– I’m not the smartest kid in the world.
Okay.
Instead of somebody sayin’, “Oh no, you’re smart.
“No, no, don’t say that to yourself.”
I said to myself, “No, I’m a dumb (silence).”
Okay, roger that.
And I think I’m the hardest guy in the world.
You got to believe that.
You got to believe you are something.
The whole thing about comfort zones is
if you live in one for too long, that becomes your norm.
– What’s up Believe Nation?
It’s Evan.
My One Word is Believe, and I believe that you have
the ability to do something special that can change
the planet.
And so, to help you on your journey, today, we’re going to
learn from Navy Seal and Ultra Marathon runner,
David Goggins, and my take on his top 10 rules for success.
Rule number one is my personal favorite,
and I’d love to know which one you guys like the best.
(Swoosh)
(majestic instrumental melody)
– I came home one night from work, sprayin’ for cockroaches,
and long story short, I turned on the Discovery Channel
and I saw some guys going through Navy Seal training.
And they were going through Hell Week and they were
gettin’ their ass just beat.
You know, in and out of the water, guys ringin’ the bell.
There was sufferin’, and I was weighin’ like 297 pounds.
And I had to make a change in my life.
You know?
I was at an all time low, and I wasn’t goin’ anywhere,
and I was exactly what everybody said I was going to be,
which was nothin’.
So, I had to make a change.
– What was it about seeing suffering?
This is really interesting, and I actually get it
but I want to hear you explain it.
Why suffering was was the thing that triggered that thought?
– Well, for me, growin’ up,
I came from a horrible background.
I got called Nigger every day of my life growin’ up.
Lived in a small town.
The Klan headquarters at that time was about
20 minutes from where I lived.
One of the high ups in the KKK’s son sat behind me
in two classes, so he called me Nigger all the time.
Got my first car, they spray painted, “Nigger,
“we’re going to kill you,” on it.
So, I was just a insecure, scared kid.
And the only way I could find myself
was through puttin’ myself thorough
the worst thing possible.
I want to say the exact opposite of what the world,
today’s world, is saying.
So we read a bunch of books nowadays.
As humans, we want to find out how to be someone else.
What we don’t do is we don’t go inside,
so literally turn yourself inside out, read the book that’s,
like we’re writin’ a book every day of our lives.
Everyday, we’re seein’ who we are as people.
When I was growin’ up, I lied for people to accept me,
because I didn’t accept myself.
So, I would make up stories so then you would
accept me into your world.
Everything I did was for someone else to like me.
It wasn’t until I started reading my own book
about how pathetic I was as a human being.
I could blame my dad, I could blame kids at school,
I could blame havin’ health issues, ADD, my mom not
bein’ around.
Great mom but she was doin’ her thing.
– Right.
– I could blame a lot of people,
and that’s the book I was reading.
And I put it off on everybody else.
It wasn’t ’til I said, “You know what, for me to fix this,
“I got to read what the hell, what the (silence) is wrong
“with David Goggins.”
Not blame anybody, read my book and say, “Okay, I’m afraid
“of my shadow.
“How can I overcome that?”
Go in the military, get your ass kicked, do things
you hate to do.
Be uncomfortable every (silence) day of your life.
Roger that.
I’m not the smartest kid in the world.
Okay.
Instead of somebody sayin, “Oh no, you’re smart.
“No, no, don’t say that to yourself.”
I said to myself, “No, I’m a dumb (silence).”
Okay, roger that.
How you get smarter?
Educate yourself.
So the things that we run from, we’re runnin’
from the truth.
We’re runnin’ from the truth, man.
So, the only way I became successful was goin’ towards
the truth.
As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me.
It allowed me to become, in my own right,
who I am today.
– David, tell ’em about the cookie jar.
– The cookie jar is somethin’ I invented.
As you all know, your mom has a cookie jar,
and sometimes you might have a Oreo, sometimes you might
have a Chips Ahoy, sometimes you might have a oatmeal
raisin cookie.
You never know.
It’s just in there.
My cookie jar
has every single failure and success of my life.
Somethin’ I overcame.
So, what happens in time of life when you’re stressed out
and things get bad, even the hardest guy in the world,
me, everybody thinks, and I think I’m the hardest guy
in the world, you’ve got to believe that.
You got to believe you are somethin’.
I will, in my mind, reach into my cookie jar
and sometimes you forget how hard you are in times of need.
‘Cause you’re stressed.
But you forget.
I’m a (silence) Navy Seal, I’m a Ranger, I’m this and that,
but you forget all that ’cause your life sucks.
I calm down, take that one second, get control of my life,
reach in the cookie jar,
“Wow, you got called Nigger your whole life
“and you’re now the only person in history to do”
this, this, and this.
Put it back in the cookie jar, reset my mind.
You have to remind yourself of how badass you really are
in times of need.
(applause)
That’s the (silence) cookie jar.
– So many of us are on cruise control, myself included,
and we get into our daily routine.
And routines are unbelievable, but routines can also
be a rut.
Only if you really challenge yourself and push yourself
and get out of your routine, your comfort zone,
can you get better.
Like, you can’t improve when you’re on auto pilot.
So you have to set goals, and you have to set challenges
that you don’t necessarily think you can do.
Or you’re going to push yourself way further than you think
you can to improve.
So, you got to get out of the complacency of the routine.
– The whole thing about comfort zones is if you live in one
for too long, that becomes your norm.
It never allows you to get experience, gain knowledge,
gain any kind of mental toughness.
– Well, I learned that we all have a reserve tank
that we’re all capable of doing so much more
than we think we can.
And only by really tapping into that reserve tank,
whether it’s in business, whether it’s in physically,
you want to get more fit, only when you really push yourself
and push your limits, can you find out what
you’re really made of and what’s in your reserve tank.
And I mean, he taught me that every single day,
and it just led to me getting better in the various buckets
in my life as I tapped into that reserve tank.
– Yeah, I think I said to him, “Don’t be a (bleep).”
– You know, we call it the 40% rule.
