David Goggins Talks “Never Finished,” Mental Toughness, & How to Become Disciplined & Stay Grounded

this episode of the game changing attorney podcast is intended for mature audiences only it is presented raw and unfiltered to preserve the Integrity of the conversation that follows a lot of people think that I'm just some [ __ ] Warrior some guy that does push-ups and sit-ups and runs they got it so wrong that's David Goggins retired Navy SEAL Ultra endurance athlete and New York Times best-selling author of can't hurt me and his latest book never finished unshackle your mind and win the war Within they got so wrong man like most of my true ability

comes from the discipline of mind I'm Michael Mogul founder and CEO of crisp the nation's number one Law Firm Growth Company I've built my business through practice not Theory crisp started which is 500 to my name and has grown to over eight figures in Revenue over the last few years earning a spot on the Inc 500 lists of the fastest growing private companies in America our approach has been to take everything we've learned about generating massive growth within our own organization and help the country's most ambitious and committing Law Firm owners do the same for

theirs in each episode of this podcast I sit down with Innovative Market leaders from the legal industry and Beyond to learn from those who thrive in the face of adversity challenge the status quo and Define what it means to be a true Game Changer I sat down with David Goggins to discuss how to transform criticism into fuel for growth why discipline separates the good from the great and how to Unleash Your Inner Savage I got something to tell you can compete with the top Minds in the world if you're willing to armor and callous your

[ __ ] mind and not work them [ __ ] and dig deep where most people see four walls I see a massive empty space that deserves all kind of creativity to make it look beautiful that's coming up on the game changing attorney podcast David welcome to the podcast hey man thanks for having me on bro appreciate it I already know right up front that this is probably going to be one of our most popular podcasts and it's it's interesting because I'm sure you've noticed this at this point but there's like this Allure that you

have where it's with anything any type of keynote from David Goggins any type of video from David podcast what do you think it is what do you think it is that attracts people to your content think it might take it or leave it kind of mentality where I don't really think about your feelings I don't really care about what you think or what you think about me or if you're soft if you're weak if you're hard if you're an alpha if whatever the hell you are I just don't really care and I'm gonna say what

I believe is going to get you better it may make you pissed off at me in the interim but in the long term if you really think about what I'm saying I'm saying things to you that I had to listen to and you know tell myself and it's just sometimes hard truth sucks I mean I even saw it even recently I think this was like over the weekend or sometime last week I think it was somebody impersonating you right on LinkedIn and you put out this video and even this video I'm like sharing it with

people I know I'm like look at how pissed off David is about this guy but more importantly by the end of this video I started to feel sorry for the guy that was impersonating you because of what he has coming yeah man that that poor fellow I mean I actually feel bad for him too man because I just don't put up that kind of [ __ ] when I became whoever I am now people always said you know what with success you're going to have these issues and I just don't buy into all that [

__ ] you know everybody thinks you got to settle when you become successful and it's just people are going to take your book and they're gonna bootleg your book and it's just great signs of success well you can sit there like most people do and just sit there and take that [ __ ] or you can go ahead and believe that you know what I don't give a [ __ ] how successful I am I'm gonna hold your ass accountable for what the [ __ ] you're doing and that's just how it goes for me

man so I just hope people are accountable no matter how successful you are you must hold people to the [ __ ] standard I want to talk a little about the the most recent book never finished and I heard things even in the process of writing my second book everyone would tell me that the first one's always better the second one's not as good and with a book like can't hurt me that was probably one of the greatest books of all time even with that in the back of your mind thinking how do you top

the second one now personally I believe Utah that the second book is better than the first the first one's phenomenal but why why even write a second book well the thing about is like you know it can't hurt me was I call it your bachelor's degree it was a very basic nuts and bolts about how to get the [ __ ] up and stop feeling sorry for yourself and the funny thing about it is that most people who hear me they hear me cuss all the time they hear me cuss they hear me going off

carry the boats carry the logs all this [ __ ] to hear all this hoopla but they don't understand man there's a very very very philosophical side of David Goggins and that's the side that that book right there never finished gives them is that that's the real me like what they see they see me in a one minute video when I'm [ __ ] hyped up and the whole idea about that one minute video is that I'm trying to get you the [ __ ] off the couch and I don't have 10 to 20 minutes

to give you some great philosophy about why we need to get out the couch I just need to spark your ass off that [ __ ] couch but when I write these books I'm able to go deeper I'm able to grab your attention hold it make you sit there and simmer on some of these thoughts so my whole life is not some big hoopla pep rally my whole life is about going into the dungeon and going into that [ __ ] area where I can go through all this [ __ ] and become a philosopher

I really am a philosopher man a philosopher about the mind about how far we can go and the first book didn't do that and I did it on purpose because no one who the [ __ ] David Goggins was so I'm not going to give you never finished first because I haven't really gone out here and told you who David Goggins is so now they knew who I was and now I can bring it to the next level and what's funny about that my friend the third book that no one's even heard about that's almost

done it puts that book to shame right out of the gate you never finished you talk about the fact this is not a self-help book you said it's really kind of a boot camp for your brain and you talk about the difference between hope and belief how do you differentiate the two so basically as you know from the book um hope is [ __ ] when I was going through seal trading a lot of people hoped that they would pull us from that cold water smell hope ain't gonna get you [ __ ] because it's

not in your hands hope is not in your hands you can't control hope man you can't it's just some hopefully this thing happens but when you get belief when you start to create belief and belief isn't like an after-school special most people think oh man like your mom and dad you know you need to believe in yourself you know Sesame Street when I was growing up and [ __ ] you know you need to believe in yourself that's not the belief I'm [ __ ] talking about it's the belief that you harness through hard work

and dedication and it's something that you know what you are capable of because you've gone there several times in those dark times so my belief why I kept on going back to Navy SEAL trading and going back to all these different things not because I hoped training would get easier it's because I believed I could [ __ ] make it through the training I put myself through I just wasn't doing and executing as I should and I knew that it was all on me so then when I put that belief into work and that hard

work came to fruition everything happened for me and for the few people let's say that may not know of David Goggins yet you know you describe your upbringing is having front row seats to a horror movie if you could briefly give the people listening some context on that so what else I was talking with that one was what some of my life in this but over a period of time like Mom this this just wasn't your [ __ ] life I was a young kid watching you go through this [ __ ] I was living

it with you and I didn't have the brain to absorb the adult life that you put my childlike brain in so I lived it even more than you lived it so I had to get my mom to a point where she'd even let me go here so what I mean by that is I watched my mom and I was able to put all of my horror to the side because when you're watching your mom go through horrific things and I was never sheltered it wasn't like my mom kept me from like my soon-to-be step dad

got murdered it was like she said oh we gotta keep this from David people tried to kill him several times before they finally killed him and we continue going to this man's house they try to kill him in the garage that you know that that they finally shot him and killed him and we were still going to the house where this man they they attempted to kill him and we're going there almost every weekend my mom just didn't give a [ __ ] you know and watching her get beat by my father and then slowly

watching her evolve into this woman who marries a guy that literally choked a woman to death and was in prison and I'm watching all this [ __ ] unfold and it was like watching a horror flick and I was front row [ __ ] I was a [ __ ] I was part of the [ __ ] director's crew I mean that's how close I was to the whole thing man it was crazy and you say that when you're living in Hell the only way to find your way out is to confront the Devil Himself

you know who was that devil for you it took several years for me to figure out who the devil was and the devil was my father the devil was my father but what I didn't put and never finished was the devil really was me so what happened was I put all this blame and trust me my father and a lot of people had to do with my upbringing on how shitty it was but like I put in that book no one's gonna come back and say hey man I apologize maybe someone does very few people

will so at the end of the [ __ ] day when all things are said and done with while my dad was the devil and I believed that for a long [ __ ] time I had to confront him and when I confronted the devil so what I thought was the devil I realized that I was the true devil I was the one holding me back I was the one looking for the escape goat and you know I was looking for all these ways to say it's okay David you're a loser you're a born loser

so it's okay and I was hoping my dad was going to give me that confirmation and he was a loser himself but then the day when I left there I realized well [ __ ] man it's on me my dad's [ __ ] up my mom's [ __ ] up the people around me are [ __ ] up they're not going to save you you gotta [ __ ] save yourself my friend so that's when all that reality hit me when I went to Buffalo to see my dad another drive home I was like man

this rest of your life is gonna suck it is going to suck not because you're going to be a loser but because you're gonna [ __ ] finally start to win and winning is not easy my friend it's interesting how you're going into never finished you think about how did the work ethic how did David Goggins develop this work ethic and enter Sergeant Jack right because if there was you know there was no Sergeant Jackson maybe no David Goggins uh if you could elaborate on how he practiced discipline in his life yeah so storm Jack

you know was my grandfather he did 37 years in the military and it wasn't like he just did 37 years in the military man this man retired from the military and he pretty much made his own military when he retired that's when he became really hardcore and he wore his uniform every day when he retired he wore that uniform every day and I didn't know anything you know I was some young kid that was tortured for my fatal you know from my father and I come in you know when my mom left my father we

moved to Brazil Indiana and my mom drives up and I'm thinking I'm gonna get some pity party from my grandparents and Sergeant Jack looked at me man like I was a brand new recruit coming off the bus man he didn't give a [ __ ] about what my dad did to me he pretty much without saying it was like look young man there's a lot of kids out there who live like you do who have gone through what you've gone through maybe not as bad but you're not the only one and my grass needs to

be cut my cars need to be clean the yard needs to be raked he taught me a lot of lessons within within the lesson of no one really gives a [ __ ] you have to continue to [ __ ] live your life or you can choose to be doomed and become a statistic like a lot of young people who fall back on their childhood when their childhood wasn't good he never said any of this though it was through his actions by not feeling sorry for me by how he worked me like a dog that

it came to me that this is what life is life is a it's a training ground and like going through Buds and running to school very few people make it through while you may live a long life it doesn't mean you [ __ ] graduated at the top of the class you just lived a long boring despicable life and that's not what I wanted to do so Sergeant Jack started me out young and I had to learn these lessons on my own through the discipline of hard work and cutting the grass and raking the leaves

