David Goggins: “These 2 min 13 secs Changed My Life!” Do THIS When Life KNOCKS You Down!

28:11I caught you, and I am dumb, but I have the work ethic to catch you. That's where David Gaga's got really invented. It was at a kitchen table with 20 spiral notebooks that were empty, and then three months later they were full and when you can go through that, I still have them in my storage unit you go through these spiral notebooks of your life and you realize this is how I learned this is unbelievable, there's no miles it's not about the miles, it's that having a discipline every day to say for me to learn this one math problem, it's going to take me 10 hours wow and that's where it, and you realize through hard work You can do you can outwork anybody No matter how badass they are But that's the part people don't want to dive into Yeah when someone's lacking confidence in themselves That's right What's the answer you would give them if they're like how do I gain more confidence?

29:09It starts with yourself man You got to start diving into those things that you are afraid of You don't gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good It could be a false reality and the second life gives you that challenge, all you want to do is go back to what made you confidence or what gave you confidence. Is that happy spot? No. What gives you confidence, what gave me confidence, was spending years at a kitchen table trying to learn how to read and write on my own. Realizing I can't learn the way you learn. I can't, but I can learn. What gives you confidence is not being afraid.

29:52it's overcoming the fear. I used to stutter severely bad. So right now, I don't know how many people are going to watch this. You know what gives me confidence? It's knowing I no longer care if I sit and start stuttering at you. That's what gives me confidence. It's facing these things, overcoming them. And maybe not overcoming them every day, but facing them. And facing them and facing them pretty soon like this. You know what, man? This is where it's at. It's not in that comfort zone. It's in the discomfort zone is where my confidence is getting built. That's where it's getting built. But people want an easier answer.

30:27There has to be an easier way. There's not. I'm sorry. I searched for it my entire life. I did. You lied. I lied. I did everything. And I still felt empty. I coach a lot of people nowadays, billionaires, who call me on the phone and say, man, I'm still missing something. It's because they did what they were good at. And they had this beautiful family, two, three houses, cars, everything. Has everything to work. On the outside looking in like, my God, man, how can you be unhappy? I walk around with a backpack with all my stuff in it and no car. And I walk around, happiest person in the world. Have nothing.

31:10Happy as hell. It's because I found out the whole key to life. It's not in all that. You have to face yourself. So many people live to be 100 years old and they die miserable having everything because they never examined. I call it my live autopsy. You never examine this. Happiness, peace, enlightenment. It's all up here, man. It's all up here. If I start talking like this, people go, man, you know, I don't know. It's the truth, man. Yeah, it is true. It's all up here. you just gotta be willing to go and face it and that's the hard part what's your biggest insecurity today?

31:54not to be arrogant I don't have one what was the last one you had and when was that? the last one I had was probably

32:06still me me still living because I always talk about I pay rent we used to live in a$7 a month place when I was growing up. Is this in Buffalo or is this in Indiana? This is in Indiana. So we had a lot of money in Buffalo. And when my mom left my dad, we went to nothing for a period of time before she got on her feet. And that$7 a month place used to be, it was who I was. I was no one. I was in the sewer. My mom went there. I had nothing. And you always feel like you have nothing. I had achieved so much. I was a Navy SEAL. I've gone through ranger school. I've gone through Delta IV selection training.

32:48I've done so much. I run 200 miles, pull-up records, everything. Learned to read and write, became pretty intelligent. And I still was like, man, what is wrong with me? It wasn't until I got real sick, and I talked about in the last chapter of that book, I got real sick, and I was about 38 years old. I'm 43 now. And my life got real quiet. I went from running 205 miles in 39 hours to I couldn't get out of bed. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. But once again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why is that? In that moment when my whole life changed, I went from a guy who worked out every day, trained every day, to a guy who couldn't get out of bed.

33:34My life was taken from me. The one thing that kept me going was my training. Now you didn't have that. I didn't have anything. Now you just had to sit alone. Alone. And not train. And that's what changed me. And that's when I realized I hadn't thought, hadn't taken time to think about what I'd done in my life. You hadn't reflected yet. I hadn't reflected. I'd done all these things, but there was no finish line. I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect. Yeah. I was just going. I wouldn't even, I finished a race of life, and I wouldn't even receive my medal. I'd go on. You're like, on to the next.

34:08I'd get in the car and I'd go. You wouldn't even take the medal? Gone. Don't care about it. Like, I'm not going to waste an hour? sitting around for the ceremony. Most people are sitting around and that's what they like. They need the ceremony if I accomplish something. Validation. I haven't done anything. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I'm just getting started. I'm just getting started. That's right. When I started figuring out life that I was leaving so much in the tank, I call it my 40 % rule. Yeah. I was leaving so much in the tank. Once I realized, my God, man, I was this dumb, fat kid being bullied and now I'm a 180-pound person who lost 106 pounds in less than three months.

34:42Learn to read. learn to do this, learn to do that. I was like, I need more. I was fueling my mind with everything. And I never took time to say, my God, you came from this hell and you're here. So those insecurities, and this is how I explain it the best way. SEAL training became pretty hard and a lot of guys weren't getting through it. So they designed a SEAL prep program. Like a boot camp for the boot camp. That's right. And it was two months. In my last two years before I retired from the military, they sent me there to train these kids. Wow. To get ready for buds. 18, 19, 20-year-olds. Yeah, young kids.

35:19So when they'd get to Navy SEAL training, man, they were physical studs. They were running, swimming. I mean, they were hybrids. Wow. But they'd get to buds, and the same amount of people would quit. Why is that? This is why. We were training bigger, stronger, faster quitters. Hmm. It's not about. Not the mind. That's right. We weren't diving into the sewer. Everybody's got a story. We don't share it on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We all have a dungeon. I'm just willing to talk about mine. Yeah. Most of us aren't willing to talk about it. I'm going to talk about my dungeon.

36:02I wasn't getting into the dungeon of these guys' minds. I wasn't building that so-called mental toughness. Mental toughness isn't something that you sample. It's something that you live in every day. So when something hard would happen to these kids, like in Hell Week, it would draw on something that made them very insecure. And they'd look for comfort. Whenever hardness comes, and you don't know what it is. It may be different for you than it is for me. But you go back to your insecurities. And then when you go back to your insecurities, you then look for comfort. within those insecurities. And we all look for that cookie that your mom used to give you when you were sad, when you were sick.

36:45We look for our wife or our husband. We look for comfort. It's in those moments you must retrain your mind to think differently in health. I wasn't training them to do that. Why weren't you training them? I wasn't training myself to that because at that time, I was doing what I was told. These guys needed me a standard. Physical standard. A physical standard. The physical standard is not what they need to meet. It's a mental standard you must meet in life. So going back to when I was sick, I was hitting the physical standards. I wasn't meeting the mental standard. The mental standard is you must know how far you've come.

37:30Wow. I wasn't, I had come 8 ,000 miles from where I started. But if you never know that You're still in the$7 a month place When I was sick I was able to slow it down And reflect back On my entire life And in that bed When I thought I was dying Because that story is long That sick portion of my life is long I didn't care if I died or lived Because I was for the first time in my life Happy And at peace because I reflected back on where I started. You said, wow, I have come a long way. That's right. And no one saved me. It wasn't like someone came down here and guided me through life. When you figure this out on your own, the amount of pride and dignity and self-respect you have, that's why I walk around the streets with a backpack and just like, I don't need anything else.

38:28Yeah. You figure it out by going inside yourself, by callousing over the victim's mentality. You're always a victim, even if you have everything in life, until you realize what you've achieved. You have to first realize what you've achieved. And my mom has accomplished so much in her life since my father. But she hasn't done that one step. Really? She doesn't acknowledge it and reflect back? She continues to go back to the dungeon of her past life. And live in that space. And live in that space. versus living the space that she's in now and reflecting back on, my God, this is what I've done with my life.

39:07So. Have you talked to her about this? We talk about it all the time. And you have to be willing to go there. You have to be willing to really go there. Not surface. I don't live on the surface of anything. Surface is what got me where I was at. It got me from 175 pounds to 300 pounds. Telling everybody I'm good. I don't give a damn. I'm good. No. They're hollow words. A lot of us speak in hollow words. I used to speak in hollow words. I don't do anymore. Everything that comes in my mouth has substance. It's real. And we all have these feelings in our bodies, in our minds, in our souls. I act on mine.

39:48A lot of us who are afraid of something, we allow our minds to choose the path of least resistance so we go a different route. I'm afraid of something that's telling me you must do that. Do this thing. You must do that. You have to go that way. And most of us don't understand that mentality. We go left and we wonder why we haven't fulfilled something in our lives. It's because we continue to take the journey that is mapped out. And how I look at it is I talk in life like a lot of us in life want to take the four-lane highway that has roadmaps and all this other stuff on it, man. It tells you where to go, gas stations.

40:28the next 10 miles up you're gonna see a mcdonald's a crackle barrel yeah it's the easy route very few us want to go to the right side that crackle barrel is that midwest life that's right that's right from ohio it's all about it man in the end crackle barrel everywhere dude that's amazing bringing back memories um this is powerful because i've been telling people this i've been living that way unknowingly my whole life of like whatever the thing is i'm afraid of when i was in high school, I started doing those things. Right. And it was just like, I'm sick and tired of feeling afraid. Right. So I need to do the things that scare me the most.

41:04That's right. You know, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. Tiffany's heard me share these stories, but I was afraid to talk to girls when I was a teenager. I was afraid of dancing. I was afraid of like singing and playing music in front of people. I was afraid of all these different things. And so I said, I want to do this. I'm going to give myself a challenge every single day until the fear goes away. That's right. And I feel like that's what more of us should be doing. I'm hearing that's how you live your life. That's all it is, man. And it helps me feel so much more confident. When you overcome that fear of saying, this doesn't have control over me anymore.

41:34That's right. It's like you can be at such more peace in your life. Most of it, like for instance, I never thought in my wildest dreams I could be a Navy SEAL. It's until you open your mind, open-mindedness creates that. We all shut down our minds. Like for instance, when I broke the pull-up record, everybody around me who heard the pull-up record was 4 ,020 pull-ups. That's the first thing they did. Oh, my God. 4 ,024 hours? Yeah, it's 4 ,020 pull-ups in a 24-hour period. Yeah, yeah. The first thing I did versus closing my mind to like, oh, my God, that's crazy. I went and got a penny. How many is that every minute?

42:12Exactly. Every hour, every second. Instead of taking life and making it out to be this grandiose thing, start breaking it down. Start breaking it down. and most of us we live in a box and we don't want to go outside that box at all, ever outside that box is all these possibilities of life, but what we do is we shackle our mind, we are a prisoner in our own mind that this is all I can do, this is all I'm good at and we take away the possibilities you can be this, you can be that you can be all these things and I never thought at 300 pounds I could be Nave Siu so if my mind was shackled me and you would never meet there'd be no book there'd be no book there'd be nothing so what people understand is that they live for themselves not knowing that you have the power within yourself to change millions of lives by facing life by facing yourself and through that I would die never knowing that I had the power to change millions of lives.

43:23And what haunts me the most, people ask me, what haunts you the most? What haunts me the most is that if I would have died at 300 pounds, let's say I was 75 years old, I got to heaven, and God has a chart like that on everybody's life. God knows all. Let's say that. I don't care what you believe in. It doesn't matter. I'm not judging anybody. But let's say my thing is God. You get to heaven, I'm 300 pounds, I sit down, I was a cockroach, Terminator my whole life, and we're sitting down just like this. You're God and I'm David. and he gives me that chart and he says look at this now look at this chart and on the chart it has all these different things but my name's on it but these things aren't me i was gonna change the world i was gonna i was gonna set records i was gonna be a navy seal i was gonna be all these things in the military that i accomplished you're gonna get the vfw award you could be honored here honored there i'm like god i was this isn't me like it says david goggins I was an Ecolab guy.

44:21I pray for cockroaches and I'm 300 pounds. It says here I'm 185. It says here I got a bachelor's and a master's. It says all these things. And God goes, no. That's who you were supposed to be. Wow. My biggest fear in life is if there is a final resting place in this world and there's a final judgment and you talk to something much bigger than you. I don't want to sit down and have a conversation With someone With something that says You're in heaven This is what you should have been on earth And are you really in heaven now Or are you in hell Thinking about how much I left on the table For fear For not willing to go over the wall And over the next wall And over the next wall So in my mind I believe that And God knows all At least I believe that I want God to be up there right now As we're speaking Writing stuff down Saying my God He exceeded even my Expectations That's how I live my life I now know That there is no cap On the human mind There's no cap We cap it ourselves Wow Is there a cap on the human body?

45:39That's right Is there one? There I I don't believe so. Because one thing I found out was I didn't, for several years, I gave myself a way out. When you were 300 pounds? When I was 300 pounds, when I was, all the way up until I was 24 years old. I would climb a mountain, I'd fall back down. I'd start climbing, I'd fall back down for the first 24 years of my life. I went to my first hell week My second hell week And then my third hell week came in SEAL training And the CO, Captain Bowen Looked at me, I'm on crutches, I'm all jacked up He says, hey This is your last time you're going to go through, buds That's it I had several stress fractures I had double pneumonia I was jacked up And he gave me a few months to heal And he said, this is your last time going through I shouldn't even let you go back through I started Navy SEAL training with stress fractures.

46:40Stress fractures, not shin splints. That's hard to finish. Stress fractures. Starting the hardest training in the world with stress fractures. And this is when I started to not put a cap on the body, if the mind is there. Every morning I would wake up at 3, 3 in the morning, 4 o 'clock in the morning, go to my dive cage, go in there before anybody saw me, I'd get duct tape. and I would tape from my forefoot all the way up to the mid of my calf and I would put two black socks on. And so I ran not using the pivot. Oh, my gosh. And I ran my hip flexors. So for the first 45 minutes to an hour, I was in absolute excruciating pain.

47:21But what motivated me through that whole process was the fact that this kid came from that. I'm in the hardest training in the world in the worst shape of my entire life. What if I can graduate amongst these studs? Wow. All these guys around me are studs. They're stallions. They're gladiators in my class. They're all healthy. Most of them. They're not broken like this. They may have some, you know, everybody's sick going through that training. But if I can graduate, it would change everything for me. if I can start the hardest training in the world, broken, and graduate. So my mind fed off of that.

48:06You are now, from the weakest man, you are now the hardest man to ever live. If you can do this. If you can do this. Life is one big mind game. Yeah. And you're playing it with yourself. Is it true? I don't care. It got me through the hardest training, starting out broken. where most people quit, I had just started. Wow. And when you take that mindset and you learn to flip that around, that's what made me powerful. And my body followed. And three months later, my stretch fractures were healed by running on them. Calcifying it, just like. I never had them since. I'm 43 years old. Wow. I ran 7 ,000 miles in 2007.

48:55Haven't had a stress fracture since. And I'm not saying to do that. I'm just saying that when the mind and the body connect and you don't give yourself a way out. The only way out for me at that time was death. Wow. I'm going to be a Navy SEAL. Or I'm going to die. Or I'm going to die trying. Yeah. Period. And my body said, Roger that. We're going to get you through this. So when the mind gives it no way out. No way out. Your body says, okay. Okay. I believe you now. I have to heal. I'm going to figure this out with you. Yes. I'm going to do this. It's going to be the worst part of your life, but you're going to survive.

49:36We're going to survive. Wow. And as you hear in that 100-mile race I did, I started figuring out more and more and more and more about at the other end of suffering is a life that no one – and I'm not talking about go out there and kill yourself. Don't take these words and flip them and say oh my god. No It's just be uncomfortable. I caught suffering physically injure yourself. Yes, not saying that and then be out for six months That's right. That's no good. That's no good. I'm not saying I'm not saying do what I did Yeah, I was in a spot that life forced me. I had a choice Had a choice to be this guy or the guy that's in front of you.

50:15I had choices I chose this path and you're still choosing it. I'm still choosing go back to that guy at any moment Because I found out. I found out something with those stress fractures. I found out something through facing all these things. I found out a whole other world, which is why I walk around with all my stuff in a black backpack. Wow. I found out a whole other way. A whole other way of no matter how far you get in life, you have to be able to go back to scratch in your mind at a moment's notice. you can never get so far beyond scratch what that means is when you accomplish something in life if you want to go back to scratch and go back to that seven dollar a month place where i once lived and visit that place for a long period of time if you were here when you went back to scratch you would now be here scratch is what makes you better scratch friction obstacles create growth There's no friction when you're this far up in the game anymore.

51:20You think there is. That's right. When you achieve so much, the friction is minor. Because why? I'm sore. I'm going to get a massage today. I'm hungry. I'm going to eat today. The refrigerator is always full. So your discomfort is now very minuscule to your discomfort back here in the$7 a month place. so you have to go back to the total discomfort to then raise your level of where you're at now i'm not saying stay there and stay there visit visit it and then you raise your level take a day trip that's right yeah always take day trips yeah don't stay there that's right but take a day take a day trip so when you complete some massive obstacle and challenge whatever the adversity that you force upon yourself because these are all curated experiences for yourself right you're scratching constantly what happens now since this was five years ago you would just leave you want to take the metal you would just go on to the next what happens now do you take you know a day to reflect a moment 10 minutes like how does the process work and then how do you get back to visiting the seven dollar uh you know place you lived in now i don't have to go back and visit it I don't have to think about it it lives with me now every day of my damn life that feeling that I had to go back and think about I found a way to have it it's constantly there I have a self talk I have a self talk it's called my cookie jar it's a constant reminder of David every day of my life I believe in quiet there's no growth outside of quiet The world's too noisy Your mind needs quiet For you to find who you are What's my purpose?

