Dan Bilzerian reveals how his 2011–2012 poker windfall—$54M, $10.5M, and $10M in cash games—funded a life of excess, including two heart attacks at 25 from mixing cocaine, ecstasy, and 200mg Viagra while gambling. He contrasts his fame with Joe Rogan’s, noting Instagram’s appeal as an escape from "quiet desperation," and defends his lifestyle by citing women like Lindsay Pellis who gained careers through association. Bilzerian’s bike race (LA to Vegas in 32 hours) and stem cell treatments in Tijuana highlight his extreme physical and financial risks, while psychedelics and poker’s psychological toll underscore how perspective—not just success—shapes resilience. [Automatically generated summary]
And it's really underrepresented because First of all, everybody else is buying all their followers and likes and all their shit.
So theirs is like really inflated.
And also, I got actually kind of like the opposite, because I got a lot of people that are looking at my shit that can't really be seen looking at my shit.
You know what I mean?
Like, there's like some big producer, I won't say his name, but like...
Every time I post a girl, like, they get hit up in the DM. And this is, like, a big, big, like, you know, like, fucking done, like, hundred million dollar movies and shit.
And he's, like, hits them all up, you know?
So there's, like, a lot of these dudes that just stalk me out.
Like, this Paul Marciano, this fucking guy is, like, every time I, like, post a chick, she's got a guest campaign now, you know?
I just distinctly remember because I won like 11 million bucks in a night and my buddy who I'd just given like two thousand dollars to made me a million off it because he got second in the World Series of Poker so I had like a 12 million dollar week so I was like fuck it I'm gonna take this dude down to like Puerto Vallarta with a bunch of chicks and we're gonna have fun you know and that was kind of like um that was that was one of the big actually no I'm sorry I take that back I'd broken up my girlfriend and it was a buddy of mine Nick Cassavetes who he's like You know, he's pretty big.
He did, like, The Notebook and Blow and, you know, like, big director or whatever.
And I played poker with him a lot.
And I'd just broken up with my girl, and I was like, hey, let's go down to Cabo.
I'm going to bring some chicks.
And it was supposed to be me, him, and one other guy.
And the other guy ended up bailing, but he had, like, committed, so he paid for his part of the trip.
So it was me and Nick, and I think it was, like...
I want to say 17 chicks.
I remember I had sex nine times in one day.
I was so proud of myself.
I think by the end it was like dust was coming out.
It was funny because I didn't even want to have sex the night time.
But it was just kind of like a...
Like a matter of principle.
It's like if a billionaire is walking down the street and he sees a $100 bill.
Yeah, I mean I mean it is I mean people make these big judgments They're gonna make big judgments on you first of all because you're doing some stuff That's just like so far to the right end of the spectrum.
It doesn't even make sense Like how the fuck is he pulling all this off?
It does it's like it seems unattainable So they're gonna make well he's this guy's wrong and these I would never do that and they're saying a bunch of crazy shit because The way you're living is just so bizarre.
Yeah, there's a way bigger difference between that and a lot of what you see in L.A. is these girls, they want to wear the nice purses and have nice shoes, or they don't really want a job, and they want to live in a nice apartment, but they don't want to work.
And by the way, getting back to your last thing, if it was legal, there wouldn't be the pimp saying, hey, you're going to do this, you're going to get your ass beat.
I mean, as much as I hate pain pills and as much as I've lost friends to pain pills and oxys and all this different shit, there's no fucking wars being fought over it.
There's not blood in the streets of Juarez, Mexico over pain pills.
You know, all that shit is over drugs that are illegal.
As soon as those drugs become legal, I think probably less people would use them and you'd get tax dollars from them and at least there would be some sort of a solution in terms of like treatment and responsibility and you'd be able to look at it a little bit differently.
Yeah, there's a lot of real problems with that, for sure.
And, you know, there's also these companies, like the company that makes fentanyl.
Is that how you say it?
Fentanyl?
It's a super strong pain pill, painkiller, that's ten times at least more powerful than OxyContin's, I believe that's what the number is.
They're spending $500,000 just to keep marijuana illegal in Arizona.
Because they've got it on the ballot to make it recreationally legal in the state of Arizona.
So they're putting out all these ads, and they have this whole campaign to try to sway people.
But they're just doing it for business.
It has nothing to do with public safety or health.
See that fucking thing about Hillary Clinton?
One of the WikiLeaks things?
That Hillary Clinton, the WikiLeaks released some paper where she was in communication with bankers, one of the emails, and she was saying that she was going to stop weed.
That she was going to make sure that weed was not legal.
That she was going to do her best and stand her ground and all this nonsense.
Leak reveals Clinton promised bankers to stand against marijuana legalization.
Well, not only that, like, she was trying to say that once Bill got out of the office, he was dead broke.
Well, you're not dead broke now, so how the fuck did you guys make all that money?
They're worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's all from speaking arrangements and pay to play and weird fucking shady deals they have with banks and they do these speeches that nobody wants to fucking hear and they pay them a quarter million bucks an hour.
Yeah, I mean, the more money you have and the more you kind of rub shoulders with these people, you kind of get a look behind the curtain and you see that, you know, it's just...
I mean, politics, if you look up the definition of politics, I mean, it's like bullshitting, right?
So look, I mean, I'm a gambler, but I don't want to bet half a minute worth I'm going to love a girl forever.
But not to say that I wouldn't have a girlfriend or I'm capable of being monogamous.
For me, it's more about options, really.
At the end of the day, it comes down to most guys are in relationships, I feel like, because it's either, hey, I'm going to jerk off on Saturday night, or I've got to put up with her shit and I get laid.
A lot of it's out of laziness, a lot of it's out of lack of options, whatever the case may be, but it's not correct.
Like for me, I think a correct relationship is a guy that could be fucking, you know, five or 10 girls.
And he chooses to hang out with this one girl because he likes her.
He likes hanging out with her and she hangs out with him because she enjoys his company.
And regardless of what the reason is, you know, because a lot of people are like, oh, you know, that girl's a gold digger.
They want to hate on him.
But, you know, at the end of the day, if a guy has made his money from, you know, successful business and, you know, being smart and he hasn't fucked it off.
or he's a doctor or whatever.
That to me is more of a part of who that guy is than a girl that's just born hot.
So for a guy to like a girl just because she's hot, I feel like is like the most superficial thing of all time.
She does, but I'm saying a lot of guys are with a girl just because she's hot, and they don't really get as much shit as a girl that's with a guy because he's successful or because he has money.
Like, the guy who earned that money, it's his character and his willpower and his discipline that's allowed him, his smarts has allowed him to earn that money, or he just got lucky as fuck.
It's also the way women are allowed to dress, even like a respectable woman is allowed to have her tits pressed together and pushed up and she's allowed to have a skirt that's just like a little light vagina curtain, you know?
And that's really all it is.
Little panties underneath and smooth legs and high heels.
Well, no, you're asking the government permission to be with a girl, and if you decide that you don't want to be with them, now you have to go ask the government, and then you have to get lawyers involved.
And it's this whole process that, in my eyes, it makes both parties feel...
Well, not both parties, because usually it's kind of like a magnet.
One is pushing a little bit further than the other.
So there's one kind of always chasing or whatever.
So for me, it just makes the party that's a little bit less invested just feel trapped.
And when you're in a relationship and you feel trapped, the first thing you want to do is run, right?
So you got this one person that inevitably ends up feeling trapped, and the other person...
You know, kind of gets lazy or complacent and I feel like it just snowballs.
You know, there's like a lot of momentum things, right?
So if relationships just starts kind of going downhill and you're trapped in it because you're legally bound, I just feel like it's just going to get worse and worse and the girl's going to stop giving the Blowjobs and the guy's going to resent it and then maybe he cheats.
You know what I mean?
It's like this whole cycle that just wouldn't happen if you were hanging out because you wanted to hang out.
Because let's face it, if you're hanging out with a chick and you like her and she's cool and then she just decides to just completely let herself go and she turns into a fat ass or she just stops wanting to have sex, you're just going to fuck other girls or you're just not going to hang out with her, right?
But if you're married to her, you don't really have a choice.
I mean, now you're kind of like, you've got to ask the government permission and this and that.
Because if you can't do it, then I don't get anything.
So it's kind of like, in my eyes, I just feel like it's a situation where you can just lose.
It's kind of like...
My buddy, he got into a relationship and he just dove in super hardcore really fast.
And I just told him, I said, look, I just feel like you don't have a lot of upside by doing that because you can get hurt.
And if you just take it slow, worst case scenario, you just weren't quite as close for a month.
But I said, if it doesn't work out, then now you invested all this time and this effort.
And I feel like because he went so hardcore for this girl, it kind of like...
You know, sometimes it makes them run away a little bit because they know, you know, people, you know, they just by nature want what they can't have, right?
So if you just give it all to them immediately, then it's kind of like, yeah.
Well, it's so rare that it works out the other way.
It's so rare that a woman has to pay a man.
And it's one of those things where men are being victimized left and right by this.
And when you talk to people about it, they're like, oh, well, you fucked up.
Well, you shouldn't have done it.
Well, you should have got a prenup.
Well, okay, maybe.
Maybe you could say all those things.
Yes, maybe it was a mistake.
But it was obviously a mistake under the whole spell of love.
And to have this be a financial entanglement that can trap you...
I'm talking about my friend doesn't even have any kids.
He didn't have any kids with this lady.
So...
It's insanity.
It's just a robbery.
It's just a legalized robbery.
And I was having this conversation with a buddy of mine who is married.
He's like, well, you know, I don't look at it that way.
I go, look at it this way.
The business of divorce, and it is a business.
Whenever there's money involved in something, there's a bunch of people that try to figure out how to extract that money.
The only money is in taking the money from the rich guy.
That's where the money comes from.
That's the only way you get the money.
You don't get the money if the girl doesn't make much money.
And everybody wins if the rich guy gets fucked.
So if the legal battle for the divorce lasts two years as opposed to two minutes, everybody gets paid.
Both lawyers on both sides make a substantial amount of money, the woman gets a substantial amount of money, the guy gets fucking drained like a vampire.
Yeah, which is usually the outcome of, you know, a lot of times when a rich guy gets involved in anything is, yeah, he gets drained.
And that kind of goes back to my previous point of why I feel like women that are attracted to guys that are successful, you know, it makes sense because there's just so many people trying to take that motherfucker down, you know?
I mean, it's just like a moose having a fucking giant set of antlers.
All the other moose are like, oh, look at those antlers.
I mean, it's a thing that exists in all different species.
I mean, there's no denying that when a guy pulls up in a Rolls Royce and he flies in his own private jet and he does a bunch of things that nobody else can do, that people just go, oh.
And women automatically, genetically, get attracted to that guy for some strange reason.
In poker, I've noticed that if a guy loses money to another guy and he knows that that money is going to help that other guy out or his quality of life is going to be improved by that money, it really fucking irritates him.
If I lose $5 million to a billionaire, it doesn't bother me nearly as much as if I lose maybe a couple hundred thousand to some guy that's pretty broke and now he goes out and buys a new fucking car with my money and I'm just like, this fucking guy.
So you look at your upside, it's like, okay, best case scenario, I walk away from this with this guy's last $100, which to me, some guys get off on that.
To me, I don't really ever want to break a guy.
But then you look at the downswing of that, it's like, okay, I could spend $10,000 trying to chase my initial $100 that I lost.
So you have to take that.
There's just a lot of things in gambling that you have to take into account with the money management side.
I mean, I was in the military for four years, and when I got out, got honorable discharge, and I was getting some disability money from the VA just because I got a lot of injuries when I was going through BUDS, and not even just injuries, just all the medical checks that they do.
They just document all the things that are wrong with you, so you get a percentage for all those things.
Fuck, I mean, first time I went in, I had bilateral stress fractures, so I was, you know, I went into buds of broken legs, and so I was, you know, eating a bunch of Motrin, it burned a hole in my stomach, I had acid reflux, they ended up getting so bad they were actually going to kick me out of the Navy for it.
Ended up joining the military, go through boot camp.
In A school, I was trying to ramp up because I'm like, fuck, I'm going to SEAL training.
I've got to start running.
So I started running.
I got an overuse injury, turned into a stress fracture.
They basically put me on a medical hold.
And my detailer said, look, you can stay on this medical hold until your legs are healed, and then I'm going to send you to a ship for two years, and then you can apply, or else you can get cleared and go straight to SEAL training.
I was like, okay.
Got cleared.
Went to SEAL training.
They dropped me the first day.
I had to request to talk to the captain.
And finally the captain's like, okay, you know, I'll let you try.
Because I basically said, look, just give me a shot.
I'm already here.
Like, let me just train.
What's the worst that can happen?
I'm not going to die.
I can, you know, break the leg worse.
So I said, if I make it through hell week, just give me a medical role.
He's like, yeah, sure, kid.
Go ahead.
So the guy let me train.
That was actually the first bet I made.
My doctor, who was like a Vietnam SEAL, he was so fucking pissed that the CO allowed me to train.
So he's like, I'll bet you $100 you don't make it through hell week.
It was $100 or $20, I forget which.
But I bet the guy and I won the fucking money.
And three weeks after, I was just, I mean, I could barely walk, you know.
So I ended up getting rolled and they kicked me out.
And so I went to my ship and the ship was like, the captain of the ship wanted to take me out to sea, even though I was supposed to be on crutches.
So I was like, this motherfucker.
So after going through the hardest thing and then getting dropped, now I'm on a boat and I'm supposed to be healing up and this guy wants to take me out at sea.
So I go to Okinawa and I requested to go in to see my wisdom teeth.
And then when I was there, I was like, hey, check my legs.
They're like, okay, we'll do a nuclear bone scan.
So when I was supposed to go in, they said, come back in two hours.
So I went for a two hour run.
And in just like my fucking, not even like my fatigues, it was like a work uniform.
It was like a button-down shirt.
I went for a two-hour run, took a shower, came back, and I looked at my legs, and I'm like, your legs are fucking destroyed.
Like, I can't believe you can walk.
I'm like, yeah, these motherfuckers, you know?
And so they were gonna kick me out of the Navy.
So I was gonna get medically discharged from the Navy, and it took them so long that I actually requested to go back.
And I just, I'll never forget, because I went in to talk to the CO of my, it was like a limited duty security detail or whatever, and he goes, let me get this straight.
He goes, you're about to be medically retired from the military, he goes, for broken legs, and you want me to request, or approve a request for you to go to SEAL training.
He goes, how fucking stupid are you?
And I was just like, I didn't really know what to say.
I was like, sir, you know, this and that.
He's just like, he's like, get the fuck out of my office.
And I was like, thinking about it.
I was like, well, fuck.
I'm like healed.
I've been doing steroids.
I feel great.
I've been fucking working out.
It's been like eight months, right?
I feel like I could go do this again.
So I ended up pulling some strings, and basically I just had to get cleared, and then I had to pray that I got sent to BUDS, because if not, I'd go to a ship, and then I had to...
It was just like, it would be the biggest disaster of all time.
So that was one of my biggest gambles, was doing that.
I had a free ride for the rest of my life, medically retired, I'm a disabled veteran, all this great shit, and I kind of gave it up to go back.
Yeah, I went into his office and he goes, you might be the stupidest motherfucker I've ever seen.
He goes, you just better hope that you don't end up back at this command.
unidentified
He goes, you're going to be cleaning fucking toilets until you get discharged.
I don't remember which, but I think it was the bigger one.
Ahem.
And then so all through Bud's and then you know on the boat so it was basically like you know I had broken legs for like a year and a half or a year and seven months.
It was basically like they're like okay well this guy's legs are just never gonna fucking heal right like that was kind of like the military's take on it was like okay well he's been on limited duty like this and that like his legs should have healed by now and they just aren't so what are we gonna do with them?
Yeah, well, it took them so long, you know, it took them so long to process me out of the military that they had healed, and so I was just like, oh, fuck.
And not only that, but, like, if you're, like, a disabled veteran, you get, like, you're eligible for, like, a lot of shit.
You know, if you're, like, medically retired, it's kind of like, you know, you went in the military and you tried to, you know, Be in there forever and you just got injured.
You know what I mean?
So they make a lot of allowances for people like that.
I think they give you your first loan in your house for free.
There's a whole bunch of shit.
I remember because I looked into it when I gave it all up.
So then I went back into the BUDS or SEAL training or whatever, and I made it two days before graduation, and I got rolled all the way back to the beginning, and then I did the whole fucking thing again.
When I went through the second time, I kind of had the attitude of just like, fuck, I've already done this shit.
And I just, you know, also, I don't know.
I mean, I was just in great shape and I just, I wasn't worried about anything.
So my attitude was like, okay, well, worst case scenario, I'm just going to get beat and I don't really care.
So I just would, I just figured if I passed everything and I like performed well and I didn't quit, like they couldn't kick me out.
So I kind of didn't really kiss ass or anything.
I was just like, whatever.
And if I fucked up, I was like, okay, I'll get beat.
I was a pretty hard dude.
I've been training for two years, and I'd already been through Hell Week, and now I'm doing it without broken legs.
Doing it with broken legs.
Now I'm healed.
I'm like, fuck.
Nothing's going to be bad now.
So it's like, where's it going to happen?
I'm going to get hypothermia, I'm going to have to do some push-ups, whatever.
I just didn't really have a good attitude, and I wasn't too worried about the other guys in the class, because I figured I would lose most of them.
I started off with 239 guys, and we came through Hell Week with 34. My first class, we started with 119, and we came through with 17. So you're going to lose most of these guys.
And then the second one was we were doing IADS, like these live fire drills, and half the class was behind the berm, the other half was doing it, and then we switched.
And the officer in charge of my class, he didn't really like me, so he had me on watch every single night.
And he put me on the middle watch.
So out on the island, you get six hours of sleep max if you fall asleep when you get off, and then you wake up the second and you don't clean any of your gear, you get six hours.
So he put me on a watch in the middle.
So I got maybe like an hour in the beginning, and then I'd just wake up for two hours with a watch, and then maybe if I could go back to bed, I'd get like an hour, maybe two hours of sleep.
So I was running on real low sleep, and so I was behind the berm, and I just, you know, I fell asleep.
It wasn't a big deal.
Most guys did.
But my boat crew leader didn't wake me up because he didn't like me.
So now I'm technically sleeping during a live fire drill because they did a class muster, and I'm fucking sleeping.
So basically they put me in front of the thing and they're like, well, you got two safety violations, whatever.
And I was just like, you know, I was like, well, I didn't really even explain.
I didn't even really like, at the time you're like so brainwashed that these guys are like gods that you don't even really want to argue with them because they're your instructors.
It's like, You can't even have a conversation with these guys.
If they ask you a question, your answers are like, hoo-yah.
You don't even say yes or no.
So you're so conditioned to not argue that I didn't really defend what happened.
Because if I would have walked in there and defended half the class, just given the explanation, but I didn't really want to argue with these instructors because you're just so brainwashed.
Anyways, so I basically told them, I said, look, I don't care.
I'll go do the whole fucking thing again.
And they're like, oh yeah?
I was like, yeah.
I was like, I'll do the whole fucking course again.
So they rolled me all the way back and did the whole fucking thing again.
And this instructor that didn't like me, he couldn't even find excuses the third time.
Yeah, my brother taught me, and then I was playing in college.
I was playing, like, some online stuff.
I had a couple fraternity brothers that were real into it, and they taught me a little bit, and there's some home games, and Yeah, that's how I started.
I went broke my sophomore year.
It was a wild ride.
I had to sell some guns.
I went and played on a gambling boat for like a week.
I sold three guns for $750, played on this gambling boat for a week, turned it into $10,000, went to Vegas, and then turned that into $187,000 at Bellagio after playing for three weeks straight.
I came into poker at a time when nobody really knew how to play.
This fucking guy, Chris Moneymaker, he turned $25 into a $2 million or $3 million win, and he wasn't even that great, so it was like the new gold rush.
I mean, I might have played once in high school or something like that.
I've never played.
My friend Ari, Ari Shafir, when he was struggling in Hollywood, when he's a stand-up comedian, and when he was just starting out, he would make his money playing poker.
He'd go to poker tournaments, and he made way more money playing poker than he ever did doing stand-up.
So, you know, Pussy, for instance, like, if you set it up correctly, like, I mean, if you Buy a big brand or a modeling agency or whatever it is, and you're providing these girls with a career.
Like, for instance, let's use Hugh Hefner.
So if you become a Playmate, you're guaranteed $25,000.
I mean, this is back in the day, right?
This is like 10 years ago when Playboy was hot or $20.
Whatever.
Whatever it was.
So now they're getting $1,000 for appearance before they were getting whatever.
But now you can't even show up for less than a grand.
So you're guaranteed more money there.
Now you have a title.
As far as modeling, you're just going to book higher-end jobs.
There's the Playboy events.
So it's kind of like you fuck this guy, you become a Playmate, and now you have a career.
I mean, it makes sense, but the factor that's missing is the fact that you were talking about before, like, you're not really into fucking girls that aren't into you, you know?
That's completely out of the question when you're a skeleton.
I just wanted to see if I could actually have sex with a girl without speaking to her at all.
It was kind of awkward because there were times when I wanted to say something or there was a question asked or whatever, or it was in the middle of sex.
Normally I'll talk dirty or something, but I made a point to be a fucking mute.
Right?
And I actually, like, pulled it off, and I was like, wow, like, this shit is real, you know?
So he come over and he's telling me about this new movie that he wants to do and there's a dad and there's a grandfather's son and dad and they're all in the military in different wars and he was talking to me about maybe playing the son.
And I was interested in it, because I had done a little bit of acting up until then, and so I was trying to check it out.
I remember it was like every 30 seconds or minutes somebody would come up and ask me for a picture.
And after the 20th person, somebody came up And was like, oh, Ron, like, you know, I love a picture with you.
And I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget it for the rest of my life.
He stood up and he goes, oh, you want a picture with me?
Like, who the fuck am I? You sure you don't want a picture with this guy?
And he was kidding.
But I was just like, I was like, wow, like, this is so fucking crazy.
Now here's a guy that's like, you know, a super successful actor who's been in like, you know, big like TV series.
And like, all these people are asking to take a picture with me.
And I was just like, wow, like, this is so fucked.
Like, But it was real.
I was just like, wow, this is a real thing.
This isn't just numbers on the internet.
This is like, I'm in a foreign country and I got all these fucking people coming up.
Because most people are not really comfortable with who they are.
So instead of...
You know, instead of fixing that, they just kind of pretend, you know?
And, like, look, that's what politics is.
That's what a business is.
When you put that fucking stupid tie on, and you got those slippery shoes with the tassels on them, you know, pretending that you really talk like that, you know, and you're talking about dividends and making it, well, we can make this work, and let's touch base on Monday, and, hey, great to talk to you, and, like, shut the fuck up.
Well, I had a conversation with someone about, you know, people that have a lot of money and ballers and someone goes, oh, that seems like such an empty life.
And I don't know if we were talking about you specifically, but you're like a perfect example of it.
I'm like...
But here's my point.
I'm defending you.
I'm like, what's empty about it?
Looks like he's having fun.
Like, what's so great about showing up to an insurance company every day and putting in your work?
Like, yeah, look, it's very admirable to provide for your family.
It's very admirable to put in hard work when you don't want to and get it done.
There's nothing wrong with figuring out a way to not do that either.
You know, just because you got stuck in some sort of a weird situation where you have to fucking grind it out at some lumberyard every day doesn't mean that a guy like you, who's just got some crazy life that he's living where he figured out a way to make a bunch of money gambling poker, playing card games.
Like, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Like, I look at all your shit.
I don't see any victims.
I don't see anything wrong.
I see you having a bunch of fun.
And I see a bunch of girls that are laughing.
They seem to be having a bunch of fun.
You're flying to Italy.
You're doing all this crazy shit.
I don't see anything wrong.
But yet people get mad and people hate.
And when I have conversations with people, I'm like, what is shallow about all these experiences?
Yeah, I mean, and from these girls' point of view, you can't really blame them.
I mean, it's like, fuck, if I was one of these girls and I could travel the world on a private jet and do all this other, you know, crazy shit for free, and it's just, I mean, I don't know.
He's like, they've shown in studies that smoking marijuana is not nearly as bad for you.
And actually, it might act as an expector and it might help clean your lungs out, even though it sounds contrary to logical thinking.
Just give it a try.
So this guy starts smoking weed like he would smoke cigarettes.
He's just rolling joints, smoking.
He would smoke like 15, 20 joints a day, and when he'd pull up to the strip club, he would give these guys his roaches, because his roaches were half done, because he would smoke them like he would smoke cigarettes.
The guy changes his entire...
He gets so high, and he's so high all the time, that he's like, I don't want to do any of these things that I'm doing anymore.
He goes, this is what I want to do.
I want to play guitar, and I want to bang chicks.
And that's what he decides to do.
He realizes he's like 60 years old and he's worth some shit ton of money.
And this was like right around when Viagra was invented.
So this guy goes on a rampage.
But he's mean.
He's like really nasty.
And he did what he would call mad-dogging these chicks.
So he'd bring them back to his house.
And he would say nasty shit to him and hit him and piss on him and all kinds of crazy shit apparently.
I don't know the full details of it.
But his house was for sale.
He had this ball, baller house in the Hollywood Hills.
And for a while I was thinking, because I go to the comedy store all the time, I'm like, man, maybe I should buy this fucking house.
It's close to the comedy store.
But I'm like, God, it's like this $5 million house that's right on the street.
It's right there.
The sidewalk, and then here's his door.
You just touch his door.
I'm like...
Someone's gonna fucking break into this guy's house.
And so the realtor is like, no, listen, there's a state-of-the-art security system in this place.
It's got all these cameras.
I go, yeah, you know what that camera's gonna get?
It's gonna get a picture of a dude with a ski mask robbing your fucking house.
Like, do you understand that?
Like, what is a camera gonna do?
Two weeks after I said that, the dude got shot in the neck in the fucking house.
It's crazy that you went from being a Navy SEAL to being a college student who's learning how to play cards.
Well, you know, preparing or trying to attempt to be a Navy SEAL, going to college and learning how to play cards, to a guy who's got his own fucking jet.
I mean, and all from gambling.
I mean, that's bizarre in and of itself.
But do you ever think, like, there's a time where I'm not going to want to do this anymore?
Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of at the point, like I said, where I've done most of the stuff that I wanted to do.
So now I'm kind of winging it.
I've been doing more active stuff.
I've been doing some wake surfing, and we just went out to Lake Powell, and winter's coming up, doing some snowboarding trips, snowmobiling, and shit like that.
Every now and then I wake up and I got some new pain and I just think, is this pain like forever?
Is this gonna heal?
I got this hip thing that's going on lately.
It's not bad like I did kickboxing today and no problem and no pain while I'm working out But every now and then it like irritates me and instead of it like when I was young if I had something that irritated me I would say some fucking nothing I'll get over that But that's also why I developed a bunch of chronic injuries from jiu-jitsu because I would go and train even though I had something fucked up.
It's also because jiu-jitsu is really fun, but I don't think like that anymore, man.
Now I think, is this, like, broken?
Like, is this...
Am I gonna need a hip replacement?
Like, I know guys that are my age that have fucking...
I know guys younger than me that have had hip replacements.
I start thinking, like, is this shit broken forever?
In the last, like, five months, he's really, like, he's gone hard.
But there's some stuff.
I mean, it's like, he set up a dinner table.
I saw a picture.
He set up a dinner table underwater where he could, like, pretend like he was eating underwater, and then he did, like, a whole skit where he was, like, underwater doing all this stuff.
I'm like, fuck, man.
That must have taken you, like, a fucking full day.
I need surgery on my neck, and I've heard I need surgery on my shoulder.
I avoided both of them, and I do everything now.
But one of the things about shoulder injuries that I found from Steve Maxwell, he's a pretty famous strength and conditioning coach that's been on this podcast a bunch of times, is hanging.
Hanging from chin-up bars, it's so important to do.
It's so good for your shoulders to straighten out your shoulders.
There's a whole video about it where this doctor, who was a shoulder surgery doctor, stopped doing shoulder surgery on most of his patients and started them on this hanging therapy.
Because when you hang...
Most human beings essentially were primates, and most primates swing from trees.
I mean, that is what they do.
They grab ahold of things, and they swing, and it stretches out your arm, and you develop impingements from gravity, from a lack of use, or from too much use or overuse.
And this guy has you hang from a chin-up bar, just holding on and hanging, and it stretches out your shoulder, and it alleviates pain in a giant percentage of people that have shoulder injuries.
And I urge anybody who's listening to this that has any sort of shoulder weirdness or some shit that fucks with them to just try this.
I know it sounds crazy.
Like, how the fuck is hanging by your shoulders going to help you?
And this is one doctor.
This is not the doctor that invented the procedure, but he basically explains it really well.
Yeah, there's a gang of it, but it's super effective.
It's super effective for a lot of people.
I mean, if you have like significant tearing where you're going to need surgery, you have a failure of your joint or something like that, you know, that's one thing.
But for a lot of people, this offers them a great deal of relief and it really helps me.
I do it every day.
It's one of the first things I do in the morning.
I hang and then I do scapular raises for archery.
You know, it's like I hang, I'll do like two Two minutes of hanging, and then once I've done two minutes, then I contract my scapula, and I hold that in place for as long as I can.
So it's like my hands are given out, my forearms are given out, and then I force my scapula to carry all the weight.
Daniel Cormier, they went into his own hip and pulled it out.
But I've heard great results from a lot of different versions of stem cells.
But I know for me personally, when they shot the stuff from placenta into my shoulder, it was like within a couple of weeks, it was better than it had been in a year.
The first time I did it, it seemed like I had a lot more profound effect than the second.
But the first time, so I went down to Mexico because you can't do it in the U.S. So I went down there, got like 90 million of the 19-year-old bone marrow that had been oxygen deprived, whatever, and they injected it in you.
The next day I went to get some dental work done.
I think I had a root canal or whatever it was.
But they injected 25 vials of lidocaine or novocaine or whatever it is.
And they said that my body was just cycling it through instantaneously.
So I had all this dental work done.
The next day I was completely healed from all the dental work, which is pretty crazy.
Yeah, but the second time I just fell, I just left, I actually went straight from Burning Man down there, and I only got 70, and I just, I don't know, I did a fast before.
I kind of got sick and then I took some antibiotics.
They say you're not supposed to take antibiotics.
I don't know.
Maybe I fucked it up.
I'm not really sure.
But I just remember the first time was a distinctly super strong effect.
Stem cells were connected to fetal tissue, and there was this whole idea that people were going to get abortions on purpose just to get the fetal tissue.
It probably wouldn't be a lot of people, but it'd be enough that it would be an issue with some folks.
So because of that, all these European countries, especially Germany, got way ahead of the curve when it comes to stem cell research and applications in the medical industry.
And, you know, what we're seeing now, you know, you obviously know Regenicine was invented in Germany.
Well, I pay very close attention to the latest cutting-edge research for doping because of the UFC and because I'm friends with Jeff Nowitzki, who's the guy who busted Lance Armstrong, who's, of course, the guy who works for the UFC now.
And he and I talk all the time.
And it's really fucking interesting how these people who are trying to get ahead are way ahead of the people that are trying to detect it.
So like now they're developing testosterone from animals, which is interesting because you're seeing people that are taking testosterone, it's exogenous testosterone, but it used to be that they were getting it from wild yams.
So what they would do is they do carbon isotope tests and they would be able to detect that the testosterone inside of your body is not from a biological, it's not from an animal.
The testosterone is actually coming from a yam.
It's a Mexican wild yam.
It's really interesting.
But now they're figuring out a way to extract it from animals, at least theoretically.
So Nowitzki says it hasn't been proven yet, but they're pretty sure.
So what they're doing now is they're taking people's piss and blood, and then they freeze it, and they hold on to it for eight years.
So the idea is that eight years from now, they're going to find out new detection methods, and they're using those at the Olympics now, which is why two Russian Olympic gold medalists in wrestling got their medals taken away from 2008. Oh, wow.
Yeah, and they haven't even gone to 2012 yet.
So there's 2012, 2016. I mean, these guys are going to get fucked over, for sure.
But, you know, Russia has an extensive state-sponsored anti-doping agency.
Because all the people that know, when one guy blew the whistle, one of the Russian anti-doping guys blew the whistle, apparently they just started icing these motherfuckers.
Yeah, it's like, well, Roy, he wears it like a badge of courage, too.
And I think Roy, if he just, if Roy got super disciplined and lost a ton of weight, he would be fighting at 185 pounds, and he'd be knocking motherfuckers to the moon.
Well, the one time we really see his jiu-jitsu was in the Andrei Orlovsky fight, when he's fighting in Elite XC. Took Orlovsky down, had him inside control, but Elite XC was...
They were really corrupt.
And they had this weird thing where if you were on the ground for more than 15 seconds, they'd stand you up.
So he's on the ground, inside control, with a double wrist lock, going for a Kimura on Orlovsky, and they stand him up.
And he wound up getting stopped by Orlovsky.
But that was that...
They were making Kimbo Slice, their poster boy.
It was like Gary Shaw was promoting it.
He was a boxing guy and he had his own idea about how to promote it.
They weren't MMA friendly.
It was just they wanted excitement.
They didn't really want to promote in a pure sense of the sport.
I remember I saw Kimbo, I was down in Miami, and I saw one of his fights or whatever, and they had some alternate guy come in off the couch, and this guy had knocked him out in 10 seconds.
This is, well, Sean Gannon is a tough motherfucker.
I mean, tough as hell.
Longtime cop, real martial artist, had a bunch of pro fights, and there was all these discrepancies about the rules because he's got them in a standing guillotine, and they're trying to break it up, and you've got to let go, and all this different shit.
Well, I was like, fuck, I mean, you know, if you keep drinking, you don't get hungover, right?
So, I was just like...
Fuck it.
So, went, rode all day, and then that night, I don't know, I don't know if it was like a stomach flu or what, but I was just like puking, and I just like felt like shit, and I just like couldn't keep anything down.
I remember I paid like the hotel guy like a hundred bucks to get me a bunch of Gatorade because I couldn't even like leave my room.
So, next day, I go to the airport, and I knew that if I got an IV, I would feel better, because I've had some...
When you get dehydrated, that's usually the root of most of your problems.
So, I just ended up buying an IV from this medic, because the guy's like, well, if I hook this up to you, you're not going to be able to fly.
And I was like, dude, I gave him a bunch of bullshit.
I was like, oh, I'm like...
I'm a fucking medic from the military, and this and that, and I'm qualified to do that.
Anyway, this guy ended up fucking selling me the bag, basically just gave it to me.
So, go back to my hotel, and I'm, like, fucking banging the shit out of this girl.
Like, you know, I mean, I got, like, veins coming out of my head.
I'm sweating profusely, and I'm, like, doing...
I'd fucked her for, like, maybe, like, 45, 50 minutes.
Like, it was not pleasurable at all.
This was, like, work, right?
I'm just, like...
And after, like, fuck, man, I think it was, like, 50 minutes, I just, like, I just, like, quit.
Like, I was just, like, I just, you know, I just knew there was just zero chance of me coming, and I'd, like, punish this chick enough, and I'm just, like, I didn't, like, I was just tired.
I went in the bathroom, took a cold shower.
My dick, like, wouldn't go down.
Like, I, and I'd, like, ordered some room service.
Ended up, like, tucking it up into my waist, and, um, because, like, there was just no going down for this fucking thing, right?
So eat the room service.
Oh yeah, then I actually ended up taking a Valium, went to sleep.
Banged her again.
Woke up.
Went and ate some Mexican food.
I was betting on the sports game.
And I started getting this pain in my shoulder.
And I couldn't really know what it was.
It kind of just felt like an ache.
So I started doing some push-ups.
That didn't really make it feel any better.
And I was stretching my arm out.
I was trying to sleep, but I couldn't even lay on that side.
And I'm just like, what the fuck?
Heart attack never even entered into the realm of possibility of shit that could be wrong with me, right?
I'm like, fucking 25. It's like shoulder pain.
I had no idea that that would have anything to do with a heart attack.
So I call my mom, tell her to get the family doctor on the phone.
She calls this dude up, and I'm getting kind of short of breath.
So I'm like, fuck.
So I just hang up the phone, and I find out the hospital's like 10 minutes away.
So I'm like, fuck it, I'll just get a cab.
Be faster.
I should have got an ambulance, but I got a cab.
You know, note to self, always get an ambulance if you got any shit, because I got the cab.
I was in the waiting room for like 50 minutes.
I pulled out like 10 grand out of my pocket.
I told the lady, I was like, I'll give you 10 grand.
Let me talk to the fucking doctor.
Like, something's wrong with me.
I don't know what's wrong, but I know something's wrong.
He's like, holy shit, like you're having a full-blown heart attack, all this stuff.
And give me the nitroglycerin.
And I call my dad and my mom.
I'm like, I'm thinking I'm fucking done, right?
Because this has been going on for a while.
I'm having a hard time breathing.
I'm in pain.
And so they give me the nitroglycerin, right?
And I start feeling better.
They do an angiogram or whatever where they check out the heart.
They say there's no damage.
Parents come out.
The next day, I have another one.
And I'm like...
And I tell the doctor...
And my doctor was Conrad Murray, too, by the way, which is Michael Jackson's doctor, the guy that smoked him.
And the craziest...
That was your doctor?
Yeah, and the spookiest thing about the whole deal was my grandfather had the same doctor in the same motherfucking hospital exactly one year prior and died.
So I'm just like, you know, this is not looking good for the home team.
This is before he killed Michael Jackson's ass, too, right?
So I'm like...
You know, fuck.
I'm just in the hospital.
So I call my dad.
I'm like, I'm having another heart attack.
I tell the nurse, and they're like, no, your thing looks fine.
I call my dad.
I'm like, there's something wrong.
My dad comes down to the hospital, and sure enough, I'm having a second minor heart attack.
I'm just like, what the fuck?
So...
They do a bunch of tests, they say my heart's fine, and then they ask me for, like, the list.
So I gotta, like, give them the list.
And my ex-girlfriend's there, my mom's there, my dad's there, and I'm just, like, started off with, like, oh, well, you know, I was, like, smoking some pot, and he's like, well, you know, like, you better tell us, like, what you've been doing.
Like, it's important.
We need to figure out what's going on with you.
And I was like, ah, and you know, I did some ecstasy and some cocaine, and my dad looks over at me like, what the fuck?
My dad's like super square.
And anyway, so then I was like, ah, I think I took some Viagra.
My girlfriend's like fucking riding now.
And he's like, how much?
I'm like, 200 milligrams.
He's like, what?
He's like, 200 milligrams?
I'm like, I don't fucking know.
It's like, it seemed like what I was supposed to say.
He's like, that's like an insane amount.
So I end up staying in the hospital for like four days.
I actually fucked my girlfriend in the hospital with all these like cords and crazy shit.
Oh Jesus Christ.
I like smoked a joint in the hospital thing.
I fucked her.
Like I had a buddy of mine bringing like wine coolers and Chinese food.
I was like the worst patient of all time, right?
And somehow like, you know, so give me all these fucking pills.
They're telling me, like, I gotta take these pills for the rest of my life.
I was like, I thought this guy would have like some like miracle formula, right?
I was like ready to get all hooked up.
But I actually had like a super high hemocrit count.
And he was actually the one that told me, he's like, I think sleep apnea makes it so that you have a really, that you can have a really high red blood cell count.
So I actually have like the equivalent of like the guys that are doing the EPO and doping.
We did some vehicle drafting, which was actually surprisingly really fucking hard because you have to stay close enough to the vehicle to where you're in that draft.
But then if you get caught by a crosswind, and plus, if you're drafting a vehicle, you can't see what's in the road.
And if you hit any shit in the road, there's a...
Because on my race, I blew out a front tire doing like 30-something downhill and almost crashed.
And I was on the highway doing this, too.
So they have those things that wake you up when you're sleeping.
You know, those big fucking...
So try hitting that on a fucking bicycle with little skinny tires doing like 30 miles an hour.
That shit's gnarly.
So it sent me into the fucking highway.
And I'm getting passed by tractor trailers at like 70, 80, 90 miles an hour.
Which, if you think about it, if you're in a car and it weighs 5,000 pounds and it can pull a car, imagine what it does to a guy on a bike that weighs 200 pounds plus fucking 10 bike pounds.
I mean, that's the thing about the poker community is, like, you lie one fucking time, or you don't pay a debt back, and you're just done.
Like, nobody will fuck with you.
So, you know, your word has to be good, which is kind of like, you know, one of my things, which, you know, irritates me, like, when people say that I'm not authentic, because I take, like, great pride in, like, you know, being fucking 100% honest about everything, you know, so...
And that's been, like, drilled in through 13, 14 years of gambling.
And so, you know, we were just discussing crazy shit, because in the poker world, they've done crazy stuff.
Like, one guy bet another guy 5,000, he wouldn't jump in the shark tank of Atlantis.
Another guy bet that...
Fuck, what was it?
I mean, I bet, fuck, I bet $400,000 on a drag race and I hadn't even raced a car before.
And then there was, fuck, there was another.
There's been so many crazy ones.
I'm just trying to think of the highlight reel.
Oh, boy.
There was one really good one.
Anyway, so he ended up betting—I'll think of some other ones later—but he ended up wanting to bet Rick Solomon that he couldn't ride from L.A. to Vegas or Vegas to L.A. or whatever on a bicycle in 48 hours.
And Rick, like, called one of his buddies that has, like, set some Guinness Book of World Records things and asked him, and the guy's like, look, like, it's not gonna fucking happen, buddy.
You can't do this.
And so Rick ended up turning down the bet, and it was just, like, really intriguing to me because I'm always up for physical tasks, you know?
Like, during, you know, Hell Week, you stay up for, it's five and a half days with no sleep, and you run 144 miles, like, boats and telephone poles, and you get hypothermia, and you're doing all this, like, crazy shit.
I don't sleep for five and a half days and you're just going the entire time, right?
So I've put myself through some real serious physical tests and one of the things that you learn there is that your body's just capable of way more than what you think or anybody else thinks it's capable of doing.
But one other thing that you learn in gambling is that there's certain things that sound like a good bet that just aren't.
Like drinking a gallon of milk in an hour.
That sounds pretty fucking easy, right?
But there's something with the lactose, which most people just physically can't do it without puking, right?
Because there's just some weird thing.
But who would guess that?
Or saltine crackers.
You know what I mean?
There's these weird little things that sound super easy, but you just can't do.
I'm remembering, I don't think it was on, it might have been on one of the Jackass movies or the TV show, Bam's Uncle, his crazy uncle, drank like 70 shots of peach schnapps.
Oh yeah, so basically it was, so he was going to bet this guy and he looked into it and he was like, nah, that's not possible.
And I was hanging out.
And I was just like, fuck, I was doing some research on it.
And I looked it up and I Googled how to prepare for a 300 mile bike ride in a month.
And nothing came up.
It came up like, how to prepare for a 100 mile in like three months, right?
So I'm just like, that's not a good sign.
But I just like, I don't know, something about me just thought it was possible.
So I was talking to Bill.
I was trying to get more time.
And I talked to some buddies that were cyclists.
They're like, if you had time to train for this, you could do it.
But there's fucking no way just off the couch you could do it.
And I'm like, how long do I need?
And they're like, minimum three months.
So I'm talking to Bill, and I kind of like want the bet, but I'm just like, I don't know how much money I really want to risk.
And so he ended up saying that he would give me, because the initial bet was like, you just had to go do it tomorrow, right?
And I was like, there's no fucking way, like...
You know, and then he's like, he goes, well, I'll give you a month.
And I go, give me, it was like until X date, and it was like a little under six weeks.
I was like, and I'll do it.
And he's like, how much do you want to bet?
I was like, ah, it was like 600 grand.
Because I wanted to bet enough to where I would do it, but I didn't want to bet too much to where I'd not only fucking break my ass, but just lose its shitloads.
I was like, 600 seemed like it was a good number.
So we made the bet, and I started doing some research.
So I go down to the bike shop.
And I'm like, oh, like, I need a bike.
Like, I'm doing a triple century ride.
And the guy's like, oh, like, you know, how much biking?
And I was like, oh, like, I haven't been on a bike, like, ever, really?
I did some mountain biking, like, 19 years?
And the guy just, like, laughed at me.
I'm like, no, like, really, like, I gotta do it.
I got, like, five weeks.
And he's just like...
He just looked at me like I was a complete fucking retard.
And I'm like, no, I've got to bet I'm going to do it.
And the guy's like, okay, what kind of bike do you want?
I'm like, I don't know.
You're the bike shop.
I had no fucking idea, right?
So he gives me this race bike, which is super fucking uncomfortable.
So I go out and I ride this thing, and I rode it like, I don't know, for like 45 minutes.
And my ass was just fucking in so much pain.
And I'm like, I am fucked.
Like, I think I made it, like, 11 miles.
And I was just like, this is going to be really brutal.
And so I ended up finding, like, a bike where, like, you could sit down a little bit more, like, a recumbent or whatever.
It looked like a lowrider bicycle, right?
Okay, so that'll, like, kind of alleviate a little bit of, like, the ass issue.
And it gave me a slightly different pedaling position.
So I got that, and then I felt a little bit better about the bet.
And then I talked to...
I had ridden a little bit, but nothing over 20 or 30 miles.
And that was kind of going hard.
And then I talked to you, and I talked to Lance, and Lance's like, oh, if you use a fucking, any other bike other than a road bike, like, I'm not fucking, you know, I can't have anything to do with this.
And I'm like, why?
I don't know, because it's like a fucking, I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, like after I had done a long ride one of the nights.
I actually went to the hospital.
I was kind of worried.
And so...
Rick was saying that, and I was like, well, I'll bet you I don't die.
And I was like, and I'll give you odds.
Because for me, I'm like, well, fuck, I can't take it with me.
If I do die, fuck it.
And then it would up the stakes for me without really too much risk.
And so I was like, I'll bet you whatever the fuck you want.
You know what I mean?
Like, I'll bet you my plane.
And I was like, I'll give you, I think it was like 10 to 1 or 21. I think it was like, I gave him like, fuck, I think I initially offered him like 20 to 1 odds and then we settled it like, I don't know.
It ended up being where he would lose $250,000 and I would give him like my plane plus my pilots for, you know, he got my plane and then I'd pay the pilots for a year.
So I just remember, because he was giving me some shit about, because I was allowed to draft, but he was saying that the van that I had had the doors open.
Because you had to leave the doors open, because I wanted to talk to my coach, and they were filming it and stuff, so we had the doors open.
So he was, like, bitching...
Rick was bitching about that, which was kind of stupid for Rick to bitch about, because that was, like, what made it the least safe of all, was, you know, drafting off a car, because you've got to be, like, six inches from this car, and you can't see, like, shit in the road.
So I'm having arguments with him, and I was just like...
It was helpful, but it only helped on...
So it doesn't help at all on the uphill.
So no uphill it helps.
And on the downhill, I didn't need it because you're going so fucking fast that you don't really want to be going more than 30-40 miles an hour on downhills because if you hit shit in the road and you crash, you're fucked.
If I crash, I couldn't finish the thing.
So there's that, and there's shit on the road.
I mean, I'm on the side of a highway.
There's tires and nails.
You know what I mean?
So you don't really want to be going.
And I couldn't go on the highway because I couldn't get the police escort for the actual highway.
The CHP wouldn't do the highway portion of it.
Which sucked, because that was the most dangerous part.
So I was in the breakdown lane instead of actually being in one of the lanes.
You're not only thinking about what that person has, but what do they think that you think that they have?
The basic stuff is what do you think that they think that you have, and then the range of hands that they could have.
Thank you.
Why would he be betting this?
Why would he be calling here?
What type of hands could he have?
What are the probabilities that he's bluffing?
What is his mental state?
I mean, just trying to pick up on tells.
There's just so many things that go into it that you're so focused, and it's so much money, and any little mistake that you make is going to cost you millions of dollars.
I took Adderall and it really fucked me up because I just like tried to win every hand and it made me like too aggressive and I just like just fucking plane crashed into the mountain.
And then sometimes I'm taking Valium just to fucking relax, you know, because I'm just strung out, but then that makes you kind of not give a fuck, and so you do stupid shit.
I never tried them either, but I saw this thing on concert performers, like Penis, or it was actually...
Some people that play in an orchestra, they were talking about, they took beta blockers and it made a massive impact because they were super nervous about performing.
And I always thought about it.
I was like, man, I guess it just stops you from getting nervous.
I would be really curious to see what that feels like.
I just don't know how long it lasts, because like I said, you're talking about 18-hour sessions, and also you don't want anything to fuck with your mental acuity.
Yeah, so you're going click, click, click, click, all between all of them.
And sometimes you have multiple monitors set up.
And so basically, in that period, if you extrapolate that out, you're seeing 10,000 hands, right, in that 10 hours of sessions because 100 hands an hour.
So if you play in a casino, you're seeing about 20 hands an hour.
And you're obviously only playing one table.
So that translates to 200 hands for that day.
So of one day playing online, I've seen 10,000 hands.
One day playing live, I've seen 200. So you can imagine, one day playing online, I've seen more hands than a guy that's played in a casino for his entire life.
I mean, they allow the fantasy because it's a game of skill.
And, yeah, I think it's nonsense.
I don't really care because I wouldn't be playing online anymore because I can't compete with these kids.
They've just put too much time in it.
And the thing is, now there's so much software that does so much for them.
Like, for instance, it'll tell you...
How many hands each person plays pre-flop?
What percentage of the time they bet the flop?
What percentage of the time they bluff?
And they can just figure that out based on how often they're going to have a hand and how often they bluff.
So it'll actually give you their bluff percentages on each street, on the flop to turn the river, and it'll tell you how many times they're just calling bad.
It'll just give you all these stats.
It's almost more turned into a mathematical computer game, whereas I like the more pure form of just like, I'm looking the guy in the fucking eye and just trying to figure out what he's got.
And you're also playing the player.
When you're playing live, for me, I can calculate how much money a guy has very fast.
I can figure out his comfort level with bluffing.
I can figure out the type of guy he is, whether or not he's aggressive, whether or not he's the type of guy that when he's winning, he's going to want to lock it up.
Or the type of guy that when he's winning, he's going to want to gamble more.
The type of guy that when he's losing, he's going to kind of play a lot more hands and try and, you know, get even.
Or the type of guy that's going to just like try and wait for a big hand.
The type of guy that's going to be just calling his money, chasing, trying to get lucky.
The kind of guy that's going to be pushing the action and betting a lot.
Like there's just so many things that go into it that, you know, I like to just, you know, play live and I like to talk to people and I like to, you know, have that human interaction.
There's a lot of these guys that are really good behind a computer, but you put them in front of another guy, you can't look a man in the eye and just fucking, you know, bluff.
You just, like, crumble, you know?
So online, they can click that button and say all in and do these crazy bluffs, but, you know, they just physically can't, like, push those chips in and keep a straight face on a table.
It's not like in the movies where it's like, oh, I picked up a tail on this guy and every time he bluffs, he twitches.
You know what I mean?
That's a very rare thing.
It's more...
It's more just like understanding the person.
It's like you figure out what kind of job this guy does, like how much money he makes a year, like how much this money means to him, how much he cares about the money, how much he wants to gamble, how much he's playing for fun, how much he wants to win.
Some of these guys, they actually want to lose.
They're just like self-sabotagers.
They'll go in there and some of them, I'll see them and they'll want to lose because they'll want everybody at the table to like them and that's kind of like...
He'll be, you know, he'll be just like wanting to be friends with everybody and he'll do shit to show off or to like, you know, make, because I mean, look, at the end of the day, like people want people to play bad, right?
Like you want a player to play like shit.
You want a player to give his money away.
You want a player to, you know, do crazy stuff.
So these guys will, you know, they'll put on a show for people that want to be the popular guy.
Maybe they weren't cool in high school.
Maybe they want people to like him.
Who knows what their reason is?
Maybe they feel like they don't deserve the money.
I've played with a lot of guys that, you know, some of them ended up in jail, some of them were fraud, some of them were cheat.
Some of these guys, you know, they have a bunch of money and they feel like they don't deserve it subconsciously, so they just want to give it away.
In gambling, you can just keep going up, but you can't really go down.
It's like, for instance, if you go and you play blackjack and you bet, whatever, arbitrary numbers, $500 a hand, right?
And you're playing $500 a hand, and your level of excitement when you win is at a seven, and you keep playing and whatever, and then now you go and play $1,000 a hand.
And you've been winning a little bit, or you've been losing or whatever, and Now, if you try and go back to $500 or $250, if you're losing, it's a mental fuck because it's really hard to get even betting smaller.
And if you've been winning, you don't really care about the small money, right?
You know what I'm saying?
It's one of those things where once you go up, it's really hard to go the other direction.
So a lot of the problems that...
Professional poker players have, it's called bankroll management, where they keep going up and up and up, and then when they start losing, they are completely unable to drop down in stakes and then play good.
You know, like if they lost, let's say, $100,000, just to use round numbers, at, you know, this game, then for them to go to play a game that's half that size and try and win that $100,000 back, it's going to take them twice as much time.
You know what I mean?
So it's kind of like one of those things where, you know, and the games have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.
So somebody goes on a bad run, like, and poker's their profession, it's not like, you know, You know, that's another thing that people don't understand.
It's like, you know, people are like, oh, you're winning, like you should take the money and run.
It's like, no, like when you play poker for a living, like it never ends.
It's like, yeah, there may be session to session, but you're always going to be playing poker.
So if that's a good spot, you should just play until the game's over.
Even if you've won, it's not like blackjack where you should just lock up a win.
In poker, you just stay there.
In fact, the more you're winning, the more other people are losing.
And the more other people are losing, the worse they're going to play.
So it's kind of like one of those things where you just...
I've found sometimes I've gotten far more angry at losing $20,000 than I have at losing $500,000.
As strange as that may sound.
Just because...
You know of the way I lost it or if I played shitty or if I lost it to a guy I didn't like or it was just like I lost, lost, lost, lost and just like a steady progression of losses or if I was up a ton of money and then like let's say I was up a million dollars and ended up losing 20,000 like I'd be fucking miserable even though I only lost 20 grand but let's say I was down a million dollars and I ended up losing 20,000 I'd be ecstatic Now look at the end result.
One night I won 20 grand and I was miserable and the other night I lost 20 grand and I was happy.
There's also something you were just talking about that I think is really interesting, because it kind of parallels martial arts and fighting in a lot of ways, is that you don't want to lose to someone that you hate.
That's why Conor McGregor does so well, is that he fucks with your head so bad that the amount of pressure that's on you is so exacerbated when you actually get into the cage with him.
Like, even guys like Jose Aldo, who's this seasoned world champion who never lost in the UFC. How did that happen?
Hey, Conor just mindfucked him.
And he can punch.
I mean, it's both things.
He's got skill, and he's really good at handling pressure, and he's the mindfuck master.
But you see it with guys, when guys get in these emotional situations with fighters, and then you see when they fight with someone who respects them, and they shake hands, the weigh-ins, and they can fight up to their full potential.
I mean, I've seen tons of times when somebody really hates another player and in fact has just played far worse against that guy and given that guy so much money because they kept going after him.
They really wanted to bluff him.
They're like, fuck this motherfucker.
I'm not going to let this guy bluff me.
And then they ended up just like paying him off and paying him off and paying him off.
I actually found that in poker because there was times when I would befriend really bad players and then that player would not play hard against me, you know, because of that.
And it actually ended up like costing me a bunch of money.
And then there was other times when I would just like talk shit to a bad player and they would really come after me and then I'm just smoking them.
You know, so it's kind of like, it's tough because usually the bad players are the coolest guys because they're just like the rich guys that are having fun and they got a good attitude and this and that.
But sometimes, you know, like you got to fuck with them a little bit, you know, because otherwise you're not going to be able to gamble with them really, you know?
So you want that like, you want that kind of like...
Optimally, you want that competitive but semi-friendly relationship.
Because you don't want them to just totally hate you because then they're just like, fuck this motherfucker, I'm not playing if he's there.
And then you're kind of like out of the game because he's the big sucker and he can call the shots.
But I feel like for a lot of people, they look at it and they're just like, oh, he gambles for a living like he got lucky or he's just good with numbers.
They break it down so simplistically that they don't realize how difficult it is.
I think the closest comparison is with the stockbrokers, stock market stuff.
Because they're really gambling.
At the end of the day, that is kind of gambling.
And they're going to have losses.
The parallel there is that you can go into work, you can fucking do a good job, bust your ass, do everything right, and then just get fucked because of bad luck.
That can't happen to a doctor, really.
You know what I'm saying?
That can't happen with most professions.
Even in fighting, even the loser gets paid.
You don't go into a fight and lose money if you lose.
Poker and the stock market are some of the few things that it's kind of hard to really have that good bankroll management because you can go and do everything right, bust your ass, and work for an entire month and lose money.
But that is where the thrill lies to the common man.
The average person that plays it safe and takes it easy and gets his 401k and doesn't do anything risky, that's where the thrill lies in that lifestyle.
Talking to you and hearing you talk about this shit, that's where people, they're getting their palms sweaty right now and they're driving to work and they're listening to this and thinking, could I do that?
It's one of the hardest things I've done and I've done a lot of hard things just because for me doing doing physically hard things actually isn't like as challenging as mentally tough things if that makes any sense because the physically tough stuff you just kind of like just fucking bite your tongue and grit and fucking take the pain and just power through.
I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, like, you know, you must be a super tough motherfucker and all this other shit.
And I think it comes down more to just like how bad you want it.
Like in life, like if you just want something so fucking bad, like I just remembered like when I was doing the 50 meter underwater swim, it was really hard for me.
I'd never been able to do it.
Um, Outside of, you know, SEAL training.
And the only two times I did it was when I, like, had to do it.
And I just remembered, I was just like, well, I'm just going to swim until I fucking reach the wall or black out.
Like, there just wasn't another option.
Like, I was just, like, I just wasn't going to quit just because I wanted it so bad.
So, that actually helps you.
I remember there's one guy that went into Bud's and he was, he had, like, a million dollar business.
I think it was, I think it was the guy that, like, owned Van Dutch or something, maybe, or had some, like, affiliation with it.
I just remember he showed up and he had like a hot chick or two hot chicks and he had a sports car and everybody was just like, fuck, this dude's a stud, you know what I mean?
And then he showed up at Buds and ended up quitting straight away.
But it didn't surprise me, because I'm like thinking, you know, If I don't make it, I'm going to ship and I'm going to be fucking miserable.
I don't want that.
This guy's thinking, if I quit, I can go fuck a bunch of girls and drive nice cars and I got money.
You know what I'm saying?
For him, I actually think it's harder.
You know?
Like, because you look at, like, you know, what your alternatives are, you know?
Like, you know, if you put a fucking guy up against the wall and he's got no choice, then he's just gonna, like, do what he's gotta do.
Like, for instance, if I told you you had to go crawl, you know, 50 miles or I'm gonna fucking put a bullet in your head, like, you're probably gonna go crawl that 50 miles, but if I told you, hey, like...
I'm going to give you $500,000 if you can go crawl these 50 miles, but you got money and you don't really need it.
You're probably not going to crawl 50 miles.
You know what I'm saying?
It's kind of like one of those things.
It's just like the alternative is what determines the difficulty.
That's why I actually think it's harder for guys like Conor McGregor or guys like Mayweather because now they have money and they have that lifestyle.
I actually thought Ronda was going to get fucked up just because she was going to Hollywood.
Don't get me wrong, she's tough, she's fucking great, whatever.
But she was doing the movies and she's doing this.
I just...
I know that lifestyle, and I know the addictiveness of the money and the fame and all that other stuff, and now it's like these people that have been fucking living in a one-bedroom apartment are now introduced to all this money and all this fame and people, and it's so distracting as opposed to the guy that's fucking waking up every day and going to the gym and fucking busting his ass and just trying to make ends meet, and that's all he's got, and he's got nowhere else to go, like you said.
And for that guy, I feel like it's far easier to stay the course.
For a guy like Conor McGregor, now he's got all this money and this and that, he doesn't have to fight anymore.
If he wants to continue his lifestyle, he does, right?
Now he's upped his expenses and his image and all this stuff, and he's used to all this stuff, so now he has to make X to maintain his current situation.
So he's got a little bit of pressure on him in that sense.
It's like you look at all these other guys that are nipping at your heels and you decide, no motherfuckers, I am the man at the top of the mountain and I'm going to stay at the top of the mountain as long as my body hangs in there.
But again, it's like that has to be something that you want to do.
And you could see the shift.
I see the shift in guys where all of a sudden they do it for money and they start doing it for a living.
You see that shift and it's an ugly shift because they just don't have the same tenacity.
I think in anything in life, but especially in risky things, whether it's playing poker or fighting or anything along those lines, something that's really difficult to do, there's this weird balancing act, and you have to achieve this perfect balance of motivation, reward, intensity, focus, discipline, but still pleasure.
So it's kind of like when people ask why rich people aren't as happy, and I just think it's because they've upped the bar so far that only the best things satisfy them.
Like a guy off the street, when I got out of boot camp, I'll use that as an example, I go to Outback Steakhouse, I'm in a tent.
Now, if I go to the best restaurant in the fucking world, I mean, I'm, like, maybe at, like, a six or a seven.
I'm just, like, satisfied.
I got three chefs.
Like, I eat the best food all the time.
You know what I mean?
So, like, that doesn't make me happy anymore.
Like, if somebody bought me a Lamborghini, I'd be like, whatever.
Like, I've had them.
I don't care.
But if you, you know, give it to a guy off the street, he'd be at a ten.
So I can't buy happiness anymore.
You know what I mean?
I have bought every fucking thing that I ever wanted, right?
There's not really anything that I want.
So I can't buy any, like, pleasure.
And also, if you gave me, like, a regular car or put me in a regular hotel, I would actually be at, like, below the normal level, whereas a normal person would be, like, happy to be on a vacation.
You know what I'm saying?
So, like, I think that has, like, some correlation.
Like, It's kind of like a guy that wins a lotto.
A year later, he is statistically less happy than a guy that got his leg fucking amputated a year prior.
Like, there are a lot of people that are trying to get rich because they think that once they get rich, they'll be happy.
They think that that's going to give them this thing that they've always been missing.
And so they've been working hard, busting their ass, and they look at all these other people like we're talking about.
You know, you land your private jet, you drive your Bentley to the club, and everybody's like, oh, it's Dan Belzerian, it's Dan Belzerian.
You want to be that guy, right?
But once you're that guy, it's like that doesn't mean anything anymore.
And then for a lot of people, there's this emptiness.
There's nothing left to chase.
There's nothing else to do.
And your life is just about possessions and upping the ante.
And now I've got to get a yacht.
And now I have to get the biggest yacht.
Now I've got to buy an island.
You know, and trying to find something to fill that void because you've sort of set your life up to chase these material goals instead of to try to find out what actually does make you happy.
Yeah, you have to have goals and you have to have stuff that, like, you know, you got to be climbing the mountain because at the end of the day, like, climbing the mountain is far more satisfying than being at the top of the mountain, you know?
Well, it's counterintuitive because most people don't, like, get, they just know that, like, okay, like, you know, my dad told me, like, it's better to give than receive, and I was like, okay, that's perfect, motherfucker.
You can just give me shit and I'll receive it and I'll be happy, like, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I had a conversation with someone about this recently where I was saying that material possessions, once you have enough money to acquire basically everything you want, they don't mean anything anymore.
So they don't mean anything.
You can enjoy them when you have them, but if you lose them, it's really not that big a deal.
You know, if you get an Escalade and some fucking meteor hits your Escalade and you go out there, oh, just get another Escalade.
There's a bunch of them.
It's no big deal.
But if that was all you had and you had to save and scrape up your money to get that escalated and you kept it clean, then it got hit by a meteor, you'd be devastated.
Once you have achieved this level of success where material possessions don't mean anything anymore, then you can kind of like say, okay, well, what do I enjoy?
Camaraderie, friendship, creativity.
Like, what is it that I'm actually chasing?
Because I remember talking to this Buddhist monk.
I did this thing once where I went to all these different religions.
It was for this TV show, and I interviewed all these different people and asked them, like, what is it about your religion that's the best?
Like, say if I was going to join your religion, try to sell me your religion.
Yeah, but, you know, in some ways that is a blessing because they're going to have a lifetime of being able to buy that pleasure, too, because of that, you know, because if you start here on this lower rung, then all those little purchases and stuff like that, you're still like, you're kind of climbing.
But to the people listening to this right now, they're thinking, okay, well, you're equating material possessions and the acquisition of these material possessions as being the thing that makes people happy.
Now, is this because you've got 15 bitches and you're flying around on private jets and yachts and you're lacking real depth to you?
You're a smart guy.
You're not a dumb guy.
So I don't think that that's the case.
I think you're having a lot of fun, and you're doing a lot of wild, crazy shit, but I don't think you're lacking in depth.
Yeah, no, I am just trying to fully experience everything that I wanted to experience, and there's also a part of me that's kind of...
doing some wish fulfillment, some part of me that's overcompensating for lack of things, you know, that I had, you know, childhood wise or when I was growing up or that I wanted or whatever it was.
Basically just like, kind of like whatever I wanted when I was younger or whatever I placed emphasis on, I kind of like just over exaggerated and beat it into the fucking dirt.
So then now I can move on and do something else.
Like, I, My life, I have ADD, so for me it's hyper-focused.
I think a lot of successful people have it, and I think what it allows you to do is when you are focused on something and when you have that pinpoint focus, you can be extremely successful, but when you don't, you're just scattered all over the fucking map and you can't.
I think a lot of kids have it nowadays because of the stimulus.
I think you have so much stimulus at your fingertips nowadays that these kids, if they're not...
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people are just overstimulated.
And because they have it at their fingertips all the time...
When I was a kid, we used to just have to entertain ourselves.
We used to just go out and play and just figure out shit to do.
And so we didn't need massive amounts of stimulus.
Nowadays, if kids don't have a fucking video game and a movie playing at the same time, they're bored and three other friends to talk to.
The one positive thing I think is just that you You're so connected.
You know, everybody, I feel like everybody's more connected now.
Like back, you know, when we were kids, like, you know, a guy in Idaho is never going to fucking, you know, feel any connection whatsoever with somebody that's, you know, in California.
But now, like, that guy can upload a YouTube video and everybody around the world can see it.
And people are just, you know, dating-wise, social media-wise, like whatever, they're just, there is more connection.
I mean, I feel like it's not quite as real and it's not as tangible, but...
And people, I think, are also losing their ability to kind of, like, interact.
Like, my older friends, like, we'll sit around, we'll tell stories, and it's like, we'll have fun.
And it's like, the younger generation, when you watch them interact, it's almost, like, comical.
It's like, these people, like, socially awkward.
Like, they don't, like, people don't know how to, like, approach girls anymore.
It's just like, and the whole thing's been, like, reduced to, like, online dating.
It is a new world, but what I found really fascinating is that, because I travel a lot doing stand-up, is that there's no dumb places anymore.
Like, you can go to, you know, fill in the blanks, some place in the middle of the Midwest, Boise, Idaho, or whatever, and you'll do a show there, and the fucking people are on the ball.
They know what the fuck's going on.
They're so much more informed.
When I used to travel on the road in the 90s, when I used to do stand-up in the 90s, and you know, flying to Ohio or, sorry Jamie, flying to some place in the middle of the country, those fucking people were apes.
I mean, they didn't know anything.
They were like, what's it like to be on an airplane?
I mean, They fucking didn't know anything.
But now, it's like you run into the same kind of people in LA that you can run into in, you know, fill in the blank, you know, Phoenix or wherever the fuck it is.
There's no dumb cities anymore.
You're still going to find some dumb people, but I think overall, the awareness level of people has changed.
I mean, it's so freaky that they didn't even think about it in Star Trek or Star Wars.
None of those places had the internet.
None of those visions of science fiction in the future had the internet.
It's just...
I think it's going to be, when history is all said and done, when people look back in this era, it's going to be one of the biggest changes in the human race ever.
And we're in the middle of it.
It's a storm and we're just caught up in it.
And like you were talking about when you were saying how you're so wealthy and it's just normal.
It just becomes normal to you to have all this money and someone gives you a Lamborghini.
It's normal.
Well, this wealth of information is normal to us.
It just seems normal.
My kids are young.
They're growing up with the internet their whole life.
They've never experienced anything but the internet.
To them, they're not going to know how weird it was to run into bullshit artists.
Before we did the podcast, we started talking about psychedelics, and you started talking about some psychedelic experiences that you had, and I said, like, save it.
Yeah, it was almost like a video game, kind of, is the best way I'd describe it, where I just, like, kind of...
Almost seemed like everything was kind of, like, separating apart.
But I didn't really get too much.
And then the third time I had a similar experience.
But that was just the smoking.
I haven't done ayahuasca or anything like that.
I did mushrooms three times.
It's funny.
I had a couple, so the first time I did mushrooms, I think I was in high school, and I just never forget because it was like 1.30 in the morning or whatever, and I just wanted to call all my friends and tell them how great it was and have a conversation.
I remember them picking up the phone like, dude, it's 1.30, fuck off, you know?
But I was just like, I wanted to talk to everybody.
I was like, I was having a good time.
And then I did it in Amsterdam.
I got sick.
And it was funny because I actually did it four times.
The third time I did it, we were in Amsterdam and we were walking down this long alleyway and we were probably about 75 yards down the alleyway and a buddy of mine was like, oh, give me a second.
And we kept walking and we turned around about five seconds later, ten seconds later and he was gone.
And it was probably like a 200-yard alleyway.
I mean, this guy was fucking Ben Johnson.
He couldn't have made...
It was like a long, long alleyway.
If he was in a dead sprint, he was the fastest guy in the world he couldn't have made to the end.
And there was no ladders, no nothing.
We're just like...
What the fuck happened to this dude?
We're just like...
And nobody...
And we haven't even really started tripping.
But we're like...
We thought this dude got abducted by aliens.
There was no explanation, right?
We turn around and we're just like...
We all look at each other like, what the fuck happened?
And we knew these mushrooms were going to hit soon.
So we're just like...
But we didn't feel it.
We're like, the mushrooms ain't hit.
We just ate it like 5, 10, whatever.
And it hadn't hit.
Walked around the corner...
And there was a police station where we're like, oh shit, I guess we should ask them.
And we went in there and we're like, we don't know what happened to our friend.
We don't know if he got abducted or whatever.
And we're like, he looks like this.
And so there's this long alleyway, right?
And this motherfucker chose the one spot to piss where apparently there was like a secret door that opened inward into the police station and there was a camera facing down on it.
And he was pissing on the door of the police station.
They grabbed him mid-piss, his dick still out, yanked him into the fucking police station and threw him in jail.
And so we get this information.
We're like, oh, fuck.
What do we got to do?
We got to pay this guy.
We're like, this dude never done mushrooms before.
His first experience, he's going to be in a jail in Amsterdam.
This guy's going to fucking lose his mind.
We got to get him out.
So we ended up paying these people, and then like, I forget, we had to pay them a lot because I was in college, and I remember it was like a significant amount of money for us.
But we bailed them out, and then I ended up, I remember I offered like the chick at the counter, I was like, I'll give you a hundred bucks if you'll mail this to his parents, or the video of him pissing and getting arrested if you mailed it to his parents.
It's like, get the fuck out of here.
And So that was number three.
And then the fourth time I did it, I was in...
It was that trip that I took to Puerto Vallarta.
And when I took my buddy that won the...
Or he got second in the World Series of Poker.
And I'll never forget it because I was...
I was downstairs and we had this big villa on the edge of a cliff.
And I remember not wanting to have sex.
And I was just like, this is the greatest thing for the first time.
Like, my dick doesn't control me.
This is so nice to just be able to relax and not...
Because we had all these chicks running around.
I was banging them the whole weekend.
I was like, to just not even have to think about it because I have no desire to have sex right now.
I remember having that thought and being like, wow, this is great.
And I'm so fucked up that I took that as a personal challenge to see if I could have sex with this girl for like 40 minutes.
But I just remember at the end of it, I was like, wow, you had this opportunity where you were not consumed with wanting to have sex and you completely fucking ruined it for no reason.
The first time I had a mushroom trip, I was with my friend Eddie and we were near a mountain.
It was like a very high hill.
We were below it.
And we were laying down in the grass, just laughing and giggling.
And I don't know if you've ever been lying down looking up at a mountain range and you see the sky and the clouds go overhead.
It was the first time, I think, in my life That I... Really took in the concept of an atmosphere, of the shape of the Earth being round, and that behind that atmosphere, I'm looking up at this blue sky, it's beautiful, but I didn't see the blue sky anymore.
I saw it, I knew it was there, but I realized that it's just this layer, and then beyond that is the vast infinity of space.
And I remember looking at it and thinking for the first time, because of this hill, I could see, I'm like, oh my god, we're like in a convertible spaceship.
This whole thing is a spaceship.
This is an illusion.
We're standing here like we're on ground.
We're laying down on the grass, looking up at the sky.
But this is not sky.
This is a thin layer of atmosphere that's protecting you from space.
And then above that is...
There's no end to it.
And it fucking stuck in my head, that idea, like for the very first time.
And it's something about being below a mountain and lying down and looking up and seeing the mountain and seeing the air and seeing the clouds go, where it just set into my mind like, whoa, that's an atmosphere.
This isn't just the sky.
From that moment on, I can look up at a mountain now, and I get this weird, almost half-trippy feeling.
I think just so much of your life is just perspective.
I mean, it really is.
You know, a lot of times I have these crazy parties.
I'll invite disabled veterans out or whatever and try to show them a good time.
One time I had this one guy who got both his legs blown off in Afghanistan.
Super cool dude.
Really humble, nice guy.
There was this super hot chick that was at the party and I really wanted to fuck her, but I was like, I'll see if she can get her to fuck him.
And I paid her a fucking ton of money, which is kind of fucked up.
She ended up fucking this guy.
And I was fucked up and I ended up passing out and I forgot about it.
And the next day we're sitting there at breakfast.
And I was just like, I was so fucking miserable.
And I look over at this dude and I'm just like, you know, like, what the fuck are you so happy?
He's like smiling and eating his shit.
You know, I'm hungover.
I'm like, what the fuck are you so happy about?
You know, he's like, he's like, shit, man.
He's like, I feel great.
Oh, you're not hungover.
He's like, yeah, he's like, I don't give a shit, though.
And I'm just like, dude, I gotta ask you, man.
I'm like, you got the fucking best attitude.
I was like, since you've been here, I was like, you've always been fucking positive.
I was like, you know, do you ever have moments where you're just fucking depressed about the fucking amputation or any of that stuff?
I was like, does that fuck with you?
I was like, how do you maintain such a good attitude?
I was like, I think it's amazing.
And he's like, what are you talking about?
He's like, losing my leg is the best thing that ever happened to me.
And I'll just never forget it because that statement was just like so like...
Different from what I ever expected this guy to say, right?
And he followed it up with, you know, if that never happened to me, he's like, I'd be over in fucking some sand pit in Afghanistan.
I'd just be another number and nobody would give a shit about me.
And then when I came home, he's like, I'd just be, you know, a fucking military guy and everybody in my town wouldn't care.
He's like, now, he's like, I go and I motivate people and I give these speeches.
He goes, and people look up to me and I'm inspiring people.
He's like, and I get to do cool shit.
I just got a fucking brand new rifle the other week for free.
He goes, the military is paying me.
He goes, I'm fucking partying here with you.
I fucked a super hot chick last night.
And then I remembered, I was like, oh, that's good.
It was just like funny though, because...
Like, his whole thought process about it was so great.
And I could just see how another guy, if that happened to him, could easily, like, get into, like, the woe is me and the whole, like, you know, fuck this.
You know, I'm depressed.
And, you know, think about it all the time.
Like, how could this have gone?
You know.
But this guy just, like, accepted it, fucking charged with it.
And I was just, like, he viewed it as, like, a huge positive.
So he loses his horse and everybody in the town comes over and they say, oh, well, that's terrible.
And he's like, maybe.
And then the next day, seven wild horses come back and they all come over and they say, oh, well.
That's great.
And he says, well, maybe.
And the next day, his kid is taking out one of the wild horses and breaks his leg.
And the whole town comes over and they say, oh, that's terrible now, isn't it?
He says, maybe.
And the next day, the conscription officers come over and they're, you know, taking people into the military to go fight.
And they pass by his son because he's got a broken leg.
And the whole town comes over and they say, you know, and they say, oh, that's great now, isn't it?
He says, maybe.
And the point of it is that you never really know if something is bad or good because you don't know how that's going to affect the rest of your life.
Like back, you know, when I, you know, fuck, I'm two days before graduating SEAL training.
I've done 510 days of it.
I've put my fucking heart and soul into this fucking thing.
And I get kicked out because some fucking guy doesn't like me.
And, you know, it's kind of hard to look at that in any way other than, oh, that's fucking terrible.
But as I'm older and I've experienced a lot, I can look at that and be like, well, half my class died, right, in combat.
So I could have fucking died.
If I would have became a Navy SEAL then that might have just been like what I hung my hat on you know and I was just like for the rest of my life I didn't feel like I really needed to fucking prove anything or excel or do anything because I've done this thing that everybody views as great and I don't know if I would have been as motivated.
And so there's just a lot of things like that in your life that in the short term you look at them as being extreme negatives or something that you even view as positive.
It's just hard to say until it's kind of like run its course and you see what effects that has later on down the line.