Callousing Your Mind: Lessons From David Goggins' Can't Hurt Me

TL;DR

David Goggins proves that your perceived limits are lies. By 'callousing your mind' with tools like the Accountability Mirror and the 40% Rule, you can unlock unparalleled discipline and resilience. #VentureStep #DavidGoggins #MentalToughness

INTRODUCTION

Everyone has experienced limits, whether they are put on us by our environment, society, or even ourselves. ¹Just because people around you haven't achieved what you want to, or authority figures doubt your capabilities, it's easy to put yourself in a box and accept those limitations as truth. ²I faced this myself when I wanted to learn to code in middle school but was told it was for more focused, independent students, a label that stuck with me for years until I finally proved it wrong. ³³³

In this episode, we dissect David Goggins's book,

Can't Hurt Me, which is a masterclass in removing these mental blocks to achieve your full potential. ⁴⁴ Goggins's story is an extreme "zero to hero" transformation. He went from being an overweight pest exterminator, floating aimlessly through life, to becoming one of the toughest men on the planet. ⁵⁵⁵His philosophy isn't about gentle self-help; it's about callousing the mind through extreme intensity and discipline to forge hope, grit, and resilience. ⁶⁶

We explore the powerful mental frameworks Goggins developed through his unimaginable journey of overcoming childhood abuse, racism, and physical challenges to become a Navy SEAL and elite ultramarathon runner. ⁷⁷⁷⁷⁷From the Accountability Mirror for radical honesty to the Cookie Jar for recalling past victories and the 40% Rule for pushing past perceived exhaustion, these tools offer a concrete blueprint for anyone looking to build unshakable mental fortitude. ⁸⁸⁸⁸⁸

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Accountability Mirror: Hold yourself accountable by being your own biggest fan, believer, and critic. ⁹Use sticky notes on your mirror to keep your goals front and center every single day. ¹⁰
• The Cookie Jar: When facing a monumental challenge, mentally "reach into the cookie jar" to recall past victories and hardships you've overcome. ¹¹This practice reduces the potency of the current situation and reminds you of what you're capable of. ¹²¹²
• The 40% Rule: When your mind is telling you that you are completely finished, you are actually only at 40% of your total capacity. ¹³This principle teaches you to push far beyond your perceived limits to unlock the remaining 60%. ¹⁴
• Adapt "Taking Souls": While Goggins's mantra of "Taking Souls" worked in the hyper-competitive military environment, it can alienate colleagues in the professional world. ¹⁵Instead, focus on "taking respect" by leading through example and being a great team player. ¹⁶
• Callous Your Mind: The ultimate goal is to build mental resilience by consistently and intentionally doing difficult things. ¹⁷Combining all these frameworks helps create a mental state where you do what's necessary, regardless of how you feel. ¹⁸¹⁸¹⁸

FULL CONVERSATION

Dalton: Welcome to the Venture Step Podcast, where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. ¹⁹In this episode, we are discussing David Goggins's book, Can't Hurt Me. ²⁰

The Problem of Self-Imposed Limits

Dalton: I think everyone has been at this point in their lives—in high school, college, or their professional career—where they have limits put on themselves, either mentally, by society, or by their environment. ²¹Just because people around you haven't been able to do the things you want to do, or people in authoritative positions don't think you're capable, you put yourself in a box. ²²

Dalton: I've done that too. For a good part of my life, I had always wanted to code. 23I was interested in it since middle school and always asked about it, but the response was always, "This is for kids who can focus and pay attention, who don't need so much care." 24 They were describing more independent kids. In high school, it was, "This program isn't for jocks. This is for kids who are serious about their studies." 25

Dalton: That stuck with me for a while. Then one day in college, while working on a fitness company, I had to do some coding. 26I had to take a class and learn because I couldn't afford to pay somebody. 27And it wasn't that hard; it was really cool and everything I wanted it to be. 28

Why did I not start in middle school? Just because someone told me that I couldn't. ²⁹

Dalton: It's a good example where I didn't consciously put limits on myself, but I later realized I had a mental block there. ³⁰This book that David wrote is about removing your mental blocks and achieving your full potential. ³¹

Who Is David Goggins?

Dalton: His methodology is a little different than other people you'd read about. ³²If you haven't heard about David Goggins, he's all about callusing the mind, and his level of intensity and discipline is extreme in itself. ³³It all started when he was overweight and working as a rodent exterminator. ³⁴He worked the night shift and was just floating through life. ³⁵That can happen if you're not attentive; you can go day-to-day through your job or school, participating but not actively leading your own destiny. ³⁶All of that is easier to understand, discover, and achieve if you have hope, grit, and discipline. ³⁷

