The Rich Roll Podcast - Navy SEAL David Goggins Is The Toughest Athlete On Earth — Thoughts On Mindset, The 40% Rule & Why Purpose Always Trumps Motivation

Episode Date: January 2, 2017

“When you think you're done, you're only at 40% of your total potential.” David Goggins This week's guest is incontrovertibly the most inspirational person I have ever met — a man that will catapult you into 2017 with the inspiration and tools to chase huge dreams, shatter limits, and actualize your best, most authentic self. Often referred to as the toughest athlete on the planet, David Goggins (@davidgoggins) is the only member of the US Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including THREE Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force tactical air controller training. But David is perhaps best known for his superhuman feats of strength and ultra-endurance. After several of his friends died in a 2005 helicopter crash while deployed in Afghanistan, David honored their memory by tackling the 10 most difficult endurance challenges on Earth to raise funds and awareness for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides college scholarships and grants to the children of fallen special ops soldiers. Hence began a most unexpected yet remarkably storied athletic career as one of the world's most accomplished endurance athletes. Highlights include: * 2013: world record for most pullups in a 24 hour period (4,030); * 2007: 3rd place — Badwater 135 – a 135 mile ultramarathon across Death Valley widely considered to be the world’s most difficult foot race; * 2006: 2nd place — Ultraman World Championships, a double-ironman distance race widely considered to be the world's most difficult triathlon; * 2007: 1st place — 48-Hour National Championship endurance foot race, where he ran 203.5 miles, beating the previous record by 20 miles; and * 2007 – 2016 — additional top finishes at dozens of the world's most grueling endurance races, including The HURT 100, Leadville 100, Western States & more. But perhaps David’s greatest accomplishment is that throughout his life, he has faced and overcome a concatenation of seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become the man he is today – obstacles like asthma, sickle cell anemia, psychological and physical abuse, obesity, academic struggles, and even a congenital heart defect that often left him competing — and winning — on a mere fraction of his actual physical capabilities. In addition to being one of the most remarkable people I have ever met, David has had a profound impact on me personally. It was his singular example that ignited my passion for ultra-endurance and fueled the self-belief required to pursue a new life. In truth, I’m not sure I would have achieved my athletic and life goals had he not blazed the path before me. I simply cannot ever repay the debt of gratitude I have for this man. One of the most powerful podcasts I have ever produced, this a conversation about the primacy of purpose to cultivate your inner voice. It's about passion and self-accountability. It's about the limiting beliefs that hold us back and the importance of mindset to overcome them. And it's about the embrace of suffering as a crucible for growth and self-knowledge. But ultimately, this is a conversation about what it means to be truly alive. Welcome to 2017 people. It's time to check your excuses at the door. It's time to stop talking yourselves out of being great. It's time to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It's time to wake up. Because your life is not some future event. Your life is now. Peace + Plants, Rich

If you want it, you will find time in your life to do it. If you don't want it, you will continue to do exactly what you're doing now, is give me excuses. You're going to make up every excuse on why you can't do it, and that's why I can't connect with you. That's why you hear the passion come out of me, and you want to say it's anger. No, because I know it can be done.

And you're telling me all this shit on why it can't be done. And then what you do is he's crazy. He's an mechanic. No, you don't want it bad enough. If you want it bad enough, you will figure out how to make this shit happen. That's David Goggins. And this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings, everybody. Happy New Year. My name is Rich Roll.

I'm your host. Welcome or welcome back to the show where I get intimate and go long form with some of the world's most intriguing thought leaders, high performers, and positive change makers all across the globe. These are conversations designed to help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. So thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate you tuning in. I appreciate you subscribing to the show on iTunes and for sharing it with your friends and on social media and all that good stuff. And I'm super duper excited about today's episode. I honestly cannot think of anyone else on planet Earth better suited to help you kick off the New Year right than today's guest. David Goggins is somebody I've

wanted to get on from the very first day that I started this show, mainly because he's had a tremendous impact on me and my life personally. In many ways, it was his example that inspired me to enter the world of ultra endurance. And really quite honestly, I'm really not sure that I would have ever achieved the things that I've achieved as an athlete had he not lit the path. So let's break it down. For the uninitiated, David Goggins is often referred to as the toughest human on planet earth. Here's why. First of all, he is the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training, U.S. Army Ranger School, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training.

So unbelievable, right? So there's that. But he is perhaps best known for his superhuman feats of strength and ultra endurance. And this is a journey that began after several of his friends died in Afghanistan in a 2005 helicopter crash. David decided that he wanted to honor their memory by tackling the 10 most difficult endurance challenges on the planet. And he wanted to do this as a way of raising funds and raising awareness for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which gives college scholarships and grants to the children of fallen special ops soldiers, and hence began quite a storied athletic career. Some of the highlights of David's accomplishments include a world record in 2013 for the most pull-ups in a 24-hour period.

He did 4,025 pull-ups in 24 hours. He has multiple top finishes at the Badwater 135, which is a 135-mile ultramarathon across Death Valley, widely considered to be the world's most difficult foot race. He has a third-place finish at the double Ironman distance Ultraman World Championships, which is a race that I've been privileged to compete in a couple of times. And then there is the 203.5 miles that he ran in the 48-hour National Championship Endurance Foot Race, beating previous records by 20 miles and earning a spot among the top 20

ultramarathoners in the world. If that's not impressive enough, he did this shortly before he was diagnosed with a hole in his heart, a condition that had him competing basically on only a fraction of his ability had his heart been properly functioning. So just think about that for a minute. And on top of this, he's got dozens of other ultras under his belt and a slew of other impressive results and such daunting events as the Leadville 100, the Hard Rock 100, and on and on and on. So these results are, of course, incredibly impressive, but perhaps David's greatest accomplishment was that he had to overcome a battery of almost insurmountable obstacles faced throughout his life to become the man he is today. Things like asthma, sickle cell anemia, psychological and physical abuse in childhood, obesity,

academic struggles, and even this congenital heart defect that I just mentioned. There's so much to David's story beyond the foregoing. It's just a remarkable and incredibly inspiring tale. And there are a couple more things I want to say about him before we launch into the conversation. But first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

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To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right. So if you listen to my podcast with Jesse Itzler, he's the author of the book, Living with the Seal. That was RRP 197. Then you already have some familiarity with today's guest because David Goggins was the seal that moved in with Jesse to shake his life up a bit. So if you missed that conversation with Jesse, I would definitely go back and listen to that. It's really fun and engaging. But with respect to David Goggins, suffice it to say that I think he's really one of the most remarkable people I've ever met. He, again, is somebody who has had a profound impact on me personally, and I can promise you that you will be profoundly impacted by this conversation. It's a conversation that will leave you rethinking your goals, reassessing your priorities, questioning your limits, and really pondering your purpose.

It's a conversation about the limiting beliefs we impose upon ourselves that hold us back. It's about the importance of mindset. And ultimately, it's about what it means to be truly alive. So welcome to 2017, people. I can think of no better guest to usher in the new year than David Goggins. So without further ado, enjoy. Ready, man. Let's do this. All right. So I'm driving down Sunset Boulevard a couple days ago. And I don't come into town that much.

I live way out in Malibu Canyon. So this is weird for me to be in this part of town anyway. And my wife and I are going to this event. And she goes, check that dude out. Who is that guy? You know, this guy's running. I go, that's Goggins. What the hell is he doing here? It was like the weirdest like juxtaposition. Like I just wouldn't, like, I just wouldn't put those two things together. Like it just seemed weird. And I was like, ah, and it just reminded me. So I sent you a note because we were trying to hook this up. Right. Well, I'm glad it worked out, man. Yeah. Thanks

for, uh, thanks for getting back to me. And before we even – there's so many things I want to talk to you about, but before we even, like, get into any of it, I just want to say, like, on the record – I'm sure you don't know this, but you are – you have been, like, integral in my story behind the scenes. Like, I read about you and Badwater and Ultraman back in – you know, it must have been early 2007. Right. And that's really what inspired me to begin training for Ultraman.

And I've gone on and competed in that race a couple of times. Wow, that's amazing. And that experience changed my life. You know, it changed everything about how I live and what I do. Wow. And the initial spark was really reading, I it was competitor magazine uh the article not just about like the hundred miler that you needed to put in to qualify for bad water and then like doing bad water on broken feet and then and then like three months later doing ultraman

on like a borrowed bike that you had to tape your feet to the pedals and i was like who is this dude and the fact that you had never been a triathlete or, you know, it's like, cause I was coming off of being a 50 pound overweight, like couch potato dude. And I was like, look what this guy did. That's amazing. Like if he can do that, like, let me reach a little bit, you know, in 2008, I did my first Ultraman, did it 2009, 2011, gone on to do some other things. Congratulations, man.

Yeah. But I mean, thank you you for thank you for shining a light you know what i mean and it's an honor and it's a privilege to finally get a chance to sit down and talk to you i appreciate it thanks cool and uh i saw we we met briefly uh at bad water 2013 i was crewing for dean okay we i don't know if you how much you remember but like it was cat and mouse with you was it ferg hawk it was yeah it was crewing for you and we were kind of in the same vicinity for a large part of that right experience that was a horrible experience you didn't look like you were having fun i was i was really sick yeah but good to go

cool so what brings you to los angeles you know what i retired from the military and um just different meetings with different companies as far as like possible TV shows. Who is this crazy nut guy out here? Going Hollywood. You know what? Not too hard. Not too hard.

So we're just seeing what happens out here. Right. So some projects in the mix and development or just meeting with people in general about the idea of it? Yeah, just meeting with people just about the idea of who I am and, just meeting with people, you know, just about the idea of, you know, who I am and what I could possibly bring to whatever's going on out here. Right. So was that a reason why it was strange?

Because out of the blue, you went from being like, you know, a really private dude, and suddenly you're just all over social media sharing videos and on Instagram. Like, it just ramped up from, like, zero to 60, which is your style, of course. But was that part of the calculus? Like, okay, I'm not in the military anymore. I've got to find a way to spread my message now? I'm actually glad you said that. I live like a monk, and that's how I still want to live, is like a monk.

