YouSaid · the spoken record

Jocko Willink

lines on the record
94
first
2021-07-05
most recent
2021-07-05
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Thanks for having me on. I can guarantee I'm not as cool as you just made me sound. I'm just out here. Like I said, trying to help people out. And I think you're helping a lot of people out with your podcast. So thanks for having me up here to share some of my experiences.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “So that book had a huge impact on me. And like I said, I still read it all the time. I reread it all the time. And I always take lessons from it.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “So there's an element of rebelliousness to him. And when you talk to me about, are there times when the leaders making the leadership, the absolute senior leadership, the civilian leadership is doing the wrong things? Yes. And there's times when people speak out against it. And there's an argument for and against that too, even with Hackworth. When you quit your job or you do something that gets you fired, which is what he did. Immediately give up all your influence over what's happening so they get another battalion commander to take his place. They get another colonel to step in and take his place. That's what they do. And now he can't help anymore. He can't help his troops. But at that point in the war, he loved his men so much that he was sickened with the Situation on the ground. And he spoke out about it”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Towards the end of the Vietnam War. He was so disgusted with the way that the war was being fought. He was so disgusted with the decisions that were being made by the leadership that he did an interview. He was the first colonel, first senior officer to do an interview that spoke out against the war that was happening. And this is while he's in Vietnam, by the way. So he got drummed out of the army and he was forced to retire. And that was that”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “And so Hackhorse walks in and I said, when Hackworth walked in, did you know who he was? Mukoyama says everybody knew who he was, Mr. Infantry. And so he ended up explaining that everything that is written in there about Hackworth, they just loved him. They adored him The chain of command, it turned out a little bit different. And the title of the book is about face. And if you're familiar with military drill about faces when you turn around 180 degrees, and at the end of the Vietnam War.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And so it was very interesting for me when I met General Mukoyama, who he became a general eventually. When I met him, and we were talking about his life. And I was very curious, and I was a little bit nervous going into this interview because I was thinking maybe my hero, my mentor, this guy that I've never met before, maybe he's just an arrogant jerk that talked himself up in this book. So I'm sitting down with General Mukoyama, and I finally got to the part where he's meeting Hackworth for the first time. I Did you know who Hackworth was when he showed up? So he was Mook, they call him Mook. Mook was the Like the adjutant to the general that was going to, that Hackworth was going to be working for. So when Hackworth comes into the office, the first person he meets is this guy. This guy Cap Mukiyama.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Would you want to talk to him? And I said, absolutely. Well, here's the thing that I didn't really understand, and you read one quote, but there's all these quotes in that book that talk about how great Hackworth was and what incredible leader he was, and how he was the best combat leader anyone had ever seen, and all these just really complimentary things that are said by a bunch of different people. And when you read the book, you're reading this guy's account of what he went through. But I never really knew if that was all true. Or did he just cherry pick his friends in quotes about him and cherry-pick the stories that he wanted to tell?”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So he died in two thousand five. So I never got to meet him. And I had a guy on my podcast who worked for him in Vietnam, a guy named General James Mukayama. And luckily his son had reached out to me and said. I think you're talking about my dad because I read some passage in there that Jim Mukoyamo was young Captain Jim Mukoyamo, company commander in Vietnam. He said, I think you're talking about my dad.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “He got in towards the end of right at the end of World War II. So he was kind of raised by the soldiers that fought in World War II. And then he went to Korea and then he went to Vietnam.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, the main one is about face. Which is sitting right here. There you go. This is written by Colonel David Hackworth. It's the Book that really had a massive impact on me from a leadership perspective. And I ended up, I talked about it enough that it started kind of coming back and started selling well. And they contacted me and I wrote a forward for it. So that book had a huge impact on me. I still, when I read it, I still get lessons out of it just about every time”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “That's where I agree. Judo and wrestling, absolutely. Awesome. Get some. And striking boxing Muay Thai. You should train all these things”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And if you square off to punch me, I can run away from you. If you square off to kick me, I can run away from you. If you push me, I can run away from you. So great. I don't need to know how to box to run away from you. Where this all changes, When you grab And now