David Goggins just released his new memoir, Can’t Hurt Me. I read it last month and took one main thing from the book. It’s Goggins philosophy for life:
The best things in life are on the other side of suffering.
Again and again in the book, Goggins is presented with challenges to overcome. Some of the challenges were dealt to him (an abusive father, being constantly bullied for the color of his skin), and some of them are brought on by himself. He constantly chooses the difficult path – whether it be joining the Navy SEALS when he was a terrible swimmer, entering into Ranger school, or running ultra marathons of 100+ miles.
For him, the beauty of life is in the struggle. He pushes himself to quite frankly insane limits. He believes that when most people think they’ve hit their capacity for pain, they’ve really only reached 40% of what they can do. He used this mentality to push himself to set the world record for pull-ups in a day (4,030).
While almost none of the readers of his book will be attempting to break any of his records, I do think that his message will resonate with a lot of people. Goggins talks about our brains having a governor on them like a car, one that isn’t real. Push through the pain and see what’s on the other side.
If you’re looking to get motivated to push through the challenges in your own life, give it a read.