This is the Jocko underground podcast. Number 52 sitting here with Echo, Charles E C in the house. I was out at Gettysburg. We're doing the, the echelon front Battlefield, doing the battlefield walk. And I go, I went on this.
Little kind of like tangent, not only a tangent at riff may. Be sure. We know what, what do you you see me? Do this kind of thing, like, going off about something you dead grass, the little bit. What's not aggression? It's not a
digression. Like, what? A, certain
questions, bad, right, that aggression leads us nowhere. It's a
positive. Well, not necessarily. I think technically digression just means like you're going in One Direction with the whatever and then
you would aggression different decades. We're not moving in a good direction though. Like, oh, but I digress them.
Get back to suck. Let's see the initial Direction, but sure. So I
diverted my comments. And anyways, we were talking about terrain, you know, you're out on the battlefield. You can see like high ground and low ground and how important it is and impactful is and then I kind of went on this explaining that people are terrain because there's some real similarities between people and terrain because you if you if you're a good Battlefield leader, you can look at the terrain and you can figure out how best to use it and how its use it to your advantage and how it's gonna help you win the battle. There were also you
Look it up a hill on the map. We're on the ground and be like, hey, I don't really like the way this hill is I'm going to move the hill. You can't do that. Yeah, you have to utilize the terrain. So people are like Terrain in that. They got some advantages to them. You know, this guy's really, really smart at math. Cool. Where am I going to put them accounting department? Right, you know, this person's a really enjoys conversation with people where I'm going to put in sales department, right? So, so you have
Rain, and people are terrain and you can't. Look, look. Can you change them a little bit over time? Sure.
But they're not going to change a hundred percent. You can, you can make some small. They're not even a change. You're lucky to get someone to change, you know, 15, 20 percent. They can change an important important difference. They can change. So if you Echo Charles like the classic cases, let's say you hit rock bottom. If you hit rock bottom, you can change, you can be like I'm never taking drugs. Again. I'm never do whatever. Whatever made you hit rock bottom of your gambling.
Your drink, whatever thing was you can change it, but I can't change you or it's very difficult for me to change you. Let's say you are a micromanager. I can move you a little bit. I can I can get you to micromanage less. But unless you say you don't want man. I am a micromanager and I know it's not good. I'm gonna change then that's different. Then we can make some real progress. That's why one of the key factors of what I try and do. When I work with people is not me, impose the
Earth onto them but show them what they're doing. So they go, you know what? I feel like I'm micromanage my team and I go, yeah, you know that probably probably feels like that to them, you know, so we so it gets, they see it themselves, then they want to change. So,
What I ended up talking. I'm talking about this quite a bit lately, is understanding what Tendencies people have, right? So that's what we have to do. We have to read the terrain of our people. Is this person a micromanager? Is this person obsessed with details? Does this person not care about details? Because if I'm like got a critical part of a project that relies on excruciating detail. I'm not putting Echo Charles in Charge of that project, right? That's not your thing. She's not your detailed thing.
If I have something that's going to require creative solution, then maybe I'm like, hey, I'm gonna put echo on this thing because he's going to have to see the vision and create something that that people will feel. Okay? Well, that's an echo Charles thing. So, I've got a know and understand what your tendency is.
Are you too emotional?
And if you're too emotional, I've got a, I've got a, not only a sign you into positions where those emotions will be mitigated. But I've also got to think, oh, we're about to Echoes about to get some bad news about the project. I need to go down there and make sure that he stays under control. Maybe you're too analytical, right? Where you're walking around like a robot and that something's going wrong with the team and they're all upset and you're just like, I don't know what the problem is. Let's move forward, you know.
And then view losing connection with your team. And that's a problem. Maybe you're too aggressive. Maybe you're not aggressive enough so we can go through all these different traits.
But what's important for me as a leader is just like I read the terrain on the out on the battlefield. Hey here, some High Ground. Here's some some low ground. Here's a ravine. I can utilize this for dead space as we approach a Target, like all of those things that I'm going to study about the train. I have to try and understand that about my people too. So that makes sense. Right? You understand, you tracking few NADA, you would would you write down over there. You got commentary.
Nothing Nas the you kind of covered it. They'll be
After I wrote it down, oh, you know, you name all these traits, right? And then you're like, okay, you good, don't think of it in terms of like, oh, I hate that, they're like that and and they need to change or whatever. It's like, you got to kind of work around it or over it or even utilize it really a sin, a lot. So if let's say someone's um, like a big one. It's like stubborn, right? So once like stubborn, yeah, so the wrong way to think about it. This is the initial thought that that when you're talking ahead or whatever, where if they're stubborn like it's
So frustrating when someone stubborn, they don't want to budge on something, but it doesn't have to be frustrating. If you look at it in terms of a, it's just her, it's like a mountain. It's like you're trying to do sauna know something in the mountains in the way. It's like you getting frustrated that there's a mountain there, but that doesn't help you at all guy. You got to focus on what you should do. You know, how do you maneuver kind of
thing? So, two things on that of the, there's a famous operation in Vietnam that the seals did where they scaled a cliff to get to the Target. And the enemy never thought that.
When whatever scale this Cliff. So, it's exactly exactly what you're saying. Hey, here's this Cliff, It seems impossible. Guess what? We're going to utilize it. You have someone that's really stubborn. Oh you have a project that you know is going to take a hard-nosed to get through this project and get everything done. Maybe that's the person you assign and I'll tell you another thing that's interesting.
