The IMPACT Show
The IMPACT Show is where leadership meets legacy. Each episode unpacks the stories, strategies, and insights of visionaries who are shaping industries, communities, and futures. Whether you're a business leader, entrepreneur, or changemaker, this podcast offers real conversations with real impact—designed to inspire, challenge, and equip you to leave a lasting mark. Tune in and start building your legacy today.
The IMPACT Show
The Leadership Secret No One Talks About: Own It or Lose It
In this episode of IMPACT | Leadership & Legacy, we dive into one of the most crucial pillars of leadership—Ownership. Inspired by the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, we explore how true leaders take full responsibility for their actions, teams, and outcomes—whether good or bad.
We’ll break down the principles of ownership, discuss why there are no bad teams, only bad leaders, and share a powerful SEAL training story that proves how leadership alone can turn failure into success.
Key takeaways include:
✔️ Embracing Extreme Ownership in all aspects of life and leadership
✔️ Leading with belief, discipline, and accountability
✔️ The impact of ego on leadership success
✔️ Why actions speak louder than words in setting team standards
✔️ How the best leaders build high-performing, resilient teams
Tune in and learn how taking responsibility leads to victory—in business, leadership, and life.
🎧 Listen now and step up your leadership game!
If you'd like to know more about the book that Jeremy talks references in the podcast, click here: https://echelonfront.com/books/extreme-ownership/
Welcome back to Impact Podcast. This is episode number six, and the mandate to cover today is ownership. We're going to go ahead and get started. Last week, we met with Tyler, Tyler Parsh. Tyler shared some firsthand stories from leadership at the firehouse and at his side job, what he calls his side job. And so, Maddie was not here. but she's back this week, back in the saddle. Oh, we're excited. Daniel, let's go with a key takeaway. Key
SPEAKER_02:takeaway from Tyler last week. Man, I mean, I know we talked about that opportunity that he took and he had... He looked at it as an opportunity. He said, he said, he said, I'm going to meet and there's going to be a bunch of guys. And he said, I'm going to go out there. And it was an opportunity to reach more people. And, you know, that stood up, stood out to me as like, we need to all be doing that. You know, looking for those opportunities and being, you know, once those opportunities arise, stop before the opportunity and say, hey, let's do this. Let's do this the right way. You're
SPEAKER_01:referring to one of the stories he told. It was the most impactful to me, 100%, because it meant something for the bigger, the whole team. So that's good. Maddie, do you recall?
SPEAKER_00:I do, because I did listen. And I thought it was great to be on the listener side and not being so critical on how I sound or whatever when I listened back to all the other ones. But I wrote a bunch of notes. But one of the things that I thought was cool was he kept saying intentionally. And I think one of the first things that he said on there was leading intentionally, um, in not telling people to do something that he wouldn't do. Um, which I feel like I'm pretty good at that, like in day to day. Um, Cause I'd rather just get stuff done and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty or anything. But then at the very end, he said something about intentionally leading intentionally with your humility. I don't know if one of y'all said it and that humility word is just a lot for me. So I'm excited to dig deeper.
SPEAKER_01:Good. Good. Uh, yeah. So I really enjoyed talking to Tyler. I always do. He's a good leader. And I told y'all, I think he's one of the greatest leaders that I know personally. Um, Mostly because of his leadership style, which is my takeaway, which is servant leadership. When I think about the leadership required at the firehouse or in public service, first responders, military, those guys lead by serving. And those guys lead teams of people to do some extraordinary things, right? And, you know, there's just no comparison. Um, you know, of course, football teams, uh, are good, strong leaders as well. Um, but anyhow, servant leadership is, was my takeaway from Tyler, um, last week. And actually in two weeks, we're going to do the podcast on servanthood and I might invite him back. So, um, just to be our, our guest, because again, he is so, um, keyed in to what it looks like to be a servant leader. So anyway.
SPEAKER_00:He definitely left me wanting more. I was like, wait, no, it can't already be over. Why are you wrapping it up, Jerry? What's happening?
SPEAKER_01:And it was like 50 minutes and Dan was like, dude, it's time. And then like two days later, I seen Tyler. I talked to him and he said, dude, I didn't get to say everything I wanted to say. And I said, I'm aware. So you can't cover it in an hour, dude. So we'll get you back on the show. So it's very
SPEAKER_00:cool.
