I learned more in that one race that I wasn't prepared for that 19 hours brought me from utter misery happiness failure success depression I went through every emotion in the world in 19 hours you should hear how the how the race ended then I really took a sh on myself like I got in that blue chair when the race ended and I literally it just was over I was in the worst shape of my life I got in the tub she put the shower on me the showers hit me as I'm laying in the tub
in the fetal position and what came out of me looked like dirt as I'm peeing it's it's not even blood this is this is dark brown dirt and I'm sitting there and she calls my mom and my mom has a doctor friend over her house and this guy's one of the best doctors in the country and he's like um you need to get him to the doctor now so I'm about to tell you it's going to you up so I'm sitting there and I think I'm I think I'm going to die and wor safe my
life and I'm in this tub and I'm jackhammering and this and I had this hot water hitting me and I'm literally in the worst pain my my shins my feet I'm broken and I'm just sitting I'm cramping up and she said we got to get to the doctor you know your mom's worri I'm worried about like we've never seen this before in my life and I go I'm not going anywhere I want to sit here and enjoy this pain I and I know the the listeners hearing this are going to say man you're nut no
I'm not what I got a chance to experience in that 19 hours and 6 minutes of my life was something I didn't want any painkillers this was proof positive what I was feeling is what I just did I did something without training without coaching without a cheering staff without any knowledge I took a raw human being with no training whatsoever put him out in a condition and just through this alone got through it and I sat there and I was like this is it was the best feeling I've ever had and will ever have in
my entire I was in the worst pain in my life it was the best feeling I ever had in my life not because the pain I was in by the pain was confirmation of my God did I just do that maybe Joe Rogan didn't quite grasp was why you would go out and uh become this wildland firefighter at this stage in your life that's once again going back to the roots going back to how I became who I am today when you're out there man and you're 43 and I've accomplished a lot of you're out
there with some 20- year-old kids and you're nobody again being nobody there's a lot of power in being nobody there's a lot of power from going to scratch again and going back out there picking up a Pulaski and just digging fire line you just another guy on the line digging a fire line and no one ain't no there there's no text message there's no my God David can you sign my book no I'm a get your ass out there it's like being in Army Ranger school where all the titles are removed removed that's exactly what
it is man I've always lived that lifestyle I always talk about living day one week one I started day one week one of buds so many times and when you hear that your heart just crumbles like [ __ ] day one week one again man I can go through all that again like I said it became my new norm and I found so much growth in that day one week one mentality but what I did wrong I tried to put that mentality on a lot of people and they don't want it anybody not just Navy
cers but anybody that can accomplish anything that is hard the only separator is is that they really want to be there when I did the pull-up record and I finally broke it took it three times yep did 4030 in 17 hours I listened to one song for 17 hours and it was going the distance 2 minutes and 13 something 14 seconds on a loop on a loop and I brought my own little iPad I don't ever listen to music but I was failing so many times at this record I had to go to that place
so I said you know what I don't want to bore you all anymore with this same song cuz I had I had a crew of people that filming it you know because they had to be documented so I didn't want them to be there for 17 hours listening to the same song K it borne so I put in my ears listen to the whole time but I'm going go a step further in that round when Rocky gets knocked down and Mickey saying stay down stay down and he's getting up Apollo Creed thinks that he knocked
him out so I have this thing called taking souls okay and when you see Apollo Creed turns around arms in the air I got him do you see when he turns around and he sees cuz he Apollo Creed knows I was this dude up yep he kept coming after me and I finally knocked him down when he turns around and looks at Rocky and and he says and watches him get up and Rocky gets his gloves and mes him to come to him yes Apollo puts his head down and just goes like this it's not
so much Rocky getting up that's big for me Apollo Creed's face y became every mother that verbally and nonverbally looked at me cuz you know that look they give you when you think that you know they may not tell you you're a piece of You're Nobody but they look at you almost like you poor thing I got them all I know right now whether you hate me love me I'm a I'm a this I'm a that whatever you want to think I made it and I know all of you mother are looking just like Apollo
Creed did cuz I just kept getting the up and all I wanted people to do in my life I don't care about the money I don't care about the fame I don't care if any I don't care if all my followers go away tomorrow I wanted a lot of people that doubted me to look like Apollo Creed did in that 14th round because I got back up repeatedly and when you keep on getting back up like that no matter how strong the person is that's beating the [ __ ] out of you they eventually look
at you and say you know what I'm tired and I just want people to be tired if you're willing to suffer and suffer and go back in the grind that internal dialogue you have with your yourself when you're in misery and you're uncomfortable it's a real scary unfiltered no lying dialogue between you and yourself and people know exactly what the I'm talking about when you're in a bad spot in life and your mind is saying all kind of [ __ ] that's who you really are that's the real you no Rocky B boa moments going
on up there like hey you know it's round 14 let's come on we got this no it's like this I'm out of here man is crazy that's where the growth happens when you're able to stay in that moment and talk to yourself talk yourself back into the suck of whatever you're going through and you start stripping those layers away but as you're stripping those layers away You're Building calluses over top of [ __ ] in your mind that's where the growth starts to happen is when you have to force yourself to stay in it you
