By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.
Lewis HowesDO THIS To Make Yourself Immune To Pain & DESTROY LAZINESS | David Goggins & Lewis Howes
Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
90 min read · 18,321 words- 0:00 – 7:27
Why Goggins Went From Staying Quiet to Sharing His Story
- DGDavid Goggins
Everybody's got a story. We don't share it on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We have, we all have a dungeon. I'm just willing to talk about mine.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
Most of us aren't willing to talk about it. I'm gonna talk about my dungeon. Mental toughness isn't something that you sample. It's something that you live in every day. [upbeat music]
- LHLewis Howes
Welcome, everyone, back to the School of Greatness podcast. We have the inspiring David Goggins in the house. Good to see you, man.
- DGDavid Goggins
Thank you.
- LHLewis Howes
Very excited about this. I first heard about you through Jesse Itzler's book, uh, Living with a SEAL, and he came on to talk about his experience, and he actually didn't mention your name because you didn't want to be known-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... a few years ago.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
But now you're wanting to be known, and you're putting your message out everywhere.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
And I'm just curious, quickly, why did you wanna not be known then, but now you do wanna have your message out there?
- DGDavid Goggins
Well, when Jesse wrote that book, Living with a SEAL, I was, uh, I was about two or three weeks from getting out of the military. So, you know, being a SEAL, you know, I didn't wanna be mentioned David Goggins in his book. So the second the book popped, I was retiring.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
So the book came out November 15th, or November 1, 2015, and I, uh, retired-
- LHLewis Howes
Gotcha
- DGDavid Goggins
... November of 2015.
- LHLewis Howes
Gotcha.
- DGDavid Goggins
So that's why. That's the, th- that's the biggest reason why.
- LHLewis Howes
And when did you start putting yourself out there, doing interviews and talking about your message, and you got on social media-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... and started sharing videos. When, when did you decide to do that?
- DGDavid Goggins
Well, I'd been talking to people for several years, and I wasn't really big on... It's like, like my mindset's very different than most people.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
It's a mindset of, um, I don't wanna be known too much. I don't want too many looky-loos in my life, because that's where I gain my strength. I gain my strength from a place of quiet.
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
And the more I got my story out there, the more I realized it'd no longer be David Goggins, the quiet man. It'd be David Goggins, the guy that's on Instagram, answering this, answering that, 'cause I'm also a guy that's always about, if someone reaches out to me, I'm not gonna sit back and say, "Oh, you know, whatever." I'm gonna reach back to you, so it's gonna take time-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
... out of me trying to gain strength and me trying to get ready to go. So that was a big deterrent for me to get on Instagram and all that stuff.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- 7:27 – 14:36
Abuse, Self-Talk and Racism in His Childhood
- LHLewis Howes
How did you deal with that? How did you, like, overcome the constant physical and emotional abuse?
- DGDavid Goggins
You know what? It's all I knew.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
So when you're born to that, it's all you know. You, I mean, you know something's not right because in my mind, as a young kid, I could tell, man, you know, the way I was processing things wasn't right.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
I mean, I suffer from severe toxic stress, and that was one of the big reasons why I started ... You know, I had a learning disability. My focus in life was way off. I was afraid. I was afraid of everything, and when you have that kind of foundation, um, growing up, and that's where you start life at-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
... is being be- being abused and also working all night at a skating rink, not going to school, and you have a guy who's an alcoholic. And the second he got drunk, he got mad. And so our house lived in fear.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And the one thing that you can't ever get out of a kid's mind is your mom's mi- like, like, your mom's face.
- LHLewis Howes
The terror of your mom.
- DGDavid Goggins
The terror of your mom's face.
- LHLewis Howes
That's the worst.
- DGDavid Goggins
So you, you know, I didn't care about my brother, I didn't care about me, but I saw this woman go from Mary Poppins, the sweetest person on the planet Earth, and when you see your mom start to transform to a shell, to a person whose face becomes stoic, a person who has no emotion, and that changes a kid.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And when you're young and you have to grow up so fast, so by eight years old, my mind was of a, of a 40-year-old. At eight. You know, my family, like, life came at me, and it makes your brain ... You know, you're not outside playing with kids. You know, you're trying to avoid getting beat.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
You know, you're avoiding all these things.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And like-
- LHLewis Howes
Then you go home. It's supposed to be safe-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right, right
- LHLewis Howes
... and you're getting beat again.
- DGDavid Goggins
Exactly. And what's funny about that, we lived in, on, on Paradise Road.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah. I read that.
- DGDavid Goggins
We lived on Paradise Road, and it was-
- LHLewis Howes
It wasn't so paradise. [laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
It was nothing. It was anything but paradise, man. You know, once those doors shut-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
... you know, my dad gave everybody a different view of him.
