Lion Counseling Podcast

🎙️ David Goggins Is Right… Until He Isn’t | Lion Counseling Podcast #88

David Goggins has built a career around one uncompromising message: stop making excuses, get off the couch, and become stronger by overcoming yourself.

And there’s a reason that message resonates.
But what happens when the person listening isn’t lazy?
What if he’s already working 50 hours a week, raising a family, serving others, trying to be a good husband and father—and still telling himself he’s weak because he can’t do more?

In Episode #88 of the Lion Counseling Podcast, Mark Odland and Zack Carter react to David Goggins’ conversation with Chris Williamson on the Modern Wisdom Podcast and wrestle with the line between discipline and self-destruction.

Goggins argues that we shouldn’t need a race, achievement, career goal, or external reward to keep performing at a high level. The deeper purpose, he says, is becoming better ourselves.
There’s real wisdom there.
But Mark and Zack ask an important question:

When does “push harder” stop being the answer?
In this episode:
✅ Why external goals aren't enough to sustain motivation
✅ The difference between laziness and burnout
✅ Why high-achieving people can still believe they’re never doing enough
✅ Self-respect vs. self-centeredness
✅ The danger of making self-improvement your ultimate purpose
✅ What Christianity says about loving God, your neighbor—and yourself
✅ Why being a good husband and father may sometimes mean doing less, not more
✅ How personal mission statements can create direction and accountability
✅ Why discipline still matters even when motivation disappears
✅ What David Goggins gets profoundly right about keeping promises to yourself
Sometimes you really do need to stop making excuses and get moving.
Other times, you need enough self-awareness to recognize that you aren't lazy.
You're exhausted.

The challenge is knowing the difference.
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#DavidGoggins #MentalHealth #Burnout #Discipline #Motivation #MensMentalHealth #SelfImprovement #ChristianMen #LionCounselingPodcast

Creators and Guests

Host
Mark Odland
Founder of Lion Counseling, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified EMDR Therapist
Host
Zack Carter
Zack Carter is a Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling LLC.

What is Lion Counseling Podcast?

The Lion Counseling Podcast helps men escape the cages that hold them back and become the Lions they were created to be. It exists to help men obtain success, purpose, happiness, and peace in their career and personal lives. The podcast is hosted by the founder of Lion Counseling, Mark Odland (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified EMDR Therapist), and Zack Carter (Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling). In their podcasts, they address a variety of topics relevant to men, including: mental health, relationships, masculinity, faith, success, business, and self-improvement.

Mark Odland:

Welcome everyone to the Lion Counseling Podcast. Today, we're reacting to a video of David Goggins on the Modern Wisdom Podcast.

David Goggins:

So let's say you have no races. Let's say you have no classes, no nothing. Have there's no purpose in your life. You know, people need to have purpose to get up. They need purpose to perform.

David Goggins:

You need to get to a point in your life where there's nothing on the docket. There's no five ks. There's no I'm going to get into school to be this or that and still perform to the highest level. Because what people don't get is one day that things gonna come up. And if you're not constantly performing without purpose, you're not gonna be ready when the time comes.

David Goggins:

It's this magical thing purpose that we're all looking for. But what's funny about it all is that we need these things to perform. But we don't take a second to realize the purpose is always there. The purpose never leaves us because the very purpose is you. You are always the purpose.

David Goggins:

There may be another purpose like being a Seal or going to college or whatever. But the main purpose in life is you. So if you wake up in the morning and you don't wanna do something, you don't care enough about yourself.

Zack Carter:

Just so everyone knows, this clip was like ten minutes long and after cutting out all the f words, it's now three minutes long.

Mark Odland:

Yeah. I don't know what to make of that. I mean, I get what he's I get what he's saying. Like, if you're at the level where you have no purpose, then people are, like, coaching you up. Like, you gotta find something to work toward.

Mark Odland:

You gotta do this event. You gotta do this race. And that gives you a spring in your step, and you have something to work toward. Well, now that's almost become trendy and cliche. And Goggins is saying, well, what happens when you don't have that?

Mark Odland:

It reminds me a little bit of the whole, like, extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation thing that isn't in education circles. Trophies can be nice, but at the end end of the day, you're not motivated by piece of metal. You're motivated by what it represents. And it can actually be demotivating if it if it's only external reward. There's some truth there, I guess.

Mark Odland:

But, I mean, he he's kinda he's kinda doing this sleight of hand thing where he brings it back to purpose, and he's like, it's gotta be you. I think there's a lot of value in what he's saying. If you don't have self respect, if you don't have internal desire. But there is a danger, I think, of going to like, too self focused and losing sight of some deeper things that matter too. So I don't know.

Mark Odland:

That would be my only potential critique to what he's saying, but maybe he if he fleshed that out, there would be no disagreement.

Zack Carter:

I get the impression from reading his book and listening to his stuff that he's very focused on his goals. And no matter what, he's running 12 miles, he's going to work out three hours. I just, And man, I don't know where you find the time. If you're trying to be a good husband, if you're trying to be a good father, I'm not saying whether he was or wasn't a good husband or father, I wasn't there, don't know. But I'm trying to wrap my head around how do you be a good husband and father and spend vast majority of your time away from the house.

David Goggins:

And that's what you need to really research is, man, why am I not doing this for myself? Because that is that is the number one purpose in life is to better oneself. I know there's so many people that have the ability and just refuse to get off that couch. Refuse to study a few more hours. Refuse to go deeper to go further.

David Goggins:

And that's where I gained the advantage. You become very, very powerful when you overcome yourself.

Mark Odland:

Yeah. I mean, what hit me again, I don't mean to sound like to try to be over spiritual. If there was a grounding principle, if I had to sum it up, what is the greatest commandment? It's to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.

Mark Odland:

And the interesting thing about that is nowhere in there is love yourself as number one. Of course, some people take it too far. Right? And we we have people in our office who have put themselves last all the time in the name of, like, Christian guilt and manipulation, and now their life is self destructing because they haven't loved themselves at all. Maybe he's just super pragmatic about it.

Mark Odland:

He's like, because some people would argue you can't really love other people or maybe even God very well if you self destruct personally. And so kinda like, maybe I'm coming full circle as I'm talking out loud with you, Zack. Maybe it's like put the oxygen mask on first in the airplane when it comes down and then help the person next to you. So maybe there's something to that.

Zack Carter:

So for a long time, I called myself lazy. Like he says, so many people that they can't get up off the couch. And I just dude, I was at the time in a master's program. I was getting straight A's. I was helping my wife around the house.

Zack Carter:

I was working a job while in my master's program and, like, I was serving in church periodically. And I was calling myself lazy, man, because it was just never enough. It was never good enough. And I'm lazy. I had to, like, work on that thought and be like, you know what?

Zack Carter:

The reason I thought that was because I was procrastinating that, like, very often I would procrastinate. It's like, oh, okay. So, like, I'm a hardworking person that procrastinates. And that sounds like me being full of myself. It's it's me trying to, like, lay out honestly what was going on.

Zack Carter:

And when I think about him just saying, like, there's a lot of people, they just can't get off the couch and they're, you know, they're weak or they're lazy. And sure. Yeah, there's a percentage of

Mark Odland:

people that are that way.

Zack Carter:

But what I find I had, you know, I had a client recently who. Was beating himself up. He's like, I've been having a hard time getting my work done. I've been exhausted. I don't I'm like losing interest in things.

Zack Carter:

I'm losing empathy in people. And he's like serving in his church all the time and he's working fifty hours a week and he's married. And I was like, dude, sounds like you're tired, man. He's like, nah, nah, man. I just I just got to work harder.

Zack Carter:

I'm like, sounds like you're tired. We worked through it and I like showed him here are the symptoms of burnout. And when I like laid it out, he's like, oh, I think I'm burned out. I'm like, Yeah. And once again, like David Goggins is an amazing communicator.

Zack Carter:

And he's like, You can't take your eyes off him. You have so much respect for the guy. But at the same time, there's a portion of people that call themselves names like that. They're like, he's right on me. He's right on me.

Zack Carter:

It's like, nah, man. Maybe you're tired or maybe you're doing a great job. You're just not giving yourself the credit. Maybe your schedule is so full doing so much stuff. Adding on that thirty minute workout or adding on that one hour workout is just not possible.

Zack Carter:

So maybe we need to like reduce some things and change some things over if working out necessary and important to you. Cool. But, yeah, I mean, that's where I go. It's like, I just so many people call themselves names like that. And I'm like, oftentimes, it's not true.

Chris Williamson:

Let's say that there's someone listening who resonates with what you're talking about. You know, they've been through trauma. They've been through hard times. Mhmm. But they keep breaking promises themselves, and they're struggling to get off the couch, and they're having a pity party.

Chris Williamson:

How can they stop feeling sorry for themselves?

David Goggins:

That's a difficult one because you have to want it. You have to want to be better. And it starts off with you have to have pride in yourself. Every place I went in the military there was this ethos about how this place is. How we're gonna live.

David Goggins:

How we're gonna represent ourselves. And I walked around and I saw that most people didn't live up to that ethos. Like if you go to whatever, whatever company, they had this mission statement on how we want to run our company. I made one for myself on how I want to be. And that is why if people can make up a mission statement and ethos in which they want to live by.

David Goggins:

And every morning you wake up, you hold yourself accountable to that mission, not a company's your own. Make up your own mission statement. What do you want to be in life? And once you do that now you can work with somebody to get better. You can work with yourself to get better.

David Goggins:

But until you know what you want to stand for, you will always just be sitting down. You'll never stand for anything.

Zack Carter:

Preach. I had no complaints.

Mark Odland:

No. That yeah. That's pretty good. I mean, it reminds me of a little bit of what my my wife has taught me with her work as a life coach and wellness coach, and she's got this, like, stages of, like, change. Like, sometimes people when they're honest with themselves, like, they may not be at that phase where they're actually ready for change.

Mark Odland:

Life hasn't gotten hard enough or they haven't found their purpose or their mission yet. And so they're kind of still in this, like, precontemplative stage or this contemplative, but they're not, like, really ready for action. I mean, I've seen this. I've seen this in my office. Right?

Mark Odland:

Some guy who shows up for counseling because his wife said he has to, and he's not in it. He's not into it. And I know that it's gonna be it's gonna take everything I've got to build trust with this guy, to help him to see that it's still worth his time, that even though he maybe didn't choose to be here, well, let's not waste our time. Let's make the best of it and get something out of it. Unless I can spark or he can identify within himself the reason why he thinks it's worth it, it's probably gonna fizzle out.

Mark Odland:

It's probably gonna be like that New Year's resolution that fades after a week or two.

Chris Williamson:

In the book, you talk about Roger That, there being two types of Roger That.

David Goggins:

Mhmm.

Chris Williamson:

I absolutely adore the second type. Received orders given, expect results That's it. Above and beyond more than was expected

David Goggins:

That's right.

Chris Williamson:

To the letter.

David Goggins:

That's Roger That. That is for me what Roger That means. And when you hear that from somebody who gets it, you know it because you can look in their eyes. You feel that energy, man. It connects immediately.

David Goggins:

They're out here to get a job done. Roger that.

Mark Odland:

I mean, it's one of those it reminds me of my, like, my high school football coach, and he talked about this pyramid of success and how we'd focus on the fundamentals first. And at the end of the day, the goal was the state championship. How do we get there? We work our butts off. We focus on the fundamentals.

Mark Odland:

And in his words, we leave it all on the field with nothing left. The scoreboard is gonna be what the scoreboard is. But if we've given it our all, then we can hold our heads high. On that note, thanks for listening, everybody. As always, check out escapethecagenow.com.

Mark Odland:

Happy to book a clarity call with you. Talk to me or Zack and give you some support. If you wanna go Goggins style, we can yell at you. But if you'd like a different approach, we might have some training in that as well. Take care.