Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: The VIOLATIONS of a Lack of Self-Awareness |

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Dominating life despite life-changing injuries. Defensive tactics for smaller people in law enforcement. Getting a middle child back on track for success in life. Prioritizing and executing self-improvement. Dealing with being fired and everyone turning their back on you. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocco Underground Podcast, number 80 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Link. Echo Charles sitting across from me. What's up, E.C.? What's up? I want to address something, man. And sure, this is something we talk about, and we're going to talk about it again. One of the biggest problems that you can have as a human being is a lack of self-awareness. that is one of the biggest problems

that you can have as a human being. And what's crazy about it is if, let's say there's someone, Fred, Fred has no self-awareness, if Fred sees something, if Fred sees someone else doing what he's doing, he immediately sees it's a violation. 100% he's like, oh, wow, could they be doing that?

He's thinking violation. But when Fred does it himself, he doesn't see it. He either doesn't see it himself, which means he's totally lacking self-awareness, or he doesn't think other people can see what he's doing. So you really, truly have to learn to detach. And we talk about how to get that done. We talk about taking a step back. We talk about writing things down.

We talk about ways to separate your actions from your assessment of those actions. You talk we talk about ways to separate what you're doing and pulling yourself out so you can actually see what you're doing and not be the one doing it So you can like Fred when the time calls where you can say oh I'm violating basic principles right now I'm being dumb yeah if you think right now if you're if you're listening and you think like oh I don't ever lose self-awareness This is for you this is that's a that's a little mind trick that's happening Right? Where you think you always can see everything. That's when you actually can't.

If you think that no one can ever see the moves that you're making, this is for you. This is for you. If you think, if you're, if right now, you're like, dude, Jockel's a little bit wrong, man. He's a little bit wrong here. No one can see these moves that I'm making. No one can tell that I'm taking care of myself right now.

If you're thinking that right now, you're who I'm talking to. Everyone can see it. They can see it. They do see it. Sometimes people can be so unaware that they don't even consider what other people are thinking. They just carry on. Like you see Fred, he's just doing what he's doing.

He can't even comprehend that someone else could see it. It's not even part of the equation at all. It's not like, hey, they probably don't see it or, hey, this is what I'm doing. But they can't know. They don't even recognize that that could be a thing. I've known people that are that lacking in self-awareness. So you have to be on the watch for that. We have to be careful.

Think about what other people are thinking, right? This is the dichotomy of like, I don't care what anybody else thinks, which is in some ways a really good attitude to have, and in some ways it's a really horrible attitude to have. Right? Some ways it's great to say, hey, you know what? I don't care what they think. Also, if you think that and you act like that,

you're probably being seen by a bunch of people as someone that's looking out for themselves, as someone that's an ecomaniac, as someone that they don't want to hang around with. Like, that's what's happening. So how are we going to detach? You know, I always talk about writing as a tool for detachment because when you write things down,

you are physically detached. You can see the words on the page now. Here's what I want you to write down. I want you to write down your intent when you're doing something when you're going into a meeting. What's your intent? Your true intent. What is it? Write that thing down. Write that thing down and now once you've written it down imagine that you're walking into this meeting and you have that intent printed on your forehead. Yep. It's a good one.

You might as well. Yeah. You might as well because if you go in there thinking that they're not going to know your intent, they're going to Now listen, they might not know your exact intent, but as we say intent has a smell and they're damn going to, sure, going to smell it. And they know it smells bad. You put some perfume over it, right? Put some, what's the cologne if you're a dude, right? Put the cologne or the or the deodorant. Put that on. You can mop that on there.

Yeah. And people smell that and they even still say, no. When they put the little pine tree, right, in the taxi cab, you get in there, man. still smells terrible. Like it smells pine needles and whatever else. Funk. Not good. Funk.

So you can try and cover it up, but you can't. So right now what your intent is. So you can detach from it so you can see it. And once you see it, know this. That intent that you have, it flows into how you care yourself. It flows into the way the words come out of your mouth. It's part of you. It's truly.

of you and you can't cover it up and I've seen people that think they can do this and it's the lack of self-awareness is is horrible you know it's like you see someone that has you ever heard a report from someone that's oh I have a great relationship with that person and the other person literally hates them yeah that's how unaware they are I have a great relationship with Fred Fred hates me despise me and I think I have a great relationship that's that's how bad it gets so you got to be more suspect of yourself you got to be more suspect of yourself you don't sound as cool as you think you do you do you don't sound as slick as you think

you do by the way you really don't right I talk about Merrill Streep and Robert De Niro you're not Merrill Street you're not Robert De Niro you're not Robert DeNore you're not acting you're not fooling anybody you aren't that good at acting doesn't work so if you sit down and you write down your intent and your intent is bad and if you if you would feel a shame to walk into the meeting with your intent written on your t-shirt hey my goal in this meeting is to get is to look good in front of the boss so I can get promoted if that's how you If that's what your intent is, and listen, everybody knows it. If that's what your intent is, you need to do some soul searching and change your intent.

