# Can't Hurt Me  ## Metadata - Author: [[David Goggins]] - Full Title: Can't Hurt Me - Category: #books ## Highlights - He ignored the darkness because the truth was way too heavy for him to carry. I always paid close fucking attention. ([Location 292](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=292)) ## New highlights added July 30, 2023 at 6:02 PM - I wasn’t yet hard of bone and mind. ([Location 854](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=854)) ## New highlights added August 20, 2023 at 11:39 AM - “Why am I here?” ([Location 1357](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1357)) - It’s voluntary torture. And that makes no sense at all to the rational mind, ([Location 1361](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1361)) - he harvested helmets left and right. He was taking the souls of those who caved because they couldn’t answer that simple question. I get it. When ([Location 1365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1365)) - And we knew something else too. Hell Week was a mind game. The instructors used our suffering to pick and peel away our layers, not to find the fittest athletes. To find the strongest minds. That’s something the quitters didn’t understand until it was too late. Everything in life is a mind game! Whenever we get swept under by life’s dramas, large and small, we are forgetting that no matter how bad the pain gets, no matter how harrowing the torture, all bad things end. ([Location 1410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1410)) - Taking someone’s soul means you’ve gained a tactical advantage. ([Location 1505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1505)) - people who are secure with themselves don’t bully other people. They look out for other people, so if you’re getting bullied you know that you’re dealing with someone who has problem areas you can exploit or soothe. ([Location 1515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1515)) - our attitude was, So the fuck be it! ([Location 1739](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1739)) - I was showing weakness and if you show weakness, IT IS ON! ([Location 1743](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1743)) - when you leverage a calloused mind like I did around the pool that day and keep fighting through pain, it can help you push your limits because if you accept the pain as a natural process and refuse to give in and give up, you will engage the sympathetic nervous system which shifts your hormonal flow. The sympathetic nervous system is your fight or flight reflex. ([Location 1764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1764)) - See, most civilians don’t understand that you need a certain level of callousness to do the job we were being trained to do. To live in a brutal world, you have to accept cold-blooded truths. I’m not saying it’s good. I’m not necessarily proud of it. But special ops is a calloused world and it demands a calloused mind. ([Location 1982](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=1982)) - Along the way, he’d seen dozens of supposedly great athletes crumble beneath the anvil of ultra. ([Location 2324](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2324)) - 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. ([Location 2362](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2362)) - But those answers are very important when you are no longer in your air-conditioned room or under your fluffy blanket. When your body is broken and beaten, when you’re confronted with agonizing pain and staring into the unknown, your mind will spin, and that’s when those questions become toxic. If you aren’t prepared in advance, if you allow your mind to remain undisciplined in an environment of intense suffering (it won’t feel like it, but it is very much a choice you are making), the only answer you are likely to find is the one that will make it stop as fast as possible. I don’t know. ([Location 2416](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2416)) - That’s why there was a schism between the twins after Marcus went through BUD/S. He’d gained the kind of self-knowledge that can only come from being broken down to nothing and finding more within. Morgan couldn’t speak that language until he endured it for himself. ([Location 2424](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2424)) - These weren’t mere flashbacks. I wasn’t just floating through my memory files, I actually tapped into the emotional state I felt during those victories, and in so doing accessed my sympathetic nervous system once again. My adrenaline took over, the pain started to fade just enough, and my pace picked up. ([Location 2446](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2446)) - Take inventory of your Cookie Jar. Crack your journal open again. Write it all out. ([Location 2510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2510)) - Set ambitious goals before each workout and let those past victories carry you to new personal bests. ([Location 2514](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2514)) - know how it feels to be approaching an energetic dead end. I’ve been there too many times to count. 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. ([Location 2751](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2751)) ## New highlights added August 21, 2023 at 7:23 AM - Maybe it would be at mile fifty or sixty, maybe later, but there would be a time when I’d want to quit, and I had to be able to slay the one-second decisions in order to stay in the game and access my untapped 60 percent. ([Location 2898](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=2898)) - Through it all, I gave myself one job: stay in the fight! Stay in it long enough to find a foothold. ([Location 3083](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3083)) - additional 150 meters past the second mark. Those last two marks are your backstops. Typically, I used terrain features, like roads, creeks, a giant cliff in the countryside, or landmark buildings in an urban setting, so that when we hit them I knew we’d gone off course. That’s what backstops are for, to tell you to turn around, reassess, and take an alternative route to accomplish the same mission. ([Location 3138](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3138)) - told those athletes what I’ve already told you, and said we were looking for guys with heart. Men who knew it was going to be hard tomorrow and the day after that and welcomed every challenge. Men who wanted to become better athletes, and smarter and more capable in all aspects of their life. We wanted guys who craved honor and purpose and were open-minded enough to face their deepest fears. ([Location 3199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3199)) - 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. ([Location 3254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3254)) - Here’s how he does it. He wakes up at 4 a.m. every weekday, runs sixty to ninety minutes each morning while his family is still snoozing, rides a bike to work and back and does a quick thirty-minute treadmill run after he gets home. He goes out for longer runs on weekends, but he minimizes its impact on his family obligations. ([Location 3279](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3279)) - There is always more to learn, and you will always have weaknesses to strengthen if you want to become as hard as woodpecker lips. Hard enough to hammer countless miles, and finish that shit strong! ([Location 3313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3313)) - He who hits first wins the fight, most of the time. ([Location 3454](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3454)) - We train as we fight, and live ammo is necessary to mimic true combat so we could perfect the SEAL battle maxim: shoot, move, communicate. ([Location 3476](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3476)) - He had the animalistic mentality I thrived on, and I wasn’t about to back down from that challenge. ([Location 3503](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3503)) - but now I realized I was part of the Teams—not the brotherhood. I had to go out and socialize with the guys after hours to prove my value? That was a big ask for an introvert like me. ([Location 3529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3529)) - “Goggins,” my OIC said after giving me the good news, “you are the type of motherfucker who wishes you were a POW just to see if you have what it takes to last.” ([Location 3551](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3551)) - I was becoming a true leader. The whole point of Ranger School is to give every man a taste of what it takes to lead a high-level team. The field exercises were like an operator’s scavenger hunt blended with an endurance race. ([Location 3601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3601)) - Note: Leaders organize - A true leader stays exhausted, abhors arrogance, and never looks down on the weakest link. He fights for his men and leads by example. That’s what it meant to be uncommon among uncommon. It meant being one of the best and helping your men find their best too. It was a lesson I’d wish sunk in a lot deeper, because in just a few more weeks I’d be challenged in the leadership department and come up well short. ([Location 3657](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3657)) - We learned to read fingers and cuts, and that if you get high you want to stay high. We were taught to follow water. When you start reading the land this way, your map comes alive, and for the first time in my life I became great at orienteering. We learned to judge distance and how to draw our own topographic maps. At first we were assigned an instructor to tail through the wildlands, and those instructors hauled ass. ([Location 3803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3803)) - The final test would be a forty-mile ball-kicker ([Location 3815](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3815)) - I’d given it everything I had and when you handle business like that, your effort will not go unnoticed. ([Location 3827](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3827)) - 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. ([Location 3839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3839)) - Torch the complacency you feel gathering around you, your coworkers, and teammates in that rare air. Continue to put obstacles in front of yourself, because that’s where you’ll find the friction that will help you grow even stronger. Before you know it, you will stand alone. ([Location 3865](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=3865)) - I felt something click inside and went full cyborg. ([Location 4240](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07H453KGH&location=4240))