Never Finished
We have made mention to this author in many Market Mamas episodes and devoted an entire previous episode on the wisdom we can glean from him back in February 2024 titled What Can Traders Learn From One of the Strongest Men Alive? This author in fact has 2 books and we truly loved the second one just as much as the first. David Goggins seems to have matured and shifted from who he was in his first book, Can’t Hurt Me, to now his second book, Never Finished, Unshackle Your Mind and Win The War Within. So, we wanted to take this opportunity to appreciate and review with you all what lessons we gathered from his latest book Never Finished.
David Goggins’s story is truly an unmatched tale of emerging from a very challenging childhood and growing into one of the strongest men alive for sure. And it still to this day continues to evolve. His first book, Can’t Hurt Me, was self published in 2018 and rapidly became a New York Times best seller. The fact that he chose to not settle for the offers from publishers but rather to bet on himself is a big indicator of the type of conviction Goggins possesses. He wrote that book and started to gain a greater presence in the spotlight, it was even more impressive to us that he did not settle in that success. He was most definitely not finished with his story, nor his conquests. In his 2nd book, Never Finished, Goggins continues his memoir on the time and growth he went through from where that book ended. Goggins gives us great detail about how he continued to develop his philosophies, psychology, and strategies that helped him to get through and beyond physical trauma, schedule setbacks, a poor surgical outcome, and how he navigates under public scrutiny. We got a ton of value from learning more about Goggins’s raw and impactful life experiences and appreciate his willingness to share and expose all the deep, dark parts of himself that most people try to hide. He’s always an inspiration for us to not run from our weaknesses, but rather call them out and then get to work.
“When I set an unreasonable goal, and fall short, I don’t even look at it as failure anymore. It is simply my first, second, third, or 10th attempt. That is what belief does for you. It takes failure out of the equation completely, because you go in knowing the process will be long and arduous and that is what the fuck we do!”
Check out our full discussion in the podcast below, including more of our favorite quotes and how we’ve adapted the advice into our own trading journeys and lives.
If ever there was a person so accomplished that should teach us about maximizing one’s potential, we would definitely first and foremost think of Goggins. Let’s start with one of our favorite parts of the book Never Finished, albeit, a little longer than most quotes. Here it is: “Breakdown is its own kind of mirror. Whatever you’re made of is laid out in front of you clear and plain. Your history and mindset become a weathered old map ridged with your scars. And if you read them like an archaeologist on a dig, you might uncover the code you need to rise again and become better and stronger. Because there is no transformation without breakdown. And there is always another evolution, another skin to shed, a better and deeper version of ourselves waiting to be revealed.” Goodness, this is like poetry, right? And the even stronger beauty of it for us is that it rings so true with our experience, of course, with learning to be day traders. How many times have we broken down? Many many red days, with and without tears, where we have been filled with regret and fear. But we did not quit in those moments. We USED them. We used that sadness and worry to push farther ahead; we time and time again re-dedicated ourselves to our goals and deliberately dug into the work of it - the studying, practicing, asking questions, and leaning on our inner most people. As Goggins says, there is always another evolution and another better and deeper version of ourselves to reveal. We believe that and have experienced those exact sentiments with our growth in the world of trading. There is always tomorrow. And the knowledge of our own resilience provides hope based on facts. After all, our survival rate on the hard days is 100% thus far. No matter the day’s outcome and lessons, we always live to fight the good fight another day!
