From the Archive: David Goggins - Embrace the Suck

26:32It's really the beginning of everything. It is the beginning of everything That's what I found out I failed so many times in my life And I started realizing My God, this is just the beginning of it all Because a person who's failing Is a person that is setting their goals To a very high level Very high level So most people who fail at something They fail once and they say It's not for me This wasn't meant to be That's a person who's going to always be a failure That mindset Our mind has the tactical advantage over us at all times It knows our insecurities It knows our failures It knows our deepest fears Our deepest secrets It knows the things that we don't want to share Which is why I share them I will never allow my mind to run my life I must be in total control of my mind Which is why whatever it wants to hide I will share with you Whenever it wants to go hide in a corner That's when I become the most vulnerable to everybody So I'm constantly reading where my mind wants to go And then going the opposite direction I recommend along with reading this, obviously reading the whole book, in particular now I'm thinking of that challenge where you list these accomplishments past the failures, goes along nicely with that Goldcast video you did that concludes with embrace the suck.

27:49Yes. And so I almost encourage people not to just watch it, but to do it. Right. Meaning they should do the video, but in their own words. Right. Because everyone has already embraced the suck to some extent in their own lives, and they can still do it. They're not going to do it in the same way you've done it, but they can still do it. Maybe they haven't done it as many times as you've done it, and it's a good thing to just repeat it out loud that it's okay. What do you think? I'm going on different tangents because also you've covered so many great stuff in podcasts that I admire, Rich Roll, Joe Rogan, Art of Charm, and so on.

28:27but what do you think of the educational system because like here like they reward people for getting a's right and i always tell my own daughters don't show me the a's that's not interesting show me where you need to learn more where you got like a c or a d but they're like they're so afraid to get a c or a d like i feel society in general is so afraid to even have the smallest failures even a 90 instead of 100 is a failure now for kids right well i mean society in general has just gotten weaker all across the board. So that trickles over, that kind of spills over to the school system, to the education system.

29:03Kids are paying for that now. Kids are paying for the simple fact that there's a lot more pressure on them and they're weaker minded. Think about that. Society now is weaker minded and there's a shit ton more pressure than what we have when we were growing up. I know I'm 43 years old and I look at society now with how hard it is to keep up with everybody else. Because why? You can look at your phone and see how great the whole fucking world is. Because the whole world is only sharing what the fuck they want you to know about them. They're not sharing their bad shit, how hard life really is, what they're trying to overcome and all those things like that.

29:43So the school system now, it's a difficult game. It's a difficult game. Yeah, because it doesn't seem like it kind of teaches people, So the school system now just kind of encourages people to pass a test so they can get into college. College wants them to pass a test so they can get a job. And then the college would say, look at how many of our graduates got jobs. And then, you know, at the job, jobs are sort of, I don't want to say they're easy, but a nine to five job, people probably work like two or three hours a day. Yes. And the whole goal is how many times can they take a break? How many minutes can they get off?

30:17And then they go home, watch TV, do all this other stuff. And then on top of that, not to interrupt you, but life isn't fair. Interrupt me all the time. Life isn't fair. So I work two or three hours a day. It's an eight-hour job. I work two or three hours a day, but my boss doesn't treat me right. Everything is against him. The whole world is against him. Go ahead. No. So, okay. So start with that. So the person listening to this who has that job, what's the first step out of, you know, they've had 40 years of this mindset. What's the first step out? Well, the whole thing about accountability.

30:47You got to have total. And we use, like, I hate using these damn words because they're throwing around so willy-nilly nowadays. Accountability, mental toughness, grit, all this shit, man. So I hate even saying it, but it's true. But I'm going to go a step further. Self, it starts with yourself. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, okay, I'm bitchy. I'm whiny. I complain. I have an eight-hour job that only worked three or four hours a day. We have to really bring it back to ourselves We are our worst enemy Especially nowadays We want everything to come over fucking night All of our results have to come today If I lose 106 pounds in less than three months It's a pretty daunting task But if I had the mindset of I have to lose 106 pounds today It took me 18 months You would disappear I'd disappear I literally lost I failed three times to be a Navy SEAL Took me 18 months To be a Navy SEAL The program's only six fucking months long So what we have to do is We have to set our new norm Our new normal What does that mean?

32:03Our new normal When I was in SEAL training I was getting the shit kicked out of me Every fucking day And I kept on getting Rolled back to day one Rolled back to day one Week one Most people would have fucking quit But my mindset became this This is my new normal My new normal is I get up at 4 o 'clock in the fucking morning I get my fucking ass kicked every fucking day of my life There's nothing outside of this world for me right now This is my life Like people who become POWs Prisoners of war If they can't change their mind to think This is my new fucking normal This is my life This is where I live You have to become adjusted To where you're at A lot of people say, yeah, you have to be able to look beyond this.

32:48Sometimes the pain is so miserable. The suffering is so intense. You look too far beyond anything, you're going to quit. You're saying the POW stuff reminds me of two different stories. One is the guy, Terry something. But he was talking about how the hostages that survived, he was kept hostage by terrorists. The hostages that survived had some sort of faith in their lives. And then Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, where he's, then Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning where he was in Auschwitz and he basically talks about how he survived and the other people who survived versus the ones who didn't they didn't have necessarily faith but they had some meaning outside of the camps that kept them going like his meaning was I'm going to see my wife again now he never did his wife was killed in the camps but he didn't know that and he had that meaning that I'm gonna I'm gonna see her again right and he also had I'm gonna write a book about this which he did do right so do you think that's true for the things that you were doing.

33:43Like, you know, is a goal hand in hand with the process? Because sometimes I think the process is more important than the goal. Yes. But you focus a lot on the goal though too. Yes. I'm able to visualize. So before I start something, I have a great ability to visualize the ending before I even start it. So, you know, I always mention Navy SEAL training for some reason. I don't know why. It's not the biggest thing I ever did in my life. But it is people can relate to it because so many stories about it. Also, it's your origin story. Right. You were Peter Parker. I was a fat guy. And then you were bit by a spider in the eco lab.

34:18Right, right. And then, boom, I've got to be a superhero after that. Pretty much. That's kind of why I talk about it. You're right. So basically, for me, through all my failure, I was still able to see me walking across to get my certificate of graduation. While I was in hell, I was able to see myself. I mean, the worst spot, 45, 49 degree water, guys quitting, your balls chafe, bleeding down your legs, fucking just seeing this Pillsbury Doughboy. That's how big you are from being all swollen, from being fucked up going through this training. In the worst spot of my fucking life on, you know, 48 hours into 130 hours of hell, which is hell week.

35:00My third time going through, we had a guy die my fourth day in hell week. I'm still able to see me in victory. That's a very hard thing to do. Yeah, because particularly the guy dying, it shows you this is not a camp where somebody's just going to jump in and save you. And the time before that particular hell week when you had failed, you also had double pneumonia like that guy did. Right. And so you realize what happened there, but for the grace of God go I. That could have happened to you. It could have happened to me. And then again, the first time you're doing the marathon, you're like, you know, shitting in your pants.

35:36You're pissing blood. And this is serious stuff. Like, it's not like, oh, the doctors are just going to repair me. I can't possibly. I'm immortal. I can't possibly die. You could damage yourself. I could have died. Yeah. Does that make you stop? You know what's funny? That 100-mile race you're talking about, the first one I did with no training, that was probably the closest I ever came to death in my life. The sickness about that all. And people may say, oh, my God, this guy is sick and twisted. That's why I never go there with this. I always skirt very lightly. I'm so normal, it's not even funny.

36:11It's not even funny. That's the thing about it. People want to put a title on me, but what I discovered in that race when I finally got through it all and I finished 101 miles in 19 hours, when I laid in that tub and Coca-Cola came out of my penis and it looked all jacked up and I was in the worst pain of my entire life, ever, even to this day, What I discovered in that 19 hours of suffering Is something that I can't even describe to people I discovered a whole There's a whole nother world Outside of suffering I'm not saying kill yourself So don't take this the wrong way I pushed myself to a level That I wouldn't recommend to anybody in the world I was obviously searching for something Then thank God I didn't die I found it Which is why an unknown person was able to write a book that powerful.

37:21So you were saying you can't describe it. You were saying you were searching for something and through the other side, you found it. Try a little bit. Like, why do you think you went through that? You put yourself through that. Now, you put yourself through that through altruistic reasons. You wanted to, it was for a charity, for the families of SEAL fatalities and their families. You raised an enormous amount of money and everything was good. But that's kind of like a top layer reason. Yeah. And there's a bottom layer reason. And there's middle layer reasons too. There's like, oh, I said I would get through this.

37:57I'm going to get through it. It's an onion. It's an onion. So what's that bottom layer reason that pushed you through, like, I might die here? At mile 70, when you have shit all over you and blood all over you from trying to pee, you don't think about those guys that died. That's the sickness of it all. You're in your own shit. Basically, for a better term, you're in your own shit, in your own misery, in your own suffering. When you're suffering like that, I wasn't thinking about them. I was thinking about myself. but that's when it became really real for me. At mile 70 of this race, man, you're now there in the worst shape of your life, in the worst physical, mental pain of your life.

38:39But that's when I started to develop this whole indestructible toolbox, mental toolbox. In this next 30 miles, if I can get through this next 30 miles, being in the worst shape possible, I'm going to the start line of a 30-mile race pretty much. Now, I've already gone 70 miles. Now I have 30 more fucking miles to go That's a long fucking way to go If you're fresh Let alone if you're in the worst shape of your entire life Starting a 50k pretty much There's great power in that mindset If you can figure out how to twist all this shit up Amongst all the pain and the disgustingness on you If you're able to calm your mind down Because my mind was spastic It was thinking man you're dying You're fucked up Your blood pressure's messed up It was saying go Get out of here man Go away But I was able to calm down for one second And say to myself If I can pull this off For some reason Find some more inside of me This will change everything And no one even For you For me In your mind For me in my mind But see the thing about There was no crowds There was no cheering section.

39:54There was no witnesses. Like I had my ex-wife there and a couple people saw who were by me. This was me against me. And that was the beauty of it all. The only thing I can possibly get from this is either dead or great knowledge. And I rolled the dice. And what came up of it all was great knowledge. In some cases, for some of these feats, you're allowed yourself to say, okay, I physically can't move anymore. Like it wasn't even up to you. I physically cannot lift my feet. But then you go back three months later, four months later. I think it was like eight months later or six months later. You actually ran 100 mile one after the first time.

40:32And then I liked the guy who wanted you to run some 100 mile races so you can get into the Death Valley race. I liked how you rode him and said, look, I just did the 100 mile race at 101 miles. And he's like, yeah, but you didn't. It was a 24 hour race. You didn't run the full 24 hours. You only ran 22 and a half hours. And how did you feel when you got that message? You know what? When I got it, it was because that was after the first 100-mile race. I thought, my God, this is the most amazing thing. You know, I've gone through SEAL training, ranger school, all that shit. So this is the most amazing thing I've done in my life.

41:02I was in the worst shape of my life, and I overcame myself. I did this. And when I got, because he didn't know how fucked up I was, I don't believe, or I know for a fact he didn't. So I got the email back from him, and it was like, I just ran 101 miles in 19 hours. and you're like, the whole idea of running a 24-hour race is running 24 hours. You know, still put your application in. So he was like, almost like my biggest accomplishment, he almost said like, fuck you. And I was like, God, dog. But what he doesn't understand is he tried me again, which is why I went off to Hawaii with fucked up feet and everything else to go to the Hurt 100, which is probably to me the top three hardest trail races in the world.

41:47And I didn't know this. I was still ignorant to the sport. And basically a month and a half later, I was out there towing a line, you know, in a race that very few people ever completed. And it was another 100-mile race with 26 ,000 feet of climbing over 100 miles in the trails of Hawaii, rocks and roots. And it's crazy. I mean, the terrain is nuts. And I went out there and completed that race and got in the bad water. So all he did was made me a better person without even knowing it. because I accepted the challenges that he didn't even know he was even putting down on me. You know, so he really helped me out a lot with just being who he was.

42:25I think also this idea of never resting on your accomplishments, you know, always there's another way to get out of the comfort zone. And I get the impression from your book, this is not about, you know, you use your physical feats to demonstrate this, but this is all about how a human should live, like constantly pushing past that comfort zone, whatever it is, whoever you are. If you're a 90-year-old physicist, go that extra step of trying to figure out the theory of the universe or whatever. And him saying that showed you that there's space. Right. There's space to move still. How do you feel like writing this book, everyone's saying, oh my gosh, read this book.

43:08It's incredible. It's great. It's how you should live. I think it's going to be, do you think, or maybe I'm wrong, but you think it'll be a challenge for you to now say, okay, what's next? What's the next way I'm going to be out of my comfort zone? You're 43. You're not going to go through Navy SEAL training again. You're probably not going to do 4 ,000 pull-ups again. What do you see as, and now also you wrote a book. You're doing things that were completely out of your grasp when you were 15 years old. What's next in terms of getting out of that comfort zone? Honestly, on a daily basis, I'm doing it.

43:38I didn't really realize it because I've always set forth to do the physical and mental combined to see what I'm about. And I was constantly fighting this guy of I have to go back to my roots, which is always important. I always believe in going back to your roots. But my next journey was always in front of me. I was writing this book as I lived. And this book is touching hundreds of thousands of probably millions of people. By the way, as you mentioned, first week of sales were over 250 ,000 units sold, which is incredible for a self-published book, which we'll talk about in a second. So again, you've achieved this incredible thing.

44:19Like you say, this is not about looking back at your roots and showing kids who maybe made fun of you because of your learning disability. Now you have to move forward like way beyond them. They're not even in the picture anymore. What do you see as a challenge? Not like what is your challenge, but how do you challenge yourself? The book itself was a major challenge for me because as you know now, probably all the deepest, darkest secrets of my life. So to go where I went to be totally vulnerable, because I used to hate being judged. So that's why I made up a whole other person, a person that you could not judge, a person that whatever you liked, I liked when I was growing up.

45:00I don't give a fuck what it was. Just as long as I saw exactly what you saw to make you feel good, I was good Because then you accepted me And that's all I ever wanted To show people my entire life And the hell I came from All the issues I had to go through To be where I'm at today That was a challenge in itself Because as I'm writing this book And I'm reading it back to myself I'm thinking fuck I don't want people knowing that shit about me Like there's going to be fucking people out here I don't even know They're going to be judging me Saying what the fuck's wrong with this guy What's wrong you know So that in itself was another block.

45:40Right, but it's one where you even address, if you're not scared, then you're still in your comfort zone. This was something you were scared of, but at this intellectual or emotional level, not this physical level. What are people going to think now that I've revealed this? And that was a fear you had to get through. Because that's the best writing, by the way, too. That's 100%. So that's it. I constantly live what I preach. It's like now I'm at a point in my life, and I'm like, oh, hey, I'm good. I can tell you what the fuck I want to tell you. I'm good here. I'm good. No, every day is a constant battle against myself because you're constantly fighting your mind trying to pull you back into this comfort zone.

46:18People think that now where I'm at, I'm totally uncomfortable. I'm good to go. I can go fight the world. I'm on an everyday battle of fighting where my mind wants to take me, which is this nice, comfortable, relaxed spot, which you have to visit every now and then to recover, recoup, gain knowledge, because you need a quiet mind to gain that. Sometimes in this uncomfortable discomfort zone I talk about often, it's very loud. It's noisy. It's uncomfortable. It's not civilized. That's why you have to come out of it every now and then to gain your real knowledge, because in it, you have to have enough sense to write down in your mind what you're learning in there about yourself.

47:01It's all about learning oneself And you don't learn oneself By sitting at home in a 72 degree Temperature room Watching football It's impossible So everybody who thinks that my message is crazy You fucking missed it man You don't find peace Before you struggle You find the greater peace You will ever find Through the struggle People want to skip that phase of life So you remind me when you say about watching the football game, you have another challenge. First off, the book's great in the sense that you have all these stories and you interweave it with these challenges that helped you but could help others kind of overcome these hardships or these points in life where you want to stop.

47:46but one of the things you mentioned is you know there's 168 hours in a week list what you do during the week do you spend seven hours watching tv do you spend you know i'll tell you one stat that you might not know the average american spends four hours a day on their phone i know that for a fact so that's 28 hours a week yes so so what can you do in those 28 hours so you kind of you know not only do you take stock of all your achievements and and plus these times where you've overcome obstacles to build this foundation. But now to succeed, another thing is to take account of all the things you do that might not be moving you towards a process and a goal.

48:26Right. So, and that's important as well. But then, you know, one thing I'm wondering is for you, you developed this amazing ability to, I mean, we've talked about the mental things that you've overcome and achieved. But really the bulk of the book is, okay, I'm going to get through the 4 ,000 pull-ups. I'm going to get through Navy SEAL training, Army Ranger training, all these physical things that were amazingly difficult. And you talk about the other stuff, but I'm wondering on an emotional level too. Like when you were growing up, you experienced abuse from your dad, your mom, you saw your mom experiencing abuse from your dad.

49:04Abuse is a very difficult thing, obviously, emotionally. And people tend to inherit that. So like with your own children, have you ever had to deal with, you know, how did you overcome the challenge of being a good parent when you hadn't seen that example? And that obviously is something that was out of your comfort zone. Nobody even knows what it means to say good parents. So that's the wrong word. But obviously an abusive parent is a bad one. Did you ever feel like that was something that was out of your, you had to push? You know what? I never felt that because you have to be able to go back to the source.

49:38So what allowed me to grow is I had to go back to the source. And the source was my own father. So when you have all this hate, you can't move forward with hate. You just can't. I tried for years to move forward with hate. And it was effective for you for a while. It got me to the start line of a lot of things I did in my life. But it never allowed me to finish. It never allowed me to finish. Whenever I got in a serious situation of pain or discomfort, that hate was gone. It was me against me. So I realized hate can get you there to the start line, but it can't get you through it, at least for me.

50:15So for me, I realized hate kept me from fulfilling everything I needed because it was almost like an anchor. It kept drawing me backwards. So with my father, I had to go back and I had to see where the hate came from, from him. Why were you such an evil person towards people who did nothing wrong to you? So I had to examine this man that was so evil. And that's where I learned where I came from. And therefore, I can start fixing things. Once you learn where you come from and you examine where you come from, you can start fixing things. Looking at where he came from, did you ever find, you know, in order for yourself to move forward rather than just, you know, burning yourself to the goal by powering it with hate, when you learned where he came from, did you ever find like a sense of forgiveness?

51:10Like, oh my gosh, it was so horrible what he had been through and that's why he was the way he was. You know, the thing about him is that I forgave him because I understood where he came from. He was a very insecure man. his life led him that way. So I had to forgive him, but I forgave him in a way that I never talked to him again. So I went back when I was 22 years old. We left when I was eight, went back when I was 22 to see him again. And I was like, you know what? I'm good. I think that's a big realization too, which is that just because someone has an important label that society gives it like father or friend or whatever, boss, spouse, whatever, they don't have to stay in your life.

51:55That's right. Like these are just man-made terms. 100%. And you need to be around the people. Like, did you ever get a sense that, okay, I've got to always trim the people who are bringing me down and keep, it's like what you said before about Twitter, delete and block. That's right. I trim everybody, especially nowadays. Since this book came out, I have people texting me. I haven't talked to in 10 to 12 years. And they think I'm gonna answer the phone? I know why you're texting me. So the whole thing about it is this. You have to trim away the fat of your life. You may only have a core group of people in your life.

52:32And the bigger and more successful you become, the smaller my group is becoming. Because I want real, authentic people in my life. People who don't want me for any reason, but they enjoy my company. I want nothing from you. I don't want to gain success. I don't want to gain popularity. And those are the people that I keep in my life. So this is an off tangent question. I don't know if you've been asked this. I'm just curious about this. How many good friends do you think an adult should have in life? Oh, I can't. I mean, I'm going to answer the question for me. Yeah, but I'm just curious in general.

53:05I honestly believe you should have a couple of friends, a couple of good, a lot of acquaintances, people who know you, whatever, blah, blah, blah. I don't have hardly. I have my fiance. I have my mother. And I had a best friend growing up in high school. Johnny. Johnny. that I talk to every now and then, but he has his own life. I'm a grown-ass man now. I have responsibilities beyond going out and hanging out with some guys. I have a whole different lifestyle, so it's just, I don't have hardly any friends at all. But, you know, Johnny's an interesting story because you mentioned your report card that your mom saw where you had lied and cheated and she didn't realize, and then boom, now it was all in the open.

53:48Johnny and you together basically forged the grades on that report card. That's the last time you mentioned him in the book until the acknowledgments. So I realize you're still friends with him, but that's an interesting thing that through everything you've been, and obviously he went in a different direction. I don't know what direction he went in because you never mentioned him again, but you still kept that friendship. It was a very distant friendship because once I got on my journey of real life, I was truly alone. I was battling. Like when I was 19, 20, 21, 22, 22, 23, 24, well, all my so-called friends, they were now in college.

54:27They were drinking. They were going out on dates. You know, the whole typical guy thing. I wasn't doing that shit. I was in the dungeon of life. I was trying to figure out I have to overcome this man. My nighttimes in my room were spent studying. My days were spent running and working out and dissecting, doing a live autopsy. I was my own guinea pig. So I realized I was very unique at a young age. That's not a reason I have a lot of friends because I'm very different, but I love that I'm different. And once I started to examine the mind because I was very scared of my own brain for a long time because it controlled me.

55:06It took me left. It took me right. It took me everywhere, places I didn't want to go. Once I started realizing that I have total control of this mind, I became the mad scientist of my brain. So while everybody was gone, I was in the lab and the lab was myself. So that's where my friendships, not like I didn't like people, I became obsessed with the human mind, human potential. Obsessed with it because I started realizing I came from this horrible fucking place and I had all this potential? How the fuck is that? I mean, how is that possible? But a lot of us die with untapped and undiscovered potential.

55:47For several reasons, I can't explain why. I can't explain why for me, but we all must go back through that process. Well, I think you do explain it though in the book with the 40 % rule. So basically your brain, which is not the brain you call the governor of your life. The brain is on your side, but oddly is not necessarily the smartest ally you have. 100%. So when you kind of hit 40 % capacity, Your brain is saying, whoa, David, let's slow it down now. You might get in trouble. That's right. So your point is your body and your mind, and let's just separate out the mind from the brain for a second, your body and your mind can handle up to 100%, but the brain is going to start screaming.

56:34It's going to start telling your organs, hey, break down so David doesn't go further. It's a true statement. So a lot of it is just figuring out how to kind of break through the barriers that the brain is putting in front of you. Right. It's the whole process that, but it's different for everybody. And so to get to that 99.9 % that you're looking for, the 100 % you're looking for, it takes a long process. It takes actually examining yourself. so it's examining yourself in the present which is what you say before like look back at your accomplishments look back and not just the accomplishments but the times you've gone over fear look at how your day is spent and is this maximizing you towards you know life improvement it's this 40 rule acknowledging that you're not at capacity and you could be pushing it more it's this idea that you should practice getting out of the comfort zone at least once a day or more.

57:24What else? It's huge reflection. It's huge reflection on what you overcome. So in the hardest time of your life today, let's say today you hit rock bottom. Something happens to you where today is the hardest time of your life. I guarantee it's not. What we do and what our mind does, it has a great way of trapping us in today where we forget all the life training. Life is the most amazing training ground ever, ever. But we don't look at it that way. So we forget all the shit we've gone through. So our mind gets obsessed and it gets all wigged out and it gets all crazy and spastic about, oh my God, I lost my job.

58:06I lost this. I lost everything. Right now, today, this is where it's at today. So this 40 % rule, a big part about this, one of the steps in this, is we have to be able to reflect. so even the toughest man in the world we forget how badass we truly are in times of need so what I'm saying is you must go back when you're in the worst spot of your life and reflect oh I can fucking get through this shit why? because in 1992 this and this and this that was the worst year of my life well it's interesting to me because I hit a rock bottom at one point, let's say when I lost all my money, lost my first marriage, the whole thing.

58:53And I was scared, had no one to talk to, whatever. It took a long time because that was the first time I really felt like I was hitting a rock bottom. I didn't, you know, wasn't abused as a kid. Not that I had a super easy life, but this was definitely a rock bottom for me. I thought, oh, it's over. I've lost everything. This has never happened to me before. It took like a good seven, eight years to kind of get over that shame and figure out how to overcome. Now, it happened again. It took maybe three years. It happened again. It took maybe one year. That's right. So each time it took shorter and shorter.

59:25But I wonder if there was a way to short circuit that first. I regret the seven years it took to overcome the first time. There's a definite. So what happened to you was this. sometimes in life, the way you grew up is sometimes counterproductive to how your mind is thinking at that time. If you've never suffered and never suffered deeply, never experienced deep failure, any of that shit, and then you experience it for the first time, it could be 20, 30 years. You're 30 years old. I was 30 years old. Your mind should be what people think, mature. Your mind is not mature because your fucking age.

1:00:09It doesn't happen that way. There's 70 fucking year old people who haven't matured you because life just happened to be good. But at 70, bam, their daughter dies. Fuck, what the hell happened? I was lucky enough, and this is how I look at my life. I was lucky enough to where I experienced so much hell, so much failure, so much everything, that whenever it hits me, I get through it. Right, and so I agree with you, and I think - So how can you get through it not experiencing that shit? Right, because now I could have that viewpoint, particularly if I'm affected financially or emotionally or whatever.

1:00:50I feel like I could fall back on, oh, been there, done that, I can handle this. If I broke down in a 100-mile race, I couldn't do it. Right. But again, that first time I was 32 and then seven years moaning about it afterwards. And that's why I wrote the book. You have to individually, by yourself, come outside your comfort zone and train. So I don't train for a race. People will get it all fucking wrong. I'm training for life.

1:01:27You

1:01:34So let's say someone is 60 years old. They're not going to train for a race. It's not their thing. That's not their thing, right. What are some other ways to even think about stepping out of the comfort zone every day? Very easy. So let's say you're 60 years old and your main thing now is I'm retired, great life, things are great. Start waking up early in the morning. At a time that, why am I doing this? I'm retired. I think the why is important. Because you kept asking throughout the book, why am I doing this at your worst moments? That's right. If you don't have the answer to that question, you will never get to the end.

1:02:18But maybe the answer is simply David Goggin said, get out of the comfort zone. Well, the answer is this. The answer is you have to start preparing your mind for life. That's the why. What I did is different from everybody else's. Like that 60-year-old person. I'd suggest start having a very disciplined, regimented life What that means is, yeah, still enjoy it You're retired, whatever But you're always in, I call it, boot camp So in boot camp in the military They make it extremely hard They make it to the point where you become almost a robot You become very disciplined And all you think about in boot camp Is getting the fuck out of boot camp I cannot wait for this to end Because I want my life back I took a lot from boot camp and going through Navy SEAL training.

1:03:05What I took from it is our mind wants to find the graduation so fast. I want to graduate. This sucks. I want to get through this. You are the sharpest you've ever been in your life when you're in boot camp. You're dressed in appearance. You're bunk. You're hospital corners, 45-degree angles. You're rollback fold. It's six inches. It's a dollar bill. You're a pillow. You're shoes. You look the best. You're the sharpest. Your essay, which is your situational awareness, is the best it's ever been. Why the fuck do you want to get out of boot camp so badly? Why? You're the best person you've ever been in your fucking life.

1:03:45But it's hell to be on every day of your life. Your mind wants a break. So what I'm saying is this. You have to develop a little mini boot camp, whatever that is for you. So getting up a little early. A little earlier. Making sure your house is a lot cleaner. If you left a dish in there, clean it. It starts out very small. And I think you even have a list of simple things at one point. I know I bookmarked it, but now I got so many bookmarks in here. And you'll be shocked. People go, why in boot camp are they so like about your clothes being a certain way, folding your shirt a certain way? It's building a certain kind of mindset through the smallest.

1:04:27You're like, my God, if you just make a bed a certain way every day, if you shine your shoes or wear your shoes, your mind starts to develop a very systematic pattern versus being slovenly. I'm just going to wake up whenever I want. There's no schedules. My life is free flowing. The second you get your mind and you shake and say, look, motherfucker, this is what we're doing today. Your mind now has a process. So whenever you go through hard times Your mind is already set up in a process It knows I'm disciplined But when you're willy-nilly And your life is this And you wake up And you float through life And everything is fucking grandiose Your mind is not disciplined So how the fuck are you going to handle a hard time If you've never started to smile Like when you read and write You don't just start reading and writing You start sounding words out That's all this is.

