#2312 - Jeremy Renner

Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. What's happening, man? What's going on? It's great to see you.
Yeah, good to be seen. Boy, what a journey you've been on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started listening to your audio book.
It was giving me anxiety. It gets better, right? It takes a minute, but there's a relief for the reader.
Well, the relief is seeing you healthy, walking around. Well, the relief is also, you kind of know the end of the story, right, before you go into it.
So then you can really kind of dive into the actual detailed narrative that I put out. There's no other way to do it.
But yeah, it's tough for a minute. It's like, wow, my sister, it took her a while to read.
And anybody that was kind of involved in the incident takes a minute. It took me a long time to kind of get through it, right? It's anxious for me too.
So how long was the actual recovery? Because you don't even walk with a limp. Yeah, yeah.
It's quite – there's a lot – some things are pretty miraculous. Some things can be explained.
And I tried to figure it out as I was writing the book. A lot of people ask questions.
I ask myself questions. Some things were on my own will.
Some things were otherworldly of some sort. But, yeah, I was given, you know, I was supposed to walk with a limp because pretty much a lot of titanium.
And then it was certainly not running. And I'm doing far beyond all those things.
Don't know exactly why. I can pontificate on why, you know.
What do you think of it? I think it's...

Will is a really special thing.

And the love and fuel to fuel your will,

I had in spades.

I feel like I could pretty much do anything

if I set my mind to it.

When it was my essential part of my life,

my recovery was a 24-hour day job.

When typically I do many, many other things, right?

Thank you. do anything if I set my mind to it.
When it was my essential part of my life, my recovery was a 24-hour day job. When typically I do many, many other things, right, as we all do in our lives, but when all my focus, like even parenting, was out the window until I can get better.
So I had to do that first. So that being the central part of every thought, every fiber, every cell in my bodies was geared towards a one-way street of recovery.
Well, I'm getting fucking better. So I just got better.
And there's no, what's the alternative? Wow. You know, I was brought back somehow, someway.
And it would be a disservice to not do all the things I'm supposed to be doing and want to be doing. So it just took a lot of effort and it looked a lot of support.
I mean, there's hundreds of people involved in helping me not die again. But at the end of the day, the recovery, as you know, everybody's injured in some sort of way.
It's a lonely road. It's only you.
No matter how much help you have or PT you have, if your tendons go, whatever the heck happens, you still have to put in the work every day and endure the pain and manage the pain and mitigate it. It can be quite lonely, but I always found that my daughter and my family, as I see their faces when when I get better, I could stand up, let's say, or not pee in a jar.
I could get in a wheelchair. Any sort of milestone, I'd see their faces get a little bit less horrified, even relieved, even quite joyful even.
So as much damage as I did to my family and their hearts, me getting better can relieve them of that burden. So it was easy one way road to recover.
And that's why I recovered fast. And I, I attribute it to my love for my family.
Wow. So let's bring it back to the day of the accident.
What, when exactly was it? It was a new year's day, New Year's Day. New Year's Day, 2023.

Yeah.

And I host my family at my house up there, like 25 people every post-Christmas to New Year's all the time. Family, friends, whoever, just kind of come up and we can celebrate the holidays together, go skiing, all these type of things.
But we had a big kind of snowmageddon type snow event that you know shut down the mountain that i live on at the top of uh lake tahoe at about 8 000 feet elevation and we got just tons and tons of snow but it happens often maybe not that intense of a storm but so much so where we were cut off from anywhere else we're snowed in fine i'm prepared for that stuff um Three days without power, prepared for it. It's fine.
We can have fun. It's actually a relief.
All the cell phones go off. All the iPads go away and computers and everybody's just playing card games with headlamps on.
I mean, it's a riot. So we had a good time.
You know, the food supply was still good. But, you know, it's New Year's Day and we're getting a break in the weather.
So I decided I needed to clear the roads and see, come out for air, essentially. And in doing so, that's when the accident sort of transpired.
And it's more of a routine type of thing to have a half-mile-long driveway up there. And I have to maintain it myself, so I have a snowcat and a bunch of other snow removal type equipment.
There was a bunch of vehicles, snowmobiles, even things that got stuck in the driveway because it was a lot of extra snow and some of it was very light and then it got very icy and hard. So you're sinking down like three or four feet into it and it was a hot mess.
So I had to try to dig all that stuff out using the snowcat, pulling this stuff out. This thing, a snowcat, to describe it in words is pretty difficult, but it's like a tank.
It's probably, I don't know, 12 feet wide. The tracks on each side, so it spins like a tank, like a skid steer.
There it is. Yeah, there we go.
That's a small, tiny version of one. But yeah, it's something kind of like a Star Wars, you know.
But this minor or metal track, it's more like that one right there. Oh, that one like that? That's it.

It's exactly like the one I have.

So, it's about like 16,000 pounds

or so. And it's very nimble

on the snow.

Just to

see it physically, put it back up, to see

it physically and to know that that's

what ran over your leg? Oh, my

whole body. Oh, God.
Yeah.

It was, uh, so you have to step on the tracks, you see, to get into the cab to operate it. So stepping on the tracks is a normal thing to do.
You just don't do it while the things, you're operating it, right? You're in the thing, you drive it, and it's just easy. It's a thumb, go forward, reverse, and you're neutral, and that's it.
It's really easy to operate. But it was just just the accident happened because you have to get in and out on the off on those tracks and i hit the thumb thing and uh it threw me off and it's going towards my nephew so i had to jump back on and try to stop it from killing him because it was going to crush him between the truck and the and that big blade that i have i see that thing yeah it's a few thousand pounds that thing's gnarly.
So my instinct was to jump back on it and try to stop it. Obviously it didn't work out.
And it got ran over and there you go. How much of your body did it run over? The entire, all of it.
Oh my god. Because I went, if the tracks were here to jump in the cab, I leaped up and over to try to grab onto it and got sucked under the whole thing.
So the whole length of it just kind of. So there's like a set of wheels that turn these tracks, you see.
And there's like six wheels. So it undulates.
So I felt all the undulate. The first one was the worst, like the pressure and skull crush and all that stuff.
And then it releases because then the undulation of the tire and the the track and you're awake for that just like by the sixth undulation just like all right all right just kind of finish already and you're just like it's almost like you know you're like you're drowning and being struck by lightning and bleeding out all the things all at once man it's like immense pressure and a movable object and You know, my school kind of lost out, all the things all at once, man. It's like an immense pressure and a movable object.
And, you know, my skull kind of lost out but still survived. Your skull got run over.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, yeah, it's everything.
It's 38 broken bones and eyeballs out. Oh, my God.
Shout out to a... Shout out to medical science.
I know, right? I mean... And, yeah, I mean, all the doctors were like, dude, I don't know how your eyes still operating are still working, but I think because I was on ice, because I did see it, I'm like, well, maybe I'm going to put this eye on ice and just kind of rolled into it.
I saw my eye with my other eye, right? And I'm like, I'm going to be able to keep able to keep that thing because I'm on like an icy asphalt driveway that's off of my driveway right at the top of the road so it wasn't really great for impact or getting ran over I wish I was on a snow pack could have been maybe a little bit easier would push me into snow right but it wasn't so I just kind of rolled onto it just like maybe I could kind of put the eye on ice until I could figure out how to breathe.

Oh, my God.

You know, I had to sort of laugh at it because it's weird to sort of think about that, you know?

Wow.

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The original Degree Cool Rush is back, and it smells like victory for all of us. So, 38 bones? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was like a lot of ribs and all my spiral fracture and my legs, all my joints were broken, all my ankles, my lees, none of my spine, and I only got a laceration of my liver from one of the ribs breaking in a couple spots.

And I went down and kind of stabbed it.

But it didn't really mess it up too bad.

So that's okay.

But all my organs, my brain, I don't think there's any brain damage.

I'll use that excuse later, I guess.

You know, yeah, and my spine. That's the miracle.
It's like, how did I break 14 ribs, right? And I cracked my skull and every arm and leg and finger and thing. But my spine was spared.
Oh, my God. And all my organs were spared in my brain.
So, like, it's kind of almost no harm, no foul at the end of the day, even though there's probably 20% titanium in my body at this point.

So how many pieces of titanium were in you?

Well, the guy that invented this procedure worked at the hospital in Reno because there's a lot of crushing injuries that happened.

So the ski resorts and mines that are in the area.

So I got really lucky to get this doctor.

But it took four doctors to get to this guy. So says my family.
I was out in a coma. But once they found this guy, he was on vacation.
The mayor of Reno actually called him and said, you've got to get back and help my friend out. And so he rushed out, and he's just like, this is what he does for a living.
He's like, oh, this is easy. I can't wait to do this for this guy.
So it relieved on my family. They were such relief because they were like, oh, he's going to lose his eye.
We're going to cut off his leg. I mean, all this kind of tragic sort of prognosis, whatever you want to call it, right? So this guy comes in.
No, no, it's fine. We're going to hammer this thing in.
We're going to do this. We're going to do his face plate and do a thing.
We're going to do this. And just lucky that the orbital bone that broke and the cheekbone that broke, they only wanted to do that because my face as an actor made me want to save my cheekbone, I guess.
Not that I cared about it, but yeah, he fixed up all my ribs and they used like this mesh and he has this sort of weird way to kind of handle. If you'd fix one or two of the ribs that are all broken, the rest will kind of fall into place.
The body is pretty miraculous. Just give it a little direction, and then it heals on itself, and it will grow the bone.
So it's not as much titanium in my ribs as one might think for all those breaks. It's only – it looks like rebar, right? You get a scan.
A lot of my body is like – Do you have an x-ray of your body? Yeah, somewhere. Yeah, yeah, somewhere.
Is it online anywhere? Well, we can see it. I don't know.
Do you have it on your phone or anything? No, I don't think so. I could ask my sister for it.
I've been showing everybody that thing. It's pretty remedial looking, you know? It looks like, you know, like I had a hammer and a two by four and some nails.

