STAY f*ckING HARD.
That’s my first impression of former Navy Seal David Goggins.
Goggins is a retired Navy Seal and the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL Training, U.S Army Ranger School, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. He is a former Guinness World Record holder for completing 4,030 pull-ups in seventeen hours (yes, you read that correctly) and competed in over sixty ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons. In 2018, he authored a successful book, selling 900,000 copies in just four months being on the shelf.
The list of his achievements goes on and on.
Following the release of his book and respective success, he became more and more popular.
When he first captured the public eye where he first exploded onto the scene, I heard mentions of his name on my social media feeds. I watched a couple of his famous one-minute videos, but my curiosity never advanced past that point. I felt that it was another person giving impractical advice on self-improvement. So I passed on buying his book.
When I first stumbled onto a one minute clip of Goggins, he blew my mind. I stared at my screen, where I watched a shirtless Goggins run in what he described to be 100-degree weather. He was shouting at me about controlling my mind and hardening my mental toughness.
Of course, he didn’t say this in friendly terms.
After watching an interview he had on Joe Rogan’s podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, I had no reservations about his character or message and finally decided to pick up his book at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble.
I read the book in one week.
There were tons of gems in the book that changed my life dramatically.
But lately, I’ve been thinking: What exactly was so captivating about his message that has led to hundreds of thousands of people, including myself, so inspired to change their lives?
Upon reflection, I boiled his message down to three main points:
1. Transcending Your Pain
After reading the first couple of chapters in his book, it’s clear that no one understands pain and suffering more than Goggins.
He vividly detailed the physical and verbal abuse he faced at his father’s hands, the overt racism he dealt with throughout his life, and the countless failures he experienced throughout his journey to becoming the man he is today.
Unlike your traditional motivational speaker, Goggins separates himself by encouraging you to call on your past traumas and use them for motivation.
There are a total of ten challenges in his book. He dedicated four to observing, detailing, and conquering fears and insecurities. This includes journaling your deepest pains, writing After Action Reports (AAR) about past failures, and visualizing past obstacles you’ve overcome.
He demands that you face yourself instead of avoiding your problems.
Goggins leads by example by exposing his troubling past in his book and shows that anyone is capable of overcoming their pain. By doing this, he gives others strength.
2. Taking Accountability
Have you ever heard the saying when you point the finger, there’s three pointing back? No one agrees with this more than Goggins.
“It wasn’t my fault; it was because of XYZ.” In today’s world, we blame all our problems/inadequacies on the next person.
Goggins refuses to live his life this way.
It’s much easier to fix yourself than it is to rely on someone else to fix you. All the necessary tools are at our disposal.
He uses some form of accountability as a means for self-improvement in all of his challenges. One of my personal favorites is the accountability mirror.
The accountability mirror is a mirror that you tag sticky notes on that detail areas in your life where you should improve.
There’s something very intimidating about looking yourself in the mirror every day and having to take on the goals you’ve already set. It’s added pressure that motivates you because you don’t want to face yourself at the end of the day if you know you didn’t give your best effort.
Goggins used this as a way to hold himself accountable for the responsibilities or goals he set for himself.
3. STAYING HARD — Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
Our present-day society struggles with this the most. What shoes do we prefer? The ones with the most comfortable soles. What type of bed do we want to sleep on? The one with the most plush. What do we do after a long day? Turn off our minds with Netflix or our cellphones. Goggins believes our desire to cling to the familiar is ultimately defeating.
Before becoming a man of steel, Goggins was the exact opposite. He used to be a person who shied away from any obstacle.
Ultimately, he found that the most growth lied beyond the familiar. It was found in discomfort.
He came up with the idea of scheduling suffering into his day. He intentionally did the tasks he hated. But he knew it were good for him.
It started with running to lose weight. He hated running. Who doesn’t? As a result, he developed the tolerance to endure difficult tasks.
Goggins calls this callosing your mind.
Have you ever played in a jungle gym when you were a kid? Have you ever noticed that your hands start to tear after a while of playing on the monkey bars? When you come back a few days later, your adolescent hands’ soft skin is replaced with thicker, harder layers of skin.
That should be our mind.
After routinely doing challenging activities, your mind becomes hard. You replace the softness of fear, self-doubt, and anxiety with a callus that is determination, perseverance, and toughness.
Human potential is all we have. Usually, it can be found in the unexplored territory where your deepest fears/avoidances lie.
Goggins embodies this. After forcing himself through his grueling training regimen, he callused his mind. He conquered his past self. Birthing a new grittier person.
We all struggle with comfort. We all want someone to hold our hands and tell us everything is going to be okay. The problem with this is we seek the people that will tell us what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear.
It makes us feel comfortable stress eating after a long day. Taking drugs to ease the burden of everyday life. But Goggins shows us that the path of least resistance isn’t a happy one. We often feel worse after indulging in our vices.
By callosing our mind, we become more than we ever thought we could. It isn’t easy, but for Goggins, being uncomfortable is the only way to achieve this.
Goggins’ message isn’t for everyone. He makes that clear. But he doesn’t give any advice that he doesn’t live daily. He’s a practitioner, not a theorist. He always leads by example and this is what has made him wildly popular. It is also what has changed countless lives. Remember one thing: STAY HARD.
