✍🏻 Jesse Itzler 🌳 Self-Improvement 💊 Health & Fitness
-Jesse Itzler
Jesse Itzler is known for being the co-owner of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, but before that, being the CEO of Marquis Jet, he found himself living the same day over and over. He was stuck in a routine and it was eating him alive, so he did the next logical thing huh? Hire an Navy Seal and endurance athlete to come live in his Manhattan apartment and train him for a month...What followed is a diary-style daily account of their "adventures" as Seal followed him everywhere for an entire month.
I do a workout every morning in which I purposefully try to make myself uncomfortable. It sets me up for the rest of the day by reminding me that I can choose to be Okay in the midst of tough challenges.
— Jesse Itzler
When asked about this statement in an interview, Itzler commented "After you've physically suffered, not much that happens in a business meeting is going to shake you up." In my opinion, this one of the most basic lessons to anything in life, sometimes people think that you should do the ground breaking change and that lives just change from a day to the next, but sticking with something for a lot of time is what makes results possible.
The first journey, Seal embarks on with Itzler is "Building a Base"; Over the first week, Itzler gets tested on all different aspects of his fitness, including 100 pull-ups, exhaustive 8 mile runs multiple times a day and a 50 pound weight vest, all for the sake of making things uncomfortable.
At the same time, Seal tracks his every movement in his book-log using his watch as a timer. "It’s important to know where you are and what you’re capable of doing." Seal confessed.
In the next three weeks of training, Seal will use that data to adapt his challenges to the limits of Itzler.
Track your Progress as closely as you can afford to. You can't trust yourself to push you to the next level when things get comfortable.
Force yourself to switch your workouts as often as possible, both for the sake of boredom/routine and for the sake of improving.
Most of the exercises, featured in this book, are not found in lists like "Top 10 exercises you can do anywhere", but instead, force Itzler's body to do the unexpected and get comfortable with being pushed in "unnatural" for him ways.
Seal made Itzler do a lot of shitty things, at least by my standards, running midst a snow storm, doing 100 burpees just before entering a meeting, jumping in a frozen lake; The stories can go on and on and on....
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But as a reader, you understand that through the misery and unhappiness of it all, everything came to pass and when the dust settled, he was at the best shape of his life. ( as he later confessed )
Most people that I have discussed this book with, argue that it's stupid to push yourself for the sake of pushing yourself. I don't know if I agree, but what's apparently clear to me is that not everything that's miserable is worth doing, but some things are by avoiding a bit of suffering, you could be losing on years of happiness.
*Fear is the best motivator.*
*— Seal*
This book teaches you to have the guts to push yourself further to achieve those things that matter to you and trusting yourself that you will end up fine.
We are all aware with the power of adrenaline. The first (in a while) session at the gym, the first few lost kilos from a diet we started just two weeks ago, those go by really fast and easy. The problem is, things get tougher from there and the process is long and tiresome. This is exactly the point where most people give up, heck Seth Godin has devoted a whole book on this phenomenon!
So it's time we turned things around, it might be that Seal and Itzler have just a month to get to the end of the transformation, but Itzler walks readers through the peculiar experiences Seal goes through to push his already elevated limits. He emphasises the point that you should enjoy what you do and take things in your own pace. This is not a manual to get fit in a month, it's a book designed to get you motivated to start a long and uncomfortable journey that is well worth it.
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Don't let yourself be discouraged by not making immediate progress or the results of others, be comfortable with the idea of a long journey and appreciate small results and daily progress.
Fitness is not a sprint, it's a marathon and there is plenty of time for overtakes 😉
— Jesse Itzler
Witnessing Itzler go through daily challenges, pushing his limits over and over again with almost no time for recovery, is a strong indication of what the human body is capable of. At the same time, whenever Seal would come up with a new workout, there was always an excuse for it to be skipped, excuses are an everlasting way of the brain to withhold energy.
So, here's the honest truth, when you tell yourself these “reasons” you can’t work out, no matter how “good” the reason is, it won’t help you reach your fitness goals. If you understand that your brain is tricking you, you will be in a much better position to counteract it and force it to act. My suggestion? Be intentional about the things you allow in your life, the TV show you say to yourself "you can't miss!" or the time you set aside to clean your kitchen and ended up watching memes on your phone for an hour, are just luxuries you can't afford when it comes to your goals.
We tend to impose ridiculous deadlines on most things we do, with the most ridiculous of all being the "NOW!", you can't imagine how many times, I have thought to myself "this must be done now!", for things ranging from a possible career change to watching a Youtube video about investing at 2 am. My estimate? Only 5%-10% of what we feel like we have or want to do, is worth this strict deadline, and one of these few, is a daily commitment to exercising.
In the words of seal "You can have excuses or you can have results, but you got to pick one."
I used to delay doing stuff that I just didn’t want to deal with—things like putting the garden hose away properly or doing the dishes right after dinner. Now I have this little voice in my head that says, “I know you don’t want to do this, but just do it anyway.”
In other words, there’s far less stuff that I put off until tomorrow**.** On the whole, I think this makes me more productive and probably even happier. Plus, it sets the tone for my whole life.
*“How you do anything is how you do everything.”*
*— Seal*
I’m much more of a minimalist after this book. This isn’t to say I’ve given up all the things I love. It’s just that, for example, I’ve gone from having countless books to designing a system to keep around just a few. I’ve found that eliminating not-so-important choices really frees up my mental capacity to think about the important ones.
Additionally, I have found more and more free time as I have gotten rid of stuff, we tend to overlook the costs associated with owning things, from maintaining to cleaning or in my case cataloging, it's the equivalent of white noise for time, it just fills your schedule without really understanding where all your time has gone.
“When I see or about someone interesting, I call them up and basically ask them to be my friend.”
This was in reference to Itzler cold-calling SEAL after seeing him at an 24-hour relay race that SEAL was running solo. Itzler was calling to attempt to meet him and convince him to fly to New York to train and live with him. He mentions how this approach of contacting people he finds interesting is his default mode in life.
I love this attitude!
"Seal forced me to complete massive workouts every morning, so inherently, I had less time to do other things. As good as these workouts were for my physical health, they may have been even better for my mental health because they forced me to prioritise my time more seriously, which I still do today.
I put my life into four buckets:
- I sleep seven hours a day.
- I take three hours for myself so I don’t resent the people I’m closest to.
- I work for about eight hours.
- And I set aside six hours for hygiene and all the other random stuff that comes up.
I don’t let anything encroach upon the sleep, me, or work buckets, which means turning down unimportant things."
My thoughts are sprinkled amongst my notes, but I will give a final review here. So who's this book for? If you struggle to go through or feel overwhelmed by health, diet and fitness books, you won't find diet plans, research studies or medical advice here. I wouldn't recommend going out and trying the workouts, but you will find a humorous although deeply brutal story about how to overcome your fears and see the benefits of leaning towards them.
So put on your shoes on, go to your nearest book store, or click the Amazon link, to get yourself a copy...You won't regret it!
*Rating:* ★★★★
*Published on* *Jun 21, 2021*
If you want to read more book reviews, click here. I also wrote a blog post about my journey trying to apply some of these principles in my daily life, along with the results, I give you some practical advice and examples on how to make those fit into your life.