This Habit Is Ruining Men! - How To Unlock Your Inner Beast & Become Powerful | David Goggins

My mom is this way, my stepdad got murdered, my dad beat the [ __ ] out of me. I can't read and write to save my [ __ ] soul. I write about it to everybody. I cheated on all [music] these tests. And then you put a goal in your mind. How you going to feel, man, when you accomplish this goal coming from that [ __ ] Coming from the [ __ ] hell you came from. This might be exactly what I need. The darkness is exactly what I need. It's how you look at your situation. What am I going to do today to change what I see in this mirror? [music] Today's guest is widely considered to [music] be the toughest man on the planet and one of the greatest endurance athletes of all time. But if you're tempted to dismiss him as the product of amazing genetics, great [music] parenting, or even performance-enhancing drugs, think again. CAN YOU HOLD ME, SON? Get it. Good night. Can you hold me, son? Yeah. If you're not real and raw with who the [ __ ] you are, nothing's going to change. And that's why I talk about the warrior mentality. And that's why so many people are lost. I chose this world to be a warrior. And I And I would choose it again [music] if I came back to this world. You must be that person on that door getting ready to open [music] it, thinking to yourself, "If I die, so be it." Are you accountable for what you're doing? Are you accountable? And I mean to the T for what you're saying. I am. And that's where it started. It started [music] with that total total accountability of let's not lie today. [music] I'm even shaking right now being on this show. I'm a big-time introvert. How you address it as you face it. [music] This is a race that you run completely alone. I said to myself, "No, I'm a dumb motherfucker." Okay, roger that. How you get smarter? Educate yourself. Buy this book. I read it. It is extraordinary. It is one of the most amazing manuals for how to change your life ever. And the very best may not be I'm number one. The very best is did I leave everything inside of me out there? That's [music] the goal in life. To put your life on a billboard on the busiest road [music] in the busiest highway in the world and say, "This is how [ __ ] up I used to be. Take it or leave it." Ooh, one more. Carry the boats. Help me in welcoming the man who once ran an ultra marathon with pneumonia, the king of no excuses. [music] I'm David [ __ ] Goggins. That's who I am. We have the ability to go in such a space if you're willing to suffer. And I mean suffer. Your brain and your body once connected together can do anything. And this 30 miles was the life-changing moment. I was out of it. I was in the worst pain of my entire life. I was, to me, on the brink of death. And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles into small pieces. I was so driven and I'm not I'm not going to say motivated cuz motivation's crap. Motivation comes and goes. When you're driven, whatever's in front of you will get destroyed. So, I sat in this chair and I was so driven to succeed in this race. And it And at this time, everyone goes, "Were you thinking about the guys that died?" And I'm not going to lie to you, I wasn't. This became a personal thing. This became me against this race, me against the kids that called me [ __ ] me against me. It It It It just became something that I took so so violently personal. And I broke this thing down to small pieces. I said, "Okay, I got to get nutrition. I got to be able to stand up before I can get off this curb and get off this chair and be able to go 30 miles." So, I went through all these small steps and I I was able to stand up. And then from standing up, I was literally walking around with my wife at the time, and she goes, "You're not going to make the time." She goes, "You're going to run I mean you're you're walking like 30-something miles." I got to mile 81. And the second she said that I'm not going to make the time, I ran the last 19 miles non-stop. And I can show you right now when we get done with this. As a matter of fact, I'm going to show you right now. This was years ago. And I had to put compression tape on my ankle. And I had So, this was years ago. I had literally the size of half dollars. I had to get compression tape. And I taped up my ankles and I taped up my feet. And that's how I got through that race. Was it like a hematoma? I mean, what do we What was What happened was like my shins hurt so bad from having stress fractures that the only way I could continue on was I taped it so I wasn't doing the flexure motion that that activates your your shins. So, I taped my ankles and my shins up, and I got that from because of my third Hell Week, they wouldn't let me go back through, you know, training anymore. Right. So, I literally went through all of BUDS, my last SEAL training, with stress fractures, and splints. And how I did it was I would take my ankles all the way up to my calf every morning. So, for the first hour, the pain was excruciating. But, what happened is my feet would go numb. And I did that every single day for 6 months. Whoa. how I got through my third Hell Week cuz I was so broken from the first two that the commander said, "Hey, the CO said this your last time I'll send you through." So, that's how I got the idea to do that. So, with the right And And people may listen to this and say, "This guy is sadistic. He's crazy. He's No, if you know how I came up, you realize I was just a scared kid that found drive and passion to be something much better than what he thought he was. And that's why I talk about the warrior mentality. And that's why so many people are lost when I start talking. You have the right. You're lucky that you don't have to think like warriors think. You're very privileged. I chose this world to be a warrior. And I would And I would choose it again if I came back to this world. But, the mentality of a warrior is very different than normal mentality. You must be that person on that door open Give me a way to open it thinking to yourself, "If I die, so be it." The only way you can go in that door is knowing there's a great chance you're going to die. Like, being a SEAL, you train with live ammo. You jump out of airplane. Every Every Everything you do, you could die. So, to be a warrior, why people don't understand me, I'm glad you don't understand me. Merry Christmas. Good on you. Because being a warrior takes a whole different mindset. A whole different mindset to know that there's a great chance I may not be in the middle Like, I was in for 21 years. I'm lucky. I'm very lucky that I'm alive, able to talk to you, able to still run. But, when you sign up on that dotted line to be a like a seal, your mentality changes. I may not live. You got to accept that. And that's the mentality you have. Look at yourself, man. Look at yourself. And it was that day and a couple other days after that, I just got real with myself and every day I came home, I called the accountability mirror. What am I going to do today to change what I see in this mirror? What am I going to do today? And a lot of it was I stopped sitting with the cool guys. I actually tucked my shirt in, went to school looking like, "Hey, man, this how I'm going to look. If you don't like it, so be it." I had to really wear