dearest Jocko a question for you and the podcast our fire department promotion
process has role-playing scenarios in those role-playing scenarios I lose
points because I'm not outwardly passionate quote-unquote enough I would
have to fake it to succeed and I'm not a fake person is this worth it to fake it
when seeking promotion it's not like I'm gonna fake it once I attain the
promotion okay this is a this is a very cool question like this question a lot
and actually on this guy sent me this question on Facebook I responded very
quickly and simply my response was play the game yeah so fake it play the game
and and you know what he wrote back got it
yeah good for him yeah because what everybody I think thinks I'm gonna say
is that no you be yourself know the game up there and act all passionate about
stuff you're you you're hardcore no yeah play the game now you you because what
you're doing you play the game you you want to do a good job and you're doing
your job and doing your job doing any job requires some level of faking it
yeah now does this mean that you're a fake person no it means that you're
trying to do a good job think if every time that your boss came in with a dumb
idea and you your reaction was to say that's a dumb idea yeah is that gonna
get you anywhere or every time a customer had an idiot edie idiotic
complaint about something you were like hey you're an idiot
yeah or every time your wife said you know is this chicken dry and you said
it's drier than a piece of cardboard in the Sahara Desert it is that is that the
easy would you would you benefit from that how would that work out the answer
is you would he would not work out well in any of those cases you have to play
the game you have to play the game and I know I
know that that's hard and I'll tell you what I did too
get myself over playing the game I earned it into a game in my head I was
like I'm gonna build a relationship with this boss that I don't like I'm gonna do
it I'm gonna build the best relay that's my game I'm gonna comment to become this
guy's bro right when I was at Officer Candidate School
you got to do the most ridiculous rules they have these these rules that
you've got to follow that were really annoying mm-hmm and you know what I did
I executed the rules harder and more stringently than then anybody thought
was even remotely necessary and had fun with it I played that game I you know if
I've got a peer that maybe I'm competing with or there's some tension I'm gonna
support them I'm gonna play the game that's I'm saying you got to play the
game now does this make me a bad person or a fake person no why because you're
doing this the reason you're playing the game the reason your act asked acting
this way is for benevolent reasons right this this guy at the fire department
he's not trying to get promoted so that he can usurp the powers and then take
over no he's trying to get into a position where he can better lead and
serve and and step up and raise young leaders underneath and that that's what
you're trying to do you're not trying to sneak into a position you don't deserve
and you're not trying to build relationships so you can take advantage
of people for your own benefit that that would be a fake person yeah in
my opinion you're trying to move but if you're trying to move up in rank so you
can do better and you can take care of the troops and you can increase
readiness there's nothing wrong with that and if you don't play the game to
at some level you you're not gonna get promoted and guess what
then people that played the game that might be less less qualified to do that
job they're gonna get the job because you wouldn't play the game you're too
stubborn your ego is too big so you got to put that aside and I'll tell you
something else from what you're being told hmm if if
you're showing no passion if you're showing like a zero motion that's bad
people will not connect with you and if they don't connect with you they don't
follow you if they don't connect with you you're not building relationships
with people if you don't have relationships with people you don't have
a good team so show a little bit of passion sometimes you got to fake it
that's fine you're just a really unpassed at person cool show a little
bit of passion mmm fake it a little bit learn it a little bit yeah that's
actually gonna be beneficial I would love for you to fake it for a little
while until you you start caring what like what are you not passionate about
are you not passionate about the job are you not passionate about you're a
firefighter about saving people's lives are you not passionate about having a
squared-away Department you of course you're passionate about that stuff
otherwise you wouldn't be you wouldn't be send me a message saying hey how do I
get advanced how do i how do I do better yeah you are passionate about it and
that's fine it's good I say it all the time you know if you don't have any
emotions that you're a robot and robots people don't follow robots you so
sometimes you got to show a little bit of that emotion and passion to connect
with people that's okay yeah don't be scared homey yeah yeah cuz that's really
