Buffalo Trace and Fight for the Forgotten are doing something special for you, the Joe Rogan Experience listeners. You get to pick your own Buffalo Trace barrel, and we'll give you a chance to try it with a glass of water and a shot of Jack Daniel's. Joe and his team at Fight For The Forgotten are also doing a raffle to raise money for the cause, and they're giving away 220 bottles of their own whiskey. You can't ask for much more than that, and you're not going to get more than $1,200 in raffle tickets for a chance at a bottle of your favorite Buffalo Trace bourbon. This episode is sponsored by Buffalo Trace, and is a big thank you to Fight For the Forgotten, and the rest of the Buffalo Trace team for working so hard to make this happen. Cheers, and Happy New Year, and God Bless. Joe & Co. Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. Artwork by Ian Dorsch. Mix by Skandalous. Please rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms! Thank you so much for listening and supporting the show, and don't forget to SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review! in iTunes and Rate/subscribe in your podcast listening to the show! if you like what you're listening to this podcast! and/or have a review or review on your favorite streaming platform, and share it with your friends and tell us what you think of it! we'll be sure to mention it on the pod! Also, share it on iTunes and tell a friend about it on your friends about it's awesomeness! :) and spread the good vibes! XOXO, Cheers. Cheers! Timestay! - Tom, Tom, Amy, Sarah, Evan, Joe, Kristy, and Joe, Mike, and Ryan, Chet, and Nicky, etc. - The Crew at The Joe Rogans - and Sarah, Thanks for listening out there! Love ya. - Tom & Ryan, Sarah & Ryan xoxo - - Chet & Joe, - Kristy Chet and Ryan - P. & AJ - Thank you, Sarah
00:00:55.000I talked with Bo Beckman, his great-grandfather's great-grandfather.
00:00:59.000I think his name's like T.H., I don't know, Eckert or something like that.
00:01:03.000He started basically the modern-day bourbon in America.
00:01:08.000So anyways, I asked him, I was talking to Bo, and said, can we do something special for Joe?
00:01:14.000And he was like, yeah, what are you thinking?
00:01:16.000And so I talked with my buddy Ryan, who's the vice president of our board, and we thought about it and we were like, what if we could get a barrel from Buffalo Trace and we could give it to Joe?
00:01:27.000And so we thought we'd do a sample tasting for you, and you get to pick a single barrel select.
00:01:35.000Basically, I guess, I'm not a whiskey connoisseur, but basically you're about to be able to do a wine, or not wine, but whiskey tasting.
00:02:19.000And so they all taste different, every barrel, whenever it's a single select barrel.
00:02:24.000So I guess like what they do at Buffalo Trace is they take a bunch of those barrels and they put them all in there together so it has one consistent taste.
00:02:30.000But whenever you just take one barrel, it's always a unique flavor.
00:03:23.000We wanted to say thank you from Fight for the Forgotten and Buffalo Trace, because we're about to do this big raffle for Fight for the Forgotten.
00:03:30.000But you'll get 220 bottles yourself from whatever whiskey you choose.
00:06:52.000So you could see if one has more character, like a bolder flavor, one that you think your friends would enjoy more that don't know much about whiskey.
00:08:03.000So, basically what we're going to do is we're going to be able to do that and make you a bottle, 220 bottles, and it'll have the Joe Rogan Experience logo on it.
00:08:11.000And then you can give it to your guest as a thank you for being on the show.
00:09:20.000You know, his great, great grandfather is the one that basically modernized bourbon drinking today.
00:09:26.000And then you get to stay at the lodge that they have there.
00:09:29.000And then I'm going to go up there and visit them.
00:09:31.000And we're going to go around all the different warehouses.
00:09:33.000And they can taste literally straight from the barrel.
00:09:36.000And then at the end, they could either buy a barrel for themselves and have 220 bottles or we're trying to find a donor.
00:09:42.000Maybe my friend Ryan Llewellyn, who's a whiskey connoisseur, he might go ahead and buy it on their behalf and they'll get 220 bottles themselves.
00:10:24.000We even thought, man, if 15,000 people tried to do, you know, 15,000 people tried to get it around Christmas time on these barrels, you know, let's just mention it on the show, it might be able to get 40,000 people.
00:10:36.000If they did $25 raffle tickets, 40,000 people.
00:10:40.000That's the first time Fight for the Forgotten would ever raise a million dollars from any one specific donor.
00:11:41.000The Ugandan Wildlife Authority would say to protect the forest and to protect the animals, although the pygmies are the protectors of the forest.
00:11:48.000And they deserve part of the forest because they're the people of the forest.
00:13:09.000It was like 1 to 1.25 acres, but it was less than 2 acres.
00:13:14.000And so Dustin made it possible through the Good Fight Foundation donating to Fight for the Forgotten, and Khabib donating his shirt, and Dana matching it for us to go get 48 acres of new land.
00:13:24.000We also drilled a water tower, not just a well, but a water tower for an orphanage and a school that the Pygmy kids started going to.
00:13:32.000And now we've started farms on that 48 acres of new land.
00:13:35.000I actually talked to Manny Pacquiao's team.
00:13:37.000One of their missions is to build homes.
00:13:40.000And Manny Pacquiao, yesterday, his executive director gave us confirmation that they're going to donate $50,000 to us to help complete 32 homes for these 32 surviving families.
00:13:51.000And so they're actually being taught how to drill wells and be part of that process, how to farm with agriculturalists, growing corn, cassava, potatoes, and peanuts.
00:14:05.000But also we're about to start teaching them how to make bricks, how to build homes.
00:14:08.000And they're going to go from never having a real home, you know, living in the forest to then now being in these shacks to now that each family is going to have a two-bedroom home at least.
00:14:19.000And then they're going to have a patio.
00:14:21.000They're going to have a kitchen inside, a dining room.
00:14:22.000It's just going to absolutely change their way of life.
00:14:26.000So this 48 acres, is that enough for them to hunt on?
00:14:29.000It's not enough for them to hunt on, so that's why we're having to teach them how to farm.
00:14:32.000Now, if they can still go into the forest, that's going to be some talking with the...
00:14:37.000They're allowed to go hunt for basically wild mushrooms or, I guess, gather.
00:14:42.000They're allowed to go gather firewood.
00:16:26.000It's actually the only other animal in the Giraffidae family.
00:16:29.000So it's actually, if you look at their little horns and then also their long, long tongues, that's where they, they're part of the Giraffidae family.
00:16:35.000I guess most all the, or all the other ones have been extinct.
00:16:39.000But I've actually had a poacher, yeah, I had a poacher try to sell me its meat when it was fresh and then he came back and tried to sell me its pelt.
00:17:06.000I think it was right before I was there or the year I was there.
00:17:09.000This was like 2013 or 14, maybe 2012. But I believe it was the Mai Mai that went through there and they just started slaughtering these Okapi at the Okapi National Reserve.
00:17:19.000So they got pushed out of where they were doing their illegal gold mining.
00:17:36.000So I actually saw that rebel leader, his name was Morgan.
00:17:40.000I don't know if he went by like a code named Morgan, but anyways, they were dragging him behind the truck.
00:17:46.000Whenever they had killed him, he like peacefully turned himself in, but I don't know, he had his rebel groups that were like looking in, so they killed him right there, and they took him out of there.
00:18:26.000But there was this bar that was kind of staying open and...
