JOCKO WILLINK: The
solution to your problem is not going to be
found in the problem. It's not going to
be found in there. You have to get
out of the problem so that you can look at
it, make an assessment. And you can assess how
to solve the problem or whether you need to
solve the problem or not. I mean, there's a lot
of things in my life right now where I shrug
my shoulders and go, OK. But-- It's OK. Oh, someone's saying this, OK. Roger that. Carry on. No factor. Move on. And then occasionally,
you go, OK, this is something I need
to contend with. This is something I
need to deal with this. This is something I need
to shape or adjust or move or solve, to use your word. The reason I laugh when I
say that is because problems you have to get in there. But if you take a step
back, you can usually say, oh, a little
adjustment here, a little adjustment
there, and that thing is going to sort itself out. So detachment is a superpower. ANDREW HUBERMAN: Certainly
is and it certainly one that I need to focus on more. I'm grateful for you
bringing that up. This is the biologist
in me, but what is your process for engaging
detachment or for disengaging? Is it an active
process, where you go, I'm going to detach from this. I'm going to put myself
in a situation that is pulling on me. There's this
gravitational force, and I'm going to create some
imagery in my mind of walking away from it. Do I physically
walk away from it? Do I outsource it
to somebody else? What are some tools
for detachment? JOCKO WILLINK: Yeah, this is
one of those situations where you and I had a discussion
about the science and the practical
application aligned. So my original experience
with detachment was-- and this is one
of those moments where I said a lot of times things are
just small moments over time, and you make a
little adjustment. This is one of those
moments in my life. And I wrote about in
Leadership Strategy and Tactics where I recognized like in
a moment what detachment was and how helpful it was. I'm on an oil rig doing
a training mission. My whole platoon is
in a skirmish line looking at a large
area of the oil rig that we're supposed
to be clearing. Again, this is not combat. This is in the 90s. There's nothing going on. We're just doing training. And I'm standing in
the skirmish line. And by the way, I'm the
youngest and most junior guy in my platoon. And I'm standing there looking
down the sight of my weapon, and I'm waiting for
someone to make a call and tell us what to do. And I wait for 5 seconds,
and I wait for 10 seconds, and I wait for 20 seconds,
and no one's saying anything. And we're waiting for
a leader in my platoon to make a call to tell us what
to do, to tell me what to do. And finally after 30 seconds
which seems like an eternity, I can't take it anymore. And so I take a step like a
foot, a 1-foot step, 12 inches. I take a step off
the skirmish line. I look to my left. I look to my right. And what I see is every
other guy in my platoon is staring down their
weapon, staring down the sight of the weapon, which
means their field of view is tiny. It's like a 20-degree
field of view. You're looking down the
scope of your weapon, or the sight of your
weapon, and that's how big their field of view is. And I'm looking,
and I'm thinking, oh, there's my
platoon commander. He's looking down the scope--
the sight of his weapon. There's my platoon
chief, he's looking down the sight of his weapon. There's my leading
petty officer, he's looking down the
sight of his weapon. There's my assistant
platoon commander, he's looking down-- so
everyone in the platoon is looking down sight side
of their weapon, which means they all have a very
narrow field of vision. Well, when I take a step
back and look to my left and look to my right, guess what
kind of field of vision I got? I got a massive one. I can see the whole scene,
and I can see exactly what it is we need to do. And at that moment--
look, as a new guy, you need to keep
your mouth shut. You don't say anything. And I'm thinking, well, but no
one else is saying anything. So I muster up all the courage
I can, and I open my mouth and I say, hold left,
clear right, which is a basic tactical call. No, this is not a
patent-level genius maneuver. It's just a normal call to make
in a situation that we were in. I say, hold left, clear right. And I'm expecting
to get slapped, told, shut up, new guy. But instead,
everyone just repeats the call, hold left, clear
right, hold left, clear right. And we execute the
maneuver, and we finish the clearance of this oil rig. And we get done,
we get to the top of the oil rig, which means
we cleared the whole thing. We're on the helo deck at the
top, and we go into a debrief. And now I'm expecting,
OK, now, I'm going to get told, hey,
what were you doing? You need to keep
your mouth shut. And instead, the
platoon chief goes, hey, Jocko, good call on
the cellar deck down there. And I was like,
yeah, that's right. But then I thought to
myself, hold on a second. Why if I'm the youngest most
junior guy in this platoon, why was I able to
see what we needed to do and make that call? Why did that just happen? And then I realized it was
because I took a step back. To use your term, I
broadened my field of view, which