1:05:23I'm not saying go to boot camp, but I'm saying you have to develop self-discipline so when your mind gets to those hard parts like you did at 30, your mind has self-discipline to where it processes what you went through very differently. You know, and it's funny because ultimately when I was bringing down the time between failures, it was as a result of applying some discipline. That was the only correlation. And I just want to say on page 67, you have the list, you know, make your bed like you're in the military every day, pull up your pants, shave your head every morning, cut the grass, wash all dishes.

1:06:02Right. So these are just kind of like, it's sort of like, like Tony Robbins once told me something on this podcast. If you want to teach somebody how to shoot a gun, don't put the target a hundred yards away at first, put it just three yards away, get them to hit the bullseye every time, then put it four yards away, five yards away and so on. So I thought it was an interesting analogy. So it is. and it's literally like the whole thing about a dish. We're like, what's the thing about the dish? A lot of us, I guarantee you, you look in your kitchen sink right now, you look in your kitchen, there's something in there that you could have done a million times as you pass by that kitchen.

1:06:36It's having that discipline of saying, this is out of place. I'm not saying become OCD, but I'm saying this doesn't belong here. Put it up. A lot of us, it's okay if it sits out there. It's fine. It's okay if I throw my pants right there. It becomes okay. So your mind becomes very okay and undisciplined. Well, and then I really want to find this one quote. I kept reaching quotes in the book where I thought to myself, aha, this is what the book's about. And then like 10 pages later, I hear another quote. Oh, this is what it's about. Yeah. But there was one quote in particular. This is the point where the commanding officer is talking to you or talking to the audience, the people who are graduating.

1:07:17He says, in a society where mediocrity is too often the standard and too often rewarded, there is intense fascination with men who detest mediocrity, who refuse to define themselves in conventional terms, and who seek to transcend traditionally recognized human capabilities. And he said this is exactly the type of person, you know, someone who graduates from Navy SEALs is becoming. And so what I'm wondering is, is the flip side of greatness mediocrity?

1:07:49as opposed to, hey, I might want to have, you know, I might not be great, but I'm going to have a good life of well-being in a variety of ways. I don't believe you can ever think that way. And I'll probably piss a lot of people off. No, I mean, this is what, this is the heart of it though. You cannot think that way. You can't ever think that way. You must never give yourself a way out and say, this is a good life. I'm good here. This is good. You can never be satisfied with a lot. You must always find your new 100%. I'm not running 100-mile races right now. I'm not going through SEAL training right now, nor do I want to.

1:08:28I have to find my new 100%. If you are just living a life that you're nice and comfortable in, you're not going to totally reach your full expect. Like, we have this cap somewhere. It's somewhere. We all have one. With that mindset, you're never going to reach there. And the whole thing about, you know, we live in a society where mediocrity is often rewarded. We do, and those men that become very uncommon, some Navy SEALs, not all of them, the hardest part about those men that that guy's talking about, that commanding officer, is this. The hardest thing in the world to do is to stay uncommon. The hardest thing in the world to do.

1:09:15Even the great navy seals the greatest of the great They're tired They want a way out the hardest thing in the world is to stay uncommon But those people who never even have the mindset of trying to get there Those people who you were talking about you know what do I have to be great? You know what's you know You have to find what greatness is in yourself. I truly believe that and so so let's say that's the first step is You know finding your next 100 % And you've mentioned in the book, you even have to become uncommon to the uncommon. So what does that mean? Even pushing past the 100 %? So it is this.

1:09:53Most of us, even in the uncommon realm, believe that we're at the 100%. And when you start to become uncommon amongst the uncommon, you piss a lot of people off. That's another reason why I don't have a lot of friends. Because I'm on a constant, endless journey to find my best self. And so when you're that way and you're amongst a lot of alpha males, People don't like that shit. But there's always an angle. There's always a way you can become better, even amongst the best. Because why? There's 24 hours in a day. Sometimes, you know, in the SEAL teams, we'd be on a training thing, and we would train until 1 o 'clock in the morning.

1:10:34As I'm training, I know what everybody's thinking. I cannot wait to go home and go to sleep. We've been training now for 20 fucking hours. just want to get some rest. I know they're thinking that way because I am also a normal man who became uncommon. So all these great uncommon men that I'm working with, I know they're tired. I know they're fatigued. This is where I'm going to strike. When you all go to sleep, I am now going to go to the gym. All it takes is 35 minutes. And the energy you get from seeing these great men bed down for the night and you go put your gym clothes on, having done the same thing they did all day and all night, just as tired as them, and you take that 35 minutes to take your ass to the fucking gym.

1:11:23What's 35 minutes? It's all the difference in the world. So, right. So that's all the difference in the world in that scenario, and it's measurable. It's that 35 minutes. What about something where you've been pushing yourself, you have a goal, you have a process, you're training, and it's a very specific concrete goal, like running the 100 miles or doing the pull-up record. Now, when do you say to yourself, you know what, if I'm going to be uncommon among the uncommon, I'm not only going to do this, but I'm going to spend an extra two hours with my fiance going dancing. That's a more intangible.

1:11:55Right. So how do you kind of fit that into your mind? It's the same way. It's the same way. Like, for instance, what you just said there, You have to see where you're trying to be uncommon at. Most people run 100 miles, they're bed down for a couple of days. They're relaxing. They're eating a bunch of food. Where you want to become uncommon is in that category. So it works everywhere. You have to take advantage of it, but you first have to see it. So when you run 100 miles, you got to say, you know what? I haven't spent time with my fiance tonight. I don't run 100 miles. I'm going to pursue him further.

1:12:34I'm going to go dancing with her for two hours. But you have to be thinking about that while you're in it. So you can't be so focused on one. Right. Like uncommon of the uncommon is. You got to be hype. The first uncommon is just they're only going to be focused on the one crazy goal. And once it's over, it's done. So that's the thing about it. My mind is thinking about what's next while I'm in the suck. So I'm able to hyper-focus while in the suck and saying, I got another thing I'm going to one-up you fuckers on now. It's not really a competition with them. I may say you fuckers, but you fuckers is really me.

1:13:15I want to take this to another level. So a lot of people, they're thinking, my God, this 100-mile race is amazing. I'm almost done with the 100-mile race. This is almost over. It's no longer amazing anymore. I'm about to complete this. I gotta find enough energy now to do the next. So related to this is now you have a life where you have many things going on. You wrote a book, you're going on a book tour, you're giving speeches, you're a firefighter in Montana, consult and give advice to various people. Do you ever feel like because your day is now divided up into totally different types of activities that you can't ever pursue greatness in any one of them?

1:14:01As of right now, that's the case. Does that frustrate you? It has been the hardest thing in my life. It has absolutely been the hardest thing in my life. I dealt with it this morning. I dealt with it last night. What did you do this morning? Where I've always excelled at is being secluded from the world, being disciplined in my schedule, being disciplined in my practice, being disciplined in me getting better. so right now, what you just said, you just pretty much set my schedule in its entirety. I'm all over the fucking, I'm on planes, I'm here, I'm here. To pull off your best effort, you need total focus.

1:14:38Your mind cannot be, I'm going to meet with James, and then from James, I got two more podcasts, and I got a fuck, you can't, because why, I have to bring my best to James. There was once a time in my life where there was no James. There was no book. there was this David Goggins trying to get somewhere. There was a lot of focus time in there. Now that focus time is spread out almost 24 hours with people you're helping and this and that. So you now have to almost, I have to accept the fact, sometimes you have to listen to these voices in your head. I have a voice in my head I always listen to that now your journey and the journey that's taken you this far has inspired people.

1:15:19As badly as you want to go back into that cave and which made you who you are, you're going to have to find a way to be who you are outside the cave. That is the next challenge for me. That's the new cave, really. Right. In a noisy world that's noisy as fuck where I get no strength from at all, I'm going to have to find the most strength I've ever had to in my life. And so I'm really interested in this. So what do you do? Like this morning, you're feeling this. You have to go to James's podcast and two more podcasts. You have to talk about the book again. When are you going to get to work out?

1:15:59I assume you walk up early and you worked out, but you're feeling that frustration like this is not me and this is not the direction I wanted to go today necessarily. If I had my ideal choice, how do you correct course in your brain? What do you say to yourself? That's the beauty of life. That's what got me here. That's what got me to that book. is finding the suck that I'm in right now, going back in my mind and figuring it out. So I find beauty in everything. There's great beauty in the fact that that book was written in a world that I was in then. God, the forces above, have now forced me into a whole different world.

1:16:41I have to now recreate another human being. So I created Goggins to write that book To be that person in that book I had to create a special man Almost a superhuman man That could take pain and suffering And being judged and being uncomfortable All the things I once hated in my life Now I'm forced at 43, almost 44 To recreate another human being To still get my 100 % That's the great thing about life. We all want to stay in this one spot. I even want to. This is me. It's who I am. I like who I am. Right, and now in particular, you're getting outside validation from the world. That's a huge dopamine hit.

1:17:29This is great, but that's not... But what's crazy about me is I don't ever get a dopamine hit because I constantly live in a world of none of that shit matters. That's why when people write those horrible messages to me, I don't listen to it Because the more you listen to the dopamine shit About how great you are It gets to everybody You must always realize man You are still learning It's great to see I've touched people's lives That's one book of many I'm not saying I'm going to write another book But I'm still living I'm still figuring out life I'm still figuring out the beauty of the human mind But so how did you deal today with the suck that's what i did because this is the beauty in it i found the beauty in it i i sat back in my woe is me poopy pants like fuck what the fuck has happened to me like what again why am i doing this to myself why the fuck man this is crazy i'm i'm totally not who i am like i'm doing all these fucking podcasts i'm doing this shit i need to go back to my fucking hole which I will, but right now my mission in life is I have to get this out to people.

1:18:43Why? I wouldn't be doing it this strongly if it wasn't affecting so many people. So now I have to find beauty in the fact that I don't like this shit. I don't like talking about my life. I don't like saying, you know, I ran 100 miles, I did this, I did that. Who gives a fuck? But someone does. So there's great beauty in the simple fact That it's a sickness almost Like I'm able to find beauty In the fact that this really fucking sucks This really fucking sucks Who would ever think I never sat out in this journey to write a book When I was fucking eight years old In a seven dollar a month place Couldn't read, couldn't write My mom never home Having no mentors Who would ever think at 43 years old I'd write a book That's the beauty of where I'm at today As fucked up as it is I know me I want to make fucking out of rocks I want to make a fucking good lemonade out of fucking rocks because I know how to process all this shit I have figured out the process of the mind

1:20:01so but at 43 though it's like you say you're not going back to navy seal training you're not gonna break the next pull-up record and this is your life you're writing books you're doing consulting you're keeping in shape and you're doing the firefighters and you're doing something still charity stuff and consulting and public speaking this is your life now so do you an extent to an extent like how do you make sure you stay on course for you know what if something really does suck and you don't want to do it anymore it goes back to your roots what has made me who i am today is constantly going back to my roots and understanding that there's a process and you have to like i talked about the monks running yeah 26 you know you know running a thousand marathons in a thousand days there's a process in life and it's going to suck the second it stops sucking that means in your mind you believe you've arrived and you're just I'm comfortable here my goal in life is to continue to find more about myself so I'm glad I'm in this pigeon hold right now if I wasn't here there's no more growth without friction without frustration without anxiety.

1:21:28There's no growth. There's no growth if you don't sit at home thinking, the fuck, man? I need that in my life. I need that. And I need that to then have something to say, okay, how are we going to process this? How are we going to learn more? Versus looking to the external to find all the fucking answers. The beauty, like I keep on saying is, I now am there at the fuck, man. Why? God, dog, this is crazy. Every night. that's the beauty of it all now. I have friction. And that friction, with that friction, is now more growth. We're all looking to become Yoda. We're all looking to become Yoda. Or Luke.

1:22:10Or Luke, but I prefer Yoda. And it's just really mastering your own mind. And why do all these things bother me? They shouldn't bother me. Because guess what? The truth of the matter is, A guy that lived in a$7 a month place For a lot of years Who couldn't read and write Taught himself all this shit Just wrote a book That's number two behind Michelle Obama So when we live in all this fucking suck And we're miserable We often forget exactly where we're at And what we've accomplished That's the beauty of all the tools I've taught myself How can a man like me Really be upset I talk to myself this way How the fuck are you upset?

1:22:58But you also have faith That This is temporary Everything in life is temporary We are temporary But it's temporary because you're going to figure out That next way to be uncommon I know for a fact I will I always have And that's why you can write a book There's theorists A lot of people are theorists A theorist as you know is a motherfucker that goes to a library and studies. Studies some bullshit that someone else bullshit and wrote about and that becomes what the fucking shit is. I'm not that. I'm a practitioner. I get all this shit. I see how I feel. I process it all. I realize it. And then I figure out how to figure that out.

1:23:44How am I going to figure, how am I going to get through this? Which is why that book is powerful because I went and dove myself in hell versus reading about it and figuring out how some other person did it. I dove in it, stayed in it, lived in it, processed it, and figured out the answers by not quitting while I was in hell. And that's why the book has become powerful because that's real knowledge. It's not theorist-based. It's based on practice. And that's why it's powerful. And this will be another one on how to get through this challenge and time in my life, it'd be practice versus theory. And so when you, I forget where I heard it, but you also do coaching for various billionaires or whatever, what have you seen among them?

1:24:34So these are people who have obviously worked hard to achieve where they are. What are they asking you about? They don't ask, so they stay on the surface. Most of them, we like to stay on the surface level and they wonder why they're not fulfilled. I have billions of dollars. I have a beautiful wife, beautiful family, all this shit, what's wrong with me? It's because a lot of us like to just cover our filth with a blanket, and that blanket was money. Money doesn't do shit. It pays bills. It's important. It really is. But a lot of us disguise ourselves with money, muscle. When I was 300 pounds, I became 300 pounds because I was disguising myself.

1:25:16If I look this big gargantuan type of man, I will hide myself from the world. The world will not know how fucking insecure I am. So I will hide amongst all these muscles. Inside that 300 pound person was a very scared individual. But no one knew it because the external side of me looked amazing. I realized that with most human beings, we're all running from something. We're all hiding from something. There's always something chasing us down the fucking block. There's always something that lays back here that we try to forget that maybe if I become a fucking billionaire It'll just go away. And do they listen to you all the time because it's facts and guess what happens They start to break down They start to realize you're fucking right And it may be something happened.

