You Can’t Hurt David Goggins: Going Beyond Motivation & Why Mindset Is Everything

“You have to go to war with yourself before you can find peace” David Goggins I can think of no better guest to usher in 2019 than the mighty one himself. Incontrovertibly the most inspirational person I have ever met, today David Goggins returns for his second turn on the podcast — a conversation that will catapult you into the new year with the tools and hard truth you need to chase huge dreams, shatter personal limits and transform your life wholesale. Often referred to as the hardest man alive, David 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 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: * 2005: ran 100 miles in under 24 hours on no training; * 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 David’s greatest accomplishment isn't athletic. It's self-mastery. From day one, David has faced a concatenation of seemingly insurmountable obstacles – poverty, psychological and physical abuse, obesity, learning disabilities, asthma, sickle cell anemia, and even a congenital heart defect that often left him competing — and winning — on a mere fraction of his actual physical capabilities. It's a scenario that would have buried the best of us. And yet, against all odds, David conquered them all, and ultimately found a way out. It's the story of a man who transformed pain into obsession and, phoenix-like, rose from a state of utter desperation to take complete ownership of his life and total command of his mind to manifest a most extraordinary life. David's implausible journey is laid bare in his recently released memoir, Can't Hurt Me* — one of the most honest, powerful and impactful stories of hardship, redemption and personal perseverance I have ever read. Certain books instruct. Others inspire. But it's the rare read that holds the potential to reframe your sense of personal capability and completely change your life. This book does just that — a statement I don't make lightly. I highly suggest it. Enjoy, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05David Goggins?

  You must go to war with yourself before you find peace. So I'm trying to give you tools on how to do that. It's a hard journey. It's a real journey. It's a journey that's gonna take you way outside of being comfortable. When you wanna fit in with people so badly, normal people, no better than you, you'll do whatever you can to fit in. That's a bad place to be. You lose yourself in trying to create a character that other people will accept. Like I've said a million times before, the most important conversation is the one you have with yourself. You wake up with it, you walk around with it, you go to bed with it. Eventually, you act on it. Sometimes you act on it good, sometimes bad. You gotta change the internal dialogue.

• 1:47Rich Roll?

  That's David Goggins, this week, on the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:02Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome and welcome to 2019, a new year, everybody. How you guys doing? How are you feeling? Boy, do I have just the thing to usher in the new year. Goggins, the mighty one himself, he's here today. If you've been with me for a while on this podcast journey, then that name will surely ring a bell. This is a guy who's had a tremendous impact on on me and my life. And in many ways, it was his example. I credit his example as inspiring me to enter the world of ultra endurance many years ago.

• 2:45Rich Roll?

  And quite honestly, I'm really not sure I would have ever achieved the things that I have achieved as an athlete, had he not lit the path before me. I published my first conversation with David exactly two years ago on New Year's Day, 2016. And he's like a podcast star now. But that conversation was really his coming out party. It was his first real long form podcast. And to date, it is by far my most popular and downloaded episode in the history of this show over the last six years by a long shot. Well, now he's back and I gotta say, better than ever. For those new or unfamiliar, David is, among many other things,

• 3:29Rich Roll?

  the only member of the US Armed Forces to complete SEAL training, including three hell weeks, as well as the US Army Ranger School, where he graduated as enlisted honor man, and Air Force Tactical Controller Training, which is unbelievable. But David is perhaps best known for his superhuman feats of strength, including setting a world record for most pull ups in a 24 hour period, and for competing in an exhaustive list of the world's most difficult ultra endurance challenges. Simply put, David is arguably the hardest human alive and quite possibly the most inspirational figure you're ever going to come across. And I say that

• 4:12Rich Roll?

  Without any shred of irony or hyperbole whatsoever. So picking up where we left off two years ago, he is here to blast you into 2019 in a couple few, but first.

• 4:33Rich Roll?

  Okay, Goggins. Without a doubt, David is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. And what makes his testimony, his experience, his journey so powerful is everything that he has endured to face and overcome this unbelievable laundry list of life obstacles that are so unbelievable and seemingly insurmountable that it's astounding. Everything from asthma, sickle cell anemia, psychological and physical abuse, obesity, academic struggles, even a congenital heart defect that often left him competing and winning races on a mere fraction of his actual physical capabilities.

• 5:16Rich Roll?

  David recounts his journey in vivid detail, technicolor detail, in his incredible new memoir that just came out. It's called Can't Hurt Me. And I got to tell you guys, this is one of the most powerful and impactful books about redemption and personal perseverance that I have ever read. If you pick up one book this January or this year, please make it be this book, Can't Hurt Me. I really think it holds the potential to change your life. And if not that, at a very minimum, reframe your personal sense of capability. I highly suggest the audiobook version, which is read by his co-writer and my friend and former podcast guest, Adam Skolnick from RRP 218.

• 5:59Rich Roll?

  He is the author of the book One Breath about freediver Nick Mivoli, which you guys might remember. In any event, after every chapter, David and Adam engage in this off-the-cuff, free-form podcast conversation between the two of them, kind of breaking down what happened in the previous chapter and sort of anticipating what comes next. And I found that to be utterly compelling. So I highly suggest you check that out. In any event, picking up where we left off two years ago, this is Again, I gotta say, one of the most powerful podcasts I have ever produced. It's a conversation about the primacy of purpose to cultivate your inner voice. It's about passion and self accountability.

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  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. So, welcome to 2019, people. It's time to torch complacency. It's time to get brutally honest with yourself, to embrace vulnerability. And as David would say, to callous the mind, to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because your life is not some future event, people. Your life is now. So here's Goggins in all of his beautiful, unfiltered glory.

• 7:25Rich Roll?

  All right, let's do it.

• 7:26David Goggins?

  Let's do it, man.

• 7:27Rich Roll?

  Man, fucking Goggins. That is like the refrain throughout the audiobook, man. Skolnick popping in with just like after every chapter, like, man, Goggins. What the fuck? I mean, I thought I knew the story.

• 7:43David Goggins?

  Right.

• 7:44Rich Roll?

  And I know a lot of it.

• 7:46David Goggins?

  Right.

• 7:46Rich Roll?

  Uh, there's just so much more there, man.

• 7:49David Goggins?

  So much more, man.

• 7:50Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable.

• 7:51David Goggins?

  It's all surface, man. I only had an hour to talk to people in the podcast. You gotta get the surface version of the, the book goes deep, dark into the sewer.

• 7:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:59David Goggins?

  Tells you everything.

• 7:59Rich Roll?

  It's an incredible accomplishment.

• 8:03Rich Roll?

  It's such an unbelievable document. It's gonna inspire and catalyze a lot of growth in a lot of people, man. So first off, like, congratulations on getting this thing done.

• 8:13David Goggins?

  Thank you.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  It's no small thing.

• 8:14David Goggins?

  No, sir.

• 8:15Rich Roll?

  Uh, and what's amazing about it, before we even get into the content of it, is that you made this decision to self-publish this book.

• 8:24David Goggins?

  Yes, sir.

• 8:25Rich Roll?

  Right now, it's at like number two or number three on Amazon, of all books.

• 8:31David Goggins?

  Right, right.

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  That just doesn't happen with a self-published book. And you've been able to do this without any mainstream media whatsoever. Like, I did a Google search this morning. I wanted to see any hits that you had like in the last week or in the last day.

• 8:49David Goggins?

  Right.

• 8:49Rich Roll?

  You're not on the Today Show. You're not on Good Morning America. You didn't do any of that, man. This is all self-propelled DIY. And to go from... Uh, you know, that place to the very top, like selling the number of books that you're selling, like right out of the gate is just insane.

• 9:07David Goggins?

  Right.

• 9:08Rich Roll?

  There's gotta be a lot of people in publishing looking at that going, what is going on here?

• 9:12David Goggins?

  Well, that's been the story of my life. I, uh, I see something that's, that's quite off, quite not the same, and that's what I go for. I've, this, this, this book is exactly who I am as a person. Exactly the way I did this book is how I've done my, almost my entire life.

• 9:29Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:29David Goggins?

  Is I see what is not the norm, what's impossible with, you know, what, what all the theorists say, you shouldn't be doing this. That's the wrong way to go. And I'm like, hmm. Let me see if I can pull this shit off. Yeah, let me go over here, man. Let me see if I can pull this shit off.

• 9:46Rich Roll?

  Was that part of the, the challenge, the decision? I mean, I, I, it, it seems to me that the decision to self-publish was generated more by a desire to really, you know, own your story.

• 9:56David Goggins?

  That was, that's it a hundred percent. It's, it, there was no driven message with me trying to prove people wrong or whatever. It was a hundred percent by me wanting to own my life. There's a lot of people I know that, that, that I speak with right now that have nice book deals out there and the people who buy their book, whether a publishing house, they can't even talk some of this stuff, you know, in, like, like in speaking engagements. And I'm like, what? You can't even talk your story? And somebody's like, no, like, I gotta make sure that they're, they're aware of it. And I'm like, no, man. I wanna own a hundred percent of the suffering I went through in my life. I don't want anybody telling me, hey, Goggins, you can't say this. I would lose my shit. What you, what, I suffered this, this badly and you, you, you gonna fucking tell me I can't say this?

• 10:41David Goggins?

  There, there've been all kinds of problems with that one. So I made sure that I, I wanted to own all of Can't Hurt Me and own all of my own life story. So that's what it really is all about.

• 10:50Rich Roll?

  Well, you really have ownership, not only of your own story, but your ability to tell it.

• 10:54David Goggins?

  Right.

• 10:55Rich Roll?

  And, you know, as, as, as somebody who's like a member of the ultra community. You know, I remember, and I think we talked about this last time. Um, you kind of disappeared for a couple of years there from around like, I don't know what it was like two thousand nine, two thousand ten to about two thousand thirteen.

• 11:12David Goggins?

  Yep, that's it.

• 11:13Rich Roll?

  You had like a website and a blog that would get updated once in a while and I would check in and try to see what you were up to and you just went totally dark.

• 11:20David Goggins?

  I went ghost, man.

• 11:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I, I didn't know about the heart stuff. There was something about like, oh, there's a health thing that you're dealing with.

• 11:26David Goggins?

  Right.

• 11:27Rich Roll?

  And I thought, oh, this guy's just disappeared.

• 11:29David Goggins?

  Right.

• 11:29Rich Roll?

  But you were, that was the recruiting era, right? Where you were just on the road telling your story and putting in the reps.

• 11:36David Goggins?

  Right.

• 11:36Rich Roll?

  On how to tell your story.

• 11:38David Goggins?

  So it was the recruiting era for me when I started becoming like the, uh, the, the Navy SEALs needed more blacks in, in the SEAL teams. And that's what I don't understand. Like, like, you know, why does it become a recruiter in the SEAL teams? I was one of the few black guys, you know, and I, and I'd already done bad water. So I got a little bit, you know, small bit of notoriety for doing bad water. And so the Navy SEALs were like, oh my God, you know, like, we could use this guy to, uh, try to get the, the one percent of the African Americans in Navy SEALs up to maybe two percent. And so I hit the road and started doing that. But I also hate, I'm, I'm not a big guy on social media. So I was actually happy to kind of pull away from it. You know, I'm just not big on that stuff. E- even today.

• 12:22David Goggins?

  I'm just not a big fan of it, man. I'm a, I'm a big, uh, introvert. I get a lot of my strength from being introverted. And, um, going out there and doing what I do is very, all this is very difficult for me, man. All of it.

• 12:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's funny when you say you're introverted because you're so good, you know, when it comes to sharing your story and it's so compelling. And, you know, there's a lot of people out there like quote, they're quote unquote like influencers or whatever who would be like, wow, like this guy's got, I don't know, what do you have? Like six hundred thousand plus on Instagram or something like that?

• 12:52David Goggins?

  Something like that, yeah.

• 12:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And for somebody who's, you're averse to it. You don't like it. You hate it. You only post once in a while. You don't really advertise what you're doing at all, but you've grown this huge following of people who are super interested in what you're doing.

• 13:06David Goggins?

  Well, I think it's important, um, to do things you don't like. And I am, I was very ashamed in my life story for a long time. I I I I didn't want to go out and tell anybody shit about me. So that's why I had two people, I you know, I created one David Goggins and one Goggins.

• 13:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:23David Goggins?

  And um, I didn't want people to know that I had all these issues, but after a while, people start to give you these different taglines. You know, like you're superhuman, you're amazing, they start, I'm like, you fuckers don't know anything about me, man. I'm this insecure kid. I started realizing there's a lot of people out here who are going through a lot of problems. That I once tapped into, you know, I had a whole bunch of issues growing up. And you know, I I feel compelled to this, you know what? You gotta start sharing this stuff, man, because people see where you're at today. They see where you're at today, they they see the man you are today, this this hard rock, hard human being. Show these people where you come from.

• 14:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:01David Goggins?

  Show these people it's possible.

• 14:02Rich Roll?

  It's funny when you're reading the book, like, once you get into the later chapters, like six, seven or eight. You know, all the way to the end, you start to forget chapters one and two.

• 14:13David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 14:13Rich Roll?

  You start thinking this guy is a superhuman and then you gotta remind yourself like, oh, man, look where he came from.

• 14:18David Goggins?

  Right, I actually do that in the audio book. In the audio book, while while Adam's reading, we have a moment where we stop because I we're like six or seven, you know, six, seven, eight, where I start doing all these crazy feats and start going way beyond human limits for myself. And I tell people, while you're hearing this, I know you guys have already forgotten about how I came up. Don't forget the torture I endured mentally and physically in my own mind. Going through all this shit, so don't don't ever forget that. So people forget that so quickly when they get to that seven, eight, nine, 10 chapters. So it's it's.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the uh, we should just mention the audio book, I mean, the book is amazing, but the audio book is next level. And part of that is because you guys kind of broke the paradigm here. Uh, you made this somewhat risky decision to have Adam read most of the book. And we can get into the reasons behind that, which I think are well considered. Uh, but then after each chapter, you and Adam break it down podcast style, like informally, where you just freestyle on what that chapter was all about, and that just brings. Brings it to life in like this technicolor way, which makes it just such a compelling experience.

• 15:29David Goggins?

  Well, everything I do, I I try to do my very best. And now that I'm out here trying to share this story with people, I want to be so real and so fucking authentic to the point where it was embarrassing to me. As I was writing some stuff and I was giving it to Adam and we were going back and forth, I'm like, man, I'll talk to my fiance, do I really want people to fucking know this about me?

• 15:50Rich Roll?

  But that's the power, man.

• 15:52David Goggins?

  And that's the power of it, man.

• 15:54Rich Roll?

  You have to summon to be that vulnerable because that's how people are going to be able to emotionally connect.

• 15:58David Goggins?

  Exactly.

• 15:59Rich Roll?

  When they look at what you've done in bad water and all the buds and all that kind of stuff, it becomes difficult for people to relate to that.

• 16:05David Goggins?

  Right.

• 16:06Rich Roll?

  When you have the strength and the fortitude to share those parts of your life that do embarrass you or provoke shame in you, that's the like, that's the real shit.

• 16:16David Goggins?

  I had to show people I was human. You know, people didn't think I was human. They thought I came from outer space, man, from some spacecraft and shit and landed down here and just formed goggins from the rocks and the soil of the earth. No, that's not how it is, man. So I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share a secret with you all.

• 16:33Rich Roll?

  Well, in one of the recaps, you tell Adam, writing this book was the hardest thing you've ever done. And as somebody who's done a lot of hard shit, that was a surprising thing to hear.

• 16:43David Goggins?

  Well, looking in the mirror at yourself, because I did a really good job by creating this guy I am now. So I can just go by and just live by this guy here. This is who I am.

• 16:52Rich Roll?

  Do you think of it as like this, because you refer to yourself in the third person all the time. It's like this character that you're trying to aspire to be that's distinct from you? Like you, you, you create this like division? How does that work?

• 17:08David Goggins?

  It's a big division because I, when I talk to people, like I see where I'm at today. But I know where I come from. And it's kind of hard to almost separate that. I'm, I'm almost not in a way I'm kissing my own ass. But I'm amazed at what a human being can actually do. So when I start talking to myself in the third person, it's strictly because I know that I literally made this human being out of a, out of just like a whole bunch of scraps. And, and I wasn't, you know, I wasn't a mechanic. I wasn't a carpenter. So I didn't know how to do any of this shit. You know, I wasn't trained in how to build a human being from nothing. You know, like my mom didn't train me. My dad didn't train me. Life didn't train me. Well, life did train me.

• 17:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 17:53David Goggins?

  Life did train me, correction. And I started putting this scrap mill together. Like, I wonder what the fuck's gonna happen. You know, the first year I tried to do is all fucked up. And after a while, I started learning more and more and more through pain and suffering. I started learning, just learning so much about stuff. Before I knew it, man, I built this beautiful car. I'm like, how the fuck did I do that? And I knew how, and I, I know how to do it because I have all the tools. Through all the failure I went through trying to build this person who's goggins.

• 18:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And that was something I came across loud and clear, which is, it's not like you develop this toolbox and then everything worked out.

• 18:31David Goggins?

  No.

• 18:31Rich Roll?

  It's like, there's so many ups and downs and highs and lows and you're constantly getting knocked down again.

• 18:37David Goggins?

  Lot of Home Depot shopping for that toolbox, brother.

• 18:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And I think the, the real gift that's built into this whole thing is how you reframe vulnerability. Like, we tend to think of vulnerability as, as a weakness or, you know, somebody who's soft. And, and you embody it in a completely different structure to show people that it is, it is strength. Like, if you want to be hard and you want to be strong, vulnerability and open-mindedness are the keys to that kingdom.

• 19:09David Goggins?

  And you said it perfectly there. The one thing that made me who I am today is being vulnerable. Is breaking myself down to the absolute rock bottom. And being able to tell people who I am. And that's how I fixed it. Literally, you know, look somebody in the eyes, you know what, man? I have a whole bunch of character problems. Character flaws. I've lied about this. I've cheated here. I'm insecure here. This isn't the real me. I lied to you about that. I wanted your acceptance in life. All those things happen, but the thing about it is that we get judged so quickly. By who we are. We don't know, we don't go to the, to where it happened. You know, life created this person, me.

• 19:52David Goggins?

  Life, life created me to be this fucked up person that I was back in the day. And I had to realize, man, that's okay, man. It's not my fault. Now I can go back and fix this shit, though. So a lot of this isn't your fault, why you do some things you do, why you feel the way you feel. But no one's coming back to save your ass. You have to go back to where this shit started, wherever that place is for everybody. And have the courage to go back there and start fixing what broke you. And that's, and that's why, I was like, hey, I'm fucked up. I'm gonna go back and fix this, though.

• 20:22Rich Roll?

  You gotta be honest with yourself.

• 20:24David Goggins?

  Hundred percent.

• 20:24Rich Roll?

  About where you're at.

• 20:25David Goggins?

  Hundred percent.

• 20:26Rich Roll?

  People don't like that.

• 20:27David Goggins?

  Oh. It's ugly.

• 20:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:29David Goggins?

  And what's funny about it is that as you're trying to fix yourself. And dig yourself out of this deep hole that life, society, and you helped. You helped also. Those people who you saw down there in that hole, who were there with you, who are your friends and people who you counted on. Because you meet the people in the same situation that you're in in life. Those people become your friends. And the second you try to get out of that situation and become better. Those people are in that, in that grave, in that dungeon, just yanking at your heels, man, saying, get the fuck back. Oh, no, get, oh. Come on back here, motherfucker.

• 20:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:00David Goggins?

  You ain't gonna make me feel like shit by you getting out of this hole.

• 21:02Rich Roll?

  Who the fuck do you think you are?

• 21:03David Goggins?

  So I get that all the time now. People will constantly remind me of who I used to be back in the day. And they always come out of the woodworks, man.

• 21:11Rich Roll?

  That's still happening?

• 21:13David Goggins?

  You know what? When you come from a small, small town. And you come from a place that a lot of people don't wanna come out of it and get out of it. And all you wanna do is become somebody. When you have, we, small town mentality is a real mentality. You've gotta be able to get out and let your mind see open mindedness. Cause a small town, what it does to you is it closes your mind. Completely closes your mind. Not everybody. This isn't everybody, a lot of people. You have to be able to go out there and create open mindedness. You need space. You need space to see the world. Like a lot of racism, a lot of, a lot of ignorance in the world. It comes from people not being out and seeing other things, seeing other people, seeing all kinda shit.

• 21:57David Goggins?

  What, that's why we judge so harshly. Cause our minds are so closed to the reality of, of life. Period. Have you been back to Brazil? I went back to Brazil a couple of times. And I have nothing wrong with Brazil. Cause once again, you can't, another thing about growth is you can't hold on to hate. Hmm. You can't hold on to hate and see, when, once you take a different step, so I didn't take a step out of my life, cause like, you know, once you're in that hell. That's all you see is what's in front of you. When I stepped out of it, I saw Brazil very differently. There were a lot of great people in Brazil. Some of the best people I knew were from Brazil. But when you're in hell, all you see is a little patch in front of you of the kids that are calling you nigger. Or the people that spray painted nigger were gonna kill you on your car. Hmm.

• 22:42David Goggins?

  People put that shit in your locker. People put that shit on your, on your notebook in Spanish class. That's all you see. You didn't see that, my God, a lot of people fucking like me here. So once you take a step back and see the reality of the true ignorance that you're dealing with. From a small group of people, that's when you get growth. Cause you know, I went through a phrase in the book, I talked about, man, I was all about, you know, I was all about black and only black when I was a junior in high school, cause I was so beat down. Hmm. I was the most ignorant I've ever been in my fucking life when I went there. I totally took everything, all the hurt, all the pain and just put it in one fucking filter. I gotta find people who look just like me and act just like me to find acceptance.

• 23:25Rich Roll?

  That when you were doing the crazy haircuts?

• 23:28David Goggins?

  That's just a crazy haircut, watching Malcolm X video every damn night when I went home and shit.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So, the last time you were here, we kinda recapped your, your story chronologically and I don't wanna, I don't wanna spend a lot of time on that, but there's a lot of new people listening, so I think it's worthwhile to kind of, you know, catch people up on exactly who is David Goggins and, and you know, where you, where you were, where you came from, what you endured and how you arrived at this place. Is there a way to do that concisely?

• 23:56David Goggins?

  I can do it pretty quick, I guess. You know, I was, um, born in Buffalo. My dad was, uh, owned skating rinks and owned bars. And he was a very insecure guy. He was an alcoholic. He, uh, used to get women for favors. So my dad, I'm not saying he's a pimp. I always say he's a pimp, cause that's how I look at it. My mom said the proper way to say this is that your dad used to get women and he would exchange women for favors. So there you go.

• 24:23Rich Roll?

  That's pretty much a pimp.

• 24:24David Goggins?

  He was a pimp. Right. He was a fucking pimp. So basically, um, that's, that was my dad. He was, he was a guy that, that, that didn't care much about anything but himself.

• 24:33Rich Roll?

  But he was kind of a baller in your community, right?

• 24:35David Goggins?

  He was a big baller. Knew OJ Simpson, big time. Knew, knew, knew all the Buffalo Bills. Him and Rick James were best friends.

• 24:41Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 24:42David Goggins?

  So we had two different sides. It was the side that everybody saw, which was the side of, this man, your dad is so damn cool, man. He's awesome. And we lived on Paradise Road. The second that door was shut in that house, it was game on. The real him would come out. It was a perfect Jekyll and Hyde. So when you're born into that at a young age and like, you're getting beat for no reason. You know, like, you know, I'm not, whippings are whippings, man.

• 25:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:08David Goggins?

  But this guy would beat you for no reason, just because he was drunk, just because he saw you, whatever.

• 25:12Rich Roll?

  It's like, kinda like an Ike Turner character.

• 25:14David Goggins?

  Ike Turner probably on, on steroids.

• 25:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:17David Goggins?

  So that, that's who he was. And, and he was, he was a perfect person for psychological warfare. The, the beatings were horrible, but the mind torture was the worst. He got so deep in my head as a young kid, and that really fucks up your foundation. You know, when, when you're born, man, there's some, there's some sensitive years in there, man, where your brain starts to develop. And it starts to give you self-esteem, courage, confidence, all those things. And my dad was stripping that away from everybody. And when you see your mom, the worst thing to do is when you see your mom getting beat senseless at a young kid. That shit scars you permanently.

• 25:54Rich Roll?

  I mean, she was like a prisoner.

• 25:56David Goggins?

  She was a prisoner.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  And what you guys had to do to escape and get away from him is like insane.

• 26:01David Goggins?

  So she was nineteen when she went there, and she was an innocent nineteen year old. And she came from a great family, and she met this man. And totally just, um, it just, it was, it was brutal. It was, it was very seductive, the way, the way she was, uh, tortured by him and the way my brother and myself were. And that, and that broke me and my brother up. My, my brother loved my father a lot. He saw something very different than I saw, cause whenever my mom and I would get beat. My brother, I'm not calling him a coward by any means. He handled it very different than I did. He would go in his room. He didn't wanna see the beatings. I would protect my mother. So in that, I saw a lot more of the violence. I was trying to protect her, and me trying to protect her, I really got beat.

• 26:47David Goggins?

  So when you're constantly in that battle, in that struggle, and your brother's going in a different room, cause he didn't want any part of this shit. He hated it, and he loved family. You know, he loves family, and I became the person like, hey, man, I'm not about it.

• 27:00Rich Roll?

  And you had to shoulder the responsibility, this, this idea within you that you were responsible for making sure that your mom would be safe.

• 27:07David Goggins?

  And that was hard for an eight year old kid, cause we moved to that small town of Brazil, Indiana. Um, I had a learning disability, I was stuttering, I was battling so much shit that I never even told my mom about. Because I, because she was battling her own demons. So at eight years old, I'm looking for comfort and I'm like, hey, don't bother your mom a shit. You were not the man of the house and I, I started becoming real protective of my mother at a young age. So I, whatever you're going through, man, you're on your fucking own. You're not gonna, you're not gonna tell your mom shit. And she ended up finding out later through the school systems and through me failing and through me, you know, all these issues I went through, she found out a lot. But, you know, I kept as much as I could from her, man, and that really was a hard task for me to, to

• 27:51David Goggins?

  raise yourself mentally when you're already in, in the deepest, darkest dungeon of all time. And I think that's where, um, I started really creating myself. I had to really start creating a, a certain pattern, a certain process, a certain kind of indestructible toolbox to handle my life.

• 28:08Rich Roll?

  Well, you were on this trajectory to nowhere pretty quick. Um, but the, the kind of inciting incident that starts to shift your trajectory is, is this air force guy that comes into your life, right? Like you developing this obsession with the military.

• 28:23David Goggins?

  Right.

• 28:24Rich Roll?

  And then you meet this dude who survived that parachuting.

• 28:28David Goggins?

  Right. It was nuts, man.

• 28:30Rich Roll?

  Parachuting gone very wrong and you become obsessed with this guy. And that in, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems like the first sort of glimmer of hope that you might find your way in a different, in a different, you know.

• 28:43David Goggins?

  So like I talked about a lot, it was, it started off with the Rocky and Rambo movies.

• 28:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:48David Goggins?

  You know, those kind of like my fathers when I was coming up. But then when I finally met this guy named Scott Garen, this guy that fell, you know, he had a, a parachute accident. A guy crashed through his parachute and he fell 13,000 feet, pretty much to his death because his, his parachute collapsed. And he would be, you know, he fell 120 miles an hour to the ground. I mean.

• 29:08Rich Roll?

  That picture in the book of him.

• 29:09David Goggins?

  It's disgusting, right? And, um, so he hit the ground and I met him a couple of years later at this, uh, CAP, Silver Air Patrol Camp. And I'm sitting there and, and no kid was like amazed by him. You know, it was like, okay, this is a great story. I'm a kid, let's go. I'm sitting, he comes out and I was amazed by Rambo, like at a young, I was like, oh my God, this is the real Rambo. He came out. He had, you know, he he got his his throat cut open to, you know, to open up his airway.

• 29:35Rich Roll?

  The trach.

• 29:36David Goggins?

  So so I saw he got trached and I saw all these different things. I was like, my God, he came out talking all like Clint Eastwood. Shared a story and he's all hardcore and I started following this guy, but he knew I was following. So for a week long, he did pushups and flutter kicks and I was like, man, that is the real Rambo.

• 29:53Rich Roll?

  Why do you think it connected with you and not with the other kids? Like, what was it inside of you that was, you know, obviously searching for somebody like that?

• 30:00David Goggins?

  I was looking for strength my entire life. I was, I didn't have any. I was a, I was a really weak kid. My dad beat the living shit out of me and took every, I was strong as a young kid. But me protecting my mom for so many years in that house. My dad made me very afraid because he beat the shit out of me every time I went at him. So in that, I want, every man was courage. Every man was strength. At least this one does. So I found it in every way possible. And when I see a strong guy, I was like, okay, maybe he can teach me. So he didn't know anything about me. So time went on. I left school, you know, and then this guy was in my mind.

• 30:42David Goggins?

  We had zero money, man. Like, we, at, at one time, we lived in a seven dollar a month place. Government subsidized apartments. Now we live in like a two hundred dollar place when I, at this time.

• 30:52David Goggins?

  I searched, I went on a five hundred dollar phone bill. And back then, dude, and having no money, my mom wanted to kill me. I was in search of Scott Garen.

• 31:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no Google, no internet.

• 31:02David Goggins?

  No Google, no nothing.

• 31:03Rich Roll?

  You're just randomly calling up bases?

• 31:05David Goggins?

  Air Force bases, man. Calling up Air Force bases, man. Hey, you know what Scott Garen, we meet. I'm like, who's Scott Garen? I'm like, he's a pair rescue man. A what? Cause, you know, a pair rescue man, you know, there's not a lot of them. So I started getting, okay, there's a PJ base here, a pair rescue base here. So I started tracking down pair rescue bases, finally. Key West, Florida. He's a scuba instructor down there in Key West, Florida. I I'm I I I leave a like a message. He calls back, gets a hold of my mom. I'm like, I cannot believe this guy called me back. My first question to him was, hey, man, can I come stay with you for a week? He's like, who the fuck are you, man? He didn't know who the fuck I was. The guy let me come stay with him for a week.

• 31:44Rich Roll?

  And that was you were senior in high school?

• 31:46David Goggins?

  I was a I was a junior in high school. It was like it was in my junior year, pretty much.

• 31:51Rich Roll?

  It's pretty amazing that he that he was open to that.

• 31:54David Goggins?

  He was open to it. Um, I think he said about four words to me in the entire week. We we P T together and I didn't need to hear a word from him. He, you know, you know, he didn't talk a lot. He was an instructor. I would I would go to school or to um scuba school with him. He would instruct. I sit on the couch for ten hours, sit in the lounge on the fucking couch for ten hours. He come back, pick me up, we go for a run, he go home. We ate fish every fucking day because we had to go out in the ocean, you know, like like I would go lobster hunting. I hate the fucking water, I'm scared to death, but this guy went in, so I'm going in. And I left there with just one big thing. That's who I want to be.

• 32:33Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 32:33David Goggins?

  I want to be a guy like that.

• 32:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this this desire within you to find like a strong, positive, male, uh, you know, role model for your life.

• 32:42David Goggins?

  I was looking hard, man.

• 32:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, but it wasn't easy getting into getting, you know, following that path for you.

• 32:48David Goggins?

  No, it was a it was the hardest thing I've done in my life. Being a pair of rescue men, trying to be a pair of rescue men, there was a lot of things I didn't know about. And not having a mentor and not having, you know, Scott was there, he really wasn't. You know, I met him for a week. I saw him maybe a couple of times and I started bugging the shit out of him. He was a busy guy, had a family, so I was back on my own. And I did the best I could and trying to be a pair of rescue men, I finally passed the ASVAB test after, you know, taking it several times. And, you know, when you cheat your whole life in high school and elementary school, I had about a fourth grade reading level. So I talk about that a lot in the book and I had to learn so much school in six months. And that's when I really developed my work ethic. People think it's from running and everything. No, it's not from seals, it's not from running.

• 33:32David Goggins?

  It was from the countless hours teaching myself how to fucking read and write. You know, we, you know, I had a tutor for one hour, one hour every single week is all we could afford. So for six months, I saw a tutor one hour a week. All the rest was on me. My mom was working three jobs. She was never home. I sat at this fucking table. I'm like, I have to get in the military.

• 34:02Rich Roll?

  The whole book is really about mindset.

• 34:05David Goggins?

  All of it.

• 34:05Rich Roll?

  That is the whole game. And I, and I would agree that people look at you and they want to talk about Badwater and all these races that you've done, you know, eight 100 milers in eight weeks and all this insanity.

• 34:17David Goggins?

  Right.

• 34:17Rich Roll?

  But really, this is all a product of hardening your mind, callousing your mind, to use your phrase. And throughout the book, what, what really, you know, makes it stand out is that there are lessons throughout. Like this is a book in which it would be easy to think that David Goggins is the hero, but the reader is the hero, which is why you made this decision to reference what we were talking about earlier, to have Adam read it. Because you wanted the reader to see themselves in this own journey. And you have these chapters. Or after every chapter, you have these challenges. And takeaways for, for people to, you know, use to change their own mindset.

• 35:01Rich Roll?

  But even woven into the narrative, you're breaking away from the story to say, look, this is what you gotta do. This is what I did. This is how you do it.

• 35:08David Goggins?

  Right.

• 35:09Rich Roll?

  And the first one of these really is the accountability mirror, right? Which you still use, but what I didn't realize was that you developed that when you were like a junior in high school. You started doing that.

• 35:20David Goggins?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Rich Roll?

  But it's not like, oh, I did the accountability mirror and then everything started, started working out for me.

• 35:26David Goggins?

  No, I went like it was a, it was a fix it all. No, it was just a, it was a starting point to start holding myself accountable. And all that came to be, man, my mom got a letter from school and this is when I had to reveal myself and all my secrets. The the secret came out, man, that I wasn't going to school, that I had I had flunked most of my classes. I had my report card in there for everybody to see. One of them. And um, it was revealed. Yeah, it was it was it was not your report card. Thanks a lot, Rich. I appreciate it. Um, so, uh, yeah.

• 35:54Rich Roll?

  You put it you put it in there.

• 35:55David Goggins?

  I put it in there, man. You have to talk about it right now. Um, it was, uh, it was, yes, a very, a very embarrassing report card. And she was like, what is this? And this was like, she didn't see any report cards in my life. And at this time, she was frustrated. Not with me.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  Well, you adopted that other report card, right?

• 36:13David Goggins?

  I adopted so much crap, but she didn't really see that one. But I adopted all my report cards. And um, this one had to reveal myself. And she was like, you know what, man? You're you're gonna flunk out. And that was that was the conversation. I'm like, hey, we gotta do something. She, you know, you gotta fail. She had her own demons, her own problems. And that's when I went to the into the bathroom. And I was like, my God, dude, like, this is a harsh reality. Your mom is like, you're done. And I'm like, you are on your own.

• 36:39Rich Roll?

  And the Asfab was really the first real challenge where you tried to show up for something a hundred percent.

• 36:45David Goggins?

  Right. That was my first real challenge.

• 36:47Rich Roll?

  And and what I love about the book is, you know, there's the grand, huge challenges and accomplishments. But what I find most inspiring are just the small little things, like these little details. Like when you're, when you've left that test and then you're in the car and then you go back in. You know, it's like things like that that really touched me.

• 37:07David Goggins?

  That was my, that was actually trying to be a Navy SEAL.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  That was a, yeah, it was a different task.

• 37:11David Goggins?

  Right.

• 37:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:12David Goggins?

  So that was a, that was a very um, emotional moment for me. And I I'm I'm actually there right now in my head, talking to you. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. My, I was a fat guy trying to be a Navy SEAL now, and my life had come to this crossroads. I'm like, man, you have to go right. And no one was going right. Everybody was going left. I'm like, you have to go right. And to know the pain and suffering I was about to endure by going right, the amount of accountability and failure I was going to witness and suffer by myself alone on this journey. It was daunting. So when I finally got to the ASVAB test and I was taking it for my very last time to get into the SEAL teams, or to try to even try out.

• 37:57David Goggins?

  They weren't supposed to tell me my score. And I went back out to my car after I took it. I was on some computer test and I, I didn't know how to use a computer. I was wigging out about that shit because the first time I took it was like some like notebook, you know, you open a Scantron sheet and you bubble it in with a number two pencil and shit, you turn it in. I saw a computer and I was like, oh fuck, what the shit, what did, oh my god. Like, it's on a computer, so I wigged out there and I had to get a fifty on mechanical comprehension.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  And this is like the third time you'd taken the test, right?

• 38:27David Goggins?

  This is my second time. So I took it three times for the Air Force and twice for the Navy. So this is my second time for the Navy. And they're like, hey, this is it, man. You know, you're, you're done. You're too old. You, you have a limited amount of time to lose a hundred and six pounds and you have to take this ASVAB again. There's so many things that's crushing down on my head. And so when I took the test, I knew I had a good enough score to get in the Navy, but to be a SEAL, I had to score high on mechanical comprehension, a fifty. So the first time I got a forty-four on mechanical comprehension. So I'm sitting there and I take the test and I hit send. Send meant it's out in outer space somewhere, but I knew it popped up at the administrator's desk. And he's not supposed to tell me shit. He tells you, sit down, take your test and you leave.

• 39:11David Goggins?

  I walked out, got in my car, or I was walking around the car, whatever. I was like, I gotta go in and find out, man. So I went in, I literally sat there. Everybody's taking their test and I'm begging this guy. And he's telling me, I can't tell you shit. It's against government, it's, it's against rules, everything. He opened it up and goes, okay, man. He said, you got a sixty-five. I said, no, man. I didn't know I got a mechanical comprehension. And he scrolled the page down and it was exactly a fifty. And I literally like, what came through my body, because it's easy to talk about it now to you, but no one knew the time and energy I put into getting that fifty. It was, it was pretty amazing.

• 39:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, what is that, what did that represent for you? Like the, the opportunity for a new life to finally?

• 40:00David Goggins?

  It, it represented opportunity for a new life, but the thing about it is, I'm trying to be a Navy SEAL. At this time, I was still two hundred and some odd pounds, still had more weight to lose. So think about this. I put everything on David Goggins to be a Navy SEAL. It's like going to the crap table with with your last thousand dollars. And you say, you know what, I'm gonna put everything on this fucking on black. And hopefully I win. If not, I'm broke. I put my whole life, a guy that was scared of the fucking water, a guy that could fucking taught himself how to read and write. I'm being one of the hardest motherfuckers on the planet. Think about that shit. A guy that came from nothing. I put my whole life, and I'm gonna go out here and put everything on David fucking Goggins to be a Navy SEAL.

• 40:46David Goggins?

  Not to go be a fucking, you know, Boy Scout or some shit, a Navy SEAL. And I, and I, I, I look at that, and I did all this shit just to get the opportunity to succeed. That's what, that's what people don't fucking understand, man. If people see the, the, the end result. I remember that guy saying, my God, man, I can't believe what the fuck I've just done. I put everything. Ruin relationships, ruin this, ruin that, put everything on, in fact, I have to become someone in this world. Or I'm no good for anybody.

• 41:18Rich Roll?

  Where, and where does that come from? That, where did that compulsion, that drive?

• 41:22David Goggins?

  It comes from a disgusting place of not being fulfilled in your life. Of afraid of dying, having never accomplished anything. That's a fear that some people run away from, that people don't want to face. When you have a real fear of dying and being just another person. That I live to pay the bills. I made a thousand dollars a month. This is my life. I spray for cockroaches, man. If, if that makes you feel good, that's great. It didn't make me feel good. I wanted to, the first time in my life, after twenty six years, it was twenty four, twenty five, wherever I was. I wanted to feel good about myself. And that was. That was the ticket for it.

• 42:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, you have this huge reservoir, uh, this capacity to leverage pain and circumstance to drive change within yourself.

• 42:19David Goggins?

  Right.

• 42:19Rich Roll?

  To be able to not be a victim, but to look at pain as your friend, as a catalyst for growth. And I think there's a lot of people out there. Look, if you're in enough pain, that's going to move the needle for you. There's a lot of people out there that are in just enough pain where they're willing to just settle for what they have because they're not in enough pain to change.

• 42:40David Goggins?

  Right.

• 42:40Rich Roll?

  And the fear of change outweighs the pain of their daily existence.

• 42:45David Goggins?

  You know, the one gift I have, with all that being said, what you just said there, is I have the ability to see the end before the beginning even begins. And what that means is I know that to get to the very end, I can see it right now. So before I went to BUDs, and I was losing all this fucking weight and shit, I saw myself walking across the fucking stage at a hundred ninety-one fucking pounds, because that's what I had to get to, to, to get into the door. I saw myself, six months, a year later, wherever it's going to take me to do it, I saw myself walking across that stage, getting that fucking certificate of graduation from BUDs. And I was able to be there at three hundred fucking pounds. And that feeling, that I was nowhere near that fucking feeling, I was able to put myself

• 43:29David Goggins?

  there a million times, every fucking day, and that feeling of like, my God, that is going to feel fucking amazing. That's what made me suffer. That's what allowed the pain to be real and say, this is worth it. I want to feel, for this fucking next eighteen months, it took me eighteen fucking months to finally come to Navy, to finally, you know, just get through BUDs. Eighteen months, it's six months, took me eighteen. That's what woke me up every fucking morning, was, I'm going to put myself through this much fucking pain and suffering for a few seconds. That's all it is. A few seconds of joy is so fucking worth it, man. That's what people don't get. So I'm able to put myself at the finish line, even though I have no finish line.

• 44:14David Goggins?

  But at the finish line of an event, before I even start the motherfucker to say, how are you going to feel at the end of this?

• 44:20Rich Roll?

  Well, visualization is one of the challenges. And part of that is not just visualizing success or living in the reality of achieving what you're setting out to achieve. But also visualizing how you're going to navigate all the obstacles that are going to get thrown in your path.

• 44:37David Goggins?

  Right. Visualizing is is my biggest tool of life. That's why I I I've been able to put myself in cold water, put myself in a hundred mile race. Millions of times before I've done it. And I've been able to go through the race and see how I'm going to feel at mile fifty. Almost to the, almost to the exact, exact feeling.

• 44:57Rich Roll?

  Right. So when it comes up, it's no surprise.

• 44:59David Goggins?

  It's no surprise. I've already done this a million times. And that's the one thing I practice and practice and practice and practice overnight. But also. The most important thing is I I I practice that feeling of accomplishment. I'm going to have and it's all said and done with.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  The crazy thing about the Asfap story is that in addition to having to pass this test and get that fifty. You also had to lose a hundred pounds in like, what, like thirty days or some crazy short period of time?

• 45:25David Goggins?

  It was less than three months.

• 45:27Rich Roll?

  Right. Okay, three months. But you compartmentalize these two tasks and say. Look, the first thing I got to do is I got to pass this test because the weight doesn't matter if I don't get that fifty. And you shelved or put off losing the weight to focus on the academic end of it until you. You know, completed that hurdle and then you looked at the weight stuff.

• 45:47David Goggins?

  I'm like that now to this day.

• 45:48Rich Roll?

  You still got it done. But it's like being focused on one thing at a time.

• 45:52David Goggins?

  I have to be very present in everything I do. Like right now, I'm at Rich Roll. I'm not thinking about shit, but ritual and what the fuck's coming out of your mouth right now? That's what, that's what gives me a huge advantage in life, especially today in this day and age with so much shit going so fast. And everybody wants to keep everything going and everything up and everything. I want to be the grace, you know, the greatest multitasker of all time, not me. If I put my hundred percent into what's in front of me, I will destroy it. If I'm out here just multitasking and shit, I'm gonna half ass everything I do. So that's, it is the most important thing in the world to me is being focused at the task at hand.

• 46:29Rich Roll?

  And it's getting harder and harder to do that because there are so many distractions and it's so easily to, it's so easy to distract yourself.

• 46:36David Goggins?

  Yes, it is.

• 46:36Rich Roll?

  You don't ever have to be bored again with these things in our pockets.

• 46:39David Goggins?

  No, but the one thing I'm most scared of in the world is, is uh, losing, losing touch with the, the best thing in the world is, is your mind. Your mindset, how you can picture yourself, how you can focus, how you can drive, how you can put yourself in so many situations, get out of it. Because those headphones we listen to, those, those phones that, that we Google to, to find information. There's so many situations in my life where that shit's not gonna help me, it's not gonna help me.

• 47:05Rich Roll?

  And you're able to just turn that off.

• 47:08David Goggins?

  So fast, cause I know what's helped me. None of that stuff's ever helped me. None of that stuff's ever helped me. What, what has helped me has been me alone, getting my shit together and being accountable for who I'm not. And who I want to be. So that's helped me.

• 47:25Rich Roll?

  So you get in, you, you get the opportunity to become a Navy SEAL and then you end up going through BUDs three times? It's like.

• 47:33David Goggins?

  Yeah, Merry Christmas. I got lucky.

• 47:36Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable. And the stories of, of what that entailed are like so vivid, man. It's unbelievable.

• 47:43David Goggins?

  Well, I was a, I was very fortunate to go through three times and not in a sadistic way, in a life-changing, growing way. I found out so much about myself through going through that training three times and I went through the hardest part of the training three times. You know, after the first, so, so first phase is the crucible, man. And that's where I was at for three times. I spent most of my time in BUDs and first phase.

• 48:08Rich Roll?

  In the hell week.

• 48:09David Goggins?

  In the hell weeks and being in that grind. And in that grind, I got time to examine myself. I caught the live autopsy and also examined other people because I was really good about putting people way above me because I was I wasn't shit. I was never nobody. So for me to be on the same stage as these greats wannabe Navy SEALs and Buzz Trains like my God, you guys are amazing. I actually got here with you all. Thank you so much for allowing me into play. But as I was there for so long, I got a really good chance to sit back because now the cold water is just water now. It's no longer cold anymore. Your mind starts to change. They said get in the water.

• 48:48David Goggins?

  Most people think about it. For you, it became my life. So I started learning that if you start to change your mindset versus it being like, oh, my God, this sucks. I became a professional BUDS student. So I wasn't going to leave until I graduated. So I started realizing if this is my home, this is what I am, I had to always reset the bar. I had to reset my new norm. There always had to be a new norm. So one thing we don't do is we don't have a new norm. My new norm is you get up every fucking morning at four o'clock and you suffer. This is your new norm. That became my new fucking life. Most people want to get out of it. I said, no, motherfucker,

• 49:29David Goggins?

  this is your new life. This is who you are. You your new norm is you wake up and you suffer. And I started realizing if that's my mentality, this shit ain't hard anymore. Your fucking new norm is you wake up, you get in the fucking cold water, you're gonna be there till the shit's fucking done. Whenever they say you're out, you get out. So my new norm, so I I do that now today. My new norm now is if I'm doing a 200 mile run, your new norm now, man, is you fucking are doing 200 fucking miles.

• 49:58Rich Roll?

  The Roger that mentality.

• 49:59David Goggins?

  That's it, man.

• 50:00Rich Roll?

  So at what point during this BUDS experience do the instructors start to take notice of you in a in a way that separates you from the pack? Is it SBG or these guys that are like they're starting to go, hey, man, this this this dude's cut a little bit differently?

• 50:18David Goggins?

  SBG noticed it. He noticed it in my second hell week. Because I really, and this is no lie, I'm very open about my life, I'm open about this. I really started to enjoy the fact of seeing what the human mind was capable of and seeing that what is so horrendous. There's so much joy and glory in this shit. And when you see other alpha males, like, you know, SBG in the book, um, he's a, he was one of the hardest, I mean, one of the hardest guys in the SEAL teams. He's looking at you like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

• 50:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:54David Goggins?

  You know, like, you know, like.

• 50:55Rich Roll?

  Well, they start testing you. Like, they're like, let's play this out, right? And there's that story where he makes you swim out to the boat.

• 51:02David Goggins?

  On my own, Wednesday night. And that fucked me up because I, like, my knee was, you know, it was, it was broken. It was, it was fucked up bad and it's Wednesday of Hell Week and all the boat crews are past the surf zone. And I just got a, a Toradol shot in my knee. Cause I'm not gonna, I'm, I'm, let's go, man. We're going. And, um, it's fucking like, it's real late at night. And it was fucking raining and the, the, the class is past the surf zone. And I'm still not a big fan of the fucking water. The ocean is very unforgiving. And I had this big life jacket on and, and SBG's like, hey, follow me, man. So we run a mile down to where the boat crews are at, out past the surf zone. I'm, I'm thinking, hey, we can wait for him to come on in.

• 51:46David Goggins?

  He goes, hey, man, get a Kim Light, you broke a Kim Light? Put on my hat and said, go out and fucking get him. And I was on my own. There was no like, there was no like swim buddy. So like, so I can buzz you for swim buddy.

• 51:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 51:57David Goggins?

  And when he said that to me, I said, are you, in my mind, see this motherfucker is joking. He's gotta be joking, man. It's Wednesday.

• 52:03Rich Roll?

  He must have been thinking like, I'm gonna break this guy. Like, this is gonna be the moment.

• 52:06David Goggins?

  I think that's what it was, but, but now we're, we're, you know, we're, we're pretty tight now. And he said, no, that wasn't at all. He said, you're one of the only people in my tenure at, as a, as a Bud's instructor that I've ever done that with. He said, I knew a person like you would have found it as a challenge. And I had to dig deep because I didn't even look at him and say, hey, man, I'm not doing that shit. Even though I think I could have because there was no swim buddy.

• 52:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:30David Goggins?

  You know, you don't go out there Wednesday night after like 80 hours of Hell Week. And you're like seeing stars and shit that, like, um, like, um, during the daytime, you're seeing boats that are out there. I mean, you're a noose and you're all over the place. He sent me out there. And I was like, okay. This is my time to show one of the baddest motherfuckers in the world that is on. So I got my shit, man. I went out there and did it. And it was a, it was a, I, I, I detail it well in the book, but it was a, it was a moment that I started realizing I'm starting to separate myself now.

• 53:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So there's two kinds of themes that emerge from that. One is this idea of taking souls, like this, this, this sense that, hey, I came from nothing and I'm here amongst the best. And then starting to realize like, hey, these people are human.

• 53:17David Goggins?

  Right.

• 53:18Rich Roll?

  How can I get my tactical advantage?

• 53:20David Goggins?

  Right.

• 53:20Rich Roll?

  And you explore this idea of taking souls, which, which essentially is going places no one else is willing to go to fuck with their heads.

• 53:27David Goggins?

  That's it.

• 53:28Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 53:28David Goggins?

  That's it.

• 53:29Rich Roll?

  To get, to get like the upper hand on that, on, on everybody else.

• 53:32David Goggins?

  When you grow up weak and you start to master your mind, because my whole thing is whenever, um, whenever I'm weak at something, wherever I'm scared of something, I master it. I was a weak mind, you know, a weak minded person. So I mastered my mind and then mastering my mind, I mastered the human mind. And I realized why I no longer judge people, why I no longer put people on a pedestal, because we're all fucked up in our own way. We all have demons. Some people hide them better than other people. So I know we all have them. But me knowing that, I know the most alpha males are very fragile, very fragile. They never want to see another person harder than them. Especially in that kind of realm.

