David Goggins

"For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare. Poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him 'The Fittest (Real) Man in America.'. In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential"--Publisher's description.

Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

Can't Hurt Me

New York Times Bestseller Over 2.5 million copies sold For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him The Fittest (Real) Man in America. In this curse-word-free edition of Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.

Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds - Clean Edition

What a ride of emotions. It’s a reminder that we can push through the toughest times and be happy with our lives. 

Alejandro Ramirez Jr.

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

The book is a conversation with David Goggins. He is a known superhuman but underneath, a man who had to endure pain and suffering and coming out hard and determined. A modern day warrior in life. Not only does he walk the talk, he runs...a lot.

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him The Fittest (Real) Man in America. In this curse-word-free edition of Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.

Decent read that recounts a crazy life that repeatedly pushed through all pain barriers. Useful for remembering that most limits are self imposed, but the extremity of the stories were hard to relate to.

Fred Rivett

Gold! Inspiring, honest…. can’t say enough good things about this book! All the stars! 

Jenna Safran 

nobody can hurt Goggins … except himself, a lot

David Dunstan

The author did an amazing journey, that is entertaining and fascinating in this well executed interview-podcast-mixed-with-audiobook-format. But it is also a kind unironic autobiography of toxic masculinity and survival bias turned into some kind of inspirational self-help book where the key message is to suffer, take more pain and never ask for help. The reason this journey stands out, is that most people with the same approach didn't survive to write a book about it.

Stefan Pettersson

Christine Vogel

Es zog sich teilweise, da viel wiederholt wurde. Allerdings ist es schon sehr beeindruckend und motivierend.

Colin

8.8/10

Has earned a place as one of my canon books. Will be rereading again soon with notes.

Irene Alegre

Fantastic book – and unexpectedly so. I learned a lot from it, and it does push you to work out and give it your all. I think I'll re-read it from time to time (at least a couple of sections) so as not to forget.

Sabrina

Dimitrios Mavromatis

The 4 stars goes to how original this book is. Goggins is not an every day person. In fact quite the oposite. This book is about transformation but alost a year later I do not remeber any concrete lesson learned in the book other than Goggins really turned his life upside down and inside out.

Still, definetely worth the read. Even more so definetely to look this person up and check his interviews out.

Ethan Ding

something about toxic masculinity

but i mean, I'm toxically masculine. appeals to me

Ugis

An inspiring read from the toughest motherfucker in the world. A great man, great story and great stuff to take with me from the book. [reading time: 10h45m]

Ashutosh

I wrote this as an article on Medium, you can also check this out here-
 https://avidwriter11.medium.com/how-t...

It’s a Sunday morning where I live, and as I open my bedroom window the same old view, the same old buildings surrounded with trees, the same familiar people walking on the streets. and one more thing that’s same, is me, I know it sounds a bit weird. Be it any person everyone experiences differences every single day. But other than those small insignificant nudges, life is just as monotonous as the previous day,week, hell whole year. and then as usual my brain spirals down into a rabbit hole of thoughts, guilt slowly taking its hold over me. As the departure of the day comes closer these tiny little demons come back to work. Again those thoughts and the same cycle goes on and on for days to come. but whats the point telling you readers about all this. Don’t you face your own daily wars, internal and external, equally frustrating and devious. Good as well as bad things have their fair share of involvements in life, and good came into the picture at last.I discovered Cant Hurt Me.

Now before you go on thinking or judging me like here comes another guy who talks about how a book changed his life. Well cut me some slack there, I’ve read and watched such people myself. But the book I’m gonna talk about Isn’t the one that changed my life, rather its in the process of changing it. See you can seldom put haphazard full stops on certain things in life. As rocks take years to get transformed into different shapes, humans also require a great amount of time to see good or bad changes in themselves and its all depended on the small decisions we make along the journey. And that’s where mental resistance comes into play.

Before I do a deep dive into how the book is helpful in defying the odds as it says, let me make it clear beforehand that i wont be saying much about the contents of the book and rather I’ll be majorly focusing on the necessary things that’ll help you in going ahead just fine.

