OoM 060： Jocko Willink on Leading Yourself and Men
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Summary
Jocko Willink is a New York Times bestselling author and former Navy SEAL commander who served 20 years in the elite United States Navy SEALs. He retired in 2010 after serving as the SEAL commander of Task Unit Bruiser in Ramadi, Iraq, which was one of the most dangerous places on the planet at the time. In this episode, Jocko talks about what it means to be a leader and why it's important to take ownership of your decisions and your life.
Transcript
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One of the best things about the discipline characteristic is I don't believe it is something that you're either born or not born with.
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Are you then going to approach the tasks for your designated job for the day with passion and get them accomplished?
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
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At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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My name is Ryan Michler and I am the host and founder of Order of Man.
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Now if you're new here, this is a show about being a man.
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What that looks like, what the responsibilities are, and how we show up in the world.
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My goal is to help you become a better leader in your family, your business, your community, and your life.
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And I am stoked to be here with you today because I have probably the single most qualified man on the planet to talk with you about this concept of being a leader.
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On the show with me today, Navy SEAL Commander Jocko Willink.
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Now normally right now I talk to you for a couple of minutes about some of the other things I have going on with Order of Man, but I'm not going to do that today because I know why you're here.
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You're here to listen in on the conversation Jocko and I have.
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So before I introduce him, let me just tell you that you can find all the links, the show notes, quotes, and even the transcription for this podcast at orderofman.com slash 060.
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Also, we're going to be having a discussion about this podcast and so much more in our closed Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man.
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All right, let's talk about Jocko here for a minute.
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Jocko Willink spent 20 years in the Navy SEALs as first a SEAL operator and then a SEAL officer.
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He retired in 2010 after serving as the SEAL commander of Task Unit Bruiser in Ramadi, Iraq.
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At the time, Ramadi was one of the most dangerous places on the planet.
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I can attest to that because I was there at the same time that he was.
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And through the combination of efforts between his unit and other military forces, he helps bring stability to the region and Task Unit Bruiser became the highest decorated special operations unit of the war in Iraq.
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He's the former officer in charge of training of all West Coast SEAL teams.
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And like I mentioned before, one of the baddest men on the planet.
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And today he talks with us about war, leadership, and owning your decisions and your life.
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So I want to talk about this book that you wrote because it's blowing up.
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It's probably one of the best books on leadership that I've ever personally gone through.
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I know a lot of the guys that are listening to the show really resonate with the message that you're sharing because it's a similar message to what we share.
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And so I'd like to get your perspective, Jocko, on when you say extreme ownership, what are you talking about?
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Extreme ownership is an attitude and a mindset that you have, that I have, of not making excuses for anything and not blaming other people when things go wrong.
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And if there's problems or issues that arise, instead of blaming other people or blaming circumstances, you just take ownership of the problems and you get them fixed and solved.
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But the reality is this is not all that common, right?
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I mean, we see a lot of people, leaders, whether it's fathers and husbands or business owners, community leaders, politicians who don't have this mindset.
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So what's the disconnect between what you're saying and what reality is actually telling us?
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I mean, I hang out with a bunch of great people that do take ownership of stuff.
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And, you know, when I served in the military, there was great guys in the military and women that took ownership of their part of the mission and executed it in an outstanding manner.
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But, you know, you would see not only the military, now that I work with businesses, you do see oftentimes, unfortunately, you see people blaming.
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Again, like I said, blaming other people, blaming circumstances instead of just taking ownership of the problem and getting the thing solved, getting to it.
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Why do you think we're more concerned about blaming somebody else or blaming some outside factors, something that we don't have any control over, rather than just taking responsibility?
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Because it almost seems like, and based on our limited interaction in the book, that this is like common sense stuff, that if you actually take ownership, you're going to approve whatever area of life you're working to improve.
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Is it because it's easier to shift the blame or what?
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The biggest obstacle when it comes to taking ownership of things and ownership of problems is your ego.
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Your ego is absolutely the biggest issue that comes up because no one wants to admit, hey, I made a mistake or I did something wrong.
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And it hurts your ego to say that, hey, the reason that we failed on this mission is because I made a mistake or I didn't foresee what the enemy was going to do.
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And so everyone's ego is a part of their brain that it's hard to get under control.
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And when you can't get your ego under control, then you can't admit when you've made mistakes.
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And when you can't admit that you've made mistakes, then you can't fix the mistakes.
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I'm not saying ego is a bad thing because ego is what drives people.
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You know, I have an ego, of course, that's what drives people to do well.
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But when your ego gets out of control and starts to control you instead of you controlling your ego, that's when it becomes problematic.
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And a lot of times it manifests itself in a person not being able to say, hey, you know what, this didn't go the way I wanted it to go and it's my fault.
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And if you can't say that, you're not going to change and you're not going to fix things.
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So how do you recognize this in yourself mostly?
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Because I think a lot of the times a guy might have this ego or this arrogance.
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And like you said, there's a fine line between it being effective and productive in your life and then it keeping you from accomplishing the things that you want to accomplish.
