The Joe Rogan Experience - #1906 - David Goggins

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL, public speaker, and author. Look for his new book "Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within" on December 6. www.davidgoggins.com

The Joe Rogan Experience Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day Yeah, you do a podcast like every fucking day man? Pretty much, this week every day But I was just on vacation How was vacation? It was nice Vacations are hard, you know, because, like, even though I enjoy rest,

I always feel like I shouldn't be. Always. I get it. Do you go on vacations? No. Never? No. Nope.

For me, creatively, it's good. It's good to get a reset because I come back in guns blazing. Like, I really don't risk any mental burnout when i do it well i have resets but my resets are like um i call them aid stations mental aid stations so when you're going fucking hard and you grind all the fucking time like everybody knows you're 24 hours in the day but when i'm in the shower it's a mental aid station i don't think about shit i don't fucking think about people i don't think about work i don't think about running i don't think about working out

but i'm in the car another fucking mental aid station when i'm fucking eating mental aid station so people eat and they work and all that sort of shit man so i i can grind hard because a lot of times man i'm in mental fucking A stations. Chilling. So you have little mini vacations. Mini vacations, man. All day long. All day long. Do you feel now almost a responsibility to like stay at it all the time? Because so many people are watching and paying attention and drawing inspiration from you.

A hundred percent. I mean, like I probably would have retired a long time ago. But I get these emails from people. And it's like they're living through me. Like, their strength comes through what they know I'm doing. So there's so many times I want to get up and say, oh, man, fuck it. I got mine. I'm good.

And I'm like, fuck. Fucking Tommy out there, motherfucker. Fucking Tommy talking about. Tommy in his email. Tommy talking there, motherfucker. Fucking Tommy talking about. Tommy in his email. Tommy talking about fucking man. He saved his life. Man, I ran 10 miles last night because of you, man. I'm like, you know, a lot of people can live off of that,

and they can fucking be good with that. And, you know, a lot of motivational people come out here, man, and run their motherfucking mouths about shit. And I know they are not doing shit. They sit back, and they're fucking like you know they have their little brainstorming sessions about oh what should we say what's gonna what's gonna connect with people while they're sending their fucking ass my brainstorming sessions is fucking out there in the fucking grip of life fucking grinding and that's what all my material comes from

the suck every bit of it comes from the suck. And that's the difference between there's like a whole industry now that's dedicated to trying to help people get motivated. And a lot of the people that are involved in that are very unqualified. A hundred percent. Because they're not really doing anything. No. There's so many people that haven't actually done anything, but they'll try to teach you how to get your life in order and how to get your mind right and develop that warrior mentality.

I'm like, bitch, you don't have that. Well, they're utilizing the weakness of the world right now. Yeah. The world's in a very bad place. So these people who are like con artists, they sit back and say, oh, I can come up with this. I can come up with this. And this right here can probably make me some money.

Yeah. So they're in it for fucked up reasons. There's just not a whole lot of people like you. I love that phrase, uncommon amongst uncommon men, because it's such a good phrase because it just shows you, you've been on this path for so long long and you're grinding for so long, but you're also honest about there's moments where you don't want to fucking do this. Oh. Which is why it's so interesting because you do it.

Right. You do it without any reservation. You just go through it. Right. But you always talk about, I don't want to fucking do this shit, but you always do it. That's it. Right. But you always talk about, I don't want to fucking do this shit, but you always do it. That's it.

But that's what people need to hear because they feel like that somewhere out there, there's some superhuman person who never feels despair and doesn't have any, there's no hesitation. So they feel like there's this person that's so different than them and so much stronger than them and doesn't ever Have any procrastination and you're like, that's not me No, I love that phrase. You told me once he goes sometimes I look at my fucking shoes for a half an hour I put those bitches on It's a true statement But but what I do though man is I I came with this thing called perform without purpose and so many people, they need to have a 5K, a 10K. I need to have a course in front of me. I need to have something in front of me for

me to get my fucking ass up and do some shit. And that used to be me. And nowadays, you know, shit for past 20 some years, I don't need fucking purpose purpose and people miss out on this man the purpose we're all looking for this golden purpose is it this is it that is it making money is it my family motherfucker the purpose is you we forget that every fucking day i wake up i don't want to do some fucking shit i'm like okay man do you want to be a bitch today do you want to feel like a little bitch do you want to walk around all day knowing that you could but you didn't? So it's perform without purpose. You have to learn how to get up and do shit when you ain't got no fucking 5K, no 10K, nothing.

Nothing exists. Your life fucking sucks. You're in the fucking dungeon. But guess what, motherfucker? I'm still going to get it. Because when that time comes, because the time is going to come, when that purpose is there, you'll be ready. But most of us fucking aren't ready because we don't know how to do

without having the golden carrot in front of us. Yeah. And so you're all fucked. There's also this thing where if you do it, once it's over, you get a break. Oh. Like that's what a 10K is. That's what a marathon is i'm going to train for this marathon and you're you're training and you're training for that big

day but you're also recognizing when that marathon's over that's right that's right and as you get better at that ha moment the all moment becomes less and less so my all moments now are like oh i ran today i went to the gym today i did this and this today i studied today i have about eight hours off and those eight hours are glorious to me and every day you go back out and you start earning that and every day you wake up it sucks and when it's over you feel better it sucks you feel better and as you get going that's every step you take in that journey as you're like for me run i run every day fucking hate it but every step you take in that journey as you're like for me run I run every day fucking hate it, but every step I take I'm like, all right motherfucker

You beating the demon again you run every day, but I don't think people understand how fucked up your knees are No, you you run over you when you sent me that x-ray after your surgery And I looked at what they did to your knee and I looked at what it looks like, what the actual bone on bone looks like and how it had distorted because there's no cushioning at all. And the doctor said to you, I can't even believe you could fucking walk on these knees. Forget about run thousands of miles. So you're doing this every day in constant pain right right what is it like well I don't see explain your knees first of all so okay so people think that my knees are bad from a lot of running and they're wrong I'm I wasn't born healthy I wasn't born with

some great body alignment some great no I know, I have sickle cell. I have all kind of shit I have all kind of health issues, you know all kind of i'm fucked up So I had a choice to make and the choice was, you know growing up, you know, okay this hurts that hurts We can just sit down and do nothing Or we can see how far we can push the human body So on that journey as I started getting more and more into my mind and started realizing that what I'm capable of doing, my mind got stronger.

So the pain in my knees, while it sucked, I've been doing it for so long. It was like it became my new norm. Like, okay, my knees hurt. Fuck it. Stop. And I call it like,

stop feeling sorry for yourself, but you sometimes knees hurt. Fuck it. Stop. And I call it like I'm stop feeling sorry for yourself, but you sometimes have to ignore your feelings. I'm going to send Jamie a picture of your knee. Oh, no, do it. I think Jamie has some. Do you have a picture of his knee, Jamie? Did I ever send it to you, Jamie? I have it here.

Hold on. Let me just. But keep going. No, so it's like for me, I made a decision. And my decision was to be the best person I could. And I basically, a lot of mornings I wake up and say, fuck your feelings. And that doesn't mean like, you know, don't take it literally, fuck your feelings. But sometimes you have to go beyond what you're feeling.

And my knees were fucked, but guess what? I wanted to run. And I knees were fucked, but guess what? I wanted to run. And I knew that, okay, you can get knee replacements, this and that. Like I said, it wasn't because I ran too much. People always want to say, oh, man, you ran so much so you fucked up your body. You know, you don't want to be like David Goggins. I hear it all the time.

You don't want to be like David Goggins. So there's your knee. Yeah, there it is. First of all, look at the fact that there's zero space between those bones. Yes, sir. From the top, from your tibia to your femur, there's zero space. It's just kneecap covering two bones that are rubbing against each other. So this was after surgery where they had to cut your knee, slice your shin like in half, and then take a chunk out of it because it had deformed so much from you running with bone on bone that it was starting to like swell out in one direction. Right.

And it was changing the alignment of your leg. Right. This happened back in 2000. 2001, I was going through buds. So this happened for a long, this right here has been going on for a long time so and it got to a point where it's like okay i'm done and that's the place in there right now so as you see the wedge that part right there in the bone that's opened up yeah so. So they had to cut it, realign it, and then now the alignment's better. But this is now about 17 months ago,

17, 18 months ago when this happened. So, yeah. Couldn't they get some screws that fit? Go back to that real quick. What's that real? That one sticks right out of the fucking bone. Hey, cut that shit off. Yeah, file that shit down.

Is that thing sticking into your leg? No, I don't. Well, I feel the plate every single time shit off. Yeah, file that shit down. Is that thing sticking into your leg? No, I don't. Well, I feel the plate every single time I move. Yeah? So every time, so, because it's like connected to the hamstring. So whenever I fucking, whenever I move, that plate is very irritating. So every step, even like when I walk, when I run, it's this very irritating thing. And then you got to wait for so long for that leg to start getting back into place.

And if you see that other picture I sent of the foam, my foam leg that I put my hand in. I think Jennifer sent it to you, Jamie, with the foam leg. You'll see this in a second. This is fucked up. So like the swelling in that leg was fucking nuts. Oh, when you had edema? Yeah. You showed it to me in vegas yeah you were sticking your thumb into your i grabbed it yeah yeah so it was it was pretty nuts but um

you know once again it's just things you uh things i was willing to endure to get yes it right there so that's just all post-surgery swelling yeah So when the doctor said this to you and he said, look, this is how fucked up your knee is, did he say you need a replacement? What was he saying? Basically, I had two options. So I went to the first guy, had the surgery done. That's in the book. I talked about that. But then the second guy, so after the first surgery, I was done.

So this is the first surgery after BUDS? No. So this is like back in Looking at 2000 so me and Cameron this is recently so I didn't have any surgery going through buds Really? I didn't have any surgery at all. So I went through in 2001 I Fucked at 2000 2001 whatever was I messed up my leg real bad and how we kept on going on it Just kept on going. What did you do to it? And how weak it was i messed up my leg real bad and hell we kept on going on it just kept on going what did you do to it and how weak it was like i i fucked it up somehow like running or whatever i

can't hurt me but um it was uh i think the boat i fell it twisted but over a period of time it's got worse and worse and worse so i was getting like toward all shots every day and then this got worse but i'm like fucking i'm good so i I kept going on it. So it kind of healed all fucked up So this kept going kept going kept going years later Years later kept going on it. So I stopped squatting So it became like okay my knees fucked up. My linements messed up. My hips are messed up. I can't squat So but I can still run So, okay started running because running doesn't require you to bend down and shit

So i'm running a lot. And it got to 20 years later pretty much. And it was 2020. I don't get this right. Cameron Haynes came down. We went for a 20-mile run. My knees were fucked up for like 10 years. Long story short, it was like, okay, man, I got to get this thing looked at.

short it was like okay man i gotta get this thing looked at so when gail looked at the doc was like oh we can go in there and just do a quick little fucking you know cleanup job and the cleanup job wasn't so quick guy was breaking tools and shit fucking up like literally broke tools and i have it in there he was breaking tools i talked to him i know he told me your meniscus was the hardest meniscus he's ever experienced in his life he's like dude he goes i didn't me your meniscus was the hardest meniscus he's ever experienced in his life. He's like, dude, he goes, I didn't know that meniscus could get that way. He goes, like, he's not human. He goes, when I was cutting into meniscus, it broke the scalpel. Yep.

Wolf's Law syndrome, he said. Wolf's Law something. Yeah. He said, normally, when you cut into meniscus, it just slices right through like butter. He's like, I couldn't cut it. Yeah, mine went butter. Mine went butter. So all those motherfuckers who think I'm going to put in them 100-mile weeks,

go fuck yourself, bitch. You don't get no shit like that, baby, by sitting on the fucking couch. No, I mean, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Like, you've hardened your meniscus just through constant pressure and pounding. Yeah. So he went in there to clean it up, and then what happened? So basically, that little meniscus, that whatever the fuck was in there,

so my alignment was so bad, the only thing that was keeping me able to do anything was that little fucked up, messed up meniscus. It was all jarred up and jacked up, but the second that thing got out dude it was like i was have you seen star wars those those storm things those those those big fucking um things that what they called um they have wobbly legs and they hit like logs robot things yeah the robot things that's how my leg was it was it had nothing it was just like a little dangling fucking like so from my knee down

the shin the tip fib it just dangled like there was nothing and i was like okay man this so it was worse after the cleanup much worse like i was done i went from running 200 miles so i did 240 mile race in 2020 october 2020 it was moab went out there got second place 62 hours knee was fucked up getting it drained before the fucking race but i still ran 240 miles literally five or six days before the race i'm getting it drained and it was a baseball size fucking um it's called a baker's assist so they drained it and I went in there did the race finished it I was like, okay, here we go We're not gonna do some more races

I did like another 200 miler did a couple more races and then I could say cam came down But after that I went got this surgery done and I went from running every day to now I have some fucking late to this dangles and After that surgery this fucking dangling. I was like, okay, man, I'm fucked. And just from that little piece of meniscus. Just that little piece of meniscus. And I'm sitting there thinking,

okay, man, this is not, this doesn't make any sense to me. There's something fucked. I don't understand why I can't put any pressure on my leg. The amount of blood they were taking out

was unbelievable. So there's the blood right there. Jesus Christ. That's the blood, dude. Oh my God, there's one, two, jesus christ that's the blood dude oh my god there's one two three four and you see the black blood yeah that is deoxygenated blood so whatever was going on whatever the fuck was going on that's why it looks different color so the red blood is the blood that has oxygen that's right and that was just like coagulated yes

fucked up blood yep jesus yeah so that so after surgery i'm like i'm like seven seven days out or whatever the it was like and once again i don't know the exact times but i have them in the book i have everything dialed in um i went back and i was like man i'm i'm up i mean it's a simple meniscus surgery man like people go back a week later they're playing two weeks three weeks tops. I'm like, man, I'm never going to fucking run again. I'm going to walk with a fucking limp. So I'm going back.

I'm getting fucking like literally get my knee drained every week, getting PRP. I'm like, man, in the back of my mind, I know how far I can push myself. I know my body so fucking well, so well. And I'm like, this is wrong. I go, I'm never going to run again. I'm never going to run again. I walk with a limp. So this went on for about six months.

So I had the surgery done in February. It was February, March, April, May, June, about four months, four months after the surgery, four or months i'm like hey jennifer um i gotta find another you know somebody else look at my fucking knee so i try to keep my shit together but imagine when you go from every day of your fucking life grinding and you go to nothing like literally like 90 minute surgery done that's crazy that it was just a little meniscus scope. 90-minute surgery, done. And I was like, okay, man, this is, anyway. So I found this guy named Dr. Gamal out of New York.

And we fly there, but I'm like, he can't fix this, man. Because I knew it was a lot more than knees. It was all kind of this fucked-up body shit. And I walk in the office, and he decides decides to see me and me and Jennifer in there. Jennifer's happy. She's happy as shit. It's like, oh, my God, man. This guy's going to be able to get you a fucking meniscus replacement.

He was all kind of guru'd out. But I'm a realist, bro. I will push myself and I will go as far as I can. But I also am a realist. I also knew in the back of my mind, I'm not going to try to ruin your fucking party, Jennifer. That's what I'm saying to myself. But this shit's done.

