If You Want To COMPLETELY CHANGE Your Life In 7 Days, WATCH THIS! | David Goggins | Transcription

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David'S Childhood Struggles

David talks about the struggles he faced as a child (06:08)

And the feeling I had every morning, I started shaving my hair when I was 16 years old. And the feeling I had every morning, when I looked in the mirror, was horrible. And I didn't want to feel like that anymore. And how I felt was a kid going nowhere, a kid that was scared. And most kids will accept that and look for help. But the best thing that happened to me, no one helped me. No one felt sorry for me. No one looked at me and said, "Like this day and age, they'll take you in and they'll tell you, 'But I stopped picking on this person.' Back then, they didn't care. The KKK marched in our 4th of July parades. They had to stay a hundred yards back, but they marched in it. That's how this town was. And my mom cared about me, but my dad took our soul. And she did the best she could. I had to figure out I wasn't going to be a punk kid all my life. So the way I could turn around was to suffer. I had to build calluses in my brain the same way I built calluses on my hands. So I broke the Ginsburg-Roles records for Pups a long time ago. But I felt it at twice. And I did 67,000 pull-ups in trying to break this record. So to do 4,000 30 pull-ups, I had to do 67,000 for training for that. Wow. And so what I realized is for me to become the man I wanted to become, I saw myself as the weakest person God ever created. But I never blamed God for anything He did to me. So I wanted to change that to be the hardest man ever created. In my that, I don't know, but you had to have a goal. In my goal when I was sitting there not going to school, being bullied, having no self-esteem, my goal was the only person that's gonna turn this person around is me. The only way I can turn around is put myself through the worst things possible a human being can ever endure. And that would be the only way that I can build this brain to handle anything that comes in front of it. Calacy my mind through pain and suffering. That's so powerful. It's such an amazing insight. So obviously listening to some of the stuff that you're talking about and one thing that you say often is, you know, it's hard to stay hard or get hard when you're living in, you know, like you even said at one point in a big mansion in Beverly Hills, right? So I was sitting there thinking you're absolutely right. But what I find so interesting is how we as a species run from pain, we run from suffering. And one of the reasons I've talked about this before, but one of the reasons my wife and I don't have kids is I firmly believe that you need something that is brutal, is difficult, is hardship, it knocks you off center, it makes you feel bad because in the process of rebuilding and clawing back from that climbing up, then you can become something. But you, unless you've been tested, unless you've gone to the ringer, you've got no hope. So how do you take somebody that you love and force them through that? And I think that what you've done is maybe the ultimate expression of that, which is how do you put yourself through it? Right? You don't have to do any of that. So in the end, like what would your advice be to that 16-year-old kid who's staring in the mirror does not like what he sees, but is still running from adversity? Well, my biggest advice to him is that first of all, he won't like what I say to him. Because I'm going to say the exact opposite of what the world, today's world, is saying. So we read a bunch of books nowadays. As humans, we want to find out how to be someone else. What we don't do is we don't go inside. So literally turn yourself inside out, read the book that's like we're writing a book every day for lives.

David'S Philosophy And Personal Experiences

David discusses the importance of introspection (09:44)

But we never read that book. So what I would challenge this young man or young woman to do is you have to look inside of yourself to see what you really want. What are you passionate about? We use these words and these little phrases of only the strong survive and also the crap. They're all just fucking words. I get so tired of hearing people just talking like right now. Someone may think, "God is just talking." You don't know me. So when I speak, I speak from passion, I speak from experience. I speak from suffering. I have to tell this young man and woman that the only way I believe, and this is just my experience in life, the only way you're ever going to get to the other side of this journey is you have got to suffer, to grow. To grow, you must suffer. And some people will get it and some people won't.

David discusses a belief in suffering in order to grow (10:30)

But they have to see what their journey is to start their journey. Several people live to be a hundred years old and they have great lives and they have great kids. The kids go to college and all sort of stuff. But somewhere in their life, there was a point where they had a decision to make. They can go left or right on this path. Left was the easy route. Right was a hard route. A lot of people take the easy route and they had a good life that way but the better life was going to the right side. And you may have 20 years of pain and suffering to get past it but a lot of us die never truly starting our journey. And I would tell this young person, "You got to start your journey. It may suck but it will. It will come out the other side where you're coasting." So it's really, I want to go back to what you're saying about that we write our own book, writing it every day but we actually don't take the time to read it. So what do you, as you were saying that, here's what I was saying and tell me if this is where you were going, that basically you're writing down these things that are sort of becoming your identity about being weak, about avoiding suffering, about being soft essentially. I mean, like all the things sort of by default there in that camp. And as you were saying that, I was imagining you sort of taking that pen and beginning to write your own story and writing things that you knew looking back on that you would be proud of. Like going through the military and doing the hardest training, some of the ultra endurance stuff that you've done which is unbroken feet. I mean it's like so crazy. In fact, one, is that what you meant by writing that story? So what I meant by that is like every day we're seeing who we are as people. When I was growing up, I lied for people to accept me because I didn't accept myself. So I would make up stories so then you would accept me into your world. I would everything I did was for someone else to like me. It wasn't until I started reading my own book about how pathetic I was as human being. I could blame my dad. I could blame kids at school. I could blame having health issues, ADD, my mom not being around. Great mom, but she was doing her thing. I could blame a lot of people. And that's the book I was reading. And I put it off on everybody else. It wasn't until I say, you know what? For me to fix this, I get to read what the hell, what the fuck is wrong with David Goggins. Not blame anybody. Read my book. It's okay. I'm afraid of my shadow. How can I overcome that? Go in the military, get your ass kicked, do things you hate to do. Be uncomfortable every fucking day of your life. Roger that. I'm not the smartest kid in the world. Okay. It says, "Oh no, you're smart. No, no, don't say that to yourself." I said to myself, "No, I'm a dumb motherfucker." Okay. Roger that. How you get smarter, educate yourself. So the things that we run from, we run from the truth. We're running from the truth, man. So the only way I became successful was going towards the truth. As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me.

David talks about self discovery and truth (13:35)

It allowed me to become in my own right who I am today. One of the most powerful things I think anybody can do, and this, so I used to struggle with self-esteem and my thing was I focused on being smart and I just wasn't that smart. I focused on being right and I was wrong a lot. And so it created this weird thing in my life where I would constantly try to put myself around people who are less and less intelligent so that I could feel good about myself. And the bad news is actually a really good strategy for that. Being around people that were less intelligent than me really did make me feel good. Like I felt good about myself. But I literally referred to myself at the time as a king of remedial jobs because those are the only jobs that I could really shine at. And it wasn't until I realized I can actually change what I build myself esteem around. And I can start building myself esteem around instead of being right or being smart, being a learner and being willing to admit when I'm wrong. And so the thing that I began to build myself esteem around was being willing and able to stare at my inadequacies. Right? What you said, like I fully understand like how this interview is going to be, you warned me ahead of time, this interview is going to be bifurcating. People are going to love it and some people are going to hate it. And but dude, I so believe in the notion of looking at yourself and if you are pathetic owning it, right? And saying, because my thing is you can change it, right? Which you have proven in no uncertain terms. But if you don't admit it, you're never going to be on the path to changing it. Exactly. Walk us through because this is one of those crazy stories I can't imagine how you pulled this off. Your first ultra marathon, which you got into like really fast and one why you did it. I think that's incredible. So this the first ultra marathon wasn't smart at all at all. Just so basically what happened was I was at military free fall school with Morgan the trail. Marcus the trail, if you guys don't know, was the lone survivor of the guy. He wasn't a bad op, off and bad. He was the only Navy so that lived. Long story short. You got to get the book, read, loan, survivor, great story. Morgan is Marcus the trail twin brother and I was there with Marcus. So what happened was myself and Morgan were free fall school. At the same exact time, Marcus was in the worst incident in still history. So I knew that Marcus might be dead. He wasn't dead. Everybody else was dead. So I actually brought more, you know, I actually told Morgan, hey man, your brother wasn't a bad incident. I don't know if he's alive. I don't know what's going on. Long story short, Marcus is alive and I go on to want to raise money for families. All these guys died. They all had kids. I want to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. It's a foundation where 100% tuition goes to these kids to go to college, you know, full tuition, whatever. So I found this great foundation. I'm gonna raise money for it. So I see, you know what? I have to Google something that's evil, something very hard. I knew nothing about ultra-marathon. I hadn't even run a marathon. I knew nothing about this world. So I Google the top 10 hardest races in the world. And what comes up is a bad water 135. So her and 35 mile race through Death Valley in the summertime. I thought it was a stage race. I thought it was a race where you run like 20 miles, set up camp, you know, barbecue outside and then go run some more the next day. So I called the race director up at the race. I said, "Hey Chris, the name is Chris Costman. I want to do your race." So we had a long conversation. You know, I was much heavier than and I hadn't put running shoes on over a year. How heavy are you at this point? I'm around between 240 to 270. Whoa. I'm in there. I'm in that race. My weight has varied a lot through the still teams and out of the still team. So I was a heavy guy. But the long and short of it all was I hadn't put running shoes on and over a year. I was a big-time power lifter. I lifted weights heavy. That's what I did. I got back home from Iraq. We're straight to free fall school and then this happened. So I called Chris Costman up on a Wednesday. He says, "Look man, the only way you can qualify for my race is to run 100 miles at one time in 24 hours or less. There happened to be a race that Saturday." So four days later. And he said, "If you qualify by running 100 miles or less in 24 hours, I will consider you my race." I'm gonna cut to the chase. I signed up for this race. It's called the San Diego one day where you run around a one-mile track for 24 hours to see miles you can get. My goal was 100 miles. So I got to miles 70 and I cleared 70 miles in like 12, 13 hours pretty quickly. But I was done. My feet were broken. I was stretched fractures, shin splints. Muscles were tearing. I was in bad shape. I was eating rich crackers and drinking myel plaques. That's all I had. No water. Didn't know what the hell I was doing out there. Had on some tube socks. It was just ridiculous. It was a clown show. So I sat down at mile 70 and at this time I was married and I looked at my wife and I was like, "I'm messed up bad." So I literally start to turn white. And when a black guy turns white you're pretty fucked up. So here I am. I'm all fucked up in this chair. I'm at mile 70. I think I 30 fucking miles to go. I'm jacked up. I got to go to the bathroom. The bathroom's like 20 feet from me. Support a potty. I can't get all the fucking chair. So I'm peeing blood down my leg, pooping up my fucking pack. And I got 30 miles to go. And I can't stand up because my blood pressure is all messed up. I've been in three hell weeks, Ranger School, overcome so many obstacles in my life. This last 30 miles of this race is when I realized a human being is not so human anymore. We have the ability to go in such a space. If you're willing to suffer and I mean suffer, your brain and your body once connected together can do anything. And this 30 miles was the life-changing moment. I was out of it.