With your kids, you know? And you think all my kids so stubborn. Okay. What is the what how is that a positive quality? Because it is a positive quality. Can, you know, you could say stubborn, you can also use a different word, determined. Those are almost the same words, right? Yeah. Those are almost the same words. Hey, Won't Give Up keeps going, won't won't compromise on this. That's determination. So how do we as a parent as leader? Find the best way to utilize the human Terrain?
And put people in a position where they're going to be successful and they're going to help the mission. So that's part one.
Part 2.
Straight out a son. Sue. You got to understand your own.
Tendencies. You got to understand your own terrain. You got to know what you are and who you are in life. And as a leader, you got to recognize when you're 16 years old that you fall for girls too quick, you go head over heels, right? Or you fall for guys too quick. You got to realize that because say, oh I get this feeling and I feel like I'm way out of control and I feel like I'm
Way to in the game and supportive and on board with this with people I get around you get hyped on it. Yeah, so you got to you got to calculate that. Are you too quick to judge? Others. Are you too trusting? That's a big one. You just try. Hey. Yeah, that sounds good. Right? You're can be too trusting. You got to know that this is really. You can start to recognize these things. Like I wish somebody would have said this to me when I was 15.
Because you can start recognizing this stuff when you're 15.
Are you too trusting? Are you not trusting enough? Are you walking around paranoid and every one of you always freaking out and you're like, I don't believe I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna compromise. So so you can end up there. Are you risk-averse are, or are you Reckless? You know, I'm kind of breaking these things into a dichotomy like you're either or and some stuff, you're cool some stuff, your your well bounds, which is great. So, you know, you're well balanced and you know that you're pretty good at assessing risk, and that's a good thing to be. Okay. Cool. So you can check that one off. You have to worry about it too much.
And then, you know, when it goes from life and then go and there's a whole bunch of other things we could talk about. You know, you are you careless with your money or are you too Frugal with you? My some people some people are so Frugal with their money, their, you know, they die with, you know, all this money in the bank and you know, the say the old saying goes can't take it with you, right? So what do you do? Why didn't you go to the freak? Go to, you know, go and surf for a weekend. Instead, you were didn't want to spend that guy.
Gas money. So figure out what your own tendency is what your own terrain is and same thing. With leadership perspective. Are you micromanage do tend to be a micromanager? Do you tend to be obsessed with the details? Do you tend to get emotional? Do you tend to get too aggressive?
And and then what you have to do is you have to take those tendencies that you have.
And you have to put them into the calculus of your decision-making. You have to. You have to put that denominator in there somewhere on your formula to say, yeah. I know, I'm super hyped about this girl, but I also know that I get super hyped about girls. So before I make this step, I need to put that in the calculus.
And here's the thing with all this.
You're only going to be able to see it. If you're able to detach, you only going to be able to guys that are super and the that keep on bringing up guys that are super hyped on girls. Why? Cuz in the team's bro, you get like, you know, the guy he meets the girl. Yeah, you know, and it's just game on. I mean, he's losing his mind. He's just going crazy about this girl.
And you know, you see that happen with girls to those girls. That would like Go full. What's the what's the movie?
Full-on like they're just 27
Dresses. No, no,
the girls tries to murder the guy freaking
fatal Fatal Attraction,
right? There's that too, you know, so you can get all these things happening. Yes. So these what we want to watch out for, you can't see that when you're when you are in that zone, you don't you don't see it. You don't see it at all. Yeah,
people that
Lose their temper seldom recognized it. Well, they definitely don't recognize it while it's happening. Sometimes thereafter. Thought I was like man, I should've lost my temper. Yeah. Now I'm going to jail again for punching someone up, you know, so we have to take a step back in order to see the terrain, you got to take a step back so you can see it. When you can, when you're standing right in front of, it just gets just dirt. Yeah, you have to get far enough away from it, that you can actually make out the terrain features. So that's my recommendation. Start to pay attention to the people around you. What is that Terrain?
Did that terrain, learn to read that terrain and then take a look at yourself? Figure out your own train? Where you at? Yeah, don't let it get you jammed up. Yep,
and it tends where then I'm sorry. I'm kind of thinking of it because terrain can also help you, right? So we don't want to pursue, don't know this or we don't I'm just totally thinking of myself. It feels like I don't I will almost like I won't notice this.
This idea if it's terrain or a person, that's like that's conducive to whatever, right? So it's like, you know, I you know, I you hang around with your circle of friends and they typically have the same interest is you? So it's like there's no contention and but when you're working there kind of is so that mountain kind of seems like kinda is in my way as opposed to when you're with your friends. It's like, oh man, we could just jump In this River on our boat and be weight and get Downstream way quicker than you know, so it's so to work for you and you don't like necessarily
Have to do any work to to utilize or whatever but you guys you and laugh at the monster. For example, you guys use a couple of good examples of this where you know, when you guys do the roleplay? Yeah, who's the guy Fred Ike, I don't know what I would have the name articles aren't.
So the one where you go and Arnold has a big ego. He has a lot of experience. He's hard-headed, write all this stuff. So how you plan on his ego? Yeah, you know where it's like, hey your teen will, the arms, like, I was, you know, my team's not going to be done for this thing or this new change in the snail method, beer. Whatever reason. That's just a classic. Yeah. Yeah, right, but the new players, he garnered says there's no way my team was gonna go with this new procedure and I kind of safe. Yeah, but Arnold though,
Those guys look up to you.
