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549: Everyone is Judging—and Being Judged. Breaking Down Self-Awareness, Humility, and Respect
01:28:36
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- [00:00]
A
This is Jocko podcast number 549 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.
- [00:05]
B
Good evening
- [00:08]
A
Judgment. This is something that I, I talked about it, we just got done with a muster for Echelon front and I talked about judgment and I think it's worth going into some detail and sharing a little bit more broadly with people. So this dates back to a conversation I had with Jimmy May who's been on this podcast. Before he was a seal, he was, he's retired now he's a SEAL officer and he was, I forget what his actual position was at buds, but he was a buds. He was overseeing some portion of buds and a. Buds of course are always trying to figure out who's going to make it through and who's not going to make it through. They give all kinds of testing and they've been doing this for years. Psychological testing, personality traits, physical tests. Obviously they do physical tests, but the physical tests aren't an exact translation. Like just because someone's really good at running or pull ups or whatever doesn't mean they're going to pass. And just because someone you know was, has broke out some way in a psychological profile doesn't mean they're going to pass. So they've always been trying to tell, trying to figure out who's gonna make it through just like any other corporation. Because if you have to recruit 100 people and bring them into your system and pay them and you only get 20 people that make it, which is the way it works, that's not good, it's not cost effective. So they don't like doing that. So they want to figure out who's gonna make it through. So they do all these tests and they never really find out much. They never really find out much. At one point they said that wrestlers had a, had a better chance of making it through but by better chance it was like barely, it was like a, like statistically irrelevant and same, same thing I heard people from New England if they, they made it through more often. But again it was like a, like a, like a single digit higher percentage making it. So they're not really doing a great job. It's really hard to tell who's going to make it through. And but one of the, one of the things that he told me about was this psychological aspect that did again show a very slight indication because trust me, just because you're a wrestler don't make it, don't mean you're making it through. Just because you're from New England don't make. You're making it through. There's been plenty of wrestlers, D1 Wrestlers from wrestling states that quit. So is there maybe a slightly better chance? Yes. New England. Okay. Because you're used to the cold or whatever. Okay, slightly better chance. But again, it's. It's like almost statistically irrelevant. But this one, again, same thing. It's not a huge. Not a huge impact. But the way he explained it to me is how. It's how you see yourself versus how other people see you. And the way, the closer you see yourself to the way everyone else sees you, the better chance that you have of making it through. And they got this from. And again, don't quote me on this, but they did some kind of survey and then peer review. So you did a self assessment of how you viewed yourself in these various categories and then you got. The class said how they viewed you on these certain categories. And the closer that things lined up, the better chance someone had of making it through buds Basic SEAL training. So if you see yourself as a stud and the class sees you as a stud, and again, I'm simplifying this. If you see yourself as a stud and the class sees you as a stud, you have an improved chance. I'm only saying improved, not you're gonna make it, but you have an improved chance. Interestingly, if you see yourself as weak and the class sees you as weak, you have an improved chance. And I think it would be if you saw yourself as weak. Well, what are you going to do? You're going to work hard, the class use you as weak, you're okay, you're weak, you're going to work harder, you're going to put out, you're going to try and get better, you're going to stay focused. Okay, that makes sense. If you're a stud, the class sees you as a stud. Yeah, yeah, I trained hard to get here. I'm ready to rock and roll. The class is looking at you like, oh yeah, this kid's braid to rock and roll. Now, if you see yourself as a stud and the class sees you as weak, you have a diminished chance of making through again. Can you still make it through? Sure. But a diminished chance and you could see how that would work, right? I see myself as being like, oh yeah, I'm ready to kick this training in the ass. And everyone else is looking at you going, oh, I don't really think so. So that's a delta, obviously, that you have a diminished chance of making it through. Or for instance, you don't See yourself as a stud, but you still see yourself as weak. But the class thinks you're a stud. Well, guess what? Diminished chance. Because even if you are a stud, which it sounds like, your peers are thinking you're a stud, they're thinking you are stud because you're doing awesome on the runs, you're getting through the o course, you're doing a good job. So they're doing a realistic assessment of you. But your self assessment is that you're weak. Why are you thinking that? And you have a diminished chance of making it through. And I can certainly cite examples like that that I knew, you know, I had a. I had a guy that I thought was a stud. And again, you know, I'm young. And so anyone that was like 24, 25, 26 years old, like, they're just more developed, they're more mature. Physically developed. Right. Physically developed. And I had a guy that was physically developed, looked like a student, bro, he quit the first or second night of hell week, and it was a little bit of a shocker to the class. It's like, oh, damn, that dude just quit. And everyone thought he was a stud. Clearly he didn't. And then of course, there was people that you could tell they didn't have confidence. Like they thought they were weak, and then we all thought they were weak. But, dude, they were still there at the end Hell week, you're like, damn, okay. All right. And it goes both directions. So it does make sense. What it, what it, what it indicates is that you don't have very good self awareness. And if you don't have really good self awareness, that's going to be problematic.
- [06:28]
B
Yeah. I always thought, and I remembered hearing some of this at the muster, and I'm trying to figure out, I wonder why that is. And all of it made sense. I was kind of going to the line except for the one that I was trying to kind of square the circle where if you think you're a stud, but other people don't. Right. Unless there's some behavioral thing that you're putting out that people are just rejecting. Because if you're. If you think you're weak and everyone else thinks you're weak, your expectations and their expectations kind of line up, you know, so if you, like, if you're. Whether it be putting out or whatever, but you're kind of like behind, no one's going to like, be mad at you. No one's going to lash out at you, whatever. They're just kind of like, okay, he's trying, but hey man, you know, our expectations aren't that high and your expectations aren't that high. So you know, basically what you're putting out, you're kind of getting back. So it's kind of confirming and hey, one, one foot in front of the other, it's going to end at some point, you know, kind of a thing. And we're all good. Yeah, you don't like the, you know, if you're, if you're running a race, someone's going to come in last. We all know that, you know, so it's like one of those deals and then if, if you're a stud and they think you're a stud, you're behaving accordingly as well, you know, so what you're putting out, you're getting back, same thing. Someone's going to come in first. Like, no one's mad at this guy bragging for coming in first. He's not bragging, but no one's, you know, like his performance is not intimidating because we expect that out of him, you know, kind of a thing. And then the discrepancy part, of course, that make, that makes sense. You know, if you're weak but you think you're a stud, you're behaving like us in whatever way, you know, if that's coming out overtly, even in a small way. And it's like, bro, what's this guy even opening his mouth for? You know, like, shut up. So that makes sense. But if you think you're weak but you really are a stud, of course the expectations don't match up, but I wonder how that, it's hard to imagine how that looks.
- [08:17]
A
Well, because now when it comes to do something hard, you think you're weak and you don't have the ability to do it.
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B
Oh yeah, huh. So the expert, it was like, oh, Brian, I thought you'd kill that. Like, what are you slacking? What are you, like what, you're not down for the cause?
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A
I can't, I can't take anymore. You, if you think you're weak, then you can't take anymore. And I would go so far as to hypothesize that the class, generally speaking, is probably going to have a pretty good. A pretty good reflective of reality. A pretty good assessment reflective of reality. So sure, there might be some guy that's like, you know, he doesn't look like much, but he was a, you know, he was a 142 pound wrestler and went to state in California and he surfed and you can't really tell by looking at him and he's kind of quiet and you'd be like, oh, that guy seems a little bit weak. But even, even that guy, like as the class is doing things, runs, he's doing good, swims, he's doing good. Like so, so that's why I think that class is going to have a, a fairly accurate assessment of reality. Is this person really a stud or a dud? They'll have a pretty good assessment of that. But if you go in there believing that you're a dud, just like in sports, when someone, they don't believe they can win.
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B
Yeah.
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A
If you don't believe you can win and when people do believe they can win, that has such a huge impact. Just think about what it does to your confidence in the moment. Oh yeah, it's a game changer.
- [09:45]
B
Yeah. You explaining that right there just really clarified the whole thing because I remember one time when I, when I was at University of Hawaii, every Monday we'd have conditioning and the conditioning was part of. It was 1/10, right. 110 yard sprints and we do 16110 yard sprints. Yes. Across the whole football field in one end zone. So.
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A
So would you just sprint the 10 and then go walk back to it?
