Living with a Seal: 30 Days of Training with the Toughest Man On The Planet

Jesse Itzler

Fun.

Rich New Yorker hires famed navy seal and ultra-endurance athlete David Goggins to come live with him for a month and train him. Goggins agrees with the condition that Itzler agrees to follow his every instruction, no questions asked. Hilarity and a lot of very serious work outs ensue.

The book is largely written for laughs, with Itzler trying to keep up with the demands of the world’s hardest drill sergeant, but there are a couple nuggets of wisdom in here. The most quoted is Goggin’s pronouncement that when you think you’re done, you’re only forty percent done. This is surely motivating (if unlikely to be actually true).

For me, the biggest lesson to take out of this arises when Itzler’s wife questions the purpose of some of the more ridiculous workouts and Goggins responds that there is no purpose.  There is no, real, purpose to any of this.

It does nothing and no one cares.

Athletic nihilism. My jam.

Goggins is a fascinating character (and someone I’ve written about before) he’s inspiring, for sure, but there’s also something dark in how driven he is. I enjoyed Itzler’s portrayal of him here (though Itzinger’s stories about himself, I could have done without). Still, I’d be more interested in a more in-depth look into who Goggins is, and how he got that way. Hopefully with all the publicity surrounding this book, someone will write that piece.

Recommended for the Enthusiast.

hey, I also made this quick page of bodyweight workouts inspired by the book.