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My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything.
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It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you re never going to be enough.
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Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times Bestseller back-to-back weeks.
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And I m so excited to hear from so many of you who ve bought the book, who ve read it, and have finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book.
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If you haven t got a copy yet,
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You ll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward.
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This is the book I wish I had when I was 20 struggling, trying to figure out life.
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10 years ago at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book
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I m glad I have today for myself.
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Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today.
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Again, lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today.
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Also, the book is on audible now so you can get it on audiobook as well.
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And don t forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.
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The most important conversation you ll ever have in your life is when you have yourself.
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And my conversation was absolutely horrifying.
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What were you saying to yourself?
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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Welcome to today s special episode.
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Over the last 1300 plus episodes, there ve been so many impactful interviews that I ve been lucky enough to have.
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And I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful.
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And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past.
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And I m excited for the value it s going to bring you today as well.
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So I hope you enjoy today s episode.
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Why did you want to not be known then, but now you do want to have your message out there?
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Well, when Jesse wrote that book, Living With a Seal, I was about two or three weeks from getting out of the military.
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So being a SEAL, I didn t want to mention David Goggins in this book.
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So the second the book popped, I was retiring.
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So the book came out November 15th, or November 1, 2015, and I retired November of 2015.
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So that s why, that s the biggest reason why.
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And when did you start putting yourself out there, doing interviews and talking about your message, and you got on social media and started sharing videos, when did you decide to do that?
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Well, I ve been talking to people for several years, and I wasn t really big on, like my mindset s very different than most people.
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It s a mindset of, I don t want to be known too much.
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I don t want too many looky-loos in my life, because that s where I gained my strength.
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I gained my strength from a place of quiet.
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And the more I got my story out there, the more I realized it d no longer be David Goggins, the quiet man.
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It d be David Goggins, the guy that s on Instagram, answering this, answering that, because I m also a guy that s always about, if someone reaches out to me, I m not going to sit back and say, oh, you know, whatever.
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I m going to reach back to you.
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So it s going to take time out of me trying to gain strength and me trying to get ready to go.
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So that was a big deterrent for me to get on Instagram and all that stuff.
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I m not big on social media anyway.
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But then I realized that God put me in a very interesting spot of life where he made hell
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my teacher, he made hell my teacher.
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And a lot of people don t understand that.
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So I m trying to give people a different thought process of life where failure, hell, disappointment, discomfort is a great learning tool.
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And many people don t understand that.
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And a lot of people won t even understand this interview when we get done with it.
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But it s these few moments in life that you have, like for me, I always talk about it, Rocky won round 14.
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That one two minute and 13 second clip of Rocky getting up when Apollo knocked him down, that one clip when I was going through a very bad time in my life, I saw what I wanted to be.
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And it wasn t a guy that won.
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It wasn t a guy that won everything he did.
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It was a guy that kept getting up after being knocked down.
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So I realized if that two minutes and 13 seconds changed my life, so I was, I saw something that I needed to be in the world I was living in.
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Maybe my story
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will give someone the two minutes and 13 seconds they need to change their life.
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Means that people live in a very comfortable place.
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That s fine.
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Don t listen to me.
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A lot of people are looking for that two minutes and 13 seconds.
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And I might be that person.
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That s why I started sharing it.
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Yeah, you talked about in the very beginning, I like this.
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Your job is to be the best of your ability.
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This will hurt.
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The mission is not about making yourself feel better.
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The mission is about being better and having a greater impact on the world.
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And it sounds like
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you understand the fact that you need to put yourself out there a little bit more is going to reach more people and impact more people, as opposed to always being quiet.
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Right.
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Is that what I m hearing you say?
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Exactly.
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I had to find a happy medium.
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Yeah.
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Because what s the point?
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Like, we all have a story.
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And I believe that we re all teachers.
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And if you don t learn something,
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and give back what you learned.
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What s the point of living?
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You re wasting.
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Yeah, you re wasting.
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You have all this knowledge of what you learned.
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Some people may think you re crazy.
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Some people may put a title on you.
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But it s those few people who are like, you know what, I need to hear that.
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So you have to put yourself out there.
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So was there an awakening for you in the last few years that said, okay, I m not doing this enough.
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I m putting myself out there.
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I m not telling my story.
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I m wasting certain aspects of my life by not giving that message out.
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there were a lot of emails that came in to me.
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And I didn t realize, when you live your life, you don t know what it s doing to people, because it s my life.
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I didn t know my life was as bad as it was, because it s my life.
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It s what I went through.
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It s like the norm.
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It s the norm.
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Yeah.
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That s what I did, man.
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But when I started getting these emails from people saying, hey, you know what?
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You changed my life.
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That part changed my life.
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That part of your story changed my life.
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And because I have so many different parts of my life,
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that so many people resonate with different spots.
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Maybe it s the obese part, maybe it s the bullying part, maybe it s the learning disability part, maybe it s the abusive parent part, whatever it may be.
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So many people draw from my story, and I started getting these emails, and I was like, God, man, you know, I m a big believer in something more powerful than me.
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I don t know what it is, but I m not the end all.
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So I was like, I gotta start doing more.
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If I m touching these people s lives.
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Right, a few people here and there.
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Right, maybe I need to go out here and do some more.
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Crazy story, man.
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I mean, if you guys haven t gotten the book, you guys can pre-order the book.
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This is actually a galley copy here, printed out.
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Make sure you guys check this out.
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Can t Hurt Me.
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Master your mind and defy the odds.
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And when I was reading the first part of the book about your childhood, I mean, your father just seemed like,
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was just so abusive, physically.
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I mean, it s one thing to be emotionally abusive and another thing to be physically, and when you have both, it s like the perfect storm of like the makings for chaos in your life.
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And it just sounded like he was just nasty.
0
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Nasty and everything was your fault and you were always wrong and you weren t living up to a standard, both you and your brother and your mom.
0
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and it was just constant physical abuse over and over.
0
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I mean, the story of you just being bent over and him just like whipping you over and over and you just gasping for air.
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I was just like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
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How did you deal with that?
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How did you like overcome the constant physical and emotional abuse?
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You know what?
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It s all I knew.
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So when you re born to that, it s all you know.
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I mean, you know something s not right, because in my mind, at a young kid, I could tell, man, you know, the way I was processing things wasn t right.
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I mean, I suffer from severe toxic stress.
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And that was one of the big reasons why I had a learning disability.
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My focus in life was way off.
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I was afraid.
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I was afraid of everything.
0
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And when you have that kind of foundation,
0
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growing up, that s where you start life at, is being abused and also working all night at a skating rink, not going to school.
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And you have a guy who s an alcoholic, and the second he got drunk, he got mad.
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So our house lived in fear.
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And the one thing that you can t ever get out of a kid s mind is your mom s face.
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The terror of your mom s face.
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So I didn t care about my brother.
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I didn t care about me.
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But I saw this woman go from Mary Poppins.
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the sweetest person on the planet Earth.
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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.
1
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And when you re young and you have to grow up so fast, so by eight years old, my mind was of a 40 year old.
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Life came at me.
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And it makes your brain, you know, you re not outside playing with kids.
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you re trying to avoid getting beat.
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You re avoiding all these things.
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When you go home, it s supposed to be safe.
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And you re getting beat again.
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Exactly.
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And what s funny about that, we lived on Paradise Road.
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We lived on Paradise Road.
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It wasn t so paradise.
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It was anything but paradise, man.
1
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Once those doors shut, my dad gave everybody a different view of him.
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He wore the nice tailor suits, he smiled.
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SPEAKER_00
That s right.
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Your dad s amazing.
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Those doors shut, man.
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And the devil himself came out.
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So it was rough.
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And that s why my foundation was so beaten down at a young age.
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So learning disability, I grew up dyslexic so I can relate to that of just like constantly feeling stupid and insecure.
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I had a tutor my entire life.
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Till I finished college I had a tutor.
1
SPEAKER_01
Second grade reading level when I was in eighth grade.
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It was just like a constant struggle emotionally.
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And I took that outlet into sports and said I m gonna just train myself to be the best I can be.
1
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in a place where I can learn something differently and pick up a different skill.
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But with your learning disability, with your dad beating you, screaming at you, emotionally challenging your mind, with the racism you dealt with, with the different struggles you felt, with bullies, what was the hardest obstacle to overcome from up until about 15, 16?
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The hardest obstacle was myself.