And that's what this looks like.

It looks very like, is it,

why is there a nail and two screws?

And, you know, it's, it's carpentry 101, you know?

There's nothing like, you know,

I think the guy that,

cause I had like screws in my skull and my jaw

cause that broke in three spots.

And the guy took it out. It's something that he got from Home Depot.
Literally, it's like some, you know, it just took it out. I'm like, dude, it's squeaking like it's in wood.
He didn't numb it or something. I almost knocked this guy out.
It's just like, it was unbelievable. Unbelievable.
And I was always kind of half in the bag mentally, just kind of... Because it takes so much mental...
to deal with pain management. And it's emotionally exhausting to deal with so many different things in your body.
So I'm always kind of half paying attention to things. I'm much sharper mentally now because I don't have to mitigate so much inflammation, pain, and all the time.
So I can kind of be here and laugh with you. But back then when this guy was – I almost talked to this guy so hard, dude.
But, yeah, I was really happy to – that was a great milestone for me to get these screws out of my skull. Jesus.
But that was worse than getting ran over by the snowcat, dude. Really? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. In terms of pain or just discomfort? Well, no, it wasn't so much the pain.
It's the haunting images of feeling my gums wrap around this screw and it's pulling out. It's a lot longer than I thought it was.
And then there's three more to go. It was more the visual is, in my mind, kind of what makes it terrible.
Because I'm a pretty visual guy. So I don't think anything hurts me so much in a physical way.
But the visual is a pretty haunting image. And the sounds, dude, it vibrates your skull as he's taking it out.
And it's like, ugh. This is what horror films are made of, right? This is like Saw or something.
Is that the only thing that they had to take out? Is the screws that were in your head? Or did they take them out of your body as well? No, no. They have to leave those in for the most part because why risk infection and open you up for something? But, yeah, so all that, all the rest of the stuff stays in until those screws come loose.

At some point, they will.

They start backing out, right? Yeah, yeah.

You'd think you'd put in a locking screw, right?

I've had friends that have had broken arms and it starts poking out of the bone.

Yeah, yeah.

And they have to get another operation and get it removed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how many different plates do you have?

I think I got – it's only a couple in my face, and they went in like underneath my cheek, a plate for my orbos socket, and then for the cheekbone. They put, I think, a plate or two over there to hold that bone in place.
Do you feel it? lack of, um, feeling in it.

It's still, still numbness to that, this whole side, because they had to cut all these nerve endings, right, to get in through your mouth. So even this side of my, um, face is a little, slightly, a little, little, little numbish.

And the rest of them, do you feel, like, how much do you feel in all your different bones and joints and all the different things that got repaired? Yeah, yeah. There's lots of scar tissue to work through all the time.
It's what's great is like it's not any one spot. It's like it moves around.
You know, even if you're not injured, it's like if you just twist your leg wrong and then it goes up into your hip and then it's in your shoulder. It moves around.
Your body kind of moves it around. So you just kind of stay on top of it.
And there's always something to work through, you know, in your body. And it's just, you know, look, I already have to do it anyway.
I'm 54. I'm going to have to take care of my health.
And I just have to make it a very central part of my life. And so now do you have full range of motion full mobility everything is back to normal I don't know what normal is uh you know uh I'm gonna be you know I feel like I'm maybe 110 just because spiritually mentally um I'm so much better I got so many gifts from dying coming coming back that, yeah, I'm 150%.
My body will always be, look, my body's aging, so I have to fight against age. Well, recovery is age reversing.
It's the same stuff that people are doing just to reverse age. I just do it just because it's my recovery and I have to for the rest of my life just to prevent inflammation and discomfort and swelling, things like that.

So when you have so many broken bones and so many broken joints, what is the recovery like?

Like how do they even get you moving again?

Day by day.

Day by day.

Yeah, instantly.

As soon as I got home from the hospital, yeah, PT there and working to just move keep things moving you have to otherwise you lose it you'll lock up or you're seeing you walk around today in the studio i would have no idea yeah you look totally normal yeah yeah yeah it's great it's it takes a lot of work and it's still working i was having to stretch in your studio. You know, I have to move quite a bit so I don't lock up.
After a good night's sleep, it's like, eh, you could be a little stiff in the morning. And I have to do some stretches and things like that.
But I think if I didn't get in the accident in 54, I'd probably have to do it anyway. Right.
So it feels good to have to force the stretching, I think. AG1 has been a longtime partner of the show, and I'm excited to share a great offer they have going on right now.
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That's drinkag1.com slash Joe Rogan. And so just day by day, so you're completely bedridden initially.
And how long does it take before you can sit up? I don't know. I don't know.
It's pretty, it moved pretty quick. Randomly with the punctured lung and all this broke, the shoulder, the collarbone dislocation, all this stuff, that healed pretty quickly.
But that doesn't require gravity and force under your legs, like your legs have to take, right? So that took a little bit longer. The legs, both ankles, right? Those are under trauma and plates in those.
You know, this is all a pipe, essentially. A piece of rebar, my whole lower leg.
So that took a little bit longer. But the ribs, ironically, it was only painful for I feel like a couple weeks.
I also had these like plastic suitcases for my lungs because I had to let it bleed out and this stuff was going in. I don't know what goop was in that thing.
But I had to carry those things around for a while. Once I got rid of those, I was kind of sitting up a bit more.
And I felt good once I was kind of sitting up. But there's still, as you can imagine, so much trauma in so many places.
But I think the longest was really getting up to stand up, to walk, to get all your joints to work properly again, to relearn to walk, relearn to move because you really kind of have to. There's a lot of atrophy, as you can imagine, that happens.
But I was standing up and moving around. I got into a chair probably, you know, by February after like three weeks.
Wow. And the more I can move, the faster you heal.
You're getting more blood flow. You're getting your body to work better.
Help with my attitude and will to get out and sit up. You know, all the things.
Each of these things are like milestones. And I would just like, yeah, and then move forward to the next thing and set a goal for myself.
Even if it was just like to sit up and like turn or I didn't have to set such big to reach too far to keep my confidence high. Because I keep reaching these goals and just kept going and going and going.
And I find myself, again, it's 24 hours a day. So, what do I have to do today? Well, I don't even have to ask.
I just got to get better. And, you know, it just kept going.
And whatever thing, and there's so many things to attack to get better, it's like I never got bored. I just had all these bands and stuff.
I remember being in a wheelchair and I'd wrap around this desk and I'd be

in a leg press.

All these interesting ways

to try to strengthen my

body and get better.

Anything that

would work, I would do it. I'd say no

to nothing, say yes to everything

and let's try it. Let's do it.

Took in everything.

Took in everything.

They say that is one of the more difficult things with stroke victims is the will to do the exercises to force yourself to recover. Yeah.
Because so many people just, they have never done that before. They've never pushed themselves before.
They don't. And there's this tendency to just kind of give up some people have yeah yeah that's it's part of the reason why i wrote the book is maybe people because it's a lonely place when people are struggling in in recovery and when it's a lifetime recovery too you know um i hope they can find something they can grab onto like if this guy can get overcome this i can get out of my here.
And maybe not, maybe think of it a little differently. The only thing we have control of ever in life and perpetuity is our perspective.
So, you know, what's my, I could easily just go be victimized and, you know, cry about it. And like, oh, my career is over and that.
I mean, it's not, it's not even part of the narrative. It's part of, it's not even in in the conversation.
It's like I'm getting better every day for the rest of my life. That's it.
Wow. There's only one way to go.
What's the alternative, Joe? What is the alternative? I keep saying that to my, what's the alternative? I'm not going to stumble around through life. I wasn't brought back here just to suffer.
That's not happening. I'd say unplug the machine.
I'm done. I'm out of here.
It's way better than being dead. You know what I mean? I'm not going to come back and just waddle and limp my way through life.
It's not going to happen. What's crazy is if you didn't approach it like that, you probably wouldn't be able to walk.
Correct. Correct.
Yeah, because there have been a lot of people that have been gravely injured that never come back. Yeah.
Yeah. You have to push it, right?

Anything that's in your life for excellence, you have to obsess at it and risk everything for it.

You have to or it's not going to happen.

No one's going to do it for you.

But what else are you going to do?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Again, like I said, what's the alternative?

Yeah, this sucks.

