NAVY SEAL Shares The SECRET To NEVER BEING LAZY AGAIN! | David Goggins & Lewis Howes

Everybody’s got a story. We don’t “share” on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We have, 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 gonna talk about my dungeon. Mental toughness isn’t something that you sample, it’s something that you live in every day. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast, we have the inspiring David Goggins in the house. Good to see you man. Thank you. (Very excited about this.) (I first heard about you through) Jesse Itzler’s book Living with a SEAL and he came on to talk about his experience and he actually didn’t mention your name, because -you didn’t want to be known -(Right.) -a few years ago. -(Right.) But now you want to be known and you’re putting your message out everywhere. (Right.) And I'm just curious quickly why did you want to not be known then, but now you do want to have your message out there. Well when Jesse wrote that book Living with a SEAL, I was about 2 or 3 weeks from getting out of the military. So you know, being a SEAL, you know, I didn’t want to be mentioned David Goggins in this book. So the second the book popped I was retiring so the book came out November 15th or November 1, 2015. -And I retired -(Gotcha.) -November 2015. -(Gotcha.) So, that’s why. That’s the biggest reason why. And when did you start putting yourself out there doing interviews and talking about your message and you got on social media and then started sharing videos, when did you decide to do that? Well, I’ve been talking to people for several years and I wasn’t really big on, like my mindset is very different than most people. (Yeah.) It’s the mindset of a I don’t want to be known too much, I don’t want too many lookie-loos in my life, (because that’s where I gain my strength.) I gain my strength from a place of quiet. (Mmm.) And the more I got my story out there, the more I realized it no longer be David Goggins, the quiet man. It be David Goggins, the guy that’s on Instagram answering this, answering that, cause I’m also a guy that’s always about, if someone reaches out to me, I’m not gonna sit back and say: “Ahh you know, whatever.” I’m gonna reach back to you -so it’s gonna take time -(Yeah.) out of me trying to gain strength and me trying to get ready to go. So that was a big deterrent for me to get on Instagram and all that stuff. -I’m not big on social media anyway, -(Yeah, yeah.) but then I realized that I’ve a very... God put me in a very interesting spot in life -where he made hell my teacher. -(Mmm.) He made hell my teacher. And a lot of people don’t understand that. So I’m trying to give people a different thought process of life where failure, hell, disappointment, discomfort is a great learning tool. And many people don’t understand that and a lot of people won’t even understand this interview -when we get done with it. -(Mhm.) But it’s these few moments in life that you have, like for me, I always talk about it, Rocky 1, round 14. That one 2 minute and 13 second clip of Rocky getting up when Apollo knocked him down. (Mhm.) That one clip when I was going through a very bad time in my life, I saw what I wanted to be. And it wasn’t a guy that won. It wasn’t a guy that won everything he did. It was a guy that kept getting up after being knocked down. So I realized if that 2 minutes and 13 seconds changed my life, it’s all it was, -I saw something that I needed to be -(Mm.) in the world I was living in, maybe my story would give someone the 2 minutes and 13 seconds they need to change their life. Millions of people live in a very comfortable place, that’s fine, don’t listen to me. A lot of people are looking for that 2 minutes and 13 seconds (Mmm.) and I might be that person. That’s why I started sharing. (Yeah you talked about in the very beginning, I like this... ) what did you say here... “Your job is to be the best of your ability, this will hurt. The mission is not about making yourself feel better, the mission is about being better and having a greater impact on the world.” And it sounds like you understand the fact that you need to put yourself out there -a little bit more -(Right.) it’s gonna reach more people and impact more people -as opposed to always being quiet. -(Right.) -Is that what I’m hearing you say? -Exactly. -I had to find a happy medium. -(Yeah.) You know, I had to find a happy medium because what’s the point, like we all have a story and I believe that we’re all teachers. We’re all teachers. And if you don’t learn something and give back, like, -like, what you’ve learned, -(Yeah.) what’s the point of living? -(And you’re wasting.) -Yeah, you’re wasting. You have all this knowledge of what you learned. Some people may think you crazy, some people may, you know, may put a title on you, but it’s, you know, it’s those few people who are like: -“You know what, I need to hear that.” -(Mhm.) So you have to put yourself out there. (So was there an awakening for you) (in the last few years that said:) (“Okay, I’m not doing this enough,) of putting myself out there, I’m not telling my story, I’m wasting certain aspects of my life by not giving that message out?” (There are a lot of emails that came in) to me and I didn’t realize, you know, when you live your life, you don’t know what it’s doing to people cause it’s my life. I didn’t know my life was as bad as it was because it’s my life. It’s what I went through. (So it’s like the norm.) -It’s the norm. -Yeah. (It’s what I did man.) (But when I started getting these emails from people saying:) “Hey, you know what, you changed my life. That part changed my life. That part of your story changed my life.” And cause I have so many different parts of my life that so many people resonate with different spots. Maybe it’s the obese part, maybe it’s the bullying part, -maybe it’s the learning disability part -(Mhm.) maybe it’s the abusive parent part, -whatever it may be. -(Right.) So many people draw from my story that I started getting these emails and I was like: “God man, you know, and I’m a big believer in something more powerful than me. I don’t know what it is, but I’m not the end-all.” So I was like: -“I gotta start doing more.” -(Mm.) If I’m touching these people’s lives... -(Right, a few people here and there.) -Right. ... maybe I need to go out here and do some more. (Crazy story man. I mean, if you guys) haven’t gotten the book, you guys can preorder the book. This is actually galley copy here, printed out. Make sure you guys check this out. Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. And when I was reading the, the first part of the book about your childhood, I mean your father just seemed like, was just so abusive. Physically. I mean it’s one thing to be emotionally abusive and another thing to be physically -and when you have both -(Mhm.) it’s like the perfect storm of like -the makings for chaos in your life. -(Right.) And it just sounded like, he was just nasty. (Mhm.) Nasty and everything was your fault and you we’re always wrong and you weren’t living up to his standard, both you and your brother -and your mom, -(Right.) and was just constant physical abuse over and over. I mean the story of you just being bent over and him just like whipping you over and over and you just gasping for air, I was just like: “Oh my gosh, this is crazy.” Right, amm... (How did you deal with that? How did you like,) overcome the constant physical and emotional abuse? (You know what?) -It’s all I knew. -(Mhm.) So when you’re born to that, it’s all you know. I mean you know something’s not right because in my mind at a young kid, I could tell man, you know, the way I was processing things -wasn’t right. -(Right.) I mean, I suffer from severe toxic stress and that was one of the big reasons why I started, you know, I had a learning disability. My focus in life was way off. I was afraid. I was afraid of everything. And when you have that kind of foundation growing up -and that’s what you start life at, -(Yeah.) is being beat, being abused and also working all nights at a skating rink, not going to school and you have a guy who is an alcoholic. And the second he got drunk, he got mad. -And so our house lived in fear. -(Yeah.) And the one thing that you can never get out of a kid’s mind is your mom’s min... and like, like your mom’s face. -(The terror of your mom.) -The terror -of your mom’s face. -(That’s the worst.) So, you know, I didn’t care about my brother, I didn’t care about me, but I saw this woman go from Mary Poppins, the sweetest person on the planet Earth. And when you see your mom start to transform to a shell, to a person whose face becomes stoic, a person who has no emotion -and that changes a kid. -(Yeah.) And when you’re young and you have to grow up so fast, so about eight years old my mind was of a, of a forty-year-old’s. At eight. You know, my family, like, life came at me. And it makes your brain... You know, you’re not outside playing with kids, you know, you are trying to avoid getting beat. (Yeah.) You know, you’re avoiding all these things. (But then you go home, it’s supposed to be safe) -(Right, right.) -and you’re getting beat again. (Exactly. And what’s funny about that,) (we lived on Paradise