53:13Why am I here? You're not going to find it nowadays Unless you lock yourself in a quiet room in your mind And find it It's too noisy For me, I could be in a busy street in New York City Horns honking And I'm walking around With like nothing It's me and myself In a quiet spot And when you are constantly reflecting On who you are Where you've been The journey you've gone through The journey you can continue going through The feeling's always there You don't allow the world to pull you so fast That you forget You don't allow yourself to pull you so fast That you forget It's not about staying in that moment It's about you want to get to the point Where that feeling follows you Like breathing because a part of your life, part of your DNA.

54:06But it's made. Like these calluses on my hands right now, they're made. They are now on my brain. This is now a part of me. It's a daily process, a part of me. And how I go back to that$7 a month place all the time is now I go out and I dig fire line. I'm a wildland firefighter. I don't need to do it. I'm a 43-year-old man. I work with 27-year-old kids. I'm a rookie. Every day I'm a rookie, it feels like. Why do you do it? That's why I do it, man. There's a story I'm going to tell you about why I do it. So I have a good living now for me, where I'm at in my life. I was out on a fire in Colorado.

54:51And we were digging a fire line on this 50%. It was on the side of a daggone mountain. And we're trying to keep the fire from moving. and we're digging this fire line 14 inches, or my fault, 18 inches wide, three miles long. 12 of us digging. And it is the hardest work. You make$12 an hour. Wow. Okay? Nothing. You set up your shop. Like, when you're done digging, you just pretty much lay down, you go to sleep, and you get up and you dig some more. Really? This happens for two weeks long. What are you digging? It's like a hole. You're digging a line. So you're trying to get down to a mineral source.

55:24So you're trying to get down to the earth. so that if that fire is moving, it can't burn dirt. Really? So you're moving fuels. Got it. So not only are you digging, you're cutting down trees. It's hard work. But the moral of the story is I'm 43. Don't need to do it at all. This is why I do it. You're making money. I'm making money. I have a good life. I don't need to do it. Everybody asks me why I do it. This is why. This 21-year-old kid was out there, and he wanted a pair of running shoes. So all he wanted was a pair of running shoes. 60, 70, 100 bucks, whatever. Easy for us, running shoes. He looked up at the mountain that we had been on for days digging this fire line and he said, that would take me five or six hours of work to buy those shoes.

56:16He said, I'm not going to buy them. It's the perspective of life. That perspective of life right there, of that is the value that we lose. When things start to come so easy in life, it's the perspective that 21-year-old had. He looked at that mountain and thought, he looked at his hands, he looked at the amount of hours of pulling that Pulaski, that tool, and raking that ground, and then cutting those trees and moving them. That hours of work, he looked at his feet and said, these old shoes would do. it's that perspective in life that we lose and that's that story that most people may not mean anything it's that story i always want to have in my life you cannot lose perspective of where you've come in life yeah so true we were in uh guatemala was it this year last year last year we were in guatemala last year we we support a charity called pencils of promise that builds schools for kids who live in poverty and all around the world and every year i take a trip to just see where our efforts are being you know felt and being and being made and uh these are the poorest places in guatemala laos and ghana places they have nothing there's no schools they're little villages they live on dirt huts everything right and we go and we build these schools we actually the the villages build them themselves we just fund the experience and they empower we empower them to do it um so that they take ownership of it right but i'll be there for a few days and watch these kids so happy with just like a pencil right just so happy to just like have their family around and they'll go and they'll show us their huts and like they're just so happy to have community and then i'll fly back and go through beverly hills yep right over here and i'll see like these mansions you know i live right next to it and i'm just like it gives me so much perspective of like you don't need to have all these things to find peace and joy and connection and intimacy and all these and all these other things that we want you don't need these big mansions and to live in this nice place you know i like living here but it's not like it's perspective for me is what keeps me motivated as well to to keep doing the right things to keep showing up to keep working hard and i think it's right most of us miss that perspective in life.

58:40We get so far away from reality. So far. And the reality is, man, when I was seven years old, eight years old, all I wanted was a 99 cent quarter pounder from Hardee's. I know, right? And that made me happy as hell. Some curly fries, man. That's it, man. That's it. Yeah, the thing is, a lot of us have been conditioned or some of us grew up with wealth or grew up with comfort. Right. And so we're conditioned that way. And we grew up expecting now that things should come a lot easier. Right. That's a damn shame. We get frustrated when we don't get it right. Quickly. Quickly. Yes. Yeah. And I'm always talking about delayed gratification.

59:19The longer I can wait to receive gratification, the more fulfilled I am. I'm a person. So when I got sick like I did, I actually had to quit this race called Badwater. Yeah. 135 miles? Yep. Through Death Valley. It was 2014 when I got real, real bad. I pulled out of the race at mile 50. I went to the emergency room, and the docs were like, you know, we can't find this, we can't find that, we know what's wrong with you. When I got in that bed, so this is the crazy thing about gratification, long term. I'm able to watch grass grow by finding out this. I sat there, couldn't run a quarter mile, couldn't get out of bed.

1:00:00The only thought I had in my mind. I pulled out of that race. I told myself I'm going to go back to Badwater one day and rent it. I'm going to win the race. Haven't been back since. Haven't been back since. 2019. I'm not saying I'm winning. I'm just now in the shape to go back. Wow. Haven't won a 100 mile race since 2014. Wow. Because I've been that sick. I'm just now. Imagine the gratification I'm going to get by getting to the start line of that race. And what if I can win it? That'd be pretty sweet. pretty sweet four or five years yeah imagine that of having that kind of self-discipline that every day wake up and having these setbacks where I can't even run a mile wow but I'm thinking about running 135 I can't run one mile but I'm thinking about running 135 and with that process guess what happens sooner or later you can run 10 miles it may take a year but it gives you more and more hope that it's possible and I'm at the point now where guess what?

1:01:05It's right around the corner. Wow. Most people in that time frame, in that mindset, I can't run anymore. It's over. No. It's just going to take a little bit longer. You have to turn the negative into a positive. Because at the end of it all, if you can sit back and wait, if you can wait 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 years, when you get to that point, when you finish, that's the feeling for 12 years. It says they wait 12 years to get there. That's what keeps you going is you got to feel. I'm doing it for one second.

