Raw Truths From The Brink Of Death – Ben Askren
CChris Williamson
Cold & Flu/DiseasesExerciseWeight Loss/NutritionMental Health
Transcript
00:00:00Welcome back to life, dude.
00:00:05Well, I've been living again for quite a while now.
00:00:08June 28th was actually the day I got to transplant last year,
00:00:13so coming up on a year for that.
00:00:15I believe I woke up on July 2nd or somewhere around there,
00:00:19or came to in my own mind.
00:00:23So yeah, it's a third process, but I'm here, I'm getting better,
00:00:26and life's pretty good.
00:00:28So one year ago from now, you were really in the shit.
00:00:31Well, I just made a post yesterday because on June 6th,
00:00:34which was two days ago, Saturday,
00:00:35I got inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
00:00:38And when I went home, or went back to the hotel with my wife,
00:00:41I said, did I get airlifted June 6th last year?
00:00:44So last year on June 6th, I was in Vegas,
00:00:47and I went to the first hospital, second hospital,
00:00:50and then we had some friends that came out that were,
00:00:52one was a doctor and one was a nurse, and they said,
00:00:54he's not going to make it to this hospital.
00:00:57We need to get him back to Milwaukee because they have a good,
00:00:59it's called CVICU, Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit.
00:01:04And they got me a flight.
00:01:05They put me on a plane, took me all the way back.
00:01:08And I said to my wife, well, why was that such a bad day?
00:01:10Because I don't remember.
00:01:11I was sleeping.
00:01:12And she said, to transport me, they had to fully paralyze my body.
00:01:16And then when I got back to Milwaukee, they put me on ECMO.
00:01:20And with ECMO, I think there's only a 40% chance you come off ECMO.
00:01:24A lot of people go on it, don't come off it.
00:01:26So they were hoping I wouldn't have to do that.
00:01:28I did have to do that.
00:01:28So June 6th last year, although I don't remember any,
00:01:31it was quite eventful.
00:01:32And then this year you got to celebrate.
00:01:35So it's, you know, it's full circle.
00:01:37For the people who don't know what we're talking about,
00:01:39could you explain what's happened over the last 12 months?
00:01:42Yeah, well, May 28th last year, 2025, I went to the hospital.
00:01:49I actually went to the hospital on the day before also, May 27th,
00:01:53my back was hurting, just a back pain.
00:01:56I thought it was a back spasm.
00:01:57That was it, you know?
00:01:58And on May 27th, I tested, everything was normal.
00:02:01I did all the vitals.
00:02:02And I told my wife, see, I told you I was just a back spasm.
00:02:06And the doctor gave me medicine for a back spasm.
00:02:09And I went back to the hotel.
00:02:10We were at the Bitcoin conference.
00:02:12And it got worse.
00:02:14And the medicine did not work at all, which that's never happened.
00:02:17I've had, you know, a handful of other back spasm in my life.
00:02:19And the medicine's really good.
00:02:20It just got worse and worse and worse.
00:02:22And then, you know, I was up most of the night trying to make it feel better.
00:02:26And when I woke up in the morning, so sometime in the middle of the night,
00:02:29I'd finally fall asleep.
00:02:31When I woke up in the morning, it was a little bit later.
00:02:33And she had been videotaping me sleeping.
00:02:35And she had sent it to a few of our doctor friends.
00:02:37And they said, you need to get him to the hospital as soon as you can.
00:02:40So when I woke up.
00:02:42What was happening while you were sleeping?
00:02:44I was like super, like super fast and hard breathing.
00:02:48Right.
00:02:49And so when I woke up, my mom was like, hey, we're going to the hospital.
00:02:53And I said, dude, you made me go to the hospital.
00:02:55And I said, I'm not going back to the hospital, damn it.
00:02:58You know, I got stuff I want to do today.
00:03:00I don't want to go to the hospital.
00:03:01And she's like, no, you got to go to the hospital.
00:03:02So eventually they convinced me to go to the hospital.
00:03:04And it was the same place as the day before we went there.
00:03:08And I remember walking in the waiting room and then that's it.
00:03:13I don't remember anything.
00:03:14I woke up in July 2nd.
00:03:16I didn't know where I was.
00:03:17I didn't know why I was there.
00:03:18I don't remember anything.
00:03:19I was asleep for, I want to say, I think it was 37 days.
00:03:22So you transported from kind of being a bit irritated that you were back at the same hospital for
00:03:30what you thought might be a back spasm for the second time and your wife being a little
00:03:33bit overbearing.
00:03:35Yes.
00:03:36To now it's July and what the fuck am I?
00:03:39Oh, and I'm in a totally different, I'm in a totally different hospital now.
00:03:43Well, I woke up and it was, you know, I say wake up.
00:03:46I was awake sometimes, but to my recollection, I don't recall any of it, nothing.
00:03:51And so when I, when I like wake up the first time or when I come to some type of cognitive
00:03:56understanding of what's going on, um, it was, it was the middle of the night.
00:04:00It was dark.
00:04:01I obviously quickly realized I was in a hospital and I started thinking like, how did I end
00:04:06up here?
00:04:07Why am I here?
00:04:07I didn't remember going in Vegas.
00:04:09It was, how am I here?
00:04:10Why am I here?
00:04:11And then I couldn't speak at all.
00:04:13And so I, I don't even recall how it happened, but for some way I, you know, signal to the
00:04:19nurse, like, why am I here?
00:04:20What am I doing?
00:04:21And they told me I had a double lung transplant and, you know, again, I couldn't talk and
00:04:26it was like, okay, why do I have a double lung transplant?
00:04:29I have, I don't know.
00:04:30I have no idea what, how that would happen.
00:04:32I'm totally healthy.
00:04:33I've never smoked.
00:04:34I've never done anything.
00:04:35Um, and then eventually my wife came in the morning, whatever that, you know, the next morning
00:04:41or whatever, and she had documented everything.
00:04:44So it was like a day-by-day journal of, you know, June 2nd, this happened, June 4th, this happened.
00:04:49And I had to read through it and I was like, oh my God, what?
00:04:54Like, how did this ever happen?
00:04:56Um, and yeah, so that was kind of my recollection of waking up and kind of figuring out what was
00:05:01going on.
00:05:01So retrospectively, I know that you weren't awake to be able to work out this from a first
00:05:06person view.
00:05:07Yeah.
00:05:08You go into the waiting room and then what happens from there?
00:05:12Um, well, so I had a staph infection on my elbow.
00:05:16Um, I don't know if you've ever got one or not, but you know, sometimes like I, I, all my life,
00:05:21I've only had to get on an antibiotic a singular time.
00:05:25Um, you know, you get a cut, you get a little infected, you put some antibacterial on there,
00:05:29you wash, you shower, you clean it up and it goes away.
00:05:31And that was what happened to me.
00:05:32I had a little infection on my elbow.
00:05:35I washed, I showered, I soaked it, I had antibacterial.
00:05:38And within a couple of days it was gone and I didn't think much of it, you know?
00:05:42And then I made no connection, but about four days later, my, my back was started hurting
00:05:47and I thought, okay, this is the back spasm.
00:05:49And everyone always said, you would do it differently.
00:05:51And I said, no, I wouldn't help.
00:05:53Whoever could guess, oh yeah, my back hurts because my body's eating my lungs from the
00:05:57inside.
00:05:58Like no one's ever heard of that.
00:06:00That's totally ridiculous.
00:06:01So the staff got into my blood and it turned into a, a necrotic called necrotyping pneumonia
00:06:08in which, uh, my body was essentially eating my lungs from the inside out.
00:06:13That was what the back pain was.
00:06:15So I dealt with that for about, uh, I think five days before I ended up in the hospital.
00:06:20And then so when I was in the hospital, it was like really bad, like sepsis and necrotizing
00:06:24pneumonia.
00:06:25Um, and yeah, so they, they tried doing all they could to kind of like stay in my lungs
00:06:31and, and keep me alive.
00:06:32And at some point it became the only way I was going to stay alive was to have a, uh,
00:06:37lung transplant, which, you know, again, I wasn't awake for any of this.
00:06:41Um, and so I believe I was in the Milwaukee hospital for about three weeks before that
00:06:46happened.
00:06:47And then I got the lung transplant and, uh, I think I was still kind of like unconscious
00:06:51for about six more days after that.
00:06:54And then I woke up and there I was.
00:06:57Fuck me.
00:06:59Why do you get, why do you get lungs?
00:07:01That's what I said.
00:07:03Um, I do, I, I don't know.
00:07:06Uh, I actually wrote the donor family.
00:07:08The donor family has not responded.
00:07:10Obviously.
00:07:11Is it two from the same person?
00:07:13Yeah.
00:07:13Yeah.
00:07:14But you don't, you can't, you can't mix and match two lungs.
00:07:16Oh, I actually think you can.
00:07:18Uh, no, I know you can, because I talked to a guy in the hospital about it.
00:07:21You know, and that's one of those where, um, you think about life and you think about
00:07:25gratitude and you never want to take anything for granted.
