The Art Of Extreme Ownership

The art of studying successful people. Whether it's reading books, autobiographies, listening to the radio, or podcasts. Studying successful people is something that I’ve done for the last couple of years. I feel if you're going to learn the habits, the mindset and skills it takes to be successful why not do that from those that are. By success I don't necessarily mean financially it can be anyone whether a professional athlete. a movie star, CEO or somebody I feel is leading their best life.

And there's one thing that keeps reoccurring the more I read and listen and it's one keyword ATTITUDE. In the last week alone I’ve listened to Matthew McConaughey, Eddie Jones, Sean Dyche and Chris Hoy explain at length what they believe made them and their peers successful. And it may come as a surprise to some people that it wasn't extraordinary talent, good fortune or luck but it was their attitudes, mindsets and mentality that separated them from everybody else.

One key phrase has stayed with me these last couple of weeks and it’s this: “The harder I work, the luckier I get” . This phrase has played over and over again in my head this week because in its simplicity I think it says so much. Many people who allow their external world to be their possessions, their circumstance even their geographical location and let that dictate whether they will be successful or not. These types of people take little ownership for what happens to them and often refer to luck. If something doesn't go their way it was bad luck, the problem being with luck is this. Luck implies it was going to happen anyway, it was inevitable and nothing you or I could have done to change that, it places the ownership on luck and leaves no space for self improvement. If it was always going to happen there is nothing you could have changed or done differently to change the outcome.

The opposite to luck is extreme ownership, here every circumstance that happens to you is a product of your past decisions, this applies to both good and bad outcomes. Through extreme ownership you are responsible for every bad outcome, Matthew McConaughey calls these “red lights”, outcomes that stop you from achieving your goals. But with extreme ownership there are no true red lights, because if you’ve taken responsibility for that bad outcome and taken learning points from it so you can grow and develop, the bad outcome has now become a good one. Maybe you didn’t get the job you wanted or run your personal best but you’ve learnt and developed from that and became better. This process has turned the red light into an amber light, meaning it may have slowed you down but it’s not stopped you.

For more on extreme ownership check out one of our all time favourite books

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extreme-Ownership-Jocko-Willink/dp/1250183863/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=extreme+ownership&qid=1614775372&sr=8-1