and doing all these things before school and after school and he just built a mindset in me that I was like okay one day I could fall back on this but I realized that Sergeant Jack taught me something that I'm gonna have to go back to for the rest of my life and it seems like there's like a correlation between someone's level of discipline and the standards they set for themselves there's a there's a quote in the book and you say that when a half-assed job doesn't bother you it speaks volumes about the kind of

person you are and until you start feeling a sense of Pride and self-respect in the work you do no matter how small of a look these jobs might be you will continue to half-ass your life is that like Sergeant Jack inspired no that was really me inspired so like I said sorry and Jack this worth me to death and the lessons we're like Mr Miyagi like I said he he was my Mr Miyagi but we're like one day I got pissed off wax on wax off it wasn't like that [ __ ] as I was

doing this stuff I started having different feelings like I would always like half-assed my work and Sergeant jacket always saying you know what you're gonna get it you're gonna do it until it's done right so I got tired of continuously trying to get this white wall this tiny little white wall on this black tire completely done and then when I started realizing I'm wasting my time just [ __ ] get it done or I'm gonna be out here in this [ __ ] garage all day and night into the next day and night and I

said you know what then I started doing at the right time you know the first time every time Sergeant Jack never gave like hey good job he never said that but I started feeling I started knowing that I was doing good work because I wasn't doing it 20 times I was doing it once and then I started like my God this feels [ __ ] good it feels [ __ ] good to [ __ ] get a job have a task and put my all into that task and then be able to move on to

the next task because I completed that task to the fullest and the greatest of my ability and then that feeling just stuck with me and I was like okay this is what I need every day in my life I don't need someone to say good job David I don't need a [ __ ] pound in the back everything became internal I started feeling this feeling I never had before you know like I thought I was a born loser and just cleaning a tire and cleaning the car the best of your ability changed everything regular yard

and not leaving one [ __ ] Leaf not one leaf and if one would fall and I would get that one leaf it just became something that was like okay I see dirt don't pass the dirt clean the dirt it just started absorbing before you know it man it just morphed into a man that was like we got to get it done regardless and David I want to talk about this Alter Ego that it created Goggins right and I'm curious like what led to the creation of the Goggins alter ego well this disabled us was

comfortable for me was if it's easy for me you know I'm gonna do it and so when I was going through prayer Rescue Training I ran up against an obstacle that I didn't think I was gonna run up and it was the water I [ __ ] hated the water and but I tried hard to get over that and I would go to the pool and I would try and I would try but my mind wasn't strong enough David Goggins even with all the discipline I didn't have that next [ __ ] level when you're

truly committed to something not like were you like you know I want to be a doctor but when I run into this roadblock I don't want to be a doctor no I'm going to be a doctor come hell in high water I need that kind of commitment and David Goggins didn't know about that commitment I knew how to wash a car I knew how to clean a house I knew how to you know do all these manual labor jobs but when it came down to True suffering to the highest of suffering I didn't have that

next level of all right [ __ ] we have this next level David Goggins wasn't enough so I went into my mental lab and realized but I want to be great but I don't have greatness in me so I had to create a [ __ ] that was great and in my mind I'm really big on visualization and people might think it's all kind of [ __ ] believe what the [ __ ] you want I don't give a [ __ ] this is a true [ __ ] right here man I went in my

mind I said okay I want to look like this I want to feel like this and I want to have a mind that is [ __ ] cast iron steel that is [ __ ] never dull that's always [ __ ] shocked that was the biggest thing I wanted I wanted to hit obstacles that [ __ ] most people up including myself but I didn't waver I didn't fear I didn't run away I just stayed and marinated in the [ __ ] fear in the suffering and through that building Goggins I will become Goggins when

necessary and I started to do these things on my own I had my own trading ground I built the training I wasn't Navy Seals if you go to Navy SEAL training not prepared you're going to quit so I built this training ground on my own and I started doing these horrific things that David Goggins couldn't handle but Goggins started slowly coming up I started putting that visualization of the guy I wanted to create and in that water when things got hard when I was training them on Goggins would appear Goggins would appear when David guidance

would come up goggles would smack him the [ __ ] down and say no [ __ ] we're gonna drag you through this and that's kind of how it happened over a period of time this man evolved Goggins became the guy that can withstand all kind of torture and pain and keep coming after you and that's where that next step with uh Evolution became and speaking of Goggins appearing when you need him in the book you talk about the Moab 240 uh this 240 mile race in Utah and talk about this elevation gain of over

31 000 feet you're 200 miles or so into the race and I believe this was in uh in in 2020 but there was a time where I think you describe it you win in uh porta potty or something David went in Goggins came out if you could speak to that yeah man so like I said nothing's permanent nothing's permanent that's why I'm always big on you have to keep what you want to be in the front of your mind because you're going to always lose it within the suffering and suffering people always hear me say

suffering it's not just physical man there's so many forms of suffering I hear it's not even funny and most of them are not physical most of them are psychological so I'm going through this race I get to mile 200 of my second Moab and I'm doing well but I'm in extreme pain man my [ __ ] ass is raw my damn feet are broken I have six layers of tape on my is this I'm I'm jacked man I have 40 miles to go I'm having this woe is me why the [ __ ] am I

out here I'm at high elevation I can't breathe real well everything's wrong so I'm with my Pacers name is Mike and I see this porta potty of sorts and I'm like I just need to get off the [ __ ] course so I lied to Mike I'm like hey man I gotta go to the bathroom and I go in this outdoor house so that there's a bathroom in it so I went in there and I'm in there and I'm and I'm thinking I'm like God man I just wish I would fall into this [ __

] toilet you know I like like big sinkholes I suppose I fall in there man and maybe I'll break my leg or maybe something would happen where I can't finish the race and as I'm talking to myself like this out of nowhere Goggins appears in my mind he's like man are you really [ __ ] talking like this bro imagine if you were to [ __ ] be able to have people hear your dialogue right now man you came out here in 2019 and his course kicked your ass and all you wanted to do was

come back here you trained on [ __ ] up knees you put so many miles in you visualized all this you've you've run this course a million times and now you're in a [ __ ] porta potty like a little [ __ ] [ __ ] whining and crying to yourself lying to your Pacer that she got a [ __ ] so basically what happened was God has got a hold of me and knifed David Goggins and stuck them in that Porta-Potty and Goggins came out and when gargans came out with 40 miles to go

over 240 mile run it was the most epic ending of any race I can remember that last 40 miles was something that I can't even describe but what I will tell you is once again it shows you what the determined mind can do there's no David Goggins Goggins there's just David [ __ ] Goggins and that's what people don't get Man David Goggins just changed his [ __ ] mindset in that Porta-Potty my feet still hurt my back was still aching the pack was still heavy everything was the same the only thing that changed was

how I approached the situation I no longer wanted to be a victim of that race a victim in my mind I wanted to dominate with most people would refuse to dominate I wanted to dominate earn the most harsh environment and that's what happened and your Pacer Mike I mean you describe him as a fellow Savage what was his response to this he said when he saw you come out well you know he was used to me for about a period of an hour and a half two hours just being like a little punk I would

walk I would run I would kind of lean over when I came out he didn't know the David Goggins Goggins thing I hadn't talked to him about that there's a another person that lies deep with inside me so when I started running he could have believed that I started dropping my pacer think about this I'm 200 miles in no no sleep breaks [ __ ] up ankle and he knows I'm jacked up and this guy who has run I think about 60 70 miles with me at the time heals him 200 miles into this when

you start dropping a guy and he knows he's a Savage he's run several Ultra races he knows how broke a man is at 200 miles I'm throwing down seven minute miles man and I'm leaving him I know what he's thinking about because I know he's a Savage and I know what I'm trying to do to Mike I'm using Mike as the ultimate ammunition because two Savages and one Savage knows that the other Savage has gone 200 miles I'm [ __ ] with this guy now I'm using him as fuel I'm using his anger his hate

he's mad at me now he's mad at himself I'm using it this is my boy but I'm using him I'm dragging that [ __ ] I want him to be mad at me so he can bring the best out of me and that's what happens he's mad so we get down to in this [ __ ] Hill Victor sent down and he's like he gets on the phone he calls his wife he calls my [ __ ] girl Jennifer he's losing his check what the [ __ ] he's like this guy just [ __ ]

dropped me he's literally out of his mind he can't believe what he saw and then from then on man the next probably 15 miles or so before the next checkpoint the real race was gone even though it was still going on it was me and Mike and there was two guys out there barely talking just going at it and that's what I wanted and that's what Mike was thinking he never told me really what he was thinking he showed me how the [ __ ] are you able to do this and I pissed him off

and it was beautiful it's like when you when you see someone do something it means more than When someone tells you something and and I know and can't hurt me to talk about the concept of taking souls and I'm not sure you were trying to take Mike's soul in that moment but if you could describe what that concept means it's kind of like that so the basic of taking Souls is when the normal human being in the situation that you're in would be defeated and the person or people with you know that in that situation

a normal human being would be defeated in that situation and you rise above the normal human being so it makes all the people around you feel lesser there fore you own a part of their soul because in that moment and I got it from going through Navy SEAL training I watched all those Navy SEAL instructors who had gone through hell week and now they're putting me in my class through hell week I'm watching all because they all know at Wednesday we're all defeated everybody's [ __ ] up on Wednesday and it's Wednesday but I got

the information I know where you were on Wednesday and I know what you're thinking I should be at Wednesday I should be as [ __ ] up as you are I'm not going to give you that I'm going to show you what Wednesday is for me Wednesday for me is not Wednesday for you and so when I did that I saw the instructor's faces but I was strong as [ __ ] I was at our 80 90 of hell week I was like at minute one it's like how we could just started so why you

take someone's Soul because they don't know how you're able to do this at that State of Mind that state of being and that kind of code and misery but you find more when no one else can a smart human being will see that and you will Elevate them and that's what I did to my boat crew my broker was [ __ ] up but they saw my elevation so they said [ __ ] if this guy can do what one man can do another can do so they elevated themselves but as my broker elevated I