can't you can't leave it the purpose is always there there the purpose never leaves us cuz the very purpose is you you are always the purpose that is the number one purpose in life is to better oneself but where do you go to you wake up on a morning it's cold it's wet it's dark you've got no cartilage in your knee you've got shorts whatever it is that's the issue today keep talking I need you to keep talking about what you were just saying it's warm on the couch your Mrs say stay in bed it's
comfy it's cozy you've got work later on you had an argument last night you're slightly hung over I know every mother ain't going to do what I'm going to do so this is how you level up that's how you level up I know there's a whole bunch of people with that right there that fires me up that makes me happy what you just said that brings joy to my life right there why cuz I know there's so many people that have the ability and just refuse to get off that couch refuse to study a few
more hours refuse to go deeper to go further and that's where I gain the advantage it's so easy to be great nowadays my friend because most people are weak most people don't want to go to that extra mile most people don't want to find that extra because it sucks it's miserable it's lonely I figured this out most of us are only 1 to 10% away from greatness but we think we're so far away from it that we never tried and once I start going down this journey I started realizing that and those percents started to
add up and before I knew it my mind started hardening and I started passing so many different people that I thought were so far above me and then before I knew it man I became uncommon amongst the uncommon life is a is a training ground while you may live a long life it doesn't mean you graduated at the top of the class you just lived a long boring despicable life and that's not what I wanted to do when you're truly committed to something not like where you like you know I want to be a doctor
but when I run into this roadblock I don't want to be a doctor no I'm going to be a doctor come hell in high water I needed that kind of commitment and David gaggin didn't know about that commitment I knew how to wash a car I knew how to clean a house I knew how to you know do all these manual labor jobs but when it came down to True suffering to the highest of suffering I didn't have that next level of all right mother we have this next level David goggin wasn't enough so I
went into my mental lab and realized but I want to be great but I don't have greatness in me so I had to create a mother that was great and in my mind I'm really big on visualization I went in my mind I said Okay I want to look like this I want to feel like this and I want to have a mind that is cast iron steel that is never dull that is always that was the biggest thing I wanted I wanted to hit obstacles that most people up in including myself but I didn't
waver I didn't fear I didn't run away I just stayed and marinated in the fear in the suffering I want to quit every single day but many dreams die while suffering and many of us out here have suffered and when you're suffering I'm not talking about just physically I'm talking about emotionally spiritually it could be a relationship when you're suffering you give up on the very things that you wanted the most when I was going through pair rescue I wanted to be a pair rescu man so bad but that water haunted me so when the
suffering got too much my dream died and pretty much I almost died with it if I didn't find Navy Seals and getting past that hump and overcoming my demons and facing my demons every day I would have never been up here today you can't outrun your demons they'll always know where you're hiding trust me at that don't stop when you're tired stop when you're done it's not putting yourself down people take this the wrong way in this new Society I'm not saying to put yourself down I'm saying listen to the truth and the truth isn't
in the 20% the truth is in this other part of your brain saying look man you're wasting a bunch of percentage here we have 80 more % that we're not tapping into because in this other 80% is suffering pain failure failure failure self-doubt darkness and then a whole bunch of light but to get to this light you got to go through all of this so a lot of us know that I can get over here but over here man this is much better because I gotta go through this journey that is not fun this this
from 20 to 100% this in between is not fun so we decide to live over here there was so many times in my life growing up I wanted to fit in and I wanted to be part of a group and I didn't have any want and I didn't have that desire so when you're trying to fit in when you're trying to be cool when you're trying to be whatever the hell it is without having that internal dog that fight when things get hard in life all you do is quit when you have that internal in
you like I've developed over a lot of years this dog it starts to get built up in you this fight this Warrior and when things get difficult you may not make it but you come back I wanted to be one of the 1centers not the 99% I realized I had One Life to Live and I have to live it there's not two lives there's one life and all these things started happening to me and then once that started happening man everything flipped but that internal it starts to build a voice in you that doesn't allow
you to sleep in doesn't allow you to take days off when you know that you're behind it just keeps you in check throughout everything you're doing in life cuz it's not going to allow you to fail but if you don't work on the inside of you you will always have that nurturing voice that guides you where it's okay it's always okay and if I were to have that it would have been okay to stay 300 lb doing what I was doing so that internals everything you can't run you can't work out so that's why I
went to school and I became a medic so I'm always in constant pursuit of my 100% whatever that is if I can't run anymore I'm going to see what else I can do I I was real proud of how I handled that when when my whole life got stripped for me and I was at like 20 years in the military and that my my life was getting stripped man and I couldn't run I couldn't work I couldn't do sh anymore and I didn't lose my all that training I gone through mental training I gone through
I was able to utilize it to find a lot of Peace in myself a lot of joy and a lot of uh self-fulfillment 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 say you know what I have to Google something that's that's evil something very hard I knew nothing about Ultra marathons I hadn't even run a marathon I knew nothing about
this world so I Googled the you know the top 10 hardest races in the world and what comes up is a badw 135 it's 135 mile race through Death Valley in the summertime I thought it was a state stage race I thought it was a race where you run like 20 miles set up camp you know 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 Cosman I want to do your race so we had a long