But people may say, one thing about me you're going to realize, I shoot straight up how it is. I'm a straight shooter. Basically, I don't like doing it. I don't like social media. I can't stand it. I can't stand being out here, all this stuff. But I have a story to tell.

And the only way you can tell your story is through social media platforms and through all these different platforms, and that's why I'm doing it. Right, because that's what I thought. I was like, this doesn't seem character consistent, but I get it because the message is powerful, and it's like, you know. So it sounds like you got a little help getting you all configured on all that kind of stuff. Right, a lot of people have come out to help out,

and it's all about getting the message out there, man. Right. And the message is strong, and I'm glad that you're doing it. You know what I mean? It's not that social media itself is bad. It's just what is your relationship to it. Right. And if you can just maintain your integrity and your values

and live the life the way that you want to live and it doesn't interfere with that, then it's fine. Well, one thing you'll see, the social media I have up there is not about me. There may be some pictures about me, but there are just quotes about videos, just about mindset, about changing how you think about things, about not having the poopy pants mentality,

the what was me mentality. And just to make it clear, it's not about push yourself till you die. Some people have this weird image of David Goggins and that's what it's about. No, it's about push yourself a lot harder than what you think you can push yourself and stop giving up when you feel a little bit of daggone pain or something's uncomfortable. No, that's what the message is.

Not push yourself until you can't live anymore. It's about just push yourself harder than we did yesterday. Right. Believing that you're – like what I always say is like we're all sitting on top of like huge reservoirs of untapped potential that we don't even know are even there you know that we don't even attempt to tap into and so if you can just expand your

awareness a little bit and understand that all of us irrespective of circumstance is capable of whatever of much more than whatever it is that we're doing in the moment I think that's kind of at the core of what you're trying to get across. A hell of a lot more.

A hell of a lot more. Than what we think. The 40% rule. A hell of a lot more, yeah. So to put, I wanna get into all the mindset stuff, but I think in order to put it all in proper context, it would be good to kind of trace your story a little bit for people that are listening who don't know who you are.

So, you know, let's take it back a little bit. I mean, you know, kind of the crux of your story sort of begins with the kind of lone survivor story, right? Right. Isn't that true? Like, tell me what was going on. Well, that's the beginning of my ultra running career. Yeah, that's what I mean, like that phase. So that phase of my life, basically, I i was a bigger guy i had just gone through i was in three navy seal hell weeks and so in that in that period of time you meet a lot of people a lot of good men going through that you know that many times why did you do three times well i happen to be a lucky

guy or very unlucky i call it lucky depends how you look at it so in one year there happened to be a time frame where the CEO the command officer of Navy SEAL training he was an old salty guy named Captain Bowen he was an old Vietnam vet guy and pretty much wherever you were at in training in SEAL training like I'm going through SEAL training and SEAL training is 26 weeks long no matter where you were at that's buds right so now where you're at you if you got hurt or and you couldn't continue on with training or if you failed something he believed in keeping you in training but he would roll you back to day one so generally if you get hurt in phase two of buds you get rolled back to day one of phase two

if you get hurt in phase three you get rolled back, you get rolled back to day one of phase two. If you get hurt in phase three, you get rolled back to phase three, day one. This guy said, no, no, no. We're going to roll you all the way back to day one, phase one. So how I went through three hell weeks was my first time going through, had a hernia issue, double pneumonia, pretty jacked up, got rolled out of that hell week, started day one, next class, went through that full hell week rolled out that hell week. Started day one, next class. Went through that full hell week. Graduated that hell week.

A few weeks after that hell week, I broke my leg. Started day one again. But even though you graduated, they made you start again? Yeah, like I said, you started day one. I got you. You broke your leg because of just basically stress fractures from going from zero to 60, right? Stress fractures, having the log land on it, stuff like that. And so basically, I got rolled back to day one.

But usually, nowadays, if you get hurt after Hell Week, that's where you stay. Right. After Hell Week. You don't have to start from day one. Right. There happened to be a few classes there that I was in that they rolled you back to day one. So I was in those classes. So three times the punishment.

And then my last hell week, a guy died. But I graduated that last time, 235, Class 235. And, you know, went on to do a few deployments and came home. And the lone survivor story was going on. Marcus Atrell was out there in Operation Red Wings and I heard about it. I was about 260 some odd pounds, whatever I was. I don't know the exact weight. I was much heavier. And I wanted to raise money for families, man. Didn't you know his brother? You did Buds with his brother or something?

I actually knew Marcus first because I was in Buds with Marcus and Morgan. Kyle's there for so daggone long. So I knew them both well. And I was at free fall school with this twin brother, Morgan, during the incident. So during the exact time Marcus was in the incident,

I was at free fall school with this twin brother. And after we got done with our last jump, we got notified that Marcus was missing and a whole bunch of SEALs and also special ops guys had died. And so the idea that was sort of sparked inside you was, I want to honor these guys' deaths and

try to raise awareness and money for the families of these fallen victims, right? And the best way that you came up with to do this was to tackle the 10 most difficult endurance challenges on the planet. Where did that idea come into your consciousness? Well, a lot of people don't know my backstory, how I grew up, and maybe we'll touch base on it, but I came up pretty rough.

I had a very abusive father. I grew up in a small town called, in know, in Indiana, that the Klan headquarters was about 20 minutes from where I lived. So people talk about being bullied now, like somebody calls you fat. And I got called the N-word my whole childhood. They sprayed it, you know, they spray painted on my car, we're going to kill you. It was just a rough way to come up. And dad not in the picture or dad in the picture but abusive?

I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. My dad was actually one of the people that helped Rick James become famous. Oh, wow. And he actually had real good friends with O.J. Simpson. And that was the kind of crowd he came up in. So he was a very abusive guy to to the point where but like a party guy like a party guy but also a guy that when he would drink he would get very abusive okay you know he would drag my mom down the stairs by her hair when he get in fights like ike turner style ike

turner style so he also did the same thing to me my brother you know so yeah older brother older brother uh-huh so i had a rough way growing up. Where was mom in the whole thing? So mom was working the club with my dad. And when I was eight or nine, we moved to this small town in Indiana. So to make ends meet, she worked three jobs and also went to school full time. So she was never around while I was growing up. And my brother stayed with my dad. So I was on my own.

Wow. Dealing with this stuff growing up. So from the age of six years old to the age of 12 years old, you build self-esteem, I had zero. I was pretty much the weakest kid on the planet. You're just getting emotionally beat down on a daily basis, and then the physical stuff with your dad? So you got emotional and physical from my dad,

and then you leave that when you're eight or nine, and you go to this small town in Indiana, and you get called the N-word every day of your life you had the you know grand wizard son of the clan sit behind you in history class so it was a good time right so it was uh it was a you know i had to grow up a lot and and i had a lot of excuses to not make a damn thing of myself so and what was the plan obviously just beyond just surviving that at that time i didn't go to school um i had you know i was at add i had tons of learning disabilities because i didn't go to school like like i'm with my father so i i was very slow in school so i had to learn

all the high school pretty much in six months i I graduated 213, now 214 in my graduating class. And I cheated on every daggone test. Right. Cheated on every homework assignment. And that's how I got through school.

And I had no self-esteem whatsoever. Half the time, I didn't want to go to school because I didn't want to get called the N-word every day. And I hate even saying the N-word.

So if you don't mind, I want to say the real word. You can say it if you want. Good. I hate being called a nigger all the time. You know, I just want to keep it as real as possible. But that's what it was.

And so when does the idea to go into the military come in? Like just on finishing high school? So as a young kid in high school, I was a part of this program called Civil Air Patrol. It's an auxiliary of the Air Force, like ROTC, like Junior ROTC. Right, right, right. And I met this guy who had a parachute accident. He was an Air Force special operator guy. He had a parachute accident, pretty much died, and some Navy SEALs.

Funny story about that, he taught these two Navy SEALs on how to do tracheotomies. Those two Navy SEALs actually saved his life the next day. So he had a parachute accident. Somebody fell through his parachute when they were in midair. His parachute was wide open. Somebody was still in mid-freefall, went through his parachute, collapsed his parachute, knocked him out. That's what saved his life because he was knocked out.

And he fell to the ground. And he actually was hardly able to breathe. These guys trached him open, got a clear airway, got him breathing. He got to the hospital. He died twice in the operating table. They saved his life. Five years later, I'm 16 years old, 15 years old. I meet this guy at this camp.

And long story short, I had one week with this guy along with all these other white kids. I was always the only black kid at all these dad-gone camps. So here I am with this guy, and I hear this story, and I had nothing to grasp growing up. I had no mentors. I had no motivation. I had nothing.

So I held on to that story, and he became my real-life Rambo. I said, that's what I want to be. I want to find that kind of strength because I had none growing up. Right. So basically, I left that camp a week later. And a few months later, this is before Instagram and Twitter and Google and Facebook, all this

crap. I had a $500 or $600 phone bill tracking this guy down. So I called. He was an Air Force Special Operations. So I called every Air Force base on the planet planet trying to call this guy and get hold of this guy is that is that like the first time that you remember like going after something in your life like being really focused and and intentional oh yeah i saw i found hope i said oh yeah that's a way out this is the way out man i can actually get some self-esteem i can actually

gain some manhood and be able to look at myself in the mirror versus being this coward that the whole world had created. I let the whole world create who I was and how I thought. And that was the first mistake I did. But you had this idea inside of you that you wanted to be a man or your idea of what a man was. That was kind of what the quest, really, that's kind of behind all this? It is. And it was. I saw myself as the weakest human being on the planet, and I wanted to transform that into the hardest man God ever created, basically. And he raised—what's funny about that, he laid the platform for me. He gave me nothing, but I never said, well, I love God. I'm a God-fearing man.

So my mind was never like, God, why me? Why this? Why that? He laid the platform for me to be exactly who I wanted to be. And you see the mindset switch versus me saying, well, it was me. They called me nigger. They did this to beat me up. They put nigger, we're going to kill you on my car, all this stuff.

I took all that stuff, and instead of making it, well, it was me, man, my life sucks. Oh, God, why me? Why me? I said, life sucks. Oh, God, why me? Why me? I said, oh, the platform is set. You had that awareness then, or did that come later? I was 16. It came later once I met this guy, and I realized what I wanted to be. And that awareness switched.

