David Goggins & The Art of Mastering Your Mindset - Art of Charm #730

[Music] so I think for most of our listeners having heard your backstory your list of accomplishments at this point seemed unreal to them right obviously going through ultra marathon running logging the miles you've logged the chin-ups everything that you've done physically right when most people hear it they're like well that's impossible is my first thought the first my first exposure to you was your interview with Joe Rogan right and I'm watching it and I'm sitting like this guy cannot be for real there's no [ __ ] way and of course I'm instantly a Wikipedian I'm

like holy [ __ ] right there's video footage okay so now I'm just gonna shut my mouth but I'm gonna listen to what this guy has to say because obviously my mind is blown out of the gate and I also wanted to start just by saying that you know that all of us in life hear things write read things and see things that instantly change our perception of things from that point on right and and we it's rare that we ever get to give thanks to those sources right so I want to thank you I

appreciate that because after that interview with broken the way I had looked at my waking up in the morning and working out and starting today instantly changed from that point forward so thank you and that mantra of whatever you don't like doing do it right love it do something you [ __ ] hate every day sure thing is is jarring for most people to hear because because most of us seek out our comfort zone hmm and for you your comfort zone with dealing with some social anxiety and introversion is to turn inward right so how

have you been able to rebuild yourself because one of the mantras we hear on your videos is I built this [ __ ] right so I take a lot of passion and who I am as a person as you here as this podcast gets going and going and going what you're going to do is you're going to transform me from this guy right now that's kind of chilled out in this room david Goggins to Goggins and i had to invent this person david Goggins is an introverted soft kid that got beat up growing up and

mindset had to lie to create friends to get friends to be accepted so my my life has really been about two people very scary but two people I had to invent a whole nother human being to get outside of my comfort zone and that human being became Goggins Goggins is like the guy that walked out of the the phone booth he's like that Superman that walks out the phone booth and I was talking to my fiancee today about it's kind of strange how sometimes I have a conversation between David Goggins and Goggins and Goggins would

tell David Goggins about the [ __ ] he's done and David gods like what the hell man why are you doing that that's nuts so it's kind of this battle between trying to find more of yourself knowing that the real you is afraid likes comfort likes living in the world that is a that likes to pat you on the back give you the things that you want to hear not the things that you have to hear to get better so that's where all this kind of started from and when people hear this podcast they're gonna

hear a lot of things that they're gonna want to put a title on me they're gonna definitely want to put a title on me to make themselves feel better I asked him during this podcast do not do that do not look at what you're going to hear put a title on me because because basically what you're doing is you're giving yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card exists all you're doing so all you're doing saying this guy was some super freak he found some super thing in his brain that was locked up he Unleashed it and became this

guy it's a [ __ ] lie because every day I wake up I dread the day I dread the day of what I'm gonna bring on myself to get better so and when did Goggins this alter-ego appear in your life for the first time Gaga's appeared and disappeared times okay it appeared the first time in I was 17 and we'll get to that but it really appeared when I gained about a hundred and twenty-five pounds I went from 175 to 300 pounds almost and lowest part of my life I was in a [ __ ]

up relationship I was making no money I'm spraying for cockroaches and all this stuff was just coming on me and I was like I have to find something and I Goggins came out like through all my insecurities all my fears all my doubts on my introverted ways I used to stutter real bad everything I did I had to find strength in that and that's kind of what happened about 24 years old okay and the story if I recall correctly is walking in to try to become a Navy SEAL into a recruiters office and basically getting

left out of the office it happened about seven times okay so I give people like the quick version the quick version I give them one episode this is about two weeks and in my book I go through it you know I was sitting on the couch saw this show in Discovery Channel and that started the process of I think I want to be a Navy SEAL so I started called up different Cooter's walking into some some guy said to me you're fat and you're black he was an observant [ __ ] no black guy walking

he's very observant so that kind of went on for a while and until I met one recruiter and one recruiter saw something in me that no one else saw and gave me a shot and gave me a shot and a challenge right I come back lose the weight right so basically I walked in I had about three months a little less than three months to lose 106 pounds so I was like this is [ __ ] impossible man I can't do that and at that time I had no real drive to be a Navy SEAL

to be anything I just knew something had to change that I had to that this isn't gonna work man that this lifestyle that I'm living something has changed so I went to work that day and I spraying for cockroaches and lo and behold is a very bad day at work I found a whole bunch of cockroaches road there's a bad restaurant and I came home I quit my job that day I was driving home and I said guys I gotta [ __ ] do something and I said I'm gonna go home and run four miles

in four miles only a quarter-mile and then from there the story really begins from that point and I feel like that's such a crossroad in everyone's life where someone tells you you can't you're not good enough don't even try give up right and when you're staring that self-doubt and wanting to quit in the face can you at least speak to the listeners who are feeling that right now what would you say to yourself at that point well I understand it it's a miserable place I can like now them go in there now you have me

I'm living on that couch right now with that milkshake in my hand thinking about how the [ __ ] am I gonna pull this off I feel like that moment is relatable to everyone right and a lot of us have multiple moments like that in our lives and most of us choose the easier route quit and we'll talk a little bit more about this you know some of us get coaches and mentors and trainers to kind of help us push through that right you're sitting there on the couch it's you right there's no one there's

no seal yelling in your hair saying get the [ __ ] up we got to do this and the other thing and we were talking about this on the way over is we're living in this world where you don't want to upset anybody you don't want to tell them though you don't want to tell them they're not good enough you don't want to hurt them and then cuz they might feel bad right and it's we already have that feeling within us and if you stop that out what is going to drive you to get to

get better well that's what I realized for myself was I wanted that comfort zone everybody looks for that pad in the back they don't want to hear all the bad [ __ ] they want everything that they're doing right and I realized ask me what kept me in this world that's what kept me in this world I've not accomplishing anything so what I did was I became that big bad nasty [ __ ] that you don't want to walk into at nighttime I became the roughest critic in the world myself and that's what changed me

I literally saw myself in the mirror I saw the truth versus saying you know my dad did this to me from you know from beating me kids in school from call me [ __ ] did this to me my life do this to me my [ __ ] up broken foundation to this to me I took that and said you know what well some people may help this happen but now I have to own this no one's gonna come back to save me no one's gonna come back on this [ __ ] couch and say

hey it's okay you're gonna be okay no I'm not I'm not gonna be okay I didn't realize I had to take a stand to make a real stand and it was painful to look at who I like who I was what the world and myself created it created a very lonely depressed insecure man that would do anything just to have a friend and I saw that as very pathetic when you look at the truth it becomes very ugly and pathetic so so you lose the weight you show back up at the recruiters office right he's

got to be surprised oh hell what would happen was in the real story how that happens is I would call this guy up at almost every night about 10:30 11 o'clock at night and give him an update Wow I said hey man I've lost 25 [ __ ] pounds because no one knew what I was doing you know I had to I had to have some so I'm really good at creating an enemy I'm really good at at creating something that I'm against and I'm also good at if you ever tell me something that I

cannot do I'm gonna let you know that I'm doing it somehow somehow you're gonna [ __ ] know one way or another that I'm doing it it may not be like in your face it may I may make sure that I run across the daggone world so then it's on the news and you turn the news on so how the hell I want to do something that you know I'm here I'm here so every every time I lose like a big significant amount of weight I call that recruiter up say hey man I'm here I'm

here and before I knew it man this guy became almost like my best friend at that time because he started seeing I started actually changed in his life you know I started to see though he started seeing Wow man like I'm glad I took a shot on this guy right and I not only that lose weight I had to go back and take the ASVAB test again was like a watered down SAT a couple more times just to get in the navy seal so it was a big process so that so that three months was

packed full of like failures depression even more but what I found out in that whole three months I lived a lifetime in that three months I started realizing if I can flip if I can flip these insecurities upside down if I can flip this fear if I can flip all this [ __ ] that made me this depressed insecure guy if I can flip it and make it work for me versus against me I started seeing the power the power and failure the power and insecurities the power and self-doubt because I looked at everybody it

may not be true but as I looked at everybody being way above me now talk to myself if I can be at the lowest part in the world in the sewer and be able to overcome all this [ __ ] I started using that as power that slowly started passing the guys from Harvard the guys from MIT the guys who were these great from great families and [ __ ] I'm like oh my god I'm catching up I'm catching up I had nothing so I started flipping it and using this power and I feel like

we've definitely interviewed a lot of successful people and almost all of them have this chip on their shoulder right that they developed from that bully in school that one moment that one criticism that says you can't here you are doing all this just to sign up for then hell week right right which is one of the most difficult weeks on the planet to begin with right and you had to go through all of this and obviously whenever you're training there are good days and bad dates right hey Johnny and I were laughing about this obviously

half marathon nowhere near ultramarathon but you're tracking right you're looking at your time you're looking at your splits you're trying to do better and some days you just don't have it and I feel like in those moments where you don't have it you know you don't have it how do you flip that switch to get that extra ounce of energy because once I know that pilot light is lit and that water is boiling well then you feel like you can take on everything right but a lot of us are feeling our pilot light flicker and

that self-doubt creep back in even though we're challenging ourselves well there's something that I invented a long time ago and when you have nothing to draw from I was able to find strength in every molecule of this earth I'm able to be in a room with nothing and with no motivation no inspiration nothing and find it so what I did in those situation was I invent this thing called taking Souls when everybody's all [ __ ] up and you're exhausted and you're weak and you're tired and you're looking around and everybody looks as bad as

you or even worse I'm like you know what I want to now make a statement it's the perfect time to make a statement to make a statement to let you know where your life ends in mine begins and so the statement there is I muster up every bit of strength from their looks on their faces and how they feel and how I'm gonna now from my childhood where I came from how's the bottom of the barrel I'm now amongst all these uncommon people I'm now going to now make you feel like your common so I

used their their sadness their weakness their parts of their life oh god this sucks I'm like all poopy pants too messed up I used that for my strength and I have this moment of like let's say we're in the sand running or whatever I will do a surge I will do something everybody's like how the [ __ ] is he doing this and from that that look on their face that feeling of God man this guy must be something something special it didn't services me further and further and faster and harder for a long time

so it's energies everywhere but the thing is it's so loud that that that voice in your head of pain and suffering and discomfort and I don't want to do this is so loud that you're unable to really calm it down it's okay there's something here it's a patient calm that you have to bring your substitute I know I have something here but that voice is so powerful that it's once you just let's leave right we're done we're done it's passes you out and you want to go versus saying let's take a second hang on before

we spaz the [ __ ] out hang on and in that moment you can think clearly and find that strength out there for you you know it's when you when you look at the history of the world and you see a lot of hardship that a lot of human beings had been put in and a lot of times against their will say that a gulag or a prison camp or something like this and you hear the stories of things that they had to do in the middle of winter it's it's 20 below and they're out

building something and they barely have any clothes and they have holes in their shoes and you think to yourself how are they even surviving in those situations and I think it's the old adage of if there's why you will figure out how and so it's these times that we see what the human spirit is actually made of but when you're able to flip that around and use something like that to build you up rather than somebody putting you into something like that to break you down I mean it it's how powerful is is that right

and I don't think anyone gets to truly experience those limits unless well that's certainly in today's day unless you're putting yourself in it to get stronger right well I know one thing and this is a true statement that I've said several times a lot of us don't know of a whole nother world that exists it's on the other side of suffering once you break these barriers that you have made for yourself like the mind is the most powerful thing in the world in the world it is so amazing that ice to be a 300-pound guy

and I thought that was it could barely read could do anything and now that what was inside that person was this guy that's in front of the day that's how scary the mind is and that's I started realizing through this journey is that once I got a taste of wow man I haven't even cracked I haven't even begun to crack what the mind is capable of and I started realizing this on the other end of suffering that's the real growth of life because you realize how the mind processes [ __ ] and I talk about

another thing called theory and practice a lot of people are theorists they these smart guys that read these [ __ ] books and [ __ ] man and they sit down they tell you what the mind is supposed to do and a lot of us listen to that [ __ ] it becomes like this is it man this this old man who has been studying the mind forever this is the cap that we have by being a practitioner I went out and realized a lot of these guys are so wrong man the mind has capabilities

that are so unknown I found that through suffering and there's a whole nother world on the other end of that and I feel like there's the physical governor that your body kicks in and says I can't do this and then there's the mental governor right and a lot of us allow the mental governor to kick in far earlier than necessary right and I've always found that at the moment that that kicks in and you push the other side of it hmm you actually get this surge of physical energy sort of feeling that capable of anything

that's superhuman power but most of us try to avoid even getting close to the governor right I called that my 40% rule where like a car has a governor on it didn't go 130 you know the governor's on there go 91 right and the whole thing about that it's a truth table but you know like like what you said our mind wants to protect us the mind is like honestly it has a tactical advantage over us it knows our deepest darkest fears or insecurities it knows where we start to feel we start getting that doubt

creeping that says hey man you know what man maybe this isn't good let's go back home to the wife it's good I come to the kids this is not comfortable so in that moment the mind directs us it's a protective mechanism it saves us for doing bodily harm or or it really saves us from discovering that demise like I want to be in charge of you I don't want you to be in charge of me so it tells you let's just stop right here but once you start breaking through that barrier and start breaking down

that governor the governor that you've put in your mind because we forget we are in control of our mind we believe it's the other way around no we put in our minds what we should do but we believe our mind is telling us this give us all this feedback we have to reprogram it and tell us no no we're good we're good we got it this sucks but it's okay and I think one of the remarkable things about the transformation in the beginning was you know here after completing over 60 ultramarathons you it seems like

you're genetically gifted miles are no problem but at the start getting just over a mile was a struggle yeah and quit was at the forefront of your mind the entire time so for our listeners who are like man I can't run that I can't do this physical stuff like that's great mental toughness but I I'm not even meant for the physical side of things talk a little bit to us about that mile marker one mile marker to two now looking for unlimited miles right well the first big thing is once again it goes back to

open mindedness if you walk into any kind of event whether it be physical or mental if you walk in with already putting that block on your mind if man this ain't gonna happen people go how did you gonna hurt 35 miles to death badness so how'd you 100 miles with no training because I went into it not thinking I can't do this man I went to it with the strategy I had open mindedness so until your mind is open to the possibilities that I can do this you would never be able to do it once

the mind starts to believe it can be achieved it then only then that it starts to break down tactically how we can do this until then you can always lose one of the things that we keep hearing recurring and something that we've practiced and we've talked about in our classrooms and on the show a lot is the most successful people are have a very good relationship with the worst parts of themselves where they can have that conversation and they're not hiding from that person they're gonna work with that person or to get around that person

to get that person out of the way rather than pretending that it doesn't exist and something else to this is I would think at least I know from my own experience there's always these rationalizations to get you to quit right so we have first your going out there it's the quarter mile that's failure then we're getting to a mile and we're getting there's got to be another conversation with that the other side of you that says listen you went from a 300-pound guy to doing this we're good we showed a lot of people and what

there's another conversation of we ain't even begun to finish up what we're doing here right and and how many of those conversations it's like on a daily basis do you have to cast that person aside let's look out you you're done here you've done enough damage it's mine it's my turn well it's funny how you say that because it is a true thing I have so many conversations in my mind because so many times I want to quit but this is what it is this is why I figured out I was so afraid of myself

that I had to figure out I became a master of my mind people when you're afraid of something you have to master it that's how you start to overcome it so what I realized when I get to that point where I want to quit everybody they get the point where they want to quit this is what happens the mind tells you let's go home let's take a warm shower let's get some food this is not right this is that if you cannot answer the questions at that moment because your minds gonna start giving you all

these questions all these questions and if you can't answer them you're going to quit what I realized I was going through buds Ranger School all this hundred mile race towards at my races pull-up records my mind would come creeping in like I was doing 4030 pups that mm pull of us in my hands are ripped open my mind said look brother we've done all these other things you've proven yourself you're good if I didn't have the answer to respond to my mind and say why I'm here why I'm doing this you will always lose that

fight you have to have the response to what your mind is going to tell you another thing about that is self-talk a lot of people have like these big for on mental toughness all that [ __ ] is crap about self-talk visualization it's true but the thing about self talking all these things they asked me what do you think about when you're on mile 100 of a tours and five mile run what are you thinking about when you realize you've run for 24 hours and you have 24 more hours to run and yet another 105

miles what goes through your mind what do you say to yourself I want to know a lot of people think self-talk works it does but doesn't work without the suffering before your mind starts saying we need self-talk so what I tell myself is I go back to the months and years of preparation to get to that day and I'm telling myself the 3:30 in the morning and I'm looking at my shoes and I want to go out there and run 30 miles I have to in that second in that moment of this self-talk my myosin

you got to find more you gotta find more I once again calmed down go back into my mind and my cookie jar I call it and I had to reflect back on the [ __ ] I did to get here and that becomes my self-talk self-talk does not work unless it is real most of us lie to ourselves in this substance doesn't work it has to be real has to be something that you've done to make it really work now obviously gaining that much weight doesn't happen overnight right bad habits had to form around eating

your interactions with food obviously your lack of exercise right how did you start to break those old habits so that you didn't revert back to yourself on the couch right well it's easy to set a challenge oh and reach this goal I want to get through hell week most of us even with diet and exercise can start get to a point and then we tend to revert back to those old habits right the reason why we go back to old habits is because our goals are too lofty we're not achieving our goals fast enough so

what happens is you know what man we're very impatient nowadays for me it was good I have a phone I was I was I was out of this world by myself it was a race against David Goggins it wouldn't race against God I'm gonna look good for this person or that person it was me I got to change myself so for me if I lost five pounds in the week I got a feeling I allowed myself to feel proud of that I didn't look I got lose a hundred and six pounds I'm like man I