• 54:09Rich Roll?

  The ego attachment.

• 54:09David Goggins?

  The ego, oh.

• 54:10Rich Roll?

  Very strong.

• 54:11David Goggins?

  Ego will fuck you up every time. Ego is serious. So if I can hurt your ego, I got you. So by me having such a fragile ego growing up, all this was my advantage. I was doing a live autopsy on how fucked up I was. I was like, hey, this fucks me up. I better fuck some other people up too. So I started using all these different tools and tactics to get in instructors heads. And taking souls, that's where it happened, man. We were, we're Wednesday, freezing fucking cold. Everybody's jackhammering, everybody's, everybody wants to, you know, everybody's just wanting to get through it now.

• 54:44Rich Roll?

  Jackhammering is when you just can't stop shivering.

• 54:46David Goggins?

  Can't stop shivering. You know, you're sitting there this uncontrollable jackhammering and the instructors take great pride in watching you suffer. They do. We, you know, in a, in a sick way, it's, it's, it's kind of funny. You know, you know, you were there once as a, as a student. Now you're an instructor, but I knew, how would I be thinking if I was an instructor? I would love seeing this sadistic shit go on. But what would I, what wouldn't I like to see? I would hate to see some guys just looking like this is just another fucking day on the fucking beach and go fuck yourself.

• 55:18David Goggins?

  I would hate to see that.

• 55:19Rich Roll?

  So they all wanna think like when they did it, they were harder.

• 55:22David Goggins?

  They were harder. Everybody's hard. So I said, you know what, man? It's time. You all, I can't fight you. You guys can fuck me up all day long. That's your job and I love your job. I love what you guys are doing. You guys are making us better. But now I'm gonna take the tactical advantage and I'm gonna start fucking with you. So I got my boat crew, Bill Brown. I had Chris Kyle on my boat crew. Americans tonight. I had a couple hardcore motherfuckers. And everybody right now is kinda like in their own world. Let's just get through this, man. I can't wait till Friday so we can graduate. How we can get going? I said, let's go ahead and have some fun. I said, we're gonna start, we're gonna start fucking with these guys. So the evolution here was we just got through with Met Check. You know, we're stripped down to nothing and they're checking us out, making sure we're good. You know, checking for pneumonia, checking for fucked up knees. My knees are all jacked up, but they're giving me shots and shit.

• 56:07David Goggins?

  And I was like the boat crew leader of boat crew two. So I'm in the front of the boat and I tell our guys this, we're gonna do, the boat was like on our heads. So all it was, we're supposed to lift the boats up above our head. That's all you gotta do. But when you're this weak, you're this fragile, you're this tired, the boat's heavy. So there's a thing you can do when you do boat presses. You can get the boat and like toss it up, toss it up and catch it. And that shows like you're jacked up. So everybody's holding the boat and they're shaking and the boat's starting to come down their head and all the boat crews are all lined up and they're fucked up. And I'm looking at that and I turn around, my boat crew, I say, hey, guys. It's time to fucking take some souls. And they're like, what the fuck are you talking about? I said, we're gonna get, I go, see all these fucking instructors out here, all in their fucking jackets and drinking coffee and laughing and smiling and shit?

• 56:53David Goggins?

  I want their fucking faces to go straight up fucking numb. So we're gonna do this. We're gonna start boat pressing this motherfucker. Just take my lead. Trust me, you'll get energy from it. We start throwing this boat up in the fucking air, catching it, throwing it up and catching it. We start yelling, can't hurt fucking boat crew two. We're yelling our fucking ass off and we doing it. And they make a stop, like, like, like, what the fuck, like, stop. I look at these instructors.

• 57:17David Goggins?

  And their faces literally looked like someone like just like took their soul out. Cause I knew where their minds were like they were thinking about themselves. Like what the fuck just happened, man? I know me on Wednesday, I couldn't have done that. How are they doing it? So the rest of the time going through hell week. It was like we just.

• 57:37Rich Roll?

  You owned it.

• 57:38David Goggins?

  We owned it.

• 57:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:39David Goggins?

  Boat crew too, we, we won every single race. We were just dominating and um, it was a, it was a strong boat crew. And that's where taking souls is uh, there's a few taking soul stories, but that's one of them.

• 57:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and, and part of that is learning how to be a leader. Like when you're dealing with these alpha males and these huge egos, there's this tendency to just try to outshine the next guy, right? You tell an example, there's another guy who kind of proceeds along that path.

• 58:11David Goggins?

  Right.

• 58:11Rich Roll?

  And he realizes very quickly that he's not going to make it because he doesn't know how to build camaraderie with the other guys.

• 58:17David Goggins?

  Right, right. Um, talk about Mr. Dobbs. Um, he's a good friend of mine still to this day. And he went into that place, man, and I knew where he was going. It's, it's my third hell week. And I knew Sean real well, but I knew he was real arrogant. He had a serious chip on his shoulder like I do. I still do. I gotta control it every now and then and it got me in a lot of trouble sometimes. But I knew he had it. I knew that chip on your shoulder not being controlled. It will, it will get you fucked up and it, and it cost him a lot going through buds. And I saw the look. I saw the look, cause I once had the look when I was going through pair rescue school. When something got so hard and your mind can't process the hardness, you don't know the, the, the, the right tools to get through something hard. Cause you've never been challenged before.

• 59:02David Goggins?

  I could tell he was a superhuman that nothing ever challenged him. But I knew, cause I'd already been through hell week a couple of times. I knew motherfucker, don't, don't underestimate that shit. It will, it will find a fucking demon and it will bring out some insecurities in you. And it did. And I, I, it was like uh, maybe thirty hours in the hell week or something like that. I'm looking over at him. And I smiled at him. We're, we're standing just like this in line. And he's getting his med checked. A doctor's looking at him. It happened just to be beautiful timing. And I'm sitting there, I'm getting med checked and I'm, I'm looking at him. And his eyes, he's a thousand yards still looking right through me. And he's getting med checked. And I'm looking at him and, and before all this happened, I told him, I said,

• 59:44David Goggins?

  "Don't underestimate this motherfucker, man." He goes, "I can't ever see myself quitting shit, Goggins." I go, "Watch out." I go, "Watch out." I go, "This motherfucker will get in your head." I go, "The end is a long way away." So we're sitting there, eye to eye. And he didn't see me. I'm right in front of him. And I could tell he was thinking, he has that quitting mind starting up. And I look at him, I go, "I told you, motherfucker." "I told you, motherfucker." And next thing I knew, man, our car pulls up. And um, he, he rolled out.

• 1:00:14Rich Roll?

  Rings a bell.

• 1:00:15David Goggins?

  He rings the bell and he quits, but um, it was a, he's a great human being. Um, hard motherfucker. It, it doesn't make you, you know, when you quit something like that, man, it's a huge lesson learned that I can't go into anything thinking that there's nothing that's not gonna get in my way. You gotta be prepared for all those obstacles.

• 1:00:35Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, on this theme of, of the reader being the hero here, like what is the, what is the takeaway on the stealing souls? Thing? Cause that's, that's one of the challenges.

• 1:00:46David Goggins?

  Well, there's tons of takeaways with that one, man. It's about finding energy and strength when you have none. Like a lot of times in life, like that situation right there, man, it's the worst time of your life. There's energy all around us, but we think that we have to have, it has to come externally a lot of times. We gotta have like a TV in front of us, watch somebody, listen to a podcast, listen to a great music. A lot of times in life is fucking quiet. And those are the times when you want to run and hide. You gotta be able to find energy. You gotta make up games, make up tricks, make up whatever you can to get to the next evolution of life. So taking souls is just another way, it's not about hurting the person you're against.

• 1:01:27David Goggins?

  It's about finding a tactical advantage in every situation you fucking physically can. To get to the next, you're trying to inch further to the goal line. And you don't want to

• 1:01:40Rich Roll?

  And what is that goal line?

• 1:01:41David Goggins?

  The goal line is whatever it is for you. For me, I want to get through Hell Week. I want to get through Hell Week with, with, you know, with my head up high, being strong. I don't know what the goal line is for everybody. My goal line's been very different for most people. But you're trying to find energy and strength to stay in the fight, to continue on till you get that second wind. The second wind is coming. Whatever the second wind may be for you, it's coming. But what happens is we get so stressed out that the end is so far away that we just can't find another foothold, another handhold. So we jump off the cliff and we just fall. There's another one. You gotta find it. So taking soul is the one way to do it.

• 1:02:22Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Well, as you, as you progress through this, this journey that you're on and you're winning these victories along the way, this idea kind of comes, comes upon you, which is this drive to be uncommon amongst the uncommon, right? You, you mentioned a few moments earlier that you started distancing yourself even from the SEALs themselves. Like, okay, I've done this. I've distinguished myself amongst these guys. Like now, what's the next challenge? How can I push myself harder? Like who, who, you know, what are the other circumstances I can put myself in to be the hardest motherfucker on planet earth? Which was kind of the driving impulse underneath all of this, right?

• 1:03:05David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:03:05Rich Roll?

  So elaborate on that a little bit.

• 1:03:08David Goggins?

  So for me, that's why I wanted to become a Navy SEAL. I wanted people to push me outside of my comfort zone every day. You know, and I thought this was going to be the absolute best platform to do that. These guys, the stories I heard after BUDs, it just gets harder. And I didn't see it that way.

• 1:03:26Rich Roll?

  Cause BUDs is just to become the SEAL.

• 1:03:27David Goggins?

  That's right. I'm like, my God, I can't even imagine what the fuck's gonna happen. But what happens to a lot of people, not everybody, can't speak for everybody, I don't know everybody. Buds breaks people down to the point where you don't want to be broken down again like that. To me, that was exactly the exact starting point for my journey in life. That was the starting point for me. For a lot of people, it's the finish line. And I didn't see it that way for me. So that's where I started becoming uncommon amongst uncommon people, is where I started realizing that you put people on a pedestal that you shouldn't. That you, you gotta get in there yourself and examine people. See what's really about yourself. So, once I got in there and realized, hey, these are just normal people. Yeah, they're

• 1:04:12David Goggins?

  a lot better than some. They're able to get through. I know a lot of people who can get through Navy SEAL training. But, you know, there's a lot of mystique behind, behind all that stuff. And as you start to go through and you start to break it open a little bit, you know, a lot of hard guys, but, you know, I, I wanted more. I wanted more.

• 1:04:29Rich Roll?

  And this, this is your strength. In certain respects, it's a superpower that you have, but it's also your Achilles heel.

• 1:04:35David Goggins?

  Big time. Big time. I talk about in the book a lot, too. Uh, one thing that hurt me a lot was, I thought everybody wanted the same thing I wanted. And everybody wants the same thing you fucking want. Everybody wants to get up four o'clock in the morning and beat themselves and find more about themselves and shit like that. And I thought the SEALs did.

• 1:04:52Rich Roll?

  Most people don't.

• 1:04:53David Goggins?

  Most people don't.

• 1:04:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54David Goggins?

  And I thought the SEALs did. I thought that's what, you know, because every book you read, that's what, that's what everybody does. So, I, I was hook, line, and sinker. So, that mentality that I had, it kind of put a, uh, bad taste in my, you know, once I realized that not everybody was like this in the community. And I was like, you know what, man? So, then I started having chips on my shoulder. I had my own little thing I was doing with a couple of guys, working out on my own, do my own little thing. And when you start doing that stuff, and you start to drive yourself away from people, you know? And I was already different as it was. You know, even if I didn't do that, I already came in being very different. Like I tell people, I was a part of the Navy SEAL teams. I wanted part of the brotherhood.

• 1:05:36Rich Roll?

  Right. You're not going out and partying with them at night.

• 1:05:39David Goggins?

  I'm not going out. No, that's not me. That's never been me, though. Like, if I was in a college, if I wasn't a big fr- I couldn't be part of a fraternity, man. I would never join a fraternity. Ever. I'd be like, fuck you all, man. I got my own shit going on over here, man. Go fuck yourself. That's me. I don't like fraternities. So, just me, when you join the SEAL teams, you're joining a big fraternity. So, I was already. Assed out. So then when you're assed out not wanting to hang out, I wasn't a dick. I do my own shit. That's me. So I, I, I grew up wanting friends. At a young age, and once you get self-esteem and shit, you know who you are. I was comfortable. You're not liking me, but not hanging out. And then you take it to another step further.

• 1:06:25David Goggins?

  With this being hard mentality of if you guys aren't doing what I'm doing, you guys aren't shit. So I did a lot of things that pushed people the wrong way. That rubbed it the wrong way. And in that. Being in the fraternity, it's like a big soap opera. It's like the fucking guiding light. And you know, people start not liking you for certain reasons. People don't know who the fuck you are. Rumor mill start happening. Then I have two heart surgeries. People think I don't want to fucking deploy overseas. Oh, gurus don't want to fight. He just wants to run. But I'm not going to say I, I had two heart surgeries. I couldn't even go fight. So just a lot of things happened and wi- within that. Um, it's life.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But ultimately that hurt your military career.

• 1:07:10David Goggins?

  It didn't hurt it.

• 1:07:11Rich Roll?

  Didn't?

• 1:07:12David Goggins?

  No, me, me looking back on it. It, I was who I wanted to be. I was who I wanted to be. So hurting it, I don't think hurting it is being an air force guy.

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  Well, I guess it depends on what your goals were.

• 1:07:24David Goggins?

  Being a ranger. You know, my goals were finding the baddest man on the planet. Working with the baddest guys on the planet. And the heart surgeries hurt me a little bit. Um, but what I realized is I've got a lot of growth from examining people. You know, my, my insecurities, their insecurities, my military career was absolutely stellar. You know, not many people have pulled off honor man everywhere I went. And done the things I've done. I didn't deploy as much as I wanted to. Yeah, I went to Iraq, stuff like that, but I wanted to play a lot more with, with the heart surgeries, keeping out of training for four years. That hurt me a lot. But all in all. There's not many people who've done some of the things I've done.

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  Right. So, not satisfied with just being in the Navy SEALs, you decide you want to go to Army Ranger School.

• 1:08:14David Goggins?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:08:14Rich Roll?

  And you go and do that.

• 1:08:15David Goggins?

  Yep.

• 1:08:16Rich Roll?

  And you distinguish yourself there. So, you know, when the dust settles, you've done Air Force, what is it called?

• 1:08:23David Goggins?

  Tac, Tac P. It's called Tactical Air Control Party.

• 1:08:26Rich Roll?

  Uh, Navy SEALs, BUDs, and then, and then Army Ranger School.

• 1:08:30David Goggins?

  Army Ranger School. And I went to Delta selection twice also.

• 1:08:32Rich Roll?

  Right, exactly. So what, how did that play out ultimately?

• 1:08:35David Goggins?

  So, at Delta selection, I went the first time, um, when I was a, so I went both times as a Navy SEAL, which is very frowned upon because we have our own little group there.

• 1:08:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:43David Goggins?

  You know, Dev Group. Um, so how that even came to be was after my second platoon where me and my guys didn't get along, you know, we had a great deployment, but we didn't get along. Bottom line. Once again, that's how life is. When you come back in a fraternity like that, rumor mill flatter, you know, goes around and maybe God gets a bad attitude, don't work with him, whatever, whatever. So, I didn't get my orders to go to Dev Group. I actually screened for Dev Group, didn't get picked up, or, or I got picked up to go to the screening process. I passed the screening process, was going to Green Team, a lot of these fucking things nobody knows about. But, anyway, I didn't get my orders to go to Dev Group. So, I said, you know what?

• 1:09:27David Goggins?

  It's a good time for me to go try out for Dev, for, for, um, Delta Force. So, I went there, got messed up. You know, I fell down a mountain, my, my lady trapped in a mountain or, or in some rocks, broke my ankle, messed up my ankle real bad. Then I had the heart surgeries. Then I went back to Delta and I was getting ready to get to the very last day. And what happened there was I was getting real happy. I'm going to be a Delta guy. This is the shit. I can't believe it. I'm back in the game. And once you let your mind get unfocused, you get lost out in the woods. And out there going through Delta selection, it's a lot of land navigation. And if you're not paying attention to that map and compass, and it was my last day before the forty miler.

• 1:10:12David Goggins?

  And the forty miler was like a big, the big last thing you do, and I was gonna fuck that forty miler up.

• 1:10:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:10:17David Goggins?

  But, um.

• 1:10:18Rich Roll?

  That's your game.

• 1:10:19David Goggins?

  That's my game, man. And, um, the very.

• 1:10:21Rich Roll?

  One thing you're gonna be able to execute on.

• 1:10:23David Goggins?

  Man, you know, you put, you know, you put weight on my back and go, man, I won't hurt you. And, um, I got, literally, I was about two hours ahead of time. And I was just going through thinking, man, I'm fucking done. I made this shit, man, I'm gonna go back into doing my shit. Going back out to fight, man, with, you know, with an elite group, a tier one asset. I was so stoked, my mind got drifting away and I got lost. And I found myself lost. I got, I reorient, you know, I, I got fucking back on track. And I went to what I thought my last point was. I saw another student, I said, hey, man, we only got five points. He goes, no, my fuck, we got six. And I was like forty five minutes from drop dead. And, um, I made it by one minute.

