The Resilient Mind - Commit, Adapt, Succeed - David Goggins

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

An 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 Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to, commit, adapt, succeed, with David Gagins. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. We live in a world that we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult, we wonder why we power and we run away.

I mean, our whole life is set up that way. Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don't want to suffer. We don't want to feel discomfort. So the whole time we're living our lives in a very comfortable area. There's no growth in that. So for me, I realized that. The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable.

What was very uncomfortable was running. It was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. was very uncomfortable, was trying to face things that I didn't want to face. And I also realized when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable. So I realized for me to find growth, I had to face all of these different things that made me very, very uncomfortable.

One thing I faced was running. I absolutely hated running. But I knew for me to grow, I had to do this thing every single. single day. I want to start callous in my mind. I wanted to start becoming a better person. And how you become a better person, how you gain mental toughness, how you become the person you want to be, is constantly facing the things that you don't want to face. If you constantly run away from things that you don't want to face, how is their growth? How is their mental toughness? I can give you a class all day long about self-talk, visualization, eat an elephant

one by that at a time. But if you're never putting yourself in a situation, you're never putting yourself in a situation to actually practice these things. You're never going to grow. I can't put you out there in a, we're all going through a battle in our mind. A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest warrior ever go through is right between your own ears. It's in your mind. We're all going through a war in our mind and we have to callous our mind to fight that war and to win that war. When I first got into endurance events, I love the breakdown phase. because the suffering made me feel alive and reminded me that I'd gone all out. This time, I didn't relish it in the same way,

but I knew that breakdown was a byproduct of an all-out effort and that if I explored the crevices of my mind, I would find valuable lessons, which tend to spill out with any unraveling. Most people prefer to avoid breakdowns like this because the suffering can be so overwhelming. It just might mark you forever. I embrace breakdown and welcome the scarring.

There is a hell of a lot of information in scar tissue. Scars are proof that the past is real. Physical scars never go away. And when you look at them, they can bring you right back to a specific place in time. But the scar tissue that builds up around that old injury is weak. Professional fighters who've been hit in the face thousands of times bleed faster than those who have never been punched. Once you've been cut deep, you are forever vulnerable to bleeding. The same is true for the mental and emotional scars that we all carry with us, the scars we cannot see.

They might be invisible, but they affect us much more severely than physical scars. Mental and emotional scars are our weak spots, and they can open up just as easily as physical scars unless we do the work to strengthen them. If you haven't dealt with your scars, they can alter your life's path. You will be prone to failure during difficult, physical, and emotional situations, whether that's during an athletic event at work or in your home life. And eventually, you will land back in front of your mirror that never lies. Breakdown is its own kind of mirror.

Whatever you're made of is laid out in front of you, clear, and plain. Your history and mindset become a weather old map, ridged with your scars. And if you read them like an archaeologist on a dig, you might uncover the code you need to rise again and become better and stronger because there is no transformation without breakdown and there is always another evolution, another skin to shed, a better or deeper version of ourselves waiting to be revealed. Every morning I wake up, it's not just about working out, but for me, working out has been a very big part of my mental growth. So for me, if I am not challenging myself every day, and I swear to God, people will not believe it. I was over almost 300 pounds twice in my life.

A person that does that twice in his life does not enjoy cardiovascular activity. Okay? Yeah. So people can put anything they want to in their head. I did realize one thing. The things I don't enjoy that I still do, that's where growth is at. And that's, for me, the only place growth is at is in that very uncomfortable, you know, in that uncomfortable zone. So, for instance, today I woke up and I just got to London and I don't know where to run here.

It's very difficult to run around this place. So someone said, hey, you can run around out here, like I can run this one mile block. Like, you know what? I'm not doing that. So I went down to the gym, and there's this, like, crazy elliptical trainer. But it's not a normal elliptical trainer. It's one that you, like, almost self-power. So I got on that thing, and I realized, man, sucks. And after, like, two minutes, I'm like, I don't want to do this.

So, right then I realized, hmm, it looks like we're going to be here for a while. So I did that for two hours and 45 minutes. So I'm not saying do that, but that's something I did today. Once my mind, say, you know what, let's not do this today. I said, well, since my mind went there, I redirected it and said, just for having that weak thought, we're going to be on here for a while. For many people, the haunting begins the minute they wake up. Maybe they are fat or disabled, feel ugly, or are failing and overwhelmed at school or work. And it consumes them.