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How do you recognize ego or pride in yourself to the point that it becomes a fault?
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There's some red flags that will start to pop up that should be telling you that your ego is starting to encroach on your decision-making process.
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So one is if you start getting really frustrated with other people and you start saying, wow, this person doesn't do that and they don't do this and they need to do a better job.
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And you're just, when you start blaming other people, that's a little red flag that you need to start checking yourself because you can't control other people.
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I mean, you can guide them, you can lead them, but you can't control them and they're going to do what they're going to do.
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And so the one person you can control is yourself.
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So when you start getting frustrated with other people, aim that frustration at yourself and see what you can do to fix your situation instead of just sitting around and blaming other people.
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So when you start to feel angry, when you start to feel frustrated, when you start to feel emotional, a lot of times that's driven by ego.
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Interesting. Yeah. And that makes sense. And I like what you talk. You talk a lot about in the book about leadership and just what you said, that you can't control other people.
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And I think a lot of the times leaders tend to make that mistake where they think that their job is to manipulate and coerce and push and drive and get people to change.
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But I guess what you're saying is that if you change, are people naturally going to respond to that?
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Yes. And leadership, you are trying to get people to do what you want them to do. That is what leadership is.
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You're trying to get a team or a group of people unified behind a plan, a common plan that everyone agrees on that you're going to move forward and execute some kind of a mission.
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And the difference between, you know, I would say that leadership is manipulation. It is.
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I mean, if I'm trying to get you to do something, Ryan, and I'm talking to you and I'm using certain vocabulary and I'm treating you a certain way because I'm trying to get you to do something.
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I mean, that's manipulation, right? I'm trying to get you to do something.
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Now, in my mind, it's only manipulation if I'm trying to get you to do something that is not beneficial to you and it's beneficial to me only.
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That's manipulation. I'm only trying to help myself. But what if I'm trying to get you to do
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something that's going to help you and it's going to help the team? Especially if I've asked you to
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do it, right? If I've asked you to guide me or coach me or lead me, then that's something
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entirely different. That's leadership, right? That's leadership. Now the tactics and techniques
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that a manipulator might use might be similar to what a leader might use, but the intent and the
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outcome of what a leader is trying to do, the leaders, I actually want you to win. I actually
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want you to be more successful than me. I want you to do, I want this, I want this change that
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you make to make you surpass everything I've done. That's what a leader is trying to do. A leader is
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trying to really get you to do better than themselves. And I think that when people are
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being led and they recognize that, they recognize that the leader is putting the people and their
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team ahead of them. I think people very easily recognize that. And that actually causes you to
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work even harder to try and perform the mission. And so, I mean, obviously you've got firsthand
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experience with Task Unit Bruiser in Ramadi, and I know you're leading a team there. Are there some
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things that we can extract from the lessons that you learned leading your team and that we can extract
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there and figure out some of these tactics that you talk about to implement in our own lives,
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Well, yeah, absolutely. We actually, Leif Babin, who was one of the platoon commanders that worked
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for me in Task Unit Bruiser and a brother of mine, we actually wrote an entire book on that very subject
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and how we led in combat transfers over into how you lead people in the civilian sector and how you
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lead people in life and how you lead yourself. Because, you know, you're in a leadership position.
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The first person you have to lead is yourself. You have to get yourself going in the right
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direction. You have to discipline yourself. You have to make sure that you are upholding the
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standard. And that's the first and most critical piece of leadership is making sure that you're
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leading yourself. And then once you get beyond that, now you start leading your team. And yeah,
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those lessons absolutely transfer over from combat to civilian world to business world and to life.
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Let's talk about the concept of self-discipline because I know that this is a popular topic and
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obviously there's a lot of self-help gurus talking about this. And there's two sides to it.
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There's self-discipline, which is forcing yourself to do something. And there's another side of it that
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I think a lot of people are just naturally driven that it's not discipline. It's just the way in which
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they're wired. So where's the differentiation? How do you become more disciplined for yourself so that
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you can start leading these teams like you're talking about?
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One of the best things about the discipline characteristic is it's, I don't believe it is something that
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you're either born or not born with. I think it's just a choice that you make. Are you going to wake
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up early in the morning? Yes or no. Are you then going to put yourself through some kind of a grinding
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physical workout? Yes or no. Are you then going to approach the tasks for your designated job for the
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day with passion and get them accomplished? Yes or no. All those are just simple questions about what you do
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in daily life. And depending on how you answer those, yes or no, either yes, I'm going to get up
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early. Yes, I'm going to work out hard. Yes, I'm going to accomplish my tasks for the day. Those are
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just the discipline answers, very simply. Or no, I'm going to be lazy and sleep in. No, I'm not going to
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push myself physically. And no, I'm not going to attack the tasks that I have for the day. And those
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are lack of discipline. And that's what, that's what your life will begin to reflect as an
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undisciplined life. And the key component for me, and again, this is something that I wrote about in
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the book is the discipline is what gives you freedom in life. And it's not, you know, just because you live
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in a structured, organized and rigid life like I do, it doesn't mean that my life is confined or
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restrained. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Because I live a disciplined life, I actually have
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more freedom than most people do. I mean, I have a ton of freedom in my life and the way that the
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things I'm able to do because of the disciplined life that I've led. And so people lose track of that
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a little bit. And they all they want is the freedom. They want that. They just want to do whatever they
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want. Well, you can't do whatever you want. It takes discipline to get to that point in your life.