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B
Yeah, basically. Basically it goes like this, the whole football field, Right. We all line up and there's three groups. There's skilled position, which is wide receivers, running backs, defensive back, like the faster guys. And then there's like linebackers and I want to say maybe kickers, maybe I forget the exact group, but it was that middle group who weren't as fast, but they're. And then there's the lineman. Right. They're the third. So the heavy hitters.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So they, so it's like, you know, they, It'd just be real repetitive. They'd be like hand on the line. Right. First group, you blow the whistle, you run. At a certain point they say hand on the line for the next group. So by the time the third group gets there, brother, first group is ready to go. It was very little rest in between. It was just the most. It was all. It was a mental thing more than even physical. So we do eight rest for like two minutes, I think something like this and then do another eight. Okay. So.
- [11:02]
A
And I, I'm just trying to. I'm sorry, I apologize for going in the weeds like this. Would you literally go from the, the, the end zone and then you do the, like to the 10 and then to the 20 and then.
- [11:14]
B
No, no, that was different. That was actually on Tuesday. That was. They're called ladders. Okay. So anyway, on Monday was way more of a freaking gut check because it's like you start in the back of the end zone and you sprint all the way to the far side goal line. So you run across the whole field. Oh, 110 meter sprint.
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A
Oh, got it.
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B
Yeah. So you do eight of those rest.
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A
I thought you meant 110 meter sprints.
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B
Oh, no, no, no, no.
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A
And I was like, how did you do that?
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B
No, no, 1 10. Okay.
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A
So how many 110s would you do?
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B
Sixteen.
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A
Oh, damn.
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B
Okay. Yeah. So.
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A
Damn.
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B
Yeah. At about 12, you're like, Bro, I don't think I can do this every single week. That's what I'm thinking. You get through it, and at the end, it's, you know. And I was like, I guess kind of one of the faster guys or whatever. So you can kind of gauge where, like, one time, for some reason, I was gassing and everyone was just, like, beating me. That was only one time that I can ever remember. But the rest was just right with everybody else, and it's all wide receivers, running backs, and DBs, all the fast guys, and I was just right with everyone else. But I remember thinking almost every week, like, looking around, and everyone's, like, locked in and just doing it. I'm like, bro, I'm dying. I don't know if I can even do one more. And then I do one more. And then you're like, okay, that was probably my last one that I could really do functioning. You know, I could walk it, but of course. But. But you end up getting through it. It's all mental, you know? So physically, you end up getting through. But my mind was like, I can't do this. And I'm looking around at everyone else, and their face is just, like, regular. Like, they. It seemed a lot harder for me than it was for them. But then if you talk to, like, you know, Kekoa, Jeremy, these guys are like, no, no, that was the worst. So you just never know. You know, it's kind of like, oh,
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A
do you think you were outwardly showing it more than they were?
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B
I have no idea. Oh, no, I don't think so. Because I would never do that. I would never be like, oh, I'm dying.
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A
Like, so as much as they're dying inside, they're looking at you going, man, Echo looks like he's all right.
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B
Probably. Yeah.
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A
And so imagine this. Now imagine it's hell week, you know what I'm saying? And you're dying inside. You're trying not to show it, but you're thinking, wait, it's only Monday night.
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B
Yeah. And these guys are not even phased.
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A
And everyone else is trying to do the same thing you're doing, which is not show it. And so you end up going, you know, I'm weak, right? And I, there's. I can't do this.
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B
Exactly right.
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A
Then you know what? You're done.
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B
I know, I understand.
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A
So it makes sense to me. And when I heard this, when I heard Jimmy explain this to me, it made sense to me that this would be a problem. How you perceive yourself versus how others see you. And when I started thinking about it from a leadership perspective, it. I see a very similar problem. Very. A very similar problem and a very similar pattern. When people have a significant delta between how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them, it can be. It can cause problems in leadership. It can cause problems not just in leadership, in human interaction, how you perceive yourself versus how other people perceive you. And you don't need to. And here's the thing. In this case, in the BUDS case, they do like a self assessment. They do a 360 degree survey and whatever, peer evaluations and all this stuff. But that's how they're judging themselves and that's how they are being judged by others. But you don't need that in real life because this is the thing. Judgment is taking place all the time. There is, there is always judging. We are both judging other people and we are being judged all the time. And as I think about my personal experience in the SEAL teams when I was a junior guy, man, I was always judging, judging my leaders for sure. For sure. You know, they show up five minutes late for something. Noted. They forget a piece of gear. Noted. They mess up during an immediate action drill. Noted. Like, I was always judging. And when I was in a leadership position, I was straight up, I was going to say, say, like, well, it wasn't really judging. No, you're judging. You're judging yourself. I was judging my subordinates. Right. Hey, are they going to make the right call? How good are they at this? Are they ready? Do they care more about themselves or do they care about the teams? Do they care more about the mission? I'm judging them. I'm watching. Literally. I've told stories. I'm like standing over Seth Stone's shoulder, like, watching him. I'm completely judging.
- [15:40]
B
So
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A
here's the thing. As a leader, we, we need to make sure that the way we judge ourselves is approximate to the way other people judge us, the way we see ourselves is at least somewhat approximate to the way other people see us. And I think, I think where this boils down to, and I don't know another way to describe this, because this is a word that I think is there's, there's different ways to take this word, but I can't really think of a better word to use. I think it's a matter of respect. It's a matter of respect. The, the definition of respect is, is valuing someone else's abilities or their achievements or their opinions or their rights or their ideas. That's what respect is, right? I value your idea. That means I respect you or I value the right that you have. That means I respect you or I value what you've done, what you've achieved. That, that means I respect those things and that means that you understand someone else, right? Like, okay, I see what you're saying. So when we judge things about a person in a positive way, our respect for them goes up. The way we value them goes up. When we judge things about a person and we judge them negatively, our respect for them goes down. So we value them less, we value their opinions less, we value their achievements less, we value their rights left less. And these are very important and we need to be, we need to be self aware and make sure that our perception of ourselves and how we're being judged is close to other people's perception of us as well. So then the big question becomes, how are you being judged? What are you being judged on? And this, this is tricky because, because this can vary. At least parts of this can vary a lot. So I think you have to start off by thinking a little bit about the ecosystem that you're, that you're in as far as how you're being judged. So at the muster, I mentioned bikers, boy scouts, bankers and bowlers, right? I used a little alliteration there to talk through these things. But any, those, those systems or those, those ecosystems, right? Bikers, boy scouts, bankers and bowlers. What does that look like? If you are, if you're in a biker, if you're in a biker gang, right, you're in a motorcycle club, what are you getting judged on? Well, what's your commitment to the club, right? Loyalty. What is your loyalty to the club you're being judged on? Silence, right? No rats. If you're a rat, you're completely rejected. There's a hierarchy within motorcycle clubs, right? There's, they have a chain of command and they respect that. And that's the way it goes. And then they have their, their respect for, you know, the, the, the patches and the cuts and the colors and all those kind of things. And those symbols have a lot of meaning, but part of being a biker, right, it's just like, how tough are you? How tough are you? Can you drink hard? Can you fight? Are you strong? Did you have military service? Did you have combat experience? Have you been to prison? Like, those are kind of things. Like, okay, gonna get judged on that. Compare that to the Boy Scouts. What are the Boy Scouts getting judged on? Well, their scout law has 12 points. And not to go through every detail, but the Boy Scout is getting judged on trustworthiness, loyalty, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, reverent, right? These are the things that they're getting judged on. Now, bankers, bankers, they have, there's like a. I found some various codes, but from the banking world that they're supposed to live by. Acting with integrity, acting with due skills, diligence, being open, cooperative with regulators, pay due regard to the interest of customers and treating them fairly, observing standards of market conduct at all time, being alert to conflict of interest, treating information with appropriate confidentiality and sensitivity. Right? There you go. And let's face it, also, if you're a banker, you're getting judged on putting together good deals, making money. And a good example of if you were a banker, if you. If we were bankers, if we were bankers and you found out that I went to prison, would your respect for me go up or down? Down. If we were bikers and you found out that I did time, would your respect for me go up or down?
- [20:51]
B
Probably.
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A
Probably up. So the ecosystems can diff. Can differ in how people are being judged inside those ecosystems. And ecosystems do have their own way of judging. And there's going to be some overlap, right? And there's some. And you got to remember this, too, like, there's some ecosystems. This is why I have to talk about bowling. Because there's some ecosystems where outside that ecosystem, no one cares, right? You know, have you ever had somebody, you know, you got in a verbal argument with someone and they're like, what's your best bowling score? Like, like, no one says that, right? That's not, that's not a thing. They. No one cares. Now in the bowling world, if you competed in something or you won something, you know, you could flex with that in that ecosystem. Outside that ecosystem doesn't hold much water. Some people would kind of laugh at it, as a matter of fact, Right. Depending on. You know, I bet the biker would laugh at the bowler if he was trying to flex his tournament results.
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B
Yeah, probably.