Their obsession with their own imperfections and faults suffocates self-respect and submarines' progress, and from the time they get out of bed until they're able to crawl back in that night, the only thing on their agenda is avoiding exposure and surviving another day in hell. When that's how you feel about yourself, it's impossible to see possibilities or seize opportunities. We have to learn to stop looking for a sign that the hard time will end. When the distance is unknown, it is even more critical that you stay locked in so the unknown factor doesn't steal your focus. The end will come when it comes. And anticipation will only distract you from completing the task in front of you to the best of your ability.

Remember, the struggle is the whole journey. That's why you're out there. It's why you signed up for this race or that class or took the damn job. There is great beauty when you're involved in something that is so hard. Most people want it to end. We can make any obstacle as big or small as we like. When you're climbing a mountain or involved in any other difficult task, the only way to free yourself from the struggle is to finish it.

So why bitch about it when it gets hard? Why hope it will end soon when you know it will end eventually? When you complain and your mind starts groping for the eject button, you are not bring your best self to the task, which means you are actually prolonging the pain. The hard chargers keep their heads down and hammer away. They have trained their minds to stay hard in those hard moments. They recognize the false summit for what it is

and will always act as if they are nowhere near the top. Most people slow down and suffer on a steep trail, but slope and elevation are of no consequence to the hard charger. They keep their mind in attack mode until there are no more mountains to climb. And when they actually reach the top, they wish it had lasted a little bit longer. If you want to maximize minimal potential and become great in any field, you must embrace your savage side and become imbalanced, at least for a period of time.

You'll need to funnel every minute of every single day into the pursuit of that degree. that starting spot, that job, that edge. Your mind must never leave the cockpit. Sleep at the library or the office. Hoop long past sundown and fall asleep watching film of your next opponent. There are no days off. And there is no downtime when you're obsessed with being great. That is what it takes to be the baddest mother ever at what you do.

Know that your dedication will be misunderstood. Some relationships may break down. The savage is not a socialized beast, and an imbalanced lifestyle often appears selfish from the outside. But the reason I've been able to help so many people with my life story is precisely because I embraced being that imbalanced while I pursued the impossible dream of becoming the hardest motherfucker ever. That's a mythical title, but it became my compass bearing, my North Star, when you observe. highly successful individuals, it may seem tempting to conclude that they were inherently born with their capabilities, that they possess innate talent. And that's the end of the story. However, talent, while undoubtedly making life more straightforward, is just one piece of the puzzle,

reflecting back, I was once a shy and fearful person. Ironically, this apparent misfortune turned into a source of strength, igniting significant changes in my life. By consistently stepping out of my comfort zone, I not only conquered social shyness and improved my communication skills, but also nurtured robust self-confidence and overcame other fears in my life. I might not have been naturally inclined to excel in social settings. I still prefer solitude over crowds. However, with self-discipline and persistent effort, I attained remarkable results. So the next time you think you lack talent in a particular area or believe you weren't born with inherent abilities, remind yourself that in many situations, self-discipline can compensate for the absence of inborn traits. Living life seems easy

when you take the hard path and challenging when opting for the easy way out. Self-discipline demands traversing the difficult route, resisting temptations and immediate gratification in exchange for more substantial and superior rewards in the future. It might seem simpler to avoid discomfort and indulge in immediate pleasures, but eventually this approach only offers fleeting pleasure at the cost of a potentially much improved future. Imagine a person lacking determination who, when faced with a challenge, chooses to withdraw. draw immediately. How likely is such an individual to achieve something significant in life when their primary value lies in seeking comfort? Contrast this with someone who voluntarily embraces

difficulties. They actively seek and welcome challenges as opportunities for personal growth. Each self-imposed trial toughens them, making them less susceptible to being overwhelmed by life's adversities. They become more resilient as they face difficulties. on. When life throws unexpected challenges at them, they are prepared to handle them because due to living their lives through perseverance, they've developed readiness for hardships. Our decisions are made in a moment, but their repercussions can extend throughout a lifetime. Humans possess the ability to resist impulses in exchange for a brighter future. Unfortunately, many people live by the principle of if it feels good, do it. And if it does, doesn't, don't do it. Yielding to temptations whenever they arise is akin to surrendering your humanity in certain ways. As intelligent beings, we have the capacity, and I would venture to say

the obligation to base our decisions on rational thinking, not just on instinct alone. Strive to be a better human by embracing your humanity. Exercise your willpower muscle instead of surrendering to the most primal and least beneficial part of your brain for long-term goals. While primal instincts may provide immediate comfort, they rarely serve well in the long run. No, don't take it like go out there and run through a brick wall as many times as you can. No, I'm not saying be me. Don't run 205 miles at one time. I'm not saying do that.

