715 Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds with David Goggins

CHOOSE THE PATH OF MOST RESISTANCE. Do you avoid challenging yourself? If you do, you’re cheating yourself of reaching your full potential. There is so much you can learn through pain. But we want to avoid it. We want to stay in our comfort zone. Growth, though, is found in the discomfort zone. You have to have the courage to face sickness, disappointment, and discomfort. That’s why I’m so excited to share this conversation I had with someone who has mastered the art of using pain as a way to better himself: David Goggins. David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL and is the only member of the U. S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U. S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. David is indisputably one of the world’s best endurance athletes. He has completed over 60 endurance races, regularly placing in the top five and taken home first place several times. David says that if don’t give yourself a way out, your body will figure out a way to persevere. We are capable of so much more than we know. Mental toughness isn’t a class, it’s a lifestyle. Learn how to change your outlook on the “bad things” that happen to you and to be excited about what you can learn through hardship on Episode 715. Some Questions I Ask: What was the hardest obstacle to overcome growing up? (16:53) What was the greatest lesson your mom taught you? (25:04) When someone’s lacking confidence, how can they gain more? (33:37) What’s your biggest insecurity? (36:21) Do you have any fears today? (1:11:52) What’s the greatest lesson your father taught you? (1:26:50) In This Episode You Will Learn: What made David apply for the Military (23:04) What David believes the key to life is (35:44) Why getting sick was the best thing that ever happened to David (37:43) About the 40 Percent Rule (38:49) How to retrain your mind when you want to seek comfort (41:10) What haunts David the most (47:33) The importance of long-term gratification (1:04:20) Why you need to be quiet with yourself to succeed (1:11:08) David’s morning routine (1:17:18) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Master your mind and defy the odds. Episode 715 with David Goggins. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Marcus Aurelius said, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." And Thomas Jefferson said, "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." I want you to reflect on that for a moment. How has your attitude been over the last few weeks, months, and years? Have you been showing up with an attitude of mental strength? Or have you become a victim to your circumstances, to outside events, and allowed your attitude to dictate what you create in your life?

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  I got so fired up on this interview, and I'm already making changes in my life to try to expand my mind to even more capacity of what I'm capable of. And as you guys know, I'm constantly doing that on a daily basis. I'm constantly pushing myself, but after listening to this, wow. Get ready for an incredible interview. If you don't know who David Goggins is, he is an ultra marathon runner, ultra distance cyclist, triathlete, and former world record holder for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours. He is a retired Navy SEAL and is the only member of the US Armed Forces to complete SEAL training, including two hell weeks, the US Army Ranger School, where he graduated

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  as enlisted honor man, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. He's completed over 60 ultra marathons, triathlons. and all tricerathlons, setting new course records and regularly placing in the top five. He once held the world record for pull-ups completing 4,030 in 17 hours. And he's a sought-after public speaker, coach of numerous sports teams and coaching people in the Fortune 500 companies. He's an inspiration. And in this interview, we talk about failure, hell, disappointment, discomfort, and how it's a great learning tool for you and it's super important.

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  We talk about how the conversation you have with yourself can be the most terrifying thing based on what you're saying to yourself. How growing up with an abusive father shaped his way of thinking and we dive in deep on those stories. The importance of recognizing and recalling what you've been through and slowing down so you can appreciate life in this moment. Both David and I reflected on this, on how we never celebrated the wins in our life and how it always hurt us. How do you gain confidence in yourself when no one believes in you? We talk about that. Why he runs every single morning without taking any days off. The power of that for his body and mind.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  We talk about how to make yourself accountable and running towards what makes you uncomfortable. Guys, I'm telling you, this is a game changer interview. Do yourself a favor, listen to the whole thing. And when you are done, send me a message on Instagram, on your stories, on Twitter, wherever you want to. Send me a message and tell me the one action step you're going to take differently moving forward. I do something crazy afterwards. I talked to David afterwards and said, I'm giving myself a challenge. For the 30 last days of the year, I'm going to be running every single day. If you guys want to join me on that challenge, let's do it together. But send me the action step you're going to commit to.

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  I want a 30-day commitment of something that's going to push you out of your comfort zone. Let me know on Instagram stories, at Lewis Howes and share this with a friend. I'm telling you, we can all elevate our minds. We can all defy the odds in our own life. Share this with a friend right now as you're listening because it is going to blow people away. LewisHowes.com/715.

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  All right, it's time, guys. I'm super pumped for this. Master your mind, defy the odds, take your belief in your life to the next level. Let's give it up for the one and only David Goggins.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We have the inspiring David Goggins in the house. Good to see you, man.

• 4:56David Goggins?

  Thank you.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  Very excited about this. I first heard about you through Jesse Isler's book, Living with a Seal. And he came on to talk about his experience and he actually didn't mention your name because you didn't want to be known.

• 5:08David Goggins?

  Right.

• 5:09Lewis Howes?

  A few years ago.

• 5:10David Goggins?

  Right.

• 5:10Lewis Howes?

  But now you're wanting to be known and you're putting your message out everywhere.

• 5:14David Goggins?

  Right.

• 5:15Lewis Howes?

  And I'm just curious quickly, why did you want to not be known then, but now you do want to have your message out there?

• 5:21David Goggins?

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

• 5:45Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 5:46David Goggins?

  So that's why, that's, that's the biggest reason why.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  And when did you start putting yourself out there, doing interviews and talking about your message? And you got on social media and started sharing videos. When, when did you decide to do that?

• 5:58David Goggins?

  Well, I've been talking to people for several years and I wasn't really big on, like my mindset is very different to most people.

• 6:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:05David Goggins?

  It's a mindset of, um, I don't want to be known too much. I don't want too many looky-loos in my life. Because that's where I gained my strength. I gained my strength from a place of quiet. And the more I got my story out there, the more I realized it no longer be David Goggins, the quiet man. It'd be David Goggins, the guy that's on Instagram, answering this, answering that. Cause I'm also a guy that's always about, if someone reaches out to me, I'm not gonna sit back and say, oh, you know, whatever. I'm gonna reach back to you. So it's gonna take time.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:39David Goggins?

  Out of me trying to gain strength and me trying to get running to go. So that was a big deterrent for me to get on Instagram and all that stuff. I'm not, I'm not big on social media anyway.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:48David Goggins?

  But then I realized that God put me in a very interesting spot in life where he made hell.

• 6:56David Goggins?

  My teacher.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:57David Goggins?

  He made hell my teacher. And a lot of people don't understand that. So I'm trying to give people a different thought process of life. Where failure, hell, disappointment, discomfort is a great learning tool. And many people don't understand that. And a lot of people won't even understand this interview when we get done with it. But it's these few moments in life that you have. Like for me, I always talk about it. Rocky won round 14. That one two-minute and 13-second clip of Rocky getting up when Apollo knocked him down.

• 7:40David Goggins?

  That one clip, when I was going through a very bad time in my life, I saw what I wanted to be. And it wasn't a guy that won. It wasn't a guy that won everything he did. It was a guy that kept getting up after being knocked down. So I realized if that two minutes and 13 seconds changed my life. So I was. I saw something that I needed to be in the world I was living in.

• 8:07David Goggins?

  Maybe my story will give someone the two minutes and 13 seconds they need to change their life. Means that people live in a very comfortable place, that's fine. Don't listen to me.

• 8:20David Goggins?

  A lot of people are looking for that two minutes and 13 seconds.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 8:23David Goggins?

  And I might be that person. That's why I started sharing it.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you talked about in the very beginning, I like this. Your job is to be the best of your ability. This will hurt. The mission is not about making yourself feel better. The mission is about being better and having a greater impact in the world. And it sounds like you understanding the fact that you need to put yourself out there a little bit more.

• 8:42David Goggins?

  Right.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Is going to reach more people and impact more people as opposed to always being quiet.

• 8:47David Goggins?

  Right.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Is that what I'm hearing you saying?

• 8:49David Goggins?

  Exactly. I, I, I'd have found a happy medium.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:51David Goggins?

  Because what's the point? Like we all have a story. And I believe that we're all teachers. And if you don't learn something and give back what you learned.

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:03David Goggins?

  What's the point of living?

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  And you're wasting.

• 9:04David Goggins?

  Yeah, you're wasting. You have all this knowledge of what you learned. Some people may think you're crazy. Some people may, you know, may put a title on you. But it's those few people who are like, you know what? I need to hear that.

• 9:15Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:15David Goggins?

  So you have to put yourself out there.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  So was there an awakening for you in the last few years that said, okay, I'm not, I'm not doing this enough. I'm putting myself out there. I'm not telling my story. I'm wasting certain aspects of my life by not giving that message out?

• 9:30David Goggins?

  There were a lot of emails that came in to me. And I didn't realize, when you live your life, you don't know what it's doing to people. Cause it's my life. I didn't know my life was as bad as it was because it's my life. It's what I went through.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Think it's like the norm?

• 9:46David Goggins?

  It's the norm.

• 9:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:47David Goggins?

  That's what I did, man. But when I started getting these emails from people saying, hey, you know what? You changed my life. That part changed my life. That part of your story changed my life. And, cause I have so many different parts of my life that so many people resonate with different spots. Maybe it's the obese part. Maybe it's the bullying part. Maybe it's the learning disability part. Maybe it's the abusive parent part. Whatever it may be. So many people draw from my story and I started getting these emails. And I was like, God, man, you know, I'm a big believer in something more powerful than me. I don't know what it is, but I'm not the end all. So I was like, uh, I gotta start doing more.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:28David Goggins?

  If I'm touching these people's lives.

• 10:30Lewis Howes?

  A few people here and there.

• 10:31David Goggins?

  Right. Maybe I need to go out here and do some more.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  Crazy story, man. I mean, if you guys haven't gotten the book, you guys can preorder the book. This is actually a galley copy here, printed out. Uh, make sure you guys check this out. Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. And I was, when I was reading the first part of the book about your childhood, I mean, your father just seemed like. Was just so abusive physically. I mean, it's one thing to be emotionally abusive and another thing to be physically. And when you have both, it's like the perfect storm of like the makings for chaos in your life.

• 11:02David Goggins?

  Right.

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  And it just sounded like he was just nasty.

• 11:05David Goggins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Nasty and everything was your fault and you were always wrong and you weren't living up to a standard, both you and your brother and your mom.

• 11:12David Goggins?

  Right.

• 11:13Lewis Howes?

  And it was just constant physical abuse over and over. I mean, the story of you just being bent over and him just like whipping you over and over and you just gasping for air. I was just like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.

• 11:22David Goggins?

  Right.

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  How did you deal with that? How did you like overcome the constant physical and emotional abuse?

• 11:29David Goggins?

  You know what? It's all I knew.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:33David Goggins?

  So when you're born to that, it's all you know. You, I mean, you know something's not right because in my mind at a young kid, I could tell, man, you know, the way I was processing things wasn't right.

• 11:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:45David Goggins?

  I mean, I suffer from severe toxic stress. And that was one of the big reasons why I had a learning disability. My focus in life was way off. I was afraid. I was afraid of everything. And when you have that kind of foundation growing up, that's where you start life at. Is being abused and also working all nights at a skating rink, not going to school. And you have a guy who's an alcoholic and the second he got drunk, he got mad. So our house lived in fear.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:18David Goggins?

  And the one thing that you can't ever get out of a kid's mind is your mom's mind, like, like your mom's face.

• 12:26Lewis Howes?

  The terror of your mom.

• 12:27David Goggins?

  The terror of your mom's face. So I didn't care about my brother. I didn't care about me. But I saw this woman go from Mary Poppins, the sweetest person on the planet earth. And when you see your mom. Start to transform to a shell. To a person whose face becomes stoic, a person who has no emotion. And that changes a kid.

• 12:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:53David Goggins?

