The Resilient Mind - Become Mentally Unbreakable - David Goggins

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Watch the full video interview on the new Resilient Mind YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X73EV09qjMQAn accomplished endurance athlete, Goggins has completed over 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons, setting new course records and regularly placing in the top five. He once held the Guinness World Record for pull-ups completing 4,030 in 17 hours, and he’s a sought after public speaker.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠This episode is brought to you in partnership with Chris Williamson. Follow his YouTube channel by visiting: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisWillx🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind Podcast. In this episode, you'll be listening to Become Mentally Unbreakable with David Gagins. This episode is also available in video. Watch it on YouTube by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. What do you think most people get wrong about motivation? They think it's a permanent fix. They think it's something that is a constant.

they think that maybe once I get it, I'm going to hold on to it. And that's the thing about that I was telling you, that I always talk about, nothing is permanent. Nothing is permanent. And a lot of times you have to learn to perform without motivation. You have to learn to perform without purpose. You have to learn to perform a lot of different things.

And that's what people think. They think I need to have this motivation to work out, to study, to be able. better. So if they don't have it, they just don't fucking do it. And that's where you fail. You have to learn to train your mind well beyond motivation. If you have motivation, that's great. That's some kinling to the fire. All it takes is a little bit of fucking spark. You can burn a whole forest up. But motivation, you have to learn to exist without it. You have to learn to be, you have to be your best self and your least motivated. And that's the tricky part about all that

motivation is just a word you have to have these different things in your mind on where you want to go and know that motivation is not going to get me there because i'm not going to always be motivated jaco said the exact same thing you said that discipline eats motivation for breakfast and discipline's good too but without a clear headspace there's no discipline what you mean so let's say we have a circuit breaker okay and i'm loading everything up to one fucking circuit just loaded up just loaded up it's going to fucking blow and once that thing blows man the circus is all fucked up

you gotta have each thing plugged into the right spot like a fucking crowded garage you can't put anything in it once your brain is crowded discipline is great motivation is great but if you can't fit shit in your brain

because it's all fucking cluttered with shit there's no discipline you may have it sometimes when it fits in that crowded garage of your mind, but you don't have the consistency that you need to have with that discipline. So what are you talking about here? Are you saying doing self-work and reflecting on you as an individual? Are you doing therapy? I call it mental zones.

I don't get in too much because it would be here all day. But basically, is you're organized in your mind. So you can put that discipline. So a lot of people talk about discipline. okay great why do you fall off the fucking wagon why can i continue with this routine going to the gym being better waking up early eating the right foods it's because maybe it's your kids maybe it's your wife maybe it's your job and it's all just stuffed in your fucking brain you don't have it compartmentalized and organized in these nice shelves like you look in a garage it's all fucking a nice organized

militant garage hey where are my dumbbells right there a lot of people who's brain hey where's my demos let me look they're fucking throwing shit they're looking through totes it all fucked up so where am i going to put discipline in that mind if i can't find other shit you got to be able to find all these different things in your mind oh i can put discipline right there i can put consistency right there i can put all these things right there in that spot So that's what I'm talking about. If your life is not organized and your life being everything around you, because it takes one little fucked up piece of an outside interference to clutter your whole mind.

Because it's on such a knife edge. That's right. And people don't get that. Your mind has to always be clear. That's why I meditate two hours every single night because I refresh. I reorganize the garage, which is my mind every night. So then discipline's in there, organization, everything is in this right spot. So when I wake up, I'm ready to go.

What does a morning look like for you at the moment? Have you got a routine of some kind? Yes, I run every single morning. So that's the- What time are you up? When are you waking up? I'm up about 5.30. So every morning starts with the run.

And that's because that's the one thing I hate to do more than anything in the world. So that's like my cup of. coffee and I'm all about armoring yourself so the second you leave your house and a second you open your phone the second you do any of that shit you are now letting them poison in cancer so I make sure a lot of things you can't avoid so as I get up I start to armor plate my mind and body like a person's going to war you put your body armor on that's what I'm doing on that run. I'm waking up and I'm giving myself all this armor. So when I come out in the world, look at that phone, I'm ready. I'm not waking up late. I'm not rushing around. I'm not

disorganized because I know I'm going to get hit in the fucking mouth. There's a, there's an art to get hit in the fucking mouth. And that is why these things are important. You have to wake up and you have to give yourself belief. You have to give yourself confidence. So it starts with that run. So after the run, I come home, I eat something small. How long's the run typically at the moment? Nowhere under 12 miles. So 12 miles is the minimum. And what are you getting that done in?

How long? It depends. Right now I'm running a heart rate. So I'm running like 815s, 830s because I'm retraining right now. What's that? Is that zone two for you? Zone two. Because of the leg surgery I had.

So I'm going back starting from scratch. So anywhere from about an hour 30 to two hours, I run. every day. So you're fasted on the morning. Yes. Straight out. Straight out. 90 minutes to two hours of running back, eat. Eat and I'm in the gym. So, and then after that, to whatever's on the plan for the day. That's how that works every day. Are you still doing your stretching? Because you've got two hours of, you've got two hours of meditation, 90 minutes to two hours of running. How long is the gym session? Depends 45 to an hour and a half okay stretching meditation run eat gym is that my missing Jennifer oh yeah yeah forget

about that you cycle as well yeah how long you cycling it just depends I do stationary bike right now a lot what are you using is it like a what bike or something similar yeah something similar so I put my bike on a like trainer and I cycle yep at least three or four days a week I'll do that So that's your day there's no there isn't there is no room for anything else Yeah there is a lot of room so there's 24 hours and I use it all pretty pretty well How's your sleep what's your sleep? It's really good okay it is now eight hours is something Like that seven eight hours yeah but you need to with this sort of volume seven eight hours and you're still doing a stretching stuff every night So you've got a four hour block basically of stretching and meditation? No, that's all than one block you combine the two right? Yeah, I saw the one block

Cool. Yep. That's one hell of a day. It is. And it's been like that for seven years. But going back to what you said before about needing to cap success, you wouldn't be able to fit even one-tenth of that in. Exactly.

If you were chasing down. Exactly. Yep. That's exactly it. So if all that's fucked up, that's why I got a cap success. Because I can't put that in. And that's my growth factor. So, you know, that's a lot.

That's my human growth factor. You said before about how you build up self-esteem and confidence and stuff. And there's this quote from one of my friends, Alex Homozy, that says, you don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are, outwork yourself doubt. Yes. That's, that's nailed.

Nailed. Completely nailed. Yes. Because a lot of people will, and some of these motivational people out here, it's the funniest thing in the world of me, they'll go. and say, when you wake up in the morning, pound your chest, you know, fucking look at yourself in the mirror

and do all this fucking bullshit. I hope it works. What works for me is that everyday resume, the things I know of accomplice, the things I know I've done, real hard work, the real calluses on my mind, the real calluses on my hands.

That's it. You don't need to pound your chest in the mirror of the fuck anymore if you have that. It seems like, especially with confidence, right, or self-esteem, there's a relationship between confidence and competence. So what you're looking to do is try and have

what you believe that you can do be ahead of what you can do. Now, you're not looking for it to be delusional. You don't want it to be able to believe that you can do something like fly, right? But you need to have a relationship between the two. But what people are asking for is for their confidence to be so far ahead of their competence that without having even been competent at anything in the beginning. And that's just delusion. That's fantasy. Right. Well, I believe that you have to build belief. belief is like there's an after-school special belief where the mom says believe in yourself and that's all great but there's also a built belief

and the built belief is one where you are constantly like for me I came from a bad place how I build belief is through the daunting tasks I put myself through so that's proof positive that I can So it correlates. And that's how this piece of shit kid that I once thought I was built belief by saying, hmm, I was in three hell weeks.

I went to Ranger School. I tried out for Delta Selection. Undeniable stack of proof. That is proof, motherfucker. So whenever you think, whenever you think you can't, the confidence comes from the thing that you built. You must build belief. You must build confidence. It can't be like, hey, I'm going to knock that shit out.

You got to look over here and say, I can knock that shit out. It's a belief and it's built on what you put in to yourself. Another friend sent me a message this morning, knowing that we had this big thing that we've been working toward for a long time today. He said, Nietzsche said, I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and impossible. The fact that something seems impossible shouldn't be a reason to not pursue it. That's exactly what makes it worth pursuing. Where would the courage and greatness be if success was certain and there was no risk? The only true failure is shrinking away from life's challenges.

No, that one also. Two for two. No, that one also, man. Yeah, it's that dealing with laziness and self-doubt thing, I think. And I do wonder how many people use the, look, in the middle. mirror pound the chest, staring to your eyes, say your affirmations, don't get the results and then lose confidence. Well, that's part of it.

