You need both Jocko and Mr. Rogers. Right now you probably need more Jocko.

If you've ever looked at my LinkedIn profile, you may have noticed something a little unexpected in the bio.

It says I'm a mix between Jocko Willink and Mr. Rogers.

Most people who see it either laugh or look confused. Sometimes both.

Jocko Willink is a former Navy SEAL and the author of what I think is one of the most important leadership books ever written: Extreme Ownership. The central idea is exactly what it sounds like.

You own everything.

Every result, every failure, every outcome. Things don't happen unless you MAKE them happen. Nobody is coming to save you. Only you can do that, so go make it happen.

Mr. Rogers was the beloved host of a TV show for kids in the US. And he believed — genuinely, completely — that every person was worthy of love. That you are enough exactly as you are. That you deserve good things. That showing up as yourself is not just acceptable but beautiful.

Note: If you're at all curious about Mr. Rogers and why he had such a profound impact on multiple generations of American children, I HIGHLY recommend the Tom Hanks movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood about him. This movie directly shaped my desire and approach to being a coach. It WILL make you cry in the best way possible.

Without the Mr. Rogers energy, Jocko burns you out. Extreme ownership without the belief that you deserve to succeed becomes self-punishment. You can only run on discipline and grit for so long before it starts to hollow you out.

But without the Jocko energy? Mr. Rogers becomes an excuse.

"I'm worthy of success" is true. It's also not going to fill your pipeline by itself.

You need both. Most entrepreneurs are missing at least one.

I've been working on the Jocko side of this for my entire career. But the time it really clicked — the moment it stopped being a concept I agreed with and became something I actually lived — was the day I got laid off from a day job I'd taken after almost five years as an entrepreneur.

I've written the full story here. The short version:

I knew I wanted to leave. I'd been miserable. I had a plan to go. But the consistent paycheck had me in a grip that kept me stuck. I kept planning and not doing.

Thirty minutes after telling a friend "I just don't know when I'll be able to leave," I was on a Teams call with my boss and someone from HR. I started laughing the moment I saw who was on the call. I already knew.

When I got off that call, I immediately texted my friend to tell him the news. He quickly replied: "Sounds like the universe heard what you needed and said, 'Girl, we got you!'"

What changed after that wasn't my tactics. It was one decision:

This time, I was going to take my own advice.

Before that, I'd tried things — so many things. I worked hard. And I even had some success. But there was a pattern running underneath everything I'd done that I'd never named.

Try something. If it doesn't work perfectly, decide it doesn't work at all. Scrap it. Start over.

I was perpetually beginning, but never building. Always chasing a more perfectly aligned version of the path instead of committing to the one in front of me long enough to let it actually go somewhere.

I thought that meant I was discerning, adaptable. I thought I was pivoting.

But I wasn't. I was quitting. That pattern was avoidance dressed up as flexibility.

After the layoff, I made a different choice.

I was doing personal brand cohorts with a business partner at the time. I didn't love them. I knew they weren't the end destination. But I could see they were leading somewhere real — that the work, and more importantly the audience, was pointing me toward something I hadn't fully found yet.

So I committed to the imperfect thing in front of me. Not because it was perfect. But, without me fully even understanding it, commitment was the prerequisite to finding the clarity I sought.

And that's exactly what happened.

Staying with those cohorts, getting obsessed with that specific audience, refusing to scrap the whole thing when it wasn't immediately clicking — that's what led directly to everything that became Essentialist CEO.

The clarity came AFTER the commitment. Not before.

There are two modes for running a consulting business.

Hope mode: post and wait. Publish content and see who responds. Trust that if you keep showing up consistently, the right people will eventually find you. Assume that revenue is a function of visibility, and visibility is a function of time.

Ownership mode: I am responsible for this. I make the calls. I send the messages. I book the conversations. Pipeline doesn't build itself — I build it. Results don't happen to me — I go create them.

Most people oscillate between both within the same week. Right now, which mode are you actually in?

And I want to be honest: hope mode is comfortable. It doesn't feel like waiting — it feels like working.

But if you're not actively initiating conversations with prospects and strategic partners, if you're not making the asks and following up on the quiet leads and doing the things that feel vulnerable, what you're actually doing is hoping.

Jocko would have thoughts about that.

Four weeks of this arc have given you the tactics. You know how to audit an offer. You know the pipeline moves. You know what to say when someone says January. You know your metric.

And underneath all of it, there's one decision.

Are you in control? Have you decided that this business succeeds or falls based on what you do — not on whether the algorithm cooperates, not on whether the referrals show up, not on whether the timing is right?

Or are you still waiting for something outside of you to shift first?

This is the Jocko question. And I'm asking it directly because I've watched smart, capable consultants with genuinely good offers stay stuck for months — not for lack of knowledge, but for lack of the ownership decision.

The Mr. Rogers half of this — and I mean it just as much:

You deserve to succeed at this. The business you're building matters. The people you serve genuinely need what you do. You are worthy of the clients, the revenue, and the impact you're working toward.

You don't have to earn the right to go get it. You already have it.

But you do have to go get it.

You deserve it AND you have to go make it happen.

That's the whole thing.

In love, growth, and extreme ownership,
Kasey

P.S. Thursday's newsletter has the specific metric — the one number that tells you whether your Q4 is actually on track, and the simple math to figure out your target. Start there if you haven't read it. Link to Thursday’s Newsletter.