David Goggins: How to Build Immense Inner Strength

00:00:00.000 | Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:05.520 | I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:14.400 | My guest today is David Goggins.

00:00:17.160 | David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:00:21.520 | He's also a highly accomplished ultra marathon runner. For those of you that don't know, ultra marathons are distances longer than

00:00:29.880 | 26 miles, and in David's case, often longer than 200 miles. For his achievements in athletics,

00:00:35.640 | he has been inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame.

00:00:38.800 | He also held a Guinness World Record for the most pull-ups completed in 24 hours.

00:00:43.960 | I should mention that not only was David a decorated Navy SEAL,

00:00:47.240 | but he also graduated from Army Ranger School.

00:00:50.280 | David is also a highly successful writer, having authored two books, the first entitled "Can't Hurt Me" and the second entitled "Never Finished," both of

00:00:58.520 | which are bestsellers. David's books cover many topics, including his autobiographical description of what can only be described as

00:01:06.480 | an incredibly challenging child and young adulthood. His home was abusive, his school environment was abusive,

00:01:13.800 | he essentially had no positive resources directed his way. And in his 20s,

00:01:18.600 | he found himself to be obese, that is more than 300 pounds, working a job

00:01:23.160 | he despised for minimal pay. And it was at that point that

00:01:28.200 | David began an inner dialogue that forced him to explore the demons born out of his childhood,

00:01:33.600 | but also the position that he found himself in as a young man, and

00:01:36.920 | then began the journey to navigate that dialogue and transform himself into the Navy SEAL, the ultra-marathon runner, the best-selling author, and

00:01:45.520 | the extraordinarily positive and influential man that he is today. As some of you may know,

00:01:50.600 | David has done various public lectures.

00:01:53.280 | He's a familiar face online, because there are so many clips of him on YouTube, and he has done podcasts before. However,

00:02:00.720 | I'm certain that you'll find today's discussion to be very different than previous podcasts that David has been featured on.

00:02:07.840 | The reason is that, of course, we get into his accomplishments,

00:02:11.380 | we talk about the mindset that allowed him to achieve those things, but today David really lets us under the hood.

00:02:17.540 | He lets us into the form of inner dialogue that he has to embrace, indeed, that he has to grapple with on a daily basis,

00:02:25.300 | sometimes multiple times throughout the day and night, in order to impose the sort of self-discipline that he is so well known for.

00:02:32.540 | We also get into some of the scientific mechanisms underlying willpower, and we talk about David's current endeavors that include, for instance,

00:02:40.660 | his own exploration of science and medicine, for which he has become an intense scholar and practitioner.

00:02:47.100 | I should mention that,

00:02:49.000 | multiple times throughout today's discussion, you will hear curse words. Now, David and I both acknowledge that cursing isn't for everybody, and

00:02:56.620 | that cursing itself is different than cursing at somebody. Nonetheless, we do realize that many people,

00:03:04.500 | parents perhaps, especially,

00:03:07.220 | might not want to hear cursing. If you don't want to hear cursing, well, then this podcast episode is probably not for you.

00:03:14.560 | However, if you are comfortable with cursing, or if you can tolerate it, I assure you today's discussion is highly worthwhile.

00:03:21.340 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:03:27.700 | It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general

00:03:35.080 | public. In keeping with that theme,

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00:07:54.840 | And now for my discussion with David Goggins.

00:07:57.960 | David Goggins, welcome.

00:07:59.280 | - My man.

00:08:00.600 | Good to see you again, man.

00:08:01.640 | - Great to see you.

00:08:02.480 | It was late 2016, early 2017, I believe,

00:08:05.480 | when you were in my lab at Stanford.

00:08:06.920 | - Yes, sir.

00:08:07.880 | - We did a little work later that day down in San Jose

00:08:11.520 | and gosh, see you everywhere, but it's not enough.

00:08:15.360 | So great to have you here.

00:08:16.680 | - Thanks for having me on, brother.

00:08:17.760 | - Yeah.

00:08:19.400 | You embody discipline and doing hard things.

00:08:22.760 | - Right.

00:08:23.580 | - I think you should just start right off with the bold truth.

00:08:28.160 | But right before we went hot mics.

00:08:30.280 | - Right.

00:08:31.820 | - We were talking about learning.

00:08:33.320 | - Right.

00:08:34.260 | - Right now you're spending some time learning

00:08:36.760 | and doing things that I think most people

00:08:38.440 | probably don't typically associate David Goggins with.

00:08:41.000 | - Right.

00:08:41.840 | - Why don't you tell us about that?

00:08:42.680 | - Well, most people just look at me as the guy

00:08:44.320 | that runs and yells as he's running.

00:08:47.440 | And that's while I do that, you know, to motivate people,

00:08:51.480 | but people don't understand that my day

00:08:53.880 | is broken up into segments.

00:08:56.520 | I work out, I eat, I sleep,

00:08:58.740 | but I spend most of my time studying.

00:09:01.240 | So like I'm in the medical world,

00:09:03.080 | I'm a paramedic in Canada,

00:09:06.280 | but I spend a lot of my time trying to nuke

00:09:09.720 | every single thing about it

00:09:11.320 | because I'm not trying to just be a paramedic,

00:09:14.240 | learn about veins and arteries

00:09:15.760 | and how the heart pumps and stuff like that.

00:09:18.080 | I'm trying to learn to the point

00:09:19.580 | where I can save someone's life.

00:09:21.400 | And even though paramedics are doing that

00:09:22.920 | all over the world, I'm trying to be that paramedic

00:09:25.540 | that can really dissect exactly what's going on

00:09:28.380 | and figure out what medication goes where.

00:09:30.820 | Just trying to learn the algorithm of what's going on, man.

00:09:35.360 | So I spend a lot of time with it.

00:09:37.020 | - I love the word algorithm

00:09:38.240 | 'cause when I teach biology or try and learn anything

00:09:41.920 | that's related to biology and especially the human body,

00:09:44.920 | I need to know the nouns, but it's the verbs that matter.

00:09:48.120 | And that's really what you're talking about.

00:09:49.340 | Like just saying that sits there, that brain part there,

00:09:53.040 | doesn't tell you how it all works together.

00:09:55.380 | So what is your process for studying look like?

00:09:58.040 | Like if we dropped a camera in the room,

00:10:02.000 | but a microphone into your inner dialogue.

00:10:06.400 | Gosh, wouldn't we all love that?

00:10:08.200 | But if we dropped a microphone into your inner dialogue,

00:10:10.680 | are you waking up looking at the books and going,

00:10:12.160 | "Yeah, fresh day, let's learn."

00:10:14.440 | Or is some of the same resistance

00:10:16.880 | that you've talked about coming up around physical work,

00:10:20.880 | is that coming up from time to time?

00:10:22.560 | - You know what?

00:10:23.380 | I was nervous at first.

00:10:24.820 | I'm gonna keep it real.

00:10:27.040 | I'm gonna keep it real.

00:10:28.320 | So I'm not a real smart guy.

00:10:31.600 | And what I mean by that is I was born with ADD, ADHD.

00:10:36.080 | My brain cannot retain information.

00:10:38.880 | I'm not some genetic freak when it comes to running,

00:10:41.080 | when it comes to lifting weights.

00:10:42.080 | I am absolutely the bottom of the barrel

00:10:44.760 | and people will never believe me.

00:10:47.920 | And they can just, you know, whatever,

00:10:49.740 | believe what you wanna believe.

00:10:51.480 | So when you're asking this question

00:10:53.160 | about what does studying look like for me,

00:10:55.760 | I have to go over the same page

00:10:59.600 | over and over and over and over again.

00:11:03.320 | While Jennifer can look at that page,

00:11:04.960 | while she's, you know, quizzing me,

00:11:07.780 | she'll learn it, right?

00:11:08.720 | Then as she's chilling on anything about it,

00:11:11.000 | she will quiz herself or quiz me

00:11:13.460 | and learn it as she's quizzing me.

00:11:15.700 | It's the most frustrating thing in the world

00:11:17.480 | how my brain works.

00:11:19.020 | So what I do is I literally sit there

00:11:21.880 | with a pen and paper and I have my books

00:11:24.920 | and I go through and have to write everything down

00:11:28.920 | every single day.

00:11:31.200 | I will study the same page until it's photographic memory

00:11:36.200 | from writing the same thing down.

00:11:38.240 | And then from there, I'll go back through

00:11:39.980 | and relearn again.

00:11:41.500 | So I'll learn the bulk of it,

00:11:45.120 | but then I'll go through and learn the small things

00:11:49.120 | within that.

00:11:50.100 | So if it's a medication,

00:11:52.240 | I'll learn what the medication does.

00:11:54.780 | First, I'll learn how to even say the medication

00:11:57.980 | because these medications aren't like, you know,

00:11:59.980 | like Albuterol.

00:12:01.660 | No, it's very big words.

00:12:03.660 | So I'll go through, learn how to say the name.

00:12:05.700 | Then I'll go through, learn what the dose is.

00:12:08.700 | Then I'll go through and this is like every single day.

00:12:11.580 | So not like, oh, I got it.

00:12:13.580 | Let's just go through.

00:12:14.420 | No, nothing is I got it.

00:12:16.260 | Every single thing.

00:12:18.020 | So I can't wait to get in this conversation

00:12:20.540 | 'cause everything I do in life, it sucks.

00:12:24.480 | Everything I do in life, it sucks.

00:12:26.660 | That's why when I was 300 pounds and 24 years old,

00:12:30.540 | it wasn't like I had some big epiphany

00:12:33.140 | of let's just go be a Navy SEAL and let's lose some weight.

00:12:36.800 | No, I knew my entire life was gonna be a struggle,

00:12:41.560 | which is why I just ignored it.

00:12:43.780 | And I said, I'm not even trying to jump off into this shit

00:12:48.100 | and learn how to read, how to write, how to memorize,

00:12:51.700 | how to become something I am not.

00:12:54.820 | But through that process, something happened to me.

00:12:58.220 | And I realized this is why I feel sorry for no one.

00:13:02.260 | In this podcast, they're gonna really not like me

00:13:05.440 | because people are gonna think that I am maybe lying

00:13:11.500 | or maybe fibbing or exaggerating.

00:13:14.300 | No, I am literally, I was the lowest form on earth,

00:13:19.160 | no talent, no ability to learn.

00:13:22.580 | And I literally know what it is to be rock bottom

00:13:25.380 | and to build that up.

00:13:26.900 | So that question about learning, it's a pain in my ass

00:13:30.020 | and I don't have to do it.

00:13:31.940 | So think about it.

00:13:32.780 | I'm 49 years old and I'm a multimillionaire.

00:13:34.660 | I don't have to do anything.

00:13:37.940 | So all I thought about when I was growing up is,

00:13:40.460 | man, I can't wait to one day get to the point

00:13:44.860 | where I no longer have to do this stuff.

00:13:47.900 | But what happens, I got older, it became a way of living.

00:13:51.220 | So how I do every day is how I do every day.

00:13:53.900 | It's a discipline, it's a regimen.

00:13:56.260 | It was a choice I made.

00:13:59.820 | And the choice I made was, what are you willing to sacrifice

00:14:04.820 | and what are you willing to give up

00:14:06.760 | to find every bit of who you are as a human being?

00:14:09.980 | And I was willing to give up everything to do that.

00:14:12.120 | So studying is no joke.

00:14:14.740 | - I love that you're studying.

00:14:15.700 | I recall a few years ago,

00:14:16.900 | I heard some interview or podcast with you

00:14:20.620 | and you just threw out like, I don't know what I'll do next.

00:14:23.180 | Maybe I'll be a scientist, right?

00:14:24.760 | And I went, yeah.

00:14:25.860 | I was like, 'cause I knew, 'cause I know you a bit

00:14:29.380 | and I see your work out there, but we'd met before

00:14:31.580 | that if you decided that you were gonna do it.

00:14:35.540 | And learning medicine, which is what you're doing,

00:14:38.620 | learning human physiology, is so detailed.

00:14:42.540 | And people out there have to understand

00:14:44.900 | when you look at a textbook and you see the veins

00:14:46.900 | and the capillaries, different colors,

00:14:49.660 | when the body's open, they're not different colors, right?

00:14:53.140 | So, I mean, some things have different color contrast,

00:14:55.680 | but it's not like it's all labeled when you pop it open.

00:14:58.660 | And so the process of writing things down by hand

00:15:02.460 | is important for you.

00:15:03.500 | So you go back and read those notes.

00:15:04.820 | Do you think about that stuff on your runs too?

00:15:06.820 | Are you segmenting your day, like when you're done studying,

00:15:09.780 | are you heading out for a run

00:15:11.580 | and thinking about other things,

00:15:12.920 | or are you still rehearsing the material in your head?

00:15:16.440 | - So when I write it down, I write it down

00:15:19.860 | and I'm able to, I'm actually looking down

00:15:22.300 | at this table right now, 'cause I'm back to write,

00:15:24.980 | so I'm actually there right now as I'm speaking to you.

00:15:27.340 | I write it down in a way that I'm memorizing page 69.

00:15:31.020 | So I'm writing it down, so then writing it down

00:15:35.980 | in that page sync together in my brain.

00:15:38.260 | So I'm looking at the book in my brain right now.

00:15:41.900 | So like, that's just how it works for me.

00:15:44.140 | And I have to do it over and over again.

00:15:46.380 | So that page is stuck in my mind.

00:15:48.700 | So I'm literally flipping through pages

00:15:51.080 | as I'm taking these tests

00:15:52.820 | and I'm taking these national tests to become a paramedic

00:15:55.100 | or become a advanced EMT or whatever.

00:15:57.580 | I'm literally, as I'm taking that test, I'm going through

00:16:01.220 | and I'm like,

00:16:04.520 | now I'm flipping pages in my head of where that page was

00:16:06.780 | and how I do that is just from how I write it

00:16:10.040 | and how it's on the page.

00:16:11.560 | When I run, I can't recall any of it.

00:16:14.860 | I cannot bring any of that because I'm running.

00:16:20.680 | How my mind is wired now is that everything I do

00:16:24.060 | is what I do because the focus it takes for me to,

00:16:27.720 | like right now, I'm running.

00:16:29.540 | I'm not like a great runner.

00:16:31.920 | I'm not like injury free.

00:16:33.920 | So like my first 20 minutes of the run, I'm limping.

00:16:38.220 | I'm literally limping

00:16:39.380 | because I've had several knee surgeries

00:16:41.980 | and my body was twisted and so now it's untwisting.

00:16:45.580 | So people look at me, oh, it looks like he's limping,

00:16:47.740 | you know, like limping when he runs.

00:16:49.180 | I am limping when I run.

00:16:50.940 | My body's jacked up.

00:16:51.900 | So I'm focusing on how to get the best out of a broken body.

00:16:56.460 | So everything I do is a total focus

00:16:59.220 | on what I'm doing at that point in my life.

00:17:02.340 | - So it seems like you've really trained away

00:17:04.920 | or somehow gotten away from the ADD that you mentioned

00:17:08.880 | because what you described is like a deep trench.

00:17:10.960 | It's like a V-shaped trench.

00:17:12.380 | I'm imagining like there's a ball bearing

00:17:13.800 | and it's like, and it can only go forward in that trench

00:17:16.800 | or back and it goes forward.

00:17:18.480 | It's not like sliding around at the,

00:17:20.520 | like concave at the bottom, like attention.

00:17:23.960 | So it's like you've trained that up.

00:17:26.200 | Is there a similar feeling when you're in the full focus

00:17:29.080 | of running versus full focus of studying?

00:17:32.220 | Is it kind of feel like, oh yeah, that's the same groove

00:17:34.920 | but different thing?

00:17:36.280 | Or is it just completely different world?

00:17:38.280 | - It's a completely different world.

00:17:40.320 | Like it's just both of them for me is suffering

00:17:43.820 | but suffering a whole different way.

00:17:45.660 | Like when I was going through school, I'll never forget.

00:17:48.480 | I think I was in third grade and back then, you know,

00:17:53.480 | ADD, ADHD wasn't like, you know, here's this medicine

00:17:57.760 | or here's this thing.

00:17:58.840 | They want to put you in a special school.

00:18:01.040 | So for me, I was so far behind in learning

00:18:04.340 | that their big thing was, let's just put him

00:18:06.720 | in a special school because he'll never learn.

00:18:09.780 | And through that process of like, I don't want to be

00:18:13.000 | in a special school.

00:18:14.680 | I don't want to be treated any differently.

00:18:17.500 | It really, like I never took medication.

00:18:20.500 | I've never taken medication for this.

00:18:22.500 | That's why right now you see me looking right in your eyes.

00:18:24.680 | What the hell is, you know, it's human saying right now.

00:18:28.200 | And that's why I don't feel bad for people

00:18:30.920 | who have ADHD, who have learning disabilities.

00:18:34.520 | And some are impossible because you just can't.

00:18:39.080 | But a lot of them, you can.

00:18:40.840 | And, but people don't want to go through the process

00:18:43.520 | of focus, of teaching yourself how to truly focus.

00:18:47.580 | This is where my message gets lost.

00:18:49.940 | It gets lost because I may say, you know, MF or F.

00:18:53.600 | You know, I may be because that's the passion

00:18:56.280 | that comes out of me.

00:18:57.200 | Because that's, it takes everything for me to learn a sentence.

00:19:02.360 | So when I speak about David Goggins, I can't speak

00:19:05.320 | about David Goggins in a way that's just calm and cool.

00:19:09.280 | Because when I wake up, I know the journey that it takes

00:19:11.720 | for me to find my greatness.

00:19:13.400 | And it's hard.

00:19:14.840 | Nothing is easy.

00:19:17.400 | Nothing just like, oh, I wake up and I just do this or I do that.

00:19:20.480 | Or it just, you know, I watch people every day go

00:19:23.560 | through life and it's so easy.

00:19:25.680 | For me to be where I'm at today, it takes every bit of me.

00:19:30.120 | So when I speak about it, and as I get going here,

00:19:33.160 | you'll start seeing me, the tempo will rise.

00:19:36.080 | The passion will come out.

00:19:37.520 | Because I'm back there.

00:19:38.960 | I'm doing what I do every day to become a human being.

00:19:42.080 | And so nothing is easy.

00:19:44.240 | Like, running is running.

00:19:45.980 | It sucks. But you have a choice to make.

00:19:48.880 | Do you want to sit down and go back to that guy you once were?

00:19:52.560 | No. So this is what it takes.

00:19:55.360 | It takes that misunderstanding of people

00:19:58.200 | and they'll never get it because they were never David Goggins.

00:20:01.520 | So that is what it takes for me to do what I do.

00:20:03.720 | It may take you something differently.

00:20:05.820 | So for me, everything has to be in the studying.

00:20:07.800 | Everything has to be in the this.

00:20:09.100 | Everything has to be everywhere I am has to be there.

00:20:11.420 | Me. Focus where I am.

00:20:13.560 | That's why you're my second podcast I've done since Rogan

00:20:15.800 | since the book came out.

00:20:16.960 | I don't have time for that shit.

00:20:19.560 | Because if I want to be great, I'm not trying to maximize money

00:20:23.480 | or maximize people knowing me.

00:20:25.920 | I do these things because maybe someone out there

00:20:28.720 | will understand me and get it

00:20:31.520 | and say, "I can grow from this guy."

00:20:33.740 | And others just won't.

00:20:35.640 | - Sounds like friction is something

00:20:37.720 | you're very familiar with.

00:20:38.960 | I just, it's a word just that I feel like it's like

00:20:41.120 | cast above us right now in bold face,

00:20:43.080 | highlighted, underlined letters.

00:20:44.560 | It's just like friction. - Friction is growth.

00:20:46.320 | - Like you're up in the morning

00:20:48.200 | and I imagine David Goggins going to the coffee maker,

00:20:51.620 | stretching out, good morning, sunshine.

00:20:53.520 | And you're telling me from eyelids open, there's friction.

00:20:58.000 | - Yes, and that is the thing that people don't,

00:21:00.360 | they don't fucking get.

00:21:01.640 | The biggest misunderstanding about David Goggins

00:21:04.700 | of all time, it's like whether you believe in God or not,

00:21:08.000 | I do.

00:21:08.840 | He put this lab rat, which is me, on this planet

00:21:14.320 | and said, "Let me fucking see what a beat up abused kid

00:21:20.200 | who has, who can barely learn, barely learn,

00:21:23.620 | who has a twisted body, messed up genetics, sickle cell,

00:21:28.020 | this and that, let me give him everything

00:21:31.260 | that pretty much disqualifies you from the military."

00:21:34.180 | But back then, it wasn't estrus.

00:21:36.380 | And let's put him in this and see what comes out of it.

00:21:40.020 | So to do that, friction, you don't wake up

00:21:43.300 | in the morning time and go to the coffee maker.

00:21:45.460 | Matter of fact, sometimes you don't even sleep.

00:21:47.860 | What it requires is when I'm at two o'clock in the,

00:21:50.800 | it's two o'clock in the morning,

00:21:52.880 | and my brain is thinking about a fucking drug,

00:21:55.640 | and I got to get up and look in my book

00:21:57.660 | to see if that drug is how I remember it.

00:22:00.800 | And this is every day of my fucking life.

00:22:04.480 | That's when I train a fighter or I train some,

00:22:06.840 | I'm like, you have no fucking idea how great you really are

00:22:10.420 | because you are using such minimal, minimal of what you have.

00:22:17.000 | And if people can learn to focus, this is what's possible.

00:22:21.560 | While it may not be pretty,

00:22:23.340 | like people want to do a documentary on me.

00:22:25.060 | I go, no, I don't want you to do a documentary on me

00:22:28.240 | because I will have normal, everyday people

00:22:31.880 | picking me apart on his life is miserable.

00:22:35.760 | Who wants to live like that?

00:22:37.740 | He looks, it's crazy how he,

00:22:39.740 | it's almost like he's sick, he's psychotic.

00:22:44.660 | The most frustrating thing in the world for me

00:22:47.060 | is when normal people judge a man like myself

00:22:50.660 | on what it really takes to extract greatness from nothing.

00:22:55.660 | It takes every bit of who you are, if you choose that route.

00:23:01.560 | If you don't, Merry Christmas, do what you got to do.

00:23:06.720 | But yeah, all these things for me,

00:23:09.560 | like I told you, I'm going to keep it real.

00:23:12.480 | I'm not coming here to talk about like,

00:23:15.160 | you know, perform without purpose.

00:23:18.440 | 'Cause I go through, when I write these books,

00:23:21.720 | I go through and try to dumb down David Goggins.

00:23:24.120 | How can I give normal people, and I'm normal,

00:23:28.600 | but I found something that most don't want to find.

00:23:31.200 | How can I speak to people and give them something

00:23:33.680 | from this crazy psychotic brain that I've developed?

00:23:37.160 | How can I give them that?

00:23:38.460 | So I sit down with Jennifer for years

00:23:41.480 | and write down, perform without purpose,

00:23:44.520 | callous your mind, armor your mind,

00:23:47.740 | the cookie jar, the accountability mirror,

00:23:50.320 | shit that people can fucking use in their lives.

00:23:53.400 | No, no, I'm glad it helps you,

00:23:56.580 | but the barbaric life that I live, that you have to live,

00:24:02.460 | the almost obsession that you must have to be great,

00:24:06.440 | you can't put that shit in a fucking book, bro.