- 14:36 – 19:05
Cheating, Spiral Notebooks and Passing the ASVAB
- DGDavid Goggins
So I, uh, was in Brazil, Indiana, and about 10 minutes from Brazil, Indiana, is a small town called Center Point, Indiana. Uh-huh. And Center Point, Indiana- Yeah, yeah ... is... was at that time a huge hub of the KKK. Wow. In 1995, the Klan marched in the 4th of July parade. And I don't know if the picture's in. I don't know the... if, if, if, if any pictures are in there, but if not- Yeah ... there's a picture in the book- Yeah ... in 1995, 10 minutes from my house, of crosses being burned. 10 minutes from your house? 10 minutes from my house. Wow. So when you have all this negativity growing up, and now you're cheating and you're doing this, and you, and, and, and your dad beats you, and, you know, y- your, your mom's fiance gets murdered, and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and then you come to this. And your mom's working three jobs, you know, she's not home at all. She never saw one report card of mine. She didn't know how bad off I was in school. She was hustling, trying to make money, and I was the man of the house, lying, sneaking around, not going to school. Cheating, stealing. Cheating. Yeah, yeah. Right. Everything I could. Yeah. And, um, so I, I, I walked out of school one day and saw this, "Nigger, we're gonna kill you" on my car, and I went in to get the principal. There are several incidents like this that happened. I went in to get the principal, and the principal, he, he didn't have anything... He, he couldn't give me any advice. And I didn't want to tell my mom about it 'cause my mom was already bothered by my dad beating her down, and now her fiance got murdered, so I didn't want to bother her. The last thing on her mind. Yeah. She's like, "I've dealt with this my whole life." Right. Yeah. I didn't want to bother her with anything, man. So I kept everything away from her. Oh. So I'm in the car wash trying to, trying to scrub this stuff off, and I got home and so happens two weeks later she gets a note from school, and the note says, "Your son is going to fail. He's not gonna graduate." And she's like, "What is this?" And I had to come clean with my mom- Mm ... of all the years of me cheating, of all the bullying, of all this and all that. And she was such in a bad spot in her life that the best thing she could do was like, "Hey, you know, you're, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail school." Wow. And I, I, I was like, "My God, man." Like, you know, she, she was in a dark place, and I was in a dark place, and we were kinda on our owns in, in the same house but living different lives. And I realized at this time in my life she was a great mom, but I was on my own, and that's when the real big change happened for me, so I said, "I wanna join the military." This is 6, 17? 17, yeah. Yeah. You know, I wanted to go into the, uh, delayed entry program. Mm-hmm. And I went to take the ASVAB test and I cheated. So- That's what you knew ... that's, that's what I did. [laughs] You're a good idea. So I got my friend, 'cause I walked into the recruiter's office and the recruiter says, "Hey, you gotta take this ASVAB test." Second I heard test I was like, "Man, oh, hang on a second." I can't test to save my life, man. I, I'm gonna go. Yeah. Can I come back tomorrow? Yeah, yeah. [laughs] So I come back and the, uh, the, the recruiter starts handing these tests out, and I'm like, "Great, I'm gonna sit by my boy." Mm-hmm. "I'm gonna copy off my boy." He had a different test than I did. Ooh. So I couldn't copy off him. Yes. And that's when the light bulb hit on. So I failed this test several times. What, you failed twice or- I failed it twice ... yeah. I actually failed it, I failed it twice, and the third time I said, "Mom, I need help." Wow. And she said, um, "We don't have much money, but we can afford a tutor for one hour a week for six months," 'cause this is my last time taking the test. And so I had to learn. So I had, I had a third-grade reading level. Yeah. I'm a junior in high school. Yeah. So I had six months to learn all this stuff, and I only had a tutor for one hour a week. So basically what happened was she would come in for an hour and I, I wasn't picking it up, any of it. I just couldn't retain anything.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And there was so much to learn, it overwhelmed me. So basically what happened was I realized I had to go by the store and buy spiral notebooks, and I had to literally write down every single thing repeatedly. Like, so what may take you an hour to learn, it took me hours, six, eight, nine-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
... 10 hours. I had to write the same thing down.
- LHLewis Howes
Simple stuff, yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
Simple stuff.
- LHLewis Howes
I hear you, man.
- DGDavid Goggins
So I started memori-
- LHLewis Howes
That's my life.
- DGDavid Goggins
Yeah.
- LHLewis Howes
That's my life. [laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
So I, I, I had to memorize.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
What I... So I didn't really learn it. I could just recall it from writing it down so many times that on page 71, I remember seeing that.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And that's how I did it, and I ended up passing that test.
- LHLewis Howes
Crazy.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I got in the military, so.
- LHLewis Howes
That's crazy.
- DGDavid Goggins
Yeah.
- 19:05 – 21:46
What His Mother Taught Him Without Teaching
- LHLewis Howes
What was the greatest lesson your mom taught you growing up?
- DGDavid Goggins
Honestly, the greatest lesson she ever taught me is the lesson that she d- she doesn't know how much she taught me because she wasn't much in the teaching mode. My dad took her soul.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
But what I did as a young kid is I observed everybody. I wasn't really smart in the books.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
But I was real smart when it came to life.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I was able to sit back and watch her mistakes. I was able to see how she struggled through life and how I don't wanna struggle through life. And I was able to see she never picked me up. The biggest thing she did for me, and this is the honest to God truth, and she doesn't even know she did it.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
When I would bust my ass, when I would fail-
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
... when I was at the bottom of the sewer, she never picked me up. She never gave me that cookie and said, "Hey, son, you know, it's gonna be okay."
- LHLewis Howes
It's all good. Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
She never, she didn't have time for that. And sometimes she gets upset when I talk about my past because it, it, it paints her out to be not the best mom. If I had any kind of mom in that kind of environment, I would've never made it.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
Because she forced me, for whatever reason, she forced me to, "You better figure this out or you're gonna be a statistic."
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
And this is something that she didn't sit down and tell me. I realized this. This is the world that is in front of me. And what most people do is they see this world and they look at it as an excuse to get out of it.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
I started looking at it as this is the ultimate training ground for the rest of my life.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
I have all these valuable lessons. 'Cause if you look out in the world right now today, it's not a nice place, but I'm very prepared for it.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah, you are. [laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
I'm prepared for it. I'm prepared for all the failure coming my way. I'm prepared for everything my way, and that's the biggest lesson that she taught me by not teaching me.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
By never saying, "It's gonna be okay."
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
Matter of fact, she told me the exact opposite, "Life sucks." That's what she knew, and it was the truth.
- LHLewis Howes
That was her reality.
- DGDavid Goggins
That was her reality.
- 21:46 – 30:40
No Recovery Day: Confidence Built in Discomfort
- LHLewis Howes
Huh. You know, I, I, I look at my life as like, you ... And here you talk about, like, really diving into pain and, like-
- DGDavid Goggins
Yes
- LHLewis Howes
... embracing pain and finding, looking for the pain.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
And I think there's, like, a, there's a, there's a safe pain and then there's a probably an unsafe pain of just, like-
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm
- LHLewis Howes
... jumping off a building and, you know, whatever and-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... trying to land on 20 floors or something. It's probably not the safe way to do things.
- DGDavid Goggins
No.
- LHLewis Howes
But doing 200 miles, uh, of endurance running-
- DGDavid Goggins
Right
- LHLewis Howes
... is like a different way of pain, looking at pain. Um, and that's what I've been looking for my whole life is, like, finding the pain. And I talk about, like, do something every day that, that's painful.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
In a good structure environment. You've been doing that for the last couple years now. It's like you work out every day. You haven't missed a day.
- DGDavid Goggins
I did it for the last 20-
- LHLewis Howes
20 years
- DGDavid Goggins
... some years of my life.
- LHLewis Howes
20 years? Oh, I thought you said two years.
- DGDavid Goggins
20 some years. No, 20 some years of my life.
- LHLewis Howes
20. Every day you work out?
- DGDavid Goggins
So I used to take one day off a week.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh-huh.
- DGDavid Goggins
I used to take one day off a week.
- LHLewis Howes
For the body to recover, right? Makes sense.
- DGDavid Goggins
But that one day off was an active recovery day where I would get on a trainer and ride for, like, two hours.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
But at a, at a zone one heart rate, very low heart rate. And I replaced the carbohydrates in my body while I rode because the best way to recover for me is to do something at a very low heart rate, 'cause therefore your blood's flowing through your body.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
As your blood's flowing through your body, refuel it with the nutrients, 'cause then your blood's flowing, the nutrients is going through all your cells in your body. All that glycogen is now flowing at a low heart rate, so it's not burning it, it's refueling it.
- 30:40 – 38:53
Facing Yourself: Illness, Reflection and the Dungeon
- DGDavid Goggins
What's your biggest insecurity today? I, I'm, not to be arrogant, I don't have one. What was the last one you had, and when was that? The last one I had was probably, um, still me. Me. Okay. Still living... 'Cause I, I always talk about I, I pay rent. So we live, we used to live in a $7 a month place when I was growing up. And that- Is this in Buffalo, or is this in- This is in Indiana. Yeah. So, like, we had a lot of money in Buffalo. Mm-hmm. And w- when my mom left my dad, we went to nothing for a period of time before she got on her feet. Right. And that $7 a month place used to be, it was my, it was who I was. I was no one. I was in the sewer. My mom wasn't there. I had nothing. And you always feel like you have nothing. I had, I'd achieved so much. I was a Navy SEAL. I'd gone through Ranger school. I've gone through Delta Force selection training. I'd, I, I'd done so much. I, I run 200 miles, pull-up records, everything. Learned to read and write, became pretty intelligent, and I still was like, "Man, what is wrong with me?" It wasn't until I got real sick, and I talk about it in the last chapter of that book, I got real sick, and I was about, um, 38 years old. Mm-hmm. I'm 43 now. And my life got real quiet. I, I went from running 205 miles in 39 hours to I couldn't get out of bed. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. But once again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why is that? In that moment when my whole life changed, I went from a guy who worked out every day, trained every day, to a guy who couldn't get out of bed. My life was taken from me. The one thing that kept me going was my training. It was- Now you didn't have that. I didn't have anything. Now you just had to sit alone- Alone ... and not train. And that's what changed me. That's... Wow. And that's when I realized I hadn't thought, hadn't taken time to think about what I'd done in my life. You hadn't reflected yet. I hadn't reflected. I'd done all these things, but there was no finish line. I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect. Yeah. I was just going. I wouldn't even... I finished the race of life, and I wouldn't even receive my medal. I'd go on. [laughs] You're like on to the next. I'd get in the car, and I'd go. You wouldn't even take the medal. Gone. Don't care about it. Like, "I'm not gonna waste an hour-" No ... "sitting around for this ceremony." Most people sit around- It's a song ... and that's what they like. Yeah. [laughs] They, they need the ceremony of, "I accomplished something." The validation and- I haven't done anything. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I'm just getting started. I'm just getting star- Which is right. When I started figuring out life, that I was leaving so much on the table, I call it my 40% rule. Yeah. I was leaving so much on the table. Once I realized, my God, man, I was this dumb, fat kid being bullied, and now I'm a 180-pound person who lost 106 pounds in less than three months, learned to read, learned to do this, learned to do that. I was like, "I need more." Mm-hmm. I was fueling my mind with everything, and I never took time to say, "My God, you came from this hell, and you're here." So those insecurities, and this is how I explain it the best way. SEAL training became pretty hard, and a lot of guys weren't getting through it, so they designed a SEAL pep prep program. Hmm. Like a boot camp for the boot camp. That's right. Yeah. And it was two months. In my last two years before I retired from the military, they sent me there to train these kids- Wow ... to get ready for BUDS. 18, 19, 20-year-olds? Yeah. Yeah, young kids. So when they get to Navy SEAL training, man, they were physical studs. They were running, swimming. I mean, they were, they were hybrids. Wow. But they get to BUDS, and the same amount of people would quit. Why is that? This is why. We were training bigger, stronger, faster quitters. Hmm. It's not about- Not the mind. That's right. We weren't diving into the sewer. Everybody's got a story. We don't share it on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We have, we all have a dungeon. I'm just willing to talk about mine. Yeah. Most of us aren't willing to talk about it. I'm gonna talk about my dungeon. I wasn't getting into the dungeon of these guys' minds. I wasn't building that so-called mental toughness. Mental toughness isn't something that you sample. It's something that you live in every day. So when something hard would happen to these kids, like in Hell Week, it would draw on something that made them very insecure, and they'd look for comfort. Whenever hardness comes, and you don't know what it is, it may be different for you than it is for me. Mm-hmm. But you go back to your insecurities. And then when you go back to the insecurities, you then look for comfort within those insecurities. And we all look for that cookie that your mom used to give you- Right ... when you were sad. Yeah. When you were sick. We look for our wife or our husband. We look for comfort. It's in those moments you must retrain your mind- Hmm ... to think differently. In Hell, I wasn't training them to do that. Why weren't you training them? I wasn't training myself yet, 'cause at that time I was doing what I was told. Hmm. These guys need to meet a standard. Physical standard. A physical standard. The physical standard is not what they need to meet. It's a mental standard you must meet in life. So going back to when I was sick, I was hitting the physical standards. I wasn't meeting the mental standard. The mental standard is you must know how far you've come. Wow. I wasn't... I, I had come 8,000 miles from where I started, but if you never know that, you're still in the $7- In the bottom When I was sick, I was able to slow it down and reflect back on my entire life. And in that bed, when I thought I was dying, 'cause that story is long, that, that sick portion of my life is long, I didn't care if I died or lived.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
'Cause I was for the first time in my life happy-
- LHLewis Howes
Wow
- DGDavid Goggins
... and at peace.
- LHLewis Howes
[clears throat]
- DGDavid Goggins
'Cause I reflected back on where I started.
- LHLewis Howes
You said, "Wow, I have come a long way."
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right. And no one saved me. It wasn't like someone came down here and guided me through life. When you figure this out on your own, the amount of pride and dignity and self-respect you have, that's why I walk around the streets with a backpack-
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
... and just like I don't need anything else.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
You figure it out by going inside yourself, by callusing over the victim's mentality. You're always a victim, even if you have everything in life, until you realize what you've achieved. You have to first realize what you've achieved. And my mom has accomplished so much in her life, says my father, but she hasn't done that one step.
- LHLewis Howes
Really? She doesn't acknowledge it and reflect back?
- DGDavid Goggins
She continues to go back to the dungeon of her past life.
- LHLewis Howes
And live in that space.
- DGDavid Goggins
And live in that space versus live in the space that she's in now and reflecting back on, "My God, this is what I've done with my life." So-
- LHLewis Howes
Have you talked to her about this?
- DGDavid Goggins
We talk about it all the time, and you have to be willing to go there. You have to be willing to really go there, not, not surface.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
I don't, I don't live on the surface of anything.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
Surface is what got me where I was at. It got me from 175 pounds to 300 pounds, telling everybody, "I'm good. I don't, I don't give a damn. I'm good." No, they're, they're hollow words.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
A lot of us speak in hollow words. I used to speak in hollow words. I don't do it anymore. Everything that comes out of my mouth has substance, is real. And we all have these feelings in our bodies and in our minds and in our souls. I act on mine. A lot of us who are afraid of something, we allow our minds to choose the path of least resistance, so we go a different route. When I'm afraid of something, it's telling me, "You must conquer that."
- LHLewis Howes
Do this thing.
- DGDavid Goggins
"You must do that."
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
"You have to go that way."
- LHLewis Howes
[clears throat]
- 38:53 – 49:08
Fear as a Guide and Having No Way Out
- DGDavid Goggins
And most of us don't understand that mentality. We go left, and we wonder why we haven't fulfilled something in our lives. It's because we continue to take the journey that is mapped out. And how I look at it is I, I, I talk in life like a lot of us in life wanna take the four-lane highway that has roadmaps and all this other stuff on it, man. Tells you where to go, gas stations. The next 10 miles up you're gonna see a McDonald's-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm
- DGDavid Goggins
... or Cracker Barrel.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
It's the easy route.
- LHLewis Howes
Okay.
- DGDavid Goggins
Very few of us wanna go to the right side, but-
- LHLewis Howes
That C- that Cracker Barrel is that Midwest life.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right. That's right. [laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right.
