Jocko Underground: The Importance of Your Reputation

This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 38, Echo Charles, sitting here with me. Echo Charles. Yes, sir. I'm gonna use your. Your situation, let's say, to sort of frame up a conversation possibly. Maybe we get right through it, maybe we don't. Maybe just a topic. But.

Thinking of reputation, you know, the reputation in the SEAL team is very important.

I, I have fun with your reputation, you know, meaning I kind of have presented a reputation for you against your will in some cases of this level of cruising and relaxing and maybe not super overly concerned about work or anything like that. First of all, has that ever bothered you?

No.

No. Okay. Second of all, if it did bother you, how would you handle it? And I'm gonna answer that right now. If it bothered you, the way to handle it would be the way you're handling it right now. So even if it bothered you right now secretly, and you were like, no, it doesn't bother me. That's the way to handle it. So this is my advice, right?

Keep it up.

Yeah. If. If something, if someone's, you know, harassing you about something or you're. They're. They're doing something, saying something, and you don't like it, the worst thing you could do is let everyone know that you don't like it. This is like lesson day one of the teams. If you show that something bothers you, you're going to. That's going to stick. If you don't let it show that, that then people will move on because it gets boring.

Yeah.

If I started, if I was making fun of you all the time. Actually, the only reason I keep teasing you about this stuff is because it's funny. You laugh, I laugh. We have, you know, we're fun. It's funny. If you weren't laughing, and I was, then I probably would have moved on to something else to try and harass you out and front. Try and find them some little. Some little chink in the armor to get through. So reputations.

If someone is in a situation where their reputation isn't what they want it to be, how do you course correct that? I'm gonna say, first of all, you gotta kind of own it. Meaning, hey, the reason I have this reputation is something that I'm doing is earning me this reputation. A lot of times people think that, you know, everyone just says that about me. They're against me, they're trying to make me look bad. And what is this? This is the opposite of extre ownership. We're blaming other people, which means you're not going to make any adjustments to whatever it is you're doing that's earning you this reputation in the first place. So your reputation didn't appear out of thin air. Your reputation actually came from something that you did. Unintentional, intentional, knowing, unknowing. But you did something that, that made people focus on this aspect of you. And that little aspect is now turned into a reputation. If you deny it. That's not me. No, that's not the right move. We have to actually take ownership of the reputation that we got. And if there's adjustments that need to be made to it, we need to adjust our behavior in order to adjust our reputation.

Reputation is strategic.

Meaning it's a long term item. It's you do that, you can do things tactically that can help your reputation, that can hurt your reputation. But over time, you have to maintain the long term, the long game on reputation. You can't be a slacker. A slacker, A slacker. Work hard one day and think your reputation is going to be good.

Yeah.

You can't be.

Angry, temper, emotional, and then one day try and act calm. And you think your reputation, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. It's. Reputation is a strategic thing that you need to think about and you need to act strategic when it comes to how you carry yourself and how it's going to impact your reputation. That's the way it works. So if you notice or you start to feel like your reputation is not where you want it to be, assess, own it. Assess what corrections you need to make. By the way.

I don't recommend radical changes where, you know, I've been lazy, I've been lazy, I've been lazy and one day I just come in and start working ultra hard because people don't. I'm not saying you can't do that, but it's going, everyone's going to kind of feel that everyone's going to kind of be like, oh, it doesn't seem like a lasting thing. It's not. It's a tactical move, but not a strategic move. It's a tactical move. It's not a strategic move if you say, oh, hey, let me pick up that other shift continually.

Let me take that extra shift for the long haul. Oh, you got that little project. I can take that thing. You want to go in and say, oh, I got the new shift, I got this, I got that. No, it's too much. People don't buy. People don't believe it. It's like a fad diet. Yeah, right. Hey, I. I'm only. I'm. I'm going on the carnivore diet.

Right. I'm a carnivore now.

I'm a carnivore now. It's like, dude, you. You just got done with a freaking, you know, ice cream cake. No one believes you. No one believes you.

A whole ice cream.

A whole ice cream. Did you have ice cream cakes growing up?

Oh, what's. I see. Is that like an Oreo cookie ice cream cake? Is that count?

I don't know. But when I was a kid, it was a thing.

Yeah, yeah.

You could go to a. I think we got them from Carvel. Have you heard of Carvel? It was an ice cream kind of store. And you could get an ice cream cake, which is basically a. Which is basically the thing in the shape of an ice cream. The thing in the shape of a cake. But it's ice cream and there's some kind of crust scenario.