conversation you know I was I was much heavier then and I hadn't put running shoes on over a year I'm around between 240 to 270 I'm in there I'm in that range I've my my weight has buied 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 had put running shoes on in over a year I was a big-time powerlifter I lifted weights heavy that's what I did I got back home from Iraq went straight to freef fall
school and then this happened so I called Chris Cosman 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 4 days later and he said if you qualify by running 100 miles or less in 24 hours I will consider you my race I'm going cut to the chase I signed up for this race it was called the San Diego one day where you run around a one mile
track for 24 hours to see many miles you can get my goal was 100 miles so um I got to M 70 and I cleared 70 miles in like 12 13 hours pretty quickly but I was done my feet were broken I was stretch fractures shin splints muscles were tearing I was in bad shape I was eating Rich crackers and drinking mlex that's all I had no water didn't know what the hell I was doing out there had on some tube socks it was just ridiculous it was it was a clown show so I sat
down at Mile 70 and at this time I was married and I I look at my wife and I was like um I'm I'm messed up bad so I literally start to turn white here I am I'm at mile 7 think got 30 miles to go I'm jacked up I got to go to the bathroom the bathroom's like 20t from me supporter potty I can't get out of the chair so I'm peeing blood down my leg and I got 30 miles to go and I'm I can't stand up cuz my my blood pressure is all
messed up I've 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 willing to suffer and I mean suffer your brain and your body once connected together can do anything and this 30 miles was the lifechanging 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 I'm not going to say motivated because motivation is 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 it and at this time everybody goes were you thinking about the guys that died and 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
called me me against me it it it it just became something that I took so 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 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 run I mean you're you're walking like 30 some 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 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 that race my shins hurt so bad from having stretch fractures that the only way I can continue
on was I taped it so I wasn't doing the flexor motion that that activates your 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 so I literally went through all the buds my last Seal training with stretch fractur and shin splints and how I did it was I would take my ankles all the way up to my calf every morning so for the first hour the pain was excruciating but what
happened is my feet would go numb and I did that every single day for 6 months that's how I got through my third hell week cuz I was so broken from the first two that the commander said hey the co said this your last time we sending you through so that's how I got the idea to do that and and people may listen to this and say this guy is sadistic he's crazy he's no if you know how I came up you realize I was just a scared kid that found drive and passion to be
something much better than what he thought he was that's all it is cookie jar is something that I've made up of all the failures of my life all the things that I failed and I went back I failed and I went back and I finally succeeded all the things that kick my ass I put them all the cookie jar cuz at times of hell even the hardest men in times of suffering what we do is we forget how hard we really are CU that's what suffering is suffering is a test that's all it is suffering
is the true test of life and so that cookie jar travels in my brain so whenever I get put in a situation where I have poopy pants the wo is me mentality of oh my God life sucks I take a second I take the one second decision I step out of my life for one second go in the cookie jar pull up oh you went you were in three h weeks and finish two one of those H weeks a guy died because it was so bad oh you are badass you are I put it back
in the cookie jar and I remember who I really am I'm not the kid that got that was called me I'm not the scared kid this is who I am it's a reminder of who you truly are at the core of yourself but what I was saying to myself the whole time on that track and it and this is what I say to myself selft talk and visualization are the two keys to my success I believed for that last time 19 miles I was indestructible cuz I took myself in that chair crapping up my back
peeing blood in my leg Shin splin stress fractures I use all that for motivation versus negativity I use it for motivation I I said to myself who on this Earth would still be going right now you are you are you got to be the hardest on the planet is it true I don't give a at that time it got me to the finish line of that race I believed it I believe it today I believed it enough to where my body said he's not going to stop I took all the negative things I need to
go to the hospital this and that who the hell could even get out that chair you did who the hell would even think about taping stress fractures up you did all those things I use for motivation and in hell week what they do in hell week cuz 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
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 n you know NY god-given guy you know I I don't have a great bit of talent in anything so what got me through horrible times was the dark side my name is David goggin I created Goggins Goggins is the guy that can take anything you put in front of him you want to break my legs so be it I have a way of going to a place like I
did in that race where all the pain and suffering 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 buds my job what drove me was I wanted you to go home that night after you beat the living out of me and I smiled in your face I wanted you to feel worse than I did and you were going home to a nice warm bed with your wife or your kids in a nice meal and I
was still out there in the grip suffering for another 100 hours I wanted you to think about me knowing that I'm comfortable being very uncomfortable and I want you to think about when you went through hell week how uncomfortable you were and how bad you wanted to quit knowing I'm not thinking that way so the dark side is something that I've designed it's an evil place I can go that very few things can hurt me I use the hurt you're trying to put on me I flip it upside down and use it you trying to
use it for Kryptonite no it's power pillars for me I'm I'm using it for strength I just flip negative and positive that's all it is [Music]
