Former UFC Fighter & Green Beret Tim Kennedy

Former Green Beret sniper, UFC Fighter, and New York Times best selling author Tim Kennedy joins the podcast! Tim discusses his book ”Scars and Stripes” along with detailed experiences serving in the military and overcoming life’s challenges. He also gives listeners insight on how suffering can be one of your greatest assets in life, with the right perspective.

Episode Transcript

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(03:04):
Gauge and I am Chance gonna Idon't. On this ridiculously good episode of
the podcast, we are in Austin, Texas talking to the one and only
Tim Kennedy. Tim Kennedy is oneof the most patriotic people I've ever met.
He is a lethal man in everyway, but also just the most
well spoken kind human beings you willprobably ever, you won't get to meet
him, but you'll get to hearfrom him. He's a UFC veteran,

(03:27):
a Green Beret Army ranger. Imean, if you if you want to
read a great book, go gethis new book, Scars and Stripes.
I'm just I'm gonna cut it offhere because I was so excited to talk
to Tim. Check it out.They're just like the most basic boots a
guy could wear. Yeah, yeah, boots. I mean my son.
I just we were in California atthe boot barn and I hadn't been to

(03:47):
a boot barn in California in afew years. Boot barns in California.
Well, well I grew up.It's uh, it's militant because we're four
hours north of LA and four hourssouth of San Francisco, so you're in
the agriculture. Oh yeah, everybody'sa farmer. Like all I did was
grew up fighting field workers and fixingfences. Yeah, that's all. It's

(04:10):
kind of the best way to growup. And I walk in there and
I was trying to talk rollout myson into getting some snake boots. And
on the boots there was a labelthat marked that these products were made with
real animals, and it was likethis warning label and I was like,

(04:30):
well, now I know exactly theactual products that I want to get because
they were marking them to warn uswere inversely, I was like, now
I don't have to go through andlike look at the tags to make sure
that that is really interesting for aboot company, because it was the boot
company was a requirement by the stateof California to mark any products that were
made with animals, right, Andwhy would you buy a product that wasn't
made by animals or with animals stufflike especially boots. It boggles the mind.

(04:56):
Yesterday when I was laying all thatsod and I was wearing that black
like George straight hat mistake steak strawhat going to boot Barne today. Yeah,
you're not supposed to wear felt hats. Oh yeah, yeah, but
I was out of options. Yeah, I blew up my other hat.

(05:17):
Yeah, long story, I'm dumb. Yeah. Heaton felt hats is not
a not a good combo m maak. I like the the little bit of
leather around the rim inside the hat, but then a whole um the nice,
breathable, relaxed, comfortable work hat. If you want a really good

(05:41):
straw hat, we'll send you one. I want a really good straw hat.
Okay, we'll send you the beststraw hat. Literally resist all what
like our third biggest sponsor. Youknow, all of our sponsors are your
long sponsors. Tell me about thishat. Don't tease me. Resist all
cowboy hats they're like the original cowboyhats. Come on, okay, I
mean yeah, yeah, Well we'llsin Mary Jane a text and tell her
that Tim Kennedy needs a straw hat. Yeah, I'm a seven and a

(06:04):
quarter. Yep, we'll get youon. Yeah. Yeah, straw hat
season is what Riley another month somethinglike that. Not here, You're gonna
follow the rules. No, there'sthere's all these rules in the cowboy culture
about when you can wear a felthat and when you can wear a straw
hat. You could. I thinkyou can wear a hat a straw hat
in Texas all the way into October. You absolutely can. Yeah, these

(06:26):
are these are just you know howpeople create rules to seem cool. Well,
cowboys do that same thing with thehats. Like the Yankees are like,
ah, you can only wear apin stripe or what's this the suit
that has the vertical blue and whitelines. That's pin stripe? Right,
No, there's like a special namefor um. I'm not great with baseball
stuff, but you can't wear itafter labor day, Well you got the

(06:50):
little housewife thing. I think andthen think, Um, what are these
suits called? Man, I don'tknow that this is a typical typical Southern
problem here. Yeah. Yeah,I don't want Texans trying to figure out
what these suits are called. Idon't know. I'm literally, at this
point in my life only a Floridanand only a Texan, So I'm not
going to be helpful with any ofthat, literally at all. But are

(07:14):
we recording? Tie? Yeah,we're going. Yeah, we've been going
normally. You're like, we're going. Yeah, Well I wasn't looking at
you. I'm so distracted. Startedthe boots talk, talked about the hat.
You're aware. Yeah. Yeah.Usually I'm the one who's like,
they're like, are we going?Yeah, we've been going, but without
headphones and like the feedback because Ican just see you. I know it's
not synthetic. I'm not a fanof most synthetic things. No. No,

(07:38):
almost all of our ninety nine pointnine percent of our podcasts are always
in person. So we're thank youfor being so gracious let us come into
your place. Is awesome, Thanksfor coming down. Yeah, No,
happy to be here and it's gettingto talk especially in the world that we
are in today and how everybody seemslike they're kind of be in a bad
place, and you have this message, and you've always had that message.

(07:58):
I mean I've been obsessed with UFCand things like that since I was probably
twelve or thirteen. I was fortythen. Yeah, yeah, I'm kidding,
yeah yeah. I mean when hetold me that you were sixty three,
I was shocked. I was like, looking good, it doesn't look
that great hair implants. I waslike a skunk. Yeah in a rough

(08:20):
day. Yeah, it's happening.It is what it is. Yeah,
but your message. And I justgot done reading your book. I didn't
put it down, and I'm notmuch of I mean, I've read all
of the books that everybody does,the Joco books and the David Goggins books,
and pretty much anybody who thinks theywant to be what isn't the norm

(08:41):
right now reads I mean, there'skind of like this little methodology that you
can follow if you think you wantto be one of these standout people,
or at least have those principles.And I will be be honest, your
book from that first person's perspective,spoke to me in a really weird way,
especially lately. So thank you.I think, well, I'm sure
that's why you wrote it, becauseI mean, people don't write books,

(09:03):
especially from a vulnerable position. Becauseyou didn't do this like raw ra,
I'm so great thing. You're like, I'm a piece of shit. I
don't want to be a piece ofshit. This is how I figured out
how to not be a piece ofshit. And it spoke to me and
a lot of things just were sodistracted that not a lot of things speak
to anybody. And I just thinkit's really fantastic. Thank you. I

(09:24):
really appreciate that in many your onehundred percent spot on like them in this
twenty twenty two world that we're in, you know, in this uh I
mean synthetic, fake, manufactured,editorialized world where everything is curated. Um
you like we really the intent andmission in that whole entire book was you

(09:48):
know, it wasn't fake fake vulnerability, It wasn't fainted humility. This is
just the truth, as best asI can tell it, of things that
happened in my life that most peopledon't talk about out right. You know,
if you're doing an Instagram photo ora snapchat or TikTok or a Facebook
post, you even subconsciously are goingto be editing the parts that you don't

(10:09):
want other people to see. Andthere there was one of the reasons I
had to have a co author withthis book is to remove that ability,
the subconscious ability to not be sincere, to not be authentic. And you
know, this original thought of likethis, this is what it looks like
to be human and to fail.And I don't think anybody's gonna like look

