Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #028_ Regret Nothing, Forgive Everything!

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#028_ Regret Nothing, Forgive Everything! · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome, We welcome back to the podcast. Got a great
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: guest for you guys today, the great Eduardo Garcia.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you know it as the Bionic Chef Right.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: He's got an incredible tale of overcoming adversity and really
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a journey to wholeness that I think is gonna really
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: impact all of you guys. So I'm honored to be
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: able to be a steward a cipher for his story today.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: What do we talk about, thank you?
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we well, we discussed how I ended up with
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: a plastic leven token, sort of who I was prior
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: to that. Then going through this the making of a
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: documentary about the worst day of your life. I mean,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: just nothing big, really, just this small thing. If we're
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: going to chronicle your life for three years, and then
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: how that empowers not just myself but you others to
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: take someone else's story and roll with it, you know,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: make it the best thing that's happened.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: That's well said, So get ready for the next two hours.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I think you guys are going to enjoy it. So
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining us today and.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Enjoyed my conversation with Eduardo Garcia.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: EDWARDO Man, so nice to meet you. Thanks for coming
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: out like Calabasas. Great to meet you. We were talking
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: before the podcast. Been wanting to meet you for a
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: long time, man. So it is a pleasure to have
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: you in the studio.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: It's my pleasure, likewise honored to be here and I'm
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: really looking forward to it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: So you were actually born in Calabasas. Yeah, do you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: remember or were you really young when you moved to Montana?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: I mean that's what they tell me, right, Yeah, how
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: many of our memories are formed by our true memory
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: or by our sort of created me Marie through repetition
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: and storytelling and you know whatnot. But what I can
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: tell you is, you know, I remember frying eggs on
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: the sidewalk when it was like one hundred plus, you know,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: and I did not do that in Montana, No.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: I remember. I mean there's photos that prove it.
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  Speaker 3: You know, oshkosh ba gosh overall somewhere on an ocean,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: you know. Like so yeah, we we was, let's see,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: in this area until eighty six to eighty six.
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  Speaker 2: So your your and your mom was.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Like super into like a spiritual community, right, that was
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: like that and that's what moved to Montana.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: But that started here.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's so there's a there was a spiritual community
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  Speaker 3: called Church Universal and Triumphant that was founded in Pasadena
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  Speaker 3: and had their campus or their you know, community headquarters
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  Speaker 3: in Pasadena, and in the mid to early eighties bought
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: property in Montana. And yeah, everybody made the map mass movement,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: like everything in the vehicles drove north to largely this
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: ranch property that was right on the northern border of
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Yelstone National Park.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Wow. Is she still part of that community?
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: Very much so?
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  Speaker 2: And you were you grew up in it.
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  Speaker 4: I grew up in it. Yeah.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And what was the kind of theological bent mm hmm.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: It's it was like an all purpose seasonings for spirituality.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: It was you know, I have to speak in chef metaphors, right.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: But like if you took this is how I described it,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: because how many times in my life have I had
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: friends coming from the conventional or Catholic or Christian or
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: you know route and being like, so, ed, what kind
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  Speaker 3: of crazy like commune or compound or cold like you know?
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  Speaker 3: And so I mean when I was a kid, I
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: defended it like you know, hey, few Manuel, like you
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: don't say that, you don't talk about me and my
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: family like that. And then at some point I started
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: to question, like, well, what is this anyway? And and
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: so what I could say to summarize is that I
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: believe the Church universal and try elephant to be a
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: a compilation of the world's religions. So grew up knowing
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: who Mother Mary was and who Jesus was, and also
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: reading the Ramayana books while we ate chicken soup, you
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, like on a Saturday night, and
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: and my mom being of Jewish descent, so studying the Kabbala,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, U factor in all world religions.
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  Speaker 2: All that the bagavat Gia, the Koran, absolutely spiritual, listening.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: To Bajan's all my buddies were like listening to bon Jovi.
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  Speaker 4: Like what we were.
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  Speaker 3: We were the kids bringing like tempe you know, burgers
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  Speaker 3: to public school lunch, super hippie. Yeah, and everyone's like
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: trading their lunches out and nobody wants to trade my
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: tem Paperger capri Son and you know, whatever.
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  Speaker 2: Did you have? You watched Wild Wide Country yet I
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: haven't been told.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's impossible to have this conversation and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: without me thinking about that. You know, obviously, you know
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about is different. But the idea of
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: like a spiritual community kind of moving west and creating
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: like they create it's crazy. You got to watch it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's super compelling. But anyway, man, that's wild. So so
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: now you're here and let's get into the meat of this,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: because you know, look at your look at your arm.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I want to hear the story. Do you get tired
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  Speaker 2: of telling it?
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  Speaker 5: Uh?
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  Speaker 4: There was a period.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: So there was a period right after my injury where
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: it's not that you tire of it, it's you question
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: why you're doing it, just like you question why are
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: telling the story? Yeah, you know, it's very rare. I
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: find myself tired of doing something. You know, I think
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: that's like an easy out.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And so what is what is your why behind that?
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Like you have to answer why you tell the story?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so at some point, you know where I tired
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: telling retelling the story?
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  Speaker 4: Was? Is this still serving everyone? Including me?
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  Speaker 3: Like there's a certain amount of our time here that
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I think we give to others, but we have to
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: always give to ourselves. I mean, like, I just saying
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: this makes me grin while I'm talking to you, because
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I'm just on the rite up here, I'm thinking all right,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: And I talked to my fiance today and I was like, Honey,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: we need to focus on the shit that makes us happy,
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  Speaker 3: that brings out our best bits. Just say no to
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: that gig, And I'm going to say no to this
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  Speaker 3: whatever you know. And so for telling this story, I
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  Speaker 3: will share my experience for as long as I'm on
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  Speaker 3: this earth, as I believe it brings value to others
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  Speaker 3: and elevates my own like healing and continued education and
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: being you know.
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  Speaker 1: Right, I think that what I like about that answer
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: is the kind of commitment to continually healing and growing,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: because I think.
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  Speaker 2: It would be easy.
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  Speaker 1: To just kind of stay in one place like I'm
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the guy with this and this is how I define myself,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and you know, it becomes an all consumer you know,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: identity for yourself rather than a part of your story.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that has value for others and.
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  Speaker 1: Informs kind of how you make decisions and live your
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: life going forward.
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  Speaker 4: But isn't the end of the story, That's right, right,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like we're getting wee getting ahead of ourselves
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: with some listeners. But the easy one here that's to
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  Speaker 3: that point.
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  Speaker 4: Is like at the end of the day.
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  Speaker 3: It has to check out with me, Like, whatever the
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: action is, whatever the story I'm telling. If I'm going
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: to go on Good Morning America to talk about how
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: my hand blew off, whatever it is, it has to
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  Speaker 3: it has to gel. It has to make sense to
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Eduardo otherwise, And that's what I found. At some point
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not doing any more interviews where
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: I don't have a certain degree of control in the
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: finished product, because it's not what I want to be
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: a part of another article going out talking about how
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: I did X, Y and Z, which may not be true.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I want to be a part of it. If I'm
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: going to be interviewed, I want to be working with
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: you to create the best piece of content, not working
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: to just fill like some hype and a page.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we're going to get into the story.
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  Speaker 1: But I feel like it's still a good time to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: ask you, like, you know, what is it that you
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: want people to take away from your story? Like, what
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: is it that you want them to walk away with
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  Speaker 1: that they can use to impact their own lives in
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a positive way.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: Quite simply, it is to It is the to push
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  Speaker 3: for the understanding that everything that comes across our doorstep.
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  Speaker 3: Anything that comes through our wheelhouse on any given day
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  Speaker 3: can be used to impact your life to any end.
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  Speaker 3: So it can be negative, it could be positive. You
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: get to choose, you get to work with it, and
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  Speaker 3: that is that is my takeaway is it's it's not
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  Speaker 3: about being called the bionic chef and being an amputee
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: and all these things. It's that happened, But that's no
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: different than someone else's this or that happening. It's what
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  Speaker 3: we do with it. It's it's and and and staying
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: true to your convictions, true to your beliefs.
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  Speaker 1: From that, you know, Yeah, it's about your relationship to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: two obstacles and rather and failure and whatever gets thrown
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  Speaker 1: in your path and rather than just looking at it
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  Speaker 1: from the perspective of anything from the victimhood to annoyance,
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  Speaker 1: to understand like these are opportunities for your personal.
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  Speaker 2: Evolution and growth, which is easier said than.
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  Speaker 4: To totally kidding me.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's that's that's I mean, that's why
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  Speaker 3: I'm here today, you know, is for me, this is
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to have sort of a no bullshit. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: that's how I want this to be a no bullshit
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  Speaker 3: sort of conversation that reminds me of where I've been
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  Speaker 3: and who I am, like what I'm doing and where
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  Speaker 3: I'm going. And sometimes it's it's I mean, I have
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  Speaker 3: been there where I look.
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  Speaker 4: I'll catch myself in a moment where I need.
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  Speaker 3: An audit like immediately, like quick, and like wait a minute,
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  Speaker 3: I'm still working on this two year old vision this
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  Speaker 3: or this one year old vision of who I am
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  Speaker 3: or who I'm supposed to be, and it's like no, no, no, nah.
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  Speaker 3: So I mean that's the takeaway if I was a
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  Speaker 3: rabbit up for everybody is wake up every morning empowered
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  Speaker 3: by where you've been and encouraged with the curiosity and
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: the wonderlust and the possibility of where you're about to
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: go in that day short term can be so impactful
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: and super super powerful, and so just focus on that,
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  Speaker 3: you know, do not be dragged down by however many
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: years you've had behind you.
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  Speaker 1: It's so hard, you know, we get in our girl
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: like I love what I do. But even reflecting back
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: on how I've lived my life the last three or
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  Speaker 1: four days, like I've just been in a work groove,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel like, you know, it's so easy
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  Speaker 1: to just like carve that line and you stay in it,
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  Speaker 1: and it becomes rote, it becomes routine, it becomes easier
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  Speaker 1: to repeat, and it becomes there's more and more resistance,
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  Speaker 1: it becomes more and more difficult to just stop and
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  Speaker 1: like be present and connect with gratitude and awe and
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  Speaker 1: wonder and all these childlike qualities that that when I
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: think of your story and then watching the movie and
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: all of that, like that seems to be that's really like,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you know, the beauty and what you.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Have to share.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: So I don't know, man, I hope you.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate that.
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  Speaker 1: I've been working like around the clock the last couple
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: of days, and it's like and then and then watching
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: your movie and I'm like, man, you know I need
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  Speaker 1: to I need to hit pause in my own life.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we all we we Yeah, we I think
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: there's no negative there, man, no negative.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So let's uh, let's walk backwards and talk a little
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: bit about where you came from.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, short long as it relates to this.
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  Speaker 1: Just yeah, I mean, so you grew up in Montana.
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  Speaker 1: I mean you're outdoorsman from.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: The get go.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, A little bit of a hyperactive kid.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some scruffs in school.
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  Speaker 3: H yeah, I mean beyond that, that's I don't know
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: if that's Moving to Montana at the age of six
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  Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty seven was like a dream come true
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: for a kid that didn't know he was dreaming about it,
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  Speaker 3: right like it just like where am I.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: You know, there's wild animals and there's mother Nature.