It's over. So I went just to pretty much appease her and just see if there was anything left. So I walk in the office and the doc's like, yeah, I'm looking at your x-rays. And that's the doctor who's like, I don't know how. This is one of the, Dr. Gamal, look himrays. And that's the doctor who was like, I don't know how. This is when Dr. Gamal looked him up. World-renowned motherfucker, dude.

And when this guy looked at me, straight-faced, he said, man, I don't know how you did anything with those knees. Anything, let alone run 200 miles back-to-back, 240 miles. What the fuck you did? I don't know how you did it. And so i'm like okay whatever can we get it fixed and he didn't want to get there because he knew i was fucked he's like no you know we we can maybe you know try an an unloader brace maybe an unloader brace

will help you out what's an unloader brace so basically my knee went in on the meniscus side on the inside so it was like jamming on the inside. So this brace kind of like, it kind of helps realign the knee a little bit. So then you cannot have so much pressure on the inside of your leg. So that's it right there. So one side. Yeah. So basically, I'm like, man, I'm like, okay, I'm not.

So this is all you have for me. I'm like, you can't do shit for me. And he was like, no. And he was like, um, no. And he was walking out of the office and he could tell. I was like, I wasn't too fucked up, but I was like, cause I kind of was preparing myself for the next part of my journey.

I don't like to lay in my shit too long. And I give myself a couple of minutes. Okay, motherfucker, we got a man to fuck up. We got to get back in this fucking, like what's next? You know,

let's go, let's go see, you know, let's, let's go back to college. Let to college let's let's do something because you're you're running and your athletic career is done so he got to the door he opened it and as he was literally he was shouldered out the motherfucking door and i'm looking at jennifer i'm like well you know we'll go back to fucking you know go back to nevada and fucking start again and he was like try the unloader brace out and there's one more thing we could possibly do for you and i'm like motherfucker like get your little monkey fucking ass back in here bro like what is it like like

what the fuck's going on so he was like yeah, yeah, there's this surgery called HTO. And he was like, you can go in. We can fucking, you know, pretty much break your tibia. It's called high tibia osteotomy. They go in and they break your tibia. They like slice into it. And they wedge it to the point where they realign your leg back up. It's a very painful surgery.

It's very painful afterwards. Painful as fuck afterwards. And they put that plate, the plate you saw, back on, and then your leg is – so your knee is still where it was because this doesn't get fixed. So it takes several months for that knee to start working its way back into where the alignment is. So now my leg is just now. So here it is. You can see it on the image. Yeah.

So they take a slice out of it because it's deformed. Yep. And that slice lowers the part that's deformed and tries to make it a more natural shape. But you're still dealing with bone on bone. So you're still dealing with the pain of arthritis essentially because do you have any cartilage in your knees not much not much at all if any so the thing about it it takes that pressure off of that so it was complete bone on bone right what that surgery does

is it takes it over to the lateral side so on outside, so I have a nice meniscus over there That thing wasn't touched for years because how I was born all the pressure was on the My um, medium meniscus. So your knee had been misaligned your whole life. That's what yeah, that's my whole life has been fucked up So my meniscus on my lateral side is pristine Hmm. So now the way he did it is that all of my pressure is going on to that pristine meniscus. Okay. So now it's all about getting that leg back aligned, which is taking forever. And it's still not aligned?

It's getting there. It's getting there. Yeah, it's getting there. Because mine was so fucked up. Can they do a meniscus replacement on you? No. So that's what I wanted to get done. But if your knee is so far gone, like mine was, there was no option for that.

Why is that? Because my knee was so far gone. So it was like when you put that meniscus in there, however it works, he said it wouldn't have taken it. Like basically, yeah, it would have taken it, but it would have fucking destroyed it because your leg is so your knee is so fucked up. So this was the only option for me. Don't they make like an artificial meniscus now as well? Yep. And that's what this guy really specializes in. So he's like the guy to go to for that stuff. What does an artificial meniscus consist of? I guess it's just, I have no idea.

I'm not even gonna get into that shit. See if we can find out what that is because I got some fucked up knees too. Not like yours though. If I ever think about complaining, I look at yours. Yes, sir. Sir, world's first artificial meniscus available in Israel. And there you go, Andreas Gamal. Yeah, there he is. And so this, it looks like some sort of a clear gel looking stuff. And which is, you know, the meniscus is just a cushioning in between the two bones and the cartilage.

And this is, oh, look at that. Yep. Hmm. But they can't do that to you? No, you have to be a good candidate for that. So your knee has to be in a certain condition. And mine was not in that condition. It was fucking.

If you were a candidate for that, would they be able to do it and you'd be able to run? Or is that just like to move around and walk from what i read about you can you can run you can do everything you want to do but sometimes if you do a lot it wears it out so you can get a new one get a new one yeah that's not that bad not that bad man for you it doesn't work no because basically it wouldn't even work for me because my knee was gone but the way he reshaped it wouldn't that correct i mean he kind of like changed your alignment of your knee and made it more normal right i think it had he made it more normal but from what i understand um if you put that in there structurally like structure wise what makes it more normal is the

surgery he did so right now there's no bone on bone for me. So there's no need for that meniscus at all. So a lot of people get their meniscus taken out if you have the right alignment and your body can do what it's supposed to do. Really? Yeah. But if you get your meniscus taken out, you're just cartilage on cartilage? If you know Dwayne Wade, Dwayne, basketball player? Yeah.

I believe Dwayne Wade played years, years, if I'm correct, with no meniscus. Yeah. I think in both his knees. Yeah. Years. He ended up having really bad knee problems, but his meniscus was messed up. Back in the day, they used to take it out. So if you look here.

Here it is. That's when I was in college. Wow. Surgery to remove the meniscus in his left knee 11 years ago while he was at marquette led to ongoing knee problems he's had with miami heat i'm so glad that you have this fucking thing to pull up jamie because i would be talking out my ass half the damn time that's what i do man you fucking fucking square me away bro knees are a problem man yeah and the fact that you require your knees to do what you do, like your whole thing is endurance athlete.

Right. And to be an endurance athlete, you got to be able to move your legs. Got to be able to move them. But what I like about, and this was like literally a trained skill for me, was I'm always preparing for like not being a bitch. Like a lot of people get to a point, like for instance, like if Jennifer can't do something, like if she can't go for a run or whatever, just like because something's wrong, like some simple shit, it's going to bother her. I got to a point in my life where I realized this is life. And so I move on past things real quick. So people are like, oh, my God, what are you going to do, David, if you can't run?

Motherfucker, I'll swim. Or I'll go to college. Or I'll do something else. Like, this isn't my life. So I'm very aware how quick life can take shit from you. And I've always prepared my mind for the next chapter. And what happened with me was I started this thing called front-loading. So when I was young, I used to be a little piece of shit.

You know, like fucking, oh, I'm not good enough. I can't do this. I can't do that. The second I got my head out of my ass, and I realized, man, you can achieve a lot of shit if you get off your ass and you start moving and you start motivating yourself. Start becoming a self motivator. So I started front loading and front loading these people. You've done so much by 47 because I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring me.

So my my military resume is fat. You know, I fucking did a lot in the military. I did a lot outside the military. I've I've I've made money. I've I've I've done almost every race out there. Hard race in the military. I did a lot outside the military. I've made money. I've done almost every race out there, hard race in the world. I've broken pull-up records. I've done a lot of shit. So when these bad times come, and also,

not only that, like work your ass off so you can enjoy. Yeah, you're taking a shot. You know, you may not live to be old, but what if you do? And you worked your ass off

when you were able and you were able to fucking get up early able to grind if you front load it properly the back half of your fucking life is money and that's what i did the second i realized that man you are a piece of shit we got to get going because at 47 man you're not gonna be able to do any of this shit 50 whatever you are so i front loaded so all these bad things that have happened to me, I sit back and go, man, how are you handling this so well? Motherfucker, I've done it. I front-loaded.

I have the money I need. I have the success I need. I have the fucking determination, the willpower, and also the pride in myself. So when I wake up every morning, I know who the fuck I am. I front-loaded perfectly. So I don't care what's taken from me. But it's got to still, it's got to be a strange position to be in where your body is your medium.

The body is the vehicle for you to express yourself. Right. And your body's breaking down. And I know that they consider doing knee replacements on you too. Yep. And what was that conversation like? It was very basic, man. It's like, hey, you're not going to be able to do some of the shit

that you've done, even though obviously people are. But that was the conversation. And I know it sounds weird. It was totally fine with me. It was fine because I had, dude, people don't understand. This wasn't like a part-time job. Man, when you've done without like kobe bryant when kobe fucking retired that last game he like 60 points or some shit he walked off the court

he didn't fucking cry he said oh my god i'm gonna miss the sport what the fuck he walked off he gave he gave everything he could man when you fucking give what i've given and motherfuckers like to say oh you fuck you you don't fucking know shit which makes me who i what I've given and motherfuckers like to say, oh, fuck you. You don't fucking know shit. Which makes me who I am. I've given everything. People make, oh, you ran on fucked up knees. You taped your feet up. You did blah, blah. You had two heart surgeries. You kept on going. Yep. Sure did. I had somewhere to fucking go. I had somewhere to fucking go and I got there. And buddy, when motherfuckers tell you you can take a

break now hey you're fucked up as long as my knees are halfway working i got to run you're telling me maybe a chance i can't run no more hmm give me an excuse to fucking not do shit but as long as i have no excuse i gotta do it but i was i was happy where i was i gave everything i gave everything to who i am and that's why i'm people all i don't believe that don't was. I gave everything. I gave everything to who I am. And that's why I'm, people are, I don't believe that. Don't believe it. I gave everything.

And when you give everything, man, you have no regret. People didn't understand me. People don't understand me now. I don't give a fuck. I know exactly what I was doing. I'm not a masochist.

I'm not crazy. I'm not this and that. People try to title me and label me. No, I had something to fucking do. Well, the way I describe it to people when people ask me, like, why does he do all these things? Like, what is the motivation here? I go, he's on a mental journey that very few people have ever been on.

Because people don't understand you or they misunderstand you or they purposely misinterpret the way you're living your life. You're trying to understand your mind in a way that very few human beings ever get to understand their mind. Because you're taking your mind into these terrible, dark places all the time. And you're trying to pull things out of that. You're trying to learn things about yourself and about your potential from that. That's exactly it. And that's what people don't understand.

I studied the darkness. You find no fucking answers in the light. None. It's too happy. It's too nice. We don't need to be taught how to live in happiness. That just comes naturally to us Happy moments, but the dark times man, you can't and you can't get there unless you put yourself there life will take you there But when you get into those dark moments, that's what people that's what people how are you able man?

I couldn't fucking read and write to I was a junior in high school. How are you able to write like this man? motherfucker I reading right till I was a junior in high school. How are you able to write like this, man? Motherfucker, I go to such places in my mind, and I study the darkness. Like, it's not just physical. When I was growing up, and I saw my mom getting beat, and I got beat, and I was some stuttering little black kid in an all-white school, and I'm on stage, and I got to say one line, one fucking line

in front of fucking 15 people, and I walk off stage kind I got to say one line, one fucking line in front of fucking 15 people and I walk off stage kind of with a fucking stutter. All those insecurities and all those fucking things, man, I used to go home and fucking cry. I'm like, my God, man, I'm fucked up. I'm just all fucked up. Hang on, man. As I got older, we got to study this shit, man.

The only way we're going to fucking get through this is if we study it. So every time I'm in a dark moment and life's fucked up around me, whether it be physical or just life, I get in it, man, with a fucking pen and paper. I'm like, okay, this fucking sucks. I can feel like I'm fucking losing my shit, but let's fucking study this. Let's come out of this motherfucker a genius.

You know, I studied the black matter of the mind, the dark matter, you know, like fucking Stephen Hawking. If that's fucking his name, I said it right. That motherfucker studied the space and shit. That's where I consider myself, man. You know, I was on a journey, just like you said. I mean, you couldn't have said it any better. And so many people get it wrong. I don't give a fuck, man.

You can't. For me, I cannot help people. There's a lot of cookie cutter shit out here in this world. Oh, discipline, wake up early, take a cold shower, fuck this, fuck that, whatever. It's all fucking bullshit. It's not. But what they don't teach you within the cookie cutter

is like our minds are like a fucking garage. And the garage, if you open a garage and it's all cluttered up, it's all fucked up, you can't put your car in there. You got fucking boats and you got fucking kids' toys and shit everywhere. But if you organize that fucking garage and you put everything in its rightful spot,

you can put that car in there. You can put two cars in there. You can put bikes in there. And that's like with the mind. People talk about discipline and fucking determination and fucking you know repetitions and all this shit consistency why people fall off the wagon so often is because their mind is full of shit there's no room in that mind for discipline there's no room for consistency they may do it once or twice but then the mind takes over and that cluttered fucking garage comes in and then it's like a circuit breaker man a circuit

breaker just overloads and it fucking sparks and our minds that's that's our mind man it's like a fucking circuit breaker that has so much shit in it you keep unloading it you can't put any more into it so i've i talk about it in man, so much about clearing space in your fucking mind. So then you have room for all those discipline, waking up early, taking those because they do mean something. But we don't get to that fucking dark matter that is keeping you from clearing out that mental garage. you from clearing out that mental garage. That's a good way to put it. Because that is the mind of most people is filled with stuff that they have to move around to get to what they want.

And it's constantly piling up and shit unorganized and organized mind, man. You're looking at fucking I got to take care of the kids. The kids schedules all fucked up. My husband, my wife, you know, I fucking fucking, I'm going by McDonald's to get this, and I'm rushing my schedule. Everything's just fucked. I wish I was doing this, but I'm doing that. That's it.

And that and this, and I want a raise, but I can't get one. That's it. My boss is an asshole. Where's greatness in that, man? Yeah. You can't fit discipline into that. You can't fit structure. You can't fit consistency.

You can't fit the grind. of that you can't fit structure you can't fit consistency you can't fit the grind and then when you try it just gets fucking it gets fucking overrun by the fucking clutter in your fucked up mental garage when you are in these dark places and you're gathering up these lessons how difficult is it to try to bring that back and convey it to people when you're not in that space? Like when you're in that space, when you're in the Moab 240 and you're going uphill and you're in the middle of the – it's just deep suck. Right. How do you convey where that mental fortitude comes from? How do you bring that back?

It's almost like you've got something you can't even hold in your hand right and you want to show it to people i take snapshots so every time i'm in a bad situation like you know i i study it and that's the only reason i do half the shit i do is i'm studying this shit because i know that i never thought i was gonna be writing books and trying to help people get better but I'm I was always trying to do it because I knew I sucked and so when you know you're trying to get somewhere you know you suck you know that you you believe that you're a born loser you are taking snapshots man like you know you you see something on your phone like oh man I'm gonna take a fucking snapshot

of that or however you do the little picture shit so you can save it on your phone. I do that my mind so I get in these moments. I'm like fucking okay Wow, that's some fucking good knowledge right there, man. I Snapshot it cuz I know that I can use that later I can I can I can use this cuz I'm not out there just I'm not most people they go out and they run And they go out and do and they're like, oh, this is beautiful Look at the fucking mountains and the shit and all this bullshit no i don't like it my body hurts i'm hurting how do we get through this and it's a fucking it's a it's it's a lab it's my mental lab and i and so when i come home i'm not forgetting it and the second like every day i get done running

or every day i get through work and every day I get through studying, whatever it is that brings me to that place of knowledge, I come home and that book was mostly written on a scratch piece of paper in hand. So I come home from running and I write everything out. I write everything out, all those things. And as I'm running, I'm talking about it. So all these things that pop in my head as I continue to run, I'm going through it. I'm starting to layer it down. I'm starting to break it down into, okay, that happened. Okay, now let's layer this. Because that's just not how it happened.

It just didn't happen that way. What led up to this? And so it becomes me by myself in school. I'm literally going to school right now and I'm learning. So when I come home, I write it out. And then I'm able to write out and I'm able to think about it and say, okay, oh, this is good shit. This will help me later on. And then it becomes what it is now.

And when you try to convey it to people, when you're writing it out and when you're talking about it, what are you thinking? Are you thinking that this is going to get into someone's mind and this is going to help them motivate themselves? Are you just trying to express yourself and let them do with it what they can? I'm them. You're them. I'm them.

I, and the fucked up thing about me, why I'm able to do it the way I'm able to do it. I'm not above them. I was never above them. A lot of people write where they are they write where they are oh yeah like fucking you right now writing you have a good life man you have a fucking good life i don't write from that place i write from the place that i am the the the that created who I am. I go back to that place. I call it going back to scratch. I can't write about David Goggins. Now, David Goggins now is a success.

People want to get to be, to feel whatever success is for them. They want to feel that. So I can't write it here at David Goggins Successful. I must write at David Goggins fucking man. I'm a fucking, I don't feel good about myself. And every day I go through that journey. So that's where it comes from.

It comes from scratch. All that shit, all my knowledge comes from going back to where the real growth, growth doesn't happen. When you make it so far in life, you make it so high up, whatever it is,

whatever you're trying to be, there's no more growth. There's small growth. But you remember back when you fucking tried to become Joe Rogan you are now. How much growth was in that? Tons of growth. Learning, lessons learned. So I always revisit.

That's why I'm a fucking wildland firefighter now. Why I'm a fucking smoke jumper. I don't need to do that shit at all. But i don't learn anything from where i'm at now there's no knowledge up here the knowledge is down there in the fucking muck so that's where i write that's where i go back that's where i learn i always go back to school i always go back to the basics i always go back to first grade and how much of that is tied to doing things physically, though? There's a certain kind of physical struggle that you go through, particularly with what you excel at, which is endurance athlete work. There's a mental and physical thing that happens when the two of them are together. It doesn't happen in anything else.

Like you can do hard work, hard hard mental work and it's very difficult and i'm sure you can learn a lot from that right but it doesn't have the physical pain that comes with the suck of endurance work yes there's nothing nothing in the world that you're able i'm'm able to get, let's say that Moab 240 I was in, 62 hours. Fucking sucked. It's just. With blown out knees. Blown out knees. Literally, a few days before the race, I'm getting drained.

Before the race. So that's in your fucking mind, man. Like, it ain't like, oh, I show up to start line. Oh, this is fucking great. I'm going to fucking have a good time out here. No, I'm thinking, all right, let's have my fucking mind man. Like it ain't like oh I show up to start like oh, this is fucking great I'm gonna fucking have a good time out here. No, i'm thinking all right. I just have my fucking knees drained Like i'm i'm in pain at mile zero And that's in your brain. I have 240 miles of fucking head in me And there's nothing in life nothing in life. This is why I love endurance sports so much

I love it and I hate it. It's a love-hate relationship. 62 hours, I equate that to fucking seven years of life. You can't get that, man. So what I know that ultra does for me is it packs in. It packs in. I can't live several lifetimes. I can't. Because theetimes. I can't. Because the knowledge I need to gain for this life I live in today,

I need two or three or four lifetimes to be where I want to go. Ultra gives it to me in fucking high definition real fast. 62 hours you go out there and fucking suffer. You come back. Oh, that was 62 hours. I gained seven fucking years of knowledge the ups and downs the pain the suffering the the you've You learn how to chunk This shit down. Oh my god, man. I'm at mile 100. How the fuck am I gonna get to mile 118? everything becomes you you start to learn life out there and you learn so much in such a condensed period of time

And nothing in the world can do it like pushing yourself to the absolute limit I I call it like so People have talent People have a lot of talent And this is going beyond your talent So when talent when there's no more talent, what happens to you? Most people quit. People only go to their talent level.

And once their talent level is gone, it becomes a mental game. The whole mental game sets in then. And most people can only perform to their talent. And they realize, man, why am I always messing up right here? And most people can only perform to their talent. And they realize, man, why am I always messing up right here? Why is this like my big hurdle? It's because you're performing to your talent.

And then after that, your mind has nothing for you. Nothing for you. I see fighters. I see runners. I see people who they're great, but they get to the edge of their talent. It's like, fuck, man. What's up? Because you're now at the point now

where your talent ain't gonna do shit for you, my friend. Now it's the mental game. And that's where people get lost in life, get lost in that next level. And that next level is found for me in the things that I do. That's misunderstood. That's a giant problem with fighters. Yep.

There's many fighters that are at an elite level in the gym. But when they get tired and when they get pushed and when they get into that, when the world starts narrowing and the walls start closing in and they can't see peripherally anymore and they're exhausted and they start making mistakes. So all of their understanding of what to do next gets clouded because they're thinking about quitting. They're thinking about being exhausted. When am I going to get a break? How much do I have left in the tank? Can I even push forward here? Or will i gas out and risk getting stopped and that is exactly what you said goes on into the human mind yeah when talent when you have a talent problem yeah it's

exactly what goes on your mind so how are you going to fucking defeat that bro you're sitting there getting beat the fuck down by a motherfucker just on you fucking just throwing you down take down take down take down hitting the face hitting the face and all that's going through your mind is what you just fucking said there's no positivity in that but when you train the mind the way i train mine fucking ready man fucking ready because first of all i didn't have much talent So I had to train one fucking thing. You better train your fucking mind because my talents can run out way early. When shit got hard for me back in the day, bro, I'm done. I'm out.

See you. Okay. I got to invent a motherfucker that can. So I invented Goggins. I invented a motherfucker that realized we're not good enough. But Goggins realizes we're mentally strong as fuck. And we're going to out-strength these motherfuckers in the mind. There's a big understanding in fighting that sometimes talent is a curse.

Because some people are very talented and they just don't work as hard. You know, Khabib Nurmagomedov talks about that. Right. And he's one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters of all time. For sure. One of the rare guys to retire undefeated. But he's like, talented guys don't work hard enough. No.

He's like, talented guys, the problem with talented guys is they can get by early. They're, like, faster than people. Maybe they just have a better understanding or better coordination. Some people just, you know, we're not even. Like, people are not even in their abilities when it comes to sports. Some people are just very gifted. Yes. But gifted fighters in particular, they just, there's something about it where a lot of them never realize their full potential no

because they don't develop that mental game that you're talking about they don't have to no because they could piece people up on the outside they win fights easy they stop a bunch of people in the first round they look like a hero but then when someone comes along that can survive that first round and then start dragging them into hell that's right oh you see and that's what you said you drag a motherfucker in the hell who's a fucking who's a demon yeah you're in long for a long race and they're hard people with a talent problem who are so talented they're hard to train they're hard to push if if you're their coach and you're trying to get them to see that we got to get you past this talent problem,

we got to get you to the point where you're into that mental zone. Because we got to get you way past your talent. And it's hard for coaches to take these fighters or whoever past their talent. And on the other side of that is where they gain true, true levels. The levels beyond talent, that's where they gain true true levels the the levels beyond talent that's that's where it really is because if you're able to take a motherfucker down to deep end well my first just putting his toe in feeling the water and shit if my first in the deep end he able to take you down there and he's mentally strong it's over it's over man they could because they because they live in

the deep end they live in it man they thrive in it it's almost like you have to have the ability to go to the deep end no matter whether or not you'll ever go there right yes and some people are like well i'm never going to go to the deep end but you should be able to yes 100 you have to be trained to do it you have to be trained for it from that time comes you're like okay i'm deep in qualified yeah i am deep in fucking qualified i got my fucking deep in certification but you know what's interesting about this book is you talk about how there was moments even though you're clearly deep in qualified clearly deep in certified sir you took some time and you hadn't been a deep end for a while and you're kind of a part-time savage now that's right this is kind of bullshit and you're recognizing it in yourself

even though you know your ability you know your history you know what you've been capable of doing in the past you're like but i haven't been there nope i've been there in a while and you had to go back what's funny about that part-time savage thing in there man where i totally dogged myself it's the truth um all this became nice waking up mother baking an egg mother protein shake early morning and i stopped having those hard conversations with myself boy my whole life that's why my first hate my ass boy because i'm hard on me if I'm hard on me. If I'm hard on me, I don't give a fuck about you. I don't give a fuck about what you think. I don't give a fuck what you think about me and nothing else. Hard on myself, bro.

Every morning I woke up, all right, motherfucker. I call it my morning meeting. My morning meeting. We all have these fucking meetings all fucking day long. We go to work. We're working for somebody else. They want a meeting because they want to be successful. So we all sit our ass down, try to make them better, try to make them more money, try to make them more powerful.

We don't do that for ourselves. Every morning I wake up, I used to. I had to get back into it again because in that chapter, you see, I became a little bitch. That morning meeting, I wake up, okay, Goggins, what did you do fucked up yesterday? Where were you at? And I just go through to analyze my life and then I went through a period of time there man where I stopped having those conversations you know how you let's say you and your wife go out let's say I don't I don't know let's make up

a story here you and your wife go out and you see your cousin and your cousin's fat as fuck I don't know I don't know they are not hopefully not if they are apologize maybe So they go out and you see your cousin. She's fat as fuck. He's fat as fuck whoever and You guys get back in the car and you guys man you see motherfucking Mary Jo How fat she was? That's what we do. We go back in the hard conversation that you should be having a marriage Oh, hey Mary Jo you fucking gain some weight, huh sister fucking kind of big That's what I do to myself

A lot of people that we see all day long We see them. We don't have the hard conversation when we we walk around. I rather you fucking hate me And get better Then like me and stay the same And that's how I feel about david goggins Motherfucker, I rather me hate. Oh, I hate you, David, man. I hate you, David. But I get better from it. I get better from it.

And that's why when people see me and I know you, you're in my little foxhole. If you're in my foxhole and you become a piece of shit, hey, come here, brother. Let me talk to you real quick, brother. People don't like that shit, man. But I'm not going to allow you to go to a place that's gonna be hard to get out of it's gonna be hard if i allow you to gain five more pounds or allow you to take four more days off of school or allow you to keep on procrastinating in your fucking life and i see it and i tell jennifer behind your back i'm doing you no fucking justice zero justice so where this world is now you can't say a motherfucking thing i do i still do and i always will don't like me don't like me i'm good with that that's exactly

what's going on with like fat models that's it i'm proud like you're beautiful no matter what but that's not true and the thing about it is i have no problem if you want to be fat i have no problem with anybody if you want to be whatever the fuck you want to be but make sure you fucking if you're fat motherfucker go go be fat go be real fucking fat but let's be real nobody wants to be nobody does that's why i said it man nobody does it's not true they will pretend i'm fine with it but if i could give you a button that you could push and point be skinny all of a sudden You'd have this incredible body. Yep take everybody would push that button. But what happens is never get in this world Where it gets hard. Yeah, and so the harder it is the more you start to push back

And the more you push back and then it's not right for people to talk about it's not right for like let's say you are fat i was fat that's why i talk about it go ahead and say something motherfucker i was fat too and it was hard as fuck every fucking day to get up i know what it feels like when you roll your fat ass out of bed and all you want is some fucking damn cinnamon buns and shit and fucking chuck and chucking milkshake. I know what it is. I know exactly what it is. But I can't want it more than you. And so many people just want it the easy way.

I'm sorry, man. It's not. So what they start to do is they build this narrative of it's okay. When the narrative should be you need to fucking work harder. You need to fucking discipline your mind better. We need to help people more than just saying it's okay. It's okay that you're not fucking willing

to fucking help yourself out. That's not okay. It's not okay. It's not acceptable. Even though it's your life, if that's acceptable, that's unacceptable. And there's a lot of people in this

world me included that if i accepted that i wouldn't be anywhere so yeah a lot of people just fucking they they start creating a narrative about themselves that make it okay the ultimate get out of jail free card and now the world is set up to have so many get out of jail free cards everything is okay and you can't say a motherfucking thing about it. This is what, it's interesting though, is that when you're talking about how you had to come to this realization

that you'd become a part-time savage, this was recently. Yeah, that's, you're looking at 2000, no, that's not, 2018? Yeah. not, 2018? Yeah. Yeah, 2018.

Not that long ago. No, fuck no. Yeah, so even though you've been through all those things and you have all this information in your head, it's like there's no rest. No. You never get a chance. And if you do take a little time and start enjoying it, all of a sudden that general in the back of your head is like,

hey, hey, look what you're doing exactly you're being a little bitch and so in your mind you had gotten soft oh 100 and my softness was still two days so if you look in there two days was you being soft my part-time savage was me running like 50 miles a week me fucking not not, you know, because what I used to do and what I do now is I got to a point I'd be running. I was like, okay, man, we could do 10 miles today. I get to 10 miles, but I'm like, oh, no, motherfucker. That fucking demon that I let out every fucking morning that walks the streets at night, he comes saying, oh, bitch, not today, man. There's somebody out there that you don't know, have never fucking met in your entire life,

that is doing 12, 13, 14. You're going to do another one. And when you meet them, you ain't going to be fucking ready. So Goggins kept on running. So you talk about that, and you talk about how Cam came to visit you in Vegas and gave you a spot check. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I'm always ready for a motherfucker like Cam. I'm always ready for a motherfucker like Cam. So out of nowhere dude, this guy calls me literally and this is one thing about life. This is why you always must be ready. Always be ready. Never get ready. People go, oh hey what are you training for David? I ain't training for shit. When something pops up I'll be fucking ready. So when Cam popped the fuck up, and Cam calls, hey, man, I'm going to be in Las Vegas.

You going to go for a run? Sure do. Sure do, brother. Sure do. While the run sucked, I was ready. Well, you guys were doing like six-minute miles for like 26 miles. It was 20 miles, and Jennifer was with us.

