I'm not this, I'm not this, I'm not this, I can't do this,
I can't do this, I'm all these insecurities,
your life finally started.
And once you start that life, man, the truth
comes out big time because you no longer care.
So that's the problem.
Most people just don't want to have that conversation
to the point where they can go on stage and a million people
and say, I'm all of this.
And have a good day.
See you.
It's empowering.
It's very empowering.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I feel like the way we're educated in school,
but also outside of school, is we're trained, as human being,
as these young brains, to try and figure out
how to get positive feedback from other people.
It's like we're little dogs.
You have a bulldog.
DAVID GOGGINS: That's right.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I had a bulldog.
Saw the picture of your bulldog.
She's great.
DAVID GOGGINS: Charlie dog.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: They're an amazing species.
DAVID GOGGINS: They are.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I think of them economy of effort
or amazing breed, excuse me.
They're an amazing breed.
Economy of effort.
They don't do anything unless it's necessary.
It's the exact opposite of everything we're talking about.
It's kind of interesting.
And they're kind of hedonists.
Now, it is true that they'll die to protect you.
DAVID GOGGINS: Oh, yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And it's an instinct.
I saw that with Costello.
I'm sure that--
DAVID GOGGINS: I saw it with Charlie.
Yeah.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's an instinct.
But if they're not in that position,
if there's no need to exert effort--
DAVID GOGGINS: They're resting.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.
So your bulldog's resting for you.
DAVID GOGGINS: Yes.
Got it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Exactly.
So you don't need to rest because--
DAVID GOGGINS: Active recovery Charlie.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Perfect.
DAVID GOGGINS: That's it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Perfect.
That's going to be your answer from now on.
People go, does he sleep?
Does he rest?
Go, no.
He somehow worked it out so his bulldog does it for him.
DAVID GOGGINS: Right.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: But we're sort of
indoctrinated into this way of being
from a time that we're young, where, of course,
praise feels good.
Someone tells you, hey, I like that shirt, or good job today,
or nicely done.
Or for me, because growing up in a big pack of friends growing
up, and I was never the greatest athlete, wasn't terrible,
wasn't great, et cetera, like, a fist bump, or, like, feeling
crewed up.
And you're just like, yeah.
But you've talked about this before in reference
to the SEAL Teams.
We both know a lot of people in that community.
And the Teams component is a big part of it for a lot of people.
And it's a wonderful thing.
But there's a danger to that dopamine hit,
for lack of a better way to put it,
from we can only derive when it's coming from the outside.
You're talking about being able to either say, good job,
but also, just look to one's own personal history and say,
I've done hard things.
And I can do it again and again because I do it again and again
and again.
You're talking about parenting yourself, inspiring yourself,
scaring yourself, all of that from the inside.
So very different than the way we're
raised, which is to figure out how to get the biscuit.
DAVID GOGGINS: It's funny, man.
People want to know how I'm always motivated.
It's the unseen work, which you just said is a true statement.
Those are false dopamine hits that people
are giving you, man.
There's no belief in that.
These are teamwork dopamine-- like, I'm out
running at 2 o'clock in the morning, 1
o'clock in the morning in the gym, long sessions by myself.
That's real.
I'm able to extract dopamine, the good dopamine whenever
I want.
Man, I've trained 99% of my life alone.
No one patted me on the back.
I did all of the work alone.
And while I'm still hard on myself, I know what I did.
So whenever times get bad for me,
people are all this, who's going to carry the boats and lo--
that's real.
I hate that people know me for that guy
because that guy is not every fucking day.
When they see me, they want that energy.
That's not me every day.
I can extract it immediately when I need to
because when you train alone--
and I lived alone for so many years in this misery.
And you're able to get out by yourself.
I can take myself to such a level of real passion
and purpose.
And the feeling I get is something
I can't even explain by mys--
I don't need anyone.
That's why people come to me to motivate them.
No one can motivate me.
I have a resume full of fucking motivation
that whenever I'm down, I'm like, oh hang on, motherfucker.
Oh, you know the truth.
You know the darkness of the fucking dungeons
and the fucking demons that fly.
And then from there, it's like, OK.
You were there.
You know this.
There was no one there to pick up
the rucksack, to pick up the boat, to pick up
the log, to go in there.
It was you.
There was no pat on the fucking back at 300, at 275, at 250,
at 220.
No.
That was you.
So those things that come out of me,
that extract from me in the darkness, people
are looking for that pat on the back.
Where is it?
Oh, I don't need it because what I've done
is in the fucking unseen work.
I built Frankenstein.
So whenever shit gets nasty, David Goggins
goes, you had nobody anyway, motherfucker.
So see how I'm talking to myself right now?
That's me.
That's shit fires me the fuck up.
That shit makes me fucking nuts.
You had nobody anyway, motherfucker.
Look around you.
There was no fucking team.
It was you.
There was no weight loss program or mom and dad waking you up,
saying you can do it, you can be better, trying to build belief.
You built belief when you had nothing.
Rock bottom.
You did that.
So as times get hard for me, the truth comes out.
And my truth is powerful as fuck.
It's real.
It's tangible.
I feel it.
It comes out of my brain as I speak about it.
I'm reliving every single dark moment of my life to be here.
So that is what people don't get.
That is what motivates David Goggins is the unseen work.
But everybody needs that pat on the back.
They need that training partner.
They need that accountability coach.
I don't need that shit.
And neither do they.
But it's what we've trained ourselves
to believe that we need.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's almost like there's
this pill on the shelf.
I'm speaking in analogy.
And we take it, and we get jazzed up.
And we're like, yeah.
But there's this other medicine cabinet behind there.
And it's in us.
You're saying the real medicine cabinet is inside.
DAVID GOGGINS: Oh, yes.
When you continue to overcome--
and I had so many obstacles to overcome.