00:24:09.220 | You can't put it in a book, you can't.

00:24:11.740 | You can't write about it.

00:24:12.660 | - It has to be experienced.

00:24:13.920 | - It has to be experienced.

00:24:15.440 | And you can't even, after you experienced it,

00:24:18.160 | to write it in a book, it would seem like

00:24:22.400 | he needs to be locked up.

00:24:24.200 | - Too gory.

00:24:25.280 | - It's too gory, doesn't make sense for a guy

00:24:27.280 | that everything, every second of the day,

00:24:30.560 | he is trying to extract more from something.

00:24:34.120 | He's constantly thinking, he's constantly disciplined,

00:24:38.480 | never going off the path.

00:24:40.360 | Whatever is injured on him, he figures away.

00:24:43.740 | It's a conqueror's mindset.

00:24:45.940 | And very few people, if any,

00:24:49.220 | can really understand what that is.

00:24:52.880 | Like, I'm almost 50,

00:24:55.260 | and I've been this way for almost 30 years.

00:24:59.140 | Like, what do you do for fun?

00:25:00.780 | You never, these questions, I don't get 'em,

00:25:04.580 | I don't understand 'em, I don't, so yeah.

00:25:07.340 | - I get asked that sometimes, what do you do for fun?

00:25:08.980 | I start listing off all this stuff like podcasting,

00:25:10.940 | reading, working out.

00:25:12.420 | So some of that resonates.

00:25:15.160 | But I think what's so truly unusual

00:25:18.940 | about what you're describing, your process,

00:25:22.040 | is that from go, it's hard.

00:25:25.820 | And I have to ask, was being 300 pounds,

00:25:28.880 | having, I'm using the words you've described,

00:25:32.220 | you've said it before, you had a tendency

00:25:34.500 | at one point in your life, early on, tell lies,

00:25:37.480 | try and get people's approval, crazy haircuts,

00:25:41.300 | attention seeking, and yet all of that triggered something

00:25:46.300 | that now is extraordinary.

00:25:51.800 | Do you think those hardships were necessary

00:25:57.100 | to flip the switch?

00:25:58.880 | - I don't know if they were necessary,

00:26:00.900 | but it was something that made me feel,

00:26:04.340 | I didn't feel good, it was easy.

00:26:07.280 | The brain that I was given as a child,

00:26:12.560 | it was easy to go home and think about

00:26:14.900 | how do I want to be a freak today?

00:26:17.340 | How do I want to show up to school today and be a freak?

00:26:20.020 | It didn't require me going home and opening a book up

00:26:22.220 | saying it's going to take me all year

00:26:24.860 | to learn this fucking page.

00:26:26.880 | So instead of learning that page,

00:26:29.380 | I learned how to become a character.

00:26:33.540 | And maybe that character that I created,

00:26:36.980 | that 300 pound insecure guy that used to fake it

00:26:41.420 | 'til I make it type of guy, let me become your friend,

00:26:45.220 | let me lie to you until you like me type of guy.

00:26:47.580 | When you have any kind of, any manhood, womanhood,

00:26:53.880 | a human being, a soul, a spirit, any,

00:26:57.580 | I had no, I must have just this much pride,

00:27:01.520 | 'cause that's exactly what opened the door for me.

00:27:04.000 | 'Cause every day you were a character,

00:27:05.560 | every day you were a clown, every day you opened

00:27:08.860 | that Spanish book or that science book or English book

00:27:12.440 | and you looked at it and it was like,

00:27:13.920 | it looked like a foreign language.

00:27:16.700 | And you're saying, where do I start?

00:27:20.200 | Where do I start?

00:27:22.100 | And obviously it was necessary.

00:27:24.700 | The more I talk about it, it was necessary

00:27:26.240 | 'cause what happened is I became haunted

00:27:30.260 | by the mere fact that this is my existence.

00:27:33.760 | And you gotta live with that.

00:27:36.340 | I lived with it for a lot of years.

00:27:38.360 | And so I sat back and said, okay, all right,

00:27:41.700 | I know what this takes.

00:27:42.780 | And when you sit back as fucked up as I was

00:27:46.980 | and I had a laundry list, a table like this

00:27:51.360 | of what I have to do to become just a human being

00:27:55.180 | that can make ends meet, that can make a thousand dollars

00:27:58.900 | a month just to get there was like, oh my God, dude.

00:28:02.380 | I'm 16, 17, I can't read, I can't write.

00:28:07.960 | And I, oh my God, I'm so behind the power curve

00:28:11.620 | and my brain is about being depressed.

00:28:13.940 | And my dad beat my mom's now home

00:28:15.580 | and kids are calling me nigger at school.

00:28:17.980 | And I'm like, oh my God, man, what the fuck do I do?

00:28:20.720 | And it wasn't like someone came around and said, hey man,

00:28:25.540 | you can do this.

00:28:27.220 | This is all me.

00:28:29.060 | Some people know where's this cold man come from.

00:28:32.420 | I'm not trying to be cold.

00:28:33.720 | It's the reality of my life.

00:28:36.860 | It's the reality of a lot of people's lives.

00:28:39.500 | And so, yeah, that had to happen for me to be haunted,

00:28:44.260 | to be haunted, to pull out, to extract the guy in today.

00:28:48.040 | That haunting is something that's still there today

00:28:51.800 | because no matter how much you improve,

00:28:53.620 | no matter how much you change who you are,

00:28:57.300 | it's not permanent.

00:28:58.300 | You'll just wake up and say, oh my God, man,

00:29:01.900 | you're David Goggins, you break records,

00:29:05.300 | you do this, you do that.

00:29:06.380 | People don't know, how are you able to just be so hard

00:29:11.380 | can I never turn the fucking thing off?

00:29:14.540 | 'Cause once it turns off,

00:29:16.020 | I go right back to the David Goggins that is.

00:29:20.300 | And that's the guy that I'm constantly fighting every day.

00:29:23.480 | And it's a choice.

00:29:25.140 | And that choice makes you misunderstood.

00:29:27.260 | It makes you crazy.

00:29:28.420 | That's why I hate fucking social media.

00:29:31.600 | In 2013, people wanted me to write my book.

00:29:35.780 | I did it in 2018, took five years.

00:29:39.180 | And the reason why I didn't do it,

00:29:40.940 | I sat at a table and Jennifer was there.

00:29:43.080 | This is before she started working for me.

00:29:45.380 | I started dating or whatever.

00:29:47.300 | And all these people were there and they're like,

00:29:49.380 | man, you gotta go on social media.

00:29:51.700 | And I was like, fuck you, man.

00:29:53.660 | Like I'm not, it's poison.

00:29:56.380 | It's poison because I knew what I did to get where I am.

00:30:00.340 | And I'm gonna have these people,

00:30:01.900 | these normal everyday people, fat, lazy,

00:30:06.540 | is exactly who I was, judging me.

00:30:10.160 | 'Cause I know it, 'cause I was once them.

00:30:13.940 | All my hard work, all my dedication,

00:30:15.700 | I'm gonna have some normal dude,

00:30:17.660 | get his little brownies, little ding dong, ho ho Twinkie,

00:30:21.160 | sit there with his coffee, picking me apart.

00:30:24.840 | Oh, he must be unhappy.

00:30:26.120 | He's just, do you know how hard it is

00:30:29.280 | to put these shoes on every damn morning?

00:30:31.080 | I'm gonna have you pick me apart.

00:30:34.000 | So yeah, there's so much that goes into this

00:30:39.000 | that I was like, fuck this.

00:30:42.600 | I never want anything to do with it.

00:30:45.060 | So anyway.

00:30:47.100 | - I'm not a psychologist,

00:30:50.600 | but knowing your story from what you've written,

00:30:53.140 | what you've said on social media and elsewhere, podcasts,

00:30:55.860 | and here now especially, it's amazing to me.

00:31:00.100 | And frankly, it pulls at my heartstrings a little bit.

00:31:02.280 | I realize that's not what you're trying to do,

00:31:03.780 | but that in the course of your childhood

00:31:06.260 | and in your young adulthood,

00:31:08.500 | that no one ever got between you and the world.

00:31:11.420 | I forget where I heard it,

00:31:12.580 | that if a kid has just one person that believes in them.

00:31:16.180 | And I had my trials and tribulations,

00:31:17.920 | but I had great coaches, great mentors.

00:31:20.660 | I attached to them.

00:31:21.500 | I found them if they didn't necessarily find me.

00:31:24.020 | But I'm realizing that your situation was

00:31:27.340 | no one's ever said, hey, I'm gonna stand here next to you

00:31:30.380 | or get in front of you, put a shield up.

00:31:33.240 | And so it's almost like you've got these different,

00:31:39.220 | it's all you, but there's versions of yourself

00:31:42.100 | that you knew, social media,

00:31:44.100 | I don't know that I have the wherewithal in 2013,

00:31:46.460 | '14, '15, '16, '17 to get in front of myself

00:31:49.860 | while doing all this,

00:31:50.940 | 'cause I've already got so much going on in here.

00:31:53.260 | Is that about right?

00:31:54.300 | - That is right, but I had developed a lot of anger

00:31:57.660 | and I still have it.

00:31:58.500 | And it would never go away

00:32:00.740 | for the normal human beings of this world.

00:32:03.240 | Because when you put yourself in the sewer like I was in,

00:32:07.660 | and please, if someone saved me,

00:32:09.940 | come out and announce it to the world.

00:32:13.300 | There was no one.

00:32:15.040 | There's no one.

00:32:16.340 | So when you know that,

00:32:18.420 | and then I'm sitting at a table

00:32:20.180 | with all these smart people who are telling me

00:32:22.100 | what to do and shit and guiding me through my life now,

00:32:25.540 | when I'm 40 fucking years old,

00:32:27.540 | I was, I don't know, 40 something years old, now I'm 49.

00:32:31.740 | And I'm looking at them all

00:32:32.580 | and they're now trying to guide me on what's right

00:32:35.540 | on this poison.

00:32:38.280 | And so, yeah, what you say is right,

00:32:41.820 | but for me, it was more of, I know now.

00:32:46.540 | I don't need you to guide my future.

00:32:50.460 | I know what's good for me and what's bad for me.

00:32:53.820 | And for me, it took every bit of focus I could.

00:32:56.580 | And I know social media,

00:32:58.140 | that's why people love to go on there

00:33:00.260 | because they wanna show you the good side of life.

00:33:03.880 | I'm not teaching good side of life.

00:33:08.220 | So I had to figure out a way when I came on in 2016

00:33:11.280 | of teaching you what life really is

00:33:14.980 | for the majority of us as hell.

00:33:17.580 | And so while people love to show you the cars

00:33:21.820 | and the house and the vacations and shit,

00:33:24.260 | all that's good, all that's happy.

00:33:26.460 | I'm gonna show you this side

00:33:29.340 | that I know most of you are going through.

00:33:31.660 | And people hide very well.

00:33:34.140 | I don't wanna hide anymore.

00:33:35.640 | I hid it for 24 fucking years.

00:33:38.400 | That's why now I told you,

00:33:39.640 | we can talk about whatever you want.

00:33:41.800 | Because as human beings,

00:33:43.840 | the first thing we have to learn,

00:33:46.300 | I also studied real bad growing up.

00:33:48.140 | So if you hear me stutter every now and then,

00:33:50.000 | it's because that was part of my life also.

00:33:54.000 | So it's funny, human beings wanna show you the best side

00:33:57.980 | and they wanna hide the worst side.

00:34:00.020 | For me, I'm gonna teach you how to be vulnerable.

00:34:03.540 | 'Cause that's the only way you fix yourself.

00:34:05.980 | You don't fix yourself by coming out here

00:34:07.940 | and me selling you some fucking books.

00:34:09.820 | That's why I don't have them, I forgot them.

00:34:13.220 | I'm glad people got something from the book.

00:34:15.420 | I want you to learn that the only way you grow

00:34:20.420 | is how to look at yourself and say, okay, like I did.

00:34:25.020 | Table longer than this,

00:34:27.300 | what the fuck I have to do to get somewhere?

00:34:29.460 | There was nothing good on there, nothing.

00:34:33.240 | Yeah, I love playing basketball, I left that out.

00:34:35.700 | That's something I love to do.

00:34:37.580 | I don't care about that, that didn't make the fucking list.

00:34:40.740 | 'Cause the list that I had to live by was the very list

00:34:43.840 | that was to get me at this table with you.

00:34:46.160 | To talk to you, to the normal human beings,

00:34:50.460 | which I once was, about how you can get somewhere

00:34:54.700 | and how it looks, it looks very ugly.

00:34:57.680 | There's no fucking passion, there's no fucking motivation.

00:35:02.460 | There's no, oh my God, man, I fucking, this is, no.

00:35:05.720 | It's every day of your life just doing.

00:35:10.020 | No passion, no discipline, no motivation.

00:35:13.360 | All these words, I hate people, I hate that so many people

00:35:15.820 | fucking use these words now 'cause it's watered.

00:35:18.620 | It's someone sitting in a room by themselves

00:35:21.420 | and they figure themselves out and say,

00:35:22.860 | "God, this is gonna fucking suck."

00:35:25.260 | Where's passion when you're 300 pounds?

00:35:29.140 | Where's the motivation when you can't read and write?

00:35:33.020 | Where is it?

00:35:34.060 | So how did this happen?

00:35:35.940 | I just fucking did.

00:35:37.900 | I did, I just did.

00:35:40.420 | I said, "Maybe at the end of this journey,

00:35:41.780 | "there'll be something there for me.

00:35:43.040 | "If not, I can read.

00:35:45.040 | "If not, I'm 185 fucking pounds."

00:35:49.580 | There's no magic potion.

00:35:52.120 | There's no, oh, let me wake up and look at some shit.

00:35:55.520 | No, all those words are overused.

00:35:58.540 | They're bullshit.

00:36:00.020 | It's all bullshit.

00:36:01.620 | Just do your living.

00:36:04.120 | How do you wanna live?

00:36:05.500 | How do you wanna die?

00:36:06.980 | How do you wanna fucking be remembered?

00:36:09.500 | That's it, that's it, period.

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00:37:11.200 | - The word haunted is ringing in my head.

00:37:13.980 | - Yep.

00:37:14.820 | - I think it's such a powerful word.

00:37:18.320 | - Yep.

00:37:19.160 | - 'Cause I was about to say,

00:37:21.220 | it seems like a huge part of your process,

00:37:23.500 | maybe the entire process is it's all stick, no carrot.

00:37:27.660 | You know, you talk about the carrot, the positive thing,

00:37:29.820 | and then there's the stick, the thing you're trying to avoid.

00:37:31.820 | - Yep.

00:37:32.660 | - I feel like it's, the way it's landing for me

00:37:35.920 | is it's all stick and gas pedal.

00:37:39.640 | - That's it.

00:37:40.480 | - There's no carrot.

00:37:41.880 | You're not imagining, "Oh, when I'm a paramedic,

00:37:44.260 | when the book is published."

00:37:45.880 | And obviously you set those goals

00:37:47.200 | and you make those targets, but it's all stick.

00:37:50.040 | - All stick.

00:37:51.340 | - No carrot.

00:37:52.180 | - Think about that.

00:37:53.020 | I'm waking up right now, studying,

00:37:56.840 | like I have a test tomorrow.

00:37:59.240 | I already passed the fucking test.

00:38:01.900 | Think about that.

00:38:03.520 | Every day of my life,

00:38:05.360 | that's what I must do just to retain what I learned.

00:38:08.000 | Four hours plus a day, I go through and do that.

00:38:12.560 | There's no stick, or there's only a stick.

00:38:16.400 | There's never been a carrot.

00:38:18.120 | Which is why when I speak to people,

00:38:21.660 | I have to figure out a way to resonate with them.

00:38:28.120 | 'Cause all I wanna say to them is,

00:38:31.840 | (chuckles)

00:38:33.040 | let me teach you the real life, how it really is.

00:38:35.600 | The reason why you're a loser,

00:38:37.280 | and the reason why you're not fucking making it,

00:38:39.360 | and the reason why you're trying to go through all these,

00:38:41.320 | I go to all these fucking conventions,

00:38:42.900 | speak all the fucking time.

00:38:44.960 | I look in the fucking audience and these people sign up,

00:38:48.360 | sign up, sign up fucking every year to go to convention,

00:38:51.520 | thinking they're gonna learn something fucking different.

00:38:53.600 | No, you're lazy.

00:38:56.000 | You know exactly what to do, exactly what to do.

00:38:58.920 | 'Cause even me, in my state of, I can't read or write,

00:39:03.240 | I knew exactly what to do.

00:39:04.920 | It just sucks doing it.

00:39:08.560 | It sucks to do it.

00:39:10.740 | It sucks to wake up every morning of your life and say,

00:39:13.260 | "God, man, I'm not smart, so guess what I gotta do?

00:39:17.900 | I gotta study the same shit

00:39:20.080 | that I got one of the highest scores in the nation on,

00:39:23.180 | and do it again, do it again, do it again."

00:39:27.220 | It's not just there.

00:39:28.740 | It's not just there permanently for me.

00:39:31.280 | So yeah, it's all stick.

00:39:33.480 | It's all stick.

00:39:35.240 | The only care that you have is like, maybe, maybe,

00:39:41.120 | 'cause whenever I take these tests that are real hard,

00:39:45.840 | in the back of my brain, it's like,

00:39:47.800 | the good chance you're not gonna make it, Goggins.

00:39:50.360 | This ain't you, bro.

00:39:51.560 | This ain't you.

00:39:53.880 | You weren't born like this.

00:39:56.120 | This ain't you, the real you, bro.

00:39:58.240 | Study all you want to,

00:39:59.280 | but the second that fucking computer comes on

00:40:01.240 | with 150 questions, this ain't you, man.

00:40:05.600 | And somehow, it comes back, I passed.

00:40:08.720 | I passed again, passed again.

00:40:11.380 | But that real me back here, every fucking time,

00:40:14.380 | is saying, "That ain't you, bro.

00:40:17.480 | That ain't you."

00:40:19.500 | And I have to outwork that voice.

00:40:23.280 | When I'm taking that test and I get to a question,

00:40:25.140 | I don't fucking know the answer, I'm like, "Fuck, man."

00:40:27.920 | And then, say, "I told you, man, that ain't you.

00:40:32.280 | You 300 pounds, man.

00:40:34.240 | You sit at home, you figure out how to do your hair.

00:40:37.100 | That's what you do, how to come to school

00:40:39.040 | with the reverse baldness when you're 16.

00:40:42.200 | That's you."

00:40:44.560 | So there is no get out of jail free card.

00:40:48.400 | This is why I say stay hard,

00:40:51.860 | because when you weren't given the gifts,

00:40:54.360 | the only thing you can do in life is stay hard.

00:40:57.200 | And I know people cannot stand me.

00:41:01.420 | They can't stand this talk.

00:41:03.620 | This is all you can do.

00:41:07.880 | There's no magic pill or a magic potion.

00:41:11.260 | All you can do is outwork the man that God created,

00:41:15.720 | or woman, in you.

00:41:17.660 | And what that looks like is unfun.

00:41:21.040 | That's why I said do not do a documentary on me,

00:41:25.040 | because people will not see the truth.

00:41:28.040 | They will see what they want to see

00:41:29.520 | is I don't want to live like that.

00:41:31.840 | Good. Good.

00:41:33.840 | And you will live exactly the way you live now,

00:41:36.680 | questioning who you are, wondering what is possible,

00:41:40.280 | wondering what you are capable of doing.

00:41:42.960 | That's how that looks.

00:41:44.240 | Or you can be me, which, am I happy?

00:41:48.200 | I don't know.

00:41:49.040 | Never thought about it, don't really care about it,

00:41:51.360 | because all I really cared about

00:41:52.440 | was when I looked in that fucking mirror,

00:41:53.680 | I saw a piece of shit.

00:41:54.840 | Happiness wasn't on the mirror at 16,

00:41:58.080 | around 300 pounds.

00:41:59.840 | It wasn't like, oh my, I'm looking for happiness.

00:42:02.620 | No, I'm looking to look at myself in the mirror and say,

00:42:05.140 | all right, motherfucker, you did it again today.

00:42:08.280 | You're a bad boy, because that shit sucks.

00:42:11.160 | I have about a couple of minutes of that

00:42:14.160 | when I got the carrot.

00:42:15.720 | Second lay down to go to bed, the carrot's gone,

00:42:18.480 | because I'm waking up all through the night

00:42:20.920 | to check the work I did that day.

00:42:23.600 | Did I get this drug right?

00:42:25.920 | Did I get this right?

00:42:26.760 | Did I get that right?

00:42:27.760 | What did I do?

00:42:29.600 | Oh my God, fuck, I'm already losing it.

00:42:31.920 | It's a stick.

00:42:34.460 | - That stick is haunting you.

00:42:37.800 | - Haunting you. - It's following you around.

00:42:39.920 | So no picture of Jordan on the wall.

00:42:41.680 | You're not listening to a YouTube inspiration video.

00:42:44.600 | - No. - That would be all your voice,

00:42:45.720 | anyway. (laughs)

00:42:47.820 | You're not listening to your top 10 favorite songs

00:42:50.860 | just to get rolling and then lace the shoes, hit the books.

00:42:54.460 | It's all in here.

00:42:55.660 | - All in there.

00:42:56.500 | I used to do that when I was fat.

00:42:58.340 | Rocky, I mean, that was my thing.

00:43:01.660 | Round 14 was my thing.

00:43:03.240 | And as I got older and older and older,

00:43:06.960 | that started to go away.

00:43:09.900 | And I started to create,

00:43:12.760 | I had all these people that I used to watch.

00:43:15.720 | Rocky was one, Barnes, Elias from Platoon,

00:43:18.920 | Jack from A Few Good Men.

00:43:23.660 | You know, he's on the stand going crazy.

00:43:25.980 | I saw a lot of these characters that I looked at

00:43:28.600 | and I was like, man, I ain't got none of that.

00:43:31.280 | But they were characters.

00:43:32.520 | After a while, I lived a life so disciplined

00:43:37.780 | that everybody that I once looked to,

00:43:41.280 | these fake characters, I built that as a man.

00:43:46.140 | And when I was younger, I had this image in my mind

00:43:50.100 | of what does a man look like to me?

00:43:52.120 | And I got all these people who were bad-asses, characters.

00:43:57.060 | And in my mind, I became that.

00:44:01.080 | And that's what kept me going a lot

00:44:04.500 | was I had this pipe dream of becoming a little bit of this

00:44:07.100 | and a little bit of that.

00:44:08.140 | 'Cause when you have no parents raising you

00:44:10.540 | and you have no role models growing up,

00:44:14.200 | you, it's not daydreaming.

00:44:17.300 | You start to create a reality like, hmm,

00:44:20.360 | maybe I can be that.

00:44:24.880 | And after becoming this guy,

00:44:29.660 | that is the biggest thing I can ever do in my life

00:44:33.240 | is I became that guy that I once looked at all these guys

00:44:37.080 | and I look at myself like, God, who the fuck can do that?

00:44:40.240 | I can't.

00:44:41.640 | But what it takes is a discipline that no one

00:44:45.240 | can ever even, they just don't, they don't understand it.

00:44:49.880 | They don't understand.