(10:33):
at my resume and be like,this guy's a failure. But as as
you saw firsthand, it was failureover and over in the worst and most
humiliating ways, like failure in relationships, failures in businesses, failure in fights,
failing on title fights, you know, in front of millions of people.
And there was no excuses that werebeing made. And I definitely didn't
do the insult of like, youknow what, here's my lesson that you

(10:54):
should learn out of here. Ithink that's so insulting. I would rather
I would I would rather assume thatthe person that is picking up this book
is already there with the intent ofwanting to understand how they can be a
better person, and they're gonna haveto draw their own conclusions, and your
conclusion should be different than my conclusion. So in the story of failure,
in the story of and my lifeis wild, and in this wild life

(11:18):
with lots of failures, like you'resmart enough to realize, like, man,
had tim not been such a pieceof shit, it probably would have
turned out better here, you know, And that's that was it? Yeah,
But without that and just that rawlike authenticity is kind of the only
word that I can think of fromit, because even some of the best
books or the best people who haveand there's just there's a lot of if

(11:41):
you want to get authenticity from people, there's a lot of good places you
can find it. But for somereason, just the way that you presented
it, because there's some of thestupid shit you did, some of the
stupid shit I did. I ranmy whole life by ego to the most
annoying points, and you did thesame thing. I'll be it different.
But when somebody creates something and youpick it up and you're like, this

(12:03):
is for me, I don't knowif that was your intent, but I
could tell from the start to thefinish of the book that all you were
trying to do all you want fromit, and it seems like everything you're
doing because that's what's cool about thebook, right, is you can you
actually like I know you after readingthat book, which is weird from not
meeting somebody. And I'm sure thatanybody who's an author, maybe they want

(12:26):
that, maybe they want to beromanticized. But there's nothing you can take
out of it other than this dudejust perseveres that is all that romantic because
it's tragic. There's a lot oftragedy and heartache and poor decision making.
But then it culminates in like Iwant to be a good person. You
know what, No, I'm gonnabe a fucking good person, and that

(12:48):
is like the best thing that youcan have if you want real Yeah,
yeah, I mean you're you couldn'tbe more accurate. And the want is
half of it. Like I wantto be a good person. I do,
And a want is useless, youknow, A want without action,
without discipline, without consistency over timewill always be a want, you know,

(13:09):
Like I want to be financially freeso my kids can can live the
life that they want to live.I want to be financially free and have
sovereignty where nobody is going to haveinfluence over the decisions where if they say,
hey, I want you to putthis in your body, and if
you don't, then I'm going topenalize you financially or you're not going to
be able to have a job.Like sovereignty is me being able to be
like, well, I don't care, you know, like you have no

(13:31):
control over me in any way,shape or form. But that's my want.
And without the actual hard work,the consistency over time, that will
always remain a want. And Ithink you've seen this book over years,
you know, over decades. Therethere's a clear want. There, there's
a purpose where you know, Godput me on a planet to do a

(13:52):
thing and I want to do thatthing. I didn't always know how to
do that thing, and I madea lot of mistakes in trying to do
that thing. But you see consistencyover time, you know, and like
you're not gonna outwork me. I'mgonna work. I'm gonna work. I'm
gonna work. And there are somany people that are like man, they
they have they have stuck the flagin the ground that they're gonna hate me
to the day that they die,and then they pick up this book with
the hope and intent of wanting tofind more information to try to hate me

(14:16):
with their confirmation bias, and thenthey read it the worst thing they could
do because they're going to realize thatthey got it wrong. You know,
like that there is an intent,that there is a want for me to
try to make an impact in agood way, and you can't outwork me,
and there will be consistency over time. There will be a lot of
failure, So like if you justgrab one of the failure, there's a
lot of that, Like I stepon on my crank more times than I

(14:39):
know. But the want, thehard work, and the consistency over time
is what gives you Garner's actual results. Yeah, And I mean that's from
kind of the start of the book, which you started the book so brilliantly.
I didn't come here with the intentionof only talking about your book,
but it's just it's so fresh inmy mind. And then sitting here thinking
about heard it must have been tooAnd I'm sure you had done a lot

(15:01):
of self reflection before that, knowingthat like, oh my god, I'm
gonna have to show my ass mydick every worst part of me, worst
possible Bible group right now they havelike the church has like a Bible reading
book club. They're reading my bookright now, and I'm like, oh
god, it is right. They'reso um Paula, my mom. Yeah,

(15:24):
I could just see, you know, missus Troop or Missus Sylva sitting
across from from her to be like, so when Tim thought he had AIDS
and there were a few women pregnant, what were you doing exactly as his
mother in this in this particular momentin time, and my mom was just
gonna be like, yeah, well, in the way you describe your parents

(15:45):
in the book, especially your mom, it's like you could see how she
would be reacting based on like herprinciples and the way you describe her and
what she values, and it's like, there's no way that you could have
let your mom down in that moment. Worse probably yeah, but she probably
that through it. You know.They just celebrated their fiftieth winning anniversary last

(16:06):
week, flew to California, andum, they they have the exact like
they gave us a construct. Theythey they laid out this template of what
does it look like to be aflawed human that wants to be better,
like they are not perfect, likethey're my dad, being an undercover,

(16:29):
undercover, an arcotics officer, allthe stress, all the things that going
along with that, you know,to include alcohol, you know, like
traveling the world and being in badplaces at bad times with bad people,
and all the temptations that go withthat, like that all existed, and
the failures that go with those things. Um and but even with those failures,
I still see them fifty years later, you know, uh, trying
to do the best that they canwith every choice that they have. It's

(16:53):
freaking awesome, it is. Yeah. And you know, these podcasts always
start a little different than than there'sno like formal introductions. Usually it's like,
okay, now let's go back anddo an introduction. But we should
do that in cause there's listeners.I mean, we have so many listeners
who probably don't know who you arebecause they're i mean, they're just everywhere,
all over the country, all overthe world. You never know who

(17:14):
knows somebody and who doesn't. Andyou can get when you know and it's
your thing that you give a shitabout, like you just assume, oh
everybody knows who Tim is. Butthey don't actually, and they should,
because your message could help somebody fromthe age of I'm not going to say
ten or twelve, but maybe fifteenor sixteen to where they can see the
word sex and fuck and not havea problem with that all the way up
to somebody who only has a coupleof years left to live. Because every

(17:37):
second we get we can make achange for the better. And and if
someone reads your book, they're goingto change for the better if they internalize
it. But so just give methe brief rundown of who you are,
the laundry list of of what youare and what you know. What that
is, it's me. It's prettyawesome. Just look around these walls.
You know, this is us,and I rock going to kill as O

(18:00):
Kawai, the number two bad guyon the planet. That's the foundation of
the Special Forces Army Green Berets,you know, from every single one of
their conflicts all the way back toWorld War Two. That's my team standing
where Saddam Hussein stood, the uhthe Elk I killed here in Texas.
So I mean, now I amjust this unapologetically American man trying to positively

(18:25):
affect America. You know, likeI'm trying to preach freedom, sovereignty,
individual responsibility, and all of thatcomes from a life of pain and suffering
and struggle as a firefighter, asa police officer. I went to Special
Forces. I enlisted literally walked intothe recruiter's office on nine to eleven.
Not true, I went to therecruiter's office on nine to eleven, but

(18:47):
there are a thousand people ahead ofme. I didn't actually get to see
a recruiter until nine to twelve.That was the beginning of my journey into
Special Forces became, you know,going to ranger school and sniper school and
Iraq, Afghanistan, you know,every continent of the world that has people
living on it, going and fightingin and during the time that I was
working in Special Operations, I wasalso fighting full time in the UFC.

(19:11):
So I'm a black belt in Brazilianjiu jitsu and Army combatives. You know,
it's the most elite special operations unitwithin Special Forces, and you know,
fought for world titles, lost worldtitles. Now I own a handful
of businesses that all subscribe to thesame idea of trying to empower the individual

(19:32):
to be free. Yeah, that'sjust not as we know from the our
founding fathers, fathers, that's justnot a card that you could slide somebody
and they're free. You know.It takes a lot of work, sometimes
a lot of blood, but definitelya lot of sweat. Yeah, it
does. And that's an element thatis missing from most human beings, especially

(19:53):
in this bubble that we call theUnited States. It's basically you remember that
movie Bubble Boy. Oh yeah,that that's how I see almost everybody walking
down the streets nowadays. There's inthis protective cocoon, this bubble of their
own perceptions, their own ideas ofwhat's going on in realities, and they're
just walking around with this protective bubble. What they don't realize is somebody's going

(20:14):
to walk by with a needle andpop that bubble. But the ignorance and
the entitlements of Americans is up,I mean like unprecedented. It's I've been
in countries during coups, like legitimateoverthrowing and murdering of you know, their
a version of Congress and cabinets andkings and sucks. Right. I think

(20:41):
I'm a pretty good historian. Ispend a lot of time researching things that
happen over and over again, sohopefully we can prevent it from happening.
And you see that we are onthis exact same chronological timeline that has happened
over and over again throughout throughout historyas societies and dynasties have crumbled internally internally,

(21:03):
and we're doing the exact same thing. And man, I love America,
and I love Americans, and Iduring the evacuation of Afghanistan, I
couldn't have been more proud to bean American because Americans stepped up to try
and save people's lives. But thenI take like one step back, and
I look at the chatter, likethe outliers of people, you know,

(21:26):
throwing stones at the people going todo work. You know, there there
were so many organizations that are anorganizations, nonprofits and geos that you know,
Task Force Argo, you know,like Glenn Beck is like the easiest
guy to make fun of, righthe cries on television and you know he's
like a staunch conservative Republican, Likethat guy would never publicize how much money

(21:48):
he raised to save people's lives.You're like, but all toot his horn,
like I'll get hate that I'm evenmentioned in his name, but like,
that guy saved thousands of lives.Like how many people are sitting there
complaining on you know, hope andprayers or complaining on Twitter. They actually
went and saved thousands of people's lives. These these are the men and women

(22:08):
that just stepped up to answer thecall. And I was like, man,
so proud. But then I justlook a little bit over and I'm
like, how can I have suchan amazing person over here? And that
person is so dumb, you know, like so ignorant and so helpless,
and so entitled and so obese andso uncapable of being free because they've never

(22:29):
done the work necessary to truly befree. Yeah. Absolutely, And you
know the craziest thing about it iswhen when you look at what's going on
and then you do dive into historyand you just see that everything is the
circle of repeat, whether it bewhether it be the Roman Empire or God.
Like what happened in Venezuela. Theywere mad about the current people running

(22:49):
things and where the money was going, and so they voted on socialism and
boom, it's over, well,chilly, it happening right right now.
So it never stops to change theconstitution. All it takes is one generation
of uneducated soft people and they crumblethings. And I just don't understand.
And you've served your country, you'vekilled for your country, you've almost died

(23:11):
for your country over and over andover. And you're not the only one.
There's tons of people who have donethat. And I just wonder,
from our position, from a civilianposition, what somebody like you, who
is world traveled, who has foughttooth and nail to try to save lives
and protect freedom the only place thatreally truly exists here and it doesn't even

(23:33):
really anymore. We've learned that.But what do you think can prevent what
seems to be inevitable? I meanhard work. When you are looking for
someone to give you anything, theperson giving you something has a control over
you. You know, anything thatI require you give me to give to

(23:56):
somebody else. That that control mechanismis the loss of your freedom and his
freedom, you know, me beingable to take it from you and then
give it to somebody else. Thoseare two controls that I have over two
separate people in two different ways.When I have the right to take it
from you, and two I havethe right to give it to him,
and he needs it, so heis requiring it. So like I have

(24:18):
this easy tug of war that I'mmaking you tug against each other. So
that cycle to be broken, bothindividuals have to be free. And for
you to be free, you youcannot depend. You cannot be entitled to
be asking for your student loan tobe forgiven, for your penicillin to be

(24:40):
at a negotiated rate that you thinkis fair. You know, you can't
be in as a diabetic that isoverweight, Like these are almost in most
instances the individual's fault. So like, how do you break that cycle?
Is you become individually strong and selfsufficient, Like that's that word sovereignty,

(25:02):
Like that's where and that is thegoal. That is my want for me
and for my family is that likeI can be what I think is the
right thing for me and nobody hasany control over me because of that.
And that is not an easy thingto do. That means that you have
to be healthy. That means youhave to be fit, and that means
like financially free. That seems likesuch this crazy idea. Well financially free

(25:26):
might be as easy as you cuttingexpenses. You know, you're not getting
a degree in you know, women'sstudies or you know, dance, theology
or even history, Like should youknow history? Absolutely? Are you gonna
go make money with a degree inhistory. It's not as a teacher,
You're not. You know, Um, I appreciate you're putting value to like

(25:52):
me serving my country and me havingtravel to the world, But all that
gives me is is perspective, andyou don't have to have those things to
have a perspective as to what's important. I don't think I have any more,
Like, there isn't extra value tomy opinion, Like I'm not entitled
to assume that men, because Iserve my country or that I've traveled the
world, that my opinion means morethan yours. But I do know that

(26:15):
because of the places that I've beenand the things that I've done, I
do have extra added context to myopinions. Well, that has value.
I guess what I really meant isthat you're somebody that we could actually get
some of this stuff from, wecould actually learn some of these things from,
because you do have that added contextand you do have a better understanding

(26:37):
than you know, the guy whojust drove by who's never left a local
area, you know what I mean. And so it's an opportunity if you
do want those things, there areresources. You're one of those resources to
maybe learn. I'm the worst.I'm the worst resource ever though, because
like what I tell you to dois to go and look to go yourself,
you know, Like, oh,you want to know what, So
I've been to Africa. I don'tknow, like a couple of dozen times.

