The School of Greatness - REPROGRAMMING Your Mind for Success with THE 40% RULE | David Goggins

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

This week on The School of Greatness podcast, I had the pleasure of sharing my conversation with David Goggins, someone who has mastered the art of pain and embracing his discomfort zone. Your brain is the most complex organ in your body. It needs to be pushed, tested, and challenged everyday to create mental strength. The only way you’ll ever strengthen the most powerful organ in your body is by diving head first into your discomfort zone. We don’t like to be uncomfortable, but facing that pain head on is the only way we can ever succeed or progress. Are you ready to push past your mental limits?David Goggins is an incredible man who has undergone insane amounts of stress, pain, and tragedy only to unlock his true potential in life. David is the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man), and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training.He is indisputably one of the world’s best endurance athletes. He has completed over 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons, setting new course records and regularly placing in the top five. He once held the world record for pull-ups, completing 4,030 in 17 hours, and he is a sought-after public speaker, coach of numerous sports teams, and he also coaches people in Fortune 500 companies. In 2018, he published a book called You Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds which helps tons of people tap into their true potential. He says that on average, people are only using 40% of their potential. David wants to raise that number significantly. In this episode you will learnWhat made David apply for the Military.What David believes the key to life is.Why getting sick was the best thing that ever happened to David.About the 40 Percent Rule.How to retrain your mind when you want to seek comfort.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1525For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]Want more episodes like this one?Shaolin Master, Shi Heng Yi - https://link.chtbl.com/1428-podA Masterclass on Self-Discipline with 5 Navy SEALs - https://link.chtbl.com/1440-pod

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it and finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward.

This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life. 10 years ago, at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today. Again, lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on Audible now so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. The most important conversation you'll ever have in your life is when you have yourself. And my conversation was absolutely horrifying. What were you saying to yourself? Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes,

former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to today's special episode. over the last 1300 plus episodes, there have been so many impactful interviews that I've been lucky enough to have. And I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful in this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past, and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. Why did you want to not be known then, but now you do want to have your message out there?

Well, when Jesse wrote that book, Living with a Seal, I was about two or three weeks from getting out of the military. So, you know, being a SEAL, you know, I didn't want to be mentioned David Goggins in this book. So the second the book popped, I was retiring. So the book came out November 15th or November 1, 2015. And I retired November 2015. Gotcha. So that's why. That's the biggest reason why.

And when did you start putting yourself out there doing interviews and talking about your message? And you got on social media and started sharing videos when when did you decide to do that well i've been talking to people for several years and i wasn't really big on like my mindset is very different than most people yeah it's a mindset of um i don't want to be known too much i don't want too many looky loos in my life because that's where i gained my strength. I gained my strength from a place of quiet. And the more I got my story out there, the more I realized it no longer be David Goggins, the quiet man. It'd be David Goggins, the guy that's on Instagram answering this, answering that, because I'm also a guy that's always about, if someone reaches out to me, I'm not going to sit back and say, oh, you know, whatever. I'm going to reach back to you. So it's going to take time out of me trying to gain strength and me trying to get running to go.

So that was a big deterrent for me to get on Instagram and all that stuff. I'm not big on social media anyway. But then I realized that God put me in a very interesting spot of life where he made hell my teacher. He made hell my teacher. And a lot of people don't understand that. So I'm trying to give people a different thought process of life where failure, hell, disappointment, discomfort is a great learning tool. And many people don't understand that. And a lot of people won't even understand this interview when we get done with it.

But it's these few moments in life that you have. Like for me, I always talk about it. Rocky won round 14. That one two-minute and 13-second clip of Rocky getting up when Apollo knocked him down. That one clip, when I was going through a very bad time in my life, I saw what I wanted to be. And it wasn't a guy that won. It wasn't a guy that won everything he did. It was a guy that kept getting up after being knocked down.

So I realized if that two minutes and 13 seconds changed my life, so I was. I saw something that I needed to be in the world I was living in. Maybe my story will give someone the two minutes and 13 seconds they need to change their life. Means that people live in a very comfortable place. That's fine. Don't listen to me. A lot of people are looking for that two minutes and 13 seconds and I might be that person. That's why I started sharing it. Yeah, you talked about in the very beginning, I like this. Your job is to be the best of your ability. This will hurt. The mission is not about making yourself feel better. The mission is about being better and having a greater impact in the world. And it sounds like you

understand the fact that you need to put yourself out there a little bit more is going to reach more people and impact more people as opposed to always being quiet. Right. Is that what I'm hearing? Exactly. I had to find a happy medium. Yeah. Because what's the point? Like we all have a story. And I believe that we're all teachers. And if you don't learn something and give back what you learned. Yeah. What's the point of living? And you're wasting.

Yeah, you're wasting. You have all this knowledge of what you learned. Some people may think you're crazy. Some people may put a title on you. But it's those few people who are like, you know what, I need to hear that. So you have to put yourself out there. So was there an awakening for you in the last few years that said,

okay, I'm not doing this enough. I'm putting myself out there. I'm not telling my story. I'm wasting certain aspects of my life by not giving that message out? There were a lot of emails that came in to me. And I didn't realize, when you live your life, you don't know what it's doing to people. Because it's my life.

I didn't know my life was as bad as it was because it's my life. It's what I went through. I think it's like the norm. It's the norm. Yeah. That's what I did, man. But when I started getting these emails from people saying, hey, you know what? You changed my life.

That part changed my life. That part of your You changed my life. That part changed my life. That part of your story changed my life. And because I have so many different parts of my life that so many people resonate with different spots. Maybe it's the obese part. Maybe it's the bullying part. Maybe it's the learning disability part. Maybe it's the abusive parent part, whatever it may be. So many people draw from my story and I started getting these emails. And I was like, God, man, you know, I'm a big believer in something more powerful than me.

I don't know what it is, but I'm not the end all. So I was like, I gotta start doing more. If I'm touching these people's lives. A few people here and there. Right, maybe I need to go out here and do some more. Crazy story, man. I mean, if you guys haven't gotten the book, you guys can pre-order the book. This is actually a galley copy here, printed out. Make sure you guys check this out. Can't Hurt Me, Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. And when I was reading the first part of the book about

your childhood, I mean, your father just seemed like, was just so abusive physically. I mean, it's one thing to be emotionally abusive and another thing to be physically. And when you have both, it's like the perfect storm of like the makings for chaos in your life. Right. And it just sounded like he was just nasty. Nasty and everything was your fault and you were always wrong

and you weren't living up to a standard, both you and your brother and your mom. Right. And it was just constant physical abuse over and over. I mean, the story of you just being bent over and him just, like, whipping you over and over and you just gasping for air. I was just like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. Right.

How did you deal with that? How did you, like, overcome the constant physical and emotional abuse? You know what? It's all I knew. Mm-hmm. So when you're born to that, it's all you know. I mean, you know something's not right because in my mind at a young kid, I could tell, man, you know, the way I was processing things wasn't right. I mean, I suffer from severe toxic stress. And that was one of the big reasons

why I had a learning disability. My focus in life was way off. I was afraid. I was afraid of everything. And when you have that kind of foundation growing up, that's where you start life at, is being abused and also working all night at a skating rink, not going to school. And you have a guy who's an alcoholic. And the second he got drunk, he got mad. So our house lived in fear. Yeah. And the one thing that you can't ever get out of a kid's mind is your mom's face. The terror. The terror of your mom's face.

