#286： Not Afraid
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Dr. Daniel Bolelli discusses why a bookworm like him started fighting, how combat sports helped him become a better man, and the forgotten philosophy of the great American philosopher, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now one of the
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most heart-wrenching things that happened to a man is losing his young wife to death becoming
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a widower but also being left alone to a father a baby compounds the heartache it's something
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that happened to theodore roosevelt and also to my guest day on the show his name is daniel bolelli
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he's professor of history host of the podcast history on fire and the drunken taoist an amateur
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mixed martial artist and the author of several books including not afraid and on the warrior's
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path today on the show daniel and i discuss why a bookworm like him started fighting how combat
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sport fighting grounds us in reality and the forgotten philosophy of bruce lee we then talk
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about his experience losing his wife to an aggressive brain tumor what it was like raising a child by
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himself and how martial arts in theodore roosevelt provided him strength and inspiration during a
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harrowing time in his life after the show's over make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is
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slash not afraid where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic
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thank you so much for having me uh so you've written several books um we're going to talk about
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today on the warrior's path not afraid you also have a podcast called the drunken taoist um and we
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can talk about that if you'd like to but you have a really interesting background you're a college
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professor but you also take part in mixed martial arts we've had a guy like you on before um jonathan
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gotchul who wrote a book called uh you know uh professor in the cage um but i'm curious you you
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egghead types professor types who also punch people in the face um i mean what got you started with
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martial arts and um i mean why did you start why did you decide that's something you had to do
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i think for me it's a matter of balance is precisely because i spent so much time in my head and i grew up
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reading a lot and being a bit nerdy it was important to develop another side to my personality
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a living stereotype you are the nerdy guy who's maybe sensitive and smart but you're completely
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divorced from physical reality and you are just a dream and that did not really appeal to me
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that much i'm i'm interested in figuring out how to combine the best of different words
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so to me it's having to choose between being uh strong and being intellectually driven it's a bad
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choice why not both uh and that applies to everything why should you have to be just uh you
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know we have the stereotype if you are a sensitive person then you can't be tough and assertive if you
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are tough you're supposed to have no feelings um i kind of don't buy these dichotomies i feel that you
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become a greater more interesting human being you get to touch life more if you experience it in
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all sort of different ways so for me martial arts was about balance was i was too a bit too scared of
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conflict i was too easily intimidated by stuff like that and so that's where i realized okay that's a
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huge weakness i need to work on it so just dive right in and i started with more mellow martial arts
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and i realized yeah this is not doing it for me i mean it's fun it's good but i need to do something
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that's scary i need to do combat sports in the harshest possible way that would get me scared
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and that would get me to work on that side of me right so what kind of like martial arts did you
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start off with so it was like tai chi i mean what were you doing yeah yeah i started with kind of the
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more tai chi type of thing started then with chinese martial other chinese martial arts and then
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over time i started drifting more and more toward boxing brazilian jiu-jitsu judo wrestling mma that
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kind of thing um and your your professor background what's your area of focus as a college professor
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i'm i teach history primarily i kind of all over the place because to be honest i have a lot more fun
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when i get to play with different topics but the primary ones that i teach are u.s history
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american indian history and history of religions very cool all right so let's talk about more about
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fighting so you talked about i mean it seems like you were your natural inclination is to be
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not assertive sort of the easygoing passive just go with the flow kind of guy um and and combat sports
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is a way to help you be more assertive and be more uh take a more aggressive approach towards life
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and aggressive i mean you know not sort of like you're being a jerk but like you're
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just being more um what's the word proactive towards life um besides that area of your life
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how has combat fighting helped you become a better man i think one of the big things for me is that
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when you fight you are gonna get kicked inevitably it doesn't even matter how good you got there's
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always gonna be somebody better than you on any given day you know take the best fighter in the world
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you're still gonna see them getting smashed on some days and to me learning how to deal with
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things not going your way learning i mean we all love martial arts when things are going our way
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right everybody likes martial arts with that sense of empowerment where you pull off amazing moves
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some hot women stand on the side looking at you say no he's so manly and so great we got off on that
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stuff but we the part that's less glamorous is when you're getting your ass kicked when there's some
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some other man is literally physically dominating you and there's not a whole lot you can do about it
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and in those moments the one thing you want is to get out you know you want like this this sucks
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this is not what i signed up for this is not fun let me check out but the problem is it doesn't work
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i mean yeah sure you can leave and never come back but if you decide to stay that does some
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interesting thing to your psychology because what happens is you'll um you'll have to fight through
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it in a fight that's basically hopeless where you know you're not gonna win this guy has your number
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is better than you there's really not a whole lot you can do and to develop that mental fortitude to
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stay in a hopeless fight to give it your best to regardless of outcome that that develops a whole
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other side of the personality that's independent to how good of a fighter you become you just become
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a tough human being you become really resilient i want to go back to something you said earlier in
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your introduction like one of the reasons why you started doing martial arts particularly combat sports
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was is a way for you to connect yourself back to reality um and you were saying yeah as a
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professor you lived in your head a lot lived in the world of ideas but i i mean do you think that's
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a problem not just for professor types but for everyone living in our modern age i think is we are so
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disconnected from physical reality most of the time really and i mean i'm not saying like it's a bad
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you know there are some advantages to being able to uh you know modern technologies clearly open up some
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awesome opportunities so i'm not knocking them down like we should go back to the good old days
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but at the same time we are losing something and so my approach is how can we keep the best
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of an older way of life while at the same time embracing what technology has to offer
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if you sit at your desk eight hours a day and then you go home and watch tv and check computer you know
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we're spending all our time with our body doing nothing that's not a good thing that's not a good
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thing health wise but also it's not a good thing in terms of your mental development as a human being
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we are not built to to do that we need to have to live in a healthy strong vibrant body that knows
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what it means to be on the run to be active to feel this kind of vitality flow through it right i've
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noticed in my own life is what i love about doing stuff like actual physical things with my body
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um is that you experience and encounter all these frustrations because the world unlike the digital
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world where you can kind of shape it the way you want you can listen to the news that you want you
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can block the people you don't want to hear on twitter like you can't do that in physical reality like
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whatever frustration is there you have to deal with it and i've actually noticed my own life having
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to deal with those frustrations dealing with those obstacles actually makes me happier like i'm it's
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it's not pleasant at the you know when i'm doing it but at the end i'm like boy that felt kind of good
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having to deal with that absolutely sometimes it's a fine balance between clearly looking for a life
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that's a much more pleasant and easier but at the same time when it gets too easy you are it's self-sabotage
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because then you don't build the strength that you will need in a bunch of aspects of life right and
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i guess combat sports is sort of i mean that it takes that idea of physical reality not going the
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way according to your plans and just amplifies it yeah and also because i mean there's that for sure
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dealing with obstacles and in that case is dealing with obstacles that kick in an emotional response
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because most people will be somewhat scared by the idea of somebody who has been training for years to
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knock your head into the third row coming after you it will not just be a oh here is an obstacle but
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it will be a fear-inducing obstacle one that forces you to deal with your emotions in a way that most
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people don't so you're saying earlier how one of the things that fighting does is it it forces you to
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be resilient right or you know keep going even in a hopeless situation when you know you're going to
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lose um did is there like a moment in your martial arts career where you experienced that first time
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that like you remember like i there's a battle a fight you knew like i am not going to win this but
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i have to keep going yeah there are at least a couple that i remember because they are the exact opposite
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of one another i remember once when you know i start off i'm doing okay i'm trying my stuff and it's
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not working and suddenly my plan a didn't pan out and i just cracked halfway i just gave up for no good
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reason you know i just felt like i want to check out of here this doesn't feel good things are not
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going my way i'm probably gonna get my ass kicked i'm out of here and of course the moment i did it i
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just look at myself and i was like what kind of a person are you really that's where it's at that
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you know things don't go your way and you quit i was so disgusted with myself and you know i didn't
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think that i would be like that and finding out that i had that in me did not make me too happy
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so i think a couple of fights later i was in this brutal grinding battle where it was 50 50 and i just
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had nothing left after a couple of rounds i was just so dead and in me suddenly you know that same
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instinct kicked in right it's like okay you did it your all you tried hard you gave it your best
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you have nothing left what's the point just check out and that's when kind of the memory of doing that
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the previous time and how horrible i felt about myself in doing that kicked in i even had a mental
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image of going back home and telling my wife oh no things didn't work out it's like why what happened
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why did you lose and imagining saying oh because you know i got tired and i didn't feel like it
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anymore so i quit and in that moment i was like okay i'm gonna die right now if if that's what it
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takes during this round i will die every year but i'm not quitting this is just not something that i can
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live with and it was funny because i had no physical energy left so i did a round on just pure willpower
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and nothing else although enough i even ended up winning the fight but that's kind of beside the point
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that's not even the important part the important part was that that moment when i made that decision
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of this is do or die i don't care about consequences i don't care about outcomes you are not quitting
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that did more for my self-esteem than 10 000 other things i've done in life one of your books that i
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really enjoyed it was on the warrior's path where you you know you sort of you talk about your approach
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to martial arts and give give a history of martial arts and description the various martial arts that
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are out there but this one section really struck out to me the most was you talk about how there's a
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need for both men and women uh to combine the warrior and the princess in their lives uh what do you mean by
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that exactly well you know how in all the classic fairy tales you have the brave warrior who goes to
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rescue the princess from the evil dragon kind of thing to me that those are metaphors for energies
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that are inside all of us you know the the dragon represent all the obstacles that stand in our way
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the princess represent the kind of feminine nurturing quality that are ultimately the ones that make life
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good that make you be kind to your kids that make you be a sweet person with other human beings and
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kind of that softer but sweet aspect of that we all have to some degree and the warrior side is the
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determined tough uh uh crash obstacles that come in your way assertive aspects that we need so in some
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way it's kind of a representation of the taoist yin yang right you have and for reasons that escape me
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completely we tend to privilege only one side you know if you are uh if you happen to be a man you
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have to be the tough guy who's you know develop some great qualities of strength and assertiveness but
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you also are supposed to be insensitive not feel anything not be able to relate on an emotional level
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to a lot of other people and vice versa if you are a woman you are supposed to be all about feelings but
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if somebody goes boo you go hide in a corner because you are fearful and you don't have that
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toughness i find those to be silly stereotypes and unfortunately these are silly stereotypes that
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most people embody that they have a very strong basis in reality but i don't find it desirable to try
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to live up to those stereotypes i think we can take the best of both worlds you know what's in some
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ways think about even you know like the whole idea that women like bad boys why do they like bad boys
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because there's something appealing about the guy's machismo the toughness the assertive all of those
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qualities are very attractive but at the same time the problem is most of these people often are assholes
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who are very unpleasant in other aspects of life so you're either stuck with the cute sweet boyfriend
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who's a wimp or the hot one who's fiery and intense but he's kind of a jerk why does it that way you know
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why can't you as develop both sides at the same time what's wrong with being sweet and nice and being
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tough as hell at the same time to me that much more interesting human being than either or but so how does
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martial arts help you develop these two energies as you call them in your life i mean because martial arts
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it's all about just that seems like it puts a premium on the warrior aspect definitely and i think
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some of it is because you gain a measure of your own skill and of your own words you know you know
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that after you have been in a million fights you know that you are better than a lot of people because
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of how hard you work at it and the results you have achieved and you know that there's always somebody
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going to be better than you so in some sense it kind of keeps your ego in check it prevents you from
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being these uh defensive overreactive you know because you have a sense of reality you have a
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sense of where you stand and as such it allows you to relax a bit it's it's interesting when you see
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that a lot of fighters are actually really mellow nice human beings because they got nothing to prove
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now that's not always the case there are people who will be great fighters and still manage to be
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ego-obsessed jerks but that's not as common as one would think often you find some of the toughest
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guys are just really sweet mellow polite because because for them that's a choice they don't have to
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be being sweet and mellow for them it's not a technique that they use because they can't do anything else
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they are going to use it as their path to get what they want it's a choice because if they decide to
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turn it on and just get into it they can't speak the language of violence they can't speak the
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language of toughness they so when they decide not to it's because they can't because they have kept
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their ego in check they are more they don't need to prove to anybody how good they are they know how
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good they are one of the things i love about your writing and your work is your appreciation for
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philosophy it seems you really think hard about these things and like a lot of great martial artists from
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the past you try to combine the spiritual with the tooth and claw nastiness of fighting so i'm
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curious you know which philosophers how they can be you know eastern western philosophers have had the
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most influence on you and your synergy of fighting and spirituality i think some of the key ones would
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be well of course all stoic philosophy here applies very well right i mean stoicism seems perfectly built
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for this type of mindset a lot of what we're saying in some way you can find in stoic philosophy at the
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same time i dig on the eastern side of things i find that that isn't to be i really love that reason because
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it describes basically the way the universe works there's not a whole lot of sentimentality about it
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it just tells you these are the principles that make life click and so i find it an excellent
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guide to living that also apply to fighting to martial arts it applies to everything really it applies
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to life so i find that reason quite quite inspiring and while technically not philosophy in a strict sense
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since we're talking about stoicism i the 14 year old in me my uh i can't stop enjoying all the
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conan the barbarian books tales the robert t howard stuff because i find it a i mean once you get past
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the muscles and the adventure and the boobs and all the flashy things that attract people there's also
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really a master course in stoic philosophy of inside robert t howard's writing and i find it
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on one hand hilarious and entertaining but also very deep at the same time right yeah crumb crumb does not care
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about you but that's the attitude right it's like yeah doesn't care who knows about what the future
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the afterlife but there's here and now you can live deep here and now let's do that let's focus on this
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i love that there's uh you know focus on what you can control on the ways in which you can here and now
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make life more enjoyable and i loved how you um you talked about bruce lee um in his philosophy because i
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didn't i mean i've seen all the bruce lee flicks but this guy who's actually very thoughtful and he
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kind of he developed a philosophy towards life uh through his development of this martial art that
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he developed lee was very much inspired by taoism i mean when you look at a lot of his writings it's
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clearly overwhelmingly comes from taoist sources so in that sense he's not creating anything new
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but he was brilliant because i was adapting ancient ideas that you could find in the taoist
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and adapting them to life in the 20th century in the united states in a way that clicks so much
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easier for most people than when you're trying to read the original taoist text from 2000 plus years ago
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so while his work may be a bit derivative i don't think that's a bad thing i think it's just
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a way to make the same principle come to life in a more modern context and uh so i love bruce lee
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stuff i think he was absolutely brilliant both in his personal philosophy the way he applied it to
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the martial arts and everything else and another philosopher that you see throughout your writing
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is uh nietzsche and you actually have a section a chapter in one of your books devoted to him about
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this idea that he had about becoming the hero hidden in your soul um what what did nietzsche
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mean by that and like how have you taken that and applied it to your life i think you know when we
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grow up we all dream to be heroes those are the tales that will capture every kid because there's
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something beautiful about it it speaks of a life lived with integrity with honor with somebody that
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other people can rely on because you are solid you can be trusted you have you have all these
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qualities that we all want to embody and somewhere along the way somehow we got convinced that that's
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some childish fantasy and i think that's really dumb because yeah you're not gonna be the hero in the
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sense that you will pick up a spear and go fight a dragon that's probably not gonna happen but what's gonna
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happen is that just a metaphor that just an image for the kind of struggle that we all fight every
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day with our own weaknesses with our own inner demons with all the crap that life dishes our way
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that's going to that's trying to crush our spirit that kind of battle is one that we all wage every
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single day and so in that sense nurturing those heroic qualities nurturing that kind of image of who you
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want to be i think is key i think is what every single human being should be doing all of the time
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and in that regard i love nietzsche's philosophy because while he himself was struggling you know
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he was grown he lived in the germany of the late 1800s he dealt with a ton of physical issues he
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he had a lot of heavy crap weighing him down but at the same time there are moments there in his books
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that are just these flashes of beauty and intensity pointing to these key values that to
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me are what make life interesting so i really really dig nature a lot right and it's also kind
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of segwaying it connects nicely with joseph campbell's idea of you know the hero's journey seeing your life
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through this metaphor can bring a lot of significance to it even in the most mundane things it can bring
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significance to your life yeah i mean i remember even as a like stuff that i didn't want to do as
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a student when i was in college i can look at it as oh i have a research paper to get done on monday i
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don't really feel like it i want to do something else or i can look at it as this is a challenge
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this is something that's trying to like i can approach it as just a waste of time that's making
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me bored and i don't feel like being here or i can approach it as a challenge to myself and i'm gonna
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do the best possible i'm gonna wake up give it my all do the best possible job and then enjoy my
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reward of free time when i'm done and taking it with that attitude made the whole task so much more
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pleasant because this was not about writing some stupid research paper i didn't care for this was a
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test of character this was a test that when i get lazy and i feel like quitting and i feel like
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can we delay it can i get i get distracted and do something else you're kind of fighting that
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inner resistance inside of you which suddenly that same stupid paper became an occasion to
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work on myself to become stronger than who i was five minutes before and how is martial arts
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supercharged your quest to to become the hero within your soul well one of the things i love about
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the martial art game is that is uh is not just an intellectual pursuit where you are imagining
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these qualities you are trying to embody them but it's still very somewhat in your head there is an
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element there where your body will experience it before even your mind does and then your body will
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affect your mind you know there are days where i just feel this heavy pressure i feel crappy about
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myself i'm not in a good mood all i want to do is just dive headfirst into the most fattening vat of
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ice cream ever created and never be heard from again and instead somehow i managed to get myself on the mat
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or in the ring and the physical intensity of the training will snap me back in the present moment
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all my other excuses issues nagging stuff that will all disappear in the background because i need to be
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100 present in the year and now and i have to give my best whether i feel like it or not because if i
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don't i'm gonna get my nose smashed by somebody trying to punch it away that experience is powerful
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you know that will that will affect the your ability to be present at will when you want yeah and i think
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it's interesting you raise this point in the book that even with martial arts there's that temptation to
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stay within your head right where you see this on the internet where these debates about which martial
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arts is the best martial arts and you have these ethereal arguments about well we got this technique
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and this is you know the ground game is good in this one this is better for real life but uh you have
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to get you actually have to start doing it to actually see the experience the results absolutely because
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i mean combat sports are no reality by definition it's a simulated i mean the violence is real
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enough but it's within the rules it's within boundaries it's within all of that clearly that's
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no reality because there is no substitute for reality there is no way to mimic reality exactly
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so you can only approximate it the advantage that combat sports is that within the limits of the game
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within the rules you can test things out there's nothing choreographed about it the other guy is
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trying to take you down and you have to do what you can to reverse him the other guy is trying to
00:26:40.560
punch your head off and you have to sleep and hit him you know there's an immediate feedback that
00:26:45.920
keeps things real it prevents you from going into fantasy land where you think you are the greatest
00:26:51.200
fighter ever those kind of illusions tend to exist mainly martial arts where you don't get to test it
00:26:57.320
because you don't spar once you spar once you experience a more combat sport driven aspect of
00:27:03.640
it it's a lot harder to keep thinking you are this amazing thing where reality sometimes shows you that
00:27:09.600
yeah you're pretty good but hey let's keep it you know you also just got hit by this guy you shouldn't
00:27:15.000
have you also made this one you know it keeps you it keeps you with your feet on the ground that way
00:27:21.400
right so in your latest book not afraid um you share one of the most heartbreaking things that
00:27:27.640
can happen to a man um your wife died um you were left caring four-year-olds newborn baby girl and you
00:27:35.900
were at a point where you're struggling with your career um as a professor um can you share a bit about
00:27:41.780
that experience yeah i mean that was a time was end of 2010 early 2011 the whole thing was super quick
00:27:50.460
you know my wife started showing some symptoms that were mildly concerning but nothing too big you know
00:27:58.140
she had these pains that wouldn't go away in her shoulders in her neck big deal we all do once in a
00:28:03.360
while and then a month later it started spreading to her leg and you're like okay that's a little weird
00:28:08.420
because that shows more of a neurological kind of thing long story short she ended up that what
00:28:14.060
they thought was uh multiple sclerosis wasn't turned out it was a brain tumor completely inoperable
00:28:20.860
super aggressive and fast moving and so from the very first symptom to the time when she died was
00:28:26.600
like less than six months so by early 2011 she died by that time my daughter was only 19 months old
00:28:35.460
so that's kind of heavy to for her you know trying to suddenly her mom is gone and i'm the only one
00:28:42.680
who can who's there for her to try to make up for everything she has lost try to make her that was the
00:28:49.300
weird thing is try to make her happy you know it wasn't enough that i'm changing diapers and taking
00:28:53.800
care of business i mean sure that's the first line of the fence but the other aspect is i need to put my
00:29:00.440
own grief away i need to put my own emotional bullshit away because i need to find a way to
00:29:05.700
make this little girl happy to make her feel that life is still good and so that i would give myself
00:29:12.140
10 minutes a day to feel what i had to feel to crash if i needed but it was on a timer you know it's like
00:29:18.380
okay your 10 minutes are up now you need to go back to prepare food change diapers and wake her up
00:29:24.820
with a smile because that's really the only thing that that you can do at this point so yeah at the
00:29:32.140
same time everything else you know my career was in a bad spot like everything happened all at once
00:29:36.700
where i was like it became after a while it became almost like you know a tragedy is a tragedy but two
00:29:41.880
three or four in a row become almost comedy where you're like okay what's next you know it's like
00:29:46.580
and in some way the act unless it completely crushes you then the attitude is you really stop
00:29:54.420
sweating 99 of problems that normally would bother human beings because you are dealing with such a
00:30:01.240
magnitude that is like i'm not gonna be bothered by this little thing i i really don't care i have
00:30:06.240
other things on my plate yeah it puts things in perspective um i mean so how did you talk about
00:30:13.020
martial arts making you more resilient um in the ring and that can carry over to other lives did
00:30:17.500
did that resilience you developed through martial art training carry over to helping you grieve
00:30:24.360
through the death of your wife yeah that was key i mean that was in terms of getting stuff handling
00:30:29.540
making sure that i wouldn't crush that idea of okay things are clearly not going our way but we're
00:30:37.640
still here you know unless you're dead you should still be fighting and keep going forward no matter
00:30:42.580