  And when you're young and you have to grow up so fast, so by eight years old, my mind was of a of a forty year olds, life came at me. And it makes your brain, you know, you're not outside playing with kids. You know, you're trying to avoid getting beat.

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:08David Goggins?

  You know, you're avoiding all these things.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  When you go home, it's supposed to be safe.

• 13:12David Goggins?

  Right.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  And you're getting beat again.

• 13:14David Goggins?

  Exactly. And what's funny about that, we lived in, on, on Paradise Road.

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:18David Goggins?

  We lived on Paradise Road and it was.

• 13:21Lewis Howes?

  Wasn't so paradise.

• 13:22David Goggins?

  It was anything but paradise, man. You know, once those doors shut.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:25David Goggins?

  You know, my dad gave everybody a different view of him.

• 13:29Lewis Howes?

  He wore the nice tailored suits, he smiled.

• 13:31David Goggins?

  That's right. Your dad's amazing. Those doors shut, man. And the devil himself came out. So it was, it was, it was rough and that's why my foundation was so, uh, was so beaten down as, at, you know, at a young age.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  So, learning disability, I grew up dyslexic, so I can relate to that of just like constantly feeling stupid and insecure and, you know, I had a tutor my entire life.

• 13:53David Goggins?

  It's horrible.

• 13:53Lewis Howes?

  Till I finished college, I had a tutor.

• 13:55David Goggins?

  Right.

• 13:56Lewis Howes?

  Second grade reading level when I was in eighth grade. It was just like a constant struggle.

• 14:00David Goggins?

  Right.

• 14:00Lewis Howes?

  Emotionally. And I took that outlet into sports and said, I'm gonna just train myself to be the best I can be. In a place where I can learn something differently.

• 14:08David Goggins?

  Right.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  And pick up a different skill. But with, with your learning disability, with your dad beating you, screaming at you, emotionally challenging your mind with, uh, the racism you dealt with, with, um, the different struggles you felt with bullies, what was the cha, the hardest obstacle to overcome from up until about fifteen, sixteen?

• 14:30David Goggins?

  The hardest obstacle was myself.

• 14:32Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 14:33David Goggins?

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

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  What were you saying to yourself?

• 15:09David Goggins?

  I'm dumb. I'm nobody. I mean, my dad was great in mental warfare. A drunk, insecure man will make everybody around him feel like hell.

• 15:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:22David Goggins?

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

• 16:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:01David Goggins?

  You know, with kids who can't learn.

• 16:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:03David Goggins?

  Then it was confirmed, what, you know, what my dad was saying. So that confirmed it. Then I started cheating. So I started realizing, you know what? I'm taking the easy way out again.

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:12David Goggins?

  And it started snowballing from there. Now, now the kids are calling me nigger.

• 16:17David Goggins?

  But it wasn't all the kids. So what happens is you start to get this picture that everybody hates you. Because your reality becomes so, so big that you don't, I mean, you can't see the clear picture.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  It might've been three or four kids.

• 16:31David Goggins?

  That's it.

• 16:31Lewis Howes?

  Doing it over and over.

• 16:32David Goggins?

  Right. But it was the whole town.

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:34David Goggins?

  Everybody hated me. So.

• 16:36Lewis Howes?

  The world hates me.

• 16:37David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:38David Goggins?

  And that's when it, that's when it became toxic. And that is where I became my worst enemy.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So those are the conversations.

• 16:45David Goggins?

  Those are the conversations.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  When did you start to realize that those conversations weren't supporting your life?

• 16:52David Goggins?

  So my mom was getting ready to get married. And this guy came into our lives. His name was Wilmeth. He came into our lives and like I always say, whenever my life's getting better. God will put another challenge in front of me. He gets murdered.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 17:10David Goggins?

  And we moved back to Brazil. So, so we moved from this town, this small town in Brazil, and we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. A lot more blacks, a lot more different colors.

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Weren't you living in New York at some point, too?

• 17:24David Goggins?

  I was born in Buffalo, New York.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 17:26David Goggins?

  And I went from Buffalo to Indiana, and then from Indiana to Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis, Indiana, you know, he got murdered when I was in Indianapolis. We went back to Brazil. We went back to Brazil. This is when the racism started.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:38David Goggins?

  Because now I'm sixteen. So when I was first in Brazil, I was eight and nine. Kids don't care.

• 17:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:44David Goggins?

  You're just a kid. I look different, but kids don't care.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:47David Goggins?

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

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, in Brazil?

• 18:08David Goggins?

  In Brazil.

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  In Portuguese?

• 18:10David Goggins?

  No, no, my fault. Brazil, Indiana.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh, gosh.

• 18:12David Goggins?

  Yeah, my fault, Brazil, Indiana.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  I was like, oh, well, you went to Brazil. I was like.

• 18:15David Goggins?

  No, no, Brazil, Indiana.

• 18:16Lewis Howes?

  Brazil, Indiana, yeah. From Indianapolis to Brazil, Indiana. Got it.

• 18:19David Goggins?

  So I was in Brazil, Indiana, and about ten minutes from Brazil, Indiana is a small town called Center Point, Indiana.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 18:26David Goggins?

  And Center Point, Indiana was, at that time, a huge hub of the KKK.

• 18:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:32David Goggins?

  In nineteen ninety-five, the Klan marched in a Fourth of July parade. And I don't know if the pictures, if, if, if any pictures are in there. But if not, there's a picture in the book.

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:42David Goggins?

  In nineteen ninety-five, ten minutes from my house, of crosses being burnt.

• 18:47Lewis Howes?

  Ten minutes from your house?

• 18:47David Goggins?

  Ten minutes from my house.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:49David Goggins?

  So when you have all this negativity growing up, and now you're cheating, and you're doing this, and you, and, and, and your dad beats you, and your mom's fiance gets murdered, and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and then you come to this. And your mom's working three jobs. She's not home at all. She never saw one report card of mine. She didn't know how bad off I was in school. She was hustling, trying to make money. And I was the man of the house, lying, sneaking around, not going to school, cheating. Right, everything I could.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:20David Goggins?

  I walked out of school one day and saw this nigga, "We're gonna kill you" on my car. And I went in to get the principal. There are several incidents like this that happen. I went to get the principal and the principal, he couldn't give me any advice. And I didn't want to tell my mom about it because my mom was already bothered by my dad beating her down and now her fiance got murdered. So I didn't want to bother her.

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  The last thing on her mind.

• 19:42David Goggins?

  Yeah.

• 19:42Lewis Howes?

  She's like, I've dealt with this my whole life.

• 19:43David Goggins?

  Right. I didn't want to bother with anything, man. So I kept everything away from her. So I'm in the car wash trying to scrub this stuff off. And I got home and so happens, two weeks later, she gets a note from school. And the note says, your son is going to fail. He's not going to graduate. And she's like, what is this? And I had to come clean with my mom of all the years of me cheating, of all the bullying, of all this and all that. And she was such in a bad spot in her life that the best thing she could do was like, hey, you know, you're going to fail. You're going to fail school.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:21David Goggins?

  And I was like, my God, man. Like, she was in a dark place. And I was in a dark place. And we were kind of on our own, in the same house, but living different lives. And I realized at this time in my life, she was a great mom, but I was on my own. And that's when the real big change happened for me. So I said, I'm going to join the military.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  Six, seventeen?

• 20:42David Goggins?

  Seventeen, eighteen. I wanted to go into the delayed entry program. And I went to take the ASVAB test and I cheated.

• 20:49Lewis Howes?

  That's what you knew.

• 20:50David Goggins?

  That's what I did.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  You're good.

• 20:52David Goggins?

  So I got my friend. Because I walked into recruiter's office and recruiter says, hey, you got to take this ASVAB test. Second I heard test, I was like, man, oh, hang on a second.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  I care test, it saved my life, man.

• 21:02David Goggins?

  I'm going to go, can I come back tomorrow?

• 21:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:04David Goggins?

  So I come back, the recruiter starts handing these tests out. And I'm like, great, I'm going to sit with my boy. I'm going to copy off my boy. He had a different test than I did.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 21:14David Goggins?

  So I couldn't copy off him. And that's when the light bulb hit on. So I failed this test several times.

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  Failed twice?

• 21:20David Goggins?

  I failed it twice. I actually failed it. I failed it twice. And the third time, I said, Mom, I need help.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:26David Goggins?

  And she said, um, we don't have much money, but we can afford a tutor for one hour a week for six months. Because this is my last time taking the test. And so I had to learn, so I had a third grade reading level. I'm a junior in high school.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:40David Goggins?

  So I had six months to learn all this stuff. And I only had to tutor for one hour a week. So basically what happened was she would come in for an hour and I I wasn't picking it up. Any of it, I just couldn't retain anything.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:55David Goggins?

  And it was so much to learn that overwhelmed me. So basically what happened was I realized.

• 22:02David Goggins?

  I had to go by the store and buy spiral notebooks. And I had to literally write down every single thing repeatedly. Like, so it may take you an hour to learn. It took me hours, six, eight, nine, 10 hours, I had to write the same thing down.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Simple stuff.

• 22:20David Goggins?

  Simple stuff.

• 22:20Lewis Howes?

  I hear you, man.

• 22:21David Goggins?

  So I started, yeah.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  It's my life.

• 22:23David Goggins?

  So I I had to memorize.

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:25David Goggins?

  What I, so I didn't really learn it. I could just recall it from writing it down so many times that on page 71, I remember seeing that.

• 22:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:32David Goggins?

  And that's how I did it. And I ended up passing that test. And I got in the military, so.

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 22:38David Goggins?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Lewis Howes?

  What was the greatest lesson your mom taught you growing up?

• 22:42David Goggins?

  Honestly, the greatest lesson she ever taught me is a lesson that she, she doesn't know how much she taught me. Because she wasn't much in the teaching mode. My dad took her soul.

• 22:54Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:54David Goggins?

  But what I did as a young kid is I observed everybody. I wasn't really smart in the books.

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:01David Goggins?

  But I was real smart when it came to life.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:04David Goggins?

  And I was able to sit back and watch her mistakes. I was able to see how she struggled through life and how I don't want to struggle through life. And I was able to see, she never picked me up. The biggest thing she did for me, and this is honest to God truth, and she doesn't even know she did it. When I would bust my ass, when I would fail.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:24David Goggins?

  When I was at the bottom of the sewer, she never picked me up.

• 23:29David Goggins?

  She never gave me that cooking and said, hey, son, you know, it's gonna be okay. She didn't have time for that. And sometimes she gets upset when I talk about my past because it pains her out to be not the best mom. If I had any kind of mom in that kind of environment, I would have never made it. Because she forced me for every reason. She forced me to, you better figure this out. Or you're gonna be a statistic.

• 23:57David Goggins?

  And this is something that she didn't sit down to tell me. I realized this, this is the world that is in front of me. And what most people do is they see this world and they look at it as an excuse to get out of it.

• 24:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:10David Goggins?

  I started looking at it as this is the ultimate training ground for the rest of my life.

• 24:19David Goggins?

  I have all these valuable lessons because if you look out in the world right now today, it's not a nice place. But I'm very prepared for it.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you are.

• 24:27David Goggins?

  I'm prepared for it. I'm prepared for all the failure coming my way. I'm prepared for everything my way. And that's the biggest lesson that she taught me by not teaching me. By never saying it's gonna be okay. Matter of fact, she told me the exact opposite. Life sucks. That's what she knew. And it was the truth.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  That was her reality.

• 24:48David Goggins?

  That was her reality.

• 24:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:49David Goggins?

  And so I saw that. And so I started at that point in my life, I have a lot more failures as you see in that book. But I started down the road of instead of the path of least resistance. I started choosing the path of most resistance to prepare myself for the journey that was coming my way.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And most kids don't prepare themselves for the most resistance. They wanna get out of things.

• 25:11David Goggins?