That’s somethin’ that David kind of told me
and shared with me, and I bought into it.
But it’s proved effective.
Not just in working out, but even in business,
or my family life.
It’s like, when I’m frustrated, when I’m done,
when I hit a road block, when things get complicated,
you have so much more in you.
– People have said, “Man, you cuss all the (silence) time.
“Why?” (laughs)
Well, I hate to say it, the best way for me to get
how I feel acrossed, I can’t sit here and say,
“You know what, yeah, I went through Hell Week
“and man, it was really hard.”
(chuckles)
No, that (silence)
takes your damn soul, rips it inside out,
and then they say, “Now, we’re going to (silence) start.”
It allows me to express where I was at,
at a point of my life.
If I don’t give you all of me, why the hell am I here?
How will you learn from me?
People take so much offense to me.
You will never learn from people if we always tap dance
around the truth.
– Oh God, I love that, so true.
– We tap dance around the truth by findin’ the right words
so I don’t hurt you, ’cause you have thin skin.
No, tighten up people.
It’s okay.
Trust me, it’s okay.
You might be called Nigger one day.
It’s okay.
You might be called some Jewish word or some faggot
or gay word.
It’s okay.
Let ’em call you that.
What are you going to do now?
They don’t own your life.
How are you going to control that now?
How are you going to flip it upside down and say,
“Roger that.
“Now I’m going to harness this (silence) and you’ll read
“about me years from now.”
How?
That’s the question.
How are you going to do that?
Thicken your skin.
Become more of a human being.
Don’t be afraid of the reflection in the mirror,
’cause that’s all you can be afraid of.
Once you overcome the reflection in the mirror,
you’ve done it.
I literally broke all the metatarsals in my feet.
Stress fractures, shin splints, everything, the pain
goin’ through my body, I’ve been through every training
known to man.
Ranger school, Hell Week three times, all kind of stuff.
This event I’m explaining to you right now,
not enough time to explain it to you in detail,
but it was the worst thing I’ve done in my entire life
pain wise.
This is when I realized a human being is capable
of going to limits unknown to most people.
This is where hardness comes in.
People can read a book on hardness and tell you
about mental toughness and hardness, but until you put
your body through hardness, and realize that there’s walls
and doors you must break through, and once you break
through them you are amazing, and your body resets.
But we are scared to get to that wall
’cause that wall says what?
“Stop.”
Right?
But every wall has a what?
A door.
You got to get that key from your pocket and don’t be scared
to see what’s on the other side of that door.
– I would like to know when you’re in that moment failing,
and you have to keep going, what do you say to yourself?
– “What if?”
A lot of times I’ll be in tours at my run or somethin’
like that, and I’m all jacked up.
Body’s broken, mind’s broken, spirit’s broken.
I started to say, “What if I can pull this off?”
When I first walked in to the Navy Seal recruiter’s office,
he looked at me and said, “There’s only be 35
“African Americans in 70 years make it through.”
You know what I said to myself?
“What if I can be the 36th?”
It’s the “What if I can pull off a (silence) miracle?”
What if I can become someone that no one thinks
I can be?
And just that, just me talkin’ about that,
I have the hair goin’ up on my arms.
‘Cause it makes me just like, “What if I can be that guy
“that people who called Nigger,” and this and that,
and now, I’m speakin’ at Tom Ferry’s (silence) event.
(applause and cheers)
What if? – Thank you.
– That’s it.
So the first Ultra Marathon wasn’t smart at all.
At all.
So basically what happened was, I was at military
free fall school with Morgan Luttrell.
Marcus Luttrell, if you guys don’t know,
was the lone survivor, the guy, he was in a bad op,
op went bad, he was the only Navy Seal that lived.
Long story short.
Got to get the book.
Read Lone Survivor, great story.
Morgan is Marcus Luttrell’s twin brother.
And I was there with Marcus.
So, what happened was, myself and Morgan
were in free fall school at the same exact time Marcus
was in the worst incident in Seal history.
So, I knew that Marcus might be dead.
He wasn’t dead, everybody else was dead.
So, I actually brought, I actually told Morgan,
“Hey man, your brother was in a bad incident.
“I don’t know if he’s alive, I don’t know what’s goin’ on.”
Long story short, Marcus is alive and I go on
to want to raise money for families.
All these guys died, they all had kids.
I want to raise money for
the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
It’s a foundation where 100% tuition goes
to these kids to go to college, you know, full tuition,
whatever.
So I found this great foundation.
I’m going to raise money for it.
So, I said, “You know what?
“I have to Google something that’s evil.
“Somethin’ very hard.”
I knew nothin’ about Ultra Marathons.
I hadn’t even run a marathon.
I knew nothing about this world.
So, I Googled the top 10 hardest races in the world.
And what comes up is a Bad Water 135.
So, 135 mile race through Death Valley in the summer time.
I thought it was a stage race.
I thought it was a race where you run like, 20 miles,
set up camp,
barbecue outside, and then go run some more the next day.
So, I called the race director up at the race and said,
“Hey Chris,” his name is Chris Costen.
“I want to do your race.”
So we had a long conversation.
You know, I was much heavier then.
And I hadn’t put runnin’ shoes on in over a year.
– How heavy are you at this point?
– I’m around, between 240 to 270.
– Whoa. – I’m in there,
I’m in that range.
My weight has varied a lot through the Seal teams
and out of the Seal teams, so I was a heavy guy.
But the long and short of it all was,
I hadn’t put runnin’ shoes on in over a year.
I was big time power lifter.
I lifted weights heavy, that’s what I did.
– Right. – I got back home
from Iraq, went straight to free fall school,
and then this happened.
So, I called Chris Costen up on a Wednesday.
He says, “Look man, the only way you can qualify
“for my race is to run 100 miles at one time,
“in 24 hours or less.”
There happened to be a race that Saturday.
So, four days later.
And he said, “If you qualify,” by runnin’ 100 miles or less
in 24 hours, “I will consider you my race.”
