Can't Hurt Me
David Goggins
I discovered David Goggins 5 years ago when a friend showed me his Wikipedia page. I rediscovered him 2 years later talking about his experience at the San Diego 100 video. Jesse Itzler features in the video recounting the tale of Goggins’ 100 pull-up challenge - he asked Itzler to do a set of max pull ups, let him rest and then asked for more. When Itzler claimed he had nothing left Goggins said “we’re not leaving until you do 100 more”. Itzler goes on to complete them, demonstrating Goggins’ belief that we’re capable of much more than we think.
Challenges
Challenges come in many forms: health, relationships, sports, career. Goggins believes in honestly assessing yourself in the mirror each morning. Deception of the self is his ultimate sin. He gives an interesting example of people with ‘successful’ careers, who climb the ladder doing but are ultimately unfulfilled because they’ve lied to themselves about what matters to them.
Honesty
He’s relentless about examining where he’s not being honest or giving his all:
‘Anyone who is of sound mind and body can sit down and think of twenty things in their life that could have gone differently. Where maybe they didn’t get a fair shake or took the path of least resistance… it’s up to you to go back through your past and make peace with yourself by facing those incidents and all those negative influences. Don’t run from your past, use it as fuel’
Lies that we tell ourselves let us cut corners and slide into mediocrity. He challenges “I don’t have time”, saying:
“I know you have goals too… or your wouldn’t be reading my book, and I guarantee that if you audited your schedule you’d find time for more work and less bullshit”
Taking the hard path
This one speaks for itself:
“Some criticize my level of passion, but I’m not down with the prevailing mentalities that tend to dominate American society these days; the ones that tell us to go with the flow or invite us to learn how to get more with less effort. F*** that shortcut bullshit”
On trying to achieve things:
“It takes great strength to be vulnerable enough to put your ass on the line, in public, and work toward a dream. We all have eyeballs on us… people will have ideas about who you are, what you’re good at, and how you should focus your energy”.