This is part 1 of my personal notes on Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I hope that others may also find this useful.

Introduction

Prioritize: handle the most immediate situation or threat first. Or we would be dead.
Execute: No hesitation. Engage the enemy or problem with complete focus in the present moment.
After dealing with the most immediate threat, repeat with next priority.
Teamwork to accomplish the objective.
Resume role as ground force commander.
Even if the operation failed to achieve its primary objective, demonstrate to the enemy that there is no place where they can safely hide. In civilian terms, even when objective failed, demonstrate to your own team and investors that your system and methodology are air tight.
Good. Consolation prize. Survived. Knowledge gained.
Learn procedural and strategic lessons.
Understanding + execution of laws of combat -> VICTORY

The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails the mission.
Fuck definitions, descriptions, characterizations, etc. There's only effective vs ineffective.
Understand + implement = effective

Learn from mistakes. Be humbled. Grow.
Best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas.
Succeed as a team. Be 100% focused on the mission.
Greatest recognition from battle experience: leadership is the most important factor behind the success of any team.
Leadership doesn't mean just the senior commanders, but crucial leaders at every level of the team. Decentralized command.
Jocko training emphasis:
critical decision making
effective communication in high pressure situations

Remember that decisions have consequences, and everything is at stake. Have awareness of skin in the game, as Nassim Taleb would say.
Right decision can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Wrong decision, even when victory seems certain, can result in deadly, catastrophic failure.
Be smart, creative, freethinking individuals who are willing to risk their lives to accomplish the mission. Believe in the cause you're fighting for.
You have to completely trust the plan that you will execute. If not, then question and innovate before executing.

Apply principles to company leadership to increase efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Internalize principles and implement.
Do what you know you should probably be doing, but probably aren't. When you're not doing these things, you are failing as a leader and failing your team.
Be rooted in common sense and the reality of practical experience. Concepts are simple, but not easy to implement. Try to apply to all situations- group, team, organization, individual to improve performance, capability, efficiency, and teamwork.
Apply principles with dedication and discipline to master them over time.

Core mindset: Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.

1. Winning the war within.
2. The laws of combat.
3. Sustaining victory.

Each chapter focuses on a different leadership concept. Each chapter has 3 subsections.

1. Identifies leadership lesson learned from combat or training experience.
2. Explains leadership principle.
3. Demonstrates principle's application to the business world.

Part 1: Winning the war within

Chapter 1: Extreme ownership

Military example

Jocko had a blue-on-blue attack under his command. It's the SEAL mortal sin. There were many mistakes made by many people during the planning and execution. Jocko made a PPT explaining what had gone wrong. However, something was missing. After going through notes many times, he realized that he needs to blame himself. He was in charge. He had to take complete ownership. That's what a leader does - even if it means getting fired. Jocko asked his men during the meeting who to blame. Several people took responsibility, then finally Jocko took responsibility himself.
Accept the costs to reputation and ego. Apologize for the mistake and proceed to identify the problems and solutions. Jocko ended up actually gaining respect from this.
It was a dynamic situation caused by a multitude of factors, but Jocko decided to own all the responsibilities.
There were friendly fire incidents later on, but it never escalated again.
Put troops in training scenarios that almost guarantee friendly fire to prepare them before the real thing.
The leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything.

Principle

The leader must own everything in his world.
Acknowledge mistakes and admit failures. Take ownership of them. Develop a plan to win.
Take extreme ownership not just for your own job, but also everything that impacts the mission.
Remember that all you do is win. Kick ass regardless of situation.

When subordinates do something wrong, don't blame them, look in the mirror first.
Explain strategic mission
Develop tactics
Secure training and resources to enable the team to successfully execute

If individual is underperforming, the leader must train and mentor him.
But if the underperformer continues to fail, the leader must stay loyal to the team and mission above any individual.
It's on the leader to fire underperforming individuals and hire others who can get the job done.

Don't attribute success of others to luck or make excuses for your own failures. Blaming bad luck is not an option.
Do you even sudo git gud brah?

Accepting responsibility requires humility and courage. Doing so is necessary to learn, grow, and improve.
Reality is real.
Look at organization's problems through objective lens of reality, without emotional attachment to agendas or plans.
Set ego aside, accept responsibility for failures, attack weaknesses, and consistently iterate to build a better and more effective team.
Bestow the honor of your team's successes upon your subordinates.
Lead by example and set expectations, then the mindset would infect the team's culture at every level.
-> Exponential increase in efficiency and effectiveness = WINNING!!!!!!

Corporate example

VP of manufacturing was technically knowledgeable and experienced. He had a plan and set goals, but at each quarterly meeting, he made tons of excuses as to why so little of his plan had be executed. Job at risk.
He had ego, so in order to be effective, Jocko had to take an indirect approach to coach him to become more effective.

"Maybe not so much here to help you, but here to help the situation."
This phrasing is effective for lowering bitch shields.

Jocko prepared for the board meeting by researching and examining the details of why the VP's plan had failed and spoke with the VP about problems encountered during plan's execution.
Let the VP explain his problems until he said,
"They listened, but I don't think they really understand them. And they have been hearing the same reasons for a while now, so I think they are getting frustrated. I don't know if they believe them anymore. They sound like..."
Jocko: "Excuses?"
(This situation is similar to political debates. Each side makes the same old excuses all the time, but zero extreme ownership. This is a big blow to the EGO.)
VP: "Yes, but these are real and legitimate."
Jocko: "Could there be other reasons your plan wasn't successfully executed?"
VP: "Absolutely, blah..."
Jocko: "Those all may be factors. But there is one most important reason why this plan has failed."
VP: "What reason is that?"
Jocko prepared that the VP would get defensive: "You."
VP: "It's not my fault that they aren't executing!"
Jocko listens patiently.
VP eventually realizes that he's still just making excuses.
Jocko: "You can't just 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."
VP still made more excuses and Jocko told his SEALS story of extreme ownership.
"As commander, everything that happened on the battlefield was my responsibility. Everything."
"No matter what, I could never blame other people when a mission went wrong."
Recognize that nobody is infallible.
Remove(ego, agenda) -> 100% focus on success of mission
Nobody is blatantly disobedient.
It's normal to resist taking full responsibility. Don't think maybe I can do partial self blame. No, take it ALL.
Jocko: "If one of your managers came to you and said, 'My team is failing,' what would your response be? Would you blame their team?"

When SEAL leaders were placed in worst case scenario training situations, it was almost always the leaders' attitudes that determined whether their SEAL units would ultimately succeed or fail.
When you blame others - team, subordinate leaders, equipment, or the situation, you perform worse.
Take ownership of the failures, seek guidance to improve, then figure out how to overcome challenges on the next iteration.
Check your ego, accept blame, sought constructive criticism, take detailed notes for improvement. DOMINATE.

HOLY SHIT. Why do we have this epidemic of victim mentality today? The followers make excuses because our leaders make excuses. People who live and die by the extreme ownership principle must rise up to the challenge and lead effectively to overcome the challenge of societal victim mentality epidemic. Blame nobody. Lead by example.

Only when you practice what you preach can you command respect and sync your followers' mindsets with yours to lift up everyone in a dynamic social network. Become the high centrality node with a positive, self-ownership bias vector. Propagate the extreme ownership signal on the network by embodying it as one of your own primary defining parameters. This is how we can initiate exponential grow and reach escape velocity AKA leaving humanity behind. Vertical take-off and landing. VTEC TURBO. ZOOM ZOOM.

When you say that you take extreme ownership and responsibility, actually mean it honestly 100%. We are all perpetually growing. Growth mindset.