Extreme Ownership Quotes

“If you aren’t winning … then you aren’t making the right decisions.”
― Jocko Willink & Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

“Once a culture of Extreme Ownership is built into the team at every level, the entire team performs well, and performance continues to improve, even when a strong leader is temporarily removed from the team…. … life can throw any number of circumstances in the way of any business or team, and every team must have junior leaders ready to step up and temporarily take on the roles and responsibilities of their immediate bosses to carry on the team’s mission and get the job done if and when the need arises.”
― Jocko Willink & Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

“When racing as a boat crew during Hell Week, the winning boat crew’s prize for victory was to sit out the next race, earning a few brief minutes of respite from the grueling, non-stop physical evolutions. They weren’t allowed to sleep, but just to sit down and rest were especially precious commodities. While it paid to be a winner, this rule had a corollary: it really sucked to be a loser. Second place, in the instructor’s vernacular, was simply “the first loser.” But bad performance — falling far behind the rest of the pack and coming in dead last — carried especially grueling penalties: unwanted attention from the SEAL instructors …”
― Jocko Willink & Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

“This book is about leadership. It was written for leaders of teams large and small, for men and women, for any person who aspires to better themselves.... If it serves as a useful guide to leaders who aspire to build, train, and lead high-performance winning teams, then it has accomplished its purpose.”
― Jocko Willink & Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

“This book is our best effort to pass those lessons on, not from a pedestal or a position of superiority, but from a humble place, where the scars of our failings still show.”
― Jocko Willink & Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership