150+ Jocko Willink Quotes: The Best of the Best

Jocko Willink is a retired Navy SEAL officer, author and public speaker. He is the co-founder of Echelon Front, a leadership and management training company. Jocko has become known for his extreme discipline and rigorous fitness routine, as well as his no-nonsense approach to leadership. In this blog post, we will explore some of Jocko’s best quotes on discipline, leadership and motivation!

Jocko Willink Quotes

1. “Discipline is the way.” – Jocko Willink
2. “Be humble or be humbled.” – Jocko Willink
3. “People do not follow robots.” – Jocko Willink
4. “Be dangerous but disciplined.” – Jocko Willink
5. “Ego clouds and disrupts everything.” – Jocko Willink
6. “Discipline is the pathway to freedom.” – Jocko Willink
7. “Discipline yourself to free yourself.” – Jocko Willink
8. “Discipline is the pathway to freedom.” – Jocko Willink
9. “You need to sleep. I’m not anti-sleep.” – Jocko Willink
10. “Weakness is strong. I must be stronger.” – Jocko Willink
11. “There is no growth in the comfort zone.” – Jocko Willink
12. “Weakness is strong. I must be stronger.” – Jocko Willink
13. “Use the stress to make you a better you.” – Jocko Willink
14. “Extreme Ownership is a mindset, an attitude.” – Jocko Willink
15. “Don’t count on motivation. Count on discipline.” – Jocko Willink
16. “Faster. Stronger. Smarter. More humble. Less ego.” – Jocko Willink
17. “It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.” – Jocko Willink
18. “There can be no leadership when there is no team.” – Jocko Willink
19. “Don’t let your mind control you. Control your mind.” – Jocko Willink
20. “That answer came and it hit me like a slap in the face.” – Jocko Willink
21. “Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be in combat.” – Jocko Willink
22. “They must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.” – Jocko Willink
23. “If you’re not active throughout the day you won’t be tired.” – Jocko Willink
24. “In war you are forced to see humanity at its absolute worst.” – Jocko Willink
25. “A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.” – Jocko Willink
26. “Unless you do the work, the world will never see your vision.” – Jocko Willink
27. “Combat is reflective of life, only amplified and intensified.” – Jocko Willink
28. “A leader must be humble but not passive; quiet but not silent.” – Jocko Willink
29. “A leader must be attentive to details but not obsessed by them.” – Jocko Willink
30. “What makes you disciplined person is choosing to be disciplined.” – Jocko Willink
31. “Humans can withstand almost inconceivable stress—and you can too.” – Jocko Willink
32. “The fog of war rolled in with its confusion, and chaos and mayhem.” – Jocko Willink
33. “If you want to be tougher mentally, it is simple; be tougher, don’t meditate on it.”
34. “It doesn’t matter where you background it is what you decide to do.” – Jocko Willink
35. “Stop checking social media and stop watching one more Youtube video.” – Jocko Willink
36. “Step aggressively towards your fear – that is the step into bravery.” – Jocko Willink
37. “You already know what the right thing to do is… You just gotta do it.” – Jocko Willink
38. “War teaches you about honor, brotherhood, and humility, and leadership.” – Jocko Willink
39. “How do you become better? There is only one way – The way of discipline.” – Jocko Willink
40. “Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.” – Jocko Willink
41. “I know that it can be very very frustrating to try and become disciplined.” – Jocko Willink
42. “Everyday is a major balancing act that I have to figure out and coordinate.” – Jocko Willink
43. “When things are going bad there’s going to be some good that comes from it.” – Jocko Willink
44. “Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.” – Jocko Willink
45. “If you get out there and do your best, you will either win, or you will learn.” – Jocko Willink
46. “There is no shortcut. There is no hack. There’s only one way. So get after it.” – Jocko Willink
47. “The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.” – Jocko Willink
48. “Discipline is your best friend. It will take care of you like nothing else can.” – Jocko Willink
49. “Good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done.” – Jocko Willink
50. “The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails.” – Jocko Willink
51. “The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.” – Jocko Willink
52. “Self-discipline is the root quality that will improve every aspect of your life.” – Jocko Willink
53. “There is no such thing as a weekend. This is an everyday gig: Every day is Monday.” – Jocko Willink
54. “But if you get out there and do your best, you will either win, or you will learn.” – Jocko Willink
55. “War teaches you…it teaches you about the preciousness and fragility of human life” – Jocko Willink
56. “Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise.” – Jocko Willink
