1. “Don’t just think. Don’t just talk. Don’t just dream. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that you actually do. So: DO.” – Jocko Willink
2. “I don’t view aggression as an outward attitude. I view aggression as an internal character trait. A fire in your mind that says: I’m going to win.” – Jocko Willink
3. “For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.” – Jocko Willink
4. “Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.” – Jocko Willink
5. “To not move around, observe, and analyze, in order to make the best decisions possible, was to fail as a leader and fail the team.” – Jocko Willink
6. “A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.” – Jocko Willink
7. “Relax. Look around. Make a call.” – Jocko Willink
8. “Fight weak emotions with the power of logic; fight the weakness of logic with the power of emotion. And in the balance of those two, you will find the strength and the tenacity and the guts to say to yourself: I. DON’T. STOP.” – Jocko Willink
9. “But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.” – Jocko Willink
10. “We have to turn our words into action. We have to turn our ideas into action. We have to turn our skills into action. We have to turn our goals into action.” – Jocko Willink
11. “Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.” – Jocko Willink
12. “After all, there can be no leadership where there is no team.” – Jocko Willink
13. “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.” – Jocko Willink
14. “As in everything, leaders must find the balance in training and focus on three critical aspects: realism, fundamentals, and repetition.” – Jocko Willink
15. “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.” – Jocko Willink
16. “PRINCIPLE In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.” – Jocko Willink
17. “Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.” – Jocko Willink
18. “The most important thing to learn is that we have so much to learn.” – Jocko Willink
19. “Nothing breeds arrogance like success – a string of victories on the battlefield or business initiatives. Combat leaders must never forget just how much is at stake: the lives of their troops.” – Jocko Willink
20. “When you make a decision to be better. When you make a decision to do more, to BE more. Self-discipline comes when you decide to make a mark on the world. If you don’t think you are disciplined: It is because you haven’t decided to be disciplined. YET.” – Jocko Willink
21. “But what I can tell you is this: when it comes to performance standards, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.” – Jocko Willink
22. “Take care of your gear and your gear will take care of you.” – Jocko Willink
23. “The goal of leadership seems simple: to get people to do what they need to do to support the mission and the team.” – Jocko Willink
24. “Departments and groups within the team must break down silos, depend on each other and understand who depends on them. If” – Jocko Willink
25. “Discipline Equals Freedom” – Jocko Willink
26. “NO MORE. No more excuses. No more: “I’ll start tomorrow.” No more: “Just this once.” No more accepting the shortfalls of my own will. No more taking the easy road. No more bowing down to whatever unhealthy or unproductive thoughts float through my mind.” – Jocko Willink
27. “More than a decade of continuous war and tough combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan gave birth to a new generation of leaders in the ranks of America’s fighting forces.” – Jocko Willink
28. “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.” – Jocko Willink
29. “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.” – Jocko Willink
30. “Everyone has an ego. Ego drives the most successful people in life – in the SEAL Teams, in the military, in the business world. They want to win, to be the best. That is good. But when ego clouds our judgment and prevents us from seeing the world as it is, then ego becomes destructive.” – Jocko Willink
31. “You already know what the right thing to do is. You just gotta do it.” – Jocko Willink
32. “when you run, and that hurts. It hurts to be uncomfortable.” – Jocko Willink
33. “The right decision, even when all seems lost, can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The wrong decision, even when a victorious outcome seems all but certain, can result in deadly, catastrophic failure.” – Jocko Willink
34. “leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield and the principles of good leadership do not change regardless of the mission, the environment, or the personalities of those involved. Leading is leading.” – Jocko Willink
35. “You have to detach from those emotions—step back from them a little so they don’t control you. You can do that by taking a deep breath and telling yourself to calm down.” – Jocko Willink
36. “For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting. They must believe in the plan they are asked to execute, and most important, they must believe in and trust the leader they are asked to follow.” – Jocko Willink
37. “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.” – Jocko Willink
38. “Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously.” – Jocko Willink
39. “There is no growth in the comfort zone.” – Jocko Willink
40. “Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead.” – Jocko Willink
41. “Good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.” – Jocko Willink
42. “People do not follow robots.” – Jocko Willink
43. “Leadership is simple, but not easy.” – Jocko Willink
44. “Leadership doesn’t just flow down the chain of command, but up as well,” he said. “We have to own everything in our world. That’s what Extreme Ownership is all about.” – Jocko Willink
45. “The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. 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.” – Jocko Willink
46. “Besides death, all failure is psychological.” – Jocko Willink
47. “Discipline is about facing your fears so you can conquer them. Discipline means taking the hard road – the uphill road. To do what is right. For you and for others. So often, the easy path calls us: To be weak for that moment. To break down another time. To give in to desire and short-term gratification.” – Jocko Willink
48. “If you don’t understand or believe in the decisions coming down from your leadership, it is up to you to ask questions until you understand how and why those decisions are being made. Not knowing the why prohibits you from believing in the mission. When you are in a leadership position, that is a recipe for failure, and it is unacceptable. As a leader, you must believe.” – Jocko Willink
49. “It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. You have to drive your CTO to exercise Extreme Ownership – to acknowledge mistakes, stop blaming others, and lead his team to success. If you allow the status quo to persist, you can’t expect to improve performance, and you can’t expect to win.” – Jocko Willink