Mental Resistance :
Have you ever experienced a very minute or mostly insignificant level of discomfort when your mom tells you to go outside and buy some groceries, or when you’ve positively wasted an hour on making “the perfect routine” and the very next day you don’t even feel like getting out of bed let alone following the routine. I can place several more examples and relatable more so, but the point is, that minute level of discomfort is what kills the motivation to do something then and there and that is what we term as mental resistance.
Its not like you don’t want to do those planned things, it just that due bad choices, be it eating habits, be it sleep, be it late night parties, all these choices add up to a set of internal routine it plays all these scenarios behind the curtains and when the time comes, that single nudge ruins it all.

Cant Hurt Me- Ideas and Introspection:
What I learned after reading Cant Hurt Me, is that we humans are living in such times where making things more and more easier and time saving are ironically the exact same things that are making you softer day by day leading you towards chronic diseases and lack of immunity and costing you more time and money. And how you become softer, by being vulnerable to mental resistance. We’ve obviously heard about comfort zone and following such activities are only ruining you mentally and physically.

In the book David Goggins takes you on a very bumpy and horrifying ride through what you may call as hell. He presents you with his story filled with abuse, trauma , comfort zone a bit later and how the soft lifestyle was on the verge of ruining his life. But what comes after that is story of resurrection, determination and most of all an earth shattering level of discipline.

His story will make you weep at times, but I guarantee you one thing, by the end of the book you will be enlightened in many ways and about many things.

We often stop very early when we decide to make some changes in our behavior, our routine. Reason being, we see people as some one night success dummies. we bring them into our attention only when we see them holding some respectable post or stage. And then what. We completely forget about them in a day or two. But one more thing that we forget is that we humans are an amalgamation of stories and not just sudden achievements that we presume us to be. 

Every success has a story, and as cliche as it may sound, its equally true. But for that story to be a glorious one you need to wave off the distractions, you need look at the mirror and see the comfortable face in the eye, you need to ask the right questions everyday. As you come closer towards the end of the book, there’s a part where David Goggins mentions about what would we say to god after we die.

When our turn comes up and god asks us, how was your life, or what did you do down there, what answer will you give.

Small Decisions :
Well, for a better answer, you need to hope for a better life, for a better life you need to take smaller but painful decisions. You need to be more powerful then your mental resistance. and for that you should start slow.
Don’t compare your life with others who are successful, everyone’ running a different race, everyone’ going through different circumstances. If they are successful, they have worked for it.

Nothing becomes significant overnight, it takes those smaller yet difficult steps as I mentioned earlier to get to that level.

Push yourself everyday, as Goggins says “stay hard”, don’t let mere excuses be a frequent obstruction in your way.

40% Rule: This rule is properly described in the book, but to put it simply, every time you feel like stopping, just think of doing 40% more, keep on adding until you attain the desired goal.

Cookie Jar: Its more like a reward system, but a bit different as you don’t get a reward, but just a visual evidence of it. Cookie Jar rule says that whenever you complete a certain task just transfer one cookie from the cookie jar to an empty jar, just to give you a satisfaction and a push to fill the empty jar by also completing the work. if you cannot resist the craving and have a fear of emptying that jar all by yourself, then you can go for paper clips.

Stick post it notes with your daily priorities written on them, so that whenever you face the mirror you get reminded about the things that matter.

So as we come to an end I’d like to mention one thing. It doesn’t matter if you read self help books or not, if you like to get straight to the point there are always summaries and book reviews like these to save your time. Yet when you read a particular book you not only support the author but also get the advantage of remembering things more properly as those important points have a story behind them. And stories are what make us believable, stories are what make us human.

Thank you all for taking out your precious time and reading this article. If you liked it, do give your feedback, share it with your friends and stay tuned for more such in depth reviews and summaries.


