By David Goggins (born February 17, 1975 - now still living )
TO THE UNRELENTING VOICE IN MY HEAD THAT WILL NEVER ALLOW ME TO STOP. 我脑海中那个不屈不挠的声音永远不会让我停下来。Wǒ nǎohǎi zhōng nàgè bùqūbùnáo de shēngyīn yǒngyuǎn bù huì ràng wǒ tíng xiàlái.
INTRODUCTION....page 11
1. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A STATISTIC.......page15 我应该是一个统计数据 Wǒ yīng gāi shì yī gè tǒng jì shù jù
2. TRUTH HURTS.......page 45 真相伤人 Zhēn xiàng shāng rén
3. THE IMPOSSIBLE TASK.....page 75 不可能的任务 Bù kě néng de rèn wù
4. TAKING SOULS.....page 103 夺走灵魂 Duó zǒu líng hún
5. ARMORED MIND....page131
装甲心灵 Zhuāng jia xīn líng
6. IT'S NOT ABOUT A TROPHY ....page 165 这与奖杯无关 Zhè yǔ jiǎng bēi wú guān
7. THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON....page 195 最强大的武器 Zuì qiáng dà de wǔ qì
8. TALENT NOT REQUIRED......page 233 不需要人才 Bù xū yào rén cái
9. UNCOMMON AMONGST UNCOMMON ....page 265 不寻常中的不寻常 Bù xún cháng zhōng de bù xún cháng
10. THE EMPOWERMENT OF FAILURE....page 297 失败的力量 Shī bài de lì liàng
11. WHAT IF? ....page 333 如果什么？Rúguǒ shénme?
DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE AND WHAT YOU'RE capable of? 你知道你到底是谁以及你有什么能力吗？Nǐ zhī dào nǐ dào dǐ shì shéi yǐjí nǐ yǒu shé me nénglì ma?
INTRODUCTION 介绍
I'm sure you think so, but just because you believe something doesn't make it true. Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.
我相信你也是这么想的，但仅仅因为你相信某件事并不意味着它就是真的。 否认是终极的舒适区。Wǒ xiāngxìn nǐ yěshì zhème xiǎng de, dàn jǐnjǐn yīnwèi nǐ xiāngxìn mǒu jiàn shì bìng bù yìwèizhe tā jiùshì zhēn de. Fǒurèn shì zhōngjí de shūshì qū.
Don't worry, you aren't alone. In every town, in every country, all over the world, millions of people roam the streets, dead-eyed as zombies, addicted to comfort, embracing a victim's mentality and unaware of their true potential. I know this because I meet and hear from them all the time, and because just like you, I used to be one of them.
I had a damn good excuse too.
Life dealt me a bad hand. I was born broken, grew up with beat downs, was tormented in school, and was called nigger more times than I could count.
We were once poor, surviving on welfare, living in government subsidized housing, and my depression was smothering. I lived life at the bottom of the barrel, and my future forecast was bleak as fuck.
Very few people know how the bottom feels, but I do. It's like quicksand. It grabs you, sucks you under, and won't let go. When life is like that it's easy to drift and continue to make the same comfortable choices that are killing you, over and over again.
But the truth is we all make habitual, self-limiting choices. It's as natural as a sunset and as fundamental as gravity. It's how our brains are wired, which is why motivation is crap.
Even the best pep talk or self-help hack is nothing but a temporary fix. It won't rewire your brain. It won't amplify your voice or uplift your life. Motivation changes exactly nobody. The bad hand that was my life was mine, and mine alone to fix.
So I sought out pain, fell in love with suffering, and eventually transformed myself from the weakest piece of shit on the planet into the hardest man God ever created, or so I tell myself.
Odds are you had a much better childhood than I did, and even now might have a damn decent life, but no matter who you are, who your parents are or were, where you live, what you do for a living, or how much money you have, you're probably living at about 40 percent of your true capability.
Damn shame.
We all have the potential to be so much more.