So it's actually a benefit to me.
But the benefit, it's not like a benefit like that.
You have to have the courage and the patience
to overcome and overcome.
Before you know it, man, you have a whole medicine cabinet.
But there's no medicine in the motherfucker.
There's no pre-workout.
I don't take none of that shit.
All I got to do is flip my brain.
Put my finger in there and say, OK, that's a good one.
It's all I got to do, man.
I got the Rolodex.
I'm just like, go fuck yourself, Goggins.
And oh, but you won.
Let's do that one today.
There's nothing I need.
And this is the thing that people
don't get about David Goggins.
I can't teach it in a 1-minute video.
We all have this ability to have our own medicine cabinet.
But unless you go in there and put the medicine in there,
it's always going to be fucking empty, man.
You're always going to need the pre-workout.
You're always going to need the--
I don't drink coffee.
I don't do ca--
I don't do none of that.
I don't need it.
I can run for 70 hours, and I have before, no caffeine.
I got all this wonderful shit that I overcame on my own,
by myself, in the darkness, that, man, when it's cold,
I'm hot.
When it's hot--
I can feed myself all the time.
That's why when people say, man, why aren't you
missing anything, I can't explain it to you, man.
Can't explain it to you.
You'll never understand.
That's why I don't do all these podcasts, dude.
I love you, man.
That's why you-- my first book, you did a blurb for me.
That's why I'm here.
I love what you're doing for people, man.
But I can't explain this.
I can't.
I can't explain this because people don't want to do this.
They don't want to do this, man.
But I don't know, man.
I get jazzed up even talking about it,
man, because so many people think my life is just so, oh
god, his life is horrible.
Don't follow him.
He's crazy.
Really?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: But there are a good number of people,
I would say, and that's an under-- that actually do.
I think what I'm hearing today, and it's really sinking in, is
that a great many people either partially or completely
misunderstand you.
DAVID GOGGINS: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'll put myself in the partially category.
DAVID GOGGINS: Big time.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Because I thought
it was about just forward center of mass, carrot, carrot,
carrot, carrot.
But it's the stick.
DAVID GOGGINS: It's the stick.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And it's being haunted.
And you know, I do have examples from my own life, which is not
what today is about, about being really afraid
and then turning things around.
My biggest fear is getting comfortable.
I do not have as much of a stick-oriented approach.
But today's conversation's changing the way I think.
I'm not going to step away from this
and think, OK, there are 25 neural circuits that
can explain 10 of the things that David's talking about.
And what I'm thinking about is the fact
that everybody has a brain.
They have a mind.
Forget the brain.
The brain's just the physical structure.
But what that manifests, what that creates is the mind.
And everybody has that.
So I do believe that everyone has the capacity
to do what you're talking about at some level.
I also will be the first to confess
that I think you are highly unusual.
Let's just say maybe even n of 1, as we say in science.
Sample size of one.
Somebody who has created this process for themselves
and keeps them in this-- themselves
in this forward center of mass with the stick
battering the back of their head all the time.
Highly unusual.
But this internal medicine cabinet
that you're talking about building up,
true confidence, not needing anything from the outside,
I like to think that people want that.
They want to be known.
They're afraid.
But that they want to be known for who they really are
and that you're describing the path to do this.
And I will say I'm immensely grateful that you're
talking to us this way today about things
that you've talked about before.
But we're hitting it a little differently, I like to think.
DAVID GOGGINS: Very differently.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Because what you're talking about
is a process.
It's verbs.
It's all verbs.
DAVID GOGGINS: All action.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And it's not about success.
It's more, actually, about keeping
that friction dialed to 10.
And no energy drink, no supplement.
People often misunderstand me.
They think-- like, I'm big on people getting sunlight
in the morning so they set their circadian rhythm
and get better sleep and so they can-- et cetera.
But then people always think-- they go straight
to the supplements.
What should I take?
And then, of course, people think
I'm all about supplements.
And supplements are one piece for me.
But it's like tiny fraction compared to the doing,
the do's and don'ts.
DAVID GOGGINS: That's why I didn't
want to talk about that today.
That's why I'm glad we're talking about this.
This is it.
Like, the brain is the most powerful weapon in the world.
And it's crazy how a kid that wasn't real smart,
I was forced to go only internal.
External had to go away.
The external world had to go away.
In living so deep inside myself, it was me in this brain
and figuring out how this thing works.
And so many people are doing exactly that, the supplements,
the this, the that.
And I agree, it helps.
But once you figure out your brain,
you become unstoppable to almost anything.
Yeah, you can't beat death.
You can't whatever, whatever.
Your brain is amazing.
Once you feed it the right conversation, the right mental
nutrients, the right mental supplements,
the right internal dialogue at the right time
with the right hit, with the right proof of what you've
done in the past, and you send that right
to the right circuit, dude, you're a fucking beast.
A beast.
But once again, you just can't read about it.
You can't sit back and be a theorist.
You have to be a fucking practitioner.
And in that practice is where that becomes proof-positive
of what I'm saying.
It's like, god, David Goggins is blowing my mind.
What is this?
He's not crazy.
And so many people, a lot of people,
have listened to me the right way.
And they come back, and they're like, I'm totally on board.
It happened.
I'm like, it'll keep going, man, if you keep doing it.
But that is it, man.
There's no sun.
There's no glory.
There's no carrot.
There's no victory.
But there is all of it in one.
I just can't explain it real well to people, man.
But what you get the other end is something
that you're always found.
You're never lost anymore.
Doesn't mean the journey is easy.
Doesn't get any easier.
But you're always found.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love that.
I just want to hover on that for a sec
the same way we hovered on haunted and the stick.
I think people feel lost.
I've certainly felt lost at times in my life, many times.
And yeah, there's that thing.
I don't think there's a neuroscience or a psychology
term for it.
