Joe Rogan Experience #2312 - Jeremy Renner

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. Well, what's happening, man? It's What's going on? It's great to see you. Yeah. Good to be seen. Boy, what a journey you've been on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been I started listening to your audio book. It was giving me anxiety. It gets better, right? It takes a minute, but it there there's a relief for the reader. Well, the relief is seeing you healthy walking around. The relief is also you kind of know the end of

the story, right, before you go into it, right? So then you can really kind of dive into the actual detailed narrative that I I put out. There's no other way to do it. But um but yeah, it's it's tough for a minute. It's like I was like, "Wow, my sister, it took her a while to read." And anybody that was kind of involved in the incident takes a minute, you know. Look, it took took me a long time to kind of get through it, right? It's it's anxious for me, too. So So how long was

the actual recovery? Because you don't even walk with a limp. You're Yeah. Yeah. It's quite There's There's There's a lot Some things are pretty miraculous. Some things can be explained. Something And I tried to figure it out as I was writing the book. You know, a lot of people ask questions. I asked myself questions. Um some things uh were on my own will. Some things were of other worldly of some sort. Um, but yeah, I was given, you know, I was supposed to walk with a limp because pretty much a lot of titanium and then

it was certainly not running and I'm doing far beyond all those things. Don't know exactly why. I can pontificate on why and you know what do you think of this? I think I I think it's will is will is a really special thing and the the the love and fuel to to to fuel your will um I had in spades. I I can I feel like I could pretty much do anything if I set my mind to it. When it was my essential part of my life, my recovery was a 24-hour day job. when typically

I do many many other things right as we all do in our lives but when all my focus like even parenting was out the window until I can get better so I had to do that first so that being the central part of every thought every fiber every cell in my body is was geared towards a one-way street of recovery oh I'm getting [ __ ] better so I just got better and there's no what's the alternative you know I was I was brought back somehow someway and it would be a disservice to not do

all the things I'm supposed to be doing and want to be doing. So, it just took a lot of effort and it took a lot of support to heck, dude. I mean, there's hundreds of people involved in helping me not die again, you know, but then it was but at the end of the day, the recovery, as you know, you've been everybody's been injured in some sort of way. It's it's a lonely road. It's your it's only you. No matter how much help you have or PT you have, if you your tendons go or whatever

the heck happens, you still have to put in the work every day and endure the the pain and manage the pain and mitigate it. And um it's it can be quite lonely. But I I always found that the my my my daughter and my family as I see their faces when I get better, I could stand up, let's say, or not pee in a jar. I could get in a wheelchair and go any sort of milestone. I'd see their faces get a little bit less horrified, even relieved, even quite joyful even. So, uh, as much

damage as I did to my family and their their their hearts, um, me getting better can, um, can relieve them of that burden. So, it was an easy one-way road to recover. And that's why I recovered fast and I I attribute it to my love for my family. Wow. So, let's bring it back to the day of the accident. What when exactly was it? It was New Year's Day. New Year's Day. New Year's Day 2023. Yeah. And I host my family at my house up there. Uh like 25 people every post Christmas to New Year's

all the time. Family, friends, whoever. Um just kind of come up and we can celebrate the the holidays together, go skiing, all these type of things. But we had a big kind of snowageddon type snow event that you know shut down the mountain that I live on at the top of uh Lake Tahoe at about 8,000 feet elevation and we got just tons and tons of snow but it happens often. Maybe not that intense of a storm but so much so where we were cut off from anywhere else we're snowed in. Fine. I'm prepared for

that stuff. Um 3 days without power prepared for it. It's fine. We can have fun. It's actually relief. All the cell phones go off. all the iPads go away and computers and everybody's just playing card games with headlamps on and I mean it's a riot so we had a good time you know food supply was still good but you know it's you know it's New Year's Day and we're getting a break in the weather so I decided need to clear the roads and see come out for air essentially and um and in doing so that's

when the the accident sort of transpired and it's not it's more of a routine type of thing to have a half a mile long driveway up there and I have to maintain it myself so I have a snowcat and a bunch of other snow removal type equipment. There's a bunch of vehicles, snowmobiles, even things that got stuck in the driveway because it it was a lot of extra snow and it was very some of it was very light and then it got very icy and hard. So, you're sinking down like three or four feet into

it and it was a hot mess. So, had to try to dig all that stuff out using the snowcat pulling this stuff out. This thing of snowcat to describe it in words is pretty difficult, but it's like a tank. Um, it's probably I don't know 12 feet wide the tracks on each side. So it so it spins like a tank like a skid steer. There it is. Yeah, there we go. Some that's that's that's a small tiny version of one. Um, but yeah, it's something kind of out of Star Wars, you know, but this minor

or metal track is more like that one right there. Oh, you got one like that. That's it. That's exactly like the one I have. So it's about like 16,000 lbs or so. And it's it's very nimble on the snow. On the snow just to see it physically. Put it back up. To see it physically and to know that that's what ran over your leg. Oh my whole body. Oh god. Yeah. It was uh So you have to step on the tracks, you see, to get into the cab to operate it. So stepping on the tracks

is is a normal thing to do. You just don't do it while the thing's you're operating it, right? You on the thing, you drive it and it's just easy. the thumb go forward, reverse, and you're neutral and that's it. It's really easy to operate. Um, but it was just the the accident happened because you have to get in and out on the off on those tracks and I hit the the thumb thing and uh it threw me off and it was going towards my nephew. So, I had to jump back on and try to stop

it from killing him because it was going to crush him between the truck and the and that big blade that I have. But you see that thing? Yeah. It's a few thousand pounds. That thing's gnarly. But so my instinct was to jump back on it and try to stop it. Um you know obviously it didn't work out and it got ran over and uh there you go. What how much of your body did it run over? The entire all of it. Oh my god. I was cuz I went if I the tracks were here to

jump in the cab. I leap leapt up and over to try to grab onto it and got sucked under the whole thing. So the So the whole length of it just kind of So there's like a set of wheels that turn these tracks. you see and there's like six wheels so it so it undulates. So I felt all the undulate. The first one was the worst like the pressure and skull crush and all that stuff and then it releases cuz then the undulation of the tire and the the track and you're awake for that just

like like by the six undulation just like all right just kind of finish already and you're just like most like you know you're like you're drowning and being struck by lightning and bleeding out all the things all at once man. It's like a immense pressure and immovable object and you know my skull kind of lost out but still survived and um your skull got run over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it was like you know Yeah. It's everything. It's like it's 38 broken bones and eyeballs out. Oh my god. And it's uh shout out to

medical science. I know right. I mean, and yeah, I mean, all the doctors were like, "Dude, I don't know how your eyes still operating or still working, but I think because I was on ice because I did see it." I'm like, "Well, maybe I'm going to put this eye on ice." And just kind of rolled into it cuz I saw my eye with my other eye, right? And I'm like, "I'm going to be able to keep that thing." Because I'm on like an icy asphalt driveway that's off of my driveway, right? The top of the

road. So, which wasn't really great for impact getting ran over. I wish I was on a snow pack. could have been maybe a little bit easier. It would push me into snow, right? But it wasn't. So, I just kind of rolled onto it just like maybe I could kind of put the eye on ice until I could figure out how to breathe. Oh my god. You I have to sort of laugh at it because it's weird to sort of think about that, you know? Wow. 38 bones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was like the ri

a lot of ribs and all my my spiral fracture and my legs. All my joints were broken. All my my ankles, my knees, my none of my spine and I only got a laceration of my liver from like one of the ribs breaking in a couple spots and it went down and kind of stabbed it, but it didn't really mess it up too bad. So, that's okay. But all my organs, my brain, I don't think there's any brain damage. I'll use an excuse later, I guess. Uh, you know, uh, yeah. And my spine that that's

the miracle. It's like, how did I break 14 ribs, right? And my crack my skull and every arm and leg and finger and thing. But my spine was spared. Oh my god. And and all my organs were spared. My brain. And so like it's kind of almost no harm, no foul at the end of the day, even though there's, you know, probably 20% titanium in my body at this point. it. So, how many pieces of titanium are in you? Well, the guy that invented this procedure worked at the hospital in Reno because there's a lot

of crushing injuries that happen because all the ski resorts and mines that are in the area. So, I got really lucky to get this doctor. Uh, but it took four doctors to get to this guy. So, so says my family. I was out in a coma and but they once they found this guy who was on vacation, um, the mayor of Reno actually called him said, "You got to get back and help my friend out." And so he rushed out and he's just like, "This is what he does for a living." He's like, "Oh, this

is easy. I can't wait to do this for this guy." You know, so relieved on my family. There was such relief because they were like, "Oh, he's going to lose his eye. We're going to cut off his leg." I mean, all this kind of tragic sort of prognosis, whatever you want to call it, right? So this guy comes in. No, no, it's fine. We're going to hammer this thing in. We're going to do this, do his face plate, do the thing. We're going to do this. And just lucky that the orbital bone that broke and

the cheekbone that broke, they only wanted to do that because um because my face as as an actor made me want to save my cheekbone, I guess I not that I cared about it, but um but yeah, he fixed up my my all my ribs and they used like like this mesh and this he has this sort of weird way to kind of handle if you fix one or two of the ribs that are all broken, the rest will kind of fall into place. The bone the body's pretty miraculous. just give it a little direction

and then it heals on itself and it'll grow the bone. So, um it's not as much titanium in my ribs as one might think for all those breaks. It's only, you know, maybe it's it looks like rebar, right? You get a scan like my a lot of my body's like Do you have a an X-ray of your It's somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere. Is it online anywhere? Well, we could see it. I don't know. Do you have it on your phone or anything? No, I don't think so. I could I could ask my sister for it.

She's got showing everybody that thing. It's it's it's pretty it's pretty um remedial looking, you know. It looks like, you know, like I had a hammer and a 2x4 and some nails. And that's what this looks like. It looks very like is why is there a nail and two screws? And you know, it's uh it's carpentry 101. You know, there's nothing like, you know, I think the guy that cuz I had like screws in my skull and my my jaw cuz that broke in three spots. Oh, and the guy took it out with something that

he got from Home Depot. They literally it's like a some, you know, just he just took it out. I'm like, dude, it's squeaking like it's in wood. He numb it or something. I almost knocked this guy out. It's just like it was unbelievable. Unbelievable. And I was always I was always kind of half in the the bag mentally just kind of because it takes so much mental um to deal with like pain management and uh it's emotionally exhausting to deal with like so many different things in your body. So I'm always kind of half paying

attention to things. you know, my it's I'm much sharper mentally now because I don't have to mitigate so much inflammation, pain, and all that all the time. So, I can kind of be here and laugh with you. But back then when this guy was I I almost talked this guy so hard, dude. Um but uh yeah, glad that was I was really happy to um that was a great milestone for me to get these screws out of my skull. Jesus. But um that was uh that was worse than getting ran over by the snowcat dude.

Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of pain or just discomfort? No, it it wasn't so much the pain. It's the haunting images of feeling my um gums wrap around this screw as he's and it's pulling out. It's a lot longer than I thought it was and then there's three more to go. It was more the the visual is in my mind um kind of what makes it terrible. You know, the visual because I'm a pretty visual guy. And so I don't think anything um hurts me so much in a physical way, but the

visual is a pretty haunting image. Wow. And the sounds, dude, it vibrates your skull as he's taking it out. And it's like this is what horror films are made of, right? It's just like saw or something. Is that the only thing that they had to take out is the screws that are in your head or did they take them out of your body? No. No. You have to leave those in for the most part because why risk infection and open you up to for something. But um yeah. So all that all the rest of the

stuff stays in until those screws come loose. At some point they will they start backing out, right? Yeah. Yeah. You think you'd put in a locking screw, right? I've had friends that have had broken arms and starts poking out of the bar. Yeah. Yeah. And they have to get another operation and get it removed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, how many different plates do you have? I I think I got there's only a couple in my face and they went in like underneath my cheek. A plate for my uh orbital socket and then for the cheekbone.

They put I think a plate or two over there to hold that bone in place. Do you feel it? Um I I feel the the lack of um feeling in it. It's still still numbness to that this whole side because they had to cut all these nerve endings right to get in through your mouth. So even the side of my um face is little slightly little little numbish. And the rest of them do you feel like how much do you feel in all your different bones and joints and all the different things that got repaired?

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's there's lots of scar tissue to work through all the time. Um, it's what's great is like it's not any one spot. It's like it it moves around, you know, even if you're not injured, it's like if you just twist your leg wrong and then it it goes up into your hip and then it's in your shoulder. It moves around your body kind of it moves it around. So, you just got to stay on top of it and there's always something to to work through, you know, in your body, you know, and

it's just look, I already have to do it anyway. I'm 54. I'm going to have to take take care of my health and I just have to make it a very central part of my life. And so now, do you have full range of motion, full mobility, everything is back to normal? Yeah. I don't know what normal is. You know, uh I'm going to be, you know, I feel like I'm maybe 110%. Just because spiritually, mentally, um I'm so much better. I got so many gifts from dying and coming back that Yeah. I'm 150%. My

body will always be, look, my body's aging, so I have to fight against age. Well, recovery is age reversing. It's the same same stuff that people are doing just to reverse age. I just do it just because it's my recovery and I have to for the rest of my life just to prevent inflammation and discomfort and swelling, things like that. So, when you have so many broken bones and so many broken joints, what is the recovery like? Like, how did they even get you moving again? Day by day. Day by day. Yeah. Instantly. As soon

as I got home from the hospital, um, yeah, PT there and working to just move, keep things moving. You have to otherwise you lose it. You lock up or you lose. Seeing you walk around today in the studio, I would have no idea. Yeah. You look totally normal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's It's takes a lot of work and it's still working. Look, I was having to stretch in your studio, you know. I have to have to I have to move quite a bit so I don't lock up after after a good night's sleep.

