Book Review: Extreme Ownership

After finishing the last book on my reading list, I felt I needed some extra Jocko in my life.  And so I picked up a book I’ve been meaning to read for some time.  One of the first things I learned from reading Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin was why it took me so long to read the book; I had not been exercising extreme ownership over my reading!

That’s the overarching attitude over everything in the book because it’s the crux of the best-lived life.  Neither making nor accepting any excuses is the key attitude behind every great accomplishment.  Too many want to blame someone or something outside of themselves, and that is the reason why they don’t win.  For you to have success, you must own what produces the success, else the success belongs to someone else and will really go to someone else instead of you.

I’m not sure I learned anything about the principles the book teaches.  Those were already well known to me.  But it was good to get a refresher course in what I knew and recognize points where what I’m doing isn’t consistent with what I know.  It was good to get a pump-up session in getting on that ownership track that I believe in.  And it was good to get some insight into the experiences of servicemen and -women who served in Iraq.  I’m no fan of endless wars to supply the military industrial complex with profits, but I have a great deal of respect for what these men and women endured.

The one principle that impressed me the most as I read through the book — again, none of the principles were really new to me — was the need to start earlier in the morning if you want to do more.  The days Navy Seals spend training and then actually performing in the field are pretty packed.  So if they want to accomplish something personal, the only time to do that is in the morning before their busy day starts.  That made an impression on me.  With everything I’m balancing, I felt the need to integrate that practice into my life, so much so that it becomes part of my lifestyle.  Like most things I attempt to practice, I can’t say I’m perfect.  But I also can’t say I’ll ever stop trying to improve.

I can’t say enough good things about this book.  It should be required reading that everyone returns to every so often to get a refresher in the attitude that precedes success.  I’m certainly putting it in my schedule to return to it on at least an annual basis.  5 out of 5 stars.

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