Your intent is bad. Your intent is bad. You should change your intent to, okay, I am going to help with the mission. I'm going to put the team first. That's my intent. Now, yes, where people get messed up, they get jammed up. Jammed up. Is I think, well, but I really want to get promoted.

Okay, so you walk into that meeting with that intent and guess what everyone can see it no one wants to work with you Your boss thinks you're an ass kisser. It's all bad If you're if you change your intent you go you know what okay? Okay, I don't care about getting promoted What I want to do is help the team put the team first and accomplish the mission Imagine you walk in with that on your shirt and the other teammates go I put the team first They see that they smell it they go right on The boss smells oh Jocco really cares about the team. Oh, okay he really he really he really he really really wants to get the mission done okay they smell that now they get a positive impression

now we're like oh we want to help the rest of the teams are like yeah we want to help you too you know what you end up doing you end up getting promoted that's a byproduct yeah that's the byproduct of what's going on so if you're into write down your intent do some soul searching don't lie to yourself don't lie on that piece of paper by the way this is kind of piece of paper you better hide Right because you don't want your freaking you know someone rummaging through your office and they see my intent for this meeting is to get promoted Right? Right so Write down your intent and if your intent is not a pure

Positive selfless intent become a better person Become a better person and that will absolutely help you It'll help your team it'll help you accomplish the mission and it'll help you win. So there you go. Something to think about. Yeah, we talk about like obvious little things like name dropping. You know, like someone trying to one up somebody, whatever.

It's like this is all like, he said conversations with my brother about this kind of stuff where. So he would start debates with people. Oh, yeah. Jay Charles. Yeah. And after a while. And let's face, sometimes it's fun, you know, it depends on who you're hanging around with. But sometimes straight up, like some people don't want that.

Some people, hey, most people are cool with it for half an hour. Yeah, more like 10 minutes. But yeah, you make a good point. But and yeah, put it this way. The point is different people like it to varying degrees, right? Some people, but they don't like that stuff, right? And after a while, it's kind of like, hey, you might rub people the wrong way. It's always trying to start debating and way, but you're, you know.

So anyway, we'd have these conversations when I talked to them about that kind of stuff. And the way I put it, which actually you put it better, but the way I put it is what you're saying is correct. Like the words that you're saying, like all your little points that you're making, that's all correct. So what you're saying is right, but what you're doing is wrong. And he's like, oh, yeah. And then I'm like, so why the heck? Because I'm sure I've done it before too. I'm sure like, you know, it's not like this rare thing.

So I'm thinking, why is that kind of hard sometimes? And the intent having a smell is the perfect way to put it, put it, because it doesn't have a look. It doesn't have a sound, you know, maybe some tones here and there, but you can more smell it than anything. And even the words can be the opposite of the smell. But the smell matters. Exactly. Right. And that was part of my point when I said, what you're saying is literally correct, what you're saying.

But what you're doing is wrong. So this is why it's hard. This is why I think, anyway, because you sometimes don't even consciously, you're not thinking of your intent. Sometimes you are, but sometimes you're not. The thing is it doesn't matter, but because you think it's in your head. They can't see it. They can't hear it. All they can hear is your words, right?

So you think there's the message. There's a message they're picking up on, right? Meanwhile, it stinks badly too. And, you know, and so, yeah, and that's, again, that's like the good way to put it where it's like it has a smell. and no matter what you do, no matter how you cover it up, I like the cologne analogy too because when you put the cologne on that stink,

it's just yet another stink smell. And it's actually worse. Because now they picked up on your original intent and the fact that you're trying to cover it up with some other, like in disingenuous stuff. So it's like, man, we got to keep that under wraps, man. And I guess that's like an exercise, right? Like you got to kind of...

Well, that's the exercise. Write it down. Yeah. That's the exercise. And what's interesting is, Like you said, a lot of times people don't even recognize that they have an intent, but you do. It's running in, it's, there's a decent chance

that it's running in the background. Like the operating system is running in the background for this meeting, for this life, for this job, this family. Like imagine you're going to talk to your wife and you have your intent written on your head. Right? Yeah, sure. You see what I'm saying? Yep, yep, yeah, y'all.

And she's gonna smell that. Yeah. And if it's not a good intent, she's gonna know. Yeah. Your kids, same thing. They're gonna know and they're also gonna know if you're doing something good They're also gonna know if you're if you're doing something for the right reason. Yeah, you know you work let's say somebody you're working with somebody maybe they They they they have a relationship you know a work relationship with someone else that you don't get along with

If you're like well I'm gonna sneak around and you know try and make a maneuver Everyone's gonna smell that yeah, but if you're just like hey man good to meet you yeah You know, good to meet you, Fred. Hey, well, let's, what can I do to support? If that's your intent, truly, but if you're like, hey, Fred, what can I do to support you? And they're going to know, oh, you're just trying to, you know, make a maneuver here. No. Don't let that happen.