That's the worst. So I didn't care about my brother. I didn't care about me. But I saw this woman go from Mary Poppins, the sweetest person on the planet Earth. And when you see your mom start to transform to a shell, to a person whose face becomes stoic, a person who has no emotion, and that changes a kid. Yeah. And when you're young and you have to grow up so fast, so about eight years old, my mind was of a 40-year-old.

Life came at me, and it makes your brain, you know, you're not outside playing with kids. You know, you're trying to avoid getting beat. Yeah. You know, you're avoiding all these things. When you go home, it's supposed to be safe. Right, right. And you're getting beat again.

Exactly, and what's funny about that, we lived on Paradise Road. Yeah. We lived on Paradise Road. And it wasn't so paradise. It was anything but paradise, man. You know, once those doors shut, you know, my dad gave everybody a different view of him. He wore the nice tailored suits. He smiled. That's right. Your dad's amazing. Those doors shut, man. And the devil himself came out. So it was rough. And that's why my foundation was so beaten down at a young age. So learning disability, I grew up dyslexic, so I can relate to that. I'm just like constantly feeling stupid and insecure.

And I had a tutor my entire life. It's horrible. Until I finished college, I had a tutor. Right. Second grade, I had a tutor my entire life. It's horrible. Until I finished college, I had a tutor. Right. Second grade reading level when I was in eighth grade. It was just like a constant struggle. Right. Emotionally.

And I took that outlet into sports and said, I'm going to just train myself to be the best I can be in a place where I can learn something differently. Right. And pick up a different skill. But with your learning disability, with your dad beating you, screaming at you, emotionally challenging your mind, with the racism you dealt with, with the different struggles you felt, with bullies, what was the hardest obstacle to overcome from up until about 15, 16? The hardest obstacle was myself. I started realizing more and more and more that all these people were gone. What was haunting me was me.

I can't control my dad. I can't control the people calling me nigger. I can't control all these things. But they were things that kept me down. It started becoming my reality. My reality was what they made it out to be. And I became the most important conversation you'll ever have with your life, you know, in your life is when you have yourself.

And my conversation was absolutely horrifying. What were you saying to yourself? I'm dumb. I'm nobody. I mean, my dad was great in mental warfare. I'm nobody. I mean, my dad was great in mental warfare. A drunk, insecure man will make everybody around him feel like hell.

Yeah. Because he wants to give you no power. And that's why he was so mean to my mom and myself and my brother, because he didn't want anybody to get above him. He wanted to keep you down low. So when you're growing up with all this stuff, all this hate, and it wasn't the beatings. I could take the beatings all day. It was a mental torture. At a young age, your parents put a dialogue in you of confidence or you're nobody. So that voice in my head was, I'm a loser. And then it was confirmed

when I got in school. And in third grade, I'm a loser. And then it was confirmed when I got in school. And in third grade, I was falling behind. They want to put me in a special school. Yeah. You know, with kids who can't learn. Right. Then it was confirmed, you know, what my dad was saying. So that confirmed it.

Then I started cheating. So I started realizing, you know what? I'm taking the easy way out again. Yeah. And it started snowballing from there. Now the kids are calling me nigger. But it wasn't all the kids. So what happens is you start to get this picture that everybody hates you

because your reality becomes so big that you don't, I mean, you can't see the clear picture. It might have been three or four kids doing it over and over. Right. But it was the whole town. Everybody hated me. The world hates kids. That's it. Doing it over and over. Right. But it was the whole town. Yeah. Everybody hated me. So start out. The world hates me.

That's right. Yeah. And that's when it became toxic. And that is where I became my worst enemy. Wow. So those are the conversations. Those are the conversations. When did you start to realize that those conversations weren't supporting your life?

So my mom was getting ready to get married. And this guy came into our lives. His name was Wilmoth. He came into our lives. And like I always say, whenever my life's getting better, God will put another challenge in front of me. He gets murdered. Oh man. And we moved back to Brazil. So we moved from this town, this small town in Brazil, and we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. A lot more blacks, a lot more different colors. Yeah. Weren't you living in New York at some point too? I was born in Buffalo, New York.

Yeah, that's right. And I went from Buffalo to Indiana, and then from Indiana to Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis, Indiana, you know, he got murdered when I was in Indianapolis. We went back to Brazil. We went back to Brazil. We went back to Brazil.

This is when the racism started. Really? Because now I'm 16. So when I was first in Brazil, I was eight and nine. Kids don't care. Yeah. Here's the kid. I look different, but kids don't care.

Yeah. Kids don't know. But when I moved and I came back, I'm no longer a kid. So all the kids I grew up with, I'm now different. I'm different. So there's about five black kids in my school. The reality came when I came out one day and all my car was spray painted, nigga, we're gonna kill you.

Oh my gosh. In Brazil? In Brazil. In Portuguese? No, no, my fault, Brazil, Indiana. Oh gosh. Yeah, my fault, Brazil, Indiana. I was like, oh, you went to Brazil.

I was like. No, no, Brazil, Indiana. Brazil, Indiana. Yes, Brazil, Indiana. From Indianapolis to Brazil, Indiana. Oh, gosh. Yeah, my fault, Brazil, Indiana. I was like, oh, you went to Brazil. I was like. No, no, Brazil, Indiana. Brazil, Indiana. Yes, Brazil, Indiana. From Indianapolis to Brazil, Indiana. Indiana. Got it. So I was in Brazil, Indiana, and about 10 minutes from Brazil, Indiana is a small town called Centerpoint, Indiana.

Uh-huh. And Centerpoint, Indiana was, at that time, a huge hub of the KKK. Wow. In 1995, the Klan marched in the Fourth of July Parade. And I don't know if the picture is in, I don't know if any pictures are in there, but if not, there's a picture in the book in 1995, 10 minutes from my house of crosses being burnt.

10 minutes from your house? 10 minutes from my house. Wow. So when you have all this negativity growing up and now you're cheating and you're doing this and your dad beats you and your mom's fiance gets murdered and tragedy after tragedy to tragedy and then you come to this and your mom's working three jobs she's not home at all she never saw one report card of mine she didn't know how bad off i was in school she was hustling trying to

make money and i was the man of the house, lying, sneaking around, not going to school, cheating, right, everything I could. I walked out of school one day and saw this nigger, we're going to kill you on my car. And I went in to get the principal. There's several incidents like this to happen. I went to get the principal and the principal, he couldn't give me any advice. And I didn't want to tell my mom about it because my mom was already bothered by my dad beating her down and now her fiance got murdered.

So I didn't want to bother her. The last thing on her mind. She's like, I've dealt with this my whole life. Right. I didn't want to bother with anything, man. So I kept everything away from her. So I'm in the car wash trying to scrub this stuff off.

And I got home and so happens, two weeks later, she gets a note from school. And the note says, your son is going to fail. He's not going to graduate. And she's like, what is this? And I had to come clean with my mom of all the years of me cheating, of all the bullying, of all this and all that.

And she was such in a bad spot in her life that the best thing she could do was like, hey, you know, you're going to fail. You're going to fail school. Wow. And I was like, my God, man, like she was in a dark place and I was in a dark place. And we were kind of on our own in the same house, but living different lives. And I realized at this time in my life, she was a great mom, but I was on my own. And that's when a real big change happened for me.