I’m going to cut to the chase,
I signed up for this race.
It was called the San Diego One Day,
where you run around a mile track for 24 hours
to see how many miles you can get.
My goal was 100 miles.
So, I got to mile 70,
and I cleared 70 miles in like, 12, 13 hours.
Pretty quickly.
But I was done.
My feet were broken, I was, stress fractures,
shin splints, muscles were tearing.
I was in bad shape.
I was eatin’ Ritz crackers and drinkin’ Myoplex.
(chuckles)
That’s all I had.
No water, didn’t know what the hell I was doin’ out there,
had on some tube socks.
It was just ridiculous.
It was a clown show.
So, I sat down at mile 70, and at this time I was married.
And I look at my wife, and I was like,
“I’m messed up bad.”
So, I literally start to turn white.
And when a black guy turns white,
you’re pretty (silence) up.
(audience laughs)
So, here I am, I’m (silence) up in this chair,
I’m at mile 70, they got 30 (silence) miles to go.
I’m jacked up.
I got to go to the bathroom and the bathroom’s like,
20 feet from me.
It’s a port-a-potty.
I can’t get out of the (silence) chair.
So, I’m peein’ blood
down my leg, – Whoa.
– Poopin’ up my (silence) back,
and I got 30 miles to go.
And I can’t stand up ’cause my blood pressure’s
all messed up.
I’d been in three Hell Weeks,
Ranger School, overcome so many obstacles in my life.
This last 30 miles of this race is when I realized
a human being is not so human anymore.
We have the ability to go in such a space,
if you’re willin’ to suffer, and I mean suffer.
Your brain and your body once connected together
can do anything.
And this 30 miles was the life changing moment.
I was out of it.
I was in the worst pain in my entire life.
I was, to me, on the brink of death.
And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles
into small pieces.
I was so driven.
And I’m not going to say motivated, ’cause motivation’s crap.
Motivation comes and goes.
When you’re driven, whatever’s in front of you
will get destroyed.
So, I sat in this chair, and I was so driven
to succeed in this race.
And at this time, everybody goes, “Were you thinkin’
“about the guys that died?”
I’m not going to lie to you, I wasn’t.
This became a personal thing.
This became me against this race,
me against the kids that had called me Nigger,
me against me.
It just became something that I took so violently personal.
And I broke this thing down into small pieces.
I said, “Okay, I got to get nutrition.
“I got to be able to stand up before I can get off this curb
“and get off this chair, and be able to go 30 miles.”
So I went through all these small steps, and I was able
to stand up.
And then from standing up, I was literally walking around
with my wife, at the time, and she goes, “You’re not
“going to make the time.”
She goes, “You’re walking like 37 minute miles.”
I got to mile 81, and the second she said that I’m not
going to make the time, I ran the last 19 miles,
non stop.
And I can show you right now, when we get done with this,
matter of fact, I’m going to show you right now.
This was years ago,
and I had to put compression tape
– Whoa! – on my ankle.
So this was years ago.
I had literally the size of half dollars.
I had to get compression tape, and I taped up my ankles,
and I taped up my feet.
And that’s how I got through that race.
– Was it like a hematoma?
I mean, what was happening? – See, what happened was,
my shins hurt so bad from havin’ the stress fractures,
that the only way I could continue on was I taped it
so I wasn’t doin’ the flexor motion
that activates your shins.
So, I taped my ankles and my shins up, and I got that from,
because in my third Hell Week, they weren’t going to let me
go back through,
you know, train anymore. – Right.
– So, I literally went through all of BUD/S,
my last Seal Training, with stress fractures
and shin splints.
And how I did it was I would tape my ankles all the way
up to my calf every morning.
So, for the first hour, the pain was excruciating.
But what would happen is, my feet would go numb.
– Whoa. – And I did that
every single day for six months.
– Whoa!
– And that’s how I got through my third Hell Week,
’cause I was so broken from the first two that the commander
said, “Hey, the CO said this is your last time
“we’re sendin’ you through.”
So that’s how I got the idea to do that.
So, with the right, and people may listen to this
and say, “This guy is sadistic, he’s crazy.”
No, if you know how I came up, you’ll realize I was
just a scared kid
that found drive and passion to be somethin’ much better
than what he thought he was.
That’s all it is.
Self talk and visualization are the two keys to my success.
I believed, for that last 19 miles,
I was indestructible.
‘Cause I took myself in that chair, crappin’ up my back,
peein’ blood down my leg, shin splints, stress fractures.
I used all that for motivation, versus negativity,
I used it for motivation.
I said to myself, “Who on this (silence) earth
“would still be going right now?
“You are.
“You are.
“You got to be the hardest (silence) on the planet.”
Is it true?
I don’t give a (silence).
At that time,
– Right. – it got me
to the finish line of that (silence) race.
I believed it.
I believe it today.
I believed it enough to where my body said,
“He’s not going to stop.”
And that’s, I took all the negative things,
“I need to go to the hospital,” this and that,
and I used it all.
“Who the hell could even get out of that chair?
“You did.
“Who the hell would even think about tapin’
“stress fractures up?
“You did.”
All those things I used for motivation.
What’s the point of livin’?
You know, a lot of us go through our day to day routine,
kiss the wife, kiss the husband, whatever you’re doin’,
and that’s our life.
You know, I believe everybody’s put on this earth
for a journey, and everybody’s journey is different.
But most people don’t, you know, take their journey.
They try and take a easier path.
So, that’s what it’s all about.
You just got to accept your journey, and a lot of times
your journey sucks, but that’s what you got to do.
It was always about givin’ back.
You know, God gave me a gift.
You know, a gift to kind of achieve what I need to achieve.
You know, a strong mind.
And if I can kind of relay that message to these young kids,
young men and women.
It’s just havin’ these events around, it just helps
them out, helps them grow.
Kids need mentors nowadays.
– [Man] Yes.
– And to hear a positive message from people
who don’t have much, you know, that, “Hey, I can do it.”
– [Man] Yes.
