Jocko Willink is a retired Navy SEAL operator and officer where he served his country for 20 years. While serving in Iraq, he led SEAL Task Unit Bruiser in the Battle of Ramadi — some of the toughest and most sustained combat by the SEAL Teams since Vietnam.
Task Unit Bruiser was one of the most highly decorated units of the entire war in Iraq and helped bring stability to Ramadi. Jocko has been awarded the Bronze Star and a Silver Star.
Last spring we showed the video below to our off season weights class. I bought a t-shirt off of his website and wore it last week to our Thursday “run-through” and reposted it on our Facebook group.
During Friday’s game, our quarterback came to the sideline to get a play after a penalty against us and I commented that it was going to be 2nd and long. Without hesitation, he said, “Good.” I laughed, called the play and we scored one play after that.
One of the most difficult tasks in coaching is getting athletes to have a one ________ focus, whether that is one play at a time, one pitch at a time or one match at a time. Brian Cain likes to say, “So what, next pitch,” or whatever the equivalent would be for your sport. We’ve been pushing this mindset with our kids and have included it in our “process.”
I highly recommend Jocko’s book Extreme Ownership as well as two podcasts he did with Tim Ferriss: Podcast 1 and Podcast 2. I haven’t listened to his podcast but you can find that here.
Leave a Reply