Review: Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins

I first learned about David Goggins while reading Jesse Itzler’s Living With a SEAL, and as a fan of workout/active books as well as the Navy SEALS, I was excited to see that Goggins released his own book.

This book is a memoir, but in the form of a self-help/self-improvement book. Stories are not told chronologically but instead grouped by topic, and each chapter ends with an action item for self-betterment.

As I’ve covered before, one of the first things you need to do when reading a self-help book is to ask whether you’d want to end up like the author. In this case, for me, the answer is definitely no. Goggins is a hero and has done amazing work both in the military as well as outside of it (ultramarathons, holding a world record for pull-ups, etc.), but he is also someone who seems completely averse to fun. He takes pride in being an outsider – “the uncommon of the uncommon” – and staying aloof from others so he will have more time to work on himself. In one section he even questions the point of spending any time maintaining friendships when that time could be spent working out instead.

This is not to cast aspersions at Goggins – his story starts from a very dark place with a traumatic childhood drifting into trying teenage years. He had to pull himself together from there all on his own, and success came in stops and starts: he lost a massive amount of weight and studied hard so he could join the Air Force, but washed out of Para-rescue school. He gained the weight back after leaving for a civilian job (if you ever wonder what those EcoLab trucks are for, you’ll find out here!), then worked his butt off to join the Navy SEALS – where due to injuries he had to go through BUD/S three times (including finishing Hell Week twice)!

Goggins had to apply himself and work very hard to make anything of himself. And if your straits are dire enough, his path might be the one to follow. But personally, that’s too extreme for me.

Which is definitely not to say there was nothing to gain by reading Goggins’ book. For one thing, the story is absolutely gripping. Even after becoming a SEAL, Goggins tries his hand at Ranger school and Delta Force (twice) – and that’s just the military side! He also most famously becomes an elite ultramarathoner with very little training, and also fails twice (one time very publicly) to set a world record in pull-ups before finally succeeding on his third try.

For another thing, the motivating portions of the book are not just the ones he calls out specifically. Personally, I was floored reading about his first few ultramarathons, the first one of which he ran on only about a week’s notice – his trials in those races reminded me so much of the marathon I ran a few months ago on one day’s notice. Goggins struggled through his first ultras, but he persevered and grew stronger (and so will I!).

And while I don’t see a need to implement every tool Goggins recommends (such as screaming at myself in a mirror every day), there are items he does recommend that I do want to implement, such as after-action reports and stretching.

The only thing I thought was missing from this book was any mention of his time with Jesse Itzler. It was fun, for example, to read two views of Goggin’s first ultramarathon through two different books – Itzler seeing a buff guy running a 24-hour group race on his own with no supplies other than crackers, Myoplex, and a lawn chair and thinking what a beast he must be, and Goggins’ thinking to himself “This was a terrible idea!” I’d love to have heard what Goggins thought of Itzler, or even of Itzler’s portrayal of him as a hard-nosed laser-focused terse fountain of pain (I bet he had no objections).

Really amazing story whether you need the self-help sections or not. Eight out of ten hot dogs.