– That’s what it’s all about.
You don’t need much to become a lot.
(breathing heavily)
I started doin’ this, triathlons and endurance sports,
ultra runs, just to test my soul, to see what I’m about.
To see in 150 mile race, at mile 75, when I feel really bad,
that’s when you know, that’s the only time you can find out
what the human body’s all about.
What you’re made of.
To find out limits to myself.
Limits to the human soul.
And everyday, I’m tryin’ to see if I have limits.
(breathing heavily)
(mysterious instrumental music)
I run anywhere from 125, 150 in a week.
So, I’ll try to put in about 450 miles a month.
Usually, everyday, I wake up at three o’clock in the morning
and I run anywhere from 10 to 15 miles in the morning.
And then, I live about 25 miles from work.
So, I get my bicycle, commute in to work,
do a normal work day.
At lunch time, around noon, I’ll run again.
Anywhere from five to eight miles, whatever it may be.
Come back, work, and around 5:30, I ride back home
25 miles on my bike.
If I’m feelin’ good, you know, when I get more miles,
I get off the bike and do like a short three or four
or five mile run.
That’s my everyday life.
So, I don’t just train like an hour or so.
I train until somethin’ is uncomfortable.
And then, that’s when you know who you are.
(footsteps landing)
The only easy day was yesterday.
It just never ends.
I mean, I’ve done some races where you’re
on a one mile track, and you’ll run for 48 hours straight.
So imagine runnin’ 48 hours and run a one mile track.
And it’s not like you’re sleepin’, you’re running
for 48 hours to see how many miles you can get.
Want to talk about mind torture?
My life doesn’t have a finish line.
So, when I cross the finish line of the Iron Man,
doesn’t matter ’cause I know that two or three weeks
from now, I’ll be doin’ somethin’ else to put
my body through more pain.
(footsteps landing)
I believe, you know, everything I try to do
is kind of defined by excellence.
But, I don’t think I ever reach that excellence myself
’cause I have my standards of my life really high,
so I don’t think I ever reach it.
But I try to every day.
(mysterious instrumental music)
You have to be a good individual first
before you can be a good team player.
I know for a fact how bad Hell Week is.
I went through it a couple times.
It’s probably the most brutal military training
anybody can go through.
So everybody to my left, and everybody to my right
they’ve been through this.
So I know mentally, you know, these individuals
are extremely hard.
And when stuff gets bad, and you know,
any situation, I know these guys have my back.
(footsteps landing)
(breathing heavily)
I’ve done a lot of things I thought were impossible,
and nothin’s impossible anymore.
– Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because MGOP Official asked me to.
If there’s someone you’d like to vote on
for the next Top 10, check out the link in the description,
and go and have your say.
Finally, I wanted to give a quick shout out
to Michael Shawn Phillips from Lead the Team.
Michael, thank you so much for picking up a copy
of my book, Your One Word, and for doing the review
on your website.
I really appreciate the support, and I’m so glad
that you enjoyed the book.
So, thank you guys, again, for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you’ll continue to believe in yourself,
and do whatever your One Word is.
Much love, I’ll see you soon.
(swoosh)
– What power have you found in the darkness?
– First off, before I answer that question, I want to say,
everybody listen to this.
I’m the happiest on the planet earth.
So people may take this, as so many people do.
We live in a very weakened society.
So when they hear a throw back guy like me,
from back in the ancient days of Garanimals,
they often think, “This guy is just whatever.”
So if you think that I’m some unhappy guy, you’re wrong.
Havin’ lived the life I’ve lived,
and seeing the other side, not being afraid to attack
what was in front of me, has made me happy.
– Say that again.
In fact, let me make sure I understood it.
Getting to the point where you’re not afraid to face
the thing on the other side of the door
that wants to attack you, has made you happy.
– Right.
Right. – It’s really powerful.
I hope people heard that. – Right.
That made me very happy.
So, basically, I just don’t walk around with a dad-gum smile
on my face all the damn time.
So, you know, Merry Christmas.
(laughing)
But basically, what the dark side is,
is, we all have
a cookie jar.
And we all have a jar of (silence).
(laughing)
That’s it’s official name.
It’s a jar of (silence) man, where (silence) just,
it just ain’t goin’ right.
And in Hell Week, what they do in Hell Week,
’cause this is where I really went to the dark side.
What they do in Hell Week is they design Hell Week
to find your flaws.
And they do a really good job of that.
It’s 130 hours of continuous training.
You may get two hours of sleep.
And they beat the (silence) out of you and find everything
wrong with your mentality.
And then, they start Hell Week.
And that’s the beauty of it.
And for me, I’m not some nasty guy, giving guy.
You know, I don’t have a great bit of talent in anything.
So what got me through horrible times was the dark side.
Was, I created, my name is David Goggins.
I created Goggins.
Goggins is the guy that can take anything you put
in front of him.
You want to break my (silence) legs, so be it.
I have a way of goin’ to a place, like I did in that race,
where all the pain and sufferin’ that they put on top
of me in Hell Week, I will reverse that pain and suffering
and I will take your soul.
So, every instructor that put me through BUD/S,
my job, what drove me, was I wanted you to go home
that night, after you beat the living (silence) out of me,
and I smiled in your face.
I wanted you to feel worse than I did, and you were goin’
home to a nice, warm bed, with your wife, or your kids,
and a nice meal, and I was still out there in the grip.
Sufferin’ for another hundred hours.
I wanted you to think about me, knowing that I’m comfortable
bein’ very un (silence) comfortable.
And I want you to think about when you went through
(silence) Hell Week.
How uncomfortable you were and how bad you wanted to quit.
Knowing I’m not thinkin’ that (silence) way.
So the dark side is somethin’ that I’ve designed.
It’s a evil place I can go that very few things
can hurt me.
I use the hurt you’re tryin’ to put on me,
I flip it upside down, and use it.
You’re tryin’ to use it for Kryptonite?
No.
It’s power pillows for me.
I’m usin’ it for strength.
I flip negative into positive, that’s all it is.