David shares his experience of qualifying for his first ultra marathon (19:50)

I was in the worst pain in my entire life. I was to me on the brink of death. And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles into small pieces. I was so driven and I'm not gonna say motivated because motivation's crap. Motivation comes and goes. When you're driven, whatever's in front of you will get destroyed. So I sat in this chair and I was so driven to succeed in this race. And at this time, ever because were you thinking about the guys that died and I'm not gonna lie to you, I wasn't. This became a personal thing. This became me against this race, me against the kids that called me nigger, me against me. It just became something that I took so so violently personal. And I broke this thing down to small pieces. I said, okay, I got to get nutrition. I got to be able to stand up before I can get off this curb and get off this chair and be able to go 30 miles. So I went through all these small steps and I was able to stand up. And then from staying up, I was literally walking around with my wife at the time and she goes, you're not gonna make the time. She goes, you're walking like 30, seven minute miles. I got to mile 81. And the second she said that I'm not gonna make the time, I ran the last 19 miles nonstop. And I can show you right now, when we get done with this, matter of fact, I'm gonna show you right now. This was years ago. And I had to put compression tape on my ankle. And I had so this was years ago. I had literally the size of half dollars. I had to get compression tape. And I taped up my ankles and I taped up my feet. And that's how I got through that race. It was like a hematoma. I mean, what do we what happened was like my shins hurt so bad from having stretch fractures. That the only way I could continue on was I taped it. So I wasn't doing the flexure motion that that activates your your shins. So I taped my ankles and my shins up and I got that from because in my third Hell Week, they were gonna let me go back through your training anymore. So I literally went through all the buds, my last still training with stretch fraction shins plants. And how I did it was I would take my ankles all the way up to my calf every morning. So for the first hour, the pain was excruciating. But what happened is my feet would go numb. Now did that every single day for six months. Whoa. And that's how I got through my third Hell Week. Because I was so broken from the first two that the commander said, Hey, the CEO said this your last time or send you through. So that's how I got the idea to do that. So with the right and people may listen to this and say, this guy is sadistic. He's crazy. He's no if you know how I came up, you realize I was just a scared kid that found drive and passion to be something much better than what he thought he was. That's all it is. God, I'm gonna ask the question.