1:26:04They're fucking six years old seven years old eight years old ten years old They're now 50 60 years old now thinking why the fuck is that still bothering me? in case you never went back and examined it. It doesn't go away. You don't just outgrow it. You know, we have this delusion in our mind that it'll just go away because we're not thinking about it anymore. The mind's a powerful motherfucker, the most powerful thing in the world. It just lays in there dormant. It's going to creep up on you. You got to solve it. You got to handle it. You got to face it like the bully in school. He's going to continue bullying you until you bust him in his fucking mouth.

1:26:40it's almost like every day there's a bully like this morning you woke up and you're like you know what i want to be training for something or i want to be in my cave and working on you know what you know i want to be embracing the suck there instead i got to go out in new york city which is horrible and make it to all these different podcasts like mine and this is just not who i am you know that was your bully today right and what's funny about that I have to remind myself is that book that you are reading right now that's not who I was either at all like what are you going to do six years from now when someone says I want to talk to you about your pull up record oh I'll be able to talk about big time because that's now a scar in my brain I didn't see that that's what came with the callous callous your mind over the victim's mentality when you do 67 000 pull-ups you see how callous my hands are your hands become very calloused so all those stories for 43 years they're a part of me all that's a part of me but you have to keep on finding like the bully today is the story today right you have to keep on a new bully right always new boys there's always something like and you have them too.

1:28:01We all have them. We all have them. Those who are delusional to think, like we all like to, people I say, why don't you ever talk about the good times? You always talk about all the hard times in life. I don't need to fucking teach you about the fucking good times of life. Those just happen. For some reason, they just happen. A smile just happens. That good feeling in your heart, it just happens. Bad times when they happen, a lot of us don't have a fucking clue on how to get through that shit. So I'm not going to teach about good times. The good Lord just gave us that ability to feel them. We just feel them.

1:28:42Feel great. It's amazing. We weren't taught on how to handle 90 % of our life, which is bad. If you really think about your life, you lived eight years, three years, one year. You're what? How old right now are you? 50. You're 50. I just count off over 10 years of shit that I know about. And there's a lot more than that, that you had to figure out the tools on how to get through that. So that's why I talk about that. That's why it's ingrained in my mind because I need to constantly remember when time comes out. Like, for instance, my brother's daughter got murdered. Me and my brother went through a lot of shit.

1:29:26We stopped talking, all this sort of shit. But the thing about it is, you're never prepared for it. But once again, I was training for life my whole life. I always know shit like that's going to happen. That's what life brings you. It brings you those times that are bad, but you have to be ready for them. I think also what you're ultimately talking about at the base is freedom. So for instance, I was very moving and it's in the book. when your brother's daughter died and you had this rocky relationship with your brother, but you drove right out there. I got the feeling as I was reading, it was bringing you and your brother closer together, but it's still this horrible thing.

1:30:10The freedom is not, of course, that it's great when a bad event happens, but that when a bad event happens, it doesn't chain you down and make you a victim chained to a rock forever. You're able to still move forward. Someone has to step up in time of need. Someone has to be a leader. When everything falls apart, someone has to be a leader. Not everyone has to, yeah, a lot of people can fall apart. I'm glad you can. I chose. It's a decision that I made from a young kid. I don't want to be that person that falls apart when life does. So I'm going to ask Jennifer, when has David fallen apart that you've had to like, say, David, get up out of bed and you got to do this.

1:30:58Not once, but you acknowledge her in the book that she was critical for you getting this done. She was critical for me getting it done, but I knew how to get it done. So I'm the hardest person in the world. No one has to tell me shit. I know my timelines. I know how to get done. I am, if people always say this, I'm my toughest critic. I mean it no one has to hold like this whole life I've developed has developed a through repetition a very accountable human being so what you have right there in your hands is the best product I could possibly come up with and you talk about accountability a lot and I know you don't like the word but the kind of your action reports to you know what you've done what you've accomplished and so on you know one thing I thought that was interesting and Tucker will probably so tucker max his company scribe or lion crest you know you went through his publishing company to publish this book you basically avoided the mainstream publishers and went your own route which is what to met first though i actually had a 300 000 offer from two top five publishing houses they decided to turn down and that's when i went on my own so I actually went out, did the normal book auction, book advance, all that shit.

1:32:18And when it came time to sign the papers, I'm big into reflection. And I'm not about money. I want to own my own life. I don't want to have to ask you what the fuck to put in my book. No one was there for me through this journey. God. God didn't come down and say, I got your back, though. It was me against me. and I'd be damned if I sold one copy or a million copies. If I,$300 ,000, my biggest trophy in life, you're holding it right now. If I die right now on this fucking podcast, I'm the happiest motherfucker on the planet Earth. For me to do what I did, and when I had time to sit back, I made$60 ,000,$70 ,000 a year in the military.

1:33:03I'm going to get that, I'm going to get five years of income pretty much in one check. that's a big check to turn down. But we live in that. That's my biggest trophy in the world. And by the way, I totally agree with self-published. I mean, I've published with mainstream publishers before, and I've also self-published. My most successful books have been all self-published because that's when also you have total control over everything. And they never know what's in your best interest. That's right. Everyone else has got another agenda. 100%. The scary thing about that shit that pisses me off the most, that's the one fucking thing about this corrupt fucking world.

1:33:44Is everybody tells you what the fuck is great for you. They ain't telling you what's great for you. They're telling you what's great for them. And that's when I realized in the self-publishing thing, I went back and reflected on all the fucking conversations I had with all these great, smart fucking people who've been doing this shit for fucking ever. They're feeding you a bunch of fucking bullshit. All the fucking way. whatever is best for the company, not best for you. Not best for you. Very few people truly care nowadays what's best for you. And that's what made me so sick when this book did great.

1:34:18Everybody got fucking mad at me saying your book's going to sell 5 ,000 copies, maybe 10 ,000 copies. What, in the first 20 minutes? So you start to look back on these conversations of people that were pissed off at you because you wanted to do what was right for you. Very few people support supported what I wanted to do. So yeah, it's a very true statement, which you say there. Very true statement. There's some fucking nasty people in society. And that's in every industry. Every industry. If they're, for instance, just take a normal job at a big corporation. If your boss says, hey, this is going to be good for you, that's when you got to watch out.

1:34:54Yes. Because he's got an agenda, which is he wants to get promoted. That's right. And he needs you to work. And what's sad about that is that we put a lot of trust in these so-called people of authority. And we trust them that they're good people and they will do right by us. Beware. Not everybody is that good person. So, I mean, again, I have so much stuff. I could talk to you all day, but there's a couple of random trivia questions I have too. You were the bodyguard for the Iraqi prime minister. What's the craziest thing that happened while you were doing that? Oh, my God. There were so many crazy things there.

1:35:29I really don't talk about that too much, obviously. I know. You don't mention your military career at all in the book. No, because it wasn't about that. But I think anything I say would probably, it may come back to bite me in my ass. So I have to say it was a very unique job for me. It was a unique job for me to be guarding a person from a different country in a time where we're over in Iraq. and it can be very confusing at times when you're a U.S. person guarding an Iraqi person. It was very unusual to me. You have to really know the bigger picture and sometimes being a very small person in the very, very big ocean, which is war, which is combat, you really don't know all the ins and outs because you're so far down the totem pole.