So I said, I'm going to join the military. This is 17? 17, 18. I wanted to go into the delayed entry program. And I went to take the ASVAB test and I cheated. That's what you knew. That's what I did. So I got my friend,

because I walked into the recruiter's office and the recruiter says, hey, you got to take this ASVAB test. Second I heard test, I was like, man, oh, hang on a second. I can't test. It's in my life, man. I'm going to go. Can I come back tomorrow? Yeah, yeah.

So I come back. The recruiter starts handing these tests out. I'm like, great. I'm going to sit with my boy. I'm going to copy off my boy. He had a different test than I did. Ooh. So I couldn't copy off him. And that's when the test than I did. So I couldn't copy off him.

And that's when the light bulb hit on. So I failed this test several times. I failed it twice. I actually failed it twice and the third time, I said, mom, I need help. Wow. And she said, we don't have much money, but we can afford a tutor for one hour a week

for six months, because this is my last time taking the test. And so I had to learn. So I had a third grade reading level. I'm a junior in high school. So I had six months to learn all this stuff. And I only had a tutor for one hour a week. So basically what happened was she would come in for an hour and I wasn't picking it up, any of it.

I just couldn't retain anything. And it was so much to learn that overwhelmed me. So basically what happened was I realized I had to go by the store and buy spiral notebooks. And I had to literally write down every single thing repeatedly. So it may take you an hour to learn. It took me hours, six, eight, nine, ten hours. I had to write the same thing repeatedly. So it may take you an hour to learn. It took me hours, six, eight, nine, ten hours. I had to write the same thing down. Simple stuff.

Simple stuff. I hear you, man. So I started memorizing. That's my life. So I had to memorize. Yeah. So I didn't really learn it. I could just recall it from writing it down so many times

that on page 71, I remember seeing that. Yeah. And that's how I did it. And I ended up passing that test. And I got in the military. So. That's crazy. Yeah. What was the greatest lesson your mom taught you growing up?

Honestly, the greatest lesson she ever taught me is a lesson that she doesn't know how much she taught me because she wasn't much in the teaching mode. My dad took her soul. But what I did as a young kid is I observed everybody. I wasn't really smart in the books, but I was real smart when it came to life. And I was able to sit back and watch her mistakes. I was able to see how she struggled through life and how I don't want to struggle through life. And I was able to see she never picked me up. The biggest thing she did for me, and this is honest to God truth, and she doesn't even know she did it.

When I would bust my ass, when I would fail, when I was at the bottom of the sewer, she never picked me up. She never gave me that cookie and said, hey, son, you know, it's going to be okay. She didn't have time for that. And sometimes she gets upset when I talk about my past because it paints her out to be not the best mom. If I had any kind of mom in that kind of environment, I would have never made it because she forced me for whatever reason, she forced me to, you better figure this out or you're going to be a statistic.

Wow. And this is something that she didn't sit down and tell me. I realized this. This is the world that is in front of me. And what most people do is they see this world and they look at it as an excuse to get out of it. Yeah. I started looking at it as this is the ultimate training ground for the rest of my life. I have all these valuable lessons because if you look out in the world right now today, it's not a nice place.

But I'm very prepared for it. Yeah, you are. I'm prepared for it. I'm prepared for all the failure coming my way. I'm prepared for everything my way. And that's the biggest lesson that she taught me by not teaching me, by never saying it's going to be okay. Matter of fact, she told me the exact opposite. Life sucks. That's what she knew. And it was the truth. That was her reality.

That was her reality. And so I saw that. And so I started at that point in my life, I have a lot more failures as you see in that book, but I started at that point in my life. I have a lot more failures, as you see in that book. But I started down the road of instead of the path of least resistance, I started choosing the path of most resistance to prepare myself for the journey that was coming my way. Wow. And most kids don't prepare themselves for the most resistance. No. They want to get out of things.

They want to get out of things. Get off the hook. Right. Put in the extra reps. Right. They want the easiest path to get to the top. Right. Exactly. I look at my life as like, and here you talk about like really diving into pain and like embracing pain and finding, looking for the pain. Right. And I think there's like a, there's a, there's a safe pain and then there's a probably an unsafe pain of just like jumping off a building and you know, whatever. Right. Trying to land on 20 floors or something then there's probably an unsafe pain of just like jumping off a building and you know

Whatever right trying to land on 20 floors or something. It's probably not the safe way to do those but doing 200 miles of Endurance running is a different way of pain looking at pain And that's what I've been looking for my whole life is like finding the pain and I talked about like do something every day That that's painful right and that good structure environment. You've been doing that for the last couple years now. It's like you work out every day. You haven't missed a day. I've been doing it for the last 20-some years of my life. 20 years? Or did you say two years? No, 20-some years of my life. Every day

you work out. So I used to take one day off a week. I used to take one day off a week. For the body to recover, right? Makes sense. But that one day off was an active recovery day where I would get on a trainer and ride for like two hours. Wow. But at a zone one heart rate, very low heart rate.

And I replaced the carbohydrates in my body while I rode. Because the best way to recover for me is to do something at a very low heart rate. Because therefore your blood's flowing through your body. Yeah. As your blood's flowing through your body, refuel it with the nutrients because then your blood's flowing, the nutrients is going through all your cells in your body. All that glycogen is now flowing at a low heart rate.

So it's not burning it, it's refueling it. Yeah. So every Sunday used to be that. And it kind of snowballed into, as human beings, we believe so many people, before I give them a workout plan, they're talking about recovery. Everybody that hears me speak, they want to go straight to recovery. Workout first. Huh? Workout first. Before you talk to me about recovery. How to

recover, yeah. Workout first. We are always looking for, like whenever I talk to people, people take my words and they put it in a way to where they want to feel comfortable. They want to put you in a box. They want to put a title on you. No, you're putting a title on me to make yourself feel better about yourself. If you read this book of mine and you see where I came from, this person was not built. This person was not made by God. This person, sorry, this person was built. I made this person.

I made this person by diving into the insecurities that life gave me. Because now they're yours. They're yours to own. If you're not smart, call yourself dumb. It's okay. Because you are. But take that knowledge, putting yourself down. If you're fat, call yourself fat. I okay because you are but take that not as you're putting yourself down if you're fat call yourself fat i used to be 300 pounds we we want to talk so soft to ourselves

we're looking for that recovery day and that recovery day is everything in your life everything in your life is a recovery day we're looking for it it's not coming it's not coming. It's not coming. Get over that recovery day. And that's the mentality I took with me. And what happened through that process was all the frivolous things of life started to float away. I used to tell people lies so they would like me because I was so insecure. When you start to build yourself up and start to have the one thing that we don't have is confidence. Real, authentic confidence from hard work. Everything else goes away. You no longer look to other people for your self-esteem.

Validation. That's right. You now know. I walk in a room now and I know the hours and years and decades I put into David Goggins. That's something, it's not on the wall. It's not a trophy on the wall. It's not a medal around your neck. It is actually a feeling in your heart. And people go, why don't you ever smile? I don't have to. I do have a stoic look on my face. I'm a very focused person, but the feeling I have in my soul and in my heart, that's why I don't need to smile.

I don't need to smile. I don't need you to look at me and say, oh my God, you look happy. Because half of us aren't happy. We're giving you something that we think you want to see. I don't do that anymore. I don't care how you perceive David Goggins. Because through my journey, I figured out the one piece I was missing. I thought it was cars. I thought it was women. I thought it was money. I thought it was everything. The one piece I was missing was me having the courage to face myself.

And once you do that on a daily basis, it's not about the running. People always tell me, you have to start working out. Where I got my work ethic from was the hours I had to spend learning this. When you sit down and you're not smart, you have a disability and you still want to be at the top of your class. I didn't want to just get by. When I realized that I can learn, do hard work, and I can beat the valedictorian of the school, but I got put in 10 hours more a day than he does. You know what kind of strength comes from that? When you're sitting down, that valedictorian studied for an hour, and you know I caught you.

I caught you, and I am dumb. But I have the work ethic to catch you. That's where David Goggins got really invented. He was at a kitchen table with 20 spiral notebooks that were empty. And then three months later, they were full. And when you can go through that, I still have them in my storage unit. You go through these spiral notebooks of your life, and you realize, this is how I learned. This is unbelievable. There's no miles. It's not about the miles. It's that.

Having the discipline every day to say, for me to learn this one math problem, it's going to take me 10 hours. Wow. And you realize through hard work, you can outwork anybody. No matter how bad they are. But that's the part people don't want to dive into. Yeah. When someone's lacking confidence in themselves, what's the answer you would give them if they're like, how do I gain more confidence? It starts with yourself, man.

You got to start diving into those things that you are afraid of. You don't gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good. It could be a false reality. And the second life gives you that challenge, all you want to do is go back to what made you confidence or what gave you confidence. Is that happy spot? No. What gives you confidence, what gave me confidence was spending years at a kitchen table trying to learn how to read and write on my own, realizing I can't learn the way you learn. I can't, but I can learn. What gives you confidence is not being afraid. It's overcoming the fear. I used to stutter severely bad. So right now, I don't know how many people are going to watch

this. You know what gives me confidence? It's knowing I no longer care if I sit here and start stuttering to you. That's what gives me confidence is facing these things, overcoming them. And maybe not overcoming them every day, but facing them and facing them and facing them pretty soon like this. You know what, man, this is where it's at. It's not in that comfort zone. It's in the discomfort zone is where my confidence is getting built. That's where it's getting built. They want an easier answer. There has to be an easier way. There's not.

I'm sorry. I searched for it my entire life. I did. You lied. I lied. I did everything. And I still felt empty. I coach a lot of people nowadays, billionaires,

who call me on the phone and say, man, I'm still missing something. It's because they did what they were good at. And they had this beautiful family, two, three houses, cars, everything. Has everything to work. On the outside looking in like, my God, man, how can you be unhappy? I walk around with a backpack with all my stuff in it and no car. And I walk around, happiest person in the my stuff in it and no car. And I walk around happiest person in the world.

Have nothing. Happiest. It's because I found out the whole key to life. It's not in all that. You have to face yourself. So many people live to be 100 years old and they die miserable having everything because they never examined. I call it my live autopsy. You never examine this.

Happiness, peace, enlightenment, it's all up here, man. It's all up here. And when I start talking like this, people go, man, you know, I don't know. It's the truth, man. Yeah, it is true. It's all up here. You just got to be willing to go and face it. And that's the hard part.

What's your biggest insecurity today? Not to be arrogant, I don't have one. What was the last one you had and when was that? The last one I had was probably still me. Me. We used to live in a $7 a month place when I was growing up. Is this in Buffalo or is this in? This is in Indiana.

Yeah. So we had a lot of money in Buffalo. And when my mom left my dad, we went to nothing for a period of time before she got on her feet. Right. And that $7 a month place used to be, it was who I was. I was no one. I was in the sewer. My mom went there.

I had nothing. And you always feel like you have nothing. I'd achieved so much. I was a Navy SEAL. I'd gone through ranger school. I've gone through Delta Force selection training. I'd done so much. I'd run 200 miles, pull-up records, everything.

Learned to read and write. Became pretty intelligent. And I still was like, man, what is wrong with me? It wasn't until I got real sick. And I talked about in the last chapter of that book, I got real sick and I was about 38 years old. I'm 43 now. And my life got real quiet. I went from running 205 miles in 39 hours to I couldn't get out of bed. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me,

but once again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why is that? In that moment when my whole life changed, I went from a guy who worked out every day,

trained every day, to a guy who couldn't get out of bed. My life was taken from me. The one thing that kept me going was my training. Now you didn't have that. I didn't have anything. Now you just had to sit alone. Alone. And not

train. And that's what changed me. And that's when I realized I hadn't thought, hadn't taken time to think about what I'd done in my life. You hadn't reflected yet. I hadn't reflected. I'd done all these things, but there was no finish line. I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect. I hadn't reflected. I'd done all these things, but there was no finish line.

I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect. I was just going. I finished a race of life, and I wouldn't even receive my medal. I'd go on. You're like, on to the next. I'd get in the car, and I'd go. You wouldn't even take the medal? Gone. Don't care about it.

Like, I'm not going to waste an hour sitting around for this ceremony. Most people sit around, and that's what they like. They need the ceremony if I accomplish something. I haven't done anything. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I'm just getting started. I'm just getting started. That's right. When I started figuring out life, that I was leaving so much in the tank, I call it

my 40% rule. I was leaving so much in the tank. Once I realized, my God, man, I was this dumb, fat kid being bullied and now I'm a 180-pound person who lost 106 pounds in less than three months. Learn to read, learn to do this, learn to do that. I was like, I need more. I was fueling my mind with everything.

And I never took time to say, my God, you came from this hell, and you're here. So those insecurities, and this is how I explain it the best way. SEAL training became pretty hard, and a lot of guys weren't getting through it. So they designed a SEAL prep program. Like a boot camp for the boot camp. That's right. And it was two months. In my last two years before I retired from the military, they sent me there to train these kids.

Wow. To get ready for BUDS. 18, 19, 20-year-olds, yeah. Yeah, young kids. So when they get to Navy SEAL training, man, they were physical studs. They were running, swimming. I mean, they were hybrids.

Wow. But they'd get to BUDS, and the same amount of people would quit. Why is that? This is why. We were training bigger, stronger, faster quitters. it's not about not the mind it's right we weren't diving into the sewer everybody's got a story we don't share it on social media we share our nice life on social media we have we all have a dungeon i'm just willing to talk

about mine yeah most of us aren't willing to talk about it. I'm going to talk about my dungeon. I wasn't getting into the dungeon of these guys' minds. I wasn't building that so-called mental toughness. Mental toughness isn't something that you sample. It's something that you live in every day. So when something hard would happen to these kids, like in Hell Week, it would draw on something that made them very insecure.

And they look for comfort. Whenever hardness comes, and you don't know what it is. It may be different for you than it is for me. But you go back to your insecurities. And then when you go back to your insecurities, you then look for comfort within those insecurities. And we all look for that cookie that your mom used to give you when you were sad, when you were sick. We look for our wife or our husband.

We look for comfort. It's in those moments, you must retrain your mind to think differently in hell. I wasn't training them to do that. Why weren't you training them? I wasn't training them to do that. Why weren't you training them? I wasn't training myself to do that because at that time, I was doing what I was told.

