David Goggins was born to Trunnis and Jackie Goggins on February 17, 1975 in Williamsville, New York, a small town located just outside of Buffalo. His challenges began at a young age, as he dealt with an abusive father who degraded him on a near daily basis. After years of suffering, David and his mother fled to Indiana in the hopes of putting their troubled pasts behind them, but sadly the trouble did not disappear. At 17, Goggins was faced with new challenges: his standardized test scores revealed he was reading at a terribly low level and he faced routine medical complications as a result of being extremely obese. After a period of self-reflection, he realized that he had to turn his life around or else he would continue down the path of destruction that would only result in his death, and this required drastic day-to-day and overall lifestyle reforms. In order to accomplish this, Goggins took all of the elements of his everyday life which he hoped to improve, wrote them down on notecards, then taped to those notecards to his mirror. He called this method the “accountability mirror”, as it forced him to physically confront his shortcomings. At first, he quit his job as an exterminator which allowed time for him to map out his goals. Then, he began eating unprocessed foods and running a small amount everyday, beginning with increments of a quarter mile. Next, he set a weight loss goal in the hopes of one day joining the armed forces after becoming inspired by a television segment on the American military. Finally, he made a promise to himself to become the one thing he both feared and respected above all else: a United States Navy Seal. After years of work, sacrifice, and determination, he more than delivered on his promise by becoming the only member in the over 200 year history of the United States Armed Forces to complete training as a Navy Seal, Army Ranger and Air Force Tactical Air Controller.