this this this layer of skin. I had to develop a really callous skin on me that to take whatever you're going to call me, you're going to call me. Whatever I'm going to be, you know, I wasn't a geek, but whoever I am, you're going to see me. You're going to see me for who I am cuz I need to change who I'm not. And that accountability mirror just became raw. Even if I became fat over the years cuz I fell back in the hole, I called myself fat. Cuz I was fat. And people don't want to do that. They want to say, "Oh, don't call yourself fat. Don't call yourself dumb." If you're not real and raw with who the [ __ ] you are, nothing's going to change. And in this nice new world that we live in, we want to hear, "You're just a little big." No, man, you might be fat. And it's okay to hear that from yourself and from your advisors. So, that's where it started at. And it's raw. It it gets ugly sometimes with me in that mirror, but I'm also proud of myself to be able to tell myself that and then fix what's in that mirror. That that's what hits me and that's what I really want people to hear is that you can say those things, A because they're true, and B because you can fix them. Right. And your whole life has been about addressing those things. So, walk us through how in the book do you help people start addressing it? Because that's what I think so powerful about your book. So, the first thing about it is once you realize it and you have to realize it, you got to call yourself out. Addressing it is very small. It like it doesn't go from like one morning I'm this way, next morning I wake up and presto, the you know, five steps to greatness. No. It ain't that, brother. You read my book, this is hard work. It's every day like like right now. I have to be honest with you, man. I'm even shaking right now being on this show. I'm a big-time introvert. How you address it is you face it. You face it every day. You face it every single day of your life. Where you say, "Okay, like if you're fat and you need to lose weight." It's patience. It's patience in this fact of accepting who you are right now. I'm fat. I don't like myself. Accepting the fact that if you lose three or four pounds, that's a huge accomplishment. You have to live in your own [ __ ] world. You cannot judge yourself. That's why social media and all these things are horrible. You can't judge yourself off of the so-called competition that we have made up in our mind. The things that how people look, how people act, how smart someone is. This is a race that you run completely alone. And you're all by yourself. I had tons of sticky notes all over my mirror. It wasn't like be better than John or be as fast as whoever. Okay, David, yesterday you did this. Today our next goal for the week is this. So, I had a year goal, weekly goals, daily goals, hourly goals. And the big goals I lied a lot growing up. I wanted to be accepted. One goal was, "Let's go one day without lying." Let's go one day and then when I would lie to somebody I would say, "Hey, man." Now I go I had to go back now and apologize and say, "Man, I lied to you." You know how hard it is to go back to somebody and say, "I lied to you." Hey, man, you know what? Back there, I lied to you, dude. I That was really jacked up. So, I figured out these ways of total total accountability. Like right now, I had to run this morning before I talked to you cuz why? That's what I'm about. I'm about mind, met, body fitness. A lot of folks talk so much [ __ ] about, "Hey, I'm going to change your life. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that." Are you accountable for what you're doing? Are you accountable, and I mean to the T, for what you're saying? I am. And that's where it started. It started with that total total accountability of let's not lie today. Let's tell people the truth about who you are. And when you can get on and tell someone, like I'm doing right now, exactly how [ __ ] up you are, that's the goal in life. To put your life on a billboard on the busiest road in the busiest highway in the world and say, "This is how [ __ ] up I used to be." Take it or leave it. Each thing that is wrong with you has to be a focal point. You can't look at this gigantic list and say, "I got to change all this [ __ ] My god, this is crazy." No. You take off the first one. I want to be smarter. For me, that was my thing. I have to I have to become more intelligent. I have such a severe learning disability, man. I can't retain [ __ ] I had to now get that one thing and then strategize in that one problem. How can I do this? I'm not going to learn like you. I'm not going to learn like anybody else. How am I going to figure this out? So, I then figured out, okay, where are my strengths here? Where are my weaknesses in learning? All right, man. How am I going to do this? And I figured out a way to do it by the strategizing. So, how I learn to this day, if I have a big manual to study, I will have to get a bunch of spiral notebooks from the from the dadgum store, and each page I have to write each page out maybe 10 times. So, there was a thousand-page dive manual that I got 18 months before I went to dive school. Most people I'm not smart. I'm going to go see if I can pass this test. I realized, "Hang on a second. I'm not smart. How can I get past this? How can I get through this obstacle? I need to get I need to acquire this book 18 months in advance cuz it could take me 18 months to write down each page over and over again to then put it to memory. So, when the question came up, I'd written that question so many times down in that in the on you know, on paper that I could recall, "Okay, page 71 was where I remember seeing this." And I could recall that way. And that's how I did it. So, you got to strategize on each problem you have in life. Slowly break down that problem. Don't think about all the problems you have. Just one at a time. And before you know it, you fix all these problems, but you cannot focus on all of them. Just on the one thing at a time. A lot of us mediocrity is everywhere right now. And we're all trying to find an easy way out, and we're judging ourselves. Let's say there's 10 people in this room, and we're all mediocre. But, I'm the best of the mediocre people. I now think I'm great. I'm great. We surround ourselves around people that make us feel great. They tell us what we want to hear. The second we put ourselves amongst the uncommon people, we don't like that feeling. That challenging feeling that of of that person who's waking up at 3:30 in the morning saying, "Hey, put your [ __ ] on, we're going for a run." We don't like that challenge. We like that person who says, "Hey, you know what, man? I don't feel good today, man." And they say, "Oh, it's okay, brother. We'll take a day off, man. We'll get a pizza and [ __ ] watch the game." We like that. WE WE LOVE THAT FEELING. WHY? Cuz you understand, man, we're good, bro. We don't want that [ __ ] like this, "Hey, man, no, bro. Get your [ __ ] [ __ ] on, man. Stop being a punk." We don't want them in our lives. We don't want that person who's constantly challenging our weaknesses. We want that person who's constantly, you know, making us feel nice and good and secure in ours. That's the mediocrity of life. We want to be the best amongst the average people. People