And so Jennifer can run her fucking ass off. She's fast as shit. So we went out, but she's not a six minute mile runner. So we went out for the first 10 and Jennifer was with us. She was with us for the first seven. She turned around, I think she did like 15 miles. So me and Cam went out after we left Jennifer. She went back for another three to go out and get ten and come back ten

But my whole idea was I know the course bitch I'm about to drop your fucking ass motherfucker So we go out cuz cuz because going out is a little bit as Old course think it was a little bit uphill a little bit downhill a little bit uphill no a little bit downhill a little bit downhill so a little bit downhill so we turn around

10 mile mark come back and I could tell Cam was hurting boy but Cam was a prideful motherfucker dude prideful motherfucker loved that dude

so we get to about mile 16, 17 and I could tell now he kind of comes off my shoulder slightly and I'm like oh chink in the armor I feel it you know you always kind of comes off my shoulder slightly and i'm like oh chink in the armor i feel it you know you always come looking at you know i you know out of your peripheral vision

but i'm like this is a prideful motherfucker man and we keep on going man holding sixes we get to about mile 18 i look cam's right back on the shoulder and i just smiled i said you are exactly who the fuck I thought you were Motherfucker And so we went out tested each other man Good day went to the gym worked out hard Went and got some steak Saying oh we fucking worked it out dude

Whenever me and him are together You can guarantee it's gonna be two people That love each other But are waiting for the other motherfucker to break A hundred percent dude it's like this thing in the back of your head okay maybe this will break them maybe this will break them so we haven't broken each other yet but i'm sure the day will come so so you run 20 miles and then you lift weights but see lifting weights people like people don't get it man it's

not like lifting weights it's like you know we go and do like so many reps. Like people go, oh, you're only doing, it was like 90 some pounds on the incline. Motherfucker, do five sets of 25 with a super set of pushups, super set of curls, super set of pull-ups, super set of triceps, super set of, what the fuck else was it? I forget what it was.

It's a super set, man. So we're going through lifting lightweight, but for massive massive amounts of reps And so you're like totally swollen and like it's just the some of the best workouts in the world between me and him Some of the best words in the world man, and then you had steak and then we had steak That's right. And then I treat cancer steak And then you had steak. And then we had steak. That's right. And then I treat cancer steak. Right.

And that's a mental aid station. Mental. Oh, yes. Mental aid stations, baby. I think one of the most important parts about the way you express yourself in your books is that you do talk about your weaknesses. And you do talk about your past and how you started off on this journey. And you talk about how there are those moments that you doubt. Oh, yeah. But you still go oh yeah sometimes like you know I call it you got called audible you know the line of scrimmage man like some of the

great quarterbacks they'll be at the line of scrimmage and they'll look at the defense the defense is oh fuck defense is shifting did he call an audible in my mind a lot of times, man, I'm like, it doesn't mean I quit. I don't quit. You know, I may not make it the first time, but I'll come back. I got to call an audible.

I got to fucking get my head back in the game. I got to figure this shit out. It doesn't mean you leave. It means you study it more. It means you study it more. And whenever I feel that something, people always say, man, how do you handle failure, man? I fail a lot, dude. I fail all the fucking time.

They go, how do you handle it? What I'm trying to do, and this isn't being arrogant, man. It's being real. Not many people are trying to do. So there's not many people who can even open their fucking mouth and criticize me when i do fail because i'm on i'm trying to do shit man that many people aren't trying to do but i don't look at failure as failure i look at failure as your first second third fourth fifth attempt i look at them as attempts i don't look at anything as failure because when you're willing

to try to do something not trying is failure That's that's and that's not some after-school special shit But when you're able to go out there, there's no failure It's attempts because when you're trying to do something that's bigger than you whatever you are Whoever you are if if if you're paralyzed you're trying to walk one step and you didn't you didn't fail motherfucker That was your first attempt If that's your biggest thing That's how your mindset needs to go into everything

So I don't look at it as failure is a big word like that gets people down and shit We give so much power to words I don't I take the power right away. I didn't feel shit Do you ever have conversations with cam about mindset? We no we we really don't go there too much at all about mindset. Like whenever we get together, it's really about breaking the motherfuckers down. But wouldn't you be interested, though, in how he approaches?

Because I don't know if everybody shares your approach. I know there's not very many people like you. Cam is one of them. So how many of them are like you? And how many of them have that sort of similar approach and how many of them are willing to discuss their own demons? Because a lot of people that are like super endurance athletes are very hard people They don't ever want to even discuss the weakness. They don't want to shine any light on it. No people hate that Yeah, people hate it man, and I hate it, man. And I love it.

And the reason why people hate it, to me, this is just my own theory, is because you haven't beat it. That's why. People go, man, why are you so open and vulnerable? I'll tell you everything I lied about, everything I fucked up with. I'll tell you everything. I am an open fucking book. I don't give a fuck. The only reason why I don't give a fuck anymore is because I overcame it and I beat it. So I'm going to talk about it. But most people aren't willing to go to that darkness and that vulnerability is because they're still dealing with it.

bro, because they're proud. They're fucking proud. That's why I speak. Man, man, why are you always yelling? I go, fuck you. That's how I talk, bitch, because I'm proud, motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? I'm a proud motherfucker, man.

Yeah. And it's not proud like, look at me. It's like, motherfucker, I know where I fucking came from, bitch. I shouldn't be here right now talking to you. I shouldn't be talking to you, motherfucker. I shouldn't be here. I'm just a fat, sloppy motherfucker. I'm proud. So I'm able to tell you, I fucked up many people can't because you know that's a common thing that people say when i interview them after fights like i'm not supposed to be here

this is not supposed to happen to me right there's a common thing when i've had conversations with people and they you know they've won a big fight they've had this big people and they, you know, they've won a big fight and they've had this big event. Right. They say I wasn't supposed to be here. Right. Statistically. Like Chris Gutierrez just said that last UFC fight when I interviewed him. It's like, I'm not supposed to be here.

Right. Probably because they come from a bad place. Exactly. You know, they, and when you're in a bad, especially when you're young, you know, redevelop self-esteem, you know, by the age of seven. If you're,

if you're not good by the age of seven or eight years old, you have a good chance of being fucked the rest of your life. Yeah. So if your parents

or you came up wrong and then seven or eight, if you don't have the self-esteem but you fucking grind, you're like, I want to be better. When you get to that UFC championship or you get to where I got or where I am,

it's almost like you can't believe the journey. Like I talked about in that fucking VFW and I'm in the first chapter of that book, man, I'm sitting in that audience, all those fucking people. And I'm about to get the, you know, American and I was grinding so hard and never took time to reflect on my life and this was like time to reflect and I was all kind of fucked up and I got on stage man just fucking cried for like 59 seconds and it was such an emotional moment for me that I fucking that I fucking did what I did and I overcame it it was it was alone man you know I do have fucking like teammates and fucking like you know I fucking did what I did. And I overcame it. It was alone, man. You know, a lot of people have fucking like teammates and fucking like, you know, family push.

My mom was struggling, bro. She was struggling. So it was like me and my mom. And so it was a lot of just me. So when you're waking up every morning by yourself and you're fucking getting after it by yourself and it's the hidden work. People see one minute video of me running and shit and like and like these fighters you know they they see during the fight or after the fight

they don't see these motherfuckers man what they deal with every fucking day i'm not good enough i'm not good enough i shouldn't be here i shouldn't be here because every day they're even though they're fucking the best in the world that little motherfucker at seven or eight years old is still in there saying oh man we don't we don't have something we're not good enough we're not we shouldn't be here so you're always fighting that motherfucker even though you beat it you never truly beat it so when they get on stage and talking to joe rogan it's just it's uh it's not even real it's not even real all those mornings that you don't want to fucking get up and and i look at it as like a fucking, like a rock. And you find this fucking rock and that rock is you.

And every day you fucking fight not wanting to get up. And you do anyway. You chip another piece off that fucking rock. And every day you fucking eat the right foods. And every day you go to train. You train harder and harder and harder and harder. And you get up earlier. And all these things you do to start forming yourself you're chipping another

fucking piece of that rock up before you know it you have this beautiful fucking piece of of of artwork that that you built but people don't and then once you get there you see it it becomes real like oh my god i fucking did this shit and so like the fucking journey becomes so real then but so many people aren't willing to fucking chip away at that stone that is them to start chipping off those fucking rough edges that's the fear the fear is never reaching your potential that's it that always falling short always quitting before you're done always procrastinating always not doing the right thing. And then one day you're an old man.

Yep. And you look back and go, God, I could have been great. Yep. I could have been great. I never forget one time I was running by a graveyard. I mean, I was fucking just trying to become, I was fat. And I ran by a graveyard and I looked out there and I have all these epiphanies, man. I have all these fucking moments of like, it's crazy, man, of this thought

because I'm always by myself and I'm always in deep fucking thought about how to be better. And I look out there and I'm like, man, I wonder how many of you motherfuckers in there fucking just are so upset with how you lived your life and fucking just regret how you lived it.

And I'm running a 300 pound man thinking, man, don't fucking die like this, bro. Don't die like this. So people wonder where this shit comes from for me. It comes from such deep thought of trying to see what this is all about. What is this life all about? What am I all about?

Why am I here? You know, I had to, I had to find purpose and my suffering, it had a purpose. It had a fucking purpose. Do you talk to other people that are like you and try to understand if they're going through the same thing? Are they trying to gather knowledge as well? Are they just doing it because they're addicted to runner's high? Are they doing it because they enjoy the challenge? How many people do you talk to that are like you? I've never talked to anyone that,

and most people don't even believe what I say half the time, that I do it to fucking gain knowledge and all that shit. I haven't met one that goes out there. People really enjoy a lot of the shit that they do like like they i don't know many people can go out and run 240 miles at one time if you don't enjoy it if if you just don't really enjoy it so you know i i had many people build confidence in different ways and they build belief in different ways. Coming from where I came from, I didn't have any belief in myself.

So some people can go read a book and get belief. Some people can go take a yoga class, have good parents. put myself so where I came from was so far down underneath like soil that I had to build belief by truly ingraining it in my brain so the things I do I'm always every day building belief and my belief had to be where it is because I was so far down so So it may take a 200 mile run for me. It may take a 100 mile run. It may take late nights in the gym. But without belief you have nothing. And I realized that when I was a young kid. I have no belief.

I have to build it. And a five mile run didn't do it. I had to push myself to such extremes because I came from, people judge me by not knowing where I came from. So unless you're me and you came from where I came from, people judge me by not knowing where I came from. So unless you're me and you came from where I came from, I guarantee you wouldn't have made it out. Guarantee it.

And I knew that. So my belief comes from going, I had to build it. And that's how I built it, man. I built it by the things I do. It's so painful reading about your childhood and the experiences with your father. about your childhood and the experiences with your father and then when you went back and met your father as an adult and got with them and watched him get drunk and then watch him get belligerent and and experience it all over again and

then think about what happened to him to make him who he is. Yeah, that fucked me up, dude. But I had to go, like, I realized I was fucked. I realized I was just a sorry motherfucker. You know, I quit pararescue. I was afraid of the water. Every time shit got hard, like I said, I didn't have talent. You know, I fucking didn't have shit. Whenever shit got hard for me, I thought I was on my way out,

and I got sucked back in. I become a loser again real quick. And I see him all the time. There's a lot of fucking losers out here that won't face it. Oh, man, you got to go back and visit this motherfucker. I haven't seen my dad in fucking years, man. Years. But I knew where I came from. I knew where my mindset came from. I knew where my demons were. from. I knew where my mindset came from. I knew where my demons were. So my whole idea, when I went back to see my dad, was I was hoping that I could just fucking call myself a loser and it's

because of you, dad. So I was hoping to go back and get the confirmation that I always wanted. That wasn't my fault. That voice in my head was so loud. It's not your fault, David. It's not your fault you can't read and write. It's not your fault that people call you fucking niggas loud it's not your fault david it's not your fault you can't read and write it's not your fault that people call you fucking niggas it's not your fault it's not your fault this not your fault that it's not your fault that you're fat it's not your fault that you're that that you quit shit it's not your fault so i was like okay man i'm gonna go back visit this motherfucker so i can just squash it and i can just go on and be a fucking loser because you fucked me up and i got there i went drove to buffalo saw my dad same routine as it was when I was eight years old man walked in what's up went to skate land I sat in that fucking couch

that he would cheat on my mom with I sat on that couch in the corner and I was like god what the fuck man it was a whole normal day and the more i was around him he started now he started getting drunk and and i won't go through the whole thing but i started seeing man i started having a conference i always had these conversations myself like man this motherfucker he came from hell his dad would put him in front of a furnace and like if he moved he'd get burnt. So when my dad got beat His dad would put him in front of a furnace and if he would have moved he'd fucking get burnt up So my dad said I sit there and take it so he never dealt with his fucking demons So his demons became mine

His demons became mine Motherfuckers think you die and the demon goes with you man don't be a fucking fool bro you know like that's why i'm proud of myself i took his demons and mine and people are always looking for some great fucking apology you know oh my god like um you know my dad needs to say sorry people who fucking called you out your name or nobody gonna come back and say sorry to you motherfucker ain't nobody saying shit to you you've been a fucking man to fuck up so i looked at him he didn't face his demons but i'm gonna face mine so that drive back home that's what i started doing you know what's one of the most most fucked up things that i've learned over time is that almost all like truly exceptional and mentally strong people have been through hell.

It's very few that put themselves through hell when life is great. It's just not usually the case. Right. And to achieve the standards that you've achieved, to become the person that you are today, and to have the influence that you have, this global influence on people. Do you know how many people have laced up their shoes because they heard your voice? How many people have just moved into action and changed their life because they've heard you talk or seen you talk? There's a thing that happened and it happened out of hell. i don't think it ever happens without that it's like you had to go

through that in order to empower all these other people in order to become who you are and that as an example and then your words as an example and you're describing of it and then your description of your own shortcomings and failures that give people confidence that you it's not like you're this superhuman person that is like a character in a book right now you're a real human being who has real insecurities and real failures in your past and and real demons and you figured out a way to harness that energy and just keep going forward and not quit. That's it. I mean, there are no timeouts.

You know, people, like I, you know, there's a part in the book that I talk about a prisoner mind. And that's about my mother. And, you know, she just, I would never listen to that part again in that book. That was hard. Just so you know, man, like I will never never listen to that part again, that book. That was hard. Just so you know, man, I will never again listen to that shit. Your mother's very, very, very brave. Oh. To be able to talk like that.

Yeah. To be able to talk like that to the world and to to just she lost her life she lost this giant chunk of her life with this abusive man and to hear her talk about him hitting her and what it was like and the fact that she never came from a family that hit her she had never been hit before never and to to have her express it the way she did so honestly and openly it's very powerful and the whole time she's talking man she's on the cusp of like losing it like i'm in the other room so i'm interviewing her and i'm hearing this shit so i i knew a lot about it obviously i lived it and that's what fucked me up the most man when you see like i said i wasn't a smart kid growing up but who would ever made me whatever the fuck made me i'm so fucking my mind is sharp man like it's it's crazy like i could

i was so aware of so much shit. I was so bright in that way. And to see your mom go through that shit as that young kid. I was going through it and she was going through it right beside me. When I got my ass beat, she got her ass beat. It's fucked up, man. You just can't. People like to judge who you are.

Man, why you cuss so much? My life wasn't fucking PG, motherfucker. Like, you know, you can't just turn who the fuck you are off. When you see your mom going with that kind of shit, and then I'm coming to her defense at seven or eight years old, and she's getting her fucking ass beat by a 220-pound man, and I'm fucking some little kid. You know what kind of courage it takes to muster that up to go help her out and see her fucked up like that and the time she would cry and be bruised up and shit it was just it was a it was a fucking nightmare and then hear her talk about it

like the part where my dad says i brought this belt from texas this belt came all the way from texas whip your ass with all right it was It was like, where am I at right now? Because I knew no other households were fucking living like this, man. And I knew it. I knew it. And then she was shut off. She was shut off from the world. And when I wrote can't hurt me, she refused.

She said, fuck, don't put my shit in there. She was so embarrassed. Like I put in there, man, she fucking married a fucking prisoner. So my mom was so fucked up. She was so fucked up by this shit. And people go, man, you're a mama's boy. Motherfucker, I ain't no mama's boy, man. See your mom go through this shit. You can make sure she's taken care of so she came out and One of the people that you know, she she got married a few times because she was looking for something that my dad stripped from her And she was out. She was gone for years. She's just not coming back. She's 70. She's 75 And but in that book I talk about man, she's like don't don't put that, you know and can't hurt me But now she's getting better And she's allowing me more to talk more about my life which was also some of her life the part about marrying a prisoner is so crazy dude it was a fucking but

not just a prisoner but a prisoner who killed a woman dude this so it was so fucked up it's hard for me to talk about because it's almost like i was i had a front row seat at a horror show so when my mom left my dad she went to wilmoth and he got murdered i talked about that can't hurt me he got murdered so that took her all the way over the edge i mean he got shot fucking six times in the last shot this motherfucker got right up on his head and made sure he was dead like forehead shot and so she didn't cry she didn't cry she's lost it was over she a whole nother person became and so i'm fucking now like 12 13 14 where the fuck i was i'm watching this woman every day front row seat just watching her Just go through life fucked up

And then I'm about to go in the military Into the Air Force And like two years out man I'm like a sophomore in high school Phone's ringing every night She tell me don't get on the phone 15 minute calls hang up 15 minute call hang up

15 minute call hang up What the fuck is going on but see the way i was growing like the way i was raised you don't ask your mom what's going on it ain't like now like conversations and shit with the parents you shut the fuck up and that's i didn't ask shit but i knew something was fucked because like three four hours a night 15 minute hang up because he was in prison this guy was in prison so he only had 15 minutes on the phone. They had to put more money in it How did you meet him? she started working

so She was always about helping people out. But the thing about it was like I was right in front of her And needed so much fucking help And I was fucked up for me for a long time, but she helped out so many people, but I guess since I was with her through the journey, I didn't count,

but it's all good, man. It's what life's about. You got to understand what your mom went through so that I can be good with it. I saw that, so I had to man up a lot more than what, so she saw people needed help, so she started teaching in the prison.

So she had a full-time job at DePaul University in Greencastle, Indiana. And then she started teaching in a prison. And she met this prisoner. This prisoner, obviously, I don't know, slid her a note or some bullshit like that. And, you know, she was looking for anything. She was looking for anybody that loved her because my dad beat the fucking life out of her. And my dad, so my dad wouldn't marry my mom but end up marrying a woman um that was tied to like i'm not even gonna go there man i'm not trying to get fucking sued and shit right now man but he he married somebody that was fucked up that's fucked up so anyway um

she she she met him in prison and um the phone was ringing every night she didn't tell me about it because i could tell your son hey david um i'm i'm i'm in love with a prisoner so before i murdered a woman oh no i'm about to get to brother. So I'm fucking now about a week out or whatever the fucking was from leaving for boot camp. And she lets me know what's up. And so I'm about to leave for boot camp. And I'm so protective of my mom. And she lays this on me. Yeah.

Sit down. Let's have a talk. And she never does this shit man she's like there was nothing ever hidden from me that's why i grew up so fast like that abusive life and what she was going through it was front and center her being broke everything this was the only secret she kept from me she was um those phone calls you know, I've been seeing someone in prison. All right, cool, whatever. I'm thinking, what the fuck is this, man? So, you know, I hated, I didn't want to ask, how the fuck did you get to prison?

So I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there, and I'm like, okay, man, I got to fucking ask this fucking question. How the fuck, you know, what happened? okay, man, I got to fucking ask this fucking question. How the fuck, you know, what happened? You know, she's like, well, does one of those things, you know, because she knows it's fucking bad. Well, he was into drugs and stuff like that.

I'm thinking, okay, maybe drug dealer, something like that. He was into drugs, that's for sure. But he literally, I don't know how it went down, but he choked a woman to death over some drugs. And I don't know the ins and outs of all this other shit. And that's who she was going to fucking be with. And he was getting out of prison literally in a few weeks after I was going to Air Force boot camp.

So I'm in fucking Air Force boot camp thinking about my mom's about to fucking marry a fucking dude who got sent to prison. Marry him right away, too. Right away. So the first time I meet this motherfucker, dude, is at my fucking Air Force graduation. My fucking Air Force graduation. And she was like, you ain't putting that shit in it can't hurt me she was embarrassed about it and then she saw how i went totally like fucking vulnerable and she was like fuck it go ahead so this is so much more to it but he ended up um uh i think it was last year or maybe this year, he OD'd.

So my mom divorced him, obviously, after it didn't work out. And she was telling me a story one time. We were talking about this book. She started opening more up about the relationship with this prisoner. And she said one night they got into a fight, you know, not physical. He never hit her like my dad did so many times. But he said one night she was sleeping and had had her back to him and all she thought about all fucking night was because she started slowly realizing like i'm fucked up like i just married a fucking guy from prison that killed somebody and she started realizing it more and more but she's laying in bed and she

would and she was like is this motherfucker gonna fucking kill me tonight and she started telling me these fucking stories man and i'm like and i'm just like what the fuck man like like you know it's just it was tough it was it was a tough way to grow up man it was a tough way to grow up, man. It was a tough way to grow up. So, yeah, he ended up, so they got divorced. I think it worked maybe two years, whatever the fuck it was, whatever, it doesn't matter.

And then I think he OD'd last year. He OD'd last year, killed himself. I don't know if he killed himself, he just OD'd. The idea of you going off to boot camp knowing that your mom's

gonna be alone with this guy getting out of prison yeah that shit must have been haunting it fucked me up every night

oh my god every night I'm sitting in the fucking in my bunk thinking and then I knew the date he was getting out of prison and like you know

you can't just get on the phone and call, hey, mom, what's going on? No, you're in boot camp. You get like, every now and then they say, okay, you have like a phone call once a week or some shit. I think every Sunday was a phone call. And I'll never forget when he got to the house, man, I actually got, I was fucking not right.

So I got recycled. So a week in boot camp. So like I fucking, I don't know recycled. So a week in boot camp. So like I fucking, I don't know, I fucking did something in boot camp. I fucking got recycled. I was sneaking in Snickers bars. I was just all kind of belligerent and shit.

I was just out of it. I was sneaking out and I was just fucking not right. I just wasn't right. And so then I, yeah, it was fucked up. It was fucked up. It wasn't like. And so then I, yeah, it was fucked up. It was fucked up.

What was it like when you met him? I tried to be supportive because that's what I always did with my mom. Whatever made her happy, that was my fucking number one priority. I never cared about myself. Never. Never. Ever. Which makes what I do now for people yeah i understand because i care about people

even though i'm an introvert i'm an introvert because my fucking life sucked but what i do for people i really do that's why i want to make sure that fucking like that that fucking book and things i do that's why i don't fucking like, why don't you sell shit? Why don't you always, you know, why aren't you like promoting this and that? And no, man, no, I care that you understand that I fucking want to see you fucking kill shit. I want to see you better. So, you know, when I met him, I was supportive and I was, and I sat back and looked at him and I wanted to fucking beat this motherfucker

down so bad because I knew, like, you're not a good egg, bro. You're not a good egg, man. I'm not saying, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not saying prisoners are bad. They can be rehabilitated. But I always had these feelings about people. If I get around you, I fucking i i may not tell you but when you grow up the way i grow up man you have this you have these ways of knowing

pieces of shit i became an expert in pieces of shit i used to be one my dad was one so you can fucking pick him out you can pick out liars and all kind of con artists from a mile away because motherfucker i studied it studied myself i know who you are so you can't come around me bullshit me man can't right so it was horrible it was horrible so you know like the one woman i cared about more than anything in the world because i saw her hell i'm looking at this shit now and now i have to go to fucking pararescue school and all this other shit while she's fucking with this guy so there are a lot of things in my mind that that just made it hard that i studied i studied my mind during these times i started and this this process to become who i am today of learning life

and how hard life is, that's why I don't speak about the good times. Everybody gets so mad. Why don't you speak about the good times? I don't need to help you through those, brother. I do not need to help you. You don't turn on David Goggins for the good times.

You turn on David Goggins when you don't feel like doing shit. You're an expert in dark matter. Dark motherfucking matter. That's what I am. So, yeah. I know it really well. So, it wasn't like I wished for it.

One of the things that's hilarious in the book is that you read all the shit that people write to you, all the hate. And you record it. and then you play back brother i'm gonna tell you right now man that started honestly when this fucking seal from seal team six came out and started lying his fucking ass off about me this This is an important subject. We should talk about this because your military career and what you've done is always misrepresented. Oh yeah. Even by people that should know better. Oh yeah. Oh, they know better. But what, what makes people feel good? Like when you become successful, when you become successful and I had to realize this and this guy made me realize this I had to study them when you become successful especially within a fraternity like that like this is this is a

fraternity bro this isn't like a fucking like oh like in the air force you know it was this is a very different world so several seals no I'm gonna say that there's a lot that would like to see me fucking a lot they like see a lot of people not do well and them do great yeah and like they all know we eat our own we eat our own and that's what they all say we eat our own is that all seals i don't know all seals a lot of seals i can't speak that way i know a few seals is it just the hyper competitive nature of the type of people that get involved yeah it's like you know we have this this uh this this this macho stigma that you know like you know we're we're the best of the best we're fucking we're the baddest motherfuckers in the world and and i i beg to differ you know like people go like i've had so many people in art

like the news oh Oh, my God. They contact me all. They want me so bad because there's been some things that came up, you know, Navy SEAL community. This guy died. This kid going through training died and some Navy SEALs. I don't know the stories. They can Google it. Where the fuck?

I guess they killed somebody over in Iraq who has some information, some shit. So they always want to get me on so I can fuck it. Because they know that I was not a fan of a lot of Navy SEALs. And a lot of it is to do with the lies, some of the leadership problems, some of the character issues. And I got to see that a lot when I got out. And I'm the one to say it I had a lot of problems myself when I was growing up it took a long time for me to go so I'm not judging these people I know where this shit comes from man this

shit comes from shit you haven't handled so I it doesn't even bother me anymore but when I came out in 2018 this this SEAL from SEAL Team 6, he had, and Jennifer, it pissed Jennifer off so fucking bad. And I was cool about it. But this guy started YouTube channels saying that I was dishonorably discharged. I fucking was kicked out of the SEAL teams. I refused to fight in combat. I never went to combat. I mean, every bit of it. So the reason why in my, in can't hurt me, I have my writeup of my medal from Iraq and I wasn't going to put that in there, but Jennifer started getting DMS from people saying, do you know, I'm not going to, I'm not even gonna name his name. That's not who I am, dude. And I just showed you outside about that one cat. I'm not going to name his name either.

But I'm not going to name his name because. How does he not know better, though? That was one of the things that people bring up that you never deployed. Right. Yep. Why would they say that? Why do you think, Joe? Think about it, man.

Think about it. But that's something that's easily proven. Exactly. But guess what? This guy had black ops. Literally, he had YouTube channels DMing people. Because at this time, I started getting a little bigger. I started getting a little more profile.

And he was coming out of the SEAL teams. And I'm not going to say his name because I'm not going to try to to take food out of his mouth and this is one thing I learned from all of this I had to I was so fucking pissed man I was so fucking pissed I didn't deploy I mean the fucking lives were insane how many times did you deploy twice one to Guam and one to Iraq and then but they don't talk about those the reason I didn't deploy more is I had two heart surgeries. So I was out of the fucking teams for deploying for like three, four years because the heart surgeries. Because when you get a heart surgery, you can't go back to the point. You were born with like holes in your heart.

Right, with a hole in my heart. And the first surgery, it didn't take. So I had to get another surgery. So that took so much time, having these heart surgeries. So I was in recruiting at the time. So this kept me in recruiting. So this even added to the whole bullshit. This added to the whole bullshit.

So they were loving it. Because right now, like I said, I wasn't like the most famous SEAL within the SEAL teams. I didn't take shit, man. If shit was fucked up i called it i called it there's there's no secret there's no secret shit here man and and and i knew what happened when i when i got out and this guy started doing this shit and i i knew why he was doing it because the biggest thing like he wanted to take my character and destroy it right that's what i want to do.

And so when you're in these kind of communities like this, man, people are like, oh, no, there's no way he was trying to do that. Man, I wish I could get Jennifer in here right now. We have all the screenshots. I had to get a fucking lawyer. I mean, this guy went so far. And then what happened was over a period of time he fucking literally apologized went away fucking took all this shit down i mean but he came out and but what happened was that rumor mill spread like wildfire did he have to know did he have to be told about your actual record? No, he knew it. You never got... I deployed with him. What?

I deployed with him in Iraq. No. In Iraq. He was just lying. In Iraq. I deployed with him in the only fucking...

See, man, you're going to get me to the point where I say his fucking name because I swear to God. So I deployed with his ass. That's why I put the fucking write-up

in there. So I got a medal over there in Iraq. I got a medal over there in iraq i got a medal in iraq so i did go to war and i put it in the book because when because jennifer started getting all this shit and she goes you got to put that fucking award in there because this motherfucker's just lying his ass off i didn't go to ranger school all this shit so i put the ranger school everything he said i put in can't hurt me because he was just literally lying trying to literally ruin who i was because i'm the world's toughest

man that doesn't sit right with some fucking alpha motherfuckers dude and these motherfuckers do some of them and you don't know unless you've been in the fraternity like this unless you've been in fraternity like this you don't fucking know i a fraternity like this, you don't fucking know. I don't fucking care about them. I have some great friends in there. But anyway, the reason, this guy actually helped me out. So when I came out,

there's a few guys that came after me in the SEAL teams, trying to make sure that I fucking wasn't going to be who I am. And they still talk their bullshit lies. Lies. So many fucking lies, dude dude and what's great about is my proof isn't can't hurt me so everything they say my proof is in and that's why it's

designed that way for the liars but this guy came out and what i do is i studied him so jennifer got a lawyer i'm about to sue the fuck out of this fucking guy man like i had all this defamation i mean it was fucking a thick i was gonna sue the fuck out of him and every night i fucking woke up i was like man i started thinking about myself and i was a piece of shit when i had no character and i had no pride no dignity that's because only people that do shit like that you're not a man right you're no fucking man dude like i started thinking about what kind of pussy you are man how you must have so many fucking demons in your life that you spend this kind of time just trying to take another just trying to take another man and not it'd be different if it was

truth behind it right lies fucking lies yeah just because we didn't get along motherfucker it don't mean i wasn't who i am we didn't get along motherfucker because i fucking i'm like a lie detector because i'm so fucking honest with myself i had such a hard time in my life that i fucking so forthright when you get it even near me because i fucking you know my shit is real it's fucking real as fuck it makes you feel bad if you got something going on in your fucking life i ain't gonna open my fucking mouth you know my shit is fucking real yeah i may not have deployed as many times as you motherfucker because my heart issues and the other issues i won't talk about because the fucking news wants me to fucking talk about this shit so bad they want to take some seals

down so bad i ain't no bitch like that whatever happened to SEAL teams with me Happened to SEAL teams That's why I don't fucking mention the names But I saw these little bitches come out here It was in the fraternity It happened in the fraternity Leave it there Don't be a fucking bitch Come out here fucking spreading lies about me motherfucker

But I studied all these little bitches Who tried to come out and ruin my life Studied all of them I'm like man What you must be going through is fucking evil i even took a step further i had to mature myself i was so fucking mad and i looked at his family this guy who was talking this shit i would say his name is so bad but i never will because that's a fucking bitch move on my part you could take food out of this fucking his family's mouth You're gonna have this guy in a courthouse. You have him in a courtroom spending money on lawyers

Yeah, I fucking just fucking dropped it something good I said who the fuck I am I Said you can wake up every fucking morning being the bitch that you are But I'm not gonna fucking take money out of your pocket and money out your mouth or out of your fucking kids kids mouth And this kid this guy wound up apologizing to you? He didn't apologize to me. What happened was he got on, and I don't want to go too deep because they'll figure it out. But he ended up basically saying he had a fucking, he just wasn't, he wasn't right in his head. He was, you know, he wasn't good.

And I can tell he wasn't good because he wasn't right in his head. He was, you know, he wasn't good. And I can tell he wasn't good because he was literally DMing people. And I wish I had Jennifer in here, man, so she can show you the DMs. He was DMing people and talking all this shit. And then he would delete it. And this guy, so Jennifer found it. And so, cause this guy DMed Jennifer

and was like, hey, can you, do you know this guy? And I was like, yeah, I know him. Andifer and was like um hey can you do you know this guy and i was like yeah i know him and then jen was like hey we gotta fucking shut this shit down but he was dming several people just saying that i was just gonna be discharged i was kicked out of the seal teams i refused to go to combat um he just went on and on and on. And so this guy was taking screenshots of what this guy was saying and sending them to us. And so at this time, now we have a lawyer. And so we're getting all this shit, dude. And then he had a YouTube site set up that he took down, just trying to literally ruin who I was. And I looked at all this shit and I studied him.

I was like, man, you got in. What came out later on was he did have some demons he does have some demons of course he does serious demons that's how insane is it that the guy deployed with you seal team six and these motherfuckers supposed to be bad see this is this is some of the issues i had when i was in is that when you work so hard man i put these motherfuckers, I could talk about last time I was on this fucking shit, on a pedestal. Half the reason I ran on broken legs,

half the reason why I fucking became who I became was because of the image these guys had on me. I was so impressed with the books and the fucking and the in the people that they were i was like my god man i gotta be a fucking god i gotta be a god mentally to fucking get in here and once i got in i discovered something different i'm not saying that i'm not saying everybody i'm not i don't know everybody in the steel teams But I had a problem with the fact that a lot of people lived this shit. Like a lot of the civilians, like, oh, my God, the SEALs are this, the SEALs are that. You were able to run Badwater 135 because you're a Navy SEAL.

And because they, like, no, motherfucker. That ain't why. And I always knew the shit. And I had issues with it, man. I had issues with it. So I had a fucking, I had issues with it. A lot of people didn't like that. And then I went on to go into recruiting for a little bit.

And then the heart surgeries happened. So the more I was in recruiting, the more that shit happened. They just started slowly building up lies. Slowly building up lies. And I came out to who I was. I told Jennifer, and I knew it I said stand by stand by

it's coming whenever you're a person that gets what other people think is attention that they think they deserve yes sir that's when things get weird

oh yeah that's why I bring those fucking deployments because they think oh my god you didn't deploy as much as me you didn't deploy as much as me he's not known for known for deploying and shit.

Motherfuckers don't care. Yeah, I have a combat deployment and I deployed another time that we were supposed to. It was right during 9-11. We were supposed to go and they fucking had us over in Guam. We were all pissed off. It didn't work out that way. But I got over there. And what's funny about it, this is what makes me laugh so much.

There's a lot of Navy SEALs you never deployed over combat ever ever and it makes me laugh because motherfuckers want to act like one combat deployment where i fought for my fucking country is bullshit think about that fought for my fucking country did my shit sorry it worked out the way it worked out and that's not enough I think part of the problem with some of those guys is when guys are seriously alpha

and they think they go above and beyond and they push harder than anybody and then they meet you and you're the guy that's getting up at 3.30 in the morning yelling at them while you're running. Like, I know you're sleeping. I know you're still in bed. Motherfucker, I'm out here running 10 miles before you eat breakfast. That's half the reason I did it.

Yeah. That's half the reason. Motherfuckers going to fucking Jalisco's and shit, getting waffle breakfast and fucking bacon and eggs and shit. And that bothered me. I said, motherfucker, I got my family and everybody thinking I'm some fucking stud. And you all just got to fucking lift some weights. You all don't want to fucking, like I said, I was in charge of PT. And they're like, no, this ain't Buzz Goggins.

Like, man, you got a lot of motherfuckers fooling. This ain't everybody. I don't know every seal. I don't know every seal. But you want to run your fucking mouth about me and talk your little shit i got my secrets too and i won't say names because only your bitch does that so keep on running your fucking mouth i know all you motherfuckers so you started taking over pt yeah i was so when i got back so i went on my first deployment and when i came back off my first deployment, I begged, put seven chits in.

Seven chits. It's like a request chit to go to ranger school. Motherfuckers don't request to go to ranger school. I wanted to go to ranger school. As a SEAL, you went through buds, whatever the fuck. You don't want to go to another course to get your ass kicked. I did. I did.

So I went to ranger school, came back, honor man. I was the enlisted honor man at ranger school. ass kicked. I did. I did. So much range school came back. Honor man. I was the enlisted honor man at range of school, but they say I'm a bad operator. They also say I'm a bad operator, but guess what? They had my black ass when I was fucking in Iraq. I was targeted. It was called PSD. Okay. So you're like a bodyguard. I'm a bad operator, Joe, but guess where I was? I was the lead navigator. So I'm the eyes. So everything we did was in the car. It was my job to make sure that whole fucking platoon was safe.

Okay? You're not going to put a dumb, bad operator up there who's fucking not good. It was my job to make sure I called all the outs, called all the trouble coming, had to get us there safe. We had a fucking guy who was going for the prime minister's job who we were guarding. And they had a bad operator, what they want to call me. It was his little fucking rumors. I was the guy who led it. And it was so good. I did such a good job that there was two of us because the job is very stressful. Being a primary navigator is stressful. so they have a primary and a secondary.

So some days I would do it, some days another guy would do it. I was doing such a good job, Joe, that they didn't want the other guy to do it, so I became the only guy navigating us through fucking Iraq. All right? And our guy didn't live in the green zone. The green zone is a safe place. Our guy lived in the red zone.

So we had to go out in the red zone every day get this fucking guy bring him back in no there was no shoot him up because one one rumor that was out there that came out from this guy was i froze i froze in a firefight it's kind of funny how you can freeze in a firefight when our platoon was never in one so it's just it's just bullshit man but i know where it comes from i know where it comes from crabs in a bucket i know where it comes from my friend it's just crabs in a bucket sorry i sorry i became so successful guys that's what it is people don't like it when you did the same thing they did you come from the same fraternity but

you get exorbitant amounts of attention and success oh yeah and instead of looking at that and going wow look what he did that's amazing i wish i did that or maybe i could do more or he's inspiring other people and that's great you know what though i will say this there's a there's a lot of them that do say that that's great there's a lot of them that do say this i have a guy named hawk a lot of them that do say this. I have this guy named Hawk. You know that email I sent to you a while ago about this guy who wrote that email about the SEAL teams? And I shared it with you about, he's talking about like only 13% of you actually,

it's like, anyway, I sent you an email. Yeah, I remember. So anyway, he's the guy that sent that email, Hawk. He's like my best friend. So he, bad motherfucker. When he got out guy that sent that email, Hawk. He's like my best friend. So he, bad motherfucker. When he got out of the SEAL teams, he wrote this email and sent it out to every Navy SEAL. And it was like 87% of you motherfuckers. He said, 87% of you motherfuckers are living off of one week.

And what he was talking about was Hell Week. Like that one week in hell week is all they're living off of because they're not living it now and he made these shirts called the 13 percent shirts and the other 13 percent guys actually getting after it that motherfucker sent me two of them all right he sent me two of them so yeah they're right i wish i could deployed more and blah blah blah whatever and whatever man but i was i was a fucking good seal and a fucking good teammate and some guys didn't like me and the fraternity we fucking had it out and there's a time somebody fucking did some shit but it's

what it is man you ever heard uh when people talk about some union work one of the things that happens when you're in some unions is like if you're working too hard someone will come along go hey david slow the fuck down it's true statement bad true statement like you're moving too many packages you're doing too much of this do too much of that you're setting the standard too high and you're fucking it up for everybody else and so you'll have people that will sabotage someone just because that person wants to work hard oh i see it but it made me grow it made me grow and i'm glad i didn't put a case on that guy and i'm glad i got a chance to study him and it is what it is man it is what it is and this is one part that i try to tell people and

teach them if you're trying to go to that uncommon amongst the uncommon place it's a lonely motherfucker up there man it's lonely i'm not saying i'm better than every fucking body i'm not saying that and once again i'm not speaking for every seal i'm not but i just didn't i didn't try to be what they were what you're just saying is just a fact it's just a fact it's just a fact and there there's people that are willing to go very far and then there's people that are willing to go far further than that. That's it. And when you're a person who prides yourself on your ability to go very far, and then someone is willing to go far, farther than you, you have to decide, do I want to look at that as the new standard? Do I want to judge myself? Do I want to admire him? Or do I want to try to take him down because I feel bad?

Because I can't do what he does or haven't done what he does. Or what he does makes me look bad because I like to think I'm a hard worker. I like to think I'm disciplined and hard. And then I see this fucking dude out there that's just making me look soft. And so instead of just going,

look at him, man, fuck yeah right instead of a smart person will look at that person as fuel but you have to make your own decisions too because what you do requires a dedication that will eliminate a lot of things from your life that some people enjoy and think are important dude and also and also when I took the road, because I knew what I was doing. When you take that road and you just don't want to just fit in, it's a lonely road.

It's a lonely road and you get a lot of haters, man. Like I tell people all the time, man, if I can walk on water, motherfuckers will say it's because I couldn't swim. Tell you that right the fuck now. Tell you that right now. And this is a true statement I used to get so mad like I said about this fucking shit, man, but I sat back one day. I was like, you know what?

All these people hating on me man Like I have a guy who's trying to who's trying to write a book saying that I was telling people And he's a famous author like I don't ever drop names, dude I'm not trying to hurt your business, but you're funny. These people are funny funny keep on talking your shit i will absorb it and make a mixtape out of your fucking ass like i do he tried to tell he was going to write a book that i was telling people to run into your kidneys got fucked up that my mentality of running is is i was telling people i was telling people to run into your kidneys got get fucked up. So run until you get wrapped up. Run until you get wrapped up.

He was going to write a book. And the premise was the way I think compared to the way he thinks. I never told a motherfucker in my life I tell you to do better and go as far as you can. I don't tell you to go until you fucking kill yourself.

Until you get wrapped up. But I will tell you to go until you fucking kill yourself until you get rhabdo But I will tell you this Joe You will never never in life Meet a hater doing better than you That's a fact ever so when I fucking realize that and Jennifer gets so mad at the lies She hears and this and that cuz it comes all through they spew it yeah i told you for that shit man stop yeah fucking calm down bro don't stop sending that shit 100 factual there's we were talking about in the bathroom earlier i was like you got a amount of bandwidth in your mind yep whatever that those units are it's called a hundred hundred of those

things in your mind the moment you start entertaining haters You start reading comments you're stealing your bandwidth How much you could apply to your loved ones that you could apply to the thing that you love to do? How do you could apply to making your life better? You're stealing from yourself when you pay attention like I was talking about man clearing that space out Yeah, and that space allows you to make more room for what's important in your life. Yeah. If your mind's still cluttered, man, you can't do shit. There's also a thing about you being a public person. Being a public person, now you have access to way more haters than the average.

The average person knows a few haters. Maybe if you're a good looking woman and you got some bitches in the office that like to talk shit about you, or if you're a guy who's like you know getting after it early and yeah being disciplined and you you make people intimidated by your ambition right you're gonna have some haters you know people lying about you there's gonna be but you have no idea what it's like to be a public person like yourself and the kind of haters that you must experience because if you paid attention to them all day long you would have no time for anything else no i never get in 2013 when i was first you know jennifer knows about this shit i cussed everybody we had this fucking round table and i was like man you have such a great story you need to tell it

you need to get on social media and blah blah i cussed everybody out fuck you i'm not fucking going on that fucking shit that's a bunch of bullshit fucking lying it's the devil and the second i fucking got on that shit dude it is the fucking devil instagram and social media man i had this fucking kid, man, who fucking literally, the reason I talk about haters so much is this little boy, his parents reached out to me, and he was getting so much hate at school. And we get so many emails, I can't check them all. But I get to them, but later on, much like two or three months later.

So this guy wrote us, and this kid was having a hard time with bullies and when i got to his email i got to it called his family up say hey what's going on you know david goggles they were all happy to hear it he had killed himself so like i in the back of my fucking mind and what hurt me the most was when i read the fucking email it uh whoo shit i had to get my shit together i wasn't gonna bring this shit up yeah i i i read the email and they said he can you know you can help our son you know our son really admires you and that's why i um i'm so i'm i'm i'm very vocal for a lot of reasons. But I have to be strong because I know a lot of people aren't.

So, you know, that's why I don't cower from shit, you know, at all. You want to fucking, you know, I'll take on whatever. Whatever challenge is in front of me, I'll take it on because a lot of people don't have that courage. And it's hard to be brave. It's fucking hard to speak up for what you believe in. And they wrote this great email to me, and they wanted me to talk to their son.

His son was a big follower of mine, and so I called, and he's like, yeah. And it was a silent, very silent pause, and they told me what happened. And he hung himself, and i was like it was fucked up so you know that's why another reason i hate i hate being a public figure because it's not a public figure that i am like it's funny um i hang around some people who are real public figures you know like celebrities and i have people coming to me first. Like I'm talking about famous motherfuckers and people come to me first and, and they want to share their story in their life with me about

how they changed. And that's a massive responsibility that people don't understand. Like, um, they come to you and they share the demons that they've gone through and the hard shit the hardships that they've gone through and um and they say you and your book and and what you've done and your social media page that's why i make sure i want to go at people so hard joe sometimes man for fucking talking their shit to me man and lying and shit i make sure that my social media only has like, let's fucking get it today. Let's fucking get it.

They go, man, why don't you fall on your bike? Man, I'm not into that shit, dude. I want you fuckers to understand, dude, I'm your biggest fuck, for you who don't, who aren't bitching and whining and complaining, I'm your biggest fucking cheerleader. I want to see you do great. I want to see you you do great and a lot of that shit comes from that fucking email from that kid who killed himself that i got to like two or three months too late and that fucking shit every day i fucking wake up i'm like fuck man

fuck i gotta be honest i gotta be right i gotta be better and that's that's when you know that when you're trying to do your best your life sucks and people don't get that when you're trying to have the best character when you're trying not to fucking lie you're trying not to fucking put people down you're trying to live you're trying to set the standard when you're trying to be the standard and that status out you know there's so much going wrong and going off in this world. If people can focus on themselves being better versus throwing hate and fucking all this shit that happens out there and people talking shit. I won't mention no motherfuckers names. I'm trying to hurt you, man.