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I started realizing more and more and more
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that all these people were gone.
1
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What was haunting me was me.
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I can t control my dad.
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I can t control the people calling me nigger.
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I can t control all these things, but they were things that kept me down.
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it started becoming my reality.
1
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My reality was what they made it out to be.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I became the most important conversation you ll ever have with your life, you know, in your life is when you have yourself.
1
SPEAKER_00
And my conversation was absolutely horrifying.
1
SPEAKER_01
What were you saying to yourself?
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SPEAKER_00
I m dumb.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m nobody.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, my dad was great in mental warfare.
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A drunk, insecure man will make everybody around him feel like hell.
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because he wants to give you no power.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s why he was so mean to my mom and myself and my brother, because he didn t want anybody to get above him.
1
SPEAKER_00
He wanted to keep you down low.
1
SPEAKER_00
So when you re growing up with all this stuff, all this hate, it wasn t the beatings.
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I could take the beatings all day.
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It was the mental torture.
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At a young age, your parents put a dialogue in you of confidence,
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or you re nobody.
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So that voice in my head was, I m a loser.
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SPEAKER_00
And then it was confirmed when I got in school and in third grade, I was falling behind.
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SPEAKER_00
They wanna put me in a special school with kids who can t learn.
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SPEAKER_00
Then it was confirmed what my dad was saying.
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SPEAKER_00
So that confirmed it.
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SPEAKER_00
Then I started cheating.
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So I started realizing, you know what?
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I m taking the easy way out again.
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SPEAKER_00
And it started snowballing from there.
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Now the kids are calling me nigger.
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but it wasn t all the kids.
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So what happens is you start to get this picture that everybody hates you because your reality becomes so big that you don t, I mean, you can t see the clear picture.
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SPEAKER_00
It might ve been three or four kids.
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That s it.
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SPEAKER_00
Doing it over and over.
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SPEAKER_00
Right, but it was the whole town.
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SPEAKER_00
Everybody hated me.
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SPEAKER_00
The world hates me.
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SPEAKER_00
That s right.
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And that s when it became toxic.
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And that is where I became my worst enemy.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow, so those are the conversations.
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Those are the conversations.
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When did you start to realize that those conversations weren t supporting your life?
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SPEAKER_00
So my mom was getting ready to get married and this guy came into our lives, his name is Wilmeth.
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He came into our lives and like I always say, whenever my life s getting better, God will put another challenge in front of me.
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He gets murdered.
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Oh man.
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And we moved back to Brazil.
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So we moved from this town, this small town in Brazil, and we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana.
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A lot more blacks, a lot more different colors.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Weren t you living in New York at some point, too?
1
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I was born in Buffalo, New York.
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Yeah, that s right.
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SPEAKER_00
And I went from Buffalo to Indiana, and then from Indianapolis to Indianapolis, Indiana.
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SPEAKER_00
Indianapolis, Indiana, you know, he got murdered when I was in Indianapolis.
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SPEAKER_00
We went back to Brazil.
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SPEAKER_00
We went back to Brazil, this is when the racism started.
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SPEAKER_01
Really?
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SPEAKER_00
Because now I m 16.
1
SPEAKER_00
So when I was first in Brazil, I was eight and nine.
1
SPEAKER_00
Kids don t care.
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SPEAKER_00
You re just a kid.
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SPEAKER_00
I look different, but kids don t care.
1
SPEAKER_00
Kids don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
But when I moved and I came back, I m no longer a kid.
1
SPEAKER_00
So all the kids I grew up with, I m now different.
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SPEAKER_00
I m different.
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SPEAKER_00
So there s about five black kids in my school.
1
SPEAKER_00
The reality came when
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I came out one day and on my car was spray painted, nigga, we re going to kill you.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh.
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SPEAKER_01
In Brazil.
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SPEAKER_01
In Brazil.
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In Portuguese.
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No, no, my fault.
1
SPEAKER_00
Brazil, Indiana.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, my fault.
1
SPEAKER_00
Brazil, Indiana.
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SPEAKER_00
I was like, oh, you went to Brazil.
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SPEAKER_01
I was like.
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SPEAKER_00
No, no, Brazil, Indiana.
1
SPEAKER_00
Brazil, Indiana.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes, Brazil, Indiana.
1
SPEAKER_00
From Annapolis to Brazil, Indiana.
1
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
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SPEAKER_00
So I was in Brazil, Indiana.
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And about 10 minutes from Brazil, Indiana is a small town called Center Point, Indiana.
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And Centreport, Indiana was, at that time, a huge hub of the KKK.
1
SPEAKER_00
In 1995, the Klan marched in the 4th of July parade.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know if any pictures are in there, but if not, there s a picture in the book in 1995, 10 minutes from my house, of crosses being burnt.
1
SPEAKER_00
10 minutes from your house.
1
SPEAKER_00
10 minutes from my house.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
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SPEAKER_00
So when you have all this negativity growing up, and now you re cheating, and you re doing this, and your dad beats you, and your mom s fiance gets murdered, and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and then you come to this.
1
SPEAKER_00
And your mom s working three jobs.
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SPEAKER_00
She s not home at all.
1
SPEAKER_00
She never saw one report card of mine.
1
SPEAKER_00
She didn t know how bad off I was in school.
1
SPEAKER_00
She was hustling trying to make money.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was the man of the house.
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SPEAKER_00
Lying.
1
SPEAKER_00
Sneaking around.
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SPEAKER_00
Not going to school.
1
SPEAKER_00
Cheating.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
Everything I could.
1
SPEAKER_00
I walked out of school one day and saw this nigga with a kitty on my car.
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SPEAKER_00
And I went in to get the principal.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s several incidents like this that happen.
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SPEAKER_00
I went in to get the principal, and the principal, he couldn t give me any advice.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t want to tell my mom about it, because my mom was already bothered by my dad beating her down, and now her fiance got murdered.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t want to bother her.
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SPEAKER_00
The last thing on her mind.
1
SPEAKER_00
She s like, I ve dealt with this my whole life.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
I didn t want to bother with anything, man.
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SPEAKER_00
So I kept everything away from her.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I m in the car wash trying to scrub this stuff off and I got home and so happens two weeks later, she gets a note from school.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the note says, your son is going to fail.
1
SPEAKER_00
He s not going to graduate.
1
SPEAKER_00
And she s like, what is this?
1
SPEAKER_00
And I had to come clean with my mom of all the years of me cheating, of all the bullying, of all this and all that.
1
SPEAKER_00
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 going to fail.
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SPEAKER_00
you re gonna fail school.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, my God, man.
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SPEAKER_00
She was in a dark place and I was in a dark place and we were kind of on our own in the same house, but living different lives.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I realized at this time in my life, she was a great mom, but I was on my own.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s when the real big change happened for me.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I said, I m gonna join the military.
1
SPEAKER_00
17, 18, I wanted to go into the delayed entry program.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I went to take the ASVAB test and I cheated.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s what you knew.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s what I did.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re good.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I got my friend, because I walked into the recruiter s office and the recruiter says, hey, you got to take this ASVAB test.
1
SPEAKER_00
Second I heard test, I was like, man, oh, hang on a second.
1
SPEAKER_00
I can t test.
1
SPEAKER_00
It saved my life, man.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m going to go.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can I come back tomorrow?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I come back.
1
SPEAKER_00
The recruiter starts handing these tests out.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m like, great.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m going to sit with my boy.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m going to copy off my boy.
1
SPEAKER_00
he had a different test than I did.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I couldn t copy off him.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s when the light bulb hit on.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I failed this test several times.
1
SPEAKER_00
I failed it twice.
1
SPEAKER_00
I actually failed it twice.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the third time, I said, mom, I need help.
1
SPEAKER_00
And she said, we don t have much money, but we can afford a tutor for one hour a week for six months.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because this is my last time taking the test.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I had to learn, so I had a third grade reading level.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m a junior in high school.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I had six months to learn all this stuff.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I only had to tutor for one hour a week.
1
SPEAKER_00
So basically what happened was she would come in for an hour and I wasn t picking it up, any of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t retain anything.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it was so much to learn, it overwhelmed me.
1
SPEAKER_00
So basically what happened was I realized I had to go by the store and buy some books.
2
SPEAKER_00
spiral notebooks, and I had to literally write down every single thing repeatedly.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it may take you an hour to learn, it took me hours, six, eight, nine, 10 hours.
