Justin Wren, founder of Fight for the Forgotten, shares how Joe Rogan’s podcast selected his nonprofit as Charity of Choice, earning 220 custom-labeled bourbon bottles from Buffalo Trace. His organization drilled 73 wells in Uganda, serving 60,000 people, and secured 48 acres for displaced Pygmies after political eviction—funded by Dustin Poirier’s shirt sales and Manny Pacquiao’s $50K donation. Wren contrasts Uganda’s progress with Congo’s ongoing violence, where Pygmies still face oppression in untouched rainforests. Battling addiction since age 13—triggered by childhood bullying—he survived a near-fatal relapse in 2020, crediting rehab and Joe’s Kratom advice to his recovery. Now prioritizing regenerative medicine (amnio stem cells, CBD) and self-care, he warns against overcommitting while advocating for Fight for the Forgotten’s mission: sustainable hope through clean water, education, and love. [Automatically generated summary]
I talked with Bo Beckman, his great-grandfather's great-grandfather.
I think his name's like T.H., I don't know, Eckert or something like that.
He started basically the modern-day bourbon in America.
So anyways, I asked him, I was talking to Bo, and said, can we do something special for Joe?
And he was like, yeah, what are you thinking?
And so I talked with my buddy Ryan, who's the vice president of our board, and we thought about it and we were like, what if we could get a barrel from Buffalo Trace and we could give it to Joe?
And so we thought we'd do a sample tasting for you, and you get to pick a single barrel select.
Basically, I guess, I'm not a whiskey connoisseur, but basically you're about to be able to do a wine, or not wine, but whiskey tasting.
And so they all taste different, every barrel, whenever it's a single select barrel.
So I guess like what they do at Buffalo Trace is they take a bunch of those barrels and they put them all in there together so it has one consistent taste.
But whenever you just take one barrel, it's always a unique flavor.
So, basically what we're going to do is we're going to be able to do that and make you a bottle, 220 bottles, and it'll have the Joe Rogan Experience logo on it.
And then you can give it to your guest as a thank you for being on the show.
We even thought, man, if 15,000 people tried to do, you know, 15,000 people tried to get it around Christmas time on these barrels, you know, let's just mention it on the show, it might be able to get 40,000 people.
If they did $25 raffle tickets, 40,000 people.
That's the first time Fight for the Forgotten would ever raise a million dollars from any one specific donor.
They don't go after the things they're not supposed to.
They just go after the wild hogs.
I mean, they eat what they get.
But there was no poaching and they put them on one acre of land behind the slums.
One acre.
Said this is where, for Chief Zito, they said this is where your 300 people can live.
300 people can live on one acre of land.
It's on the slums.
They throw out the sewage and literally the sewage just starts going through it.
I've seen them pick up their firewood because the fire would go out from the raw sewage from the slums.
And so they'd have to shift where they're cooking.
I was walking over these mounds.
That's why we really needed to get them new land and shift them from living right behind the slums.
And it was honestly, it was heart-wrenching because I was walking on these mounds and I asked Chief Zito, I go, what are these mounds?
He goes, they won't give us anywhere to bury our dead.
We live on top of our cemetery.
And there was over 150 people that were buried there.
So literally over 300 people on one acre.
Oh my god.
They buried on top of each other, right side by side.
That is insane.
It was like 1 to 1.25 acres, but it was less than 2 acres.
And so Dustin made it possible through the Good Fight Foundation donating to Fight for the Forgotten, and Khabib donating his shirt, and Dana matching it for us to go get 48 acres of new land.
We also drilled a water tower, not just a well, but a water tower for an orphanage and a school that the Pygmy kids started going to.
And now we've started farms on that 48 acres of new land.
I actually talked to Manny Pacquiao's team.
One of their missions is to build homes.
And Manny Pacquiao, yesterday, his executive director gave us confirmation that they're going to donate $50,000 to us to help complete 32 homes for these 32 surviving families.
And so they're actually being taught how to drill wells and be part of that process, how to farm with agriculturalists, growing corn, cassava, potatoes, and peanuts.
But also we're about to start teaching them how to make bricks, how to build homes.
And they're going to go from never having a real home, you know, living in the forest to then now being in these shacks to now that each family is going to have a two-bedroom home at least.
And then they're going to have a patio.
They're going to have a kitchen inside, a dining room.
It's just going to absolutely change their way of life.
Well, what's crazy is they had a rebel group that went through the Okapi National Reserve.
This was probably in...
I think it was right before I was there or the year I was there.
This was like 2013 or 14, maybe 2012. But I believe it was the Mai Mai that went through there and they just started slaughtering these Okapi at the Okapi National Reserve.
So they got pushed out of where they were doing their illegal gold mining.
So I actually saw that rebel leader, his name was Morgan.
I don't know if he went by like a code named Morgan, but anyways, they were dragging him behind the truck.
Whenever they had killed him, he like peacefully turned himself in, but I don't know, he had his rebel groups that were like looking in, so they killed him right there, and they took him out of there.
He was accused of being a thief, but it was just outside this bar.
And normally at night, they boarded up.
Basically, if you think about an old Wild Wild West thing, they board it all up, shut it down whenever sunset comes.
That's the same thing there in the rainforest.
Because if a rebel group comes through, you want to already be prepared.
You don't want to be out after dark.
But there was this bar that was kind of staying open and...
These guys are drunk and they accuse the guy being a thief and everyone thought he was a thief and so mob justice happened and they literally just jumped him and they beat him to death and I tried to get in there and one of our well drillers grabbed me and said no no no if you go over there we're gonna turn on you and uh so it turns out those guys were just drunk they accused the guy being a thief they didn't like the guy they had like some feud with him they just accused him being a thief and he got killed and the next day when I came by in the morning He was in basically like a, not a gutter, but a ditch.
It's about a guy who kind of, he's a veteran, but he kind of gets addicted to, or they imply, I believe that's...
Jamie, that's what it was about, right?
It's like the guy was addicted to the thrill of disarming bombs.
But people say that about places that they go to, that I've heard people talk about that, that are adventurers, that go to remote mountain ranges and almost lose their life, but they can't wait to go back for some strange reason.
I felt like they didn't have one, so maybe I didn't deserve one.
And I know that's twisted.
But I buried a couple of kids, a little boy named Mandibo, another boy named Babo.
Little Mo had died and Fina just recently died.
Well, she died in 2020. I met her when she had tuberculosis and she was seven years old and she just died at 14 years old and it was a lung thing.
They say it was, she had a dead lung in there and she needed a transplant, but it was while COVID was going on too.
And we got her out of the Congo and this was like February or March.
And we got her out of the Congo and got her to Uganda, got her to a good hospital.
And then they said we needed to take her to one other place.
To not have a lung transplant, but just to remove the dead.
I think it was the left lung inside of her.
And so in transport, whenever she was being taken there, she's 14 years old.
You know, she died.
And so we're trying to save her life, but we had to send her back in like a...
You know, a casket and that kind of stuff like messes with you and it's heartbreaking and you want to make sure it doesn't happen again for some of these kids and so I think I've been to at least five funerals of children under the age of five years old.
And so, you know, that kind of hard stuff, I mean, I've been told by Dr. Daniel Amen and some other people that I have PTSD from some of this stuff, you know, taking rape victims to the hospital right after they've been gang raped, like tied to a tree and gang raped.
And when that kind of stuff happens, it's very brutal on the women mentally, but also physically, you know, sometimes they need surgeries and To try to help them be normal again.
Not to get too graphic, but there's a guy that won a Nobel Peace Prize.
He actually passed away now, but he's from the Congo.
He's from Goma.
And he was revolutionary or innovative in that surgery, like repairing women's and giving them a normal life again so they can stay clean and be hygienic and things like that.
So, it's been a lot.
And honestly, man, I was hoping to come in on this podcast and be, you know, more real and more raw.
I mean, I feel like I'm normally a pretty transparent dude on here.
And that's why I'm going through life.
But...
2020 was actually the hardest year of my life.
The first six months was the toughest six months of my life.
And then the last six months, even now, has been the best of my life, which has been an incredible turnaround.