saw that everybody else was like what the [ __ ] is going on and so we used all of that ammunition all those sad long faces all of that like questioning what the [ __ ] and we used it for even more ammunition so taking Souls is when you put yourself in an environment that most people won't succeed in and you thrive in that environment now though it's interesting because I think one person could see all this and see you in action and feel inspired and then there's a whole another set of people that kind

of have the opposite effect in the sense that you know in the book you talk about sometimes people feel uncomfortable around you because they feel judged which is not true you're not judging them but really they're judging themselves tell you the truth man I was a [ __ ] up person I had a lot of problems but I'm gonna give credit where credit's due when you work as hard as I do and people don't want to believe it but they know it's true they they know it's true it's how I talk it's how I look

it's looking at in a person's eye you know it's my [ __ ] bullshitting you so you can think I'm lying all you up in the back of your mind you [ __ ] know this guy's the real deal so when I get around you I'm like a [ __ ] lie detector I'm not calling you out I'm not saying the word but the second you start to get close to me like those metal detectors you get that metal detector on the beach you find that watch in the sand that's what I am with people

man they get around me and they know what they're not doing they know how hard they're not trying and I bring out the worst in them because they know that God man they start to judge themselves without me even saying the word they start to go with their own resume of life and start realizing I'm not doing enough I haven't done enough and what that does in terms it makes them very angry at me or whoever is working hard whoever that hard working person is that they get around they're immediately not going to like you

because they know that you're working hard for everything you have and they just refuse to do that so the only thing best to do is run their [ __ ] mouth and talk [ __ ] about it people always talk about they've got naysayers and critics and the haters and so on but look you can look at any of the videos you post online just look in the comments they're all there and you talk about a strategy that you've used to actually turn this into energy the the haters mixtape what is the haters mixtape so

basically when I was younger things used to bother me hate bothers everybody people want to say it doesn't bother them but it does when someone wants to get on there and and talk about you in a way that's not truthful or just talk [ __ ] about you in whatever way you know they want to I started realizing so I I'm always about studying the mind but most of my studying it comes on studying my own mind but studying other people's minds so for the longest time I was like man why are people talking so

much [ __ ] but once I started studying the mind of the week you'll never hear me talking about somebody else you never hear a successful person talking negatively they may give criticism but as criticism to help you get better they'll never just go on and start all this [ __ ] man because we ain't got time for that [ __ ] I ain't got time to go on your Instagram or your Twitter or your Facebook or your blog or anything and run my mouth about you first of all it shows I'm not a man

I'm just a [ __ ] so I started studying these [ __ ] weak people who these trolls these [ __ ] talkers these haters I'm like man you're exactly where I was years ago so the more I studied and the more I realized man the problem's not me and this in the after school special man I'm not here to make you feel better it's just the truth you'll never meet a hater doing better than you my friend and that is the truth so what I do is I take all of that [ __ ]

and I get all the hate I get my phone and I talk into it what everybody said about me I'll talk into it so then I start having fun with it I started putting beats to it different tracks to it Eminem soundtracks whatever started putting on the loop unless before I know it man I'm like damn this just kind of [ __ ] badass who the [ __ ] gets their haters content that are talking about yourself and I listened to it and before I know it it becomes the ultimate fuel even though I'm not

listening to their [ __ ] that way it just gives me a spark on those days and I'm like I want these [ __ ] to hate me even more the haters follow you like a [ __ ] they know more about you than your mama knows about you they get all your books they get all your podcasts they get all your social media they know where you live they know where you sleep they know everything about you me knowing that I'm gonna let you know about this too my friend I'm gonna give you some

more fuel to hate on me man for you to not like yourself even more so that's that's where all that comes from well well dude I'm curious so with the first book can hurt me immediately goes to the top of the charts New York Times bestseller uh around the time I think Michelle Obama's book came out and then I don't know if you meant to do this again but you fast forward a few years later Michelle Obama comes out with a second book right around the time never finished releases and boom again once again at

the top of the charts how did life change for you between the first book and the second book just from the standpoint that David Goggins becomes a household name financially you know you're taken care of you kind of look at things in terms of like where's the motivation coming from then and I probably used the wrong word because it's probably discipline but where's the desire in that fire coming from after you know you've achieved all this success like I said in the beginning a lot of people think that I'm just some [ __ ] Warrior

some guy that does push-ups and sit-ups and runs they got it so wrong they got so wrong man like most of my true ability comes from the discipline of mind and that's where my motivation was is that most people put me in a category they didn't know the side of me that can write deep thoughtful books and give people things that can make you cry make you happy make you sad I can bring you through an emotion I can give you 10 years of life within three pages for me I grew up and I thought

I was real stupid I thought I was dumb you know I thought I couldn't read and write all these different things man so the motivation for me now is that while I do run a lot and I do do a lot of working out that's where I go to school that's my school man that's where I learned that's where the deepness of my thought comes from that's where the philosophical side of me comes from that's where all my Parables come from I speak in like Bible terms a lot of times and people don't understand man

how how deep I am so when I go up against Michelle Obama and I'm a self-published guy you know they spent over a million dollars trying to get Michelle Obama's book out there even though I didn't choose to come out with Michelle Obama both times this is by chance it was energy the world I come up with the one of the biggest women people of all time all right [ __ ] let's go you're smart brilliant woman this ain't got nothing to do with [ __ ] running swimming push-ups sit-ups it's the intellectual side that

