Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Self Confidence | Overcoming Fear of Confrontation

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Self confidence issues you might be causing. Injury holding you back in life. Balancing obsessions and priorities. Making sure you're ready to begin a career path.Overcoming fears of confrontation. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 130. Sitting here with Echo Charles, we're going to roll into some questions. Echo Charles, what do you got? I have a six-year-old son. His mother and I are divorced and have been for some time now. We have both moved on and have very involved partners who also have children. But I've noticed some issues that have been consistent since he was very young. He lacks a lot of self-confidence, especially when he's around his mother.

He completely shuts down when interacting with new people or people he doesn't interact with regularly. Initially, I thought this was due to speech issues he has, but when he's around my stepchildren, he's very outgoing and confident, like he's a completely different child. To help his confidence, I signed him up for wrestling at his local school. He would act excited around me prior to wrestling, starting, but his mother reported he was having severe anxiety and fear about starting wrestling, and he told her he didn't want to participate. The first wrestling practice he attended. He wouldn't even watch the practice. He continued to cry. facing the wall. That changed some when his mother left. He livened up and began to watch the

practice at least. He was asking me questions and seemed genuinely interested, but he wouldn't take that next step and actually participate. His mother took him to the next practice and he did watch with her, but she told me that she would not be taking him anymore due to her believing she is the obstruction. Unfortunately, I'm a police officer who works second shift, so I rely on her to take him to practice once or two days a week. I organize his stepmom and his grandmother to take him on the days that I work. And when I informed his mother of this, she refused saying that she would take him

because she didn't want him to feel abandoned. I recognize I've got some codependency issues that I'm working on, just like his mother. But I feel like embracing and encouraging this codependency is only going to hold my son back. Any feedback? It would be great. As I once told Echo Charles, bro, your son is six.

He's going to be fine. He's fine. He's going to be fine. Like this is literally, none of this is any factor whatsoever. I know that sounds really hard to say because it's your kid. Yeah. But he's going to be totally fine. I told you that when you came to your son, his first jiu-jitsu day.

Yeah. Just turn five, by the way. He just turned five and he didn't freaking immediately turn into Andre Galvowalvall. He went on the mat. Yeah. He didn't like it. He didn't want to train. And you came home bummed out.

And I was like, bro, he's five. It's going to be fine. That's the same thing I'll say here. Dude, he's six. This is like no, literally no factor. You know what can turn it into a big factor? You making it into a big factor? Don't make it into a big factor.

I know it's hard because you think if he doesn't get this training, his confidence is going to be bad forever. No, it'll mess up his confidence is. It's like, you have to do this thing and we're going to ram it down your throat. And we're going to be in there awkward. and now you see the other kids saw you cry and now they're looking at you like you're wimpy and now you feel wimpy.

Like all these things are going to add up. Just chill. Just chill. I would say actually if you can find some jih Tzu might be a little less intimidating than wrestling practice. Work with him outside of the actual practice.

Dude, at six years old he doesn't need to go to any jiu jih T classes and he can get advanced. He can be on par with any other six year old by you wrestling around with him and doing jiu jiu juts and all that stuff. and you'll be bonding with him and having fun and then guess what happens when he goes to class for the first time? I know what I'm doing.

And all of a sudden, that's a little bit fun. Maybe get one of his buddies to come over the house, teach him some jih Tzu too. Some of my son's friends didn't like Jiu-Jitsu or wrestling or whatever when they were young. Didn't like when they were five years old? Didn't like when they were six years old? Didn't like when they were seven years old?

Ethan. You know Ethan? He didn't like it. Six years old, five years old, seven years. years old eight years old nine years old finally I think he was nine years old he was like into it now was he like like his whole jiu jitsu opportunities were gone no dude he's sick got freaking could be as good as he wanted to be now my son and all his buddies dude they do jitsu my daughter's do jitsu they all do jitzu they all do jitsu

that's what's happening the fact that the kid doesn't want to do it or is intimidated by it or cries about it's all there's all these little things that are going on none of them matter of a better. Hey, and by the way, he can only go two days a week with you. That's enough. That's more than enough. You can go two days a week, no factor. All good. You wrestle with him on the other days. Restle with a little extra. Have some fun with him on the weekends. Get some mats in the house. Dude in the carpet. Dude in the bed. That's what we're doing, man. Make it fun. No pressure. He's going to be fine. He's six. He's six years old. I have a friend that wrestled in college

didn't start wrestling until a sophomore year of high school and he was a champion wrestler the white buffalo jake he didn't start playing guitar until he was 19 that's when he started playing guitar and he's a rock and roll legend y'all josh hall didn't start surfing until he's 15 you see what i'm saying yeah like this doesn't matter this doesn't matter but tiger woods started your son's not tiger Woods. Don't force him into it. He's going to have fun. The best thing you can do is make his life fun.