Clean your intent. Be a good human. This will help you. This will help you in the long run. These little conniving moves that you're making are not going to help you in the long run. Hey, they might get you that one promotion. Everyone hates you. Right?

They might get you that one promotion, but they don't get you the next one. Yeah. You have to leave that. It's just a disaster. Like Jordan Peterson talks about psychopaths. They have to leave. Like they have to live in Detroit. Then they do.

And these aren't like, I'm not talking about psychopaths that are murderers. I'm just talking about like the, the non-mergering psychopaths. People that are just, you know, they're screwing people over and they're, and they have to leave. they can only do nine months in Detroit then they got to go to Chicago for six months then they go to Cincinnati they got they got to go from places because there's a burning bridges everywhere

so don't do that there you go that's going to take some practice though because there are some innocent situations like let's say you want to debate with me no no no no I'm saying I believe that you were 100% correct

I'm saying if you keep it in mind you'll probably understand that hey you might have to really keep yeah you have to put some effort into this stuff sometimes because let's say it makes some coffee for my wife or whatever oh no how about this let's say clean the living room or something you know I clean it up nice because I know she likes it clean but let's say she walked by living room she didn't even see you know I want her to see the clean living room be happy you know but I still want that credit too you know so she walks by it walk right out the door and I'm very compelled to

to flag her down and be like, hey, did you notice the living room I cleaned up? You know, I want that, you know, I want that praise or credit or whatever. You can get aggressive with that. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. I've seen situations where people are aggressive about wanting that credit. Yeah. Oh, yeah. By the way, as soon as you're aggressive about wanting the credit, the credit is worthless. It's totally worthless. Like when you're like, hey, babe, did you see I clean the living room? She's like, she's mad. Like you just went negative. Right. And then again, on the innocent side, it's like, I wouldn't approach it or put it this. Because as soon as you say, hey, babe, didn't you see, that's when you wrote your intent on your t-shirt.

I wanted credit. Exactly right. But I wouldn't approach you're all like, hey, like mad. I would be like like in a good way. But still the intent is kind of. Yeah, fully. But the point is you really want that. Like you want it so it'll come so natural to be like, wait a second.

Look at the living room, you know? Or like, you know, like, you know, at work, you'd give these examples all the time at work where, you know, this project is turned in. And you did like literally half the work, right? And you know, you advise, which again, takes practice, but I agree is ideal to be like, no, no, no, you give the credit to your team, right? Even though you did have to work or three quarters of whatever. But when you're new to-

You can hear your intent when you say that. Even though you did have to work, see? Sometimes all of it. But the compulsion to like want the credit, right? Especially to like a boss that you really want him to like, like respect you and respect your work or whatever. It's strong and it's not even necessarily evil or malicious. You just like, I want to be represented accurately in the results of this project kind of a thing, you know?

So it's like so natural to be compelled to be like, hey, but then just like I said, once you jump out there and start saying, hey, I want basically this is what you're doing. What you're saying is correct. Yeah, sure, echo, you did have to work. Correct. But what you're doing, jumping in the limelight and saying, wait, what about my praise? Because I want my praise too for me. That's what you're doing. It's not correct.

Yeah. It's not good. Whenever you try. And that, when you have that feeling, I mean, we're going to, this is a whole new rabbit hole to go down. Because now we're getting resentful. Sure. Right?

And once you get resentful, then you go Kane and Abel. And next thing you know, you're killing your brother. Because you didn't get the credit that you wanted. Right? So what happens? Yeah. Because your intent is bad. Because when Kane made his sacrifice to God,

he did it because he wanted to look good. He didn't do it just as a pure sacrifice like Abel. Like Abel did. Abel's like, hey, thank you, God. Here's my sacrifice. Kane was like, here's my sacrifice. Isn't it like? Can I get a little head nod over here?

Big G man. But no. It was not enough. If he wrote his intent, it would say, I'm making sacrifice to God so that I can be, so I can go into his light. Abel said, I'm making a sacrifice to God because I want to support him.

Not about me. Let me ask you this. It's kind of has something to do with it. Maybe think of it. So, you know, bragging, right? Yeah. Bragging. And then there's like humble bragging, right?

Which is like kind of that, right? Where it's like, like, they're making it. Anyway, so are there except, like, can you, can you brag about something? Is it ever, like, kind of cool or fine for someone to brag about something? You think from an ideal standpoint? I think the answer is no. I mean, I'm sure, look, we could parse the world apart and find a place where it makes sense.

But I can't really think of one, man. I can't think of one where that ads gives you credit. Right. I can't give you a situation where, you know what, it's a good. 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. doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the jocco podcast which will remain as is free for all

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