Joe Rogan Experience #1212 - David Goggins

1. 0:00 – 2:56

   Why the audiobook is “the book plus a podcast”

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Hey, you, come on, let's go. (book closes) Boom, and we're live. David Goggins, your book is fucking fantastic, man. (book closes) This has been my running partner. (book closes) The audio version of it has been my running partner for the last week. It's fucking amazing, man.

   2. DGDavid Goggins0:18

      Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. And-

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Well, you guys are doing something, uh, very unusual. The book is great. I've read, I've read it, like sat down and read-read. But the r- the audio book is really interesting-

   4. DGDavid Goggins0:28

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      ... because you and the gentleman that you wrote it with-

   6. DGDavid Goggins0:32

      Yeah, Adam.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:32

      ... Adam was l-

   8. DGDavid Goggins0:33

      Adam Scolnick.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:34

      Adam Scolnick, who, who reads it. Then you come on and talk about things in between. So it's more than just the book.

   10. DGDavid Goggins0:41

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       It's the book plus. It's the book plus like a podcast.

   12. DGDavid Goggins0:45

       Right. Yeah, so how all that came to be, man, is, um, as I was going through this book for the last year, we would go through, change stuff up. I have so many stories, man. We went through, interviewed so many people, so many stories. He would come back and read it to me, all my changes. And when he'd read, I'm like, "Man, this guy has a great reading voice. I love his reading voice." And I started getting these different ideas about doing it, like, "You know what? Maybe he can read, and then I can do my podcast thing on the side. And he can like, after each chapter, in between chapters, make it a real interactive type of thing." And that's kind of how it came to be, man.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       At the beginning, I gotta be honest, at the beginning I was like, "Who is this motherfucker talking for David Goggins?"

   14. DGDavid Goggins1:23

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       I was gonna call up Dave. Like, "Dave, can you read-

   16. DGDavid Goggins1:24

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       ... do this? Why don't you do it? Why are you d-" But, but it works.

   18. DGDavid Goggins1:28

       Right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       It really does work.

   20. DGDavid Goggins1:29

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:30

       Like as, as it goes on, and I got ... Also, y- it's very obvious that you and him are good friends. So when you guys are talking, then I don't mind him reading for you as much for some strange reason. (laughs)

   22. DGDavid Goggins1:40

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:41

       I know it doesn't make any sense.

   24. DGDavid Goggins1:42

       Well, I wouldn't say we're good friends. Um, I'm just joking, Adam, though you can hear right now.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:46

       (laughs)

   26. DGDavid Goggins1:46

       Um, he became a pain in my fucking ass during this process, man, because, you know, he's just a, he's a real anal guy. You know, he, he helped out a lot. You know, I'm a, I'm a real raw, sadistic type of mindset. And he, uh, he helped me put that on paper, man, so I give him a lot of credit for that.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       Well, it, y- it comes across. The book is outstanding. And, you know, it's, it's, it's more than just sitting wa- like sitting across from you and you telling your story is one thing, but this long, detailed history-

   28. DGDavid Goggins2:17

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:17

       ... of how you became to be the person you became, I think it's very educational for people-

   30. DGDavid Goggins2:24

       Right.
2. 2:56 – 6:19

   The “beast” image vs. Goggins’ real vulnerabilities

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:56

      You think about a person like that, you think of them as in this like static, fully-formed version.

   2. DGDavid Goggins3:01

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:01

      You don't usually get to see ... And especially someone like you, who you went into so much depth about your rise and fall and rise and fall. It wasn't like a straight linear process-

   4. DGDavid Goggins3:12

      No.

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:12

      ... between you getting inspired and then you becoming this bad motherfucker.

   6. DGDavid Goggins3:15

      No, it wasn't like, um, what's that show called? Um, th- that Will Smith plays that, that Black guy who kind of makes it in, um, in the financial world. Uh, Pursuit of Happyness.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:27

      I never saw that.

   8. DGDavid Goggins3:28

      Yeah, it's a great movie. It wasn't like Pursuit of Happyness, man. Like, like where the guy struggles and he, and he gets over it and he makes it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:34

      Yeah.

   10. DGDavid Goggins3:35

       I fell on my ass. I, I thought I got to the top of Mount Everest, and Mount Everest just fucking slide right underneath me, man. I was like, "Ah, dawg. I gotta start from scratch again." Scratch became my friend, literally, man. So you know, that's, th- that's how he put it in the book, man, just going up, going down, going up, just the real raw version of how my life was. And it was so in-depth to go back through your life with a fine-toothed comb that I almost got embarrassed to even put it out there to people.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:00

       Yeah.

   12. DGDavid Goggins4:00

       That's what you gotta understand, man. Like, even me right now to talk to you, I'm in the car for a fucking hour getting pumped up 'cause I'm, I'm a shy, introverted-

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:09

       (laughs)

   14. DGDavid Goggins4:09

       ... leave-me-alone type of guy. Like, I'm still that motherfucker who was six years old, you know, at a play who can't say his line because I know I'm gonna stutter in front of five people. So I walk off stage. That's still me. So every day I'm fighting that dude so people think, "Oh, my God, man, you're on a podcast. You look so crazy, so evil." No, I'm trying to be locked into Joe so my mind isn't veering off saying, "Let's run out the damn door-"

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:34

       (laughs)

   16. DGDavid Goggins4:34

       ... "because people are watching me on the fucking podcast."