Years ago, I was invited to be on a panel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'd never set foot in a university lecture hall as a student. I'd barely graduated high school, yet I was at one of the most prestigious institutions in the country to discuss mental toughness with a handful of others. At some point in the discussion an esteemed MIT professor said that we each have genetic limitations. Hard ceilings. That there are some things we just can't do no matter how mentally tough we are. When we hit our genetic ceiling, he said, mental toughness doesn't enter into the equation.
Everyone in that room seemed to accept his version of reality because this senior, tenured professor was known for researching mental toughness. It was his life's work. It was also a bunch of bullshit, and to me he was using science to let us all off the hook.
I'd been quiet until then because I was surrounded by all these smart people, feeling stupid, but someone in the audience noticed the look on my face and asked if I agreed. And if you ask me a direct question, I won't be shy.
"There's something to be said for living it instead of studying it," I said, then turned toward the professor. "What you said is true for most people, but not 100 percent. There will always be the 1 percent of us who are willing to put in the work to defy the odds."
I went on to explain what I knew from experience. That anybody can become a totally different person and achieve what so-called experts like him claim is impossible, but it takes a lot of heart, a lot of will, and an armored mind.
Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right when he wrote about men on the battlefield. "Out of every one hundred men," he wrote, "ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior..."
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.
I am not a genius like those professors at MIT, but I am that One Warrior. And the story you are about to read, the story of my fucked-up life, will illuminate a proven path to self-mastery and empower you to face reality, hold yourself accountable, push past pain, learn to love what you fear, relish failure, live to your fullest potential, and find out who you really are.
Human beings change through study, habit, and stories.Through my story you will learn what the body and mind are capable of when they're driven to maximum capacity, and how to get there. Because when you're driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it's racism, sexism, injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your metamorphosis.
The steps laid out here amount to the evolutionary algorithm, one that obliterates barriers, glimmers with glory, and delivers lasting peace.
I hope you're ready. It's time to go to war with yourself.
CHAPTER ONE
I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A STATISTIC
WE FOUND HELL IN A BEAUTIFUL NEIGHBORHOOD. IN 1981,Williamsville offered the tastiest real estate in Buffalo, New York. Leafy and friendly, its safe streets were dotted with dainty homes filled with model citizens. Doctors, attorneys, steel plant executives, dentists, and professional football players lived there with their adoring wives and their 2.2 kids. Cars were new, roads swept, possibilities endless. We're talking about a living, breathing American Dream. Hell was a corner lot on Paradise Road.
That's where we lived in a two-story, four-bedroom, white wooden home with four square pillars framing a front porch that led to the widest, greenest lawn in Williamsville. We had a vegetable garden out back and a two-car garage stocked with a 1962 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, a 1980 Mercedes 450 SLC, and, in the driveway, a sparkling new 1981 black Corvette. Everyone on Paradise Road lived near the top of the food chain, and based on appearances, most of our neighbours thought that we, the so-called happy, well-adjusted Goggins family, were the tip of that spear. But glossy surfaces reflect much more than they reveal.
They'd see us most week day mornings, gathered in the driveway at 7 a.m. My dad, Trunnis Goggins, wasn't tall but he was handsome and built like a boxer. He wore tailored suits, his smile warm and open. He looked every bit the successful businessman on his way to work. My mother, Jackie, was seventeen years younger, slender and beautiful, and my brother and I were clean cut, well dressed in jeans and pastel Izod shirts, and strapped with backpacks just like the other kids. The white kids. In our version of affluent America, each driveway was a staging ground for nods and waves before parents and children rode off to work and school. Neighbors saw what they wanted. Nobody probed too deep.
Good thing. The truth was, the Goggins family had just returned home from another all-nighter in the hood, and if Paradise Road was Hell, that meant I lived with the Devil himself. As soon as our neighbors shut the door or turned the corner, my father's smile morphed into a scowl. He barked orders and went inside to sleep another one off, but our work wasn't done. My brother, Trunnis Jr., and I had somewhere to be, and it was up to our sleepless mother to get us there.
I was in first grade in 1981, and I was in a school daze, for real. Not because the academics were hard —at least not yet-but because I couldn't stay awake. The teacher's sing-song voice was my lullaby, my crossed arms on my desk, a comfy pillow, and her sharp words - once she caught me dreaming- an unwelcome alarm clock that wouldn't stop blaring. Children that young are infinite sponges. They soak up language and ideas at warp speed to establish a fundamental foundation upon which most people build life-long skills like reading and spelling and basic math, ...
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR: CAN'T HURT ME
David Goggins is a being of pure will and inspiration. Just listening to this guy talk makes you want to run up a mountain. I firmly believe people like him can change the course of the world just by inspiring us to push harder and dig deeper in everything we do. His goal to be "uncommon amongst uncommon people" is something we can all use to propel ourselves to fulfill our true potential. I'm a better man having met him.— JOE ROGAN, STANDUP COMEDIAN AND HOST OF THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE PODCAST
David Goggins lives out every goal, every dream, no matter what. PERIOD. He's unstoppable.There's no limit to him because he doesn't live in a comfort zone. His mental and physical capacity are equal. Goggins proves that your body can handle anything if you let your mind keep up. There's no way to stop something or someone that doesn't understand the concept of being beat.
- MARCUS LUTTRELL, RETIRED NAVY SEAL, AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER LONE SURVIVOR
FOR DAVID GOGGINS, CHILDHOOD WAS A NIGHTMARE.
Poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S.Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiringOutside magazine to name him "The Fittest (Real) Man in America."
In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of ustap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his true story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.
David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL and has competed in more than sixty ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons, setting new courserecords and regularly placing in the top five. A former Guinness World Record holder for completing 4,030 pull-ups in seventeen hours, ( watch here ) he's a much-sought-after public speaker who's shared his story with the staffs of Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, and hundreds of thousands of students across the country.
NEVER FINISHED:
UNSHACKLE YOUR MIND AND WIN THE WAR WITHIN
TO MY NORTH STAR THAT HAS ALWAYS
SHINED, EVEN ON THE DARKEST OF NIGHTS.
WARNING ORDER ... page 9
INTRODUCTION ... page 11
1. MAXIMIZE MINIMAL page 19
POTENTIAL EVOLUTION NO. 1 .....page 35
2. MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS page 41
EVOLUTION NO. 2....page 57
3. THE MENTAL LAB...page 67
EVOLUTION NO. 3....page 83
4. A SAVAGE REBORN page 95
EVOLUTION NO. 4.....page 115
5. DISCIPLE OF DISCIPLINE ...page121
EVOLUTION NO. 5....page 147
6. THE ART OF GETTING HIT IN THE MOUTH....page 153
EVOLUTION NO. 6....page 189
7. THE RECKONING...page 197
EVOLUTION NO. 7....page 231
8. PLAY UNTIL THE WHISTLE...page 245 EVOLUTION NO. 8...page 275
9. WRINGING OUT THE SOUL page 281
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...page 309
INTRODUCTION
This is not a self-help book. Nobody needs another sermon about the ten steps or seven stages or sixteen hours a week that will deliver them from their stalled or fucked-up life. Hit the local bookstore or surf Amazon and you will slip into a bottomless pit of self-help hype. Must feel good to consume because it sure does sell.
Too bad most of it won't work. Not for real. Not forever. You might see progress here and there, but if you are broken like I used to be or stuck wandering an endless plateau while your true potential wastes away, books alone can't and won't fix you..
Self-help is a fancy term for self-improvement, and while we should always strive to be better, improvement is often not enough. There are times in life when we become so disconnected from ourselves that we must drill down and rewire those cut connections in our hearts, minds, and souls. Because that is the only way to rediscover and reignite belief-that flicker in the darkness with the power to spark your evolution.
