Jocko Willink Quotes

Live in defiance of the weakness and in rebellion against the decay.

So how can a leader become great if they lack the natural characteristics necessary to lead? The answer is simple: a good leader builds a great team that counterbalances their weaknesses.

Besides death, all failure is psychological.

His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.

In combat, focus comes pretty easily because the battle is right in front of your face. You have no choice but to focus. But sometimes, in day-to-day life, you can lose track of the long-term goal. It fades from your vision. It slips from your mind. Wrong. I want that long-term goal to be so embedded in my mind, that I never lose sight of it. Ever. The little tasks and projects and short-term goals that you tackle need to lead toward strategic victory – winning the long war.

But we want results now. We want the shortcut to the winner’s podium. We need the instant gratification. And when we don’t get the short-term glory, sometimes we lose sight of those long-term goals. They fade. We lose focus. So we stop the daily tasks and disciplines that allow us to achieve those goals. And a day slips by. Then another day. And a day turns into a week and a week into a year. And you look up in six weeks or six months or six years … And you’ve made no progress. Maybe you even went backwards.

You lost sight of the long-term goal. And it faded. It faded from memory and the passion dried up and you began to rationalize: Maybe I can’t. Maybe I don’t really want to. Maybe this goal isn’t for me. And so you give up. You let it go. And you settle for a status quo. For the easy road. No. Don’t do that. Embed that long-term goal in your mind. Burn it into your soul. Think about it, write about it, talk about it. Hang it up on your wall. But most important: Do something about it. Every single day.
So I trained. And I prepared. And I did everything I could to be ready for that day. When I became a leader I took pains to prepare my men in the same way: brutally and without mercy so we could fight brutally and without mercy. And then that day came. We met the enemy on the battlefield. We fought, and we won.

Don’t fight stress. Embrace it. Turn it on itself. Use it to make yourself sharper and more alert. Use it to make you think and learn and get better and smarter and more effective. Use the stress to make you a better you.

People are not who you want them to be. Kill your idols. Sure there are things we can learn from people — but people aren’t going to be what you think they are — what they should be. People, even those people you have put up on a pedestal, are going to be faulted, weak, egomaniacal, condescending. They are going to be lazy, entitled, shortsighted. They will not be perfect. Far from it. That’s fine. Learn from their weaknesses. Of course: Learn from their strengths and mimic and copy them in what they do well. But equally as important: Learn from their faults.

Is this what I want to be? This? I this all I got - is this everything I can give? Is this going to be my life? Do I accept that?

The most impressive thing about this improvement in performance was that it did not come from a major process change or an advance in technology. Instead, it came through a leadership principle that has been around for ages: Simple.

There is no easy way.

There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.

Where do you start? You start right HERE. When do you start? You start right NOW. You initiate action. You GO. Here is the reality: That idea isn’t going to execute itself. That book isn’t going to write itself. Those weights out in the gym — they aren’t going to move themselves. YOU HAVE TO DO IT.

And The Warpath is a path — it’s a route — it leads somewhere. Where does it lead? Yes, it can lead to war. And that is fine. Because I am ready; I am waiting. But the war might not come. And that is okay. Because The Warpath is also a war against weakness — and so it leads to strength. It is a war against ignorance — and so it leads to knowledge. It is a war against confusion — and so it delivers understanding.

In the SEAL Teams, the bond of our brotherhood is our strongest weapon. If you take that away from us, we lose our most important quality as a team.

In Extreme Ownership, chapter 2, “No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders,” we wrote that “when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.

Boat Crew Six had become comfortable with substandard performance. Working under poor leadership and an unending cycle of blame, the team constantly failed. No one took ownership, assumed responsibility, or adopted a winning attitude.