Jocko Willink Quotes
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Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be in combat.
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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.
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I don't pick up toys. I crush them.
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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.
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Didn't get promoted? Good. More time to get better.
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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.
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If you try and work out at 4:30 in the afternoon, how many people are going to chip away at that time? Your boss, your job, your work, your family, your other obligations that you might have. At 4:30 in the morning, all those people are asleep, so you can do whatever you want.
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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.
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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.
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Perseverance is also key to success in any endeavor, but without perseverance in combat, there can be no victory.
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Things won't get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.
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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.
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Leadership is hard. It's a skill. It's a technique.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I eat steak primarily. That's pretty much what my diet consists of. Sometimes I supplement that with other steaks.
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If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you're able to do it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.