Book Summary
Canât Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
by David Goggins ⢠Summarized by Dean Bokhari
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*Important note: this book summary contains explicit language which may be inappropriate for some readers.
About
Navy SEAL. Army Ranger. Ultra-marathon runner. Ultra-distance cyclist. Triathlete. Motivational speaker. Guinness World Record holder for having completed 4,030 pull-ups within a 17-hour period of time⌠Each of these accomplishments are part of one manâs life-journey. His name is David Goggins, and heâs the author of Canât Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds.
In this incredibly inspiring autobiographical self-help book, David shares his journey of transformation, including how he went from being a 297-pound exterminator to one of the toughest men on the planet.
The man has managed to overcome unimaginable pain and tragedy in lifeâand still found a way to conquer his challenges and accomplish his goals. And in Canât Hurt Me, he combines his life story with a series of strategies to help you master your mind, defy the odds, and accomplish your own goals.
Hereâs what youâll learn about in this book summary
- The keys to developing mental toughness
- How to hold yourself accountable to achieve your goals
- How to condition yourself to push past pain and adversity to accomplish your highest ambitions.
- and much, much moreâŚ
Summary in a sentence
By regularly and intentionally seeking difficulty and discomfort in your life, and by demanding more from yourselfâphysically, mentally, emotionally, and spirituallyâyou can achieve the extraordinary and make what you previously thought impossible, possible. âclick-to-tweet
Crucial Quotes
âOur culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. Thereâs no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if youâre lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, youâll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.ââDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
âYou are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
âItâs a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
BIG IDEAS
Book Summary: Canât Hurt Me by David Goggins
- The Accountability Mirror
- The 40% Rule
- What if?
- Bring Your Best When You Feel Your Worst
- Callous Your Mind
- Seeds Burst From the Inside Out
1. The Accountability Mirror
âTell the truth about the real reasons for your limitations and you will turn that negativity, which is real, into jet fuel. Those odds stacked against you will become a damn runway. There is no more time to waste. Hours and days evaporate like creeks in the desert. Thatâs why itâs okay to be cruel to yourself as long as you realize youâre doing it to become better. We all need thicker skin to improve in life. Being soft when you look in the mirror isnât going to inspire the wholesale changes we need to shift our present and open up our future âŚ. the only reason I didnât become just another statistic is because, at the last possible moment, I got to work.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
The aforementioned crucial quote is about Gogginsâ first experience with what he calls the âAccountability Mirror,â which is a reality-based ritual he started during a point in his life when nothing seemed like it was going his way.
Hereâs how the Accountability Mirror works: Goggins would stand in front of his bathroom mirror and get real with himself about where he was and where he wanted to be. Heâd yell at himself, call himself names, and have full-on conversations with himself about the type of person he needed to become in order to achieve his goals.
After his first experience with the Accountability Mirror, Goggins began to put the pieces of his life togetherâŚ
He stopped caring about what all the âcoolâ kids in school thought about him. He stopped sagging his pants and started tucking his shirt in. He stopped slacking off and got his grades up. He wrote down his goals on Post-It notes and put them on his mirror. Each day, heâd stand in front of his mirror and his goals and hold himself accountable.
He maintained this habit of holding himself accountable into adulthood and attributes it as one of the contributors to his mental toughness and success.
Bottom line? The Accountability Mirror is something youâll find helpful no matter what stage of life youâre in.
Actionable insights
- 1. Start your own daily ritual of standing in front of the Accountability Mirror. Look into it on a daily basis and tell yourself the truth about where you are and where you want to be.
- 2. Write down your goals on Post-It notes and tag them to your Accountability Mirror. Hold yourself accountable to your goals on a daily basis.
One last (f-bomb laden) quote on this Big Idea before we move on:
âIf you look into the mirror and you see a fat person, donât tell yourself that you need to lose a couple of pounds. Tell the truth. Youâre f*cking fat! Itâs okay. Just say youâre fat if youâre fat. The dirty mirror that you see every day is going to tell you the truth every time, so why are you still lying to yourself? So you can feel better for a few minutes and stay the f*cking same? If youâre fat you need to change the fact that youâre fat because itâs very f*cking unhealthy. I know because Iâve been there.â
âď¸ Thatâs an example of getting real with yourself in front of the Accountability MirrorâŚ
What do you see when you stand in front of yours?
2. The 40% Rule
âWhen you think that you are done, youâre only 40% in to what your bodyâs capable of doing. Thatâs just the limits that we put on ourselves.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
Imagine youâre driving a car with a top speed of 180 MPH.
This car is equipped with an internal mechanism that alerts you when youâre going faster than usual.
As you cruise down the freeway, you decide to see how fast this bad boy can goâso you push the gas and let it rip.
The car picks up speed, getting faster and faster by the minute.
Then, as you approach 100 MPH, you notice something: the steering wheel starts to tremble, letting you know youâre starting to push the carâs acceleration a little too hardâŚ
But you think, âWait, canât the car go 180? I want to push this car to the max! Why do I feel like I need to slow down?â
Exactly.
Human beings are the same wayâŚ
We donât always need to push ourselves to the max, but at certain times and with certain endeavors, we do.
And just like the car weâre driving, we have an internal âGovernorâ that tells us to stop way before weâve reached our max.
Hereâs the thing: most of us tap into only 40% of what weâre truly capable of.
When you feel like giving up, when it feels like youâre too exhausted to keep going, when you believe youâve hit your capacityâthe fact is, youâre usually just 40% there⌠This means your mind wants you to stop, even though youâve still got plenty of juice left in the tank!
Youâre capable of more than you think.
Knowing this truth is the first step to becoming unstoppable and achieving the impossible.
Next time you feel like giving up on something, remember the 40% Rule: when you feel like giving up, youâre only at 40% capacity, which means your fuel tank is still 60% full.
Actionable insights
- To start living your life at full capacity, embrace the âdiscomfort zoneâ by pushing past your comfort zone incrementally, bit by bit. For example: if you feel like giving up after 10 pushups, push yourself to do 5 more. And next time, push yourself to do 6 more, and so on.
- Youâre capable of more than you think. Use the 40% Rule to remind yourself of that. Work hard and stretch yourself just a little bit outside your comfort zoneâbit by bit on a daily basisâand youâll keep establishing those tiny points of progress as your new baselines. Bit by bit. Each and every day⌠Before you know it, all those things you previously believed were impossible, are now not just possible, but normal.
âThe main objective here is to slowly start to remove the governor from your brain. First, a quick reminder of how this process works. In 1999, when I weighed 297 pounds, my first run was a quarter-mile. Fast forward to 2007, I ran 205 miles in thirty-nine hours, nonstop. I didnât get there overnight, and I donât expect you to either. Your job is to push past your normal stopping point âŚ. Whether you are running on a treadmill or doing a set of push-ups, get to the point where you are so tired and in pain that your mind is begging you to stop. Then push past 5 to 10 percent further. If the most push-ups you have ever done is one hundred in a workout, do 105 or 110. If you normally run thirty miles each week, run 10 percent more. The bottom line is that life is one big mind game. The only person you are playing against is yourself. Stick with this process and soon what you thought was impossible will be something you do every f*cking day.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
3. What if?
âThe most important conversations youâll ever have are the ones youâll have with yourself. You wake up with them, you walk around with them, you go to bed with them, and eventually you act on them. Whether they be good or bad. We are all our own worst haters and doubters because self-doubt is a natural reaction to any bold attempt to change your life for the better. You canât stop it from blooming in your brain, but you can neutralize it, and all the other external chatter by asking, What if?â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
WHAT IF you worked harder to achieve your dreams?
WHAT IF you pushed past your comfort zone next time you feel like giving up?
WHAT IF you let go of all the reasons why you canât do something, and replaced them with all the reasons why you can?
How much would it change your life? How much of a difference could you make?
And what if you decided to start⌠right now?
Actionable insights
- Next time youâre inspired to do something, but feel that sense of self-doubt start kicking in, stop yourself and ask:
- âWhat if I did _____?â Fill in the blank with what you want to do.
- Then, think about this: What would a successful outcome look like?
- And finally, follow it up with action.
4. Bring Your Best When You Feel Your Worst
âOnce youâre in the heat of battle, it comes down to staying power. If itâs a difficult physical challenge you will probably have to defeat your own demons before you can take your opponentâs soul. That means rehearsing answers to the simple question that is sure to rise up like a thought bubble:
âWhy am I here?â If you know that moment is coming and have your answer ready, you will be equipped to make the split-second decision to ignore your weakened mind and keep moving. Know why youâre in the fight to stay in the fight!
And never forget that all emotional and physical anguish is finite! It all ends eventually. Smile at pain and watch it fade for at least a second or two. If you can do that, you can string those seconds together and last longer than your opponent thinks you can, and that may be enough to catch a second wind. There is no scientific consensus on second wind. Some scientists think itâs the result of endorphins flooding your nervous system, others think itâs a burst of oxygen that can help break down lactic acid, as well as the glycogen and triglycerides muscles need to perform. Some say itâs purely psychological.
All I know is that by going hard when we felt defeated we were able to ride a second wind through the worst night of Hell Week. And once you have that second wind behind you itâs easy to break your opponents down and snatch a soul. The hard part is getting to that point, because the ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
Gogginsâ will to prosper through pain and adversity is unparalleled.
