October 5, 2022 • 40 mins
Welcome to Unbreakable! A mental health podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On this episode, Hall of Famer, 6-time UFC Champion and cocreator of MMA Athletics Randy Couture joins Jay for a powerful conversation. He shares why he’s proud that he’s different, why its ok to be scared, the importance of friendships, and the motivational message he gives to our troops. Plus, Randy's unbreakable moment, how he saved Jay’s life and much more!
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glazer, a mental health podcast
helping you out of the gray and into the blue.
Now here's Jay Glazer. Welcome in, everybody to Unbreakable, a
mental health podcast with Jay Glazer. I am your host,
Jay Glazer. And you know, for those who don't know
(00:24):
why I'm doing a mental health podcast when you see
on Foxing about Sunday and Fallers and Mitch Martial Arts.
For years, I've gone on all those TV shows and
I've hidden the fact that I've lived in something called
the gray my entire life, which is depression anxiety UM
a d D. Throwing a little bipolar while we're at it.
And I wrote a book about it earlier this year
(00:45):
called Unbreakable How I turned my depression anxiety into motivation
and you can too. And my depression and anxiety UM
has been a fight for me every day in my life.
That led me then to literally go fight. And I
felt self worth of going into a cage getting beaten
(01:05):
up by other men. And I didn't feel lovable. I
didn't feel worthy of being loved, but I felt it
in a cage, which is well, let's put it frankly,
how funked up is that that's where I got male love.
And one of the guys who was very proud to
beat the hell out of me on a daily basis
for a long time is my guests here. That is
(01:26):
the UFC six time World Champ Hall of Famer, my
brother and co creator with me of M M A Athletics,
Randy Kator. My dude, how are you? How? I am
doing great? And so a lot of people don't realize
the reason why it was okay for me to start
talking openly is Randy and I would be in the
cage and we beat the ship at each other and
(01:48):
then after we would just sit and talk about life
and cry and just open up. And it was like, man,
no one's question our manhood. So we could start open
up about these things. And I wish we did it
long ago, Randy, really do. I wish I wish I'd
come out and you've been writing poetry about it now.
You know I hit it for all those years, man,
And I don't think I hit it from you. I
don't think I hid my pain from you, right like
(02:09):
you know, you know I wasn't that kind of pain.
It's that's what's the interesting about this whole thing. And man,
I can't tell you how proud I am you for
the book and how good the book is. It really
is amazing. As someone who's never struggled with the gray,
and I probably had every excuse the reason to be depressed,
or I certainly have those same feelings of I wasn't
(02:32):
good enough, I wasn't good enough for my own dad,
I wasn't good enough, you know, for for a lot
of people. So I certainly know that internal struggle. But
you do, you have this outgoing, gregarious, loving crazy. Is
any personality that I think, in a lot of ways
is upfront is a cover for the gray? Is? It
is a cover for you know, anybody that met you
(02:53):
would never think that you struggle with anxiety or depression.
That's just the way it is. And so for you
to Frank we have the balls to step up and
show that side of yourself, to show that vulnerability is
is pretty incredible. And I think there's a whole bunch
of folks out there that can relate to that. And
for me, it gave me a perspective because I have friends,
other friends who were more open about being depressed, being
(03:14):
you know, having anxiety and stuff like that. My sister
struggles with that. It's something that somebody who's never struggled
with it has trouble comprehending, has trouble figuring out what
that means, how that works. And that was one of
the things that was very enlightening for me, and reading
your book and how well you put it out there,
so that even someone like myself we never really struggled
with that. There there have been a couple of moments,
(03:35):
and you and I have talked about these moments pretty dark.
I don't talk about them with a lot of people,
certainly because it's not a comfortable thing to talk about
unless some are you really trust, and certainly I trust you,
and you and I have shared a lot of things, mistakes,
things were not happy about, things in our lives that
we struggle with, for sure. But it's one of those
things that your book gave me a new perspective on
(03:56):
folks and struggle with that every single day, trying to
give the words. And that's what I'm doing. Like we
talked about mental health, but who gives it words? I
want to give it words so we could have these conversations.
And like you said, listen, you don't struggle with the
gray as far as you don't have depression and anxiety.
But I want everybody to hear what he also said,
he's had dark times. That's the gray, the dark moments.
(04:18):
The gray isn't It's not just depression anxiety, it's whenever
you know it decides these these dark moments in our lives,
decide to pull up a chair at our dinner table
and throw our worlds upside down. And it sucks. And
how much this and your confidence to step up the
way you have this last year has come out of
(04:39):
the last six years working with m VP and sitting
in the huddle and not only watching some of these
soldiers and some of these other athletes bear their souls
and and let their demons out, but that's motivated you
and I in that circle to to open up and
share some of these things too with Frankly, some people
maybe we didn't know that well, but because we were
(04:59):
in at huddle and in that circle, we felt comfortable
enough to open up and show that vulnerability too. And
and now look at you. I mean, you're you're running
a podcast where you have a top ten best selling
book about it. I mean, it's pretty remarkable. It's fucking
really remarkable. And you know, again I I kind of
look at it in our damage. We have damage that
(05:20):
led us into a cage. Right, You're not fucking normal.
I'm not normal. Then we go and go, oh, let's
go step into a cage and this guy is allowed
to fucking kill me. And you know, it's at eleven
o'clock on Saturday night in front of the world to see,
and even when the world doesn't see, when we're just sparring,
you and I rite, it's just it's not fucking normal.
(05:41):
But I've turned that into being proud, Like I'm proud
and I'm not normal, Like, motherfucker, I'm different, and different
is good. Different leads to success. Did you when you
first started fighting, did you feel proud of it? Did
you feel like, man, I'm I'm really funked up. I
mean that first time walking out there. Obvious you have
been wrestling and wrestling at a high level for a
(06:02):
very long time, but this was a whole new animal
walking out of that tunnel in front of all those
crazy fans that you know, they get they get rabbit
at these events. They're literally trying to rip your clothes
off of your steal your hats. I mean, it's a
crazy scene and it's surreal that first time I was
scared to death. Literally, I'm not sure what I had
gotten myself into. But yeah, you keep marching forward, you
(06:24):
keep doing what you're doing, and somehow we get off
on the pain that the average person is going to
shy away from those situations, and that house somehow makes
us feel alive, makes us feel things that maybe you're
buried down there so far that it takes something that
extreme to bring some of that up. So here's here's
where you here's where you change my life. Right, I
(06:45):
will let you know where you change my life. When
I started finding I went into the cage feeling that
I deserve two loops. So you do all this, you know,
mental motivation, where you you've he fought to fight a
million times in your brain. I used to go in
to lose. I felt myself worth. I felt that guy
(07:06):
across from me it was more worthy to win than
I was. And I've tried to explain this to football coaches.
Imagine every game you go out there and you'll never
I think you're worthy of making a first down. We're
a touchdown, and if you do, it's because you got lucky.
But man, you just didn't deserve that. And yet I
still walked in there all the time with you all.
(07:28):
And it wasn't until I started training with you where
you shifted it for me, and you got me to
not only see that I'm I deserve to win, but
to almost take the ego out of like your whole
mantra and the way we train people together now and
unbreakable is funk winning or losing. We're just gonna be
so relentless that we're gonna make it a bad afternoon
(07:49):
forever's across from us. And it just shifted everything. It
took the ego out and took this shame out of
it that I had, Randy, And if I ever told
you this, but man, you just you changed my life then.
And I just and you've seen me now wrestled what
thousands of NFL players, and you know everybody from Andrew Worth,
the Lane Johnson to Kyle Long to Ode Beckham to
(08:12):
play Matthews to Jared out and you name it right
after every one of them. I want to have that
confidence that I deserved to win. It wasn't for you. Well,
I appreciate that, man, and it's such an interesting thing.
I obviously never knew you that you were operating before
that and in that capacity that you didn't deserve to
have the success. I saw the work, you know. The
(08:33):
first time we rolled together was at the set for
the Ultimately back in the day, and I saw this
guy that that was putting in work, that that was
enjoying that journey of sweating and bleeding and being on
that Matt, and I felt a kindred spirit to you
and that because that's why why I was there. I
don't know, that was cathartic for me. The rest of
the world goes away when we're engaged and we're punching
(08:55):
each other, we're grappling a rolling. All the worries, the bills,
the in anything, the fight with your girlfriend or your
wife or whatever, it all goes away in that moment.