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  Speaker 3: Just whether I knew it or not, between the ages
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: of zero and six, is my beacon, is my muse.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And so showing up in Montana was like walking into
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: the hollowod halls of whatever your passion is going to be.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, I think I say in the movie,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: you know, moving to Montanna was like stepping into a
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: national geographic magazine for real, like in real life, you know.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: And so for me that was my focus was the outdoors.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I was a boy scout, you know, I was as
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: you know, as you say, I had.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: My mom says, I had a lot of energy.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: And for me, I think there's a curiosity that was
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: just untethered and that comes out in disruption and rebellion,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: and you know, and then of course got to own it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: You know, at some point you just start making shitty decisions.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: You have a teenager growing up with a lot of
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: single parent homes in our community. A lot of dads
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: were not in the picture, and so it was not
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: just me. You had a moley crew of guys and
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: gals who we had. We had good parents, you know,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: they were feeding us well, we were we had all
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the things we may we may or may not have needed,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: but we were well taken care of. But they were hustling,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: they were working. They a lot of them weren't present,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: and so we were self educating. And that leads to
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: you know, chemical drugs, you know, rebellion, making poor decisions,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: getting in trouble with the law, whatever it may be.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: How much of that do you think is a function
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of you just being a kid who like wanted to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: be you know, roaming around outdoors and you're forced to
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: like sit in a chair, you know, in a classroom
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: all day and it just becomes like an intolerable situation
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: for somebody who's wired like that.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent, that was the situation. And again
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: it was I like, I'm gonna say this for the record,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: is I loved loved education school. You know, I mean,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: right now, I'm thirty six years old, and I'm thinking
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: about what is my next continuing education, you know, to
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: sit and be educated, to stimulating and exciting to sit
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: and be told to sit, to raise your hand. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: maybe I didn't know how to say it at twelve,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: but I you know, hey, got a question. Hey, And
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I was the kid with the hand up. But what
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I was trying to say is like, I'm not learning
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: what you're saying. And I'm not dumb, but I'm just
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: not getting this.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Well, you're somebody who learns experientially.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, or you know that just sitting I wasn't
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: getting to me through the one question I was allowed
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: every ten minutes or else I was being disruptive, right,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: And so then that what do you do? You know,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: you get cornered by I'm not learning this and I
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: should be. So now I know I'm behind the eight ball.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Now I'm also being labeled disruptive. And all I'm trying
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: to do is learn. And you got to do one
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: or two things.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: You you either.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Someone hand like throws a hand out lifeline it sh
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: didn't happen, or you just give the middle finger and
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: you're like, all right, well screwt Like I don't need
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: any of this.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And how much of it do you think is it
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: was because you had your dad was gone, Like your
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: dad left when you were super young.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, Yeah, the dad left while we were actually
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: still here in LA.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: I think I was about two months old.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: And you know, in so many ways, I'm glad he did.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: You know what I how I understand is my mom.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: You know, my dad has had a problem with alcoholism,
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: and my mom was like, I don't want my kids
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: growing up with and maybe let's just say alcoholism is
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: the banner that we'll put up, but there's all the
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: things that fall under that, under the disease which is alcoholism,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: and so all of those other attributes or attributes that
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: she chose to not have her kids influenced by.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: And I think her for it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: You know, it meant she had to work harder, It
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: meant she had to do three jobs. It meant she
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: had to sell her jewelry and clothes to put us
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: into school. But she was able to raise us with
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: morals and values, and in this way that was free
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: of the disease of alcoholism. You know, we grew up
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: in a home that was free of free of that
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: and many other suppor parental traits that a lot of
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: kids grew up with.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: So I'm grateful for that.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: He comes back into your life later.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: So yeah, and you know, yes, I didn't have a
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: dad growing up, and I'm certain that that impacted me negatively,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: or that impacted me in a way that was not
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: really beneficial, considering twelve year old kid just doesn't know
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: what to do with the fact that they don't have
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: a dad around, you know. But dad did come back
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: in the picture when I was fourteen in ninety three,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: and grateful. My little sister is a byproduct of that
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: sort of remarriage, and I think that was the second
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: time married and dad we figured out how to be friends, right.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I loved about the movie
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: was that as much as it is a story about
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: like what happened to you and the sort of recovery
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and the rebuilding of your life and the you know,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: sort of struggles that are packed into that, it's really
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: a really it's really a movie about your relationship with
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: your dad or reconnecting with your dad. And also with
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Jen you know, he's really kind of you know, a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: protagonist in the movie. But the evolution of kind of
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: how you find a way with your father was like
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a really beautiful, like thematic three line throughout the whole thing,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And I feel like the movie is as much about
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that as it is about anything else.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is. The director.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: The director of the film is Philip Baraboo, and the
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: film we're talking about is Charged. And I chose to
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: not produce the film. I chose to not be a
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: part of that was Jen and I both were highly
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: encouraged to not produce this film, and so we didn't.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: And what's beautiful is that a team of creative storytellers
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: took all of this footage, like three hundred and eighty
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: six hours of footage, and edited it and built a
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: human peace compelling and worth sharing at the tune of
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: eighty six minutes edited and cut. And you know, at
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: some point they had to make a decision do we
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: cut out? Like all of a sudden, it whittled down
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: where when it was a two and a half hour film,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: it was too long, and it had this super beautiful
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: long story line of EDWARDO and his dad and that story,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: but then the directors ended up cutting that out because
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: it's I mean, the film isn't about Edward and his dad.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: It's about this guy's journey through all of these things,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: which include the dad, right. But you know, my journey
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: with my father, I believe I at the time I
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: did get with him on this earth.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Taught me.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Everything I needed to know about how to not make
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: the same mistakes he did. And I apply those, you know.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, no, I got thirty six years, but you
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: know I got twenty. I'll take him.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're you're the legacy of his experience. I mean,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you know, he has this love of the outdoors and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the water, and you know, the fishing, and he was
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a chef as well, and those are all things that you.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Know are fine. You you know something.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: I'm Niuelle Frio Garcia's kid. I grew up without him
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: in my life, and I'm in love, drop dead infatuated
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: with mother nature and the outdoors. And when I do
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: finally meet my dad when I'm twelve or thirteen, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: then over the next twenty years of having a relationship together,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: we almost get to connect as too devotees to the
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: same practice. We both love nature and he's been doing
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: it forty years long. But we both get to connect
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: on it. You know, I can't sit in the lineup
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: without pelican flies over. I like talk to it on
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: my dad's bad Yeah, oh yeah, like I can't.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: You know, So where does where does cooking come in?
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: You know, cooking? Cooking found me at an early age.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: It was not you know, me on the buckboard counter
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: with Grandma and the apron ster and the pot.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: You know, like that was not part of it.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: You know, my mom, like I said, did a lot
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: of great things for us, Cooking was not one of
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: her skill sets. Even though she's she's great in the kitchen.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: She was busy hustling, you know. So we would have
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: like ten pm chicken soup and we'd have that for like,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: you know, five days or something. So cooking for me
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: was hanging with the homeboys in the summer fourteen years
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: old and thirteen years old, twelve years old and no one,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: no one available to cook.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: It's what do you do?
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: You just open the fridge, you start making it happen.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: You burn some things, you botch some things.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Most people just eat Freedo's though, or you like peanut
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: butter sandwiches.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, man, But we we had like five
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: pounds tubs of miso paste in the fridge, and like.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: You know, you know what I mean, like we didn't
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: need to catch.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: It intended for like the communal dinner at the commune.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: We had brags amino acid and like bags of oh yeah,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, so like and so whatever,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: we ate those things. And but you know, so cooking
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: for me professionally was being fifteen and just needed a job,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: you know, like I kind of say it was I
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: got I got get tired of stealing quarters from my
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: mom's purse that she didn't have, yeah, you know, and
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: got a job at local place Flintenburger's, throwing pizzas.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like line cook yeap, totally.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: And I mean it was fun. I mean there's a
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: tourism industry in Montana.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: So you're fifteen and you're your buddy's fifteen, and you know,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: you're slinging burgers and watching all these you know, a
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: cute girls from out of town cruising through and I
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: mean it's like a fun place to be for the summer.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: And I realized, well, I'm naturally I can keep up
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: in a kitchen, and you know, it's an easy transition
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: into saying, all right, well, I don't think I have
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: it in me to do four years of committed college
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: type of post grad work. I don't think, I you know,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: like I couldn't see myself sitting for four years, but
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: I knew, I knew food is something I could keep doing,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: and so culinary school wasn't easy. All right, well let's
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: get educated, let's let's go get a degree in this,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: let's make this.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Legit was was your thinking, like I'm going to, you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: be like a fancy type chef, or just wanted to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: learn how to cook better?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Or like what was it?
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Did you have an ambition or like an idea of
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: where you wanted to take that.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't, not at the first, No, not even And
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: it's interesting how many times in my life have I
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: tried to sell myself on this false sense of self
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: and knowing right in the very first notion this will
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: never work, but you try to sell yourself on it
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: for sometimes a day and sometimes ten years or longer
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you know of being this thing. And for me, I
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: always knew, like I don't you know, I don't. I
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: don't believe I'm going to be that chef who the
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: way I envisioned it anyway, was I don't think I'm
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: going to be the chef that has ten restaurants all
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: over the world. But not knowing what was in front
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: of me was my motive, was my impetus was, well,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: just going to focus on doing food and doing it
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: as well as I can.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like an adventure, an out on an expedition.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, so, then where did my career
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: take me?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: You know, it's either going to work three jobs and
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: payoff student loans and you know, knock knock knock. I
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: got a phone call from a yacht that was in
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Seattle saying, hey, we need a chef overnight. You interested,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: And I was graduating culinary school. I was looking for work,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: and you know, I guess humorously I ended. I turned
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: that job down at that point. I did only five
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: months later to have the same captain call me one
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: final time, and I did take that job.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: So the adventure began.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I had no idea what I was going
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: to do with this degree in cooking, but at that point,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: like I mean, I'd been cooking in restaurants for six years.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I knew the rhythm, I knew the drill. I knew
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I was gifted enough to do well in the industry
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: in regards to palette and.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Flavors and all of that.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: And I think I fell into a dream job on
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: so many different levels. And you know, it took me
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: a while to realize the passion for food, but.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Then the ability to travel the world and you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: learn about cuisine and all these crazy places. And right
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I think I read like you would you take your
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: skateboard and you do every portocol, you'd cruise around, go
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to the bakeries and various restaurants.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: And oh it was so again that I always say, like,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: you know, during my twenties, it was an opportunity to explore.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: But I traded the mountains and the rivers and sort
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: of the grizzly bears and all that stuff in Montana
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: in for.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: You know, the map of the world.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: And you know, instead of riding a horse or hiking,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: I was skating or surfing or wakeboarding or diving. I
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: mean I went to the water and I did that
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: jam for ten years as a yacht chef. And we
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: didn't cover the whole globe, but we did a lot
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: of it, right, Yeah.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So yeah ten so two and a half years on Dorothea, right,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and then like ten years total.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, two and a half years on the yacht Dorothea,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: which I mean that was Captain Mark drew Low, who
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: lives down in Ensignitas and just south of us here
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: and talk about an influential friend, mentor person, you know.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: He he He was the type of guy who had
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: adventured in his life and wanted to continue adventuring at
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: their go by opening the door for others to do
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: the same. So you know what the option was to
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: sit on the dock in Point Loma for you know,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: two weeks, or explore Baja for nine days and once
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: we got on the dock, hustle to get it clean
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: and ready for the owners or something, and like hand
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: would go up, be like adventure.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you kidding me.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I mean it sounds I mean it sounds amazing. You know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: what do you what do you take from that experience?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Like what was the biggest like lesson that you learned
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: from just yeah, literally a decade of constant travel.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh it It was in the middle of
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: the Atlantic Ocean. On my first I did four different
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: cross things of the Atlantic Ocean on different vessels, but
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: on a sailboat.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: We crossed, we got we started.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: In Majorca, Spain in the Mediterranean, and we crossed to Antigua,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: and it took us about thirty some days when we
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: stopped along the way and at some point from halfway,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: I guess between the Canary Islands and Antiga. You know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: you're in the middle of the ocean. You're about as
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: in the middle as you can be. And I don't actually,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I don't believe in my memory that it was a
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: typical it was a stormy day or you know, I'm
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: not going to paint that picture. I think it was
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: just a day at sea, and there was motion of
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: the ocean.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: We're cruising along.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: And yet there had been rough weather on either end
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: of it, and probably rough to come. And I remember
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: sitting out and looking at the horizon line and just
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: kind of having it hit me that there's no control,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Like the whole nocean of control is kind of out
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: the door. You're sitting surrounded in a floating body of water,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: can not breathe or eat it, drink it anything, and
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: you are on this man made vessel that is your lifeline.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: But ultimately your peace and your salvation and all of
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: it just starts within yourself.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: And like that's the control is like a.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Misnomer for presence and a night presence, like being within yourself,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: being seated.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful. Yeah, I mean it's a humility.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, almost like it's preconditioning you. It's it's like
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: push ups for what you're going to.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Have to face later. Right yeah. I love that, you know, like.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Like that experience problem I would imagine came into play
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and helping you weather what you had.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: To get through. Must have, oh, must have.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: The on a prior crossing really really rough weather, bigger boat,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: really rough weather. Everyone still has to eat. I still
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: had to get food done. And there was a German engineer.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: It's no, it's nuts, man, it's nuts, you know. I
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: mean you're you're ascid against the wall and you're you know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you're kind of like just trying to find stability. And
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: but anyway, the German engineer, in the middle of a
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: very gnarly storm, he brings in a little speaker set up.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: But his I mean this is before iPhones, This was
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: with his iPod or whatever. It was MP three player,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: and he puts on hardcore like trans electronica music, not
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: my usual Johnny Cash genre, you know, and and I
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: roll with it. And I realized that he brings the
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: storm into the kitchen, right, So he like brought all
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: of this energy and this music in this impact into
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the kitchen instead of it just being this chaos around me.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: He's like, you got to dance with this, bro, I
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: brought it into the kitchen. And all of a sudden,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: as you're cruising and grooving with it, you realize, like
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: you forget that the boat's getting tossed around, you know,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: you you elevate your movement to matching.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: To like meet that vibration.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: So rather than fight or resistant, like hey, let's not
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: evenly not only accept it, but like I'm.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Going to take you one step further.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Right, you meet it up?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: My fiance's uncle was a very well renowned rock climber,
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Todd Skinner, and one of his quotes I love is
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: we cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourselves.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: That's the jam.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like a zen Cohen So good. Yeah, cool,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: all right, So you get back, you're cooking, you're doing
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: your thing man and so so, you know, lead me
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: up to the life defining expedition.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, yachting was a ten eleven year career.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I realized, I don't want to sleep in a bed
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: that's two feet wide by a foot.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: And a half tall for the rest of my life.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Are there people that do it like their whole lives?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: I guess this guy Dncinnitas, right, Yeah, no, I mean
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Mark Mark did it for ages. I have friends who
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: are chefs that started the same day I started in
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: the odding industry that are still doing it, and you know,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: like for me, I mean, I so on the way
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: up here, I listened to the podcast you just put
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: out with you and Julie, and one of the things
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: she mentioned is only committing to do and be the
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: thing that is love, like that brings you and creates
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: love like you know. And at some point I realized, like, look,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: we can force ourselves to do all kinds of things.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: And yet that's not your true self for me.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: You know, for me, it's whatever gets you screaming and
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: jumping to get out of bed in the morning, that's
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: what you need to be doing more of. And at
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: some point I realized that chefing on the boat. I
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: was kind of sleepwalking, was I knew how to do it.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I could crash a meal for how many people or
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: how many days in any country. But I was really
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: looking forward to my off time, when I was building
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: a food brand and writing a TV show and focusing
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: on my home back in Montana.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: And at some points, like.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: You know what, I can no longer continue to work
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: without the passion. I need to chase the passion, which
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: is no longer being a yacht chef, but starting these
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: other businesses and moving home. That was two thousand and ten,
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: and yeah, twenty eleven, March was making that jump off
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: the boat, right, and.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about the accident. So this was
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: what when are we talking now?
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: So this is twenty eleven, a lot left, you know,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: ten eleven year career in the odding industry. In March
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: was signed with William Morrison devor pitching a TV show,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: had incorporated a food brand that was supposed to be
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: like this Farmer's Market fresh sausas and guacamole, branding.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: With Montana Max. Yeah, Montana Max, you stuff right here, dude. Yeah,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: so before me, thanks for sitting no Joma, no president, but.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Like I'm looking forward to doing so.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Prior to these products that are sitting with us, you know,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Montanemx was a food like a like a farmer's market.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Fresh food brand like perishables.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and so that's what we were gunning towards
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: during the summer of twenty eleven. And my business partner
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: and ex girlfriend Jennifer Jane by my side through all
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: of this in the creation of companies with our other partners,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: my sister and brother and yeah. You know what's interesting
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: is we could get into we could spend two hours
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: just talking about the day of my injury, but really
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: what was happening in that point in time was I
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: was transitioning from being a yacht based person and having
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: a career in the adding industry to being a business owner.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Right, entrepreneur, being a host of media.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: How do you go from like yacht chef to like
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: getting an agent at William Morris.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: One of the guests was Ari Emanuel's elementary school bro.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Oh really yeah, And we sent.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: We sent our sizzle reel to our Emmanuel and he
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: immediately sent it on the same day, in the same
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: hour to both offices in North America, New York in
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: LA office and they facetimed or skype video each other
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: and we're like, WTF what is this thing?
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Like why what was it about the sizzle reel? Like
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: it's it's like, okay, you're a chef, Like what's the spin?
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Like what made it unique?
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: We filmed the sizzle reel ourselves with it, well we know,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: we hired a production team and we directed the shoot
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: and it's the concept if show was called active Ingredient
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: and my and the premise was that I believe and
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: I still do that we all we are the active
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: ingredient in our recipe, in our life rich role, you
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: are your own active ingredient and through all of the
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: other ingredients, which could be our partners, our friends, our lovers,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: our kids, that we are the necessary component to act
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: evate all of those into gelling into.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Like yeah, like this is this is the thing we're sharing,
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: This is the prana, this is the food, right.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's this sounds like a motivational inspirational Well the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: cooking barn.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: No totally. But so the cooking the cooking was.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Was based on my lifestyle, which is if you and
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: I are going to go surf or hike, or head
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: out into the woods recreating, or be out in the field,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: even vacationing in another country. I want to cook a
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: meal and I want the day out to incorporate, to
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: bring in elements that we incorporate into the dinner. So
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Active Ingredient was saying like, hey, we all can find
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: our truest best selves. This show is about me doing it,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: and I hope it serves as a metaphor for you
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: in whatever your Active Ingredient moment is. For me, it's
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: about food. It's about cooking, and it's about making. It's
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: about bringing others who are sharing the meal with me,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: and the locale, whether it's in the ingredients or the weather,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: bring that into the meal.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: To make it experiential.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool. I'm dude, I'm ready. I want to
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: watch that. I want to see that show. What happened?
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: I know, right we are, we're pitching it right now,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: you are good? Well we put I mean, I mean
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: it's tragic, right. So we had a we had a
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: meeting with the buyer at the Food Network set for
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: October the fifteenth, and I was flown to the ICU
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: in Salt Lake City on October the ninth, so four
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: days before that meeting, which you know, like contracts had
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: kind of been drawn up and just we needed to
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: seal the deal, right, So bittersweet, but.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: But you're resurfacing it again now.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: We have not let go of that concept and repackaged
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: it called The Hungry Life, and we're pitching it right now.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: So fingers crossed.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: That's cool, man, you should have a TV show.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're the perfect person to do it,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and especially you know that as an ode in the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: legacy of Anthony Bourdain with somebody with your love not
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: of life experience and world like with the travel that
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: you've done, but also what you have gone through to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: get to this place, like you're you're sitting in a
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: place where it's not just about the cooking and the food.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: It's like you have all of this wealth of.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Information and insight that you could bring to an audience
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: that makes it much more dynamic.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that I have not
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: let go of that. We'll see what happens. You know,
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: did you.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Ever did you ever meet Anthony Bourdain? Did you know
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: him at all?
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: No? I knew him.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: How much of the world knew him through his books
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: and through through his his voice and influenced me greatly. Yeah,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: influenced me greatly.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of people. Oh yeah, tough man. Oh yeah,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: all right, So so you're this is what's you have?
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: All this momentum happening in life? Yeah, and walk me
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: through the day.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was. I was out elk hunting. You know,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: as a the chef, there's a there's a part of
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: me as a chef that loves to know where my
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: food comes from, whether it's the carrots in my in
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: my garden or whether it's you know, an animal based protein,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Like I want to know. I want to know more
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: of the story about it, and I want to be
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: involved in that. So hunting is has always been a
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: part of my life, and I it's interesting, you know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: I as a hunter, I often, prior to a harvest,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: take a moment to connect with the animal in life
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: and and and just you know, I don't need to
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: make this sound all woo wo, but in the.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Hunt, you're talking to a vegans.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well you know, but I don't know who's listening.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: And I just wanted a.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Lot of vegans yeah, so a lot of people.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: So but I but I, So I do this when
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: I you know, like I'm putting a guard and on Saturday,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: so when I get home tomorrow and to be in
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: the garden all day. So even when I'm pulling a
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: plant up, is a thinking about it, like is this
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: strawberry ready?
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Has it done? Its?
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Thing?
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: Is this is have I over harvested this asparagus patch?
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: Like whatever it is?
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Anyway, the morning I'm out hunting, I pass on an animal,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: I decide not to harvest that animal for my reasons.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: And I end up resetting what was it about?
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Like something just didn't feel right to.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: You, you know, I I had I kind of told myself,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: I want to harvest this. I want to harvest a
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: younger a younger cow elk or you know, a younger
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: female elk.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Not what I saw in front of.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Me that day, which was this huge, beautiful male elk,
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: which ninety nine percent hunters around the world would be
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: like why and the heck didn't you you know, wasn't
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: what I wanted. And I think intention the right reason,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: right mode of right cause, Like intention is huge, you know,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: like that wasn't my intention for that day? So although
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: I could have been seduced by how big and beautiful
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: this thing looked no, so I decided to keep going hiking.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Later on the afternoon, and I come across a I'm
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: just to put this in perspective for everyone. I'm in
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: a valley about five thousand feet and I'm heading from
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: the sage sort of valley floor, winding my way three
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: miles up into the conifer or evergreen forests. And within
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: those that forest there, we're still, you know, everything is sloped,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: you know, Gentle rolling up, and I'm in a little drainage,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: small small drainage, and I see a can, like literally
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: a fifty gallon oil drume cut in half on the ground,
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: and curious, I walk up to it.
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: And it is a weird thing to see, which is
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: a weird which is a weird thing to see, except,
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: you know, except in the Rocky Mountain West, and even
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: in many parts of California.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Here there is a lot of detritus. There's a lot
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: of leftover mining camp, sheep camp, homestead junk out in
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: the woods from our predecessors, you know, from the folks
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: that were here before us. And I just assumed, like
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: that's an old camp something, you know, and I look
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: inside and there's what literally just envision a black two
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: pay everybody with like a claw or two and some bone,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: you know, the size of like a volleyball, like deflated.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: That's what I see in the bottom of this can.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, what the heck is that?