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A
You know what I'm saying? And the funny thing is that you and I were talking about this last
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B
time is
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A
like grown people or people that aren't inside the jiu jitsu ecosystem, they just think we do karate. Yeah, they just think we do karate. Like a, like a nine year old.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like getting, hiya, hi. I'm breaking boards. That's what they think of. We. You say, oh, yeah. What do you do for fun? I do jiu jitsu. And in their mind they're like, see you like Rex Kwondo, right? You know, breaking a board. So they don't care outside that ecosystem. But inside that ecosystem, there's all kinds of credibility or lack of credibility and judgment that happens. And respect that goes up or down depending on what you've achieved inside that ecosystem. And when you get very specific ecosystems, there's little ancillary things that you will definitely get judged on, like skills like in the SEAL teams. In the SEAL teams, if you're a really good shooter, like, people kind of know that someone that's really good at skydiving, people kind of know that people are really good at rocking just any one of those things, those skills will elevate you respect for you in. At some level. If you're a terrible shot. People kind of know that too. If you, if you fall out of a ruck march, like, people will know that. They'll remember that these little things as a biker, like when bikers ha. When they know about bikes, when they can fix motorcycles, when they build motorcycles, that's elevation. The Boy Scouts, like, what knots do you know? What, what merit badges do you have? Like, those are things that are gonna. Gonna help you. So generally in your particular, in a particular domain, your skill level, your experience level, your accomplishments, your qualifications, your accolades, your historical success, all of these things elevate people's respect for you on some level. Now, listen, you can be, you know, a world champion in some sport and be a dirtbag for sure. You can be. You can have graduated with the highest honors from some university and be a dirtbag. You can still be judged in a negative way, but they are generally speaking, these, these skills in a particular domain, they will elevate you. They will at least give you the opportunity. They'll give you. They'll give you positive upmarks on the respect level. So you got to remember that you're being judged on those things inside your ecosystem. That you're in. And then there are some things that are almost universally respected values. And again, I have to say, almost universally, because there are certain cultures and ecosystems where this stuff isn't respected. But if you display these types of things, generally speaking, they will earn you respect. So integrity, meaning you say what you do and you do what you say. That is, that is a great way to earn respect. The opposite of that being a hypocrite, which is a super derogatory. Oh, that guy's a hypocrite, right. Honesty, being honest. That's why, you know, calling someone a liar is such a offensive word because people really value honesty. Humility, being humble. This is a quality that people generally respect. And listen, what does it mean when an athlete is confident to the point that they're arrogant? Right. Sometimes that gets people hyped up. Right? You get some fighters that are, they're super arrogant. But if you look at the broad, the broad cannon of people that are athletes, the humble ones are the most respected. Now look, can you get a Muhammad Ali when he's back in the day just talking mad and, you know, no, no humility whatsoever. Here's the thing, and I, I found this to be why that works sometimes. Why that works sometimes is because that person, those people that seem arrogant, what they do is they go out and they bully the bullies. And when you bully the bullies, you can get away with it because other people, you're projecting or you're, you're living vicariously through that Muhammad Ali, when he goes out and bullies the bully, he goes out and beats George Foreman, a big monster of a guy that's knocking everyone out. Like people go, who's this arrogant? Yeah, I root for that guy. You have to be bullying bullies in order to get away with that. But most of the time in sports, you get here, post a post game interview, and someone says, hey, you know, they say, oh, you scored the winning touchdown. He says, you know what? I wouldn't be able to do without the team. Everyone goes, oh, yeah. And they retweet it and they share it with me. Or they go, you know, I can't believe the defense let us down like that. And everyone goes, oh, this guy needs to learn some ownership. So this is relatively universe universal to earn respect. Just be humble.
- [27:25]
B
What? This might be a whole nother thing, but I've always thought that you can violate all these kind of rules, for lack of better term, if it's entertaining, especially in the sports and the entertainment kind of world. So, like Muhammad Ali, Conor McGregor, like these kind of guys were overtly arrogant as long as they say something funny or witty or entertaining at the end of the day combined with their performance. Now because that's all part of the entertainment formula. Yeah, it's. We accept it because we like to be entertained. But that's, I always thought that that was the one way to sidestep these, these sort of guidelines.
- [28:05]
A
You have to be, you have to be beating up a bully. So if you look at, if you look at like wwf, the person that plays a heel. Right. The bad guy, that's what, that, they're set up that way. And only when a bigger bully comes along does stone cold Steve Austin become the hero for beating up the bigger bullies. And like the Rock, you know, back then he was super arrogant. All these guys a lot. Well, not all of them, but some, some of them, they flip the script where they're the bad guy until a batter guy comes along and then they become the hero because they're their arrogance. They beat up the bully.
- [28:46]
B
Yeah.
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A
So again, this isn't like, I agree with you there, some level of entertainment. People want to see that. And by the way, also, also people want to see, you know, that guy get knocked out too. Right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, you'll hear someone say, hey, love me or hate me. You're watching the fight.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
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A
So that brings it out too. But Jen, why do people hate them? People hate them because they're arrogant. People can't wait to see that guy get knocked out.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So humility is, is a pretty universally respected trait. And again, there's outliers for all these things. Another one, family and relationship. So when someone, or relationships, when someone has a good family, you know, they, they stick together with their family. They've got a strong family. All that stuff people. Or they've got a great friend group and you see that group and it's like, oh yeah, that's, that's strong. It's positive. Discipline, kind of universally respected. Discipline, kind of universally respected. Because the way, when I think about this one, when you're up early in the morning, for whatever reason, let's say you got to go to the airport and you're driving to the airport at 5 o' clock in the morning and as you're driving to the airport, you see someone out on a run at 5 in the morning.
- [30:07]
B
Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah.
- [30:09]
A
Right? You just said hell yeah. You know what I mean? Cuz we all go, hell yeah. You know, or you see someone in some situation, it's late at night, you're coming home late for whatever reason, and you got somebody out there with their little headlamp on, putting in road work.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Don't you respect that person?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Early in the morning, you see him doing something. Discipline is kind of a universally respected trait. Another one is reliability. You know, can you rely on that person? Everyone. No one likes it when someone's not reliable. It's actually terrible. Perseverance. When you see another thing I mentioned at the muster, they make movies about all this stuff, right? They make movies about all this stuff. They make movies about discipline. They make movies about family and. And relationship and sticking together. They make movies about humility. Rudy. Right. They make movies about honesty and integrity and what that looks like. We make movies about this stuff. We make movies about perseverance because it's universally respected. That guy got beat down. He got back up again. Courage. We obviously make movies about courage. Gonna make things happen. Self control, does that fall under discipline? Maybe, but we make movies about that. Scenes in movies where people have to show that. That self control, like all those revenge movies, there's usually some kind of self control scene, right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Where they want to do something, but they know if they do it too early, they'll get found out or whatever. They have to just bite their teeth and just carry on.
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B
Yeah.
- [31:44]
A
Fully accumulation of resources. Do we respect that?
- [31:51]
B
Yeah.
- [31:52]
A
Generally speaking, Yep. Now it. Can you become a hoarder where people now hate you because you're a trillionaire? Sure, that can happen. But generally speaking, we meet someone, they've got a lot of. Accumulated a lot of resources. There's a level of respect that goes there. So then we get into physical health and fitness. These are just kind of universally respected. When someone is healthy, it's universally respected. When someone is strong, it's universally respected. It's just the way it is. That's a good reason to be in good shape. Universally respected. Another one, creativity. And I'll say two types of creativity. One of them is kind of what you think when you think of creativity. Artistic creativity. Someone that's really good at guitar, Someone that's really good at drawing, someone that's really good at painting. Someone that's really good at making videos. You okay? You okay? Throw that in there for you. Throw the dog a bone. Someone that's really good at making videos, they get respect for that. How many times did someone said, come up to you and said, you know that video you made? Props.
- [33:01]
B
Right.
- [33:02]
A
It's a real thing.
- [33:02]
B
Sure.
- [33:03]
A
They respect that. But creativity, so creativity Is respected and also artistic. But as well as problem solving, someone that can kind of creatively come up with ways to solve problems, it's respected, universally respected. Humor. That guy's funny. She cracks me up. Universally respected. Someone that can bring some humor into a situation. Another one, judgment. How good is someone's judgment? You know, we're talking about judgment, but when someone makes good judgment in decisions, decides to do things a certain way, this falls into leadership as well. Like there are people that when they step up and start to lead, they do a good job. People respect that. Kindness. Someone that's kind, you know, it's. Yeah. I talked about movies, people, we make movies about this stuff. There's a whole category out. There's a whole algorithmic category for each one of these things as well. You know, I mean, you can watch a four minute clip from some movie or some, you know, event that happened.