But like so does a cold plunge and so does this and so does that and so does that. Right.
We've got to really test. We've got to test our bodies, our limits to really have real growth and especially in recovery.
You have to. What else are you going to do, man? You're going to take pills? Right.
That was, again, one of the harder things, worse than the accident as well, is getting off OxyContin. And I got off pretty quickly.
And that's gnarly stuff, man. I'm glad it was there for the pain for me.
But I wanted to get off it as soon as possible because it's highly, highly addictive. And coming off that stuff was gnarly.
It's so hard. And you have a really strong will.
And some people don't. I know.
And they put all people on that stuff's crazy dude yeah it's really ironically i was supposed to be doing a a uh a movie about the sacra family wow yeah yeah yeah that but it was supposed to happen like literally that that april or just that that spring um obviously that got canceled because i had to take oxycontin to get by. But then I had to get off that stuff real quick, you know.
It was really interesting, too, how people treated that drug, you know. Everyone, like, was monitoring, counting the pills.
It was a half a thing or this or that. Everyone was on it.
Like, dude, what? You treat me like I'm some sort of drug addict. Don't give me this stuff.
I don't want it. Jesus Christ, it's terrible.
Wow. But it's pretty powerful, powerful stuff.
And I don't ever blame sort of the drug. I just think sort of how maybe it's free to use and it's even supported in school systems.
And that family kind of got away with a lot of stuff to promote that stuff. To put it mildly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a whole other.
You've seen Peter Berg berg's thing on netflix painkiller have you seen that it's a docudrama documentary oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah matthew broderick yep yep it's gnarly man gnarly yeah that's an evil family yeah what they did to people and and just support the idea that you know hey this you could just be on this and you don't have any pain. Don't worry about it.
And it's not even addictive. Yeah, it's the knowing part and then double downing and really getting it out there.
And promoting it as a thing that you could be on forever, which is just insane. So you're on it and how long did you have to be on it for? I, again, always working to get off of it.
And I think maybe it was around, if I got home on January 13th, Friday the 13th, and I think it was probably less than a month, probably like beginning of February, because I had all my molars and stuff got pushed in. So my mouth's a hot mess.
My jaw's broken. But I'd have night terrors, as you would, being awake through that trauma.
And I bit down, and the tooth was just in a certain spot and just cracked my molar. And it goes down to the nerve and that.
I'm like, oh, I feel that pain. But I'm on all this oxycontin.
I don't feel, hmm, maybe I don't need to be on that shit. So I had to go get that emergency extraction and get a post put in on my back molar.
And I said, well, I'll take it one more time just for the tooth pain or whatever, even what the dentist gave me. i took the dentist stuff whatever that was and cold turkey off oxycontin and gabby penton cold turkey yeah i didn't know you didn't know how hard it would be oh no i was just so adamant i don't really listen to the doctors i don't listen listen to the doctors, man.
So, yeah, so I started crying for about three and a half days straight. Even during my PT, I'm just like, not that I'm even sad, but like full crocodile tears, just tears, tears.
Wow. 24 hours a day, right? Just going.
I couldn't stop crying. And I was shivering.
So this is all just withdrawal withdrawal yeah i wasn't thinking that anything other than like why am i crying i didn't know it was withdrawal even because my mind's not there i'm in my mind's in recovery and getting off this stuff and focusing on holding my body up it takes just a lot of mental acuity to just exist, right? So I wasn't thinking that, yeah, of course. I look back on it.
I was like, of course, I'm coming off fucking heroin. Jesus.
So, yeah. And so I called my sister and thing.
I'm like, I don't know why I'm crying. I can't stop crying.
She's like, well, let's call it. I had these different doctors that we'd Zoom call with when I was at home.
And so we called the pain management doctor. And she's like, look.
I told him. He's like, what are you doing? You've got to taper off that.
It takes like two weeks at least. You can't just cold turkey.
It's no wonder you're feeling all cold and all this stuff because that's all nerve stuff. So I started feeling gravity.
I started feeling temperature. I started feeling everything.
It was like on fire, right? Why did you make the decision to go cold turkey? Because I don't like the feeling of being on pain meds. I want to have my mind.
I was always using humor to find my sobriety. If I could land a joke, that means I'm reading the room and I'm hitting the timing right, whatever it is.
You know, right? So I needed my mind. I needed my wit.
I needed my will to recover. I needed sleep and I needed my brain.
And the drugs kind of numb my brain as they would, right? As they numb your whole body. So I just wanted off of them.
And I don't like how I feel. You feel muddy.
And I just didn't like the feeling. You know, it came with a price.
But I got the okay to like take a little fiber of Oxy to sleep on if you needed to mitigate some pain just so I could sleep. I'm like, okay, maybe I'll do that if it happens.
And I did once or twice or three times maybe after that moment. But I got through it.
And I got off i got off it because i cracked that tooth and that i felt pain like that is like that's not gonna let me sleep at all it's a heartbeat in my brain my face is just like throbbing right as you would for anybody so i said like oh that's then i don't need to take the pain meds so like that was my excuse to get off the pain meds right because if you're feeling pain and you're on the pain yeah i would have been on that shit much longer if i didn't crack that tooth wow because i wouldn't have the will or say like oh let's get off this stuff yeah right but it took that i'm like okay well i don't need it i had knee surgery in 93 and they gave me something i don't it was either percocet or vicodin i don't know what it was and i took it one time and i felt so bad i felt so stupid yeah i remember being in my apartment in new york just feeling so dumb and just thinking i'd rather be in pain yeah and so one day i took it one day and i'm like that's it i'm done yeah and then i sold it i sold my uh pills to this guy jeff at the pool hall it's a dirtbag it was this dirt bag guy that i used to hang out with at the pool hall he had a bandana and long hair he was a hippie he always sold drugs and i sold them to him he's like i'll take it what do you got yeah yeah what do you got and uh then i had surgery again i've had a bunch of different surgeries for jujitsu injuries and martial arts injuries. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the second time I had surgery on my knee, I had a knee reconstruction again on my other knee in 2003. And I didn't dig anything.
I'm just like, I don't want nothing. I'm just going to just deal with it.
And it was okay. Yeah.
Maybe anti-inflammatory or something. Yeah.
I didn't even take that stuff because I don't think that's good for you either. Yeah.
You know, I mean, you're going to be in pain no matter what. It's just going to dull it a little bit.
I'd rather feel it all and just get accustomed to it and deal with it. Yeah.
That was like back when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out when I was like 20 or something. You know, that's pretty gnarly surgery, right? And they give you like – it was a codeine or something.
I just puked on that and said, no way. Took one pill and I never took – didn't sell it to anybody.
Isn't it astonishing that some people like it? Yeah. People party on it and they'll go drinking.
Oh, yeah. Like two Viking.
I just – it's just the opposite for me. I just can't.
It my body doesn't agree with it yeah uh i just uh and i'm glad i don't i don't like it i had a friend of mine who's a musician and he would write all his music on on vikonins and i was like what how do you do that man like i took it whatever it was that i took i can't remember which one it was but i felt like a moron i just felt like i had like 20 of my brain yeah yeah And it was that I took, I can't remember which one it was. But I felt like a moron.
I just felt like I had like 20% of my brain. Yeah, yeah.
And it was just this dull, like wet cotton stuffed in my head. Yeah.
But, I mean, I guess maybe it's just like different biology. Maybe different people react to it differently.
For sure. It wasn't for me.
Yeah, I agree. So how long did it take for the withdrawal to subside? By the time I got to the Zoom with the pain management doctor, he said, like, well, don't do that.
You should taper off. Like, well, I'm already off it now.
I'm like – I've come off the crying train, especially because he also made sense of it for me he's like so it's kind of it's like it's like day four by the time i talked to him and um it just helped me make sense of like why i was feeling the way i was feeling because it it felt like a setback right you know and because there are setbacks in recovery but this felt like a real setback like i like i couldn't grab of why and I'm pretty in tune with like my body and my emotions and my everything. And I just couldn't grab why I was, when it's so obvious.
But then, you know, I don't, I'm not the one really administering this stuff. My mom's just giving me the pill and doing peptide injections for me and, you know, rebirthing me, you know, taking care of me.
What peptides were you on? Oh, man. If I look back, I don't know.
I was getting three mLs, so three loads, and they were all mixed up, so as you would. Probably a lot of the same ones that I'm on now that I continue, and I rotate in and out of different ones.
BPC-157. BPC-157.
TB-500. T Emerson.
Yeah. All those.
Yeah. Yeah.
AOD and MOTC. I have to do a lot of blood work.
My hemoglobin was at two. Whoa.
Yeah. That was what it was going back to work.
Whoa. Back to Mayor Kingstown.
Crazy. Yeah.
It's like the blood of a dead man, essentially. I just got no energy.
So then I started really working with all my blood panels, big, giant, wide, 16-vile blood panels. And that started to be my new course of recovery, of a cellular way, in a blood way.
And that's where I really started to get strong. I was moving around.
I was mobile. All the bones are healed.
By this time, it's like a year has gone by. But now I started working on cellular and blood health.
And that's when I got to, like, my skin started to look great. And, you know, because your blood tells you what your body's producing and not producing, right? Right.
So that was a great report card or barometer of where I was at, why I'm not, you know, where my mitochondrial levels are at, anything was at. So it was really, really great part of my recovery.
And that's what I'll continue to do and still continue to do today. Boxing's biggest weekend is here and DraftKings Sportsbook is bringing the heat.
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Did you use a hyperbaric chamber? Oh, yeah. That must have helped.
Yeah, yeah. What it did for me, it's not something, I don't think there's many things in my recovery that you do that feel good.
It just doesn't make you feel as shitty. Right.
It's like you're building a mountain one layer of pain at a time. Yeah.
But hyperbaric is great. It helps with

lactic acid when you're working out.

All the oxygen you put in your body

is a great necessity.

Again, they're one of those things that are

even age-reversing. It's also

disease-preventative. It's amazing.

I got one that was

you could sit in and do

multiple things. I can't

just sit there for an hour and a half in the chamber and like I'll go crazy. I have a busy brain, you know.
So I get a computer or whatever, email, whatever I can do to kind of continue to do it, to make it a part of my life. Oh, that's cool.
And then I go into like a red light bed, a high powered red light infrared bed, then it moves all that oxygen through my body even more so and gets deeper into the tissue. It's amazing.
Yeah both of those things yeah those are huge parts of my life yeah but i would imagine for something like what you went through it's imperative yeah yeah for tissue recovery and oh man huge huge huge faster for repair and so from so a year later you're walking around Yeah, I was walking by. My daughter's birthday was March 28th.

So. So a year later, you're walking around.
Yeah. I was walking by my daughter's birthday was March 28th.
So I guess a few months later, I was walking. But it was assisted, very assisted week walking with cane or a walker.
So that had to be amazing. Yeah.
Yeah. And then I was like by the summertime, I stopped doing recovery, the intense 24- recovery.
I would do, like, a 12-hour-a-day recovery and then go walk in the sand in Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is the world's biggest cold plunge.
It's a freezing-ass lake. So I just go dip my legs in that lake, walk in the sand.
It's great for instability in your ankles, your joints, your hips. And I would just do that kind of stuff, even ride a jet ski.
I was riding a jet ski in June. Wow.
Yeah. Taking it easy.
I'm not doing anything nice, but just like, you know, just live in life. You know how good that is for your mental acuity, your spirit, your emotional body and all that stuff.
So I was out in the sunshine getting vitamin D. I was in, you know, nature.
I was with friends. I could do life stuff.
Like I'm back in life stuff, you know. Now that's a great confidence builder.
builder. So I kept trying to do those things.
And then of course I have to go back into all the recovery stuff that I always do. But I'm just happy I can do it.
What does the cold water feel like with I mean you have a rod through your tibia. Yeah the cold, that's not the issue.
It's when it's cold weather. Yeah.
Like anybody, you're stiffer. Your blood slows and all that stuff.
So it doesn't help us. I need circulation in my joints.
Tendons don't get a lot of blood flow. I really got to work at getting blood flow in these joints.
Otherwise, they'll stiffen. And I'm just slower going.
Everything just feels a little bit more robotic. But I think that's, before injury, it's that for anybody, right? Also at elevation.
I'm in 8,000 feet elevation in Tahoe. So all those things aren't really kind of helping to my recovery, but my body will respond in those oxygen depleted environments and all that stuff.
So maybe it did help. Maybe it didn't.
I don't know. But I did most of my initial recovery in L.A.
And then when I could, I got out to Tahoe to be in my sort of happy place in nature. Did they have to reconstruct your knees? Did you? No, no.
None of that. There was cracks in my ankles and my foot spun around a handful of times.
There was a spiral fracture in my leg. So they had to hit a rod down into my knee, and they had to screw it, screw it, you know, with plates and all that stuff.
So I didn't ensure I just moved those things. So I don't know.
It wasn't full, like, reconstruction, like people get a new knee or a new hip. It was just a lot of breaks.
My pelvic broke in three spots, my hips. You know, you don't fix that.
They even said, you broke your asshole. I'm like, is that what you say as a doctor? Is that how you say it? Come on.
That's hilarious. I think there's another word for it.
I think he was trying to make me laugh. And I did.
And Eric makes you laugh. He's like, you broke everything, Jeremy.
You even broke your ass. I'm like, all right.
That's great. Wow.
And so you've gone through the 12-hour. Now you're in like this 12-hour day recovery.
Yeah, so summertime. Yeah.
So I got to do like just life stuff. And that was really my first shot at allowing myself to think that there's a future and I'm not going to live a life of full-time recovery for the rest of my life.
Oh, I can actually go do some other things that I enjoy doing with people in kind of a normal way. So I was, without a cane, without anything by the time, by June and summer came around.
So I'm moving around. That's pretty nice.
I'm moving around with, you know, inflammation and getting downstairs very slowly. But as you would, as long as you're patient, as I was, as aggressive I was with my recovery, I allowed patients to also live within that aggressive attack on each joint or each inflammation or wherever it was.
I do allow patients. And because I allow myself to push hard, hard, hard, hard.
I listen to my body. The body says, fuck off.
I'm like, all right. I'll chill out for a second and then, you know, keep going.
But I got to live life. And that was so rewarding to my spirit and my confidence, which, you know, you need in those kind of dire times.
And I keep going. And then, like I said, when we got to getting back to work because I got so ready.
Maybe I'm down to like four hours a day of recovery by the end of that first year. I'm like, I'm going to go back to work.
I need to get back out into the world and use life as my recovery and still only spend four hours a day on hyperbaric chamber, red light, whatever the heck I could do to – I mix it all up. It's a bunch of different stuff.
A lot of heat, a lot of vibration, power plate stuff. That was really great for numbing the nerve endings, my back of my knees, back of my ankles, that kind of stuff.
I don't know if you ever used that stuff for. No.
What are you doing? I used to have this thing. God, what was it called? It was a thing you stand on.
It's like it would shake you with different vibrations. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And it would slow it down.
Yeah. Make it fast.
It's like that. Yeah.
And that really was great great for numbing the back of my knees. That really still ache and back of my ankles.
So it's not quite so sensitive. I don't know if it floods the nerve endings with blood or whatever the heck it does, but it just kind of numbs it out.
And I can go to sleep on it. It's great.
It's beautiful. I used to have one of those at my house in L.A.
I don't even remember what it's called now. It was just a bunch of different programs yeah yeah it's power plate it's probably a power plate well power plate i think is the one that you work out on you can yeah yeah this one was a little different this one was just it would just shake you at a bunch of different frequencies oh interesting you would stand on it and it was supposed to just do a bunch of stuff for your your hormones and endocrine system and all sorts of different stuff just by the vibration yeah yeah yeah it helps me a lot interesting for sure and um are you doing sauna and stuff like that as well yeah yeah yeah i used i usually use just the red light bed like a sweat like it's shaped like a like or a Channing bed one.
It's just as effective, I think, as you're going to the sauna. It doesn't take so long to heat up or anything.
You just get in that thing and cook. It's amazing.
And it's amazing that even like an LED light like that or infrared light could warm you up so much. But it's intense.
I love it. And then after a while, do you start lifting weights? Yeah, yeah.
I started training as soon as I got the, when I tested doing blood work because my hormone, my testosterone was at 200. My hemoglobin was at two.
Everything was. Your body's just wrecked.
Oh, it's wrecked. And I'm going back to work.
So I had to attack why I was falling asleep during workouts that I'm trying to do or whatever. They only scheduled me to leave me six hours a day on set because I fell asleep in the middle of a scene.
Oh, my God. They're like, who's going to wake that fucker up? Oh, man.
Yeah, so I had to really work on that. I think it was really the testosterone.
Once I got that level to like 700, 800, man. So, yeah, so I had to really work on that.
And once I got, I think it was really the testosterone. Once I got that level to like 700, 800 constantly, then I had more energy.
And that allowed me more energy in the gym. And once I had that, that got me more energy.
So it just started feeding upon itself. I was doing blood panels every week.
And I just saw progress, progress, progress. And then I just started lifting.
And I had so much energy, and I felt better. The more I lifted and moved and stretched, and it just kept compiling, just like most things in life, and it got easier, like most things.
With oxygen chamber, that's better when you compile on it. Same with red light stuff.
No one time at anything is going to do anything, but if you do it often enough and make it a central part of your life, it's like, oh, I was on fire. It's great.
I started running. You can run now.
Yeah, yeah. Wow.
Yeah. For distance? Yeah.
I mean, I don't know where I'm running to. I was never a distance guy.
I was always a sprinter, right? I was a sprinter from high school and college. Yeah, so.
Does it hurt when you run? It feels like if you're if you've ever been in a car you're on the freeway and it has a misalignment or it's a little shaky or you got a flat tire it feels like I got four flat tires when I'm running it looks great it looks like oh this guy has no problem with this guy just bo boop, boop, boop. And it feels like the wheels are going to fall off.

Wow.

Mentally or something.

It just feels like it's – because it's a lot of pressure to put on all these joints, right?

I haven't sprinted really much in a while.

I haven't really worked on that.

I've been working on other things, you know, blood and cells and that kind of stuff. So, I mean Sprinting is not, you know, what am I doing? What am I going to do? Sprint? 54, for God's sakes.
Maybe like for, you know, because you do stunts in movies and maybe at some point I'll have to sprint. I don't know.
Or maybe not. Maybe just don't do that shit.
You know? Yeah, well maybe you can though. Sure I can.
I think you can. I already have.
I believe it. I just don't do that shit.
You know? Yeah. Well, maybe you can, though.