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: You know, and growing up, you know, a student of
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: the outdoors. I mean I've picked up every feather, I've
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: checked out every animal dropping like you know, I study
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: it all. And so I think, huh, that's interesting, and
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: part of me thinks, well, it looks like a very
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: like two to three year old dead like been here
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: for three years, dead baby bear, cub or something. And
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: so I pull a knife off my right hip and
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I put it in my left hand, and my plan
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: is just to take a claw off, just like he
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: would a harvest, you know, an interesting branch or something
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: that's you know, fallen, and I'm going to take the
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: claw and you know, put it in a curiosity case
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: or make it a necklace, or give it to my
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: friend who works the boy Scouts and is always collecting
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: to teach with.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: And I mean I don't even get within fifteen inches
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: of the base of this can before twenty four inchred volts,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: electricity arcs into the tip of the knife I'm holding
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: and into my body.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: You didn't even touch it.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: It just jumped at the metal.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: It arcd into it. I'd arked at.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting, I had both hands going down into
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: this barrel.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I'm on my knees leaning over.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: I have both hands and you know, because like the
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: knife is going to pop the cloth and the right
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: hand is going to pick it up.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: And teamwork.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: And what's interesting is had I not been holding that knife, like,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: nothing would have happened. But that knife curated the conduit
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: for the electricity to jump.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: So had you just had you touched it with your hand, though,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: it would have conducted the electricity, wouldn't it Or was
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: it was you had to.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Have metal in it?
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it was the metal.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: And so what what what was going on was there
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: was was an exposed power cord beneath the tank.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: It was a bear.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: It was a buried line that was going to a
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: backcountry cabin, and this can was sitting on sort of
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: a point where the line had like it was it
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: was a ground junction access point.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: And the lid had many you know. And so what
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I come to.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Understand, you know, and what I can share is that
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: you know, this junction box had been compromised by whether
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: and neglect and time and was not maintained, and the
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: lid became unsecure and fell off. It should have never
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: been exposed. I mean, it should have been labeled and
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: fenced in the whole thing. So you know, in that moment,
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: I knew none of this.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: So right that moment, I mean, how would you think,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: like better not touch that? Like there's there might be
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: an exposed wire underneath.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, you would never contrari It's it's you know,
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: the only thought would be should I touch that?
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Look? It's gross, Like that's the thought, you know.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: So how many vaults? Twenty four hundred volts?
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: And does it just hurl you? Like what?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Hot? So I wait, So I wake up, right, So
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: I wake up on my back staring. I wake up
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: staring at the clouds and treetops. And you know, I
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: I at this point, all I know is that I'm
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: staring at the clouds.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Did you know that you were electrocuted?
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: And that no, In that moment.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: And the moment I got electrocuted, it was like someone
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: had inserted me inside the speaker cable of like a
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Yes concert or something. It was just straight up electronic
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: symphony in the back of my head with heat, with
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: like the gentle warm flood of heat. Lights out. My
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: eyes open up. I don't know how many minutes later,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: and I see clouds and dapple blue sky and treetops
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: and the and I think to myself, get up, like
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: get up, what are you doing. I'll roll over and
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: I'm on my knees, in my hands, hands and knees,
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: and I say, get to your feet. And so this
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: is all I remember is just talking to myself to
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: get stand up. And I must have stood up. And
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: I'm next to this barrel, all my gear, my backpack,
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: my bow, my things, and the next memory I have
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: is just me is The next memory I have is
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: of the sound of gravel, and I'm on a dirt road.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: I'm no longer in the trees, I'm no longer next
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: to that can. I don't have any of my things
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: with me except in my right hand I'm holding a
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: can of bear spray and my left hand I look
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: down at it and it is blackened and burnt and
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: seized into like a claw shape, you know, right.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: And what's the pain like not feeling anything or in
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: this weird adrenaline?
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like no dream mode, total total dream mode, total
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: dream mode.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: I mean I gathered where I was.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm in this part, I'm in this valley, this,
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: I'm walking downhill. Why am I walking downhill? Why is
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: my hand black? And then of course like, oh yeah,
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: I saw like I saw that like dead baby bear.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: I went to get a claw. I put a knife
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: and then it's like, oh man, that noise.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: That he did? I get up. I must have got zapped.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: I mean we've all been zapped through static electricity or
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: the random one time where you get a little too
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: close to something and it, you know, like zaps you back.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: And I think again life experienced those small little tidbits
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: of being in touch electricity in my life definitely, all
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, come full center. I'm like, wow, I
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: think you actually just received I think you just got
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: electrocuted like bad.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: And now I take account.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Now my head's on a swivel and I look and
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: I look at the hand and it's grotesquely disfigured and
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: black and gripped into a claw. I look at my
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: leg on my left thigh, and I see that my
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: pants are black, and I kind of poke a finger
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: through there and I can see it's just charred flesh.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: And I don't have to look anymore now. I realize
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: that I am walking down this road to get help.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: And this was a subconscious decision I made when I
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: was like not in my body.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Unconscious mind just went into survival. Note any memory.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: Of that unred No one, I don't. I don't think
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: we remember the day that, the day, the moment we're
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: born and take our first breath outside of our umbilical court,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: you know, but it happens. And how do we know
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: to do that?
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: That's the miracle, genetically wired to do it.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So do you have like a SAT phone or
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a cell phone. I'm assume there's no service or anything
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: like that. Like you're way out backcountry, right.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: The cell phone, the keys to the truck, the water,
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: the first aid, it's all it's all on the ground.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: And how far are you from like civilization help?
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: I have about three miles. I mean I've gone back
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: to the site many times. I've retraced all these things.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm about three miles from where I received help.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: And what's just interesting is that I'm carrying my bear spray. Somehow,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: in that collected moment of getting to my feet and
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: leaving the site, I make a decision to not carry
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: anything but bear spray.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: Like, just think about that for a second.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: It's like it's like anyone ever packed for that trip
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: where you're running out of time and you need to
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: get out the door by this time where you will
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: not make your flight or something and you just have
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: to decide what to take and what not to take.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: It's like triage. It's like I just got to get there.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Well, it's all the more remarkable.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I mean when you see the movie and you see
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this in a minute, but
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: like when when you see the condition that you're in,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: it's not just your arm, like, it's your head, it's
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: your Like the fact that you could do anything is shocking,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Like the fact that you walked three miles. When you
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: see what your body look like, it's it's just unbelievable
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: that you didn't just die on the spot.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's the flip side of watching the Olympics.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: You know, those folks are training and putting everything they
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: have for decades into being their most maximized self. And
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: I think dying and surviving an experience like.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: That is the flip side.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Is you are using everything in your tank, every facet
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: of every ounce of energy you have to towards salvation,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: like no doubt, no doubt.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: It's the flip side. But it's also similar. You're tapping
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: into every reservoir that you have to accomplish your goal,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and that goal may be a gold medal on a podium,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: or it maybe just living.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, no, and it's I mean, okay, so here
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: here's the million dollar question, rich, like, how do we
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: access that that type of clarity, that type of conviction
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: and that type of follow through and execution.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: On the daily bro?
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Like, how do we do? Yeah? I mean I would
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: like to know the answer to that. Are you here
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: to reveal this secret to me? Well?
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: I'm hoping that charge the film somehow inspires all of
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: us to at least be aware of it and recognize
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: that deep within all of us there is a almighty
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: power like deep inside and yet it's time you know
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: that that we we cover ourselves up in all the
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: layers that you know are shed immediately when it's time
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: to fight or flight like it's immediate, but when it's
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: kind of everyday life, we are held back by all
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: the stuff.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, we become myopic.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, my story is about change forge
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: through pain a different kind and certainly not as severe.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: And I think.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: That that, you know, like I said earlier, like these
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: these obstacles that are placed in our path are teachable
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: moments to help us get closer to who we really are.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a big part of your story
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: in a very extreme way. But why is it that
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't change until I'm in pain, or
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: that pain is required, or obstacles are required, or hardship
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: is required, or overcoming these things is required in order
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: to get in touch with the fact that it is
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: about the moment, that it is about gratitude and love
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and appreciation and service and sharing and all of these
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: things that are innately part of who we are and
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: available to us as a choice on a daily basis
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: to use as guiding principles in our life and in
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: our behavior, and yet are so much more difficult to
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: access when we're just when things are okay.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's true, It's true, and that's I mean,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: you can fast forward or however we want to do this,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: but I mean that that was part of that was
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: the most of my reasoning to be available and agree
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: to have a documentary made about this tragedy in my
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: life was just that sort of the to be a
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: part of creating something that serves as a reminder to others,
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: and myself included that this is just part of the
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: this is part of the jam. This is life, man,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: this is how this is what it looks like, this
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: is what it feels like. And actually what's for charge
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: for the documentary? I mean, we as collectively as a
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: group were in a very unique position that we were
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: filming this TV show, right, and so we had footage
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: well professionally you know, like quality capture footage from years
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: prior leading up until the day of the injury and
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: day four of being in ICU, and you know, the
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: production company we're working with in Pictures at a Denver
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: you know, they show up, not to document, but they
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: showed up to be like, holy yeah, are you okay,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: and to you know, respectfully and lovingly show up, but
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: of course they you know, we talked to him and
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Jenny arranged and they brought a camera, they brought a light,
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: and then a friend drove down with our camera and
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: you know, Jenny Jane rolled rolled that camera through and
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: captured still photos and video that I think all the
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: way through the fifty days of ICU, and then in
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: the next couple years she continued to document and then
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: even a friend of ours, Phil Barbo, who ended up
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: being the director on the film, not knowing why we're
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: capturing rights except maybe Jen I think knew there could
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: be something to salvage from all this. And I think Phil,
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: being I mean as a documentary store filmmaker, he's had
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: you know, he probably saw that coming. And for me,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I was just I remember naively saying, well, we're capturing
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: this because you know, my hope is it never happens again,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: and I don't want to have to remember it through experience,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: like I'd like to be able.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: To for posterity for your celf.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: Holy yeah, you know, like I don't need I don't
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: want to have to get zapped again to remember this
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: and so that, but that serves as like we circle back.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: To like why this film, what do others get from it?
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And well, we're creatures of story.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I mean that is, that's part of who we are,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: and there's nothing that that can move the human soul
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: more than an incredible story well told.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: That's how like you as an experiential learner, I think
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: us as creatures, we can read textbooks, but when we
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: hear when somebody shares their experience and they do it
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: in a compelling way and it's an extraordinary story, I
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: think it has the ability to connect with us as
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: animals in a certain way that other information cannot. And
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: you know, your story is a perfect example of that.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: And it's so I mean that's the thing. When you're
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: watching the movie, you're like, oh my god, Like there's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: a like I think there were there were a couple
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: of places where it looked like okay, they like they
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: had to recreate you going, you know, touching the knife
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: and all of that, but like post accident, like they're
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: right there, like it felt like day one through the
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: entire process. And I want to work my way up
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: to that because that footage in the hospital is is
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: excruciating to watch when you see the physical condition that
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: you are actually in, I mean in a very graphic way.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like that, you know, I think
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: you're obviously when people meet you, they see your arm
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: in your hand immediately, and it's like, okay, he lost
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: his arm, his forearm in his hand, but your torso,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it is just charred to nothing, Like
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: half of your upper body is essentially gone.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: And it looked almost.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Like like the ribs were just black. It looked there
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: was like just a hole into your organs right there.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was unbelievable. And there you are, and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: you're like, you've got a smile on your face and
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you're like cracking jokes.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like, how is this guy even conscious? Right now?
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: Rich? I was on so many drugs, man, it's e.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wrote down, like ask him whatever he must
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: have been.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: You know, like you we're gonna get administered ketamine, mister Garcia,
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: Well what's that? You probably here have known it as
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: special k Hey, what are you trying to imply? You know?
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: Like God, they say that in ICU, they have a
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: really big issue with folks who have severe recreational you know,
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: chemical dependency, recreational their tolerance is so high they can't
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: medicate it, you know. But I you know, I look,
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: I think obviously, the my care team did a phenomenal
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: job keeping me at a threshold that was tolerable. I
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: don't know why I have a hard time talking about
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: this or like wrapping my head around like the whole
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: concept that we all had different toler for pain. And
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe I have an issue with if I say, like, hey, rich,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: I have a really high tolerance for pain. I think
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: I've heard that, and it's hit me as this like
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: ego lace, like macho type of thing. But in reality,
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I think I have a higher tolerance for pain than
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of folks. And I also I've experienced a
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: lot of pain, and I've been in ICU a lot,
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: maybe not for my own experience a few times for
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: my experience, but I've had a lot of a few yeah,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: you know with my dad when he had heart surgeon
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: two thousand and five, like that one time when I
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: did this, when I broke my wrist three times. Like
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: I've been in and out of those scenarios a lot.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: And then I got to say, like, look, I know
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: this sounds strange, but.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: I don't.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: I don't fear death, you know, Like I understand the
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: process here.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: I get it.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Is that a result of that experience or did you
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: have that before this occurred.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: I think it's compounded through this experience, but it's been around,
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: and I think a lot of it has to do
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: with killing a deer for the first time when I
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: was eleven years old and watching life disappear, and then
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: working in a garden a lot of my life, like
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: I stopped. I mean, this is all like I stopped
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: pulling live flowers off of stuff because I was like,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: oh man, I won't see it die. I'm gonna find Yeah, Like,
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: I've just been so closely connected with life and death
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: through my lifestyle for so long that Look, I'm not
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: saying it changed the game, but I think it wasn't new.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: The scenario wasn't new, right, So my approach.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: Was all right, this is a job, this is what's happening,
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: and I have a role to play here.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: And so I did that.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, part of.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: That humility cycle of life being in nature, understanding it's
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: not personal.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, Yeah, And look, I have never actually offered
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: that as a as a conversation point when asked like,
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: how was your experience in I see you. I just
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: hit on that right now here with you because of
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: how we're talking, and you know, the way it came
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: to me. But I do want to say that I
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: think one of the greatest prescriptions that you know, I didn't,
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: I didn't, I didn't have given to me was ignorance
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: is I just didn't.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: Know how close I was to death.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: I like so many times Eduardo, you know, shows up
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: to the scene or shows up to the moment of and.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: Through the whole way I am. I just didn't know.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: I didn't know.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: And therefore, if you don't know you're about to die,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: you're not gonna take it as seriously as.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I think that comes across in the movie. I mean,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I got back because I'm watching you, and I'm like,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: this guy doesn't realized the severity of the situation that
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: he's in. I mean, his skull is missing.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah no, and you can like literally see inside his torso,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: And and your thigh, I mean a giant literally like
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: you put your hand inside your thigh at one point,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: like when you're laying in bed, right, you lift up
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and it's like somebody had just carved, you know, just
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: this massive chunk out.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Of your leg.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're like, this guy's not gonna make it.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: I mean I felt, I felt supported, you know, And
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: I think here, I mean that's the that's the thing is.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Supported by your community, jen your family, or supported in
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: like a like a more broader spiritual sense.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: All of the above. You know, I felt so.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: The only I came out of a surgery to so
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: you're talking about the hole in my my torso, my ribs.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: So indeed, right so, like in front of Rich right now,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: I'm still missing those ribs. I'm like pushing on my
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: torso and it's like bob and like a beach bar
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: right now. But I had four two to three inch
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: sections of ribs removed, and coming out of that surgery,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: there was a miscommunication with with the anesthesiologist and I
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: came off of that surgery on a lower epidural dose
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: than I should have had, and I was.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: An excruciating pain.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: I was in the most pain I've ever felt my
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: life coming out of that surgery. And a friend of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: ours who does search and rescue with his dogs all
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: over the world, happened to be coming through Salt Lake
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: and came into the ICU on that day to say
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: hi to me. And his name is Arturo Akuna, a
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: good friend, and Arturo knelt by my bed as I'm
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: just out of the surgery and starting to feel pain
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: come on because the anethesa of surgery is wearing off.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: And Arturo, I'm in so much pain.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I can't speak, I can't let alone, just focus on
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: breathing for hours.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: I did this, you know. And Arturo whispered in my
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: ear about the earthquake in Haiti, you know, almost what
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: ten years ago now or whatever that was, and he
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: shares a very short story about his experience in Haiti
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: for maybe a minute or two, just to tee up
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: the lesson, which is, hey, be grateful for what you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: do have. You're in the best house possible, you have
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: the best care possible, You're surrounded by loved ones. There's
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: no lack of blood for transfusions, there's no lack of care.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: It could be worse.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: Except for that antesiologists you screw.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know, exactly, yeah exactly, But that just
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: it hit me like a ton of bricks, you know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: just like, that's right. I I'm doing I'm doing great,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: all things considered.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: The thing that I think struck me the most in
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the whole movie is you could chalk it up to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: naivete or what have you, But there's something about you.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: Like throughout this whole process. You're in ICU for forty
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: eight days. Yeah, not once.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe you did off camera, but like, not
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: once did I see you complain or play the victim.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Like you have a smile on your face.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: You're making everyone who comes in to see you comfortable,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: and you have this this not just hope, like optimism
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: and just sense of joy and gratitude about you. And
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: I want to know, like where that comes from, because
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: that's not faked. And I don't think that that was
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: learned through the tragedy, the tragic accident.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: I think that's just part of who you are.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: That's core.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: Now, that's core to who I am. That's core to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: who I am, and I am. I can lead, and
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: I'm also a really good soldier. I'm a really good
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: team player. And in that scenario, the only thing that
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: I was leading was attitude. If I could smile, if
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: I could grin, if I could twinkle an eye, if
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: I could really share that my genuine effort with everybody
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: around me, they were going to lead in my recovery
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: in that moment, and.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Conscious of adopting that perspective, or was that just natural.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, both, I mean natural and it naturally occurred.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: And came out of me. And then I was aware
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: and encouraged by my own actions, like, oh yeah, this
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: is what I can do. This is how to the
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: point where nurses, you know, a couple my nurses would
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: be like, hey, don't.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Be afraid that it's okay.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: Grieve a little bit and be emotional and let it out.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: You don't want to be repressing emotions either.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: And that that was her concern in that one moment.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: But but like I will share too that that's my
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: mo o, that's how I choose, that's my typical approach. However,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: there is a checkal and hyde in this guy. And
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: you know, to give my family credit and definitely my
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: ex girlfriend Jenny Jane, who flew back from England to
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: be my caregiver and help me and be by my side.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: You know, there were durations of time where I reflect
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: back now and I'm like, I was really nasty.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: I had no patience, I had no tolerance and.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's to be expected, sure, but you know,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: and so so it's to be expected. And but I
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: think at some point I think that no matter like
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: you know, you get a cough or colder. When we
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: are out of sorts, our patients drops, our tolerance level drops.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that's an excuse to take the piss
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: and just kind of do that every time. We still
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: owe it to ourselves and add those we love and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: those around us to make the effort to be pleasant,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: et cetera.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: Which I was.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: But I'm just saying that, even though the film shares,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: I never made an edit on the film like they
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: did a masterful job. However, I have had comments from
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: folks say like, hey, like, when did you struggle? Because
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: we don't see it in the film. We'll see it
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: a little, but you know.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: What I saw was I mean, the first time that.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: You see you struggling with this is the day that
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: you get out of the hospital and you're forced to like, okay,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: now it's time to go back to your life. And
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: it felt like, and I don't know how much of
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: this happens in the edit and what's real versus like,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: you know, creating a narrative, but that's the first time
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: where we see you break down, and it feels like
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: it's all dawning on you what has actually happened, Like
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: you had to remain like it's another type of fight
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: or flight survival mode. Okay, you're in ICU for forty
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: eight days, like you have to keep it together to
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: survive this thing. And then once they release you, it's
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: almost like a pressure valve release and then you're like,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: oh wait, and it felt like a ton of breaks just.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: Landed on you and you're like, oh my god, that's
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: what just happened. And this is where I'm at.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: My life one hundred percent. That was That was the second.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: That was the second sort of way make up call,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: emotional wake up call I had.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: And I was scared. I was freaked out. I was scared.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: Are you kidding me?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: Leaving ice you after fifty days of almost dying and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: knowing that it's just me and Gen and not twenty
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: nurses and an on call staff and a medication team,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: And what.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: Were the doctors telling you, like when you first came
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: in and they have to say, like, you know, what's
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: the prognosis here?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: What are we looking at?
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Doctor William Morris, who was the surgeon on call that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: did save my life. I think he's quoted as saying,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: that's a bag of bones with a heartbeat.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Basically like toast chance. Yeah, well you were literally toast.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: Toast, yeah, you know, and so I I only now
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: realize how close I was to dying that day and
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: even for the next three days. Pretty dicey, you know.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: But for the emotional part, I just want to share,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: you know. Richie mentioned that scene where I'm walking out
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: of the hospital, I'm being discharged, and I break down,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: and that's the first time we really see those sort
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: of the beginnings of the emotional dawning of what's happening.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: And there was one there was one moment prior because
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: we talk about being strong and like the heat of
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: the fire and how you you know, how to smile
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: and be courageous in ICU and how that happened, and
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: that was very much my personality. But there was a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: moment where Jen and I were watching a movie. She
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: was on my left side, and so that's so watching
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: a film on our laptop.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm in my hospital bed.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: Jen is either in the bed with me or sitting
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: next right next to it, or watching my laptop watching
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: a movie, and in my mind, I am caressing her knee,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: like I have my hand on her knee, and I'm like,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: just you know, touching it just like you would kind
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: of put a hand on your significant you know. And
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: then at some point I look over and it hits
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: and I realized, like, I don't have a hand on
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: my left arm anymore. And what I was feeling was
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: thirty years of memory that when you sit next to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: someone you care about to watch a movie, you throw
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: an arm over and you just touch them.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: On their leg or their shoulder, the fansom. Yeah, it was.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: It was in my mind.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: It was so real, and I remember just breaking down
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: in that moment that there was going to have to
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: be a whole mental shift that you no longer have
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: a left hand.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Guy, So they they amputate up to like like halfway
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: up your.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Forearm, right, that's about where it is. And what do
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: they do to your torso you and your head and
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: your thigh.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: The craft skin on there?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: What was the process of healing from that?
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: I mean for the most part, that forty eight days
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: stay was you know, up to twelve surgeries, which was
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: every other day, every three days, every four days of
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: surgery grafting skin, harvesting skin from a healthy part of
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: your body and using it to cover and rebuild skin
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: on a wound's site.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: You know, and that was that was every day, you know.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: And actually we stopped my surgery short. We stopped my
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: surgery short because it was let's say it was mid
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: way through my stay. One of my exit wounds was
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: in my scrotum and as they surgeons through their process
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: are cleaning up all the dead tissue in my body.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: I go into a surgery and they I come out
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: of surgery and they're like, you know, you get a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: report or a debrief and you know, hey, we couldn't
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: save your left testy or whatever it was, and you know,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: I'm losing so many body parts and bits and pieces
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: that it's just kind of like, okay.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you didn't think that was on the menu.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: Oh man. And I bet there's some listeners being like whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: what are you talking about?
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: Like you think it's bad?
