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

It is 2012, the furthest in Goggins’s timeline yet and several years after his heart surgeries. He was in New York City striving to set the Guinness World Record for most pull-ups in 24 hours to raise money for his favorite philanthropic cause, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. To achieve this, he will need to do over 4,000 repetitions. The Today Show was there to report on his attempt. He had been training hard and said his heart is in better condition than ever before.

In 2011, Goggins was finally cleared from a long medical hold. He decided to try out for Delta Force again. During Delta Force training Goggins completed an inspired run, substantially beating his personal best and demolishing everyone else in the field. He included a long email from another candidate who was blown away. He proved himself time and time again, impressing everyone. Unfortunately, Goggins grew overconfident, and during the final event, which required long runs through the wilderness, he became lost. To complete the course on time, he cut corners and was punished for it. Although he was the most talented individual in the school, he did not make the unit because he did not meet the final objective standard. He knew he only has himself to blame for this.

During his pull-up attempt on The Today Show Goggins hit total muscle failure for the first time in his life and came up well short of the record. He writes, “I didn’t respect the record enough going in” (266). He lamented his foolishness for not properly preparing for the challenge. He experienced a second failed attempt to break the pull-up record at a CrossFit gym in Nashville. He planned more intelligently than he had for his first attempt (on The Today Show), and got substantially closer, but his hands were worn down to the nerves. He was in incredible pain and in danger of permanently damaging both his hands and his kidneys. Goggins took the time to express gratitude for his mother who was always in his corner in all walks of life. She told him what he needs to hear to feel encouraged and to stay the course.

Goggins attempted to break the world record a third time. For this attempt, he returned once more to the CrossFit gym in Nashville, only two months after his previous attempt. Before this, he underwent a “tactical review” to assess what went wrong. He changed plans and refined his strategy. This time, despite another bout with incredible pain, Goggins bested the world record, completing 4,030 pull-ups. For Goggins the result was anti-climactic. He was still curious how far he could push himself.

Challenge 10 asks readers to reflect on their failures. He compares this to filing an AAR, an After-Action Report. He recommends that the reader not be overly self-critical. Some things go well even in failure. One should document everything that went wrong to be clear about issues and what to do going forward if you may have another shot at it. The goal of documenting failure is to improve, not to beat oneself up.

The final chapter opens with Goggins successfully winning the Frozen Otter, an extremely difficult ultramarathon through snow and ice. Goggins then documents a failed attempt at Badwater and being rushed to the emergency room in Las Vegas by his mother. At this point, Goggins was living in Chicago training potential BUD/S candidates. He went to see his doctor because he was feeling miserable. He was eventually diagnosed with Addison’s disease. This means that his adrenal glands were shutting down and that his body wasn’t producing enough cortisol. The theory is that Goggins, like many other SEALs, has abused his body for so long that his hormonal systems are in terrible decline.

Laid up in bed in 2014, Goggins took stock of his life. For the first time in his adult life, he was forced to rest. He thought about all that he had done, every trial he had overcome. He thought of the abuse he faced and all the resentment in his heart. He came to a place of appreciation and forgiveness, one that he had never yet known. Life, for once, was not a mind game. Confronted with his death, Goggins felt inner peace.

The idea to take up intensive stretching comes to him immediately after this moment of inner clarity. He recalls a session in the SEALs from years earlier in which a stretching expert told him he needed hundreds of hours of stretching to deal with his extreme muscle tension. Goggins writes that he paid no attention to this advice at the time because he was obsessed with muscle power. Now he thought it might be the cure. It worked. Goggins stretched for hours every day for weeks and gained his health back. Goggins retired from the military after two decades of service.

He begins to conclude the book and documents several of the achievements of his peers who’ve been discussed in Can’t Hurt Me. He then tells the story of reconnecting with his brother, Trunnis Jr., after 15 years of separation. Trunnis Jr.’s daughter is killed, and Goggins and his mother drive to Indianapolis to visit him in the wake of the tragedy. Goggins describes hugging his brother and immediately knowing that all their petty grievances had slipped away. Goggins reviews some of his accomplishments and talks about doing wildfire management and EMT work. He has continued to run ultramarathons and says that he is in better physical shape at 43 than he was in his 20s.