On Purpose with Jay Shetty - David Goggins: ON Dealing With Childhood Traumas

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

Prepare yourself, today we deliberately get uncomfortable and talk about pain.David fearlessly shares his past with us, how he’s overcome past childhood traumas and why he pushes himself so hard to show what’s possible.This conversation will move you and hopefully help give you the tools to dive deeper in yourself and really question why you feel the way you do about being uncomfortable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Each week you'll hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and their process of healing. Listen to navigating narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. The only way we can go forward is to go all the way back. And that's very scary to do for everybody. The only way you're going to fix yourself is to go all the way back to the beginning to your childhood because that's where everything starts. How many of us struggle with pain? Right? How many of us struggle with constant change and adapting? How many of us constantly feel like we're always going through challenges?

If your answers to any of those questions is yes, this is the episode for you. David Goggins has got incredible energy. You're going to be able to feel it through your ears and your eyes if you're watching this as well. You're actually going to experience energy transfer from the sound in to your mind. If you want to get activated, if you want to push through your challenges, if you want to overcome your fears, this is the episode for you. Welcome, David Guggins.

Hey everyone, thank you so much for coming back. I've just spent about an under an hour with our next guest. I'm so excited to introduce you to him. He's been called the world's strongest man, the world's toughest man, the world's fittest man. He's consistently invited, suffering and discomfort into his life to grow further. He's someone with a phenomenal background. He's a former Navy SEAL and ultra marathon runner, a triathlete. And today we're going to dive into his new book,

which is called Can't Hurt Me, about mastering your mind and defying the odds. His name is David Goggins. David, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it, man. That's for having me. No, I'm so grateful, honestly, and I'm so glad we were just talking about it.

I'm so glad that we've got a moment to connect before, because I think this conversation would have been very different. It would have. I, uh, I, I immediately walked in and, um, you know, I sometimes look at people and what they have and, you know, I'm like, oh, here we go. Here we go again. But, you know, I got a chance to know you, no, no, live about your backstory where you come from and know that, uh, we have some similar, you know, just like a mentality of, of how to come up.

So it was nice. Absolutely, man. I think what you put yourself through, and I don't say this anyway, I'm not saying that I can say I've had the same experience at all. Right. But I feel we've been wanting to challenge our minds in the same ways. 100%. And that excites me. That desire, that hunger, even though we chose different parts.

Right. I don't think I could have ever chosen your parts. We chose different parts, but we were testing the same parts of ourselves. Right. The mind is the one thing that we don't test enough. A lot of us are so afraid of that test, and that's the real test. That's where the real growth comes from is the mind. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. So I've had a beautiful fortune of actually diving

into this book this weekend. Great. And I have to say and I'm saying this honestly. So I was just telling you this earlier, 2017 to 2018, I read a book a day. I read 365 books in a year, I made a video about the books I read and how I did that. And then 2018 to 2019 this year, I read a book a week. Right. And one of the things I've struggled with recently, and I'm saying this as a compliment to you, is that it is so hard to read a book that isn't an article or isn't an Instagram caption or isn't a short video,

because we live in a world where constantly consuming content. When I picked up your book, the thing I loved about it is the amount of effort that you've been through to give us. I'm sure this was suffering to like writing this book. The amount of effort that you've been through to actually give us detail on your life. And I just want to start there about the process of writing the book because I feel what you've done, what a lot of authors have missed out on recently, is you've got to step further to really do self work to write the book.

So in that book, it's a raw, very humbling version of David Goggins. I went down to the grassroots, to the soil, to the sewer of my life. It's the stuff that we don't want to talk about, the stuff that we don't want that person next to you in line knowing. And I had to have the courage to say it out loud to people. So I was able to really go back and put so much detail in my story was we all have different things in our life that have scarred us.

We want to act like those scarred don't exist. So those scars, like, you know, if you go out and you get cut, that scar is going to be there on your arm. You can go down and look at that cut and say, oh, or that scar and say, oh, that happened from, you know, I was in the kitchen or what happened. We have the same thing on our brain. I've all these scars on my brain from growing up, from, you know, being abused, from suffering

through life, from having to learn disability, from stuttering, from having just a really bad childhood. And so all those memories either cut open that scar and go into it. And that was a hard process for me to do. Not only without a hard process for me to do, for me to have the courage to share that with people, you know, because I'm the so-called toughest man on the planet. So they think. So for me to break open that shell and tell people, hey, that wasn't always me. You know, it's hard to do, you know, it's hard to do. So it was a tough process. Yeah, absolutely, man.

I'm so glad you did peel that back. Yeah, it's so easy to live that title. Oh, yeah. The fact that you had the courage to break down that title to actually lay it out, it's gonna open up the door for so many more people. Well, I had to do it break down that title, to actually lay it out. It's gonna open up the door for so many more people. Well, I had to do it because throughout this journey, I started becoming this new person.

I started creating this new person. People started seeing me as this amazing superhero. In the back of my mind, I knew the real story. And I was like, man, one day you have to really share it. I'm like, man, but do you have the courage? You know, like it's great to live right here. I've established this. People think you're great.

Just stay here. Don't go back. Let's not go back. But the only way you can help people out is let them know that this is possible. So I had to go back and say, this is where I come from. Yeah. And where I come from is hell.

Absolutely. And now when you go back, you talk about how your childhood was a nightmare. Right. Tell us about some of the defining moments in your childhood that actually framed that experience to being a nightmare. Well, my dad was a person that he was an alcoholic.

He was really big on being a powerful man. And he had two different sides of him. He had a side that once you left our house, so our house was the dungeon. No one knew anything about the inside of that house. The inside of that house was horrible. It was evil. Like the evil monster came out to play. But once you left that house, he was the nicest person on the planet. So no one knew who this guy was. The scarring started happening inside the dungeon. And my dad didn't really believe in us going to school.

He had a family business, and the family business was a skating rink and also a bar. So my dad owned, it was called the remaining room was the bar and the skating rink was called skate land. So from time I was able to walk, I was working that I the skating rink was called skate land. So from time I was able to walk, I was working that that that that I'm skating rink and I worked it from like nine o'clock at night until like 12 o'clock in the morning pretty much. That's what we did. You know I'm three I'm four years old scraping gum off the off the skating rink floor doing stuff like that, me and my brother and my mom once the skating rink we shut down the

bar would open up. The bar would be open from like midnight like four o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning. Once that close down we'd go upstairs and clean the bar. So by time you work like this, you know, I'm a young kid, it's time to go to school. So most time we didn't go to school. So we miss school a lot, but thank God for me. I am like school anyway, with learning disability, with a stutter. You know, I had white splotches. I learned my skin from being stressed out hair, you know, a passive hair falling out at a young age. And once my dad got drunk, that's when the nightmare began. And you know, he get drunk, he get violent. And we got beatings quite regularly, probably at least once or twice a week and the beatings weren't like hey

I'm gonna give you a weapon because you did something wrong. It was like hey I don't feel good today and you get beat for that and my mom got a lot of the beatings and it just trickled down to me my brother So that that foundation of life that I didn't have, that's how it started off for me. And it's progressively got worse. So when you have a horrible foundation, it's like building a house on a fucked up foundation. This is what you're going to get. You know, any kind of earthquake or something happened, the house is going to go down. Sometimes, you know, they even take it earthquake, takes a little wind storm. So that was me. I was just a little wind storm away from breaking. All the time, a wind storm away from breaking.

