Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1173: How to Travel Fearless and Far Revisited - Mike Corey

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Ep. 1173: How to Travel Fearless and Far Revisited - Mike Corey · Adventure Sports Podcast

• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Caleb and this revisited episode Mason interviews Mike Corey.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mike is a well respected youtuber who has built his channel around a life of adventure and of facing your fears.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: From an early age, Mike has been fascinated by facing his fears and the sense of accomplishment and wonder that exists on the other side of getting past those fears.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in this episode, Mason and Mike talk about some of Mike's adventures in the far corners of the world about his experiences, what he learned, and about the value of being able to overcome fear.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hope you enjoy the episode.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's Mason.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, folks, welcome to this show.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You heard a little bit about Mike and the official intro.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mike, welcome to the show.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: How you doing?
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing very well, man.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm here in Tanzania.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: I just finished climbing Kilimanjaro about a week and a half ago.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was a hell of an experience.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And now, just getting some office worked on here and getting some cut-up and some calls.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: OK, so how is Kilimanjaro?
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I tell you, like, I don't do that much mountaineering.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess Kilimanjaro's probably
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: bottom tier of mountaineering.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not going to sit very difficult at all.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I tell you it was super cool.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's different routes you can take obviously.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Some are easier than others.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've took probably the hardest route you can take.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure you can just go up the any side of the mountain and it's actually pretty hard but this is like one of the harder actual paths.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's called the Western Breach and it takes seven days up and two days down so a nice long nine, nine-day journey.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the weather wasn't so great, it was kind of snowy, but ended up making it to the top.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess it's probably told you as well.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I decided to carry a watermelon.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: A little bit crazy, it totally is a bit crazy, a little bit silly.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I have a YouTube channel called Theorless and Far.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: On that channel, I like to challenge myself in strange unique ways.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's part of the reason I'm on the podcast with you now.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I just finding these different challenges or different locations or these things happening in the world that are a bit strange and different.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of my jam.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I decided to try to see if I was able to carry a watermelon up on my shoulders at the top and spoiler alert.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I did it.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was, it was hell though, it wasn't a good time.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't recommend it to anybody.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it was a nice little personal challenge, although it being a little bit silly.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, hey, I think if I learned one thing in the past 12 months, I had to stop taking a life so damn seriously sometimes.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: So this is my little challenge that's free to myself.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Did you get to eat it?
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Dude, we gutted that thing on top.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was like the best part about it was cutting it in half.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then then eating this watermelon.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I wasn't sure if it was going to rot or like explode from altitude.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know, all I know is that when we first bought, it was a 15 pound beautiful thing.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then by the top, it was like brown and full of holes and scars.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: But you don't like Wagyu beef.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: that, that, that, that, I think this Japanese expense of the think of the massage at every single day and it's supposed to be very tasty after.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was like, it was like the same thing.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: I carried all the way the top for seven days and then it was probably the best damn watermelon I've ever had in my entire life.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I love it, man, as a fellow goofball, you know, can I always do something bizarre like that?
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just a great challenge, you know, to go right up our alley is carry a water melon to the top of Kilimanjaro.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You might be the first.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I recently talked to somebody a guest on the show who played a game of soccer, that almost at the top of Kilimanjaro, like an official size game of soccer with official teams and refs, carried goals and everything.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just thought that was something about that mountain,
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: wacky goals apparently that's uh I don't know maybe see how to do that's cool though actually that would work really well So Kilimanjaro especially like you couldn't attempt something like that or like my my little goal on like Akon Kaguah or like Everest or these monsters of mountains because they're too technical like they you can actually really really hurt yourself or die on some of these mountains Killie
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: is one of those mountains.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's high.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, well, in meters 5,895, which I think is probably pretty close to 20,000 feet.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it's not that technical.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you can goof around a little bit without, you know, really risking too much.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: But right before you get to the summit, there's like this big, like it's a volcano, right?
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: So this is like big crater in the middle.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's really flat.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then one edge of the crater is who repeat is what it's called.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's the summit.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I could totally
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: on that flat area in the crater, because it's just like a big open snow field.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's exactly where they played it.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was right at about 19,000 feet.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe it was right under the summit to in a crater.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: They kept mentioning that so that had to be where it was.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But man, you know, take us back.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know you've told these stories probably a thousand times recently.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but, you know, we just want to hear it again for someone that just takes a water mill and upkill the majority, you know, did you have an interesting childhood or something like, where did you grow up?
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: What did you grow up?
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what ultimately, cause you to think like this, you know what I'm saying?
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because it just doesn't happen necessarily.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, that's the best phrasing of that question I've ever heard in my entire life.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, definitely.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's someone who very, a watermelon mill and upkill a mill and upkill a mill and a different
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't mind answering the question because my entire life is kind of built my travel style, my life, everything I'm passionate about, all kinds of stems around what happened when I was younger.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And basically I grew up as a curious kid.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Canadian from the province of New Brunswick, which is right above Maine in Canada.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Very similar to Maine actually, like lots of forests, kind of like simple folk, grew up in a family of animal lovers.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I always love nature animals too.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was always flipping over rocks, looking for snakes and salamanders, and I guess my favorite thing as a kid was finding these misunderstood creatures and trying to explain why they were so damn cool.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: No one really listened, but I still really enjoyed it.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I grew up, and I guess where I got the name Fearless and Farer came from, I started because in my life, I was fearful of most things.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: I started when I was in grade school.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was in grade three, and I had a teacher bring me up
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: and basically ridicule me in front of the students.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Again, being a shy kid, I never was in front of the class.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't the class clown.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that set me, that set my behavior is going forward.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's set my set the mold, you know?
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're so impressionable at that age.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was my interpretation of being in public was like people laugh and being ridiculed and just like pain.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: So actually, I had a phobia of public speaking for most of my life, from like grade three until just dim, and like five, six, seven years ago.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And now it's my full-time job and so, I mean, the alias is fearless and far, but I'm definitely far from fearless.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm actually probably one of the most fearful people.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: I just found out that I, you can grow a lot by doing the things that absolutely terrify you.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there was no one more scared of me than public speaking, but now it's my full-time job.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a podcast host.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a travel YouTuber and I'm a host on a television show too.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: My entire career is speaking in all its various forms, except for maybe singing at this
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just a living breathing example of what can happen if you do choose to pursue the things that absolutely batched, terrified.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's where the word fearless comes from.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: But not because I am, but I've realized that fearlessness is a choice, not necessarily a state of mind or a state of being.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can choose to be fearless and whether it be asking for a raise or public speaking or whatever it is, these things that scare you if you lean into them with your hand shaking
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: amazing thing can happen in your life.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's where it all came from.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: This event when I was a kid that could very well have been interpreted as a curse, right?
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: It has now become an absolute blessing only because I decided to lean into it.
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I say I decided, it was more like life beating me around until I decided until I did something crazy, which was, you know, try to do these things I thought I couldn't.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so now you look at some of these videos I do and some of the
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think I can't.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: I really like doing things that people say I can't because humans are amazing when they're when it's down to the line like if you really want something in life you can definitely get it and the more opportunities I have to teach myself that and the more opportunities I have to show other people that I'll take every single one even if it sucks a little bit.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know the reward is much greater later.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well said, absolutely well said and it's so amazing to me that someone with such, you know, charisma and just so great in front of the camera deals, it has dealt with that or started out that way.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you still get that tingling that that sense of thrill?
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe when you're getting in front of a group of people, does the memory still come back at all?
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, of course, man.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I don't think it ever goes away.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Whether you
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you almost drown when you were 10, or whether something like happened to me, these things stick with you.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if you can ever really shake it, but what you can do is you can change your relationship to the feeling, right?
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I like how you said thrill, because very easily you can convince yourself, brainwash yourself, that these feelings aren't so different.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you look at the physiology of being like excited or being afraid, it's not too far off.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: And something I realized too,
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: in the throes of it all was that I was also just as scared of being scared like I would I would feel this feeling of panic come up and I'm like oh no I'm I'm getting scared again oh no and it would just be like a wheel of fire burning down a hill you know faster or faster and faster and then it was just all about being like okay well I know I'm gonna feel this feeling but I know it's good like I know I know it's trying to help me but I don't have to listen to it I know that it's here because of this thing and happened that I thought was a curse most my life
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: a little bit of a blessing because it made me work on at much, much, much, much more than anybody who is naturally gifted with that ability.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so knowing this and expecting a little bit of a tingle or thrill, let's call it, because again, it's not so different.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I walk alongside it.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: It'll never be gone.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: It fears a part of my life, but again, we've changed our relationship, and I think that's the most important thing.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you, or let me, let me revisit how often are you in a state of either fear or not anxiety that's too negative, but just that, that, that, this comfort, that being uncomfortable, that's one of your biggest themes on your show and in your life, how much of your life are you actually in that state?
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, in all honesty, I've been doing this now.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: professionally for like eight years professionally trying to find things that freaked me out so after while you know I don't have any natural phobia of spiders or heights or any of these things I had a little bit one of claustrophobia and then I decided to bury myself in sand up to my neck for 24 hours in the Philippines and that was miserable but made it through in low and behold I yeah I'm still here today but you know what now and then I'm thinking about it and we're on the you know
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, one of the main things that changed everything, as I was listening to, um, as, uh, a, base jumper named Jeb Coralis, who may be some people are familiar with, and he was talking about fear on some interview, and, um, it was some documentary or something.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the reporters, like, so, um, you, you might be fearless, you might not be afraid ever when you jump.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Again, the guy does, like, squirrel suit base jumping and stuff.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he took offense, and he was like,
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can't get rid of it, and of course you're afraid it's something scary, but you just have to learn to change your relationship.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then you learn like some of the most famous pop stars are terrified before they go on stage two.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you realize that the biggest difference between some of these people and yourself is just the decision to do it anyway.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: So still now, like for example,
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: about tales of human survival.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we were talking about the Thai cave rescue that happened in 2018, or these guys want one guy in particular, but several guys rescued these boys from the depths of a cave and everyone said it was impossible.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the guy's name was Rick Stanton, and I had to interview Rick Stanton for the podcast.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, for me, he's a bit of a personal hero.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: And of course, you get the butterflies.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, of course,
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: you feel scared especially someone like me who I don't have a strong background in this at all actually quite literally the opposite but again you smile you say the nerves are normal and you go for it and you know what I messed it up the first time but I didn't say oh god I'm so sorry I messed it up you just say okay let's do it again and you do it again like like no big deal one thing I learned I used to be a break dancer for like 10 years and one interesting thing
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Realize you mess up if you mess up.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you can be like, you know, spin around doing stuff, fall in your back and like kind of slouch up and brush yourself off and they were like, oh, he messed up.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: But if you spin on your back and then land and then like do a little twisty flip and land on your feet and be like, ha, that runs like, oh, shoot.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I guess you may, oh, amazing.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: How that's so.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and then everyone thinks you're super cool.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the same thing is like, life, man.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Presentations or whatever it is, if you just act like everything's intentional.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: and don't sweat the mistakes and don't dwell on them and don't acknowledge them people often don't realize you've made a mistake and that's like my dirty secret right there
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: You absolutely can, you'll one of your dirty little secrets is that, but I've also heard you describe another secret of yours is just strictly perseverance.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: How much of what you've built and who you've become has just been trying and trying and trying again, even when it feels like, or if you've ever felt, what am I doing here?
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why am I doing this stuff?
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you keep going, how much of your success has been just that?
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well,
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's been a lot of people out there who have done a lot more life-threatening stuff than me, where they really had to persevere against against the odds.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: But like, for a lot of my challenges and things I do and adventures I have, people who know me well know that I meticulously plan a lot, what I do.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think there's a word in stoicism called fear setting, which is like, you don't plan, well, you plan for the worst things to happen, without expecting the worst things to happen.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's a lot of the adventures I do, a lot of the challenges I do is I really take time to think about what could go wrong.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Again, not expecting not not with the pessimistic attitude, just be like a real attitude here.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so what are the real things to worry about.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so often I'll find myself in the situations where I do kind of feel push up to up to my limit, but again, if it's not a life threatening situation.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: You sort of realize that pain and discomfort and are temporary, you know?
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess I've got quite a friend on a tattoos by now, and it's a bit of a similar thing.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: It could fiercely suck in the moment, but you know it's gonna be over in several hours.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And if you're not gonna have any life-threatening issues or lose a limb, you can push through with various techniques.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: But again, it takes practice.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: That perseverance is a muscle.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: believe in yourself and trust in yourself and also trust that you've done the adequate amount of preparation to be able to get yourself in these situations, you know what I mean?
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like you can't just jump in and I guess the last thing I want is people to see some of the stuff I do and there's jump in with no training or preparation and expect like, you know, success or different results or whatever, a lot of these things in life you really have to prepare for, but once you prepare for them, you know, you can really play a little bit and that's kind of what
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it seems like in your story, just as in a lot of stories, it's been a steady climb to maybe not more extreme situations, but just bigger projects, more places, farther reaching experiences.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: But so coming from Canada, let's just jump back a little, what were some of those stepping stones for you to become a world traveler coming from New Brunswick?
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I'm saying?
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: What were some of those major milestones that led to, again, carrying a watermelon up Kilimanjaro recently?
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't all happen all the time.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well my parents always pushed us to be curious, I've got three siblings, and my dad
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: grad and he had he like was big into aquaculture so yeah like fish farming but also big into the ocean and we'd always go down to like the rocky beaches of southern New Brunswick which is a there's a place called the Bay of Fundae that's in between Maine and New Brunswick and it has the highest tides in the world.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you can imagine 45 vertical feet of water rising and falling twice a day that's what happens there.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's incredible and so there because all of the
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's like a bellow is from from the bottom of the ocean.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's all cold, nutrient went rich water.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's lots of sea life, but again, it's not that great for swimming because it's like 10 degrees Celsius, not sure what that is in Fahrenheit, but freaking cold.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's really rocky and everything.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we used to grow up in like playing in the freezing water, catching crabs, crawling up and down these like slippery, seaweed, rocky slopes, and just adventuring and exploring and
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: and getting dirty, and that was a lot of my childhood.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And again, going back to what I said about, like really loving lifting up rocks and finding the creepy crawlies, gloking and tide pools, same thing.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I just kind of, that, I didn't realize, didn't realize this connection just until the last year.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it's kind of the same thing I do now.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Going to these misunderstood places, doing these misunderstood things, and really trying to show people it's not exactly what you think.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: In the past, like a couple years, I've been the Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Mauritania, Venezuela, Bangladesh.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Some of these countries that people wouldn't touch with the 10-foot pole.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: But again, with this whole fear setting idea from stoicism and a good travel skill set as well, being able to see what it's really like in these places.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: This don't place I would never go because I do feel they're very dangerous.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: But there's lots of places that you can go.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: if you have the right context and and know who to speak to.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: I guess what I was always compared to is like if there's a something terrible happen in Seattle, will you still go to Florida?
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the answer is like of course I would, right?
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because it's a massive country.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well why do we think that way about most other countries in the world then?
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know like if something happens in Indonesia where all of a sudden the entire country's off limits for like 10 years and tourism drops forever.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know it's not it's not a logical way to think about it.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a really logical guy.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I do some kind of crazy things, but most of it's quite calculated.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I took this idea of the creepy crawlies, but the misunderstood things, I just love showing people, and I kind of transfer that into the travel world.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: And here we are, going and riding on the back of an iron or train through the Saharan Desert in Mauritania for 20 hours or some of the other crazy adventures I've done.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you following fear, you know, fearless and far, going fearless or going far, being fearless.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is a legitimate fear that you had going into one of your experiences, one of the projects, maybe an area of festival that you legitimately were afraid of.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you get into it and realize, oh, this isn't this isn't, you know, something to be completely afraid of.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it started to make more sense to you.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Do you have any sort of example you could share?
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like again, when I went to Venezuela or went to Turkmenistan or Mauritania, or actually I was in Yemen, and just geez, like a body year ago, early February.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Whenever, like, the thing is, like before I go to these places, I have, I set up cool local contacts, I make sure the situation's okay, I really do my research.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then, if everything looks good, I go, but that you can't fight that perception of a location that's
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: infecting your brain through media, you know like and of course you say you're going to like Turkmenistan and all people do is say all this concerning stuff to you, but they did they never been there they don't know they've seen a couple news articles over the past decade or two and they're just kind of giving you their advice but it's not very helpful because what you know when it's not they've never been there they don't know anything right and so whenever I go to some of these countries I for example Venezuela I went there during the height of all the craziness
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that might sound crazy.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the thing is, I had a friend there, another Canadian guy who had been living there for two years at the time.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he had still been there.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he bikes his motorcycle around the entire country.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he said, hey, man, I know things aren't great.
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: And Venezuela, I believe in soon for other reasons.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: But if you want to come down, I can't promise you everything is going to be OK.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I know the situation here.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: We can stay in my place.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: We can bike around a little bit.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: all these different things.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he was really integrated in the community and I really trust him.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I went down.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I wouldn't have gone down without a contact like that.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: And quite often it is the contacts.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: But of course I get a little bit nervous before that happens.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: And every single time it's always the complete opposite.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: The people are always the friendliest and they go out of their way to like make you tea and invite you over into their house
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: over for dinner.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's always like that every single time I go to one of these countries that's tourist unfriendly.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you one a bit of the opposite story though.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: I went to this festival in Mexico, just north of Mexico City, and it was called the Bulls of Fire, and it was at the Mexican Pirate Technics Festival, and you can imagine how safe a Mexican Pirate Technics festival is.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not safe at all.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: But, but.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: the main event was this thing called bulls of fire.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so basically if you took like the Spanish running of the bulls, yeah, where the you go down the streets of Pamplone and you have to outrun these bulls, it was like that.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: But instead of actual bulls, the village has got together in little groups and cities and things.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they made these giant steel rebar and paper mash a bulls all bigger than cars and they pushed them to the city streets.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: At the end of the day, they'd all get into the main square.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Everyone was very drunk at this point.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Off the string called like Pulke, which is a fermented cactus sap.
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's like so viscous.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like paint.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's super thick.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they, anyway, they'd fill these bowls full of fireworks, like model rocket engines, things that are like up there with like commercial level fireworks.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they'd run them at people.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you had to run away.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And dodge the rockets,
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: and people get hurt there every single year.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's crazy.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was something I wasn't scared originally, but then I got there and think of it all.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was scared.
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I was able to get good footage, but I'll tell you why I was scared.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I knew what was gonna happen.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: I knew the fireworks were gonna be shooting around.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: I knew there was a high chance of getting burned.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: I knew that you're gonna try to run you over with an exploding steel bull.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, so I had like ski goggles, like a Baclav on, um, I didn't drink anything because I wanted to stay sober.
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: I had my camera and everything, but then one happened is about after four hours of this just craziness.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I got hit in the chest with a tequila bottle.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Someone whipped it from over the crowd and hit me right in the sternum.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I got scared, man, because that's an element you can't control.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can control where I am for the most.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can't control exactly like where the fireworks are, but at least I have the protection on to know that I'm probably going to be okay.
• 24:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: I stayed sober and then I took a second to kill a bottle to the back of the shoulder and I was like I'm out of here because then then you can't you know then the bad things can happen you can't control that it's just chance is just debauchery it's just humans going a little bit too far it with the party and so I had to bow out right there and I was legitimately scared because in the pure chaos that that's one thing I could not control and that that those things scare me.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's take a quick message break in here from the folks that help make this show possible.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is plenty of that for now.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's get back into the episode.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so glad you said that because I was going to ask you, and I don't like to totally focus on negative things necessarily, but I was going to ask you an opposite direction, like, is there a place that you weren't originally afraid of, then became afraid of, and I'm glad you shared that example, because that can happen anywhere.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: People getting too rowdy out of hand, through alcohol, that's obviously a worldwide thing.
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it doesn't have to be, you know, if you can avoid that in your own hometown, chances are you can avoid it anywhere in the world and if that's the biggest problem you're facing, jeez, you know, that's That makes the rest of the world seem a lot less scary for someone who who has the desire to go see it, but maybe not the experience.
• 26:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's really interesting, man.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: also kind of another unique festival you were talking about.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love for you to tell us the story about the exploding hammers festival.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have time to tell us that?
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, of course.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess which country that's in as well.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was gonna say that's right there.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's right there.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mexico.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my goodness.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mexico.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I first I end up moving to Mexico.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mexico City for three years because there was just so much
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: and a mass of disregard for safety and regulation in that country that I just absolutely fell in love with.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like Florida.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, exactly.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was, someone, I don't even know how I found it.
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: A Mexican friend of mine, or follower, sent me a small, crappy cell phone video of this guy with a hammer that had homemade, like a sludge hammer that had homemade explosives on the end of it.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he was slamming it into a loose rock field.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it was like really, it was like Lego potato quality.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was horrible.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I was like, oh, I'll get to find this in Mexico, but no one knew the name of it, no one knew anything.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I was just kind of Googling around like like martios explositos, like they kind of exploding hammers.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this little town came up with a festival called Carnival.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's what the festival was called.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there was like a little Mexican blog right up about,
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's only in Spanish that's like, oh, the small town, just north of Mexico City again, has this festival every year, and it's cold carnival, and they have hammers.
• 27:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, are you serious?
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I had another Mexican friend who had contacts in that area with the local tourism board, and so I spoke to her, and I got the contact there, and I asked like, this is actually exist, and you go, yeah, it does exist, but normally we don't take tourists there.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, well, you're gonna take this tourist there.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you're organized a plan and I'm up there and it was a really, it's a really kind of a crazy story.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the village itself is named after John the Baptist and like from the Bible.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this is their version of a festival for him.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess how it came to be the exploding hammer festival originally.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was just a parade to honor the guy and with fireworks and stuff.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then one day someone put a firework on a hammer and then one day someone
• 28:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: like wanted to make their own explosives because they're too expensive to get firework something so they're own homemade explosives by buying like home hardware powders and liquids and stuff or whatever.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then put that at the end and start slamming these hammers down the street in this small town, but they get them blowing out windows and like setting off car alarms so that they decided to kind of axe the parade and just have the exploding hammer festival aka carnival in this rock field.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: in cognito.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I went there, again, didn't know what to expect, and it was, it was crazy man.
• 29:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: At least there, there's a firm rule not to drink.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: But basically, so like I said, these guys take, they make these homemade explosives out of some kind of powder.
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's not like an explosive you can light.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like they were showing you put a lighter to it.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't light.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's impact sensitive.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: So if you hit it with a rock, for example, it'll go bang.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I watched these guys put like these little like packets.
• 29:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're maybe the size of like barbecue charcoal.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they put one on and makes a pretty big bang.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they put two and three.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they were getting up to like 15 of these packs.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And when you're blasting these things, man.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like you see the shockwave.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like you know those slow motion ripples, you see in like these, these explosion videos.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was like that.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And like the dirt would come out of the rock
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it wasn't just one circle.
• 30:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like there was many of these circles.
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm here with my construction grade earplugs.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: These dudes are just balling up Kleenex and putting them in their ears.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: And my ears were throbbing.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can't imagine the dudes actually exploding these hammers.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was talking to the tourism lady who was there with me kind of very shocked that I was enjoying this at all.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, people got hurt.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like yeah, the guy lost his arm last year
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden like a hammer starts spinning up overhead and everyone starts laughing because again if the explosion is too big and the guy doesn't hold on the sludge hammer will go spinning off into the horizon right and so you really always have to be watching I watched a dude blow off his thumb because he didn't you know when you swing a sludge hammer down you kind of keep your hand near the the hammer part and you slide it up the handle he didn't slide it up so we blew off his brick and thumb
• 31:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: a couple of guys, so the rupture to your drums as well.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then at the end, I wanted to try a little bit, so I put a couple of little packets on, I think only two on this little hammer and exploded it and like it rocked me.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like two, two little packets.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Some dudes were doing like 15 to 20.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like it's incredible.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And also all these like boys who were maybe 12 or just rocking themselves with these homemade explosives.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: like latina girls are there with like their short shorts and their skirts and their little crop tops all watching the boys see who they can blow up the the biggest hammer one of the craziest craziest moments of my life man yeah and I was the the first one there to I think make movies about it since then it's gotten a bit more popular it's kind of like the curse of this job if you find something cool and make content it kind of changes it forever but yeah that was definitely a wild experience
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is freaking chaotic is what that sounds like.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is definitely unbelievable blowing off fingers and arms and you know happy birthday John the Baptist or whatever it is.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: You birthday celebrate.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm sure you'd be proud.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you'd be proud.
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: that is wild man.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is absolutely wild.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that you know what's interesting is you mentioned that you found that from like a fan or a friend that just sent you this you know this potato quality video you know is that is that your creative processor about what to do next about how you find the next either project or the next thing to go film is it just you know this this constant flow of inspiration about things you hear about or things people share with you
• 32:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: He ticked it now, like, well, how do you choose what you do next?
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, that's a great question because I really don't do what.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to be doing the top five, which is a bother you or anything.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I really take time to find these these things.
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because a lot of that, I have this this.
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: If I'm doing this, if I'm, there was a crisis point in my life a few years ago.
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: When I was doing like travel filmmaking and not so much doing this fearless and far stuff and I was like Thinking I was trying to get in my own personal YouTube and I was thinking about oh, you know if I if I do the top five Taco restaurants and can't cune then I'll get more views and I just wasn't happy man And I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like why are you choosing to do the things that everyone else are when you are very willing to do the things that people aren't you're always like It's gonna eat the bug, you know
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: go in the abandoned building, whatever it is, finds wild adventures that no one would even dream of, or touch the ten-foot pole.
• 33:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Why are you obsessing over, you know, using clicks of this commercial stuff?
• 33:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I changed my travel style.
• 33:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I honestly, unapologetically, I got a sleeve tattoo.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: I decided I wanted to go film like some of the grossest foods on the planet, which I think at this
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know who has the crown of eating the grossest things in the planet, but I can guarantee you I am pretty close to having the crown of all time.
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, congratulations, I guess.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: You exactly.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: My girlfriend isn't so extreme about it, but I just really love finding the things that no one has found before and showing the world how cool it is.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess I say that I could probably add some context to the food thing.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: So for example, just in the past,
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: two and a half months.
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I went hunting with a Hatsabe tribe just a couple of weeks ago here in Tanzania.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: The last true hunter gatherer tribe in Africa, actually, and they're true to it.
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: We went out baboon hunting, believe it or not.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: These guys are incredible.
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: They know every chirp in the forest and they can read the landscape and read the wind and at least things to find these animals.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so we were looking for baboons on the way this guy found a beehive like African killer beehive and there was four of these hunters and they jump up in the tree and start digging out be be honeycomb and I'm like I was like I thought I'm going to get stung didn't care they like made a little fire put like some leaves and it smoked the beehive a little bit and we're taking out like massive honeycombs out of a killer beehive and so I'm there they were getting stung I kind of got in there too.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: a little bit stung.
• 35:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: They got a little bit stung, but it was fine.
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then they handed me honeycomb when I took a bite and it wasn't actually honey.
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was just pure B-larva.
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: So they were eating that.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, they were harvesting the honey, too.
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the bugs were just as important.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: The week before that, I was hanging out with the Messiah, which are a very different tribe here.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: They were like the iconic Shuka, like red blankets.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're like the grazers of the Seren
• 35:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And cattle is like what they use is currency and also like it's dowry.
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's all these things.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Also, they use it for food, but they don't like killing them because it's kind of like their wealth.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so one thing they do is they make small incisions in the cows neck and they put the blood into a gourd.
• 36:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they drink the warm blood for breakfast.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so on our first day, they invited me for a nice massage warm blood breakfast out of a smoky old gourd.
• 36:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not for me.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, like, yeah.
• 36:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't imagine though, man.
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't even, how do you stomach this stuff, man?
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, it's incredible.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: The experience is, is it hard work for you to say, yes, to some of this stuff, to some of these spontaneous, either interactions or, you know, snacks?
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guess you could say snacks.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's got to, like, snacks.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: The thing is, like, I have like a sick pleasure for doing this stuff.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's like, oh, my list of things to do, like, there's like getting shot in the face and then that's like one up above that.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the very, at the very, very bottom, but you're there.
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're spending like three, four days.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: These amazing people, they do this obviously you notice and kill anybody there like healthy, amazing people.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they tell you the story and why and they're so excited to have you try it.
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I know like,
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: everyone has a different perception of what gross means, and it's only your world view, you know, like some people have this world things painted butters gross, you know what I mean?
• 37:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think that shit that Australians eat, Vegemite or Marmite, I think that stuff's gross, and so I think we think blood's gross, they don't think blood's gross.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: So they drink, right?
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: So who's right and who's wrong here?
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you could probably argue that drinking blood might be a bit more wrong than eating peanut butter, but it's still so subjective, right?
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: an opportunity to explain to the world and also challenge myself and my preconceptions.
• 37:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I go for it, right?
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: I go for it.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's led me to do that.
• 37:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's led me to eat spider cheese and in Germany.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's led me to eat itag and the Philippines, which is a pork that has maggots in it, which is pretty crazy as well.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: All kinds of good, good little bits, man.
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's my guy, it's just awesome.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's awesome what you do.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I see you abandon, explore abandoned places too, which is something that's so much fun, so cool.
• 38:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can I ask you this?
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've got this incredible YouTube channel that you've built over time and just have all this incredible content on there.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: What would you say one of the biggest misconceptions people have about you and your lifestyle?
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That you may be here a lot on social or on YouTube that you're constantly trying to correct or reframe.
• 38:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: I guess I think it's really easy to think I'm kind of like Jack S. wannabe.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I do these stunts.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I eat these crazy things and it's like, I think it's easy to maybe for people to think that it's just for shock value.
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just like another bro with a backwards hat trying to make people go,
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: At first, and I mean, you see the content, you're like, wow, this is very extreme.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I am doing it, like, again, I like, I do things I know that aren't going to, I mean, hey, I might get diarrhea for a week or two.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's happened a lot.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I don't do things that are reckless.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't wanna come across as the reckless guy that'll do anything for a stunt or for a million views.
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's not me at all.
• 39:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm really conscious with a lot of what I do.
• 39:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And also I've been traveling for a long time.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I've eaten a lot of stuff.
• 39:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: done a lot of things.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess I train quite hard to be able to do things always within my ability.
• 39:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And if I feel like it's starting to get outside my ability, I abort a matter there.
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: So for me, I like to take these extreme things and then kind of trick people into learning something.
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, they may, oh my god, this guy's going to drink cow's blood and then like trick them into learning more about the Messiah and a bit more about the world and a bit more about their
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: you know judgments on another culture.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to tease all that into with maybe something a bit more clickable in the beginning.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's take a quick message break in here from the folks that help make this show possible.
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is plenty of that for now.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's get back into the episode.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: having seen some of these bizarre practices, unique festivals and interesting people, what can you tell us about what kind of people the world is filled with?
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are people good from your perspective?
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Man, yeah, no, I can't speak highly enough about the experience that I've had in this world.
• 40:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I've been to 75 countries or something.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Again, some of the ones that people would never go to.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't have bad experiences.
• 41:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't have any crazy kidnapping attempts or being arrested or anything like that.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't exist.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: The crappiest experiences have had have always been in Paris or Amsterdam or these places that are really touristy and you're taking advantage of because there's lots of like, I don't know, let's call them predators.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, but in these countries that you think might, you might not have a good time, and it's like the opposite man, the world is filled with kind people who just want to be appreciated, just want the same things as us and we'd like to divide ourselves based on language and religion and skin color, but do we're all the same frickin thing and I wish more people would travel to know that because once you start seeing that, um, we're all exactly the same.
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: with everybody's situation and we're all like life is struggle man we all being a human on this planet is is just rising and falling and twists and turns and we all have our own little heroes journey doesn't matter where you're from and if everyone could see that I think the world be an amazing place so I have I have no bad stories to tell from around the world that aren't from like you know the main drag and Paris or something
• 42:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: right right now we find that so often with with the folks on the show that we bring on to talk about travel it's it's it's a huge misconception yeah I'm some of my words experience it's a bit on the street I live on or in the town you know at that waiting and you get in gas or something something random where you're not thinking about that stuff but the times you're kind of ready for something bad to happen it's it's not there because it's it's it's not real and it doesn't really happen so sorry let me add a
• 42:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let me add one more thing.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I did this little like social experiment once, where I was in Chaos San Road in Bangkok.
• 42:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: I did it one extra two places.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Chaos San Road in Bangkok, which is like the partity street in all of Thailand, and also I did it in Rome in Italy.
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: And what I did is I took a wallet and I stuck it half out of my back pocket with like a couple small bills half out of the wallet.
• 43:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: So basically, like prime, pick pocket territory.
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I, um, I got a friend to follow me from afar with like a stealth camera, like filming, so there'd be nobody who could snow that I was being filmed.
• 43:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I, I, I wanted to see how long I would last before I got pick pocketed.
• 43:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: So chaos and road would be like prime spot to get pick pocketed.
• 43:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: You'd think because it's just like drunk people and crazy chaos.
• 43:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then there was a bus that was called the pick pocket express.
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: uh... in layman's terms uh... bus number seven or something they went to all the tourist locations in room and so i walked around took the bus and had this friend like stealth film me from a distance and do you think that my wallet got stolen on either one of those uh... either one of those things all right might be a trick question i'm gonna say i'm gonna say no i don't but you might be like of course it is but i don't think it did i don't think it it wasn't
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: And do you know, do you know how many times people came up to me to tell me my wallet was half out of my back pocket?
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like 20 times, 20 times, man, like the amount of people, the amount of good, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was like a social experiment showing how many good people they're out there versus people who are against the year wallet.
• 44:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: There was like 20 times more.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe even more than that, because no one jacked the wallet, but there was 20 people who said, hey, excuse me, so your wallet's half out of your back pocket.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it showed me that the world, that's a prime example, that the world is good.
• 44:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that was in a spot where it was supposed to get stolen.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I was fully expecting you to get stolen.
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was the exact opposite.
• 44:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Man, that story, that theme just has to be told in today's world.
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just over and over.
• 44:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: We try to just pound that home.
• 44:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, get out there, see it for yourself.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't just trust this onslaught of negativity through the news, through just these attention-grabbing mediums.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Get out there and see it for yourself and we're all gonna realize, you know, the world is full of people just trying to live just trying to be good people and I I'd appreciate you reiterating that Did you have a if you managed to tell us about what you're doing now?
• 45:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously you're gonna continue you know your YouTube and continue traveling and I know you travel a lot even in 2020 Can you tell us about your most recent project?
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I happen fortunate enough to travel
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: for the past few months.
• 45:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't really have a home either, so I've been in bed floating around after I've done this whole COVID time, trying to figure out where I can go.
• 45:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the most recent product that just launched, so I have the YouTube channel, which of course is one of my main things, but I'm working with the podcast network, Wondere, who have produced some really, really good podcast like Dr. Death, and the original Tiger King as well, before it was the Netflix sensation was actually produced by Wondere.
• 46:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so we just launched a podcast called Against the Odds.
• 46:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And against the odds is telling these stories of these human survival stories, where humans roll up to the occasion to survive, again, against the odds.
• 46:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's now live, it went live just a few days ago.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: On the 23rd of February, and we'll be doing five episodes about the Thai cave rescue.
• 46:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we got to interview like I told you Rick Stanton, which was so cool, so cool.
• 46:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: One of the main divers who rescued the kids out of the cave,
• 46:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I've got a co-host, grown in Cassie the Pickle, who is a Guinness World Record holder for fastest time to all the countries.
• 46:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: And she's telling a story at different story.
• 46:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I'm back.
• 46:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we're rotating back and forth, about four, five episodes each for this podcast.
• 46:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I love it, man, because anytime I get to talk about stories of perseverance survival,
• 46:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: people using grit determination to overcome obstacles in their life.
• 47:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: And these are like some of the best ones ever told what I say, told like they're fiction, they're fact.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I have to keep on reminding myself that they're not stories that are made up.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like these are real things that people did that are just absolutely unbelievable.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's really cool to be a voice in that podcast.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: And because it's inspirational for me and I hope it's also inspirational for other people too.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I cannot wait.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love human survival stories.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so I absolutely we've had a handful on this show over the years and they're just always so exciting, but it's like it's a treat.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So to have a whole podcast dedicated to it is going to be
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: going to be really cool.
• 47:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Especially yeah, by wondering what a great what a great network.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's going to be fantastic.
• 47:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just subscribe.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'll be download in those and listen in.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I will encourage obviously all of our listeners to do so.
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be plugging everything, you know, your YouTube, your Instagram, it was or anything else that you wanted to share before we have where we head out.
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, that's it.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if anybody really wants to see any of the adventures
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Fearless and far and yeah, take out the podcast.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's premiered in the top 10 list on on Apple this week, which is awesome I mean, I landed my voice there.
• 48:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: There were so many other talented people who did sound design and the writing and I'm just one piece of the puzzle But it all turned out really nice in the end the one where people do such a great job So YouTube, Fearless and far and also against the odds on anywhere you get podcasts
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much, Mike.
• 48:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're a professional, just great storyteller.
• 48:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I appreciate you being on the Adventure Sports podcast.
• 48:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a pleasure, man.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
• 48:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: First of all, thank you so much for listening.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It means the world to us that you choose a lesson of the show.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you'd like to help us further, you can leave a review on iTunes, share us with your friends or family, goes a long way to grow in the show.
• 48:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can also support us financially through patreon.com slash adventure sports podcast, link is in the show notes.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also, if you have an idea of who could be a good guest for the show, we're always looking for people to tell their story about the outdoors or adventure.
• 49:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone, please reach out.
• 49:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Email us at infoedadventuresportspodcast.com.
• 49:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And until then, get out there and have some fun.