When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight. Jocko Willink Read Quote
Just on a practical side, if you wake up early in the morning – like at 4:30 in the morning – you’re going to have some free time to yourself to make things happen, to take care of things that are important to you. Jocko Willink Read Quote
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. Jocko Willink Read Quote
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. Jocko Willink Read Quote
We all have limitations. I don’t have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifter. I don’t have the right genetics to be an Olympic sprinter. Or gymnast. Sure, if I trained my whole life, perhaps I could have become fairly decent in those sports. Jocko Willink Read Quote
I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline. Jocko Willink Read Quote
When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else. Jocko Willink Read Quote
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. Jocko Willink Read Quote
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. Jocko Willink Read Quote
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. Jocko Willink Read Quote