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: And then it's like, all right, you know you're to
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: lose this too, yeah, like but that wasn't part of
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: the deal.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: No, it wasn't. And yet so the doctor leaves, right,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: and my brother's in the room and Jen and I
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: don't know who else, and I and the nurse.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: There's a nurse in the room and I just kind
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: of share to the room. Maybe my brother whoever, like, huh, well,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: I never never liked that one anyway. That was one
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: that always gave me problems. And I don't know if
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: my brother asked, well, what do you mean by problems,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: or if I shared. But you know, years prior, while yachting,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: years years prior, I remember having a pain in my groin.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: I remember having a doctor check it out. Squeeze, squeeze,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: pole poll you look fine. You know you're on your
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: feet twenty hours a day. You're probably just pulled to
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: something taking ibuprofen. And I just put that idea to
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: bed that I needed to look into my physical health.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: But in that moment when they're like, oh, you just
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: lost your left testy, I thought to myself, like that
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: memory shot up and I was like, oh wait, years
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: ago I had an issue with that thing, Like good riddance.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: And my brother Chase, this is the surgeon down the hall,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: and it's like, hey, just want to throw this out there.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: After you left the room, EDWARDO mentioned this and I
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: don't know what you do with that, And so that
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: kind of set an alarm off in the doctor's head
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: or the surgeons and they so they went to everybody
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: part that every piece that leaves you goes to the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: lab and they run results. So he had that test
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: he ran and came back with positive tumor markers seminem
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: a testicular cancer.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: So you just can't get a break.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, there's that.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: Funn there's the funny scene in the movie where Chen's like, yeah,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: you know, because you had your ups and downs in
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: this relationship, and she's in a position where she has
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: to sign off on the removal of the testicle of
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: her ex boyfriend, you know.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: She and she also is like a good riddance.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly right, Yeah, exacting her little like revenge
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: as she's taking care of you twenty four hours a day.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: I yeah, totally.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: She Jen is a is a voracious screenwriter and sticks
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: to comedy stand up comedian as well. And so just
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: that actual reality that the girlfriend that got cheated on
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: gets to sign away the ex boyfriend's you know, testicles, Like,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, how good.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: Does it get?
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't you can't write, you can't screap that.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: But I mean, come on, like all right, you're literally
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: hanging on for your life.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, oh, by the way, you have testicular cancer.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: And then they find it in your spine.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: So they're there.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: So then of course, I mean the red lights go on,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: the sirens, Blair, and I get a whole panel done
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: and cat scans, and there was a mass of tissue
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: in my lower abdomen right up against my spine that
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: was just assumed to be trauma related to the electrocution,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: but not of concern. And now all of a sudden,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: they're like, wait a minute, that could be a second
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: stage tumor. And so I mean, it was just insane,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm I don't even know how to talk
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: about it in short verse, you know, because I'm in
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: the hospital having my life saved. Limbs are getting chopped
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: off left, right, and center. I'm losing all these pieces
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: of my body, and I'm just trying to make it
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: through these surgeries, man, you know, like I am just
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: to be courageous, to not give up, to believe that
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: it's all going to be cool.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: And then oh, and you.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: Have testicular cancer, by the way, And so at that
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: point I was just I remember being frustrated, and I
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: mean frustrated, that's it. That's it, right, but frustrated because
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: I was eagerly anticipating knocking these things out and getting
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: back to life, like just getting back to what I
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: wanted to go do, et cetera. And now I have
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: to stop my surgeries. I go do rigorous FEMO therapy
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: in Montana for three months. I got the choice Salt
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: Lake City or go home.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: I went home.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: How where were you in the process of, you know,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: recovering from all the injuries at that point.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: Like right, so, I mean halfway. I still had pending
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: surgeries to reconscript reconstructing my scalp. So we stopped, you know,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: we stopped kind of closed all my wounds up, got
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: myself stable, went through chemotherapy, and then when I finished
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: my last round of chemo, took up remedial surgery on
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: my amputated forearm to clean up that that site, and
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: then did another year it's worth of plastic surgery work
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: on my scalp. So it really, I mean it slowed
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: things down and extended another twelve months of recovery and surgery.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're trying to your body's trying to repair
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: itself from these cataclysmic injuries and then you know, okay,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: so now we're going to just bombard it with chemotherapy
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and crush your immune system. And right, I can't imagine,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: like you know, the the body must have just been
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: like shut down.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, yeah, it that I mean it was.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: I mean that is not what chemotherapy does. It kills
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: all your rapidly producing cells. And I had a goal
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: if I hiked every single day that I set in
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: that fusion chair, I would like keep it was like
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: me against chemotherapy, and I may not win, at least
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: stay above it.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: But I was going to meet it toe to toe
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: every day, right yeah?
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: And your cancer free? Now?
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, as I'm told, I get a check up once
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: a year.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: Right right, right?
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Wow?
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: So how many surgery is all told about?
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: Twenty one?
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah? How did they fix your head?
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: It's amazing. I have listen, man, I plastic surgery. You know,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: it's such a misnomer that I mean, plastic surgery is
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: for all of these you know, we use them for
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: whatever we want plastic surgery to be. But I never
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: forget walking into coreagraa walls my surgeon's office and there's
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: all these different breast cup sizes on her counter as
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: a display, you know, like dozens of them, and you
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: know that's her work. So she's you know, she's talking
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: about what they are. And then I realized that plastic
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: surgery is an incredible piece of technology that allows people
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: to return back to their most complete physical sense, you know.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: And so for me, I had two giant, like the
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: size of an orange, wounds in my scalp where my
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: skull was at touched, but my scalp was gone, one
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: on my forehead which you can't see, and one on
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: the right side of my head. And they basically inserted
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: baggies and stretched my skin out, and when there was
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: enough elasticity in that stretched skin, they pulled it over
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: the chunk of skull that no longer had scalp.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, just extraordinary process.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I can't looking at you right now, like
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: I can't see anything. But when you watch the movie,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, yeah, and your torso, you
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: know in the movie you see without your shirt on,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: like once it's healed, it's remarkable how normal it looks.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: The surgeons did an incredible job keeping my torso symmetrical.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: So my my latissimus was is connected from your hip
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: and runs up to your scapula, and they removed they
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: disconnected it from my hip and brought it basically out
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: the side and then what's called the muscle flap, and
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: they used it and pulled it over my torso and
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: my abdominals to cover that lack of a body matter. Right,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: that was you know, my obliques, half of my obliques,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: half of my pectoral muscle unless I were all removed.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: And the way the surgeon says, he's like, we just
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: removed all this muscle from you and we have to
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: fill it back in with something.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and but you.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Still have unbelievable range of motion considering you you're you're
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: lacking all that that's those structural muscles on one side
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: of your body. Like how are you even able to
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: like move your arm and your shoulder, Like how does all?
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: So I asked that I saw you doing pull ups,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: Like how does that work? Without laughs?
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: I asked, I asked that question. I said, so, like,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: how does this work?
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: You know, you're telling me half my obliques all left side,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: half my obliques, half my pictoral, my abdominals, my latisimus
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: so is all being removed and it either is gone
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: or being you know, my latisimus is still there, but
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: it's brought over and no longer serving its function place.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just at your feet as a filler.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: And my doctor just you know, is like, well, you
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: have all of the subset of subsets of minor muscle
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: groups below the major groups, and with the big group
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: not present or that large muscle not present, those smaller
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: muscles are going to kick into gear and start working
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: and developing and growing stronger in lieu of big brother
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: no longer being there.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: And that's what I've experienced.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: I mean it, look when you know, I'm missing a
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: huge chunk of my left quadrucep And I don't know
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: if anyone out there beliezing karma or what it is,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: but I'm like, all of these things are left side
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: on my body, whether it's the hand, the testicle, the muscles,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: everything is all left side for the most part, and
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: so you'd think that the entire left side of my
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: move mints would be totally off.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: And I am just grateful that the way I was put.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: Back together, that I can run and jump and bike
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: and swim and do my thing without really with no
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: noticeable skew to the left type movements, which is increasley.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: When you're running, it looks totally normal. Yeah, which is crazy.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, the amount of muscle removed from your quad
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: is like, you know, a giant surloin.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: And yet when I hike, you know, if I'm going
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: vertical up a hill or if I'm by any if
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: I'm locomotive, I'm moving, I don't feel that. And I
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: truly believe that whatever that, all the supporting muscles just
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: rallied on that side and said, this side needs to
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: be as strong as the other side.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: Let's go.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that the only real injury on the right
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: on your right side is is in your head to
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: the brain, but the right side of the brain controls
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: the left side.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: Right, that's wild, that is wild.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we should say just because I don't know
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: that we've made it clear these injuries, like it was
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: the electricity leaving your body, right, the electricity like exiting
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: your body literally.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: Through your skull, through your torso and through your quad.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah. In your hand yeah yeah, yeah, that's crazy.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: And what you have but you have some scars on
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: your right hand, is that from something different?
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: No? That's exit.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: That's exit too. They're just a little less severe than
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: the other ones.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they And that's something you know, you look at
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: those scars, you know, and I always say that our
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: scars are are sort of the roadmap that shows us
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: how we got here, you know, emotional scars, physical scars.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know that's that's sort of how
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: you in the movie, like how do you uh, you know,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: looking back on this experience, like how do you process
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: it and like how do you.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: Think about how it informs your life?
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, I.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: Was just say, quite simply, I'm still working on that
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: every like literally, you know, I woke up today in
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: La and came out here and my morning was spent
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: talking to my fiance about our future plans right now.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: And I'm reminded every single day in a very positive,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: welcoming way about this injury.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: You know. It's like I don't wake up every day
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: and say, oh man, I wish I wasn't an amputee,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: or oh man, you know, like I wish I.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: Had in the last three years of my life. To that,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: it's rather like, oh man, what am I doing today?
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to be sure to not agree to
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: do anything or to put myself into any scenario that's
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: not exactly how I want my life to be. So
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: it's you know, in so many ways on the outside,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: and that first glance if you if we've never met
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: and you never heard the story, it's like, that's the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: most tragic thing I've ever heard. And on the other hand,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: it's it's like a blessing because it's a daily reminder
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: to just go get it.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: Do you wish that it hadn't happened or do you
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: feel like, in some weird way by having these things
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: removed that it has completed you. I, I do not
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: wish that this didn't happen. Well, on a second, you
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: don't wish that it didn't wait.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: Like some folks are like, oh, would you go back?
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: Would you? Would you go back?
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: If you could go back to twenty eleven and not
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: get executed, would you do it? And at this point,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: absolutely like, no, I love the person I am today
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: and I am blessed with the opportunity to still be
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: alive and share my experience with others like mine.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 4: That it enriches my experience here, you know, And.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it enriches my experience my mom my mom says
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: something along the lines of we all need to we
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: all are well served understanding humility. And look, I'm not
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: saying anyone wishes something like this on anybody. The point
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: being is that humility can be found through so many
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: different ways. And I could tell you right now that
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: I am better off today than I was prior to
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: this injury, given sort of my connection with my heart,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: my true self, my desires, my physical person in the world.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: Prior to that, probably a little in balance, probably getting
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: a little too far ahead of myself with like I'm
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: going to do this, I'm going to be this, and
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go this way, And more so today,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: in large part because of this injury, I don't get
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: so far away from that, Like, hey, don't forget who
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: you are and who you need.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: To be in this world.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've literally been forced to slow down physically. Like
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: there are those sequences in the movie where it's like
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: you want to go in the kitchen and like bam
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: bam bam, and like do it the way.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, it's not gonna work that way, dude.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have to like chill, like chill bro right,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: But that compulsion on a very physical level to slow down.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: Seems like it then makes its way.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: Into your kind of emotional, spiritual body and perspective to go,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: hey man, let's just like be here right now. Let's
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: how can we honor this moment in a different way.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we started this conversation talking about a show called
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: Active Ingredient, whereby pre injury, Eduardo believed that there.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: You know that we are all the.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: Integral part of our own best recipe of self right,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: and like I wrote that show, you know, like I
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: believed that, and yet post injury, I get to, like
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: I live and walk that.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: Now, wait, that's super interesting because yeah, it's almost like
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: you literally had to burn in this fire to become
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: that person that you sort of thought you were beforehand,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: that you were trying to embody, but you actually weren't
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: that guy.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: Now you are that guy, and you can.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: Carry that vibration in a way that when because I'm
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: sure it's going to happen, the show happens, that you
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: can be that impactful voice that you always wanted to
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: be that perhaps you thought you were before, but now
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: you actually really are. Like in recovery, and they always say,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: like you can't transmit something you haven't got. You could
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: talk about transmitting something you haven't got, but if you're
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: not backing it up with actually who you are and
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: your life experience, Like if you haven't lived it enough,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: then you can talk about it, but it's not going
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: to connect with anyone else, like unconsciously, we know, like
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: is that guy full of it?
