Order of Man - JUSTIN WREN ｜ Fight for the Forgotten

00:00:00.000 Guys, everyone out there is searching for a fulfilled and meaningful life, especially if

00:00:04.200 you're listening to this podcast, but too many men attempt to find that meaning and purpose in some

00:00:09.420 self-absorbed pursuit in my experience. And, and also all the guests that I've talked with on the

00:00:14.860 podcast, uh, the most meaningful experiences are found in serving others. My guest today,

00:00:20.340 Justin Wren is no exception as he has found his life's work in serving the pygmy people of Africa. 1.00

00:00:26.480 Today, we talk about the power of purpose, creating opportunities, uh, when attempting to help

00:00:32.020 people actually hurts them, the American bubble of prosperity. We also talk about stacking reasons

00:00:38.660 to win and always remembering who you're fighting for and why you're actually fighting. You're a man

00:00:45.140 of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears and boldly charge your own path. When

00:00:50.500 life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not easily deterred

00:00:56.080 defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will

00:01:03.200 become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:09.320 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler. I'm the host and the founder of the

00:01:13.180 Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here and welcome back. I've got Justin Wren on the podcast.

00:01:18.880 This is a very, very powerful conversation about serving other people and getting lost in that

00:01:24.180 service and finding purpose and meaning. I think you're really, really going to enjoy this one.

00:01:28.820 And hopefully it serves you in some way as you work to serve others. And that's what we're all about

00:01:33.940 here guys is serving other people. I think that we become men when we learn how to take what we

00:01:40.960 inherently possess our masculinity and turn that into skills and tools and resources to help other people

00:01:49.160 win in their own lives. Our wife, our kids, our community members, our neighbors, our clients,

00:01:55.480 et cetera, et cetera. So I want to give you all the tools that you need to do just that. And we do that

00:01:59.640 via this podcast. Before we get into it with Justin, just want to mention my friends and show sponsors

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00:03:18.760 order at checkout. All right, guys, let me introduce you to Justin. Just an absolutely incredible human

00:03:25.200 being. I've known him for a little while and we were able to finally make this happen. He's an advocate

00:03:30.000 and champion for the pygmy people in Africa. In fact, he founded a nonprofit called fight for the 0.98

00:03:35.420 forgotten in order to bring clean water and land and housing and food for these oppressed families.

00:03:42.580 You're going to learn more about that in the podcast. He also dedicates a lot of his time to

00:03:46.600 addressing the needs of bullied and traumatized youth through his bullying prevention and character

00:03:52.040 development programs. But Justin's also highly, highly accomplished MMA fighter. He's fought for both

00:03:58.580 the UFC and Bellator. And although the man could likely kill you and me in the ring,

00:04:06.220 he uses his skillset to fight for others and is one of the most giving people I know. Enjoy this one,

00:04:11.500 guys. Justin, what's up, man? It's good to finally connect and make this happen.

00:04:17.300 Man, I know. I'm so excited to get to be on the show. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

00:04:22.680 And I know you got a lot of great supporters out there, so I'm excited to share my story with them.

00:04:26.840 Yeah, no, I am too. And I'm really grateful to Sean as well, because I know you and I have been

00:04:33.140 kind of connected. And then Sean's like, Hey, I just met with Justin. I'm like, I've been talking

00:04:37.400 with Justin. It's crazy how small of a world it is when you run in these like high caliber circles.

00:04:43.140 Absolutely. Sean was the man. They just raised $50,000 for fight for the forgotten. I got to announce

00:04:50.380 there with him, which he, his gift to me for coming out and speaking besides the $50,000 that

00:04:56.740 they raised, which was incredible. The first gift was, was your book sovereignty. And so,

00:05:01.660 yeah, he signed it for me, wrote me a very kind letter. And I'm just really grateful for that team.

00:05:08.280 It's a revolution financial management and they're killing it. And they made people's lives better,

00:05:14.120 man. I was inspired by them. I didn't know exactly what I was going into their energy,

00:05:17.980 but to see a team that's all about like meeting the needs of the underserved, like that was right

00:05:25.440 up my wheelhouse. And they're like, look, we're not just going after being financial advisors for

00:05:29.320 like the ultra wealthy. I'm going to make sure anybody can, can create wealth and build that.

00:05:34.360 And I was like, what a, what a powerful mission. Yeah. I mean, I don't know too much about his

00:05:38.900 business. I know a little bit about it. Cause I actually used to work for an organization that is,

00:05:44.160 is tied in with what they're doing. But yeah, I've been hunting with Sean. He's been out here

00:05:49.240 to my place. Like he's, he's top notch, man. He really is. Absolutely. Cool. I got to tell you,

00:05:56.220 first and foremost, man, you're looking good. Like you've been on this, like, I don't have you been

00:06:01.160 on that fitness kick lately? Like, I don't want to say kick. I think that I don't think that doesn't

00:06:05.820 serve us, but like you've been looking good, man. You're working hard. It looks good. It shows.

00:06:10.360 Thank you. It's, it's been more about consistency and dialing everything in.

00:06:16.240 So that's been good. And I just moved to Austin has, has really helped me a lot. I moved here

00:06:20.400 from Oklahoma city. I'm a Dallas Fort worth kid, but I lived in Colorado and I've been very grateful

00:06:26.400 and fortunate to be able to train with some of the best in the world. Um, from wrestling, I've had,

00:06:30.660 I don't know, four or five Olympic gold medalists that have coached me. Um, but my first two coaches,

00:06:35.960 Kenny Monday, Kindle Cross, both Olympic gold medalists. They were the only high school

00:06:40.120 coaches that were Olympic gold medalists. And we had two at the same school. Yeah. Two at the same

00:06:45.540 school. One was my training partner. So I had no excuse, but to get, get good, but they, they taught

00:06:50.560 me a lot. And one of those things was, you know, just do the basics and get the fundamentals down

00:06:56.160 and really build on that. Like I came into wrestling late in the game. I was 15 years old when I stepped

00:07:02.000 on the mats, but I was national champ by 17. But the first year, year of wrestling, I lost every match,

00:07:08.140 uh, except one by one point. Of course they said, stop trying to learn 10, 20, 30 moves. These guys

00:07:14.640 have, you know, they've been wrestling since they were kids, just get two moves that nobody can stop

00:07:19.820 no matter what, even if they know it's coming. And so, um, that's been cool to get back to the

00:07:25.180 basics and say, you know, I want to be open-minded, um, in my MMA training always, but like do what works

00:07:31.080 and keep doing that and moving down here to Austin, physical fitness hasn't ever really been

00:07:36.980 my thing. It's been, I want to get on the mats. I want to wrestle to get the strength for wrestling.

00:07:41.340 I want to box to get the technique and timing down. I want to do jujitsu to get great at that. And then

00:07:47.780 coming down here, I've been training a lot of, uh, on it, gym ATX and man, that's, that's been

00:07:53.180 killer to be surrounded by guys that move with a purpose or very intentional. Uh, and I think a lot

00:08:00.460 of times MMA fighters and their coaches probably try to beat them down because you're getting ready

00:08:07.060 for a fight. So what it may, I mean, it kind of makes sense to like beat your body down so that

00:08:12.700 you'll be stronger and better for the fight, but really strength, strength training for a fighter,

00:08:17.960 you should be building your body back up because every other thing in training is beating your body

00:08:22.220 down. So you got to make sure you get there to the fight and that you recover well. And so that

00:08:27.180 intentional movement, it's, it's always there with wrestling jujitsu, but taking that into another

00:08:32.380 side of it with like coaches that understand, like that's been really helpful for my growth.

00:08:37.060 Well, and most of us who are listening, like me, for example, I'll just speak for myself. I won't

00:08:43.120 speak for anybody else. Like I'm not going to go fight at elite levels, but I do want to make sure

00:08:49.080 I'm taking care of my body. I want my nutrition to be locked in. I want to feel good when I wake up.

00:08:54.080 I want to have sex with my wife. I want to be able to wrestle with my kids. Like, I don't need 1.00

00:08:57.960 to beat the hell out of myself. I just want to be strong and fit.

00:09:01.060 Right. No, that's, that's totally part of it. And I think maybe fighters live in the extremes.

00:09:08.200 A lot of times it's a little bit of a roller coaster.

00:09:10.700 It's going to be your personality though, too. Right? Like I don't, I imagine you couldn't be

00:09:14.600 incredible because I know you've competed at the top echelons of competition in MMA and,

00:09:19.460 and combat sports. Like you can't be that unless you're willing to go all in, that's a different

00:09:27.120 personality trait. Yeah. I think all in for sure. And I think there's a lot of great things that,

00:09:34.400 that come from that. I just had a training partner on my podcast and he's also my coach,

00:09:41.200 but his name's Rafael Lovato Jr. The most accomplished American to ever do the sport of

00:09:46.100 jiu-jitsu. I think he's got like 12 world medals, five or six world championships. And he's the

00:09:50.360 undefeated MMA world champion, retired that way. And he's an incredible dude, but he talks about,

00:09:56.260 you know, Hey, just live your passion. If you're living your passion, you can go all in. And he

00:10:01.900 goes, it's hard for, you know, you to really know everything you've got if you don't go all in.

00:10:08.180 And so I've kind of been that, whether it's through fighting, whether it's through fight for

00:10:12.040 the forgotten nonprofit, it's like, I just, I have to jump all in into the deep end to really

00:10:17.480 get the knowledge. It's one thing to read about it. It's another thing to like watch it. But, um,

00:10:25.040 you know, whenever you get your hands on it, whether it's in fighting, like, I'm like, okay, show me,

00:10:30.560 tell me, show me, but now let me do it too. And watch and dissect it while I do it. Um, so that I

00:10:36.320 really have a hands-on approach and start to get understanding. Cause I'm not just hearing it or seeing it.

00:10:41.160 Like my hands are on it and I'm, I'm, I'm hearing it at the same time. And so same thing with going

00:10:46.760 over to Africa was, uh, living with the pygmy people. The goal was like, listen to them, learn 1.00

00:10:51.840 from them, uh, like live with them. And then you'll know the most appropriate way to love them,

00:10:58.620 right? Live with, listen to, learn from, love them. And because, uh, Stephen Covey's principle,

00:11:04.620 I think it's Stephen Covey who says, seek first to understand, then you'll be understood. I'm

00:11:09.920 paraphrasing that and I probably butchered it, but that's what it sounds like.

00:11:13.360 Yeah. That sounds great. I, I, I knew coming from this culture, this country, um, me being a big,

00:11:20.400 blonde, burly guy going to live in another culture where I stand out like a sore thumb, it's going to 1.00

00:11:27.400 be a learning process. And I better be willing to not say, Hey, I have the solution when I didn't

00:11:32.900 ever understand the problem. Like I, uh, like it hit me like a Mac truck or, uh, like a cheap shot,

00:11:40.420 the blind blind got blindsided by the water crisis when, uh, uh, I was actually holding a little boy

00:11:46.640 and he passed away. Um, and Oh, in your arms. Yeah. Well, I was cupping the back of his head and

00:11:52.500 holding his little hand when blood came out of his ears and, and, uh, and that forever changed my life.

00:11:58.940 Uh, I would have never understood in the same capacity as just reading a story about it. You

00:12:04.800 know, hearing, hearing 3.4 million people die of the water crisis every year. Like that's an

00:12:09.240 overwhelming statistic and 2 million are children under the age of five years old. You know, that's

00:12:14.960 an overwhelming statistic and, but you read it and it can, it can hit you, but sometimes just reading

00:12:20.760 something can, or, or hearing it goes in one ear and out the other, but I mean, even on this podcast.

00:12:26.360 Yeah. Yeah. See, seeing it, um, and you know, knowing that the pills that would have cured them

00:12:33.820 were $1. The one shot cure was $3. The casket we buried them in was $30. Like I helped dig the grave

00:12:41.000 and I took a wild turn there going into this story, but it's like, and going back to what

00:12:49.560 Sean and them are helping fund and that I got to announce there a few weeks ago is that we're

00:12:55.180 building a health center now that's in honor of this young man named Andy bow. Um, so that

00:13:00.100 they're not denied hospital treatment ever again. He was, his mom was told you're too

00:13:03.180 dirty to come in here into the health center. Um, his mom, the second time when they had 0.51

00:13:09.300 the money, which they had to beg for the money when they, when they had it said, we won't

00:13:12.940 waste our medicine on a pygmy animal. Like this stuff was overwhelming to hear and to see

00:13:19.080 and to live or experience or at least be in the, in that environment, um, in culture and

00:13:25.320 be invited in to then it's like, Oh wow. Now never, ever forget that. And I, um, I think,

00:13:34.020 you know, let go of the purpose or the passion or the drive for it because like, I've seen it,

00:13:40.720 it's my lived experience now. Um, and like it, it really hits home. Like in my, my home,

00:13:47.720 like I don't, this sounds cheesy or like a cheesy saying, but like home really is where

00:13:52.660 the heart is. Like our body is our home. Like, so whether it's here in the States there

00:13:56.380 and in Congo or Uganda, like I, I carry that with me. And it's something that now is why

00:14:03.920 I'm coming back to fighting. Um, why I've started a podcast is like the purpose is to make it

00:14:08.900 meaningful so that it can hopefully create change and transformation and in a sustainable way,

00:14:14.440 empower people to fight for people, um, and to overcome their greatest struggles. Remember that

00:14:20.420 they've overcome a hundred percent of their darkest days. Now they have to go out and, and whether it's

00:14:26.500 share light or share love, um, with every dark nook and cranny and dark place in the world. Cause,

00:14:33.980 cause it, we all need it right now, especially.

00:14:36.080 We all need it. And I think also that there are some people who are in the position to share it,

00:14:44.580 but I think the overwhelming majority of people are not in the position to do that. And so they

00:14:50.640 need somebody else to help get them to a place where they can do it for themselves.

00:14:56.160 Yeah. That's, that's the main mission of, of fight for the forgotten nonprofit or nonprofit is

00:15:01.260 we equip people with the tools, educate them with the knowledge and empower them to be the change

00:15:06.900 they want to see in their own.

00:15:07.900 When you say people, who are you referring to? Ugandans, pygmies, like who is it that you're 1.00

00:15:12.140 referring to?

00:15:12.560 Yeah, the pygmy people that I lived with. I'm called the big pygmy on Instagram. 1.00

00:15:17.020 We used to be the Viking.

00:15:17.780 The big white pygmy.

00:15:19.140 Well, tell me about the pygmy people. Is, is that a tribe? 1.00

00:15:23.500 Is that, what exactly is that?

00:15:25.840 Got it.

00:15:26.260 Well, it's a, it's a people group that, that consists of the Mabuti pygmies, the Batwa pygmies, 1.00

00:15:30.740 the Thwa, the FAA, Baka, Aka, Bayaka, but their statures, they stand on average four foot seven.

00:15:39.340 And because of, yeah, for the men is four foot seven.

00:15:43.700 And why I'm actually really curious about that. Is that because they've just,

00:15:47.960 I'm trying to say it in the right way.

00:15:50.460 There's a couple of different theories and it's vitamin D deficiency because of that helps bone

00:15:58.020 growth and, and other things, but they live under the canopy of the rainforest. They've always been

00:16:03.860 the people of the forest. And I absolutely love it.

00:16:06.460 So they're not getting sunlight. Is that what you're saying?

00:16:08.300 Not a lot. Plus they're, they're not eating as much nutritious food.

00:16:13.940 Um, and, and, uh, some anthropologists or, or people that are pointing to evolution are saying

00:16:21.240 like they needed to be small, nimble, uh, to be light on their feet, quick in the forest,

00:16:25.960 um, and things like that. So I think it's, I think it's a few different things, but like,

00:16:31.700 I don't know. They're just the loved, there's the loved a little bit smaller people, but they're,

00:16:36.240 they're brilliant. They're wonderful. They're to me, they're actually closer to some of my,

00:16:40.320 than most of my blood family. So are, are they, um, are they, are they an isolated tribe? I imagine

00:16:49.060 that has to do with the two, because once you start, you know, for, again, for, for like lack

00:16:53.400 of saying it in the right way, you know, you're, you're having babies with other pygmies, you know, 1.00

00:16:58.800 there's obviously some genetic and hereditary factors that come into play. They're probably,

00:17:04.760 are they isolated? Like they're not, uh, they, they haven't been welcomed into the neighboring

00:17:10.140 tribes, uh, for centuries, um, because they've been seen as different as less than as even

00:17:16.600 subhuman. Um, and something I can point back to is people will say, how, how could a doctor

00:17:22.420 say we won't waste medicine on a pygmy animal talking about Andy bow, um, which is horrific,

00:17:28.500 but I would say even us in the U S like, uh, a hundred years ago, there's a story of, uh,

00:17:34.280 uh, Mabuti pygmy man and pretty much the village that I lived in for a year. Um, and I built 0.86

00:17:40.120 up two years going back and forth the last 10 years. And, um, there's a, a man named Ota

00:17:46.580 Binga from 1904 to 1906, uh, American explorers went and got him from, uh, the Turi rainforest

00:17:53.580 where I lived and brought him back and put them in the St. Louis world fair for like two

00:17:58.800 years. And they're basically touring them as a freak show. And then in 1904 to 1906, this

00:18:05.320 made the cover of the New York times saying Ota Binga, the pygmy in the zoo breaks all 1.00

00:18:10.780 these records, uh, attendance records for the Bronx zoo that over 50,000 people coming

00:18:16.380 for the zoo, they put them in the monkey house and they were feeding them bananas and saying

00:18:22.460 that it was half man, half animal. And so it's been a, it's been a thought of like a lot of

00:18:29.280 the people of the world that these people aren't truly people. And, um, and I would say that

00:18:34.720 they're surrounding tribes or neighbors, the people groups have been stuck in a mindset that,

00:18:41.560 that, uh, had heavy influence from colonialism and things like that, uh, a hundred years ago,

00:18:48.000 200 years ago. Um, are the, are they content, the pygmy people content with being isolated or 1.00

00:18:54.680 they love the forest? So that's their home and bitterness and things there as well. Yeah.

00:18:58.900 Oh, there's, there's a lot of hurt, but they're the most forgiving people I've ever known in my life,

00:19:03.260 uh, which is beautiful. Um, and part of our organization is working towards reconciliation

00:19:08.660 and a redemption story. And so I would say that when I first went there, I, you know, and when

00:19:16.120 Andy Bo slave master told me it was cheaper to bury them than to keep them alive. I had never in my life

00:19:24.440 wanted to murder a person. Um, and I thought about it. You said slave master. What? Like,

00:19:32.360 yeah. So legitimately a slave, like explain that to me. A lot of people don't know that on earth

00:19:37.640 today, there's more slaves than ever in human history. Uh, if you Google that fact, low statistics

00:19:42.620 will tell you 28 million higher statistics will tell you an average of 40 million, uh, slaves on earth

00:19:47.960 today. Uh, literally more than ever. Um, and so there's a lot of, I mean, it's all over the world,

00:19:55.600 but, um, but Africa, uh, India, uh, uh, some Asian nations, I think China, and there's, it's just,

00:20:04.860 it, and it's varies in scales. I've seen, I've seen the almost blood diamond looking movie type stuff

00:20:10.920 where there's, there's child mining with rebel groups around them. I've actually seen those

00:20:16.160 places. I've seen a 12 year old pulled out of a mine dead because the cave collapsed on them.

00:20:21.140 That was going for gold or Coltan Coltans in all of our smartphones. And some people think that the,

00:20:27.180 uh, like 80, somewhere around 80% of it comes from the Congo and around a hundred percent of that slave 0.97

00:20:33.500 mind. And so of the pygmy people group, 400 to 600,000 of them in the Congo, most of them, 1.00

00:20:38.880 almost all of them are enslaved unless they're deep enough in the rainforest to be avoiding that.

00:20:43.240 But the rainforest is getting smaller over the size of Texas has been cut down in the last 20 years

00:20:47.200 or 25 years. And, uh, because of the rare minerals, it's also easier to put them in the mines

00:20:54.840 because of their stature because they're shorter. Um, and so I was going to say that makes sense,

00:21:01.180 but man, that doesn't even seem like the right thing to like, that doesn't even seem that that's not

00:21:06.460 the right thing to say at all. It makes sense, but like, yeah, I can see that, but yeah, exactly.

00:21:13.720 So the, and I think the power imbalance started, um, really, I mean, like centuries ago, but, uh,

00:21:22.400 they used to have a little bit of an upper hand because they, uh, were getting the bushmeat.

00:21:28.980 They were the hunters. They would be able to go get rare and gatherers, which would get like rare

00:21:34.700 things from the forest, um, different fruits and herbs and, and roots and berries and fruits and

00:21:40.620 all that kind of stuff. Sure. Yeah. Mushrooms, all sorts of stuff. And they'd be able to bring back,

00:21:45.680 uh, antelope or sometimes elephants back in the day. And, uh, like, like big, uh, forest, um,

00:21:53.720 like these wild hogs, uh, that are, that are great. They, they taste wonderful. Um, and then

00:22:00.440 whenever the chainsaws came around first, the ivory and rubber boom, uh, which came from 0.99

00:22:06.900 Belgium and King Leopold II, um, they enslaved 20 million people and 10 or 12 million of them, 0.86

00:22:14.120 they killed.

00:22:15.480 So obviously I understand the ivory stuff to some degree, but the rubber does that, that

00:22:20.320 comes from a plant, doesn't it?

00:22:21.740 Or trees. Yeah.

00:22:23.220 Oh, you make slingshots just straight off the vines of these rubber trees. Um, and, uh,

00:22:29.240 or maybe it's from the bark, but they, yeah, that, that was where Europe was getting all their 0.57

00:22:33.860 rubber for their tires and things like that. And then, um, yeah, with everything else that's come

00:22:40.040 deforestation, the ebony, the mahogany, the other rare hardwoods that are there, um, that makes the

00:22:46.840 animals scared and skittish. Right. And it makes, so, and it makes the things that they're gathering

00:22:54.420 scarce. Um, not, not, not really there anymore. And so there became this power imbalance of instead

00:23:00.480 of living in a symbiotic relationship where they would come out and trade the meat and they would

00:23:04.160 get corn and beans. Um, they weren't ever, they weren't able to adequately trade. Um, so there

00:23:11.360 started a little bit of internal conflict. Then they had to just start providing for themselves.

00:23:15.980 Then they were, it was hard for them to provide for themselves. And then their land was either bought

00:23:21.680 or just made up and stolen from them. They make up fake documents saying, this is our land. Now,

00:23:26.280 if you're going to live here, you're going to have to be our, you know, work for us.

00:23:29.860 And then we pay the money. And so even if it's not slavery on a scale of like in ropes or chains

00:23:36.760 and being beaten, which I've seen, um, it can be more of indentured servitude, but modern day slavery,

00:23:43.640 where every single thing you eat or have on your back, you'll work for a week and you might get a

00:23:50.140 shirt. You will work every day. Yeah. Like two minnows or a banana or 10, 12 peanuts. Um,

00:23:57.420 it sounds more like communism as opposed to, you know, what we would generally think of as,

00:24:01.460 as traditional slavery more than the state, or in this case, uh, a group of people control all the

00:24:08.540 means of production and then divvy it out how they see fit. That's what it sounds like to me.

00:24:13.240 Actually it'd be, it'd be more like, I mean, like just to further explain it, it's either an entire

00:24:18.780 tribe or other people group, um, controls them or it's even family controlling a family. And it's

00:24:25.840 like this one family owns this set of, of people and they give them scraps of their dinner. Like

00:24:32.860 they eat the big plates and then just whatever was leftovers. They don't have fridges. So then,

00:24:37.740 you know, they sit and wait for the scraps that would be given to them. Yeah. Like an animal,

00:24:42.980 like my, like my dog would. I mean, that's like, that's horrible. I've seen them not eat from plates

00:24:48.400 that if, if, if I was eating in a community and I had it and I just wanted to share half my food

00:24:54.840 with some of the people, I give it to them. And then whenever they're turning in plates,

00:24:58.800 any of the ones that the pygmy people touched, they would, they wouldn't even want them back. 1.00

00:25:02.600 And it's like, wait a second. Now you're gonna have to go buy more plates. Um, what are you talking

00:25:06.900 about? So to see that kind of discrimination is like, it's, it's mind blowing or them,

00:25:12.660 them being taught. And I think this goes back to the Belgians, but, um, and not to, to, to point

00:25:18.460 them out, but at the same time they were taught, you can't look a white person in the eyes.

00:25:23.140 And so the pygmy people were, you're saying, and, and they're now who's their slave master. 1.00

00:25:28.940 So it depends on where you go. But whenever I've gone there before, there's, there's been a thing

00:25:33.600 where they feel like they can't look you in the eyes. They look down. And so I've like lowered

00:25:38.240 my level so that I can make eye contact with them. And I've told them I'm not that guy.

00:25:41.980 And this is a, this is a myth. Like this is, this is not right. Like you're every bit as evil as I am.

00:25:47.580 So the, the whole thing though, about our nonprofit is how do we fight for people in the way that's the

00:25:52.300 most sustainable possible and create opportunities for them. We say charity quote unquote can be great,

00:25:58.640 but opportunity is always better. So how do we create opportunities for people to rise? And, um,

00:26:04.740 because there's been some really toxic charity out there where there's over 230,000 broken water

00:26:11.340 wells in Africa right now, that's billions of wasted charitable dollars. And that's because a lot of

00:26:15.980 organizations go in, they drill a well, and then they bail. Um, what's wrong with them? You say

00:26:21.340 they're broken. What's wrong with the wells? It might need a $2 fix. It might mean to need $150 fix,

00:26:27.400 but nobody was ever something or a pulley or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Like a little coupling

00:26:32.420 inside of the, the, the, yeah, the pipes were a little maintenance on the pump. Might just need

00:26:37.020 to be cleaned out. Maybe some sediment from, uh, the slits on the side of the, the pipes, you know,

00:26:43.920 some, some clay got in there and it just needs to be washed. Um, but nobody was, they don't even have

00:26:49.640 the tools to unscrew the nuts or bolts at the top. And, um, they don't have the education for it. No one ever

00:26:56.200 equipped them, educated them, empowered them to say, Hey, this is your well, it's been the white 0.93

00:27:01.800 guys. Well, or it's been the NGOs well, or it's been the people that were given it that way. And

00:27:07.600 so what we do is we create, they, they have a community contribution and participation where

00:27:14.040 they're feeding our well drillers who are all locals. Um, those are the local heroes, um, either

00:27:20.980 feeding them, giving lodging, uh, helping with the tools, like getting stuff into the village.

00:27:26.140 If it's off the nearest, like roadside and into the village, sometimes in the forest might take an

00:27:30.960 hour hike or longest was like a three hour hike off the road. Um, can't drive there. And so you're

00:27:36.940 taking one ton of well drilling equipment, some of the most backbreaking work, uh, I could imagine.

00:27:42.380 Sure. But it's 20 foot long pipe, six meters, um, uh, galvanized steel pipes or big PVC pipes that

00:27:49.620 are six inches in six inch, seven inch casing augers, chisels, rock breakers, tripods, um, chains

00:27:57.060 and, uh, carrying in bags of cement that are a hundred pounds or literally bags of bricks,

00:28:03.480 bags of stone or gravel and bags of sand. Uh, so we always get them to have participation because

00:28:10.980 if you just give something away, one, it can cripple a community. There's a really good book out

00:28:16.260 called when helping hurts. And, uh, it talks about toxic charity and charity done with good intent,

00:28:23.840 well-meaning, good hearted, but not truly thinking of the repercussions. And because of that,

00:28:30.240 there's been a lot of things of like called people quote, calling it volunteerism, you know,

00:28:35.640 buying thousand dollar tickets or $2,000 tickets, going and painting a building. Whenever you just

00:28:40.340 took a job of a local painter or going in and reconstructing something, we're going there. And

00:28:46.840 even, even we do it on the governmental level and in mass quantities from China, India, even the U S

00:28:52.840 where we subsidize rice and corn and we take it into Africa and we undercut the local farmer,

00:29:01.860 farming corn needs to sell that and needs to put food on his family's table.

00:29:06.760 And whenever, whenever a major organization or major nation comes in and says here, this is free

00:29:13.920 or they come in and say, Hey, this is half price or one 10th of the price of what you could buy it

00:29:20.240 from your neighbor. Like it literally makes it impossible for them to grow and to flourish and

00:29:25.860 build a business. So we've, we've always been trying to think that way through, um, um, not always,

00:29:32.660 it was a learning process in my first two trips and I drilled a well before I went and lived there

00:29:38.200 for a year. And, uh, and it got broken two weeks, three weeks later. And then they thought I was just

00:29:44.560 going to come back and fix it. And, uh, with my team of guys who were community development specialists

00:29:51.200 had degrees in this, but when I met them, they were selling meat at the market. They were selling SIM

00:29:55.680 cards. They were doing, these are locals, whatever they could. Yeah. Local people that were born and

00:30:01.320 raised there. And, uh, but had a degree wanting to, to help their nation, but there weren't any

00:30:07.620 job opportunities for it. Um, I was like, what do we do here? And they go, Hey, we just kind of gave

00:30:13.720 that well away. We make them pay. And I was like, Oh, that makes sense. And I go, but, but in my heart

00:30:19.300 and being from the West and seeing how little they had, um, I was like, well, I don't know if this

00:30:24.340 feels right. You know, I started a charity, a nonprofit and, uh, and they're like, listen,

00:30:29.760 if they don't pay for the repair, they're just going to think you're going to come back and fix

00:30:33.340 it every time, or that we're going to come back and fix it every time. And it's, they don't,

00:30:37.500 they don't have ownership of it. They don't have buy-in. They don't, it wasn't an opportunity

00:30:42.620 to instill or create or for them to grab hold of dignity. This was actually like an internal belief

00:30:50.020 system that they can't do it for themselves. So we need someone else to do it. And if it breaks,

00:30:53.880 they'll fix it. Um, and, and me finding out it was broken on purpose. I was like, Whoa,

00:31:00.200 whoa, whoa, whoa. How'd this happen? Right. So somebody that's the way you worded that. I was

00:31:04.440 like, wait a second. You're saying somebody broke it. Not that it just broke. Right. Yeah. We don't

00:31:09.840 have wells that really just break. No, they might need some maintenance and stuff like that. But, uh,

00:31:14.800 anyways, there's a learning lesson on my first well, and I was so grateful for it and our team

00:31:18.940 because we went in, we were excited. We drilled a well for university and for the teachers and

00:31:24.060 their children, but this high school that was nearby, their well needed some maintenance and

00:31:28.780 they never let the kids, uh, of the professors and stuff drink, uh, from the high schooler as well,

00:31:36.000 or the, uh, secondary school. So when the secondary schools came, students came over when they're well,

00:31:41.180 that we were going to help fix also. Um, they became more to drink anyways, make the long story

00:31:46.820 short. The kids just popped off jokingly, maybe seriously too, but they go, Hey, you don't want

00:31:52.160 to let us drink from your well. This is our well, don't drink from it. So the kids decided just right

00:31:56.320 then, uh, like break it out of meanness. So, so that nobody had clean water. And I was like, Whoa,

00:32:03.020 this, this problem could just be perpetuated if, if there's not some sort of thing. So we had a

00:32:09.260 community meeting and the great thing that happened was, uh, the people that I knew that

00:32:15.280 had a heart for this, a degree for this. And also like the forethought of that. I didn't have

00:32:20.380 listening to them, learning from them. They said, uh, you're going to pay for it. It was $150 fix.

00:32:26.880 So they were like, wait, really? And it was like a learning moment for everyone in the community.

00:32:30.820 Oh, we need to protect this thing. So they had to pull together, get the $150. They bought a new pump.

00:32:36.520 We came in and we installed it right after that. They had another meeting, invited us back

00:32:40.940 and they started a little committee within the community with a secretary and a treasurer.

00:32:46.000 And they started like, uh, they put a fence around it. They, they started a signup sheet of who's

00:32:51.580 going to monitor when the well was open, which they opened it six times a day for six hours.

00:32:56.040 So people knew a schedule of when to come to it because they, since it was broken out of malice,

00:33:00.520 they wanted to have eyes on it and they had, uh, brooms and things to keep it clean and they had a

00:33:06.880 cleaning schedule for it. And all of a sudden it wasn't our well, it was there. Well, there's

00:33:12.380 right. Yeah. So that, that's what we've always tried to do is like, how, how do we invite them

00:33:16.820 in to be part of the solution? How did you, how did you even get introduced to this? Cause I imagine

00:33:22.500 one of the things that you probably get some pushback on is, you know, we, as Americans don't really

00:33:28.040 know that cultures and societies exist outside of America. You know, I'm guilty of that too.

00:33:33.560 And, and I imagine maybe I'm wrong that people are like, well, you know, we have our own problems.

00:33:38.020 Like, why are you worrying about that? When we have our own problems here, we can deal with.

00:33:41.480 So I'm really curious about that. And then even how you got introduced to, uh, the, the pygmy people 1.00

00:33:46.460 and really felt like that was where you wanted to pour your time and energy and resources.

00:33:51.520 Yeah. This might take up most of our time, but I'm going to, I'll jump in.

00:33:55.060 That's I love it. Like I'm super interested in this stuff.

00:33:58.040 Oh, well, thank you. Uh, you're right, man. I, I had blinders on to just, um, this American bubble

00:34:04.440 and I've had people at some country Western concerts, which I love the musicians and they

00:34:10.940 had me speak there. And afterwards some people were like, why are you helping them? Because

00:34:14.820 they're like spitting on me saying, yeah, I got to help my own kind of my own countrymen

00:34:19.140 and all this stuff. And I was like, for sure. That's what I want. I try to do something locally

00:34:23.400 every week, like some sort of volunteer work in Austin or in Oklahoma city every week. I try to

00:34:28.920 do something nationally if I can every month or, and I try to do something internationally every

00:34:33.760 year. That's why I go back at least once a year. Um, and for me, that's just what's worked for me,

00:34:39.380 what I like. And if I could spend all my time over there, I would, but we have to fundraise.

00:34:44.140 So we have to, uh, I've thought about living there full-time. I've built up two years there,

00:34:48.220 but here's how I got there. I was 23 years old and I got an off the ultimate fighter and I was

00:34:54.600 fighting drug addiction. And that was a real struggle for me. Um, I've, I've gone in waves.

00:35:00.500 Are you sober now? Yeah, I am. And, uh, and I'm actually in recovery working a program, uh, and

00:35:07.420 have a spot and all, I mean, it's been incredible for me. Yeah. It's been incredible for me. Uh,

00:35:12.200 I've gone to treatment twice, uh, for 90 days, one and another 90 day program, but only 30 of it was

00:35:18.320 in treatment. The other was called IOP intensive outpatient. And, uh, and it was, it was awesome.

00:35:26.100 Um, but it, I purpose got me sober for four or five years before I even knew about the recovery scene

00:35:32.180 or community or tools or programs. And, um, it was purpose that saved my life. And at first it was in

00:35:40.120 Denver, it was at the children's hospital. And I started, uh, working on the oncology unit or

00:35:44.960 volunteering there, um, multiple times a week. And I'd take the kids out into the outside just so

00:35:51.120 they get some fresh air or do, do room visits and play games with them. And, and, and sometimes I got

00:35:57.300 to be there for their surgeries when they're getting put asleep, their mom's bringing me back with them

00:36:00.680 and holding their hands. And it was awesome. I loved it. Uh, but I had stopped fighting because

00:36:05.520 win or lose, I had an excuse to use. So I stopped fighting for a year. I said, I was going to

00:36:09.160 sacrifice it. What was your, what was your excuse? You say win or lose. I had an excuse to use like,

00:36:14.420 what does that mean? Well, when, when you want to celebrate, cause you've spent six months or

00:36:18.060 three months or whatever it is like working hard, clean and dialed in. Yeah. Yeah. Clean dialed in.

00:36:22.760 So in wrestling culture, you'd call it a reset. You call it a reset weekend. I just need a reset.

00:36:28.320 But, but my reason I could never, when I, like I, once I started, I couldn't stop. And, uh, like

00:36:35.380 one's too much and a thousand's not enough. And I was like, I was that guy, like balls of the wall,

00:36:41.840 like give it all to me. And, um, there, there's also probably part of the reason you're so good at

00:36:49.100 what you do now, because of the same characteristics that, that were, you, you were utilizing while you

00:36:55.820 were using. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like there's a drive of like, I don't want to call it an extra

00:37:01.820 gear, but it, it, well, I mean, some people have that. And for me, it's like, well, don't tell me

00:37:08.220 it can't, can't happen. I mean, just like, don't tell me you can't have my drugs. I'll get them.

00:37:11.820 It'd be like, don't tell me this won't work. Like let's find the way to make it work. And, um, and so,

00:37:17.840 uh, but I think I was too scattered, not just at the children's hospital, but at the Denver rescue

00:37:23.820 mission with the homeless and then, um, and, and, and just loving on them and an inner city

00:37:29.300 youth group. And man, I said a prayer, um, God, what do you want me to do with my life? And because

00:37:35.100 I was 10 months without a paycheck and I was like, uh, volunteering a lot, but that wasn't paying the

00:37:41.660 bills. And, and, uh, I was just like, what do I do? Like, what do I do? And, um, I didn't even

00:37:49.200 really know much about the God thing or higher power thing or source of love or whatever. I was

00:37:55.360 just like, I need some direction. I don't know if this is going to work, but I said a prayer, God,

00:37:59.500 what are you going to do with my life? Did that. And then I've, I've experimented with a lot of

00:38:05.200 psychedelics. I've had doctor guided, psychiatrist guided, uh, shaman guided, like ayahuasca and DMT

00:38:11.780 and Bufo and mushrooms and, uh, ketamine and all this stuff, man, the most epic, most incredible,

00:38:19.240 most profound, but also the most confusing, uh, vision of my life happened 10 months sober

00:38:25.280 without trying to prompt it without hunting for it, without hoping for it. It was just like,

00:38:31.320 God, what do I do with my life? And it was a movie in my mind. And I was walking down a foot

00:38:36.600 path in the forest and I was moving thickets and vines out of the way. And then I heard drumming

00:38:42.960 and then I came into a clearing and, uh, well, after the drumming, I heard this distinct singing.

00:38:48.620 And when I came into a clearing there, I'll never forget it. There was these twig and leaf huts

00:38:53.400 and I met these people. I didn't talk with them, but I saw them and kind of acknowledged them. They

00:39:00.180 acknowledged me, but first guy was coughing and you could almost see his ribs. You could see his ribs.

00:39:05.340 He almost looked like he was starving and looked very sick. And I, I was flooded with this.

00:39:10.860 I don't know, just knowledge that they're hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, oppressed, and enslaved.

00:39:16.420 And I wrote down on a piece of paper forgotten that they felt forgotten. Like they were the forgotten

00:39:21.320 people. So you didn't even know who this was at the, at the time. Dude, I had no, no clue at all.

00:39:26.260 And, uh, three days later, I cried a puddle of tears like this big, I don't know. It's like a

00:39:31.320 silver dollar size or grandma's cookie size, a puddle of tears. And I've never cried like that

00:39:37.340 for anyone in my life. Still to this day, I've cried several times, especially with seeing some

00:39:41.880 of the stuff I've seen, but this just wrecked me in a way that I've, I've, I never had hit me so hard,

00:39:48.120 so real. But then I also felt a little crazy. I was confused by it. I was like, what's going on?

00:39:54.160 Who are these people? Where are these people? I didn't know geography. I was ignorant to it.

00:39:58.320 And I was like thinking of jungle. I was like, it wasn't Brazil. It wasn't India. It wasn't China.

00:40:03.160 It wasn't, uh, Thailand. And I thought of Africa's barren. I thought of it as 1.00

00:40:08.800 desert or Sahara and lions and giraffes. I didn't know that they had the second largest

00:40:15.460 rainforest in the world. So three days later I told, uh, who had become a friend, but I just met

00:40:21.420 him. His name was Caleb and he had been friends with bear grills and he wrote a forward of his book.

00:40:27.060 And anyways, I, I met this guy. He had lived with the Vanuatu tribe. So some of these crazy stories

00:40:32.500 or people were asking him about it. And the Vanuatu tribe invented bungee jumping. Uh, they 1.00

00:40:37.520 would tie vines around their, their feet and they would jump off these huge platforms. And then he

00:40:42.480 had lived with a Maasai tribe, the guys that hunt lions with spears. And, um, I was just like,

00:40:48.080 Whoa. And, and I was never going to see him again. I thought I would never tell anyone this

00:40:51.800 cause I sounded kind of crazy. I have some sort of psychotic episode. So I, I, it was

00:40:57.020 that visceral for you. Is that real visceral that I was like, did I have a psychedelic

00:41:01.360 reactivation? Did, am I going, am I going crazy? Uh, or were you awake? No, I was awake.

00:41:08.660 I was awake. I was awake. I was on, you know, it'll sound maybe too religious or something,

00:41:14.580 but it wasn't, it was a, it was a spiritual experience, but like, I don't think I'm a

00:41:17.740 religious dude, but I, I was on my knees and on my forearms and on my face basically.

00:41:23.420 And I just was like, I just was desperate to hear something, but I still wasn't trying

00:41:28.200 to conjure anything up. I didn't know that was going to happen. And it was like the most

00:41:31.800 vivid real movie in my mind. I lived at the Olympic training center. I have had sports

00:41:37.560 psychologists a hundred times walk me through seeing the perfect match, feel the thrill of

00:41:41.840 victory. Also the difference between the sports psychologist and the Olympic gold medalist,

00:41:47.100 they would always take you through almost worst case scenario and how you battle back.

00:41:50.460 And you'd have to see it a hundred times in your mind before you ever go do it. And I've seen the

00:41:55.460 power of visualization, but this came to me in a way that I've never experienced. And so I tell

00:42:03.380 Caleb and Caleb says at the end of the vision, I think literally he's going to one state. I'm going

00:42:09.620 to another state. I'm not going to see this dude. Maybe it's safe for him to think I'm crazy.

00:42:13.520 And, and, uh, I tell him and he goes, he goes, I know who they are. I said, what? He goes, those

00:42:20.760 are the, those are the Mabuti peg me people. And I go, he goes there in the Congo. I'm like, where? 1.00

00:42:27.120 And he goes, wait, why did he think that? He was going, he was going there in three and a half

00:42:33.680 weeks to do a scouting trip to see if there was a assess their needs, see if there was anything we

00:42:38.840 could help with meet them, love on them and just, and just see if that was the next group. And Caleb

00:42:44.560 hasn't been back since, but he tells me the story. He tells me how three days, three days ago,

00:42:51.340 whenever I had the vision, he found out his team was all canceling. The rebels had taken over the

00:42:56.240 airport. The U S state department said, no American for any reason, go there. Uh, his wife was 0.67

00:43:01.260 pregnant. They had like a two-year-old. Um, and he said the day we met or the day before, uh, Jess

00:43:09.140 said, um, you know, you need a sign if you're going to go here or not. Like, uh, and he goes, okay.

00:43:15.320 Cause she wanted him to cancel it. And so when he met me and I told him that he's like, he's like,

00:43:19.720 come tell Jess. So I go tell Jess and she just looks at, looks at him and says, you got to take him.

00:43:26.260 And she's pregnant. She's like six months pregnant or so. And another one at home. It sounds like 0.99

00:43:32.020 yes. And another one at home. I thought it was crazy. And they're saying that military were being

00:43:37.160 decapitated in the streets and that people were being hunted and killed and all this stuff. I'm

00:43:41.180 like, Whoa, what are like, this isn't a, if I ever thought I was going to go to Africa, maybe for a

00:43:46.300 safari, but I'm like, this is something I've never signed up for. And so Caleb asked me a pointed

00:43:54.360 question where it was, if you don't go, you'll never know. He goes, you always ask why or, or

00:44:02.220 what if, what if, what would have happened? Um, and you always question yourself. He goes, I'm,

00:44:09.180 he said something to the fact of I'm the type of guy that on my deathbed, like, I don't want to have

00:44:14.200 those questions. He goes, so are you going to be able to handle that? And I'm just like, Whoa.

00:44:18.660 So we went, it took like four or five airplanes, got out on a truck and we, uh, drove six hours or

00:44:28.400 so, and then got on motorcycles for an hour or two, and then got on a dugout canoe with crocodiles and

00:44:33.940 hippos in this powerful river and went across. We hiked for about 30 minutes. It was Caleb calling

00:44:39.020 and I, and all of a sudden I hear drumming here, singing, come into a clearing. First guy we met had

00:44:46.460 tuberculosis was the exact guy from the vision I dropped. Well, and the drumming was from the

00:44:52.040 vision too. Yeah. My knee, my knees were weak to where I sat down into a squat with my elbows on my,

00:44:57.600 my knees. And then that was uncomfortable because Caleb and Colin were like, they were both grabbing

00:45:02.680 my traps on each side of me saying, this is your vision. This is your vision. I had the piece of

00:45:08.500 paper with me that said, forgotten at the top, hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, oppressed. I take a full knee.

00:45:13.500 I'm just watching it. I'm like, Holy smokes. This is, this shit can really happen. And, and why

00:45:20.540 and can it like also questioning it? And then they came up to us and told us how they're hungry,

00:45:25.580 thirsty, poor, sick, oppressed. The last day I was there, I asked Caleb, I go, what am I doing here?

00:45:30.000 Like they're asking for water. They're asking for land. They're asking for food or they're saying

00:45:33.960 that's their needs. I don't know how to do that. I'm just some fighter. Like, what am I supposed to do

00:45:39.520 about this? And I think I got the confirmation when the chief came up to me and said, Hey,

00:45:45.620 everyone else calls us the forest people, but we call ourselves the forgotten. The exact thing I

00:45:51.600 wrote down. That's the name fight for the forgotten. They gave that to me, the vision in them. Like it

00:45:57.680 didn't come from me. I know that. And so I, I was blown away. I started crying right there. And the chief

00:46:05.980 goes, we don't have a voice. Can you help us have one? I'm not the hero of the story, but like,

00:46:10.940 I was like, Whoa, I can, that's one thing I can do. Like, I don't know how to buy land in another

00:46:16.700 nation. I've never bought it in my own country. Like I, I, I, I don't know how to drill for water.

00:46:23.360 I just turn a spout. Like, I don't know how to do that. And when he said, have a voice, I'm like,

00:46:28.560 man, you know, being an American, I've got free speech, uh, you know, being, having a platform from

00:46:35.420 fighting and other things and having friends, a podcast and stuff, I could share their story.

00:46:40.040 So I said, yes, but like, I think my soul screamed yes. And then it was like, okay,

00:46:45.260 they just gave me something I can do. How do we do the rest of it? And so started finding boots on

00:46:50.020 the ground, people with the passion, the purpose, and they just needed the resources. They just needed

00:46:54.820 the education or they had the education. They just needed the equipment, a lot of them. And so,

00:46:59.400 and then when it came specifically to well drilling, I came back, got trained on how to drill wells,

00:47:03.860 took $15,000 of well drilling equipment over with me, had 20, 25,000 brought over later,

00:47:09.660 then got a truck. We could drive around. Then now it's turned into 80 wells that they've drilled

00:47:14.520 for themselves, providing water to well over 30,000 people. Uh, we've got back over 3000 acres

00:47:20.300 of land. We've started four sustainable farms. They're able to feed themselves for the first time

00:47:25.160 and then go to the markets and sell it from selling that they're able to pay school fees and buy school

00:47:30.880 uniforms. Um, and now we're about to build a health center with a maternity ward, um, uh, incubators. 0.95

00:47:39.080 We got a $1.5 million donation and equipment. Uh, so they're to outfit the hospital. All we have

00:47:44.400 to do is build, build it. And so in a school, it's amazing. And so like, yeah, for them to have,

00:47:50.420 it's a two hour walk to the nearest health center for them. So to be able to put one right on their

00:47:55.280 land, actually across the street from their land. So it's the community's health center. We don't want

00:47:59.120 it to look like it's just for the pygmy people. It's going to serve them, but it's going to serve 1.00

00:48:02.860 the greater community. And one of the things that I've seen in reconciliation,

00:48:06.760 well, one thing I've seen in my life was like, I was supposed to, I was fighting against people,

00:48:11.460 but really I was supposed to be fighting for people. And now I get to do both fight against

00:48:15.680 some guys in a sport so I can help raise awareness and funds to fight for people in our life.

00:48:21.040 And then it's been incredible.

00:48:23.500 Is that what you, well, I was just going to ask, is that what you, so with, with your,

00:48:27.760 your combat sports, martial arts, is, is that, is that means to an end? Is that,

00:48:33.900 cause that's what I'm hearing you say is like, I do that so I can fund what I'm doing over here.

00:48:37.680 That's what I'm hearing.

00:48:38.520 Yeah. That's the reason. I mean, I, I secondary is I'm a competitor and I love it. And I don't think,

00:48:45.280 I've, I think I've unfinished business and I want to compete at a very high level. And so I'm getting

00:48:52.760 there and I want to challenge that to be my challenge, but I would never trade that. I would

00:48:58.640 never trade fighting against a person in a cage to, to not fight for people with purpose and passion.

