The Resilient Mind - No More Excuses - Jocko Willink

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

John Gretton "Jocko" Willink is a retired United States Navy officer who served in the Navy SEALs and is a former member of SEAL Team 3. Jocko was honored with the Silver Star and Bronze Star Medal for his service. He achieved the rank of lieutenant commander. Jocko also co-authored the books Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to No More Excuses with Jocko Willink. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. 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 got this and that and the other thing. And I'd look at him and I'd say, good.

And finally one day he was telling me about some issue that he was having some problem. And he said, I already know what you're going to say. And I said, well, what am I going to say? He said, you're going to say good. He said, that's what you always say. When something is wrong and going bad, you always just look at me and say good. And I said, well, yeah. When things are going bad, there's going to be some good that's going to come from it.

Didn't get the new high speed. gear we wanted. Good. Didn't get promoted. Good. More time to get better. Oh, mission got canceled? Good. We can focus on another one. Didn't get funded. Didn't get the job you wanted. Got injured. Sprang my ankle. Got tapped out? Good. Got beat. Lund. Unexpected problems? Good. we have the opportunity to figure out a solution. That's it. 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. And if you're still breathing, well, then hell, you still got some fight left in you. So get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, re-engage, go out on the attack. And you're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and then you're going to win.

And that's life. Life without those challenges, it's existence. Don't just exist. eventually inaction will cost you. But your default setting should be, I'm going to do something. Just get up, move towards that challenge and go attack it. Go do something that's hard. Struggle sucks.

Depends on how you frame it. If you want freedom in your life, you have to have discipline. Move towards that challenge, whatever that challenge is. And you may be successful and you may not be successful, but you will be better. and the next challenge you can be more prepared for because we're going to have wins we're going to have losses we're going to have successes we're going to have failures we're going to have good nights we're going to have bad nights we're going to have good relationships we're going to have bad relationships we're going to have good ideas and bad ideas we're going to make money we're going to

lose money all these things are going to happen and if you oscillate emotionally up and down drastically it's going to be problematic embrace those emotions but don't let those emotions embrace you. Keep pushing through things that suck. This is a very difficult thing to do because it hurts. I'm going to go forward. I'm not going to quit, so I'm going to go forward, bring it on. When you talk to people that went to seal training that didn't make it,

most of the time, it's some reason. There's a medical reason. There's a family problem. There's very few people that look at you and say, oh, I quit because it sucked. which is what happens to the vast majority of people. The vast majority of people that don't make it through seal training, they didn't make it through because they quit.

Your excuses will destroy you and take everything that you ever wanted from you if you let them. When your excuses make you feel a little bit better about the fact that you didn't execute on what you needed to execute on, then they can make you feel better, but they're not helping you. They're not helping you at all. this went wrong, this failed, didn't accomplish this,

and it's not the fault of my boss, it's not the fault of my girlfriend, not the fault of my parents, it's not the fault of the weather, it's my fault. And I'm going to take ownership of it and I'm going to fix it. That's what extreme ownership is. Because when you look around at your life and you look around at your job and your financial situation

and your relationship and your physical health, when you look at all those things and all the people, problems that you may have with those things, and you say the reason I have all of those problems is because of me, that can hurt. That can sting. And a lot of times our ego rejects that and makes excuses and lies. And then we don't have to change anything. And then nothing changes. When the excuses all go away and people can actually confront the fact that this is all because of me, it hurts, but is also unbelievably empowering because the more discipline you have in your life, the more freedom you will end up with. So if you lack the discipline to exercise and eat

healthy, you will end up being a slave to disease. If you lack the discipline to work hard, save your money, you will end up a slave to finances. If you lack the discipline to manage your time correctly, you will end up with no free time. If you have self-discipline, if you have the discipline to save your money and work hard and invest your money properly, but you have the discipline to manage your time correctly and not waste a bunch of time. If you have the discipline to exercise and eat healthy, you will end up with freedom. You're going to start to progress in every aspect of your life. And you'll see that if you have that kind of discipline right now,

you're going to end up with freedom. If you have discipline, you will attain freedom. Go try and accomplish something that's hard. You may win, you may lose, you may succeed, you may fail. I'll tell you what, you'll be better. And if you don't have that kind of discipline, and you don't work hard and you don't exercise and you don't apply yourself, you're going to end up shackled.

So if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go, start walking. You've got to start walking because the perspective is not going to change. You have to start moving forward. But standing there lost and not doing anything is just waiting to die, waiting to starve to death. don't let that happen. I think it's really important because as men, we don't,

we get conflicting messages about emotion and how to express it and what that looks like. And there's a lot of men struggling right now. Every human faces challenges and you don't know what they've been through. It's suppressing them isn't going to help and nor is letting them run your life.

Because you're sad, now you're going to make a bunch of bad decisions because you're sad. No, no, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You're sad. Okay. You get emotional sometimes?

Okay. Got it. Now, get control of your emotions and carry on with your life. And sometimes you're going to get hate with those waves. And that's okay. Oh, I'm having an emotional moment right now. There's something wrong with me. No, there's nothing wrong with you.

There's nothing wrong with you. The other extreme is, oh, I'm letting my emotions run my life, and I'm making a bunch of bad decisions. and my excuse is, well, you know, I lost from friends or I had this traumatic experience happened to me. That's why I'm doing, that's just an excuse. And it's a very easy excuse. Guess what? It's time to carry on. Remember, don't dwell. I'm in control. This is my life. If you are in the problem, you won't see the solution to the problem. Take a step back, detach from the chaos, detach from the mayhem, detach from your emotions, detach from your emotions,

detached from your ego and be able to assess the best way to execute that is the job of a leader. If you take any trait of a human being and you take it to an extreme, masculine or feminine or otherwise, you take it to an extreme, it's going to be a problem. Is it good to have no emotions whatsoever? No, that's called a sociopath. Is it good to let your emotions run your life and make your decisions based on your emotions? no, that's not good either. What do we want to be as a human, as a man?

I want to be balanced. It's much easier to be extreme. It's much easier to say, oh, no emotions, cool, and turn them off. That's easier. Or total emotion, mayhem, that's easier. It's harder to find balance. It's harder to find balance in business. It's hard to find balance.

Life is hard to find balance. But you have to be balanced. Because what I want is for the team to win. So be balanced. You're going to be okay. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.