Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: You Can't Fake Bravery.

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

You can't fake bravery.Tips for improving attacks in Jiu Jitsu.Career: Passion vs Money. A Choice.Zero Gravity effects.Dealing with drunk people as a security guard.I think I want give up my career to join up.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko underground podcast number 55 with Echo Charles EC and me sitting here. So I was on Sam Harris's podcast like a long time ago now. And we're supposed to do another one at some point, but we just haven't yet. Anyways, on that podcast, we had a discussion about bravery and one of the things that he said, which was a quote from somebody else. I'm pretty sure. You can't fake bravery. You can't fake bravery. So if there's a gunfight and there's a guy wounded in the street and there's gunfire

and there's gunfire everywhere and you run out to save that wounded guy and drag him to safety, you're brave. You can't fake that. Now, and it doesn't actually, it doesn't matter what you were thinking at that moment in time. It doesn't matter if you were petrified and horrified. It doesn't matter if you were just pushed out there by pure adrenaline. It doesn't matter if you had given up on living. You're like, I don't care.

I'm going to die anyways. I'm going to go. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You knew there was danger and you acted. And you can't fake that. Again, it doesn't matter what your thoughts were. You could have been like, I want to get a medal.

So I'm going to round. You still did a brave thing. Might have been for the wrong reason, but you were still brave. That's true. You could have been petrified and like, you could have thought, oh, everyone's going to think I'm a wimp if I don't do this. I don't want to do it, but I'm going to do it anyways. You're still brave.

So you can't fake bravery. And the same idea applies to a lot of other qualities. It doesn't matter what you think or how you're thinking. What matters is what you actually do. That's what matters. So discipline. Okay. I talk about discipline a lot.

If you, the alarm clock goes off and you, You get up and get out of bed. Doesn't matter what you were thinking. It doesn't matter that you wanted to sleep in. It doesn't matter that you like, oh, this sucks. Doesn't none of that matters. Did you do it? Did you get up and did you go?

Working out, I did squats today. Did you squats yesterday, you said? No, it was two days ago. Three days ago. I did not want to do them. Did not. Did hard jiu jiu-jitsu, hard jiu-sat-saturday. Not as hard, but hard jiu-jitsu Sunday.

You know how you get that? the full body soreness a little bit when you go hard full body doms all full body doms so but I was like sore did not want to do squats not at all guess what guess what did squats yeah doesn't matter that I didn't want to do them doesn't matter that I procrastinated yeah stretched did some mobility work for 13 minutes you don't need 13 words minutes worth where they mobility work before no but I did it Got done with that. Guess what?

Okay, now we're doing squads. So it doesn't matter what I was thinking that I didn't want to do it, that I was being a wimp inside my own head because I did what I was supposed to do. What if you're in a leadership position and you know you're supposed to put the team first? And that's what you do. That's what you do. You put the team first. That's what you did.

As long as you did it, you did it. Now, listen, there's a little caveat here that is that intent has a smell. Yeah, and if you put the team first because you know it's going to look good, it's going to make you look good, and that's why you did it. Everyone's going to smell that. Yeah. So there's a little caveat there. But for the most part, actions are more important than words are, which is a weird thing to say, because everyone talks about the importance of words and writing and what you say, right? It's very important.

But let's face it, actions trumps those things. Yeah. Then you get this weird, I don't know how this ties in, but you think about this thing where you get someone that short term will make it happen, but long term they don't make it happen. Example. You ever, look, you've seen plenty of fighters come through the victory MMA, like pro fighters, you know, amateur fighters.

You notice how some of them, there's some of those fighters that would never give up in a fight ever. like they will literally never give up in a fight but they won't show up the practice for four days you know what I'm saying like they're so driven in the fight on the short term like they're there

but they missed three days of practice or they didn't adjust their diet now they're overweight coming in they got to cut the extra see what I'm saying it's like a short term versus long term seal training same things happens basic seal training you get you get someone that's just like

not going to quit and they don't but they can't pass the run because they didn't freaking train for the four months six months year prior to going to training they didn't have the discipline to train for a long period of time but in that moment you could never make this dude quit and by the way sometimes you get someone that's in outstanding condition and they came to every practice and then they get in the fight and they break. I mean, we know fighters have broken, like professional fighters,

both that we've known and that we've watched. They break in the ring. You watch them, break in the cage. You can have exceptionally trained athletes going to basic seal training. They're incredible athletes. They're better at me in every category of athletics.

Every category, running, swimming, strength, endurance. They just beat me in every category. They quit. That's kind of crazy, right? So that's this thing where both those things don't win. You got to have that long term and the short term discipline.

You've got to have the short term and the long term coverage. You've got to have the discipline to do something long range, but then you also got to protect your neck. What do I mean by that is if you don't protect your neck on the mats, you lose. Sometimes you got to, oh, I got to give up position. I got to give up, you know, all these other things in this moment and time. I got to panic. I got to use a bunch of energy, but I got to protect my neck.

Because if I don't protect my neck, it's over. So well-trained fighters, sometimes they quit. Well-prepared buds trainees, sometimes they quit. And all these things are going back to our actions. Our actions and there's a saying about this. Well, it's sort of, let's say an adjacent saying. Sure. Which I guess you've heard before saying watch your thoughts, they become words, watch your words, they become actions.

Have you ever heard this before? Mm-hmm. Some people take it a little bit further even. So some people say watch your thoughts, they become words, watch your words, they become action, watch your actions, they become your character, watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. Big quotes, right? this is this quote has been attributed to different people over time emerson Lao Tzu the the Chinese philosopher I even saw one that gave the credit to Margaret Thatcher's father basically it's a quote that seems to have evolved over time and is in

different many different forms out there but here's the thing people talk about watch your thoughts because they come words watch your words because they become your action watch your action because it becomes your character, watch your character because it comes your destiny. Here's what I'm going to say. Watch your freaking actions. Watch your actions. And here's why I'm saying this, because you can see your actions. You can track your actions.

You can adjust your actions. They're quantifiable. Your thoughts, no one can see them. You can rationalize your thoughts. You can rationalize your words. You can say something, but do something else. All those things can take place. But your actions are real.

So what I'm saying is, watch your actions. Be conscious. Be aware of what your actions are. Your actions are. So 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 jocco underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this.

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