00:44:50.720 | Everybody has the ability to do it,

00:44:52.940 | but they just don't want to.

00:44:54.100 | They want to keep asking questions

00:44:55.500 | and keep going to seminars.

00:44:57.760 | And the greatness is right in you.

00:44:59.780 | And that's why, once again, I say this a million times here,

00:45:02.620 | I do not feel sorry for you.

00:45:05.060 | I will not sugar coat what I'm going to say to you

00:45:08.540 | because all of you know what I'm saying is the truth.

00:45:11.540 | Everybody knows it's the truth.

00:45:14.840 | This is what it looks like.

00:45:15.680 | And you know it too.

00:45:16.960 | You know it too.

00:45:17.800 | This is, if you ain't got nothing,

00:45:19.400 | I hate to tell you what it looks like, it's ugly.

00:45:21.940 | It's not a documentary.

00:45:23.000 | It's not an HBO special.

00:45:24.480 | You ain't gonna watch it, but hey, man,

00:45:25.520 | you guys gotta watch this.

00:45:26.340 | No, it's like, oh God, this looks like a train wreck.

00:45:28.720 | It's like a nightmare.

00:45:29.560 | This looks like this guy got, no.

00:45:30.720 | That's what it looks like.

00:45:32.260 | Hard work looks horrible.

00:45:34.560 | It's not motivating.

00:45:36.240 | It's not motivating at all.

00:45:37.940 | It ain't like Rocky round 14.

00:45:39.400 | We get knocked down and go like this to Apollo Creed.

00:45:42.340 | It looks like a man being stuck in a fucking dungeon

00:45:46.260 | and there's no fucking way out.

00:45:47.800 | But you have the fucking key, but you refuse to use it.

00:45:53.720 | And that's nothing motivating about that.

00:45:57.760 | So yes, no documentary on David Goggins.

00:46:00.220 | - The real life, David Goggins is the documentary.

00:46:04.760 | It's already being written.

00:46:07.500 | - You're it.

00:46:08.340 | - Right. - Yeah.

00:46:09.680 | I'm gonna share a little neuroscience tidbit,

00:46:11.760 | but I think it's one that you'll appreciate.

00:46:13.920 | Most people don't know this,

00:46:16.580 | but there's a brain structure

00:46:18.600 | called the anterior mid-singulate cortex.

00:46:21.000 | As we pointed out before, that's a noun, it's a name.

00:46:23.020 | It doesn't mean anything.

00:46:23.920 | We could call it the cookie monster.

00:46:26.280 | But what's interesting about this brain area

00:46:29.000 | is there are now a lot of data in humans,

00:46:32.300 | that's a mouse study,

00:46:34.980 | showing that when people do something they don't wanna do,

00:46:38.880 | like add three hours of exercise per day or per week,

00:46:43.600 | or when people who are trying to die and lose weight

00:46:46.140 | resist eating something.

00:46:48.200 | When people do anything that they,

00:46:50.700 | and this is the important part, that they don't want to do.

00:46:53.440 | It's not about adding more work.

00:46:54.860 | It's about adding more work that you don't want to do.

00:46:58.480 | This brain area gets bigger.

00:47:00.560 | Now here's what's especially interesting

00:47:02.000 | about this brain area to me.

00:47:03.160 | And by the way, I'm only learning this recently

00:47:05.800 | because it's new data, but there's a lot of it.

00:47:08.960 | The anterior mid-singulate cortex

00:47:10.840 | is smaller in obese people.

00:47:13.520 | It gets bigger when they die.

00:47:16.620 | It's larger in athletes.

00:47:19.460 | It's especially large or grows larger

00:47:24.080 | in people that see themselves as challenged

00:47:27.400 | and overcome some challenge.

00:47:30.840 | And in people that live a very long time,

00:47:33.440 | this area keeps its size.

00:47:38.920 | In many ways, scientists are starting to think

00:47:41.120 | of the anterior mid-singulate cortex,

00:47:42.760 | not just as one of the seats of willpower,

00:47:46.420 | but perhaps actually the seat of the will to live.

00:47:50.040 | - Now we're talking.

00:47:52.280 | - And when I learned about the anterior mid-singulate cortex,

00:47:54.720 | I was like almost out of my seat.

00:47:56.440 | And I've been in the neuroscience game since I was 20.

00:47:58.880 | - Now we're talking. - We're the same age.

00:47:59.920 | And I was so pumped 'cause I've heard of the amygdala fear,

00:48:02.500 | prefrontal cortex, it's planning and action.

00:48:05.080 | I could tell you every brain area and every,

00:48:07.000 | I teach neuroanatomy to medical students.

00:48:08.640 | But when I started seeing the data

00:48:11.160 | on the anterior mid-singulate cortex,

00:48:13.860 | I was like, whoa, this is interesting.

00:48:18.420 | And all the data points to the fact

00:48:20.440 | that we can build this area up,

00:48:22.320 | but that as quickly as we build it up,

00:48:25.700 | if we don't continue to invest in things

00:48:27.640 | that are hard for us, that we don't want to do,

00:48:30.360 | that's the part that feels so Goggin-esque to me

00:48:34.580 | that we don't want to do.

00:48:36.280 | Like if you love the ice bath, yeah, I love the ice bath,

00:48:38.520 | and you go from one minute to 10 minutes, guess what?

00:48:41.120 | Your anterior mid-singulate cortex did not grow.

00:48:44.080 | But if you hate the cold water,

00:48:46.640 | if you're afraid of drowning and you get into water

00:48:49.640 | and put your head under, then your anterior mid,

00:48:53.440 | and survive, then the anterior mid-singulate cortex

00:48:56.040 | gets bigger.

00:48:56.960 | But if you don't do it the next day,

00:48:58.920 | or if you do it the next day and you enjoy it,

00:49:00.920 | 'cause hey, I did it yesterday, woo-hoo.

00:49:03.960 | Happy me, Merry Christmas, as you would say.

00:49:06.200 | Guess what?

00:49:07.280 | The anterior mid-singulate cortex shrinks again.

00:49:10.640 | To me, this is one of the most important discoveries

00:49:12.940 | that neuroscience has ever made,

00:49:14.480 | because it's that I don't want to do something,

00:49:18.480 | but do it anyway, that grows this area.

00:49:21.940 | And it's almost like I have a friend,

00:49:23.120 | he's been sober 30 years from alcohol.

00:49:25.520 | And he always says, "You know, the amazing thing

00:49:26.880 | about addiction is there's a cure.

00:49:30.120 | The problem is it only works one day at a time."

00:49:33.080 | And so you have to renew it every day.

00:49:35.400 | So the anterior mid-singulate cortex, to me,

00:49:37.880 | when I learned about it, two things went off in my head.

00:49:40.320 | Whoa, this is super interesting.

00:49:42.000 | And two, I got to tell David Goggins about this.

00:49:43.860 | And I waited until now to tell you,

00:49:46.280 | because I felt like, well, for obvious reasons,

00:49:49.640 | I wanted to tell you and I wanted to tell you here.

00:49:51.360 | - Well, I love that because that's how I've lived

00:49:54.920 | my entire life.

00:49:55.760 | I didn't know anything about that.

00:49:57.480 | But people go, "Man, you have such a strong will.

00:50:00.200 | It's something that you build."

00:50:03.340 | Like, I never forgot, I was on a podcast one time

00:50:05.840 | and this dude goes, "You were blessed with a strong mind."

00:50:09.700 | Like, what the hell are you talking about?

00:50:15.080 | I was blessed with a strong mind.

00:50:16.780 | That's something that you have to develop.

00:50:20.380 | You developed that over years, decades,

00:50:24.880 | of suffering and going back into the suffer.

00:50:28.560 | That's why a lot of people who graduate

00:50:30.200 | in Navy SEAL training, they want to know,

00:50:33.360 | like, in my, I talk about it very openly all the time,

00:50:37.820 | a lot of guys don't want to go back into that water.

00:50:43.080 | They want to go back into the hard stuff.

00:50:44.840 | Maybe not, anything hard, anything hard in life,

00:50:48.760 | once you get through it, it's like you become a POW.

00:50:53.040 | Like, how many POWs you know want to go back to POW camp?

00:50:55.640 | None.

00:50:56.960 | When something sucks so bad in life,

00:50:59.320 | this is on this that we're talking about now,

00:51:02.080 | very few people want to go back.

00:51:06.040 | They're happy they graduated.

00:51:07.480 | I realized I'm the same way, I don't want to go back.

00:51:13.400 | I have to go back.

00:51:15.920 | I must go back.

00:51:18.600 | Because that is exactly where all the knowledge

00:51:21.640 | of my life exists, was back there,

00:51:24.600 | in which you're exactly what you're talking about.

00:51:26.540 | Well, I didn't know anything about this,

00:51:28.640 | but how I grew a will was constantly doing these things.

00:51:33.340 | To now, it's just life.

00:51:36.120 | I wake up, while it still sucks, it's just life.

00:51:40.560 | You don't sit back and like, oh my God,

00:51:42.300 | like, I have days I don't want to do,

00:51:44.000 | but I know I'm going to do it.

00:51:45.500 | I know from years of just doing it.

00:51:49.580 | So that's beautiful, and this is why I came on here

00:51:52.860 | with you today, and I'm glad you're talking about this,

00:51:55.980 | because human beings need to hear this.

00:51:58.660 | They need to stop hearing these hacks

00:52:01.460 | on this and that.

00:52:03.780 | There's no fucking hack, bro.

00:52:05.700 | There's no fucking hack.

00:52:06.860 | Yeah, you made this and that and saunas and all this shit.

00:52:11.860 | Yeah, it's great.

00:52:13.700 | There is no fucking life hack.

00:52:16.620 | To grow that thing, how do you grow it?

00:52:19.320 | Do it and do it and do it and do it.

00:52:23.460 | That's the hack.

00:52:24.900 | The hack is going to fucking suck,

00:52:26.900 | and that's what I realized.

00:52:28.600 | That's what I realized.

00:52:30.100 | That's why I wanted to come on here today.

00:52:31.600 | I didn't want to come on here

00:52:32.440 | and talk about no fucking passion and purpose

00:52:35.700 | and how to get the fuck out of bed

00:52:37.140 | and how to hit a fucking alarm clock

00:52:39.100 | and all this catchphrase bullshit,

00:52:41.480 | because that wasn't how I lived.

00:52:44.160 | That wasn't how I lived.

00:52:46.440 | I lived, I woke up like every human being does

00:52:48.320 | and goes, "Fuck, man, I'm a fucking piece of shit today.

00:52:51.460 | "How the hell is this going to work out for me?"

00:52:53.380 | And you fight that, and you fight that.

00:52:56.220 | You don't override it.

00:52:58.180 | There's no override button.

00:52:59.700 | It's the conversation in your fucking, in your head.

00:53:03.060 | So how do you do that?

00:53:04.660 | We don't have enough of these conversations

00:53:06.540 | about the real conversation

00:53:08.500 | that every human being is having,

00:53:11.140 | and they have no idea how to get out of it, but they do.

00:53:14.480 | It's that shit right there, man.

00:53:16.580 | You got to build your will.

00:53:18.540 | How do you build your will?

00:53:20.200 | Exactly what you said, man.

00:53:21.920 | Exactly what you said.

00:53:23.600 | - Well, I feel like knowing the name of something,

00:53:26.440 | anterior mid-singulate cortex,

00:53:27.760 | doesn't fundamentally change us,

00:53:29.140 | but one thing I like about biology is that willpower,

00:53:34.140 | if somebody feels they don't have it,

00:53:36.360 | it feels like this thing that other people have,

00:53:38.220 | but everybody, unless they're brain damaged,

00:53:41.160 | like a hole through their head,

00:53:43.700 | has two anterior mid-singulate cortex.

00:53:46.540 | One on each side of their brain.

00:53:48.260 | Everyone has one.

00:53:49.980 | They have two.

00:53:50.900 | So I feel like it's just a question of opening the portal,

00:53:55.900 | and the portal, what I, again,

00:53:57.900 | I was gonna say 10 times and forgive me,

00:53:59.920 | is I think people go, oh, I do hard things.

00:54:02.000 | I do sets to failure, and then I do four-streps.

00:54:05.140 | I love training with weights.

00:54:06.400 | I love doing sets to failure.

00:54:07.620 | I even like four-streps, but guess what?

00:54:09.540 | I like four-streps.

00:54:10.780 | So I'll tell you,

00:54:11.980 | they don't build my anterior mid-singulate cortex,

00:54:14.920 | 'cause I like to do it.

00:54:15.940 | - That's right.

00:54:16.780 | - Anything you like to do

00:54:18.220 | is not gonna enhance this aspect of willpower.

00:54:20.940 | And it seems so obvious once you hear it,

00:54:22.660 | you kinda go, oh yeah, of course.

00:54:24.620 | But I think you really close that loop for people

00:54:29.540 | when you share what you're sharing today,

00:54:33.180 | and what you've shared elsewhere before as well,

00:54:34.940 | when you're trying to explain

00:54:35.780 | the friction is the critical ingredient.

00:54:38.320 | - Right.

00:54:39.160 | - And I think people think, oh, if it's effort,

00:54:40.940 | well, then I'm getting better.

00:54:41.980 | That's part of it, necessary but not sufficient,

00:54:44.780 | as we say in science.

00:54:46.020 | But the suck part,

00:54:47.320 | the being haunted, the stick,

00:54:52.500 | they're really unpleasant terms.

00:54:54.020 | - Very.

00:54:54.840 | - These are probably the most unpleasant terms

00:54:55.860 | we've ever used on this podcast.

00:54:57.340 | - Very.

00:54:58.520 | - Those are the levers.

00:55:01.540 | Those are the gears.

00:55:02.380 | And without those,

00:55:03.540 | this thing that you're talking about,

00:55:05.660 | David Goggins, as a verb,

00:55:08.940 | I'd sometimes make the joke, but it's not a joke.

00:55:11.860 | Goggins is a name.

00:55:14.620 | And it's a verb.

00:55:15.940 | People go, I'm gonna Goggins that.

00:55:17.340 | - Right.

00:55:18.180 | - Right?

00:55:19.020 | But that's, I think, again, I'm not a psychologist,

00:55:21.500 | but I think that's what you're talking about.

00:55:22.820 | The stick, the friction, being haunted.

00:55:26.400 | It's the suck part that grows

00:55:28.660 | this anterior mid-singulate cortex.

00:55:30.500 | - So now you know why there's so many people

00:55:33.580 | that have failed in this world,

00:55:35.540 | to figure out their purpose, their purpose in life.

00:55:40.100 | Where do I go?

00:55:41.480 | Because to grow that, you may not look like me,

00:55:46.480 | how my daily life looks, but don't look fun.

00:55:52.120 | Don't look fun.

00:55:54.600 | So it's a choice that people have to make in life.

00:56:00.200 | But what's so funny about it is even the richest of rich

00:56:03.280 | who have everything, they always ask me this question.

00:56:05.980 | I feel like I'm missing something.

00:56:11.020 | I don't feel like I'm missing shit.

00:56:12.680 | I don't have what you all have,

00:56:16.320 | but you'll never in my life hear me tell you

00:56:20.360 | I'm missing something.

00:56:21.860 | Everybody is.

00:56:23.560 | They're missing this feeling.

00:56:25.260 | I found it a long time ago.

00:56:29.580 | I found it right there in that willpower thing.

00:56:33.140 | When you're nothing, nothing,

00:56:36.020 | and change yourself into something like me,

00:56:41.000 | you call it happiness, peace,

00:56:44.000 | wherever the fuck you want to call it,

00:56:45.840 | people are missing exactly what went on with David Goggins.

00:56:51.600 | Why don't you smile?

00:56:52.720 | I do, I do.

00:56:54.800 | But I figure something out.

00:56:56.300 | That's why I am never,

00:56:58.320 | you'll never hear me say I'm missing something.

00:57:00.960 | I found it years ago.

00:57:02.620 | You find it in the suck.

00:57:05.540 | You find it in the suck,

00:57:07.480 | and you find it repeatedly in the suck

00:57:10.000 | to the point where you know exactly who you are.

00:57:12.520 | Most people are missing something

00:57:14.200 | because they don't know who they are.

00:57:16.440 | They never examine themselves.

00:57:19.780 | They've never done this experiment on themselves.

00:57:23.520 | The lab rat, we're all lab rats,

00:57:25.800 | but you're also the scientist.

00:57:27.300 | You create your own self.

00:57:31.200 | Most people are missing something

00:57:32.420 | 'cause there's so much trapped in there.

00:57:36.220 | I don't even want to say potential.

00:57:37.540 | I think that's where you use out too much too.

00:57:39.900 | There's so much in you,

00:57:40.980 | that God or wherever the hell you believe in,

00:57:42.880 | or if you're an atheist, in you,

00:57:45.120 | that you have not unlocked,

00:57:48.260 | that you walk around with this gorgeous wife

00:57:50.300 | or great husband and all this money.

00:57:51.840 | You're like, "God, I feel like I'm missing something."

00:57:54.380 | Yeah, because it's about 75% of you

00:57:58.240 | is still fucking in there,

00:57:59.640 | still chained up,

00:58:02.600 | because you just didn't want to find your willpower,

00:58:05.860 | didn't want to find your soul, your will, your heart,

00:58:08.060 | your determination, your guts, your courage.

00:58:10.580 | And what that looks like, it looks scary,

00:58:12.500 | like your little scary lab I went in.

00:58:15.180 | Scary to wake up every day and say, "I'm stupid,

00:58:18.580 | but I want to figure out a way to be smarter,"

00:58:21.500 | versus saying, "Man, I just can't do that."

00:58:24.040 | So you limit this box.

00:58:26.080 | So your box becomes so small of things you can do.

00:58:29.860 | My box wasn't even a box.

00:58:32.300 | It was a fucking little pinhole.

00:58:35.600 | And then through examining myself,

00:58:38.200 | getting some willpower, some courage,

00:58:41.160 | it became bigger than this table.

00:58:42.880 | But that's what we all do.

00:58:43.760 | That's why I wanted to come here today

00:58:44.860 | and talk to you about real shit,

00:58:47.120 | not no fucking like hacks.

00:58:49.280 | There's no hacks, bro.

00:58:50.960 | It's you against you.

00:58:53.000 | You against you.

00:58:54.380 | And if you misunderstand that, you have a real problem.

00:58:58.220 | Real problem.

00:59:00.000 | I can understand you misunderstand me

00:59:01.000 | running down the street, shirt off,

00:59:02.560 | "Fuck this, no, yeah."

00:59:03.860 | I can get it, I get it.

00:59:06.180 | If you misunderstand what I'm saying right now today,

00:59:09.300 | the problem is you and you don't want to fix it.

00:59:12.700 | - Well, the children of wealthy people are a case study

00:59:17.380 | in how not having enough friction can destroy a life.

00:59:22.140 | - True statement.

00:59:23.100 | - I mean, I could list off prominent names in the press,

00:59:26.220 | but those are actually the least interesting.

00:59:28.320 | What's probably more interesting as an example

00:59:30.900 | is all the ones we don't hear about,

00:59:33.100 | 'cause we never hear about them.

00:59:34.760 | They just dwindle and wither.

00:59:37.120 | Or I think there's this big category of people

00:59:39.700 | I'm realizing as we have this conversation today

00:59:42.380 | that they're not super successful.

00:59:45.380 | They're not struggling.

00:59:48.980 | They're like successful enough that they never have to...

00:59:52.900 | You can get to the point where you don't have

00:59:54.540 | to impose friction.

00:59:56.140 | You even said it.

00:59:57.160 | Your bank account is in a place where you don't really

00:59:59.980 | need to do all the things you do.

01:00:01.420 | Probably not even a small fraction of them.

01:00:03.100 | - Do nothing.

01:00:03.940 | - Right, but you realize the stick and being haunted

01:00:06.440 | is the fuel in the engine.

01:00:09.740 | And you'd be truly crazy to give that up

01:00:13.300 | because you've internalized all that.

01:00:15.540 | But most people, they're good enough for them.

01:00:20.020 | And so they don't actually want to be better badly enough

01:00:24.180 | in order to start going rung after rung.

01:00:28.780 | - Well, think about when you build willpower

01:00:31.080 | and think about how much I've built.

01:00:33.820 | Now that you know about this, I didn't know about this.

01:00:36.540 | But think about how much I've built.

01:00:38.420 | Everything I've ever done in my life, I didn't want to do.

01:00:42.460 | Everything, every day.

01:00:44.620 | I'm a lazy piece of shit.

01:00:48.380 | And I'm one of the hardest working people

01:00:50.060 | to ever step foot on this planet Earth.

01:00:51.900 | And I'm saying that very proudly because I know what I do.

01:00:54.580 | It's not cocky.

01:00:55.700 | I'll tell you I'm stupid.

01:00:57.740 | And I'll also tell you the exact opposite of what I've done.

01:01:01.480 | It's the truth.

01:01:03.560 | It is the truth.

01:01:04.720 | So imagine how much I've developed in that time frame.

01:01:07.880 | But it's the scary thing.

01:01:10.640 | Why most people don't want to do that, build that willpower,

01:01:16.040 | is because it is scary.

01:01:18.600 | It unlocks a whole bunch of things about who you are

01:01:21.000 | and who you're not.

01:01:22.680 | And a lot of people don't want to go down that journey

01:01:25.040 | to discover who they are and who they're not.

01:01:27.920 | Because it's not a pretty journey.

01:01:30.800 | I mean, I've gone down it-- it's not like I went down it once.

01:01:34.500 | I go down it all the time.

01:01:37.060 | And when you unlock that-- and you can't just turn it off.

01:01:39.820 | People say, hey, how come you haven't retired yet?

01:01:43.480 | I built all this willpower.

01:01:47.100 | Do you think it's going to let me just retire

01:01:51.600 | because my knees hurt?

01:01:54.380 | It's telling me every morning, I wake up like, man,

01:01:57.520 | my knees hurt, my legs hurt, my body hurts.

01:02:00.260 | But you can still run.

01:02:02.160 | So why aren't you running?

01:02:04.320 | If you can still run, there will be a time when you can't lace

01:02:07.400 | them up anymore, but you can still run.

01:02:10.840 | So I still run.

01:02:12.840 | When the time comes I can't run, the body

01:02:15.080 | will say, you just can't run.

01:02:17.760 | But if I can still do something, that willpower

01:02:21.240 | that I have created, it makes me do it every fucking day.

01:02:26.680 | And that's what they don't get.

01:02:28.020 | What builds a human being is you start with the small building

01:02:31.800 | blocks.

01:02:32.300 | And before you know it, man, you become something that you--

01:02:34.960 | it doesn't even make sense to most people

01:02:36.960 | because it's just who you are now.

01:02:38.900 | That's why I can still run at 50 at 49 with broke down knees

01:02:42.520 | and broke down body, because my body knows you still can.

01:02:46.280 | Therefore, I do.

01:02:47.600 | Second you stop, the willpower is gone.

01:02:51.040 | And that's beautiful.

01:02:52.060 | I'm so glad you brought that to me,

01:02:53.560 | because I always wonder, what's this separation thing now?

01:02:58.680 | At 24 years old, I started building something

01:03:00.640 | that I didn't even know was going to be what it is now at 49.

01:03:03.840 | And that's all it was, was just that.