allowed me to think more clearly because instead of
being hyperfocused and narrowly focused, I broadened
my range of vision. I took a breath
before I made my call. I had take a nice
breath to speak clearly. And I realized that taking
a step back and detaching, I got to see infinitely
more than even the most experienced guys in my platoon. And I started doing
it all the time. And I started doing
it in land warfare. I started doing it
in urban combat. I started doing it in all these
tactical training scenarios. These are just training. This is the '90s. I started doing these
training scenarios, and it always allowed me to
see what we needed to do. And then I started doing it
when I was having conversations with people. And having a conversation
with my platoon chief, and I can see that
he's starting to turn a little red in the face. And we're about to
argue about something. I said, oh, wait a second. I'm taking a step back look and
go, he's getting mad right now, and he's the platoon chief. You better just de-escalate
this thing real quick. And I'd say, hey, you know
what, chief, that sounds good. Let me go relook at
the plan or whatever. And so I started to do
this with my normal life. It was to not get wrapped
up in my own emotions. Not get wrapped up in the gun
fight that was happening right in front of my face. Not to get wrapped up in the
details of what was going on, but instead, take a step
back, detach, look around and then you can make a
much, much better decision. And it's not-- it's exponential. If you're looking down
the sights of your weapon, and you take a step back,
and you look around, it's exponential how
much more you can see. Now, listen, if you are the
only person in a gunfight, it's going to be harder for
you to do that because you've got to be focused on
whatever you're shooting at. But when you have 16 guys
or 20 guys they're all looking in the same
direction, it's very easy to be the guy that goes,
I'm going take a step back, look around, make a call. So when you talk
about the mechanics-- when I teach this to people
now-- the mechanics of it, take a step back literally. You and I are at
a meeting, there's a bunch of people this starts
to get heated argument, I will literally push my chair
back away from the table. Change my perspective. Widen my field of view. The other thing in the SEAL
Teams you don't want to sound panicked on the radio
for a couple of reasons. Number one, because when
you panic on the radio, it's going to cause
other people to panic. Number two, if you panic
on the radio, and you sound panicked, everyone's
going to make fun of you. So when you get back
from the mission everyone is going to go-- ANDREW HUBERMAN: Double whammy.
JOCKO WILLINK: --yeah. You sounded like
a baby out there. So what would I do before
I would key up my radio, take a breath. And so here I'm manually
slowing down my breath. I'm broadening my field of view. So if you're in a meeting,
or you're in a-- you're at the supermarket
parking lot, and someone starts to yell at you, take
a step back, take a breath, broaden your field of view. Detach from those
emotions that you're having and make some space. And that's how I go through
the mechanics of detachment. Now, I can tell you
right now I mean, when you do this all the time,
which I do this all the time. Yeah, I don't really
have to step back. But when you're starting to
be able to try and do this, absolutely. Make-- And I'll tell
you here's another like weird little nuance
thing, lift your chin up, and put your hands down. Now, this is not in a combat
situation, not in a fight. But here's the thing,
when I get defensive what am I going to do? I'll raise my hands up
and put my chin down. That's like a fighting mode. So if you and I are
having a discussion, and I'm starting to get heated,
and I'm starting to like, oh, he's not listening to me. Instead of me putting my chin
down and put my hands like up to where I can put them
in your face a little bit, no, I'm actually going
to take a step back and say, put my chin up. It changes my perspective
a little bit more, changes my visual
perspective just by changing the angle of my head. Take a step back,
put my hands down. I'm not being in a defensible-- I actually want to hear
what you have to say. And if I start listening
to what you have to say and not talking--
it's very hard to be detached when you're talking. It's another key component. You want to detach,
shut your mouth. So I'm in meetings in a
bunch of different companies. I'm running-- I
have a bunch of-- I own a bunch of
different companies. I'm in a meeting
in my companies, I'm not the one that's
doing all the talking. In fact, I'm doing
mostly listening. When I'm in Task Unit
Bruiser, my task unit, I'm not sitting there
giving the entire brief. No, I'm letting
the platoon chief and the platoon commanders
give those briefs. And that way, I'm detached. I'm listening to what
they have to say. I'm more capable of seeing what
holes there are in their plans by not moving my mouth,
not talking, I'm listening. So those are some of the
methodologies that I use and that I advise people to use
in order to effectively start down the pathway of being able
to detach in various scenarios.