00:07:28And I always think about the people I meet in the hospital.
00:07:31Now, uh, this is a while ago, probably four months ago, but I was in for one of my kind
00:07:35of routine checkups and this, this guy comes up to me and, you know, I'm, I'm waiting to
00:07:39go inside the, you know, to meet the doctors.
00:07:42And so a lot of the same, similar type people in a similar area.
00:07:45So he had a lung transplant and, you know, I think, okay, I was, I was unconscious for
00:07:4936 days and I was in the hospital for, I think it was 73 total or something, which is
00:07:54quite a long time.
00:07:55And it wasn't fun, but then this guy was in the hospital for nine months and he was
00:08:01sick and he got a double lung transplant and then almost immediately one of the two lungs
00:08:06rejected.
00:08:07I don't know why or how, I'm not a medical doctor.
00:08:08I can't see what happened.
00:08:09And he got a different lung from a different person and he is now living with two new lungs
00:08:14from two different people.
00:08:16So I always, I always try to reflect on, yes, my situation was tough, but it could always
00:08:20be tougher.
00:08:21And at the end of the day, I could always not be here.
00:08:24So I'm quite grateful for what happened.
00:08:27Where do they, how do the lungs come out?
00:08:31It cuts you right on.
00:08:32If you guys can see this, but right there.
00:08:33Yeah.
00:08:33Yeah.
00:08:33Yeah.
00:08:34It splits you right in half.
00:08:35Yeah.
00:08:36So they're not taking it from like under, they're not reaching under the rib cage and
00:08:40pulling it down.
00:08:40Are they cracking the rib cage open?
00:08:42You know, you know what, Chris?
00:08:44I've never had the balls to go look at exactly how they do it.
00:08:47No way.
00:08:48No, I don't want to.
00:08:49You just didn't want to know?
00:08:49I don't.
00:08:50It's called the, well, I mean, you can go, go, go look it up.
00:08:53So if you want to call the clam selling, clam shell incision is what it's called.
00:08:58Um, I could see exactly where I've been cut.
00:09:00I know what it feels like.
00:09:02Um, but no, I, I've never had the balls to, uh, go look up and see exactly how they open
00:09:06you up.
00:09:07Nolly.
00:09:07I guess.
00:09:07I feel like that'll gross me out a little too much.
00:09:10Yeah.
00:09:10Maybe, maybe I suppose so.
00:09:11I guess what's crazy is like, they're going to have, they have to reattach.
00:09:15It's like, it's like basically plumbing.
00:09:16It's human plumbing.
00:09:18You're like reattaching or human AC, AC ducting, maybe more accurately.
00:09:22It's like, oh, there's a pipe that comes down.
00:09:24We've got to get rid of this pipe.
00:09:25That pipe needs to be reconnected.
00:09:27Yeah.
00:09:27I mean, I don't know how, again, if you haven't done your research, haven't done your research.
00:09:30I want to know how, when you're removing somebody's lungs, I need to know how they
00:09:35keep you breathing because you need, uh, keep you fucking going.
00:09:39But there's a, there has to be a moment when there's no lungs or there's a moment.
00:09:45There's a moment when there's four lungs.
00:09:47There's one of two choices.
00:09:48They either attach both at the same time and switch one out.
00:09:52Yeah.
00:09:53You know what?
00:09:53I don't know the answer to this.
00:09:55I should know the answer.
00:09:55I do know.
00:09:56I'll tell you, this is gross.
00:09:58They said, the doctor did say it was the, uh, worst lung transplant she's ever seen because
00:10:03so many of my tissue died.
00:10:05It had like, uh, essentially she'd like stick like glue to the walls of my ribs and stuff
00:10:10like that.
00:10:11So they had to like really scrape all the old lungs off the inside of my chest cavity.
00:10:17Cause they would kind of decomposing inside of you.
00:10:19That's, that's what she said.
00:10:21So she said it was, uh, it was one of the worst that they'd ever seen.
00:10:23Uh, I don't remember what the time was now.
00:10:26Cause I was half unconscious for a lot of the first time I was awake, but she said it took
00:10:31them quite a while to actually clear it out and then, you know, get the new ones in.
00:10:35So, you know what?
00:10:36I don't know how I was bleeding at that point in time.
00:10:38Do people have any idea where this comes from?
00:10:41Is it just randomly onsets?
00:10:43Is it a virus?
00:10:44Do you get it by being on mats or what?
00:10:47Well, I think I got the original, original staph infection, but to the point I made earlier,
00:10:51like it cleared up and it was no big deal.
00:10:53And it wasn't like I had the flu or I was sick or I was coughing or not, none of these
00:11:00things whatsoever.
00:11:02Um, and you know, the Kyle Busch thing that happened, that was a couple of weeks back.
00:11:06It was weird.
00:11:07It was almost to the day of when mine happened the year prior, um, sounded very, very similar
00:11:14to what I, what I went through.
00:11:15And, uh, you know, I have not grilled the doctor really, really hard on why, why exactly did
00:11:21this happen?
00:11:21Or how did this happen?
00:11:22Or, or that kind of stuff.
00:11:23I guess I woke up and I said, well, this is my new reality.
00:11:26How do I, how do I get better?
00:11:27So I grilled him a lot on how, how do I get better, uh, but I haven't grilled him on how
00:11:33did it happen?
00:11:34That's really interesting mindset.
00:11:36I, yeah, I guess it's, it's really only important for you to understand what happened in so far
00:11:43as it informs what you can do now to improve.
00:11:45Yeah.
00:11:46And, uh, you know, what happened was that they probably something that's extreme, extremely
00:11:51rare.
00:11:52Um, you know, I guess I could go back and ask him and honestly, part of me thinks, and
00:11:57and this is just me judging from what my wife said, cause my wife was obviously awake and
00:12:02talking to them all.
00:12:03And she did a great job of kind of trying to connect everyone that could possibly help
00:12:07me.
00:12:07Um, but it was one of those things where they were having a hard time figuring out how I
00:12:13got that sick.
00:12:14You know, she brought up the cut of my elbow.
00:12:15She knew about that, but then they were asking all kinds of different questions on, well,
00:12:20was he doing this or was he doing that?
00:12:21Like they, I think they thought, Hey, this doesn't make sense either, you know, or also.
00:12:27Um, okay.
00:12:28So you wake up, you come around.
00:12:32What next?
00:12:33Man.
00:12:34So the first, uh, you know, it's really funny.
00:12:36You think you're, you're like fully conscious, if you will, once I woke up and, you know,
00:12:42now I look back on the first, I don't know, we'll say, we'll say 10 days to two weeks.
00:12:47And I was like, holy shit, I was out of my mind.
00:12:50I mean, now I get like, there's this one, two or three day period where I very vividly
00:12:54remember, I do remember some things that for sure happened.
00:12:56Cause I went back and I, I crossed with people that were there and I said, Hey, did this actually
00:13:00happen?
00:13:01But then, um, like I thought I got transported to this hospital that was on the lake, like
00:13:09half a mile from my house.
00:13:10And there's no hospital there that didn't exist.
00:13:12That was only in my mind for multiple days.
00:13:14Uh, and I, I know I kept threatening.
00:13:17I kept threatening the nurses that I was going to walk home.
00:13:20Cause I was just on the road.
00:13:23I couldn't even walk.
00:13:25I couldn't walk.
00:13:26You know, it's like the thought.
00:13:27It's a lie.
00:13:27It's a lie from every different direction.
00:13:29Yeah.
00:13:30So the, you know, that, the first couple of weeks, like, um, you know, I think I was
00:13:34on so many drugs.
00:13:35I did get off pain meds relatively quick, but, um, it's been the rest of the stuff I was on.
00:13:40And then they call it like delirium because you don't sleep enough in the hot, you know,
00:13:44in the hospital.
00:13:45Um, yeah, I had so many wild thoughts.
00:13:47Um, you know, positive thing.
00:13:49I had a lot of friends visiting me.
00:13:50And so that's like, I know some of the things that I thought happened, did happen.
00:13:53Cause I said, Hey, were you there when X, Y, or Z happened?
00:13:56And they said, yeah.
00:13:57So I had a lot of friends visiting me.
00:13:58My wife visited me almost every day.
00:14:00My mom visited a lot.
00:14:01My dad, um, yeah, just kind of like waking up and figuring out how to do everything again.
00:14:07Cause I couldn't walk.
00:14:08I couldn't feed myself.
00:14:09You know, it's the long list of things you, I mean, I pretty much couldn't do anything by
00:14:14myself.
00:14:14What was the lowest point that your health got to when you woke up?
00:14:17Was it immediate and was it relatively uphill from there?
00:14:21Yeah.
00:14:22Um, yeah, I didn't really have anything hugely negative.
00:14:25I guess right before I woke up.
00:14:27Um, so right after a day or two, right.
00:14:30Um, so not right before, like minute wise, um, I guess I spiked really bad fever and they
00:14:34didn't know why.
00:14:35And that was scary to everyone, including my wife.