2
SPEAKER_00
I had to write the same thing down.
2
SPEAKER_00
Simple stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
Simple stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
I hear you, man.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
I had to memorize.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t really learn it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can just recall it from writing it down so many times that on page 71, I remember seeing that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s how I did it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I ended up passing that test.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I got in the military.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
What was the greatest lesson your mom taught you growing up?
2
SPEAKER_00
Honestly, the greatest lesson she ever taught me is a lesson that she doesn t know how much she taught me because
2
SPEAKER_00
She wasn t much in the teaching mode.
2
SPEAKER_00
My dad took her soul.
2
SPEAKER_00
But what I did as a young kid is I observed everybody.
2
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t really smart in the books, but I was real smart when it came to life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was able to sit back and watch her mistakes.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was able to see how she struggled through life and how I don t want to struggle through life.
2
SPEAKER_00
and I was able to see, she never picked me up.
2
SPEAKER_00
The biggest thing she did for me, and this is honest to God truth, and she doesn t even know she did it.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I would bust my, when I would fail, when I was at the bottom of the sewer, she never picked me up.
2
SPEAKER_00
She never gave me that cookie and said, hey son, you know, it s gonna be okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
She didn t have time for that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes she gets upset when I talk about my past because it paints her out to be not the best mom.
2
SPEAKER_00
If I had any kind of mom in that kind of environment, I would have never made it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because she forced me, for whatever reason, she forced me to, you better figure this out.
2
SPEAKER_00
or you re gonna be a statistic.
2
SPEAKER_00
And this is something that she didn t sit down and tell me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I realized this, this is the world that is in front of me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what most people do is they see this world and they look at it as an excuse to get out of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I started looking at it as this is the ultimate training ground for the rest of my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
I have all these valuable lessons, because if you look out in the world right now today, it s not a nice place.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I m very prepared for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m prepared for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m prepared for all the failure coming my way.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m prepared for everything my way.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s the biggest lesson that she taught me by not teaching me.
2
SPEAKER_00
By never saying, it s gonna be okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
Matter of fact, she told me the exact opposite.
2
SPEAKER_00
Life sucks.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what she knew.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was the truth.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was her reality.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I saw that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I started at that point in my life, I have a lot more failures as you see in that book, but I started down the road of, instead of the path of least resistance,
2
SPEAKER_00
I started choosing the path of most resistance to prepare myself for the journey that was coming my way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
And most kids don t prepare themselves for the most resistance.
2
SPEAKER_01
They want to get out of things.
2
SPEAKER_01
They want to get out of things.
2
SPEAKER_01
Get off the hook.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Put in the extra reps.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
They want the easiest path to get to the top.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
Huh.
2
SPEAKER_01
Look at my life is like in here you talk about like really diving into pain and like embracing pain and finding looking for the pain right I think there s like a There s a there s a safe pain and then there s a probably an unsafe pain I m just like jumping off a building and you know, whatever right trying to land on 20 floors or something It s probably not the safe way to do those but doing 200 miles
2
SPEAKER_01
of endurance running is like a different way of pain, looking at pain.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s what I ve been looking for my whole life is like finding the pain.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I talk about like do something every day that s painful in a good structured environment.
2
SPEAKER_01
You ve been doing that for the last couple of years now.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like you work out every day.
2
SPEAKER_01
You haven t missed a day.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve been doing it for the last 20 some years of my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
20 years?
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought you said two years.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, 20 some years of my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
Every day you work out.
2
SPEAKER_00
I used to take one day off a week.
2
SPEAKER_01
I used to take one day off a week.
2
SPEAKER_01
For the body to recover, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that one day off was an active recovery day where I would get on a trainer and ride for like two hours.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
But 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
2
SPEAKER_00
is to do something at a very low heart rate, because therefore your blood s flowing through your body.
2
SPEAKER_00
As your blood s flowing through your body, refuel it with the nutrients, because then your blood s flowing, the nutrients is going through all your cells in your body.
2
SPEAKER_00
All that glycogen is now flowing at a low heart rate.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s not burning it, it s refueling it.
2
SPEAKER_00
So every Sunday used to be that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it kind of snowballed into, as human beings,
2
SPEAKER_00
We believe, so many people, before I give them a workout plan, they re talking about recovery.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everybody that hears me speak, they wanna go straight to recovery.
2
SPEAKER_00
Workout first.
2
SPEAKER_00
Workout first before you talk to me about recovery.
2
SPEAKER_00
Workout first.
2
SPEAKER_00
We are always looking for, like whenever I talk to people, people take my words and they put it in a way to where they wanna feel comfortable.
2
SPEAKER_00
They wanna put you in a box.
2
SPEAKER_00
They want to put a title on you.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, you re putting a title on me to make yourself feel better about yourself.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you read this book of mine and you see where I came from, this person was not built.
2
SPEAKER_00
This person was not made by God.
2
SPEAKER_00
This person, sorry, this person was built.
2
SPEAKER_00
I made this person.
2
SPEAKER_00
I made this person by diving in to the insecurities that life gave me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because now they re yours.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re yours to own.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you re not smart,
2
SPEAKER_00
Call yourself dumb.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s okay, because you are.
2
SPEAKER_00
But take that now as you re putting yourself down.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you re fat, call yourself fat.
2
SPEAKER_00
I used to be 300 pounds.
2
SPEAKER_00
We want to talk so soft to ourselves.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re looking for that recovery day.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that recovery day is everything in your life.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everything in your life is a recovery day.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re looking for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not coming.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not coming.
2
SPEAKER_00
Get over that recovery day.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s the mentality I took with me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what happened through that process was all the frivolous things of life started to float away.
2
SPEAKER_00
I used to tell people lies so they would like me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I was so insecure.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you start to build yourself up and start to have the one thing that we don t have is confidence.
2
SPEAKER_00
Real, authentic confidence from hard work.
2
SPEAKER_00
everything else goes away, you no longer look to other people for your self-esteem.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
You now know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I walk in the room now and I know the hours and years and decades I put into David Goggins.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s something, it s not on the wall.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not a trophy on the wall.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not a medal around your neck.
2
SPEAKER_00
It is actually a feeling in your heart and people go, why don t you ever smile?
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t have to.
2
SPEAKER_00
I do have a stoic look on my face.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m a very focused person.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the feeling I have in my soul and in my heart, that s why I don t need to smile.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t need to smile.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t need you to look at me and say, oh my God, you look happy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because half of us aren t happy.
2
SPEAKER_00
we re giving you something that we think you want to see.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t do that anymore.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t care how you perceive David Goggins, because through my journey, I figured out the one piece I was missing.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was cars.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was women.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was money.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
The one piece I was missing was me having the courage to face myself.
2
SPEAKER_00
And once you do that on a daily basis, it s not about the running.
2
SPEAKER_00
People always tell me, you have to start working out.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where I got my work ethic from,
2
SPEAKER_00
was the hours I had to spend learning this.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you sit down and you re not smart, and you have a disability, and you still wanna be at the top of your class, I didn t wanna just get by.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I realized that I can learn through hard work, and I can beat the valedictorian in the school, but I got put in 10 hours more a day than he does.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know what kind of strength comes from that?
2
SPEAKER_00
When you re sitting down, that guy, that valedictorian study for an hour, and you know, I caught you, I caught you, and I am dumb, but I have the work ethic to catch you.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s where David Goggins got really invented, was at a kitchen table with 20 spiral notebooks that were empty,
2
SPEAKER_00
And then three months later, they were full.
2
SPEAKER_00
And when you can go through that, I still have them in my storage unit.
2
SPEAKER_00
You go through these spiral notebooks of your life, and you realize this is how I learned.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is unbelievable.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s no miles.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not about the miles.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s that, having to discipline every day to say, for me to learn this one math problem, it s gonna take me 10 hours.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you realize through hard work,
2
SPEAKER_00
You can outwork anybody, no matter how bad they are.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that s the part people don t want to dive into.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
When someone s lacking confidence in themselves, what s the answer you would give them if they re like, how do I gain more confidence?
2
SPEAKER_00
It starts with yourself, man.
2
SPEAKER_00
You got to start diving into those things that you are afraid of.
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be a false reality.
3
SPEAKER_00
and the second life gives you that challenge, all you want to do is go back to what made you confidence or what gave you confidence.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is that happy spot?
3
SPEAKER_00
No.