I don't have the option to run away anymore. Now I actually have to know how to get away from your grip. And that's where Jiu-Jitsu comes into play. So, especially if you get me on the ground, if you grab me and get me on the ground, now I need to know how to get you off of me and get up and get away from you so I can run away. So that's why I say start with jiu-jitsu. And from there, boxing, wrestling, judo, sombo, Muay Thai”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So it's not one answer. The answer to me is jiu-jitsu, boxing, wrestling. Muay Judo, Sombo, and on down the list. I definitely start with Jiu Jitsu. The reason I start with Jiu Jitsu is because in a self-defense situation, If you are a big monster human and you want to fight me, And you square off with me, guess what? I'm going to do. I don't want to get involved. Even if I see skinny little Lex out on the street and you start yelling at me and saying you want to fight me, I don't want to fight you. It doesn't matter. I don't care if I can beat you or not. What if you stab me? What if you sue me after I get done throwing you onto the concrete? There's a million bad things that can happen and almost nothing good. So, for self defense, my first self defense is my feet to get away from you.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, this brings me to one of my favorite pieces of coaching advice that I will tell white belts while they're struggling on the mat. I'll tell them to relax harder.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Just keep training, keep your ego in check, don't freak out, try and use the techniques that you learn, and all the stuff sound like saying it, you know, notice how I'm saying it. Tap out, keep your ego in check. But the thing is, everyone says this all the time, and white belts still start off by going completely nuts for at least, you know, three to six months of I'm not going to let this guy tap me out. And they're going to, and I'm going to tap this guy out, not by using technique, but by just using strength. And it's just inhibiting your learning. So as much as you can, I know you got to get it out of your system. I know you don't want to tap and I know you want to tap somebody, but as soon as you get that off your chest, then try and relax and try and learn the techniques.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And we started seeing people competing to win by points. That was what was novel to me in the beginning. Now it's the standard. So it's not novel to me. I love the fact that John Donahher and all of his troops go out and they try and submit people. I think it's awesome and I think that's what jiu-jitsu is.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, I mean, this is not, you said it's novel to you. It's not novel to me. The entire journey on jiu-jitsu in jiu-jitsu was only about submission. And, you know, as you mentioned, Dean Lister is my coach and my main training partner for 20 something years. And if you ever watch Dean train or fight, that's what he's trying to do is submit everyone. That's what he's always done. That's what he always will do. you know, he has the highest. I think he has, in fact, I know he has the highest submission victories in ADC. That's what he does. So this is, in fact, as Jiu-Jitsu got more popular.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yep, but as you and I both know, if you and I train together all the time, you know my game, I'll know your game. And even if we have five other people, we all kind of understand each other's games. And you're not doing something to me that I don't expect. So when I go and compete, this random person has a game that I've never seen before. And I may or may not know how to deal with that game. If I know how to deal with it, great. I get the victory. Maybe I don't learn as much. If I don't know how to deal with their game, I get the loss. get the win of learning what some weakness in my game is.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “But all this connective tissue, bringing all these things together, I wouldn't have seen it without, I don't think I would have seen it without jiu-jitsu. So Jiu Jitsu to me had an incredible life impact on me. Not, look, the physical part, yes, absolutely. Does it keep you humble when you know that there's 145 pound individual that can tap you out when you're 220 pound 25-year-old guy? And there's 135 or 140 pounds year old guy that can make you tap out, that's humbling. And what do you do with that? Do you run away from it or do you continue to pursue it? Same thing with life. Same thing with anything. So Jiu-Jitsu is an incredibly powerful, not just physical aspect, but it's a way to understand.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Exactly. What do I do? I attack your neck, and when you reach up to defend your neck, that's when I get your arm. Well, if I'm out on the battlefield and there's an enemy position, should I attack frontal assault into that position No, I shouldn't. I should put down some covering fire and I should maneuver around to the flank. It's the same thing. If I'm dealing with you and you're my boss and you've got a giant ego and you've come up with a plan and I don't like your plan, should I walk up to you and say, hey, Lex, your plan isn't good. Or should I say, hey, Lex, can I ask you some questions about how you want us to execute this? Because I want to make sure I understand your vision. So all these things are connected And I wouldn't have realized that we could sit here and do this forever. I could tell you these comparisons forever.