You know what? Yes. So here's the thing is going to side note, but it's important, I think, for us. So two things. First off, when I had Covid, I ate an ice cream cake or Reese's. I think it was like a peanut butter ice cream. Yeah, that's what I thought.

But you couldn't taste or smell.

I couldn't. This is before I knew I had Covid, by the way. It was for Thanksgiving. So I'm eating it. I'm like, this is very under freaking, like whelming, underwhelming cake. This under delivered. This is not a good ice cream cake from what it looks like. Right. Cause it didn't taste good. It tastes sweet. But that was it. Then I couldn't taste the peanut butter. You know, what I've come to expect. And so whatever. So that's how I remember. Okay. Ice cream cake. That's an ice cream cake. But when I think about it, there's. Yeah, there's. There's. Okay. So there's a place on Kauai called Koki's Paradise. I recommend anyone goes Kawaii straight up, go to Kyoki's south side.

By the way, ice cream shop.

What? No dinner. Dinner place.

Oh, dinner.

Yes. Nice dinner place. They got live music and stuff. Sometimes like the Hawaiian music stuff. Really good. Really good spot. This is what my wife does. Actually. I shouldn't tell. I shouldn't tell this secret. But this is what she does when we plan a trip. Let's say it's like a few months in advance, she'll call Kyoki's and make a reservation for every night, us being there. That way you're guaranteed to have a reservation and then if we plan not to go, she'll call and cancel it on the day of her day before.

How hard is it to get a reservation?

Well, right now it's very hard.

Okay, so you.

Yeah, you kind of can't. If you're like, you're on quiet, hey, let's go tomorrow, or whatever. You can't really get one anymore either way. Side note, so they're. One of their desserts that you can get is called a hula pie and it's an ice cream cake.

Okay.

And it's like this high.

Yep. Meaning it's one foot tall. Those are the people that are just listening.

It's very high. Yes. And then you could tell it's part of a big, huge cake that you get one slice, but it's for the whole table. It's not a one person gig, depending.

On who you are.

Yes, sir. You're correct. You're right. But it. That is a good, good ice cream cake. It's called the hula pie, though.

Okay, so if we're.

You're the one who brought up the ice cream.

No, no, no, That's a good point. Like you said, I think like you said, you thought this was important. Apparently it is. So one minute I'm eating a hula pie, like legit. Think about this. You and me, we're in Hawaii every day we're going to Koki's. Every day we're going to Kyoki's, I'm getting hula pie on the daily. And then one day I wake up and I go, hey, I'm a carnivore.

What is your level of belief in my scenario?

Okay. I believe it when I see it.

It's not high.

Very low.

In fact, it's kind of. It's almost disrespectful for me to even say that to you. It's almost like I'm just a liar. Yes. Right?

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

It's almost like this is just not believable. So we have to think about that same thing. So it ends up being important. The hula pie ends up being important. Because if we're eating hula pies and then all of a sudden we're saying, well, carnivore doesn't work.

Yeah.

If we are lazy and all of a sudden we're trying to act like we're the hard worker, it's not going to work either. It's not going to work overnight. Now, look, if I tell you I'm a carnivore, and then, you know, we go out for dinner that night, you're like, hey, you're going to get the hula pie. And I go, no, man, I'm going to get chicken wings because I'm a carnivore now. And you go, okay, you might have a little bit more belief, but it's not going to change overnight. So same thing with your reputation. Your reputation is not going to change overnight. It's going to take time. It's going to take effort. It's going to take strategic thinking. You're going to have to. You're going to also have to think about what you do tactically. This is. You hear me talk about how a tactical mistake can have a strategic impact, right? So Abu Ghraib Prison. These guys and girls, these men and women, I guess they're not kids, but these men and women that.

Put these. Put these insurgents and terrorists and suspected terrorists into these body positions and took pictures and all the stuff that they did with them, all that stuff that they did with them in Abu Ghraib, look, that's a tactical situation. They're in a prison. It's not. It's not a strategic move to do that. They weren't. They weren't trying to, say, win the war with these by stacking these guys and stripping them naked and putting a dog leash. That wasn't good. That wasn't a strategic move, but it had a strategic impact, a negative strategic impact. So it's the same thing with our reputation. If you make dumb tactical moves that might not seem like a big deal to you, you might kind of shrug your shoulders and say, whatever, oh, it doesn't matter if I just cut this corner right now. But if that little corner that you cut some people, you know, what's a big one? Like dishonesty, Right. If you're dishonest about something that you don't really. 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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