3
SPEAKER_00
What gives you confidence, what gave me confidence was spending years at a kitchen table trying to learn how to read and write on my own, realizing I can t learn the way you learn.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can t, but I can learn.
3
SPEAKER_00
What gives you confidence is not being afraid
3
SPEAKER_00
is overcoming the fear.
3
SPEAKER_00
I used to stutter severely bad, so right now I don t know how many people are gonna watch this.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know what gives me confidence?
3
SPEAKER_00
Is knowing I no longer care if I see or start stuttering to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s what gives me confidence, is facing these things, overcoming them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And maybe not overcoming them every day, but facing them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And facing them, and facing them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Pretty soon you re like, you know what man, this is where it s at.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not in that comfort zone.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s in the discomfort zone is where my confidence is getting built.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s where it s getting built.
3
SPEAKER_00
They want an easier answer.
3
SPEAKER_00
There has to be an easier way.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s not.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m sorry.
3
SPEAKER_00
I searched for it my entire life.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did.
3
SPEAKER_01
I lied.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I still felt empty.
3
SPEAKER_00
I coach a lot of people nowadays, billionaires, who call me on the phone and say, man, I m still missing something.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s because they did what they were good at.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they had this beautiful family, two, three houses, cars, everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
Has everything in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
On the outside looking in, like my God, man, how can you be unhappy?
3
SPEAKER_00
I walk around with a backpack with all my stuff in it and no car.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I walk around, happiest person in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
Have nothing, happiest.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s because I found out the whole key to life.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not in all that.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have to face yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
So many people live to be 100 years old and they die miserable having everything because they never examined.
3
SPEAKER_00
I call it my live autopsy.
3
SPEAKER_00
You never examine this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Happiness, peace, enlightenment, it s all up here, man.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s all up here.
3
SPEAKER_00
If I start talking like this, people go, man, you know, I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s the truth, man.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it is true.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s all up here.
3
SPEAKER_00
You just gotta be willing to go and face it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s the hard part.
3
SPEAKER_01
What s your biggest insecurity today?
3
SPEAKER_00
Not to be arrogant, I don t have one.
3
SPEAKER_01
What was the last one you had and when was that?
3
SPEAKER_00
The last one I had was probably still me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Me.
3
SPEAKER_00
We used to live in a $7 a month place when I was growing up.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is this in Buffalo or is this in?
3
SPEAKER_00
This is in Indiana.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we had a lot of money in Buffalo.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when my mom left, my dad, we went to nothing for a period of time before she got on her feet.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that $7 a month place used to be, it was who I was.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was no one.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was in the sewer.
3
SPEAKER_00
My mom went there.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had nothing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you always feel like you have nothing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had achieved so much.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was a Navy SEAL, I d gone through ranger school, I ve gone through Delta Force selection training.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d done so much, I run 200 miles, pull-up records, everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
Learned to read and write, became pretty intelligent.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I still was like, man, what is wrong with me?
3
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t until I got real sick, and I talk about it in the last chapter of that book.
3
SPEAKER_00
I got real sick, and I was about 38 years old.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m 43 now.
3
SPEAKER_00
And my life got real quiet.
3
SPEAKER_00
I went from running 205 miles in 39 hours to I couldn t get out of bed.
3
SPEAKER_00
The doctors couldn t figure out what was wrong with me.
3
SPEAKER_00
But once again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why is that?
3
SPEAKER_00
In that moment when my whole life changed,
3
SPEAKER_00
I went from a guy who worked out every day, trained every day, to a guy who couldn t get out of bed.
3
SPEAKER_00
My life was taken from me.
3
SPEAKER_00
The one thing that kept me going was my training.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now you didn t have that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t have anything.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now you just had to sit alone.
3
SPEAKER_01
Alone.
3
SPEAKER_01
And not train.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s what changed me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s when I realized I hadn t thought, hadn t taken time to think about what I d done in my life.
3
SPEAKER_01
You hadn t reflected yet.
3
SPEAKER_00
I hadn t reflected.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d done all these things, but there was no finish line.
3
SPEAKER_00
I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was just going.
3
SPEAKER_00
I finished a race of life, and I wouldn t even receive my medal.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d go on.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re like, on to the next.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d get in the car, and I d go.
3
SPEAKER_01
You wouldn t even take the medal.
3
SPEAKER_01
Gone.
3
SPEAKER_01
Don t care about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, I m not going to waste an hour sitting around for this ceremony.
3
SPEAKER_00
Most people sit around, and that s what they like.
3
SPEAKER_00
They need the ceremony if I accomplished something.
3
SPEAKER_01
The validation.
3
SPEAKER_00
I haven t done anything.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m just getting started.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m just getting started.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I started figuring out life, that I was leaving so much in the tank, I call it my 40% rule.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was leaving so much in the tank, 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.
3
SPEAKER_00
Learn to read, learn to do this, learn to do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I need more.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was fueling my mind with everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I never took time to say, my God, you came from this hell and you re here.
3
SPEAKER_00
So those insecurities, and this is how I explain it the best way.
3
SPEAKER_00
SEAL training became pretty hard and a lot of guys weren t getting through it.
3
SPEAKER_00
So they designed a SEAL prep program.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like a boot camp for the boot camp.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was two months, in my last two years before I retired from the military, they sent me there to train these kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
To get ready for BUDs.
3
SPEAKER_00
18, 19, 20 year olds.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, young kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when they get to Navy SEALs training, man, they were physical studs.
3
SPEAKER_00
They were running, swimming.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, they were hybrids.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
But they get to BUDs and the same amount of people would quit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why is that?
3
SPEAKER_00
This is why.
3
SPEAKER_00
We were training bigger, stronger, faster quitters.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not about- Not the mind.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_00
We weren t diving into the sewer.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everybody s got a story.
3
SPEAKER_00
We don t share it on social media.
3
SPEAKER_00
We share our nice life on social media.
3
SPEAKER_00
We all have a dungeon.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m just willing to talk about mine.
3
SPEAKER_00
Most of us aren t willing to talk about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m willing to talk about my dungeon.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t getting into the dungeon of these guys  minds.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t building that so-called mental toughness.
3
SPEAKER_00
Mental toughness isn t something that you sample.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s something that you live in every day.
3
SPEAKER_00
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 look for comfort.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whenever hardness comes, and you don t know what it is, it may be different for you than it is for me, but you go back to your insecurities.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then when you go back to your insecurities, you then look for comfort within those insecurities.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we all look for that cookie that your mom used to give you when you were sad, when you were sick.
3
SPEAKER_00
We look for our wife or our husband, we look for comfort.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s in those moments you must retrain your mind
3
SPEAKER_00
Think differently in hell.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t training them to do that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why weren t you training them?
3
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t training myself to do that, because at that time, I was doing what I was told.
3
SPEAKER_00
These guys need to meet a standard.
3
SPEAKER_01
Physical standard.
3
SPEAKER_00
A physical standard.
3
SPEAKER_00
The physical standard is not what they need to meet.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a mental standard you must meet in life.
3
SPEAKER_00
So going back to when I was sick, I was hitting the physical standards.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t meeting the mental standard.
3
SPEAKER_00
The mental standard is you must know how far you ve come.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had come 8,000 miles from where I started.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you never know that, you re still in the $7 a month place.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I was sick, I was able to slow it down.
3
SPEAKER_00
and reflect back on my entire life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And in that bed, when I thought I was dying, because that story is long, that sick portion of my life is long, I didn t care if I died or lived.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because I was, for the first time in my life, happy and at peace.
3
SPEAKER_00
I reflected back on where it started.
3
SPEAKER_00
You said, well, I have come a long way.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_00
And no one saved me.
3
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like someone came down here and guided me through life.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you figure this out on your own,
3
SPEAKER_00
the amount of pride and dignity and self-respect you have.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why I walk around the streets with a backpack and just like, I don t need anything else.
3
SPEAKER_00
You figure it out by going inside yourself, by callousing over the victim s mentality.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re always a victim, even if you have everything in life.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have to first realize what you ve achieved, and my mom has accomplished so much in her life since my father.
3
SPEAKER_00
but she hasn t done that one step.
3
SPEAKER_01
Really?
3
SPEAKER_01
She doesn t acknowledge it and reflect back?
3
SPEAKER_00
She continues to go back to the dungeon of her past life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And live in that space.
3
SPEAKER_00
And live in that space versus living the space that she s in now and reflecting back on, my God, this is what I ve done with my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
So.