These guys need to meet a standard. Physical standard. A physical standard. The physical standard is not what they need to meet. It's a mental standard you must meet in life. So going back to when I was sick, I was hitting the physical standards. I wasn't meeting the mental standard. The mental standard is you must know how far you've come. Wow. I had come 8,000 miles from where I started. But if you never know that,

you're still in the $7 a month place. When I was sick, I was able to slow it down and reflect back on my entire life. And in that bed, and I thought I was dying because that story is long, that sick portion of my life is long. I didn't care if I died or lived because I was, for the first time in my life, happy and at peace. I reflected back on if I died or lived because I was, for the first time in my life, happy and at peace. I reflected back on where I started. You said, wow, I have come a long way. That's right.

And no one saved me. It wasn't like someone came down here and guided me through life. When you figure this out on your own, the amount of pride and dignity and self-respect you have, that's why I walk around the streets with a backpack and just like, I don't need anything else. You figure it out by going inside yourself, by callousing over the victim's mentality. You're always a victim. Even if you have everything in life, you have to first realize what you've achieved. And my mom has accomplished so much in her life since my father.

But she hasn't done that one step. Really? She doesn't acknowledge it and reflect back? She continues to go back to the dungeon of her past life. And live in that space. And live in that space versus live in the space that she's in now and reflecting back on my God.

This is what I've done with my life. So have you talked to her about this? We talk about all the time and you have to be willing to go there. You have to be willing to really go there. Not, not surface. I don't, I don't live on the surface of anything. Yeah. Surface is what got me where I was at. It got me from 175 pounds to 300 pounds. Telling everybody I'm good. I don't give a damn.

I'm good. No, they're hollow words. A lot of us speak in hollow words. I used to speak in hollow words. I don't do anymore. Everything that comes out of my mouth has substance. It's real. And we all have these feelings in our bodies, in our minds, in our souls.

I act on mine. A lot of us who are afraid of something, we allow our minds to choose a path of least resistance so we go a different route. I'm afraid of something that's telling me you must do that. Do this thing. You must do that. Yeah. You have to go that way. And most of us don't understand that mentality.

have to go that way. And most of us don't understand that mentality. We go left and we wonder why we haven't fulfilled something in our lives. It's because we continue to take the journey that is mapped out. And how I look at it is I talk in life like a lot of us in life want to take the four lane highway that has roadmaps and all this other stuff on it, man. It tells you where to go, gas stations. The next 10 miles up, you're going to see a McDonald's or Cracker Barrel. It's the easy route. Very few of us want to go to the right side. The Cracker Barrel is that Midwest life. That's right. That's right. I'm from Ohio. It's all about it, man. Indiana. Cracker Barrel everywhere. Dude, that's amazing. Bringing back memories. This is powerful because I've been telling people this.

I've been living that way unknowingly my whole life of like whatever the thing is I'm afraid of. When I was in high school, I started doing those things. Right. And it was just like I'm sick and tired of feeling afraid. Right. So I need to do the things that scare me the most. Right. You know, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast.

Tiffany's heard me share these stories, but I was afraid to talk to girls when I was a teenager. I was afraid of dancing. I was afraid of singing and playing music in front of people. I was afraid of all these different things. And so I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to give myself a challenge every single day until the fear goes away. That's right.

And I feel like that's what more of us should be doing. I'm hearing that that's how you live your life. That's all it is, man. And it helps me feel so much more confident. When you overcome that fear of saying, this doesn't have control over me anymore, it's like you can be at so much more peace in your life. Like, for instance, I never thought in my wildest dreams

I could be a Navy SEAL. It's until your open-mindedness creates that. We all shut down our mind. Like, for instance, when I broke the pull-up record, everybody around me who heard the pull-up record was 4,020 pull-ups. That's the first thing they did. Oh, my God. 4,024 hours?

Yeah, it's 4,020 pull-ups in a 24-hour period. Yeah, yeah. The first thing I did versus closing my mind to like, oh, my God, that's crazy. I went and got a pen. How many is that every minute? Exactly. Every hour, every second. Instead of taking life and making it out to be this grandiose thing, start breaking it down.

Start breaking it down. And most of us, we live in a box. And we don't want to go outside that box at all, ever. We live in a box and we don't want to go outside that box at all, ever. Outside that box is all these possibilities of life. What we do is we shackle our mind. We are a prisoner in our own mind that this is all I can do. This is all I'm good at.

And we take away the possibilities of you could be this, you could be that, you could be all these things. And I never thought at 300 pounds I could be Navy SEAL. Wow. So if my mind was shackled, me and you would never meet. There'd be no book. Right. There'd be no book. Right.

There'd be nothing. So what people don't understand is that they live for themselves, not knowing that you have the power within yourself to change millions of lives by facing life, by facing yourself. And through that, I would die never knowing that I had the power to change millions of lives. And what haunts me the most, people ask me, what haunts you the most? What haunts me the most is that if I were to die at 300 pounds, let's say I was 75 years old, I got to heaven, and God has a chart like that on everybody's life. God knows all. Let's say that. I don't care what you believe in. It doesn't matter. I'm not judging anybody, but let's

say my thing is God. You get to heaven. I'm 300 pounds. I sit down. I was a cockroach terminator my whole life, and we're sitting down just like this you're God and I'm David and he gives me that chart and he says look at this now look at this chart and on the chart it has all these different things

but my name's on it but these things aren't me I was going to change the world I was going to set records I was going to be a Navy SEAL I was going to be all these things in the military that I accomplished you're going to get the VFW award you're going to set records. I was going to be a Navy SEAL. I was going to be all these things in the military that I accomplished. You're going to get the VFW award.

You're going to be honored here, honored there. And I'm like, God, this isn't me. Like it says David Goggins, I was an eco lab guy. I sprayed for cockroaches, and I'm 300 pounds. It said here I'm 185. It says here I got a bachelor's and a master's. It says all these things. And God goes, no, that's who you were supposed to be.

Wow. My biggest fear in life is if there is a final resting place in this world and there's a final judgment and you talk to something much bigger than you. I don't want to sit down and have a conversation with someone with something that says, you're in heaven. This is what you should have been on earth. And are you really in heaven now? Are you in hell? Thinking about how much I left on a table for fear, for not willing to go over the wall and over the next wall and over the next wall. So in my mind, I believe that. And God knows all.

At least I believe that. I want God to be up there right now as we're speaking, writing stuff down, saying, my God, he exceeded even my expectations. That's how I live my life. I now know that there is no cap on the human mind. There's no cap. We cap it ourselves. Wow. Is there a cap on the human body?

That's right. Is there one? I don't believe so. Because one thing I found out was I didn't't for several years I gave myself a way out when you were 300 pounds when I was all the way up till I was 24 years old I would climb a mountain I'd fall back down I start climbing I fall back down for the first 24 years of my life I went to my first hell week my second second hell week, and then my third hell week came in SEAL training. And the CEO, Captain Bowen, looked at me. I'm on crutches. I'm all jacked up.

He says, hey, this is your last time you're going to go through buds. This is it. I had several stress fractures. I had double pneumonia. I was jacked up. And he gave me a few months to heal. And he said, this is your last time going through. I shouldn't even let you go back through. Wow. I started Navy SEAL training with stress fractures. Stress fractures. That's hard to finish.