01:03:08.000 | This structure, anterior mid-singulate cortex,

01:03:10.320 | has inputs and outputs from a bunch of places.

01:03:12.840 | But you'll probably not be surprised to learn

01:03:15.960 | that it's strongly activated when we move our body, when

01:03:20.840 | we don't want to move our body.

01:03:23.640 | I feel like it's like the David Goggins structure, right?

01:03:27.200 | It is.

01:03:27.800 | And it also has strong connections

01:03:30.080 | to the dopamine reward pathway.

01:03:31.900 | And everyone goes, yay, dopamine reward.

01:03:33.520 | Everyone loves dopamine.

01:03:34.980 | I'm partially responsible for people knowing

01:03:37.720 | a bit more about dopamine.

01:03:39.280 | But dopamine is badly understood.

01:03:41.600 | Everyone thinks dopamine, dopamine hits.

01:03:43.400 | It's about reward.

01:03:44.960 | It's about motivation and drive.

01:03:47.600 | And there are pain inputs to the dopamine centers of the brain.

01:03:51.320 | No one talks about that.

01:03:52.480 | Everyone's like, oh, you want the chocolate,

01:03:54.320 | you know, chocolate, sex, cocaine.

01:03:56.400 | Yeah, that's all true.

01:03:58.000 | You release dopamine.

01:03:59.360 | Pain releases dopamine.

01:04:01.080 | The anterior mid-singulate cortex

01:04:03.000 | can trigger the release of dopamine in response

01:04:05.480 | to this thing that we're calling friction.

01:04:08.080 | And that's a learned thing.

01:04:10.360 | That's something that no animal or human being

01:04:12.380 | comes into the world learning.

01:04:13.640 | We all are averse to pain and like pleasure, like sugar, fat,

01:04:19.320 | don't like hot surfaces.

01:04:21.960 | But this is a structure that learns.

01:04:25.400 | It has neuroplasticity, the ability

01:04:27.720 | to change throughout the entire lifespan.

01:04:29.840 | And here's the part that I think, again,

01:04:31.480 | is just neuro nerd speak for what you already know

01:04:34.520 | and have done and exemplify, is that people say, oh,

01:04:38.460 | it has plasticity.

01:04:39.200 | You can change it.

01:04:40.040 | But guess what?

01:04:40.620 | It has plasticity in both directions.

01:04:42.600 | It can grow, but just as easily as it can grow,

01:04:45.200 | it's like Silly Putty, it can shrink.

01:04:47.860 | So it requires constant upkeep.

01:04:51.800 | And that answer isn't one that people are going to like.

01:04:54.680 | They're like, give me the energy drink, give me the supplement,

01:04:57.440 | give me the sauna protocol that's

01:04:59.880 | going to make my anterior mid-singulate cortex.

01:05:02.060 | Someone out there right now is going,

01:05:03.280 | wait, if I took transcranial magnetic stimulation

01:05:05.560 | and I stimulate--

01:05:06.440 | yeah, you probably-- actually, they've done that.

01:05:08.400 | They've stuck a little wire during neurosurgery

01:05:10.720 | into this structure.

01:05:12.520 | This is actually discovered by a colleague of mine, Joe Parvizi.

01:05:17.180 | Stimulate and the patients go, I feel like there's a storm

01:05:21.000 | coming.

01:05:21.760 | And then they go, oh, is it scary?

01:05:23.140 | And they go, no, I want to go through it.

01:05:25.200 | They come off the stimulation and people are like,

01:05:28.520 | this is the seat of what we're talking about.

01:05:31.400 | Right, exactly.

01:05:32.360 | And it learns.

01:05:33.680 | So the fact that you've kept this brain structure,

01:05:36.120 | I'm convinced if we imaged your brain, it'd be large

01:05:40.160 | and it would be larger in two years, in a year.

01:05:44.280 | But this is the no days off rationale because it can grow

01:05:48.600 | and it can shrink.

01:05:49.400 | I know.

01:05:50.400 | What you're saying right now, I didn't know any of this.

01:05:54.440 | And I never-- and I always talk to people,

01:05:56.200 | I wish I could just put this on paper.

01:05:59.520 | And you're saying it in a way that people can understand.

01:06:03.000 | I could never put into words on what I built and the power

01:06:08.480 | that is within all of us.

01:06:10.760 | But you put it so in a scientific way.

01:06:14.400 | Most people, for me, he's just crazy.

01:06:17.080 | That's why I don't like talking about it, man.

01:06:19.800 | I know I'm not crazy.

01:06:21.320 | I know what I had to do to get where I had to go.

01:06:24.640 | People look at it as crazy because they're

01:06:26.240 | people that just--

01:06:28.080 | if you can't imagine yourself doing something,

01:06:31.280 | if you can't imagine yourself doing something,

01:06:33.480 | the person that's doing it is crazy.

01:06:36.920 | Because in your mind, the logic behind it, it doesn't compute.

01:06:42.200 | Therefore, you have to give somebody a title.

01:06:44.840 | And a title for me is usually, he's crazy, he's this, he's that.

01:06:48.480 | No, no.

01:06:51.240 | For some reason, me wanting to be somebody so fucking bad

01:06:54.720 | in my life, I created that.

01:06:57.920 | And I've been trying to figure out years of my life

01:07:01.320 | trying to explain to people.

01:07:02.520 | But even though you're explaining it now,

01:07:07.120 | this is the easy fucking part.

01:07:10.000 | Them listening to this shit is the easy fucking part.

01:07:13.720 | The part that why there will always be the ones of ones

01:07:18.440 | is because putting that practice,

01:07:22.720 | putting that into actual work, no, man, no, no.

01:07:27.960 | That's where the demons come in.

01:07:30.240 | That's where you're like, I don't want to be better.

01:07:33.760 | I don't want to be better.

01:07:34.840 | If this is what it takes to be better,

01:07:35.840 | I don't want to be better.

01:07:37.240 | So everybody's-- that's why there's a lot of average.

01:07:40.680 | And it makes me so fucking mad.

01:07:44.080 | Every day I walk this earth and I see average

01:07:46.960 | all over the fucking place.

01:07:48.640 | And they want to ask me, how did you do it?

01:07:51.720 | I can't tell you how, because you're not going to fucking--

01:07:53.920 | you're not going to do it.

01:07:55.480 | You're not going to do it.

01:07:57.160 | You're going to continue being out, because every day you

01:07:59.120 | wake up, like you said, it's not like, get the coffee,

01:08:02.760 | make the pancakes, kiss the girl, kiss the kids.

01:08:08.160 | You wake up right to work.

01:08:10.960 | Immediately your mind is in action.

01:08:13.720 | No one wants to do that.

01:08:15.400 | No one.

01:08:16.040 | And I don't blame them.

01:08:17.440 | But don't be mad when you're laying there

01:08:20.160 | in your fucking bed and you're in the fucking hospital

01:08:22.400 | and you're 70, 80, 90 years old and you're thinking,

01:08:26.480 | man, I feel like I didn't fucking do something.

01:08:29.200 | Because you did.

01:08:30.760 | You didn't do it.

01:08:32.160 | You didn't do shit.

01:08:34.000 | You may have lived a great life, man,

01:08:35.520 | but you're always going to feel empty inside.

01:08:37.320 | I don't feel empty.

01:08:38.400 | So call me what you want.

01:08:39.960 | There's not one empty bone in my fucking body,

01:08:44.240 | because I have figured out that really the magic potion,

01:08:49.000 | at least to my life, is very rewarding.

01:08:53.040 | I'd like to take a quick break and thank

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01:09:55.080 | - People like to talk about what they used to be able to do.

01:09:59.020 | I hear this a lot.

01:10:00.120 | You should have seen me in high school, I always laugh.

01:10:02.320 | - Yep.

01:10:03.160 | - Like, yeah, okay, got it.

01:10:05.080 | And it's not just guys,

01:10:06.040 | you should see me working out in high school,

01:10:07.720 | I was super fit.

01:10:09.560 | People will look back to a time

01:10:11.720 | where they felt like they were capable of something

01:10:14.440 | and now they're not.

01:10:15.960 | And you kind of want to just grab them and go,

01:10:17.880 | wait, that was you then, it's you now.

01:10:20.120 | But people tend to think about how the conditions

01:10:23.760 | that were around success must've been part of it.

01:10:27.320 | And you can understand why, it's very rational.

01:10:30.540 | I was in that situation, I was successful.

01:10:32.360 | I'm in this situation, I'm not.

01:10:34.320 | That was the past, this is the present,

01:10:37.200 | ergo, capable, right?

01:10:39.360 | You see how people get into these loops.

01:10:41.720 | And as you mentioned, you spent the first 20 years

01:10:43.440 | of your life in extremely challenged circumstances.

01:10:47.120 | And then you can see how people get to a point

01:10:49.040 | where everything feels hard.

01:10:52.320 | Like when you're 300 pounds, I haven't never been 300 pounds,

01:10:56.140 | but I can't imagine it feels good to get up and move around.

01:10:59.800 | - It's defeating.

01:11:00.820 | - I got a friend, he's in excess of 300 pounds.

01:11:04.640 | We've been trying on him for years, but no win.

01:11:07.800 | And he's got crazy psoriasis on the back of his calves.

01:11:10.800 | And he actually smells bad sometimes

01:11:13.280 | 'cause he can't wash as well as he would.

01:11:15.980 | He's big, big.

01:11:17.040 | - Right.

01:11:18.040 | - And it pulls on my sympathy.

01:11:20.200 | - Right.

01:11:21.020 | - But life is very hard for him in getting worse.

01:11:23.400 | He's a young guy with a lot of medical issues now

01:11:26.060 | for obvious reasons.

01:11:27.540 | And so I think people like that think,

01:11:28.820 | well, it's already hard.

01:11:30.320 | Why would I make it harder?

01:11:32.880 | Your message is a little different

01:11:36.620 | and you have the life experience.

01:11:38.260 | - It's a lot different.

01:11:39.100 | - You've been there.

01:11:40.300 | So for me saying, oh yeah, lose weight.

01:11:44.040 | I was a skinny guy who got to be a less skinny guy.

01:11:48.200 | So I don't really have a foot to stand on.

01:11:51.280 | What do you say to those people who are like,

01:11:55.240 | listen, I'm getting up in the morning is hard.

01:11:58.760 | Trying to not dissolve into a puddle of my own tears

01:12:01.000 | and my own misery is hard.

01:12:03.160 | - You know how people connect with my books so well?

01:12:07.120 | For some reason, God put me in almost every

01:12:08.960 | fucked up situation on the planet earth.

01:12:11.620 | So when I talk to people, it's not sugar coated

01:12:14.760 | 'cause I'm not saying it from I was 175 pounds

01:12:19.120 | my whole life.

01:12:19.960 | I don't say much to those people.

01:12:23.200 | Maybe you're a piece of shit.

01:12:27.200 | Maybe you want to be nobody.

01:12:30.040 | Maybe you're happy exactly where you are in life

01:12:32.060 | 'cause obviously you are.

01:12:33.700 | Maybe you don't have the determination

01:12:35.280 | to be somebody better than who you are.

01:12:37.820 | And if you want to live with that,

01:12:40.260 | I'll support you in that.

01:12:43.180 | If you're good with being who you are,

01:12:45.520 | that every day you wake up and every day you smell like shit

01:12:48.360 | because you can't wash your body well

01:12:50.000 | and your skin's messed up because your health's so bad

01:12:52.540 | and you can't put your clothes on, right?

01:12:54.300 | You need help with that.

01:12:55.140 | You need help like when I was 13,

01:12:56.140 | I need help wiping my ass.

01:12:57.740 | That makes you feel good?

01:13:00.900 | Nothing I can say to you.

01:13:03.340 | If every day you wake up with this,

01:13:05.920 | see people are haunted,

01:13:07.260 | but they obviously like horror films

01:13:11.460 | 'cause they keep watching the same fucking movie.

01:13:13.120 | I don't like horror films.

01:13:14.980 | A lot of people like horror films,

01:13:16.780 | so I don't say much to them.

01:13:18.660 | I say exactly what I said to you right there

01:13:21.940 | because I was once you.

01:13:23.240 | I didn't like horror films, so I changed it.

01:13:26.920 | Some people are just, they become, like you said,

01:13:30.500 | it gets real small when you're lazy and you're fat.

01:13:33.780 | Your will, their will is so small

01:13:38.140 | that they don't have any and you can't give it to them.

01:13:41.260 | There has to be something.

01:13:42.540 | This is what I'm talking about now

01:13:44.940 | because this isn't a hack.

01:13:47.440 | This has to be in you.

01:13:49.640 | Something in you has to wake up.

01:13:52.580 | And usually the only person that can wake it up is you.

01:13:56.100 | Sometimes you can read a David Goggins book

01:13:58.640 | because I was all this shit

01:14:00.020 | and then a lot more are fucked up.

01:14:01.940 | But if you don't have a little flame,

01:14:05.840 | you know, just barely, you're done.

01:14:10.120 | I can't, I can't light it for you.

01:14:12.320 | And that's the harsh reality of this life

01:14:16.040 | that I want to get across so fucking bad.

01:14:19.040 | You can watch me, you can watch you,

01:14:20.820 | you can watch fucking Rogan and Cameron Haynes,

01:14:22.600 | all these motherfuckers.

01:14:23.640 | You can go to Tony Robinson's fucking bullshit,

01:14:26.520 | all this shit, and do all this shit.

01:14:28.380 | If you, you could keep going back

01:14:32.160 | and keep spending money and spending money

01:14:34.600 | and spending money with no results.

01:14:36.640 | You can wonder, wow, maybe let me go try out David Goggins.

01:14:40.240 | He ain't gonna fucking help you.

01:14:41.840 | You have to explore, examine the insides of yourself.

01:14:47.840 | And what do you really want out of life?

01:14:50.200 | Your friend and a lot of people out here

01:14:52.300 | just don't fucking want it.

01:14:54.160 | So guess what?

01:14:55.000 | Have fun with your life.

01:14:58.020 | Go from three to 350 to 400 to 450 to 500

01:15:03.440 | because you don't want it.

01:15:06.020 | And that's the harsh reality.

01:15:09.600 | I can't give you shit.

01:15:11.600 | You can't give them shit.

01:15:13.160 | I can give you ideas.

01:15:14.560 | But in the day, when I was losing the weight,

01:15:16.860 | I had to miserably wake up every morning in the cold

01:15:23.040 | 'cause it was Indiana, November when it started.

01:15:25.700 | I was miserable.

01:15:27.160 | This is your new life.

01:15:30.260 | Take it or leave it.

01:15:33.440 | There's no happiness about it.

01:15:35.320 | There's no peace behind it.

01:15:37.080 | It sucks.

01:15:39.120 | It just fucking sucks.

01:15:42.200 | And that's the one thing if I could teach anybody anything,

01:15:46.240 | it just fucking sucks.

01:15:49.440 | And it's gonna continue to suck.

01:15:51.600 | And then one day you'll get to a special part in your life

01:15:55.000 | that it might get a little bit better.

01:15:56.940 | But to lose the weight you have to lose, my friend,

01:15:59.820 | sorry, it's gonna suck every fucking day.

01:16:04.640 | 'Cause then when you're 300 pounds,

01:16:05.920 | you're gonna go out to lose weight,

01:16:07.640 | you'll probably get injured.

01:16:09.680 | So then you gotta work on the injury

01:16:11.320 | and then you get even more depressed.

01:16:12.560 | This is what I went through.

01:16:13.960 | And then you're hungry 'cause now you're depressed.

01:16:16.880 | It's just a vicious cycle.

01:16:19.120 | And if you're not strong mentally

01:16:21.400 | and you have no willpower,

01:16:23.480 | you're gonna continue falling back in this hole

01:16:25.840 | versus a man that sits back and goes,

01:16:27.280 | "All right, motherfucker."

01:16:28.800 | This is why I cuss 'cause this is what is in me.

01:16:31.360 | This is what it took for me to be me.

01:16:34.440 | Sorry.

01:16:35.280 | It didn't take, "Hey, okay, we're gonna do this today."

01:16:37.560 | No, this fucking really sucks.

01:16:40.280 | This is real, dude.

01:16:42.040 | This is real.

01:16:43.460 | And every day I'm set back, I'm set back,

01:16:47.040 | I'm set back, I'm set back.

01:16:48.680 | So this is what I would tell your boy.

01:16:50.800 | This is exactly what I tell him.

01:16:52.180 | Every day you wake up, you're gonna probably be set back

01:16:54.600 | for the first four weeks before you lose

01:16:56.800 | to significant weight because of the mind's

01:16:59.160 | gonna be fucking with you the whole time.

01:17:00.820 | There's no dopamine.

01:17:02.080 | There's no dopamine in there at 300 pounds.

01:17:05.600 | You got nothing.

01:17:06.600 | Your hormones are shot.

01:17:07.860 | You have to envision something

01:17:10.860 | that is more powerful than you.

01:17:12.840 | Something has to get you out of bed

01:17:16.280 | and you have to create it.

01:17:18.720 | It has to be false 'cause you're not it.

01:17:22.260 | You're a fat piece of shit and that's the reality of it.

01:17:25.420 | So you have to create a false reality to live in that

01:17:30.420 | just to get to work on yourself.

01:17:35.000 | That's the reality.

01:17:36.860 | - Hello.

01:17:37.700 | He'll see this and he'll appreciate that message.

01:17:39.200 | We'll see what he does.

01:17:40.600 | - We'll see.

01:17:41.440 | - So far last 13 years, it's been no movement,

01:17:45.240 | but I've had other friends who were drug and alcohol addicts

01:17:50.240 | who quit after one conversation, never went back.

01:17:53.140 | - That's awesome.

01:17:53.980 | That means they want it.

01:17:55.740 | - Yeah, just one guy, I won't out him,

01:17:58.460 | but walked up to me at a party in 2019,

01:18:00.780 | July 4th party and said, "I'm a pile."

01:18:04.660 | And I go, "What?" And he goes, "I'm a pile.

01:18:05.880 | "Look at me, I'm 60 pounds overweight."

01:18:07.580 | I go, "Do you drink?"

01:18:08.420 | He goes, "Every day."

01:18:09.240 | I go, "How much?"

01:18:10.080 | He goes, "A case."

01:18:11.420 | He goes, "I smoke a lot of weed."

01:18:13.020 | But he's successful in other areas of his life.

01:18:16.020 | So I said, "Well, here's what I know.

01:18:18.120 | "Quit alcohol and weed for you.

01:18:20.420 | "I'm not telling people what to do.

01:18:22.560 | "Don't eat until 2 p.m.

01:18:24.800 | "Get on an exercise bike and pedal in the morning

01:18:29.460 | "like someone's chasing you with a poison dart

01:18:32.140 | "til you want to puke."

01:18:33.580 | And I was kind of half joking.

01:18:35.040 | And then two months later, he was like,

01:18:39.260 | "I haven't had a drink, I lost 30 pounds."

01:18:41.180 | He lost that 60 pounds, he never went back.

01:18:42.700 | Now he's super fit.

01:18:44.900 | It's amazing.

01:18:45.740 | So some people flip the switch.

01:18:47.620 | He is very self-critical by nature.

01:18:50.900 | - That's what flips the switch.

01:18:51.720 | - He's super self-critical.

01:18:53.140 | - Yep, that's what flips the switch.

01:18:55.780 | Think about it, man.

01:18:57.300 | We know what to do.

01:18:58.320 | We don't need Angie Huberman to tell us what to do.

01:19:02.780 | We know what to do.

01:19:03.860 | Every one of us.

01:19:04.920 | That's why he flipped it so fast.

01:19:08.220 | 'Cause he knew what to do.

01:19:10.260 | He didn't go by your exact protocol.

01:19:12.660 | He didn't go by the exact...

01:19:15.420 | No, he knew exactly what to do.

01:19:18.840 | And you just saying some shit to him

01:19:23.540 | and woke something up, he knew what to do.

01:19:25.740 | And that's the thing that people need to get that.

01:19:29.040 | You know what to do, why aren't you doing it?

01:19:31.660 | And I'm talking about myself now.

01:19:34.140 | Those modes of just kind of passive consumption,

01:19:37.500 | they're so easy to wash over us.

01:19:39.900 | I used to have this thing and I'm fighting this now

01:19:42.100 | 'cause I knew we were gonna have this conversation today

01:19:43.620 | where I like to start things on the hour or the half hour.

01:19:46.420 | Worst practice in the world for me.

01:19:50.900 | Because if I miss that half hour,

01:19:53.260 | I'm like, ah, it's 12.33.

01:19:55.740 | I'll start at 12.45.

01:19:57.180 | - Right.

01:19:58.140 | - Ah, it's 12.45.

01:20:00.300 | I'll start at one.

01:20:01.380 | I just lost time.

01:20:03.540 | And then, so this is so stupid, right?

01:20:06.220 | And the other day I was like,

01:20:07.060 | "Man, I gotta tell David about this."

01:20:08.340 | 'Cause my new thing is I start no matter what time it is.

01:20:12.960 | If I wake up in the middle of the night,

01:20:14.060 | I got a friend, he paints in the middle of the night.

01:20:15.580 | I'm like, "You're an insomniac."

01:20:16.620 | He's like, "I don't know, I just do it."

01:20:18.440 | Then sometimes he goes back to sleep, sometimes he doesn't.

01:20:20.980 | Everyone's got their thing, but I thought about this.

01:20:22.460 | I'm like, "No more am I gonna say I'm starting at one

01:20:24.920 | 'cause I know me."

01:20:26.500 | If I miss the one o'clock, ding,

01:20:28.780 | and then my pen's not hitting the paper,

01:20:30.420 | I'm not typing on the keyboard, I'm not gonna do it.

01:20:33.460 | - Right.

01:20:34.300 | - That's a self-admitted weakness.

01:20:36.300 | - I love it, man.

01:20:37.980 | I had that for a lot of years.

01:20:39.480 | I know I'm gonna do it.

01:20:42.980 | That's the haunting part, is that it's going to happen.

01:20:47.980 | It has to happen.

01:20:50.300 | And that's a fact.

01:20:52.600 | Like, there's no get out of jail free card, bro.

01:20:56.100 | None.

01:20:57.020 | Like, that is a life that I don't know.

01:20:59.780 | I don't have that ability, or I have the ability,

01:21:04.780 | I don't have the, I'm not good enough, smart enough.

01:21:10.060 | I'm not talented enough to do that.

01:21:15.340 | Some people are.

01:21:17.500 | Some people can start at one.

01:21:19.940 | Some people don't have to start at all.

01:21:22.220 | If you lack talent, you can't sit back and say,

01:21:25.660 | "I'll start in half an hour."

01:21:29.820 | I can't do that.

01:21:31.620 | I gotta start now.

01:21:32.980 | And after I get back from starting, I gotta start again.

01:21:36.060 | And then when I get done with that run

01:21:37.380 | or that study session, if it wasn't good enough,

01:21:39.220 | I gotta go back again.

01:21:40.260 | 'Cause repetition is what taught me everything.

01:21:45.500 | So you can honestly outwork anything.

01:21:48.420 | But it's that you obviously are a very talented man.

01:21:53.360 | - Well, I have worked hard at certain things

01:21:56.100 | and built up some things that I've been good at

01:21:59.660 | most of my life.

01:22:00.620 | - You're amazing.

01:22:01.580 | - Gathering, organizing and disseminating information,

01:22:04.540 | something I've been doing since I was a little kid.

01:22:05.840 | I used to give lectures at school on Monday

01:22:07.440 | about stuff I learned over the weekend.

01:22:09.380 | - See, check that out.

01:22:10.220 | - But they took me to a psychiatrist.

01:22:12.300 | We're the same age.

01:22:13.140 | Back then, if we got sent to a psychiatrist,

01:22:15.100 | people thought you were crazy.

01:22:16.220 | - I wasn't one.

01:22:17.060 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:22:18.220 | Exactly, so I remember feeling like a freak.

01:22:20.680 | I also, I didn't have a stutter, but I had a grunting tic.

01:22:23.540 | It comes back when I'm tired.

01:22:25.220 | And the only thing that helped that was hitting my head

01:22:29.180 | on something, shaking my head,

01:22:31.740 | which is why skateboarding was good.

01:22:32.820 | 'Cause I'd slam and I'd feel like, oh, I feel good.

01:22:35.660 | That's not healthy.

01:22:37.100 | You know, that's not good.

01:22:38.220 | Or just work, work is what gets it out.

01:22:40.540 | It's like a RPM or high, you know?

01:22:44.240 | Anyway, that's me.

01:22:45.700 | But yeah, I think certain things over time,

01:22:48.000 | I feel like talent or gifts or whatever you want to call

01:22:50.100 | them, but there are many things that are exceedingly

01:22:52.220 | difficult for me.

01:22:53.540 | And I have learned from your example.

01:22:55.980 | I know that you are very, both humble and very clear

01:22:59.100 | that like you don't have, you say I don't,

01:23:01.900 | you're not going to get it by examining you.

01:23:03.640 | But I think the way you're sharing today

01:23:06.340 | and the way you shared on other podcasts before,

01:23:09.480 | there are pieces that really help people feel

01:23:13.760 | into the process of what you're talking about today.

01:23:16.180 | We're elaborating on it, I think a lot, you know,

01:23:18.820 | this notion of being haunted in the stick.

01:23:21.540 | I mean, of course, of course, now it makes so much sense

01:23:24.460 | why you don't want to talk about sleep or rest or recovery.

01:23:27.860 | 'Cause that's, sure that's important.

01:23:30.220 | I've heard you say, yes, you sleep.

01:23:31.580 | Yes, you eat.

01:23:32.420 | Yes, you hydrate.

01:23:33.240 | Yes, you, you will stretch your psoas or whatever,

01:23:35.580 | but it's funny how that becomes the viral message.

01:23:37.940 | - That's why I said, fuck that today.

01:23:38.980 | - But that's not the unique,

01:23:40.600 | that's not the unique message that you carry.

01:23:44.500 | Like anyone can talk about that.

01:23:47.140 | So do I have that right?

01:23:48.020 | That you're acknowledging sleep is important,

01:23:49.620 | recovery is important,

01:23:50.820 | but that's not what you're about.

01:23:52.820 | - You have to forego something.

01:23:54.780 | Yes, ice baths, saunas, sleep, nutrition,

01:23:59.780 | all this shit's so fucking important, dude.

01:24:03.660 | I don't have time for some of it.

01:24:06.020 | To get, to extract what I had to extract,

01:24:08.820 | something I had to give.

01:24:10.300 | Like you talk about you when you were younger,

01:24:11.980 | you would, you would give these speeches and stuff.

01:24:14.700 | The same age you were giving speeches,

01:24:17.620 | I was trying to figure out how to say the, without stuttering.

01:24:21.560 | And I realized as I got older,

01:24:23.740 | that all these things are important.

01:24:25.540 | But for me to stop stuttering,

01:24:28.740 | I gotta build fucking confidence.

01:24:30.340 | And speech therapy didn't help that, nothing helped that.

01:24:36.740 | I have to forego a lot of shit,

01:24:39.420 | to be as fucked up as I am, to build confidence.

01:24:43.220 | For me to stand in the fucking room of 10,000,

01:24:45.260 | of one person and not be like, oh, put my head down.

01:24:49.380 | Let me look around, let me read these paragraphs first.

01:24:54.380 | And then before I read the paragraphs,

01:24:56.180 | 'cause they're calling me next,

01:24:57.020 | let me just leave the room kind of with stutter.

01:25:00.140 | That's a miserable life.

01:25:01.580 | And that's one of many things I did, besides lying,

01:25:05.420 | besides being insecure, besides being immature,

01:25:07.980 | besides being fat,

01:25:09.980 | besides being one of the only black kids in my school.

01:25:11.780 | There's a lot of things I had to overcome to gain confidence.

01:25:15.940 | And in doing so, a lot of that had to go, a lot of it.

01:25:21.340 | So I became the guy that became once again misunderstood.

01:25:24.460 | You only sleep four hours a day, two hours a day.

01:25:26.580 | Sometimes you don't sleep at all.

01:25:28.860 | Like, what's this and what's this and what's this?

01:25:31.420 | I know it's all important.

01:25:32.740 | I can't, something's gotta go.

01:25:37.040 | For me to get confidence,

01:25:38.860 | 'cause confidence is the building block

01:25:40.480 | of where I'm trying to go,

01:25:42.000 | for me to gain confidence in myself,

01:25:44.300 | this fucked up kid has got to do a lot of fucked up shit

01:25:46.800 | to gain confidence.

01:25:48.680 | And along the way, the stutter went away

01:25:51.100 | and I gained confidence.

01:25:52.960 | And now my life is a little bit more,

01:25:55.140 | there is no balance.

01:25:58.300 | There's no balance.

01:26:01.140 | It's a little bit more what it should be

01:26:04.720 | for a lot of people, but there'll never be balance,

01:26:06.920 | 'cause confidence is something that you constantly,

01:26:09.340 | confidence and belief, you're building every day.

01:26:13.660 | And so something's gotta give.

01:26:15.940 | And I'm willing to forego a lot of things to have that,

01:26:17.940 | 'cause I know that is,

01:26:19.060 | if you wanna give somebody kryptonite,

01:26:22.740 | take that shit away from me.

01:26:25.700 | So yeah, I don't sleep sometimes

01:26:27.580 | and sometimes I don't eat the right way.

01:26:29.300 | Sometimes I don't do this and do that and whatever, man.

01:26:31.460 | But you put me in a room with 10,000 people

01:26:34.040 | anytime of the day and I walk in there thinking,

01:26:36.360 | I'm the best motherfucker in here,

01:26:38.460 | 'cause I know what it took to be on this stage.

01:26:40.500 | A lot of people will not do that.

01:26:43.000 | So that's what it takes.

01:26:44.340 | - There's a question I've been wanting to ask you

01:26:47.420 | since we started.

01:26:49.020 | And I thought about coming in here

01:26:50.420 | and I've been thinking about in the weeks ahead of this,

01:26:52.520 | and I'm gonna just come clean and say,

01:26:53.780 | I don't exactly know how to ask the question.

01:26:56.040 | - Just ask it.

01:26:57.780 | - So it's about relationships.

01:26:59.940 | - Oh, do it, man.

01:27:01.260 | - So I know in myself

01:27:06.180 | that my discipline is much higher when it's just me,

01:27:09.180 | but that's because I had certain things early on,

01:27:13.060 | but then I was a terrible student,

01:27:14.340 | barely finished high school.

01:27:15.180 | But then when I got serious, I got serious,

01:27:16.700 | but I did that by staying away from everybody.

01:27:20.700 | And anyone who's ever had a relationship of any kind,

01:27:25.540 | but in particular, romantic relationships knows that yes,

01:27:28.380 | you can derive tremendous support from those.

01:27:31.020 | Like, you got this, baby, you can go in.

01:27:32.540 | You're like, yeah, I got this.

01:27:34.260 | She said, I got this.

01:27:36.100 | Feels great to finish something and share with someone,

01:27:38.280 | share a meal, get the hug.

01:27:41.020 | But there's another side to all of that

01:27:43.540 | that I'd like to learn more about from you,

01:27:45.460 | which is there's a warm body next to you

01:27:47.940 | in bed in the morning.

01:27:49.660 | You don't wanna get up.

01:27:50.620 | They also have needs.

01:27:52.740 | You've got your mission that people

01:27:56.100 | sometimes need things from us,

01:27:58.180 | but also oftentimes the people that love us most,

01:28:01.640 | that truly love us and that wanna support us,

01:28:04.440 | don't understand this thing.

01:28:06.320 | And they're the first people to tell us like,

01:28:10.620 | listen, take a day off.

01:28:13.580 | And then this whole cycle, at least in my head goes off,

01:28:15.980 | like you just want a vacation.

01:28:17.580 | And then it's almost like a paranoia.

01:28:19.780 | I'm not saying anything nice about myself right now.

01:28:22.500 | Former girlfriends are gonna be like, yeah.

01:28:24.500 | You know, they remember.

01:28:25.880 | And so support of people close to you is critical.

01:28:29.740 | This could be friends, could be romantic partners, whatever.

01:28:32.240 | But they're also, the knife cuts both ways.

01:28:35.780 | It can be the thing that can really undermine

01:28:37.620 | this thing that you're talking about,

01:28:39.640 | because the people that care about us

01:28:41.340 | also wanna see us comfortable.

01:28:43.100 | They wanna see us happy.

01:28:43.940 | They wanna see us peaceful.

01:28:45.340 | They wanna see us wake up from a great night's sleep

01:28:47.500 | and they want things too.

01:28:48.780 | So how do you untangle that whole bit?

01:28:52.660 | - Well, it's funny, man.

01:28:53.540 | I'm unbalanced, but I'm mostly unbalanced

01:28:55.720 | towards the family side.

01:28:57.540 | So you don't get about me.

01:28:59.060 | I'll start being unbalanced.

01:29:00.020 | I get all my stuff in.

01:29:01.700 | But what I do is I make sure that my family

01:29:03.720 | has everything they need.

01:29:05.620 | Everything they need.

01:29:07.420 | Those who wanna be part of my family.

01:29:10.900 | Some don't.

01:29:11.740 | Some family members don't wanna be part of David Goggins.

01:29:14.320 | I get it, I got it.

01:29:15.800 | That's life.

01:29:17.180 | Those who are part of my family,

01:29:18.820 | I give them everything they need

01:29:21.920 | so they can leave me the fuck alone.

01:29:23.680 | I make sure you're happy as fuck,

01:29:26.620 | 'cause I gotta go to work.

01:29:28.120 | And I don't mean smoke jumping.

01:29:31.020 | I don't mean running.

01:29:32.840 | I mean all of it.

01:29:33.920 | It takes every, I can't have you in my fucking shit.

01:29:38.500 | Can't.

01:29:39.780 | So I know for me to have a family,

01:29:41.600 | I gotta make sure that you realize

01:29:44.060 | I'm gonna give you everything you need

01:29:44.940 | so when you start bitching at me,

01:29:46.060 | I'm gonna say, "Look, hang on.

01:29:47.760 | "I dedicated my life to give you everything you need.

01:29:51.360 | "I need this time right here."

01:29:53.980 | For me to be the best I can be

01:29:55.500 | because this journey started without anybody.

01:29:58.260 | And I make sure everybody knows that because of my life.

01:30:01.140 | I've been left, think about it.

01:30:02.780 | I was left alone at a young age to figure this shit out.

01:30:08.540 | I figured it out for myself.

01:30:12.500 | It had been very successful for myself.

01:30:15.060 | No one's gonna come in here and fuck with my shit.

01:30:18.060 | That's why I make sure I will take care

01:30:19.580 | of whatever you need.

01:30:20.420 | Whatever you need from me, you got it.

01:30:22.540 | Money, house, my love, my support.

01:30:25.260 | I'm gonna give you everything you need.

01:30:27.540 | That said, I do it the highest level possible.

01:30:31.580 | And I'm saying it with Jennifer in the next room.

01:30:33.460 | So please come in and say something if it's wrong,

01:30:35.260 | Jennifer, I don't give a fuck.

01:30:36.360 | Say what you gotta say.

01:30:38.060 | So then when it's time for me to go to work,

01:30:40.840 | I expect you to do the same for me

01:30:43.860 | 'cause it takes every bit of me to do what I have to do.

01:30:48.380 | So I make sure that I'm very unbalanced for my family

01:30:52.500 | so I can be exactly that unbalanced for myself.

01:30:56.600 | And that's how I do it.

01:30:58.360 | I let people know right up front,

01:31:00.020 | I'm not what you want in a man.

01:31:05.900 | I guarantee that.

01:31:08.100 | There's gonna be a lot of late nights,

01:31:10.040 | a lot of early mornings, a lot of times,

01:31:11.620 | where I gotta be by myself thinking about the process

01:31:14.700 | that is next in my mind.

01:31:15.900 | I can't have aggravation, can't have this, can't have that.

01:31:18.980 | There's a lot of things, but I let them know up front.

01:31:21.820 | I'm very vocal about that.

01:31:23.980 | Sometimes relationships work for me.

01:31:25.560 | Sometimes they didn't, but that's who I am.

01:31:28.540 | One thing I did wrong in my life

01:31:30.100 | was I tried for so many years to please people.

01:31:33.900 | And I did it at the expense of myself.

01:31:39.140 | I was leaving a lot in the tank.

01:31:42.620 | And when you do that, you stop living.

01:31:44.940 | But the person in your life is happy as fuck

01:31:49.260 | 'cause you're giving them everything they want.

01:31:51.060 | They have, their life is full, but you feel empty.

01:31:55.720 | And that's not a relationship to me.

01:31:57.480 | So for me, it's important that you know exactly who I am

01:32:02.340 | because this is what life made.

01:32:05.520 | And I'm not trying to change it

01:32:07.880 | because I just figured it out.

01:32:09.400 | So I'm not trying to compromise David Goggins.

01:32:13.920 | I will never, ever compromise David Goggins.

01:32:18.200 | That doesn't mean I won't give you what you need

01:32:19.680 | and what you want and what you desire.

01:32:22.560 | But I don't need money.

01:32:23.880 | I don't need fame.

01:32:24.900 | I don't need shit.

01:32:26.300 | So I give it all away.

01:32:27.460 | What I do need is to make sure that that willpower

01:32:31.840 | is worked on every fucking day and every night

01:32:35.760 | for the rest of my life.

01:32:36.960 | 'Cause that's the one thing that's gonna keep me

01:32:39.640 | feeding you, keeping you where you need to be.

01:32:42.740 | 'Cause once that willpower is gone,

01:32:44.860 | 300 pound David Goggins, he may not look like it,

01:32:48.020 | but I will walk around with it.

01:32:50.480 | So the things that are important to you in life,

01:32:53.380 | you must do always, or you're nobody.

01:32:57.500 | And that's how I handle relationships.

01:32:59.440 | - Amen to that.

01:33:01.720 | Something I could personally work on

01:33:03.920 | is that upfront clear communication.

01:33:06.200 | 'Cause it resonates that feeling of,

01:33:08.740 | like there's something inside that's not getting worked out

01:33:10.920 | that when I'm on my own, it's a lot easier.

01:33:14.780 | But then of course, wanting relationships and family.

01:33:17.260 | I think that's a healthy part of being human too.

01:33:19.460 | Obviously you've worked it out.

01:33:20.780 | So I appreciate you sharing that.

01:33:22.540 | I don't think I've ever heard you

01:33:23.480 | talk about it that way before. - People are scared of that.

01:33:25.380 | People are scared of that conversation with their wife,

01:33:28.660 | husband, girlfriend, boyfriend.

01:33:31.140 | But why are you scared of it?

01:33:32.540 | Why are you scared to tell a motherfucker,

01:33:35.880 | your wife, your husband, who you are?

01:33:38.860 | Who you are, exactly who you are.

01:33:42.620 | And that was a problem I had.

01:33:43.700 | That's a problem that a lot of us have in life.

01:33:46.500 | No one knows who you really are.

01:33:48.100 | No one knew who I really was.

01:33:52.620 | I went to a school where there were a lot of black kids.

01:33:55.420 | A lot of black kids didn't want to be in special ops.

01:33:58.420 | I never talked about special ops with black kids.

01:34:00.860 | Why?

01:34:02.980 | I was wondering what, I'm not gonna fit in.

01:34:06.100 | That's not what they do.

01:34:08.700 | A lot of black kids don't do that kind of shit.

01:34:10.460 | So whatever I wanted to do,

01:34:12.820 | no one really knew the real me growing up.

01:34:15.220 | Because I never want anybody to know the real me.

01:34:18.180 | I was always afraid of what you might say

01:34:19.880 | or how you're gonna feel or whatever.

01:34:22.060 | You got feelings.

01:34:23.180 | You have a life that you have to live.

01:34:27.060 | So it's important that whatever's on your mind,

01:34:30.040 | you let that person know.

01:34:30.940 | Therefore, you're giving them the option

01:34:32.420 | to be with you or not.

01:34:33.860 | This is who I am.

01:34:36.260 | If you don't like it, that's good, man.

01:34:37.700 | I got it.

01:34:38.880 | But this is David Goggins.

01:34:41.020 | So that honest conversation is very important, man.

01:34:43.540 | So everybody knows where they stand.

01:34:46.080 | That person may not be for you.

01:34:48.220 | That's all good.

01:34:50.020 | - This world could use a lot more of that upfront,

01:34:52.420 | completely honest conversation.

01:34:53.940 | I feel like so much of the world's problems

01:34:56.720 | are because everyone's dancing around the issues.

01:34:59.380 | - Thanks a lot.

01:35:00.220 | - Recently in the news, seeing people losing their job

01:35:02.020 | 'cause they won't say something publicly.

01:35:03.380 | You can tell they kind of want it.

01:35:04.580 | It's like, people just,

01:35:06.260 | I think deep down really crave the direct message.

01:35:09.260 | Like, what are you about?

01:35:10.100 | What are you not about?

01:35:10.920 | But I think now everyone's afraid of getting canceled.

01:35:14.580 | It's a big deal, right?

01:35:16.180 | Getting canceled that people think,

01:35:17.340 | oh, I can't work if I am who I am

01:35:19.340 | or if I'm not pretending to be somebody else,

01:35:23.940 | then silence is considered agreement.

01:35:28.680 | There's all sorts of complicated stuff.

01:35:30.940 | And I do feel for the generation coming up

01:35:33.520 | 'cause we didn't have social media and all of that,

01:35:36.620 | that getting just walled off from that,

01:35:38.140 | there's a real benefit from just not paying attention.

01:35:41.100 | - People love to lie.

01:35:42.860 | People love to lie.

01:35:44.120 | I thought I was the only person growing up,

01:35:46.180 | I thought I was the only person that lied

01:35:48.360 | 'cause I live in the bubble.

01:35:50.260 | And people love to lie about who they're not.

01:35:53.260 | They love to lie about who they're not, dude.

01:35:55.700 | And that's, for me, the reason why I'm so vulnerable

01:36:00.180 | and I'm so real and honest,

01:36:02.780 | find somebody to come out and tell me

01:36:06.560 | I'm lying about my fucking life.

01:36:08.340 | And for me to come where I came from

01:36:10.820 | and have the resume I have now,

01:36:12.700 | you know the confidence you get?

01:36:14.900 | How, I don't care who, you gonna judge me?

01:36:18.680 | You gonna judge me?

01:36:19.520 | What have you done in your life?

01:36:20.780 | So me being so honest and so upfront and so truthful,

01:36:25.780 | that came with me finally figuring out who I was,

01:36:30.780 | but also conquering David Goggins,

01:36:33.740 | the demons of David Goggins.

01:36:35.620 | Therefore, now you're just an open book.

01:36:38.260 | You look at somebody looking right in the eye,

01:36:39.580 | tell them exactly who the fuck you are.

01:36:41.160 | You walk away.

01:36:42.380 | I'm good, bro, 'cause I know exactly

01:36:44.780 | what this journey took to get here.

01:36:46.740 | And that gives you a fire and a passion

01:36:48.860 | that people can call you nigger,

01:36:50.660 | they can call you if you're a lesbian or gay or bisexual.

01:36:53.860 | Call you whatever the fuck you want.

01:36:55.540 | If you put yourself in the fire

01:36:57.340 | and you come out every fucking day like this,

01:37:00.660 | brush it off, not scared to go back in there again,

01:37:03.260 | come on, man, your truth is real.

01:37:06.480 | You come out every day, man,

01:37:07.940 | with a way of talking to people that people don't have

01:37:11.220 | 'cause there's no truth behind them.

01:37:13.400 | And the truth is a starting line.

01:37:15.040 | When you sit in an ugly mirror and say,

01:37:16.160 | "I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this,"

01:37:18.400 | you finally started your life.

01:37:20.140 | Maybe 40 years old, maybe 40 years old,

01:37:23.720 | five, six kids, wife.

01:37:25.140 | The second you look in that mirror and you say,

01:37:28.180 | "I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this,"

01:37:31.220 | well, basically, "I'm not this, I'm not this, I'm not this,

01:37:33.820 | "I can't do this, I can't do this,

01:37:35.040 | "I'm all these insecurities," your life finally started.

01:37:39.580 | And once you start that life, man,

01:37:41.020 | the truth comes out big time 'cause you don't wanna care.

01:37:44.100 | So that's the problem.

01:37:44.940 | Most people just don't wanna have that conversation

01:37:47.740 | to the point where they can go on stage

01:37:49.260 | with a million people and say,

01:37:50.760 | "I'm all this and have a good day, see you."

01:37:57.080 | It's empowering, it's very empowering.

01:38:00.920 | - I feel like the way we're educated in school,

01:38:04.180 | but also outside of school,

01:38:05.300 | is we're trained as human beings, these young brains,

01:38:08.280 | to try and figure out how to get positive feedback

01:38:10.460 | from other people.

01:38:11.580 | It's like we're like little dogs.

01:38:14.500 | You have a bulldog, I had a bulldog,

01:38:17.240 | saw the picture of your bulldog, she's great.

01:38:19.580 | - Charlie dog.

01:38:20.420 | - They're an amazing species.

01:38:21.620 | - They are.

01:38:22.460 | - I think of them, economy of effort or amazing breed,

01:38:26.100 | excuse me, they're an amazing breed, economy of effort.

01:38:28.560 | They don't do anything unless it's necessary.

01:38:31.380 | It's kind of the exact opposite

01:38:32.940 | of everything we're talking about.

01:38:33.780 | It's kind of interesting and they're kind of hedonist.

01:38:36.500 | Now it is true that they'll die to protect you.

01:38:40.540 | And it's an instinct, I saw that with Costello,

01:38:42.660 | I'm sure that's-

01:38:43.500 | - Saw it with Charlie.

01:38:44.320 | - Yeah, it's an instinct.

01:38:45.600 | But if they're not in that position,

01:38:48.720 | if there's no need to exert effort-

01:38:50.400 | - They're resting.

01:38:51.240 | - Yeah, so your bulldog's resting for you.

01:38:53.780 | - Yes.

01:38:54.620 | - Got it.

01:38:55.440 | - Exactly.

01:38:56.280 | - So you don't need to rest 'cause-

01:38:57.120 | - Active recovery Charlie.

01:38:58.380 | - Perfect, perfect.

01:38:59.780 | That's gonna be your answer from now on.

