Jocko Underground: It's Time To Reset. New Authority, How to Motivate The Unmotivated

This is the Jocko Underground podcast with Echo Charles sitting across the table from me. And I am Jocko Willink.

Control, alt, delete. Do you remember? Control, alt, delete. Is that still a thing?

It is still a thing.

So I use an Apple computer system.

So what is yours?

Command. Well, what's interesting is. Here's what's interesting straight up. Honestly, when you have Apple Computer, you don't even really remember what the reset button is because it doesn't happen very often. And I know there's some software engineer reason for this. Kernels. Is that something to do with kernels?

I don't know what colonels, I don't know either.

But the way the Apple system is designed, it doesn't get get. It doesn't get jammed up as much as the Windows operating system. Okay, that's just this. Those are just facts, bro.

Sure.

When I went, I went on deployment one time before I went on deployment, I used that. I use Windows my whole life like most people, right? I guess most people at the time most people were using Windows and in the military is 100% windows there, no Apples. And I was going on deployment and somebody, one of my friends just kept telling me Apple, Apple app, app, app, Apple like hype, hype, hype, hype. Right? So finally I got my wife Apple computer before I went on deployment. And when I came home and so I got it set up for. And it's a little different. It's a little bit different. You know, you're kind of a little bit unsure. There's some techniques that are different. Have you ever even used an Apple?

Yes, sir.

Okay. So I didn't know these techniques but got the thing set up for my wife. I come home from deployment, what, six, seven months later I come home and.

The computer was on whatever and I'm like working with it. And for some reason it came up. I said, well, how, you know, how many times have you had to restart this? She said, zero, zero times. The computer was up and running for six straight months. Now look, wasn't like it's under massive stress of high level computations. But sure enough, the thing kept up and running. And when I because a Windows computer at that time, this is like 2003, 2004, if you got a Windows computer, you were resetting that thing maybe once every other day. You had to, you had to do what I'm talking about, which is a little bit of the old control, alt, delete. I don't know what that thing is on a Apple computer. On Apple Computer, I Usually just turn it off. I just hold the power button down. If something goes wrong, which doesn't go wrong for months. For months. Stays up and running. Does your Windows computer stay up and running?

No, you're what I'm thinking about your whole scenario. I'm like, what are you doing that makes you have to go Control, alt, delete even on a Windows?

No, but this is back in the day.

Back in the day. And then it must have been like kind of a clunky computer.

Probably. Yeah.

I mean, okay. A video editing. Okay.

Yeah.

You put in some high risk, high resolution freaking files.

Yeah.

And then you start trying to do effects and all at the same time. Oh yeah. Control, alt, delete for sure. But not jocko in 2008 for that's.

One email and a Word document. Why am I that thing?

Locking up.

Yeah. Unless you're opening some spam or something like this where you know how they send you this spam and you got to execute.

I don't know.

But.

But you know, when I was going to college, the only thing, like just to put it perspective, truly the only thing I would be doing on these things was literally, I don't think I've ever edited a video. Maybe I've edited now. I've edited a couple on my phone, on my telephone. I'd edit a video now because I.

Got skills a little bit different. But yeah.

Yeah.

So control, alt, delete or power down. What are these things for? These are, these are like physical actions that you can take when the software on your computer or on your phone or on your printer is confused or locked up or bogged down with too much information or not enough information or it's just going into brain freeze. Right. That's what happens. Is that why it happens? Because I don't really know.

That's a good analogy for sure.

So what you do is you override the software with the hardware with the hard shutdown. You override it, you say, hey, listen, all these little weird ones and zeros that you've got going on, we're just, we're just cutting the power. That's what you do. You override it.

Well, the same thing actually happens to us as humans. See what I'm saying? I can see you're nodding your head. You're nodding your head. You're like, yes, dark was gone. This we in our own heads. In our own heads, we get bogged down, we get distractions, we get rationalizations going on, we get debates going on in your own head. And what I'm Telling you now is that the solution to these.

Brain cycles where they get caught in a continuous cycle of distraction or caught in a continuous cycle of rationalization or whatever. The solution is the same.

It's a hard action that you have to do to. It's a manual override. We have the capability of manually overriding our software.

And the way you do that is by taking action. So it's. Again, here's the problem. Like if. Imagine if the. If the computer had a. A robot arm, a robot hand, let's say, and it was aimed. There's a finger on the robot hand, and it was aimed at the button. True.

Wait, which button? The.

The on off or the reset button. So it's.

It'S aimed at that.