It's like you could be a little stiff in the morning and I have to do some stretches and things like that, but I think if I didn't get in the accident, I'm 54, I'd probably have to do it anyway, right? So, um, feels good to have to force the stretching. I think AG1 has been a longtime partner of the show and I'm excited to share a great offer they have going on right now. You can get a free month supply of AG1's Omega-3 supplement and a free bottle of D3 K2 with your first subscription order.

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a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first AG1 order. You'll also get their welcome kit with everything you need to get started on your AG1 journey. So, make sure you check out drink ag.com/joan to claim this special offer. That's drink a1.com/jo. And so day just day by day. So you're completely bedridden initially and how long does it take before you can sit up? I don't I don't know. It's pretty it moved pretty quick the the randomly with the punctured lung and the all this broke the shoulder collarbone dislocation all this stuff that healed pretty

quickly but that doesn't require gravity and force on your legs like your legs have to take. Right. So those that took a little bit longer and the legs both ankles right that's those are under trauma and and plates in those um you know this is all a pipe essentially piece of rebar my my whole lower leg so that took a little bit longer but the the ribs ironically it was only painful for I feel like a couple weeks I also had these like plastic suitcases for my lungs cuz they had to let it bleed out

and this stuff was going in I don't know what goop was in that thing but I had to carry those things around for a while but once I got rid of I was kind of sitting up a bit more and um I felt good once I was kind of sitting up but there's still as you can imagine so much trauma so many places but I think the longest it was was really getting up to to stand up to walk to get all your joints to work properly again to relearn to walk relearn to move because

you really kind of have to a lot of atrophy as you can imagine that happens but I was standing up um and moving around uh I got into a chair probably, you know, by the by by February after like 3 weeks. Wow. And um the more I can move, the faster you heal. You're getting more blood flow. You're getting you're getting your body to work better. Um help with my my attitude uh and will to get out and sit up. You all the things each of these things are like milestones and I would just like

Yeah. And then move forward to the next thing and set a goal for myself. even if it was just like to sit up and like turn or I didn't have to set such big to reach too far to keep my confidence high. So because I keep reaching these goals and just kept going and going and going and I I'd find myself again it's 24 hours a day so what do I have to do today? Well I don't even have to ask. I just got to get better and you know it just kept going and with

whatever thing and there's so many things to attack to get better. It's like I never got bored. I always had all these bands and stuff. I was in I remember being in a wheelchair and I'd wrap it around like this desk and I'd be in as like a leg press, you know, all these like interesting ways just like to try to strengthen my my my body and get better. Whatever wasn't, you know, I anything that would work, I would do it. Wow. I say no to nothing. Say yes to everything and let's try it. Let's

do it. Took took in everything. Took in everything. You know, they say that is one of the more difficult things with stroke victims is the will to do the exercises to force yourself to recover. Yeah. Because so many people just they they've never done that before. They've never pushed themselves before. They don't and they there's this tendency to just kind of give up. Some people have. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's part of the reason why I wrote the book is maybe people because it's a lonely place when where people are struggling in in recovery and when

it's a lifetime recovery too, you know. Um I hope they can find something they can grab on to like if this guy can get overcome this, I can get out of my own way here and maybe not maybe think of it a little differently. The only thing we have control of ever in life in perpetuity is our perspective. So, you know what's my I could easily just go be victimized and, you know, cry about it and like, oh, my career is over and die. I mean, it's not it's not even part of the narrative. It's

part of it's not even in the conversation. It's like, I'm getting better every day for the rest of my life. That's it. Wow. There's only one way to go. What's the alternative, Joe? Right. What is the alternative? I kept I keep saying that to my What's the alternative? I'm not going to stumble around through life, right? I wasn't brought back here just just to suffer. That's not happening. I'd say unplug the machine. I'm done. I'm out of here. It's way better being dead. You know what I mean? I'm not going to come back and and

and just waddle my and limp my way through life. It's not going to happen. What's crazy is you if you didn't approach it like that, you probably wouldn't be able to walk. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Because there have been a lot of people that have been gravely injured that never come back. Yeah. Yeah. You have to push it, right? Anything that's in your life for excellence, you have to obsess at it and risk everything for it. You have to or it's not going to happen. No one's going to do it for you. But what else are

you going to do? Yeah. You know what I mean? Again, like I said, what's the alternative? Yeah, this sucks, but like so does a cold plunge and so does this and so does that and so does that. You got to really test. We got to test our bodies, our limits to really have real growth. And especially in recovery, you have to What else you going to do, man? you're going to take pills, right? That was one, again, one of the harder things worse than the accident as well is getting off Oxycottton and I got off

pretty quickly. Like that's gnarly stuff, man. I'm glad it's it was there for, you know, the pain for me, but like I wanted to get off it as soon as possible. So, because it's highly highly addictive and coming off that stuff was gnarly. It's so hard. And you have a really strong will and some people don't. They put all people on that stuff. That's crazy, dude. Is really Ironically, I was supposed to be doing a a uh a movie about the Sakra family. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That but it was supposed to happen like literally

that that April or just that that spring. Um obviously that got cancelled because I had to take Oxycottton to kind of get by, but then I had to get off that stuff real quick. You know, it was really interesting too how people treated that drug. You know, everyone like was monitoring, counting the pills, if it was a half a thing or this or that. Like everyone was on it. Like, dude, why? You treat me like some some sort of drug add. Don't give me this stuff. I don't want it. Jesus Christ, it's terrible. Wow. But

it's a pretty powerful powerful stuff. And I don't I don't ever blame sort of the drug. I just think sort of how maybe it's it's free to use and it's it's even supported in school systems and, you know, they got that family kind of got away with a lot of stuff to promote that stuff to put it mildly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole another You've seen Peter Berg's uh thing on Netflix, Painkiller? Have you seen that? It's a docu drama documentary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Matthew Broad. Yep. Yep. It's gnarly, man. Gnarly. Yeah.

That's an evil family. What they did to people and and just support the idea that, you know, hey, this you could just be on this and you don't have any pain. Don't worry about it. And it's not even addictive. Yeah. Just Yeah. It's the knowing. It's the knowing part and then then double downing and then selling it getting it really getting it out there. It's and promoting it as a thing that you could be on forever. Yeah. Which is just insane. Yeah. So you're on it and how long did you have to be on it

for? I again always working to to get off of it. And I think maybe it was around because I got home on January 13th, Friday the 13th. And I think it was probably less than a month, probably like beginning of February because I had all my mers and stuff got pushed in. So my mouth's a hot mess, my jaw's broken, and but I'd have night tears as you would. um being awake through that trauma. So, and I bit down and the tooth was in just in a certain spot and just cracked my moler and and

it goes down to the nerve and that I'm like, "Oh, I feel that pain, but I'm on all this oxycottton. I don't feel maybe I don't need to be on that shit." So, I had to go get that emergency extraction and get a post put in and on my back mer. I said, "Well, I'm going to I'll take it one more time just for the tooth pain or whatever even what the dentist gave me." I think I took the dentist stuff, whatever that was, and cold turkey off Oxycottton and Gabby Penton. Cold turkey? Yeah. I

didn't know. You didn't know how hard it would be. Oh, no. I was just so adamant. I don't really listen the doctors. I don't listen to the doctors, man. Uh, you know. So, yeah. So, I started crying um for about three and a half days straight. Uh, even during my PT, I'm just like, not that I'm even sad, but like full crocodile tears. Just tears. Tears. Wow. 24 hours a day, right? Just going. I couldn't stop crying. And I was shivering. Um, so this is all just withdrawal. Withdrawal. Yeah. I wasn't thinking that anything other

than like why am I crying? I I didn't know it was withdrawal even though because my mind's not there. I'm in my mind's in recovery and getting off this stuff and focusing on holding my body up. It it takes just a lot of mental acuity to to just exist, right? So, I wasn't thinking that. Yeah, of course. I look back on I was like, of course, I'm coming off [ __ ] heroin essentially, right? So, yeah. And then and so I I I call my sister and thing. I'm like, I don't know why I'm crying.

I can't stop crying. He said, "Well, let's call the had these different doctors that we'd zoom call with when I was at home." And so we called up the the pain management doctor and she's like, "Look," is I told him, he's like, "What are you doing? You got to taper off that like takes like two weeks at least. You can't just cold turkey. It's no wonder you're feeling all cold and all this stuff because that's all nerve stuff." So, I just started feeling gravity. I started feeling temperature. I started feeling everything. It was like on

fire, right? So, um, why did you make the decision to go cold turkey? Because I didn't want I didn't I don't like the feeling of being on pain meds. I don't like, you know, I want to have my mind. I mean, I was always using the humor to find my sobriety. If I could land a joke, it means I'm reading the room and I'm hitting the timing right, whatever it is, you know, right? So, I I wanted my I needed my mind. If I need my wit, I needed my will to to recover. I needed

sleep and I needed my brain. And the drugs kind of numb my brain as they would, right? As they numb your whole body. So, I just wanted off of them. And I don't like how I feel. You feel muddy. Yeah. And I just didn't like the feeling. So, you know, it came with a price, but I got the okay to like take a little fiber of Oxy to to sleep on if you needed to mitigate some pain just so I could sleep. Like, okay, maybe I'll do that if it happens. And I did once or

twice or three times maybe after that moment. But I got through it and I got off it. But I got off it because I cracked that tooth. And that I felt pain like that is like that's not going to let me sleep at all. It's a heartbeat in my brain. My face is just like throbbing, right? As you would for anybody. So I said like, "Oh, that's then I don't need to take the pain meds." So like that was my excuse to get off the pain meds, right? Because you're feeling pain and you're on the

pain meds. Yeah. I would have been on that [ __ ] much longer if I didn't crack that tooth. Wow. Cuz I wouldn't have the will to say like, "Oh, let's get off this stuff, right?" But it took that I'm like, "Okay, well, I don't need it." I had knee surgery in 93 and they gave me something. I don't It was either Percoet or Vicodin. I don't remember what it was. And I took it one time and I felt so bad. I felt so stupid. Yeah. I remember being in my apartment in New York just

feeling so dumb and just thinking, I'd rather be in pain. Yeah. And so one day I took it one day and I'm like, "That's it. I'm done." Yeah. And then I sold it. I sold my uh my pills to this guy Jeff at the pool hall. It's a dirt bag. He was this dirt bag guy that I used to hang out with at the pool hall. He had a bandana and long hair. He was a hippie. He always sold drugs and I sold him to him. He's like, "I'll take it. What do you got?" Yeah.