50. “being in good shape can make the difference between winning and losing.” – Jocko Willink
51. “We wrote this so that the leadership lessons can continue to impact teams beyond the battlefield in all leadership situations—any company, team, or organization in which a group of people strives to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission.” – Jocko Willink
52. “A person shouldn’t think they are the best thing in the world, but they shouldn’t think they are the worst either. Is that right?” – Jocko Willink
53. “The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For” – Jocko Willink
54. “Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.” – Jocko Willink
55. “We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory,” – Jocko Willink
56. “Staying ahead of the curve prevents a leader from being overwhelmed when pressure is applied and enables greater decisiveness.” – Jocko Willink
57. “Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.” – Jocko Willink
58. “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. A leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.” – Jocko Willink
59. “We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.” – Jocko Willink
60. “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.” – Jocko Willink
61. “Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.” – Jocko Willink
62. “A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.” – Jocko Willink
63. “Get up. Dust off. Reload. Re-calibrate. Re-engage – And go out on the attack. ” – Jocko Willink
64. “Actions and words reflect belief with a clear confidence and self-assuredness that is not possible when belief is in doubt.” – Jocko Willink
65. “Live in defiance of the weakness and in rebellion against the decay.” – Jocko Willink
66. “Stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it … Start doing it.” – Jocko Willink
67. “Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems.” – Jocko Willink
68. “In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.” – Jocko Willink
69. “So. 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.” – Jocko Willink
70. “People who are successful decide they are going to be successful. They make that choice. They decide to study hard. They decide to work hard. They decide to be the first person to get to work and the last to go home.” – Jocko Willink
71. “Your plan violates one of the most important principles we adhered to in combat: simplicity.” – Jocko Willink
72. “I don’t accept that I am what I am and that “that” is what I am doomed to be. NO. I do not accept that. I’m fighting. I’m always fighting. I’m struggling and I’m scraping and kicking and clawing at those weaknesses – to change them. To stop them. Some days I win. But some days I don’t. But each and every day: I get back up and I move forward. With my fists clenched. Toward the battle. Toward the struggle. And I fight with everything I’ve got:.” – Jocko Willink
73. “Question yourself every day. Ask yourself: Who am I? What have I learned? What have I created? What forward progress have I made? Who have I helped? What am I doing to improve myself – today? To get better, faster, stronger, healthier, smarter?” – Jocko Willink
74. “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.” – Jocko Willink
75. “As leaders, we must not get dragged into the details but instead remain focused on the bigger picture.” – Jocko Willink
76. “Our egos don’t like to take blame.” – Jocko Willink
77. “Leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory.” – Jocko Willink
78. “A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.” – Jocko Willink
79. “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.” – Jocko Willink
80. “That’s it. When things are going bad: Don’t get all bummed out, don’t get startled, don’t get frustrated. No. Just look at the issue and say: “Good.” – Jocko Willink
81. “Faster. Stronger. Smarter. More humble. Less ego.” – Jocko Willink
82. “Such concepts are simple, but not easy,” – Jocko Willink
83. “When everyone participating in an operation knows and understands the purpose and end state of the mission, they can theoretically act without further guidance.” – Jocko Willink
84. “The shortcut is a lie.” – Jocko Willink
85. “Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests.” – Jocko Willink
86. “The people who are successful decide they are going to be successful. They make that choice. And they make other choices. They decide to study hard. They decide to work hard. They decide to be the first person to get to work and the last to go home. They decide they are going to take on the hard jobs. Take on the challenges. They decide they are going to lead when no one else will.” – Jocko Willink
87. “The only way you could make time, was to get up early. That took discipline.” – Jocko Willink
88. “I’m always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn’t stop.” – Jocko Willink
89. “But we can’t ever think we are too good to fail or that our enemies are not capable, deadly, and eager to exploit our weaknesses. We must never get complacent. This is where controlling the ego is most important.” – Jocko Willink
90. “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.” – Jocko Willink
91. “Leaders who lose their temper also lose respect.” – Jocko Willink
92. “If the stress is something you can’t control: Embrace it. You can’t control it, but – How can you look at it from a different angle? How can you use it to your advantage? I couldn’t control the chaos of combat. I had to embrace it. I had to figure out a way to take advantage of it. Make it into your ally.” – Jocko Willink
93. “If you do not believe you are disciplined, it is because you have not decided to become disciplined. Yet.” – Jocko Willink
94. “There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.” – Jocko Willink
95. “As a leader, it is up to you to explain the bigger picture to him – and to all your front line leaders. That is a critical component of leadership,” I.” – Jocko Willink
96. “Don’t let your mind control you. Control your mind.” – Jocko Willink
97. “So. Let us cry no more. Let us mourn no more. Let us remember—but let us not dwell … Instead: Let us laugh and love and let us embrace and venerate everything that life is and every opportunity it gives us. Let us LIVE—for those WHO live no more. Let us live to honor them.” – Jocko Willink
98. “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.” – Jocko Willink
99. “It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.” – Jocko Willink
100. “Set your alarm clock and get out of bed when it goes off.” – Jocko Willink
101. “The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission.” – Jocko Willink
102. “There can be no leadership when there is no team.” – Jocko Willink
103. “Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.” – Jocko Willink