Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground Spotlight Episode: Putting Up With Disrespect | Finding A Purpose In Life

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

>Join Jocko UNDERGROUND <Putting up with disrespectful people and checking your ego.Effectively communicating with different personalities.How to find your purpose in life.Creating more time in the day for things you want to do.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Some people think that checking your ego means putting up with disrespectful behavior. Sometimes we have trouble communicating effectively with different personalities. And furthermore, some of us are struggling to find purpose in life. On top of that, sometimes we want more time in the day to do the things that we actually want to do. on this recap episode of the underground, we will cover the advice on how to handle all of those various elements. So go get so. Next question.

Next question. A theme that is often discussed on the podcast is checking your ego. Forgive me if I have missed the answer to this question previously. The question is, although I understand the strategic benefits of checking my ego, I also believe that there's a certain continuum that exists of when owning my actions and maybe being egotistical might prove beneficial. This is a two-part question.

As there are certain scenarios that have arose in my professional career where I felt it was to my detriment that I checked my ego. The first, do you have an example of the threshold of bullshit you'll take checking your ego? The second, when does ego strategically benefit you, if at all? Well, yeah, this clearly a continuum exists for sure. That's why we wrote the dichotomy of leadership. There's all kinds of continuums inside leadership. And one of them is, one of them is the ego. So let's go to the second question first.

And I kind of misread these questions when I originally read them. I thought he was talking about the ownership aspect. But the second question, when does the ego strictly? strategically benefit you, if at all. Well, that happens all the time. That happens all the time. If you are going to, if you're going to be in a wrestling match and you're, you let your ego get a little bit strong, we're like, hey, you're going into a tough

match and you're like, I got this. I can do this, right? Like, it's, if you're going there, man, this guy's going to beat me down, this guy looks so strong. If that's how you're going into the match, that is going to hurt you. your performance. You can't go into that match thinking, I don't have what it takes to beat this guy.

No, you gotta be like, hey, look at that. I see he's looking a little soft over there. I've been training hard. I'm ready to rock and roll. I'm gonna bring it. That can happen when you're pitching a plan to your boss. If you're thinking, oh, I'm never gonna get this right. My boss is never gonna buy into my plan.

Guess what? That's gonna come across. If you have a situation where the team is nervous about something, team's all nervous. The team's scared to do something. And you guys, I'm not sure how this is going to go, guys, but we don't really have a choice, right? That's not going to help the team. But if you go in there, you assess the situation, go, okay, cool, we got this.

The plan is tough, but we can make it happen. So those are plenty of times where your ego benefits you, not to mention your ego benefits you, that you want to win. Right? We talk about checking the ego because the ego gets you in trouble. But as long as you have it under control, it makes you work hard. It makes you want to win. It makes you want to come in first place. It gives you pride in what you're doing.

All those things are totally positive. If you didn't have an ego, then you wouldn't care. Hey, are you going to, hey, are you going to work out today? No, why not? I don't care. I don't care what kind of physical condition in it. I don't care what I look like. I don't care what my health is.

I have no ego. Okay. Is that beneficial? Hey, did you do your, did you do your sales calls today? Well, no. Why? Well, because I don't care if I sell anything. Oh, did you study for your test that you have tomorrow in school?

No. Why? Because I don't care what my grade is. So isn't it good to have an ego that says, hey, I'm going to study hard. I'm going to work hard to get a good grade on this test because I want to be number one in the class. So that's all. There's countless, countless situations. Where is the ego get out of control is where is the problem?

I'll tell you where. go back to the wrestling example. Hey, I'm so good at wrestling, I don't even need to train in the off season because I'm so awesome. What's going to happen when the season hits? You're going to get crushed by some kid that was training freaking hard. Hey, we don't need to rehearse for this pitch to the boss because our plan's so awesome, he's just going to buy into it. Is that going to help you? No, you're arrogant, you're overconfident.

You know, need I go on? That's what it is. So what was the first question? Do you have an example of the threshold of bullshit? You will take checking your ego. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. But I don't know that I, I don't know that I could draw a line in the sand of, hey, here's where if you do this, I'm going to stop you.

You know, if someone's going to start, it feels like it depends a lot on like what's, what's bullshit. because like even that it's like even to say what where's the threshold I can only take so much of your bullshit right like are you looking at me like that yeah you know where where what what's the bullshit you know like it why because they're correcting you a lot yeah well usually if you're getting corrected a lot that means you might be making a lot of mistakes again speaking from my experience in my family with my wife so it and all and I'll think that a lot of the time too like every once in a while I'll all think like hey like is this person And I'm not necessarily saying my wife here, but anyone where it's like, hmm, I, I would never talk to you like that.