Road.) (Yeah.) We lived on Paradise Road -and it... -(It wasn’t so paradise.) No. It was anything but paradise man. -You know once those doors shut... -(Yeah.) You know my dad gave everybody a different view of him. -(He wore the nice tailored suits,) -That’s right. -(he smiled.) -That’s right. (“Your dad’s amazing!”) (Those doors shut man) and the devil himself came out. So it was rough and that’s why my foundation was so, was so beaten down at a young age. (So learning disability.) I grew up dyslexic, -so I can relate to that, of just like -(Right.) -constantly feeling stupid and insecure. -(Right.) -You know I had a tutor my entire life. -(Horrible.) Till I finished college -I would have a tutor. -(Right.) Second grade reading level when I was in eight grade. -It was just like a constant struggle. -(Right.) Emotionally. And I took that outlet into sports and said: “I’m gonna just train myself to be the best I can be in a place where I can learn -something differently -(Right.) and pick up a different skill.” But with your learning disability, with your dad beating you, screaming at you, emotionally challenging your mind, with the racism you dealt with, (the different struggles you felt with bullies,) (what was the hardest obstacle to overcome,) (from up until about 15, 16?) -The hardest obstacle was myself. -(Mm.) I started realizing more and more and more that all these people were gone. What was hunting me, was me. I can’t control my dad. I can’t control the people calling me nigger. I can’t control all these things. But they were things that kept me down and started becoming my reality. My reality was what they made it out to be. And I became my own... The most important conversation you’ll ever have with your life, you know, in your life, is the one you have yourself. And my conversation was absolutely horrifying. (What were you saying to yourself?) I’m dumb. I’m nobody. My dad, I mean, my dad was great in mental warfare. A drunk insecure man will make everybody around him -feel like hell, -(Yeah.) because he wants to give you no power. And that’s why he was so mean to my mom and myself and my brother, cause he didn’t want anybody to get above him. He wanted to keep you down low. (So when you’re growing up) (with all this stuff, all this hate,) (and it wasn’t the beatings.) (I could've had the beatings all day.) It was the mental torture. So when at a young age your, your parents put a dialogue in you of confidence -or you’re nobody. -(Mm.) So that voice in my head was “I’m a loser” and then it was confirmed when I got in school and in third grade I was falling behind, they wanted to put me in -a special school. -(Yeah.) -You know, with kids who can’t learn. -(Right.) Then it was confirmed what, you know, what my dad was saying. So that confirmed it. Then I started cheating so I started realizing: “You know what, I’m taking the easy way out again.” And then starts snowballing from there. Now the kids are calling me nigger. But it wasn’t all the kids. So what happens is you start to get this picture that everybody hates you, because your reality becomes so, so big that you can’t see the clear picture. -(It might’ve been 3 or 4 kids) -That’s it! -(doing it over and over.) -Right. But it was the whole town. -(Yeah yeah.) -Everybody hated me. -So starting out... -(The world hates me.) -That’s right! -(Yeah.) And that’s when it became toxic. And that is where -I became my worst enemy. -(Wow.) (So those are the conversations) -(you were having?) -Those are the conversations. When did you start to realize that those conversations weren’t supporting your life? (I was a,) (so my mom was getting ready to get married) and this guy came into our lives, his name was Wilmoth. He came into our lives and like I always say, whenever my life’s getting better, God will put another challenge in front of me. (Ha ha ha.) He gets murdered. (Oh man!) And we move back to Brazil. So we move from this town, this small town in Brazil and we move to Indianapolis, Indiana. A lot more blacks, -a lot more different colors. -(Got it, yeah.) (Weren’t you living in New York at some point too?) -I was born in Buffalo, New York. -(Yeah, that’s right.) And then we moved from Buffalo to Indiana and then from Indiana to Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis, Indiana... you know he got murdered when I was in Indianapolis. Then we went back to Brazil. When we’re back to Brazil, -this is when the racism started. -(Really?) Cause now I’m 16. So when I was first in Brazil, I was 8 and 9. -Kids don’t care. -(Yeah.) Your’s a kid. -I look different, but kids don’t care. -(Yeah.) Kids don’t know. But when I moved and I came back, I’m no longer a kid. So all the kids I grew up with, -I’m now different. -(Mm.) I’m different. So there’s about five black kids in my school and amm, the reality came when I came out one day and on my car was spray-painted -“Niger we’re gonna kill you”. -(Oh my gosh.) -(In Brazil?) -In Brazil. (In Portuguese?) -No no, my fault, Brazil, Indiana. -(Oh gosh,) -Yeah, my fault, Brazil, Indiana -(I thought that was Brazil) -Yeah. No no no. -(I was like: “Why you went to Brazil?”) -Brazil, Indiana. -(Brazil, Indiana.) From Indianapolis to Brazil, Indiana, got it. (So I was in Brazil, Indiana) (and about 10 minutes from Brazil, Indiana) (is a small town called Center Point, Indiana.) Aha. And Center Point, Indiana is, was at that time -a huge hub of the KKK. -(Wow.) In 1995 the clan marched on the 4th of July parade. And I don’t know if the picture’s in, if any pictures are in there, but if not, -there’s a picture in the book, -(Yeah.) in 1995 ten minutes from my house of crosses being burned. 10 minutes from your house? -10 minutes from my house. -(Wow.) So when you have all this negativity growing up and now you’re cheating and you’re doing this and your dad beats you and, you know, your mom’s fiance gets murdered and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy and then you come to this and your mom is working three jobs, you know, she’s not home at all, she never saw one report card of mine. She didn’t know how bad off I was in school, she was hustling trying to make money and I was “the man” of the house, lying, sneaking around, -not going to school -(Cheating, stealing.) -Cheating, right, everything I could. -(Yeah.) So I walked out of school one day and saw this “Niger we’re gonna kill you” on the car. And I went in to get the principle, there are several incidents like this that happened, went in to get the principle and the principle, he didn’t have anything, he couldn’t give me an advice. And I didn’t want to tell my mom about it cause my mom was already bothered by my dad beating her down and now her fiance got murdered -so I didn’t want to bother her. -(The last thing on her mind) -Yeah! -(when she’s like:) (“I’ve dealt with this my whole life.”) Right. I didn’t want to bother her with anything man -so I kept everything away from her. -(Ooh.) So I’m in the car wash trying to scrub this stuff off and I got home and so what happens, two weeks later she gets a note from school and the note says: “Your son is going to fail. He’s not gonna graduate.” And she’s like: “What is this?” -And I had to come clean with my mom -(Mm.) of all the years of me cheating. Of all the bullying, of all this and all that. And she was such in a bad spot in her life that the best thing she could do was like: “Hey, you know, you’re, you’re gonna fail. -You’re gonna fail school.” -(Wow.) And I was like: “My god man, like, you know.” She was in a dark place and I was in a dark place and we were kind of on our owns and in, in the same house, but living different lives. And I realized at this time of my life, she was a great mom, but I was on my own. And that’s when the real big change happened for me so I said: “I’m gonna join the military.” (So 16, 17?) -17, 18, yeah. -Yeah. (I wanted to go on to the Delayed Entry Program.) (And I went to take the ASVAB test and I cheated.) -That’s what you knew. -That’s what I did. -(Ha ha, you’re good at it.) -So I got my friend because I walked into the recruiter’s office and the recruiter says: “Hey, you gotta take this ASVAB test.” Second I heard “test” I was like: “Man, oh, hang on a second.” (“I can’t test, this is my life man.”) “I’m gonna go, can I come back tomorrow?” (Yeah yeah.) So I come back and the recruiter starts handing these tests out. I’m like: “Great, I’m gonna sit with my boy, I’m gonna copy of my boy.” -He had a different test than I did -(Uuu.) -so I couldn’t copy of him. -(Yeah.) And that’s when the light bulb hit on. -So I fail this test several times. -(Did you fail twice or...?) I failed it twice. I actually failed it, I failed it twice and the third time -I said: “Mom, I need help.” -(Wow.) And she said: “We don’t have much money, but we can afford a tutor for one hour a week for six months,” cause this is my last time taking the test. And so I had to learn. So I had a third grade reading level. -I’m a junior in high school. -(Yeah.) So I had six months to learn all this stuff and only had a tutor for one hour a week so basically what happened was, she would come in for an hour and I wasn’t picking it up. Any of it. -I just couldn’t retain anything. -(Yeah.) And it was so much to learn that it overwhelmed