Someone will put it in the comments and say, oh yeah,
that's what so-and-so said.
But like you said, we're not trying to be theoretical here.
We're trying to be practical.
The business of finding yourself and knowing, oh.
But it's sort of like I'm safe because I'm in danger,
and I've been in danger before, and I got myself out.
It always seems to come back to verbs.
Again, I don't have a language for this.
For once, I'm lost for words.
There's like-- it's about a process, the algorithm.
And the reason-- here, I'm just kind of trying to make sure
I'm understanding things correctly.
One of the reasons why it must be uncomfortable
for you to be who you are publicly
is because people want to focus on the running or the swearing.
And by the way, the swearing is welcome.
I'll tell you, I came up through laboratories
where all three people I worked for swore a lot.
But there was one rule.
I couldn't swear at people.
So my graduate advisor, brilliant woman,
unfortunately, she died early, they all died early--
I'm the common denominator.
I had that internalized for a long time.
Anyway, she said, but if you swear at people, you're out.
But you can swear as much as you want.
So that's the rule I have.
It's like, you can swear as much as you want.
Just don't swear at people.
And if you swear at people, better be ready to fight.
Definitely not going to fight you.
So you can swear at me, get away with it.
But the fact of the matter is that it must
be frustrating that people--
because I know people go, oh, it's
all about supplements and ice baths.
Listen, I like supplements.
I love supplements and ice baths.
But that's not the full picture.
It's just a gravitational pull.
It's the swearing.
It's the running.
It's his feet that are all messed up.
It's the fact that he got a Triton.
He's a SEAL guy.
Talk about that too.
And there's a gravitational pull for people.
And they're missing-- that's the tip of the iceberg,
is what I'm realizing.
I'm realizing that today thanks to the way
you're phrasing things because the bigger vessel
is all in here.
And as you said, how do you put that in a book?
DAVID GOGGINS: It's impossible.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Because it's highly individual.
You do it your way.
And you're saying, everyone needs
to go figure out how to do it their way for them.
DAVID GOGGINS: Yes.
And the thing about being misunderstood,
it's very frustrating, more than I can even imagine.
I can't even express how frustrating
it is when the cussing and everything comes
from a place of real.
I can't explain what I do without it.
The passion comes out of me.
It's almost like speaking in tongues because when you put
that much work-- and people go, oh yeah,
there's been this basketball player, this football player,
this--
dude.
No.
Everything, everything is work.
Everything.
And people don't believe it.
So when I speak, the motherfucker and the fuck
and the shit, that is what it took for me,
what it takes for me, the anger, the passion, the jaw-dropping--
just it takes that because I'm not that.
This is how I look at it, man.
What built this guy?
Let's imagine being in the coldest
water you can possibly take.
I always go back to Hell Week with this.
I hated that water.
Hated it.
You're sitting there locked arms, and you're in the water
all the time.
And they're bringing you in and out of the water,
in and out of the water.
When you have this dialogue in your head,
and these people are judging me off a freaking 1-minute video,
and you're constantly your whole life,
when you figured it out at 24, that I got to--
I just got to, just fucking got to,
and this is just going to suck.
Every day it's going to suck.
And live like that to be better.
And I put it this way.
I'm in the water.
The water is going over my head, the Pacific Ocean.
It's freezing.
February.
Cold as shit.
Been through three Hell Weeks.
For you to constantly win, win, win,
when this voice over here, the real you,
is saying get the fuck out of here, go, you're nobody.
You've always been nobody.
And it's true.
People don't hear that.
That's a true voice.
That's a real reality of David Goggins at 24 years old.
It's not a false reality.
And then you had to create another voice over here that
is saying, you're better than that other voice.
And you're in the freezing cold water
that both voices don't want to fucking be in.
But you win.
Then goes from the water to the studying
to the running to the losing weight
to how you eat to how you function as a man.
Every day of your life, you're winning these battles.
And then I have normal people who only have one voice.
Never created the second voice.
The winning voice is the second voice.
They have one voice.
And that's just, I'm a piece of shit.
And that's all they hear.
And then they judge people like me
who are out here trying to be better.
It's something that I can never really--
it's a frustrating thing for me because I
know the majority of people.
I know what goes on in the brain because I studied the mind
more than almost-- more than you because I'm a practitioner.
So for you to be a piece of shit and come out of that,
you don't just come out of it.
You spend decades studying your mind and the human mind
on how it functions in good environments, bad environments,
stressful environments, patient environments.
You study it all because you had to put all this
together to create the mind to become successful.
So I had to-- it wasn't like God blessed me with this brain.
I had to create a mind.
And so in doing so, I figured out
every piece of shit human being in the world
because that's what I was going off of for myself.
So I know why you go on Instagram.
I know why you-- because you just have the time.
You have the time because you don't
want to put that time into bettering oneself.
So I know why I'm misunderstood.
I'm misunderstood by people who have plenty of time
on their hands to misunderstand me because they are exactly
where I once was, which is a low-life, lazy piece of shit.
And it's the harsh reality of people who troll you,
who go after you.
They have nothing better to do with their lives.
It's not some after school special.
It's the truth.
But I once was that way.
I know where it all comes from.
That's why it's frustrating to me
now because I'm not so frustrated at the fact
that I'm being trolled.
I'm frustrated by the fact that you
don't have the courage, the courage
to try to be somebody better than what you're not.
And that's the frustrating part.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's interesting
because earlier, we were talking about relationships.
And you said, in a very candid way,
and I really appreciate you sharing that,
that you make sure that the people close
to you, your family, has everything they need
and that they also understand that you're
going to take what you need to continue to build you period.
DAVID GOGGINS: Period.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: In some ways, it
seems you've also included the general public in that family.
You're saying, listen, I'm going to give you what you need.