A Childhood Defined By Trauma

Dalton: David Goggins's story inspires a lot of people because I would describe it as zero to hero. ³⁸He was an uneducated man; he didn't know how to read and wasn't able to write very well. ³⁹He had a whole bunch of issues with school because of his childhood; his father forced him to work and consistently beat his mother, him, and his brother. ⁴⁰He was beaten so badly that he often couldn't go to school because he would have bruises all over his body. ⁴¹If he went to school, people would find out. ⁴²

Dalton: His father owned a bowling alley and a nightclub and was a really sleazy guy. ⁴³The work at the bowling alley had to be completed by the children and his wife, and they often didn't get done until two or three in the morning. ⁴⁴They had to clean all the alleys and disinfect the shoes. ⁴⁵Then they'd have to wait for the night shift to end at the nightclub because they only had one car, as his father was very controlling. ⁴⁶They would try to sleep on the couch with a nightclub right above them and then go to school, if he wasn't beaten. ⁴⁷

Dalton: That was his childhood until his mother got fed up and left. ⁴⁸Later, his mom found a nice man who was a good father figure to David and helped him gain his confidence back. ⁴⁹But then that man was murdered in the garage of his home. ⁵⁰On top of all that, he was surrounded by racism and didn't get the attention he needed in school, which resulted in him cheating a lot to get by. ^51515151He didn't even know how to read. ⁵²

The Turning Point: From Exterminator to Navy SEAL

Dalton: Things just kept going downhill, and he started doing cockroach extermination. ⁵³He was in the Army at one point but was disqualified for missing PT or something similar. ⁵⁴After doing extermination for some time and hating his life, one day he just decided, "I can't do this anymore." ⁵⁵He wanted to become a Navy SEAL, which was so much higher than where he was. ⁵⁶

Dalton: At the time, I think he was 293 pounds and around 6'1" or 6'2". ⁵⁷He was very big, had trouble walking on the treadmill, and couldn't run. ⁵⁸To even be able to try out, he had to get a crazy score on his ASVAB test, which required a lot of studying. ⁵⁹He also had to lose over a hundred pounds in about three months. ⁶⁰On top of that, he didn't know how to swim. ⁶¹All these crucial things needed to be solved in a very short amount of time. ⁶²

Dalton: The long story short is he gets in and eventually becomes a Navy SEAL, but he had to go through three Hell Weeks. If you fail the third one, you're out for good. 63

The Challenge of Ultra-Running and the Badwater 135

Dalton: After becoming a SEAL, some of his buddies went on missions and didn't come back. ⁶⁴He wanted to raise money for their families and started working with the Warriors Foundation. ^65656565He asked, "What's the craziest thing we could do?" and decided to do the Badwater 135. ⁶⁶It's a 135-mile race with thousands of feet of elevation gain in the desert, where temperatures can hit 130 degrees. ⁶⁷It's an insane race. ⁶⁸

Dalton: To qualify, he had to run 100 miles in under 24 hours. ⁶⁹The race director was unimpressed with his SEAL status and basically told him to get it done, even pointing out a 100-mile race happening that weekend. ⁷⁰So he did the race, completely unprepared. ⁷¹He didn't manage his nutrition, calories, or sodium. ⁷²He went out too fast, burnt out, and had to walk the last 30 miles. ⁷³His body was falling apart; he had stress fractures in his shins and was bleeding. ^{747474747474747474}He prepped with Ritz crackers and Gatorade for a hundred miles. ⁷⁵

Dalton: That experience gave him a humbling amount of caution. ⁷⁶He emailed the race director, who told him that completing one race didn't guarantee entry; it was just the minimum to be considered. ⁷⁷So David did another brutal race, the Hurt 100 in Hawaii, and then finally began training seriously for Badwater. ^78787878

This Is What We Do Now: The Mindset of Discipline

Dalton: It was during these experiences that he created his mental framework for resilience. ⁷⁹ One of his famous sayings is...

Pain is just a feeling. ⁸⁰

Dalton: It's about how there are things you don't want to do or that hurt, and you just do them. ⁸¹That leads to another one of his messages: "This is what we do now." ⁸² That resonates with me. Before I discovered David, I would do crazy training not for my body, but for my mind, thinking that the mental pain would help me later in life. ^83838383When you see David say something similar, it's validating. ⁸⁴

I might be crazy. I say I'm not crazy, I'm just not you. 85

Dalton: This is probably one of my favorites, and I would listen to it all the time before my morning runs. It's about turning every day into Groundhog's Day for your goals. 86 I train for the mental.