But no one knew it. I walked around like I was a pillar of strength at a young age. But that internal conversation you're having back here is this weak little kid, very afraid. And I think that's the makes the book very powerful. Cause I take you there. Yes.

I take you to that spot of, you know, I'm superhuman now, so you think, but a lot of people have a lot of problems that they can overcome. Absolutely, man. And that's, I definitely felt when you were diving into that, that I was reliving it with you. And I think you do that so powerfully in the book because it's hard for people who haven't had the same experience to envision it. Right.

But you made that possible. But the other thing that you do is I think you're highlighting something that is so huge for us, that I genuinely feel that so many of today's challenges that we all face as adults are because of our childhood. When did you realize that your childhood was something that needed healing, that needed transforming as an adult? When did that come when you were like, I need to go back there to transform, to change my experience?

It happened when I could never get over the hump. I kept on feeling like I was getting over the hump. And then one little wind storm, small little wind storm would come by and push me back to scratch. It's like, why, why am I not, I'm learning how to read now. I was a junior in high school and couldn't read that well, a fourth grade reading level,

because I would cheat on everything. And I learned how to read, I learned how to write, I taught myself all these disciplines. But whenever the first real big challenge would come, that little windstormer pushing back in the hole. And I realized, man, I'm not, I'm fix this stuff on a surface level. I'm all surface, man, I'm not going deep into the cellar of my mind and fixing the foundation of my soul. My soul is broken. But you know, I knew I could fix it, but I was afraid to go back. I was afraid to face the demons of my life, you know,

because you start lying. You wouldn't even buy knowing this shit about you. So you start lying about who you're not, and start creating a person about who you want to be, but it's not who you are. So that's not what I realized, the man, I'm never gonna get over the hurdle. I'm always gonna live on a surface level

until I go deep, deep into the sewer of my mind to figure out and face all of these different demons. That's hard. It's hard. We all like social media. We all like everybody to see us for who we wanna be. That's where we post beautiful things about us. That's not gonna fix you.

So I realized that and that's not started going back. So I was about I was about 24 years old and I went from 175 to almost 300 pounds. That's when I sat down in my couch and realized we got to go back and that started with me going back to my father. So we we left when I was eight years old. We went to a small town of Brazil and the Anna. There's about five to 10 black families in a town of 8,000 to 10,000 people. There was a big hub of clansmen that lived in Cinnaport, Indiana. And I talked about that in the book.

So the clan, Mars and the 4th of July parade, 1995, in Indiana. So when you come from a messed up foundation like I did in Buffalo, New York, over my dad beat me senseless. And now I had that messed up foundation. Now I'm here being the only black person. I caught the only in my book.

Being the only black person. My mom's working three jobs. We're living in a $7 a month place. She's never at home. So not like I had some mint tours coming in to help me You know, they're trying to put me in these different group places for like having some shrink talk to me in these eight nine kids and When kids sitting this house on fire and other kids peeing in the trash can another kid had a helmet on Being in his head up against the wall, and I'm looking at this at eight years old

You know, and I'm gonna get back to your question that you asked. But these are the things I had to go back and relive. I'm 24 years old now. And I have to go back to all these things that no one knew about me in this group place where I'm in this place where these people are crazy. And they think I'm crazy. And I'm looking at them, I'm thinking I'm not crazy.

You just don't know where I come from. I came from a place that truly damaged my mind, damaged my soul, and now I have to go back on my own to face this shit. So at 24 years old, I sat there a lot of, it was like one day, I woke up and said, I got faced this. This haunting, fucking voice in my head kept on saying, man, we gotta go back

The only way we can go forward is to go all the way back and that's very scary to do for everybody Yeah, the only way you're gonna fix yourself is to go all the way back to the beginning to your childhood Because that's where everything starts and that's what's blocking most of us all of us. Yeah, all of us Everybody thinks it's my god like my marriage is messed up. This is messed up. You have to go back to fix all your problems. It all starts from the root, man. The root, yeah. The root is better say we have to go back to the root because otherwise we're just dealing with the symptoms. That's it. Yeah. And you cannot fix anything by giving it mulchering. You got you have a jacked up knee. The swelling may go down, but it's still jacked up in there. You got to get it fixed. You got to fix the knee. All those pills do. So, you know, pretty much is just let the swelling go down and you can live a little longer, but you're not fixing

the problem. You're not fixing the problem. And I guess the most people don't go back or all of us, like you said, we don't go back because we don't know how. Right. Right. Right. Like, we don't know how. Like, how do you start? How do you go back and like you said? And I love that example that we start thinking the issue is our marriage or our relationship right now or our job or our career. And I totally agree with you that we need to go back. But we don't know how. Right. You start talking about in the book some ways in which we can start. How? Right. Can you tell us about some of that? So one big thing is accountability mirror. You have to start with yourself.

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Big love. Namaste. Our 20s are seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes, and decide what we want from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s. Each week, we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of your 20s. Each week, we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health,

heartbreak, money, friendships, and much more, to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences, incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science, and a bit of my own personal experience. Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Hahaha! Join me as we explore what our 20s are really all about.

From the good, the bad, and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology, including our 20s. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Now streaming on the iHotRadio app, Apple podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts. Conquer your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the Before Breakfast Podcast in each bite-sized daily episode. Time management and productivity expert, Laura Vandercam teaches you how to make the most

of your time, both at work and at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to get more done with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our bodies strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to before breakfast on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened in my life was we started to get, I call it like the Rucksack. A Rucksack is a pack that you carry in the military and you put all your stuff in it. Your radios, your food, your water, all that stuff you have to carry in the military.

That's your Rucksack. It's a backpack pretty much. As you're growing up, we all have a backpack. Most of ours, hopefully, is empty, you know. And what we put in it is all the crap we go through in life. That's what is in the backpack for the civilians. And we carry it around with us. So what you have to start doing is realizing

that I'm a rare at in life. I got called Nigger a lot. My dad abused me, learned disability, stutters, immaturity, insecurities, self-doubt, so much crap on top of me, so much stuff. I lied a lot to create friends. So people that, so much stuff was in my backpack. No one's coming back to help me.

So it starts with that person in that mirror. You have to realize you are on your own now. And whatever else you believe in, I don't care what you believe in, but on earth, it's a very lonely journey. And it starts with the accountability mirror, of looking at saying, hey, my daddy beat the hell,

I'm not coming back, all these things are coming back, I have to face myself. And you have to own all those things that people may have done to you. Now it's yours. You got to own it. And it's yours now to fix the problems may have done to you. Now it's yours. You got to own it. It's yours now to fix the problems that people did to you. It makes no sense. It's not fair.

I get it. But if you live in that what was me mentality of guess what? My dad did this to me. My mom just did to me. People who bullied did this to me. You're going to always live right there. You have to figure out ways to move forward because you're not coming back and starts with the mirror. Now call it the accountability mirror in the book. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. I'm glad you brought it up. Anyone who's watching listening to this right now, I really want you to take this seriously because this is like what you will talk about what David's talking about here is exactly why all of our suffering and pain

that we're currently experiencing feels so tough and hard because unknowingly or knowingly, we are choosing to be stuck here, right? Exactly. Unknowingly or knowingly, whatever situation you're in, you're choosing to stay stuck because we don't wanna go in unpeel and uncover. That's right.

