“The most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.”

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.

Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.

All elements within the greater team are crucial and must work together to accomplish the mission, mutually supporting one another for that singular purpose.

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.

Get after it.

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.

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.

There is no easy way.

Faster. Stronger. Smarter. More humble. Less ego.

Simple version for me is, umm, started bad and finished bad basically.

If I were to say, ‘God, why me?’ about the bad things, then I should have said, ‘God, why me?’ about the good things that happened in my life.

I read that heavy drinking is bad for your health. I decided I better stop reading.

If I were to say, ‘God, why me?’ about the bad things, then I should have said, ‘God, why me?’ about the good things that happened in my life.

I snap at people I love all the time, and that makes me feel bad about myself. I want to be Zen. I am so not Zen. Whatever Zen is, I’m the opposite of it.

And, when it comes to counting our blessings; we humans are all bad at math.

It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn’t even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.

If anybody has a bad day, they’ll just come to my room because they know I’ll bring out the positive in everything, or I’ll make them laugh, or I’ll be just crazy.