- LHLewis Howes
I'm from Ohio, so-
- DGDavid Goggins
That's all about it, man
- LHLewis Howes
... it's all about Cracker Barrel. [laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
Indiana, Cracker Barrel everywhere.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs] Dude, that's amazing. Bringing back memories. Um, this is powerful, 'cause I've been telling people this. I've been living that way unknowingly my whole life of, like, whatever the thing is I'm afraid of.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
When I was in high school, I started doing those things.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
And it was just like, "I'm sick and tired of feeling afraid."
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
"So I need to do the things that scare me the most."
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh, you know, I, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. Tiffany's heard me s- these, share these stories. But I was afraid to talk to girls when I was a teenager.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
I was afraid of, uh, dancing. I was afraid of, like, singing and playing music in front of people.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
I was afraid of all these different things. And so I said, "I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna give myself a challenge every single day until the fear goes away."
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right.
- LHLewis Howes
And I feel like that's what more of us should be doing. I'm hearing that that's what you, how you live your life.
- 49:08 – 53:38
Going Back to Scratch and the Cookie Jar
- LHLewis Howes
And you're still choosing it.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I'm still choosing it.
- LHLewis Howes
You can go back to that guy-
- DGDavid Goggins
No
- LHLewis Howes
... any moment.
- DGDavid Goggins
'Cause I found out, I found out something with those stress fractures. I found out something through facing all these things. I found out a whole nother world, which is why I walk around with all my stuff in a black backpack.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
I found out a whole nother way, a whole nother way of no matter how far you get in life, you have to be able to go back to scratch in your mind at a moment's notice. You can never get so far beyond scratch.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
What that means is when you accomplish something in life, if you're willing to go back to scratch and go back to that $7 a month place where I once lived, and visit that place for a long period of time, if you were here when you went back to scratch, you would now be here.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
Scratch is what makes you better. Scratch, friction, obstacles create growth. There's no friction when you're this far up in the game anymore. You think there is.
- LHLewis Howes
Right, when you've achieved. Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
The real- that's right. When you achieve so much, the friction is, is, is minor. 'Cause why? I'm sore, I'm gonna get a massage today.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat today.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
The refrigerator's always full. So your comforts are now, so your discomfort is now very minuscule to your discomfort back here in the $7 a month place. So you have to go back to the total discomfort to then raise your level of where you're at now.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
I'm not saying stay there and stay there. Visit.
- LHLewis Howes
Visit it.
- DGDavid Goggins
And then you raise your level.
- LHLewis Howes
Take a day trip.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
Always take day trips.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah. [laughs] Don't stay there.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's right.
- LHLewis Howes
But take a day trip.
- DGDavid Goggins
Take a day trip.
- 53:38 – 1:04:13
Perspective, Delayed Gratification and the Badwater Comeback
- DGDavid Goggins
I was out on a fire in Colorado, and we were digging fire line on this f- like 50%, like it was like on the side of a daggone m- mountain.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
And we're trying to keep the fire from moving, and we're digging this fire line 14 inches, or my fault, 18 inches wide, three miles long. 12 of us digging, and it is the hardest work. You make $12 an hour.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
Okay? Nothing. You set up your shop. Like, when you're done digging, you just pretty much lay down and you go to sleep, and you get up and you dig some more.
- LHLewis Howes
Really?
- DGDavid Goggins
This happens for two weeks long, man.
- LHLewis Howes
What are you digging? It's like a hole, you're digging a line or-
- DGDavid Goggins
So, you, you, so you're trying to get down to, to a mineral source. So, so you're trying to get down to the, to the earth. So, so that if that fire's moving, it can't burn dirt.
- LHLewis Howes
Really?
- DGDavid Goggins
So you're removing fuels.
- LHLewis Howes
So you're kind of deep enough. Got it.
- DGDavid Goggins
You're, you know, so, so not only are you digging, you're cutting down trees. It's hard work. But the moral of the story is I'm 43, don't need to do it at all. This is why I do it.
- LHLewis Howes
You're making money. Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
I'm making m- I don't need... I, I, I, I have a good life. I don't need to do it. And everybody asks me why I do it, and this is why. This 21-year-old kid was out there, and he wanted a pair of running shoes. That's all he wanted was a pair of running shoes. 60, 70, 100 bucks to whatever. You know, easy for us
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah. Yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
Running shoes. But he looked up at the mountain that we had been on for days digging this fire line, and he said, "That'll take me five or six hours of work to buy those shoes." He said, "I'm not gonna buy them." It's the perspective of life.
- LHLewis Howes
Hm.
- DGDavid Goggins
That perspective of life right there of, that is the value that we lose. When things start to come so easy in life, it's the perspective that 21-year-old had and looked up at that mountain and thought... He looked at his hands, he looked at the, at the amount of hours of pulling that Pulaski, that, that tool, and raking that ground and, and then cutting those trees and moving them and that hours of work. He looked at his feet and said, "These old shoes will do."
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
It's that perspective in life that we lose. And that's, that story to most people may not mean anything. It's that story I always wanna have in my life, that you cannot lose perspective of where you've come in life.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah. So true. We were in, uh, Guatemala. Was it this year or last year? Last year. We were in Guatemala last year. We, we support a, a charity called Pencils of Promise that builds schools for kids w- who live in poverty and all around the world. And, uh, every year, I take a trip to just see where our efforts are being, you know, felt-
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm
- LHLewis Howes
... and, and being, and being made. And, uh, these are the poorest places in Guatemala, Laos, and Ghana.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm.
- LHLewis Howes
Places that they have nothing. There's no schools. They're in little villages. They live on dirt, huts, everything, right? And we go and we build these schools. We actually, the, the villagers build them themselves. We just fund the experience, and they empower, we empower them to do it, um, so that they take ownership of it.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
But I'll be there for a few days and watch these kids so happy with just, like, a pencil.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
Just so happy to just, like, have their family around.
- 1:04:13 – 1:07:04
The Tub After the First 100-Mile Race
- LHLewis Howes
Wow. Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
When you start to dive back in the cellar of your mind, and you're pulling out all these, all these tactics, all these mental tactics to get through this 30 miles when you're in the worst shape of your life, and no one's coming to save you, and you get through that, I, I wanna go back there. Like, when I got done with that race, I laid in the tub, and my ex-wife helped me get up the stairs. And I'm laying in this tub, and Coca-Cola's coming out of me.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
Just, it was like dirt. And she w- and, and you know, she's a nurse, and she's like, she's freaking out. And she puts the shower on me, and I'm looking at her, and all I wanna do is call the race director up of Badwater saying I qualified for the race.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
And she's thinking, "We gotta go to the hospital." So, you know, she's, she's calling my mom, and my mom has a doctor friend of hers who's over, and they're freaking out. And I said, "Everybody, just shut up."
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
Shut up. I'm in the worst pain of my entire life, and no one would ever understand this.
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
No one. When you've gone that deep inside yourself, and all those feelings of pain that I had, I was in the worst pain of my life, ever, and some people think, "Man, you're just crazy."
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
No. When you've, when you've done that, and you've figured out so much on your own, and all that pain and discomfort I had in that tub laying there, passing out, everything, was confirmation of what I just figured out. I just figured out the code. I figured out a code, a code that many people aren't looking for.
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I want it to be known. I, I want that feeling. This was confirmation. This was like a scientist's notes.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
The notes were here. The notes were all this feeling. It was a confirmation, and no one at that time could understand what I'd just done. I cracked the code to human potential-
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm
- DGDavid Goggins
... in myself, and I was still like, "Oh, my God," like, "this is unbelievable what I just did." So it's that quiet place.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
It's that place by yourself. It's those hours, and years, and decades by yourself in the grip of life, when life has you by the throat and choking you out, and you're sitting there calm because you're trying to figure it out. You're not panicking. You're not quitting. You're not throwing in the towel. You're saying, "There's a way around this." And when you figure it out, when life has you gripped in a vice, and you can figure that out, that's when you overcome.
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's when you overcome, and that's why that one moment for me in that tub, I wouldn't want anyone to take away from me.
- LHLewis Howes
Wow.
- DGDavid Goggins
...
- 1:07:04 – 1:13:16
The 40% Rule and Staying Uncomfortable
- DGDavid Goggins
crazy, man, I love this. Do you have any fears today? I do have a lot of fears today. Um, but it's hard for me to call them fears anymore. Mm-hmm, yeah. I don't use that word anymore. They're almost like it's another challenge. Yeah. Because anything that makes me feel that fear feeling is gonna get overcome. You go do it. It's gonna get conquered. Yeah. It, it... That is, that's almost like fear is my ultimate guide. Of where you're supposed to be going, yeah. Of where I'm supposed to be going. Yeah, yeah. It's my ultimate guide. So I don't really- What's the big, what's the big challenge then for you then? The biggest challenge for me is always going, I wanna be comfortable. You wanna be comfortable. Yep. You wanna sleep in a nice bed and relax and- I'm a, I'm a normal human being ... you wanna chill out and- Mm-hmm ... yeah. I want... And, and the time is gonna come. There's a time for everybody to get civilized. [laughs] The worst thing in life that happens to a man is they get civilized, or a woman, anybody. Yeah, yeah. 'Cause you lose the hunger for life. Uh-huh. You, you, you, you think you've arrived, and once you have a I've arrived mentality, that's my biggest fear, is I get to a point where I, I'm at that point where life has come to me and I have that feeling of I've arrived. I now know my life, for what I know it to be, is over. Even though that's where comfort is and everything else, I found the most life in the most uncomfortable places in the world. I was the most David. The, the, the Goggins that I invented, 'cause David Goggins was weak. Mm. I never wanna get rid of Goggins, the guy I created, that weak person that, that, that used to be, the guy I created that can handle anything. You don't wanna let go of that guy because you realize that that guy was made. You weren't born him. Mm. And that is- Yeah ... when, when, when you get comfortable, Goggins starts to die. He starts to die. That, that, that one creature from the Black Lagoon that can live in a sewer, that can eat rats all day- [laughs] Right ... that doesn't need water, that doesn't need sunlight, that doesn't need nothing. He can just live 'cause he knows he can. That's a powerful human being that you never wanna... And it's in everybody. That's the scary thing about... That's what makes me so upset, man, is that everybody wants to put this daggone label on me. They forget the first three chapters of my book. They forget how this started. A lot of times it takes someone's wife dying or something like that for them to