Your Destiny Is Waiting with Kevin Ross

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on the show We Got Kevin Ross. Kevin Ross
is a retired Muay Thai fighter who has an absolutely
phenomenal career spanning two decades. Getting a late start after
twenty three years of drug and alcohol abuse, he turned
his life around. This is going to be such just

(00:20):
a phenomenal time. I'm glad you're able to join us.
Kevin Ross. Welcome, Thank you, sir.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
I'm excited. You know, it's.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
To what intrigues me most about your story is the
fact that it seems like that you were sort of lost,
like a lot.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Of us are.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
You're trying to figure things out, and then all of
a sudden you give everything up as far as drugs
and party and all that other stuff, and you start
focusing on becoming this fighter.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Talk about how all that came about.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, so my parents divorced very early on. I was
about eight years old, and that that started me down
a really dark path. I mean, prior to their divorce,
we were living basically the American dream, you know, nice house,
a great, great part of town, brothers and sisters, everyone's happy, healthy,

(01:19):
and as a child, that's that's all I knew at
that point, so I assumed that was just the way
that life was going to continue on and be, and
this is the way things are. And that really just
gave me a gave me a real quick look at
at the realities of life at a very early age.
So I got to learn very early on about about

(01:42):
a lot of things like that, and unfortunately it sent
me in a really dark place. I mean, the my
my family. It was me, my mom, my brother, and
my sisters basically went from living an affluent life to
living in somebody's basement. Wow, the dynamic between my parents

(02:03):
and we were constantly moving from place to place and
getting ripped out of schools every six months to a
year or so. I was constantly having to start over,
never having any solid foundation, and that contributed to things
over time. But that's really where that all began, was

(02:23):
that aspect, and it really it kind of showed me that,
or I allowed it to make me feel like there's
no point in striving for anything or working for anything,
because it can all just be ripped away from you.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's kind of the mentality and outlook I had at
that point, and really had that victim mentality mindset for
many many many years because of all that and not
thinking that I had to say in it, or that
I needed to take things into my hands and take
accountability and the things I had control over. And that

(03:02):
took me a really long time to finally understand.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
And how old were you at this point when all
this started.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
So my parents split up at I was eight, and
then I started getting into drugs and alcohol when I
was probably twelve.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Wow, that yeah, that's pretty early.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
But you know what what's interesting here is this is
this is to me how important it is, you know,
to have somebody in your life be able to help
you through this, right because a lot of us that
go through divorce.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
My my parents also separated it. And and your mom
is overwhelmed. I mean, my mom just kind of like
in your situation. My mom is now a single mom
with three with three boys. She never sat us down
and said, hey, by the way, here's what's going to
be happening, and you know, don't feel like a victim,

(03:59):
you know. Well, And I think that's something that most parents,
because it's so overwhelming that they skip over that or
they don't know how to help their kids process that.
And I think that that's the number one thing when
you're going through that was kind of big traumatic changes,
whether it's divores or death or something else. Unless somebody

(04:21):
steps in and says, here's what's going on, it's for
an eight year old, nine year old, ten year old.
It's too much.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
To process, yeah, for sure. And I think one of
the biggest damaging things is we feel so isolated and
alone in those situations, not realizing that that's actually a
giant majority of the world that goes through the exact
same things, if not worse. And I think the more
that we can understand that, that'll at least let us

(04:53):
realize that other people are going through this too, and
you're not alone. You're not by yourself, and other people
in understand and have gone through it and have overcome
these things. And that's what's motivated me to be so
vocal throughout my career and use the platform that I
have to talk about these things, because I understand how
different it may have been if I had someone telling me, hey,

(05:18):
I understand, like, I went through this too, and you
can use this all for a good thing. You can
you can turn this around. You can you can turn
this negative into a positive. But at the time I
didn't understand that you have a choice to make when
these things happen, you have to just accept it as
this failure or you This is the way life is

(05:43):
for you. You've set, your path is set, your your
life is going to be this way. Nothing good's ever
going to happen to you. People are always going to
leave you, people are going to die. Don't don't hope
for a better life, and certainly don't certainly don't work
for a better life. And that's the biggest one was
taking accountability and what you have control over.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, all right, So again here you are. I
think you're you're more or less.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Living to me the average life. Right, You're trying to
figure things out. What was the thing that drew you
to boxing or MMA, and specifically Muay Thai versus another discipline.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, I don't actually know. Well, so I've always been
intrigued by combat sports. I actually have always. I hate violence.
It really bothered me, especially when I was a child.
It really really upset me when people would be angry
and hostile, and even if it was for a good reason,

(06:52):
it just you know, I hated seeing people in pain,
you know, and I under and I just I think
I had a lot of passion and empathy for that,
so it hurt me even when I was getting yelled at.
So it's ironic that I ended up being a fighter,
because if you had known me back then, you would
you would never have thought I was that way because

(07:13):
I wasn't. I wasn't an outwardly aggressive person violent. I
internalized everything. I was self destructive, but never never outwardly
and never wanted anyone to be in pain. But I
was always intrigued by fighting, ticularly boxing I watched. I
always loved watching boxing, and now as I was getting older,

(07:33):
it was something that I always thought in the back
of my mind that I might one day do, like, oh,
that'd be fun to do, But it didn't never seem
like a real possibility, like I'm never actually going to
do that, and I'm I'm like, I'm not even that way,
and then not to mention, like I don't know how
my mom would think about this or anything like that.
So it just kind of seemed like a unattainable dream.

(07:56):
But it was always there in the back of my mind,
and anytime I would see a fight, it would just
reignite it a little bit. But then I would kind
of show it back down. And then the older I got,
once I really started getting into drugs and alcohol, it
was a realization that if I'm going to go after this,
I'm going to have to give all this up, and

(08:16):
that ain't ever going to happens. I would get like
it was almost like it made it worse. The more
fights I would see, the more I would drink and
try to drown this dream out and try to ignore it,
but it would always it would pop up every time
I would see a fight, and it was just something
that never ever really went away. And one of my

(08:37):
best friends passed away back in jeez, when was this
ninety nine? So I was eighteen, and he was actually
the only person I'd ever told that I had a
dream of being a fighter. I'd never told a single person,
and again because I just figured everybody would laugh their
ass off if I said that you're gonna do what

(09:00):
that way? Like you drink every fucking day, not to
mention like I was like super skinny, scrawny, not a confrontational,
violent person, always been physically active and athletic. But you know,
fighting is such a different thing, or at least I
thought it was so never brought it up. And then
one night we were hanging out and I told him,

(09:21):
I don't even know why I told him, thinking he
was going to laugh at me, and he didn't laugh,
and he actually said, I think if anybody could do this,
you could. That's not always yeah, And I don't know
why he said that, And I never really got to
ask him because he actually passed away about a year
or two later. He was born in the heart condition
and was waiting for a transplant that he didn't get.

(09:45):
And so when he passed away, I promised myself that
I would go after this dream of being a fighter.
I was like, you know, all these reasons I have,
all the fear that I have. This guy didn't even
get a chance to fail at a dream out alone
try because he his life got wiped out from under him.
So even if I'm too scared to do it, I

(10:05):
need to do it for him, because I need to
live for both of us. Unfortunately, his death set me
even farther down that dark road. It got really bad,
really really bad for a lot of so along with
all my friends, because we were all very close, and
when he passed, it was just it was like pouring

(10:27):
gasoline on a fire, you know, and it became really
really bad. People were just dying and going to jail
left and right, myself almost dying and going to jail
so many times. And after what was it? It was
I think about three years. Actually, well, i'll tell you
one other thing. So that was ninety nine he passed.

(10:50):
I never thought I was going to live to see
the year two thousand when I was growing up. I
don't know what it was. I don't know why I
had this date in my mind, but it was just
something I figured. And either way, I figured I wasn't
meant long for this world because of everything, you know,
I just kind of assumed, you know, you're not going
to be here very long. And I was really living
that live fast, die young lifestyle. I just kind of

(11:11):
accepted it and said, all right, well, fuck, it might
as well drinking party every day until we're not here anymore, right, right.
And then so going into I was on my way
to a New Year's party ninety ninety nine, and I
was mere inches away from what would have been a
fatal car accident, almost getting completely ran over by a

(11:32):
semi truck. And when that happened, it really like hit
me like, that was that moment you should be dead,
You shouldn't be here anymore. And I realized that everything
from this point forward is extra credit, Like you're not
supposed to be here. That was the moment you were
supposed to die. It still took me another two years
to finally turn everything around, but looking back, that was

(11:56):
a monumental moment in my life. And then things started
to progress a little bit, Like I stopped going out
so much. I was still drinking every day, but I
stopped like going out and driving drunk all the time
and getting into like bad things. I just stayed home
and drank every day instead, So that that was another step,
and then kind of slowly started going then down that road.

(12:17):
And then right before two thousand and three, it just
hit me in the face one day. I was like,
you've not only did have you wasted your entire life,
but how much of you wasted since you made that
promise to your friend And it had been like like
three years. I was like three years of your life
that you promised to live for somebody else, and not
only did you not do that, but you meet you.

(12:39):
It's worse now than it was then. And I just
could not look myself in the mirror any longer and
ignore that fact. So for me, it was it doesn't
matter how difficult this is, doesn't matter how scared you are,
it doesn't matter where you can get to with this.
You have to go forward and everything you do from
this moment forward is going in that direction, no matter what.