wonder, "How do you stay hungry all the time?" Because after I accomplish something, I don't sit back like a lot of guys who graduate buzz, graduate this, graduate that. They get comfortable. They wonder, "Why I'm getting weak, man? I don't know. I lost my edge. What's going on?" Cuz once you hit the top of the [ __ ] mountain, guess what happened? You I'm good. I'm good. So, you wonder why you're falling down now? Because once you reach top of the mountain, you got to build a [ __ ] other one. That's mediocrity. There's a lot of people in mediocrity who have a nice resume, but they're one-timers, man. They hit They hit a one-time deal. They busted it open, got a lot of money, but they're good. You're mediocre now, man. What are you [ __ ] doing today, tomorrow, the next [ __ ] day? That's why I don't listen to theorists. I don't listen to all that [ __ ] I don't listen to a [ __ ] who's like this, man. "What's wrong, man? I'm [ __ ] tired, dude." "Why are you tired?" "Cuz tomorrow I get to do the [ __ ] [ __ ] again, man. Whatever this [ __ ] is that made me [ __ ] nauseous and sick to my stomach, it made me hurt. There's no ending." And that's the person I listen to. That's the person who's gained knowledge. You gain knowledge through suffering. And on the other end of suffering is a world that very few very few have ever seen. It's a beautiful world. Cuz that's where you find yourself. You don't find yourself in over here. You find yourself on the other end. Like like the 100-mile race I was on, when I ran it for 24 hours, I found myself on the other end of that [ __ ] race. That 19 hours, I found, "Wow, there's a whole 'nother [ __ ] world out here that I've never even The The world is in your mind. And that's what all that mediocrity's about. Mediocrity's contagious. Everything I did was for someone else to like me. It wasn't until I started reading my own book about how pathetic I was as a human being. I could blame my dad, I could blame kids at school, I could blame having health issues, ADD, my mom not being around. Great mom, but she was doing her thing. Right. I could blame a lot of people. And that's the book I was reading. And I put it off on everybody else. It wasn't until I said, "You know what? For me to fix this, I got to read what the hell What the [ __ ] is wrong with David Goggins?" Not Not blame anybody. Read my book and say, "Okay, I'm afraid of my shadow. How can I overcome that?" Go in the military, get your ass kicked, do things you hate to do, be uncomfortable every [ __ ] day of your life. Roger that. I'm not the smartest kid in the world. Okay. Is there somebody saying, "Oh, no, you're smart." No, no, don't say that to yourself. I said to myself, "No, I'm a dumb motherfucker." Okay, roger that. How you get smarter? Educate yourself. So, the things that we run from, we're running from the truth. We're running from the truth, man. So, the only way I became successful was going towards the truth. As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me. It It allowed me to become in my own right who I am today. I hated jumping out of airplanes. I hated shooting guns. I hated the job as a Navy SEAL. But I did it because I wanted to change myself. Everything I do I'm not really comfortable doing. But if you choose to go that route to go be a Navy SEAL, you might as well go be the hardest [ __ ] in the world. Cuz if you're choosing to do something, you have two routes. You can go there and be a little a little weak person and get through barely and that's your reputation. Or you can go through the hardest guy you can possibly be and that's your reputation. So my whole thing is if you're going to choose to open that [ __ ] door in Iraq or Afghanistan, open the [ __ ] and go in hard. Because they're going to remember you by slowly opening it and peeking in. So if you're going to open it and you made your mind to open it, don't crack it open. Open the [ __ ] door go in. That's what life. If you're choosing to do If you're choosing to do something, attack it. Because they're going to remember you as not attacking it. So I want to be remembered. You can hate me, but there's one thing you can't say about me. I didn't attack it. And the very best may not be I'm number one. The very best is did I leave everything inside of me out there? So attacking is not like oh I want to win this or win that or be the best. The best is I'm I'm I'm running against myself in everything I do. And and that's and that's what I attack. I attack myself. I'm always questioning myself. I'm always holding myself accountable. Talk to me about the accountability mirror. So the accountability mirror is something that I kind of came up with in high school. Like I said, I started shaving my head when I was 16 and I got caught up in trying to impress so many people because no one liked me. So I developed so many different identities. Let me sag my pants. You know, let me Okay, let me pull my pants up. Let me Let me talk this way or act this way or be this way or whatever the hell it may be. God, dog, there were so many different things I did to try to fit in with so many different groups that when you look in the mirror, that's the one person you can't lie to. So, every morning I would say in my head, thinking, "God, I reflect back on some of the lies I may have told somebody or some of the ways I acted that I didn't feel comfortable doing. And I did it to impress other normal people." The keyword there is normal, everyday people. I was trying to make other people like me. How pathetic is that? So, I This mirror would always tell me my like my reflection would say, "God, you are a pathetic man. How does it feel every day to be this way?" So, I would just start having myself accountable. How did How did I attack today? How did I attack yesterday? And if I didn't do something I was proud of, I'd write down a sticky note. And I would fix it. So, then my senior year in high school, it was a totally different David Goggins. Can you give me an example of something that you wrote down and fixed? All right, there was a lunch table that I you know, I wanted to sit at the cool guy lunch table, man. I wanted to I you know, even though everybody else was calling me [ __ ] all the time, I wanted to to try to act like somebody I wasn't so I could fit in. And I sold my soul to the devil. You know, trying to act like No, I'm I'm David [ __ ] Goggins. That's who I am. And so, I wrote down on a piece of paper, "Fuck the table. Sit by your [ __ ] self." And that's what I did. And guess what happened? My table became a table people started sitting at. Cuz a whole bunch of people in that lunch room felt exactly like I did. Some people have been bullied. Some people are distressed out. Some people are insecure. Some people are fat and overweight. And the world puts a lot of this [ __ ] in your mind. It's not just you. Yeah, you help it. And my whole thing is about I had to develop a mindset. A mindset that was indestructible. I had to armor plate my mind. And it's about what you're saying to yourself, but it also comes with work. So, whenever I was getting beat down, physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever I was going through, just saying, you know, I would put, you know, you can't hurt me. Can't hurt me just became a message I you know, I would say