Okay.
Instead of somebody sayin’, “Oh no, you’re smart.
“No, no, don’t say that to yourself.”
I said to myself, “No, I’m a dumb (silence).”
Okay, roger that.
And I think I’m the hardest guy in the world.
You got to believe that.
You got to believe you are something.
The whole thing about comfort zones is
if you live in one for too long, that becomes your norm.
– What’s up Believe Nation?
It’s Evan.
My One Word is Believe, and I believe that you have
the ability to do something special that can change
the planet.
And so, to help you on your journey, today, we’re going to
learn from Navy Seal and Ultra Marathon runner,
David Goggins, and my take on his top 10 rules for success.
Rule number one is my personal favorite,
and I’d love to know which one you guys like the best.
(Swoosh)
(majestic instrumental melody)
– I came home one night from work, sprayin’ for cockroaches,
and long story short, I turned on the Discovery Channel
and I saw some guys going through Navy Seal training.
And they were going through Hell Week and they were
gettin’ their ass just beat.
You know, in and out of the water, guys ringin’ the bell.
There was sufferin’, and I was weighin’ like 297 pounds.
And I had to make a change in my life.
You know?
I was at an all time low, and I wasn’t goin’ anywhere,
and I was exactly what everybody said I was going to be,
which was nothin’.
So, I had to make a change.
– What was it about seeing suffering?
This is really interesting, and I actually get it
but I want to hear you explain it.
Why suffering was was the thing that triggered that thought?
– Well, for me, growin’ up,
I came from a horrible background.
I got called Nigger every day of my life growin’ up.
Lived in a small town.
The Klan headquarters at that time was about
20 minutes from where I lived.
One of the high ups in the KKK’s son sat behind me
in two classes, so he called me Nigger all the time.
Got my first car, they spray painted, “Nigger,
“we’re going to kill you,” on it.
So, I was just a insecure, scared kid.
And the only way I could find myself
was through puttin’ myself thorough
the worst thing possible.
I want to say the exact opposite of what the world,
today’s world, is saying.
So we read a bunch of books nowadays.
As humans, we want to find out how to be someone else.
What we don’t do is we don’t go inside,
so literally turn yourself inside out, read the book that’s,
like we’re writin’ a book every day of our lives.
Everyday, we’re seein’ who we are as people.
When I was growin’ up, I lied for people to accept me,
because I didn’t accept myself.
So, I would make up stories so then you would
accept me into your world.
Everything I did was for someone else to like me.
It wasn’t until I started reading my own book
about how pathetic I was as a human being.
I could blame my dad, I could blame kids at school,
I could blame havin’ health issues, ADD, my mom not
bein’ around.
Great mom but she was doin’ her thing.
– Right.
– I could blame a lot of people,
and that’s the book I was reading.
And I put it off on everybody else.
It wasn’t ’til I said, “You know what, for me to fix this,
“I got to read what the hell, what the (silence) is wrong
“with David Goggins.”
Not blame anybody, read my book and say, “Okay, I’m afraid
“of my shadow.
“How can I overcome that?”
Go in the military, get your ass kicked, do things
you hate to do.
Be uncomfortable every (silence) day of your life.
Roger that.
I’m not the smartest kid in the world.
Okay.
Instead of somebody sayin, “Oh no, you’re smart.
“No, no, don’t say that to yourself.”
I said to myself, “No, I’m a dumb (silence).”
Okay, roger that.
How you get smarter?
Educate yourself.
So the things that we run from, we’re runnin’
from the truth.
We’re runnin’ from the truth, man.
So, the only way I became successful was goin’ towards
the truth.
As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me.
It allowed me to become, in my own right,
who I am today.
– David, tell ’em about the cookie jar.
– The cookie jar is somethin’ I invented.
As you all know, your mom has a cookie jar,
and sometimes you might have a Oreo, sometimes you might
have a Chips Ahoy, sometimes you might have a oatmeal
raisin cookie.
You never know.
It’s just in there.
My cookie jar
has every single failure and success of my life.
Somethin’ I overcame.
So, what happens in time of life when you’re stressed out
and things get bad, even the hardest guy in the world,
me, everybody thinks, and I think I’m the hardest guy
in the world, you’ve got to believe that.
You got to believe you are somethin’.
I will, in my mind, reach into my cookie jar
and sometimes you forget how hard you are in times of need.
‘Cause you’re stressed.
But you forget.
I’m a (silence) Navy Seal, I’m a Ranger, I’m this and that,
but you forget all that ’cause your life sucks.
I calm down, take that one second, get control of my life,
reach in the cookie jar,
“Wow, you got called Nigger your whole life
“and you’re now the only person in history to do”
this, this, and this.
Put it back in the cookie jar, reset my mind.
You have to remind yourself of how badass you really are
in times of need.
(applause)
That’s the (silence) cookie jar.
– So many of us are on cruise control, myself included,
and we get into our daily routine.
And routines are unbelievable, but routines can also
be a rut.
Only if you really challenge yourself and push yourself
and get out of your routine, your comfort zone,
can you get better.
Like, you can’t improve when you’re on auto pilot.
So you have to set goals, and you have to set challenges
that you don’t necessarily think you can do.
Or you’re going to push yourself way further than you think
you can to improve.
So, you got to get out of the complacency of the routine.
– The whole thing about comfort zones is if you live in one
for too long, that becomes your norm.
It never allows you to get experience, gain knowledge,
gain any kind of mental toughness.
– Well, I learned that we all have a reserve tank
that we’re all capable of doing so much more
than we think we can.
And only by really tapping into that reserve tank,
whether it’s in business, whether it’s in physically,
you want to get more fit, only when you really push yourself
and push your limits, can you find out what
you’re really made of and what’s in your reserve tank.
And I mean, he taught me that every single day,
and it just led to me getting better in the various buckets
in my life as I tapped into that reserve tank.
– Yeah, I think I said to him, “Don’t be a (bleep).”
– You know, we call it the 40% rule.