But I'm trying to be the standard. And sometimes life is just not fun when you're like can't do that can't say that got to watch out for that yeah i gotta wake up today i gotta i gotta grind because there may be a motherfucker out there that sees me in their fucking car that says all right i'm gonna go home and be better today so all these things are my fucking mind every fucking day i wake up every fucking day and i you know so know, I try to get to email. It's me and Jennifer, but yeah, you know, people fucking, it's crazy, man. People come up to me and tell me their stories, man. It's fucking very humbling that this kid that came from fucking

nothing is now helping people who, you know, like, you know, this is funny and people call me crazy a lot, man. You're so fucking crazy, but what you do now look is funny and people call me crazy a lot. Man, you're so fucking crazy, but what you do now look at him straight in the eye and say, man, I'm not crazy. I'm just not you. I'm just not who you are,

who you want to be. I have a responsibility, man. And I got to fucking take that seriously. Well, people like to look at people that are pushing further than them and harder than them. Like there's something wrong with you.

Yep. You must be crazy. I'd be crazy. i'd be crazy i'd be crazy i love crazy though my favorite people are crazy yes you know but i don't i don't look at it as a negative no i look at it as a strength it is i see a person who's willing to go to that dark matter place i go oh i like that oh yeah i like that but you went there during sober october man you went there you went there so how'd that feel man when you fucking were going into those journeys into those compartments well what i like about it is that you had to do it every day you know and so i just every day would you know know it was coming okay hey all right here we go time to get going and every day just get after it in some crazy way.

One of my favorite things is the thing that I hate the most. It's airdyne sprints. I do those Tabata sprints on the airdyne machine. Oh, the fucking echo bike? Yeah, the echo bike from Rogue. 20-second sprints, 10-second rest. And you do cycles of eight. So eight rounds of that.

And then I would do another one and another one and another one. I was doing an hour at that. That's fucking brutal, bro. It's so hard. But when it was done, I'm standing in a puddle. I'm completely drenched. Right. But that feeling of getting through this, because the last cycles, when you're doing, like, and you look, like, because the Rogue bike when you're doing like and you look like

because the rogue bike will show you like you've done three which means you have to you have to do five more of these sprints and that 10 seconds is non-existent you're like and then tech is like right it's it's so quick and then you're back at it again. Those last ones are so hard. But when you get through it, the rest of the day is so much better. That's like fight training, man. Because the month of November, all I've been doing is drinking. Really?

Oh, man. I've been working out. Still working out. But we're doing a lot of drinking. And I'm like, I got to stop. So I woke up today because today's December 1st. I'm like, I'm not drinking this month. I'll have a glass of wine at Christmas or something like that.

Right. But this month I'm back to the grind. Are you? Because, yeah, yeah. Because I enjoyed October. The suck, when it's over, life is better. You just got to get through the suck. That's right.

And then life is better. But the thing that gets me is the level of I don't give a fuck and the lack of anxiety that comes after you work out every day is so worth the workout. You're so calm. So calm. The only thing that changes your fucking DNA is discipline. Discipline is the only thing that changes your DNA, man. It's the only thing. Only thing, man. You could be fucking so the only thing that changes your DNA, man. It's the only thing. Only thing, man. You could be fucking so fucked up.

And I realized that, man. I was like, man, the only thing that changed my DNA is discipline. It's the only thing. I've incorporated a new thing that I was telling you where I get up first thing in the morning, I get in the cold plunge. Because I was doing the cold plunge after I did the sauna. And it's a little easier because the sauna sucks. Right. after I did the sauna and it's a little easier because the sauna sucks right but you know when that 20 minutes is up or 25 minutes is up and then you get in that cold the cold sucks but it doesn't

suck as much as when you're cold and then you get in the cold so when I wake up in the morning I don't dress warm I wear my fucking underwear and I go outside it's 40 degrees this morning and I walk out and I lift the lid on that Morosco cold plunge and I see the fucking ice floating up in there and every day I climb in. That's brutal. And I just get in there for three minutes in the morning and then I work out. That's fucking brutal. Well, because I read this thing, I'll send it to you, Jamie, but I read this thing where they've been doing studies on what happens to people. Andrew Huberman and I actually discussed this, and Huberman's a very interesting guy.

But it's about the benefits of cold plunge before you actually work out. Really? Yeah. Because there's a benefit after you work out in terms of reduction of inflammation. But what they're saying is you shouldn't do it right after you lift weights. Got it, got it. Because then it actually decreases the hypertrophy. So you don't gain as much mass or get as much strength. But there's some benefit to doing it before you work out.

I think there's a link involved in that too. So anyway, this is a guy who's talking about prostate-specific antigen blood test came back very high. And everyone said that he had to get a biopsy. And he said the story I've heard about older men getting biopsies and prostatectomies sounded like nightmares to him. So he decided to try to manage his PSA with ketosis and ice baths. So it worked. His PSA dropped from over seven to less than one. And along the way, a funny thing happened to his testosterone. It went through the roof to 1140, which is crazy high. He said, my urologist didn't believe me. He thought I must be juicing. So he had my luteinizing hormones

tested too. Sure enough, 8.9 is off the charts for a fat guy in his 50s. He said, then I did a research and discovered a Japanese study from 1991 that showed the secret was exercising after your ice bath. It's the opposite of what everybody says to do, which is exactly how I got this far in the first place. He said, now I'm stuck with the T levels of an oversexed 19 year old. I'm not complaining. Damn. But so this is the thing that people are realizing now.

that people are realizing now there's some extreme benefit to heavy duty. Sorry, here's this. Extreme benefit to heavy duty cold exposure. Right. And then you force your body to heat up and then you work out. So I'm trying that now and I've only done it three days in a row. How's it working? It's working. It's working.

It's hard. But part of it is just the fact that you have to do it in the morning. Like, I'm not giving myself any mornings off. So that's how I start my day now. Whereas before, I was working out. So the workout, I ease myself into the workout, get on the bike, warm up, jump a little rope, start the the kettlebell routine do all the things you got to do But now it's just right into the suck. So it's harder. I tell you right now man the fucking code Being in cold water cold ice water. It literally is the one thing that makes you question Everything when you're going through hard training and shit like that

Like, you know, I've been to a lot of different training the military and that cold water it definitely many dreams die while suffering that should be a t-shirt many dreams die while suffering my friend so true i talk about it man like this this fucking god's getting that water and you see their fucking eyes roll back and i'm like oh yeah many dreams die while suffering, friend. Yeah. I was trying to talk to Jamie about it. Jamie. It's fucking cold.

I'll do cold. It's just like there's a level of cold. I want to ease myself into it. I don't want to just start in the worst. That might be the best way to do it, Jamie. Yeah, that's what I've been telling him. You just got to jump in that bitch. I did.

I just couldn't go below my knees. He just get his feet going in there. Hey, man, once that pecker gets cold, boy, it's real. I know, I know. Yeah, it's all real. I go right up to the chin. I want that water right there. That's legit right there, man.

If it's real legit, you go under. Hickson Gracie, he puts a snorkel on. Really? Yeah. Hickson gets in that water for a couple minutes under the water with the snorkel on he likes that shit huh hickson hickson's an intense motherfucker speaking of that who's the best ever oh the best ever in mma ever in mma it's hard to say there's a lot of candidates you know i've always said mighty mouse is one of my best

bets because he was so goddamn good and he's still so goddamn good now but now he's fighting in one fc but he was a flyweight champion for a long time and his he was the highest level of expression of mixed martial arts ability that i've ever seen but he's also fighting guys that are much lighter they're 125 pounds you know everyone's very, but he was just so skillful. But then there's Jon Jones. Jon Jones really never lost. That's a nasty motherfucker. He's a nasty motherfucker.

And, you know, really, Jon Jones fucked off. You want to talk about a guy who just did it by talent and will? Jon Jones beat Alexander Gustafson without training. That's unbelievable. He basically didn't trainafson without training. It's unbelievable. He basically didn't train. There's a few guys like that. There's a guy named Ryan Spann who's out there right now

who just fucked up Dominic Reyes. And Dominic Reyes was the one guy who took Jon Jones to the limit. Dominic Reyes went on a series of losses after that fight, but he had this fight with Jon Jones and took Jon Jones to the fucking limit. And a lot of people thought he won that decision.

Then he went on after that fight, got knocked out by Jan Blachowicz, who became the light heavyweight champion, got knocked out by Yuri Prohaska, and then just got lit up by Ryan Spann. And Ryan Spann is this guy who's always been ultra, ultra talented. Right. But just was always afraid of running out of gas, didn't train, didn't really put in camps, just had a lot of ability and a lot of technique. Right.

And his last fight, he fought Dominic Reyes, and he put in a full training camp for the first time ever and just fucked Dominic Reyes up. Just lit him up like a Christmas tree in the first round and put him away. So you're talking about a guy who beat, in many people's eyes, should have won the decision against Jon Jones. And then Ryan Spann just takes him out in the first round.

Easy, quick, because he finally worked hard. Well, there's something about that full training camp, man. Yes. There's something about going out, no phone, up in the fucking mountains, away from civilization civilization away from the bacon and eggs the silk sheets the fucking five-star resorts the fucking everybody knowing you signing autographs and shit dark matter dude dark matter like a motherfucker the further you fucking drive out your house and start going up in that fucking mountain man you start to

that fucking mind starts to click over man you get a full camp up in that fucking mountain, man, you start to... That fucking mind starts to click over, man. You get a full camp up in some fucking dark matter place, it's fucking over, bro. There's a reason why so many guys would go up to Big Bear. That's where Gennady Golovkin used to go up there. Can't breathe in that motherfucker. Muhammad Ali used to go to the Poconos. Ali, or Tyson, rather, would go to the Catskills.

A lot of guys would do that. A lot of evil up in them fucking mountains boring Catskills. It's also this nature. Oh, yeah. It's like nature doesn't give a fuck about you. And there's something you realize when you're running a mountain

and, you know, you see eagles flying. Nobody gives a fuck about you. No one. There's no press. No one's watching. And that's a beautiful thing, man. That's when you really know who you are. Yeah.

When you get up there, there's no, like, the coach is probably back a little bit. You got your little run by yourself and shit. You figure out a lot. You figure out a lot, man. You start to figure out a lot of fucking problems up there by yourself. Yeah. So this, I don't, to answer your question, I don't think there is a greatest ever.

Because there's different weight classes. You're right. Khabib definitely is in the conversation. He's the only, like, really elite guy to retire undefeated. That's a nasty motherfucker, dude. Oh, he was so good, dude. Dude, there's something about looking at that motherfucker. I love these guys who you can look in their eyes,

you can tell something ain't right. Hard as nails. You can tell something's fucking right, something ain't right. And that's in a good way, something ain't right. When he fought Conor McGregor, and they were booing him At the weigh ins

And he goes I'm gonna smash your boy You should play that interview Play that interview Because when I'm talking to him And he They're all booing And she's like

They're all Conor McGregor fans They flew in from Ireland I mean this is a big fight Jesus And he's like I'm gonna smash your boy Alhamdulillah I'm gonna smash your boy. Alhamdulillah. I'm gonna smash your boy.

Look at this. Look at them booing him. Khabib! What does this fight mean to you to defend your title tomorrow night? It's so loud there. That's why I'm screaming. It's so loud. First of all, I want to say Alhamdulillah. God gave me everything.

Alhamdulillah. I know you guys don't like to say alhamdulillah God gave me everything Alhamdulillah I know you guys don't like this Alhamdulillah Tomorrow night I'm gonna smash your boy guys I'm gonna smash your boy And I wanna say thank you all Irish fans You know all fans around the world Because of you guys this fight has happened.

Thank you, guys. And tomorrow night, inshallah, and still. Thank you, sir. Good luck to you. The champion, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all. I'm going to smash your boy. Jesus.

And that's what he did. He was on top of him, pounding him, going, let's talk now. Because Conor talked. He was saying it during the fight. Play that. Play that. He's on top of him. Shut the, going, let's talk now. Because Conor talked. He was saying it during the fight? Play that. Play that. He's on top of him. Shut the fuck up.

Punched him in the face. Goes, let's talk. Let's talk now. Beating the fuck out of him. That's the next level fucking shit, man. Let's talk now. And Conor was like, hey, look at this. We're talking. Let's talk now. Let's talk now. Let's talk now.

Let's talk now. Let's talk. Let's talk now. Oh, my God. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Connor's saying it's only business. And Khabib says, you tired? Let's talk. Jesus, dude. He brought that shit to another level, man. Yeah, well, he used that as fuel. He took no fucking mental aid stations in that training camp. No, no, no, no.

He was a bad motherfucker. And then when his father died, he told his mother he was going to fight one more time, and that's it. And so he's in his prime still. Right now he's in his physical prime. And he's like, told his mom, he's done. He's not coming back, you don't think? Well, his protege is Islam Makachev

who is now the new UFC lightweight champion. And Islam is as good as him. In that same realm. I mean, it remains to be seen whether or not Islam can have a reign the way he did but he just beat Charles Olivera was one of the best ever and he just ran through him to win the title that's a bad dude to man all Charles is a bad motherfucker and all of air is an interesting case too because

all of era used to be kind of a quitter yeah I know he kind of fell apart and many fights early in his career and then he had the birth of his daughter, and then changed his fucking entire life. Changed the way he fought, changed his mentality, changed his discipline and his focus, and then became this motherfucker who's just dominating everybody. How old is he? Oliveira, I believe he's 33. See, find out if that's accurate.

So are there some old fighters right now who are still kicking ass? Yes. Jan Bohovic, Glover Teixeira just lost the light heavyweight title at 42. He won it at 42 and then lost it to Yuri Prokofiev in a very, very close fight. Yeah, he's 33. Oliver is 33. You know what's funny about that, man? About these older guys who are still fucking grinding hard.

People ask about father time. Yeah. Father time's funny about that, man? I see these older guys who are still fucking grinding hard. People ask about father time. Yeah. Father time doesn't get you, man. It's father fatigue. It's father fatigue, man. Like I see these guys who have been in sports for a long time, fighting, basketball, whatever it is. Yeah.

And it's that grind. It's that everyday waking up grind. Yeah. It's not father time, man. It's the fact that you know I got to go do it again. I got to do it again. So a lot of these guys are fighting father fatigue and they're doing a good job of doing it. I think there's many factors.

There's father fatigue. There's father enthusiasm. That's right. But then there's also injuries. So many of these guys are fighting with fucked up backs and fucked up knees and fucked up elbows and fucked up hands. And you don't know that when you see them because they look jacked and they look ripped. Right. In their head, they know I got to be careful if I move to the side on my right side because my knee's fucked.

I know all about that. I got to be careful if I get kicked in the legs because this is fucked. That's real shit. Yeah. And there's a lot of guys that also been taking too many shots and shots and they can't take a punch anymore right that happens to guys and then you see they get dinged once and they get wobbly where so what the fuck happens with that man i started seeing guys who fucking been getting hit a lot yeah they can't take a hit anymore man like they'll fucking go out quick there's a lot of speculation and um one of the things they say

is that they believe that at a certain point in time, your brain tries to protect you from the punishment and just shut off. Like that your body realizes like this dude is too strong mentally. He's too tough and he'll just absorb shots and is just ruining our brain. So when you get hit, your brain is like, check please. Wow. And your brain will shut off. And then the other, that's an optimistic perspective. Got it.

The other less optimistic perspective is that you are destroying your mind and that your mind is simply not resilient anymore and you can't take a shot anymore because you've damaged all the connective tissue that's holding the fucking brain in place. because you've damaged all the connective tissue that's holding the fucking brain in place, and you've also created so much CTE and so much swelling that one shot can take you out. There's also, on top of that, one of the big problems with MMA is the weight cutting. So the weight cutting, which is what everybody does, they drain themselves 24 hours before the fight, weigh in, say, oh, he weighs 170 pounds. Like, guys like Kamaru Usman, who's giant for 170.

He's 170 for like 20 minutes. How much does he weigh? Like, walking around the street? 200 pounds. 200 pounds, easy. So does he come back in the ring about 190, 200? He's in the 190s for sure.

Damn. Lean as fuck, shredded. Lean as a motherfucker. But dehydrated like hell to make 170. He's not ever really 170. Wow. He's 170, but like, totally sucked up.

I mean, also cramping. You know, it's terrible. To do that 24 hours before you have a cage fight is so crazy. It's fucked up. So those take a toll. So if you're 35, 37, 39, all these guys that have been doing that their whole life, every time you cut that weight, it takes a little chip off the old block. Every time. Every time.

It's another chop into the tree trunk. It just weakens your foundation. And it's just little minor things. Every training camp you go through, can know, can you do another one? You know, your back is fucked up. You get out of bed like this, like, ah. It's like little micro injuries that are constantly piling up. You know, we were talking about Hickson Gracie earlier.

Hickson can't really even roll hard anymore. He's in his 60s, and he's got these injuries all over his back. It's all fucked up. It's like all those years of jujitsu. That Gracie shit is no joke though. Them motherfuckers,

that family. They changed the world. The world. They changed the world. This little 160 pound motherfucker, man. This little motherfucker, you can't even see him

under some of these fat motherfuckers. This fucking finger fucking locking you out, man. Motherfucker gets you in a pinky lock, bro. It's like, where is he tapping from? Why is he tapping?

I can't even see. You know, Gracie. Got motherfucker in a pinky lock. This shit was nasty, dude. They taught the world jujitsu. The world didn't know. Jujitsu is the only martial art that people had ever experienced

that did what was advertised. What was advertised was that a small skillful person could beat a larger, stronger opponent who didn't know the techniques. He proved it. He proved it. Boyce Gracie proved it in the UFC. And he changed martial arts forever. And that family's

probably the most consequential, the most important, significant family in the history of martial arts. The Gracie family changed martial arts worldwide. It's funny, man, but, you know, there's so many people out here who are very successful. And they talk about, I mean, super money, great family ownership. They talk about that they're missing something, that there's something in their life that they're missing. And they talk to me about that shit.

And I mentioned the Gracies. It seemed like they had this, it wasn't about money. It wasn't about nothing, man. They're like grassroots, motherfucker. And that's what I always tell people that they're missing, is that they're missing that desire. Like those guys had a passion and a fucking obsession. That's the word obsession

obsession yeah and i guarantee you man those motherfuckers don't have those conversations i feel like i'm missing something right they're not they're not missing shit dude no no they they they got it figured out man well hickson in particular because hickson was hoist's older brother who was everybody says is the greatest of all time really from that era yeah he was there's never been a time other than today there's a time right now with gordon ryan which is very rare it's very rare where someone comes along and everybody says this is the baddest motherfucker alive no if answer questions about and back then when hickson was in his prime right you ask any black belt anywhere in the world they're like hickson's the when hickson was in his prime right you ask any black belt

anywhere in the world they're like hickson's the man hickson is the man and he was a yogi he all this crazy breath work that he would do he figured out the physical as well as the mental far beyond where everybody else was willing to travel and there's a great documentary people are interested in hicks and gracie called choke hickson's been on the podcast a couple of times there's a great documentary called choke that followed him when he was in his prime in the 1990s competing in japan and uh one of the things he does in that documentary he gets in a frozen glacial river and he just sits down he's meditating in this river up to his neck with this fucking 30-degree water just washing over him. He's just—

Beyond talent, bro. He's like, thank you, my lord. Thank you, my lord. And he's just like just taking it all in. It's beyond talent. That's badass. There's so much involved. There's talent.

There's discipline. There's the mind, focus. And there's also the brilliance of his ability to interpret and understand technique right there's so many things that's badass and this is the case with gordon ryan today who's arguably the greatest of all time and gordon is a lot bigger than everybody that was you know hickson was at his prime was about 200 pounds gordon's like 240 and you know, Gordon is utilizing modern training methods and 365 days a year he trains. Doesn't take any days off. This is Hickson in the frozen glacial river.

That's his brother Hoyler, who's also one of the greats. That's that Gracie family, man. Woof. Never been a family like that. No. Never been a family like it in martial arts. You just have like an army of killers. That's it.

Yeah. I mean, look at him. There's your snorkel. There's your snorkel. Yep. That's what he likes to do is to get under that water. And he does that with a cold plunge too. You know what's crazy?

That so many people would never understand that kind of discipline or that kind of human being that wants to go to the stratosphere. Yeah. They'll never, they'll always be misunderstood, man. Always. You can't even, that's why a lot of times when I talk to people, I can't have a conversation with a lot of people, man, because you're going to walk away like.

Why do you do it, David? Right. Why don't you just take a break? You deserve a break. That's it. David, take a nap. That's it. Did you ever have a piece of pie?

Why don't you put your feet up? Why don't you rest a little? You think one day you'll get fat? That's it. You should let yourself get fat. Dude, you're being funny as fuck, but it's the truest of all fucking statements. Oh, yeah. Dude, I don't do nearly as much as you, and I get it.

Dude, right. I'm like, you would never understand. That's why we would never talk. Yeah. You would never get it. So that's why I don't have those conversations with people, man. Those are brutal conversations with people. Like, what?

I don't understand what your motivation is. What are you chasing? I haven't been on a podcast in four years. What are you, insecure? Where are you running from? Where are you running from, David? Where are you going? You know, you get there faster in a car.

Oh, I get that a lot. That's the one I get a lot. I get that a lot. And they're joking. I'm like, and I don't find this shit funny. I'm like, you motherfuckers, man. It's so dumb. It's dumb as fuck, man.

But whenever you're someone who's that wild and that far beyond where most people are willing to go, you're going to run into normies. Well, it's like motherfuckers going to the circuit breaker, man, and they just go in there and start rewiring their brain. They go in and say, like that motherfucker right there with the snorkel and shit. Oh, no, man, I got to put this over here. This circuit needs to be there. It needs to be there.

You're totally rewiring how the whole brain works to not to not feel sorry for yourself to ignore pain to ignore discomfort to push your place you know to push your mind place that people don't even fucking want to talk about they can't fathom and it's what you talk about with knowledge yep that's what it is this is knowledge it's understanding of those feelings that's it and the only way you understand that those feelings are rare they don't come up all the time all day long you wouldn't be able to deal with them right so most people don't know what to do with those feelings they're not around them enough but you're around them constantly that's right hickson was around them constantly yeah it's like get in those and then you learn about them you get a map of the territory get blueprint yeah and the second

they surface when you're fucking getting choked out i've seen so many see i love watching fights man because i i see them and i start to say okay you're in a bad situation man and i see a couple guys getting ready to fucking tap yeah and that one second decision i call it they're thinking man i gotta tap it's like and and and you see the hand motion like i'm about to tap and it goes somewhere else not today motherfucker yeah because i've been here i've been here before i can last maybe just one more second and this one second may get me out of this shit and i see how the how the mind is evolving in that one moment that one quick moment i see that a million thoughts went through their fucking mind and it didn't tap i'm gonna show you an example of that Brian Ortega versus Alexander

Volkanovski Alexander Volkanovski almost gets tapped out Volkanovski is the next guy to fight Islam Makachev and Islam Makachev is Khabib's protege that's a bad boy Alexander Volkanovski is the 145 pound champion he's going up to 155 to try to fight Makachev and win the title at that That's a bad boy. Alexander Volkanovsky is the 145-pound champion. He's going up to 155 to try to fight Makachev and win the title at that weight. So he fights this guy, Brian Ortega, who is a student of Huron and Henner Gracie. Got it. So he's an elite black belt.

And he gets Brian Ortega, gets Volkanovsky in this guillotine choke, a mounted guillotine choke, which is the nastiest shit ever. And this guy is a fucking strangulation expert. And Volkanovski is stuck. Here he is. Give me some volume. Give me some volume here. Oh, my goodness. Mounted guillotine.

He might go to sleep. There's his mind. The grip is broken. And he got out. See? And he got out. He was so close. You hear Paul Felder saying he might go to sleep.

He's going back to your team. So he almost catches him here now in a darts. And Volkanovsky winds up on top. That's so badass. And when he gets on top, he just starts hammering him. I mean, this fight is one of the best examples. You want to watch this fight. You want to talk about will and warrior spirit.

This is one of the best fights ever for both guys. Because Ortega, like, going into the fourth round, you're like, how is this motherfucker surviving? And then he comes out in the fifth round, guns blazing. See? Both these guys just drained the fucking gas tank in this fight. It was an amazing, amazing, amazing fight. Now, what he should have did after that,

he should have gone home and wrote that shit out. Because in that moment, if he could even think about it, the knowledge he gained in that moment, priceless. What was happening when you almost tapped? And I'm not talking about this surface conversation. That's beautiful to me. i studied that shit so much you were in a horrible situation i know you were like i gotta tap i gotta tap i gotta tap but if you break that down really break it down to the smallest molecule possible your mind went through so many things that allowed you to not tap you

gotta study that man that right there is so much. You've got to study that, man. That right there is so much. That's beautiful. That's beauty right there at work. Yeah. Beauty at work. It is because for that man, I mean, Volkanovski, he walked out of there with his fucking belt,

with the victory, the cheers, the roars, the crowd, goes back home. He fucking did it. It's amazing. But he almost didn't. See? He got to the door of death see it's that one second decision that one second decision i talk about this motherfucker right here

you get there and you want to quit and you don't yeah and you end up fucking getting through it man well that's the thing is like your book can give people if even if they don't get a map of the territory they're getting directions right you want to go to I-95 that's right about ten miles down When you see Woodland Hills Road take a right You're giving them you might not be giving them a map because I think the map has to be acquired personally a hundred percent Well, you're giving them directions. That's it. You're saying this is how i got through this is how i developed my map people want to hand it to him i can't hand it to you you can't but you can give them something oh yeah when i texted you i was in the middle of the book i was like i can run through a fucking

wall right now because that's what it feels like i love that there's something about the way you describe things and the way you're so honest and so personal about it, especially the audio version of it, and then when you do the podcast. So the audio is a special treat because it's the book, and then with each individual chapter, you have a small podcast where you and your co-writer break down what it was like for you and what was happening. Right. break down what it was like for you and what was happening and what you were feeling. And it allows you to do it in an unscripted way. And you're so honest about it. It just gives you an understanding of that discomfort is unavoidable. And that trying to avoid discomfort just brings you more discomfort.

And you don't realize it. It just brings you this long-term dull discomfort That's it as opposed to the searing pain of like mid struggle discomfort, which is what everybody's trying to avoid Everybody you're still gonna get discomfort. You're just gonna get this I could have shoulda woulda been Discomfort which is maybe worse. You're right. It might be worse. It just makes it a little easier. That's all repetitions do, man. It doesn't take away the pain. It doesn't take away the suffering.

No. You just studied it. You know it. You know how it feels. Yeah. You know when to breathe, when not to breathe. You know all these different things.

You've been there. You've visited. You've lived there for a long period of time. And that's why I like this book so much is because can't hurt me was like a bachelor's degree it was like the surface level of david goggins and some things that can help you out this to me is a master's degree this book right here takes you to another level of of the mind and how you think and that's why i say this ain't no fucking self-help book. This is a what the fuck are you doing with your life book. Yeah.

And that's why that's so important. What are you doing with your life, man? Why are you sitting around? Why are you waiting for shit to happen? It ain't gonna happen like that. Why are you feeling sorry for yourself? Why are you waiting for that fucking apology that's never gonna fucking come?

People sit around waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and blaming and blaming and they're waiting with a handout. and waiting and blaming and blaming and they're waiting with a hand out yeah covid happened and everybody's hands out now hands out and you see how it changed sort of the tone of the country it did and it made people feel entitled like someone deserve they deserve something yep that's right you don't deserve shit you don't deserve shit and that's the one thing that i knew and i found out. Here's the worst part. If they give you shit,

you're going to be even more miserable. Oh. That's a true statement. Isn't it a true statement? It's a true statement, man. Everybody wants the government to come along and help them.

It's a true statement. Someone to come along and give you things. I should get things. You should redistribute wealth. You're not going to be happy. Nope. You're not.

You got to go get it. No, you're going to always wonder, well, I have all this fucking money. Why do I feel like I said, I feel like I'm missing something. Right. Because you didn't go out and achieve it on your own. It's like a man who inherited money. That's it.

They're always missing something. Big time. There's something wrong with them. Someone gift wrapped you some shit. Yeah. And now you're just a bitch. Now you're like a half a man. That's it.

You look like a man, but you're like a half a man. That's it. You look like a man, but you're like one of them Easter Bunny candy things. You know those chocolate Easter Bunnies? That's it. You like, you try to bite into it.

I used to fuck them shits up. I used to fuck them shits up in our 300. Yeah. Well, I loved them when they were solid. When you got a solid one. Oh, yeah.

Ooh, look at this. A lot more calories. A lot more snacks in that bitch. Yeah, that's a solid Easter bunny. But when you bite into one, it just destroys all this bullshit. Fuck up your teeth. This is a fucking hollow one.

Yes, sir. Yeah, a lot of people are hollow Easter bunnies. A lot of people are hollow inside, too. Yeah. But you don't have to be. No. This is the beautiful thing of your story is that you started out fucked up and sad and couldn't do anything. And you transformed yourself.

So people don't think like this guy's just always been hard from the cradle to the grave. Like you turned yourself into this, which is the real, that's the story that gives people hope. You can truly develop otherworldly discipline. It's possible to develop otherworldly mental strength. Well, we change everything. We change our car, we change our house. Sometimes we change our wife or husband. We change our underwear.

We change everything in our lives. Change our hair, change how we look, change everything. But very few of us change how we think. And that's the one problem with a lot of people. They're not willing to change how they think. You're not going to evolve if you continue thinking the same fucking way. So a lot of people have a problem with that. So I'm always trying to evolve in some way.

I'm never wearing the same underwear every day. I'm always changing that bitch. Never finished. It's out right now, ladies and gentlemen. I can't recommend it enough. It's a fucking fantastic book. As good, if not better, than Can't Hurt Me. You're the man, brother.

Appreciate you. Appreciate you very much. Thank you, Joe. All right. Bye, everybody. Thank you.