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

by Jesse Itzler

I don’t believe in résumés in the traditional sense, I believe in life résumés. Do more. Create memories.

Most of my successes in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Every day do something that makes you uncomfortable. —SEAL

This is a habit I have. When I see or read about someone interesting, I call them up and basically ask them to be my friend.

At exactly 7:00 a.m. there’s a knock on my door. He has NO luggage. NO suitcases. NO expression. In spite of the fact that it’s December and it’s freezing out, he’s wearing NO coat. NO hat. NO gloves. And there’s NO greeting. He simply says, “You ready?”

“It’s fourteen degrees outside,” I say. “To you it’s fourteen degrees ’cause you’re telling yourself it’s fourteen degrees!”

“The temperature is what you think it is, bro, not what your computer thinks it is. If you think it’s fourteen degrees, then it’s fourteen degrees. Personally, I’m looking at it like it’s in the mid-fifties.”

I don’t ever check the temperature when I run. Who gives a fuck what the temperature on the computer says? The computer isn’t out there running, is it?”

“Yo, man, you can skip all this tour shit. Just tell me how to get to the gym.”

“Seventeen! Cool, that’s my max number. I didn’t think I could even do that. Amazing! Let’s head back upstairs.” As I start to look up, SEAL is staring at me with a blank expression… deadpan. “We’re going to stay here until you do a hundred.” WHAT? “I can’t do a hundred. That’s impossible,” I say. “You better find a way,” he says to me like a father might tell his son to clean his bedroom. “You got a shitty-ass attitude.”

I’m the surprise-or. Not the surprise-ee.

“I like my feet to be the first footprints in the sand,”

“It’s as simple as this, yo. Whatever you motherfuckers do,” Garnett says, “I want in.”