So I changed my thought process versus kicking rocks, poopy pants. The world's against me. People are against me. They all suck, and that's why me, people are against me, they all suck, and that's why I suck, and I flipped it. I turned it upside down on top of itself. Yeah, and it's funny because when you look in the rearview mirror, the dominoes line up perfectly for you to be doing exactly what you're doing. It's almost like there's no other possible narrative for you.

They built the warrior mentality. So most people who are even hearing this today, as we talking a lot of stuff i say they're gonna say man you must not love yourself you must not have peace no no no no no what you're gonna hear from my voice here soon is passion because why you're gonna make me relive my damn story yeah and what you can hear out of me is me going back into hell becoming the devil to get out of hell. So what is that? How do you think about that crucible process, whether it's buds or whether it's bad water, that idea of volunteering for that level of suffering

and the experience that you're seeking and what you kind of receive on the back end of that? How do you think about that? So how I think about it is when I made the decision, the conscious decision to become a warrior, I realized that my mentality had to be very different. And what that meant was I had to put myself through a bunch of crucibles to gain the warrior mentality. Some guys are born with it. I believe that. Some guys are born because they have some great childhood and their dad's tough on them and they build this mental toughness and this discipline in this kid.

I didn't have this. So I had to design a crucible to put myself through to gain this warrior mentality. So what I mean by warrior mentality, which is why some people take what I say so literally and they just say, my God, you're just crazy. You're gone. No. God had to put some people on this planet Earth to do very dangerous things to protect this country. Love it or not, I'm one of those people. So to have the mentality that I have to be in a room that's 10 by 10, I have a weapon, I'm outside a door.

I don't know what's behind that door. So our job is to seal most of our time. Most of our job is to go behind, open a door, and say, surprise, we're here. The thing about the surprise is, I don't know what's behind that door. So to have that kind of mindset to say, I'm going to look at AK-47 in the face,

repeatedly, you know what kind of mind it takes to open that door and not be afraid to shut that door and run away? I was building that callous mind through these things bad waters through so even after i became a seal i was still on the journey to become a better warrior right and these races and all these events by being an ultra runner i saw first of all it's about raising money but also the selfish side of it all was i was building a warrior mentality but

put myself in the crucible of hell at mile 60 of a 135-mile race in Bedwater. What are you thinking? Blisters, shin splints, stretch fractures, pee and blood maybe. What are you going to do now, David? How are you going to get the next 70 miles in this race? Well, that's when you find out who you are. Exactly. It's like everything builds to that moment.

It's all about that moment and that decision that you have to make when everything else is stripped away from you. That's going to reveal to you who you are and what your character is. And what's good about that is a lot of people set these great goals, like they want to do Badwater or they want to do an Ironman or they want to be a millionaire or whatever they want to do. They have these great goal lists and they're amazing. Goals are important. But what we don't do in life, which is why people quit in SEAL training and they quit in these different things. We don't look at ourselves in the accountability mirror and take care of the number one thing before you start a goal.

Let's take care of our insecurities because they're going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you're suffering. You may be the best physically fit person on the planet. If you haven't handled your mind and handled your jealousies, your insecurities, whatever happened to you as a child and in between, they're going to surface at the time when your mind starts to question, why the hell am I out here in this race? Right. Because if you don't know why you're doing it, most people, I would venture to say that most people that sign up for these things don't really have a firm grip on why they're doing it. And more often than not, it is fueled by some insecurity or some sort of ego issue.

Right. So that when shit goes left, there's nothing there. That's right. You know what I mean? They can't grab on to shit. To back's nothing there. That's right. You know what I mean? They can't grab on to shit. To back it up to, right? Because the priorities are kind of out of whack because there is that disconnect with the real reason or the kind of the appropriate healthy drive to get somebody to invest in something like that. I'm glad you said healthy drive because that's true.

What keeps a person in the fight is knowing it's having purpose having purpose leave the ego at the door because the ego will kill you every time you will always quit so that's why i was i've been able to get through things because i know i was a scared uneducated kid who stuttered and had zero and i had to look at myself in the mirror and hold myself accountable for who i wasn't and who i wanted to be and and that process didn't didn't happen overnight and it didn't happen through only three buds i mean you've done tours in iraq and afghanistan you've also done army rangers are you like i mean on wikipedia it says like you're the only guy in current well not anymore because you, but current armed forces who's done Rangers, Spuds, and Air Force Special Ops.

Yeah, that's true. It's very true. That's crazy, man. There should be some kind of insane medal for that. Well, that's the thing about it, man. It's kind of like you're constantly looking. For me. Everybody's journey is different. Everybody's journey is different. I was on a journey to see who David Goggins was. And that journey took me in some of the hardest areas a human being can even imagine. And right now at 41, I'm the happiest person on the planet because, you know, I had to climb out every several times just to look down on my life to see what hell I came from. And that's what kept me going through all this stuff. Like I envisioned myself going through like when I was a young kid and they called me nigger all the time.

I got my dad beat the hell out of me and I was had no self-esteem. I had this vision of if I can make it to where I want to go. Imagine when I look back on my damn life, how proud I will be. And now I'm here. I'm able to look back on this life I lived that many people will never understand because why? When you're passionate, they think you're crazy. And you can't even explain to people why you're passionate they think you're crazy and you can't even explain

to people why you're doing or why you did what you did because you found your purpose and once you find your purpose you can't really explain it to normal people because they don't understand passion because they live everyday life just going not really finding their purpose so I become a foreign language to people I think so they put in a category of, you're just crazy. No, no, no, no, no. I'm passionate. I found my purpose in this life. Yeah, and you're embracing it, and you're owning it completely.

Right. And that freaks people out. People aren't used to that. No. You know what I mean? No. There's so much packed into what you just said that I want to kind of take a look at. I mean, the first thing, I want to talk about happiness and your idea of happiness but but one of the first things you said is you know david goggins this like you're referring your to yourself in the third person always and that's always like

a little weird but i know why you do it like you're there's the difference between kind of you know who you are or like the eight-year-old david goggins and this sort of you know superman cape that you put on to become this sort of warrior mentality? Well, I had to create Goggins because David Goggins was a weak kid. So I created Goggins. So the crucible of life that I decided to take to become who I wanted to become, I created Goggins. Goggins is the guy talking right now.

David Goggins was a kid that got bullied in all his other things, and I created Goggins. I created God's product. Was that like a conscious decision? You're like, this is what I'm doing? Or did that kind of, you just come into that, like sort of come into that awareness,

like, oh, this is what I did. I didn't even realize I was doing this. Oh, no, it was very conscious. Yeah. It was very conscious. It was all internal. None of it was did. I didn't even realize I was doing this. Oh, no, it was very conscious. Yeah. It was very conscious. It was all internal. None of it was external. I don't care about money.

I didn't care about awards. I didn't care about medals. I didn't care about bad water. I don't care about ultra running. These were all things for me to build the internal in myself. So, like, you know, people, don't get it twisted, man. This is, I did this to be proud of who I am

as a human being. And most people live a lie. I hated the lie I lived. And the lie I lived was I was nothing and I knew I was nothing. And my journey, I wanted to be something.

I wanted to be proud of who I was and it took me in that direction. Yeah, I think the thing that's sort of cool and unique about the ultra distance world is that, you know, they kind of, these races exist pretty much off the radar. I mean, they're becoming more and more popular now, but it's not about like media attention and there's no prize money. And you know, Ultraman, there's cars driving,

you know, during the race and like all that kind of thing, right? So the idea is that you're really, it's a race, but you're there to challenge yourself. Period. And at the end, when you reach that finish line, whether you're a crew member supporting somebody or you're the athlete who's taking on this thing

for him or herself, that you are transformed somehow through the result of undergoing that experience. That's what it's about. Like that bad water you talked about in 2013. In 2013, yeah. I walked 105 miles. Right.

And I spent seven hours in the vehicle from having so many issues with my body. And everyone goes, why didn't you quit, man? You could have killed yourself. It's not about that, man. I'm not out here to kill myself. Don't get it twisted, man. It was, honestly, at that point, it became a whole new challenge.

The challenge was always to do my best. But at that point where I saw my best was done. Well, your best on that day, given whatever circumstances God gave you that day. So I took what God gave me that day and said, well, I had to readjust the goals. And I found happiness and joy and peace. I'm like, okay, man, we're going to reset this damn boy. We're going to walk 105 miles. Right.

And we're going to get to the finish line. And you're going to walk 105 miles of bad water. It's going to be horrible horrible and that's what happened uh-huh so so how how many what how many hours when you were did you still make it under that 48 hour i didn't i came right behind dean oh you did i think 20 minutes behind dean yeah i came 20 minutes behind dean it's like 32 hours and some change that's crazy yeah i came right behind he's having a hard time too but but you know he by no stretch of the imagination did he walk 100 i mean he was you were walking faster than i think you think you were then um well let's let's get into like where this all begins so you have this you have this idea that you want to take on this challenge

right uh you find out about this race bad, and just are naive to this whole world and how it works. Naive is an understatement. Yeah, I know. So walk me through it. So like I said, the whole Lone Survivor thing happened. I wanted to raise money

for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is a foundation that gives 100% tuition to fallen Special Operations soldiers' children to go to school, 100%. So I found a great foundation, and I Googled the 10 hardest races. Like you said, and Badwater was number one. And I thought it was a stage race. I thought the Badwater 135 was a stage race where you would run like 20 miles,

pitch a 10 or something like that, cook out, and go run some more miles. I didn't know you could run 100 miles at one time or 135 or whatever. It's humanly possible to me. I hadn't gone running over a year, hadn't put running shoes on over a year. And you're like 280 at this point? I was about 260-something. I'm not for sure. I was over 250.

I was a big boy. And I hated cardiovascular activities. I wanted to hit the weights and eat. That was what I did. But I also wanted to do something that would draw attention to this foundation, so I Googled that race, and I called Chris Kostman up, the race director of Badwater, and he thought I was nuts. And after he heard my story, he said, yeah, I'm a Navy SEAL.

And he goes, you've got to qualify. Pretty much Chris Kostman is a stickler for his race. You've got to qualify for Badwater. So I called him up on a Wednesday in November of 2005. And that Saturday was this race called the San Diego One Day, where you run for 24 hours and run a one-mile track. So he said, hey, you got to qualify. And how you qualify is you got to run 100 miles in 24 hours or less.