went from 297 now I'm 292 in one week man I'm killing it we don't we're not proud of ourselves for the small accomplishments what we need is we need this monstrosity of the thing to happen say I did it now there's a process that you have to go through and patience is the process and if we don't have patience after a week I haven't lost 30 pounds when I'm done I'm over it so that's why I found out with people man they're not patient enough to realize and to enjoy the moment not living it just

enjoy it there's no finish line in life but enjoy that moment Roger that man lost five let me go ten next week so that's the whole thing about it that's how people lose it okay you know something you said there where you said that you were in this race with yourself and that you didn't have a phony you weren't connected to anything else and you didn't have anything to deal with except that other person staring back at you and talking [ __ ] and it was you went to war against that person right and I

was we were just talking about this and about how important is an order for you to find yourself we've absolutely there's certainly about suffering or pushing limits that was one aspect of it but also a detachment from all these other influences that are not that keep you from dealing with yourself now obviously we're living in this world today with with all this technology that supposedly keeps us connected but also sort of keeps us separated as well it's a it's a crazy place and mmm how are you gonna build a relationship with yourself over completely distracted

all the time you know what being except is one thing that killed me and you have to learn what do you want in your life we have so much influence coming at us that we are so lost we all know what we want to do because we don't spend enough time with ourselves you have to learn to shut off a phone shut off a computer shut off a TV and it's okay to sit in the room by yourself in a chair and just think about you where I want to be where do I see myself

tomorrow the next year the next year from that and it takes a lot of self-discipline to be able to do that nowadays because you want to be so it so attached to everything you want to be so caught up with the world the world is moving too fast the rule is moving so fast that you're trying to keep up to the point where you lose yourself in the world so you have to take that time and go to that dark place in your mind and discover who you are was there a time in your past

where you realize that you've overcome your old self and really truly felt transformed or do you feel like it's an endless process that you're still building towards it's in this process in this process all that [ __ ] that I went through in my life to get here today it is tattooed it is tattooed in my brain every day I wake up I am constantly battling that person that is like man you know back in the day this happened to you man you know like you got called [ __ ] so many times and your

dad beat the [ __ ] out of you man and you know you couldn't read in this dad going Junior you're all these things start to creep up even now where you're at today every day you to constantly battle it's not as bad as it used to be by any means but that person is still there if that person always lives and that's the that's the point about you have to continue to always challenge yourself every day and celebrating those small wins along the way right those small incremental steps also are that fuel yeah you

have the suffering you have the past that you're running from and you have these small moments where hey I went 1.3 miles today all right two days ago I was sitting on the couch and not even putting on shoes to go out all right what are those small victories for you today sitting the other side here right because now the feats of strength and physical are just incredible they're literally the listeners are gonna be going on YouTube watching this to see it for themselves well now there are really no small victories now for me because

what happens is once you transform yourself and even though I'm still I'm not running from myself I'm constantly facing myself I'm costly battling myself I'm not running from them anymore I used to but now I'm constant battle in them so now what happens is once you get to port in your life when you're able to be on a podcast to be on a TV show and tell everybody how [ __ ] up you are I will answer any question you want about me anything I did anything bad good ugly I will tell you when you

get to that point in your life that's where your real journey begins and you no longer have to have a small victory to keep you going you now realize what your purpose in life is and you realize all this shit's just part of it but at first you need all these different tactics to keep you going because you haven't figured it out yet once you figure out that you're in a race amongst billions of people that live in this world you're in a race by yourself you have a purpose and it's your purpose now that

rebelliousness purpose it is your purpose and only your purpose and it's your race so then you're like hey ma'am I'm doing my thing I'm doing the best of my ability what's next there's no longer these small increments to get through life because once you figure out why you're here it just becomes a process you know it goes with something I AJ and I were talking about this earlier and it was that someone there was a video of you getting the award from the VFW was it and obviously it choked me up I'm sure check a

JEP and there was something that you said in there that was that I I just I loved and I just I just don't we don't see enough of it anymore and what it was was that there's a paraphrase it a lot of people who live in this world who don't know what what they're doing in life what's going on their ass their elbow and they get and they got nothing and and they're confused right and they don't know what it's about and but it's about doing it for the guy next to them right and with

so much of all this other influence it just seems that people are their values aren't being held up to any sort of standards right and so now they're become wishy-washy on on even what they stand for as people well of course we have anxiety going through the roof and suicides going through the roof because if you don't have any sort of foundation to stand on then of course you're gonna be sitting through anxiety and something as simple as do it for the man next to you do it for mankind do it for humankind right it's

a fantastic I mean would you be able to speak a bit about that yeah that was a moment for me the DFW where I got the Americanism award and what you saw there for me it shocked me also I got a I got choked up teared up I was trying to thank my mom and what happened was all this stuff that you all have heard about my life growing up it's at the surface that's that's just real you know and at that moment it flashed through my head about the journey I had to go through

to get to that point to do that and along that journey I feel you know I figured out myself and the biggest trophy ever get in my entire life like I turned on a book deal which we'll talk about soon the biggest trophy that I ever got in my entire life was me was really figuring out me and when I was up on that stage I realized that I realized this it's not about money it's not about Fame it's not about being accepted by your peers and everybody else it's about figuring out who I am

and being happy with who the [ __ ] I am even though I'm going to be judged for all these things but you know put a middle finger up to everybody and say this is David Goggins and to get to that point it felt great and that was all about honestly we have to give back we have to be able to go through our journeys in life figure out who we are and help the person beside you figure that [ __ ] out figure out how they can do that themselves well let's go get into

that a bit so I believe you're my age 44 43 43 all the all the records of everything that you've been through and all the physical feats and now we're on a new chapter of the book of course you're you're now you know you can probably say that you're the new it guy on the internet everyone what's the we were thrilled when you wanted to come on the show and everyone wants some of your time right and everyone wants to get something from you perhaps a little bit of you can rub off on us that

sort of thing and and with with good reason and so we're we're in this new this new world and these new feet these new peeps for yourself say if you'd like to to talk about what brought you to write the book and to go in this direction now at this time well as you know I'm a serious introvert and very afraid of people I got judged so much growing up that this is uncomfortable for me all these podcast you know that's why I post once a week yeah I don't you know people are ugly people

are nasty they make me want to choke the [ __ ] out of him and they're just nasty people so I stay away from them but the one thing I realized why I wrote the book is honestly I have a story to tell as we all have a story to tell and what I realized on my journey was a lot of us don't believe that we can achieve the impossible and along my journey I started realizing man I gotta [ __ ] tell some people about this [ __ ] man like I discover something that

some people have but they don't even [ __ ] know all of us have it but along this way I wasn't like I said I wasn't a theorist I became a practitioner and I was like my god I'm busting down so many barriers of like I've a learning disability okay but I'm catching up with everybody I heard that out I figured out all these negative things in my life that were keeping me in this whole like I gotta tell people man that hang on a second man you can [ __ ] achieve the absolute impossible

you don't need great parents you don't need like a private school you don't need to have this humongous GPA and all the third [ __ ] what you need is the one thing I talked on my book what's your straight up brutal work ethic you have to be willing to outwork everybody in the world and that that that's the hard part that's the hard part this isn't like some five step process where you can do these five [ __ ] steps you're gonna end up with this magical world now I'm basically teaching you how to

callus over your victims mentality I'm teaching you how to like I did sixty seven thousand pull-ups and training for the pull-up record I was seriously calloused in my hands to protect them what I'm trying to do with people teach them how to find more themselves to where they empower themselves I'm all about the underdog so that's all that so that's what the books all about masks all about having that step process and I had to share this with people well I also feel and personally struggling with social anxiety and introversion myself the hardest part of

all of it is being vulnerable enough to admit the abuse submit the past most of us don't want other people to know that that's right hardest part to open up and be that vulnerable right when did that start to bubble to the surface for you and you start to see vulnerability as a strength well worse doesn't make me I had to stop giving a [ __ ] about people that was the biggest thing I had to stop caring what people thought about me I realized that everybody's [ __ ] up that's the one thing I

realized I walked around I put these people on a [ __ ] pedestal everybody was better than me so I can't tell you anything about me cuz you're gonna judge me and I feel even worse than what I am what I realized once I calm my mind down and sat back and looked at how jacked up this world is once you realize that you are not alone everybody that's talking to you about how jacked up you are only thing they've done better than you is they've hidden their fucked-up world better than you have that's all

they've done so once I realized that if you want to sit back it's like for instance there's all these things they're on TV and we have all these news people judging people who [ __ ] up in life yeah they made big mistakes but that person who was judging you on TV I guaran-damn-tee you that that news person is am glad that my [ __ ] didn't come out Butler just a hell out of you I know that about people so if you want to sit back and judge how jacked up I was and I

messed up my wife was Merry Christmas go for it have a good time but I'm smiling at you right now knowing you have a secret that you're not willing to share it gives you a lot of power when you're able to go on a podcast that's big and say hey tell me I'll tell you anything you want to know kind no longer care and that is a lot of power in that to be able to put your life on a billboard for the whole world to see and say judge it man judge it like just

me talking about it makes me feel good and yes and that's another thing about it when you are willing to talk about how jacked up you are this strength that big rock that you carry it just starts to come off here it just starts to come off that's why I do a so often like hey man I'll tell you need anyone no I'm tired of being afraid I'm tired of not telling you [ __ ] out of line about how good I'm not you know and in prepping for this interview I was hanging out with

my girlfriend Amy listening to part of the Joe Rogan episode and what was so remarkable to both of us is most people who get into the motivational coaching space they just want to celebrate their victories and show how awesome and amazing they are and paint themselves as the best right and you unabashedly admit that you're not the best long-distance runner no I'm not the best guy at pull-ups but I'm gonna push myself beyond what I deem is the best right and through that process come out the other side and earn everyone's respect the motivation when

people are losing all these people who come out here and talk about how great they are and I see it all time makes me sick man get real with yourself people can not relate to you man you are un-fuckin'-believable when you come out here and say hey man I'm the baddest [ __ ] to ever live okay great well I what am I gonna learn from you you learn from people who are willing to tell you this is where I started from this is how much I fell on my [ __ ] ass this is

how bad I used to really be I still have those moments because why you're human we're all jacked up man we're all jacked up and that's what makes my story relatable I'm willing to let you in to see I'm decently successful now but I didn't come out like this man I didn't come out that's the story is you have to give people just a little bit of hope there's no hope when they see greatness in you everywhere you have to be able to get yourself down to a level of check it out man there's hope

for you that's what I'm trying to give you just a little bit and obviously the the pain you went through the suffering and these feats of physical strength this idea that the body can always heal and the mind can always heal these calluses can be built so whether it's 200 plus miles whether it's your hands or dog meat from doing the pull-ups your hands are healed that's right your mind is healed right and we have this ability inside of us most of us go through life never even scratching the surface of it right what was

the physical healing process like after that first real physical bout for you where you went through whether it was hell week I don't know what on the scale of what you've done to this point going through the list well I thought it was my third hell week that went through when I got through with that first hundred mile race that I did around that one-mile tract I didn't prepare for and I was considerably it was horrible and I'll never forget I found such peace and beauty and I got there I was in the worst pain

in my [ __ ] life and I got done and my wife pulled the car up on the my ex-wife pulled the car up on this little lawn and I got in the back of it and I got the stairs I'm not gonna go through the whole story but I remember laying in the tub and she put the shower on me and I ran a hundred and one miles in like nineteen hours and I was like peeing dirt out of me and I'm sitting there and I'm jackhammering and my body is just the most broken

has ever been even to this day and this feeling came over me call it crazy if you want but very few people I guarantee ever felt this before to push themselves so far outside of what they thought was even possible even for me I laid in that tub and I didn't want it to go away I had drained myself of every bit of strength energy I had and it was the best feeling ahead of my life all that pain it was it was confirmation it was confirmation that I had gone through a crucible and I

have figured out another level of David Goggins a level that I thought was humanly impossible for anybody to do when I was at Mile 70 and [ __ ] and pissed all over myself and had 30 more miles to go and I was damn near dead and I was able to go 31 more miles in that process of the next 31 more miles I found out more about myself in that 31 miles than ever had in my entire life the conversations the mental blocks the roadblocks everything horrible it was just feeding at me like Lightspeed

get the [ __ ] out of here man like I was able to figure out different tactics when I finally got done with that and elating that tub and it was over the feeling of my god man you just really discovered a whole new world a whole new part of the brain that guarantee very few people have so it's a it's a feeling I can't even describe and with the success of Jesse's book living with the seal obviously Fame came knocking at your door everyone wanted your story publishers came to you okay when can we

write your book you chose a different path to self-publish well on that I'm that thing right there was it didn't do much for me so the book living to seal my name wasn't in it and I didn't even know really I knew is being written by had nothing to do the book right so all that came to me much later but yeah but yeah but that's how you appeared on the map once I figured out that you were the seal and people wanted to hear your story obviously everything you do is well thought-out right there's

a plan in place there's a strategy behind it you've now chose the path to self publish this book we got a copy of the manuscript we've been digging in enjoying the backstory that we haven't heard on some of these other shows because everyone wants to talk about the physical side of things right what made you decide to go that route and sharing your story well I sat back and I had the top five people come at me top five publishing houses it was down to the last two and they're offering $300,000 I'm a first-time you

know first-time author and I decided to go with one of them and $300,000 for a guy at me I'm Sinbad you know that's pretty good money so a few days before I was gonna sign the contract I sat back talk to my fiance my family and everybody's like you know hey you know this is good this is great whatever but I started thinking about my life I started thinking about everything that I've gone through my life everything I had gone through and had a chance to reflect and that's one thing I never did in my

life long enough is have time to reflect I was always what's next what's next what's next what's next what's next now that I'm retired and you have a lot of time to look back on what you've done where you started where you're at now and I said you know what it's just not for sale $300,000 isn't even a fraction of enough money to sell this so I decided not to sign it and I saw published I pissed a lot of people off and I said I'm not signing this I'm going to self-published and that's kind

of how it came to be I took that time to reflect and I'd rather not make a [ __ ] dime I wrote this book and that's honest to God's truth I am fine with the trophy I have in my mind and who is this book for who listening is going to be the most impacted by this book I'm all about it's not about the underdog so much I think we're all an underdog I think I think the top CEO on the planet earth still has that doubt yeah I don't give a [ __ ]

where you're from Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan the best on the planet we're all underdogs whether you're underdog because you put yourself there to be hungry or yes a real-life underdog we're all an underdog and so this this is about the mind and people discovering the mind their own mind and one thing I know is we all have an equation we all have an equation like you know I'll talk about three point you know three point one four is PI there's different equations to figure out different kind of you know mathematical problems we as human beings

are mathematical problems I cannot give you a book for every [ __ ] body in this world that's what my book even though it's one book is tailored to the individual it's not like you do these five steps you're good no I'm helping you figure out your [ __ ] equation because it's different microwaves difference between your equation what to make you tick what's gonna make you go the distance what's gonna make you go to a spot in hell and say I love this spot it's okay that's what this book does it helps you figure

out your 3.14 helps you figure out your [ __ ] mathematical equation to say oh because once you figure out the equation any math problem you no longer fail man you got it figured out so in going coming out here would you have a big publicity run right at the books coming out you got a bunch of podcasts that to go on thank you for coming on ours with that comes a lot of new things sir it's for such a no-nonsense guy to have to deal with the social media now and I have was having

a vision of of you having to deal with it I didn't we talk about its detrimental and how its it is just nonsense and noise but of course do you want to reach as many people as you can with this book and everything that's going on so I was kind of curious of dealing with social media I know that you're on it we were talking about this earlier do you have a discipline it's like okay well for two hours every night I guess I cannot deal with this stupid thing and talk to these people who

have reached out or what is your approach to that well my approach is every Monday okay you're gonna get one post from me a week and I take about maybe an hour to hour and a half after so I'll post it I'll do it and then I get away from it I'm gone here's your post and I make sure that every single post is not about me so this [ __ ] ain't about me man I'm about you figuring out you some people take it personal something get you little butt hurt this is about you

figuring out your self-talk has to change the most important conversation you ever have is the one you have with your [ __ ] self you walk around with it all day you act on it pretty soon good or bad I want you to change who you are so let you look at it after about an hour - I'll come back and start answering a few of these you know questions no sleepin say hey how you do this how you do that maybe an hour and a half two hours I'll answer it and I'm done I'm

off because why I'm still I'm still chipping away at David Goggins every single day if I spend so much time being occupied by that I cannot chip away at what's important what's important I'm still figuring out this you know different things yeah I got the equation figured out but what but now the real journey has begun so I'm still chipping away at life still chipping away at life a giant I have started to really throw ourselves into the training for the race and and really pushing ourselves physically for a large chunk of my life the

physical was not that important right was average at everything not really concerned about hitting the gym certainly didn't care about what other people thought about the way that I looked physically because I was average I've now come out the other side and we talk about this all the time you know that at Dorf and rush after completing the run that feeling you get after crushing your PR in the gym right pushing yourself beyond that mental governor that we all have what are your thoughts on people who are unsure about their own physical strength do you

feel that everyone should push themselves physically and that's a really important part of making you who you were I think pushing yourself physically is the number one factor of life that is the true spot where you can really dive deep into life's about self-discipline it is about self-discipline we tend to do the things that are easy and that is the it builds no mental toughness if there's no mental hardening it builds nothing when you work out working out is where you can build that to fastest because it's a constant it gives you instant feedback it's

it yeah you may not lose the weight you want to real fast but the discipline it takes it transfers over to all aspects of your life it's not people man why are you always working out don't stop stop looking at that way this is the foundation of life when you look in the mirror every morning we all look in the mirror to get ready to go to work to go anywhere the first thing you see is your flexion if you like what you see in the morning you lost the war already it's not even liking