(13:02):
And the next day I was in the gym and
that was history. Wow.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
You know's what's interesting.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
What's interesting about that is is, uh.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
The way the mind works.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Right. So here you are three years later, you're still
incubating this dream and finally you hit that moment where,
like you said, you can't even look at yourself.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
It's I got to do this. And what you said.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
There about no matter what, whether I'm a champion, whether
this dream leads to something, I just got to do.
I just got to get started. And I think a
lot of people that that's the hang up there. They
don't even get started because they're they're thinking, well.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
I may fail.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
This may this idea that I have of being a writer,
an artist, an actor, a business person may.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Lead to nothing.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
And and it's just kind of a normal doubt that
we all have.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, yeah, certainly though the hardest part is that first
step and overcoming that fear of failure. And I think
something that's important for all of us to realize is
failure is guaranteed. You're going to fail along the road,
and the road is paved the road to success. Success
is paved with failure. You have to fail, get better, learn, develop,

(14:22):
move forward, fail again again. And really the only failure
is when you let that discourage you from the direction
that you're headed. It's not whether or not these things happen.
And one thing I always love to do is read
biographies on people that have been successful, and you go
back and read story after story after story of countless

(14:44):
failures and just the most horrific things you could ever imagine.
If people really knew what it takes for these people
to be successful, they would view it very differently. And
again that's what's always encouraged me to be vocal as
I can about these things, because it's not something that
is widely talked about and discussed and really understood, like

(15:04):
I think, I think instinctually people understand like, yeah, it's
gonna be difficult, but they don't really understand how difficult
and the fact that you have to face the fact
that you are going to fail. It's not going to
be a straight road to success. And and that was something
that that I got to learn very early on, because
when I started, I actually did I was on a

(15:26):
straight line to success. I was just every day it
was just progressing so rapidly, and I was so dedicated
and so focused. And nine months in I finally had
my first fight, and in my mind, I thought, well,
seeing how it's gone so far, I'm just gonna I'm
gonna go out there, I'm gonna crush this guy. I'm

(15:46):
just gonna skyrocket to the top, and everything's just gonna
go in this direction, because this is what happens when
you finally turn your life around, start being healthy and
making the right decisions, everything everything just opens up for you.
And I learned very quickly that is not the case.
And I got stopped. I didn't even make it out
of the fight. I got stopped in the third round,
and I was forced to face that question, how bad

(16:12):
do you want to do this? Do you want to
do it only if you're winning? Do you want to
do it only if you are looking good and people
are applauding you, and you have the success or You're
going to do this no matter what. And that is
really the key ingredient to anyone that's ever been successful,
is they're going to do this no matter what. They're
going to figure it out. They're going to get better.

(16:33):
They might not make it to where they want to
make it to, but they're going to get farther than
they are right now. And that's what I came to
realize because I really did have that moment. It was
actually probably a day or two where I thought, maybe
I was wrong about all this, Maybe this isn't meant
for me. This is if it was. Shouldn't this be easy?

(16:56):
Shouldn't it be obvious that this is the direction I
should go? And then you know, it's that if you
want something bad enough, you're going to have to prove it.
You're going to have to prove it. Everybody has their
dues to pay, and nobody gets to decide what those
dues are. We always think we can pay someone else's dues.
But it's going to be the thing you don't want

(17:16):
to give up. It's going to be the thing that
you don't want to face that you're going to have
to overcome in order to be successful. So if you
know that ahead of time and understand that this is
all part of the process, you have to go through
these moments Eventually, eventually this is going to happen. So
even if I didn't lose that first fight, I saw

(17:37):
so many people go on to win fight after fight
after fight. But inevitably you're going to hit a roadblock.
You're going to lose, You're going to have an injury,
you're going to have a bad day. Somebody's going to die.
That's going to happen, and how are you going to
handle it when it does? And it's better to figure
that shit out the first day than a year or
two in when maybe you don't really want to do

(17:58):
this as much as you thought.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, So man, there's so much that
I gest. First of all, what were your friends like,
So now that you are, you've stopped drinking, you're not partying,
You're focused on this, on this dream, this career. Your
friends were like are you crazy? Are they supportive? How

(18:22):
did they react to this massive rapid change. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (18:25):
They I don't want to say they They weren't. They
weren't one way or the other. Really, it was just like, oh,
that's that's cool, you know, not probably didn't think too
much of it or realize how serious I was, but
I think that became apparent rather quickly how serious I was.

(18:46):
And then and then then they were very supportive and
thought it was cool. And of course they missed me
hanging out and partying with them and stuff like that,
because I really did have to completely cut off my
inner action with them because that's all they ever did
when they hang out is is drinking. Especially that first

(19:06):
year or two, I couldn't even be around it. You know,
I couldn't even be in that environment, and it just
like weighed heavy on me. It was like a magnet.
I couldn't even be close to it. But but after
time I could, I could be around them again and
hang out and stuff. And they did see the positive
effects in my life. And then they got to see

(19:27):
me fight and stuff, which was cool. So yeah, they
were they were They were supportive, but not overly like, yeah,
you got to do this, and then you know, it
was it was. It was kind of a mixed mixed
bag there, right SA. Yeah. With my mother, she was
in some ways, you know, you would think she'd be
like your your child's going in there to fight. But

(19:47):
at the same time she she understood that I'd been
drinking my life away for so long. Was like, anything's
got to be better than that. And then especially if
you've stopped doing that activity, you know you're not get anymore.
You're eating healthy, your training every day. Like, yeah, the
fightings is rough and you had to deal with that,
but yeah, they were there. She was supportive of that too.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
All right, So.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
What do you think was taking you so long to
get started? Was it a combination of feeling unworthy? Uh, fear,
what was your what was your thought on that now
that you can look back and and kind of trying
to figure out what it's all.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
I mean, it all boils down to fear, no matter
what what it really is at the core of all
these things, all of our doubts and hesitations, it's all
about fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of work, fear
of failure, fear of being viewed differently, all those things.
It's all it's all fear, fears, fears at the core

(20:50):
of everything. So, yeah, it was it was a combination
of a lot of things. It was. I think it's
it's having to face when you get everything to something
and not being able to make it. You know, it's
like we want to guarantee that I'm going to be
successful and again it's going to be a straight line
that I don't have to overcome anything. Yet the only

(21:12):
way to get stronger is through failure and through resistance.
And and you know, you can take something like like
getting physically stronger apply that to everything. How do you
get better at anything? You have to have resistance. You can't
get better if there's no resistance, if it's just a
if it is just this straight, easy line. Even if

(21:35):
you were able to get to a place with that,
you're not going to be able to stay there and
maintain that. And that's that's something you see a lot
in fighting too, when people kind of get their careers
babied up. You see you see it a lot in
boxing more than anything else because they're trying to develop
this star, but sometimes they don't do it right, so
they're not giving them the correct fights to where they're

(21:56):
developing yet still winning. And then eventually they get to
a point when they have to face somebody that's not
a pushover and they get a shit kicked downe of them.
So that's kind of the same concept in all of life.
You have to have a resistance, and you have to
go through struggles in order to get stronger, to get better,
to get smarter, to get healthier. All these things apply

(22:17):
across the board. Yet we are constantly avoiding difficulties and
pain because we want to be safe and secure, and
we want to feel good and we want to be
happy all the time, and unfortunately that leads to the
exact opposite of what you really do want.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
One of the things that I come to realize, and.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
This is more spiritual at least for me, is that
I do believe that one of the reasons that we
were put on earth was because we were designed to
do hard things as a species, right and least from
what I've seen and what I've experienced, that the harder

(23:03):
things that you do, and and hard is different for everybody,
but the hard things that you do really add to
the fulfillment and the joy of your life. And you know,
you hear about these people, you know what's there's that
great saying that that men live live lives of quiet desperation.

(23:23):
And that's back to your point. The reason that a
lot of people are quietly are living these kind of
quiet desperate lives is because they're not willing to do
those hard things. They're not willing to get out of
their comfort zone and and fail. And you know, one
of the things that that about fighting is you're failing
on a very public arena, right or you're willing in

(23:46):
a very public arena. It's not like if I, if I,
if I write something and nobody reads it, nobody knows
about it.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
But where you're fighting, it's it's very public.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh yeah, you are. You are bare naked in front
of the world, all your failures, all of your doubts,
all your insecurities, all your everything. And the I think
what's very difficult for a lot of fighters and why
a lot of them deal with so much depression, particularly
after they retire, is you douce all this work, like

(24:21):
ninety nine percent of your work is unseen, and then
the one percent, the one day, the one fraction of
a day, is what you're completely judged on from right forward,
and it doesn't matter what you did prior, It doesn't
matter what you did in the gym, doesn't no matter
how much work you did. And then thinking about how
easily that can go wrong from whether you had an injury,

(24:44):
going in a sickness, you just got caught with something
you didn't see. None of that has anything to do
with how good you actually are, but that is how
you're judged, that's how you're viewed by the world, and
that's why it's it's it's very difficult for a lot
of people to to handle that. And again that kind
of applies across the board to everything. But fighting certainly

(25:06):
magnifies a lot of these a lot of these battles
that we all face. But that's also what I think
is so great about not just fighting, but martial arts
in general and that kind of thing, because you continually
face things on a daily basis that you inevitably face
in the world in every day life, and you learn

(25:27):
how to silence all of that extra static that goes on,
that unnecessary thoughts and feelings and other people's opinions and
their anger and then the stuff they're dealing with and
road rage and stuff like that. And when the more
you do this, you're just like, what, like, it's like
it's like a joke to you because you see how

(25:48):
ridiculous so much it is. And the funny thing is, like,
I can stop if I stop training for a week.
I feel that start to come in back. I'm like,
oh shit, Like I'm like, I start to get angry,
a little hostile. And you know, you have to have
that physical and mental exertion because it doesn't save room

(26:09):
for this made up bullshit that we get in our mind.
It's like, nowadays, we have everything we could possibly want,
and people are more miserable than ever because of a
lot of that is is all of those concepts. Because
you're not facing adversity. Everything is built around making you comfortable,
making you, making you loved. You're not supposed to feel

(26:29):
bad feelings. Everything's supposed to be good and and that
enables all of us to be incredibly weak, weak minded, spirited,
weak bodied, and that's not a good place. And you
can see the result of all that.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, and we have this culture now that we're not
supposed to be offended either. You know, you see you
see constantly a comedian might say something and it's and
it's considered so offensive that now that that individual has
to apologize and is in fear of their career being canceled.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
You look at what happened to uh, what's her name?
Dang it?

Speaker 1 (27:13):
H Roseanne bar You know Roseanne bars is her whole
career is is her being kind of, you know, out
there and obnoxious and saying these I don't think they're offensive,
but you know, these these I don't know, funny things.
They're out of the box. And what she said that

(27:34):
got her canceled what to.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Me wasn't wasn't that horrible?

Speaker 1 (27:39):
When you look at what she was talking about, It's
kind of funny. And I think that the the world
needs to just take a break and find your sense
of humor.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Sometimes you know it's funny.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh yeah, Well, it's the same. It's the same concepts
as never testing yourself. If you never hear things that
offend you or make you question your beliefs or your viewpoints,
you're going to be stuck in this bubble and you
think this bubble is where everything is supposed to be.
This way, I'm supposed to think this way, look this way,

(28:16):
have these kinds of interactions, and you get completely isolated
from the rest of the world and think that your
way is the way that it is supposed to be.
And I think that's why comedy is one of the
most important things that there is because comedy pushes those boundaries,
and we all need to be pushed, and you know,

(28:38):
you hope that it's not done in a malicious way,
and usually it's not done. It's the whole point of
it is to make people think and to realize how
ridiculous that we all are. All of our beliefs are
a little bit fucking crazy, like we think they're not
because we're surrounded by people who believe the same things.
But it's so easy to point out other people's hypocrisies

(29:01):
and the ridiculous now of them, but we can't point
it out ourselves, Like, yeah, we're all a little bit
whacked out of our minds. Just because it's popular, it
doesn't mean it's not crazy. So to get like to
have a little bit of humility, a little bit of
sense of humor about yourself. And that's why I think
it's so important. If you're not willing to make fun
of yourself, you shouldn't be allowed to make fun of

(29:23):
anybody else. And that's something that comedians do really well.
They'll make fun of themselves first, right, you know, and
then it's like all right, now everyone else is about
to get it too. I've told you that, like I'm
a hypocrite too, you know, and I have all these
stupid feelings and beliefs as well, so and that just
shows our connection with each other. No matter what our

(29:46):
beliefs are, no matter where we live, no matter what
country are and what language we speak, we're all just
human beings. We're all the same. When you boil it
all down, there's an extreme side to everything, but the
majority of people are in that gray area in the middle,
and the more we can understand that, the more we
can at least have a dialogue. And that's what's so important.

(30:08):
And when you cut that off, that's when bad things
start to happen. And that's when you get down a
very very dark road. And the worst thing you can
ever do is think that your road is righteous and
that you're going in the right way, because every horrible
thing that's ever happened throughout humanity has been done by
people who thought they were justified in what they were doing.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Humility is such an incredible characteristic to have, and to
your point, you look at some of the biggest mistakes
that people have made, and it's that pride, that lack
of humility, and so they do these outrageous things, and
they treat people outrageously. But when you have true humility,

(30:52):
you don't get upset because you allow, like you're talking about,
you understand that everybody has as their own crap that
they're dealing with, and you also understand that you have
something to learn from everybody. And you look at our
politicians and I think most of them lack huge amounts

(31:14):
of humility. They they're all very you know, they're all
fighting over sometimes silly things and getting upset because they
can't take a joke. It's like, chill, I mean, go
find your humility. You're supposed to serve the people.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Right, yeah, yeah, Well, and that happens to a lot
of unfortunately a lot of people in positions of power
because you're put in this position, or you put yourself
in this position, and now you're not supposed to be
a human being anymore. And it just develops that and
then these characters, and obviously power contributes to that, and

(31:50):
influence contributes to that, and then we get in this
position with just a bunch of caricatures of human beings
arguing with each other, and everybody else is stuck in
the middle, having to having to pick a side. When
most people are like, yeah, all these leaders are just
out of their minds and they're not speaking for us anyway,
but you got to pick a side, so and then
that's kind of how it goes. But then when you

(32:12):
actually like meet real people and you travel the country
and you realize most people aren't those extremes of what
you see, and that's why watching the news is so toxic.
And unfortunately now everyone's got the news twenty four to
seven on their phone, you know, and you can't get
away from it, and that just contributes to our judgment

(32:34):
of everyone and our views being so extreme because that's
all you see. All you see is the extreme, and
if you don't ever go out there and actually see
the real world and real people, you assume that's what
it is. That's what's out there, and that's how I
need to interact with the people that are like this
and the people that are like this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
I always think of these extremes, especially because the media
uses it.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
I kind of think of it as clickbait.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, there, you know, they're they're they're showing, like you said,
the extremes, right, the people who are far right or
far left.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
And they're saying these crazy things.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
But those are the outliers, and and they're they're distracting
and they're entertaining.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
They're almost like that what do you call it, that
reality TV?

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Because it's so far out there versus the average person
is not thinking like that.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, but unfortunately it's it's so much easier to to
view and to judge, and and that's why it becomes
the thing to do, because it takes work to have
a conversation with someone you don't agree with or that
doesn't look like you or think like you or talk
like you. So all these things require effort, and we

(33:48):
don't want to have effort. We want we're built for
safety and lack of lack of effort, unfortunately, and that
just becomes the way that is. And we're not we're
certainly not encouraged to do our own thinking and come
to our own conclusions about things. And and now it's
it's just that much worse. But none of this is

(34:11):
none of this is new. It's been the same since
the beginning of time, and now it's just it's a
lot more prevalent, and we're a lot more connected through
social media and things like that. But we we think
things that are different. They're they're not really different, it's
just more obvious.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, as you know, as a marketer, we're we're all
about trying to get inside the consumer's head. And when
you look at it, at least from again my experiences,
we haven't changed in one hundred years, two hundred years,
we haven't changed. We're we're still emotional. We're triggered by emotion.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
You know, some.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
People like to think that you know that that there's
this logic side of us and this emotion side. Well,
I always tell people logic is an emotion.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
It's you.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
You sat there and let's say you did a pros
and cons list and you're thinking, okay, based on my list,
I feel certain, right, I feel as though I'm making
the right choice whether to move forward or not move forward.
But logic is still in emotion. It's how you feel,
and so we do it. We're still very emotional creatures.
You know, whether it's a Roman style, a novel, or

(35:26):
a sporting event, or you're buying your first home, or
your first child is being born, it's all it's all emotional,
all right. So let's change subjects a little bit. I
want to I want to ask you about let's say
some of your career highlights. Are there certain fights that
stand out?

Speaker 3 (35:45):
And if so, why, yeah, there are.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
But when it really comes down to it, it's it's
the entirety of my career, not just singular moment. And
you know, we look at these moments and the other
they're great, and the highs and even the lows, but
it's really the whole story when you when you look
back on everything, and and that's something I always tried
to think about during during the good times and the

(36:15):
bad times. This is all part of the story, you know,
and you don't even know what it is till you
look back on it. Right, It's like the uh was
that a ticket guard said life has to be lived forward,
but can only be understood looking backward. So yeah, when
I look back, I'm like, well, the whole thing to
me was pretty great. And and you know, each and

(36:37):
every fight had its had its time and and was
important for different reasons. Uh The biggest one for me
was was my fight with with Sanchai and him being
a legend and the sport and uh me starting so
late and the fact that we were in fighting was
just ridiculous that every single person who knew about it

(36:58):
at that time. You know, it's like you can look
at it now and say, yeah, obviously you should have
fought him, But at the time people were like, this
is the stupidest thing ever. There's no reason you should
ever be in the ring. You shouldn't even be allowed
to get in the ring with him, let alone fight him.
You shouldn't be able to look at the ring with
him standing in it. And understandably so, I'd only been

(37:20):
training for seven or eight years at that point, and
here I am fighting not only a legend in the sport,
but he was at his peak. He was like right
at the peak of his career. He was Loompini champ
at the time, and you know, just slaughters everyone that's
not even high. It's like a joke. It's a joke, right,

(37:43):
Every time he fought a foreigner, it was a complete
joke and just a show book, a show of him
making people look stupid and ridiculous and usually knocking them out.
And most people thought that's what was going to happen.
When I thought him and what I realized through watching
a bunch of his fights, particularly with foreigners, was people
would be so entranced by him that they didn't really

(38:09):
try to do anything. It was like, I don't know
what to do. Like this guy's in front of me.
You know, you think you're going to be able to
handle it, and they just freeze. Most people would just
freeze or hesitate, and that hesitation will get you killed.
So one of the most important things for me was
to never let that happen. No matter what happened in

(38:29):
the fight, I was like, I'm going to go forward
and I'm going to go after this guy with everything
that I have, and I'm going to train my ass
off so that I have the ability to do that,
and then as long as I do that, I can
be happy with whatever happens. And that's really the way
I viewed my entire career in all of my fights,
was I might kill myself in preparation, leave no stone unturned,

(38:54):
have zero regrets about anything, because I know that I
did everything and beyond to prepare for this moment, and
once that moment happens, that side of your hands now
to a great degree. You know, it's like you have
you prepare as best you can, but when it comes
down to it, you have to let go. And that
letting go is the hardest thing for most people to do,
and that's why people get so stressed out before they

(39:17):
fight and going through all this anxiety. And I was,
I was the complete opposite for my entire career. I
I just had this overwhelming sense of peace when I
would go to fight because I knew that I've done
everything right. I imaginable everything in my power, even if
it was a last minute fight, like there's nothing I

(39:38):
could do, you know, like, but I decided to take
this and I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna
I'm gonna do do what I can do. And and
and also understanding that everything can be used to progress,
every failure, every success, no matter what happens, I can
use this to get better.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
And well, I think you hit a really good point there,
principle that when you are prepared, when you've done everything
you can, like you said, you left no stone unturned,
you have a certain level of peace and confidence because
I've done it all. This guy might be this guy

(40:16):
might I might beat.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Him, or I might lose, but I've done everything I can.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
And everybody I think has the feeling that you know
has had that feeling at one point or the other,
whether they're getting ready for a test or a fight
or whatever. And of course the other, the other feeling
is there too when you know that, oh I could
have you know I I could have done better, I
should have prepared better, and that that singular doubt can

(40:44):
completely destroy you.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
But there is certain a level of peace when you're ready,
oh yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
And that that doubt kills kills more than anything ever will.
And I've always been not always, but since I started fighting,
drawn to that control the things you can control, and
you have to let go of the rest. Do everything
in your power that you have control over. What do
you have control over? And so many things in life

(41:15):
and fighting and everything else, we don't control the things
we have control over because we're so busy looking at
the things we don't have control over, complaining about this,
whereas these people are like this got I got fired.
So that's why I'm a piece of shit now and
I just drink all day. And that's how I lived
the first part of my life, that victim mentality. I

(41:35):
was stuck in that because one I didn't even realize, like,
you do have power over a lot of stuff, even
if it's just the way you view things, even if
it's just your outlook on an event, you have power
over that. And once you understand that, and you have
to be very honest with yourself too, and that's hard
for a lot of us to do. You have to

(41:56):
look in the mirror, like what can I do be
doing better? Like get rid of all the stuff you
can't do anything about. I couldn't do anything about the
fact that I didn't start till I was twenty three,
Like I can't go back in time, so there's nothing
I can do about that. What can I do well?
I can take care of myself as best as possible.
I can limit the jump that goes into my mind,

(42:19):
my body, and my spirits. I can continually push myself
and strive and use every success and failure as a
stepping stone to improve. And that was just a monumental
change in my perspective when I finally did turn my
life around, was understanding that, and it really it really

(42:40):
simplified a lot of things in my mind, a lot
of a lot of questions. I realized that there's only
there's only two things. You can go left or you
can go right. And when you simplify it in those terms,
is this going to make you better? Is it going
to make you worse? It was very clear to me
what to do and what not to do. It took