I mean.

Sure I can.

I think you can.

I already have.

I believe it.

I just don't know if I want to make that a central part of, you know, the acting experience.

Maybe I can.

Well, that would be an absolutely phenomenal turnaround to go from where you were to going back to action films.

Yeah, yeah.

To go play Hawkeye or something.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, that'd be a good test.

Or Bourne Identity.

Yeah, that's tough. That would be a tough one.
That was in excellent shape for that one. That would be a challenge.
Yeah, I would imagine. I don't know.
Do I want to tax my body? Yeah, I don't know. Probably should.
Is it taxing your body or is it strengthening your body? Yeah, I don't know. This is the question.
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
How many miles can you get on this stuff right titanium i think it's forever i think it's permanent i mean what you everything you have just reinforces the recovery of the bones right yeah yeah yeah and then and then you just have a plate there that just keeps the bones in order yep and it's essentially all the all the titanium in my body is useless at this point.

It did its job and the bones grown.

So it just stays there now.

Is there an argument that the titanium

hinders you at all?

Well, I mean, it is

foreign metal in your

body.

It's not rejecting it,

but there is a point where it could.

Just like allergies,

you don't get allergies sometimes for 40 years in your life

Thank you. body um you're not it's not rejecting it but there is a point where it could you know just like allergies you know there's sometimes you don't get allergies sometimes for 40 years in your life and all of a sudden i'm allergic to down it could reject it who knows you never know um i'll cross that bridge i'm worrying about today i'm here with you i'll worry about that shit later it's just so impressive yeah it really is amazing yeah it's yeah because at any other really is amazing.
Yeah. Because at any other time in history, you're dead.
Yeah, yeah. Any other time in history.
Oh, yeah. Conner.
20 years ago, you're dead. Conner.
Yeah. You're a conner.
20 years ago. It's insane, right? It's amazing.
It's amazing. What a great blessing to have all those people that even the EMTs and all the people that were there, life-saving stuff that did all the stuff that they had to do, man.
There's so much. And I'm really known in that community, especially in the EMTs and all that sort of stuff.
I have a lot of firefighter friends and all that stuff. So it's just like a, you know, you're just getting a little extra juice and love from these people.
You know, like I knew one of my best friends is a firefighter in that area, Jesse, and he's just retired. He got the phone call from his buddy who had to like stab my chest and release the pressure from the lung and like on the ice.
I'm like, and he's the one that says, look, dude, Jesse, Jeremy's in. We did the best we could, dude.
You want to get the hospital? Wow. And that's like code for like, he's gone.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I mean, but they're like, you know, I talked to them all later. I saw every nurse.
I saw every doctor. I went by every ENT, even the pilot that flew me up there and just had to give everyone the biggest squeeze and apologize if I was a pain in the ass or whatever it was, man.
It's that, uh, reminds me of just why I'm back anyway. And anyway and the only thing that you take with you is love, man.
Yeah. The beginning of the audio book is your daughter.
Yeah. Yeah.
That was the one I had the hardest time with. Yeah.
Yeah. Because it's, you know.
Can you imagine? Yeah, I can't imagine, you know. Dude.
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Does this, I mean, it must forever change your perspective on life because you've crossed back. Yeah, yeah.
Well, it just made it easier. It's ripped away all the white noise, things I gave credence to, things I gave value to, it's fucking meaningless.
Bullshit. Bullshit.
All the bullshit. Bullshit is gone.
Yeah. And I just don't.
Sadly, I'm in a spinning rock with people and capitalism and stuff. Yeah.
I just don't feel like I belong. But I do.
Yeah. A lot of times I just don't feel like I fit into how things work or seem to work down there.
just I just don't do things I don't give give value to I'm only do things that are valuable in my life that's it that is it I do nothing else it is amazing how much time and energy people put into things that ultimately at the end of the life they're not valuable they don't mean yeah and they occupy most of your thinking. That's right.
Or even your time or your career.

Uh-huh.

Right?

Yeah.

How many people do careers that they fucking hate?

Yeah.

Or they're in a marriage.

They just fucking despise.

You know, all this stuff.

You're spending too much time doing what?

Right. Why?

Why?

Because of fear.

Because of fear.

You get trapped.

And it's too difficult to get out.

And, you know, they get too deep and buried into some place. They get, I don't know, paint themselves on a corner.
You know, it's quite sad. Yeah.
You know? It is sad, but it's also, I mean, there's an amazing example that you can shine to the rest of the world that maybe people don't have to go through what you went through to realize that most of what you're thinking about all day, especially if you're one of those people that's wrapped up in social media, most of the things you're thinking about all day are just nonsense. Just total nonsense that's stealing your life.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book is I hope there's things that, um, that I learned and the gifts that I received from, from passing and coming back and overcoming, you know, huge obstacles. And a lot of, a lot of people can identify with suffering and struggle.
Um, it doesn't have to be a physical struggle, but you know, there's, it's a certain way to think and perspective that to work your way through it because it is a lonely, lonely place place and i think there's something beautiful about the narrative of an author to a reader or even just audio which is even more intense because you get the 9-1-1 call and it's kind of dramatic in that sense but like it's it's pretty intimate and you can i think you can really move the needle for somebody yeah the more open and honest and vulnerable i am in sharing the narrative though maybe more i have a chance at connecting with the reader or listener no doubt you know there's the thing is about when when you're in the middle of a struggle it never seems like you're going to get out of it yeah and you're trapped yeah yeah you feel it and it's so difficult for people to trust the process or to trust that it will get better. And this is unfortunately why a lot of people end their lives because they do not think it's going to get better.
And you hear it from so many people that almost took their life or failed when they tried to take their life and now realize, oh my God, I was so wrong. It does get better.
I am better. Everything's better.
And I just didn't see the light. i didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel i thought there was there was just nothing but this feeling that i couldn't endure yeah that hopelessness oh that's that weighs heavy doesn't it oh you can't afford that you can't you can't give that power you can't give that no you can't it's just i think anybody can't.
I think anybody can sink into that, right? Anybody can sink into that. Anybody can sink into that.
It's just so hard for people that have never gone through something before. If your life has been really easy and then all of a sudden you're tasked with one of the most difficult burdens ever, overcoming the fear and the feeling of wanting to end life because you can't take it.
I've been there. I mean, Jesus.
Look, I think people need to suffer. It is an actual requirement of life.
It is the fiber, the DNA of love. real love and true love and perpetuity can't exist without suffering.
It's impossible. But you don't appreciate it.
Yeah, you have to have suffering. And suffering doesn't have to be looked at as a negative thing.
It can be looked at as a beautiful thing. It's where real love comes out of.
Yeah know all my suffering there was real love in there

everyone around me just in this recovery or in a loss i may have had from an uncle or a grandparent

or whatever you know there's there's real love that comes in that suffering you know even though

it can be a lonely experience i mean i look at it that way and not as a negative terrible thing

because it's just temporary and it's it's not intuitive though what's that it's counterintuitive

I don't think people welcome that or allow that to happen in their lives and let it be okay. That the suffering that we suffer at the hard times are the building blocks to who we are.
It builds resilience. Yeah.
It builds character. Yeah, yeah.
It builds all those things. Yeah.
I remember one time, I mean, this is a minor suffering in comparison. But one time I went on this hunting trip on prince of wales island which rains like 350 days a year and so we were up there for a week just getting drenched and you know you're camping so you're in a tent and you think oh well i'll be dry in the tent and you're not dry in the tent there's no dry there's no such thing as dry i remember i turned my head lamp on in the tent once because i had to pee and i was going to step out of the tent to go to the bathroom in the rain.
And when I pressed the headlamp inside my tent, all I saw inside the tent was water vapor. It was just filled with moisture.
There was just water, like droplets all flying around inside the tent. I'm like, oh my God, you're dry there's no dry and you know it was just miserable but fun i was with good friends we had a good time then i came back to la uh you know a week later and i remember i called my friend steve vernell i called because he's the one who took me on the trip and i said dude it's sunny out and i've never appreciated the sun like this before.
I'm at a level of happiness that I don't think I've ever felt before. I'm just sitting outside with my eyes closed, just taking the sun.
It was wonderful. LA is always sunny.
You get so used to it. It's like you're a trust fund kid, you know, like who can't appreciate money because you've always had it.
It doesn't mean anything to you. But now all of a sudden going, just being drenched for seven days and being in that sun, I was like, ah.
And then it made me realize like, oh, you need to suffer. You need to suffer.
You're never going to appreciate this life. And either you voluntarily suffer or you will suffer involuntarily because life, regular life will make you suffer.
Yeah, very true. It's not – it seems sort of anti-human to want to do something to make yourself suffer, right? It doesn't seem very sort of characteristics of – we always want to take the fastest route to get somewhere.
It's just innate in kind of human nature to do that, sadly. And it doesn't – that leads to a life of complacency and mediocrity.
Well, if you look at life today, and if you look at society today, we have unprecedented levels of depression and unprecedented levels of anxiety and unhappiness, yet it's probably the safest time ever. And it's probably the easiest time ever.
It's so easy that poor people are fat That's how easy it is. Like that's never been the case all throughout history poor people were starving Yeah, and poor people are fat now like that's how easy it is to live just to exist So I mean not not saying that being poor is easy.
It's certainly not this is certainly a struggle but it's way easier than starving to exist. So, I mean, not saying that being poor is easy.
It's certainly not. This is certainly a struggle, but it's way easier than starving to death.
Like this is like an unprecedented easy time. And because of that, and because there's this narrative that people have to constantly seek comfort, to seek vacation and relaxation and retirement and all that bullshit.
And so that's in your head. And there's this softness to existence.
And so everything that comes your way is overwhelming. Somebody said this once, and it's like a great quote that I remember.
The worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, regardless of how small that is. So if the worst thing that's ever happened to you is like i remember uh my girlfriend broke up with me when i was 18 and i was like oh i couldn't believe that i thought i was gonna be with her forever i was so sad yeah and then i think back like oh my god that was the best thing that ever happened she was a nightmare but back then i thought i was probably a nightmare too but back then i thought like life was over Right? Yeah, of course.
But you have to get through that in order to appreciate life, to really appreciate life. But we have this bizarre narrative in our head that you shouldn't suffer.
I know. Where does that come from? Well, because it used to be so difficult to live.
And so you would try to find a time where it wasn't difficult.

And so then it became the thing that everybody focused on.

Focused on chilling, relaxing.

And the people that I know that don't do anything and don't take any chances and don't take

any risks and don't exercise and just seek comfort are the most miserable, anxiety-ridden

people I know.

Well, that's, yeah.

They're pretty much dead inside, right? Yeah. That's complacency.
And that's the definition of complacency but again it's counterintuitive yeah exactly comfort is easy it's relaxing it's nice yeah but it's only relaxing if you've earned it yeah yeah correct gotta get through something in order to appreciate just chilling on the couch yep yeah so that's why i – I have to fight my – I have to trick my own behavior into doing things I don't want to do all the time. If I don't want to do it, I'm like, oh, I'm going to do it.
Don't even think about it. Just go do it.
Right. Because I know the lazy mind just wants to like, oh, yeah, let me just skip the gym today or let me not do PT today or whatever the heck it is.
I don't want to get poked and prodded. No, just do it.
Just go do it. The thing you don't want to do is the thing you probably should be doing.
Almost always. Yeah.
And that's why I pretty much always just do that. It gets me out of my way, out of complacency, just like laziness.
It doesn't exist because I do the opposite of what I want to do. Well, that's why you're happy.
And that's why I'm so full of joy, dude. I'm so happy.
I've never been happier. More connected to humans.
More connected to my daughter. More connected to myself.
More centered in my spirit. Where I am right now.
Where I'll go. Where I'll be.
Where I always am and always have been. It's beautiful, man.
Yeah. It's beautiful.
You got to conquer your inner bitch you do man that's what yeah there's an inner bitch inside of everyone that's like yeah you gotta go shut the fuck up you have to have like two minds yeah well you gotta surround yourself with others too that can inspire you too right so then you do things as it even as you and I go work out do something it's a lot easier than going to the gym by yourself right you try to create because we are social creatures so let's do things that uh like i'm doing like i'm building a whole rehab recovery center at my house like well maybe i kind of open this to the public and like make this a communal cool thing so everyone has access to this stuff.

And I'm still considering doing that, but just make it a place to be and hang so everyone can do it.

And it's not just me.

Separating myself from other people, whatever it might be in my life. I try to find ways to make it a communal thing so it just makes it easier to continue this in perpetuity.
that's another counterintuitive thing it's like you have to understand how important community is it's like a vitamin yeah big time it really is yeah well that's a shared experience too that comes with that negative or positive in the tent with your friends and if you're alone in doing that right it's fuck you have no one to share that misery with but at least you did share that experience with somebody dude never thought I loved the sun so much remember when we were fucking eating ass sucking on the rain water in that tent but it's even a negative experience can be but it's shared it's still quite beautiful and it's a map a milestone a part of your life that uses barometer to change your or appreciate the sun more or whatever it might be right so those shared experiences i think are invaluable it's the only thing i chase in my life is that for people uh that ever want to start a fire when it's everything's wet fritos you know little fritos little bags of fritos yeah yeah those little motherfuckers are so toxic that if you light those things they they're like little fire starters. No way.
Yeah, man. Fritos are crazy flammable.
They stay lit for a long-ass time because they're just soaked with oil. Oil, yeah.
Yeah, like whatever oil, whatever horrible fucking seed oil, whatever fucking industrial lubricant those fucking things are made out of. But when you light that, they're essentially some sort of a corn byproduct and oil.
Oh, right, right. And so if you light those fuckers on fire and then you get some semi-dry sticks and light them, light those.
And we started one fire one day because one day it didn't rain. So that one day it didn't rain.
Me and my friend Brian Callen, we were determined to start a fire. And so we just found like the driest possible.
Well, nothing nothing was dry but driest possible sticks and twigs and started it and then dried some logs out and it was they were hissing and steam was coming off them as we were lighting it but fritos yeah fritos are an amazing fire starter kind of crazy that's crazy makes you think about eating though i'm I was just going to say, you're going to go about to eat this shit?

Yeah.

Which brings me to another question.

Like, how much did you alter your diet after all this?

Because I would imagine, like, anything that causes inflammation then becomes an issue.

Yeah.

I didn't go down so much that route.

I was eating pretty good.

I didn't go into, like, things that I haven't gone into that even yet to like, Oh, what causes inflammation? What, what, what am I eating that does that? I, I haven't really gotten that far into it yet. I'm still, I'm sure I will, but, or, and there was a doctor that also helped me stuff and I have people cook, prepare some certain things for me, but I don't, couldn't tell you what causes inflammation that I put in my mouth.
Um, could not, I mean, maybe have wine, probably does. Yeah, a little bit.
Alcohol does for sure. Yeah, yeah.
But, again, I don't do – I really am good at moderating all things, all things good and bad. So my body has a chance to sort of exist and it's not forced too many supplements, too many peptides, too many, too many anything.
Right. All good stuff.
I sort of just moderate. So once I got my blood right, because I was like 205 pounds.
I'd never been more than a buck 65. And it's just all this surgery weight and all this stuff.
And it's hard to get off when you have a, your hemoglobin's two. It just had new energy.
Also, you probably have to eat a lot, too, because your body needs calories in order to help you recover. That and proteins, too.
Proteins. Yeah, and also it's difficult to eat because, again, my molars got pushed in.
It's hard to chew. I look fine, but to chew on a steak and asparagus thing, it's like this is tough.
It's tough for me to get through. Still to this day or no? Yeah, it'll be forever.
I can't fix it. If I start to move those molars again, they'll probably fall out.
Oh, wow. Yeah, and I'd rather keep them and just be uncomfortable.
So they just got pushed in. Yeah, this side.
Yeah, it's usually sort of like just like an arc to your thing. So my bite just kind of arcs and then goes straight back.
Oh, wow. Yeah, all these got pushed in and broke the jaw three times here.

And then just breaking the jaw doesn't ever really heal right.

So biting down is quite – it's annoying.

It's full chaos in my mouth, but I don't bitch about it.

I just sort of accept what it is.

It could have been so much worse.

It could have been so much.

I have all my teeth.

I have a smile.

It's great.

You know, I feel great. And I'm walking my teeth.
I have a smile. It's great.
I feel great.

I'm walking and breathing.

I have love and joy in my life.

Who cares about what happens

to my mouth, man?

Right.

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It's really kind of an amazing story. And it's just amazing how these stories can be so inspirational for other people too, which is why I'm really glad you wrote your book.

Because these stories, like autobiographies, especially of people that you admire, that you've seen in movies before, it's like those struggles, they're so real.

And when someone's going through something themselves and they can turn to your book, it can give them a lot.