57. “Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.” – Jocko Willink
58. “I know that somewhere out there, another man is also preparing. That man is the enemy.” – Jocko Willink
59. “Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.” – Jocko Willink
60. “Fight weak emotions with logic; fight the weakness of logic with the power of emotions.” – Jocko Willink
61. “To be a good SEAL you sort of have this criminal mindset that you’ve somehow harnessed.” – Jocko Willink
62. “Leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory.” – Jocko Willink
63. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Jocko Willink
64. “While you continually focus on what everyone else is doing – I’ll focus on what I can do right.” – Jocko Willink
65. “If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.” – Jocko Willink
66. “When you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished, you will likely fall short.” – Jocko Willink
67. “While you continually focus on what everyone else is doing – I’ll focus on what I can do right.” – Jocko Willink
68. “This firefight wasn’t between us and the enemy, this firefight tragically was between us and us. ” – Jocko Willink
69. “Get out there and live and strive to be better, because the life you got it is a gift, so live it!” – Jocko Willink
70. “Keep it simple. Train hard. Train often. Lift heavy. Lift fast. Run hard. Eat steak. Pain is good.” – Jocko Willink
71. “We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.” – Jocko Willink
72. “When you’re too embarrassed to ask for help, that’s a little knock at your door saying, ‘you’re insecure’.” – Jocko Willink
73. “Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.” – Jocko Willink
74. “But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.” – Jocko Willink
75. “If you allow the status quo to persist, you can’t expect to improve performance, and you can’t expect to win.” – Jocko Willink
76. “If you stop looking for a short cut… and find your discipline and your will. Then you will find your freedom.” – Jocko Willink
77. “Leading people is the most challenging and, therefore, the most gratifying undertaking of all human endeavors.” – Jocko Willink
78. “Everyone wants some magic pill—some life hack—that eliminates the need to do the work. But that does not exist.” – Jocko Willink
79. “A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.” – Jocko Willink
80. “Stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it … Start doing it.” – Jocko Willink
81. “Get up and GO. Take the risk, take the gamble, take the first step. Take action. And don’t let another day slip by.” – Jocko Willink
82. “Hesitation is the enemy. It allows the moment to pass, the opportunity to be lost, the enemy to get the upper hand.” – Jocko Willink
83. “When you think you can’t take any more… Guess what? You can – It’s proven by the stories of ordinary people in war.” – Jocko Willink
84. “Stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it … Start doing it.” – Jocko Willink
85. “You gotta be able to tamper and temper all those things in such a way that they can be controlled and disciplined. ” – Jocko Willink
86. “The most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” – Jocko Willink
87. “As a human being, the strongest thing you’ve got is your force of will. So take your force of will and make it happen.” – Jocko Willink
88. “Departments and groups within the team must break down silos, depend on each other and understand who depends on them.” – Jocko Willink
89. “The most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” – Jocko Willink
90. “War is hell. But war is also an incredible teacher, a brutal teacher. And it teaches you lessons you will never forget.” – Jocko Willink
91. “Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.” – Jocko Willink
92. “Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.” – Jocko Willink
93. “Fear is normal. Every person feels fear at some point. Step aggressively towards your fear — that is the step into bravery.” – Jocko Willink
94. “Where does discipline come from? It’s pretty simple and pretty obvious. Discipline comes from within. It’s an internal force.” – Jocko Willink
95. “Staying ahead of the curve prevents a leader from being overwhelmed when pressure is applied and enables greater decisiveness.” – Jocko Willink
96. “Overconfidence was risky in such a hostile environment, a mistake most often made by warriors who had never truly been tested.” – Jocko Willink
97. “Even when you have a chain of command that you don’t like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.” – Jocko Willink
98. “Go down swinging. And I’ll tell you: if you fight with all you have, more often than not, you won’t go down at all. You will win.” – Jocko Willink
99. “A person shouldn’t think they are the best thing in the world, but they shouldn’t think they are the worst either. Is that right?” – Jocko Willink
100. “All animals, including humans, need to see the connection between action and consequence in order to learn or react appropriately.” – Jocko Willink
101. “To this day as I can look around and actually overlay the understanding on the way I’ve carried out my life is very helpful to me.” – Jocko Willink
102. “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
103. “Even if you can’t perform at a high level, showing up and doing something is still a thousand times better than not showing up at all.” – Jocko Willink
104. “Don’t just think. Don’t just talk. Don’t just dream. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that you actually do. So…Do!” – Jocko Willink
105. “When personal agendas become more important than the team and the overarching mission’s success, performance suffers and failure ensues.” – Jocko Willink
106. “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
107. “Leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another.” – Jocko Willink
108. “One of the best mental disciplines for people to implement is simply putting together a schedule or a task list and actually executing it.” – Jocko Willink
109. “If you don’t have any discipline you’ll end up with absolutely no freedom. You’ll end up being a slaving to other people bossing you around.” – Jocko Willink
110. “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
111. “Freedom is what everyone wants – to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.” – Jocko Willink
112. “If people don’t respond to your leadership, and your reaction is to get more and more aggressive with them, they aren’t likely to come around.” – Jocko Willink
113. “When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.” – Jocko Willink
114. “Once the wheels were in motion… I could then determine the next priority, focus the team’s efforts there, and then move on to the next priority.” – Jocko Willink
115. “When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.” – Jocko Willink
116. “I could then believe in the mission. If I didn’t believe in it, there was no way I could possibly convince the SEALs in my task unit to believe in it.” – Jocko Willink
117. “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.” – Jocko Willink
118. “When you want to earn respect, give respect, when you earn influence, give influence, when you want to earn trust, give trust, all those three are related.” – Jocko Willink
119. “His realistic assessment, acknowledgement of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.” – Jocko Willink
120. “Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes. It is unreliable and when you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished—you will likely fall short.” – Jocko Willink
121. “The leader must pull the different elements within the team together to support one another, with all focused exclusively on how to best accomplish the mission.” – Jocko Willink
122. “You have to be vigilant. You have to be on guard. You have to hold the line on the seemingly insignificant little things— things that shouldn’t matter—but that do.” – Jocko Willink
123. “There is no easy way. There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.” – Jocko Willink
124. “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
125. “In chaotic, dynamic, and rapidly changing environments, leaders at all levels must be empowered to make decisions. Decentralized Command is a key component to victory.” – Jocko Willink
126. “There was three things that I felt let me transition from being you know mentally insecure about who I was as a person to being okay I’m actually good with who I am.” ” – Jocko Willink
127. “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
128. “It isn’t that you wake up one day and decide, that’s it: I’m going to be weak. No. It’s a slow incremental process. It chips at your will – It chips at your discipline.” – Jocko Willink
129. “To implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous – you can’t make people do these things. You have to lead them.” – Jocko Willink
130. “The Darkness cannot extinguish your light. Your WILL. Your determination. No matter what is happening—no matter how hard the fight is. As long as you keep fighting—you win.” – Jocko Willink
131. “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.” – Jocko Willink
132. “It’s a lose-lose situation to get in a confrontation on the street. If you can break contact and get away, break contact and get away. That’s what you should learn self-defense for.” – Jocko Willink
133. “Some of the boldest, most successful plans in history have not come from the senior ranks but from frontline leaders. Senior leaders simply had the courage to accept and run with them.” – Jocko Willink
134. “A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.” – Jocko Willink
135. “A leader must be calm, but not robotic. They must be confident, but never cocky. A leader must be brave, but not foolhardy. They must have a competitive spirit, but be a gracious loser.” – Jocko Willink
