The Resilient Mind - If You Don't Control Your Mind, You Can't Control Your Life - David Goggins

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

[Explicit]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: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_JournalExplore tools from past guests of the podcast. Some links below are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you:💓 HeartMath: https://www.heartmath.com/resilient🧠 Muse: https://choosemuse.com/resilientmind🌿 Brain Ritual: https://www.brainritual.com/THERESILIENTMIND🌍 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.

Let's not quit yet, God, because let's fucking think about your options. Where are you going to end up if you quit this shit? Where are you going to go? What 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 fuck out. Ring the bell, push your helmet down, get warm, and then you really f***. And these are the things you have to think about the one second decision. So that's what'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 would 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 motherfucker yeah i mean it's it's fucking miserable it is miserable i mean to get up every day or five days a week whatever when it's snowing shiny not not not comfortable and to go into gym and work out when you don't want to go to the gym it is not fun well and we're in a culture that that is driving everybody

towards this idea that happiness is purchased through luxury, comfort, and ease. A truth could not be more different from that reality, that if you want to find peace with yourself, self-understanding, self-knowledge, self-esteem, all of these things are going to be found only through sacrifice, getting uncomfortable, re-evaluating what your normal is, and putting yourself in situations that you don't want to do. Yes, and we want it very fast. If you don't see results in the first two days or the first week, I'm done. That's the mentality of most people.

The struggle is too real. We're not patient. Like in a world where you can Google the best restaurants around me right now, no one is patient. And for you to lose weight, for you to stop drink, if you where the hell you're going through, it takes a lot of patience, a lot of time, and a lot of pitfalls, a lot of plateaus. you can hit so many plateaus if you don't know how to get

around that plateau it's not going to happen fast yeah everybody wants the hack yeah everybody wants to hack there is no hack man there's no hack I was afraid of water

terrified the water and I learned how to swim but what gets everybody in this training in all special ops training is the water confidence where they try to pretty much drown your ass

you know all of our lives we've been breathing and they take that from you and they want to see how comfortable you are underwater. And there's only 1% African Americans in special operations. And I didn't know anything about African. Like a lot of them are negative buoyant, which I am because of the bone density. I struggled.

But six weeks in the program, there was about 25 guys left out of about 150. I was there. And I didn't go to sleep for six weeks of the program. And I wanted to quit so badly. But I quit everything in my life. I copied through school. I wanted to prove people wrong. And so here I am in this Air Force program, starting to get a little more confidence, but this water was kicking my ass.

And six weeks in the program, the doctor gave me a blood test. It was I have sickle cell. Sickle cell trait, not the anemia, but it still killed people. So they pulled me out training for a week, and when you go from being very uncomfortable in that water situation, and then now you're comfortable, and I'm sitting back watching the guys drowned. I'm not part of the activities anymore for this week. I didn't want to get back in that damn water again. So the fear overcame me and all my insecurities from my dad,

from this small town, from everything, started coming back. And even though no one knew how f***ed up I was, kind of created this other person who was tough, I live with this shit all the time. So me not want to go back in that water, the doctor called me back up. I thought I was to get like a medical kick out of the military. So no quitting for me.

They'll kick me out so I can have some pride. The doctor said, no, man, we could put you back in the training. And I was like, but after a week, I'm like, you know what, I missed one week. There's only three weeks left. There's a good chance. You know, I could tough this shit out and go on. But I went back to the CEO and the command officer of the program. And the sergeant said, hey, you got to start from day one because you missed, you know, that week of training.

And I broke. I broke. I couldn't imagine going back through that again. So I made up a lie. And I said, man, the sickle cell thing is really scaring me. It was a water. It wasn't sickle cell. And I pretty much quit.

Even though they gave me a medical, I quit. So from the age of 19 to age of 22, I went and did a job called TACP where you control fast movers behind enemy lines. Cool job, but there's no water. I was afraid of water, so I avoided it. And I gained 125 pounds in that time frame. I went from 175 to almost 300 to 297 was my heaviest.

and I started finding things that was comfortable. And the more things I found comfortable, the more uncomfortable my mind was. Because that voice I was telling you about, it always was there. I was just trying to avoid that conscience. I wanted to be left alone from that conscience, and it wouldn't leave me alone.

I used to look at my life from a different vantage point, and when you're in all the muck and you're just walking in muck and walking in muck and you don't see that if you look off to the fucking left, of the muck there's a sidewalk brother get off get off of it you have your head down looking in this muck once i saw the sidewalk got the sidewalk i got a little break and i got a different vantage point and then from the sidewalk i found a cliff then i found a mountain i got way up high on top of my life and looked back down on it and said okay i got to figure this out man i'm not going anywhere i'm starting

to lie i'm starting like so when you have a messed up foundation i started lying about everything i wanted people to like me i wanted to be accepted in some society of life some social society. And I said, man, this isn't the right way. I'm messed up here. I messed up here. I messed up everywhere. And so I realized the worst thing that happened to me is I lost myself. I never had myself. I never found myself. I had no self-esteem.

