Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink & Leif Babin (6/10)

Rating: 6/10

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🤔 Pre Read Exercise: What Do I Know About This Topic/Book?

• Not too much. I’ve listened to Jocko on Tim F & Rogan podcasts and listened to a bunch of his podcasts too. He breaks things down and analyses situations from first principles. He then removes ego and quickly iterates to the most efficient and effective solution. It’s pretty basic, and I’m expecting something similar here. Prob light and fun, with a bunch of gruel/war/savagery involved.

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

1. A collection of life lessons and business principles extracted from war stories
2. A straightforward, practical, and accessible business, management, and leadership book
3. A very military approach to life – not too much finesse or nuance – and quite repetitive… nothing new

🎨 Impressions

Each chapter is focused on a specific topic, like Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, or Leading Up the Chain. The chapters begin with specific war stories, explaining these topics in the context of the battlefield and their vital importance. It then draws the key principles out of these topics and how to implement them in a leadership or business environment.

I really liked the detailed and insightful war stories. They were true and captured the zeitgeist of war very well. It was humbling and grounding to know how tough shit can get! The principles and lessons themselves were pretty basic and all grounded in simple ego reduction and effective thinking modalities.

I didn’t learn too much, but it was a nice reminder to take ownership of stuff, remove ego, and be humble and grateful. The book was short and accessible, which I liked, but it still dragged on a bit, and I found it kinda repetitive and got bored around 60-70% of the way in. It was also a reminder of how fucked up the Iraq war was and how much of a waste of life, money, energy, time, etc.

🔍 How I Discovered It

• Goodreads / Jocko’s podcast

🥰 Who Would Like It?

• I don’t think the book says anything new relative to other leadership and business books, so I’d only recommend it to someone looking for some cool war stories.