That's why that's so relaxing and refreshing. And I've always
got a big smile on my face there because that's
where I love to be. It's a really interesting your
perspective and and that shift that came through that for you. Also,
(09:17):
I learned I learned exactly what you said because you
had you fought tim Sylvia, and we won't get into
what happened, but beforehand, you got hit with legal papers,
and you know, you go down. And people don't know
this where he gets hit with legal papers and he
goes down and he fights a guy that's a footfaller
than him and eighty pounds every year, and he is
smiling the whole way and he beats the dog Funck
(09:39):
and at sim Sylvia from the heavyweight championship of the
world at forty four years of age. Forty four years
of age. And I said to him, after, bro, how
did you do that? How were you able to compartmentalize
like that? Do you remember your line? Uh? Why? I
know that certainly putting things in boxes and shoving them
to the side so we can stay laser focused on
exactly what a task at handed. Your your line was
(10:02):
that cage is the only place my problems can't touch me, right,
And I was like, oh my god, if we could
teach this to other people. You find that happy place
where you give yourself a break. For people like Randy
and I, it's a cage, but everybody out there find
a place for an hour a day your problems just
can't touch you. The fact that it's for you going
against the guy like a giant like Tim Sylvia, you're
(10:24):
really fucked up. I want people here to here. Also
because Randy and I part of mental health. It's not
just battling the gray. It's a fight I've turned into
a fight, damn r have. But it's also kind of
mental fitness, right. It's it's lifting ourselves up. It's even
when we're in the blue, how to get that blue
even brighter. So Randy and I, like I said, we
(10:46):
started training guys. Oh man, I stopped fighting. Fox made
me stop fighting an O four, but I couldn't stop
like I need this team. So I learned how to
start coaching. And I learned a lot from Randy. Another
gray thing you taught me is don't tell what you
don't want, tell what you want, yes, always speaking in
the positive. I learned this a hard way coach in
(11:07):
an Oregon state. Your brain is a very weird thing,
and your subconscious brain, especially picking up a hundred bits
of information you know every second, way faster than your
conscious brain. Your subconscious picks up way way more and
you get gut feelings about things about people and learning
to tune into that and and read that is a
huge thing. But recognizing that we control our subconscious voice,
(11:30):
so many of us react to that voice, and that
voice I call in. My crazy roommate says shipped to
me that nobody in their right mind would say to
my face and not expect to get smacked in the mouth.
That's how our our internal dialogue is for a lot
of us, and we don't recognize that we control that
internal dialogue. So many of us react to that internal
dialogue instead of shutting it down and giving it affirmations
(11:53):
and positive things to say. When you give your conscious
voice and your subconscious voice to say the same thing,
you are worse to be reckoned with. And you have
to recognize that. I wish i'd recognized earlier in my
life that I control that voice. That voice does not
control me. I get to step behind that voice anytime
I want, let it chatter, let us say anything it wants,
(12:13):
and especially when the pressure gets turned up. You're going
into fight week, You've done all the work. But if
you listen to that voice, all the what ifs come in?
What if he does this? What if I get tired?
What if the rough makes a bad call? And you
can live in that what f will forever and now
you're nervous, and nervous has a negative implication to it.
I'm never nervous before a fight. I know I've done
(12:35):
the work. I'm sided. Everybody freaks out because I'm walking
out of that tunnel smiling that you're sleeping back down.
It's crazy, ready fall asleep and everybody else is warming up.
It's unfucking believable. But I've seen the fight a hundred
times before I ever walked out of that tunnel. I'm
confident in my plan. I know I did everything I
know how to do to prepare myself to go out
(12:56):
and win that fight. Is there a guarantee I'm gonna
win that fight? Hell no, But that's the nature of
our sport. So I have to be comfortable in the
work that I put in and who I am and
my plan and walk out there and smile and let
it hang out and use the gifts that God gave
me and do exactly what I worked so hard to do.
That's what it's all about. That's about being in the zone,
(13:18):
about machine, being in that zen place where everything slows
down and you see it coming and you execute everything
you're trained to do perfectly. That's what we're all trying
to achieve, is that flow state and man learning control
that internal dialogue is a huge piece of that puzzle.
Out happen to write that down on five three five cards,
(13:39):
put it in my gym back, I put it in
my locker, I put it on my mirror. What exactly
did you? What did you write exactly? At first, for me,
it was simply breathe, move your feet, breathe depressed, keep
your feet moving. As long as I was moving, if
I didn't stop and let that guy did take the dance,
then I was a good chance that I was gonna win.
(14:00):
I was gonna put myself in a better position a minute.
So the early affirmations were simply just to keep me
moving and breathing in that circumstance. And then as I
got better at it and I didn't need the three
by five cards anymore, those affirmations were there that little
boys start chattering, stop and I'd start reciting those affirmations.
Breathe deep, nice deep, breast, center yourself, you know, keep
(14:22):
your feet moving, stay focused, simple things, they're not difficult things.
And share those with whoever's in your corner. For me
it was you a lot of times, or or some
of the other guys on my team, that person that
you trust, that voice you're used to hearing. Maybe it's
your mother, maybe it's your grandmother, it doesn't really matter.
Share it to somebody who's close to you. The understands
(14:43):
and can see when you start to go off track,
when you start to let that voice take over and
lead the dance instead of leading the dance yourself and
sit down giving those positive things to say and get
yourself right back on track and being on point. And
we're talking about this folks in the fire world, Well,
this is exactly what you could use in the real world,
right down through your five And that's why I have
(15:04):
like pillars. Find your team, call your team, be of service. Laugh,
don't forget to laugh. Right, If we could write down
these pillars for you that can help you in anything,
for your job, for mental health, whatever it is. I
love this idea of writing them down on little cars,
three by five cards and put them all over the place.
Beautiful dash your car. You're gonna drive that to the
(15:26):
gym every single day. Put him where you brush your
teeth every morning and every night. Put it on your
nightstand where you shut that light off at night. You
see that affirmation, you see that positive thing that you're
instilling in that internal dialogue. So that this that comes
out of my mouth is the same that's going on
in here. Man, You're you're tough to deal with when
you got them both saying the same thing. I want
(15:47):
people to understand because because you said you're not nervous
going to fight, but you're scared. Anybody says there's not
a little bit of a little bit of fear involvement,
there is a sociopath. We'll all feel that little bit
of piersil. That's what motivates you to do the work,
That's what keeps you on point. You're not gonna go
willy nilly out there. You're gonna draw that map to
get to that success from where you're at, and you're
(16:10):
gonna stick to that map. And that's gonna allow you
to smile, relax, and go out and do what you're
trained to do. So I want people to understand it's
okay to be scared. All of us are a lot
of us come from the the mindset we're scared little
kids in there. We just want to be be letting that
fear you lock you up. And letting that fear, that
fear of losing, that fear of failing, keep you from
(16:30):
going out and doing what you're prepared to do, is
a whole different thing. But you've got to take that
fear and use it as gas. That's the motivation to
put yourself on the line and to do the work.
And a real warrior is not somebody who retires under feud.
A real warriors somebody who has no problem losing. Right,
they lose, and then hey, they just get right back in.
Every single win, every single loss, they all make you
(16:52):
equally warrior. I say this all the time. First of all,
my fight record is nineteen and eleven. Everybody talks about
six world championships. Yeah, that means I lost it at
least five times, asshole. And the truth is I lost
it all six, not about many all the time. It's
how you deal with the adversity of losing, how you
pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and figure out
(17:14):
how to go back out there and do better. Not
make those same mistakes. We all made mistakes, even in
the fights I won, I made mistakes. Did I go
back and watch those No, I got the outcome I wanted,
you can bet your ass. I watched the ones I
lost over and over and over because that's where I
was going to become better, a better athlete, and a
better human by embracing that vulnerability and embracing that adversity
(17:38):
in those mistakes. It was a huge part of my journey.
And I'm actually more proud of some of the fights
I lost I am some of the ones I won.
The Warrior, the first three letters of War. Right, You've
been through these wars that most people just aren't willing
to do. But I love about Miss Martial Arts. For me,
I was doing something of the world or unwilling or
(18:00):
able to do. Like we can get lucky in our
friends could if we can invest in the company, and
they could all of a sudden come out with something
that's like the next Google, Amazon, and we could be billionaires. Right,
But man, the nuttack. We have to have to be
able to do what we did and got laughed at
early on. There's no amount of money that could buy that.
So I started I started leaning into that, and that
(18:22):
goes into again that made me different. My injuries, my scars.
Every time I walked in a room and I'm like, man,
I have ruptured L for L five four times twice
next to this ticket over here, L one L two
three times, right, like broke my my my ankle twice. Man,
just located my elbow my nose seven times. My scars
(18:44):
or what makes me? Who the funk I am? My scars?
Or what makes me powerful? Not my successes? My scars? Yeah,
I think we have to be proud of those scars.
I walk around with this thing on the side of
my head. But there, you know, go to ther Bag,
go to Bulgaria, and they're gonna call you to the
front of the line if they see those califlower heres.
(19:04):
They're a badge of honor. I earned those, I earned
the respect it comes with those. So tell him, not
bothered by him. Tell people here because so Randy and
I again. Once I started coaching guys, and the first
guy we coach was Jared Allen, who was a part
time long snapper, a full time long snapper, part time
d n All of a sudden, he got fifteen sacks
and told the world, yeah, I got this from training
(19:24):
M A with Jay Glazer and Brandy couttur of these
guys and the floodgates kind of open. So we've trained
hundreds and hundreds of pro athletes. So Randy and I
then started doing teams. We did the Falcons twice, we
did the Rams one year, we did the Browns, we
did the Saints. But just tell people, man, I get
so charged up when you get up there in front
(19:44):
of that team, right and they say, Randy, you've got
a few minutes, right, talk to our troops, Talk to
our team. Take everybody through that. Yeah. Well, I mean,
most of these football players mistaken late look at football's
combative sport, and it absolutely is a combative sport. So
(20:05):
even though it's a team environment, there's ten other guys
out on that field. My perspective for these guys is, man,
you line up every every ball, every play, you line
up across somebody on the other side of that line.
That son of a bitch on the other side of
that line that you're keying off a better have the
worst game of football in his entire life, or you're
(20:25):
not doing your damn job. Your should be pushing him,
making everything painful, staying in his face. By the time
the fourth quarter rolls around, that guy should be so
sick of you being on his ass that he's done.
He doesn't want to play you anymore, he doesn't want
to play against you anymore. If you don't make that
guy quit, you are not doing your job. It's that simple.
(20:46):
Every time I walked on that mat or up in
that cage, my job was to make that motherfucker quit.
If I didn't make him quit, and I didn't do
my job properly, it's that simple. Well, that means I
gotta work in the training environment and the practice, en.
I mean, I gotta put myself out there to be
able to go that hard, to be able to impose
my will on somebody else and make them quit. Break them.
(21:08):
It's it's a mental thing. It's not a physical I'm
not talking about breaking them physically. I'm talking about breaking
them mentally. Make them work harder than they ever thought
they were gonna have to work in a football game.
And if you're not willing to do that, then what
are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you here?
That's your goal, that's your that's your task each and
every time, and that starts right here in the training
(21:29):
environment right now. WHOA, That's what I'm talking about, baby,
And that's you know again we we talk about unbreakable.
He just said it right, We're trying to break you.
And as Randy and I are trying to train these guys. Man,
we're talking no hands on our hips, right, we don't
take a stool in between rounds. We want to the
other guys saying our football players don't no hands on
(21:49):
your heads. You want them to sit there and go
Funk's wrong with Lynne Johnson? Why is he not tired?
Tell's wrong with Kyle Long? Smiling at what? We're smiling? Right?
Why does Andrew what's smiling at us? Fuck's going on you? Right?
And man, you start to see it and it's like, folks,
you can control it between your ears. So like you know,
like as a little kid, you're sitting there, you're exhausted,
(22:12):
and you just played tag with your friends. When your
brother friend comes up, they twang you. Also you jump up,
run after you forget you're tired. You can control it
between the six inches between your ears. It's the most
powerful weapon on the planet, is that human mind, that
brain of ours and the right way. But you know
the other end of that, man, it's you know, we're pushing, pushing,
(22:34):
pushing to be unbreakable in this way. And and now
I'm telling people in mental health wise, I want you
to go complete opposite. I apologize. Actually the Seahawks recently
when I went and the vicers, I thought, I said, hey,
part of the reason you guys are afraid to say
anything is because people like me saying, don't fucking show it,
don't show your in pain, don't show it, don't put
(22:54):
your hands on your hips. But in mental health, I
want us to show it all the time. I want
us to cry to each other. I want us to
open up. I wanted to be a complete opposite of
how I want you in the cage or on the field. Right,
I want you to really start opening up to your
brothers on your right and your sisters on your left.
Just start opening up them so you know you have
your own fight team. In a way, there's a difference
(23:16):
between the mindset it takes to go out and compete,
certainly in an individual combative sport, but in a team
sport as well, and that mindset of living a full, engaged, loving,
happy life. Because those are two different things. Uh, And
I think you've got to be able to be willing
to open up to those people that are important, that
are in your circle, and show those vulnerabilities, let those
(23:39):
demons out, Let those things out so that they can
be dealt with. They don't like the light of day.
If you keep stuffing them down, it's only gonna fester.
It's only gonna get worse from you. That's what the
huddle is so important at m v P because it's
a safe place where I have some trust there, I
can let those things out, let them out into the
light of the day. They don't. They don't survive there
for very long. So Randy here has a heart attack
(24:01):
and unbreakable one day, full on heart attack, full on
fucking heart attack, and Rob Gronkowski's working out there. Randy
has a widow maker heart attack, hadn't breakable, and I'm like, kay, dude,
you know if you fucking died, it would totally change
the brand. We'd have to call a breakable. It's just
not a good brand, right, So that's not a fucking dinasshole,
(24:21):
and um, but full on, we don't make her heart attack.
Then walks to the fucking hospital because he doesn't want
to deal with parking right, and and Gront goes, man,
if I could have what what's behind my rib cage
like Randy has behind his. I'll be unbreaking bigger. Wait Ron,
hold that thought, because that's sucking. Heart's about to explode.
We get down to the fucking hospital. I bust in
(24:44):
the Cedar side. How he is in post out? They
just put a stent in. He had They told you
had what ten minutes to live? They said, if I
could have been anywhere else, it might have been a
different day completely. And that's crazy. I mean, things happen
when and where they're supposed to happen. You gotta have
some faith that that's the truth. I mean, the month
before I was hiking up your so many falls as
dehydrated as I've been in quite a while. And the
(25:05):
dehydration is what caused the plaque rupture in the scar
tissue in that artery. If that had happened up there,
the doctors kept telling us, you know, my condo is
three blocks from Cedar Side. I let's be honest, it's
a lot quicker to walk those three blocks than try
and drive over there, not with a fucking widow. Make
our heart attack. It's not bro Well, he got that.
(25:28):
I thought it popped at He's trying to foam roller
out a heart attack at the gym. He's trying to
fam rollering. So I get to the hospital, like five
doctors already told me, oh, your friend was ten fifteen
minutes away from dying. And I finally said, hey, guys,
enough for this. That's fun enough, all right, I get it,
he gets it. Let's stop saying this. Let's take it
(25:48):
out of the universe. He's here. So then they're like, well,
you gotta wait for him to to get I ain't
fucking waiting for him because when I almost died seven
years ago um at cedar side and I were both
my lungs aspirated, Randy was my emergency contact because in
my funck up mind, I'm gonna get my back done,
cleaned up, and I did this with him once. I'm
(26:09):
gonna come out of anesthegia, I'm gonna feel great, and
we're gonna train, so Randy's gonna pick me up to
good train. Instead, I wake up and his ugly mugg
and standing over my gurnee critical care and sy designed
and I'm like, well, I know my dead and heaven
because if I was his fucking ask wouldn't be here.
So if I'm dead. I'm somewhere else, but I'll think
(26:30):
up dead, but I'm gonna know what's going on. But
the point is my brother was there for me. He
was the first one there, standing over my my gurney
while my oxygen was dropping faster and faster. And you know,
my my book and Breakable came from a promise I
made with God. During that time, Randy, you were trying
to get me to turn my phone off, right, He
kept saying, Hey, bro, I think this is a real
(26:53):
thing here. And I didn't understand what was happening. And
you know, all of a sudden, that room went shoot
a minute shifted away. And that was my moment, my
moment that I kind of made this promise with God
of okay, and I literally said, like God, and my
oxygen dropped the sixty and I said, okay, God, I
think I'm coming to see you. And if I am,
it's okay. I love you. But I get joked up
(27:16):
talking about it. But I said, but if it's not time,
I promise I'll do more in this world and m
v P and then this book I'm Breakable, and that
this podcast, this is my way of keeping my promise
to God that I would do more than I would
help people. I know I got a little side tracked here,
but this is you know, had I had I left
this world, then there will be a lot of people
(27:38):
I know that also wouldn't be here because the charitable
work we've done with m v P and now helping
people give them word for mental health. So this is
my way of keeping my promise to God. And a
lot of times I think people make that deal and
they forget about it and they're like, Okay, now I'm good,
and or a lot of times we go okay when
when you're successful, you're like, I'm the reason, and when
things aren't going well, you'd like to blame God of
(28:00):
the universe, or you know, use the scape cooat. So
now let's fast forward here. Because Randy was standing over
my gernie. I'm like, there's no fucking way I'm waiting
for them to tell me when it's okay to go
see him. So I come busting through Postop, get in there.
He's about ten minutes out of his procedure, his surgery,
(28:20):
and he's just sitting there. He's like, Okay, I think
I'm gonna go, And I'm like, what do you mean
we're good to go? He goes, yeah, I'm good. I think, uh,
I think I'm ready to leave. I'm like, bro, we're
not good to go, and you and I are very stubborn, right,
extremely stubborn. Well, we convince him to stay, and then
about oh uh two hours later he starts sweating, and uh,
(28:43):
I look at and said, hey, how you hold up, cowboy?
And he says something going on? So I go and
get the doctors. The doctor's right in again, like, oh, well,
let's go. You know your friend was ten minutes away
from down. I'm like, hey, hey, I'm not gonna tell
you again. We're not saying this ship anymore. They also,
you don't know this, but when I got there, they
told me those days of fighting for your friend, those
days are over. And I said, hey, hey, fucking take
(29:05):
his hope away. Don't you tell him that if anybody
needs to have that conversation with him, I'll have that
conversation when the time is right, and we're gonna lead
to that story to here to tell that. So I
don't think you know that happened Randy outside your your
room there. I fucking wore this doctor out, don't you ever,
none of you all going and tell him and take
his fucking hope away of what makes him feel different special.
(29:27):
So all of a sudden, the doctors come in there
and they said, how are you feeling He says, ah,
I'm starting to feel some pain again here in my heart.
And they said, what's your pain level at Brandy goes, oh, man,
I'd say it's about it to this motherfucker has a
full heart attack. He says A two and they go
and they go, what was it like at the height
(29:47):
of your heart attack? Do you remember the number you gave? Four?
Four four? He says four, And I said, guys, hold on,
let me just show you how different this person is
you're dealing with. Randy broke his arm against Gabriel Gonzaga
to fight and ended up picking the dude up and
slamming on his nose, knowing that the doctors are gonna
stop the fight in between rounds. Randy, what was the
(30:10):
pain level like when you broke your arm? Do you
remember what you said? It didn't really hurt. I mean,
I knew there was something wrong with it. It It was clicking,
but it didn't hurt. I mean, in the moment, it
didn't hurt. Okay, okay, people, you want to talk about
mental health issues, This motherfucker just said it didn't. And
now that he got mad at me, he said it
didn't hurt, it was just pressure. It was clicking. Okay.
(30:32):
I was like, well, well we'll see see, so don't
ask him what his fucking pain threshold is because he's
just different. So so fast forward. And then, by the way,
he checked him out self out of intensive care the
next day because he was bothered by all the beats
and sounds in there. I mean, nobody could sleep in
that place. How does anybody get any rest in there?
(30:52):
And then somebody brought their damn dog up in there,
like what the hell? So three weeks after this heart attack,
Randy comes back into Unbreakable to have We threw a
little party from like, hey, regretting glad you're not dead party,
you know, you know what we have been as as
loving as we are. And next ding, I know, this
fucking fool goes into our office and comes back out
(31:15):
and he is fully geared up to train to spark
fully and he says to me, let's go get your
stuff on, and I'm like, dude, what are we doing here?
He's like, let's go, Okay, your stuff on. I'm like,
rand he was cleared you you go. You said, you said,
I'm on blood thinners. It's not your problem, right, Yeah,
he said, it's not your problem. I said, Reddy, what
(31:37):
are we We're three weeks away from we don't make
our heart attack. Do you remember the line you hit
me with to guilt me into spark? No, what did
I say? You said I would do it for you?
What an asshole? What it? Asshole? I would do it
for you, like motherfucker. Well, I wouldn't got my gear on,
(31:59):
Randy not we sparred, and the way we ran in
I spar we don't. Ever I learned from him not
to move back, just to go forward forward for it.
So obviously he does it too. So we just sit
there and we go and the bell rang and there
was no rest, and then the bell rang again and
there was no rest, and we just kept going and
going and going. I think we went three five minute
rounds straight without any fucking rest, right, And then you
(32:22):
pulled your gloves off and said, hey, fuck these doctors.
And he threw his gloves and walked out of the
fucking cage. That is Randy Gutur for your folks, and
then you coached every night for another two hours, and
some of our football players for another three hours. Yeah,
the doctors weren't sure what to do with me, and
so what I mean to do, said, you know, rehab
the curl ten pound weights. I mean, it wasn't a
(32:45):
lifestyle issue, is a genetic issue. And didn't tell you
the spar you know, but that's what we do. It's
just when he hits me with that line, I would
do it for you, like, oh, you're right, he would,
no doubt, but oh my god, it was an all
(33:06):
time And then Jay Harran hit me with that line
later on. Also, I hit him up with the line
when I wanted him to help me get back from
my shoulder. It's far four months before I was supposed
to sucking after piece my labor and cut out. But
that's again, that's folks. We're talking to a mental health podcast.
So everything you just heard here do the opposite. Yeah,
(33:27):
So years laugh. We started crying each other a lot
more in private the last five years. Why gosh, you know,
it's it's it's hard to again. I think a combination
of being in the huddle with m VP, and I
think that being in the huddle with a lot of
other folks that are struggling with other stuff that gives
you some perspective. Well, you certainly realized it could be
(33:50):
a whole lot worse than it is. But I think
once you find that place in your heart and in
your mind where it's okay to open up, where it's
okay to let some of that stuff out, and some
of that might just be our age. Let's let's be honest, Jay,
we ain't getting any younger. I think I'm in an
age at an age now where every month or every
other month, I lose somebody that was close to me
(34:10):
that was part of my journey, that that meant something
to me. And you know, I had two suicides in
the last couple of years in the gym as well.
Those are difficult things. I just feel like I know
myself better now than I've ever known myself in my life.
And part of that knowing myself is being willing to
let some of this ship out, let some of this
stuff out into the light, share some of this stuff
(34:31):
with people you trust that you know that that they're
gonna take care of you, that are gonna prop you up.
They're gonna help you get through it and give you
some perspective to make it okay. That's what I feel
like it's been going on. Yeah, our conversations have gotten deeper.
They just started and we've always had deep conversations. But
I think Randy and I have the most selfless relationship
(34:51):
you could have. We just give give to each other.
We never take from each other. We're always thinking how
could we give to the other without ever having to
ask or say anything. I'm just always thinking for him,
he's always thinking for me, which is that's what relationships
supposed to be. Folks. The art of loyalty. It's a
dying art, and that's what loyalty is. And that's when
(35:11):
you have these relationships, you could start being a lot
closer and vulnerable with people in your lives because you
know they just fucking got your back. When they're thinking
about you and you're thinking about them, life is an
easier place to navigate what's become a very difficult and
darker maze. Not only is it nice to have somebody
to share those positive, amazing things with, like your new place.
(35:34):
You know that place is unbelievable. You know so many
different places and things that we've gotten to go and
see and do that we're way more fun because I
was standing next to you. But the same is true
about the darker things and the and the difficult things
in our life. Having that same somebody to lean on to,
to bounce those things off up to to find some
perspective for those things that that's just as important and
(35:55):
just as meaningful for sure. Yeah, and we we won't
say what it is, but you know you right, did
it come to me not too long ones that I
had helped him through a really dark period and I
didn't know, And you know, for him to be able
to open up to me like that and tell me
how much again, that's that allows me to be of
known that I'm being of service to my brothers. The
truth is we've all probably been in that headspace at
(36:17):
least once in our lives. I've been in that headspace
twice in my life. I never told you about the
other time. It was a long time before ever knew you.
But you know, I was in an absolute dark place,
embarrassed to tears and literally embarrassed tears, and and didn't
know where to go. And you called me out of
the blue and you had no idea. I mean you did,
(36:38):
but you had no idea where I was at with
what was going on. And and man, your sense of
humor and you're fucked up? This your your friendship. Man,
it just it snapped me out of it and helped
me get through it. It wasn't good. I don't even
want to go into the details. This is what I mean.
This is like you know I put in the book
(37:00):
after man, it's the laughter. But this brotherhood, and this
is me being a service, just calling a brother going hey, man,
how you doing today? Hey? Hey, what's going How are
you really doing? You know, we call someone and go
how you doing? I'm doing great? Sometimes just ask people,
no funk that how you really doing it? Yeah, we're
all pretty good at hiding my ship, and the ones
(37:22):
of us that carry around the most darkness and deal
with the deepest, darkest ship on a regular basis are
the best at hiding it. I mean, Robert Fawless, you
would have never in a million years knowing that that
was going on behind behind the curtain there. Same with
Tim you know, you would have never known. This guy
is the brightest, most enthusiastic person you'd ever meet in
(37:44):
your laugh and you'd never know those demons were in
there messing with his head on a regular basis. And
you know, you gotta pay attention, you gotta learn and
to look for the signs, and you've got to be
willing to go there, to go and be vulnerable, to
open up and show those things and that support to
those folks of se The last question before I let
you go, I ask all my guests, give your unbreakable moment,
(38:07):
like that moment like that changed your life, that something
trying to break you couldn't. Yeah, that was a journey
for me through the support of wrestling. I started rustling
and ten years old to get my dad's attention. My
dad was a debut, he was never around, no support,
none of that. My mom raised sturvice b ourselfs. But
I heard my whole life what a great wrestler he
was and what a tough guy he was. So I
(38:28):
donned the compulsory uniform of that era, tights and a
singlet and walked out in front of all my classmates,
hoping to get his attention, and he would come around.
He never saw me wrest not a single match in
my entire career, but I found the place that seemed
to make me tick. Those coaches were very very important
to me because they filled that void. When I needed
to kick in the ass, they were the guys to
(38:50):
grab me and do that. When I needed an arm
thrown around me in a newgie, it's gonna be okay,
it's gonna be all right, they were the guys to
do that too. I don't think they knew that. I've
talked to my coaches, good friends with coach Ka Skier,
my very first coach. I don't think he knew what
he meant to me and that boyd and that thing
that he was providing for me that I didn't have
at home. But that was certainly the journey for me,
(39:11):
and the courage to don that uniform and walk out
there in an individual combatis sport like wrestling. Forget winning
or losing. Hell, that was enough, just just doing that,
you know, and then setting a goal. Even though he
was it didn't work. He never came around. You never
saw me. I eventually, you know, it was in the
state finals my senior year. I was at one time
state champion in Washington. He wasn't there, But that journey
(39:33):
culminated with me fulfilling that dream to be that state champion,
and that's when I realized I can do this. I
used that I could have used as an excuse to
be a douche bag and make a lot of bad
decisions and do a lot of bad things. I used
it instead to motivate myself, you know, errantly trying to
get his attention, but still found my calling, found my vocation,
(39:55):
the place that I belonged ultimately led me down this road.
That's exactly what folks. We could use our mental health
issues to choose the wrong path and the wrong decisions,
or to motivate us. So let's make that choice to
motivate us. Randy gatur Man, I love you, dude, my brother,
my training partner. So glad you didn't die that time.