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:37

       (laughs)

   18. DGDavid Goggins4:37

       "I wanna open this damn door and get the hell outta here, man."

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:40

       (laughs)

   20. DGDavid Goggins4:40

       So that's the real me. So, uh, I'm not sadistic, man. I'm focused on what I have to do to stay locked into the game of life. And that's what, and that's why I tell people, man, I- I- I go there. I go there.

   21. JRJoe Rogan4:51

       That's one of the reasons why this book is so good, is because you're so honest about your vulnerabilities and how you overcome them. And, uh, for people that see someone who's a beast, who's done great things, you just assume that they're different than you.

   22. DGDavid Goggins5:04

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:04

       But then you hear about your insecurities and your pitfalls and all the things that went wrong with you, and you realize, "Well, goddammit, those are the same things that go wrong with me." Like, "Maybe I have that inside of me and I've just never summoned it."

   24. DGDavid Goggins5:16

       Right. And I, I tell you this, I started really realizing that when I started overcoming myself, I started getting around these real alpha males, these hard, hard men. And I always put people way above me when I was growing up, like my god, they had to have a lot more than me to get to where they're at. And a lot of them did. But once you get around the, the best of the best of the best people, you can kind of start breaking them down and realizing, "Man, you, you're just as fucked up as me." Like-

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:44

       (laughs)

   26. DGDavid Goggins5:44

       Like, "We all have ..." But all you did was you hid it better. Your, your, your upbringing, your mom and dad, your society, the way you were raised, it hid it better than, than, than mine. You weren't the only Black kid, or there was like five, in a, in a school. You know, I can't hide. Going through BUD/S, I was the only Black k- ... You can't hide.... but I started realizing, just because I look different than you, a lot of you motherfuckers can't hide either. So it started giving me courage through watching people that we all have a story, we all have a jacked-up life in one way or another. Some of us don't have the guts to talk about it, though, and that's where I found the guts to talk about mine.

3. 6:19 – 10:30

   Turning life into psychological warfare: rewriting self-talk

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:19

      Well, there's some, there's purity in physical pursuits, right? Because it doesn't matter what your social status is, it doesn't matter how people perceive you. When it, when it comes down to how long can you stay in that pool, when it comes down to how far can you run-

   2. DGDavid Goggins6:32

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:32

      ... when it comes down to how much can you push yourself past the part where you wanna quit-

   4. DGDavid Goggins6:37

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:37

      ... how far can you keep going, there's a purity in that, that it, it, it dissolves social order. All that bullshit, all the, what people think about you goes out the window. It's what, who, who are you right now?

   6. DGDavid Goggins6:48

      That's right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:49

      Who are you right now?

   8. DGDavid Goggins6:50

      That's a true statement, man, and I look at it as psych- as, as psychological warfare. And that's where I started learning that, that life is one big psychological warfare that you play on yourself. You play on yourself, man. The most important conversation I ever had with my- is, is with myself, and the shit I was telling myself was so fucked up. It was so wrong, it was so misguided, and other people start to write that dialogue for you also. And it starts to be what you say to yourself every single day, and I started creating a whole nother warfare, a whole nother battle started becoming, I was like, "Oh, hang on a second, Goggins. You have these tools. You have these tools. Your life was basically the perfect, the perfect grounds for training for where you need to go in your life. All the beatings, all the, all the bullying, all the, you know, you going through, uh, learning disabilities, all the struggles, it was the absolute perfect training ground for you to go to where you need to go." And that's how I started looking at my life versus, "Woe is me, poopy pants, kicking rock down the street," mentality. It was, "No, God just hooked you right the fuck up. He hooked you right up, man, with the perfect place. You were training for the first 18, 19, 20 s- you were training for this stuff, man. You had the advantage over everybody else," versus, "My God, they're so above me. They came from a great family. Mom and Dad love them. They didn't have to learn, they didn't start it up, they didn't struggle." No, man, your struggle is what made you who you are now. So I started flipping this into a whole different... I started being a master of what I was scared of. I was scared of my mind, and I became a, literally a master of that mind. And that's what now, from now on, it sets me apart from most people. I started diving into that.

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:31

      Well, that is, uh, a big part of the stories, when you go over your childhood and, you know, your abusive father, and then having this great guy that was gonna become your stepdad, and then he gets murdered. It's, like, right when you're about to get out of it-

   10. DGDavid Goggins8:45

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:45

       ... everything looks good. Boom. And then he gets murdered. It's like these things really did sort of set you up to start from scratch again, and just go, "Okay, roger that, we start from scratch."

   12. DGDavid Goggins8:55

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:55

       And now you have that attitude. You developed it through all of these horrible personal experiences, all the trials and tribulations, all the evil shit that people tried to do to you. That sort of set you up to be able to deal-

   14. DGDavid Goggins9:08

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan9:08

       ... in a way that a lot of people can't.

   16. DGDavid Goggins9:10

       Well, w- I used to look at my life from a different vantage point, and when you're, when you're in all the muck, and you're just walking in muck, and walking in muck, and walking in muck, you don't see that if you look off to the fucking left of the muck, there's a sidewalk, brother. Get off, get off of it. You, you have your head down looking in this muck. Once I saw the sidewalk, got on the sidewalk, I got a little break, and I got a different vantage point. And then from the sidewalk, I found a cliff, then I found a mountain. I got way up high on top of my life and looked back down on it, and said, "Okay, I gotta figure this out, man. I'm not going anywhere." I'm starting to lie. I'm starting to... like, so when you have a messed up foundation... I started lying about everything. I wanted people to like me. I wanted to be accepted in some society of life, some social society. And I, and I, I was like, "Man, this isn't the right way. I messed up here. I messed up here. I messed up everywhere." And so I realized, the worst thing that happened to me is I lost myself, I never had myself, I never found myself, had no self-esteem. So I knew through working out and through learning, 'cause I had, it, it took a lot for me to learn also, I started finding self-esteem. Once I found that, that's when doors started opening up. I started... I stopped caring about people, that, what they thought, being judged. "Well, if I say this, if I start it right now, are you gonna make fun of me?" I stopped caring about that. And that's when my life started really changing for me, slowly but surely.

4. 10:30 – 13:26

   Exercise as mental calluses: doing what you don’t want to do

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:30

      That, and that's such an important point when you're talking about the working out, because a lot of people, when they think about working out, they think of it as being a physical thing.

   2. DGDavid Goggins10:37

      Right, no. No. I did it for mental.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:40

      Yeah.

   4. DGDavid Goggins10:41

      People always say, "My God." Like, no, don't, don't look at it like... I didn't care about losing weight. I didn't care about being the fastest person. I didn't care about... I wasn't making the Olympics. I wasn't going to pros. I could barely read and write when I was in s- uh, uh, junior in high school. I wasn't going anywhere. I saw working out as a way for me to build callouses on my mind. I had a callous over-the-victimist mentality. So I watched these movies, I, you know, I talked about Rocky last time I was on here. I always equated training to mental toughening. Like, it always looked brutal, people waking up early and doing all these things, and it looked, it looked horrible. And I was like, "Wow, man, I gotta start doing that. Not to get better, bigger, and stronger, but that is what's gonna build me. That looks uncomfortable. That looks brutal. And getting up early, I don't wanna do that." So I made this long list of things I don't wanna do, and through that, I found myself. I started g- like, I'm like, "You guys aren't doing this shit in high school. You guys aren't getting up at 5:00 in the morning, running over here in this golf course." So I started seeing myself very differently than the average human being. I was like, "Hold on a second. I have something they don't have." And that's when I started to develop these things through working out. It was this great never-ending work ethic. And through work ethic, I developed self-esteem.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:57

      Now, is this something that you learned? Is this something you learned yourself from, from exercise yourself, or is it something you had read or heard about? Like, what made you equate-... this, doing this and doing these difficult things physically, to mental toughness, to being, this is the discipline that you need in order to get your life out of the situation you're in.

   6. DGDavid Goggins12:15

      So, I never read anything. You know, I could, I could barely read, you know. So-

   7. JRJoe Rogan12:17

      Right.

   8. DGDavid Goggins12:18

      ... I wasn't reading back then. I just saw ... I watched a lot of movies, and I was really big into visualization. And, um, I always equated working out to struggle. And I struggled my whole life, but I ran from it. So, I started realizing, man, I gotta start facing the struggle and I gotta be mentally strong for the struggle. So, that's why I started come- coming up with like, uh, "I'm training for life." Mentally, I'm training for life. I'm not training for like, to, to lift 400 pounds. And I found out on my own, pretty much, is that through this, through, through discipline, through self-discipline, through repetition, through tons of repetition of the same thing that you don't want to do ... And that's the, that's the key thing. Through repetition of things you don't want to do, you develop mental, like a, like an armor for your mind. You start to armor your mind, 'cause your mind's like, "Okay, we suffer, we suffer every day. It's what we do. We do stuff that sucks every day." So, then when the suck stuff comes, you're ready for it. And that's how I started coming up, you know, I just started being very uncomfortable, and now I'm, it's like a, just a way of life.

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:20

      It's a crazy thing to figure out, though. It's like that you figured it out, and you didn't just figure it out, you embraced it.

   10. DGDavid Goggins13:26

       Mm-hmm.

5. 13:26 – 18:37

   Accountability mirror and identity shift: dropping the clown persona

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:26

      Like, when you were talking about your senior year of high school, when you're talking about y- your, your mirror being your accountability mirror, like, you had a radical shift.

   2. DGDavid Goggins13:34

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:34

      Like, you just decided to not be a fucking loser-

   4. DGDavid Goggins13:37

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:37

      ... and to start tightening up and start holding yourself accountable and, and get ready for things.

   6. DGDavid Goggins13:43

      So, I had this my whole life. Uh, I mean, I don't know if people believe in God or what, I don't care what you believe in. There's been this unrelenting voice in my head. We all have this voice. It's the right or wrong voice. And a lot of times, that voice guides us into comfort. And my voice guided me into comfort a lot. But I had this other voice I heard my whole life saying, "Hey, motherfucker, what are you doing? No, man, we gotta go over here. We gotta go over here to, to that rock pile, over in the fucking corner, where nobody's at. That's, that's where victory's at. We're over there in that corner." So, this voice was giving me all these answers. Now, I wasn't a real smart kid growing up, but I had this crazy voice in my head saying, "Over there is where the fucking answers are." And I wouldn't listen to it 'cause over there was pain. Over there was me looking in the mirror, over there was me being accountable for all these things that went through my life. Even though people put them on me, it's now mine to own. And I didn't want to go over there by myself. But I had to, and this voice was guiding me there. Uh, it's God, whatever you want to call it, um, but that's what, that's what it was in me.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:45

      Do you think that's just what you, uh, when you separate yourself from your ego and w- what you were, your insecurities and all you, uh, like, if you were giving yourself advice, you would say that's what the thing is to do? So, do you think that's what it was, like, your subconscious or th- or you stripped away from all the bullshit, when you couldn't lie to yourself 'cause it's a voice in your head?

   8. DGDavid Goggins15:04

      That's exactly it. That's exactly it. 'Cause-

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:06

      'Cause just it knew.

   10. DGDavid Goggins15:07

       It knew. I was a character. I was trying to find myself through a character. I was making different hairstyles and sagging my pants and I was off. I was off, man. I was, uh, I was a clown. I was a clown. And, uh, and, uh, and I was like, "This is not, this is not what you're supposed to be in life, man." And it's ugly when you look in that dirty mirror and you're trying to do a new hairstyle to go to school. You know, I had a hairstyle one time where I shaved the top of my head. You know how old men have their hair, like, leaving their head-

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       Yeah.

   12. DGDavid Goggins15:36

       Yeah. So, I went to school with hair on the side of my head and in my back, and I shaved the f- the whole top of my head.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       (laughs)

   14. DGDavid Goggins15:43

       I, I just, I went to school like that, you know. And then I, I'd have like a-

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       What did the kids say?

   16. DGDavid Goggins15:48

       I wanted to ... I don't remember what they said, but it wa- I was just a funny dude.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:52

       Right.

   18. DGDavid Goggins15:52

       I was, you know, so that was my thing. I was the funny dude that came into school, like, Kriss Kross came out when I was in high school, so my pants were backwards. I said, "You know what? I'm gonna have my pants backwards, sagged down past my ass crack, shirt turned backwards with a toothbrush in my mouth with the reverse part." A reverse part is your head is shaved, and you have some hair on top, just a little piece of hair versus like a, like a part-

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:15

       Right.

   20. DGDavid Goggins16:15

       ... through here. The part was on a bald head. So, it was just, uh, I, I, I'd, I, I would sit at home instead of studying, I would think about, "What can I do to impress the motherfucker at school?"

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:26

       Wow.

   22. DGDavid Goggins16:26

       And that became my life. And that is, it's, uh, it's a long road to hoe to get to the guy who says, "Now, you don't ever smile on any podcast, you look so serious." I look at that shit, I'm like, "You motherfuckers have no idea who I am, who, who, where, where I've come from to get here today."

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:43

       You could've probably been an entertainer, like you probably ... because you were doing all that kind of shit.

   24. DGDavid Goggins16:48

       I have some jokes, Joe.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:49

       (laughs) Ah.

   26. DGDavid Goggins16:49

       I got some jokes, Joe.

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:50

       I bet you do.

   28. DGDavid Goggins16:51

       So, what people read in this book can't hurt me. It's a sad story, it's a horrible story, it's a tragic story, it's a story that made me who I am today. But you have to learn to laugh at yourself too. Once you, once you go through that shit, I now ... So, there's a lot of parts in there where it's a lot of me against a lot of White people, you know. And I have a routine that I won't do, so people who are hiring me to speak, I'm not gonna do the routine. I, I often do it sometimes and think about it. I was the 36th Black guy to go through SEAL training, okay?

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:20

       Out of how many people?

   30. DGDavid Goggins17:21

       Out of probably, looking at, um, probably 11, 12, like, to, to, to make it through. Probably 13,000 SEALs. I was probably the 36th, uh, uh, I was the 36th Black guy to make it through and over, since like the, like the 1940s, you know, you're looking at almost 70 years.
6. 18:37 – 22:05

   Origins, trauma, and forgiveness: going back to the source

   1. DGDavid Goggins18:37

      dad ran prostitutes, man. My dad literally snatched the soul out of my mom. Like, my mom is still battling, like, after my mom left my dad. And this is what I talk about in the book, she got married three times for a total of six months. You know?

   2. JRJoe Rogan18:51

      Yeah.

   3. DGDavid Goggins18:51

      And I, and I don't go there. And I'm not even gonna talk about the guy she married. So this woman was... She's, she's beautiful, she's, she's so smart, all this stuff, man. This guy literally stripped her soul away, and I, and I was a young kid watching it, and I had no soul to begin with. And my, and my brother, he has a story that, that he could write eight books. You know? My, my, my dad just came through and just washed us all clean. So to, to, to come out-

   4. JRJoe Rogan19:14

      Is he still around?

   5. DGDavid Goggins19:15

      He died about four years ago, four or five years ago. I'm not for sure. I, I didn't go to the funeral, but I forgave him. So I saw my dad through an eight-year-old's eyes. So, so we left when I was eight, and then at 22 I went back to see him through a grown man's eyes. And he was the same person I remembered, but I had to. You can't live with hate. You cannot move forward. As much as that guy tried to ruin all of our lives, that's where I came from. I had to, I had to figure out the origin of where I started from. So when I was going back through my life trying to fix who I am, the fucked up person I was, like, if your knee hurts, it's usually not your fucking knee that's hurting. It's something else, man. Like, it could be a tight quad, it could be the right leg if it's the left leg. You gotta find out the origin of where all this shit began. And, uh, it, it was him, so I had to go back to where, you know, my, my roots and, and the origin of all this happened, and it's hard to do that.

