This is week 3 of our reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins together. We’re reading it as a vehicle for our improvement. We’re don’t want to waste a great opportunity before us. We’re seizing the initiative to grow and immerge from this shutdown better than we began. Below are my reflections for reading chapters 4 and 5.
Reflections
Last week, we talked about embracing pain. We don’t embrace pain out of masochistic tendencies. We do it because of where that pain leads. It’s the only path leading to all the growth, maturity, and strength we’re chasing after.
Pain and suffering do one thing more than anything else, they reveal our mindset. Life is all about mindset. It determines everything. “Life,” Charles Swindoll said, “is ten percent what happens to me, and ninety-percent how I react to it.” Life is indeed a mind game. One we plan on winning.
Winning that game is going to require mental toughness; a quality requiring cultivation. How do we develop this all too important quality? Is it a matter of determination and effort? Or is there some way to develop it in a controlled environment and fashion? In short, is there a way to purposefully build it?
“Physical training,” Goggins said, “is the perfect crucible to learn how to manage your thought process because when you’re focus is more likely to be single-pointed, and your response to stress and pain is immediate and measurable.” Doing hard things is the road to developing what Goggins calls an armored mind. A mind you can wield like a weapon not only a shield. That’s exactly what we’re after.
We want the type of mind that pushes the hardest when the temptation to quit is highest; that does its best work when motivation is low; that puts out no matter the circumstance.
Physical challenges strengthen our minds and help us become this type of person. They provide the perfect training ground for the mind and the best way to find out exactly where you are. What do you tell yourself when the pain comes? Do you ever push yourself to that dark place? It has a way of laying you bare. It shows you where you’re weak, and helps you regularly test yourself. It helps you practice in a controlled environment, rather than on the streets.
Getting to that dark and challenging place is the hard part. “It takes relentless self-discipline,” Goggins said, “to schedule suffering into your day, every day, but if you do, you’ll find that at the other end of that suffering is a whole other life just waiting for you.”
Confronting the darkness requires being able to answer important questions about why you’re doing it. That answer must be crystal clear in your mind. It has to be the thing running through your mind when the pain and discomfort are deafening. You’ll need to repeat it to yourself again and again.
The audio version of the book has some added details. In chapter four, David shares what I find to be some of the most helpful leadership advice around.
“The more you think about yourself,” Goggins said, “when you’re going through hell, the harder hell is going to be. The second you start looking after everybody else, you no longer think about yourself. When you don’t think about yourself, you’re not trapped in your own thoughts–your own hell.”
We could have spent our entire reflections on this quote alone. It’s so important that I couldn’t move on without mentioning here. Developing mental toughness is a leadership exercise. It lends itself to self-leadership, as well as that of others. All leadership must begin with self-leadership. An armored mind isn’t a selfish quality. It is a selfless one. It allows you to persevere under hardship and thereby serve others. In short, preparing your mind to cope with life, prepares you to lead when things get hard. The great irony is that caring for others in hard times helps you survive as well.
Next Week
For next week, please read chapters 6 and 7.
Your Turn
I shared my notes from reading this past week. I’d love to hear what you pulled from this week’s reading. If you’re reading this online, drop a comment below. If you’re reading via email, hit reply. If you don’t want to do either, that’s perfectly fine.