There happened to be two races before the deadline of the Badwater application. I think it was like January 19th of 2006 is when the deadline was up. So I called him in November. I hadn't been training. I have two months to qualify for Badwater. And he says, I will consider you in my race

if you can run 100 miles in 24 hours. So three days later, I find myself in San Diegogo one day and i was married at the time and my wife who's now my ex-wife was out there and she was crewing me and i went to walmart got a blue lawn chair mild plex and risk crackers right and that's what the hell i have but no training zero and and people can think it's zero right zero training zero so here I am now I'm out here I'm this big black guy around all these ultra runners who this is the AUA national championships in San Diego and I'm out here running and I get to mile 50 40 50 and I start to break the bones in my feet and

they're horribly broken and stretch fractures splints. I'm in bad shape. And at mile 70, I sit down for the first time. I haven't peed or gone to the bathroom at all in over 13, 12, 13, 14 hours. I sit down, and my blood pressure now is messed up because my potassium, electrolytes, all the things that you need in your body, food. I had nothing.

Right, and your ex-wife's a nurse, right? Right. So is she right right so she's monitoring you and she's monitoring me looking at me like you know what man what is the matter you are really in the dungeon and i was it was the worst trip i've been in my entire life all the things i've been through in my military this was the worst i ever endured so i'm all 70 i sit down and i can't get up not to go to the bathroom because once you sit down, you think it's over. So now the pain is really going with my body. And the port-a-potties... You did 70 miles in like 13 hours?

I think it was 12 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was actually moving pretty well for a pretty big boy. So I get there and I'm at 70 miles and I have 30 miles to go. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. But now I'm really messed up.

And I sit down and it was the worst thing I did. My race was over. Once you sit down. It was over, man. It was over. So I looked at my ex-wife now, and I couldn't get out of the chair. So I literally peed blood down my leg and took a crap up my back, and that was a whole new race now.

But I figured out a way to make this big ordeal, which was 30 more miles and some of the worst pain I'd gone through. What got you up out of the chair? Honestly, I create this thing called the cookie jar as I went through my suffering in life to become who I was. And the cookie jar was every time

I failed everything so many times in my life and failure and I would succeed. I failed everything so many times in my life and failure and I would succeed I would fail and I would succeed I had to figure out how to succeed through failure and I put a bunch of cookies in the cookie jar the cookie jars are things when I start to get the woe is me mentality which we all still get even though even though you could be very successful I reach in and I said oh oh, this is my childhood, and this is what I did to overcome that. I would remind myself, because a lot of times when you're in hell,

you forget how great you really are, because at that moment, you're suffering. So you don't think about the great things that you've done. I take time to really calm my brain down when it's stressed out and remember where I came from and say okay no we can do this we can do this through a calm patient mind figuring out how to do it so I figured out how to do it how to get salt electrolytes get some food get some hydration back in me get my blood pressure to the point where I could stand up that was the first mission and you still you got half a day to get right 30. I have 12 hours. And we all know we can walk 30 miles in 12 hours.

But think about it. My feet were broken pretty badly. So, but anyway, I got out of the chair, was able to get up, and I was walking like a 30-some minute mile. And at that pace, I wasn't going to make the time. And my ex-wife said, hey, you're not going to make the time. And at mile 81, I'll never forget it. This is when I truly realized, and I've been through a lot before this. This is when I realized how far short we have come as human beings.

But whenever we feel pain and we suffer a little bit, we stop. And I didn't stop. And my brain knew I wasn't going to stop. And I went to a whole other place because when she said I wasn't going to make the time, at mile 81, I ran the going to stop. And I went to a whole other place because when she said I wasn't going to make the time, at mile 81, I ran the last 19 miles. And at that point in my life, that's when I knew,

boy, I really, really need to rethink the capabilities of a human being. It's interesting that that's really your first ultra-athletic feat or attempt. And to this day, in the wake of a resume of doing a million of these things and all kinds

of crazy stuff, that's still, I would imagine, perhaps the most memorable, most difficult thing you've ever done. Don't imagine. Yeah. It's the truth. Yeah. Uh-huh. By far.

Yeah, it's true yeah uh-huh by far yeah it's amazing i had to go to places that i didn't even know existed within my brain to overcome such suffering and like what do you think like what what is it that you have that other people lack like what is the facility or the the mindset that you're able to get into that allows you to click in and say, I'm going to run this last 19 miles as opposed to what most people would say, which is I'm done. You know what? There's a lot of answers for that. But once again, once you find, my purpose was pretty much at that time to raise money for a foundation, but I can't say that that was my only driving force. When you're in that much pain I'm sorry you're not thinking about raising money for a foundation I'm sorry I'm human I had to go

dark and going dark was I had to go to that straight barbaric geranimal mindset of like as bad as I was suffering the suffering I had to make it work to my advantage i had to enjoy i had to embrace the suffering i didn't really see man now i'm at mile 70 i've never gone 70 miles before what if i can go 30 more miles in this situation i had to talk to myself very differently versus being scared of what i was doing in my body because if I thought that way which a normal person should think that way but once again I have a warrior's mentality I thought the exact opposite

what if I get through this being this messed up and it sparked my endorphins to say if I can go 100 miles or 30 more miles this messed up where most human beings couldn't I just did the what if or 30 more miles this messed up where most human beings couldn't.

I just did the what if. And I saw myself finishing this race and the feeling I would have after I finished it, and it got me through it. Most people would say, well, you're just a glutton for punishment. What is this masochistic relationship to suffering all about? What are you getting out of it? And I think I know your answer, but I think that question is as much a reflection of where we're at as a society as much as it is an answer or a comment on you as an outlier. Right. And that's what I always say before I start any interview. an answer or a comment on you as an outlier. Right.

And that's what I always say before I start any interview. This is one reason why I didn't want to go on social media, because people will take exactly what I said to you, because why most people haven't found what they're passionate about. I did. And I was passionate about David Goggins in this journey, my journey. It's not your journey. It's my journey. And my journey was to see how far

can I go? I came from nothing. I had nothing. I had nothing. No great mentality. No great family. No great education. No great, you know, I have sickle cell. You know, I have a hole in my heart the size of a poker chip. I had two heart surgeries.

I had nothing. And my journey was to see what I was capable of so it wasn't like being a masochist nothing like that it was the fact that I want to see who the best me was and I wasn't willing to settle for stopping at 70 miles right now I'm very glad that I don't do that anymore like I don't have that in me anymore at that time in my life I was looking for myself and like i said for myself it wasn't about being a masochist because it hurt yeah i didn't like

the pain it was real it was real to me um i'm not a crazy guy i'm not a masochist i'm a guy that wanted better for myself and if you're willing to live yeah it doesn't take you running 100 miles doesn't take you running on broken feet doesn't take you having all these things i had to run through for me it did right everybody has their version of what everybody has their version and you know this kind of gets into a little bit like what i what i wanted to get into before which is like how do you conceptualize happiness? So we're in this culture where basically we're inundated with messaging. And that message is, you know, in order to be happy,

you need a super big TV and you need, you know, you need to be secure in your job and you need to surround yourself with all these material possessions and you want to be as comfortable as possible and sort of, you know of live in luxury, right? Like this is the aspiration of the American dream. And in contrast to that, you're experiencing a level of happiness that most people can't access

and you're doing it in a very kind of Spartan stoic way by living this minimal lifestyle and pushing yourself to be constantly, perpetually out of your comfort zone to continually sort of test yourself and try to expand your horizons, right? So how do you think about that and talk about that? Well, I did that for a period of time. So I lived a Spartan lifestyle. I have a Spartan mind now, but I'm retired. I did a 50- miler two weeks ago so then let's be clear that's not my life that was never my life i'm in a whole different journey now

yeah but you're not gonna move you're not gonna move to beverly hills and get some big swank like i don't see you changing you're not to become a different person. I will tell you this. I am. Interesting. And while I'm telling you this, we all have a journey. That journey for me is over. I will always work out. I will always have the Spartan mind. I will always say, stop feeling sorry for your damn stuff.

Get the hell up because I know what you can do. That part of my life. So the whole part of the journey is it gets the part where you find peace once you find peace and your journey may be very short you can do anything you can go anywhere exactly once you realize why am i going to continue to do i now know for a hundred percent fact i can do anything i want to do i'm going to fail probably a million times trying to do it but i guarantee you one thing you will then read about 20 years from now david goggins doing what he set out to do and he failed for 20 years you're reading the paper that son of a bitch actually did

it because i know i can uh-huh i know i figured out a way he can't but so what isn't it what is it what's the next thing well now the whole thing now is why i'm on-huh i know i figured out a way but so what isn't it what is it what's the next thing well now the whole thing now is why i'm on social media because now i figured out how a human being can endure more than what they think is possible with nothing like people think you need great parents you need great all this stuff they think you need to have all this stuff and they have this thing like well maybe it wasn't meant to be. If I had that mindset one damn time in my life, I'd be a 400-pound man

spraying for cockroaches still. So my whole thing is now, I know how to think properly to be successful in all kind of aspects of life. And it's not about ultra running. It's not about just being a SEAL. It's not about pull-up records or anything like that. It's about if you want to be better, you have to change the way your perceived limitations

and take the barriers down. And I think that kind of dovetails nicely into this idea of purpose and finding your purpose. I mean, like you said, most people don't, you know, most people don't know what their purpose is. And I think there's a lot of confusion between purpose and being purposeful versus like inspiration or motivation, right?

So I know like on social media, your tagline is like beyond motivation, like sort of, you know, unpacking the inherent limitations of motivation versus purpose right motivation is crap like right now there's people out here right now who's going to hear this podcast and maybe they'll think you can think whatever you want to about david gaga i don't care kind of the truth i know the truth i know that my journey sucked and i didn't like it i didn't want to be it. I didn't want to be a SEAL.

I didn't want to be a ranger. I hate—I'm afraid of heights. I'm afraid of cold, dark water. That's why I was the only 36th African American in 70 years to become a SEAL. Right. Okay? Okay? I was 300 pounds twice in my life.