A lot of it is limit to horizons. Limit to horizons are like, I use me as an example always. I came from a small town in Indiana where there was a handful of black families. And a lot of people in that town, when you come from a town of 8,000 people, people, it's like we had a local plant, Great Dane. You're like, you know what? I want to work at Great Dane and get a house next to my mom. That's what you know. So many of us come from these small places in our mind that we're not willing to think outside of only what we've seen. Our mind works in such a small compartment. And one thing I was able to do was to

dream. Many people, but don't make dreams your fucking master. But I was able to dream outside those fucking four walls of that small town. And until you're able to really put yourself into that dream, but don't make dreams your master, that's where you truly become what you're destined to become. What do you mean don't make dreams your master? A lot of people sit back and they dream about being a sports figure. or dream about being a seal or dream about being an astronaut and all it is is a motherfucking dream.

They don't put the work behind the dream. That dream has become their fucking master. When you become the master of your fucking dream is when you say, I want to go be a Navy SEAL and you say, okay, I'm going to lose 106 pounds in less than three fucking months. The dream was the one thing I thought about

and the dream was now gone. Now what comes in, the dream goes away in the fucking laundry list of fucking details and tasks come up got to do this, got to do this, got to do this, got to do this, got to do this. That's when you become the master of your dream. So a lot of people out there dreaming.

Ryan Holiday says, talking about the thing and doing the thing, vie for the same resources, allocate yours appropriately. That's it. That's it. That's the way it works as well. That's the way that the brain works. You can actually get these kicks of dopamine

by telling your friends about I'm going to be a Navy SEAL. I'm going to start my training next week. It's going to be great. I'm going to feel like this. It feels good. It feels good to talk about that shit, man. It actually makes you feel good, makes you feel proud, all that shit. But guess what happens?

That alarm clock goes off at 4 a.m. to train. I don't want to be a seal today. I don't want to be whatever today. I'll start tomorrow. And that's the usual pattern of people's lives. That's why I talk about clearing out the mind. Until you really want to do something, you always get to be a talker. you always get run your fucking mouth.

So again, with the audio version of this book, you've done podcasts in between each chapter where you're recapping what's just happened. And this time you brought guests, one of which was your mother. And you spend a 35-minute conversation sitting down with her and talking about the experiences that she had with your father and reflecting on that.

A lot of stuff you'd elected to leave out of the first book. So that means there's been a journey that you've gone through to get to the stage where both you and her and collaboratively, you felt okay sharing that publicly. Right. Like, what's that process like? Well, your mom didn't ask for this. I mean, you kind of also did you put a book out there because you thought it was useful and now millions and millions of people know about you. But, you know, the gravity field of your notoriety is starting to bring other people in as well. So what was the journey of getting to that stage like?

Well, it wasn't so much me. I had already laid out, you know, a lot of shit about me that was, you know, pretty embarrassing and can't hurt me. So for her, that actually helped her out. She said, wow, if you had the courage to go out there and tell people all your shit, you know. And so that process was, it took about four years of me working with my mom because, you know, she was very damaged by what she went through. And so was I. But I knew no one was coming to save me. so I had to go ahead and fix my shit.

And she kind of lived in a different place. But when I wrote can't hurt me, it started waking her up. That, hey, man, why do you care? Why do you care so much what people think about you, what you went through? Why are you putting so much, so much on other people and what they may say about you? Like, there's some stuff I talk about, you know,

that is pretty embarrassing for some people. but she got to a point of life where she was able to stop caring because we all have our shit. No one of that. Like people, it's so funny to me. There be people who are out here commenting about people who are fucking up out here.

Famous people are fucking up. And I don't know how they're able to do that when I guarantee while your skeletons are not being out there, if I would have opened up your fucking door, motherfucker, how are you doing that? So I know that about everybody. Like people love to talk shit about somebody and keep themselves out of it.

And so we went through that journey together. And so it allowed her to come out and say, yeah, fuck it. You know, I'm a big person who I want to get people to confidence to walk in the room of a million people. And none of them like you and you just like to say, fuck you, I'm good. And walk out with you by yourself. You helped your mom do that as well. And now she can look at everybody and say, yeah, I fucking married a motherfucker that choked a woman to death. I was in a bad place.

I'm good with that. One of the days that you focus on a good bit in that conversation is the day that she decided to leave your father. Right. And take you and your brother with her. Was there anything that you learned about upon reflection where both of your experiences opened up a new realization to you? that was a hard time for her and for me also. I was ready to leave a long time ago. I was just waiting for her to get the courage to finally leave them.

And I don't think anything from that really, I think that's where the damage really began. I think for her, when she left, it almost, her fight went away. And it's kind of like when you run 100 miles. When you sit down, your body can then say exactly what I was thinking I'm done it's exactly what I was thinking the second she left that the mind said oh my God like we can we can be human it's like PTSD yes we can be human and we're

not fighting anymore and it just swarmed the demons that all that fight and all that shit was keeping away it just came and it swallowed it swallowed her hole and it also swallowed me hole. But once again, like we're talking about, I got a chance to watch her. And she set out the ultimate blueprint on how not to be. So I had a hard time learning growing up, but I was very smart when it came to human beings, a genius. Because I lived in such hell. I was always studying people. Who can I trust? Who can I not trust? Energy. I got really good with energy. Can I, is this person's energy good, is it bad? So I became a genius on human beings. So I studied people all the time. Studied all the time. She also talks about considering taking her own life.

Oh, yeah. Were you aware of that before you started working toward this book? Yeah. So, yeah, she talked about that a few times with me, you know, behind closed doors. And I'm, I'm surprised she didn't. you know there's a lot of stories that are still untold that she probably will never talk about and i'll never talk about them until she says it's fine but um yeah it was it was a bad it was a bad way so i i give her credit for having a strength to say okay i need to continue on and figure out you know what's next for me she says the only reason that she didn't go through with it is because of you and your brother because she knew that she would be leaving you in the hands of this tyrant that was going to mistreat you even more badly now that she wasn't around to protect you.

Yeah. Which is a, it's beautiful, but it's also kind of a lot of pressure. It feels like a lot of pressure for a child to be the reason for his mother to still be there. And it's also a damning conclusion about the state of her life. Right. That the only thing stopping you from taking your own life is these two boys. But it's also beautiful in a way because a lot of people only, have one thing.

You don't need a lot of things. Sometimes only thing that kept me with that one step forward was one thing. And so that one thing can get you to two things, to three things, to four things. So that was a beautiful thing about that is that now she's 75 and she's retired because of that one thing. How, I mean, you're having this conversation with your mom during the production of the audiobook, you're having a conversation which is difficult to have in private with two microphones in front of you, knowing full well that this is going out to millions of people, it's going to be

scrutinized, it's going to be listened to, it's going to be reflected on. How difficult is it to watch your mother opening up about an experience, which to you was traumatic and then reopening those wounds in front of you and talking about that for millions of people to hear? Oh, it's hard. It's hard, but it's necessary. Why? To be able to own your trauma, to be able to own everything about you and look it in the eye,

like there's a part in eight mile with M&M at the very end when this white boy you know, fucking trying to make it in the rap world and getting beat down and shit comes from some trailer park shit and he's like, how the fuck?

am I going to win this rap battle because my best friend got shot in the foot and this dude slept with my girl and all this shit. So what he does to take all the power from the motherfucker, he's going to rap battle his ass. He's like, I'm going to tell you every motherfucking thing about me. I'm just going to fucking tell you. And that's how I feel about life. And that's how my mom now feels about life. I'm just going to fucking tell you everything about me.

I'm not going to hide. I'm not going to do none of this shit. And it's a refreshing feeling. When you can get in front of millions of people, get an audiobook, and you can go through your shit and lay it out and you walk away. There's no more secrets. There's no more secrets.

Like people say, oh, hey, Lance Armstrong, you do steroids? No, no, no. Yes. While I have nothing wrong with Lance Armstrong or anybody else. Just fucking tell them motherfuckers, man. And guess what happens to the conversation? It's over.

It fucking ends. There's a really telling moment in the book. I think it's my favorite part. And it's not even in this one. It's in the audiobook. And it's getting quite difficult with your mom. And you offer her a route out. You ask if she wants to take a break.

Yep. She says now, I want to keep going. So it seems like she's got a bit of that dog in her as well. Oh, yeah. She had to. Yeah. She had to. One thing that when you grew up the way, we kind of grew up together.

That's how I look at it. When she had you in. She had me at 28 and my brother at 24. So, um, back that, you know, we grew up together and you got to have a dog in you. You have to have a dog in you, man. And so you have to have it like my grandfather called it a stiff upper lip. You better have a stiff upper lip. So, you know, yeah, she has some dog in her.

She has some dog in her. She has to. There's no other way to make it out here. I mean, you can't just always be, you know, head down in the sand. You got to learn to pick yourself up on your own. A lot of times these fights and these battles, you got to be your own fucking coach. You got to be your own motivator. And she had to do that several times in her life.

