Stay Hard: David Goggins

From “The Greats” to you,

Happy Friday.

While studying this weeks guest, there’s one word that I’d use to describe his character:

Invincible.

If you like what you read here, I encourage you to pick up your own copy of “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins.

It’s truly a life-changing read.

Thank you and enjoy this weeks edition of “The Greats”.

If you were forwarded this week’s edition, please subscribe!

One Tale:

It’s 1981, David Goggins is a 6-year old kid sleeping on the office couch of his father’s skating rink, outside of Buffalo, New York.

At the time, “Skateland” is all the craze. OJ Simpson, Rick James, NFL superstars and music icons alike would frequent Skateland’s after-hours bar & lounge.

David spent much of his youth working the counter, sterilizing roller skates and wearing a fake smile for all their customers to believe that the Goggins family had achieved the American Dream.

Behind the curtain, once the lights were low, and all Skateland’s patrons had left the building… David was shot back to reality.

This wasn’t the American Dream. This was Hell.

David’s father, Trunnis, was a brutish man. Behind the closed doors of an idealized suburban American home, Trunnis was a monster to his family.

“This belt came all the way from Texas just to whip you.”

Beaten and broken by his father’s hand… David, his brother, and mother would eventually flee to Brazil, Indiana where they would live in a $7/month apartment.

As a young kid, David would often cheat his way through school.

Despite moving along each year, he remained at a 3rd-grade reading level until he was nearly 18-years old.

He did not give a fuck. He would attend school, prance through the halls looking for any opportunity to piss someone off.

“A wanna-be gangster”.

No matter how many C’s, D’s and F’s he would get in school… he did have one dream. To join the Airforce.

Although, joining the AirForce required that he take the ASVAB — a standardized test required to get into the armed services.

For the first time in his life, Goggins couldn’t cheat.

He scored a 20 out of 99. The minimum score required for the AirForce was a 36.

That night, David returned home and looked himself in the mirror. Enraged at his past. Enraged at the prospects of his future. Enraged at himself.

He made a clear decision. No one was going to save him. It was on him and him alone.

He would have to turn the glass in front of him, into his own “Accountability Mirror”.

Each night he would shave his face and head, look himself intensely in the mirror and be brutally honest with what he had to do to educate himself.

He’d spend hours and hours at the dinner table, teaching himself how to read and write. Word by word. Sentence by sentence. Paragraph by paragraph.

David would go on to pass the ASVAB and join the AirForce. Until one day, where he would find out during a routine blood check that he had Sickle Cell Trait.

Having yet to truly master his mind, he decided to allow the AirForce to give him a medical discharge.

He had let weakness win. Over the next few years, David would balloon… to nearly 300lbs.

Working the graveyard shift at EcoLab, David had a habit of spraying for cockroaches into the early morning then pick up a pack of hostess donuts and a chocolate shake on his way home.

Then fate decided to strike again.

One morning he had just arrived home, ready to shower, when he heard a TV show come across the television.

All he could hear were the word’s “Navy Seals…toughest…the world”.

He sat for 30 minutes and watched as young men were tortured, pushing beyond the boundaries of the human body, and the human mind to endure “Hell Week” — a physical and mental endurance challenge that takes place over 130 hours straight of physical hell.

Immediately afterwards, he called every Naval recruiter he could find… only one of which took a chance on him.

But in order to qualify for training, he’d had to lose over 100lbs in just three months.

So he started running. A quarter mile turned to 1.

1 turned to 2.

2 to 10.

In three months he had lost the weight, studied for hours in between work and training to pass a required section of the ASVAB he had scored too low on previously.

This was just the beginning of a long and treacherous road paved by suffering. Suffering that would transform Goggins into the hardest man alive.

In total, David would traverse Hell Week three times (he’s the only man to ever go through three hell weeks in one year).

To add insult to injury, he was physically broken to the point that he had to stop Hell Week twice due to medical issues.

It was in Hell Week that David first became known as one of the hardest endurance athletes the world has ever seen.

One moment, he’d been taken off to the side by instructors, unsure if he was fit to continue.

The next moment, as instructors had turned a blind eye, David would sprint back to his boat crew to get back on the log.

To make matters worse, he was negatively buoyant, and struggled underwater.

But he had made a decision. He would become a Navy Seal. Or he would die in the process.

After his 3rd attempt, David graduated from BUD/S.

During his time in the SEALs, David would have the fortune of working among some of the best of the best.

Chris Kyle. Marcus Luttrel. Morgan Luttrell.

David and Morgan were training for high-altitude skydiving in Arizona on the day that Morgan’s brother, Marcus would go MIA.

After the tragedy of Operation Red Wings, David decided he would go on to compete in some of the hardest races around the world to raise money for the families of the fallen and to raise awareness for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

Competing across multiple hundred mile races, David would continue to push the limits of his body and mind.

In his first ultra-marathon, he’d place 37th.

In his 2nd, the Hurt 100, he’d place 9th.

In one of the most treacherous races in the world, the Badwater 135 — taking place in the heart of Death Valley and ending at an elevation of over 19,000 feet — he placed 5th.

Today, Goggins continues to spread his message around the world.

To remind each of us that we’re often only operating at ~40%.

That in order to thrive against the challenges of life, we must manufacture our suffering… and find a way to overcome it.

Or die in the process.

“Stay Hard”

Two Quotes:

“I was staring at hours, days, and weeks of nonstop suffering. I would have to push myself to the very edge of my mortality. I had to accept the very real possibility that I might die because this time I wouldn’t quit, no matter how fast my heart raced and no matter how much pain I was in” - David Goggins

“We didn’t live in that $7/month place anymore, but I was still paying rent on that motherfucker, and will be for the rest of my life” - David Goggins

Three Lessons:

Lying to yourself is the first sign of defeat. The first sign of solving any problem is recognizing there is one.

The difference between those who are good and those who are great is “The Greats” are intensely accountable for themselves.

In moments of despair, be honest with yourself. What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, and “why are you doing this?”

If your body feels like it wants to give up, you’re only at ~40% of what you’re capable of. David calls this the “40% Rule”.

Our mind has a governor, similar to a vehicle, that keeps us from exerting our full potential.

The pain, the suffering, it tells us to stop when we’ve still got ~60% of our potential left untapped. “We must remove our governor”.

Your greatest advantage is a calloused mind. A bad day is coming for us all. Whether it’s tragedy within your family or tragedy within the world.

We all suffer at some point, you might as well be prepared for it. By manufacturing suffering, you can callous your mind to hardship.

That bad day at work is painless compared to the 10-mile run at 5am. That hard conversation with yourself is effortless after you just biked 50 miles. Your problems become small in the grand scheme of the struggles you choose to endure.

Citations:

Can’t Hurt Me