me. So basically what happened was, I realized I had to go by the store and buy spiral notebooks and I had to literally write down every single thing repeatedly. Like so what may take you an hour to learn, it took me hours, 6, 8, 9, 10 hours. I would write -the same thing down. -(Simple stuff.) -Yeah, I hear you man. -(Simple stuff.) -That’s my life. -(So I started to memori...) -That’s my life. -(So I had to memorize.) Yeah. So I didn’t really learn it. I could just recall it from writing it down so many times that on page 71 -I remember seeing that. -(Yeah. ) And that’s how I did it. -And I end up passing that test. -(Crazy.) -(And I got in the military, so.) -That’s crazy. (Yeah.) What’s the greatest lesson your mom thought you growing up? Honestly the greatest lesson she ever thought me is the lesson that she didn’t really, she doesn’t know how much she thought me because she wasn’t much in the teaching mode. -My dad took her soul. -(Mm.) But what I did as a young kid, is I observed. Everybody. I wasn’t really smart in the books, but I was real smart when it came to life. And I was able to sit back and watch her mistakes. I was able to see how she struggled through life and how I don’t want to struggle through life. And I was able to see, she never picked me up. The biggest thing she did for me and this is honest to God truth and she doesn’t even know she did it. When I would bust my ass, when I would fail, when I was at the bottom of the sewer, she never picked me up. She never gave me that cookie and said: “Hey son, you know,” -it’s gonna be okay.” -(It’ll all be okay.) She didn’t have time for that. And sometimes she gets upset when I talk about my past because it paints her out to be not the best mom. If I had any kind of mom in that kind of environment, -I would’ve never made it. -(Mmm.) Because she forced me, for whatever reason, she forced me to “You better figure this out -or you’re gonna be a statistic.” -(Wow.) And this is something that she didn’t sit down and tell me. I realized this. This is the world that is in front of me and what most people do is they see this world and they look at it as an excuse to get out of it. (Yeah.) I started looking at it as this is the ultimate training ground -for the rest of my life. -(Mhm.) I have all this valuable lessons cause if you look out the world right now today it’s not a nice place, -but I’m very prepared for it. -(Yeah, you are). I’m prepared for it. I’m prepared for all the failure coming my way. I’m prepared for everything my way and that’s the biggest lesson that she taught me -by not teaching me, -(Mm.) by never saying: -“It’s gonna be okay.” -(Yeah.) A matter of fact she told me the exact opposite: “Life sucks.” (That’s what she knew) (and it was the truth.) -That was her reality. -(That was her reality.) Yeah. And so I saw that. And so I started at that point in my life, I have a lot more failures as you see in that book, but I started up down the road of instead of the path of, you know, least resistance, I started choosing the path of most resistance to prepare myself for the journey -that was coming my way. -(Wow.) (And most kids don’t prepare themselves for) -the most resistance, -(No.) -they want to get out of things. -(They want to get out of things.) -Get off the hook. -(Right.) -Don’t put in the extra raps. -(Right.) They want the easiest path to get to the top right. (Right, exactly.) (Huh?) (You know, I look at my life as like,) in here you talk about like really diving in the pain -and like embracing pain -(Yes.) -and finding, looking for the pain. -(Right.) And I think there’s like a, there’s a safe pain and then there’s probably an unsafe pain -of just like -(Mhm.) jumping of a building and you know, -whatever, -(Right.) and trying to land on 20 floors or something, it’s probably not the safe way -to do things. -(No.) But doing 200 miles -of endurance running -(Right.) is like a different way of pain, of looking at pain. And that’s what I’ve been looking for my whole life is like finding the pain and I talk about like: “Do something every day that, -that’s painful,” -(Right.) in that good structured environment and you’ve been doing that for the last couple of years now. It’s like you work out every day, you haven’t missed a day? -I did it for last 20... -(20 years?) (20 years?! Or did it say 2 years?) No, 20 some years of my life. (Everyday you work out?) So, I used to take one day off a week. (Aha.) I used to take one day off a week, (For the body to recover right? Makes sense.) but that one day off was an active recovery day where I would get on a trainer -and ride for like two hours. -(Wow.) But at a zone 1 heart rate. Very low heart rate. And I would replace the carbohydrates in my body while I rode because the best way to recover for me is to do something at a very low heart rate cause therefore your blood’s flowing through your body. And your blood’s flowing through your body refueling with the nutrients cause then your blood’s flowing, the nutrients is going through all your cells in your body. All that glycogen is now flowing at a low heart rate. So it’s not burning it, -it’s refueling. -(Yeah.) So every Sunday used to be that. And it kind of snowballed into as human beings we believe like, so many people before I give them a workout plan, they talk about recovery. Everybody that hears me speak, they want to go straight to recovery. -Work out first. -(Huh.) -Work out first -(He he he.) (before you talk to me about recovery.) How to recover, yeah. Work out first. We are always looking for, like whenever I talk to people, people take my words and they put it in a way to where they want to feel comfortable. This guy, you know, they want to put you in a box. They want to put a title on you. No. You put a title on me to make yourself feel better about yourself. If you read this book of mine, you see where I came from. This person was not built. This person was not made by God. (Mhm.) This person, sorry, this person was built. I made this person. I made this person by diving in to the insecurities that life gave me. Cause now they’re yours, they’re yours to own. If you’re not smart, call yourself dumb. It’s okay. Cause you are. But take that knowledge, you putting yourself down. If you’re fat, call yourself fat. -I used to be 300 pounds. -(Mm.) We wanna talk so soft to ourselves, we’re looking for that recovery day and that recovery day is everything in your life. Everything in your life is a recovery day, we’re looking for it. It’s not coming! -It’s not coming. -(Mhm.) Get over the recovery day. And that’s the mentality I took with me. And what happened through that process was all the frivolous things of life started to float away. I used to tell people lies -so they would like me -(Mm.) cause I was so insecure. When you start to build yourself up and start to have the one thing that we don’t have -is confidence. -(Yeah.) Real authentic confidence from hard work. Everything else goes away. You no longer look to other people -for your self-esteem. -(For validation) -That’s right. -(or yeah.) You now know. I walk in the room now and I know the hours and years and decades I’ve put into David Goggins. That’s something, it’s not on the wall. It’s not a trophy on the wall, it’s not a medal around your neck. It is actually a feeling in your heart, when people: “Why don’t you ever smile?” -I don’t have to. -(Ha ha, yeah.) (Yeah, I do have a stoic look on my face,) (I’m a very focused person,) but the feeling I have in my soul and in my heart, that’s why I don’t need to smile. I don’t need to smile. I don’t need you look at me and say: “Oh my god, you look happy,” -cause half of us aren’t happy. -(Mhm.) We’re giving you something that we think you want to see. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t care how you perceive David Goggins because through my journey I figured out the one piece I was missing. I thought it was cars, I thought it was women, -I thought it was, I thought it was -(Money.) money. I thought it was everything! The one piece I was missing was me having the courage -to face myself. -(M.) And once you do that on a daily basis. It is not about the running or people just gonna be: “You have to be working out?” Where I got my work ethic from was the hours I had to spend learning this. When you sit down and you’re not smart -and you have a disability -(Yeah.) and you still want to be at the top of your class. I didn’t want just to get by! When I realized that I can learn, do hard work and I can beat the valedictorian at school, but I got to put in -10 hours more a day -(Mhm.) than he does. You know what kind of strength comes from that? When you’re sitting down, that guy, that valedictorian studying for an hour and you know: “I caught you. I caught you. And I am dumb. But I have the work ethic to catch you.” That’s where David Goggins got -really invented, -(Yeah.) was at a kitchen table with 20 spiral notebooks that were empty -and then three months later -(Writing it down, yeah.) they were full. And when you can go through that, I still have them in my storage unit, you’re going through these spiral notebooks of your life and you’re like: “This is how I learned, this is unbelievable.” There’s no miles. It’s not about the miles. It’s