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Sunday, September 21, 2014

The Way of the Seal

The Way of SEAL: Think Like an Elite Warrior to Succeed and Lead in LifeThe Way of SEAL: Think Like an Elite Warrior to Succeed and Lead in Life by Mark Divine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from the 12 Books Group in exchange for this review.

The way of the SEAL. The Navy SEALs have been an elite force for the Navy for some time now. Their most famous mission was SEAL Team 6 killing Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Author Mark Divine is a retired Navy SEAL, who runs SEALFIT, NavySEALS.com, and started US Crossfit. In this book, he summarizes what he's learned as a SEAL, and how it can be adapted to everyday life.

He establishes 8 principles: Establish Your Set Point, Develop Front-Sight Focus, Bulletproof Your Mission, Do Today What Others Won't, Forge Mental Toughness, Break Things, Build Your Intuition, Think Offense All the Time. He emphasizes 5 areas: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Intuition, and Spirit. (Physical is a book by itself.) He includes exercises to help reinforce these principles. I haven't done the exercises yet. I wanted to read the book through once to see what it is.

Many of the principles in this book have been written about elsewhere. Go into B&N and look at the self-help or management sections, and you'll see all kinds of books on these topics. I recognized some of this book from a section of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. The question on this is how to make the material effective for your life. It helps that he walked the walk, as they say. This isn't just platitudes from someone who pretends to know what to do. I believe these can be effective, if done properly. The challenge with books like this isn't knowing what to do, it's actually doing it. Some books like this are thinly veiled commercials to sell other programs. To his credit, the author doesn't promote these too hard. Doing the exercises in the book will help. The author recommends getting help from local coaches or programs that could help.

The one issue I do have with the book is the same I have with a lot of other books like this. It doesn't recognize limitations, and there are some. For example, I'm 50 years old, have foot problems, and had heart bypass surgery 3 years ago. I will not play in the NFL, regardless of hotw well I improve myself. I also there are other things I will not be able to do. It would be better if it recognized this. All in all, though, a good book.

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