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And that's why I think it's that that mantra of mine of discipline equals freedom is a key component
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of moving forward and attaining the things that you want, because you're not going to no one's
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going to give you anything. No one's going to knock on Ryan's door and say, hey, here's the good deal
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you've been looking for. That's not going to happen, right? You've got to make it happen. And the only way
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you're going to make it happen is through hard work and discipline. And so that's why if you become
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disciplined and you choose to be disciplined, you will end up with more freedom in the long run.
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And that's a great point, because I think what you just said, when I read this in the book,
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it made total sense to me. And I think the point is that discipline is a choice, which is creating
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freedom because you don't have to get out of bed early. You don't have to go bust your ass at the
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gym. But if you choose to, that's going to create more opportunities in your life.
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So what do you say to the guy? Here's what's going to happen. Somebody is going to hear this
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and I'm going to get a message or an email that says, well, Ryan, I really want to get
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up early. I really want to go work out. Like I want to do these things, but I don't know
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how to get started or I don't know how to keep doing it or stay consistent. What do you say
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I'd say you're being mentally weak. I mean, that's, you know, wake up, get out of bed,
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do pushups and sit ups. You don't need any equipment. You don't need anything to do that.
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Go do some burpees. You don't need any equipment to do that. Set your alarm clock, get up,
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get out of bed and make these things happen. A person like that, again, you can't deliver
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someone the discipline. They have to bring it themselves. And so if someone says that
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they can't do it, I say, I'm sorry to hear that. I will continue to go out and crush and
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you can stay back behind in your bed and watch your life slip away.
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You know, it also brings up a really good point, which is that we can't be consumed with what other
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people are doing or the way other people are behaving. And how do you address this when you're
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working with a team that maybe, for example, in the military, and I don't, this is probably a little
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bit more when I was in the military rather than you is like, you don't get to choose necessarily
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your team. I know with Navy SEALs, there's obviously a greater weeding out process than what
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I had when I went through the military, but how do you do this with a team that maybe not
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everybody's on board with the vision you have for, for what you're trying to accomplish?
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Well, I wonder why they're not on the, on board with the vision.
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Yeah. If, if I've come up with a good vision, that makes sense, that we can accomplish,
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that's going to be done in a logical way. That's going to get, improve the situation for our team.
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Why would you not be on board with it? It's only because I'm not, I'm not, I'm not communicating
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well enough. I'm not leading well enough. I'm not convincing you well enough. I'm not
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answering the question. Why I'm not explaining why those things all come back onto me. If my team
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doesn't want to do what I think is the right thing to do. And you know what else I could be wrong.
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I could have the wrong vision and you, and if I don't discuss that with you and say, Hey Ryan,
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here's what we want to do. Here's where I want to get, here's how I want to make it happen.
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And you don't agree with it. And I just tell you to shut up and do what I said. Well,
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are you going to do it? No, of course not. Yeah. There's going to be contention there.
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There's going to be contention. And even if I'm quote unquote outrank you and you work for me and
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you're my subordinate and I tell you to do it, are you going to do it? You might do it. Are you
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going to give it your full effort? No. Are you going to push past any obstacles that come up? No.
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I mean, it's just going to be bad, bad and bad. So that's once again, boils down to leadership.
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And one of the critical points is, Oh, my team doesn't want to do the mission. They're not on
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board with the mission. My team's fault that they're not on board. Wrong answer. Mr. Leader,
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it's your fault. They're not on board. It's your, it's my fault that my team doesn't want to do this
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mission. It's not my team's fault. I'm the leader. How can I blame my team? I'm the leader.
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So that's just another excuse for a leader to make and saying, Hey, my team's not good.
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They weren't selected. They weren't trained. Oh, my team wasn't trained. Cool. Train them.
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Right. Right. That's on you. Right. Yeah. One of the stories in the book that you talk about was
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an incident of fratricide, or I guess it was near, I don't know. I can't remember.
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Yes. It was, it was an incident where, uh, there was multiple units out on the battlefield,
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seals, Marines, army, and Iraqi army soldiers. And there was a fratricide or blue on blue where
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we had friendlies shooting at each other, including seals and Iraqi soldiers. And yes,
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there was a fratricide and one of the Iraqi soldiers was killed. One of my seals was wounded
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and it was an absolutely horrific scenario. And I think from the outside looking in without
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really understanding the concepts you're talking about in this book, it would be easy to say,
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well, there's nothing you could have done. There's, I mean, this is just part of the deal.
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This is what happens and there's nothing you can do and you can blame it on these outside factors.
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But I'd like to hear a little bit about how you handled that situation, because it almost seems
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like it was a surprise to the commanders above you when you came into this situation and explained
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what really happened and how you took responsibility for that.
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Yeah. So the event happened, the scenario happened. Like I said, it was awful. We shut
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down operations. We, the seal, my seal, you know, we shut down operations. We were ordered to shut
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down operations. We went back to our base. I immediately get the message, you know, you need
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to prepare a brief on what happened. And I, and I knew that this was, you know, cause my commanding
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officer said, my commanding officer, my command master chief and the investigating officer were going to
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come out and find out what happened. And they were absolutely looking to relieve somebody is what
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they call the military, which that means in the civilian world, it means fire somebody.
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So who are we going to fire that this bad thing happened out on the battlefield? Who are we going
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to fire? And so I started putting together my brief on what happened. And I mean, it was a very,
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I understood what, what had happened. There was units that moved to the wrong positions. There were
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other units that didn't report that where they were. There was people moving to positions that they
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should move to a bunch of, a bunch of things, people moving before timeframes that they were
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supposed to move people going beyond limits that they were supposed to advance beyond. So there was
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a bunch of mistakes that were made. And as I put this together, you know, there was all these
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different people that had made these mistakes in the chain of command, throughout the chain of
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command with my guys, with the army guys, with the Iraqi soldiers, with the Marine Corps that was
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with the Iraqi soldiers. There was all kinds of mistakes that were made. And once I completed it,
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I had all this blame for everybody else. And literally 20 minutes before I walked in to debrief
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my commanding officer, the investigating officer and the command master chief, I still didn't feel
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as if it was right. I didn't understand why it didn't make sense to me, why I didn't feel conclusive
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about where the blame was being placed. Sure. Right. And I wasn't quite sure what was nagging at me.
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And then it just hit me like a bolt of lightning that, Hey, idiot, what's missing is that you are
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the person to blame me. And so walked into the room with the commanding officer and the, and the command
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master chief, the investigating officer and all of my guys, including the guy that had been wounded,
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sitting in the back of the room with his head bandaged up. And I just said, Hey guys, you know,
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whose fault was this? And one of the guys raised his hand and said, it was my fault. I didn't pass
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where we were going to be in time. And I said, no, it wasn't your fault. Another guy raised his hand
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and said, no, it was my fault. I should have identified the target. I was shooting that better
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and realized who it was. And I didn't, that's my fault. And I said, no, it's not your fault.
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And then another guy raised his hand. And finally, I just said, look guys, this was not your fault.
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It was not your fault. And it was not your fault. There's only one person to blame for this
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happening. And that's me. Yeah. I'm the commander. I'm overall responsible for everything that happens
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out there. And I will promise you it will never happen again. And I would say that it was surprising
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to my commanding officer and, and, and everyone really, maybe not my guys because my guys knew me,
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but they also knew that I didn't have to take the blame. You know, they, they knew that there
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was other people that I could have tried to point the finger at, but they also knew me well enough
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to think that I wouldn't do that. But, and so that's what I did. And, you know, I actually think
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that my commanding officer, his, his trust for me actually increased. It didn't decrease. It
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increased because he realized that I was going to be, I was, I would take responsibility if things
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happened. So it was a, definitely a big lesson learned. And certainly it was certainly a moment
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in my life that absolutely crystallized the idea of extreme ownership.
00:22:02.540
Guys, I just want to take a real quick timeout to introduce you to a resource you will want to
00:22:06.680
check out if you're ready to take action and extreme ownership in your life. I'm talking about
00:22:12.260
our elite mastermind, the iron council. We're a group of men working, not just talking, but working
00:22:17.700
on how to become better men in every area of our lives. Every single man inside of the council is
00:22:23.060
working to improve his relationships and his business, his family, his health, his wealth,
00:22:27.000
and his life. And I want you to get involved too. This is a group designed to push you. It's designed to
00:22:32.340
test you, to challenge you. It's designed to help you step outside of your comfort zone and do some
00:22:37.500
things that you would not normally do. It's the only way to see real results in your life.
00:22:43.340
So if you feel yourself struggling in your relationships or with your career or your money
00:22:48.180
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00:22:58.400
do the things we actually do the things that are going to help you succeed massively in your life.
00:23:02.660
So you can check that out at order of man.com slash iron council. I'm looking forward to seeing
00:23:07.640
you on the inside. Now back to my interview with Jocko. Yeah. And I really liked that. You said
00:23:13.960
that it helped develop trust, not only probably with your, your, uh, commanding officer, like you
00:23:17.800
talk about, but then the trust level with your team, knowing that, Hey, our leader, this guy is
00:23:23.760
actually going to go to bat for us in, you know, this situation, where else is he going to go to bat
00:23:29.100
for us too. The other point that you made is that you were realistic about the problems that went
00:23:35.240
wrong. So I want there to be a distinction between just blindly taking ownership and just not worrying
00:23:41.700
about what happened and just saying, Oh, it's my fault. And then being realistic about what actually
00:23:45.760
happened, but still deciding that, yes, it's my fault. And here's the actions that we're going to
00:23:51.060
take to correct the situation. Well, you have to truly believe it's another thing. You can't just
00:23:56.680
go out there and stand up in front and say, Hey guys, it's my fault. Sorry. I let you down.
00:24:01.520
Yeah. That's, that's not real. You have to actually believe that it was your fault. I wasn't
00:24:08.220
just saying like, Oh, this was my fault guys. I'll take responsibility. No, I truly believe this.
00:24:13.160
Everything that happened was my fault. So I look at the guy that had let the Iraqis advance further
00:24:20.700
than they should have. Well, guess what? I was in charge of the planning. I should have made it
00:24:25.220
perfectly clear where, where they were allowed to go, where they couldn't and could not go at what
00:24:30.900
time they were supposed to be there. I should have owned that more and made, made it perfectly
00:24:36.120
clear down the chain of command. I failed to do that. Therefore the Iraqis went to a wrong position.
00:24:40.780
I should have talked more in depth to my guys about the, the criticality of positively identifying
00:24:46.880
your targets. I should have explained that there could be Iraqis in the area. We need to
00:24:51.660
triple confirm who you're engaging as a target. And by the way, they're going to be using clothing
00:24:58.980
and uniforms that look like pictures of what we see the enemy use. So we need to triple confirm
00:25:04.940
before we engage. Well, guess what? I, I said that I didn't obviously make it clear enough. Truly my
00:25:11.400
fault. I'm not just lip service and saying, Oh, it was all my fault. No, these are things that I
00:25:17.140
need to do. Now, the beautiful thing about extreme ownership and having that attitude and that
00:25:22.160
mindset. When I said that to my guys, they didn't turn around and point, point their fingers at me
00:25:27.040
and say, that's right. You should have told us that's right. They said, no, Jocko, no, I should
00:25:32.880
have known. I'm a grown man. I'm a seal. I should have known. I should have done that. It's my fault.
00:25:38.260
So what we had was everyone taking ownership of the problems and everyone getting the problem
00:25:43.100
solved as opposed to if I pointed the finger, then they would point the finger and then everyone
00:25:48.560
would be pointing the finger and no one will be able to solve the problem. So how do you plan for
00:25:53.040
some of these unknowns? Because there's a lot of situations and scenarios that could have played out
00:25:57.920
that are impossible probably to really fully recognize what could happen before it actually
00:26:03.920
happens. So how does a man adapt and, and, and overcome some of these things when they just can't
00:26:09.560
be planned for? Well, first of all, nothing in life can be a hundred percent planned for.
00:26:15.160
And so that's why the most important characteristic for a leadership to have in terms of, uh, in terms
00:26:20.420
of adapting on the battlefield is the key word is adaptability. And the way that you get adaptability
00:26:25.480
in combat is to prepare for, in preparing for combat is to put people in scenarios that they cannot
00:26:31.760
predict and put people in scenarios where they have to make decisions that they would not normally make.
00:26:36.900
In fact, one of the best things to do is give people restrictions and say, okay, Ryan, here's
00:26:42.940
the operation. I want you to go on. And no matter what, I don't want you to cross this line. And you
00:26:47.360
say, okay, got it, Jocko. Now I send you out on the operation and I set up the operation so that you get
00:26:52.940
put in a situation where the only way you can win is to cross the line and disobey what I told you.
00:26:59.100
What I want you to do is I want you to think, and I want to train you to be able to think. I don't
00:27:03.820
want to train you to obey orders. That's what robots do. Right. I don't want to train you to
00:27:09.220
obey orders. That's not what, that's not what military training is about for me. What military
00:27:14.460
training is about for me. And when I ran training, this is what I emphasized is that military training
00:27:19.660
and training in general is, I want you to think, that's what I want you to do. I want you to think
00:27:24.920
if you're a construction worker and something is happening on the construction site, I want you to
00:27:30.360
think about how to win in that situation. If we're in the financial world and there's something
00:27:35.300
happening in the markets, I don't want you to have to come back to me and say, Hey, Jocko,
00:27:38.960
this is what's happening. What should I do? No, I want you to think, I want you to know,
00:27:42.880
I want you to decide, I want you to take action because as long as it takes you to come back and
00:27:47.900
ask me what my opinion is, but first you have to tell me what's going on. You have to give me the
00:27:51.360
parameters of the situation. I can't react fast enough and then tell you what to do.
00:27:55.720
So I need you to lead. And in order for you to be able to lead, you need to be able to think.
00:28:00.360
So the thought process is extremely important. And that's what I always emphasized in training.
00:28:06.780
And I think that applies. It does. It applies to everything that humans do as a team. And you
00:28:12.180
know, that's in the book, we talk about decentralized command. That's what decentralized command is,
00:28:16.000
is ensuring that the people that are below you specifically in the chain of command,
00:28:20.820
that you've got them in a situation where they understand what they're doing, they understand
00:28:24.380
why they're doing it. And once they know that, then you know what, once you and I, Ryan, I trust
00:28:30.820
you, you know, our standard operating procedures, you know, what my expectations are of you are to
00:28:36.980
get done and make happen. You know, the parameters with which within which I want you to work,
00:28:42.160
I can let you go out and do whatever you want. Because you're going to stay within the guidelines.
