The Millionaire Next Door

5 Stars-NO EASY DAY: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NAVY SEAL

The subtitle of No Easy Day by Mark Owen [pseudonym]  is very revealing, “the firsthand account of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.”  I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars!  The very best autobiographies consistently give the reader the impression that he/she is there throughout the subject’s life.  While reading this book, you will feel that you are a part of SEAL Team Six.  


Mr. Owen was raised in a loving, caring home environment in frontier Alaska.  His parents were missionaires.  He learned early to use firearms and respect them.  He was always mentally and physically strong.  Throughout the book, he talks about how he overcame obstacles, especially during his “qualifying exams” in the military.  These ran the gamut from physical and mental endurance.  Members of the SEAL Team were selected as the best of the best commando type personnel in our military.


Successful people, like Mark Owen, share many similar characteristics and experiences.  They come from a stable family background, they are well disciplined, and they are goal oriented. Also they have a propensity to overcome large obstacles by dissecting them into small pieces.  For example, as Mr. Owen revealed, when he was confronted with an endurance track and was feeling exhausted he would focus on just making one more stride, not the more than 1,000 that were required to finish.   This is somewhat analogous to building wealth.  In most cases, a 7-figure net worth begins with the first dollar saved, and then another and another, etc.


Mr. Owen gives much of the credit for locating bin Laden to “Jen”, a young CIA analyst.  Hired right out of college, she worked tirelessly for more than 5 years hunting down the target. 


When reading about “Jen,” it occurred to me that she has a great deal of creative intellect.  She saw what countless others within the intelligence community did not see.  There are many businesses in this country that are one person operations.  Certainly “Jen” could easily become one of them in civilian life.   I have had the pleasure of knowing many outstanding market researchers who ran one person operations.  They were the “intelligence” that many leading corporations purchased.  Like “Jen” they had vision, great interpretation and insight into success in the market place.  Even with all of the billions of dollars spent today on the technology of information gathering from computer generated weather forecasts to financial analyses, there is no substitute for human intellect and intuition. 

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