01:39:01.140 | - Active recovery Charlie.

01:39:01.980 | - Does he sleep, does he rest?

01:39:02.800 | No, he somehow worked it out

01:39:03.900 | so his bulldog does it for him.

01:39:05.140 | - Right, but we're sort of indoctrinated

01:39:09.340 | into this way of being from a time that we're young

01:39:12.520 | where of course praise feels good, right?

01:39:15.180 | Someone tells you, "Hey, I liked that shirt

01:39:17.840 | or good job today or nicely done."

01:39:20.540 | For me, 'cause I like growing up

01:39:22.740 | in a big pack of friends growing up

01:39:24.780 | and I was never the greatest athlete,

01:39:26.580 | wasn't terrible, wasn't great, et cetera,

01:39:28.500 | like a fist bump or like a feeling crude up.

01:39:31.180 | And you're just like, "Yeah."

01:39:32.660 | But you've talked about this before

01:39:34.380 | in reference to the SEAL teams.

01:39:36.100 | We both know a lot of people in that community

01:39:37.580 | and the team's component is a big part of it

01:39:39.460 | for a lot of people.

01:39:41.220 | And it's a wonderful thing.

01:39:42.700 | - Right.

01:39:43.540 | - But there's a danger to that dopamine hit

01:39:48.060 | for lack of a better way to put it

01:39:49.640 | from what we only derive when it's coming from outside.

01:39:54.640 | You're talking about being able to either say good job,

01:39:59.320 | but also like just look to one's own personal history

01:40:03.260 | and say, "I've done hard things

01:40:05.140 | and I can do it again and again

01:40:06.800 | 'cause I do it again and again and again."

01:40:08.820 | You're talking about parenting yourself,

01:40:12.060 | inspiring yourself, scaring yourself,

01:40:17.020 | all of that from the inside.

01:40:18.860 | So very different than the way we're raised,

01:40:21.380 | which is to figure out how to get the biscuit.

01:40:24.200 | - It's funny, man.

01:40:25.040 | People wanna know how I'm always motivated.

01:40:27.160 | It's the unseen work,

01:40:30.660 | which you just said is a true statement.

01:40:32.340 | Those are false dopamine hits that people are giving you, man.

01:40:35.840 | There's no belief in that.

01:40:38.580 | These are teamwork dopamine.

01:40:41.140 | Like I'm out running at two o'clock in the morning,

01:40:43.220 | one o'clock in the morning, in the gym,

01:40:45.220 | long sessions by myself.

01:40:47.400 | That's real.

01:40:50.540 | How am I able to just extract dopamine,

01:40:53.260 | the good dopamine whenever I want?

01:40:55.340 | Man, I've trained 99% of my life alone.

01:41:01.380 | No one pat me on the back.

01:41:03.100 | I did all of the work alone.

01:41:05.840 | And while I'm still hard on myself, I know what I did.

01:41:12.180 | So whenever times get bad for people,

01:41:14.060 | all this, "Who's your carry the boats?"

01:41:16.420 | That's real.

01:41:17.780 | I hate that people know me for that guy

01:41:20.660 | 'cause that guy is not every fucking day.

01:41:23.340 | Like when they see me, they want that energy.

01:41:26.140 | That's not me every day.

01:41:28.220 | I can extract it immediately when I need to

01:41:30.260 | because when you train alone

01:41:32.860 | and I lived alone for so many years in this misery

01:41:35.820 | and you're able to get out by yourself,

01:41:38.280 | I can take myself to such a level of real,

01:41:41.800 | real passion and purpose.

01:41:43.780 | And like the feeling I get is something

01:41:47.020 | I can't even explain by myself.

01:41:48.640 | I don't need anyone.

01:41:50.440 | That's why people come to me to motivate them.

01:41:53.100 | No one can motivate me.

01:41:54.860 | I have a resume full of fucking motivation

01:41:58.980 | that whenever I'm down, I'm like, "Oh, hang on motherfucker.

01:42:02.140 | Oh, you know, you know the truth.

01:42:05.140 | You know the truth.

01:42:05.980 | You know the darkness of the fucking dungeons

01:42:08.060 | and the fucking demons that fly.

01:42:10.100 | And then from there, it's like, "Okay, you were there.

01:42:13.300 | You know this.

01:42:14.140 | There was no one there to pick up the rucksack,

01:42:16.600 | to pick up the boat, to pick up the log, to go in there.

01:42:19.060 | It was you.

01:42:20.500 | It was you.

01:42:21.340 | There was no pat on the fucking back at 300,

01:42:23.480 | at 275, at 250, at 220.

01:42:25.900 | No, that was you.

01:42:28.360 | So those things that come out of me,

01:42:30.380 | that extract from me in the darkness,

01:42:33.220 | people are looking for that pat on the back.

01:42:34.900 | Where is it?

01:42:35.740 | "Oh, I don't need it."

01:42:38.780 | Because what I've done is in the fucking unseen work,

01:42:43.700 | I built Frankenstein.

01:42:46.400 | So whenever shit gets nasty,

01:42:49.760 | David Goggins goes, "You had nobody anyway, motherfucker."

01:42:54.140 | So see how I'm talking to myself right now?

01:42:55.300 | That's me.

01:42:57.160 | That shit fires me the fuck up.

01:42:59.360 | That shit makes me fucking nuts.

01:43:01.180 | You had nobody anyway, motherfucker.

01:43:03.180 | Look around you.

01:43:04.680 | There was no fucking team.

01:43:06.360 | It was you.

01:43:07.840 | There was no weight loss program

01:43:09.400 | or mom and dad waking you up saying, "You can do it.

01:43:12.340 | You can be better."

01:43:13.460 | Trying to build belief.

01:43:14.820 | You built belief when you had nothing.

01:43:17.980 | Rock bottom.

01:43:20.320 | You did that.

01:43:21.160 | So as times get hard for me,

01:43:24.780 | the truth comes out and my truth is powerful as fuck.

01:43:29.780 | It's real.

01:43:31.360 | It's tangible.

01:43:32.980 | I feel it.

01:43:33.820 | It comes out of my brain as I speak about it.

01:43:36.380 | I'm reliving every single dark moment of my life to be here.

01:43:41.380 | So that is what people don't get.

01:43:46.860 | That is what motivates David Goggins is the unseen work,

01:43:50.320 | but everybody needs that pat on the back.

01:43:53.540 | They need that training partner.

01:43:55.040 | They need that accountability coach.

01:43:57.740 | I don't hear that shit and neither do they,

01:44:00.400 | but it's what we've trained ourselves

01:44:02.400 | to believe that we need.

01:44:04.280 | - It's almost like there's this pill on the shelf.

01:44:06.560 | I'm speaking in analogy.

01:44:08.820 | And we take it and we get jazzed up.

01:44:12.080 | We're like, "Yeah."

01:44:13.560 | But there's this other medicine cabinet behind there

01:44:16.160 | and it's in us.

01:44:17.000 | You're saying the real medicine cabinet is inside.

01:44:19.400 | - Oh yes.

01:44:20.240 | When you continue to overcome,

01:44:23.120 | and I had so many obstacles to overcome.

01:44:25.960 | So it's actually a benefit to me,

01:44:27.420 | but the benefit is not like a benefit like that.

01:44:29.800 | You have to have the courage and the patience

01:44:33.120 | to overcome and overcome.

01:44:34.580 | Before you know it, man, you have a whole medicine cabinet,

01:44:38.220 | but there's no medicine in the motherfucker.

01:44:40.420 | There's no pre-workout.

01:44:42.480 | I don't take none of that shit.

01:44:44.720 | All I gotta do is flip my brain,

01:44:48.120 | put my finger in there and say, "Okay, that's a good one."

01:44:51.840 | That's all I gotta do, man.

01:44:52.940 | I got the Rolodex of just like,

01:44:54.340 | "Go fuck yourself, Goggins."

01:44:55.740 | And, "Oh, but you won.

01:44:58.420 | Let's do that one today."

01:44:59.980 | There's nothing I need.

01:45:02.460 | And this is the thing that people don't get

01:45:04.300 | about David Goggins.

01:45:05.960 | I can't teach it in a one-minute video.

01:45:08.500 | We all have this ability to have our own medicine cabinet.

01:45:15.480 | But unless you go in there and put the medicine in there,

01:45:22.180 | it's always going to be fucking empty, man.

01:45:23.580 | You're always going to need the pre-workout.

01:45:25.620 | You're always going to need the, "I don't drink coffee.

01:45:27.640 | I don't do, I don't do none of that.

01:45:29.100 | I don't need, I can run for 70 hours and I had before."

01:45:33.240 | No caffeine.

01:45:34.940 | I got all this wonderful shit that I overcame on my own

01:45:40.780 | by myself in the darkness.

01:45:43.220 | That, man, when it's cold, I'm hot.

01:45:45.160 | When it's hot, I can feed myself all the time.

01:45:52.040 | That's why when people say, "Man,

01:45:53.460 | why aren't you missing anything?"

01:45:55.160 | I can't explain it to you, man.

01:45:59.160 | Can't explain it to you.

01:46:00.040 | You'll never understand.

01:46:01.580 | That's why I don't do all these podcasts, dude.

01:46:03.680 | I love you, man.

01:46:06.060 | That's why you, my first book, you did a blur for me.

01:46:10.120 | That's why I'm here.

01:46:11.220 | I love what you're doing for people, man.

01:46:12.720 | But I can't explain this.

01:46:15.260 | I can't.

01:46:16.260 | I can't explain this because people don't want to do this.

01:46:19.260 | They don't want to do this, man.

01:46:20.100 | I don't know, man.

01:46:22.360 | I get jazzed up even talking about it, man,

01:46:24.240 | because so many people think my life is just so,

01:46:27.440 | oh God, his life is horrible.

01:46:29.480 | Don't follow him.

01:46:30.320 | He's crazy.

01:46:31.140 | Really?

01:46:31.980 | - Well, there are a good number of people, I would say,

01:46:34.660 | and that's an understatement, that actually do.

01:46:36.560 | I think what I'm hearing today,

01:46:38.720 | and it's really sinking in,

01:46:40.160 | is that a great many people either partially

01:46:43.320 | or completely misunderstand you.

01:46:45.320 | - Yes, big time.

01:46:46.760 | - I'll put myself in the partially category.

01:46:48.720 | - Big time.

01:46:49.560 | - Because I thought it was about just forward center of mass

01:46:54.560 | carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot, but it's the stick.

01:46:58.640 | - It's the stick.

01:46:59.480 | - And it's being haunted.

01:47:00.300 | And I do have examples from my own life,

01:47:02.800 | which is not what today's about,

01:47:04.360 | about being really afraid and then turning things around.

01:47:08.440 | My biggest fear is getting comfortable.

01:47:11.100 | I do not have as much of a stick oriented approach,

01:47:14.980 | but today's conversations changing the way I think.

01:47:18.640 | I'm not gonna step away from this and think,

01:47:20.120 | okay, there are 25 neural circuits that can explain

01:47:23.160 | 10 of the things that David's talking about.

01:47:24.720 | And what I'm thinking about is the fact that

01:47:27.300 | everybody has a brain, they have a mind.

01:47:29.380 | Forget the brain, the brain is just the physical structure,

01:47:32.340 | but what that manifests, what that creates is the mind.

01:47:36.080 | And everybody has that.

01:47:39.600 | So I do believe that everyone has the capacity

01:47:42.120 | to do what you're talking about at some level.

01:47:46.560 | I also will be the first to confess that I think

01:47:50.200 | you're a highly unusual, let's just say,

01:47:53.880 | maybe even N of one, as we say in science.

01:47:56.760 | Sample size of one.

01:47:58.100 | Somebody who has created this process for themselves

01:48:01.920 | and keeps themselves in this forward center of mass

01:48:04.940 | with the stick battering the back of their head

01:48:07.740 | all the time, highly unusual.

01:48:11.020 | But this internal medicine cabinet that you're talking about

01:48:14.860 | building up true confidence, not needing anything

01:48:17.200 | from the outside.

01:48:18.220 | I think, I like to think that people want that.

01:48:23.100 | They want to be known, they're afraid,

01:48:26.080 | but that they want to be known for who they really are

01:48:29.400 | and that you're describing the path to do this.

01:48:32.000 | And I will say, I'm immensely grateful that you're talking

01:48:34.560 | to us this way today about things that you've talked about

01:48:37.360 | before, but we're hitting it a little differently,

01:48:39.460 | I like to think.

01:48:40.300 | - Very different.

01:48:41.340 | - Because what you're talking about is a process,

01:48:46.080 | it's verbs, it's all verbs.

01:48:47.920 | - All, action.

01:48:49.320 | - And it's not about success.

01:48:51.720 | It's more actually about keeping that friction dialed to 10.

01:48:56.460 | - Right.

01:48:57.480 | - And that no energy drink, no supplement.

01:48:59.640 | People often misunderstand me.

01:49:00.840 | They think, like I'm big on people getting sunlight

01:49:03.280 | in the mornings, they set their circadian rhythm

01:49:04.880 | and get better sleep, et cetera.

01:49:06.800 | But then people always think they go straight

01:49:08.340 | to the supplements.

01:49:09.640 | What should I take?

01:49:10.600 | And then of course, people think I'm all about supplements.

01:49:12.620 | Supplements are one piece for me,

01:49:14.100 | but it's like tiny fraction compared to the doing,

01:49:18.020 | the dos and don'ts.

01:49:19.020 | - That's why I didn't want to talk about that today.

01:49:20.840 | That's why I'm glad we're talking about this.

01:49:22.620 | This is it.

01:49:23.820 | This is it.

01:49:24.660 | Like the brain is the most powerful weapon in the world.

01:49:28.020 | And it's crazy how a kid that wasn't real smart,

01:49:33.020 | I was forced to go only internal, external had to go away.

01:49:39.680 | The external world had to go away.

01:49:41.580 | And living so deep inside myself,

01:49:44.660 | it was me in this brain and figuring out

01:49:47.460 | how this thing works.

01:49:49.240 | And it's so many people are doing exactly that,

01:49:54.020 | the supplements, the this, the that.

01:49:56.120 | I agree, it helps.

01:49:58.500 | But once you figure out your, your brain,

01:50:02.460 | you become unstoppable to almost anything.

01:50:07.940 | Yeah, you can't beat death, you can't whatever, whatever.

01:50:11.200 | Your brain is amazing.

01:50:12.640 | Once you feed it the right conversation,

01:50:16.460 | the right mental nutrients, the right mental supplements,

01:50:21.160 | the right internal dialogue at the right time,

01:50:26.020 | with the right hit, with the right proof

01:50:28.860 | of what you've done in the past,

01:50:30.780 | and you send that right to the right circuit,

01:50:32.980 | dude, you're a fucking beast, a beast.

01:50:37.740 | But once again, you just can't read about it.

01:50:42.740 | You can't sit back and be a theorist.

01:50:46.420 | You have to be a fucking practitioner.

01:50:49.220 | And in that practice is where that becomes proof positive.

01:50:53.580 | And what I'm saying is like, God, like David Goggins,

01:50:57.260 | he's blowing my mind, what is this?

01:50:59.540 | He's not crazy.

01:51:01.100 | And so many people, a lot of people,

01:51:06.340 | people have listened to me in the right way,

01:51:10.720 | and they come back and they're like,

01:51:13.320 | I'm totally on board, it happened, it happened.

01:51:16.840 | I'm like, it'll keep going, man, if you keep doing it.

01:51:20.540 | But that is it, man.

01:51:22.040 | There's no sun, there's no glory, there's no carrot,

01:51:26.500 | there's no victory, but there is all of it in one.

01:51:31.020 | I can't explain it real well to people, man,

01:51:33.020 | but what you get the other end is something

01:51:36.180 | that you're not, you're always found.

01:51:39.580 | You're never lost anymore.

01:51:41.540 | Doesn't mean the journey's easy.

01:51:43.860 | Doesn't get any easier, but you're always found.

01:51:46.260 | - I love that, I just want to hover on that for a sec,

01:51:49.740 | the same way we hovered on "Haunted" and "The Stick."

01:51:52.300 | I think people feel lost.

01:51:55.280 | I've certainly felt lost at times in my life, many times.

01:52:00.000 | And yeah, there's that thing.

01:52:02.020 | I don't think there's a neuroscience

01:52:03.360 | or a psychology term for it.

01:52:04.780 | Someone will say, put it in the comments and say,

01:52:06.660 | oh yeah, that's what so-and-so said.

01:52:08.140 | But like you said, we're not trying to be theoretical here,

01:52:10.440 | we're trying to be practical.

01:52:11.280 | The business of finding yourself and knowing like,

01:52:15.180 | but it's sort of like, I'm safe because I'm in danger

01:52:20.420 | and I've been in danger before and I got myself out.

01:52:23.220 | It always seems to come back to verbs.

01:52:25.380 | Again, I don't have a language for this.

01:52:27.740 | For once, I'm lost for words.

01:52:29.860 | There's like, it's about a process, the algorithm.

01:52:33.340 | And the reason, here I'm just kind of trying to make sure

01:52:37.020 | I'm understanding things correctly.

01:52:38.580 | One of the reasons why it must be uncomfortable for you

01:52:41.040 | to be who you are publicly is because people want to focus

01:52:45.340 | on the running or the swearing.

01:52:46.460 | And by the way, the swearing is welcome.

01:52:49.180 | I'll tell you, I came up through laboratories

01:52:52.020 | where all three people I worked for swore a lot,

01:52:57.020 | but there was one rule.

01:52:58.460 | I couldn't swear at people.

01:53:00.140 | So my graduate advisor, brilliant woman,

01:53:02.580 | unfortunately, she died early.

01:53:03.580 | They all died early.

01:53:04.600 | I'm the common denominator.

01:53:07.100 | I had that internalized for a long time.

01:53:08.980 | Anyway, she said, but if you swear at people, you're out.

01:53:12.460 | But you can swear as much as you want.

01:53:14.140 | So that's the rule I have.

01:53:15.740 | It's like, you can swear as much as you want,

01:53:16.900 | just don't swear at people.

01:53:17.860 | And if you swear at people, better be ready to fight.

01:53:20.060 | I'm definitely not gonna fight you.

01:53:21.200 | So you can swear at me, get away with it.

01:53:22.620 | But the fact of the matter is that it must be frustrating

01:53:26.960 | that people, 'cause I know people go,

01:53:29.080 | oh, it's all about supplements and ice baths.

01:53:31.280 | Listen, I like supplements.

01:53:32.240 | I love supplements and ice baths,

01:53:33.560 | but that's not the full picture.

01:53:34.960 | It's just a gravitational pull.

01:53:36.520 | It's the swearing, it's the running.

01:53:38.620 | It's his feet that are all messed up.

01:53:40.680 | It's the fact that he got a Triton.

01:53:43.100 | It's this seal guy.

01:53:44.620 | Talk about that too, right?

01:53:46.980 | And there's a gravitational pull for people

01:53:50.080 | and they're missing,

01:53:51.920 | that's like the tip of the iceberg is what I'm realizing.

01:53:54.060 | I'm realizing that today,

01:53:55.540 | thanks to the way you're phrasing things,

01:53:57.020 | 'cause the bigger vessel is all in here.

01:53:59.500 | And as you said, how do you put that in a book?

01:54:02.160 | - It's impossible.

01:54:03.200 | - 'Cause it's highly individual.

01:54:04.520 | You do it your way.

01:54:05.880 | And you're saying everyone needs to go figure out

01:54:08.000 | how to do it their way for them.

01:54:09.800 | - Yes.

01:54:10.880 | And the thing about being misunderstood is very frustrating

01:54:14.560 | more than I can even imagine.

01:54:17.040 | I can't even express how frustrating it is

01:54:20.400 | when the cussing and everything comes from a place

01:54:25.200 | of real.

01:54:27.420 | I can't explain what I do without it.

01:54:30.440 | The passion comes out of me,

01:54:32.680 | it's almost like speaking in tongues.

01:54:34.700 | Because when you put that much work and people go,

01:54:37.500 | "Oh yeah, there's been this basketball player,

01:54:39.380 | this football player, this..."

01:54:40.980 | Dude, no, no.

01:54:46.900 | Everything, everything is work.

01:54:51.400 | Everything.

01:54:52.240 | And people don't believe it.

01:54:54.000 | So when I speak, the motherfucker and the fuck

01:54:59.000 | and the shit, that is what it took for me.

01:55:04.600 | What it takes for me.

01:55:07.720 | The anger, the passion, the jaw dropping.

01:55:12.720 | It takes that because I'm not that.

01:55:20.060 | This is how I look at it, man.

01:55:23.880 | What built this guy?

01:55:25.240 | Let's imagine being in the coldest water

01:55:27.000 | you can possibly take.

01:55:28.100 | I always go back to hell week with this.

01:55:30.840 | I hated the water.

01:55:33.080 | Hated it.

01:55:34.720 | You're sitting there locked arms

01:55:35.960 | and you're in the water all the time.

01:55:37.600 | And they're bringing you in and out of the water.

01:55:39.860 | In and out of the water.

01:55:41.000 | When you have this dialogue in your head

01:55:45.080 | and these people are judging me

01:55:46.480 | off of a freaking one minute video.

01:55:48.620 | And you're constantly your whole life

01:55:51.560 | when you figure it out 24,

01:55:52.960 | I gotta, I just gotta, this fucking gotta

01:55:57.040 | and this is just gonna suck.

01:55:58.600 | Every day is gonna suck.

01:56:00.800 | And live like that to be better.

01:56:04.200 | And I put this, I'm in the water.

01:56:05.560 | The water is going over my head.

01:56:06.800 | The Pacific ocean, you know it's freezing.

01:56:09.520 | February, cold as shit.

01:56:11.560 | Been through three hell weeks.

01:56:13.060 | For you to constantly win, win, win.

01:56:19.920 | When this voice over here, the real you

01:56:22.360 | is saying get the fuck out of here.

01:56:25.480 | Go, you're nobody.

01:56:27.880 | You've always been nobody.

01:56:29.960 | And it's true.

01:56:31.040 | People don't hear that.

01:56:33.720 | That's a true voice.

01:56:34.680 | That's a real reality of David Goggins at 24 years old.

01:56:39.680 | It's not a false reality.

01:56:41.520 | And then you had to create another voice over here

01:56:45.480 | that is saying you're better than that other voice.

01:56:48.920 | And you're in the freezing cold water

01:56:51.840 | that both voices don't wanna fucking be in.

01:56:54.840 | But you win.

01:56:57.940 | And it goes from the water to the studying

01:57:02.480 | to the running to losing weight to how you eat

01:57:05.360 | to how you function as a man.

01:57:06.960 | Every day of your life you're winning these battles.

01:57:10.080 | And then I have normal people who only have one voice.

01:57:15.240 | Never created the second voice.

01:57:18.480 | The winning voice is the second voice.

01:57:20.000 | They have one voice and that's just, I'm a piece of shit.

01:57:24.660 | That's all they hear.

01:57:28.380 | And then they judge people like me

01:57:31.960 | who are out here trying to be better.

01:57:33.960 | It's something that I can never really,

01:57:37.500 | it's a frustrating thing for me.

01:57:41.180 | 'Cause I know the majority of people.

01:57:46.360 | I know what goes on in the brain

01:57:47.360 | but I studied the mind almost more than you.