(43:01):
a lot of that. I think we get stuck in
that debate, well this isn't so bad, right, Like, well,
if it's not so bad, it's not good. It's just
not as bad as it could be. So if you
put it in that context, it's very easy to figure
out what you should and shouldn't do. It's not complicated,
it's it's it's not complicated at all, you know. And

(43:23):
and I kind of apply that to everything from my
diet to my training, and then obviously over time and
learning and developing, you figure a lot more out. But
and it still came down to those same greats you know,
this is this helping or is it hurting you? And
at least starting from that position, and once you do that,

(43:46):
you're you have a much better foundation to build from.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Okay, So I got to ask you this because you
started when you're twenty three, which is pretty young, as
opposed to because you keep saying you started later in life.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Well, it's it's late for someone who makes it to
like world champion status, Is it really? Oh? Yeah, most
people start in their twelve eight, ten, twelve, at least
like in their teens.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Gotcha, okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Professional fighters. When you look at multi fighters boxers, all
of them start very very very very young. Nowadays with
like MMA not so much, but even in that field,
you got people starting wrestling when their children and then
going through high school and then they start to develop
striking in that kind of thing. So typically you start

(44:39):
some kind of training at a very early age and
to develop. So again, like most most people, like high
level fighters, will be retired by the time they were
in their late twenties.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Wow, okay, I didn't know that. I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Oh yeah, like the guy so when I fought Sanchai,
he he's been fight and since he was I think
eight years old, he had like four hundred fights. Yeah,
it's it's it's crazy. So in Thailand, muy Thai is
kind of like boxing is here where you know, they'll
start his children and they'll fight every week, but it's

(45:19):
you know, it's just kids fighting and then you develop
and that's why how they get so much experience. And
you look at guys that go into the Olympics, they
have hundreds, hundreds of fights and then once you go pro,
then maybe you're only going to have twenty but ninety
percent of your career is spent in the amateurs.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, I guess you're right. I didn't think about that.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
The thing that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
About Sanjai, and you again, correct me if I'm wrong,
is I've only seen him fight a couple of times,
and again it's been on video or TV, and he
seems to have to be working on multiple levels, right,
he is. He seems to know more than just undisciplined
because he I mean, depending on who he's fighting, he

(46:04):
can change drastically.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, he's multi dimensional obviously, extremely experienced and at such
a high level too, So I mean he's seen it
all a million times, and he really developed that style
over time because when he was younger, he actually he

(46:27):
fought a little bit, he fought a little bit differently,
but once he got knocked out cold like snoring on
the ground, and after that he started being a lot
more elusive and tricky and and developed the style that
he that he currently has. So he's one of those
fighters that very rarely gets hurt, if ever, because he's
so tricky, he's so sneaky, he's so fast and elusive.

(46:51):
He doesn't try to play that typical like macho, I'm
going to go forward. I'm just going to create cause
chaos kind of which is like that's how I fight,
because to me, it was like that was my only
real option. I didn't have the option to play like
the technical fast because I didn't have the ability or
the experience. So I was like, what I can do

(47:12):
is I can go forward and I can deal with
I can deal with more pain than you, I can
deal with more exhaustion than you, and eventually I'm gonna
wear you out and beat you and then and then
I developed skill over time and experience. But yeah, for him,
he's he's just found that things. He's the perfect example
of when you take natural ability and work ethic. So

(47:38):
most people that have natural ability don't develop their work
ethic because it's come so easy to them, and that's
where a lot of them fall off, because eventually that
evens out over time, your work ethic can overcome a
lot of your lack of ability, which is what it
was in my case. But when you can find someone
that has both, that's where you get the Sanchi as

(48:00):
the Jordan's the Mayweathers, the guys that have both have
extreme natural ability, yet they also have extreme work ethic
and talent. So when you can combine those things, that's
when you get the greatest of all time. But anybody
can develop work ethic. Anybody can do work and go
way farther than most. And I think I'm a perfect

(48:22):
example of that because because of all those factors that
went in, the only thing that got me to where
I got to was my work ethic and my refusal
to give up and my willingness to go through hell
to get that.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
I love that right because you hear people again like
a Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or Mayweather, and they
talk about how talent isn't the thing that makes you
a great whatever. It comes down to that work ethic
and that discipline. And so like your point, there's people

(49:02):
out there who might have more natural talent, but they
have no work ethic, and that's why they don't have
a career.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'll take a I'll take a
hard worker over a talented person any day of the
week because they have that already. You can develop skill.
It's difficult for people to develop a work ethic, particularly
when things have been easy for them and when they've
had natural ability. And that's one of the most difficult

(49:31):
things for people to I don't know if it's difficult
for people to understand, but to realize that all this
only comes from hard work. You look at those those
great athletes like that, each and every one of them
worked harder than any other person on their entire team.
You know, it's it's very documented that they were the

(49:52):
hardest workers. It wasn't they just showed up and weren't
magic all the time. Right, They were in the gym constantly, constantly,
more than anybody else. They put in more work than
anybody else. So is it the talent that got them
where they got to? Was it their work? Because the
talent wouldn't have done it by itself, only work, ethicity,
and anybody can do the work.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Right now, in any sport, there are some very talented,
gifted people that will never hear of because they're not
willing to put in the work, and the people who
are willing to put in the work will surpass them.
As I mean, that's that's just the reality. But it
takes it takes experience to know that because you know,

(50:37):
growing up as a kid, you'd think, man, if I
had you know, if I was naturally gifted like that,
I would do this, I would do that.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
But it doesn't happen like that. You got to really put.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
In the work. Yeah, and again that that always goes
back to that victim mentality about things. If I had this,
I would be this. No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't
you think that. That's like saying, oh, if I had
a million dollars, i'd be happy. You'd be the same
not only would you be the same person. But what
we fail to realize often is with everything, something else

(51:08):
comes with it, So you don't get you don't just
get the money. You get the money and everything that comes,
every negative thing that comes along with it. So everyone
it's so easy to view someone else and say I
wish I had that, but like do you do you
wish you had everything that comes with or just that
little piece of the pie there, you know. And again
I used to always try to convey this to people, like, yeah,

(51:29):
you can look and say I wish I was in
the spotlight like you, and like you don't know what
that comes with you don't you have no fuck? Can
ideal what that comes with. You don't want to be
where I'm at, because if you did, you would do
you would do what it takes to get there. You
just you just want it without the work. You just
want it without the sacrifice. You want it without the
failure and the loss, and without all the eyes on

(51:50):
you all the time, and the pressure that it comes with,
and and everything that encompasses this position. You just want
this little piece of the pie that looks pretty. You
want the frosting, you want the whole kid.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
No, that's absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
I remember there's that documentary called The Last Dance and
it's Michael Jordan and the Bulls, and in one of
the episodes, he's sitting in a hotel room by himself
because he can't go he cannot leave the hotel room,
and he's talking about, you really don't want this life.
You think you do, but I can't go any place.

(52:25):
And this is back before social media. I mean, you know,
at one point he's probably one of the most recognizable
figures out there, and this is before social media, before anything.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
And the same thing.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
I remember I was with Jason Statham, the actor, and
we had just done an interview and again he couldn't
go any place. He was being mobbed, He's being followed.
People want something and they and people don't understand. It
looks like an autograph or a selfie isn't that big
of a deal, But when it's been asked of you

(53:00):
a thousand times before.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
Eight o'clock in the morning, and it's like, you know,
it's not that it's not.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
That they don't want to help, that not that they
don't want to do it, but it's your time. After
a while, everybody understands that time is the one thing
that we cannot generate more of.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
And when people are constantly stopping you, hey, would you
take this? Would you do this? It eats up your day.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah. And also having to be having to
be on all the time. You have to be this
person that these people see. So you have to be
a positive person. You have to be an encouraging person.
You can't be a dick. You're not allowed to have
a bad day. You're not allowed to be human when
you're when you're in a spotlight. You have to maintain

(53:45):
this and that's why a lot of people lose their
minds because you're constantly having to put on a show.
Basically yes, And you know, I mean, I think also
a lot of that comes from a lack of trans parency.
And again that's why for me, I wanted to be
very transparent about my failures, my doubts, and my fears,

(54:06):
and I'm like, this is this is what this is me.
You know, I'm not I'm not that fucking guy. I
mean the first highlight video I ever had made, the
whole first minute was just me getting a shit kicked
out of me, because I wanted people to understand that's
what this comes with, right. You can't you can't get
to this point without going through all this shit. You
can't go to this point without going through all this failure,

(54:28):
this pain, this difficulty. Anybody can do a highlight video
of their life and say see, and that's kind of
what things How things are going right now with Instagram
and everything, everyone is showing highlights of their life. It's
not real reality. Nobody's showing like they're fucked up days
and their depression and their their addictions and atils like
oh I'm here, I'm at the beach, like life's great,

(54:51):
and and that's that's how most of us view our world.
We think that's the world that this is how my
life should be. I'm not doing what's wrong with me,
you know, like like go and hang out with that
person for a day. I bet you changed your mind
real quick.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Absolutely. Okay.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
So that leads me to, uh, talking or asking you
about adversity. Uh, is there is there a particular challenging
period or event either in your life, in your in
your career and how did you overcome that?

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, there's been a lot of those. There's been a
lot of those. I think. I think one of the
most important things to remember is those things never stop.
Those tests, the tests of life never stop, you know,
and particularly when you think you've overcome certain things, they
find a way to show up in a different way,
and and and and in a way that you would

(55:45):
think you should be able to deal with. But to
your point, Uh, the first fight I ever had was
was a perfect example of that. As I said earlier,
I went in there thinking I was just gonna smash
this out. And you know, you have to realize when

(56:06):
you have to understand how bad you want success in
a certain area in the direction that you want to
go to, and realize that your mindset about those things
has to be I can use every moment to get better.
I can use every moment to realize what doesn't work.
I can use every failure to get better to get stronger.

