The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.
Jocko Willink
Don't think in the morning. That's a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don't think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.
When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.
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.
Most of us aren't defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.
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.
Perseverance is also key to success in any endeavor, but without perseverance in combat, there can be no victory.
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.
It's not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn't sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?
When things are going bad, there's going to be some good that's going to come from it.
I'm not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I'll accept that. But I'm not a complete psychopath.
The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.
I eat steak primarily. That's pretty much what my diet consists of. Sometimes I supplement that with other steaks.
Why do you want to get a good workout early in the morning? Well, because it sends more oxygen to your brain; it releases endorphins. It puts you in a state of mind where you can crush things, which is where you want to be.
One of the key qualities a leader must possess is the ability to detach from the chaos, mayhem, and emotions in a situation and make good, clear decisions based on what is actually happening.
Discipline starts every day when the first alarm clock goes off in the morning. I say 'first alarm clock' because I have three, as I was taught by one of the most feared and respected instructors in SEAL training: one electric, one battery powered, one windup.
There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.
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.
It's a lose-lose situation to get in a confrontation on the street. If you can break contact and get away, break contact and get away. That's what you should learn self-defense for.
With Benghazi, I don't see anyone saying, 'Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It's my fault.' I haven't heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that's just unbelievable to me.
Didn't get promoted? Good. More time to get better.
If you continue to keep low performers on your team, that are actually dragging the team down; you're failing the whole team, and eventually, the whole team is going to fail.
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.
When things are going bad, don't get all bummed out. Don't get startled; don't get frustrated. If you can say the word 'good,' guess what? It means you're still alive. It means you're still breathing.
Things won't get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.
Do I have chocolate chip cookies? Yes, I do. Do I have mint chocolate chip milkshakes? Yes, I do. I love them. They are fantastic. But when I have them, they're worth it. I earned them. I did something. I worked out super hard. I stayed clean on food.
Jiu Jitsu is probably the No. 1 activity that I could recommend to someone to improve their lives overall.
We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.
Every day is a major balancing act that I have to figure out and coordinate.
If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.
Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.
I'm always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn't stop.
One of the things I definitely think of as a driver of me is fear. And it's fear of failure, fear of being overtaken.
I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.
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.
There are a lot of inaccuracies out there when it comes to the SEAL training process. You will see guys carrying logs around on television. They think that the hardest part about being on a SEAL team is getting through that training. The fact of the matter is, if you have a good attitude, that training is fun. I had a blast.
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.
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.
I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.
Just do some kind of workout. Doesn't matter if it's going for a walk around the block, going for a jog, doing some calisthenics, lifting weights, going to a pool and swimming - you name it. But do something that gets your blood flowing and gets your mind in the game.
Being a kid's not easy. You're transforming and becoming a human being. At some point, you have everyone taking care of you, and then, all of a sudden, you're out in the world.
I did 20 years in the Navy. I joined the Navy right out of high school and went through Navy boot camp, went to SEAL training, got done with that, and then showed up at a SEAL team, where I did 20 years. That was pretty much my whole adult life.
One of the best mental disciplines for people to implement is simply putting together a schedule or a task list and actually executing it. Write the list or the schedule the night before, and then do what you said you would do. Life becomes much better when you do that.
I would say there are some foods that I strongly recommend that you do not eat. No. 1 on that list, I believe, is doughnuts. Comfort food. Zero value. Don't eat them.
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.
Leadership is hard. It's a skill. It's a technique.
When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.
A lot of times, people have something that they're afraid of. They've got a client that's mad at them. They've got a project that's due. And they let that stress hang over their head. I don't let that happen.
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.
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.
