Successful
EMBRACING TRUTH AND OVERCOMING ADVERSITY | David Goggins
I see where I'm at today but I know where I come from and it's kind of hard to almost separate that I'm almost not in a way I'm kissing my own ass but I'm amazed that what a human being can actually do. So when I start talking to myself in the third person it's strictly because I know that I literally made this human being out of a, out of this like a whole bunch of scraps and I wasn't you know I wasn't a mechanic I wasn't a carpenter so I didn't know how to do any of this. You know I wasn't trained in how to build a human being from nothing you know like my mom didn't train me my dad didn't train me life didn't train me well life did train me correction and I started putting this scrap mill together. I'm like I want to what the fuck's gonna happen you know the first year I try to do is all fucked up and after a while I start learning more and more and more through pain and suffering start learning learning so much about stuff. Before I knew it man I built this beautiful car and I'm like how the fuck did I do that and I knew how and I know how to do it because I have all the tools through all the failure I went through trying to build this person who was goggins. When I was growing up I was being bullied in all kinds of shit. My grandfather looked at me and he says you know what man you're not gonna amount to it because of how you hang your head and it's true and as real as it was it hurt and a lot of us what we do is we hide from the truth we don't want to tell people the truth we see people every day loved ones friends family members we see them walking around everybody has seen them gain weight they're not going to school but we live in a kinder gentler world so we don't say to them we just watch them fail because why we don't know what to say or how to say it or we may lose them as friends or they may not love us anymore you're watching someone fail the best thing you may ever do for someone is to say hey guess what brother you're a piece of right now you may not say it just that way that's what you may want to say to somebody look man I love you to death brother but your life sucks you're not you are so much better than this man you're so much better i'm watching you fail and i can't do it so the best advice i ever got was a negative comment from my grandpa you ain't going to amount to and he didn't mean it in like a mean way he meant it as honestly you're allowing this world to kick your ass and it's gonna keep on letting it do it and it's stuck with me it's stuck with me for a long time the one thing that made me who am today is being vulnerable it's breaking myself down to the absolute rock bottom and being able to tell people who i am and that's how i fixed it literally you know looks in my eyes you know what man i have a whole bunch of character problems character flaws i've lied about this i've cheated here i'm insecure here this isn't the real me i lied to you about that i wanted your acceptance in life all those things happen but the thing about it is that we get judged so quickly by who we are we don't know we don't go to the to where it happened you know life created this person me life life created me to be this the person i was back in the day and i had to realize man that's okay man it's not my fault not gonna go back and fix the shit though so a lot of this isn't your fault why you do some things you do why you feel the way you feel but no one's coming back to save your ass you have to go back to where this it started wherever that place is for everybody and had the courage to go back there and start fixing what broke you and that's and that's my hey i'm fucked up i'm gonna go back and fix this though mediocrity is everywhere right now and we're all trying to find an easy way out and we're judging ourselves let's say there's 10 people in this room and we're all mediocre i'm the best of the mediocre people i now think i'm great best of the mediocre people we surround ourselves around people that make us feel great they tell us what we want to hear the second we put ourselves amongst the uncommon people we don't like that feeling that challenge and feel of that person's waking up at 330 mornings hey push your shit on we're going for a run we don't like that challenge we like that person who says hey you know what man i don't feel good today man and they say oh it's okay brother we'll take a day off maybe we'll get a pizza and watch the game we like that why because you understand man we don't want that in our lives we don't want that person who's constantly challenging our weaknesses stop being a pump we want that person who's constantly you know making us feel nice and good and secure in our that's the mediocrity of life as you're trying to fix yourself and dig yourself out of this deep hole that life society and you helped you helped also those people who you saw down there in that hole who were there with you who were your friends and people who you counted on because you meet the people in the same situation that you're in in life those people become your friends and second you try to get out of that situation become better those people are in that in that grave in that dungeness yankin that's your heels man say get the oh no get no come on back here mother you ain't gonna make me feel like right you're getting out of this hole people were constantly reminding me of who i used to be back in the day and they always tell me how the word works man when you come from a small small town and you come from a place that a lot of people don't want to come out of it and get out of it and all you want to do is become somebody when you have a small town mentality is a real mentality you've got to be able to get out and let your mind see open-mindedness because a small town what it does to you is it closes your mind completely closes your mind out everybody this isn't everybody a lot of people you have to be able to go out there and create open-mindedness you need space you need space to see the world like a lot of racism a lot of a lot of ignorance in the world it comes from people not being out and seeing other things seeing other people seeing all kind of shit that's why we judge so harshly because our minds are so close to the reality of of life period we want to be the best we can be amongst the average people people wonder how do you stay hungry all the time because after i accomplish something i don't sit back like a lot of guys who graduate buds graduate this graduate that they get comfortable they wonder why i'm getting weak man what's going on because once you hit the top of the mountain guess what happened i'm good so you wonder why you're falling down now because once we get on the top of the mountain you got to put up another one that's mediocrity there's a lot of people in mediocrity who have a nice resume but they're one-timers man they hit they hit a one-time deal they busted it open got a lot of money but they're good you're mediocre now man what are you doing today tomorrow the next day that's what i'm listening to theorists i don't listen to all that bullshit that's the person who's gained knowledge you gain knowledge through suffering and on the other end of suffering there's a world that very few very few have ever seen it's a beautiful world because that's where you find yourself you don't find yourself in over here you find yourself on the other end like the 100 mile race i was on i rented for 24 hours i found myself on the other end of that race that 19 hours i found wow there's a whole another world out here that i've never even saw the world is in your mind and that's what all that mediocrity is about mediocrity is contagious it's funny how our goals are only as elastic as our sense of self of who we are and what we think we can accomplish if all you've ever done is run three miles at a clip then a 10-mile run can feel as far as the moon your mind will compile reasons why that distance is beyond you and you may believe them if 10 becomes the new normal then a half or full marathon may be the next step after a marathon comes ultra each time you level up your mind will step in like an overbearing chaperone and try to shut down the party that very dynamic was playing out in my own mind on the long drive i flashed to a 30-mile run i done with Cameron Haynes in Oregon back in December 2018 while we hammered the trails around his hometown he gushed about a brand new race he finished two months earlier it wasn't a 100 miler it was a 240.3 mile trail race with nearly 30,000 feet of elevation gain that's more than the elevation of Mount Everest among the red rock formation sheer drop-offs and desolated peaks of moab 240 miles was that the new deep end when i was learning to swim as a teenager i spent all my time in the shallow end of the pool because there was no fear there even after i'd become proficient i swam laps in the shallow end because it soothed me knowing that with each stroke i damn near scrape bottom if i got too tired or wanted to quit i could simply stand up and that gave me both comfort and confidence it allowed me to work on my stroke without fear getting in the way there is nothing inherently wrong with that as long as we are clear that the shallow end work we put in is all about preparation for the deep end but that was not my mindset at that point in my life the way the pool complex was laid out made it impossible to ignore the deep end each day i left the locker room i had to walk by the 10 foot section occasionally i stepped to the ledge and looked down that 10 foot floor felt bottomless to me so i tucked tail and strolled toward the cozy little three foot marker with each step my dread faded while my comfort swelled and that with my psyche i did my best to clear it out of my mind as i swam but it lodged in there like a thorn lap after lap day after day when something continually looms in the back of your mind like a taunting that's an alarm it's a signal that you need to evaluate and address that issue or it may become a lifelong fear looming larger each day until it morphs into an obstacle you may never overcome there is nothing wrong with being afraid or hesitant we all have our reasons for remaining in the shallow end but we must make our shallow end a training ground we lay back get comfy and then have the audacity to wonder why our lives aren't getting any better while we do the same we've always done i should have been using my time in a shallow end as mental preparation imagining deep water with every stroke you have to train your mind as if you are already there if you get tired while swimming laps in the shallow end don't give yourself the option of standing up in the middle of the lane your only resting point should be the gunnel at the other end of the pool that way when you get to the 10 foot in you know from experience that you can make the distance but back then i was merely a survivor i wasn't a warrior capable of thriving and discomfort so i chose to bury my dread and log my pool hours in the shallows with no end in sight a lot of us grow out of life shallow end but stay there because we fear the unknown i'm thinking of those who remain in a secure job they hate instead of cutting ties starting up their own business or applying for a new position elsewhere most are intimidated by an unknown future filled with variables and consequences they can't control or foresee i know a person who ran other people's thriving businesses for 20 years but was afraid to run her own she knew every aspect of what it took to become a successful entrepreneur but rather than acknowledge her experience and use it as a confidence supply she let her irrational fears keep her running in place for someone else you need to evaluate what you are feeling not every emotion deserves to be ratified remember if you stay where you've always been you will never learn if you have what it takes to venture into the deep water i honestly want to be considered one of the hardest men to walk the planet earth in the history of the world and i mean by heart i'm not talking about the guy who has the most pull-ups most sit-ups runs the most just the person who's able to overcome any adversity in front of him to figure out a way hardest isn't about all this physical man yeah it helped me get to where i'm at but all i was doing in the whole process the process wanted to be ripped it wouldn't walk around my shirt off that that wasn't it i knew through the physical challenges through the physical suffering my mind was getting stronger i was literally doing that for a reason i had a weak mind all the rest has happened to come with it i was trying to strengthen the mind and handle all the judgment that's passed on me perceived and not sometimes you make it up on your own head you know i i just want to be able to handle all of that everything physical mental i want to be perceived as that like an old school barbarian old school god it's like god dog man nothing can hurt the guy which is why the book is titled can't hurt me i want people to have that mantra in their life take that with you take it everywhere you go in life and if you believe that and you work towards that callous in your mind strengthen yourself can't hurt me it's strong in any situation like when i was in buzz they beat the shit out of you i'd be the first one to give me said can't hurt me mother and they were beating the hell out of me but you say that enough to you false motivation becomes real motivation after a while they can't see themselves doing it they can't see themselves doing it it's one big reason the other reason is a lot of it is jellison when you set these humongous f***ing goals and they see that you're getting at it and every morning i'm getting up training for a 200 mile run and you see me give at four o'clock in the morning and all you f***ers are sleeping and by the time i get done running my 30 you come i come home just getting up how are you going to feel about yourself a lot of times when you're overachiever a lot of our family members a lot of our friends they're mediocre there's always those couple of guys who are uncommon who want to be better but you make that mediocre mother feel like sh*t whether it's your mom your dad whoever you make him feel horrible i've been there i'm speaking from experience you get somebody around you may who's trying to be better and you don't have the drive that they have it's a constant reminder of how up you are you have to know that that's what it is anybody in your course not saying man get after but i'm so proud of you they have a problem with themselves because all you're trying to do is achieve more if that's a problem for somebody you have to look at them and say man you really have a problem with yourself huh it's much deeper than what you think it lies deep in your soul how else it would have fixed myself was i saw how ugly i was towards other people who were great i was able to look back and say man you don't hate that much for any reason because he's great and you're lazy you're lazy he makes you feel like sh*t every single day so where it comes from you got to know you have to know where sh*t comes from to be able to solve it. (gentle music)