Within this book, there was a point where Goggins is weathering one of his incredibly challenging races. Here he describes a truly critical period where any human, himself included, considers stopping because it is extremely difficult and against all odds. We loved how he explains his mental conversation that he uses to push through. He says: “Take a knee, take a second- pause and focus in times of intense stress or strain. When you think you have nothing left, just breathe and gain back a little sanity.” Alright, so we’ve never attempted the multi-hundred mile races that Goggins has, but Kendra did recently attempt to set a new private distance record for herself. She woke up with the idea that she’s going to run 14 miles on July 14th. It all started out great, perfect mid morning weather, she had lots of energy, hydration, and motivation. Probably around the end of mile 7, she started having tightness in her calves. So she slowed down her pace and by around mile 11, she was entering what we call the ‘“pain cave.” Around that last mile and ½, EVERYTHING in her mind was trying to send signals to her body to just stop, like it almost felt like she already had. F- bombs were on repeat, she was trying all the affirmations, hard core, and loving to herself, she couldn’t even find the right song anymore, her head was just over stimulated. The ONLY thing that worked during those last 15 minutes was to stop thinking and just fix her eyes on the next closest object in the distance, a street pole, a bush, just anything that stood out and she could use as a target. In those minutes, she trusted that she did have more left in her and her legs and feet would keep carrying her along despite the pain and eventually it was done and she didn’t die. Kendra won that battle of mental stress and physical strain with this type of intense focus that Goggins calls on. And Kendra plans to finish a full marathon this year, so she knows she’ll be pushing through a lot more, but there’s always another evolution.
Goggins really has some killer advice about working under pressure from real, raw, bloody, and wrecked situations that he has experienced. One common thread we loved in this book is that Goggins was quite humble regarding when a certain goal of his takes him multiple attempts to fully succeed at it. On the subject of not staying down after a mis-step, he said in the commentary within the audible version of this book: “A lot of people, what they do in the situation, the second when something starts going bad, people immediately put their head down, their shoulders roll forward, their body position is all jacked up. And the second your head goes down, and your shoulders go forward, it sends a direct message to your mind that you are out of the fight. So I’m always about keeping those shoulders back, but not back so far that you’re so proud. Like you’re sticking your chest out. Just have your shoulders back, keep your head up so you’re looking in front of you so you can continue to fight. You can’t fight with your head down. That body position for me is very important.” We freaking loved that so much! You know us, and naturally this makes us think of when we lose a trade! There are varied ways one can deal with a trade stop out. You traders know what we mean, and it fits exactly with his words. When a trade loses, one can sink into regret, irritation, frustration, confusion, and tilt. And it can happen fast and without the intelligent brain’s permission. And often in those circumstances, we are no longer in the attentive, upright, strong body alignment that we started our session in. But ideally instead, we can take a moment, breathe, and keep our bodies erect. Focused, shoulders strong, head up, mind sharp. Instead of hunting for another trade, we should take a moment and instead seek to understand why it failed, what new data the market gave us when the trade did not go as planned. Remain attentive, focused, calm and patient in our thinking and in our whole body form. This is how we can stay successful traders despite one failed trade. We personally know both responses to a stop out from experience, and one definitely feels far superior and is always our goal. It takes time to develop skill at this response though. But it is a key to being a good loser and a consistent trader. And now, thanks to Goggins, we can also be mindful to manage our body position and posture while we are in our trading session as well to help keep aligned with the strong, steady traders that we are.
That experience coincides with this next bit wherein Goggins says: “Your greatness is not tied to any outcome. It is found in the valiance of the attempt.” This sounds pretty! But let us tell you, as day traders, it’s taken so much work to really accept and live out this mindset in our choices and actions. We’re talking about not tying one day or performance to our entire trading success and ability thus far. Not feeling like we’re losers because we’ve had a losing day or did not fully take advantage of a great setup. Our intentions are to dissociate our emotions and worth from the immediate feedback of what’s in front of us, but instead put it away in its proper place - the probability pool of this game we play. This is the only way we can respect the game of risk and probabilities and honor ourselves for the consistent attempts. From all the content we’ve consumed from successful and advanced traders, the message has been the same: in trading you can be up 70% one month and down 30% the next, but you have to trust that overall by year end you will be up and in profit. Without this trust, we will internalize every outcome and be left exposed. Our walls will be breached and our castle will be raided. Weeks or months of progress can be destroyed and confidence crushed. Kendra keeps this post- it on her desk and it’s one of her mantras she’s using to help support her in this area. It goes, “One day is just that, good or not, It does not make or break me. I am in the game of risk and probabilities. Small losses are 100% OK. Miss Market is abundant and will feed me for life.”