Goodreads Short Review:
This is the book that'll,
- Pump you up right away for doing something, any kinda movement
- Change your mentality and perception towards problems
- Change your mentality towards the extreme potentials of any human brain.
- Change your attitude towards accomplishing anything that seems impossible initially.

David Goggins is known as the toughest man on planet earth for a reason, and those are pretty much convincing when you read the events that he gone through and struggled through. In the book he constantly reminds you that he himself rose up from bad and terrible phases of his life. His father beat and abused him and his mother. And how -after they left his father- he gained a lot of weight as he spiralled down his way through the rabbit hole of comfort zone. And when he saw a clip related to Navy SEAL his future drastically changed and turned him into a Masochistic person who was ready to deal with any physical punishment a human brain can endure. Coz in the end he conveys that everything that limits you from doing unimaginable things is in some or other way connected with comfortable life and your brain resisting you from doing any tenous activity. And by the end of the book you'll have 10 challenges arranged in a very statistic manner, that'll keep you going even after you're done reading the book. A very engaging and energetic read!!.

Fatima Zahra

Watch some YouTube videos about this subject and you’ll get more out of it than this book.

Ciara Perrin 

Can't Hurt Me was an incredible book that really got me in the right headspace for all the tough things in life. I could hear his voice in the back of my head when I wanted to slack off in the gym. David Goggins clearly speaks from a point of authority on the subject of mind over matter, considering what he has been through. I would highly recommend it to anyone. His way of thinking is clearly UNHEALTHY and he even states that in the book. There does need to balance and happiness and joy in your life. But man, he really puts your whining in perspective. Adding just a splash of the David Goggins mentality into day to day life would really do most people some good!

Omar Fernandez

The essence of this book is, you can push yourself to give so much more than you imagine possible, but you have to push through the pain and discomfort by taking control of your narrative and the voice in your head.

Emily

A great narrative of how someone spun his life around, and of overcoming physical and mental obstacles (though some of them overexaggerated). It really feels like a fiction birthed from some sick masochistic mind, but everything quite evidently happened for real. Maybe with enough training i too can do 4030 push ups in a day, or win the badwater ultra. But all seriousness aside, I’d highly recommend the book for the overachievers, the insane, and those willing to go the extra mile.

Judith Junghans

One of the best and most inspiring books I've ever read.

Kingston Breton

Though I don't suggest everyone take on the same disregard for self this book will for sure get you fired up and get you believing that you can do anything

Matthew Chasco

Complacency kills . . . There really is a lot to take away from this one.
I read this while I listened to the audio book. The audio book is a must. It includes an interview with the author after each chapter and additional insights throughout the book.

Ivaylo Durmonski

Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins is a brutally honest story of a guy who is physically tormented by his father. About an ordinary boy, who despite all the obstacles, limitations, barriers, becomes one of the strongest athletes. Along with that, he’s also an ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete, motivational speaker and author.

The tips inside the book are nothing really new about becoming better: get uncomfortable, go beyond your comfort zone, work hard, set goals, the common things you’ll find in a motivational book. Yet, the story told by David Goggins is really well written. Full of ghetto language, adventures, and a detailed description of how he overcomes a lifetime of struggle, prove everyone around him wrong and becomes the ultimate machine.

Though the techniques mentioned in the book are nothing new, as mentioned, while reading you’ll undoubtedly get motivated to improve your life.

I mean, the author is constantly pushing his body past the point of sanity in order to accomplish a goal. You can’t not be motivated, inspired and also feel extremely guilty for skipping your workouts when you hear about him running 100 miles in less than 24 hours.

Major takeaway for me?

The mind and the body can take more than you think they can. Don’t stop because you’re tired. Stop when you’re done with what you’re doing, and then some.

More?
Here: https://durmonski.com/book-summaries/...

Emma Bickford

Humans are incredible. Stay hard and READ THIS NOW!!!

Ervin Szerdocz

I've heard of David Goggins before, and I knew he is a though guy, but damn he surprised me in this book. He stretched the limits of my assumptions about human potential and already prompted me into action, to the desperation of my wife.

Can't Hurt Me Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

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