3
SPEAKER_01
Have you talked to her?
4
SPEAKER_01
You re not sure about this?
4
SPEAKER_01
We talk about it all the time.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you have to be willing to go there.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have to be willing to really go there.
4
SPEAKER_01
Not surface.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t live on the surface of anything.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Surface is what got me where I was at.
4
SPEAKER_01
It got me from 175 pounds to 300 pounds.
4
SPEAKER_01
Telling everybody I m good.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t give a damn.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m good.
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re hollow words.
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of us speak in hollow words.
4
SPEAKER_01
I used to speak in hollow words.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t do anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everything that comes out of my mouth has substance.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s real.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we all have these feelings in our bodies, in our minds, in our souls.
4
SPEAKER_01
I act on mine.
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of us who are afraid of something, we allow our minds to choose a path of least resistance so we go a different route.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I m afraid of something, it s telling me, you must conquer that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You must do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have to go that way.
4
SPEAKER_01
And most of us don t understand that mentality.
4
SPEAKER_01
we go left and we wonder why we haven t fulfilled something in our lives.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s because we continue to take the journey that is mapped out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And how I look at it is I talk in life like
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of us in life want to take the four-lane highway that has road maps and all this other stuff on it, man.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tells you where to go, gas stations.
4
SPEAKER_01
The next 10 miles up, you re going to see a McDonald s or Cracker Barrel.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s the easy route.
4
SPEAKER_01
Very few of us want to go to the right side.
4
SPEAKER_00
Cracker Barrel s that Midwest life.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m from Ohio.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s all about it, man.
4
SPEAKER_00
Indiana.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cracker Barrel everywhere.
4
SPEAKER_00
Dude, that s amazing, bringing back memories.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is powerful because I ve been telling people this.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve been living that way unknowingly my whole life of like whatever the thing is I m afraid of.
4
SPEAKER_00
When I was in high school, I started doing those things.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s just like I m sick and tired of feeling afraid.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I need to do the things that scare me the most.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve talked about this a lot on the podcast.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tiffany s heard me share these stories, but I was afraid to talk to girls when I was a teenager.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was afraid of dancing.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was afraid of singing and playing music in front of people.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was afraid of all these different things.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I said, I m gonna do this.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna give myself a challenge every single day until the fear goes away.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like that s what more of us should be doing.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m hearing that that s how you live your life.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s all it is, man.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it helps me feel so much more confident.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you overcome that fear of saying, this doesn t have control over me anymore, it s like you can be at so much more peace in your life.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s 100%.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, for instance, I never thought in my wildest dreams I could be a Navy SEAL.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s until your open-mindedness creates that.
4
SPEAKER_01
We all shut down our mind.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, for instance, when I broke the pull-up record, everybody around me who heard the pull-up record was 4,020 pull-ups.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the first thing they did.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
4,024 hours?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s 4,020 pull-ups in a 24-hour period.
4
SPEAKER_01
The first thing I did versus closing my mind, you re like, oh my God, that s crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
I went and got a pen and- How many is that every minute?
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
Every hour, every second.
4
SPEAKER_01
Instead of taking life and making it out to be this grandiose thing, start breaking it down.
4
SPEAKER_01
Start breaking it down.
4
SPEAKER_01
And most of us, we live in a box.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we don t wanna go outside that box at all, ever.
4
SPEAKER_01
Outside that box is all these possibilities of life.
4
SPEAKER_01
What we do is we shackle our mind, we are a prisoner in our own mind that this is all I can do, this is all I m good at.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we take away the possibilities of you could be this, you could be that, you could be all these things.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I never thought at 300 pounds I could be Navy SEAL.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if my mind was shackled, me and you would never meet.
4
SPEAKER_01
there d be no book.
4
SPEAKER_01
There d be no book.
4
SPEAKER_01
There d be nothing.
4
SPEAKER_01
So what people don t understand is that they live for themselves, not knowing that you have the power within yourself to change millions of lives by facing life, by facing yourself.
4
SPEAKER_01
And through that, I would die never knowing that I had the power to change millions of lives.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what haunts me the most, people ask me, what haunts you the most?
4
SPEAKER_01
What haunts me the most is that if I would have died at 300 pounds, let s say I was 75 years old, I got to heaven, and God has a chart like that on everybody s life, God knows all, let s say that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t care what you believe in, doesn t matter, I m not judging anybody, but let s say my thing is God.
4
SPEAKER_01
You get to heaven, I m 300 pounds, I sit down, I was a cockroach terminator my whole life, and we re sitting down just like this, you re God and I m David.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he gives me that chart,
4
SPEAKER_01
And he says, look at this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, look at this chart.
4
SPEAKER_01
And on the chart, it has all these different things.
4
SPEAKER_01
But my name s on it.
4
SPEAKER_01
But these things aren t me.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was going to change the world.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was going to set records.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was going to be a Navy SEAL.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was going to be all these things in the military that I accomplished.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re going to get the VFW award.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re going to be honored here, honored there.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, God, this isn t me.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like it says David Goggins, I was an Ecolab guy, I sprayed for cockroaches and I m 300 pounds.
4
SPEAKER_01
It says here I m 185.
4
SPEAKER_01
It says here I got a bachelor s and a master s.
4
SPEAKER_01
It says all these things.
4
SPEAKER_01
And God goes, no, that s who you were supposed to be.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
My biggest fear in life is if there is a final resting place in this world, and there s a final judgment,
4
SPEAKER_01
and you talk to something much bigger than you.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to sit down and have a conversation with someone, with something that says, you re in heaven, this is what you should have been on earth.
4
SPEAKER_01
And are you really in heaven now or are you in hell?
4
SPEAKER_01
Thinking about how much I left on the table for fear, for not willing to go over the wall and over the next wall and over the next wall.
4
SPEAKER_01
So in my mind, I believe that and God knows all.
4
SPEAKER_01
At least I believe that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I want God to be up there right now as we re speaking, writing stuff down, saying, my God, he exceeded even my expectations.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s how I live my life.
4
SPEAKER_01
I now know that there is no cap on the human mind.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s no cap.
4
SPEAKER_01
We cap it ourselves.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is there a cap on the human body?
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is there one?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t believe so.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because one thing I found out was I didn t, for several years I gave myself a way out.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you were 300 pounds?
4
SPEAKER_01
When I was 300 pounds, all the way up until I was 24 years old, I would climb a mountain and I d fall back down.
4
SPEAKER_01
I d start climbing and I d fall back down for the first 24 years of my life.
4
SPEAKER_01
I went to my first Hell Week, my second Hell Week, and then my third Hell Week came in SEAL training, and the CO, Captain Bowen, looked at me.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m on crutches.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m all jacked up.
4
SPEAKER_01
He says, hey, this is your last time you re going to go through butts.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had several stress fractures.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had double pneumonia.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was jacked up.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he gave me a few months to heal.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he said, this is your last time going through.
4
SPEAKER_01
I shouldn t even let you go back through.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
I started Navy SEAL training with stress fractures.
4
SPEAKER_01
Stress fractures, not shin splints.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s hard to finish.
4
SPEAKER_01
Stress fractures.
4
SPEAKER_01
Starting the hardest training, arguably the hardest training in the world was stress fractures.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this is when I started to not put a cap on the body, if the mind is there.
4
SPEAKER_01
Every morning, I would wake up at 3.30 in the morning, 4 o clock in the morning, go to my dive cage, go in there before anybody saw me.
4
SPEAKER_01
I d get duct tape, and I would tape from my forefoot all the way up to the mid of my calf, and I would put two black socks on.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so I ran not using the pivot.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I ran my hip flexors.
4
SPEAKER_01
So for the first 45 minutes to an hour, I was in absolute excruciating pain.
4
SPEAKER_01
But what motivated me through that whole process was the fact that this kid came from that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m in the hardest training in the world, in the worst shape of my entire life.
4
SPEAKER_01
What if I can graduate amongst these studs?
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
All these guys around me are studs.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re stallions, they re gladiators in my class.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re all healthy, most of them.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re not broken like this.
4
SPEAKER_01
They may have some, you know, everybody s sick going through that training.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if I can graduate, it would change everything for me.
4
SPEAKER_01
If I can start the hardest training in the world, broken, and graduate.
4
SPEAKER_01
So my mind fed off of that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You are now, from the weakest man, you are now the hardest man to ever live, if you can do this.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you can do this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Life is one big mind game.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you re playing it with yourself.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is it true?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t care.