00:28:48.080
And I just talked about this on my podcast the other day, guess what your kids are?
00:28:52.180
They're your little troopers. And if your kids are going to go out, you're not going to be there
00:28:57.660
for every decision they have to make. You're not going to be there when somebody hands them
00:29:00.780
drugs. You're not going to be there when something bad is happening. You're not going to be there when
00:29:04.520
they, you know, they've had a couple alcoholic drinks, and now they feel like they need to drive
00:29:09.380
somewhere. You're not going to be there to impose your rules on them. You have to give them the rules
00:29:16.820
of their own so that they understand why it's important and that they can make the right decisions on
00:29:21.340
their own without your oversight. That's what you want from your kids, from your employees,
00:29:28.640
and from everybody that you work with on your team. I really like this concept. And I use it to
00:29:34.200
a small degree. I've got four kids. My oldest is eight years old. And we talk about taking out the
00:29:38.280
trash. That's one of his chores. And he came in the other day and he said, I can't take it out. It's
00:29:41.320
too heavy. And I said, son, you've got to find a way to do it. The mission is to take the trash to
00:29:45.360
the curb and you've got to find a way to do it. I don't know how you're going to do it, but make it work.
00:29:48.680
And so he went out there and he started taking bags out of one and put it in another and hauled
00:29:53.380
them both to the curb, came back in as proud as you can be because I didn't have to tell him how
00:29:57.420
to do it. He knew what the mission was and he just figured it out on his own.
00:30:01.040
Yeah. One of the things that I'd say is if you're helping your kids, you're hurting your kids
00:30:06.820
and kind of counterintuitive. But if you would have gone and helped your son take the trash out
00:30:12.780
and done it for him, then he wouldn't have learned that lesson. He wouldn't have learned to think for
00:30:17.480
himself. He wouldn't have learned about that. I mean, it's a base. It's a simple thing,
00:30:21.460
right? Taking out the trash. Right. Right. He learned a lesson from it. He learned about
00:30:24.860
persistence. He learned about solving problems. And that's a beautiful thing. If you didn't,
00:30:30.280
if you just did it for him, he wouldn't have learned those things. And that's, and that,
00:30:34.180
that builds up over a lifetime. So you talk about one of the laws of combat being decentralized
00:30:39.460
command, which we just addressed. Let's go through some of these others because I think they're
00:30:42.980
important. So the next one, and I don't know that these are necessarily in order,
00:30:46.120
but cover and move. Let's talk about what that is.
00:30:48.940
Well, cover and move is, is, well, you were in the army. And again, thank you for your service.
00:30:53.240
Uh, uh, you know, for those of you that don't know, you may not know this, but Ryan, was it,
00:30:59.500
Army. Yeah. Using the army national garden. Then I went into the army and served in, in a little
00:31:03.760
place in, in Western Iraq in Al-Ambar province called Ramadi, which at the time that he was there
00:31:09.660
and the time I was there, it was absolutely the epicenter of the insurgency and one of the worst
00:31:15.900
places on earth. And so thank you for your service, Ryan, and what you did over there.
00:31:21.420
But when it comes to cover and move, you being an army guy, this is a, this is the most fundamental
00:31:26.700
of all gunfighting tactics is cover and move. So if Ryan and I are going to go take down a building,
00:31:34.340
I'm going to get some, some cover and I'm going to start engaging the building and shooting at the
00:31:39.340
building. And that makes the guys inside, the bad guys, it keeps their heads down and they're
00:31:44.160
hiding. And that means Ryan can get up and maneuver to a better position. Once Ryan gets to a better
00:31:48.300
position, he starts engaging the enemy. And while he's engaging the enemy and keeping their heads
00:31:52.220
down, I get up and move. Once I get up and move, I find a better position and I do it again. I start
00:31:57.420
shooting and Ryan can move again. And that's what we do. We bound together. We, we, we bound and cover
00:32:02.180
each other's movement. That's called cover and move. Now, if Ryan is up and running and I decide
00:32:07.820
I'm going to stop shooting, well, that means the enemy is going to pop their head up. They're going
00:32:11.020
to see Ryan and they're going to kill him. Right. And so the, the, the, the basic concept of cover
00:32:17.360
and move is teamwork and working together with your team, everyone doing their job together
00:32:24.240
in support of one another in order to accomplish the mission. And the key piece of this is that if
00:32:29.660
I decide I'm just going to go on my own, Ryan's going to get killed. And by the way, once Ryan
00:32:34.180
gets killed, now the enemy is going to fire and maneuver on me. They're going to cover and move
00:32:37.640
on me and they're going to kill me. Right. Cause you're not covered.
