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Between the training and three attempts, Goggins did more than 67,000 pull-ups in nine months. But more than his physical endurance Goggins showcased the power of repetition.
He tried three times to accomplish this goal
Learning from each attempt
Never accepting he couldn’t meet the challenge
Not listening to the negative comments - that he didn’t have the physical strength to do it
Four pull-ups an hour doesn’t seem like much. Over time, it becomes increasingly more challenging to the muscles, but increasingly more empowering to the mind.
Small numbers grow through consistent repetition. Small numbers are boring and don’t seem useful in the grand scheme. But small numbers are a necessary step before getting to the large numbers.
“You have to callus your mind to overcome your doubts and failures and keep moving forward.” - David Goggins
The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[00:00:00] Mike Parsons: Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 188. I'm Neil cohost, Mike Parsons. And as always I'm joined by the man with a plan. Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Good morning,
[00:00:14] Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike. I dunno whether I can claim any more than just the plan though, because today's topic is a man who puts things into action.
[00:00:21] Am I right?
[00:00:22] Mike Parsons: Action would be an understatement. Mark. What do you think? ? I
[00:00:26] Mark Pearson Freeland: think that this guy is probably one of the most. Impressive moonshots that we've covered on the show. And by the way, Mike we covered him nearly 100 shows ago, but the amount of time that you and I occasionally reference back to this individual, I think it's about time that we start going deeper into some of the accomplishments he's done.
[00:00:50] Mike Parsons: You're absolutely right. Let's rip at it. Let's get stuck in as only he would. So who are we studying today?
[00:00:57] Mark Pearson Freeland: Today listeners, we are digging [00:01:00] into David Goggins. We have covered him previously, Mike, a long time ago, but let's remind ourselves of some of the accomplishments he's done because it could take a lot of time.
[00:01:11] He's an ultramarathon runner, ultra distance cyclist. He's triathlete. He's a public speaker as well as an author of his book. Can't hurt me. But Mike is. Just a little something on the side, a retired United States, Navy seal, a former United States air force, air control party member. And he served in the Iraq war.
[00:01:34] This guy he's done a lot. Hasn't he?
[00:01:36] Mike Parsons: Mag. He is the only man on the planet that has qualified for all three special forces in the United States. He is often called the toughest man on the planet. And today we are gonna study him and how he broke the world record for pulls. And to put this [00:02:00] into a bit of context for you before his transformation, David Goggins was a 300 pound dude who worked at a bug spraying company.
[00:02:15] He earned. A thousand dollars a month and he transformed himself, accomplished all the things that we just mentioned. But I just want everybody just to really get it into the zone here. He did over the course of 12 hours, 4,030 pullups mark, can you imagine how your arms would be feeling after 400 pullups can you imagine they'd be like bricks, right?
[00:02:48] They'd just go to rock.
[00:02:50] Mark Pearson Freeland: My, my arms would go to bricks. My hands would be torn apart, but my mind will be completely ruined and I would just be questioning, why am I doing this? [00:03:00] What's going on? yeah. And I think what amazing is we'll dig into today, Mike is just how strong this guy is. Not just physically.
[00:03:09] But mentally as well, and that he can force himself or encourage himself at least into taking on these enormous challenges as we've already covered cyclists serving in three different types of air forces and land forces, but he just keeps on coming back. Nothing can seemingly keep him down.
[00:03:28] Can it
[00:03:30] Mike Parsons: now, and the most inspiring thing about today's show is we're gonna look at this attempt that he did for the world record of pulls. And then we are going to discover how he actually does this, how he does the remarkable or what he might even call the uncommon we're gonna dig right in and show you all the steps that he takes, because if he was.
[00:03:54] Overweight bug spring, dude, and then became the toughest man on the planet. What it really demonstrates [00:04:00] is we have this potential inside of us, every single one of us have this. And the great thing is he's giving us the playbook to get this job done. Mark, where do you wanna start this journey with Dave Goggins and the world record for pull-ups?
[00:04:16] Mark Pearson Freeland: I need to hear from David Goggins himself as to how he feels and looks and behaves like the toughest man on earth.
[00:04:27] Mike Parsons: Retired Navy seal. David Goggins is described as the toughest men on the planet, holding the pullup record 4,000 pullups in 17 hours is also an ultra-marathon runner with more than 60 races.
[00:04:39] David Goggins: Everybody thinks I'm Superman. I had to tell them the truth. I was not always his strong God.
[00:04:45] Mike Parsons: David Goggins is the only member of the us armed forces to ever complete seal training.
[00:04:50] David Goggins: He beat the living hell outta me, us army ranger school. I had stuff on my notebook, ever gonna kill you and air force, tactical air controller training.
[00:04:58] That's when the real war started [00:05:00] for me, athletes, speaker, soldier, and New York times
[00:05:02] Mark Pearson Freeland: bestselling author often referred to as the hardest mother on
[00:05:06] Mike Parsons: planet earth.
[00:05:07] David Goggins: Why is the truth so important? I'm about seven, eight years old. And I hear some Ruckers outside my room as I'm getting ready to bed down for the night.
[00:05:18] And my dad is smacking the hell outta my mom and knocks her. She falls down, he grabs her by her hair and DRS her downstairs by her hair. And so at this age, I'm thinking, man, what the fuck should I do, man? I'm scared, but then something in me saying, you gotta go and do something.
[00:05:36] So I go on the stairs and I jump on his back. And he beat the living hell out of me. And he beat me literally from my neck down to my ankles the next morning. I was gonna go to school half the day. My mom woke up and she pulled the covers back. And when she saw a bruised, I was, I'll never forget looking at her face.
[00:05:58] She was [00:06:00] broke. Like she was just broken. My mom got courage to finally leave him. When I was about eight years old, we moved to a small town in Brazil, Indiana, and that's when the real war started for me. There was about maybe 10 black families at about 10,000 people in town. And in 1995, the KKK marched in the 4th of July parade.
[00:06:22] So me being one of the few black kids in that, in that area, it kinda haunt you. I had stuff on my notebook, you were gonna kill you. They had that on my car and they were gonna kill this is early nineties. And even though I showed it didn't hurt me, it was jacking me up.
[00:06:37] So all the insecurities I have when I was a kid with my father, it just got worse and worse, and it shit haunted me. But I was doing nothing about it. And so my mom and I, she was gone working three jobs. We lived in a $7 a month place for a lot of the time. And she had a hard way to go. I kept everything from her pretty much.[00:07:00]
[00:07:00] I felt like I was a man of the house. I didn't want her to know anything about my wife. I cheated all through school, copied from the fourth grade to the, to, to my junior year in high school, on every assignment. She got a letter in the mail from my high school, and I'm a junior in high school. She and the letter says pretty much your son's gonna flunk out.
[00:07:20] He's missed 25% of school, but she was always gone. So I didn't even school. She read the letter to me, she put my bed and I broke. I broke. I couldn't imagine going back through that again. And I started finding things that was comfortable and the more things I found comfortable, the more uncomfortable my mind was.
[00:07:41] And I gained 125 pounds in that timeframe. I went from 1 75 to almost 300.
[00:07:47] Mike Parsons: What story I don't know where to begin. Mike if you think you've done it, tough mark. If I think I've done it tough. You hear his story and the fact that he's even walking just before he even [00:08:00] attempted to break records, you hear that and you think, damn then if he can do it, then I can surely do it.
[00:08:07] Mark Pearson Freeland: What's interesting as we kick off this show on Goggins remember breaking the world record for pullups you're hearing from that first clip about father racism. He had to be a man of the house when they moved. He cheated at school, which then led to him gaining weight. This is not the story or the beginning of a story that necessarily leads to a man who.
[00:08:32] Does all these record breaking things that we described at the beginning of the show, Mike, this is a bit of a story of a guy struggling and maybe finding the path of least resistance in the end. But instead he chose not to allow all of that foundation, that difficulty, those challenges that he had growing up to then affect what he was gonna go out and do in the rest of his life as he became an adult.
[00:08:56] And I think that's, what's really interesting and attractive [00:09:00] about digging into David Goggins, because he really is a man who goes out and decides what he wants to do. He takes ownership and decides, right? What, how am I going to react to these certain situations? And I think that's really what we're gonna learn from the rest of the show.
[00:09:15] Mike Parsons: I think there is so much inside of this because what he really does is shows us how we can do it too. And I think it that's mark isn't that like at the very heart of why we do this show together is to find out how we can learn from people like David Goggins, how we can get inspiration, but also practical steps habits that we can adopt to be the very best version of ourselves.
[00:09:39] This is what it's all about.
[00:09:41] Mark Pearson Freeland: This is exactly what we are trying to do as we learn out loud, right? Mike, there are so many things that we can learn from all of our moonshot individuals and a lot of them have these incredible stories. But what I think is really fascinating as we delve into these individuals every week is actually [00:10:00] gleaming from them.
[00:10:01] Okay how can we be that little bit more resilient? How can we find that little bit more grit? How can we go out and be a little bit more, maybe productive? And it does come into to habits from a physical perspective, as well as ways of thinking frameworks for your mindset. And I think Goggins, he crosses the boundary over both doesn't he's both a physical endurance athlete, but he's also equally a very strong minded individual who can teach us a lot about.
[00:10:30] Going into the basics of our own brains and keeping them, keeping ourselves honest. Yeah.
[00:10:36] Mike Parsons: So I think as a quick warning to all of our listeners, for the rest of the show, you might feel like working out after listening to this show. Yeah. not all moonshot shows will give you this feeling, but this one certainly will, but I tell you who else is working at mark?
[00:10:50] That is all our members.
[00:10:52] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, our members. Thank you so much for joining us every single week and supporting the show. [00:11:00] So as tradition dictates let's let me raise the bar. Let me get my biceps ready and let me lift up all of our members. Because we're doing a roll call, four Bob Niles, John and Terry Nile, Marline, Kenmar, Tom, and Marja Connor and Rodrigo, Yasmin Lisa Sid and Mr.
[00:11:20] Bon, J Maria, Paul Berg and Kaman David, Joe, crystal and Ivo Christian, hurricane brain, Sam Kelly, Barbara and Bob Andre, Matthew, Eric, and a ha Jose, Joshua, Chris and Kobe, Deborah Gavin. Lasse Tracy, Steve Craig, Lauren and Javier. Mike, maybe I'm gonna break the world record for reading out patron members.
[00:11:45] At some point
[00:11:47] Mike Parsons: you think you definitely could at this, and a particular thank you to all of those members for their support, because it's your support that helps us pay the bills. That's right. We put out a show every single week [00:12:00] without fail. I think David Goggins would be proud. Mark.
[00:12:04] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes, he would be proud because that's the, that's us digging in deep. Exactly. We want to go out and create opportunities for all of us to learn from some of these individuals around the world, whether they're authors, entrepreneurs, , world record breakers, athletes. Because Mike, we can learn something from every single one of them.
[00:12:24] Can't we? Yeah,
[00:12:25] Mike Parsons: absolutely. And I have to remind you, Mike, that we did promise if we get just another five members, we will launch our brand new moonshots merchandise and it's looking pretty sexy. Isn't it?
[00:12:39] Mark Pearson Freeland: Mark. It's already looking pretty good. We've had a number of posts out across some of our channels and you are listeners and members have been giving us your honest feedback.
[00:12:50] And I think Mike, we've got a pretty good solid foundation that will launch the store with including teas and other types of merchandise. I posting can't wait to see [00:13:00] David Goggins wearing the moon shots. There you go. On the next marathon. He's gonna do
[00:13:04] Mike Parsons: Uhhuh. I like this thinking, so we only need five more members and the merch is ready to go.
[00:13:11] So you'll be able to get your moonshot to we're really happy with how the the t-shirts are looking. And some of the other accessories they look fantastic. Can't wait to launch 'em, but we need another five members. And we really do ask you if you are enjoying the show, all we ask is one cup of coffee.
[00:13:29] That's all it costs per month and you can support our show, become a member. You also get access to the Moonshot's master series, which is just insanely big, deep dive once a month on some of our favorite themes and moonshots models, all there for you to enjoy it only if you're a member. But now I think it is time to keep the engine revving and to discover what the key to all of David Goggin's success really is.
[00:13:57] And he's gonna reveal to us the secret [00:14:00] weapon.
[00:14:00] David Goggins: And your brain is the most powerful weapon. I talk about that in one of these chapters, your brain is the most powerful weapon in the world. Once you put away your phones and your computers and all that shit we have nowadays, that's great. We're up to date, you know you, but your brain is the only thing you have when you're going through depression.
[00:14:23] When you're going through hard times, when you're going through death, real life, shit, you can't Google that shit, man. You're alone. You're alone. You may have a shrink. You're going to, you may have a best friend you're going to, but there's 24 hours in a day where you're alone in this brain and your brain is talking to you in all kind of ways.
[00:14:43] And it wants to control. You pull in these different pockets. If you can't control your own brain and your brain controls you, you gotta tell your brain where you want go and how you gotta control it. If not, it's painful.
[00:14:59] Mark Pearson Freeland: [00:15:00] You have to control it, Mike, the, or again, in classic Goggin's fashion, he's telling us he's doing our job for us.
[00:15:06] He's telling us what it is that we need to go and do. And in this clip, it reminds me how many times I've been tempted by my mind to seek out a path of less resistance or choose, that extra bag of crisps or whatever it might be. There's always something where it feels like your mind is not necessarily working against you all the time, but it's seeking out maybe that little bit of comfort.
[00:15:33] And I think what Goggins is reminding us here and calling out is that unless you can. Train your mind, unless you can remember that it's like a muscle. If you don't keep it if you don't keep it under control, if you don't restrict it, if you don't keep it trained well maneuverable, then it's going to fall.
[00:15:54] You're probably gonna fall into a pattern or a habit or a way of behavior that isn't necessarily the [00:16:00] best way of doing things, it, he was recalling out here that it is a. Item that you need to work on much much like any muscle.
[00:16:07] Mike Parsons: And do you know what just blows me away is nobody taught me this.
[00:16:12] I had to discover this throughout life through, I look at my first 20 years and the one muscle I wasn't working was my brain, and I think this is cannot be it cannot be overstated. How important this idea of controlling, mastering your mind, knowing that at a certain level.
[00:16:37] At a certain point in time, the thing that's gonna make the real difference is your mindset. And mark, the way I relate to this is I look at a lot of elite sport on television and what's the one thing we talk about a lot is like, who's the clutch player who are the guys that in the heat of the moment stay cool.
[00:16:57] They make the shot, they make the play, whatever [00:17:00] the sport is, they get it done. And that's the difference for greatness. Like the fact that we talked about it in the Michael Jordan show, he trained so much harder than everybody else that playing a game was actually at a lower level than the rate at which he trained.
[00:17:18] So it was easy for him to make the clutch shot. Think about the resilience and the strength of mine. Oprah had. To continue on her career after she got fired from being from supposedly being not good for television, think about all the people that we have studied that have demonstrated to us that it was the power of the mind that took them from good to great.
[00:17:44] Mark Pearson Freeland: Can you I think the thing that stands out to me with Goggins and that particular clip there is you don't necessarily only need to be the fittest person on the pitch. Michael Jordan, [00:18:00] for example, you need to have the strongest resilience mentally to keep on fighting when the other team starts winning or when the team aren't pulling together.
[00:18:12] You need to have the strength mentally to do that. You need to push yourself through that marathon or that, that hard time that you might be struggling with. And, again, going back to the idea of training so that you are ready for the game day and actually becomes easier because you've done all the training, you've gotta have the mental drive and resilience to even train that hard.
[00:18:37] Don't you? Yes. You need to, yes. Have the mindset to say, I'm gonna go out and be the most prepared person on the playing field tonight. And I can only do that by forcing myself to go and do it by practicing, by training. Exactly. And it's all in
[00:18:52] Mike Parsons: the mind, it is all in the mind. And we talk about it often.
[00:18:55] The great analogy in your professional life is when you've really [00:19:00] prepared well to give a talk and it just comes out naturally effortlessly. You can just enjoy it. There's a big distinction between excitement and really nervous and anxious. And the difference maker is preparation and preparation takes resilience.
[00:19:16] It takes mindset. And all of this comes to this next idea from David gons, which is to be uncommon.
[00:19:23] David Goggins: I was not always this strong guy. I went through a lot of hard times in my life to get here today. And a story I'll tell you with real quick, I tried once to get in the air force to be an air force para rescue, and I quit for fear of the water.
[00:19:40] I was 175 pounds. I left the air force. Four years later at 300 pounds, I went from 1 75 to 300 pounds. There's a long story in there on how that came to be. But I sat around and read a book on the medal of honor. [00:20:00] And those guys, all I wanted to be was an uncommon man in my whole life. I was not that much worse than that, but I read stories about men like you, doc, who had the courage to jump on grenades and stuff like that.
[00:20:16] So I came home one day from working at a job called Ecolab, where I sprayed for cockroaches made a thousand dollars a month, weighed 300 pounds, and I got home and I watched a show on discovery channel of guys carrying boats and logs, Navy seal training, and decided to make a change in my life. And I called the recruiter up and he asked me.
[00:20:42] These questions. He had to re he had to meet a certain, a like a certain height and weight limit. I was six foot, one and 300 pounds. He laughed at me. Seven other recruiters laughed at me. One recruiter finally said, come on in, I'm too busy to talk to on [00:21:00] the phone. He didn't know how much I weighed. I walked in the recruiter's office and he looked at me and he said, you're fat.
[00:21:07] And you're black. Cause I said, I wanna be a Navy seal. I didn't know. There only been 35 African American Navy seals at that time. And over 70 years he said, I basically had to lose 106 pounds in less than three months because of my age. I was getting too old. I came back three months later, 106 pounds lighter.
[00:21:31] I thank you.
[00:21:33] Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, this again shows that just drive that he has, I'm just
[00:21:40] Mike Parsons: exactly. That is a ton of weight. What is that in the, in, in metrics? I'm gonna say that's more than 50 kilograms, right?
[00:21:50] Mark Pearson Freeland: Six is 40 was just shy of in six months. What does loses [00:22:00] it in three? He comes back. Oh my gosh.
[00:22:03] And he's lost it in three months. And what I think for me in that story stands out, Mike. Yeah. Is this drive from Goggins to. Be the uncommon man. So he sees these guys, these Navy seals on TV, carrying logs, swimming in the water, probably doing things that, that Goggins was afraid of. He calls out being afraid of the water, but he's got this drive to be uncommon.
[00:22:29] And what I like about this call out and this story is how he was inspired by finding let's call them inspirational individuals or to a lesser extent mentors that drove him to do this. He went out and called up the recruitment. Office. He even drove down, turned up, even though he was, he had to lose 50 kilograms.
[00:22:52] So you can imagine how big he must have been. Yeah. And he still wanted to do it because he had seen these [00:23:00] individuals. And for me, this is such a great story because it's reminding me of finding individuals in our lives, whether they are entrepreneurs authors or individuals like David Goggins, who go out and be uncommon because then that's inspire us to go out and do the same.
[00:23:17] Mike Parsons: Absolutely. And I, to, I tell you one of the most uncommon things you can do today, mark is to go in your podcast app on your phone, be it Spotify, apple podcast, Stitcher, and give us a rating or a review. What do you think? That's pretty uncommon.
[00:23:35] Mark Pearson Freeland: It is pretty uncommon, but I tell you what happens. It really impresses me at how many people we can reach around the world.
[00:23:43] When our listeners do leave a rating or a review, it works away very uncommonly. It works away in the background, figuring out all the algorithms and it helps us spread the moonshots message, which is all around learning out loud together. Yeah. So [00:24:00] whatever you are doing, listeners members, if you pop along into your podcast app of choice, I was gonna say moonshots app of choice but Mike we'll have to come back to the moonshot app soon, but you can leave us a rating review and it does spread this message, which is all about learning from these individuals that inspire us.
[00:24:19] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And listen for those, that of you are listening. We're 25 minutes into the show. And if you are still with us, I reckon we've earned a little thumbs up a little five stars, your thoughts, your rating, your review, because this would be just so helpful for us. So if you're sitting there, grab your phone, open it up, unlock it, just give us a thumbs up a star, give us a review because we would be so grateful.
[00:24:45] It helps more people discover the show, the algos, they just love a good star. They even love even better are rating. So we'd really appreciate it. If you've got this far in the show, just give us a listen give us a star, give us a [00:25:00] thumbs up with desk, but we're really grateful for that contribution because it helps us so much, we have now over 50,000 listeners and that's thanks to you giving us those thumbs up.
[00:25:14] And hopefully we can pay it back to you now because we're about to go super deep into the Goggins verse. That's right. I think one of the biggest single ideas that he has to offer us is we're out in the world doing our thing. Hardship comes our way and invariably, we are think, oh, we're maxed out.
[00:25:36] This is feeling really uncomfortable. I need to quit. I need to get away from this is too hard. The reality is that most people are common. Most people are not uncommon. And the reason behind that is this 40% rule. So let's have a listen now to David, Gogans explaining almost. The science that he [00:26:00] discovered behind how we can go further.
[00:26:04] So basically the 40% rule is
[00:26:06] David Goggins: I am a strong believer that we quit, cuz why, how the fuck does a 297 pound cockroach guy, right? Who quit on everything is now considered when a bass man on the planet. How is that possible? It means I had to change one thing, my mindset. So there's no way in hell that was it.
[00:26:23] But that was, that guy was in me. Let guy came down here and said, Hey, right? Guess what, man, you're a fat ass, but I'm gonna now make your badass I wanna miracle this shit. To be a badass. No. It was in me. I had to believe to make that belief work and through hard work, I did that. So the 40% rule is we have a car, some cars have a governor on it.
[00:26:46] . And when you get to 92 miles an hour, that car start doing this, cuz you can't go any faster. Those cars that don't have governors on like a fast ass, whatever, Porsche, whatever. I'm a fucking bury. It gone. We have that ability in this, but we have put this [00:27:00] governor on our minds.
[00:27:01] Wow. And you have to the factory that put the governor on that car, the factory is now you that put this on your fucking mind. You gotta take that motherfucker off until you take it off. You're gonna constantly get to 92 miles an hour and do this. Yeah. Cause you ain't gonna go faster.
[00:27:18] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And
[00:27:18] David Goggins: matter of fact, you might even go slower.
[00:27:21] So basically I started realizing this through my life, through going through all these times.
[00:27:26] Mark Pearson Freeland: This is a big takeaway and lesson Mike that comes from his memoir can't hurt me. And I think it's a really interesting visualization for me when I think about how a card does have that limit or governor as Goggins calls it and how we then have it on our own mind.
[00:27:47] And the call out for him is it isn't necessarily imposed by anything other than yourself. And I think that's really true whenever I've struggled with something, whenever I've looked at, maybe quitting [00:28:00] something, you've gotta take a moment, take a pause, step back. Maybe from the decision, the emotional decision I'm stressed, or I'm not enjoying this or I feel really uncomfortable.
[00:28:13] I'm afraid if you can take a step back. Think. Okay. Remove all of those emotions, remove all that, those mindsets. What is actually the situation? Okay. Let me see what happens if I make this decision. That's what he's really calling out to us. Isn't it? He's calling out to us. Take a moment, take a breath.
[00:28:31] Work on removing that governor, that limit. Yes. And you can then go that much faster. You can be maybe that much happier. Maybe that much more active.
[00:28:41] Mike Parsons: Yeah. Isn't it just crazy to think that when you're at your limit and you meet it for the first time and you're like, oh, this is it. What he's saying is.
[00:28:51] He's like mark behind. This is another 60%. Yes. The only thing you need to do. And I, it sounds like the only [00:29:00] thing you need to do, but the only thing you need to do is to think differently about it. And this takes me back to, folks, like not only Michael John, but even guys like Joe, Rogans saying, you need to get comfortable with discomfort.
[00:29:13] Yoko. Willings the same, just love the grind, love the hardship. And you will get on the other side of the 40%. Oh my gosh. Why didn't someone tell me this, 47 years ago, Mike, come on.
[00:29:29] Mark Pearson Freeland: You can imagine how valuable this mindset of Goggins was when he was attempting to break the world record of pullups.
[00:29:37] Yeah. As you've already said, Mike, he did over 4,000 and he did it in 12 hours, but the thing was, he had failed twice already. That's right. Given it to go once. And he got to, I think it was maybe only 50% of that maybe a thousand or 2000 and the bar was too wobbly and he was the lactic acid was building up in his body and he couldn't [00:30:00] finish it.
[00:30:00] Then he came back a second time and he only could do a few hundred before his hands were starting to shred. And again, he walks away from it, but does not quit. He comes back stronger than ever for his third attempt. He is a perfect personification of this story. He is not finding that he's gonna quit when he can't complete it after go number one, he realizes, okay, that's the 40%, right?
[00:30:28] That's good news. It means I've got an untapped 60% that I can still push into. And slowly over time training, he didn't do it the next day. He goes away and trains again for another two to three months between each of his attempts, he gets stronger and stronger. Both physic. As well as mentally.
[00:30:45] And he takes off that governor in his mind and he's able to go that 60% deeper. And he does over 4,000 pullups Mike, nobody ever taught me this either.
[00:30:56] Mike Parsons: yeah. So isn't this, I think where we [00:31:00] really start to decode how he does it and understanding that the build here is know that it's your mind strive not to be common.
[00:31:14] Don't be somebody that gives up, stay the course, know that when you meet your maker, whether it's you are working on a project, whether you're doing something athletic, whatever you are giving yourself to know that when you first meet that moment and go, oh, this is really hard. I can't keep this up for much longer, whatever it is, waking up early.
[00:31:36] Writing code. It doesn't matter when you meet that moment. If you can train your mind to say, wow, this is good. I'm pushing myself. , I'm growing. I'm enjoying the fact that it's getting uncomfortable now, cuz that tells me that I'm learning, I'm growing. I'm building a better me rather than which is something [00:32:00] I did for 20 years at the site of hard work and grind.
[00:32:05] I'm like, oh geez, I have to do some work. Now I forget that. whenever I met my maker and had those real moments of challenge, mark, I don't know about you, but I was just one big chicken.
[00:32:19] Mark Pearson Freeland: I think maybe there is a a lesson that we get taught when we're growing up to find the path of least resistance, not only from a subconscious fight or flight scenario, but you're trying to find the most efficient way of doing things.
[00:32:34] Aren't you're trying to study you're trying to do your exams in the best way possible. And maybe what that hap what happens from there is you start to uncover or see the things that you don't really enjoy. So therefore you avoid them, you think no I'm doing my exams.
[00:32:54] I've gotta really focus on this. So I'll disregard things that are a distraction and in doing [00:33:00] so maybe what you actually end up Training yourself is to find that path of least resistance, the well TRO path that others are following the common route. And what Goggins is inviting us here. In fact, he's not really inviting us, Mike he's calling us out.
[00:33:16] What he's calling us out to do is when you are either trying to do a world record, pull up attempt or as we found out during his book can't hurt me when he was trying to race and he broke his feet and he had to finish the race running on broken
[00:33:35] Mike Parsons: feet. Yeah. He had fractures in both feet.
[00:33:39] Mark Pearson Freeland: He had fractures in both feet, but he still managed to dig in deep and persevere because he wanted to finish.
[00:33:46] He knew where he would be happy with where he where he got to, he just wanted to finish it. And it's anything alive. If you've got the drive to go out and finish it, then it's up to you to go out and do we can all quit, [00:34:00] but the uncommon person finishes it.
[00:34:02] Mike Parsons: So let's talk a little bit about how we do the 40% rule and let's talk about some of our practical experiences here.
[00:34:09] So one of the biggest things that I discovered is, once you start saying in my journey, when I was like, okay, I'm gonna start being more, mentally tough, more resilient, working harder. And all of that sort of thing, I often was victim. Or made the kind of rookie mistake, of, you have a vision of the objective you have a vision of the success.
[00:34:34] And you're like, that's what I wanna be. I'm working towards that. So that gives you a lot of energy, but one of the things I've discovered in all of my infinite wisdom, mark, but being super practical here is that one of the mental approaches I take with mindset is to, I visualize the emotional end state with the success.
[00:34:59] But [00:35:00] equally I envision like I really envision myself not just reaching the exact the objective, but I envision myself just doing the grind, the daily work. So let me give you an example. So crazily enough, just on the weekend. I ran my first marathon. Okay. Crazy hard. But one of the techniques that I used in the lead up to the marathon is not just envisioning me crossing that that finish line.
[00:35:34] That was part of it. But one of the things that's really important if you want to break through this 40% mark and discover what's on the other side is to have and what I use is I was envisioning myself just getting in a rhythm and just grinding out 40 to kilometers, just grinding it out, just doing the work [00:36:00] and never stopping.
[00:36:02] And what was really interesting, mark is there was never. Any doubt in my mind when I was running that I'd get the job done. The only thing that was up for grabs was okay, what's my pace gonna be. And I believe that what I've learned from this process, not only through running, but I've been applying it to my professional life as well, is that if you imagine yourself being comfortable with the discomfort, like my quads were really getting tight in the back half of the race, perhaps more tighter than I was expecting when I've done other long runs, I've not done 42 Ks before, but I've done 35.
[00:36:46] And I was like, oh geez, this is hurting more than the 35. And I've been training a lot since the 35. But I was just like, I'm getting this done. And I was not consumed with that self-doubt which is our greatest [00:37:00] enemy. I was not gonna let those little voices, which were definitely telling me, mark, this is hurting this was really like, I could hear it.
[00:37:08] And I'm seeing people in the marathon fall behind me. I'm seeing people go over to the side of the road. I'm seeing people walking and I'm like, that is not me. . And that was because I was mentally ready for this, that it was really. Hard. I'm working with a company at the moment that's raising money.
[00:37:30] And since the process started for raising money the whole stock market went crazy and collapsed venture capital collapse and all that sort of stuff. But we had said at the beginning of the process, we know this is gonna be hard. We were talking a lot about stories of companies, founders talking to a hundred investors before they got their first investor.
[00:37:49] So it hasn't thrown us for a six, even though, we were surprised at how bad the markets got recently. I think this is like a really key part of how to do the 40% [00:38:00] is to have a vision of your success and feel that emotion, which is very important, but also have a vision of yourself grinding it out.
[00:38:08] Because what I saw when people were pulling over to the side of the road is they weren't prepared to grind. They had probably dreamt, oh, wow, I'll do a marathon. And then they got to 30 kilometers. 31 32 and it just hurt too much. They didn't have the capacity to say it's okay. I'm ready for this.
[00:38:29] I knew this was gonna hurt and I'm ready for this. And I'm prepared to go through this. I wanna get on the other side of the 40 to me, Matt, this is like really important, actually celebrating before you do it. The hardship like, yeah, this is good. This is such a good sign that I'm encountering hardship because that means I must be doing something super worthwhile.
[00:38:50] So my question for you, right? What do you do? If you want to get on the other side of that 40% like how do you do it? What are some of the techniques [00:39:00] that you use?
[00:39:01] Mark Pearson Freeland: When I was a, when I was a kid, I definitely took negative criticism as a really bad thing. And I'd receive on report cards or whatever they were called, teacher parent evenings.
[00:39:15] I might get some feedback from a teacher and I think, oh that's a bit negative, so I'm not gonna try anymore. It's obviously not for me. And the reason why I was doing that was because it's the path of least resistance. I don't wanna hear that feedback. So I'll turn away. Yeah. Yeah. And what I realized as I've got older also digging into all the innovators and entrepreneurs that we study on the moonshot show.
[00:39:36] Is like you say to go and seek that out. So now when I am doing something that maybe I've never done before, or it's a topic or an area that I'm perhaps not comfortable with, I'll make sure to raise a hand, I'll make sure to be consider it with receiving feedback. How can I improve? And I'll try and look at everything [00:40:00] that I've got going on in my life as an opportunity to learn something, not only about a new topic, obviously today learning about David Goggins, doing the world pull up, but I'll also be learning about my reaction to things and similar to you with the marathon when I've done a race like a triathlon, instead of being, that little bit nervous before the race and using that as a reason to.
[00:40:24] Maybe even wake up on the day and think, oh, I really don't wanna do this. Am I right? Is my, are my quads too tight? Maybe I shouldn't do it after all. Instead, similar to you, actually, Mike, trying to visualize it and trying to think about it being fun. I, there's a times in my profession where I'll be really stressed, maybe it's an important presentation or an important critical feedback moment.
[00:40:50] Maybe it's a performance review, whatever it might be in, in my life, I will try and look at it and visualize it, being quite a fun experience, something to learn from. [00:41:00] Let's see how I react. Let's see what I learn. Let's see what I hear. How have I been over the past six, 12 months, whatever it might be and visualizing it again, like you, your example with the marathon.
[00:41:14] Visualize it being a fun experience to CRO that cross, that finish line right. Then starts to change my body's reaction to the the moments before it begins to the days or weeks prior. Yes. And then what I find when my body's feeling a little bit more comfortable, my mind is as well. And then I'll look forward to the event rather than be afraid of it.
[00:41:37] And similar to when I was a kid receiving negative feedback for maybe an exam or an essay or a case study, whatever it might be instead of thinking, oh, I don't wanna hand this in because I'm gonna get some negative feedback. If I could have rewired myself or gone back in time and taught myself, Hey, you know what?
[00:41:57] Just hand it in, get that feedback, celebrate that [00:42:00] feedback as quite a fun moment. Suddenly. It becomes life becomes a little bit more enjoyable. Doesn't it?
[00:42:06] Mike Parsons: something does. Yeah. And so he, let me picture this, Matt. I think David Goggins is one of the greatest practitioners of a growth mindset. Now on episode 145, we did a deep dive on Carol Dweck, who is the author of mindset and pretty much she's the.
[00:42:27] Author and creator of this concept, the growth mindset, Satya Nadella, who's created this remarkable turnaround of Microsoft growth mindset, David Goggins growth mindset. The kind of core tenants behind somebody with the growth mindsets means they persevere in the face of failure. They put in the effort to build new skills.
[00:42:48] They find inspiration in other success. They embrace challenge. They accept criticism. They have a desire to learn. They are continually building their abilities. And just to give you a [00:43:00] little taste of what Mr. Goggins has been up to since breaking. The world of the Guinness world record for 24 hour pull up, which was 2013.
[00:43:10] He has run just a few highlights. He ran Hellgate what a name for a race? The hundred K the music city ultra 50 K. He did a 50, the Zane gray 50 miler. Oh, by the way, did I mention, he came first in the 50 K ultra. He came fifth in Hellgate. Let's go up to, are you wait, mark wait for this. The intu 88 K.
[00:43:35] He came first. Let's go to the strolling Jim 40 miler. He came first. He did the Leadville 100, the Moab two 40, the across Florida. 200. Oh, he came first in that and wait for this. In 2021, just picking some highlights. He did the, a nut chairs trace [00:44:00] 444 mile bike race. One road, no stop signs. No turns, no drum race.
[00:44:12] No, it is one long race in the middle of nowhere, right across Oregon. And he did it. Oh, let's see. How did he do?
[00:44:26] Mark Pearson Freeland: Second place. It's just, I don't know, Mike I'm starting to get intimidated by David Goins, but at the same time, I think the way that we can interpret all of these achievements and actions that he does, I'm feeling a little bit pumped, Mike.
[00:44:45] I I wanna sign up for something and go and give a go. Yes. I feel like that's what, that's the secret to David Goins much like when he was watching those individuals and the Navy seals on TV lifting and swimming and he [00:45:00] thought I'm gonna go and sign up. I think this is the call out that Goins can do for us when he goes out and breaks the world record for pullups or comes first or second in, in these unbelievable athletic achievements.
[00:45:11] I think he's showing us. If he is the uncommon guy in this situation, maybe we can be uncommon too. And I'm pretty inspired by his behavior to the extent where I think, okay, I wanna work on my brain and my mindset a little bit more. I wanna work on my body and become more athletic in that space because if Goggins can be the guy who comes from, oh, let's just check 297 pounds, which equates to about 134 kilos he can come back from that and be this guy who achieves all of these record breaking as well as athletic highlights.
[00:45:50] He, if he can do it. So can we,
[00:45:51] Mike Parsons: it's so true. And in that previous clip we, there's a line that we discovered the 40% line. And on the other side of that, [00:46:00] when we think we're hurting and there's no much, there's none left to give, there's actually 60% more. And once you realize this and you can embody this, you have this thing, this mindset where you realize that the pursuit of hardship and overcoming challenge is not only the pinnacle of a growth mindset, but it's how you discover.
[00:46:28] It's how you become the best version of yourself. And then it sounds crazy and evil if you haven't tried it. But the craziest thing is what we're gonna hear now is David talking about how suffering. Makes you grow
[00:46:43] Mark Pearson Freeland: up,
[00:46:44] David Goggins: dude,
[00:46:44] Mike Parsons: I got choked out 10 years ago that I think about sometimes when I'm lifting, I'll be tired.
[00:46:48] And I'll think about a guy who caught me 10
[00:46:50] David Goggins: years. I'm like, fuck. I just that's. What's great about life, man. Yeah. Is I think about not being choked out, but I think about a lot of shit like that. Yeah. [00:47:00] Little failures that just keep you pushing, they grind on me like a motherfucker, man. And that's what you were talking about earlier too, is
[00:47:06] Mike Parsons: like the mind has these reserves.
[00:47:08] Ooh, you can trick it and pull 'em out. Yes. These inspirational reserves like you did. When you guys were going through buds yes. When you just found that trigger and then all of a sudden you're throwing that boat in the
[00:47:17] David Goggins: air, the mind always has the tactical advantage over you. Why is that?
[00:47:22] It knows your fears. Yeah. It knows your insecurities. It knows where they're hiding. Can't hide. Can't hide from that motherfucker, man. that motherfucker has a tactical advantage on your son. That's gonna get you, man. It's
[00:47:35] Mike Parsons: a beast that might be your best lesson, that your mind knows everything.
[00:47:38] You cannot hide from it. So don't ever try. Don't try.
[00:47:41] David Goggins: You might as well go ahead and beat that motherfucker up. Yeah. Gotta keep going at it. That's also what you did
[00:47:45] Mike Parsons: in this book. You didn't try to paint yourself in a glamorous or flattering way. At any point in time, you are honest at every step of the way, which I think is just gigantic for people too, because.
[00:47:57] You can tell when someone's stroking [00:48:00] themselves right. Or bullshitting themselves. And the message just won't come through. But this you're, you come through in this book, like you who you are and what you became and how you became who you are and who you used to be and why you were the way you used to be.
[00:48:12] All that comes through. It's there's no filter. This is just your thoughts, like your, what you remember about your life and what you think about right now, just all comes out onto the pages.
[00:48:23] David Goggins: Hardest thing I've done my entire life. I'm imagining I have fucking, I don't know how people are by this book.
[00:48:29] Then I walk up to people walk up to me, I'm like, what are you thinking about motherfucker? they thinking about me? Peeing the bed, know what I'm saying? you fucking as me. what are you thinking about? Oh,
[00:48:41] Mike Parsons: that's hilarious. I know. Like you what are you thinking about,
[00:48:44] David Goggins: man? You open it up all.
[00:48:45] Yeah. You know all Bobby. Hey, how about you motherfucker? tell me something about you. That's what people love
[00:48:52] Mike Parsons: right? When they know some shit about you. You don't know nothing about them. That's I? Nothing about nobody. That's anonymous
[00:48:57] David Goggins: trolls. That's it, man. And they get at me. They [00:49:00] count. Oh, there's a lot of those, but they're all
[00:49:02] Mike Parsons: doing that to themselves.
[00:49:03] They don't even understand when you do that, you're doing it to yourself. If you are attacking someone cuz you know that they have a weakness, but you're pretending you don't have one you are attacking yourself. You are chipping away at your own personal sovereignty. You're so true. You're chipping
[00:49:18] David Goggins: away your own respect.
[00:49:19] So true man. Can't respect yourself. You're a pussy you're talking, but that's what happened though? Joe, to me, yes. I start looking at people, realizing I know something about you because they don't wanna talk about it. I already know it. Yeah. If you're talking shit about me. Yeah. I know you're fucked up.
[00:49:36] Yeah. That's where all these cats that come out right now, who don't like me or whatever. I'm like really, man, this shit happened 30 fucking years ago. 15 years ago. You still, you're still fucked up about that. Oh man. I know something about you brother. Yeah. Second it over everything. I'm good. It's water under the fucking bridge, the grind it's the grind.
[00:49:53] Does that squeezes it out? That's it. You're not grinding hard. If you're worried about something that someone did to you years ago, [00:50:00] you're being a pussy to yourself, man. Not getting out there and squeezing that fucking soul out every day. Yeah. If you grind hard, man, I got time to worry about your monkey ass.
[00:50:09] I, I ain't got time to monkey. Yes I got time about you, man. Cuz tomorrow I gotta go back to the grind. And tomorrow gotta go back to the grind again and again, I don't have time to put you into the hate bank. There's no hate. It's all filtered out, man. Through the grind. People don't get it.
[00:50:23] There's great joy in the grind. Great joy to suffer it. It totally cleanses your body out, man. If any kind of hate
[00:50:30] Mike Parsons: makes you grow up. It
[00:50:31] Mark Pearson Freeland: makes you grow up. Mike, what I'm hearing from Goggins here is the again, the onus on owning your weaknesses, understanding yes. That you've gotta be difficult with yourself, but also what's quite fun towards the end of that clip.
[00:50:47] I'm getting a real vibe of mark Manson, the subtle art of not giving a, which we've covered on the show before, which is choosing and having the discipline to choose what you are upset about and [00:51:00] what you care about. Yes. In order to move on. And that's a, that's another big lesson from Goggins, isn't it?
[00:51:06] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And one of the things that he focused on a lot when Goins was talking to Joe Rogan there, he talks about the grind and this was something I avoided so much. I remember looking at Some of the guys that I went to school with, who had already learnt to love the grind and they were doing amazing things.
[00:51:30] And I just remember thinking they were crazy. I just didn't get it at all. Mark. I did not get it. I remember after one rugby training, that was incredibly hard that a couple of guys went and did extra training after it. And I remember those guys are so stupid, but what Goggins is talking about is when you go and grind at your limit and you push through the 40%, you embrace the [00:52:00] hardship at the end of it.
[00:52:02] When you are complete, when you've done the job, like when you cross that finish line, you are so calm and so clearheaded and satisfied because. You, you are completely, you've dotted the eye. You've crossed thet. You're complete. You are done. There's no more energy, in America they have just saying, you've left it all out on the field.
[00:52:28] You come in and whatever the result you gave it, everything and a little bit more. And that is one of the deepest, most satisfying moments. It's almost like Zen. Yeah. The best way I can describe the weekend finishing the marathon is just going, wow. I've just been running for over four hours continuously.
[00:52:52] I'm done. I'm good. I push myself. I broke all those records that I had. I've never [00:53:00] run 42 before. And yeah, I was so at peace, mark. Was this done? Cuz I had to face the demos. The quads were hurting the lactic acid. It kicked in, but I just didn't stop. Didn't stop. And boy does it feel, doesn't it feel good when you do that?
[00:53:17] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, it really does. And to close us out, Mike, we've got one more clip from the legend that is David Goins building exactly on what you were just saying there, which is getting yourself over the finish line, no matter what it takes. So let's hear from David Goggins, closing out our show today 188 with an idea about not giving up.
[00:53:38] David Goggins: People hear my story and think this guy is sadistic. I realize how the brain works. I figured out how the brain works. I'm a scared kid and that's what gives me so much power. I had no foundation and I built this off of just research in the mind, the feeling you get [00:54:00] is basically invincibility.
[00:54:03] You realize that you can't do it all the time when you need to do it. I know I can go to a place. That I can live in. And when you know that you can run on broken legs and you can do certain things that a lot of people can do, but they're not willing to do this power, this sympathetic nervous system of fight or flight, and you're fighting it.
[00:54:30] It gives you this charge of energy of when you're sitting there at 3 30, 4 o'clock in the morning and you're duct taping your feet up because they're broken and you're doing it by yourself. And you're going through arguably, one of the hardest training in the world. And these guys, most of them are healthy and you're going through a broken and you already at a disadvantage, but you're still there.
[00:54:56] You can feed into that and tap into that for a lot of power. [00:55:00] But if you look at it while I'm broken, man, like I'm not gonna make it. But if you look at it as man I'm broken and I'm still here, now I'm fighting and I'm gonna find a way to. This cuz I have no other place to go. It gives you a lot of power.
[00:55:19] When things start to suck really bad. My brain in a lot of people's brain, Don they don't go to your dad, beating you up. Your brain says, we gotta get out here. This is miserable. So anger goes away a lot of times when you're suffering, because your brain just says, we gotta run. We gotta go. So that anger is not popping up saying, oh, I'm gonna show them.
[00:55:43] I'm gonna show those people. No, there has to be a much deeper. If I say deeper, it has to be down to mineral soil. It has to be down to that nice mineral soil where nothing can burn you. Can't burn dirt. [00:56:00] So it has to be down that low. That literally is sub menu. That's at the core of your soul. And, but you don't find it unless you spend a lot of time with what you wanna be in life.
[00:56:15] You I can't give that to you. You can't give it to somebody when you find your true passion in life and my passion for me when oh, I want to be, now I can give Navy seals. I don't give a shit. I wanna serve my country. I cared about, I want to be someone that I'm proud of who
[00:56:31] Mike Parsons: are like, I don't know that there's much more that we can say after Gogans gets on one of his one of his speeches.
[00:56:40] That's pretty incredible stuff. What a journey mark? We've been talking about and studying David Gogans for years now. Is there something that. Has you've taken a fresh look at here. Is there something that's got you going? Gonna work on.
[00:56:56] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah I think the call out or the reminder about the [00:57:00] 40% rule is a big thing.
[00:57:01] When you think that you are maxed out, whether you are tired or you've fed up with something, you've still got an untapped reserve. I think that's the key thing that's being revealed to me today, Mike, because that's the thing that pushed him to complete the world record as well as to guard and do his amazing achievements.
[00:57:20] What do you reckon standing out to you again with go.
[00:57:24] Mike Parsons: I'm, it's funny, the recent shows we've been picking both the same takeout. So I definitely agree on the 40%, I think the other thing that came to me during the show is how much I avoided suffering and challenge. In the earlier parts of my life, thinking it was just clinically insane.
[00:57:43] And then now I'm like, oh, it's the pursuit of suffering and challenge it. It is such an it's a growth mindset. It makes you better. It is it's like the human muscle when it, when you do the weights in the gym and it hurts the next day, that's actually the muscle growing bat, [00:58:00] bigger and stronger.
[00:58:00] And that's been really another huge takeout for me in this show. Pretty good, huh?
[00:58:05] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. So good. Goggins I'm gonna go out and attempt the world record now for the best
[00:58:10] Mike Parsons: pullup as well. you are ready. Mark, thank you to you and thank you to you both to our listeners and to our members. This was show 188, where we studied, how David Goggins broke the world, pull up record, and this journey started with a guy Mr.
[00:58:27] Goggin. Who was a bug sprayer, 296 pounds. And he went from that to the toughest man on earth. And what he taught us today is that your brain is the most powerful weapon that you have. So don't give into adversity, do not give into challenge, be uncommon because most people give. But you don't have to. And just when you're pushing it and you encounter a barrier when you encounter the line, know that you might only be at [00:59:00] 40% of your potential.
[00:59:01] And if you can break through, if you can get comfortable with discomfort, you can find that other 60% and break all your limits. And if you are breaking your limits, you are doing more than just working hard. You are growing because it is through challenge, adversity, and suffering that we all grew up. And if you can take your mind with you, you have the unfair advantage against most other people on this planet.
[00:59:27] And that is the power not to give up. And that's how we do it here at the moonshots podcast. That's a wrap.