And if you're in normal operating, you could say, oh, shut the computer down and that robot hand would press the button. Right. Okay, cool. But when it's in brain freeze, it can't even do that. Right, Right. It just, it's just locked up. That happens to us in our brains. Right. We know we're supposed to work out and we just go into lock mode. We know we're supposed to go talk to our subordinate about the fact that they're late for the third time. And you know you should do it, but instead you just go into brain lock. Maybe your wife's doing something that's could be detrimental to the relaysh.

Right.

And you know, you should say something. Even, you know, you should take an indirect approach. But you know, you need to contend with this scenario that's happening. Yeah, but what do you do? Nothing. Brain lock. So you freeze. So what I'm saying is you can actually do a manual override of these situations. And you can. You need to make yourself take action.

So you're saying take action in that direction that you're intentionally or intending to.

Yes, take action in that direction that you know you should. And. But the hard part about it is your brain is the one that's controlling that robot finger. That's the hard part. That's why you have to be able to detach from it. You have to be able to take a step outside of your software system and just slam your fist onto that finger and make that thing hit reset. Which means when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, get up. Don't wait, don't hesitate. When the alarm clock goes off in the morning, get up. When you get into the gym, like, you know what? I. Here's it, here's. Here's an example. When we're going to roll the jiu jitsu. When we come in, when everyone gets on the mat, I immediately start the clock for five minutes to start stretching. Right. You have five minutes to stretch. If you don't put a clock on that, how long we stretching for?

Forever.

Could be a long time.

Because, you know, people are stretching, they're kind of talking.

Oh, yeah. They got fiction.

Tell you real important stuff.

That's real.

That's real. So when you go in there, start the clock, you should put a. You should put a timer on everything that you do. Basically. Basically, that's what should be happening. Everything that you do, you should say, all right, I have to commence. You should be a countdown to go, and then a certain amount of time to get her done. That's the way you need to operate. That takes you out of this software brain lock that you can get inside your own head. So that's my recommendation. Yeah, you.

That. That's such a good idea. The clock thing. So even workouts because Brown the same way. Well, I know you already know that about me because I'm the one, number one culprit with the talking thing.

Well, you. You ever seen when I. I'll put like a post on the grass. Yeah. And I'll say something like hesitated, stretched, procrastinated. You know, I'll be. Especially on, let's face it, on leg day, when we're squatting, can spend an inordinate amount of time stretching. You can spend an inordinate amount of time checking your form, you know, with the PVC pipe.

You know, you're just doing all kinds of dumb stuff because you know.

Because you know what you should be doing. So you need to get over that.

Yeah. Yeah.

You have five minutes to stretch, son.

Yeah. And that's like. Well, I mean, obviously, depends on your body, but five minutes, that's a long time. That's solid right there. Again, depends. So that. Don't. But.

Yeah, if you don't. And depends on what kind of person you are. But yeah, if you got other stuff on your mind, especially if you have other stuff on your mind, don't let it be like three, four things on your mind. And then now you got to go focus on some thing meanwhile these things. And then, yeah, you get that weird brain lock thing. I would. And tell me. Tell me what you think about this. So I thought when I first. When you first started going into it, control, alt, delete. I was like, oh, yeah, that's like a vacation. You take a vacation.

That's what it is in a way. In a In a.

Your mind.

What's.

The mind's always in the tropics. I was gonna say the gutter, but it's actually in the tropics. It's actually down at the beach 100%.

It's actually over by the pool.

So you got chronic. What's the two. Chronic and acute will say. So it feels like you're talking about like acute brain lock, we'll call it for lack of better. But if you got chronic brain lock, where it's like you can't think of this direction where you need to go, or this.

Yeah.

Your whole life is sort of bogging down. Yeah. And you feel like. Because you know, you can get. And it's like a version of tunnel vision or whatever where you're like going in this direction and you're like, man, it's not like I can't figure this thing out. Whatever direction you're going in. And you've been working at it for how long? And it's still not just. It's not producing.

Then you. A lot of times your solution is to detach because from a different perspective, you're like, oh, shoot, I missed all this other stuff. And then boom. But vacation in a big way depends on where you go. Depends on what you're doing. It depends on who you're with. But vacation in a big way can provide that.

Then why aren't you coming up with Nobel Prize winning ideas on a regular basis? Homie, you should have cured cancer by now, bro.

Anyway, it's true, though. Think about it. Even if you physically go like super high, like on a mountain or something like that, like, it'll kind of provide that for your brain. It's true.

That is true.

What you said about me detaching to find a solution to the problem.

Yeah.

I was talking about this on the Academy the other day, and what I said was, the solution to the problem is not inside the problem. And when you're in the inside the problem, you're not going to see the solution. It's not. 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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