the thing right is showing it of course you're passionate about but showing it
there's different people there something Brian I dig it
yeah I wanna always be like showing how fired up I am all the time or whatever
in whatever scenario whatever but you're right that does help there like when he
was excited about this it's and there's a there's a dichotomy here yeah because
there's some people that will show too much emotions yeah and there's some
people that will not show enough so you want to be somewhere balanced in the
middle yeah and I dig it too one because it does feel like faking it because I
can in football that tradition is like to be fired up on the sidelines and
let's go let's go you know like that can bring sometimes gonna have the energy
for that and sometimes you're kind of just nervous and you want to focus on
what you got to do or whatever you know but it's kind of part of the game you
know and and it does help the people around you too mm it's like okay he's
fired up okay maybe I'm not fired up now but he's gonna get me fired up you know
and it kind of like helps the team yeah but yeah yeah sometimes it doesn't feel
that comfortable to do express outwardly you know passionate but it helps plus
it's fake like faking it that's like a framing thing too you know like yeah you
frame it like you're faking it versus how you said you're playing the game
right you're playing the game because you want to do a better job yeah I want
to get promoted you wanna you want to get promoted for the right reasons
yeah there's nothing wrong with that yeah that's it yeah that's good I think
if you can kind of Bend and stretch yourself in an uncomfortable way for the
benefit you know they you know I think we're people I think that term of faking
it no one wants to be a fake person right right yes what just would you why
you're correct in that the way that's framed is I'm being a fake person yeah
and no one wants to be a fake person yeah at the same time you have to grow
and you have to adjust and if you're going to be in a leadership position
you're gonna do things that you don't that you wouldn't have planned I do that
all the time when I was in the military you know I worked with people that I've
said this before I work with people both below me in the chain of command and up
above me in the chain of command that I despised they never knew it they don't
know who they are right now dang what does that make me a fake person no makes
me a professional makes me a professional at doing my job because I
wasn't gonna let some little personal emotion of mine or some oh that guy's
does this and I don't like that so I'm not gonna like him and now we have an
adversarial relationship and now I got a problem
ya know I'm playing the game play the game with the line what is the fake
person genuinely well I was gonna say you asked me what the line is the line
is if you go against what your principles are yeah you know so if
you've got fundamental principles that they say oh if you want this job of what
we needed you to do is fill out a report about Billy saying that he did something
wrong that you know he didn't do wrong mm-hmm right then you go no I'm not
going to do that that that that's what that's bad right
that's not now you're not just playing the game now you're going against your
principles of being an honest person about what's happening yeah this that's
really what it is right like the honesty when you're a fake so like if someone's
like oh I'm faking it or I'm being a fake person I said a fake person like
turning on some passion so manufactured passion for the sake of the team and
stuff like that that doesn't feel like you're a fake person fake person is kind
of like you'll sit like some I don't know for example someone's in the room
and you're like hey you're great that sure it looks great and you're doing a
great job they leave and be like that guy sucks right there no I'll tell you
the difference being the reason that someone the reason that you would
consider someone would be angry that someone's a fake person is when they are
doing it because they're doing it for personal benefit they're saying like if
if if if you were my boss and I come in and I say hey echo I really like your
new haircut it looks great mm-hmm I don't really think that haircut looks
dumb but I'm gonna say that anyways and everyone knows that all I want to do is
get that next promotion yeah that's being fake yeah
that's being fake but if if I'm saying because what am I really doing what I'm
doing is I'm making an adaptation I'm growing I'm doing something that I'm
uncomfortable with because I know it's gonna make me a better leader mm-hmm
well that's what I should be doing is trying to become a better leader yeah
now again if that if if in this whatever organization what you have to do is is
do something that you don't agree with and it's it's the wrong thing to do and
you do it anyways well then then that's that's that's that's almost a totally
different thing there's that then there's hey I'm gonna kiss ass so
that I get promoted it's all about me mm-hmm
and that's probably the what we think of the definition of a fake person yeah