David talks about the impact of his childhood (23:04)

I don't know if you have a good answer for this. I don't know if there is a good answer for this. But even I want to know, how do you find and cultivate that drive? Like there is a kid right now watching this man and they feel like you felt they feel lost alone, broken, stupid, lazy, like they're never going to amount to anything. And what you're talking about is the closest saying to a fucking superpower that this kid has ever heard. And right now he's on the edge of his seat. How does he how does he like force himself to take that first step? I'm very fortunate that I grew up at a time when there was no phones and there was no social media. And I suggest, yes, I'm on social media on a very limited basis because I have a story to tell. And it's a great platform. Use it as a platform. Don't use it as your life. My biggest advice to give everybody in the world is like I say, we live in an external world. Everything is you got to see it, touch it. It's external. If you can for the rest of your life live inside of yourself, stop listening to people who are calling you fat, gay, transsexual, nigger, everything that is makes no sense. All these insecure people putting their insecure on you, you got to flush it out. You got to just be whoever the hell God or whatever the hell you believe in. If you believe in nothing but yourself, I don't care what it is. You got to take everything and throw it away. You have to believe in one thing and that is yourself. And I'm not saying don't believe in God or what you believe in. But right now for you to find greatness in yourself, you're not going to find it by looking in a book or by even hearing me. I may give you the spark but you've got to go inside yourself to find it. And that means you got to be quiet. Shut the fuck up, go in a room, stop talking, search your soul, search your mind, search your abilities and you'll find it. But if you're not looking for it, you won't find it. So you got to go start your journey and the journey starts you finding why the hell am I here on this planet Earth? Why am I here? If you don't know that, you will live the rest of your life searching, always asking the question, why? So on that last 19 miles, feet are broken, ankles are taped, shin splints, stress fractures. What are the words that are going through your mind? Are you in the cookie jar? I'm deep in the cookie jar. The cookie jar is something that I've made up of all the failures of my life. All the things that I was, I failed and I went back. I failed and I went back and I finally succeeded. All the things that kick my ass. I put them on the cookie jar because at times of hell, even the hardest men in times of suffering, what we do is we forget how hard we really are. Because that's what suffering is. Suffering is a test. It's all it is. Suffering is the true test of life. And so that cookie jar travels in my brain. So whenever I get put in a situation where I have poopy pants, the world was meme mentality of, oh my god, life sucks. I take a second. I take the one second decision. I step out of my life for one second, going to the cookie jar, pull up. Oh, motherfucker, you went, you were in three whole weeks and finished two. One of those whole weeks that guy died and he was so bad. Oh, you are a motherfucking badass. You are. I put it back in the cookie jar. And I remember who the fuck I really am. I'm not the kid that got that was called me. I'm not the scared kid. This is who I am. It's a reminder of who you truly are at the core of yourself. But what I was saying to myself the whole time on that track, and it, and this is what I say to myself, self talk and visualization of two keys to my success. I believed for that last time 19 miles, I was indestructible because I took myself in that chair, crapping up my back, peeing blood in my leg, shin splint, stress fractures. I use all that for motivation versus negativity. I use it for motivation. I said to myself, who on this fucking earth would still be going right now? You are. You are. You got to be the hardest motherfucker on the planet. Is it true? I don't give a fuck. At that time, right, it got me to the finish line of that fucking race. I believed it. I believe it today. I believed it enough to where my body said, he's not going to stop. And that's, I took all the negative things.

David shares the excruciating pain he dealt with during his race (27:46)

I need to go to the hospital this and that. And I use all who the hell could even get on that chair? You did. Who the hell would even think about taping stress fractures up? You did. All those things I use for motivation. I'm going to use them for motivation. I mean, that's like, that's so fucking powerful. Talk to me about the dark side. It's something that I'm sure you take a lot of heat for. It's something that I think a lot about. I believe people should intentionally be motivated by beauty and rage. And so many people are afraid of the negative. What power have you found in the darkness? First, I'll be friends of that question. I want to say everybody listen to this. I'm the happiest man on the planet Earth. So people may take this as so many people do. We live in a very weakened society. So when they hear a throwback guy like me from back in the ancient days of of grandimals, they often think this guy is just whatever. So if you think that I'm some unhappy guy, you're wrong. Having lived a life I've lived and seeing the other side, not being afraid to attack what was in front of me has made me happy. Say that again. In fact, let me make sure I understood it. Getting to the point where you're not afraid to face the thing on the other side of the door that wants to attack you has made you happy. Right. Right. It's really powerful. I hope people heard that. Right. That made me very happy. So basically, I just don't walk around with a dad going to smile my face all the time. So you know, Merry Christmas. But basically, what the dark side is, is we all have a cookie jar and we all have a jar of fuck. That's its official name. It's a jar of fuck, man, where shit just is just ain't going right. And in Hell Week, what they do in Hell Week, because this is where I really went to the dark side. What they do in Hell Week is they design Hell Week to find your flaws. And they do a really good job of that. It's 130 hours of continuous training. You may get two hours of sleep and they beat the shit out of you and find everything wrong with your mentality. And then they start Hell Week. And that's the beauty of it. And for me, I'm not some not, you know, nasty guy-giving guy. You know, I don't have a great bit of talent in anything. So what got me through horrible times was a dark side, was I created, my name is David Goggins. I created Goggins. Goggins is the guy that can take anything you put in front of them. You want to break my motherfucking legs?

David talks about the dark side (30:43)

So be it. I have a way of going to a place like I did in that race where all the pain and suffering that they put on top of me in Hell Week, I will reverse that pain and suffering and I will take your soul. So every instructor that put me through buzz, my job, what drove me was I wanted you to go home that night after you beat the living shit out of me and I smiled in your face. I wanted you to feel worse than I did and you would go home to a nice warm bed with your wife or your kids in a nice meal and I was still out there in the grip suffering for another hundred hours. I want you to think about me knowing that I'm comfortable being very unfucking comfortable and I want you to think about when you went through fucking Hell Week, how uncomfortable you were and how bad you wanted to quit knowing I'm not thinking that fucking way. So the dark side is something that I've designed. It's an evil place I can go that very few things can hurt me. I use the hurt you're trying to put on me I flip it upside down and use it. You try to use it for kryptonite? No. It's power pillows for me. I'm using it for strength. I just flip negative into positive. That's all it is. I heard you doing an interview one time and the person was trying to like see the sort of empowerment of the beauty in that and you were like no no no it's darkness. And one of the reasons that I'm so I'm utterly fascinated with comic books and one of the reasons that I'm so intrigued by Batman is he literally uses the darkness the sickness that he has over what happened to him and his family to propel him forward for decades to keep driving and it's most people are broken by the bad things that happen to them but every now and then there's a goggins. There's somebody who understands how to use that power to understand how as a human being it fucking drives you revenge is powerful like to be able to tap into that in a way that's controlled but to be able to bring it in to use it to feel the energy there is an intoxication to rage and I don't think people are honest about it when they talk about it there's a fucking intoxication of that and if you can tap into it and leverage it not get lost to it which is why I know you always caveat of saying look I'm a fucking happy guy like that's not what we're talking about right now right but I'm a happy guy right so you can't get overtaken by it but it's there and it is so fucking powerful. It's real that's why when I when you said before this whole thing started you said I can be me the second you said I can cuss and be me and cussing people I said man you cuss all the fucking time why well I hate to say it the best way for me to get how I feel across I can't say and say you know what I went through whole week and man it was it was really hard. No that mother fucker takes your damn soul rips it inside out and then they say now we're going to fucking start it it allows me to express where I was at at a point of my life if I don't give you all of me why the hell am I here why how will you learn from me people take so much offense to me you will never learn from people if we always tap dance around the truth. Oh god I love that we tap dance around the truth by finding the right words I don't hurt you because you have thin skin. No tighten up people it's okay trust me it's okay you might be called nigga one day it's okay you might be called some Jewish word or some faggot or gay word it's okay let them call you that what are you going to do now they don't own your life how are you going to control that now how are you going to flip it upside down and say Roger that now I'm going to harness this shit and you'll read about me years from now how that's the question how are you going to do that thicken your skin become more of a human being don't be afraid of the reflection in the mirror because that's all you can be afraid of once you overcome the reflection in the mirror you've done it. I love that man you once said that if you were growing up in this generation that you would have a field day because you would take their souls what did you mean by that the younger generation quits not everybody so I got it I got put that people get to but her so not everybody most of this generation quits the second they get talked to you did this wrong you did this wrong or they get yelled at it's so easy to be great nowadays because everybody else is most people are weak this this is a softened generation so if you have any mental toughness any any ability you have any fraction of self-discipline the ability to not want to do it but still do it people have a hard thing understand I hate to run and it makes me so crazy it doesn't anymore is people what why do you run if you hate it what are you talking about I don't want to take showers and eat either I hate that too the whole that's a life man that and it wasn't until I changed that mentality that I became somebody I hate it going to school so guess what I was dumb as shit that's what one plus one is - but if you can get through to doing things that you hate to do on the other side is greatness that's what people are saying by me running I am callous in my mind I'm not training for a race I'm training for life I'm training for the time when I get that two o'clock in the morning call that my mom is dead or something happens tragic in life I don't fall apart I'm training my mind and my body my spirit so it's all one so I can handle what life is gonna throw at me because the life I've lived it throws a whole bunch at you and if you're not physically immensely prepared for that you're just gonna crumble and you're good for nobody talk to me about what it takes to be on one side of a door in Iraq or anywhere knowing on the other side of the door people who are not afraid of you they're ready for you to come in and you still have and they have guns and you still have to breach that door that's that's a great question it that's a very scary situation when you are on one side of the door and your mind is racing because on the other side of that door it could be no one it could be four guys with four AK-47s that that door you're about to open can be booby trapped so once you open it boom your legs are gone so there's a thousand things you think about when you're the first guy second guy third guy getting ready going a room and flooding and that's why I talk about the warrior mentality and that's why so many people are lost when I start talking you have the right you're lucky that you don't have to think like warriors think you're very privileged I chose this world to be a warrior and I would choose it again if I came back to this world but the mentality of a warrior is very different than norm mentality you must be that person on that door oh get ready to open it thinking to yourself if I die so be it the only way you can go in that door is no one there's a great chance you're gonna die like being a seal you train with live ammo you jump out of the airplane every

