Zitat des Tages von Jocko Willink:
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.
It's really hard to guarantee things in life. I guarantee if you get up in the morning and you work out, and you work hard, you will have a better day - 100% guaranteed.
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.
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 my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he'd say, 'Boss, we've got this, and that, and the other thing.' And I'd look at him and I'd say, 'Good.'
Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be in combat.
I eat steak primarily. That's pretty much what my diet consists of. Sometimes I supplement that with other steaks.
We have food all around us all the time, and if we haven't eaten for three hours, we think we're starving. You're not starving - human beings can go for 30 days without food.
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.
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 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.
I don't pick up toys. I crush them.
Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.
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.
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.
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.
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 all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.
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 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.
Every day is a major balancing act that I have to figure out and coordinate.
If I've got a problem with one of my clients that needs to get solved, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to call them up, and I'm going to say, 'Hey, here's what's going on. This is the situation. This thing went sideways. I didn't expect it. Now it's going to take me some more time to get you what you need.' But I'm going to do that upfront.
When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was 18 years old, and it was a dream come true for me to work out and eat great food for free. What else do you want in life? People think that is what it is like to be in a SEAL team, but it is less than a fraction of your career as a real SEAL.
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.
Some people, they take their form of working out as a religion that they think is better than everyone else's. I'm not like that. If you have a better way to work out, and you can teach it to me, and I find it to be useful and gets me in better shape, I'm all about.
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.
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.
When things are going bad, there's going to be some good that's going to come from it.
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?
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.