Monday Motivation: David Goggins embraced suffering to become the hardest man alive

If David Goggins was a hot sauce he would make Heavenly Heat’s Meet Your Maker Retribution Sauce taste mild by comparison. As it is, he’s a thirty-something fitness fanatic that brings white-hot intensity to his every endeavor.

Victimized by bullying and racist taunts as a child, Goggins later turned to food to mollify the painful memories. Lacking self worth and a sense of direction, he ended up tipping the scales at nearly 300 pounds. Then one fateful night — after getting off work as a cockroach sprayer — he happened upon a Discovery Channel documentary on Navy SEAL training and he resolved to make a drastic change.

I was asked the question "Why don't you talk about happy times in your life?" Like I often say, my approach isn't for everybody. I'm not a big fan of social media to begin with so for me to even be on it, it had to make sense to me. Sorry, but I'm not the kind of person that's going to take selfies of me and my girlfriend at the zoo petting a llama or the guy that's going to do stupid shit to get more followers. I truly don't care if I get zero likes and have zero followers. I'm not on social media to talk about happy times! "Why?" you ask. Because we all know how to be happy! Happy is a great feeling when you experience it. I write mostly about lessons learned. We all know how to get through the happy times. What we have a hard time getting through are  the times that life turns around and starts beating the shit out of us! So I talk about things that some people might put in their tool box for later use when life decides to attack. I'm not on social media to make you feel good. We live in a time where mental toughness is at an all time low. Plenty of people have happy social media sites, go find them! I'm here to give lessons learned from a person who realized first hand that you don't need shit to be great. Truth be told, most of my stories are about overcoming obstacles in front of you. Learning how to make fear, anger, and self-doubt work FOR you not against you. We live in a soft time, sorry but I'm not a soft person. Yes I'm happy as hell, but I'm also real. Happy didn't get me here. But going through hell to get to where I'm at made me happy. Like I said if you're looking for happy posts and selfies I'm not your guy. Another happy post from David Goggins #RogerThatMentality #BeyondMotivated

A post shared by David Goggins (@davidgoggins) on Mar 3, 2017 at 1:49pm PST

Determined to become the “hardest man ever created”, Goggins not only shed 100 pounds in six months to try out for the SEALs, but went on to become the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces in history to complete Navy SEAL training, Army Ranger School and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training.

A post shared by David Goggins (@davidgoggins) on Oct 11, 2016 at 7:15am PDT

After losing several fellow servicemen in Afghanistan, Goggins turned to ultramarathons to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. As a novice long-distance runner in 2006, he entered the infamous Badwater Ultramarathon — a 135 mile race starting 279 feet below sea level in Death Valley and climbing above 8000 feet at Mount Whitney — and placed 5th overall.

Never content to rest on his laurels, Goggins has been relentless in finding new ways to push himself to the limits of his mental and physical ability.

Aside from competing in ultramarathons, triathlons, and ultra-distance cycling races, in 2013, Goggins set the world record for pull ups with 4,025 repetitions in just 17 hours.

Recently, Goggins sat down with UFC commentator and podcaster Joe Rogan to talk about his amazing journey. He explained how he created an alter ego from his surname that could not be conquered by pain or doubt. So while David might be ready to give in to fatigue, Goggins wouldn’t allow it.

A few years ago, Atlanta Hawks owner Jesse Itzler invited Goggins to live with his family for a month as his personal trainer. The experience became the subject of Itzler’s new book, Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet. Itzler and Goggins joined CBS This Morning to discuss what drove the them through the experience.