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “All aspects. So, yes, from a humility perspective, when you realize you think you know what you're doing, when you think you have certain skills and you realize that there's always somebody better than you and you realize that, hey, maybe I don't have all the answers all the time. And you bring that to a leadership perspective and you walk into your platoon and you realize that maybe you don't have all the answers all the time and maybe you should listen to what other people have to say. You bring that to a combat situation and you realize that you think if you sit there and think that you're smarter than the enemy, you're going to be complacent, you're going to make mistakes. So there's one aspect out of the gate. As far as If I'm going to try and get your arm, do I attack your arm?”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Jiu Jitsu for me was the connective tissue that started to join my mind together with all the different aspects of my life. And so Jujitsu for me was really important. And I don't think I would be doing anything that I'm doing right now if it wasn't for Jiu Jitsu. So there's various aspects of my life that were in existence, but I didn't understand how they were connected until I started training Jiu Jitsu. The primary things are interacting with other human beings. Combat tactics and strategy and jiu-jitsu and all those things are connected. They all follow the same guiding principles and I wouldn't have recognized those guiding principles if I didn't do Jiu Jiuju.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I still train with the same guys and I'll train, you know. So I've been very lucky when it comes to getting injured and stuff like that. So I've had some injuries, but they're healed. And so, yeah, I train.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Well, I read a lot of books. And so usually when I read, I'll be reading for a chunk of time, maybe an hour at a time, maybe a little bit longer. And I might do that twice a day. So I don't know if that counts as what you're describing. Yeah. And same thing with writing when I'm writing something. I mean, I just, that's what I do. I write for about an hour. I can get about a thousand words an hour out of me. So that's sort of what I do.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, yeah. No, work is about to happen. Because, you know, even if I woke up at four, worked out from five to six, surfed from six to eight. Now I'm starting to work. Writing, recording, reading. Talking to clients”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “I'll eat some nuts, something like that. I usually start grazing. Maybe I'll have a little piece of meat or something like that.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Well, exercise is certainly humbling. I mean, but it's physical conditioning, right? It's preparing your body so that you can handle whatever it is you're going to do.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Okay, from that perspective, what role it plays is getting a jump on the day. When you wake up early and you get a jump on the day and you've got your workout done and you've got a little bit of work done. By the time Normal people are getting up, that's a win. That's a psychological win. And it's not just a psychological win. It's an actual win. It's an actual win. So that feels great. It doesn't feel great maybe when your alarm clock goes off, but by eight o'clock in the morning and you've already accomplished some of the major tasks that you have, some of the most painful tasks that you have for the day, you're off to a great start and it's going to feel great.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “There we go. Know when I was younger before I was married, I didn't make my bed because I had one sleeping bag on it and I would get out of the sleeping bag. There was nothing to make. Now I'm married and I can't make my bed because my wife's in my bed. So I don't make my bed.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “To grow a little bit too much. And we have to put that confidence into check. We have to put that ego into check. Really good leaders. They're confident, but they're humble. That's the balance of the dichotomy”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Look for people that are humble. Now, does this mean you look for people that don't have any confidence? No, that's not what I'm saying. There's a balance to all these things. That's the dichotomy of leadership. But people tend towards, and look, I work with. A lot of military troops in the past The reason I talk about humility all the time is because for someone to get into a leadership position in the military, they have to have confidence. So the tendency is that their confidence is going to outweigh their humility at some point. Same thing with civilian companies. If you get to a point of leadership inside of a company, you have to have confidence to get there. You don't get to a position of leadership inside of a company lacking confidence. So the tendency is for confidence to”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Yeah, you know, I could have done this better, and here's what I can improve, and here's what I need to work on. When you have somebody that thinks they know everything, out of the gate, you're already got someone that's going to be hard to deal with. They're going to be hard to coach. They're going to be hard to mentor. When you have somebody that's truly humble, you barely, again, it's minimum force required because when you say to Jamie after a show, how do you think that went? He says, well, you know, I did this wrong and I didn't have this set up in time. You don't barely have to do anything because he's got the humility. If you've got someone that's a big ego and you say, hey, how did that show go? He goes, I went awesome on my end. Now guess what you have to do? Now you have to start applying force as a leader, which is expending leadership capital, which we don't want to do because we always try and conserve our leadership capital as much as we possibly can. And when we have to expend it just to get Jamie to make some improvements, that's bad. So when you go looking for people.