that. Having the discipline every day to say: “For me to learn this one math problem, -it’s gonna take me 10 hours.” -Wow. (And that’s where it,) and you realize through hard work, you can do, -you can outwork anybody, -(Mhm.) no matter how badass they are. But that’s the part people -don’t want to dive into. -(Yeah, yeah.) When someone’s lacking confidence in themselves, what’s the answer you would give them if they are like: “How do I gain more confidence?” (It starts with yourself man.) You gotta 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’s gonna be a false reality. In the second life gives you that challenge, all you want to do is go back to what made you confidence or, or what gave you confidence, it’s 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. It’s overcoming the fear. I used to stutter severely bad so right now I don’t know how many people are gonna watch this. You know what gives me confidence, -is knowing I no longer care -(Ya ha ha.) -if I say or start stuttering to you. -(Yeah.) That’s what gives me confidence, it’s facing these things, overcoming them. And maybe I don’t overcome them every day, but facing them and facing them and facing them, pretty soon like this: “You know man, -this is where it’s at.” -(Mm.) It’s not in that comfort zone. It’s in the discomfort zone, is where my confidence is getting built. (Mhm.) That’s where it’s getting built. But people wanted, -they want an easier answer. -(Yeah.) There has to be an easier way. There’s not. I’m sorry. -I searched for it my entire life. -(Ha ha ha.) -I did! -(You cheated, you lied,...) (I lied, I did everything) -(and I still felt empty.) -Mhm. 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 have this beautiful family, two or three houses, cars, everything. Has everything in the world. 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 -with no car -(Ha ha right.) and I walk around happiest person in the world. Have nothing. (Happy 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 lived to be a 100 years old and they died miserable having everything, because they never examined, -I call it my live autopsy. -(Mm.) You never examine this. Happiness, peace, enlightenment, it’s all up here man. It’s all up here. And when I started talking like this people were: “Man you know, I don’t know.” -It’s the truth man. -(Yeah, it is true.) It’s all up here. You just got to go in and go and face it. And that’s the hard part. What’s your biggest insecurity today? Not 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 still me. Me still living, cause I always talk about, I pay rent, so we lived, we used to live in a 7 dollar a month place when I was growing up and that -(Is this in Buffalo or is this...?) -This is in Indiana. (Yeah.) So like 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. (Right.) And that 7 dollar a month place used to be, it was my, it was who I was. I was no one, I was in the sewer, my mom wasn’t 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 Force selection training, I’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 talk about it the last chapter of that book. I got real sick and I was about -38 years old. -(Mhm.) I’m 43 now. And my life got real quiet. I went from running 205 miles in 39 hours to 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. My life was taken from me. The one thing that kept me going was my training. -(Now you didn’t have anything.) -I didn’t have anything. -You had to sit alone -(Alone.) and not train. -(And that’s what changed me.) -That’s, wow. (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’ve 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’d finish a race “of life” and I wouldn’t even receive my medal. I’d go on. (He like: “On the next.”) I’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) -(gonna waste an hour) -No. -(sitting around for this ceremony.”) -Most people sit around -(Just off.) -and that’s what they like. They need the ceremony of -“I accomplished 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 percent 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 no I’m a 180 pound person who lost 106 pounds in less than 3 months, learned to read, learned to do this, learned to do that,” -I was like: “I need more.” -(Mhm.) 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 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. (Hm, like a boot camp for the boot camp.) -(That’s right.) -Yeah. 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 BUD/S. -(18, 19, 20-year-olds.) Yeah, young kids. So when they get to Navy SEAL training man, they were physical studs. They were running, swimming, -I mean they were, they were hybrids, -(Wow.) but they’d get to BUD/S -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 in to the sewer. Everybody’s got a story. We don’t “share” on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We have, 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 gonna talk about my dungeon. I 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 when 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 -(Right.) -when you were sad, -(Yeah.) when you were sick. We look for our wife or our husband, we look for comfort. It’s in those moments -you must retrain your mind -(M.) to think differently in hell. I wasn’t training them to do that. -(Why weren’t you training them?) -I wasn’t training myself that cause at that time -(I would do what I was told.) -Mmmm. (These guys needed to meet a standard.) -(Physical standard.) -A physical standard. The physical standard is not what they needed to meet. It’s the 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. -(Wooow.) I wasn’t, I had come 8000 miles from where I started, but if you never know that, you’re still in the 7 dollar 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, cause that story is long, that sick portion of my life is long, -I didn’t care if I died or lived -(Wow.) cause I was for the first time in my life -happy -(Wow.) and at peace, cause 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 -(Ha ha.) and just like: “I don’t need anything else.” (Yeah.) You figure it out by going inside yourself, by callusing 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 live in the space that she is in now and reflecting back on: “My god, this is what I’ve done with my life.” So. (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. -(Yeah.) 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. -(Mmm.) A lot of us speak in hollow words. I used to speak in hollow words. I don’t do it anymore. Everything that comes out of my mouth has substance, is real. And we all have these feelings in our bodies, in our minds, in our souls. I act on mine. A 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. When I’m afraid of something, it’s telling me -you must conquer that. -(Do this thing.) -You must do that. -(Yeah.) 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 road maps and all this other stuff on it man, tells you where to go, gas stations, the next 10 miles up you can see a McDonald’s -or a Cracker Barrel, -(Yeah.) it’s the easy route. Very few of us want to go to the right side. That Cracker Barrel’s that Midwest life. (That’s right. That’s ha ha ha.) -I’m from Ohio, it’s all, -(It’s all about it man, Indiana.) -it’s all Cracker Barrel man. -(Cracker Barrel everywhere.) Ha ha ha, dude that’s amazing, bringing back memories. This is powerful cause 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, -(Mhm.) when I was in high school, -I started doing those things. -(Right.) I was just like: -“I’m sick and tired of feeling afraid, -(Right.) so I need to do the things that scare me the most.” (That’s right.) You know, I’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast, Tiffani’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,) -Right. I was afraid of all these different things and so I said: “I wanna do this, I’m gonna give myself a challenge every single day -until the fear goes away.” -(Sure.) And I feel like that’s what more of us should be doing. I’m hearing that that’s what you, how you live your life. (It’s all it is man.) And it help me feel so much more confident. -When you overcome that fear -(Yeah.) of saying: “This doesn’t have control over me anymore,” (That’s right.) It’s like, you can be at such more peace -(It’s a 100 percent.) -in your life. Most of, like for instance, I never thought in my wildest dreams I could be a Navy SEAL. It’s until you opened your mind, open-mindedness creates that. We all shut down our mind, like for instance, when I broke the pull-up record, everybody around me who heard the pull-up record was 4020 pull-ups, that’s the first thing they did: “Oh my god.” -(4000 in 24 hours or was this...?) -Yeah, -it’s 4020 pull-ups in 24 hour period. -(Yup yup.) The first thing I did versus closing my mind and like: “Oh my god, that’s crazy,” I went and got a pen and -(And say how many is that every minute,) -Exactly. -(every hour, every second.) -Instead of taking life and make 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 this possibilities of life, but we do, we shackle our mind and we’re a prisoner in our own mind that this is all I can do, it is all I’m good at. And we take away the possibilities that you could be this, -you could be that, -(Yeah.) you could be all these things. And I never thought at 300 pounds -I could be Navy SEAL. -(Wow.) So if my mind was shackled, me and you would never meet. -There’d be no book. -(Right.) -There’d be no book. -(Right.) There’d be nothing. So what people don’t understand is that they live for themselves not knowing that you have the power within yourself -to change millions of lives -(Yeah.) by facing life, by facing yourself. And through that, I would die never knowing that I had the power to change millions of lives. And what haunts me the most, people ask me: “What haunts you the most?” What haunts me the most is that if I were to die at 300 pounds, lets 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, 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.”) (And I’m looking at this chart) and on the chart has all these different things, but my name’s on it, but these things aren’t me. -I was gonna change the world, -(Mmm.) 