4
SPEAKER_01
It got me through the hardest training, starting out broken.
4
SPEAKER_01
Where most people quit, I had just started.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when you take that mindset and you learn to flip that around,
4
SPEAKER_01
That s what made me powerful and my body followed.
5
SPEAKER_00
And three months later, my stress fractures were healed by running on them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Calcifying it, just like... I never had them since.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m 43 years old.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ran 7,000 miles in 2007.
5
SPEAKER_00
Haven t had a stress fracture since.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m not saying to do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m just saying that when the mind and the body connect and you don t give yourself a way out, the only way out for me at that time was death.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m going to be a Navy SEAL.
5
SPEAKER_00
Or I m going to die.
5
SPEAKER_00
Or I m going to die trying.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Period.
5
SPEAKER_00
And my body said, Roger that.
5
SPEAKER_00
we re gonna get you through this.
5
SPEAKER_01
So when the mind gives it no way out, your body says, okay, I believe you now.
5
SPEAKER_01
I have to heal.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna figure this out with you.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna do this.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s gonna be the worst part of your life, but you re gonna survive.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna survive.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
And as you hear in that 100 mile race I did, I started figuring out more and more and more and more about at the other end of suffering,
5
SPEAKER_00
is a life that no one, and I m not talking about go out there and kill yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Don t take these words and flip them and say, oh my God.
5
SPEAKER_00
No.
5
SPEAKER_00
It just be uncomfortable.
5
SPEAKER_00
I call it suffering.
5
SPEAKER_01
Don t physically injure yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not saying that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then be out for six months.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s no good.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s no good.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not saying, I m not saying do what I did.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was in a spot that life forced me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had a choice.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had a choice to be this guy or the guy that s in front of you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had choices.
5
SPEAKER_00
I chose this path.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you re still choosing it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m still choosing it.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can go back to that guy at any moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because I found out.
5
SPEAKER_00
I found out something with those stress fractures.
5
SPEAKER_00
I found out something through facing all these things.
5
SPEAKER_00
I found out a whole nother world, which is why I walk around with all my stuff in a black backpack.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
I found out a whole nother way.
5
SPEAKER_00
A whole nother way of
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can never get so far beyond scratch.
5
SPEAKER_00
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,
5
SPEAKER_00
If you were here, when you went back to scratch, you would now be here.
5
SPEAKER_00
Scratch is what makes you better.
5
SPEAKER_00
Scratch, friction, obstacles create growth.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no friction when you re this far up in the game anymore.
5
SPEAKER_00
You think there is.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
5
SPEAKER_00
When you achieve so much, the friction is minor.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because why?
5
SPEAKER_00
I m sore.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m going to get a massage today.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m hungry, I m gonna eat today.
5
SPEAKER_00
The refrigerator s always full.
5
SPEAKER_00
So your discomfort is now very minuscule to your discomfort back here in the $7 a month place.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you have to go back to the total discomfort to then raise your level of where you re at now.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not saying stay there and stay there.
5
SPEAKER_00
Visit.
5
SPEAKER_01
Visit it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you raise your level.
5
SPEAKER_01
Take a day trip.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Always take day trips.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Don t stay there.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
5
SPEAKER_01
But take a day trip.
5
SPEAKER_01
Take a day trip.
5
SPEAKER_01
So when you complete some massive obstacle and challenge, whatever the adversity, that you force upon yourself, because these are all curated experiences for yourself that you re scratching constantly, what happens now?
5
SPEAKER_01
Since this was five years ago, you would just leave.
5
SPEAKER_01
You wouldn t take the metal.
5
SPEAKER_01
You would just go on to the next.
5
SPEAKER_01
What happens now?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you take, you know, a day to reflect, a moment, 10 minutes?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, how does the process work?
5
SPEAKER_01
And then how do you get back to visiting the $7 place you lived in?
5
SPEAKER_00
Now, I don t have to go back and visit it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t have to think about it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It lives with me now.
5
SPEAKER_00
Every day of my life, that feeling that I had to go back and think about, I found a way to just have it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s constantly there.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have a self-talk.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have a self-talk, it s called my cookie jar.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a constant reminder of David, God.
5
SPEAKER_00
Every day of my life, I believe in quiet.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no growth outside of quiet.
5
SPEAKER_00
The world s too noisy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Your mind needs quiet for you to find who you are.
5
SPEAKER_00
People ask, what s my purpose?
5
SPEAKER_00
Why am I here?
5
SPEAKER_00
You re not gonna find it nowadays unless you lock yourself in a quiet room in your mind and find it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s too noisy.
5
SPEAKER_00
For me, I could be in a busy street in New York City, horns honking, and I m walking around with like nothing.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s me and myself in a quiet spot.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when you are constantly reflecting on who you are, where you ve been, the journey you ve gone through, the journey you can continue going through, the feeling s always there.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t allow the world to pull you so fast
5
SPEAKER_00
that you forget.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t allow yourself to pull you so fast that you forget.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not about staying in that moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s about you want to get to a point where that feeling follows you like breathing.
5
SPEAKER_00
It becomes a part of your life, part of your DNA.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it s made.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like these calluses on my hands right now, they re made.
5
SPEAKER_00
They are now on my brain.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is now a part of me.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a daily process, a part of me.
5
SPEAKER_00
And how I go back to a $7 a month place all the time is now I go out and I dig fire line.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m a wildland firefighter.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t need to do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m a 43-year-old man.
5
SPEAKER_00
I work with 27-year-old kids.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m a rookie.
5
SPEAKER_00
Every day I m a rookie, it feels like.
5
SPEAKER_00
Why do you do it?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s why I do it, man.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a story I want to tell you about why I do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have a good living now, for me, where I m at in my life.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was out on a fire in Colorado.
5
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and we were digging fire line on this, like 50%, like it was like on the side of a daggone mountain.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it is the hardest work, you make $12 an hour.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, nothing you set up your shop like we re done digging you pretty much lay down You go to sleep and you get up you dig some more really happens for two weeks long.
5
SPEAKER_01
What are you digging?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like a hole So you re trying to get down to a mineral source.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you re trying to get down to the earth so so that if that fire is moving
5
SPEAKER_00
it can t burn dirt.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you re removing fuels.
5
SPEAKER_00
So not only are you digging, you re cutting down trees.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s hard work.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the moral of the story is, I m 43.
5
SPEAKER_00
Don t need to do it at all.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is why I do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m making money.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have a good life.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t need to do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And everybody s asking why I do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is why.
5
SPEAKER_00
This 21-year-old kid was out there, and he wanted a pair of running shoes.
5
SPEAKER_00
So all he wanted was a pair of running shoes.
5
SPEAKER_00
60, 70, 100 bucks, whatever, you know, easy for us.
5
SPEAKER_00
Money shoes.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
Something I could buy.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s the perspective of life.
5
SPEAKER_00
That perspective of life right there, that is the value that we lose.
5
SPEAKER_00
when things start to come so easy in life, it s the perspective that 21-year-old have, he looked up at that mountain and thought, he looked at his hands, he looked at the amount of hours of pulling that Pulaski, that tool, and raking that ground, and then cutting those trees, and moving them, and that hours of work, he looked at his feet and said, these old shoes would do.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s that perspective in life that we lose.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that story to most people may not mean anything.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s that story I always wanna have in my life.
5
SPEAKER_00
You cannot lose perspective of where you ve come in life.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so true.
5
SPEAKER_01
We were in Guatemala, was it this year or last year?
5
SPEAKER_01
Last year, we were in Guatemala last year.
5
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We support a charity called Pencil of Promise that builds schools for kids who live in poverty all around the world.
5
SPEAKER_01
And every year I take a trip to just see where our efforts are being felt and being made.
5
SPEAKER_01
These are the poorest places in Guatemala, Laos, and Ghana.
5
SPEAKER_01
Places, they have nothing.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s no schools, they re in little villages, they live on dirt, huts, everything, right?
5
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And we go and we build these schools.
5
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We actually, the villagers build them themselves.
5
SPEAKER_01
We just fund the experience and we empower them to do it so that they take ownership of it.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I ll be there for a few days and watch these kids so happy with just like a pencil.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re just so happy to just like have their family around.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they ll go and they ll show us their huts and like they re just so happy to have community.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then I ll fly back
5
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and go through Beverly Hills, right over here, and I ll see these mansions, I live right next to it, and I m just like, it gives me so much perspective of like, you don t need to have all these things to find peace and joy.