(27:00):
You need to go, Like,don't listen to me, Like,
I know what coups look like.I know what it looks like to have
a real starving population. When Italk counterproaching operations, the heartbreak of knowing
how poor and impoverished these societies arethat they would literally do anything in the
little bit of rhino horn that they'regoing to be able to harvest and sell
to some Chinese black market is goingto be able to feed their family for

(27:22):
a year. Imagine being a positionwhere if I was able to harvest a
few inches of rhinal horn, Icould feed my family for a year,
Like what would you do for that? Yeah? It changes the whole idea,
you know, and of what thevalue of that animal is, right,
because at the end of the day, humans, whether you want to

(27:42):
use the term apex predator or not, I mean they we process things differently
than an animal does. And ifyou put somebody in a situation or where
they have to value there and theirfamily's lives over literally anything else, they're
going to Yeah, and so yeah, you're one hundred percent right. It
just does. It does sound funny, you see that because you see people
attacking people who hunt and do thesethings and total ignorance, totally ignorance who

(28:07):
does the most preservation for wildlife landand wet lands and conservation hunting organizations like
the Safari Club, Ducks Unlimited,like those are the groups that do ninety
percent of the heavy lifting on theconservation side. Yeah, there's gonna be
like somebody downtown protesting because they sawa picture of somebody out hunting. It's

(28:29):
like, you ignorant, fool,you don't understand anything. Yeah, absolutely,
So Like if back to how doessomebody understand more? You have to
go and do it right. Ifif you are anti something, have you
ever put on the shoes of thepeople that you are trying to be anti
and walk a day in their shoes? Like your pro life, awesome?
Have you ever been so poor thatyou don't know if you're going to be

(28:52):
able to put food on your starvingbaby's plate? You know? Or that
if you if you carry this pregnancyto term. Not that I'm pro life
or pro choice, I'm saying like, have you ever walked a mile in
those shoes? You know? Ifyou're like, oh, I'm the list
Celebertarian, I'm anti Republican, I'man anti Democrat, Like have you have
you ever walked in either of thesepeople's shoes? And that's the that that

(29:15):
to me, that's the sweet magicof trying to understand something, To have
context and to have grace is toexperience it. Yeah, I think grace
is a really a really important wordthat is just almost out of everybody's vocabulary.
Nobody has a grace for somebody ifthey don't align perfectly with them,

(29:37):
they just so sad. And it'slike if you think about but grace is
supposed to exist with somebody that doesn'talign with you, Well, yeah,
that's what it really exists. That'swhat it's for. I mean, that
is the actual purpose. And notto get overly biblical, but if you
do us a biblical word. Idon't think grace is a biblical but we
see the best examples of it inthe Bible. You do, but you

(29:59):
throw, I mean, get ridof the Bible and you just like look
at that word and like, howdo we and if there was grace in
today's society, how different would discoursebe? Right? Like you, we
pick any issue on the planet andwe put it right between us and you
and I are we get two sentencesin one of us gets up, walks
out, and calls the other bigot. That's the end. Yep, you

(30:21):
insert grace into that conversation where I'mgonna try and listen to what you have
to say. I'm gonna try tounderstand and be empathetic to the things that
you've experienced and the context and theperspective that you have on that issue.
And that grace gives me so muchempathy for and an understanding that maybe we

(30:42):
can really have discourse for the firsttime. And I don't know, twenty
years when did we stop actually atime into each other. It might be
past my memories and life experiences,you know, crazy, Yeah, I
mean I was born in the nineties, so I really I don't remember a
time. Well, I mean eventen years ago was better. Guys.

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(32:31):
late for grace. You know,my parents fiftieth wedding anniversary. I have
family that is on all spectrums ofevery political belief and being able to sit
down with them and we talked,like all we did was talked. We
were forced to because you know,we had this three day event, this

(32:52):
celebration. My parents. On thelast day we're redoing their wedding vows and
so like you can get so pissedoff on somebody on day one on that
you couldn't sit with them on daythree, and um, which was so
cool because I got to sit thereand and find common ground with you know,
a family member that could truly oppositein every value system. They spent

(33:14):
their whole entire life in proper publiceducation. They're on school boards and principles
and sat on district chairs and um, you know PhD in in majors that
I have no value in that Iassigned no value in. And um,
we got to sit there and justtalk about everything that's going on and finding

(33:37):
the things that we agreed on.It was so fun. I'm like closer
with them now than I have beenmy whole entire life. These are family
members that have been in my life, my whole entire life, and right
now was the right time, witha little bit of grace, to come
closer with this family member that I'veever been in my life. It's rad

(34:00):
that is rad and you actually youcan find that with a lot of people,
like if you do extend that,even people who seem like there's nothing
you could ever have in common withpurple hairs and just totally different beliefs and
lifestyles, you can disarm somebody somuch by saying, well, let me
hear you out. Yeah, itchanges the whole perspective that they have of

(34:21):
you. Two, let me hearyou long term. And I'm gonna and
I'm gonna remove my ego for alittle bit and assign value to the things
that you have to say. That'spart of grace is to value the person
sitting across from you. And oftenI feel that we're we're putting ourselves in
these these elitist positions where the holierthan thou thou like, EI know that

(34:44):
I'm right. I know that mybeliefs are right, and I know that
they're right because of and here's thelitany of reasons and explanations and life experiences
and contexts. But that's all onthis side. At what point did I
ever remove all of that and justlook over at you and be like,
I'm assigning you value, and I'massigning your beliefs value, and your experience

(35:06):
is value, and I'm going totry and understand what you're saying and why
you're saying it. You're like,that's grace. Yeah, I mean it's
it's the cure for what's going on. If you have me more of that.
Yeah, But don't get me wrong, I'll flip some tables. I'll
build a whip and I'll beat youout if like literally with a whip,
and if if you do if youdo me dirty. Yeah, yeah,

(35:27):
I think you have to right,You have to have you have to have
a line in the sand. Butyeah, you know that's a full circle
on the biblical thing. But thatthat brings up another really a really i
would say almost important individual topic insteadof group topic, because when I was
going through your book, a lotof the things that the decisions you made
and the reasons you did it,like being right for the sake of being

(35:50):
right, and I'm the man becauseI'm the man, and just those things
like what a prick, I'm thatprick? I mean I always everybody is,
yeah, but I mean I'm lookingat some of these pretty rad I'm
looking at some of these extremes.I'm like, oh my god, like
I remember when I was very similar, different path, different thing, but
holy shit, that was me,and not even long ago. It was
like, where my ego and yourstory, your ego is the ultimate judge

(36:15):
and the ultimate rule, and I'mgoing to follow that instead of what's right
and how because That's my favorite partabout the book is just how self reflective
you are. Like the whole thingis like a giant life experiment of how
to be self reflective and abolish ego. It's like it's like a stoic pursuit.

