BOOK REVIEW: “CAN’T HURT ME” BY DAVID GOGGINS

It’s not often I read something from this century, but I recently picked up David Goggins “Can’t Hurt Me” and read the entire thing over 2 sittings, and after putting out some feelers there was some demand from my readership to give it a review, so here we go.

BACKGROUND

This is a good summary

If you’re completely unfamiliar with who David Goggin is, he’s a retired Navy SEAL and an extreme endurance athlete that has competed in dozens of ultramarathons along with triathalons and other races (I’m not too smart on what’s out there in the race world).  He’s been featured on several podcasts, and as much as I can’t stand the medium, I actually watched him on both Joe Rogan Experiences he’s been featured on and found them very entertaining.

This wasn’t my first exposure to Goggins: I had actually first learned about him from the book “Living with a SEAL” by Jesse Itzier, which I picked up expecting to be a comical romp and ended up being something I read entirely in the span of one sitting and found pretty captivating.  Particularly, the SEAL and ultramarathoner featured in the book seemed to share my sentiment regarding training: it sucks and we hate it.  That said, I also found myself having many moments of doubt regarding the stories told by the author.

Since I’m not reviewing THAT book (though I recommend it), I’ll give you a very quick overview on the premise: Jesse Itzier hired David Goggins as something of a live-in personal trainer for a month because he wanted to experience how David lived and trained, and Goggins put him completely through the ringer.  Because the story was told from the perspective of the trainee talking about the trainer, I assumed there were bits of hero worship and embellishment blended in, and in some cases assumed we were dealing with outright lies.  The book was still an entertaining read, and demonstrates how interesting of a character Goggins is.  

THE BOOK ITSELF

“Can’t Hurt Me” clocks in at a pretty hefty 360+ pages, but the font isn’t small and there are occasional pictures. Having spent the majority of my leisure time reading 19th century German Existentialism, this was a VERY easy read, where David says what he means and writes in a very easy to digest manner.

The first 100 or so pages are David’s childhood, and it was ROUGH.  As a parent, it’s tough for me to read about someone treating their kids as poorly as David’s dad treated his family.  My heart broke for him, and I honestly think I read so much in my first sitting because I didn’t want to put the book down during such depression.  Just be aware that, if you are sensitive to such plights, it might be tough to get through.

If you are a fan of military heroism ala Richard Marcinko’s “Rogue Warrior” (the autobiography, which I highly recommend as well, but I can’t vouch for the fiction works), that’s not to be found here.  David talks primarily about military training rather than actual operations, so there’s quite a bit about his time going through SEAL Hell Week (BUD/S), Army Ranger School, Delta Force selection, etc, but about the only mention he makes of his work as an active duty military member is discussing recruiting efforts.  This is most likely by intention, and two-fold: it seems that many special forces members are reluctant to discuss actual operations in public, and David’s focus tends to be on experiencing misery and overcoming, with selection processes giving ample opportunity to discuss that.

For the love of god, you want the FIRST one

David is incredibly human, despite appearances of super-human abilities.  In turn, the book does not follow the traditional “3 acts” one sees in plays and movies, primarily because life doesn’t unfold that way.  David has highs and lows occur throughout the book which means that the reader can’t just settle back after the first 200 pages, assume the rough stuff is over and then settle in to absorb all the good vibes and victories.  You need to be paying attention to when mistakes are being made to be able to learn FROM these mistakes without having to make them yourself.  It’s not just the victories that are worth learning from, but the failures as well.

About the only thing that’s really jarring about the book is that David tries to sell it as a self-improvement book rather than an autobiography, and it gets a bit on the nose.  He starts out by telling you there will be 10 challenges in the book for you, as the reader, to face, and each chapter ends with a summary of the chapter, what lessons were learned, what the challenge is for the reader, and then instructions to upload photos or stories of yourself completing the challenges along with the appropriate hashtags to post to be able to share them.  The book came out a year ago and this has already aged poorly, and will fundamentally be silly when read 10, 20, 30+ years from now.  It honestly has to be the work of a ghost writer, because it’s just so completely out of character with the rest of the book.  That said, David s trying to start an online business based around his personality, so don’t hate the player.

      THE TAKEAWAYS

This is a good one

Once again, I had an understanding of David Goggins before picking up the book, and fundamentally wanted to read it to hear his perspective first-hand, rather than relayed by a trainee.  It did not disappoint in that regard.  I can’t say I particularly “learned” from Goggins, but more spent 300+ pages agreeing adamantly through the process, similarly my experience reading Jon Andersen’s “Deep Water” book. It’s nice to find that there are other people that share my mindset, especially when those other people are significantly more accomplished than I am.

The biggest point Goggins makes is how unfun and uncomfortable the experience of becoming better is.  Goggins is an ultramarathoner that hates running, he was a Navy SEAL that was negative buoyant (meaning he sinks instead of floats in water, a quality I also share with him), he had to lose 106lb in 3 months to join the military because he likes food and dislikes training so much, etc etc.  It’s so refreshing to finally read someone that ISN’T talking about how you have to LOVE the process and that this is a passion and training is their life and how it’s all they want to do etc etc.  I’ve always said the same thing whenever I’ve heard that “you’re not training hard enough”, and David is proof of concept that, when you are working hard enough to make REAL changes, the fun absolutely stops.

Not pictured: fun

But that also ties in perfectly with what else is great about this book: David’s emphasis on how many of our limitations are products of our mind. David espouses a “40%” principle, which basically boils down to, at any given point, when people think they’re “giving their all”, they’re only giving 40% of their all.  I LOVE that point.  For lifting, we see that ALL the time.  Kids who SWEAR up and down on a stack of Bibles that they’re going as hard as they possibly can in training, and then you finally get to watch a training session and see just how much they’re not putting out.  David talks about how the mind can put a governor on the body that limits its output, and how, through constant agony, pressing and overcoming, one can improve their ability to tap further and further into their potential. 

Reading about some of the absolutely insane things David has accomplished should hopefully shine some light on the reader about what the human body is capable of.  As painful as it is to read about David’s childhood and upbringing (painful due to the horror of his experiences, rather than as a matter of writing style), it illuminates to the reader that David is a human: flawed and limited like the rest of us. In turn, you’re not reading a story of a super human doing super human things, but about a REGULAR human doing super human things.  When you read about doing a 100 mile race with ZERO prep, armed with only a box of Ritz crackers and some protein shakes, it starts to dawn on you that maybe you can get up at 0500 and go lift some weights without a pre-workout, 2 hours of stretching, devil worship, intra-workout protein and carbs, and 27 warm-up sets.  Or that maybe you can add a few miles of running to your training plan without it catabolizing all of your muscle. 

SHOULD YOU GET THE BOOK?

Yes, absolutely, without a doubt.  It’s an easy read and has a lot of great lessons in it.  Based off some stupid stuff on amazon, I should apparently warn you that it contains a fair amount of profanity in it.  Honestly, if you’re shocked to find out that a Navy SEAL ultramarathoner employs a great deal of profanity, you most likely aren’t understanding just how much suck he’s undergone.