That's hard to finish. Stress fractures. Starting the hardest training, arguably the hardest training in the world was stress fractures. And this is when I started to not put a cap on the body if the mind is there every morning I wake up at 3 30 in the morning four o'clock in the morning go to my dive cage go in there before anybody saw me I get duct tape and I would tape from my forefoot all the way up to the mid of my calf and I would put two black socks on and so I ran not using the pivot oh my gosh and I would put two black socks on. And so I ran not using the pivot. Oh my gosh.

And I ran my hip flexors. So for the first 45 minutes to an hour, I was in absolute excruciating pain. But what motivated me through that whole process was the fact that this kid came from that. I'm in the hardest training in the world, in the worst shape of my entire life. What if I can graduate amongst these studs? All these guys around me are studs. They're stallions. They're gladiators in my class. They're all healthy. Most of them. They're not broken like this. They may have some, you know, everybody's sick going through that training. But if I can graduate, it would change everything for me.

If I can start the hardest training in the world, broken, and graduate. So my mind fed off of that. You are now, from the weakest man, you are now the hardest man to ever live. If you can do this. If you can do this. Life is one big mind game. And you're playing it with yourself. Is it true? I don't care.

It got me through the hardest training starting out broken. Where most people quit, I had just started. Wow. And when you take that mindset and you learn to flip that around, that's what made me powerful. And my body followed. And three months later, my stretch fractures were healed by running on them.

Calcifying it, just like. I never had them since. I'm 43 years old. i ran 7 000 miles in 2007 haven't had a stretch fracture since and i'm not saying to do that i'm just saying that when the mind and the body connect and you don't give yourself a way out the only way out for me at that time was death wow i'm going to be a navy seal or i was death. Wow. I'm going to be a Navy SEAL. Or I'm going to die. Or I'm going to die trying.

Yeah. Period. And my body said, Roger that. We're going to get you through this. So when the mind gives it no way out, your body says, okay. Okay. I believe you now. I have to heal.

I'm going to figure this out with you. We're going to do this. It's going to be the worst part of your life, but you're have to heal. I'm going to figure this out with you. Yes. Do this. It's going to be the worst part of your life, but we're going to, you're going to survive. We're going to survive. Wow. And as you hear in that a hundred mile race I did, I started figuring out more and more and more and more about at the other end of suffering is a life that no one, and I'm not talking about go out there and kill yourself. Suffering is a life that no one, and I'm not talking about go out there and kill yourself.

Don't take these words and flip them and say, oh my God. No. It just be uncomfortable. I call it suffering. Don't physically injure yourself. Yes. Not saying that. And then be out for six months. That's right.

That's no good. That's no good. I'm not saying, I'm not saying do what I did. Yeah. I was in a spot that life forced me. I had a choice. I had a choice to be this guy or the guy that's in front of you. I had choices.

I chose this path. And you're still choosing it. I'm still choosing it. You can go back to that guy at any moment. Because I found out. I found out something with those stress fractures. I found out something through facing all these things. I found out a whole other world, which is why I walk

around with all my stuff in a black backpack. Wow. I found out a whole nother way, a whole nother way of no matter how far you get in life, you have to be able to go back to scratch in your mind at a moment's notice. You can never get so far beyond scratch. What that means is when you accomplish something in life, if you want to go back to scratch and go back to that $7 a month place where I once lived and visit that place for a long period of time, if you were here when you went back to scratch,

you would now be here. Scratch is what makes you better. Scratch, friction, obstacles create growth. There's no friction when you're this far up in the game anymore. You think there is. That's right. When you achieve so much, the friction is minor. Because why?

I'm sore. I'm going to get a massage today. I'm hungry. I'm going to eat today. The refrigerator is always full. So your comforts are now. I'm sore, I'm gonna get a massage today. I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat today. The refrigerator's always full. So your discomfort is now very minuscule to your discomfort back here in the $7 a month place.

So you have to go back to the total discomfort to then raise your level of where you're at now. I'm not saying stay there and stay there. Visit. Visit it. And then you raise your level. Take a day trip. That's right.

Yeah. Always take day trips. Yeah. Don't stay there. That's right. But take a day trip. Take a day trip. So when you complete some massive obstacle and challenge, whatever the adversity that you force upon yourself, because these are all curated experiences for yourself right you're

scratching constantly what happens now since this was five years ago you would just leave you want to take the metal you would just go on to the next what happens now do you take you know a day to reflect a moment 10 minutes like how does the process work and then how do you get back to visiting the seven dollar place you lived in now i don't have to go back and visit it. I don't have to think about it. It lives with me now. Every day of my life, that feeling that I had to go back and think about, I found a way to just have it.

It's constantly there. I have a self-talk. I have a self-talk. have a self-talk it's called my cookie jar it's a constant reminder of david guy every day of my life i believe in quiet there's no growth outside of quiet the world's too noisy your mind needs quiet for you to find who you are because what's my purpose why am i here you're not going to find who you are. People ask, what's my purpose? Why am I here? You're not going to find it nowadays unless you lock yourself in a quiet room in your mind and find it. It's too noisy.

For me, I could be in a busy street in New York City, horns honking, and I'm walking around with like nothing. It's me and myself in a quiet spot. with like nothing. It's me and myself in a quiet spot. And when you are constantly reflecting on who you are, where you've been, the journey you've gone through, the journey you can continue going through, the feeling's always there. You don't allow the world to pull you so fast

that you forget. You don't allow yourself to pull you so fast that you forget. It's't allow yourself to pull you so fast that you forget. It's not about staying in that moment. It's about you want to get to the point where that feeling follows you like breathing. Because a part of your life, part of your DNA. But it's made. Like these calluses on my hands right now,

they're made. They are now on my brain. This is now a part of me. It's a daily process, a part of me. And how I go back to a $7 a month place all the time is now I go out and I dig fire line. I'm a wildland firefighter. I don't need to do it. I'm a 43-year-old man. I work with 27-year-old kids. I'm a rookie.year-old kids. Yeah. I'm a rookie. Every day I'm a rookie, it feels like. Why do you do it?

That's why I do it, man. There's a story I'm going to tell you about why I do it. I have a good living now, for me, where I'm at in my life. I was out on a fire in Colorado, and we were digging fire line on this 50%. It was on the side of a daggone mountain. Yeah. And we're trying to keep the fire from moving,

and we're digging this fire line 14 inches, or my fault, 18 inches wide, three miles long, 12 of us digging. And it is the hardest work. You make $12 an hour. Wow. Okay? Nothing. You set up your shop.

Like when you're done digging, you just pretty much lay down, you go to sleep, and you get up and you dig some more. Really? This happens for two weeks long. What are you digging? It's like a hole. You're digging a line. So you're trying to get down to a mineral source. So you're trying to get down to the earth.

So if that fire is moving, it can't burn dirt. Really? So you're removing fuels. Got it. So not only are you digging, you're cutting down trees. It's hard work. But the moral of the story is I'm 43. Don't need to do it at all.

This is why I do it. You're making money. I'm making money. I have a good life. I don't need to do it. Everybody's asking why I do it. This is why. This 21-year-old kid was out there.

And he wanted a pair of running shoes. So all he wanted was a pair of running shoes. So all he wanted was a pair of running shoes. 60, 70, 100 bucks, whatever, you know, easy for us, running shoes. He looked up at the mountain

that we had been on for days digging this fire line and he said, that'll take me five or six hours of work to buy those shoes. Said I'm not gonna buy them. It's the perspective of life. That perspective of life right there, that is the value that we lose.