   6. JRJoe Rogan20:07

      Did you make peace with him?

   7. DGDavid Goggins20:08

      I made big peace with... So, we didn't have a peaceful conversation. We, you know, we, we, we left very geranimal. He's a, he's a, he's a vicious man. He, he was a vicious man. I mean, medieval motherfucker. So I had become a medieval motherfucker at that time. I was 22 and I was the big boy, and so I was no longer the guy who was afraid. It was now like, "Hey, I wanna kill you," type of shit. And we were sitting at Denny's after an all night skate or whatever the hell. You know, h- he owned bars and skating rinks and shit like that. And so we were sitting down and we kind of got into it, and I just kind of left. And, but I had to make peace with it in myself. I, I, I could not hold onto that hate, 'cause holding onto that hate was half the reason why I kept falling into the same pattern of failing. I had to get ... I had to start dumping off some baggage. I had to start figuring out me through him, and that's all he was there for. He was the origin. I, I, I had to figure him out, figure out why he was so evil to my mom, to me, and my brother, and I had to start studying him. Like, a lot of people have situations where someone does something and we all attack that person, like, like on the media. If someone does something wrong, everybody now is fucking perfect, and we now judge this guy. I don't judge him. I don't judge anybody. What I do is I start studying them. Why did they do that? Not in a judging way. I wanna learn from you.

   8. JRJoe Rogan21:27

      And what'd you get out of your dad?

   9. DGDavid Goggins21:28

      I got that he was... He grew up rough. He had... He was very insecure, had a lot of kids, and his insecurities just trickled over onto us. So yeah, he jacked us up real good, but he never fixed himself. So if you never fix yourself, the next person in line is gonna get the wrath, and we were next in line. You know, his, his first wife, you know, killed herself or whatever happened and, you know, got burned up in a house or some... It was some craziness, man. There's a lot of stuff that goes on there that I didn't put in the book 'cause I don't feel like going to court.

   10. JRJoe Rogan22:01

       Yeah.

   11. DGDavid Goggins22:01

       But, um, yeah. That's, uh... It was, it was a lot of stuff.

7. 22:05 – 27:15

   Failure → reflection → reboot: forging the mind in the fire and freezer

   1. JRJoe Rogan22:05

      You know, one of the great parts about this book is that you, you detail exactly what was going through your mind in terms of, like, your weaknesses and how you had failed. And, and then you... It's not just one time. Like, you, you do the thing in high school where you get your shit together, and then you join the military, and then you wind up getting fat again. And then when you g- when you have to lose, what was it, 106 pounds-

   2. DGDavid Goggins22:33

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:33

      ... in three months-

   4. DGDavid Goggins22:34

      Yep.

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:34

      ... to, to, to qualify for SEAL training?

   6. DGDavid Goggins22:37

      For SEAL training. Yep.

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:38

      That's insane.

   8. DGDavid Goggins22:39

      Yeah. Uh, 'cause what I realized at that time, once again, I failed again. I thought... So what you're talking about is I took this ASVAB test. You know, I didn't know how to read and write pretty much in high school. I was like in fourth grade reading level. And I took that test a few times, and I finally passed it. And when I passed it, I actually drove my car to the (laughs) to the doggone, um, airport and watched planes take off 'cause I was like, "I'm gonna be on one of those planes one day going to Air Force boot camp." So I, I never... I always fixed the things on the surface. So if I couldn't read and write, I learned to read and write. I, I, I would always fix these things on the surface level. And so whenever something hard would, would, would, would, like, would, like, raise its ugly head, I didn't have any kind of tools to handle it. I'm like, "Man, I thought I fixed this already, man." But no, I didn't go deep into the dungeon of my soul to say, "Okay, what is making you a quitter? What is making you a weak man? What is making you afraid?" And so that's why I kept on quitting and going back to start or not knowing how to get through hard times. And that's why I always tell people, "I'm not a theorist." I didn't study... Like, you know, I didn't study a fucking book. I literally put myself in a fire repeatedly, like a sword. You put a sword in the fire repeatedly and repeatedly, if, if you keep on doing that, you're gonna get a nice sword, and then you keep on beating it. You gotta beat the shit out of it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan24:00

      (laughs)

   10. DGDavid Goggins24:00

       And that's what I am.

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:01

       Yeah.

   12. DGDavid Goggins24:02

       I, I became that m-... I, I, I said, "Okay, we, we can't quit. We gotta figure out why you are this pussy. Why are you this pussy, man? What is wrong with you? What's going on here?" So I kept on putting the sword back in the doggone fire, and I just beat it harder, and I beat it harder. Before I knew it, I started realizing, "Hmm.All right, man. The brain is starting to get hard. The brain is starting to get hard. I'm no longer a theorist. I'm now a practitioner. I put it in hell, I dissected it while it's in hell, 'cause you can't dissect anything in a normal environment. You can't dissect anything in 72-degree weather.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:40

       Right.

   14. DGDavid Goggins24:40

       You must put it in the fucking freezer and freeze the fuck out of it. And then you dissect it. Dissect it when it's miserable. Dissect the brain when all it's thinking about is, "I need to get outta here, man. I wanna get outta the fucking freezer. Open the door." And he said, "Nah, five more seconds, man. Five more seconds in the freezer." And that's when you start to pick that brain apart. And that's what all this stuff did to me. I kept on putting myself back into the freezer or the fire and beating the shit out of myself, mentally and physically. Before I knew it, this is what happened.