  They wanna get out of things.

• 25:12Lewis Howes?

  Get off the hook.

• 25:13David Goggins?

  Right.

• 25:13Lewis Howes?

  Put in the extra reps.

• 25:15David Goggins?

  Right.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  They want the easiest path to get to the top.

• 25:17David Goggins?

  Right, exactly.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  I look at my life as like, and here you talk about like really diving into pain and like embracing pain and finding, looking for the pain.

• 25:27David Goggins?

  Right.

• 25:27Lewis Howes?

  And I think there's like a, there's a, there's a safe pain and then there's probably an unsafe pain of just like jumping off a building and you know, whatever.

• 25:35David Goggins?

  Right.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  Trying to land on 20 floors or something is probably not the safe way to do things. But doing 200 miles of endurance running is like a different way of pain, of looking at pain. And that's what I've been looking for my whole life is like finding the pain and I talk about like do something every day that, that's painful.

• 25:51David Goggins?

  Right.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  In a good structured environment. You've been doing that for the last couple of years now. It's like you work out every day, you haven't missed a day.

• 25:57David Goggins?

  I do it for the last 20 some years of my life.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  20 years or they said two years?

• 26:01David Goggins?

  No, 20 some years of my life.

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  20, every day you work out?

• 26:04David Goggins?

  So, I used to take one day off a week. I used to take one day off a week.

• 26:09Lewis Howes?

  For the body to recover, right? Makes sense.

• 26:11David Goggins?

  But that one day off was an active recovery day. Where I would get on a trainer and ride for like two hours.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:17David Goggins?

  But at a, at a zone one heart rate, very low heart rate. And I replace the carbohydrates in my body while I rode because the best way to recover for me is to do something at a very low heart rate because therefore your blood's flowing through your body.

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:32David Goggins?

  As your blood's flowing through your body, refuel it with the nutrients. Cause then your blood's flowing, the nutrients is going through all your cells in your body. All that glycogen is now flowing at a low heart rate. So it's not burning it, it's refueling it.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:46David Goggins?

  So every Sunday used to be that. And it kind of snowballed into, as human beings, we believe, so many people, before I give them a workout plan, they're talking about recovery. Everybody that hears me speak, they want to go straight to recovery. Work out first.

• 27:06David Goggins?

  Work out first before you talk to me about recovery.

• 27:08Lewis Howes?

  How to recover, yeah.

• 27:10David Goggins?

  Work out first. We are always looking for, like whenever I talk to people, people take my words and they, and they, and they put it in a way to where they want to feel comfortable. They want to put you in a box. They want to put a title on you. No, you're putting a title on me to make yourself feel better about yourself. If you read this book of mine and you see where I came from, this person was not built. This person was not made by God. This person, sorry, this person was built. I made this person. I made this person by diving into the insecurities that life gave me. Because now they're yours. They're yours to own. If you're not smart, call yourself dumb. It's okay. Because you are.

• 27:54David Goggins?

  But take that now as you're putting yourself down. If you're fat, call yourself fat. I used to be 300 pounds. We want to talk so soft to ourselves. We're looking for that recovery day. And that recovery day is everything in your life. Everything in your life is a recovery day. We're looking for it. It's not coming. It's not coming. Get over that recovery day. And that's the mentality I took with me. And what happened through that process was all the frivolous things of life started to float away. I used to tell people lies so they would like me. Because I was so insecure. When you start to build yourself up and start to have, the one thing that we don't have is confidence.

• 28:36Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 28:37David Goggins?

  Real, authentic confidence from hard work. Everything else goes away. You no longer look to other people for your self-esteem.

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  Validation.

• 28:46David Goggins?

  That's right. You now know. I walk in a room now and I know the hours and years and decades I put into David Goggins. That's something, it's not on the wall. It's not a trophy on the wall. It's not a medal around your neck. It is actually a feeling in your heart. And people go, why don't you ever smile? I don't have to. I do have a stoic look on my face. I'm a very focused person. But the feeling I have in my soul and in my heart, that's why I don't need to smile. I don't need to smile. I don't need you to look at me and say, oh my God, you look happy. Because half of us aren't happy. We're giving you something that we think you want to see. I don't do that anymore. I don't care how you perceive David Goggins.

• 29:30David Goggins?

  Because through my journey, I figured out the one piece I was missing. I thought it was cars. I thought it was women. I thought it was money. I thought it was everything. The one piece I was missing was me having the courage to face myself. And once you do that on a daily basis, it's not about the running. People are going to be, you're not working out. Where I got my work ethic from? Was the hours I had to spend learning this. When you sit down and you're not smart. You have a disability.

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:02David Goggins?

  And you still want to be at the top of your class. I didn't want to just get by. When I realized that I can learn through hard work. And I can beat the valedictorian in the school, but I got put in ten hours more a day than he does. You know what kind of strength comes from that? When you're sitting down, that guy, that that valedictorian's standing for an hour. And you know, I caught you. I caught you and I am dumb. But I have the work ethic to catch you. That's where David Gaga's got really invented.

• 30:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:33David Goggins?

  Was at a kitchen table with twenty spiral notebooks that were empty. And then three months later.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  They're dumb, yeah.

• 30:41David Goggins?

  They were full. And when you can go through that, I still have them in my storage unit. You go through these spiral notebooks of your life. And you realize this is how I learned. This is unbelievable. There's no miles. It's not about the miles. It's that. Having a discipline every day to say, for me to learn this one math problem. It's gonna take me ten hours.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:02David Goggins?

  And you realize through hard work. You can outwork anybody.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:07David Goggins?

  No matter how badass they are. But that's the part people don't want to dive into.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. When someone's lacking confidence in themselves.

• 31:15David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  What's the answer you would give them if they're like, how do I gain more confidence?

• 31:19David Goggins?

  It starts with yourself, man. You gotta start diving into those things that you are afraid of. You don't gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good. It could be a false reality. And the second life gives you that challenge. All you want to do is go back to what made you confidence or or or what gave you confidence is that happy spot. No. What gives you confidence? What gave me confidence was spending years at a kitchen table. Trying to learn how to read and write on my own. Realizing I can't learn the way you learn. I can't. But I can learn. What gives you confidence is not being afraid. Is overcoming the fear.

• 32:04David Goggins?

  I just stutter severely bad. So right now, I don't know how many people are gonna watch this. You know what gives me confidence is that I no longer care. If I sit here and start stuttering to you.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:14David Goggins?

  That's what gives me confidence is facing these things, overcoming them. And maybe not overcoming them every day. But facing them. And facing them and facing them pretty soon like this. You know what, man? This is where it's at. It's not in that comfort zone. It's in the discomfort zone is where my confidence is getting built. That's where it's getting built. They want an easier answer.

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:36David Goggins?

  There has to be an easier way. There's not. I'm sorry. I searched for it my entire life.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  You cheated, you lied.

• 32:44David Goggins?

  I lied. I did everything. And I still felt empty. I coach a lot of people nowadays, billionaires. Who call me on the phone and say, man, I'm still missing something. It's because. They did what they were good at.

• 33:00David Goggins?

  And they had this beautiful family. Two, three houses, cars, everything. Has everything to work on the outside looking in like, my God, man, how can you be unhappy? I walk around with the backpack with all my stuff in it and no car.

• 33:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:14David Goggins?

  And I walk around. Happy as person in the world. Have nothing. Happy as hell. It's because. I found out the whole key to life. It's not in all that. You have to face yourself. So many people live to be 100 years old. And they die miserable, having everything. Because they never examined. I call it my live autopsy. You never examine this.

• 33:41David Goggins?

  Happiness, peace. Enlightenment. It's all up here, man. It's all up here. And I start talking like this, people go, man, you know, I don't know. It's the truth, man.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it is true.

• 33:53David Goggins?

  It's all up here. You just got to be willing to go and face it. And that's the hard part.

• 33:58Lewis Howes?

  What's your biggest insecurity today?

• 34:00David Goggins?

  I, I'm not to be arrogant. I don't have one.

• 34:04Lewis Howes?

  What was the last one you had and when was that?

• 34:06David Goggins?

  The last one I had was probably still me. Me, we used to live in a seven dollar a month place when I was growing up.

• 34:15Lewis Howes?

  This is in Buffalo or is this?

• 34:16David Goggins?

  This is in Indiana.

• 34:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:17David Goggins?

  So, like, we had a lot of money in Buffalo.

• 34:19Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:20David Goggins?

  And when my mom left, my dad, we went to nothing for a period of time before she got on her feet.

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:25David Goggins?

  And that seven dollar a month place used to be, it was who I was. I was no one. I was in the sewer. My mom went there. I had nothing. And you always feel like you have nothing. I had, I'd achieved so much. I was a Navy SEAL. I'd gone through Ranger School. I've gone through Delta Force Selection Training. I, I, I'd done so much. I, I ran two hundred miles, pull-up records, everything. Learned to read and write, became pretty intelligent. And I still was like, man, what is wrong with me? It wasn't until I got real sick, and I talked about in the last chapter of that book, I got real sick. And I was about thirty-eight years old.

• 35:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:07David Goggins?

  I'm forty-three now. And my life got real quiet. I, I went from running two hundred and five miles in thirty-nine hours to I couldn't get out of bed. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, but once again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 35:23David Goggins?

  In that moment, where my whole life changed, I went from a guy who worked out every day, trained every day, to a guy who couldn't get out of bed. My life was taken from me. The one thing that kept me going was my training.

• 35:36Lewis Howes?

  Now, you didn't have that.

• 35:37David Goggins?

  I didn't have anything.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  Now, you just had to sit alone.

• 35:39David Goggins?

  Alone.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  And not train.

• 35:40David Goggins?

  And that's what changed me. And that's when I realized I hadn't thought, hadn't taken time to think about what I'd done in my life.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  You hadn't reflected yet.

• 35:51David Goggins?

  I hadn't reflected. I'd done all these things, but there was no finish line. I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect.

• 35:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:57David Goggins?

  I was just going. I finished a race of life, and I wouldn't even receive my medal. I'd go on.

• 36:03Lewis Howes?

  You're like, on to the next.

• 36:04David Goggins?

  I'd get in the car and I'd go.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't even take the medal?

• 36:07David Goggins?

  Gone. Don't care about it.

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  Like, I'm not gonna waste an hour sitting around with this ceremony?

• 36:10David Goggins?

  Most people sit around, and that's what they like. They need the ceremony if I accomplish something.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Validation.

• 36:16David Goggins?

  I haven't done anything. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

• 36:19Lewis Howes?

  Just getting started.

• 36:19David Goggins?

  I was getting started. That's right. When I started figuring out life, that I was leaving so much in the tank. I call it my forty percent rule.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:27David Goggins?

  I was leaving so much in the tank. Once I realized, my God, man, I was this dumb, fat kid being bullied. And now I'm a hundred and eighty pound person who lost a hundred and six pounds in less than three months. Learn to read, learn to do this, learn to do that. I was like, I need more.

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:42David Goggins?

  I was fueling my mind with everything. And I never took time to say, my God, you came from this hell. And you're here. So those insecurities. And this is how I explain it the best way. SEAL training became pretty hard and a lot of guys weren't getting through it. So they designed a SEAL pep prep program.

• 37:02Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Like a boot camp for the boot camp.

• 37:04David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:05David Goggins?

  And it was two months. In my last two years before I retired from the military, they sent me there to train these kids.

• 37:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:12David Goggins?

  To get ready for.

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Eighteen, nineteen, twenty year olds.

• 37:14David Goggins?

  Young kids. So when they get to Navy SEAL training, man, they were physical studs. They were running, swimming. I mean, they were, they were hybrids.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:24David Goggins?

  But they get to buds. And the same amount of people would quit.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 37:29David Goggins?

  This is why.

• 37:32David Goggins?