00:18:29.000These guys are drunk and they accuse the guy being a thief and everyone thought he was a thief and so mob justice happened and they literally just jumped him and they beat him to death and I tried to get in there and one of our well drillers grabbed me and said no no no if you go over there we're gonna turn on you and uh so it turns out those guys were just drunk they accused the guy being a thief they didn't like the guy they had like some feud with him they just accused him being a thief and he got killed and the next day when I came by in the morning He was in basically like a,
00:19:16.000A Blood Diamond movie, something like that, where they'll drive through with the trucks and have the guys with the machine guns in the back.
00:19:51.000It's about a guy who kind of, he's a veteran, but he kind of gets addicted to, or they imply, I believe that's...
00:20:01.000Jamie, that's what it was about, right?
00:20:03.000It's like the guy was addicted to the thrill of disarming bombs.
00:20:08.000But people say that about places that they go to, that I've heard people talk about that, that are adventurers, that go to remote mountain ranges and almost lose their life, but they can't wait to go back for some strange reason.
00:20:50.000But I buried a couple of kids, a little boy named Mandibo, another boy named Babo.
00:20:56.000Little Mo had died and Fina just recently died.
00:21:00.000Well, she died in 2020. I met her when she had tuberculosis and she was seven years old and she just died at 14 years old and it was a lung thing.
00:21:08.000They say it was, she had a dead lung in there and she needed a transplant, but it was while COVID was going on too.
00:21:14.000And we got her out of the Congo and this was like February or March.
00:21:19.000And we got her out of the Congo and got her to Uganda, got her to a good hospital.
00:21:25.000And then they said we needed to take her to one other place.
00:21:28.000To not have a lung transplant, but just to remove the dead.
00:21:31.000I think it was the left lung inside of her.
00:21:34.000And so in transport, whenever she was being taken there, she's 14 years old.
00:21:39.000And so we're trying to save her life, but we had to send her back in like a...
00:21:43.000You know, a casket and that kind of stuff like messes with you and it's heartbreaking and you want to make sure it doesn't happen again for some of these kids and so I think I've been to at least five funerals of children under the age of five years old.
00:22:01.000And so, you know, that kind of hard stuff, I mean, I've been told by Dr. Daniel Amen and some other people that I have PTSD from some of this stuff, you know, taking rape victims to the hospital right after they've been gang raped,
00:22:21.000And when that kind of stuff happens, it's very brutal on the women mentally, but also physically, you know, sometimes they need surgeries and To try to help them be normal again.
00:22:31.000Not to get too graphic, but there's a guy that won a Nobel Peace Prize.
00:22:37.000He actually passed away now, but he's from the Congo.
00:22:39.000And he was revolutionary or innovative in that surgery, like repairing women's and giving them a normal life again so they can stay clean and be hygienic and things like that.
00:23:39.000Emotionally or mentally and just mind and heart healing, but it's been quite a journey.
00:23:49.000In March, I'd say that from 23 when I stopped drinking, What's cool about this moment for me is I'm not just been sober, sitting in defeat, maybe in these meetings where I don't have a hopeful life or a great life to live.
00:24:08.000Those meetings can be great, but sometimes you see some old-timers and they're not living in victory or they're not walking free.
00:24:18.000And so, like, for me to be able to sit here with you and let you, you know, taste some of the greatest whiskey there is, and for me to be able to go up on a trip and experience that with whoever wins this raffle, it's going to be pretty incredible.
00:24:30.000But in 2020, I was in 90 days of rehab, and I was also in 90 days of sober living.
00:28:57.000I found that out at rehab, really taking a hard look at it.
00:29:01.000I decided not to go to, I could have gone to some of these places in Scottsdale or LA or Malibu, and I could have gotten massages and had the green smoothies and stuff like that, which can help a lot of people.
00:29:12.000But me, after having like a 15 year off and on battle, 10 years where I was pretty solid.
00:29:18.000And I'd come out of it and I'd get right back on the horse and I'd be good for years.
00:31:27.000And there's this doctor that's really great.
00:31:29.000His name's Dr. Kevin and he's got like a Irish last name, but he's he's got some stuff on I think Netflix and Amazon and he was a Navy surgeon and Basically like he ended up writing himself scripts for oxy and then he was injecting himself with other stuff and he got put in a Prison a military prison that one that got taken down and like Kansas.
00:31:53.000I forget what it's called and But anyway, Leavenworth or something like that, he was put in that prison.
00:31:57.000Anyways, now he's spent his time there really trying to help people in addiction.
00:32:01.000And that cycle of addiction basically is explained as after you have that first use and that allergy set off, now you go on your spree.
00:32:08.000Because what that doctor did, why he brought him up, was he shows scientifically through brain research that an addict's brain is different, like they don't have enough dopamine receptors.
00:32:18.000And whenever that hits, now all of a sudden it goes back to that almost hunter-gatherer brain.
00:32:22.000Where it says, this is a priority for survival.
00:32:26.000Like, that's why some addicts will prioritize it above food or water or family.
00:32:32.000And you see them do irrational things.
00:32:48.000Is that what you felt when you did it the first 30 days?
00:32:52.000Yeah, I came out, I emerged remorseful, and then I promised myself, I promised my wife at the time, I promised my family, friends, that this isn't who I want to be.
00:33:03.000And what they say about an addict is you could hook them up to a lie detector And they absolutely 100% mean it.
00:33:16.000All of a sudden you get restless, irritable, and discontented.
00:33:20.000Well, whenever an addict gets restless, irritable, discontented, I would ask the question, what's the difference between discontent and discontented?
00:33:27.000You might be a little restless, but discontented?
00:33:32.000Basically says, well, if discontent is I'm thirsty, discontented is there's not enough water in the whole world to quench this thirst.
00:33:39.000And so you get in that place where you have this mental obsession.
00:33:42.000So you have this mental obsession, you get restless, irritable, and discontented, and then you go back to that first use.
00:33:47.000And then you get stuck in that cycle of addiction again.
00:33:49.000And that's where I lived for five years from 17 to 23 was I was just looping back and forth.
00:33:54.000So you'd get sober for a little bit, then go back again?
00:34:12.000I think Rashad, Nate Marquardt, Shane Carwin, Dwayne Bang Ludwig.
00:34:18.000All those guys that invited me on the team after I got off the Ultimate Fighter, it was just a short while later that they were having to ask me to leave the team.
00:34:46.000And I should have went and got helped.
00:34:48.000But that's when I found my purpose with the Pygmies.
00:34:50.000I've heard this quote that said, no act of kindness, no matter how small, ever goes wasted.
00:34:55.000And so I started at the local children's hospital, became a local volunteer, went through night school for it.
00:35:01.000Later, you remember HDNet and Inside MMA with Boss Ruten?
00:35:05.000Those guys came out to the Denver Children's Hospital.
00:35:08.000This was like nine months of me being sober.
00:35:11.000All of a sudden now I have Rashad visiting the kids and Shane Carwin, Dwayne Bang, Brennan Shaw visiting the kids that I would push around in the wheelchairs and stuff.
00:38:02.000They were going to send me to a place in Oklahoma, not to knock it at all.
00:38:05.000But I had known people from the recovery world because I had been going and sharing my story of recovery in rehabs, in different sober living homes.
00:38:17.000And now all of a sudden I'm back to where they are.
00:38:19.000What is this rehab place, you said, this hard ass rehab place that has an amazing percentage of people get successful?
00:38:25.000It's out of Dallas-Fort Worth and it's called Stone Gate.
00:38:28.000And I don't think they advertise it as that hard, but it is that hard.
00:38:31.000And I wanted a place, once I talked to them, I realized like...
00:39:38.000So if someone were to bring bed bugs in and get in the mattresses and things like that, like if someone came from a homeless shelter or from the streets.
00:41:08.000And then they also go and, like in your case, you find insurmountable problems like what you're doing with the Congo and the Pygmies and Uganda and helping these people.
00:41:20.000It gives you purpose and it helps define your life in a positive way.
00:41:34.000We've had some health problems for sure.
00:41:36.000And then these relapses that had happened were really tough.
00:41:40.000The biggest one was this one in March.
00:41:43.000And let me tell you what happened because I didn't want to go to this rehab in Oklahoma that I had known people that were there that talked.
00:41:52.000It had a reputation for people using while they're even there because they could have their phones at 5 p.m., They could have visitors.
00:42:01.000They could go to Walmart two or three days a week.
00:42:03.000And then you can call your connection and they could leave it to you at Walmart.
00:42:07.000They could throw it over the gate and it's on 110 acres and they can send you a picture of where it's at.
00:42:13.000And you can just go dig it up or find it and use.
00:42:15.000And I wanted a place where I wasn't going there for that.
00:42:19.000I knew I was going to get sober, but I didn't want to be around other people.
00:43:48.000But I would say that the counselors that were there and the recovery advocates, they're really hard on you because some of the guys that have left there, if they let them leave their overconfident, that they've got their problem nicked, then they can go right back out and relapse.
00:44:04.000So how do they keep you from doing it again?
00:46:00.000But this is after your UFC career, after your Bellator career, all the amazing things you've done with Fight for the Forgotten, all the times you've been to the Congo.
00:46:08.000I would know it, but when I would relapse, I would feel like such a piece of garbage.
00:46:13.000I would feel like I was a disappointment to myself, but also to everybody else.
00:46:22.000Let me tell you what happened in Mexico.
00:46:24.000So I end up going, I asked to go to a different place, and they just wanted to get me into rehab as soon as possible, which I really admire and respect.
00:46:32.000But I knew it was a place that didn't have a good success rate.
00:46:35.000I got on a plane, and I thought it was pretty symbolic.
00:46:41.000It was COVID, so everything shut down.
00:46:46.000And then, man, there's a statistic that was on CNN, and it said that in Japan last month.
00:46:52.000And I don't know if this was last month in December or November, but in one month they had more suicides than all of COVID deaths in Japan.
00:47:04.000And it's because all these people are isolated.
00:47:06.000And I know that when I'm in active addiction, what I do is I isolate, I sedate, I suppress, and I numb out.
00:47:14.000And there's so many people that are going through This right now what I went through and I think kovat was a big part of that, you know Going straight from a divorce to then all of a sudden you're in isolation.
00:47:25.000Yeah And then I just decided to use and then that's all I had to do and then kept going What was the feeling when you when you decide when you say okay, I'm gonna use like you make a conscious decision How do you get the weed like what what sets you off?
00:47:42.000I was just hanging out with two people and they brought it out and I was like, you know what?
00:48:42.000At rehab, they say, without a complete psychic change, without something happening to come in whenever you're in that restless, irritable, discontented, or that emerging remorseful and that firm resolution.
00:48:52.000If you don't break that right there, you have like a pattern interrupt, which for me was rehab and sober living.
00:49:30.000All of a sudden it's way better than I expected because in my brain, like literally biologically or whatever, it's giving me more dopamine because I have limited numbers of dopamine receptors.
00:49:42.000And so now all of a sudden it gives me that and so I think I'm happy.
00:49:45.000But if I really look back from a rational state of mind...
00:49:49.000I might be happy for a moment, but then all of a sudden that fades and I keep going and it's with every inhale or what happens with Oxy.
00:49:55.000So I get on this plane, I end up going down to Mexico and I thought I'd just use and come back whenever we found...
00:50:03.000Honestly, I thought I was going to go to Tulum and I was going to get in some healing waters and I was going to get away from my connection there.
00:50:09.000And I was going to find a rehab place and then I was going to go, uh, come back and go straight to rehab.
00:50:16.000And then I just got darker and darker and darker.
00:50:18.000And I feel like, I don't know how to explain suicide to people, except for I some reason I go to this this place of seeing the Twin Towers get hit by those planes and it's the people that are stuck above They're stuck above the plane and it's smoldering and smokes going in their fires going in there and they're looking for a way out They try to find they can't go to the elevator.
00:50:46.000They try to go to the staircase They look down.
00:51:32.000And so when I actually got on that plane at 5 a.m., it was four flight attendants, two pilots, and me.
00:51:40.000I have no idea why American Airlines still took that plane unless it was something with COVID funding that if they still operate, they get funding for it.
00:51:50.000But they would have lost money on that, just taking one person down to Mexico.
00:51:54.000They took me to Cancun, and I took a one-way ticket.
00:51:58.000And the reason I took a one-way ticket was because I thought, I'm not coming back this time.
00:53:19.000I mean it looks like a guy out of he's got the silk shirt and the chains on and it looks like the jungle on top of this in Playa del Carmen kind of Cancun area.
00:53:30.000And he's got all the drugs there for us to just use.
00:53:33.000And for coke it was the best coke ever.
00:53:35.000It made everything numb both sides of my nostrils.
00:53:39.000And then I see people are reaching out.
00:54:13.000That's really all back to when you were bullied when you were a kid.
00:54:15.000That's what I feel like I discovered at, with Dr. Daniel Amen and at rehab and at these places like uprooting that, you know, these roots went so deep.
00:54:33.000And then now, the greatest thing I discovered at rehab and at Sober Living was 180 days of daily meditation, prayer, and just like really going inward and like setting my day up to where I'm not in that negative of a place.
00:54:48.000I haven't had an addiction problem on my tour.
00:54:51.000I've ever found something that I couldn't stop doing.
00:54:54.000But I feel like I get myself, I understand myself more when I take time in silence every day and I just reset my brain.
00:55:07.000Well, I'm surrounded by a tribe now that does that.
00:55:11.000Um, what I mean by that was getting out of rehab, having those connections of people that are now beating it and staying sober, but also I needed something a little different.
00:55:19.000Like I don't want to be, I wanted something more tailored towards me and my needs and like just to share like Aubrey's been so great to me.
00:55:27.000Aubrey Marcus, I shared with him what had happened and I saw that he started this fit for service and basically it's a mastermind group.
00:55:33.000Of people that want to make their business or whatever their livelihood is make a difference in the world.
00:55:39.000Basically the premise is to be of service, you must be fit for service, not just a rock star in business or there's actors and athletes and musicians and podcasters and authors and things like that.
00:55:55.000That's what I found in Congo and in Uganda that I didn't have here, really.
00:55:59.000I didn't have these deep relationships of people I could completely be raw and vulnerable with, where I could share my wins with, but I could also share my biggest failures with.
00:57:02.000I don't know if I ever told you what took me to the Congo.
00:57:05.000It was a sober vision, and I know that sounds out there, but experimenting with psychedelics and stuff, I've seen stuff, but this was me at 23, and I basically, in a time of meditation,
00:57:21.000and I wasn't a praying dude at all, but prayer meditation, all I did was basically said, and I was volunteering at the children's hospital, I was volunteering at the rescue mission for the homeless, all this stuff, and But I basically just said, God, what do you want me to do with my life?
00:57:34.000God, source, creator, whatever you want to put on it.
00:57:36.000But I just said, God, what do you want me to do with my life?
00:58:08.000Are you going to fight back, battle back?
00:58:11.000Well, those were all like guided visualizations, right?
00:58:15.000And I'd also do that by myself, like some music and headphones.
00:58:18.000And this, though, was unlike anything like that because it was unprompted.
00:58:23.000It wasn't like I was trying to conjure something up.
00:58:26.000I just really felt like I needed direction.
00:58:28.000I had stepped away from fighting for a little bit because win or lose, I had an excuse to use.
00:58:33.000It was like if I won, I wanted to celebrate.
00:58:35.000If I lost, I wanted to erase all that.
00:58:38.000And this was 11 months sober at 23. And how'd you do that?
00:58:46.000Honestly, I just kind of white-knuckled it and will-powered that.
00:58:49.000And then I had a great group of people around me.
00:58:52.000I would say I had this complete psychic change from almost a spiritual experience that I'm about to share with you where I say that prayer, God, what can we do with my life?
00:59:17.000I'm walking down this footpath, and I don't know where I am, and there's vines and thickets that are all around me, and I'm clearing out the vines, and the footpath is barely wider than my foot.
00:59:29.000And I don't know where I'm going, but I hear drumming.
00:59:46.000And this was the most vivid thing I've ever seen that didn't actually happen.
00:59:50.000It was 10 times, 20 to 100 times more vivid than the visualization drills that I did at the Olympic Training Center with my coaches for fights.
01:00:44.000I thought I would never tell anyone about it.
01:00:46.000And then when I tell Caleb, who had been buddies with Bear Grylls, had done survival training with him, had went and visited the Maasai tribe, the hunting lions, I thought, if there's one guy I could tell this to, it's this guy.
01:01:27.000He goes, I'm supposed to go there in three and a half weeks.
01:01:29.000This is crazy that we met because I had a team of three other people that were going with me, but they're all husbands, they're all fathers.
01:01:37.000And the U.S. State Department just said no Americans go there for any reason.
01:01:42.000That there's rebel groups that are actually decapitating people and different crazy things.
01:01:47.000He said, look, come tell my wife this vision.
01:02:08.000And it was like the craziest thing to me that like he can go, he's married, he's got a kid and like he, but he was already planning on going in three and a half weeks.
01:02:16.000And so we brought a buddy, Colin, along with us who took the, the, the photo that was just a candid photo.
01:03:37.000Jim and Susan, who helped me run Fight for the Forgotten, We had a dinner in Caleb's house in Nebraska, and Caleb and Jess were able to tell Jim and Susan their version of the story, which was awesome.
01:04:00.000But the chief came to us, and he gave us, after we stayed there for a couple weeks, he said, He gave me the one thing, you know, this is our 10 year anniversary, a fight for the forgotten.
01:04:09.000We're calling it 10 years of promise because they gave me the one promise that I could keep.
01:04:15.000And they said, I knew that they needed land, but I didn't know how to do that.
01:04:18.000I didn't know how to drill water wells.
01:06:11.000Basically, they do 5 milligrams, they do 10 milligrams, they do 20 milligrams, they do 40 milligrams, and then they do 80. So 5-oxy-80s is equivalent of like 40, or no, what is that?
01:07:23.000I guess that's the strongest meth in the world.
01:07:25.000That's what the dictionologist at rehab told me.
01:07:28.000And they said, literally, Justin, just the cocktail you took was 100% a heart-stopping cocktail if you hadn't had that crystal of that meth.
01:07:36.000That meth is the only thing that kept your heart beating.
01:07:53.000I remember my motor skills slowing to where if I would have tried to talk, I wouldn't have been able to.
01:07:58.000Um, the table was maybe right where you're sitting and the bed was where I was sitting.
01:08:02.000So it wasn't that far, but I remember I only took, I didn't take them what I thought was the Molly until after everything started getting dark or just kind of cold.
01:08:12.000And then the last thing I did was I crushed up that, that Molly or what I thought was Molly and I crushed it up and I snorted it.
01:08:19.000On both sides of my nostrils, and I never felt a burn like that in my life in my nostrils, because it was this, whatever, this chemical of methamphetamine.
01:08:28.000And I sat back on the bed, and I remember I laid back with my arms out, and my feet were off to where the next morning my ankles were swollen, because I just fell back and passed out.
01:08:40.000I woke up at maybe like 6am the next morning.
01:09:28.000And I take my shirt off and I just get in.
01:09:31.000And I remember I was sitting on my knees on the sand in the water.
01:09:35.000The water's coming up kind of on my chest and over my shoulders.
01:09:39.000And it was kind of grounding, but I just remember trying to connect to my breath and also my heart, because my heart was racing like crazy.
01:09:46.000And I remember, like, saying thank you for the beating heart in my chest.
01:09:51.000Like, thank you, because I wasn't planning on waking up the next day, and I did.
01:09:55.000And then I was saying thank you for the beating heart in my chest.
01:09:58.000And then I started saying thank you for the breath that's in my lungs.
01:10:07.000And before I started saying thank you though, I remember like these waves coming over me and it was almost like the shamefulness was coming over me with every wave.
01:10:15.000Like just so much shame because of what I did the night before, day before.
01:10:20.000And then whenever I started thinking myself or being thankful for the breath of my lungs, being thankful for that crazy beating heart in my chest, it's like it kind of switched to like gratefulness all of a sudden.
01:10:32.000And maybe like the shamefulness was leaving.
01:10:33.000You know how waves can kind of come over you and then they go back out and they kind of come over you.
01:10:37.000It was kind of like just all of a sudden it changed like gratefulness and a little bit of the shamefulness kind of left.
01:10:43.000And I just felt a sense like open your eyes.
01:10:47.000Like a thought in my mind, just open your eyes.
01:10:48.000And when I open my eyes, like literally on the horizon, in Playa del Carmen, like the sun just pops up over the sunrise.
01:10:57.000Or the sunrise starts to appear on the horizon.
01:11:00.000And I just sat there and I was like, I was dumbfounded.
01:11:03.000Or I was like, blown away because I watched the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen in my life.
01:12:12.000I mean, I was using from March 1st or 2nd to then this is like April 6th that I have this revelation that I do need to come back and go to rehab, but I can't stop.
01:12:48.000If you realize that you want to be alive and that you are valuable and that you've just tricked yourself into falling into this trap again, how do you allow yourself to use again?
01:13:03.000What is, like, what happens in your mind?
01:13:17.000And then also, I think just the addict mind of, like, withdrawals suck whenever you go through oxywithdrawal.
01:13:24.000Like, you feel like, I remember the time I was going through withdrawal after surgery, and I felt like I was going to shake the mattress off of the bed frame and I was sweating through it.
01:13:42.000I guess I could have gone and found it, but I had this and I was looking for my flights and I was going back to rehab and I guess I thought, I'm going to get sober at rehab.
01:15:44.000I'm willing to look at that and see if that's the right thing, but I want to do it under care of like actual specialists that have like Have you thought about Ibogaine?
01:16:02.000I have thought about that, and it's in Africa.
01:17:55.000So you have to put your body into a deficit, and so you have to be uncomfortable all the time, which is something that most people try to avoid.
01:18:24.000They have music going and you have, some people had an eye mask on and you're just breathing as deep as you can and then out as far as you can.
01:18:33.000In as far as you can and out as far as you can.
01:18:35.000And then they would coach you in different ways.
01:18:37.000They had people that were walking around doing different things.
01:19:55.000I think that, well, I think like right now, you know, with you and knowing that this is such a big platform and me sharing my weakest moments, you know, that's me trying to let that armor fall and be fully seen and not hide it,
01:22:43.000Either at the urinal where the kids jumped him and then filmed it or at the bus stop the very next day.
01:22:49.000Actually, it might be reversed where he was at the bus stop and it happened off school grounds so the school wasn't able to look into it as much as they could or should.
01:22:57.000And then the next day was at the urinal, and since it was circulating from inside the school, they were able to help.
01:23:03.000Those kids that did it to them, man, watching that, it's so horrific.
01:23:07.000Hitting them in the back of the head, kicking them in the stomach.
01:23:48.000And when you've been hurt at home, when you've been hurt at school, and whenever someone else will laugh or joke, or when people don't do anything, you can feel powerful or you can feel strong.
01:24:02.000Whenever people sit by as an innocent bystander.
01:24:06.000Wrongfully thinking they're an innocent bystander when actually they're a silent supporter.
01:24:09.000A lot of times, you know, if you see it or hear it, kids just don't know that it's now they're presented with a choice.
01:24:14.000Am I going to do something or do nothing?
01:24:16.000And kids don't know that nine times out of ten almost, it's like 87% of the time a kid stands up and says one thing such as like, hey, that's not kind.
01:24:26.000Someone will stop whenever they're confronted, whenever it's addressed, whether it's reported or even more so than the authorities that are in place, which kids should go tell teachers and faculty and stuff like that, but they have more power than they know.
01:24:46.000Like when I was doing that breath work though, I was praying and this brought me so much peace because it was something that I actually needed for me.
01:24:52.000I think I used that vision to then just give me a mission to like love people in such a deep and meaningful way for myself.
01:25:00.000But I don't think I ever allowed myself to love myself.
01:25:04.000Because I don't know that I... I knew it logically, but I didn't let it actually sink in, that you have to love yourself before you love others, truly and sustainably, right?
01:25:26.000I know what I'm saying sounds ridiculous, but I don't...
01:25:32.000I don't get how after all the amazing things you've done it hasn't changed your opinion of yourself That was cut into you by some 13 year old kids Yeah, well, I really feel like I have a lot of freedom from that now But then I didn't it was I'll tell you this vision was what I think needed to happen I'm breathing.
01:25:55.000Aubrey says that and I just visualize in my head like a human heart and the arm are falling off and hitting the dirt.
01:26:02.000I don't know why, but that's what I did in that moment.
01:26:04.000We start breathing and about 30 minutes goes by probably.
01:26:09.000And all of a sudden, I'm doing the most meditation I've ever done in my life, the most intense breathing I've ever done in my life.
01:26:17.000And all of a sudden, I start seeing in my mind, like, almost as visual as that time I saw myself in the forest.
01:26:25.000And I start seeing these storm clouds forming and it's over the ocean.
01:27:34.000And right when that happened, right before the heart hit the bottom of the ocean floor, all of a sudden I see at the top of the water this...
01:27:42.000And it's this golden swirl of this water that swims down and it's almost like it's on a mission.
01:27:48.000It's trying to get to my heart and it was right before it hit the ocean floor.
01:27:52.000This golden gorgeous like water swirled around my heart and started resurfacing it.
01:27:59.000I knew that was my heart and it takes it back up.
01:28:20.000It's just like the visualization drills, but it was unprompted.
01:28:23.000It wasn't like I'm trying to see an ocean.
01:28:25.000It's not like I'm trying to see a heart.
01:28:27.000So this symbolized in your mind what you needed to do.
01:28:31.000You needed to figure out how to get yourself healthy and to get your heart healthy and to change your perceptions and the way you're behaving in life.
01:29:04.000And when that happened, I don't know why, but I put my arms up, and I put my arms up, and one of the facilitators are helping people breathe and stretch and different things like that.
01:29:12.000They grab my wrist, and they pull my wrist above my head.
01:29:29.000And then I bring it back above my head and I'm seeing this golden heart and I feel like there's something inside of my hands, like this energy inside of it.
01:29:39.000I don't know why, but it was heavy and it was there.
01:29:41.000And then someone else comes by and they grab my hands and they put my hands over my hands and they sink it right down onto my chest.
01:29:48.000And whenever they did that, I don't know how to explain it except for it felt like there was this golden honey that was like sinking down into my own heart or into my own chest and my own soul.
01:30:07.000And like, this is a season of healing through self love, through self love and meditation, taking time for myself and silence.
01:30:14.000Um, and taking, I think, I think the word healing for me is like helping being open, To others helping me heal, taking time for myself to heal, and then helping others heal.
01:30:29.000Whether it's Raiden, mentoring him, loving on him, other people, the pygmies.
01:30:34.000As I heal myself, I can help others heal.
01:31:41.000Yeah, well, it's been dope for me because there's the Colorado River, Lake Austin, and then going there and just hiking on 250 acres or the Greenbelt or all these other parks, Zilker Park, and going out there with people that are stretching, doing yoga, that are just kind of like really open-minded,
01:32:14.000And for me, part of the healing in my journey is that I felt like if I let anyone know, if I really let anyone know, like this dark side or this addiction that I fell back to or this relapse that I had and how dark of a spot I got,
01:32:31.000if they knew, like no one would want to support me, no one would want to support the organization, right?
01:32:38.000And then when I went to rehab and I went to sober living and the board really helped me, the board said, Justin, we've been standing behind you for 10 years now, close to 10 years.
01:32:46.000Now it's time for us to stand beside you and out in front of you with a shield and protect you.
01:34:08.000They're people I can really look up to, that I can trust.
01:34:13.000And I I think upgrading, not that I didn't have good friends, but I think upgrading a friend group in a way of like, these people are hungry.
01:34:22.000They're hungry to live an incredible life for themselves, but they're also wanting to better other people's lives.
01:34:53.000And, you know, I just had to thank them because, you know, they told me how proud they were of me going through the work, doing the work, the hard stuff.
01:35:01.000And I just had to look back at everyone and say, like, y'all don't understand.
01:35:06.000Like, I thought I was going to lose everything.
01:35:08.000I thought I was gonna lose every one do you think that you this this draw I keep trying to figure out what led you down this dark path other than obviously the divorce but you the the things that you've done you've been so praised for you've gotten so much love you've been so powerful as a fighter and you this weird combination of someone who's incredibly strong but also vulnerable it's a very It's
01:35:39.000a very unusual combination like who you are like incredibly kind and giving but also like very competitive like as a fighter you know yeah you I would most people when they do something that like they've gotten over the bullying through accomplishing things and through redefining who they are as a person but for you it doesn't seem like that did enough Even with all the charitable work you've done,
01:36:06.000the amazing work you've done, even all the accomplishments you've had as a fighter, you're obviously not that person.
01:36:14.000We even talked about you having contact with some of the bullies, some of the people that you, and they were kind of blown away by who you are now.
01:36:23.000But that didn't even redefine it for you, redefine who you are for you.
01:36:47.000Until you love, until you really actually allow yourself, not just to accept love from other people, but to allow yourself to love yourself.
01:37:02.000Like, I mean, it would look like I ran from one thing to another to another.
01:39:27.000But when you stop, that's when you relapsed.
01:39:30.000Yeah, and honestly, the real self-loathing or self-hatred or feeling of not good enough, being worthless, that would always come after the first use.
01:39:43.000Because my first time to use, to drink, it was after I won my first national championship in wrestling.
01:39:52.000Well, when I won the high school national championship.
01:40:34.000And it's really hard to explain to people that don't understand it or people that don't have that inclination.
01:40:40.000One of the things that actually got me to choose Stonegate and this rehab center Was because on it, I always thought, like, I think part of me, because I'm disciplined, because I've been a national champion of wrestling, I've fought in the UFC, all that stuff, and I've been disciplined,
01:40:56.000I just thought that there was something weak-willed about me to use, or that I was morally corrupted, and I just didn't have...
01:41:27.000They do until they're equipped, until they're empowered, until they're educated about what's going on when they do that and how you can trick yourself.
01:41:34.000Well, then how come sometimes people just find rock bottom and then they just decide to stop using?
01:41:39.000Well, that's basically what I did at 23. I hit rock bottom.
01:41:42.000I got a voicemail from my best friend at the time and he's a great guy now and we're friends, but he said, I can't believe you missed my wedding.
01:41:49.000I can't believe my best man didn't show up.
01:41:51.000You know, I was eight weeks on a binge and it was basically a blur for eight weeks.
01:41:57.000And that rock bottom moment and then going back to grudge and then being kicked off the team, like that was rock bottom, man.
01:42:03.000And then again, rock bottom comes 10 years later.
01:43:29.000And maybe I was more of just a hard user then.
01:43:32.000But then after these other times, I was the real deal.
01:43:34.000And I can point back to that first time and say I've always been the real deal.
01:43:39.000And maybe I just had this spiritual awakening or this sober vision that all of a sudden took me and gave me a life beyond what I could've ever done.
01:43:47.000I'm just worried about saying that you need help.
01:43:52.000No, and people can do it on their own.
01:43:54.000And I think I'm doing it in a way, but there are people just like me that do need that pattern interrupt, that training camp for the biggest fight of their life.
01:44:06.000This was the, after April 5th, And I attempted suicide.
01:44:10.000I finally realized, there's no fight in a cage that's the biggest fight I'm ever going to have.
01:44:21.000It doesn't end well for the people I'm trying to help.
01:44:23.000So that's why I went and actually got help was because I wanted some sort of training camp.
01:44:28.000And I had that six months where it's like preparation to build support and help and some boundaries and things like that to where I'm able to better know myself.
01:45:24.000It's, it's helped me a lot to where I don't feel like I don't feel bad if someone reaches out and I don't really know them, but they expect a response.
01:45:31.000And are you fucking around with social media at all?
01:46:02.000Because the people that are close to me in my circle, the people that are helping me with the board of directors or this Fit for Service tribe or you, those are the people that can speak into my life and I'll take a good, hard look at it.
01:46:14.000And what I learned that they would offend you so much purposefully at rehab that what they were trying to do is help.
01:46:20.000They say offense or resentment is the number one offender.
01:46:24.000And if you allow resentment to build in you or offense and be offended and things like that, a lot of times that's whenever people go back out and use.
01:46:31.000And so for me, if it doesn't apply, let it fly.
01:46:49.000I did my second round at Ways 12. And this was what was really cool that she showed me because I've been telling her I've been trying to heal from the inside out.
01:46:56.000And she goes, that's exactly what we're doing.
01:46:59.000It's preventative, regenerative, integrative care and functional medicine, but they're able to track the My progress on...
01:47:06.000I've gotten better insulin resistance, which the reason my insulin wasn't that great was because I had so much inflammation in my body.
01:47:14.000And that goes back to the parasites, the bacterias, all the other stuff.
01:49:08.000And then, like, I had to start balancing back out that bad bacteria with good bacteria because it should be a 50-50 balance or better good than bad.
01:49:57.000You need a lot more time to recover than that.
01:49:59.000And on top of that, we were talking about the fact that you're taking these heavy-duty antibiotics, and these heavy-duty antibiotics have shown to weaken your tendons and ligaments.
01:50:22.000And she was able to show me on all these places I'm making progress.
01:50:26.000And instead of doing it every three...
01:50:28.000Um, months like they do with more of their patients or all their patients.
01:50:33.000Um, they're going to do blood panels on me.
01:50:35.000They're going to be watching everything that's going on in my body to show me that I'm not just, so the other day she said, Justin, my first time going through your blood laps, I wasn't going to tell you how long of a road you still have ahead.
01:50:51.000You've made a lot of progress, but you've got a long road ahead.
01:50:55.000And after the second time with her, she's like, Justin, look at all these improvements.
01:50:58.000This is to make sure you're hope-filled, you know, full of hope that you are on the right track to make this comeback.
01:51:05.000So you can attribute a lot of this to that disease.
01:51:08.000You can attribute a lot of what went wrong in your life to these parasites and getting sick.
01:52:20.000So what we're doing in Uganda, it's going to be so incredible.
01:52:24.000Literally, they've never had a home, right?
01:52:25.000We're building homes where they're going to have tapped water there.
01:52:28.000They're going to have tapped water right outside their doorstep, not inside, because of the inside plumbing.
01:52:32.000If something goes bad, we want the toilet to just walk out their front door, turn on a spigot, and they've got water for their food, for boiling, for their hands, for washing.
01:52:41.000Isn't it crazy how we take things for granted?
01:52:47.000We've dug latrines, and you should have seen the celebration they had whenever they had latrines, which are toilets for the first time, instead of just having to go behind a tree.
01:53:53.000For me, I've started to find a lot more purpose in my voice.
01:53:58.000Helping, for sure, through Fight for the Forgotten, that's so much of my purpose.
01:54:03.000But I'm going to start a podcast this year, 2021, and I hope that it's going to help other people, whether it's having doctors and actors and entrepreneurs, whatever it is, people that have a story, a story of hope, like how they've overcome something.
01:54:25.000I don't know if I'm going to fight again at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022, but I've been talking to Rafael Lovato Jr., and what I'm doing is just get healed.
01:54:36.000That was what I was just going to say.
01:54:37.000I know that you were thinking about doing that again.
01:54:40.000When we were talking, when we were getting stem cell shots and talking about it, and I was like, Jesus, dude, it seems like there's always a new thing, always a new problem.
01:54:50.000When you've got this problem solved, a new problem comes up, you've got to deal with this problem.
01:55:25.000Yeah, and then the CDC found that I had dengue fever, and then I had blackwater fever, which if you Google that, it's either one in two or one in four people die that get it.
01:55:37.000And that's where I had, yeah, basically 65, 70. But that was an offshoot of malaria, blackwater fever.
01:56:47.000Because you're such a good person, and I know you want to go back there and do good again, but goddamn, dude, if you get more things happening to you, your body's been fucking poisoned for years.
01:56:57.000Every time you go over there, you're getting poisoned.
01:57:00.000Are you getting poisoned with malaria?
01:57:02.000Are you getting poisoned with these parasites and fevers and all this crazy shit that keeps happening to you?
01:57:08.000Last time I went and the last couple times I went, I didn't get malaria again.
01:57:11.000It was like the, what was it, the third time I had it, it was where it was laying dormant.
01:57:17.000And then my immune system got weaker because it's been weakened a lot.
01:57:22.000I'm 33 and I've had shingles five times.
01:57:25.000And that's like an old person's disease.
01:57:27.000And it was because my immune system's been shot.
02:00:05.000And so when I look at a new thing, I'm like, I don't have time for that.
02:00:08.000And I've said no to cool shit because of that, like movie roles and things that would be interesting and projects that would probably be fun.
02:00:25.000And I don't want to burden myself with too much shit.
02:00:29.000You look at things like, then I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be, like we were talking about the podcast, I'm going to be on the board, and I'm on a piece of that.
02:01:09.000Or Something gets redlined to the point where it starts breaking whether it's your physical body or it's your your immune system your health or whatever the fuck it is or it's your Emotional state or your relationships something always suffers and it comes back to in a lot of times people are afraid of stillness They're afraid of peace.
02:01:31.000They're afraid of being alone in their thoughts It's one of the reasons why I like the isolation tank so much you have to be alone with your thoughts and Yeah.
02:01:54.000That piece of that time where you're forced to think is so fucking important.
02:02:01.000If you don't have that time and you just keep doing things, you're just stuck with momentum, the momentum of all these things, and then who you are, you kind of...
02:02:12.000You never really fully address who you are.
02:02:16.000You don't come to grips with who you are.
02:02:57.000I think that that, honestly, one of the most powerful moments for me at rehab was whenever it said you have to take an honest, personal, a rigorous, honest, personal inventory of yourself.
02:03:11.000Yeah, and I did that there, and I've been continuing to do that.
02:03:15.000And one of the things that's been great that I've taken on as I've got to do this for me, but also I have support now with the people around me, is that I have to be able to say no 10 times to get one yes.
02:03:27.000You know, defend every yes with 10 no's.
02:03:30.000And try to cut the things out that I really am not doing.
02:03:34.000So most of my mornings now, like until 9 or 10 o'clock, like I wake up 6.30, 7. Until 9 or 10 o'clock, I'm really not on my phone.
02:03:43.000And I'm literally trying to either journal or read or meditate.
02:03:47.000And then I try to set up my day, my schedule before I get on my phone and being reactive.
02:03:53.000I'm really trying to take that time to do that.
02:04:26.000I'm like, because I normally would say I'm indebted to these people.
02:04:29.000And if I told them I'm going to be there, I have to be there.
02:04:31.000And I'm normally that guy, but since I'd already been with them a lot and they didn't necessarily need me there, they just wanted me there, I texted and said, hey, I can be there late, we can go to lunch, we can do something like that, but right now I've got something I've got to do.
02:04:44.000And really that was me almost standing up for myself, saying like, I need some more time today to work on myself.
02:06:03.000Well, yeah, that's what, in that reading of all my blood work, I love how they're doing it.
02:06:11.000But just seeing the improvement in my actual minerals in my body, the vitamins that I have available, what I'm able to use, my insulin getting better, cholesterol getting better, which is showing that, like, she was saying it's not insulin from Like,
02:09:23.000They said it was sufficient to go test it out and see.
02:09:25.000So I put in a brace and then I actually climbed it in the documentary cameras like they show me like just snow falling on me and like the wind almost blowing me over and they had to turn back and go go back.
02:09:36.000But anyways at six weeks, six weeks I was supposed to be non-weight bearing at six weeks I was at the top of Kilimanjaro with Chris Long and Steven Jackson from the NFL and like some of our military veterans.
02:09:48.000And that to me was like, wow, regenerative medicine is real.
02:10:45.000There's plenty of peer-reviewed studies on the benefits of stem cells.
02:10:49.000They do know that these are incredibly beneficial to people.
02:10:52.000There's a lot of resistance to these things being legalized.
02:10:56.000I think that's why Jason with MedCorp Biologics, who is helping us, he really wants to be a front-runner.
02:11:01.000With it, and he is in Texas, but most of his stuff all has to be through insurance and FDA approved and all the other stuff, which he's like, I think the best in Texas at doing it.
02:11:11.000And then with Brigham, his whole vision is to literally take the middleman out of it, like the insurance companies.
02:11:27.000Well, they're the most overwhelmed people in the world, doctors for the most part.
02:12:36.000And then you can stop in their tracks the top 10 chronic diseases in America, like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, like this kind of stuff you can prevent with a healthy diet with optimal nutrition and good source in your body and like the right healthcare.
02:12:53.000Not the healthcare that treats you when you get cancer, but the healthcare that...
02:12:57.000That treats you before you get cancer and keeps you from getting cancer.
02:13:28.000Honestly, for me, that's kind of the difference between the developing world or third world, developing nations, and here in the U.S. For me, with the pygmies and the water crisis,
02:13:47.000Completely preventable disease and death.
02:13:51.000So that's on a whole other spectrum and level that's hard for a lot of us to hear and get because it goes in one ear and out the other.
02:13:58.000If you see it, that can really impact you.
02:14:01.000But if you feel it or live it or experience it with them, that forever changes you.
02:14:06.000But then I guess on the lesser scale here in the United States, it's like...
02:14:11.000Man, like, if you really look at it, I mean, like, we're so fortunate and we're so grateful, but still at the same time, I look at it and I'm like, I compare it to the water crisis.
02:14:21.000We can prevent people from getting sick like that.
02:14:23.000And now me on my own journey, my own healing journey.
02:14:26.000It's like there is this kind of wellness revolution that's starting here that we do have access to saying, like, well, these things that are killing us, we can stop them in their tracks or we can push it back.
02:15:53.000And then he's with Rafael Lovato Jr., you know, 12-time world medalist, 6-time world champion, Shanji, who's got at least 10 world champions.
02:15:59.000Yeah, they sent me the picture of all you guys in the sauna.
02:16:21.000His ankle was broken, and he just kept working out on it while it was broken forever, so it fused into this gnarly stump of an ankle, like a tree stump.
02:17:08.000He was doing these gorilla ones that we were all doing, and I was able to keep up with him on that.
02:17:12.000I forget the name of the other one he does, but he's like an underwater, like, I don't know, superhero mermaid, where he's like literally doing a, he goes into a squat, he does a curl, and then he does the squat jump, and he comes out, and he arches backwards.
02:17:25.000So that way he does this beautiful, like, backflip in the water.
02:17:31.000And literally he said, I'll show you guys how to do it.
02:17:44.000Raphael and I and Shanji, we got like six, eight, 10. I mean, it's all about the flow and the breath because you go down that deep.
02:17:52.000And for me, like, you know, I mean, I don't know, like you start to kind of freak out whenever you can't breathe.
02:17:59.000And so, not in jiu-jitsu for me, but underwater with weights.
02:18:02.000And then all of a sudden I go up, all of a sudden it's like, ooh, I don't know if I can keep going on this many reps.
02:18:07.000I'm not kidding when I say he did 100. I know that sounds like a lot, but he did 100. Then David Sinclair's getting in there and he's trying to be a champ too.
02:18:15.000And he was doing everything we were doing a little lighter and stuff, but he was just so for it.
02:18:21.000I know he's a Harvard professor and all that other stuff, a researcher and biologist and all this incredible stuff, but now I get to talk with him and Rob, who's a friend of mine, and I think he's the PR guy for For David.
02:18:37.000But anyways, I'm starting to look into that NAD, the Resveratol, which I don't know about all that stuff, but he was talking to Laird and Gabby about it.
02:20:35.000But this is what the people that I love and who I'm here to help, this is what they go through on a daily basis.
02:20:40.000Or they get this in their lifetime and they've lost people from it.
02:20:44.000So now I get an opportunity to understand on a deeper level that I'll never forget.
02:20:49.000Like, they go through this all the time, and it is a deadly killer all throughout the world.
02:20:55.000It's one of the main missions of, I think, the Gates Foundation and other people trying to end malaria, like we've done mostly with polio and stuff like that.
02:21:02.000And it's like, we gotta come up with something to, I think they have, like, new mosquitoes that are starting to target the mosquitoes that have malaria.
02:23:34.000But I just said, you know, for me to not have lost everything with Fight for the Forgotten, my position, to not have lost any of the board members.
02:23:43.000Like, we actually gained a board member.
02:23:45.000And to not have lost these donors, but to like have had an increase in donations.
02:23:50.000The most nonprofits in 2020 went down.
02:23:57.000We really want to help people in a practical, tangible, sustainable way that they can take on and then champion.
02:24:03.000You know, having your support has meant the world to us.
02:24:07.000And we've been in existence 10 years now.
02:24:09.000And what I've seen now is I really believe it's the tip of the iceberg.
02:24:13.000If I start working smarter, not harder, and putting myself in these crazy positions, and I protect myself and my health, and I do the right things there, it's going to lead to even better things than we've done before.
02:24:27.000Instead of 73 wells I'll be telling people how we've drilled 700 wells sometime in the next 10 years.
02:26:30.000And I'm really grateful that I've had a big breakthrough.
02:26:34.000I mean, literally, the first six months of 2020 were the worst six months of my life.
02:26:37.000But the last six months, like doing the hard work, doing deep work, like trying to uproot this garbage...
02:26:45.000You know, instead of having these deep roots that produce like bad fruits in my own life, how about deep roots that produce like good roots and then even like a shade tree for, you know, the pygmies or these kids that are getting bullied or whatever.
02:27:08.000You know, it seems so easy to let things slip a little bit, relax a little here, relax a little there, but...
02:27:13.000There's certain paths that you really should never get off.
02:27:17.000And the path of, first of all, of being connected to the moment, that's so important.
02:27:25.000And one of the things about people throwing a bunch of things in their lives and problems in their lives is it keeps you from being connected to the moment.
02:27:33.000When you have all these distractions and problems and issues that keep coming up, that's why I get weirded out by people that always have problems.
02:27:40.000And that's why I was saying, do you think that these problems, you're creating some of these problems, whether you realize it or not?
02:28:40.000And I was in Lafayette with the whole family and went out on the swamps during the day and went wild oyster mushroom hunting and grilled those up and ate them.
02:29:21.000But the strategy of those low kicks, Conor has that wide stance And he puts a lot of weight on that front leg, and he did not seem to have an answer for those low kicks.
02:29:34.000And that is just a fucking new element of the game that seems unstoppable, because you can only take a couple.
02:29:41.000You know, Khabib was saying that when he fought Justin Gaethje, that those low kicks were as hard as he'd ever been hit before, and even he probably recognized He couldn't take too many of those.
02:29:53.000I told Jimmy, Dustin's brother, after the first round, he just gave it away to Dustin and to Mike Brown.
02:29:59.000They're going to stay on that calf kick.
02:30:00.000They already knew it was working, but he didn't sit down in between rounds.
02:30:34.000Yeah, I've had a couple of those before, and they're brutal.
02:30:37.000And I'm curious because I've been talking with some of Manny's team who's donating to us, and some of his closest guys is executive director, and they're like, man, they were really looking forward to maybe the Manny fight and the Conor McGregor fight happening.
02:30:50.000But now they said that his stock's come down a lot in boxing after being knocked out by Dustin.
02:30:55.000But then John Cavanaugh's saying, well, if they don't get the rematch with Dustin Poirier, then he's just going to go over and fight in boxing now.
02:31:03.000And I was thinking, coming off of that loss, I don't think that Jon Cavanaugh is being smart there, saying he's going straight into boxing.
02:34:09.000But I believe that the guys that he's beaten, if you look at the guys he's beaten and look at the overall talent depth of the lightweight division...
02:34:18.000I think you can make an argument that the lightweights are more talented or at least more technical or, you know, overall it's a deeper division.
02:34:27.000So Jamie bringing up Dana just brought up something for me that, like, I'm really grateful for Dana in many ways, but one is that he said that he's going to help fund CTE research.
02:34:38.000I actually just got back from a funeral in the autopsy says he died of complications due to CTE and he was one of my first sponsors and I was his training partner.
02:34:48.000He's my training partner, but I was his coach.
02:34:50.000He played football at Iowa State, but he got concussions in middle school.
02:34:55.000Probably, at least they think he got concussions in middle school.
02:34:57.000He got concussions playing football in high school.
02:34:59.000Then he got concussions playing football in Iowa State.
02:35:02.00085% of them, by the time they're in high school, they already have some CT. And then he started fighting.
02:35:10.000I was in his corner and everything else.
02:35:12.000He sponsored me with his supplement company at the time.
02:35:16.000Remember whenever NO Explode was huge?
02:35:18.000Anyways, he started one called Cardio Force and that was my first supplement sponsor.
02:35:22.000There is a new study that they're doing now with the UFC with mushrooms, with psychedelic mushrooms.
02:35:28.000And this is based on some research from John Hopkins University and now the UFC is involved in this CTE therapy with psychedelic mushrooms.
02:35:42.000And there's something about psychedelic mushrooms.
02:35:45.000Psilocybin regrows neurons and they think it can regrow neural tissue.
02:35:50.000And they think it might be able to actually help heal brain damage, which was thought to be a very difficult prospect to try to heal the mind once it's been damaged by stress and impacts and concussions.
02:36:05.000Well, that could have been something that maybe helped Brian.
02:36:07.000I'm really proud of his family and him.
02:36:11.000He donated his brain to a research center in Boston, the number one CTE research center in the world.
02:36:19.000What was really hard was the last three or four months, he really just tanked physically.
02:36:24.000I got to share the eulogy with one of the people that spoke at the funeral.
02:36:37.000He ended up hanging himself and he was forgetting everything.
02:36:43.000He had watched his mother-in-law go through Alzheimer's and her forget people and they had to take care of her for two years or more and for three months.
02:37:11.000Kevin Burns is a good friend of mine, good friend of Brian Sykes.
02:37:13.000And he had asked him on Christmas Eve or the day before Christmas Eve about what if we started a charity in Iowa for people with CTE, former football players and people in MMA division.
02:37:23.000And then something happened on December 26th.
02:37:26.000They had a great Christmas, everything else.
02:37:29.000But he was forgetting things for like three or four months.
02:37:53.000So I think there's going to be a lot of breakthrough, I hope, on CTE. And Brian, the thing that I even brought that up is even in his death, that was one of the things I said at the funeral, even in his death, he's still helping people.
02:38:07.000He was one of the most loving people I'd ever met.
02:38:09.000He would stop on the way to Ski Hills in Colorado from Iowa.
02:39:59.000Hopefully they'll figure out some therapies where they can mitigate those problems that are going to occur from those kind of knockouts or maybe even reverse the damage, which would be amazing.
02:40:16.000Yeah, I'm going to have whoever's involved in that study come on here and explain it.
02:40:20.000One of the things I really admire about you is, one, I know John Halkman pretty well, and then to watch Chuck—I don't know Chuck that well, but I know John real well—and to watch how Chuck left his career, you know, on all those brutal knockouts.
02:40:32.000And then why I said I admire you is because of, you know, we both love Brendan.
02:40:36.000I was training partners with him, was on The Ultimate Fighter with him, and just how you had that loving talk with him because you really care.
02:40:54.000We actually had a conversation today about a friend of ours who's really fucked up, who's a fighter, who's got some serious CTE. And I said, thank God you fucking retired.
02:41:19.000It's beautiful that you helped him, because he's too smart of a guy, too loving of a guy, too great of a guy to have to deal with that for the rest of his life.
02:41:29.000But it's just so hard for people to abandon their identity.
02:42:37.000If people want to donate, they can donate one time.
02:42:39.000They can become part of our Fight Club, which is our monthly giving club.
02:42:42.000But really, right now, if you want to scroll down a little bit, it's at Buffalo Trace, right on our homepage, fightforthefengout.org, and you can win the whiskey experience of a lifetime.