Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: There's An Area Of Optimal Stress That Results in Optimal Performance: Yerkes-Dodson Law | Afraid to Share Political Views

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Yerkes-Dodson Law: The Area of optimal stress provides optimal results.I have a weak boss. How to lead on the lower levels.Afraid to share political views in social settings.Instilling confidence in your daughter.Gaining control over an unruly dog.How to be successful when everyone else has "jumped-ship".Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko underground podcast. Number 70 sitting here with Echo Charlie. Echo Charles, E.C., all the above. Oh, man. So on the last underground, we talked about choking. Not the Jiu-Jitsu choking, but the performance choking. And I mentioned something called the individual zones of optional, optimal functioning, which is that level of attentiveness and pressure that actually makes you perform better.

I talked about surfing and how surfing without a leash, I could feel that I'm more focused. I can feel it's a more enjoyable rush, more enjoyable feeling, a more focused because if you mess up, your board's gone, it's probably going to get smashed by the rocks. You have to swim far. At a minimum, you got to swim, which is a gut check. So everything is more focused. So that level of stress is good.

So there's a closely related psychological theory or psychological law related to this. It's called the Yerkes-Dodson law. Maybe it's the Yerxes, but the Yerkes-Dotson law. Named after a couple psychologists, Robert Yerkes and John Dodson. And it says something very similar, basically that you have an area of optimal stress that results in optimal performance, right? So with too little stress, your performance will be subpar due to lack of attention, due to lack of interest, due lack of focus. This is when a parent's like, oh, yeah, my kid's really smart. He's getting an F in school or whatever.

And it's because they're bored. That's what this is, right? Not enough stress. so not enough interest, not enough attention, not enough focus, because there's not enough stress. The other end of the spectrum, we got too much stress. And now we have subpar performance because there's anxiety, there's overstimulation, there's chemicals getting released into the body, there's a bunch of things that are going on that

if you get too much stress, you're going to have a subpar performance. And this original experiment, the way they conducted it, the original experience, the original experiment was with mice and the mice were allowed to enter one of two boxes. There's two boxes. And the mice would enter into one of these boxes. One was black, one was white. If they went into the black box, there was no shock. If they went into a white box, they were getting electrocuted. Like, not electrocuted, but they were getting a, yeah, I guess they were getting a shock. And I'm sorry, everybody. This is a experiment from like 1900 or 1905 or 1906. So I apologize that the Mice were harmed in this situation.

With a really weak shock in the white box, it took them a long time to figure out the deal. With a really strong shock, it took them a long time to figure out the deal. With a medium shock, they figured out the deal quickest. So like not enough stress, and I don't really care when this box didn't really faze me. with too much shock they walk in the back what the hell just happened oh my god what's going on

too much but when they gave them a shock that they did discomfort they didn't like but it didn't freak them out that's where they learned the quickest that's where they for lack of a better word performed optimally now this is where this gets complicated a little bit it gets more complicated And when the task gets more complicated, because this is what they figured out eventually. For humans, if it's a simple task, you can maintain good performance even with high stress. If it's a complex task, that's where things fall apart under stress.

I mean, this is common sense, right? It's common sense. And you know, there's an old school version of self-defense from like World War. or two. And their whole theory was based on gross motor movements. Meaning I'm just going to like big giant sweeping punches and big giant sweeping stabs, big giant gross motor movements. So I'm not going to try and grab like your fingers and manipulate because it's too,

I prefer fighting to death in combat. I've got all this stress. I'm not going to be able to perform these micro movements, these complex detailed movements. I'm going to just get you with a big giant, you know, close line to the neck. So that kind of reminds me if that's actually a good theory that they have there. Now, all that being said, and again, a lot of stuff is common sense, but it's worth thinking about we can improve the performance under stress of a complex task if we practice, if we rehearse if we repeat. So that's why, you know, shooting, shooting a pistol, shooting a rifle,

you practice it. I mean, it's fairly complex. It's fairly complex if you're someone that's never shot before and you got to line the front site with the back site. You got to, you know, hold good position with your hands. You've got to do a good stuff. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of individual movements that are happening. And yet, once you get good a pistol, It's not even a thought. It's something you do. It becomes very, very simple. So that's what we want to.

That's what we want to do. Now, there's a lot, just, just FYI, if anyone wants to freak out and tell me that, you know, this, this psychological theory has been disproven and the experiment and the scientific protocols and the methods of accuracy. There's a lot of, there's some people that criticize it and they morphed this law over time. But this much we know and this much is important. Not all stress is bad. Right? Not all stress is bad. Some stress is good.

No stress at all is bad. It doesn't stimulate. And this is something to think about from a leadership position. If you're not putting any challenges in front of your team, they're not going to get in the game and when you're a leader and you put too much stress on your team they're going to be overwhelmed so you've got to find that optimal level of stress and then we've got a team and you want them to get good at doing something under stress you've got to rehearse it they got to practice it and that includes leadership again the primary goal of the training that I used to run for the seal teams

was to actually overwhelm the leaders, massive stress, so that they could become accustomed to it. So they could come up with little protocols on how to prioritize and execute. So there you go. Don't think of stress as something you need to fight against. Think of it as something you need to work with to find the optimal level of stress with yourself,

with your team, so that everyone can. and perform better. There you go. They say that, I know, it was something about the current state of children being spoiled or something like this. I don't know, something like this.

It was in an application of that. They were saying, when kids are spoiled, it's not, I forget what it's not, but essentially on its base level, it's a low stress tolerance. Or sorry, a low distress tolerance. tolerance. So like if you're used to getting what you want at every turn and then the moment you

don't get what you want, that causes distress and they have low tolerance because they don't have any practice in being distressed throughout life. So they react irrationally. That's what it is. Yeah. Low distress tolerance. So my exercise is so good, man, because that's some like, you kind of learn the idea of discomfort and pain in exercise.

Like if you go hard or even playing sports and all this other stuff. I kind of, you kind of as an adult, you kind of reflect on those things and be like, you realize the value of that. Totally valuable. Distressed. Yep. All right. Q&A. Q&A.

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