Yeah. What do you got? And uh then I had surgery again. I've had a bunch of different surgeries for jiu-jitsu injuries and martial arts injuries. But the second time I had surgery on my knee. I had a knee reconstruction again on my other knee in 2003 and I didn't dig anything. I'm just I just like I don't want nothing. I'm just going to just deal with it and it was okay. Yeah. Maybe anti-inflammatory or something. Then it's it's really I didn't even take that stuff because I don't think that's good for you either. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's you're gonna be in pain no matter what. It's just going to dull it a little bit. I'd rather feel it all just get cut. I agree. Accustomed to deal with it. Yeah. That was like back when I even when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out when I was like 20 or something, you know, that's pretty gnarly surgery, right? And they give you like a was a codine or something, you know? I just puked on that and said, "No way." Took one pill and I never took didn't sell it to

anybody. Isn't it astonishing that some people like it? Yeah. People party on it and they'll go drink it like too Viking and all that stuff. I just It's just the opposite for me. I just can't. It's just my body doesn't agree with it. Yeah. Uh I just uh and I'm glad I don't I don't like it. You know, I had a friend of mine who's a musician and he would write all his music on on Vikings and I was like, what? How do you do that, man? Like I took it whatever it was that I

took. I can't remember which one it was, but I felt like a [ __ ] I just felt like I had like 20% of my brain and it was just this dull like wet cotton stuffed in my head. Yeah. But I mean I guess maybe it's just like different biology. Maybe different people react to it differently. For sure. Yeah. It wasn't for me. Yeah, I agree. So, how long did it take for the withdrawal to subside? By the time I got to the uh the that zoom with the the pain management doctor, he he said

like, "Well, don't do that. You should taper off." Like, "Well, I'm already o off it now." I'm like, "I'm I've come off the the decrying train." Um especially because he also made sense of it for me. He's like, so I was coming, it's like, it's like day four by the time I talked to him. And um it just helped me make sense of like why I was feeling the way I was feeling cuz it it felt like a setback, right? You know, and because there are setbacks in recovery, but this felt like a real setback

like I like I I couldn't grab of why. And I'm pretty in tune with like my body and my emotions and my everything. And I just couldn't grab why I was when it's so obvious. Yeah, but then, you know, I don't I'm not the one really administering this stuff. My mom's just giving me the pill and doing peptide injections for me and, you know, rebirthing me, you know, taking care of me. So, what peptides were you on? Oh, man. If I look back, I don't know. I was getting three three um MLS, those three loads,

and they're all mixed up. So, as you would um uh probably say a lot of the same ones that I'm on now that I continue and I rotate in and out of different ones for PPC700. Yeah. All those. Yeah. Yeah. AODD and Matsi and uh I had to do a lot of blood work. Got my hemoglobin was at two. Whoa. Yeah. That was what it was going back to work back to Mayor Kingtown. Crazy. Yeah. Uh it's like the blood of a dead man essentially. I just got no energy. So then I started really working

with um all my blood panels, big giant wide 16 vial blood panels. And that started to be my new course of recovery of of a cellular way in a blood way. And that's where I really started to get strong. I was moving around. I was mobile. All the bones are healed. By this time, it's like a year's gone by. But now I started working on cellular and blood health. And that's when I that's when I got to like my skin started to look great and you know cuz your blood is tells you what your body's

producing and not producing, right? So that was a great report card or barometer of where I was at, why I'm not, you know, where my mitochondrial levels are at, anything was at. So um it was really really great part of my recovery and that's what I'll continue to do and still continue to do today. Boxing's biggest weekend is here and DraftKings Sportsbook is bringing the heat. It all kicks off Friday in Time Square as Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Tapimo Lopez light up New York City. Then on Saturday, The King returns. Canelo Alvarez is back

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you place a $5 bet. Only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1800 gambler in New York? Call 8778 hope or text hope and y467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Bootill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 and over. Agent eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. New customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkg.co/audio. Did you use a hyperbaric chamber? Oh yeah, that that must have helped a lot. Yeah. What

it did for me, it's not something I don't think there's many things in my recovery that you do that feel good. It just doesn't make you feel as shitty, right? Right. It's like you're building a mountain one layer of pain at a time. Yeah. So, but hyperbaric is great. It's it helps with lactic acid when you're working out. It's, you know, it's all the oxygen you you put in your body is is a great necessity. It's a again another one of those things that are even age reversing. It's also disease preventative. It's amazing this thing.

And it's I got one that was um you can sit in and do multiple things. I can not just I can't just sit there for an hour and a half in in the chamber and like I'll go crazy. Uh I have a busy brain, you know, and uh so I get a computer, whatever, email, whatever I can do is a to kind of continue to do it to make it a part of my life. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And then I go into like a a red light bed, a high powered red light infrared bed.

Then it moves all that oxygen through my body even more so and gets deeper into the tissue. It's amazing. Yeah. I use both of those things. Yeah. Those are parts of my life. Yeah. Yeah. But I would imagine for something like what you went through, it's imperative. Yeah. Yeah. For tissue recovery and Oh man, huge huge huge faster for repair. And so from So a year later, you're walking around. Yeah. For Yeah. By I was walking by my daughter's birthday was March 28th. So I guess a few months later I was walking but there was

assisted very assisted week walking with cane or a walker. Um so that had to be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was by by the summertime I stopped doing recovery the intense 24-hour day recovery. I would do like a 12-h hour day recovery and then go walk in the sand in Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is a big world's biggest cold plunge. It's a freezing ass lake. So I just go dip my legs in that lake, walk in the sand. It's great for instability in your ankles, your joints, your hips. And I would just do that

kind of stuff. Even ride a jet ski. I was riding a jet ski in June. Wow. Yeah. Taking it easy. I'm not doing anything nuts, but just like just living life. You know how good that is for your mental acuity, your your spirit, your emotional body, and all that stuff. So, I was out in the sunshine getting vitamin D. I was in, you know, nature. I was with friends. I could do life stuff like I'm back in life stuff, you know. Now that's a great confidence builder. Yeah. So I kept trying to do those things

and then of course I have to go back into all the recovery stuff and you know that I always do but just happy I can do it. What does the cold water feel like with like I mean you have a rod through your your tibia. Yeah. The cold water is it's that's not the issue. It's when it's cold weather. Yeah. Like like anybody it's your stiffer. Your your blood slows and all that stuff. So it doesn't help us. I need circulation in my joints. Tendons don't get a lot of blood flow. I really got to

work at getting blood flow in these joints otherwise they'll stiffen and I'm just slower going. It's everything just feels a little bit more robotic. What did they have? But I think that's and before injury it's that for anybody, right? Also elevation. I mean 8,000 feet elevation in Tahoe. So all those things aren't really kind of helping to my recovery, but my body will respond in those oxygen depleted environments and all that stuff. So maybe it did help, maybe it didn't. I don't know. But I did most of my initial recovery in LA and then when

I could, I got out to Tahoe to be in my sort of happy place in in nature. Did they have to reconstruct your knees? Did you No. No. None of that. They they they was cracks in my ankles and my foot spun around a handful of times. It was spiral fracture in my my leg. So they had to hit a rod down into my knee and they had to screw it screw it you know with plates and all that stuff. So I didn't ensure I just move those things. So I don't know there's not wasn't

full like reconstruction like people get a new knee or a new hip. It was just a lot of breaks. My pelvic broke broke in three spots. My hips all you know but you don't fix that. Even they even said you broke your [ __ ] I'm like that is that what you say as a doctor? Is that how you say it? Come on. That's I think there's another word for it. I think he was trying to make me laugh and I did. And Eric makes you laugh. He's like, "You broke everything, Jeremy. You even broke

your ass." I'm like, "All right, that's great." Wow. Wow. And so so you've you've gone through the 12-hour now you're in like this 12-h hour day. Yeah. Summer at summertime. Yeah. So I got to do like just life stuff and that was that was that was really my first shot at allowing myself to think that there's a future and I'm not going to live a life of full-time recovery for the rest of my life. like, "Oh, I can actually go do it some other things that I enjoy doing with people in kind of a normal

way." So, I was without a cane, without anything by the time by June and summer came around. So, I'm I'm moving around. That's pretty. I'm moving around with with, you know, inflammation and getting downstairs very slowly. But as you would like, as long as you're patient, as I was, as aggressive I was with my recovery, I allowed patients to also live within that aggressive attack on each joint or each inflammation or whatever it was. I do allow patience and because I allow myself to push hard hard. I listen to my body. Body says, "Fuck off."

I'm like, "All right, I'll chill out for a second and then, you know, keep going." So, but I was I got to live life and and that was so so rewarding to my spirit and my my my confidence which you know you need in that in that kind of those kind of dire times and and I keep going and then like I said when we got to back getting back to work because I got so ready maybe I'm down to like four hours a day of recovery by the end of that first year I'm like

I'm going to go back to work. I need to get back out into the world and use life as as my recovery and still only spend four hours a day on hyperbaric chamber, red light, whatever the heck I could do to I mix it all up. It's a bunch of different stuff. A lot of heat, a lot of vibration, power plate stuff. That was really great for numbing the the nerve endings, my back of my knees, back of my um ankles, that kind of stuff. I don't know if you ever used that stuff for No.

Like what are you what are you doing? I used to have this thing, God, what was it called? It was a thing you stand on it. It's like it would shake you different vibrations. Yeah. Yeah. And it would slow it down then make it fast. It's like that. Yeah. And that really was great for numbing like the back of my knees that really still ache and back of my ankles just so it's not quite so sensitive. I don't know if it floods the the nerve endings with blood or whatever the heck it does, but it

just kind of numbs it out and I can go to sleep on. It's great. It's beautiful. I used to have one of those at my house in LA. I don't even remember what it's called now. It was just some machine. It had a bunch of different programs. Yeah. Yeah. It's power plate. It's probably a power plate. Well, power plate, I think, is the one that you work out on. You can Yeah. Yeah. This one was a little different. This one was just It would just shake you at a bunch of different frequencies. Oh, interesting. You

would stand on it and it was supposed to just do a bunch of stuff for your your hormones and endocrine system and all sorts of different stuff just by the vibration. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It helps me a lot. Interesting. For sure. And um Oh, you doing sauna and stuff like that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I use I usually use just the red light bed like you sweat like it's shaped like a like a coffin or like like channing bed one. Yeah. Know it's just as effective I think as a you go to the

sauna. It just doesn't take too long to heat up or anything. Just get in that thing and cook. It's amazing. And you it's amazing that even like an LED light like that or infrared light could could warm you up so much. But it's intense. I love it. And then after a while, do you start lifting weights? Yeah. Yeah. I started I started training um as soon as I got the when I started doing blood work because my hormone my my testosterone was at 200, my hemoglobin was at two. Everything was your body's just wrecked. Oh,

it's wrecked. And I'm going back to work. So, I had to attack why I was falling asleep during workouts that I'm trying to do or whatever. I'm trying they they only schedule me maybe six hours a day on set because, you know, I fall asleep in the middle of a scene. Oh my god. They're like, "Who's going to wake that [ __ ] up?" Wow. Oh, man. So, yeah. So, I had to really work on that. And once I got once it really I think it was really the testosterone once I got that level to

like 700 800 constantly then I had more energy and that allowed me more energy in the gym and once I had that that got me more energy that that so just started feeding upon itself. I was doing blood blood panels every week and I just saw progress, progress, progress and then I just started lifting and I had so much energy and I felt better the more I lifted and moved and stretched and I just get it just kept compiling just like most things in life and it got easier like most things um with oxygen chamber

that's better when you compile on it. Same with red light stuff. Nothing nothing no one time at anything is going to do anything. But if you do it often enough and make it a central part of your life, it's like, "Oh, I was on fire. It was great. I started running." And you can run now. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. For distance. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how where I'm running to. I was never a distance guy. I was always a sprinter, right? I was a sprinter from high school and college and um um Yeah.

So, does it hurt when you run? It it feels like if you're If you have a, you know, if you ever been in a car, you're on the freeway and it has a misalignment or it's a little shaky. Yeah. Or you got a flat tire. It feels like I got four flat tires when I'm running. It looks great. It looks like, oh, this guy's no problem with this guy. Just boop boop boop boop boop. And it feels like the wheels are going to fall off. Wow. Mentally or something. It just it just feels like it's

because there's like it's it's it's a lot of pressure to put on all these joints, right? Um, I haven't sprinted really much in a while. I haven't really worked on that. I've been working on other things, you know, blood and cells and that kind of stuff. So, I mean, sprinting is not, you know, what am I doing? What am I going to do? Sprint 54 for God's sakes. You know, maybe like for, you know, like cuz because you do stunts and movies and maybe at some point I'll have to sprint. I don't know. Or maybe

not. Maybe just don't do that [ __ ] you know? Yeah. Well, maybe you can though. I mean, sure I can. I think you can. I already have. I believe it. I just don't know if I want to make that a central part of, you know, the acting experience. Maybe I I Well, that would be an absolutely phenomenal turnaround to go from where you were to going back to action films. Yeah. Yeah. To go play Hawkeye or something. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. That' be that'd be a good born identity. Yeah. That's that's tough. That

would be a tough one. That would that's I was in excellent shape for that one. That would be a challenge. Yeah, I would imagine. I don't know. Do I want to tax my body? I don't know. Probably should. Is it taxing your body or is it strengthening your body? The question. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, how many how many miles can you get on this stuff, right? Titanium. I think it's forever. I think it's permanent. I mean, what you everything you have just reinforces the recovery of the bones, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then and then you just have a plate there that just keeps the bones in order. Yep. And it's I mean all all the all the titanium in my body is useless at this point. It did its job and the bones grown but so it just stays there now. Is there an argument that the titanium hinders you at all? Uh well I mean it is foreign in foreign metal in your body. um you're not it's not rejecting it, but there is a point where it could, you know, just like allergies, you know, there's sometime

you don't get allergies sometimes for 40 years in your life and all a sudden I'm allergic to down. They could reject it. Who knows? You never know. Um I I'll I'll cross that bridge. I'm worrying about today. I'm here with you. I'll worry about that [ __ ] later. It's just so impressive. Yeah, it really is. It really is amazing. Yeah, it's in Yeah, cuz at any other time in history, you're dead. Yeah. Yeah. any other time in history. 20 years ago, you're dead. Goner. Yeah, you're a goner. 20 years ago. It's insane, right? It's

amazing. It's amazing. What a what a great blessing to have all those people that even like the the the EMTs and all the people that were there that did life-saving stuff that did all this stuff that they had to do. Man, there's so much, you know, and I'm really known in that community, especially in the EMTs and all that sort of stuff. I have a lot of firefighter friends and all that stuff. So, it's just like a there, you know, you're just getting a little extra juice and love from these people, you know, like I

