Notes & Quotes: Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler

The following are my favorite quotes from Jesse Itzler's Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet.
  1. Most of my successes in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
  2. 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. —SEAL
  3. I don’t do shit for applauses. I don’t do shit for fanfare. I do shit for me. —SEAL
  4. I don’t think about yesterday. I think about today and getting better. —SEAL
  5. It doesn’t have to be fun. It has to be effective. —SEAL
  6. 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. —SEAL
  7. [SEAL] was taught that if you have a job to do, you do it with 120 percent effort. I have been operating under the assumption that if someone that works for me does something 80 percent of the way I would do it, that’s enough. SEAL is teaching me that we can all do so much more.
  8. 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.
  9. If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it. —SEAL
  10. 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.
  11. I don’t like motherfuckin’ freeloaders. You better work hard for your shit or we aren’t gonna get along very well. —SEAL
  12. If you want to be pushed to your limits, you have to train to your limits. —SEAL
  13. Any time when you live a little outside of the norm people look at you: (a) with some admiration and (b) like you’re crazy.
  14. I’m not into sit-down dinners and fancy shit like that. I’m into fueling up and being on my way. —SEAL
  15. “I did five pull-ups on the minute for two hours.” “You just did six hundred pull-ups? Just now? Just like that?” “Roger that. So go fuck your bullshit shoulders,” [SEAL] says. “Whatever you got going on, someone else has more pain. You gotta learn how to fight through it. No matter what it is… Think about someone else and take a suck-shit pill.”
  16. If you can’t do the basics, you can’t do shit. —SEAL
  17. SEAL believes push-ups are the single best exercise for strength. He also believes proper form is the key. You get more out of ten push-ups the right way than thirty done improperly.
  18. If you’re hungry, run faster. You’ll be home quicker. —SEAL
  19. My time with SEAL has convinced me the days of the fancy gym memberships are numbered. Things like CrossFit and street workouts are going to prevail in the future. All you really need to do is get your push-up and sit-up routine consistent, and you can see amazing results.
  20. You can be fit without being healthy, but you can’t be healthy without being fit.
  21. SEAL says to me: “It’s not what you do, it’s when and how you do it. It’s all about the conditions. Remember that.”
  22. 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.
  23. The tougher the conditions, the more I like my odds. —SEAL
  24. Fear is one of the best motivators. Anger is the other. —SEAL
  25. Know what’s important to you and protect it at all costs. —SEAL
  26. If you push the body, the body will respond.
  27. Repetition and consistency equal results.
  28. If you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t know yourself. —SEAL
  29. I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done. —SEAL
  30. Pre-SEAL I sometimes would be on the couch and not want to do whatever needed to be done and I’d be like “Fuck it,” and blow it off. Procrastinate. I don’t think like that anymore. Just get off the couch and do it is what I remind myself. SEAL would never say, “Fuck it.” He’d get off the couch and do it. Regardless of the time, the temperature, or how tired he was. I absorbed some of that just-get-it-done and there-are-no-excuses attitude.
  31. I’ve never had a real résumé. I’ve always believed in a life résumé. I take a look at SEAL, who’s writing in his logbook. He just wants to get better tomorrow. That’s what I want now too.
  32. 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.
I really enjoyed this book! I suggest that you give it a read.