Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: The More You Listen, The More You See.

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

The more you listen, the more you see.How to improve showing empathy. Can ego be a good thing?Improve leadership with others. When to avoid the indirect method.Ending a career attached to identity. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko underground podcast number 81 Echo Charles sitting across me so About every month or so something like that I get someone at Ashlandfront I get a client and we'll get this scenario that'll happen and we kind of hinted about it on the last podcast that we did the last underground podcast that we did You know you got the the client Jim who's the boss and he's in charge of, you know, Fred, one of the employees. And what's interesting when you're a national law front, you talk to everybody in the chain of command.

You know, you talk to the C-suite, you talk to the mid-level managers, you talk to the frontline troopers, so you get input from everybody. And you kind of know what's going on. And you get it from a few different angles. So anyways, you have this bad relationship here between Jim and Fred,

bad communication, you know, things were breaking down. This is kind of brewing over time. And so Jim, the boss, he's going to sort it out. And so he has, you know, he has a call with Fred. He tells me, you know, like I'm going to have a call with Fred. And he gets, you know, whatever. Next day he calls me up. Yeah.

Had a great conversation with Fred. And, you know, I kind of know, I kind of know Jim. And I'm like, you know, been talking to him. And so I kind of know what to expect a little bit. So I asked him a simple question. I just said, oh, great conversation. He's like, yeah. And I go, how much did you talk, Jim?

And how much did Fred talk? And it was silence. Because when I asked that question, he knew. He knew, Jim knew that on that conversation with Fred, Jim had talked 90% of the time. I said, how much, you know, I said, how much did you talk? How much did he talk? and he was quiet and he says, I talked too much.

And I said, well, how much did you talk? What percentage? He said, I probably talked 98% of the time, which actually means he talked 98% of the time. So I've got news for you. That is not a, quote, good conversation.

It's definitely not a great conversation. That's barely even a conversation. That's me just downloading. That's Jim just downloading on Fred. It's a one-way conversation. And that is not communication because people forget that the most important part of communication is actually listening. It's not talking. It's listening. You ever heard that old school dating advice, dating advice that says, oh, you know, you go out with a girl, ask them about themselves and let themselves talk?

You ever hear that? And it kind of works. You know, even if you, even if you're just meeting someone from a business situation, you know, if you just ask them about themselves and let them talk, that's, that's the thing. That's very positive. Usually ends up with a very positive. It gives them a positive feeling as opposed to you go in there and you just run your mouth for an hour and a half during dinner. Yeah. Not positive.

It's not good. We're not doing that. No. So what we want to do is when we have problems, when we have drama, when we have problems, when we have problems, drama, issues with a peer, when we have problems, drama or issue with our boss and we want to quote have a conversation about it let me tell you what you do you listen you listen to what they're saying by the way this applies to children as well it applies to your kids when your kids are doing something that they shouldn't be doing or when they're behaving in a way that they shouldn't be behaving you have to actually listen

to why they're doing you have to ask them a question and listen look is that apply to a five-year-old Sometimes, look, sometimes five-year-olds do dumb things that you need to stop them from doing. But you get a kid that's 14 years old, you need to listen to what they're saying. You think you know everything. You think you do. You think you know everything. You think you know what's going through their mind. You don't.

You have to listen. Your wife is mad? Listen. And I'm not saying go on to the warning that I gave on the last podcast. This doesn't mean like, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? No, that's not what I'm talking about.

We're not turning listening into interrogation. That's not what we're doing. Your wife's mad? Listen to what's happening. Listen to what she's saying. Your husband's in a bad mood. Listen. The more that you listen, the more you understand.

The more you listen, oddly enough, the more you see. The more you listen, the more you see. Write that down. The more you listen, the more you see. You cannot be detached when your mouth is moving. You can't think and absorb information when you are putting out information, at least not effectively, at least not efficiently. So that's what we're doing. We're listening.

There you go. Let's get into some Q&A. That old school dating advice of whatever. Yeah, they did a, I think it's like, they did a study. That's funny. I always laugh from people say, they did this. Who did a study? They did.

Them, someone other than me that I read about, did a study. So what had happened was in a nutshell through the study that the guys, guy and girls in this party scenario, right? And the guy, basically all the guy did was, and there's other techniques in this study, like mirroring and, you know, some of that stuff. But all it was was them asking questions about the other person and letting them talk. They didn't say the name of himself, nothing. They just asked questions like about the other person. So this other person never knew the name of the subject, never knew anything about the subject. All they would do is get prompted to answer questions or whatever, about themselves.

And then there's, you know, there's like a ranking at the end of the thing where it's like, who is the most like, who is the most memorable, likable, less like, you know, all this stuff or whatever. And that guy who just did the asking about the other person number one likable thing and then they say okay, why'd you like him whatever? He goes, oh, he just I just felt like he really understood me and he was very easy to talk to like all this stuff or whatever and rank number one across the board didn't even know his name. Big scam. Right? Yes, one big scam. But damn like that's just this just proof, you know, that that study and I actually think that that study was conducted by the University of Bro Science. that is a bro-science university but yeah it makes sense it makes sense you know like you let people talk you listen to what they're saying they're going to be appreciative of that yeah as opposed to you freaking barking at them shut the hell up man you know what's funny when you kind of detach right i learned that when when you're barking at someone or actually not even barking like go back to the with Fred or whatever the one you're saying where he was like oh I had a great

conversation with them or whatever they're literally doing the exact same thing they're just on the other end of it yeah yeah so you'm saying so like they feel like it was a great conversation right you know so Fred or Fred whoever's the one who had the great conversation is the person talking about themselves the whole time it's the same exact thing she's they're just falling for it on themselves kind of thing you know the thing it doesn't show is like the person that talked about themselves is not liked yeah so Jim like Fred thinks it's a great conversation and Jim thinks it's a great conversation

because he talked all time. Fred's more pissed than he was at the beginning of the competition. Yep. Ask him why. Well, he just wouldn't shut the hell out. Wouldn't shut up. Doesn't listen to me.

Doesn't respect me. He doesn't understand. So there you go. That's such a key component. Big deal. It's a big deal for sure. Listen up, people. Listen up.

First question. How do you show empathy? It's obvious what it looks like, but how do you ingrain it into a relationship with, say, your wife? My wife struggles with high anxiety and shuts down when faced with adversity. I was raised under tough love.

And as I've become an adult, I have three elementary kids of my own. I completely prescribe that when needed as well as it just being part of my character. Just this morning, my wife walks into our house. I'm remodeling. No crew just me for the last 14 months. And I can see the weight all over her

through her tone of voice, her body language, her response, everything. So I ask her flat out, what's up? Why does it seem like there's a cloud of stress anxiety over you. She starts explaining what's going on and I say, you got to change your thinking and pull your mind out of this pit. She shuts down, walks out saying, thanks for doing literally nothing to help me. I need some empathy with her and potentially in general, but I don't know how to empathize with someone so negative. She asked me persistently what she

needs to do and it's literally doing the opposite of the harmful negativity she's thinking about. To me, it's easy to her. It's not. Bottom line, empathy. do you do it yeah check I mean first of all like like let's make sure that we're that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the jocco underground podcast so if you want to continue to listen go to jocco underground.com and subscribe and we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control and we're doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors.

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