Jocko Willink: Going through hard things together is what brings people together

I like to find silver linings. This one might be useful next time I’m on a team going through hard stuff.

Going through hard things together is what brings people together. The harder things you go through the tighter the bonds are gonna be.

So if you take the military for example.

The first thing you do is you put them through boot camp. Well that’s hard. You go and you form bonds with other people that went through boot camp. We all have that common bond.

Then you go to airborne school, where you’re gonna jump out of airplanes. And that’s gonna be a little bit of a death-defying thing. And airborne crews are gonna be a little bit tighter.

You go to special operations training and all of a sudden you’ve done something that’s harder than that. And now the bonds are a little bit tighter.

Take that unit and put them in a combat zone and their bonds are gonna be even tighter.

Now you take that combat zone and you make it super intense, and the bonds are gonna be even tighter.

If your team gets through the hard stuff without fracturing, you’re gonna be closer on the other side.

From The Portal s01e06