Given all of this trauma that you go through, why would you choose to go back and see this tyrant of a father for one last time? It was the only way for me to move forward. So like a lot of times If your back is hurting It may not be your fucking back It may be something else in your bias Making your back hurt For me

I'm like man Why can I get past this fucking hurdle So like I said I'm always examining myself Every day What is it? What is it? Well there's only one thing you haven't examined yet And it's going back to the beast Going back to the demon

So when I went back to him, I realized that that was the unsolved mystery. I had to look that man the eye one more time. Like how I studied that Navy SEAL talking shit in Lyon, I got it from this part right here in the book. I went and I didn't see him anymore as this beast. I started doing research on him, found out that his dad used to beat him really bad. So his dad would put him in front of a furnace, open the furnace up with the flames coming out,

and put him right in front of it, have him bare butt naked, and he would whip the shit out of him. And the whole idea of that is if you move, you're going to get burned. So stay right here and take your fucking beating. So what happened with him, those demons from his father went to my father,

and he tried to transfer him over to me. I had to understand who my father was. Understand where he came from. Understand why were you so fucking brutal to us. I got my answers. Took those answers. It made myself better from the answers about him. And so that's why it was necessary for me to go back.

I was looking for an apology so then maybe I could just go be a loser and understand that you fucked me up. Why would the apology make you a loser? No. it would make me feel vindicated. Justified. Yes. Like, man, you, you did this to me.

I can go be a loser now. My failings are okay. This okay. Because you did this. So I was looking for that. And when I went there, I realized, because this voice in he was saying, it's not your dad's fault. Now I'm like, no, man.

Because this voice over here always said, it's your dad's fault. This other voice started tuning in was loud. Start getting louder. The more I drove to Buffalo was saying, you can get to face a lot of shit, young man. You got a long journey ahead of you because you're going to find out

that while your dad did a lot of shit to you, you're going to have to fucking make it on your own. And the voice got louder and louder and louder. And by the time I got to that door, and by time I was leaving that house, instead of me feeling sorry for myself, I started to do it live autopsy. because a lot of people when you die,

they figure out why you die. They figure out how you died. In the autopsy. But we never do a live autopsy to figure out while we're dying while we are alive. And I was dying. I was living every day, but I was really dead. And so I figured it out.

And once I figured it out, I was able to be reborn. I was able to be reborn. What we see is this pattern of, generational trauma, your grandfather to your father, your father to you, father to son, just being passed on, passed on, passed on. Is this part of your mission to be a circuit breaker, to be a dam, to stop this trauma from moving forward into the next generation? 100%. But with people, I'm trying to build people up. I'm trying to armor their mind.

I'm trying to get them the belief because this war we live in is tough. It's tough. It's tough. it will beat you down. The world and the life they were living is the ultimate competitor. It will try to take you out. It will find your weakness and it will fucking dishammer you. It's like a personal curse.

100%. So if I can help you build belief, build confidence to the point where nothing can hurt you because you know exactly who you are. You've faced your demons. You've been able to go on an audio book. in your mind. Maybe you didn't write a book, but in your mind, you were able to hear all your past traumas. You were able to listen to them. You're able to fucking say, okay, now I can now talk to

people about what I went through. I'm no longer embarrassed. I'm no longer ashamed. Being ashamed is one of the biggest things that kill people nowadays in their minds. Kill them from moving forward. I'm ashamed in myself. Don't ever be ashamed of anything you've done in your life. Face it, fix it, make it better. But then again, if you always think that we're humans, you will always just be a human and always make the same fucking mistakes. You must take this knowledge that you learn from all this shit is knowledge. So I'm just trying to give people that strength to go in the archives of your life. Because while you're probably fucked up, it's probably something happened to you in your life. Go through the archives, dig it up, study it, and then use it for yourself.

That's the main purpose for me right now. Have you considered what you would be like as a father? Yeah. I actually have a daughter right now. Yeah. No way. I didn't know. Yeah.

I have a daughter right now. But that being said, I'm an open and honest person. When you meet people at a young age, so I had a kid at a young age when I was in the worst possible place in my life. So when you're in a bad place, you're not going to meet. a kish you're going to meet a person that's very similar to who you are at that time and then you bring a child in this world and as you start to move up in this world and get better and you realize i need to get better you try to pull that person along with you a lot of times they don't want to come where you're

going and it creates a bad environment so that's what that is right now But my daughter's 21 years old, though. Wow. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. I think that it would be all of the learnings and stuff that you've been through as a father, as a son, as a grandson, it makes sense to me that that would have been something that could have been passed out. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.