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 gonna get the VFW award, you gonna be honored here, honored there, and I’m like: “God, I was, this isn’t me. Like, it says David Goggins, I was a Ecolab guy spraying for cockroaches and I’m 300 pounds. It say here I’m 185, it says here I got a bachelors and a masters. 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’ve been on Earth.” And are you really in heaven now or are you in hell? (Mm.) 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.” -(Wooow.) That’s how I live my life. I now know that there is no cap on the human mind. There is no cap. -We cap it ourselves. -(Wow.) -(Is there a cap on the human body?) -That’s right. -Is there one? -(There...) -I... -(Ha ha ha.) -I don’t believe so. -(Mhm.) Because one thing I found out was, I did, for several years I gave myself a way out. -(When you were 300 pounds or...?) -When I was, when I was 300 pounds, when I was, all up till when I was 24 years old. I would climb a mountain, I'd fall back down, I start climbing, I 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 CEO, Captain Bowen, looked at me, I’m on crutches, I’m all jacked up, he says: “Hey, this is your last time you’re gonna go through BUD/S. This is it.” I had several stress fractures, I had double pneumonia, I was jacked up and he gave me a few months to heal and said: “This is your last time going through, I shouldn’t even let you go back through.” Wow. (I started Navy SEAL training) (with stress fractures.) -Stress fractures, not shin splints, -(That’s hard to finish,) -(stress fractures.) -that’s hard to finish. (Starting the hardest training, arguably 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’d wake up at 3:30 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 with my hip flexors. -So for the first 45 minutes to an hour -(Oh my gosh.) I was in absolute excruciating pain. But 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 is 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: “You are now, from the weakest man, you are now the hardest man to ever live, -if you can do this. -(Ho ho ho ho.) If you can do this!” -Life is one big mind game. -(Yeah.) And you play it with yourself. Is it true? I don’t care. It got me through the hardest training -starting out broken. -(Mm.) 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 stress fractures were healed by running on them. (Ha ha ha, calcifying it, just like...) (I never had them since,) -(I’m 43 years old.) -Wow. I ran 7000 miles in 2007, haven’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 didn’t, and you don’t give yourself a way out. The only way out for me at that time was death. (Wow.) I’m gonna be a Navy SEAL. -(Or I’m gonna die.) -Or I’m gonna die trying. (Yeah.) Period. And my body said: “Roger that. We’re gonna get you through this.” Whooho, 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 gonna figure this out with you, -(Yes.) we’re gonna do this, it’s gonna be the worst part of your life, -but you’re gonna survive.” -(We’re gonna 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 ‘em and say: “Oh my god.” No. It just be uncomfortable, I call it suffering. -(Don’t physically injure yourself.) -Yes, not saying that. -(And then be out for six months) -That’s right. -cause that’s no good. -(That’s no good.) (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. I had choices. I chose this path. -(And you are still choosing it.) -And I’m still choosing it. -(You can go back to that guy any moment.) -No, cause 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 ‘nother world, which is why I walk around -with all my stuff in a black backpack. -(Wow.) I found out a whole ‘nother way. A whole ‘nother 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 moments notice. -You can never get so far beyond scratch. -(Mmm.) What that means is, when you accomplish something in life, if you want to go back to scratch and go back to that “7 dollar a month place” where I once lived and visit that place for a long period of time. If you were here, when you move 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. -You think there is, the real... -(Right, when you achieve...) That’s right, when you achieve so much the friction is, is minor. Cause why? I’m sore, I’m gonna get a massage today. (Mhm.) I’m hungry, I’m gonna eat today. The refrigerator is always full so your comforts are now, so your discomfort is now very miniscule to your discomfort back here in the 7 dollar a month place so you have to go back to the total discomfort to then raise your level -of where you’re at now. -(Mmm.) 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 trip. -(Take a day trip.) So when you complete some -massive obstacle and challenge -(Mhm.) whatever the adversity that you force upon yourself cause these are all curated -experiences for yourself, -(Right.) that you’re scratching constantly. What happens now since this was five years ago? You would just leave, you wouldn’t take the medal, 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 7 dollar, 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. -(Mm.) Every day of my damn life. That feeling that I had to go back and think about, I found a way to just have it. -(How did you...?) -It’s constantly there. I have a self-talk. I have a self-talk, -it’s called my cookie jar. -(Mhm.) It’s a constant reminder of David Go... 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. People ask: “What is my purpose? Why am I here?” You’re not gonna find it nowadays unless you lock yourself in a quiet room in your mind and find it. It’s too noisy. For me, I can be in a busy street in New York city, horns honking, and I’m walking right around with like nothing, -it’s me and myself -(Yeah.) 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 get to 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 point where that feeling follows you -like breathing, -(Mmm.) it becomes a part of your life, a part of your DNA. But it’s made like these calluses on my hands right now, -they’re made. -(Yeah.) 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 dollar a month place, all the time, (is now,) I go out and I dig fireline. I’m a wildland firefighter. -I don’t need to do it, -(Mhm.) I’m a 43-year-old man, -I work with 27-year-old kids. -(Yeah.) I’m a rookie. Every day I’m a rookie it feels like -and... -(Why do you do it?) (That’s why I do it man.) There’s a story I’m gonna tell you about why I do it. So I make, I’ve a good living now, for me, -where I’m at in my life. -(Mhm.) I was out on a fire in Colorado and we were digging fireline on this, like, 50 percent, it was like on a side of a dead gone mountain. (Yeah.) And we’re trying to keep the fire from moving and we’re digging this fireline 14 inches or, my fault, 18 inches wide, 3 miles long. Twelve of us did it and it is the hardest work, -you make $12 an hour. Okay? -(Wow.) 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, you dig some more. -(Really?) This happens for two weeks long man. (What are you digging? It’s like a hole, is it a line or?) So you’re trying to get down to a mineral source, so you’re trying to get down to the earth. So that if a fire’s moving, -it can’t burn dirt. -(Really?) -So you’re removing fuels. -(Cause the hole’s deep enough, 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. And everybody ask me why I do it, this is why. This 21-year-old kid was out there and he wanted a pair of running shoes. It’s all he wanted, a pair of running shoes. 