I'm gonna share a little neuroscience tidbit. Love it. But I think it's one that
you'll appreciate. Most people don't know this,
but there's a brain structure called the anterior mid cingulate
cortex. As we pointed out before, that's a noun, it's a name. It doesn't mean
anything. We could call it the Cookie Monster, right?
But what's interesting about this brain area is there are now a lot
of data in humans that's a mouse
study showing that when people do something
they don't want to do, like add three hours of exercise
per day or per week, or when people who are trying
to diet and lose weight resist eating something.
Right. When people do anything that they. And this is the important part that
they don't want to do, Right. It's not about adding more work. It's about adding
more work that you don't want to do. Yes, this brain area gets
bigger. Now, here's what's especially interesting about this brain area to
me. And by the way, I'm only learning this recently because it's
new data, but there's a lot of it. The anterior mid
cingulate cortex is smaller in obese
people. It gets bigger when they diet.
It's larger in athletes.
It's especially large or grows larger in
people that see themselves as challenged and
overcome some challenge.
And in people that live a very long time,
this area keeps its size in
many ways. Scientists are starting to think of the anterior midcingulate cortex
not just as one of the seats of willpower,
but perhaps actually the seat of the will to live.
See, now we're talking. And when I learned about the anterior mid singulate
cortex, I was, like, almost out of my seat. And I've been in the neuroscience
game since I was 20. We're the same age. And I was so pumped
because I've heard of the amygdala, fear prefrontal cortex. It's planning
in action. I could tell you every brain area and every. I teach neuroanatomy
to medical students. But when I started seeing the data
on the anterior mid cingulate cortex, I was like,
whoa, this is interesting. And all
the data point to the fact that we can build this area up,
but that as quickly as we build it up, if we don't
continue to invest in things that are hard for us that we
don't want to do, that's the part that feels so Goggin
esque to me, that we don't want to do.
Like, if you love the Ice bath. Yeah, I love the ice bath. And you
go from one minute to ten minutes. Guess what? Your anterior mid cingulate
cortex did not grow. But if you hate the cold water,
if you're afraid of drowning and you get into water and put
your head under, then your anterior mid
and survive, then the anterior mid cingulate cortex gets bigger. But if
you don't do it the next day, or if you do it the next day
and you enjoy it because hey, hey, I did it yesterday. Woo hoo.
Happy me. Merry Christmas. As you say, Merry Christmas. Guess what?
The anterior mid singlet cortex shrinks again. Yep. To me,
this is one of the most important discoveries that neuroscience has ever made
because it's that I don't want to do something, but do
it anyway. That grows this area. And it's
almost like I have a friend, he's been sober 30 years from alcohol and
he always says, you know, the amazing thing about addiction is there's a
cure. The problem is it only works one day at a time.
And so you have to renew it every day. That's right. So the anterior mid
cingulate cortex. To me, when I learned about it, two things went off in
my head. Whoa, this, this is super interesting. And two, I got to tell David
Goggins about this. And I waited until now to tell you because I felt
like I. Well, for obvious reasons, I wanted to tell you and
I wanted to tell you here. Well, I love that because that's
how I've lived my entire life. I don't know anything about that. But people
go, man, you have such a strong will.
It's something that you build. Like, I never forgot. I was on a podcast
one time and this dude goes, you were blessed with a
strong mind. Like the
hell you talking about? It's blessed with a strong mind. That's something that
you have to develop. You develop that over
years, decades of suffering and going back
into the suffer. That's why a lot of people who graduate Navy
SEAL training, they want. No, like in
my. I talk about very openly all the time.
A lot of guys don't go, don't. Don't want to go back into that water,
don't want to go back into the hard stuff. Maybe not anything
hard. Anything hard in life, once you get through
it, it's like you become a POW. Like,
how many POWs you know, want to go back to POW camp? None.
When something sucks so bad in life. This is on this
that we're talking about now. Very few people
want to go back. They're happy they graduated.
I realized I'm the same way. I don't want to go back.
I have to go back. I must go back.
Because that is exactly where all the knowledge of my
life exists was back there in which you exactly
were talking about. Well, I didn't know anything about this, but how
I grew at will was constantly doing these
things to now. It's just life.
I wake up while it still sucks. It's just life.
You don't sit back and like, oh my God, like I have days.
I don't want to do it, but I know I'm going to do it.
I know from years of just doing it.
So that's beautiful. And this is why I came on
here with you today. And I'm glad that you're talking about this because
human beings need to hear this. Then you stop hearing
these hacks on this and that.
There's no fucking hack, bro. There's no fucking hack. Yeah,
you may this and that and saunas and all
this shit that they. Yeah, it's great. There is no
fucking life hack to grow that thing. How do you grow
it? Do it and do it and
do it and do it. That's the hack. The hack is gonna fucking
suck. And that's what I realized. That's what I realized.
Life. That's why I wanted to come on here today. I didn't wanna come on
here and talk about no fucking passion and purpose and
how to get the fuck out of bed and how to hit a fucking alarm
clock and all this catchphrase bullshit. Cause that
wasn't how I lived. That wasn't how I lived. I lived.
I woke up like every human being does and goes, fuck, man, I'm a
fucking piece of shit today. How the hell is this going to work out for
me? And you fight that, and you fight that. You don't
override it. There's no override button.
It's the conversation in your fucking in your head.
So how do you do that? We don't have enough of these conversations about
the real conversation that every human being is having.
And they have no idea how to get out of it, but they do.
It's that shit right there, man. Yeah. Build your will.
How do you build your will? Exactly what you said, man.
Exactly what you said. Well, I feel like knowing
the name of something anterior mid cingulate cortex doesn't fundamentally change us.
But one thing I like about biology is that willpower,
if somebody feels they don't have, it feels like this thing that other
people have, but Everybody, unless they're brain damaged,
like a hole through their head, has two
anterior mid cingulate cortex, one on each side of their brain.
Everyone has one, they have two.
So I feel like it's just
a question of opening the portal. And the portal, what I again,
I say 10 times, and forgive me, is I think people go, oh,
I do hard things, I do sets to failure, and then I do four straps.
I love training with weights, I love doing sets to failure. I even like four
straps. But guess what? I like forced reps. So I'll tell you,
they don't build my anterior mid cingulate cortex because I
like to do it. That's right. Anything you like to do is
not going to enhance this aspect of willpower. And it seems
so obvious once you hear it, you kind of go, oh, yeah, of course.
But I think you really close
that loop for people when you share
what you're sharing today and what you've shared elsewhere before as
well, when you're trying to explain the friction is the critical ingredient,
right? And I think people think, oh, if it's effort, well, then I'm getting
better. That's part of it. Necessary but not sufficient, as we say in
science. But the suck part, the haunt
feet being haunted, the stick, they're really
unpleasant terms. These are probably the most unpleasant terms we've ever
used on this podcast. Those are the.
Those are the levers, those are the gears. And without those,
this thing that you're talking about, David Goggins as
a verb, you know, I sometimes make the joke, but it's not a joke.
Goggins is a name and
it's a verb. People go, I'm going to Goggins that right? But that's,
I think, again, I'm not a psychologist, but I think that's what you're talking about.
The stick, the friction being haunted.
It's the suck part that grows this anterior mid cingulate cortex.
So now you know why there's so many people that fail in
this world to figure out their purpose,
their purpose in life. Where do I go? Because to grow that
while you may not look like me, how my daily
life looks. It don't look fun,
don't look fun.
So it's a choice that people have to make in life.
But what's so funny about it is even the richest of rich who
have everything, they always ask me this question.
I feel like I'm missing something.
I don't feel like I'm missing shit. I don't have what
you all have. But you'll never in my life
hear me tell you I'm missing something.
Everybody is. They're missing this feeling.
I found it long time ago. I found
it right there in that willpower thing. When you're nothing,
nothing, and change yourself into something like
me. You call
it happiness, peace, whatever the fuck you want to call it.
People are missing exactly what went on with David Goggins.
Why don't you smile? I do. I do.
But I figured something out. That's why I am never.
You'll never hear me say I'm missing something. I found it years
ago. You find it in the suck.
You find it in the suck and you find it repeatedly in the suck
to the point where you know exactly who you are. Most people are missing something
because they don't know who they are.
They never examine themselves. They've never done this
experiment on themselves. The lab rat.
We're all lab rats. But you're also the scientist.
You create your own self. Most people are missing something because
there's so much trapped in there.
I don't even want to say potential. I think that's word used out too much,
too. There's so much in you that God or wherever the hell you believe in,
or if you're atheist, in you that you have not
unlocked, that you walk around with this gorgeous wife or
great husband, all this money, like God. I feel like I'm missing something.
Yeah, because it's about 75% of
you is still fucking in there, still chained
up, because you just didn't want to find your willpower.
Didn't want to find your soul, your will, your heart, your determination,
your guts, your courage. And what that looks like. It looks scary.
Like your little scary lab. I went in scary to
wake up every day and say, I'm stupid, but I want to figure out a
way to be smarter versus saying, man, I just
can't do that. So you limit this box so your box
becomes so small of things you can do. My box wasn't
even a box. It was a fucking little, like,
little pinhole. And then through examining myself,
getting some willpower, some courage, it became bigger
than this table. But that's what we all do. That's why I wanted to come
here today and talk to you about real shit, not no fucking like
hacks. There's no hacks, bro. It's you against
you. You against you. And if you misunderstand
that, you have a real problem.
Real problem. I can understand. You misunderstand me running down the street, shirt off.
Fuck this. Yeah, Yeah. I can get it. I get it.
If you misunderstand what I'm saying right now, today, the problem is
you, and you don't want to fix it.