00:14:37Uh, but when, as I woke up, um, yeah, everything was like, I guess it moved in a positive direction,
00:14:44probably not nearly as fast as I thought.
00:14:46Um, you know, a lot of lung transplant patients, they're on the list for a long time and their
00:14:51condition is not necessarily like immediately like scrubbing.
00:14:55Like eventually it would kill them, but it might take many years.
00:14:59So they're actually in kind of like a lot better shape than I was where I was like near, very
00:15:04near depth.
00:15:06I lost like 60 pounds, for example, of, you know, muscle while I was in muscle, uh, body
00:15:11weight, but mostly muscle, uh, while I was in the hospital.
00:15:15Um, so when I woke up, it did mostly get better.
00:15:17There was a lot of things like, I don't know if you know what chest tubes are, but it took
00:15:21me forever to get my chest tubes out.
00:15:23I was the first lung transplant patient that they sent home with a chest tube in.
00:15:27I was like, you gotta let me go.
00:15:28You gotta let me go.
00:15:30And then, yeah, unfortunately I got infected.
00:15:31I ended up back in the hospital for two weeks.
00:15:33Um, I don't think of any fault of my own.
00:15:36I think it just happened and, you know, then I got stuck there again for a while.
00:15:39But, uh, yeah, it was a process.
00:15:41It took a long time.
00:15:42Um, I didn't start walking on my own for, I think it was roughly two months.
00:15:48Um, you know, and then even at that point, like, you know, walking on my own meant like
00:15:53I go four steps and I'm holding onto a counter and then I go, you know, three more steps.
00:15:57You know, it's like, it's not really, I'm not like getting around.
00:16:00Um, yeah.
00:16:01And there was just a process and it was like, once I became all more capable, it was like,
00:16:04okay, hey, today I want to try to walk for eight minutes.
00:16:06Walking for eight minutes is my goal.
00:16:08And then once I got the hang of that, then it's 10 minutes, there's 12 minutes.
00:16:11And then I, you know, kind of keep building up and then it's okay.
00:16:14Now I'm going to try to do some squats, which was, you know, in the beginning, I couldn't
00:16:18get myself off the toilet.
00:16:19I had to have, literally have someone help me get up.
00:16:22Um, yeah.
00:16:23So that was the process.
00:16:24And, uh, it's still a process where I'm, I'm actually getting better.
00:16:28I feel like still quite a rapid rate and I'm 11, over 11 months out.
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00:17:30What was your main emotion when you came back around once you were a little bit less delirious?
00:17:38Yeah, probably Flabbergale.
00:17:39I mean, I still think about it sometimes, still I wake up and think about, like, how did that happen?
00:17:43Like, I have a lung transplant.
00:17:45Like, I never smoked anything in my life.
00:17:47Like, how does someone like me end up with a lung transplant?
00:17:49So I think, like, that would probably be the main emotion of, like, how did this happen?
00:17:55This is nuts.
00:17:57And then probably the second one after that would be like, okay, what am I going to do?
00:18:02Because, again, this is my new reality.
00:18:04I can't change it, so I might as well make the best of it.
00:18:07So what is it that I need to do?
00:18:08And I've probably spent, you know, I can't tell you how many hours since I spent 11 months researching.
00:18:14What do I do about this problem?
00:18:15What do I do about that problem?
00:18:16And just kind of like...
00:18:17Heavy, heavy chat GPT user.
00:18:20For real.
00:18:20Chat GPT, if you can ask my question, you get a lot of information.
00:18:24And then I usually use the information.
00:18:25I bounce off my doctor and I say, hey, here's what I'm gathering.
00:18:29What do you think about this?
00:18:30Then chat GPT is right.
00:18:32I don't know, probably say 70, 80% of the time.
00:18:36Like, it's pretty good.
00:18:37You know, there's a few things where it kind of really gets it wrong.
00:18:39So I always cross-reference first.
00:18:43Okay.
00:18:44So, you know, the flabbergasted thing is so funny.
00:18:47I've got this...
00:18:48I've always had this thought in my mind.
00:18:50Like, I've come off a moped in Bali.
00:18:52I've been in a couple of, like, pretty big car accidents.
00:18:54Like, a few things as sort of shock, kinetic, or whatever.
00:19:00And you're right, one of the main emotions is surprise.
00:19:05Like, this isn't...
00:19:05This can't be happening.
00:19:07And I was thinking to myself, I wonder how many people have died, you know,
00:19:12from something horrendous or accidental.
00:19:16Someone got shot, you know, crossfire.
00:19:18Somebody got shot.
00:19:19Yeah.
00:19:19And they just feel the thing go through them.
00:19:21And they look down and they're like, have I been...
00:19:24Surely I haven't been...
00:19:26And that's it.
00:19:27And your last thought isn't, you know, the movie...
00:19:30Lying on the ground, looking up, telling your last rites,
00:19:33explaining your insights from...
00:19:35It's just, did I get fucking shot?
00:19:38Holy shit.
00:19:40And then it's done.
00:19:41And it's the same with you.
00:19:43The main insight, the main...
00:19:44Was it come back around and were you fearing for your...
00:19:48Do you see the beauty of existence?
00:19:51I was largely fucking surprised, dude.
00:19:55That was my main sensation.
00:19:58I would say that, you know...
00:20:00How did...
00:20:01Like, why am I here?
00:20:02How did this happen?
00:20:03And surprising it.
00:20:05And that was kind of like me piecing it together for the first, you know,
00:20:09handful of days.
00:20:10And then the other one was, what happened while I was asleep?
00:20:13Right?
00:20:14Like, I've been asleep for 37 days.
00:20:16What's the Bitcoin price at, please?
00:20:18What's the Bitcoin price at?
00:20:19It was good at that point in time.
00:20:22I actually missed a whole bunch of really, really important wrestling events
00:20:26in late May and early June, you know, so they were, you know, catching up on all that
00:20:31because I was not awake for a single day of June.
00:20:34And then, you know, going through the kind of order of events of what happened to me.
00:20:39And then, you know, there was a bunch of really amazing things.
00:20:42Like, yeah, there's so many people supported either through prayer or helping my family in some way,
00:20:49shape, or form, or meals.
00:20:50Because, you know, my wife is then...
00:20:52Obviously, there's not a father in the household because I'm in the hospital.
00:20:55My wife is spending a large portion of her time at the hospital with me.
00:21:00So, you know, my kids are all on summer break.
00:21:02It's not even like they go to school.
00:21:04So, you know, who's going to take care of them?
00:21:06Who's going to help out with them?
00:21:07So, usually my wife and my mom and my dad would kind of, like, alternate who's at the hospital.
00:21:12But then we had a whole bunch of friends and family helping out with our kids and stuff.
00:21:15And we tried to keep it as normal as possible for them.
00:21:18You know, you don't want them at home thinking every day, hey, my dad might die.
00:21:21Like, you don't want that.
00:21:22So, you know, we tried to tell him, hey, well, I didn't do shit.
00:21:26My wife tried to tell him, hey, he's sick and he's at the hospital.
00:21:29And, you know, kind of leave it a little bit vague and open-headed like that.
00:21:35So, I guess, you know, you look across at somebody that's had a career as an athlete
00:21:41that's overcome lots of challenges and difficulty in training sessions from being a kid to being
00:21:47a teenager to a young athlete to a veteran athlete in all these different sports and wrestling
00:21:51and MMA and boxing.
00:21:55How much of that were you able to draw on when it came to recovery and resilience?
00:22:02All of it.
00:22:03100%.
00:22:04I mean, you know, because the main thing is, I mean, it's been 11 months.
00:22:10I probably felt really good for a handful of those days, you know.
00:22:14Like, you know, even today, I'll just say today, I'm 11 months out.
00:22:17I'm having a pretty good day.
00:22:18But, you know, for a while before the show, actually, you know, it was like my breathing
00:22:24just wasn't as good.
00:22:25Sometimes I don't know if it's the allergies or I don't know what the issue is.
00:22:28It just feels weird sometimes, you know.
00:22:31And then, obviously, earlier on, it was a lot more things than that.
00:22:34It wasn't only that.
00:22:36So, the amount of days I've felt really good since then has been very limited.
00:22:41And so, it's, you know, even on the days where you don't feel good, are you going to get up
00:22:44and do something?
00:22:45Because if you just sit on the couch, you're not going to get better.
00:22:49And so, even on the days where you don't feel good, maybe you're not going to do as much as you had planned,
00:22:54but you're still going to do something.
00:22:55And that's kind of, you know, where I was at for a long time.
00:22:59And, you know, now it's like, I feel mostly pretty good.
00:23:02There's, you know, there'll be a little something here and there pretty much every single day.
00:23:05But it's like, okay, well, if I don't feel good at 10 a.m., I'm going to go get my workout at 2 p.m.
00:23:11You know, like, I am going to work out.
00:23:14I'm going to train and I'm going to do my breathing exercises.
00:23:17And, you know, this handful of other medical things that I have to do, I'm going to do them every day.
00:23:20I'm not going to miss it.
00:23:22So, I've been very disciplined and regimented in that.
00:23:24And obviously, that came from my life as an athlete, being very disciplined, very regimented in that.
00:23:30It just crossed over kind of exactly.
00:23:33What did your weight get down to?
00:23:34What was the smallest, the lowest weight?
00:23:36The lowest was 138.
00:23:38So, it's like skin and bones.
00:23:40And what did you fight at?
00:23:42I fought at 170, but I was, I got, I'll be, I got some TRT.
00:23:46So, I got a little bit bigger.
00:23:48My normal walking weight was probably, you know, when I was fighting, 185-ish, plus or minus a few pounds.
00:23:55And then as I retired, I was probably 195-ish, somewhere in there.
00:23:59So, that's part of 50%.
00:24:01That's part of 50%.
00:24:01Yeah, yeah.
00:24:03So, yeah, quite, quite, quite the drawdown in weight.
00:24:06And it was just like I said, I mean, I don't, I don't, my wife has pictures.
00:24:10Skin and, skin and bones really is kind of what I was.
00:24:14Is that because you're not moving and not consuming any calories other than what they need to keep you alive?
00:24:18Is that why?
00:24:20I think they're not moving.
00:24:22Well, you know, I never looked all the way to this.
00:24:24I got some good guesses.
00:24:25Number one, you're not moving.
00:24:26I mean, I told you, like, they literally paralyzed me.
00:24:28But there was other times when I would wake up and I would just, like, I don't recall this, but I would not be happy about that.
00:24:35I would stop all of my arms, you know, I would try to, like, move and then that would spike my heart rate and then that would cause my breathing capacity and, I don't remember, my, what is it called, oxygenation or whatever.
00:24:46That's a drop, right?
00:24:48And that was really problematic.
00:24:48So, I guess for a while they even had me strapped down so I couldn't really move at all.
00:24:54Yeah, so that was kind of the, that was kind of the deal with that.
00:24:58So, and then I do believe prednisone, which I'm still on until I'm not feeling for the rest of my life, probably, unfortunately.
00:25:06I believe that has some, some capacity of where it eats your muscles a little bit.
00:25:13What's that do?
00:25:15Prednisone?
00:25:15Yeah.
00:25:16I don't know exactly which part of the immunosuppression it is, but it's an immunosuppressant.
00:25:19So, with a transplant patient, your body will see the transplanted organ as a foreign body and it will attack it.
00:25:29So, they need to essentially tamp down your immune system kind of permanently.
00:25:33Which is why flight for you and being in different places is more dangerous because you don't have an immune system.
00:25:40If you had an immune system that could protect you from getting sick, it would also be the same immune system that would attack your new lungs.
00:25:46Yep, 100%.
00:25:46And so, I, you know, I try to stay out of areas where there's a lot of people where I don't like have, I don't know, control of the area or what my surroundings are.
00:25:55Unfortunately, I wear a mask a lot, which is, you know, that's kind of COVID again, baby.
00:25:59I make fun of the mask people for sure.
00:26:01And I'm a mask person.
00:26:03Yeah.
00:26:05That's, that's no good.
00:26:06Um, yeah, but it is getting better.
00:26:09I'm, I'm coming down like, uh, the levels of immunosuppression you're on as you get further out and you get healthier, they, they do come down quite a bit.
00:26:16So you, you kind of hit a bounce back.
00:26:18So I've gotten the, you know, for example, last couple of weeks, I've gotten, uh, lower on my, you guys love, posaconazole and tacrolimus.
00:26:25I mean, that's fun talking about medicine, but I come down on those a little bit.
00:26:28So, uh, that means, you know, my energy and my indistretion go off.
00:26:31And I think, uh, you know, but my year anniversary is coming up in about three weeks and I'll probably, I'll hopefully get to go down even a little more potentially.
00:26:40Unreal.
00:26:41Okay.
00:26:41What, um, I'm interested in what matters to you more or less now than it did before.
00:26:50Yeah.
00:26:51Um, you know what, I, I, I said this, uh, you know, if I would have died, uh, when I went to the hospital nurse, I walked in the hospital.
00:26:58I don't remember anything.
00:26:59If I would have died there, which I came pretty close to, um, I had a great life.
00:27:04Like I really got to do what I love for, uh, for a living and coaching wrestling around the wrestling academies.
00:27:11I think it's very meaningful work and that you're helping the next generation of young person, not only get better at wrestling, but get better at life.
00:27:19Um, I love my wife.
00:27:20I have a great family.
00:27:21So I was really lucky in that I was, it didn't take me to die to figure out that whole, I have a bunch of misguided priorities.
00:27:29Like, I think my priorities were, were pretty good.
00:27:32I was pretty, you know, reflectively that can reflect on, Hey, if I would have died, what do I think about what I had done to that point?
00:27:41Um, so I felt really good about that.
00:27:44I do think I became maybe, um, more patient, um, have more gratitude for sure.
00:27:51And that's, you know, I don't think I was a category maybe I was lacking in prior, but I think maybe more, I feel even more strongly.
00:27:58Um, I became a Christian, which, uh, I would say prior I was kind of Christian adjacent.
00:28:03Like I went to church for 16 years or so, but it just, you know, it didn't kind of click all the way.
00:28:10Um, so that would be, you know, probably a big change, I would say.
00:28:15So kind of those things, but I was, I was proud of the life I was living prior to this.
00:28:19And I think all the positive things have just been kind of, uh, ramped up.
00:28:23And I think, I guess, I think one other one that I would mention there is, you know, I invested in some businesses, um, and I like all the people who are running them.
00:28:31But it, if it took my time, even if it was just, Hey, I meet, I meet with the founder once a month or whatever.
00:28:39If it took my time and I wasn't like passionate about it, I said, I asked a few different people like, Hey, can I get out?
00:28:44Like, um, I'll make a deal, whatever, you know, whatever you feel is fair.
00:28:48Give me what's fair.
00:28:49And I just, I just want to take a few more things off of my plate.
00:28:53Um, and I, I kind of feel strongly about that.
00:28:56And, you know, I get some offers to do things now.
00:28:57And I'm just like, is this what I really, really, really a hundred percent want to do with my life?
00:29:01Is this worth the time with my kids and my family?
00:29:04And if the answer is no, then I generally choose not to do it.
00:29:08Have you seen Peaky Blinders, the series?
00:29:11No, I haven't, but I, I know a bunch of my wrestlers are really big fans of it.
00:29:14So I've heard references, but I've never watched it.
00:29:16Really cool BBC series.
00:29:18And, uh, in it, the main guy and his brother, they nearly die at the Battle of the Somme in World War I.
00:29:25And the, I think they're called clay kickers.
00:29:28So they dig tunnels to try and get into the enemy, uh, trench from underneath as opposed to going over the top.
00:29:35And sometimes they, the two tunnels cross over each other and then they have fights inside of the fucking tunnels.
00:29:41And, um, he, uh, him and his brother basically nearly died at the Battle of the Somme.
00:29:49And they've got this line where they, they sort of turn to each other and say, everything after that was extra, everything after that was extra.
00:29:57And it kind of sounds like that's how you see this period now that I was, I was happy.
00:30:03I mean, I didn't want to die.
00:30:04It would have been optimal for me to have not died.
00:30:05And I'm glad that I didn't, but had I have done, I'd lived a pretty good life up until then.
00:30:10But even though I'd lived a pretty good life, there's still some adjustments that I want to make in order to learn the lessons about prioritizing my time and what I was going to miss most now that I've got, now that this is extra.
00:30:24Yeah, no, uh, yeah, that's true.
00:30:26That's pretty accurate with, uh, with how I feel and how I view it.
00:30:31And I want to make the most of the extra and you know what the statistics on lung transplants.
00:30:35Now, I don't necessarily know that they apply to me for a variety of reasons, which we can go, go through.
00:30:40If you'd like to, it's kind of boring, but, uh, the median life expectancy is only six and a half years, uh, which isn't long.
00:30:47Um, I don't think that's going to apply to me fully because a lot of them are older, unhealthy.
00:30:52Wait, you mean an ex-professional athlete who didn't get it because he was smoking and was like in the midst of some of the best fucking health of his life?
00:31:00Yes.
00:31:00Yeah.
00:31:00So you see, you get it.
00:31:01So, uh, the, actually the longest living person at post double lung transplant is 38 years.
00:31:06That's kind of my goal.
00:31:07Uh, it's 39, at least 39.
00:31:10Um, but yeah, everything now is extra and it's kind of reformatted me.
00:31:14So the number one thing I love to do is my brother and I have wrestling academies.
00:31:20Um, we have nine of them now in the state of Wisconsin, but the very favorite part of that is actually coaching the athletes.
00:31:26Um, and so, you know, that's the thing I want to spend the most time on, uh, from a work perspective.
00:31:32Um, and then obviously, you know, with my, my family and doing that type of thing.
00:31:37And it's one of those, that was weird because I never really thought twice about, but you know, part of the wrestling academy thing is, you know, you travel on a lot of weekends sometimes to go coach kids.
00:31:47And then I, I, I, I honestly, it's just weird thing because I love it and I miss it a lot.
00:31:53And, um, but then it's like, well, I realized how much I was kind of missing at home or when my wife had to be, you know, especially a single mother.
00:32:00If I go to a big tournament now, it's not saying I'm never going to do that again.
00:32:03I am going to do it.
00:32:04I'll probably just do it a little bit less than I had previously.
00:32:08Um, so to make sure I'm around for more of my kids stuff.
00:32:10And then obviously now my daughter's 13 and she really likes wrestling.
00:32:14So there's going to be a, probably a good opportunity for me to spend a bunch of time with her too bad.
00:32:18Um, but yeah, so definitely not going to waste my time on things that, that I don't love and that I'm not really passionate about.
00:32:26Um, and that's kind of probably the biggest thing.
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00:33:29Has your definition of success changed since that?
00:33:33Um, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot, actually.
00:33:36Because I don't know if you saw or heard, but I'm wrestling next month.
00:33:41Um, and the reason I was wrestling was they told me, so I actually worked for RAF.
00:33:47And it's going tremendously well.
00:33:48And one of my life goals, and this is something where it's like, I'm not going to work for RAF forever.
00:33:52Um, because it's not the one thing I want to do.
00:33:54But one of my life goals was to start a legitimate professional wrestling organization in America
00:33:59that could run on its own and give athletes the opportunity to compete at professionals.
00:34:04RAF is doing a freaking amazing job.
00:34:06I mean, they're, they're doing better.
00:34:09I should say, we are doing better than I ever could imagine this quickly.
00:34:12It's fascinating.
00:34:13Um, but when they told me they're coming to my hometown on my birthday, something I'm right.
00:34:21It's like, okay, I got to get out there and I got to, I got to make it happen.
00:34:25Um, and so that's kind of been a really big driver for me.
00:34:29And a big part of it is me helping other people.
00:34:32And I, I listen, I get messages pretty much every single day on Instagram at this point of,
00:34:38Hey, your journey has inspired me.
00:34:40Um, and I think I was giving, sorry, I'm giving a very long winded answer, but I think that's
00:34:45okay.
00:34:46I miss podcast.
00:34:47But so your journey inspired me.
00:34:49I've been saying the same things for 15 years, but I think, you know, when I'm on top, right?
00:34:54So I'm winning MMA titles and, um, we got the best wrestling academy in America.
00:34:58I think people, it resonates to do a one way.
00:35:00And then they see you dying and on your deathbed and trying to climb out of this hole and you're
00:35:07saying the exact same things.
00:35:08I think it resonates and motivates in a different type of way.
00:35:12Not this guy doesn't just talk about it.
00:35:14This guy is about it.
00:35:15Right.
00:35:15He, he understands what is, what adversity is.
00:35:18He understands what hardship is.
00:35:19And when he had met adversity and hardship, he reacted the exact same way that he said he
00:35:23would.
00:35:23So I'm not just talking about it.
00:35:24I am about it.
00:35:25Um, so me being able to climb my way out of this hole and live a, I will say relatively
00:35:32normal life, you know, it's never going to be all the way back to normal, but as close
00:35:36to normal as possible.
00:35:37Um, I think that's very inspiring for people.
00:35:40And, uh, the, so then my thought on that was, uh, I don't know how you feel about this
00:35:46guy.
00:35:46He's very controversial, but RFK, um, if he thumbs up or thumbs down for him.
00:35:52Um, I, I've been to dinner with him.
00:35:54He was a nice guy.
00:35:55Like he's got some, he's got some wacky beliefs, but he's also managed to get the food pyramid
00:35:59to be the right way around for the first time.
00:36:01You know, it's, it's the same as everybody.
00:36:04So I would think, well, one of the things I think about him is this guy has an immense
00:36:08amount of courage and fearlessness.
00:36:09And I say this to people, I say, think about if you grew up and you watched your father be
00:36:15murdered and you watched your uncle be murdered and you still had the courage to put yourself
00:36:19in the line of fire.
00:36:21Right.
00:36:21Cause there's a lot of people who don't like him right now.
00:36:23And you, you watch that happen to your father and your, your uncle, and you still are willing
00:36:27to have the courage to do that.
00:36:29That that's amazing.
00:36:30I don't, I don't care what you think about the rest of what he says.
00:36:32That is, that's very powerful.
00:36:34And he always references, uh, Sisyphus, right.
00:36:37Where the guy rolls the bull up and he'll only for it to roll down every single day.
00:36:42And then he starts over.
00:36:43And then, you know, the kind of message of it to me is that there's something very powerful
00:36:49and just showing up and having a great attitude and working hard every single day.
00:36:53Even if you're maybe not going to get the fruits of your labors at the end of it, right.
00:36:57Cause the boulder rolled back down and he shows up and he works again every single day.
00:37:01And for most people, um, they're not going to end up without any fruits of their labor.
00:37:08Right.
00:37:09Uh, so, you know, they roll the boulder up the hill.
00:37:12It's generally going to go somewhere and they may not get every single thing they want in life,
00:37:16but they're going to, if you do that, you wake up with a great attitude and you work pretty hard
00:37:20every day, you're going to end up with a pretty good life that you're pretty proud of.
00:37:23Um, so I think about that a lot.
00:37:26Why do you think wrestling produces such mentally tough people compared to a lot of other sports?
00:37:31Uh, I think it's the best.
00:37:33Uh, I think it's, uh, I speak on this topic a lot and I may be biased because I run wrestling
00:37:38academies, but I think there is no greater impact on a child's life, uh, than wrestling.
00:37:43I think it wrestling is a microcosm of life.
00:37:46Um, I think there's a few qualities that maybe you don't get from wrestling, but most of them
00:37:49you do.
00:37:51Um, and that is you are going to have hardship.
00:37:53You are going to have sacrifice.
00:37:55If you're going to lead any type of meaningful life, it's not going to be sunshine and rainbows
00:37:58the entire time.
00:38:00And so, um, you know, going to wrestling, it's a level of humility, uh, because you're
00:38:07never gonna be the best one in the room.
00:38:08And if you're the best one in that room, you're going to go find another room that you're not
00:38:13the best in.
00:38:13And it's not like, Hey, you're not the best.
00:38:15Go sit on the bench and go watch everyone else.
00:38:17It's like, no, you're not the best.
00:38:18Now you're going to get your face rubbed in the mouth by someone who's better than you.
00:38:22And they're going to force you to be humble.
00:38:24Um, so I think, you know, uh, hard work, discipline, perseverance, cause you, you're inevitably going
00:38:30to get knocked down at times of hardship and adversity.
00:38:34Um, uh, self-reliance is a big one.
00:38:38It's, it's only you out there.
00:38:39There's no one else to save you.
00:38:41There's no team.
00:38:41There's no nothing else.
00:38:42Humility, uh, I did, I think these are all these qualities, uh, can make a really, really
00:38:47well-rounded human being.
00:38:51Yeah.
00:38:52I, I mean, I look at a lot of other combat sports, a lot of other sports in general, and
00:38:57everybody learns something, especially the consistency, the routine, but maybe it's a selection effect.
00:39:03Maybe it's just the, the sorts of parents that put their kids in or the sorts of young guys
00:39:10and girls that decide that they're going to go into wrestling, they just, whatever it is
00:39:15about making that decision, select for a particular cohort of people that are kind of stubborn and
00:39:20routinized and insane.
00:39:21But I don't know if there's, I look at, look at even the UFC, which is, uh, you know,
00:39:27I can speak to that for sure.
00:39:28I'll tell, I'll tell you another one for sure.
00:39:29It's that I've been trained at a mixed martial arts gym for a long time.
00:39:32Uh, and we run wrestling academy.
00:39:34The expectation of the parent coming into those two different places is totally different, right?
00:39:38So the expectation of a parent coming into asking where else the academy is, Hey, I want
00:39:42my kid to learn how to wrestle.
00:39:43I want them to learn some discipline and some hard work and get a little tougher.
00:39:47And you know what, if they do really well, maybe they'll win a state title or get a college
00:39:51scholarship or something to that effect.
00:39:53And in MMA gym, so many times I said, Oh my kid, he's really tough and scrappy.
00:39:58He's going to be the next star on TV and make a whole bunch of money.
00:40:02Um, and so the expectation of the two different parents doing the two different things is,
00:40:07is immense.
00:40:08Um, and I, I think that's probably, uh, uh, a big part of this, what I would guess.
00:40:13What would be your advice to a parent hoping to make their child's fame and fortune by getting
00:40:18them to do MMA?
00:40:20That is about the worst job you get.
00:40:24I mean, I tell, I tell everyone that MMA is, is an awful job.
00:40:30Um, you do it, you do it in my, this is my estimation.
00:40:33I did it because I wanted to fight people because I like fighting people because I love
00:40:36the combat.
00:40:37That's why I did it.
00:40:37But if I wanted to have a real profession and real job, I for sure would have been something
00:40:41else.
00:40:42Um, I always walk through someone.
00:40:44If you say, Chris came to me and said, Hey Ben, I want to be an MMA fighter.
00:40:47What do you think about that?
00:40:47I say, number one, it's dumb.
00:40:49Here's why Chris, you're going to start training.
00:40:51You're probably not going to take a fight for a year.
00:40:53Okay, good.
00:40:53Then you take an amateur fight.
00:40:55Your amateur fights, that's going to take you by two years to get through.
00:40:57Okay.
00:40:58Once you become a pro, now you're going to have, say two to three years of low level, uh,
00:41:03professional fight.
00:41:03Okay.
00:41:04If that's six years goes perfect.
00:41:06Now you're going to sign to the UFC and your first year in the UFC, if you win all your
00:41:11fights, this is, this is the seven years of perfection.
00:41:13Nothing went wrong in seven years.
00:41:15You're going to make like $80,000.
00:41:17Okay.
00:41:18But of the $80,000, you got to pay your gym.
00:41:20You got to pay your manager.
00:41:21You got to pay taxes.
00:41:22So you're, you're walking home with, I don't know, $35,000, $40,000 at that point.
00:41:27And well, if you don't live in California, you live in California, you're still walking
00:41:29up like $27,000.
00:41:31That's not a good job.
00:41:33Um, so, you know, I've, I've only ever recommended two people and it's relatively well for them
00:41:38because I saw they had a small amygdala and they were just a little different.
00:41:41They wanted to fight people.
00:41:44How, how much of your success do you think came from talent?
00:41:50Zero.
00:41:50I don't believe it exists.
00:41:52You don't believe that talent exists.
00:41:54I do not.
00:41:55And this is, you know what, this is hilarious.
00:41:56I'm thankful.
00:41:57My wife, my wife is off.
00:41:59You know, we're in Kansas city.
00:42:00We came here after I got inducted with all fame in Oklahoma, in Kansas city.
00:42:03My wife has a 104 year old grandfather.
00:42:06So we're visiting him.
00:42:08Uh, so they're actually playing bingo with him right now.
00:42:10My, my, my kids.
00:42:12I know.
00:42:13Great.
00:42:13Right.
00:42:14Um, yeah.
00:42:15So I, my main argument with my wife is, is the talent one.
00:42:19I don't, I do not think it exists.
00:42:21I think obviously human bodies have predispositions to certain things and there are certain sports
00:42:26which are very predisposed.
00:42:29But, uh, when I think about talent, I think of the ability to do a complex task really, really
00:42:35well.
00:42:35I don't think you could do a complex task really, really well without a high level of
00:42:39training.
00:42:40Um, and one of the things before we argue this, I don't know if you're arguing or not, but
00:42:44one of the things I always argue prior is if we were to test talent, we would need to test
00:42:50talent out of the womb when they pop out of their mom, we need to test it because I always
00:42:54say, Hey, if I give you two kids coming to ask a wrestling Academy, one kid has been sitting
00:43:00on a couch playing video games with parents, feeding him snacks all day, never teaching
00:43:05him discipline.
00:43:06He's a roly poly.
00:43:07Listen, he needs some wrestling.
00:43:08We're going to take care of him.
00:43:09We're going to give him what he needs, but he's starting way over there.
00:43:13If you have another seven-year-old who's never wrestled, they both, both of them, but he's
00:43:18got older brothers.
00:43:19They tried to beat him up.
00:43:20He, his parents live a very active lifestyle.
00:43:22They're outside.
00:43:23They're hiking.
00:43:23They're climbing trees.
00:43:25He's biking.
00:43:25He's playing games with his brother.
00:43:27He's not sitting inside.
00:43:28They have healthy, nutritious food.
00:43:30These are two seven-year-olds.
00:43:32Neither have ever wrestled, but they are worlds apart right now from, from junk, you know?
00:43:37So that's kind of how I like to think about it.
00:43:39So we can debate if you'd like to.
00:43:41No, I, look, I, I think that, especially in the sport of wrestling, perhaps something that
00:43:46you begin with so early on in life.
00:43:48I mean, look, some people are literally built differently to others.
00:43:52Some people will respond to training in different sorts of ways.
00:43:55When you really start to ask what is involved in talent, and if you were to think about something
00:44:00like desire to train as a kind of talent, some people just really like wrestling.
00:44:08They enjoy the idea of that.
00:44:11Other people might enjoy something really short.
00:44:14They might enjoy something that's less aggressive, right?
00:44:17They might be a world champion, a classical musicianist, right?
00:44:21A classical pianist or violinist or something like that.
00:44:24But, uh, I don't think that if you just give those two people, even with their desire to
00:44:28work hard and their stubbornness and all the rest of this, if you don't have the desire.
00:44:32So it's an interesting question is desire to train part of talent, right?
00:44:37So people have a disposition.
00:44:38I would say, I would say yes.
00:44:39I say yes.
00:44:40That's been, that, that, that argument has been proven by, uh, the sled dogs.
00:44:44Do you know this one?
00:44:45No.
00:44:46The, the Iditarod sled dogs, uh, right?
00:44:49That they run that big race across Alaska.
00:44:51Um, so they, they breed, obviously breed the dogs and the dogs that they can have a baby
00:44:56like every year or something.
00:44:58So they don't breed the fastest ones and they don't breed the strongest ones.
00:45:01They breed the ones with the most desire to keep running.
00:45:05And so to your point, there's, but so, and so what I would say, what I would say to that
00:45:09is it, and so again, like a hundred meter dash or something that's a really, really simple
00:45:13skill.
00:45:14Like that is not, uh, a very complex task, but a complex task, there's likely a multitude
00:45:19of things that it's going to take to be world-class at that.
00:45:23So you're going to have to have, you know, work ethic, perseverance, the desire to work
00:45:26to your point, um, by some level of intellect helps some level of hand-eye coordination
00:45:30helps.
00:45:31Like the, you know, there's just going to be this really large basket of, Hey, you
00:45:35need, uh, X amount of this skill set, but which ones do you need?
00:45:39Like in wrestling, for example, um, I was incredibly slow twitch muscle fiber.
00:45:45My, my fastest ever four-yard dash was like a five eight.
00:45:48Like I am, I am incredibly slow, but I found a way to make it work.
00:45:53There's also wrestlers who are incredibly explosive and fast to find a way to make that
00:45:58work.
00:45:58Um, so, you know, like of this basket of things that you can have, you may need, I will say
00:46:0320 of 25, but you don't need every one and you can kind of pick and choose from them.
00:46:09Um, so yeah, I, I, I think it's an interesting topic.
00:46:12I, so obviously I would actually, I would say people obviously predisposed to being born
00:46:16differently, but I, I also think the early period in life is often neglected.
00:46:20There's another one, you guys, you know about the Polgar sisters?
00:46:23Nope.
00:46:24Yo, man, we are, so the Polgar, I'm lucky.
00:46:27Let me make sure I'm getting, I'm pretty sure I'm a hundred percent right in this.
00:46:30Uh, let me make sure.
00:46:31So this guy, uh, yep, I'm correct.
00:46:33Okay.
00:46:33So this guy, he said, I don't think talent exists and I'm going to prove it.
00:46:38You know how he's going to prove it?
00:46:39He puts an ad out and he says, I need a wife who wants to help me make babies to be chess
00:46:44champions.
00:46:45Uh, and he finds, and he finds one, right?
00:46:48So he finds the wife to agree to these terms that, okay, we're going to, we're going to,
00:46:51we're going to procreate and then my kids are going to be chess champions.
00:46:55So he, he, he calls his shot.
00:46:57He says it, but before he even has kids, he says, and his, his three girls, I want to
00:47:02say we're the three of the five highest rated players of all time.
00:47:05One.
00:47:06So he called him before he procreated.
00:47:09Jesus Christ.
00:47:10Okay.
00:47:10Well, yeah, if you, if you can pick the pocket before you pot the eight, uh, that's fair play.
00:47:17Jared, you ever considered that you might have a drinking problem?
00:47:21I don't consider a lot, Chris.
00:47:23Well, you drank an entire case of athletic brewing co last night, but they're non-alcoholic.
00:47:29And that's not a problem.
00:47:31Sorry, man.
00:47:32I just kept chugging, waiting for the regret to creep in.
00:47:35Never happened.
00:47:36See, most people like Jared don't want to change what they drink.
00:47:40They just don't want the next day to be a complete write-off.
00:47:43And that is why I'm such a huge fan of athletic brewing co.
00:47:46They make the best NA brews on the planet.
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00:48:15Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times.
00:48:17Bottoms up.
00:48:24So I'm interested, like looking back at your career, you went undefeated for 87 matches in a row.
00:48:31This is my last two years in college, yes.
00:48:33Yeah.
00:48:34What goes through your mind when you're on a streak like that?
00:48:37Do you get increasingly more scared of losing it?
00:48:40A pressure sort of over the top of things like that?
00:48:44Don't think about it.
00:48:45If you did, if you did, you're going to lose it.