One of the major keys to success and victory, he says, often comes down to âbringing your best when you feel your worst.â And you donât need to go through Navy SEAL Hell Week to put that nugget of wisdom into action within your own life, eitherâyou can start using this knowledge right away.
In fact, just knowing this truth is helpful.
Knowing the importance of âcallousing your mindâ to hard and painful thingsâover and over againâhelps us prosper. It helps us start to live by one of the core messages of the book: to do what we need to do, regardless of whether we feellike it or not.
Bring your best when you feel your worst.
The worse you feel, the more committed you must become. Put everything into your goals and dreams and youâll astonish yourself with what youâre capable of.
Another notable idea that Goggins shares is about being prepared for adversity and expecting to face obstacles on our individual pathways to success.
Knowing about obstacles will help you overcome them, rather than give up when the going gets tough.
The final element to this Big Idea about bringing your best when you feel your worst is this: Know your WHYâŚ
Why is it important to you to push through pain and adversity when it hits you?
Whatâs YOUR why? Have it in mind. Write it down. Commit it to memory.
Then, use it to push past the pain you KNOW will show up.
Actionable insights
- Remember that youâve always got more in the tank. Keep going and youâll hit that second wind.
- EXPECT problems and obstacles to pop up on your way towards achieving your goals so that you arenât surprised when they doâand have a plan in place to deal with them if you can.
- Know your Whyâthe reason(s) youâre doing what youâre doing; the purpose behind the actions youâre taking to achieve a goal or dream.
- For more about how to find your Why, read (or listen) to this free guide:How to Find Your Why
5. Callous Your Mind
âTime stood still as I realized for the first time that Iâd always looked at my entire life, everything Iâd been through, from the wrong perspective. Yes, all the abuse Iâd experienced and the negativity I had to push through challenged me to the core, but in that moment I stopped seeing myself as the victim of bad circ*mstances, and saw my life as the ultimate training ground instead. My disadvantages had been callousing my mind all along âŚ. I remember my very first day in the gym back in Indiana. My palms were soft and quickly got torn up by the bars because they werenât accustomed to gripping steel.
But over time, after thousands of reps, my palms built up thick callous as protection. The same principle works when it comes to mindset. Until you experience hardships like abuse and bullying, failures and disappointments, your mind will remain soft and exposed.
Life experience, especially negative experiences, help callous the mind. But itâs up to you where that callous lines up. If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circ*mstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar. It will make you too cautious and untrusting, and possibly too angry at the world. It will make you fearful of change and hard to reach, but not hard of mind.
Thatâs where I was as a teenager, but after my second Hell Week, Iâd become someone new. Iâd fought through so many horrible situations by then and remained open and ready for more. My ability to stay open represented a willingness to fight for my own life, which allowed me to withstand hail storms of pain and use it to callous over my victimâs mentality. That sh*t was buried under layers of sweat and hard f*cking flesh, and I was starting to callous over my fears too. That realization gave me the mental edge I neededâŚ.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
David Goggins did not have an easy childhood or an easy adulthood. He had an extremely abusive father who beat him, his brother, and his mother. But physical abuse was only the half of it. Heâs endured all manner of psychological abuse as well. Heâs suffered through poverty. Heâs seen murder. The stories he shares in the book have a very visceral, powerful effect. The sheer amount and intensity of these painful life-experiences are enough to make anyone feel like a victimâbut not GogginsâŚ
He couldâve chosen to give up and blame his circ*mstances for his lack of success, but he instead chose to be the hero of his story rather than the victim. He took his pain and used it to callous over his mind, which helped him develop a rock-solid mindset to prosper no matter what he was doing.
In Gogginsâ own words: âIt takes great strength to be vulnerable enough to put your ass on the line, in public, and work towards a dream that feels like itâs slipping away.â
Donât let your dreams slip away. Stay the course. Train hard. Callous your mind!
One more nugget of wisdom on mindset and work ethic: âvisualization will never compensate for the work undone. You cannot visualize lies. All the strategies I employ to answer the simple questions and win the mind game are effective because I put in work. Itâs a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self-discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day, but if you do, youâll find that at the other end of that suffering is a whole other life just waiting for you.â
Actionable insights
- Next time youâre doing something difficult and feel like giving up, remember: hard things make you stronger. This is what youâve been training for. Keep going. Build up those callouses. Eventually, what feels hard today will feel like a piece of cake tomorrow. Donât be the victim, be the hero.
