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

Goggins continued his mission to get accepted into the Badwater ultramarathon. He has something to prove to himself, but also a noble philanthropic goal. He felt strongly determined to be able to fulfill that philanthropic goal by becoming an ultra runner and using his winnings as proceeds for the charity. Kostman, the director of Badwater, was still not impressed with Goggins but encouraged him to apply anyway.

With severe foot and leg injuries, Goggins was still recovering from the 100-mile San Diego race when he decided to walk a normal 26-mile marathon in Las Vegas with his mother and Kate. To his own shock, when the race commenced, he bolted at full sprint. He ran the entire marathon and finished quickly enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon, a very competitive race. He was shocked by himself and asked himself what he was capable of. “As I looked around the finish line that day and considered what I’d accomplished,” he writes “it became clear that we are all leaving a lot of money on the table without realizing it. We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course” (164).

After the Las Vegas marathon, Goggins trained for the Hurt 100, an ultramarathon in Hawaii that he had to complete before applying to the Badwater. His training was intensive, but he worried that it was insufficient. The Hurt 100 takes place on a 20-mile trail that requires 5 circuits. Goggins had no experience running on rocky terrain. He was more prepared now than he was for the San Diego One Day, but he was still deeply underprepared.

Shortly after the Hurt 100 commences, Goggins Camelbak (a backpack that carries water) breaks. The task of staying hydrated became more difficult and added to the already severely burdensome task of running a steep trail for 100 miles for the first time. Goggins was struggling by the end of his second circuit, 40 miles into the race. On his third lap, Goggins saw an impressive ultramarathon runner in a state of delirium. By the end of this lap, Goggins felt like he was nearly spent and wondered how much further he could push himself. He realized, though, that he is an obsessive person, and he wants to go beyond his own perceived limitations. It is at this point that he introduces the concept of the “governor,” the aspect of the human psyche that oversees and regulates human achievement. He also introduces the 40% rule, the idea that most humans coast by in life only giving 40% of themselves. He writes, “I understand the temptation to sell short, but I also know that impulse is driven by your mind’s desire for comfort, and it’s not telling you the truth. It’s your identity trying to find sanctuary, not help you grow. It’s looking for status quo, not reaching for greatness or seeking wholeness” (173).

Goggins completed his fourth lap. He was then lapped by the eventual winner of the race, who was also a new record setter. Goggins saw human potential in this runner’s performance and was astounded by the beauty of his graceful navigation of the course. It inspired him to complete a fifth and final circuit, which took him eight hours to walk. He finished in ninth place.

Goggins was then accepted into Badwater. He decided to strategically study for the race and thoroughly plan, realizing that unlocking human potential requires thoughtful strategy, not merely extreme determination or willpower. He described many long hours of training in high-intensity heat for his run in the California desert. He felt isolated and lonely and was mocked for his ridiculous goals. He taught himself not to care.

On race day, Goggins kept pace with a racing friend for the first 17 miles but eventually lagged, thinking that he overexerted himself early in the race. Despite this, he raced through Death Valley and continued hiking through the night. He went long stretches of time without encountering any other runners. At daybreak, he was at mile 110 (of 135) and resided, so he says, on “planet pain” (184). He was assaulted by horseflies of which he writes, “They beat their wings against my skin, bit my thighs, and crawled into my ears. This shit was biblical, and it was my very last test” (184). Goggins finished in fifth place. At the race’s conclusion, he did not feel elated as he thought he would. This is a common occurrence for Goggins at the end of an accomplishment. Of his inner monologue, he writes, “There is no finish line, Goggins. There is no finish line” (190).

The goal of Challenge 7 is to slowly learn how to override the control of the governor, the default mode of the mind. This requires a mental dialogue in which you take charge of the governor. Achieving this goal involves incrementally increasing physical training.

Goggins was in the Hawaiian town of Kona to compete in the Ultraman competition. This competition is a three-day event that, according to Goggins, requires competitors to “swim 6.2 miles, ride 261 miles, and run a double marathon, covering the entire perimeter of the Big Island of Hawaii” (192). Prior to the race, he was invited to stay with a wealthy individual in his mansion. Goggins appreciated the chance to show this to his mother, who had been through so much pain, but still felt very of place and that he had a lot to prove.

