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 thin… - Jocko Willink

The Dichotomy of Leadership A good leader must be: • confident but not cocky; • courageous but not foolhardy; • competitive but a gracious loser; • attentive to details but not obsessed by them; • strong but have endurance; • a leader and follower; • humble not passive; • aggressive not overbearing; • quiet not silent; • calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions; • close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the good of the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge. • able to execute Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralized Command. A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.

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.

When I was younger, I was preparing for war. I knew that somewhere out there, another man was also preparing. That man was my enemy. He was working, training, planning and preparing to meet me on the battlefield. I didn’t know when. I didn’t know where. But I knew that at some point: we would meet. And I wanted to be ready. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally.

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.