“The sole reason I work out like I do isn’t to prepare for and win ultra races. I don’t have an athletic motive at all. It’s to prepare my mind for life itself. Life will always be the most grueling endurance sport, and when you train hard, get uncomfortable, and callous your mind, you will become a more versatile competitor, trained to find a way forward no matter what. Because there will be times when the sh*t life throws at you isn’t minor at all. Sometimes life hits you dead in the f*cking heart.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
“We know life can be hard, and yet we feel sorry for ourselves when it isn’t fair. From this point forward, accept the following as Goggins’ laws of nature: You will be made fun of. You will feel insecure. You may not be the best all the time. You may be the only black, white, Asian, Latino, female, male, gay, lesbian, or [fill in your identity here] in a given situation. There will be times when you feel alone. Get over it! Our minds are f*cking strong, they are our most powerful weapon, but we have stopped using them.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
“Very few people even bother to try to control the way their thoughts and doubts bubble up. The vast majority of us are slaves to our minds. Most don’t even make the first effort when it comes to mastering their thought process because it’s a never-ending chore and impossible to get right every time. The average person thinks 2,000 – 3,000 thoughts per hour. That’s thirty to fifty per minute! Some of those shots will slip by the goalie. It’s inevitable. Especially if you coast through life.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
“Similar to using an opponent’s energy to gain an advantage, leaning on your calloused mind in the heat of battle can shift your thinking as well. Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in so you can power through obstacles.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
“Until you experience hardships like abuse and bullying, failures and disappointments, your mind will remain soft and exposed. Life experience, especially negative experiences, help callous the mind. But it’s up to you where that callous lines up. If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar. It will make you too cautious and untrusting, and possibly too angry at the world. It will make you fearful of change and hard to reach, but not hard of mind.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
“From the time you take your first breath, you become eligible to die. You also become eligible to find your greatness and become the One Warrior. But it is up to you to equip yourself for the battle ahead. Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
The Way of the SEAL [Book]
Book Overview: In The Way of the SEAL, ex-Navy Commander Mark Divine reveals exercises, meditations and focusing techniques to train your mind for mental toughness, emotional resilience and uncanny intuition. Along the way you’ll reaffirm your ultimate purpose, define your most important goals, and take concrete steps to make them happen. A practical guide for businesspeople or anyone who wants to be an elite operator in life.
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Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. The Kindle edition of this book comes highly recommended on Amazon.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“I’m sure you have challenges, things that you wish you could overcome, or things that you could get over… Stop. Stop trying to get over it. Because if we’re trying to get over all of the problems in our lives then our entire lifetimes are just going to be trying to get over problems—that’s all there is going to be. And that is not a life to be proud of. Instead, find those challenges in your life and use them! Use them and turn them into an opportunity.” ~ Claire Wineland (15), TEDxMalibu
“A lot of motivational speakers will tell you that the point of life is to be happy… I think that’s bullsh*t. I think that happiness is an emotion—it’s some dopamine firing in your brain and it’s great and it’s awesome when it happens. But we can’t chase happiness—we have to chase deep satisfaction and pride—and there’s a difference. And the way that we do that is not by running away from our pain or sickness, it’s by being sick and saying, ‘So what?'” ~ Claire Wineland (19), Zappos All Hands Meeting
“An optimist is one who sees opportunity in every difficulty. A pessimist is one who sees difficulty in every opportunity.” ~ L. P. Jacks, via The Way of the Seal
“The nature of the outer, conscious mind is to receive input, process it through our story filter, and then make meaning out of it. A problem arises when too much of what flows through our minds is negative: The conscious mind dwells on negative things and obsesses about them. Sound familiar? It’s well known that whatever we focus on tends to become our reality, even if the focus is on not wanting something. Negative input can plant seeds of destruction in our subconscious mind, which then partners with our conscious mind in a conspiracy for failure.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“Though we’d like to believe our thoughts are under our control, guess again. Thoughts arise constantly, and many have no business being in our minds, nor do they have a positive purpose in our lives. Road rage, what goes through your mind when someone cuts you off in traffic, is a good example of an emotion-driven thought.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“To win anything, we must first win control over our minds.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal