Jocko Willink's Thoughts on Swearing - Jocko Willink and Echo Charles

chuckle what do you think of people in leadership roles who cuss I see it in coaching guys either totally use it or are totally against it so swearing cussing using foul language I think this is pretty straightforward question I can tell you that by no means am i a saint and and you know I was in the SEAL Teams for 20 years and when you've heard the term swear like a sailor there's actually a level beyond that and that's swearing like a seal and so I I've you know there's times in the SEAL Teams were literally you know every single word in a sentence would be you know a swear word and and that's something that when I go back and brief the team brief the SEAL Teams right now on something I go almost right back into that mode you know not not quite as bad as I probably was at the high point of my career where I was well rehearsed and well trained at foul language but uh but hey here's the deal on a form like this where we're on a podcast where you know many many people listen to this including kids and my kids and I try and utilize better language now and I'll tell you what I actually had a point where I sort of said to myself me I'm not gonna do that and I heard a podcast wait you're not going to do what I'm not gonna Square a lot I'm not gonna be an I'm not just gonna square the whole time into podcast and this actually happened because I heard a podcast I listened to a podcast where it was actually it was a conversation you know normal podcast it was a conversation going on between two people and they were swearing so much that I just said to myself man this sounds ridiculous it just sounded it sounded completely ridiculous and I just decided after and this was before we started our pie this was you know maybe like two years ago I mean was a long time ago I heard this podcast I just said to myself and these people sound stupid with so much swearing and and it wasn't it what the thing is like you listen to Joe Rogan or like a comedic podcast and they're swearing and in some people like for instance Joe Rogan he swears he does it at the right time and it has comedic impact or has value when he does it so so that's understandable but I've heard people that they just it's it's just it doesn't it ends up having no impact other than just to make you say this person is not very smart right so with that you know I just try to keep it clean but actually it's not even almost like I don't consciously sit there and try and keep it clean but you know I try and keep it clean yeah is that kind of like you know people most of us have this I don't say problem but what was they like like you know like very similar like how it just did yes and I'm doing that it's all kind of like that yeah it is it's the same thing where when you hear someone saying like like like as soon as you you might not even recognize it at first because we're so used to hearing it yeah but if you pick up on it and you're listening to a podcast and you start to hear someone do that it's the same thing you just say wow this person really sounds stupid and they might be smart and but this person sounds really stupid and I'm not gonna sound like that so that's pretty much where where my opinion comes from and and why in a you know what I have had a couple people hit me up and say you know hey this is the only podcast that I listen to that my kids can listen to yeah and that's kind of cool you know I appreciate that it's pretty it's pretty humbling to hear that people are you know sitting there listening to podcast with their kids yeah and I guess humbling is the wrong word which somebody hit me up on Twitter it's an honor right in it's an honor that doesn't feel like I deserve but it's an honor to hear somebody's sitting around and say oh you know I listen this podcast with my daughter or I listen to your podcast with my son and it's so many good lessons to learn and that's that feels pretty good yeah yeah and so if I was to throw that out the window so that I could drop some heft bombs yeah doesn't really seem worth it because what kind of a what kind of a linguistic command do I have if the only way I can get my point across is by is by using foul language yeah you know hey the funny thing is too is well I used to go you know when I was in the SEAL Teams I would go and literally like I said my I would have whole sentence constructions that would be nothing but F bombs right and I would come home and in front of my six six-year-old kid or whatever I never swore in front of my kids and people would be kind of surprised like if I had a seal buddy over and they'd hear me talk in my house and they'd say how do you even do that how do you and I don't know I've just been able to do it so that was another thing you know these podcasts will you go on the interwebs they're there for I hate to say it but they're there forever you know and you can take them down but these are gonna be these are out there so if you if you want to be represented that way for the rest of your life then you got to be a little bit careful about what you're saying yeah yeah that's um because I kind of like swear no I don't like to swear but I like when people swear and stuff I think it's but just like how you were saying like for example Joe Rogan like he'll swear and sometimes I'll swear a lot but it's perfect it's funny one it needs to be funny it emphasizes you know a certain emotion when it needs to it's it's perfect and that's kind of the reason why I like it because sometimes it can be really fun it can be fun to do but overall there's a certain kind of you can't help but kind of respect someone who doesn't like use the word like all the time where that doesn't say um all the time or who doesn't say you know all the time or no I'm saying or whatever and and can can control that and I think swearing is yet another one of those things that some people it's more of a weakness where they kind of they don't know how to use it right they just swear it cuz they swore my parents were so I swear who cares kind of thing and on top of that you do have to consider who you're talking to and in a podcast situation you're essentially talking to everybody regardless of who you you were trying to talk to who you think or want your audience to be it's everyone anyone who presses the button it's gonna be listening so if you don't care how you come off anything good didn't that's