David Goggins is considered by many to be the toughest man alive. His mental strength and ability to push past physical and emotional pain in order to improve his own life, has inspired millions around the world. In this short video David shares how the Rocky Movie, and one particular scene changed his life forever.

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How The Rocky Movie Changed My Life – David Goggins – Transcript

I believe that a lot more people can relate to the struggle. A lot more than the success. People relate a lot more to that. I relate a lot more to a person who’s the underdog.


Most of us in this world are underdogs.


There’s very few of us out here who are the one percenters. Those 1% are those people who are like… the CEO’s, these people who are like the best basketball player, the best golfer… Very few people are there.
It’s those people who are at the very bottom and in the middle… who are trying to get there… It’s all about work ethic.

So, everybody loves the underdog. That’s what that whole Rocky story… Everybody loves the Rocky story. The thing about it is, to develop the Rocky story you gotta work your ass off… and not many people are willing to do that part of it.

That’s the hard part about overcoming the odds… Overcoming yourself… Is you have to create a Rocky story. You have to be willing to suffer to get to the other side.

So, why I like the Rocky film so much is when I was growing up I didn’t have much of a role model, growing up. So, in between my cheating and me ditching school and all these things I got obsessed with people that I saw my life in their life.
 I got obsessed with people who struggled. People who were at the bottom of the doggone sewer. I got obsessed with watching these people.
 And I got obsessed with watching (the movie) Rocky 1 – Round 14.

And the reason why this specific round is… even to this day, I’m 43 years old… To this day it puts chills in my body. I can go back to when I was 10-11-12 years old… whenever the movie came out.
 I remember my first time watching it. I was watching Round 14 of Rocky 1. I’ll never forget watching this guy, who was Rocky getting his butt kicked. Apollo Creed was just knocking him down, beating him up… and all he wanted to do was to go the distance.

And to lot of people, this makes no sense to them but for a kid who is looking for strength… who is looking for like… Is it possible? You’re looking for ‘Is it possible?’ Can I pull off the impossible?

… and me watching this film, that’s what I saw, so… there was a no name boxer against the best boxer in the world, who was Apollo Creed. Now I’m watching this guy in the ring, who is Rocky… he’s getting his butt kicked… Falling down, getting back up.

In the 14th round Apollo is like… just killing this guy but also Apollo is tired. He is extremely tired… But Apollo knocks him down in the 14th round, for like the 30th time…
 And even Rocky’s coach, Mickey is telling Rocky to stay down… and Apollo turns around. He turns around and he thinks that he got this guy… he thinks he beat him. He thinks he finally took this guy out… this guy that kept coming at him, and coming at him.

Apollo Creed turns around… Puts his arms in the air. He turns his back to Rocky. He’s assuming he’s down. ‘I got him!’

Everybody in the crowd is saying stay down. Everybody. This guy is climbing the ropes to get back up. Totally destroyed. Nothing left. But HE FOUND SOMETHING… And this is the thing about it… He found something!

And I watch this guy get up, and once he gets up, Apollo Creed turns around and sees this… and the look I saw… most people don’t even see this… The look I saw on Apollo Creed’s face was this look of total awe… of Who the hell are you? Who am I fighting?

It looked like Apollo Creed’s soul left his body… and Rocky got his gloves and motioned him to come on… and Apollo Creed put his head down and shook his head.

Why that scene resonates with me so much is that I was such an a dungeon in my life and I feel like I was such in a hole, with nowhere to go, with so many issues and so many things to climb over and overcome on my own…

I wanted every obstacle and every person who ever doubted me to look like Apollo Creed. I wanted the people, obstacles, whatever to look at me like this guy is going to continue coming after me. I wanted what that Rocky had. Just the ability to keep getting up.

I don’t care if I win. I don’t care if I’m the best. It’s not about being the hardest man in the world. I just want to keep coming after you.

So, through years and years and years of visualizing that scene of that guy just getting up… It’s just a movie to some people… but to me it became what my reality had to become.

I had to become that guy. Who could run on broken legs going through hell week. Who could endure the most pain. The most suffering.

To get where I had to go. I’m going to have to be that guy. And a lot of people will never understand that because they don’t have that kind of mindset… but we all have that.

I came from nothing. But the thing about it is… We all have the ability to come from nothing to something. But it takes that kind of spirit.