01:57:50.320 | 'Cause I'm a practitioner.

01:57:53.460 | So for you to be a piece of shit and come out of that,

01:57:56.520 | you don't just come out of it.

01:57:58.840 | You spend decades studying your mind and the human mind

01:58:03.840 | on how it functions in good environments, bad environments,

01:58:09.660 | stressful environments, patient environment.

01:58:12.380 | You studied all because you had to put all this together

01:58:14.720 | to create the mind to become successful.

01:58:18.720 | So I had to be like, God blessed me with this brain.

01:58:22.600 | I had to create a mind.

01:58:24.060 | And so in doing so, I figured out every piece of shit

01:58:27.680 | human being in the world

01:58:28.640 | 'cause that's what I was going off of for myself.

01:58:31.320 | So I know why you go on Instagram.

01:58:34.640 | I know why you, 'cause you just have the time.

01:58:39.640 | You have the time because you don't wanna put that time

01:58:43.920 | into bettering oneself.

01:58:46.740 | So I know why I'm misunderstood.

01:58:50.000 | I'm misunderstood by people who have plenty of time

01:58:53.220 | on their hands to misunderstand me

01:58:55.340 | because they are exactly where I once was,

01:58:58.200 | which is a low life, lazy piece of shit.

01:59:00.920 | And it's the harsh reality of people who troll you,

01:59:04.840 | who go after you.

01:59:06.800 | They have nothing better to do with their lives.

01:59:09.520 | It's not some afterschool special.

01:59:11.920 | It's the truth by once was that way.

01:59:16.120 | I know where it all comes from.

01:59:17.300 | That's why it's frustrating to me now

01:59:18.640 | 'cause I'm not so frustrated at the fact

01:59:20.560 | that I'm being trolled.

01:59:22.620 | I'm frustrated by the fact that you don't have the courage,

01:59:25.800 | the courage to try to be somebody better

01:59:27.960 | than which you're not.

01:59:29.800 | And that's the frustrating part.

01:59:31.400 | - It's interesting because earlier we were talking

01:59:35.280 | about relationships and you said in a very candid way,

01:59:39.560 | and I really appreciate you sharing that,

01:59:41.140 | that you make sure that the people close to you,

01:59:43.040 | your family has everything they need

01:59:45.080 | and that they also understand that you're gonna take

01:59:46.720 | what you need to continue to build you, period.

01:59:49.620 | - Period.

01:59:50.960 | - In some ways, it seems you've also included

01:59:55.680 | the general public in that family.

01:59:58.160 | You're saying, listen, I'm gonna give you what you need.

02:00:01.480 | I'm gonna give you as much of myself as I can,

02:00:03.680 | except I'm gonna stop right at the line

02:00:06.620 | that if I were to cross it is gonna prevent me

02:00:10.160 | from continuing to build myself.

02:00:11.680 | And by the way, this relationship only exists

02:00:14.560 | because I don't cross that line.

02:00:16.440 | - That's right.

02:00:17.480 | - And I think as much as there are detractors out there,

02:00:21.460 | people that try, right?

02:00:23.360 | I mean, it's pretty, whatever they're doing

02:00:25.020 | is pretty feeble in my mind.

02:00:26.480 | I mean, it's like cap gun fire, if that.

02:00:29.880 | - Very feeble.

02:00:30.720 | - So many of us, men and women, old and young,

02:00:37.940 | hear something and feel something in your message.

02:00:40.840 | Like, yeah, like it seems kind of crazy.

02:00:43.680 | Gosh, like, doesn't he ever just relax?

02:00:46.220 | What about his sleep?

02:00:47.320 | Look at his feet.

02:00:49.160 | He's gonna injure himself.

02:00:50.860 | Listen, I'll be very direct.

02:00:51.800 | I got friends who were in the teams who just go,

02:00:54.260 | what's he gonna do when he can't run?

02:00:55.720 | And I know the answer is keep running, right?

02:00:58.600 | But it's more comfortable for people, even high achievers.

02:01:02.900 | - Especially high achievers.

02:01:04.220 | - To believe that if you took one thing away

02:01:06.480 | that it would all go away.

02:01:07.880 | - It's absolutely clear that's not the case with you.

02:01:10.080 | I'm 100% convinced.

02:01:12.380 | I just know that 'cause what we're talking about is this.

02:01:14.400 | - Do you know how many times I haven't been able to run?

02:01:16.400 | Two heart surgeries, multiple knee surgeries,

02:01:19.000 | and after every knee surgery,

02:01:20.240 | they say you're not gonna run again.

02:01:22.200 | And I'm fine with that.

02:01:23.400 | There's no running up here, bro.

02:01:26.940 | None.

02:01:27.780 | This was what it was all about.

02:01:29.640 | That's what they lost.

02:01:30.840 | What if you can't run?

02:01:31.920 | Give a fuck?

02:01:32.860 | It was never about running.

02:01:35.980 | Why do you think I run?

02:01:37.760 | It's the worst thing.

02:01:39.480 | I hate doing it more than anything.

02:01:41.960 | Hence the willpower.

02:01:44.800 | - Right.

02:01:45.640 | Your anterior mid-singulate cortex would be,

02:01:47.840 | would start to regress if you loved running.

02:01:50.440 | - Think about it.

02:01:51.280 | Every day I wake up, I don't just run a mile, two miles.

02:01:56.280 | It's the one thing I hate the most to do,

02:02:00.400 | and I do it like I love it.

02:02:03.360 | 250, 60, 700, 300 mile runs at one time.

02:02:08.280 | No sleep in every step.

02:02:10.560 | When I get to, think about this.

02:02:11.800 | I get to the fucking start line, cussing at Jennifer.

02:02:16.700 | Why the fuck am I here?

02:02:17.960 | I hate this shit.

02:02:19.040 | After 70 some hours of running,

02:02:23.020 | every fucking question I ever had is answered.

02:02:26.140 | Every question I had is answered.

02:02:29.500 | I cap success.

02:02:32.560 | I don't, people go, we mean you cap success.

02:02:35.420 | For me to be who I am, so when I go smoke jump,

02:02:42.840 | I'll smoke jump three to four months out of the year,

02:02:47.840 | sometimes five.

02:02:48.680 | - Could you just for those that aren't educated about,

02:02:51.840 | just like give us a brief description

02:02:54.280 | of what smoke jumping entails.

02:02:55.520 | - So basically you jump into fires, not into them,

02:02:59.960 | but you jump by fires that people can't get to.

02:03:04.040 | - So out of planes and helicopters, fast lines.

02:03:07.400 | - It's all parachuting.

02:03:08.800 | So you parachute out of airplanes

02:03:10.220 | and then you fight the fire.

02:03:11.280 | You and sometimes four other guys

02:03:13.680 | or maybe eight other guys, guys and gals,

02:03:16.160 | and you're putting this fire out.

02:03:18.480 | So I lose millions of dollars every summer to do this.

02:03:22.540 | It blows people's minds.

02:03:24.760 | Why the hell are you doing this?

02:03:25.880 | - And you're breathing soot.

02:03:27.080 | - I'm being soot, knees are jacked up,

02:03:29.320 | hitting the ground, hurting, whatever.

02:03:31.860 | Talking to normal people that never get it

02:03:34.600 | so I don't even explain it to them.

02:03:36.360 | But this is why I call it cap success.

02:03:40.420 | I'm talking financial success.

02:03:42.880 | For me to continue having that willpower,

02:03:45.020 | the second I just become a speaking monkey

02:03:50.960 | and travel around and speaking gigs

02:03:53.280 | 12 months out of the year, put camps on,

02:03:55.880 | do this, put on lectures, get supplement lines

02:03:59.360 | and do this and write more books and shit,

02:04:02.160 | I've ruined the exact thing I worked on my entire life.

02:04:07.160 | And while I didn't know it until the day,

02:04:10.920 | but something always told me this is a very,

02:04:14.680 | very, very perishable skill, this willpower that you have.

02:04:18.560 | 'Cause I do have a willpower that I have never seen

02:04:21.320 | in anybody in my life.

02:04:22.840 | It is a haunting force that just keeps me going.

02:04:25.840 | And I know that that is my strength.

02:04:28.800 | If you have that, so that's worth every dime

02:04:33.780 | I've ever made in my life is the fact

02:04:36.680 | I can look a man in the eye finally

02:04:38.960 | and have a real conversation without going like this

02:04:41.600 | 'cause I'm lying or I'm a piece of shit or I know.

02:04:44.140 | You know how a person, and so many people do this shit,

02:04:47.440 | they're talking to you on who they want to be.

02:04:52.240 | They're lying to you and they walk away.

02:04:55.320 | I've done it so many times.

02:04:56.160 | You walk away like, God, man,

02:04:57.680 | why can't I just tell him the truth?

02:04:59.640 | Why the hell can I just tell him the truth?

02:05:02.480 | No, good it feels for me now to look at you in your eye

02:05:06.720 | and every man and man I see, 'cause women won't get this.

02:05:11.140 | Women will not get this.

02:05:13.360 | Man to man, that man shit.

02:05:15.800 | You look another man in the eye

02:05:17.320 | and you know that everything you're fucking saying is real.

02:05:20.120 | And it comes from a real working place,

02:05:22.680 | something that you earned.

02:05:24.560 | It's the best feeling in the world.

02:05:25.920 | - You can say that actually happened.

02:05:27.880 | - Yes. - Like I know with certainty

02:05:29.240 | what I'm saying actually happened.

02:05:30.480 | - Actually happened.

02:05:31.520 | Who I am and who I say I am, I am.

02:05:35.260 | No more lies, no more skirting the truth, no more bullshit.

02:05:39.960 | And that is worth every dime I've ever made in my life.

02:05:43.980 | And that is, I swear to God on that.

02:05:47.360 | Every dime I've ever made in my life,

02:05:50.020 | building who I built so I can cap success

02:05:53.260 | because I know that if I ever go 12 months out of the year

02:05:58.260 | and don't put several, every day I'm going at it,

02:06:01.220 | but several months out of the year,

02:06:02.980 | I go right back to ground zero,

02:06:04.820 | which means I'm just fucking David Goggins.

02:06:09.420 | No Goggins, no carry boats fucking logs bullshit.

02:06:13.740 | It's just pick up that fucking Pulaski and dig.

02:06:16.720 | Hey, get that fucking pump, walk down a mile,

02:06:21.940 | put it in the fucking water, mosquitoes beating.

02:06:24.200 | You're just David Goggins, you're nobody.

02:06:27.220 | 'Cause that's where my growth is.

02:06:28.940 | That's where my willpower comes from.

02:06:31.060 | And that's where it stays.

02:06:32.840 | That's when I talk to you now.

02:06:34.200 | And can't I talk like this, dude?

02:06:36.420 | People don't talk with this kind of passion

02:06:37.540 | 'cause it ain't there, it ain't there.

02:06:40.680 | They're regurgitating some shit from 30 fucking years ago.

02:06:44.420 | I'm regurgitating shit from an hour ago, hour ago.

02:06:49.380 | Come on, man, it's just be real.

02:06:53.380 | And I can't be on these podcasts.

02:06:55.340 | I can't talk to anybody without being real.

02:06:57.860 | I'll go away.

02:06:59.220 | I'll just go away.

02:07:00.340 | 'Cause I can't give you what I wanna give you.

02:07:03.500 | - You said perishable skill.

02:07:07.340 | I think that's another set of words I wanna highlight

02:07:10.380 | 'cause skill implies behavior.

02:07:12.700 | And when we were just talking a second ago

02:07:14.780 | about the deep, true bedrock sense of confidence

02:07:19.520 | that comes from looking someone in the eye

02:07:21.260 | and telling somebody something

02:07:22.660 | that you absolutely know it's true because it happened.

02:07:25.900 | You're talking about actions,

02:07:27.400 | not talking about perceptions.

02:07:29.380 | You're not talking about what you believe happened.

02:07:32.060 | You know it happened.

02:07:33.780 | And there's something really concrete about actions.

02:07:35.940 | I mean, that's what's so interesting

02:07:37.620 | is we're talking about the mind,

02:07:38.940 | but actions are the manifestation of the mind.

02:07:42.340 | And the stuff that just stays in here,

02:07:45.300 | people die with that.

02:07:47.300 | It doesn't go anywhere.

02:07:49.220 | Long ago, somebody said,

02:07:51.640 | I forget what the context was, it was a neuroscientist.

02:07:53.680 | He said, "Most emotions, they're just emotions.

02:07:57.700 | They're just in there.

02:07:58.780 | Like you don't have to do anything with them."

02:08:00.640 | And I think certain emotions you want to do something with.

02:08:03.240 | But I think people forget this.

02:08:04.300 | They feel miserable,

02:08:05.140 | like they're gonna dissolve into puddle of their own tears.

02:08:07.460 | No one ever died from an emotion.

02:08:09.840 | But they feel like they overwhelm us

02:08:12.280 | as if it's a tidal wave.

02:08:13.240 | It's gonna pull us under and drown us.

02:08:15.380 | It's so interesting to me because I think what people,

02:08:18.640 | listen, you have a gravitational pull.

02:08:20.400 | People can feel the energy.

02:08:22.720 | I think, yes, you're either completely badly

02:08:26.760 | or partially understood.

02:08:28.080 | There's only one guy on the planet

02:08:29.280 | that truly understands you.

02:08:30.640 | I think there's one woman, Jennifer,

02:08:31.840 | who probably understands you as much as anyone's going to.

02:08:34.960 | And then the rest of us are kind of grasping,

02:08:36.520 | trying to figure it out.

02:08:38.560 | But you're saying go inward.

02:08:39.960 | So first go inward and then it's actions.

02:08:45.680 | Inward and actions.

02:08:46.520 | Now the inward piece is something

02:08:48.000 | I'd like to just spend a little bit of time on

02:08:50.040 | because there are a couple of characters from history,

02:08:51.920 | people that were in concentration camps.

02:08:53.840 | Nelson Mandela.

02:08:55.200 | I mean, I'm not sure he had Instagram in there.

02:08:57.400 | I'm pretty sure he didn't.

02:08:58.840 | And I don't think there was anyone coaching him on like,

02:09:00.760 | "Hey, you're gonna get out someday

02:09:02.880 | and actually you're gonna lead an entire country."

02:09:05.440 | I'm pretty sure that's not how it worked.

02:09:07.400 | He had to find it here.

02:09:08.920 | He had to find it between his ears.

02:09:11.100 | And there are other examples, but that's an important one.

02:09:15.080 | So the process of going inward, does it for you,

02:09:19.840 | and here I will ask for suggestions.

02:09:21.440 | 'Cause I think people want,

02:09:22.920 | there are those of us who want to build this skill.

02:09:25.960 | Wall yourself off, phone off

02:09:30.680 | for big portions of the day perhaps.

02:09:35.080 | Texting off, the requests, the this, the that.

02:09:39.220 | Anyone that knows you knows that.

02:09:42.560 | We've communicated a few texts,

02:09:43.760 | but most of it comes through a filter.

02:09:45.560 | She's great, she knows you,

02:09:48.040 | and she knows how to protect your time.

02:09:49.760 | - And that hurts people's feelings.

02:09:50.720 | People get mad about that.

02:09:51.600 | - Hey, God bless.

02:09:52.920 | God bless you, Jennifer.

02:09:54.120 | Cutting oneself off when you're in there,

02:10:01.560 | you say it's just you.

02:10:03.580 | And the voices that come up are not pleasant.

02:10:08.580 | And then at some point it converts to action.

02:10:14.100 | Okay, how much, what is the process of picking the action?

02:10:19.960 | That's the piece that I feel like

02:10:21.500 | there's like a bridge to build here,

02:10:24.460 | if you can, if you would.

02:10:25.540 | - So the action, you mean like what's next?

02:10:27.780 | - Yeah, so when you go to sleep at night,

02:10:30.220 | when that happens, you know what you're gonna do

02:10:33.500 | the next day, it's pre-planned?

02:10:35.020 | - Yes.

02:10:35.860 | - Okay.

02:10:36.700 | - Yes, it's always the same thing.

02:10:37.900 | - You're not building it on the fly.

02:10:39.220 | - No, nothing's on the fly.

02:10:41.040 | Nothing, so how it works internally for me is I'm,

02:10:45.240 | I put it exactly how it is.

02:10:48.000 | I'm an artist and every day I'm painting Mona Lisa.

02:10:52.720 | Every day, but it's a different one.

02:10:56.820 | It's not the same painting.

02:10:58.440 | So every day I wake up, even though I do the same thing,

02:11:00.760 | it takes a different way to get there.

02:11:02.980 | So every day in my mind, I'm going through my mind,

02:11:04.840 | I'm just like, and a good painter will not just paint.

02:11:09.840 | He needs to create and you can't create the phones

02:11:15.300 | and everything going around you.

02:11:16.740 | So you gotta block yourself off.

02:11:19.240 | You only do two podcasts in a year.

02:11:21.940 | You block yourself off and you're painting this thing inside

02:11:25.020 | and you're going through all these different colors of paint

02:11:27.980 | and everything else.

02:11:29.620 | And you can only figure out the right painting

02:11:32.300 | if you spend the correct amount of time in your brain.

02:11:35.280 | So every single day I'm literally going through my mind

02:11:37.980 | and I'm painting, I'm creating this masterpiece.

02:11:42.700 | And the masterpiece is always myself.

02:11:45.260 | And, but to do that, you cannot have any distractions

02:11:49.260 | because if you're talking to an artist

02:11:50.840 | and he's trying to think about the next painting, he can't.

02:11:54.760 | So it's impossible to listen to you

02:11:57.200 | and listen to what your mind and body

02:11:59.200 | are telling you we must do.

02:12:01.500 | People don't do enough of, they don't do any of it.

02:12:04.660 | You're, they don't have passion.

02:12:06.700 | They lack passion driving determination

02:12:08.440 | because you haven't spent time with yourself.

02:12:11.580 | Your mind will tell you what is next,

02:12:13.780 | but you haven't spent the time to go,

02:12:18.300 | all right, let me just figure this out.

02:12:22.060 | You're looking for, let me Google this

02:12:26.220 | and let me Google that and let me,

02:12:27.880 | you're not going to find it there

02:12:29.580 | because there's billions of people in this world

02:12:33.640 | and they're all supposed to be individuals.

02:12:38.760 | We have a pack mentality.

02:12:41.820 | That's why you're so fucking lost.

02:12:45.060 | Why am I so unique?

02:12:47.060 | I'm being exactly what the fuck I was supposed to be.

02:12:50.840 | I ain't follow shit.

02:12:52.500 | And when I did follow shit, I was like everybody else.

02:12:55.860 | The second I said, okay, man, hang on, dude,

02:12:58.920 | you don't like this, you don't like this,

02:13:00.640 | you don't like this.

02:13:01.720 | Who are you, David Goggins?

02:13:04.380 | Who are you supposed to be?

02:13:05.740 | Miraculously, all these things just,

02:13:09.580 | I couldn't even, the list of shit I had to do just wham.

02:13:15.660 | It's like fuck, okay, wow.

02:13:18.220 | Once you sit down with yourself and say,

02:13:19.740 | okay, I don't want to be like Michael Jordan or Jim Brown,

02:13:23.040 | both were on my birthday.

02:13:23.980 | So I looked at their birthdays like,

02:13:25.420 | maybe I can be one of these, I can't.

02:13:27.020 | I'm going to be David fucking Goggins.

02:13:30.040 | And that looks like this.

02:13:34.800 | It just came, everything flooded.

02:13:37.860 | So every single day of my life,

02:13:40.080 | there's a different thing that comes up that I have to do.

02:13:44.480 | But no one knows what to do

02:13:45.860 | because everybody else is following steps.

02:13:49.180 | Like the Republican and Democratic parties.

02:13:51.580 | I'm not political.

02:13:52.720 | - Neither am I.

02:13:53.780 | - At all, for this reason.

02:13:56.180 | Republicans are going to vote Republican.

02:13:58.220 | Democrats are going to vote Democrat.

02:14:01.100 | You're not even a human fucking being, bro.

02:14:05.580 | No way all you fuckers agree with all the same fucking shit.

02:14:09.340 | And I know I don't.

02:14:11.020 | So once you figure out yourself and who you are,

02:14:14.500 | all the answers come.

02:14:16.620 | So every night, a different painting is being painted.

02:14:20.660 | And it's a beautiful painting for myself.

02:14:22.340 | Like, okay, that's it.

02:14:23.740 | It may look the same to most motherfuckers,

02:14:26.580 | but the end result is very fucking different.

02:14:29.860 | That's why my launch, if you look at what I've done

02:14:32.740 | in 49 years, it's more than most people ever do in their life

02:14:36.580 | because they were a race car driver.

02:14:39.820 | And that's what they did.

02:14:41.420 | They drove a fucking car.

02:14:42.980 | It's great.

02:14:43.800 | I was all kind of shit

02:14:47.820 | because that's exactly what the painting was saying to do,

02:14:50.940 | what the mind was saying to do.

02:14:52.460 | Wasn't saying to drive a car,

02:14:53.380 | so then that race car driver know what the fuck to do.

02:14:55.620 | He retires from being a race car driver and they're lost.

02:14:59.820 | How are you still, I don't get it.

02:15:03.420 | Dude, you're never going to fill your list,

02:15:06.380 | but you never found your list

02:15:08.580 | 'cause it never was presented in front of you

02:15:10.300 | because your head was cluttered with shit.

02:15:13.220 | 'Cause you never just stopped for lots of minutes,

02:15:18.300 | lots of years, and just said, "All right, it's me and you.

02:15:21.520 | Let it go."

02:15:23.760 | And it just, bam, it's right there, right there.

02:15:27.520 | - I'm not a psychologist, as I mentioned before,

02:15:30.940 | but I'm going to venture a hypothesis here.

02:15:35.500 | I think that you've mastered the process

02:15:42.900 | of internal dialogue.

02:15:44.980 | But when I say dialogue, I think most people think,

02:15:47.460 | oh, the inner voice, the chatter,

02:15:50.620 | but that's just one half of a dialogue.

02:15:52.140 | A dialogue is a two-way street.

02:15:53.760 | So I completely agree 'cause I know from experience

02:15:59.300 | that when we go inward, oftentimes we hear things,

02:16:01.380 | if we're really honest with ourselves, it's like,

02:16:03.100 | I don't want to think about that or that, no.

02:16:05.700 | And then we start looking outward

02:16:06.980 | or we start trying to shift our attention or distract.

02:16:10.700 | And there are a million reasons that are handed to us,

02:16:14.140 | excuses and seemingly good justifications

02:16:17.500 | to be able to do that.

02:16:18.620 | But dialogue is a two-way street.

02:16:21.520 | And it hit me while you were just saying

02:16:23.620 | what you were saying, I was paying very close attention.

02:16:25.780 | And I realized David Goggins is talking about

02:16:30.300 | the voice that comes up, including the terrible stuff

02:16:32.940 | that no one wants to hear about themselves, from themselves.

02:16:37.020 | But then he's also got the dialogue down

02:16:39.400 | where he knows the counter voice.

02:16:41.100 | He goes, "Yeah, you're right.

02:16:42.640 | And so I'm going to do this."

02:16:43.600 | Or maybe, no, remember this.