  We were training bigger, stronger, faster quitters.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:37David Goggins?

  It's not about.

• 37:38Lewis Howes?

  Not the mind.

• 37:39David Goggins?

  That's right. We weren't diving into the sewer. Everybody's got a story. We don't share it on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We have, we all have a dungeon. I'm just willing to talk about mine.

• 37:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:54David Goggins?

  Most of us aren't willing to talk about it. I'm gonna talk about my dungeon. I wasn't getting into the dungeon of these guys' minds. I wasn't building that so-called mental toughness. Mental toughness isn't something that you sample. It's something that you live in every day. So when something hard would happen to these kids, like in Hell Week. It would draw on something that made them very insecure. And they look for comfort. Whenever hardness comes, and you don't know what it is. It may be different for you than this for me. But you go back to your insecurities. And then when you go back to insecurities, you then look for comfort. Within those insecurities. And we all look for that cookie that your mom used to give you. Right. When you were sad.

• 38:40David Goggins?

  Yeah. When you were sick. We look for our wife or our husband. We look for comfort.

• 38:46David Goggins?

  It's in those moments. You must retrain your mind. Hmm. To think differently in hell. I wasn't training them to do that. Why weren't you training? I wasn't training myself to that, because at that time. I was doing what I was told. Hmm. These guys need to meet a standard. Physical standard. A physical standard. The physical standard is not what they need to meet. It's a mental standard. You must meet in life. So going back to when I was sick. I was hitting the physical standards. I wasn't meeting. The mental standard. The mental standard is you must know how far you've come. Wow. I had come. Eight thousand miles from where I started.

• 39:30David Goggins?

  But if you never know that, you're still in the seven dollar a month place. When I was sick, I was able to slow it down. And reflect back on my entire life. And in that bed. And I thought I was dying. Because that story is long, that that sick person in my life is long. I didn't care if I died or lived. Wow. Because I was, for the first time in my life, happy. Wow. And at peace. I reflected back on where I started. You said, wow, I have come a long way. That's right. And no one saved me. It wasn't like someone came down here. And guided me through life. When you figure this out on your own. The amount of pride and dignity and self-respect you have. That's why I walk around the streets.

• 40:16David Goggins?

  With a backpack. And just like, I don't need anything else. Yeah. You figure it out. By going inside yourself. By callusing over the victim's mentality. You're always a victim. Even if you have everything in life. You have to first realize what you've achieved, and my mom. Has accomplished so much in her life since my father. But she hasn't done that one step.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  Really? She doesn't acknowledge it and reflect back?

• 40:42David Goggins?

  She continues to go back to the dungeon of her past life.

• 40:47Lewis Howes?

  And live in that space?

• 40:48David Goggins?

  And live in that space versus living the space that she's in now and reflecting back on, "My God, this is what I've done with my life." So...

• 40:57Lewis Howes?

  Have you talked to her about this?

• 40:58David Goggins?

  We talk about it all the time. And you have to be willing to go there. You have to be willing to really go there, not, not surface. I don't, I don't live on the surface of anything.

• 41:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:09David Goggins?

  Surface is what got me where I was at. It got me from a hundred and seventy-five pounds to three hundred pounds. Telling everybody I'm good. I don't, I don't give a damn. I'm good. No, they're, they're hollow words.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 41:22David Goggins?

  A lot of us speak in hollow words. I used to speak in hollow words. I don't do anymore. Everything that comes out of my mouth has substance, is real. And we all have these feelings in our bodies, in our minds, in our souls. I act on mine. A lot of us who are afraid of something, we allow our minds to choose the path of least resistance, so we go a different route. When I'm afraid of something, it's telling me, "You must do this thing." "You must do that."

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:49David Goggins?

  "You have to go that way." And most of us don't understand that mentality. We go left and we wonder why we haven't fulfilled something in our lives. It's because we continue to take the journey that is mapped out. And how I look at it is, I, I, I talk in life like, a lot of us in life want to take the four-lane highway that has road maps and all this other stuff on it, man. Tells you where to go, gas stations. The next ten miles up, you're gonna see a McDonald's or Cracker Barrel.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:21David Goggins?

  It's an easy route. Very few of us want to go to the right side.

• 42:25Lewis Howes?

  That Cracker Barrel's that Midwest life.

• 42:27David Goggins?

  That's right, that's right.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  I'm from Ohio.

• 42:29David Goggins?

  It's all about it, man. Indiana. Cracker Barrel everywhere.

• 42:33Lewis Howes?

  Dude, that's amazing. Bringing back memories. This is powerful, because I've been telling people this. I've been living that way unknowingly my whole life of like, whatever the thing is I'm afraid of. When I was in high school, I started doing those things.

• 42:45David Goggins?

  Right.

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  And it's just like, I'm sick and tired of feeling afraid.

• 42:48David Goggins?

  Right.

• 42:49Lewis Howes?

  So I need to do the things that scare me the most.

• 42:51David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  You know, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. Tiffany's heard me share these stories. But I was afraid to talk to girls when I was a teenager. I was afraid of dancing. I was afraid of like singing and playing music in front of people. I was afraid of all these different things. And so I said, I want to do this. I'm going to give myself a challenge every single day until the fear goes away.

• 43:09David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like that's what more of us should be doing. I'm hearing that that's what you, how you live your life.

• 43:14David Goggins?

  That's all it is, man.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  And it helps me feel so much more confident. When you overcome that fear of saying this doesn't have control over me anymore.

• 43:21David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 43:21Lewis Howes?

  It's like you can be at such more peace.

• 43:23David Goggins?

  It's a hundred percent.

• 43:24Lewis Howes?

  In your life.

• 43:25David Goggins?

  Most of, like, for instance, I never thought in my wildest dreams I could be a Navy SEAL.

• 43:31David Goggins?

  It's until you open mindedness creates that. We all shut down our mind. Like, for instance, when I broke the pull-up record. Everybody around me who heard the pull-up record was 4,020 pull-ups. That's the first thing they did. Oh, my God.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  4,024 hours or was it?

• 43:47David Goggins?

  Yeah, it's 4,020 pull-ups in 24 hour period.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:50David Goggins?

  The first thing I did versus closing my mind to like, oh, my God, that's crazy.

• 43:55David Goggins?

  I went and got a pin.

• 43:56Lewis Howes?

  So how many is that every minute?

• 43:58David Goggins?

  Exactly.

• 43:58Lewis Howes?

  Every hour, every second?

• 43:59David Goggins?

  Instead of taking life and making it out to be this grandiose thing, start breaking it down. Start breaking it down. And most of us, we live in a box. And we don't want to go outside that box at all, ever. Outside that box is all these possibilities of life. What we do is we shackle our mind. We are a prisoner in our own mind that this is all I can do. This is all I'm good at. And we, we, we take away the possibilities of you could be this, you could be that.

• 44:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:33David Goggins?

  You could be all these things. And I never thought at 300 pounds I could be Navy SEAL.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:37David Goggins?

  So if my mind was shackled. Me and you would never meet. There'd be no book. Right. There'd be no book. Right. There'd be nothing. So, what people don't understand is that they live for themselves, not knowing that you have the power within yourself to change millions of lives. Yeah. By facing life, by facing yourself. And through that, I would die never knowing that I had the power to change millions of lives. It will haunt me the most. People ask me, what haunts you the most? What haunts me the most is that if I would have died at 300 pounds, let's say I was 75 years old. I got to heaven and God has a chart like that on everybody's life. God knows all, let's say that.

• 45:22David Goggins?

  I don't care what you believe in, doesn't matter, I'm not judging anybody. But let's say my thing is God. You get to heaven, I'm 300 pounds, I sit down, I was a cockroach, terminated my whole life. And we're sitting down just like this, you're God and I'm David. And he gives me that chart and he says, "Look at this." And I'm looking at this chart and on the chart it has all these different things, but my name's on it. But these things aren't me. I was gonna change the world, I was gonna, I was gonna set records, I was gonna be a Navy SEAL, I was gonna be all these things in the military that I accomplished, you're gonna get the VFW award, you're gonna be honored here, honored there. And I'm like, God, I was, this isn't me. Like it says, David Goggins.

• 46:04David Goggins?

  I was an Ecolab guy, sprayed for cockroaches and I'm 300 pounds, it says here I'm 185. It says here I got a bachelor's and a master's, it says all these things. And God goes, "No, that's who you were supposed to be." Wow.

• 46:22David Goggins?

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

• 47:05David Goggins?

  writing stuff down, saying, "My God, he exceeded even my expectations." That's how I live my life. I now know that there is no cap on the human mind. There's no cap. We cap it ourselves.

• 47:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Is there a cap on the human body?

• 47:23David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 47:24Lewis Howes?

  Is there one?

• 47:25David Goggins?

  There, I...

• 47:29David Goggins?

  I don't believe so.

• 47:32David Goggins?

  Because one thing I found out was, I didn't, for several years, I gave myself a way out.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  When you were 300 pounds?

• 47:40David Goggins?

  No, I was 300 pounds and I was, all the way up to I was 24 years old. I would climb a mountain, I'd fall back down. I'd start climbing, I'd fall back down for the first 24 years of my life. I went to my first hell week, my second hell week, and then my third hell week came in SEAL training, and the CO, Captain Bowen, looked at me. I'm on crutches, I'm all jacked up. He says, "Hey, this is your last time you're gonna go through, buds. This is it." I had several stress fractures. I had double pneumonia, I was jacked up, and he gave me a few months to heal. He said, "This is your last time going through. I shouldn't even let you go back through."

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:19David Goggins?

  I started Navy SEAL training with stress fractures. Stress fractures.

• 48:24Lewis Howes?

  That's hard to finish.

• 48:25David Goggins?

  Stress fractures. Starting the hardest training, arguably the hardest training in the world with stress fractures. And this is when I started to not put a cap on the body, if the mind is there. Every morning, I would wake up at 3:30 in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning, go to my dive cage, go in there before anybody saw me. I'd get duct tape, and I would tape from my forefoot all the way up to the mid of my calf, and I would put two black socks on. And so I ran, not using the pivot.

• 48:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 48:57David Goggins?

  And I ran my hip flexors. So for the first 45 minutes to an hour, I was in absolute excruciating pain. But what motivated me, through that whole process, was the fact that this kid came from that. I'm in the hardest training in the world, in the worst shape of my entire life.

• 49:21David Goggins?

  What if I can graduate amongst these studs?

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:24David Goggins?

  All these guys around me are studs. They're stallions, they're gladiators in my class, they're all healthy, most of them. They're not broken like this. They may have some, you know, everybody's sick going through that training. But if I can graduate, it would change everything for me. If I can start the hardest training in the world, broken, and graduate. So my mind fed off of that. You are now, from the weakest man, you are now the hardest man to ever live. If you can do this. If you can do this.

• 49:59David Goggins?

  Life is one big mind game. And you're playing it with yourself. Is it true? I don't care.

• 50:06David Goggins?

  It got me through the hardest training, starting out broken. Where most people quit, I had just started.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:15David Goggins?

  And when you take that mindset and you learn to flip that around,

• 50:20David Goggins?

  that's what made me powerful. And my body followed. And three months later, my stress fractures were healed by running on them.

• 50:31Lewis Howes?

  Calcifying it, just like.

• 50:33David Goggins?

  I've never had them since, I'm forty-three years old.

• 50:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:36David Goggins?

  I ran seven thousand miles in two thousand and seven, haven't had a stress fracture since. And I'm not saying to do that. I'm just saying that when the mind and the body connect, and you don't give yourself a way out. The only way out for me at that time was death.

• 50:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:54David Goggins?

  I'm gonna be a Navy SEAL.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Or I'm gonna die.

• 50:57David Goggins?

  Or I'm gonna die trying.

• 50:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:59David Goggins?

  Period. And my body says, Roger that. We're gonna get you through this.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  So when the mind gives it no way out.