David talks about cultivating a warrior’s mindset (38:05)

everything you do you could die so to be a warrior why people don't understand me I'm glad you don't understand me very Christmas good onion because being a warrior takes a whole different mindset a whole different mindset to know that there's a great chance I may not be like I was in for 21 years I'm lucky I'm very lucky that I'm alive able to talk to you able to still run but when you sign up on that dial line to be a set like a seal your mentality changes I may not live you got accept that and that's the mentality you have and that's what makes your warrior if you're scared to die you're a bad warrior and so what do you use to push through is that is that a Goggins moment is that finding the darkness I'm going through hell I'll become the devil if I have to like what what is that moment what are you pulling up inside I'm pulling up a lot of the the dark side of me but I'm also looking at the guys to my left and to my right realizing that we're here together man and I have to have to be strong for them and they got be strong for me a lot of people either you like me or don't even in the seal teams but when you get to that door or you get on that mission or you get an op all that shit's out the door man you know you you do it honestly I mean people say all time of these movies and shit you really out there fighting for that guy beside you and you can't be a coward because you know what this I look at everything I do now in life and this sums it up I hate it jumping out of airplanes I hate it shooting guns I hate it the job as a Navy Seal but I did it because I wanted to change myself everything I do I'm not really comfortable doing but if you choose to go that route to go be a Navy Seal you might as well go be the hardest mother fuck in the world because if you're choosing to do something you have two routes you can go there and be a little a little weak person and get through barely and that's your reputation or you can go through the hardest guy you can possibly be

David talks about his experience as a U.S. Navy Seal (40:25)

in that's your reputation so my whole thing is if you're gonna choose to open that fucking door in Iraq or Afghanistan open the mother fucker and go in hard because they're gonna remember you by slowly opening it and peeking in so if you're gonna open it and you made the mind open it don't crack it open open the fucking door go in that's with life if you're true to do if you're choosing to do something attack it because they're gonna remember you as not attacking it so I want to be remembered you can hate me but one thing you can't say about me I didn't attack it so that's the mentality to have if you're gonna do something you might as well attack it because you do it anyway right do you use that in civilian life like do you still employ that I'm in attack it I'm gonna take their souls like how does that play out in a non combat zone it still works for me in in life as far as attacking things because no matter what I want to you know no matter what avenue I choose I want to be the very best and the very best may not be I'm number one the very best is did I leave everything inside of me out there so attacking is not like oh I want to win this or win that or be the best the best is I'm running against myself and everything I do and and that's and that's what I attack I attack myself I'm always questioning myself I'm always holding myself accountable talk to me about the accountability mirror so the accountability mirror is something that I kind of came up with in high school like I said I started shaving my head on 16 and I got caught up in trying to impress so many people because no one liked me so I developed so many different identities let me sag my pants you know let me okay let me pull my pants up let me let me talk this way or act this way or be this way or whatever the hell it may be God daughter so many different things I did to try to fit in with so many different groups that when you look in the mirror that's the one person you can't walk to you so every morning I would shave my