I'm going to give you as much of myself as I can,
except I'm going to stop right at the line
that if I were to cross it is going
to prevent me from continuing to build myself.
And by the way, this relationship
only exists because I don't cross that line.
And I think as much as there are detractors out there
or people that try--
I mean, whatever they're doing is pretty feeble, in my mind.
I mean, it's like cap gun fire, it that.
DAVID GOGGINS: Very feeble.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So many of us, men and women, old and young,
hear something and feel something in your message.
Like, yeah, it seems kind of crazy.
Gosh.
Doesn't he ever just relax?
What about his sleep?
Look at his feet.
He's going to-- he's going to injure himself.
Listen, I'll be very direct.
I got friends who were in the Teams who just go, what's he
going to do when he can't run?
And I know the answer is keep running.
DAVID GOGGINS: That's right.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: But it's more comfortable
for people, even high achievers--
DAVID GOGGINS: Especially high achievers.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: --to believe that if you
took one thing away, that it would all go away.
It's absolutely clear that's not the case with you.
I'm 100% convinced.
I just know that because we're talking about this.
DAVID GOGGINS: Do you know how many times
I haven't been able to run?
Two heart surgeries.
Multiple knee surgeries.
And after every knee surgery, they said,
you're not going to run again.
And I'm fine with that.
There's no running up here, bro.
None.
This was what it was all about.
That's what they lost.
What if you can't run?
Give a fuck.
It was never about running.
Why do you think I run?
It's the worst thing.
I hate doing it more than anything.
Hence the willpower.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.
Your anterior mid-cingulate cortex
DAVID GOGGINS: Hence the willpower.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: --would start to regress
if you loved running.
DAVID GOGGINS: Think about it.
Every day, I wake up.
I don't just run a mile, two miles.
It's the one thing I hate the most to do.
And I do it like I love it.
250, 260, 300-mile runs at one time.
No sleep.
And every step, when I get to the-- think about this.
I get to the fucking start line cussing at Jennifer.
Why the fuck am I here?
I hate this shit.
After 70-some hours of running, every fucking
question I ever had is answered.
Every question I had is answered.
I capped success.
People go, what do you mean, you capped success?
For me to be who I am--
so when I go smokejump, I smoke jump three to four months out
of the year, sometimes five.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Could you, just for those
that aren't educated about-- just
give us a brief description of what smokejumping entails.
DAVID GOGGINS: So basically, you jump into fires.
Not into them, but you jump by fires that people can't get to.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So out of planes and helicopters.
DAVID GOGGINS: Right, out of planes.
I parachute.
It's all parachuting.
So you parachute out of airplanes.
And then you fight the fire, you and sometimes four other guys
or maybe eight other guys, guys and gals.
And you're putting this fire out.
So I lose millions of dollars every summer to do this.
It blows people's minds.
Why the hell are you doing this?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And you're breathing soot.
DAVID GOGGINS: I'm breathing soot.
Knees are jacked up.
Hitting the ground.
Hurting.
Whatever.
Talking to normal people, they'll never get it,
so I don't even explain it to them.
But this is why-- this is why I call it capped success.
I'm talking financial success.
For me to continue having that willpower, the second I just
become a speaking monkey and travel around
and speaking gigs 12 months out of the year,
put camps on, do this, put on lectures, get supplement lines
and do this and write more books and shit,
I've ruined the exact thing I worked on my entire life.
And while I didn't know it until the day,
but something always told me, this
is a very, very, very perishable skill, this willpower
that you have, because I do have a willpower that I have never
seen in anybody in my life.
It is a haunting force that just keeps me going.
And I know that that is my strength.
If you have that-- so that's worth every dime I've ever
made in my life is the fact I can look a man in the eye
finally and have a real conversation
without going like this because I'm lying,
or I'm a piece of shit.
Or I know-- you know how a person--
and so many people do this shit.
They're talking to you on who they want to be.
They're lying to you.
And they walk away--
I've done it so many times.
You walk away like, god, man.
If I could just tell them the truth.
Why the hell can't I just tell him the truth?
Know how good it feels for me now
to look at you in your eye and every man
I see because women won't get this.
Women will not get this.
Man to man, that man shit, when you
look another man in the eye, and you
know that everything you're fucking saying is real,
and it comes from a real working place, something
that you earned, it's the best feeling in the world.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You can say that actually happened.
Like, I know with certainty what I'm saying actually happened.
DAVID GOGGINS: Actually happened.
Who I am and who I say I am, I am.
No more lies.
No more skirting the truth.
No more bullshit.
And that is worth every dime I've ever made in my life.
And I swear to God on that.
Every dime I've ever made in my life, building who I built,
so I capped success because I know
that if I ever go 12 months out of the year
and don't put several-- every day, I'm going at it.
But several months out of the year,
I go right back to ground zero, which means
I'm just fucking David Goggins.
No Goggins.
No carry boats, fucking logs bullshit.
It's just pick up that fucking Pulaski and dig.
Hey, get that fucking pump.
Walk down a mile.
Put it in the fucking water.
Mosquitoes beating-- you're just David Goggins.
You're nobody because that's where my growth is.
That's where my willpower comes from.
And that's where it stays.
That's why when I talk to you now-- and can't nobody
talk like this, dude.
People don't talk with this kind of passion
It ain't there.
They're regurgitating some shit from 30 fucking years ago.
I'm regurgitating shit from an hour ago.
Come on, man.
It's just be real.
And I can't be on these podcasts.
I can't talk to anybody without being real.
I'll go away.
I'll just go away because I can't give you
what I want to give you.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You said perishable skill.
I think that's another set of words
I want to highlight because skill implies behavior.
And when we were just talking a second ago
about the deep, true bedrock sense of confidence that
comes from looking someone in the eye
and telling somebody something that you absolutely
know it's true because it happened,
you're talking about actions.
Not talking about perceptions.
You're not talking about what you believe happened.
You know it happened.
And there's something really concrete about actions.
I mean, that's what's so interesting is
we're talking about the mind.
But actions are the manifestation of the mind.
And the stuff that just stays in here, people die with that.
It doesn't go anywhere.
Long ago, somebody said--
I forget what the context was.
It was a neuroscientist.
He said, most emotions, they're just emotions.
They're just in there.
You don't have to do anything with them.
And I think certain emotions you want to do something with.
But I think people forget this.
They feel miserable, like they're
going to dissolve into a puddle of their own tears.
No one ever died from an emotion.
But they feel-- they overwhelm us as if it's a tidal wave.
It's going to pull us under and drown us.
It's so interesting to me because I think what people--
listen, you have a gravitational pull.
People can feel the energy.
I think, yes, you're either completely badly
or partially understood.
There's only one guy on the planet
that truly understands you.
I think there's one woman, Jennifer,
who probably understands you as much as anyone's going to.
And then the rest of us are kind of grasping,
trying to figure it out.
But you're saying, go inward.
So first, go inward.
And then it's actions.
Inward and actions.
Now, the inward piece is something
I'd like to just spend a little bit of time on because there
are a couple of characters from history, people that
were in concentration camps.
Nelson Mandela.
I mean, I'm not sure he had Instagram in there.
I'm pretty sure he didn't.
And I don't think there was anyone coaching him on,
hey, you're going to get out someday.
And actually, you're going to lead an entire country.
I'm pretty sure that's not how it worked.
He had to find it here.
He had to find it between his ears.
And there are other examples.
But that's an important one.
So the process of going inward, does it, for you--
and here, I will ask for suggestions
because I think people want--
there are those of us who want to build this skill.
Wall yourself off.
Phone off for big portions of the day, perhaps.
Texting off.
The requests, the this, the that.
Anyone that knows you knows that-- we've
communicated a few texts, but most of it
comes through a filter.
She's great.
She knows you.
And she knows how to protect your time.
DAVID GOGGINS: And that hurts people's feelings.
People get mad about that.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Hey, God bless--
God bless you, Jennifer.
Cutting oneself off, when you're in there,
you say it's just you.
And the voices that come up are not pleasant.
And then at some point, it converts to action.
OK.
What is the process of picking the action?
That's the piece that I feel like there's,
like, a bridge to build here, if you can, if you would.
DAVID GOGGINS: So the action being, like, what's next?
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, so when you
go to sleep at night, when that happens,
you know what you're going to do the next day?
It's pre-planned?
DAVID GOGGINS: Yes.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.
DAVID GOGGINS: Yes.
It's always the same thing.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: You're not building it on the fly.
DAVID GOGGINS: No.
Nothing's on the fly.
So how it works internally for me is I'll
put it exactly how it is.
I'm an artist.
And every day, I'm painting Mona Lisa.
Every day.
And but it's a different one.
It's not the same painting.
So every day I wake up, even though I'll do the same thing,
it takes a different way to get there.
So every day, in my mind, I'm going through my mind.
I'm just like-- and a good painter will not just paint.
He needs to create.
And you can't create with phones and everything
going around you.
So you got to block yourself off.
You only do two podcasts in a year.
You block yourself off.
And you're painting this thing inside.
And you're going through all these different colors
of paint and everything else.
And you can only figure out the right painting
if you spend the correct amount of time in your brain.
So every single day, I'm literally
going through my mind, and I'm painting.
I'm creating this masterpiece.
And the masterpiece is always myself.
And but to do that, you cannot have any distractions
because if you're talking to an artist and he's trying to think
about the next painting, he can't.
It's impossible to listen to you and listen
to what your mind and body are telling you we must do.
Because people don't do enough of.
They don't do any of it.
They don't have passion.
They lack passion, drive, determination
because you haven't spent time with yourself.
Your mind will tell you what is next.
But you haven't spent the time to go,
all right, let me just figure this out.
You're looking for let me Google this, and let me Google that,
and let me-- you're not going to find it there
because there's billions of people in this world.
And they're all supposed to be individuals.
But we have a pack mentality.
That's why you're so fucking lost.
Why am I so unique?
I'm being exactly what the fuck I was supposed to be.
I ain't follow shit.
And when I did follow shit, I was like everybody else.
The second I said, OK, man, hang on, dude, you don't like this,
you don't like this, you don't like this, who are you,
David Goggins?
Who are you supposed to be?
Miraculously, all these things just--
I couldn't even-- the list of shit I had to do, just, wham.
It's like, fuck.
OK.
Wow.
Once you sit down with yourself and say, OK, I
don't want to be like Michael Jordan or Jim Brown--
they're both born on my birthday.
So I looked at their birthday.
I said, oh, maybe I can be one of the--
I can't.
I'm going to be David fucking Goggins.
And that looks like this.
It just came.
Everything flooded.
So every single day of my life, there's
a different thing that comes up that I have to do.
But no one knows what to do because everybody else is
following steps.
Like the Republican and Democratic parties.
I'm not political--
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Neither am I.
DAVID GOGGINS: --at all for this reason.
Republicans are going to vote Republican.
Democrats are going to vote Democrat.
You're not even a human fucking being, bro.
No way all you fuckers agree with all the same fucking shit.
And I know I don't.
So once you figure out yourself and who you are,
all the answers come.
So every night, a different painting is being painted.
And it's a beautiful painting for myself.
I'm like, OK.
That's it.
It may look the same to most motherfuckers.
But the end result is very fucking different.
That's why my-- if you look at what I've done in 49 years,
it's more than most people will ever do in their life
because they were a race car driver.
And that's what they did.
They drove a fucking car.
It's great.
I was all kind of shit because that's exactly what
the painting was saying to do.
It's what the mind was saying to do.
Wasn't saying just drive a car, so then that race car driver
didn't know what the fuck to do.
He retires from being a race car driver, and they're lost.
People go, how are you still--
I don't get it.
Dude, you're never going to fill your list.
But you never found your list because it never
was presented in front of you because your head was
cluttered with shit because you never just stopped
for lots of minutes, lots of years, and just said,
all right, it's me and you.
Let it go.
And it just-- bam.
It's right there.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm not a psychologist,
as I mentioned before.
But I'm going to venture a hypothesis here.
I think that you've mastered the process of internal dialogue.
But when I say dialogue, I think most people think, oh,
the inner voice, the chatter.
But that's just one half of a dialogue.
A dialogue is a two-way street.
So I completely agree because I know from experience
that when we go inward, oftentimes, we hear things,
if we're really honest with ourselves, it's like, oh no,
I don't want to think about that.
No.
And then we start looking outward.
Or we start trying to shift our attention or distract.
And there are a million reasons that
are handed to us, excuses, and seemingly good justifications
to be able to do that.
But dialogue is a two-way street.
And it hit me while you were just
saying what you were saying, I was
paying very close attention.
And I realized David Goggins is talking about the voice that
comes up, including the terrible stuff that no one wants
to hear about themselves from themselves.
But then he's also got the dialogue down where
he knows the counter voice.
He goes, yeah, you're right.
And so I'm going to do this.
Or maybe no, remember this.
You're in a dialogue, a two-way dialogue in there, not
a one-way chatter dialogue.
There are books written by famous psychologists
about chatter, trying to shift your internal narrative.
You're like, bring the internal--
the internal narrative, that's what going inward is about.
But it's not one voice.
Again, there's a hypothesis.
And I'm not claiming to be all-knowing.
Lord knows I'm not all-knowing.
But you've mastered the dialogue.
And if there are three voices, strong, medium, and weak,
in there, you're like, let's all come to the table.
So you've got a symphony of voices in there
that are all you, that you know to be you.
And you know how to have those convers-- you're not
afraid to be in those conversations.
And then you know what the outcome of that committee
decision is, and you put it into real-world action.
And the world only sees the action.
DAVID GOGGINS: That's it.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: And only you can
know your internal dialogue.
And only I can know my internal dialogue.
And the only way to, quote unquote, "know it"
is to spend a hell a lot of time there.
DAVID GOGGINS: That's right.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.
DAVID GOGGINS: A lifetime.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Got it.
DAVID GOGGINS: A lifetime.
Like, think about it.
For me to be sitting here in front of you,
you're not going to call 300-pound Ecolab
guy to come sit here.
You might.
I don't know.
Maybe.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Probably not.
DAVID GOGGINS: Probably not.
Think about this.
What we teach people is kind, kindness to yourself.
Do you think if I taught myself kindness--
and I agree with it.
God, so many people-- so many people take me out of context,
it's ridiculous.
Take it however the fuck you want to take it.
When I was 300 pounds, where do you
think that conversation would that got me
if I spoke kindness to myself?
I'll tell you where it gets me.
Right back to 7-Eleven with another box of mini chocolate
donuts and a chocolate milkshake.
That's the one voice.
That's the one voice that most of us have
that you're talking about.
If you don't have a conversation in there, the other voice
that you create that says, OK, how does this look?
Looks very ugly.
That kind conversation for me went away a long time ago,
which is why the dialogue is now what you see.
A lot of action.
Because most people have inaction because there's
one person talking.
And that one person is always leading you
down the same path, the path that
makes you feel very comfortable and happy with yourself.
The second you create the other voice, there's conflict.
Just battles.
Just wars.
Just defeat.
One thing I learned, and I taught myself this,
and people go, I don't understand what you're saying,
I'm going to try to break it down real quick.
I didn't teach myself victory first.
I taught myself failure.
I taught myself how to fail.
And people like, that's so depressing.
Is it?
When you're 300 pounds and you can't read and write
and you're fucked up, you know how many times
you're going to fucking fail on that process?
So if you don't know how to fail, there is no victory.
I never talked about winning because I
knew the path to winning was going
to be years of failing first.
So I taught myself how to fail properly.
No one teaches you how to fucking fail.
But if you're going out for insurmountable fucking
odds that make absolutely no fucking sense,
a Black kid that can't swim, 300 pounds--
going to be a Navy SEAL.
OK.
You better teach yourself how to fail first
because if you sit in failure for too long,
you will never come out of it.
So the first part of my success was
learning how to fail properly.
And then eventually, I started getting a few victories.
But that's what people don't get.
When you have buried yourself in such a deep fucking hole,
you better first talk about the failures
you're going to have first.
And that's when that other voice comes up.
It tells you, we've got to do something.
But it also tells you, boy, I'm not
going to lie to you, Goggins.
You're in for a fucking climb, bro.
You're going to get your ass handed to you,
made fun of, the outside noise, the inside noise.
Both voices are going to be fucking telling
you to go fuck yourself.
You are in for hell, bro.
I am.
So I better learn to fail.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: So this is what you
mean when you say that whatever anyone says,
it's insignificant?
DAVID GOGGINS: Insignificant as fuck.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's the cap gun fire
because it's just like it-- because the voice
in your own head is far worse.
And I should say, sorry, one of the voices in your head.
I'm being very detailed, almost surgical
about that because I think this thing about inner dialogue
we think is one voice.
But you're making it clear it's many voices.
DAVID GOGGINS: It is.
And the thing about it is, you have to be really--
and sometimes all the voices are telling you
the wrong shit, man.
But through years, years, not a podcast or listening to a book
or reading a book, years of sacrifice,
of suffering, of diligent pinpoint fucking work
on what you want to do for yourself,
not like, oh, let me just do a bunch of shit.
Let me-- I want to be in every task possible.