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “It's not ridiculous at all, and it goes back. You know, you were, the way you were phrasing these questions about what makes a good person and what makes a good leader. The way you phrase them kind of eliminated the normal answer that I give. The normal answer that I give, you ask me what makes a good leader, what makes a good person, is being humble. So, when you're going to hire someone for your startup or whatever company you're creating, that is a key characteristic to look for is someone that has the humility like young Jamie to say,”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “People often ask me issues about leadership, and I always say that one of the best tools for teaching leadership and for teaching a bunch of other lessons is leadership itself. When it happens all the time, when you elevate someone into a leadership position, they do step up and they do make things happen. So that's not surprising to me. You do have to mitigate risk. So saying, hey, Lex, I know you haven't been in the military before. I know you have very limited weapons experience, but I want you to run a target assault on a real mission in whatever country that would not be good. That would not be a good move on my part. Now, if I said, all right, Lex, you know what? I want you to get some leadership experience. I've got a training mission and it's going to be using paintball and I'm going to put you in charge of it. I got no problem doing that.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Then sometimes as a leader, you have to walk in and say, All right, everyone, here's where we're going. And people get on board. Why? Because for many years or months or however long, you've trusted them to come up with a plan. And when you as a leader trust your team to come up with a plan, The team starts to trust you and you get leadership capital. And as you build leadership capital, occasionally you need to cash in some of that leadership capital. You need to spend some of it. And maybe it is, hey, listen, here's a direction we're going right now. We'll debrief it later, but we got to make a move. And the team who trusts you says, Roger, that boss, we got it.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Short sighted and naive. So what a good leader does is they stay balanced and as much as they can, they listen to what the troops have to say. They take that feedback. Maybe they quietly nudge things. And I'm sure he does that. I'm sure he does some nudging that maybe no one even picks up on. You know, I like to say the best forms of leadership is leadership with minimum force required. So if I can go into a room as a leader and not say one single thing and the team can come to the right consensus and move in that direction, that's my preferred method. Maybe I have to give them a little bit of a nudge, a 10% nudge in one direction. Okay, that's better than me walking in there and giving them 100% dictatorial direction of exactly what I want to have happen. Now, occasionally, if we have an emergency situation, people are starting to be frazzled and they're not sure which direction to go.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “First of all, everything's a dichotomy, right? And so to think that all the time you're always going to be able to just bark orders at people and they're always going to listen to you and you're always going to get the best result, that would not be smart. To think that every single time you're going to come to a 100% consensus amongst the troops and that decision is going to reveal itself without you nudging it along, that would also be.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “And I don't want them on the team. Now, as a good leader, guess what? I'll do I'll put them into a situation where I can utilize their best aspects, but not have their ego destroy the team. So I might say, hey, Lex, you know what? I actually want you to take lead on this part of the project over here. And since you're so smart and you work so hard, I know you're going to pull ahead of everyone else. So you grind on that. Once you get that result, give it to me and I'm going to disseminate it to the team. So I isolate you from wrecking yourself and the rest of the team with your giant ego.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “So that's what ego is an awesome driver unless you let your ego control you and you let ego drive your decision-making process, in which case it turns into an incredible problem. So you might have someone that is excellent. You might have someone that's outstanding. You might have someone that's tens across the board, but their ego is so big that they can't work with other people. They can't accept anyone else's ideas. They can't compromise on something because they think their idea is better all the time. And that is going to be problematic.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Which is great, which is great. Let's use that example. You and I are racing. We're at the end of the marathon. We're both highly competitive. Highly competitive. We have massive egos and we both want to win. We both want to win so bad that we give everything we've got. That's totally positive, right? Isn't that totally positive? Now imagine this same thing. We're in a race. We're in a marathon. We're in the last 100 meters. It's you against me. And our egos are huge and we're pushing to win. And you start to pull ahead of me. My ego is so big, and I hate losing so much. That I somehow accidentally push my knee up against your foot on a backside and throw you onto your face.