Quotes from Jocko Willink

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn't lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn't a question of their ability - it was a question of their ability to listen.

Waking up early was the first example I noticed in the SEAL Teams in which discipline was really the difference between being good and being exceptional.

Who wants to leave the door open to being dominated physically by another human being? Jiu Jitsu gives you the ability to not be dominated by that person, and to me, that's real peace of mind. I don't have to worry about that when I'm walking around in the world.

What makes you a SEAL, what makes you a SEAL is being a good tactician on the battle field, understanding how to shoot, move, and communicate, knowing small unit maneuver warfare. That's what makes a good SEAL, and so that is the course of instruction that I taught, was getting SEAL platoons ready for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

That nice, soft pillow and the warm blanket, and it's all comfortable, and no one wants to leave that comfort - but if you can wake up early in the morning, get a head start on everyone else that's still sleeping, get productive time doing things that you need to do - that's a huge piece to moving your life forward.

I eat steak primarily. That's pretty much what my diet consists of. Sometimes I supplement that with other steaks.

I'm not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I'll accept that. But I'm not a complete psychopath.

Freedom is what everyone wants - to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.

If it's stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You've planned, you've trained, you've done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that's facing you. And then after that, there's nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be in combat.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

I'm always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn't stop.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can 'be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough' are not true. They are fairy tales.

Your success, or lack of success, is your responsibility. Even when you have a chain of command that you don't like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

We record when I have a hole in the schedule. Sometimes night, sometimes afternoon, sometimes morning - we fit it in when we can. I prep for episodes all the time.

The goal of jiu-jitsu in self-defense isn't to take someone down to the ground - the goal in jiu-jitsu for self-defense is actually to be able to defend yourself on the ground, get up, and get away from an attacker. That's what the goal is.

The thing about Jiu Jitsu is it is also not for everybody. It can be very humiliating and humbling. If you have a hard time dealing with the fact that someone smaller than you may be able to tap you out, it is going to be difficult.

We named the book 'Extreme Ownership' because we really found that when we looked at not only at leaders but at teams that were the most successful, we found that the ones that had this attitude of extreme ownership were the ones that did the best, and it's definitely an attitude that I had.

If you wake up whenever you want, and you slept for 10 hours, and you're lazy getting out of bed, then I believe that affects your whole life in a negative way.

While discipline and freedom seem like they sit on opposite sides of the spectrum, they are actually very connected.

Leadership is hard. It's a skill. It's a technique.

Anybody who tells you that a two-day conference, you're going to turn into the General Patton of leadership, they're not telling you the truth. But you can learn the fundamentals; you can absolutely understand the fundamentals.

Didn't get promoted? Good. More time to get better.