Us Navy Seals Quotes

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Discipline equals freedom.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The only easy day was yesterday.
US Navy SEALs
the most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Relax. Look around. Make a call.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful.” I explained how a leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
After all, there can be no leadership where there is no team.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests. They
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Life is short. Life is uncertain. But we know that we have today. And we have each other. I believe that for each of us, there is a place on the frontlines.
Eric Greitens (The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL)
We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible. As
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
We know about bad guys, what they do, and often, who they are. The politicians have chosen to send us into battle, and that's our trade. We do what's necessary. And in my view, once those politicians have elected to send us out to do what 99.9 percent of the country would be terrified to undertake, they should get the hell out of the way and stay there. This entire business of modern war crimes, as identified by the liberal wings of politics and the media, began in Iraq and has been running downhill ever since. Everyone's got to have his little hands in it, blathering on about the public's right to know. Well, the view of most Navy SEALs, the public does not have that right to know, not if it means placing our lives in unnecessary peril because someone in Washington is driving himself mad worrying about the human rights of some cold-hearted terrorist fanatic who would kill us as soon as look at us, as well as any other American at whom he could point that wonky old AK of his.
Marcus Luttrell (Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10)
Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Service is selflessness--the opposite of the lifestyle that we see so much of in America today. The things that entertain us don't often lift us up, or show us as the people we can rise up to become. The people who appear in this book--and others who did things I can't talk about--are my role models. They quietly live out the idea expressed in the Bible (John 15:13): "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance. Identifying weaknesses, good leaders seek to strengthen them and come up with a plan to overcome challenges. The best teams anywhere, like the SEAL Teams, are constantly looking to improve, add capability, and push the standards higher. It starts with the individual and spreads to each of the team members until this becomes the culture, the new standard. The recognition that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders facilitates Extreme Ownership and enables leaders to build high-performance teams that dominate on any battlefield, literal or figurative.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Belief in the mission ties in with the fourth Law of Combat: Decentralized Command (chapter 8). The leader must explain not just what to do, but why. It is the responsibility of the subordinate leader to reach out and ask if they do not understand. Only when leaders at all levels understand and believe in the mission can they pass that understanding and belief to their teams so that they can persevere through challenges, execute and win.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The true test for a good brief,” Jocko continued, “is not whether the senior officers are impressed. It’s whether or not the troops that are going to execute the operation actually understand it. Everything else is bullshit. Does
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The Dichotomy of Leadership A good leader must be: • confident but not cocky; • courageous but not foolhardy; • competitive but a gracious loser; • attentive to details but not obsessed by them; • strong but have endurance; • a leader and follower; • humble not passive; • aggressive not overbearing; • quiet not silent; • calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions; • close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the good of the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge. • able to execute Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralized Command. A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove. APPLICATION
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Remember the philosophy of the U.S. Navy SEALs: “I will never quit...My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates...I am never out of the fight.
Marcus Luttrell (Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10)
Generally, when a leader struggles, the root cause behind the problem is that the leader has leaned too far in one direction and steered off course. Awareness
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
There are no bad units, only bad officers.”3 This captures the essence of what Extreme Ownership is all about.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom. When you have the discipline to get up early, you are rewarded with more free time.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another. The
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions;
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead. If
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
But we can’t ever think we are too good to fail or that our enemies are not capable, deadly, and eager to exploit our weaknesses. We must never get complacent. This is where controlling the ego is most important.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It's so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we can all come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words "Love thy neighbor," and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
Leadership is simple, but not easy.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
People do not follow robots.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Our egos don’t like to take blame.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
There were no more questions. The most important question had been answered: Why? Once I analyzed the mission and understood for myself that critical piece of information, I could then believe in the mission. If I didn’t believe in it, there was no way I could possibly convince the SEALs in my task unit to believe in it. If
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
PRINCIPLE Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
A leader must lead but also be ready to follow. Sometimes, another member of the team—perhaps a subordinate or direct report—might be in a better position to develop a plan, make a decision, or lead through a specific situation.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not. The
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
This country has not seen and probably will never know the true level of sacrifice of our veterans. As a civilian I owe an unpayable debt to all our military. Going forward let’s not send our servicemen and women off to war or conflict zones unless it is overwhelmingly justifiable and on moral high ground. The men of WWII were the greatest generation, perhaps Korea the forgotten, Vietnam the trampled, Cold War unsung and Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan vets underestimated. Every generation has proved itself to be worthy to stand up to the precedent of the greatest generation. Going back to the Revolution American soldiers have been the best in the world. Let’s all take a remembrance for all veterans who served or are serving, peace time or wartime and gone or still with us. 11/11/16 May God Bless America and All Veterans.