I would never use that tone with you, like ever. Like, not you, Jocco, but I'm just saying the other person. Meanwhile, you're using this tone with me every single day almost, you know, kind of a thing. If that's your boss or something like that. So that to me could be like, man, how much of this tone am I going to take? But if you, if I don't think of like, which what you would always say or do always say, where you have to, when you consider like the overall goal, Like, what do you want out of this right here, out of this relationship with this boss or your, you know, whoever? Do you want, is your primary goal, if your overall goal is it to not get talked to like that?

Or to express yourself now that you're angry that you got talked to? Because usually that's a lot of time when they, quote unquote, ego comes in. I'm saying in my experience, when I want to be like, when I feel this, how much of this bullshit am I going to take? You know, at some point I'm going to let her know or let this person know, you know, like, hey, you can't talk to me like that. I'm kind of tired of you're you talking to me like this or whatever. But to me that when you really think about it, that's not, that's not bullshit. It's like if you think of it in terms of, hey, you're talking to me like this for a reason. And then you start with, okay, what it?

And then I'm just saying this is what I did, how I thought. I'd be like, hey, what am I doing? What am I doing to make this person talk to me this way? And then when I did that, I started to find all these little things. Hey, if I just change this, this and this, I probably would. won't get talked to like that ever. So I don't have to reach any threshold because it's not really bullshit, you know?

Yeah, so here's a couple things that I was thinking as you were talking. Number one is whatever this other individual is doing, is it negatively impacting the mission? Right? So if you're my boss, Echo, and you come in and you're like, hey, Jocko, this is another unsat plan from you, this ridiculous, you don't know what you're doing.

And you say that in front of everybody, and it undermines my credibility, that's not good, right? Now, like you said it, there's probably some mistakes I'm making. So I need to go to you and say, hey, boss, here's what's going on, man. Can you pull me aside when you want to really jump down my throat like that? Because I still got to go back and work with the troops. And if they're looking at me thinking I'm an idiot, that's going to be rough for me. And look, I acted like an idiot.

I got it. The plan I presented wasn't good. But I just want to get the right information to you. and I want to learn from you so that I can move forward. So could that be considered bullshit that you came down and yelled at me? Yes, it could. Is that appropriate? No, it's not, especially if it's going to negatively impact the mission.

So there's a situation where I might be like, okay, but to your point, I wouldn't say, don't talk to me like that. I'd say, hey, listen, I know that I presented you with a bad plan. Next time, can you help me? Because when you're just ripping apart my plan in front of everybody, I'm already having a hard time getting through to the guys and now their respect level for me is going down and that's going to hurt our capability to accomplish this mission.

Can I get with you beforehand to get that straight feedback straight from you so that it doesn't really make me look like an idiot in front of the guys? Because I'm trying to build some trust with them and this isn't helping. So that's one. That's so interesting there.

So it's not even, and it's almost like, so the question kind of breaks down in this, away where it's like how much how much bullshit are you willing to take essentially it's not about any threshold of stuff that you're willing to take and after this threshold you just can't take it anymore it's not like that's not an applicable question almost because if you look at it like hey there there's no threshold there's no nothing if there's a problem with the interest of building relationships that's the 100% we'll just say the goal that's the whole over yeah strategic goal that is the goal that is the goal

If you go into it like that, oh yeah, and just start solving problems. So there's no threshold. Hey, if someone's like giving you quote unquote bullshit, okay, that's a problem. You solve it with the intention of improving the relationship. That's essentially what you do. And you just treat everything like that. Essentially, then there will be no threshold. That's what, I mean, that's what it seems like.

Yep. Now that's number one. Number two is being on the high ground. Right. So when you roll into a briefing and you're my boss and you, And you know you talked down to me and I sit there and go Roger that boss got it and everybody in the room knows that what you just did was inappropriate And it was bad leadership and I and they saw me maintain my cool and maintain my my my confidence and my respect level and I go Roger that boss Next time I'll straighten that out who looks better? You know what I'm saying? I'm on the high ground all day long and

And that's going to lead to number three, which go ahead. I cut you off a little bit more. No, no, no. Actually, I was cutting you off because of so. Because that happened in my experience. That exact same thing. It had nothing to do with me. I witnessed it.

So I was at a shoot, video shoot. Kind of one of these kind of medium, bigger ones where there's big equipment and cranes and stuff like this. And we'll call him the director. I'm not going to name his name because he's kind of like people know who he is. But he's like, so there's a protocol, right? And it differs a little bit from like when you do a shoot, right? So you slate, which is clapping it out or, you know, whatever.