6
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and connection and intimacy and all these other things that we want.
6
SPEAKER_01
You don t need these big mansions and to live in this nice place.
6
SPEAKER_01
I like living here, but it s not like, it s perspective for me is what keeps me motivated as well.
6
SPEAKER_01
To keep doing the right things, to keep showing up, to keep working hard.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s right, most of us miss that perspective in life.
6
SPEAKER_00
We get so far away from reality.
6
SPEAKER_01
So far.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the reality is, man, when I was seven years old, eight years old, all I wanted was a 99-cent quarter pounder from Hardee s.
6
SPEAKER_00
I know, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And that made me happy as... Some curly fries.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s it, man.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the thing is, a lot of us have been conditioned, or some of us grew up with wealth or grew up with comfort, so we re conditioned that way, and we grew up expecting now that things should come a lot easier.
6
SPEAKER_01
And we get frustrated when we don t get it right.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s right, quickly.
6
SPEAKER_01
Quickly, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m always talking about delayed gratification.
6
SPEAKER_01
The longer I can wait to receive gratification, the more fulfilled I am.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m a person, so when I got sick like I did, I actually had to quit this race called Badwater.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, 135 miles?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, through Death Valley.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was 2014 when I got real, real bad.
6
SPEAKER_00
I pulled out of the race at mile 50, I went to the emergency room, and the docs were like, you know, we can t find this, we can t find that, we know what s wrong with you.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I got in that bed, so this is the crazy thing about gratification, long term.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m able to watch grass grow by finding out this.
6
SPEAKER_00
I sat there, couldn t run a quarter mile, couldn t get out of bed.
6
SPEAKER_00
The only thought I had in my mind, I pulled out of that race, I told myself, I m going to go back to Badwater one day and run it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m going to win the race.
6
SPEAKER_00
Haven t been back since.
6
SPEAKER_00
Haven t been back since.
6
SPEAKER_00
2019, I m not saying I m going to win it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m just now in the shape to go back.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Haven t won a 100 mile race since 2014.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because I ve been that sick.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m just now.
6
SPEAKER_00
Imagine the gratification I m going to get by getting to the start line of that race.
6
SPEAKER_00
And what if I can win it?
6
SPEAKER_01
It d be pretty sweet.
6
SPEAKER_01
Pretty sweet.
6
SPEAKER_01
Four or five years, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
It d be pretty sweet.
6
SPEAKER_00
Imagine that.
6
SPEAKER_00
Of having that kind of self-discipline to every day wake up and having these setbacks where I can t even run a mile.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I m thinking about running 135.
6
SPEAKER_00
I can t run one mile without thinking about running 135.
6
SPEAKER_00
And with that process, guess what happens?
6
SPEAKER_00
Sooner or later, you can run 10 miles.
6
SPEAKER_00
It may take a year, but it gives you more and more hope that it s possible.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m at the point now where, guess what?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s right around the corner.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Most people in that time frame, in that mindset, I can t run anymore.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s over.
6
SPEAKER_00
No.
6
SPEAKER_00
it s just gonna take a little bit longer.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have to turn the negative into a positive.
6
SPEAKER_00
At the end of it all, if you can sit back and wait, if you can wait six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12 years, when you get to that point, when you finish, that s the feeling for 12 years.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s the same way 12 years to get there.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s what keeps you going is you gotta feel, I m doing it for one second.
6
SPEAKER_00
Years of pain.
6
SPEAKER_00
For one second.
6
SPEAKER_00
One second.
6
SPEAKER_00
Think about it.
6
SPEAKER_00
You cross the finish line, it s over.
6
SPEAKER_00
One second.
6
SPEAKER_01
Most people do that and the one second isn t what they thought it would be and then they re pissed and upset and they keep going on to the next because they never reflect back on what they did.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not the one second, it s the 12 years.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s the 12 years.
6
SPEAKER_00
that I want.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not the race, it s the 12 years why you did it.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not the winning.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not the winning.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not what place you got.
6
SPEAKER_01
No.
6
SPEAKER_01
But most of us focus on.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I got to win this.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
6
SPEAKER_01
If I don t, I m going to be upset.
6
SPEAKER_01
I would achieve all my athletic goals for years and then 10 minutes later be the angriest person in the world.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
6
SPEAKER_01
So angry and frustrated.
6
SPEAKER_01
Nasty with people.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I would delay my gratification for years to achieve what I wanted.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I never understood that either.
6
SPEAKER_00
Being a perfectionist is the worst thing that could happen to a person.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I lost that 106 pounds in like two and a half months, whatever it took me, that was the biggest trophy of my entire life.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t care if I graduated Navy SEAL training.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t care.
6
SPEAKER_00
What I just accomplished in that timeframe is massive.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
There was no, like, it was funny about this.
6
SPEAKER_00
We talk about mental toughness nowadays.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like the biggest crave.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I grew up, it was just suck it up.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was just,
6
SPEAKER_00
Make it happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
You had to figure out.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was called figure it out, man.
6
SPEAKER_00
And all these nuggets that I gained along the way, that s what it was about.
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t about the trident.
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t about all those daggone medals.
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t about any of that.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s why I hate even talking about being a SEAL, you know?
6
SPEAKER_00
I miss the stories.
6
SPEAKER_00
But when I talk about, it didn t define me.
6
SPEAKER_00
The journey getting there was harder than going through it.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that s the whole thing about life, man.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s that journey that makes you who you are.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and as opposed to focusing on did I win or not, what did I gain from the last 12 years?
6
SPEAKER_01
Right, exactly.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so when you finish now, what do you think about?
6
SPEAKER_01
How long do you reflect back on the effort it took to accomplish that race?
6
SPEAKER_01
A long time.
6
SPEAKER_01
was days, weeks, years.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ll reflect on it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I reflect back now.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s times now where I will reflect back on my first 100 mile race.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s still today.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it ll give me the same exact feeling.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because what I did in that first race, when I was under trained, I did it on four days notice.
6
SPEAKER_00
I hadn t run more than, I think, 20 miles the whole year.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I did it to raise money for his foundation, to try to get in the bad water.
6
SPEAKER_00
What I had to pull out of myself on that last, that s where that book, Living With a Seal, kind of originated.
6
SPEAKER_00
Jesse Itchler saw me at this race.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was racing too.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but he did it as a team.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right, you did it alone.
6
SPEAKER_00
I did it alone.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s what I talk with people about, man.
6
SPEAKER_00
I spent so much time, people always like, why do you run so much?
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, you try to get in shape.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, the things I do in life,
6
SPEAKER_00
Most of life, you re alone.
6
SPEAKER_00
You may have a whole support crew around you, but up here, you re alone.
6
SPEAKER_00
Most of the stuff I do, I m training for that one, those moments, those moments when I was at mile 70 and I had 30 more miles to go and I had, I crapped up my back and peeing blood down my leg, I had 30 miles to go.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s only so much someone cheering can do for you.
6
SPEAKER_00
When you start to dive back in the cellar of your mind,
6
SPEAKER_00
And you re pulling out all these tactics, all these mental tactics to get through this 30 miles when you re in the worst shape of your life.
6
SPEAKER_00
And no one s coming to save you.
6
SPEAKER_00
And you get through that.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to go back there.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I got done with that race, I laid in the tub, and my ex-wife helped me get up the stairs.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m laying in this tub.
6
SPEAKER_00
and Coca-Cola s coming out of me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Just looks like dirt.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, she s a nurse, and she s like, she s freaking out.
6
SPEAKER_00
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 and say, I qualify for the race.
6
SPEAKER_00
And she s thinking, we gotta go to the hospital.
6
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, she s calling my mom, and my mom has a doctor friend of hers who s over, and they re freaking out.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I said, everybody, just shut up.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
Shut up.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m in the worst pain in my entire life and no one would ever understand this.
6
SPEAKER_00
No one.
6
SPEAKER_00
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.
6
SPEAKER_00
And some people think, man, you re just crazy.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, when you ve done that and you figured out so much on your own,
6
SPEAKER_00
And all that pain and discomfort I had in that tub laying there, passing out, everything, was confirmation of what I just figured out.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just figured out the code.
6
SPEAKER_00
I figured out a code, a code that many people aren t looking for.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t want it to be numb.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t want that feeling.