You're probably not at Randy gatour Man, I appreciate you
(40:21):
walking this walk together. Brother, Thanks brother, love, happy to
be here with you. Man. I love you too. Man.
Be well.
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glazer, a mental health podcast
helping you out of the gray and into the blue.
Now here's Jay Glazer. Welcome in, everybody to Unbreakable, a
mental health podcast with Jay Glazer. I am your host,
Jay Glazer. And you know, for those who don't know
(00:24):
why I'm doing a mental health podcast when you see
on Foxing about Sunday and Fallers and Mitch Martial Arts.
For years, I've gone on all those TV shows and
I've hidden the fact that I've lived in something called
the gray my entire life, which is depression anxiety UM
a d D. Throwing a little bipolar while we're at it.
And I wrote a book about it earlier this year
(00:45):
called Unbreakable How I turned my depression anxiety into motivation
and you can too. And my depression and anxiety UM
has been a fight for me every day in my life.
That led me then to literally go fight. And I
felt self worth of going into a cage getting beaten
(01:05):
up by other men. And I didn't feel lovable. I
didn't feel worthy of being loved, but I felt it
in a cage, which is well, let's put it frankly,
how funked up is that that's where I got male love.
And one of the guys who was very proud to
beat the hell out of me on a daily basis
for a long time is my guests here. That is
(01:26):
the UFC six time World Champ Hall of Famer, my
brother and co creator with me of M M A Athletics,
Randy Kator. My dude, how are you? How? I am
doing great? And so a lot of people don't realize
the reason why it was okay for me to start
talking openly is Randy and I would be in the
cage and we beat the ship at each other and
(01:48):
then after we would just sit and talk about life
and cry and just open up. And it was like, man,
no one's question our manhood. So we could start open
up about these things. And I wish we did it
long ago, Randy, really do. I wish I wish I'd
come out and you've been writing poetry about it now.
You know I hit it for all those years, man,
And I don't think I hit it from you. I
don't think I hid my pain from you, right like
(02:09):
you know, you know I wasn't that kind of pain.
It's that's what's the interesting about this whole thing. And man,
I can't tell you how proud I am you for
the book and how good the book is. It really
is amazing. As someone who's never struggled with the gray,
and I probably had every excuse the reason to be depressed,
or I certainly have those same feelings of I wasn't
(02:32):
good enough, I wasn't good enough for my own dad,
I wasn't good enough, you know, for for a lot
of people. So I certainly know that internal struggle. But
you do, you have this outgoing, gregarious, loving crazy. Is
any personality that I think, in a lot of ways
is upfront is a cover for the gray? Is? It
is a cover for you know, anybody that met you
(02:53):
would never think that you struggle with anxiety or depression.
That's just the way it is. And so for you
to Frank we have the balls to step up and
show that side of yourself, to show that vulnerability is
is pretty incredible. And I think there's a whole bunch
of folks out there that can relate to that. And
for me, it gave me a perspective because I have friends,
other friends who were more open about being depressed, being
(03:14):
you know, having anxiety and stuff like that. My sister
struggles with that. It's something that somebody who's never struggled
with it has trouble comprehending, has trouble figuring out what
that means, how that works. And that was one of
the things that was very enlightening for me, and reading
your book and how well you put it out there,
so that even someone like myself we never really struggled
with that. There there have been a couple of moments,
(03:35):
and you and I have talked about these moments pretty dark.
I don't talk about them with a lot of people,
certainly because it's not a comfortable thing to talk about
unless some are you really trust, and certainly I trust you,
and you and I have shared a lot of things, mistakes,
things were not happy about, things in our lives that
we struggle with, for sure. But it's one of those
things that your book gave me a new perspective on
(03:56):
folks and struggle with that every single day, trying to
give the words. And that's what I'm doing. Like we
talked about mental health, but who gives it words? I
want to give it words so we could have these conversations.
And like you said, listen, you don't struggle with the
gray as far as you don't have depression and anxiety.
But I want everybody to hear what he also said,
he's had dark times. That's the gray, the dark moments.
(04:18):
The gray isn't It's not just depression anxiety, it's whenever
you know it decides these these dark moments in our lives,
decide to pull up a chair at our dinner table
and throw our worlds upside down. And it sucks. And
how much this and your confidence to step up the
way you have this last year has come out of
(04:39):
the last six years working with m VP and sitting
in the huddle and not only watching some of these
soldiers and some of these other athletes bear their souls
and and let their demons out, but that's motivated you
and I in that circle to to open up and
share some of these things too with Frankly, some people
maybe we didn't know that well, but because we were
(04:59):
in at huddle and in that circle, we felt comfortable
enough to open up and show that vulnerability too. And
and now look at you. I mean, you're you're running
a podcast where you have a top ten best selling
book about it. I mean, it's pretty remarkable. It's fucking
really remarkable. And you know, again I I kind of
look at it in our damage. We have damage that
(05:20):
led us into a cage. Right, You're not fucking normal.
I'm not normal. Then we go and go, oh, let's
go step into a cage and this guy is allowed
to fucking kill me. And you know, it's at eleven
o'clock on Saturday night in front of the world to see,
and even when the world doesn't see, when we're just sparring,
you and I rite, it's just it's not fucking normal.
(05:41):
But I've turned that into being proud, Like I'm proud
and I'm not normal, Like, motherfucker, I'm different, and different
is good. Different leads to success. Did you when you
first started fighting, did you feel proud of it? Did
you feel like, man, I'm I'm really funked up. I
mean that first time walking out there. Obvious you have
been wrestling and wrestling at a high level for a
(06:02):
very long time, but this was a whole new animal
walking out of that tunnel in front of all those
crazy fans that you know, they get they get rabbit
at these events. They're literally trying to rip your clothes
off of your steal your hats. I mean, it's a
crazy scene and it's surreal that first time I was
scared to death. Literally, I'm not sure what I had
gotten myself into. But yeah, you keep marching forward, you
(06:24):
keep doing what you're doing, and somehow we get off
on the pain that the average person is going to
shy away from those situations, and that house somehow makes
us feel alive, makes us feel things that maybe you're
buried down there so far that it takes something that
extreme to bring some of that up. So here's here's
where you here's where you change my life. Right, I
(06:45):
will let you know where you change my life. When
I started finding I went into the cage feeling that
I deserve two loops. So you do all this, you know,
mental motivation, where you you've he fought to fight a
million times in your brain. I used to go in
to lose. I felt myself worth. I felt that guy
(07:06):
across from me it was more worthy to win than
I was. And I've tried to explain this to football coaches.
Imagine every game you go out there and you'll never
I think you're worthy of making a first down. We're
a touchdown, and if you do, it's because you got lucky.
But man, you just didn't deserve that. And yet I
still walked in there all the time with you all.
(07:28):
And it wasn't until I started training with you where
you shifted it for me, and you got me to
not only see that I'm I deserve to win, but
to almost take the ego out of like your whole
mantra and the way we train people together now and
unbreakable is funk winning or losing. We're just gonna be
so relentless that we're gonna make it a bad afternoon
(07:49):
forever's across from us. And it just shifted everything. It
took the ego out and took this shame out of
it that I had, Randy, And if I ever told
you this, but man, you just you changed my life then.
And I just and you've seen me now wrestled what
thousands of NFL players, and you know everybody from Andrew Worth,
the Lane Johnson to Kyle Long to Ode Beckham to
(08:12):
play Matthews to Jared out and you name it right
after every one of them. I want to have that
confidence that I deserved to win. It wasn't for you. Well,
I appreciate that, man, and it's such an interesting thing.
I obviously never knew you that you were operating before
that and in that capacity that you didn't deserve to
have the success. I saw the work, you know. The
(08:33):
first time we rolled together was at the set for
the Ultimately back in the day, and I saw this
guy that that was putting in work, that that was
enjoying that journey of sweating and bleeding and being on
that Matt, and I felt a kindred spirit to you
and that because that's why why I was there. I
don't know, that was cathartic for me. The rest of
the world goes away when we're engaged and we're punching
(08:55):
each other, we're grappling a rolling. All the worries, the bills,
the in anything, the fight with your girlfriend or your
wife or whatever, it all goes away in that moment.