David discusses being true to yourself (43:00)

head thanking God I reflect back on some of the lies I may have told somebody or some of the ways I acted I didn't feel comfortable doing and I did it to impress other normal people the key where there is normal everyday people I was trying to make other people like me how pathetic is that so I this mirror would always tell me my like my reflection would say God you are a pathetic man how does I feel every day to be this way so I would just start having myself accountable how how did I attack today how did I attack yesterday and if I didn't do something I was proud of I write down a sticky note and I would fix it so then my senior year in high school it was a totally different David God can you give an example with something that you wrote down and fixed all right there was a lunch table that you know I want to sit the cool guy lunch table man I want you know you know everybody's calling me a nigga all time I wanted to try to act like somebody I wasn't so I could fit in and I sold my soul to the devil you know trying to act like no I'm David fucking God that's who I am and so I wrote down on a piece of paper fuck the table sit by your fucking self and that's what I did and guess what happened my table became a table people started sitting at because a whole bunch of people in that lunchroom felt exactly like I did I longed you listen things out I write down in this fix so I write down to fix it were there things that you look to for role models people that you were like taking ideas from like why pull your pants up if that's the popular style like what was giving either you were the single most insightful person I've ever met which by the way is entirely possible having listened to enough of your material or like you had a treasure trove of people that gave you great ideas even if they were like fictional or movie or you know athletes or whatever but it was funny man one movie I walked all time was Rocky great choice Rocky one and I related to Rocky a lot because of a kind of you know one of the smart guy just tried real hard and the one scene that I related a lot of my life to still this day was Rocky one round 14 and this is where I got taken souls from if you look at round 14 of Rocky one Apollo is beating this shit out of Rocky Rocky falls down this corner Mickey saying stay down stay down Rocky didn't hear a fucking soul Apollo after you knocked him down turns around hands in the air like I finally knocked down this animal right Apollo doesn't know it but Rocky is getting up Apollo turns around the second rocky gets up and Apollo looks at Rocky any Apollo looks at him with the look of like Rocky just took his soul he Apollo shakes his head and Rocky has his gloves and emotions towards Apollo come on motherfucker I'm still here and this song comes on that I played so when I brought the gimp the ginsper the rules records took me 17 hours to do 4,000 30 pull-ups I listened to one song for 17 hours two minutes in 17 seconds did the did the I listen to that song for 17 hours non-stop on repeat so the image in my mind of a man was not one that had earrings sag his pants I had this image in my head and I was going to fulfill that and I didn't do any trends I stopped trending I stopped being this guy who whatever was new fuck it that's not what I believe in I'm doing this this is what I want to be this is what I'm going to be so it's incredible how do you experience beauty and joy in your life what situations do you put yourself in what makes you laugh what what's the fun stuff for you it's funny you say that I just retired from the military November 2015 and I was going and going and going and going and I never really I was I a happy guy but I'm never in the moment of like sitting back and I want to travel here to have fun and do this that I've never been that person but the first time I really got a chance to experience true happiness and true peace was I was like so what I did to myself to become who I am today it takes a great toll on your body so I believe God gave me time to rest and he took me out of commission not even the mind of God and could get me back up so I had about a good six seven months I was out and when I was out I had time to reflect on all I'd accomplished and that was the first time in my life where I sat back and said wow because only I I may be telling you some of the story I know the exact truth of how brutal my life was and how I shouldn't be on this show today and how the mind and how beautiful it is so what brings me joy and happiness is knowing how beautiful the mind is and I'm one of the few people that didn't read about it didn't experience it through some some drug I got to experience the beauty of true fucking willpower true fuck you I'm gonna fail I'm gonna fucking fail I'm gonna fucking fail I'm gonna fucking fail and I will succeed just me talking about that gives me a feeling I know what I did and I don't need to travel somewhere or to have this or have that I have it all here in

David shares his sentiments of gratitude for his life thus far (48:55)

my mind the beauty is remembering this young dumb what people called nigger is now where I'm at today and that is when you finally get to that point for me it's forever lasting peace I'm doing it I could die right now on this show and I'll be happy ma'am so that's that's my happiness is my reflection on the suffering of my journey knowing I never quit nor was I guided by anybody on this earth I was guided by something much more powerful and I listened and I chose the path of most resistance talent not required you said that you lived a life of a monk what is what does that mean was that look like why do you do that so I stretch out every day for these two hours I don't drink I don't go out my regimen is I wake up have oatmeal run come back hit the weights I'm a big sports guy I don't leave the house if at all but do stuff like this and I stress out at nighttime I find people I trust which is a very small group of people people who are honest and true to me people who will die for me and I'll die for them which is a fucking small and everybody else man you know do you and I stated myself and I let you do you I don't judge people I don't criticize you you want to be a douchebag and be an ass and I love this country do you want to do I don't care man I fought for this country for you to do you and I am all about you doing you because I'm gonna fucking do me and I'm gonna do me into I'm fucking dead and I believe I earned the right a lot of people haven't