When things start to come so easy in life, it's the perspective that 21-year-old had. We looked up at that mountain and thought, he looked at his hands. about that mountain and thought, he looked at his hands, he looked at the amount of hours of pulling that Pulaski, that tool, and raking that ground, and then cutting those trees, and moving them, and that hours of work. He looked at his feet and said, these old shoes would do. It's that perspective in life that we lose. And that story to most people may not mean anything. It's that story I always want to have in my life. You cannot lose perspective of where you've come in life. Yeah. So true. We were in Guatemala, was it this year or last year? Last year. We were in Guatemala last year. We support a charity

called Pencil of Promise that builds schools for kids who live in poverty and all around the world. of Promise that builds schools for kids who live in poverty and all around the world. And every year I take a trip to just see where our efforts are being felt and being made. These are the poorest places in Guatemala, Laos, and Ghana. Places that they have nothing. There's no schools. They're in little villages. They live on dirt, huts, everything, right?

And we go and we build these schools. We actually, the villagers build them themselves. We just fund the experience and we empower them to do it so that they take ownership of it. But I'll be there for a few days and watch these kids so happy with just like a pencil. I'm just so happy to just like have their family around. And they'll go and they'll show us their huts and like they're just so happy to have community

and then I'll fly back and Go through Beverly Hills. Yeah right over here and I'll see like these mansions, you know, I live right next to it I'm just like it gives me so much perspective of like you don't need to have all these things to find peace and joy and Connection and intimacy and all these and all these other things that we want. You don't need these big mansions and to live in this nice place. I like living here, but it's not like,

it's perspective for me is what keeps me motivated as well. That's right. To keep doing the right things, to keep showing up, to keep working hard. And I think it's right. Most of us miss that perspective in life. We get so far away from reality. So far.

And the reality is, man, when I was seven years old, eight years old, all I wanted was a 99 cent quarter pounder from Hardee's. I know, right? And that made me happiest. Some curly fries. That's it, man. That's it. Yeah, the thing is, a lot of us have been conditioned or some of us grew up with wealth or grew up with comfort, right? So we're conditioned that way and we're grew up expecting now that things should come a lot easier, right?

That's what I'm saying. We got frustrated when we don't get it right right quickly quickly Yeah, and I'm always talking about delayed gratification. The longer I can wait to receive gratification That's right. The more fulfilled I am. I'm a person. So when I got sick like I did, I actually had to quit this race called Badwater. Yeah. 135 miles? Yep. Through Death Valley. It was 2014 when I got real, real bad. I pulled out of the race at mile 50. I went to the emergency room and the docs were like, you know, we can't find this. We can't find that. We know what's

wrong with you. When I got in that bed, so this is the crazy thing about gratification, long-term. I'm able to watch grass grow by finding out this. I sat there, couldn't run a quarter mile, couldn't get out of bed. The only thought I had in my mind, I pulled out of that race. I told myself, I'm going to go back to Badwater one day and win it. I'm going to win the race. Haven't been back since. Haven't been back since 2019. I'm not saying I'm going to win it. I'm just now in the shape to go back. Wow. Haven't won a 100-mile race since 2014. Wow. Because I've been that sick i'm just now imagine the gratification i'm going to get by getting to start line that race

and what if i can win it be pretty sweet pretty sweet four or five years yeah imagine that of having that kind of self-discipline to every day wake up and having these setbacks where I can't even run a mile. Wow. But I'm thinking about running 135. I can't run one mile, but I'm thinking about running 135. And with that process, guess what happens? Sooner or later, you can run 10 miles. It may take a year, but it gives you more and more hope that it's possible. And I'm at the point now where, guess what? It's right around the corner.

Wow. Most people in that time frame, in that mindset, I can't run anymore. It's over. No. It's just going to take a little bit longer. You have to turn the negative into a positive. Because at the end of it all, if you can sit back and wait, if you can wait 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 years,

when you get to that point when you finish, that's the feeling for 12 years. It's like 12 years to get there. That's what keeps you going is you got to feel, I'm doing it for one second. Years of pain. For one second. One second.

Think about it. You cross the finish line, it's over. One second. Most people do that, and the one second isn't what they thought it would be, and then they're pissed and upset, and they keep going on to the next because they never reflect back on what they did. It's not the one second. It's the 12 years.

Yeah. It's the 12 years that I want. It's not the race. It's the 12 years why you did it. It's not the winning. It's not the winning. It's not what place you got. No.

But most of us focus on. That's right. Oh, I got to win this. That's right. If I don't, I'm going to be upset. I would achieve all my athletic goals

for years and then 10 minutes later be the angriest person in the world. So angry and frustrated. Nasty with people. Yep. And I would delay

my gratification for years to achieve what I wanted. That's right. And I never understood that either. Being a perfectionist is the worst thing that can happen to a person.

When I lost that 106 pounds in like two and a half months whatever it took me, that was the biggest trophy of my entire life. I didn't care if I graduated Navy SEAL training. I didn't care.

What I just accomplished in that time frame is massive. There was no like, it was funny about this, we talk about mental toughness nowadays. It's like the biggest crave. When I grew up, it was funny about this. We talk about mental toughness nowadays. It's like the biggest crave. When I grew up, it was just suck it up.

Yeah. It was just make it happen. Yeah. You had to figure out. It was called figure it out, man. And all these nuggets that I gained along the way, that's what it was about. It wasn't about the trident. It wasn't about all those daggone medals.

It wasn't about any of that. And that's why I hate even talking about being a SEAL, you know. I mention stories. Why don't you talk about it didn't define me? The journey getting there was harder than going through it. So that's the whole thing about life, man. It's that journey that makes you who you are. Yeah.

And as opposed to focusing on did I win or not, what did I gain from the last 12 years? Right, exactly. And so when you finish now, what do you think about? How long do you reflect back on the effort it took to accomplish that race? A long time. Was it days, weeks? A long time. Weeks, years.

Years. You'll reflect on it. I reflect back now. There's times now where I will reflect back on my first 100-mile race. It's still today. And it'll give me the same exact feeling. Because what I did in that first race, when I was under-trained, I did it on four days' notice. I hadn't run more than, I think, 20 miles the whole year. And I did it to raise money for this foundation to try to get into Badwater.

What I had to pull out of myself on that last, that's where that book, Living with a Seal, kind of originated. Jesse Isler saw me at this race. He was racing too. Yeah, but he did it as a team. Right, you did it alone. I did it alone.

And that's what I talk with people about, man. I spent so much time, people always like, why do you run so much? You know, you try to get in shape. No, the things I do in life, most of life, you're alone. You may have a whole support crew around you, but up here, you're alone. Most of the stuff I do, I'm training for that one, those moments. Those moments when I was at mile 70 and I had 30 more miles to go and I had crapped up my back and peeing blood down my leg.

I had 30 miles to go. There's only so much someone cheering can do for you. Right. When you start to dive back in the cellar of your mind and you're pulling out all these tactics, all these mental tactics to get through this 30 miles when you're in the worst shape of your life. And no one's coming to save you. And you get through that. I want to go back there. When I got done with that race, I laid in the tub, and my ex-wife helped me get up the stairs. And I'm laying in this tub, and Coca-Cola's coming out of me.