But, man, I think this year, 2021, my goal is healing and kind of healing from the inside out.
I've been doing that physically from a lot of stuff that I've gotten there.
But I've been trying to do it like...
Emotionally or mentally and just mind and heart healing, but it's been quite a journey.
In March, I'd say that from 23 when I stopped drinking, What's cool about this moment for me is I'm not just been sober, sitting in defeat, maybe in these meetings where I don't have a hopeful life or a great life to live.
Those meetings can be great, but sometimes you see some old-timers and they're not living in victory or they're not walking free.
They're sitting in defeat.
And so, like, for me to be able to sit here with you and let you, you know, taste some of the greatest whiskey there is, and for me to be able to go up on a trip and experience that with whoever wins this raffle, it's going to be pretty incredible.
But in 2020, I was in 90 days of rehab, and I was also in 90 days of sober living.
And so I'd relapsed.
And it was mainly to Oxy, but also weed and some other things.
So in wrestling, you have a thing called a reset weekend.
After a big tournament, you want to just have a reset.
So you go party and get it out of your system, and you're right back in the gym on Monday or Tuesday.
And so I used to be able to do that.
That's even kind of fabricating that.
I've never been able to do that.
I found that out at rehab, really taking a hard look at it.
I decided not to go to, I could have gone to some of these places in Scottsdale or LA or Malibu, and I could have gotten massages and had the green smoothies and stuff like that, which can help a lot of people.
But me, after having like a 15 year off and on battle, 10 years where I was pretty solid.
And I'd come out of it and I'd get right back on the horse and I'd be good for years.
His name's Dr. Kevin and he's got like a Irish last name, but he's he's got some stuff on I think Netflix and Amazon and he was a Navy surgeon and Basically like he ended up writing himself scripts for oxy and then he was injecting himself with other stuff and he got put in a Prison a military prison that one that got taken down and like Kansas.
I forget what it's called and But anyway, Leavenworth or something like that, he was put in that prison.
Anyways, now he's spent his time there really trying to help people in addiction.
And that cycle of addiction basically is explained as after you have that first use and that allergy set off, now you go on your spree.
Because what that doctor did, why he brought him up, was he shows scientifically through brain research that an addict's brain is different, like they don't have enough dopamine receptors.
And whenever that hits, now all of a sudden it goes back to that almost hunter-gatherer brain.
Where it says, this is a priority for survival.
Like, that's why some addicts will prioritize it above food or water or family.
And you see them do irrational things.
And then they go on this run.
And then when they, after that spree, after that run, they come out of it and they emerge remorseful.
They feel terrible.
I've had moments like that.
And then all of a sudden you make a firm resolution.
Yeah, I came out, I emerged remorseful, and then I promised myself, I promised my wife at the time, I promised my family, friends, that this isn't who I want to be.
And what they say about an addict is you could hook them up to a lie detector And they absolutely 100% mean it.
That they never intend to use again.
But then what happens is they back with that firm resolution.
I promise.
This was the last time.
All of a sudden you get restless, irritable, and discontented.
Well, whenever an addict gets restless, irritable, discontented, I would ask the question, what's the difference between discontent and discontented?
You might be a little restless, but discontented?
Basically says, well, if discontent is I'm thirsty, discontented is there's not enough water in the whole world to quench this thirst.
And so you get in that place where you have this mental obsession.
So you have this mental obsession, you get restless, irritable, and discontented, and then you go back to that first use.
And then you get stuck in that cycle of addiction again.
And that's where I lived for five years from 17 to 23 was I was just looping back and forth.
I would get sober for my fights, the eight weeks of fight camp, ten weeks of fight camp.
But then that's why Grudge Training Center had to kick me out, you know?
I mean, Brendan was on that vote.
I think Rashad, Nate Marquardt, Shane Carwin, Dwayne Bang Ludwig.
All those guys that invited me on the team after I got off the Ultimate Fighter, it was just a short while later that they were having to ask me to leave the team.
It was like a vote.
Elliott Marshall, Trevor Whitman.
I think Justin Gaethje was just starting to come up.
I don't know if he was actually training full-time then, but he was still at Northern Colorado State or Northern Colorado Wrestling there.
But they said, you know, Justin, like, you, we love you, but you got to go.
You got to go get help.
And I should have went and got helped.
But that's when I found my purpose with the Pygmies.
I've heard this quote that said, no act of kindness, no matter how small, ever goes wasted.
And so I started at the local children's hospital, became a local volunteer, went through night school for it.
Later, you remember HDNet and Inside MMA with Boss Ruten?
Those guys came out to the Denver Children's Hospital.
This was like nine months of me being sober.
All of a sudden now I have Rashad visiting the kids and Shane Carwin, Dwayne Bang, Brennan Shaw visiting the kids that I would push around in the wheelchairs and stuff.
So if someone were to bring bed bugs in and get in the mattresses and things like that, like if someone came from a homeless shelter or from the streets.
They find themselves in this eternal state of conflict.
Like, some people, they figure their way through life with very little conflict.
They're magical people.
I know a few of them.
It's rare.
Some people are constantly engaged in some...
Insurmountable problem.
And then they also go and, like in your case, you find insurmountable problems like what you're doing with the Congo and the Pygmies and Uganda and helping these people.
It gives you purpose and it helps define your life in a positive way.
But I would say that the counselors that were there and the recovery advocates, they're really hard on you because some of the guys that have left there, if they let them leave their overconfident, that they've got their problem nicked, then they can go right back out and relapse.
But this is after your UFC career, after your Bellator career, all the amazing things you've done with Fight for the Forgotten, all the times you've been to the Congo.
I would know it, but when I would relapse, I would feel like such a piece of garbage.
I would feel like I was a disappointment to myself, but also to everybody else.
And that...
Let me tell you what happened in Mexico.
So I end up going, I asked to go to a different place, and they just wanted to get me into rehab as soon as possible, which I really admire and respect.
But I knew it was a place that didn't have a good success rate.
I got on a plane, and I thought it was pretty symbolic.
It was COVID, so everything shut down.
And then, man, there's a statistic that was on CNN, and it said that in Japan last month.
And I don't know if this was last month in December or November, but in one month they had more suicides than all of COVID deaths in Japan.
In one month.
And it's because all these people are isolated.
And I know that when I'm in active addiction, what I do is I isolate, I sedate, I suppress, and I numb out.
And there's so many people that are going through This right now what I went through and I think kovat was a big part of that, you know Going straight from a divorce to then all of a sudden you're in isolation.
Yeah And then I just decided to use and then that's all I had to do and then kept going What was the feeling when you when you decide when you say okay, I'm gonna use like you make a conscious decision How do you get the weed like what what sets you off?
At rehab, they say, without a complete psychic change, without something happening to come in whenever you're in that restless, irritable, discontented, or that emerging remorseful and that firm resolution.
If you don't break that right there, you have like a pattern interrupt, which for me was rehab and sober living.
So there's this analogy that this doctor used and...
And it just made sense to me.
The addict brain is almost like a kid whenever he goes to the vending machine and he puts in change and he thinks he's going to get one bag of Funyuns.
All of a sudden he's getting, instead of one bag of Funyuns, it keeps, it's on and a second one comes or a third one comes or it's just on and it keeps coming.
And now all of a sudden it's way better than you expected.
So whenever all of a sudden I have that one hit, all of a sudden it's way better than I expected because in my brain, like literally biologically or whatever, it's, it's giving me more dopamine because I have limited numbers of dopamine receptors and And so now all of a sudden it gives me that and so I think I'm happy.
But if I really look back from a rational state of mind...
I might be happy for a moment, but then all of a sudden that fades and I keep going and it's with every inhale or what happens with Oxy.
So I get on this plane, I end up going down to Mexico and I thought I'd just use and come back whenever we found...
A better place.
Honestly, I thought I was going to go to Tulum and I was going to get in some healing waters and I was going to get away from my connection there.
And I was going to find a rehab place and then I was going to go, uh, come back and go straight to rehab.
And then I just got darker and darker and darker.