[ __ ] started in the half that I do have that was the motivation I'm gonna go up against the best of the best in book writing and I'm gonna be better than you that was the motivation the creative mind through the suffering through the life that I thought was horrible but it was an ultimate training ground the lessons I learned didn't come from Stanford Yale or Princeton they came from the Hard Knocks of life I got a diploma in hard knocks man and so now I'm writing from the [ __ ] calloused mind I'm

not writing from the Yale and princetons and harbors and being with all these political groups and [ __ ] I'm running from Real World deep Savage deep in [ __ ] and the beauty of that when I go up against these Savage great minds these great people who are smart and the whole world knows them and just a fraction of people know me but every day Jennifer wakes up I'm looking right at them my books right by them I put no money in the marketing put no money in the [ __ ] it's just grit

hard work and the sergeant Jack disciple of discipline [ __ ] that got me there so all these [ __ ] who think they may be stupid you think they may not be able to get it done I got something to tell you can compete with the top Minds in the world if you're willing to armor and callous your [ __ ] mind and outwork them [ __ ] and dig deep where most people see four walls I see a massive empty space that deserves all kind of creativity to make it look beautiful I love

it I love it and David you talk about the importance of having the right people in the Foxhole with you how do you know who the right people are you know what that's that always happens to me a lot of years to figure out you know you're the right people in your Foxhole when you're waking up at three o'clock in the morning you're going to bed at midnight and you're waking up at three and no one says is this smart to do you need some time off you need to take a break when I start

hearing that [ __ ] while I know what I'm doing to myself I was behind the power curve man when everybody starts off in first grade I had them negative grades I started off in the [ __ ] dungeon I had to dig out of the [ __ ] damn grave to get to first grade so now you're 20 years old where everybody graduated high school and all sort of [ __ ] man I gotta make time up so while people think 24 hours is one day for me it's three four five days I gotta

make up time I'm behind I gotta go to summer schools in my mind when a [ __ ] who's with me realizes this motherfucker's got to go to summer school in his mind he's got to make up time he needs 22 hours of the 24. and they just get it he's trying to go somewhere you are the right person for my Foxhole I don't want to hear no [ __ ] about resting I can't rest right now I don't hear no [ __ ] about what I'm doing to myself I know what I'm doing myself

did you see how I came up I gotta catch up now and that's what life is about sometimes you are raised in a position where you are behind we have to make that time up I'm sorry it may be inhumane you may be unbalanced it may not look right to you I don't give a [ __ ] it's the situation that life put me in and I need people to say when I don't want to give at three in the morning I need a [ __ ] my life that see me go to bed at

12 and wakes me up at three saying you need to get this [ __ ] done that's the Foxhole I don't need critiquing I need pushing I need pulling I need anger I need passion I need to drive I need them [ __ ] man those bad days I don't need somebody in my ear saying man because then that's all a person needs is that support can go a lot of ways man it can go a lot of ways I support you in everything you do and I support you in everything you don't do I

don't want the support and everything you don't do I need to support always and things that you do do and as you say in the book you don't need to be blowing noses and wiping buttholes when you're in a firefight no sir no sir here's your weapon here's your ammo and that's your corner and that's your sector have fun if you have everything you've described I mean you you have the kind of life that it's almost like fiction would have even been stranger because you talk about that you're not like Will Smith in the pursuit

of happiness in the sense that when you know when when you hit a high point in your life there's always something around the corner right that's that's all that's potentially going to strip you down of everything and put you back to zero has that always been the case always man whenever I am I'm that one person man who's like has the flag in hand climbing Mount Everest and I am almost getting ready to stick that flag in hand in the Avalanche comes every time man and it sucks but you have to know why you're here

on Earth whether it's the truth or not and through a lot of years of living I I honestly believed I was put here to show people how to get through the dark times what mindset it takes to get through the dark times when you've almost reached the Pinnacle but you never will you never will just because the lessons aren't learned at the top of the mountain my friend the lessons are learned in the middle at the beginning never at the very top so that's why I became so knowledgeable man I never made it to the

top of the mountain and every time I almost did I had to climb back up every time I climb back up the lessons became more crystallized everything became a lot more clear to me and some of the things I missed in the first climb I got on the second climb but it doesn't mean because you're climbing the same Mountain over and over again that you're not super [ __ ] successful it doesn't mean that at all I'm super [ __ ] successful but the success came from climbing the mountain over and over and over again

and now I know the fastest route up that [ __ ] I know all the [ __ ] dangers I know all the [ __ ] trip holes I know all the [ __ ] up wiring and ropes and [ __ ] anchor points I know them all so that mountain I climb every day in as hard as it was when I was 24 25 26 I'm much more knowledgeable but I still gain a lot more knowledge from it so now I I hike up it versus climb up it now and I know throughout the

book you talk about that there's no transformation without a breakdown faced with probably a million times where you could give up and quit but nobody's looking nobody would know you don't do it but you also describe you know that it's not always the wrong move to quit in what instances would you say it would make sense for someone when they're considering giving up or retreating in some way to actually do that I always have uh a sheet in my head a piece of paper of all of the things I have to do in life and