60, 70, 100 bucks or whatever, you know, -easy for us, running shoes. -(Yeah, yeah.) He looked up at the mountain that we have been on for days digging this fireline and he said: “That’d take me 5 or 6 hours of work to buy those shoes,” said: “I’m not gonna buy ‘em.” -It’s the perspective of life. -(Mm.) That perspective of life right there, that is the value that we loose. When things start to come so easy in life, it’s the perspective that 21-year-old had when he looked up that mountain and thought, he looked at his hands, he looked at the amount of hours of pulling that Pulaski, that tool and racking that ground and then cutting those trees and moving them and the hours of work. He looked at his feet and said: “These old shoes will do.” (Mm.) It’s that perspective in life that we lose. And that story to most people may not mean anything. It’s that story I always want to have in my life that you cannot lose perspective -of where you’ve come in life. -(Yeah.) So true, we were in Guatemala, was it this year or last year? Last year. We were in Guatemala last year. We support a charity called Pencils of Promise that builds schools for kids who live in poverty all around the world. And every year I take a trip to just see where our efforts are being, you know, felt and being made. And these are the poorest places in Guatemala, Laos and Ghana, places that, they have nothing, there’s no schools, they’re in little villages, they live on dirt, huts, everything, right. And we go and we build these schools, we actually, the villagers build them themselves, we just fund the experience and they empower, we empower them to do it -so that they take ownership of it. -(Right.) But I’ll be there for a few days and watching these kids so happy -with just like a pencil. -(Right.) And just so happy to just like have their family around and they would 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 -(Yup.) right over here -and I’ll see like these mansions, -(That’s right.) 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 -(No.) to find peace and joy and connection and intimacy and all these other things that we want. -You don’t need these big mansions -(No.) and to live in this nice place, I like living here, but it’s not like. It’s perspective for me is what keeps me -motivated as well -(That’s right.) to keep doing the right things, to keep showing up, -to keep working hard -(Mhm.) and I think it’s right most of us miss that perspective -in life. -(Right.) -(We get so far away from reality.) -So far. And the reality is man, when I was 7 years old, 8 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, ha ha ha. -(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.) so we’re conditioned that way and we grow up expecting now that -things should come a lot easier. -(Right, that’s a damn shame.) And we get -frustrated when we don’t get it right. -That’s right, quickly. -(Quickly.) -Yes. And I’m always talking about delayed gratification. Like the longer I can wait -to receive gratification, -(That’s right.) 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. -(Crazy.) 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 doctor like, you know: “We can’t find this, we can’t find that, we don’t know what’s wrong with you.” When I got in that bed, so this is the crazy thing about gratification, -long-term, -(Mhm.) I’m able to watch grass grow, but I find out this. I sat there, couldn’t run a half, a quarter mile, couldn’t get out of bed, the only thought I had on my mind, I pulled out of that race then I told myself: “I’m gonna go back to Badwater one day and run it. I’m gonna win the race.” Haven’t been back since. Haven’t been back since. 2019, I’m not saying I’m gonna win it, -I’m just now in the shape to go back. -(Wow.) Haven’t run a 100 mile race -since 2014, -(Wow.) cause I’ve been that sick. I’m just now, imagine the gratification I’m gonna get by getting to the start line of that race. And what if I can win it? -(It’d be pretty sweet.) -Pretty sweet. (4, 5 years, yeah,) -(it'd be pretty sweet.) -Imagine that. Of having that kind of dil... of having that kind of self-discipline to everyday wake up and having these setbacks -where I can’t even run a mile, -(Wow.) but I’m thinking about running a 135. I can’t run one mile, but I’m thinking about running a 135. And with that process, guess what happens, sooner or later you can run 10 miles, 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, -it’s right around the corner. -(Wow.) Most people in that timeframe, in that mindset: “I can’t run anymore, it’s over.” No. It’s just gonna take a little bit longer. You have to turn the negative into a positive cause 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, let’s say they wait for 12 years to get there, that’s what keeps you going, is you’ve got to feel: -“I want, I’m doing it for one second.” -(Mmm.) (Ha ha ha.) Years of pain. (For one second.) -One second. -(Ha ha ha.) -Think about it. -(Wow.) 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 cause 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.) -Mmm. -(It’s not the race,) -(Mhm.) it’s the 12 years why I 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: -(That’s right.) -“Oh, I got to win this, -(That’s right.) if I don’t, I’m gonna be upset.” I would achieve all my athletic goals for years and then 10 minutes later be -the angriest person in the world. -(That’s right.) -So angry and frustrated, -(Mhm.) -nasty with people -(Yeah.) and I would delay my gratification for years -to achieve what I wanted -(That’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 when I lost that 106 pounds in like two and a half months, whatever it took me, that was the biggest trophy in 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.) -It’s massive. -(Yeah.) I don’t know, there was no trainer, there was no like, and what’s 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.” -(Ha ha ha yeah.) It was just: -“Make it happen.” -(Yeah.) 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’s about. -(Mhm.) It wasn’t about the trident, it wasn’t about all those dead gone medals, wasn’t about any of that. And that’s why I hate even talking about being a SEAL you know, I mention stories, people: “What do you talk about?” -It didn’t define me. -(Mhm.) The journey getting there was harder than going through it. -(Yeah.) -You know. So that’s what I think 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 last 12 years. -(Right, 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 or... -(A long time.) -(What’s, days, weeks?) -A long time, weeks, years. -Years. -(You’ll reflect on it.) I’ll 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 undertrained, I did it on four days notice, I hadn’t run more than, I think, 20 miles the whole year and I did it to raise money for this foundation. To, you know, to try to get into Badwater. What I had to pull out of myself on that last, so that’s where that book Living with a SEAL kind of originated, -Jesse Itzler 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.) -Yeah, right. (And that’s what I talk with people about man.) I spend so much time, people always like: “Why do you run so much, you know, you’re trying to get into 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 where I was at mile 70 and I had 30 more miles to go and I had, I had crapped up my back and peeing blood down my leg, I had 30 miles to go. There’s only so much someone cheering can do for you. (Right.) When you start to dive back in the cellar of your mind and you’re pulling out all these, 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 is coming to save you and you get through that. I don’t want to go back there like, 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 is coming out of me, -(Mm.) just looks like dirt and you know, 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 want to do is call the race director up of Badwater saying: “I qualified for the race.” (Ha ha ha.) And she’s thinking: “We got to go to the hospital.” You know, she’s calling my mom and my mom has a doctor friend of hers, she was over and they’re freaking out -and I said: “Everybody just shut up.” -(Wow.) Shut up. I’m in worst pain in my entire life. And no one will 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 may think: -“Man, you’re just crazy.” -(Ha ha ha.) You know, when you’ve, 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. I just figured out the code. I figured out a code, a code that many people aren’t looking for, and I didn’t want it to be numb, I didn’t want that feeling, this was confirmation, -this was like a scientist’s notes. -(Mhm.) 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 -(Mm.) in myself. And I was sitting there: “Oh my god like, this is unbelievable, what I just did.” -So it’s that quiet place, -(Wow.) 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, you’re not panicking, you’re not quitting, you’re not going to town, 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’ve overcome. -(Mm.) That’s when you’ve overcome. And that’s why that one moment for me in that tub, I don’t want anyone to take away from me. (Wow.) Ha ha this is crazy man, 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. 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” -it’s gonna get overcome. -(You go do it.) It’s gonna 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. It’s my ultimate guide. So I don’t... (What’s the big challenge for you then?) (The biggest challenge for me is always going...) I want to be comfortable. -(You want to be comfortable?) -Yup. -(You wanna sleep in a nice bed and relax,) -I’m a normal human being. -(you wanna chill out...) -Mhm. I want, and the time is gonna come. There’s time for everybody -to get civilized. -(Ha ha ha ha.) The worst thing in life that happens to a man is they get civilized -or a woman, anybody. -(Yeah yeah.) -Cause you lose the hunger for life. -(Aha.) You think you’ve arrived and once you have a “I’ve arrived” mentality, that’s my biggest fear, it’s I get to point where I’m at that point where life has come to me and I have that feeling of “I’ve arrived”. I now know my life, for 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, I was the most David, the Goggins that I invented, -cause David Goggins was weak. -(Mmm.) 