- [34:09]
B
Yeah, fully.
- [34:09]
A
But whenever I, when I hear kindness, there's a lot of algorithmic clips. You know, someone like, rescues the dog, revives the dog, they help the, the, the chickadee in a nest and they bring it, they feed it with a little tear or an eyedropper, they give it milk or whatever, you know what I mean? It's kindness because people respect that. And then another one I would say is people that understand other people's perspective. These are, this is a respected thing. So these are kind of just some universally respected characteristics or values. And listen, are there exceptions? Of course. Especially in fringe elements. Are you getting into some fringe element, some cult or some criminal organization? They might not view some of these universal traits as good. In fact, they might value some opposing traits. Like instead of kindness, maybe they respect brutality.
- [35:09]
B
Right.
- [35:09]
A
If you're a gang member and you go, oh, they crossed me, so I'm gonna go cut their limbs off or whatever. Like that's, oh, that Brutally, brutally respected. But even then, I'd say even, even fringe elements, you know, they respect this kind of stuff. They have their own code. And what is important. Reliability is important. Integrity is important. Being honest is important. Unless you're talking to the cops, you know what I'm saying? But being honest with each other. So these things are, are used universally. So I think that now we're looking at, you know, so this is the way we're being judged, right? You're getting judged. What are your skills? What are your characteristics from this universal. What are the characteristics from your ecosystem? What are the skills that you have in your particular little domain? And that is how you're being judged. So Universal skills, your particular domain, and inside your ecosystem. That's how you're being judged. And it is important that you pay attention to that. So how does this. How does this connect back to leadership? It's the fact that since we're all judging each other, and as we judge each other, we place ourselves and each other into a hierarchy. We place ourselves and each other into a. A pecking order based on these characteristics. And this hierarchy exists in all different teams, all different organizations. I call it. I don't. I'm not sure this is the best name, but I call it the Primal Order. Right? There's, like a primal order that's probably a little bit leaning too much into the animal side of it, but I don't know what else to call it right now. So we'll call it the Primal Order. This is the. This is not based on the rank or the corporate assignment or the line diagram that. That spells out who's in charge of who.
- [37:19]
B
This is.
- [37:21]
A
This is beneath the surface of that organizational chart that's up on the wall in the. Or in the. In the company. Right. And I think what it's based on is respect, true respect, and what the respect is based on how we judge each other based on these various judging criteria. And here's where this can get a little bit sketchy. As you might imagine. It looks a little bit different for each person. And another important thing to note is that when we judge each other, everyone judges other people against themselves. They hold themselves as the standard, and they're looking at other people and judging. This person's either above me or below me in the primal order. So when you meet someone, it's funny. We used to, you know, joke about, like, when you meet another person, when you start Jiu Jitsu, after a little while, everyone you meet, you're, like, judging if you could beat them in jiu jitsu or not, right? Oh, I could take that. Oh, the guy. Wait, did you wrestle? Oh, yeah. You know, you're. You're constantly figuring out, I wonder if I could take that kind of Jiu jitsu. But there's a reality to that, that we do. We size each other up, and we place ourselves in this hierarchy, in this primal order. And we do this consciously or unconsciously, but unconsciously or consciously, we place other people either above us, equal to us, or below us in that hierarchy. And this is where to tie back the way we started this whole topic off. This is where things become critical. Because what is the difference between where you see yourself and where you see Others and specifically another person in that pecking order. And if it's not accurate, if it's not reflective, then that's where we can see some significant problems. So, for instance, if they see you as a superior, but you see them as a subordinate, let's say you and me. If I see you as a superior, but you see me as a subordinate, that's actually gonna be okay, right? So if I see you as a superior and you see me as a subordinate, then I look at you like, okay, Echo's the boss. That's cool. You look at me like, okay, jocko's works for me. And the way I treat you is, you know, I treat you with a little bit of reverence and respect because I see you as the boss, and you treat me, you know, a little bit. You can kind of step on me a little. You can cut me off. It's okay. Because, you know, you're the boss. And so actually, that's gonna work out okay. You cut me off when I'm talking, I'm like, hey, you know, he's the boss. That'll work out okay. We're okay. We're in the clear. If you see me as a peer and I see you as a peer, that's okay, too, because we treat each other, you know, you treat me as a peer. I listen to what you have to say. You. You cut me off, but, you know, I'll jump right back in there, and we'll be okay. When we see each other as peers, we'll be okay. And then if I see you as a subordinate and you see me as a superior again, it'll work out. It's okay. You know, I see you. It's like, oh, Echo works for me. So that's where you're at. So all those ones are fine. All those things work out okay. Because the way we treat each other, again, consciously or unconsciously, you know, you go into a room with someone that you. I mean, just. Just imagine this. You go into a room, and there's someone that you highly respect, and they're talking. Are you gonna cut them off? No, of course not. But if there's someone in there that you're like, oh, this person's. If you don't respect them, will you cut them off when they're talking?
- [41:21]
B
It's more likely.
- [41:22]
A
More likely for sure. If they're peer. If they. You view them as a peer, you'll kind of keep it in between. So all those things kind of line up, and we'll be okay. We'll Be okay in those scenarios. But check this out. If they see you as a peer and you see them as a subordinate, so they see you like, oh, we're bros. But you see them as like, oh, you work for me. Yeah. Now, again, unconsciously or consciously, how do you talk to them? Do you listen to them? Do you treat them with respect? And it's a problem because you don't. You see them as a peer or. Sorry, they see you as a peer, but you see them as a subordinate. So when you start talking to me, I'm like, hey, hey, maybe later. Let me push through this. You see what I'm saying? It's a huge deal.
- [42:14]
B
Yeah.
- [42:15]
A
If they see you as a subordinate and you see them as a peer, it's a problem. You see them like, oh, Echo's on my level. But you see me as like, I'm below your level. So when I'm like, hey, I don't think we should do it that way, you're like, I'll. I'll ask you when I need your opinion. Yeah, it's a problem. And here's another one that is a problem. You see me as a subordinate, and I see you as a subordinate. We both think each other are subordinate. And again, this isn't to do with the. With the line diagram. Has nothing to do with I'm the CEO and you're the CEO. It doesn't have anything to do with it. It has to do with how you truly feel, which, again, you may or may not be in touch with. It may be some subconscious, you know, idea that you have when you talk to me. You're like, can't believe this guy's in charge. But, you know, you couldn't even verbalize those words. But it's there, and I'm gonna feel it. So if you view me as a subordinate and I you view you as a subordinate, this is gonna be a problem, because we're both going to treat each other. We're both going to disrespect each other. It can even in a minor way. And one of the problems here is that, you know, you've heard me say intent has a smell. You're gonna smell it when I treat you with that little bit of whatever. I scoff you off just a little bit. You're gonna feel that I cut you off when you're talking. You get done presenting your idea, and I immediately just, oh, thanks, Echo. And boom, boom. You know, like, we carry on with what I want to do.
- [43:43]
B
Yeah. Yet even if you're a kind of imagining this whole thing and imagining real scenarios, by the way. But even if you're, you're polite, even if both people are polite, it's still, you can still feel it because. And I think it comes down to telling people what to do.
- [44:02]
A
Oh, for sure.
- [44:03]
B
So that's like a huge part of it. Right. Because that's what a subordinate, superior kind of relationship kind of is when you distill it all. There's other stuff for sure, but a big part of is like, let's say if you're my boss, you can adjust my schedule like, like you can say, oh, hey, tomorrow at 2 o', clock, come here. You can tell me that, like that's part of the gig, you know, and it's just normal. But if we have a little discrepancy, like I said, if I don't see you as a superior, I see you as a pure or subordinate and you see me as a subordinate and you're telling me what to do, I'll be like, I'm not going to do that. Or like all, at the very least get mad at you thinking you can tell me what to do even if I was going to do it anyway, by the way.
- [44:44]
A
Yeah. At a minimum, that's the feeling is there.
- [44:50]
B
Exactly.
- [44:50]
A
And now all of a sudden you're, you're looking for me to make a mistake. You're looking for that opportunity. Yeah, well, yeah. It's interesting in the teams when you, when you. One thing that's really kind of cool is it's no big deal in the teams, regardless of where you are on the chain of command to go, you know, hey, grab that ammo over there.
- [45:13]
B
Right?