That's why that's so relaxing and refreshing. And I've always
got a big smile on my face there because that's
where I love to be. It's a really interesting your
perspective and and that shift that came through that for you. Also,
(09:17):
I learned I learned exactly what you said because you
had you fought tim Sylvia, and we won't get into
what happened, but beforehand, you got hit with legal papers,
and you know, you go down. And people don't know
this where he gets hit with legal papers and he
goes down and he fights a guy that's a footfaller
than him and eighty pounds every year, and he is
smiling the whole way and he beats the dog Funck
(09:39):
and at sim Sylvia from the heavyweight championship of the
world at forty four years of age. Forty four years
of age. And I said to him, after, bro, how
did you do that? How were you able to compartmentalize
like that? Do you remember your line? Uh? Why? I
know that certainly putting things in boxes and shoving them
to the side so we can stay laser focused on
exactly what a task at handed. Your your line was
(10:02):
that cage is the only place my problems can't touch me, right,
And I was like, oh my god, if we could
teach this to other people. You find that happy place
where you give yourself a break. For people like Randy
and I, it's a cage, but everybody out there find
a place for an hour a day your problems just
can't touch you. The fact that it's for you going
against the guy like a giant like Tim Sylvia, you're
(10:24):
really fucked up. I want people here to here. Also
because Randy and I part of mental health. It's not
just battling the gray. It's a fight I've turned into
a fight, damn r have. But it's also kind of
mental fitness, right. It's it's lifting ourselves up. It's even
when we're in the blue, how to get that blue
even brighter. So Randy and I, like I said, we
(10:46):
started training guys. Oh man, I stopped fighting. Fox made
me stop fighting an O four, but I couldn't stop
like I need this team. So I learned how to
start coaching. And I learned a lot from Randy. Another
gray thing you taught me is don't tell what you
don't want, tell what you want, yes, always speaking in
the positive. I learned this a hard way coach in
(11:07):
an Oregon state. Your brain is a very weird thing,
and your subconscious brain, especially picking up a hundred bits
of information you know every second, way faster than your
conscious brain. Your subconscious picks up way way more and
you get gut feelings about things about people and learning
to tune into that and and read that is a
huge thing. But recognizing that we control our subconscious voice,
(11:30):
so many of us react to that voice, and that
voice I call in. My crazy roommate says shipped to
me that nobody in their right mind would say to
my face and not expect to get smacked in the mouth.
That's how our our internal dialogue is for a lot
of us, and we don't recognize that we control that
internal dialogue. So many of us react to that internal
dialogue instead of shutting it down and giving it affirmations
(11:53):
and positive things to say. When you give your conscious
voice and your subconscious voice to say the same thing,
you are worse to be reckoned with. And you have
to recognize that. I wish i'd recognized earlier in my
life that I control that voice. That voice does not
control me. I get to step behind that voice anytime
I want, let it chatter, let us say anything it wants,
(12:13):
and especially when the pressure gets turned up. You're going
into fight week, You've done all the work. But if
you listen to that voice, all the what ifs come in?
What if he does this? What if I get tired?
What if the rough makes a bad call? And you
can live in that what f will forever and now
you're nervous, and nervous has a negative implication to it.
I'm never nervous before a fight. I know I've done
(12:35):
the work. I'm sided. Everybody freaks out because I'm walking
out of that tunnel smiling that you're sleeping back down.
It's crazy, ready fall asleep and everybody else is warming up.
It's unfucking believable. But I've seen the fight a hundred
times before I ever walked out of that tunnel. I'm
confident in my plan. I know I did everything I
know how to do to prepare myself to go out
(12:56):
and win that fight. Is there a guarantee I'm gonna
win that fight? Hell no, But that's the nature of
our sport. So I have to be comfortable in the
work that I put in and who I am and
my plan and walk out there and smile and let
it hang out and use the gifts that God gave
me and do exactly what I worked so hard to do.
That's what it's all about. That's about being in the zone,
(13:18):
about machine, being in that zen place where everything slows
down and you see it coming and you execute everything
you're trained to do perfectly. That's what we're all trying
to achieve, is that flow state and man learning control
that internal dialogue is a huge piece of that puzzle.
Out happen to write that down on five three five cards,
(13:39):
put it in my gym back, I put it in
my locker, I put it on my mirror. What exactly
did you? What did you write exactly? At first, for me,
it was simply breathe, move your feet, breathe depressed, keep
your feet moving. As long as I was moving, if
I didn't stop and let that guy did take the dance,
then I was a good chance that I was gonna win.
(14:00):
I was gonna put myself in a better position a minute.
So the early affirmations were simply just to keep me
moving and breathing in that circumstance. And then as I
got better at it and I didn't need the three
by five cards anymore, those affirmations were there that little
boys start chattering, stop and I'd start reciting those affirmations.
Breathe deep, nice deep, breast, center yourself, you know, keep
(14:22):
your feet moving, stay focused, simple things, they're not difficult things.
And share those with whoever's in your corner. For me
it was you a lot of times, or or some
of the other guys on my team, that person that
you trust, that voice you're used to hearing. Maybe it's
your mother, maybe it's your grandmother, it doesn't really matter.
Share it to somebody who's close to you. The understands
(14:43):
and can see when you start to go off track,
when you start to let that voice take over and
lead the dance instead of leading the dance yourself and
sit down giving those positive things to say and get
yourself right back on track and being on point. And
we're talking about this folks in the fire world, Well,
this is exactly what you could use in the real world,
right down through your five And that's why I have
(15:04):
like pillars. Find your team, call your team, be of service. Laugh,
don't forget to laugh. Right, If we could write down
these pillars for you that can help you in anything,
for your job, for mental health, whatever it is. I
love this idea of writing them down on little cars,
three by five cards and put them all over the place.
Beautiful dash your car. You're gonna drive that to the
(15:26):
gym every single day. Put him where you brush your
teeth every morning and every night. Put it on your
nightstand where you shut that light off at night. You
see that affirmation, you see that positive thing that you're
instilling in that internal dialogue. So that this that comes
out of my mouth is the same that's going on
in here. Man, You're you're tough to deal with when
you got them both saying the same thing. I want
(15:47):
people to understand because because you said you're not nervous
going to fight, but you're scared. Anybody says there's not
a little bit of a little bit of fear involvement,
there is a sociopath. We'll all feel that little bit
of piersil. That's what motivates you to do the work,
That's what keeps you on point. You're not gonna go
willy nilly out there. You're gonna draw that map to
get to that success from where you're at, and you're
(16:10):
gonna stick to that map. And that's gonna allow you
to smile, relax, and go out and do what you're
trained to do. So I want people to understand it's
okay to be scared. All of us are a lot
of us come from the the mindset we're scared little
kids in there. We just want to be be letting that
fear you lock you up. And letting that fear, that
fear of losing, that fear of failing, keep you from
(16:30):
going out and doing what you're prepared to do, is
a whole different thing. But you've got to take that
fear and use it as gas. That's the motivation to
put yourself on the line and to do the work.
And a real warrior is not somebody who retires under feud.
A real warriors somebody who has no problem losing. Right,
they lose, and then hey, they just get right back in.
Every single win, every single loss, they all make you
(16:52):
equally warrior. I say this all the time. First of all,
my fight record is nineteen and eleven. Everybody talks about
six world championships. Yeah, that means I lost it at
least five times, asshole. And the truth is I lost
it all six, not about many all the time. It's
how you deal with the adversity of losing, how you
pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and figure out
(17:14):
how to go back out there and do better. Not
make those same mistakes. We all made mistakes, even in
the fights I won, I made mistakes. Did I go
back and watch those No, I got the outcome I wanted,
you can bet your ass. I watched the ones I
lost over and over and over because that's where I
was going to become better, a better athlete, and a
better human by embracing that vulnerability and embracing that adversity
(17:38):
in those mistakes. It was a huge part of my journey.
And I'm actually more proud of some of the fights
I lost I am some of the ones I won.
The Warrior, the first three letters of War. Right, You've
been through these wars that most people just aren't willing
to do. But I love about Miss Martial Arts. For me,
I was doing something of the world or unwilling or
(18:00):
able to do. Like we can get lucky in our
friends could if we can invest in the company, and
they could all of a sudden come out with something
that's like the next Google, Amazon, and we could be billionaires. Right,
But man, the nuttack. We have to have to be
able to do what we did and got laughed at
early on. There's no amount of money that could buy that.
So I started I started leaning into that, and that
(18:22):
goes into again that made me different. My injuries, my scars.
Every time I walked in a room and I'm like, man,
I have ruptured L for L five four times twice
next to this ticket over here, L one L two
three times, right, like broke my my my ankle twice. Man,
just located my elbow my nose seven times. My scars
(18:44):
or what makes me? Who the funk I am? My scars?
Or what makes me powerful? Not my successes? My scars? Yeah,
I think we have to be proud of those scars.
I walk around with this thing on the side of
my head. But there, you know, go to ther Bag,
go to Bulgaria, and they're gonna call you to the
front of the line if they see those califlower heres.
(19:04):
They're a badge of honor. I earned those, I earned
the respect it comes with those. So tell him, not
bothered by him. Tell people here because so Randy and
I again. Once I started coaching guys, and the first
guy we coach was Jared Allen, who was a part
time long snapper, a full time long snapper, part time
d n All of a sudden, he got fifteen sacks
and told the world, yeah, I got this from training
(19:24):
M A with Jay Glazer and Brandy couttur of these
guys and the floodgates kind of open. So we've trained
hundreds and hundreds of pro athletes. So Randy and I
then started doing teams. We did the Falcons twice, we
did the Rams one year, we did the Browns, we
did the Saints. But just tell people, man, I get
so charged up when you get up there in front
(19:44):
of that team, right and they say, Randy, you've got
a few minutes, right, talk to our troops, Talk to
our team. Take everybody through that. Yeah. Well, I mean,
most of these football players mistaken late look at football's
combative sport, and it absolutely is a combative sport. So
(20:05):
even though it's a team environment, there's ten other guys
out on that field. My perspective for these guys is, man,
you line up every every ball, every play, you line
up across somebody on the other side of that line.
That son of a bitch on the other side of
that line that you're keying off a better have the
worst game of football in his entire life, or you're
(20:25):
not doing your damn job. Your should be pushing him,
making everything painful, staying in his face. By the time
the fourth quarter rolls around, that guy should be so
sick of you being on his ass that he's done.
