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

“Odds are you have had a much better childhood than I did, and even now might have a damn decent life, but no matter who you are, who your parents are or were, where you live, what you do for a living, or how much money you have, you’re probably living at about 40 percent of your true capability.”

The 40 percent rule, which Goggins frequently employs, is the idea that most people can coast through life only giving about 40 percent of themselves. As a result, they only know about 40 percent of their true selves. The rest remains to be unlocked. For Goggins, unlocking and realizing that other 60 percent is his life’s work. It is the process by which he becomes more of who he always could be.

“And when you are born into a cyclone of terror and pain, you know it doesn’t have to be that way, and that truth nags at you like a splinter in your jacked up mind. You can choose to ignore it, but the dull throbbing is always there as the days and nights bleed together into one blurred memory.”

As a young child, all Goggins knew was work, stress, and trauma. His father made life hell for his family. A child doesn’t know that life could be different, but he can know that kind of life is no good. To be in a bad situation and to think that situation is the only one possible is to be in hell. Goggins somehow sensed it could be different.

“The type of physical and emotional abuse I was exposed to has been proven to have a range of side effects on young children because in our early years the brain grows and develops so rapidly. If, during those years, your father is an evil motherfucker hell-bent on destroying everyone in his house, stress spikes, and when those spikes occur frequently enough, you can draw a line across the peaks. That’s your new baseline. It puts kids in a permanent ‘fight or flight’ mode. Fight or flight can be a great tool when you’re in danger because it amps you up to battle through or sprint from trouble, but it’s no way to live.”

Goggins muses on the effects of a stress-laden childhood and its effects on the psyche. Frequent exposure to traumatic levels of stress changes the “baseline,” or default perspective and emotional valence, of a person, fundamentally altering the way they think and live. Goggins’s life is a testament to how one can take this stress and transform it into something that empowers the self. Never once, though, does he claim that his childhood is the necessary precondition for his warrior attitude, and he does not want it for anyone else. It was simply his unique starting point in life.

“It was the most humiliating moment of my life, and it hurt much more than the gun incident because it happened in public, and the word had been spewed by a grown-ass man. I couldn’t understand how or why he was filled with so much hate, and if he felt that way, how many other people in Brazil shared his point of view when they saw me walking down the street? It was the sort of riddle you didn’t want to solve.”

Goggins describes an incident of his high school days in which he was viciously referred to by the n-word while at a public restaurant by the father of a girl he liked. Goggins was deeply shaped by the racism he experienced as one of the few Black people in Brazil, Indiana. For a time, it became a major part of his identity. Ultimately, though, it seems to have contributed to his understanding that a person’s worth is determined by their internal self-mastery and not any contingent external factor like race.

“‘It’s on you,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I know shit is fucked up. I know what you’ve been through. I was there, bitch! Merry fucking Christmas. Nobody is coming to save your ass! Not your mommy, not Wilmoth. Nobody! It’s up to you!’”

Goggins is still in high school, but he is in danger of flunking out, and he did not pass his entrance exam into the Air Force. He is fed up with himself and begins to vent angrily at himself. This is perhaps the first time we see Goggins “going to war with himself,” a task he later deems necessary for self-transformation. If he doesn’t save himself, no one will, and he will amount to very little. His pride and determination will not allow that.

“There is no more time to waste. Hours and days evaporate like creeks in the desert. That’s why it’s okay to be cruel to yourself as long as you realize you’re doing it to become better. We all need thicker skin to improve in life. Being soft when you look in the mirror isn’t going to inspire the wholesale changes we need to shift our present and open up our future.”

Goggins uses the “Accountability Mirror” to develop an attitude for ruthless self-improvement, one in which self-coddling is completely out of the picture. He goes so far as to advocate this approach to others and believes that total, fundamental change is grounded on blunt, untrammeled self-assessment with no room for excuses. Time is of the essence and life is for the honest.

“In a society where mediocrity is too often the standard and too often rewarded,” he said, “there is intense fascination with men who detest mediocrity, who refuse to define themselves in conventional terms, and who seek to transcend traditionally recognized human capabilities. This is exactly the type of person BUD/S is meant to find. The man who finds a way to complete each and every task to the best of his ability. The man who will adapt and overcome any and all obstacles.”

This is the narration of a documentary Goggins watched while a young man when was still working as an exterminator. He found it extremely enticing and, as if by chance, this documentary served as a catalyst for him to recapture his life.

“When was enough truly going to be enough? Was I willing to let my sorry present become a fucked-up future? How much longer would I wait, how many more years would I burn, wondering if there was some greater purpose out there waiting for me? I knew right then that if I didn’t make a stand and start walking the path of most resistance, I would end up in this mental hell forever.”

While on the job as an exterminator, Goggins encountered roaches raining from the ceiling tiles of a decrepit restaurant. It was the most disgusting of all his jobs as an exterminator. He appraised his situation and knew that he had to change his life, he had to take a path of “most resistance.” In other words, he had to make extreme, difficult changes to himself to gain a new station in life and achieve mental strength.