1:01:44Years of pain. For one second. One second. Think about it. You cross the finish line, it's over. One second. Most people do that and the one second isn't what they thought it would be. and then they're pissed and upset and they keep going on to the next because they never reflect back on what they did. It's not the one second. It's the 12 years. Yeah. It's the 12 years that I want. It's not the race. It's the 12 years why you did it. It's not the winning. It's not the winning. It's not what place you got. No. But most of us focus on, Oh, I got to win this. If I don't, I'm going to be upset. I would achieve all my athletic goals for years And then 10 minutes later be the angriest person right so angry and frustrated nasty with people And I would delay my gratification for years to achieve what I wanted.

1:02:39That's right. And I never understood That either being a perfectionist is the worst thing that can happen to a person You never live like not lost that hundred and six pounds in like two and a half months whatever took me That was the biggest trophy of my entire life. I didn't care if I graduated Navy SEAL training. I didn't care. What I just accomplished in that time frame. It's massive. Yeah. I don't know. There was no trainer. There was no, like, it was funny about this. We talk about mental toughness nowadays. It's like the biggest crave. When I grew up, it was just suck it up. Yeah. It was just make it happen.

1:03:17Yeah. You had to figure out. It was called figure it out, man. and all these nuggets that I gained along the way, that's what it was about. It wasn't about the trident. It wasn't about all those daggone medals. It wasn't about any of that. And that's why I hate even talking about being a SEAL, you know. I miss the stories. What I talk about, it didn't define me. The journey getting there was harder than going through it. You know? So that's the whole thing about life, man. It's that journey that makes you who you are. Yeah, and as opposed to focusing on did I win or not. Right. What did I gain from the last 12 years?

1:03:53Right. Exactly. And so when you finish now, what do you think about? How long do you reflect back on the effort it took to accomplish that race? A long time. What's it? Days? A long time. Weeks. Years. Years. You'll reflect on it. I reflect back now. There's times now where I will reflect back on my first 100-mile race. Still today. Still today. And it'll give me the same exact feeling. because what I did in that first race when I was under-trained, I did it on four days' notice. I had run more than, I think, 20 miles the whole year, and I did it to raise money for this foundation, to try to get in the bad water.

1:04:35What I had to pull out of myself on that last, so that's where that book, Live with the Seal, kind of originated. Jesse Isler saw me at this race. He was racing too. Yeah, but he did it as a team. Right, you did it alone. I did it alone. And that's what I talk with people about, man. I spend so much time. People are always like, why do you run so much? You know, you try to get in shape. No. The things I do in life, most of life, you're alone. You may have a whole support crew around you. But up here, you're alone. Most of the stuff I do, I'm training for that one, those moments. Those moments when I was at mile 70 and I had 30 more miles to go and I had, I crapped up my back and peed and blood down my leg.

1:05:19I had 30 miles to go. There's only so much someone cheering can do for you. When you start to dive back in the cellar of your mind, and you're pulling out all these tactics, all these mental tactics to get through this 30 miles when you're in the worst shape of your life, and no one's coming to save you, and you get through that, I want to go back there. When I got done with that race, I laid in the tub, and my ex-wife helped me get up the stairs. And I'm laying in this tub and Coca-Cola's coming out of me. Just looks like dirt. And she's a nurse and she's like, she's freaking out. And she puts the shower on me and I'm looking at her and all I'm going to do is call the race director up of Badwater and say, I qualify for the race.

1:06:07And she's thinking, we got to go to the hospital. So she's calling my mom and my mom has a doctor friend of hers who's over and they're freaking out. and I said, everybody, just shut up. Wow. Shut up. I'm in the worst pain of my entire life, and no one would ever understand this. No one. When you've gone that deep inside yourself, and all those feelings of pain that I had, I was in the worst pain of my life ever, and some of you think, man, you're just crazy. No. When you've done that, and you've figured out so much on your own, and all that pain and discomfort I had in that tub laying there, passing out, everything, was confirmation of what I just figured out.

1:06:52I just figured out the code. I figured out a code, a code that many people aren't looking for. And I wanted to be numb. I want that feeling. This was confirmation. This was like a scientist's notes. The notes were here. The notes were all this feeling. It was a confirmation. And no one at that time could understand what I'd just done. I cracked the code to human potential in myself. And I would say, like, oh, my God, this is unbelievable what I just did. So it's that quiet place. It's that place by yourself. It's those hours and years and decades by yourself in the grip of life. when life has you by the throat and choking you out and you're sitting there calm because you're trying to figure it out.

1:07:48You're not panicking. You're not quitting. You're not throwing in the towel. You're saying there's a way around this. And when you figure it out, when life has you gripped in a vice and you can figure that out, that's when you overcome. That's when you overcome. And that's why that one moment for me in that tub, I didn't want anyone to take away from me. Wow. This is crazy. I love this. Do you have any fears today? I do have a lot of fears today. But it's hard for me to call them fears anymore. Yeah. I don't use that word anymore. They're almost like it's another challenge. Yeah. Because anything that makes me feel that fear feeling is going to get overcome.

1:08:36You go do it. It's going to get conquered. That is, that's almost like fear is my ultimate guide. Of where you're supposed to be going. Of where I'm supposed to be going. Yeah. It's my ultimate guide. So, I don't really... What's the big challenge then for you then? The biggest challenge for me is always going, I want to be comfortable. You want to be comfortable. You want to sleep in a nice bed and relax. I'm a normal human being. You want to chill out. Yeah. I want, and the time is going to come. It's time for everybody to get civilized. the worst thing in life that happens to a man is that gets civilized or a woman anybody yeah yeah because you lose the hunger for life you you you think you've arrived and once you have a i've arrived mentality that's my biggest fear is i get to the point right i'm at that point where life has come to me and i had that feeling of i've arrived i now know my life for what i know it to be is over even though that's where comfort is and everything else i found the most life in the most uncomfortable places in the world.

