“So how can a leader become great if they lack the natural characteristics necessary to lead? The answer is simple: a good leader builds a great team that counterbalances their weaknesses.”

If mistakes happen, effective leaders don’t place blame on others. They take ownership of the mistakes, determine what went wrong, develop solutions to correct those mistakes and prevent them from happening again as they move forward.

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.

Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.

The most impressive thing about this improvement in performance was that it did not come from a major process change or an advance in technology. Instead, it came through a leadership principle that has been around for ages: Simple.

Establishing an effective and repeatable planning process is critical to the success of any team.

The test for a successful brief is simple: Do the team and the supporting elements understand it?

Staying ahead of the curve prevents a leader from being overwhelmed when pressure is applied and enables greater decisiveness.

A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.

His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.

There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.

Leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another.

A mission statement tells your troops what you are doing.

People do not follow robots.

A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.

If we could execute with a monumental effort just to reach an immediate goal that everyone could see, we could then continue to the next visually.

I can remember many times when my boat crew struggled. It was easy to make excuses for our team’s performance and why it wasn’t what it should have been. But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.

I was very much into buying contemporary art, but I’ve just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it’s not great art, but all of a sudden my mood has changed, and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.

I still live in Inglewood and have a great relationship with my Mexican family.

If you got a good imagination, a lot of confidence and you kind of know what you are saying, then you might be able to do it. I know a lot of colorful characters at home that would make great actors.

Only great minds can afford a simple style.

If I’m left high and dry at the end of this wild journey, just taking it is a great feeling.

The thing about the UK is we don’t really make that many great movies.

Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.