00:32:39.400
So the essentially cover and move is just the essence of teamwork and working together in a team
00:32:46.040
and every business is what we found. As soon as we started working with businesses, every business
00:32:50.080
in the world has multiple different units inside of it where they've all got to do their piece of
00:32:56.080
the job. They've all got to do their piece of the mission and they've all got to cover for each other
00:33:00.480
as they move. So that's why it translates very well to the business world. You know, you've got
00:33:06.200
sales departments and operation departments and engineering departments and human resource
00:33:12.180
departments and each one of these little departments has got to do their part of the job in order for
00:33:16.700
the team to win. And that's what cover and move is all about. Love. It makes total sense. Let's move
00:33:21.540
to the next one, which is simple simplicity. You've got to keep things simple. Easy. That's the only
00:33:28.560
answer you could have given right there, right? Yes. And there's no denying it. And we see complex
00:33:34.040
plans fall apart all the time. And we also see people that communicate their plans in a complex
00:33:41.180
manner, not being understood. And therefore, if people cannot understand what you want them to
00:33:47.020
do, they cannot execute. So you must give people direction in a simple, clear, concise manner so
00:33:53.600
that they can make it happen. Excellent. And then the last one you talk about in the book, which is
00:33:57.480
prioritize and execute. Yeah. Prioritize and execute is the simple fact that in combat, you're going to
00:34:02.760
have multiple things that are going to be going wrong at the same time. And when all these things are
00:34:08.840
happening, all these things are going wrong. So you've got wounded guys, you got, you got,
00:34:12.580
you're in a firefight. You've got your forces all split up. You've got friendly forces maneuvering
00:34:17.860
in the area that you need to coordinate with. You've got enemy forces that you're getting reports on that
00:34:22.480
you need to go and handle. You got all these problems taking place at the same time. And I
00:34:26.240
would see these young SEAL officers when I was putting them through training, when we put them in
00:34:29.540
these complex scenarios, they would, they would try and solve all the problems at once. So they put a
00:34:35.800
couple guys over there, a couple guys over there, a couple guys doing something else. And even their
00:34:38.720
own brain, they would, they would spread thin over these different situations. So they didn't
00:34:43.700
really understand any of them. Yeah. And so when you try and handle all these problems at the same
00:34:49.560
time, the fact of the matter is you don't get any of them taken care of. You don't solve any of the
00:34:55.940
problems. So what you have to do with prioritize and execute is take a look at all the problems that you
00:35:00.780
have figured out what the most impactful or important one is, and then go take care of that
00:35:06.620
problem. Focus your efforts on it. When you get done with that problem, you can move on to the next
00:35:10.420
one and so on down the line until you've solved the problems you've got to solve.
00:35:15.100
Yeah. And this makes complete sense. I, you know, one of the questions I get asked all the time is
00:35:19.840
how do I start a business? And I think what guys are really saying when we get into this question is,
00:35:24.480
you know, do I start with Facebook and then how do I incorporate? And then where do I talk about?
00:35:28.660
Do I start a podcast? And just like you're saying, we get so consumed with all the everything that's
00:35:33.740
out there in the world that they could be doing that they forget to take that first step, which is
00:35:37.420
to start having a conversation about what it is you want to talk about. Right. Yeah. And so that
00:35:42.240
makes complete sense what you're talking about here. Yeah. If you want to start a business,
00:35:46.220
start doing that thing. Nevermind the Facebook, nevermind the Twitter, start doing the thing that's
00:35:54.620
going to help people solve whatever problem they have in their world. And that's how you start your
00:35:59.160
business. And I think what the underlying theme is with this and correct me if I'm wrong, is that
00:36:04.260
I go back to that first part of the conversation we had. We talked a lot about ego, right? If you're
00:36:08.720
not covering and moving, if you're not keeping things simple, if you're not decent, decentralizing
00:36:13.320
your command, a lot of that comes back to that. You want the power and control. You're not willing
00:36:17.340
to give it to anybody else to accomplish the mission. Yeah, though, that's absolutely true.
00:36:21.360
You've got to, you've got to decentralize your command. You've got to make sure that you're
00:36:25.360
allowing other people to lead. And if you're, if your ego gets out of control, you won't be able
00:36:32.140
to do that. You won't be able to take the time or you won't be able to have the confidence because
00:36:37.020
that's what it is. If I'm in, if I'm insecure as a leader and Ryan, my subordinate starts to step up,
00:36:43.700
guess what happens to me? All of a sudden I start saying, Oh, I think he's going to make me look bad.
00:36:47.480
I think other people respect me and him more. Oh yeah. I'm going to feel threatened and I'm going
00:36:52.340
to now use my authority to squash Ryan and make myself look good and feed my disgustingly hungry
00:37:02.100
ego. Once you have confidence in your leadership, Ryan does something good. Ryan starts to step up.
00:37:08.980
Ryan starts to lead. I don't bat you down. I actually prop you up. I actually pull you up. I actually want
00:37:14.280
you to do better. I actually want you to lead the missions and I'm going to take a step back.
00:37:18.840
That's what a real confident leader does. Real confident leader isn't intimidated or doesn't
00:37:23.240
feel threatened when someone below them, above them, to the side of them, wherever in the chain
00:37:28.960
of command starts to do something well and starts to lead in a certain situation. It doesn't bother me.