Belief is a gritty, potent, primordial force. In the 1950s, ascientist named Dr. Curt Richter proved this when he gathered dozens of rats and dropped them into thirty-inch-deep glass cylinders filled with water. The first rat paddled on the surface for a short time, then swam to the bottom, where it looked for an escape hatch. It died within two minutes. Several others followed that same pattern. Some lasted as long as fifteen minutes, but they all gave up. Richter was surprised because rats are damn good swimmers, yet in his lab, they drowned without much of a fight. So, he tweaked the test.
After he placed the next batch of rats in their jars, Richter watched them, and right before it looked like they were about to give up, he and his technicians scooped up the rats, toweled them off, and held them long enough for their heart and respiratory rates to normalize. Long enough for them to register, on a physiological scale, that they had been saved. They did this a few times before Richter placed a group of them back into those evil cylinders again to see how long they would last on their own. This time, the rats didn't give up. They swam their natural asses off...for an average of sixty hours without any food or rest. One swam for eighty-one hours.
In his report, Richter suggested that the first round of subjects gave up because they were hopeless and that the second batch persisted for so long because they knew it was possible someone would come along and save their sorry asses. The popular analysis these days is that Richter's interventions flipped a switch in the rat's brain, which illuminated the power of hope for us all to see.
I love this experiment, but hope isn't what got into those rats. How long does hope really last? It may have triggered something initially, but no creature is going to swim for their life for sixty hours straight, without food, powered by hope alone. They needed something a lot stronger to keep them breathing, kicking, and fighting.
When mountaineers tackle the tallest peaks and steepest faces, they are usually tethered to a rope fixed to anchors in the ice or rock so when they slip, they don't slide off the mountain and tumble to their deaths. They may fall ten or twelve feet, then get up, dust themselves off, and try again. Life is the mountain we are all climbing, but hope is not an anchor point. It's too soft, fluffy, and fleeting. There's no substance behind hope.It's not a muscle you can develop, and it's not rooted down deep. It's an emotion that comes and goes.
Richter touched something in his rats that was damn near unbreakable. He may not have noticed them adapting to their life-or-death trial, but they had to have figured out a more efficient technique to preserve energy. With each passing minute, they became more and more resilient until they started to believe that they would survive. Their confidence didn't fade as the hours piled up; it actually grew. They weren't hoping to be saved. They refused to die! The way I see it, belief is what turned ordinary lab rats into marine mammals.
There are two levels to belief. There's the surface level, which coaches, teachers, therapists, and parents love to preach. "Believe in yourself," they all say, as if the thought alone can keep us afloat when the odds are against us in the battle of our lives. But once exhaustion sets in, doubt and insecurity tend to penetrate and dissipate that flimsy brand of belief.
Then there's the belief born in resilience. It comes from working your way through layers of pain, fatigue, and reason, and ignoring the ever-present temptation to quit until you strike a source of fuel you didn't even know existed. One that eliminates all doubt, makes you certain of your strength and the fact that eventually, you will prevail, so long as you keep moving forward. That is the level of belief that can defy the expectations of scientists and change everything. It's not an emotion to be shared or an intellectual concept, and nobody else can give it to you. It must bubble up from within.
When you are lost at sea and no one is coming to save you, there are only two options. You will either swim hard and figure out how to last as long as it takes, or you are bound to drown. I was born with holes in my heart and sickle cell trait, and into a childhood torched by toxic stress and learning disabilities. I had minimal potential, and by the time I turned twenty-four, I knew I was in danger of wasting my life.
Many people get it twisted and think my accomplishments directly correlate to my potential. My accomplishments do not equate to my potential. The little bit I had was buried so deep, most people would never have found it. Not only did I find it, I learned to maximize it.
I knew that there could be so much more to my story than the wreckage I saw around me, and that it was time to decide if I had it in me to go as hard as I could for as long as it took to become a more self-empowered human being. I fought through doubt and insecurity. I wanted to quit every single day, but eventually, belief kicked in. I believed I could evolve, and that same belief has given me the strength and focus to persevere whenever I've been challenged for over two decades. More often than not, I've challenged myself to see how far I can push it and how many more chapters I can add to my story. I'm still seeking new territory, still curious just how high I might rise from the bottom of the barrel.
A lot of folks feel like they are missing something in their lives - something money can't buy - and that makes them miserable. They attempt to fill the void with material things they can see, feel, and touch. But that empty feeling won't go away. It fades some until all gets quiet again. Then that familiar gnawing in their gut returns, reminding them that the life they are living is not the fullest expression of who they are or might become.
Unfortunately, most people are not desperate enough to do anything about it. When you're hogtied in conflicting emotionsand other people's opinions, it's impossible to tap into beliefand easy to drift away from that urge to evolve. You could beitchy as fuck to experience something different, to be somewhere different, or to become someone different, but when theslightest resistance arises to challenge your resolve, you moonwalk right back into the unsatisfied person you were before. Still itchy, still jonesing to be someone new, yet still trapped in your unfulfilling status quo. And you are nowhere near alone.
Social media has compounded and spread this virus of dissatisfaction, which is why the world is now populated by damaged people consuming airy gratification, hunting an immediate dopamine fix with no substance at all behind it. Instead of staying focused on growth, millions of minds have been infected with lack, leaving them feeling even lesser than..Their internal dialogue becomes that much more toxic, as this population of weak-ass, entitled victims of life itself multiplies.
It's funny, we question so many things about the way our lives are going. We wonder what it would be like if we looked different, had more of a head start, or were given a boost at one time or another. Very few people question their own warped minds. Instead, they collect slights, dramas, and problems, hoarding them until they are bloated with stale regret and envy, which form the road blocks stopping them from becoming their truest, most capable selves.
All over the world, hundreds of millions of people choose to live that way. But there is another way of thinking and another way of being. It helped me regain control of my life. It allowed me to eviscerate all obstacles in my path until my growth factor became damn near limitless. I'm still haunted, but I've traded in my demons for evil-ass angels, and now, it's a good haunting. I'm haunted by my future goals, not my past failures. I'm haunted by what I may still become. I'm haunted by my own continued thirst for evolution.
The work is often as miserable and thankless as it ever was, and although there are techniques and skills I've developed that can help along the way, there is no certain number of principles, hours, or steps in this process. It's about constant effort, learning, and adaptation, which demands unwavering discipline and belief. The kind that looks a lot like desperation. See, I am the lab rat who refused to die! And I'm here to show you how get to the other side of hell.
Most theories on performance and possibility are hatched in the controlled environment of a sterile laboratory and spread in university lecture halls. But I am not a theorist. I am a practitioner. Similar to how the late, great Stephen Hawking explored the dark matter of the universe, I am intensely passionate about exploring the dark matter of the mind - all of our untapped energy, capacity, and power. My philosophy has been tested and proven in my own Mental Lab through all the many fuck-yous, failures, and feats that shaped my life in the real world.
After each chapter, you will find an Evolution. In the military, evolutions are drills, exercises, or practices meant to sharpen
"THERE ARE LEVELS TO MENTAL STRENGTH, AND THE UNDISPUTED GOLD STANDARD IS MY FRIEND DAVID GOGGINS.
The combination of the superhuman spectacle of his accomplishments and the immense gravityof his words serves as one of the most potent motivational drugs that exist on God's green earth. He's a man who came from a humble and troubled childhood and, through the force of sheer will, forged himself into one of the hardest mother fuckers that's ever lived. I believe there are people that are put here to elevate our expectations and redefine what's possible for the rest of us, and David Goggins is the best example of that idea that I've ever come across in my life." -JOE ROGAN
THIS IS NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK.
IT'S A WAKE-UP CALL!
Can't Hurt Me, David Goggins' smash hit memoir, demonstrated how much untapped ability we all have but was merely an introduction to the power of the mind. In Never Finished, Goggins takes you inside his Mental Lab, where he developed the philosophy,psychology, and strategies that enabled him to learn that what he thought was his limit was only his beginning and that the quest for greatness is unending.
The stories and lessons in this raw, revealing, unflinching memoir offer the reader a blueprint they can use to climb from the bottom of the barrel into a whole new stratosphere that once seemed unattainable. Whether you feel off-course in life, are looking to maximize your potential or drain your soul to break through your so-called glass ceiling, this is the only book you will ever need.
DAVID G0GGINS is a Retired Navy SEAL and the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training, Army Ranger School,and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. Goggins has completed more than seventy ultra-distance races, often placing in the top five, and is a former Guinness World Record holder for completing 4,030 pullups in seventeen hours. A sought-after public speaker, he's traveled the world sharing his philosophy on how to master the mind. When he's not speaking, he works as an Advanced Emergency Technician in a big city Emergency Room and, during the summer, as a wild land firefighter in British Columbia.
Jesse Itzler Living with a SEAL: 31Days Training with the SEAL
Prologue ...page 1
Day 1: The Arrival...page 3
Day 2: Nature's Gatorade ...page 20
Day 3: My Nuts....page 32
Day 4: Fitness Test....page 44
Day 5: Escape Vehicle....page 48
Day 6: That Damn Finger....page 56
Day 7: Mix Up Your Runs....page 75
Day 8: No Peeing Allowed...page 89
Day 9: Oxygen Deprivation...page 101
Day 10: The Honor Code...page 108
Days 11-12: Enjoy the Pain...page 120
Day 13: Sick Fuck Friday...page 128
Day 14: Fireman's Carry ...page 135
Day 15: It's All About the Push-ups ...page 141
Day 16: Stay Lite...page 153
Day 17: Suicide Bombers...page 160
Day 18: The Difference Five Minutes Can Make...page 169
Day 19: My Shoulders...page 176
Day 20: Start When the Second Hand Hits...page 182
Day 21: One Rep at a Time...page 191
Days 22-23: Night Training...page 195
Day 24: Whiteout...page 207
Day 25: Get Your Balls Wet... page 212
Day 26: Primary Target...page 222
Day 27: 1,000 Push-ups.... page 225
Day 28: Up the Ante....page 229
Day 29: Sloppy Seconds...page 234
Day 30: Last Run...page 242
Day 31: A Sad Day...page 246
Epilogue ...page 250
Five Years Later...page 252
SEAL: Revealed ...page 259
Acknowledgments ...page 265
People ask me why I hired SEAL. One answer is this: When it comes to physical fitness, I tend to be a creature of habit. I guess compared to most people my age, I was excellent shape and in a great place in my personal life. At the time I was married (still am) to a fantastic woman, and we had our first beautiful eighteen-month-old son (two more since). I began running in 1992, just after I graduated from college. I've missed maybe a handful of days since. I've run eighteen New York City marathons in a row, and it's been the same drill every year. Training schedule - the same. Running route - the same. The store I buy bananas from the day before the race - the same. The Patsy's pizza I order the night before each race - the same.
I like routine.
And routine can be good, especially when it comes to working out. But routine can also be a rut.
Many of us live our lives on autopilot. We do the samething every day; wake up, go to work, come home, have dinner. Repeat. I found myself drifting in that direction. It was as if my cruise control settings had been set and I wasn't improving. I wanted to get off it; I wanted to shake things up in a big way. My Central Park West life and SEAL's nomadic take-no-prisoners life merging (or I should say, colliding) for a period of time was what I needed. It was unexpected, it was unique. It was insane (okay, I admit it), but research shows that stepping out of our routine in life is great for the body and spirit...the brain too. Mix it up! Do the outrageous; think out of the box. Life is short, why not? As SEALsays, "This ain't a dress rehearsal, bitch."
While this is a story about our month together, it's just as much a story about two people that had to step outside of their comfort zones. SEAL and me. He was as uncomfortable with doormen, chefs, and drivers as I was with sleeping in a chair and intentionally waking up in the middle of the night to run in the worst possible conditions. His no rhyme or reason approach to our workout schedule actually brought a lot of clarity into my life.
SEAL had something I wanted, but I just wasn't sure what it was. And I wanted to find out. Do you remember Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid movie? He had a very unorthodox approach to training. Daniel LaRusso, played by RalphMacchio, wants to learn martial arts, but Mr. Miyagi starts him off with menial chores to help him. And Daniel unknowingly develops the defensive blocks through muscle memory, but what he eventually learns is a lot more than martial arts.That's kind of what I was looking for when I asked SEAL to move in to stay with me and train me. I wanted to train my body, but also my mind and spirit. The difference was that I wasn't training for protection or a trophy. And I had already gotten the girl. I just wanted to get better.
I've also always had an unorthodox approach to business and life in general. It's served me well. I don't believe in résumés in the traditional sense, I believe in life résumés..Do more. Create memories. Only when looking back on my successes and failures am I able to connect the dots. I could have never predicted or planned to go from being a rapper on MTV in the 1990s to eventually owning and operating my own private jet company. My normal has always been abnormal.
I don't know if I was thinking about my mortality, or fretting over how many more peak years I had left, or anything like that. I just felt that now was as good a time as any to shake things up. You know, to break up that same routine.
I believe the best ideas are the ones you don't spend too much time thinking through. My time with SEAL was no different and I got a lot more than I bargained for. Most of my successes in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like I said, I just want to get better.
DAY 1
The Arrival
I'm trained to disappear. — SEAL
New York City
14°
0638
I pour oatmeal into a bowl, fill the pot with water, light the stove, and set the timer. I click play on the remote and position Lazer, my eighteen-month-old son, so he can see his Baby Einstein video. I peek into the guest room to make sure the bed is made. My son is giggling, which comforts me. I check on my wife, Sara, who's still sleeping, and then recheck the guest room to make sure it's shipshape, or whatever the heck they say in the Navy. I hear the timer go off. I cut up some bananas and pour honey on them. I look at the clock on the microwave: 6:38 a.m.
ETA: twenty-two minutes.
I'm filled with nervous energy.
I sit with my son, feed him breakfast, and watch the rest of Baby Einstein. The bananas are still in my bowl. I'm not hungry. I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I push my hair back with my hands. I grin at my reflection to check my teeth. They're clean.
I go back to the living room.
I do as many push-ups as I can: twenty-two.
I look at the clock: 6:44 a.m.
What if he has trouble getting a cab? Does a guy like him even take a cab? Maybe he's going to run to my house. The plane might be delayed? He could've changed his mind? Maybe I should call. What am I talking about? The guy's probably parachuted into foreign countries; he has to know how to get to my house on time. Right?
But he NEVER asked for my address, NEVER inquired what to bring. He wouldn't give me his flight information and didn't request a car service. NOTHING. In fact, the only thing the man said was:
"I arrive at oh seven hundred." That's military time for
7:00 a.m.
I first saw "SEAL" at a twenty-four-hour relay race in San Diego. After several marathons, this was my first "ultra." I was on a team of six ultra-marathoners who would each take turns running twenty-minute legs. The objective: Run more miles than every other team in twenty-four hours.
There were teams registered from all over the country.
You know, friends coming together to test themselves physically and mentally. SEAL, however, didn't have a team. He didn't have friends. He was running the entire race....himself.
The event was low budget, really low budget. The entire course was set around a one-mile loop in an unlit parking lot near the San Diego Zoo. It was unsupported, meaning you bring your own supplies. Whatever you needed, you were responsible for.
My team and I flew in the night before to get ready. When we got there we walked the course and mapped out our strategy. Before we went to sleep, we laid out our race gear and supplies so we were ready to go when we woke up. Water. Gatorade. Bananas. PowerBars. Band-Aids. We were ready.
Before the race, we stretched in a small circle on the grass. I was nervous and excited, but I couldn't help notice the guy ten feet away. To say he stood out would be an understatement. For starters, he was the only African-American ....
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