- [45:14]
A
It's no big deal. Hey, grab that ammo over there. No, please, no, thank you. We all know that that's part of the. Hey, grab that ammo over there. You wouldn't be like, can I get a please? You know what I mean? Like that doesn't happen. But I have definitely seen, seen team guys interact with normal people, you know, hey, grab me the milk. It's the same exact sentence, Grab me the ammo, grab me the milk. But when you say that to someone, hey, grab me the milk. And it seems rude. It's kind of the same thing where subconsciously, if I subconsciously think I kind of deserve to be able to tell you to give me the milk. Give me the. Hey, give me the milk. Not even pass me, hey, give me the milk. Yeah, it's not even, it's a statement. And if I, if I have that feeling like I can do that. I'll do it without even really noticing it. And if you have the feeling that, hey, you know what? Hey, Jocko's kind of a badass, like, cool, no problem. Here it is. But if you have, like, wait, wait a second. Jocko's not no badass. He's just another guy. He's the same as me or even worse. Why is he telling me to do this? I'm better than he is. It's a problem. It's a real, true problem. So the question becomes, well, how am I supposed to treat people then, right? How am I supposed to treat people? How am I supposed to know how to treat people when I can't know for sure how they really see me in the hierarchy? Which is a good point that you just made. You can be polite to me. You can be nice to me. And inside, either again, either consciously or subconsciously, you could be thinking, screw Jocko. I can't believe he could. He thinks he can tell me when to show up here. Even if you show up here with a smile on your face, there's still something going on. So how am I supposed to know how I should treat you so that I can interact with you and we don't have these underlying issues? What am I supposed to do because I can't read? Can I read your mind? Can you read anyone's mind? I've asked this question people before. Well, you can tell by their body language. Nope, nope, nope, nope. You can tell by their tone, nope, nope, nope, nope. Maybe you can, but maybe you can't. You don't know. So what do you have to do? And the answer is pretty straightforward. What you have to do is regardless of where you think you are and where they think you. Where they think you are in this hierarchy, regardless of that, what you do is you subordinate your ego and you treat people as if they're above you in the hierarchy. That's how you treat people. You treat them with respect. You listen to what they have to say. You allow them to influence you. You put some trust in them. You show them that you care about them. And if you do that, all these different scenarios that I talked about, they're all going to be okay. You subordinate your ego. So instead of having in the back of your mind, you know what? I'm a little bit better than Echo. I make a little bit more money than him. I'm a little bit older than him. I've been doing jiu jitsu longer than him. I have more kids than him. I have more hair. Than him. Whatever little things are in your brain that are telling you you're a little bit better than that other person, don't listen to them. Instead, say, you know what? Echo's got a lot to offer. Echo sees some things I don't see. Echo's got a perspective that I need. Echo's been. He hasn't been doing this as long as me. He's. His outcome is probably going to be better. You've got to. Again, I'm trying to make clear that I'm not just pretending. I'm not like, oh, I need to act like Echoes. Better.
- [48:58]
B
Yeah.
- [48:59]
A
I need to say, you know, we were talking earlier. I forget if we were recording or not, but when you and I look at someone that does Jiu Jitsu, when we're better than them at Jiu Jitsu and we tap them out, we don't think I'm a better person than him. I don't even think I'm better at Jiu Jitsu. I might say, if I say I'm better than Jiu Jitsu, than them, I'm better at Jiu Jitsu than them right now because I've been training for longer than them, and at some point, they're gonna train more than me. Whether it's in 10 years or 15 years or three years, at some point, they can overpass me. That's just the way it is. I don't think you're a lesser person because you're not as good at Jiu Jitsu as me. I truly. And, you know, I. I don't really view anyone as a subordinate, and I think this is a. A huge help for this whole idea is when. When I interact with people, I don't view the. I truly. I. I truly. Give me a lie detector. Give me a soul detector test. Because there's a difference. Right. People can overcome. Give me a soul to take. I truly don't look at someone and go, oh, you know what? I'm. I'm better than this person. I don't think that. I think, oh, yeah, they haven't. You know, they might not have as much experience as me, but they. They probably got this and they got that. And I. And I will admit that. Sure. I might look at, like, a very small number of people. Like, oh, yeah, this person's not making good moves. I can see that.
- [50:27]
B
Yeah.
- [50:28]
A
But when I interact with people, I think, oh, I got something to learn from them. They. They're on a different journey. They might not be as far ahead, but they're going to get further ahead than me. So I don't have anybody that I view as an inferior or as a subordinate on the primal hierarchy. I think they've all got some skills that I don't have. I think they've all can do things better than me. And if you can keep that in mind, it's going to create better relationships across the board. Remembering that you don't, you, you don't have any subordinates. They're other people and they have different things to offer. And just because in this particular moment, I might be better at, you know, reading aloud than echo is debatable. Debatable. I don't know who's debating on your side. I might be better at that one skill set than you are, but there's a plethora of things that you're better than me. And by the way, I, I also look at it as like, oh, in this momentary ecosystem where reading aloud matters, I win. But there's a whole bunch of other arenas where reading aloud doesn't mean a damn thing. No one cares. No one cares on the football field how well you read aloud. No one. Literally no one. Zero people care. Zero people care that you can read aloud. Well, when you're on the football field, does it, does it matter when you're making a video how well you can read aloud? Doesn't matter at all. Doesn't matter at all. So I always look, oh, yeah, I'm ahead in this little tiny ecosystem. I gotta win. But there's all these other arenas where I'm not better in any way. In fact, there's most arenas where I'm a little bit worse. So the protocol that we have to go with is to subordinate our ego. Listen to what people have to say, treat them with respect, allow them to influence you, put trust in them and care about them. That's part one. Okay? Part one is to do that support an athe. Part two is remember that you are being judged and then pay attention to the areas where you are getting judged. And this is where that, that idea of a low level of paranoia comes in. You know, I liked, I've gone through my life with a low level of paranoia, meaning looking around going, you know what? I'm actually not. I better do a good job here. I better work a little extra hard. You know, we wrote the book, the code, the evaluation, the protocol. What's good about that book is it gives you a way to grade yourself, right? Grade yourself on things that you're going to be judged in. And I didn't make this connection Until I was thinking about this, I was like, oh, we actually wrote a book about how you get judged. Because we all get judged on this. We all get judged on health, on personal development, on professional development, on character, on. On relationships and preparedness. We get judged on those things. So if you write down what you're getting judged on, you can start to then pay attention to it and measure how you're doing. And that's the point of the book. Book, the code, the evaluation, the protocol. We broke down the health portion, like physical fitness, sleep and rest, diet, nutrition. How did you do on those things today? We broke down personal development, intellectual fitness, time management, financial management, personal goals. You know, are you wasting money? Did you waste time today? Did you do something to get smarter today? Are there personal goals that you have that you have moved towards professional development? How you doing at work? What's your performance at work? What advancement are you looking at? What qualifications have you racked up? Character and leadership? Did you stay humble today? Did you keep control over your emotions today as a leader? Did you help someone else? Did you mentor? Did you provide resources to people from a relationship perspective? How's the time that you spent with your family today? How's the time that you spent with your friends today, coworkers today, from a preparedness thing? And again, this is something else I should have put in the list of things people respect. How prepared are you for what's coming? Did you do some martial arts training today? Did you do weapons training today? Did you run through some fire safety drills today? Did you make contact with your community and make sure that they have what they need in case something happens? These are things that people universally respect. These are some of the things that we are getting judged on. And then you have to keep this in mind. The things that you're working on, the things that you strive to get better at, just become just because you are striving to do well at them? And in some cases, you might become exceptional at them. You might garner exuberant wealth, you might be. You might get an incredible physical fitness. You might become a high level black belt in jiu jitsu. There's all kinds of things that you can do that should command respect on this primal order. But none of that means anything if you're not staying humble. If you're not staying humble. A while back a kid asked me is on the underground podcast and a kid asked me something along the lines of, and don't quote me. It was something along the lines of if being and becoming an Eagle Scout would be beneficial for service in the military. And my answer started with, that depends on.
- [56:28]
B
Okay.
- [56:29]
A
And the reason that depends is being an Eagle Scout. There's all kinds of awesome things that you learn, and it's difficult to achieve. You learn all these basic skill sets for life, for survivability, for being in the field, for interacting with other people. Like, you learn some really quality skills that are all things that. Well, not all, but a lot of them could fit right into this. This matrix of being judged and how you're being judged. So if you take and you learn all these skills from becoming an Eagle Scout, and it increases your discipline and increases your capability, man, that's awesome. And it will be beneficial if you join the military as long as at some place in the back of your mind, your ego doesn't take those skills that you have and make you think that you're just a little bit better than everyone else. Have you ever seen a program called the Boys? I haven't watched all of it, but it's a show about superheroes.
- [57:37]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [57:39]
A
And so the one guy, Homelander.
- [57:41]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:42]
A
And he's. He's. He's a superhero, but he's an.