So I knew through working out and through learning, because it took a lot for me to learn also. I started finding self-esteem. Once I found that, that's when doors started opening. I stopped caring about people. That what they thought being judged, wow, if I say this, if I started right now, Now, are you going to make fun of me? I stopped caring about that. And that's when my life started really changing for me, slowly but surely. That's such an important point when you're talking about the working out.

Because a lot of people, when they think about working out, they think it as being a physical thing. Right. No. No. I did it for mental. Yeah. People always say, my God, like, no. Don't look at it.

Like, I didn't care about losing weight. I didn't care about being the fastest person. I didn't care about, I wasn't making the Olympics. I wasn't going to pros. I could barely read and write when I was in junior in high school. I wasn't going in. anywhere. I saw working out as a way for me to build calluses on my mind. I had to callous over the victim's mentality. So I watched these movies. I talked about Rocky last time I was on

here. I always equated training to mental toughening. Like it always looked brutal. People waking up early and doing all these things. It looked horrible. I was like, wow, man, I got to start doing that. Not to get better, bigger and stronger, but that is what's going to build me. That looks uncomfortable, that looks brutal. And getting up early, I don't want to do that. Some of this long list of things I don't want to do. And through that, I found myself.

I'm like, you guys aren't doing this in high school? You guys aren't getting about 5 o'clock in the morning running over here in this golf course. So I started seeing myself very differently than the average human being. I was like, hold on a second. I have something they don't have. And that's when I started to develop these things through working out.

It was this great, never ending work ethic. And through work ethic, I develop self-esteem. The purpose is always there. The purpose never leaves us because the very purpose is you. You are always the purpose. There may be another purpose, like being a seal or going to college or whatever, but the main purpose in life is you. So if you wake up in the morning and you don't want to do something, you don't care enough about yourself. And that's what you need to really research. is, man, why am I not doing this for myself? Because that is the number one purpose in life is to better oneself. So that's the only purpose I fucking need. So the reason I get up every day,

even though there's no race or there's no school, there's nothing in front of me, is because I have pride in myself. But where do you go to? You wake up on a morning. It's cold. It's wet. It's dark. You've got no cartilage in your knee. You've got pretty shorts. whatever it is that's the issue today. Keep talking. You've got these problems, right? I need you to keep talking about what you were just saying. It's warm on the couch.

Your Mrs. says stay in bed. It's comfy. It's cozy. You've got work later on. You had an argument last night. You're slightly hung over. I know every motherfucker ain't going to do what I'm going to do. This is how you level up.

That's how you level up. I know there's a whole bunch of people with that right there. That fires me up. that makes me happy what you just said that brings joy to my life right there because I know there's so many people that have the ability

and just refuse to get off that couch refuse to study a few more hours refuse to go deeper to go further and that's where I gained the advantage it's so easy to be great nowadays my friend because most people are weak

most people don't want to go to that extra mile Most people don't want to find that extra because it sucks. It's miserable. It's lonely. You talk about that you were kind of lonely by yourself. I was the same way. And that used to hurt me growing up.

Now I've been driving it. That's the only place to be. So what I do is I literally sit there with a pen and paper and I have my books. And I go through and have to write everything down, every single day. I will study the same page until it's photographic memory from writing the same thing down.

And then from there, I'll go back through and relearned again. So I'll learn the bulk of it. But then I'll go through and learn the small things within that. So if it's a medication, I'll learn what the medication does. First, I'll learn how to even say the medication

because these medications aren't like, you know, like alpudorol. No, it's very big words. So I'll go through, learn how to say the name. And I'll go through, learn what the dose is. And I'll go through, and this is like every single day. It's not like, oh, I got it. Let's just go through. No, nothing is I got it.

Every single thing. So I can't wait to get in this conversation because everything I do in life, it sucks. Everything I do in life, it sucks. That's why when I was 300 pounds and 24 years old, it wasn't like I had some big epiphany of let's just go be a Navy SEAL and let's lose some weight. No, I knew my entire life was going to be a struggle, which is why I just ignored it. I said, I'm not even trying to jump off into this and learn how to read, how to write, how to memorize, how to become something I am not.

but through that process, something happened to me. And I realized, this is why I feel sorry for no one. And this podcast, they're going to really not like me because people are going to think that I am maybe lying or maybe fibbing or exaggerating. No, I am literally, I was the lowest form on earth, no talent, no ability to learn, and I literally know what it is to be rock bottom

and to build that up. So that question about learning is the pain in my ass. And I don't have to do it. It's the thing about it. I'm 49 years old and I'm a multi-millionaire. I don't have to do anything. So all I thought about when I was growing up is, man, I can't wait to one day get to the point

where I no longer have to do this stuff. But what happens, I got older, it became a way of living. So how I do every day is how I do every day. It's a discipline, it's a regimen. It's a, it was a choice I made. And the choice I made was, what are you willing to sacrifice and what are you willing to give up

to find every bit of who you are as a human being? And I was willing to give everything to do that. We all look for toughness. We all want it, but we look for it in a comfortable environment. You will not find toughness. in a comfortable environment. Those of you who are listening to this, whoever hear this,

you will not find it. I was trying to look for it everywhere. The only way you find it is to drown yourself in a position where you're just out of sorts, where you can't swim and you're drowning. Where you're drowning.