knew um one of my best friends is a firefighter in that area, Jesse, and he just retired and he got the phone call from his buddy who had to like stab my chest and release the pressure from the lung and da da like on the ice. I'm like, and he's the one that says, "Look, dude, Jesse, Jeremy's he's in we did the best we could, dude. You don't want to get to the hospital." Wow. And that's like code for like gone. He's gone. He's gone. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean you But they were like, you

know, I talked to them all later. I saw every nurse. I saw every doctor. I went by every ENT, even the pilot that flew me up there and just had to give everyone the biggest squeeze and apologize if I was a pain in the ass or whatever it was, man. Um it's that uh reminds me of just why I'm back anyway and and what the only thing that you take with you and is love, man. Yeah. The beginning of the audio book is your daughter. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the one I had the hardest

time with. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it's Can you imagine? Yeah. I can't I can't imagine, you know, dude, does this I mean it must forever change your perspective on life because you've crossed back. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it just made it easier. It's it's it's ripped away. All the white noise. Things I gave credence to or things I gave value to are just [ __ ] meaningless. [ __ ] [ __ ] All the [ __ ] [ __ ] is gone. Yeah. And I just don't. Sadly, I'm in a spinning rock with, you know, people and

capitalism stuff with things just I just don't I don't feel like I belong. But I do. Yeah, I just a lot of times I just don't feel like I fit into um a certain how things are how things work or seem to work down here or Yeah. I just I just I just don't do things I I I don't give give value to. I only do things that are valuable in my life. That's it. That is it. I do nothing else. It is amazing how much time and energy people put into things that ultimately at

the end of the life they're not valuable. They don't mean anything and they occupy most of your thinking. That's right. Or even your time or like your career. Uhhuh. Right. I mean people do careers that they [ __ ] hate. Yeah. Whether in a marriage they [ __ ] despise. You know all this stuff is spending too much time doing what? Why? Why? Why? Because of fear because of fear get trapped and it's too difficult to get out and you know they get too deep and buried in into some place they get I don't know

paint themselves on a corner you know. It's it's quite sad. Yeah. You know, it is sad, but it's also I mean, there's an amazing example that you you can shine to the rest of the world, that maybe people don't have to go through what you went through to realize that most of what you're thinking about all day, especially if you're one of those people that's wrapped up in social media, most of the things you're thinking about all day are just nonsense. Just total nonsense. that's stealing your life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one one of

the reasons why I wrote the book is I hope there's things that um that I learned and the gifts that I received from from passing and coming back and overcoming, you know, huge obstacles and a lot of a lot of people can identify with suffering and struggle. Um doesn't have to be a physical struggle, but you know, there's it's a certain way to think and perspective that to work your way through it because it is a lonely lonely place. And I think there's something beautiful about the narrative of an author to a reader or even

just audio which is even more intense because you got the 911 call and it's kind of dramatic in that sense but like it's it's pretty intimate and you can I think you can really move the needle for somebody. Yeah. The more open and honest and vulnerable I am in sharing the narrative, the maybe more I have a chance at connecting with the reader or listener. No doubt. You know, there's the thing is about when when you're in the middle of a struggle, it never seems like you're going to get out of it. Yeah. And you're

trapped. Yeah. Yeah. You feel it. And it's so difficult for people to trust the process or to trust that it will get better. And this is unfortunately why a lot of people end their lives because they do not think it's going to get better. And you you hear it from so many people that almost took their life or failed when they tried to take their life and now realize, oh my god, I was so wrong. It does get better. I am better. Everything's better. And I just didn't see the light. I didn't see the light

at the end of the tunnel. I thought there was there was just nothing but this feeling that I couldn't endure. Yeah. That hopelessness, boy, that's he that weighs heavy, doesn't it? You can't afford that. You can't you can't give that power. You can't give that value. You can't. It's I think anybody can sink into that, right? Anybody can sink into that. Anybody can sink into that. It's just so hard for people that have never gone through something before. If your life has been really easy and then all of a sudden you're tasked with one of

the most difficult burdens ever. Overcoming the fear and the the the the feeling of wanting to end life because you can't take it. Yeah, I've been there. I mean Jesus. Um I well look I think um people need to suffer. It is an actual requirement of life and is is the fiber the DNA of love. Real love and true love and in perpetuity can't exist without suffering. It's impossible. Well, you don't appreciate it. Yeah. It's you have to have suffering and suffering doesn't have to be looked at in a negative thing. It could be looked

as a beautiful thing. It's where real love comes out of. Yeah. You know, all my suffering, there was real love in there. Everyone around me just in this recovery or in a loss I may have had from an uncle or a grandparent or whatever. You know, there's there's real love that comes in that suffering. You know, even though it can be a lonely experience, I mean, I look at it that way and not as a negative terrible thing because it's just temporary and it's intuitive though. What's that? It's counterintuitive in the negative term of it,

right? But we all have to suffer, right? I mean, it's part of the human experience, right? It's the Joe Rogan experience. I'm not suffering. I'm having a great time with you. But you know, I don't think people welcome that or allow that to happen in their lives and let it be okay. That the suffering that we suffer like that at the hard times are the building blocks to our to who we are. It builds resilience, builds character, builds all those things. Yeah. I remember one time, I mean, this is a minor suffering in comparison, but

one time I went on this uh hunting trip on Prince of Wales Island, which rains like 350 days a year. And so we were up there for a week just getting drenched and you know you're camping. So you're in a tent and you think, "Oh well, I'll be dry in the tent." And you're not dry in the tent. There's no dry. There's no such thing as dry. I remember I turned my headlamp on in the tent once cuz I had a pee and I was going to step out of the tent to go to the

bathroom in the rain. And when I pressed the headlamp inside my tent, all I saw inside the tent was water vapor. It was just filled with moisture. There was just water dot like droplets all flying around inside the tent. I'm like, "Oh my god, you're never going to be dry. There's no dry." And you know, it was just miserable but fun. I was with good friends and we had a good time. Then I came back to LA uh you know a week later and I remember I called my friend Steve Vanella. I called because he's

the one who took me on the trip and I said, "Dude, it's sunny out and I've never appreciated the sun like this before. I have I'm I'm like I'm at a level of happiness that I don't think I've ever felt before. I'm just sitting outside with my eyes closed just taking the sun. It was wonderful. LA's always sunny. You get so used to it. It's like you're a trust fund kid, you know, like who can't appreciate money because you've always had it. It doesn't mean anything to you. But now all of a sudden going just

being drenched for seven days and being in that sun, I was like, "Ah." Uh and then it made me realize like, oh, you need to suffer. You need to suffer. You're never going to appreciate this life. You need and either you voluntarily suffer or you will suffer involuntarily because life regular life will make you suffer. Yeah, very true. It's it's not it seems sort of um antihuman to want to do something to make yourself suffer, right? It doesn't seem very sort of characteristics of we always want to take the fastest route to get somewhere, the

easy. It's, you know, it's just innate and kind of human nature to to do that sadly. And it doesn't and that that that leads to a life of complacency and mediocrity. Well, if you look at life today and if you look at society today, we have unprecedented levels of depression and unprecedented levels of anxiety and unhappiness. Yet, it's probably the safest time ever. And it's probably the easiest time ever. It's so easy that poor people are fat. That's how easy it is. Like that's never been the case. All throughout history, poor people were starving. Yeah.

And poor people are fat now. Like that's how easy it is to live just to exist. So I mean not not saying that being poor is easy. It's certainly not. This is certainly a struggle. But it's way easier than starving to death. Like this is like an unprecedented easy time. And because of that and because there's this narrative that people have to constantly seek comfort, to seek vacation and relaxation and retirement and all that [ __ ] And so that's in your head and there's this softness to existence. And so everything that comes your way

is overwhelming. Somebody said this once and it's like a great quote that I remember. the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, regardless of how small that is. So, if the worst thing that's ever happened to you is like I remember uh my girlfriend broke up with me when I was 18 and I was like, "Oh, I couldn't believe it. I thought I was going to be with her forever." I was so sad. And then I think back like, "Oh my god, that was the best thing

that ever happened." She was a nightmare. But back then I thought I was probably a nightmare, too. But back then I thought like life was over, right? which is but you have to get through that in order to appreciate life to really appreciate life but we have this bizarre narrative in our head that you shouldn't suffer I know where does that come from I can't well because it used to be so difficult to live cuz and so you would try to find a time where it wasn't difficult and so then it became the thing that

everybody focused on focused on chilling relaxing you know and the people that I know that don't do anything and don't take any chances and don't take any risks and don't exercise and just seek comfort are the most miserable, anxietyridden people I know. Well, that's Yeah, they're pretty much dead inside, right? It's complacency and it's that's the definition of complacency. But again, it's counterintuitive, right? Because you think comfort is easy. It's relaxing. It's nice, but it's only relaxing if you've earned it. Yeah. Yeah. You got to get through something in order to appreciate just chilling on

the couch. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I always do I I have to fight my I have to trick my own behavior into doing things I don't want to do all the time. You know, if I don't want to do it, I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to do it. Don't even think about it. Just go do it." Right? Because I know the lazy mind just wants to like, "Oh, yeah. This let me just let me skip the gym today or let me not do PT today or whatever the heck it is. And I I don't

want to get poked and prodded." No, just do it. Just go do it. Right. Right. The thing you don't want to do is the thing you probably should be doing almost always. Yeah. And I That's why I pretty much always just do that. It It gets me out of my way, out of complacency, out of just like laziness. I just It doesn't exist because I do the opposite of what I want to do. Well, that's why you're happy. And that's why I'm so full of joy, dude. I'm I'm so happy. I've never been happier. more

connected to humans, more connected to my daughter, more connected to myself, more centered in my spirit. Where I am right now, where I'll go, where I'll be, where I always am and always have been is beautiful, man. It's beautiful. You got to conquer your inner [ __ ] You do, man. That's what it is. There's an inner [ __ ] inside of everyone that's like, let's just do nothing. You got to go shut the [ __ ] up. You have to have like two minds. You have Yeah. Well, you you got to surround yourself with

others too that can inspire you too, right? To so then you do things as as a even as you and I to go work out, do something. It's a lot easier than going to the gym by yourself, right? You try to create because we are social creatures. So, let's do things that like I'm doing like I'm building a whole like rehab recovery center at my house. Like, well, maybe I kind of open this to the public and like make this a communal cool thing so everyone has access to this stuff. And I'm still considering doing

that, but like just make it a a a place to to be and hang so it's everyone can do it and I'm not it's not just me, right? Right. Separating myself from other people, whatever it might be in my life. There's there's I try to find ways to make it a communal thing. So it just makes it easier to to continue this in in perpetuity. That's another counterintuitive thing. It's like you have to understand how important community is. It's like a vitamin. Yeah. Big time. It really is. Yeah. Well, that's a shared experience too that

comes with that negative or positive in the tent with your friends. You know, if you're alone in doing that, right? It's [ __ ] you have no one to share that misery with. But at least you did you shared that experience with somebody. You're like, "Dude, never thought I love the sun so much. Remember we were [ __ ] eating ass sucking on the rain water in that tent, you know?" But it's like even a negative experience can be but it's shared. is still quite beautiful and it's a it's a map a milestone a part

of your life that you use as barometer to change your or appreciate the sun more or whatever it might be right so those shared experiences I think are invaluable it's the only thing I chase in my life is that for people uh that ever want to start a fire when it's everything's wet Fritos you know little Fritos little bags of Fritos those little [ __ ] are so toxic that if you light those things they're like little Fire starters. No way. Yeah, man. Fritos are crazy flammable. They stay lit for a long ass time cuz

they're just soaked with oil. Oil. Yeah. Yeah. Like whatever oil, whatever horrible [ __ ] seed oil, whatever [ __ ] industrial lubricant those [ __ ] things are made out of. But when you light that, they're essentially some sort of a corn byproduct and oil. Right. Right. And so you if you light those [ __ ] on fire and then you get some semi dry sticks and light them, light those. Listen, we started one fire one day cuz one day it didn't rain. So that one day it didn't rain. Me and my friend Brian

