Want to improve your life?

Then read this book.

The above image from davidgoggins.com

David Goggins is going tell you his story and in the process strip away all the bullshit around any excuses you’ve been making about not losing weight, changing jobs, eating better, running that 1/2 marathon, or cleaning out your garage.

He is self-aware, self-made, and self-motivated.

Most people in the world, if they push themselves at all, are willing to push themselves only so far.  Once they reach a cushy plateau, they chill the fuck out and enjoy the rewards, but there’s another phrase for that mentality.  It’s called getting soft, and that I could not abide.

The paragraph above quoted directly from
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

I like this message.

His message.

It’s linear and direct.

It’s delivered in a caustic, boot camp manner.

…so why are you lying to yourself?  So you can feel better for a few minutes and stay the fucking same?  If you’re fat you need to change the fact that you’re fat because it’s very fucking unhealthy.  I know because I’ve been there.

  If you have worked for thirty years doing the same shit you’ve hated day in and day out because you were afraid to quit and take a risk, you’ve been living like a pussy.  Period, point blank.  Tell yourself the truth!  That you’ve wasted enough time, and that you have other dreams that will take courage to realize, so that you don’t die a fucking pussy.

       Call yourself out!

The paragraph above quoted directly from
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

The book is large part autobiography, small part self-help, and 100% pure motivation.

Goggins’ story is compelling.

His writing is clear and consumable.

It includes lots of self-deprecation and critical self-awareness mashed together with relentless internal drive.

This man suffered as a child.

Physical and mental abuse, aggressive racism, paternal alcoholism and infidelity, poor schooling, a learning disability, and witness to crime around him.

This was his reality – what he saw/had growing up.

Opportunities were everywhere to go down the wrong path.

For him to be swallowed up by sin city – unemployed, destitute, or in jail.

But, the thing is – he didn’t.

He was able to, for lack of better words, survive his early childhood.

As a teenager he started to mature.

It wasn’t instant.

There were false starts and failures.  But, he was becoming self-aware and experienced at life.

Goggins did have one advantage – an innate ability to be hyper critical of his existence.

And realize that he alone could force change into his little world – That he could drive his life.

The above image from
The Valuencer YouTube Channel

This is what most people miss.  That they are a victim of the circumstances around them – just a rudderless boat in the water being pushed by the tide.

Goggins is not a boat.

Goggins is the tide.

He uncovers this about himself multiple times throughout the book.

This is a skill he develops.

He was analytical and objective about who he was and what he saw himself becoming if he didn’t start trying really hard at life.

And what came with this realization was….There are NO Short Cuts.

You have to put in the work.

You gotta EARN IT.

Luck is a capricious bitch.  It won’t always go your way, so you can’t get trapped in this idea that just because you’ve imagined a possibility for yourself that you somehow deserve it.  Your entitled mind is dead weight.  Cut it loose.  Don’t focus on what you think you deserve.  Take aim at what you’re willing to earn!

The paragraph above quoted directly from
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

You have to deconstruct yourself.

Break down your being to uncover the weaknesses.

Then make and execute a strategy to flip the script on those weak points.

Go straight at ‘em.  Destroy them as obstacles. Make them strengths.

And in this process you are callousing your mind.  Squashing that little voice inside that brings doubt and says, “Let’s just lay on the couch with Netflix and Donuts.”

If you could imagine that all Goggins’ coping skills, self-analysis traits, pain suppression tricks, work ethic qualities – were real hand tools you could see hanging on the walls of an old school work shop, you’d think a mid-century master craftsman works here.

Goggins’ adult life is an experience of mental blacksmithing.  Folding over and forging layers of psychological iron to armor plate his mind.

Goggins delivers all this too you throughout the book.

First in his compelling career in the military Special Forces.  Then as an endurance athlete.

Navy Seal, Army Ranger, Air Force Tactical Air Controller, Boston marathon qualifier, Badwater 135 finisher, Ultraman (Double Ironman) champion.  24 hour Pull up World Record Holder.

He is all of these and much more.

Can’t Hurt Me narrates the details, the recipe, of how Goggins achieved all this.

The specifics of his successes are all pretty incredible.  You’ll be hurriedly turning the pages to find out if he survives his self-imposed goals.

His internal drive is infectious.  It leaps off the pages straight into your motivation center.

For God’s sake if he can run across Death Valley in summer where the pavement is so hot that rubber on your sneakers melts then you can get off the couch and run a few laps around the high school track skipping the blueberry muffin after.

Ultimately, the message throughout the book is this:

YOU are at the controls.

YOU are the one driving your life.

Don’t look around and find excuses that are flimsy and weak.

Success and satisfaction are on YOU.

The above image from:
thoughteconimics.com