So basically— And you hate running. And I hate running. But people say it every day. They tell me all the time. That can't be true. So believe what you want. Think I'm crazy.

Because why do you think this? Because you can't see yourself going further than what you can. So you want to put a tag on David Goggins. Well, tag me. I'm sorry to say, I say beyond motivated. Because it takes that to be successful. I may motivate you right now. If you're living in Chicago and it's minus two degrees

and I motivate you to get out of your house and go run two miles, but that wind chill hits your face once you go outside, that motivation is going to go away real fast. You go back inside and sit your ass on that couch. A person that's driven and passionate, go outside feel that wind chill they go back inside to get a new hat because i'm gonna get my damn running today right so how do you how do people find that you know what like they have to it's their own thing man it's their own thing but you have to get in a quiet place in your brain we all live on our phones. We all live on Google. We all live in this whole

social media world that I really hate. I absolutely hate it. And yeah, I'm on it. I'm on it. But look at my messages. My message is to motivate you to be better. It's not about look at me, look at me, look at this. No, it's about me knowing what it takes to be better, I became a master at the mind. I'm trying to share it. That's all I'm trying to do. Why you can't find purpose? Because in your head, there's a bunch of noise. When I was younger growing up, they called me this, they called me that.

I had all that noise in there. The second I put on the kind of quote unquote Bose headphones and silenced the noise. I listened to my internal voice. Half of us live our whole lives and never even listen to what the hell we want to do. How are you going to find purpose when you don't even know who the hell you are because you're trying to find yourself through other avenues of...

Well, we're just reacting mindlessly to the circumstances that we're presented with. True. And I think really what you're saying is you got to invest in yourself. It's an inside job. Like you have to connect with who you are. That's right. And in order to do that, you do have to get quiet because you have to be able to discern the difference between those external messages that you're unconsciously, you're unaware are motivating all of your actions.

Right. unconsciously you're unaware are motivating all of your actions right and to connect with the person inside of you that stands apart from that and what that means and what that voice is and start to cultivate that and yeah you can't do it when you're constantly checking twitter or when someone's screaming at you all day right right and what's funny about that is why i'm so misunderstood because so few people have found their passion and found why the hell they're on this planet and once you find it you will then oh maybe david was so crazy you don't give a what anyone thinks nothing then you're not on social media because you're doing your thing right you know what i mean you're not trying

to take anyone else down and that's exactly it you're not trying to take anyone else down a notch. That's exactly it. You're not trying to put them in a category to make yourself feel better. You now understand why this guy did what he did, because he found his purpose in his life. And that's it. Right. All right, so you broke all your feet, so you got to call up Kostman and tell him you ran 100 miles, right? So after I get through running 101 miles in 18 hours and 56 minutes i call up chris costman i'm not gonna tell you how bad off

i was i was really jacked up and i called chris costman and i said hey man i call him like that night like it was it was that next morning and by the way this is where jesse itzler was there right and that's where you meet him and the whole thing came from that. So here I am now. I call Chris Kostman up and Chris Kostman, like I said, is a stickler for his race. And he said the whole idea of a 24-hour race is to run 24 hours. And that's

like the perfect message for you. And I said, because I stopped it after I got 101. He said 100 miles, 24 hours, I got 100. Eight hours, six hours. Why did you stop? And so I said, God, he's not going to let me in the race. So there was one more race I could do, and I had broken feet,

and I was all jacked up, and it was called the Hurt 100. Very few people complete the Hurt 100. It's a brutal race in Hawaii. One of the hardest races in the world. In the world. And this was my second race i'd ever done and it was a two months later and hurt 100 100 miles over almost 26 27 000 feet of climbing in this jungle in hawaii and it's brutal it And it's brutal. It's almost unrunnable. And it's just treacherous, man. It's horrible.

And the deadline was January 19th. I finished the race January 17th. I was in a wheelchair with my ex-wife doing the five-page application process. I overnighted to Chris Costman. He got it, and he's like, you're very driven, man, and he let me in the race. So you ran Hurt 100. The feet are still broken, right? And then Badwater is July, right? So were the feet healed up by then?

No. If you look at pictures of me, look at pictures of my ankles, you'll see this compression tape. So how I ended up running to train for Badwater, I had this compression tape on that kept me in my shins nice and tight. And I had these big pressure ulcers because the tape was dug in. And anyway, that's how I ran. I can only run about 30 to 40 miles a week training for Badwater because I was so broken. And how did you even approach the idea of,

okay, so now I'm in and I've got this block of time. How do I maximize that to be as best prepared as I can? Did you get a coach or did you just go on feel? I know you just go out and go, right? I knew the race sucked. I knew it was hot. And I've never had a coach in my life. And I just started training hard

and I started training more in my mind. Did you get the treadmill and the sauna thing? No, but I did do a lot of sauna training like workouts, pushups, pushups, stuff like that. I spent a lot of time in a sauna but I couldn't run that much because my feet were so broken. I did a lot of time on an elliptical trainer.

I did hours on the elliptical. I did hours hiking with big rucksacks on. And I just trained very barbaric because the race was barbaric to me. It wasn't much about running. In the first year, I did bad where I got fifth place. But once again, I walked most of it. I just walked hard. And I didn't stop at all.

I just walked hard. I just walked real hard. And I got fifth place and the second year I came back and I got third place in like 25 hours or something like that. Yeah, it's amazing. And everyone knows about the heat at Badwater,

but a lot of people underappreciate the elevation gain. There's some serious climbing in that race. There is, but after you've done the Hurt 100 before Badwater, it didn't really, like 26,000 feet versus 13-some-thousand. Even the last 13 up Whitney?

That climb sucked, but it's on a road. Yeah. And you can actually get that nice grip with your feet and actually get in a nice rhythm of just walking. And the race sucks, trust me, but after you do the Hurt 100 in this dark jungle where you can't see, it's dark in front of you, and you're up and down like an EKG. The whole race is like an EKG, up and down. That's how the race profile looks. It really put Badwater, it sucked.

Badwater was horrible, but the Hurt 100 sucked real bad. And after the first Badwater, I think three months later was Ultraman, right? You just went straight into that? I went straight three months later was Ultraman, right? Like you just went straight into that? I went straight into November or whenever Ultraman was. I had to borrow a bike from a friend. I trained for like three weeks on the bike. And I went off to the Ultraman.

And I didn't know how to change a tire. So why I didn't win that race was because— You got second in the race. And i should have won i i should have won i actually lost 30 minutes on the bike because i couldn't change a tire so what happened was i was waiting for the for this the uh vehicle to come up to change my tire so i got this spare bike out the back of the car and it didn't have any clips on it so i had my running i had my running shoes in the back put put my running shoes on, and put the little pedals on and just rode the bike for the next 75 miles

with just pedals on. And I ended up day three. I won day three, the actual running part, and I missed first place by 10 minutes. Yeah, that's crazy. That run, that's quite something, man, that you did that. I'm surprised you didn't go back and try to win it well you know what i i hated the race yeah you know i i uh well here's

the thing like you're for most people and i would include myself in this category like the idea of tackling one of those races like could be a life-defining thing and it's something that like you orient your whole life and you just kind of approach these like it's another workout man like I did that what's next looking forward you know you parachuted into the beginning of the Ironman right and then you did the Ironman and then I think you worked out after that was done right you're like it's just another workout I'm moving forward and what's funny about that is in 2007 I actually did I think seven or eight consecutive in, 100-mile races.

And these 100 miles was like the Bear 100, Angel's Crest, Leadville. I had done Badwater before that. I did Western Estates before Badwater. So three weeks before Badwater, I did Western Estates. Then after that, I went to Leadville in August. And after that, I went right to the oh the plane 100 a self-supported 100 mile race um angels crest i said the bear then the fit and i did like 650 mile races in that year then i ended that year running 205 miles around at the grapevine texas right and

they were workouts they were for any anybody else like their whole season would be oriented around just one of those. Right. Right? And you're just going from thing to thing to thing. So, I'm trying to get a sense of, you know, obviously, like, the exceptionalism of your mindset and your mental approach to all of this. But on some level, like, I know that you kind of categorize or think of yourself as, like, look, I'm an average dude. You know, I'm tough, but, like, I was 300 pounds. Right. or think of yourself as like, look, I'm an average dude. I'm tough, but I was 300 pounds. But there has to be some sort of, I mean,

are you willing to entertain the possibility that you do have some talent in doing this? Or is it all, you're chalking it all up to preparation and mindset? Well, like I said, if anybody's familiar with sickle cell, it's a blood disease that pretty much um it's called sudden death syndrome a lot of african americans who have it they just pass out and die so you know my vo2 max is horrible my hermetic rate and all this stuff is horrible and also having the hole in your heart that the size i had it took away a lot of my thing like you have like you have like uh you're operating with like only like 25 percent of your capability and that's what

i'm trying to tell people right and i was trying to tell people everybody thinks that they they want to believe and i wish i was after every race i was either in a either in a wheelchair or whatever, because running with sickle cell is just not the smartest thing to do. Those distances. At mile 50 of every 100-mile race, man, I was destroyed. And I just had to find, but the feeling of the next 50 miles I had to go, I learned a lot about David Goggins and the wheel. It was always me against me. So no, I don't have any ability See this is the heart of the whole thing though because I think it's really important because if you are a

Genetic freak of nature then it's very easy for somebody to shrug you off. Like, oh, yeah, well, he does it, but he's Dave Goggins. You know what I mean? Normal people can't do that. And for you to always anchor it and bring it back to, look, man, these are the challenges that I'm facing. I have to overcome more of these challenges than the average guy. I'm actually starting at a deficit with this. these challenges than the average guy like i'm actually starting at a deficit right this and i'm not going to ever let anybody make themselves feel better by telling me that i was some genetic freak

i'm not gonna make yourself feel better about that you i suffered and i always say suffer because that's what i did it was miserable the race is every single race in hell Week, in Bud's, in Ranger School, I suffered tremendously. I should never have been able to do it, which is why I'm so proud of myself. I don't care what place I came in. I don't care if I walked 105 miles of bad water. I did it. That was the journey. That was the mission.

