Jocko Underground: Don't Trust The "Breaking News". People Get Under Your Skin. Regret.

This is the Jocko Underground podcast, number 39, sitting here with Echo Charlie, as they say. So.

We'Re getting inundated with a lot of information these days, all the time. And it made me think about the fact that one of the things, the lessons that I learned in the military was that the first report was always wrong. And this I'm going to expand on. That first report is always wrong, meaning you get a report from the field, or you're in the field and you get a report from one of your troops.

And.

You'Ve got to listen to what they say clearly. But you also need to recognize that what they're saying to you is probably going to be wrong.

Why? Why is that? Well, there's a bunch of reasons. Number one, the perspective that they're giving you is only their perspective. So whatever they're involved in, whatever this report that they're yelling about or screaming about or giving you, emotionally, it's just their perspective. They can only see something from their perspective at that time. What are the chances that when you take a look at a problem at a situation from one angle, that you see the whole thing? What are the chances of that? Very low. Very low. So they're not wrong, but they're only seeing a small part of whatever's happening.

Second, I already mentioned the word emotional. They're emotional about what's ever happening. They're scared, they're angry, they're upset, whatever. So those are. Those are impacting the report that they're giving you. Also, there's a decent chance that when you mention prox, when you mention perspective, you also have to think about their proximity to the problem, which means they're too close to it, which is also a distorted perspective, because when you're standing so close to something, you don't see it all. So that what that leads you to learn in the military is that when somebody tells you something I shouldn't say that their first report is always wrong because that's too strong. The force first report is not all the information you're going to need.

So what you learn to do is you learn to take a step back. You learn to detach. You learn to take information with a grain of salt, which is an expression. I had to. We all know what it means, but I didn't really know where it came from. And I guess. And there's an ancient book where they talk about taking an antidote to a poison, and part of the antidote was to take the antidote with a grain of salt.

Literal grain of salt, which Tells you that probably whatever you're being told, whatever the poison, probably isn't that bad. So if, you know, you take this antidote and you have including a grain of salt, it's probably not that big of a deal. That's one interpretation of where it may have come from. And neither one of these are confirmed. The other one. Is that the word sal? I don't know if I'm saying that right. In Latin, S A L, it means either salt. So grain of salt, or also wit, as in like witty. But wit also means good sense or good judgment. So take this. Hey man, take this with some good judgment. Yeah, so either one of those. But we know what grain of salt means. And that's something that you learn. Something that I learned from the military is when you get a report, take with a grain of salt, realize that there's emotions involved, realize that there's only one perspective, realize that there's probably some proximity distortion going on.

Which is all important when it comes to moving forward in the military, but it also applies to life. So.

What do we get today? What do we get today is we get inundated all the time with news. We get inundated all the time with social media. We get inundated with the story about COVID the story about politics, the reactions that someone had. All these things hit us all the time, 24 hours a day, by the way, 24 hours a day. It's actually more than 24 hours a day. Think about it. All the news, 24 hour cable news stations that are all running 24 hours a day. So you take 24 and you multiply it times 100, 20, 400 hours a day. And then you talk about all the news sites you can go to. So it's more than 24, it's thousands of hours a day of information coming at you. And what do we tend to do is freaking, freak out on each and every single one of them. Oh my God, this. And so what you need to do is when you get information out there in the world, whether it's from news, whether it's from social media, whether it's from one of your kids, tells you something going on, what you need to do is learn to detach. Take that information with a grain of salt. I'm not saying that that information's wrong, but it's probably very likely not going to be whole picture. So don't treat it as if it's the whole picture. Don't treat it as if it's gospel. That's another thing we Don't. I don't want to make a decision based on information that I know there's going to be additional information at least. I'm not going to make a big decision. I might make a little decision. You tell me, I think there's enemy coming. I might say, all right, guys, lock and load your weapons. I'm not going to say get online and attack. No. Because I don't even know what's happening. But I might say, hey, boys, you know, get your gear on. I've said that many times. Hey, get your gear on. Hey, get the trucks lined up. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's like a. That's like a good feeling I just got when I said that I could tell you, get the trucks lined up. Which means, you know, there's something coming down the pipe. We want to be a little bit, you know, staged because you keep the. You keep the trucks in sort of. What's it called, Like a carport scenario. You have a roof, right. So it's not getting beat down from the sun. A little protected from the elements. Yeah. But then it's like, hey, get the trucks lined up.

And then this, you know, guys start doing the pre maintenance checks, getting ready to rock and roll. But do I say, get in the trucks and launch the trucks and start driving? No, because we don't even know what's going on yet.

So you want to get the trucks lined up. Okay. Don't launch until you get. Gather more information. So I think this is. I see a lot of people a lot of time. I mean, God, especially if you go into social media, but the news does it all the time. Everyone's freaking out about stuff. People are drastically porpoising, going up and down and up and down emotionally over stuff. And it's crazy. Don't do that. Don't get crazy. Detach. Understand why people are saying what they're saying. Listen to what they have to say, but please keep it in perspective.

So what's an example of, like, when you get some, let's say, everyday life. Right. You talk about the news cycle, Right. So what is an example? Like solely, maybe if some news report comes in about something and then what, you just immediately go to social media, repost it and say disgraceful or something like that?

Yeah, exactly. There you go. And then that. Then someone's gonna react to what you just posted.

Yes.

Yeah. On both sides, by the way. That's not disgraceful. That's standing up for himself. I can't believe. And the Other side is, I can't believe that that person did that. You know what I'm saying? So that's what everybody does 24 hours a day. And then you add to the fact that everyone wants to get the big freaking clicks and likes and retweets and all that. So that makes everyone insane.

Yeah.

So don't do that. And yeah, with the news, when things come out on the news, don't freak out about it. Listen to what people have to say. Understand your. First, you should see grain of salt. What is it? Skeptical. Skeptical. That's another synonym for the. For the term grain of salt is salt is skeptical. Look at something to be. Okay, yeah, I get it. Yeah. Echoes saying that, you know, the sky's falling, the sky is falling. Or echo saying that, hey, everyone at the gym's got ringworm. Like, okay, I'm sure some people have it. I don't think everyone has it, right. I don't think we gotta shut this thing down. No. First of all, we don't need to shut it down. Second of all, not everyone has it. A couple people got ringworm. Got a little ringworm. No one died of ringworm that I know of.

People Covid right now. Omicron. Omicron, right? It's spreading very quickly.

No. Okay, cool. Spreading quickly. There's a lot less hospital cases from it. You know, the first reports. This is spreading like mad. The second report was like, well, yeah, spreading, but it's also less. What is it? Less vicious than Delta Variant or whatever? Hell, yeah, Delta Variant. So let's not freak out about things. Let's listen, let's absorb. Can you make a small decision? Sure. You can make a small decision because someone's saying, well, you might. You might miss out. You might be stuck. You know, when they say, oh, there's a fire.

In California, what does that mean? Or there's a fire in your neighborhood. Does that mean abandon ship and run away? No, it doesn't mean that. But does it mean, hey, you better check your security system. You better make sure your. Your vehicle has fuel in it to make sure if you got to go, you got to go. I mean, if you're below half tank, for sure. We like to keep it above three quarter tank, but you know what I'm saying?

Yes, sir, I do.

Is your go bag good to go? Like, just normal things? Yeah. Does it mean get crazy? No. Doesn't mean get crazy. Means, you know, give the family the pro word for prep. Level 3, DEFCON 9. So there you go. It's a very important.

It is a very important thing to practice. It really, truly is a very important thing to practice with your team, with your family, with your employees being when someone. This is a beautiful way to sort of practice. This is just.

So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

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