There were only 30 competitors in the field and Goggins sized them up. He noticed one man with a particularly intense and commanding presence who was in a wheelchair. People of “immense” presence like this, Goggins writes, are the exact sort that he was trying to learn from and emulate.

The triathlon started badly for Goggins, who went over a mile out of the way in the swim competition and had to hustle back on course. The second event was the cycling race, in which he started in 14th place. By the end of the day, though, he made it to 2nd place and was only a few minutes behind the leader. He was doing very well the next day, too, when suddenly his front tire went flat, and he crashed to the ground. He didn’t have the proper tools or parts to fix his bike, and after 20 minutes he jumped on his stand-by bicycle, which was not nearly as good a machine. He lost a lot of time. During the double marathon on the final day, he raced hard but did not pace himself intelligently. He hit a brick wall early and fell behind. Still, he finished in second place in the Ultraman, and he realized this was no small achievement. He writes: 

On day three of Ultraman, I tried to win with sheer will. I was all motor, no intellect. I didn’t evaluate my condition, respect my opponents’ heart, or manage the clock well enough. I had no primary strategy, let alone alternative avenues to victory, and therefore I had no idea where to employ backstops (198).

Because of the positive press he generated from his successful forays into the world of ultra competitions, Goggins was given a meeting with a Navy admiral and ordered to join a recruitment division. By this point, Goggins had already become something of a public speaker, but this would take that part of his career in a more serious direction. The admiral wanted Goggins to go on recruiting tours, giving speeches in traditionally underrepresented areas. Goggins details the demographic issues in the U.S. military, noting that in the United States special forces only about 1% of all operatives are Black even though 13% of the American population is Black. Goggins’s mission was to change that and to reach communities of color with his inspiring stories of adversity.

Between 2007 and 2009, Goggins writes, he spoke to hundreds of thousands of people at many different universities, colleges, and high schools. He gave public talks all over the country most of the year. He built his racing schedule around his recruitment schedule so that he gave addresses on weekdays and raced ultras in nearby locations on weekends. He wanted the young people he spoke with to know that he was living the ethos, not merely preaching it. This, he believes, made him more effective. Between intense physical training and his assignment as a recruiter, Goggins had two full-time jobs.

Goggins writes that as he built up notoriety as a public speaker students started exercising with him in the morning and going on long hikes or pacing with him at races. His life became just as much about setting an example for ambitious young people as it was about personal toughness. He shares one example, among many, in which he lets two teenage boys from inner-city Atlanta interested in the Navy SEALs live and train with him in San Diego.

Goggins describes returning to Kona in Hawaii for an Ironman performance with a Navy SEAL friend. By this point, Goggins was an athletic and military celebrity and his performance was detailed on television. Goggins and the other SEAL competed with one another, finished side-by-side, and hugged. It represented the comradery and competition that go together in the SEAL ethos, according to Goggins. He now took time to reflect on how much was good about his life and what he had to be grateful for, which stood in stark contrast to the horrors of his childhood and adolescence. This coincided with learning that he had an atrial septal defect. A cardiologist told Goggins he has a literal hole in his heart. The doctor went on to inform Goggins that he was born with it and has always had it.

Goggins required surgery, but it didn’t go as expected. The anesthesia didn’t completely take, so he was awake and uncomfortable through the entire operation. Worse still, the operation was botched. After a few days of light exercise (after a week of rest), Goggins experienced more heart arrhythmia and eventually had to go back for a second operation. The hole was still open. The chapter ends as Goggins reclines and awaits the second surgery. He wonders if he’s satisfied with his accomplishments thus far and if he’ll be able to take it easy. The answer he gives himself is a resounding “no.”

Challenge 8 tells the reader to engage in extreme time management to see how much time is spent on frivolities, social media, meals, etc. Then he recommends scheduling a series of short blocks of time throughout the day with total dedication and focus given to the task at hand before any engagement with the next task. He is strongly opposed to multitasking.