what the odds are that was certainly helpful it was helpful afterwards but also it was helpful
00:30:47.860
during the the last stages of my wife's life because even when we realize yeah there's not gonna be a
00:30:54.300
good outcome out of this well she's still alive and she still needs to she still needs to feel good
00:31:00.400
about something so again no matter what i'm feeling is i need to find a way to laugh with her to make her
00:31:06.940
feel good for the time she has no future there's no of course there's no future but there's still a
00:31:13.260
present there's a right now so how can i make the right now good even if the ultimate outcome may not
00:31:19.660
be good and so that was something that certainly martial art experience helped me for sure you know
00:31:26.760
it was something that dealing with that kind of feeling of fighting on when everything is hopeless
00:31:33.440
was certainly good training for the bigger battle which was in life of course not so much i mean
00:31:39.940
what you learn on the mat or in the ring is just a good uh a good prerequisite to help you with
00:31:46.540
some of these bigger things in life you know what was it like after i'm sure it was i mean this
00:31:52.520
happened really fast um you know so fast you probably didn't at the moment have a lot of time to process
00:31:57.180
what was going on and it wasn't until you know after she died that you were able to actually i mean
00:32:01.820
that's when i think it hits a lot of couples at least what i've read and talked to is that
00:32:05.640
it's after um the person has died and you've done all the the burial and the funeral things that
00:32:12.280
it really hits you hard um did you have that moment after your the the death of your wife where
00:32:18.340
it just suddenly hits you that i'm my wife's gone and now you have this whole new reality uh that i have
00:32:25.240
i think i couldn't go there i couldn't really i mean i i thought i did i thought i was dealing with
00:32:33.520
it and addressing grief and everything else i probably wasn't in the sense that i could not
00:32:39.180
open a door that would slow me down at a time when you know emotionally if i opened the door
00:32:44.620
emotionally may crush me and i could not afford to get crushed at a time when my daughter was
00:32:49.120
depending on me a hundred percent so i think i kind of put it a little on the back burner like
00:32:54.900
many people were looking at me like jesus are you even human because i acted like uh i mean yeah i
00:33:00.340
was sad it sucked but at the same time i was just very trying to enjoy life in the middle of all of
00:33:06.660
that trying to find things to laugh about trying to keep going i was charged with this energy where
00:33:13.840
i felt this thirst for life where i wanted everything and i wanted it now kind of thing
00:33:18.140
and there's something good about it because it kept me from wallowing in my own self-pity and just
00:33:25.420
staying at my own navel complaining about the injustices of the universe but at the same time
00:33:30.340
there was something where i probably should have found a way to deal with the emotions a little better
00:33:35.700
because what happened is that whether i realized it or not i certainly was repressing them some
00:33:42.020
in favor of hey i need to be here for my daughter which yeah sure it's a good reason but not dealing
00:33:48.100
with emotions at the same time is not necessarily the best thing because
00:33:51.520
completely came to bite me back in the ass later when i realized my body started breaking down and that
00:33:57.800
was stress that was just emotions that i wasn't processing so i spent years with these old
00:34:04.420
psychosomatic illnesses that were just breaking me down eventually when i started try to process more
00:34:13.500
everything that happened to me i slowly started climbing out of it so that's probably the last
00:34:18.860
year or two is where i feel like i'm me again you know i got my body back i feel healthy again i feel
00:34:24.380
in a better mental space but it took a while because i think my initial approach was so okay i can't let
00:34:32.340
this stop me that i i repress emotions too much and repress emotions always find a way to get back at
00:34:39.440
you right and so i imagine martial arts played a role in that you know getting you out of that funk
00:34:45.340
yeah even though there was a period really for a few years where it was really hard to train because
00:34:50.880
every time i stepped up i would break within a month because again too much stress my body was too
00:34:57.300
vulnerable because of all the emotions so i would go back to what used to make me happy and feel good
00:35:03.120
and within four five six training sessions i would be injured again and i'm out for three months and
00:35:09.420
then i'd do it again and it kept happening to the point where i was like okay i think i need to deal
00:35:14.640
with my emotions first before i can actually go back to this and that's why the last couple of years
00:35:19.760
where i've been able to train again has been just a new lease of life you know suddenly i feel like
00:35:25.480
ah i know this this is this is the reality i know and love again i couldn't have it for a while those
00:35:33.740
were the times where my my mental self was not at its best for sure when i finally was able to get
00:35:40.100
back on the mat on a regular basis i started feeling so much better and and how old is your daughter now
00:35:45.400
she's seven and i mean what's it been like i mean are you are you still single um you just have you
00:35:50.900
been raising her on your own um i've had them i've had help because um my mom lives in the u.s and she
00:35:57.740
is helping a little for sure um i have had um no i have had a girlfriend for the last few years and
00:36:04.460
she's awesome she's great with my daughter she's great with me she's really kind of almost freakish
00:36:10.640
how good she is to all of us and it's uh so no i definitely while i certainly have done a lot on my
00:36:17.180
own particularly at the beginning the beginning was pretty much me alone but after that i certainly
00:36:22.800
received a whole lot of help and have you gotten your daughter involved in martial arts um just
00:36:28.480
playing with it a little i'd want her to have fun with it so i don't want her to push her unless she
00:36:34.220
wants it i want her to kind of taste it a little bit we play around a little i'll have her try
00:36:39.380
combinations but i think you know i'll take her to classes i'm not in a hurry in the sense that i
00:36:45.000
want it to be something that she wants to do that she loves more than hey we're going to martial arts
00:36:51.220
and you're gonna like it whether you like it or not because that's the way that then you're gonna
00:36:55.320
hate it forever right i think it's easier for her because she see me getting so much out of it and
00:37:01.220
being so happy she sees my girlfriend she became a martial art freak because the last few years
00:37:07.920
she trains i mean she just started fighting professional in mma she's really insanely skilled
00:37:14.500
and so you know she's around it all the time she sees it in my daughter sees it in me my girlfriend
00:37:21.880
so i'm sure at some point that desire is gonna move from oh let's play for five minutes into
00:37:28.660
something a little more um i i'm kind of that's how i'm approaching it i don't want to push her too
00:37:34.720
hard for fear that then is gonna turn her off from making it a lifelong thing so i mean there's
00:37:41.000
guys listening to the show and they're thinking man i want to i want to experience what daniel's
00:37:45.900
experienced from martial arts that resilience that sense of confidence that comes from it that it's
00:37:51.200
that quiet confidence that comes with uh martial arts is is there any particular one you recommend
00:37:56.620
i mean do you recommend like combat martial arts like mixed martial arts type of stuff i think
00:38:01.220
combat sports are a great way to to get in the game there are a million different arts that are
00:38:06.500
i mean i really i like pretty much all martial arts but as far as combat sports go i think
00:38:12.000
judo and jiu-jitsu or wrestling all of those the grappling ones are awesome because you don't take as
00:38:18.240
much damage to your head compared to when you do striking striking arts are great you know i like
00:38:24.400
boxing tie boxing all of it the problem is there's always fine line in terms of sparring because you
00:38:30.680
want to spar hard enough that it's realistic but not so hard that you take you know there are only
00:38:35.300
so many brain cells you have and you don't want to start weeding them out through hard sparring too
00:38:40.220
often so that i find a little harder to get into just because you have to always hold back to some
00:38:47.600
degree whereas judo jiu-jitsu wrestling i mean as long as you are not reckless you are going any damage
00:38:54.100
you take is um to the limbs not to your brain so that's pretty important difference so you can train
00:39:01.780
usually a little harder holding back a little less and i i find that quite appealing that's why i mean
00:39:08.600
i've done all the striking arts a lot for quite a few years these days i enjoy mainly grappling because
00:39:14.940
i find it um more you know there are only so many times in life you want to get punched in the head
00:39:19.920
right um so besides the books you've got a podcast the the drunken taoist i mean what
00:39:25.080
if someone were to listen to that show what kind of things could they expect i mean what do you
00:39:28.320
explore on that that show so drunken taoist was the first one i started working on and it's um
00:39:33.160
i do two types of episodes i usually do two episodes a month one is an interview and interviews are with
00:39:39.800
people from all walks of life as long as i find a person interesting for one degree or another then
00:39:45.420
it's fair game and the other episode is an in studio one that i just do with my co-host where
00:39:50.320
we chat and it's really about it doesn't have a single theme it's life so we jump on from sports to
00:39:58.520
relationships to philosophy to you name it and as long as it's life as long as there's intensity as
00:40:04.340
long as there's passion then it interests me so that's how i've been handling the drunken taoist
00:40:09.760
and then about a year and a half ago i started doing another podcast called history on fire
00:40:15.520
because um it kind of made sense you know i was already podcasting and i was and i teach history
00:40:21.240
for a living so i was like how about i put two and two together so i started history on fire with the
00:40:27.360
same idea i'm gonna pick any story from history that i find fascinating because it's it has an epic
00:40:34.260
quality to it and i'm just gonna dive deep into them so so one day i'll be talking about theodore
00:40:41.580
roosevelt's life and the next day i'm gonna be going on the slave revolts in ancient rome with
00:40:46.660
spartacus and stuff like that and i feel i like the freedom to be able to jump from topic to topic you
00:40:53.860
know i'll go really deep for one two three episodes on one topic got that done boom i'm off to the next
00:41:00.040
thing whatever i feel wherever i feel that there's enough passion that to make it a compelling
00:41:06.840
narrative yeah your your series on theodore roosevelt is how i discovered you because one
00:41:11.340
of your listeners said hey art of manliness check this guy out he's done some podcasts on teddy
00:41:16.760
roosevelt and i was like that's my kind of guy and that's this is how that conversation happened
00:41:22.020
so we can thank teddy roosevelt okay i like that good old teddy i had so much fun doing the teddy
00:41:29.260
roosevelt series i started out thinking oh one episode about this life one became two two became
00:41:35.000
three there's just so much to the guy and um and it was interesting for me to read because there's
00:41:41.180
there's a lot that i could relate to personally the combat sport stuff all the him losing his wife and
00:41:48.120
having a younger young daughter when he was young you know all of those things i was like okay that's a
00:41:53.180
little familiar i i can deal with those dynamics so it was uh kind of therapeutic for me actually to
00:41:59.740
read about his stories and dive deep into it fantastic daniel where can people learn more about
00:42:04.540
uh your work um the gods of google will be good to you so if you spell my name right there's a twitter
00:42:11.820
i have it's the first letter of my initial so it's the letter d and then my last name bolelli it's b-o-l-e-l-l-i
00:42:19.160
i have a public face a public page on facebook um various websites you know danielebolelli.com
00:42:27.200
there's the one for history on fire there's drunken towers but i think you know again thanks to google
00:42:32.100
if you find one usually you you find them all very quickly well daniel bolelli thank you so much for
00:42:37.380
your time it's been an absolute pleasure thanks so much brad this was fun my guest there is daniel bolelli
00:42:41.680
he is the author of not afraid and on the warrior's path and some other books as well he's also the
00:42:46.000
host of the drunken towers podcast as well as history on fire podcast check out his history on
00:42:50.380
fire podcast it's great at history on fire podcast.com also find out more information about his work at
00:42:55.500
danielbolelli.com that's uh b-o-l-e-l-l-i.com uh to find more information about his work also check
00:43:02.640
out our show notes at aom.is slash not afraid where you can find links to resources where you can delve
00:43:07.840
deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more
00:43:18.380
manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com
00:43:22.100
if you enjoy this show and have gotten something out of it i'd really appreciate if you take two
00:43:25.540
minutes to give us a review on itunes or stitcher or whatever it is you listen on the podcast helps
00:43:29.580
us out a lot as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brad mckay