1:09:42I was the most David, the Goggins that I invented, because David Goggins was weak. I never want to get rid of Goggins. The guy I created, that weak person that used to be, the guy I created that can handle anything, you don't want to let go of that guy because you realize that that guy was made. You weren't boring him. And that is, when you get comfortable, God starts to die. He starts to die. That one creature from the Black Lagoon that can live in a sewer, that can eat rats all day, that doesn't need water, that doesn't need sunlight, that doesn't need nothing. He can just live, because he knows he can.

1:10:27That's a powerful human being that you never wanna, it's in everybody. That's the scary thing about, That's what makes me so upset, man, is that everybody wants to put this daggone label on me. They forget the first three chapters of my book. They forget how this started. A lot of times it takes someone's wife dying or something like that for them to change. Yeah, near death. Yeah, something. No, no, no, none of that. I wanted to figure out is there more to this horrible feeling of feeling like a loser? Can I change this? And once you figure out I have the ability not through your mom or your dad or through a special school through you you have the ability to change this that's what makes it so mad once people put this title on me you now give yourself a get out of jail free card and say oh he's just crazy he's special he's unique he's this and that you just saved yourself from not having to do the work and that's why I want people to hear my story I'm trying to take away all that bull crap that you want to put on me I'm trying to make you suffer up here to know my guy man he really had a hard way to go there was nothing special about him he wasn't talented, he wasn't gifted he wasn't nothing he wasn't nothing and he made it I want everybody to feel uncomfortable around me.

1:12:01That's it. Because I want you to go home and think about yourself. Think about yourself, man, because you're leaving so much on the table for the possibilities of what you can be. You say most people are at 40 % potential. What percent are you at? I like to say that I live in the 90 percentile, sometimes 99. 100 % is dead. 100 % is dead. 99 sometimes. 99 sometimes. The reason why I know 99, because the first five hours of my day, I am very uncomfortable. What do you do? First of all, every morning I get up and people think I love to run. I don't. That's why you do it. That's why I do it. And people don't understand that mentality.

1:12:47Oh, you have to love it, man. No. Running has changed my life because every morning I know I'm going to do it. If you know every morning you do something you don't like, Every morning I would do it for And guess what If I just ran for an hour a day A day is 24 hours right What percent is that What's one hour over 20 Was that 4 % A small percent But anyway That's why I know I'm at a high level Because I'm at a Not wanting to be uncomfortable I put myself in the dungeon Every day off jump Out of bed It starts Shoes on. Out of bed. While most people lose the battle in the morning, like, once you leave your beautiful house, the war starts.

1:13:36Nowadays, it starts before you leave home. The phone rings. Social media is up. The world is attacking you. If you don't control what you can to build that armor. So in the morning time, what I'm doing is I'm building my armor. It gets broken every night. I get up in the morning time. I start to build the armor. That's a run. Okay? We got to do our push-ups, our sit-ups, our pull-ups. We got to go to the gym. We got to do our stretch. Every morning, I'm building. You do one hour in the morning of training? Oh, no. In the morning time, I do at least an hour and a half. And then I go to the gym.

1:14:05Of running? So that's running. Hour and a half of running. Yes. Then I'm in the gym. And then at nighttime, every night for the last five to six years, about five and a half years, I've only missed two days of stretching for two to three hours. Two to three hours a night stretching. I've only missed two days in about five and a half years. Wow. Stretching? Stretching. Why stretching? That is where I've... So the sickness I had was my psoas muscle got real tight. And it caused my body, long story short, to pretty much choke me out from the inside. So when you're young, your psoas muscle is your fight or flight muscle.

1:14:44We're sitting down right now. We're using the hip flexor muscle. when you're under stress as I was my whole life by being afraid of my father it's tight your whole body's tight then I choose a job like being a Navy SEAL it's even tighter and then I put myself under stress it's just tighten and tighten and tighten it's a vice grip and you need healthy blood flow through your body I wasn't getting any of that so I push so hard in life people say oh because you ran so much no sorry life emotional stress yes emotional stress made me just tight. So now, I couldn't sit down here for 10 seconds and I was like, I was wound.

1:15:23What that's done to me is it allowed me to be even more open-minded. I stretch out. I get my body lengthened out. It lengthens my mind out. The possibilities out. I calm myself down. So during the morning time, I build the armor. I face the world. Because now I know there's going to be some disappointments along the way, every day. That's life. But if you face disappointments already in victory, the things I can control is I can control my run. I can control how my house looks, how my world is. I can control that. So I've won. Open my door of life. Life starts to beat me down, but I'm facing it with the body armor that I created.

1:16:03Yes. And now I'm facing life with the proper tools. Unlike I hit the snooze button, I'm running late, my house is a mess, my mind's a mess. Now life's already beat you So you open the door and now life hits you And you're already frustrated You're already in that anxiety mode You're stressed already And then life starts to pile more on top of you You get home, you're exhausted And that's how life happens to everyone You have to live and win what you can And build the body armor Start callousing the mind So you're ready for combat outside of your house Because it's going to come and that's what I realized at a young age.

1:16:44I had no body armor. I had no callus. So when life came at me, I ran. I tucked. I lived in the fetal position trying to get away from life. I wasn't protected. I didn't protect myself. I had nothing. So I started realizing I got to form an armor. So I'm going to have to lie to you to make you like me. So I'm not approaching people feeling insecure. Saying I have all these material things that I don't have. When you have that body armor, you tell people, hey, man, I'm not real smart. But I try real hard. I won't win this race, man, but I've been running for the last four years every day. That's pretty good, yeah.

1:17:28That's the mentality that you need to have. Yeah. Look at people knowing I know you and everybody else has issues. So why am I worried about how anybody thinks of me? we're all in the same boat here some boats may be bigger than others but we all have problems so be it we're all in the same boat some of us are willing to not lie about it I'm at that point now where I no longer care because why can I go on here and tell people how fucked up I am because I faced them they no longer define who I am it's not me it was me they don't control you anymore Yeah. When you're training in the morning or training at night or stretching at night, what are you visualizing or thinking about?

