good evening I'm a firefighter/paramedic and I'm still the rookie at my station
the fire service is notorious for politics within the ranks and rookies
often get the worst of it my question is how can i implement extreme ownership in
a situation where the blame falls to me anyway how can I have my superiors view
this as a positive trait when every rookie gets the short end of the stick
and when none of my superiors are willing to engage in extreme loaner ship
I'm taking ownership however the typical response along is along the lines of
that's correct it is your fault yeah you know what that's correct it is your
fault that's what extreme ownership is that's
what it is that's what it is that's what it is that's what extreme ownership it
is you're saying it's your fault you're not just saying it so they leave
you alone you're saying it because you're taking ownership of it then you
can fix what is wrong that's what it is so and I will tell you the boss will
notice he will he'll notice and the people above you in the chain of command
will notice they will notice that you are taking ownership they'll notice that
you're solving problems and notice that that will then give you a good
reputation but taking extreme ownership does not absolve you of the blame that's
it's the opposite of that you are at fault that's the whole point that's the
whole point and this is one of those classic questions I get asked all the
time it's like what if they say it if they say that's right it is your fault
that's what you're saying yeah so it doesn't matter it's true in business
it's and it's true in life too if you're blaming other people for things that are
going wrong you're not gonna fix them you can't fix them because in your mind
you don't control them they're not your fault
so if you want to take extreme ownership at work and in business and in life stop
blaming other people and blame yourself and realize that it actually
is your fault that's correct own it and do something about it though do you
think that sometimes like this you know how some people will at like at the
muster some people say to ask you this and they'll say it'll be similar to
everywhere they'll be like like I'm trying to take extreme ownership but you
know something like this happens and then you say well yeah like you take
extreme ownership you actually take the blame and then you talk about how you're
gonna fix the problem right like that's how you do you don't just take do you
don't say yes my fault and then boom work that we're done my kind of thing
it's work that's ego it's funny because your ego is like if I say like echo this
went wrong and it's my fault and then you go yeah yeah you should have done a
better job I get that's the that's my defend like oh what are you talking
about well you know I you know I would have been able to do it better if you
were dumb so even though I'm saying I'm taking ownership I'm not actually taking
ownership yeah so that was actually gonna be the question uses people so
it's almost like me mean I love him but it's almost like like let's say I did
something and I messed up I caught my own mistake right in the middle of doing
it I was like man I'm so dumb and it was a dumb mistake I'm so dumb and you said
yeah you are a dumb in a bit don't call me dumb yeah right kind of like that
right just like men you just said you're dumb kind of thing you know what else is
funny as to you hear people make excuses like but instead of taking the blame
instead of taking owning the excuse they they so like let's say I wasn't prepared
for a podcast or let's say no I said hey we're gonna where we can try and record
on Wednesday but I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it because I have this
going on and my dog did this and my kid did that and I'm making excuses instead
of saying like hey I didn't plan well enough and I didn't anticipate some
things that I should have anticipated and now I'm not gonna be ready right
yeah it's my fault yeah now if you get in what this is what happens and this is
the difference man if you have the habit of actually saying like hey I didn't
anticipate paint this and it's actually my fault
then you know what you do you plan better yeah how many times have I called
you up and said hey echo I'm not ready to record the podcast yeah no actually
no you said I might not be ready and then right got mad at yourself yeah got
mad sorry and I but I I was actually giving you a warning of like hey I'm
gonna be it's gonna be tight but I knew I was gonna have to work to try and get
it done what I'm saying is when you truly say like everything that's
happening in my world is my fault you don't make excuses anymore upfront
yeah yeah UN even if you do you say like hey here's what's going on and this is
what I'm gonna do to get over to them yeah it's a big difference man it has a
huge impact when you're saying here's a good one look this isn't one of them
probably the most common thing of anything in any excuse is I don't have
time mmm this is the most common is there any more common excuse then I
don't have time besides the dog ate my homework right not that I know by the
way one time the dog literally ate my kids aren't working it was all chewed up
dog ate your homework keep your keep your in a dog secure area yeah so
there's no eat there's no bigger excuse that gets used more common at least for
like a long-term goal like a like hey I wanna you name it yeah I wanna Indiana I
want to play piano on a play guitar I want to write a book I wanna study I
want to get my degree all this stuff right anything is this I don't have time
I want to get in shape right I want to run every day it's it's all hey even
even I want to spend more time with my kids about time yeah so that's the
that's the pre-given excuse but when you blame all these other things the time