   15. JRJoe Rogan25:15

       Wow. It's a- it's an interesting way to self-teach.

   16. DGDavid Goggins25:19

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan25:19

       You know? Like most people that, you know, you talk to that are disciplined, they, uh, you know, they have something that they read that inspired them. They have certain f- people that they look up to, there's certain, you know, coaches that taught them. There's certain important moments in their life. But for you, it's a, a system of failure and, and reflection-

   18. DGDavid Goggins25:43

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:43

       ... and then rebooting.

   20. DGDavid Goggins25:44

       That's it.

   21. JRJoe Rogan25:45

       Yeah.

   22. DGDavid Goggins25:45

       Repeated failure. And people think a lot of times about me, that I'm angry. "Oh my God, you sound so angry. You cuss so much. Oh my God, why you cuss so much? Why are you so crazy?" If you read my book, I cannot explain my life by saying, "Hey, it was a merry fucking Christmas, man." No, it wasn't. I want you to, I want you to go there with me. I'm taking you there with me. I'm, I'm a storyteller. I wanna take your ass down Paradise, where I... So the house I lived in, in Buffalo, New York, that I got my ass beat every day, funny. We lived on Paradise Road. And it was anything but fucking paradise. So I want you to go there with me. You wanna learn from me? Let me take your ass home. Let me take you there. So that's the whole thing about it, man. We're, we're scared to dive into our lives, what made us who we are, the beautiful people that we are. We're all jacked up in so many ways. That's the beauty of us. That's the beauty of me. I'm jacked up, but I figured out my own little process on how to get un-jacked up and how to... I'm not gonna get the same, you know, I'm not gonna get the same way you're gonna get there. You may get there by going point A to point B. I might get point C, to D, to E, to F. I'm gonna be there the same way you are, just a little harder. That's how I trained my brain. So it was just different. I'm just a diff- different thinker.

   23. JRJoe Rogan27:03

       When you stop and think about all the different times that you did have to reboot and how you, you, you found like new goals and you found new inspiration, and you fired up a new discipline, and you became-

   24. DGDavid Goggins27:15

       Right.

8. 27:15 – 44:39

   No finish line: authenticity, quick fixes, and the people who drag you down

   1. JRJoe Rogan27:15

      ... stronger and harder, and you got... One of the things that people always look for in life, they look for a point where they can rest.

   2. DGDavid Goggins27:23

      Yes, sir.

   3. JRJoe Rogan27:23

      "Oh, I'm gonna retire."

   4. DGDavid Goggins27:25

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan27:25

      You know? Like people love, they love that expression, "the golden years".

   6. DGDavid Goggins27:30

      Ah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan27:30

      They love that expression.

   8. DGDavid Goggins27:31

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan27:32

      You know? They l- they love the, they love the idea of a struggle as long as it ends, and then when it ends, they're gonna have a nice comfortable spot.

   10. DGDavid Goggins27:39

       It must end.

   11. JRJoe Rogan27:39

       Like, yeah, it must end.

   12. DGDavid Goggins27:40

       The suffering must end.

   13. JRJoe Rogan27:41

       Yeah, you could relax, man. You've done so much.

   14. DGDavid Goggins27:44

       That's right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan27:44

       You've really done so much. But this, the idea of reaching this golden year is, is, it's a very flawed idea-

   16. DGDavid Goggins27:52

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan27:53

       ... because it's an idea that you're gonna, you're gonna work hard, but then you're gonna reach the finish line, but there's no finish line.

   18. DGDavid Goggins27:58

       No.

   19. JRJoe Rogan27:59

       It doesn't exist.

   20. DGDavid Goggins28:00

       That's the scary thing about life, my friend.

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:02

       That is a scary thing, right? The theory now-

   22. DGDavid Goggins28:03

       And that's what fatigues me. People go, "Man, why don't you ever smile?" There's no fucking end, my friend.

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:10

       (laughs)

   24. DGDavid Goggins28:12

       There's no end.

   25. JRJoe Rogan28:13

       Every day.

   26. DGDavid Goggins28:13

       There's no end.

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:14

       I know that you're, you're, you're going to meet Cam Hanes after this.

   28. DGDavid Goggins28:17

       Yes, sir.

   29. JRJoe Rogan28:18

       And listen, please, if you guys run, put a number of that miles that you're going to run and leave it at that.

   30. DGDavid Goggins28:24

       (laughs)
9. 44:39 – 51:14

   “Taking souls” in Hell Week: weaponizing momentum and morale

   1. DGDavid Goggins44:39

      That's the thing about it, man. I talk about it in my book, open-mindedness. What separates me from a lot of people is they go and do an, a daunting task, and the task is overwhelming. Like, when I heard the pull-up record was 4,020 pull-ups and I was talking about breaking this record, people were like, "Oh, my God." I went right to a pen and paper. They go, "What are you doing?" I'm doing the math, man. What are you talking about? I'm open-minded to the fact that, okay, if I do five pull-ups in a minute for so many hours, I can get so many pull-ups in. How much time do I have to rest? I was breaking the math down. You have to be open-minded to the possibilities that, "I can do this." Once you shut your mind down to the possibility that it can be achieved, there's no way it can happen. So that's why my, my eyes and my body light up about things, 'cause I know that if you're in a fight, you have to attack. You have to keep attacking. The enemy has to know he is not going to give up. You must break the soul of whatever the fuck is in front of you. That's what I realized. I was never breaking the soul of anything in front of me. So, that's why I came up with this thing called taking souls in my book. I started to devise ways to break a soul, of a human being, of a, of a object, of, of, of whatever's in front of me. If you keep on attacking something, nothing wants to stand in front of anything that is relentless. Nothing.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:56

      The taking soul part of the book is really interesting, because, uh, you talked about, like, the, the mind shift that you had when you were in BUD/S.

