This is the Jocko underground
podcast. It's number 51 sitting here with Echo, Charles EC
Echo, Charlie and heard a new term recently very recently. You were present when I heard it for the first time. The
term was came from my
daughter. My oldest daughter. The term is toxic productivity, and she was making some
She was making some statements about it. She was also
maybe making some mild accusations about it, mild mild accusations. I know that you posted a
little a little a little clip of that saying that my mere presence can cause stress and cause some feelings of maybe you should be working.
Yeah, so my daughter was saying that she lives in the house of productivity.
Trademark or what? It was like when she did live in the house of productivity. So she brought up this this concept of toxic
productivity and, you know, you can, you can
see all kidding aside, when you hear it. You're like, oh, yeah, I can see where that can happen. Right? And we, I'm sure we know people where they are.
They're they're, they're being this is where I get in my mind. People that are being so productive that they're not being productive. Right? So we'll go into it a little bit. So I looked it up on psychology today psychology to today.com. What is toxic productivity? Yes. It's a real thing. The need to
constantly do can turn toxic and is often ineffectual and unproductive cultures of toxic productivity exist in countries organizations. And within
ourselves, man, you'd get some people in the military.
It's not healthy what they're doing, like, they are just working and ignoring everything else in their lives, and it's not good. And they end up with unbalanced lives. They end up with divorced and up, with their kids being messed up, you know, or having issues or whatever, the wife having issues, but it's really easy to have that happen in the military, but it happens in every organization. Then, you know, when you think of countries like Japan, I don't know what it's like right now.
But when I was growing up, more in the 80s, Japan was like full on toxic productivity suicide rate was crazy back then there. And then the last thing it says the the key tenets of the basic tenets of of toxic productivity. Oh, well, it's in countries in organizations and
within ourselves so you can have it within yourself. You
look I feel bad, you get that guilt going and then taking time to reflect and decide on a course of action is better.
Better than reacting and doing mindlessly. This was an interesting one. They're saying that that some people that have this element of
toxic productivity when there's something occurs instead of thinking about it and thinking of a rational way to solve the problem. They just start
like randomly doing stuff and that's problematic, which I
will. Most of the time I find
people, they they in
Is their problem, right? So they're not taking action. That's a problem. And I guess you go too far in the other direction. You have people taking action for
That they shouldn't be taking and it doesn't make any sense. So the toxic productivity is destructive rather than productive. So, I had a saying, in the seal teams. Have you heard of the term of the Leaning, rest, the front leaning rest? You said it? Okay. So the front leading rest is the push-up position like, yeah. Okay. So that's called the, I don't have to know, it's probably an army saying because the Army will give stuff some weird names, so they be, I can't get down in the front leaning, rest, right? And then, there was also another term from the military called forward-leaning.
Like a, we want to be forward leaning on this, right? Okay, cool. So you got these two things forward leaning and front leaning, rest. And what I used to tell guys is, hey, don't be so far
forward leaning that you're in the Leaning, rest reading. I'm so, I'm working so hard to be ready. That I'm actually not ready for anything because I'm, you know, let's say you've got a, you, let's say you
might have a parachute.
But you're using a zodiac launched from a launch from an aircraft with parachutes. And so you think you might have that. Okay. Well, let's start building it and it takes a whole bunch of time and effort to get this thing called a duck bill to your, you're doing all this work. Well, okay, then it changes your argue actually use Humvees. So now you start getting all your homes and you can see where I'm going with this eventually, you're so far forward leaning that you're in the leading rest here. Actually tiring yourself out for no reason so you got to be careful of that and I think that's a great tenant to
Keep in mind, don't be so far forward leaning that you're in the Leaning rest.
Again. This the weird
aspect of this was this thing. And here's another quote. They say not enough diagnosed Diagnostics. They just try and go fix something which again to me, usually people have the problem with. They don't want to take action. They're scared to take action or they're nervous about taking action. Normally. It's not just jumping in to try and fix it. But you do see that occasionally just like any other just like any other dichotomy if you go to an
Stream, it's going to be bad. The extreme of not taking action in the extreme of taking action without actually assessing that can be bad as well. Normally people tend to not take action. This is the other side of the spectrum, and here's where we can get kind of interesting. It's the need to publicly display how much you are in quotes doing.
I was like, oh, am I highly guilty of this? I could be,
I definitely say. Hey, I'm waking up.
Morning, right? And I worked
out, that's kind of all. I
really say that what they are. That's the only thing I really publicly display. Yeah. I mean, you kind of regular basis, for sure. Yeah, so but there are definitely people, I'm on the grind,
right? Yeah, even, I mean, yours is a, I don't know if it's because I'm around or not but you it's almost like you just imply it, maybe I don't know or maybe it's just my on my hand. I did you receive it. I think. Yeah, technically, I don't think you put that.
A out like to show that you're constantly doing, I don't think so. Well, if I wanted to show what I was doing, I would show a lot more because I don't really,
I don't spend a bunch of time. Hey, I'm getting ready for a podcast right now. I'll have been writing my next book. Hey, I'm back at getting ready to go to a board meeting right
now. Like I don't write your, you know what I mean? I mean, I could do that. Yeah. Gotta there are people who do it straight up for Salat
Allah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I get it. Hmm, so,
That's a little bit
that's so that I suppose that
would be like the same
version of
you know, where Instagram, where people put on
the filter that makes them look young or whatever you need. So now I'm putting on a quote
filter on my life to make it look like I'm doing all these
productive things, productivity filled, productivity filter. Yeah. Yeah. So what then if you're a person that's not feeling like you're being productive enough. Yeah. Well now you think you're all washable.
