I was sent the book Living with a Seal by Jesse Itzler to read/review on my site. The actual full title is “Living With a Seal: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet” and well… that aptly sums it up!

So here’s the premise… Jesse Itzler is an entrepreneur and he likes to make large, bold moves in most areas of his life. Some of these are starting new companies, becoming a rapper, and competing in endurance events. So when competing in a 24-hour relay race, he noticed a dude who was just doing the race by himself… not as a team like everyone else. No friends, no partying, no fanfare… just a huge dude running the whole time himself. So after that, Mr. Itzler decides to invite this guy to come live with him for a month and train him. Just like that…

The guy he invited to his home is SEAL. He’s a Navy SEAL and super tough. He’s so tough, he doesn’t even need a name. Well… that’s kind of not true, I’m sure he has a name. He just doesn’t have one beyond SEAL in this book, by direct order from him to Jesse.

Each chapter is one day of the experience, detailing the workouts SEAL put Jesse through and how that fit into Jesse’s everyday life. There are a few things I got out of this book.

1. Laughs… it’s written to maximize on the absurdity of everything they are doing.
2. Sympathy soreness… not literally, but the volume of these workouts made me want to cry a little. 6 mile run in the morning, hundreds of burpees and pushups, 6 more miles to run at night. And it all takes place in December so they’re running in ridiculously cold weather.
3. Unrelatable… I cannot relate to Jesse’s life at all. The fact that you could just see someone and invite them to come live with you for a month, nope. Having at least 3 different homes and visiting all of them more than once during the course of 31 days, nope. Private jets, nope. Famous people living in your building, nope. But that also made it kind of interesting, a glimpse into how nobody I know lives!
4. Paranoia… SEAL is watching for danger in every step of their days. I cannot imagine how exhausting it must be to automatically assume everybody is bad in some way. Or to always be thinking of the worst-case scenario.

The book was super easy to read, a fast read, and I enjoyed it. I don’t ever want to live this experience, but more power to Mr. Itzler for coming up with this concept, living through it and capitalizing on it! Pick it up if you want something fun to read. (Fair warning… SEAL uses the f-bomb a lot.)