I'm saying start to learn the mind is powerful. It's powerful, man. It's unbelievable. But people need, they need a thing to get them going, right? They need a thing. Right. They need a goal. They need a, like, it's, sometimes the first step is the hardest.

Like, it's hard to take that one million step, too. But sometimes the first step is the most, there's something about the like, what do I do? They start going over their phone. They start calling people. They don't get out of the house. Right. And there's something about procrastination. It's like you know it's painful.

You know you should be doing things, but you just keep doing it. You keep itching that scab. I procrastinate like, man, every day. I'm a... That's what's so funny, man. People looking like I'm some damn superhero that came down from the gods, from the heavens up earth. No, man, I don't want to do... I'm looking at my shoes for 30 minutes sometimes thinking, man.

Man, people look up to your goggles. Damn. I don't want to do this shit, man. But guess what? You do it. I'm going to do it. As long as you do it. And that's what I know about it, man.

That's what I stop doing it. I'm thinking, no, man, you sit here, you look at your shoes for 30 or 40 minutes. You go, you're going to think about it all day long. You're going to do it anyway. And sometimes you don't have the time to look at your shoes for 30 minutes. No. Those are the beautiful days. Yes.

Because you know you just have to go. That's right. And so, like, there's no room for procrastination. And that's when I was in the military, I loved my schedule because I knew how to be working at 7 o'clock. So you better get your ass up at 4 o'clock, man. You're a g-g-and, brother, because I had to get it before I got. You know? So that was my mentality back then, man.

You know, like I had to get the miles and get everything in, man, and get to work, man. I'm competing with the alpha males. Everything I had gone through, I realized that the human mind, if you can put it in a very quiet, calm place and get it to calm down and not be so spastic that you could possibly make this work out for you. How bad? How bad are you really? So I calm myself down and I had to make this enormous thing small. I had 30 more miles to run and my body was in the worst shape in my entire life. The worst pain I ever felt my life. So I broke this 30 miles thing down. I broke it down to small chunks. I calm my mind down. I had to get water, had to get potassium, how to get sodium.

I had to stop being so dizzy because I had to be able to stand up. So my dizziness went away after about an hour. I was able to stand up now. And I was going around this track at like a 30-some-minute mile. And I never get my crew person saying, hey, I got to mile 81. It said, you're not going to make the time. I had 24 hours. and I was going so slow, taking so much time. This is when I realized that the human mind, once everything gets connected, once the mind knows you're not going to quit something,

it's going to try to find more. It's going to try to give you more. Once it realizes you're not going to take the path of least resistance, you're going to stay here until it's done. My mind and my body and my spirit became one. For the first time ever, for the first time ever became one. and I went to a level that I never thought was humanly possible for myself or anybody else. In that shape that I was in, I was able to run 19 miles.

And I ran 19 miles, did 100 miles, I actually did one more mile. I did 101 miles in 18 hours and 56 minutes. I'd overcome so many obstacles in my life. And this was the final crucible for me. And I got through it. And at the end of this race was such a. clarity to me. And it was just the most amazing thing I ever do in my life. I was at the very edge of my capability and wasn't sure that I could take one more step. I felt like I drained 99% from my

tank at least. My gas light was on. My engine shuddering, yet I knew I had to find more if I was going to finish this race and get myself into bad water. But how do you push yourself when pain is all you feel with every step? When agony is a feedback loop that permeates each, cell in your body, begging you to stop. That's tricky because the threshold for suffering is different for everybody. What's universal is the impulse to succumb, to feel like you've given everything you can, and that you are justified in leaving a job undone. By now, I'm sure you can tell that it doesn't take much for me to become obsessed. Some criticize my level of passion, but I'm not down with the prevailing