That was what it's about. It's not about, oh, well, this guy's just a freak. If that makes you feel bad, it's fine. No, you can do it off just a breath of air in the right mindset. That's the message. So you,

you watered down my message by putting me in a category of I'm crazy. I'm a freak, whatever. Well, all of those, all of those arguments are comfortable arguments to allow people to stay stuck in whatever situation exactly you know what i mean right so it's more uncomfortable if they have to actually reckon and wrestle with the fact that you are like them

just like them and and no one people don't want to do that just like look in the mirror right and right so tell me about the the mirror thing is a big thing with you, right? It's a huge thing for me. It's called the accountability mirror. So I talked about my childhood and if anybody thinks I'm some great person, listen to my childhood again. I had to change my thinking process

and basically the accountability mirror is what did it. I started shaving my head and my face when I was 16 years old and I realized when I started shaving my face in my head I you have a lot of time to look at your reflection and for some it sparked him I'm like man I I'm a piece of crap like I ducked school I ducked school I barely am graduating I'm I'm this I'm this I'm this I'm

all these things man and I had to really tell myself the truth. And so many people, when you say you're dumb, the first thing people say, oh, no, you're not. If you're dumb, you're dumb. If you're fat, you're fat. But if you're not willing to tell yourself that, and everybody around you in your circle continues to give you this positive feedback, if you suck, you suck.

your circle it continues to give you this positive feedback if you suck you suck if you tell yourself you suck that is when you become great well then you're you're getting into the solution that is what i'm talking about so that accountability was i gotta become i gotta get to the surface of who i'm not and i held myself accountable i lied to this person today. I'm a liar. I'm a cheater. I'm this. I'm that. And I tell myself. And I fixed these issues and fixed these issues.

And that part was hard. It was hard to not be jealous of this person who had this and this and this. I had nothing. Nothing. It was hard to tell this person, yeah, I'm jealous of you. And I'm insecure. I'm a very insecure guy. And I have nothing.

It was hard to look at all that. I'm not real smart. And I had to fix these issues. And the accountability mirror was, now I look at myself in the mirror and say, wow, you fixed these issues. Right. So that's a thing that you like consciously practice every day.

Every day of my life. every day in my life in the mirror every day of my life even now so if i were to say some little white lie and i go to the mirror in the morning time i shave my hands like man why the hell did you say that to that guy and he would get a call from me and say look dude i i i that's like that's like 12 step man it's like doing your daily inventory right like making amends for your bullshit. That's it. You know what I mean? Cause you're only lying to yourself. So when you see like this,

you know, we're in this cultural malaise right now where like every kid gets a participation trophy and like we have to tell everyone that they're great. Right. You know what I mean? It's all about like feelings and everybody's a special snowflake and all of that. Like,

you know, that must make you insane. It makes me more than insane. It really is the destruction of this country. And I love this country. I fought hard for it. I will continue to fight for it. And hopefully through mental toughness, it takes mental toughness to change how you look at things.

toughness it takes mental toughness to change how you look at things and giving a person a trophy saying you're great when you're really not if i had that growing up there would be no david goggins zero there'd be no tough people none which is why the world is where it is today a bunch of weak some weak people right there's a lot of weak people now. Right. So right now, there's a lot more awareness about what a SEAL is and what a SEAL does because of Hollywood. Right. You know what I mean? There's a bright white spotlight being shined on SEAL Team Six and American Sniper and all

of this, right, informs our awareness of what this is, right? So what is the reality versus like what we're presented? Like what do you wish like people understood about what it actually is like to be, you know, to do what you do like when you're deployed? Right. Great question. And once again, that will help people who want to put me in a category.

Maybe I am in a category. I'm in a very small category of warriors, real warriors. And I want to say that is a whole different mentality. So I've worked with people who had the courage to jump on grenades and killed themselves to save everybody around them. That's the kind of mentality it takes to be a SEAL. Does every Navy SEAL have it? No.

But that's what SEALs are. That's what we try to. That's why Navy SEAL training buds is so hard. We're trying to find that person who's willing to go the distance. And the distance is your life so when I'm talking to people right now maybe what I say to you does not resonate because why you're not willing to give your life for something every SEAL at least most I can't speak for everyone most of us are a lot of people go fight for this

country a lot of them are not willing to do that am I talking bad about no don't take it and twist my words. People like to twist words. I thank you for your sacrifice. I thank you for that. But a lot of people are scared. Navy SEALs are scared also. But a lot of us have a way to realize what we have decided to do with our lives.

And it takes a great sacrifice, and that sacrifice could be your life. And you have to be able to do that to become a warrior if you go into combat scared you can be scared but you can't be so scared it makes you afraid to fight that makes sense we're able to control that and a lot of us are able to put ourselves in hell and become the devil do you think that your your sense of purpose and like your your your sense of purpose and your sense of clear direction for your life has allowed you to weather those experiences and come back and not suffer some of the traumatic stress that you hear about with a lot of veterans? Definitely.

I've already... I had PTSD a long time ago. You can get it in war. You can get it in life and you have to deal and a lot of people cannot deal with it and you have to be able to deal with these things and realize

I built up a pretty hard like I have a whole bunch of calluses on my hands from doing pull-ups I also callused my brain through my life through suffering through not saying no for not listening to the negative energy to

negative people and when you continue to move forward through hell and move forward past your fears and insecurities and continue to push through this wall your brain becomes really callous and you're able to see things that most people can't even comprehend because you've always you never ran from the fight you ran to the fight and that built a different kind of mindset that allowed me to deal with very very tough things do you think that somebody can adopt that level of discipline or at least a modicum of the level of discipline that you hold yourself to, hold yourself accountable to, without having suffered the kind of pain that you've had to go through. You know what I mean?

Like, pain's the greatest motivator, right? You know what I mean? It's pain mentally and physically. But like, you don't have to be in pain to change. It's just that most people don't change unless they're in pain. Right. Right? Right.

I believe you can, but it truly takes you wanting. And that's the thing about it, man. Like, you really have to want something bad. And that's the one thing I learned about life. You have to be willing to fail a hundred times to succeed once. And if you're not willing to do that, man, you're not going to even get a fraction of what you're looking for i think we need to rethink how we frame failure like i don't even like that word you know what i mean because it implies such a negative you know outcome or perspective like it

should just be there should be a different word for it and then we wouldn't be so caught up in it right i mean you know what what you said is so true um that word doesn't bother me because i i look at it like you are trying to say it right failure is just 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, ranges, 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. You just neutralize it. Like it should be, every time you see failure, you replace it with the word try or something like that. Whatever you want. Whatever.

You know what I mean? And, and, and just drain it of all of that, like heightened negative, you know, energy.

Or else just suck it up and say, I failed. You won't feel so weird about, you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? So.

Yeah. So how do you, I mean, what would you, like, what is your weakness? Like, what's your blind spot, your Achilles heel? Because the work's never done, right? No. So what do you still need to work on?

Like I said, I was afraid of the water, afraid of jumping, all these things I was afraid of. So everything I was afraid of, I made sure to meet it right in the face and overcome it. Right now, what I'm working on now is learning how most people think. Because my whole thing, why it was hard for me to go on social media because why people would give me this weak crap and i absolutely cannot understand this freaking mentality so i would just go off because i would go back to where i came from and i would approach you in a way that was granimal animalistic like what is wrong why don't you go somewhere in your mind where you find out who the hell you are?

And then it's three in the morning and you're like going back and forth with someone. So I'm going off and I had to realize that there's very few people, if any, that have done what you've done mentally. So I had to go back and I'm always bettering how I think. People will change their car. They'll change their think. People will change their car,

they'll change their underwear, they'll change their husband, their wife, they'll change their diet, but very few people change the way they think. And that's why they always fuck themselves in life. They never change the way they think. Oh, my house is old. I want to get a new house.

I want to get a new pair of this or that. But the one thing we never change change why we always stay the damn same and never wonder why we're getting better because we never change the way we think I'm constantly changing the way I think the core of who I am I'll never change that I'm proud of that

warrior Spartan mentality but how I deal with people how you can with people, how you can touch people, you got to know what they respond to. Now, everybody's responding to me saying, look, get the shit up, man. Stop being a little punk.

I got to see what's wrong with you. Think what I'm thinking and then tell you what, not what you want to hear, but kind of what's going to motivate you. We're all motivated very differently. That's so interesting. we're all motivated very differently that's so interesting we're all motivated it's interesting that you can get provoked by some troll on the internet you know what i mean somebody who's a master of of emotional discipline right so i think that you just you just shouldn't be you should be putting out your message

and you should not be reading any of the comments well i'm not provoked by it what it is like if you're you're confused right you feel compelled to respond well when you're passionate about something and someone's trying to tell you what you're thinking like a lot of people some people tell me well do you find love in your life or are you happy with who you are and that's very loaded right that's like a leading question so it's just like i can't really give you the thing but what sets me off you set me off was just honestly people reading into something because we overthink everything stop overthinking it's like get the hell out there and do it yeah that's the internet though like like welcome to the internet which is why yeah i don't like it which is why i

was never on your positive message out and just don't engage in any other aspect of it that's what i've done yeah that's what i've done but there's gonna be times in my life where some people just need to hear something from a different person. Because it may, like I said, it may change the way you think. If you ignore all those comments, which I do most of them, some of them you got to attack. Because why? I might put a spark in your brain to maybe you may think to yourself, wow, that just changed my life. Right. So if you ignore all of them, you're ignoring the fact of why i am on social media right to now tell you how i'm thinking and not just hear the weak

sauce you have that you're bringing my way i get it man you just you gotta get you gotta get a book done oh right i'm in the process right now of writing this book that I've been asked for several years to write. And I'm just putting my stuff in there, man. That's all I'm doing. That's good. That's all I'm doing. So how has a lot of people ask this and want to know how your diet has evolved and changed over time? Like from going from doing back-to-back 100 milers to kind of what you're doing now.

I have several different diets because I'm constantly tapping my body in several different ways. If I'm not running a 100-mile race, I'm a guy that's doing like 4,000 push-ups in a day, or I'm a guy that's trying to do – I did 67,000 pull-ups in nine months to train for the pull-up record. Which you probably still stand. That was 2013, right? I don't think it still stands.