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 born him -(Mm.) and that is, when you get comfortable, Goggins starts to die, he starts to die, that one creature from the Black Lagoon that can live in the sewer, -that can eat rats all day, -(Right, right.) that doesn’t need water, that doesn’t need sunlight, doesn’t need nothing, he can just live cause he knows he can. That’s a powerful human being that you never want to, and it’s in everybody, that’s the scary thing about, that’s what makes me so upset man. It’s that everybody wants to put this dead gone 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’ve figured out: “I have the ability,” not through your mom or your dad or though a special school, through you. You have the ability to change this. That’s what makes me 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.) -From not having to do the work. -(Yeah.) And that’s why I want people to hear my story. I’m trying to take away all that bullcrap that you want to put on me. I’m trying to make you suffer up here to know: “What my god man, -he really had a hard way to go. -(Wow.) 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. -[Lewis chuckles] -That’s it. Cause 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 percent potential, what percent are you at? I like to say that I live in the 90 percentile, sometimes 99. -A 100 percent is dead. -(Wha ha ha.) -A 100 percent is dead. -(99 sometimes?) (99 sometimes. The reason why I know 99 is because) the first 5 hours of my day I am very uncomfortable. (What do you do?) First off every morning I get up and people think I love to run, I don’t, you know. -(That’s why you do it.) -That’s why I do it and people don’t understand the mentality: “Oh, you have to love it man.” No. Running has changed my life because every morning I know I’m gonna do it. If you like 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 1 hour of 24, four percent, five? -(Yeah.) A small percent. But anyway, that’s why I know I’m at the high level, cause I’m at this, not wanting to be this, you know, uncomfortable, I put myself in the dungeon every day off jump, out of bed, it starts! -(Shoes on, run.) -Out of bed. Why most people lose the battle in the morning, like, once you leave your beautiful house, the war starts. Nowadays it starts before you leave home, the phone rings, social media’s up, the world’s 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, lets runs, okay? Then I do push-ups or sit-ups or pull-ups, go to the gym 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. -(Of running hour and a half?) -So that’s running. -Hour and a half of running? -(Yes.) Then I’m in the gym and then at night time, every night, for last 5 to 6 years, about five and a half years, I’ve only missed two days, of stretching for 2 to 3 hours. (2 to 3 hours a night, stretching?) (I’ve only missed two days in 5 or 6, 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 (Huh.) 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. We sitting down right now, -we’re using the hip flexor muscle. -(Aha.) When you’re under stress as I was my whole life -by being afraid of my father... -(Tight inside,) -It’s tight, -(clinched.) your whole body is tight, then I choose a job like being the Navy SEAL, -it’s even tighter. -(Tight.) And then I put myself under stress, it’s just tightenin and tight and tight till it’s a vice grip. And you need healthy blood flow through your body. I wasn’t getting any of that so I pushed so hard in, in life. People say: “Oh, cause you ran so much.” -No, -(He he he.) -sorry. Life. -(Emotional stress.) Yes. Emotional stress made me just tight so now I couldn’t sit down here for 10 seconds and I be like, I was wound. What that’s done to me is allow me to be even open, even more open-minded. I stretch out, I get my body lengthened out, -it lengthens my mind out, -(Mmm.) the possibilities out, I calm myself down so during the morning time I build the armor, I face the world cause now I know there’s gonna be some disappointments along the way, -every day. -(Yeah.) That’s life. But if you face disappointments already in victory, the things I can control is -I can control my run, -(Mhm.) 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. (Yes.) 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 is 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 callusing the mind so you’re ready for combat outside of your house cause it’s gonna come and that’s what I realized at a young age, I had no body armor, -I had no callus -(Mmm.) 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 won’t have to lie to you -to make you like me.” -(Mmm.) 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.” -(Mhm.) “I’m not the fa... I won’t win this race man, but I’ve been running for the last 4 years every day.” (Ha, that’s pretty it, yeah.) -That’s the mentality -(Yeah.) -that you need to have. -(Yeah.) Look at people knowing: “I know you and everybody else has issues.” So why am I, why am I worried about how anybody thinks of me? We’re all on the same boat here, some boats maybe bigger than others, but we all have problems. -So be it, we’re all on the same boat. -(Yeah.) Some of us are willing -to not lie about it. -(Yeah.) I’m at that point now where I no longer care, cause why? Why can I go on here and tell people how fucked up I am? -Cause I faced them. -(Mmm.) -They no longer define who I am. -(Yeah.) It’s not me. It was me. -They don’t control you anymore, yeah. -(It’s not, yeah.) When you’re training in the morning or training at night, or stretching at night, what are you visualizing or thinking about? (Nothing.) (When I’m training in the morning time...) (And it’s a run for hour and a half and the gym and) -Sometimes it’s longer. -(calisthenics type stuff or) An hour to an hour and a half is the minimum. (Yeah ha ha.) If I’m doing like a 100 mile race versus, you know, like now I’m starting to build my miles back up cause I’m training for a race in January. You know, that can be 2, two and a half, 3 hours. Then once I come home from that is right to the gym, immediately. So I’m exhausted, I’m tired, I’m dehydrated, sodium low, everything, and that’s where, that’s the edge. (Cause it’s even more uncomfortable) -(to do that.) -That’s right. -Cause all I want to do then -(Stretch, drink water, relax.) That’s it. I had a long run, I’m hot, I’m dehydrated. (You already didn’t wanna run.) -That’s right. -(Ho ho ho.) So that’s when, because why, in the race of life, life’s not gonna give you a glass of water when you’re thirsty. And I realize that. And once again people would: “My god, you’re life is horrible.” -It’s not. -(Yeah.) This is how I live. This is how I live, this is what I want, I don’t judge anybody. This is how I live and there, 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, -(Mhm.) -you don’t need to go where I went, -(Right.) I went this far cause I started opening different doors to the cellar in my brain: “My god, is this possible? Oh my god that’s possible. Is this possible?” I started opening different compartments. You can leave them shut, I don’t care. So what I do now in the morning time is I do this because why, life’s not gonna give me the Get Out of Jail Free card. (Yeah.) And if I come on here on this podcast and talk this stuff, I have to live what I say. So when you’ve come of 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. -(Right.) -Cause why? When you start to formulate this character, this code of ethic, this ethos that you live, not anybody else’s, you own, I cannot tell you something that I haven’t done. Why? Cause it will haunt me. You are now drinking the Kool-Aid, a lot of people write books on self-help, mental toughness, all this crap. Half of ‘em -are living up to that standard. -(Mhm.) Half of ‘em 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. -(Ha right ha ha.) -It’s not a comfortable life. -(Yeah yeah.) This life was made. -This life was earned. -(Yeah.) And if people like it, great, if not, so be it. At night time I think about nothing. (When you’re stretching or when you’re...?) -When I’m stretching. -(Yeah.) 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 had 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. -(Yeah.) You work on mental callousing on a daily basis cause your, 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. (Mhm.) All the stories I've talked about today, all the things in that book, if I went and said: “I’m good.” I gained all this knowledge, -if I stop today, the knowledge is gone. -(Yeah.) I’d 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 recall on it now. That’s why I do these things, -I know what not doing them will get me. -(Right, 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 the end of the questions I have on here. I’m just so inspired by everything. But if you guys haven’t picked this up yet, you can preorder 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. 