A biography for David Gogginshasn’t been written yet.
“When you tell a recruiter that you're almost 300 pounds and you want to be a SEAL, it doesn't go too well. I got hung up on a lot.”
“The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you're not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you're satisfied and make you happy, you're not getting stronger. You're staying where you're at. Either you're getting better, or you're getting worse. You're not staying the same.”
“Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It's something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, 'How did you get to where you're at today? How did you get to where you're running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?'”
“Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It's a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we're telling ourselves is what we see on TV.”
“I'm different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I'm thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow. It's as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.”
“It's like a muscle - if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don't keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.”
“My whole thing now is I know how to think properly to be successful in all aspects of my life. It's not about ultra running or being a SEAL or pull-up records: it's about if you want to be better you, have to change your perceived limitations and take the barriers down.”
“If you sit there and have that mentality of 'triple down on what you're good at,' you're never going to grow. You're always going to stay the same.”
“When you're in hell, you forget how great you really are because you're suffering and you forget the great things you've done.”
“Boot camp sucks - SEAL training sucks - but you know what? That's what makes you good.”
“I'm a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why - when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult - we wonder why we cower and we run away.”
“Remembering what you've been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you're feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.”
“You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.”
“Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I've done it all - I'm good. Now, it's about setting an example for others to follow. I can't just talk it - I have to live it.”
“A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It's in your mind. We're all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.”
“I swam underwater for 50 meters at a time and walked the length of the pool underwater, with a brick in each hand, all on a single breath.”
“Read a record number of books in a given month. If you're focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.”
“Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don't want to suffer. We don't want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we're living our lives in a very comfortable area. There's no growth in that.”
“If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there's one thing you can't say about me - that I didn't attack it.”
“Before you start a goal - let's take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you're suffering.”