No.
Pinpoint what I want to do with my life.
What happens is you have all these voices that
are telling you you're fucked up,
and this is going to be hard.
But for some reason, you put so much practice into you
that you can ignore every one of them that
are telling you you're not going to fucking make it.
And still be able to fucking make it
because you have put the practice in that you
know this is the process.
It's such a daunting task that all the voices are saying no.
But you still have the conviction
that I know I can do this.
And that's what it took for me to get here.
20, 30 years ago, I had this--
35 or whatever it was, 25 years ago, pipe dream.
And ever since then, every voice was like, you're a fucking nut.
But when you put that practice in every day, you lace them up.
And I mean, run.
It's just a metaphor for life.
When you lace them motherfuckers up every day,
pretty soon, you win.
Pretty soon, you'll fucking win.
If you have the courage and the heart and the dedication
and the mindset of everybody can go fuck themselves,
I know what I know.
I've listened to myself enough to know.
I know what I know.
None of you can hear what I'm hearing.
And that's what people don't do enough of.
They don't listen to their journey.
They listen to everybody else's shit.
Before you know it, I'm crazy.
But if I'm so fucking crazy, why am I so successful?
How that happen?
But I'm so misguided and fucked up.
And don't listen to him.
Why am I the only one to do a whole bunch of shit?
Why am I a trailblazer?
Why?
How is that possible?
How can you be fucked up and also self-made at the same
fucking--
No.
Obviously, you're not looking at the truth in front of you.
The truth in front of you is it sucks.
It's painful.
It's fucking mind-numbing.
And that is the truth.
And that's why a lot of people don't
like listening to me because this is what it takes,
creating another voice and sometimes going at it alone.
All the time going at it alone because no one's
going to believe in you.
And that's that.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: What I'm about to say is not conjecture.
And I can say that with confidence
because I did a four-episode guest
series with a brilliant psychiatrist, a guy named
Paul Conti.
He's from Trenton.
He's a Stanford, Harvard-trained guy.
He's also got a lot of street in him.
He's had his own hardship, real hardship.
He's brilliant.
And he said something that I'll never forget,
which is, we think that the forebrain, the part
of our brain that creates strategy, et cetera,
is the supercomputer.
He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
He's like, the supercomputer of the brain
is the unconscious mind.
It's the part of our mind that's controlling most everything.
And most people, unfortunately, don't
do the work to understand how their unconscious is
controlling them.
And that's a scary thing, this idea,
like your mind is controlling you.
And I'm not going to get into the free will debate.
I believe in at least some will.
I believe what you're describing and this internal dialogue,
I think you have access to your unconscious mind
by listening to the dialogue, going inward.
We know this is true in sleep, in dreams, in meditation,
and just by shutting out everything else, shutting out
all the external noise, which is filled
with things that pull us to it.
Noise makes it sound bad, but it's the gravitational pull
of all the things that allow us to distract ourselves
without knowing.
The ice cream.
The have a cookie.
The Merry Christmas.
The unconscious mind, this huge piece
of the iceberg underneath that Paul calls the supercomputer,
he's saying that with knowledge as a neurobiologist,
psychiatrist, psychologist, so he really knows,
that's the piece that if one does real introspection,
he calls it the cupboards.
You got to look in the cupboards.
And it's often really scary what you find in there.
And most people are just like, I don't even
want to know the cupboards are there.
But you're pulling all the cupboard doors open.
And then you're-- and you're extremely deliberate with what
gets put into action.
You're not just going, oh, like, I'm pissed,
so I'm going to act pissed.
Or I'm tired, so I'm going to act tired.
It's you're picking very carefully what to do.
And that's a process that I'm guessing came to you.
Does it come to you as a, OK, it makes
sense why running makes sense.
It makes sense why smokejumping makes sense.
So it seems like a huge portion of your time
is spent understanding yourself and making sense to you.
And so when people don't understand you,
it's got to be extra frustrating because most people don't
understand themselves.
So then we're all running around going, you're this,
and you're that because most people are just
unwilling to look inward.
And I'm including myself, by the way.
I mean, I've done a fair amount of introspection.
But I'm inspired today, that word, inspired, but it's true,
motivated to start going inward further because it is scary.
It's like, we don't know what's in those cupboards,
and it's terrifying, especially because we don't know.
DAVID GOGGINS: And those are the first ones to open up.
And like you talked about, you got
to go through those cupboards.
I do spring cleaning every fucking
day in those dark cupboards.
Those dark cabinets are the ones I start with first.
That's the real me, man.
That's the real me.
That's why I'm not ashamed.
I don't hide.
I used to hide.
I don't hide anymore.
He's exactly right.
I don't know all the fucking science behind shit.
I know what I know.
That's why I don't listen to anybody anymore.
I don't listen to shit.
I think most people are full of shit because I know.
I know the deep, dark secrets of those fucking cupboards.
It's ugly, man.
And every day, I'm talking to them.
Every day, I'm cleaning them.
I'm cleaning them, and I'm talking
to the same demons that came out of those fucking cupboards
as I'm cleaning them.
Sometimes they go right back in them again.
It's not easy.
And this is why most of us just--
why I am misunderstood because what comes out
of those cabinets that I'm cleaning,
sometimes they see on Instagram.
Sometimes they'll see it in a podcast.
Sometimes they see it in this one.
I turn people off.
Open up your own cabinets.
And then go talk about it.
Let me see how pretty it looks.
Let me see how pretty you sound.
Let me see how put together your words are.
I bet you a fuck or a motherfucker comes out
because for you to go back in there again
to clean the same fucking cabinet that the demon came out
of takes some big balls, bro.
To do it every day of your life.
To go back in there and spring clean every day, not once
a fucking year, once every decade.
Every day you know it gets dusty.
And every day, you don't start with the victories.