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: Or is that guy like the real thing?
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly across the board, right, So, like whether it's
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the Eduardo pre the injury, wanted to share
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: my love of life with the world on the largest
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: platform possible. Okay, I'm going to be a TV show
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: host and I'm going to create and sell a TV show.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: The why behind that was genuine and authentic, but like O,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: like it just didn't maybe it didn't have that level
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: of understanding and like authentic experience to add to it,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: you know. And you know, as well as with the
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: food company, you know, with Montana Max, Like I had
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: been cooking for most of my adult life, and I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: had been cooking for the last decade for families for.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 4: Kids, like really.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: Really inspired by the fact that I was a conduit
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: between life and death. Fore like we got to eat
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: every day, you know, and so being a part of
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: how people eat was a beautiful part of my life.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: And like going into that injury, but coming out of
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: that injury still having the food company Montana mex I
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: only came out of that injury stronger in every single conviction, Like, yes,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: I still want to share my passion with the world
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: and my belief that we are our own active ingredient. Yes,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: I want to talk to the world on the largest
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: scale possible about how national food companies can be free
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: of all of this junk, of all of this stuff,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: can be philanthropic, can give back, can make better business sense.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: I mean in every step, in every sense of the
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: word stronger.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: Well, you're you're a literal conduit between life and death
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: in a very different way than what you described.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: You know you could carry prior right, yeah, yeah, check
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: in an emotional way, yeah, charge.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, what's funny, it's like grounded too, like you
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: literally like you know the word grounded like from you know,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: in an electrical sense, you know, but grounded in a
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: very emotional and spiritual sense as well. Like you can
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: own your you can own your footing in a way
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: that you couldn't before. And look, you don't do especially
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: as a young person, like you don't like aspire to
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: have a TV show unless there's some ego involved, Right,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: So what is the And that's fine, Ego's fine unless
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: it's out of balance. So what is the balance of
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: ego and that equation versus from then versus now?
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a certain amount of Maybe, I mean,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: you can it may help me out. You know, maybe
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: there's a word outside of ego that is that thing
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: within you that.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: Knows it is.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: Desirable, knows that it is capable, and knows that it
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: is valuable. And you know, I think we associate ego
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: into this sense of of I am this, I am that,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: and yet at some point I needed a certain amount
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: of whatever that was just to make it.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 4: Through that time. Sure, I needed to believe that I
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 4: could do this. I was going to be okay, Like
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: I could add value to the team around me.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: But the humility that is often not present with ego
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: is definitely something that I pulled out of that fire. Yeah,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: it's like I can believe myself all day long, but
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: you need to be like, be yourself too, and yourself
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: is not that guy that you left behind ten years
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: ago or at that you.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, I would imagine that it's some combination of
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: like the strength that comes from self belief that I
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: guess on some part it's derived from ego. And if
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: there isn't a word from what you just described, there
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: should be balancing that against deep humility and really like
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: a surrender to the fact that you have so little
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: control over this right, Like like you're in that boat
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: being tossed around by those waves and you're in an ICU,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: you know, at the behest of a team of doctors
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: who are doing their best, but like there's very little
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: that you can do. What are the things you can control?
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: You can control your attitude, how you're how you're acting
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: towards you know, your medical staff and the loved ones
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: that are that are caretaking for.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: You, and your frame of mind, your your your optimism
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: or pessimism about what is actually occurring in real time.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: But the surrender part, and I think this gets I'm
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: interested in your thoughts on this. I think what gets
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: lost when we talk about surrender is that we we
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: sort of think that that means giving up or you know,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: that letting go is a weakness. But in my experience
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: Interested in yours.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: Like surrendering creates like a freedom and a different kind
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: of strength to approach a problem from a more empowered
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: and humble perspective that ultimately and my experience, leads to
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: better results.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, And I think from my perspective, nothing
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: is stronger than truth, right, Like there's like truth is
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: bad rock. And for every every opportunity sense this injury
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: and and moving forward because you know, post this injury,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of moments that challenged my truth
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: and I've had to recognize them and decline to engage
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: in whatever those were. And Yeah, you wake up at
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: thirty something, and you're missing all of these body parts, right,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: and you're no longer who you were, and you just
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: can't lie to yourself like you can't. You don't have
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: that left hand, you are no longer symmetrical, you are
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: no longer the person you were prior.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 4: It's just not true.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: And so owning the truth of this is the me
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: going forward is also becomes sort of like the foundation
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: of all, Right, do I want to do that?
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 4: Thing? I don't know?
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: Is that who I am is to say yes to
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: that or agree to that, or is it to decline
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: it and say no. And so to your point of
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: giving up, it's not like, honestly, I think it's nothing
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: to do with giving up. It's actually a super strong, bold,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: powerful move is to just make a decision based on truth,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: you know, And yeah I don't. That is the power
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 3: for me anyway.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: I think that the hard part for a lot of
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: people is trying to divine what that truth is though.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 3: Sure, and yet I think if you boil it down, though,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: and you look at yourself naked in the mirror, and
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: it's like, well, here's.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 4: What it is somewhere.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: What makes you happy, what makes you sing, what feels
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: your fire, Do something small, Do something small, you know,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: on like by the hour, by the day, by the week,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: by the month. And for me, go you know, in chemo,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 3: when I was going through all my treatments for three months,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: for me, it was reading and it was hiking outside.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 3: And I could maybe only hike for ten minutes on
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: any given one day, and then all of a sudden
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: it was fifteen minutes, and then it was two hours,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: and then you know, it was half a day.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: But I knew that that.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing, though, too, is I knew I needed
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: that I knew that that was going to just keep
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: me moving. But at some point I recognize that I
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: was taking advantage of that too, and I wasn't growing.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: I was just comfortably being like, Oh, I'm going to
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 3: hike every single day and this is going to solve everything.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 4: This is going to be keep me cool. And at
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: at some point I had to push out of that.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: I think part of the lesson, you know, as somebody
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: who hyperactive kid wants to be outdoors, can't sit still,
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: you know, in the kitchen. You know, I would imagine
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: like you know, sort of thriving on the chaotic, you know,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: like environment of being in a kitchen, like all of
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: that is like that's your that's your like mana, like
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: that's your fuel dance. And here you just get you
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: just get sidelined where you have to stop and you
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: cannot do these things that are part and parcel of
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: who you are. But I would imagine on some emotional level,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: are almost like ways of escaping or not dealing with
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: things that you really need to work through if you
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: want to become fully actualized, to become a whole person,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: and you have to have these body parts removed in
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: order to confront that and become.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: Whole so that you can sit here today and do
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: the things that you that you do.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's what's interesting is I that oment
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: Central Park twenty thirteen with a group called the Challenge
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: Athletes Foundation out of San Diego, the group that kind
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: of got me involved in travel on sports.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: And it's an incredible organization.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. They check them out if you haven't.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 4: They do terrific work. And a friend.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: Is a big supporter and recommended I check out the
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: Challenge Athletes Foundation and they invite me to their big
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: fundraiser event on the East Coast and there's a fun
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: run in the morning Central Park and I show up,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of you know, a T shirt with
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: my prosthetic gone, wearing like skate shoes and skate shorts.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know, not really ready to run. Maybe I
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 4: had ten shit.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: First, like kind of like sort of legit structured race
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: type of that kind of thing.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is yeah, and this is a fun run,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 4: but this is what it is. This is the first
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 4: time that I have.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: Stepped into a room of people's not all of who
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: have disabilities, but into a room that recognizes the person
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 3: with a disability and says like, you're an amputee and
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 3: it's not a bad thing.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 4: Like that's how they're just defining, like cool, you're thirteen
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: years old in your male or you know, oh you're
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 4: an amputee below the elbow. Cool, you know what sports
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: do you do? Or it was like it was just
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: like boom, it was like saying what's your name? You know?
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: And I and for me that like I had to
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: give up or I had to throw my hands in
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 3: the air and say I give up on this notion
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: that I can hide and protect the old Eduardo. Like
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 3: when my hair was falling out going through chemo, my
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 3: sideburns stayed on for some random reasons so I could
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 3: wear a beanie and maybe it looks like I still
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: had hair, you know, and then whatever. I look at
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 3: photos of that now and it's like, what were you
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: thinking you didn't have eyebrows?
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 4: Man?
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you don't strike me as a guy who's
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: like trying to hide. I mean like in the movie
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: you're like having fun pulling your hair out with Jen.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 4: And I was like, wow, like yeah, but you know
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 4: written and so to be fair though, rich that was
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 4: in my home that was in private, like, and I
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 4: didn't go out.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: I didn't, you know, like I beat other than my family.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: Like I remember, I remember having passover in Montana and
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: my grandparents were there, and I like, I didn't ask
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: my grandmother, but I kind of just told her. I
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: was considering not wearing my hat at dinner inside, but
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: I always wear my hat because my head's got this
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 3: big divot and I haven't finished all these surgeries because
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: my surgeries were put on hold. So my head was
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: like bald, no hair, big big, big open, like you know,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 3: divid in the back of it, really like disfigured looking.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 4: And she just looked at me. She's like, Eddie, we
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: don't love your head. We love you. Take the hat off,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: And so for so, when I went to that run
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 3: with the Challenge Athletes Foundation in Central Park, I gave
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 3: up the idea that I needed to hold on to
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: the old me and an eighteen year old kid, Thomas Caine,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: was my catalyst. He came up and he was like, Hi,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 3: I'm a Thomas, and I was like, hey, I'm a Duardo,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: and he immediately just zeros in on my left hand.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 3: He's like, you're going to run with that on, and
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 3: he's pointing out my prosthetic. It's like saying, hey, rich
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 3: are we going to go do a marathon tomorrow? Are
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 3: you bring your backpack? You want your backpack?
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: You know, like you're not going to run with that on?
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 3: And I just had never considered that I could comfortably
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 3: take off my prosthetic in public and just have.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 4: My forearm exposed. And I did.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 3: In that moment, I surrendered and I just owned it.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: I said, I need to own whoever I am right
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 3: now today, like I need to love this person, I
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 3: need to be proud of this person, and I need
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: to be an active part of whoever I am moving forward,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 3: not stuck in this old concept of self.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: And how did that feel to take it off in
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: that run?
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 4: Gosh?
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: Man, I was like, you hadn't run without it, or
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: you hadn't like you just never you're always covering it
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: up in public.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: I hadn't moved without it being on, Like I'd gone
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 3: to bed, I take it off the end of the
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 3: day and I go to bed. I hadn't really done
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 3: anything active without it on. And it was you ever
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 3: seen like a you know, an animal frolic through the
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 3: fields it's like bing, you know, like feel freek Yeah,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 3: it was liberating, and.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 4: You know, I cried. It was like man, like not
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 4: I can do this? Like I can? I can still run?
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 4: Well how far can I run?
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 3: And so I mean immediately that night at the fundraiser,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 3: you know, it's in the Walterrfroest story of downtown Manhattan.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 3: Eight hundred people in the room, and someone like nudges
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 3: me and they're like, and where.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 4: Are we going to see you at our triathlon? And
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 4: I was like yeah. And then I woke up the
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 4: next morning I was like, wait a minute, what's a triathlon? Like?