SPEAKER_01:This week is... The mandate to cover, we're going to go through all these mandates like we talked about. This week, we're going to talk about ownership. And, you know, honestly, we're going to do our best to cover this in about 20 minutes because you could talk about this stuff for days and days and days. But anyhow, let's get started. The ownership is defined by Google, or you can look it up, but ownership is the act of state or right of possessing something. And if you own it, then you own it. So if you buy a car, if you buy it outright, then you say you own it. Of course, I don't personally believe you own anything in the world because you pay taxes on everything, right? And if you don't pay taxes, they'll come get it, but we won't get into that. That's right. To own it is to possess it. Whatever happens to it is still yours, okay? And so you own land, you own a house, you own a business, you own a car. You also own your life and your career to the greatest degree that you can, right? And so as a leader, you own your team. When you're a leader, you have a team, you're responsible for that, just like you're responsible for your car or whatever else you own. So in the leadership position, you are responsible for that. And so you have to own your role and your responsibility as a leader as if it was yours, okay? And so that means anything that goes on with that team, you own it. And so fundamentally, when you talk about ownership, what is it? Well, that's what it is. You own everything and everything that happens, good or bad. And so sometimes people don't see it that way. Human nature certainly doesn't see it that way because it's our nature to survive. And so as human beings, we're in a group of people Something goes wrong. Everybody's always pointing the finger trying to figure out what went wrong. And the leader always, the true leader, leader of greatness that we try to talk about, that guy or that girl is responsible, and they own it. So in the initial– meeting or the initial episode where we talked about the mandates, what I had said about ownership was that it is the key that unlocks the door for many. In order to get anyone to follow you, you must have ownership. Whatever it is that you do, ownership applies. You have to believe in whatever you are trying to sell to others. You have to own it. And you have to hold it close and care about what you're doing. It is yours. If it goes sour, it's yours. If it goes well, it's yours. No matter what, you have to own it. As a leader, ownership is everything, and it is an essential mindset for building a high-performance winning team, period. All right, so can anybody tell me a time when you've seen someone or a team fail or succeed and the leader didn't have ownership? And I'll let y'all think about that for a minute. But you heard Tyler tell the story where he had some ownership. You've heard... I think I... I don't... I think I was talking about humility. But again, a story when you've seen it actually flesh out. And maybe you haven't.
SPEAKER_02:Nothing comes to mind. I mean, specifically. But it just takes me to think of... Like... I've come in contact with plenty of business owners is what my mind goes to, is business owners and ownership and how they treat their people. It's just where it automatically takes me. I feel like you want to lead your team and your people and a lot of owners want to do the blame shifting. And you see it in their turnover, you know, they're, they, those are the companies, those are the people, those are the business owners that have struggles holding onto their people. And, you know, so, so, so that's kind of where, where it takes me is how can we keep our people, you know, and.
SPEAKER_00:I've had, um, a few different jobs, but like, not to say names because i am local here um but we i have in the past word for someone that like if something wasn't right or anything like that the board of directors that we had to report to it was a consistent you know they would look at this person and ask you know so what happened here or something not all the time it's not like we were messing up a lot but she would she would literally say, well, let me get with Maddie afterwards because that's, you know. And at the time, I wasn't feeling like she was necessarily throwing me under the bus. But I think as a leader, she should have said, you know, we've talked about it internally or, you know, just not throw the person that may have messed up under the bus. Yeah. And it wasn't a good feeling.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Well, so I think It's consistent across the board. And again, it's human nature to do that. Right. If someone's not intentional about not doing that, they'll do it. Right. Right. So Jocko Willing, I referred to this earlier on in a previous podcast. He wrote a book called Extreme Ownership, which is where, honestly, I learned a lot of the stuff that I'm talking about today. And so he gets all the credit. But in that book, It talks about Hell Week and the Navy SEAL training. They were at BUDS, and BUDS is Basic Underwater Demolition School SEAL training, right? But they were at training, and they call it Hell Week, where they take the SEALs and they put them through horrific conditions to train them to overcome adversity and survive anything, right? And so there was, and look, for all the military guys out there, I don't know what I don't know. I just know that. That's my assumption. In this training, there were teams that were getting in rafts and going out into the ocean, and they were called boat crews. There were seven men assigned to a boat. They were all assigned by height. because when you're in the boat, everybody's got a paddle, and so they have what they call, now again, this is all in the book, they had a smurf boat, because these guys were short, right? And so there was a leader with those guys, and the chief, whomever the chief is, would call the leaders to him, and he would have a meeting with them, and then he would deploy the leaders to the boats, and they would race. They were having boat races in the ocean. Again, That's what I read about. The leaders got instruction. They ran back to the boat crews. This one boat was called the Smurf boat, a bunch of little guys, right? Well, they