Embrace the Suck — Leadership Lessons from the SEALs
Brent Gleeson’s “Embrace the Suck” is more than a Navy SEAL memoir — it’s a manual for building resilience in every arena of life.
The core message: growth lives on the other side of discomfort.
If you want to lead, love, or live fully — you must learn to lean into the suck.
Here are 10 lessons I pull from Gleeson’s work that map directly onto the path of self-mastery:
Seek Discomfort. Do something hard on purpose every day.
Control the Controllables. Energy spent on what you can’t influence is wasted.
Clarify Your Mission. Know your why so suffering becomes meaningful.
Discipline Over Motivation. Discipline is the bridge between intention and execution.
Failure is Feedback. Conduct your own “after-action reviews.” Extract lessons.
Choose Your Suffering. Short-term pain for long-term purpose.
Build Emotional Resilience. Regulation is real toughness.
Lead Yourself First. Integrity and accountability precede influence.
Adapt and Overcome. Flexibility is strength under pressure.
Never Go It Alone. Team resilience beats solo endurance every time.“Pain is a pathway. Discomfort is a teacher. Discipline is freedom.” — Brent Gleeson
As leaders, coaches, and warriors, our job isn’t to avoid the hard — it’s to train with it until the hard becomes home.
What’s one area of your life where you could embrace the suck this week?