It's fuel for people. It really is.
Yeah. For me as well.
I mean, I resisted writing it because I still don't know how or why it can and will inspire people. I can only make assumptions and I think it's so particular to the actual reader and the person.
So I can never sort of pontificate on how or why it's important or not. But it is like there's an achievement for me to get through it word by word that i didn't want to do to relive it and then because it's in my body i talk about it all the time it is it is a part of my narrative as part of my life it's just recovery is just it's just my life and i love it i enjoy it i feel better i look better and all that stuff but it's like the book now is a tangible sort of this is this is a great dialogue that we'll have as long as we want but it's just a dialogue that exists but now this is a tangible object with words the words don't change they stay there right like a tablet and something kind of interesting about that is like a milestone or a tangible thing that now it exists in the world.
Right. And psychologically, that says a lot to me.
So like even when I do die, that's still there. So maybe it can help somebody even when I can't be there to talk with them or whatever it might be or even exist.
Right. Something.
It'll exist long. Yeah.
It's pretty. It's pretty interesting because I do movies and things like that or music.
Those are like the same thing as a conversation. They just sort of exist in the moment.
Like, you know, it's great going to a concert, but then it's over. Right.
And then that's it. Well, what happened? Well, I could tell you about the concert.
But something about something existing beyond your life is something pretty interesting. What was the process like of writing? Did you physically sit down and write things? Did you, how did you do it? Initially, I have a ghost writer who helped me, because I've never written a book.
I've written a lot, but I've never written a book. So I wanted to get the format right.
And so we would work through this format. It's almost like an outline.
And then, so we'd just do interview by each of the sections of this outline that we put out. And so then we would just talk like this.
And they'd tell me, let's talk about this thing. Take me moment by moment in the accident.
I'm like, all right, let's do that. And we'd meet every day for like two, three hours, however long I could sustain going word by word on it.
And we recorded all the things. And I would write on my own because it would kick up new memories and start writing about the Lamaze thing and oh gosh that came up and let me that became a whole chapter in the book uh about breathing breathing my my awareness to breathing and how it became so important in my life um anyway so I just kept going and writing and writing and writing and then I would do talks to to companies I would speak to kids at schools I would all this is part of the writing experience because you can ask me the same question and then, but we're in this environment.
But then if I'm with my family and I tell the same answer, the same question, it's a different,

it's the same kind of answer, but different. So I kept learning more and more data and information

was stored in my brain and my heart and my spirit and had to unearth it and put it down

into words, which is, which I found to be the most difficult thing. Because as we speak, like I'm doing now, it's free to speak as whatever you want.
But to write down the words, oh, wait, there's accountability to the words because they're written. And you have more word choice.
My brain doesn't operate as fast as I'd like to for my vocabulary. I'd probably drop way too many F-bombs instead of like really great words that I do know.
So it was nice to be able to take the time and spend the agony to really kind of express word by word through it in a very real honest way. It's more like a diary, a recounting diary than it was trying to be fancy with words and overcomplicate something that's really quite so simple.
What was the process like of going over the words and deciding what to keep and what to edit out and how to format everything and what order to talk about things in? The order always was working for me from the beginning. It allowed for flexibility for what would come up in conversations, in the writing.
It allowed for fluidity. But there is a beginning, middle, and end to this.
We already knew the end. We already knew the beginning.
And so it was the branches off of I didn't know I was going to talk about Lamaze in this book. Didn't know that was a huge milestone in my life that got me to understand what conscious breathing was and mitigate pain.
Because there's this whole thing about Lamaze. I was taken at 12 years old.
My mom was pregnant with my sister. And she said, put down the cleat, son.
You're not going to soccer practice. Just grab a pillow.
You're coming with me to the class. I'm like, what class? It was Lamaze class at the YMCA.
And my stepdad was out driving a truck or something. And so my mom, she needed, also needed me not to be alone.
And she needed, you know, whatever. So she brought me, the oldest.
And I laid there with a pillow between her legs and teaching her how to breathe and short breaths and then they pulled down a screen and they showed this midwife birth at home in a bathtub and squirting out water and this whole thing. Like, what's going on? I'm 12 years old.
I'm mortified. I'm like, what happened? Is that a whale breaching? What was going on? You know, and so that came up in just sort of me and my partner talking about it.
And he's like, dude, you don't realize that? I'm like, yeah. Well, that's why the book's called My Next Breath.
You know, it's all about breathing. And breathing was such an essential part of my recovery, my essential part of my, you know, not dying.
And to get through each and every moment. The perspective of breath, it is not a conscious thought.
It's reflexive in our body. And when we make it a consciousness, when we invest into our breath, what you can do with your mind with your breath, it opens up.
The more you breathe, the more you get oxygen in your body. It's just feeding all of it.
It feeds you. It only feeds you.
Because people yawn, and I say the example of like, oh, you're tired. No, you're not tired.
It's your body that you know that you need to breathe, get more oxygen in yourself, right? So you're not tired. You just need more O2.
That's all. Your body body's making that happen isn't it fascinating that everybody breathes so everybody thinks oh breathing what's the big deal it's like nothing have you ever read james nester's uh breath or it's actually breathe i guess uh but it's an amazing book on breathing techniques and the history of breathing techniques and all the different things that people have achieved with breathing techniques, including holotropic breathing, which achieves psychedelic states of consciousness and all these different feats of incredible physical endurance that people have achieved through breath work.
It's a pretty amazing book. It was a guest of mine on the podcast a few years back.
But I read his book and started really getting into it and really trying to practice different breathing exercises. And great, you know, there's a bunch of breathing exercises you can use for anxiety, for overcoming very stressful situations.
But when you say that to most people, oh, breathing, they're like, oh, you're one of those guys. They're like, oh, you're concentrating on your breathing.
What else are you concentrating on? Blinking. You know, it's like, because it's like, you know what I mean? It's like you can minimalize it.
You can, you have a reductionist perspective where you don't think it's anything big. And especially if you've never practiced it.
Yeah, yeah. But, you know, especially with with like yogic breathing you can achieve some bizarre states of relaxation and consciousness through breathing yeah big time yeah and you could you could i i always try whenever i explain it to somebody it's i i just i say like when i use it i just think i don't do it like on a daily basis i mean maybe now i do to um but it's like it's i did it like you said, for anxiety when I was nervous in an audition.
How do I get out of this situation? I'm like, I'm not in my body. My heart's going like this.
I'm like, I can't read these lines. And I hear like Sean Penn in the room.
And I'm supposed to go there and be better than this guy. I'm like, oh, I'm freaking out.
I'm sweating. So I said, screw this.
I leave the room. I go out of the building.
I go out into the street, like on Sunset Boulevard somewhere, find a tree that's rooted in this damn earth. It might look ridiculous, and I don't care.
But the courage to go down on your knees, go by the root, be in this earth, just take 10 deep breaths as cars are honking and da-da-da on Sunset Boulevard, I don't give a shit.

I'm back in my body.

I'm back on this earth.

Here I am.

Let's fucking go.

I went back up in that room, and I smashed that audition.

I don't remember if I got the role in that, but it doesn't matter.

I was back in my body.

I was back on earth, right?

It wasn't like in this state of hysteria or nervousness or that, you know, because I don't like that feeling.

So I found a way to overcome that feeling. Some people might just live in that feeling all the time.
They might like it. I don't know.
I don't think they like it. Yeah.
I don't think anybody likes it. I think the problem is you just get trapped in that feeling.
And then the moment something comes up that's very difficult. Yeah.
That causes you to spiral again. You just lose control.
Yeah. Terrible.
You're out of your head. Yeah.
I think head yeah it's one it's one of the most difficult things about the this whole audition process that actors go through is that you know there's this golden carrot that's at the end of this stick and if you do a good job you might be a fucking movie star you know what i mean which seems impossible right right i mean it must have seemed impossible before you pulled it off right yeah yeah i know it's there was never like something i was ever aiming for really what were you aiming for um truth and every and everything i was doing truth yeah honesty and truth how did you yeah because if i don't believe it then how do i expect someone watching me to believe it you know i have to ensure that everything i'm doing is truthful and honest and courageous and bold and you know all the things so it was never to try to be a movie i just wanted to work always i never wanted to be famous how did you acquire that perspective oh i don't know it's it's i was clear about what i wanted very clear about what i wanted I didn't move down to la to be famous i moved to la to be in a movie be in a movie that was big enough that would play in modesto california where i'm from because they don't get all the movies there right right and being a part in that movie that i wouldn't have to tell my family you know i'm the guy in the red shirt waving in the background it's a part big enough that you would just know I'm in know I'm in the movie. Yeah.
And I got that, all those goals, and the first job I ever did on camera in this National Lampoon senior trip movie. So then I had to recalibrate now new goals to get myself, and I was working enough.
So I never – my goals were always to – like then I wanted to be the lead in a – by the time I got like Dahmer and then H and then hurt locker and all these kind of stuff it just kind of made i was ready for that stuff but i was like 38 by that time i was like the new guy in town at 38 right so isn't that crazy yeah i was just i was just ready and you know i did my journeyman stuff fucking amazing it's one of the most complex movies about a very bizarre psychological state that people acquire or that people fall into when it comes to war yeah yeah what was it like getting into that mindset it's it was interesting i gotta spend you know i was at fort urwin uh for about a year learning how to build bombs and render them safe. For a year? Yeah, yeah.
I was at Fort Irwin for about a year learning how to build bombs and render them safe. I was at guys and gals off campus, off base.
Interesting. I love the whole experience.
And then got to go shoot the movie, and that was on the Iraqi border in Jordan during the war.

And it's 135 degrees in a 100-pound bomb suit.

It's not even hot anymore.

It's just sort of like you let that go.

It's just – you just are.

It's kind of a spiritual sort of place you have to go in that kind of heat.

And also you're drinking enough water.

