Jocko Willink Quotes

The dichotomy with the Default: Aggressive mind-set is that sometimes hesitation allows a leader to further understand a situation so that he or she can react properly to it. Rather than immediately respond to enemy fire, sometimes the prudent decision is to wait and see how it develops.

Every moment you are alive is made of choices you get to make.
Little, tiny choices that alone mean nothing, but when combined together, mean everything.
You have to make the right choices. The hard choices.
You have to deny immediate gratification and pushback against weakness.
You must impose Unmitigated Daily Discipline in all things.

If you do not believe you are disciplined, it is because you have not decided to become disciplined. Yet.

Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

Don’t worry about motivation. Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes. It is unreliable and when you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished — you will likely fall short. So. Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.

Regardless of how you think an operation is going to unfold,” I answered, “the enemy gets their say as well — and they are going to do something to disrupt it. When something goes wrong — and it eventually does — complex plans add to confusion, which can compound into disaster. Almost no mission ever goes according to plan. There are simply too many variables to deal with.

calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions;

If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.

not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.

For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.

remove individual ego and personal agenda. It’s all about the mission. How can you best get your team to most effectively execute the plan in order to accomplish the mission?

But without a team — a group of individuals working to accomplish a mission — there can be no leadership. The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not. The

There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.

Tortured Genius.” By this, he did not mean the artist or musician who suffers from mental health issues, but in the context of ownership. No matter how obvious his or her failing, or how valid the criticism, a Tortured Genius, in this sense, accepts zero responsibility for mistakes, makes excuses, and blames everyone else for their failings (and those of their team). In their mind, the rest of the world just can’t see or appreciate the genius in what they are doing. An individual with a Tortured Genius mind-set can have catastrophic impact on a team’s performance.

But if you get out there and do your best, you will either win, or you will learn.