That’s somethin’ that David kind of told me
and shared with me, and I bought into it.
But it’s proved effective.
Not just in working out, but even in business,
or my family life.
It’s like, when I’m frustrated, when I’m done,
when I hit a road block, when things get complicated,
you have so much more in you.
– People have said, “Man, you cuss all the (silence) time.
“Why?” (laughs)
Well, I hate to say it, the best way for me to get
how I feel acrossed, I can’t sit here and say,
“You know what, yeah, I went through Hell Week
“and man, it was really hard.”
(chuckles)
No, that (silence)
takes your damn soul, rips it inside out,
and then they say, “Now, we’re going to (silence) start.”
It allows me to express where I was at,
at a point of my life.
If I don’t give you all of me, why the hell am I here?
How will you learn from me?
People take so much offense to me.
You will never learn from people if we always tap dance
around the truth.
– Oh God, I love that, so true.
– We tap dance around the truth by findin’ the right words
so I don’t hurt you, ’cause you have thin skin.
No, tighten up people.
It’s okay.
Trust me, it’s okay.
You might be called Nigger one day.
It’s okay.
You might be called some Jewish word or some faggot
or gay word.
It’s okay.
Let ’em call you that.
What are you going to do now?
They don’t own your life.
How are you going to control that now?
How are you going to flip it upside down and say,
“Roger that.
“Now I’m going to harness this (silence) and you’ll read
“about me years from now.”
How?
That’s the question.
How are you going to do that?
Thicken your skin.
Become more of a human being.
Don’t be afraid of the reflection in the mirror,
’cause that’s all you can be afraid of.
Once you overcome the reflection in the mirror,
you’ve done it.
I literally broke all the metatarsals in my feet.
Stress fractures, shin splints, everything, the pain
goin’ through my body, I’ve been through every training
known to man.
Ranger school, Hell Week three times, all kind of stuff.
This event I’m explaining to you right now,
not enough time to explain it to you in detail,
but it was the worst thing I’ve done in my entire life
pain wise.
This is when I realized a human being is capable
of going to limits unknown to most people.
This is where hardness comes in.
People can read a book on hardness and tell you
about mental toughness and hardness, but until you put
your body through hardness, and realize that there’s walls
and doors you must break through, and once you break
through them you are amazing, and your body resets.
But we are scared to get to that wall
’cause that wall says what?
“Stop.”
Right?
But every wall has a what?
A door.
You got to get that key from your pocket and don’t be scared
to see what’s on the other side of that door.
– I would like to know when you’re in that moment failing,
and you have to keep going, what do you say to yourself?
– “What if?”
A lot of times I’ll be in tours at my run or somethin’
like that, and I’m all jacked up.
Body’s broken, mind’s broken, spirit’s broken.
I started to say, “What if I can pull this off?”
When I first walked in to the Navy Seal recruiter’s office,
he looked at me and said, “There’s only be 35
“African Americans in 70 years make it through.”
You know what I said to myself?
“What if I can be the 36th?”
It’s the “What if I can pull off a (silence) miracle?”
What if I can become someone that no one thinks
I can be?
And just that, just me talkin’ about that,
I have the hair goin’ up on my arms.
‘Cause it makes me just like, “What if I can be that guy
“that people who called Nigger,” and this and that,
and now, I’m speakin’ at Tom Ferry’s (silence) event.
(applause and cheers)
What if? – Thank you.
– That’s it.
So the first Ultra Marathon wasn’t smart at all.
At all.
So basically what happened was, I was at military
free fall school with Morgan Luttrell.
Marcus Luttrell, if you guys don’t know,
was the lone survivor, the guy, he was in a bad op,
op went bad, he was the only Navy Seal that lived.
Long story short.
Got to get the book.
Read Lone Survivor, great story.
Morgan is Marcus Luttrell’s twin brother.
And I was there with Marcus.
So, what happened was, myself and Morgan
were in free fall school at the same exact time Marcus
was in the worst incident in Seal history.
So, I knew that Marcus might be dead.
He wasn’t dead, everybody else was dead.
So, I actually brought, I actually told Morgan,
“Hey man, your brother was in a bad incident.
“I don’t know if he’s alive, I don’t know what’s goin’ on.”
Long story short, Marcus is alive and I go on
to want to raise money for families.
All these guys died, they all had kids.
I want to raise money for
the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
It’s a foundation where 100% tuition goes
to these kids to go to college, you know, full tuition,
whatever.
So I found this great foundation.
I’m going to raise money for it.
So, I said, “You know what?
“I have to Google something that’s evil.
“Somethin’ very hard.”
I knew nothin’ about Ultra Marathons.
I hadn’t even run a marathon.
I knew nothing about this world.
So, I Googled the top 10 hardest races in the world.
And what comes up is a Bad Water 135.
So, 135 mile race through Death Valley in the summer time.
I thought it was a stage race.
I thought it was a race where you run like, 20 miles,
set up camp,
barbecue outside, and then go run some more the next day.
So, I called the race director up at the race and said,
“Hey Chris,” his name is Chris Costen.
“I want to do your race.”
So we had a long conversation.
You know, I was much heavier then.
And I hadn’t put runnin’ shoes on in over a year.
– How heavy are you at this point?
– I’m around, between 240 to 270.
– Whoa. – I’m in there,
I’m in that range.
My weight has varied a lot through the Seal teams
and out of the Seal teams, so I was a heavy guy.
But the long and short of it all was,
I hadn’t put runnin’ shoes on in over a year.
I was big time power lifter.
I lifted weights heavy, that’s what I did.
– Right. – I got back home
from Iraq, went straight to free fall school,
and then this happened.
So, I called Chris Costen up on a Wednesday.
He says, “Look man, the only way you can qualify
“for my race is to run 100 miles at one time,
“in 24 hours or less.”
There happened to be a race that Saturday.
So, four days later.
And he said, “If you qualify,” by runnin’ 100 miles or less
in 24 hours, “I will consider you my race.”
I’m going to cut to the chase,
I signed up for this race.
