Can’t Hurt Me

David Goggins, a young black child defeats his childhood trauma and inner demons to earn respect and honor. He has raised over $2 million for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Goggins inspires introspection and action through his brutal honesty about becoming a member of the US Navy’s elite Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Team and an ultra-sports athlete. This book hammers the value of mental toughness using tools Goggins discovers as he breaks down barriers and finds more untapped potential. Core Message Most of us leave behind untapped potential in virtually all pursuits and interactions. The result is a life of complacency and good-enough comfort of mediocrity that stops us from becoming our best versions. To seek our best, each of us must set our minds to reach excellence and reject mediocrity. How do these concepts compare with points raised in other books? Goggins gives a detailed account of his own life’s struggles and shares moments of inspiration that catapulted him as a confused black youth to join the Air Force Tactical Air Control Party and again when he lifted himself from a pest control night worker to a Navy SEAL while losing over 100 pounds in three months. David’s story is powerful because it is clear, authentic, and honest. What the book does well. The book inspires and challenges the reader to look at the mirror and see ourselves honestly, to hold ourselves accountable, and to activate the potential within us that remains untouched. It stirs and shakes the readers to move. What could have made this book better? It’s a very well written book. It’s real and does not hold back the power of the punch even as it uses profanity to convey it. The book could have held back a little on the crude language and not lost even a bit of its punch. Who would benefit from reading this book? Everyone can benefit from the story of David Goggins. It shows the power of determination and the will to keep running and chasing goals and resetting a new goal when we cross a finish line. There is no finish line in life, Goggins proclaims. How this book affected me The book inspired me. Some of the many learning points are: (1) We must run our own races. Build and follow a plan with discipline that fits our life priorities and life plan. (2) We become mentally lazy. We buy into artificial performance standards that are almost always artificially lower than what can be achieved. Failing in first attempt is not the reason to change the goal if the goal is valuable to us. We can and must prepare, improve, and crust the goal. (3) Tools are important to construct a scaffold for climbing to the top. Goggins highlights many tools he found useful: Accountability Mirror, After Action Report, One Second Decision, Attacking Weaknesses, Removing the Governors, leaning on the Cookie Jar and many more. (4) Likability is a key element of acceptance in any club. When people don’t like you, they will not invite you to join them, no matter how skilled you are. Goggins’s bosses in the SEALs told him to hang out with the teams after work. The message was clear. He did not. He remained an outsider. Being an outsider caused him to miss opportunities he could and should have had in the navy and the military. Goggins shows remarkable resilience, determination, and skill as a SEAL team member. He is unusually committed to fitness, strength, tactics, and execution. Still, he fails to ascend to the elite of the elite teams in the Navy, the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, abbreviated as DEVGRU and commonly known as SEAL Team Six and the Delta Team. He was not well liked, and he did not fit-in in the military’s private clubs of white men. Goggins owns his truth with brutal honesty and shares his lessons with refreshing gratitude. Real but not angry. He channeled his disappointments into action that put him on a new path to the mission to inspire high performance and accountability. (5) Single minded focus on your progress can cost you a warm social life. Goggins does not share much about how or why his marriages ended, but the reader is left questioning whether his single-minded focus to compete for excellence is compatible with a warm social and personal life. (6) Racism is prevalent everywhere. Goggins acknowledges it honestly and moves on swiftly to an action-oriented approach to earn his right based on skills and performance. His antidote to racism is dedication and excellence. (7) Our scariest demons are in our minds. We can’t reach our potential without defeating them. Goggins’s story pounds this reality throughout the whole story of his life. You don’t need to be an athlete, a military man/woman, or a man who has faced significant hardship in life to appreciate David Goggins’s life story. If you aspire to becoming better in achieving your life goals, this book will help you take an accounting of your mental rules, tools, and resources.