“Finding moments of laughter in the pain and delirium turned the entire melodramatic experience upside down for us. It gave us some control of our emotions. Again, this was all a mind game, and I damn sure wasn’t going to lose.”

Goggins describes a moment during Hell Week in which he motivated and excited the other recruits by imitating a character in a favorite war movie. Known for his ultra-serious demeanor and intense hyperfocus on mental fortitude, Goggins shows that he understands the value of humor and laughter. Being able to laugh amidst the pain is part of the endless game of mastering one’s mind and rising above adversity.

“YOU CAN’T HURT BOAT CREW TWO!”

Goggins and his boat crew decide to take the mental warfare on the offensive during Hell Week. They taunt the instructors. They do not accept the bullying. Instead, they build themselves up, and in so doing gain renewed strength and energy that astounds the instructors.

“Once, I was so focused on failing, I was afraid to even try. Now I would take on any challenge. All my life, I was terrified of water, and especially cold water, but standing there in the final hour, I wished the ocean, wind, and mud were even colder! I was completely transformed physically, which was a big part of my success in BUD/S, but what saw me through Hell Week was my mind, and I was just starting to tap into its power.”

Goggins reflects on how he felt at the end of Hell Week. He had undergone a long period of voluntary, radical self-transformation and more than merely survived. By his estimation, he was victorious. Note that Goggins sees this transformation as just the beginning of his understanding of the power of the mind.

“I remember my very first day in the gym back in Indiana. My palms were soft and quickly got torn up on the bars because they weren’t accustomed to gripping steel. But over time, after thousands of reps, my palms built up a 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 it’s up to you where that callous lines up. If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar.”

Goggins discusses the necessity for life experiences for the development of a calloused mind, that is, a mind that is capable of handling extremely challenging and damaging situations without being destroyed. The calloused mind requires more than these experiences, though. It also requires an attitude that is not couched in resentment but, rather, in willing exposure to unfamiliar, frightening terrain.

“In a human being your character is your foundation, and when you build a bunch of successes and pile up even more failures on a fucked-up foundation, the structure that is the self won’t be sound. To develop an armored mind—a mindset so calloused and hard that it becomes bulletproof—you need to go to the source of all your fears and insecurities.”

Goggins is contemplating his life after he has failed out of BUD/S training with an injury and learned that he will be the father to the child of a woman he does not love. He feels torn down as if his accomplishments have not changed him, and eventually he realizes that he needs to revisit the foundations of his self. He can no longer manage by overcoming singular fears or obstacles; instead, he must go to the source of all of them and do battle. That’s the way to the “armored mind.”

“All the strategies I employ to answer the simple questions and win the mind game are only effective because I put in work. It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self-discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day, but if you do, you’ll find that at the other end of that suffering is a whole other life just waiting for you.”

Though Goggins often writes of the value of a calloused mind and the importance of visualizing success, he knows that disciplined action is as important as anything else. One must act and work hard with extreme determination. It is through this combined process of the right mind and dedicated bodily action that a new life is achieved.

“I was losing touch with reality in small doses, because my mind was folding over on itself, loading tremendous physical pain with dark emotional garbage it had dredged up from the depths of my soul. Translation: I was suffering on an unholy level reserved for dumb fucks who thought the laws of physics and physiology did not apply to them. Cocky bastards like me who felt like they could push the limits safely because they’d done a couple of Hell Weeks.”

Goggins is over halfway through his first ever ultramarathon, the San Diego One Day, and is doubling over in extreme pain. He reflects on his mental anguish as he experiences deep physical anguish in a race he did not bother to train for at all. He is learning that self-transcendence is one thing but overcoming the physiological laws of the universe is another. To perform at the ultramarathon level, he will have to work smarter, not just harder.

“I ran my last two miles at a sub-seven-minute pace, finished the race in just over 3:08, and qualified for Boston. Somewhere on the streets of Las Vegas, my wife and mother would deal with their own struggles and overcome them to finish too, and as I sat on a patch of grass, waiting for them, I contemplated another simple question I couldn’t shake. It was a new one, and wasn’t fear-based, pain-spiked, or self-limiting. This one felt open.

What am I capable of?”

Goggins writes this after completing the Las Vegas Marathon in a time fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon. He had not even planned to run because of the injuries he sustained from his first 100-mile race, but something inside of him took over. He asks himself a new kind of question, one positively directed at future potential. He is flabbergasted at himself and who he is and can become.

“Some criticize my level of passion, but I’m not down with the prevailing mentalities that tend to dominate American society these days; the ones that tell us to go with the flow or invite us to learn how to get more with less effort. Fuck that shortcut bullshit. The reason I embrace my own obsessions and demand and desire more of myself is because I’ve learned that it’s only when I push beyond pain and suffering, past my perceived limitations, that I’m capable of accomplishing more, physically and mentally—in endurance races but also in life as a whole. And I believe the same is true for you."