It was called the San Diego One Day,
where you run around a mile track for 24 hours
to see how many miles you can get.
My goal was 100 miles.
So, I got to mile 70,
and I cleared 70 miles in like, 12, 13 hours.
Pretty quickly.
But I was done.
My feet were broken, I was, stress fractures,
shin splints, muscles were tearing.
I was in bad shape.
I was eatin’ Ritz crackers and drinkin’ Myoplex.
(chuckles)
That’s all I had.
No water, didn’t know what the hell I was doin’ out there,
had on some tube socks.
It was just ridiculous.
It was a clown show.
So, I sat down at mile 70, and at this time I was married.
And I look at my wife, and I was like,
“I’m messed up bad.”
So, I literally start to turn white.
And when a black guy turns white,
you’re pretty (silence) up.
(audience laughs)
So, here I am, I’m (silence) up in this chair,
I’m at mile 70, they got 30 (silence) miles to go.
I’m jacked up.
I got to go to the bathroom and the bathroom’s like,
20 feet from me.
It’s a port-a-potty.
I can’t get out of the (silence) chair.
So, I’m peein’ blood
down my leg, – Whoa.
– Poopin’ up my (silence) back,
and I got 30 miles to go.
And I can’t stand up ’cause my blood pressure’s
all messed up.
I’d been in three Hell Weeks,
Ranger School, overcome so many obstacles in my life.
This last 30 miles of this race is when I realized
a human being is not so human anymore.
We have the ability to go in such a space,
if you’re willin’ to suffer, and I mean suffer.
Your brain and your body once connected together
can do anything.
And this 30 miles was the life changing moment.
I was out of it.
I was in the worst pain in my entire life.
I was, to me, on the brink of death.
And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles
into small pieces.
I was so driven.
And I’m not going to say motivated, ’cause motivation’s crap.
Motivation comes and goes.
When you’re driven, whatever’s in front of you
will get destroyed.
So, I sat in this chair, and I was so driven
to succeed in this race.
And at this time, everybody goes, “Were you thinkin’
“about the guys that died?”
I’m not going to lie to you, I wasn’t.
This became a personal thing.
This became me against this race,
me against the kids that had called me Nigger,
me against me.
It just became something that I took so violently personal.
And I broke this thing down into small pieces.
I said, “Okay, I got to get nutrition.
“I got to be able to stand up before I can get off this curb
“and get off this chair, and be able to go 30 miles.”
So I went through all these small steps, and I was able
to stand up.
And then from standing up, I was literally walking around
with my wife, at the time, and she goes, “You’re not
“going to make the time.”
She goes, “You’re walking like 37 minute miles.”
I got to mile 81, and the second she said that I’m not
going to make the time, I ran the last 19 miles,
non stop.
And I can show you right now, when we get done with this,
matter of fact, I’m going to show you right now.
This was years ago,
and I had to put compression tape
– Whoa! – on my ankle.
So this was years ago.
I had literally the size of half dollars.
I had to get compression tape, and I taped up my ankles,
and I taped up my feet.
And that’s how I got through that race.
– Was it like a hematoma?
I mean, what was happening? – See, what happened was,
my shins hurt so bad from havin’ the stress fractures,
that the only way I could continue on was I taped it
so I wasn’t doin’ the flexor motion
that activates your shins.
So, I taped my ankles and my shins up, and I got that from,
because in my third Hell Week, they weren’t going to let me
go back through,
you know, train anymore. – Right.
– So, I literally went through all of BUD/S,
my last Seal Training, with stress fractures
and shin splints.
And how I did it was I would tape my ankles all the way
up to my calf every morning.
So, for the first hour, the pain was excruciating.
But what would happen is, my feet would go numb.
– Whoa. – And I did that
every single day for six months.
– Whoa!
– And that’s how I got through my third Hell Week,
’cause I was so broken from the first two that the commander
said, “Hey, the CO said this is your last time
“we’re sendin’ you through.”
So that’s how I got the idea to do that.
So, with the right, and people may listen to this
and say, “This guy is sadistic, he’s crazy.”
No, if you know how I came up, you’ll realize I was
just a scared kid
that found drive and passion to be somethin’ much better
than what he thought he was.
That’s all it is.
Self talk and visualization are the two keys to my success.
I believed, for that last 19 miles,
I was indestructible.
‘Cause I took myself in that chair, crappin’ up my back,
peein’ blood down my leg, shin splints, stress fractures.
I used all that for motivation, versus negativity,
I used it for motivation.
I said to myself, “Who on this (silence) earth
“would still be going right now?
“You are.
“You are.
“You got to be the hardest (silence) on the planet.”
Is it true?
I don’t give a (silence).
At that time,
– Right. – it got me
to the finish line of that (silence) race.
I believed it.
I believe it today.
I believed it enough to where my body said,
“He’s not going to stop.”
And that’s, I took all the negative things,
“I need to go to the hospital,” this and that,
and I used it all.
“Who the hell could even get out of that chair?
“You did.
“Who the hell would even think about tapin’
“stress fractures up?
“You did.”
All those things I used for motivation.
What’s the point of livin’?
You know, a lot of us go through our day to day routine,
kiss the wife, kiss the husband, whatever you’re doin’,
and that’s our life.
You know, I believe everybody’s put on this earth
for a journey, and everybody’s journey is different.
But most people don’t, you know, take their journey.
They try and take a easier path.
So, that’s what it’s all about.
You just got to accept your journey, and a lot of times
your journey sucks, but that’s what you got to do.
It was always about givin’ back.
You know, God gave me a gift.
You know, a gift to kind of achieve what I need to achieve.
You know, a strong mind.
And if I can kind of relay that message to these young kids,
young men and women.
It’s just havin’ these events around, it just helps
them out, helps them grow.
Kids need mentors nowadays.
– [Man] Yes.
– And to hear a positive message from people
who don’t have much, you know, that, “Hey, I can do it.”
– [Man] Yes.
– That’s what it’s all about.