He doesn't want to play you anymore, he doesn't want
to play against you anymore. If you don't make that
guy quit, you are not doing your job. It's that simple.
(20:46):
Every time I walked on that mat or up in
that cage, my job was to make that motherfucker quit.
If I didn't make him quit, and I didn't do
my job properly, it's that simple. Well, that means I
gotta work in the training environment and the practice, en.
I mean, I gotta put myself out there to be
able to go that hard, to be able to impose
my will on somebody else and make them quit. Break them.
(21:08):
It's it's a mental thing. It's not a physical I'm
not talking about breaking them physically. I'm talking about breaking
them mentally. Make them work harder than they ever thought
they were gonna have to work in a football game.
And if you're not willing to do that, then what
are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you here?
That's your goal, that's your that's your task each and
every time, and that starts right here in the training
(21:29):
environment right now. WHOA, That's what I'm talking about, baby,
And that's you know again we we talk about unbreakable.
He just said it right, We're trying to break you.
And as Randy and I are trying to train these guys. Man,
we're talking no hands on our hips, right, we don't
take a stool in between rounds. We want to the
other guys saying our football players don't no hands on
(21:49):
your heads. You want them to sit there and go
Funk's wrong with Lynne Johnson? Why is he not tired?
Tell's wrong with Kyle Long? Smiling at what? We're smiling? Right?
Why does Andrew what's smiling at us? Fuck's going on you? Right?
And man, you start to see it and it's like, folks,
you can control it between your ears. So like you know,
like as a little kid, you're sitting there, you're exhausted,
(22:12):
and you just played tag with your friends. When your
brother friend comes up, they twang you. Also you jump up,
run after you forget you're tired. You can control it
between the six inches between your ears. It's the most
powerful weapon on the planet, is that human mind, that
brain of ours and the right way. But you know
the other end of that, man, it's you know, we're pushing, pushing,
(22:34):
pushing to be unbreakable in this way. And and now
I'm telling people in mental health wise, I want you
to go complete opposite. I apologize. Actually the Seahawks recently
when I went and the vicers, I thought, I said, hey,
part of the reason you guys are afraid to say
anything is because people like me saying, don't fucking show it,
don't show your in pain, don't show it, don't put
(22:54):
your hands on your hips. But in mental health, I
want us to show it all the time. I want
us to cry to each other. I want us to
open up. I wanted to be a complete opposite of
how I want you in the cage or on the field. Right,
I want you to really start opening up to your
brothers on your right and your sisters on your left.
Just start opening up them so you know you have
your own fight team. In a way, there's a difference
(23:16):
between the mindset it takes to go out and compete,
certainly in an individual combative sport, but in a team
sport as well, and that mindset of living a full, engaged, loving,
happy life. Because those are two different things. Uh, And
I think you've got to be able to be willing
to open up to those people that are important, that
are in your circle, and show those vulnerabilities, let those
(23:39):
demons out, Let those things out so that they can
be dealt with. They don't like the light of day.
If you keep stuffing them down, it's only gonna fester.
It's only gonna get worse from you. That's what the
huddle is so important at m v P because it's
a safe place where I have some trust there, I
can let those things out, let them out into the
light of the day. They don't. They don't survive there
for very long. So Randy here has a heart attack
(24:01):
and unbreakable one day, full on heart attack, full on
fucking heart attack, and Rob Gronkowski's working out there. Randy
has a widow maker heart attack, hadn't breakable, and I'm like, kay, dude,
you know if you fucking died, it would totally change
the brand. We'd have to call a breakable. It's just
not a good brand, right, So that's not a fucking dinasshole,
(24:21):
and um, but full on, we don't make her heart attack.
Then walks to the fucking hospital because he doesn't want
to deal with parking right, and and Gront goes, man,
if I could have what what's behind my rib cage
like Randy has behind his. I'll be unbreaking bigger. Wait Ron,
hold that thought, because that's sucking. Heart's about to explode.
We get down to the fucking hospital. I bust in
(24:44):
the Cedar side. How he is in post out? They
just put a stent in. He had They told you
had what ten minutes to live? They said, if I
could have been anywhere else, it might have been a
different day completely. And that's crazy. I mean, things happen
when and where they're supposed to happen. You gotta have
some faith that that's the truth. I mean, the month
before I was hiking up your so many falls as
dehydrated as I've been in quite a while. And the
(25:05):
dehydration is what caused the plaque rupture in the scar
tissue in that artery. If that had happened up there,
the doctors kept telling us, you know, my condo is
three blocks from Cedar Side. I let's be honest, it's
a lot quicker to walk those three blocks than try
and drive over there, not with a fucking widow. Make
our heart attack. It's not bro Well, he got that.
(25:28):
I thought it popped at He's trying to foam roller
out a heart attack at the gym. He's trying to
fam rollering. So I get to the hospital, like five
doctors already told me, oh, your friend was ten fifteen
minutes away from dying. And I finally said, hey, guys,
enough for this. That's fun enough, all right, I get it,
he gets it. Let's stop saying this. Let's take it
(25:48):
out of the universe. He's here. So then they're like, well,
you gotta wait for him to to get I ain't
fucking waiting for him because when I almost died seven
years ago um at cedar side and I were both
my lungs aspirated, Randy was my emergency contact because in
my funck up mind, I'm gonna get my back done,
cleaned up, and I did this with him once. I'm
(26:09):
gonna come out of anesthegia, I'm gonna feel great, and
we're gonna train, so Randy's gonna pick me up to
good train. Instead, I wake up and his ugly mugg
and standing over my gurnee critical care and sy designed
and I'm like, well, I know my dead and heaven
because if I was his fucking ask wouldn't be here.
So if I'm dead. I'm somewhere else, but I'll think
(26:30):
up dead, but I'm gonna know what's going on. But
the point is my brother was there for me. He
was the first one there, standing over my my gurney
while my oxygen was dropping faster and faster. And you know,
my my book and Breakable came from a promise I
made with God. During that time, Randy, you were trying
to get me to turn my phone off, right, He
kept saying, Hey, bro, I think this is a real
(26:53):
thing here. And I didn't understand what was happening. And
you know, all of a sudden, that room went shoot
a minute shifted away. And that was my moment, my
moment that I kind of made this promise with God
of okay, and I literally said, like God, and my
oxygen dropped the sixty and I said, okay, God, I
think I'm coming to see you. And if I am,
it's okay. I love you. But I get joked up
(27:16):
talking about it. But I said, but if it's not time,
I promise I'll do more in this world and m
v P and then this book I'm Breakable, and that
this podcast, this is my way of keeping my promise
to God that I would do more than I would
help people. I know I got a little side tracked here,
but this is you know, had I had I left
this world, then there will be a lot of people
(27:38):
I know that also wouldn't be here because the charitable
work we've done with m v P and now helping
people give them word for mental health. So this is
my way of keeping my promise to God. And a
lot of times I think people make that deal and
they forget about it and they're like, Okay, now I'm good,
and or a lot of times we go okay when
when you're successful, you're like, I'm the reason, and when
things aren't going well, you'd like to blame God of
(28:00):
the universe, or you know, use the scape cooat. So
now let's fast forward here. Because Randy was standing over
my gernie. I'm like, there's no fucking way I'm waiting
for them to tell me when it's okay to go
see him. So I come busting through Postop, get in there.
He's about ten minutes out of his procedure, his surgery,
(28:20):
and he's just sitting there. He's like, Okay, I think
I'm gonna go, And I'm like, what do you mean
we're good to go? He goes, yeah, I'm good. I think, uh,
I think I'm ready to leave. I'm like, bro, we're
not good to go, and you and I are very stubborn, right,
extremely stubborn. Well, we convince him to stay, and then
about oh uh two hours later he starts sweating, and uh,
(28:43):
I look at and said, hey, how you hold up, cowboy?
And he says something going on? So I go and
get the doctors. The doctor's right in again, like, oh, well,
let's go. You know your friend was ten minutes away
from down. I'm like, hey, hey, I'm not gonna tell
you again. We're not saying this ship anymore. They also,
you don't know this, but when I got there, they
told me those days of fighting for your friend, those
days are over. And I said, hey, hey, fucking take
(29:05):
his hope away. Don't you tell him that if anybody
needs to have that conversation with him, I'll have that
conversation when the time is right, and we're gonna lead
to that story to here to tell that. So I
don't think you know that happened Randy outside your your
room there. I fucking wore this doctor out, don't you ever,
none of you all going and tell him and take
his fucking hope away of what makes him feel different special.
(29:27):
So all of a sudden, the doctors come in there
and they said, how are you feeling He says, ah,
I'm starting to feel some pain again here in my heart.
And they said, what's your pain level at Brandy goes, oh, man,
I'd say it's about it to this motherfucker has a
full heart attack. He says A two and they go
and they go, what was it like at the height
(29:47):
of your heart attack? Do you remember the number you gave? Four?
Four four? He says four, And I said, guys, hold on,
let me just show you how different this person is
you're dealing with. Randy broke his arm against Gabriel Gonzaga
to fight and ended up picking the dude up and
slamming on his nose, knowing that the doctors are gonna
stop the fight in between rounds. Randy, what was the
(30:10):
pain level like when you broke your arm? Do you
remember what you said? It didn't really hurt. I mean,
I knew there was something wrong with it. It It was clicking,
but it didn't hurt. I mean, in the moment, it
didn't hurt. Okay, okay, people, you want to talk about
mental health issues, This motherfucker just said it didn't. And
now that he got mad at me, he said it
didn't hurt, it was just pressure. It was clicking. Okay.