David talks about authenticity (51:05)

earned the right it's because you live in this country I mean you earned the right you got to you got to live for a little bit live and then have something to say or shut the fuck up you know so if you had this maybe impossible to answer but if you had that same kid from earlier he wants to take that first step you want him to go experience some life what one specific thing would you tell him to go do I first asked the kid who are you at the core of your soul and if he can can ask that question our conversation is over I can't say shit to him right if you don't know who you are if you don't know who you are I can't tell you who you are what's the next phase of your life look like I you can't imagine how intrigued I am to watch you over the next five to ten years well honestly I've I'm blessed enough to have survived the life I lived and to come out the other side with a bunch of knowledge so hopefully I can help people that believe that they're much less than what they truly are helped them find greatness in themselves and greatness isn't running 200 miles at a time or doing 4,000 pulps or being a seal greatness is whatever the hell you dreamed of in your own mind you got to first see it you got first create this vision in your mind and then that's when I come into play once you create this vision in your mind it's how am I going to get there now and that's not coming to play but first you got to create your own vision and it's not external it's the the business created is inside of you so until you create that I'm nobody to you are you writing a book I'm slowly writing a book right now is taking me four or five years because I have so many things to talk about it's gonna be several probably several books but the first book are probably about my life story how I came up and a few lessons learned along the way but you know I have so much to talk about so much to say you just to get people a lot more than hope so all right before my last question where can these guys find you online David Goggins dot com you know Instagram is David Goggins or Facebook's David Goggins at David Goggins you know you'll find me go on there look for David Goggins Google me they will find you there's so much amazing stuff on you all right so last question what is the impact that you want to have on the world the impact I want to have in the world is it's a great question man and it's a question that I've been asked many times and have a several answers for it but the biggest one is we are all great no matter if if you think you're dumb no matter if you think you're fat no matter if you are fat no matter if you've been bullied or no matter if you just got back from Iraq or Afghanistan and you have no legs or your arms or whatever man we all have greatness it just you got to find the courage you got to find the courage to put your bow's headphones on and silence the noise out of this world and to find it and to find it because it's out there but it's gonna take hard work courage self-discipline it's gonna take all the non-cognitive skills that all the non-cognitive skills to be great you know smart is good all this stuff is good that's all cognitive it's a non-cognitive skills that sets you apart from everybody else and and that's what it's all about David thank you so much for coming in. Guys this is one of those times where as I was researching him I literally felt like I should be doing this in a bucket of ice water or something and I'm actually only mean that sort of tongue-in-cheek it I fasted through most of my prep because it felt right to put myself in a more difficult situation while I was doing that it really makes me want to find more ways to go through hardship and that's one of the things I really hope you guys take away from him is how you can totally create yourself and I experienced him in

David'S Approach To Success

David explains non-cognitive skills required for success (54:52)

reverse so I saw all of the amazing things that he had done all of the races that he had won going through how weak three times the succeeding in three different branches of the military nobody ever doing that before the pull-up record all of it and then found out that he had struggled through everything and you realize how insidiously and how quietly the idea that somebody is just better than you they're more genetically gifted than you slips into your mind as a way of letting you off the hook not as a way of making them more extraordinary but you make them extraordinary as a way of letting you off the hook and so hearing all the things that he had to go through and one thing that didn't even come up in the show he did most of the amazing endurance stuff before he had his heart fixed so his heart was literally existing at 60% capacity he still did all of that this is a man who peed blood and got up and kept running for 30 more miles if that kind of thing doesn't inspire you to look inward and to really take control of your own story to realize that you can sculpt yourself into anything you want it doesn't have to be goggins but to see in that the power of both beauty and rage to see in that the malleability of the human spirit to see in that the power of the human spirit to turn you into anyone that you want to become that is this man's story and I hope that you guys heard it there were so many incredible things so many times that I got the chills so many times that I saw another tool that I could take in using my own life and I hope you guys got that much out of it as I did all right if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be glad you're ready take care everybody thanks so much for joining us for another episode of impact theory if this content is adding value to your life our one ask is that you go to iTunes and Stitcher and rate and review not only does that help us build this community which at the end of the day is all we care about but it also helps us get even more amazing guests on here to show their knowledge with all of us thank you guys so much for being a part of this community and until next time be legendary my friends you