Ken, we were determined to start a fire and so we just found like the driest possible and nothing was dry but driest possible sticks and twigs and started it and then dried some logs out and it was they were hissing and steam was coming off them as we were lighting it. But Fritos Fritos are an amazing fire starter. Kind of crazy. That's crazy. Makes you think about eating though. What am I? I just going to say you guys about to eat this [ __ ] Yeah. Which brings me to another question. Like how much did

you alter your diet after all this? Because I would imagine like anything that causes inflammation then becomes an issue. Yeah. I didn't go down so much that route. I've always eaten pretty good. Um I I didn't it didn't go into like things that I haven't gone into that even yet to like, oh, what causes inflammation? What what what am I eating that does that? I I haven't really gotten that far into it yet. I'm still I'm sure I will, but or and there was a doctor also helping me stuff and I have people cook prepare

some certain things for me, but I don't couldn't tell you what causes inflammation that I put in my mouth. Um could not I mean maybe if I have wine probably does and alcohol alcohol does for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um but I again I don't do I I I really am good at u moderating all things all things good and bad. So, um, my body has a chance to sort of exist and it's not forced too many supplements, too many peptides, too many too many anything, right? All good stuff. I sort of just moderate. So, um,

once I got my blood right, because I was like 205 pounds, I'd never been more than a buck 65 and it just all this surgery weight and all this stuff and it's hard to get off when you have a you hemoglobin's two. I just had no energy. So, also you probably have to eat a lot too because your body needs calories in order to help you that that and get proteins too. Yeah. And also it's difficult to eat because again my mers got pushed in. It's hard to chew. I look fine but to chew it

on on a nice steak and asparagus thing it's like this tough. It's tough for me to get through still to this day or no? Yeah. Yeah. It'll be forever. I can't fix it. If I start to move those mers again, they'll probably fall out. Oh wow. Yeah. And I'd rather keep them and just be uncomfortable. So they just they got pushed in. Yeah. This side. Um yeah, it's usually sort of like just like an arc to your thing. So my bite just kind of arcs and then goes straight back. Oh wow. Yeah. All these got

pushed in and broke broke the jaw three times here. So and then in just breaking the jaw doesn't ever really heal, right? So biting down is quite it's annoying. It's a it's full chaos in my mouth, but I don't [ __ ] about it. I just sort of accept what it is. And um it could have been so much worse. Could have been so I have all my teeth. I have a smile. It's great. you know, and I I feel great and and um I'm walking and breathing and I have nothing but love and joy

in my life. So, you know, who cares about what happens in my mouth, man. Right. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, that's it's it's really kind of an amazing story and it's it's just amazing how these stories can be so inspirational for other people, too, which is why I'm really glad you wrote your book because these stories there like autobiographies, especially of people that you admire, that you've seen in movies before. It's like those those struggles, they're so real. And when someone's going through something themselves and they can turn to your book, it

can give them a lot. It's fuel for people. It really is. Yeah. And for me as well, I mean, I'm I resisted writing it because I still don't know how or why it can and will inspire people. I can only make assumptions and I think it's so particular to the actual reader and the person, but so I can never sort of pontificate on how or why it's important or not. But it is like it was an achievement for me to get through it word by word that I didn't want to do to relive it and

then because it's in my body and I talk about it all the time. It is it is a part of my narrative as a part of my life. It's just recovery is just it's just my life and I love it. I enjoy it. I I feel better. I look better and all that stuff. But it's like the book now is a tangible sort of this is this is a a great dialogue that we'll have as long as we want. But it's just a dialogue that exists. But now this is a tangible object with words. The

words don't change. They stay there, right? Like a tablet. And something kind of interesting about that is like a milestone or a tangible thing that now it exists in the world, right? And psychologically that says a lot to me. So like even when I do die, that's still there. So maybe it can help somebody even when I can't be there to talk with them or whatever it might be or even exist, right? Something exists long after. Yeah. It's pretty it's pretty interesting because I do movies and things like that or music. Those are like the

same thing as a conversation. They just sort of exist in the moment. Like you know it's great going to a concert but then it's over, right? And then that's it. Well, what happened? Well, I can tell you about the concert, but something about something existing beyond your your your life is something pretty interesting. What was the process like of writing? Did you physically sit down and write things? Did you how did you initially initially I I have a a ghost writer who helped me because I've never written a book. Um I' I've written a lot

but I've never written a book. This is so I wanted to get the format right. And so we would work through this format. It's almost like an outline and then so we just do interview by each of the sections of this outline that we put out. And so then we would just talk like this and they told let's talk about this thing. Tell take me moment by moment in the accident. I'm like all right let's do that. and we'd meet every day for like two, three hours, however long I could sustain going word by word

on it and we'd record it all and things and I would write on my own because it would kick up new memories and started writing about the Lama thing and oh gosh that came up and let me that became a whole chapter in the book uh about breathing breathing my my my awareness to breathing and how it became so important in my life. Um anyway, so I just kept going and writing and writing and writing and then I would do talks to to companies. I would speak to kids at schools. I would all this is

part of the writing experience because you can ask me the same question and then but we're in this environment. But then if I'm with my family and I tell the answer the same question, it's a different it's the same kind of answer but different. So I kept learning more and more data and information was start stored in my brain and my heart and my spirit and I had to unearth it and put it down into words which is which I found to be the most difficult thing because as we speak like I'm doing now it's

it's it's it's free to speak as whatever you want but to write down the words oh wait there's accountability to the words because they're written and you didn't have more you have more word choice. my brain doesn't operate as fast as I' i'd like to for my vocabulary. I'd probably drop way too many fbombs instead of like really great words that I do know, right? You know, so uh it was nice to be able to take the time and spend the agony to really kind of express uh word by word through it, you know, in

in a very real honest way. It's like it's more like a like a diary, a recounting diary than it was trying to um be fancy with words and um over complicate something that's really quite so simple. What was the process like of going over the words and deciding what to keep and what to edit out and how to how to format everything and what what order to talk about things in. The the order always was working for me from the beginning. It allowed for flexibility for what would come up in conversations in in the writing.

It allowed for fluidity, but there's a beginning, middle, and end to this. We already knew the end. I knew the beginning. And so it it was it was the branches off of I didn't know I was going to talk about Lamas in this book. didn't know that was a huge um milestone in my life that got me to understand what conscious breathing was and mitigate pain because there's this whole thing about lamas I was taking at 12 years old my mom was pregnant with my sister and she said put down this the cleat son you're

not going to soccer practice grab a pillow you're coming with me to the class I'm like what class it was class the YMCA and my stepdad was out driving a truck or something and so my mom. She needed also needed me not to be alone, but and she needed, you know, whatever. So, she brought me the oldest and I laid there with a pillow between her legs and teaching her how to breathe and short short breasts and then they pulled down a screen and they showed this midwife birth at home in a bathtub and squirting

out water this whole thing like what's going on? I'm 12 years old. I'm like I'm mortified like what happened? Is that a whale breaching? What was going on? you know, and uh so that came up in just sort of me and my partner talking about it and he's like, "Dude, you don't realize." I'm like, "Yeah, well, this why the book's called My Next Breath." You know, it's all about breathing and breathing was such a essential part of my recovery, my essential part of my ex, you know, not dying and to get through each and every

moment. Uh the perspective of of breath and it is not a conscious thought. It is right. It just it's just it's reflexive in our body and when we make it a consciousness when we invest into our breath what you can do with your mind with your breath right it opens up like if you the more you breathe the more you get oxygen in your body it's just feeding all of us it feeds you it feed only feeds you right because like yawn people yawn and I say the example of like oh you're tired no you're

not tired it's your body letting you know that you need to breathe get more oxygen in your in yourself right so it's you're not tired You just need more O2. That's all. Your body's making that happen. Isn't it fascinating that everybody breathes? So, everybody thinks, "Oh, breathing, what's the big deal?" It's like, have you ever read James Netor's uh breath? Or it's actually breathe, I guess. Uh but it's an amazing book on breathing techniques and the history of breathing techniques and all the different things that people have achieved with breathing techniques including holotropic breathing which

achieves psychedelic states of consciousness and all these you know different feats of incredible physical endurance that people have achieved through breath work. Mhm. It's a pretty amazing book and he was a guest of mine on the podcast a few years back. But I I read his book and started really getting into it and really trying to practice different breathing exercises and great, you know, brea there's a bunch of breathing exercises you can use for anxiety, for overcoming very stressful situations. But when you say that to most people, oh breathing, they're like, oh, you're one of

those guys. They're like, oh, you're concentrating on your breathing. What else you concentrating on? Blinking. You know, it's like because it's like, you know what I mean? It's like you can minimalize it. Yeah. You could you can you have the reductionist perspective where you don't think it's anything big and especially if you've never practiced it. Yeah. Yeah. But you you know, especially with like yogic breathing, you can achieve some bizarre states of relaxation and consciousness through breathing. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. And you could you could I I always try whenever I explain it to somebody

it's I I just I say like when I use it I just like I don't do it like on a daily basis. I mean maybe now I do to um but it's like it's I did it for like you said for anxiety when I was like nervous in an audition. Uh how do I get out of this situation? Like I'm not in my body. My heart's going like this. I'm like I'm not how I can't read these lines and I hear like Sean Penn in the room and I'm supposed to go there and be better

than this guy. I'm like oh I'm freaking out. I'm sweating. So I said, "Screw this." I leave the room. I go out of the building. I go out into the street like on Sunset Boulevard somewhere. Find a tree that's rooted in this damn earth. I'm, you know, it might look ridiculous and I don't care. But the courage to go down on your knees, go by the root, be in this earth, just take some deep 10 deep breaths as cars are honking and da on Sunset Boulevard. I don't give a [ __ ] I'm back in

my body. I'm back on this earth. Here I am. Let's [ __ ] go. And I went back up in that room and I smashed that audition and I don't remember if I got the role or not, but doesn't matter. I was back in my body. I was back in on Earth, right? I wasn't like in the state of hysteria or nervousness or that, you know, because I don't like that feeling. So, I found a way to overcome that feeling. Yeah. Some people might just live in that feeling all the time. They might like it.

I don't know. I don't think they like it. I don't think anybody likes it. I think the problem is you just get trapped in that feeling and then the moment something comes up that's very difficult. Yeah. that causes you to spiral again. You just you lose control. Yeah. You're out of your head. Yeah. I think it's one it's one of the most difficult things about the this whole audition process that actors go through is that, you know, there's this golden carrot that's at the end of this stick. And if you do a good job, you

might be a [ __ ] movie star. You know what I mean? Which seems impossible, right? Right. I mean, it must have seemed impossible before you pulled it off, right? Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's there was that's never like something I was ever aiming for. Really? What were you aiming for? Um, truth and every in everything I was doing. Truth. Yeah. Honesty. And truth. How did you Because if I don't believe it, then how do I expect someone watching me to believe it? You know, I have to ensure that everything I'm doing is truthful and

honest and courageous and bold and, you know, all the things. So, it was never to try to be a movie. I just wanted to work always. I never wanted to be famous. How did you acquire that perspective? Oh, I don't know. It's it's I was clear about what I wanted. Very clear about what I wanted. I didn't move down to LA to be famous. I moved to LA to be in a movie. Be in a movie that was big enough that would play in Modesto, California, where I'm from, because they don't get all the movies

there. Right. Right. And being a part in that movie that I wouldn't have to tell my family, you know, I'm the guy in the red shirt waving in the background. It's a part big enough that you would just know I'm in the movie. Yeah. So, and I got that all those goals uh in the first job I ever did on camera in this national lampoon senior trip movie. So, then I had to recalibrate now new goals to also get myself da da da and I was working enough. So, I never my goals were always to

like and then I wanted to be you know the lead and you know by the time I got like Dmer and then Hurt Locker and all this kind of stuff it just kind of made I was ready for that stuff but I was like 38 by that time. I was like the new guy in town at 38, right? So, isn't that crazy? Yeah. I was just I was just ready and you know I did my journeyman stuff. Was [ __ ] amazing. This is one of the most complex movies about a very bizarre psychological state

that people acquire or that people fall into when it comes to war. Yeah. Yeah. What was it like getting into that mindset? It's it was interesting. I got to spend, you know, I was at Fort Irwin for about a year learning how to build bombs and render them safe, you know, for a year. Yeah. Yeah. And got just got to spend time with the guys and gals off ca off c off off campus off base. Um interesting. I love I love the whole experience, you know, and then got to go shoot the movie and that

was on the Iraqi border in Jordan during the war and uh it's 135 degrees and 100 pound bombsuit, you know, you're just it's not even hot anymore. It's just sort of like you let that go. It's just you just are it's kind of a spiritual sort of place you have to go in that kind of that kind of heat, right? Um, and also you're drinking enough water. Like, you know, how am I drinking all this water? You're not even taking a leak and like, "Yo, I'm so dehydrated. Got to be careful." Um, and that's, you

know, Yeah. pretty pretty interesting. Pretty interesting, um, experience, you know. What were the conversations like when you were talking to the people that actually did that? Well, most of them look like, you know, school teachers. There's like one one or two guys that one guy was like kind of built like huge big guy br the rest of them were like you know the guy I know did three tours he was he's just looks like he's totally out of shape. His stomach was way bigger than his chest just kind of kind of this guy did three

tours. This guy's no joke. It's all mental. It's all such a mental game because you have to be cool in those high intense situations because you're dealing with 155 explosives that'll blow this building off the block. And uh the the the the level of intensity is really interesting. Like they were so comfortable around C4 and all these things and blah blah and you got to be careful these blasting caps and all these things that people were getting injured all the time. They got really uncomfortable when I took them to a bar in LA. Why? We

were sitting at the bar and I asked I'm like what's going on? It's the is the big guy. I can't remember his name. He's like I don't like where we're sitting. Like what? What do you mean? He's like I need my back to the wall. and you know where the exit is at and right and like interesting like because I sit like that kind of as well. I don't like to have I don't think it's a trust issue. I just like to kind of I'd have my back to somewhere I know where the exit is

where the bathroom is. I look for the the most dangerous man in the room, the hottest girl in the room. It's just do like a like a Terminator checklist, right? And that was supported by how these guys thought. And it's that same kind of thing. They just notice everything just data. Okay, now I can go be here. I assess the room and I feel safe. Situational awareness. Yeah, sit awareness. I always had that, but like really doing that role and spending so much time with these crew of amazing people. Um, just heightened that for me.

The I've always been quiet and observer and this is where I just got information. I could tell you the color of the the hinges if they match the finish on the doorork knobs and places and it's just that my how my brain works and always. Yeah. Yeah. Alcohol's awesome. I'm a home builder and designer, so I kind of pay attention to that kind of stuff anyway. Um, but it sort of just kind of helps me out in life, I guess. And so when you were preparing for Hurt Locker, was it your decision to spend a

year doing this? Well, no, it wasn't about the amount of time. I think I was maybe to go for maybe a few months. Katherine Bigalow, the director, um, just sort of introduced me, said, "All right, they they're ready for you out the base if you want to go." So kind of went out and just kind of did it all on my own and just waiting for the movie to kind of get up and get green lit and go. Then just took a little bit longer. I think we're waiting for one of the actors that was

doing another job to finish and then we could start and then uh and then it wasn't an easy independent film to kind of get up and get rolling. But once we did, we were rocking. But yeah, it it didn't meant to be like a year year and a half. It was she just called me and she's like, "Are you ready to go?" I'm like, "Yeah, like like I'm getting deployed." Like, "Yeah, let's go. I'm ready." And then I also like we didn't even have a like an EOD sort of tech on on the shoot. I

had to be the person that and I'm I had to call back. I'm like, I don't know. This doesn't look right. They set up these these 155s and it's electrical and it should be dead cord and all these all these things that I learned, but I wasn't an expert by any means. I I I just wanted to make it look authentic in the movie. So, I had to call back and call me back. Let me take a picture of this [ __ ] I don't think it's right. Oh, wow. And um Yeah. So I Well,

that's fortunate that you had so much experience then. Yeah, it was great. It was great because if there's anything out of in that movie, especially for people that actually did that that takes you out of it. Yeah. You know, Yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't want to do that cuz we wanted to be very authentic to what we were doing. We are still making a movie, but let's live in this world. And look, the the the narrative is the the characters that live in this bizarre world in a very relevant time in this this war that

we're in. And and and also the struggles of, you know, soldier in civilian life and because they were civilians and now they became soldiers, they'd be put in prison for life for doing the [ __ ] they're getting paid to do now. And that, you know, and that was a wonderful sort of outcome of the movie of how it bridged that sort of gap or the struggles of with PTSD and coming back from this harrowing sort of existence and war and then coming back and like like the serial aisle that example of like oh really

like you know or in the rain and like you appreciate the sun. It just it's just such a polar opposite and like this is my existence and it became such a really a wonderful sort of starting point for like wives to deal with their husbands that came back like they can you kind of understand a little bit of what they might have gone through just in general like the the broad strokes of how hard it is and then to come back and then like you know change diapers and do the thing you know what I

mean it's uh that became such a a powerful thing in in that narrative that I found after we did it and we're showing it to all the military bases and um it's it's always going to be a special um experience in my life and I'll always be connected to a lot of soldiers because of that. Well, it was a really well done movie and it was the way you could well there was a thing about that movie that made you think in a way or made me think in a way that I don't think I

ever thought before like oh I never considered what this transition to civilian life is like after dealing with the unbelievable stress of being in a war zone diffusing bombs and then wanting to go back. Yeah. Like but it made you understand. It made you understand like oh [ __ ] he wants to go back like oh my god like watching a movie like when a movie can do that to you when it could take you into that psychology of the person that would be in that state. Yeah. And and make it make sense like that's

that was a great movie. Yeah. I'm just happy to be part of it. It was more than just you know it wasn't just a story. It was like you're you're documenting a very real condition. Yeah. that you know through art you put words to these people's existence where they don't you know they don't have anybody representing that. Yeah. You know that's why it means a lot to me and and they let me know it means a lot to them and that's the most special thing like [ __ ] it the movie part of it. I

think it's it's created a dialogue for a lot of broken families or and united families better or there's a like you said it's a a greater understanding of like that difference of soldier civilian life. It's a great bridge for it. Yeah, I remember very proud of that. I saw it and then I went back to the comedy store and uh I I said uh oh man we saw Hurt Locker last night and my friend went dude and I went dude and that was like all we had to say like [ __ ] man that it's

like that it was that kind of movie that's just like oh my god like it just gives you anxiety and it also it also just makes you like really reflect and and think about what war is and the and the requirement that you're putting on human beings to try to get them to transition from this insane chaos back into civilian life with no real guidance. Yeah. Just you figure this out now you're now you're back in this in the serial aisle. Yeah. Yeah. Starbucks or you're like ah Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. How do you decide

like what roles to pick when you know you're at this sort of stage in your life where you're so well known you know you people come to you with things and you have to decide whether or not this project is something that resonates with you. Well now it's different. Um you know the the central part of my life for for so long was my career and then my daughter came around and then she's number one. So then I would do the job that would allow me still to be a father because I'm not gonna not

be a father because my job takes me away for long periods of time and just not doing that in far places. So I would so I'm not I'm not working out of the country anymore once my daughter was born. So I always had reach and access to my daughter, you know, as fast as I needed to be. And then now after the incident, I it's even tightened up more and loosened up more because my daughter is now 12 and she doesn't need me as much. She wants her friends a little bit more, right? A little

bit lower on the tonal pole just temporarily, I know. But um and also I can I can travel like I just worked last summer on a job. There's a movie called Knives Out. Um and then they got I got brought my whole family with me. Knives Out was great. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. So this is going to be a really good one, too. But I was able to bring my entire family out. Like 15 15 people came out because they a lot of them not well traveled and I got to see a lot of Europe.

Took my mom and my daughter to the Olympics in in Paris. Dope. Got to spend a couple weeks in Italy and just kind of celebrate. Yeah. So we can do that kind of stuff now. So I did the job essentially just to have a summer vacation with my family. Oh, nice. So that's kind of how I decide and also I did love the character. I did love I mean come on. All that has to line in there too. I'm not just going to do a job for a job but it just lined up. But my

family has to be involved. My daughter has to be involved. Um, uh, friends have to be involved. Otherwise, I'm not going to remove myself from all those shared experience with people in my life just so I can go do a movie. I don't want to do any movie that bad. So, um, that's my limitation. Well, that's that limitation is real success, too. Do you really choose things that you're actually passionate about that fit within these parameters and allow you to live your life the way you want to? Yeah. And work with people that inspire me.

and think, you know, I'm just not going to do a job like you can't pay me. I mean, you could put trillion dollars in front of me. Go do this. You only need you for two weeks. I'm like, it doesn't fit. Doesn't check all the boxes that have real value, the shared experience, the joy with my daughter, my family, my friends, and you know, then it's just not worth it to me. You know, I I don't need to go act for to do a job. I don't. Right. You know, you do it because you want

to. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's to me what retirement is. and I'm doing what I want to do with who I want to do it with and I'm still always gonna be busy and work all my life I'll do that. Yeah, but stop retired. But am I Yeah, but it is my life. Well, it is in my mind. I'm a busy guy and I like I like to I like to I like to contribute. I'm very busy doing the renovation foundation, right? which is a huge big central part of my life with my family that

runs this this uh charitable foundation in my community in Lake Tahoe for foster youth and disadvantaged youth and giving them opportunities that they don't have these poor kids u and that's great and I love that I love I get but is that retirement like you know it's it's going to keep me busy for till I die it's weird that you have to frame things in a ter like career or retirement it's really just life life and passions yeah exactly But I don't think a lot of people are doing what they want to do in their

life anyway. Um, but yeah, I I'll always always work, always do the things I love to do, and I'm still continuing to do the things I love to do just on my own terms, right? I wouldn't be able to start this foundation if I wasn't living life on my own terms. I am satiated beyond satiated. I don't need anything. I require a shared experience on this earth and that is it. Is this more so now since the accident? Uh, well, it's always been that, but there was a lot of things in the way or things

I allowed to be in the way or things I put in the way. Allowed to be in the way. Yeah, I allowed to be in the way. And now I do not. I refute it. I push it away. I I'm certainly clear when I put obstacles on my own way, when I get my own way. We all do that [ __ ] too. But, uh, so I I'm just very very very clear and I keep I oversimplify life because life is just that simple. If we complicate it, then you're going to have an over complicated

life and it's just not as valuable. I think I live both. Yeah. And the wonderful over oversimplification has allowed me to again use the word retirement in my mind. I'm just living a life that I want to live, right? that I deserve to live, that I choose to live and not be limited or rabbit holed or victimized by society or the country I'm living in or the neighborhood I'm living in or the job I have or you know and just not I don't have any limitations because I'm do I'm making manifest everything that I have

in my life and it feels great and you know I'm the captain of the ship. That's right. It might take a minute to turn this [ __ ] around, right? But I'm the captain of this damn ship. but it's called my life and I think everybody has a capacity to do so. Well, that's another beautiful thing of living life by example that can inspire people because that's really what people want to do. They want to live a life where they feel like this is great like what I'm doing is what I want to do. They

don't most people they don't live like that. Most people they have this dream in the future one day I will be able to live the way I want to but I'm not doing it right now. Right. Right. I think I think that's a trap. Personally, I think you're doing it already. The journey is there. There's no end result besides Yeah. You I know, but there's so many narratives that people adhere to. There's so many narratives out there in culture where they tell you you should be doing this and you should be doing that and yeah,

this is a concentrate on your 401k and your this and that. What are your investments? Yeah. And you [ __ ] the end of the night you need a pill to go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's it's even crazier now with social media and all that. All the that's poison. That's just white noise. Garbage. I've been off it lately for like the last few weeks where I I literally just check it when I'm taking a [ __ ] and that's it. Yeah. And I look I look to see if there's anything crazy

going on in the world just so I know what's what's happening. Yeah. But I don't ever get involved. I don't ever like argue with people or post things and I just see people doing it and I'm like, you're losing your [ __ ] mind. And I've had conversations with friends and they're like, you know, you know what? [ __ ] this and that and that and this. I'm like, why? Why are you paying attention? This is like, let's go outside. Look, look at all the birds. Yeah. Look, it's beautiful. Look at the clouds. What a

lovely day. Like, you're you're alive in America in 2025 is like a magical time to be alive. When you're concentrating on some [ __ ] that literally has no effect on your life and you're making it your primary focus, that is the definition of madness. Yeah. I mean, it really is. Yeah. You're freaking out about things that aren't even here. Yeah. Well, that's where you get in your way. You're giving that value. You don't have to, you know? Yeah. But, you know, it's just like perspective is a very difficult thing to earn. And so, it

is. It is. Well, right. What how do we get it? How do we get it? Experience, right? Experience. overcoming adversity, developing character, shared experience, that's a big part of it, you know, like with people that you love and you you really connect with who you surround yourself with. So important, right? That's most of the key to life. Yeah. Like if you surround yourself with really great people, you're forced to become a really great person. It's like you have to keep up with it. Yep. This foundation, tell me how you started that. uh initially started with

a a show that I produced and put on Disney Plus which is called Renovations and it was taking I didn't like to see a lot of uh vehicles go to waste um like purpose-built vehicles like a city bus or a fire truck and all these things that supposed to go a long long long ways but they just replace them even though they're perfectly good vehicles. So I wanted to repurpose those and help them and help u you know communities in need and like so it's taking like I built one which to be a water truck

like a box truck to be a water water uh treatment plant to give um kids uh in villages with terrible water and be able to you know reverse osmosis their water give them drinkable water their school or take a there's a took a city bus and turned it into like a dance studio mobile dance studio for these kids in in Mexico and just these creative sort of things and it's kind of like Pit My Ride but with like real valuable things, you know, just take these really cool purpose-built trucks and staying and make it something

really spectacular for these kids, all kids driven to give them um what their what their needs are. And then it just went into like I didn't want to make it about just vehicles when I wanted to start the foundation. It became a wonderful calling card. And then I so I started the foundation and my sister works for DCFS was child protective services in Los Angeles County and one of my best girlfriends in in Reno, she also works for CPS Child Protective Services there. So I've been working with foster youth for many many many years uh

privately and now I just wanted to really get invested into the community. I started small in northern greater northern Nevada and it's and then my sister now is running it and Shane is running it as well with me and the whole family's now gotten involved and it's been really wonderful to come back from the incident. Have this be a central goal for uh us to celebrate our time together as a family and to give back to these kids that are in great need. And it is it is a been a dream of mine that I've

been wanting to do for a long time and now do it publicly. I've been doing it privately for a long time and to really make a big big splash and and make a lot of movement um for these kids. And it's I think it's one of the reasons why I was brought back outside of all the other things. But I think there's something working in my favor to to come back outside just you know my family and and I think it is my reach to kids and my ability to have a great effect for them

and it's been uh a couple years now and it's already been moved move moved the mountains for kids already and will continue to do so. This is like me breathing. This is easy. I love this. This is a part of my fiber in my body. I'm the oldest of seven in my family. I've been changing diapers and living as the oldest. It's sort of my birthright to be able to do. What makes it even cooler is that I'm I'm a Marvel superhero, so I have like a reach and access to these kids that they even

listen to, right? They're like, "Oh, cool. Let's go to camp with Hawkeye. That's just dope." And they all show up with plastic sacks, right? And this is like all their valuables in their life. And it makes me weep, right? And this is all they're worth. And they show up with Hefty bags, all of them. So we give them rollers with their names on and a passport is a journal. And they can I'm going to change the narrative of this of their of their tra you're a traveler now. You're a world traveler. You're not you're not

carrying your trash around. We're all your your worth in it. Your worth is much bigger than that. We're going to just planting seeds like that in their head and then creating community for them. Creating opportunities for them, safe places for them, giving them more educated stuff, giving we g we brought in recording studio bus for them to touch all these instruments they'd never have access to. Who knows what that does? I don't care. Let it let it have access to things, right? Give these kids opportunities that they deserve. This is the future of our [