You slate. And then you say rolling. The camera guys say speed. You know, something like I said, a difference. It depends on the shoot. But the cameras guys were saying speed, meaning like I'm rolling essentially and all this stuff. And then once they say speed, at the end of the day, that's just saying, hey, we're rolling too. We're good to go here.

Everyone's like checking off, you know, checking. So then they say, and then he says action, right? Boom. So one of, and we're doing a lot of takes. So one take, he said, rolling, and then they slated, they say rolling, and then one of the camera guys didn't say speed. I think it was just so mundane that he just didn't. You could tell he's like there doing it or whatever.

I even think there was a monitor where you could see, you know, that he was recording. So the director goes. and then they say action, right? And then they start... Camera two. Are you rolling? Yep. And it gets worse, though.

Here's the thing. So it's in front of everybody, you know, these pictures. And he's like, wait, wait, camera two, are you speeding? You didn't say speed. Like, what's up? And then he was like, he's like, speed, you know? He didn't say, oh, sorry, no. He was like, okay, speed.

Kind of like, I got it. Cool. He goes, speed. And then they say action. And he goes, he yells out. He's like, that's not my job to the guy. Kind of like, it's not my job. just for to say your speed kind of a thing right and I was like how's a that was a bad move right

there and you could tell everyone was like kind of awkward or whatever and you could tell everyone was like who that guy man where that guy thinks he just came off like a badass oh yeah he got everyone in the room just looked at him and went you're a freaking loser how the cameraman responded he just said he just said copy that's all he said just copy he wasn't like oh he didn't say nothing or no he just said copy kind of like that was just how you know like hey you Almost like he didn't try to call him out in front of everyone. Yeah. He actually took the higher ground.

Took the high ground. Yep. Exactly. So high ground, when someone comes and tries to be all demeaning to you and tries to, and tries to, what does he say here? I guess that was the last question. Talk about dismissive and demeaning. When you go, hey, Roger, that boss got it.

And you let them roll. And here's the last thing. And this is a little bit of a little bit of a one that may or may not bother somebody. Generally speaking, when we start feeling that someone's got the big ego and they're offending us, guess what's getting offended? Your ego. Your ego is the thing that's getting offended. And that means that that is a good time to check your ego.

And it's the hardest time to check your ego. So, so I have a really high threshold because I realized that almost every response to, from an egotistical person that you give, it reveals your freaking ego. It reveals your lack of confidence and your insecurity as a person to be like, I got to defend myself right now. Where I can look at someone that someone comes in and says, you know, hey, Jocko, you got, what is it? You got, you know, you got a gap between your front two teeth, you know? And I go, yeah, pretty good one, isn't it? You know what I mean? Like, cool.

Like, whatever. I'm not going to get offended by that. Or whatever they're going to throw at you that hurt your ego. You feel your ego starting to want to talk back. When you, when you respond, everybody knows, oh, that bothered him. That bothered Jocko. That's a sensitive area. Like that if you're if things are bothering you it's revealed to everybody

Mm-hmm, that's why when you sit back and you go yeah cool good yeah you called it man like That's it we're moving forward do I have an example of a threshold of bullshit that will take checking your ego I again I think it's 99% of the time there's very I can't think of examples Where I'm like hold on a minute I got to put a stop to this person. Yeah. Right. I can't think of good examples like that.

Because you sit there and you listen to you go, this person's making it out of themselves right now. Right. Hey, are you done? Like, even that right there is like a little bit of a, it's just like, okay, got it. Hey, appreciate the feedback. Yep.

Hey, got it, boss. Yep. Check. And then, yeah, is there time when your ego helps you? Yeah, all the time. But just don't let it get out of control. Yeah, it's funny. I can't imagine you saying to someone,

your boss or your wife or, I don't know, anyone's saying, like losing your, it's not losing your temper, it's just like, I've had it up to here with the way you talk to me. You know, like, I can't even imagine that. It's like, man, fuck. Yeah. I got to keep that in mind. When you nod, when you look at them, you know, nod your head. Yep. Yep. Got it. Yep. And here's the other thing, man. Like, you got to think about what that other person's going through, right? First of all, they have an ego. First of all, that director who's trying to get this shot done. He's frustrated. He wants a place. Things aren't going right. He's over. time he's over schedule he's over budget all those things and he doesn't have a good

control over his over his personality and over his own ego and it's over his own temperament and that's obvious so when they freak out hey yep got it boss thanks copy you know what I mean like don't they're looking for a reason to blow up yeah don't give it to him yeah don't give it to him check next question I run into problems when communicating with the group of so that is a little little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jocco underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this

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