership of what's going on.

But could we be like, oh, there's something going on at work that's all. Jacked up and instead of it but your and your department's not squared away and you're like well you know the freaking other division over there they're all jacked up oh why you worried about me now I'm like not my circus not my monkeys and you know what my world's gonna be awesome yeah my world's gonna be awesome so get your world awesome then worry about other circuses and other monkeys yeah that's the easy one to fall into right there and so you kind of think like oh wait what where in my routine my life Am I being distracted by these circuses and monkeys? Like what am I concerned about that? I'm like, maybe that should be a little bit more lower on the priority list. Maybe a lot lower on the priority list.

Yeah. And look, look, am I saying you ignore that there's things that are happening politically that you need to pay? Of course. Yeah, sure. Are there some laws that you want to get out the word on? You want to go down and collect signatures down at the local grocery store so you can put up a, yeah. Awesome. Great. You want to educate people about some pharmaceutical companies that are doing things that you don't think are right? Yeah. Well, I'm down. Environmental things are happening. Cool. Like, let's So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast.

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