That goes over there. You already did three workouts today. Plus he made a video. I'm not doing anything. I don't work more, right? So you can feel like a sense of guilt. Yeah, I get. Well, that's with everything right with. I mean, that's the whole complaint or one of the many complaints about social media is that? Yeah, the image that's not letting people not everyone but the image that people put forward is like a like it's not that accurate image of their life, you know, it's like either the highlights or their, you know, whatever highlights they want to put forward filtered. It's filtered in a way, but that's different than the actual.
Physical like digital filter, you know that? Yeah, even though it's kind of all does the same thing. It conceptually but they you know, like people who put like they want to make like they travel to all these exotic places or whatever, you know that stuff and or someone like they're, you know, what's a big one, bro. They're having things where you could like,
rent the inside of a plane. So you could
sit on there and be like heading over dark ages for the weekend and I think the ones I seen.
We're like Joel were jokes, but I don't know if people do this in real life or not. I'm sure they have to but it's like it'll show the split screen, right? The Instagram then reality and then we'll have like a girl looking out the window of a plane. And then the reality is she's looking out the window of like a or through a washing machine window. Yeah, you don't wear it. Like looks like a plane window and it's yeah, but yeah that even applies to productivity. Yeah, right. There's like working on my whatever.
You know, working on this workout time, all this stuff, right? Yeah, that's crazy. So we
filter you shouldn't feel bad about that. Another thing. They say is doing enough is Never Enough. Busyness is not good for actual productivity. That's a good thing to think about. So
they had a little list of things of how to overcome this.
Give you, and this is again. This is from
psychology today.com.
Give yourself permission to discern, not. Everything needs to be tended
to a resolved immediately by you. In fact, we don't always have to be the one to intervene, even if it
feels like, we're the ones that need to intervene. Ask yourself. What is the worst thing that will happen? If I take 24 hours to think about this before leaping in action? That's, that's good. And what I like to overlay on that is decentralized command. All right, if you are in charge of things, there's a lot of things. You shouldn't have to jump into and is
In fact, if you have to jump into things, it's not a good sign for how you're performing as a leader. If every time there's an issue. You got be like, hey Echo, let me show you how to do this. Well, and let me, let me, let me call that client or let me show you how to edit this video. Like that's not, that's not good. That's shows that
I'm micromanaging, basically, but that's a nice little ego boost, right? Makes me feel good. Makes me feel like I'm important
when that happens.
The next thing exercise. Your emotional intelligence, take some time to consider and appreciate what you're feeling about. The
Issue and your desire to intervene
name. The feelings that comes up
for you.
What is the unmet need behind the feelings that Propel you to jump into action? That's a good thing. Of course, they don't mention the word detach and hear what you won't be able to do this. If you don't detach, what does this tell you about your current leadership style, so they're actually talking about
leadership, but what's interesting here is
That's a good thing to do when you have a, when you have a an emotional feeling, pull the
thread. That's the term I use pull the thread on that feeling and see what it's coming from. If I'm frustrated or I feel like I need to get down there and help you. If I actually pull the thread, I'm like, oh that's
just my ego wanting to show Echo that I know how to do this stuff
or it's my ego wanting to prove that. I'm the guy in charge and so pull the thread on that emotion. Most of the time you're going to find Eagle at the end of that thread, by the way, especially the negative emotions. Yeah,
anger. Frustration.
See, you won't admit to the jealousy one because then you have to admit that it's your ego. A lot of
times you like. Well, do you know a call come down and teach that class was like well, why don't you let it go teach the class, you know, saying
I want to be the guy on the phone on the
podium. I want to be the guy on the mat showing everybody. What's up? So pull the thread on that. The next thing they say is cultivate your curiosity, huh?
Spend some more time in a contemplative face to understand your desired outcome parties involved issues factors of
Options and their implications. Okay. So once again, they're talking about detachment.
Open ask open-ended questions and listen mindfully to the responses, as you build an informed picture of what might be going on. This keeps you in reflection and diagnosis on
her. Yeah, they've got they're talking about someone that,
that really is seeing a problem in Angie's immediately, taken action. Without checking out again, to me. That's normal. That's not the norm.
The norm
is in action. Yeah.
Be choosy about your action, not every situation and or issue requires our action.
Be choosy about when you are interviewing that kind of said that already and then enact boundaries and practice. Self-care take time out from doing walk in nature. Meditate play sports. Relax, do Jujitsu. I'm sorry. I just
relax. Enjoy
Hobbies Family, Life socializing. Okay, so that's cool. What does that really say? It says you should do Jiu Jitsu. You should surf, you should play guitar play ukulele, which, you know, whatever we're doing and that does those things.
Good. So I when I read that whole thing that they're kind of recommendations to me, all those things, say you need to be able to detach take a step back. And something I've been saying a lot lately is the solution to the problem is not in the problem. Yeah. So if you're in the problem, you're not going to see the solution. You've got to get out of that problem. You got to be able to detach. If you're busy all the time. You're not going to see the big picture. You're not going to be able to think strategic if you're doing a little technical things all the time. So get away from that.
Get away from that. That is not a good way to go through life fighting immediate fire fights that are right in front of you. You won't win the war, you might win, lot of firefights, but you won't win the war because the enemies maneuvering on you. They're building a huge supply chain to be able to outgun you there.
They're creating more troops there. They're
recruiting and training more troops. So you're just
sitting there in gunfights and you might be wanting, you know, like today, we won. Hey, let's go on. Let's go again and you're winning.
You're not winning in the big
picture.
Yeah, so I did write this
down.
This this will make sense. You know how I said, I don't really that's not a normal thing for people to take action. But you know where it is, knee, jerk reactions, right? We even have a word for right knee. Jerk
reaction. Knee-jerk reactions aren't good. So, if you have a knee-jerk reaction, every time something goes wrong, you're like, jumping in and trying to do stuff. That's a neat.