to myself. And that's just kind of where it comes from. What I find so interesting is your concept of the governor. That basically I have the chills. That an expert is somebody who's going to tell you what your limits are, rather than the person that's out there practicing getting you beyond the limit. So, what is the governor and how do we strip it out of our lives? I believe that most human beings are only living at about 40% of their capability. So, the mind has a governor, like a car. If you're driving a car, and the car has a governor on it, the car may say 130 miles an hour, but the governor's set for 91. Once that governor sets in, you get to 91, that car starts doing this. The car wants to go. The car wants to go, but that [ __ ] factory said, "Uh-uh, we're not going to pass 91. We have a factory, a nice governor in our brain, and it's a survival mechanism. It protects us from pain and suffering. The second we feel that [ __ ] our mind says, "Oh, no, this isn't fun. We should back off. We should sit down, find something more comfortable." And there's something about the mind. The mind has a tactical advantage over you at all times. At all times of your life, the mind has a tactical advantage over you. Why is that? It knows what you're afraid of. It knows your insecurities. It knows your deep, dark lies, and it starts to push you away from that [ __ ] It pushes you in a direction that is comfortable. The mind controls everything. So, what I realized was that when I was growing up and I was 300 lb and I got all fat and I got all insecure, I realized that my mind kept taking me in this direction when things got uncomfortable for me, when I was facing my insecurities, when I was facing my fears, my mind said, "Oh, no, we have the tactical advantage. We need to get you, separate you from this feeling, this feeling over here." Life's all about feelings. We want the happy feeling. We don't want that feeling of this sucks. "Why am I here?" And you don't have any So, so you can't answer those questions, so you leave. I started realizing that if in that moment you can answer those [ __ ] up questions and you are now in charge of your brain versus your brain ruling you, that's where all that stuff comes from. So, so, so the 40% rule is all of that. You get the 40%, your brain says, "We're done." Let's roll, man. This is starting to get painful. This is uncomfortable. So, you sit down. You have to figure out ways, and everybody's different. That's how the book kind of talks about, like we all have these things about, you know, five steps to this and and four steps to this. This This is a lot more than that. That's all [ __ ] It's It's a practice that you have to It's a habit. So, if you know that at 40% I'm still, you know, I'm feeling pain. At 40% I'm feeling pain. That's where the 40% rule kicks in. Now it starts. Okay, I'm I'm I'm feeling pain. My mind's saying all this [ __ ] to me. It's saying, "Get out of here. Run. Flee." The fight or flight kicks in. Okay, we're done. We're not good enough. It starts telling you all these things. You start to believe it. Cuz the mind controls all. This is the time where you have to gain control back of your mind. You say, "Okay, let me see if I can go 45%." And once you start giving yourself more and more hope, it start realizing, "Okay, the mind starts to be, okay, what what are you doing? We're supposed to be going right and you're going left. You start then controlling your mind. Start finding more in you know in yourself and then it goes from 40% to a lot further than that. But that's the start of it though. Get to get to the spot where your mind is saying stop. Wherever that is, you got to get there first and then that's when that [ __ ] starts to work for you. You got to control yourself in that moment. That's that's my happiness is is is my reflection on the suffering of my journey knowing I never quit nor was I guided by anybody on this earth. I was guided by something much more powerful and I listened. Mhm. And I chose the path of most resistance. Talent not required. I love that. You've said that you lived the life of a monk. Mhm. What does what does that mean? What does that look like? Why do you do that? Um so I stretch out every day for these 2 hours. I don't drink. I don't go out. My regimen is I wake up, have oatmeal, run, come back, hit the weights. Um I'm a big sports guy. I don't leave the house if at all but do stuff like this. And I stretch out at night time. I find people that I trust, which is a very small group of people, people who are honest and true to me. People who would die for me and I'd die for them, which is a [ __ ] small. Sure. And everybody else, man, you know, do you. And I stay true to myself. And I let you do you. I don't judge people. I don't criticize you. You want to be a douchebag and be an ass and not love this country. Do whatever you want to do. I don't care, man. I fought for this country for you to do you. And I am all about you doing you cuz I'm going to [ __ ] do me. And I'm going to do me until I'm [ __ ] dead. And I believe I I earned the right. A lot of people haven't earned the right. Just cuz you live in this country don't mean you earned the right. You got to You got to live a little bit. Live. And then, have something to say or shut the [ __ ] up. I'm okay with going on this easy highway over here. The easy highway has all these [ __ ] signs and [ __ ] directions how to get somewhere. And you have to first be uncomfortable with how you feel about yourself. With that voice that a lot of us like to run away from. We all have it. We all have that voice that say, "Hey, man, you know, you're you're kind of whimpering out right now. You're kind of being a little punk right now." But a lot of us say, "Okay, that's okay." It's okay to tell these little white lies to ourselves. So, we first have to face the real you. The real me is David Goggins. The real me is a guy looking at you right now saying, "I don't want to [ __ ] be on this show right now because I used to stutter as a kid. And I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid that here in a second, I'm going to start [ __ ] stammering and stuttering and the whole world is going to know that I have all these issues." But that's when I see right now, "Okay, Goggins, you got to go on this [ __ ] show." That's Goggins. Goggins is saying, "Okay, David Goggins, you're a punk. Life made you this way. We can't live like this. We can't live in fear. We can't live in judgment. We can't be afraid of what the [ __ ] people right now looking at me saying about me. We cannot be afraid of that." That's Goggins. Goggins saying, "Fuck all of you who don't like me, who don't want to" And that person then comes in. But you have to be David Goggins and say, "Man, I'm afraid of this. I'm [ __ ] up here. Life made me this way here. I stutter. I I have these issues with with with reading and writing and and I'm I'm I'm fat and I'm insecure." You have to face that in that dark room. And that dark room is who you are. But in that dark room is where you have to create another human being that walks out of that dark room to face who you are. That's the only way you're going to get over all those things. You have to create someone else. Not like you have two different personalities, it is you. But you have