- [57:46]
B
Right, and the blonde dude.
- [57:48]
A
The blonde dude, yeah.
- [57:49]
B
Okay. That's the one.
- [57:50]
A
I have known, like, leaders in the military, officers in the military that were basically Homelander because. And you could see it stemming from the fact that they were an Eagle Scout. You know what I mean? Like, good, good. It's funny, people that were Eagle Scouts that are good, you don't know that they're an Eagle Scout until you've known them for like a year and a half. And, you know, one day you're like, out somewhere and you're trying to rig something and they like, go, hey, try this knot. You're like, dude, where'd you know that not from? He's like, I was an Eagle Scout. And you go, oh, damn. Okay. And you put. And you do like a sixth sense assessment of everything you've seen this person do over the years. You're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Guy was always, you know, working hard has good character. Okay, that makes sense. Eagle Scout. Oh, yeah. All day. But then there's the other end of the spectrum, the person that's like, well, you know, before I went to the Naval Academy, I was an Eagle Scout. And you're like, oh, no, here it comes. This person thinks he's better than me because he is an Eagle Scout. You know, was the captain of the football team, went to the naval Academy, all these things. Every one of those things is unfortunately for him, giving him the impression that he is higher on the primal order than he actually is. And that is a significant problem. So when you work hard to improve yourself, you've got to remember that you still need to be humble. The worst mistake that you can make is overestimating how much people respect you and where you are on the, on the, on the primal order, where you are on this primal hierarchy. The worst mistake you can make. When I look at leaders throughout my career, military and non military, the guys that were hated, the guys that were hated. Again, if you were to ask them to assess their leadership and how much the team respected and admired them, it would be off the charts. Off the charts. And if you take someone that really was revered and admired and the way that they would grade themselves would be low. And this is the classic case on the, on podcast number five that we did, I read a counseling, counseling, verbal counseling that I went through that I wrote down for a SEAL officer that was going to get fired. He wasn't getting fired yet, but I was trying to give him the final escalation of counseling of like, you are going to get fired. And I just as direct, no holds barred, you are arrogant. People do not like you. Your team doesn't want to listen to you, the whole nine yards. Just direct. And I had created a self assessment for the, the SEAL leaders that were going to start their workup, pre deployment workup. And I'd only done it. This is probably the second SEAL team that I'd done it for. Hey, just assess how you are in these categories, you know, tactical leadership, you know, physical. Just rate yourself where you're at. And I hadn't actually utilized them. I thought it was a good idea, but I hadn't actually utilized them. And as I'm getting ready to counsel this guy, I go, hey, you know what? I want to pull out that self assessment I made for this guy and see what he thinks of himself. And I shit you not, the highest grade you could get for each category was a 5.0.
- [61:26]
B
Yeah.
- [61:27]
A
And this dude ranked himself in whatever it was, nine different categories and subcategories of leadership. He ranked himself as a 5.0 across the board. And as I looked at that, I go, dude, this is crazy. And I said to myself, you know what? I wonder if, I wonder what one of the good guys, how one of the good. And I, you know, currently I was putting a SEAL team through the pre deployment training and this guy was part of that SEAL team. And I said, wait, who's the best guy I got going right through right now, this, this training? And I said, oh yeah, I know who it is. It was really obvious. Real standout guy, humble guy, hard working, actually crazy thing. This guy had been through some significant combat experiences with some significant combat disasters. Like he'd been, he'd been tested on the battlefield, the other guy hadn't I. So I go, I wonder how that guy graded himself. So I reach in the file, I pull out this guy's thing and he's given himself a 2 and a 2.5 and a 3. And his average score was like a 2.6. And that guy was respected and, and admired by his platoon. And this other knucklehead was hated and that the knucklehead ended up getting fired. And that's a classic example of exactly what I'm talking about. The way this guy viewed himself as a 5.0 across the board. He was hated. And the guy that viewed himself as, you know, average to below average was admired and revered by his troops. So keep that in mind. You don't just like, you know, you don't have as much leadership capital as you think you do. You don't have all this respect and you're not as high on that primal order as you think you are. And the only way to defend against having a problem is to rank yourself at the bottom, be humble. That's what we have to do. So remember, I would say that you are being judged. You're being judged all the time. By the way, if you think people don't notice stuff, don't that should be your red flag, that you're an idiot and that you're arrogant and that you're egotistical and that people don't like you. When you think people don't notice things, you are so wrong. And right now, if you're listening to me going, yeah, but he's not, yeah, I don't really agree with that. Cuz I'm a little bit smarter than the rest of people. That's, I'm telling you, that is a red flag. That is a red flag. When you think people don't see what you do, when you think they don't see your little maneuvers, that is a red flag. So you have to remember that you're being judged all the time. I would specifically detach and think about, and think about what you're being judged on and write those things down. Maybe even formulate a code, maybe even formulate a, an evaluation system so you can Check yourself and you can try and improve your capabilities in these categories that you write down. So whatever job you're in, write down how you think you're being judged for that job and how can you get better on those things. And yes, you should think about the primal things, you should think about the ancillary things. You should think about the universal things. Think about how you're being judged and write them down. And look, you might have some faux pas in some of those categories, right? You might have really screwed some stuff up. Okay, well, you better over index on some other things to straighten yourself out. You know, if you're one of these people that's been unreliable in the past, how are you going to earn back that reliability? It's not, it just does not happen overnight. You have to. And you have to overcompensate for it sometimes. And you might have areas that are just weak. You know, you might have some areas that you're just weak in. You know, we'd get guys in the SEAL teams that would just like, they wouldn't be a good shot. They just wouldn't be a good shot and they, they'd work their ass off to be really good at some other stuff. Or you have somebody that's not really good at diving. Okay, well, they'd work really hard. I mean, there's like a certain level of natural ability. And with shooting, you know, with shooting, you know, there's, there's probably one out of every hundred guys that is just not going to be that good with a pistol. They're just, they just don't have whatever little thing it is, some hand eye coordination. So one out of every 100 guys, they barely, barely make it through SEAL training. Some of them make up for it and they just train their ass off until they get good. But some of those guys even, they're just never going to have that, really. And they're just going to get good at some other stuff and they make up for, for their shortfalls. So as you look at your life and where you're at and what you're doing and you look at how you're being judged, there's probably going to be some categories where you go, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm pretty bad in that category. Definitely try and improve it. Some of it is hard to improve some of it, you know, if you're getting judged, if you play basketball, part of the judgment of how good you are is like how tall you are. Can't change that. Can't change that. So maybe you Become a really good shooter. Maybe you become a hardcore defender. Maybe you get really good at rebounds. Dennis Rodman, did you see the Last Dance?
- [66:51]
B
The Last Dance documentary?
- [66:52]
A
Yeah.
- [66:53]
B
No.
- [66:53]
A
Dude, you should watch it. But Dennis Rodman would watch and like, where his opponents would miss. Generally speaking, he just, he just went so hard into becoming a good rebounder that it didn't matter that he wasn't putting up big numbers on the offense because he was. He made up for it.
- [67:12]
B
Yeah.
- [67:12]
A
So you should do that. Write some things down. How are you being judged? And then figure out where your shortfalls are. Try and improve those. Remember that people are watching you. And remember that if you think they're not watching you, you're wrong. And if you think they're watching you, they don't see what you're doing, you're the most wrong. Lack of self awareness, real problem. And then try and do better and try and be better. And then as much as you can, try, try not to judge people. And I, I recognize that that is a very difficult thing to do. It's very difficult to look at someone else and not on some level judge other people. But here's what you can control is when you judge them, then try and explain to yourself why you are actually their subordinate. You are actually you. You should be listening to what they have to say. You should be treating them with respect. You have to stay humble because you don't know where you are on that category in their head. So that's what we need to do to close this out. Subordinate your ego while you simultaneously try and become the best that you can. And that's what I got with that. To get better.
- [68:39]
B
Yeah, we're getting better.
- [68:40]
A
Look, we're gonna get better mentally.
- [68:42]
B
Yeah.
- [68:42]
A
We need to try and be more earnest. We're going to try and take care of people. We're going to be humble, but we're also going to have to be strong, healthy. We're getting judged on that. That means we're getting after. Means we're doing jiu jitsu. We're lifting, we're running, we're sprinting. And when we do that, guess what, Guess what.
- [69:00]
B
What? We're gonna need some fuel.
- [69:02]
A
Yeah. All right. Jocko fuel. Check out Jocko fuel. Check out jockofuel.com. we have protein. We have energy drinks. We have hydration. We have super krill oil. We have protein powder. We have ready to drink protein, which we might as well call protein powder. Just protein desserts.