__ ] planet. Why aren't we giving more time and effort to that? It's the future of our world, man. Just give them just give them all the tools. We need another uh Elon. We need other super smart, amazing people, man. We need that. We need other leaders. And you know, what do we give in our youth, especially our foster youth, man? It's not a good look. They've gone through a lot of struggles, these kids, man. and they're not going to struggle. Not on my dime, not on my time. That's amazing. So, it's easy for thing

for me to do. I love it's a great focus for me that's um outside of uh it's things I enjoy, right? I still do things that I enjoyed. I just get to do it with these kids and have they teach me so much. I learned so much. They keep me in a really youthful spirit. I It's It's harrowing to hear what they've been through. Joe, I don't like to know. My sister knows all about it. Shaya knows all about it because they get the phone calls. They have relationships with a lot of these kids. They

know, dude. I mean, I'd flip you. You You'd probably react like I would. You want to flip a table. You want to go hurt some people, you know, and it's so I'd prefer not to know how they got touched and who did it and da da, you know, this kind of stuff. I just choose to focus on let's give these kids a plant some seeds of hope. And I'm good at that [ __ ] That's awesome. And I love it. So, we're on jet skis. They're talking about they've never even been to this lake and

so whatever the heck it is, new experiences, new joy, new friends. They're all crying at the end of this camp because they had such a good damn time. One of them was getting adopted and she was crying because like I can't come back because I'm not a foster kid anymore. I got adopted. Like, no, you can come back. You know, you know, you did good then. When she didn't want to get adopted, like ah, it means we're doing something right for these kids and we're going to continue doing it. And we're doing it not only

just as a camp, but we're doing like lots of programs throughout the year to keep the community of the foster youth community together. A lot of these kids are brothers and sisters that never get to see each other because they're in separate homes, separate cities. One's in Vegas, one's in Reno, right? This that's dude, you can't do that. You can't do that. So, we're doing our best to unite community, right? Unite. You need We need each other. These kids need each other even beyond they they don't need me. They need access and reasons to be

together. So, it's it's helping the the foster parents. It's helping the kids. It's whatever we can do. We're going to start building um youth centers as well. We'll be building homes as well in the future uh with the foundation. But we're starting um step by step, breath at a time, uh brick at brick by brick and um building camps and and uh activities and education for them. And it's I love it. You can see how much I love it. I can talk about this for days, man. You're you lit up when you're talking about Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel I love it, man. I can't. We have these camps coming up here in June and July. So, uh I'm pumped. Can't wait to finish this job and go uh go go go go go back home. That's incredible. Yeah, it's kind of shocking that it takes individuals to be inspired to do something like this because society doesn't put any emphasis on this. Well, it's like look, there's a there's fost states have fostered programs, right? There's that's why but there's gaps in the system, man. It's like kids forgotten kids are forgotten and then

some are it's you know it's it's it's tragic. It's but um you put a spotlight on something um put energy into something um it builds and I got a loud voice and a big heart and I'm very actionable what I do and that's why the foundation's growing and and and making the the moves and and making the um paving ways for for these kids. So I'll keep doing it, man. And it's like it's easy to me. How long have you been doing this now? Um publicly only a couple years. It's just just started out. So,

you know, then it's like learning about oh god, the nonprofit stuff. It's like, oh man, it's like going out and asking for money. So, I don't do that. I'll go do like voiceover jobs and like put money in the account for I I hate asking for money for for foundation stuff, you know? I'll let somebody else kind of bother that. I I I do I stay in my lane. I work with the kids and work with the the ideas and the programs and I let my sister and uh those guys and the board deal with

like having to raise money and all those kind of things. It's just not my wheelhouse. Well, unfortunately, when people hear nonprofit, they always think, "Okay, well, where's the money really going?" Well, that's what it is. And that's why we operate at 8%. I think 8%. Yeah. Nobody. Incredible. That's the opposite of how they're usually done. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, even if we got to because no one's no one takes anything except just basic operating costs and if we're operating at 8% I think maybe 13%. It's like all the money is going to the

kids, man. All of it. All of it. All of it. So, so I'm trying to get to the bank account to be full so we only operate off uh the uh interest. Once we're there, then we can really start to start start to move needle for for building things and doing some stuff in the future. So, I'm excited for that. Are you going to expand this? Yeah, it'll grow. It'll grow. Uh I'm again I think that to keep effective for me is staying in in the home area or just the state of Nevada at least

and not not going too far. So because I still I'm very very hands-on and it's important for me to to be the voice for the foundation and and for these kids and an advocate for them and uh so I I Nevada is kind of the goal for the next maybe the next five years for sure. And there's still a ton of kids that I have not reached and need to reach. So I I I focused on that. That's amazing. Yeah. Then there's a then there's you then there's like getting the that these youth that they

age out but getting back into being counselors back in the camp. Um there's a great thing with UNR with they get a free ride at the at the the university and a lot of them are going back into sociology and psychology and want to go help kids in foster like this is so great. I want to give them opportunities to come back and and help uh the youth and maybe give them guidance. God, this is awesome. Self-healing and cathartic in its own way. Whatever we can do, man. It's a it's it's a it's a it's

a wonderful wonderful life. It's amazing because you light up when you talk about that like nothing else we've talked about. Yeah, it's Yeah, it is. Uh it's everything. It's it's again I'm focusing my energy on all the positive stuff, you know, because and I because I can't I'm too sensitive to deal with the the the hardships that they go through. So, let me just be a a a guide a guiding light for them or or someone to laugh on. They sign my t-shirts, whatever they want to do. I don't care. I'm their I'm their playground.

Um I I love it, man. Again, I think it's it's I think it's the reason why I came back, Joe. That's incredible. Well, you could see that it means so much to you. Yeah. And that's just if you could find something like that in life, you're a winner. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just that you'll think of the the amount of positive energy you put out there in the world. Yeah. That's it's pretty exponential to also it cascades. Yeah. Yeah. The ripple effect of that Yeah. is insane. Change their life. They'll change other people's lives. Yeah.

And then comes back. It's it's it's pretty what you put out in the world is what you get back, you know. Yeah. I I see it every day and it's exponential, especially now since the incident. Yeah. The ripple effect of just Dude, this happened in my driveway. It's a private experience. I woke up and it was a global thing. I didn't ask for that. I'm so kind of glad it did. It allowed people to see me as the man that I am and not the guy that slings an arrow, right? You know what I mean?

It's a fake era because it's CGI, right? You know, so that so I'm glad it became a a big public thing, but you know, the ripple effect of of just that this narrative of the recovery is like you said, it can affect a lot of people and it's a beautiful thing. It's a positive thing and um like the foundation and I see it and feel it every day. You really lead an exemplary life, my friend. Well, you really do. What's what's the alternative? I know. But I mean, it's interesting that you have this perspective. Like

I'm I'm always curious that people that have such an amazing perspective like how did you gain it? Like how did you get to this place? Yeah. Well, I mean you have to I think you have to life and review, right? Yeah. You know, it's a life in review. I think there's I think you know there's birth order, right? is also being in the 70s in the small town where I was a Latchki kid, right? You didn't I I had free reign. I was seven years old and a key to the house and didn't have to

come home to the street lights came on. Right. Me, too. No, I Yeah, I made mistakes. Yeah. I broke windows and slingshots and stole [ __ ] and light up the cigarette butt and my my mom's and all this stuff and I got caught and sometimes I learned I reprimand myself. I self-p policed myself. Um, I was a very honest kid. Uh, you know, I had there's a lot lot of lot of things, you know, I had I had a bicycle and then that was like freedom. That's what I I be like, "Oh, I have

real freedom." I grabbed a fishing pole, got on my bike, and just went off into another county. Yeah. Like that wouldn't happen today. I would never allow my daughter walk across the street. I had similar life. I was a Latchki kid, too. And I just think the whole Where was this? Well, I lived all over the place, but I lived when I was 7 to 11, I lived in San Francisco. From 11 to 13, I lived in Florida. From 13 till 24, I lived in Boston. Oh, wow. Then New York and out here. Oh, wow.

And well, LA, rather, and then out here last five years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I lived all over the place. Yeah, that's a good mix, right? Well, the good thing about living in a bunch of different places, the bad thing is I never really developed roots, right? And but I had to form my own opinions because I couldn't count on the opinions of all the people around me. I didn't I didn't have like a core group of friends. So I always had to like sort of see the world for what it was. Yeah. Did that make

you an introvert or an extrovert or both? I think I was an introvert initially. I don't think I ever even though I talk for a living and I'm a public figure, I'm not really an extrovert which is really odd. Like I don't really like attention, which sounds crazy for someone who gets a lot of attention. I don't need it, you know, which is probably why I get it for in some strange Yeah. some strange like I was very socially anxious when I was a kid. Like I I would get super nervous when I had to

talk to a bank teller. I remember one time I had to deposit money in a bank and I was like, why am I freaking out like this? This is so weird, right? you know, um, but eventually overcame all that stuff and then, you know, through martial arts through traveling around all throughout my youth from the time I was 15 till I was 22. It's all I did was travel around the country and competing. So, I had a very bizarre life in that. I didn't have like the normal high school life of partying and hanging out.

No, I was, you know, flying to California to fight, right? And it was weird. It was a very weird life, you know. So, I, you know, I did, I still wasn't an extrovert. Like, I didn't really learn how to talk in groups of people till I started teaching. So, I started teaching martial arts and then that's how I learned how to public speak, but I was publicly speaking about something that I was very good at. So it was like I commanded sort of attention just by because I would demonstrate to them things that I was

doing and then in in demonstrating and talking it made sense that I was able to talk about something you knew very well and you're comfortable in. Yeah. You know it's like I was really good at it so I could show them like I'm going to demonstrate something to you and then I' I'd do it and they'd be like holy [ __ ] I'd be like I'm going to show you how to do this. Yeah. And then if you listen to me, like I I taught at Boston University and um when I was 19 and it

was a real counted towards your GPA, it was like pass fail A. And I'd say all you have to do is show up and try and you get an A. And if you can't show up, call me, tell me you can't make it and you'll be fine. If you [ __ ] off, I'm going to fail you. But if you just try, you get an A. And then it counts towards your GPA. This is like a legit thing. Yeah. I go all I want you to do is like this can help your life and I'm

not thinking you're going to go and fight and compete but I can teach you something here. Yeah. And it's difficult but you'll get better at it. And through getting better at it you'll learn how to get better at other things. The discipline and Yeah. It's great. So that's like how I got into comedy in the oddest way like learning how to talk to people like because I wasn't comfortable talking to people. I always felt like a loser and a weirdo and I always felt like an outcast. Yeah. So for to learn how to talk publicly

like that's how I did you know but all that traveling around just gave me this very bizarre like rootless sense of who I was as a person. Is there anything that you grab that from from that experience that you hold on to? I mean like to you know from there some positive things that kind of come out from that. Right. Like I I like I went to a different school every year of my life, at least until I got to high school. But I was in the same town. I didn't move around a lot. Maybe

just in the town I did divorce and all that sort of stuff or schools were full or whatever it was. So I had to either engage with people all brand new people each grade, new school, new grade. Yeah. And then you know, you're growing up. I I was I was more shy and I think more like you, like an introvert. And so either I either was very gregarious or I just was an observer and Right. I just watched. So you just make choices and um that's why I became an observer. But with that uh I

don't know I I like I like that part of me and I can be extroverted like I'm an actor in a thing but I'm still more insular and quiet and even though the two quiet guys are yapping their jaws off for hours. Well I mean you it was hard but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Yeah, because I think it made me different, you know, and I think there's unfortunately if you are in like a small town and you you grow up in that town and you never leave that town, your perspective is

very limited. Yeah. Yeah. And I moved around a lot and I think that was very uncomfortable. I hated it when I was a kid. Like, [ __ ] we're moving again to another state. Like, this is crazy. But that made me who I am. It and it again it made me form my own opinions instead of adopting a conglomeration of opinions that everybody around me had, you know, and I I went from very liberal and progressive San Francisco in the 1970s during the Vietnam War to living in Florida where it was like completely the opposite,