I'm not for sure. But I know that if it doesn't stand, I'm not going for it again. Merry Christmas. You got it. Have it. So you did it. You did it. The thing you did on the Today Show, that was like 2011, right?

No, it was actually 2012. So I did a pull-up record attempt failed measurably two months later and so i did one in um september did another one in november then did another one i finally got it in january right so it was two months off fail two months off fail pass right 4,030 4,030 17 hours yeah wow yeah insane man so my diet's constantly changing and um and i don't you know i don't really talk about diet too much man because it's just always changing but um just depends what i'm doing i'm a big protein guy um a big amino acid guy but i don't really get in the weeds with all this diet stuff. I keep a lot of things still secret to myself.

People get heated around diet. Everybody wants no diet. Everybody wants no diet. I'm asking you mainly because you saw the tweets, I think. That's what everyone wants to know. You know what i mean but i think the bigger issue is like if you tell me what david's morning routine is or if you tell me exactly what his training program is or if you tell me exactly how he eats then i can be david goggins or i can approximate i can approximate some aspect of i can i can bring a little bit

of david gogggins into my life. Right. And for me, it's missing the most important thing. It's the mindset. Which is going back to mindset. It's like connecting with yourself. That's all it is. What is it that gets you out of bed?

Like, how can you find that? It's not about what David does in his morning routine or what his workout is. It's about you and your relationship to yourself. You said it. Right? Period. Dot. It's not about what David's is eating it's not about what anybody's eating once you figure out who you are hopefully you get one thing from me today change the way you are thinking don't put but if you're but if you listen i'm just trying to get in the in i'm trying to get into the head of the guy

sitting at his cubicle at work who's hating his life right and David's telling me I gotta change the way I think well like what the fuck do I do with that like I don't understand what I'm supposed to actually do well what you do what you're supposed to do is everybody has issues

you're a human being you're fucked up somewhere and that somewhere or several somewheres is keeping you in that same spot. Like the spot is this. How do you lose 100 pounds? How do you run 100 miles? How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you?

Let me tell you how. Stop asking these fucking questions. It's how. Stop. You're delaying the fucking process by wasting my fucking time. How I did it, I wanted it. So my process was as I'm asking questions, I'm running to lose weight. I'm figuring out how to do it.

Most of us sit back and say, God, I wish I could do that. And we wait. And we wait. And we ask more questions and ask more questions and prolong david what kind of watch are you wearing what kind of running shoes it's like they're not going to go out and run until they got all the answers i need to know all this stuff right or who's uh you know what is your approach to this thing and i look at you and i'm like this guy wanted to do bad water you A week later, he's running 100 miles on a track.

Exactly. Nothing about nothing. That's exactly it. You had drive and you had a vision and you had passion and you went after it. And not only did you not have the answers, you weren't even asking the questions yet. I don't care. And that's the thing about it. And that's what's so funny.

And that's why I get so turned off by people like that i get it you have to have knowledge to be great at something and to lose weight to be a smart as you gotta have knowledge knowledge is power but i'm gonna tell you right now man how much damn knowledge do you need you can go on the internet right now and figure out how to drop five pounds tomorrow everything is right there at your service if If you want it, you will achieve it. But if you want to waste time and figure out, ask all these fucking questions, I'm going to give you the same answer. Stop asking the question and achieve what you want.

If I asked a bunch of questions, I would still be trying to figure out how to run 100 miles. So many people tell me, I would love to run bad water one day why the fuck haven't you done it you told me that five years ago i wonder how did i did it run bad water i did it in four months i qualified in four days and ran the damn race i wanted to Navy SEAL, had to lose 105 pounds in 60 days to get in and do it. I lost the weight and became a damn SEAL. I wanted to be a ranger at 41 years old. People go, what do you want to do next? I don't know. I've already done it. Because the second I thought about it, I researched it. I didn't ask questions. I achieved it. We waste tons of time not starting our journey for asking so many fucking questions on how to start the journey.

Get an idea. Start walking and figure this shit out as you go. Vision quest. But David, you don't understand my life. Exactly. I have to get up at five and I work till nine and I got three kids and I'm barely making ends meet. It's cool that you can do that, but it's just not possible. What I love about that is people can come at me

with all that crap all day long. When I say that right there to you, I was a full-time Navy SEAL. There's 24 hours in the day. I was doing ultra races, and how I did it was I had to be at work at 7 o'clock in the morning. I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning.

I ran, and then I rode my bike to work, and I did the same the morning. I woke up at three o'clock in the morning. I ran and then I rode my bike to work and I did the same thing and I came home. If you want it, you will find time in your life to do it. If you don't want it, you will continue to do exactly what you're doing now, give me excuses. You're going to make up every excuse on why you can't do it and that's why I can't connect with you. That's why you hear the passion come out of me and you want to say it's anger no because i know it can be done and you're telling me all this shit on why it can't be done and then what you do is he's crazy he's in a can no you don't want it bad enough if you want it bad enough you will figure out how to make this shit happen and most people don't want

anything bad enough. No. I think that's the truth. Period. That's the unfortunate sad truth. That's good for me though. I'll take it all. I'll take it all. And I always tell you about it right now. When I grew up, I'm 41 years old and we always talk about the old days.

I'm not old, but it was a different time. Parents could actually whip their kids and they actually had things like that going on. If I was with my mentality today, if I was born now with my mentality today, it'd be such an easy, easy way to go. So easy. You would just crush it. Crush everybody. All these snowflakes are going to be melting around you.

I would have so much stuff for me because why it's so easy to compete with these guys. You can crack somebody. You can crack their will in a second. You're fat. Oh my God. What was me? You can crack someone

in a minute because they don't know how to twist it and find drive and motivation and passion to become better, to become great.

That right there, you tell one kid he's fat, that may stick with him the rest of his life and take him down a whole other journey than the journey he's supposed to be on. This is a very different society. So in terms of this new chapter in your life that you're kind of embarking on, working on um how important is it to you to like maintain these lifestyle habits of like you know like like whether it's you know restricting yourself in certain like like you know yourself now right so you don't you don't really have to do all these things anymore but do you still do them like you know when you read jesse's book it's like you're sleeping in a chair you know

you're doing all this kind of stuff like i don't imagine you're doing that now but like do you feel like you have to how much do you feel like you have to stay in touch with that aspect of who you are i think it's important to not go too far with it but i always have to make sure that my refrigerator is empty and what that means is yeah i'm successful now i've come to a point in my life where i'm very proud of myself. I love myself for all you people out there who don't think it. I'm very peaceful. I love what I've accomplished. I'm so proud of that. But at the end of the day, the worst thing that can happen to a man is he becomes civilized. Once you become so civilized that you have everything you want, that warrior mentality that I'm so proud of that I had to, it wasn't,

I wasn't born with it. I had to go through the crucible of my life to acquire it. You always want to keep that thing sharp like a sword. So you always, you don't have to sharpen it every day like you did when you were going to combat. But if you leave it alone for too long,

it gets a little dull. And that's my mind. I always want to sharpen. I don't have to do these things every single day of my life. But you always got to go back and sharpen that sword every now and then to make sure that that mentality is still there and your refrigerator is still empty. Because you always want to keep that edge.

And that edge is what keeps you going forward. Right. So if you were put in a position to be a high school teacher and you could come up with any kind of curriculum you wanted for your students, what would that look like for you? The basis of my curriculum, because education is so important, but 75% of it would be yourself, your mind, mental toughness, self-discipline courage honor respect all these things all these words are just words people use them as punch lines it's i would get to the core of these individuals because once you get to the core of who you are then we can succeed

right everything else will fall into place if you have that. Right. And yet our educational system has this massive blind spot. Right. They don't teach that. We're not instilled with these ideas. And these are the ideas that are either going to make you or break you. Core values, man.

Because if you can light a spark in someone, if you can get them excited about learning, if you can get them feeling good about who they are by challenging them and getting them out of their comfort zones, then you're creating people that have a future. That's right. And that will serve all of us better, right? A lot better. You know what I mean? Right.

So we got a lot of work to do to sort that out, I think. Oh. Yeah. Oh. I know. A lot. So we got to wrap this up in a little bit so I can let you get back to your life.

But one thing I thought might be interesting to ask you, you know, there's a lot of talk about kind of the role that you played in changing Jesse Itzler's life as a result of like living with him. But I'm interested in, in what that experience was like for you. Cause that's getting out of your comfort zone to go live with these people that are living this crazy lifestyle who are doing things that are unfamiliar to you, right? So what was that like, and what did you take away from that for yourself? You know, they're super successful. Sarah Blakely, Jesse Itzler, Sarah

Blakely is the founder of Spanx. These two individuals are super, super successful. Sarah Blakely, Jesse Itzler, Sarah Blakely is the founder of Spanx. These two individuals are super, super successful. I took a lot from it, but one thing I took from it was I'm very happy with my life, with my life of not having so much. And, you know, they have chefs, and they have drivers, and they have so much stuff going on in their life and i'm a simplistic i'm very simplistic and my simplistic lifestyle gave me the life i wanted i was able to really i became even more proud of who i am and not in knowing what i really want like you look from the outside looking in like man private jets and flying around and man eat i mean even not Man, all this food and everything they want, everything is there. Once you go over there and you live in that world, it's great for some people. Great for some people.

For me, I realized, you know what, man? That really is not for me. Who I am, the guy who has a backpack right there that can go five days with all the stuff in her backpack, have some Subway sandwiches, have a cookie every now and then, go on his little run, come back, hit some push-ups, pull-ups, watch the football game in some hole in the wall or whatever,

and just be proud of who I am and not need anything else external. Yeah, your sense of self is completely divorced from your external circumstances. A hundred percent. Right. And, you know, I think Jesse's a happy dude. Very. I love that guy.