136. “The shortcut is a lie. The hack doesn’t get you there. And if you want to take the easy road, it won’t take you to where you want to be: Stronger. Smarter. Faster. Healthier. Better. FREE.” – Jocko Willink
137. “Who wants to leave the door open to being dominated physically by another human being? Jiu Jitsu gives you the ability to not be dominated by that person, and to me, that’s real peace of mind.” – Jocko Willink
138. “There was only one person to blame for the confusion, only one person to blame for the wounded men, and only one person to blame for the dead Iraqi soldier. And I knew exactly who that person was.” – Jocko Willink
139. “I think that in order to truly experience the light and the bright, you have to see the darkness. I think if you shield yourself from the darkness, you’ll not appreciate — and full understand — the beauty of life.” – Jocko Willink
140. “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.” – Jocko Willink
141. “A good leader, a guy that’s tactically sound, a guy that makes good decisions, and guy that’s good under pressure, a guy that doesn’t ever give up on trying to accomplish the mission, those are the things that make a good seal.” – Jocko Willink
142. “If you think that you’re not disciplined or that you can’t be disciplined, it’s because you haven’t yet decided to be disciplined. It’s because you haven’t created that discipline yet. So make the decision, make the commitment.” – Jocko Willink
143. “For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: Effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.” – Jocko Willink
144. “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
145. “Go out in a blaze of Glory, fighting with everything you’ve got, every ounce of energy, every bead of sweat, every drop of blood – until your last breath. And then – and only then- can you stand down, put down your sword and your shield, and rest: in peace.” – Jocko Willink
146. “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. Therefore, leaders must enforce standards.” – Jocko Willink
147. “If you can say the word good, guess what? It means you’re still alive, it means you’re still breathing, and if you’re still breathing, well then hell, you still got some fight left in you. So get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, reengage, and go out on the attack.” – Jocko Willink
148. “Another mission. Another task. Another goal. And the enemy is always watching. Waiting. Looking for that moment of weakness. Looking for you to exhale, set your weapon down, and close your eyes, even just for a moment. And that’s when they attack. So don’t be finished.” – Jocko Willink
149. “A leader must lead, but also be ready to follow. They must be aggressive, but not overbearing. A leader must be calm, but not robotic. They must be confident, but never cocky. A leader must be brave, but not foolhardy. They must have a competitive spirit, but be a gracious loser.” – Jocko Willink
150. “Self-discipline comes from the self, it comes from you. It comes from when you make a decision to be disciplined. When you make a decision to be better, when you make a decision to do more and to be more. Self-discipline comes when you decide that you’re going to make a mark on the world.” – Jocko Willink
151. “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
152. “I recommend that you go to be earlier because what are you doing at night most of the time? Most of the time at night you’re not working on anything super productive, you’re just winding down and watching stupid YouTube videos or surfing the internet reading clickbait stories, right? Don’t do that. Instead, go to sleep and then wake up early.” – Jocko Willink
153. “The people who are successful decide they are going to be successful. They make that choice. And they make other choices. They decide to study hard. They decide to work hard. They decide to be the first person to get to work and the last to go home. They decide they are going to take on the hard jobs. Take on the challenges. They decide they are going to lead when no one else will.” – Jocko Willink

Wrapping Up

These 150+ Jocko Willink Quotes clearly show us the power of drive and determination. Whether you are leading a team or just trying to stay focused on your own goals, these words will help keep you motivated and moving forward. So get out there and start making things happen! The world is waiting for what you have to give!

I hope you enjoyed these quotes and find them inspiring. Jocko Willink is living proof that with consistent effort, you can achieve anything you set your mind to. So don’t give up, keep pushing hard, and never let anyone stop you from achieving greatness. And of course, stay disciplined. That is the key to success.

Thank you for reading! Use these quotes wisely and stay motivated!

Happy quoting!