David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also completed Army Ranger School and Air Force Tactical Air Controller Training in addition to SEAL training, being the first person to do all three. He has finished over 70 ultra-distance races and has career experience as an EMT and wildland firefighter. Goggins’s self-help memoir offers the reader a glimpse at the inner workings of a mind capable of these unusual accomplishments. Likewise, the military influence that structures both his stories and his exercises gives credibility to Goggins as an instructor of discipline. However, his uncommon resume could also alienate readers and make his methods seem inaccessible.

Goggins uses various techniques to counteract this possibility. Early in Chapter 1, Goggins details his difficult past, creating clear images of himself as a scared, abused child and an overweight, depressed young adult. By highlighting the magnitude of his personal transformation, he supports his claim that greatness does not depend upon a favorable starting point. Similarly, he includes other accounts of being an underdog, such as his rejection by literary houses and later success in self-publishing. As he says, “We all love comeback stories because they teach us that setbacks have the power to propel us forward to our greatest successes” (203).