change. Yeah, near death. Yeah, something. Yeah. No. No. No. None of that. I wanted to figure out is there more to this horrible feeling of feeling like a loser? Can I change this? And once you figure out I have the ability, not through your mom or your dad or through a special school. Through you. You have the ability to change this. That's what makes me so mad. Once people put this title on me, you now give yourself a get out of jail free card and say, "Oh, he's just crazy. He's special. He's unique. He's this and that." You just saved yourself. From not having to do the work. From not having to do the work. Yeah. And that's why I want people to hear my story. I'm trying to take away all that bull crap that you wanna put on me. I'm trying to make you suffer up here to know, oh my God, man, he really had a hard way to go. Wow. There was nothing special about him. He wasn't talented. He wasn't gifted. He wasn't nothing. He wasn't nothing and he made it. I want everybody to feel uncomfortable around me. [laughs] That's it, 'cause I want you to go home and think about yourself. Yeah. Think about yourself, man, because you're leaving so much on the table for the possibilities of what you can be. You say most people are at 40% potential. What percent are you at? I like to say that I live in the 90 percentile, sometimes 99. 100% is dead. [laughs] Wow. 100% is dead. 99 sometimes. 99 sometimes. The reason why I know 99, because the first five hours of my day I am very uncomfortable. What do you do? First of all, every morning I get up, and people think I love to run. [laughs] I don't. You know? That's why you do it. That's why I do it, and, and people don't understand the mentality. They go, "Oh, you have to love it, man." No. Running has changed my life because every morning I know I'm gonna do it. If you had, every morning you do something you don't like, every morning I would do it for... And guess what? If I just ran for an hour a day, a day is 24 hours, right? What percent is that? What's one hour of a twen- ... What is that, 4%, 5? Yeah. A small percent. But anyway, that's why I know I'm at a, a high level, 'cause I'm at a dis- not wanting to be dis- you know, uncomfortable, I put myself in the dungeon every day off jump. Out of bed, it starts. Shoes on, run. Out of bed. Right. While most people lose the battle in the morning, like once you leave your beautiful house, the war starts. Nowadays it starts before you leave home. The phone rings, social media's up, the world's attacking you. If you don't control what you can to build that armor... So in the morning time what I'm doing is I'm building my armor. It gets broken every night. I get up in the morning time, I start to build the armor. That's run, okay? Mm. Gotta do our pushups, our sit-ups, our pull-ups. I go to the gym, gotta do our stretch. Every morning I'm building- You do one, you do one hour in the morning of training? Oh, no. In the morning time I do at least an hour and a half, and then I go to the gym. Of running, hour and a half- So that's running ... hour and a half of running? Yes. Then I'm in the gym, and then at nighttime, every night for the last five to six years, about five and a half years, I've only missed two days of stretching for two to three hours. Two to three hours a night, stretching? I've only missed- Two days in five or s- about five and a half years
- 1:13:16 – 1:22:17
Building Armor: His Daily Routine
- LHLewis Howes
Wow. Stretching?
- DGDavid Goggins
Stretching.
- LHLewis Howes
Why stretching?
- DGDavid Goggins
That is where I f- so the, the sickness I had was my psoas muscle got real tight.
- LHLewis Howes
Huh.
- DGDavid Goggins
And it caused my body, long story short, to pretty much choke me out from the inside. So when you're young, your psoas muscle's your fight or flight muscle. We're sitting down right now, we're using the hip flexion muscle.
- LHLewis Howes
Uh-huh.
- DGDavid Goggins
When you're under stress, as I was my whole life by being afraid of my father, being-
- LHLewis Howes
Tight inside
- DGDavid Goggins
... it's tight
- LHLewis Howes
Clenched, yeah
- DGDavid Goggins
Your whole body's tight. Then I choose a job like being a Navy SEAL, it's even tighter.
- LHLewis Howes
Right
- DGDavid Goggins
And then I put myself under stress. It's just tighten and tighten and tighten to it, it's a vice grip, and you need healthy blood flow through your body. I wasn't getting any of that. So I pushed so hard in, in life. People say, "Oh, 'cause you ran so much." No. [laughs]
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
Sorry. Life.
- LHLewis Howes
Emotional stress.
- DGDavid Goggins
Yes.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
Emotional stress made me just tight. So now, I couldn't sit down here for 10 seconds and I'd be like, I was wound. What that's done to me is it allowed me to be even open, even more open-minded. I stretch out. I get my body lengthening out. It lengthens my mind out.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
The possibilities out. I calm myself down. So during the morning time, I build the armor, I face the world. 'Cause now I know there's gonna be some disappointments along the way, every day.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
That's life. But if you face disappointments already in victory, the things I can control is I can control my run.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
I can control how my house looks, how my, how my world is. I can control that, so I've won. Open my door of life, life starts to beat me down, but I'm facing it with the body armor that I created.
- LHLewis Howes
Yes.
- DGDavid Goggins
And now I'm facing life with, with, with the proper tools, unlike I hit the snooze button, I'm running late, my house is a mess, my mind's a mess. Now life's already beat you. So you open the door, and now life hits you and you're already frustrated. You're already in that anxiety mode, you're stressed already, and then life starts to pile more on top of you. You get home, you're exhausted, and that's how life happens to everyone. You have to live and win what you can and build the body armor, start callousing the mind so you're ready-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm
- DGDavid Goggins
... for combat outside of your house. 'Cause it's gonna come, and that's what I realized at a young age. I had no body armor. I had no callus.