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “They would get something called the stacked platoon. And what that would be is someone, you know, some senior person in that platoon would manipulate and maneuver to get the quote best guys that he could in that platoon. So the most experienced guys, the person that had great, great reputations. And sometimes those platoons would be great. Sometimes they would implode because what you end up with is a bunch of A players and now no one wants to follow anyone else. No one wants to agree with anyone else. Everyone wants to do it my way. It's my way, not Lex's way. Lex is stupid. No, you're stupid. We end up with problems. So can one person derail a team? Absolutely. Under good leadership, one person should not derail a team.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “But a team is made up. It's a team. And so you take these different components of a team. And if you have complementary components, you'll end up with a superior team. Than just basing it on the level, and what's an A player? Sometimes in the SEAL teams.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Depends on the nature of the B player. Is the player a B player? Because he's a little bit lazy. Is he a B player because he doesn't have good vision? Is he a B player because he's got a big ego? Always thinks he's right Now creates conflict in the team. So there's a bunch of different B players. Look, if you're working for me and you're kind of a B player, but guess what? You're a grinder and you get stuff done. I want you on the team. You might not be the smartest person I have, but I know that you're committed to the team. And I want you on the team. So you're a B player. That's okay. Now, if you're lex with a giant ego, I'd rather have Lex that's not quite as smart because I got other people that are smart. I got other people that are smart on the team. Look, you're going to need some smart people on the team.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “What I'm saying is that I've seen countless times is me leading through my authority, leading through my rank, leading through punitive measures is infinitely worse than me and you working together as a team to win.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “What leader wins? The leader whose team is afraid, the team who executes the mission because they're afraid of their leader or executes the task because they're afraid of their leader or the team that loves their leader so much that they don't want to let them down, which team wins.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “I mean, I get asked that a bunch. You know, people always ask me because I say, look, you shouldn't be losing your temple as a leader. Well, what about Steve Jobs? He used to yell and scream all the time. Great. When people say that to me, I say, oh, okay. Are you as good as at design as Steve Jobs was? Are you as good? Are you as good at marketing? As Steve Jobs was. He had a certain amount of skills that were off the charts. And so he was able to be successful despite the fact that he would lose his temper, treat people horribly. That's not good. It's not good. And it would have been even more successful if he wouldn't have those characteristics. Now you might say, well, His anger is what pushed things. Well, let me ask you this.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “A leader, you shouldn't be doing that very often. So, you can look back at me and say, Well, Jocko, here's the most profitable company that's ever existed. And so you're wrong. Well, going back to that multitude of characteristics that human beings can have, well, it's the same thing with businesses. It's the same thing with companies. Steve Jobs was off the charts in some of his traits, his ability to understand design. His ability to understand human interface with computer systems. So far off the charts. That despite his bad temper, emotional behavior. The company still thrived. That can happen. You can have people that are horrible leaders that develop something that's Universally outstanding, that you end up with a company that's successful.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “So, I'm not creating a culture that rewards that sort of creativity. And eventually, when I die, I won't have educated my team on how to maintain that creative aspect. So again, hopefully inside that organization, he's encouraging and growing that culture where creativity is rewarded, where it flourishes even when he's gone. That's what we have to hope for.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Yeah, so what we have to do in those situations is we have to establish a strong culture inside that organization. And if there's reasons why this happens, right? If I have a big ego and I form a company and I love the fact that everyone looks at me and says, oh, Jocko made this company and he's the creative force behind this company. And that fuels my ego and it makes me feel good. And I'm working with you, Lex. And every time you come up with an idea, I say, Lex, you need to stay in your box.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “So that's probably maybe he's in that mindset a little bit because he's done so many startups over the years. And so he's in the, he's habitually in the weeds. So, my advice would be all right, let's start looking at formulating some subordinate leadership that has, like I said, the expertise, the trust that you can start to turn over some of these more minute details to them so that you can start looking up and out.”

    2021-07-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #197 – Jocko Willink: War, Leadership, and Discipline · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source