This is the Jocko Underground podcast, number 209. Shout out to Stockton. Echo Charles sitting here, unfortunately not the Diaz brothers, which would be a hell of a lot better. They'd get their take on things, you know what I'm saying? That would be legit. But we do have Echo Charles and we do have questions from you all out there in the field on the front lines. We're gonna give you courses of action to help you get through and navigate these challenges that you face. So let's get to it. Okay, first question. Okay, how to deal with witnessing parents neglecting and or abusing children when I'm not in public? Okay, I was neglected, I was a neglected child of awful parents myself and now I'm a father of a toddler. I've been getting more and more hypersensitive to witnessing how badly the majority of parents treat their children. Things like parents and relatives feeding small toddlers sugar and junk food, ignoring their fair requests, verbally mistreating them, plain physical aggression, smoking tobacco nearby, provoking toxic hazardous examples, oh, sorry, providing toxic and hazardous examples and environment to children, et cetera, et cetera. Although I make sure I direct my eyes away from people when I'm at places full of families with kids, I still see these things way too often and it bothers me and I feel there's nothing I can do to help. I can only cry. After becoming a father, a bunch of things change deep inside me and I can't help to see my own child in all children, please help. Well, yeah, that's obviously very rough to see and, I mean, the one thing you said, if you see someone that's physically abusing a kid, obviously you can step in and stop that from happening. Now, do people have different opinions of what physical abuse is? Yeah, because some people think spanking is okay and some people don't. So you gotta be even careful with that one. But yeah, seeing these kind of mistreatment is awful and unfortunately there are a lot of awful things going on in the world, whether it's kids that are grievously ill, whether it's elderly that are left on their own, whether it's people experiencing hunger and even starvation, whether it's victims of war or other forms of math violence, whether it's people that are depressed and or homeless and or addicted, sometimes these are veterans or other people that are vulnerable. So, you know, and not to mention you get into things like animals that are abused and mistreated. So there is so much negativity out there in the world and unfortunately there is just no positive. There's just no possible way to help everyone that deserves help. And do I sound cold-blooded when I say that? Okay, I mean, I feel, you know, you feel cold-blooded when you say that. It's like we cannot help everyone. So I think what we can do is try to be positive in the areas and with people that we actually can't have an impact on, right? How can you help people that you actually have the power to help? And I think when you recognize that, you recognize that there's some people that you cannot help. This is sort of like, you know, you ever heard me talk about, you know, when you're in combat, there's some things you have no control over and you can't worry about the things you have no control over because you're focusing on them and it's gonna distract you from the things that you actually do have control over. Well, again, I don't mean to sound callous, but it's a similar situation here where there are people directly around you that you can help. But if you're focused on a bunch of people around the world and around the, yeah, around the world, around the country that you are like, oh, distraught because they're in a bad situation, you might be missing out on the people that are directly in front of you that you can't help. So I think if you can separate those two, it allows you to focus, it allows you to reach the people that you can reach and it actually allows you to have a real impact, a real impact. So you can have a real impact and you can help so many people. What kind of volunteering can you do? Right? What kind of volunteering can you do? What kind of a after-school mentorship program? What kind of boys club can you join to help? What are those big brother program? Like what are those things that you can do where you can truly have an impact? What about charity? How much can you help out a charity that helps with kids that are in bad situations? I guarantee there's shelters, I guarantee there's programs, programs that are out there, I guarantee that they need money, I guarantee that they need volunteers, I guarantee that they really need help and that if you went and stepped in, you would actually be able to help real kids. And I think that the more that you do that, the more you are able to help other people, the more, I think the more that you help comfort other people, the more comfort you will have. So there is so much that we can do. And listen, again, can we save the world? Nope, we can't save the world. But can we help the two kids that are going to the same school that your kid goes to that are not getting the best treatment at home? Can we help those kids? Yeah, we probably can. Are they showing up to school late? Are they showing up to school without pens and pencils to do their homework with? Like what's going on? And how can we help them out? And then you know what? You find out that there's a big brother's, big sister's program. And you get involved with that thing. Or maybe you start a Boy Scout thing. And all of a sudden you start a Boy Scout or some kind of a scouting troupe or whatever. And all of a sudden you've got 10, 12, 14 kids in there. And you're putting all of them on the right path. So maybe it's a Jiu-Jitsu club. Maybe it's a basketball, after school basketball. Whatever the thing is, you can help these kids out. You can help kids out. And I think that is the path you have to be on. Is just be a light in the world, right? And if you can do that, if you can provide some hope, even in dire situations, that little bit of light that you can give to a kid can help diminish all this darkness. And if you do that, this will have an impact over time. Because one or two or three or five of those or 10 of those kids are gonna remember. And they're gonna change. And you're gonna break that cycle. And guess what they're gonna do? They're gonna help five, 10, 15 kids themselves. And all of a sudden there is some light in these areas of the world that would have been completely dark. So that's my recommendation, man. Yeah, you said, I'm kinda with this guy, by the way. Like, you know. Yeah, I think we all are. Yeah, but you know how you just, you mentioned it. Oh yeah, you said different people have different attitudes about like spanking, for example, or whatever. And so some people, let's say on that spectrum, let's say they're kind of, let's say deep in on that continuum, right? Where they're hard charging, you know, tough love like in this way. That's like, and every once in a while, like when you witness a kid getting disciplined and you just see their little face, you can, I don't know, I feel like sometimes, I don't know, I feel this sometimes, pretty much all the time. Where I'm looking at the kid, I'm like, the kid kind of came like that. You know, he didn't have to get like punished in that way. You know the idea of like punishing them versus like, hey, guiding them into the correct thing, rather than, oh, you did this, you made this mistake and then now you just get freaking punished, you know, for the mistake, rather than, oh, no, no, no, that's, they made a mistake and it's like, hey, no, no, no, that was a mistake. Like that's the wrong way to do it this way and show them the right way. You know, a lot of times you don't really need punishment. I don't know, that's obviously there's many philosophies on the thing, so I get it. But. By the way, the research that I did, because we got asked about this on this podcast, like whatever, in the past, and the spanking, generally speaking, is not beneficial. Generally speaking, it's not beneficial. So, and again, this is like me reading through a bunch of research and going, oh, so this doesn't really help. And they kind of explain why you're like, that makes sense. That's kind of like what you're saying, like a kid, you know, a six year old kid, you can get them to stop whatever behavior they were doing right then, but it's not helping your relationship. It's showing them like that, that's what punishment is. Like this is a whole. So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you wanna continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain, as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. 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