were getting their tail kicked because they were short, little, not as strong and whatever. They were getting beat. And so they raced. Boat number two won a lot of times. Boat number six lost every time, okay? Okay. And boat number six developed a bad attitude because they continued to lose. So boat number six is losing. They get a bad attitude. I'm not sure if that was the Smurf boat or not. Maybe, probably so, maybe not. But either way, boat number six was losing. So the senior chief took the leader from boat number six, put him in boat two, and the leader from boat two in boat six. What happened? They raced again, and boat number six won. Now, that's in the book. Can I qualify that? I'm sure Jocko wouldn't lie about it. But that speaks volumes about what a leader actually does. So if they're getting pounded, getting their teeth kicked in, over and over and over again, and they take the winning boat leader and put him in that boat, and suddenly they win. Now, how long did it take? I don't know. Maybe it took a couple of tries, but they won. Again, I don't know. But by only changing the leader, the outcome of the race changed. Same boats, same crews, same cold water, everybody's tired, same sand, yet... It changed the results of the race. Wow. Yeah. Now, again, all that's in the book. But at the end of the day, whether a team succeeds or fails, it's all up to the leader. And his ability to have ownership is critical for him to lead or for them. Okay? So for a person to lead, they must have ownership. Otherwise, they're not going to lead. Now, they might exhibit authority and they might manage leadership. but they're not going to lead. We talked about the difference. And so the true leader has ownership or he won't lead. Okay, so in Jocko's book, he has what they call principles of ownership, I believe. Anyway, so number one was to be a believer. You must believe in the mission yourself and then sell it to everyone around you. The leader must believe in the greater mission. So first of all, I guess you would say the leader has to have a mission. And then that mission, that leader has to believe in it. If he doesn't, he won't lead. And then number two, be a believer. Number two, it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. And I think Tyler referred to that last week at some level. So no matter what you say, It's what you tolerate. If you say, don't do this, this is against the rules, yet you allow it, that doesn't hold. So you have to, it's all what you tolerate. And then, of course, when setting expectations said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable, then poor performance is the standard. So accountability is a big deal.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Number three is, and this is my favorite, check your ego. Here we are again. We talked about it. If you're not intentional about monitoring your ego, it will get away from you every time. And so Jocko talks about that. I think he's got a whole chapter in the book about ego and reeling everybody in constantly with that. Pride is what kills leaders every single day, kills teams and leaders every single day. So every man has an ego. Every woman has an ego. Just got to keep it in check. Number four, focus on teamwork. So division will come and division will go. Stay after the goal to be on the team. You have to focus on the team. If you're a leader out there listening, you have to focus on your team more than anything else. They have to be number one. And it's kind of like, I would say, marriage. Your wife has to believe she's number one or your husband has to believe that they're number one, more so for men. It's so important. I'm sorry, more so for women. It's so important that a woman feels like she's number one, right? Maddie, wouldn't you agree?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And if you don't feel that, then you'll become selfish and all kinds of things. That's the same thing that happens with the team. If they don't feel like their leader has them up at the top of his list, they'll begin to chatter and not operate like they should. So division will come, division will go. Stay after the goal of the team. Number five was keep it simple. I like that. Yeah. Me too. Man, it's so important because everything is complex enough and you just don't make it more complicated than it has to be. And I had a guy tell me once he was going to kiss me and I said, what? He said, keep it simple, stupid. But it's real. Like, keep it simple, man. You know, it's not that difficult or complicated. The mission is the mission and just don't complicated so you got anything on that?
SPEAKER_02:I live my own life simple I try to constantly like no like what do you like take it back take it back let's keep it simple so I can just really level with that and but man this is just an awesome list and the tolerate part really resonated with me and what we tolerate gives us our, our outcome, you know, like, like what kind of leader we are is like, you know, there'll be, don't allow yourself to be, I don't know if taken advantage of is the answer, but it's something that I could work on is to be more direct and strict. Oh yeah. Like in my leadership.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I think tolerate has like a negative hone to it, you know? And I, I think that, just as I've sit here and listened, I don't think tolerate should because it's really like, you know, at my job now, I'm, they tolerate me having children and activities after school and different things like that. And I don't, you know, they allow me to leave work early when I have to without penalizing my PTO and things like that. So they're, they're tolerating me as a mom. I know that's in that to me sounds negative, you know, but I'm a, kick-ass employee and i get my work done and i'm a hard worker and um then on the other side on the flip side i've worked for people who tolerate the golden egg or goose or whatever it's the what do you call it the employee that'll never get in trouble you know it's like the
SPEAKER_01:golden
SPEAKER_00:shot yeah here they go again of course they're you know doing whatever so um I was just thinking in my head, like, tolerate has such a negative kind of tone to it, but I don't think it always has to be negative.
