this is the Jocko underground podcast number 42 sitting here with Echo Charles and DC Daryl Cooper guest appearance I was I was thinking about some of the principles of combat leadership that I talk about all the time one of them is prioritized and execute and the reason I was thinking about this is because obviously I talk about it a lot from a business perspective I talk about it a lot from a combat leadership perspective and sometimes I talk about it from a life perspective and I think it is it's well not a thing I know
it's applicable in all those categories it is absolutely applicable in all those categories but there's something else that in talking with people and communicating with people I've talked to a lot of people and communicate with a lot of people in a lot of different situations and scenarios and one of those is I I talk to people that are dealing with like a bunch of different issues sometimes emotional type issues sometimes traumatic type issues and because of this is interesting you know I always say in combat because of Murphy's Law your problems are going to hit
you at the same time in business because of Murphy's Law all your problems are going to hit you at the same time so you're going to get the client that's mad the factory that's on fire the the supply chain that's broken it's all going to happen at the same time in combat you're going to get somebody wounded you're going to have a bad head count you're going to have a civilian steel you're gonna have all these things happening at the same time and in life same thing you're going to have your water heater break you're
going to have your kid sick you're gonna have look all this stuff Murphy's law but this also happens on a on an emotional level too so I talk to people and sometimes I see that they are under an emotional attack and because of Murphy's Law it's an emotional attack from multiple different directions and what I wanted to talk about is the fact that even in those situations prioritize and execute still comes into play so when you have multiple emotional traumatic scenarios happening at the same time this your reaction can be the same as someone messing
up on the battlefield that is they freeze they they freeze they don't do anything or they try and solve all the things at the same time same thing can happen in the business I don't know what to do what should I focus on and they don't do anything or they try and solve all their problems at the same time life the same thing can happen so when we as humans get hit with multiple emotional attacks or like psychological attacks you know it's like you lost your job you lost your girlfriend you found out that you've
got some sickness that's going on and all those three things happen at the same time look if one of them happens you lose your job you got your girl you're okay you lose your girl you still go to work you got your job you're okay but when you lose both those things that's a huge hit to your to your emotional stability and then on top of that you find out that you're sick and then on top of that you know the the mortgage is due and now you're a couple days late so these are like
problems but they're not just they're not just normal problems they're emotional problems and they hit you at an emotional level so in those situations prioritize and execute still applies and I've talked some people through this recently who have had some significant emotional challenges going on and it's the same it's the same principle okay what is the major cause of your problem okay you've got a bunch of problems going on you've got this one major significant problem let's talk through that problem first let's focus on coming to grips with that initial problem because you combine six
problems this is how people get overwhelmed this is how people end up hurting themselves killing themselves because there's six problems they they they're just overwhelmed and they say I can't I'm never gonna get out of this same thing on the battlefield you got all these problems going on no one leader doesn't know what to do they freeze they don't do anything they think oh I'm overwhelmed so when you have five six seven emotional things that are dragging you down prioritize and execute okay what's the biggest issue that I have right now how can I start
to address that what can I do to get to a better place with that particular issue now there is whenever I talk about prioritize next year I talk about handling the biggest problem first that is one technique for prioritize next you there's another technique that is also effective depending on the scenario sometimes you got 10 problems and you got one you know the biggest problem is this the next biggest problem is that but you got a couple little straggler problems that aren't that big you can actually go you know what I'm gonna get rid of
this problem right now I'm gonna focus on this for the next two hours get it done get it taken care of Boom then I can go to the problem that's going to take three hours get that one off my plate so you actually can then focus on these big problems that might take you a week two weeks three weeks a month to get solved but you've gotten rid of some of those smaller problems so you could do that technique as well the the principle is the same as prioritize and execute but the technique is maybe
you go after the small problems first or ones that are going to be easier for you to handle you know you you you got a sick cat and it's draining you emotionally because your cat's gonna die and it's a problem and you're crying every night well you know what the solution is let's kill the cat I mean quite honestly yes right you gotta you got a cat that needs to be put down and it's dragging you down you might need to say okay you know what I need to do the right thing here my cat
is suffering my cat has no there's no medical viable option I need to I need to do the right thing and get my cap put down boom so you get that off your plate that could also be the biggest problem I mean in some cases but the point is it doesn't really matter if you use the first technique or the second technique you could even just look at hey this is the one that I here's another way to do it this is the biggest problem that I'm most scared of facing so I am either gonna
tackle that one I'm going to tackle that problem you know I'm I'm having an existential crisis and I'm afraid to die okay maybe you say all right you know what I'm gonna sit down I'm gonna talk to my I'm going to read I'm going to talk to my friend you know Echo who seems to have a good handle on this kind of stuff I'm gonna try and overcome this fear or maybe say you know what that's a huge problem I don't want to deal with that one right now I'm gonna go to this other thing
that's been bothering me which is you know I don't know if I'm in the right career so both those things work now the other part of this is is taking action taking action is a is a starting to move in the right direction starting to move starts to solve problems and it starts to solve emotional problems as well when you sit and or you lay you lay down or you sit and you stay static and you don't move this is not good look are there exceptional times where maybe you need to take a tactical pause
and you need to maintain your position for a little while to let a situation develop yes yes it does happen seven out of ten times action is going to Trump in action so let your default mode be hey I've got these five or six emotionally draining situations happening when you're just sitting there they're continuing to drain don't do that get up start to move start to figure out how you're going to address some of these problems and what makes it digestible is that instead of looking at the nine problems that you have which you can't
address nine things at once you can't you can barely even comprehend nine things at once but when you look at them you go all right I got all these things that are bothering me what is the biggest okay oh my cat is freaking sick it's been bothering me all right I need to address that right now that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko underground podcast so if you want to continue to listen go to Jocko underground.com And subscribe and we're doing this to mitigate our Reliance on external platforms so
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