• 51:08David Goggins?

  No way out.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  Your body says, okay.

• 51:10David Goggins?

  Okay.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  I believe you now.

• 51:12David Goggins?

  I have to heal.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna figure this out with you.

• 51:14David Goggins?

  Yes.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  Do this, it's gonna be the worst part of your life, but you're gonna survive.

• 51:19David Goggins?

  We're gonna survive.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:20David Goggins?

  And as you hear in that hundred mile race I did, I started figuring out more and more and more and more about at the other end of suffering is a life that no one, and I'm not talking about go out there and kill yourself. Don't take these words and flip them and say, oh my God, no.

• 51:40David Goggins?

  It just be uncomfortable. I call it suffering.

• 51:42Lewis Howes?

  Don't physically injure yourself.

• 51:43David Goggins?

  Yes, not saying that.

• 51:44Lewis Howes?

  And then be out for six months.

• 51:46David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 51:46Lewis Howes?

  That's no good.

• 51:47David Goggins?

  That's no good. I'm not saying, I'm not saying do what I did.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:50David Goggins?

  I was in a spot that life forced me. I had a choice. I had a choice to be this guy or the guy that's in front of you. I had choices. I chose this path.

• 52:00Lewis Howes?

  And you're still choosing it.

• 52:01David Goggins?

  And I'm still choosing.

• 52:02Lewis Howes?

  You can go back to that guy any moment.

• 52:04David Goggins?

  Cause I found out, I found out something with those stress fractures. I found out something through facing all these things. I found out a whole nother world, which is why I walk around with all my stuff in a black backpack.

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:19David Goggins?

  I found a whole nother way, a whole nother way of, no matter how far you get in life, you have to be able to go back to scratch in your mind at a moment's notice. You can never get so far beyond scratch.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:37David Goggins?

  What that means is when you accomplish something in life, if you're willing to go back to scratch and go back to that seven dollar a month place where I once lived and visit that place for a long period of time. If you were here, when you went back to scratch, you would now be here.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:53David Goggins?

  Scratch is what makes you better. Scratch, friction, obstacles create growth. There's no friction when you're this far up in the game anymore. You think there is, but really, that's right. When you achieve so much, the friction is, is minor. Cause why? I'm sore. I'm gonna get a massage today.

• 53:12Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:13David Goggins?

  I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat today. The refrigerator is always full. So your comforts are now, so your discomfort is now very miniscule to your discomfort back here in the seven dollar a month place. So you have to go back to the total discomfort to then raise your level of where you're at now.

• 53:32Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:32David Goggins?

  I'm not saying stay there and stay there. Visit.

• 53:35Lewis Howes?

  Visit it.

• 53:36David Goggins?

  And then you raise your level.

• 53:38Lewis Howes?

  Take a day trip.

• 53:39David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:40David Goggins?

  Always take day trips.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, don't stay there.

• 53:43David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  But take a day trip.

• 53:44David Goggins?

  Take a day trip.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  So when you complete some massive obstacle and challenge, whatever the adversity that you force upon yourself.

• 53:51David Goggins?

  Hmm.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  Because these are all curated experiences for yourself.

• 53:55David Goggins?

  Right.

• 53:55Lewis Howes?

  That you're scratching constantly. What happens now, since this was five years ago, you would just leave? You want to take the medal, you would just go on to the next. What happens now? Do you take, you know, a day to reflect, a moment, 10 minutes? Like, how does the process work? And then how do you get back to visiting the $7 place you lived in?

• 54:15David Goggins?

  Now, I don't have to go back and visit it. I don't have to think about it. It lives with me now.

• 54:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 54:21David Goggins?

  Every day of my damn life, that feeling that I had to go back and think about, I found a way to just have it.

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  How did you?

• 54:31David Goggins?

  It's constantly there. I have a self-talk. I have a self-talk, it's called my cookie jar.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:37David Goggins?

  It's a constant reminder of David Gaiden. Every day of my life, I believe in quiet. There's no growth outside of quiet. The world's too noisy. Your mind needs quiet for you to find who you are. People ask, what's my purpose? Why am I here? You're not going to find it nowadays unless you lock yourself in a quiet room in your mind and find it. It's too noisy. For me, I could be in a busy street in New York City, horns honking, and I'm walking around with like, nothing. It's me and myself.

• 55:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:13David Goggins?

  In a quiet spot. And when you are constantly reflecting on who you are, where you've been, the journey you've gone through, the journey you can continue going through, the feeling's always there. You don't allow the world to pull you so fast that you forget. You don't allow yourself to pull you so fast that you forget. It's not about staying in that moment. It's about, you want to get to the point where that feeling follows you like breathing.

• 55:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 55:44David Goggins?

  Because it's part of your life, part of your DNA. But it's made, like these calluses on my hands right now, they're made.

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:51David Goggins?

  They are now on my brain. This is now a part of me. It's a daily process, a part of me. And how I go back to a $7 a month place.

• 56:02David Goggins?

  All the time is now I go out and I dig fire line. I'm a wildland firefighter. I don't need to do it. I'm a forty three year old man. I I work with twenty seven year old kids.

• 56:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:14David Goggins?

  And I'm a rookie. Every day I'm a rookie, it feels like. And.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  Why do you do it?

• 56:19David Goggins?

  That's why I do it, man. There's a story I'm gonna tell you about why I do it. I have a good living now for me, where I'm at in my life. I was out on a fire in Colorado. And we were digging fire line on this like fifty percent like it was like on the side of a dag gone uh mountain.

• 56:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:37David Goggins?

  And we're trying to keep the fire from moving and we're digging this fire line fourteen inches or my fault eighteen inches wide, three miles long. Twelve of us digging. And it is the hardest work. You make twelve dollars an hour.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:50David Goggins?

  Okay, nothing. You set up your shop like when you're done digging, you just pretty much lay down, you go to sleep and you get up and you dig some more.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 56:58David Goggins?

  It happens for two weeks long.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  What are you digging? It's like a hole. You're digging a line here.

• 57:01David Goggins?

  So you're trying to get down to a mineral source. So you're trying to get down to the earth. So so that if that fire is moving, it can't burn dirt.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 57:10David Goggins?

  So you're moving fuels.

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 57:11David Goggins?

  So not only are you digging, you're cutting down trees. It's hard work. But the moral of the story is I'm forty three, don't need to do it at all. This is why I do it.

• 57:20Lewis Howes?

  You're making money.

• 57:20David Goggins?

  I'm making money. I'm the I have a good life. I don't need to do it. And everybody asks me why I do it. This is why.

• 57:29David Goggins?

  This twenty one year old kid was out there. And he wanted a pair of running shoes. So all he wanted was a pair of running shoes. Sixty, seventy, hundred bucks, whatever, you know, easy for us.

• 57:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:41David Goggins?

  Running shoes. He looked up at the mountain that we had been on for days digging this fire line. And he said that'd take me five or six hours of work to buy those shoes. Said I'm not gonna buy them. It's the perspective of life. That perspective of life right there. That is the value that we lose. When things start to come so easy in life. It's the perspective that 21 year old had. He looked about that mountain and thought. He looked at his hands. He looked at the, at the amount of hours of pulling that Pulaski, that, that tool. And raking that ground and, and then cutting those trees and moving them. And that hours of work. He looked at his feet and said, these old shoes would do.

• 58:26David Goggins?

  It's that perspective in life that we lose. And that's, that story to most people may not mean anything. It's that story I always want to have in my life. You cannot lose perspective of where you've come in life.

• 58:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So true. We were in Guatemala. Was it this year or last year? Last year, we were in Guatemala last year. We, we support a charity called Pencil of Promise that builds schools for kids who live in poverty and all around the world. And every year I take a trip to just see where our efforts are being felt and, and being, and being made. These are the poorest places in Guatemala, Laos and Ghana. Places like, they have nothing. There's no schools, they're in little villages. They live on dirt huts, everything, right? And we go and we build these schools. We actually, the, the villages build them themselves. We just fund the experience and they empower, we empower them to do it. So that they take ownership of it.

• 59:22David Goggins?

  Right.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  But I'll be there for a few days and watch these kids so happy with just like a pencil. Or just so happy to just like have their family around. And they'll go and they'll show us their huts and like, they're just so happy to have community. And then I'll fly back and go through Beverly Hills. Right over here. And I'll see like these mansions, you know, I live right next to it. And I'm just like, it gives me so much perspective of like, you don't need to have all these things. To find peace and joy and, and connection and intimacy and all these, and all these other things that we want. You don't need these big mansions and to live in this nice place. You know, I like living here, but it's not like. It's perspective for me is what keeps me motivated as well.

• 1:00:06David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:00:06Lewis Howes?

  To keep doing the right things, to keep showing up, to keep working hard.

• 1:00:09David Goggins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  And I think it's right, most of us miss that perspective in life.

• 1:00:13David Goggins?

  We get so far away from reality.

• 1:00:15Lewis Howes?

  So far.

• 1:00:16David Goggins?

  And the reality is, man, when I was seven years old, eight years old, all I wanted was a 99 cent quarter pounder from Hardee's.

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  I know, right?

• 1:00:24David Goggins?

  And that made me happy as hell.

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  Some curly fries.

• 1:00:27David Goggins?

  That's it, man. That's it.

• 1:00:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the thing is, a lot of us have been conditioned, or some of us grew up with wealth or grew up with comfort.

• 1:00:37David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:00:37Lewis Howes?

  And so we're conditioned that way, and we grew up expecting now that things should come a lot easier.

• 1:00:42David Goggins?

  Right. That's a damn shame.

• 1:00:44Lewis Howes?

  And we get frustrated when we don't get it right.

• 1:00:46David Goggins?

  That's right. Quickly.

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  Quickly. Yeah. And I'm always talking about delayed gratification.

• 1:00:50David Goggins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Like, the longer I can wait to receive gratification.

• 1:00:53David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:00:54Lewis Howes?

  The more fulfilled I am.

• 1:00:55David Goggins?

  I'm a person, so when I got sick like I did, I actually had to quit this race called Badwater.

• 1:01:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. 135 miles.

• 1:01:02David Goggins?

  Yep, through Death Valley. It was 2014, I got real, real bad. I pulled out of the race at mile 50, I went to the emergency room, and the docs were like, you know, "We can't find this, we can't find that, we know what's wrong with you." When I got in that bed, so this is the crazy thing about gratification, long term.

• 1:01:21Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:22David Goggins?

  I'm able to watch grass grow by finding out this. I sat there, couldn't run a half, a quarter mile, couldn't get out of bed. The only thought I had in my mind, I pulled out of that race, I told myself, "I'm gonna go back to Badwater one day and rent it. I'm gonna win the race." Haven't been back since. Haven't been back since 2019. I'm not saying I'm gonna win it. I'm just now in the shape to go back.

• 1:01:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:51David Goggins?

  Haven't run a 100 mile race since 2014.

• 1:01:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:54David Goggins?

  Because I've been that sick. I'm just now, imagine the gratification I'm gonna get by getting to the start line of that race, and what if I can win it?

• 1:02:04Lewis Howes?

  Be pretty sweet.

• 1:02:04David Goggins?

  Pretty sweet.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  Four or five years, yeah.

• 1:02:06David Goggins?

  Imagine that, of having that kinda self-discipline to every day wake up and having these setbacks where I can't even run a mile.

• 1:02:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:14David Goggins?

  But I'm thinking about running a hundred and thirty-five. I can't run one mile, but I'm thinking about running a hundred and thirty-five. And with that process, guess what happens? Sooner or later, you can run ten miles. It may take a year, but it gives you more and more hope that it's possible. And I'm at the point now where guess what? It's right around the corner.

• 1:02:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:36David Goggins?

