Every day of my entire life
I live like it was day one, week one of BUD/s.
So I prioritize trying to win the battle in the morning.
So I always win the battle in the morning,
So I get up in the morning time, and every morning I go for a run.
That's the first thing I do every morning -
I haven't taken a day off of running since December 2016.
Alright, so, you're a retired Navy SEAL,
You went through the Air Force special operations community,
You deployed to Iraq, you broke the world record for pull-ups,
You ran a few ultra-marathons - so what do you say when you're
introducing yourself to people - like how do you introduce yourself to people with all of that?
Well, kind of how you said it right there.
Basically, I'm David Goggins.
So what got you interested in the SEAL community in the first place? What caught your eye?
Well, I was spraying for cockroaches when I got out of the Air Force,
I was spraying for cockroaches, I was about 297lbs to be exact,
And I saw this Discovery Channel show on TV,
And that Discovery Channel show was just guys going through Hell Week,
And I saw these guys freezing - a lot of water,
And I was like, you know what, it brought back memories of me going through pararescue training.
So at 297 pounds I decided to try to be a Navy SEAL.
And to make a long story short, I had to lose 106 pounds in less than 3 months.
And that's where it became challenging for me.
So I knew that to lose 106 pounds in less than three months,
You're looking at 3,500 calories is a pound.
So I was basically doing a whole bunch of math in my head.
So I knew that if I were to stop or be stagnant, there was no calories being burned.
So I basically trained all day long.
So that's how it went, and before I knew it, I had lost the weight.
But when you lose 106 pounds in less than three months, you're not in the best shape of your life.
You know, you got a lot of cardio in
But you know, you're just not in great, great, shape.
So my first place in the Navy was BUD/s.
So, you know, my first indoctrination to the real Navy was BUD/s.
So how did that go, then, getting to BUD/s then, not being in the greatest shape,
And maybe not necessarily healthy?
I wasn't in bad shape, but my body was broken.
Because when you go from 297lbs to 191lbs,
You know, in that time period, and you're running,
You're starting to break yourself - so I broke myself before I even got into Navy SEAL training.
My first time going through BUD/s, I got to Hell Week,
I got stress fractures and double pneumonia.
I got rolled back to day one, week one.
Second time going through BUD/s, I actually fractured my patella,
Before I got to Hell Week, made it through Hell Week with a fractured patella,
Went two weeks after Hell Week,
Because I didn't want to get rolled back to day one, week one.
But I couldn't keep up with the class,
Got rolled back to day one, week one, after Hell Week,
And then I went through my third time, and I graduated with that class.
We had a guy die during that Hell Week - Class 235.
So that's kind of how it happened.
So mentally what did that feel like to keep getting rolled back,
To, keep going through Hell Week - where did you go, when you were doing that, in your mind?
What I started figuring out, going through BUD/s,
Was that the harder something is,
The more it was challenging my mind.
So I had to find different ways to stay in the fight,
And while staying in the fight, it got me tougher, and tougher, and tougher
So I'm actually happy I went through 3 Hell Weeks,
I never examined myself.
And as a human being you have to examine yourself, and
And I guess the best place to examine yourself is Navy SEAL Hell Week.
Three times.
So I got to examine myself a few times.
So it started there - it started in Hell Week
And it's still going now at 43 years old.
Once you graduated, after getting your trident, where did you go?
I graduated in August, 2001 - August 10th, 2001
And as we all know, less than a month later,
September 11th happened.
So once that happened
My guys were gone to Airborne school,
We got the word about it, I went to SQT,
Seal Qualification Training, and after that I went to Seal Team Five.
And then my second platoon, we got the call,
We went to Iraq, I was with SEAL Team Five, Bravo Platoon again,
Got the second call, went to Iraq, so that's how that went down.
I understand that you lost some friends during Operation Red Wings - what did that feel like to you?
Being that I went through 3 Hell Weeks, I knew every guy that died on that operation.
So, the story touched me so much I wanted to find a way to raise money for their families.
So I found the Special Operations Warrior Foundation; if you're a special operator and you die,
It will give a hundred percent tuition to your son or daughter to go to college.
Great foundation. So now I got to find something to do to raise money for it.
So I started Googling all these different races, and I found the Badwater 135.
So it's a 135-mile run through Death Valley in the summer time.
I had no idea about ultra running - I'm 250 pounds, I'm a big meathead,
So here I am calling this guy up on Wednesday - he says, "hey you gotta qualify for this race"
I go, "how do you qualify?"
He says "you gotta run 100 miles in 24 hours or less."
And I'm like, "is that even possible?"
I haven't run over 20 miles the whole year.
Going through BUD/s I started realizing that you have to control your mind in these situations.
So at Mile 70 when I was in the worst shape of my entire life
I was able to draw on being calm.
And I was able to finish the race.
What's your current daily workout routine?
Like, say on a long day when you have plenty of time to do whatever.
Well, even if I don't have plenty of time, I get it in - I make it.
So I prioritize trying to win the battle in the morning.
So I always win the battle in the morning. So I get up in the morning time, and every morning I go for a run.
That's the first thing I do every morning - I haven't taken a day off of running since December 2016.
Every day - up in the morning.
So I also stretch out every day for about 2-3 hours.
Every day. I've missed two days in about 5 and a half/6 years.
So that's just my routine - and about 4 days of the week I'm in the gym hitting the weights.
Because you can't just be a runner. So you know, this is every single day
The monotony of my life - but you know, this is what builds discipline.
You know, and I'm not telling everybody to do this.
But this is my lifestyle - this is how I build self-discipline.
What are some of the most valuable things you learned in the Navy?
Be it about yourself or...
You know, some of the most valuable things - some people say teamwork and stuff like that,
Teamwork is big.
But I learned that you have to be a good individual first.
You have to triple down on your weaknesses
Because a lot of times - like, you always count on your buddy next to you to help you out
Sometimes that buddy is not going to be there.
You gotta make sure that you're a jack of all trades and a master of all trades.
And that's one thing - you got you gotta have your buddy's back and they gotta have your back
But you've got to work on yourself every single day
And that's one thing that the military really has to triple down on
Is something that we're missing nowadays a lot, and that's that total accountability of every day
Going back to Boot Camp in your mind.
You know, Boot Camp sucks.
SEAL training sucks - all these things suck - and people are so happy to get out of it
But that's what makes you good.
Remember how you were when you got out of Boot Camp?
You were all kind of robotic, and locked in,
And then it slowly goes away - you get comfortable, you start to sag a little bit
You start to lose that militant discipline.
That's the one thing I learned not to do in the military.
The military teaches you these great codes, ethics, morals, values...
You've got to continue to work on those - like everything, it's a muscle.
You stop going to the gym, you stop running - you get weak.
The military teaches you these great values of strength and honor and code and all these other things
But what we do, is we don't keep up the discipline of all that stuff.
And we lose it.
So the one thing I learned is to not lose that
Thing that Boot Camp, SEAL training, whatever you went through, whatever your A-School is,
Keep that discipline up. That's the biggest thing.