(56:31):
So through every loss that I ever had, every injury
that ever had, every downtime that I ever had, it
was always always trying to view things through that lens
and usually did a pretty good job about it. But
the hardest times for me when it was in two
thousand and eight, I was I went through this period

(56:53):
where I just could not get any get fights anymore.
I was. I had something like thirty fights fall through,
which is just madness. And it was like time after
time after time I'd train and get ready for a fight,
and then the guy would pull out, the event wouldn't
happen something, and it just got so frustrating. And this
is a time when UFC was starting to get really big,

(57:14):
and a lot of a lot of the people that
I trained with is we're fighting in the UFC and
fighting Pride and fighting in a lot of these big organizations.
They were all doing MMA, and they were always like
why don't you, why don't you do MMA, Like we
can get you a fight today and get you paid too,
you know, which I has no fucking money. It was like,
you're basically paying to fight, and I physically did pay

(57:35):
to fight a few times. So there was always that
draw to do or to do boxing or something where
I could I could fight and I could make a
living too, which would have been nice because I was
I was. I lived in the gym and a closet
in the gym for three years. Wow, so I bet
I could do this and yeah, and you know, going

(57:57):
into two thousand and nine, I made it my New
Year's resolution. I'm like, I'm going to give this sport
everything that I have for another year. If at the
end of the year this things haven't progressed, I'm gonna
make that switch. But the reason I never wanted to
do these other things was I never wanted to have
one foot in two different pools. I was like, if

(58:17):
I'm going to do this, I'm going to be the
best MMA fighter I can be. I'm gonna stop doing
muytai or fighting muytai and I'm only going to focus
on being the best MMA fighter that I could be.
And I was not ready to give up muay thai.
And I also felt a sense of responsibility too, because
there were so few people in the sport pushing the sport,

(58:41):
and that's why America has lacked in progression over the years,
because there just wasn't people willing to sacrifice in order
to help it get to where where it is now.
And I was like, if I quit, who's who's who's
going to pick up the baton there? You know, It's like,
even if I don't get to where I want to

(59:03):
get to, I know I'm gonna help it get better
and it's going to get closer to that point. I
always want to leave things better than I found them,
you know, don't I don't necessarily have control over where
it goes to. But it's going to get closer to
that point as long as I keep pushing myself and
somebody has to sacrifice. Somebody has to get bloody going
through the door, right, so it might as well mean

(59:23):
But again, I gave myself that that year. I was like,
I'll reevaluate at the end of the year. And two
days after New Year's I got a call to fight
in China for the WBC title on like two weeks notice,
and which is what I did, And then my everything
just started picking off from there. I won three titles

(59:44):
that year and things just just move forward. But I
look back on all these times when I thought about
quitting or changing something, and I really did have to
dig down and say, again, how bad do you want
to to do this? How about doing And the hardest
thing for me it wasn't even the losses in the

(01:00:06):
difficult times. It's when I couldn't even fight. So it's
like you sacrifice so much, you give so much, you
train so hard, and you don't even get to do
the thing you're sacrificing to beat. That's that was the
hardest thing for me at that point, and that that
was about a year a year's period of time when
that was going on, and it was just I mean,
people don't know what it was like, not only in

(01:00:29):
the world but in our country at that time in
the early two thousands, Like trying to fight. People didn't
know what muytai was. You tell somebody, did boy, what what?
What is that? And then you'd have to tell people, well,
it's like kickboxing, which to any multi fighter just like
eats your soul because you're like, well it's not though.

(01:00:50):
It's like it's like being a rugby player and having
to tell people you play football, right, yeah, kind of,
but not at all, and it's actually extremely different and yeah,
so most of the time I would just say yeah, yeah,
it's like keep boxing, because I wouldn't want to explain
it to people, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
So it's crazy to look back on where it was
when I started and where it got to and there
was only a handful of us that really pushed pushed
it hard like that, and we're willing to make that
jump overseas because basically what you have is all these
other countries are all close to each other, they're all

(01:01:29):
fighting each other, they all have competition, they can all
progress on this path, and we're over here in the
very small pool with very limited challenges as far as
progressing fighting wise. And then you have to make that
jump overseas to fight them. And most people don't want

(01:01:50):
to do that because, especially if you've been very successful
in your small pool, right your national champ and you're
the best person in your town and be like it.
It feels good to be good. The last thing you
want to do is jump over and get annihilated, right
And also and also understanding the gap that there is,
like it seems insurmountable. You can't like going from amateur

(01:02:13):
to the highest level pro. There's no there's nowhere to
transition and build to that point. You have to jump
off the cliff. And that's what I had to do
and a few others. But but there really was only
like less than ten of us that did that, and
we just all happened to be doing it at the
same time. And it was really the golden era of

(01:02:33):
American MUITTI. It was just it was a really magical
thing to be a part of. And it wasn't lost
on me that this was special, but I will I
kind of always view things that way since turning my
life around, as as in, every day is not supposed
to be here, right, So even the bad stuff, it

(01:02:54):
was like, well, at least you're having bad ship instead
of no shit.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Absolutely, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
I remember for the longest time I would think of
life as bad or good, and then my life changed
when I decided it's not bad or good. Is it
hard or easy? Are you you know? Are you learning
and getting better?

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Because no matter you've already you've already said this, no
matter where you're at in life, if you're moving forward,
you're always going to have some level of resistance. And
so again, sometimes it's going to be easier, and sometimes
it's going to be harder versus good or bad. I
think good or bad puts you in that victim mindset.
But hard or easy it's easier for me to digest

(01:03:43):
that and say, Okay, this is hard, So I gotta
double down. I gotta I gotta really tighten my my
my sleep, I gotta really tighten up my my nutrition.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
I to get to get to the where I want
to go.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Yeah, and having like perspective is one of the most
important than things that we can have in life, and
an understanding of that, and also understanding that everything is
a spectrum. It's not this binary black and white thing.
There's an enormous spectrum in between. So when you say
good or bad, like, what are you really actually talking about?
And unfortunately that often the things we want most in

(01:04:19):
life are the worst things for us, like wanting things
to be easy, wanting to always have not to have difficulties, Like, yeah,
I don't want to have difficulties. And sometimes I want
to sit on the beach and drink beer. But for
how long do you want to do that? A day?

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Right, it's like you where we are built for resistance,
and resistance gives us purpose and difficulty. You're just trying
not to overdo it to where everything's just this traumatic,
difficult test and you know you're just seeking out discomfort
and awful things in life. So there's a balance there.

(01:04:57):
But most of the stuff that's worth doing is difficult,
and most of the stuff that gives you real fulfillment
in life is difficult to do. It's difficult to attain,
and that's why the reward is so great. And that's
where you get the real benefit of going through that
difficult times, even if you don't achieve that thing, just

(01:05:17):
knowing that you pushed yourself and you didn't give up
when it was so easy too and so many people do,
and then that you're on. It's a very slippery road
once you start to allow weakness to enter your life
in any area, because one weakness leads to another, to another,
to another, and soon eventually you end up in a

(01:05:39):
place you never could have imagined. But the same thing
goes for strengthening yourself, one thing after another, one little thing,
one seemingly insignificant moment, to another, to another, to another,
ultimately leads to being unbreakable.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Yes, absolutely, And I like the fact that pointed out
that it's degrees right. It's not like if somebody comes
up to you and says, hey, if you avoid doing
this one thing, your life will be ruined. No, it's
it's these a little degrees right. You know, today you
skip a workout, or today you don't do that one

(01:06:17):
thing you're supposed to, and then it gets easier to
not do it and easier, and the reverse is true.
You stay more discipline, you get stronger at it. And again,
there's nothing better than looking back and looking where you
came from. Where you know, maybe a year ago getting
up at four o'clock in the morning was incredibly difficult,

(01:06:38):
but today it's a no brainer.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
It's just part of your life.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Yeah. Yeah, those small incremental progressions, I think. I think
the what keeps a lot of us for doing things
is what we so want to just jump to the end.
One skip to the end like not one. You don't
want to just skip to the end because you're not
to be able to. You didn't develop the strength to

(01:07:02):
stay at the end. So even if you get there,
you're gonna get knocked off. That super fast. You need
the process. You have to go through the process. You
have to build strength. You can't just lift three hundred
pounds if you've never lifted five, it's never gonna happen.
And if you do, you're going to destroy every piece
of your body. So if you view things that way

(01:07:24):
and also understand just start small, you don't actually you
don't have to be perfect. Like all you have to
do is be better today than you were yesterday, one tiny
little thing. Go walk ten feet like you didn't walk
ten feet today, but now you did. So now you've
walked ten feet. Now do it again. Now walk ten

(01:07:45):
feet five days in a row. Now add five more
feet and now eventually and you progress and you build
and you strengthen, and that's how you develop. And that's
the only way to develop. There's no shortcuts to success.
God take the stairs. It's it's cliche, but that is
the only way and it's the only way there has

(01:08:05):
ever been. There is no other way to do it.
And the worst thing that can ever happen is to
skip ahead and end up in this place that you
don't know how you got there. You don't know what
it takes to stay there. You don't have the tool,
pols or the resources to be in this position. So
now you're in this position, you don't know what to

(01:08:26):
do with it, and now you're going to face a
lot of adversity that you're not strong enough to handle
because you wanted to get there so quickly. And unfortunately,
that's what's happening a lot in the combat arts these
days because it is so much more popular. Everybody is
in such a rush to get to the top. People
don't want to put the work in. They just want
to get in the spotlight and they want to get
the money, they want to get the success, they want

(01:08:46):
to get the fame. And that's why you don't see
a lot of people staying in that position for very long.
They'll get there and then just get knocked off and
you can't you can't go back and start over. Well,
it's very rare. That's impossible. I mean, just time alone.
It's very very unlikely that you can get to the

(01:09:07):
top and start from the bottom if you haven't done
the work necessary. So enjoy the process. Now. I used
to be. I used to always be in such a
rush to get to my fights because I'm like, man,
I gotta do a this fucking awful day to day,
like waking up like this shit sucks, and then one
day it just smacked me in the face. I'm like,

(01:09:28):
you're rushing through your life to get to this point.
That's fifteen twenty minutes, ninety nine percent of your life
you're trying to skip over to get to this point.
And once you learn to appreciate the struggle, and it
doesn't mean you have to like it and enjoy it,
but appreciate it for what it is. This is, this

(01:09:48):
is what it takes to get there. You have to
do this so you at least don't hate it. You know,
it's part of the process. You know, you can't you
can't just like one aspect of succes. You have to
enjoy the whole thing, or at least appreciate, appreciate it.
This is what it comes with. You have to do
this where you have to sacrifice, you have to fail,

(01:10:10):
you have to go through these times of doubt and struggle,
and it's all part of the journey. And the journey
at the end of the day is what you're going
to look back on and appreciate very Those those moments
of success, those are those are so small to me
in comparison to the entirety of the journey. And the
journey is most of it. Yeah, the mountaintop's very very small,

(01:10:35):
small moments there, the little peaks, bam, and then your
back down to do it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Well, and the journey is what makes you. The journey
is what builds the character. It's what makes you resilient
and strong and and and and teaches you that you
can overcome things if you if you just go from
success to success, like you said.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
You don't you don't build the skill set to stay there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Yeah, I want to ask you this.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
You know, we last couple of years, specifically women's sports
has been infiltrated by men who identify as women. And
I find this to be interesting because as an as
an athlete, and I was never a professional athlete, but

(01:11:25):
I don't want to compete with somebody that I can
absolutely know that I can destroy. I've always wanted to
compete with somebody who was either better than me or
something like that, because that's the only way I get better.
And one of the things that I see about these
guys who want to compete with women is that that
they're looking for the easy way that's my impression.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
What's your take on all this?

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of it. I would
say the majority of it is along those lines. It
has a lot to do with just the way a
lot of people are wired looking for the easy road,
looking for quick access to spotlights, to attention, even negative

(01:12:08):
attention is what people want and and a lot of
that is so problem. And it's it's not just that,
I mean, it's it's it's a worldwide thing. People are
in such a rush for attention. Yes they don't they
don't care what it is, as long as it's attention,
good or bad. That like, that's where we put our
value and so many things. And unfortunately that's that's the
way society has been for a long time. And we

(01:12:31):
contribute to these this monster that has become because this
is what what we've allowed our our education system to be,
our family system to be, and this is the end
result of Like, these things don't happen in a vacuum,
like they come from. What does this come from? So
I think it's very important to anything you're looking at

(01:12:53):
that you don't like or it is an awful situation,
be like you need to rewind the tape and understand
where it came from, because if you don't understand where
it came from, you're just gonna end up in the
same position. You're gonna you're gonna swing the pendulum to
the other side, and it's going to be just as negative.
But you think you're on the positive side because you're
flipping from that negativity. And that's where you see that

(01:13:13):
back and forth time and time again, from from every everything,
every situation and circumstance that humanity has ever faced. Is
where did this come from? What did what started this?
How did we get here? Look back where we got here,
so you can at least understand why we got here
because of this, because these people were oppressed or this
situation happened. And then the opposite side of that is

(01:13:36):
where you are now. And then what's going to happen
is we're going to push so hard against it, it's
going to flop again and we never end up in
the middle. It's just this ping pong game, back and
forth and back and forth, and you know, it's it's
it sucks. And when you see these things, especially when
you're seeing people liking fighting getting really hurt because of this,

(01:13:56):
and you know, it's it's, it's it's it's a very
complex situation. It's very easy to say, oh, that's you know,
that's fucked up, and yeah, okay, but what are what
are the answers?

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
What what do we need to do? You know, in
my mind, when it comes to athletics, make another league
that that's that's open to everyone. Anybody who wants to
compete with everyone can compete with everyone, and they do that.
And you know, jiu jitsu and wrestling is just an
open division. So you can be any weight you want,
you can be any sex you want. If you're willing

(01:14:31):
to go in there, you can go in there and fight,
and you can go in there and compete. But we
have these other ones that are you need to be
this weight class, you need to be this this, this gender,
you need to be under these parameters, and they're there
for a reason. And if you want to start a
new thing, start a new thing. All these all these

(01:14:53):
things started somewhere. People need to instead of complaining about
the way things are, you have to start your own thing.
And if it's if it's, if it's what you want,
you need to do it yourself. Don't try to it's
like trying to make somebody else be the way you
want them to be. I can't change you. Try to
be myself and if that influences you, great, but if not,

(01:15:15):
I can't get emotionally attached to the fact that you're
not behaving the way that I want you to behave
and you're not believing the things that I want you
to believe. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Absolutely, I totally agree with that. I think, first of all,
I think that this is going to die out.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
Again. This is just my impression.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
There was a book called, Oh I'm blanking on the name,
but bottom line, the author did a bunch of research
to your point, trying to figure out where all these
things came from. And her conclusion is that this is
a phase because people are getting all of this attention,
and so you have all these people that are coming

(01:15:58):
out and saying, oh, you know, I identify as this
or that.

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
But it's a phase, just like a few years.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
Ago, there's a cutting phase, and there is a uh
there was a bunch of high school girls that were
doing uh pregnancy packs and they're all getting pregnant together
and stuff like that that that this, uh, this transgender
thing is a phase that that's there are obviously some
people that all that do have this dysphoria, and it's
it's it's we've always had this, but it's this very

(01:16:26):
tiny percentile.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
But now, because of social media.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
And the attention that these people receive, more and more
people are are gravitating, you know, just I think for
attention's sake, just like you're talking about. And and they'll,
you know, once the attention dies out, they'll they'll go
on and do something else.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
But I think a.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
Separate league, if there's enough people, let's do it, or
an open league where like you talk about, anybody who
wants to compete with anybody, come on in, let's it's uh,
it's it's good for everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
I like that idea.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Yeah, yeah, And to your point, what we often feel
to realize is any attention gives something attention. So the
more negativity you're putting out there, you're contributing to the
thing that you don't want to be there. And I
mean this happened time after time after time. And look
at all like the bands that were trying to be

(01:17:19):
blackballed by their label and censored, Like what did that do?
All it did was make them better and bigger and
made them a huge name. Like the worst thing you
can ever do is try to like yell to everyone, hey,
don't look at this thing. All you're doing to be curious.
You know when I there was a time I was
coming up and it was very it became very prevalent,

(01:17:40):
like a lot of like just not legit gems and
people were getting a lot of attention and doing this thing,
and I thought about, oh man, we should make like
a show where we travel on the country and like
expose all these people and like go to the gym
and just fuck them up. And you know it's like, yeah,
as therapeutic as that may have been, all you're doing
is bringing attention to this thing that you don't want

(01:18:02):
to see more of. The only answer, ever is to
put more energy into the things you want. Like what
do I want? I want there to mean more legitimacy.
I want there to mean more purity in the sport.
So all I can do is try to convey that
and encourage that, to be vocal about that, because all
that opposite is going to do is contribute to the
thing that I don't want to see more of. And

(01:18:25):
I feel the more you can do that and all
the aspects of your life. The things you don't want,
stop giving them attention, Yes, start putting that energy into
the things you do want, and then you will start
to see those things you don't want slowly start to
disappear and go away. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
One of my favorite things that I learned from snowboarding
or from skiing, what they teach you is if you're
looking at the trees, but you don't want to hit
the trees, then you got to stop looking at the trees, right.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
You got to put your attention to where you want
to go.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
But it's a and that works in the spiritual and
it works in business, it works in sports, it works
in all areas of life. The thing that you don't want,
if you keep giving that more attention, then that's more
what you get.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
It.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
It's call it the.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Law of attraction or or you know, energy goes where
attention flows, whatever you want to call it, but it
is the way life works.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Yep. Yeah. I always try to use the analogy that everything,
everything gives energy. What you do with that energy, how
you direct that energy, that is all in your control.
And if you continually view these things you don't like
and talk about them, and think about them and talk
to other people about them and put them out there.
All you're going to do is see more of it.

(01:19:46):
It's going to become more popular. And it's just this
toxic ball rolling down a hill that's just picking up
more momentum and more and more and more, and it
just becomes uns sustainable. And it's often how you see
people that just are constantly have drama in their lives,

(01:20:06):
like yes, well, very rarely is there someone like that
that you don't understand.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
Why that happens, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
Someone that's always has bad shit happened to them, Like, well, again,
what what do you have control over? All you ever
do is talk about all this bad ship. Of course,
bad ship's gonna happen, like you haven't. You don't even
have a perspective because now everything's bad to you because
now it's not the thing that you want. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Absolutely, if somebody says the minute somebody says I don't
like drama in my life, to me, that's like a
red flag.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
That's what that's like. This is a person who invites
drama all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
And contributes to it. Do you hear what? So?

Speaker 1 (01:20:51):
And so I'm like, oh absolutely, and you hear this
quite a bit from single women.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
You know, I don't want drama life, just avoid.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
At all costs that flakes everywhere, absolutely absolutely, all right. So,
one of the things that I want to figure out.
And I don't know if you even know this, but
here you are, you're twenty three. You've given up this
life or you're giving up this life that you've had

(01:21:26):
of partying and drinking.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
And how did you.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
Build the resilience cultivate the mental toughness to do what
you're about to do. Because you're not entering a soft
sport like let you know, and I don't want to
offend anybody like baseball. You know, you're entering a sport
that is that you could get hurt. People die in

(01:21:53):
the sport, people get crippled, they get brain damage. This
is a serious dangerous sport. And you're going from a
life of partying to this life that requires mental toughness.

Speaker 3 (01:22:06):
Do you know how you cultivated that? Did you ever
think about that?

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
No? I never really thought about it much. For me. Again,
I just really simplified it in the you're not supposed
to be here anyway terms, right, So, and that took
the kind of that broad spectrum of the what ifs
and this could happen, and this difficulty. It was you're

(01:22:37):
either going to do this or you're not. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what could or will or is going
to happen. Are you going to do this? Yes? All right,
well there you go. You're going that direction. So and
then over time that certainly I developed that, but it
really was a one track mind. I was singularly focused.

(01:23:03):
I was very aware of how much of my life
I had wasted. I was very aware of what that
other road leads to. So because I knew that, it
was you're on this road no matter what happens, because
you know what the other road comes to. So if

(01:23:25):
you don't do this, you're dead. You're going to die
without quit. I didn't have a question in my mind
that I was going to be dead or in jail,
and should have been so many times. So again, that
took that all for those It didn't necessarily take away
my fears or my doubts or anything like that. It

(01:23:45):
just simplified them to what are you gonna do about it?
Are you gonna quit? Or are you going to move forward?
And that was it. I'm going to move forward, and
the more you do that, that's simpler. It does become you.
As I said, it doesn't take it doesn't take those

(01:24:06):
doubts away. It doesn't take any of this stuff away.
What it does is it puts them in a simpler
context and it allows you to process the things you
would normally debate in your mind over much much faster.
So I you know, obviously these questions come up, like
when you lose or when you get an injury, like oh,
maybe I shouldn't do this, maybe maybe this is going

(01:24:28):
a bad way, and like like it was like an
immediate thing. It was immediate decision in my mind, like
this is a thing that happened, and I'm going in
that direction. And then the more you do that over time,
you know. But that's also something I was mentioned in earlier,
how the lessons never end and the test never end.
So I blew my knee out into two thousand and

(01:24:52):
well toward my acl completely. And this was at the
peak of my career, right after I fought Sanchai, and
then I fought Sakodau two months who was Loompini Champ
also at the time, and who had just beaten Sanschai,
who I actually watched beat Sanchai live and I fought him.
And then my next fight I was getting ready for.