Thomas M. Smith
The U.S. Navy SEAL Teams were at the forefront of this leadership transformation, emerging from the triumphs and tragedies of war with a crystallized understanding of what it takes to succeed in the most challenging environments that combat presents.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
As SEALs, we operate as a team of high-caliber, multitalented individuals who have been through perhaps the toughest military training and most rigorous screening process anywhere. But in the SEAL program, it is all about the Team. The sum is far greater than the parts.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong. Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do. I
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The infamous they.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
remember: the enemy gets a vote.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it” – There are situations in life where you will simply need to grit your teeth and hit the ground running.
John Collins (Self-Discipline: The Ultimate Guide to Self-Discipline like a US NAVY SEAL: Gain Incredible Self Confidence, Motivation, & True Discipline with Techniques used only by these Elite Warriors!)
Relax, look around, make a call.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
all animals, including humans, need to see the connection between action and consequence in order to learn or react appropriately.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
It is critical for leaders to act decisively amid uncertainty; to make the best decisions they can based on only the immediate information available.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win. Most important of all, he believed winning was possible.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
As a leader, if you are down in the weeds planning the details with your guys,” said Jocko, “you will have the same perspective as them, which adds little value. But if you let them plan the details, it allows them to own their piece of the plan. And it allows you to stand back and see everything with a different perspective, which adds tremendous value. You can then see the plan from a greater distance, a higher altitude, and you will see more. As a result, you will catch mistakes and discover aspects of the plan that need to be tightened up, which enables you to look like a tactical genius, just because you have a broader view.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
We wrote this so that the leadership lessons can continue to impact teams beyond the battlefield in all leadership situations—any company, team, or organization in which a group of people strives to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
If you don’t understand or believe in the decisions coming down from your leadership, it is up to you to ask questions until you understand how and why those decisions are being made. Not knowing the why prohibits you from believing in the mission. When you are in a leadership position, that is a recipe for failure, and it is unacceptable. As a leader, you must believe.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The grenade hit him in the chest and bounced onto the deck [here, the Navy term for floor]. He immediately leapt to his feet and yelled “grenade” to alert his teammates of impending danger, but they could not evacuate the sniper hide-sight in time to escape harm. Without hesitation and showing no regard for his own life, he threw himself onto the grenade, smothering it to protect his teammates who were lying in close proximity. The grenade detonated as he came down on top of it, mortally wounding him. Petty Officer Monsoor’s actions could not have been more selfless or clearly intentional. Of the three SEALs on that rooftop corner, he had the only avenue of escape away from the blast, and if he had so chosen, he could have easily escaped. Instead, Monsoor chose to protect his comrades by the sacrifice of his own life. By his courageous and selfless actions, he saved the lives of his two fellow SEALs.
Chris Kyle (American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History)
Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems. They are better leaders, better followers, more dependable and actively contributing team members, and more skilled in aggressively driving toward mission accomplishment. But they’re also humble—able to keep their egos from damaging relationships and adversely impacting the mission and the team.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Each of us is the product of our lifestyle, which is a series of habits or behaviors strung together that we cling to day after day. Our behaviors are the products of our beliefs. Those beliefs are products of our thoughts, which can be strongly influenced by the people, events, and environment around us. So
Robert Vera (A Warrior's Faith: Navy SEAL Ryan Job, a Life-Changing Firefight, and the Belief That Transformed His Life)
The world isn’t filled with great people who are thrilled to work for you. You’ve got to find them and nurture their talent so they stay. It’s easy to fire someone but do you have a suitable replacement? Someone who can do two-thirds of the work is better than no one doing any of the work. —Jocko Willink, retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer,
Jocko Willink
leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether a team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the entire team. The leader drives performance—or doesn’t. And this applies not just to the most senior leader of an overall team, but to the junior leaders of teams within the team.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, in a mission coined Operation Neptune Spear (Neptune being synonymous with King Nimrod who built the tower of Babel), there was a US Navy ‘burial at sea.’ We were all led to believe that, for the event, Bin Laden’s body was ‘encased in concrete’ (just as the cadaver of Lincoln had supposedly been) and cast ‘into the sea.’ Also if you will remember, for the assassination mission, carried out by Seal Team 6, Bin Laden had the distinction of having been assigned the code-name, ‘Geronimo!
Yehuda HaLevi (Sacred Scroll of Seven Seals: Skull & Bones, Freemasons, Knights Templar & the Grail)
when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
remove individual ego and personal agenda. It’s all about the mission. How can you best get your team to most effectively execute the plan in order to accomplish the mission?
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
As a leader, it is up to you to explain the bigger picture to him—and to all your front line leaders. That is a critical component of leadership,” I
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
it is paramount that senior leaders explain to their junior leaders and troops executing the mission how their role contributes to big picture success.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
If your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or providing necessary support for you and your team, don’t blame the boss. First, blame yourself. Examine
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Staying ahead of the curve prevents a leader from being overwhelmed when pressure is applied and enables greater decisiveness.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The goal of all leaders should be to work themselves out of a job. This means leaders must be heavily engaged in training and mentoring their junior leaders to prepare them to step up and assume greater responsibilities. When mentored and coached properly, the junior leader can eventually replace the senior leader, allowing the senior leader to move on to the next level of leadership.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Botox studies pointed in the opposite direction. Somehow, changes in the body—freezing the face with a neurotoxin—were producing changes in the mind: the ability to feel sadness or empathy. The horse appeared to be steering the rider. And we now know why. Our facial expressions are hardwired5 into our emotions: we can’t have one without the other. Botox lessens depression because it prevents us from making sad faces. But it also dampens our connection to those around us because we feel empathy by mimicking each other’s facial expressions. With Botox, mimicry becomes impossible, so we feel almost nothing at all.
Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)
If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The idea...that our professional military men and women train for years without knowing whether they will ever have to actually carry out their missions to the fullest extent of their abilities is the very heart of what service is all about. Heroes aren't designated in advance. Everyone must always be ready to execute. In my experience, it's always the greatest heroes who claim they never did anything beyond what any of their buddies would have done in the same situation. Our training and our culture breed that response into us all, no matter what war we were part of. You train yourself to a standard and thereby make yourself interchangeable with others who share the same standard. And that gives everyone an equal claim to the pride that goes with having served your country.
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
The sniper is like a highly skilled surgeon, practicing his craft on the battlefield. Make no mistake: War is about killing other human beings, taking out the enemy before he takes us out, stopping the spread of further aggression by stopping those who would perpetuate that aggression. However, if the goal is to prosecute the war in order to achieve the peace, and to do so as fast and as effectively as possible, and with the least collateral damage, then warriors like Chris Kyle and our other brothers-in-arms are heroes in the best sense.
Brandon Webb (The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen)
Tortured Genius.” By this, he did not mean the artist or musician who suffers from mental health issues, but in the context of ownership. No matter how obvious his or her failing, or how valid the criticism, a Tortured Genius, in this sense, accepts zero responsibility for mistakes, makes excuses, and blames everyone else for their failings (and those of their team). In their mind, the rest of the world just can’t see or appreciate the genius in what they are doing. An individual with a Tortured Genius mind-set can have catastrophic impact on a team’s performance.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
leaders must enforce standards. Consequences for failing need not be immediately severe, but leaders must ensure that tasks are repeated until the higher expected standard is achieved. Leaders must push the standards in a way that encourages and enables the team to utilize Extreme Ownership.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, reexamine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
These leaders cast no blame. They made no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks, they developed solutions and solved problems. They leveraged assets, relationships, and resources to get the job done. Their own egos took a back seat to the mission and their troops. These leaders truly led.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
[T]he self “is not an unmitigated blessing,”6 writes Duke University psychologist Mark Leary in his aptly titled book, The Curse of the Self. “It is single-handedly responsible for many, if not most of the problems that human beings face as individuals and as a species . . . [and] conjures up a great deal of personal suffering in the form of depression, anxiety, anger, jealousy, and other negative emotions.” When you think about the billion-dollar industries that underpin the Altered States Economy, isn’t this what they’re built for? To shut off the self. To give us a few moments of relief from the voice in our heads.
Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)
There was also the matter of four dead Americans at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya: Ambassador Chris Stevens, the first U.S. ambassador killed on duty since the Carter years; foreign service officer Sean Smith; and retired Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The September 11, 2012, attack on the Benghazi compound was coordinated and carried out by radical Islamic terrorists. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified to the Senate that he knew “immediately” that it was a terrorist attack. And yet for weeks President Obama and Secretary Clinton insisted instead that it was a spontaneous protest over an Internet video.
Ted Cruz (A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America)
The Dichotomy of Leadership A good leader must be: • confident but not cocky; • courageous but not foolhardy; • competitive but a gracious loser; • attentive to details but not obsessed by them; • strong but have endurance; • a leader and follower; • humble not passive; • aggressive not overbearing; • quiet not silent; • calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions; • close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the good of the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge. • able to execute Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralized Command. A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Then there are the sheep—good people, everyday people who go about their lives, able to do so in safety only because they are protected from the wolves. For the most part, they are not aware of the wolves, or that they are being protected from them. They may not even really believe that there are wolves out there, ready to cause them harm. But there are. And sheepdogs are acutely aware of it.