SPEAKER_01:No, not at all. I love it. Well, so at the end of the day, everything we just talked about, I mean, who's responsible for the team?
SPEAKER_00:The leader.
SPEAKER_01:The leader. All the way. 100%. And you take these principles. These are ways you can have ownership, right? So these, be a believer. Check, well, it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. Check your ego, focus on the team, and keep it simple. Do those things. You know, don't hide from the truth. You embrace the truth, okay? And you take, again, Jocko calls it extreme ownership. And I found a word this week. I can't remember where I heard it. I was watching football, by the way, Notre Dame and Georgia. I mean, wow. But check this out. So that coach, I believe it was Notre Dame coach after the game, said the word. He said the team was relentless. I believe that's the word he used. And, man, it stuck out to me like the word intentional stuck out to Matty week one. And I was like, wow, relentless. That is a very impactful word. And so I go look it up, and he said the team was relentless. They weren't taking no for an answer. And, I mean, dude, that team was dominating Georgia. And, look, give the credit when the credit's due. Man, that dude's been leading an operation that nobody really even, maybe he was just prepared for that game. But I watched the whole game. It was really good. And that guy, he was on a mission. He outcoached. Oh, yeah. 100%. 100%.
SPEAKER_02:And you're right. Give credit. Yeah. Dude
SPEAKER_01:did awesome, man.
SPEAKER_02:And I think he made a name for himself.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, 100%. Yeah, Notre Dame, there'll be stuff flying for Notre Dame. I'm sure their merchandise is out the roof. But look, at the end of the day... Whatever. No, I mean, I know we're talking to a lot of Georgia fans. I don't, you know, look, I like them all. But you gotta give credit when credit's due. And that dude coached a heck of a game. And them boys were playing, but When he interviewed afterwards and he said the team was relentless. Oh, man, that word. I was like, I got to look it up. And I looked it up and it was like, dude, that relentless leadership. If you just say that, it's like.
SPEAKER_00:Is that another?
SPEAKER_01:That's another word of the year. Yeah. Yeah. So we may do. Or
SPEAKER_00:attribute it or, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. I think.
SPEAKER_01:Being relentless. There's probably one in there that may go with it. I don't know. But we'll certainly look into that. So
SPEAKER_02:relentless is like just not stopping, like just go, go, go, go. I mean, there's got to be more to it than that. But that's what I think of when I hear relentless. It's just will not back down.
SPEAKER_01:Will not back down. Keep coming up. Matty's going to look it up. That's good. But relentless ownership, extreme ownership, whatever you want to call it, You've got to be extreme. Yes, what you got, Maddie?
SPEAKER_00:Oppressively constant. Harsh or inflexible.
SPEAKER_01:Inflexible. That's good.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good one. And that kind of goes back to what you tolerate.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, inflexible. If you are relentless, then one, the people that you're leading know what to expect. Maybe not all the time, but you're I mean, you're just consistently pushing. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't really say much.
SPEAKER_02:So I got a list I want us to start. Maddie, start a list. Servanthood, leadership, relentless leadership. Yeah. And let's keep adding to that list. Oh, yeah. As we move forward.
SPEAKER_01:So I heard a wise man say once, and this is regarding ownership, when things go bad, look in the mirror. When things go good, look around.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Every time. Take ownership of your problems, your shortfalls, your job, your teams, your very life, and lead well. Ownership is the path to victory. And so we got to embrace ownership. And that kind of buds it up. So questions, comments, concerns, last words?
SPEAKER_02:Well, ownership, again, like to me, I just thought of ownership as a practice in owning a business, not so much like a leadership tool. But I love the simplicity pieces, tolerate, and it's all built on accountability, humility, teamwork. collaboration.
