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

by Jesse Itzler

Every day do something that makes you uncomfortable.

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.”

SEAL just sits there, staring straight ahead. He doesn’t move off the chair. He doesn’t go to the bathroom. I’m not even sure he blinks. He’s just staring.

It’s a universally accepted fact that you lose a lot of warmth through your head. If you keep your head warm in the severe cold, you will have won half the battle of keeping your body warm.

“Holy shit,” she exclaimed. “What the hell was that?” Several months later “that” moved into our house.

I don’t think about yesterday. I think about today and getting better. —SEAL

“But why would we want to escape?” I ask. “In case some 9/11 shit happens again. There’s only one way out—the river. The city shuts down all bridges and tunnels and access points. How the fuck else do you plan to get out? What’s the plan?” “Plan? I don’t have a plan.” “Well you do now. You’re gonna row row row your boat the fuck out of here.” Makes sense to me.

My wife looks down at the backpack and then up at us. She is a bit confused. “Sweetie, SEAL got us a backpack that turns into an inflatable raft in case we need to get out of the city,” I say.

“Sara, don’t EVER underestimate the power of adrenaline,”

“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.”

Any success I have ever had in my life usually occurred when I was not chasing the money but was doing things out of passion.

It was Harry Truman who said, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.” It’s a tactic I still use instinctively. It buys time.

“You okay?” “No. I don’t feel well,” I say as I keep pace. “Fuck, yeah,” he celebrates. “Now you’re seeing what it’s like to train, Jesse. I hope you enjoy this shit.” He begins to laugh, which soon becomes an all-out cackle. “You look like a pile of spilt fuck,” he says.

“Wow… Well, what do you suggest we do?” “We need to swap out all the doors IMMEDIATELY. Lock down all the nonprimary windows. AND bulletproof the glass.” “Bulletproof the glass?” “Yep, bulletproof the glass.” “Is that really necessary? It’s a lake house… in the middle of nowhere.” “CRITICAL… I’m going to contact my boy and price that sucker out.”

“Well, let me ask you this, sweetie. When is the last time you saw someone walking around Candlewood Lake with an M16?”

In fact, I go from feeling like a stick figure to someone performing in Cirque du Soleil—okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I feel good—real good. Odd. I mention it to SEAL as we run and he just replies, “Jesse, I really don’t give a fuck.”

“Whatcha doing?” I ask casually. “Huh?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” “Getting ready for bed,” he says. “Ah, okay. What’s that?” “What?” I point at the tent. “That’s a tent.” “OHHHH! It’s a tent,” I say. “Yep!” “I know it’s a fucking tent, but why?” “’Cause I’m gonna sleep in it tonight.” “You’re gonna sleep in a tent? In a bedroom? On Central Park West?” “Yes.” “Can I ask why?” “Oxygen deprivation.” “Huh?” “This tent deprives you of oxygen.” SEAL zips himself in and says, “I’m training too, dude. Kill the lights.”

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?

know I’m at 15 Central Park West, but it feels like I’m on a mission in Serbia in the winter.

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

People in the park are starting to stare. They want to know what the fuck is wrong with me. They also want to know what the fuck two grown men in weight vests are doing pushing a baby stroller in twenty degrees. I wish I knew… I wish I knew…

“What the hell are we doing? This is ridiculous. Can’t you see this is killing me?” “Relax, Jesse, you need to know that everything ends. Just do this shit and it will end.”

If a motherfucker looks crazy, usually the motherfucker is crazy. —SEAL

have to be at work at 7:00 a.m. for a breakfast meeting (well, the guy I’m meeting will have breakfast, I will be having fruit), and SEAL makes me wear the weight vest to the office today. He wears the one he borrowed from the guy at the gym. Mine’s under my jacket. SEAL just wears his vest over a T-shirt. We walk around Columbus Circle over toward my office on Park Avenue. It’s not a bad walk, but today we stand out. I think we look like suicide bombers from a J.J. Abrams movie. Shoulder to shoulder, black guy, white guy, down Park Avenue looking like we’re going to blow some shit up just for the sake of blowing some shit up. We are walking with some purpose down the street.

know it sounds cliché, but the journey really is more important than the destination. Once you get where you’re going, most of the magic drains out. I could really see myself as a minimalist, just taking life wherever it leads me.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about marriage, it’s not the gift that counts, it’s the effort.

Remember when you told me to ‘control my mind’ the first day you moved in with me, well, I’m telling you in business… ‘control the situation.’”

SEAL somehow convinces Yoni that he should quit his “bullshit” job running social media for a big hotel chain and join the Navy.

You can be fit without being healthy, but you can’t be healthy without being fit. Meaning… you can be in great shape on the outside, but if you don’t eat great and don’t take care of your insides, you aren’t necessarily healthy.

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

“Hey, SEAL, what do you think about when you run?” “Finishing.”

However, with SEAL around, I 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.

“Your boy’s got an inner toughness,” SEAL says. “I wanted to capture that in a gift,” and he hands a present to Lazer. I’m wondering, Is it a toy truck? Blocks? Soccer ball? Nope. It’s a miniature camouflage outfit, complete with hat. Real Army fatigues… a unique gift for a two-year-old!

I’m a beaten man.

With fitness there’s never a finish line. You can always do better. For me personally, I guess I probably have thirty or forty years left on earth. And how many of those am I going to be young enough and healthy enough to do things? I want to experience the best stuff I can. I’ve never jumped off a cliff—I should just jump off a cliff because I’m only here once. That’s how I approach things now. That’s how I feel about things. That’s how I live my life.

A thousand push-ups is something I could never have imagined doing. It just shows that repetition and consistency equal results.

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

If 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 only easy day was yesterday. —SEAL

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.

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.