Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead and Win
By Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
St. Martins Press, 2015
Written by two former Navy SEALS, Extreme Ownership will change the way you think about leadership. The authors, Jocko Willink and Lief Babin, provide tested leadership techniques that were learned and perfected on the battlefield and illustrate how those techniques can be applied to leadership in business. But even if you aren’t a leader in business, many of these skills could be applied to your personal life. Practicing extreme ownership, keeping things simple, and learning to ‘prioritize and execute’ are all approaches we can incorporate into our day-to-day lives to improve relationships and work more efficiently in whatever we are doing.
This post contains affiliate links. Read more about that here.
Though I would imagine the physical book is enjoyable too, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook, as I did. It’s read by the authors and hearing them describe the challenges and missions they faced in Iraq was mesmerizing. Then hearing them relate the principles they learned to business was fascinating. If you ever listen to audiobooks while you work out, this is an excellent choice. That’s when I listened to the majority of this book and listening to these guys talk about discipline motivated me to push harder. And they sound really tough. I mean their voices sound like they eat gravel for breakfast and let it turn them into rock.
Seriously though, this is a very cool book filled with powerful, practical leadership wisdom that I plan on applying to my own life, because if it’s good enough for SEALS, it’s good enough for me.