Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

Trunnis is Goggins’s father and serves as the central antagonist of the first part of the book. Trunnis was a well-liked member of his community, owning a popular skating rink. Yet, in private, Trunnis abused Goggins and the other members of his family. He physically assaulted all the members of his family and did not allow Goggins’s mother even to have a bank account. Trunnis’s cruelty and hypocrisy are the source of Goggins’s earliest trauma and provide him with a wellspring of anger and resentment that he would later learn how to harness and use for the development of his mental fortitude.

Jackie is Goggins’ mother. He has enjoyed a life-long loving relationship with his mother despite their shared hardship and traumas. She raised him as a single mother throughout much of his adolescence and helped him escape from his abusive father. When Goggins was a boy, Jackie showed courage and shrewdness by plotting an escape from her husband even though she did not have a bank account. He returns to live with his mother at difficult times in his life. She assists him through many of his competitions and encourages his drive even when she’d like him to play it safe.

Schaljo was a Navy recruitment officer who took the time and effort to reach out to people other officers would laugh out of the room. He supported Goggins’s idea to attempt to join the SEALs, even if it was a long shot. Goggins writes, “if I’d reached anyone else you probably wouldn’t be reading this book” (74). Several times in Goggins’s life, an individual person put him on a new and better path. Schaljo serves as a model for Goggins. Not only did he go on to become a recruiter like Schaljo but, in his life after the military, Goggins dedicated himself to teaching his methods of mental toughness and success. Googins seeks to do for others what Schaljo did for him.

Psycho Pete is Goggins’s BUD/S instructor who taunted and brutalized his class of incoming recruits. Goggins thought of him as a bully who had to be opposed and conquered by courage and stamina. He took a hostile, adversarial approach to Psycho Pete. Psycho Pete provides the impetus for Goggins’s idea of “taking souls.” At each stage of his development, Googins develops different techniques for approaching the challenges he faces. Brute force does not work at BUD/S because the instructors have all the power. Psycho Pete (unintentionally) gives Goggins the idea that he could win by refusing to play the game. Rather than fighting against Psycho Pete’s torments, he pretends to ignore or even enjoy them. He provides the greatest test to that point of Goggins’s resourcefulness and resilience.