   3. DGDavid Goggins46:04

      Yes, sir.

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:05

      Yeah. That was a, that's an intense part of the book.

   5. DGDavid Goggins46:07

      It's, it is, uh, that's when a lot of stuff started clicking, man. I started watching those instructors on the side. 'Cause, you know, there's, there's three shifts. There's eight instructors, three shifts. 'Cause, you know, the guys going through, through hell week, they're up all day and all night for 130 hours. This is the promised land of mental hardening for me. I love this place. And you have the instructors who, who are, you know, you know, they've been there, done that. Now, they're instructing you. So, they do their eight-hour shift, they have their parkas on, it's usually cold, coffee, drinking their coffee, and they're beating the crap out of us. And when I started realizing, I started playing mind games. I, and I was like, "You know what? I bet these fuckers are looking at us, judging themselves about when they were going through hell week, about, 'Let me see, I'm looking at Goggins right now, I was better than him. I was better than that guy, I was better than that fucker over there.'" And I was like, "Okay. Okay. You're gonna judge me, right?"

   6. JRJoe Rogan47:01

      (laughs)

   7. DGDavid Goggins47:01

      "All right. 'Cause that's what I'm gonna do to you." So, what I started doing was I got my boat crew, Boat Crew 2, it's in the book, it's a great, great story. I said, "Come here, guys."

   8. JRJoe Rogan47:09

      You can't break Boat Crew 2.

   9. DGDavid Goggins47:10

      You can't break Boat Crew 2.

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       (laughs)

   11. DGDavid Goggins47:13

       So, we, it's Wednesday, it's Wednesday and everybody's broken, everybody's beat up, man. And, and like this is when you start moving like a robot. Everybody's like just kind of just trying to get through hell week now and your energy's zapped. And they know, Wednesday is like that over the hump.

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:24

       I love that you talked about that in the book too, that they put it in your head-

   13. DGDavid Goggins47:27

       Oh, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:27

       ... that Wednesday you're gonna be tired.

   15. DGDavid Goggins47:28

       Oh, yeah. And that's another thing, they, they tell you how you're supposed to feel. So, you are feeling that way. I was like, "Uh-uh, don't let these motherfuckers tell you how you're supposed to feel. No, it's day one, motherfucker. This is hour one." So, I was getting my boat crew all jacked up. I said, "We're gonna take these motherfuckers' souls." So, when they had us doing this simple thing that guys were struggling with, Boat Crew 2 was just launching the fucking boat and you're yelling, "Yeah, you can't fucking hurt us. Can't hurt Boat Crew 2." And I looked on the instructors' faces and it looked like someone had just fucked with their soul. And I looked at my guys and my boat crew and I said, "Hey, guess what? Those motherfuckers aren't fucking tonight-"

   16. JRJoe Rogan48:08

       (laughs)

   17. DGDavid Goggins48:08

       "... 'cause we own space in their fucking head. We own space. They're gonna think about us tonight. They're gonna think about how the fuck-"

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:13

       You're killing boners.

   19. DGDavid Goggins48:14

       That's right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan48:15

       (laughs)

   21. DGDavid Goggins48:16

       How, how, on Wednesday, are these guys doing this?

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:19

       And screaming out, "You can't hurt Boat Crew 2."

   23. DGDavid Goggins48:21

       They can't ho- we were, we were bringing the fight. We were attacking. So, so when you keep on doing that, guess what people start doing? "I ain't fucking with these guys no more." So, Boat Crew 2 got a lot more sleep. Boat Crew 2 just became that boat crew like, "Hey, we," 'cause we just kept charging and we started fueling off of that. We started fueling off the fact that, man, it takes one second of energy to steal everybody's, and then you have all the energy you need. It's all you need. You need to look in someone's eyes. You know how it is when you fight somebody and you broke that motherfucker. He's like, "Oh, God, man. I don't wanna go back the next round." And you feel like, "My God, I can fight all day. I can fight all-"

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:56

       Hmm.

   25. DGDavid Goggins48:56

       "... day long." That's what taking souls is. But you have to have the will, the heart, the courage to go that distance when you're exactly jacked up, when you have nothing left to give, and give more.

   26. JRJoe Rogan49:11

       That is an interesting thing about the mind, is that you can find inspiration. And when you find inspiration, when you get charged up, all of a sudden you have energy.

   27. DGDavid Goggins49:19

       That's right. That's right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:20

       It's weird.

   29. DGDavid Goggins49:21

       And I talk about it in the book also, is about I learned how to control my adrenals.If you know how... You know how you get that fight or flight response when you got to move real quick?

