Jocko Willink Quotes

“the most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.”

“It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”

“Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.”

“The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.”

“Discipline equals freedom”

“Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”

“When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard.”

“Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance.”

“Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures.”

“Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful.” I explained how a leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.”

“Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests.”

“After all, there can be no leadership where there is no team.”

“You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.”

“Good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.”

“Put simply, Cover and Move means teamwork.”

“We then proceeded to go through the entire operation, piece by piece, identifying everything that happened and what we could do going forward to prevent it from happening again.”

“Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.”

“As leaders, we must not get dragged into the details but instead remain focused on the bigger picture.”

“In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.”

“I remembered from my boyhood days in Texas a basic rule of firearms safety my father taught me: know your target and what is beyond it.”