what you see it's about looking in mirror and you may start man I feel different that reflection maybe that that reflex is not everything it's a feeling you're supposed to get so you have to in life once you leave your house the war begins in your house you have some control and that reflects in that mirror you have to control that reflection in the mirror that's how you start your day leave your house feeling like okay I can fight I've established the mentality to fight and that all that comes from working out it's not just

from you know you can't find that in the office and what we've discovered and chatted about on the show with a lot of our guests is morning and nighttime rituals to prepare yourself mentally for the day for that war outside the door right obviously you're controlling your environment in the morning and same with night I think especially when it comes to feats of strength and physical ability you got to recharge you gotta recover right so how you wind down at night and getting a full night's rest scientifically is proven to change everything physically mentally emotionally

what are those habits you've built up around your morning and nighttime routine well my morning routine is every day I get up and run every single day because why I hate that the most so that is we share that feeling yes back to mo so you have to do something that sucks every day because why once you overcome to suck oh now you're powerful you've overcome yourself already so now you're ready to battle I go to the gym about four times a week but my biggest thing I do is my nighttime routine I stretch out

anywhere from two to four hours every night for the last five but it used to be a lot longer than that and I talked about in my book why I started doing this thing but I had through my whole life as you see I was using my fight-or-flight muscle I was under severe stress as a child growing up my job whatever a lot of stress just sitting down right now raw using our soul as muscle you hit flexor muscle and I'll give you a two second on that that muscle attached to your t12 and about

five or six years ago I got really really sick doctors giving me all kind of hormones take this take this take this and it's in the book real good so I won't go deep into it now but lay back and I literally said you know I'm dying the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with me my blood tests were coming back fine I just said my I can't even run a block I read from a 205 miles that came around a block I'm in my bed sitting there and I started realizing how these humongous knots

all my hip flexors and back in my head and I said I'm just done so I started slowly stretching out I couldn't do anything over a period of a couple of years I got off this medication that medication I was on like 50 I was on several medication I'm on one and honestly I would I believe no doctors have said this is what happened to you I was literally so tight I was cutting off blood supply in different places in my organs the more opened up my body so now I went from running eight thirty

mile on a training run to now running a 7:15 and seven-minute mile on a training run at the same heart rate and it's not because I'm training any different it's just because my body my body's opened up its lot more blood flow so every night I stretch out and it's truly nice to be wound so [ __ ] tight like I couldn't sit in this chair for this long I'm like I could get out of here man people here I go it's totally changed my whole perspective of life it's changed everything so stretching out yoga

all those things has put me in a whole different state of mind its healthiest I've been in my entire life merely and physically now your lovely fiance's in the room yes how does this relationship balance work when you have such lofty goals for yourself physical challenges you want to chip away at David Goggins every day how do you two work together so that she can reach her personal goals but then also as a couple you guys can recharge well the best thing you got to find someone that is just like you she has the same

kind of ambition that I have so but we're all about is where do you want to go next and she's like that with me and I'm pushing her like the same way so it can't be all about David Goggins it can't be all about David Goggins you have to be able to sacrifice oh hey okay Jennifer what the [ __ ] do you want to do next and we got to put all of our cars into that [ __ ] so it's a I don't believe in a lot of balance in life because to be

the best at anything in life that scale has to be a little [ __ ] up has to be but in this situation right here she asked no I got her back like she has my back so it's not all about me so we weren't good together that way the one of the big things that I feel a lot of us have in our lives is the doubters especially the doubters from family members and people really close to us that we don't want to lose but are telling us no you can't your dreams are too

big that's impossible what the hell is wrong with you David right how do you deal with those people in your life that you still care about but are like you can't run 200 miles what is wrong with you you're gonna kill yourself well the honest answer to that question is there's a lot of them out there but most of them are that way for one big reason they can't see themselves doing it they can't see themselves doing it it's one big reason the other reason is a lot of it is jealousy when you set these

humongous [ __ ] goals and they see that you're getting at it let's say for instance we have a family I said we're all a big family here all three of us all four of us are a big family and every [ __ ] morning I'm getting up training for tours at Mile Run and you see me get a four o'clock in the morning and all you [ __ ] are sleeping and by the time I get done running my xxx you come I come home just getting up how you gonna feel about yourself a

lot of times in your overachiever and you have people that's what talk about the mediocrity thing a lot of our family members a lot of our friends they're mediocre there's always those couple of guys who are uncommon who want to be better but you make that mediocre [ __ ] feel like [ __ ] but it's your mom your dad whoever you make him feel horrible I've been there I'm speaking from experience you get some my around you may who's trying to be better and you don't have the drive that they have it's a constant

reminder of how [ __ ] up you are you have to know that that's what it is anybody in your core is not saying man get after but I'm so proud of you they have a problem with themselves because all you trying to do is achieve more if that's a problem for somebody you have to look at them and say man you really have a [ __ ] problem with yourself huh it's much deeper than what you think it lies deep in your soul how I was able to fix myself was I saw how ugly

I was towards other people who were great I was able to look back and say man you don't hate that [ __ ] for any reason because he's great and you're lazy you're lazy he makes you feel like [ __ ] every single day it's where it comes from you gotta know you have to know where [ __ ] comes from to be able to solve it you know it's interesting about that a lot of people talk about you know you'll find out who your true friends are winter at your lowest that's right you'll also

find out who your true friends are when you're rising a hardship % probably even more when you rise I believe so and just for the work we've been doing and the slack we'd be getting from people it's like well like I can't if this is the way you're gonna be you gotta go that's right because I I have things that I want to do a hundred percent with everything that you've accomplished and you still have a lifetime to go right is there something that you want to be known for the one thing that you want

to stand out through all of these accomplishments and be remembered for honestly I honestly want to be considered one of the hardest men to walk the planet Earth in the history of the world and I mean by hard I'm not talking about the guy who gets the most pull-ups the most sit-ups runs the most just a person who's able to overcome any adversity in front of him to figure out a way hardest isn't about all this physical [ __ ] man yeah it helped me get to where I'm at but all I was doing in

