This is a concept I picked up from a podcast with Tim Ferris and Jocko Willink. Jocko is (Tim’s words) the scariest Navy SEAL imaginable. He served several wars and is now an accomplished business man. In this podcast Jocko talks about how discipline equals freedom and the concept of Extreme ownership.
Extreme ownership is about taking full responsibility for realizing your ambitions, dreams and desires. It discards the idea that outside factors can’t be influenced and can get in the way of achieving your goals.
Extreme Ownership means that it’s on you when external factors get in the way. You’ll have to take responsibility and realize you didn’t work hard enough, smart enough or you just didn’t found the right way (yet). You’ll need to do better.
It’s a confronting, but refreshing thought that you need to find the discipline and responsibility to work harder, smarter, or just different to get to your goals, instead of blaming it on outside factors.
There’s a lot more like this on Jocko’s own podcast on leadership and discipline.
ps. this is a first post in hopefully a long lasting new series. If you read my updated about page you’ll know why. This post is nice beginning of me taking ownership ;).