it's not your fault that you don't have time right it's the fault of the
schedule it's the fault of the weather it's the fault of it's the lack of time
the fact of the matter is if you take ownership of that mm-hmm
if you take ownership of the time you will have time cuz you'll make time yeah
and when I call you up and say hey I might not be able to get ready what I'm
doing is like saying okay I'm giving him a warning and then I'm looking at my
schedule going where can I finish prep where can I prepare for this yeah when
can I get this done that's the ultimate excuse for so many people I don't have
time and the minute you say that you don't have control over the time you do
have control over the time and guess what
hey are there people that are working three jobs yes there are
yeah and might they have larger things they're gonna have to add it out of
their schedule yes there are one of the first things you should add it out of
your schedule YouTube social media surfing the internet surfing right what
else do we do to waste time you know what I mean like when wasting time doing
things TV so that way if you're if you have an excuse just turn it back on
yourself and take control of it that's all I'm saying we got you make the time
you can make the time yeah a time-saving element I don't even know if it's a tip
it's just a little thing to consider when you cruise cruise extra hard so you
can get it done in half the time I'm discipling with my time so I can
cruise yeah sometimes design equals cruising yes that's the freedom part the
time is like a it can be kind of like a balloon you know with like little leaks
in it where you know you wanna like time will just kind of leak away right so if
you're not you know I like it in fact you're I think you were the one who kind
of told me where it's like you should you should put like plan kind of
everything you gotta go just plan it all and get it done and then the rest of
that time is all is yeah you're talking free yeah so if you're like okay I have
some stuff to do today but I'm not gonna plan it necessarily I'm just gonna sort
of get it done tomorrow at some point you could get one thing done you could
just be you know messing around and whatever and then you get another being
done and kind of like dang that took me kind of all day a lot of times so you
don't especially have like three four things but all those like little
in-between time yeah if you can add them all up but sure okay a workout takes
let's say you really want to go hard and say I want to work out for an hour and
half everyday but I don't really have a free hour and a half in a row right
because I got to go pick up my kids I don't got to go do this I got to drop em
on how you do all this stuff but if most of the time if you're like okay I'm
gonna schedule all these things and I'm gonna boom boom and get them all done
then it's almost like you're shifting your time so it doesn't just
leak through there the little things that you have to do when you allow it to
I think it was you that originally talked about this how much work people
get done before like vacation like they know what they're going on vacations
everything done do that every day yes that more free time yeah just even like
when you're leaving hey this our farm I said I did this the
other day I went I actually went to 24-hour Fitness got a good workout by
the way so I went too far was got my workout or whatever came out came in my
truck I was checking checking the crypto stuff but so I got my truck checked it
and I was checking it and in I'd like check some other alerts you know
checking in boom boom and I - and then I left so I remember what I put my phone
down and I started it up and I left I kind of looked over and you could see
the window of 24 fitness and you know like people that work at the front desk
are there so I for whatever reason I'm thinking to myself I wonder if they were
watching me like oh another person addicted to his phone in there kind just
had that thought you know that I thought about like wait there that was like a
good maybe 10 minutes oh yeah that I just like leaked away right there hey if
I was part of my schedule if I needed to check these things for sure I could add
like if that was on some sort of a schedule or if I if I chose to do that
at a specific time I would have got that 10 minutes back somehow like that 10
minutes wouldn't leak to it no I actually by the time I left the gym at
that particular time if I didn't let that 10 minutes I would have been home
already doing other stuff that I should have
schedules yeah work doing yeah exactly right and we do that all day that kind
of stuff don't let you tell week but another thing where another time or
another situation where this works what you're saying about this um taking
ownership in for real take owners yeah don't be like hey well you know you know
oh it's my fault then they say it's your phone be like what kind of thing I'm not
saying he said that but I'm saying that can is apologizing when you apologize to
someone you know like someone's like hey hey look look mean you had a
disagreement it escalated whatever then the next day I'm like hey man I'm sorry
you know but but you did kind of say you know but I but I am sorry you know kind
of thing you know yeah right so you're putting a bomb
there yeah and applause that's not real true apology it's not effective at all
like yeah or if you explain like but I was just feeling this or you know it's
just you know any time there's not like a full-on 100% full-speed apology
towards someone like don't mention the reasons why you felt that way don't
mention any kind of justification on why you went there with your mind or
whatever it's all just like this what I did this all like terrible and whatever
in them straight up sorry that's ineffective