Find out why David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds is such a masterpiece — The Writing Catalogue
A biography of an overweight, angry, and depressed David Goggins who morphed into a slim, fit, and inspirational military veteran cum personal trainer.
* Help yourself overcome your odds by being more accountable.
* Self-motivate your way to success by overcoming pain.
This autobiographical book recommends chucking victimhood in favor of boosting immunity to pain as a success mantra. The book essentially kickstarted a movement. Using his not-so-rosy story and an honest manner of writing and talking, Mr. Goggins wrote this book, which has helped many people find meaning in their lives by enduring physical pain to overcome the emotional pain.
* People who want to change their circumstances in life.
* People who want to succeed based on their own merits.
* People who aren’t afraid of making drastic changes to their lifestyle.
* People who have dreams they wish to achieve, but they’ve let others talk them out of it by talking about practicality.
* People who are willing to push their body to the brink of exhaustion.
* People who are okay with crude language.
David Goggins’s past involved a lot of trauma, brought on by an abusive father, racists, and a struggle against learning disabilities. All this changed when he enlisted as a US Navy SEAL by taking control of his life, living with accountability, and not playing the victim card.
He became a US Navy SEAL. After he retired, he saw how he wasn’t being as accountable of his life anymore. So, he gave himself these goals, which he met fiercely. He is now a renowned ultra-endurance athlete with multiple accomplishments, including the title of “Maximum number of pull-ups done in 24 hours in the World.”
David Goggins is a renowned name in the motivational and personal coaching industry. He preaches the good word of mental toughness. In his view, if we play the victim and keep blaming others for our misfortunes in life, we will never discover our core identity and purpose. He also talks about how without committing to our goals, we will never see success touch our lives.
His book credits actionable strategizing to improve our life. It’s easy to make excuses. It’s difficult to take action. His book wants us to do the difficult thing. The book wants us to dedicate a 100% of our lives to becoming the toughest person alive.
Goggins draws on his tragic personal life to make his points. He had an abusive father. He is African American, in a country which struggles with racism to this day. He was overweight. He had learning disabilities. He was as weak as one could be.
Now, he’s none of those things because he hardened himself by facing challenges head on. He embodies the ‘Practice what you preach’ philosophy. He firmly states over and over again how our circumstances in life don’t matter; they are simply excuses we make to not do the hard thing. Any form of trauma we experience will ultimately end with us coming out stronger.
His book questions the ‘overnight success’ myth. In fact, it debunks the myth in its entirety. Overnight successes don’t exist. Anyone who’s successful has worked hard and pushed themselves to their brinks to be where they are.
He also champions what he dubs the 40% rule. If we trick our mind into thinking that our exhausted, battered body is still at 40% of its original capacity, we could achieve anything we set our minds to.
In his words, “It is possible to transcend anything that doesn’t kill you.”
Goggins, D. (2018). Can’t hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds.
The book essentially contains twelve chapters and each chapter ends with exercises which, if followed, should ideally help us attain our goals. If you don’t want to read the book, or if you want more from the book, the audiobook is an experience of its own. Mr. Goggins’s friend Adam Skolnick read the book while David expands on some of the details missing from the book. As Adam and David discuss the book candidly, you get access to additional information about the progression of events in David Goggins’s life.
The twelve chapters are:
Chapter 1: Introduction
We get to know about David’s abusive father who lived in a respectable community and yet physically abused his wife and elder son, David. Their family owned a business, which they ran without any extra help. Exhausted and battered, David was at the edge when his mother decided to take her children out of this situation.
Chapter 2: I Should have been a Statistic
Based on the decision of his mother, David prepares to leave with his mother while his brother chooses to stay. They set off to a new life, with no money, no help; just determination. They settle in a new, predominantly white town where David and his mother stand out because of the color of their skin. Racial slurs become a part of David’s life. To make matters worse, he comes to realize how studying is virtually impossible for him, as he has a learning disability.
Chapter 3: Truth Hurts
Given everything that was happening in his life, he became depressed, and he turned to food to fill the void. He also started acting out at school by being the prankster who always got in trouble. He gained a lot of weight and his grades were abysmal. He is also infuriated by how supportive his mother is. Instead of scolding him or setting him straight, she keeps loving him, making him feel extreme guilt and shame. Here’s where the accountability mirror stepped in.
One day, while gazing at his reflection in the mirror, David realized how he’d become an overweight, depressed nobody, who would never amount to something in his life. He was momentarily crushed by this fact, but he also had an epiphany. He decided to clean himself up. He decided to reclaim his life.
Chapter 4: The Impossible Task
He kept gazing at the accountability mirror and he kept making these positive changes to his life. One fine day, he was watching a documentary about Navy SEALS and the Hells Week they go through, to become the hardened men that they are. Something calls to David and at that point, he decides that he will master this treacherous week of training and become the first African-American Navy SEAL in US history.
Chapter 5: Taking Souls
While attempting to change his physique and his academic scores (to qualify), he fell into a depressive state. He had no guarantees, no fallback to his strategy. If he doesn’t succeed, he was looking at a life of misery. Obviously dejected, he went to the cookie jar his mother left out for him. While fishing for a cookie, he came upon ‘The Cookie Jar’ motto. He started storing all his victories, mostly minor victories at that point in time, into a mental cookie jar. The cookie jar remained in his head, and on days he felt low, he’d pull one happy memory from his cookie jar and use it to sustain him, while he works through the pain.
His point essentially anchors around how people, all people have souls that need to be nurtured, once in a while. He starts this habit of getting inside people’s (his instructors initially) heads while pushing himself and his team harder.
Chapter 6: Armored Mind
He makes it into the Hells Week training. His dream is within grasp. While the instructors try to break everyone, David stands firmly, even as his body begins to betray his mind. Stubborn as he is, he doesn’t stand down; instead he pushes back, harder than ever before. In spite of his resolve, he is forced to bow out. Not one to be defeated, courtesy of his armored mind, he returns and sails through the week, battered, but not broken. His esteemed military career took off.
Chapter 7: It’s not about a Trophy
He admits how he’s a struggler who likes a challenge. This aspect of his personality made him step on some toes. Not one to cower behind the racism narrative, he kept applying to all the elite sections of the military services, and he kept getting rejected. Not one to give up, he asked questions and he received no answers. He then realizes how he was chasing titles that were never coming to him. At this point, he decided to stop chasing the trophy and start chasing the action.
Chapter 8: The most powerful Weapon
Our mind is the most powerful weapon. Buried deep within our mind is ‘The Governor’. It needs to be weeded out. Mr. Goggins believes that most people operate at 40% of their true potential. If we used our most powerful weapon, our mind, and pushed our body to achieve the targets, we would manage to get that extra 60% in and live up to our true potential.
Chapter 9: Talent not required
All one needs to lead the good life is an open mind. If we keep an open mind, try new things, challenge ourselves continuously, we will begin to thrive. Life hacks and quick fixes don’t work for everyone. So, keep an open mind and develop a stellar work ethic. According to David, you don’t need talent to succeed. You need self-discipline and a proper prioritization routine to succeed.
Chapter 10: Uncommon amongst Uncommon
This essentially encapsulates the beauty of the book. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He gets straight to the point. David Goggins wants us to become uncommon and he wants us to seek out the other uncommon people in the world, and challenge them. He wants us to do it again and again, till the fog in our mind clears, and we find our purpose.
Chapter 11: The Empowerment of Failure
Failure is often accompanied by sorrow. To David Goggins, failure is like a fuel. He wants us to embody that principle as well because trying to overpower failure is the most empowering feeling one could experience. He draws on his medical condition to drive this point home. A congenital heart defect isn’t something that could ideally be defeated. David had to withdraw from a few events, given the condition of his heart. He was suddenly overwhelmed by failure. But, before he went under the knife, he was determined to get back in shape and reclaim his failure. He did precisely that!
Chapter 12: What if?
David Goggins lives like a stoic. He knows how life is impossible to control. He just wants us to give up on this control and just stick to a process of working yourself to the bone. If we start doing that, the other things just fade in the background. He quotes Buddhism and its wisdom involving how life is all about suffering. He wants us to escape our comfort zones and get hurt. He wants us to stop playing it safe. He asks us to not listen to practical advice that values us unfairly because, ‘What if they are wrong?’ He wants us to choose action over everything else. Unless we don’t push ourselves, we truly don’t know what we are capable of.
The best part of the book undoubtedly are the missions he gives us, the readers. He wants us to write all our difficulties down on sticky notes and paste them on objects where we can see them, till the day we’ve dealt with the aforementioned difficulties. He wants us to be brutally honest with ourselves about our shortcomings. By his own admission, till he didn’t call himself a fat loser who hid behind his mask of coolness, he didn’t even consider changing his life.
He specifically wants us to do things that make us uncomfortable. Every person is a victim of their circumstances, and to stand out, David Goggins wants us to not be like every person. He wants us to suffer and seek answers in the aftermath of this suffering. Start with small things and then scale up. The best advice from the book comes in the form of conquering people and circumstances with excellence. He wants us to seek competitive situations. He wants us to pick our opponents. He wants us to demolish the competition by nothing but sheer excellence, which can be achieved by mind games. It’s a simple concept about how all pain eventually ends. All we need to do is last longer than our competition by getting in their head, and win!
In his words, “In the most painful time of my life, I saw the most beauty.”
Goggins, D. (2018). Can’t hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds.
He wants us to ‘find the fuel’ that burns our soul. He wants us to look inwards, while physically suffering outwards to cause a change in mentality. He notes how the human ‘fight or flight response’ helps alter the hormonal flow in the body. This alteration will cause you to enjoy things you didn’t want to do. It’s like using discomfort and pain to flip a switch in your head. Once the switch flips, we need to find the fuel that drives us from the darkness within our lives and visualizing the goal we want to achieve.
To quote him, “Human beings change through study, habit, and stories. Through my story, you will learn what the body and mind are capable of when they’re driven to maximum capacity, and how to get there. Because when you’re driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it’s racism, sexism, injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your metamorphosis.”
Goggins, D. (2018). Can’t hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds.
While all this happens, he wants us to build a mental ‘Cookie Jar Of Accomplishments’ to motivate us when the going gets tough. His experiences in the ultramarathon and his attempt to break the Maximum Pull-ups record shine a spotlight on this principle. To build up resilience and mental callousness, we all need those little bursts of motivation to keep pushing past the 40%. Its job is to remind you about how much of a warrior you are.
He firmly believes how we are all at a 40% potential because our brains have this ‘Governor’ which is hellbent on keeping things safe and comfy. He wants us to remove this governor by pushing past the 40% mark, by making incremental progress daily. He wants us to be comfortable with the discomfort and push back. The remaining 60% of our potential will be ours to claim.
He wants us to become disciplined individuals who schedule their lives. He doesn’t want us to be mediocre people who aim to settle in life. He wants us to become a master of our own insecurities. Once our mindset changes, strength becomes our default setting.
He doesn’t want us to become overachievers who focus on what they didn’t win. He wants us to instead be obsessed with standing out as a wolf among wolves.
David Goggins, according to his book can be summarised in his own words, “To the unrelenting voice in my head that will never allow me to stop.”
Goggins, D. (2018). Can’t hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds.
This warrior wrote a book which asks us to be warriors in our own lives as well.
He articulates, “From the time you take your first breath, you become eligible to die. You also become eligible to find your greatness and become the One Warrior. But it is up to you to equip yourself for the battle ahead.”
Goggins, D. (2018). Can’t hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds.
This is the Tl;DR of the book.
If you want to read more summaries, check out the book summary section of the blog.