We talk about that, you and I talk about that preparation thing. And you kind of debunked it a little bit because Cairo, you had trained him. Like he kind of knew what to expect and he still didn't like it the first time he went. But it definitely is going to be more comfortable. He also, you made it comfortable in a way where all of a sudden this new thing that he was going to is a little bit shocking. Right. Yeah. It's not just my dad doing this now.

Those are this random people. Yeah. They're looking at me. Yeah. And they weren't really doing jiu-jitsu. They're doing drill. They were doing stuff that he didn't connect the dots. It was like, what's going?

It was just, yeah. So you should have done some of that stuff with them. Yeah. Should have, yeah. I should have just brought them with me when I go train. That's what I should have done. Probably I don't care what you do. Watch me.

Go jumping class. Don't care. Have fun. Play with the freaking. Play with the phone balls around. Yeah. Go do whatever. Have fun.

Be happy to be here. You know. Be happy to be here. Yeah The The thing That we said on the last Underground podcast

I got asked about Like kids It's the leadership principles That we talk about all the time Cover and move simple Protitized and actually Decentralized Command And then the relationship part

Trustless and respect Influence and Care That's what you should be focused on With your kid Trustless and respect Influence and care Six years old Yep

Give them some trust I don't want to go to Jitu Okay well what do you feel like doing Let them influence you Yeah. That's how you build a relationship. That's how you build a relationship. Trust, listen, respect, influence, and care.

And when you do that, you give them, when you allow them to influence you, you'll get influence with them. When you put trust in them, they'll trust you. That's what we're doing. It's going to be awesome. Your kid's going to be awesome. That's what's going to happen. He mentioned the confidence thing, right? Like, he's like, shy and confident, whatever.

Here's two kind of, I'm not saying they're easy. fixes, but they're really simple things you can do if you can remember to do it, because a lot of this takes self-control, but that I would wager you'd see immediate results, like, pretty, pretty quick with kids in confidence. So I know one thing that can cause kids to not be confident is if they get in trouble for every little thing they do, like real trouble, you know, not like they're just used to mom and dead yelling so who cares and they don't care. But I mean, like, are they getting scolded for doing every little thing wrong? That'll make someone very not confident.

And then on the flip side, are they getting praised for doing things right or empowering? Like, or are you empowering them to do things right? Right. That's essentially it. So if you can flip, because it's super, it's very natural to be like, oh, they did it wrong. So that that mistake or that error stands out more so than stuff they're quote unquote supposed to be doing anyway, right? Because that doesn't stand out.

So it's easy to run it like that Where you you react and respond to errors and stuff Right so it's easy that's easy So you gotta kind of put some mental effort into it So instead of scolding somebody And I'm not saying that's what he's doing But I am saying a lot of times if a kid is not confident It's because he gets scolded for every little freaking thing he's doing

Including like don't cry Don't stare at the wall Hey get over here don't act like that Like those are all the things you're talking about yeah you're right Everything. So, kid's six. Brow, he came like that. Bray, Lee Mueller, I don't know what to do.

You got to tell me what to do. And I'm going to go wherever the payoff is. And I'm going to be scared of everything else, especially if I'm getting some kind of pain from it. You know, so if I do this, I make a mistake, pain, I ain't even going to try that no more. So by the way, there's three other things that I could have tried, but I'm not going to try them either because I don't even know.

I don't want to get schooled. I don't know that kind of stuff, you know? But if they get a feedback like, oh, dang, that was good job. They'd be like, oh, shit, let me. I can't wait to do that again or something like that again. You know, so as a parent, if you flip that around and be like, hey, I'm not going to make these big deals out of errors. Like, I'll correct errors. I'll be like, oh, hey, that was a good try.

That was a good try. Do it this way. Try it again. You know, instead of don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Right. And then when you see behavior that you like, you praise it.

Don't correct it. Don't say how they could have done it better. Nothing like that. Just praise it. Like, hey, that was good. That was very powerful. That was good. You should keep that up.

You know, if you do that consistently, you'd be. surprised how quick that can change a kid's behavior. Again, I don't know the whole story, and I'm not a therapist, so there could be a lot more to it. But I think that those, just that, just that just start implementing that consistent, got to be consistent. Because if it's inconsistent, it won't work.

I feel like, I believe. Yeah, the thing you're going to watch out for is like, they can read you. You know how a dog can tell when you're like mad or whatever? Yes. Or a dog can tell when you're like going to get, take it for a walk. Yeah. Your kid, when you're disappointed in your kid, they can see it.

So when the kid is like bummed out, they know that the way that they behaved made you disappointed. Now they, same thing. It's basically the same as a scolding. It's just a nonverbal. So yeah, those are, those are really good points, man.

I like those points a lot. Yeah. So. And by the way, those are also just leadership things. Fully. It's the exact same thing. If you're my employee and you make a little mistake

and I jump down your throat, your confidence goes down. 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

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