that's great but I think you do have more of a control on how you come off when you can control how much you swear it don't swear well I haven't had anybody you know hit me up on Twitter and say hey you really need to swear more right it doesn't happen didn't no one said hey you need to say uh more ready to say like more people don't need to hear that they accept it because it's there and I'll tell you a funny the first time I took my you should take my son out occasionally to various seal training sites you know in order to inoculate him to violence and Firearms and machine guns and war and and yes you've all people can all call child services on me but it was funny the first time you know he wants to see the platoon do some event and I think he was at a at a urban training facility and they got done and I was debriefing them and you know this is my son who had never heard me swear and who kind of use at that age where you know a swear word was like heard worse ever and he you know he was standing there and I debrief these guys and I I debrief them in the proper seal technique and I got done he had a look at his face that said Wow yeah this guy is a little different than what I knew he was pretty shocked and it was uh it was a pretty funny scenario so you know you say you don't swear in front of your kids why is that because you don't want them to swear or were yeah I mean there is you know if you ever see a in and I do now that my daughters are a little older I'll drop some swear words in them in occasionally for impact or for humor you know or for whatever so uh so I will do it but if you ever see a young girl swearing mmm it you see a young boy you know it very much seems disrespectful you know in my opinion so I don't want my kids to be running around with a foul mouth now I took my son and a couple of his buddies went a little surf trip and they were sleeping in a tent outside of and I was in the I was in the camper and I woke up at when I normally wake up and they were they were up early to go surfing as well but I was standing outside their tent and I was pretty impressed with the wide array of foul language is they produced yeah that's right so it doesn't if you'd never swear it to your kids it's not like you have protected them for us wearing so that that's my point is that after I stood out there for a while and I listened to them and then I said something along the lines of hey are you guys done and are you ready to go surfing and my son says how long have you been out there dad and and I swore back at him I swore back at him and said I've been out here long and then they kind of remained quiet for a second and then they started laughing I said alright boys let's go so I'm not a goody two-shoes I understand and you know we talked about pat pat and swirl incessantly amongst the troops and then when he'd get in front of politicians he would not and I guess I would hope to behave that way and I used to I used to go there was when we got back from Ramadi I had to go and brief the Secretary of the Navy had to go brief the congruent I mean I had to go and brief some high-level governmental officials and whatnot and I were just walking there not obviously you're not gonna square them so I think that's another another situation where you've got a know and understand when to swear and one win not to swear and I just hopefully I'm making the right decisions and like I said no one has no one has hit me up and said you really need to use more foul language yeah and you know there's times where we've you know we've used foul language on the on the podcast because hey it's a reality it's a reality of Vietnam it's a reality of all wars yeah so to exclude it like it doesn't exist is not what I'm trying to do here yeah and that's kind of a big in my opinion a big deal when someone you can tell they're they're actively pursuing not swearing we're in any kind of especially a casual conversation where they're about to say something and then they then they use like I don't know I don't know you know those reap obvious replacing with what just it's there's nothing wrong with it but it does kind of kind of make you think oh wait like so we can't just be ourselves right now like we I don't know it feels like you may not relate to it yeah you know what's interesting is you seen for Metal Jacket and we just an amazing movie about the Marine Corps and the whole the whole the whole first 45 minutes his boot camp and it's played by Lee Rainie if it is his name and he does he was a real drill instructor and so he just nails it and I remember when my son was six or seven years old I go yeah I thought to myself I'll play him some of this movie I'll just find some parts that don't have any foul language there are no parties the whole thing is just completely over the top and it's awesome so so there's definitely a time and a place for it the other thing is for me honestly it's you know I was I'm always trying to do better at stuff there's a challenge B in trying to find words that are gonna have impact without just going right to the easy button on them on the big f-bomb because that's gonna have impact but if that's what you need to use then it's just a little easy out that I don't want to take every single time it presents itself yeah I'll tell you when I get when there's been a couple times with my kids where they've stepped over line I did something out of line mm-hmm and when I would have sworn at them it was like I slapped him in the face because it was he having that much impact where I was just throwing around all the time it's taken away the impact right right yeah so strategically it's just best wearing yeah patent apparently was from what I read he when he'd get people fired up he'd do that on purpose oh and then like even just a normal conversation he didn't really sore that much that's one of the things so he used it as a specific tool you know to get certain things done as far as influence goes yeah I can't believe we've talked for 10 minutes about swearing right it needed to be talked about hey we got asked the question

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 780,800

Keywords: discipline, freedom, military, extreme ownership, leadership, advice, jocko willink, echelon front, navy seal, jocko podcast, excerpt, echo charles, leader, lead, win, defcor, discipline equals freedom

Id: l333xjhYtrc

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 16 2019