Goggins is of the view that, deep down, all human beings have the same hardware. His accomplishments are a result of his extreme work, not because he is a different kind of being. He is a human like all others and his story could be anyone’s story. Pushing past perceived limitations is his life’s work.

“Who hasn’t dreamed up a possibility for themselves only to have friends, colleagues, or family shit all over it? Most of us are motivated as hell to do anything to pursue our dreams until those around us remind us of the danger, the downside, our own limitations, and all the people before us that didn’t make it. Sometimes the advice comes from a well-intentioned place. They really believe they are doing it for our own good but if you let them, these same people will talk you out of your dreams, and your governor will help them do it.”

People in Goggins’s life disparagingly remind him of the ridiculousness of his aspirations and goals. For Goggins, who has already overcome and achieved so much, this is a failure of imagination. It may be well-intentioned, but it is the naive talk of the “governor.” Some think the best path forward in life is one in which intense pain and suffering are off the table. Goggins is not such a person.

“I had to come up with my own material and knew that most people didn’t think they could ever become a Navy SEAL, so I broadened the message. I wanted everyone who heard me out to know that even if they didn’t walk in our direction they could still become more than they ever dreamed. I made sure to cover my life in its entirety so if anyone had any excuse, my story would void all that out. My main drive was to deliver hope that with or without the military anybody could change their life, so long as they kept an open mind, abandoned the path of least resistance, and sought out the difficult and most challenging tasks they could find.”

By this point, Goggins has been assigned as a recruiter because of the good press he has received from his ultraman and marathoning competitions. He learns that the best way to recruit is not to focus strictly on the value of life as a special operative in the U.S. military but rather to inspire everyone that they can be better versions of themselves. His insight is to simultaneously become broader (more universal) in appeal while being more personal in his life story. By bringing the fullness of his life and character to the table, he shows more of his humanity and can inspire more people to pursue their goals.

Wherever I went, whether the students were interested in a military career or not, they always asked if they had the same hardware I had. Could they run a hundred miles in one day? What would it take to reach their full potential? This is what I’d tell them: Our 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. There’s no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if you’re lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll 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. My work ethic is the single most important factor in all of my accomplishments.”

Though Goggins develops a multifaceted mental toolkit for approaching extreme challenges and building one’s endurance and embrace of suffering, he emphasizes the ultimate value of hard work. Here he even states one must become “addicted” to it. It is not that Goggins has any fundamentally different physical attributes than any other person. It is simply that he always shows up and puts in the work. This is what he is most keen to share with the young men and women who look to him for guidance.

“‘I’m truly amazed you could do all you’ve done with this condition,’ the doctor said.

I nodded. He thought I was a medical marvel, some kind of outlier, or simply a gifted athlete blessed with amazing luck. To me, it was just further evidence that I didn’t owe my accomplishments to God-given talent or great genetics. I had a fucking hole in my heart! I was running on a tank perpetually half full, and that meant my life was absolute proof of what’s possible when someone dedicates themselves to harnessing the full power of the human mind.”

Goggins, in his thirties, finds out that he has a serious heart condition, one that has been with him his whole life. For him, this is yet another confirmation of the fact that his accomplishments are a testament to his extreme work ethic and how he has been able to take control of his mind.

“All over the world amazing human beings like that exist. It doesn’t take wearing a uniform. It’s not about all the hard schools they graduated from, all their patches and medals. It’s about wanting it like there’s no tomorrow—because there might not be. It’s about thinking of everybody else before yourself and developing your own code of ethics that sets you apart from others. One of those ethics is the drive to turn every negative into a positive, and then when shit starts flying, being prepared to lead from the front.”

Goggins is reflecting on what it takes to be “uncommon amongst the uncommon.” This brand of person stands out even in a crowd of alpha, intellects, or otherwise impressive specimens of human achievement. To become such a doubly uncommon and special person, he writes, a person must always be prepared, ready to lead and develop their own ethic, never accepting anyone else’s code. It is a form of creative, hypervigilant work ethic.

“I realized from living in Brazil, Indiana, that prejudice is everywhere. There is a piece of it in every person and each and every organization, and if you are the only in any given situation, it’s on you to decide how you’re going to handle it because you can’t make it go away. For years, I used it to fuel me because there’s a lot of power in being the only. It forces you to juice your own resources and to believe in yourself in the face of unfair scrutiny. It increases the degree of difficulty, which makes every success that much sweeter. That’s why I continually put myself in situations where I knew I would encounter it. I fed off being the only one in a room. I brought the war to people and watched my excellence explode small minds.”

Goggins reflects on the fact that he did not make it into DEVGRU, the ultra-elite Navy SEAL task force for which he was as prepared as anyone else. He wonders if he hit a glass ceiling due to racial prejudice. Instead of becoming resentful, hostile, and angry, Goggins sees even this as an opportunity to better himself and to crush the close-mindedness of others through a powerful manifestation of unquestionable mental and physical dominance.