- [69:21]
B
Yes.
- [69:22]
A
Because they taste so good. The ready to drink protein. We're we're kind of, kind of crushing. Look, is the vanilla and the chocolate great? Yes, they are. They're phenomenal. But the fruity cereal, yeah, it's. It's kind of amazing. Yeah, it's kind of amazing. Kind of nostalgic. And now we have this raspberry gelato ready to drink. Bro. Breakfast glory. Agree. By the way, you can get this stuff@jockofuel.com you can get the, the supplementation that you need, the time war, the joint warfare, the things that you need. You can get it there or you can get it in the retailer, the store where you shop. Generally speaking, we're probably going to be in there. If we're not in there, ask and we'll get in there. Jockofuel.com Be strong, stay strong. Also. Origin USA.com we make American made clothing. We make jiu jitsu gear. All 100% made in America, which is a miracle. It's awesome. And we've been doing this for years. We've been doing this before. It was cool to make and make stuff in America. We were making stuff in America. And not only that, we were supporting other people that produce things in America. Like the people that grow the cotton, the people that make the zippers, the people that make the thread. All 100% American. So don't buy a communist T shirt or a communist hoodie or God forbid, a communist jiu jitsuki or rash guard. Buy an American one. Buy American made. Help America, Help our security, help our economy, help our communities. And help yourself by the way, by getting awesome gear. Jeans, boots, they're just epic across the board. It's what we do. Check out origin USA.com where everything is built by freedom.
- [71:26]
B
It's true. Are you going to camp this year by the way?
- [71:29]
A
Yeah, hell yeah, we are.
- [71:32]
B
We are. Yeah. August. Yeah, I'm already, I'm already registered. Etc. Etc. Oh yeah, don't forget about Jacquestor representing on this path of improvement. Regardless of where you are on the hierarchy, primal order of things, pecking order, all of the above. I actually had a thought though. Rewind just a little bit. So you know, like these, some, some of these universal qualities that are appreciated, whatever, respected. Like integrity. Yeah, I noticed that it has a lot to do with consistency over time for sure. Like integrity, right? Like let's say Jocko's integrity. You know, you can trust them. You can trust them in the safe, you know, in the till, the whole thing, whatever. You work it up store, you have to show integrity. Like if you, let's say you don't have integrity. Right. And you're like, you know what? I'm gonna make a change. You know, I got caught stealing, I don't know, something like this, and I'm gonna make a change. You can't just sort of make a change and it's changed. You got to do it consistently over time because that's like, by its own nature. Is that like trustworthy integrity? Kind of everything, though, when you think about it, like, I was, as, you know, I was part of a. I'm part of a long line of late people. You know, let's just say I may or may not struggle with showing up on time. Yeah. So if I'm like, okay, I changed, I turn over a new leaf. I'm coming. I'm. I'm no longer a tardy person. I can't just show up next week and everyone be like, oh, my gosh, you're not lady anymore. Congratulations, you're different. No, no. I can be on time for two months every single day.
- [73:07]
A
Yeah.
- [73:07]
B
40 hours a week. When I come in late on that second month, the end of that second month, everyone's gonna be like, oh, yeah, it's you. You're a tardy person. Like, you know, no, no surprise, no change. You gotta do it consistently over time. So basically, by my calculations, I forget if I told you this before. My calculations is as long as. As it took for you to establish that reputation of being a tardy person or a. Whatever person, you need that much time to get back to baseline to start a new reputation, give or take.
- [73:38]
A
I don't know. You don't know?
- [73:39]
B
Okay.
- [73:40]
A
I think you're wrong.
- [73:40]
B
Okay. Because longer or not as long. Way longer.
- [73:44]
A
Way longer.
- [73:44]
B
Okay.
- [73:45]
A
Because you ever heard that thing, one oh, erases a hundred. Atta boys.
- [73:51]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [73:53]
A
That's a hundred.
- [73:53]
B
100, you think?
- [73:54]
A
100 to 1. Now, is that completely accurate? No. Because I don't think it would take a hundred years to make up for if you were late for, like, let's say. Let's say for a year you were. You. You and I started working together, and for a year you were like intermittently late.
- [74:11]
B
Yeah.
- [74:12]
A
And then you turned over a new leaf. So you're saying it would take one year to get back to baseline.
- [74:17]
B
Baseline, meaning you have an even reputation. You don't have a reputation either for or against. That's when you can start your new reputation.
- [74:24]
A
Actually, if I think about that, if you were consistently on time for a year and then you were late again.
- [74:30]
B
Yeah.
- [74:31]
A
What would I think would I think, oh, yeah, he's late.
- [74:35]
B
Yeah. But that is the start of a new reputation, which is coincidentally the old replica reputation.
- [74:41]
A
Yeah. But I think I would immediately tie back into the. The year that you were late all the time.
- [74:46]
B
Right? Yeah. After one year.
- [74:47]
A
One year you got to go two years. I think you got to go double.
- [74:50]
B
Right.
- [74:50]
A
So to get the baseline.
- [74:52]
B
Baseline.
- [74:52]
A
Double to get to baseline.
- [74:53]
B
I think double to get to. Into the new reputation, I think. Okay, so this is the way I see it too. You can take it with pretty much anything. I guess if it's a real detrimental thing, might take longer because there's more to risk, I think, psychologically. But let's say late. We work together for one year. I'm late like twice a week out of the five days a week. Right. Three times a week. That's a late person right there. Three times a week is late for one year. The one year I'm like, maybe I get counseled or I just turn over a new leaf. Right. I hear this cool podcast saying, freaking, you know, the whole late speech. And then for one whole year, I'm never late at all. In fact, I come in five minutes early on the dot every single time.
- [75:31]
A
Right.
- [75:31]
B
For one more year. I would say if I wasn't the late person I was witnessing it, I would think, yeah, we're about back to baseline. I don't, I mean, I don't necessarily expect them to be on time every time at this point, but I'm kind of convinced that I'm not convinced he'll be late three times a week. See what I'm saying? So we're at baseline now. Add. Add one more year. Yeah. From that baseline. That one year now one more year. So it's been two whole years total
- [75:57]
A
that you've been on time.
- [75:58]
B
And you've been on time. Same exact. On the dot, five minutes before. Now it's been two years since you turned over a new leaf and you only had one year reputation of being. I think you'd be into a new reputation. You'd be an on time guy at that point.
- [76:11]
A
Yeah, I agree. Here's the. I think one of the problems with that is I think people inherently know how difficult it is for people to change.
- [76:22]
B
Yeah.
- [76:23]
A
And so even when you are on time for a whole year straight and you're lady gonna. Ah, there it is.
- [76:30]
B
Yeah.
- [76:30]
A
You know. Oh, there it is. When you. We're so ready for people to just not be able to change because people. It is very difficult for people to change. Usually people change because of either. Something traumatic like, oh, yeah, Echo had a job. He got fired.
- [76:44]
B
Yeah.
- [76:45]
A
And he had a really good job, by the way. A shitty job. If you got fired from being a freaking. When you were a, a bouncer, if you got fired, you'd have been like, whatever. Yeah, whatever. But if you had some really good job and that you love doing and you got fired, then it'd be a wake up call.
- [77:03]
B
Yeah.
- [77:03]
A
But even then, even then, it's really hard for people to change. It's weird how hard it is for people to change their nature. You know, when people have a bad temper and it gets in them in trouble over and over again. I mean, never mind. We get into like, talk about addiction. You know, you talk, start talking about addiction. And it's like, I. Alcoholism, you know, on the one hand, the one choice, I'm not going to drink there. You have health, you have prosperity, you have relationships, you have feeling good. When you wake up in the morning, you have a clean house. Like, there's, there's all these things. On the other choice is you just drunk. And people consistently choose. I'm not going to be healthy, I'm not going to be prosperous, I'm not going to be clean. I, I'm gonna feel like shit. And we'll just take, we'll take it because I just want to have alcohol. That's one example, someone being late. It's very difficult to get people to change. They don't realize how much of a detriment it is.
- [77:59]
B
Yeah.
- [78:00]
A
So it's like all those little things that we remember. So when you show up late, you were late for a year, and then you're good for a year, and all of a sudden you're late. I'm like, oh, there it is, there it is. So I think people need a little bit more convincing if you want to prove to someone that they've changed. And by the way, it's not on me to be open to the new you.
- [78:24]
B
Correct.
- [78:25]
A
It's on you.
- [78:26]
B
Yeah.
- [78:27]
A
You know, when you've created yourself a bad reputation and then you think everyone needs to, you know, accept the new you. It doesn't work that way.
- [78:34]
B
No.