to find strength in that visualization of almost me cracking out Goggins. Like almost like that Superman cape. Like like like like I'm coming out a different person, a person that doesn't give a [ __ ] about anything, who doesn't care about being judged, who knows I'm weak, who knows I'm afraid, who says whatever you think about me, take it, whatever, I'm here. That's Goggins. In the dark room, you face yourself, you realize you want to be better, you realize you don't want to be this weak, insecure person in the world who has all these problems that we all have. We all have. Social media is a great platform to tell you who we want to be. Not who we are. I'm deep in the cookie jar. The cookie jar is something that I've made up of all the failures of my life, all the things that I was I failed and I went back. I failed and I went back and I finally succeeded. All the things that kicked my ass. I put them all in the cookie jar cuz at times of hell, even the hardest men, in times of suffering, what we do is we forget how hard we really are. Cuz that's what suffering is. Suffering is a test. It's all it is. Suffering is the true test of life. And so that cookie jar travels in my brain. So whenever I get put in a situation where I have poopy pants, the woe is me mentality of oh my god, life sucks, I take a second, I take the one second decision, I step out of my life for one second, go in the cookie jar, pull up, oh, [ __ ] you went you went three hell weeks and finished two. One of those hell weeks, a guy died in cuz it was so bad. Oh, you are a [ __ ] badass. You are. I put it back in the cookie jar and I remember who the [ __ ] I really am. I'm not the kid that got that I was called nerd. I'm not the scared kid. This is who I am. It's a reminder of who you truly are at the core of yourself. But what I was saying to myself the whole time on that track and it and this is what I say to myself. Self-talk and visualization are two keys to my success. I believed for that last 19 miles I was indestructible. Cuz I took myself in that chair crapping up my back, peeing blood down my leg, shin splints, stress fractures. I used all that for motivation versus negativity. I used it for motivation. I I said to myself, "Who on this [ __ ] earth would still be going right now?" You are. You got to be the hardest [ __ ] on the planet. Is it true? I don't give a [ __ ] At that time Right. it got me to the finish line of that [ __ ] race. I believed it. I believe it today. I believed it enough to where my body said, "He's not going to stop." And that's I took all the negative things. I need to go to the hospital, this and that. And I used it all. Who the hell could even get out of that chair? You did. Who the hell would even think about taping stress fractures up? You did. All those things I used for motivation. When you really sit back at your life and you in that dark room and you're looking at where you started from and you tell yourself, "God, dog, man. My mom is this way. My stupid stepdad got murdered. My dad beat the [ __ ] out of me. I can't read and write to save my [ __ ] soul. I've lied about it to everybody. I've cheated on all these tests." My God, man. And then you put a goal in your mind. How you going to feel, man, when you accomplish this goal coming from that [ __ ] Coming from the [ __ ] hell you came from. A lot of people start from a good starting point. They have a good foundation. What if you can surpass all of these [ __ ] We have everybody who was [ __ ] way up here, started up here, and you had you started with no legs. You had to grow [ __ ] legs to even start walking, and then crawling, and then running, and then you start passing people that all this given to them. I had to use all this negative [ __ ] that was making me weak and horrible as a person. I had use this as the power that now fueled me. I had to flip it on its head and say, "Hold up. This might be exactly what I need. The darkness is exactly what I need. It's how you look at your situation. And I was looking at it all [ __ ] up. Having lived the life I've lived and seeing the other side, not being afraid to attack what was in front of me has made me happy. Say that again. And in fact, let me make sure I understood it. Getting to the point where you're not afraid to face the thing on the other side of the door that wants to attack you has made you happy. Right. It's really powerful. I hope people heard that. Right. It made me very happy. So, basically, I just don't walk around with a dadgum smile on my face all the damn time. So, you know, Merry Christmas. But um but basically, what the dark side is is we all have a cookie jar and we all have a jar of [ __ ] That's its official name? jar of [ __ ] man, where [ __ ] just it just ain't going right. And in Hell Week, what they do in Hell Week cuz this is where I really went to the dark side. What they do in Hell Week is they design Hell Week to find your flaws. And they do a really good job of that. It's 130 hours of continuous training. You make it 2 hours of sleep, and they beat the [ __ ] out of you and find everything wrong with your mentality. And then they start Hell Week. And that's the beauty of it. And for me, I'm not some not you know nasty god-given guy, you know, I I don't have a great bit of talent in anything. So, what got me through horrible times was the dark side. Was I created My name is David Goggins. I created Goggins. Goggins is the guy that can take anything you put in front of him. You want to break my [ __ ] legs? So be it. I have a way of going to a place like I did in that race where all the pain and suffering that they put on top of me in Hell Week, I will reverse that pain and suffering, and I will take your soul. So, every instructor that put me through buds, my job, what drove me, was I wanted you to go home that night after you beat the living [ __ ] out of me, and I smiled in your face, I wanted you to feel worse than I did, and you were going home to a nice warm bed with your wife or your kids and a a nice meal, and I was still out there in the grip suffering for another 100 hours. I wanted you to think about me knowing that I'm comfortable being very unfucking comfortable. And I want you to think about when you went through [ __ ] Hell Week, how uncomfortable you were and how bad you wanted to quit, knowing I'm not thinking that [ __ ] way. So, the dark side is something that I've designed. It's the evil place I can go that very few things can hurt me. I use the hurt you're trying to put on me, I flip it upside down and use it. You're trying to use it for kryptonite? No. It's power pillars for me. I'm I'm using it for strength. I just flip negative into positive. That's all it is. What do people come up to you and ask you the most? How do I do it? How am I able to do what I do on a daily basis? You know, how do I fight the demons? Cuz they hear me speak and I'm very raw and real. How do you fight my insecurities? All these things. And uh I They're They're every day. They're there every day. Like you said, I'm in search for a feeling. I'm not in search for a trophy. I'm not in search for love. I'm not in search for more followers on Instagram or social media. When I started this journey years ago and I realized that I'm going to be somebody and I'm searching for a feeling. A feeling