SPEAKER_00:I think ownership goes back more to last week's podcast with Tyler. And y'all can make fun of me. I'm a note taker because if I don't write it down, then I'll probably forget it. Like different things that people say. And one thing that I think maybe Daniel thought of was leading, or maybe, I don't know, leading from the trenches. And y'all kept kind of referring back to that while Tyler was talking. And I think that that right there kind of goes to what you just said about when things go bad, look in the mirror. When things go good, look around. Because it's like, if you're actually the leader with your team and you're a good one, you know, you have to understand as a leader that, Everything that everyone else does beneath you or next to you, whatever you want to call it, is because of what you've done or what you've said or, you know, something that you've tried to convey to them. And I just think that taking ownership is really hard. It's up there for me with the humility, I think. But I'm also the first to try and take Not credit, but if something goes wrong at work, I'm going to be the one that's like, yeah, I did this wrong and I ate it. Let's fix it. Or can you help me fix
SPEAKER_01:it? That's ownership. And humility. Yeah. That's good.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and moving forward this week, I just want to not only take ownership in my business practices, but also in personal life and parenting and taking ownership with my kids. and relationships and my finances, and I'm going to just be thinking about ownership, you know, all week.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I definitely think that these principles that we keep talking about, it is about leadership, but then you also have to think about, like, in your life personally, if it was just you, you're the leader no matter what, whether you're the leader of the household or, you know, at work, but, like, there's so many other ways to apply these to life, like in a personal way that like, you know, instead of scrolling, you know, social media every night, you start reading books that are to do better for yourself. Or, you know, I just think that this has all just been so good that I hope people around me in my life would say that, you know, then better. Speaking
SPEAKER_02:of social media, I think this experience and what we've been doing for the past six weeks or whatever, it's changed my algorithm, my social media algorithm. I keep getting all this content that I've never seen before. I'm loving it. That's what I want to see. That's what I need to see. That's what this show's about. Good stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Remember, we wanted to find out what our impact is and recognize it sooner than later. And that is so what we're, what we're very doing is the fruit of it is already in your life and hopefully it's going to impact all of our audience. Right. So. All right.
SPEAKER_00:I got one question.
SPEAKER_01:All right.
SPEAKER_00:About last week. And I'm sorry, I keep referring to last week, but I wasn't here and I had a lot of things I wanted to say. Yeah. While y'all were recording. But you asked Tyler about manager versus leader, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Actually, I think he asked that question,
SPEAKER_00:but
SPEAKER_01:it was in our notes.
SPEAKER_00:But it was something about... Well, I think you asked him because I think he went against what I thought he would have said because he... I don't know what the question was, but it was almost like who's better or not who's better, but it's like a manager or a leader. And he basically was like, you've got to have both. Like, I mean, and he kind of like... A managing style of a leader is also a very big characteristic of taking ownership. And it's a big principle of being able to talk to people and communicate with people. But I thought it was an interesting answer. I didn't think that he was going to.
SPEAKER_01:I think he asked me the question.
SPEAKER_00:So you were.
SPEAKER_01:And I answered his question. And I remember it was a thought provoking question because I had to think about it for a minute. And I answered his question. And then he didn't disagree with me, but he expanded on it. And he said, I think you need both. Yeah. And I think that all of these things that we talk about, in fact, encompass both. I think that in order to, I mean, you can manage without leading.
SPEAKER_00:Correct.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And I think that's what he was inferring. You can lead without managing. Again, you put the two together and you have a boss. So that's my opinion. Now, I'm subject to that, right? But I think that you can be a good boss if you are a leader and a manager together. And so that, again... That's my opinion. But Tyler just asked the question, and I can't remember exactly how that went. We'll have to go back and
SPEAKER_00:listen to it. I just thought it was– I had it in my notes, and I just wanted to
SPEAKER_01:– But it is interesting that you can be one or the other or both.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's based on these principles.
SPEAKER_00:And that's what got my mind rolling last week. I was like, golly, I know so many managers. And you asked me who was a leader– And my answer was, I don't think I know one leader with all of these qualities that they do at all times or do well. And then I know a manager.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And a bunch of managers.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So
SPEAKER_00:I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's good. And that shows the need for this very show.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Because if those managers that you're talking about would embrace some of this stuff, they'll be able to lead better. Make an impact. And make an impact. That's right. And then when you say, think about a leader or think, you know, in the future, a year from now, you guys will just jump right to someone that you know is exhibiting these qualities.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And then hopefully it's you. I hope so. All right. All hearts and minds clear? Yes, sir. Signing off, Jeremy. I'll eat that. Thank you.
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