One VERY important aspect of XTREMEOWNERSHIP is LEAVING YOUR EGO OUTSIDE THE DOOR as my friend and co-founder of EST, the late Bill Thaw, use to say!

Former Navy SEAL officers and trainers Jocko and Leif stress this in their book Extreme Ownership. They give an example of trying to work with another SEAL team in Ramadi during the Iraqi War. This team was joining with them and the famous US Army Band of Brothers 506 in Ramadi.

Already Jocko had his SEAL team looking like the Band of Brothers so they could work together on the MISSION – military haircut, clean uniforms etc.

The new SEAL team refused to change wearing their dirty cutoffs and tees. They also refused to follow the orders of the Army whose base it was they were occupying. They made it extremely likely that there could be a “blue on blue” event where friendly fire wounded or killed each other because they would not share what they were doing!

This SEAL team had a HUGE EGO! It especially caused morale problems between them and the Army 506. Finally they were asked to leave and return to their previous base.

They could have been a HUGE asset in the fighting at Ramadi but they refused to park their EGOS OUTSIDE THE DOOR!

Yes there will be bruised EGOS but as Jocko and Leif say: THE MISSION IS THE TOP PRIORITY!

More in next post!

Hugh Simpson