Top 120 Jocko Willink Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Discipline equals freedom.”

— Jocko Willink

Featured in: Motivational Quotes, Discipline Quotes

2. “Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.”

— Jocko Willink

Featured in: Discipline Quotes

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

— Jocko Willink

Featured in: Leadership Quotes

4. “There is no growth in the comfort zone.”

— Jocko Willink

5. “That’s it. When things are going bad: Don’t get all bummed out, don’t get startled, don’t get frustrated. No. Just look at the issue and say: “Good.”

— Jocko Willink

6. “Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.”

— Jocko Willink

7. “It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”

— Jocko Willink

8. “NO MORE. No more excuses. No more: “I’ll start tomorrow.” No more: “Just this once.” No more accepting the shortfalls of my own will. No more taking the easy road. No more bowing down to whatever unhealthy or unproductive thoughts float through my mind.”

— Jocko Willink

9. “Faster. Stronger. Smarter. More humble. Less ego.”

— Jocko Willink

10. “Question yourself every day. Ask yourself: Who am I? What have I learned? What have I created? What forward progress have I made? Who have I helped? What am I doing to improve myself – today? To get better, faster, stronger, healthier, smarter?”

— Jocko Willink

11. “Don’t let your mind control you. Control your mind.”

— Jocko Willink

12. “Relax. Look around. Make a call.”

— Jocko Willink

13. “So what does it take to win? Yes, you have to be determined. Yes, you have to be driven. Yes, you must have the unconquerable will to win. But to really win, to truly win at all cost, requires more flexibility, more creativity, more adaptability, more compromise, and more humility than most people ever realize. That is what it takes to win.”

— Jocko Willink

14. “When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable – if there are no consequences – that poor performance becomes the new standard.”

— Jocko Willink

15. “Is this what I want to be? This? Is this all I’ve got – is this everything I can give? Is this going to be my life? Do I accept that?”

— Jocko Willink

16. “Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful.” I explained how a leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.”

— Jocko Willink

17. “Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.”

— Jocko Willink

18. “Don’t fight stress. Embrace it. Turn it on itself. Use it to make yourself sharper and more alert. Use it to make you think and learn and get better and smarter and more effective. Use the stress to make you a better you.”

— Jocko Willink

19. “But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.”

— Jocko Willink

20. “The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.”

— Jocko Willink

21. “Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.”

— Jocko Willink

22. “For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it.”

— Jocko Willink

23. “When leaders who epitomize Extreme Ownership drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognize that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”

— Jocko Willink

24. “If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.”

— Jocko Willink

25. “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.”

— Jocko Willink

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

— Jocko Willink

27. “Leadership is simple, but not easy.”

— Jocko Willink

28. “There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.”

— Jocko Willink

29. “You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous – you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.”

— Jocko Willink

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

— Jocko Willink

31. “Leadership doesn’t just flow down the chain of command, but up as well,” he said. “We have to own everything in our world. That’s what Extreme Ownership is all about.”

— Jocko Willink

32. “When a leader takes too much ownership, there is no ownership left for the team or subordinate leaders to take. So the team loses initiative, they lose momentum, they won’t make any decision, they just sit around and wait to be told what to do.”

— Jocko Willink

33. “But what I can tell you is this: when it comes to performance standards, It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”

— Jocko Willink

34. “Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead. If.”

— Jocko Willink

35. “Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously.”

— Jocko Willink

36. “Accountability is an important tool that leaders must utilize. However, it should not be the primary tool. It must be balanced with other leadership tools, such as making sure people understand the why, empowering subordinates, and trusting they will do the right thing without direct oversight because they fully understand the importance of doing so.”

— Jocko Willink

37. “A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.”

— Jocko Willink

38. “The goal of all leaders should be to work themselves out of a job. This means leaders must be heavily engaged in training and mentoring their junior leaders to prepare them to step up and assume greater responsibilities. When mentored and coached properly, the junior leader can eventually replace the senior leader, allowing the senior leader to move on to the next level of leadership.”

— Jocko Willink

39. “It is critical for leaders to act decisively amid uncertainty; to make the best decisions they can based on only the immediate information available.”

— Jocko Willink

40. “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.”

— Jocko Willink

41. “When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, reexamine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win.”

— Jocko Willink

42. “On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.”

— Jocko Willink

43. “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.”

— Jocko Willink

44. “PRINCIPLE Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.”

— Jocko Willink

45. “Humans can withstand almost inconceivable stress – and you can too. So that is your first step: Gain perspective. And to do that you must do something critical in many situations: Detach. Whatever problems or stress you are experiencing, detach from them. Stress is generally caused by what you can’t control.”

— Jocko Willink

46. “If your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or providing necessary support for you and your team, don’t blame the boss. First, blame yourself. Examine.”

— Jocko Willink

47. “We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible. As.”

— Jocko Willink

48. “If you don’t understand or believe in the decisions coming down from your leadership, it is up to you to ask questions until you understand how and why those decisions are being made. Not knowing the why prohibits you from believing in the mission. When you are in a leadership position, that is a recipe for failure, and it is unacceptable. As a leader, you must believe.”

— Jocko Willink

49. “People do not follow robots.”

— Jocko Willink

50. “Everyone has an ego. Ego drives the most successful people in life – in the SEAL Teams, in the military, in the business world. They want to win, to be the best. That is good. But when ego clouds our judgment and prevents us from seeing the world as it is, then ego becomes destructive. When.”

— Jocko Willink