(30:32):
I was like, well, well we'll see see, so don't
ask him what his fucking pain threshold is because he's
just different. So so fast forward. And then, by the way,
he checked him out self out of intensive care the
next day because he was bothered by all the beats
and sounds in there. I mean, nobody could sleep in
that place. How does anybody get any rest in there?
(30:52):
And then somebody brought their damn dog up in there,
like what the hell? So three weeks after this heart attack,
Randy comes back into Unbreakable to have We threw a
little party from like, hey, regretting glad you're not dead party,
you know, you know what we have been as as
loving as we are. And next ding, I know, this
fucking fool goes into our office and comes back out
(31:15):
and he is fully geared up to train to spark
fully and he says to me, let's go get your
stuff on, and I'm like, dude, what are we doing here?
He's like, let's go, Okay, your stuff on. I'm like,
rand he was cleared you you go. You said, you said,
I'm on blood thinners. It's not your problem, right, Yeah,
he said, it's not your problem. I said, Reddy, what
(31:37):
are we We're three weeks away from we don't make
our heart attack. Do you remember the line you hit
me with to guilt me into spark? No, what did
I say? You said I would do it for you?
What an asshole? What it? Asshole? I would do it
for you, like motherfucker. Well, I wouldn't got my gear on,
(31:59):
Randy not we sparred, and the way we ran in
I spar we don't. Ever I learned from him not
to move back, just to go forward forward for it.
So obviously he does it too. So we just sit
there and we go and the bell rang and there
was no rest, and then the bell rang again and
there was no rest, and we just kept going and
going and going. I think we went three five minute
rounds straight without any fucking rest, right, And then you
(32:22):
pulled your gloves off and said, hey, fuck these doctors.
And he threw his gloves and walked out of the
fucking cage. That is Randy Gutur for your folks, and
then you coached every night for another two hours, and
some of our football players for another three hours. Yeah,
the doctors weren't sure what to do with me, and
so what I mean to do, said, you know, rehab
the curl ten pound weights. I mean, it wasn't a
(32:45):
lifestyle issue, is a genetic issue. And didn't tell you
the spar you know, but that's what we do. It's
just when he hits me with that line, I would
do it for you, like, oh, you're right, he would,
no doubt, but oh my god, it was an all
(33:06):
time And then Jay Harran hit me with that line
later on. Also, I hit him up with the line
when I wanted him to help me get back from
my shoulder. It's far four months before I was supposed
to sucking after piece my labor and cut out. But
that's again, that's folks. We're talking to a mental health podcast.
So everything you just heard here do the opposite. Yeah,
(33:27):
So years laugh. We started crying each other a lot
more in private the last five years. Why gosh, you know,
it's it's it's hard to again. I think a combination
of being in the huddle with m VP, and I
think that being in the huddle with a lot of
other folks that are struggling with other stuff that gives
you some perspective. Well, you certainly realized it could be
(33:50):
a whole lot worse than it is. But I think
once you find that place in your heart and in
your mind where it's okay to open up, where it's
okay to let some of that stuff out, and some
of that might just be our age. Let's let's be honest, Jay,
we ain't getting any younger. I think I'm in an
age at an age now where every month or every
other month, I lose somebody that was close to me
(34:10):
that was part of my journey, that that meant something
to me. And you know, I had two suicides in
the last couple of years in the gym as well.
Those are difficult things. I just feel like I know
myself better now than I've ever known myself in my life.
And part of that knowing myself is being willing to
let some of this ship out, let some of this
stuff out into the light, share some of this stuff
(34:31):
with people you trust that you know that that they're
gonna take care of you, that are gonna prop you up.
They're gonna help you get through it and give you
some perspective to make it okay. That's what I feel
like it's been going on. Yeah, our conversations have gotten deeper.
They just started and we've always had deep conversations. But
I think Randy and I have the most selfless relationship
(34:51):
you could have. We just give give to each other.
We never take from each other. We're always thinking how
could we give to the other without ever having to
ask or say anything. I'm just always thinking for him,
he's always thinking for me, which is that's what relationships
supposed to be. Folks. The art of loyalty. It's a
dying art, and that's what loyalty is. And that's when
(35:11):
you have these relationships, you could start being a lot
closer and vulnerable with people in your lives because you
know they just fucking got your back. When they're thinking
about you and you're thinking about them, life is an
easier place to navigate what's become a very difficult and
darker maze. Not only is it nice to have somebody
to share those positive, amazing things with, like your new place.
(35:34):
You know that place is unbelievable. You know so many
different places and things that we've gotten to go and
see and do that we're way more fun because I
was standing next to you. But the same is true
about the darker things and the and the difficult things
in our life. Having that same somebody to lean on to,
to bounce those things off up to to find some
perspective for those things that that's just as important and
(35:55):
just as meaningful for sure. Yeah, and we we won't
say what it is, but you know you right, did
it come to me not too long ones that I
had helped him through a really dark period and I
didn't know, And you know, for him to be able
to open up to me like that and tell me
how much again, that's that allows me to be of
known that I'm being of service to my brothers. The
truth is we've all probably been in that headspace at
(36:17):
least once in our lives. I've been in that headspace
twice in my life. I never told you about the
other time. It was a long time before ever knew you.
But you know, I was in an absolute dark place,
embarrassed to tears and literally embarrassed tears, and and didn't
know where to go. And you called me out of
the blue and you had no idea. I mean you did,
(36:38):
but you had no idea where I was at with
what was going on. And and man, your sense of
humor and you're fucked up? This your your friendship. Man,
it just it snapped me out of it and helped
me get through it. It wasn't good. I don't even
want to go into the details. This is what I mean.
This is like you know I put in the book
(37:00):
after man, it's the laughter. But this brotherhood, and this
is me being a service, just calling a brother going hey, man,
how you doing today? Hey? Hey, what's going How are
you really doing? You know, we call someone and go
how you doing? I'm doing great? Sometimes just ask people,
no funk that how you really doing it? Yeah, we're
all pretty good at hiding my ship, and the ones
(37:22):
of us that carry around the most darkness and deal
with the deepest, darkest ship on a regular basis are
the best at hiding it. I mean, Robert Fawless, you
would have never in a million years knowing that that
was going on behind behind the curtain there. Same with
Tim you know, you would have never known. This guy
is the brightest, most enthusiastic person you'd ever meet in
(37:44):
your laugh and you'd never know those demons were in
there messing with his head on a regular basis. And
you know, you gotta pay attention, you gotta learn and
to look for the signs, and you've got to be
willing to go there, to go and be vulnerable, to
open up and show those things and that support to
those folks of se The last question before I let
you go, I ask all my guests, give your unbreakable moment,
(38:07):
like that moment like that changed your life, that something
trying to break you couldn't. Yeah, that was a journey
for me through the support of wrestling. I started rustling
and ten years old to get my dad's attention. My
dad was a debut, he was never around, no support,
none of that. My mom raised sturvice b ourselfs. But
I heard my whole life what a great wrestler he
was and what a tough guy he was. So I
(38:28):
donned the compulsory uniform of that era, tights and a
singlet and walked out in front of all my classmates,
hoping to get his attention, and he would come around.
He never saw me wrest not a single match in
my entire career, but I found the place that seemed
to make me tick. Those coaches were very very important
to me because they filled that void. When I needed
to kick in the ass, they were the guys to
(38:50):
grab me and do that. When I needed an arm
thrown around me in a newgie, it's gonna be okay,
it's gonna be all right, they were the guys to
do that too. I don't think they knew that. I've
talked to my coaches, good friends with coach Ka Skier,
my very first coach. I don't think he knew what
he meant to me and that boyd and that thing
that he was providing for me that I didn't have
at home. But that was certainly the journey for me,
(39:11):
and the courage to don that uniform and walk out
there in an individual combatis sport like wrestling. Forget winning
or losing. Hell, that was enough, just just doing that,
you know, and then setting a goal. Even though he
was it didn't work. He never came around. You never
saw me. I eventually, you know, it was in the
state finals my senior year. I was at one time
state champion in Washington. He wasn't there, But that journey
(39:33):
culminated with me fulfilling that dream to be that state champion,
and that's when I realized I can do this. I
used that I could have used as an excuse to
be a douche bag and make a lot of bad
decisions and do a lot of bad things. I used
it instead to motivate myself, you know, errantly trying to
get his attention, but still found my calling, found my vocation,
(39:55):
the place that I belonged ultimately led me down this road.
That's exactly what folks. We could use our mental health
issues to choose the wrong path and the wrong decisions,
or to motivate us. So let's make that choice to
motivate us. Randy gatur Man, I love you, dude, my brother,
my training partner. So glad you didn't die that time.
You're probably not at Randy gatour Man, I appreciate you
(40:21):
walking this walk together. Brother, Thanks brother, love, happy to
be here with you. Man. I love you too. Man.
Be well.
Hosts And Creators
Brady Quinn
LaVar Arrington
Jonas Knox
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