- [78:34]
A
You have to earn it. And it might take years. When people have broken trust, trust, it really causes problems. You know, it takes a long time to recover that trust. And again, was it unintentional? Was it intentional? Did you like legitimately steal from me or did you just, hey, you're. You did wrong math and now you ended up with a few thousand in your bank account. And we go through the numbers and you're like, oh, dude, I didn't realize. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, you know, that's different. I'm still. My trust for you has gone down, but it's different when then. When I'm like, oh, here's where you move the money.
- [79:09]
B
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, there's. And actually, I mean, not to go to. It goes even deeper than that because I've had someone. People, like, literally, like, steal from me. But in the spirit of understanding, I always, like, you know, we do this as fun sometimes where we'll be like, I don't agree with it and I wouldn't do that. But I can see how he got there, you know, and that. That path of opportunity all the way down to action, right? The stealing. If you can kind of mentally kind of understand each step, given the circumstances, that journey is going to determine whether or not or how long it's going to take to build back trust, you know, because some people, like, they're kind of. It's like the difference between premeditated, I don't know, assault versus aggravated assault. It's like, oh, wait, like, I can see how he got there, given the circumstance, you know, so it kind of. You make the evaluation that way. But yeah, you're right. You're actually so right about. Because there's, let's face it, it's pretty cot. In my experience, it's pretty common where it's like, oh, I turned over a new leaf, you know, and it's like. But you're still getting treated like you're the old person. Where it's like, yeah, bro, you. You've been that way for like 10 years. And it's been 10 years, two weeks now. And now you're a whole new person. It's like, bro, it's going to take some time to kind of prove that, you know?
- [80:33]
A
Yeah.
- [80:33]
B
It's kind of up to you to make your case through, act through the behavior. You see what I'm saying?
- [80:37]
A
It's really hard for people to change. There's got to be a real reason for it. We had. I had a new guy in one of my platoons, and he was just like a. Like always a loudmouth, right?
- [80:45]
B
Yeah.
- [80:46]
A
And we tried everything. We tried counseling, we tried talking to him, we tried beating him, we tried haze. We did everything. And again, we liked him. But like, bro, you got to know when to shut the up, you know what I mean? And he never changed. Like, I knew him for. I think he stayed in for 10, 12, 15, years or something like that. Maybe 12 years. And like the whole time I knew him, he was always like that. And he's like, oh, yeah, he's not going to change. So. And he probably, you know, it got him into some trouble. You know, his mouth would get him into some trouble once, you know, we kind of understood that, but we tried to beat it out of him, but he couldn't change him. Like, imagine you, you know, what you're doing is wrong, but you can't stop. Yeah, he's like that. Like, that was just his personality.
- [81:33]
B
Yeah.
- [81:34]
A
And. And so you think, well, it's very difficult for people to change. Very, very difficult for people to change.
- [81:40]
B
It's basically like kind of how you said, where it's either to change you got to have big trauma, like one traumatic thing. But even traumatic thing is so subjective where you could, quote, unquote, beat it out of them. But getting beat up is not trauma. That's like, bro, I've been beat it up before, whatever, you know, kind of thing. But some people, it's like if they get embarrassed, they'll be, oh. And they'll change, you know, because that's traumatic, you know, so trauma is very subjective in that way or. So either one big traumatic thing and they change. Or repetitive, like almost like a therapeutic level. Or like you're hanging around the right people now, you know, and it slowly, over time, after one year, you're just like them, especially if you're conscious of it, you know. Yeah. So it's like either those two. But yeah, you can't just be like, hey, I think you should change. And then. Or you can't just see like a cool movie or video and be like, oh, I want to be like, freaking the guy on A Few Good Men. Freaking. The guy was honorable, so I'm going to be honorable, you know.
- [82:34]
A
Although there's people that. That happens to. But it's got to find them at the right time and they gotta. You got. You know, it's like, what. When they say you gotta want that change. You know what I mean? Like, I think the recidivism rate in like rehab is like 95%. Like, you go to rehab, cool. You just don't drink for 22 days or whatever it is. 30 days, you come back out, 95, 98 chance or something like that, you're drinking again until someone, something happens, you know, they. They get in a car accident, they lose their license and they go, holy shit, I'm ruining my life.
- [83:09]
B
Yeah.
- [83:10]
A
And then they can stop.
- [83:12]
B
Yeah. And obviously I'm not an expert on this, but it does seem like if it's deep into who they are, then you're in that scenario where either. Either trauma or repetitive, but otherwise it's like, it's probably not. You know, if you. If you can watch a movie and be like, I want to be more like that guy, and then you're more like that guy. It's like by your current identity isn't that established, you know, you see? And it kind of works like that across the board. Like, even, like, if people are like you, if you quit drinking, right. You. You're not an alcoholic by any means. You're a kind of guy who's like, well, this isn't really service, like consciously just be like, it's not really serving me.
- [83:51]
A
Yeah.
- [83:51]
B
And then stop drinking. And boom. That's kind of it, you know, that's like a. But an alcoholic person, that's like a deeper. Oh, yeah scenario, you know, where if. It's like, if you have to go to court, quote, unquote, rehab, like an actual established professional rehab place. All right, we're talking therapy already at that point. We're talking repeated conscious, you know, kind of thing. It still doesn't work. It's like, bro, that's a deeper thing than Jocko's drinking with the boys sometimes. You know what I'm saying?
- [84:15]
A
Yeah.
- [84:17]
B
Anyway, a lot of us were on the path. We're representing on the path. Discipline equals freedom. Which is true, by the way. I Learned that about 10, 11 years ago. Discipline. Discipline equals freedom. Where this idea of good you want to represent that. We got your shirts for you, Got some jackets for you. Fall coming up in a few months, by the way.
- [84:36]
A
Sure is.
- [84:36]
B
Got some hoodies for you, some shorts for you. A lot of good stuff on there. Good designs. I'm gonna. Okay. There's another thing. The shirt locker. You already know. I know. Shirt locker, subscription scenario. New design. Every month I think I'm gonna release one more design into the wild from old school shirt locker.
- [84:53]
A
What one?
- [84:54]
B
All your excuses are lies.
- [84:56]
A
Okay, that's a good one.
- [84:57]
B
Pretty solid. Yeah. Written on the floor with chalk, by the way. Anyway, be on the lookout for that if you want the heads up on that one and anything else. It's rare, but sometimes I do give people the heads up when these new things come out so you can get. You get. Get a jump on them. Sometimes they sell out. When I say sometimes, all the time. It's my bad. I still got to get a handle of how much to get. But if you want, you want the heads up, sign up on the email list on jockostore.com at the bottom there. Put your email in there. I won't spam. I don't spam. But I do not believe in spamming as being a useful behavior.
- [85:31]
A
Me neither imo.
- [85:32]
B
But anyway, yes, it's all on jockostore.com check with that.
- [85:37]
A
We also got some books. I've written a bunch of books, written a bunch of kids books. You can check those out. Also check out put your legs on by Rob Jones and need to lead by Dave burke. Check out coloradocraft beef.com if you need some stake. We have Echelon front. If you have problems inside your organization, leadership problems. The problems are leadership problems. Maybe you're not quite. Maybe there's a whole shadow organization and hierarchy in your team that you don't know about. That's what we do. We help you@echelonfront.com check that out for our events or to have us come into your business and help you out. We also have an online leadership training academy. Leadership leadership is a skill and if you want to learn the skills of leadership, check out extremeownership.com and if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Momma Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization helping so many of our vets. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org also check out HeroesAndHorses.org Micah Fink taking veterans up into the mountains where they can lose themselves and find themselves. Jimmy May's organization Beyond the Brotherhood.org check out their swim they have coming up August. Also warriors in need, warriors in need.org checking taking military aviation people and moving them into the civilian sector in a smooth transition. So check that out as well. If you want to connect with us, check out jocko.com also on social media you can check out at Jocko Willink and Echoes at Echo Charles. But just be careful because it's a big freaking brainwashing cesspool that you don't want any part of. So maybe don't check us out. Maybe just stay away from it. Thanks all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are currently deployed around the world right now in harm's way out there to protect freedom and our way of life. We are thankful and grateful for you. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for protecting us here at home and everyone else out there.
- [87:58]
B
Just.
- [87:58]
A
Look, there's a lot of judging going on in the world. People are judging you, which means you need to get better. You need to do better, you need to be better. But once again, warning. Do not let it get to your head. Don't let your ego grow just because your skills grew or just because your strength grew or just because your intellect grows. Instead, stay humble as you push yourself to get better. And you do that by getting up every day and getting after it. That's all we've got for tonight and until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.