The voice you listen to more than anyone’s is the one in your own head. I said that in a conversation about fear of failure back in 2019, and I’d say it again now. David Goggins says it louder.
I’m a big believer in the power of conversation. Goggins makes it clear that the most important conversation you’ll ever have is the one you have with yourself. Can’t Hurt Me is basically a book about winning that conversation.
The first time I read about Goggins was in Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler. It’s a phenomenal book. Jesse pays a Navy SEAL to move into his house and train him, and the SEAL is relentless. Runs in the snow, hundreds of pull-ups, no excuses accepted. That SEAL was Goggins. So by the time Can’t Hurt Me came out I already knew the character. I didn’t know the story.
Hell and back
He’s been to hell and back and survived. Goggins grew up with an abusive father, poverty, racism and a school system that let him slip through the cracks. As a young man he was badly overweight, working nights spraying for cockroaches, and going nowhere. He decided he wanted to be a Navy SEAL and lost more than 100 pounds in a few months to qualify. Then he kept going back to the hardest training in the world until he got through it.
After that came ultra running. He runs races that would break most people, often injured, and treats the pain as information. His message is simple: whatever happens, you can’t hurt me.
One of his best known ideas is the 40% rule. When your mind tells you you’re done, he reckons you’re only about 40% of the way to your real limit. I can’t vouch for the number, but I like what it does. It makes you question that voice before you do what it says.
Another is the accountability mirror. He stuck notes on his bathroom mirror with the hard truths about himself and what he needed to do, and faced them every morning. It’s not comfortable. That’s the point.
“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”
Get comfortable being uncomfortable and you realise you can be just about anything you want. I wrote something close to that in Done Beats Perfect: until we get comfortable with being uncomfortable, we’re unlikely to reach our full potential. Goggins just takes it a lot further than I ever would.
I said something similar on a podcast about doing the next right thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean doing the next easy thing, or the next fun thing. Sometimes we know deep down the thing we need to do is hard, painful and uncomfortable. Long term, it’s the thing that creates the positive impact. Short term, it can hurt.
The cookie jar
The idea in the book that’s closest to my own habits is what he calls the cookie jar. When things get hard, you reach back into your memory for the times you’ve already done something hard. Proof that you can.
I’ve got my own version, and it’s a box of running medals, including ones for 100 miles and 100 kilometres. The one that matters most is my dad’s, from a half marathon he ran when I was 12. If I’m ever doubting myself, I can pull those medals out and go, “But you did that.”
That’s the conversation Goggins is talking about. The voice in your head will always have an opinion. Most of the time it’s trying to keep you safe, which usually means keeping you small. You get to answer back, and the cookie jar gives you something to say.
I read Can’t Hurt Me in 2019 and I’ve read it twice. It’s a hard book in places, and I don’t think you need to copy his methods to take something from it. You don’t have to train like a Navy SEAL to notice how you talk to yourself.
It’s one of the three running books in my free guide, 50 Books That Shaped Me. It’s probably the one that’ll shout at you the most.
So what has the voice in your head been telling you lately, and are you going to keep agreeing with it?