of true victory for myself and only myself. The second I shut out the whole world and realized that one thing that I am in this world alone. I'm fighting in this race by myself. Yeah, I'm all about people. I'm all about team. I'm all about that [ __ ] But I'm really all about right now and in my life just like you said, no one knows the real truth about me. How hard I really go. I don't care if anybody knows. I don't want anybody to know. I'm an introvert. I live an introverted life. And I love that about me. It That right there is my fuel. Is I know that there's really no one out there grinding like me. And if they are, so be it. If I know about you, I'll make sure that I'll up my game. [laughter] That's what the mentality is all about. My whole thing is a mentality thing. Like I told you in the last time I was on the show, I view myself as the weakest person on the planet Earth. My goal in life was to in my mind believe I'm the hardest man alive. And that's why the whole thing is Can't Hurt Me. That's what it's about. It's about whatever you think you are, you have to make that dream a reality, but that's where the hard part is. Is making that dream reality. That's where the hard work comes in. That's where people know how do you keep grinding every day? You have to make those insecurities, those fears. Like when I was 300 lbs, I didn't have any drive. I'm going to go be a Navy SEAL. What kind of stupid [ __ ] is that 300 lbs? There wasn't like a drive to go be a Navy SEAL. I was an insecure, lying kid, afraid. I had to look at my insecurities and in my fear and find drive in that. We all looking for passion. Passion's all around you. You have a whole a whole [ __ ] stack of it all around you. It's your insecurities, all that [ __ ] You got to dive deep in that [ __ ] All the It's It's all in there. All the energy and fuel you need is right in yourself. It's all there. You got a lot of stuff to do to overcome. And, you know, that's where I found it. I found it right there in my own insecurities. I found drive in my own insecurities. And that's that's the most powerful thing in the world. When you can find drive in your own doubt, fear, insecurities, you become very unstoppable. You may have just changed me at a deep and fundamental level. I've never thought about it like that. So, the number one question I get asked is how do I find my passion, to which the answer is um very rudimentary and maybe ultimately not as true and powerful as what you just said. Which is there's another thing I need to tie this to that you talk about in the book, which is people have lost touch with their bodies. Mhm. And you always tell people if you want to change, go do something physically [ __ ] demanding. Like go find yourself in the suffering and in the pain of doing something with your body. Yes. It is utterly fascinating to me, and it's just hitting me now. I'd never heard you say that before, so I I I'll reserve final judgment for round three when we come back together, but the thought of you feel lost, you feel insecure, you don't have a passion, you don't know what to do, you're reaching out to somebody, you need that help, you know you could do more, be more, and the answer is you In the last interview we did, you called it the bag of [ __ ] if I remember right. Yes. That's what I said. in to the bag of [ __ ] and start changing those one by one. That may be the most extraordinary piece of advice I've ever heard. In fact, I will say, the way it's hitting me right now, that's the single most extraordinary piece of advice for self-transformation I've ever heard. It's the truth. Who is sitting here right now today? This is the real me, obviously. But, um I'm going to go kind of I'm I'm a very philosophical person. And I'm going to go there with you real quick. I believe in a higher power. Don't know the name, don't know where it's coming from, don't know anything like that. But, I believe that this power and visualize it real quick. Let's say it's a man up there, a woman, whatever. And they have a chart. And when you're born, they say David Goggins, born February 17th, 1975 at 6:00 a.m. They write the chart down cuz they can see everything. They know exactly what you're so [ __ ] supposed to be. They know what you're supposed to be. You die, you go to so-called heaven. You arrive at heaven, I'm 300 lb. I retired as an Ecolab guy, which is okay, it's just a job, whatever. I go up there and God looks at me and he shows me my chart. And my chart on there says, "You were supposed to be a Navy SEAL. You're supposed to be 185 lb. You're supposed to be one of the smallest people on the planet. This, this, all this. You see this. And now you're in heaven, you made it to heaven, but you're like, "God damn, I was supposed to live that life." I was supposed to live that life. And then you find out that the reason why, cuz we all think that if we pray on it, if we do this, if we do that, whatever, if we don't work, we just whatever, it's going to magically happen for us. No. I believe that when I'm all said and done with, my whole job is to outwork the chart. Whatever the [ __ ] chart says about me, the all-knowing power up there, I want to get up there and say, "Him, look at me." He'll say, "I know everything. I didn't [ __ ] see this. I didn't [ __ ] see this. I want to feel that. I want to get to the other end of this [ __ ] world and however I'm being judged, whoever's judging me, to look at me and say, "I did not [ __ ] know. I I had you at 185, had you at this, but all this other [ __ ] I was writing as you were living it." I want to I want to find more. All I can. And in that [ __ ] sack of [ __ ] you have to dive in that to find more. Because if you're not willing to go in there and face yourself, you're not going to find anything. You're going to live right here on surface, man, right here on surface. So, if there is an ending to this world, and there is somewhere to go, and there's a judgment, you're going to get there and you might see a chart. And that chart might tell you who the [ __ ] you should have been. And now you get the rest of your life to think about that. Man, I could have lived a much better life if I just would have just suffered a little bit more. If I just would have went in that [ __ ] and realized I had so much more, but fear and the 40% and living here versus living here, being afraid stopped me. So, that's I I'm a big guy in visualizing. I'm a I'm a big guy in making a world it may not exist. To me, it does. To me, it does. And I'm I'm overpowering myself every day. And you got to find tools to do that. That's the tool that I use. The most important conversation you'll ever have in your [ __ ] life is the one you have with yourself. You wake up with it, you walk around with it, you go to bed with it. Eventually, you're going to act on it. Whether you good or bad. You have to That's why the whole thing about this book I have, it's about you. It is about you. It's strictly about you finding who you are. So many people die, live 100 years, never [ __ ] know who they are. Never know who they are. You have to look in that mirror and know this there's so much more in here, man. Cuz I could literally right now be a 300-lb guy spraying for cockroaches still to this day if I did not look in that mirror and say there there has to be