Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet

by Jesse Itzler

It was insane (okay, I admit it), but research shows that stepping out of our routine in life is great for the body and spirit… the brain too. Mix it up! Do the outrageous; think out of the box. Life is short, why not? As SEAL says, “This ain’t a dress rehearsal, bitch.”

Most of my successes in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like I said, I just want to get better.

Every day do something that makes you uncomfortable.

“nickels and dimes.” We do five pull-ups (nickels) and then ten push-ups (dimes) “every minute on the minute.”

“When you think you’re done, you’re only at forty percent of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit that we put on ourselves.”

There’s generally a moment in every endeavor I undertake, be it business, love, or fitness, when I say to myself: What the hell was I thinking?

This is our push-up routine: Do one push-up then stand up and wait fifteen seconds, then go down and do two push-ups and wait fifteen seconds and so on, until we get up to ten push-ups, and then we start taking thirty-second breaks. For push-ups sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, SEAL allows us to take forty-five seconds between sets. What a guy! I do sets of push-ups one to eighteen for a total of 171. Followed by thirty pull-ups. (No time limit. As long as it takes to knock out thirty even if I drop from the bar.) Then we go and run quarter-mile intervals. We run the quarter miles at a fast pace. Then we walk one minute. We repeat this for two miles. Quarter-mile sprint… one-minute walk.

“Suck-shit pill” sounds good to me!

You can get through any workout because everything ends. —SEAL

Dumbbell bench press: 15 reps at 35 pounds, 12 reps at 40 pounds, 10 reps at 45 pounds, 8 reps at 50 pounds, and then 6 reps at 55 pounds.

15–12–10–8–6 (medium weight). 51

there is one thing I’ve learned about

marriage, it’s not the gift that counts, it’s the effort. That’s kind of like SEAL, I guess.

Don’t get too comfortable. Ever. —SEAL

“It’s not what you do, it’s when and how you do it. It’s all about the conditions. Remember that.”

It’s like he is able to block out all the clutter in his head and the world, for that matter, and just focus on the task at hand. Say what you want, but the dude has mastered the art of being present. There is something really cool about that.

am learning how to be more present. It’s primarily because I have to. If I don’t, there is no way I will be able to finish the tasks at hand. I just go one step at a time. One rep at a time. And when I’m done, I worry about the next step or rep. I’m finding that there’s some crossover to my life as well. Now I finish the first thing on my list with 100 percent focus and then attack the next.

The tougher the conditions, the more I like my odds. —SEAL

Fear is one of the best motivators. Anger is the other.

With fitness there’s never a finish line. You can always do better.

thousand push-ups is something I could never have imagined

doing. It just shows that repetition and consistency equal results.

you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t know yourself.

don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done. —SEAL

you can see yourself doing something, you can do it. If you can’t see yourself doing something, usually you can’t achieve it. —SEAL

The first day SEAL came to move in, he told me I needed to control my mind. I thought it was just a saying or a throwaway comment, but I think there might be more truth to it than I originally thought. Our minds sometimes tell us little lies about ourselves, and we believe them. We think we can’t do this or that. It’s not true.

every bedroom now has a fire extinguisher and a flashlight. Lazer, Sara, and I have full fire suits, in case we wake up one night and, God forbid, the place is an inferno. And, if the shit really hits the fan, behind our bar is an inflatable knapsack that turns into a life raft with oars and an

The simplicity that SEAL has is one of the most important things in life. He gets to do what he loves every day. He lives stress-free.

Specifically, my mental toughness muscle. I learned that by constantly doing things that are hard and making myself uncomfortable, I improve my ability to handle obstacles. I get comfortable being uncomfortable—and that’s real mental toughness.