You don't wanna break open that callpeel and uncova. That's right. You don't want to break open that, that callus, that scar on your mind. You're when I'm breaking, you know, you have to break it open, let that blood flow. You live blood flow in your brain. You have to let all that stuff flow out. All that toxic stuff that you have trapped in there has to start flowing out now.

So like you said, you are doing this to yourself. Yes, people may have helped you get there, but it's now on you. That's a painful truth. It's a painful truth, painful truth, like all those people in high school and everything else, they don't know how you're going to end up. So you got to make sure that you constantly are rewriting your book. You have to constantly rewrite your book every day of your life. You know, and these aren't just words I say. This is how I have to live. Like, these are conversations I have with myself. And I say to me, where I go, the most important conversation when you have it yourself. Yes. You live with it every single day. But most of our conversations

are not the right ones. They're not the ones that are going to push us to the place we need to go. The ones that are going to push us to the place we need to go Who the ones are gonna keep us sitting in that toxic environment that you've helped create and everybody else help to create and Use living it you live in that muck in that conversation this place in your head that becomes you Deco some of that conversation that you started with yourself like how do you how does someone listening stop that conversation with themselves? And what are the general transitions that you need to start seeing? So my first conversation when I was absolutely nobody,

and that's one thing you have to say, we live in the world now that's so kind. We find a kind way around everything. Like if you don't look good, I have to find a kind way of saying, I don't like your shirt. That's not the approach. If that's the approach you're looking for, that book is not for you. Can't hurt me is not for you. The approach you have to take, at least I took, you take with the approach you want. The conversation had to be a real

honest conversation in the accountability mirror. Yes, what? I was fat. Don't find a kind word to say that, you know what? I've gained some weight. No, you're fat. When I couldn't read, not like, hey, you know, you've learned disability. No, I cannot read. I have a fourth grade reading level.

I'm struggling. And sometimes I call myself stupid, not in a way to put myself down. So don't take it like my God, those are so hurtful. You have to hurtful. This honest, the conversation has to become an honest conversation of where you're at mentally. Where am I at mentally? I look like shit. I feel like shit. I'm not this, I'm, I'm falling behind in school. I'm lazy. My house is a mess. You have to look at what it is and call it what it is. Don't find words to make yourself feel better.

Because that's what, so we hang around people that make us feel better, that tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear. And so we stay away from those people. And we stay away from those people, like our internal dialogue becomes that kind, it's okay. It's not okay. So that's where it starts.

It starts with that accountability of, it's not okay anymore. This can no longer be okay. And calling yourself out for exactly what you are and exactly how you need to fix it. That's where it starts. I love that. I love that.

I think that's awesome. I think you're so right that so many of our conversations with others are politically correct. Exactly. Or our conversations with ourselves are politically correct. And then we continue to feed the illusion. That's right. Right.

We continue to feed it. Nothing gets solved by that, man. Nothing. And if you look at America right now and I won't get off on this, nothing is getting solved because we have, there's so much racism, there's so many, there's so many things

and that's just one of them. We can't talk about anything. We are scurrying all of these conversations because if I say this, I wanna offend the black person or white person or a Jewish person or a gay or lesbian person, we skirt around the dad going problem. So we can't fix shit. Everything is like, well, if I say this on TV and lose my damn job, we have to say it.

We have to break the barriers within our minds and within the world and it starts with yourself. It starts with yourself. You have to break the barriers down world, and it starts with yourself. It starts with yourself, it got break the barriers down within yourself, and it's go there, got go to yourself. Absolutely. That was the honest conversation you had then, what's in on this conversation you've been having with yourself this year? And what's, because like you said,

and I completely agree with you, it's a constant cycle of repetition. We have to keep doing it. So I'll talk about the repetition in my book a lot. Yeah. Got to get the reps in. So now my conversation is this, I never set out to write a book. When I was in the dungeon and no one's coming back to help me, I just

wanted that reflection in that accountability mirror that I hate it so badly to be something that gave me pride, to be something that made me feel. It wouldn't, but it's not about money. It's not about success. It's not about people. Oh my God. That's David Gogans. Signed my book. No. When I started this journey out years ago, it's about I just want to learn to read. So now I'm at a place now where I see the possibilities of the human, of human potential. What are we capable of? It's a conversation now. The conversation now is how can I now talk to people in a way they can understand the messages that I have for so many people, for so many people. So that's it. That's the new conversation now is that I you are constantly evolving. You're

never saying, you're getting better, you're getting worse. Not staying the same. So for me, I have to constantly be getting better. I have to constantly be evolving my message. So I'm constantly thinking into quietness in my mind. That's a key point too. The world is so fast paced. The world is so noisy. So my conversation now a lot of times is my God. Slow down. The world can take you here, here, be here, be there, be everywhere. And I lose myself sometimes. So I catch myself in the airport, I catch myself in the plane while writing stuff down. Okay, remember this, remember that? Hey, hey, on second, God, what got you here?

This isn't what got you here. Slow the fuck down. This isn't what got you here. Slow the fuck down. Go back to the quiet place of that dirty mirror in that $7 a month place used to live in. That's where you grew. So that's what I'm constantly minding myself. Go back to your roots.

Now, I say and go back to hell. I'm saying don't forget when you come from, as you start to explode out of't forget when you come from, as you start to explode out of the gate when you become someone, my conversation is do not forget your roots, do not forget your roots. Don't let this become so big that you lose yourself amongst the noise. Go back to the quietness of what made you successful. That's the conversation now. So, it's a constant reminder of that. I love that man. That's the mantra, do not forget your roots, repeat that, repeat that again and again. And I have a meditation that I've developed for myself to do that for me that I want to

share with everyone because it aligns so closely and in what you're sharing. So, every morning, I sit and I look at my intentions to do anything. So whether there's a new deal on the table or there's a speaking gig that I've invited to do or whatever it may be and in your life it can be anything, whether you're starting a new business, you're writing a book, it may even just be an Instagram post for whatever it is. And I look at whatever my options are and I ask myself which ones of these is a myself, which ones of these is a seed, and which ones of these is a weed? Because the incredible thing in our garden is that weeds

end up looking like seeds and can confuse you. 100%. So so often, that thing that's giving you ego and pride and fame and control and power looks like it's amazing. But actually, it's just strangling you. 100%. So every day what I'll do is I'll look at the garden of my life and I will try and

unweed my garden. So I'll look at everything and be like, why am I doing that? I'll ask myself, why am I doing that? If the answer is not love, compassion, empathy, growth, personal push, sacrifice, service, if the answer is the opposite, greed, money, power, fame, if those are my reasons, then I have to take that weed out. I have to pull it out, because if I don't pull it out, that weed's gonna keep growing.

And one day it's gonna be so big that I wouldn't even ever seen it. Exactly. And so I'm with you, man. And that's why I walked in here. The first thing I do is I wanna know the person, because there's so many people right now doing exactly what we're doing.

What turns me off so badly that see so many people out there trying to motivate people, inspire people, help people find what's gonna drive you. I see all this shit. It's all fucking a bunch of shit. Now I walk in, I see it everywhere. Everybody's got this going. Everybody's got a new podcast.

This about, I want to help you find yourself. They're not living it. They're not living it, which is why I look at people. I'm like, what are you about? Are you actually doing what you say you're doing? Which is why when I heard some of your story, I realized that you have substance to what you're saying, which is why now I can speak to you.

A lot of times I go on these podcasts, I ain't wanna fucking be there. You know, okay, I start realizing this person is just talking, he's not living. And we share this with people, and we respect and to change. They can see right through you. They can see you not doing this.

That's the whole thing about it. Don't do everything in your life for money. Don't do everything. Yes, we need it to survive. There's a great drive and passion behind doing things for the mind and the soul is a great drive in that. Everyone's married. You talk with such passion. This is a life. This is my life. So that's so that's what one people to get from all this stuff, man. Like, there's something inside you.

The brain is the most powerful thing. The mind is the most powerful thing that we have. It's not your phone, it's not the computer. It's not anything. It's your mind. And if you can tap into that, you can come from the, from the dad going roots of hell and become such a great seed A powerful seed that can grow into some great dad going on garden and people don't get that. It's all up here

The power and the magic's up here. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that man And thank you for saying that because for me to that was you know my desire without showing with you earlier It's changing people's relationship with perception. Right, and when I started, I'll be coming back to this, when I started making videos or any of this, and I've been talking about these things and studying them for the past 13 years, and when I started making videos, which was only two years ago,

I had no idea that anyone would care. Right, I made it because I wanted to share what I'd learned. Right, and I put it up, and I genuinely thought my life was gonna be, I was gonna go to my nine to five job, my nine to nine job, I used to work 12 hours a day in the corporate world. And I thought, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make videos on the weekends. Right. And hopefully they'll help someone. Exactly. Like there was never a desire to for this to be anything more than a service. Right. And so when you, when I hear you say that, and also just about how much we perceive each other and I mean, how we perceive other people,

etc. Right. It's, it's so important for all of us to perceive each other and I mean how we perceive other people etc. Right. It's so important for all of us to give each other the benefit of the doubt. That's right. And he and from each other. Right. To connect. Exactly. To see. Like I said to you, Ellie, I already knew I was going to like you. Right. I was hoping you're going to like me.

I know that about you. So you know, I make sure I, and that's something that's very powerful. A lot of times we hear about someone else through the grapevine and then I won't like you because I heard from somebody else that they don't like you always do your own judging always meet the person look at the person in the eyes before you say you don't like that person listen to their story listen to who they are listen to where they come from how they lived get your own opinion about people's very huge. A lot of people didn't like me coming up because they they see this hardness, this crust break away at the crust and see what's inside that person.

Absolutely. Don't judge a tweet. Don't judge one post. No. Don't judge one message. And don't judge somebody from 30 freaking years ago, or I say 30 fucking years ago. There's so much stuff going on right now in the world. People are trying to evolve. Let them evolve. Yes. Let them evolve. Don't bring them back into the, don't bring them back where they came from.

Yes. Don't bring, is someone wants to get better? Don't bring them back to where you knew them when they were a piece of shit. Let them fly. And if you feel like hell because they went away and they escaped the hell that you all once lived in, fix yourself. Fix yourself. Don't hold them accountable because they got away. Don't constantly mind them that they were once here. Fix yourself. A lot of people feel like crap once people start to lead their little nest like like if you're an alcoholic and this guy said, I'm gonna stop drinking.

You want to bring them right back in? No. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, well, this guy's doing better. Take that feeling of feeling like shit and do something about it. Change your own life. Absolutely. Well said, man. Well said. Do you think we do that subconsciously? We don't want to see other people grow on fly because we are not growing in flying. As a hundred percent, it makes us feel like shit. It's a constant reminder of where we're at in life. When you see people start to even this one person, let's say you have a group of 10 friends, best friends, you ask party, smoke weed, drink. You guys are this nine to five years,

making minimum ways where it's getting by. Like good, real hunting. You watch that movie? Yeah, absolutely, love it. That guy wanted to stay there. Matt, Dave wanted to stay there. You know, been at, been at for like, no, man, get the fuck out of here, man.

That's the kind of people you want to be around. And those people, there's very few people like that exist in those crowds. Cause you are a constant reminder of who they are now. This guy got out. Now every day I wake up thinking, God, I'm a piece of shit. I'm a piece of shit. I don't have the courage and the strength and the sub discipline to do what he did. So it's a constant reminder.

I don't have the courage, but you do. You do have the courage. You just get to find it. Absolutely. You got to find it. That's the hard part. I'm Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere and their toxic behavior in words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved by the Tinder Swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money he took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic

abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissist in your life. Each week you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to navigating narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Not too long ago, in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, this explorer stumbled upon something that would change his life. I saw it and I saw, oh wow, this is a very unusual situation.

It was cacao. The tree that gives us chocolate. But this cacao was unlike anything experts had seen, or tasted. I've never wanted us to have a gun fight. I mean, you saw this tax of cash in our office. Chocolate sort of forms this vortex. It sucks you in. It's like I can be the queen of wild chocolate.

We're all lost. It was madness. It was a game changer. People quit their jobs. They left their lives behind, so they could search for more of this stuff. I wanted to tell their stories, so I followed them deep into the jungle, and it wasn't always pretty. Basically, this like disgruntled guy and his family surrounded the building armed with machetes. And we've heard all sorts of things that you know somebody got shot over this. Sometimes I think all, all these for a damn bar of chocolate.

Listen to obsessions while chocolate on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Conquer your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the before breakfast podcast My God. you need to get more done with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our bodies strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to before breakfast on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Suffering a bit. Because I think what we're talking a lot about right now

is that journey for it to begin for anyone. Right. It's painful. Yes. It's an inconvenient truth. It starts with suffering. It starts with suffering. It starts with pain. There's no other way.

No other way. You've got to go back to your demons, you've got to go back to their stories. It's suffering. How have you changed your relationship with suffering? Because I think everything's a relationship and your relationship with suffering fascinates me. Right.

So I want to know how have you evolved in your relationship with suffering and discomfort? So think about, when I say suffering,. People that's the that's the one word whenever I post about it. People cringe. It's not about suffering how people may look at suffering like you have to just go to a place that just every day of your life is suffering. You have to tap into suffering every day of your life because we have so much scarring that we have to clean up. You have to look at suffering as almost like I look at failure.

To succeed, you must fail. In failure, in and suffering, all the answers are in there. All the answers to all the test questions, the test is your life. All the answers are in there. All the answers to all the test questions, the test is your life. All the answers are in there. You'll have to live in suffering and pain and failure all the time. You have to learn, I need to visit it.

Like people hate working out. You're only going to visit working out, maybe an hour a day. Twenty-three hours of the day, you're not in it. But how you become in shape is you must visit suffering, visit working out one hour a day, visit suffering, one hour a day, visit your past failures one hour a day. The relationship with it is the answers are in there.

They are in there within the suffering. Go in there and I call it the live autopsy. The live autopsy, how you find out someone died, they crack you open after you're dead. How you can live is do it while you're alive. Go back in your brain, crack it open while you're alive. Don't wait until you're fucking dead to figure out why you died.

Do it while you are living. Go in there, go into the suffering. Go into the pain of your life and say, why did this suck for me so bad? Why am I afraid of all this stuff? Why have I shut down the whole world? I guarantee you, I'll tell you why you shut down the whole world. It's in these nooks of the suffering within your brain,

in the scarring, or all the answers to why you are on the couch feeling sorry for yourself. They lie within the scars. Visit them for at least an hour a day, study them, and then you'll find out more about yourself. You will then grow. So don't look at it every day I suffer. Go into it an hour a day, learn from yourself, learn from life, learn from your failures, learn from your insecurities, learn from yourself doubt. Don't just say I'm afraid it's about the airplane. What makes you afraid of it? Study it. That's why I studied my mind. Why became so powerful in the mind? Because I realized I was weak. So instead of running away from the mind, I dove into and said, what is making me weak? Oh, it makes sense. I came from hell. I came from a place that beat me down to

nothing, which is why I'm afraid. All this makes sense. So systematically one by one, I went back and met every single person in my mind, every situation. I went one on one with them again in my mind. It's okay. That's now revisit this and that's how you do it. That's how it works. Absolutely, man. That is, I love that. That is brilliant advice, brilliant advice because it's ultimately it's observing in self-study, like observing in self-study, becoming an expert in observation of oneself. And the reason why that that process can be so challenging or that process is because, like you said,

and I love that, you literally went through and remet every person that caused you pain. I love that. And guess what, people say, how did you do that? You know every painful moment. Yeah, you remember it. You remember it. We try to put it under a rug, lift the rug up.

You'll find them. Yeah, the dust will come up quickly. Yeah, it'll come up quick. Yeah. So yeah, that's how I was able to write that book. Yeah. You don't forget that shit. No.

You want to. Yeah. And that's where you fail. By trying to forget it. That's where you feel that's where there's no growth. Let's just move forward from all this. Yeah. There's no growth there. There's no growth there.

No. You just want to forget about it. You will continue making the same fucked up mistake. Yeah. You will continue doing the same things wrong. And if you don't go back. Yeah. And the challenge we have is when we do revisit it,

when someone tries or starts, they end up revisiting it, but then we end up, and we, me too, all of us, like I'm not saying, whenever I'm referring, it's me too. It's also, we become complaining or criticizing or comparing, so we do start, like I know a lot of people are in myself too, I sometimes start revisiting something. But then I just use it as a crotch or an excuse. Then I'm still not getting there.

That's right. I'm the same thing. Yeah. Right. I do the same thing. How have you broke through that times when that's happened sometimes? So as I'm talking and as I'm going back,

I'm very aware that I'm going to do that. Yes. And I may do it for 45 minutes. And then I'm like, you knew you're gonna do this. You'd be very aware of the conversation you're having while you're doing it, because your mind chooses the path of least resistance. Your mind has the ultimate tactical advantage over you.

It knows what scars you, it knows your fears, it knows your insecurities, and it protects you, which I talked about the 40% rule in my book. The 40% rule is all about the brain has the tactical advantage over you. It knows, and it keeps you away from all that. That's why it says, don't jump out of your airplane. Don't go in the ocean with your sharks. It's a protective mechanism.

Don't go back to the place where your dad beat the shit out of you in your mind. Don't go back. The brain protects you, but protects you so much. It doesn't allow growth. So the brain is an amazing thing, but the brain controls you. You must control it. You must take power over your own mind, or your mind will guide you into all the soft spikes, soft places that your brain wants to live in. Your brain has enough

information. It doesn't want to go through that process of mind hardening. It doesn't want to do that. I can't remember what time I got to be here, what time I got to be there. This is what I want to stay. I'm peaceful. It wants to stay very peaceful away from scarring. So that's what it is, man. Yeah. That's what it is. It's as simple as that. And we just never touch it like a box that you can look inside.

You just leave it there. You just mark it, scar. Yeah. Put it up in the attic. Yeah. Never touch it again. Let it get dusty. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about this because when I was reading about it in the book, it fascinated me because it reminded me of my three month bootcamp as a monk.

I love that. The first three months I was sharing with you earlier, the first three months of monk training is super intense, like really, really tough, because the whole point of it is to figure out who's in and who's not. Right. Like, they don't want people to just be passengers on the side. It's not a place you come to just have quiet and don't do anything. So that three month bootcamp something that

Talked me so much. I'd love to hear about hell week and specific programs you built in your life that you went on and what did you learn from What did you take away? But tell us first a bit about the program and then tell us about what you learn. So we're like about your three month Hell week. Yeah, you know was the fact that That's where you find yourself. You find yourself when you're not comfortable. You're not comfortable on a daily basis. And that's how I started to grow. Like I said about the mind, I want to put you in that nice 72 degree temperature with everything right there. It wants to be in that nice with a little massage therapist. That's where your mind wants to be.

There's a wanna be, and we're gonna talk about Hell Week. So there's a wanna be in Hell Week. In Hell Week, I was in three of them. I finished two of them in one year. Only person never do that in still history. There's been people who have gone through a couple of Hell Weeks,

but in like five years, six years, seven years, eight years, I did, I was in three in one year. They say it takes off three to five years of your life. So hell week is 130 hours of continuous training. You might get two hours of sleep. And what it does is it's designed to break a man, to break a man down to the parts where, like I talk about the surface,

how it's fixing the surface. If you only fix the surface, you will never get through hell week. Cause what it does, it starts to bring out these demons. Cause even though there's a lot of yelling and stuff like that, there's times where it's very peaceful in a very eerie way. So the first hour of the 130 is breakout.

There's shooting guns, there's slower, there's noise in your mind is in chaos. When your mind's in chaos, you can't think. So you having fun. Yeah, this is great. Yeah, we're in hell, we're in Navy SEALs, we're trying to be Navy SEALs, we're bad asses. Then what they do, and I don't even think

that they understand what they're doing, but I study the mind is perfect. It's psychological warfare. They go from an hour, the first hour, when you're going crazy, the second hour of the 130, they put you in the cold water. It's called surf torture. Now they don't call it surf torture because it's a kind of their genital word. It's called surf acclimation or something like that.

Whatever, everybody's getting soft. So they call it surf torture. For a good reason, they put you out there, no one's quick, yes, only been an hour. Maybe a couple of guys have. And you're in the Pacific Ocean, which is never warm. You're all linked to arms. You're sitting there in the waves

or crashing over you. I went through winter hell weeks, which is cold. The Pacific Ocean is like 50 degrees. It was 49 this particular night in my third hell week. And what it does is it makes your mind flip out. We've been doing this now for three weeks, beating this water. But for some reason now,

the water's colder than this ever been. It's not, our minds are fragile. We can process a day. It's harder process, 130 hours. There's no end. There's no end. So the mind starts to ramp up. So you sit there as quiet, no one's yelling at you,

you hear the ocean, tsh, tsh, tsh hear the ocean, and you're freezing. And your mind goes spastic. Starts to think of another hundred and twenty nine hours. You're not going home, you're getting yelled at, you can be frozen. So you panic, you freak out, and you want to quit. When I realized about the mind, those people who can be in that time

and embrace that time and be in that moment and now allow the mind to go to 129 hours on hour one. It's the control that we don't have in our minds. It's the control that you had to have for three months when you're miserable, when you're suffering, when you lay on the floor, when you do all the disciplines, it takes to be a monk. You cannot think about the whole process.

It will make you so insanely crazy. It's impossible. It's inhumane when I'm about to do to myself. You have to be able to break all these big, humongous, painful things in life down to the smallest molecule. Because that's all the brain can handle. The brain can't handle hours and hours and hours of suffering. But it can handle right now.

I'm in the Pacific Ocean and it's very cold. And this is what I'm doing. Don't think about the rest of it. So that's what I learned from Hell Week. That's what I learned from being in three hell weeks. That's why I learned from being in three Hell Weeks. That's why I learned from all the military. I went to Ranger School. I went to all these different schools to learn all of that, to learn how the mind process. So I talked about theorists. I talked about practitioners. A theorist is a person who reads a book. Doesn't

do it. Read the book. Learn learns about something and then talks about it. A practitioner is myself. A practitioner is a person like me. I wanted to be an expert in the mind. A mental toughness guy beyond mental toughness. The only way to do that in my eyes is to put yourself in hell. Put it in hell repeatedly. Repeat it, put yourself in hell and study how you Put it in hell repeatedly. Repeat it yourself and hell and study how you process it. And that's how it's able to come up with all these different ways, all these different tools to slow the mind down in hell. Because the mind just speeds up.

The mind wants to get out of the painful situation, to suffer it. It can't process it. So that's what I realized by going through all these different processes of being in hell weeks. You know, it's just that. I love that by going through all these different processes of being in hell weeks. You know, it's just that. I love that, man. How the mind processes in hell. Well, you ever scared that you would lose the processing ability to be able to coach yourself through it? Were you ever scared when you're there?

I was there's sometimes where the mind gets overwhelmed and you cannot slow it down. But by these these certain tools I developed, by not allowing your mind to get away from the moment, you cannot, you have to think about the exact moment that you're in, but I saw when I was younger, the moment became too big. When it became too big, I spazed out and I quit. But now I don't think about even like an hour from now, I'll be eating.

I don't even go there. Uh. Because then your mind... Yes. No. We must embrace this because now you have to be a leader in this moment. It's not about you just getting through it. I had five guys, and six including me in my boat crew.

Now is the boat crew leader. So now another trick is this. if you don't think about yourself, there's no pain. West can also lead the pain later on in your life. But in these moments when you're struggling, if you are a true leader in your word about your men or women beside you, your mind isn't care. I'll call you or anymore. Your mind's only word about taking care of the men and women beside you So I started realizing man if I take care of these cats to my left and my right in the worst moments

My mind is no longer thinking about your miserable David Goggins get the hell out of here Think about how was John how was Annie how was Sam how was Pete? How hey? How you guys doing you not thinking about me? So there's so many things you can do to get outside your own head to then allow your body to just be like, Hey, we're this a machine. But you have to let your mind be able to process all these different tactics to do that. Take a different vantage point in life. When you are in the hell, you can't see the beauty of being in it.

When you're in it, get on top of that mountain top in your mind. Get on top of that mountain top and look down in what you're doing. You can see a whole different world and that world is beautiful, but you gotta get a different vantage point in this suck. Don't be in it.

Spiriously get out of it. Get that soul. Look down on what you're doing. Be amazed by the process of where you're at now and where you came from. Wow. I've got so many questions from that. I've got so many questions from that. Okay. Let's start with you and I love that. So you said one of the tricks is when you stop thinking about yourself because when there's no self, there's no pain. No pain. And you start living for your team, the people, the other people's suffering is it, I love that. Totally understand that.

Servant leadership wanting to go beyond oneself. But you pointed out something really fascinating. You said it can lead to pain later. That's right. Explain that because I get that. And so I've had this mentality for years. It got me through a lot of hard times. You cannot use it every day of your life. That's it, that's what of hard times. You cannot use it every day of your life.

That's it. That's what I was thinking. You cannot use it. I use it as a my God. This is the perfect. I found it. This is the trick. You just totally, you don't even matter. You're just a machine. You are a machine. They're just just just just like a lever. That's all you are, man. You're not. You're not. And in my book, I talk about what that lever starts to get rusty. Starts to get crusty. It starts to like, I can't even think about anybody,

but myself. So through the process, when I started to learn, was that helps a lot? And you can tap into that all the time. But you have to be able to heal yourself. You have to be able to recover yourself. You have to be able to recover yourself. It can't be something that you continue to do and do and do.

You have to be a recovery process for your mind, your body, your soul, your spirit encompasses your whole body. So those are tactics, but those tactics must be oiled up. That lever has to be oiled again to go back in it. Absolutely. It's not an emergency use, but it's used in specific moments. Exactly. Knowing you can go back.

And it's so true that for so many people who want to serve, it becomes the default. And I made that mistake myself. When I became a monk, it was because I wanted to wake up everyday and serve. That was my goal. I was like, I want to wake up every day. I want to use everything I've been given to it was because I wanted to wake up everyday and serve. That was my goal. I was like, I wanna wake up everyday, wanna use everything I've been given to serve humanity, I just wanna serve people, I just wanna give, and I was just being that.

And so I would go through sleepless nights, I would push myself for weeks on end to go further for other people, and it was amazing because it felt fulfilling, and it helped them too, but after a while I was broken. I lost. But after a while, I was broken. I lost my voice for six months. I was eating out of tubes for six months. I was riding on a whiteboard.

You know, it was just my whole life kind of crumbled. I was sleeping 14 hours a day then, because my life kind of went to the other side. Yeah. Because I'd worked so hard to just give, give, give, give, give. And I loved it. But in the process, I broke myself, because I wasn't refueling. I wasn't renewing. That's right. Even though I was still taking, and I loved it. But in the process, I broke myself because I wasn't refueling. I wasn't renewing.

It's right. Even though I was still taking, I'm still meditating. I'm still doing everything. I helped. I talked about that big time in my last chapter. How it just takes me to nothing. How I'm where you were at. You know, it's taken me five years of doing my meditation, my stretching,

my eating right, my sleeping right. And you had to be on a constant reminder. Almost like how you put a reminder on your phone, 15 minutes you got this, it has to be in your brain. You've done too much. Stop. And what happens in life is that we start to see our lives become so successful. We're making money. We're doing this. We're doing that. I want more. I want more. I push harder.

I'm all about pushing hard. Don't get me wrong. Obviously, I'm all about it. But to push as hard as you can, you have to be mindful of the machine that's pushing. It is going to end up dying. And then it takes years to get it back. So you lose that time.

Totally. That time is gone. You know, I lost five years of, I could be crushing it. We're now, I'm just now back to crushing it, realizing, God, man, I learned the hard way. That's really sometimes one way to learn. Yeah, sometimes, yeah. Sometimes I'm going to learn.

That's how I've learned the best. Yeah. How do you know those indicators? So what are those indicators to know I'm pushing too hard or I'm suffering too much because it's hard to know. Everyone gets in the gym even once a week or whatever and it's like if you don't go off then you can feel like you're falling off to 10 minutes.

Do me a favor. Go to the first page of the book. No, I thought go to like the first three pages of that book. You see one sentence. Okay. Go to the first page of the, of not, no, no, I thought, go to like the first three pages of that book. You see one sentence. Okay. To the unrelenting voice in my head that will never allow me to stop.

Okay. The unrelenting voice that we all have, what happens to that voice? I'm gonna answer your question. We all have a voice in our head. Some of us are very spiritual, some of us are not, but we all have this voice and you're doing fucked up shit. This is wrong, don't do that.

The more you don't listen to that voice, the further that voice gets away from your hands. Let me call it the Holy Spirit, let me call it God, some monks, whatever it would have you called. It's there, we all have it. It's the right or wrong voice. But the more we don't listen to it, the more that voice goes away.

The only voice you hear is yourself. When the only voice hears yourself, you're wrong. There's a voice that guides you through life. When sometimes it's guide you in direction that you don't want to go, that's usually the right place to go. It's that uncomfortable place. So that voice is always talking to me, but we don't listen to it. I place to go. It's that uncomfortable place. So that voice is always talking to me, but we don't listen to it. I listen to it. And when I start getting anxious, nervous, like,

I've done, we all know we've done too much because it's telling us I'm getting tired, I'm wearing down, but we go, we go, we go. I start talking to my fiance, hey, I'm doing too much. You start now like I did in hell week, like I do all the time. The one second decision, it's that decision when your mind starts to get so ant up, whenever you can't hear yourself think, you gotta slow down.

Whenever you live in off a schedule, every day is a schedule, every day is a schedule, you have no time for yourself. When you start, and we all know it, I don't have time for this anymore, I don't have time for that anymore. That's when your mind and your body are saying, think about that.

I'm neglecting my fiance, I'm neglecting my disciplines of life, I'm neglecting my reading, I learning my workouts, my diet. When you start neglecting all of that, you neglect one of them. You can neglect all of them a long time. It's going to haunt you.

When you start seeing that my guy haven't eaten right in a long time. Haven't been sleeping right in a long time. It's only going to be one of those things that take you off. So I'm very aware of my eating, my sleeping, my disciplines of life. And I started to get too far away from them. It's a hard stop. Because what made me me are the self, not just disciplines, the self disciplines of life.

And those are always in front of you. If you have any, they're always in front of you. So that's my hard stop. Yeah, I love that, man. That's great advice. And I guess a simple example is you have like, sleep. Like when you wake up in the morning, there's a party that's going to artist go back to sleep. Exactly. When we used to wake up at 4am as monks, sometimes three is like, there's the part. And then that's what you're saying. And then all you hear is yourself saying, aren't it all right? Just go sleep. It's okay. That's right. But then that voice has got quiet and that says,

no, you need to get up. That's right. You need to get up and you just push it away. You just push it away. And that's the discomfort that you need to. That's right. Embrace. Exactly.

So those voices are very important. They can guide you. And that's the thing about, like I said, the mind's the most powerful weapon in the world. Yeah. It can guide you to being very comfortable also. Yeah. So you gotta be careful, the mind will trick you. And it's like, this sleep in a day, you deserve it.

Sometimes you don't deserve it. So there's that fine line of the mind getting the tactical advantage over you to be like, I've worked too hard. You really haven't worked hard enough. Absolutely. When we were trained as monks in the Vedic philosophy, it talks about the difference between the mind and the intelligence. The mind is compared to a child,

and the intelligence is compared to a parent. And so when the child goes loose, when the mind goes loose, when it's not trained, controlled, discipline, self-disciplined, et cetera, it can have tantrums, it can throw things out the pram, right? It demands more. Like a child always wants to sleep in. Right, always. Right. Even if the child knows that it's better to wake up to go to school,

the child doesn't want to, a child doesn't want to study for exams. Right. Because it's hard, it's painful. And the adult role, which is the intelligence, which is often we forget that it exists, the intelligence is that voice coaching the mind. That's right. But what often happens is the intelligence just tries to shout at the mind.

Like a bad parent. Exactly. The parent just shouts. That's a hundred percent. No teaching, no education, no knowledge, just shouts. That is a hundred percent. The way you explain that about the child's mind is one hundred percent the truth.

I just want to sleep in always throwing tantrums. Never getting what they want. We never get what they want. They throw a tantrum. But what happens is we never grow. We are 40, 50, 60, still throwing that tantrum we once did at seven and eight years old. So people think with age is growth. No, it's not. You have to go back into the scarring to get the growth. Absolutely. Because if with age, you just repeated what you did when you were younger, it's just stronger. That's it. Right. You've just strengthened the bad muscle. I'm throwing a bigger tension at 43. That did at eight. Yeah. So true. Yeah.

You just strengthen the bad muscles stronger, stronger, stronger, stronger. And then that can break you. It's 100%. That's why I love the muck mentality. Yeah, you just strengthen a bad muscle stronger stronger stronger stronger and then that can break you It's 100% that's why I love the mark mentality Yeah, and that's why I talk about my book a lot too is that mentality. I'm not one But I've taken a lot of the disciplines to self-discipline from that mentality to grow Yeah, I love that man. That's that's what fascinates you so much and I'm excited for us to This conversations phenomenal and I'm loving it about your book. And I'm excited to have more offline conversations too, because that's that's literally why I did it when I met monks who were living extremes in ours. And when I look at you, I think about it too, you're

an extremist, right, in a good way. I'm saying a good way. Like when I became a monk, it was the same thing. I had to go to the edge of myself. That's right. I had to go to the extreme of myself 100% to then realize where I could be placed. And what's funny about that often say it on the other side of that extreme place that I call suffering, call whatever you want,

there's a whole other world that people have not even examined. But you have to go to that extreme place to examine it. We wanna stay here in this comfortable place. Once you're going to push yourself to that extreme place, it's like a whole other universe. It's almost like you're an astronaut and you've examined something up in outer space.

No, it's always been there, but you have to be going through all the muck and all the shit to examine it. You realize, wow, God, do all this crap. There's a whole other universe over here in my mind. Yeah. How about a universe? Absolutely.

And once you take on capacity in the sense of, so if someone's listening right now, someone's watching or listening to us and they're just like, you guys are crazy, right? As I hear it all the time. Yeah, I'm sure you hear it all the time. All the time. I haven't, I haven't actually, the reason why

this is so exciting for me and I'm sure you can guide me a lot is, I haven't shared as many moments in my story, even the ones I've shared with you today. I've not really shared them because I'm writing them right now. But I'm sure you hear it all the time, that you're crazy.

What's your take on capacity? If someone's listening, they're going, David, right, you can stand in the middle of the ocean and it's 49 degrees and you can do that. But for me, that suffering is me just starting something new. Is that true or can they also achieve that capacity? They can also achieve that capacity, which is why I wrote the book So Raw.

Because what we do so well in this world is we see superhuman people and we title them. The second we title them, what that does that gives us a Giddao jail free card, is that they're the one percenters. I'm not even gonna try to do that because that's not even in me. God made them special.

They're special people. They're all no special people, they're special minds. The mind can be created on your own. You can do that yourself. So that's why I write the book like I write it. So people can look at me and say, my God, he came from this. He had to overcome all of this. So I take away all the titles,

even crazy, even the fact that he's super human. All those titles are now stripped away. But what's funny about that you will have my book in your hand, you will read it in its entirety. You will hear the audio book, whatever you get. And by time you get to chapter nine or 10, you're already forgot, chapter one, two, and three of the hell I came through. That's all fast to mine, wants to soften you up and say,

this guy's just nuts. He's super human. That's all fast to mine. You were already forgot what you read. And you love the book. You're loving the book. And you already forgot the first three chapters because your mind is saying this is impossible.

So you're already guiding you down that path of least resistance as you're reading the book. It's how powerful it is. So we got constantly reminding ourselves of, go back to chapter one, two and three. Always remind yourself for those chapters of that you can also do this, but you had to first self-examine or live autopsy your own personal life. The tricks of the mind, man. That's that is

such a great explanation of how fast the mind can fool you into something someone has just explained. I do it all time when I speak to people. I talk to speaking gigs and I break my life down. And by the time I leave, my God, I'm like, you didn't hear the first 30 minutes of my story, did you? No, I heard it, man. I'm like, but you forgot it already. The mind's already tricking you. Yeah. I love that, man. Thank you so much, David, man. Listening to you today, honestly, like I was reading and then listening to you. And I've seen you on interviews as well, but just having the honor of being able to sit down with you

and talk to you about it has actually been one of my, one of the most meaningful conversations in my life, not just on the podcast. I'm just saying, this conversation, I'm listening to some of the things you've said and the alignment we have. Genuinely, it's been a powerful conversation. The one we had before the podcast and the one we've done now

Thank you. It's been really meaningful to me, man So I definitely like it's done a lot of work for me like just listening to you I've been doing the work sitting here. So it's been meaningful. I'm gonna listen back for myself So I always end each podcast with five questions. It's called my final five final five minutes This is easy for you because you're used to drills. Right. It's the rapid fire. I like doing this because I mean, I don't know if anyone can catch you off guard because you're you, but these are questions that we just want instant quick answers to the first

and that comes to your mind. Right. So the first question I have for you is what's the best advice you've ever received? I didn't receive any advice. It has to sting about. When I grew up, I didn't receive any advice. My family was in thing about it. When I grew up, I didn't receive any advice. My family was in such turmoil that the best advice I received is for myself.

And that has to be to study yourself all the bad. Because the goods are already there. You need to study the best of about yourself and learn from that and grow. I love them, man. That's such a beautiful way of looking at it. And that's true because I think we live in a culture where we're waiting for someone else to come solve our problems. Yeah, right?

We're living in that culture. I was very blessed to not have that. And you know, and that's how I looked at my life too, not to get up to five questions, but I looked at my life in a way that. I was able to find so much strength and negativity. I was able to flip it upside down versus me thinking, my, what was me, my life sucks. I was able to say, my God, God put me in the most in the perfect training ground to study myself, to become a straight up, you know, scientist in my mind. Yeah, so. Absolutely.

Don't worry about going away from five questions, I did it. I was getting into your answers. Yeah. Second question, can't hurt me. If there's anything that can hurt you, what is it? Oh, there's tons of things. You know, everything I talk about,

I was afraid of jubileir playing as a afraid of cold water, afraid of myself. So there's so many things that can't hurt me, but the biggest thing that can hurt me is myself. Is allowing my mind to get away from the reality. We build a false reality in our minds. The real reality is the one thing that can, the false reality is the one thing that can hurt you.

The real reality is the one thing you can help and fix yourself. Absolutely. The third question that I wanted to ask you is all around what's the one thing that you're trying to learn this year, what's the one thing you've been kind of like tacking this year. I'm attacking, I'm a big inch of her.

So this is very I'm attacking. I'm a big introvert. Hmm. So this is very uncomfortable for me. Even though I'm comfortable with you, I know there's a lot of eyeballs on me right now. So it's very uncomfortable for me. I used to study real bad. So it's trying to be in a spot where

I am in that month like mentality, everywhere I go. And that allow the past demons of even, I'm successful now. But you still have those moments where you go back and you're not like remembering you were six years old, and you started profusing at this play. And you were so, you know,

it's those things that come back to you all the time. So that's what it is. Awesome. What's your daily meditation on mantra or repetition to yourself? Every day, I tell myself, I used to believe I was the weakest man that got ever created. So now I believe that I'm the hardest man being that got ever made. I don't care if it's true or not, it's the most important conversation to me. It's the thing that drives me every day. It's the one thing that keeps

me going every day is that you must constantly be that man that you want to be Awesome man and five fifth and final question. What's your purpose right now? I used to have a wash rag and I did this and you know how you take a shower You have a wash rag in the cloth and you you're sitting there and you just lathering up and before you hang your rag up You want to get all the water to come on it and you know get it all all that all the suds out of it You want to ring it out and you want to hang it up So my big thing is when I live my life I want to make sure that when I'm dead and gone that I ring that wash rag out and that wash rag is my soul

And I also believe that we're gonna end up one day meeting a maker if you believe in one And I believe that maker knows everything about you Everything about you knows I was gonna be here and talking to you, knows everything. But you also have a choice to make. Give a choice to make. We have choices. And the one thing that scares me to death in my life is getting to heaven and not being what I'm supposed to be. And I believe that God has a chart. And he looks at the chart and he puts it in front of you and he Get to heaven. He says hey, this is what you're supposed to be and one of my biggest fears in life was to see that chart and

Not have every block checked off You know, I want to make sure that I'm constantly Pursuing whatever it is. I'm pursuing just to be the best I can't this constantly grinding Myself into a fine powder? You know, but doing it in a smart way like I talked about you can constantly grind yourself into a point where you're sick. There's a happy meeting of grinding. So that's my purpose now to continue to push myself so others can see what is possible. That's beautiful man. Everyone that is David Guggen's new book. It is out, can't hurt me, master your mind, and defy the odds.

Go get it. If you love this conversation, there was literally just the tip of the iceberg. We just got into, like, I'm going to say 1% of the book. There's so much more in here. Personal stories, accounts, and the best thing is that there's challenges at the end of every chapter, where there are practical tools and tips that you can actually do at home with your friends, people that you're reading the book with. I think it's such a powerful book in the way that it's written, in the way that David is so vulnerable,

so open, hoping that you're gonna go there yourself as well. I hope you're gonna go there David. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. It's so great for man to meet you. Thank you. And the fact that you turned up on this podcast and shared in an incredible way, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, man. Thank you, man.

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening through to the end of that episode. I hope you're gonna share this all across social media. Let people know that you're going to share this all across social media. Let people know that you're subscribed to on purpose. Let me know. Post it. Tell me what a difference it's making in your life. I would love to see your thoughts. I can't wait for this incredibly conscious community we're creating of purposeful people. You're now a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to share the next episode with you. Our 20s often seen as this golden decade, Our time to be carefree, make mistakes and

figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Eva Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomes-Rajon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast, Hungry for History!

On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories, decode culinary customs, and even provide a recipe or two for you to try at home. Listen to Hungry for History on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The therapy for Black Girls Podcast is your space to explore

mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Take good care.