00:37:34.180
I'm happy. I'm happy when people lead. It's great. That means I can focus on something else.
00:37:38.840
And there's a great quote that great leaders don't create followers. They create more great
00:37:44.480
leaders. And that's what you're talking about here. Yeah, that's affirmative.
00:37:47.760
This has been so valuable. Ton of information for guys to chew on. There's a ton more that we could
00:37:52.280
get into. But what I'm going to do at this point is say, guys, if you want to learn about this,
00:37:57.020
go buy the book. Because I promise if you buy the book and incorporate Jocko, which you
00:38:01.360
and Leif are talking about, it will literally change your life. I believe that it's that powerful.
00:38:06.460
So I really appreciate you, Jocko. As we wind down on time, I want to ask you a question that
00:38:11.520
I ask all of my guests. And the question is, what does it mean to be a man?
00:38:16.000
What does it mean to be a man? Well, for one thing, I do have three daughters. And I don't
00:38:21.360
think I would tell them anything different about how to act as a human, as I would tell my son,
00:38:27.980
who obviously is going to grow into a man. So for me, it's maybe not just about being a man,
00:38:34.240
but being a person. And for me, it's real simple stuff. I'm not going to say anything
00:38:40.000
profound here. Be disciplined, work hard, keep your word, help people, do a good job with what
00:38:47.900
you engage in, and don't let people down. Yeah, so powerful. And just like you said,
00:38:52.620
I mean, these are not gender specific. This goes across all genders. Every human being can
00:38:57.940
incorporate that into their lives, right? Absolutely.
00:39:00.140
Absolutely. Well, Jocko, if we want to connect with you, I know guys that are listening to this
00:39:03.120
are going to want to. They're going to want to buy the book. They're going to learn more about
00:39:06.160
what you're doing. What is the best way to connect with you and follow the work that you're doing?
00:39:09.840
Well, probably the book is available everywhere. Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
00:39:15.140
anywhere that they sell books, they have the book. And so that's awesome. Appreciate it.
00:39:20.600
And as far as connecting with us, I have a podcast called Jocko Podcast.
00:39:26.180
Jocko Podcast. It's been getting a lot of feedback, so people are stoked on it. We talk
00:39:32.160
about all this stuff all the time. It's about leadership. It's about war. It's about fighting.
00:39:36.840
It's about physical fitness. It's about failure. It's about everything. It's about life. That's
00:39:42.660
what it's about. It's about life, my perspective on life. So you can definitely check out the Jocko
00:39:48.720
Podcast. And if you want to find me on the interwebs, the most common thing for me to check is
00:39:55.400
Twitter. I'm at Jocko Willink. And I'm also have Facebook, which is Jocko Willink. And I forget how
00:40:04.340
you say it when it's Facebook, but if you search for Jocko Willink. And then there's also Jocko
00:40:07.840
Podcast on Facebook. And people submit questions through Twitter and through Facebook. And I try
00:40:14.740
and address those on the podcast. Or I just answer people. If they ask me a question and I've got an
00:40:20.500
answer to it that I can just give a simple answer on Twitter or on Facebook, I just answer them
00:40:27.660
Awesome. Yeah. And I know you're super responsive. You and I have responded back and forth a couple
00:40:31.640
of times. And we'll make sure we make all the links in the show notes, guys. So if you want
00:40:34.640
to connect with Jocko, those will be on the show notes page. So make sure you check that
00:40:37.580
out. You'll be able to connect with him. Jocko, I want to tell you, I appreciate you. I appreciate
00:40:41.700
your work. I appreciate your service to our country as well. So the feeling is definitely
00:40:45.720
mutual, especially as where we shared a little time in Ramadi. And I appreciate you taking some
00:40:51.320
time to join us and share some of your wisdom with us today.
00:40:54.060
All right. Thanks, man. Everybody that's out there, go get after it.
00:40:58.760
There you have it, guys. Navy SEAL Commander Jocko Willink on taking ownership of your life.
00:41:04.320
And here's what you need to do now. Go buy, if you haven't already, the book Extreme Ownership
00:41:09.180
and start implementing. Actually implement this stuff in your life. It's one thing to talk about
00:41:13.260
these concepts or listen to them in a podcast, but it's another thing entirely different to
00:41:17.800
actually start practicing what you learn. But in action lie the real results. And in the meantime,
00:41:23.180
go check out the Iron Council. Join an elite group of brothers inside this council. We're going to
00:41:27.860
push you. We're going to question you. We're going to test you. We're going to hold your feet to the
00:41:31.400
fire. And that is exactly what it takes to shake you out of the life that you might currently find
00:41:35.460
yourself in. So head to orderofman.com slash ironcouncil and join us right now. And again,
00:41:40.240
all the details for this show can be found at orderofman.com slash 060. Guys,
00:41:46.160
I look forward to talking with you next week, but until then take action and become the man
00:41:49.460
you were meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take
00:41:54.520
charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order