more to this. This can't be it. Civilized is something where people um it's a it's it's it's a comfortable world. A lot of us say, you know, like for instance, I see these athletes right now who retire, you know, I'm 38, you know, I'm 39, I did 20 years at the top of my game, and I'm chilling out now. You see them a year later and how they look. What the hell just happened to you, dude? What the hell You're one of the greatest athletes of all time. Kids looked up to you. Women, men of all ages looked up to you. And they hit the pinnacle where it's time to retire, and their mind says, "I'm civilized." The worst thing that could ever happen to any human being is they become civilized. It's that total accountability. Like, even when you retire, there's a [ __ ] looking at me and judging me right now, man. I'm I was the baddest person to ever live. It doesn't go away, man. You got to wake up, even though you retired, you're never retired. You're setting the example every single day of your life. And being civilized feels so good, but I'm sorry, man. Once you get to the top, you may be retired, but you ain't ever coming back home, man, cuz now you're judged. People see you falling off. You want to be that guy who knows, "I may be retired from the sport or forever I did, but I'll be damned if you ever see me looking like [ __ ] feeling like [ __ ] not arriving. People I've arrived. I've arrived mentality. You're always setting the example. Civilization feels so good. These comfortable feelings are what people want. They want retirement. They want that. They need that. They It's a It's a yearning feeling. I want it, too. People love putting a label on me about, "My god, man, you're just wired different." I'm not [ __ ] wired different, dude. I'm thinking right now, after I got past my stuttering thing, now I'm on a roll, I'm good now. You know what I'm thinking about right now? I got [ __ ] wake up tomorrow and do the same [ __ ] again. I got to leave this [ __ ] interview and go stretch out for 2 and 1/2 hours. I hate that [ __ ] How do you find and cultivate that drive? Like, there's a kid right now watching this, man, and they feel like you felt, they feel lost, alone, broken, stupid, lazy, like they're never going to amount to anything. And what you're talking about is the closest thing to a [ __ ] superpower that this kid has ever heard. And right now he's on the edge of his seat. How does he How does he like force himself to take that first step? I'm very fortunate that I grew up in a time when there was no phones and there was no social media. And I suggest yes, I'm on social media on a very limited basis because I have a story to tell and it's a great platform. Use it as a platform, don't use it as your life. My biggest advice to give everybody in the world is like I say, we live in an external world. Everything is is you got to see it, touch it, it's it's external. If you can for the rest of your life live inside of yourself stop listening to people who are calling you fat, gay, transsexual, [ __ ] everything that is makes no sense. All these insecure people putting their insecurities on you, you got to flush it out. You got to just be whoever the hell God or whatever the hell you believe in. If you believe in nothing but yourself, I don't care what it is. You got to take everything and throw it away. You have to believe in one thing and that is yourself. And and I'm not saying don't believe in God or what you believe in, but right now for you to find greatness in yourself. You're not going to find it by looking in a book or by even hearing me. I may give you the spark but you've got to go inside yourself to find it. And that means you got to be quiet. Shut the [ __ ] up, go in a room, stop talking, search your soul, search your mind, search your abilities and you'll find it. But if you're not looking for it you won't find it. So you got to go start your journey and the journey starts with you finding why the hell am I here on this planet Earth? Why am I here? If you don't know that, you will live the rest of your life searching always asking the question why. If you don't know who you are if you don't know who you are, I can't tell you who you are. What's the next phase of your life look like? I I You can't imagine how intrigued I am to watch you over the next 5 to 10 years. Well, honestly, I've I'm blessed enough to have survived the life I lived. Mhm. And to come out the other side with a bunch of knowledge. So, hopefully, I can help people that believe that they're much less than what they truly are. Help help them find greatness in themselves. And greatness isn't running 200 miles at a time or doing 4,000 push-ups or being a seal. Mhm. Greatness is whatever the hell you dreamed of in your own mind. You got to first see it. You got to first create this vision in your mind. And then that's when I come into play. Once you create this vision in your mind, it's how am I going to get there now? And that's when I come into play. But first, you got to create your own vision. And then it's not external. It's the the vision you created is inside of you. Most of this generation quits the second they get talked to. You did this wrong. You did this wrong. Or or they get yelled at. It's so easy to say you know what I mean to to be great nowadays cuz everybody else is most people are weak. This This is a softened generation. So, if you have any mental toughness, any any ability, if you have any fraction of self-discipline, the ability to not want to do it but still do it. People have a hard thing understand. I hate to run. And And what makes me so crazy and doesn't need more is people go, "What What What Why do you run if you hate it?" What are you talking about? I don't want to take showers and eat either. I hate that, too. The whole That's a life, man. That And And And It wasn't until I changed that mentality that I became somebody. I hated going to school. So, guess what? I was dumb as [ __ ] That's what we 1 + 1 is 2. But if you can get through to doing things that you hate to do, on the other side is greatness. That's what people understand. By me running, I am callousing my mind. I'm not training for a race. I'm training for life. I'm training for the time when I get that 2:00 in the morning call that my mom is dead or something happens tragic in life, I don't fall apart. I'm training my mind and my body, my spirit, so it's all one, so I can handle what life is going to throw at me because the life I've lived, it throws a whole bunch at you. And if you're not physically and mentally prepared for that, you're just going to crumble and you're good for nobody. You said I can be me. The second you said I can cuss and be me and cussing, people are saying, "Man, you cuss all the [ __ ] time. Why?" Well, I hate to say it, the best way for me to get how I feel across. I can't sit here and say, "You know what? Yeah, I went through hell week and man, it was it was really hard." [laughter] No, that [ __ ] takes your damn soul, rips it inside out, and then they say, "Now, we're going to [ __ ] start." It It allows me to express Right. where I was at at a point of my life. If I don't give you all of me, why the hell am I here? Why How will you learn from me? People would take so much offense to me. You will never learn from people if we always