Make Your Bed by William McRaven

4

Read: June 2025

Inspiration: Recommended by a friend

Summary

Written with the help of ChatGPT, below is a brief summary to understand what is covered in the book.

“Make Your Bed”, published in 2017 by Admiral William H. McRaven, is a motivational book that turns lessons from Navy SEAL training into practical life advice. McRaven argues that starting your day by making your bed builds discipline and a sense of accomplishment that can carry you through bigger challenges. He draws on personal stories to show how teamwork, resilience, and refusing to quit help you overcome setbacks and achieve meaningful goals. Throughout the book, he emphasizes that true strength comes from character and heart, not physical ability, and that life will inevitably be unfair—but you can still drive on. Ultimately, McRaven’s simple, disciplined principles are meant to inspire readers to improve themselves and, by extension, make a positive impact on the world.

Unedited Notes

Direct from my original book log, below are my unedited notes (abbreviations and misspellings included) to show how I take notes as I read.

SEALs start every day making their bed with extreme precision—start day with structure and accomplishing a task when rest of day often is out of your control, SEALs emphasize pairing and partners—don’t think you can do it alone in work and life, even best performing SEALs were punished in training because “life isn’t fair and earlier you learn this, the better”—important lesson to internalize as navigate life, recognize that failure will come but persevering is what builds strength vs giving up—will face many crossroads, taking risks and trusting your abilities is important to growing and achieving potential—slow and cautious can keep you complacent, SEALs instill that in darkest moments you ought to give your very best—dig deep and find strength and you will make the most of bad situations and help those around you, don’t succomb to darkness/fear, hope is powerful in hard situations—one person with right attitude can unify a group and motivate, not quitting is central to SEAL psychology—quitters always regret, inspiring/successful leaders push through to other side, “never ring the bell”, appreciate that others have it worse than you—show gratitude and move forward despite circumstances