00:48:48You know, so I actually, I wrote two, I've written two books now with assistance, of course,
00:48:53because I am not a great writer.
00:48:55One is about my life.
00:48:56One is about my sports psychology ideas.
00:48:59But my junior or senior year, I actually tried writing another book, which is about,
00:49:05so it would have been my first book, right?
00:49:07Never accomplished it because I didn't think it turned out good enough.
00:49:10I worked with this sports psychology PhD.
00:49:12And one of the things we did, we sent a questionnaire to every Division I NCAA champion in the past 50 years.
00:49:17So at that point, it was 1956 to 06, so the 50-year window.
00:49:21Because I said, you know, I know what I think, but I want more good opinions.
00:49:25So we sent them this questionnaire.
00:49:27I think it was like 12 questions.
00:49:29And one of the questions, which was, this was really enlightening to me, because at that point, I already had one NCAA title.
00:49:35I was going on my second.
00:49:37And one of the questions was, when did you go from good to great?
00:49:40And we were looking for some form of my training change.
00:49:46I got a new coach.
00:49:47I had a new mindset.
00:49:48Just something.
00:49:49Like, what made this happen?
00:49:52And, you know, when did it happen for you, specifically?
00:49:55And it was really funny, because the question was simple.
00:49:59The question was, we want this.
00:50:00And we got something totally different.
00:50:02And it was a question that was answered the most similarly of any questions, right?
00:50:07So if we got 120 questionnaires back, you know, they're all open into questions.
00:50:12So you're going to get things that are, you know, across the gamut of what's going on.
00:50:17So many of them said, your question assumes I was great.
00:50:21I never reached greatness at both, right?
00:50:24So they were all these people who were, and if you want to look at wrestling, a Division I state champion is like in the 99.99.
00:50:32Like, you know, we're talking like one of 100,000.
00:50:36There's roughly a million people wrestling in America today.
00:50:38There's 10 NCAA champions, one in 100,000 approximately or something.
00:50:42So if you're going to label greatness, they're clearly in it.
00:50:45And they all were saying, not all, okay, not all, a very large percentage were saying some form of, I'm not great.
00:50:50I was never great.
00:50:52And so as we read through those answers, it struck me, okay, well, I want an NCAA title.
00:50:58So by my own definition, I would be great.
00:51:00I've never even thought about it.
00:51:02I never thought I'd ever considered it.
00:51:03All I was thinking about was, how do I get better?
00:51:06How do I beat this next person as badly as possible?
00:51:08And so it's one of those things where I realized the power was in not thinking about it.
00:51:14Like, to just be focused on the task ahead of you as opposed to, and you know, like one of the things that I get annoyed about is if people say, what is your legacy?
00:51:25My legacy is not determined by me.
00:51:27I, my legacy will be determined by what all the other people think about me.
00:51:30I'm going to focus on every single day, what I think I need to do to get better.
00:51:34And what I need to do is for what's best in my life and whatever they want to think of me, they think of me.
00:51:38So that's kind of how all these people are thinking.
00:51:40It's like, I've just focused on getting better and I'm not worried about being great as you would call it.
00:51:46Um, and I think that's like really, really powerful.
00:51:49Yeah.
00:51:49That's fascinating.
00:51:50I, I guess the obsession to just be riven by always wanting to improve is exactly why those people are separated out from the pack.
00:52:00You could probably ask, you know, what would be interesting would be to ask people who didn't become, uh, NCAA champions, but were maybe in the top 2% and ask them when they think they became great.
00:52:14And they might be more likely to answer, oh, I became great at this point.
00:52:19Perhaps the lack of thinking that you're great is what actually induces greatness.
00:52:23I mean, that's all you, you, I'm sure you've heard the phrase.
00:52:26Oh man, rest in peace.
00:52:28My old coach Duke groupers should say this.
00:52:30Um, if you're, if you're green, you're growing.
00:52:33Oh, what was this phrase?
00:52:35It was essentially if you're green, you're growing.
00:52:36So if you're, you have a white belt mentality thing, I can't believe I just forgot what he said all the time.
00:52:41Oh my goodness.
00:52:42Essentially, if you're, you're green, you're growing, like if you, if you believe your white belt and you're open to knowledge and learning people, you're going to continue to get better.
00:52:49But when, when you think, uh, you know it all, or you're good enough, then you're going to start declining.
00:52:55And so, you know, with our wrestling academy now we've been open for 15 years and especially in the early days before we were as influential.
00:53:03Cause now a lot of times we have kids from the time they're real little five, six, seven years old.
00:53:08Um, but previously we saw certain kids say, Oh, I want a sectional title.
00:53:14I'm, I'm, I don't need to listen to you.
00:53:16I'm really good.
00:53:16I want a sectional title or I want to stay title.
00:53:18I'm really, really good.
00:53:19When, you know, we're talking about state titled and state champion.
00:53:22These are, these are, they're not even in the same ballpark.
00:53:25So yeah, I would a hundred percent agree with once people think they made it or that they think they know everything or know enough or they can't be helped, uh, then generally there's, uh, some type of either plateauing feature or decline that happens, uh, in their skill and ability.
00:53:40People, I think even have a sense of this when they look at the trajectory of, uh, any, any person that's on a pursuit to life, the difference between being someone who has fallen off and someone that never made it.
00:53:56Is kind of fascinating to me.
00:53:58There's, uh, obviously the person who fell off by virtue of having fallen.
00:54:04It means that at some point they were up pretty high.
00:54:06Yeah.
00:54:06There is a kind of additional disparagement of, Oh, you had it and you lost it as opposed to, you never even got it.
00:54:16Even though like objectively you did better, but we're so seduced and we, uh, we're so enamored and enthralled by the prospect of momentum and, and potential that if the direction of travel is declining, it's going from you were great to now you're less great than you were, as opposed to you were average.
00:54:41And then you became better than average.
00:54:43And then you kind of stopped in some ways.
00:54:46Yeah.
00:54:47The, the person who never made it, but didn't get chance to fall off is in a, a preferable position.
00:54:52Sometimes.
00:54:53Man, that that's one where I would just say you gotta ignore everyone else.
00:54:57Uh, because I agree, you know, so many times people use term washed up to your point.
00:55:02That means at some point they had to be significantly better than they currently are, but times undefeated.
00:55:06No one's been great forever.
00:55:08And so, uh, you know, I, I did retire.
00:55:11I retired for the first time in 2017.
00:55:14I never got to fight the better guys.
00:55:15So I said, if I ever do, I'll come back out of retirement.
00:55:18I unretired to fight 18.
00:55:20Then I've hit issues.
00:55:20So I retired relatively quickly again after that.
00:55:24Um, but I always, you know, if someone wants to continue to fighting, which, uh, listen, I'm not fighting is a very tough sport.
00:55:31And so let's go to football, if a Aaron Rogers or Tom Brady, if they want to continue to compete, like what's wrong with them?
00:55:39Continue to try to, yeah, they're not going to be as good at 43 as they were at 28 or 32 or something, obviously.
00:55:45But who cares?
00:55:46Like they're still, they're still leading up to be in one of the top 32 positions in the NFL, right?
00:55:51That you gotta be top 32 quarterbacks to play on the field.
00:55:54If you're not, you're not going to be on the field.
00:55:56Um, so, uh, that's something that's like, well, that's an opinion of other people.
00:56:00And if you want to keep playing football or whatever sport it is, what are you doing?
00:56:04Then by all means, like that matter.
00:56:06Yeah.
00:56:07Well, I, kind of on that, I suppose you wouldn't nearly, you, you were undefeated for almost a decade, right?
00:56:12Pretty much almost a decade, but many casual fans remember you for one five second knockout.
00:56:19Yeah.
00:56:19What's that taught you about reputation?
00:56:22I, I ignored it in the workplace and I could see you ignore it.
00:56:25So, um, yeah, I just never, I never thought too much about it.
00:56:29I mean, for me, I love to compete and I wanted to prove I was the best.
00:56:32And that's why I, you know, I retired and I said, the only one coming back out is I get
00:56:36to fight someone ranked higher than me.
00:56:38So, um, you know, I, when I was fighting through the Bellator and one championship days,
00:56:44um, I fought a fair amount of highly ranked guy.
00:56:48Jay Haran was fairly highly ranked, but I fought him.
00:56:51Douglas Lima, um, there was kind of a handful, but I, I never got to fight anyone who was
00:56:56in the top five.
00:56:57And so I was like, I think I got stuck at six.
00:57:01So when I came out, you know, I retired, I said, well, I'm only, I don't want to fight
00:57:04someone better than me.
00:57:05I don't want to fight anyone that's worse than me because I want to try to prove I'm number
00:57:07one.
00:57:08And so, you know, right away it was Robbie Haller who was, I don't know if he's number
00:57:11two or number three in the world at that point in time.
00:57:13But yeah.
00:57:14And that was one where I think a lot of people, and some people did advise me, well, don't do
00:57:18this.
00:57:18If you lose, people will think differently about you.
00:57:20And I said, I don't give a damn what people think about me.
