For the better part of a decade, former SEAL commander Jocko Willink has passed on what he learned in the Navy to the civilian sector. In recent years, he’s become a bit of a celebrity due to a few New York Times bestsellers and a hit podcast.

With that has come more clients for his consulting firm Echelon Front, which he cofounded with his fellow former SEAL commander Leif Babin in 2010. He soon found that some of his clients expected a tough military guy to come in and yell at their team members, boot camp style.

«One of the early clients that I worked with, he said, ‘You know, I can’t wait until you come here and whip my people into shape,'» Willink told Business Insider for an episode of our podcast «Success! How I Did It.» «I said, ‘Well, if you want someone to whip your people into shape, you should hire someone else, because I’m not going to whip anyone into shape.’ If you want people to do things, you don’t whip them. You ended up with a beaten dog, and a beaten dog is useless. Or you’ll get a rebellion. The people that you’re beating, the slaves, will rebel against you and kill you.»
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