mentalities that tend to dominate American society these days. The ones that tell us to go with the flow or invite us to learn how to get more with less effort. Fuck that shortcut bullshit. The reason I embrace my own obsessions and demand and desire more of myself is because I've learned that it's only when I push beyond pain and suffering. Past my perceived limitations that I'm capable of accomplishing more

physically and mentally in endurance races, but also in life as a whole. And I believe the same is true for you. The human body is like a stock car. We may look different on the outside, but under the hood we all have huge reservoirs of potential and a governor impeding us from reaching our maximum velocity. In a car, the governor limits the flow of fuel and air so it doesn't burn too hot, which places a ceiling on performance. It's a hardware issue. The governor can easily be removed, and if you disable yours, watch your car rocket beyond 130 mile per hour. It's a subtler process in the human animal. Our governor is buried deep in our minds, intertwined with our very identity. It knows what and who we love and hate. It's read our whole life story and forms the way

we see ourselves and how we'd like to be seen. It's the software that delivers personalized feedback in the form of pain and exhaustion, but also fear and insecurity. And it uses all of that to encourage us to stop before we risk it all. But here's the thing. It doesn't have absolute control. Unlike the governor in an engine, ours can't stop us unless we buy into its bullshit and agree to quit. Sadly, most of us give up when we've only given around 40% of our maximum effort. Even when we feel like we've reached our absolute limit, we still have 60% more to give. That's the governor in action. Once you know that to be true, it's simply a matter of stretching your pain tolerance, letting go of your identity, and all your self-limiting stories.

So you can get to 60%, then 80% and beyond without giving up. I call this the 40%. 40% rule. And the reason it's so powerful is that if you follow it, you will unlock your mind to new levels of performance and excellence in sports and in life. And your rewards will run far deeper than mere material success. The 40% rule can be applied to everything we do. Because in life, almost nothing will turn out exactly as we hope. There are always challenges. And whether we are at work or school, or feeling tested within our most intimate or important relationships. We will all be tempted to walk away from commitments, give up on our goals and dreams, and sell our own happiness short at some point because we will feel empty like we have no more to give when we haven't tapped even half of the truer buried deep in our minds, hearts, and souls.

I know how it feels to be approaching an energetic dead end. I've been there too many times to count. I understand the temptation that so short, but I also know that impulse is driven by your mind's desire for comfort, and it's not telling you the truth. It's your identity, trying to find sanctuary, not help you grow. It's looking for status quo, not reaching for greatness or seeking wholeness.

But the software update that you need to shut your governor down is no supersonic download. It takes 20 years to gain 20 years of experience. experience and the only way to move beyond your 40% is to callous your mind day after day, which means you'll have to chase pain like it's your damn job. Imagine you're a boxer and on your first day in the ring you take one on your chin. It's going to hurt like fucking hell, but a year, 10 of being a boxer, you won't be stopped by one punch. You'll be able to absorb 12 rounds of getting beat the fuck down and come back the very next day

and fight again. It's not that the punch has lost power. Your opponents will be even stronger. The change has happened within your brain. You've calloused your mind. Over a period of time, your tolerance for mental and physical suffering will have expanded because your software will have learned that you can take a hell of a lot more than one punch. And if you stay with any task that is trying to beat you down, you will reap rewards. Not a fire. Say you, like to run, but have a broken pinky toe. I'll bet if you continue running on it. Pretty soon you'll be able to run on broken legs. Sounds impossible, right? I know it's true because I've run on broken legs, and that knowledge helped me endure all manner of agonies on the ultra circuit, which has

revealed a clear spring of self-confidence that I drink from whenever my tank is dry. But nobody taps their reserve 60% right away or all at once. The first step is to remember that your initial blast of pain and fatigue is your governor talking. Once you do that, you are in control of the dialogue in your mind and you can remind yourself that you are not as drained as you think, that you haven't given it your all, not even close. Buying into that will keep you in the fight. worth an extra 5%. Of course, that's easier, listen, than done. It wasn't easy to begin the fourth lap of the hurt 100 because I knew how much it would hurt. And when you are feeling dead and buried, dehydrated, rung out, and torn the fuck up at 40%, finding that extra 60% feels impossible.