tap dance around the truth. Oh god, I love that. We tap dance around the truth by finding the right words so I don't hurt you cuz you have thin skin. No, tighten up, people. It's okay. Trust me, it's okay. You might be called [ __ ] one day. It's okay. You might be called some Jewish word or some [ __ ] or gay word. It's okay. Let them call you that. What are you going to do now? They don't own your life. How are you going to control that now? How are you going to flip it upside down and say, "Roger that. Now I'm going to harness this [ __ ] and you'll read about me years from now." How? That's the question. How are you going to do that? Thicken your skin. Become more of a human being. Don't be afraid of the reflection in the mirror. Cuz that's all you can be afraid of. Once you overcome the reflection in the mirror, you've done it. So, the image in my mind of a man was not one that had earrings, saggy pants. I I I had this image in my head. And I was going to fulfill that. And I I didn't do any trends. I stopped trending. I stopped being this guy who whatever was new, [ __ ] it. That's not what I believe in. I'm doing this. This is what I want to be. This is what I'm going to be. So, It's incredible. Um how do you experience beauty and joy in your life? What situations do you put yourself in? What makes you laugh? What What's the fun stuff for you? It's funny you say that. Um I I just retired from the military in November 2015. And I was going and going and going and going. And I never really I was I a happy guy, but I'm never in the moment of like sitting back and I want to travel here to have fun or do this or do that. I've never been that person. But the first time I really got a chance to experience true happiness and true peace, was I was Like so, what I did to myself to become who I am today, it takes a great toll on your body. So, I believe God gave me time to rest. And he took me out of commission. Not even the mind of Goggins or could get me back up. So, I had about a good 6-7 months where I was out. And when I was out, I had time to reflect on all I had to accomplish. And that was the first time in my life where I sat back and said, "Wow." Cuz only I I may be telling you some of the story. I know the exact truth of how brutal my life was, and how I shouldn't be on this show today. And how the mind and how beautiful it is. So, what brings me joy and happiness is knowing how beautiful the mind is. And I'm one of the few people that didn't read about it, didn't experience it through some some drug. I got to experience the beauty of true [ __ ] willpower. True [ __ ] you, I'm going to fail, I'm going to [ __ ] fail, I'm going to [ __ ] fail, I'm going to [ __ ] fail, and I will succeed. Just me talking about that gives me a feeling I know what I did. And I don't need to travel somewhere or to have this or have that. I have it all here in my mind. The beauty is remembering this young, dumb, what people called [ __ ] is now where I'm at today. And that is when you finally get to that point for me, it's foreverlasting peace. I do need I I could die right now on this show, and I'll be a happy man. We're all we are all great. No matter if if you think you're dumb, no matter if you think you're fat, no matter if you are fat, no matter if you've been bullied, or no matter if you just got back from Iraq or Afghanistan, and you have no legs, or your arms, or whatever, man. We all have greatness. It just you got to find the courage. You got to find the courage to put your Bose headphones on and silence the noise out of this world and to find it. And to find it cuz it's out there, but it's going to take hard work, courage, self-discipline. It's going to take all the non-cognitive skills. The all the non-cognitive skills to be great. You know, smart is good, all this stuff is good. That's all cognitive. It's the non-cognitive skills that sets you apart from everybody else. And and that's what it's all about. I had a moment in front of all these great American heroes where I had a chance, it was like so fast, it went through me like like lightning of I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm getting the award like this. That that kid who was in the fetal position the majority of his life. And so much the fact that my body and my hip flexors are tight to this day that even though I was standing erect my mind was in the fetal position. And when I looked out amongst all those people it was a sense of pride that [clears throat] I can't even I can't even explain. It's the moments of three hell weeks. It's the moments of in that room by myself studying for hours and hours and hours trying to catch up with all the kids who were above me. [clears throat] It's just those moments. Like the real, raw moments of life. That was like boom, hit me. And we're gone, but I was like I did that. Overcame that [ __ ] you know. It was like it's this power behind all that [ __ ] And that's the feeling I was looking for in my life. I found it. It wasn't money, it fame, it wasn't awards. It was that feeling I have right now. The feeling of I'm about to break down, but it's not of like, "Oh my god, I'm upset." It's like, I worked myself so hard that I turned a person this [ __ ] up into this [ __ ] right here. Not off of reading a [ __ ] book off a theorist. Off of going to work on myself and saying, "I don't know how to do this." But I know that to get over there to that [ __ ] side, I got to grind myself into a [ __ ] fine powder. And I did it. I did it off of sheer will. And very few people will know how that feels. Very few. I want you to realize that this world, life, is one big head game. And once you learn to play the [ __ ] head game, it's no longer a game anymore at all. You can start living your life. I love that. David, thank you so much for coming [applause] Buy this book. I read it. It is extraordinary. It is one of the most amazing manuals for how to change your life ever. And just this interview, I think, could be transformative for some people. And the book goes into so much more detail and really reaches into you and shows you how to do it in your own life. He helps you find that 3.14 you, so that you can go out and do the things that you need to do. But the things that I hope that you take away from him, be honest with yourself. Be raw, but understand that you can fix it. Stop tolerating mediocrity. You have to detest mediocrity in your life, and you have to understand the only way you're going to meet yourself is through pain and suffering. And if you can become a master of suffering, the things that you can do with your life are truly unlimited. You can truly break free of all of the limiting beliefs that you've put on yourself, your circumstances put on you, your family has put on you, experts have put on you, whoever it is. You can get rid of all of that and completely blow your own mind with what you're capable of. And one day you will have a shirt that instead of saying what would Goggins do, you'll be asking what would I do. Because you're the right person to ask. And when you get to that point, nothing will ever be the same. Get the book. All right, guys. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. [applause] David, you [ __ ] Everybody, [applause] thank you so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.