like super conservative and kind of [ __ ] And I remember just being around people like why do they even why do they even think like this? Like this is crazy. It was so strange to me to have this like complete juxtiposition almost like a cultural 180. But it also made me realize like wow there's a lot of different ways to think. There's a lot of different ways to engage with life. Yeah. you know. Well, is it don't we like especially growing up right because you're saying like seven 8 13 14 all those years we

those we look to our friends and friendship groups to sort of like kind of help develop ourselves and right kind of be a reflection upon ourselves and if you don't have it you have other things that you you know you turn to but you know there could like you said it could have been a terrible thing if you stayed in the same place and you had the same core four dudes and then how limited your life would have been to staying in San Fran or you know so it could it's Like you said, there's a

real good positive thing to take from being removed from stability, removed from right that's all anxietyinducing and or it could be perspective, right? The perspective could be if it's a positive perspective, you know, to lean on Yeah. Like you said, I like how I came in a thing and it drove you into all the the things that you probably like about yourself today. I think it's pretty interesting. Yeah. And it also like I got picked on a lot too, which that's what drove me into martial arts. Yeah. Boston. Yeah. I was like, I hate being

scared of people. It just drove me nuts. I didn't have friends. So, like a group of guys would [ __ ] with me and I didn't know what to do. So, I was like, "Okay, I got to fix this." And so, I became obsessed with martial arts. And then once I started doing that, it was like the first thing that I ever did. I was like, "Hey, I don't think I'm a loser. I just think I never figured out how to get good at something." And now that I'm really good at this one thing, I'm

like the opposite of a loser. And then I became obsessed with winning, you know? And then that was like my whole life until I was like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. And then I, you know, transitioned to other things. But that period of time wouldn't have happened if I lived in a comfortable environment where I wasn't [ __ ] with where I didn't get bullied. You know, I wouldn't have that desire to like do something that was completely terrifying because I was scared of physical confrontation. So what do I do? spend

my whole life gv involved in like voluntary physical confrontation with trained fighters, right? Which is way more terrifying, right? The most terrifying thing, you know, was, you know, but that Well, what's the alternative? Oh, just be scared and be bullied and beat the [ __ ] up or That's why I had to decide, you know, take the reigns. I had to decide that. I just had to make this change, you know. Yeah. Fortunately, it worked out. Yeah. It's very bizarre the turns that life takes and when you look back you're like what if that hadn't

happened? What if I hadn't done this? What if I hadn't What if I hadn't turned left instead? Yeah. The crossroads are so so instrumental in who we become, right? And what and in control of that like we're not steering any ship at that point, right? No. So much of it is luck or whatever it is or fate. Whatever fate means. Yeah. You know what I mean? Fate is kind of assumed once an outcome has been achieved. Oh, it was fate. Yeah. In hindsight. Was it really? In hindsight, you could say that. Yeah. I'm not sure.

To say that in the moment, right? I do think there's there's a certain power to following instincts, which I've always done for whatever reason. You know, there's a there's a pull that you have towards a certain direction, even if it's like massively uncomfortable. Like sometimes you have to realize like, okay, let's go. Like this is what I'm supposed to do. And that that is very hard to do. But once you do it a few times and then you start saying there, there's a little voice in your head like that motherfucker's never let me down. I'm

gonna keep serving that voice. Whatever that voice is, I'm gonna I'm keep listening. Even though people are like, "What are you doing?" And I'm like, "H I'm not gonna listen to you." I hear that a lot. Yeah. I think so do a lot of people that have accomplished great things. Yeah. I don't think anybody who listens to the advice of everyone around them ever steps out of line. Yeah. You know, I think you I don't think you ever really try anything crazy. Yeah. Exactly. cuz most people aren't going to want to support you when you're

trying something that seems insane. Whether it's trying to be a movie star or whatever it is, trying to be a martial artist or a rock star or anything in life that's hard to do. Most people are going to tell you don't do that. Especially people that are conservative in conservative in a sense of like do something that is going to give you a a good chance of success. Yeah. Because the more fun things are very open-ended. They don't really have a lot of su like what are the what's what are the numbers of people that

become successful actors? Oh, I mean it's is it like a tenth of a percent? Is it that? It's probably not even that. Yeah, probably not even that. It's probably less than that. I mean, if you could like get a chart of like how many people move to Los Angeles to try to make it in show business and how many make it? It's got to be an astronaut. And the numbers The numbers are not good. Insane. Those numbers have to be insane. Yeah, but my thought was like, [ __ ] somebody's doing it. Like, somebody did

it. Like, why can't I do it? And then people would say, you're not, you know, with the odds you're going to make it. Like, I don't know. Why am I thinking about that? Someone, it can be done. People have done it. Like, you got to But you have to be willing to just really [ __ ] throw yourself into something. Yeah. and know that especially in the beginning, there's no time to [ __ ] off here. If you really want to do something that's really hard to do, like you got to be all in cuz

there's too many people that are all in and you're competing with them. You're not competing with these like half steppers, these people that are kind of dipping in and dipping out. They're they're there as an example for you to not live your life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, isn't there like a kind of a selective hearing that kind of has to happen in in anything for anyone? We have to listen and really listen to engage and really listen to learn and grow. Yeah. But then we have to have selective listening to like how many times I

was told no or told I was told I was crazy or told like what are you doing? You out of your mind? I'm like now I was on I knew I'm on the right track when I hear that. Because that's that's the that's the words of a fearful person. Those those are those are those are the words uttered from someone who's scared and not courageous and a lot of stuff's in their way. I'm on the right track. You know, there are those people that would try to sabotage you because they don't want you to be

successful because they haven't taken a chance in their life. So, they don't want anybody who does who's courageous to they want you to fail. There's people out there that want people that are courageous to fall apart because then it makes them feel better for their own choices. Yeah. It's okay. That's they got they got to live with that. I I don't. Right. Right. They got to swim in that. I don't. Again, I I think that those things are just like you need the rain to appreciate the sun. Yeah. You know, you need to struggle to

appreciate. They they have to coexist otherwise they don't exist. Right. It's like a truth and a lie. They both have to exist otherwise everything's just [ __ ] true. Right. Right. Right. So that you have to coexist together otherwise you don't. That's the hardest part of life to truly understand. Like why is there evil? Because you need love. You need good. Like why why do why can't everything be love? Well, it can't. It can't. There has to be evil people for you to appreciate loving people, you know. There really has to be kind people for

you to, you know, to appreciate. Oh, okay. Life is not just all cruelty. And but you have to know that cruelty exists for you to appreciate kindness. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. Yeah. It's a weird dance. And it's it's it's strange. Yeah. Like if God is real, like what a strange game he's playing, but you can kind of when it all works out, you see wisdom in it, you know? You like I kind of get it. Yeah. Like the life is not just utopia. It's a strange mix of good and evil. Yeah. And and and love and

hate and and all these things that are in the way that those tests, man, those tests, don't they suck? They do. all the all the tests we have in our lives and everybody has them. Everybody, there's nobody that's exempt from it. No, how much money, how successful, no h you are all we're all susceptible to great test and great suffering. Yeah. It's how well you overcome that suffering uh will determine how well you love and deeply you love in your life. And also the people that have overcome the most are the most fascinating and interesting

and complex people, aren't they? Aren't they? Have you ever met Amanda Knox? Do you know who she is? Yeah, I know she is. She's that woman that was uh accused wrongly of a murder in Italy. Yeah, I remember that. She spent years in prison and in Italy and she is so fascinating. She's so strong and so interesting. And I asked her about this. I was like, "Do you ever think like you are this really unusual person with this like [ __ ] cast iron integrity and character? Would you be this person if you hadn't been

wrongly accused and spent years in prison and publicly persecuted and then eventually absolved? Like, who would you be? I mean, would you want it any other way? I mean, I don't Right. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, but yet here you meet her. She's so incredible. It's like life is very very odd. Yeah. And there's choices that she could have made right in in that. She could have been like resentful. I don't know how she is, so I don't know. She's not at all. Yeah. But like, you know, there's and she could have been valid

in any really kind of feeling she has about things cuz that's all sounds pretty shitty, right? You got to and uh but you know, again, what's the alternative? You you want to hold on to resentment and that kind of is that the life you want to live because it's your choice, right? Or how I'd like [ __ ] sounds like an interesting person to talk about. But um you know is it a choice? Is it a choice for her? Did she feel like it was a choice? Like you know certainly wasn't. Yeah. Did she feel

like that that made her who she is and she's content with that or I mean she's she's certainly resigned to what it is. But she's very happy now, right? But not just happy like complex like a complex compassionate charitable thinker. What's the What's the conversation if she's still in the in the joint, you know? Oh yeah. You know, I mean, she's still in the clank and there's no hope of her getting out. Well, she learned a lot in there, too. I bet people like what the the terrible choices that people make cuz most of the

people that were in there were guilty, you know, and that and the terrible choices that these people make and like what happened to you when you were young like why did you become a person who murdered your husband? Why did you become a person who, you know, robbed a bank? Why did you what what what went wrong? You used to be a baby. You know, this is just something that I really um changed one being a parent really changed my perspecting of human beings in a very profound way in many many profound ways, but one

of the biggest ones is I stopped looking at people as being static. I stopped looking at, oh, Jeremy's 54. He's always been 54. This is how I know it. Now I look at everybody like, oh, you were a baby. You were a baby. Like I, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I I love my daughters dearly and they're very extraordinary people, but it's been fascinating to watch them as little babies become these really complex human beings and have conversations with them and talk to them and see how they interface with life and and

then I, you know, meet people who are all [ __ ] up and, you know, angry and [ __ ] hateful and res godamn what happened? What what went wrong? Yeah. you know what are the things that and how do you get out of this you know it's interesting it's you know well I mean it's there's so many trials and tribulations in this wonderful existence that we all share and I think we learn a lot through other people's not just your own but other people's yeah yeah for sure well that's the hope anyway we can

right well I think a lot of people are going to learn a lot through you and without having to do it in a fearful way or scare tactics or you know what I mean that doesn't really work. Yeah. Yeah. But it's used everywhere in media and right advertising and all that kind of stuff, right? But like to do it in a in an honest way or it's like I hope I still learn by talking about my experience, right? I still learn by looking through the book or listening to the audio. I'll be listening to the

audio soon when I have my daughter and all my nieces and nephews around. They're going to listen to it. We're all going to listen to it together. because I'm not going to have him go off reading this thing. It's too harrowing to do it alone. But like I'll be listening to it and I'm going to learn through it and but and with that experience and that exchange with these beautiful young creatures. Yeah. You know, um so you'll be learning for so long. It's only been a couple of years, which is really crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I I'll keep keep trying and testing the the limits of of my body and and my mind and my spirit and what I can pass on to others, what I can give on to others, what they they give me. I mean, it is a vibrant high vi high high vibration that I'm living right now and I uh I'm so blessed to have it and so much gratitude at every breath. I almost feel like I don't have to walk anymore. I sort of live it. I just feel so lucky. And um I think it's has to

do with uh all the love and all the all the the the goodness that this world has to offer. I think that's it's gotten me through and the the attitude of it that perspective of that because it can be a very bleak dark place. Yeah. You know, but I I choose to I choose love. I choose action. I choose um my perspective. It is my choice. And um I I've been I've been in dark places where it wasn't quite so positive and so lovely. It's well before the accident, you know, where it's just like, you

know, just kind of grumbly and grumpy and don't want to leave my house and, you know, I don't want to go sign autograph. I don't want to be around people or, you know, I'm just kind of whatever, you know, not a really great happy place perhaps, you know, like everybody has the right to be, but if that doesn't exist this point, you know, I don't get any more bad days, Joe. That's amazing, right? You're like, "Fuck, I want that." Isn't that incredible? I can gas up the snow before you want. I can make it happen

for you. Isn't that incredible? No more bad days, brother. Right. Wow. It's a it's a perspective that is mine and a truth and a reality that is mine because I have a barometer to like yeah I know what a bad day is actually like and I was tested to my limits and I got through it luckily somehow someway and uh it's it's a it's just a almost science at this point. It's a factual that it's just not going to happen. I can't no matter if I tried so hard to have a bad day. It's just

not going to happen. Yeah, I can have a bad moment. I can have, you know, frustrating times, but it's not I'm just not going to have a bad day and for the rest of my experience here on Earth. That's amazing. And I think that experience, this this perspective that you're sharing is contagious. I think so too, dude. Yeah, I know. Actually, I know. So, I know so. Yeah. For too. For a fact. It's it's it's a it's sort of make manifestation of what your existence is. You want it to be. Yeah. And you can do

it. Yeah. But you got to believe it. You got to do it. Yeah. both those things. And I think that's why it's beautiful that you wrote this book. Yeah. My next breath. Yes, sir. Um, thank you, Jeremy. It was awesome. I really Yeah, I really appreciate you. Appreciate talking. Likewise, brother. You uh you make me happy, man. You bring out a lot of good stuff in me. You reaffirm a lot of of of good things in me in a really really meaningful way and I appreciate you. I appreciate you, too. Thank you. This is a

lot of fun. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'll see you at the UFC's too, man. Absolutely. Okay. Go buy this book, folks. Yes, sir. Bye, brother. Bye-bye.