Can't Hurt Me
- Raghav
- Feb 6, 2022
- 4 min read
Mentally Strongest Guy in the World!!!
Undoubtedly, David has been through some crazy shit during his childhood and has transformed himself into one of the most robust and influential people with his story. The book is his life story written by him (from being a bullied kid to the fat guy, to his path in the US army and world best marathon runner with a complimentary hole in his heart which he discovered later), divided by chapters and by the end of each chapter, you will find challenges. Overall, it's worth reading. It does not include much foul language, as Goodread reviews say. The summarized challenges are as follows:
Challenge #1 :
Get your shit together and make a DETAILED journal. If you had a terrible past, no job, less pay, fat, sadness, break up, anything that's hard on you, write it down and accept it, own it. You already know about this, you must have read it tons of times, but once you read the story, you will learn how to.
Challenge #2 :
Accountability mirror: make notes, follow your goals, and paste them on your accountability mirror. If you look in the mirror and see someone overweight, that means you’re fucking fat! Own it! It’s okay to be unkind with yourself in these moments because we need thicker skin to improve in life. Take ownership by looking into your accountability mirror every day and writing down the next baby step towards achieving it.
Challenge #3 :
Build a calloused mind: put yourself into an uncomfortable situation. It doesn't matter if it's as small as making your bed every day, but put yourself into that situation, and you will have a strong mentality.
Winners never always stay #1 because they get comfortable in that position, no matter how hard they have worked to get that shit. Diamonds are only formed under pressure!!
Challenge #4 :
Go All-in and bold when the situation is challenging for you
Challenge #5 :
Master your thoughts:
Make sure your top is clean and tidy. You can't give even spare a second for unnecessary thoughts if you are focused enough on your goals.
Visualize success: go ahead and feel the result, live it and access all the potholes on your track to achieve it.
Strategize and WIN!
Challenge #6 :
Cookie Jar: Set a reward mechanism and reward yourself with each goal you complete.
Challenge #7:
Can't shorten it. Read it all
The main objective here is to slowly start to remove the governor from your brain. First, a quick reminder of how this process works. In 1999, when I weighed 297 pounds, my first run was a quarter mile. Fast forward to 2007, I ran 205 miles in thirty-nine hours, nonstop. I didn’t get there overnight, and I don’t expect you to either. Your job is to push past your normal stopping point. Whether you are running on a treadmill or doing a set of push-ups, get to the point where you are so tired and in pain that your mind is begging you to stop. Then push just 5 to 10 percent further. If the most push-ups you have ever done is one hundred in a workout, do 105 or 110. If you normally run thirty miles each week, run 10 percent more next week. This gradual ramp-up will help prevent injury and allow your body and mind to slowly adapt to your new workload. It also resets your baseline, which is important because you’re about to increase your workload another 5 to 10 percent the following week, and the week after that.
There is so much pain and suffering involved in physical challenges that it’s the best training to take command of your inner dialogue, and the newfound mental strength and confidence you gain by continuing to push yourself physically will carry over to other aspects in your life. You will realize that if you were underperforming in your physical challenges, there is a good chance you are underperforming at school and work too.
The bottom line is that life is one big mind game. The only person you are playing against is yourself. Stick with this process and soon what you thought was impossible will be something you do every fucking day of your life.
This gradual ramp-up will help prevent injury and allow your body and mind to slowly adapt to your new workload. It also resets your baseline, which is important because you’re about to increase your workload another 5 to 10 percent the following week, and the week after that. There is so much pain and suffering involved in physical challenges that it’s the best training to take command of your inner dialogue, and the newfound mental strength and confidence you gain by continuing to push yourself physically will carry over to other aspects in your life. You will realize that if you were underperforming in your physical challenges, there is a good chance you are underperforming at school and work too. The bottom line is that life is one big mind game. The only person you are playing against is yourself. Stick with this process and soon what you thought was impossible will be something you do every fucking day of your life.
Challenge #8
Three-week challenge
Week 1: Study and note down your time, work, mood, behaviour, diet to the minute detail. Make a journal of each step.
Week 2: Try new changes, tricks and tactics to overcome hurdles. Experiment till you find a hack
Week 3: Scale it; now that you know the right track, go all in and put work on the table
Challenge #9
Strive for greatness and not for single stop goals. Your desire for excellence should be pertaining. It's easy to stand out amongst everyday people and be a big fish in a small pond. It is a much more difficult task when you are a wolf surrounded by wolves. This means not only losing 10 KGs but also gaining muscles, not only having a high paying job but also excelling to the top.
Challenge #10
If you have been through a challenge, make a log. Write everything that went well and everything that went wrong with the hairpin. Read it, fix it and go again.
You already know about the challenges stated above. We all do. But it's not about what you already know, it's about how much can you resonate with it. Once you will read each chapter of David's life story, followed by these challenges, you will realise the importance and truly motivates towards it
Key Takeaways for me
Be honest to yourself: you know where you went wrong, you know what you want, and you even know where you can improve, but we all are the culprit of wishful thinking. If it's embracing, keep it to yourself but acknowledge it
Write the shit down: the more your login, the more you will know about the situation. Most of the time, we are unaware of the clause, and then it's a neverending loop of trials and disappointments because we never tried to find the reason behind it. That's why writing down pointers are so important!
Put yourself into an uncomfortable situation every day: it can be a small task, but do it. You will know when you feel like "I hate it", but if you are consistent with those tasks, you will have a powerful brain that will be always ready to put down a challenge.
If life is going too smooth, you will go down eventually. That's a fact!!
If life is not throwing challenges in front of you, you create them for self-improvement and keep sharpening yourself like a knife because if you don't, it will be blunt and useless ultimately.
Build a callous mind and strive for uniqueness, just like David who ran marathons with a hole in his heart, tried breaking the world record for most pull-ups, became the best marathon runner in the entire world.
I never missed a day of gym, following in his footsteps. What's your motivation dawg?
#Quotes from the book
"Don’t massage your ego"
"Only when you identify and accept your weaknesses will you finally stop running from your past. Then those incidents can be used more efficiently as fuel to become better and grow stronger."
“We push ourselves hard so when bullets do start flying we fall back on really good training, and it’s important that the point where we fall back is so high, we know we’re gonna outperform the enemy. We may not become Rambo, but we’ll be damn close.”
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