(36:36):
Almost. Um, I consider myselfa stoic Marcus Elius is is is
you know, Meditations is when mysecond third Bible. I don't think you
get the Holy Book, the Constitution. Yeah, yeah, I've got the
mental Moory Nicholas on right, it'sbefore before it was freaking cool too.
The uh I don't know. Umhaving ends and family that can can help

(37:04):
you be your true self. MI could never put value on it because
it's so priceless. I could neverwrite a book like that without friends that
are going to call my bullshit,without family members like my dad yesterday who
is checking in being like hey man, um, I was on this email

(37:27):
traffic and let's talk about inserts.You know, something that he and I
have talked about multiple times over yearsabout like what is the most right thing
to do, you know, inthis layers of gray that we are in
and trying to have your mission?Um, I know I'm speaking Vegan ambiguous
right now. But there's these tradeoffs that people make, whether they're politicians

(37:50):
or you know, like I havesuccessful companies now and things, I'm starting
to be able to have influence,and like this greater good? Where can
I take something? I can Itake money from an organization that I think
is wrong and use that money forgood? Is does that greater good trade
off actually make sense? And likehaving to philosophically, morally, ethically how

(38:17):
to measure that? That's a reallyhard thing to do. And if you
don't have friends and family that youcan do that with that you can be
real that you can remove that egofrom and sit across from them and be
like, Okay, I need youto speak into my life, not with
filters, not with political correctness,but with truth. We're starving in this
generation for truth. Like I don'twant editorialized, I don't want curated,

(38:40):
I want vulnerable, I want real. I want truth. You know,
if you walk down this hallway thatthat big, huge dude, Matt Smith,
you know I could not I don'tknow, Doug, could you get
that guy to tell you a lie? No? Right? Like he like
he couldn't do it. There's areason he'sn't that front office. These are

(39:00):
the reason that he's the director ofSheepdog Response. It's because he is a
true expert, a real expert thatspeaks the truth. And that's who I
want in my life. And Ithink the more influence that you have,
the more important it is for somebodyto for those people to be in your
life. You know, yeah,yeah, I guess that prompts a really

(39:22):
great question for a lot of people, because most people are going to go
but I don't have that. Idon't know where it is. My family
isn't like that. I don't knowwhere those type of people are. Where
it's where there is suffering. That'sit. If you don't have people that
are going to suffer with you,whether that's like physically, mentally, emotionally,
spiritually, you're not going to findthat real person. You're like Nick

(39:45):
Paulmishana who wrote that book with me. I have failed in business with him.
I have broken his ribs and watchedhim hisss blood. He's been in
saunas with me while we're cutting weightlike that is a real friend. Like
Matt Smith. He has gone towar more times than he can count.
You know, he's done things forhis country that that um, we could
never even talk about on this podcast. You know, being with the most

(40:05):
elite special operations units on the planet. You know, the distinct honor of
walking down the halls of giants likethat, that's that guy has. They're
suffering there there, there is undescribablesuffering, and that's where those people exist,
not sitting in these beautiful crystal clearpictures and like this nice dress with

(40:29):
the boobs looking right and the waitingfor the golden now or for me to
snap my my curated photo. LikeI still don't know if that was a
dude that you're talking about. Idon't know either, Yeah, but I
don't want that guy on my smallcouncil, right, you know, like
the even the lore of like theKnights of the round Table. Why were
those knights part of that round table? Because they suffered together. They were
all equal and their their opinions matteredequally. But like they still took their

(40:52):
swords and they laid them on thetable in front of them, so they
were they were vulnerable, and theywere exposed to the man to the left
and the right. And I useman in in a non gender way because
the most some of the most importantpeople in my life, my mom,
my wife, you know, mydan like mankind yeah, clears it up.
Yeah, they're vicious and truthful andreal and honest, and they have

(41:16):
experienced failure and suffered with me.Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
You want to know where to findthose people, Find a place that
you can suffer. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you're an average person.
They could walk and do a jiujitsu gym like this and maybe find something.
Huh. Yeah, this is acool place. I'm like, no,

(41:37):
no, in every corner of thisbuilding you can find suffering. Yeah,
and real people. I do thereare people out there that are not
in my immediate circle on that matthat are perfectly qualified to be real experts,
to be truly transparent, to beabsolutely vulnerable, and that could,
like in a heartbeat, be movedinto the trust circle. Um, you
gotta keep your circle small, youknow, but um, it's important.

(42:01):
Yeah. Yeah, I want tokind of hone in on some of the
other things, right because one ofthe biggest things outside of the stuff we've
already talked about about your journey,and it's like I'm like, I'm telling
a guy his own life but that'swhat happens when you pick up a book
like that. Weird. It issuper weird from this side too, super
weird. But that's why we're hereto talk about stuff. One of my

(42:21):
neighbors and we're like neighborly. Yeah, during the snow apocalypse that you know,
we're helping fix pipes and you know, we're like doing all the neighbor
things and helping lay sod all theneighbor things. Um, like, do
they really know me? They gotthe book, they read the book,
you know, and he comes overand he's like, it's weird now,

(42:42):
you know, like I know allof this about you don't know any about
any of the stuff about me.It's like this one way street where like
I know all of these details aboutyour past, and like, as an
author, it's weird, but alsoas like a human it's weird, or
as like that is weird. Youknow, I U chlamydia. Yeah,
it's weird. It clears up betterthan aids, turns out, that's true.

(43:05):
Yeah, yeah, luckily that's justsome amos of sillin. Don't ask
me how I know that, butbut it is. But it's beautiful because
if you are alone, you're notreally alone for that thirteen fourteen hours and
reading that book and uh, it'sjust a it's a guide and and like
for there's when when I when yousaid I knocked a girl up, Now
you knocked up two. I onlyknocked up one. But I could latch

(43:29):
onto that and be like, fuck, I did the same thing. It's
the same age, and uh,and then you get to see, well,
this is how he got out ofthat, and you know, and
failed businesses. I'm going through failedbusiness stuff and like you, and it
seems like everybody's going through something weirdright now. But it's just if you're
not, you're not trying hard enough, you're not. Yeah. But I
guess the next point of that is, like you talk about from a child,

(43:52):
just being kind of a different person, and you come from a very
non traditional background, and I've alwaysthought that I do, or people like
Riley who come from that like ranchfamily background. It's it's more non traditional
than the guy in the suburb downthe street, but yours is even more
just it doesn't actually sound real whenyou hear it. Yeah, and I'm
sure you know that. I'm sureI'm sure people have been like you're lying

(44:14):
because it just doesn't sound that realunless you get the whole picture. You're
like, really, Pablo Escobar,Okay, you know what I mean,
Like it just sounds silly, butit truth. They're the There's many times
where I have like given things outof context about my life and my background,
and you just see it on theirface, so like you're such a
liar, you know, you're youembellishing piece of shit. And I was

(44:37):
like, nah, no, thisis this is actually real, not in
a good way, like this isthis is a really big bummer, right,
you know, but uh yeah,it's God. I love life though,
yeah, it's life is kind ofthis unique thing that we all get

(44:58):
and we all don't value it enough. Probably, Yeah, And I've been
blessed to have moments where I wantedto live so bad, you know where
even in the dark moments of mylife where I take off all my clothes,
I take off my pager, mykeys, my wallet, and I
just drop them in the sand andI swim due west in the Pacific Ocean.

(45:21):
Can you explain that moment just forthe people listening kind of what brought
you to that and then and thenwhat that was, because that's a huge
turning point in the book. AndI want everybody to read the book.
But that's such a great, likefive minute little segment to my next question
that I tell untill after. Butand also about the book. If there's
like a statue of limitations in thingsthat I did in my life, I

(45:42):
omitted those from this book. Solike, while you think you know everything
bad about my life, there arestill plenty that was not included. We
had like the spectrum of like couldI be sued if this is in here?
Or could I be prosecuted for crimesthat I'm essentially emitting that I did.
Okay, I'm gonna have to leavethese out. And there were things
that were intentionally left out because theydid not fall within the accepted legal guidance

(46:07):
right book, Um, which iswild because the book is just like insane
as it is. But so inthat moment, I have a couple of
women pregnant, I think I haveaids, I've crashed my motorcycle that wasn't
even there, Like the patriarch ofthe family is dying, which was your
grandfather my grandfather? And um,like the place that I would go to

(46:30):
to get that real truthful counsel.Um, that that now I value so
much, and I have people inmy life that will forever be in those
roles, you know, like mybest friend Shane, you know, UM,
my wife obviously. Um, he'sdying of fazema, and every breath
that he takes there's just a littlebit less than the prior breath. And

(46:52):
um, you know he lived righton the ocean, and the ocean was
the sanctuary where I would go andI would I would hear the waves crashing.
I could talk to him, youknow, like would have coffee,
he'd make me breakfast. And nomatter how bad the problem was, Um,
whether it was girls or work orschool, you know, like the
next day when the sun came up, Um, you know it's at your

(47:16):
back as you're looking out towards thewater. I had hope, you know
I could fix that. Well thatwas that was gone. You know that
that that ocean was no longer beautifulbecause I hear those waves and I hear
his his his wheezing of his emphysimabreath and um, you know, this
is the greatest generation you know,survived the Great Depression, served in World

(47:37):
War Two, you know, likeworked on aviation equipment that went and dropped
bombs on Nazis and like rad dude, you know worked for what is at
and T now, which was WesternElectric. Then I actually have his watch
from his twenty fifth anniversary working forWestern Electric. That my uncle who was
a Vietnam hero, like all thethings that's gone. So I go Tomorrow

(47:59):
Base, California, and you know, I'm not thinking suicide. I'm thinking
I want clarity. I want tobe baptized in in truth and real and
I wanted to feel So I undress, drop all my clothes on the beach.
I take my wallet, didn't careabout it, dropped it all my

(48:19):
stack clothes. This is like rightwhen cell phones are coming out. So
I had a padre and I droppedit on top keys go there. Didn't
need those either, And I takemy white ass and walk into the water
and just start swimming west the waythat um. If you've been to Morrow
Bay to the rock at Moral Rock, you have two sides. You have

(48:43):
the bay side, which is wherethe water comes in. It's a huge
influx of water as it goes fromhigh to low tide. And on the
north side of the rock, onthe what would be like the Cayukas side,
but just north of the rock itis. It is great, beautiful
waves, lots of surfers there,but it's powerful water, especially in chains
of tides. And what you haveis this coastal influence where inland, when

(49:07):
it where it starts getting hot,the fog layer sits out off the coast
over the Pacific Ocean where it's niceand cool and it can just stay there.
And then as the heat rises,as that cold layer starts pushing in
to release the pressures. As thehot air rises, that cold that cold

(49:29):
front or the fog would roll in, so the fog would just sit out
over the ocean. And I gotin the water and I just swam out
into the fog. You knows.I swam for a while, and I'm
a good swimmer. So I wasa mile or so out into the water
in the middle of the fog,not knowing which way the shore was,

(49:50):
not knowing where the rock was.Sound does really weird things in fog.
Light does really weird things in fog. And this is one of those moments
where you know, I'm hypothermic.I'm treading water in fifty three fifty four
degree water and it's been I don'tknow an hour now, and you just

(50:10):
don't want to go into the drink. You know, if that that darkness
swallows you, that's the end.So I just sat there and treadwater,
and ultimately a boat comes and plucksme out. But like, that's the
will, that's the want to live, that's the wanting to live more than
you've ever wanted to live before.Is not wanting to die. Yeah,

(50:34):
And that's the will to live.Is something that kind of goes through a
lot of your journey in the book. There's some of the battles and then
the struggles and one of the oneof the biggest questions because you've taken on
just like and I learned of youwhen you were fighting in Strike Force.
That was a long time ago.I was a kid, a young kid,
because I was doing jiu jitsu andthought I wanted to be a fighter.

(50:55):
I thought I wanted to be somany different things, and and where
I grew up in Colorado, therewasn't back in these days. There's only
a couple of places you could dojiu jitsu back in like two thousand eight,
nine ten. And the first timeI ever saw you was I don't
remember who you were fighting in StrikeForce, but you were fighting somebody in
Strike Force and you had won thefight, and I learned a little bit

(51:21):
about you. I didn't know allthe Special Forces stuff and things like that,
but I learned some of that.And it was really interesting because there
was guys who were fighting that Igravitated towards for a long time. Everybody
loved GSP and things like that,but guys like you and Brian Stan was
one of those guys back then,and like I got married this weekend.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hewas another one where I'm like, Okay,
there's fighters, there's these elite fighters, but then there's these other dudes

(51:45):
that don't make sense, like howare you fighting and serving in the Special
Forces and doing all that? Andit's just it created this like thing of
inspiration that when I read some ofthese struggles that I would not have known
that you went through all these superhumanlike and I don't mean superhuman like superhuman,
but like these very let me sayvery human feelings because when you're looking

(52:09):
at people who do stuff like thatand you see somebody putting gloves on and
getting in a cage, and alot of those guys were like so much
bigger than you, Like you justyou had this thing about you when you
were fighting, and Brian Stan washuge, so he didn't have that thing
about him. He'd look bigger thaneverybody. But where you just you had
to admire somebody who was willing toput themselves through so much. And then

(52:30):
you read this stuff and you're like, oh my god, all it was
this perseverance. He felt every humanthing that we all feel. So how
did you how do you, ifyou're going to verbalize it to people,
explain how to get through fear?Because fear is crippling, Fear is all
consuming. Fear takes you to theplace where you just won't act. How

(52:52):
do you get past that fear?It's such a this is not a Marvel
movie, like this is real life. You know, you go down this
hallway and you know you got MattSmith from Delta Force. You know you
have Carl that was at you know, Navy Special Operations, Jeff that Navy

(53:14):
seal, you know, a Marinerecon guy. Do you think those guys
felt fear? Absolutely, like withouta doubt. And you know, courage
is being able to still do somethingwhen you know that there's a consequence to
it like that you're fearful from doingit, and you know there's no superhero
drop to the knee and you walkup, you pull up with this Captain

(53:35):
America shield. Um, Like,how do you reconcile the feeling of fear
with m and you're wanting to notdie or get hurt or permanently maimed with
then the objective of still trying toaccomplish something. And did my heart race
when I walked out to Octagon's Yeah? Did my heart race when I had

(53:57):
bullets snap past my head? Yeah? It's the same. Do I fear
failure in my marriage with my wifeor being a parent to my children?
Yeah? Like I have every singleemotion that every single every other human does.
The only way to conquer any ofthose things. And this is not

(54:20):
going to be like this groundbreaking thing. It is literally hard work, consistency
over time. You know, likeif you're going to walk out into a
jiu jitsu match, you know,if you're Gordon Ryan and you're gonna get
ready for a DCC, the onlyway that you're going to be world champion
is that you have been training consistentlyand that you've been putting the hard work
overtime you know, like the reasonTyson was Tyson and everyone George Saint Pierre,

(54:50):
he was so regimented and disciplined,Like did he have the nerves to
walk out to the octagon? Absolutely? Did he have the fear that everyone
else has and the butterfly? Absolutely? But what he had was hard work
with consistency overtime. And that isthe thing that Trump's fear. If you
look at all these Special Operations Unitsand all the things that they did and
all the places that they went,how did you know the Seal Team killed