It just looks like dirt. She's a nurse, and she's coming out of me. Just looks like dirt. You know, she's a nurse and she's like, she's freaking out. And she puts the shower on me and I'm looking at her and all I want to do is call the race director up

of Badwater and say, I qualify for the race. And she's thinking, we got to go to the hospital. So, you know, she's calling my mom and my mom has a doctor friend of hers

who's over and they're freaking out. And I said, everybody just shut up. Wow. Shut up. I'm in the worst pain in my entire life. And no one would ever understand this. No one. When you've gone that deep inside yourself and all those feelings of pain that I had, I was in the worst pain of my life ever. And some people think, man, you're just crazy. No, when you've done that and you figured out so much on your own and all that pain and discomfort I had in that tub laying there, passing out, everything was confirmation of what I just figured out. I just figured out the code. I figured out a code,

a code that many people aren't looking for. And I didn't want it to be numb. I didn't want that feeling. This was confirmation. This was like a scientist's notes. The notes were here. The notes were all this feeling. It was a confirmation.

And no one at that time could understand what I'd just done. I cracked the code to human potential in myself. And I was still like, oh my God, this is unbelievable what I just did. So it's that quiet place. It's that place by yourself. It's those hours and years and decades by yourself in the grip of life. When life has you by the throat and choking you out and you're sitting there calm because you're trying to figure it out. You're not panicking. You're not quitting. You're not throwing in the towel. You're saying there's a way around this.

He's saying there's a way around this. And when you figure it out, when life has you gripped in a vice, and you can figure that out, that's when you overcome. That's when you overcome. And that's why that one moment for me in that tub, I didn't want anyone to take away from it. Wow. This is called the three truths.

I ask this question to everyone at the end. It's called three truths.. I ask this question to everyone at the end. It's called three truths. Imagine it is your last day, and you get to pick the day whenever you want. You get to live as long as you want. You pick the day, but it's time for your body to go, right? You've created everything you want to create. You've been at 99 percentile of potential for as long as you can live. You've done it all.

You've checked off the list that everything that God says that you were supposed to do, it's happened. Written the books, done everything you wanna do, done. But for whatever reason, you've gotta take all of your written word and videos and audio stuff that's out into the world, you've gotta take it with you. But you get to write down on a piece of paper the three things you know to be true

about all of your experiences. And this is what you would leave behind. The three lessons, or what I like to call the three truths. What would you say are your three truths? The first one is you are your own hero. You are your own leader. You are your own master. And that is a big one because we idolize so many people, and we want to be them. We want to be someone else. And in doing that, you lose all the potential of who you are. You mimic. You be them.

You are them. You become them, and you lose you. And we look up to so many people in this world who will let us down. We're humans. I'm going to let you down. You're going to let somebody down. If you put them on a pedestal, you then lose time when that person comes up and lets you down. You must hold yourself accountable and being your own hero, that's what that does. You make yourself so totally accountable for who you are. You focus on you and only on you to become the best person you can be for others. Because we leave a lot on the table not searching who we are.

And then therefore, you die not knowing your greatest potential. That's one. The next one I would say is the biggest one I would say is never pick the easy road. Never, never. And it always goes back to kind of the hero mentality. Never pick the easy road ever in your life. That is the one road that is doom. It is doom. If you want something like six-minute abs, all these different things,

people want it so fast. You may achieve what you wanted, but you want the permanent fix. The permanent fix comes from the hard road. The hard road gives you permanent results. The easy road gives you the quick fix. You will go back to where you started on the easy route. That hard route is so permanent that it ends up callusing you everywhere. Everywhere. You keep a six pack forever. You keep it because you know the work that goes into it. And the last one is, when you get to where you want to go in life, when you finally get there, you finally reach that point, and you're there, and you're happy as hell, realize this.

You're not there yet. When you get that feeling that you arrived, be afraid. Right. Be truly afraid. Because now you start to do this. Slowly die. Slowly die. Either you're getting better or you're getting worse.

You're not staying the same. Yeah. So when you get to where you think the journey's ended and you're sitting back and you're like, I arrived, I'm on Mount Everest. I climbed 29, zero, 29.

Yeah. The best thing to do is fall back down that damn mountain as fast as you can and start climbing. Find the next climb. Find the next climb.

Yeah. Oh man, I gotta sign up for another event. That's it. Sign the next climb. Yeah. Oh, man. I think I've got to sign up for another event. That's it? Sign up for another endurance event. That's it. Just kidding. Where can we connect with you online?

Where do you like to, when you spend five minutes a month, where is that space? My social media, whether it be Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, it's all, it's just David Goggins, at David Goggins. Cool, David Goggins. Your videos on Instagram are great. You should post more. Have someone on your team post more because they're awesome.

Well, they're all me. That's all you? Yeah, so I have no team. It's me and my fiance. There is no team. She'll be in the car. She'll be on a mountaintop. She'll be somewhere.

It's all my material. It's all who I am. That's why I post once a week. Once a week right now? Once a week. Every Monday, you'll get a post. There you go. That's it.

It's some video that's going to inspire you to be like, okay, I need to do at least five more minutes of working out, something at least. That's it. Well, I want to acknowledge you, David, for your intensity, for your intensity, your work ethic, your passion, and also your pure, real heart. Because just meeting you for the first time, walking in together, just like I can tell how real you are. And you're just a no BS type of guy.

The adversity that you've overcome is crazy. Obviously, people have overcome more than you, me, and lots of people in the world. But what you had to overcome physically and psychologically and emotionally is unbelievable. And to see that you weren't a statistic and instead you chose every single day to make a decision to be more than that is really inspiring. And I know this is going to impact and inspire a lot of people. So I acknowledge you for your heart and for inspiring me. You know, I thought I worked out hard, but this is like, I feel like I'm doing nothing with my life. So you're going to inspire me to continue to make bigger commitments and longer commitments moving forward now. So I appreciate everything you do, man. And I'm excited about getting this out there. You're welcome. My final question is,

what's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is this. It's not a definition, it's an example. This is greatness, true greatness. Let's say that I'm the greatest tennis player of all time. Okay. Let's say that. I hate tennis. Let's say I'm the greatest tennis player of all time. Okay? Let's say that. I hate tennis. Let's say I'm the greatest tennis player of all time. And I did 22 years. I run all the Grand Slams. I beat Roger Federer. I am the best ever.

And we're having an interview, and you're talking about my greatness, what I achieved. Now I'm retired. Don't play tennis anymore. Haven't touched a racket in years. And you're making me go back through my life. You're kissing my butt about how great I am. And I'm answering your questions. Every question I'm answering it. I'm with you.

But in the back of my mind, all I'm thinking about is all the times I could have won those matches that I lost by not bringing my best mindset. You're haunted by all the opportunities that you missed by not bringing your best at that time when you could have won, but you didn't win because you allowed life to interfere with that one shot. When you're sitting there getting ready to serve for the match and your mind is not thinking about where that ball placement needs to be but thinking about your family this or this at work or that at work that's greatness greatness is your recall on every single shot that you missed throughout a 20 somesome year career. Every shot. You can go back and say,

I was here. This person was in the red shirt there. Greatness is being so aware of the time of life in the second that went by. And you can recall like it was yesterday. Greatness is being able to go back there, not making that same mistake again and being haunted by it. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend.

Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.