The David Goggins Story: Prepare to Be Inspired!

What am I capable of?… What are we all capable of?

These are the two questions that I couldn’t get out of my mind after listening to a recent episode of James Altucher’s podcast. It was an episode where was he was interviewing a former Navy SEAL and I was instantly captivated by his story and his message. So much so that I downloaded the book he was promoting on the show called Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds, which is basically his life story – the David Goggins story.

It was a book that I could not put down once I picked it up. When I did put it down, it was only to take copious notes on the amazing and inspiring lessons learned from David Goggins story.

Before we get into the lessons and takeaways, let’s delve a little bit into David’s background so you can get a glimpse of who this guy is and where he came from.

David Goggins Story – Background

While I cannot do justice to David’s background in a couple of paragraphs, it is important to at least take a high-level look at it to set the stage for the lessons and takeaways to come.

David was born and raised in Buffalo, New York and had an extremely abusive childhood where he, his brother, and his mother were physically and mentally abused by his father. He and his mother eventually escaped to Brazil, Indiana where he had to deal with racism and a severe learning disability, amongst other challenges.

With that type of childhood, many people would have either given up or ended up on the wrong side of the tracks, but not David Goggins. Instead, he took the negative energy that was a product of his rough childhood and turned it into positive energy that helped ignite the drive that has made him successful.

When You Hit a Wall, Find the Door…

Earlier in his life, Goggins was working nights doing pest control. He came home from work early one morning after working his customary night shift, turned on the TV and saw a documentary on the Navy SEALS. At that point in his life, he realized he was going nowhere and took a long, hard look at himself. It was at that moment that he decided that he wanted to become a Navy Seal. There was only one problem – he had to lose 106 pounds in less than 3 months to even be eligible!

Incredibly, he figured out a way to get it done, persevered and lost the weight – and that was just the beginning…

In the years to come, he became the only member of the United States Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. ¹  Oh, and did I mention he has completed over 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons? In case you still aren’t impressed – he also once held the Guinness Book of World Records for pull-ups by completing 4,030 in 17 hours!

Now that we have a better idea of the background of this incredible dude, let’s take a look at some of the…

Lessons Learned from his Book, “Can’t Hurt Me”

(1)  The Accountability Mirror

One of the turning points in his life occurred when he was looking at himself in the mirror while shaving. He did not like what he saw looking back at him.

From then on, he would use that time every day to look at himself and ask, “what have I done today to improve myself?” To this day, he uses the accountability mirror to keep himself on track.

It is a concept we can all use every day of our lives by asking ourselves, “what have I done today to improve myself?”

(2)  The Calloused Mind

Losing 106 pounds in less than 3 months meant he would have to endure hours and weeks of suffering and agony. To do this he would need to step out of his comfort zone and push himself a little more every day to callous his mind and become mentally stronger.

Goggins believes that all of us need to do something every day that is hard and forces us to step out of our comfort zone to harden or callous our mind.

The lesson is to ask yourself, “what can I do today to push myself out of my comfort zone?”

(3)  The Cookie Jar

Whenever times were tough whether in SEAL training, Army Ranger School or any of his endurance or strength challenges, Goggins has relied on a concept called ‘the Cookie Jar’. It is a concept he uses that helps remind him of who he is and what he is capable of.

The idea is that whenever he is feeling down and out, he thinks back to a time when he overcame the odds and tasted success. As he says: “I actually tapped into the emotional state I felt during those victories, and in so doing accessed my sympathetic nervous system once again.” ²

He believes we all have a cookie jar that we can tap into as we have all been through difficulties before and have survived and grown from them.

(4)  We Can Accomplish Much More Than We Think

While working as a SEAL, Goggins decided that he wanted to run an ultra-marathon to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation in the memory of some of his fallen comrades. However, he didn’t pick just any ultra-marathon, he picked the ultra-marathon of ultra-marathons, the Badwater 135. The problem was that he needed to qualify for it and there wasn’t much time. So, with zero training and despite almost dying, he somehow completed a 101-mile qualifier in San Diego.

This taught him a very important lesson: “That the human body can withstand and accomplish a hell of a lot more than most of us think possible, and that it all begins and ends in the mind.” ²

(5)  The 40% Rule

As impressive as his 101-mile run was, there was a problem. The race director of the Badwater 135 would not accept it as a prerequisite as he ran it TOO fast. The idea was to run 100 miles in 24 hours, and he did it in less than 24 hours. So, he needed to find another ultra marathon to qualify for the Badwater 135. This time he chose a race in Oahu, Hawaii called the Hurt 100. I’ve heard him refer to it as the hardest race he’s ever run as it was a 100-mile trail race through the rainy, jungles of Oahu, up and down 24,500 vertical feet!

The race tested him physically, but it tested him more mentally. During the race, he found he was able to push himself mentally and do WAY more than he thought, which led him to come up with the 40% rule.

He explains the 40% rule as follows: “Sadly, most of us give up when we’ve only given around 40 percent of our maximum effort. Even when we feel like we’ve reached our absolute limit, we still have 60 percent more to give.”

This is something that we can all apply in every area of our lives. Nothing ever turns out as we hope, we all experience challenges whether at work or in our home lives – the easy way out is to give up and walk away.  The only way to move beyond our 40% is to callous our mind, day after day by stretching outside our comfort zone and getting a little uncomfortable.

While we don’t all have the same floor or ceiling, what’s true is that we can all push past our usual stopping point – and if we do that on a consistent basis, we will grow!

Before Reading the Book…

…I read a bunch of reviews of his book on Amazon.

Over 90% were positive, which wasn’t a surprise. However, there were more than a few negative ones as well, which also was not surprising to me. You can’t keep everyone happy, and not everyone will like you.

Most of the criticisms revolved around two things.

(1)  The first was that there is too much cursing

So, if you are offended by f-bombs, you may not want to read this book because there are a ton of them. But to me, it is David being himself and is part of what makes the story of David Goggins real. As humans, we are all flawed, if the worst thing that you can say after reading the David Goggins story is that he swears too much, you are selling yourself short and missing some amazing life lessons.

(2)  His entering races unprepared

Many say he is stupid for risking his health by entering insanely long-distance racing without training. Of course, it probably isn’t smart for the average person to enter races like that unprepared. But I feel that those who are criticizing him for this are missing the bigger point.

Many times in life people spend way too much time procrastinating about doing things rather than actually doing them. The lesson here is that instead of thinking about things and never doing anything, to get up off your ass and make it happen!

“The Most Important Conversations You Have…

…are the ones you’ll have with yourself” is one of my favorite lines in the entire book.

While Navy SEALS are the uncommon of us in society, there is no doubt that in many ways, David Goggins is the uncommon of the uncommon…

And on that note, let’s end this blog post the way we started it, with the question that Goggins asks himself often and one that we can all benefit from asking ourselves often…

What am I capable of?… What are we all capable of?

Until next time, callous your mind and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It – Lessons from David Goggins Story

5 of the important lessons I have learned from David Goggins story are:

(1) The accountability mirror – ask yourself, “what have I done today to improve myself?”
(2) The calloused mind – by asking yourself, “what can I do today to push myself out of my comfort zone?”
(3) The cookie jar – gaining strength by reflecting on difficulties that you have been through in the past and have survived
(4)  The power of the mind – we can accomplish much more than we think if we just push past our usual stopping point.
(5)  The 40% rule – when we feel like we’ve reached our absolute limit, we still have 60 percent more to give.

What Do You Think?

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References

¹ https://davidgoggins.com/about/

² Can’t Hurt Me