(55:15):
Bin Laden? Was it weird toget on a experimental helicopter with a few
of your fellow colleagues patriots and flyinto a country that you don't have authorization
to be in to do a killcapture mission on the number one terrorist on
the planet, knowing that he's goingto have protection. Do you don't think

(55:37):
those guys were scared? No?How do they overcome it? Because they
had been training consistently the a hardwork over time. You know, That's
what sets Special Operations Units apart isbecause they are regimented, and they are
disciplined, and they overtime are consistentin putting in the work. How are

(55:58):
these businesses like, it's not it'snot magic. I'm not smart, I
am m not really especially talented atanything, but I am consistent in the
amount of time that I put intoand finding the people that I can trust
to put in the time and hardwork to make these things successful. That's

(56:19):
how you overcome fear. Yeah.Yeah, it's it's not a sexy answer.
It's not because it's there's nothing sexyabout it. Really. I don't
have a book to give you,you know, I have a magic button
to give you. Like I havesweat, I have pain, and I
have suffering and have failure, andvia those things, those are the avenues
that those like the caviare of accomplishing. Something is carried by the cracker,

(56:40):
and the cracker is composed of thesevery core ingredients. It's hard work,
it's suffering, it's struggling, andit's failure. Hell yeah yeah. So
a couple of other things I wantedto talk to you about before I let
you get back to your suffering andall those things, and and thank you
so much for the time, butI wanted to just talk just a small

(57:02):
amount about kind of the fighting stuff, not anything specific, but it's one
of those things that you talk aboutabout feeling like you talked about like your
time in the pit with Chuck Ladelland all the guys who were there and
that that day and age what adifferent type of Like it's so funny when
you see like the Escapades of aConnor McGregor and stuff right now, who

(57:22):
I used to really really like ithad such a great story and I used
such a god. It just sucksseeing that. But you because I used
to get the tapes like the HoistGracy tapes and things like that from Blockbuster
when that was the thing when Iwas a little kid and used to think
that was the coolest shit because itwas just two guys and it was like
the game Street Fighter. One guy'shuge, one guy's small, and the

(57:43):
small guy gets up there and justbeats the huge guy. And it's like
every little kid who's rough and tumblesdream right to do that. But you
started martial arts at a really youngage. You started with classic jiu jitsu
right, which a Japanese jiu jitsu, and worked your way up through these
things. But when you're talking aboutyour time in the pit and sleeping in
your car in Vegas and being atraining partner with Chuckle Dell and getting the

(58:06):
ship beat out of you time andtime again, being the small guy in
the gym, and but you neverstopped doing it for the same reasons that
you just talked about. But whatwas it about that pursuit? And this
is something that like we've talked toPBR World champions and some of your close
friends are our family, to peoplethat I know and everybody, like all

(58:29):
of that type of thing is similar, like getting on a bowl is not
so unlike going into a cage.One has bad repercussions and the other one
has bad repercussion and it's they're similar, right, and it's a great thing.
But what made you want to dothat? Like, what was it
about the fighting that you just keptcoming back from more even when you felt
like you weren't important, you weren'tin the end crowd, you were just

(58:51):
you called yourself a meat bag,and but you never stopped being that.
What was it about fighting that justkept you hooked the Unfortunately at the time,
there was no like there was noclear journey, there's no path to
success like this. This is thedark era of mixed martial arts. This

(59:12):
is when it was still illegal inI mean probably like forty forty five out
of the fifty states. You know, we were fighting on India late nineties
and um, you know, goingdown to Tijuana and fighting, um in
bar room basements on car cardboard.Like I don't know how many of those
I did. I did lots,and UM. I think that there are

(59:37):
you know, being a young manthat had a propensity for violence, and
I a lot of young men do. And you know, there's a lot
of dangerous ways. There's a lotof dangerous outlets for for all of that
ability for violence. And one ofthe worst things that you can do is

(59:59):
suppress it. One of the worstthings that you can do is in an
unhealthy way try to scratch an inchand scratch an itch in a synthetic way,
um, like video games or um. I mean even worse is that
those passive aggressive manipulations of people viasocial media, like people are thinking that

(01:00:22):
that's an outlet, you know,like oh yeah, I got in with
that one, you know, likeI'm trolling this guy. Like those are
all really unhealthy ways of things thatare naturally existing in men, and that
is like our ability to do violence. And then there's a healthy ways,
which is you know athletics and youknow competition and jiu jitsu and boxing,

(01:00:44):
and these healthy outlets are not justa release, but they're they're also at
tuning, like they're they're shaping askill that hopefully we never need. But
it's it's defining and building our characterthrough the process of the refiner's fire.
You know, if you if yougrab one of those nie are one of
those tomahawks, one of those thoseaxes off that table up there, They're
all made in a similar way.It's through torture, right. That thing

(01:01:07):
goes into a hot thing and itis pounded until the impurities are beaten from
it. Like, that's what happensto the human body when you voluntarily put
it into an environment where the impuritiesare then burnt out of you. That's
what happens in a wrestling room.That's what happens in a jiu jitsu room.
That's what happens in a boxing gym. If you're an egotistical prick and
you walk in there and you thinkyou're gonna be a tough guy, you

(01:01:28):
will have the living Jesus beaten outof you. Well, as you see
from my book, I had moreof those impurities than any one person should
probably have in their life. Andthe only way that those things are hammered
out of you is in my case, because I'm dumb, is literally hammered
out of me. That takes aChuck Ladell, and that takes a gain,
that takes a Glover, that takesthe patience of a John Hackeman,

(01:01:51):
you know, and of a BerrySmith and overtime and pain, those failures
and those flaws and my character andthere are lots, and there were more
than we're literally beaten out of me. So I want to stay there.
Wasn't because like I wanted to bea better person, but I knew I

(01:02:12):
had to be there, and Iknew that in me, I wanted to
keep competing at the highest level andI wanted to prove myself to these people.
And those are all good things.I think those are demonized nowadays.
It's like, oh, you wantto be a tough guy. No,
I don't want to be a toughguy. I want to be the best.
And that's okay, you know,Like, no, I don't want
to think like I'm I'm like reallygood in the fisticuffs things. I want

(01:02:37):
to know that I'm the best,and that's okay. There's going to be
failure there because spoiler alert, you'renot neither am I and neither was I.
But man, I tried my hardestand in the process of that,
refiner's fire really creates integrity and character. So give me some more of that.

(01:02:57):
Can you see my face from today? This was? Uh yeah,
you got a little you got alittle goose egg there. Yeah. Yeah,
that black eye was was was garneredto me this morning in training.
Look at my knees right now.Oh yeah, just raw from the wrestling
mouse. Yeah, it's gonna belike this and tell him ninety you know
which, which you'll mean you'll probablylive till you're one hundred and five.

(01:03:20):
I hope, So, I hope. So my knees won't like it.
My wife won't. Yeah, she'sjust looking forward to the day I die.
I think she should have to putup with. Yeah, all of
this. Hopefully you have a goodlife insurance policy for her at least so
she gets something out of the deal. I'm gonna get home. Is she
gonna stab me for saying that?Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I mean,
if if your relationship with your wife'sanything like mine with my wife.