1:36:19You get an order to do something and a lot of times all you want to do is sit back and question the order But in the military, you don't have the right to question the order You just gotta follow the order So there were a lot of things in my military life that I look back on I'm like, I wish it was better explained to me I wish we had a bigger picture But a lot of times you have to understand that when you put that uniform on The picture is sometimes very cloudy And you have to, once again, what I hate you have to trust man to do right by you like you and that boss like me and the publishing houses me and me and some agents me you have to trust another person to have your best interest in the interest of the team and you gotta trust that process it's very hard to do that in the military it's very hard to do that in life well it's almost like you did all the training programs like navy seal army rangers and so on because that was about you that was about you making you the best you could be at that time in the way you felt it would be the biggest challenge.

1:37:26Then suddenly you're in this situation where whatever it is, the big picture is like the publishing house, and you have to deal with that kind of suck that's antithetical to how you want to live your life. And the thing about me going to other schools is about finding the best I can be so I can be the best leader for other men. That's the whole thing about it, man. People, once again, there's so many messages in that book. You have to find your best self. So then when you're faced with all the evil and all the bullshit that the world is going to give you, you are strong enough to say, that's not the right thing for my men.

1:38:04It's not the right thing for my team. You have the courage and confidence by going through the suck. You now have this mental armor, which is what all that was about. Everything in life was developing in mental armor so I can face all the people saying, why the fuck are you self-publishing? Just an example. It's the dumbest thing you ever do. Who's going to buy a book about a black guy who was fat, who's now a Navy SEAL, who couldn't read? If you don't have that fucking armor-plated mind, all that fucking evil is going to penetrate it as it did for me when I was younger because you have no confidence.

1:38:42You can't lead without confidence. All you do is continue to follow. And we follow usually pieces of shit. That's the thing about it. I started seeing this at a young age. I had to develop my own confidence so I can make a decision that big in my life to turn down$300 ,000 and be confident to lead my small team to where I know I'm trying to get you to a better place for yourselves. Not for me. For yourselves. That's what all the schooling's for. That's what all the suck is for. That's what all the getting up early's for. That's what making your bed is for. Cleaning the house is for. Being a better leader.

1:39:22So you can now fight all the bullshit of the world. All the real strong people trying to manipulate your brain. you now have a very strong foundation. That's what it's all about. The foundation has to be strong so then you can now defend yourself and do what's right for yourself amongst all the people saying you're fucking wrong. Because I've heard it so many times in my life. And if I didn't have that strong foundation to say, I think you're wrong. Well, I bet you the problem you're going to have now, and maybe not, you're going to have fewer people saying you're wrong. You're right. How are you going to deal with that?

1:40:03Well, now it has to be an honest place. I've developed a place of honesty. I used to live in a world of lies. You have to live in a place of honesty. What were the lies? Oh, my God, dude. Whatever you want to hear. If we're in a conversation right now and you fucking like to go ice skating, and you talked about ice skating, and I fucking hate ice skating, I'm the best ice skater in the world. Oh, my God, you ice skate? Where do you ice skate at? Unbelievable. Oh, my God. I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck am I saying? I'm like ice skating. But you want to feel a part of someone. You want to belong.

1:40:36When you grow up in the world that I grew up in, you never belonged to anything. I was one of the only blacks. I was one of the only this. That's what I call the only in the book. The only, we all feel the only. You can be a white person amongst all white people and still feel like the fucking only. I guarantee you feel like the only a lot. You're not a normal human being From what people think is normal You do your own shit It comes You have to have a big fucking chip on your shoulder To say no this is who I am This is who I'm going to fucking be Takes a lot of fucking growth To get to that point in your life To finally walk around and say you know what Give a fuck what you think about me So that's what the whole message is now If you're fucking different If you're an outlier If you're fucked up in a certain way And you're proud of that Be proud of it walk around that way.

1:41:26Don't follow the path. Well, what's next for you today? I got to look at the schedule lady over here and see what's next, man. But I know I have a couple of calls today. I think I have a couple more podcasts today, but I don't really think about what's beyond. You know, like I do that in certain situations, like, you know, the whole uncommon thing. But I'm really about, in times like this, it's about being the messenger. so I'm not thinking about what's next I'm thinking about when James is done with me I'll go see what's next then Do you realize this entire podcast I didn't really care about the listeners, I was really just having a therapy session for myself with you I was just asking you questions that were bothering me about me and you were answering them and I got it for free, billionaires are paying for you to give them advice I just got all this great advice for free plus I read your amazing book and again, I've got my highlights all over this book.

1:42:23I've never highlighted a book this much. I don't even highlight books, I read books. So I hardly ever take out a pen and write stuff down. So I want to thank you for writing this. For something like a year, people have kept telling me, you got to have David Goggins on your podcast. I'm like, who's David Goggins? And then I read the book and it's great. It's going to change my life. I'm going to plagiarize all your ideas in one way or other. and I'll change it to entrepreneurship or something else. I get it. A lot of people have done that with my shit. No, I get it. A lot of people have done that with my stuff as well.

1:42:58So it just happens. But this was a really inspirational book. I'm really happy to recommend it. And I'm going to buy it. This is the first time I can say I'm going to buy this book for a bunch of my friends and for my kids, but my kids will never read it. But kids are tricky. but uh can't hurt me by david goggins this is an amazing book amazing podcast i'm so glad we got a chance to meet i hope it's not the last time well i have to say too that just to not interrupt you but the audio version of the book once again that's why i self-published i had an idea you need to get the audio version of that book did you do it so so i always i did with two people Okay So I had a So this book It's my life story But it's about my life story To make you think about your life So I had another person read it And we get to certain parts of the book That are marked off It's not scripted by any means So I had this guy go through I said look you read the book Mark it off His name is Adam He actually helped me put it on paper I said you go through the book And off the cuff We're going to do this So we're sitting in two different booths He's reading it when he gets to a certain point It's just an open dialogue about what I was thinking about here and I get more in depth on the story He's talking about and I tell stories that aren't even in the book And i've gotten the most feedback They say it's the best audio book of all time because it's basically an audio book Where you get the whole book in its entirety You get a podcast a radio show and an interview all in one And so there's a lot of me in it It's this very unique style Of what I did And everybody said don't ever do that Because it's not going to work And it's number two audio book out there right now I believe that works because I can't imagine you just sitting here And like reading a book out loud Like I've done an audio book For only two of my books I cannot just read a straight book I had to riff and tell stories the entire time It's horrible It's a different product essentially And so I'll get the audio because I haven't gone through that.

1:45:07There's so many things I highlighted. I just want to close with like a quote. Let's see. I've got a billion things. I don't know. Each one of these things were important to me. So I guess I'll just let people highlight their own stuff. And we've talked about most of the things. We've talked about almost everything that I highlighted. But man, thanks again. David Goggins. I appreciate it, James. Can't hurt me. and I don't know how often you're in the city, but stop by and we'll do another podcast next time you're here if you're up for it. I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot, brother. Yeah, thank you.

1:45:41Thank you.

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