(01:25:13):
As I was in preparation for that, I blew my
knee out in training and then had to basically rebuild
and start all over. And you know, I had had
so many injuries up to that point, this was the
biggest one. But then later towards the end of my career,
like the last two years of my career, I was
getting ready for a fight, this huge fight in Japan.

(01:25:34):
I'd always wanted to fight in Japan because when I
started was when like k one Max had just started,
and it was just like this dream of mine to
fight in Japan, especially at one of the giant stadiums there,
and this was at this mega stadium. It's where Mayweather
fought what's that kid's named Takaru. I think it's like

(01:25:55):
fifty undred thousand people, something enormous, and that's why I
was going to fight. So it was like this dream
come true. And then a week before the fight, I
snapped the joint in my thumb and it ended up
having to cancel the fight. And in my mind, I
thought I had already been through so much and like
a knee injury, Like that's like the most horrific shit

(01:26:18):
is like you can't even can't even walk, Like a thumb.
A thumb should be minimal and.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
It should you can tape it up or something.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Yeah, and it should just be like, oh, this is
the thing. I'm gonna you know, get better. But it
was just as difficult of a of a test for
me because I think partly because it was so small.
It's just such a little thing. But I can't use
my hand. I can't punch with it, you know, I can't.
I can't fight with that with this thing and it's

(01:26:46):
so small. Yet I've overcome so much and I realized,
you know, I had another day where I was like,
fucking bullshit, this is you know, this is awful. And
it was just like, this is another test, and this
is another thing of your career. This is another lesson
that you have to overcome and you have to learn

(01:27:06):
from and how are you going to use this moment?
And again it's like once you've done that, some maytimes
you can't. You can't pretend like you don't know that
you have a choice to make here, like you can
use this and be a victim and be like, oh
poor me, I'm like I broke my thumb, or you
can say like fuck that, I'm gonna I'm gonna get better,
I'm gonna push myself and and that's what I had

(01:27:28):
to do. But it was like twenty years of my
career and there was another thing that was a reminder
those those these tests will never stop coming. And if
you understand that about life, you'll be able to handle
a lot better. It's never going to stop, right the test,
The tests are never going to stop. Difficult times are

(01:27:49):
never going to stop. Even if you sit yourself in
a padded room for the rest of your life. There's
no escaping what life comes with, and the more you
try to avoid it, the worse it's going to be,
and the weaker you're going to be, and the less
you're going to be able to handle it. When these
things do inevitably come, the best thing you can do
is face that thing head on that I'm not going anywhere.

(01:28:13):
I'm going forward and you're not going to break me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
Yeah, And I think the takeaway is that we are
always in control of the choice. We have the choice.
You can move forward, you can fall back, you can shrink,
you can push yourself to move forward. But we always
have that choice. And I think that sometimes, especially when

(01:28:38):
we feel overwhelmed, we forget that we're in control of
how we react and we're in control of the choice.

Speaker 3 (01:28:45):
We have that free agency.

Speaker 1 (01:28:46):
So I love this idea or this reminder that we're
always a choice is always available to us.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Yeah. Yeah, And we always think that, well, because it's
easy to say, well, you don't understand it's not a choice,
because you know this, this thing happened to me, and
I'm like, but it is a choice what you do
with it. And the more you can hold yourself accountable

(01:29:16):
to the actions that you take from that point it
might not have been a choice on the thing that
happened to you. Sometimes it was, sometimes was, but that's
that's irrelevant. Where you're at right now, all that other
stuff is gone. What you do from this point forward
is one hundred percent your choice, your decision, what you're

(01:29:38):
going to do. A great, great, great book that talks
about this is A Man Search for Meaning, which is
a phenomenal book and he dives dives deep into that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:50):
That's a great book. I think. Yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
For those who don't have not read this book, it's
by a whole a cost survivor, and he does it,
like you said, a deep dive into why some people.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
Gave up being in.

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
The hallock or being in in this uh camp and
why some didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:30:14):
It is it is a great read.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yeah, and understanding the power of not only the choices
that we make, but our perspective on things, how we
how we view things, and how we view things. Our
perception is our reality. Perception creates reality we don't. We
don't often think about that. We think we often view

(01:30:39):
the world as if we're all viewing this objective reality
that we're all interpreting. We're all seeing the exact same thing,
we're all feeling the exact same thing. Yet some people
make different decisions than others, and that's how we judge
things because we think it's all this objectivity and or

(01:30:59):
as if there's seeing the same thing that I'm seeing
and they're just coming to different conclusions. When all of
life is subjective. One hundred percent of it's subjective. It's
your the person that's behind this lens, and what you
see is not what other people see. What you feel
is not what other people see. Even if there's similarities
there We are all vastly different for all of our

(01:31:21):
very unique circumstances, And even if we go through some
of the similar things, you're always coming from a completely
different place for a variety of reasons. And that's another
thing I think it's so important to understand. It gives
you a lot more compassion for people, because, like, do
you think you'd be the same person if you were

(01:31:42):
born on a different street, to a different family, under
a different religion, in a different country. Not a chance
in the world would you be the same person? Right, Like,
at least view things from that point and then and
then start to move forward about your decision maker. But
we're so quick to snap judgment on things, whether we
think they're good or bad or anything between. Like we

(01:32:06):
don't have any idea about anything. Ever, So the more
we can look internally and look at ourselves, the better
we'll be externally. And so much of the world is
about going external and going out, and we want to
go farther and faster and deeper and going more into space,

(01:32:27):
and internally goes just as far. It's infinite going internally,
just like it's infinite going externally. And so few people
go internal and do that internal work that's so important.
We're just continually damaging each other and just leaving this
wake of destruction, and often feel justified by it because well,

(01:32:48):
this happened to me, and this happened to me, and
we just it's just this toxic, infectious plague of humanity
to where we're just all infecting each other with our
pain and we're traumatizing each other over and over and
over from generation to generation. And it's not until a
person says I'm not going to continue down this cycle

(01:33:11):
and go down this road anymore, and I'm going to
take accountability and hold myself to a higher place and
not be a victim by these things, that things change.
But that's usually the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
Yes, absolutely, I think you're absolutely right. We see it now,
this infection, this toxicity that is spreading over not just
our nation but everywhere. Let me ask you this, when
it comes to your transition from fighting to retirement, what

(01:33:49):
has the transition been like for you and how have
you found new purpose and fulfillment outside of the ring.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
Yeah, it was. I think I was a lot more
prepared than most because because of one how light I
started realizing that I never thought I was going to
have one fight, let let alone twenty years seventy three fights,
and and I really did view every day as a

(01:34:24):
gift in extra credit and had zero expectations of Oh,
I deserve to get to this place, and if I don't,
I'm going to be depressed about it. Like I could have,
I could have, would have, should have. And I also
gave one hundred percent of myself to this there I
didn't leave anything to regret. I have zero regrets, and

(01:34:48):
I did that with intention. I intentionally lived my life
and went through my career so that I would have
no regrets at the end of it. That was one
hundred percent of my focus when I would fight the
way that I would train. It's like, I don't want
to get to the end of my career, the end
of my life, and look back and have any regrets

(01:35:09):
because I regret so much of my life prior to this.
I don't ever want to feel that way again. And
I refuse to feel that way again because I'm going
to take control of all the things I have control over.
And so that's when when I retired, it was it
was it was understanding that it's part of the story

(01:35:31):
it's part of my journey, and how are you going
to face this? You need to face this like you
faced every other thing in your career. You need to
be the person that you wanted there to be when
you were younger. How would you have wanted someone you
look up to to go out? Like how would you
want to see them retire? Because we all see so

(01:35:53):
many fighters that just it's just really bad and their
life just gets destroyed. But once you lose that that
purpose and that that drive, you know, it becomes a
very toxic thing. And it was it's very important for
me to be an example of how to do this right,
you know, And I had to hold myself to that

(01:36:14):
account to not slip into depression or back into alcohol
or anything like that. And after I retired that first month,
I gave myself a month, so I was like I stopped,
I stopped training, I stopped, I stopped watching fights, and
I just I just didn't do anything and just reset.
You know. It's like I need to just take myself

(01:36:36):
out of this environment that I've been immersed in for
twenty years, right and just take a step back. And
I don't even know what I'm whirled them in anymore,
I need to go over here for a sec. And
then it was like, all right, well, first off, I
can't live like this. I have to at least like
go for a walk every day or something. Because I

(01:36:56):
saw how quickly that how weak, and how quickly you
start to head down that road. I understand that fully.
I know how hard it is and how much more
difficult it gets the longer it goes, the older you get,
the more injuries that happen, the more excuses that have,
the more justifications you have for not being physically active.

(01:37:16):
And I was like, I ain't. I ain't going out
like that, man. So I started just going for a
walk every day. And then after going for a walk
every day, I was like, all right, maybe I'll do
a little run here and there, and started that and
started training a little bit, and then got pick into
training all the time and coaching all the time. I
was coaching already, but really just started resetting where I

(01:37:42):
was in my life at that point and understanding where
I wanted to be, how I wanted to operate, and like,
I love I will always love this sport and I'll
do it to the day that I die, And it
really is for me a therapeutic thing for for my mind,
for my body, for my spear, Like I have to
I have to do it. I at least have to

(01:38:03):
be active in some way. It's not like I have
to do MUTI necessarily, but that I do love it
so much. So I just started to regain a lot
of those patterns in my life. The training. You know,
it's like I don't need to kill myself and trained
for a fight, but you know I need. I need

(01:38:23):
to go train, and I enjoy it and it keeps me,
it keeps me healthy. And as I started to do that,
I started helping helping other fighters out and you know,
really started to enjoy where I'm at. I have zero
desire to ever fight again or or anything like that,
because again I gave, I gave everything I had to

(01:38:45):
this sport I have. I have. There's nothing else I
could have done. Nothing like there's no no, no moment
or anything else. I'm like, well, you know, maybe, but yeah,
So I'm glad that that desires go on, because that
would be difficult to deal with. And I understand why
it's so difficult for people. But I was able to

(01:39:07):
get to a good place to where I can still
be involved. I love it. I love to teach, I
love to help people, and I love to train myself.
And it really is the thing that keeps me, keeps
my foundation solid and allows me to build everything else
on top of because if I don't do that, everything
in my world starts to collapse. So it's one of

(01:39:29):
the things that's very important for me to make sure
that I'm doing, especially if I'm feeling down or any
something's going on, I'm like, well, have you been working out?
Have you been eating right? And usually if those things
aren't the case, and like, all right, well at least
at least do that and then see how you feel
from that point. You know, you might still feel bad,

(01:39:50):
but you've got to start there. And once you've established that,
typically things aren't what you think they are because you're
able to see things more clearly.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
Yeah, it's it's funny. I think that what you said
there is a great recipe. Just check the basics, right,
are you getting enough sleep or are you are you
taking care of yourself? How's your nutrition, how's your how's
your workouts?