1:18:19Nothing. When I'm training in the morning time. And it's a run for an hour and a half in the gym and. Sometimes it's longer. Calisthenic type stuff. An hour to an hour and a half is the minimum. Yeah. If I'm doing like a hundred mile race, which, you know, like now I'm starting to build my miles back up. Come training for a race in January. You know, that could be two, two and a half, three hours. Then once I come home from that, it's right in the gym. Immediately. So I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I'm dehydrated. Sodium load, everything. And that's where, that's the edge. Because it's even more uncomfortable to do that.

1:18:54That's right. Because all I want to do then is stress. Stretch, drink water, relax. That's it. I had a long run. I'm hot. I'm dehydrated. You already didn't want to run. That's right. So that's when, because why? in the race of life, life's not going to give you a glass of water when you're thirsty. And I realize that. And once again, people are like, my God, your life is horrible. It's not. This is how I live. This is what I want. I don't judge anybody. This is how I live. And if there's not people like me in this world with this kind of mentality, It's not be like David Goggins Go run 200 miles Take something from this Take something from this Remember where I started from You don't need to go where I went I went this far Because I started opening different doors To the cellar in my brain My God, is this possible?

1:19:57Oh my God, that's possible This is possible I started opening different compartments You can leave them shut I don't care so what I do now in the morning times I do this because why life's not going to give me the get out of jail free card and if I come on here on this podcast and talk this stuff I have to live what I say so when you come up from a world of used to lie a lot and my big thing is facing all this crap I cannot tell you something I have not done because why when you start to formulate this character this code of ethic this ethos that you live not anybody else, it's your own I cannot tell you something that I haven't done, why?

1:20:43because it will haunt me you are now drinking the coolant a lot of people write books on self-help, mental toughness, all this crap half of them are living up to that standard half of them are living up to that standard You have to be able to practice what you preach. It has to be what you are. That's why when people say, my God, when you speak on stuff, it's so passionate. Because you're making me relive my life. It's not a comfortable life. This life was made. This life was earned. And if people like it, great. If not, so be it. At nighttime, I think about nothing. When you're stretching or when you're?

1:21:24I'm stretching. That's my time. That's my time To sit back and recharge for tomorrow Because why this is not Mental toughness is not a class We have this class that they designed Eat an elephant one bite at a time Self-talk, visualization, arousal control It's all great It's all great It has to be a lifestyle you work on mental callusing on a daily basis because even though your brain your mind, like your brain isn't a muscle so much you will lose it you will lose the ability to suffer in the worst of times if you come out of it for too long if you can lift 315 pounds and you stop going to the gym for a month I guarantee you won't be able to pick the same weight up again all the stories I talked about today all the things in that book if I went and said I'm good I gained all this knowledge if I stopped today the knowledge is gone yeah I have to go back deep to retrieve it I don't want to go back deep to retrieve it I want to be able to call on it now that's why I do these things.

1:22:53I know what not doing them will get me. Right. There's so much more I want to ask you, but I want to try to wrap it up here with three final questions. I didn't even get to any of the questions I had on here because I was just so inspired by everything. But if you guys haven't picked this up yet, you can pre-order it right now. Again, Can't Hurt Me. Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. Make sure you guys get this book. Get a few copies for friends. Give them out as gifts. This will be one of the most powerful things you give to someone um this is called actually i'm curious about i didn't i asked you about the greatest lesson from your mom but i'm curious what's the greatest lesson your dad taught you whether he actually said it or you observed it um i observed it or what or what not to do or yeah so i observed it from my dad um when i left i was young i had a young man's a young kids point of view on my father so when i was 22 at 300 pounds i went back to see my dad because i want to make sure that what i saw at eight is the same this because it's my father i don't want to not talk to my father no matter what he did no matter what i saw but was it through a young kid's eyes so at 22 i went back and i was able to examine him at a as a as a man as a fragile man that i was sure but i was able to examine him and through this process by this so by this point in my life i was examining myself and realizing i have a whole mess of problems big time some were from him.

1:24:37Some were for people that bullied me. A lot were from me. And in knowing how messed up I was, I was able to examine everybody around me. I examined him. And I examined him to know, my God, the insecurities that you must have, the problems that you must have inside of you, I don't want to have those. I come from my father I have what he has and I didn't want to be him why he made fun of me, my brother why he beat the hell out of me, my brother my mom, it comes from a dark place, an insecure dark, dark place, why he womanized, why he sold prostitutes why he ran prostitutes, all this stuff he did a good human being doesn't need to do that a fulfilled human being doesn't need to break anyone down.

1:25:34All they do is want to build you up. So anybody you meet that calls you out of your name, that bullies you, that messes you up, that makes you feel not lifted, they are dealing with something deep-rooted. Yeah, you have to have a tough tone with some people to help them out. There's a difference. You have to be hard. I'm hard on people but it comes from a good place yeah the biggest lesson he taught me was how not to be and that's why i had to fix what i was because insecurities make everybody around you feel like hell and that's the one thing i did not want anyone to feel like that's why i judge no one tons of whites have called me i've been tons of people have hurt me i judge no one because i know where it comes from.

1:26:29I know you. I always want you. That's why now the place I'm at, you get a get out of jail free card. You need to help yourself. You ain't bullying me, man. Right. You're fine. I'm good. Whatever you throw at you. I'm good. I know what's wrong with you. I always want you. Right. So I started to examine people, examine myself, examine my darkness, realizing how I cannot be, but I got it from examining him. Saying, I cannot be that. That's a powerful lesson. So it's a good lesson that he taught you through that observance. How do you react or respond when someone says something to you negative or cuts you off in a car or something happens in life every day that could potentially upset you?