(01:03:43):
Then the fact that you haven't beenstabbed to death yet as a miracle in
itself, because it is for meI've been stabbed. Yeah, yeah,
I do the same things. Youknow, that urge that you get to
say something that you know you're notsupposed to say, but you always say,
I'm that person. Yeah, nomatter what it is, no matter
what three percussions are, if thelow hanging fruits there, I'm going for
it. So I really, Ireally understand the whole even the apple thing,

(01:04:06):
because I would have taken the appleevery single time, just to make
it spicy, just to do that, just to do that thing every morning,
a little boring. I gotta putthe honey on the cheios. But
one other thing, because at somepoint you had to give up the fight.
You chose to what And I'm sureyou've said it before, but how

(01:04:26):
hard was it for you to hangup the UFC gloves where you say it
was is if it's not every day, the choice of me still choosing to
be done right, you know,Like I still think a good point.
I'm competitively able to step back inwith some of the highest athletes on the
planet, Like I look at thechampion right now, and I don't think
about what I used to be ableto do. I have unfortunately a very
accurate view of what I'm capable ofnow now training with some of the best

(01:04:49):
people on the planet, and like, I could be that guy, not
eagle me like professional athlete of twentyyears looking at a certain skill set.
I'm like, I could beat theworld champion right now, and then be
like, but that's not what I'mdoing right now. Purpose is a man,

(01:05:12):
a young man without purpose or amisguided purpose, not even a young
man. A man without purpose ora misguided purpose is a really dangerous thing.
And every time if you reread thatbook and you look back and you're
like, where is Tim's purpose rightnow? The moments that I didn't have
purpose, I am fucking up inbad, bad, bad ways. And

(01:05:34):
then the moments that like there's aclear purpose, whether you know it's being
making sure that I'm a good teammateon a team, or being a good
fighter, or you know, beinga good father, or any any of
those moments where the purpose is adefined, clear thing, like Tim's doing
good things. If I step awayfrom that purpose, there's consequences for doing

(01:05:56):
that, so looking at fighting anddeciding when is the time to go my
purpose of wanting to be a worldchampion and reconciling me being a world champion
or having the ability to become aworld champion again or the journey that it
would have taken to become a worldchampion, And is that me being a
world champion? Is that what myreal purpose is now? At this news

(01:06:17):
phase in my life. I couldn'treconcile those two things. So I was
like, I'm done. Like ifif if I'm not wanting to be or
and I don't have the method tobe the world champion, to be the
best, then why am I stillhere? Am I doing this to fight
for the next paycheck? You know? If I'm am I hanging off the

(01:06:40):
Danny White teet to make sure Ijust get my next check of a few
hundred thousand dollars for my next fight, you know, to keep my name
in the press. You know thatis that those are all very self serving,
egotistical, ethnocentric, selfish things.Or here's my purpose, here's why
I'm here, and here are theways that I'm contributing to make this place

(01:07:00):
better, a better world to livein so I still, unfortunately have to
make that choice often and um andhave to choose often of desert align with
my purpose. There's you know,there's money, and there's TV offers and
movie offers that come in, andthere's fighting offers that are crazy, you
know, and I just like,that is not my purpose and I know

(01:07:23):
the consequence when I am not inline with my purpose. Yeah, I
guess that prompts one last question forpeople. It's a question I've asked myself
so so often because I've chased moneyand chased attention and like like all of
us do and done things for thewrong reasons, and done things for what

(01:07:44):
I thought for the right reasons,but I actually knew they weren't rationalizing everything.
And one thing that I get askeda lot is how do you find
a purpose if if you are normalas you know that stereotypical definition. Well,
I'm just a normal person, right, Because everybody can idolize a Tam
Kennedy. Everybody can idolize a professionalanything because it looks so glamorous, and

(01:08:06):
you get these you get to seeon Instagram, because that's what Instagram's for.
Instagram's for a highlight reel. There'snothing wrong with that, but people
get lost in it, and mostpeople don't know what their purpose is.
Most people die having never had apurpose. What would be your advice to
people who don't have one on howto find one? Suffer? It's always

(01:08:29):
suffer. Suffer. Yeah, Like, there's not you know, you're not
going to discover your purpose, youknow, with somebody giving you a manicure
and a pedicure while you're playing onyour phone. Like, that's not where
your purpose is going to be discovered. You know, it's it might be
on a sabbatical through Africa. Youknow. It might be somebody in a
couple of mountains. It might begoing through the entrepreneurial journey and failing over

(01:08:53):
and over again. It's maybe beingthe best parent that you can be like
And I think then it's so sadand pathetic that the society, society now
is assigning value to these glorified,romantic purposes being a good father and being
a good husband and being a goodemployee. That is a beautiful purpose.

(01:09:17):
That might be it. And ifthat is it for you, it's not
that is it? Because it's asmall thing that is that is a thing
that cannot be achieved by the vastmajority of amazing people on the planet.
So if that is your purpose,be that you know, and don't look
for the next thing you like,you don't have to go to the top
of the Himalaya Mountains to you know, to like to do some trip in

(01:09:40):
Central America to try and find someextistential existence like knock it off. Being
an adult, that's your purpose.Be the best version of that that you
can be. Like I am too, God, family, country, family,
like tribe, friends for the fourthFor me, like within that,
I have a very defined that I'mtrying to fulfill. It's simple, it's

(01:10:02):
not glamorous, it's not romantic.But I'm going to do the best I
can to fulfill that purpose. Andif you're comfortable, you'll never find it
get uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah,the one thing that nobody wants nowadays because
it's just it's bread out of usalmost. Yeah. I had a man
how it is fully pay twenty threetwo twenty pound black belt, twenty three

(01:10:28):
years old. That's who did this? Uh, you know as a forty
three year old middle aged man havingbeen retired for three years, Like,
there was not a lot of egofeeding moments in those wrestling goes that we
did today, Like I didn't getoff those matt being like, yeah,
still got it going over there.I hugged my head, hung my head

(01:10:50):
in shame, and I was like, I need to go. I need
to get some ice. That's whatI need. I need some ice from
my legs and need some ice frommy soul. And and I'm gonna do
this forever. And that that wasa snapshot of the athletic portion. As
soon as as soon as we packup these cameras and get these mics out,
you know I have I have aday lined up of failure. You

(01:11:13):
know, I got a poor carlover there. He has he is a
checklist of things that are going tobe uncomfortable conversations, and I will not
be comfortable as we go through eachof them. On the business side,
yeah, yeah, yeah, intwenty twenty two businesses. Having just gone
through some of the most chaotic businessexperiences of my life in the last three
weeks, business is probably the mostuncomfortable thing. Get uncomfortable, yeah,

(01:11:36):
and like it, love it.Well, Thank you so much for taking
this time out of your your verybusy schedule to talk to us and offer
all this value. It is.It is an honor and I thank you
so much. Thank you man.Yeah. This has been The Gauge hosted

(01:11:57):
by me Chance Canardo, produced andended by h our Guy Ty Yeager.
Shout out to the executive producers,Dustin Poyter and Cody Denton. Marketing and
content produced by Riley Chung. Makesure to rate and review this podcast as
well as follow the Gauge on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and make
sure to subscribe to the Gauge whereveryou get your podcast. We'll see you

(01:12:17):
guys next time.