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
These these might seem basic, but I'm a big believer
in being brilliant at the basics right, and so if
you're not doing the fundamentals, then yeah, this is why
your sleep's off. You know, you you're parting too hard
or you're whatever it is, right. So I like this
idea of just checking are you doing the basic stuff
all right?

Speaker 3 (01:40:40):
Then here's what you've got to reset or whatever. Let
me ask you this.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
Let me ask you this when it comes down to
to uh, I guess your legacy or the impact.

Speaker 3 (01:40:53):
What do you hope that your legacy.

Speaker 1 (01:40:55):
Will be in the world of combat sports? And how
do you to be remembered by fans and fellow fighters?

Speaker 2 (01:41:05):
You know, I actually it's not to say I don't care.
But what's important to me is to know that I
left this sport better than I found it, and to
also know that I never quit it on myself. So
as far as what other people view me as and

(01:41:30):
how they view it, I mean, that's completely subjective. So
it's nice. It's nice to be viewed as this person
in the sport and be respected worldwide and to be
known worldwide, and to be viewed as someone who really
helped elevate the sport. But for me, the most important

(01:41:51):
thing is that I left it better than I found
it and everything else is just extra. It's nice, just
like winning titles that kind of stuff. It's nice, but
I don't walk around with belts and hey like, yeah,
it's cool, I guess, But it's just a thing, you know.
It doesn't really it doesn't really say anything because what's

(01:42:13):
behind that is what's important, the what went into that.
This is just a symbol of something that happened. But
you can have that symbol and have just a dog shit,
fucking weak ass person have it right like that in itself,
it means nothing to me, Like titles don't mean anything
to me. Success doesn't mean anything to me unless you're

(01:42:35):
successful as a human being like that. That is so
much more important than any of these these accolades or
these perspectives of other people. You hope that comes with it,
But that's never been something that's been important to me
other than wanting to be the person that I hoped

(01:42:58):
would be there for me when I was younger.

Speaker 1 (01:43:02):
Yeah, I want to show you this film that that
you made. It's about oaths let's see. Yeah, yeah, and
it's uh, you guys did a phenomenal job.

Speaker 3 (01:43:18):
Let me see if I can get this to work
right here?

Speaker 5 (01:43:33):
I was afraid. I lived my life in fear. I
tried covering that fair with drugs and alcohol and blended
blended in with the rest of the world, and slowly
watched my life sleep away. I had the dream. It

(01:43:58):
was there all alone, but it frightened me. I ignored it,
hid from it. I pretended that it wasn't there. When
you have a dream, when you know something in your
heart is true, you can only run from it for
so long it will find a way to enter your life.

(01:44:20):
I sucked down alcohol as if it was water, hoping
to one day forget my dream altogether. It caused me pain,
the pain in knowing what I was meant for, but
being too afraid to face it. The years went on
and on, the addiction got worse, as did everything around me.

(01:44:43):
I thought I had finally killed it, and I was
happy to see it go. But the dream came crashing
back like a tidal wave. Sh It backed me into
a corner and said I'm here and I'm not leaving.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:44:58):
You're gonna run and live the rest of your life.
It's a coward. Why are you gonna prove what you
are made of and face me? Another avalanche of crushed
over me.

Speaker 6 (01:45:19):
But I had already made argan, No, I will.

Speaker 3 (01:45:40):
Not live in fair I will not run for my destiny.

Speaker 5 (01:45:43):
I will not hide behind the diction. From this day forward,
I will dedicate myself to this stream, this stream that
has always been there, the stream that for years I
couldn't quite grasp what it really was, but I didn't understand.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
And the journey begins.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
It's a phenomenal short film.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
You did a great job.

Speaker 2 (01:46:19):
I appreciate it, man, I mean it really did. I
was surprised and very grateful for how it turned out.
So that was actually a poem I had written, the
only poem I've ever ever written in my entire life, actually,
and it was just describing my life basically, you know,

(01:46:39):
the fears that I had and all these doubts and
overcoming them and facing them. And that was ah basically
telling of that tale in a sense and then showing
how it was like a voice in my head, but
it was presented as another person. And I mean that

(01:47:00):
that really encapsulates that journey that I had in my life,
all those all those things that were going on. I
was trying to I was trying to drown these thoughts
with drinking and self destruction, and I was I was
trying to trying to hide all that stuff so I

(01:47:21):
wouldn't feel it anymore, which was only making it worse.
It's just bringing it out in different ways. You know,
we do so many things to try to avoid this pain,
yet we cause ourselves so much more by trying to
avoid it, and it's so much worse in the long run. Like,
you're so much better off you facing that thing head on,
looking at square in the eyes. It's just like fighting.

(01:47:43):
If you can see the things that are hitting you,
they're not going to have such as bad of an effect.
The worst thing you can do is shut your eyes
and turn your head. You're guaranteed to get fucked up
if that happens. So staring, staring that demon head on
and letting it know that you're not going anywhere, and
I'm gonna I'm not only am I not going anywhere,

(01:48:05):
but I'm gonna go forward, And that I think is
one of the most powerful things you can do with
any any fight that you're facing in life, is to
look ahead on and be willing to to to go
after it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:17):
Absolutely, there's nothing worse than running away, whether it's from
your bills or a relationship or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:48:27):
To your point, once.

Speaker 1 (01:48:28):
You look at it straight on and you deal with it,
you realize, oh, it's not as bad as I thought,
and then you can start making the choices to do
what needs to be done.

Speaker 2 (01:48:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48:43):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:48:45):
I think so many people suffer mentally and emotionally because
to your point, just like you're talking about, you ran
away from it for so long. Here it is your
dream is begging you to come, you know, and deal
with this, and you like you avoided it for so long.

Speaker 2 (01:49:03):
Yeah, and that avoidance is what contributes to so much
addictions and depressions and mental health issues. Is it all?
It's all coming from somewhere. I mean a lot of
it comes from some kind of trauma that we faced
or dealt with and don't want to face it. We
don't want to look at it, we don't want to

(01:49:25):
think about it, we don't want to process it, and
so we think if we avoid it that we're ignoring
it or we don't have to see it. So it's
not there. All you're doing is shoving it under a rug.
It doesn't go anywhere, and all it really does is
gained strength, and it gains momentum and traction, and it's

(01:49:45):
going to get It is getting you, regardless of how
much you try to run from it, and it will
only get worse and worse and worse and infect every
aspect of your life, every relationship you have, every business
that you have, have inevitably will just destroy you in
the long run. And you know that if I could

(01:50:08):
encourage anyone to do anything is to try to face
these things head on and at least look at them
before you start running.

Speaker 3 (01:50:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:17):
Yeah, it is. It takes guts to look at yourself
and be honest with yourself, to just to lay it
on the line.

Speaker 3 (01:50:29):
Look, you're not doing what you should be doing. You're
not doing enough of it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:34):
You know, I can't tell you how many clients I've
worked with who thought they were doing enough and they
weren't getting the results. All the reason you're not getting
the results, you're you're you're at this level when you
need to be at this level.

Speaker 3 (01:50:46):
You're not doing enough.

Speaker 1 (01:50:47):
And sometimes that's a kick in the teeth that it's
hard to look at your at your efforts and say sorry,
it's not enough. You still got to do more if
you want the results that you're looking looking forward and
and that uh raw honesty. I think with ourselves it's
very difficult. It's it's probably one of the hardest things

(01:51:08):
to do and to do again.

Speaker 2 (01:51:11):
Yeah, it is. It is one of the most difficult
things in life, is to not only to look at ourselves,
to be brutal, brutally honest and hopefully it's great if
you have somebody in your life that can be that
sound bird for you, that can hold you to account.
But if you don't have that, you at the very
least need to be that for yourself. And that's that's

(01:51:32):
that's what I was able to do in my career.
So that way, the more you can hold yourself to account,
the more everything else is extra extra input, extra extra coaching,
extra help. But if you can't do it yourself, if
you can't do it when no one else is there,
you're you're you're you're you're having a pacifier basically by

(01:51:55):
having this other person. You know, it's nice, it's great
if you have a coach and a help for a
mentor and someone like that to give you guidance. But you,
no matter what, you have to do it yourself. It's
all on you. Nobody can do it for you. Nobody
can do the work for you, and even if they could,
it'd be one of the worst things ever because you're
not getting the benefit of doing the work yourself. So

(01:52:18):
the more we can be honest with ourselves and continually
put ourselves under that microscope, all right, where are we lacking?
If there's an area we want to progress, Like what
can you do that you're not doing? And it's usually
no secret. I mean people, people we want to look
externally like I need help, I need I need this

(01:52:39):
person to tell me what to do. Like you know,
you know, you certainly know some areas that you could
could be doing that you're not. You might it helps
to get more education, certainly, and in direction and guidance
in a lot of those other areas. But there's so
much that we know ourselves that we're not doing the
way that we should be doing, and we're not holding
ourselves to a higher standard. And once you start doing that,

(01:53:03):
everything starts to progress. Everything you in your life will
start to get better. As long as you control control
the controllables it all. It all always comes down to
that what do you have control over? Take control of
those things, and I guarantee you those other aspects of
your life are going to get better.

Speaker 1 (01:53:21):
Yes, absolutely, listen. I have enjoyed our conversation so very much.
I love your insights and and listening to you about
your getting late start in life there at twenty three
and all that stuff. If somebody wanted to find out
more about you, if if somebody wanted to reach out
and maybe, uh I know you do public speaking as well.

Speaker 3 (01:53:42):
What's the best website for that?

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
Uh So? My personal website is thesol assassin dot com.
You can you can email me through that pretty easily.
You can also find me on all social media. My
Instagram is the Sole Assassin d A soul Assassin. I'm
pretty easy to find. If you look me up, all
kinds of shit'll come. So yeah, but yeah, please if

(01:54:06):
you want to get in contact with me, shoot me
an email, show me a message on social media, and
talk to you great.

Speaker 3 (01:54:16):
I will put all this stuff in the show notes. Kevin.

Speaker 1 (01:54:18):
It has been an absolute blast, and I appreciate you
stopping by and spending some time with me.

Speaker 2 (01:54:25):
Thank you, sir. I really appreciate you having me on
and I had a good time. Thank you.

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