You don't go, oh, this is nice.
Look at my-- look at my I love me wall.
Let me clean up.
This is a little dusty.
No.
I go right for the things that are going to keep me buried.
And I go right there first because if I don't clean those
out first, the day doesn't start.
So what are you saying to me is truth.
And like I told you many times today, I
can never figure out how to explain this shit to people
because I'm not neuro nothing.
I'm just a guy that said, OK, we got to start in the dungeon.
And we got to stay here for the rest of our lives.
For you to become successful, the dungeon
is a place that has to be clean.
And it's the scariest place to be.
That's why I'm misunderstood because I'm
speaking from the dungeon.
That's why I am successful because I
go there every damn day.
And that is the truth, what he says.
It's the exact truth.
Those cabinets are fucking dusty, dirty,
and scary as shit.
Broken glass, fucking dark, spiders, cobwebs.
But most of all, your biggest fears,
the biggest things that put you in a fucked up place you
are today are in there.
That's why we all like to keep them shut.
You like to lock them up.
Act like they never happened.
That's why you never grow.
You never improve.
You never have real conversations
like we're having right now.
Never.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no, no.
Let's not-- no, no, no.
Let's not go there.
I talked to so many people who tell me that.
Let's talk about this.
Because they'll tell me, but they can only say it once.
And they'll say it in passing.
They won't get deep in the weeds with it.
Like, you can't just clean it.
Motherfucker, you got to spit shine that motherfucker.
You got to relive it, every fucking detail of it.
You can't just be like, oh yeah, yeah, my dad beat me.
And it is what it is.
It ain't is what it is, motherfucker.
It's killing you.
It's taken over your whole fucking life.
But that's the conversation.
Yeah, my dad beat-- but I'm fine now, though.
I'm good.
OK.
All right.
No, you ain't.
You ain't fine.
This is real talk.
People don't have that.
So your boy's right.
100% right.
It's scary as shit.
But it makes you who you're supposed to be.
And that's the test.
We forget.
We think we're supposed to breathe air and have kids
and pay the bills and shit.
But what's this life about?
That makes no sense.
We're being tested, my friend.
Tests come when you have not studied.
Tests come when you think that you're in a great place.
That's the test.
The test is every day of your life.
And most of us fail because we don't
know why we're here because we don't go inward to say, oh.
You gave me a lot of shit to fix, man.
And this test sucks.
But then you start.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: David Goggins.
I don't think I could add to that.
I know I can't.
Thank you for sharing what you shared today.
I mean, as much as your process or anyone's process
can't be completely understood from the outside,
you gave us a real window into this thing,
this process that you--
as you said, God put it on you.
I believe in God too.
People can believe what they want.
But somehow, your life, God gave you these challenges early on.
And then there was a point where you went internal.
And like you said, you developed a skill.
But it's a perishable skill.
And you clearly live in the process
of opening those cupboards, reopening those cupboards,
trying to spit shine those cupboards,
understanding that they're never, ever really done,
but that you can gain ground on them, that you can win day
after day after day.
And you really shared a lot of concrete things
that I know people are going to be
able to apply if they choose.
And I agree with you.
I think most people will be like, whoa.
That was a lot.
It's heavy.
I think I want to just kind of bake myself in Netflix and Chex
Mix instead.
But there's also the reality that there
are men and women, boys and girls who hear that and go, OK,
and start cracking the cupboards open.
And I just know that for myself, I'm
extremely grateful that you're willing to put it
all out there.
You're so brutally honest, so brutally authentic.
That word authenticity gets thrown around so much.
And I can tell you that for me and for everybody else, that's
really what resonates.
So whether or not you want to, whether or not it's
the purpose behind it or not, you're lighting the path.
So thank you.
DAVID GOGGINS: Respect Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
ANDREW HUBERMAN: Thank you for joining me
for today's discussion with David Goggins.
To learn more about David and to find links
to his two fantastic books, "Can't Hurt Me,"
and "Never Finished," please see the show note captions.
If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast,
please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us.
In addition, please subscribe to the podcast
on both Spotify and Apple.
And on both Spotify and Apple, you
can leave us up to a five-star review.
Please also check out the sponsors
mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode.
That's the best way to support this podcast.
If you have questions or comments about the Huberman Lab
podcast, or if you have suggestions about guests
or topics that you'd like me to cover, please
put those in the comment section on YouTube.
I do read all the comments.
Not on today's episode, but on many previous episodes
of the Huberman Lab podcast, we discuss supplements.
While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,
many people derive tremendous benefit from them for things
like improving sleep, for hormone support, and for focus.
If you'd like to learn more about the supplements discussed
on the Huberman Lab podcast, please go to Live Momentous,
spelled O-U-S. So that's livemomentous.com/huberman.
If you're not already following me on social media,
I am hubermanlab on all social media platforms.
So that's Instagram, Twitter, Threads, X, LinkedIn,
and Facebook.
And on all those platforms, I discuss
science and science-related tools, some of which
overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast,
but much of which is distinct from the content
on the Huberman Lab podcast.
So again, it's hubermanlab on all social media platforms.
If you haven't already subscribed
to our Neural Network newsletter,
I encourage you to do so.
It is completely zero cost.
And it provides podcast summaries and protocols
in the form of brief PDFs of one to three pages,
things like deliberate cold exposure,
protocol for foundational fitness,
protocol for deliberate heat exposure,
for managing dopamine, for optimizing your sleep,
and so on and so on.
Again, completely zero cost.
You simply go to hubermanlab.com,
go to the menu, scroll down to Newsletter,
and click on the Newsletter tab.
And you enter your email to sign up.
But I should point out that we do not
share your email with anybody.
Thank you, once again, for joining me
for today's discussion with the one and only David Goggins.
And last but certainly not least,
thank you for your interest in science.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
Chrome Extension