Brandon Webb (Among Heroes: A U.S. Navy SEAL's True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice)
Once I analyzed the mission and understood for myself that critical piece of information, I could then believe in the mission. If I didn’t believe in it, there was no way I could possibly convince the SEALs in my task unit to believe in it. If I expressed doubts or openly questioned the wisdom of this plan in front of the troops, their derision toward the mission would increase exponentially. They would never believe in it. As a result, they would never commit to it, and it would fail. But once I understood and believed, I then passed that understanding and belief on, clearly and succinctly, to my troops so that they believed in it themselves. When they understood why, they would commit to the mission, persevere through the inevitable challenges in store, and accomplish the task set before us.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
The historical significance of the fact that we were going out on a joint raid with German Special Operations was lost on none of us. The last time the Germans were on a battlefield was in World War II, and then we were on opposite sides of the trenches. Ditto in World War I. Hell, there were Hessian mercenaries arrayed against us in the Revolutionary War. This would be the first military mission with German and American forces working together since … well, since ever.
Brandon Webb (The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen)
In April 2009 we all watched entranced on CNN as a Navy SEAL sniper team fired three simultaneous shots, instantly executing the three pirates who had kidnapped a U.S. shipping captain off the Somali coast. From the moment they were mobilized, it took that sniper team less than ten hours to deploy, get halfway around the world, parachute with full kit at 12,000 feet into darkness and plunge into the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, rendezvous with waiting U.S. Naval forces, and complete their mission, start to finish.
Brandon Webb (The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen)
Of the many exceptional leaders we served alongside throughout our military careers, the consistent attribute that made them great was that they took absolute ownership—Extreme Ownership—not just of those things for which they were responsible, but for everything that impacted their mission. These leaders cast no blame. They made no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks, they developed solutions and solved problems. They leveraged assets, relationships, and resources to get the job done. Their own egos took a back seat to the mission and their troops. These leaders truly led.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Ryan was complex—he was big-hearted and caring but also resolute and direct. He once e-mailed me an audio clip of a television news interview he gave after a group of Navy SEALs rescued the captain of the Maersk Alabama tanker ship. Pirates had taken the ship and the captain hostage off the coast of Somalia, Africa. The story was later made into the film Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks. A team of Navy SEAL snipers shot and killed all but one of the hostage takers, who had placed themselves and their hostage in a desperate situation. Ryan told the TV reporter, “Despite what your momma told you, violence does solve problems.”1 I understood exactly what Ryan meant—there was no diplomatic or political solution to the crisis, and allowing pirates to take American vessels and crews hostage would set a bad precedent in other parts of the globe. Weeks before, in fact, the pirates had killed other hostages. Ryan’s statement was in no way meant to be bravado; he was merely conveying the fact that many times violence brings about a successful conclusion to a hostage crisis. The SEALs spoke the only language that the Somali pirates understood: violence. Apparently, the SEALs’ response acted as a deterrent, since the Somali pirates have consequently stayed clear of US flagged vessels. Chris Kyle later turned Ryan’s statement into a patch he wore on his hat.
Robert Vera (A Warrior's Faith: Navy SEAL Ryan Job, a Life-Changing Firefight, and the Belief That Transformed His Life)
Tim Tigner began his career in Soviet Counterintelligence with the US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. That was back in the Cold War days when, “We learned Russian so you didn't have to,” something he did at the Presidio of Monterey alongside Recon Marines and Navy SEALs. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tim switched from espionage to arbitrage. Armed with a Wharton MBA rather than a Colt M16, he moved to Moscow in the midst of Perestroika. There, he led prominent multinational medical companies, worked with cosmonauts on the MIR Space Station (from Earth, alas), chaired the Association of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and helped write Russia’s first law on healthcare. Moving to Brussels during the formation of the EU, Tim ran Europe, Middle East, and Africa for a Johnson & Johnson company and traveled like a character in a Robert Ludlum novel. He eventually landed in Silicon Valley, where he launched new medical technologies as a startup CEO. In his free time, Tim has climbed the peaks of Mount Olympus, hang glided from the cliffs of Rio de Janeiro, and ballooned over Belgium. He earned scuba certification in Turkey, learned to ski in Slovenia, and ran the Serengeti with a Maasai warrior. He acted on stage in Portugal, taught negotiations in Germany, and chaired a healthcare conference in Holland. Tim studied psychology in France, radiology in England, and philosophy in Greece. He has enjoyed ballet at the Bolshoi, the opera on Lake Como, and the symphony in Vienna. He’s been a marathoner, paratrooper, triathlete, and yogi.  Intent on combining his creativity with his experience, Tim began writing thrillers in 1996 from an apartment overlooking Moscow’s Gorky Park. Decades later, his passion for creative writing continues to grow every day. His home office now overlooks a vineyard in Northern California, where he lives with his wife Elena and their two daughters. Tim grew up in the Midwest, and graduated from Hanover College with a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics. After military service and work as a financial analyst and foreign-exchange trader, he earned an MBA in Finance and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton and Lauder Schools.  Thank you for taking the time to read about the author. Tim is most grateful for his loyal fans, and loves to correspond with readers like you. You are welcome to reach him directly at tim@timtigner.com.
Tim Tigner (Falling Stars (Kyle Achilles, #3))