the whole process the process wouldn't be ripped it wouldn't walk around my shirt off that wasn't it I knew through the physical challenges do the physical suffering my mind was getting stronger I was literally doing that for a reason I had a weak mind all the rest has happened to come with it I was trying to strengthen the mind to handle all that all the judgment that's passed on me perceived and not sometimes you make it up in your own head you know I I just want to be able to handle all of that everything

physical mental I want to be perceived as that like the old-school barbarian Oh school god it's like god man nothing can hurt the guy which is why the book is titled can't hurt me I want people to have that mantra in their life take that with you take it everywhere you go in life and if you believe that and you work towards that cows in your mind strengthen yourself can't hurt me is strong in any situation like Niles and Buzz they beat the [ __ ] out of you I'd be the first one to get

said can't hurt me [ __ ] and they were beating the hell out of me but you say that enough to you false motivation becomes [ __ ] real motivation after well what's the next big challenge for you what's the next thing you're tackling honestly the next big challenge right now is what I'm doing right now like I when I was in sixth grade I started real bad severely bad fifth sixth grade fourth grade horrible yep like my hair would fall out why splashes over my skin horrible horrible anxiety so me talking about myself as

much as I am on stage on podcast I'm still overcoming you're still battling because it's comfortable for me to say I'm office so to meet you know don't talk to me I'm good go back to be my hermit this is very uncomfortable so I'm constantly coming outside of my comfort zones and doing this stuff now sharing my story with people as much as I can and do you do any coaching of clients in terms of physical or mental obviously motivational speaking opens up these opportunities to take on one-on-one or group coaching clients so I do

take on clients but a select few because what I realized is I'm not a cookie cutter type of guy I'm not here to take your money I don't you know I'm here to help you if you're coming in to work with a guy like me who knows that you have to have thick skin to get better you have to call yourself out if you're fat and you're [ __ ] up I want to hear that I don't want to hear you tap dancing around [ __ ] so I don't take on many clients because when

you work with me we're gonna get to the root of the [ __ ] problem and a lot of people don't want to go there they don't want to talk about the childhood they don't talk about their past they don't get to root the problems and then they go why am I not getting better because there's a lot of [ __ ] in there you haven't dealt with brother you know people go to the gym like for instance going through any kind of Special Operations school these people go to the gym they get big they

get jacked they can run fast all that [ __ ] but all they're doing is they're coding over the mind all you're doing is building a bigger stronger quitter your mind hasn't got any stronger because you haven't gone back in there and dealt with [ __ ] so second adversity comes like my god I'm so [ __ ] fit what's wrong your mind is still soft so I work on the mind what's the application process like that sounds like hell we speaking on on that application process so you know Jesse's been out there in the

his book and we know from his perspective of seeing you and him thinking of how and he's given his story of how you guys met and what he was thinking when he had saw you but we don't know your side of it of what Jesse coming up to you talk to you and asking I don't even know if that was the plan at first but what you must have been thinking with this this crazy guy who's out there with the the circus running around this race the trainer's lasted one big thing right there is uh

and I don't ask your question is but what you said you know I live with this guy for a couple you know a few weeks yeah this is a lifestyle you can't temporarily dive into it sprinkle it around sample it out and roll out this is something man that you had to acquire as a part of your everyday grind but when Jesse came up to me after this race I was so like back then I was very like don't talk to me [ __ ] yeah type of person it was very weird you know because

my life especially then I didn't know when he's soft and I looked at everything in his life that's very like you can't get hard man it's impossible why because you have your refrigerator in your mind is so full you've arrived it's hard to take a person that arrives take him in the [ __ ] bring him down to the [ __ ] sewer with me and say okay now we're gonna live now we're gonna figure out so imagine that young guys you know maids drivers masseuses chefs and I'm taking this gameis okay man we're now

gonna live in hell it was very it's it's tough yeah and the difference being he knew counting down the days 23 22 days he went back to I live in the life yeah and see it's hard for me and this is no cut on anybody I had to mature a lot not everybody's David Gardens it's hard for me to respect people who are able to come in to that world and leave sure this is a [ __ ] lifestyle man like and people wonder why am I not achieving more it's because what you what all

of us once we achieve something we celebrate for a long years [ __ ] time and we wonder why don't I have drive anymore where's it all that if you don't develop a routine of suffering and sufferings not like go out and kill yourself every day it's being uncomfortable yeah that keeps you hungry every day if you live in your victories for so long and say I'm gonna go challenge myself for 30 days or for two weeks or one this run this one marathon and is I did one marathon okay that's why it leaves you

it leaves you because you haven't set up the next obstacle obstacles is how you grow you must continue to have friction friction is where growth is at with no friction there's no growth I love that no growth so where can we find the book where can we pick up a copy in and apply for this coaching everything what can't hurt me the book the audio all the everything for can't hurt me is on Amazon so you go to Amazon it's uh it's just a book about the mind better yourself fighting that finding that uh three

point one for finding your percentage finding how did your equation and removing the theory removing the talking about and branding the practice theory we cannot listen to theorists so what there is do is they take a hundred people and they study the normal people of the world they're all studies there's a whole bunch of people outside the normal they haven't done Studies on they haven't done Studies on the people who are seriously great who are seriously great they take studies off of normal people you cannot live in that normal - you must be your best

on your worst day and how you do that is you cannot think of a normal mindset you can I have a normal set I love it thank you I've no thank you ristic conversation I appreciate you taking on this challenge because sharing this stuff and this viewpoint right it's easy to get the trophies these days it's easy to be coddled there's not enough people speaking the real truth that you suck and you got a do [ __ ] that sucks to get better right and that message we're happy to spread it has impacted both of

us is why we took on the challenges that we continue to take on half marathon we're gonna shoot for a marathon next let's keep moving because what else is there to do in life that's it man there's nothing else to do life is one big head game one big mind game it's like one person playing it yourself so you learn to win - my game thank you so much you