- 1:22:17 – 1:27:41
His Father's Lesson and Responding to Provocation
- LHLewis Howes
I'm, I'm curious about, I did a- I asked you about the greatest lesson from your mom, but I'm, I'm curious, what's the greatest lesson your dad taught you, whether he actually said it or you observed it?
- DGDavid Goggins
Um, I observed it. Um-
- LHLewis Howes
Or what, or what not to do or, yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
So I observed it from my dad. Um, when I left, I was young. I had a young man's, a, a young kid's point of view on my father. So when I was 22 at 300 pounds, I went back to see my dad, 'cause I wanted to make sure-
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm
- DGDavid Goggins
... that what I saw at eight is the same, this... 'cause it's my father. I don't want to not talk to my father, no matter what he did, no matter what I saw, but was it through a young kid's eyes?
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
So at 22, I went back, and I was able to examine him at a, as a, as a man, as a fragile man that I was.
- LHLewis Howes
Sure.
- DGDavid Goggins
But I was able to examine him, and through this process, by this, so by this point in my life, I was examining myself and realizing I have a whole mess of problems.
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
Big time. Some were from him, some were from people that bullied me, a lot were from me. And in knowing how messed up I was, I was able to examine everybody around me. I examined him, and I examined him and know, "My God, the insecurities that you must have, the problems that you must have inside of you, I don't wanna have those." I come from my father. I have what he has.
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
And I didn't wanna be him. Why he made fun of me, my brother, why he beat the hell out of me, my brother, and my mom, it comes from a dark place, an insecure, dark, dark place. Why he womanized, why he sold prostitutes, why he ran pro- all the stuff he did, a good human being doesn't need to do that. A fulfilled human being doesn't need to break anyone down. All they do is wanna build you up. So anybody you meet that calls you out of your name, that bullies you, that messes you up, that, that makes you feel not lifted, they are dealing with something deep-rooted. Yeah, you have to have a tough tone with some people to help them out. There's a difference. You have to be hard. I'm hard on people, but it comes from a good place.
- LHLewis Howes
Yeah.
- DGDavid Goggins
The biggest lesson he taught me was how not to be, and that's why I had to fix what I was, because insecurities make everybody around you feel like hell, and that's the one thing I did not want anyone to feel like. That's why I judge no one. Tons of whites have called me nigger. I've been... Tons of people have hurt me. I judge no one, 'cause I know where it comes from.
- LHLewis Howes
Hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
I know you. I was once you. That's why now the place I'm at, you get a get out of jail free card. You need to help yourself.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
You ain't bullying me, man.
- LHLewis Howes
Right. You're fine.
- DGDavid Goggins
You're ... I'm good.
- LHLewis Howes
Whatever he throw at you.
- DGDavid Goggins
I'm good.
- LHLewis Howes
You're like, "Eh."
- DGDavid Goggins
I know what's wrong with you-
- LHLewis Howes
[laughs]
- DGDavid Goggins
... 'cause I was once you.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
So I started to examine people, examine myself, examine my darkness, realizing how I cannot be, but I got it from examining him.
- 1:27:41 – 1:36:04
Three Truths, Where to Find Him, and Defining Greatness
- LHLewis Howes
this is called the three truths. I ask this question to everyone at the end.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
It's called the three truths. Imagine, uh, it is your last day, and it's ... You get to pick the day whenever you want. You get to live as long as you want. You pick the day, but it's time for your, your body to go.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
Right? You've created everything you wanna create.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
You've, you've been at 99 percentile of potential for as long as you can live.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
You've done it all. You've checked off the list that everything that God says that you were supposed to do-
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm
- LHLewis Howes
... it's happened.
- DGDavid Goggins
Right.
- LHLewis Howes
Written the books. D- everything you wanna do, done. But for whatever reason, you've gotta take all of your written word and videos and, and, and audio stuff that's out into the world, you've gotta take it with you.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
But you get to write down on a piece of paper the three things you know to be true about all of your experiences.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
And this is what you would leave behind, the three lessons or what I like to call the three truths.
- DGDavid Goggins
Mm-hmm.
- LHLewis Howes
What would you say are your three truths?
- DGDavid Goggins
The first one is you are your own hero. You are your own leader. You are your own master. And, uh, that is a big one because we idolize so many people-
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm
- DGDavid Goggins
... and we wanna be them. We wanna be someone else. And in doing that, you lose all the potential of who you are. You mimic. You be them. You are them. You become them, and you lose you. And we look up to so many people in this world who will let us down. We're humans. I'm gonna let you down. You're gonna let somebody down. If you put them on a pedestal, you then lose time when that person comes up and lets you down.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm-hmm.
- DGDavid Goggins
You must hold yourself accountable, and being your own hero, that's what that does. You make yourself so totally accountable for who you are. You focus on you and only on you to become the best person you can be for others. Because we leave a lot on the table not searching who we are.
- LHLewis Howes
Mm.
- DGDavid Goggins
And then therefore, you die not knowing your greatest potential.
- LHLewis Howes
Right.
- DGDavid Goggins
Um-
- LHLewis Howes
That's one
- DGDavid Goggins
... that's one. The, the, the next one I would say is, um ... The biggest one I would say is never pick the easy road.
Episode duration: 1:36:19
In the uListen app, the transcript lights up word by word as you listen. Get uListen
Transcript of episode hMgMASVsA9Y
