The Power of Visualization: How Fighters Plan for Victory Feat. Michael Chandler

Winning isn’t just about talent—it’s about preparation, resilience, and an unshakable mindset. In this Mashup Episode, I bring together four elite minds—Michael Chandler, Mikey Garcia, Tim Grover, and David Goggins—to break down the mental playbook behind what it truly takes to succeed at the highest level. You’ll hear Mikey Garcia, a world-champion boxer, reveal how visualization isn’t just about picturing success but also anticipating obstacles—like a knockdown or an injury—and planning how to respond without panic​. Michael Chandler, one of the most relentless fighters in the UFC, shares his approach to balancing media pressure, preparation, and conserving mental energy in the days leading up to a monumental fight​. Legendary mindset coach Tim Grover, who trained Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, uncovers the difference between athletes who “compete” and those who win at winning—and why obsession isn’t a flaw, but a requirement​. Finally, David Goggins brings his raw and unfiltered perspective on pushing past self-imposed limits, facing inner demons, and how confronting your past can set you free to pursue your greatest potential​. Key Takeaways: - The power of specific visualization to anticipate and prepare for adversity. - How elite performers handle the intense pressure of high-stakes moments. - Why obsession and an unbalanced focus are often the real keys to sustained success. - The role of relentless accountability in achieving the extraordinary. This episode isn’t just about fighting—it’s about winning in every area of your life. These lessons apply whether you’re stepping into a ring, leading a team, or navigating life’s challenges. If you’re ready to uncover what separates the good from the great and apply these strategies to your own journey, you won’t want to miss this one. Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! What part of this video resonated with you the most? Comment below! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:30Ed Mylett?

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• 2:08Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.

• 2:13Ed Mylett?

  Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. The young man I'm gonna introduce to you is, he's like a second son to me. I'm honored when he calls me dad. He's one of the greatest fighters in the world in the UFC, but he's really one of the greatest people that I've ever met. I love him dearly. He's a good man. The great Michael Chandler. Michael, welcome to the show.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  What's up dad? Man, it's uh, thank you for the kind intro. You're, you are the man.

• 2:48Ed Mylett?

  Oh, here's my surprise for you, Mr. Chandler. I have my really, really good friend joining us today, everybody and Michael. This is Mikey Garcia, who is a four-time, he's a boxing champion, four-division champion. Mikey, thanks for jumping in, brother.

• 3:04Mikey Garcia?

  Yeah, thank you, thank you. And Michael, pleasure to meet you, brother.

• 3:08Ed Mylett?

  So, bro, I'm just curious, Mikey, if you're talking, you've had these huge fights. In fact, I've been at Texas Stadium with this dude in front of 50,000 people. I mean, he's had huge, huge fights. Is it different in a big fight, Mikey? Like, anything you would say to Michael, you know, mentally? Is there anything different when it's a huge, high-profile fight as opposed to, you know, something, no offense to any of great boxers, but some casino on the come-up compared to, you know, a big arena, Vegas fight or whatever? Did that affect your mentality? Did you look at the fight differently? Is it just another fight?

• 3:39Mikey Garcia?

  Look, you, you've been in it, you know, your whole life. You know, I was in it since I was a little kid. So, I always took each fight as a big fight, because I knew, you know, winning one fight would lead to the next and move my career forward. So, getting to the big arena, to the big stage, you know, you talked about, you know, AT&T Stadium, you know, in Texas, you know, and 50,000 people there. But to me, it was just another night. I worked my whole life to get there. Um, and I think, you know, I was just excited to finally make it to that, you know, stage to the highest, you know, in, in, in my career.

• 4:17Mikey Garcia?

  And, uh, what I did do a lot is I visualized that a lot. I visualized the fight. I visualized, you know, training. I visualized, you know, every scenario during the fight, winning or losing rounds, you know, overcoming challenges in the fire, a cut, a knockdown, whatever it could be. I would always visualize, you know, and that had that went for, for every fight, but especially on the big one. Cause I didn't want anything to be, you know, out of, you know, my, my, my norm to scare me or, or, or timid me in any way, you know? So for me, it was visualizing everything, the ring walk, you know, i- i- the introduction to the, to the, to the fight. Um, just so that I could have that already in my head.

• 5:01Mikey Garcia?

  When I experienced it, it wasn't as new. It was already there before. I had already locked it in. I've already seen myself in front of that kind of attendance, that kind of crowd. And I just felt comfortable. I felt, I felt normal. It felt like another day. Um, the training obviously was harder. The training was, you know, more, more vigorous for, for, for the training camp and longer weeks, all that. Because I was fighting a bigger guy. I was fighting a, a bigger, you know, man in the ring on, on fight night. So I had to prepare a little differently, but mentally I was, you know, strong. It was, it was like a normal thing. Like I just need to be here. Um, I visualized every round. Even, even though the fight didn't go the way I originally wanted to, I, I thought it was my first loss, but I walked out of that.

• 5:46Mikey Garcia?

  A hundred percent healthy, fine. We hung out the next day. We flew back together.

• 5:50Ed Mylett?

  We flew back together.

• 5:52Mikey Garcia?

  You could tell that my, my mindset was sharp as ever. I was still, you know, confident. I was still having plans for the future and it didn't, it didn't send me back, you know, it wasn't ever like that. So that's, that's where I got.

• 6:05Ed Mylett?

  Let me ask you, by the way, does that sound familiar, Michael, about the visualization?

• 6:08Mikey Garcia?

  Sure does, yeah.

• 6:09Ed Mylett?

  By the way, all of you, this is a gift you're getting today that, you know, I didn't intend to give you publicly. And I don't know that I'll put all this out either, by the way, but to have two. Gladiators talk to one another like this about it. What's and by the way, Mikey and I did fly back after that fight together and I was like just struck by how calm he was like, sorry, bro. We're gonna another one. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do that. But Mikey, what was interesting about what you just said, and Michael, I'll let you ask Mikey anything you want to. That's why I brought him here today, but Mikey, you would actually visualize negatives too. You're okay with visiting.

• 6:40Mikey Garcia?

  Yes.

• 6:40Ed Mylett?

  I lost around or whatever. I'm interested in that.

• 6:45Ed Mylett?

  You think that was an okay thing do because I do as well. Might as well. I mean, you're gonna lose a round. You're gonna get hit. Something bad's gonna happen. To avoid thinking about it to me seems sort of silly. Why not become familiar with it so you can respond? Is that why you would do it?

• 6:58Mikey Garcia?

  Yes, it's just so that you don't get nervous or panic if something does happen during the fight. It's better be well prepared for any scenario, you know, including a knockdown or a cut, you know, something of that nature. But no matter what I envisioned or I visualized, I always came out the winner. I would always visualize myself winning at the end of the night, whether it was I lost a couple of rounds or or it was a tough fight. I got dropped in one of the rounds, you know, but I got up and I know how to react. And I know how to continue with the remainder of rounds and always winning at the end of the night. In other instances, different fights, I did get dropped on two separate occasions.

• 7:40Mikey Garcia?

  But I knew what to do. I knew how to react. I had already planned how to even get up from a knockdown. I didn't want to get up in any way that would make the referee think that I was hurt and stop the fight. So I purposely figured how to position myself, how to take my time, how to take a knee first and then slowly gradually walk up. And then walk a little bit towards the neutral corner, give my opponent more space.

• 8:08Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 8:08Mikey Garcia?

  More space so that when the fight resumed, I wasn't right in front of him, you know, and he's attacking me. I give more space, you know, so I would visualize that and prepare myself. I didn't do it in training camp where I would purposely go down and get up. No, but I would do it here, you know, training my mind to be able to react in those scenarios. I got cut. I knew exactly to signal my corner, let him know that I was cut. So they could prepare the medicine. So as soon as the the the end of the round was there, you know, the the bell rang. I was already close to the to my corner. In fact, a lot of the rounds I would walk close to my corner at the 10 second count. I walked close to my corner. So in case there was anything, they'd be the first ones to attend me while my opponent still has to walk all the way across.

• 8:51Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 8:52Mikey Garcia?

  To his corner. Those are a few seconds, a few seconds extra that I will have that my opponent doesn't have.

• 8:57Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 8:57Mikey Garcia?

  So I want to practice all this.

• 8:59Ed Mylett?

  What I want everybody to get, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're an athlete, or I want Michael too for this. Is the specificity of preparation, right? The specific, to think that you would actually. And in Michael's case, it's not quite as easy if he's on the ground, but the specific thing that you're actually edging towards your corner early to get those extra.

• 9:17Mikey Garcia?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:17Ed Mylett?

  Seconds of cuts. Now, one thing you were great. I this is more like inside stuff for Michael. One of the things Mikey was most well known for in boxing was. His ability to go in with a game plan for the fight because his brother's the greatest trainer in the world. And so they had a game plan for the fight. But. Mid fight, mid round, begin to pick up on tendencies that he didn't see on film. In other words. React when things don't go the way he expected them to go, Michael, right? But that was, I think, Mikey, you correct me if I'm wrong. I think that was actually your greatest strength in the ring was your ability to adapt to a dude whatever you saw that night. First, am I right about that? And two, any insight for him? Let's say he gets in there with Connor, right? He's gonna have a game plan. We're not gonna say what it is.

• 10:02Ed Mylett?

  But like most fights, you know, like Tyson says, everything can change when you get punched in the mouth or just Connor comes in there with something totally different, right? Connor's gonna throw some things at him he hasn't seen before. How were you? Were you consciously thinking as you're going or is it some depth perception thing you're using a feel thing like what would you do to read him?

• 10:21Mikey Garcia?

  Look, I'm I'm I'm looking at my opponent. You know, I'm taking the first round or two rounds to study my opponent. The way I study my opponent is I I feel his his speed. I let him punch a few times to be able to time the the reaction, you know, time the the speed of the punches and and also timing his defense. So I'll jab a couple of times and see how fast he can either block or or or dodge the punch. So I can make my adjustments as the rounds go by. Second round, I'm still feeling him out. But maybe by the third round, you know, I'm I'm already have a good idea of what to do. However, things can change like you just mentioned, things change. So I prepared myself to be able to adapt.

• 11:05Mikey Garcia?

  And as the rounds kept going, I'm also listening to the guy's breathing. I'm listening to the way he's his body's his posture. You know, are his hands still up high and is still got the same intensity behind it? Or is he starting to slow down? He's starting to wear out. Are we tying up? If we're hugging, if we're tying up, is he trying to let loose to continue fighting? Or is he just kind of trying to rest now? It's the eighth round. Maybe he's just resting a little bit, you know. So I'm paying attention to all that. And at the same time, I'm I'm I'm figuring out what I gotta do to keep countering his, you know, fight, his game. If he's changing something, if he's still on it, if he's still trying to do something. Okay, maybe I gotta box a little bit more. Maybe I gotta pressure. So

• 11:48Mikey Garcia?

  all that training came from being in shape in the gym. Training hard in the gym, all those weeks of training, you know, all that. There's days in sparring sessions where I would box 12 rounds, beautiful footwork, beautiful speed, counter punch for 12 rounds. So that I knew I can do that for 12 rounds on fight night. But then there was other days where I would switch it, where I'd be fighting, you know, eight rounds, solid forward pressure, pressure. In case I needed to do that on fight night, I know I'm capable of doing that as well. So training, I would do all that. I would do all that in training.

• 12:22Ed Mylett?

  A lot of people would say, well, some of that he's got time because there's 12 rounds. But there are but there are but there's a ton of guys in the UFC that are spending time reading. I think of Izzy, he does that. He's reading cadence, he's reading speed, he's reading pace. John Jones, St. Pierre did it. This is done in the UFC as well. They're pacing themselves in the round. They're making. These are just things for Michael as he's. Ready for the fight that I want him to at least have the gift of in considering and then just you know for back and forth was there anything and then Michael I'll let you ask him something anything um press wise that week this is more of like an inside thing but like big fights there's more press there's more demands on your time particularly fight week

• 13:03Ed Mylett?

  right and I mean can you imagine McGregor Chandler what the press demands will be that week did you I mean one of the biggest fights in the history of the sport so so anything you did mentally stay a particular way or pace yourself or that you would think of in dealing with just even press for the week of the fight

• 13:23Mikey Garcia?

  The the press that media is gonna be tough it's gonna be rough everybody's gonna be pulling you left and right everybody wants you know 10 minutes of your time and and you're obligated you know to to some extent you have to give you know press you gotta give the media some time you gotta give them interviews um it's part of promoting it's part of being professional you know at that level um but what I what I used to do was any moments that I had free time I go rest I would always make sure I get enough rest even if it was only a 20 30 minute little nap even if you don't go to sleep but just laying down chilling and and resting

• 14:04Mikey Garcia?

  your eyes for those 20 30 minutes will help at the end of the day your number one goal is to perform and fight on Saturday night on fight night to your best of your capabilities the media can wait a little bit the media can be put to the side you you gotta give them a little bit but it's not all that matters the number one thing is winning the fight you know that's number one so you gotta give them some time yeah it's part of promoting part of the business part of you know marketing the fight but every moment that I had every hour every 30 minutes that I had I'd go take a break I'd go take a nap because that would really really help me continue my my day and and keep the energy it's exhausting to be in front of media repeating the same over and over and over and over and you have to have

• 14:45Mikey Garcia?

  the smile and same energy you're exerting a lot of energy over the days you know you may not be working out as hard anymore because now it's chill week it's lighter work and until you gotta cut weight you're kind of slowing down on the pace of the training but the whole media the whole press It's exhausting. So take all the time that you have to rest your body. Like I said, at the end of the day, if you really don't feel like doing every single interview, you don't have to. You don't feel so good. I'm not doing that one. I'm only doing the ones that really, really matter because I'm contractually obligated. I'll do that. You know, the network or the main ones. After that, I'm done. I'm resting because I want to win the fight.

• 15:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, these are all things, by the way, everybody. And by the, let's just be clear. Michael's had tons of huge fights. Madison Square Garden. I mean, he's fought in the biggest arena in the world, just like Mikey has, right? He's done this, but everyone listening to this, it's getting an inside peek of what top athletes in the world think about and talk about. Same thing comes in business. Sometimes you've got to say no to meetings because you got a big close at the end of the week. You've got to be your best and peak at that moment, right? So these are all the same principles. Mikey, all the, Michael rather, all the big fights you've had. I just wanted to put someone almost the same sport, but a little bit different. We could have to, to, to just have you think about it just from a little bit out of the box, but still in the same box type thing. Um, both of you guys have had the biggest fights in the world. You've both won them.

• 16:09Ed Mylett?

  This fight, Mikey's, Michael rather, is going up in weight a little bit per his own decision. So cutting won't be as bad. You went up in weight too, Mikey, four different times. Um, Michael, anything you want to ask Mikey before I let, let him go so we can have the rest of the show and talk, but anything you want to ask him?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, more than anything, I just, I love to piggyback off of like, you know, what you were saying about the visualization. I mean, just for the audience listening and even hearing it from a world-class guy like Mikey, who I have watched on TV uh, so many times, knowing that before going into that fight during the visualization, it isn't all just about success. It's also about uh, overcoming obstacles, right? Because who doesn't want to be able to uh, see themselves knowing that, you know, you're going to be in the trenches taking grenades and you're going to be able to get through them and how you're going to react and respond and seeing yourself um, become victorious even when there is a little bit of adversity as well as. You know, we're not there yet to fight week yet. Next week, I gotta go out to New York for a full day to do some press stuff. The press is about to start picking up.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Um, and I think for me, um, realizing that I have such a great crowd of witnesses. This is, I've had big fights, but this is even bigger. So therefore it's even more of a conviction to show up, um, with a smile on my face as much as I can, but also be selfish. When I need to, uh, to take a little bit of time and maybe say no to a couple of, or you're like, yeah, this one's not exactly, uh, you know, one of the big ones, you know? Um, but no, that, that insight of even just like thinking about and your highlights and, and the fights that I've seen you in, um, and thinking about that man, cause you've always just been that man, that dominant guy out there, but then also hearing those little idiosyncrasies about the, the visualization and all the different things that you

• 17:58Speaker 01

  looked at and watched and played inside of your head, even leading into those fights. And they weren't always positive, but they always, they always ended with your hand getting raised.

• 18:07Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 18:07Mikey Garcia?

  Yep, yep.

• 18:08Ed Mylett?

  Mikey, I gotta tell you, man, I'm really grateful you did this today, bro. Like, you know, you didn't need to do it immediately, Michael, just so you know, immediately I asked Mikey, he's like, yep, I got you. He was in New York. He's like, I got it. I'll make it happen. I had to change the time on him. He's like, no problem, bro. And the other thing everybody should know, and I talk about this, Michael, all the time, Mikey saved his money. Mikey saved his money. All you athletes listening, that's why he's real casual in a T-shirt and me and Chandler are still working right now. Chandler saved his money too. But Mikey saved his money and he's a young, wealthy man, bunch of real estate, has done really, really well for himself. So I love you, brother. Thank you for jumping in. I appreciate it. I'll text you when we're done here.

• 18:44Mikey Garcia?

  Let me know. Thanks, Ed. And I want to wish you the very best, Michael. Uh, you know, we know how gangster you are. We know, you know, such a badass you are. Uh, you got this. I mean, you've been training your whole life for this. There's nothing, nothing more that, that, that we gotta give you, you know, much more tips on, on fighting. I mean, you've done it. Um, you just gotta go in there and take care of business, brother. I wish you the very best. I'll be checking it out.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, man. I appreciate you, man. And I'm gonna have Ed connect us.

• 19:10Ed Mylett?

  I'll do it today. I'll connect you when we're done.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I would love that.

• 19:13Mikey Garcia?

  You're the man, Mikey. I appreciate you, brother.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  We'll go get some dinner after your fight.

• 19:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Hey, yeah, what'd you say, Julio's or where you want to say?

• 19:19Ed Mylett?

  We're gonna go to Hobbie's, but you're gonna win this fight.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  There you go, let's go.

• 19:22Ed Mylett?

  You're gonna win the fight and you're gonna buy us dinner. So that's what we're gonna do.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  I got that. I got you guys.

• 19:26Ed Mylett?

  All right, brother. Take care, Mikey.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 19:28Ed Mylett?

  All right.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Have a good one, guys.

• 19:28Ed Mylett?

  Good luck, man. How cool was that, bro? Was that cool?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  It's so cool, man. Absolute warrior. I mean, that was the thing, too. Obviously phenomenal technician, phenomenal at boxing, but also just a warrior, man. Like,

• 19:39Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  It's, and obviously, like you said, different sports, but they're the same. It's, it's hand-to-hand combat, whether it's wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, these hand-to-hand combat competitions, man.

• 19:51Ed Mylett?

  Yep. And one of the things that you all should know that, you know, kinda inside baseball stuff that Mikey and I work on and that, um, Michael and I work on is visualization. A lot of you ask about that, but it's like really detailed stuff and it's okay to visit, uh, failure. It's okay to visit a down cycle. And in fact, I think it's really important because then you can program yourself out of it. So anyway, I just wanted to have you visit with him for a minute and, and have the audience listen to the two of you. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune, and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options,

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• 21:17Ed Mylett?

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• 22:02Ed Mylett?

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• 22:16Speaker 03

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• 22:19Ed Mylett?

  Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. I got him. Right there. That's Goggins, everyone. Number one requested guest, you don't know this, for my show the last two years is you.

• 22:38David Goggins?

  Really?

• 22:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, yeah, really.

• 22:39David Goggins?

  Honored.

• 22:40Ed Mylett?

  This is a gentleman who completed Navy SEAL training, Army Ranger training, Air Force Tac P training. I believe he's the only person in history to do that.

• 22:47David Goggins?

  Yes, sir.

• 22:48Ed Mylett?

  This is a guy who did three hell weeks, 60-plus ultra marathons, running with broken bones for 30 miles to get into one of the mega ultra marathons. And a lot of people calling him the toughest man alive, but I'm excited because I get to call him my friend now. I've enjoyed this conversation so much and I think you guys are going to join the on-camera one. So this is Goggins, everybody.

• 23:08David Goggins?

  I appreciate you having me, man. Thank you.

• 23:09Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. Start a little bit with like how you grew up because I think that's part of the story.

• 23:14David Goggins?

  Well, my dad, so I grew up in Buffalo, New York. My dad really helped create this. I'm not giving him credit.

• 23:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 23:22David Goggins?

  Like, oh, he was a great dad. Like clap my hands for his ass. He helped create this because he was just that, he was a devil. You know, he was a guy that had to be very insecure, very beat down. Something had to happen to him when he was younger. Because the, the way he treated me, my brother, my mom was just horrible. So, he would beat us, my mom, my brother, my me. And I'm not talking like, oh, you got in trouble, so let me give you a whipping. He would, he was a drunk. So whenever he woke up, man, he woke up drinking, went to bed drinking. And that's just how it was. And when he'd get drunk, he just got violent. So my mom caught my dad cheating. We got home about four o'clock in the morning. So, I'm about seven, eight years old.

• 24:07David Goggins?

  And I hear some ruckus outside my room as I'm getting ready to bed down for the night. And my mom and dad are outside my room, because there's a staircase right there. And my dad is smacking the hell out of my mom. And knocks her almost unconscious, where she's kind of out of it, you know, she's kind of loopy. She falls down, he grabs her by her hair, and drags her down the stairs by her hair. And so, at this age, I'm sitting thinking, man, you know, what the fuck should I do, man? Like, you know, I'm scared, but then something in me saying, you gotta go and do something. Oh my gosh. But I'm scared to death of this guy, because he's been beating the shit out of me since I can remember. And I mean, like, laying me out for nothing. And I'm sitting thinking, man, okay, man, like, what am I gonna do? So my brother,

• 24:51David Goggins?

  he and I were very different. When my brother would see the fighting, he would go to this room and hide. I didn't do that. I always stuck around. So this time, I stuck around and I decided to help her out. So I go on the stairs and I jump on his back. And literally, he tells my mom, you're raising a gangster. As she's like on the floor, and he's almost smiling, almost like proud. But that smile went to a frown pretty quick, and he beat the living hell out of me. And he beat me literally from my neck down to my ankles, like black and blue. So next morning, I was gonna go to school half the day. My mom woke up and she pulled the covers back.

• 25:33David Goggins?

  And what she saw was how bruised I was. And so when she pulled the covers back and saw bruised I was, I'll never forget looking at her face. Because she used to write letters for me, you know, for me and my brother to miss PE. Because we were so bruised up from getting beaten. So, you know, hey, he's sick or whatever. And so, you know, she was lying a lot to my dad. So this particular day, she didn't write a letter. But when I laid in the bed and looked at my mom, she pulled the covers back, I'll never forget looking at her face. And her face is tattooed in my brain. And why I say that. This past year, I got the VFW award for Americanism Award.

• 26:13David Goggins?

  And if you Google David Goggins VFW Award, I'm in front of 5,000 veterans. And I'm getting this amazing award. John McCain got it. And I'm up here thinking, man, I'm up here getting this award. This is amazing. It's for giving back and also having a great military career. And I could give this six-minute-long speech. And I'm up there, man, I'm talking, and I'm thanking. I'm thanking people who helped me out. I get to my mom, she's sitting back, you know, she's sitting right here on stage, but behind me. And I haven't cried in 30 years.

• 26:43Ed Mylett?

  I can't even picture it.

• 26:44David Goggins?

  Haven't cried in 30 years. I don't do that. And I turn around and say, and I want to thank my mom for not picking me up when I was knocked down. But teaching me how to get up. Because she never picked me up, ever. And because her circumstances sucked. So anyway, I look back and I said that, and I got done, I didn't even get a chance to say it. I looked at her eyes and my head went right back to her face when she saw me bruised up. And that fucked me up. And for 58 seconds, look at the video. And you'll see me, my head's down, and I'm sobbing. And I'm in front of 5,000 vets. And the guy who was, who was hosting the thing had to come up to me.

• 27:29David Goggins?

  And like, put his hand on my back. And I was just destroyed, overcome with emotion. And then 58 seconds go by and I get up and I deliver this speech. And so I tell you that because life, my life tattooed me. And so when I came from Buffalo, I was eight years old. Several learn, I, I didn't have one learned disability, I had several. But I hid all this shit. I never talked about my dad being crazy. Or I couldn't read, I couldn't write. I got held back in my, you know, second grade. So now we moved, my mom now finds the courage to move to this small town called Brazil, Indiana.

• 28:06Ed Mylett?

  Was that beating the catalyst that made you leave?

• 28:08David Goggins?

  That was the catalyst.

• 28:09Ed Mylett?

  And that's probably why you flashback to that second, okay, I got you.

• 28:12David Goggins?

  Basically, that next morning, so this will happen, that, that beating happened and maybe two days later, my mom's in the living room, wh- while my dad's in the kitchen talking to one of his girls. My mom walks in the kitchen with me and my brother sitting in our, you know, standard locations at the table. My dad at the head of the table, me and my brother at the side of the table. And there's a phone behind my dad, he always talks on the phone, smoking cigarette, drinking his scotch. And he's talking to one of his girls on the phone. And my mom walks in, and this is where she was at mentally. She walked in, looked at me and my brother, and she said, "You guys can come, or you guys can stay, but I'm getting the fuck out of here." And so, she was broke, like, she was just broken.

• 28:56David Goggins?

  And I got my shit and I packed, I, I was gone quick. My brother was kinda like, "What should I do?" So, long story short, he ends up coming with us to Brazil, Indiana, but he didn't wanna come. We had car trouble, it's all in the book. He had car trouble, all kinda shit happened, but we finally get to Brazil, Indiana.

• 29:12Ed Mylett?

  Let me jump in real quick. First off, when he says the book, everybody, I've read a lot of books. My favorite thing about you, obviously, there's this, things we're gonna get into in a little bit here that are just remarkable about you, that you've achieved. Actually, I don't think are remarkable about you. I think you found remarkable spaces in your own mind that other people could also find.

• 29:29David Goggins?

  Right.

• 29:30Ed Mylett?

  Uh, but I think it's remarkable you found them, given these circumstances.

• 29:34David Goggins?

  Well said.

• 29:34Ed Mylett?

  But, but the book that he's referring to, guys, is Can't Hurt Me. And when you read this book, everybody, I'm telling you, these stories, like he's telling them now, they jump, like... I read the whole book in one day.

• 29:46David Goggins?

  Wow.

• 29:47Ed Mylett?

  And the reason is, is because I was so fascinated with you in the first place. But it's a, it's, I think it's almost like a documentary into what can build somebody like you. But it like, for me, people that are listening to this, especially you young people that are listening to it. And I know some of the language is strong, but I just want you all to understand something. No matter what you're going through right now, whether you're seven years old or 77 years old. Those things don't define you. This man, what you're about to hear is incredible. What he's turned himself into from a dad who was in those conditions to, I think your mom was great, right? But you've sort of said, mom wasn't ever again completely herself after those situations, right? Then he goes into school, has a learning disability, he's behind because he wasn't going to school. Kind of starts just lying and cheating to get his way through school.

• 30:29David Goggins?

  Stuttered.

• 30:30Ed Mylett?

  Stutter, stuttered.

• 30:31David Goggins?

  Stuttered bad. Like my, my elementary years, I stuttered so bad, I had these white splotches. All over my skin, I had patches of hair falling out of my head.

• 30:39Ed Mylett?

  Out of stress?

• 30:40David Goggins?

  Stressed. I was so stressed out from my childhood and then now, I'm in this situation. Where I'm like, God, man, I, I, I'm dumb. I, I'm not smart. And, and now, I'm like this, this black kid amongst all these white people. And it just made me feel just fucked up. And my mom was working three jobs. We lived in a seven dollar a month place. She was never home. And I was like, and I, so, but I didn't want to put my troubles on my mom. Before that, my soon to be stepdad got murdered. One incident that really shocked my mind was, it was Christmas. So picture everything I talked about. This is my seventh grade year. We're about to go out for, um, you know, so school, so, so, so Christmas break's about to happen.

• 31:23David Goggins?

  And so here we are, we had elementary to junior high that rode our bus. And we pull up in front of the junior high school and the bus lets out, but not yet. This kid who missed the bus, he missed the bus because he had some cookies for the bus driver. He goes over and I tell this story because this story, it fucked me up so bad. And this, this kid, mom brought him to school. And I see them pull up, I'm in the back of the bus. And I'm in the very back, right by the back wheel, facing the parking lot. The parking lot is probably 20 feet wide. And 15 buses are lined up and we all opened the bus doors the same time we all get out. So the kid, I see him. The mom yells over, "You forgot something."

• 32:08David Goggins?

  He obviously forgot the cookies. He goes back, gets the cookies. I look forward, the bus moves forward, maybe this much. Next thing I know, I'm hearing this lady screaming, top of her lungs, pulling like at her hair, this yanking at her hair, this screaming bloody murder. And I'm looking over at the same lady that called a little boy, like, "What the hell?" And she's looking down under my tire. And so, I see these things on my window, and I don't know what they were, but they were like little spots. So, you know how the old bus school, you know, the buses have little things you push and you pull the window down? I push them in, I look down, looking at her, and her face, her eyes looking right down underneath my tire. And I'm like, "What the hell is she looking at?" So I look down, and this kid's head was this flat.

• 32:53David Goggins?

  And his eyes were bugged out of his head. And, and I tell you that story because a year, almost exactly a year later, the same exact timeframe, the day after Christmas, my mom's soon to be stepdad got murdered.

• 33:10David Goggins?

  So that, I tried to bury that, and now my eighth grade year, he gets murdered. And so what happens, I had to bring you back here to set the tone for what happened here.

• 33:20Ed Mylett?

  I want to understand what the hell you just said. You're telling me in the seventh grade, you watched a young man get run over by the bus?

• 33:26David Goggins?

  I didn't see it, I saw the after.

• 33:27Ed Mylett?

  You saw the after of his, oh my.

• 33:29David Goggins?

  And so what I did, so I got off the bus, and this is what curiosity does to you. This is the dumbest thing I've done in my life.

• 33:36David Goggins?

  I'm walking now, so I have to go to the principal's office because I was like witness to this shit. So I'm in the principal's office, sitting there, and the one thing I did was I looked under the bus.

• 33:48David Goggins?

  As I, so I see this, and I look under the bus as I'm walking to the principal's office, and I see these little kid's shoes. And I'm telling you this because this shit is, it's about PTSD, and you know, so I already had it from my childhood. Now I'm in seventh grade, and I see this little kid's shoes, like this big, he was an elementary kid, just twisted in, and I'm just like, "What the fuck?" And then nearly a year later, the day after Christmas, a year later, my soon to be stepdad gets murdered. And I tell you that because I slept on my floor for probably...

• 34:24David Goggins?

  I don't know, four, four months to six, to, to, to six months. Why? I was afraid to sleep in my bed for some reason. Don't know why. Some psychological fucking like, but I, I'm painting this picture for you to let you know. Boy. Where I was at. Yeah. So, um, one time my, in my, uh, Spanish class, we had all of our notebooks that, that stayed in the class. So, and you know, obviously your name's on it. Yeah. You go get your notebook for a class and I always sat back in the back of every class, man. Cause I just wanna be, just don't look at me, don't call on me. Yep. I don't know shit. Open my notebook up to the first page and on it was a noose, like a little hangman noose. With me hanging from it with the same thing, nigga, we're gonna kill you. And, um. This is in the nineties.

• 35:08David Goggins?

  This is the nineties. In nineteen ninety-five, the KKK marched in the Fourth of July Parade in Brazil, Indiana. Now, they weren't allowed to march, like actually in the parade. They were allowed to march a hundred or two hundred feet behind it. My mom didn't know how bad my grades were. She never saw one report card. I hid, I hid everything from, and she didn't even ask. She was so bogged down with life. And so I got away with a lot of shit because her mind was occupied. So it made me honestly a weaker person. So I scammed life. My mom helped me scam life for a while. But this time I couldn't scam life. I went the second time, took the ASBAP test, failed it again. And a week later, she got a letter in the mail from my high school.

• 35:52David Goggins?

  And I'm a junior in high school and she, and the letter says pretty much, your son's gonna flunk out. He's missed twenty-five percent of school. Cause she was always gone, so I didn't went to school. He's gonna miss school. And so, or he's gonna flunk out. So I was exposed once again. My mom goes, well, she read the letter to me, she put my bed and her best advice was, guess what? You're gonna flunk out of school. That was it. End of conversation. So this is when I developed my accountability mirror and. This is awesome. I, I look in the mirror and at this time, I didn't want to be the black kid in school. There's like five or six of us in school and like seventeen hundred kids, something like that.

• 36:32David Goggins?

  And I made up a character to kinda like draw attention from color. Okay. And so what I did was, I started to design haircuts. And one haircut I had was the old man. And I shaved my head up here, just like this. You did this? I did this, and I would keep the hair on the side, like an old man has. And one time I shaved my whole head and had a reverse part, so I had hair up here, and it kinda zigzagged. So I did things to be this cool, crazy, kinda like creative kid. You know, like Criss Cross came out this time, so I had my pants sagging backwards, so my back pockets here. I had toothbrush, I was crazy, man. But I was a crazy, cool kid in school.

• 37:18David Goggins?

  So I look in the fucking mirror, I see this letter, I'm fucked up. And I'm like, you know what, man, no one's coming to help me. Yeah. I remember back to what my principal said, I went to the principal when they wrote that shit in my car and in my notebook. And the best advice he can give me, God help his soul, was this. They're ignorant. They spell nigger Niger. God. And so, that's, but honestly, I talked to the guy as I wrote my book. And I have nothing wrong with Principal Freeman. He, he actually, I actually interviewed him for the book, and he was happy interviewing, he was, he's a good man. What the fuck, you could tell some black, you're a white guy in white society, we could tell me.

• 38:01David Goggins?

  You could shut down the fucking school and have a fucking damn, so I started talking to myself this way in this mirror. What the fuck is Principal Freeman, at that time, like, this is the best you can fucking do, Principal Freeman? That was my mind then, but in this mirror, it wasn't my mom, it wasn't Principal Freeman, it wasn't my dad, it was me. Cause when nobody coming back to fucking help David Goggins, that was my mindset now. And so, with my non-spelling ass, I started getting these sticky notes. Wow. And writing, you're fucked up, and my mom wakes up like, what, what is wrong with you? I go, man, I'm, I have to change, cause I, I can't stay here. I can't, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was defeated, I go, look at myself, I'm like, who am I? So I'm defeated in this mirror, and I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm changing.

• 38:47David Goggins?

  I said, Mom, can we please get a tutor? So we can only afford fifteen dollars a week for a tutor, so I have four hours a month. Four hours a month, I had a fourth grade reading level, man. Four hours a month for six months.

• 39:01Ed Mylett?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:01David Goggins?

  So I had. So this tutor did one thing for me, very big. Um, I'm trying to remember her damn name.

• 39:09Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 39:09David Goggins?

  But basically, she saw that I was slow, very slow, couldn't retain shit. And I think she was joking. She goes, you're gonna have to write down everything a thousand times for you remember this.

• 39:20Ed Mylett?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:21David Goggins?

  I took it as, as, okay.

• 39:23Ed Mylett?

  Literally.

• 39:24David Goggins?

  Roger that.

• 39:24Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 39:25David Goggins?

  So I literally went to the store and I bought these spiral notebooks. And I started literally writing down, let's say it was a math equation, the same fucking math equation. Over and over and over and over again, when it came to a paragraph comprehension, I couldn't read the fucking paragraph and then remember it.

• 39:43Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 39:43David Goggins?

  So we had like, I think twenty five or thirty paragraph comprehension things. I had to write down the whole fucking thing. Like a whole paragraph and you, you don't have much time to take the fucking test. But that's how I learned.

• 39:57Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 39:58David Goggins?

  So how I learned the, the, the Navy Dive Man, it was like a thousand pages Navy Dive Man, I got it a year in advance.

• 40:04Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 40:05David Goggins?

  And wrote the book out probably fourteen times. Like the Boyle's Law, Child's Law, Gay Lusak's Law, Dalton's Law. All these laws, but over and over, the whole manual. So it's not like, so now I've done it so many times, I can go back in my mind and say, okay, page seventy one was Boyle's Law. And I can go back in this.

• 40:28Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 40:28David Goggins?

  And I'm looking at it right now and I, and I remember writing it down so many times that it takes me to say, okay, I got it. And I can write it down almost verbatim.

• 40:37Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 40:38David Goggins?

  How I saw, that's how I learned even to the day.

• 40:40Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 40:41David Goggins?

  But the work ethic, I had to, people think I became this guy from running.

• 40:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 40:45David Goggins?

  No, I became this guy from fucking studying.

• 40:48Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 40:49David Goggins?

  I started to study for hours, what might, might take you an hour to learn? Take me two days.

• 40:55Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 40:56David Goggins?

  So that's where in this, at the table, at the table. And my best friend Johnny remembers me like, God, you're like, you just changed, something happened. I got assessed.

• 41:05Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 41:06David Goggins?

  So I take the test, I score high, I get in the Air Force. And that's when I'm like, man, I'm gonna be a paracurist man. And this is when I realized, man, I teach myself how to swim, I taught myself how to swim, but this is when I realized, man, that. I'm negative buoyant as hell. And there's a lot of things. What gets people in special operations is the water. Not swimming, but the water confidence. When they're like taking your air from you and your underwater panic. I realized I was very uncomfortable. So, long story short, I was there for six weeks. I was moving on pretty well, second in my class. And I was getting through all the water confidence, but barely. But I wanted to quit every fucking night. I didn't go to sleep every night.

• 41:48David Goggins?

  Just paranoid the next day of getting back in that pool. So, six months go by, we have this medical examination and they draw my blood and they say you have sickle cell. Sickle cell is a blood disease that some African Americans have. Basically, you know, if something happens in a stressful situations, stroke, heart attack, sudden death. This happened to a few African Americans in the military. So they pulled me from training saying, "You can't do this job." And when you live a very stressed out life, like I was living, that's your norm. So not sleeping, being scared, that was my norm. I wasn't gonna quit. But when they pull you out of training, and now I'm fucking comfortable.

• 42:30David Goggins?

  So now I'm seeing my class of 24 guys, it was like 150, now it's 24 guys. And they're in the pool and I'm on the side of the pool, I'm not in the water now. I'm seeing what I was doing. I'm seeing these guys struggling, panicking in the water, like wanting to quit. I'm like, "Fuck that." "I'm not going." So now I'm comfortable. And I'm able to see now, I'm not going back. So now, my big dream of being a pararescuerman, I'm now seeing that do this. I'm like, "I want to get out of the air force." Wow. I don't even want to be in the fucking military. So this is what I'm saying. So I'm hoping now that this sickle cell thing is gonna get me kicked out of the military. Cause I'm like, "Okay, I don't want to go back in the fucking, I'm done." So I'm not getting happy, cause now I'm like, "I won't quit."

• 43:14David Goggins?

  They're gonna medically drop me from the course. This is great. I can keep my head up. I learned how to read, I learned how to write, I passed the ASVAB test. But I'm fixing everything on the surface. I'm not going into the fucking dungeon. So, the doc calls up, I go back to the doctor's, I'm like skipping down there thinking, "I'm getting out of here, man." Medically discharged. He goes, "Man, you know what?" You were doing good in your class and we don't really know, we don't know how you got this far with this, whatever. So guess what we're gonna do? We're gonna put you back in the training. I'm like, fuck. So, but I'm thinking now, I only have about a couple, you know, two and a half weeks left to train. Cause I missed a week, a week and some chains. I go, you know what, great, man. I have to suck this up, man. I can do this.

• 44:00David Goggins?

  So I'm trying to motivate myself all the way back to my CEO, my command officer, Sergeant Lumberg. I get to Sergeant Lumberg, Sergeant Lumberg looks at me and says, God, man, that's great. You're back in the training. You gotta start from day one. Cause I'm at critical parts of training. I can't miss that many days. And I'm like, but I was a great liar. And I wouldn't look at a hardcore man and tell him that I just fucking quit. So I looked at him and said, hey, you know what? Sergeant, man, this, this sickle cell thing, man, the doc was talking about sudden death, stroke, heart attack. I didn't give a fuck about sickle cell. But, cause I didn't know anything about it. I knew I was struggling, I knew I had some, some health issues, but I just thought, cause I was killing myself in what I was doing. And he said, no, you're right, man. I wouldn't wanna do that either.

• 44:45David Goggins?

  So he gave me a medical out of pair rescue. And he said, when we figure this out more, we'll have you come back. I wouldn't ever go back. I'm like, I never, I'm never getting back in the fucking water again, but I was able to leave on a medical. But I quit. You quit. Why do you, why do you, why do you tell this? I have to. Because everybody thinks I'm the world's toughest motherfucker ever lived. And I might be somewhere about that now.

• 45:14David Goggins?

  But that's where I was. And I tell the story because if I just talk about, I broke the pull-up record. I, I, I did all these fucking races. I went through SEAL train, I went through, I was in three hell weeks, Ranger School. If I talk about all the badassery, like we like doing on social fucking media. And I don't tell you that I was a fucked up kid and I was scared as shit and I was depressed and insecure. And, and all this shit. What good am I for anybody?

• 45:42Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 45:43David Goggins?

  I'm a superhero.

• 45:44Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:45David Goggins?

  But I'm a liar.

• 45:46Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:46David Goggins?

  I'm that now, but I wasn't born that.

• 45:49Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 45:50David Goggins?

  I had to make myself into this shit.

• 45:52Ed Mylett?

  It's amazing to me that this, you know, you won't accept it this way, but like this military icon, but not really like a social icon too. Like when people aspire to be tough and mentally tough. I mean, there are UFC fighters that when they win fights now, quote you in their post-conference interviews. You, I don't even know if you know that or not, but like, I'll watch it. They're like, "Goggins says," you know, seriously. And so that guy kind of bullshits his way out of the military.

• 46:19David Goggins?

  Right.

• 46:19Ed Mylett?

  Like, that's, that's staggering. And then that guy, if you don't mind me jumping ahead a little bit, then that guy ends up kind of living in an apartment, gains a ton of weight, gets up to almost 300 pounds, killing cockroaches as an exterminator. This is just crazy where we're gonna go right now. And then where we're gonna go after that's even more bananas, but go ahead, jump back.

• 46:40David Goggins?

  So it's funny though, so I, I get out of pair of rescues, so I go to a job called Tac P. Just real quick about that. It's a great fucking job, the best job in the military, but I'm all poopy past now, 'cause I'm not a pair of rescuing. So I'm thinking Tac P's some weak-ass motherfuckers.

• 46:53Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 46:54David Goggins?

  Tac P-

• 46:54Ed Mylett?

  Right. Del Toro.

• 46:55David Goggins?

  Is one of the best fucking jobs in the world. But my mind, once again, has me shackled. And I'm thinking, "I'm not a pair of rescuing, so I'm like, you know, I'm, Tac P was a great job. I had great friends in it and I did it pretty well. But I could've been so much better. My mind was once again hijacking me. So I get out and, but from, from the time from 1994 to 1999, or 1998, I go from 175 pounds to 297. Not much education. Four and a half years in the military, I started spraying for cockroaches. And, uh, making a thousand dollars a month. And I had an $810 apartment.

• 47:41David Goggins?

  So I'm scrounging, dude. Yeah. And so my life is hard. And uh, but fuck it, I'm spraying for cockroaches from eleven o'clock at night to seven o'clock in the morning. And that's my life. But, once again, man, you can't lie to yourself. I can lie to you, I can lie to everybody else, and I was great at it. But buddy, every fucking day, in that dirty mirror, that accountability mirror was no more. Fuck that accountability mirror, let's just fucking shave my head and go to work. But I saw my reflection every day. But I really didn't know how fat I was. I, I, I didn't really wanna look at myself. But I was haunted. These demons were in my head every day, man, you ain't shit, man, god, dog, man, you wear this fucking uniform, you get in your fucking Ecolab truck,

• 48:21David Goggins?

  you go spray for cockroaches, you fucking go in the kitchens, you eat your fucking brownies and shit in the back kitchen, you make shakes and shit while you're in there, man, I was like, fuck, man, so. I come home, and I'll never forget it, I used to spray down Steak and Shake, my last stop at about six thirty at night, or six thirty in the morning, I sprayed on Steak and Shake, and they had this big large shake, they, they gave me a special cup. And they just dumped the fucking chocolate milkshake in there, and I go across the street to 7-Eleven, I had a forty-five minute commute home. And I would be, and I'd go over to 7-Eleven and get these chocolate donuts, like the mini Hostess donuts. And I was popping them like fucking Tic Tacs, dude, you know, it was like, I'd eat it, I'd just fucking pop it, boom.

• 49:03David Goggins?

  Just fucking, I'd just be driving, listening to the radio, popping them like Tic Tacs, drinking the shake. So there's, so by the time I got home, that box of donuts was gone. My mom lived about two miles down the road, cause she moved to Indianapolis, Indiana now. So, what would happen is this, so I would eat that, and my routine was this, shit you not, my breakfast was not that. My, that was my snack for my forty-five, so my, my mom, and this is no fucking shit. My breakfast, you know those fucking Pillsbury cinnamon rolls? Yeah. You got the five, you got the eight. Yeah. I had the eight. So you had the eight, she baked that shit, and then, it was seven to eight scrambled eggs hard.

• 49:46David Goggins?

  And half a pound of bacon, well done. And I would chase that motherfucker down with fruity pebbles, two bowls, or fruit, something sugary. That was my breakfast after the fucking donuts and the shake. So, this day though, I get home, call my mom up on the phone. She goes, you want your staple? I'm like, hell yeah, I want my fucking staple, you know? And that's how I talk to my mom. You know, me and my mom came from some fucked up shit. Yeah. She go, man, why you cuss so much? Cause my life wasn't easy. Sure. So I'm like, it's shit recorded for me. So my mom cusses at me because, but we have a great relationship. Okay, Greg, come over. And so, at this time, my routine was to come home, turn the TV on, listen to the TV, like blur it.

• 50:28David Goggins?

  Cause like, like literally, I have this big living room and my shower was like back down the hallway. So I turn the TV on and like blur the TV and kinda like listen to it a little bit as I showered. I'm hearing Navy SEAL. Heard about them, knew about them, but now I wanna come out and see what they're fucking talking about. Cause I heard World's Toughest. So I come out and watch this documentary. I come out, I basically, I have my towel and I have my shake down on the, on the counter. I have this little fucking TV in his huge, huge living room. So I'm looking at the TV and I'm leaning forward and I'm watching this shit. And it pretty much goes through first phase, second phase, and third phase. But they concentrate on Hell Week. But all I saw was the Pacific Ocean. Right, water again. Dude, I saw nothing but water, more water than pair of rescue.

• 51:14David Goggins?

  And these guys are like going from this big class to this, and so I'm quitting. And I see nothing but this jackhammer, guys, snot bubbles and this roaring around, sugar cookies, in, out of surf. And carrying these boats and logs. I'm like, fuck that, that shit looks evil. But guys, as they quit, I saw like their soul leaving their bodies almost on screen. Cause this, this look came over them. And I imagined, I, I remember myself back in pair of rescue training, I bet that's how I fucking looked in front of that fucking Sartre Lumberg. And I bet he could see in my eyes that I was basically quitting. He knew I was quitting. He just gave me a medical. That motherfucker knew it. As a man looking at another man, you know when the man's done.

• 51:59David Goggins?

  And I'm like, so I, I, I, I thought about something. I said, I said, motherfucker knew I was quitting, dude. He just didn't, he saved me and didn't want to tell me I was quitting. He knew it. Cause I can look at somebody now and say, okay, dude, you're good. But I know you're quitting. It ain't your fucking knee or your back or whatever. You're quitting. He saw that in me. And I said, motherfucker, man. So now I'm watching these guys go through training. And it goes down to 22 guys were left. And it was amazing how it ended. Cause these words, I don't know them exactly, but it's in my book exactly. And this command officer's at graduation and these 22 guys graduate BUDS, SEAL training.

• 52:40David Goggins?

  And his command officer's in his dress whites. He's up there, some old skinny fucking commander, fucking, but you can tell he's been through the shit. Salty looking motherfucker. And he's looking hard and his, and his speech was amazing. He goes, we live in a society where mediocrity is often rewarded. And he looked down at the 22 men and he says something about basically you all the test mediocrity. And he goes on to talk about this mediocrity and shit. And I just sat back and I said, God, man, I just want to be like these motherfuckers. I want to feel, cause now I was projecting myself in those chairs. I wanted, how can, how do y'all feel? Like right now. And I go, I want to feel like you do. You, you 22 men. I want to feel like that, man.

• 53:24David Goggins?

  I said, I'm tired of feeling the way I feel every day. I'm tired of how I feel. I'm tired of lying to myself, lying to people and just being some piece of shit. And I always knew in the back of my mind, I could be something special.

• 53:34Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 53:36David Goggins?

  But I knew the work it was gonna take was gonna kill me. I was afraid of that. I was afraid of the brutality and the suffering I was gonna have to endure. But I knew, I knew I could do something. But I'm like, I ain't trying to do that kind of work, man. I'm just not trying to do that. So I chose the path of the easy, of, of least resistance. So now my ideas, it, it became so haunting and daunting on me, my, myself, that I said, I'm done. I'm fucking done. And I thought I fixed myself in the accountability mirror where my mom put the letter down on the bed.

• 54:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 54:14David Goggins?

  Nah. So now, at this point, I actually drive back to Buffalo, New York to see my dad. Haven't seen him in years.

• 54:24Ed Mylett?

  I've not heard this part.

• 54:24David Goggins?

  And no one knows about this. I didn't even put this in the book even. So before I start this journey to be Navy SEAL, I go back to see my dad because I realize now I gotta fix some shit. I'm blaming everything. I gotta go back, you know how a lot of times like, if you're a runner, your, your, your, your right knee may hurt? But it's not your right knee that hurts, it's really your left hip.

• 54:44Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 54:44David Goggins?

  But we're concentrating on the right knee. I'm concentrating on all my shit. But I need to go back to the root of the problem, which is my dad. I gotta face the demon. I gotta go back and see what made him so fucked up to make me so fucked up. Why am I fucked up? So I go back and I, and I go back in as a, as an older man now. I'm in my twenties, I'm not a kid anymore. And I wanted to see this man and face him as a, as a, as a grown man. But still as a kid in my head, I was still a kid, but I was a grown man as, as my age. And went back and I realized he was the same man that he was.

• 55:20Ed Mylett?

  Still the same.

• 55:20David Goggins?

  Still the same. And I talked to him, he was still nuts. And um, but I, I, I, I had to go back and face that one more time. But to face it in a different way.

• 55:30Ed Mylett?

  How'd you do it different?

• 55:32David Goggins?

  I looked at him in a way, we never said sorry to one another. And he went off about my mom and my grandparents and all kinds of shit. But I looked at him in a way that I realize now, why you fucked us up? I had to almost be him to realize, it's okay, brother. It's okay, because I realized that somewhere in your fucking life, something fucked you up. And you didn't deal with it. And so you put that shit on me, my mom, and everybody around you. I'm gonna deal with my shit. So even though you gave me all this shit, you, you gave me a satchel of shit that I didn't deserve. And now I'm all fucked up and people think I'm a fucking liar and I'm all fucked up. You gave me this.

• 56:16David Goggins?

  You created this fucking nightmare of Goggins. I'm gonna fix it though. So now I get it, I look at, and this is what I'm saying in my head.

• 56:23Ed Mylett?

  That's my favorite thing you've ever said right now. And I love all of it, but that's my favorite thing, I've never heard that.

• 56:28David Goggins?

  I wanna fix it now. So I almost take it. I take all this shit, it's mine, I'm gonna fix all this shit. But I know to fix shit, people wanna find peace immediately. And this is where people don't like me.

• 56:42David Goggins?

  I don't believe that shit. You ain't gonna find it through fucking yoga and all this other bullshit. I stretch out a lot and I believe in yoga and all this shit's great, but you ain't gonna find it in some fucking room. You're gonna find peace from going to war with yourself, because we all got shit. We all got shit. People look at me, the reason why my story resonates with people, because I don't hide. I'll tell you exactly who the fuck I am. I will admit to it. People are great at hiding. So they want to just find peace. No, you gotta, you gotta take your shit, fix whatever's fucked up in you. Don't just shove it under the rug. Fix it, and then you'll find some peace later.

• 57:18Ed Mylett?

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• 58:02Ed Mylett?

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• 58:39Ed Mylett?

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• 59:19Ed Mylett?

  That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Tim Grover, welcome back to the show, brother.

• 59:30Tim Grover?

  Thank you so much.

• 59:31Ed Mylett?

  So let's take Kobe and Jordan, the two physically phenomenally gifted dudes, mixed with all the things that you have in the book about winning. Like if you want to think like Kobe Bryant and what Tim Grover did, read the book.

• 59:43Tim Grover?

  Right.

• 59:44Ed Mylett?

  If you want to think like MJ and the things that you learned from MJ and then that you took to another level, read the book, right? Did you ever work with a guy, don't say who, I know you wouldn't, but did you ever work with someone as physically gifted as either one of the two of them that just lacked these things? And so as a result, we don't know who they are?

• 59:58Tim Grover?

  Numerous.

• 59:59Ed Mylett?

  Really? As physically gifted?

• 1:00:00Tim Grover?

  Even more.

• 1:00:01Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:00:02Tim Grover?

  Even more. They were by far not my most physically gifted athletes. I work with athletes that were jumped higher than MJ, who ran faster, who had better footwork than Kobe, but...

• 1:00:17Ed Mylett?

  Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant were not the two most physically gifted athletes you've worked with?

• 1:00:21Tim Grover?

  No.

• 1:00:22Ed Mylett?

  Whoa, okay. And then, so when you would work with these guys and you'd be pushing them in training, there was a different resistance or fatigue? Or how was it different?

• 1:00:29Tim Grover?

  You know what? Ed, how many times have you had people come up to you and says, "I'll do anything to get where you're at"?

• 1:00:35Ed Mylett?

  Right, all the time.

• 1:00:36Tim Grover?

  Or "I'll do anything to work for you", until you tell them what your definition of anything is. Your definition of anything is different than my definition of anything. I'll have an athlete, it's very simple. When I first start with them, when I was training numerous, say, "What time's the first workout?", I'd say, "3:30". I'll be like, "Okay".

• 1:00:57Tim Grover?

  It's 3:30 a.m.

• 1:00:59Ed Mylett?

  A.m.

• 1:01:00Tim Grover?

  I wouldn't tell them a.m. or p.m. I'd tell them 3:30.

• 1:01:05Tim Grover?

  So we're, myself, my staff, we're sitting at, waiting. Cause, you know, winning doesn't sleep and it doesn't understand why you, why you do.

• 1:01:14Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome.

• 1:01:15Tim Grover?

  So, then we come back at, we go, they roll in the gym about 3, 3:30, like, what are you doing here?

• 1:01:22Tim Grover?

  They're like, you said 3:30. No, no.

• 1:01:26Tim Grover?

  I said, you got the wrong time. And I said, when does a new day start?

• 1:01:34Tim Grover?

  And they look at him, he goes, no, I said, no, the new day starts at 12:00 midnight.

• 1:01:39Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 1:01:40Tim Grover?

  That's a new day.

• 1:01:41Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:42Tim Grover?

  Alright. What are you waiting for?

• 1:01:46Ed Mylett?

  And even if you tell them, hey, MJ did this, Kobe did this, if they don't have it, they don't have it.

• 1:01:50Tim Grover?

  They don't have it.

• 1:01:51Ed Mylett?

  You think it's a lack of obsession? Like, you said, you've referenced a couple of times, like, sleep at night, your bed doesn't sleep and all that. One of the things that, I'll be honest with you, there's a lot in the book that hit me, and you guys go get the book. Winning, Tim Grover, Real Simple, get it anywhere books are sold. But, there's this part of the book, man, like, it almost made me cry audibly, reading it, but I did get water in my eyes, and I'm gonna get water even explaining it to you. Where you're talking about being asleep, and that you get these visitors at night. And I know those visitors, very, very well, I have them too. It's attached to my obsessions. And I don't think, I don't think the average person who wants to really win, understands the extent and degree of obsession required.

• 1:02:34Tim Grover?

  They don't.

• 1:02:34Ed Mylett?

  So, can you elaborate on that visitors that you get at night?

• 1:02:38Tim Grover?

  Everybody thinks obsession is a bad word. It's not.

• 1:02:44Tim Grover?

  I love to use the people I, you're a great example. Ed.

• 1:02:50Tim Grover?

  Why? Why keep going? Look at the house.

• 1:02:55Tim Grover?

  Not only this house, the other house, and the other house, and the plane.

• 1:03:02Tim Grover?

  And if people pay very close attention to what was just said,

• 1:03:06Tim Grover?

  probably about 20 minutes ago, what did you say? I don't consider my, I don't know if I consider myself a winner. That's obsession. That's obsession. And I love to use your plane story as an example. You went from a very nice sized plane

• 1:03:24Tim Grover?

  to even a bigger plane. But it's still not your 747. That's right.

• 1:03:30Tim Grover?

  It's not your 747. Alright, that's an obsession. That's a healthy obsession. That's what gets you out of bed. That's what allows you to, when you get out of bed, when all the skeletons are lined up next to you and telling you, you can't do this, you're not able to do this, you're not able to do this. You get up every single morning and you shake their hands and give them a hug and say, Yep. What you got for me tonight? Exactly. I got you. Because you're a part, you're a part of me. You're a part of me. And people put some, it's funny. Winners bring, all of them, wherever they go.

• 1:04:11Tim Grover?

  And most individuals, the best part of them, the thing that allows them to win, the thing that allows them to be obsessive, the thing that allows them not to care what other people think, the things that allow them to deal with hatred, the things that keep them going when nothing else will, they keep in their closets. The best part of them, they keep in there because they're worried, what are people going to think about me if I let those things out?

• 1:04:41Tim Grover?

  Don't, I, I always say this, alright? No.

• 1:04:47Tim Grover?

  Everyone says, I'm afraid

• 1:04:52Tim Grover?

  to become that person. Yeah. You should be more afraid not to become that person. Be afraid not to become that person. You, you're a big thing about, you know, meet, uh, I wanna, at the end of the journey, Yeah. You know, I wanna meet my better half and say, hey, what did you leave behind? Or it's like, hey, this is the person. Shake hands with them. Shake hands with them.

• 1:05:19Tim Grover?

  If you can't become that person, you're never gonna be able to shake that person's hand.

• 1:05:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I'd much rather, I live in more fear of, I live in way more fear of not becoming that person than I am about not trying to be him. Big time. But I do have, I want to stay on this for a minute. I get these visitors at night too that you get. So,

• 1:05:40Ed Mylett?

  I don't want people to think that winning is all like, rosy and glory and beautiful.

• 1:05:45Tim Grover?

  It's nothing.

• 1:05:46Ed Mylett?

  It's really not, and I'd not even,

• 1:05:50Ed Mylett?

  you have to know this, here's the real, I've never said this on the show.

• 1:05:55Ed Mylett?

  You have to really know these truths so that you can actually decide you still want to win.

• 1:06:01Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:06:01Ed Mylett?

  Right? Because what does come with becoming this way now at 50 and you're 56?

• 1:06:06Tim Grover?

  56.

• 1:06:06Ed Mylett?

  56, you look great.

• 1:06:09Ed Mylett?

  I've had 50 years of having these visitors in my life.

• 1:06:12Tim Grover?

  And they're not going away, Ed. They're not, that's what everybody wants to do, that people just want to sweep them under the rug. They want to keep them in the closet, they don't want to talk about them. That's what makes you successful, that's what makes you, that's what makes you special. That's what makes you different. And what do we say? Different scares people. Winners and winning scares people. And they don't want to win because of that. They're trying to win, they're trying to balance, they're trying to fit in. What do winners do? Very few of them have balance in their life. Maybe after they become successful, they try to balance a little bit more. Alright. There is no balance early.

• 1:06:56Tim Grover?

  They don't care what other people thinks. They're extremely obsessive, they know it. And they don't mind telling you that they're chasing the next win. Because that's what fuels them. But when you, people come to you and say, "You've had enough, you've had enough," you know, "Why? Slow down, slow down, unwind."

• 1:07:22Tim Grover?

  I don't know about you, I do know about you, I should say that. We are at our most uncomfortable when people tell us to unwind. We like to be wound up.

• 1:07:34Tim Grover?

  We like that, that's like a part of, that's, we have our, we have our unique ways of unwinding. We don't need anybody to tell us to unwind.

• 1:07:43Ed Mylett?

  My favorite way of unwinding is having some tequila with a buddy of mine who's another winner and talking about doing more winning.

• 1:07:48Tim Grover?

  Right.

• 1:07:48Ed Mylett?

  I was on Andy's show and I said, "Winning is more fun than fun is fun."

• 1:07:51Tim Grover?

  I remember that.

• 1:07:52Ed Mylett?

  And I just really believe that, like, it's actually what I like. Like, I like the pursuit of winning, I like the, I like, I like that I sincerely don't feel that way about myself, because I'm scared if I did. Like, I'm scared of, these visitors that I have are my fears, my worries, my hopes, my thoughts, my skeletons.

• 1:08:15Tim Grover?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Ed Mylett?

  You know?

• 1:08:16Tim Grover?

  They take all those forms, they take all those forms. And you don't know what form they're gonna take that night. And you know what? They're gonna sit at you with a table, they're all...

• 1:08:28Tim Grover?

  They're not gonna, I, I put this in a book. When, when you travel, those skeletons are traveling with you on the plane.

• 1:08:33Ed Mylett?

  They're my constant companion.

• 1:08:34Tim Grover?

  All the time. And if you notice, everyone looks at you and you fly on that plane alone. I've said, "Ed's never been on that plane alone."

• 1:08:42Ed Mylett?

  It's true, it's true.

• 1:08:43Tim Grover?

  He's never been on that plane alone.

• 1:08:45Ed Mylett?

  They're with me all the time.

• 1:08:46Tim Grover?

  All the time. And you know what? When they look at his tequila bottles on the thing and they're finished, that's because they're drinking the best stuff also.

• 1:08:55Ed Mylett?

  I wonder who's drinking all that stuff, man? Stuff gets expensive. I just love this because this is the realest conversation I've ever had about really winning, and it's the realest book about it. Like, like, it's, I don't, this isn't one of these Pollyanna things, like, it's not all rosy. No, there's a lot of it that sucks. And like, unless you wanna sign up, and by the way, I don't know if you've, I'm actually cool if you don't. Like, if you actually said, "Hey, I don't want all that stuff, I don't wanna, I mean, I don't relate to you, I'm not gonna hang out with you, you're not my kind of people." But I'd actually admire somebody who says, "I won't do these things that are in this book, and I know I'm not gonna win." Rather than say, "I wanna win and do none of the things that are in the book."

• 1:09:36Tim Grover?

  The people that can admit it, they've already won. The people that said, "This ain't for me." "This ain't for me." They're saying, "They know exactly who they are." "I'm good." "I'm good." Most people will settle for good, most people will settle for okay. Very few people will settle for great, very few people will settle for unstoppable, very few people will settle for winning. I break things down three different ways. So, look at this, and I didn't even put this in a book, but I want to share this with you. You have individuals that compete.

• 1:10:11Tim Grover?

  Everybody competes, you know. You know, you play golf, you love golf.

• 1:10:14Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 1:10:14Tim Grover?

  You know, you go out and your golfing partner, I don't know, what's his real name?

• 1:10:19Ed Mylett?

  His real name is Kelly Gwynn, we call him Richard Cabeza. Dick Cabeza is head in Spanish.

• 1:10:24Tim Grover?

  I got it.

• 1:10:25Ed Mylett?

  Everyone that's wondering what that's his name, because half the people don't know, that's what Richard Cabeza is.

• 1:10:29Tim Grover?

  Right, everybody knows him, he's gonna be signing autographs.

• 1:10:32Ed Mylett?

  He does, he goes out and people are like, "I love you in my Latin, man, can I get your..." He's had people take pictures with him. It's awesome.

• 1:10:38Tim Grover?

  Yeah, so, and I'll get into it a little bit later about that, but there's people that compete. Alright, everybody knows how to compete at something. Alright, and for most people, when they compete, they want to get to the, they want to just finish. That's their win, they just want to finish. Alright? Now, to me, if you're that level person, is that finish gonna lead to another win? It might not be, it might be in something else. If you're gonna run a marathon, alright, and you're not one of these top elite marathon runners, you're not gonna win the marathon.

• 1:11:12Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:11:12Tim Grover?

  You're not gonna win. But, you have a mindset to say, "Hey, I'm gonna finish this marathon." Now, is that, when you finish that marathon, what else is it setting you up for? But, there's people that go in there, they're just happy, they're just happy competing, they're just happy finishing, they're just happy to be in the race. Then you have people that win. Alright, once.

• 1:11:33Tim Grover?

  They win once.

• 1:11:34Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Tim Grover?

  And how many individuals do you know, and you probably don't, well, I shouldn't say this. I said you know, not associate, where there's a big difference. That keep telling you about that win over and over again, no matter how long it's been.

• 1:11:48Ed Mylett?

  Gosh. Factoid.

• 1:11:51Tim Grover?

  Alright.

• 1:11:51Ed Mylett?

  I got it, man. You were quarterback in high school.

• 1:11:54Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:11:54Ed Mylett?

  I got it. You got your masters. I got it.

• 1:11:56Tim Grover?

  I got it. Alright. Then you have individuals that win at winning.

• 1:12:02Ed Mylett?

  That's really good.

• 1:12:04Tim Grover?

  They win at winning. So, they win over and over and over again.

• 1:12:12Ed Mylett?

  You think it's you think it's all it's cracked up to be?

• 1:12:16Tim Grover?

  No. But we don't know any other way.

• 1:12:20Ed Mylett?

  Best answer of all time.

• 1:12:21Tim Grover?

  Very something. Everybody, we just, we don't know any other way.

• 1:12:24Ed Mylett?

  Best answer of all time.

• 1:12:26Tim Grover?

  We just, we can't accept, we can't accept it any other way. We just can't.

• 1:12:30Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:32Tim Grover?

  I wrote a bestselling book.

• 1:12:33Ed Mylett?

  Crap.

• 1:12:34Tim Grover?

  I didn't have to do another book. You wrote a bestselling book.

• 1:12:37Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:12:39Tim Grover?

  You know? You have another, you have another book coming out. You don't you don't have to do any of this. But if you didn't, that would be more detrimental to you. You don't know, you don't know any, you don't know any other way.

• 1:13:00Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:01Tim Grover?

  You ju, you just don't.

• 1:13:02Ed Mylett?

  Yep. You think that, by the way, I'm loving this. Just so you know, because I know people that might be listening, say, this is a little bit dark, like, welcome to winning. Like, that's why you see so many people. I watched Nick Saban after he wins these national championships. He's gotten a little bit better at it the last couple of years. Have you noticed this?

• 1:13:21Tim Grover?

  Just a little bit though.

• 1:13:22Ed Mylett?

  Like 1% better.

• 1:13:24Tim Grover?

  You know why? Either his wife or somebody in his family told him.

• 1:13:27Ed Mylett?

  Hey, at least smile for the interview after, right? We can get back to work tonight. But you watch these prolific winners. So, I did love to watch MJ celebrate that win in the evening that he won, right? Or, you know, A few times I saw Kobe actually celebrate the win. But I know the next day they're back to work. I watched Saban. And like for years he'd win these national championships and you could already see the grimace on his face for the next year in the post-game interview.

• 1:13:55Tim Grover?

  In the post-game, yes.

• 1:13:55Ed Mylett?

  Right? And like I think people look at it, they go, well then is he? And I think to your answer, you're right. Like people say, well, is he really enjoying this? Yes, and he knows no other way. So maybe it's not all. I wonder if you ask, is it all it's cracked up to be? I think some people might say, no, but it's all I know. And it's better than the alternative of living with losing the rest of my life or not trying.

• 1:14:16Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:14:17Ed Mylett?

  Right?

• 1:14:20Tim Grover?

  There's a reason it's lonely at the top. And it's not because you want to be surrounded with other individuals. That's not the part people, when they talk about it's lonely at the top.

• 1:14:36Tim Grover?

  It's alone because nobody understands what's going on in here. Of what you went after you've just won, what you went through and you're already thinking about the next. You're already thinking about the next and people can't comprehend that. And there's people whispering in your ear and they're saying, enjoy it, enjoy. By the time they say enjoy it, you did enjoy it. Now you're already thinking.

• 1:15:01Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Do you think it's that, I'm just thinking right now, I'm asking you this. Cause you watched this and you've done it in your own life. Like you've, you've had two careers. You've had a career where you helped, which you still do, where you help other people win. And then there became this point in your life where you became, you were individually winning as a speaker, as a coach, as a writer. It's an interesting thing to watch with you. You were the behind the scenes guy, then you weren't the behind the scenes guy. Do you think that? It's like a dopamine thing, like when they win, like they're already, they have to get another one like immediately, like it's an addiction? Do you think winning becomes an addiction?

• 1:15:37Tim Grover?

  It is an addiction. And the only place where you can get that high again is the black market in your mind. It's the only place. Because you only know where that entrance is, you only know where that hit is, you only know what that drug, you only know what that drug is. And here's the crazy part about it. The next win has to be bigger, it has to be bigger, it has to be bigger, it has to constantly keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

• 1:16:02Ed Mylett?

  So true. It sounds like a sickness when you're listening to this, but I actually think it's beautiful. I actually think you were born to win. And you learn over a lifetime how not to. As a child, "Don't do this, sit down, be a good boy, get in your place, do this." Then the world starts treating you. And I think you move further and further away from your own nature. I think we were born to win. We were born to do something great with our life. I really, I don't know, that's a saying to me. And I feel a sadness when I meet somebody who's accepted a life of not winning. By the way, I'm cool with it, it's okay, I'm not judging you. But as someone who wants to pursue that expression of myself, or that...

• 1:16:46Ed Mylett?

  I just wonder what I would be like, you know, if I could... What it would be like, what I would be like if I could get to the next level. I'm fascinated with... Like, I think the people that I really like, enjoy, they're curious people. Like, I want the next experience. I don't want to live in the previous experience, like that guy who's like, "Hey, you know, I made a million dollars in 2009, and it was like in the mortgage boom, or with the crash, or whatever." I'm not really interested in living in those, in those times.

• 1:17:11Tim Grover?

  You're not, because it's always about, it's always about what's next. It's always about constantly staying in the range. It's constantly about changing your mindset. The language of winning for people that win is completely different than the language of winning from other individuals. No. You sit here and you talk to people, and they describe, when I talk to all my athletes, I said, "Describe winning in one word to me." And everybody would think about, you know, they would be like, "It's happy, it's, you know, it's euphoric, it's all those things." And it is. But those constant winners, their answers were, "It's unpolished. It's uncivilized. It's nasty. It's hard.

• 1:17:57Tim Grover?

  It's dirty.

• 1:18:00Tim Grover?

  It's unforgiving."

• 1:18:03Tim Grover?

  And then Kobe comes up and says, "It's everything."

• 1:18:08Tim Grover?

  It's everything. And if you think about it... And very few people are genuine about this. And you know the ones that are, and you know the ones that aren't.

• 1:18:19Tim Grover?

  How do you feel when somebody's really close to you?

• 1:18:23Tim Grover?

  And they win? It's unbelievable feeling.

• 1:18:26Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable feeling.

• 1:18:28Tim Grover?

  How do you feel when you win? It's unbelievable feeling, even though it's short-lived. How do you feel when your kids win? It's unbelievable.

• 1:18:36Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Tim Grover?

  All right.

• 1:18:40Tim Grover?

  That feeling is everything.

• 1:18:41Ed Mylett?

  It is everything.

• 1:18:42Tim Grover?

  That feeling is everything.

• 1:18:45Ed Mylett?

  It's amazing you just said that. I'm reading the book last night and I call my wife about halfway through the book. Because when you read your work, you know, even in the first book, most you talk about in this book, the most controversial part of the first book was the dark side.

• 1:18:58Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:18:59Ed Mylett?

  You talk about it in this book. And then when you're reading this, you're like, this winning thing's mean. This winning thing's unforgiving. This winning thing doesn't give a shit if you sleep. This winning thing doesn't care, right? Like, you go through, you're like, geez, this is almost... And I, and if you're not careful, guys, you would think, because this is truth. It flies in the face, everything you always hear. But you would, you would think that it's not something that you really want. And the evidence of it, I said to my wife last night, I said, the evidence that you know winning is where you belong is how happy you are when you see your children doing it, if you have children. When your children win a spelling bee, or get straight A's, or hit a home run, or win a golf tournament, or do anything exceptional, the amount of joy you feel and pride when they win,

• 1:19:40Ed Mylett?

  I have a feeling that that's how God feels when he sees one of his children win. And I think this is something we all miss, that it is a grind, it is difficult. But if you ever wonder whether you belong winning, and that's the path you should pursue, just ask yourself a question about your children, if you have them, or your parents, or anybody that you love and care about. When they win, how do you feel for them? I literally said this last night.

• 1:20:03Tim Grover?

  So, I've heard you speak numerous times. And what people don't know about this, like, when we're on the stage together at the same event, I'll stay just to hear you speak.

• 1:20:12Ed Mylett?

  Vice versa, as you know.

• 1:20:13Tim Grover?

  You know, I will stay. The last time I heard you speak was at an event, and you were talking about a golf tournament you were with, with your son.

• 1:20:20Ed Mylett?

  With Max, yeah.

• 1:20:21Tim Grover?

  With Max.

• 1:20:24Ed Mylett?

  It's an intense story.

• 1:20:25Tim Grover?

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:20:26Ed Mylett?

  We went from playing golf to winning.

• 1:20:28Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:20:29Ed Mylett?

  That was the decision, like, to your point, like, your book. And by the way, I've said this early in the interview. Little words from people, a caring statement, a little bit of access to some information. And I've said this many times, just haven't said it to you, but like I thank you because, you know, I've had people say, "Oh, your son gets all your stuff." And yeah, he also has talked to Grover. He's also talked to Grover. And just so you guys know, I really, truly believe that one of the reasons that my son is excelling is you. And your information, little whispers you give him, a little direct message, a little text message, a little access to a call like you've done for my son. And I think that's the other thing that people don't know. Winners are generous.

• 1:21:07Tim Grover?

  Extremely generous. Extremely. You know why? Because they're truthful. They tell you how it is. It's not, it's not rainbows. It's not unicorns. It's not sprinkles. This is what it takes. This is what it takes. And other people, they'll tell, they don't want to, we talk about the stuff nobody else wants to talk about. Does that make us bad people? In many people's eyes, it does. But it also where the few people that are going to hold your convo, we're going to tell you the truth. And where people are going to say, you know what? Everybody else, sugarcoated it. These individuals told me exactly how it is. That's what the book Winning is about. Now,

• 1:21:52Tim Grover?

  I don't want people to think that it's all this thing.

• 1:21:56Tim Grover?

  If you read the last chapter of the book.

• 1:21:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Tim Grover?

  It kind of ties everything in and it explains

• 1:22:04Tim Grover?

  why winners go through this journey.

• 1:22:06Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:22:07Tim Grover?

  Why they go through this journey. Because I have this thing, it's like everyone talks about it's the journey. It's journey, it's not the destination. Well, to me, why the hell are you taking the journey if you don't know where the hell the destination is? What are you just amiously going to be running around? Alright, every time, when you get on your plane, or you get in your car, you know exactly, you're going from here to here. Now, you may have to take a detour to go somewhere else to do whatever you're doing. But you're like, this is where we're going. You had a post a couple of days ago. Man, it's nice to own a jet because all of a sudden I gotta go wherever, wherever your destination was.

• 1:22:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. I'm fired up about today's show because we're getting right into what it takes to win. And that is this, write this down, one more, one more. See, I accepted a long time ago, I wasn't the smartest, the best looking, the fast enough, with the best background, the most connections, I didn't have any of those things. What I could control was my work ethic. You've heard me speak many times about outworking everybody, but I think that just feels good when we hear it, but most people don't take it seriously. If you think that I have a little bit of success in my life, I can tell you what I attribute it to. Yes, self-confidence, yes, mindset, visualization, goals, all the things I talk about all the time, listening skills, influence, energy transfer, how to be happier, all of that stuff applies.

• 1:23:28Ed Mylett?

  When you get to winning, for me, it's come down to maxing out. And what maxing out means is you do one more at least than you think you're capable of. So when you're done, whatever you're doing, whether it's at the gym, or phone calls, or meetings, or in sports, one more shot, one more throw, one more swing of the golf club or the baseball bat, the separator is for the winners, they do one more. I'm addicted to one more. And so I want your mantra going forward to be, one more. What does that look like if we're working out? That means when we're in the gym and we say, I'm gonna do five sets of 10, I'm crazy. Like I'm a psycho, cuz I wanna win, I wanna be somebody, I wanna separate. I wanna compete. And the way I do that isn't with my giftedness,

• 1:24:13Ed Mylett?

  cuz I wasn't born with a bunch of gifts, and I think gifts are crap. I think for the most part gifted people struggle in life because things come easy to them. I like that things haven't come easy for me in my life. I like that I have natural talents in every area. And maybe you like that about you too, maybe you've looked at yourself all your life and thought, man, I don't have that natural beauty or that natural talent or this gift for creativity or intellect or humor. I don't have any of those things. But what I got is I will outwork you. And so at the gym, one of the things I focus on, they say it's five sets of 10. When I'm at 10, I go, one more, bam, 11. If I'm running on the treadmill and it's a 45-minute run, I never finish at 45. I always go one more minute, 40 seconds. If I'm at the office and I'm supposed to make 25 phone calls that day,

• 1:24:59Ed Mylett?

  when I'm at the end of the day, I always do one more. If I've got meetings, I always do one more. My mantra for three decades in business has been one more. Why? Because we get out of life what we think we deserve. And I'm the kind of guy that I know when you do 45 minutes on the treadmill and I do 46, I deserve to be fitter. I know that when I'm lifting weights and I watch you do five sets of 10 and every single time, I do one more. When it's a set of five, I do six. When it's a set of eight, I do nine. When it's 45 on the treadmill, I do 46. When it's supposed to be 20 phone calls, I make 21. When it's supposed to be an eight-hour workday, I work nine. Whatever it is, I always do one more.

• 1:25:40Ed Mylett?

  And what that does is it makes me eventually think I'm doing things other people aren't willing to do, so I should get things other people aren't going to get. And if you go to the root of the things I believe philosophically about winning, the people that win, the great athletes that I coach, when I watch the really gifted golfer and the one who actually wins, the gifted golfer, they do what they're supposed to do. You'd never know they weren't working hard. It's not like people don't work hard. Everybody works hard. That's a given now. But what's the separator to where you become the maxed-out version of you? See, the gifted golfer, they hit their 100 balls because they're supposed to. But the not-so-gifted one that ends up winning, they hit 101, or 110, or 120.

• 1:26:24Ed Mylett?

  I watch them on the driving range and I can hear them say, "One more, one more." What's the difference between Kobe Bryant and other gifted NBA players when he played? Or Michael Jordan when they played? Or right now Kevin Durant, people tell me, or Steph Curry. They're constantly, when everyone else is done shooting in the gym, they say, "One more." Larry Bird was legendary for "one more, one more." The people that would throw the passes to him, the ball guys in practice, he always wants more. He always wants more. The great hitters that I know, the Mike Trouts in MLB, they're gifted, but they just take a little more. They take that extra batting practice, that extra session. They're always doing extra. That's the separator. Learn all this stuff. You can digest all the tactics and information that I give out.

• 1:27:09Ed Mylett?

  But if you're not willing to do one more. Eventually, there's a part of you that says, maybe, maybe I don't deserve it. I'm just doing what everybody else is doing, and that's not good enough. It's not even good enough to do more than everybody else. It's your maxed out level. It's one more of everything. And so whether that's a phone call, an email, a text, an appointment. One more time, you tell your spouse you love them. One more time, you go in and kiss your children goodnight. One more hug of somebody, one more phone call, one more everything. I want your theme to be one more. Have I said that enough times for you today? So what's that really look like in application? Well, the second thing it does for you is you actually do more reps of whatever it is you're doing. And when we do more repetitions, we get better. And when we do more repetitions, we're more productive.

• 1:27:54Ed Mylett?

  So number one is the psychology part. If you're someone who's always doing things other people aren't willing to do. You always max out, you always go to the next level. You convince yourself you deserve to win. You can take low self-esteem, low identity, low confidence and change it over time by building this habitual addiction to doing one more. This obsession of one more. All the greats do one more and all the average don't. It's not that the average don't work hard. It's not that the average at your company, they don't, it's not that they don't work hard. They probably work pretty hard. But do they always do extra? Do they always do one more? Do they always do 10 more if they need to? Do they always get after it? The other part of it, number two, is you just get better because of the reps. You're just doing more of something, you get better. You get, you get stronger.

• 1:28:39Ed Mylett?

  You, you become a better phone caller when you make one more phone call every day. You become a better communicator when you do one more meeting every single day. You get better at coordination in your sport or at the gym by just doing more reps. Yes, you get better. So that's the second layer. But the third one is. You stack the odds in your favor. See, for me, I want the odds that I'm going to win to increase. The larger numbers we play in life, in every area, more is always better. People tell you, more isn't always better. And almost everything, more is better, just so you know. And almost everything. People who tell you more isn't better in most things are lazy. And they try to justify their own weakness. Don't let people who are justifying their own weakness convince you

• 1:29:24Ed Mylett?

  that you working hard, you doing more, isn't the pathway to your success. People say, "Well, you gotta work smarter, not harder." That's a lie, because everybody who wins works smarter. The separator is who works harder. And by the way, we become smarter through working harder. All the new revelations, all the breakthroughs, all the new discoveries, always come when you're doing one more. Always come through more repetitions. You find new ways, new strategies, new words, new keys, by higher repetitions. So even if you believe working smarter is more important, you will become smarter by doing more. So if you work 300 days a year, let's just say, 300 days a year, that's 300 more phone calls every single year. Over five years, that's 1,500 more contacts.

• 1:30:10Ed Mylett?

  1,500 more contacts. Just think about that just for a second. Over 30 years, that's 9,000 more contacts. What are the odds the person who makes 9,000 more contacts, or even 300 more a year, are gonna win? You give me two average people that walk in a room, same ability, same skills, same backgrounds, same product. One of them makes 300 more contacts a year than the other one. Who's gonna win? We know. How about over five years? One of them makes 1,500 more contacts over five years. Who's gonna win? Over a lifetime, 30 years of work, one makes 9,000 more contacts. Who's gonna win? You stack the odds in your favor. Never mind the person who made the 9,000 more contacts is better. They've got more reps, they've got more confidence, they believe they deserve to win.

• 1:30:54Ed Mylett?

  They just have 9,000 more opportunities. How about a golfer? One of them makes 300 more swings a year. A year, and that's just one more swing a day, right? And over a year, over five years, 1,500 more. 9,000 over a lifetime. Who's more likely to win? So you pick anything you want. You begin to stack the odds in your favor. How about at the gym? If every day you went one more minute in your cardio. So it's supposed to be 45, you do 46. Do you know what that starts to do to you? You start knowing you're different. You start knowing you obliterate standards. You start knowing you can break through. When you break through an artificial barrier like 45 minutes, you do one more. It sets a catalyst for your entire day. It sets a syntax. It sets a mindset for the rest of your life. Never mind the fact that if you do 300 more minutes,

• 1:31:39Ed Mylett?

  which is 9,000 more over your lifetime, who's gonna be more fit? So you begin to stack these things and your entire life changes. This is what I like to call compound pounding. Most people underestimate what time can do when backed up with massive activity. Right as I'm speaking to you, I'm looking out at the ocean right now. And there's a massive rock formation and you can see the rivets in the rocks. And what caused those rivets in the rocks was compound pounding of the ocean hitting that rock over and over and over again. Over and over, compound pounding against that rock. And over time, that ocean breaks the rock down. Over time, where you can see the breakdown in a rock that water does hitting it.

• 1:32:24Ed Mylett?

  Think about that over time. Not one time when the water hits it, not two times, not five times. When you add up years and years and years of that water hitting the rock, it breaks it down. And that's like getting through to your dream. You have to be like that water hitting the rock I'm staring at right now. That over time, that compound pounding breaks down the barriers, breaks down the obstacles, breaks down anything in your way of getting to your dream. So I'm sold out on all the strategies and tactics that I teach you. But what I believe in completely is the power of compound pounding. And here's the crazy thing about most people. They will give up on their dream before the compounding has been allowed to kick in. So they'll work at it and they'll work at it and they'll work at it and they don't see the breakthrough.

• 1:33:09Ed Mylett?

  But what they don't understand is that rock was getting ready to break if you just keep pounding against it. But because most people don't see the evidence. See, if you watch that water hit that rock over one day, you're gonna see no difference. Two days, no difference. Five days, no difference. Maybe even a year, there's no difference. Maybe even five years. But you have the compound pounding of every wave hitting that rock. Over and over again, there's an inevitability to the breakdown of the rock. That's true of your goals and dreams as well. There's an inevitability to success. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, when we adopt one more, when we adopt compound pounding. Do you know the kind of confidence you begin to have when you just accept in your life?

• 1:33:52Ed Mylett?

  That I am going to be relentless, I'm always gonna do extra. And you accept the fact that all things break down over time, all the barriers will go away. All the obstacles will go away, everything in your way will go away. If you keep after it over an extended period of time. Most people overestimate what they can do in a year. They do, they set up goals for a year and they overestimate where they're gonna get to. And they dramatically underestimate what they can do in a decade. And the reason for that is most people don't understand the power of compound pounding. So I want you to accept today that you're gonna be relentless, that you're gonna keep coming, that you're like a dripping faucet, you're like those waves hitting the rock. Other people are gonna get slowed down, other people are gonna take a break, other people are gonna flinch,

• 1:34:35Ed Mylett?

  other people are gonna cool it, other people are gonna believe they've made it. Or maybe some people are gonna believe they can't make it, but you're gonna be relentless. You're gonna be repetitious, you may not be the fastest, you may not be the smartest, you may not be the strongest, you may not be the most beautiful, you may not have the most articulate thoughts and ideas in the world, but what you got is compound pounding, what you got is one more. And when they get weak, you just keep coming, when they flinch, you blow their doors off. That's how you win in life, is you keep getting after it and keep getting it after it until the job gets done. So a lot of people can be excited for a day, they can be excited for a month, some people can be excited for a year or two or three years. But the winners, they stay excited as long as it takes to get the job done. They keep after it until the job gets done.

• 1:35:19Ed Mylett?

  They never stop, they're always after it, and that's where their strength comes from. That's where their confidence comes from, is knowing their capacity to keep coming at you. And that all your competition's gonna get weak, they're gonna get tired, they're gonna surrender, they're gonna give in, they're gonna think they made it, they're gonna take a break, they're gonna cool it, and you just keep coming. It's just nature, just like the nature of the ocean against that rock. It's just nature that you run down your dream, that you knock down your dream. I want you to implement all the things that I teach on max out. All the tactics, all the strategies, but more than anything, I want you to buy into the fact of an inevitability of you winning, that it's inevitable, that it might not be a year or two years or three years, but you're gonna stay excited and you're gonna keep doing one more until the job gets done.

• 1:36:04Ed Mylett?

  Today's message is very simple. You can win, you should win, and you will win. I want you to feel this, you will win if you just keep coming, you keep getting after it, you keep doing one more. You can control this. You can't control all the exterior things in your life, people's attitudes, how they treat you, who cancels on you, who changes their mind, who hates on you, who lets you down, but you can control this. You can always go 46 instead of 45. You can always go 11 instead of 10. You can always make the next phone call, always do one more meeting, always do one more, always, always, always. And I promise you, you will knock down that rock that's in between you and your dream and make them come true. Today's really simple.

• 1:36:46Ed Mylett?

  You're gonna knock down whatever that rock is that's in between you and your dream. You're gonna keep after it, you're gonna be relentless, you're not gonna give in. You're gonna be the person who stays excited until the entire job gets done, until that dream is real, and you know long-term, all these other people, they're gonna flinch, they're gonna get weak, and you won't. You've adopted a max out mindset, and I want to remind you today to stay connected with me. I want you to win. Hope you can feel it today. I want to break it down to its most simple form, which is that you use nature to your advantage. You use the force of you, the force of effort, the force of sustained effort over an extended period of time to wear out the obstacles in front of you and your dream. I want you to feel the confidence that comes with it.

• 1:37:29Ed Mylett?

  I'm telling you, look at me, listen to me, you're gonna do this. You're gonna win if, and it's a big if, if you'll just adopt it. It ought to be written everywhere, one more, one more, max out, everywhere you can put it. It's inevitable. It's not if anymore, it's just when.