as you know I wrote a book called
extreme ownership the the opening
chapter of the book is a horrible
situation with a fratricide happens on
the battlefield so friendly forces
killing friendly forces some of those
forces being mine and you know it's all
these people I could blame and all these
little incidents that happen that I
could have said well you know we had
this radio cryptographic change that
happened in the middle of operation and
and it had people weren't able to talk
to each other and we had these Iraqis
that we didn't speak English we had
these units that we hadn't worked with
before and and they did things that we
didn't expect and there's plenty of
blame to go around and and essentially I
said hey you know whose fault this is
this is my fault I'm the commander and
so when I hear you say things like that
it strikes me that you uncovered this
through your study of history and and
philosophy and religion and I learned it
you know as like I said a certified
knuckle dragger out on the battlefield
that realized you know if you're gonna
exist as a leader and as a human then
you need to take responsibility for what
happens around you and that's you have
to take well the religious notion in
some sense is that you have to take
ultimate responsibility and that in some
sense the things that happen around you
I mean this is Dostoyevsky I think said
something like every man is responsible
for everything that happens to him and
everything that happens to everyone else
and that's you know that that's that's
it's a crazy statement right it's a
crazy statement and he was a pretty
extreme person in many many ways but
there's a level at which that's
metaphysically true you know because
what happens is that it's you its
failure to act often that's the most
catastrophic you know I mean it's it's
it's to not do the right thing when the
when the situation presents itself and
it's very specific you know you're
constantly in situations where you could
do the right thing if you were willing
to take a risk that's actually of
relatively moderate size and you know
that you could take the risk and you
know that you should take the risk and
you
and that happens to people all the time
and then what happens is the thing that
they didn't oppose grows a little bit
and they shrink a little bit and that
starts a looppay and so and you say well
how do you take responsibility for the
world and the answer is well you also
have to do it with a certain degree of
humility because what do you know you
know and this is part of the reason that
I'm so opposed to the activist culture
on college campuses you don't teach
eighteen year olds to go and demonstrate
about capitalism you know because they
don't know anything and they have
problems in their own life that need to
be solved that are local and and the the
local problems aren't trivial you know
they're not disciplined they're there
they're not looking at the world in a
straight way they're not taking
responsibility for themselves or for
their actions their sexual actions among
others they're not taking responsibility
for their family they're not looking at
how they could contribute to the
community they don't understand the fact
that they don't know anything and so
they should be taught to start locally
and to put things together that they
could put together you know to make
their bed and to clean up the room and
to attend their classes with regularity
if they're going to university because
that's part of the implicit contract and
to straighten up the things around them
that are actually within their power to
straighten up and then what happens is
that if you do that let's say
religiously which I suppose would be the
same as in a disciplined manner that
your realm of influence starts to grow
but it grows in a positive way just like
you can go you can take you can end up
and he'll one step at a time and that's
extraordinarily well documented you can
end up at the opposite place of that one
step at a time but it's also that same
gradual process you don't get to leap
from being a seventeen-year-old knothead
who doesn't know anything and who isn't
disciplined to the critic of
judeo-christian society you just don't
know enough to do that
especially when you can look at your own
life and think about how many things
that you're doing that you know are
wrong that you could fix that you aren't
fixing and that's the crucial thing it's
it's this isn't this this mode of
thinking isn't asking people to stretch
themselves beyond what they're capable
of it's just
asking them to stretch themselves to the
point that they are capable of and
seeing what happens and that works it
works I've had many people write me over
the last year and this is a great thing
really it's a great thing who said that
they stopped started to tell the truth
or at least not to lie because who can
tell the truth right but at least you
can not lie and that they started to put
things in order around them that they
could put an order and that you know the
positive things just started to happen
like Matt and they're not nihilistic and
they've got a purpose in their life and
so you know thank God for that and it
does work