And I feel like, I don't know how to explain suicide to people, except for I some reason I go to this this place of seeing the Twin Towers get hit by those planes and it's the people that are stuck above They're stuck above the plane and it's smoldering and smokes going in their fires going in there and they're looking for a way out They try to find they can't go to the elevator.
They try to go to the staircase They look down.
It's it's smoldering black smoke.
They can't see awesome They come to an open window and no one wants to jump out of the window But some of those people in 9-11 did.
And it's almost like I have...
Either choice sucks.
But I can stay in the burning building.
Whenever I got snagged by this addiction this last time, I felt like it got to a point to where I'm not going to escape this time.
This time it's got me in a stranglehold that I can't get out of.
I can't fight it off.
I can't tuck my chin.
I can't pull the hands down.
I can't fight the hands.
I'm done.
I'm toast.
I'm in such a weakened state of mind or body or mentally, spiritually, physically.
I'm not going to escape.
And so when I actually got on that plane at 5 a.m., it was four flight attendants, two pilots, and me.
I have no idea why American Airlines still took that plane unless it was something with COVID funding that if they still operate, they get funding for it.
But they would have lost money on that, just taking one person down to Mexico.
They took me to Cancun, and I took a one-way ticket.
And the reason I took a one-way ticket was because I thought, I'm not coming back this time.
I'm not coming back from it.
And I ended up going and staying at this Airbnb there.
And I met a military veteran who was there, who was stoked that he bought this condo that was next to mine, my Airbnb.
And then he got a call that, like, the love of his life wasn't coming to the condo that he bought for them.
Basically, she said, if you went down there during COVID, you expect me to come down during COVID? Like, you know, I'm not coming.
And so he had his heart broken.
I was down there in a very negative space.
He had oxy on him.
He had PTSD. He had seen a lot of war.
He served a lot of time.
I guess he went on three different tours.
And I just started using those oxys with him.
And then we found his connection, which you can just buy him at the pharmacy there in Mexico.
But we ended up finding this guy that had weed, that Coke.
We got Oxy.
And then we asked him for Molly once.
And, you know, the guy had loose lips and he told him that I'm a fighter and this stuff.
Anyways, he ends up telling some of the cartel guys that are there.
We get invited up to this like penthouse apartment that's got like an infinity edge pool on it.
It's like this drug dealer.
I mean it looks like a guy out of he's got the silk shirt and the chains on and it looks like the jungle on top of this in Playa del Carmen kind of Cancun area.
And he's got all the drugs there for us to just use.
And for coke it was the best coke ever.
It made everything numb both sides of my nostrils.
And then I see people are reaching out.
They're trying to get a hold of me.
They love me.
They know that I've relapsed.
And I just feel like I can't come back.
I was hanging my head in shame.
And honestly, going, I thought it was so symbolic.
I didn't want to take a lot of people on this journey with me.
And I thought, I'm going here.
I'm not coming back.
I'm either going to die from the drugs or I'm going to purposely kill myself.
And so I was just in this negative, negative place, like felt defeated in that loop of that.
That's what I feel like I discovered at, with Dr. Daniel Amen and at rehab and at these places like uprooting that, you know, these roots went so deep.
And then now, the greatest thing I discovered at rehab and at Sober Living was 180 days of daily meditation, prayer, and just like really going inward and like setting my day up to where I'm not in that negative of a place.
Well, I'm surrounded by a tribe now that does that.
Um, what I mean by that was getting out of rehab, having those connections of people that are now beating it and staying sober, but also I needed something a little different.
Like I don't want to be, I wanted something more tailored towards me and my needs and like just to share like Aubrey's been so great to me.
Aubrey Marcus, I shared with him what had happened and I saw that he started this fit for service and basically it's a mastermind group.
Of people that want to make their business or whatever their livelihood is make a difference in the world.
Basically the premise is to be of service, you must be fit for service, not just a rock star in business or there's actors and athletes and musicians and podcasters and authors and things like that.
You have to be fit relationally.
You have to have a tribe.
That's what I found in Congo and in Uganda that I didn't have here, really.
I didn't have these deep relationships of people I could completely be raw and vulnerable with, where I could share my wins with, but I could also share my biggest failures with.
Whenever this last seven months has been the most at peace I've ever been.
And what?
I'm eight months sober.
And then I am really...
Let me share two experiences with you that brought me the most peace.
Because you were asking about that.
I don't know if I ever told you what took me to the Congo.
It was a sober vision, and I know that sounds out there, but experimenting with psychedelics and stuff, I've seen stuff, but this was me at 23, and I basically, in a time of meditation, and I wasn't a praying dude at all, but prayer meditation, all I did was basically said, and I was volunteering at the children's hospital, I was volunteering at the rescue mission for the homeless, all this stuff, and But I basically just said, God, what do you want me to do with my life?
God, source, creator, whatever you want to put on it.
But I just said, God, what do you want me to do with my life?
And I had a movie in my mind.
And it was like visualization whenever you—at the Olympic training center, we had sports psychologists take us through visualization.
And you'd see yourself in whatever color singlet you're wearing.
You'd see yourself shake hands.
You'd hear the whistle blow.
You would see you setting up whatever takedown you're going for.
And sometimes you'd see yourself have the perfect match.
Sometimes you'd see yourself battle back from worst case scenario.
You get down.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to sink or swim?
Are you going to fight back, battle back?
Well, those were all like guided visualizations, right?
And I'd also do that by myself, like some music and headphones.
And this, though, was unlike anything like that because it was unprompted.
It wasn't like I was trying to conjure something up.
I just really felt like I needed direction.
I had stepped away from fighting for a little bit because win or lose, I had an excuse to use.
It was like if I won, I wanted to celebrate.
If I lost, I wanted to erase all that.
And this was 11 months sober at 23. And how'd you do that?
Honestly, I just kind of white-knuckled it and will-powered that.
And then I had a great group of people around me.
I would say I had this complete psychic change from almost a spiritual experience that I'm about to share with you where I say that prayer, God, what can we do with my life?
I'm walking down this footpath, and I don't know where I am, and there's vines and thickets that are all around me, and I'm clearing out the vines, and the footpath is barely wider than my foot.
And I don't know where I'm going, but I hear drumming.
And then I hear singing.
I come into a clearing and I see these leaf huts.
And then the first guy I meet has like his ribs kind of poking out or how would I say?
He looked like a skeleton with skin on.
I knew that he was hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, oppressed, and enslaved.
I just had that knowledge.
And this was the most vivid thing I've ever seen that didn't actually happen.
It was 10 times, 20 to 100 times more vivid than the visualization drills that I did at the Olympic Training Center with my coaches for fights.
Like, it was so real.
And...
I come out of vision, feel like they were forgotten.
And I just knew all this stuff, like they're suffering.
And I cried a little puddle of tears.
I had no idea who they are, not a puddle, but like a little silver dollar size of like tears.
And I wept and I never wept like that for anyone in my life.
I know who they were, where they were, anything like that.
And three days later, I meet this guy named Caleb and Caleb had done humanitarian mission trips all over the world.
And he had lived with the Vanuatu people.
And I thought I was crazy, bro.
I literally thought I was crazy.
Is this some psychic break?
Is this some sort of mental breakdown that I saw something that I didn't try to conjure up?
I just had this experience.
I thought I would never tell anyone about it.
And then when I tell Caleb, who had been buddies with Bear Grylls, had done survival training with him, had went and visited the Maasai tribe, the hunting lions, I thought, if there's one guy I could tell this to, it's this guy.
And I end up telling him the vision.
He says, I know who they are.
I said, what?
He said, those are the pygmy people.
They live in the Congo basin rainforest.
It's in eight or nine African nations.
I'm like, who are they?
And he goes, they're in the Congo.
They're in all these other places.
And I'm like, where are they?
This is how I found out about the pygmies.
This is where this all began at 23 years old.
Like this guy tells me the people from your vision are the pygmy people.
Then I tell him the vision.
He goes, I'm supposed to go there in three and a half weeks.
This is crazy that we met because I had a team of three other people that were going with me, but they're all husbands, they're all fathers.
And the U.S. State Department just said no Americans go there for any reason.
That there's rebel groups that are actually decapitating people and different crazy things.
