Joe Rogan Experience #1212 - David Goggins

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Hey, you, come on,…

   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. 15:00 – 30:00

   That's exactly it. That's…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      you stripped away from all the bullshit, when you couldn't lie to yourself 'cause it's a voice in your head?

   2. DGDavid Goggins15:04

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

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:06

      'Cause just it knew.

   4. 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-

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:35

      Yeah.

   6. 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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:43

      (laughs)

   8. DGDavid Goggins15:43

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

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:46

      What did the kids say?

   10. DGDavid Goggins15:48

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

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:52

       Right.

   12. 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-

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:15

       Right.

   14. 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?"

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:26

       Wow.

   16. 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."

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:43

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

   18. DGDavid Goggins16:48

       I have some jokes, Joe.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:49

       (laughs) Ah.

   20. DGDavid Goggins16:49

       I got some jokes, Joe.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:50

       I bet you do.

   22. 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?

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:20

       Out of how many people?

   24. 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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:35

       Wow.

   26. DGDavid Goggins17:36

       Yeah. So, you know, you don't, you know, do the math on that. So, there's not a lot of Black guys. And so, I take that and I make a nice comedy skit out of that shit.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:42

       (laughs)

   28. DGDavid Goggins17:43

       You know, like, like, like the first time they tied me up and threw me, it's called drownproofing.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:47

       Yeah.

   30. DGDavid Goggins17:47

       So, I'm negative buoyant as hell, you know.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   You know, you were…

   1. DGDavid Goggins30:00

      It's one of the first, you know, ultra marathons out there ever. And my mom lives in Nashville, so it's like a hour drive. I went up there and it was like one of my first races back after me being all sick and jacked up for so long. And I got lucky, had a good race, and I happened to win it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      You know, you were talking about the psoas muscle.

   3. DGDavid Goggins30:15

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:15

      And how it like... We have this thing now that we got, what is that called? A pro- Pro- PSO/Wright. PSO/Wright. Have you ever used one of those fucking things?

   5. DGDavid Goggins30:21

      I have it also. I, I, I saw it in there, that, that little black contraction?

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      Yeah.

   7. DGDavid Goggins30:24

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      That hard m- uh, plastic thing?

   9. DGDavid Goggins30:26

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:26

       That thing's, uh, phenomenal.

   11. DGDavid Goggins30:27

       It's evil, man.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:28

       Yeah.

   13. DGDavid Goggins30:29

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       It's good. It's great.

   15. DGDavid Goggins30:29

       It's amazing.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:30

       I started getting tightness in that when I was running a lot. Like I'd never gotten tightness in that area before.

   17. DGDavid Goggins30:35

       Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:36

       That s- it seems like that's a running thing, right?

   19. DGDavid Goggins30:38

       It's a running thing and also a very stress thing.

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       Mm-hmm.

   21. DGDavid Goggins30:40

       You know, if you're real stressed out, man, like for me, like if I talk about the origin, where it, where I, like, um, where things start, my body was so wrapped tight, I didn't know where, like where to start.

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:50

       Yeah.

   23. DGDavid Goggins30:50

       So I started with the psoas muscle, so that's a real good spot.

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:53

       Well, the problem with these races is pro- the problem with people like you, that's the problem with these races. Like if you get you and another you...

   25. DGDavid Goggins31:00

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:01

       ... and they're in there together...Like, you motherfuckers are gonna kill each other.

   27. DGDavid Goggins31:04

       It's a long day.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:05

       It's a long day.

   29. DGDavid Goggins31:05

       It's a long day. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       (laughs) It's a long day. (laughs) 'Cause if, they're doing a last man standing type deal, right?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   The taking soul part…

   1. DGDavid Goggins45:00

      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.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:06:20

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

   2. DGDavid Goggins1:00:00

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      And if you just did it, if you just did it the right way, you would have earned it. And if you earn it, you'll keep it.

   4. DGDavid Goggins1:00:06

      That's the thing about it, man. Like, we like to take these very quick fixes in life. We want the six-minute abs approach to life.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      Yeah.

   6. DGDavid Goggins1:00:13

      No, man. There's no permanent in that.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      Yeah.

   8. DGDavid Goggins1:00:16

      There's no permanent in that, man. There's no scarring. There must be scarring.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

      Well, people are terrified of this thing that you're saying, that there's no end, that there's no finish line.

   10. DGDavid Goggins1:00:26

       Yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:26

       That every day is a new thing, that you have to earn it still. After all the shit you've done, every day you get up and you have to earn it.

   12. DGDavid Goggins1:00:32

       Yes. You know what's funny about that? I want you to be scared of it. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

       (laughs) Yeah.

   14. DGDavid Goggins1:00:37

       I want you to be scared of it.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

       'Cause it gives you fuel.

   16. DGDavid Goggins1:00:39

       It's great motivation. And see, if you look at it that way, the reason why I speak the way I speak, 'cause I believe in what I'm saying, if I ever shut it down, that's the end of me. And whatever my 100% will be, I don't know what's gonna happen to me. Tomorrow they're gonna be like, "What if you can't run?" I will figure what the fuck I can do and do that. That would be my new 100%. You must continue to find your new 100%. Whatever life throws at you, you must find what you can do now. I may become the best, you know, scientist of all time. Who knows? Watch out. You know what I'm saying? (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:16

       (laughs)

   18. DGDavid Goggins1:01:16

       Be scared. Watch out. (laughs) Who knows?

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:20

       Well, that is an approach, like this- this approach, this mental approach, you can use that for anything once you get past the quitting mechanism of your mind.

   20. DGDavid Goggins1:01:29

       That's right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       Once you get past that thing, that this is applicable, you can- you can take these lessons that you learn from these grueling runs-

   22. DGDavid Goggins1:01:37

       Yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       ... from this losing 106 pounds in three months, from all these different things of struggle-

   24. DGDavid Goggins1:01:41

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       ... you can take these lessons of struggle and you can apply them to anything.

   26. DGDavid Goggins1:01:46

       Yes. I talk about it in my book here, about, um, that race I did that made SEAL training look like a- like a child's play in Ranger school. That- that first 100 miler I did where I shit on myself and all kind of stuff, that 19 hours it took me with no training, I sum it up like this. You're talking about struggle, how- how you can put so much of life into struggle. In that 19 hours, I lived five years, five years of struggle, of happiness, of- of depression, success, failure, in 19 hours. That's what's great about some of these things I do. You get a- a wide range of life in just 19 hours. You know, like when you get to like mile 50 and your mind's saying like, "We got to get out of here, man," and then you get to like mile 60, "Okay, we're feeling good." You have all these highs and lows that you have to manage within this suck fest of 19 hours. And that's what I get from a lot of these different things, that human growth, you know, growth of the mind. Without friction, there is no growth. Without friction, there's no growth.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:45

       There's no growth and there's no satisfaction.

   28. DGDavid Goggins1:02:48

       Mm-mm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:49

       Like, there's no re- Like people want to sit around and rest, but you don't really appreciate rest unless you earned it.

   30. DGDavid Goggins1:02:54

       That's it. And people get- (laughs) they think I'm the craziest person on the planet. You are so far fucking removed from that statement, it's not even funny. I was 290 pounds twice in my life. I do not like to do the things I do, but there's humongous satisfaction from doing it. There's humongous satisfaction from lacing your shoes up, saying, "I don't really want to go for a run today," and then running-

Episode duration: 2:17:57