You're drowning in life. But you say, you know what, man? Dad, I'm going to figure out how to backstroke or fucking something. I'm going to figure out how to, and then you're figuring out all these tools. Your mind starts to, when you quit, your mind does this because you're out. Once you say I'm not going to quit, this is the 40%.

When you quit, your mind says, we're done. So it doesn't expand. There's no expansion when you quit. When you say, fuck you, uh-uh, this sucks. I'm drowning. I'm miserable. I'm suffering. I'm broken.

but I'm not going anywhere. What happens to your mind is it does this. It says, he's not leaving. So we got to expand. We got to grow. We got to figure this fucking thing out. So then these compartments in your brain start to have. They have to work.

They have to work. And then you start to engage parts of your mind that you never engaged before. But you can't engage it by sitting back in these nice chairs drinking this nice water, talking to you, talking about what I want to do. So that's where the 40% thing comes in. It comes in when you're in suffer mode and you say, I'm not going to quit. You're forcing your brain now to operate.

On a level, it's not used to. But then it becomes used to it. Because it's telling you the whole time not to go there. It's structured an entire narrative about your whole future life to make sure you never go there. But when you force it physically, it has to expand. and adapt for pure survival reasons. It has to. And your brain is the most powerful weapon.

I talk about that in one of these chapters. Your brain is the most powerful weapon in the world. Once you put away your phones and your computers and all that we have nowadays, yes, great. We're up to date. But your brain is the only thing you have when you're going through depression, when you're going through hard times,

you're going through death. Real life, you can't Google that, man. You're alone. You're alone. You may have a shrink you're going to. You may have a best friend you're going to. But there's 24 hours in the day where you're alone in this brain. And your brain is talking to you in all kind of ways.

And it wants to control you and pull you in these different pockets. If you can't control your own brain and your brain controls you, you got to tell your brain where you want to go and how you want to go and how you want to get there. you got to control it. If not, it's over. There's a voice that guides you through life. When sometimes it's guiding you in a direction that you don't want to go, that's usually the right place to go.

It's that uncomfortable place. So that voice is always talking to me, but we don't listen to it. I listen to it. And when I start getting anxious, nervous, like I've done, we all know when we've done too much because it's telling us, I'm getting tired of, I'm wearing down.

But we go, we go, we go. I start talking to my fiance, hey, I'm doing too much. You start now like I did in Hell Week, like I do all the time. The one second decision, it's that decision when your mind starts to get so adpped up. Whenever you can't hear yourself think, you got to slow down. Whenever you're living off a schedule, every day's a schedule, every day's a schedule. You have no time for yourself. When you start, and we all know it, I don't have time for this anymore, have time for that anymore.

that's when your mind and your body is saying, think about that. I'm neglecting my fiancé. I'm neglecting my disciplines of life. I'm neglecting my reading, my learning, my workouts, my diet. You start neglecting all of that. You neglect one of them.

You can neglect all of them a long time. It's going to haunt you. When you start seeing that, my God, I haven't eaten right in a long time, haven't been sleeping right in a long time, it can only be one of those things to take you off. So I'm very aware of my eating, my sleeping, my disciplines of life. You know, I started to get too far away from them.

It's a hard stop. Because what made me me are the self, not just disciplines, the self-disciplines of life. And those are always in front of you, if you have any. They're always in front of you. So that's my hard stop. Yeah, I love them. That's great advice.

I guess a simple example is, is of like sleep. Like when you wake up in the morning, there's a part of you that's going, I just go back to sleep. Exactly. Right? When we used to wake up at 4 a.m. as monks, sometimes three, it's like there's the part.

And then that's what you're saying. And then all you hear is yourself saying, all right, just go sleep. It's okay. That's right. But then that voice has got quieter that says, no, you need to get up. That's right.

Need to get up. And you just pushed it away. Mm-hmm. Just pushed it away. And that's the discomfort that you need to embrace. Exactly. So those voices are very important. they can guide you.

That's the thing about, like I said, the mind's the most powerful weapon in the world. It can guide you to being very comfortable also. So you got to be careful. The mind will trick you. And it's saying, just sleep in a day. You deserve it. Sometimes you don't deserve it.

So there's that fine line of the mind getting the tactical advantage over you to where you're like, I've worked too hard. You really haven't worked hard enough. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.