  Most people in that timeframe, in that, in that, in that mindset, I can't run anymore. It's over. No, it's just gonna take a little bit longer. You have to turn the negative into a positive.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:50David Goggins?

  Cause at the end of it all, if you can sit back and wait, if you can wait six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve years, when you get to that point, when you finish, that's the feeling for twelve years. It's not say wait twelve years to get there. That's what keeps you going, is you gotta feel, I want, I'm doing it for one second.

• 1:03:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:14Lewis Howes?

  Years of pain.

• 1:03:15David Goggins?

  For one second, one second. Think about it. You cross the finish line, it's over. One second.

• 1:03:25Lewis Howes?

  Most people do that, and the one second isn't what they thought it would be, and then they're pissed and upset, and they keep going on to the next, cause they never reflect back on what they did.

• 1:03:35David Goggins?

  It's not the one second, it's the twelve years.

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38David Goggins?

  It's the twelve years that I want. It's not the race.

• 1:03:43Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:44David Goggins?

  It's the twelve years why you did it.

• 1:03:48Lewis Howes?

  It's not the winning.

• 1:03:49David Goggins?

  It's not the winning.

• 1:03:50Lewis Howes?

  It's not what place you got.

• 1:03:51David Goggins?

  No.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  But most of us focus on.

• 1:03:52David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I gotta win this.

• 1:03:54David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:03:55Lewis Howes?

  If I don't, I'm gonna be upset. I would achieve all my athletic goals for years, and then ten minutes later be the angriest person in the world.

• 1:04:02David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:04:03Lewis Howes?

  So angry and frustrated, nasty with people.

• 1:04:05David Goggins?

  Yep.

• 1:04:05Lewis Howes?

  And I would delay my gratification for years to achieve what I wanted.

• 1:04:08David Goggins?

  That's right.

• 1:04:09Lewis Howes?

  And I never understood that either.

• 1:04:12David Goggins?

  Being a perfectionist is the worst thing that can happen to a person. When I lost that hundred and six pounds in like two and a half months, whatever it took me.

• 1:04:20David Goggins?

  That was the biggest trophy of my entire life. I didn't care if I graduated Navy SEAL training. I didn't care. What I just accomplished in that timeframe is massive.

• 1:04:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30David Goggins?

  There was no like, it was funny about this. We talk about mental toughness nowadays. It's like the biggest crave. When I grew up, it was just suck it up.

• 1:04:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39David Goggins?

  It was just make it happen.

• 1:04:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42David Goggins?

  You had to figure out. It was called figure it out, man. And all these, all these nuggets that I gained along the way, that's what it was about. It went about the trident. It went about all those dead gone medals. It wasn't about any of that. And that's why I hate even talking about being a SEAL, you know? I miss the stories. People, why you talk about, it didn't define me. The journey getting there was harder than going through it. So that's the whole thing about life, man. It's, it's that journey that, that makes you who you are.

• 1:05:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And as opposed to focusing on did I win or not?

• 1:05:14David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:05:15Lewis Howes?

  What did I gain from the last 12 years?

• 1:05:17David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:05:17Lewis Howes?

  And so when you finish now, what do you think about? How, how long do you reflect back on the effort it took to accomplish that race or?

• 1:05:25David Goggins?

  A long time.

• 1:05:26Lewis Howes?

  Was days?

• 1:05:27David Goggins?

  Weeks, years.

• 1:05:29Lewis Howes?

  You'll reflect on it.

• 1:05:30David Goggins?

  I reflect back now, there's times now where I will reflect back on my first 100 mile race. It's still today. And it'll give me the same exact feeling. Because what I did in that first race, when I was undertrained, I did it on four days notice. I hadn't run more than, I think 20 miles the whole year. And I, and I did it to raise money for this foundation. To try to get in the bad water. What I had to pull out of myself on that last, that's where that book, Live with a SEAL, kind of originated. Jesse Isler saw me at this race.

• 1:06:05Lewis Howes?

  He was racing too.

• 1:06:06David Goggins?

  Yeah, but he did it as a team.

• 1:06:08Lewis Howes?

  Right. You did it alone.

• 1:06:09David Goggins?

  I did it alone. And that's what I talk with people about, man. I spent so much time, people always like, why do you run so much? You know, you, you know, try to get in shape? No. The things I do in life, most of life, you're alone. You may have a whole support crew around you. But up here, you're alone.

• 1:06:30David Goggins?

  Most of the stuff I do, I'm training for that one, those moments. Those moments when I was at mile seventy and I had thirty more miles to go and I had, I crapped up my back and peeing blood down my leg, I had thirty miles to go. There's only so much someone cheering can do for you. Right. When you start to dive back in the cellar of your mind, and you're pulling out all these, all these tactics, all these mental tactics to get through this thirty miles when you're in the worst shape of your life, and no one's coming to save you, and you get through that. I wanna go back there, like, when I got done with that race, I laid in the tub, and my ex-wife helped me get up the stairs, and I'm laying in this tub, and Coca-Cola's coming out of me, just looks like dirt.

• 1:07:14David Goggins?

  You know, she's a nurse, and she's like, she's freaking out. And she puts the shower on me, and I'm looking at her, and all I wanna do is call the race director up of Bowwar saying, "I qualified for the race." And she's thinking, "We gotta go to the hospital," so, you know, she's, she's calling my mom, and my mom has a doctor friend of hers who's over, and they're freaking out. And I said, "Everybody, just shut up." Wow. Shut up. I'm in the worst pain in my entire life, and no one would ever understand this, no one. When you've gone that deep inside yourself, and all those feelings of pain that I had, I was in the worst pain of my life, ever. And some people think, "Man, you're just crazy." No, when you've done that,

• 1:07:59David Goggins?

  and you've figured out so much on your own, and all that pain and discomfort I had in that tub laying there, passing out, everything, was confirmation of what I just figured out. I just figured out the code. I figured out a code, a code that many people aren't looking for. And I wanted to be numb. I, I want that feeling, this was confirmation. This was like a scientist's notes. The notes were here. The notes were all this feeling. It was a confirmation. And no one at that time could understand what I'd just done. I cracked the code to human potential in myself.

• 1:08:42David Goggins?

  And I was still like, oh my God, like this is unbelievable what I just did. So it's that quiet place.

• 1:08:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:50David Goggins?

  It's that place by yourself, it's those hours and years and decades by yourself in the grip of life. When life has you by the throat and choking you out and you're sitting there calm because you're trying to figure it out, you're not panicking, you're not quitting, you're not throwing in the towel. You're saying, there's a way around this. And when you figure it out, when life has you gripped in a vice and you can figure that out, that's when you overcome.

• 1:09:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:22David Goggins?

  That's when you overcome. And that's why that one moment for me in that tub, I ain't want anyone to take away from me.

• 1:09:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow. This is crazy, man, I love this. Do you have any fears today?

• 1:09:37David Goggins?

  I do have a lot of fears today, but it's hard for me to call them fears anymore.

• 1:09:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42David Goggins?

  I don't use that word anymore. They're almost like it's another challenge.

• 1:09:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47David Goggins?

  Because anything that makes me feel that fear feeling is gonna get overcome.

• 1:09:53Lewis Howes?

  You go do it.

• 1:09:53David Goggins?

  It's gonna get conquered. It, it, that's almost like fear is my ultimate guide.

• 1:09:58Lewis Howes?

  Of where you're supposed to be.

• 1:09:59David Goggins?

  Of where I'm supposed to be going.

• 1:10:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01David Goggins?

  It's my ultimate guide. So I don't really.

• 1:10:04Lewis Howes?

  What's the big challenge then for you then?

• 1:10:05David Goggins?

  The biggest challenge for me is always going, I wanna be comfortable.

• 1:10:10Lewis Howes?

  You wanna be comfortable? You wanna sleep in a nice bed and relax.

• 1:10:13David Goggins?

  I'm a normal human being.

• 1:10:15Lewis Howes?

  You wanna chill out?

• 1:10:16David Goggins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16David Goggins?

  I want, and, and the time is gonna come. It's time for everybody to get civilized. The worst thing in life that happens to a man is they get civilized, or a woman, anybody.

• 1:10:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:27David Goggins?

  Cause you lose the hunger for life. You think you've arrived and once you have a, I've arrived mentality, that's my biggest fear. Is I get to a point where I, I'm at that point where life has come to me and I had that feeling of I've arrived. I now know my life for what I know it to be is over. Even though that's where comfort is and everything else, I found the most life in the most uncomfortable.

• 1:10:55David Goggins?

  Places in the world, I was the most, the Goggins that I invented, because David Goggins was weak.

• 1:11:03David Goggins?

  I never want to get rid of Goggins. The guy I created, that weak person that that used to be, the guy I created that can handle anything. You don't want to let go of that guy because you realize that that guy was made. You weren't born him. And that is, when you get comfortable, Goggins starts to die.

• 1:11:25David Goggins?

  He starts to die, that that that one creature from the Black Lagoon that can live in a sewer, that can eat rats all day. That doesn't need water, that doesn't need sunlight, that didn't need nothing. He can just live because he knows he can. That's a powerful human being that you never want to, it's in everybody. That's the scary thing about, that's what makes me so upset, man. Is that everybody wants to put this daggone label on me. They forget the first three chapters of my book.

• 1:12:00David Goggins?

  They forget how this started. A lot of times, it takes someone's wife dying or something like that for them to change.

• 1:12:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, near death.

• 1:12:07David Goggins?

  Yeah, something, no, no, no, none of that. I wanted to figure out, is there more to this horrible feeling of feeling like a loser? Can I change this? And once you figure out, I have the ability, not through your mom or your dad or through a special school, through you. You have the ability to change this, that's what makes me so mad. Once people put this title on me, you now give yourself a get out of jail free card. It's saying, oh, he's just crazy, he's special, he's unique, he's this and that. You just saved yourself.

• 1:12:43Lewis Howes?

  From not having to do the work.

• 1:12:44David Goggins?

  Not having to do the work.

• 1:12:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46David Goggins?

  And that's why I want people to hear my story. I'm trying to take away all that bull crap that you want to put on me. I'm trying to make you suffer up here to know, my guy, man, he really had a hard way to go.

• 1:13:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:13:02David Goggins?

  There was nothing special about him, he wasn't talented, he wasn't gifted, he wasn't nothing. He wasn't nothing and he made it. I want everybody to feel uncomfortable around me. That's it. Cause I want you to go home and think about yourself.

• 1:13:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18David Goggins?

  Think about yourself, man, because you're leaving so much on the table for the possibilities of what you can be.

• 1:13:24Lewis Howes?

  You say most people are at forty percent potential. What percent are you at?

• 1:13:29David Goggins?

  I like to say that I live in the ninety percentile, sometimes ninety-nine. A hundred percent is dead.

• 1:13:37David Goggins?

  A hundred percent is dead.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  Ninety-nine sometimes.

• 1:13:39David Goggins?

  Ninety-nine sometimes. The reason why I know ninety-nine because

• 1:13:43David Goggins?

  the first five hours of my day, I am very uncomfortable.

• 1:13:50Lewis Howes?

  What do you do?

• 1:13:51David Goggins?

  First of all, every morning I get up and people think I love to run. I don't.

• 1:13:56Lewis Howes?

  That's why you do it.

• 1:13:57David Goggins?

  That's why I do it and, and people don't understand the mentality. Oh, you had to love it, man. No.

• 1:14:03David Goggins?

  Running has changed my life. Because every morning I know I'm gonna do it. If you know, every morning you do something that you don't like. Every morning I would do it for, and guess what? If I just ran for an hour a day. A day is twenty-four hours, right? What percent is that? What's one hour of twenty, what is that, four percent? A small percent. But anyway,

• 1:14:25David Goggins?

  that's why I know I'm at a, a high level. Cause I'm at this, not wanting to be this, you know, uncomfortable. I put myself in the dungeon every day off jump. Out of bed, it starts.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  Shoes on.

• 1:14:39David Goggins?

  Out of bed. While, while most people lose the battle in the morning, once you leave your beautiful house, the war starts. Nowadays, it starts before you leave home. The phone rings, social media is up, the world is attacking you.

• 1:14:54David Goggins?

  If you don't control what you can to build that armor, so in the morning time, what I'm doing is I'm building my armor. It gets broken every night. I get up in the morning time, I start to build the armor, let's run, okay? Gotta do our pushes, our sips, our pull-ups, I go to the gym, gotta do our stretch. Every morning, I'm building-

• 1:15:11Lewis Howes?

  You do one hour in the morning of training?

• 1:15:13David Goggins?

  Oh, no. In the morning time, I do at least an hour and a half. And then I go to the gym-

• 1:15:17Lewis Howes?

  Of running, hour and a half? Hour and a half of running?

• 1:15:19David Goggins?

  Yes. Then I'm in the gym. And then at nighttime, every night, for the last five to six years, about five and a half years, I've only missed two days of stretching for two to three hours.

• 1:15:31Lewis Howes?

  Two to three hours a night, stretching?

• 1:15:33David Goggins?

  I've only missed two days in five or, about five and a half years.

• 1:15:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow, stretching?

• 1:15:38David Goggins?

  Stretching.

• 1:15:39Lewis Howes?

  Why stretching?

• 1:15:40David Goggins?

  That is where I've, so, the sickness I had was my psoas muscle got real tight. And it caused my body, long story short, to pretty much choke me out from the inside. So when you're young, your psoas muscle is your fight or flight muscle. We're sitting down right now, we're using the hip flexor muscle. When you're under stress, as I was my whole life, by being afraid of my father-

• 1:16:02Lewis Howes?

  Tight inside.

• 1:16:02David Goggins?

  It's tight.

• 1:16:03Lewis Howes?

  Tight clenched.

• 1:16:03David Goggins?

  Your whole body's tight. Then I choose a job like being a Navy SEAL. It's even tighter. And then I put myself under stress. It's just tightening, tightening, tightening. It's a vise grip. And you need healthy blood flow through your body. I wasn't getting any of that. So I push so hard in, in life, people say, "Oh, because you ran so much." No. Sorry. Life.

• 1:16:24Lewis Howes?

  Emotional stress.

• 1:16:25David Goggins?

  Yes, emotional stress made me just tight. So now, I couldn't sit down here for 10 seconds. And I'd be like, I was wound. What that's done to me is allow me to be even more open-minded. I stretch out, I get my body linkedened out. It linkens my mind out, the possibilities out. I calm myself down. So during the morning time, I build the armor. I face the world. Because now I know there's gonna be some disappointments along the way, every day.

• 1:16:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53David Goggins?

  That's life. But if you face disappointments already in victory, the things I can control is I can control my run.

• 1:17:01Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:01David Goggins?

  I can control how my house looks, how my world is. I can control that. So I've won. Open my door of life. Life starts to beat me down, but I'm facing it with the body armor that I created.

• 1:17:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:17:13David Goggins?

  And now I'm facing life with the proper tools. Unlike, I hit this news button, I'm running late, my house is a mess, my mind's a mess. Now, life's already beat you. So you open the door and now life hits you and you're already frustrated. You're already in that anxiety mode. You're stressed already. And then life starts to pile more on top of you. You get home, you're exhausted. And that's how life happens to everyone.

• 1:17:39David Goggins?

  You have to live and win what you can and build the body armor. Start callous in the mind so you're ready for combat outside of your house. Because it's gonna come. And that's what I realized at a young age. I had no body armor. I had no callous.

• 1:17:56Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:57David Goggins?

  So when life came at me, I, I ran, I tuck. I lived in the fetal position trying to get away from life. I wasn't protected. I didn't protect myself. I had nothing. So I started realizing, I gotta form an armor. To, so I won't have to lie to you to make you like me.

• 1:18:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:17David Goggins?

  So I'm not approaching people feeling insecure. Saying I have all these material things that I don't have. When you have that body armor, you tell people, hey man, I'm not real smart.

• 1:18:29David Goggins?

  But I try real hard.

• 1:18:30Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:31David Goggins?

  I'm not the fa- I, I won't win this race, man, but I've been running for the last four years every day.

• 1:18:35Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty good, yeah.

• 1:18:37David Goggins?

  That's the, that's the mentality that you need to have.

• 1:18:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40David Goggins?

  Look at people knowing, I know you and everybody else has issues. Why am I worried about how anybody thinks of me? We're all in the same boat here. Some boats may be bigger than others. But we all have problems.

• 1:18:56David Goggins?

  So be it. We're all in the same boat.

• 1:18:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58David Goggins?

  Some of us are willing to not lie about it.

• 1:19:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02David Goggins?

  I'm at that point now where I no longer care. Because why? Why can I go on here and tell people how fucked up I am? Because I faced them.

• 1:19:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:10David Goggins?

  Then they'll longer define who I am.

• 1:19:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13David Goggins?

  It's not me. It was me.

• 1:19:15Lewis Howes?

  They don't control you anymore.

• 1:19:16David Goggins?

  It's not, yeah.

• 1:19:18Lewis Howes?

  When you're training in the morning, or training at night, or stretching at night, what are you visualizing or thinking about?

• 1:19:26David Goggins?

  Nothing. When I'm training in the morning time.

• 1:19:30Lewis Howes?

  And it's a run for an hour and a half, and gym, and...

• 1:19:32David Goggins?

  Sometimes it's longer.

• 1:19:33Lewis Howes?

  Calisthenic type of stuff, or...

• 1:19:34David Goggins?

  An hour to an hour and a half is the minimum.

• 1:19:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38David Goggins?

  If I'm doing like a 100 mile race, which, you know, like now I'm starting to build my miles back up because I'm training for a race in January. You know, that could be two, two and a half, three hours. Then once I come home from that, it's right in the gym. Immediately. So I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I'm dehydrated. Sodium low, everything. And that's where, that's the edge.

• 1:19:59Lewis Howes?

  Because it's even more uncomfortable to do.

• 1:20:00David Goggins?

  That's right. Because all I want to do then...

• 1:20:03Lewis Howes?

  Stretch, drink water, relax.

• 1:20:05David Goggins?

  That's it. I had a long run, I'm hot, I'm dehydrated.

• 1:20:09Lewis Howes?

  You already didn't want to run.

• 1:20:10David Goggins?

  That's right. So that's when, because why?

• 1:20:16David Goggins?

  In the race of life, life's not going to give you a glass of water when you're thirsty.

• 1:20:23David Goggins?

  And I realize that. And once again, people that go, "My God, your life is horrible." It's not.

• 1:20:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29David Goggins?

  This is how I live. This is how I live. This is what I want. I don't judge anybody. This is how I live. If there's not people like me in this world with this kind of mentality. It's not be like David Goggas, go run 200 miles. Take something from this. Take something from this. Remember where I started from. You don't need to go where I went.

• 1:20:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:20:56David Goggins?

  I went this far because I started opening different doors to the cellar in my brain. My God, is this possible? Oh my God, that's possible, this is possible. I started opening up different compartments. You can leave them shut. I don't care. So what I do now in the morning times, I do this because why? Life's not going to give me the get out jail free card.

• 1:21:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:18David Goggins?

  And if I come on here on this podcast and talk this stuff, I have to live what I say. So when you come up from a world of you used to lie a lot, and my big thing is facing all this crap, I cannot tell you something I have not done.

• 1:21:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:21:35David Goggins?

  Because why? When you start to formulate this character...

• 1:21:40David Goggins?

  This code of ethic, this ethos that you live, not anybody else, it's your own. I cannot tell you something that I haven't done. Why? Because it will haunt me. You are now drinking the Kool-Aid. A lot of people write books on self-help, mental toughness, all this crap. Half of them are living up to that standard.

• 1:22:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:03David Goggins?

  Half of them are living up to that standard. You have to be able to practice what you preach. It has to be what you are. That's why when people say, "My God, when you speak on stuff, it's so passionate." Because you're making me relive my life.

• 1:22:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:22:18David Goggins?

  It's not a comfortable life. This life was made. This life was earned.

• 1:22:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23David Goggins?

  And if people like it, great. If not, so be it. At nighttime, I think about nothing.

• 1:22:29Lewis Howes?

  When you're stretching or when you're?

• 1:22:30David Goggins?

  I mean, I'm stretching.

• 1:22:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:31David Goggins?

  That's my time. That's my time to sit back and recharge for tomorrow. Because why? This is not, mental toughness is not a class. We have this class that they designed. Eat an elephant one bite at a time. Self-talk, visualization, arousal control. It's all great. It's all great. It has to be a lifestyle.

• 1:23:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:04David Goggins?

  You work on mental calloping on a daily basis. Because you're, even though your brain, your mind, like your brain isn't a muscle so much, you will lose it. You will lose the ability to suffer in the worst of times if you come out of it for too long. If you can lift three hundred and fifteen pounds and you stop going to the gym for a month, I guarantee you won't be able to pick the same weight up again. All the stories I talked about today, all the things in that book. If I went and said, "I'm good."

• 1:23:43David Goggins?

  I gained all this knowledge. If I stop today, the knowledge is gone.

• 1:23:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51David Goggins?

  I had to go back deep to retrieve it. I don't want to go back deep to retrieve it. I want to be with a call on it now. That's why I do these things. I know what not doing them will get me.

• 1:24:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. There's so much more I want to ask you, but I want to try to wrap it up here with with three final questions. I didn't even get to any of the questions I had on here because I'm just so inspired by everything. But if you guys haven't picked this up yet, you can preorder it right now. Again, can't hurt me. Master your mind and defy the odds. Make sure you guys get this book, get a few copies for friends. Give them out as gifts. This will be one of the most powerful things you give to someone. This is called, actually, I'm curious about. I didn't, I asked you about the greatest lesson from your mom, but I'm curious, what's the greatest lesson your dad taught you? Whether he actually said it or you observed it?

• 1:24:39David Goggins?

  I observed it.

• 1:24:40Lewis Howes?

  Or what, or what not to do, or?

• 1:24:42David Goggins?

  So I observed it from my dad. When I left, I was young. I had a young man's, a young kid's point of view on my father. So when I was 22, at 300 pounds, I went back to see my dad. Because I want to make sure that what I saw at eight is the same, this is my father. I don't want to not talk to my father, no matter what he did, no matter what I saw. But was it through a young kid's eyes? So at 22, I went back. And I was able to examine him as a man. As a fragile man that I was.

• 1:25:22Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:25:23David Goggins?

  But I was able to examine him. And through this process, by this, so by this point in my life, I was examining myself. And realizing I have a whole mess of problems. Big time. Some were from him. Some were for people that bullied me. A lot were from me. And in knowing how messed up I was, I was able to examine everybody around me. I examined him.

• 1:25:50David Goggins?

  And I examined him to know, my God, the insecurities that you must have, the problems that you must have inside of you. I don't want to have those. I come from my father. I have what he has. And I didn't want to be him. Why he made fun of me, my brother, why he beat the hell out of me, my brother, my mom. It comes from a dark place, an insecure, dark, dark place. Why he womenized, why he sold prostitutes, why he ran pro, all this stuff he did. A good human being doesn't need to do that. A fulfilled human being doesn't need to break anyone down.

• 1:26:34David Goggins?

  All they do is want to build you up. So anybody you meet that calls you out of your name, that bullies you, that messes you up, that, that makes you feel not lifted. They are dealing with something deep rooted. Yeah, you have to have a tough tone with some people to help them out. There's a difference. You have to be hard. I'm hard on people, but it comes from a good place. Yeah. The biggest lesson he taught me was how not to be. And that's why I had to fix what I was. Because insecurities make everybody around you feel like hell. And that's the one thing I did not want anyone to feel like. That's why I judge no one.

• 1:27:19David Goggins?

  Tons of whites have called me nigger. Tons of people have hurt me. I judge no one because I know where it comes from. I know you. I was once you. That's why now the place I'm at, you get a get out of jail free card. You need to help yourself. You ain't bullying me, man. Right, you're fine. I'm good. Whatever you throw at you. I'm good. I know what's wrong with you because I was once you. Right. So I started to examine people. Examine myself, examine my darkness.

• 1:27:53David Goggins?

  Realizing how I cannot be, but I got it from examining him. Saying, "I cannot be that."

• 1:28:00Lewis Howes?

  That's a powerful lesson. So it's a good lesson that he taught you.

• 1:28:03David Goggins?

  Yes.

• 1:28:04Lewis Howes?

  Through that observance. How do you react or respond when someone says something to you negative? Or cuts you off in a car? Or just something happens in life every day? That could potentially upset you? Do you react? Do you respond? Do you do nothing? Do you give them a hug? I mean, what is the process for you now?

• 1:28:22David Goggins?

  The process used to be angry David Goggins.

• 1:28:25Lewis Howes?

  Scream at them, swear at them, yeah.

• 1:28:27David Goggins?

  Yes.

• 1:28:27Lewis Howes?

  Pick a fight.

• 1:28:28David Goggins?

  That was the old me.

• 1:28:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29David Goggins?

  The old me was pick a fight, go, go do whatever. Through this process of my life. When you get to this point I'm at, yeah, and I still be in a car and I'll talk to my fiance. This, this is jackass, whatever, whatever. I now know that I can escalate a problem that's not really a problem. I now, now, I have a throttle. And that's through self-examination.

• 1:28:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:56David Goggins?

  Is this a big deal? Is this something I need to approach with a level three engagement of like, we're going at it?

• 1:29:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:29:05David Goggins?

  Or is this a level two engagement? So now you have to be mature enough. And I'm really big on maturity because I was never mature for some of years. With age and knowledge, you have to bring in maturity. Age doesn't mean you're mature. It's going back in and saying, okay, man, look, I'm at a point in my life. What is smart? If I do this, I, I can see the future. I can see that if I do this, this is going to happen. I'm going to escalate this problem. Is this warranted? There are some things that warrant me to escalate a problem. And that's what I do now. I take it through a process.

• 1:29:42Lewis Howes?

  Rated, yeah.

• 1:29:42David Goggins?

  Yes. It goes on a rating program.

• 1:29:44Lewis Howes?

  Got it. Powerful. This is called the three truths. I ask this question to everyone at the end. It's called three truths.

• 1:29:53Lewis Howes?

  Imagine it is your last day and you get to pick the day whenever you want. You get to live as long as you want. You pick the day, but it's time for your body to go, right? You've created everything you want to create. You've been at 99 percentile of potential for as long as you can live. You've done it all. You've checked off the list that everything that God says that you were supposed to do, it's happened.

• 1:30:15David Goggins?

  Right.

• 1:30:16Lewis Howes?

  Written the books, everything you want to do, done. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your written word and videos and audio stuff that's out in the world. You've got to take it with you. But you get to write down on a piece of paper the three things you know to be true about all of your experiences. And this is what you leave behind. The three lessons or what I like to call the three truths. What would you say are your three truths?

• 1:30:40David Goggins?

  The first one is you are your own hero. You are your own leader. You are your own master. And that is a big one because we idolize so many people and we want to be them. We want to be someone else. And in doing that, you lose all the potential of who you are. You mimic. You be them. You are them. You become them. And you lose you. And we look up to so many people in this world who will let us down. We're humans. I'm going to let you down. You're going to let somebody down. If you put them on a pedestal, you then lose time when that person comes up and lets you down.

• 1:31:24David Goggins?

  You must hold yourself accountable and being your own hero, that's what that does. You make yourself so totally accountable for who you are. You focus on you and only on you to become the best person you could be for others. Because we leave a lot on the table, not searching who we are. And then therefore you die not knowing your greatest potential.

• 1:31:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:31:49David Goggins?

  That's one. The next one I would say is the biggest one I would say is never pick the easy road.

• 1:31:58David Goggins?

  Never, never. And it always goes back to kind of that hero mentality. Never pick the easy road ever in your life. That is the one road that is doom. It is doom. If you want something like six minute abs, all these different things. People want it so fast. You may achieve what you wanted. But you want the permanent fix. The permanent fix comes from the hard road. The hard road gives you permanent results. The easy road gives you the quick fix. You will go back to where you started on the easy route. That hard route is so permanent

• 1:32:43David Goggins?

  that it ends up callusing you everywhere, everywhere.

• 1:32:47Lewis Howes?

  You keep a six pack forever.

• 1:32:48David Goggins?

  You keep it. Because you know the work that goes into it. And the last one is, when you get to where you want to go in life, when you finally get there, you finally reach that point and you're there and you're happy as hell, realize this. You're not there yet. When you get that feeling that you arrived, be afraid. Be truly afraid because now you start to do this.

• 1:33:23Lewis Howes?

  Slowly die.

• 1:33:23David Goggins?

  Slowly die. Either you're getting better or you're getting worse. You're not staying the same. So when you get to where you think the journey is ended and you're sitting back and you're like, I arrived. I'm on Mount Everest. I climbed twenty-nine, zero, twenty-nine. The best thing to do is fall back down that damn mountain as fast as you can and start climbing.

• 1:33:47Lewis Howes?

  Find the next climb.

• 1:33:48David Goggins?

  Find the next climb.

• 1:33:51Lewis Howes?

  All right, man, I gotta sign up for another event. Sign up for another endurance event. Just kidding. Where can we connect with you online? Where do you like to, when you spend five minutes a month? Where is that space?

• 1:34:06David Goggins?

  My social media, whether it be Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, it's all, it's just David Goggins, at David Goggins.

• 1:34:12Lewis Howes?

  Cool, David Goggins. Your videos on Instagram are great. You should post more, have someone on your team post more because they're awesome.

• 1:34:18David Goggins?

  Well, they're all me.

• 1:34:20Lewis Howes?

  They're all you.

• 1:34:20David Goggins?

  Yeah, so I have no team. It's me, my fiancee, there is no team. She'll be in the car, she'll be on a mountaintop, she'll be somewhere. It's all my material, it's all who I am. That's why I post once a week.

• 1:34:33Lewis Howes?

  Once a week right now?

• 1:34:34David Goggins?

  Once a week, every Monday you'll get a post.

• 1:34:36Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 1:34:37David Goggins?

  That's it.

• 1:34:37Lewis Howes?

  It is some video that's gonna inspire you to be like, okay, I need to do at least five more minutes of working out, something at least. Well, I want to acknowledge you, David, for, for your intensity, your...

• 1:34:51Lewis Howes?

  Your work ethic, your passion, and also your pure real heart. Because just meeting you for the first time, walking in together, just like I could tell how real you are. And you're just a no BS type of guy. The adversity that you've overcome is crazy. Obviously, people have overcome more than you, me, and lots of people in the world. But what you had to overcome physically and psychologically and emotionally is unbelievable. And to see that you weren't a statistic. And instead, you chose every single day to make a decision to be more than that is really inspiring. And I know this has got to impact and inspire a lot of people, so I acknowledge you for your heart.

• 1:35:32Lewis Howes?

  And for inspiring me, you know, I thought I worked out hard, but this is like, I feel like I'm doing nothing with my life. So you're gonna inspire me to continue to make bigger commitments and longer commitments moving forward now. So I appreciate everything you do, man, and I'm excited about getting this out there. You're welcome. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:35:52David Goggins?

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

• 1:36:23David Goggins?

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

• 1:36:44David Goggins?

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

• 1:37:29David Goggins?

  Every shot, you can go back and say, "I was here." "This person was in a red shirt there." Greatness is being so aware of the time of life in the second that went by, and you can recall like it was yesterday. Greatness is being able to go back there, not making that same mistake again, and being haunted by it.

• 1:37:54David Goggins?

  That is greatness.

• 1:37:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, David Goggins, thanks, man. Appreciate you, man.

• 1:37:58David Goggins?

  Thank you.

• 1:38:04Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. Gosh, I got so fired up after this interview. I was talking with David for about thirty minutes afterwards, just saying, "Man, I thought I pushed myself." You know, I'm the greatness guy. I'm constantly elevating my life, my mindset, my practices, my habits, my work ethic. I just climbed a freaking twenty-nine thousand feet, twenty-two miles in the sky, the equivalent of Mount Everest. I thought I was pushing myself. There was thirty-three hours, non-stop, going after this challenge of climbing and hiking this mountain. I thought I pushed myself, and I realized, this guy does ultra, ultra marathons, two-hundred-and-five mile races. I've done nothing. I can barely run five miles without sweating.

• 1:38:47Lewis Howes?

  And I'm thinking to myself, there's gotta be a way that I can even push myself farther. And I know that you can push yourself farther as well, no matter where you're at. I'm not saying you gotta run marathons and, you know, do a thousand pull-ups a day. I'm not saying that. But there's somewhere in your life, right now, I feel it. I literally feel inside of your heart. I can see inside of your soul right now that something is burning inside of you. And you know, deep down, that you're not doing everything you can to give it all you've got in your life right now. I can freaking feel your heart. And if you're listening to this right now, that means there's more available for you in your life.

• 1:39:30Lewis Howes?

  There is so much more available for you and you haven't even scratched the surface yet. It's time to step up, make a commitment to yourself. Give yourself 30 frickin' days to do something challenging and painful and hard that you don't want to do. It's only going to make you grow. It's only going to support every aspect of your life at the highest level. Do the thing that sucks. Do the thing you don't want to do and you will be so much happier through the entire process. It's going to bring you a level of confidence, a level of poise, a level of discipline,

• 1:40:13Lewis Howes?

  a level of belief in yourself that you've never had before. Do the thing you don't want to do. Just give yourself a 30-day challenge of it and do it every single day. Message me right now. I want to know what is that thing? Because I want to call you out. I want to make sure you actually do this thing. Hold yourself accountable by letting me know. Take a screenshot of this, tag me on Instagram and put it on the screenshot on your Instagram story of what it is, the thing you're going to do. Let your friends know, let your family know. Hold yourself accountable. You were born for more. You're made for more. You're here for a reason and now is the time to step up.

• 1:40:52Lewis Howes?

  But you can't keep playing small, can't keep playing average, you can't keep playing soft in your life. It's time to master your mind and defy the odds. Let's fricking do this. I got your back and I believe in you because you're here for a reason and now is the time. If you enjoyed this, guys, make sure to text a friend right now and say, "You must listen to this now." Listen to it today and tell me what you thought of this. Text them the link, lewishouse.com/715 and tell them, "Let's fricking do this life together on a whole nother level." Find an accountability buddy. Let's do this thing. Gosh, I'm so fricking fired up right now. You have no idea.

• 1:41:33Lewis Howes?

  Send the link, watch the video, all the show notes, get the book by David Goggins, Master Your Mind, Defy the Odds. Again, all of it is linked up at the show notes, lewishouse.com/715. Tag David Goggins as well on Instagram, let him know that you're connecting with him and that you love this message. Let's spread this out to the world. When you spread this message, you're helping other people as well. This is a movement of greatness and we're all in this together. Gosh, I love you guys. You have no idea how much I love you. I always love meeting people on the streets who come up to me and say hi and say how much the podcast has impacted you in your life. So, thank you to everyone who comes up to me and says hi and gives me a hug and a high five and tells me their story about the podcast and how

• 1:42:18Lewis Howes?

  it's resonated for you. It means a lot to me. And as the great Marcus Aurelius said, "You have power over your mind, not outside events." Realize this and you will find strength. As always, I love you so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.