Remember Jules' wallet in "Pulp Fiction"? He got it from this guy - Don Mann.

Reading Don’s resume can easily make you fear for your life, or feel like you’ve wasted it; for more than 20 years, Don was a highly decorated US Navy SEAL.  If you go to his website, it lists just a few of his skills: Corpsman, EMT, paramedic; SEAL Special Operations Technician; Special Forces Medical Laboratory graduate;  high altitude free-fall and advance free-fall parachutist; open circuit, closed circuit oxygen and air scuba diver, diving supervisor; jungle survival, desert survival and arctic survival instructor; Military Operations in Urban Terrain instructor; small boat operator for craft up to 65 feet; technical rock climbing, mountaineering; small arms weapons instructor, foreign weapons instructor, armed and unarmed defense tactics; Survival, Evade, Resistance and Escape Instructor.

Apparently, 20 years of doing one of the most dangerous jobs on earth started to feel like the same old same old, because Done left the SEALs and became an adventure athlete.  He’s competed in well over 40 adventure races, more than 20 triathlons, including several Iron Mans.  He’s an accomplished mountaineer, having scaled most of the most technical peaks in the world.  If that weren’t enough, he’s written several books, started various businesses, and is a consultant to some high profile sporting good companies.  Oh yeah – he also knows how to fix his own toilet.

Despite being around his 50s Don still has the physical proportions of a running back.  In his lifetime, he’s confronted just about every scary, life- threatening situation imaginable, and adapted to it in order to survive.  Don can just as easily save you from a sucking chest wound as give you one, all while building a livable shelter from a ball of string and some loose sand.  Don doesn’t equivocate, or say “sorta” or “kinda”. He thinks about what he’s going to say, says what he thinks, and when he’s done you’re pretty certain he knows what he’s talking about.

Don Mann on a day off when he wasn't busy being B.A.M.F.

The only reason I know this is because I had the privilege chatting with Don several times over the course of the year – part of my research into a TV show I was developing. I interviewed him several times, and he steadfastly refused to self-aggrandize. I didn’t get it – if there’s one man I’ve met who’s probably entitled to crow about his manhood, it’s Don,  yet  the man was downright demure. When I finally called him on this, he told me about a t-shirt that SEALs wear – it features a SEAL inside a jar with a caption the reads “Break Glass In Case of War.”

“That’s kind of how we are,” says Don, “we’re quiet professionals, but when it hits the fan, you turn on the switch and you are ready to fight.”   That pretty much explains Don, as well as why it seemed almost every SEAL I spoke with during my research seemed so surprisingly mild-mannered.   They’d talk about the risk in their jobs matter-of-factly, seeming more like accountants than the most effectively lethal soldiers alive. That’s because SEALs like Don know their lives depend on never displaying panic, or getting excited, or overreacting. They never do less than what is required, but rarely more than is necessary.   A SEAL’s margin for survival leaves no room for showboating dickheads.

What I believe Don has done is take those understated parts of being a SEAL and apply it to his life – he moves quietly, blends in, does his job quickly and without drawing attention, then slips away unnoticed.   When new obstacles present themselves, Don doesn’t freeze, or pout, or give up – he just makes new plans, improvising and executing them with little to no “LOOK WHAT I DID!!” bravado.

That, to me, is the kind of restraint Esquire is talking about when they refer to Eastwood.  It’s the kind of restraint my dad showed for all the time I knew him…sometimes to his detriment, sometimes to mine.   It’s the kind of restraint I wished  I’d showed in my twenties, when I wasted a lot of energy trying to prove  how different I was from everyone else.

Eddie Izzard realized feathers are not flattering on a 50-year-old man.

What I’ve come to realize (thanks to both Don and Dirty Harry) is that most men eventually realize the merits of restraint.  Eddie Izzard stopped dressing like a colour-blind transvestite, and is now a respected character actor. Steve Martin no longer wears an arrow through his head, or tells scattological penis jokes. He’s now a patron of the arts and an award-winning writer who will release his first full-length novel this month.   At some point, we reach a stage where we know to scale it back.    Because, in the end,  showing restraint is dignified.   Just like Eastwood.  Just like Don.

I haven’t spoken with Don in several weeks, but I can tell you that he probably already accomplished more this morning than any of us did all day.  And he did it all without attracting Esquire’s attention, either.  Let’s see Clint Eastwood do that.

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