00:57:23I never started MMA to care about what people thought about me.
00:57:25I started MMA to see if I could be the best in the world at it.
00:57:27And that's what I, that's what I want to do.
00:57:29And that's what I'm going to do.
00:57:30And I, listen, I didn't get there.
00:57:32I got pretty freaking close.
00:57:34Um, but no, I'm not ashamed about that at all.
00:57:39I kind of been, as I was thinking, watching your journey, seeing that first video you posted,
00:57:44which was like inspiring and harrowing and equal parts.
00:57:49You have this opportunity for your life to be defined by a variety of different situations.
00:57:55You had the opportunity for your career to be defined by being a NCAA champion in 87 undefeated
00:58:03fights in a row.
00:58:04Yeah.
00:58:05The opportunity to be defined by being only the six best in the world in one championship
00:58:09and not pivoting onto something else.
00:58:11Yeah.
00:58:12The opportunity to be defined by the fastest knockout, the opportunity to be defined by
00:58:16boxing, Jake Paul, the opportunity now to be defined by being the guy that overcame death
00:58:22and got two new lungs and then went back and wrestled within the space of only a year.
00:58:27Each of these junctures, you, the world is sort of offering you this opportunity to make
00:58:32your life about a thing.
00:58:34And I, it seems to me like you're continuing to like stick your middle finger up at the handshake.
00:58:42Yeah.
00:58:43That's, that's, that's how life is about.
00:58:44Like legacy is defined by other people if they want to.
00:58:47And if they don't want to think about me, I don't, I don't really care.
00:58:49I hope they have a great life and I'm going to continue to live life the way I want to.
00:58:54And as full as I can.
00:58:56And, um, you know, I, I, I don't know if people consciously think this about me, but I think
00:59:01there are a lot of people who I don't want to say inspired might be the right word by
00:59:08how not bashable I am towards that.
00:59:11Like I'm going to take a chance.
00:59:13If you offer me a chance, I'm going to take a chance all every time.
00:59:16And I'm going to tell you, I don't need anything given to me in life.
00:59:19All I need is an opportunity.
00:59:21And if you give me, give me an opportunity, I'm going to take it.
00:59:23And am I going to win every time?
00:59:24No, I'm not.
00:59:25Are any of us going to win every time?
00:59:27No, we're not.
00:59:28And, you know, there's, uh, there's actually this really good book.
00:59:32Have you ever, I don't know if you, uh, how you feel about this guy, but I like him and
00:59:35I got to meet him and he's very cool.
00:59:37His name is Josh Metcalf.
00:59:38He wrote Chopped Wood, Carry Water.
00:59:40Um, really good, really good book.
00:59:43Um, and then, but then it was funny because he's written a handful of books, most notable
00:59:47one with Chopped Wood, Carry Water.
00:59:48But then he wrote a book called Finish Empty and it was life from a deathbed's perspective.
00:59:54And it came out right around the time I was died.
00:59:58And so, uh, I got to read it with literally a deathbed perspective because I woke up, I
01:00:05want to say it was me, you know, I don't know.
01:00:07I don't know the exact date it came out.
01:00:08I got it maybe a month and a half to two months after everything went down, you know?
01:00:14And one of the, one of the really amazing quotes, uh, that just, it just sticks in my
01:00:19head.
01:00:19So I better get it right is, uh, the point of life is not to arrive safely at death.
01:00:25I think it's 95% of people don't get enough fiber, which is why Momentus built fiber plus
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01:01:31You've got this line.
01:01:32The point of life is not to arrive safely at death, stop worrying about things and get
01:01:36to action.
01:01:37Yeah.
01:01:38And there's another good one.
01:01:39There's another really good one there.
01:01:40Hopefully I guess, um, worrying is like a rocking chair.
01:01:43You can move all day, but you ain't going anywhere.
01:01:46Right.
01:01:47So stop worrying about things.
01:01:49Go make it happen.
01:01:50And that's kind of, that's kind of how I lived my life prior to this.
01:01:53And now it's even like, dude, I'm going to, yeah, that, that's how I'm going to do it.
01:01:57And, you know, I, uh, like I said, I take my medicine every day.
01:02:01I wear my mask when I have to, I'm going to try not to be reckless with my livelihood.
01:02:04I, my, my plan is to be the longest living double lung transplant person ever.
01:02:09That is my goal.
01:02:10Do you know what the record is?
01:02:1138 years.
01:02:12So I'm going 39, baby.
01:02:14Wow.
01:02:14And how old would you, how old would you be?
01:02:17Uh, I'd be 80.
01:02:19So, you know, um, yeah, that would be, uh, that'd be, that'd be a good, good life.
01:02:25And, you know, I, I honestly, I figured if I make it like 15, 20 more years, there's gonna
01:02:29be some new technology there.
01:02:30They're already starting to build organs with, uh, your own stem cells, I believe is what
01:02:35they're doing.
01:02:36And so that would also get me off the, the immunosuppressants to those, those over.
01:02:40So you're suggesting that you would get another lung transplant.
01:02:44Yeah, you'd be, you'd be down for that.
01:02:46You'd go through it again.
01:02:48Oh, absolutely.
01:02:49I mean, cause the immunosuppressants, um, are, uh, they're a decent portion of the reason
01:02:54why life expectancy is not that high because when you kill your immune system, you cause
01:02:58a whole bunch of other problems.
01:02:59Right.
01:03:00Um, and so I don't know that, you know, they're, they are, they're literally building organs
01:03:05with stem cells and your, your own DNA.
01:03:09Um, but they're probably not very good at it yet.
01:03:12But I get the sense if, if, if there's a list of people.
01:03:14People that they want to test this on as a good case study, I reckon an ex, ex professional
01:03:19athlete is probably pretty high up.
01:03:20And I don't know how many ex professional athletes at your level have had like, how many, no one's
01:03:25going to be, I I'll volunteer, I'll volunteer to have the lung transplant from my real ones
01:03:29to my fake real ones.
01:03:32Uh, yeah, exactly.
01:03:34Yeah.
01:03:34Uh, well, I told my doctor, I just told my doctor, I said, Hey man, uh, one of my doctors
01:03:39is pretty young and he's progressive.
01:03:42Like you could tell he wants to make it happen and he wants to make, you know, life better
01:03:45for all the lung transplant patients.
01:03:47And then I said, Hey man, you got any ideas that you think are going to work running by
01:03:52me because you're not going to find anyone more disciplined and I'm down for it.
01:03:55If you think it's going to help me live longer, I will, I will run that protocol.
01:03:59So you just let me know.
01:04:00Fuck yeah.
01:04:01Dude, you're, you're an inspiration, man.
01:04:03You always were, but this is, it's another level.
01:04:06So I'm, I'm really, really happy that you're still here.
01:04:08I'm really happy that you're doing this.
01:04:09Good luck with the fight.
01:04:11I'm going to be watching.
01:04:12I'm going to be watching and enjoying.
01:04:13Uh, thank you.
01:04:14What else have you got going on?
01:04:15Where should people go to keep up to date with all of the things?
01:04:17Oh man.
01:04:18Uh, I, you know, I don't post on social media that much anymore.
01:04:21Um, once Instagram and Twitter and just my real name, uh, it's not Twitter anymore.
01:04:25It's called X.
01:04:26Sorry.
01:04:27Um, I, I, but I actually, I have a movie coming up this fall also.
01:04:30Um.
01:04:31About this.
01:04:33This can be exciting.
01:04:35Um, I don't know exactly when it's coming out yet.
01:04:37Uh, so my wife's, one of their family friends in high school, uh, was a movie producer and
01:04:42he was watching my stuff last summer.
01:04:45And he said, that looks amazing.
01:04:47Um, you, would you guys be open to it?
01:04:49My, my wife had filmed so much stuff while I was in the hospital and, uh, he shopped it
01:04:54around and the, the Henry's, I don't know if you know them, um, at Novo Studios picked
01:04:58it up.
01:04:59And so we've done a whole bunch of filming on it and I, I think it's gonna be great.
01:05:03And I hope it's really inspiring to, for people to lead a life where just like I said, they're,
01:05:08they're fearless.
01:05:09They live the life that they want to live, not the one that they're afraid what other
01:05:13people are gonna think of them.
01:05:14So they don't do things, they don't take chances, um, and to live their life as fully as possible.
01:05:19So that's kind of what I'm hoping to inspire people with.
01:05:22Unreal, man.
01:05:23Unreal.
01:05:23Dude, let's keep in touch.
01:05:25I'm excited to see what you do next.
01:05:26And, uh, let's, uh, let's talk when the documentary comes out.
01:05:30Awesome.
01:05:31I love it.
01:05:31Thanks so much, man.
01:05:32Appreciate you, dude.
01:05:33Catch you later on.
01:05:34Congratulations.
01:05:34You made it to the end of a full podcast episode.
01:05:37You are not so TikTok brain that you've completely dissolved into nothingness.
01:05:41Why not watch another one?
01:05:43Right here.
01:05:45Go on.
01:05:46Press it.