00:49:05.960 But since I can match them and pair them together, I think it's the person with the most reasons that

00:49:11.060 usually wins. And so stack reasons, wherever you are in your life, if it's your family with

00:49:17.560 Olympics are happening now, you're going to see some people that were dark horses that break world 1.00

00:49:22.060 records, get the Olympic gold. And they did it for their mom with cancer. That's in the stands where

00:49:27.360 that's from a hospital bed where that passed and was never able to see it. Um, and, uh, or whatever

00:49:34.580 it is that's driving them for their country, for their community to show kids that there's a way out.

00:49:40.280 And it's the person that stacks the most reason. So whenever I look across the cage from a guy,

00:49:45.660 uh, before I had this purpose, I always had the thought, like, I'm not locked in here with you.

00:49:51.580 You're locked in here with me. But now when I'm looking them in the eyes, I'm like, you don't have

00:49:56.400 as many reasons as me. You just don't. And like, I have to remember who I'm fighting for,

00:50:04.580 like why and who I'm fighting for. Remember why, remember who, um, I think, I don't know if it's

00:50:11.920 my friend, Tim Kennedy, or if it's in the military world, but it's like, man, the most dangerous

00:50:17.460 soldiers aren't the ones that are fueled out of hate at their enemy in front of them. They're

00:50:23.040 fueled by love for the people behind them. The people are trying to protect and the people that

00:50:27.660 are trying to help. All right, man, let me hit the, uh, the pause button on the conversation.

00:50:32.940 I've got a big push to increase our number of iTunes rating and reviews, uh, because that's

00:50:37.980 actually one of the biggest factors in growing the reach and visibility of this podcast. So

00:50:41.500 I'm going to do something special, uh, for the rest of February, we are going to enter you into

00:50:47.680 a bad-ass drawing for iTunes ratings and reviews. So the winner of this giveaway is going to receive

00:50:56.040 a signed copy of my book, sovereignty, the battle for the hearts and minds of men, origin boots,

00:51:01.040 brand new origin boots, and their heavy hoodie, Montana, nice company, brand new knife, the magna

00:51:06.840 cut stainless steel speed goat, and also a pair of 50 pounds, sorenx kettlebells. So guys that I

00:51:15.360 should have looked in to see what that added up to, but that's an incredible giveaway. Again,

00:51:20.100 it's a signed book sovereignty, the battle for the hearts and minds of men, origin boots,

00:51:24.700 origin, heavy hoodie, Montana, nice company, brand new knife, the magna cut stainless steel speed goat,

00:51:29.160 and also a pair of 50 pound sorenx, uh, center. I said kettlebells, but it's actually the center

00:51:34.540 mass bells. Great giveaway guys. Make sure you get entered. You can do that by leaving an iTunes rating

00:51:42.520 and review, then taking a screenshot of that rating and review and emailing it to brandy, B-R-A-N-D-Y

00:51:49.680 at order of man.com. Again, iTunes rating and review, take a screenshot, email to brandy at order of

00:51:56.820 man.com. That's it. You're entered. And we are going to draw the lucky winner on February 28th at 7 PM

00:52:04.300 Eastern time. Make sure you do that. Do it right after the show. Cause I want you to be entered in to

00:52:10.040 that. All right, guys, I'm going to get back to it with Justin. How do you, how do you handle loss

00:52:16.820 in those situations when you place such a high stake on like, you're not even doing it for you

00:52:23.040 anymore. You're doing it for other people. And then do you feel like, okay, well I failed or I've let

00:52:28.560 people down. And how does that change the way that you handle loss? Yeah. So that's an interesting

00:52:34.680 question that I will take with me, um, for if, and when, or, you know, if I, if I crossed that road,

00:52:42.020 uh, since coming back, I'm on a six fight win streak. There's been some significant breaks in

00:52:46.240 between there from injury, malaria, uh, purpose, but the last three fights were really about purpose.

00:52:53.600 And we really featured the nonprofit and we're really able to elevate their voice. And I'm, I've,

00:52:59.700 I've won those. And those are the only ones I've ever been able to smile afterwards. I don't think

00:53:05.360 I was ever externally a sore loser, but internally I was, and I would have to be like, I I'm always,

00:53:14.080 I'm always a little bit taken back by this, like, Oh, you know, failure is okay. And it's okay to lose.

00:53:19.420 I'm like, no, it's like my perception is no, it's not okay to lose. Like I know I'm going to,

00:53:24.500 but I'm not going to accept it. I'm certainly not going to embrace it.

00:53:27.580 Yeah. Well, I would get my hand raised and I think, I think there's a fine line because

00:53:31.720 I would get my hand raised and wouldn't allow myself to smile because I was already thinking

00:53:36.880 about all the things I did wrong. Whenever nobody else noticed anything, coach saying great fight

00:53:41.560 fans cheering. I'm already mad at myself. So I think there's a balance because I mean,

00:53:47.500 I think I would take it probably harder because now there's so much purpose. Uh, but hopefully I can

00:53:53.540 have my head held high in a way that like, not, not totally accepting it, but I think I can accept

00:54:01.360 it. Raphael had this thing where he's like, dude, I'm never, I'm never disappointed in my fighters. My,

00:54:07.400 my competitors that go in there and leave it all on the line because they can come out with their head

00:54:13.040 held high. I'll hold my head high. We'll go to the back and we'll talk what happened and, and think

00:54:18.720 about it while it's fresh and say, you could have done this or could have done that. But he goes,

00:54:23.340 I'm not going to beat them down. He goes, the guys that I'm disappointed in are the ones that are

00:54:27.300 already going to be disappointed in themselves because they didn't leave it all out there.

00:54:31.660 And that resonates with me. Like if you've left no stone unturned and you go out there and you

00:54:36.900 really lay it on the line then, and you're doing it for the right reasons from the right heart and

00:54:42.440 mental toughness. And the guy was just a little better than you that day. Then he got you and you can,

00:54:48.400 you can rest assured that I'll get better from this. And, uh, that wasn't my night, but yeah,

00:54:55.300 man, I think, I think for, for me, it's going to be interesting to cross that bridge when we get

00:55:02.220 there, because I think now what's really important is I have a great, for me personally, I got a great

00:55:07.940 board. I have a great sober support network. I have a great partner who is all about not just

00:55:14.060 affirmations, but like daily practices and putting action behind the affirmations. And so like speaks

00:55:19.040 life into me and that I, I'm motivated by the way she lives her life. And I can be like, wow,

00:55:25.180 I'm around such good people that I know I can, I can be open. And I think, I think here's the thing,

00:55:30.860 whenever I go into a fight, I've got to be able to say, I got this. This is my time. This is why I

00:55:36.280 work so hard. But I think in the times of loss, whenever those emotions come up, I think it's a,

00:55:42.920 for at least an addict and alcoholic who there's more stake at stake, there's, there's bigger

00:55:48.120 consequences, almost like going into a fight. There's consequences in that. For me, it's like

00:55:53.780 the three most dangerous words when it comes to my sobriety is I got this. And maybe the three most

00:55:59.980 helpful words are, I need help. You know, I need help. I need to learn. What do you think? How would

00:56:06.440 you handle this? And, and, and then being able to make my own decisions and not everything people

00:56:12.680 going back to fighting, not every suggestion people give is going to work for you and your style.

00:56:19.460 Like, uh, if someone tries to make me a, uh, you fight like Israel Adesanya and become the next best

00:56:25.180 kickboxer, like that's what you're not style bender or what? Come on. That's not my style. I love the guy. 1.00

00:56:30.820 I'm going to see him this weekend, uh, fight in Houston. So, uh, but that's not my style. It

00:56:37.980 works for him. It doesn't work for me. Uh, I'm a guy that takes people down and pounds on them and,

00:56:42.480 and, and chokes them out. Like I've got a, if you got tools there, let me know. You got some

00:56:46.740 defensive stuff on your feet. Let me know. I might be able to take one or two of these things on the

00:56:52.220 feet and implement them in a way that, that I got to be open-minded to it all here at all fields,

00:56:57.760 all the, the, uh, advice and instruction, but then I've got to make it mine and be like, well,

00:57:04.600 that works for them. And in theory it's good, but my arm's not as long as his, uh, my feet,

00:57:10.200 my legs don't go as high. Uh, and I'm a, I'm a heavyweight. That's not going to throw a lot of

00:57:14.780 people in like a triangle off my back. Cause I've never been on my back in a fight. So I need to know

00:57:19.860 how to get up. I need to know how to reverse it. So same thing, whenever hard things happen, like

00:57:24.680 I need to have some good people that have handled some, some heartbreaking loss, which I have some

00:57:30.080 great coaches that have that experience that whenever, if I'm there, that they'll, they'll

00:57:35.100 be there around me and give me some advice. And I'll just have to remind myself, you know,

00:57:39.160 like, Hey, and at the end of the day, this was a cage fight, but, but at the end of the day,

00:57:44.660 we'll fight for the forgotten. Like it's literally defeating waterborne disease, which is going to

00:57:50.940 save lives. So that's, it's literally life and death scenarios you're talking about.

00:57:56.160 You mentioned something and I, and I don't mean to pry, but I do, I do want to address this because

00:58:00.660 I'm always trying to think about like, okay, well, what am I like, what are the people who are

00:58:03.900 listening, thinking right now? And you said something about a woman in your life as a support.

00:58:09.180 I can't remember the exact term you used. Is that somebody who is just in your corner or is that

00:58:15.440 like a romantic interest? Yeah. She's my girlfriend. I we're making a ring. I'm getting

00:58:21.480 a ring made. Can't wait for Valentine's day. And, uh, well, anyway, it's just, uh, that I'm

00:58:26.980 wanting to propose sometime soon. And she's not going to listen to this before you do that though.

00:58:31.580 Right? No, I'll make sure. Uh, you know, actually it's not Valentine's day. We just have some,

00:58:36.420 some awesome plans. I'm surprising her with, but I'm just making sure. I don't want to ruin

00:58:40.400 anything. Yeah. No, you're good to be. So I was married and went through a divorce and she had 0.93

00:58:46.620 two. And then we had, she had maybe three years. I had a year single. And then, then we got together

00:58:53.040 and dude, she just lives and breathes and stuff. She's got her own podcast. It's called the Amy

00:58:58.200 Edwards show. She's, um, has wrote five rock albums. I think she's headlined or played a playboy

00:59:04.440 mansion and she's played with Motley Crue and she's played Maroon five and she's played with like

00:59:08.360 all sorts of people. And she's wrote two books and, and to me, she's the most badass mom I've ever

00:59:15.580 seen. And so I'm like, how do you do all this? And do you have kids of your own? I don't have

00:59:21.420 kids of my own. Okay. So that's going to change some things. Yeah. It's going to change some things.

00:59:25.480 And I, I get to, uh, to hopefully be a good man in their lives, you know, hopefully play a role of a

00:59:31.340 father figure type, but I know I'll never be dad. Uh, so, yeah, but I mean, there's, there's,

00:59:37.200 you know, biological father and then there's dad, you know, and those, sometimes they correlate and

00:59:43.880 sometimes they don't, and you can always be a father figure in somebody's life for sure.

00:59:47.380 Right. Exactly. And for me, it's like, I have an opportunity to step into a family of three girls,

00:59:53.480 um, two, two young women and, and, and my like rockstar, they're going to work you over. 1.00

00:59:59.480 They're going to work, you know, you, you think you're, you're, you know, you're a, you're a

01:00:03.160 badass now. Like just, just wait, they're going to work you over. My daughter's got me wrapped

01:00:06.800 around her finger. Oh man. Yeah, for sure. I know it's, I know it's common. It's already,

01:00:11.760 it already has started. And so I'll, uh, I'm excited for that journey just to be able to,

01:00:17.460 yeah, try to love them well. But the thing that she has helped me with the most is I think,

01:00:24.580 I think all of us have different external circumstances, right? But a lot of times we can

01:00:29.520 all resonate with, with having similar internal conditions, like outside circumstances may look

01:00:35.760 completely different, but internally our circumstances or condition kind of come down

01:00:40.640 to a lot of the same things. And for me, I had a feeling of, um, you know, especially going back

01:00:45.580 to my addiction, I'm not enough or I'm inadequate or feeling shame and guilt and, uh, worthlessness.

01:00:51.640 I was bullied a lot growing up. So I'd hear the things they said about me, like you're worthless,

01:00:56.240 or you should just kill yourself or you're not good enough. So those things could be on tape 1.00

01:01:01.160 recording whenever things don't go right in my life. And when I went to treatment and then Amy also

01:01:07.100 reminded me of a book, it's called love yourself. Like your life depends on it. And, uh, just,

01:01:14.800 I mean, the book is good, but just the title was like, she'll remind me, she goes, Hey, like,

01:01:21.400 don't be seeking this external validation. Don't be, don't be, uh, looking to me to, to fill

01:01:27.680 everything. You know, that's codependency. She's like, uh, and, and, and we get to help each other

01:01:32.860 and accountability there where it's like, Hey, we got to love ourselves. Like our life depends on it.

01:01:37.580 Why? Because it fucking does. And, and if we can do that well, then all the rest, like we're, 1.00

01:01:44.920 I don't know, it's kind of, I already feel like my life is I'm in the bonus rounds, but it's,

01:01:51.120 it's like everyone else's love. If I can love myself. Well, if I, if everyone else loves me and

01:01:55.620 I can't love myself, it's pretty meaningless, but if I can love myself, then I just need a couple of

01:02:00.160 people, a few people to love me and I'll have a happy life. She sounds great, man. I'm excited for you.

01:02:05.700 Does she go to a Uganda for, is that mostly where you go? You go to Uganda or other places?

01:02:09.740 Yeah. So Congo and Uganda and, and we've drilled a while in Tanzania and Kenya and Rwanda. I think

01:02:16.040 I said Rwanda twice, but the, the main footprint we have right now is in Uganda. And that's because 0.99

01:02:21.840 we just have, everything's lined up so well for us and not us, but for them. And so we might have

01:02:28.900 the president, the land and yeah, us, that's, that's what I mean when I say it a lot of times over

01:02:33.880 here, people like, I think I'm talking about just me. And I'm like, that's my family. And yeah,

01:02:38.640 everything's lining up. We're two or three miles off the Congo border. We've had people coming over

01:02:42.600 that we've been helping that are Congolese refugees that are from the pygmy tribe. And, uh, it's just 1.00

01:02:49.000 safer. It's a lot safer. And so we can get more done. And so we want to, we want to do what we do now

01:02:56.200 and prove the concept of the health center, the school and the marketplace. We've already built

01:03:02.260 32 homes, uh, and, uh, moving them from being evicted from the rainforest and living in these

01:03:08.260 little shacks to now two bedroom homes with like a patio on the outside and outdoor kitchens and a

01:03:15.080 smoke gets in and running water and showers and toilets. Um, what is, uh, what is evicted from the

01:03:21.820 rainforest mean? Is, is, is that because there's deforestation or, or somebody is trying to come,

01:03:26.360 uh, claim that, that lumber, that wood, or those resources? Like, what does that even mean? That

01:03:30.860 that's, that's a foreign concept to me. Yeah. I would say that to not name names, but there's some

01:03:39.000 corruption that certain officials and organizations have said to protect wildlife or to protect the

01:03:47.240 rainforest while at the same time, like banish the people, the forest, the protectors of the

01:03:52.580 forest, get them out of there. So they're at the same time they're deforesting it and poaching's

01:03:58.560 happening. And these aren't the poachers and they're not the ones that are cutting down the

01:04:02.020 trees. They can't live there, but these people from other nations can come there and cut down the 1.00

01:04:06.600 trees and hunt the animals. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And so they were kicked out of the rainforest

01:04:13.100 and they went from like in Uganda, the people group we're working with right now, smaller,

01:04:17.580 but they went from over 300 people down to 158. They were dying off because they were put behind a

01:04:21.800 slum, put behind a slum and they were throwing out their sewage, raw sewage. And it was going over

01:04:28.300 where the kids are playing in the dirt, where their moms are cooking the meals, where the dads are

01:04:33.680 butchering the meat. There's raw sewage all around. And I was walking over like the mounds and I'm asking

01:04:39.420 King Zito, he's actually the chief and elder and king of the Batwa pygmy people. I go, what are, 1.00

01:04:46.040 what are these mounds? It didn't make sense to me. He goes, they won't give us anywhere to barrier

01:04:50.380 of debt. They gave us one acre to live on and we live on top of our cemetery.

01:04:56.860 And the hospitals there, like whenever they walked two miles or sorry, two hours to the health center

01:05:03.160 and they don't treat them, but yet they die. Then they take the bodies away and then they won't

01:05:09.460 release the body without a bribe. And so they, they've been paid their back. Yeah. And there's

01:05:16.200 been times that they can't do that. They're asking them a hundred dollars and they don't get paid the

01:05:19.740 money. And so it's an impossibility and they don't even get to have the body for a burial.

01:05:24.440 They don't get to reclaim, recover the body. So it's, it's been real jacked up, but we're even,

01:05:29.640 we're, we're building a cemetery, man. And, and other things on the, we've got over 50 acres of

01:05:34.220 land. That's new over 3000 acres, but, but it's, it's going to have a marketplace where they're

01:05:39.640 going to have, they're going to be raising goats. We're going to be selling produce. They're going

01:05:43.060 to be beekeeping and having bees, but honey and the production of honey. They're also going to raise

01:05:50.040 queen bees and be able to sell that hopefully to other. These are rad. I don't know if you know much

01:05:54.920 about bees. My wife does some beekeeping. It's insane. Like I don't, I know nothing.

01:05:59.640 And she knows little she's been through courses and things. She's been doing it for a couple of

01:06:03.420 years. Bees are insane. They're incredible. They're absolutely incredible.

01:06:08.680 Yeah. There's this hickory. I want to make sure I get it right, but it's hickory farms.

01:06:14.100 And there's a guy that's a supporter of fight for the forgotten and it's hickory tree farms,

01:06:19.640 hickory tree farm, apron, apiaries, however you say that. But it's a, he's an incredible man that,

01:06:26.840 that has been supporting fight for the forgotten with 10% of his proceeds. And when I started to

01:06:32.080 overcome the podcast is called overcome with Justin Wren, his beehives had been wrecked where

01:06:39.160 he had like 40, 44 beehives. And he dropped down all the way to four, four survived. And I think it

01:06:45.920 was pesticides that took out his, uh, his bees. And then he dug deep and he's back to like 110,

01:06:53.540 120 hives. So he's doing better than ever. And he's going to be, but they're also good for

01:06:59.120 just the word, like the world, we need bees. The world needs, if you don't have bees,

01:07:03.280 like we're all going to die. It's, it's that serious. Yeah. So it's going to be awesome having

01:07:08.600 his help, uh, to come in and really, uh, teach it in a practical way. We're already like sourcing

01:07:13.800 lumber and things like that to build the boxes and to have it in a simple way. Uh, and what's so cool

01:07:21.580 is that the pygmy people, they risk their lives for honey. It's African bees, which are killer bees. 1.00

01:07:27.780 And they literally climb up trees, normally trying to smoke them out from the bottom,

01:07:31.600 but oftentimes it's so high, the smoke doesn't get there. And they're literally fighting with,

01:07:36.300 uh, killer bees to get some honey. They come back as heroes, you know, like for the kids.

01:07:42.160 It's like a rite of passage for the boys, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of, to be able to raise,

01:07:48.520 uh, bees in a sustainable way and to always have honey and to be able to sell it and to be able

01:07:53.280 to even help other communities with bees. That's going to be finding my purpose and living that

01:08:00.100 with passion, like living on purpose with a heart on fire. Like dude, that thing has changed my life.

01:08:06.700 I was just fighting for me and I realized I got to fight for others. I got to fight for me while I

01:08:11.840 fight for others. Cause I think I had an imbalance. I was first fighting against people. Then I was

01:08:17.260 fighting for people and I forgot about myself and relapses had happened and things like that.

01:08:22.320 Now it's like, you know what? Fight for myself and the life that I need to have. Meaning I can

01:08:27.860 only control my hula hoop. Um, like the, the, the world around me just, and like truly in control.

01:08:34.520 And then as I keep going, like, just try to expand that slowly, sustainably that can help others

01:08:40.140 or just help them within their own community, um, their own hula hoop. So I know that sounds like a

01:08:45.560 weird analogy. I just heard it the other day. It doesn't make total sense, man. I think some,

01:08:50.040 sometimes not even sometimes quite often we look at all these external factors of, you know,

01:08:55.840 what's going on in the world or what this person said on Twitter or what the government's doing

01:09:00.240 here. And it's like, okay, you know, you could focus on all of those things and you can't do a

01:09:06.520 dang thing about it. Or you can focus on, like you're saying, your, your hula hoop, you know,

01:09:11.060 your sphere of influence and you could really double down on those things and actually make

01:09:15.760 a real differences, which is what you're doing. Oh, thank you, brother. It's been so cool with,

01:09:20.660 like from, I listed out some of those things, but one of the, the, one of the most powerful

01:09:27.580 things I got to be part of is I learned real quick that if you just love one side, thinking,

01:09:33.220 thinking in the way that they used to think, uh, I mean, even the spectators, other people in the

01:09:38.820 community, the community leaders would say, there's the pygmy people there. There's, there's 1.00

01:09:42.580 their neighbors. And they would, I don't name those tribes normally because then it like villainizes

01:09:47.060 them. Uh, and normally any surrounding people group of the pygmy people will be oppressing them, 1.00

01:09:52.720 enslaving them, all sorts of stuff. But like, if I love that, if I love them and hate the other side,

01:09:58.740 it's only going to come back and hurt the people I'm trying to love. So what we found was like,

01:10:03.900 love both sides. They're actually part of the same community. They all need clean water.

01:10:08.820 I've attended five funerals of the slave master kids because they died of dirty water or water

01:10:13.380 borne disease. And it's like, what if we could help a sustainable solution where, oh, your wife's

01:10:19.820 not going to work. It's a single income family just because she has to collect water and cook all day. 1.00

01:10:25.160 Um, uh, your kid can't go to school because your wife's trying to get a second job or get the 1.00

01:10:31.040 second job in the household. And, uh, you, now your kid can't go to school because they have to

01:10:35.900 collect water all day. Well, let's, let's break this down even further. How much money are you

01:10:40.040 spending on, on waterborne disease treatment? Uh, how many days are you staying home from,

01:10:45.340 from work or school because you're sick, you know? And then seeing that, breaking that down per family,

01:10:50.540 most of them are spending about half of their annual income, half of it, about 165, $185 a year.

01:10:57.320 They're making a dollar, dollar 25 a year. And that's the slave master track. They're not wealthy.

01:11:02.440 It's like, you're spending so much money on waterborne illness. What if we bring in clean

01:11:06.960 water for both sides? We'll drill a well for you guys over here and a well for them over there. 0.58

01:11:10.660 But, um, or if, if they live in close enough proximity, we'll just this well here, we'll, we'll,

01:11:15.620 we'll make it plenty to where everyone is served. And anyways, through that, we've seen 1,651 people

01:11:23.340 transition out of slavery and into freedom. Like that's been so cool. That's been,

01:11:27.860 what, uh, what languages do you speak? Well, I mean, I speak a little bit of a very broken

01:11:33.560 dialect of Swahili. There's no Rosetta Stone for it. It's like three or four, three or four languages 0.94

01:11:37.980 in one. Okay. So, um, yeah, I would say. And you can communicate fairly well at this point.

01:11:45.340 I mean, decently, I've lost some of it cause I haven't lived there in a while and I haven't been

01:11:49.280 back since COVID, which that's been hard for me. Um, I'm about to go back hopefully, hopefully April

01:11:54.020 1st. And, um, then, uh, yeah, but it's got Swahili, French, um, uh, the local language and

01:12:03.800 sometimes Lingala in there. There's over 200 spoken languages in Congo. There's a bunch,

01:12:07.340 I think there's 60 in Uganda, every tribe, every tribe basically had. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

01:12:13.000 But there's normally national languages and things like that. But the, the saying in Swahili is

01:12:17.140 in Kenya or Swahili was born in Tanzania, got sick in Kenya, died in Uganda, and they took it to Congo 0.88

01:12:24.500 to bury it. So it's, it's, uh, it's just a saying of like, they, those countries really can't

01:12:29.520 communicate with each other and their dialect of Swahili. So, um, or it just sounds way different.

01:12:35.980 So they, yeah, I've, I've, I've got enough that I can get my point across and communicate. I also have

01:12:41.560 translators and, and man, the language of love has been, what's really been cool to see is like,

01:12:46.840 I've had fed times where I was learning the language and didn't really know what everyone

01:12:52.500 was saying, but we were there sitting there belly, laughing cheeks, hurting around the fire

01:12:56.600 because just doing life together, like so much is spoken through body language and eye contact

01:13:02.500 and laughter and love. So that's, that's, what's been real fun. That's awesome, man. Well, uh, let us

01:13:08.920 know where to connect with you. If people want to learn more or get involved in some way, like where,

01:13:13.820 where should we send these guys to? Yeah. So for fight for the forgotten, if people want to

01:13:18.260 support, we're, we're trying to build a little army or, or, or a big one of, of, and we call it

01:13:24.640 our fight club, which is our monthly donor subscription or like donation group that, you

01:13:30.740 know, for $5 a month or more, you're joining the club. And if we could do that, like a lot of

01:13:35.440 nonprofits, they, they try to operate off one, two, three, four big donors. I know one nonprofit

01:13:40.640 that lost, lost someone to COVID and they're basically the organization changes everything.

01:13:46.080 Yeah. So building that base of people that will expand our mission vision, we'll know our budgeting,

01:13:51.240 we'll know how it will grow and how we'll impact. So I'd love to invite people in on that. It's

01:13:54.920 fightfortheforgotten.org. You can join the fight club there and find out stuff. You can share the

01:13:59.300 website with people, invite them in your friends, family followers, uh, to, to also donate. Uh, you can

01:14:05.400 find me at the big pygmy on Instagram. And then my podcast is overcome with Justin Wren. You can find

01:14:11.600 that on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, anywhere you get podcasts. It's awesome. I'm just thinking about

01:14:17.860 it and what we'll sync all that up. I'm just thinking about it, you know, like five bucks a

01:14:20.960 month. I mean, imagine 10,000 people doing that to change everything or even just a thousand,

01:14:27.960 you know, like you're talking about 5,000 a month. Like, you know, when I hear that personally

01:14:33.100 within my economic sphere, like that's not going to break me, that's not going to make me,

01:14:38.040 but that's quite literally decades of income to these people you're talking about.

01:14:43.040 Yeah. I mean, if you put it on scale, like that's five people's pay a day or $5,000,

01:14:47.720 we can drill a well. Um, so we could drill another well per month. If we just had a thousand people

01:14:53.160 doing $5. Um, we also do stuff stateside with bullying and suicide prevention, but it's been

01:14:59.200 really cool to see like that grow. I know one guy that has 75,000 donors that are signed up for

01:15:05.920 their monthly donation and that changed everything for him. It was ahead of the game on that. And now

01:15:10.960 they're able to do so much in the world. Yeah. That for me is like, you know, it's cool to have

01:15:18.420 one or two big donors, but it's not as meaningful as having a whole, whole army. You know, it's someone

01:15:24.700 can stroke a check, which, which I would appreciate that too, which would be incredible. But the, uh,

01:15:30.300 but in all honesty, like having, having thousands of people believe in it, we've had 10, over 10,000

01:15:36.040 donors from all 50 States and 60 different nations. And that for me is, that is, is exemplifying

01:15:43.180 the Swahili proverb. They always taught me, which is if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go

01:15:48.320 far, go together. And it's like, we go far further together. And so, uh, it's just fun to invite

01:15:57.100 people in on being a blessing and an encouragement and empowering people.

01:16:01.560 Right on brother. Well, I appreciate you. Appreciate all your work. We'll sync it all up. We'll let the

01:16:05.940 guys know where to go. And, um, man, glad for our friendship. Glad we finally were able to make this

01:16:10.200 happen. Yeah. Powerful, powerful conversation. Thanks for sharing your story.

01:16:13.580 Yeah. I'm so grateful for you, man. Thank you. And if, uh, if, and when you get down to Austin,

01:16:18.940 let's do it on this side and I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll let you know.

01:16:24.200 Thank you. Thank you, man. There you go. My conversation with the one and only Justin Wren.

01:16:29.740 I hope you enjoyed it, man. I was blown away. I was very, very curious and interested in, um,

01:16:34.160 the pygmy people and what he had to share because I just didn't know. And I was blown away with some of 1.00

01:16:39.720 the information that he shared. So, uh, make sure you're following Justin support. If you can learn

01:16:45.200 more about what he's doing, an incredible, incredible human being. And that's what I want

01:16:48.700 to do here on the podcast is bring incredible men here to, uh, talk about masculinity and manliness

01:16:54.580 and what it means to be a man. And I think, uh, Justin is embodies that. So make sure you connect

01:17:00.340 with him on Instagram, Twitter, connect with me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook also, uh, and

01:17:06.280 take a screenshot. If you would have the show, let people know what you're listening to.

01:17:09.960 And then the last thing I would suggest to you guys is make sure you join that rating and review

01:17:14.460 giveaway. Again, you're going to win the book sovereignty origin boots and the heavy hoodie,

01:17:18.800 a Montana knife company, knife, and a pair of 50 pounds sore neck center mass bells. Again,

01:17:25.400 all you have to do is leave an iTunes rating and review, take a screenshot, send it to brandy

01:17:30.900 at order of man.com and you are set. All right, guys, you've got your marching orders. Connect

01:17:36.620 with Justin, shoot him a message. Let them know you heard him here. Get entered to the rating

01:17:41.120 review giveaway. And, uh, let's keep getting out there and do what we need to do. All right,

01:17:46.600 guys, we'll be back tomorrow until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant

01:17:51.480 to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:17:56.420 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - February 15, 2022

JUSTIN WREN ｜ Fight for the Forgotten

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