02:16:47.860 | You're in a dialogue, a two-way dialogue in there,

02:16:51.240 | not a one-way chatter dialogue.

02:16:53.400 | There are books written by famous psychologists

02:16:55.960 | about chatter, trying to shift your internal narrative.

02:16:58.660 | You're like, bring the internal narrative.

02:17:01.640 | That's what going inward is about, but it's not one voice.

02:17:05.260 | Again, there's a hypothesis.

02:17:06.420 | I'm not claiming to be all knowing.

02:17:07.800 | Lord knows I'm not all knowing, okay?

02:17:10.240 | But you've mastered the dialogue.

02:17:12.880 | And if there are three voices,

02:17:15.060 | strong, medium, and weak in there,

02:17:17.220 | you're like, let's all come to the table.

02:17:19.380 | So you've got a symphony of voices in there

02:17:22.340 | that are all you that you know to be you,

02:17:24.840 | and you know how to have those conversations.

02:17:26.980 | You're not afraid to be in those conversations.

02:17:28.940 | And then you know what the outcome

02:17:31.540 | of that committee decision is,

02:17:33.060 | and you put it into real-world action.

02:17:35.880 | And the world only sees the action.

02:17:38.380 | And only you can know your internal dialogue,

02:17:42.700 | and only I can know my internal dialogue.

02:17:44.740 | And the only way to quote-unquote know it

02:17:47.140 | is to spend a hell of a lot of time there.

02:17:49.060 | - That's right. - Okay.

02:17:50.500 | - A lifetime. - Got it.

02:17:51.980 | - A lifetime.

02:17:53.540 | Think about it.

02:17:54.380 | For me to be sitting here in front of you,

02:17:58.740 | you're not gonna call 300-pound Ecolab guy

02:18:02.440 | to come sit here.

02:18:03.280 | You might, I don't know, maybe.

02:18:05.020 | - Probably not. - Probably not.

02:18:06.860 | Think about this.

02:18:09.220 | What we teach people is kindness to yourself.

02:18:14.220 | Do you think if I taught myself kindness,

02:18:19.300 | and I agree with it, God,

02:18:20.580 | so many people take me out of context, it's ridiculous.

02:18:23.780 | Take it however the fuck you wanna take it.

02:18:27.020 | When I was 300 pounds,

02:18:28.440 | where do you think that conversation would've got me

02:18:32.060 | if I spoke kindness to myself?

02:18:34.260 | I'll tell you where it gets me.

02:18:36.060 | Right back to 7-Eleven,

02:18:37.580 | another box of mini chocolate donuts

02:18:39.180 | and a chocolate milkshake.

02:18:40.420 | That's the one voice.

02:18:43.340 | That's the one voice that most of us have

02:18:47.420 | that you're talking about.

02:18:48.660 | If you wanna have a conversation in there,

02:18:50.740 | the other voice that you create that says,

02:18:52.460 | okay, how does this look?

02:18:56.420 | It looks very ugly.

02:18:57.500 | That kind conversation for me went away a long time ago,

02:19:01.740 | which is why the dialogue is now,

02:19:04.700 | which you see a lot of action,

02:19:07.300 | because most people have inaction,

02:19:10.340 | 'cause there's one person talking,

02:19:12.220 | and that one person's always leading you down the same path,

02:19:15.460 | the path that makes you feel very comfortable

02:19:19.100 | and happy with yourself.

02:19:20.420 | The second you create the other voice, there's conflict.

02:19:24.100 | There's battles, there's wars, there's defeat.

02:19:29.820 | One thing I learned, and I taught myself this,

02:19:32.020 | and people go, I don't understand what you're saying.

02:19:33.540 | I'm gonna try to break it down real quick.

02:19:35.820 | I didn't teach myself victory first.

02:19:40.060 | I taught myself failure.

02:19:42.680 | I taught myself how to fail.

02:19:46.080 | And people go, that's so depressing.

02:19:50.100 | Is it?

02:19:51.200 | When you're 300 pounds and you can't read and write

02:19:53.420 | and you're fucked up,

02:19:55.020 | there'll be times you're gonna fucking fail on that process.

02:19:58.500 | So if you don't know how to fail, there is no victory.

02:20:01.420 | I never talked about winning,

02:20:04.540 | 'cause I knew the path to winning

02:20:07.980 | was gonna be years of failing first.

02:20:11.060 | So I taught myself how to fail properly.

02:20:13.880 | No one teaches you how to fucking fail.

02:20:16.920 | But if you're going out for insurmountable fucking odds

02:20:22.460 | that make absolutely no fucking sense,

02:20:24.860 | a black kid that can't swim,

02:20:26.420 | 300 pounds gonna be a Navy Seal.

02:20:28.020 | Okay.

02:20:29.820 | You better teach yourself how to fail first,

02:20:34.220 | because if you sit in failure for too long,

02:20:38.980 | you will never come out of it.

02:20:41.060 | So the first part of my success

02:20:44.900 | was learning how to fail properly.

02:20:47.180 | And then eventually, I started getting a few victories,

02:20:52.620 | but that's what people don't get.

02:20:55.540 | When you have buried yourself in such a deep fucking hole,

02:20:59.300 | you better first talk about the failures

02:21:01.100 | you're gonna have first,

02:21:01.940 | and that's when that other voice comes up.

02:21:03.220 | It tells you, we gotta do something.

02:21:04.460 | It also tells you, boy, I'm not gonna lie to you, Goggins,

02:21:08.900 | you're in for a fucking climb, bro.

02:21:12.420 | You're gonna get your ass handed to you,

02:21:15.140 | made fun of, the outside noise, the inside noise.

02:21:19.040 | Both voices are gonna be fucking telling you

02:21:21.060 | to go fuck yourself.

02:21:22.100 | You are in for hell, bro.

02:21:24.000 | I am.

02:21:27.860 | So I better learn to fail.

02:21:29.800 | - So this is what you mean when you say

02:21:31.100 | that whatever anyone says, it's insignificant.

02:21:33.740 | - Insignificant as fuck.

02:21:34.620 | - Right, it's the cap gun fire,

02:21:35.940 | because the voice in your own head is far worse.

02:21:40.780 | And I should say, sorry, one of the voices in your head.

02:21:44.300 | - Yes.

02:21:45.140 | - I'm being very detailed, almost surgical about that,

02:21:47.580 | because I think this thing about inner dialogue

02:21:49.260 | we think is one voice.

02:21:50.700 | You're making it clear it's many voices.

02:21:53.880 | - It is.

02:21:54.940 | And the thing about it is you have to be really,

02:21:59.600 | and sometimes all the voices are telling you

02:22:01.780 | the wrong shit, man.

02:22:03.460 | But through years, years, not a podcast

02:22:07.660 | or listening to a book or reading a book,

02:22:09.640 | years of sacrifice, of suffering, of diligent,

02:22:14.640 | pinpoint fucking work on what you wanna do for yourself.

02:22:18.820 | Not like, oh, let me just do a bunch of shit.

02:22:23.820 | Let me, I wanna be in every task possible.

02:22:28.060 | No, pinpoint what I want to do with my life.

02:22:33.060 | What happens is you have all these voices

02:22:36.960 | that are telling you you're fucked up

02:22:38.380 | and this is gonna be hard.

02:22:39.500 | But for some reason, you put so much practice into you

02:22:43.080 | that you can ignore every one of them

02:22:47.560 | that are telling you you're not gonna fucking make it

02:22:50.760 | and still be able to fucking make it.

02:22:52.600 | Because you have put the practice in

02:22:55.840 | that you know this is the process.

02:22:59.620 | It's such a daunting task

02:23:02.040 | that all the voices are saying no.

02:23:04.680 | But you still have the conviction that I know I can do this.

02:23:08.960 | And that's what it took for me to get here.

02:23:12.140 | 20, 30 years ago, I had this 35 or whatever it was,

02:23:18.200 | 30 to 25 years ago, pipe dream.

02:23:20.740 | And ever since then, every voice was like,

02:23:24.040 | you're a fucking nut.

02:23:25.600 | But when you put that practice in,

02:23:29.400 | every day you lace them up.

02:23:30.600 | And I don't mean run.

02:23:32.400 | It's just a metaphor for life.

02:23:34.960 | When you lace them motherfuckers up every day,

02:23:36.820 | pretty soon you win.

02:23:38.760 | Pretty soon you'll fucking win.

02:23:40.440 | If you have the courage and the heart and the dedication

02:23:42.600 | and the mindset about everybody can go fuck themselves.

02:23:45.640 | I know what I know.

02:23:46.900 | I've listened to myself enough to know.

02:23:49.040 | I know what I know.

02:23:51.360 | None of you can hear what I'm hearing.

02:23:54.260 | And that's what people don't do enough of.

02:23:55.620 | They don't listen to their journey.

02:23:58.420 | They listen to everybody else's shit.

02:24:00.620 | Before you know it, I'm crazy.

02:24:02.340 | But if I'm so fucking crazy, why am I so successful?

02:24:05.980 | How'd that happen?

02:24:07.840 | I'm so misguided and fucked up and don't listen to him.

02:24:14.020 | Why am I the only one to do a whole bunch of shit?

02:24:20.740 | Why am I a trailblazer?

02:24:23.200 | Why?

02:24:24.040 | How is that possible?

02:24:24.860 | How can you be fucked up and also self-made

02:24:28.080 | the same fucking, no, no.

02:24:30.720 | Obviously you're not looking at the truth in front of you.

02:24:35.000 | The truth in front of you is it sucks.

02:24:37.480 | It's painful.

02:24:38.440 | It's fucking mind numbing.

02:24:41.160 | And that is the truth.

02:24:44.320 | And that's why a lot of people don't like listening to me.

02:24:48.480 | 'Cause this is what it takes, creating another voice

02:24:51.120 | and sometimes going at it alone.

02:24:52.960 | All the time going at it alone.

02:24:55.040 | 'Cause no one's gonna believe in you.

02:24:57.000 | And that's that.

02:24:57.840 | - What I'm about to say is not conjecture.

02:25:01.880 | And I can say that with confidence

02:25:04.080 | because I did a four episode guest series

02:25:06.160 | with a brilliant psychiatrist.

02:25:08.080 | A guy named Paul Conte, he's from Trenton.

02:25:10.080 | He's a Stanford Harvard trained guy.

02:25:12.640 | He's also got a lot of street in him.

02:25:13.880 | He's had his own hardship, real hardship.

02:25:15.920 | He's brilliant.

02:25:17.760 | And he said something that I'll never forget,

02:25:20.400 | which is, we think that the forebrain,

02:25:22.680 | the part of our brain that creates strategy, et cetera,

02:25:25.880 | is the supercomputer.

02:25:26.800 | He said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no."

02:25:29.120 | It's like the supercomputer of the brain

02:25:30.760 | is the unconscious mind.

02:25:33.240 | It's the part of our mind

02:25:35.220 | that's controlling most everything.

02:25:37.300 | And most people unfortunately don't do the work

02:25:41.080 | to understand how their unconscious is controlling them.

02:25:43.920 | And that's a scary thing.

02:25:45.120 | This idea like your mind is controlling you.

02:25:47.160 | And I'm not gonna get into the free will debate.

02:25:49.100 | I believe in at least some will.

02:25:51.420 | I believe what you're describing and this internal dialogue,

02:25:57.420 | I think you have access to your unconscious mind.

02:26:02.220 | By listening to the dialogue, going inward,

02:26:04.280 | we know this is true in sleep, in dreams, in meditation,

02:26:07.880 | and just by shutting out everything else,

02:26:10.280 | shutting out all the external noise,

02:26:12.180 | which is filled with things that pull us twice.

02:26:14.420 | Noise makes it sound bad,

02:26:15.560 | but it's the gravitational pull of all the things

02:26:17.640 | that just allow us to distract ourselves without knowing

02:26:20.920 | that the ice cream, the have a cookie, the Merry Christmas.

02:26:25.360 | The unconscious mind,

02:26:27.940 | this huge piece of the iceberg underneath

02:26:30.140 | that Paul calls the supercomputer.

02:26:32.980 | He's saying that with knowledge as a neurobiologist,

02:26:35.220 | psychiatrist, psychologist, and he really knows.

02:26:38.140 | That's the piece that if one does real introspection,

02:26:41.700 | he calls it the cupboards.

02:26:42.580 | You gotta look in the cupboards,

02:26:43.600 | and it's often really scary what you find in there.

02:26:45.800 | And most people are just like,

02:26:47.120 | "I don't even wanna know the cupboards are there."

02:26:48.960 | But you're pulling all the cupboard doors open.

02:26:51.260 | And then you're extremely deliberate

02:26:55.360 | with what gets put into action.

02:26:57.180 | You're not just going,

02:26:59.060 | "Oh, like I'm pissed, so I'm gonna act pissed,"

02:27:00.820 | or, "I'm tired, so I'm gonna act tired."

02:27:04.440 | You're picking very carefully what to do.

02:27:06.860 | And that's a process that I'm guessing came to you,

02:27:11.100 | does it come to you as a,

02:27:12.340 | okay, it makes sense why running makes sense.

02:27:16.080 | It makes sense why smoke jumping makes sense.

02:27:18.520 | So it seems like a huge portion of your time

02:27:25.720 | is spent understanding yourself and making sense to you.

02:27:30.700 | And so when people don't understand you,

02:27:32.500 | it's gotta be extra frustrating,

02:27:34.420 | 'cause most people don't understand themselves,

02:27:35.960 | so that we're all running around going like,

02:27:37.320 | "You're this and you're that,"

02:27:38.760 | 'cause most people are just unwilling to look inward.

02:27:40.900 | And I'm including myself, by the way.

02:27:42.780 | I mean, I've done a fair amount of introspection,

02:27:44.420 | but I'm inspired today, that word inspire, but it's true,

02:27:47.940 | motivated to start going inward further.

02:27:52.940 | 'Cause it is scary.

02:27:53.980 | It's like, we don't know what's in those cupboards

02:27:55.980 | and it's terrifying, especially 'cause we don't know.

02:27:59.300 | - And those are the first ones that open up.

02:28:01.660 | And like he talked about, you gotta go through those cupboards.

02:28:03.700 | I do spring clean every fucking day in those dark cupboards,

02:28:07.660 | those dark cabinets, the ones I start with first.

02:28:10.900 | That's the real me, man.

02:28:12.100 | That's the real me.

02:28:14.220 | I'm not ashamed.

02:28:15.780 | I don't hide.

02:28:18.100 | I used to hide.

02:28:19.260 | I don't hide anymore.

02:28:20.620 | He's exactly right.

02:28:21.640 | I don't know all the fucking science behind shit.

02:28:25.060 | I know what I know.

02:28:26.420 | That's why I don't listen to anybody anymore.

02:28:28.300 | I don't listen to shit.

02:28:29.140 | I think most people are full of shit.

02:28:30.780 | 'Cause I know.

02:28:31.780 | I know the deep, dark secrets of those fucking cupboards.

02:28:35.920 | It's ugly, man.

02:28:37.200 | And every day I'm talking to them,

02:28:38.460 | every day I'm cleaning them.

02:28:39.300 | I'm cleaning them and I'm talking to the same demons

02:28:40.980 | that came out of those fucking cupboards

02:28:42.780 | as I'm cleaning them.

02:28:43.940 | Sometimes I go right back in them again.

02:28:45.940 | It's not easy.

02:28:48.100 | And this is why most of us just YM misunderstood.

02:28:53.740 | Because what comes out of those cabinets that I'm cleaning,

02:28:58.260 | sometimes they see on Instagram.

02:29:01.800 | Sometimes they'll see it in the pocket.

02:29:03.180 | Sometimes they see it in this one.

02:29:04.500 | I turn people off.

02:29:06.060 | Open up your own cabinets.

02:29:09.420 | And then go talk about it.

02:29:13.500 | Let me see how pretty it looks.

02:29:15.260 | Let me see how pretty you sound.

02:29:17.300 | Let me see how put together your words are.

02:29:20.500 | I bet you a fuck or a motherfucker comes out

02:29:22.480 | because for you to go back in there again

02:29:24.900 | to clean the same fucking cabinet a demon came out of,

02:29:27.820 | takes some big balls, bro.

02:29:29.260 | To do it every day of your life.

02:29:32.700 | To go back in there and spring clean every day.

02:29:37.180 | Not once a fucking year.

02:29:39.940 | Once every decade.

02:29:41.560 | Every day you know it gets dusty.

02:29:44.100 | And every day, you don't start with the victories.

02:29:48.180 | You don't go, oh, this is nice.

02:29:49.500 | Look at my, I love me wall.

02:29:51.260 | Let me clean up this little dusty.

02:29:52.600 | No, I go right for the things that are gonna keep me buried.

02:29:56.460 | I go right there first

02:29:57.480 | 'cause if I don't clean those out first,

02:29:59.540 | the day doesn't start.

02:30:00.600 | So what are you saying?

02:30:03.420 | To me, it's truth.

02:30:05.320 | And like I told you many times today,

02:30:08.660 | I can never figure out how to explain this shit to people

02:30:13.600 | because I'm not neuro nothing.

02:30:16.980 | I'm just a guy that said, okay,

02:30:19.280 | we gotta start in the dungeon

02:30:20.900 | and we gotta stay here for the rest of our lives.

02:30:25.640 | For you to become successful,

02:30:27.160 | the dungeon is a place that has to be clean.

02:30:29.540 | And it's the scariest place to be.

02:30:33.180 | That's why I'm misunderstood

02:30:35.100 | 'cause I'm speaking from the dungeon.

02:30:37.240 | That's why I am successful

02:30:39.220 | 'cause I go there every damn day.

02:30:42.220 | And that is the truth what he says.

02:30:44.740 | It's the exact truth.

02:30:46.420 | Those cabinets are fucking dusty, dirty, and scary as shit.

02:30:51.420 | Broken glass, fucking dark, spiders, cobwebs,

02:30:56.620 | but most of all, your biggest fears.

02:31:01.820 | The biggest things that put you

02:31:03.140 | in the fucked up place you are today are in there.

02:31:05.880 | That's why we all like to keep them shut,

02:31:07.580 | even like to lock them up, act like they never happen.

02:31:10.060 | That's why you never grow.

02:31:12.100 | You never improve.

02:31:13.360 | You never have real conversations

02:31:14.780 | like we're having right now.

02:31:16.020 | Never, never.

02:31:17.700 | Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

02:31:19.580 | Let's not, no, no, no, let's not go there.

02:31:21.640 | I talk to so many people who tell me that.

02:31:23.740 | Let's talk about this.

02:31:26.940 | 'Cause they'll tell me, but they can only say it once.

02:31:31.420 | And they'll say it in passing.

02:31:32.680 | They won't get deep in the weeds with it.

02:31:35.240 | Like you can't just clean it, motherfucker.

02:31:38.300 | You got to spit shine that motherfucker.

02:31:40.860 | You got to relive it.

02:31:42.940 | Every fucking detail of it.

02:31:45.180 | You can't just be like, oh yeah, yeah, my dad beat me.

02:31:47.760 | And they, you know, you know, it is what it is.

02:31:51.460 | It is what it is, motherfucker.

02:31:52.860 | It's killing you.

02:31:53.740 | It's taken over your whole fucking life.

02:31:57.900 | But that's the conversation.

02:31:58.780 | Yeah, my dad beat me, but I'm fine now though.

02:32:00.660 | I'm good.

02:32:01.820 | Okay.

02:32:03.420 | All right.

02:32:04.460 | No, you ain't, you ain't fine.

02:32:06.780 | You ain't fine.

02:32:07.620 | This is, this is real talk.

02:32:08.820 | People don't want to have that.

02:32:10.020 | So your boy's right.

02:32:11.460 | 100% right.

02:32:12.920 | Scary as shit.

02:32:14.620 | It's scary as shit.

02:32:17.180 | That makes you who you're supposed to be.

02:32:19.540 | And that's the test.

02:32:22.600 | We forget, we think we're supposed to breathe air

02:32:25.400 | and have kids and pay the bills and shit.

02:32:28.920 | What's this life about?

02:32:32.020 | That ain't no sense.

02:32:34.100 | You're being tested, my friend.

02:32:36.960 | Tests come when you have not studied.

02:32:40.980 | Tests come when you think that you're in a great place.

02:32:45.420 | That's, that's the test.

02:32:46.540 | The test is every day of your life.

02:32:48.700 | And most of us fail because we don't know why we're here.

02:32:51.280 | 'Cause we don't go inward to say, oh,

02:32:53.560 | you gave me a lot of shit to fix, man.

02:32:57.000 | And this test sucks.

02:33:00.340 | But then you start.

02:33:04.300 | - David Goggins, I don't think I could add to that.

02:33:09.220 | I know I can't.

02:33:10.160 | Thank you for sharing what you shared today.

02:33:16.340 | I mean, as much as your process or anyone's process

02:33:22.460 | can't be completely understood from the outside,

02:33:27.980 | you gave us a real window into this thing,

02:33:32.020 | this process that you, as you said, God put it on you.

02:33:37.020 | I believe in God too.

02:33:38.380 | People can believe what they want,

02:33:39.460 | but somehow your life,

02:33:42.420 | God gave you these challenges early on.

02:33:45.320 | And then there was a point where you went internal.

02:33:49.100 | And like you said, you developed a skill,

02:33:54.020 | but it's a perishable skill.

02:33:56.180 | And you clearly live in the process

02:33:59.100 | of opening those cupboards, reopening those cupboards,

02:34:03.040 | trying to spit shine those cupboards,

02:34:04.780 | understanding that they're never ever really done,

02:34:08.540 | but that you can gain ground on them.

02:34:11.060 | You can win day after day after day.

02:34:14.980 | And you really shared a lot of concrete things

02:34:17.080 | that I think I know people are going to be able

02:34:21.260 | to apply if they choose.

02:34:23.280 | And I agree with you.

02:34:24.120 | I think most people will be like, whoa, that was a lot.

02:34:27.520 | - Yep.

02:34:28.360 | - It's heavy.

02:34:29.200 | I think I want to just kind of bake myself in Netflix

02:34:32.420 | and Chex Mix instead.

02:34:36.120 | But there's also the reality that there are men and women,

02:34:41.840 | boys and girls who hear that and go, okay,

02:34:45.320 | and start cracking the cupboards open.

02:34:49.420 | - Right.

02:34:50.260 | - And I just know that, you know, for myself,

02:34:52.960 | I'm extremely grateful that you're willing

02:34:54.500 | to put it all out there.

02:34:55.780 | You're so brutally honest, so brutally authentic.

02:35:00.340 | That word authenticity gets thrown around so much.

02:35:02.900 | And I can tell you that for me and for everybody else,

02:35:07.380 | like that's what really what resonates.

02:35:09.140 | So whether or not you want to,

02:35:10.980 | whether or not it's the purpose behind it or not,

02:35:13.840 | you're lighting the path.

02:35:15.580 | So thank you.

02:35:17.460 | - Respect, thank you.

02:35:18.380 | Thanks for having me.

02:35:19.680 | - Thank you for joining me for today's discussion

02:35:21.500 | with David Goggins.

02:35:23.020 | To learn more about David and to find links

02:35:25.220 | to his two fantastic books, "Can't Hurt Me"

02:35:27.740 | and "Never Finished," please see the show note captions.

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David Goggins: How to Build Immense Inner Strength

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