While there are many accounts and stories about the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, Mark Owen is the real deal. As one of the team leaders that assaulted the compound that night, he tells the story of how the SEAL Team Six killed their number one enemy.

The SEAL operative also describes how the men from one of the most elite units in the US military are constantly challenging themselves to the highest levels of mental and physical endurance.

The main skill they get after the gruesome training is knowing that they can break their own barriers, which makes them confident and balanced individuals. With those skills they can perform at maximum efficiency during combat, when split-second decisions must be made.

Those skills can be noticed when Owen describes the Captain Phillips Operation in the Indian Ocean (a movie starring Tom Hanks reconstructs that operation) and other missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The idea that transcends the book and gets to the reader is their mental toughness and ability to act under tremendous stress. It can motivate anyone who wants to push for their own personal desires, particularly in terms of fitness objectives.

I felt really pumped while reading the book and I realized that if you tear down the barriers that you have in your own mind, everything becomes possible.

It reminded me of another book of a SEAL operative “The Lone Survivor”. A SEAL in enemy territory and hunted by dozens of talibans, unable to move his legs due to a spine injury, drew a line in front of him with his knife and cross it time and time again until he got to a village. He drew that line just to push himself to cross it. And he made it, he survived.

Very important for me is that “No easy day” is the real account of the story, written by an eye-witness of the event. It involves no speculations or fantasies, nor is a product of imagination. Imagination is great, but life beats it.