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 4: You know? And no, I had no concept of what
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 4: I had just done other than I was just super
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 4: jazzed with the freedom to be me again.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've gone on and done lots of stuff
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: with ciof right every year?
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, every year every year, do a handful of trathlons
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: or events and support them in any way we can.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: So I saw I noticed that you you somehow strap
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: like a big hand paddle on your left forearm.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: To compensate a little bit like school, how you make
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: those adjustments.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah for swimming, And I'm still working on my bike
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 4: adjustment do you have.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: A different sort of attachment to allow you to grip
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 2: the handlebar? How does that work?
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's imagine like a pac Man hand, you know,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 3: so you can just kind of flex it around the
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: round handlebar. They I mean there, and there's there's a
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 3: lot out there for amputees. And then I mean that's
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 3: what the Challenge Athletes Foundation specifically, what they do is there,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 3: Like you want to be a Paralympic snowboarder, you want
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 3: to be a rugby you know, basketball player or a
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 3: wheelchair rugby player for kids too, you know, adults of
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 3: all ages. So for me, I have a hand and
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 3: a special carbon fiber attachment that I use for biking specific.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: And yeah, they help get those very special athletic advantages
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: to those people.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And so now like lucky me, right like now
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: I'm an abute I get to understand this whole new
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: part of being human, which is living with a disability
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 3: or whatever you want to call it.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 4: And so then I you know, so it impacts every
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 4: part of me.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 3: Like I'll talk about our foe company, Montana X, and
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 3: just that we've always wanted to be a company that
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: was organic, was free of preservatives, was free of colorings,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 3: was free of any chemicals, was transparent, was not you know,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 3: doing its best to be a great contribution to people's
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 3: lives in the world around us. That's pre injury and
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: like you said, like you know, you can transmit something
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 3: until you have it. And then after my injury, I mean,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 3: we kept the company open while the whole company was
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 3: in ICU with me, brother, sister, myself, you know, we
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 3: had one employee still running the show, you know, and
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: now Montana X represents so much more in that it's
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 3: living and breathing. Like before my injury, we wanted these
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 3: products to be the cleanest, best they could be for people,
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 3: and now they still are those and now we partnered
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 3: with the Challenge Athletes Foundation put them on our label.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 3: So now we get to be like, hey, we don't
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 3: just want this company to succeed from a business point
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 3: of view.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 4: We want this company to really add value.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: And you know, by the end of the year, know
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: that we have executed our business successfully enough to actually
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: give back to others, not.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 4: Just food, but help a kid get that rugby wheelchair.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: So cool, So divert some of the revenue towards CIF
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: Every year.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 4: Five percent yeah, five percent of proceeds.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: What I saw some video of you with like the
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: actual but the hand the bionic cans. Do you still
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: have that?
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 4: I do? Oh my gosh, come you don't wear that?
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 4: I get a drawer full of them, do you I do. Yeah.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 3: There's a great story of my girlfriend, my now fiance,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: moved in and she discovered the hand drawer. I was
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 3: like freak down, like kicked the clothes, and you know,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 3: I guess I forgot to mention that the lower drawer
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: to the right in the bathroom was the hand drawer, and.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: Like she just stumbled into some weird circus behind.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 4: Right and I wasn't home, so you know, But.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 3: You know, I found that I have friends who are
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 3: bilateral amputees, so they have their missing both limbs, and
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: it really serves them well to have a prosthetic that
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 3: is powered through a motor and that communicates with sensors
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: to the muscles and whatever part of the body is affected.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 3: And for me, I I've had those, I've worn them,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: and I never really progressed far enough to a place
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: that I was really excited to use them. For me,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: it was just like it's too slow. It doesn't really
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 3: work as well as I wanted to. And I've found
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 3: that what I'm wearing right now is a I would
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: say the this is your more typical prosthetic.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 4: You're used to seeing upper bodied people.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 3: So there's a hook and it's pulled and powered by
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 3: a cable that's attached to a harness on my shoulder.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 4: So it's all body powered movements.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 3: And the beauty beauty of this is that I can
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 3: get it wet, I can beat it up, I can
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 3: fix it with what's in my suitcase. It's indestructible and
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: if it breaks, it's not one hundred thousand dollars to repair.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also you're diversifying your your your dexterity because
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: that can do things your hand can't do.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: You have two hands, they do the same thing, but
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: that can do a bunch of stuff your handgamp.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 4: Right, It's true. The hook has come in handy.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: I had Do you know Paul de Guelder, he's a
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: double amputee who survived a shark attack and I had
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: them on here.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: It's got a crazy story.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: You got attacked by a nine football shark in Sydney
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: Harbor and he's the equivalent of like a Australian Navy
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: seal and now he does shark preservation. You know, his
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: story is different than yours, but also similar in the
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: way that he's like using what happened to empower other
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: people but also give back to causes. And you know,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: it's is cool that that he still goes and dies
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: with sharks and he's all about like preserving this animal
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: that literally almost took his life, should have taken his life, right,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: but he had actual hand and it was amazing that
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: how you can, you know, make all the finger like
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: the level at which this technology has developed to is
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: really quite shocking.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 3: One hundred percent freedom it's giving people. Yeah, no, I
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 3: I And so you know, I'm thirty six years old,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 3: and you know the I the way that my body
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 3: now works with a prosthetic left hand is not how
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 3: it's supposed to be. I have to put a lot
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 3: of pressure into making this hook work every day, right,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: and you know I feel it my joints, and so
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 3: one day I may shift to a myoelectric powered hand,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: but for now it serves me. I can beat it
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 3: up and use it as a hammer.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 2: And what has been the most challenging part of this
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: whole journey for you, like what gets lost in the
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: narrative that we see out in the world about you,
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: or what do people not understand and you know something
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: that that has been difficult for you.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I I think that there's a certain
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 3: level of I keep wanting to say confusion, but it's it's, it's,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 3: it's it's there's a there's a certain amount of me
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 3: that feels that I owe everyone and everything so much
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: to the point that I it's really become a challenge
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 3: for me to make sure that I'm still focused on
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 3: what I need, even though I've said that so many times,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 3: just for the last hour with you in that I mean,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 3: how many times when this film, like this film.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 4: Came out of nowhere.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, let's say there was no documentary, I would have,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 3: you know, gone back to work, and I would have
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 3: worked on the food brand and worked on the TV
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 3: show and Edward O in his life. This documentary kind
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 3: of came out of nowhere. So I feel like there's
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 3: a part of me that anyone who's witnessed this story,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 3: watched the film, or you know, follows follows me through
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 3: whatever public medium, just the part they don't see is
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 3: the struggle to present continue to present this life. Because
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: I'm very proud to still be alive. I'm very grateful,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 3: and I feel like sharing this film with I was,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 3: sharing my story with others is beneficial to many, and
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: I know it.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 4: I've heard it. I get the feedback every day.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 3: By the dozens. But then there's a part that really
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: struggles with saying like I want to harm it up.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 3: I want to go find my retreat. And what I'm
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 3: working on right now is is not doing the extreme
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 3: of either, and rather just finding the bat balance of
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: how much time do I need to work on preserving
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 3: my sense of self and my own energy and my
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 3: own compass north so that I can still be in
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 3: service of others.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, if you lose sight of that, then you
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: don't have anything to give anyway, none, you know, none.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: But I can't. Yeah.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: I can imagine the demands on you to show up
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: here and there, and they're probably all.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: Cool and sound like fun, but your tank will quickly empty.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 4: Well and like it's tough, man.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: I you know.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 3: So, my dad passed away last November, and the film
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 3: has offered me this incredible two year time period where
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 3: I'm being interviewed with my dad, and we're putting together
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 3: content for this documentary, without which I would not have
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 3: like incredible, incredible pieces of pearls of wisdom in the
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 3: form of video or written or editor or or recorded.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 4: And so like, I'm I'm all for this process.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 3: I'm all for sharing charge, I'm all for sharing myself
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 3: out there with the world. But at the same time,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 3: I just I feel like I get a little lost
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 3: in I'm I'm I'm hungry for things, so like, if
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 3: I want to go do something, I really want to
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 3: go do it. And it's still continually very hard feeling
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: guilty of not giving myself to others when I'm just
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 3: like I'm falling apart in here, Like I need to
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 3: be at home. I need to tend to my own tools,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 3: I need to tend to my own field here. I
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 3: need to like get myself in order so I can
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 3: continue to give for the rest of my life to others.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 4: That's a hard balance, Yeah, but you.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: Live in Montana, right, be harder if you lived here
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: maybe or like New York or something. You get to
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: go home to your retreat and take care of yourself.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: I know a little bit.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 4: I do. I mean, I did two hundreds. I did
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 4: two hundreds. Agency I'm telling you, you know.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: What I I do.
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: What is what's been the most kind of interesting or
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: impactful experience that you've had in sharing the movie and
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: going around and screening it.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 3: The This isn't an example. This is a non specific
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 3: example of what's happened many times. But when when an
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 3: individual watch is charged not knowing what it is, but
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 3: they just it shows up on their feed, or they
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 3: they're at a festival and they just, you know, the
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 3: festival uses a poster of me with a fly rod.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 3: This literally happened, and a guy and his gal went
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 3: in and thought they were going to a fly fishing film, right, Hello,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 3: you know, not.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: A fly there's some fly fishing in there.
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 3: And yet this guy raises his hand in the Q
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 3: and A and he's like, I'm I'm a veteran. I was,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 3: you know, in Afghanistan and in Iraq and these wars.
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 3: I've lived in this town my whole life, and nobody
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 3: is the first time I've ever said this, pub But
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 3: I struggle every single day X Y and Z and
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 3: I thought I was going to a fly fishing film today,
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 3: and yet through your through watching your journey, and I
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 3: am inspired to stand up right now because I know
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 3: that my community is in this room, small film festival
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 3: in Martha's Vineyard.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 4: And he looks around.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 3: He's like, I feel empowered to share my true self,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 3: which is I'm this guy. He says his name, and
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 3: I struggle every day and it feels really great to
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 3: say that right now after fifteen years.
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: That's it. That's that's the first step in healing.
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 4: I kind of share your story.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: Powerful.
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, share your story.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: I think that's a good place to wrap it up. Dude,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: it was pretty good.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 4: I'm grateful.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: How do you feel.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm inspired to get home, plant my garden.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: The mid did that, well, we'll get you home.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time, especially even more now knowing
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: that you have a tricky relationship with coming out and talking,
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: so I don't take for granted. Man.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: It's really powerful, and I know that everybody listening is
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: is going to be really impacted by it.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 4: So thank you, my pleasure.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 2: If you want to connect with EDWARDO, you can check
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: out his incredible line of food products Montanamex montanamex dot com. Right,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: that's it.
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: Definitely check out charged. That's all we've been talking about
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: for the last hour and a half. I know you
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: could see it on Amazon and you can see it
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: on Vimeo. Are there other places to check it out?
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 4: Amazon, Vimeo, iTunes.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: ITunes, all those places? Cool?
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, charge a movie And if people want to connect
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: with you directly, what's the best place for them to
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: do that?
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: Or maybe you just don't want them to, you.
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 3: Know, Please say hi either on Instagram at sheppied Wardo
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 3: Garcia or go to sheppied Wardo dot com.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 4: Right, say hi and I'll be looking for.
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: That new TV show. Yeah, when it happens to come
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: back and talk to me about it.
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 4: I will. I'm hoping to see you at a Challenge
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 4: Athletes vendh So.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: I know Bob, do you? I'm sure you know Bob Aba.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: I know Bob, So I would love to.
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: I've been invited in the past and for whatever reason,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: I haven't been able to make it.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: But but I would love to, so I can make
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 2: that commitment to you. Yes, right man. Peace