You don’t need much to become a lot.
(breathing heavily)
I started doin’ this, triathlons and endurance sports,
ultra runs, just to test my soul, to see what I’m about.
To see in 150 mile race, at mile 75, when I feel really bad,
that’s when you know, that’s the only time you can find out
what the human body’s all about.
What you’re made of.
To find out limits to myself.
Limits to the human soul.
And everyday, I’m tryin’ to see if I have limits.
(breathing heavily)
(mysterious instrumental music)
I run anywhere from 125, 150 in a week.
So, I’ll try to put in about 450 miles a month.
Usually, everyday, I wake up at three o’clock in the morning
and I run anywhere from 10 to 15 miles in the morning.
And then, I live about 25 miles from work.
So, I get my bicycle, commute in to work,
do a normal work day.
At lunch time, around noon, I’ll run again.
Anywhere from five to eight miles, whatever it may be.
Come back, work, and around 5:30, I ride back home
25 miles on my bike.
If I’m feelin’ good, you know, when I get more miles,
I get off the bike and do like a short three or four
or five mile run.
That’s my everyday life.
So, I don’t just train like an hour or so.
I train until somethin’ is uncomfortable.
And then, that’s when you know who you are.
(footsteps landing)
The only easy day was yesterday.
It just never ends.
I mean, I’ve done some races where you’re
on a one mile track, and you’ll run for 48 hours straight.
So imagine runnin’ 48 hours and run a one mile track.
And it’s not like you’re sleepin’, you’re running
for 48 hours to see how many miles you can get.
Want to talk about mind torture?
My life doesn’t have a finish line.
So, when I cross the finish line of the Iron Man,
doesn’t matter ’cause I know that two or three weeks
from now, I’ll be doin’ somethin’ else to put
my body through more pain.
(footsteps landing)
I believe, you know, everything I try to do
is kind of defined by excellence.
But, I don’t think I ever reach that excellence myself
’cause I have my standards of my life really high,
so I don’t think I ever reach it.
But I try to every day.
(mysterious instrumental music)
You have to be a good individual first
before you can be a good team player.
I know for a fact how bad Hell Week is.
I went through it a couple times.
It’s probably the most brutal military training
anybody can go through.
So everybody to my left, and everybody to my right
they’ve been through this.
So I know mentally, you know, these individuals
are extremely hard.
And when stuff gets bad, and you know,
any situation, I know these guys have my back.
(footsteps landing)
(breathing heavily)
I’ve done a lot of things I thought were impossible,
and nothin’s impossible anymore.
– Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because MGOP Official asked me to.
If there’s someone you’d like to vote on
for the next Top 10, check out the link in the description,
and go and have your say.
Finally, I wanted to give a quick shout out
to Michael Shawn Phillips from Lead the Team.
Michael, thank you so much for picking up a copy
of my book, Your One Word, and for doing the review
on your website.
I really appreciate the support, and I’m so glad
that you enjoyed the book.
So, thank you guys, again, for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you’ll continue to believe in yourself,
and do whatever your One Word is.
Much love, I’ll see you soon.
(swoosh)
– What power have you found in the darkness?
– First off, before I answer that question, I want to say,
everybody listen to this.
I’m the happiest on the planet earth.
So people may take this, as so many people do.
We live in a very weakened society.
So when they hear a throw back guy like me,
from back in the ancient days of Garanimals,
they often think, “This guy is just whatever.”
So if you think that I’m some unhappy guy, you’re wrong.
Havin’ lived the life I’ve lived,
and seeing the other side, not being afraid to attack
what was in front of me, has made me happy.
– Say that again.
In fact, let me make sure I understood it.
Getting to the point where you’re not afraid to face
the thing on the other side of the door
that wants to attack you, has made you happy.
– Right.
Right. – It’s really powerful.
I hope people heard that. – Right.
That made me very happy.
So, basically, I just don’t walk around with a dad-gum smile
on my face all the damn time.
So, you know, Merry Christmas.
(laughing)
But basically, what the dark side is,
is, we all have
a cookie jar.
And we all have a jar of (silence).
(laughing)
That’s it’s official name.
It’s a jar of (silence) man, where (silence) just,
it just ain’t goin’ right.
And in Hell Week, what they do in Hell Week,
’cause this is where I really went to the dark side.
What they do in Hell Week is they design Hell Week
to find your flaws.
And they do a really good job of that.
It’s 130 hours of continuous training.
You may get two hours of sleep.
And they beat the (silence) out of you and find everything
wrong with your mentality.
And then, they start Hell Week.
And that’s the beauty of it.
And for me, I’m not some nasty guy, giving guy.
You know, I don’t have a great bit of talent in anything.
So what got me through horrible times was the dark side.
Was, I created, my name is David Goggins.
I created Goggins.
Goggins is the guy that can take anything you put
in front of him.
You want to break my (silence) legs, so be it.
I have a way of goin’ to a place, like I did in that race,
where all the pain and sufferin’ that they put on top
of me in Hell Week, I will reverse that pain and suffering
and I will take your soul.
So, every instructor that put me through BUD/S,
my job, what drove me, was I wanted you to go home
that night, after you beat the living (silence) out of me,
and I smiled in your face.
I wanted you to feel worse than I did, and you were goin’
home to a nice, warm bed, with your wife, or your kids,
and a nice meal, and I was still out there in the grip.
Sufferin’ for another hundred hours.
I wanted you to think about me, knowing that I’m comfortable
bein’ very un (silence) comfortable.
And I want you to think about when you went through
(silence) Hell Week.
How uncomfortable you were and how bad you wanted to quit.
Knowing I’m not thinkin’ that (silence) way.
So the dark side is somethin’ that I’ve designed.
It’s a evil place I can go that very few things
can hurt me.
I use the hurt you’re tryin’ to put on me,
I flip it upside down, and use it.
You’re tryin’ to use it for Kryptonite?
No.
It’s power pillows for me.
I’m usin’ it for strength.
I flip negative into positive, that’s all it is.
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