David Goggins

“Mental toughness is not something that you sample, it’s something that you live in everyday.”

Your brain is the most complex organ in your body. It needs to be pushed, tested, and challenged everyday to create mental strength.

I practice mental toughness by pushing my body through physical pain every day. Every high impact workout I set out to do creates discipline and challenges my discomfort zone. 

Pain is where we learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You might be avoiding it right now because you’re afraid of what lies on the other side. 

The only way you’ll ever strengthen the most powerful organ in your body is by diving head first into your discomfort zone. We don’t like to be uncomfortable, but facing that pain head on is the only way we can ever succeed or progress. 

You are capable.

This week on The School of Greatness podcast, I had the pleasure of sharing my conversation with David Goggins, someone who has mastered the art of pain and embracing his discomfort zone.

Who is David Goggins?

David Goggins is an incredible man who has undergone insane amounts of stress, pain, and tragedy only to unlock his true potential in life. 

David is the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man), and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training.

He is indisputably one of the world’s best endurance athletes. He has completed over 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons, setting new course records and regularly placing in the top five. He once held the world record for pull-ups, completing 4,030 in 17 hours, and he is a sought-after public speaker, coach of numerous sports teams, and he also coaches people in Fortune 500 companies. In 2018, he published a book called You Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds which helps tons of people tap into their true potential. He says that on average, people are only using 40% of their potential. David wants to raise that number significantly. 

David Goggins has achieved and will continue to achieve many great things, but he has not achieved them by being comfortable. Growing up, David lived on a street called “Paradise Road,” but his home life was anything but paradise. His father was physically and emotionally abusive, David struggled with a learning disability, he cheated and failed at school, and at one point, he weighed over 300 pounds.

It was tragedy after tragedy for David. How did he manage to accomplish so much with a beginning so broken? 

In this episode, we don’t talk about how you can avoid hardships – we talk about how you can use them to your advantage. David says that fear is his ultimate guide. Is it yours?

“Everything’s Not Going to Be Okay.”

To say that David grew up in hell isn’t an exaggeration. 

His father wore a tailored suit and held the appearance of a charismatic, upright man. Behind the closed doors of his home, he was extremely physically abusive. Toxic stress brought about a learning disability, and to stay ahead, David began to cheat on tests to pass grades. As a junior in high school, he had a third grade reading level. His mother, who had once been a cheerful, capable woman, became a shell of a human being. In addition to all this, David was continually threatened and bullied because of his race. 

His life was doomed for failure.

He began to tell himself what the world around him was telling him. Things like, “I’m dumb. I’m stupid. I’m nobody. Everyone hates me.” 

Never once did David hear the words “It’s going to be okay.” Those are words we want to hear when we’re struggling. But although these words can be comforting, it’s not comfort that moves us past hardship. 

When David realized that failure was ahead of him, he decided to join the military to turn his life around. He failed the entry test twice. This was a test you couldn’t cheat on. On his third and final attempt, David passed, but he didn’t pass because he suddenly became a genius. He passed because he worked and worked for hours, writing every sentence of information into spiral-bound notebooks, so that he could memorize every single thing he needed to know.

When we experience hardships in our lives, we response in one of two ways. Either, we can let the pain consume us, define us, and condemn us for failure for the rest of our lives or we can use this pain to fuel us for action. 

David decided to do the later. He chose the path of the most resistance.

The Path of Most Resistance

If you plan to work out every day of the week, you’ll need to take a recovery day so that your body can refuel and recharge.

David Goggins has worked out every day for the past 22 years of his life. One day a week, he takes an “active recovery day” where he rides on a trainer for a couple hours, maintaining a low heart rate. This gets the blood flowing, and the nutrients can begin refueling the cells.

A lot of people LIVE for the recovery day. 

“So many people, before I give them a workout plan, they’re talking about recovery,” David said. “Everybody that hears me speak, they want to go straight to recovery…Before you talk to me about recovery, work out first.” 

In other words, we want the result without the process. We want to feel comfortable while doing something that is, at its core, uncomfortable. We forget that pain is necessary to make progress. 

Sometimes, we talk soft to ourselves to make us feel more comfortable in a difficult situation. It hurts to be honest with yourself. If you’re overweight, don’t tell yourself that you’re in great shape. If you’re struggling academically in a class, don’t call yourself a genius. 

At the same time, don’t let this honesty push you down – let it pull you up.

David says that “the most important conversation in life is the one you have with yourself.” 

Look at your situation and be honest with yourself. If there’s something you want to change, you’re not going to get there by telling yourself everything’s good. Have the courage to face yourself and start working – hard. With strong work ethic, you can accomplish anything. 

“It starts with yourself,” David said. “You’ve got to start diving into those things that you are afraid of. You don’t gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good.”

Taking the Time to Reflect

A little over five years ago, David got very sick. The doctors had no idea what was wrong. He went from a guy who worked out every day, from running 200 miles in thirty-five hours, to a guy who couldn’t get out of bed. His life came to a screeching halt. 

He said it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

For several days, he sat alone in the hospital, not able to move and not able to train (an athlete’s worst nightmare), but he was able to reflect. This was something he hadn’t taken the time to do in the midst of all the training, sweating, and running. He hadn’t taken the time to think about where he had started.

“I had come 8,000 miles from where I started,” he said. “When I was sick, I was able to slow it down and reflect back on my entire life…I didn’t care if I died or lived…Because I was, for the first time in my life, happy.”

David got the time to reflect on his life and see how much he had accomplished. From weighing 300 pounds, failing in school, and having an abusive father, he had become a Navy S.E.A.L and one of the world’s top endurance athletes.

What’s more, no one gave David a hand out. “It wasn’t like someone came down here and got me to do life,” he said. “When you figure this out on your own, the amount of pride and dignity and self respect you have – that’s why I walk around the streets with a backpack and just, like, I don’t need anything else.”

When you find yourself succeeding – whether it’s losing that weight, killing it at the new job, or spending less time binge-watching Netflix – take a moment to think about where you used to be and be proud. I try to give myself a challenge every day and push into those things that I fear the most. Later, I look back at those things which used to scare me and see everything I’ve overcome – that feeling is irreplaceable. 

Why You Should Listen Right Now…

This episode got my blood pumping. It truly inspired me to push even harder into those areas of my life which challenge me so that I can become the best version of myself that I can be. 

What’s been your attitude over the last few weeks, months, and years? Have you been showing up with an attitude of mental strength, or have you become a victim to your circumstances and allowed your attitude to dictate what you create in your life?

David said, “In the race of life, life’s not going to give you a glass of water when you’re thirsty.”

I say he’s right. Life is not going to be easy on any of us, but that doesn’t mean we have to let it defeat us. We can keep running, even when we’re thirsty. We are all stronger than we think we are. We all have the capacity for greatness.

David’s definition of greatness is being able to recall every situation where you failed in life but not making that same mistake again. It’s having the strength to move on and not be haunted by the past. It’s taking the time to reflect on how far you come and seeing how far you can still go.

If you’re reading this right now, that means there’s more available for you in your life. There is so much more available for you and you haven’t even scratched the surface yet. It’s time to step up! Make a commitment to yourself.

Give yourself thirty frickin’ days to do something challenging and painful and hard that you don’t want to do. It’s only going to make you grow. It’s only going to support every aspect of your life at the highest level. Do the thing that sucks. Do the thing you don’t want to do and you will be so much happier through the entire process.

I’ll be right there with you.

To greatness,