• 1:11:05David Goggins?

  If you make it by one minute after making it by two hours every day, I was getting there two hours early every day. I don't know what the standard is at Delta, they don't tell you shit. And there's two vehicles you get into, man. One vehicle goes to another campground, meaning you're still here. And the other vehicle goes, uh, goes to, uh, some speed bumps, back to your racks, and you get in a fucking airplane. I went in that vehicle.

• 1:11:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was it. Um, how many soldiers are there, though, that have gone through all of those programs?

• 1:11:37David Goggins?

  I can say honestly, I'm the only one.

• 1:11:40Rich Roll?

  You're the only one.

• 1:11:41David Goggins?

  For a hundred percent fact, I know for a fact, for a fact, and I haven't Googled it and looked at it. I know there's nobody in the world who's willing to say, let me screen for Delta Force twice. Let me go to Army Ranger School as a Navy SEAL. Let me go to Navy SEAL, let me go be in three hell weeks, let me go to Air Force. So my military career was phenomenal.

• 1:12:03Rich Roll?

  There's a, there's a classic quote in the book. I think it's, as I recall, I think it's when you decided you wanted to go to Army Ranger School. And one of your guys says. Man, Goggins, you're the kind of guy who would like to be a POW just to see if you could fucking do it.

• 1:12:21David Goggins?

  He was my OIC and I actually still talk to him today of my first platoon. I really respect the guy awful lot. Wish I could pop his name, but I don't have permission right now. To, he was a great leader because he understood me. As a, as a good leader, you have to understand everybody that works with you. He understood the, the uniqueness that is me. And I'm a very different person. You gotta have a, you gotta be a real fucking man to understand David Goggins. And I give him a lot of credit for this, let me be me. And I, I screened and you know, he went to, to DevGru, but he said that before Ranger School, cause I put a chit in, a chit is a special request chit.

• 1:13:04David Goggins?

  I put seven special request chits in to go to Ranger School as a new guy in, in the SEAL Teams. It's like, why the fuck are you trying to go to Ranger School, man, as a SEAL? And back then, they were sending some Navy SEALs there for punishment. You know, they sent a few there and I was going, cause I was like begging to go. I'm like, there's another challenge out there that sucks, that people don't want to go to, that I can grow from, that I can see some more uncommon motherfuckers out there that want to get hard and get after it. And I always found out one thing, when you're in training, that's where you find how people really are. I found the best out of people in training. That's why I love Buzz, that's why I love Ranger School, cause, but once you get out of training, very few people keep that same mentality.

• 1:13:48David Goggins?

  It's like, hey, thank God I'm done with it. That's why I always loved going back to scratch.

• 1:13:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and the cool thing about Ranger School is you show up and they strip you of all, of everything, so you don't know who anybody is or what their rank is or any of that kind of shit.

• 1:14:03David Goggins?

  No, there's no rank to that shit.

• 1:14:04Rich Roll?

  And, and they just presumed that you must've gotten in trouble, right? That's the only reason you'd be there.

• 1:14:09David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:14:10Rich Roll?

  So tell me, tell that story about.

• 1:14:11David Goggins?

  So there were, so before I showed up to Ranger School, man, there were a couple of Navy SEALs got sent there for punishment reasons. And a couple of them quit, you know, like not because it was too hard, I imagine, probably because, you know, fuck you, I'm not gonna be here for punishment, I'm not gonna get my ass kicked again, I went through Navy SEAL training. So it just came with the attitude of being there, so a couple said, I'm out. So that gave some of the SEALs. A bad reputation at Ranger School and then I show up. I show up and I'm like, yeah, I want to be here and they thought I was just another guy that got in trouble. Not knowing that I begged to come here and I begged to get beat on for sixty nine days and starve and lose fifty six pounds like I lost.

• 1:14:51David Goggins?

  So it's like day three and they have, you know, an army guy, we're all stripped the rank, I'm just David, you know, I'm just Goggins. And whoever, that's just your name. I mean, you could be a fucking major, you could be a general and you're just Thomas. So all the fuck you are, man, they don't care. So I'm hiding out, but I got my little Navy name tag on so they can tell I'm a Navy guy, my little Navy hat, you know, so they know I'm a Navy guy. I stand out and once again, there's not many black guys in Ranger School. So I'm in the back hiding out and they tell the, you know, they tell the guy, hey, come up here. You're the first sergeant and the first sergeant, you should know the Ranger Creed. So the guy goes up there and he goes, uh, uh, he fucks it up. And they go, hey, they look right at me. I know for a fact.

• 1:15:36David Goggins?

  Oh, semen back there, what the hell they call me, doesn't know this shit. I was like, motherfucker, I've been studying this Ranger Creed for a year. This is what I'm saying in my head. I get up there, man, recognizing I volunteer as a Ranger, fully know the hands, my chosen profession, always endeavor to hope is these, honor, hospital, Rangers. He goes, you're done. I went on and now it's in fact, the Ranger more or least, he's like, what the fuck? So I went ahead and said the whole fucking Ranger Creed. Next thing I knew, he goes, hey, you're the new first sergeant. I was like, fuck. Now, not only am I going through one of the best leadership schools, you have to be dialed in all day long. When I'm not out in the field getting graded, I'm now in garrison. Having to be in charge of all these fucking guys in Bravo Platoon. So Bravo Company. So I was like, guys, it was a, I, I was always had to be on the whole time. Roger that.

• 1:16:21David Goggins?

  Roger that. So I was like, fuck it, man. I guess I'm in charge now the whole time. But I never got fired. You know, most guys going through that, you know, you know, you get fired. That's what led me to, you know, getting the, the, the Honor Man Award. Right.

• 1:16:42Rich Roll?

  Um, one of the things you don't talk a lot about is your deployments. You talk about that experience in Malaysia a little bit, only briefly in the book. So I'm just wondering what the rationale behind, like, are you not allowed to? Did you just think that it wasn't relevant to the story you were trying to tell?

• 1:16:59David Goggins?

  Well, the thing about it is, is um, I deployed, I fought in combat, stuff like that. First of all, it's hard to relate to that. Second of all, I had to get all kind of fucking approvals from people to get that in the book and talk about it. And I want to go through that process of, hey, can I put, you know, what I did in Iraq in the book and stuff like that in the book? And I want my book to relate to people. You know, there's enough Navy SEAL books out there talking about, you know, running guns and shooting them up, stuff like that. That's never been, I don't want to be known as a Navy SEAL. Even though I talk a lot, you know, people want to ask me about it, you know, Navy SEAL, that was a snippet of my life. You know, I was a snippet of my life and I want to be known as somebody much more than that, who did a lot more than that.

• 1:17:45David Goggins?

  So my book is about helping people and I can't help people through what I did in combat. I can help people by what I went through in life, life itself. And I went out to, I mean, it was, it was intentional to make this book about how can these stories resonate and help people? And, you know, it wasn't like, hey, let me kiss my own ass. So that's why I had to go there and do that. So it was, it was a, that's why.

• 1:18:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, there's a, you know, the cover image of the book is you in military uniform. And there are a lot of those other kind of books out there, you know, Chris Kyle. And I know you, you, you're tight with the Luttrell brothers. Those have been huge books and they become movies and cultural, you know, very culturally relevant.

• 1:18:32David Goggins?

  And another thing about that, I'm not a war hero.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:34David Goggins?

  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a war hero, man. Like, you know, there's a lot of heroes out there and I don't have a great story to tell you about war.

• 1:18:43Rich Roll?

  What is the climate, though, when you're in the SEALs and then somebody writes a book? Like, my sense was always that that was kind of frowned upon.

• 1:18:50David Goggins?

  It is frowned upon, a lot of things are frowned upon in SEAL teams. A lot of things are, you know, um, that's, that's one of them. Um, I don't care what you do, you know, it's your life. And I'm not about judging people for that. But a lot of, uh, a lot of SEALs don't like anybody going out doing anything like that. And I don't know if it's a lot of jealousy or whatever. Um, I, I don't care. But it is, it is found upon for some people do that. Um, but I guarantee you some of those guys, if they did some cool shit. You know, a lot of us don't do cool shit.

• 1:19:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27David Goggins?

  A lot of us see combat, not a lot of cool shit.

• 1:19:29Rich Roll?

  But the book really isn't about, it's not, it's not some vainglorious thing where you're in battle and you're telling crazy war stories.

• 1:19:36David Goggins?

  No.

• 1:19:36Rich Roll?

  It's not that at all. It, it, it is.

• 1:19:38David Goggins?

  I don't have many war stories to tell, so.

• 1:19:40Rich Roll?

  The reader is the hero and, and another one of the themes that I want to kind of explore with you is this idea of, of, of being the only, right? Which is like a recurring thing in your story.

• 1:19:50David Goggins?

  Right. So being the only, and I actually talked about with Adam. Um, I came up with, with the only, there's a lot of onlies out there. I was the only black in a lot of situations. And the only end about a color. There's a lot of, you know, there's gays, there's lesbians, there's people who are white people who just feel like they're not wanted in society. That's the only. The only is feeling like you're not accepted in any society that you're in. Doesn't matter what color, creed, race, gender, doesn't matter. It's just that you are in this situation where you feel like you're being judged. You might be being judged, you feel awkward. It's an awkward feeling when you walk in a room and you're like, oh my God.

• 1:20:34David Goggins?

  Like, I'm the only. And that comes with a lot of people. And that's where the only really came from, because I didn't want to make it like a black situation. I want it to be, I want this, this is about people. You are your own hero. You are the hero of this book. So I want it to be, what's a word that can make people feel like this resonates with me? That's only. You know, it's not about, it was about black or about white or about, about being Jewish or, or Christian or whatever. So that's where it comes from, man. It's about ownership of, a lot of people feel like no one understands what the fuck I'm going through right now. And that's the only.

• 1:21:10Rich Roll?

  Right. And that seems to be something that you, you use, you leverage to, to get stronger.

• 1:21:17David Goggins?

  Oh, yes. The only is a very powerful thing for me. And there's a lot of times in my life that I chose the only, um, on purpose. On purpose, just to see how I would come out the other end of it.

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  And in the midst of all of that, um, how do I say this?

• 1:21:39Rich Roll?

  For somebody that's listening to this, or they're reading your book, and they do feel apart from, they feel alone, perhaps they have that victim mentality, right? They're just, the world's against me. I can't catch a break. Every time I try to do this, this happens. It's some narrative that they're spinning about their life.

• 1:21:57David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:21:57Rich Roll?

  Like, what's the first step out of that?

• 1:22:00David Goggins?

  Well, like I've said a million times before, the most important conversation is the one you have with yourself. You wake up with it, you walk around with it, you go to bed with it. Eventually, you act on it. Sometimes you act on it good, sometimes bad. You gotta change the internal dialogue. That person in your head that's talking that shit to you, until you change the internal dialogue in your head, until you callous over the victim's mentality, that the world is out to get you because of you are the only, you gotta change that shit, man.

• 1:22:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you don't understand my life, David.

• 1:22:33David Goggins?

  Yeah, I do. That's the thing about it. And that's why I can talk about, but yeah, I, I get what you're saying. A lot of folks don't under, I get that mentality. I once had that mentality, that no one understands what the fuck I'm going through. And if you keep that mentality, you're gonna stay in the same exact spot that you're in, that no one understands me. There's a whole, there's millions of people. Why you think a book that I self-published, you know, is doing so well? With a story that's so fucked up. People like, I never get why, I went to a publishing house, like, who's gonna resonate with this story? No one's gonna buy this book. I'm like, are you not in the world? Are you not in society? You're never alone. Everybody's going through shit.

• 1:23:18David Goggins?

  So when people get this mentality of like, you don't understand me. You can throw a fucking rock to someone that can understand you if they're willing to break themselves down and stop hiding. A lot of people understand you. But you gotta stop hiding. And that's why I tell people, a lot of people are going through shit. They just hide better than you did. That's all they did. It was hiding better.

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's easy, you know, it's easy, even, even after you've accomplished something to not rest on your laurels or take a breath, like you're, you're somebody who's constantly, constantly moving forward.

• 1:23:54David Goggins?

  I am.

• 1:23:55Rich Roll?

  But so, but I think one thing that gets lost in your story is that you are pretty good about celebrating the victories along the way and celebrating yourself.

• 1:24:02David Goggins?

  I talk about with my fiance every single day. I talked about with her two hours today. I said, we are fucking grinding so hard that we are losing the vantage point of what we have accomplished today. We got podcasts, podcasts, interview, flying, do this, do that. I'm like, stop, stop. It's just me and you and this mom and pop thing that we, that, that we're doing. Look at where the fuck this book is at right now.

• 1:24:29Rich Roll?

  It's crazy.

• 1:24:30David Goggins?

  Look how many people we're touching. Shut, shut, shut up and just fucking think for a second. Let's, let's stop. Cause all we did was talking about this and this, we gotta keep, I go, no. Enjoy this for a second. That's, we, we have to take time and realize what the fuck we've accomplished here.

• 1:24:44Rich Roll?

  That's an evolution for you, man.

• 1:24:45David Goggins?

  Huge, huge, but I realized.

• 1:24:48Rich Roll?

  Very different David Goggins than even from a couple of years ago.

• 1:24:50David Goggins?

  Huge, because you have to, what is it all about? I'm gonna keep on grinding. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying though is you have to respect what you've done. Take a second, not live in it, not sit around and say, I'm good. Sit back and say, let me look at the vantage point now that I'm at. We, when, that's why you reset the vantage point. Get the tactical advantage. If you get the tactical advantage too quick and start fighting, you gotta take a second to. Take observation of where I'm at. What have I done? Am I in the right spot? I'm obviously in the right spot right now. Now we can go back to fighting.

• 1:25:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:33David Goggins?

  So that's what we're doing right now.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  And how did you, how did you arrive at that epiphany? Cause I would imagine there's a different version of you that wouldn't allow yourself to be that indulgent.

• 1:25:43David Goggins?

  It's called you find peace. I never found peace until I got real sick. And you find peace by clarity. And there's no clarity when there's noise. When there's always a schedule in front of you to keep grinding at it. So my schedule is always there. I'm still alive. And if I'm still alive, I'm going to grind until I'm dead. But in that grinding schedule, you have to have a point in there where it's okay. At 12 o'clock, reset the tactical advantage and look and see where you're at. At this new vantage point, stop for a second and survey the field. Because what I was doing was I had this big, long schedule. And in this schedule, there was no take a second, see what the fuck you've accomplished.

• 1:26:27David Goggins?

  Cause if I did all that shit in the military, after I got honor man at Ranger School, and I was the top leader amongst 300 people. When I got back to that second platoon, if I had taken the vantage point and said, okay, my God, man, you've really grown as a leader. I would have attacked the situation that second platoon was differently. And I was like, oh, you guys are fucking, you guys don't want to work out this fucking hard? You ain't, you ain't hard like this? I would have learned, I would have taken a step back and said, okay, hang on a second, man. You learned a lot. That's the tactical advantage. You gotta take that vantage point and take a second to breathe and say, you learned a lot. But when you learn a lot, if you just go back into the fight, you never apply what you learned. You just get that certificate of graduation and go.

• 1:27:12David Goggins?

  Get it. Remember what you learned and use it. And that's about taking that one second out. Get on top of that mountaintop, looking down and say, okay, how would I have handled this years ago? Wow, I would have really fucked that up. This time, let's not fuck it up again.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  Right. So that, that occurred not during the heart surgeries, but afterwards when your body was broken and you got into the stretching.

• 1:27:36David Goggins?

  Broken.

• 1:27:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:37David Goggins?

  It was a big, it's like when you go and somebody gives you a knot. And they tie a lot versus tying a knot, they tie a lot. They say, hey, can you undo this? That was the inside of my body.

• 1:27:47Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. But it forced you to stop.

• 1:27:50David Goggins?

  It made me stop. Yeah.

• 1:27:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:51David Goggins?

  I couldn't no longer go.

• 1:27:52Rich Roll?

  Otherwise, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have stopped.

• 1:27:53David Goggins?

  I would never realize what I realize now. No.

• 1:27:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:56David Goggins?

  I've been gone.

• 1:27:56Rich Roll?

  This is a blessing, right? Like, hey, man, we gotta bench you because you need to reflect.

• 1:28:01David Goggins?

  The body would do that. The body would do that. The body will say, hey, man, you've done a good job. Now we're fucking done. And my body said, you're done.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  Right. So you, you have the heart surgeries, you make this return to ultras. I mean, dude, we've been talking for like an hour and a half. We haven't even talked about any of the ultra stuff. Um, but, you know, we talked about that last time, man. Um, you go out, you're crushing it in all these races. Then you have the heart situation. You have two heart surgeries. Then you're back at it again. Uh, and then you hit this wall, like you described this classic overtraining situation where you got back at it and you were training super duper hard. And then you showed up and you were just flat, right?

• 1:28:46David Goggins?

  Yeah. I started gaining weight overnight. My thyroid, my endocrine system started shutting down.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:51David Goggins?

  Fucking just shutting down left and right.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  I'm surprised it took that long for you to have in like a severe overtraining episode.

• 1:28:59David Goggins?

  And yeah, it was a severe, you know, it was probably overtraining mixed with a lot of other shit. The, the, the body was whacked. It was whacked, man. And, um, it just said, you're done. Go ahead. Hang up your shoes, lay in the bed. It's time to die.

• 1:29:15Rich Roll?

  And how long did that go on for?

• 1:29:17David Goggins?

  It went on about five years.

• 1:29:18Rich Roll?

  Five years?

• 1:29:19David Goggins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:20Rich Roll?

  So wait, what period of time was this?

• 1:29:22David Goggins?

  So you're looking at, it was Badwater. So before Badwater, two thousand thirteen is when it started. I actually walked a hundred miles of that race to finish it.

• 1:29:31Rich Roll?

  That was the way I was crewing Dean that year.

• 1:29:34David Goggins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:35Rich Roll?

  And you were right on our heels like most of the day.

• 1:29:37David Goggins?

  And if I was, I walked that whole thing. If I was on Dean's heels, he was walking a lot himself.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  So it was not a good year for him either.

• 1:29:44David Goggins?

  I walked that almost whole race. I was cramping up so bad. It looked like an alien was in my quads. They were just doing this weird thing. I was hydrating. So I was like, what the hell is going on? My body started shutting down then. And then I had like a, a period of time where I was like, my God, feeling my best. And I crushed this race called Frozen Otter. And I was like, my God, man, I'm back. No, I wasn't. It was just my body saying, we got one more in us, man, before we give it up. So two thousand thirteen is when it really started hitting hard, man. And it went on from there.

• 1:30:12Rich Roll?

  Of all the things that you had to process, that was probably one of the hardest, being told you have to stop.

• 1:30:19David Goggins?

  It was one of my hardest, but I have to be honest with you. It was, uh, the most eye-opening, refreshing time in my entire life.

• 1:30:29David Goggins?

  It was like, it really made me reset. And it, like, what it said to me was, alright, man, we still gotta find a hundred percent. You can't run, you can't work out. So that's when I went to school and I became a medic. You know, stuff like that. Went to, you know, I started doing all, I, I literally reset. So I'm always in constant pursuit of my hundred percent. Whatever that is, if I can't run anymore, I wanna see what else I can do. So it, I was, I was real proud of how I handled that. When, when my whole life got stripped from me. And I was at like twenty years in the military and that, my, my life was getting stripped, man. And I couldn't run, I couldn't work, I couldn't do shit anymore. And I didn't lose my shit.

• 1:31:11David Goggins?

  All that train I'd gone through, mental train I'd gone through, I was able to utilize it to find a lot of peace in myself, a lot of joy, and a lot of self-fulfillment. And it was, uh, it was actually, uh, not that bad of a time.

• 1:31:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, my favorite chapter in the entire book is the final chapter.

• 1:31:31David Goggins?

  I was a sick chapter.

• 1:31:32Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, I was just so, cause one of the things I've always sort of thought about you or, or been concerned about with you is like, is this guy gonna just go to his grave grinding and just angry and resentful and vengeing, you know, against the world? Or is he gonna be able to find peace? Is he gonna be able to be content? Is he gonna be able to find a way to, to, you know, find the joy and the gratitude for these experiences? Or are you just gonna be fighting all the way to the end, man? And you found that.

• 1:32:03David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:32:04Rich Roll?

  Like, I was so happy to, like, read that.

• 1:32:06David Goggins?

  Yeah, I found it. But what's great about it is I found it, but I can still tap into it.

• 1:32:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Do, is, was there a moment of thinking, like, if I, if I allow myself to experience joy and gratitude, that I'm not gonna be able to be as hard, that I'm gonna lose that edge that distinguishes me?

• 1:32:24David Goggins?

  No, that's not at all. What it was, was, um, I never felt that in my entire life. You're almost taught that shit. When, when you're born in a happy home and, and you're born around happy shit. It kinda comes out. I never, I don't laugh. My dad beat the laughter out of me. When, when you can't read and write and you're trying to hide out in classes and please don't call on me and shit and you're fucking all scared and shit everywhere you go, you're nervous and you're, and, and you're panicked and you're stuttering. And you know, your whole life is that shit. There's not joy in that shit. That becomes who you are. No matter how much you change. You're scarred. So people are like, my God, man, you never smile, never do this. It's my life.

• 1:33:08David Goggins?

  It's my life. So you gotta teach yourself how to read and write and also fucking smile. And say, it's okay. A lot of things aren't like, you know, man, why don't you do this? Like, I don't judge people. That's why I don't judge. And people, man, you don't smile, you look so hard like this. Read my book and don't forget where I came from. It's who you are. You have to undo that shit. And no one came down and trained me on how to be happy, how to find peace, how to do this and that. That's why I'm so glad I found it through suffering. The greater the suffer, the greater the peace I found. But you have to reflect on where you came from. From the dungeon of hell that I came from, I had to reflect on that shit.

• 1:33:53David Goggins?

  To find final peace and be able to say, wow, motherfucker. If you die in this bed at forty years old. I'm the happiest motherfucker in the world because I did it. I pissed people off along the way. Some people don't like me, Merry Christmas, whatever. But you can finally look in the fucking mirror. And you can cuss on damn Rich Roll shit and don't care what they say about you and be happy with it.

• 1:34:14Rich Roll?

  The non-judgmental part is a lesson that you had to learn the hard way too, right?

• 1:34:19David Goggins?

  Big time.

• 1:34:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20David Goggins?

  Big time. I used to hate people not liking me. One of the hardest things in the world for me at a young age was, my God, I just wanna fit in. I wanna fit in. I, I want you like me. So that's a horrible fucking place to be in life cuz you lose yourself. When you wanna fit in with people so badly, normal fucking people, no better than you. You do whatever you can to fit in. That's a bad place to be. You lose yourself in trying to create a character that other people will accept. And the, that's where I found a lot of joy, man. This is God, this is me. I'm speaking in the third person. I'm fucked up. I got some shit going on. I'm still working on myself. Take it or leave it. You don't like me, take a number and get in line, man.

• 1:35:04Rich Roll?

  And it, does that involve like a spiritual perspective? Like what does that look like for you?

• 1:35:10David Goggins?

  I am a, even though people may not believe it, cuz I cuss, which is hilarious, I believe in God big time. I've had this voice in my head since I was a young kid. So what trained me was that voice. And I'm not gonna go God on you right now. I don't care if people believe in God or not. That's not my place. I'm not here to judge you. You have your own life and your own things to deal with. This voice in my head guided me to a spot where I'm at today. And if you don't believe that you're here for a reason, your life will seriously hurt. And I start looking at my life and all the shit I went through as God put me, some God, wherever you believe in, put me here to go through this.

• 1:35:52David Goggins?

  And now I see all the hundreds of thousands of lives I'm changing by the hell I went through. There's a lot of power in that. So my purpose, as I started going through this journey, instead of looking at like woe is me, God, man, why, why the fuck, man, why? I started looking at it as the perfect training ground. You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew exactly what the fuck you were doing, obviously. You put me in every situation possible to tell a story that needed to be told.

• 1:36:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, looking back, it's like every domino is lined up perfectly to create the person that I'm sitting across from right now. And also, you took advantage, you leveraged all of those opportunities to be that best version of yourself.

• 1:36:37David Goggins?

  Mm-hmm. I did, as, as, as afraid of that, I mean, it was a very scary, scary road. A guy who was afraid of a lot of things, to then find power in fear, to find power in overcoming fear, and to get to where I'm at today where there's very few things I'm really afraid of because I know how to control it, I know how to manage it, I know how to work it to my advantage now. It's, it's, it's something else, man. So I really challenge people to really do a live autopsy on your brain. And the reason why I talk about my childhood so much in this, because I don't want you to put a title on me, because once you title me as a freak, you now put yourself in a

• 1:37:18David Goggins?

  position where you can be very comfortable in saying, it's just not possible for me.

• 1:37:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's so important, because you have done so many crazy things, it's very easy to just say, well, he's a crazy outlier.

• 1:37:30David Goggins?

  That's it, that's it. He's that guy, he's that, he's that special guy. Nope, and that's the thing that makes me so pissed off in this world, man. The one thing, the only thing that gets me mad nowadays, is that so many people die with untapped potential because they think that someone else is fucking better than them. And they were born, you know, not with the greatest tools. You don't need shit. You need the ability to fucking grind your ass into a fine fucking powder. And when you're in that fine powder, find a way to build that motherfucker back up repeatedly. That's possible.

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. For you, what I love is that you go out on these crazy training excursions, and it's just a pair of running shoes and shorts.

• 1:38:12David Goggins?

  Alone.

• 1:38:13Rich Roll?

  That's it, man. You don't have any crazy gear.

• 1:38:15David Goggins?

  Nope.

• 1:38:16Rich Roll?

  Any sponsored bullshit or anything like that.

• 1:38:17David Goggins?

  Nope.

• 1:38:18Rich Roll?

  It's just at its most purest form.

• 1:38:20David Goggins?

  I, I found a lot in that, man, always. It has to be pure, man. Like, I don't want people, like, the reason I don't post, hey, post what you're doing today. No. No, man, this is my time. I want you fucking to know what I'm doing today. This is, this is my time. This is my growth factor.

• 1:38:36Rich Roll?

  But I think it creates a lot of demand because when you do drop that bomb once a week or whatever it is.

• 1:38:40David Goggins?

  I'll drop something on you.

• 1:38:41Rich Roll?

  It's like, holy shit. I'll look at it and I'll be like, damn, man, that thing's got like 200,000 views. I posted it like an hour ago.

• 1:38:48David Goggins?

  Hey, man, I let somebody know what's going on every now and then. You know, it's, it's, it's all about giving back and training.

• 1:38:54Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:38:55David Goggins?

  But I'm still learning. I'm still learning. I'm not Yoda yet.

• 1:38:59Rich Roll?

  What do you, what do you still need to learn? And what are you still afraid of?

• 1:39:04David Goggins?

  Honestly, my, my biggest fear to this day is, um, and I say it a lot, and I say it a lot, and it's, it's, it's going to heaven and being judged by God. And, you know, God has, I, I, I believe that God has this, knows everything about you. From the time you're born, when you're gonna be born, when you're gonna die, when you're gonna graduate, Buzz, whatever's gonna happen to you, he knows all this shit. Some people never do what God knows you're capable of doing because you, you know, we have choices. My biggest fear in life was to, was to get to heaven and God looked at me as I'm being judged.

• 1:39:44David Goggins?

  And I was some fat 300 pound guy like I used to be that still prayed for cockroaches. It was a cock, you know, that's, that's okay. It's what you want to do. I didn't want to do that. And I made a thousand dollars, you know, a month. And I got to heaven and God laid out this chart in front of me. And he said, hey, man, look at this chart. It had my name on top and all this amazing shit. And I'm like, that's not, that's not me, man. He goes, that's who you were supposed to be. My biggest fear in life is that one day if I ever get judged by something, someone, some, some energy force, that I go up there and I failed the mission. Whatever, whatever force up there thought I was supposed to be some badass and I went up there underachieved.

• 1:40:27David Goggins?

  You know, I want that force up there that knows everything to be writing as I'm living saying, I had no fucking idea he even had this in him.

• 1:40:35Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:40:36David Goggins?

  So I want to just be the best I fucking can. And a lot of people say that. I truly mean that.

• 1:40:44Rich Roll?

  And what is it that you have to learn?

• 1:40:47David Goggins?

  I still have to learn me, you know, I, I still feel there's, you know, there's, there's times where as a human being, I'm a human. And you, you still fall back in these, in these ruts of life. Where you think that you had a permanent fix, cause I, I've done all that. Nothing's a permanent fix, man. That's why I grind every day. Because nothing is permanent.

• 1:41:11Rich Roll?

  Are you training for anything right now?

• 1:41:13David Goggins?

  I'm signing up for the Hurt One Hundred.

• 1:41:15Rich Roll?

  Oh, you are.

• 1:41:15David Goggins?

  I actually got in it. And my schedule is so fucking packed, but I'm hoping I have like literally. A one day, literally, I can go out there, run the race. And fly back.

• 1:41:26Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:41:27David Goggins?

  So.

• 1:41:28Rich Roll?

  When is that? When is the race?

• 1:41:29David Goggins?

  It is, I think the seventeenth or eighteenth or nineteenth, it's, it's in that, it's that weekend right in there.

• 1:41:35Rich Roll?

  That's a rare return to a race. I mean, other than Badwater.

• 1:41:38David Goggins?

  I've done that race three times already.

• 1:41:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you, oh, you've done Hurt three times?

• 1:41:41David Goggins?

  Three times.

• 1:41:41Rich Roll?

  Oh, you have, okay.

• 1:41:42David Goggins?

  Yeah, I've done three times and I haven't done a hundred mile race. Since that Badwater two thousand thirteen. I've done, I've done several ultras. But that hundred mile distance, you know, my body just wasn't. Just not there, it's there now. But now my schedule is so busy, but I said, it's, it's almost time, man.

• 1:41:59Rich Roll?

  Right, but I feel like Badwater is your shit. That's the one that stands out amongst everything as the thing you're always trying to master.

• 1:42:07David Goggins?

  It, and what's funny about that? I'm just now getting to the point now where I'm being, I'm gonna be real dangerous next time I go out there.

• 1:42:13Rich Roll?

  Well, listen, man, you're forty three now, right?

• 1:42:15David Goggins?

  Forty three.

• 1:42:16Rich Roll?

  Your prime.

• 1:42:17David Goggins?

  I am.

• 1:42:18Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:42:18David Goggins?

  This is, this is the prime of my life, this is my prime ultra running life.

• 1:42:21Rich Roll?

  Forty three was my best year.

• 1:42:22David Goggins?

  Was it?

• 1:42:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, you're, you're ready to un, uncoil, man, I think.

• 1:42:27David Goggins?

  I, I, I believe so. I, I don't wanna.

• 1:42:30Rich Roll?

  The biggest challenge for you now is that your life is so big.

• 1:42:33David Goggins?

  And that's the thing, man, I used to be this underground. Nah. And the monk is what gave me my strength. I was underground, much quiet, so much quiet in my life. I silenced all the noise out.

• 1:42:44Rich Roll?

  You're that guy in the corner with the hoodie on.

• 1:42:46David Goggins?

  That's me, man.

• 1:42:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:47David Goggins?

  That's me.

• 1:42:48Rich Roll?

  Dangerous. Dangerous motherfucker.

• 1:42:51David Goggins?

  Tried to, man.

• 1:42:53Rich Roll?

  So, so we can expect another Badwater appearance?

• 1:42:57David Goggins?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:42:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58David Goggins?

  For sure. That is, that, that, this will not end. This will not end without that motherfucker right there.

• 1:43:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, I wanna, I wanna pivot a little bit and talk about the takeaways here for, for the reader. I mean, we talked about, um, the accountability mirror a little bit. Uh, we talked about visualization and taking souls. Uh, but let's talk a little bit about how, uh, journaling has been instrumental in this journey that you've been on.

• 1:43:26David Goggins?

  Yeah. So basically I've been journaling now for several years and I, I should have brought my journal with me, man. I mean, I have several of them. I have these little green military notebooks that I've, I've kept, actually put a couple in the, in the book there and come up right out. But I write down my day and what I do is I go back and study that day. Like sometimes I might, I might get sick. I might be overtrained. I might, um, gain a couple of pounds here. I might feel whatever. That, and I, it's like my accountability journal of what I'm doing with my life, physical, mental. Um, I had, I had an eating journal, all this shit. And it helps me go back to, once again, study. I'm a lab rat.

• 1:44:07David Goggins?

  And I study myself and I'm like, when I'm feeling fucked up, I go, okay, what did I do last week? And usually I can find out where I messed up last week, you know, how much I'm traveling, how much I'm sleeping, how much I'm doing all this stuff. And, and through journaling, man, you can really figure out so much about where you're messing up in life and what you need to fix about yourself.

• 1:44:27Rich Roll?

  Taking constant inventory.

• 1:44:29David Goggins?

  Constant.

• 1:44:29Rich Roll?

  Being honest about that.

• 1:44:31David Goggins?

  And that's the thing about, you cannot put bullshit in there.

• 1:44:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33David Goggins?

  It's gotta be a real, a real journal about, hey, today I messed up here. Today I should have been a better person here and not just saying it, but actually trying to fix it tomorrow.

• 1:44:43Rich Roll?

  Do you extend that accountability to including? Like bringing in like a close circle of of friends and mentors so they know what's going on? Or are you just accountable to yourself? Like if somebody's looking at this and saying, well, I could do that. But how do you feel about letting others in on your goals? And and and having like external pressure to hold you accountable?

• 1:45:06David Goggins?

  No, there's no external pressure. That's that's

• 1:45:08Rich Roll?

  Well, you don't need it.

• 1:45:09David Goggins?

  No.

• 1:45:09Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? But I think other people.

• 1:45:11David Goggins?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. It no, it's important to have circles. It's important to have like, like I talk about, man, like, like that big rabbit hole of of bad people that you want to get away from. Like if you're drunk and you want to stop drinking, you gotta get away from those people. You want to build this nucleus around you of people who are saying, it's not okay to sleep in today. We gotta get after it. Hey, let me see your journal. You're supposed to be running five miles today. You only ran three. You gotta have those people. Some people need those people. And it's important. But you want to get to the point in your life. It's real important that you hold yourself accountable. And those people start to fade away because you now got it. You want to be that person because they're not always going to be there to hold your hand.

• 1:45:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Uh, talk to me about the cookie jar.

• 1:45:59David Goggins?

  One of the most powerful weapons I have, man, is the cookie jar. In in times of need, even the hardest person forgets how badass they are. So I've been through a lot of shit in my life. When you're going through a hard time right now, you forget all the hard shit you endured. So the cookie jar is a reminder that, oh, I can get through this hard time right now. But you gotta take a second or two to reach into the mental cookie jar. Let's say it's a fortune cookie. But in my mind, my mom used to buy these cookies, you know, in the cookie jar. And it was an Oreo or chips or whatever. That's where I got the cookie jar from. But you gotta open up and say, okay, man, I I was in three hell weeks. And I got through two of them. You know, I was in Ranger School.

• 1:46:44David Goggins?

  I I I endured being called nigger. I I I saw these beatings. I I, you know, my mom's soon to be husband got got murdered. I saw all these, I saw little kid head get ran over. But all these things I endured alone. I had to remind myself of the strength and the power that I have, that it's in me. It's just a reminder of how badass you are in hard times. Because, you know, we just forget that that bad time consumes our mind. And we forget who we are.

• 1:47:12Rich Roll?

  Torch and complacency.

• 1:47:16David Goggins?

  You have to do that every day, man. A lot of us are very, you, you become complacent. You become very civilized in life. You know, the worst thing that can happen to a person, you become civilized. You get to that point where you believe that you've arrived. When you, my God, man. I'm up there near Michelle Obama on my book. I've done it, man. I'm good.

• 1:47:42Rich Roll?

  You can coast.

• 1:47:42David Goggins?

  I can, I'm good.

• 1:47:43Rich Roll?

  You don't have to do hurt.

• 1:47:44David Goggins?

  I ain't gotta do hurt.

• 1:47:45Rich Roll?

  You played your man card, dude.

• 1:47:46David Goggins?

  The fuck I'm doing? I don't have to be a wildland firefighter, man. I retired from the military. I ain't gotta, I ain't gotta go out there and dig fire line for three miles. I'm forty-three, man. I've done it.

• 1:47:54Rich Roll?

  You should just be flying first class everywhere.

• 1:47:56David Goggins?

  Everywhere I go.

• 1:47:57Rich Roll?

  And doing speeches and getting paid crazy cash.

• 1:47:59David Goggins?

  And laying in a hotel, kicking it, man. And that's exactly when it's over. That mindset right there to me is death. I'm not saying you can go as hard as you did when you were twenty. Or now at forty-three. But there's a new bar that you must always set in your life. And once you become complacent and you become civilized, you've arrived. You're no good for anybody.

• 1:48:22Rich Roll?

  And how do you keep that bar high when most challenges now, I would imagine, seem trivial compared to what you've endured?

• 1:48:30David Goggins?

  They are. I go back to the sewer. And the sewer is that seven dollar a month place I once lived in as a young kid. So even though.

• 1:48:36Rich Roll?

  Mentally?

• 1:48:37David Goggins?

  Mentally, mentally. And I always talk about it. I talk about I'm always paying rent. In that seven dollar a month place. Where I grew up, in that nasty little place I grew up in. I remember it. I remember like it was yesterday and I'm glad I do. I never want to forget the dungeon of where I come from. Even though it's real spooky and it's scary and there's no lights on in there and there's cobwebs and some creepy motherfuckers in there, some demons. All those motherfuckers in there made me dioggins. Made me who I am today. That's where the strength came from. You gotta go back to the beginning, to, to the fundamentals of life. To the very fundamentals of where it all, like playing basketball. You gotta go back to the fundamentals. You just, you know, you can't always just stay up here.

• 1:49:22David Goggins?

  You gotta go back to scratch. And that's how you get better.

• 1:49:25Rich Roll?

  The challenge becomes staying in tune with that.

• 1:49:29David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:49:30Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Because life's getting better and easier for you and bigger and there's more demands on your time and like people are throwing really cool, fun shit at you.

• 1:49:38David Goggins?

  I'm always, you can ask my fiance, my, my conversation on a weekly basis. Is I cannot get away from who the fuck I am. Who I am is who I'm proud of. I'm very proud of the hardworking, calloused hands, calloused mind, human being. That I literally made this person with a lot of help from above. A lot of guidance from saying you're gonna go left and you should go right. That horrible voice that wouldn't let me get away from myself and hide forever. I listened to it. I listened to it and the only way you can set the example is you have to always be willing to work. I don't follow people who talk about what they used to do in life. I don't give a fuck what you used to do.

• 1:50:24David Goggins?

  I don't care that, you know, you used to be the best, I don't care. What are you doing today? You may not be that person now, but what are you still doing to try to excel in life? And a lot of people now are talking. I hear so much talk. I don't hear a lot of work. I hear a lot of people telling you what you should be doing, how you should be doing it, how you should be fucking living. And I look at him and you're fat, you're out of shape, you look like shit, but you're telling the motherfucker how to live.

• 1:50:50David Goggins?

  No, man. I won't listen to you. There's so many people speaking this shit. And that's what bothered me a lot in the military. There's a lot of people talking shit. I don't see the real suffering behind it. Behind what you're saying. That's what I said, man, you talk with so much passion because it's the real fucking place. It sucks to get up in the morning time, there was rain like cats and dogs. I want to get my shoes on, go run. But guess what? I got my shit on and ran. Got that motherfucker on the run.

• 1:51:19Rich Roll?

  Like is the vision that's coming into my mind is Jake LaMotta at the end of Raging Bull. When he's all fat and he's staring at himself in his own lack of accountability mirror, right? Like drunk and talking about the good old days.

• 1:51:32David Goggins?

  Right, there are no good old days, man. There are no good old days. You gotta, you gotta go back and, and use it for strength, man, but it's where you're at now.

• 1:51:40Rich Roll?

  I think the, the most, um, one of the most powerful, uh, takeaways, uh, challenges that you pose in the book is the schedule it in thing, man. Because the biggest thing that I hear and I know you must hear constantly every single day is like, I don't have time, man, you don't know my life. I got this, I got that, I got this, I got, it's just, it's not gonna happen for me.

• 1:52:02David Goggins?

  Right, which you don't have is you haven't prioritized your life correctly. We all have time. We all have time. What you've done wrong is that you, you didn't prioritize yourself. You didn't prioritize that, look motherfucker, I gotta get up and win this war today against myself. I need to look better. I need to feel better. I need to eat better. I need to prioritize time.

• 1:52:24Rich Roll?

  Or I gotta run a hundred miles on broken feet.

• 1:52:27David Goggins?

  Or you gotta do that.

• 1:52:27Rich Roll?

  Whatever it is.

• 1:52:28David Goggins?

  That's it. That's it, man. There's a lot of growth in that shit.

• 1:52:33Rich Roll?

  Um, scheduling it in. So, so I like this idea of, you know, doing, taking this inventory, um, tool and applying it to how you're spending your time throughout the day. You know, I talk about this a lot. You went into detail in this challenge about, look, man, if you, if you actually write down how you're spending your time throughout the day over a seven day period, you're gonna, I mean, it's crazy. Cause I thought I was being pretty efficient with my time and I've done this. And it's just amazing how much time is wasted that you're not even consciously aware.

• 1:53:04David Goggins?

  Unreal how much time you waste during the day. And most of it is on these fucking computers, phones, you know, Instagram and back and forth, whatever the heck you call this shit nowadays, tweeting and texting and shit. We waste so much time on our little gadgets. It's unreal. And we talk about we have no time. If you really take, you have to take your day and write, write down this one day. Everything you do, write that down. And you're like, my God, I am wasting so much time on frivolous bullshit. It's not even funny. I mean, it will, it will, if it doesn't infuriate you, it should. Cause there's so much time. I can't get it in. Look at your schedule. You just wasted seven hours today on bullshit. I mean, and you don't have an hour a day to try to get something in for yourself. I guarantee everybody can find an hour.

• 1:53:49Rich Roll?

  Then it becomes about willingness.

• 1:53:51David Goggins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:51Rich Roll?

  Because most people just, they're not, they're not willing to get up that early or to, you know, make those sacrifices required. So it's a function of, of how badly do you want to change your life? And what are you willing to endure to craft that life that you aspire to have? Or do you just want to talk about it?

• 1:54:09David Goggins?

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's fucking miserable. It is miserable. I mean, to get up every day or five days a week, whatever. When it's snowing, shiny, not, not shiny, not, not comfortable and to go in the gym and work out when you don't want to go to the gym. It is not fun.

• 1:54:24Rich Roll?

  Well, and we're in a culture that, that is driving everybody towards this idea that happiness is purchased through luxury, comfort and ease.

• 1:54:34David Goggins?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:54:35Rich Roll?

  Truth could not be, you know. More different from that reality, that if you wanna find peace with yourself, self-understanding, self-knowledge, uh, self-esteem, all of these things are gonna be found only through sacrifice, getting uncomfortable, uh, reevaluating what your normal is and, and putting yourself in situations that you don't wanna fucking do.

• 1:54:58David Goggins?

  Yes, and we want it very fast. If you don't see results in the first two days or the first week, I'm done. That's the mentality of most people. Their struggle is too real, we're not patient. We, like, in a world where you can Google the best restaurants around me right now, no one is patient. And for you to lose weight, for you to stop drinking, wherever the hell you're going through, it takes a lot of patience, a lot of time, and a lot of pitfalls, a lot of plateaus. You're gonna hit so many fucking plateaus, if you don't know how to get around that plateau, it's not gonna happen fast.

• 1:55:32Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, everybody wants the hack.

• 1:55:35David Goggins?

  Yeah, everybody wants the hack. There, there is no hack, man. There's no hack.

• 1:55:39Rich Roll?

  So what do you think is the biggest stumbling block that most people face with this kinda journey?

• 1:55:46David Goggins?

  Honestly, is they have the woe-is-me mentality. It's too hard, life isn't fair, these things in life are, are, are not easy for me. You, you, you look to your left, and you look to your right, and you start to judge yourself off other people. Like, if you're a female, well, she's skinny, and she doesn't work out as hard as I do, and everything starts to corrupt your mind. You start to look around too much at other people and what they're doing, and that starts to corrupt your own dialogue. We are judging ourselves against too many fucking people. You have to judge yourself against yourself. And that's the one thing I started learning, man. Th- this isn't a race against me and Rich Roll. This

• 1:56:27David Goggins?

  is a race against David Goggins and David Goggins alone. And once you can silence all that bullshit, all the outside interference and things that are attracting your mind to everything, you can then start to grow in realizing, I'm stressed out for no reason. This is my own little race. This is my own timeline, and this is how I'm gonna run it.

• 1:56:49Rich Roll?

  I think that so many people are so disconnected from themselves. They're operating on autopilot, they're reacting to their environment. That even when given the opportunity to set a goal for themselves, they generally don't set the right goal.

• 1:57:05David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:57:06Rich Roll?

  Because they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Because they don't even know who they are fundamentally.

• 1:57:10David Goggins?

  That's the big thing, man. And that's why it was important for me to finally realize, stop being all these fake people I used to be. Stop being afraid. There was no growth until I cut myself down to nothing. To the person I really was, the real human being. And once I found out who I really was, that's when I started growing. I was trying to build on top of a lied, fucked up foundation. You can't build a house on a fucked up foundation. So I had to get down to the actual mineral soil of who I was. And that's when you can start real growth.

• 1:57:47Rich Roll?

  And what is the role that suffering plays in that? Or the willingness to suffer?

• 1:57:51David Goggins?

  It starts to peel all those layers away. All those artificial layers away. If you're willing to suffer and suffer and go back in the grind, that internal dialogue you have with yourself when you're in misery and you're uncomfortable, it's a real scary, unfiltered, no lying dialogue between you and yourself. And people know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about. When you're in a bad spot in life and your mind is saying all kinds of shit. That's who you really are. That's the real you. No Rocky Balboa moment's going on up there. Like, hey, you know, it's around 14, let's come on, we got this. No, it's like, fuck this, I'm out of here, man, this is crazy. That's where the growth happens.

• 1:58:36David Goggins?

  When you're able to stay in that moment and talk to yourself, talk yourself back into the suck of whatever you're going through, and you start stripping those layers away. But as you're stripping those layers away, you're building calluses over top of shit in your mind. That's where the growth starts to happen, is when you have to force yourself to stay in it. You can't, you can't leave it.

• 1:58:59Rich Roll?

  That's why ultras are such a great vehicle for self-exploration. And that's why you see all of these, um...

• 1:59:10Rich Roll?

  Cultures over the millennia that you talk about in your book, who use running as a means of self-exploration and a path to enlightenment. Because you can't bullshit yourself when you're getting, it strips you down to who you are. And you are confronted with the truth of yourself and your reality. And you're forced to wrestle with that.

• 1:59:32David Goggins?

  Yes.

• 1:59:32Rich Roll?

  In a way where there's no escape hatch.

• 1:59:35David Goggins?

  No, like that first hundred mile race I've talked about several times where I lost all, all, everything.

• 1:59:42Rich Roll?

  Still the hardest physical thing you've ever done, right?

• 1:59:45David Goggins?

  Yes, physically and mentally, because like you just said, I was unprepared for that race.

• 1:59:50Rich Roll?

  No training. You should just recap it like zero training, running a hundred miles so that you could impress Chris Kosman.

• 1:59:56David Goggins?

  To get in the bad water, pretty much, right? It wasn't about impressing that guy by any means.

• 2:00:00Rich Roll?

  Well, you needed him to sign off.

• 2:00:01David Goggins?

  I needed to sign off on it. And it was like, three days later, I'm in a hundred mile race, no train at all. And when you do that, it is stupid. But what it does, if you're not going to quit it, like you just talked about, it breaks you down to nothing. You are suffering so badly mentally and physically that all of these demons are coming up. And you're trying to find answers and you're trying to find answers. It was like living 19 hours. It's like five years I put into 19 hours of highs and lows and pitfalls and seeing the sun come up. And it was like, my God, I lived five years in 19 hours. It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable.

• 2:00:39Rich Roll?

  So do you find yourself chasing that now with every ultra challenge?

• 2:00:44David Goggins?

  No, because once you realize what you get from ultra, what you get from life, I can apply that now just by sitting here with you. You know, those tools now, I don't need to go out, even though I still do it, and go out and hammer. The hammering part is like, you know, it's like a purging of the soul. And you go out there and hammer out there.

• 2:01:06Rich Roll?

  You gotta do that every once in a while.

• 2:01:07David Goggins?

  You gotta hammer, man. You gotta, you gotta get after it. But now I figured out so many different ways and so many different tools through all of the journeys I've been through. Through just growing up, man, just being mature, you know, just being really mature and not holding on to hate. You know, really, really just letting all that shit go, man, and starting from scratch and let's go, let's go forward.

• 2:01:27Rich Roll?

  How do you let it go?

• 2:01:29David Goggins?

  I don't think enough about people that have that have wronged me or situations that have wronged me. Because once you've, once you've uh come to a place where you are really happy with who you are in life. No one fucks with you anymore, even though they're fucking with you.

• 2:01:46Rich Roll?

  It doesn't fuck with you.

• 2:01:46David Goggins?

  It doesn't fuck with you. You know, like all these, I used to be so hurt by everything in the military and if someone did something or said something like, man. I have overcome so much shit. There's not, I, I, I, I'm just in a really good headspace right now. My headspace, I own it. A lot of people own other people's headspace. I own my own shit now.

• 2:02:10Rich Roll?

  What do you mean own other, like they're, they're just all caught up in what other people think about them and running all these narratives and they're lying about.

• 2:02:16David Goggins?

  They're, they're more caught up in what other people think about them than how you feel about your own personal self. So a lot of people have their brain and their mind on rent to a whole bunch of motherfuckers in world. I am paying rent on my own shit. I finally put a announced down payment on it and I'm making payments every day going day on my own fucking brain. So you don't, you don't fucking control that shit anymore, man. I got it.

• 2:02:41Rich Roll?

  So walk me through a day in the life. What's it look like right now?

• 2:02:45David Goggins?

  Well.

• 2:02:45Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's gotta be crazy.

• 2:02:48David Goggins?

  Right now, I, I leave here and I fly out to Oregon. And I'll be in Oregon with uh Cameron Haynes. We'll be getting out there for a few days. Uh, a lot more podcasts, a lot more interviews, but every day, every morning I get up, I still get my run in every morning.

• 2:03:02Rich Roll?

  How do you structure the training?

• 2:03:04David Goggins?

  The training is basically structured off of my schedule. So look at my schedule and I said, okay, um, Jennifer, what do we have today? We have this at seven o'clock in the morning. Roger that. That means I gotta be up by four o'clock in the morning to run. That's how it works. That's how all my shit works. So she lays out the schedule of events.

• 2:03:24Rich Roll?

  Two hour, you just, you just said it two hours earlier.

• 2:03:27David Goggins?

  She says it could take an hour to get to Rich Rolls. Let's say we were at seven o'clock today in the morning. Takes an hour to get to Rich Rolls with no traffic. Okay, let's, let's block in an hour fifteen for Rich Roll. Okay, we got that. The morning time, I'm, I'm gonna run seven miles this morning. I need uh fifty two thirty for that. Roger that. Put in shit shower, shave, add that in. So the schedule dictates, but.

• 2:03:52David Goggins?

  I have all that time.

• 2:03:53Rich Roll?

  Push it back, right? So if that means getting up at 1:30.

• 2:03:56David Goggins?

  Trust me.

• 2:03:56Rich Roll?

  Roger that.

• 2:03:57David Goggins?

  I've done that several times.

• 2:03:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:59David Goggins?

  Several.

• 2:03:59Rich Roll?

  How much sleep do you usually get?

• 2:04:01David Goggins?

  I, I like getting seven to eight hours of sleep. Nowadays, I can do that. But there's times where the, the schedule says, hey, man, you're getting three hours. And if that's the case.

• 2:04:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:04:12David Goggins?

  Merry Christmas.

• 2:04:13Rich Roll?

  One of the things I felt that, uh, maybe Joe Rogan didn't quite grasp was why you would go out and, uh, become this wildland firefighter at this stage in your life.

• 2:04:24David Goggins?

  Right, yeah, um, yeah, he had a look on his face like, what the fuck? Um, that's once again going back to the roots. Going back to who I am, who, how I became who I am today. And it comes back from hard work. It comes back from having that very minimalistic mindset. And when you're out there, man, and you're 43 and I've accomplished a lot of shit. You're out there with some 20 year old kids and you're nobody again. Being nobody, there's a lot of power in being nobody. There's a lot of power from going to scratch again and going back out there, picking up a Pulaski and just digging fire line. You're just another guy on the line digging a fire line.

• 2:05:09David Goggins?

  And no one, ain't no, there's, there's no text messages, there's no, my God, David, can you sign my book? No, motherfucker, get your ass out there.

• 2:05:18Rich Roll?

  It's like being in Army Ranger School.

• 2:05:20David Goggins?

  Again.

• 2:05:20Rich Roll?

  Where all the titles are removed.

• 2:05:22David Goggins?

  Removed, that's exactly what it is, man. And I take a, I've always lived that lifestyle. I always talk about living day one, week one. Cause I started day one, week one of BUDs so many fucking times. And when you hear that, your heart just crumbles like, fuck, day one, week one again, man. I could go through all that shit again. Like I said, it became my new norm and I found so much growth in that day one, week one mentality. But what I did wrong, I tried to put that mentality on a lot of people and they don't want it.

• 2:05:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What do you think people most misunderstand about your story?

• 2:05:58David Goggins?

  I'm not happy. I'm a.

• 2:06:03David Goggins?

  What the biggest thing is they say, look at his eyes.

• 2:06:07David Goggins?

  Look at his eyes, man. Have you seen his eyes? Looks like he has demons in his eyes. Looks so unhappy. That's a lot of projection. You know, and I, I see some of this shit. I, I, I think that the biggest thing is I'm not happy. I'm not, I'm not fulfilled, you know, all this shit. They're so missing the point, man. What they see in me is a very focused, driven human being, who found a buried fucking treasure within himself.

• 2:06:33David Goggins?

  Not many people have found it. So, the journey I'm on is very different than most people, which is why I don't judge people. I say that many times. I don't judge people. I'm judged a lot by how I look. My eyes, my, my not smiling all the time, not laughing, not joking. And that's the big, I'm a funny motherfucker. Big time, but guess what? Right now, it's easy to be happy. It's easy to smile. Those are the good times. The good times. Those times don't need to be trained. You know, I had to train myself for good times. Those times for most people don't need to be trained. What I'm trying to give you all is the misery of some times we go through in life.

• 2:07:15David Goggins?

  Those are the times we don't want to fucking talk about. We want to skip forward to peace. Let's just fucking fuck all this, let's, let's skip all this pain and suffering and misery of real life. Let's, let's cover it over, nice big blanket, and let's find peace. No. Sorry. It's not possible. You gotta go into that fucking hellhole of life that you have, that fucked you up, and fix it. And that's what I'm here to do. You gotta go to war with yourself before there's peace. That's what I say in the book. What you say in the book. You must go to war with yourself before you find peace. So, I'm trying to give you tools on how to do that. And I'm not considering to smile and be happy about it. It's a hard journey. It's a real journey.

• 2:08:00David Goggins?

  It's a, it's a journey that's gonna take you way outside of being comfortable. You'd be very, very uncomfortable doing it. But it's what we're, it's what we're here to do. Very, a lot of people don't see that.

• 2:08:10Rich Roll?

  I love that story that you tell about, you know, showing up at the pearly gates and wanting to be evaluated based upon your potential.

• 2:08:18David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 2:08:19Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? I believe we're here to grow and progress and evolve. And if you're not committed to that journey, then I think you're missing the beauty of life. And that doesn't mean it's easy because it fucking ain't. It is the warrior's path, truly.

• 2:08:34David Goggins?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:08:35Rich Roll?

  But if you don't acclimate to challenging yourself and facing obstacles and becoming better on a consistent daily basis, then what the fuck are you doing?

• 2:08:47David Goggins?

  Hundred percent. And sometimes you have to put the obstacle in front of you. That's why I went to be.

• 2:08:53Rich Roll?

  Right, so now life's good and easy. So you have to create these obstacles.

• 2:08:56David Goggins?

  That's right. That's the thing about it. I have no obstacles anymore, man. Life is good.

• 2:09:01Rich Roll?

  So I'm gonna go up to Montana or Wyoming or wherever the fuck you go to like go.

• 2:09:05David Goggins?

  I go to Montana, I said, here's my obstacle. So once your life gets easy and everything is great, it's time to go online and Google some obstacles to put right the fuck in front of you.

• 2:09:17Rich Roll?

  And when you look back on your childhood and you think about your dad, do you find peace with that? Do you find gratitude?

• 2:09:24David Goggins?

  One hundred percent, man. For me to start this journey, I had to start, I had to go back to where it started from. And I, I came from that man. That man is a part of me. I had to accept that. Had to accept that a lot of my insecurities. Why that man beat me? Why that man beat my mom? Why that man got in my head? And everybody said, he had a fucked up life. I had to study him and I had to realize, I had to find peace with all that. I had to realize that what he did, like he hated me. He hated himself. And so, once you start to grow up and like I say, take to different vantage point, I had to forgive that man. Even though I didn't say sorry, he never said sorry. We had our last conversation at 22 years old and he died about four or five years ago.

• 2:10:09David Goggins?

  That was the last time I talked to him at 22 years old.

• 2:10:11Rich Roll?

  But he was able to see you become successful from a distance?

• 2:10:15David Goggins?

  I think it hurt him. I think it hurt him because he saw me become a man, a man that he was very proud of. And he didn't have much to do with it. But once again, I didn't hate him for that.

• 2:10:27Rich Roll?

  But he was the fuel beneath it all.

• 2:10:29David Goggins?

  He was a lot of the fuel, man. But once, I will say this, anger was never my fuel.

• 2:10:36David Goggins?

  A lot of people think that

• 2:10:36Rich Roll?

  See, I would think that would be maybe a big misconception about you. It is. It's easy to look at you and that guy's, that guy is lit up on anger and resentment and rage.

• 2:10:46David Goggins?

  Even back in the day. So I gotta say, I've never said this before. I was actually telling my fiance this the other day. People think anger was my fucking fuel. Just so, yeah, anger can be a fuel. Anger got me to look into things to become better. I wanna show him. But I'd tell you one thing, when you're suffering and you're fucking at the wits end and you wanna fucking quit, that anger is gone, brother.

• 2:11:12Rich Roll?

  Well, it's also not a sustainable fuel source.

• 2:11:14David Goggins?

  Your mind is thinking about, let's get the fuck out of here. So I realized this anger ain't shit. I didn't think about my dad beat me up. I didn't think about kids calling me nigger. I didn't think about any of that shit. I thought about, man, this fucking water is cold as balls, man. I need to get the fuck out of here. So I realized anger was no fuel for me. It may have got me to say, I'm gonna be somebody. Anger got me caught up in some serious ego trips, man.

• 2:11:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And on the subject of, of sustainable fuel sources, uh, motivation's not your favorite?

• 2:11:45David Goggins?

  Uh-uh. Motivation is just, uh,

• 2:11:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, Goggins, he's so motivated. I'm so motivated. I'm so inspired.

• 2:11:53David Goggins?

  Motivation is just kindling, man. It's just kindling, like, you know, all these fires that happened out here in California, man. So, so tragic that happened out here. But those fires start by a little motivation. And this is what I'm looking at, man. It's like a, like a little spark starts these big fires. It was so crazy. And that's why I look at motivation. Motivation is just a spark, but those little sparks, if somebody comes by real quick with some water, that fire's out, it's out. But if you come by and that little fire, no one touches it, and that little fire, which is motivation, which is kindling, and that kindling grows off to like, they call it one hour fuels, two hour fuels, 10 hour fuels, 10,000 hour fuels.

• 2:12:33David Goggins?

  You want that thing to boil over and catch a nice big log. It's gonna burn a long time. And that big log starts catching everything on fire. This is your soul. So motivation, a lot of times can be fucking, just put some water on it, puts it out. That motivation needs to turn into drive, passion, obsession to what you wanna become. And once you become obsession or driven, It's a fucking inferno. So now you gotta call in tons of firefighters and call in for help for here, call in for help from there. And they're not putting that shit out. Only thing that can take that thing out, it's gotta burn itself out.

• 2:13:08Rich Roll?

  But obsession is self-generated. You can't will another person to become obsessed.

• 2:13:14David Goggins?

  Not at all.

• 2:13:15Rich Roll?

  That has to, you know, be something that is cultivated from deep inside yourself.

• 2:13:20David Goggins?

  Deep.

• 2:13:21Rich Roll?

  And most people never experience what it's like to be obsessed. And I think we put a negative label. We

• 2:13:28David Goggins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:13:29Rich Roll?

  on obsession. Oh, he's obsessed.

• 2:13:31David Goggins?

  No, it's to me, it's a, it's a dag on, it's a, it's a compliment. It's a compliment, man, to be, and a lot of times it can fuck you up. It can ruin your life. You could be obsessed, but I'll tell you one thing. If you wanna be great. You wanna be the baddest motherfucker ever at what you do. You could be misunderstood by everybody. Because you're gonna be so fucking obsessed and so driven to get there. That's what it takes.

• 2:13:56Rich Roll?

  That's a truth.

• 2:13:57David Goggins?

  Takes every second of your fucking life. Anybody that says balance? Yeah, balance is important for a lot of fucking people. It is. But if you wanna fucking go to that edge where people do not like you, don't understand you, question everything you fucking do. You, you've arrived. When you are misunderstood to the point where fucking people think you're psycho and you're nuts and you're this and that. Why are you in the fucking gym? At one o'clock in the fucking morning, you just got to doing an op. For fucking thirteen, fourteen hours at the Ranger School, man. At the gym. What is wrong? You will never understand what is wrong with me. And that's why I'm so fucking glad you don't. Cause I'm in the right fucking spot. When people don't understand you anymore. You're in that spot of obsession and drive.

• 2:14:42David Goggins?

  Where people are like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? I don't wanna talk to you, man, cause you're not gonna get it.

• 2:14:48David Goggins?

  You're not gonna get it.

• 2:14:49Rich Roll?

  Boom.

• 2:14:50David Goggins?

  Don't want you to get it.

• 2:14:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:51David Goggins?

  Don't want you to get it.

• 2:14:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's powerful, man. All right, well, we gotta land this ship, uh, but I want to leave people with, uh, a couple thoughts. Um, this is gonna go up on New Year's Day. It's the time of year where everyone's thinking about what they want their 2019 to look like. They should have been thinking about that a long time ago. That's not the way it works.

• 2:15:13David Goggins?

  Right.

• 2:15:13Rich Roll?

  For most people. Um, so let's, let's leave people, let's, let's get them, you know, set on a good trajectory with a couple of things to think about and execute on as they like lead into January.

• 2:15:25David Goggins?

  Large as that, man. It's all about mindset.

• 2:15:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:28David Goggins?

  That's it, man. You have to change the dialogue within your head. And one thing I guarantee you, there's some stat out there about January 1.

• 2:15:38David Goggins?

  All that kindling that, that you started, all that motivation usually burn out by about 10 to 12 days later. So let's see how far you can take that shit. Let's see if you can get a fucking inferno going.

• 2:15:48Rich Roll?

  From Goggins to you.

• 2:15:50David Goggins?

  Usually it's 10 to 12 days, man. People always kind of, hey, I want a workout program. I no longer give them anymore. Cause you're gonna waste my fucking time. Cause I know most people out there, once that fucking one alarm clock goes off at the wrong time of the day, I'm not going to the gym.

• 2:16:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Or they get the workout program, but then they're like, hey, they hit you up again. What, what kind of watch do I need to get?

• 2:16:14David Goggins?

  That's right. That's right.

• 2:16:14Rich Roll?

  What kind of shoes?

• 2:16:15David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 2:16:15Rich Roll?

  The question is just keep coming.

• 2:16:16David Goggins?

  Keep coming, man.

• 2:16:17Rich Roll?

  Every day goes by without anything going on.

• 2:16:19David Goggins?

  Keep coming. Go to the store, buy a pair of shoes and Merry Christmas. Have fun with that shit. Call me after you lose some fucking weight running your ass in the dirt and then we'll work on some other shit.

• 2:16:28Rich Roll?

  Right on.

• 2:16:28David Goggins?

  Get your base on. There you go, man.

• 2:16:31Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Um, pleasure and an honor, my friend.

• 2:16:34David Goggins?

  Hey, thank you so much for having me on again, Rich. I appreciate you, man.

• 2:16:37Rich Roll?

  This is, uh, this is amazing. Um, I cannot. Recommend this book more highly. Can't Hurt Me. Get the audiobook, get the hardcover. It's available wherever you buy books. I'll put a link in the show notes to it as well. This book will fucking change your life. I promise you, man. And I'm no stranger to these kinds of narratives. And I thought, like I said at the outset of this, that I knew the story. I did not know the story. And I was profoundly impacted by it. And also, just so great that our mutual friend, Adam, is part of this too.

• 2:17:15David Goggins?

  Oh, he's the man.

• 2:17:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, man. He did a great job of capturing your voice. And I know this was, you know, a long journey with the two of you guys, but it came out on top, man.

• 2:17:24David Goggins?

  I went through a lot of ghostwriters. Now, I hate, I don't even call him a ghostwriter.

• 2:17:28Rich Roll?

  That's a wrong word.

• 2:17:29David Goggins?

  Ghostwriter's some bullshit. That's why the so-called ghostwriter was hand in hand right beside me doing the audiobook. So, you know, he's a lot more than a ghostwriter. He was a guy that captured a very fucked up life. And he captured that shit just right. Together, we captured some good shit. So, it's a good read. It's a good read.

• 2:17:48Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man. All right, dude. Until next time.

• 2:17:51David Goggins?

  Roger that.

• 2:17:52Rich Roll?

  Peace. Roger that. Out.

• 2:17:57Rich Roll?

  Absolutely insane, right? Are you pumped right now? How pumped are you? There's no way that you're not pumped after listening to that. So, please, remember this feeling. Bottle it. Go back, listen to it again. Hold on to this, and then put it to work. That's the thing. Put it to work. And you can begin this process by visiting the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com, where you'll find all kinds of additional links, ways to engage with David beyond the podcast. And please, waste no time picking up his new book, Can't Hurt Me. There's a link in the show notes to do just that. And you can follow him on Instagram or Twitter, but IG, that's where it's all happening for David. Very inspirational. So, check that out, @DavidGoggins. Again, we have a special, limited

• 2:18:40Rich Roll?

  time deal on our Plant Power Meal Planner. $20 off when you go to meals.richroll.com and use the promo code POWER20 at checkout now through January 8. So, don't wait and get your diet checked in to meet those 2019 goals with our Plant Power Meal Planner. If you'd like to support our work here on the podcast, just share it with your friends or on social media. Hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on YouTube, Google Podcasts, wherever you enjoy this content. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you can support us on Patreon at ritual.com/donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Very special thanks to Randy Barrez for her amazing portraits of David that she gave us permission to use for this

• 2:19:23Rich Roll?

  episode. So, thank you for that. Jason Camiolo for production, audio engineering, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin for creating the video version of this podcast, for the filming and the editing and for the graphics. Jessica Miranda for her beautiful graphics, which you can find on the homepage of Apple Podcasts, iTunes. Beautiful picture of David advertising this show. David Kahn for advertising relationships and theme music, as always, by Analemma. So, thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here next week with another return of a great former guest, the great Zach Bush, M.D. It's so good. You guys are in for a real treat with that one. Until then, happy 2019, people. Peace. Plants. Namaste.