This next quote is very Goggins. It reads: “The world needs doctors, lawyers, and teachers. But we also need savages to prove that we are all capable of so much more.” We absolutely need people of all varieties and specialties to balance our communities and humanity in general. But, the rare savages do absolutely give us something quite impressive to witness and consider. They are literal proof that nearly all of us hold ourselves back from our truest potential. And, generally, way way back, to be honest. Most humans find a satisfying enough life and settle in by early adulthood. Good enough job, good enough finances, good enough relationships. But, we do believe Goggins. There is so very very much more to human potential than that, both of the mind and the body. We are not some great example of this yet - there are many ways in which we know we can be better. Humbly, we are thoroughly inspired by his words and their truth. And we like that we are pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and societal norms by becoming the successful day traders that we are.
Goggins also said: “Most people live their whole life without ever contemplating what it means to be great.” We believe that to be true. In recent years, we have begun contemplating what we truly could become and we really love the vision of ourselves at many many levels higher than we are today. And we are pushing towards her with eyes wide open to the work and effort required to embody that version of ourselves. It is far from easy, but it is also not impossible. And why the fuck not us? There is literally no reason not if we can believe it and are willing to fight for her on all fronts and with persistent and relentless passion. And we believe that to be true of all of us.
So we all know that Goggins is no trader, but all the greatness he’s attempted have had very slim and grim odds, just like becoming a profitable trader. We like what he said about doubt. “It’s easier to overcome doubt that you’ve built up in your mind. It’s much harder when you know you’ve failed more than once and the odds of success are slim. But because of the way I live and thanks to the mindset I’ve worked hard to cultivate, I had enough belief left to try one more time.” And also “Failure has been neutralized.” This is what we like to call the CEO mindset: “CHAMPION ENERGY ONLY!” Yes, there’s certainly evidence of failure and mere glimmers of success, but it’s not over till it’s over. Giving up is not an option, therefore temporary failures and setbacks are just the price we’re willing to pay. If you’re willing to pay that price, play the fool, look silly to most, you will most certainly neutralize failure. When you're no longer confined by what most people consider reasonable, you can start to receive unreasonable results. We are here for all that! So empowering for our long game intentions!
And that plays so well into this next passage from the book, one that is a strong favorite for both mamas! Here it is: “Greatness is a state of letting go of all your faults and imperfections. Scavenging every last bit of strength and energy, and putting it the fuck to use to excel at whatever you put your mind to. It is a feeling pursued by those rare souls willing to extend themselves beyond reason and pay the cost.” I mean, you see why, right? Powerful words from an impressive man. Screw our imperfections. They are not important. No one is perfect. But we can show up for ourselves every day and work, pursue, fight... Keep pushing the envelope, finding new methods and ways to be better and extend ourselves, both in beliefs and actions. Pay whatever costs each time that are required to keep at our pursuits. Maximize our true potential and break through whatever glass ceiling we were told to stay beneath. Doesn’t have to happen in a day or a year. But it is possible for the truly relentless among us. Doesn’t have to be in feats of strength and physical stamina, as Goggins does. It can be in business or intellect, or in charity or education. This whole sentiment can be applied to all areas of life - “to whatever you put your mind to”, per Goggins. Even becoming a world class trader.
You guys definitely want to get this book if you are on a similar journey as Becky and Kendra! It’s great and written by the epitome of a true badass. And learning with humility from such a boss is incredibly powerful if you are also serious in breaking through all barriers. In this blog are a couple links to help you out - we have the link to a hard copy of this book via Amazon or to Audible, if you are not yet a member and are interested! Yay for Market Mamas sponsorship from Amazon and Audible, we are so grateful!!
Never Finished has a 4.9 star rating on audible with over 28,000 ratings!
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