Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: You're Going Somewhere. Are You Going Where You Want to Be Going?

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

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This is the Jocko underground podcast number four with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Also joining us, good deal, Dave. Good evening, Dave. All right, let's get in the topic of the day. So I know I, we recorded a podcast earlier today about the Marine Corps document and called competing. And I know I kind of threw some stuff at you today.

kind of in that opening talking about this leadership and influence continuum so I had neck issues my neck my neck I had a problem with my neck I had well I woke up one day

this was years ago I woke up one day and I couldn't move my right arm didn't move so imagine that you wake up and you can't move your right arm had some so went to the doctor and they started figuring out what to do because I had basically some problems in my neck that was causing friction on the nerves that control my right arm. So I had to do some physical therapy and eventually

it said, they said, you know, you're going to need to get surgery to fix this problem. Okay, so they gave me basically two options. Well, one option was don't get surgery and you're the, the The longer it's in this condition, the worst chance it has of recovering. So that's not good. But you can do it if you don't want to take any chances of getting surgery. So they gave me two options. One was called a frame anotomy, which they go in through the back of your neck. And they basically chip away at some bone, and they give some breathing room for your nerves.

The other one they gave is the other option they gave is to get a fusion, where they go in the front of your neck. and they basically carve a bunch of bone out and then they fuse your neck together so that it can't move. That one is considered to be the, has a superior result most of the time. It's also the last resort. It's also you can't escalate from there.

The other one, if you get, let's say you got the frame anotomy, the one going through the back and it didn't go well. Oh, it didn't have the impact that you wanted. to do it to have well then you could go well it didn't really work the way I wanted to now I want to now I want to get the other one so you at least had one more option so as I considered this actually there was a there's you talk through the possible problems that you could have one of the problems and this was back in the day so one of the problems that you can have when you get a fusion going through the anterior of your neck the front of your neck when they're going in there they're close

to your vocal cords and they can cut your vocal cords and you can't talk anymore which back then I was I mean it's kind of scary to think now since the only thing I do for living is talk that would not have been cool and I was thinking at the time well I'm in a leadership position I need to be able to talk to people that that could be a problem also there's you can die you know you can they can just screw up and you can just paralyze you or they can kill you so as I'm talking through the doctor who is the best neurosurgeon in the Navy on the West Coast at the time he was the really skilled guy. And, you know, he said, so you could die, you this and that. And I said, yeah, you know, what are the chances? I mean, what are the chances? I mean, what are the chance? I said, how many, how many sides are on that dice, though?

And I said, like 10,000? And he goes, about 200. And I said to myself, that's okay, not exactly what I wanted to hear. But then I told him, I said, hey, listen, if I can, if my friends can get hit with giant pieces of shrapnel flying through the air and live, I'm sure you with a scalpel on a sterilized surgery table, you can make this happen. And so I ended up choosing the frame anotomy to going through the back. And the main reason why I chose it is because you can escalate from there. I had room to maneuver, right? There was some place to go. If the fusion

front fusion doesn't get the desired result, you're just stuck with no with that. That's what you're stuck with. So we don't want to paint ourselves into a corner. As far as I can tell, I never want to paint myself into a corner. I never want to leave myself without any options. I don't want to dig in to a particular position. I don't want to be in a situation that I can't get out of. And this is why it's such a strange thing because that should be your attitude as far as I'm

concerned. I don't know. In my opinion, your attitude should be, I don't want to be stuck in a position. You should feel wrong if you're trapping yourself in a position, which is weird because there's a counter to that, which is you have to be super determined, right? You have to be super determined.

In order to move forward through tough challenges, you've got to be determined. So you've got to balance that thing between being very determined, but at the same time wanting to keep an open mind about what your options are. I want to have both those things kind of going on and I think for me a lot of this boils down to Thinking strategically versus thinking tactically We want to start thinking strategically instead of thinking tactically Which everyone knows this or you should know this

We shouldn't be doing things that benefits us in the short term if they don't benefit us in the long term as well They're not worth doing I'm sure are there some little things? Hey, it's got a little benefit so I'm gonna do it do it right now. There's no strategic harm or whatever. Okay, fine. But I'm talking as a habitual way of living. We don't want to do a bunch of things that are beneficial to us in the short term that hurt us in the long term. I mean, just think about your habits as a human being between if you decipher or you discriminate between this is good for me long term. This is only good for me short term. You could make so many decisions and they'd be awesome if you did things.

only that were good for you in the long term and not just things that are good for you in the short term but they're bad for you in the long term. The goal of course is great when you have something that's good for you in the short term, good for you in the long term. Super great. That's a no-brainer. We don't even need to talk about that one. But how do we actually start thinking in a way that we can think about the bigger picture

that we can think strategic instead of thinking tactically? Obviously you got to keep your ego in check because we chase little tact. Tactical victories all the time we chase little tactical victories all the time when it comes to leadership right okay Do we chase a donut because a donut tastes good? Sure we do that that's a strategic strategic loss it's a tactical win Yeah, it tastes good I feel good for 28 minutes after I eat a donut and then after 32 minutes I feel like a loser It's probably less than that even could even be less than that 25 seconds 28 seconds 28 seconds you feel like bad Yeah, after the, you figure once it's down, it's almost immediate, really, just face it, as far as donuts go.

Yeah, good point. Good point. But we do it. People do it. I mean, whole, whole swaths of society make that decision. That's going to feel good right now. Even though they know they can start their stopwatch in 28 seconds from now, we're going to feel bad about it. So that's the, that's an extreme example.

It's an extreme example, but do you think about something that there's a little less negative immediate impact? Maybe skip an workout. Maybe I'm going to win this argument. Now, I can't think strategically because my ego is a problem. Because I want to win the argument. I want to prove that I'm right so badly that I will detract from our relationship. I'll move things in the wrong direction, but I win the wrong direction. but I win this tactical moment because of my ego,

which is crazy to think that we would actually do that. And we do it all the time. People do it all the time. So how do we start moving towards strategic thinking instead of short-term tactical thinking? Obviously, you've got to get your ego in check. The second thing you've got to do is you've got to get up to altitude. You've got to get up to altitude

where you can see more than just this donut or just this argument. You got to get up to altitude and what you have to be able to do a little bit is you have to be able to see into the future 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 We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not suburb to their control and we're doing this so that we can support the jocco podcast which will remain as is free for all as long as we can keep it that way but we but

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