Jaakko dear Jocko my chosen community has lost and continues to lose members
due to suicide one reason is that they don't ask for help I think one reason
they don't ask for help is that they're afraid of being or being seen as weak
I'm aware that this takes strength and discipline to be able to perceive when
you need help and to ask for it I don't know how to convey that to them could
you address how one can gather support from their team without losing face so
so there's an obvious reason why I paired these two questions together
because they're both very very similar and it's the same thing and and if we
don't if a member of your team won't come forward and admit they have an
issue then the issue is not going to get addressed and this is the same exact
thing they have to explain to your team like hey if you start going down because
you're dehydrated or you start getting D getting frostbite and you need to get
warmed up you need to say something if you don't say something that's gonna
hurt the whole team that's what's bad so so I think that's important I think
that's important to make sure everyone understands that this part of being a
good operator is knowing your limitations and when you reach your
limitations raising your hand and saying hey this is a problem and believe me
there's there's guys that might complain about little things and they're
eventually gonna be labeled as a little complainer right and they don't really
have issues so there's a fine line right there's a fine line but for this one you
know for someone that's having some kind of mental stress well again we got to
recognize what's going on we got to recognize that it's impacting us
negatively at work so that means you got to raise your hand if it's having a
negative impact on the way you're performing then you got to raise your
hand and I think it's important to explain to people that this is something
that something that happens to could happen ever anybody and it's not a
negative thing it's just a reality it's it's kind of like it reminds me of being
afraid right and if if if you're let's say you
got a new guy that's in debt done anything before and he doesn't know
that he's gonna be afraid going on an operation then he's gonna wonder why his
stomach is upset or why he's second-guessing themselves or why he
can't sleep like oh you can't sleep guess what that's normal
you're going on a hardcore combat operation tomorrow the fact that you
can't sleep is completely normal the fact that you feel sick to your
stomach is completely normal the fact that you're you're shaking that those
things are normal like you're gonna feel those that's okay it's not that big of a
deal and those things are just fear that's what they are and if you know
what they are and you know that fear is okay and it's acceptable and it's
actually kind of good right cuz if you're not feeling any fear whatsoever
then you know you've got some well that you should be feeling afraid you should
be if you'd feel fear that should that should propel you to get you on edge
those all those things are actually happening for a reason so there's
nothing wrong with that and I think that's the same thing that you gotta
explain to people with stress like okay that you can have too much fear you keep
someone at that heightened state for an extended period of time
well that's called combat stress and it's real and it can happen it can
happen anyone and you know how many books have we talked about on this
podcast where you can see stress combat stress taking its toll on people and and
when it does you know we've talked about it many times P if you if you get to
that point you need a break and and dick winners from Band of Brothers you know
he would give those guys breaks without them even knowing that he was giving
them a break it's saying hey echo you got to go back and do a little logistics
run for four days just make sure we have more supplies coming our way get you off
the front line get you a breather so that way again the same metaphor I've
used before us if you have an engine in the red and you keep running it what's
gonna happen the engine it's gonna burn out it's not gonna be usable if you have
someone that's psychologically stressed and they're in the red and you keep
running them in the red guess what eventually they're not gonna be usable
anymore so you need to give them a break get them off the line because if you do
take an engine if your engine like check engine light comes on and you go and get
it maintained get it fixed the engines still good if you keep running it the
engine will be destroyed so got to do that with your people and you
got to make sure everybody knows and I think that's a real simple metaphor to
use with people as well say look we're running hard and we're gonna put some
stress on the engine and if you don't keep the engine maintained the engines
gonna break and you won't be any good to the team you won't be good for the
mission so if you start feeling your engine light go on you got to let
someone know so we can give you the proper maintenance and that's it Jody
medic talked about that too Jody was you know saying hey you know basically if
you get injured if you break your ankle they don't just expect you just to keep
going no like okay you need to get back and you need to rehab well the same
thing can happen to your brain your brain gets a break in it you don't just
keep driving her it's gonna fracture and fall apart what do you do you you take a
break you get down time and you get recovered and then you'll be ready to
rock and roll again so two really good questions to start it off you know again
especially for folks out there on the battlefield and then it's not just for
people on the battlefield because it happens with any any group of people
that are in a stressful environment I mean obviously cops get put into a
really stressful environment all the time well if you need to take a breather
you need to say something before you before you burn out the engine yeah same
thing with business world right people in the business world get extremely
stressed out well you probably need a break at some point yeah make sure you
work that in there