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 thought you whether he actually said it or you observed it. I observed it. (Or what not to do or, yeah.) So I observed it from my dad. When I left I was young, I had a young man’s, a young kid’s point of view on my father. So when I was 22 at 300 pounds I went back to see my dad cause I wanted to make sure that what I saw at eight is the same, this gu... 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? -(Mhm.) So at 22 I went back and I was able to examine him 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 realized I have a whole mess of problems. -(Hm hm hm hm.) -Big time. Some were from him, some were from 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, -(Mmm.) 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 pro... all the stuff he did. A good human being doesn’t need to do that, a fulfilled human being doesn’t need to break anyone down. All they do is wanna 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 though 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 nigger. I’ve been, tons of people have hurt me, I judge no one -cause I know where it comes from. -(Mmm.) I know you, I was once you, that’s why now the place I’m at, you get a Get Out of Jail Free card, -you need to help yourself. -(Mmm.) -You ain’t bullying me man. -(Right, you’re fine.) -You’re, I’m good. -(Whatever you throw at you...) I’m good. I know what’s wrong with you -(Ha ha ha.) -cause I was once 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. -(Mmm.) Said: “I cannot be that.” That’s a powerful lesson. So it’s a good lesson that he thought you -(Yes.) -through the 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 everyday that could potentially upset you? Do 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 would pick a fight, go do whatever. Through this process of my life, when you get to this point I’m at and yeah I’ll still be in the car and I’ll talk to my fiance: -“This jackass whatever or whatever.” -(Yeah yeah.) I now know that I can escalate a problem that’s not really a problem. I now know I have a throttle -and that’s through self-examination. -(Yeah.) Is this a big, is this a big deal? Is this something I need to approach with a level 3 engagement of like: -“We’re going at it.” -(Right.) -Or is a level 2 engagement? -(Mhm.) So now you have to be mature enough, and I’m really big on maturity cause 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 saying: “Okay man look, I’m at a point of 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 gonna escalate this problem. Is this warranted?” There’s some things that warrant me -to escalate a problem. -(Mhm yeah yeah.) And that’s what I do now. -I take it through a process. -(You rate it, yeah.) Yes. -It goes on a rating program. -(Got it. Powerful.) This is called “The three truths”. I ask this question of everyone at the end, it’s called “The three truths”. Imagine 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 you, -your body to go, right. -(Mhm.) 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 a list that everything that God says -that you were supposed to do, -(Mhm.) -it’s happened. -(Right.) Written the books, everything you want to do, done. But for whatever reason you’ve got to take all of your written word and videos and audio stuff that’s out in the world, -you’ve got to take it with you. -(Mhm.) But you get to write down on a piece of paper the three things you know to be true -about all of your experiences -(Mhm.) and this is what you would 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 -(Mhm.) 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. You 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 gonna let you down, you’re gonna let somebody down. And when you put them on a pedestal, you then lose time when that person comes up and let’s you down. (Mhm.) You must hold yourself accountable in 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. -(Mm.) And then therefore you die not knowing your greatest potential. -(That’s one.) -That’s one. (The next one I would say is,) the biggest one I would say is -never pick the easy road. -(Mmm.) Never. Never. And it always goes back to kind of that 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, -(Mhm, yeah.) all these different things that people 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. -(Mmmm.) 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 can keep a six pack forever.) -You keep it. -(Yeah ha ha, 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, 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. -(Mmm.) When you get that feeling that you’ve arrived, be afraid. -(Right.) -Be truly afraid. Because now you start to do this. -(Slowly die, yeah.) -Slowly die. Either you’re getting better or you’re getting worse. -You’re not staying the same. -(Yeah.) Till you get to where you think the journey’s ended and you’re sitting back and you’re like: “I arrived, I’m on Mount Everest. -I climbed 29029.” -(He he he yeah.) The best thing to do is fall back down that damn mountain as fast as you can and start climbing. -(Find the next climb.) -Find the next climb. (Yeah.) (Oh man,) -I think I’ll sign up for another event. -(That’s it.) -It’s time for another endurance event. -(That’s it.) Aaa, scary. 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, it's just David Goggins, -at David Goggins. -(Cool. David Goggins.) (Your videos on Instagram are great.) You should post more, have someone on your team post more cause they’re awesome. (Well they’re all me.) -Oh, that’s all you, cool. -(Yeah so there,) -(I have no team,) -Yeah. (it’s me and my fiance, there is no team.) (She’ll be in the car,) (she’ll be on a mountain top,) (she’ll be somewhere,) -it’s all my material, it’s all who I am. -(That’s great man.) 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 is some video that’s gonna inspire you to be like:) “Okay I need to do at least five more minutes of working out” -something at least. -(That’s it.) I wanna acknowledge you David for, for your intensity, your work ethic, your passion and also your, your pure real heart because just meeting you for the first time, walking in together, just like I could tell -how real you are -(Right.) and you’re just a no BS type of guy. The adversity that you’ve overcome is crazy. Obviously people have overcome -more than you, me and -(Right.) 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. -(Appreciate it.) And I know this is gonna impact and inspire a lot of people. So I acknowledge you for your heart and for inspiring me, you know I thought I worked out hard, but this is like, I feel like I’m doing nothing with my life so you’re gonna inspire me to continue to make bigger commitments and longer commitments -in moving forward now, -(Thank you.) so 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. -(Mm.) 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. -(Yeah ha ha.) But let’s say I’m the greatest tennis player of all time and I did 22 years, I’ve won 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 and 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 -(Sure.) 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’ve won those matches that I lost -by not bringing my best mindset. -(Mm.) You’re haunted by all the opportunities that you missed by not bringing your best at that time when you could’ve won, but you didn’t win, because you allowed life -to interfere -(Yeah.) with that one shot when you were sitting there, getting ready to serve for the match and your mind is not thinking about where that ball placement needs to be, but it’s thinking about your family this or -this at work or that at work. -(Mhm.) That’s greatness. Greatness is your recall -on every single shot that you missed -(Wow.) throughout a 20 some 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 and 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. (Mm.) David Goggins, thanks man. [Loud clap] -Appreciate it. -(Appreciate you man.) -Thank you. -(Powerful.)

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 827,643

Rating: 4.9067745 out of 5

Keywords: David Goggins, lewis howes, master your mind, success, navy seals, david goggins motivation, success motivation, motivational speech for success in life, mental toughness, successful people, success story, hard work beats talent, hard work motivation, lewis howes rachel hollis, mental toughness running, lifelong learning motivation, stand up and shout, motivational videos for success in life, david goggins, david goggins interview, inspiration, self help, can't hurt me

Id: hMgMASVsA9Y

Length: 96min 19sec (5779 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 04 2018

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[u/Hmtnsw]

I wanted to share this here because I think it is a positive video of how to level up and become a better person/who you want to be. It is 1.5 hour long so make sure to get comfortable if you decide to watch it. I think it is well worth the time invested.

[u/funky_worms]

Thanks for sharing! this guy is literally insane but very inspiring and he's right. You learn the most about yourself at your lowest points.

[u/painmakesyoustronger]

I love David Goggins. His book Can’t Hurt Me is incredible.