   30. JRJoe Rogan49:32

       Yeah.
10. 51:14 – 1:03:59

    Extreme feats and consequences: pull-up records, rhabdo, injuries, heart surgery

    1. JRJoe Rogan51:14

       Have you ever gotten rhabdo, rhabdomyolysis?

    2. DGDavid Goggins51:16

       Oh, yes, sir.

    3. JRJoe Rogan51:17

       Did you get it?

    4. DGDavid Goggins51:18

       Yes, sir.

    5. JRJoe Rogan51:18

       (laughs)

    6. DGDavid Goggins51:18

       Yes, sir.

    7. JRJoe Rogan51:19

       When did you get it?

    8. DGDavid Goggins51:20

       I got it on my second pull-up record attempt, and I talk about it a little bit in the book there. Um, and it... I have sickle cell trait, and a young kid just died from rhabdo, from uh... 'Cause sickle cell is not a good thing, obviously. Um, and rhab- rhabdo is a bad thing for having sickle cell.

    9. JRJoe Rogan51:36

       You have sickle cell trait-

    10. DGDavid Goggins51:37

        It's-

    11. JRJoe Rogan51:37

        ... but you don't-

    12. DGDavid Goggins51:38

        Trait.

    13. JRJoe Rogan51:38

        ... have the disease.

    14. DGDavid Goggins51:39

        I don't have the disease.

    15. JRJoe Rogan51:40

        A buddy of mine died from it when I was a kid.

    16. DGDavid Goggins51:42

        Really?

    17. JRJoe Rogan51:42

        Yeah.

    18. DGDavid Goggins51:43

        (coughs)

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:43

        A guy I used to fight with, used to train with. Yeah, he, uh, was always sick. He'd have it. He'd get sick.

    20. DGDavid Goggins51:48

        It's horrible.

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:49

        He'd be gone, he'd be out of the gym for months and he'd come back and he'd just be trying to get his body back in shape again, then he'd get it again.

    22. DGDavid Goggins51:55

        It jacks you up.

    23. JRJoe Rogan51:56

        Then he wound up dying. He's a talented guy too. When you got it, what did you have to do?

    24. DGDavid Goggins52:02

        So they put me in the hospital for a while. Um, that's when my hand got real messed up, and my fluids were extremely low. And I had done like, I think I did 3,000 pull-ups and they're like, "Man, your body is wrecked up." They-

    25. JRJoe Rogan52:15

        Were you just not drinking water while you were doing it?

    26. DGDavid Goggins52:17

        I was drinking water, but not enough.

    27. JRJoe Rogan52:18

        Not enough?

    28. DGDavid Goggins52:18

        So I was sipping this carbohydrate drink-

    29. JRJoe Rogan52:21

        (clears throat) Mm-hmm.

    30. DGDavid Goggins52:22

        ... and, um, my calories were extremely low. I didn't know how much I was gonna burn through, and you burn through an awful lot of calories, man, doing that many pull-ups for that many hours.
11. 1:03:59 – 1:36:07

    Daily regimen: no days off, stretching for hours, and heart-rate training

    1. DGDavid Goggins1:03:59

       The biggest question I get is-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:04:00

       (coughs)

    3. DGDavid Goggins1:04:01

       ... "So when do you rest?"

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:04:03

       (clears throat)

    5. DGDavid Goggins1:04:04

       "When do you recover?"

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:04:05

       Yeah.

    7. DGDavid Goggins1:04:06

       And I don't want to scare people, but the truth answer is, I don't take any days off.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:04:15

       No days?

    9. DGDavid Goggins1:04:16

       No days.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:04:16

        Seven days a week?

    11. DGDavid Goggins1:04:17

        Seven days a week.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:04:18

        Well, what is a- a normal day?

    13. DGDavid Goggins1:04:20

        A normal day for me, a- a normal day, so let's say a light day.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:04:24

        Light day.

    15. DGDavid Goggins1:04:24

        A light day is at least a seven-mile run. I will every- every four- every other day, so about four days a week, um, calisthenics plus gym workout. So I don't do any gym workout without hitting pull-ups, push-ups, I call it nickels and dimes. So like five pull-ups, 10 push-ups, or I'll go, you know, quarters and whatever, like s- like 25 pull-ups or and like 50 push-ups. So I have all these different things I mess up. So I will do weights with calisthenics, and every single night I stretch, for at least every night I stretch for at least two hours.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:05:00

        Two hours?

    17. DGDavid Goggins1:05:00

        Every night. Every night.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:05:04

        So you stretch after you're done working out?

    19. DGDavid Goggins1:05:06

        Yeah. So at nighttime, usually I'll be, uh, either in a- in a quiet room or I'll be watching TV or a good... I love sports, be watching the game and I'm on the floor, man. And that's what I do.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:05:16

        So you just stretch while you're doing stuff?

    21. DGDavid Goggins1:05:18

        I stretch while I do stuff.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:05:19

        Two hours is a long-ass time to stretch.

    23. DGDavid Goggins1:05:21

        I-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:05:21

        Is this just because you're trying to correct all the-

    25. DGDavid Goggins1:05:23

        I'm trying to correct, um-

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:05:25

        ... years of not doing that?

    27. DGDavid Goggins1:05:26

        Y- No, years of just-

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:27

        Do you ever fuck with yoga?

    29. DGDavid Goggins1:05:28

        A lot.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:05:29

        Yeah?

Episode duration: 2:17:57