He's fantastic. But it is interesting that even he, you know, he sought out to go run ultras. You know what I mean? It's like he was looking for something more and he sought you out to try to help him you know understand certain things about how he could be more fulfilled in the way that he's living and and i credit him that's like a most people wouldn't do that right you know what i mean exactly i give him tons of credit yeah he's a special special guy in that but i think that that's really cool yeah um so let's wrap it up with this. I mean, if there's one, if you can distill everything that you're about into one core message that you want people to take away, what is it beyond what we've already talked

about? What is it that's holding people back, that's limiting them, that's keeping them stuck and in their blind spot? And how can you speak to that to that to perhaps, you know, shake it loose a little bit and get people to think a little bit differently about how to proactively approach their lives? The truth, their truth, the real truth about who they are as a person. And I think it all really starts there, the truth. And knowing that you may not be a courageous person, you may not have this and that, but are you willing to find it within yourself

to go through the very hard journey? A lot of people in this world have died 80, 90, 100 years old, and they lived a great life. They had a lot of things. But a lot of people who have died never really started the true journey that whatever you believe in god or whatever you believe in if you believe in nothing i believe we're all here

to start a journey and that journey is fucking hard if you choose your real journey most of us we decide to take a different journey in life it's a journey of least resistance. And so what I challenge people to do is to realize that in themselves, that yeah, I have taken a lot of left turns and I should have stayed straight because why? I wasn't good at something. And it embarrassed me to not be good at something or I wasn't the smartest person or this or that.

Whatever all these excuses are that we build up, find the truth of who you are. Go back to the start of your journey and go down that path. I guarantee you if you finish that journey and you don't fear and waver and go places that are

very easy, the other end of that journey, let me tell you, is a peaceful end. I'm not saying it's over for me, but I believe the hardest part of my life is over. I can't imagine anything else being worse

than this. Yeah, and to welcome the discomfort that comes with that, to embrace the difficult aspect. We just want to run away from all that stuff. As fast as we can.

If you really want to connect with who you are and you really want to feel fulfilled, like you have to confront that. You have to. Whether it's the lie that you're telling yourself

about who you are or the secret that you're keeping or, you know, that thing that you wish you were doing but you're too afraid to start doing it.

And that's the moral of the story, man, is stop putting categories on people because you are insecure yourself. So it makes you feel better as a person to say, ah, this guy did this or this girl did that or whatever. It makes you feel that much better. People love seeing failure. It makes them feel so good about themselves to see somebody not succeed at something. It makes them feel better. And that's the true story.

Our whole media culture is built upon that. They love it, man. They love it. They love it. Good talking to you, dude. You too, my man. Yeah, man. This is going to rock people. I'm super excited to share this. I appreciate what you do and I wish you well in this new chapter in your life. Super inspiring

to spend a little time with you. I appreciate it, man. It's an honor and a privilege, my friend. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. So if you're digging on David,

like I know you are, best place to connect with him is davidgoggins.com and you're at davidgoggins on Twitter and Instagram. But if you sling a little mud at him, he might bite back. Who knows? Yeah, we'll see.

And anything else coming up? You're doing a lot of public speaking these days, right? Right now I'm speaking a lot. Like I said, I did a 50-mile or two weeks ago. I'm giving myself a little break now from that. And I'm just doing my winter routine with a lot of calisthenics and still running always still running doing a lot of versaclimber jacob's ladder stuff like that switching it up a little bit finding you know never staying in the same pattern you know one

of the things jesse said uh because I talked to him before this I was like what should I ask david that's not obvious you know know? And he's like, ask him about how he stretches for four hours a day. Is that true? It is. I actually, so I, I have a multitude, I have, I still have a multitude of health issues. Right. We didn't even, you know, like I'm just being conscious of the time, but like we didn't, we didn't even talk about the fact that in 2010, you had this crazy heart thing.

I remember because you were killing it in racing, and then you just had to stop. You came back in 2013, but there was a period there where you were off the radar. Huge period. I was extremely sick. I'm still sick now. So everything I talked about in my life, it comes at a price. It comes at a huge price. When you will yourself, so when you don't have ability and all you have is will,

something's going to give. And what it gives is your internal system. So my adrenals are shot. So your adrenals are your fight or flight. Like I discussed, I was scared of everything I ever did in my life, and I had to find something much deeper than myself to pull out, to turn myself inside out. And how I did it was I used a lot of my adrenals.

And I had to find this to get through all this pain and suffering and fear. And basically, my adrenals have shut down. Everybody could say, God, is it even worth it? Sure is, people. Sure is. Because that is my trophy not the sickness i knew what i was doing to myself when i was doing it i found what i wanted to do but it now i'm getting healthier but so i stretched out because while my hip flexors got so tight

your psoas muscle your psoas muscle is what tightens up when you're in a fight or flight situation i was in a fight or flight situation all through my deployments, jumping on airplanes, being in scary situations, doing things I hated doing my whole life pretty much. That psoas muscle got so tight, it started pulling on my T12, collapsed my spine. You have a bunch of nerve endings going through there. I can go all day talking about this.

I got severely, very sick. So basically what I did was I started this crazy stretch routine and I literally have healed myself through the discipline I had. And what people won't believe is I got to a point where I stressed out for eight to 12 hours a day. So essentially, most of your waking hours when you're not working out. Stretching. And it went from that to 6 hours a day. Then from 6 hours a day to 4 hours a day, the more it opened up. So the hips

are your soul. Is there like a specific routine of stretches that you would go through? I would sit and stretch a whole big routine. A whole mess of like opening up your abductors because your abductors are attached to your hips your hip flexors your everything is attached at at this region here your your midsection your hips and my hips got so tight that i couldn't even squat down i had so much

back pain so that's why another reason why i started running running you stay upright i couldn't squat anymore i couldn't do any of that power lifting stuff so i just only thing i can do is run running didn't bother me too bad and it got to the point where i couldn't run either and my health got real poor till my spine was collapsed and um i just got real sick and basically i healed myself because nobody no doctor can find out what's wrong with me so i couldn't run a lot i couldn't do any activities so i said you know i'm gonna bury myself in stretching. And what happened was I had this huge knot on the back of my head. The knot came from my spine collapsing and getting tighter and tighter and tighter. It developed fluid or whatever.

Long story short, as I started stretching out, that bump started going away. And the smaller the bump got, the healthier I got. And I was like, what in the world is going on so i was so i shave every day so i would feel this bump and the bump and you can see it right now yeah no i can see it yeah most people think everybody's a bump in the back of my bump was like this big it was huge and the more i stretched the more it went away the more it went away the more the healthier i got i was like man so i'll be like i'm gonna keep on stretching so my stretching became a it was crazy and i got healthier and i was like my god so i stretched more and more and more and now it's i've been doing that for three years i haven't missed a day of stretching in three years wow so now is it is it literally like is it are you still

at the four hour mark of stretching i'm now at at the two-hour mark. But what's funny about it, I went from—so I won a race called Strolling Gym. It's a 41-mile race in Tennessee. I averaged about seven-minute miles or 41 miles back in the backcountry, up and down hills. I could never even do that. Yeah, I run marathons pretty fast, but my average training pace was at 8 30 8 40 after i stressed out my hips my average running pace now is between 7 15 and 7 30 wow and that's just because that's how crazy tired i was so i'm a if i want to get back into ultra running right now and really compete at a high level for me i would run races a minute and a

half faster per mile. That's crazy. And that's what I do now. So I did Strollin' Gym a few years ago before I started stretching. I did it in 530-something, which is a good time. I did it this year, this past year, in 450-something. Wow. And you're probably not training near the volume that you used to, right? No, no way.

No way. That's so interesting. I mean, there's this whole other camp sort of philosophy, especially in running, that's like anti-stretching. They're out of their minds, man. You shouldn't stretch. I was the same way. That's why I never stretched.

I was like, man, anti, because you lose those fibers. You're an idiot. I would stretch out for eight hours in a day. Yeah, it takes a while for your body to get used to it, but most of us are sitting most of the time. When you sit, you're tightening up that hip flexor muscle, that psoas muscle. That's one of the most important muscles in your stride, to get that long stride. Half of our strides have shrunk by inches.

Your stride is how you run. When I started stretching, I was like, my God, man, I'm clipping at a 73030 715 at the same heart rate your stride is not restricted anymore it's not restricted as much as it was so I've gained a minute per mile just by stretching so people say shit because they don't even know what the hell they're talking

about they don't even know so get knowledgeable before you I read it I listened to it so I didn't stretch it's the dumbest thing on the planet and people So get knowledgeable before you. I read it. I read it. I listened to it. So I didn't stretch. It's the dumbest thing on the planet. And people talk about, don't hold a stretch longer than 30 seconds or 15, whatever the hell the shit is. I'll be in a stretch for 30, 40 minutes.

Come in it, go out of it. Go in it, go out of it. Go in it, go out of it. Don't believe everything you hear. Figure out yourself. Yeah. Do your own research on yourself. Like be your own guinea

pig right experiment on yourself so that's it all right man i'll let you go all right brother yeah maybe i can convince you to come back and talk more this is really cool people won't hear me anymore i'm telling you man they're done with me now people are gonna go nuts this is great so thank you no problem man Thanks for having me, brother. Peace. All right. How did that one land for you? I got to tell you, I really think that this conversation is going to go down in the annals of our RP history as one of the most impactful, if not the most impactful, most downloaded, most popular podcast that I've ever done. He was just amazing. And I really hope

that you take his message to heart. I really hope that you extract from this conversation, the tools and the resources and the inspiration to reframe your own life trajectory, to raise the bar on the goals that you're setting for yourself. And I really look forward to hearing from you guys throughout the year on how these goals are beginning to manifest in your life. So please reach out to me

and let me know how the progress is going. As always, please make a point of checking out the show notes at richroll.com. I got tons of links and resources on the episode page to help take your infotainment on David and his work beyond the earbuds. As always, thank you so much to everybody for sharing the show with your friends and on social media and around the water cooler. If you haven't done so already, please leave a review on iTunes. That helps us out a lot. And while you're at it, click that subscribe button

if you haven't done that yet on iTunes or on whatever podcast app or platform you use to enjoy your podcast content. I want to thank Jason Camiolo for his work on audio engineering and production on this podcast, Sean Patterson for his help on graphics, Chris Swan for additional production assistance, as well as a lot of help on the show notes and theme music as always by Annalema. Thanks for the love you guys it's been a great 2016 i'm super excited for 2017 again i really hope that this episode helped kick you into a new gear and how you think and act and behave with respect to yourself and the goals that you set for yourself heading into the next 12 months and i'll see you guys back here next week. Peace. Plants. Thank you.