He said, look, come tell my wife this vision.
Her name's Jess.
And he said, if you come tell Jess, she asked me to cancel the trip, but you tell her this vision.
And so I told her the vision and literally he said, he looks at me and goes, Justin, if you go, I'll go.
And Jess said, if you go, he'll go.
And it was like the craziest thing to me that like he can go, he's married, he's got a kid and like he, but he was already planning on going in three and a half weeks.
And so we brought a buddy, Colin, along with us who took the, the, the photo that was just a candid photo.
That's the cover of my book.
It was my first hour in the Congo.
And so the sober vision literally took me there.
And then all of a sudden we land on this grass runway.
Monkeys are jumping off the runway.
We get out.
We drive six to eight hours.
We get on a dugout canoe.
We go across the river.
We start walking.
And then all of a sudden we hear drumming.
And then we hear singing.
And then we come into a clearing.
And the first guy we meet has tuberculosis.
And he's coughing.
And like they start telling us how they're hungry, they're thirsty, they're poor, they're sick, they're oppressed.
But before that happened, like before they start telling us their stuff, I just had to drop down into like a full squat.
I put my elbows on my knees.
I literally took a knee because I felt weak in the knees because I never experienced.
I told Caleb, I told Colin, and I told his wife Jess.
That's it.
And I had a piece of paper that I wrote down, forgotten at the top, then hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, oppressed, enslaved.
And they knew it.
And it's been really cool, actually.
Jim and Susan, who helped me run Fight for the Forgotten, We had a dinner in Caleb's house in Nebraska, and Caleb and Jess were able to tell Jim and Susan their version of the story, which was awesome.
You know, he had this vision.
We went.
It happened.
Caleb was grabbing my shoulder like my trap.
He was like, this is your vision.
This is your vision.
And I didn't know what to do with it.
I felt like it was nuts.
But the chief came to us, and he gave us, after we stayed there for a couple weeks, he said, He gave me the one thing, you know, this is our 10 year anniversary, a fight for the forgotten.
We're calling it 10 years of promise because they gave me the one promise that I could keep.
And they said, I knew that they needed land, but I didn't know how to do that.
I didn't know how to drill water wells.
I was just a fighter.
I didn't know how to start farms.
And literally he said, he, he, Caleb and Colin are with me and he looks at me and says, we don't have a voice.
Can you help us have one?
He's looking right at me.
He motions to me.
Can you help us have one?
I start tearing up because Caleb and Colin know my vision and how it happened and what are you going to do with this, you know?
And I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.
I don't know what to do with this, but that that's whenever it set in because I said, yes, I said yes, but it was almost like my soul or my heart screamed.
Yes.
Like, this is my purpose.
This is what I'll do.
I'm not just going to fight against people.
I'm going to fight for people.
And so that really helped me for a long time.
Like being able to go there and help.
And then I'll, I'll, I'll tell you, since we're on these visions, like I had not, I had only had one other time that I had experienced anything like this.
It's 10 years later.
I was in Sedona, and I was with Aubrey and Fit for Service, and there's like 178 people from all over the world.
And we met up in Sedona.
And there were classes, and not classes, but like breakouts on meditation.
And I never had like formal teaching, training on it, but we did a breathwork session.
And they split us up into three different groups.
And there's 170 people, so there's like maybe 50 people, a little over 50 people in each of the three groups.
And they're going to take us through three hours of breathwork.
Now it's a 30-minute teaching on the front, a 30-minute kind of integration at the end, but you're going to do two hours of breathwork.
And I guess to actually set that up, in Mexico, I took a cocktail that, honestly, I thought was going to stop my heart.
I took five Oxy-80s, 80 milligrams.
Basically, they do 5 milligrams, they do 10 milligrams, they do 20 milligrams, they do 40 milligrams, and then they do 80. So 5-oxy-80s is equivalent of like 40, or no, what is that?
I don't know.
It's 5-oxy-80s is what?
That's 80 5-milligram pills.
That's 85 milligram pills.
That's like almost three prescription bottles of 30, you know, 10 shy.
I took all that at once.
I took the biggest line of Coke I've ever taken.
I drank like half a bottle of tequila, one of those smaller bottles, but I took like half a bottle of tequila.
And then I had bought what I thought was Molly, this like crystallized Molly.
And my motor skills were slowing.
This was April 5th.
The night of April 5th was the darkest night of my life.
Actually, it wasn't the night.
It was about noon or 2 p.m.
Like, April 4th was the darkest night of my life.
And then April 5th, when I woke up, I was just like, I was tired.
I felt like the addiction had snagged me that I wasn't going to escape.
I remember my motor skills slowing to where if I would have tried to talk, I wouldn't have been able to.
Um, the table was maybe right where you're sitting and the bed was where I was sitting.
So it wasn't that far, but I remember I only took, I didn't take them what I thought was the Molly until after everything started getting dark or just kind of cold.
And then the last thing I did was I crushed up that, that Molly or what I thought was Molly and I crushed it up and I snorted it.
On both sides of my nostrils, and I never felt a burn like that in my life in my nostrils, because it was this, whatever, this chemical of methamphetamine.
And I sat back on the bed, and I remember I laid back with my arms out, and my feet were off to where the next morning my ankles were swollen, because I just fell back and passed out.
I woke up at maybe like 6am the next morning.
It was right before the sun rose.
And I remember I woke up and I woke up with a gas.
It was like a...
And I thought in my head, I was like, shit, I'm alive.
Fuck, I'm still here.
And I went out and I was in my clothes from the day before.
I mean, bro, I was passed out for like 18, 20 hours, something like that, from like noon until like maybe 6 a.m.
the next morning or 2 p.m.
to like 6 a.m.
the next morning.
And people that take meth, like they can't sleep.
And that was my first time or only time, but they normally can't sleep for days.
And now all of a sudden I pass out for that long because I had all that other stuff in my system.
I went out and I got in the water.
And I take my shirt off and I just get in.
And I remember I was sitting on my knees on the sand in the water.
The water's coming up kind of on my chest and over my shoulders.
And it was kind of grounding, but I just remember trying to connect to my breath and also my heart, because my heart was racing like crazy.
And I remember, like, saying thank you for the beating heart in my chest.
Like, thank you, because I wasn't planning on waking up the next day, and I did.
And then I was saying thank you for the beating heart in my chest.
And then I started saying thank you for the breath that's in my lungs.
And I had my eyes closed.
And before I started saying thank you though, I remember like these waves coming over me and it was almost like the shamefulness was coming over me with every wave.
Like just so much shame because of what I did the night before, day before.
And then whenever I started thinking myself or being thankful for the breath of my lungs, being thankful for that crazy beating heart in my chest, it's like it kind of switched to like gratefulness all of a sudden.
And maybe like the shamefulness was leaving.
You know how waves can kind of come over you and then they go back out and they kind of come over you.
It was kind of like just all of a sudden it changed like gratefulness and a little bit of the shamefulness kind of left.
And I just felt a sense like open your eyes.
Like a thought in my mind, just open your eyes.
And when I open my eyes, like literally on the horizon, in Playa del Carmen, like the sun just pops up over the sunrise.
Or the sunrise starts to appear on the horizon.
And I just sat there and I was like, I was dumbfounded.
Or I was like, blown away because I watched the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen in my life.
Because they were not taking flights because of COVID. They had to consolidate our flight until it was me and one other guy coming back.
And they postponed our flights for like three or four days.
And so I was using it in that time because I was going through a draw.
You can go through a draw quick.
I mean, I was using from March 1st or 2nd to then this is like April 6th that I have this revelation that I do need to come back and go to rehab, but I can't stop.
So you were in Mexico for how long?
I was only there for like, I don't know, end of March.
So I was there like two weeks, but I was using the whole time.
I was there two weeks and I was using the whole time I was there.
So after this revelation, where you're in the water and you're thankful for your heartbeat...
How do you use again?
What is the thought process?
If you realize that you want to be alive and that you are valuable and that you've just tricked yourself into falling into this trap again, how do you allow yourself to use again?
And then also, I think just the addict mind of, like, withdrawals suck whenever you go through oxywithdrawal.
Like, you feel like, I remember the time I was going through withdrawal after surgery, and I felt like I was going to shake the mattress off of the bed frame and I was sweating through it.
I guess I could have gone and found it, but I had this and I was looking for my flights and I was going back to rehab and I guess I thought, I'm going to get sober at rehab.
I'm going to get sober at rehab.
And for me, it's one thing to say you want to fight in the UFC, but you've got to go to training camp.
You've got to get the right skill, the right training.
I will never use oxy, alcohol, marijuana, Xanax, those kind of substances, unless it's under the care of a doctor.
I am open to, I'm talking with a place called Aluma here in Austin.
They do ketamine transfusions and what they do that for is for addicts.
They work with recovery centers and they work with PTSD, childhood trauma, and they're seeing great things.
So I've talked with those doctors.
I'm willing to look at that and see if that's the right thing, but I want to do it under care of like actual specialists that have like Have you thought about Ibogaine?
I think that, well, I think like right now, you know, with you and knowing that this is such a big platform and me sharing my weakest moments, you know, that's me trying to let that armor fall and be fully seen and not hide it, be transparent with it.
And I think for me, I'm allowing myself to be seen more and more.
And I don't think I was ever hiding stuff.
Fight for the Forgotten has never once been an act for me.
He was born with autism and deaf in his right ear.
And so he was given a concussion.
Either at the urinal where the kids jumped him and then filmed it or at the bus stop the very next day.
Actually, it might be reversed where he was at the bus stop and it happened off school grounds so the school wasn't able to look into it as much as they could or should.
And then the next day was at the urinal, and since it was circulating from inside the school, they were able to help.
And when you've been hurt at home, when you've been hurt at school, and whenever someone else will laugh or joke, or when people don't do anything, you can feel powerful or you can feel strong.
Whenever people sit by as an innocent bystander.
Wrongfully thinking they're an innocent bystander when actually they're a silent supporter.
A lot of times, you know, if you see it or hear it, kids just don't know that it's now they're presented with a choice.
Am I going to do something or do nothing?
And kids don't know that nine times out of ten almost, it's like 87% of the time a kid stands up and says one thing such as like, hey, that's not kind.
It actually stops it.
Someone will stop whenever they're confronted, whenever it's addressed, whether it's reported or even more so than the authorities that are in place, which kids should go tell teachers and faculty and stuff like that, but they have more power than they know.
They can stop it.
And so it was cool.
Like when I was doing that breath work though, I was praying and this brought me so much peace because it was something that I actually needed for me.
I think I used that vision to then just give me a mission to like love people in such a deep and meaningful way for myself.
But I don't think I ever allowed myself to love myself.
Because I don't know that I... I knew it logically, but I didn't let it actually sink in, that you have to love yourself before you love others, truly and sustainably, right?
I know what I'm saying sounds ridiculous, but I don't...
I don't get how after all the amazing things you've done it hasn't changed your opinion of yourself That was cut into you by some 13 year old kids Yeah, well, I really feel like I have a lot of freedom from that now But then I didn't it was I'll tell you this vision was what I think needed to happen I'm breathing.
It comes up to the top of the ocean and it's this golden, gorgeous water that's swirling around it.
All of a sudden it turns into like this flame and it's like a fire around this human heart.
And then all of a sudden it turns into this like white orb.
And then all of a sudden it turns into this golden, molten, kind of like jeweler's gold.
And it turns into this golden heart.
And when that happened, I don't know why, but I put my arms up, and I put my arms up, and one of the facilitators are helping people breathe and stretch and different things like that.
They grab my wrist, and they pull my wrist above my head.
And I'm on my back, right?
I know it sounds nuts, but I feel like they put a medicine ball in my hand, but there wasn't.
It felt like they put something there.
There was actual weight there.
And then I bring it back above my head and I'm seeing this golden heart and I feel like there's something inside of my hands, like this energy inside of it.
I don't know why, but it was heavy and it was there.
And then someone else comes by and they grab my hands and they put my hands over my hands and they sink it right down onto my chest.
And whenever they did that, I don't know how to explain it except for it felt like there was this golden honey that was like sinking down into my own heart or into my own chest and my own soul.
And it was just like love.
And I know it sounds cliche or goofy, but like loves the answer.
Like, I can't just love everyone else.
I have to love myself too.
And like, this is a season of healing through self love, through self love and meditation, taking time for myself and silence.
Um, and taking, I think, I think the word healing for me is like helping being open, To others helping me heal, taking time for myself to heal, and then helping others heal.
Whether it's Raiden, mentoring him, loving on him, other people, the pygmies.
As I heal myself, I can help others heal.
And just hurt people hurt people.
I guess healed people heal people.
And you can actually, you know, you have to heal yourself, but you can also help others heal at the same time.
And as you watch them heal, that helps you heal.
And so that's been the journey that I've been on, and that's what I've been grateful for with.
The Fit for Service tribe.
They're all people that are using their business as platforms to help people make the world better.
But they want to make their own life better.
And as they make their own life better, they can help other people make their lives better.
Yeah, well, it's been dope for me because there's the Colorado River, Lake Austin, and then going there and just hiking on 250 acres or the Greenbelt or all these other parks, Zilker Park, and going out there with people that are stretching, doing yoga, that are just kind of like really open-minded, accepting, loving, supportive.
It's been wild, man.
I've been at Brigham's guest house.
I've been staying there a lot, and there's been people that have literally walked into our yard saying, I heard you moved to town.
I want to donate.
I'm like, what?
This is wild.
And for me, part of the healing in my journey is that I felt like if I let anyone know, if I really let anyone know, like this dark side or this addiction that I fell back to or this relapse that I had and how dark of a spot I got, if they knew, like no one would want to support me, no one would want to support the organization, right?
And then when I went to rehab and I went to sober living and the board really helped me, the board said, Justin, we've been standing behind you for 10 years now, close to 10 years.
Now it's time for us to stand beside you and out in front of you with a shield and protect you.
Allow yourself to heal.
Allow yourself to do self-development work and get therapy and things like that.
A season, a break, a sabbatical for you.
Like take the season to really look inward.
And what do you really want to do?
I've had this revamping inside of me that's like, no, this is my purpose.
Even our last board meeting was the best board meeting we've ever had, and it was here in Austin.
There was different rotations, but they really liked me having to get up before everybody else.
And that's at 5 a.m.
And then you're cooking breakfast for 32 other guys.
You're cooking 60 eggs, 100-something pieces of bacon, toast, and putting out everything for them.
And then you're cleaning all their dishes.
And that was hard.
Sober living was really hard.
And then whenever I found the tribe with Fit for Service, like that was just, they spoke my language.
They're my kind of people.
They're people I can really look up to, that I can trust.
And I I think upgrading, not that I didn't have good friends, but I think upgrading a friend group in a way of like, these people are hungry.
They're hungry to live an incredible life for themselves, but they're also wanting to better other people's lives.
Like, these are my people.
And so being with them has really helped a lot.
Moving to Austin, there's been so many cool people here.
I shouldn't say that too loud, but yeah.
And it's really helped a lot to where, even at the last board meeting, The chairman on my board moved here.
There's so many like synchronicities that happened, serendipitous moments that I can't deny that like I'm supposed to be here.
And like, this is a good move for me.
And, you know, I just had to thank them because, you know, they told me how proud they were of me going through the work, doing the work, the hard stuff.
And I just had to look back at everyone and say, like, y'all don't understand.
I thought I was gonna lose every one do you think that you this this draw I keep trying to figure out what led you down this dark path other than obviously the divorce but you the the things that you've done you've been so praised for you've gotten so much love you've been so powerful as a fighter and you this weird combination of someone who's incredibly strong but also vulnerable it's a very It's
a very unusual combination like who you are like incredibly kind and giving but also like very competitive like as a fighter you know yeah you I would most people when they do something that like they've gotten over the bullying through accomplishing things and through redefining who they are as a person but for you it doesn't seem like that did enough Even with all the charitable work you've done,
the amazing work you've done, even all the accomplishments you've had as a fighter, you're obviously not that person.
We even talked about you having contact with some of the bullies, some of the people that you, and they were kind of blown away by who you are now.
But that didn't even redefine it for you, redefine who you are for you.
And it's really hard to explain to people that don't understand it or people that don't have that inclination.
One of the things that actually got me to choose Stonegate and this rehab center Was because on it, I always thought, like, I think part of me, because I'm disciplined, because I've been a national champion of wrestling, I've fought in the UFC, all that stuff, and I've been disciplined, I just thought that there was something weak-willed about me to use, or that I was morally corrupted, and I just didn't have...
I like, why?
It didn't make sense to me.
I know it doesn't make sense to other people.
And so whenever they said, no, this isn't a morality problem.
It isn't, you actually, addicts do after usage, after they do, and that mental obsession and everything, they lose the power of choice.
Of putting it back down.
They do until they're equipped, until they're empowered, until they're educated about what's going on when they do that and how you can trick yourself.
And I think I'm doing it in a way, but there are people just like me that do need that pattern interrupt, that training camp for the biggest fight of their life.
This was the, after April 5th, And I attempted suicide.
I finally realized, there's no fight in a cage that's the biggest fight I'm ever going to have.
Like, this is my biggest fight.
Because if I don't fix this...
It doesn't end well.
It doesn't end well for me.
It doesn't end well for the people I'm trying to help.
So that's why I went and actually got help was because I wanted some sort of training camp.
And I had that six months where it's like preparation to build support and help and some boundaries and things like that to where I'm able to better know myself.
It's, it's helped me a lot to where I don't feel like I don't feel bad if someone reaches out and I don't really know them, but they expect a response.
Because the people that are close to me in my circle, the people that are helping me with the board of directors or this Fit for Service tribe or you, those are the people that can speak into my life and I'll take a good, hard look at it.
And what I learned that they would offend you so much purposefully at rehab that what they were trying to do is help.
They say offense or resentment is the number one offender.
And if you allow resentment to build in you or offense and be offended and things like that, a lot of times that's whenever people go back out and use.
And so for me, if it doesn't apply, let it fly.
And if you don't know me, then...
And most of the time people aren't saying real critical stuff.
And I've just been really grateful this last...
I talked with Denise a few days ago.
I did my second round at Ways 12. And this was what was really cool that she showed me because I've been telling her I've been trying to heal from the inside out.
And she goes, that's exactly what we're doing.
It's preventative, regenerative, integrative care and functional medicine, but they're able to track the My progress on...
I've gotten better insulin resistance, which the reason my insulin wasn't that great was because I had so much inflammation in my body.
And that goes back to the parasites, the bacterias, all the other stuff.
And on top of that, we were talking about the fact that you're taking these heavy-duty antibiotics, and these heavy-duty antibiotics have shown to weaken your tendons and ligaments.
And it was just really tough to make the comeback that I've been wanting.
And so, what's been great about...
I mean, this was just a few days ago.
I got with Denise again, who you met.
And she was able to show me on all these places I'm making progress.
And instead of doing it every three...
Um, months like they do with more of their patients or all their patients.
Um, they're going to do blood panels on me.
They're going to be watching everything that's going on in my body to show me that I'm not just, so the other day she said, Justin, my first time going through your blood laps, I wasn't going to tell you how long of a road you still have ahead.
You've made a lot of progress, but you've got a long road ahead.
And after the second time with her, she's like, Justin, look at all these improvements.
This is to make sure you're hope-filled, you know, full of hope that you are on the right track to make this comeback.
So what we're doing in Uganda, it's going to be so incredible.
Literally, they've never had a home, right?
We're building homes where they're going to have tapped water there.
They're going to have tapped water right outside their doorstep, not inside, because of the inside plumbing.
If something goes bad, we want the toilet to just walk out their front door, turn on a spigot, and they've got water for their food, for boiling, for their hands, for washing.
We've dug latrines, and you should have seen the celebration they had whenever they had latrines, which are toilets for the first time, instead of just having to go behind a tree.
Or behind a hut.
They're able to actually have a latrine underneath their feet.
For me, I've started to find a lot more purpose in my voice.
Helping, for sure, through Fight for the Forgotten, that's so much of my purpose.
But I'm going to start a podcast this year, 2021, and I hope that it's going to help other people, whether it's having doctors and actors and entrepreneurs, whatever it is, people that have a story, a story of hope, like how they've overcome something.
I don't know if I'm going to fight again at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022, but I've been talking to Rafael Lovato Jr., and what I'm doing is just get healed.
I know that you were thinking about doing that again.
When we were talking, when we were getting stem cell shots and talking about it, and I was like, Jesus, dude, it seems like there's always a new thing, always a new problem.
When you've got this problem solved, a new problem comes up, you've got to deal with this problem.
That's what I'm wondering.
I'm like, you've got all these problems, and they keep happening.
There's no breaks from these problems.
But then you're always creating another one.
Like, I'm ready to fight in six months.
Stop!
Stop!
That's what I wanted to tell you.
Goddamn, dude, you gotta get fully healthy and fit.
But I'm worried about you going back again and getting more of this.
You've got malaria three times.
You got this horrible parasite that they couldn't even detect for a long time.
Yeah, and then the CDC found that I had dengue fever, and then I had blackwater fever, which if you Google that, it's either one in two or one in four people die that get it.
And that's where I had, yeah, basically 65, 70. But that was an offshoot of malaria, blackwater fever.
Because you're such a good person, and I know you want to go back there and do good again, but goddamn, dude, if you get more things happening to you, your body's been fucking poisoned for years.
Every time you go over there, you're getting poisoned.
Are you getting poisoned with malaria?
Are you getting poisoned with these parasites and fevers and all this crazy shit that keeps happening to you?
You have a bright future as a fighter if you choose to continue to pursue that.
But the thing that I worry about you is you've got this thing that some people do.
There's a pattern.
It's going to be hard for me to verbalize this.
But there's a pattern that some people have where they have things in their life and they really have enough on their plate.
But then they see another thing and they go, well, I'm just going to do that too.
And then they fuck themselves up.
And then there's another thing that comes on when they're in the middle of that.
I'm going to do this.
You're distracting yourself with this constant state.
And I recognize it partially because I've done it.
I've been that guy.
I've been that guy where I'm doing too many different things and I start fucking my life up.
And then I recognize I'm fucking my life up and it's like I can't stop.
I'm just doing too many things.
And then the things that I'm doing, because I'm doing too many things, I'm not doing them well.
I'm not doing any of the things to their optimal ability.
Now I protect my time.
My time is very precious to me.
And I protect it.
And so when I look at a new thing, I'm like, I don't have time for that.
And I've said no to cool shit because of that, like movie roles and things that would be interesting and projects that would probably be fun.
I'm like, I can't.
I don't have any time.
And they're like, this is a great opportunity.
I'm sure it is.
I'm great with what I'm doing.
I don't have any time.
And I don't want to burden myself with too much shit.
You look at things like, then I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be, like we were talking about the podcast, I'm going to be on the board, and I'm on a piece of that.
I'm like, stop!
You can't!
You don't have time for this!
I'm going to help produce other ones.
No, you're not going to do that!
You don't have time to produce other people's shit.
And then also, you're kind of distracting yourself with activity.
Where you're always having new challenges and new problems.
But you're in the middle of other challenges and problems that aren't sorted out yet.
But you keep throwing them in there.
And more iron's in the fire.
And the next thing you know, you're in a place where you're falling apart again.
Or your life's falling apart.
Or Something gets redlined to the point where it starts breaking whether it's your physical body or it's your your immune system your health or whatever the fuck it is or it's your Emotional state or your relationships something always suffers and it comes back to in a lot of times people are afraid of stillness They're afraid of peace.
They're afraid of quiet.
They're afraid of being alone in their thoughts It's one of the reasons why I like the isolation tank so much you have to be alone with your thoughts and Yeah.
You're stuck.
I feel the same way about the sauna.
Like getting in the sauna and doing deep breathing exercises.
I get 15 minutes in and I look at my watch and I'm like, fuck.
So much time left.
Like I just concentrate on the breathing.
But...
That piece of that time where you're forced to think is so fucking important.
If you don't have that time and you just keep doing things, you're just stuck with momentum, the momentum of all these things, and then who you are, you kind of...
You never really fully address who you are.
You don't come to grips with who you are.
You don't accept who you are.
You don't take an honest inventory of who you are and whether or not you're happy with things, whether or not you've improved things.
Whether or not there's still things you need to work on.
You don't have time for that.
You're in the middle of all these distractions that you built up for yourself.
And you keep throwing new ones out there.
Now I'm going to start to play polo.
Oh, I'm taking up chess.
I'm going to fucking play darts.
You know, I'm going to learn how to code.
People just do stuff like that.
They start tacking things onto their life.
And oftentimes they don't even realize when they're doing it that they're just distracting themselves from themselves.
I think that that, honestly, one of the most powerful moments for me at rehab was whenever it said you have to take an honest, personal, a rigorous, honest, personal inventory of yourself.
Yeah, and I did that there, and I've been continuing to do that.
And one of the things that's been great that I've taken on as I've got to do this for me, but also I have support now with the people around me, is that I have to be able to say no 10 times to get one yes.
You know, defend every yes with 10 no's.
And try to cut the things out that I really am not doing.
So most of my mornings now, like until 9 or 10 o'clock, like I wake up 6.30, 7. Until 9 or 10 o'clock, I'm really not on my phone.
And I'm literally trying to either journal or read or meditate.
And then I try to set up my day, my schedule before I get on my phone and being reactive.
I'm really trying to take that time to do that.
And that's something that's new for me, but that's been really, really good for me is taking that time until nine or 10.
It might even go to 11 or 12.
Like there was, I had this meeting that I needed to get to and I'd met with them two or three times earlier in the week.
And, uh, this one wasn't as important as, uh, I was like, what's more important right now?
Is it me going out to this park and me sitting down and reading and meditating?
Because that's what I felt like I needed?
Or is it being at this meeting?
I was like, hey guys.
So I texted him.
I'm like, because I normally would say I'm indebted to these people.
And if I told them I'm going to be there, I have to be there.
And I'm normally that guy, but since I'd already been with them a lot and they didn't necessarily need me there, they just wanted me there, I texted and said, hey, I can be there late, we can go to lunch, we can do something like that, but right now I've got something I've got to do.
And really that was me almost standing up for myself, saying like, I need some more time today to work on myself.
And so I went out and I sat down.
by a waterfall.
And I literally took out my music.
I started listening to it and I started journaling some of my goals for the year, like what I really want to focus on.
And so that was on like January 2nd or 3rd.
Like one of the things I want to do is really, you know, help myself before I help others.
Well, yeah, that's what, in that reading of all my blood work, I love how they're doing it.
But just seeing the improvement in my actual minerals in my body, the vitamins that I have available, what I'm able to use, my insulin getting better, cholesterol getting better, which is showing that, like, she was saying it's not insulin from Like, you're a bad diet.
And from eating too much sugar and this stuff, it's from this inflammation that you have in your body.
And so now that inflammation's going down and you're getting healthier.
They said it was sufficient to go test it out and see.
So I put in a brace and then I actually climbed it in the documentary cameras like they show me like just snow falling on me and like the wind almost blowing me over and they had to turn back and go go back.
But anyways at six weeks, six weeks I was supposed to be non-weight bearing at six weeks I was at the top of Kilimanjaro with Chris Long and Steven Jackson from the NFL and like some of our military veterans.
And that to me was like, wow, regenerative medicine is real.
I think that's why Jason with MedCorp Biologics, who is helping us, he really wants to be a front-runner.
With it, and he is in Texas, but most of his stuff all has to be through insurance and FDA approved and all the other stuff, which he's like, I think the best in Texas at doing it.
And then with Brigham, his whole vision is to literally take, take the middleman out of it.
Like the insurance companies and the providers and having to go sit and literally, you know, they only spend about eight minutes per patient whenever you go to your primary care physician.
And then they don't have the approval by the insurance company to draw all your blood work in your labs because it's expensive.
And then you can stop in their tracks the top 10 chronic diseases in America, like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, like this kind of stuff you can prevent with a healthy diet with optimal nutrition and good source in your body and like the right healthcare.
Not the healthcare that treats you when you get cancer, but the healthcare that...
That treats you before you get cancer and keeps you from getting cancer.
Honestly, for me, that's kind of the difference between the developing world or third world, developing nations, and here in the U.S. For me, with the pygmies and the water crisis, for instance, that's completely preventable.
Completely preventable disease and death.
So that's on a whole other spectrum and level that's hard for a lot of us to hear and get because it goes in one ear and out the other.
If you see it, that can really impact you.
But if you feel it or live it or experience it with them, that forever changes you.
But then I guess on the lesser scale here in the United States, it's like...
Man, like, if you really look at it, I mean, like, we're so fortunate and we're so grateful, but still at the same time, I look at it and I'm like, I compare it to the water crisis.
We can prevent that.
We can prevent people from getting sick like that.
And now me on my own journey, my own healing journey.
It's like there is this kind of wellness revolution that's starting here that we do have access to saying, like, well, these things that are killing us, we can stop them in their tracks or we can push it back.
We can delay it.
And I'm really excited.
Like, I've gotten really close.
Well, I would say I've gotten close and I'm friends with David Sinclair now.
And he actually helped get me into rehab whenever I relapsed and I came back and I'd been to Mexico.
That dude's a saint because...
He helped me from Harvard send me the third of the three different types of tests they needed.
They did the one that barely went in the swab.
I think it's one of the ones we did here.
The other one that goes super deep in your nose.
And then they wanted the blood test one because they wanted just...
I'd been traveling internationally, so before I go to rehab, I needed all three of them.
So David overnighted it to the center, and I was able to get that taken care of.
His ankle was broken, and he just kept working out on it while it was broken forever, so it fused into this gnarly stump of an ankle, like a tree stump.
It's ridiculous.
He has one ankle that's like 30% larger than the other ankle.
He was doing these gorilla ones that we were all doing, and I was able to keep up with him on that.
I forget the name of the other one he does, but he's like an underwater, like, I don't know, superhero mermaid, where he's like literally doing a, he goes into a squat, he does a curl, and then he does the squat jump, and he comes out, and he arches backwards.
So that way he does this beautiful, like, backflip in the water.
And literally he said, I'll show you guys how to do it.
He did a hundred reps.
He's doing it from like 10 or 11 feet deep in the pool and he's jumping out of it.
He literally did a hundred reps because it's all about technique.
It's all about flow.
Raphael and I and Shanji, we got like six, eight, 10. I mean, it's all about the flow and the breath because you go down that deep.
And for me, like, you know, I mean, I don't know, like you start to kind of freak out whenever you can't breathe.
And so, not in jiu-jitsu for me, but underwater with weights.
And then all of a sudden I go up, all of a sudden it's like, ooh, I don't know if I can keep going on this many reps.
I'm not kidding when I say he did 100. I know that sounds like a lot, but he did 100. Then David Sinclair's getting in there and he's trying to be a champ too.
And he was doing everything we were doing a little lighter and stuff, but he was just so for it.
He was just so game.
I know he's a Harvard professor and all that other stuff, a researcher and biologist and all this incredible stuff, but now I get to talk with him and Rob, who's a friend of mine, and I think he's the PR guy for For David.
But anyways, I'm starting to look into that NAD, the Resveratol, which I don't know about all that stuff, but he was talking to Laird and Gabby about it.
And they're just such cool people.
I got to thank you, man, for opening up this world of such an incredible community or people group that have come to support me.
Laird and Gabby have donated.
Through Layered Superfoods and Reese might actually come with Gabby potentially.
When I was in Congo, I decided I was going to live there for a year.
I went in October, and by Thanksgiving Day, I find out that I'm dying of malaria.
And a pilot took me out of there into Uganda, and he pulled—literally, I never touched the runway in Uganda.
It's just a pilot and me on a little bitty prop plane— And they pull me out into a vehicle and take me to the hospital in Uganda.
They're saying, Justin, you come back to heal.
One, I thought, the doctors here don't know how to treat malaria.
The doctors here do.
Or the doctors in the United States don't know how to treat malaria, but the doctors in Uganda do.
They see it on a daily basis.
Logically, it makes sense for me to stay here.
But the other thing was, this was an opportunity.
And now I'm reframing that thought and everything else.
But I try to find the good and the bad.
And yes, I'm suffering from malaria.
Yes, this sucks.
But this is what the people that I love and who I'm here to help, this is what they go through on a daily basis.
Or they get this in their lifetime and they've lost people from it.
So now I get an opportunity to understand on a deeper level that I'll never forget.
Like, they go through this all the time, and it is a deadly killer all throughout the world.
It's one of the main missions of, I think, the Gates Foundation and other people trying to end malaria, like we've done mostly with polio and stuff like that.
And it's like, we gotta come up with something to, I think they have, like, new mosquitoes that are starting to target the mosquitoes that have malaria.
My board of directors for Fight for the Forgotten, I just looked at them when we were here in Austin.
And a lot of them were in Zoom.
But I just said, you know, for me to not have lost everything with Fight for the Forgotten, my position, to not have lost any of the board members.
Like, we actually gained a board member.
And to not have lost these donors, but to like have had an increase in donations.
The most nonprofits in 2020 went down.
But I think the mission is so pure.
We want to defeat hate with love.
We really want to help people in a practical, tangible, sustainable way that they can take on and then champion.
You know, having your support has meant the world to us.
And we've been in existence 10 years now.
And what I've seen now is I really believe it's the tip of the iceberg.
If I start working smarter, not harder, and putting myself in these crazy positions, and I protect myself and my health, and I do the right things there, it's going to lead to even better things than we've done before.
Instead of 73 wells I'll be telling people how we've drilled 700 wells sometime in the next 10 years.
And I'm really grateful that I've had a big breakthrough.
I mean, literally, the first six months of 2020 were the worst six months of my life.
But the last six months, like doing the hard work, doing deep work, like trying to uproot this garbage...
You know, instead of having these deep roots that produce like bad fruits in my own life, how about deep roots that produce like good roots and then even like a shade tree for, you know, the pygmies or these kids that are getting bullied or whatever.
You know, it seems so easy to let things slip a little bit, relax a little here, relax a little there, but...
There's certain paths that you really should never get off.
And the path of, first of all, of being connected to the moment, that's so important.
And one of the things about people throwing a bunch of things in their lives and problems in their lives is it keeps you from being connected to the moment.
And I was in Lafayette with the whole family and went out on the swamps during the day and went wild oyster mushroom hunting and grilled those up and ate them.
But the strategy of those low kicks, Conor has that wide stance And he puts a lot of weight on that front leg, and he did not seem to have an answer for those low kicks.
And that is just a fucking new element of the game that seems unstoppable, because you can only take a couple.
You know, Khabib was saying that when he fought Justin Gaethje, that those low kicks were as hard as he'd ever been hit before, and even he probably recognized He couldn't take too many of those.
Yeah, I've had a couple of those before, and they're brutal.
And I'm curious because I've been talking with some of Manny's team who's donating to us, and some of his closest guys is executive director, and they're like, man, they were really looking forward to maybe the Manny fight and the Conor McGregor fight happening.
But now they said that his stock's come down a lot in boxing after being knocked out by Dustin.
But then John Cavanaugh's saying, well, if they don't get the rematch with Dustin Poirier, then he's just going to go over and fight in boxing now.
And I was thinking, coming off of that loss, I don't think that Jon Cavanaugh is being smart there, saying he's going straight into boxing.
So Jamie bringing up Dana just brought up something for me that, like, I'm really grateful for Dana in many ways, but one is that he said that he's going to help fund CTE research.
I actually just got back from a funeral in the autopsy says he died of complications due to CTE and he was one of my first sponsors and I was his training partner.
He's my training partner, but I was his coach.
He played football at Iowa State, but he got concussions in middle school.
Probably, at least they think he got concussions in middle school.
He got concussions playing football in high school.
Then he got concussions playing football in Iowa State.
There is a new study that they're doing now with the UFC with mushrooms, with psychedelic mushrooms.
And this is based on some research from John Hopkins University and now the UFC is involved in this CTE therapy with psychedelic mushrooms.
And there's something about psychedelic mushrooms.
Psilocybin regrows neurons and they think it can regrow neural tissue.
And they think it might be able to actually help heal brain damage, which was thought to be a very difficult prospect to try to heal the mind once it's been damaged by stress and impacts and concussions.
Well, that could have been something that maybe helped Brian.
I'm really proud of his family and him.
He donated his brain to a research center in Boston, the number one CTE research center in the world.
What was really hard was the last three or four months, he really just tanked physically.
I got to share the eulogy with one of the people that spoke at the funeral.
I stayed with the boys.
He's got four boys and his wife, Gina.
Anyways, yeah, he...
He ended up hanging himself and he was forgetting everything.
He had watched his mother-in-law go through Alzheimer's and her forget people and they had to take care of her for two years or more and for three months.
And it was even longer than that.
He knew he had it back in 2016 whenever he actually wrote a suicide note.
It was back in 2016. And then he waited and on Christmas Eve, he asked, you know, he asked Kevin Burns.
Do you remember Kevin Burns who fought Anthony Johnson?
Yes.
Kevin Burns is a good friend of mine, good friend of Brian Sykes.
And he had asked him on Christmas Eve or the day before Christmas Eve about what if we started a charity in Iowa for people with CTE, former football players and people in MMA division.
And then something happened on December 26th.
They had a great Christmas, everything else.
But he was forgetting things for like three or four months.
He wasn't himself at all.
He had lost like 30 pounds, I think, in three or four months.
So I think there's going to be a lot of breakthrough, I hope, on CTE. And Brian, the thing that I even brought that up is even in his death, that was one of the things I said at the funeral, even in his death, he's still helping people.
He was one of the most loving people I'd ever met.
He would stop on the way to Ski Hills in Colorado from Iowa.
We were going skiing.
He would stop and stop by at McDonald's and get the homeless guy a meal.
Because he wouldn't give them money, but he'd stop.
And, you know, the kids or people would be saying, like, we've got to get to the ski lift and everything else.
And he'd stop by, and he would give this guy food.
And the guy would be like, oh my gosh, that's what I needed.
I was so hungry.
He was compassionate on the mats.
He was a great teacher.
He was a peewee football coach.
And then this is the thing that took him out.
And, you know, even in his death, his brain being studied is going to someday, somehow help people.
Amazing fighter from the early days of the UFC success.
And he had to retire due to lesions in the brain.
And there's an article about how poorly he's doing right now.
It was rough.
You know, I sent it out to a bunch of my friends and it's just one of those ones where you go...
Yeah, the style that he fought was so exciting.
He was such a wild dude, would fight anybody, had these wars.
But it's just, you pay a fucking price for this sport.
You really do.
And I think if people understood it more, they'd appreciate the accomplishments and the battles.
They'd appreciate the fighters more and what they're really putting out on the line.
You know, you could look at this Conor McGregor loss and you go, well, you know, the guy's rich.
That guy got damaged that night.
He got damaged.
It's not just his calf.
He got KO'd.
That's a price.
And it's a big price.
He got battered.
And he got dropped and knocked unconscious.
And that will pay.
He'll have to pay for that.
Hopefully they'll figure out some therapies where they can mitigate those problems that are going to occur from those kind of knockouts or maybe even reverse the damage, which would be amazing.
One of the things I really admire about you is, one, I know John Halkman pretty well, and then to watch Chuck—I don't know Chuck that well, but I know John real well—and to watch how Chuck left his career, you know, on all those brutal knockouts.
And then why I said I admire you is because of, you know, we both love Brendan.
I was training partners with him, was on The Ultimate Fighter with him, and just how you had that loving talk with him because you really care.
We actually had a conversation today about a friend of ours who's really fucked up, who's a fighter, who's got some serious CTE. And I said, thank God you fucking retired.
It's beautiful that you helped him, because he's too smart of a guy, too loving of a guy, too great of a guy to have to deal with that for the rest of his life.
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