The body is a representation of how callous my mind is. ⁸⁷

Framework 1: The Accountability Mirror

Dalton: So how do you callous your mind? One of the first things David started doing was using the accountability mirror. ⁸⁸It allows you to hold yourself accountable. ⁸⁹

You got to be your biggest fan, believer and critic. ⁹⁰

Dalton: A lot of people want to be the fan and believer, but they don't like being the critic. But being your biggest critic leads you one step closer to becoming your biggest fan. 91The accountability mirror started when David was training and had to look himself in the mirror, saying, "This is not you. Look at you. You're just flowing through life. What are you doing? You need to take care of yourself." 92929292He set the insane goal of becoming a Navy SEAL and used the mirror to track his progress—did he do his runs, his swimming, his studying? 93939393

Dalton: He also suggests using sticky notes. Write down your goals and reminders and put them on the mirror so every day when you wake up, you see them. 94

Framework 2: The Cookie Jar

Dalton: Another thing he created was the cookie jar. ⁹⁵He describes that one of the joys of his childhood was his mom keeping a cookie jar, and on good days or bad days, they would get one cookie. ⁹⁶He relates the cookie jar to things he's overcome, good or bad. ⁹⁷When things get tough, he remembers, "Hey, we've done this before. We've been here before. This is nothing." ⁹⁸

Dalton: It reduces the potency of the situation. ⁹⁹When you can look back and recall those hard moments, it can either motivate you to keep going or assure you that you can do it. ¹⁰⁰For me, recently, I've been researching how to start a company and talking to top-tier founders. ^101101101101It's easy to feel like you don't belong. ¹⁰²But one thing that demystified it was remembering I've been in places before where people didn't think I belonged. ¹⁰³At the end of the day, no one's special. ¹⁰⁴We're all capable of amazing things, and if you want to achieve them, it's going to be tough and ugly. ¹⁰⁵

Framework 3: The Danger of "Taking Souls"

Dalton: Another interesting thing he came up with was "Taking Souls." ¹⁰⁶This was created during his Hell Weeks to become a Navy SEAL. ¹⁰⁷He pushed himself so hard that he would demoralize his competitors and even those in authority. ¹⁰⁸During dive school, instructors can really mess with you, making you tie knots underwater for minutes at a time while holding your breath. ^109109109109If you surface before they approve your knots, you're kicked out. ¹¹⁰

Dalton: Because the instructors knew him from previous attempts, they were rubbed the wrong way by his "taking souls" attitude and hammered him, basically trying to drown him. ^{111111111111111111111111111}This highlights the negative effects: people will just want you to fail. ¹¹²If you go into work and annihilate all your colleagues, you're going to alienate yourself. ¹¹³No matter how good you are, if people don't like working with you, what good is it? ¹¹⁴It's not any good. ¹¹⁵

Dalton: This hurt David in his career when trying to get into elite schools within the Navy because he had embarrassed his commanding officers and never fit in. ¹¹⁶Instead of being a team player, he was laying into his teammates. ¹¹⁷He didn't figure that out until later in life. ¹¹⁸Taking souls is not the best thing for long-term success in networks. ¹¹⁹

Framework 4: The 40% Rule

Dalton: The next thing is the 40% rule. ¹²⁰ Basically, it means:

When you think that you're at your limit, you're only at 40%. ¹²¹

Dalton: So you've got 60% left, which is crazy. ¹²²When you're tired and think, "I can't do this anymore," this rule says you have another 60% left. ^123123123123That's a difficult thing to comprehend. ¹²⁴I've pushed myself pretty hard, but I don't know if I've got another 60% after that. ¹²⁵I remember one time running 18 miles in the Florida summer heat after oversleeping. ¹²⁶By the end, I wasn't running a straight line, my vision was blurry, and my motor functions weren't all there. ¹²⁷I had to recover for an hour before I could even drive home. ¹²⁸In moments like that, I don't know if I have another 60% in me. ¹²⁹

The Final Lesson: Callousing Your Mind

Dalton: The last one is callusing your mind. ¹³⁰If you build up all those things—you have an accountability mirror, you have this notion of taking souls, which I would reduce to "taking respect" through hard work and leadership—and you combine them with the cookie jar and the 40% rule, all of that combined callouses your mind. ^{131131131131131131131131131}

Just because it's hard, you think you're at limit, you can push further. ¹³²

Dalton: It gives you this mental framework to deal with any difficult scenario. ¹³³ You're having a hard time? Pull something out of the cookie jar. ¹³⁴ You think you're done? You've got another 60%. ¹³⁵ Check in with yourself. Are you happy with yourself in your accountability mirror? ¹³⁶

Dalton: I feel pretty strongly that those things would help you out, and I would recommend this book. ¹³⁷I liked it a lot. ¹³⁸I think it's best for someone who's trying to find themselves, especially in the area of discipline and taking on hard challenges. ¹³⁹It's a great book for a junior in high school or college going through a rough spell, or someone starting a new, challenging chapter in their lives. ¹⁴⁰I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. ¹⁴¹

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Book: Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
• Organization: Warriors Foundation
• Races: Badwater 135, Hurt 100
• Military: Navy SEALs
• Military Test: ASVAB

INDEX OF CONCEPTS

40% Rule, Accountability Mirror, ASVAB, Badwater 135, Callousing the Mind, Can't Hurt Me, Cookie Jar, David Goggins, Hurt 100, Navy SEALs, Taking Souls, Warriors Foundation