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

In the business world, and in life, there are inherent complexities. It is critical to keep plans and communication simple.

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.

The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails.

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

Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.

When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.

After all, there can be no leadership where there is no team.

Good leaders don’t make excuses.

As a leader, you have to balance the dichotomy, to be resolute where it matters but never inflexible and uncompromising on matters of little importance to the overall good of the team and the strategic mission.

Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.

leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance.

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.

There are no bad units, only bad officers. This captures the essence of what Extreme Ownership is all about.

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.

More than a decade of continuous war and tough combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan gave birth to a new generation of leaders in the ranks of America’s fighting forces.

Whether on the battlefield or in the business world, leaders must be comfortable accepting some level of risk.

I believe that I’m one of the best in the world at what I do, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

I can never turn my back on a city that made me.

Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.

We have to visualize a successful victory before we even start a very difficult challenge.

Mr. Bean had a very good chance of being successful and long-running.

It’s up to you to discover and work with your team to form and figure out how to do successfully.

You can be far more aggressive when you’re making good profits.

In my experience, the more successful an idea is, the easier it is to fund it. In philanthropy, it’s almost harder.