I break that down into everything I can do in this situation it's a list of exhausting all options in that one situation you have to go through every [ __ ] scenario you have to have tried everything to succeed and then beyond that think about how you can link up these two things on the list because maybe these two things together will help me succeed so once you go through the whole list then you gotta start pairing the things up within the list and once you know in your heart and this is called the accountability

Way Beyond some accountability mirror that I've literally tried and exhausted every single option that is when you say to yourself maybe this is not for me but nobody nobody does that so you with this question the answer is Almost Never because no one has the patience to sit in the muck in the filth of life for years it takes me years to do [ __ ] not like months it takes me years so people don't have that kind of patience man they just don't so they never get to where they really want to go they

want it now and now's not the answer it's interesting we had Tim Grover on the podcast and he talks about the pain of discipline versus the pain of regret from your perspective any regrets looking back you know what I have a lot of regrets most of my regret comes from when I was younger and I didn't have I caught self I didn't have self and that means self-esteem self-awareness self-belief self-motivation self-discipline so we don't have that you attract the people in your life that that you're most like and I was most like a loser so

I attracted a lot of [ __ ] losers and when you were in that mode of life and you're not around people getting up at three four o'clock in the morning grinding saying come on [ __ ] let's go I'm not talking about the gym I thought when it comes to making money when it comes to [ __ ] anything these people who are [ __ ] just out of their mind obsessed I didn't have that I have people who are not waking up till three four o'clock in the afternoon going to bed late eating

shitty Foods had no desires had no goals had nothing and I sat there for too many years and I got involved with people like that had relationships with people like that and what happens is that becomes Who You Are so my biggest regret is not building myself fast enough to not go through the beginning of my life in the dungeon it took too long to come out of the dungeon almost too long to where there would have never been a David Goggins there is a time limit on everything my friend everything has a [ __

] expiration date there is no tomorrow some of us get granted uh tomorrow but there really is not one I was lucky and you never want to bring luck into your [ __ ] life yeah I know you talk about this early on in your life you'd read books or even magazines you were fascinated by high achieving people and I think in one of the examples you're reading like a Sports magazine found that like the only thing you had in common with like Michael Jordan was your birthday that that you didn't have the talent but

you saw they also had other skill sets they had you know they developed courage and grit and all these different things that you could perhaps harness and develop those characteristics and then I think you even talk about through the book that like man if I had the town all of you would have been in trouble you know in spite of everything that you've achieved yeah I see that right now man because I was able to achieve so much and once again people want to give me a title because it makes them feel better and that's

where a lot where my passion comes from and you can hear it now man I [ __ ] yell when I talk to people man because I go back to those moments where there was no Talent it was just try again try again try again and that sucks man it builds in Anger it builds a [ __ ] anger man when you see people just floating through life but like you're going back to Michael Jordan we're both born February 17th Jim Brown great running back February 17th I was like oh my God and as I

started getting older I realized man I can't even dunk a [ __ ] basketball I can't [ __ ] run man my my legs are all [ __ ] up I can't run a football I'm not these guys so that's when I started gravitating towards like the crawfords the people like that that are in the book just the normal everyday Joe's but they're not normal everyday jokes what these guys had was courage character commitment discipline these are things that every human being can work on on their own you don't need talent you need discipline I

say man I have that so I started gravitating more towards the the everyday person that went Way Beyond they went to that blue to black line I talked about in the book that beauty black line where you reach greatness and I started realizing that's what I can do I cannot work a [ __ ] I can outwork everybody that's what it takes I can't dunk but over here everything that I want is over here in this [ __ ] pile of [ __ ] hard work dedication sacrifice I can do that I can do that

all [ __ ] day long I can get up at three o'clock in the morning I cannot work you that's where I found greatness over there and I'm curious what's the thought process like for you right now if you were to take someone inside of your psyche at three o'clock in the morning it's freezing rain out I mean the day David Goggins today do you ever wake up and you want to do that or is just like the desires that's not even in the picture no it is I like right now it becomes harder every

day the more you get paid nicely the more you buy nicer things the more you go from sleeping on [ __ ] up cots to sleeping on [ __ ] you know mattresses that are formed to your shape of your body and heat temperature and silk sheets and all this [ __ ] man it's hard to get a bed with some silk sheets brother and that [ __ ] people up that's why I ain't got silk sheets and it's the thing about it I started going through a tie in my life rushed I become more

successful with with more success it became harder for me to be Goggins so what I started doing was I went back to the old school like I said nothing is learned at the top of a mountain I had to go back to where David guidance was fat in his mind and I said how did you get to where you are I became feelingless and what that means is I'm not saying turn off your feelings towards your family your wife your husband I'm not saying that turn your feelings off when it comes down to you wanting

