Successful
NEVER STOP FIGHTING - David Goggins
Welcome to where the 5 to 9 more than makes up for the 9 to 5, where you check your worries the moment you walk in, where every day feels lucky. Even at night welcome to the chance to savor every moment. Every time you're here, to old friends, new experiences, and great times. Welcome to where life moves at the speed of you. This is your time. This is your place. Welcome to Void casinos. Welcome to where you want to be. How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly too. So put it down, it can wait. Don't drive distracted, shifting to safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. It's funny, man. People want to know how I'm always motivated. It's the unseen work, which she just says a true statement. Those are false dopamine hits that people are giving you, man. There's no belief in that. These are team work, 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. You, that's real. I'm able to just extract dopamine, the good dopamine whenever I want. Man, I've trained 99% of my life alone. No one pat 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, people all this, "Who's going to carry the bolts?" And look, that's real. I hate that people know me for that guy, because that guy is not every fucking day. Like when they see me, they want that energy. That's not me every day. I can extract it immediately when I need you, 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, real passion and purpose. And like the feeling I get is something I can't even expect by myself. 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 the motivation. That whenever I'm down, like, "Oh, hang on, motherfucker." Oh, you know, you know the truth. You know that you know the darkness of the fucking dungeons and the demons that fly. You know, and then from there, it's like, "Okay, 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 on that." It was you. It was you. There was no patent from 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 pound of back. Where is it? Oh, I don't need it. Because what I've done is in the fucking unseen work I've built Frankenstein. So whenever shit gets nasty, David Gognes goes, "We had nobody anyway, motherfucker." So see, I'm talking myself for now. That's me. That shit fires me to 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 programmer. 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 power 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 Gognes is the unseen work. Everybody needs that pound of back. They need that training part. They need that accountability coach, "Oh, yes, and need to do that." But it's what we've trained ourselves to believe that we need. 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 it's so many people are doing exactly that. The supplements, the disc, the that. I agree. It helps. But once you figure out your, 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 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 practitioner. And in that practice is where that becomes proof positive. What I'm saying is like, God, David Goggins, he's 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. It happened. I'm like, it'll keep going, man. Keep doing it. But that is it, man. There's no son. There's no glory. There's no carrot. There's no victory. But there is all of it in one. I can't explain it real well to people, man. But what you get the other end is something that you're not, you're always found. You're never lost anymore. Doesn't mean the journey's easy. It doesn't get in easier, but you're always found. I was suffering from toxic stress. The type of physical and emotional abuse I was exposed to has been proven to have a range of side effects on young children because in our early years, the brain grows and develops so rapidly. If during those years your father is an evil motherfucker, hell bent on destroying everyone in his house, stress spikes. And when those spikes occur frequently enough, you can draw a line across the peaks. That's your new baseline. It puts kids in a permanent fight or flight mode. Fighter flight can be a great tool when you're in danger because it amps you up to battle through or sprint from trouble. But it's no way to live. I'm not the type of guy to try to explain everything with science, but facts are facts. I've read that some pediatricians believe toxic stress does more damage to kids than polio or meningitis. I know first-hand that it leads to learning disabilities and social anxiety because according to doctors, it limits language development and memory which makes it difficult for even the most gifted student to recall what they have already learned. Looking at the long game, when kids like me grow up, they face an increased risk for clinical depression, heart disease, obesity, and cancer, not to mention smoking, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Those raised in abusive households have an increased probability of being arrested as a juvenile by 53%. Their odds of committing a violent crime as an adult are increased by 38%. I was the poster child of that generic term we've all heard before. At risk youth, my mother wasn't the one raising a thug. Look at the numbers and it's clear. If anyone put me on a destructive path, it was Trunnis Goggins. I didn't stay in group therapy for long and I didn't take riddle in either. My mom picked me up after my second session and I sat in the front seat of her car wearing a thousand yard stare. "Mom, I'm not going back," I said. "These boys are crazy," she agreed. "But I was still a damaged kid and while there are proven interventions on the best way to teach and manage kids who suffer from toxic stress, it's fair to say that Ms. D didn't get those memos. I can't blame her for her own ignorance." The science wasn't nearly as clear in the 1980s as it is now. All I know is Sister Catherine toiled in the trenches with the same malformed kid that Ms. D dealt with, but she maintained high expectations and didn't let her frustration overwhelm her. She had the mindset of, "Look, everybody learns in a different way and we're going to figure out how you learn." She deduced that I needed repetition, that I needed to solve the same problems over and over again in a different way to learn. And she knew that took time. Ms. D was all about productivity. She was saying, "Keep up or get out." Meanwhile, I felt backed into a corner. I knew that if I didn't show some improvement, I would eventually be shipped out to that special black hole for good, so I found a solution. I started cheating my ass off. Studying was hard, especially with my fucked up brain, but I was a damn good cheat. I copied friends homework and scanned my neighbor's work during tests. I even copied the answers on the standardized tests that didn't have any impact on my grades. It worked. My rising test scores placated Ms. D and my mother stopped getting calls from school. I thought I'd solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance. My coping mechanism confirmed that I would never learn squat at school and that I would never catch up, which pushed me closer toward a flunked-out fate. The saving grace of those early years in Brazil was that I was way too young to understand the kind of prejudice I would soon face in my new hic hometown. Whenever you're the only one of your kind, you're in danger of being pushed toward the margins, suspected and disregarded, bullied and mistreated by ignorant people. That's just the way life is, especially back then, and by the time that reality kicked me in the throat, my life had already become a full-fledged few fortune cookie. Whenever I cracked it open, I got the same message. You were born to fail. Five weeks after Christmas, it had become obvious that my whole life had changed. The unexpected attention and notoriety that came with and followed the release of "Can't Hurt Me" was as humbling as it was disorienting. After decades of grinding in the shadows outside the public eye, I was now spot lit. I'd always felt most at home in the margins. During my military career, I'd go on my longest runs and rucks before anyone else woke up. While others were relaxing or partying after a hard day or a week of work, I stayed in to study my dive tables, pack and repack my parachute or run and grind in the gym deep into the night. Everything I did on my own time was for my own personal fulfillment and growth. I damn sure didn't do it for attention, yet I was often misunderstood. I was carrying a boulder as big as the world on my back, just trying to get to the other side of the darkness that was chasing me down. I was terrified that if I stopped getting better, if I gave myself a break from any of it, all my insecurities and innate laziness would get the drop on me again. Anytime I felt physically exhausted or mentally zapped, I pictured that 24-year-old fat-ass glaring at me with a big smile on his face, a smile that said, "I'm still here, bitch. I am who you really are and I'm not going anywhere." I looked at each day as an opportunity to mind the negativity that had colonized my brain and became fascinated by the power of the mind and how it can work for us and against us. Often it falls prey to the merry-go-round of emotions and situational conditions that cause confusion and sap us of focus, force and fortitude, all of which have a natural tendency to ebb and flow like the tide. My early years made me very aware of this inherent fragility we all have, but later on I learned how to harness and channel all my mental horsepower to accomplish things I never thought possible for myself and I did it by building what I now refer to as my mental lab, my mental construction began after my last trip to Buffalo. That's when I finally stopped complaining long enough to realize the training ground that I needed was all around me. My fucked up life was the raw material I was looking for and if I paid close attention to my impulses, insecurities and actions, dropped the shame and remained willing to dissect myself doubt, anxiety and fear, I would find the strength and motivation to transform my life. Soon enough I found myself hitting the books hard to prepare for the ASVAB test and spending six to eight hours in the gym or on the trails every day to qualify for Navy SEAL training and it didn't take long to realize that like life itself, difficult workouts and long study sessions tended to spotlight all my weak points. My desire to continue to eat like shit, my natural impulse to cut corners in almost everything I did, my general lack of drive and my flagging attention during those marathon ASVAB study sessions revealed my willingness to settle for mediocrity but what came up for me most often was my failure in pararesque training. It was my constant companion during those weeks. It shattered me wherever I went. I'd arrived at Air Force bootcamp in the best shape of my life and by the time pararesque training began eight weeks later I was in peak physical condition. I'd read the warning order front to back and prepared for each and every time physical evolution assuming my strength and speed would be enough but I lacked the mental strength to see it through and after a terrifying pool evolution my fear of the water held me hostage until I quit. The more I dissected that situation the more I realized how much I needed this new mental lab. Being that I was damn near 300 pounds and had to lose more than 100 in less than three months. I knew it wasn't possible to report to Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado in the best physical shape of my life but that wasn't necessary. My root problems were not and never had been physical. They were all mental. In my lab each physical workout became a test of my mental fortitude. I stopped caring about how my body looked. You don't need six pack abs when your mind is still plated. From that point on each run every hour on the pull-up bar and all my late night study sessions became experiments conducted to see how long my mind would hold out when I continued to apply more and more pressure. I was creating a motherfucker that was mentally prepared to do anything it took to become a seal even if it meant experiencing three hell weeks and running on broken legs. Those same experiments continued for the next 20 years and through all my countless trials tumbles and failures I cultivated an alter ego a savage who refused to quit under almost any circumstance. Someone capable of overcoming any and all obstacles I felt compelled to share what I learned in the lab because I knew it could help people and what started as a slow reveal of my inner drive on social media swelled to a deep confession and can't hurt me. Anybody who tuned in or turned the page knew exactly where I came from and what drives me but one thing I never shared was that there were two sides to my psyche and soul. If you don't feel like you're good enough if your life lacks meaning and time feels like it's slipping through your fingers there is only one option recreate yourself in your own mental lab. Somewhere you can be alone with your thoughts and wrestle with the substance of what and who you want to be in your one short life on earth. If it feels right create an alter ego to access some of that dark matter in your own mind. That's what I did. In my mind David Goggins wasn't the savage motherfucker who accomplished all the harsh. It was Goggins who did that. David was the kid born with one eye closed and raised scared and shackled. There is nothing inherently special about me. I just stopped focusing on what was holding me back and learned to use rejection pain and failure as tools to harness every available bit of dark matter in my mind. All my unused strength passion and desire. It was rarely fun. I suffered way more than I smiled but it helped me create my alter ego. Goggins was powered by the dark side of my soul that refused to be denied and he had one goal to become the hardest motherfucker to ever live. We all have a mental lab at our disposal but most people don't even know that they have access to a place where they can transform themselves therefore they remain locked out. By the time they hit midlife the doors are wrapped with a rusty chain and dead bolted. The equipment inside is dusty and broken. Weeds are sprouting from the foundation and the roof. For two decades the doors to my lab were locked too because I'd locked myself inside but after my heart scare I realized that without even knowing it at some point I'd sleep walked out of my mental lab and the doors had shut and locked behind me. Looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates and gives back to the local community? As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans including our home equity choice line. Bank virtually any time anywhere through online banking and our mobile app. Becoming a member has never been easier. Visit belco.org or stop by any Belco branch. Membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity all own subject to approval insured by NCUA. Belco banking for everyone.