6
SPEAKER_00
This was confirmation.
6
SPEAKER_00
This was like a scientist s notes.
6
SPEAKER_00
The notes were here.
6
SPEAKER_00
The notes were all this feeling.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was a confirmation.
6
SPEAKER_00
And no one at that time could understand what I had just done.
6
SPEAKER_00
I cracked the code to human potential in myself.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I was still like, oh my God, this is unbelievable what I just did.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s that quiet place.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s that place by yourself.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s those hours and years and decades by yourself in the grip of life.
6
SPEAKER_00
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.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re not panicking.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re not quitting.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re not throwing in the towel.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re saying there s a way around this.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when you figure it out, when life has you gripped in advice, and you can figure that out.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s when you overcome.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s when you overcome.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that s why that one moment for me in that tub, I didn t want anyone to take away from it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is called The Three Truths.
7
SPEAKER_01
I asked this question to everyone at the end.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s called The Three Truths.
7
SPEAKER_01
Imagine it is your last day, and you get to pick the day whenever you want.
7
SPEAKER_01
You get to live as long as you want.
7
SPEAKER_01
You pick the day.
7
SPEAKER_01
but it s time for your body to go, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
You ve created everything you wanna create.
7
SPEAKER_01
You ve been at 99 percentile of potential for as long as you can live.
7
SPEAKER_01
You ve done it all.
7
SPEAKER_01
You ve checked off the list that everything that God says that you were supposed to do, it s happened.
7
SPEAKER_01
Written the books, everything you wanna do, done.
7
SPEAKER_01
But for whatever reason, you ve gotta take all of your written word and videos and audio stuff that s out in the world, you ve gotta take it with you.
7
SPEAKER_01
But you get to write down on a piece of paper the three things you know to be true about all of your experiences.
7
SPEAKER_01
And this is what you leave behind.
7
SPEAKER_01
The three lessons, or what I like to call the three truths.
7
SPEAKER_01
What would you say are your three truths?
7
SPEAKER_00
The first one is, you are your own hero.
7
SPEAKER_00
You are your own leader.
7
SPEAKER_00
You are your own master.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that is a big one because we idolize so many people and we want to be them.
7
SPEAKER_00
We want to be someone else.
7
SPEAKER_00
And in doing that, you lose all the potential of who you are.
7
SPEAKER_00
You mimic, you be them, you are them, you become them, and you lose you.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we look up to so many people in this world who will let us down.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re humans.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna let you down.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna let somebody down.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you put them on a pedestal, you then lose time when that person comes up and lets you down.
7
SPEAKER_00
You must hold yourself accountable and being your own hero, that s what that does.
7
SPEAKER_00
You make yourself so totally accountable for who you are.
7
SPEAKER_00
You focus on you and only on you to become the best person you can be for others.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because we leave a lot on the table not searching who we are.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then therefore, you die not knowing your greatest potential.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s one.
7
SPEAKER_00
The next one I would say is the biggest one I would say is never pick the easy road.
7
SPEAKER_00
Never.
7
SPEAKER_00
Never.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it always goes back to kind of the hero mentality.
7
SPEAKER_00
Never pick the easy road ever in your life.
7
SPEAKER_00
That is the one road that is doom.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is doom.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you want something like six minute abs, all these different things, people want it so fast.
7
SPEAKER_00
You may achieve what you wanted, but you want the permanent fix.
7
SPEAKER_00
The permanent fix comes from the hard road.
7
SPEAKER_00
The hard road gives you permanent results.
7
SPEAKER_00
The easy road gives you the quick fix.
7
SPEAKER_00
You will go back to where you started on the easy route.
7
SPEAKER_00
That hard route is so permanent,
7
SPEAKER_00
that it ends up callousing you everywhere.
7
SPEAKER_00
Everywhere.
7
SPEAKER_01
You keep a six-pack forever.
7
SPEAKER_01
You keep it.
7
SPEAKER_01
You keep it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because you know the work that goes into it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the last one is, when you get to where you want to go in life, when you finally get there, you finally reach that point, and you re there, and you re happy as hell, realize this.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re not there yet.
7
SPEAKER_00
When you get that feeling that you arrived, be afraid.
7
SPEAKER_00
Be truly afraid because now you start to do this.
7
SPEAKER_00
Slowly die.
7
SPEAKER_00
Slowly die.
7
SPEAKER_00
Either you re getting better or you re getting worse.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re not staying the same.
7
SPEAKER_00
So when you get to where you think the journey s ended and you re sitting back and you re like, I arrived, I m on Mount Everest.
7
SPEAKER_00
I climbed 29, zero, 29.
7
SPEAKER_00
the best thing to do is fall back down that damn mountain as fast as you can and start climbing.
7
SPEAKER_01
Find the next climb.
7
SPEAKER_00
Find the next climb.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think I gotta sign up for another event.
7
SPEAKER_01
I gotta sign up for another endurance event now.
7
SPEAKER_01
Just kidding.
7
SPEAKER_01
Where can we connect with you online?
7
SPEAKER_01
Where do you like to, when you spend five minutes a month, where s that space?
7
SPEAKER_00
My social media, whether it be Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, it s all, it s just David Goggins, at David Goggins.
7
SPEAKER_01
Cool, David Goggins.
7
SPEAKER_01
Your videos on Instagram are great.
7
SPEAKER_01
You should post more, have someone on your team post more, because they re awesome.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, they re all me.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think that s all you.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I have no team.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s me and my fiance.
7
SPEAKER_00
There is no team.
7
SPEAKER_00
She ll be in the car.
7
SPEAKER_00
She ll be on a mountaintop.
7
SPEAKER_00
She ll be somewhere.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s all my material.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s all who I am.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s why I post once a week.
7
SPEAKER_00
Once a week right now?
7
SPEAKER_00
Once a week.
7
SPEAKER_00
Every Monday, you ll get a post.
7
SPEAKER_01
There you go.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s it.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s some video that s going to inspire you to be like, OK, I need to do at least five more minutes of working out, something at least.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, I want to acknowledge you, David, for your
7
SPEAKER_01
Intensity, your work ethic, your passion, and also your pure, real heart.
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Because just meeting you for the first time, walking in together, just, like, I could tell how real you are.
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And you re just a no-B.S.
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type of guy.
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The adversity that you ve overcome is crazy.
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Obviously, people have overcome more than you, me, and lots of people in the world.
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But what you had to overcome physically and psychologically and emotionally
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unbelievable and to see that you weren t a statistic and Instead you chose every single day to make a decision to be more than that is really inspiring And I know this is gonna impact and inspire a lot of people so I acknowledge you for your heart and for inspiring me You know, I thought I worked out hard, but this is like I feel like I m doing nothing with my life.
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So I
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You re going to inspire me to continue to make bigger commitments and longer commitments moving forward now.
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So I appreciate everything you do, man, and I m excited about getting this out there.
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You re welcome.
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My final question is, what s your definition of greatness?
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My definition of greatness is this.
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It s not a definition, it s an example.
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This is greatness, true greatness.
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Let s say that
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I m the greatest tennis player of all time, okay?
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Let s say that, I hate tennis.
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Let s say I m the greatest tennis player of all time.
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And I did 22 years, I won all the Grand Slams, I beat Roger Federer, I am the best ever.
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And we re having an interview, and you re talking about my greatness, what I achieved, now I m retired.
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Don t play tennis anymore, haven t touched a racket in years.
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And you re making me go back through my life, you re kissing my butt about how great I am.
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And I m answering your questions, every question I m answering it, I m with you.
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But in the back of my mind, all I m thinking about is all the times I could have won those matches that I lost by not bringing my best mindset.
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You re haunted.
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by all the opportunities that you missed by not bringing your best at that time.
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When you could have won, but you didn t win because you allowed life to interfere with that one shot.
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When you re sitting there getting ready to serve for the match, and your mind is not thinking about where that ball place needs to be, but it s thinking about your family this, or this at work, or that at work.
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That s greatness.
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Greatness is your recall on every single shot that you missed throughout a 20-some year career.
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Every shot.
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You can go back and say, I was here.
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This person was in the red shirt there.
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Greatness is being so aware of the time of life in the second that went by and you can recall like it was yesterday.
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Greatness is being able to go back there, not making that same mistake again and being haunted by it.
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I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as add free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on apple podcast.
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If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend.
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Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes.
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I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better.
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And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
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And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.