At the age of sixteen, Eric Greitens along with a few other students, are taken to a homeless shelter to spend the night at in downtown St. Louis by Bruce Carl-the director of Youth Leadership St. Louis. While their and speaking with the homeless men, Eric realizes that he is a very lucky man since the men who live in the shelter live in rooms that smelled like "urine" and "body odor" and Eric has luxuries these men do not such as a warm bed, a bigger food supply, and someone who actually cares for him (his parents).

Later in the novel, Greitens goes to College (Duke University). While their, Greitens chooses to study public policy because it concerned -what Greitens believed, was the study of what the world had in common and how to improve the world together. However it ended up being decisions decided through multiplication to find out which one would have the best outcome.

When Greitens first goes to a gym, he spar's with a man their and is unable to land a single punch on him due to his inexperience with boxing, the man constantly connects punches on him, while laughing at the same time. Greitens feels the eyes of other men on him and feels very embarrassed and frustrated. The man walks out of the ring without saying anything and Greitens feels defeated.

However, this all changes when Greitens meets Derrick and Earl, two personal trainers, who push him to his limit with exercises such as knee pumping, jabs, and Earl punching Greitens in the stomach as a form of training. Greitens trains with Derrick and Earl for 3 years, and enters a boxing tournament but unfortunately does not fight an opponent due to bad weather and the championship is vacated to him.

In the summer of 1994 Greitens volunteered to go to Croatia to work with the Project For Unaccompanied Children in Exile, due to the Croatia–Serbia genocide, which was a brutal conflict between those who wanted to create an independent Bosnian state and those who wanted Bosnia to remain part of Yugoslavia. Greitens felt if he went to Croatia and helped anyway possible, he would feel good about himself even if it meant keeping company for the survivors of the Genocide.

In May of 1995, Greitens is invited by one of his college professors, who organized his work he did with the Bosnian refugees to join him on a trip to Rwanda, in which a year before, a mass genocide occurred between two groups- the Hutu and the Tutsi, the reason this happened was because of the assassination of the Rwandan president. While their, Greitens is told by his professor to accompany United Nations (national aid relief program) workers to visit the sites of aid projects throughout Rwanda and Zaire and to ask questions, take photographs, take notes, and report back to him.

But Greitens has a different train of thought, he asks "If the aid workers have access to two four- by- four trucks, shouldn't they be bringing health services out to the villagers rather than having sick families and kids walk miles to health clinic?" Why don't we drive from, village to village and bring the equipment and doctors directly to the people who need them?"

After Rwanda, Greitens goes to Santa Cruz, Bolivia to document the lives of children living in the street, children who have fled abusive homes and sexual abuse. However, just outside of Santa Cruz is the "Mano Amiga", a home for children of the street run by two friends (Jason and Caroline) of a woman Eric met at Duke University; his college. While their Greitens takes photos of poor neighborhoods so that he could share stories with others about the conditions people live in, takes the children to a soccer game, and works with the children alongside Jason and Caroline.

The Mano Amiga home does things such as rounding up the children to take showers and to be sure they brush their teeth. The children are taught art,music,painting,sculpture, and dance. Greitens points out, why aren't these children learning how to read, write, and do math?

In Greitens senior year of Duke University, he applied for a scholarship that would provide full tuition to study at Oxford University, the scholarship is granted to candidate's who have potential for leadership and commitment to others, Greitens claims fighting for a better world isn't enough and that we have to live lives worth fighting for, meaning that Greitens and all of us need to live to find our potential in what we can do and that Oxford might put him in that pursuit.

While in England, he researches the Navy's Sea,Air, and Land (SEAL) teams because while thinking of all of the atrocities he has witnessed first hand such as Croatia,Rwanda,and Bolivia, Eric can either keep talking about making the world a better place or he could live his beliefs by truly serving his country.

In order to get into the Navy, Greitens must first go to OCS(Officer Candidate School). Where he is pushed to his limits to become a Seal and serve his country. However when he first arrives he finds himself and the rest of the candidates obsessively focusing on clothes, Greitens and the rest of the candidates spent hours folding shirts and underwear where they would be inspected and had to be perfect.

Greitens expected to be pushed to his limit with brutal training and has not yet received any besides running as a class which he has not found challenging. However this all changes one morning when Greitens and the class are doing push ups and a man named Wong can not keep his back straight, Greitens is told by a Staff Sergeant (who are generally placed in charge of squads) to teach Wong how to do push ups. At first he is not happy about the responsibility he has been given but then realizes although he has found OCS to be less challenging than he though he thought, he realizes that he had the chance to be a leader and to be of genuine help to his classmates.