1:27:18Do you react? Do you respond? Do you do nothing? Do you give them a hug? I mean, what is the process for you now? The process used to be angry David Goggins. Scream at them, swear at them, yeah. Yes. Pick a fight. That was the old me. Yeah. The old me was pick a fight, go do whatever. Through this process of my life, when you get to this point I'm at, yeah, and I still be in the car and I talk to my fiance, I say, this is jackass, whatever, whatever. I now know that I can escalate a problem that's not really a problem. I now now I have a throttle and that's through self-examination is this a big deal is this something I need to approach with a level 3 engagement of like we're going at it or is this a level 2 engagement so now you have to be mature enough and I'm really big on maturity because I was never mature for so many years with age and knowledge you have to bring in maturity Age doesn't mean you're mature It's going back in and say Okay man look I'm at a point in my life What is smart If I do this I can see the future I can see that if I do this This is going to happen I'm going to escalate this problem Is this warranted There are some things that warrant me To escalate a problem And that's what I do now I take it through a process It goes on the rating program Got it.

1:28:48Powerful. This is called the three truths. I ask this question to everyone at the end. It's called the three truths.

1:28:58Imagine it is your last day, and you get to pick the day whenever you want. You get to live as long as you want. You pick the day, but it's time for your body to go, right? You've created everything you want to create. You've been at 99 percentile of potential for as long as you can live. You've done it all. You've checked off the list that everything that god says that you were supposed to do it's happened Right written the books done everything you want to do done but for whatever reason you've got to take all of your written word and Videos and and audio stuff that's out in the world. You've got to take it with you Mm-hmm But you get to write down on the piece of paper the three things, you know to be true about all of your experiences And this is what you leave behind the three lessons or what I like to call the three truths what would you say are your three truths the first one is you are your own hero you are your own leader you are your own master and that is a big one because we idolize so many people and we want to be them we want to be someone else and in doing that you lose all the potential of who you are.

1:30:07You mimic. You be them. You are them. You become them. And you lose you. And we look up to so many people in this world who will let us down. We're humans. I'm going to let you down. You're going to let somebody down. If you put them on a pedestal, you then lose time when that person comes up and lets you down. You must hold yourself accountable and being your own hero, that's what that does. You make yourself so totally accountable for who you are. You focus on you and only on you to become the best person you can be for others. Because we leave a lot on the table not searching who we are. And then therefore you die not knowing your greatest potential.

1:30:54That's one. That's one. The next one I would say is the biggest one I would say is never pick the easy road. Never. Never. And it always goes back to kind of the hero mentality. Never pick the easy road. Ever in your life. That is the one road that is doom. It is doom. If you want something like six-minute abs, all these different things, if you want it so fast, you may achieve what you wanted, but you want the permanent fix the permanent fix comes from the hard road the hard road gives you permanent results the easy road gives you the quick fix you will go back to where you started on the easy route that hard route is so permanent that it ends up callusing you everywhere everywhere you keep a six pack forever you keep it because you know the work that goes into it and the last one is when you get to where you want to go in life when you finally get there you finally reach that point and you're there and you're happy as hell realize this you're not there yet when you get that feeling that you arrived be afraid right be truly afraid because now you start to do this slowly die slowly die either you're getting better or you're getting worse you're not staying the same yeah so when you get to where you think the journey has ended and you're sitting back and you're like I arrived I'm on Mount Everest I climbed 29 029 yeah the best thing to do is fall back down that damn mountain as fast as you can and start climbing.

1:32:57Find the next climb. Find the next climb. Yeah. Oh, man. I think I've got to sign up for another event. That's it. Sign up for another endurance event. That's it. Just kidding. Where can we connect with you online? Where do you like to, when you spend five minutes a month, where is that space? My social media, whether it be Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, it's all, this is David Goggins, at David Goggins. Cool, David Goggins. Your videos on Instagram are great. You should post more or have someone on your team post more because they're awesome. Well, they're all me. They're all you. Yeah, so I have no team.

1:33:33It's me and my fiance. There is no team. She'll be in the car. She'll be on a mountaintop. She'll be somewhere. It's all my material. It's all who I am. That's why I post once a week. Once a week right now? Once a week. Every Monday, you'll get a post. There you go. That's it. It's some video that's going to inspire you to be like, okay, I need to do at least five more minutes of working out something at least well I want to acknowledge you David for for your intensity your your work ethic your passion and also your your pure real heart because just meeting you for the first time walking together just like I can tell how real you are and you're just a no BS type of guy the the adversity that you've overcome is is crazy.

1:34:21Obviously, people have overcome more than you, me, and lots of people in the world, but what you had to overcome physically and psychologically and emotionally is unbelievable. And to see that you weren't a statistic, and instead you chose every single day to make a decision to be more than that is really inspiring. And I know this is going to impact and inspire a lot of people. So I acknowledge you for your heart and for inspiring me. I thought I worked out hard, but this is like, I feel like I'm doing nothing with my life. So you're going to inspire me to continue to make bigger commitments and longer commitments moving forward now.

1:34:56So I appreciate everything you do, man. And I'm excited about getting this out there. You're welcome. My final question is what's your definition of greatness? You know what? My definition of greatness is this. It's not a definition. It's an example. This is greatness, true greatness. Let's say that I'm the greatest tennis player of all time. Okay? Let's say that. I hate tennis. Let's say I'm the greatest tennis player of all time. And I did 22 years. I run all the grand slams. I beat Roger Federer. I am the best ever. And we're having an interview. And you're talking about my greatness. What I achieved.

1:35:43Now I'm retired. Don't play tennis anymore. haven't touched a racket in years and you're making me go back through my life you're kissing my butt about how great I am and I'm answering your questions every question I'm answering it I'm with you but in the back of my mind all I'm thinking about is all the times I could have won those matches that I lost by not bringing my best mindset you're haunted by all the opportunities that you missed by not bringing your best at that time when you could have won, but you didn't win because you allowed life to interfere with that one shot. When you're sitting there getting ready to serve for the match and your mind is not thinking about where that ball placement needs to be, but thinking about your family this or this at work or that at work, that's greatness.

1:36:39Greatness is your recall on every single shot that you missed throughout a 20-something year career. Every shot, you can go back and say, I was here. This person was in the red shirt there. Greatness is being so aware of the time of life in the second that went by. And you can recall like it was yesterday. Greatness is being able to go back there, not making that same mistake again and being haunted by it. That is greatness. David Goggins. Thanks, man. Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Powerful. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

1:37:26And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

1:38:13Thank you.