6. Seeds Burst From the Inside-Out
âThat doesnât mean I was having any fun. I wasnât. I was over it. I didnât want to do pull-ups anymore, but achieving goals or overcoming obstacles doesnât have to be fun. Seeds burst from the inside out in a self-destructive ritual of new life. Does that sound like f*cking fun? Like it feels good? I wasnât in that gym to get happy or do what I wanted to be doing. I was there to turn myself inside out if thatâs what it took to blast through any and all mental, emotional, and physical barriers.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
Seeds bursting from the inside out in a self-destructive ritual of new life⌠Howâs that for mental imagery?
Itâs a powerful image to think about, because it brings to mind that in order to level-up in our lives we must break down the barriers that hold us back.
Oftentimes, those barriers are self-created.
The crucial quote with which we opened this Big Idea comes from a chapter titled, âThe Empowerment of Failure.â
In this chapter, Goggins shares how he became a Guinness World Record holder for completing the most pull-ups within a 24-hour time span.
Well, within a period of 17 hours, this man cranked out 4,030 pull-ups.
Absolutely incredible.
This was an incredible feat to pull off, but it took two failed attempts before he could successfully put his name in the record books on his third go.
His first failure at breaking the record even happened on live television! He didnât feel like much of a hot-shot after that one, but it didnât deter him from trying again.
On his second attempt, he failed again. This time around, he tried so hard that the layers of skin on the palms of his hands were so shredded from gripping the pull-up bar that they had gotten to the point that the layers of skin and callous on his palms had peeled down to the NERVES. Continuing any further wouldâve been too dangerous for Goggins. So, he walked away with his head down once again.
Before his third and final attempt at breaking the world record for pull-ups, he got more strategic about what he needed to do in order to successfully accomplish his goalâŚ
First, he utilized something from his Navy SEAL days known as âAfter Action Reports,â which is a form of analyzing and evaluating your performance by: 1) reviewing what went well, 2) reviewing what went wrong or needs improvement, and 3) what can be done differently in the future.
Using the information gleaned from his After Action Reports, Goggins got to work, breaking down the details of what needed to be done in order to make his next attempt a successful one.
Another important element was Gogginsâ ability to not let his failures get the best of him. He didnât blame anyone else for his failures, he decided to make it happen.
He didnât know exactly when the record would be his, but he DECIDED it would be eventually: âIt might be in two months or twenty years, but once I decided it belonged to me and decoupled it from the calendar, I was filled with confidence and relieved of any and all pressure because my task morphed from trying to achieve the impossible into working toward an inevitability.â
Actionable insights
- Consider decoupling your goals from your calendar. Sometimes your goals take more time or different strategies to achieve than you may have originally intended or anticipated. Thatâs OK. Learn from your failures and press-on.
- DECIDE to make your goals a reality, determine what you need to do in order to make it happen, and then get to work taking action until you make the impossible possible.
- Remember: seeds burst from the inside out. Use that metaphor to blast through your barriers, master your mind, and defy the odds.
Closing notes
Key takeaways
- No matter your aim in life, one thing is for sure: if youâre going to aim high, there will be obstacles along the way. Your job? EMBRACE those obstacles and USE them to strengthen yourselfâphysically and psychologically; personally and professionallyâas you march toward your dreams and successfully accomplish your goals.
- Hereâs one final crucial quote to keep in mind as we close out this book summary of Canât Hurt Me: âIt wonât always go your way, so you canât get trapped in this idea that just because youâve imagined a possibility for yourself that you somehow deserve it. Your entitled mind is dead weight. Cut it loose. Donât focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim on what you are willing to earn!â âŚSo, what are you willing to EARN? Whatever youâre after, decide today to develop the discipline, embrace the struggle, and do whatever it takes to master your mind and defy the odds.
About the Author
- David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL and the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces ever to complete SEAL training, US Army Ranger School, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. He has competed in over 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons, within which heâs set multiple course records and has regularly placed in the top 5. Goggins is also a Guinness World Record holder for having completed 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours. As a public speaker, David Goggins has also had the opportunity to share his story with thousands of people from a wide range of companies and organizations around the world. Learn more + connect: https://davidgoggins.com
Notes + Resources
- Buy the original book
- Listen to the audio summary of Canât Hurt Me with a membership
Bonus Notes + Crucial Quotes
âWe live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success. Because when we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls theyâve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations. But if they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop its fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
âIn the military we always say we donât rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training,â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me âBut as I became conditioned to the risk, my tolerance for that same fear increased. It was always there, but I was used to the discomfort and before long I was able to handle multiple tasks on a jump and appreciate the moment too.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
âThe Buddha famously said that life is suffering. Iâm not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss. Thatâs just nature. Each specific life comes with its own personalized portion of pain. Itâs coming for you. You canât stop it. And you know it.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
âI thought Iâd solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.â âDavid Goggins, Canât Hurt Me