I didn't want my suffering to continue. Nobody does. That's why the line fatigue makes cowards of us all is true as shit. Mind you, I didn't know anything about the 40% rule that day. The hurt 100 is when I first started to contemplate it, but I had hit the wall many times before, and I had learned to stay present and open-minded enough to recalibrate my goals, even at my lowest. I knew that staying in the fight is always the hardest and most rewarding first step. Of course, it's easy to be open-minded when you leave yoga class and are taking a stroll by the beach, but when you're suffering, keeping an open mind is hard work. The same is true if you are facing a daunting challenge on the job or at school.

Maybe you are tackling a hundred question test and know that you brick the first 50. At that point, it's extremely difficult to maintain the necessary discipline to force yourself to keep taking the test seriously. It's also imperative that you find it because in every failure there is something to be gained, even if it's only practice for the next test you'll have to take. Because that next test is coming. That's a guarantee. The one second decision is I had to live through that one second decision several times during this race. So this race took me 100 and some hours, okay?

And this is what people don't get. For you to finish that race, even though I DNFed, I still finished in the time. So there's a lot of pride in that. So what I do in that one second, because we all think about quitting. It's hard. But what you have to do in that. one second, it's hard to process information during pain because that pain takes over and you can't think rationally. You're thinking about fight or flight, save yourself. That's not a rational thought.

It's not a thought that's going to get you through hard times. Most people fail that one second. So what happens what I do in that one second, and there's a bigger process to all this, but in that one second, I physically stayed in that water. Because if I get out of the water, I quit. So I physically stay in the water. But mentally, I'm on the beach with the instructors. And the instructors is cold outside, so they got these parkers on. They got their cup of Joe.

And they're warm because they've already been through it. So now it's your turn to go through it. So mainly I get back with them. I'm still in the water physically, but mainly I'm back with them. I'm chilling. I got my parker on. And now I'm thinking logically, because I'm warm now. Mentally I'm warm.

I've taken that one second. Let's not quit yet, Gagas. Let's think about your options. Where are you going to end up if you quit this? Where are you going to go? Where are you going to say to yourself? Because you know you're going to get warm. The second you get out of this water, you can take a shower,

and you can be warm. And in five days, you can be out. So I start thinking logically. I calm my brain down because your brain just wants to get to, Now, ring the bill, push your helmet down, get warm, and then you're really, and these are the things you have to think about the one second decision. So that's what that's all about. It's about gaining control of your mind, putting things back in the proper perspective,

and then saying, I really do want to be here. I'm going to have a bunch of these one seconds through this 130-hour journey. And I have to learn to control these, because if I fail one of these one seconds, I will not be a seal. I will not be a doctor. I will not be a lawyer. I will not be whatever the fuck it is. So that's how important

that one second decision is it's all about your mind takes control of you. You have to say, fuck you, I run this. And that's what that's all about. We must create a system that constantly reminds us who the fuck we are

when we are at our best because life is not going to pick us up when we fall. There will be forks in the road, knives in your fucking back, mountains to climb, and we are only capable of living up to the image we create for ourselves. Prepare yourself. We know life can be hard,

and yet we feel sorry for ourselves when it isn't fair. From this point forward, accept the following as Goggins' laws of nature. You will be made fun of it. You will feel insecure. You may not be the best all the time. time. You may be the only black, white, Asian, Latino, female, male, gay, lesbian. There will be times when you feel alone. Get over it. Our minds are fucking strong. They are our most powerful weapon,

but we have stopped using them. We have access to so many more resources today that ever before, and yet we are so much less capable than those who came before us. If you want to be one of the few to defy those trends in our ever-softening society, you will have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity, which requires an open mind. It's funny being open-minded is often tagged as new age or soft. Flipped that. Being open-minded enough to find a way is old school. It's what knuckle-draggers do. And that's exactly what I did. Failure is this a word. For me, failure was me having more information on how to succeed.

That's all failure became to me. So I failed so much. Pull-up records, running events, had to quit this, Buds, Rangers, all this crap, I had to go back through. All that was was, oh, I failed because of these reasons here. Go back to the drawing board, figure out the right equation, put it together, go back, fail again. Oh, but I got more information. So everything I was afraid of, I made sure to meet it right in the face and overcome it.

Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes. Download the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes.