Latest / The You Project / #1633 The Freedom Fighter - Justin Wren

Transcript

#1633 The Freedom Fighter - Justin Wren · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I got a team. It's Harps at Stiffanie and Cook.
0:02
Speaker 1: It is Justin Renn. I don't know what his middle
0:05
Speaker 1: name is. I will find out very quickly. Justin Renn.
0:07
Speaker 1: It's us at You. It's the Bloody You Project. We'll
0:09
Speaker 1: start with tiff Hi tiv Hi Harps. Well, now I
0:12
Speaker 1: want to know his middle name, and you make me wait.
0:14
Speaker 1: We'll find out in a minute. But now everyone knows
0:17
Speaker 1: that tiff is a pugilist. She loves punching other women
0:20
Speaker 1: in the face and periodically some men in the face.
0:22
Speaker 1: So you've got you've got You've got another warrior, Christopher,
0:26
Speaker 1: it's Christopher. You've got another warrior on the show with you.
0:29
Speaker 1: Justin Christopher Wren. That kind of rolls off the tongue,
0:32
Speaker 1: don't you think it's good? Tiffany and Cook, Craig, Anthony Harper,
0:35
Speaker 1: Justin Christopher Wren. Anyway, Hey mate, welcome to the show.
0:40
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm grateful
0:42
Speaker 2: to be here with both of you all, and especially
0:43
Speaker 2: if Tiffany is a warrior, I'm excited to hear all
0:47
Speaker 2: about this too.
0:48
Speaker 1: No, she punches girls in the face, mate, she's boys.
0:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, you do yeah, but you don't actually think competition.
0:56
Speaker 3: I don't compete against boys. No, no, you just boys
1:00
Speaker 3: in the now speaking. Oh no, I can't digress. You
1:03
Speaker 3: know the bloke that you punch in the face, that
1:05
Speaker 3: wrote a song about you. Yeah, he's singing at the
1:09
Speaker 3: Grand Final sure is yeah wow yeah. Justin's like, I
1:13
Speaker 3: don't know about what that is.
1:14
Speaker 2: I want to hear the song. I want to hear
1:16
Speaker 2: this one.
1:17
Speaker 1: There's a veryous there's a very there's a very famous
1:21
Speaker 1: Australian musician called Mark Seymour and Tiff coaches him and
1:26
Speaker 1: punches him in the face. And he's just released a
1:29
Speaker 1: new album called The Boxer and it's got to her
1:33
Speaker 1: picture on the front and the song was written about her.
1:36
Speaker 1: So she thinks she's a big deal now. So it's
1:38
Speaker 1: going to be a nightmare for the next few months.
1:40
Speaker 2: I'm this is virtual, so punch me in the face.
1:44
Speaker 1: Hey, Justin, thanks for coming on the You project. Tell
1:47
Speaker 1: us where are you at the moment? In the States?
1:49
Speaker 1: Where are you and what.
1:50
Speaker 2: Time in the Austin Texas. In Austin, Texas, it's about
1:55
Speaker 2: four thirty seven pm my time. I guess I'm speaking
1:58
Speaker 2: to you all. You otherdear ahead, right, So.
2:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're in the future. We're literally in the future.
2:03
Speaker 1: So welcome to the future. Thank you if you want.
2:06
Speaker 1: If you want to know what, how is it? Well?
2:10
Speaker 2: Is it all harmony?
2:11
Speaker 1: Yeah? Friday? That well, we make it to Friday, the
2:14
Speaker 1: fifteenth of September. But I cannot guarantee the sixteenth. I mean,
2:18
Speaker 1: the world's pretty precarious at the moment.
2:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, true, But uh, I think part of my story
2:26
Speaker 2: is I've been through big ups, big downs. The fighting
2:31
Speaker 2: lifestyle is kind of a roller coaster ride for sure,
2:33
Speaker 2: but through that like a surgery, addiction, depression, to suicide attempts.
2:40
Speaker 2: But man, what I've what I've found now is like
2:42
Speaker 2: I went from fighting against people to fighting for people
2:46
Speaker 2: and that really trans transformed my life. And it's been
2:49
Speaker 2: a fun transition of really trying to do community community empowerment,
2:55
Speaker 2: so not just commune development, but giving them opportunity and
2:59
Speaker 2: the people that I know that I'll become my second family,
3:02
Speaker 2: that they adopted me in that their tribe, the Pigmy
3:04
Speaker 2: people in Africa, the central Central Africa, the Congo bes
3:09
Speaker 2: and rainforest and Congo and Uganda men they are up
3:13
Speaker 2: against in many ways insurmountable odds, but the way they
3:17
Speaker 2: do it together is beautiful. It's incredible, and they overcome
3:22
Speaker 2: basically any challenge because they do it together.
3:25
Speaker 1: Now, I'm going to try really hard this conversation not
3:28
Speaker 1: to reference Rogan too much, but who doesn't love Rogan? Right?
3:31
Speaker 1: And I've listened to I reckon fifteen hundred of these episodes,
3:36
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's where I met you. I met you
3:39
Speaker 1: on Rogan so to speak, and I just love the
3:43
Speaker 1: almost the dichotomy of this big, terrifying, strong, violent, in
3:48
Speaker 1: a controlled violence way human being, who can you know,
3:53
Speaker 1: hurt people for sport and money and well, you know,
3:58
Speaker 1: for sport trying not to at them but twee, I guess.
4:01
Speaker 1: But also at the same time, this big compassionate guy
4:04
Speaker 1: that just loves humans and just wants to serve and
4:08
Speaker 1: wants to give and wants to protect and wants to uplift.
4:11
Speaker 1: It's a real kind of dichotomy. Tell us about how
4:15
Speaker 1: you ended up in Uganda and you ended up meeting
4:18
Speaker 1: the pygmies and you ended up being part of their family.
4:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess to just hit on the fighting
4:26
Speaker 2: a little bit, was I grew up getting very heavily bullied,
4:31
Speaker 2: and so they probably just call the Pygmy people some
4:34
Speaker 2: of the most oppressed, if not the most oppressed people
4:36
Speaker 2: on Earth. So that's a form of bullying, and for me,
4:42
Speaker 2: I know what that feels like on a different kind
4:44
Speaker 2: of level, but in a relentless kind of way to
4:48
Speaker 2: where when I found MMA, I found UFC two through
4:51
Speaker 2: eleven at a used VHS store. Actually it was a
4:56
Speaker 2: flea market, as we say here in the US, where
5:00
Speaker 2: to trash and stolen stuff, and and the VHS tape
5:04
Speaker 2: store also sold knives and BB guns and flying squirrels
5:10
Speaker 2: and iguanas. So I didn't never really know what I
5:13
Speaker 2: walked into. But when I found UFC two through eleven,
5:18
Speaker 2: I was like, these guys don't get bullied, and I thought,
5:22
Speaker 2: that's what I'm going to do. That's it's funny. I
5:25
Speaker 2: wasn't going to show this, but I have. I'm drinking
5:27
Speaker 2: from a teenage mutant Ninja turtles.
5:30
Speaker 1: Right now, and what is what is in? What is
5:34
Speaker 1: in that?
5:36
Speaker 2: Oh it's the hard stuff. No, I'm just kidding, I'm sober.
5:38
Speaker 2: It's water. It's water, but uh, it's it's tall. So
5:42
Speaker 2: that's why I grabbed that when I was looking for
5:44
Speaker 2: my water bottle, can find it and the for me,
5:48
Speaker 2: like I saw a ninja Turtles and I enjoyed that.
5:51
Speaker 2: I loved martial arts. I bought the black Belt magazines
5:54
Speaker 2: and recently I got to be on the cover black
5:57
Speaker 2: Belt magazine and adducted in the Hall of Fame there,
6:00
Speaker 2: which is Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and those types.
6:06
Speaker 2: And yeah, So when I found MMA, I thought, this
6:11
Speaker 2: is it, this is this is what I have to do.
6:14
Speaker 2: This is my now, it's my identity. If I could
6:16
Speaker 2: transform into that, and I won't be bullied or I'll
6:21
Speaker 2: have purpose or significant So it was my outlet, my
6:24
Speaker 2: original outlet and purpose and passion. But it got to
6:28
Speaker 2: a point where I was national champion wrestling getting my
6:31
Speaker 2: hand raised, and MMA had wrestled in Moscow, Kickbox in Amsterdam,
6:38
Speaker 2: fought at you know, the Hard Rock in Las Vegas
6:40
Speaker 2: as the main event and other other places and it
6:43
Speaker 2: was all cool and it was good. But for me,
6:47
Speaker 2: some reason, I get my hand raised that I think
6:49
Speaker 2: is this it is that all? And I just felt
6:53
Speaker 2: like there had to be something more. And so that
6:58
Speaker 2: was that transition from fightingance people are fighting for people.
7:01
Speaker 2: I started small, just I believe no active kindness, no
7:04
Speaker 2: matter how small. Ever, goe was wasted and I started
7:07
Speaker 2: with what was right in front of me, and that
7:08
Speaker 2: was a children's hospital I got invited to and it
7:12
Speaker 2: was a kid that was injured, but him and his
7:14
Speaker 2: family were fight fans and he watched me on The
7:17
Speaker 2: Ultimate Fighter. So started there, became an official volunteer, did
7:20
Speaker 2: that for a year, started the rescue mission for the
7:23
Speaker 2: homeless in Denver. Then it was at Risk Youth group,
7:27
Speaker 2: like kind of inner city at risk Youth. Start showing
7:31
Speaker 2: him some martial arts, and then I would say about
7:36
Speaker 2: a year after sacrificing fighting, I left on a wind
7:39
Speaker 2: streak and I said, I need to get my life
7:43
Speaker 2: right because the suicide attempt, the addiction. I need to
7:46
Speaker 2: live a different kind of life. I'm not proud of
7:49
Speaker 2: what I was doing or how I was living. And
7:52
Speaker 2: it was like there was no joy. The addiction for
7:55
Speaker 2: me felt like I was in a rear naked choke.
7:58
Speaker 2: And Tiffany would get this, but there's a body triangle
8:02
Speaker 2: where your one arms down and you need two hands
8:05
Speaker 2: to fight one hand on a rear naked but if
8:07
Speaker 2: they trap your arm in a body triangle and it's
8:10
Speaker 2: down by your waist and you only have one hand
8:12
Speaker 2: on two arms, it's almost impossible to get out of.
8:14
Speaker 2: But addiction felt like there's a body triangle with both
8:17
Speaker 2: arms and I couldn't fight at all, and I tried
8:20
Speaker 2: everything I could and there's no other way out. And
8:24
Speaker 2: for me, man, it was it was purpose through service
8:27
Speaker 2: that I would say freed me. And so to get
8:31
Speaker 2: to the story of how I got there, Man, I'm
8:33
Speaker 2: not very religious, but I said a prayer, God, will
8:36
Speaker 2: what do you want me to do with my life?
8:38
Speaker 2: I was saying it to the universe or whatever, and
8:40
Speaker 2: I didn't expect the clouds to part or to hear anything.
8:44
Speaker 2: But I can compare it to visualization in sports. At
8:49
Speaker 2: the Olympic Training Center for wrestling, we had sports psychologists
8:51
Speaker 2: taking us through visualization drills. Before my fights. I'd go
8:55
Speaker 2: into a float tank and I would spend at least
8:57
Speaker 2: ninety minutes in there, sometimes two hours, and I would
8:59
Speaker 2: see the fight in my mind a hundred different times
9:02
Speaker 2: before I get up, and sometimes it happened just like
9:06
Speaker 2: it in a fight. And so, but this was not
9:10
Speaker 2: trying to go to a place to visualize anything. Wasn't
9:13
Speaker 2: he conjuring anything up. It wasn't like I had some
9:16
Speaker 2: preconceived notion in my mind of anything. And I saw
9:19
Speaker 2: myself a movie in my mind. I'm in the forest.
9:22
Speaker 2: I'm walking down a footpath. I'm clearing vines and thickets
9:26
Speaker 2: out of the way. I'm walking and I hear drumming,
9:30
Speaker 2: and I'm curious, and I keep walking and I hear
9:32
Speaker 2: the singing that's kind of tonal or very unlike anything
9:36
Speaker 2: I've ever heard before. And I keep walking and I
9:39
Speaker 2: come into a clearing and I see these twiggan leaf
9:42
Speaker 2: huts that are in the shape of domes, and they
9:45
Speaker 2: have leaves laid over them. And I meet these people
9:48
Speaker 2: and we don't talk, but we acknowledge each other. And
9:51
Speaker 2: the first guy, I see his coughing and I can
9:53
Speaker 2: see his ribs, meaning like like almost like a skeleton
9:58
Speaker 2: with skin on, and I know that. But he's hungry, thirsty, poor, sick,
10:01
Speaker 2: oppressed and slaved that he called someone else's master. And
10:06
Speaker 2: I came out of that vision and I felt forgotten,
10:08
Speaker 2: Like the word forgotten came to me, like these people
10:11
Speaker 2: feel forgotten or that's their identity, whatever it is. When
10:14
Speaker 2: I wrote it, down on a piece of paper, and
10:16
Speaker 2: I cried, unlike I've ever cried at any funeral where
10:20
Speaker 2: all the funerals combined, or any heartbreak, and I was
10:23
Speaker 2: crying for these people to know who they were, where
10:24
Speaker 2: they were, And I thought, this is weird? Am I crazy?
10:29
Speaker 2: I've done most every psychedelic ayahuasca and psilocybin and buffo
10:36
Speaker 2: and DMT and the list goes on and on, doctor
10:39
Speaker 2: guided most of the time, or ketamine therapy, all these things,
10:45
Speaker 2: and for me those were good or profound and sometimes spiritual.
10:50
Speaker 2: But sometimes I was chasing that in a way of
10:54
Speaker 2: like hoping to get some sort of experience, or maybe
10:57
Speaker 2: I'd even just say it was in some sense, in
11:00
Speaker 2: some way, even in the slightest it was it was manufactured,
11:04
Speaker 2: it was chemically induced or whatever. This wasn't so my
11:11
Speaker 2: rational mind is like, did you just have some sort
11:13
Speaker 2: of psychotic episode or did you just have some sort
11:16
Speaker 2: of psychedelic reactivation? Did what's going on? How did that happen?
11:22
Speaker 2: And then who are they? Where are they? And I
11:25
Speaker 2: wrote it down and then I kind of locked it up,
11:27
Speaker 2: saying I'm not going to tell anybody this because they're
11:30
Speaker 2: anythink I'm crazy. It would be easier to tell them
11:32
Speaker 2: if I was on mushrooms, right, And so when I
11:37
Speaker 2: I went to this event and some guy was speaking
11:39
Speaker 2: and he shared his story and he had lived with
11:42
Speaker 2: the Mossie tribe, the hunted Lions, he lived with the
11:45
Speaker 2: Vanawatsu tribe, invented bungee jumping, he was friends with bear grills,
11:49
Speaker 2: and did survival training all around the world. And I'm like,
11:52
Speaker 2: this guy's cool and he's different and I'm never going
11:56
Speaker 2: to see him again. He's going to a different state.
11:58
Speaker 2: I'm going to a different state, a different place in
12:01
Speaker 2: the US, so I can maybe tell him. And there
12:05
Speaker 2: was a lion for him, so I said never mind.
12:08
Speaker 2: I got a car with my friend. He started up
12:10
Speaker 2: the car and then I go, wait, I got to
12:12
Speaker 2: go tell this guy something, at least his number, or
12:15
Speaker 2: give him mine. And I walked back in and people
12:17
Speaker 2: have kind of faded out, and I go up to
12:20
Speaker 2: him like, hey, may can I give you my number?
12:21
Speaker 2: I'd love to talk to you sometimes, and he goes, whit,
12:24
Speaker 2: you got somebody to tell me? Tell me now? And
12:26
Speaker 2: I'm like, uh, I don't know, and he's like, no,
12:30
Speaker 2: I've got time tell me. And so I started telling
12:32
Speaker 2: the vision, and before I'm even at the finish of it,
12:35
Speaker 2: he goes, I know who they are and I said what,
12:37
Speaker 2: and he goes, they're they're the Pygmy people. And I
12:40
Speaker 2: said who. And he goes, they're in the Congo Basin
12:43
Speaker 2: rainforest and you've gone to Congo eight or nine African
12:45
Speaker 2: nations and I'm like where. And then he goes, I'm
12:49
Speaker 2: going in three and a half weeks and you should
12:51
Speaker 2: come with me. And I was like what. He goes,
12:54
Speaker 2: I got my plane booked, but my team three days ago.
12:57
Speaker 2: This is the same day I have the vision. He said,
12:59
Speaker 2: they canceled their trip. Well, the rebels took over the airport.
13:05
Speaker 2: There was no flights into it anymore. The US State
13:07
Speaker 2: Department said no one go there for any reason. People
13:10
Speaker 2: were being killed, all sorts of much worse things than that.
13:15
Speaker 2: And I was like, hey, maybe we don't need to
13:17
Speaker 2: go now. Maybe we can push it back. Maybe maybe
13:20
Speaker 2: do this in a year from now when things calm down.
13:21
Speaker 2: And he's like, you know what you need it, you
13:23
Speaker 2: need to come and tell my wife. And so I
13:27
Speaker 2: met his wife. She was pregnant, she had a I
13:30
Speaker 2: would say, a toddler as well, and I tell her
13:35
Speaker 2: and she tells me she told Caleb if he didn't
13:38
Speaker 2: get a sign, he wasn't going alone.
13:40
Speaker 1: Wow.
13:40
Speaker 2: And she goes, this is that, Caleb, you got to
13:42
Speaker 2: take this guy. And I was like, whoa. And then
13:45
Speaker 2: I'm trying to tell him wait, let's wait. You're pregnant.
13:49
Speaker 2: You know it's not safe over there. And then they
13:53
Speaker 2: started coaching me Kaled and Jess said, if you don't go,
13:56
Speaker 2: you'll never know. You always wonder what could have, would
13:59
Speaker 2: have should have happened, and if I wouldn't have taken
14:02
Speaker 2: him up on that, I can try to sum up
14:04
Speaker 2: the story was saying one hundred percent of that vision
14:07
Speaker 2: came true with Caleb and another friend named Colin. Wow.
14:11
Speaker 2: They were grabbing me saying, this is your vision. It
14:13
Speaker 2: was so surreal. I had to take a knee because
14:15
Speaker 2: I was weak in the knees looking out at the
14:17
Speaker 2: same exact thing.
14:20
Speaker 1: And so you got there justin and you saw physically
14:24
Speaker 1: what you'd seen in your vision.
14:27
Speaker 2: We were walking down a footpath after we got off
14:29
Speaker 2: the planes and drove and slept in a motel that
14:32
Speaker 2: had bullet holes in it, and kept driving gotten a
14:36
Speaker 2: motorcycle through the rainforest for probably over an hour, probably
14:40
Speaker 2: an hour and a half, got a dugout canoe. Its
14:43
Speaker 2: crocodile's hippos like, we keep walking, clearing vines and thickets
14:47
Speaker 2: out of the way. We hear drumming, keep walking, we
14:50
Speaker 2: hear singing, keep walking, come into a clearing first guy.
14:53
Speaker 2: I mean, you can count every rip and he's coughing.
14:56
Speaker 2: He's got tuberculosis. Wow, And I just get weakened knees.
15:00
Speaker 2: I see the huts, I see the same people. I
15:02
Speaker 2: take a knee, and I'm like, this is a I
15:05
Speaker 2: know it sounds weird to share, but it doesn't make
15:09
Speaker 2: sense to me in my rational mind. But it happened.
15:12
Speaker 2: It happened.
15:13
Speaker 1: It sounds amazing.
15:15
Speaker 2: Do you like?
15:16
Speaker 1: In that first A couple of things. Sorry to interrupt, erupt,
15:20
Speaker 1: I just so your friends so four weeks ago you
15:24
Speaker 1: just justin the dude, right, and then in a few
15:28
Speaker 1: weeks lay to you sign your friends, Hi, everyone just
15:30
Speaker 1: heading off to the congo check you what, Like, what
15:34
Speaker 1: the fuck are you doing? Dude? Relaxed, You're like, oh, no,
15:37
Speaker 1: it's okay. I had a vision and I met these people.
15:40
Speaker 2: They're like, no, I didn't tell people the vision, but
15:45
Speaker 2: I did make a post on Facebook, and I don't
15:48
Speaker 2: even think that would account exist anymore. But I put
15:50
Speaker 2: a post saying, Hey, I'm going on this scout trip
15:52
Speaker 2: to see if there's any way to help, and I
15:54
Speaker 2: made a post about the story I saw. I think
15:57
Speaker 2: there's thirty four confirm counts of cannibalism against the Pygmy
16:02
Speaker 2: people from the rebel groups and this is awful, awful.
16:06
Speaker 2: They're drinking from their skulls before they go into battle,
16:08
Speaker 2: thinking that their bullets fly right through them, and all
16:11
Speaker 2: sorts of stuff. And I don't know if I posted
16:13
Speaker 2: that article or another one, but the guy that called
16:17
Speaker 2: me and said he would pay for my flight was
16:19
Speaker 2: a heavyweight that I had fought previously. It was my
16:23
Speaker 2: fight right before I went, and I knocked him out. Wow.
16:27
Speaker 2: And he calls me with his wife and says, we're
16:29
Speaker 2: gonna pay for your trip to go.
16:30
Speaker 1: Wow.
16:30
Speaker 2: I'm like, what just crazy stuff happened? That lined up?
16:35
Speaker 2: My passport was messed up, and I went I googled
16:38
Speaker 2: it and there's only like three or four or five
16:40
Speaker 2: places in the US that like print your pass support there,
16:43
Speaker 2: but then they always mail it to you. I walk
16:46
Speaker 2: in and the lady says, what are you doing? Why
16:49
Speaker 2: do you need this? It looks like you need a
16:50
Speaker 2: quick turnaround? Do need a quick turnaround? And I said,
16:54
Speaker 2: I'm just going on this trip, and I feel like
16:56
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to go. She said, I go sit over there,
16:58
Speaker 2: and she brings it to me warm like thirty minutes later,
17:02
Speaker 2: here's your passport. I'm like, what is this all kind
17:06
Speaker 2: of lining up and happening. And so I'll tell you
17:10
Speaker 2: the part that I really I normally don't even share
17:13
Speaker 2: this part on shows or podcasts, but this one I
17:16
Speaker 2: don't know if I've ever shared.
17:18
Speaker 1: But I.
17:20
Speaker 2: Told Caleb on one of the last days because we
17:24
Speaker 2: met slave master saying, what are you here doing with
17:26
Speaker 2: my property? I own these people. Or we saw people
17:29
Speaker 2: that were really sick and dying, didn't have clean water
17:31
Speaker 2: and all sorts of stuff, and we asked what they need?
17:34
Speaker 2: It was land, water, food, freedom, housing, education, healthcare, all
17:39
Speaker 2: the stuff that I'm a fighter, what am I going
17:41
Speaker 2: to do? This problem is huge. I'm small. I'm a
17:44
Speaker 2: big guy, but I'm small compared to the problem, right,
17:47
Speaker 2: And so I told Caleb, I go, dude, I don't
17:51
Speaker 2: think I can do anything here. Is it? But you
17:53
Speaker 2: had a vision. I'm like, man, I don't know. You know,
17:56
Speaker 2: if they can give me one thing practical, one thing
18:00
Speaker 2: that's sustainable, one thing that I can actually do, maybe
18:03
Speaker 2: I'll do it. And I'm like, but I need a
18:06
Speaker 2: sign of some sort. And he goes, are you are
18:08
Speaker 2: you crazy? You had a vision and it came true.
18:10
Speaker 2: What more do you need exactly? And I said, I
18:13
Speaker 2: don't know. I go, I'll tell you the visual I get.
18:16
Speaker 2: Anyone I don't care who they are, could try to
18:19
Speaker 2: dedicate their whole life to this thing and it would
18:22
Speaker 2: be like empting the ocean with an eye dropper, And
18:26
Speaker 2: you know, would it ever make a difference? Would they
18:29
Speaker 2: ever notice? Would I ever notic? Would anybody ever notice?
18:33
Speaker 2: And he changed my perspective real quick. He said, bro,
18:38
Speaker 2: you have the wrong perspective. He said you Every single
18:42
Speaker 2: one of those drops represents a human heart and a
18:44
Speaker 2: human soul in a human life. So yeah, it matters.
18:48
Speaker 2: Every single one matters. And I was just like, whoa.
18:51
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, but man, if it would be
18:55
Speaker 2: really helpful, I she just got like one more thing
18:56
Speaker 2: to hang on to. And he still thought I was
19:00
Speaker 2: it's crazy and kind of got frustrated with me. And
19:03
Speaker 2: the last day we were saying bye, and the chief
19:05
Speaker 2: pulls us over to the side and he said, everyone
19:08
Speaker 2: else calls us the forest people, but we call ourselves
19:11
Speaker 2: the forgotten. Same thing I wrote down on a piece
19:13
Speaker 2: of paper that's on my backpack. We call ourselves the forgotten.
19:17
Speaker 2: We don't have a voice? Can you help us have one?
19:20
Speaker 2: And then I thought I'm a special guy at all.
19:21
Speaker 2: But he specifically asked me, and you brought up Rogan.
19:27
Speaker 2: I knew Rogan. I thought I have some sort of
19:30
Speaker 2: platform in a Western nation, we have free speech. I'm like, yeah,
19:35
Speaker 2: I can do that.
19:37
Speaker 1: And that's interesting, dude, Like you've literally you've told the world.
19:43
Speaker 1: I mean you've told the world. You've opened this door
19:46
Speaker 1: that wasn't open. You've brought all this awareness, all this insight,
19:50
Speaker 1: all this compassion, and on a practical level, all this money,
19:55
Speaker 1: you know, to help these people on a practical, fundamental level,
20:00
Speaker 1: it's you don't. You don't. You didn't. You just needed
20:03
Speaker 1: to open the door. You just needed to bring awareness.
20:05
Speaker 1: And it's fucking amazing. I feel like that vision of yours,
20:11
Speaker 1: that was a responsibility that you were given. You know,
20:15
Speaker 1: that's like wow, Like, if that is what it is,
20:18
Speaker 1: whatever we want to call that, wherever that came from,
20:21
Speaker 1: if that's from God, if that's some spiritual download, if
20:24
Speaker 1: that's whatever that is man that is that is a
20:28
Speaker 1: It's kind of a gift and a burden all at
20:30
Speaker 1: the same time.
20:31
Speaker 2: Well, I tried never to think of it as a burden.
20:35
Speaker 2: There's been hard times, for sure, but it's the gift
20:38
Speaker 2: that keeps on giving. Yeah, in way that when I
20:42
Speaker 2: had malaria the first time, I'm a mama's boy, my
20:45
Speaker 2: mom got scared. I'm on a sat phone. I'm sleeping
20:49
Speaker 2: on the dirt, I'm under a four foot tall roof
20:53
Speaker 2: that's tweeting leaves. I'm throwing up red and green, it's
20:56
Speaker 2: blood and bio, it's it's uh. I'm losing my perifield vision.
21:00
Speaker 2: It's just tunnel vision. And that's completely blurry. I hear
21:03
Speaker 2: the sound of a bees hive in my ears. They
21:07
Speaker 2: can't get any I did go to a clinic that
21:09
Speaker 2: was down the street, but there wasn't even a bed.
21:12
Speaker 2: And they're trying to get IVS in me. They can't
21:15
Speaker 2: do it. All my veins are collapsing. They misdiagnosed me
21:19
Speaker 2: three times, thought I had typhoid and instead I had malaria,
21:23
Speaker 2: where I might have had both. But my mom was like,
21:28
Speaker 2: come home. We got this whatever insurance or whatever it costs,
21:32
Speaker 2: like just come home, Like there's good doctors here. But
21:36
Speaker 2: the thing I went directly back to was the vision.
21:39
Speaker 2: Like I had a vision, it came true. Now I'm here.
21:42
Speaker 2: Now am I going to run? And doctors in the
21:46
Speaker 2: Western world or the US at least, they don't know
21:48
Speaker 2: how to treat malaria very well. These people go through
21:51
Speaker 2: it every day, and so I'm gonna have a better
21:53
Speaker 2: shot here. So there's been times where yeah, we've raised
21:58
Speaker 2: quite a bit of money, but also like we're small nonprofit.
22:02
Speaker 2: We have two people stateside and we have a team
22:06
Speaker 2: in Africa. But you know, whenever, there's been one time
22:11
Speaker 2: and I don't think i've shared this egither that the
22:13
Speaker 2: board of directors they all love me, support me everything,
22:16
Speaker 2: but we have a big mouthpiece. But we didn't have
22:19
Speaker 2: like a full bank account, right, it was like almost nothing,
22:24
Speaker 2: and they're like, we might need to hand this thing off,
22:26
Speaker 2: or we might need to shut this thing down. They're
22:28
Speaker 2: just like we had a vision. I had a vision
22:31
Speaker 2: and whether we have to do two point zero in
22:34
Speaker 2: the organization, like we'll do two point oh, we'll start
22:38
Speaker 2: something else if we have to, or I will. And
22:40
Speaker 2: I think they needed to hear that because things are moving.
22:44
Speaker 2: Were trying to get our monthly donors up so we
22:47
Speaker 2: can plan budget scale because our biggest project ever's happening now.
22:52
Speaker 2: And just to say the vision part, the original vision
22:56
Speaker 2: of actual work was thirty acres of land on two
23:00
Speaker 2: in two water wells, So two water wells and thirty
23:03
Speaker 2: acres of land. It has now become more than three
23:06
Speaker 2: thousand acres of land. Wow, that they legally own. It's
23:10
Speaker 2: eighty three water wells with eighty fourth being drilled right now.
23:13
Speaker 2: It's six hundred and fifty one people that have transitioned
23:16
Speaker 2: out of a literal life of slavery and into freedom.
23:19
Speaker 2: But it's over fifty two thousand people that have gained
23:22
Speaker 2: access to clean water because they have access to the tools,
23:26
Speaker 2: and they have the education now the knowledge in their mind,
23:29
Speaker 2: and they've been empowered to be the change in their
23:31
Speaker 2: own community. So they drill the wells, they maintenance the wells.
23:34
Speaker 2: It's their business. And that's been job creation through sustainable
23:38
Speaker 2: agriculture and starting up farms and building thirty five family homes.
23:43
Speaker 2: But it's those families that built them for themselves. And
23:47
Speaker 2: then now it's growing into a health center and a
23:50
Speaker 2: school and a community hub. And my meeting earlier today
23:53
Speaker 2: was about the sustainable fish pond with catfish and bee keeping.
23:58
Speaker 2: The beehives are on their way. It's just it's blossomed.
24:02
Speaker 2: It's really been cool.
24:03
Speaker 1: Hey, mate, I wanted to that is so good in
24:06
Speaker 1: congratulations and I know you don't more congratulations, but obviously
24:11
Speaker 1: you were embraced understandably by the pygmies and within the
24:15
Speaker 1: tribe and the culture, and they love you, of course.
24:18
Speaker 1: What about externally? What about the government? What about the
24:22
Speaker 1: other tribes?
24:22
Speaker 2: What about.
24:25
Speaker 1: Was there any resistance for what you were doing outside
24:28
Speaker 1: of the tribe.
24:30
Speaker 2: Sure, yes, I've been held at gunpoint twice. I've taken
24:37
Speaker 2: numerous women to the hospital after being getting raped and
24:42
Speaker 2: terrible things. Well, there's been there's been resistance, there's been corruption.
24:48
Speaker 2: But I think and I really believe this over the
24:51
Speaker 2: last twelve years, doing this consistently and not being a
24:55
Speaker 2: fly and fly out organization, yeah, but being one that
24:59
Speaker 2: everybody we can trust meaning we don't help one side
25:05
Speaker 2: and hurt the other, or help one side and neglect
25:07
Speaker 2: the other, love one side and hate the other's. We
25:12
Speaker 2: this is a community project for building better lives for
25:15
Speaker 2: the Pigmy people and their neighbors. And so the clean water.
25:20
Speaker 2: I've been to the funeral at least five children under
25:25
Speaker 2: the age of five that were just because of water
25:28
Speaker 2: borne disease that were the slave master tripes. So they're
25:33
Speaker 2: living on about a dollar to a dollar fifty a day,
25:35
Speaker 2: dollar to a dollar twenty five per day, and so
25:39
Speaker 2: they're facing extreme poverty when they can't send a child
25:42
Speaker 2: to school because that child has to collect clean water
25:44
Speaker 2: during the day or dirty water but walking six miles
25:47
Speaker 2: for it or six kilometers let me say that instead,
25:52
Speaker 2: but because that's the actual fact. But when the wife
25:57
Speaker 2: can't go to work in their single income family, yeah,
26:00
Speaker 2: because she has to collect water. Or let's go even
26:04
Speaker 2: deeper into it. We've done studies or little surveys whenever
26:08
Speaker 2: you're a single income family, because the life has to
26:10
Speaker 2: go collect water. But now the breadwinner has to spend
26:16
Speaker 2: half of their annual income to treat the family. This
26:20
Speaker 2: is about a dollar one hundred and sixty five dollars
26:22
Speaker 2: a year on water borne disease treatment just to keep
26:27
Speaker 2: on survived. Like, this isn't to thrive. This is to survive.
26:30
Speaker 2: You're taking the pills and you're washing it down with
26:32
Speaker 2: dirty water, which is going to make you sick again.
26:35
Speaker 2: So now you've got double income family and you're keeping
26:39
Speaker 2: it all. Yeah, because you have access to clean water
26:42
Speaker 2: and you can buy the medication to get the parasites
26:45
Speaker 2: or whatever out of your system.
26:46
Speaker 1: That's amizing.
26:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:48
Speaker 1: I wanted to know on a tangent. We'll come back
26:51
Speaker 1: to that.
26:51
Speaker 2: Oh, you're great.
26:53
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how's your body holding up? Has
26:57
Speaker 1: what do you like, thirty five or six? Now thirty
27:01
Speaker 1: six has a body? Dude?
27:04
Speaker 2: You know it's it's a challenge. I went last time
27:08
Speaker 2: and I couldn't believe it. It was one of my
27:10
Speaker 2: shortest trips ever. And I started it with malaria and
27:12
Speaker 2: finished it with malaria. So started with it and brought
27:17
Speaker 2: it home and so the plane ride back wasn't fun.
27:21
Speaker 2: But that was my That was I guess total five
27:24
Speaker 2: times having it, and that's over the course of twelve years, right,
27:28
Speaker 2: so it's not really that that many times, but that
27:33
Speaker 2: has you know, I'm doing a lot of things. I
27:35
Speaker 2: could point my camera outside and you could see my
27:38
Speaker 2: my ice bath right there. You know. The theory, at
27:43
Speaker 2: least from whim Hoff is is a tropical disease. Get
27:46
Speaker 2: as cold as you can, as much as you can, Yeah,
27:48
Speaker 2: and as long as you can. And so I tend
27:52
Speaker 2: to think it's it's helping. It helps my mental health,
27:55
Speaker 2: it helps my body, it helps everything. I think I
27:59
Speaker 2: just got out of it not too long ago.
28:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, my spars are great, I mean physiologically, psychologically, great
28:05
Speaker 1: for your brain, great for information, they're great for energy.
28:09
Speaker 1: Do you ever feel do you ever feel like the
28:15
Speaker 1: weight of responsibility? Does that get to you like with
28:19
Speaker 1: or is that more like a responsibility that you enjoy
28:25
Speaker 1: or is it is it peaks and trust for you
28:27
Speaker 1: in terms of the management and the growth and the
28:31
Speaker 1: kind of the building of the awareness around your your organization.
28:37
Speaker 2: It'd see, great question. I haven't been asked this before,
28:42
Speaker 2: and so thank you. I would say. At first, being young,
28:46
Speaker 2: right like twenty three years old or twenty four years
28:49
Speaker 2: old starting this out three, it was it was a
28:55
Speaker 2: it was a joy like that that was really fun. Yeah,
28:58
Speaker 2: and then whenever addiction actually creeped back up. So I
29:03
Speaker 2: think it probably had something to do with malaria and
29:05
Speaker 2: another surgery. I had cerebral malaria, so I had to
29:10
Speaker 2: take these pills that can mimic PTSD, and so I
29:14
Speaker 2: had to basically poison my brain to kill the parasites
29:17
Speaker 2: in my brain, and then a shoulder surgery back on
29:21
Speaker 2: oxy again. I think I really felt the weight and
29:24
Speaker 2: responsibility like I was failing them whenever I when I
29:31
Speaker 2: sunk back into addiction, and so that I would say
29:34
Speaker 2: added onto like shame and condemnation and other things like
29:40
Speaker 2: you have purpose now, how could you ever struggle with
29:42
Speaker 2: this again? And you have something to live for? And
29:45
Speaker 2: they changed your life and basically they saved your life
29:48
Speaker 2: the first time? How could you ever let them down
29:50
Speaker 2: like this? So I've gotten to a much healthier place
29:54
Speaker 2: where like it's not on me, it's on all of us.
29:58
Speaker 2: And there's there's wha Healy proverb. If you want to
30:01
Speaker 2: go fast, go alone, If you want to go far,
30:03
Speaker 2: go together. It's like this takes it. I get to
30:07
Speaker 2: be the mouthpiece, and I do get to be boots
30:09
Speaker 2: on the ground, and I get to be the fundraiser
30:11
Speaker 2: and founder and CEO. So there's there's a way of
30:15
Speaker 2: responsibility and make sure things go. But it's a it's
30:18
Speaker 2: a it's a real pleasure. So my thing with overcoming
30:23
Speaker 2: the process of overcoming addiction, I think is a daily one.
30:25
Speaker 2: But I've gotten to a place where I feel like
30:30
Speaker 2: I don't want to be in a Dangerson saying I'm good.
30:32
Speaker 2: But I've gotten to a place where it feels good
30:35
Speaker 2: to feel good. And it feels different this time, honestly.
30:41
Speaker 2: So the mind process there was like, hey, you can't
30:44
Speaker 2: just always give it away. Yes, you also have to
30:47
Speaker 2: take some for yourself, fill your tank or be connected
30:51
Speaker 2: to the source. So whatever that source is, source of
30:54
Speaker 2: love or whatever, like, don't you just give it away
30:56
Speaker 2: allow some of that self love to come in itself. Really,
31:00
Speaker 2: I had to learn to love myself like my life
31:01
Speaker 2: depends on it. Why because it does. And then to
31:06
Speaker 2: face it all, feel it all, because that's where magic happens.
31:10
Speaker 2: And I think that's the birthplace of miracles. And at
31:13
Speaker 2: least in your own life is like facing it all,
31:16
Speaker 2: feeling it all because you can. I think I saw
31:18
Speaker 2: probably a cheesy poster at rehabit right, it's like fear
31:26
Speaker 2: face or fear everything and run or face everything and
31:31
Speaker 2: russ you know, and you can take that as cheesy,
31:34
Speaker 2: but it's something to me at that time, and it's like,
31:38
Speaker 2: I've got to tackle this thing to become the man
31:40
Speaker 2: I want to be.
31:41
Speaker 1: And also, you know, the thing is that if you can't,
31:45
Speaker 1: if you can't manage you like you need to look
31:47
Speaker 1: after you first, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, whatever that
31:51
Speaker 1: means for you. Because if you're in a great place,
31:55
Speaker 1: you know, if justin is well and healthy and somewhat
31:59
Speaker 1: optimal for your capacity, then you can go and do
32:03
Speaker 1: the things that you need to do. But if you
32:05
Speaker 1: get out of bed and you're a two out of
32:06
Speaker 1: ten before you start the day, you can't be a
32:10
Speaker 1: great leader. You can't be a great mentor or facilitator
32:14
Speaker 1: or whatever the role is. Yeah, that's why. And I
32:17
Speaker 1: think some people who are like you, that are compassionate
32:20
Speaker 1: and giving and you have a purpose bigger than yourself,
32:23
Speaker 1: sometimes feel guilty to look after yourself first, but you're
32:27
Speaker 1: actually looking after everyone else as well, because if you
32:31
Speaker 1: can show up and you're in a great space literally
32:34
Speaker 1: and metaphorically and physiologically, emotionally, then you can serve optimally.
32:39
Speaker 1: You know.
32:41
Speaker 2: That's a great way to think about it. I love that.
32:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to be selfish to be generous, dude.
32:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love that because I think I probably
32:49
Speaker 2: had some default probably becomes a self worth and other things.
32:54
Speaker 2: That was like, that's an excuse or that can be
32:58
Speaker 2: other people's excuse, but it's not to be mine. But
33:01
Speaker 2: because of that outlook, like that's whenever the crash and
33:05
Speaker 2: burn would happen and burnout or compassion fatigue. And I
33:09
Speaker 2: don't really think I got compassion fatigue, but I definitely
33:11
Speaker 2: got burned out. But it was it's been such a
33:14
Speaker 2: fun journey to look back on and go, wow, it's
33:16
Speaker 2: still going. Like when COVID happened, I was able to
33:21
Speaker 2: be boots on the ground. I wasn't able to go
33:22
Speaker 2: for two years. They're basically shut down two years, and well,
33:28
Speaker 2: are you kidding? This is like going into the rainforest
33:30
Speaker 2: or the mountains, Like how can I not come into
33:32
Speaker 2: the country. But it was it was an opportunity for
33:37
Speaker 2: the team to show that they can thrive and still
33:40
Speaker 2: accomplish goals, and they made great strides, strides that whenever
33:44
Speaker 2: I went back I was blown away at how much
33:47
Speaker 2: progress had been made, both physically like the structures and
33:51
Speaker 2: the water towers and solar and everything else. How they
33:55
Speaker 2: made progress like together and emotionally and as a tea,
34:00
Speaker 2: and how they gelled and became even stronger through it all.
34:03
Speaker 1: I was like, as a means, I want to know
34:07
Speaker 1: a little bit about how the bullying led into the wrestling.
34:13
Speaker 1: Where did the addiction start?
34:16
Speaker 2: Like, was that.
34:19
Speaker 1: I've never used I've never been drunk, I've never used drugs,
34:23
Speaker 1: Like I'm the most boring person on the planet, but.
34:26
Speaker 2: It's actually pretty awesome.
34:27
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's just my background. I didn't grow
34:30
Speaker 1: up with access to that, which is probably good for
34:32
Speaker 1: me because I probably would have been a world champion alcoholic,
34:34
Speaker 1: I assume, because I'm a bit manic with things. But
34:38
Speaker 1: was opening that door? Was that part of getting out
34:41
Speaker 1: of pain? Was that part of avoiding the the emotional
34:45
Speaker 1: angst around bullying or some kind of other pain in
34:49
Speaker 1: your life? Like where did that start?
34:51
Speaker 2: Yeah? I would I would say that that not not
34:56
Speaker 2: everyone with trauma becomes an addict, because we all have trauma,
35:00
Speaker 2: but every addict has trauma. Yeah, So I would say that, yes,
35:05
Speaker 2: I could lead back to that for sure, but I
35:08
Speaker 2: would say that I was straight laced through my wrestling
35:10
Speaker 2: career where I had a goal and I'm not gonna
35:13
Speaker 2: take a sip of alcohol until I won a national championship.
35:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:18
Speaker 2: Then when I won that national championship, it was a
35:21
Speaker 2: it was a it was a big championship like cup
35:24
Speaker 2: where you could fill it vodka. So well, I thought
35:28
Speaker 2: I thought I had thirty shots of vodka, but the
35:32
Speaker 2: adults all around, like there were the people that had
35:35
Speaker 2: drank much more than me, filled the bottle with water
35:38
Speaker 2: after that, after fifteen. So probably from the very get go,
35:42
Speaker 2: I was an alcoholic, but I would say the addiction
35:46
Speaker 2: didn't set in until surgery and I got caught in
35:51
Speaker 2: the opioid epidemic where I had three doctors given me
35:55
Speaker 2: hundreds of oxy cotton at a time. Well and so
36:00
Speaker 2: one would let me make sure that's correct, but I
36:02
Speaker 2: had one that would give me ninety one. They give
36:04
Speaker 2: me one hundred and twenty and one. Yeah, they'd give
36:06
Speaker 2: me a hundred and eighty. It's not on hundreds, but
36:08
Speaker 2: I would in a month, I would have a few hundred.
36:11
Speaker 2: And it was I was told it wasn't addictive, and
36:16
Speaker 2: I could operate a lot better than drinking. I was like, whoa,
36:20
Speaker 2: there's no hangover. And since I had a serious surgery
36:26
Speaker 2: and there was only a thirty percent chance I ever
36:28
Speaker 2: compete again. And this happened before my fight career. I
36:31
Speaker 2: was living Athaltic training center. I just you know, it
36:35
Speaker 2: takes eight or nine days to get hooked on that stuff,
36:37
Speaker 2: and I had it for at least eight weeks or
36:40
Speaker 2: three months post surgery, and then they just kept giving
36:43
Speaker 2: it to me. They never they never backed it down.
36:45
Speaker 2: So I became both I liked it because of the
36:48
Speaker 2: way it made me feel, but I also became chemically
36:51
Speaker 2: dependent and actually physically needed it in my system because
36:54
Speaker 2: when I didn't, I went through horrific withdrawals, meaning I
36:59
Speaker 2: was laying in bed, I felt like I was going
37:00
Speaker 2: to shake. I would have to move the mattress back
37:03
Speaker 2: on the buck springs because of how much I was shaking,
37:05
Speaker 2: or I was sweating almost through the mattress, and I
37:09
Speaker 2: was eating a salad like good would fall off the
37:12
Speaker 2: fork because of how much I was shaking.
37:16
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy that they like not only I mean,
37:19
Speaker 1: they told you it's not addictive, that you can't get addicted.
37:23
Speaker 1: But not only is that not true, it's the opposite.
37:26
Speaker 1: It's possibly the most addictive comp pound in the world.
37:31
Speaker 2: Right, I don't watch that new thing that came out.
37:34
Speaker 2: I forget what it was called.
37:35
Speaker 1: Yeah it's on Netflix, and yeah.
37:38
Speaker 2: Frederick or something, and yeah, yeah, that means my stomach
37:42
Speaker 2: urre in every episode.
37:43
Speaker 1: And I said, I think I heard Rogan the other
37:46
Speaker 1: day too. I think they said it's like they know that,
37:49
Speaker 1: is it? More than six hundred thousand people have died
37:52
Speaker 1: due to addiction, you know.
37:56
Speaker 2: I think it's over three hundred thousand a year, LEAs
38:00
Speaker 2: over three undred thousand a year through like prescriptions, and
38:04
Speaker 2: so it's it's it's gnarly. Yeah, I would say, let's
38:08
Speaker 2: give him the benefit of doubt. One one or two
38:10
Speaker 2: doctor says it's the least addictive, and the one or
38:13
Speaker 2: two of them told me it is not addictive. So
38:17
Speaker 2: I had one kind of as a voice of reason
38:20
Speaker 2: at least. But I didn't hear that. I heard it's
38:23
Speaker 2: not addictive.
38:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it's crazy. Hey, we know you've got it,
38:28
Speaker 1: probably heaps to do, so we won't keep you for
38:30
Speaker 1: too much longer. But I listened to you chatting recently
38:34
Speaker 1: with another podcast. I'm not sure of his name, but
38:37
Speaker 1: I heard you just I would love you to share
38:39
Speaker 1: this story if you could briefly about so last time
38:41
Speaker 1: you went on Rogan, you reached out to him, correct
38:43
Speaker 1: me if I fuck any of this up, but you
38:45
Speaker 1: reached out to him and you went, I've got a
38:47
Speaker 1: story I haven't shared, and he went, come on, and
38:51
Speaker 1: you wanted to talk about your suicide attempt or you
38:55
Speaker 1: wanted to open that door around that suicide conversation and
39:00
Speaker 1: kind of got into the show with him, and you're
39:02
Speaker 1: sitting there, and then you went, do I really want
39:04
Speaker 1: to open this door? Do I really want to have
39:06
Speaker 1: this conversation? And you said he was kind of throwing
39:09
Speaker 1: you the softballs, and you were kind of ducking and
39:12
Speaker 1: weaving and asking him stuff and just talking about shit
39:16
Speaker 1: that you didn't actually go on to talk about, and
39:19
Speaker 1: like you had kind of some level of hesitation, and
39:22
Speaker 1: then he essentially went, dude, what do you want to
39:25
Speaker 1: talk about? And then out of that the Brooklyn Bridge
39:28
Speaker 1: guy and all of that. If you could, I just
39:30
Speaker 1: love that I sat there, I was blown away by
39:34
Speaker 1: that story.
39:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I will, let's see I probably can't pull
39:41
Speaker 2: up the picture. But he's a friend now. And Chris, right,
39:46
Speaker 2: what's that? Chris? Chris Chris. And so anyways, I went
39:51
Speaker 2: into the show, and probably nine days before, a week
39:53
Speaker 2: before I Texas Joe and so come on. And so
39:57
Speaker 2: when I got in there, though, this is ill part
40:00
Speaker 2: of the pandemic, and at least the tail end, and
40:04
Speaker 2: someone in the studio tested positive that shouldn't have been around, probably,
40:08
Speaker 2: And so Joe got a little flustered, not flustered at down,
40:12
Speaker 2: He's just like, hey, his wife was going to bring
40:14
Speaker 2: him a care package. They're going to take care of them,
40:16
Speaker 2: all this stuff, but like, hey, be be careful because
40:19
Speaker 2: it's like we've got guests and things. So right when
40:21
Speaker 2: that happened, I started going aboard some reason, some reason
40:26
Speaker 2: that triggered. It wasn't anything big at all, It wasn't
40:29
Speaker 2: anything big, but for me, it was like, you know
40:31
Speaker 2: what what am I doing? Am I really going to
40:34
Speaker 2: share this in front of the whole world and in
40:37
Speaker 2: front of Joe? And as a founder of a nonprofit like,
40:40
Speaker 2: am I going to lose faith and trust and donors?
40:44
Speaker 2: And are they going to think I'm not the right guy?
40:47
Speaker 2: And so I literally started going through highlight reels. But
40:50
Speaker 2: I'd already been on the show eight times. This is
40:52
Speaker 2: my ninth time. And I'm like all the stories in
40:56
Speaker 2: my head in that moment, like we're all blending together.
40:58
Speaker 2: I think I did share that one. Yeah, I shared
41:00
Speaker 2: this one at that one And what do we gotten
41:03
Speaker 2: new in the tank? And where's the highlight reel? I
41:06
Speaker 2: can just pull out of my ass basically, yeah, yeah,
41:08
Speaker 2: And we sat down and I wouldn't do it. I
41:14
Speaker 2: was determined to become the interviewer. Hey, I'm starting a
41:17
Speaker 2: podcast anyways, I'm going to interview Joe or something and
41:21
Speaker 2: and yeah it then the thought came in my mind
41:24
Speaker 2: when Joe said, come on, man, because I was I
41:27
Speaker 2: think he could tell I was like sweat and that
41:29
Speaker 2: wasn't myself. And it was like, if it just helps
41:33
Speaker 2: one person, do it, you know, it's just for one
41:37
Speaker 2: do it just.
41:38
Speaker 1: Quickly, just quickly. What was your hesitation? What was the
41:41
Speaker 1: fear was it? Was it that you would basically damage
41:44
Speaker 1: the organization? Is it that you would.
41:48
Speaker 2: Well, sure, I mean I think probably at every for
41:52
Speaker 2: the most part, human beings can have just a fear
41:55
Speaker 2: of man, what are people going to think, Yeah, what
41:58
Speaker 2: the added to it is is knowing how to donate anymore.
42:02
Speaker 2: I didn't clear this with my board of directors, which
42:05
Speaker 2: they're great, they're super supportive, but at the same time, like,
42:08
Speaker 2: if I fuck up on that large of a scale,
42:12
Speaker 2: is this gonna is this going to come back and
42:14
Speaker 2: bite me in the organization? And by me sharing the
42:17
Speaker 2: stories are going to hurt people and so so I
42:21
Speaker 2: I was like, now if I'm not doing it, then
42:23
Speaker 2: it was like it's going to help one person. Go ahead,
42:27
Speaker 2: and I shared and I got off there and I
42:28
Speaker 2: thought all I could replay was I bombed, I bombed,
42:32
Speaker 2: it sucked, I'm never going to go.
42:35
Speaker 1: Back again, or whatever, the biggest in the world.
42:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I went in. I went in deep
42:42
Speaker 2: about my suicide attempt and when where I was, how
42:46
Speaker 2: I did it, and then trying to get help out
42:49
Speaker 2: of it. And I don't think I was fully I
42:52
Speaker 2: believed what I was saying, But now I believe it
42:54
Speaker 2: a whole lot more so if I shared it now,
42:55
Speaker 2: I think that story is much different, framed differently. Yeah,
42:59
Speaker 2: But that day I got a text message or an
43:02
Speaker 2: Instagram message. It was January twenty seventh, and I missed
43:07
Speaker 2: it because it was on Instagram and after a Rogan episode,
43:11
Speaker 2: your request box it only holds ninety nine. It doesn't
43:14
Speaker 2: do a ninety nine plus thing. So you check it
43:17
Speaker 2: every hour and it's just like woo and check it
43:20
Speaker 2: in and it's all new ones. Yeah. So I completely
43:22
Speaker 2: missed it until he was going to message me back again.
43:25
Speaker 2: And months go by. I go to the Conor McGregor
43:29
Speaker 2: Dustin poort a fight. Dustin's raising funds for US. Manny
43:31
Speaker 2: Patio was there. He's raising funds for a Fight for
43:33
Speaker 2: the Forgotten. And I go live on Instagram and they say, hey,
43:37
Speaker 2: scroll through here, You've got to see this message, and
43:40
Speaker 2: so all of the comments were, go read this one comment.
43:42
Speaker 2: So I scrolled up, looked at it, and it was
43:45
Speaker 2: this guy that said, on January twenty seventh, I was
43:47
Speaker 2: walking to the Brooklyn Bridge to jump off and take
43:49
Speaker 2: my life. But I got a notification on my phone
43:52
Speaker 2: Jor Organ dropped a new episode. I listened, thank you
43:55
Speaker 2: for sharing your story. It stopped me from jumping and
43:59
Speaker 2: I was like, WHOA. So I read that told him
44:01
Speaker 2: to reach out. I would I would love to talk
44:04
Speaker 2: to you someday. He reached out and I saw the
44:07
Speaker 2: old message and I was like, holy smokes. So he
44:12
Speaker 2: connected once or twice. Months go by again and I'm
44:16
Speaker 2: on it. It's a gym here in the US and
44:19
Speaker 2: in Austin, and I'm working out and I'm leaving to
44:22
Speaker 2: go to jiu jitsu and I bled a little early
44:24
Speaker 2: and I hear footsteps running up on me and I
44:27
Speaker 2: turn around and I get bear hugged and it's a guy.
44:31
Speaker 2: It goes I'm the guy, I'm the guy, and it's
44:33
Speaker 2: a sweaty hug. And I came in helped me out,
44:37
Speaker 2: what's that mean? And he said the Brooklyn Bridge and
44:40
Speaker 2: I just grabbed him and pulled him back even tighter,
44:43
Speaker 2: even sweat air, and just hugged him. And we took
44:45
Speaker 2: a picture of me raising his hands. And he's a champ.
44:47
Speaker 2: And what's crazy about that is, you know he was
44:52
Speaker 2: in New York. He used to work on Wall Street.
44:55
Speaker 2: Pandemic hits, he ends up relapsing, He ends up going
44:58
Speaker 2: from Wall Street to homeless and Harlem.
45:00
Speaker 1: Wow.
45:01
Speaker 2: Then he gets attacked in Harlem and he gets hit
45:04
Speaker 2: with four metal baseball bat or a metal baseball bat
45:07
Speaker 2: four times.
45:08
Speaker 1: Wow.
45:09
Speaker 2: There's like seven guys like that jump to me that
45:11
Speaker 2: he can remember. And so he was an ICU and
45:16
Speaker 2: when he got out of ICU, he just was walking
45:18
Speaker 2: from one hundred and first to the Brooklyn Bridge, so
45:21
Speaker 2: like an hour hour and a half. And he said,
45:24
Speaker 2: right whenever his feet hit the like wooden planks at
45:28
Speaker 2: the Brooklyn Bridge, Joe's asking me, you know, come on, man,
45:32
Speaker 2: would you would you come here to share? Yeah, and
45:34
Speaker 2: then go into it right whenever he's on the bridge.
45:37
Speaker 2: And so he said he was listening to it just
45:39
Speaker 2: to drown out his dark, dark thoughts because he knew
45:42
Speaker 2: who was going to do. So him and I connect
45:45
Speaker 2: The next day, I speak out of rehab a treatment center.
45:48
Speaker 2: I share a little bit of my story. I see
45:50
Speaker 2: that he messaged me on Instagram again. I check it
45:53
Speaker 2: and he says, can you send me that picture of
45:54
Speaker 2: us together? I send it to him. But then I
45:57
Speaker 2: start talking and the young man the first question in
46:01
Speaker 2: the Q and A says, yesterday we heard about vulnerability,
46:07
Speaker 2: today we heard about synchronicity. Now I've wanted to be
46:12
Speaker 2: he said. He has always wanted to share that he
46:15
Speaker 2: wanted to be an MMA fighter, and now there's a
46:19
Speaker 2: MMA fighter who's being vulnerable sitting right in front of
46:22
Speaker 2: him in a rehab where he thought he was going
46:24
Speaker 2: to be like punished and stuff. So I'm like, hey, man,
46:27
Speaker 2: you want to talk about synchronicity and vulnerability, Like I
46:29
Speaker 2: got vulnerable and I said it was just for one.
46:32
Speaker 2: Well guess what yesterday I met my one and that
46:36
Speaker 2: synchronicity it happens. So then I'm walking out to the
46:40
Speaker 2: car and this guy runs up on me and i'd
46:43
Speaker 2: shared I shared one moment just because he had messaged me,
46:46
Speaker 2: and he said, ah, man, I'm embarrassed about my teeth.
46:49
Speaker 2: Nineteen teeth were damaged or missing and from the baseball bat.
46:54
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, hey man, you know teeth
46:57
Speaker 2: or small potatoes. We can figure that out. There's emplay,
47:00
Speaker 2: there's there's other stuff that can happen. I just messaging that.
47:03
Speaker 2: I get to the car and a guy runs up
47:06
Speaker 2: on me and he goes, hey, synchronicity, I'm going to
47:08
Speaker 2: be vulnerable with you. Yesterday I was hired by a
47:11
Speaker 2: dentist who wants to restore people's smiles. Uh. He asked
47:15
Speaker 2: me to find the first guy. Chris might be the guy,
47:19
Speaker 2: and I'm like what, So we drive I get in
47:22
Speaker 2: hit his car. We drive to the dentist office and
47:25
Speaker 2: we tell him the story. He's the highest rated dentist
47:27
Speaker 2: in Austin five thousand and five stars or something like that,
47:31
Speaker 2: and he treats Hollywood people and we tell him the story,
47:35
Speaker 2: and he goes, I'm gonna fix this guy's teeth. He
47:37
Speaker 2: happened to be a triathlete. So I bring him to
47:41
Speaker 2: on it and we're working out and I pair Chris
47:44
Speaker 2: and him and me together. So Chris is holding the
47:47
Speaker 2: dentist's feet while he's doing push ups. They're they're they're
47:51
Speaker 2: working out together, and we have this big surprise platform
47:53
Speaker 2: right afterwards. And so right after he goes gets in
47:57
Speaker 2: the dentist chair, we celebrate, We throw them over our shoulders.
47:59
Speaker 2: We'd go that dude was a warrior. The next two
48:03
Speaker 2: days he sat in the dentist chair for ten hours straight.
48:05
Speaker 2: It was like a NASCAR pit crew changing tires and
48:09
Speaker 2: changing teeth and it was insane. You hat like a
48:14
Speaker 2: brand new smile that costs over one hundred thousand dollars,
48:17
Speaker 2: And that wasn't That wasn't the finishing part of the story.
48:21
Speaker 2: Like I get invited by Teddy Atlas to go to
48:23
Speaker 2: New York days later, and I'm like, Teddy, can I
48:27
Speaker 2: bring a friend? He goes yeah. So I'm like, Chris,
48:29
Speaker 2: if you want to go back to New York, like,
48:32
Speaker 2: what did the Brooklyn Bridge used to mean to you? Oh,
48:34
Speaker 2: it's iconic, it's home, it's it's our symbol as New
48:36
Speaker 2: Parker's I'm like, well, you want to go take back
48:39
Speaker 2: that ground because what does it mean to you now?
48:40
Speaker 2: He's like, it's the darkest place in my history. I'm like,
48:43
Speaker 2: let's go take back that ground and write a new story.
48:45
Speaker 2: And so we flew up there. We did the same walk,
48:48
Speaker 2: we went to the same hospital, we did the walk,
48:52
Speaker 2: and while we're on the bridge, you know, he's a
48:56
Speaker 2: little bit of trembling, but hey, man, face it, I'll
48:59
Speaker 2: feel it all. That's where the magic happens and good
49:01
Speaker 2: stuff's going on from here. This is in your past.
49:03
Speaker 2: You know you got a new future. A guy stops
49:06
Speaker 2: us and ask Chris is that justin Rinn from Joe
49:11
Speaker 2: Rogan's show. I got something to tell him and he's
49:14
Speaker 2: like yeah. So he starts telling me the story. I
49:17
Speaker 2: won't use his name. He was in the US military,
49:21
Speaker 2: served with like Jocko Willink and some other guys, and
49:24
Speaker 2: he tells me the story. On January twenty seventh, he
49:27
Speaker 2: was in Mexico, same exact town as me, and was
49:30
Speaker 2: getting ready to take his life, but since I named
49:32
Speaker 2: that place, he decided not to do it. Wow, And
49:36
Speaker 2: Chris just grabs him by the shoulders and goes, I
49:39
Speaker 2: was right here, right here. Yeah, And I'm looking at
49:44
Speaker 2: these two guys because I'm like, well, Chris was my one,
49:47
Speaker 2: but you're the other one, and like, what you know,
49:51
Speaker 2: how does this stuff happen?
49:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fucking unbelievable. Is is that a I mean,
50:00
Speaker 1: how does that work in with your fight? Do you
50:02
Speaker 1: believe that's a God thing? Do you believe that? What
50:04
Speaker 1: do you think about that?
50:06
Speaker 2: It's a good question. I think there's good things and
50:09
Speaker 2: there's God things, And for me, I can do a
50:12
Speaker 2: lot of good but sometimes there's stuff that I can't do.
50:16
Speaker 2: And that's got how to be the God stuff, the
50:18
Speaker 2: good stuff and the God stuff, and so like that
50:21
Speaker 2: that right there, like I could I could share the story.
50:25
Speaker 2: I could share the story Like that's a good thing
50:27
Speaker 2: to do. I guess it could have also been a
50:29
Speaker 2: bad thing to do. But it was a good thing
50:31
Speaker 2: to do, but like for the story to impact Chris
50:35
Speaker 2: and the way it did, like that took something else
50:37
Speaker 2: like that that moment Chris has asked me, he goes,
50:40
Speaker 2: what if there was a technical difficulty and it came
50:42
Speaker 2: out the next day? What if you were the guests
50:44
Speaker 2: the day before and they had someone else that day?
50:47
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, whoa. And and then to be on
50:52
Speaker 2: the Brooklyn Bridge at the same exact time with the
50:55
Speaker 2: guy from that did tried it in Mexico, the same
50:58
Speaker 2: place I tried it where Chris was going to try it, Like,
51:03
Speaker 2: it's just too many things to happen. So for me,
51:07
Speaker 2: I think God is love, and that was something really loving,
51:10
Speaker 2: a loving force, a force to be reckoned with, and
51:12
Speaker 2: a force to like change the course of my history
51:15
Speaker 2: and Chris's history and that other gentleman's history, like change
51:19
Speaker 2: the trajectory of our lives.
51:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask a somewhat personal question, mate, not
51:24
Speaker 1: too personal, butter how are you? How are you now?
51:27
Speaker 1: How are you mentally? Emotionally, physically has you has your health?
51:32
Speaker 2: Thank you? Mentally, I'd say I've been tired the last
51:36
Speaker 2: few days because I've been fighting something off, had a
51:41
Speaker 2: bit of a fever and some other stuff going on.
51:43
Speaker 2: But mentally, physically, emotion emotionally, I'm doing better than I
51:47
Speaker 2: ever have. I'm fired like life's good, life's great. And
51:51
Speaker 2: I woke up this morning and actually, before Amy went upstairs,
51:56
Speaker 2: she's the love of my life. I told her, I'm
51:58
Speaker 2: just so grateful for the breath of my life. I'm
52:00
Speaker 2: just so grateful for the beating heart of my chest.
52:03
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm in a place of like tons and
52:07
Speaker 2: tons and tons of gratitude. Physically, We'll see if I
52:10
Speaker 2: ever get the fight again. I had a you know,
52:13
Speaker 2: comeback plans and gotten some stuff happened, got an injury,
52:18
Speaker 2: and uh, it might not be in the cards. And
52:19
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that, because there's life after fighting.
52:22
Speaker 1: You're still training, Yeah, yeah, what are you doing mostly?
52:26
Speaker 1: What's u? TIFFs is prick up? What do you what
52:29
Speaker 1: are you mostly doing?
52:30
Speaker 2: What are you?
52:31
Speaker 1: Are you rawling?
52:32
Speaker 2: Mostly doing jiu jitsu? It's been a little bit since
52:35
Speaker 2: I've been in there with the heavy haders like Gordon
52:37
Speaker 2: Ryan and John Danaher and Nicholas Maregali and my.
52:41
Speaker 1: Wife from Golden Ryan. Dude, what are you doing?
52:43
Speaker 2: He's fun. He's fun to train with. Uh And but
52:47
Speaker 2: I've been going to morning classes like Hens with Gracie Austin,
52:51
Speaker 2: Nicholas Maraghali and the Gee, been going to audits for
52:56
Speaker 2: for stringing, conditioning and so. And I've been doing boxing
53:00
Speaker 2: two or three times a week. That's been good.
53:02
Speaker 1: Have you ever rolled with Rogan?
53:05
Speaker 2: No, we haven't been on the mats together. We've we've
53:08
Speaker 2: we've been in the same gym. He would pop in
53:12
Speaker 2: a same place I would go to in Austin and
53:15
Speaker 2: get a workout in and get a workout in with
53:16
Speaker 2: his daughter and is a beautiful thing to watch like that.
53:20
Speaker 2: Dude's so busy, had so much stuff going on, but yeah,
53:24
Speaker 2: he's got time for his family for sure. And he's
53:26
Speaker 2: a good dad.
53:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know how he does it, but he seems.
53:31
Speaker 1: He seems to be the real deal. And I love that.
53:34
Speaker 1: How do people support you and support fight for Fight
53:38
Speaker 1: for the Forgotten? Where do we go? How do we donate?
53:41
Speaker 1: Tell us all about that place?
53:43
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I would say we just had a board
53:46
Speaker 2: meeting and the strategy is now is like we we
53:48
Speaker 2: would love a tribe of supporters supporting the tribe we
53:53
Speaker 2: love and so let's fight for the Forgotten dot org
53:56
Speaker 2: and you can give monthly there. And so we do
54:00
Speaker 2: have a fundraising campaign right now called Compassion and Action.
54:04
Speaker 2: It's on the header I give, that's what will go
54:07
Speaker 2: to And we have a two hundred and fifty thousand
54:09
Speaker 2: dollars matching gift Wow, So that means if someone gives
54:12
Speaker 2: five bucks, it becomes ten bucks. If someone decides to
54:14
Speaker 2: give forty dollars a month, that will be doubled. So
54:19
Speaker 2: we're we're hoping to find people that can find a
54:21
Speaker 2: sweet spot between twenty five to forty dollars a month.
54:23
Speaker 2: And if we get one thousand, ten thousand people like that,
54:27
Speaker 2: we're not there yet at a thousand, So we'd love
54:29
Speaker 2: to get that number up and we'll be able to
54:32
Speaker 2: scale and grow. And if I showed you what the
54:35
Speaker 2: plans of the place we're going to build, it's going
54:37
Speaker 2: to be one of the coolest spots in Uganda. And
54:40
Speaker 2: it's beautiful. It's beautiful and what is it?
54:43
Speaker 1: What does it give us? The one minute?
54:44
Speaker 2: What is that?
54:45
Speaker 1: Is that a is that a treatment facility?
54:47
Speaker 2: Is it? It's a whole community hub? So I would
54:51
Speaker 2: call it community empowerment and community development. So we're empowering
54:56
Speaker 2: the community that's been left behind in many ways, like
54:58
Speaker 2: the traditional way of life ripped away from them. So
55:01
Speaker 2: it is it is land, water, food, healthcare, education, So
55:08
Speaker 2: they're going to go to school for the first time.
55:09
Speaker 2: They're going to have healthcare. Last time I was there
55:12
Speaker 2: and I had malaria and I went down the mountain.
55:15
Speaker 2: I had the only vehicle right, and so it's a
55:19
Speaker 2: two to two and a half hour walk to the
55:21
Speaker 2: health clinic. A mother with our baby went into labor early.
55:24
Speaker 2: The baby was turned the wrong way. We lost both
55:26
Speaker 2: the mother and the child. So they need a maternity
55:29
Speaker 2: ward there and that's what we're building. Turnity ward will
55:32
Speaker 2: also treat water borne disease in malaria. We have a
55:35
Speaker 2: nurse that goes up there three times a week already.
55:38
Speaker 2: Now she'll build We're going to build her a staff house. Actually,
55:42
Speaker 2: there's gonna be multiple staff houses for the doctors, the nurses,
55:46
Speaker 2: and it's been beautiful.
55:47
Speaker 1: Man.
55:47
Speaker 2: We have the founder of Engineers Without Borders that's on
55:49
Speaker 2: our board of directors, but he is our director of
55:52
Speaker 2: Engineering and he's helping us do what he calls his
55:56
Speaker 2: legacy project. The thing that's his favorite things ever done.
56:00
Speaker 1: Wow, dude, you're a superstar.
56:02
Speaker 2: Have you been?
56:03
Speaker 1: Have you been to Australia? Mate, I'd like to come on.
56:09
Speaker 1: I'll run the I'll run the Australian Chapter of Thought
56:12
Speaker 1: for the Forgotten Man.
56:13
Speaker 2: That would be incredible. I almost got the opportunity to
56:16
Speaker 2: come for y'all's tomorrow. Tony Robbins is there at the
56:19
Speaker 2: Big Arena. Yeah, and I almost got invited to come
56:22
Speaker 2: speak there. So my buddy got it. But I uh,
56:26
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do the speaking thing too, because what
56:28
Speaker 2: I think is going to be beautiful is sharing the
56:31
Speaker 2: story my own story of overcoming adversity. But how basically
56:35
Speaker 2: purpose plus performance equals impact and when you hope those
56:39
Speaker 2: things like, it's a beautiful combination. And anyways, it's maybe
56:44
Speaker 2: I'll get over there for a speaking engagement sometime. And
56:46
Speaker 2: I've seen some nonprofit founders do it from stage and
56:49
Speaker 2: they get all these opportunities with like big corporate giving.
56:52
Speaker 2: We've never really had that. We've we've survived off one
56:55
Speaker 2: time donors and that's been awesome. But now it's like,
56:58
Speaker 2: how can we do everything that's good?
57:00
Speaker 1: You'd open a new door, go go where you can grow. Hey, Well,
57:03
Speaker 1: say goodbye off air, but for the moment. Justin, thanks
57:06
Speaker 1: so much for chatting with us on the new project.
57:07
Speaker 1: It's been great.