to be better what that means is when that alarm clock goes off your feelings got to go away it's raining outside it's cold outside but you don't want to put those long hours in that work that's what I'm talking about your feelings must go away when you know everybody's gone home to their families but you know you want to be the top salesperson in the world or you want to be the [ __ ] best lawyer in the world where the [ __ ] it is when everybody leaves to go home and there's only one

light on in the building of 15-story building and only one office every office is [ __ ] dark there's one office with one light on and as those [ __ ] go from the club they look up every day two o'clock in the morning they see that and that [ __ ] lights always on that's the [ __ ] Right There You Gotta Be You can't have feelings about when everybody leaves oh man I wish I was going home in my [ __ ] beautiful family that is true but you got to learn to shut

your feelings off if you want to achieve greatness and greatness is only achieved when your feelings about that kind of [ __ ] and let me say that kind of [ __ ] so for those soft people who may be listening to this don't put words in my mouth I'm not talking about your [ __ ] fan and all that [ __ ] I'm talking about the grind the [ __ ] grind your feelings have to go away and when you reflect because I imagine like somebody listening to this let's just address the skeptic and

they're saying I don't know I don't know if I agree with Goggins I think that's a little bit intense that's a little too much but is it worth it though right because many of the people that are you know from a distance they're looking up at the mountain they don't see the person at the top and they never get that feeling right they never get that feeling of achievement they never get that feeling of of kind of evolution in themselves but just asking you like would you say looking back through it all has it been

worth it well I put this way man a lot of people say don't be like him like me and I get it and you say was it worth it it was worth it I'm gonna challenge these people who say that's a little too much it is which is why most of my message is for everybody when it comes down to the uncommon amongst the uncommon it is only for point zero zero zero zero zero zero one percent and these are the people who are want to be the uncommon amongst them can I talk about Grover

Michael Jordan is in that category it's those people who realize what they want and beyond all things I'm going to achieve it so if you don't want to be like me I get it but is it so bad that a person has millions of dollars in the bank is it so bad that a person has two of the top books in the world topper list of all time is it bad that the person's broke all kind of Records is it bad that a person's been the Navy SEAL Army Ranger are going to Delta Force training

going to Air Force smoke jumper is is that bad is that bad that by 40 [ __ ] seven years old you're trying to find what to do next is that so bad because you've done everything in the world because the second you thought about you did it if that's bad I don't want to see what good is so why is bad to most people because it looks exhausting and it is exhausting and that's why it's bad to most people most things that are bad to people is because they can project what the [ __

] it takes to get there and as they're [ __ ] projecting that [ __ ] they're like oh man dude you're destroying your life your health you have no family your own balance I can make up a million things but what the real thing is you projected what the [ __ ] that [ __ ] looks like and it looks like [ __ ] hell it looks like hard work it looks like suffering it looks like a dedication that people don't understand and it is that but that you know all that [ __ ]

my friend I front loaded my life front loaded everything I wanted to do I did the second I thought about it not 47 I am 100 retired and I still live like I'm not by choice most people don't have a choice I worked my ass off and now I have choices when I went to go speak to you guys I could have said no like I do to 99 of [ __ ] I don't need that [ __ ] money but guess what it was my choice most people have taken that word out of their

vocabulary they got a boss saying get the [ __ ] up come here now answer the phone now get to these emails now everybody goes to that time but I always knew David Goggins was gonna be his own boss and I am now and now I say go [ __ ] yourself I ain't doing that and David as we come to a close this being the game changing attorney podcast what does being a game changer mean to you when I hear a game changer to me to me it's exactly what we've been talking about for

the last hour Game Changer is all encompassing people look at oh my God this guy's a game changer no Game Changer is a very very big big topic it has a lot of things shoved into that you don't just show up and you're a game changer you don't show up to game changing man it's something that you have to harness some that you want to be you have to be that person that has developed a game changer mindset a person that wants to be the uncommon amongst the uncommon you are not a game changer if

what I say right now offends you scares you makes you like oh man I don't know if that's for me you're not a game changer a game changes the [ __ ] that says I've been training my entire life to take the big shot I'm not talking about [ __ ] a basketball shot man I'll talk about a person that knows their value and knows that when they come to the table it's the best in the [ __ ] world that's why now my price is so high and everything I do and everything I do

everything is high because I am a game changer not being arrogant a game changer has built that belief through hard work they know who they are and they bring the difference to the table game changes everything man but there's very few people who have that ability to do that no a lot of people can do it but very few people want to put in the discipline the hard work and the dedication to become a game changer I want to give a huge thank you to David Goggins for taking the time to speak with us today

and I want to thank you yes you for listening to this podcast and for your commitment to growing as a leader if you found this episode valuable here are three free ways that I can help you grow your Law Firm number one download the first chapter of my book absolutely free at gamechangingattorney.com number two you can shoot me a text at 404-531-7691 and I'll answer any question that you've got for me and finally number three if you can leave this podcast a five-star review it'll help us gain access to more influential thought leaders and bring

their Lessons Learned here to you for more information on our interview with David Goggins see the show notes for this episode in your podcast app or visit gamechangingattorney.com [Music]