Like, you know, how am I drinking all this water? You're not even taking a leak and like oh i'm so dehydrated gotta be careful um and that's you know yeah pretty pretty interesting pretty interesting um experience you know what were the conversations like when you were talking to the people that actually did that well most of them look like you know school teachers. There's like one or two guys that, one guy was like, kind of built like huge, big guy, the rest of them were like, you know, the guy that I know did three tours, he looks like he's totally out of shape, his stomach is way bigger than his chest, he's just kind of, do, do, do, do, do, kind of, this guy did three tours, this guy's no joke.
It's all mental. It's all such a mental game because you have to be cool in those high-intent situations because you're dealing with 155 explosives that'll blow this building off the block.
The level of intensity is really interesting. They were so comfortable around C4 and all these things.
And you got to be careful, these blasting caps and all these things that people were getting injured all the time. They got really uncomfortable when I took them to a bar in LA.
Why? We were sitting at the bar and I asked, I'm like, what's going on? It's the big guy. I can't remember his name.
He's like, I don't like where we're sitting. Like, what do you mean? He's like, I need my back to the wall and you know where the exit's at and right and like interesting like because i sit like that kind of as well i don't like to have i don't think it's a trust issue i just like to kind of i'd have my back to somewhere i know where the exit is where the bathroom is i look for the the most dangerous man in the room the hottest girl in the room just do like a like a termin.
Right. And that was supported by how these guys thought.
And it's that same kind of thing. They just noticed everything.
Just data. Okay.
Now I can go be here. I assess the room.
And I feel safe. Situational awareness.
Yeah, situational awareness. I always had that.
But really doing that role and spending so much time with these crew of amazing people just heightened that for me.

I've always been a quiet and observer, and this is where I just got in from me.

I could tell you the color of the hinges if they match the finish on the doorknobs in places.

It's just how my brain works.

Always.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's awesome.

I'm a home builder and designer, so I kind of pay attention to that kind of stuff anyway.

But it sort of just kind of helps me out in life, I guess.

And so when you were preparing for Hurt Locker, was it your decision to spend a year doing this? Well, no, it wasn't about the amount of time. I think I was maybe to go for maybe a few months.
Catherine Bigelow, the director, just sort of introduced me and said, all right, they're ready for you out at the base if you want to go. So I kind of went out and just kind of did it all on my own and just waiting for the movie to kind of get up and get green it and go.
It just took a little bit longer. I think we were waiting for one of the actors that was doing another job to finish and then we could start.
And then it wasn't an easy independent film to kind of get up and get rolling, but once we did, we were rocking. But, yeah, it didn't meant to be like a year, year and a half.
She just called me and says, like, are you ready to go? I'm like, yeah, like I'm getting deployed. Like, yeah, let's go.
I'm ready. And then I also, like, we didn't even have a, like an EOD sort of tech on the shoot.
I had to be the person that, and I had to call back. I'm like, I don't know.
This doesn't look right they set up these these 155s and it's electrical and it should be debt cord and all these all these things that i learned but i wasn't an expert by any means i just wanted to make it look authentic in the movie so i had to call back and call me back and we took a picture of this shit i don't think it's right oh wow and um yeah so well that's fortunate that you had so much experience. Yeah, it was great.
It was great. Because if there's anything in that movie, especially for people that actually did that, that takes you out of it.
Yeah, you don't. Yeah.
Yeah. And I wouldn't want to do that because we wanted to be very authentic to what we were doing.
Yeah. We are still making a movie, but let's live in this world.
And, look, the narrative is the characters that live in this bizarre world in a very relevant time in this war that we're in and and and also the struggles of you know soldier in civilian life and because they were civilians and now they became soldiers they'd be put in prison for life for doing the shit they're getting paid to do now and that you know and that was a wonderful sort of outcome of the movie of how it bridged that sort of gap or the struggles with PTSD and coming back from this harrowing sort of existence and war and then coming back in the cereal aisle. That example of like, oh, really? Or in the rain and you appreciate the sun.
It a polar opposite. And like, this is my existence.
And it became such a really, a wonderful sort of starting point for like wives to deal with their husbands that came back. And like, they can kind of understand a little bit of what they might've gone through just in general, like the, the broad strokes of how hard it is.
And then to come back and then like, you know, change diapers and do the thing. You know what I mean? Right.
It's that became such a powerful thing in that narrative that I found after we did it and we're showing it to all the military bases. And it's always going to be a special experience in my life.
And I'll always be connected to a lot of soldiers because of that. Well, it was a really well done movie.
And it was the way you could. Well, there was a thing about that movie that made you think in a way or made me think in a way that I don't think I ever thought before.
Like, oh, I never considered what this transition to civilian life is like after dealing with the unbelievable stress yeah of being in a war zone diffusing bombs and then wanting to go back yeah like it but it made you understand yeah it made you understand like oh fuck he wants to go back like oh my god like watching the movie when a movie can do that to you when it can take you into that psychology of the person that would be in that state yeah and and make it make sense like that's that was a great movie yeah i'm just happy to be part of it was more than just you know it wasn't just a story it was like you're you're documenting a very real condition yeah that you know through art you put words to these people's existence where they don't, you know, they don't have anybody representing that. Yeah.
You know, yes. That's why it means a lot to me.
And they let me know it means a lot to them. And that's the most special thing.
Like, fuck it. The movie part of it.
I mean, it's created a dialogue for a lot of broken families or in United families better Like you said, it's a greater understanding of that difference of soldier-civilian life. It's a great bridge for it.
Yeah, I remember. I'm very proud of that.
I saw it, and then I went back to the comedy store, and I said, oh, man, we saw Hurt Locker last night. And my friend went, dude.
And I went, dude. And that was all we had to say.
Like, we had to say it's like that it was that kind of movie that's just like oh my god like it just gives you anxiety and it also it also just makes you like really reflect and and think about what war is and the end the requirement that you're putting on human beings to try to get them to transition from this insane chaos back into civilian life with no real guidance. Just you

figure this out. Now you're back in the cereal aisle.
Yeah. Yeah.
We're going to Starbucks.

Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's interesting. How, you're like, ah, yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.

How do you decide, like, what roles to pick when, you know, you're at this sort of stage in your life where you're so well-known? You know, people come to you with things, and you have to decide whether or not this project is something that resonates with you. Well, now it's different.
you know the the central part of my life for so long

was my career. And then my daughter came around, and then she's number one.
So then I would do the job that would allow me still to be a father because I'm not going to not be a father because my job takes me away for long periods of time, And I'm just not doing that in far places. So I'm not working out of the country anymore once my daughter was born.
So I always had reach and access to my daughter as fast as I needed to be. And then now after the incident, it's even tightened up more and loosened up more because my daughter is now 12 and she doesn't need me as much.
She wants her friends a little bit more. That's a little bit lower on the tonem pole, just temporarily, I know.
And also I can travel. I just worked last summer on a job.
There's a movie called Knives Out. And then I brought my whole family with me.
Knives Out was great. Yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah. So this is going to be a really good one too but I was able to bring my entire family out like 15 15 people came out because they a lot of them not well traveled and I got to see a lot of Europe took my mom and my daughter to the Olympics in Paris dope got to spend a couple weeks in Italy and it's kind of celebrate yeah so we can do that kind of stuff now so I did the job essentially just to have a summer vacation with my family oh so that's kind of how i decide and also i did love the character i did love i mean come on all that has to line in there too i'm not just going to do a job for a job but it just lined up but my family has to be involved my daughter has to be involved um friends have to be involved otherwise i'm not going to remove myself from all those shared experiences with people in my life

just so I can go do a movie.

I don't want to do any movie

that bad.

So,

that's my limitation.

Well,

that limitation

is real success too.

To really choose things

that you're actually

passionate about

that fit within

these parameters

and allow you to live your life

the way you want to.

Yeah.

And work with people

that inspire me

and think,

you know, I'm just not going to do a job like you can't pay me.

Maybe you could put a trillion dollars in front of me.

Go do this.

You only need you for two weeks.

I'm like, it doesn't fit.

It doesn't check all the boxes that have real value.

Right.

The shared experience, the joy with my daughter, my family, my friends.

And, you know, then it's just not worth it to me.

You know, I don't need to go act for to do a job. I don't I don't.
Right. You do it because you want to.
Yeah. And that's to me what retirement is.
I'm doing what I want to do with who I want to do it with. And I'm still always going to be busy and work all my life I'll do that.
Yeah. Let's not retire.
Yeah. But it is.
It's just a better life. Well, it is in my mind.
I'm a busy guy and I like to contribute.

I'm very busy doing the Renovation Foundation, right, which is a huge, big, central part of my life with my family that runs this charitable foundation in my community in Lake Tahoe for foster youth and disadvantaged youth and giving them opportunities that they don't have these poor kids.

And that's great.

And I love that.

I love I get – but is that retirement?

You know, it's going to keep me busy until I die.

And that's great. And I love that.
I love I get... Is that retirement? It's going to keep me busy until I die.
It's weird that you have to frame things like career or retirement. It's really just life.
Life and passions. Yeah, exactly.
But I don't think a lot of people are doing what they want to do in their life anyway. But yeah, I'll always work, always do the things I love to do, and I'm still continuing to do the things I love to do, just on my own terms.
I wouldn't be able to start this foundation if I wasn't living life on my own terms. I am satiated beyond satiated.
I don't need anything. I require a shared experience on this earth, and that is it.
Is this more so now since the accident? Well, it's always been that. But there was a lot of things in the way or things I allowed to be in the way or things I put in the way.
Allowed to be in the way. Yeah, I allowed to be in the way.
And now I do not. I refute it.
I push it away. I am certainly clear when I put obstacles on my own way, when I get my own way, we all do that shit, too.
But so I'm just very, very, very clear. And I keep I oversimplify life.
Because life is just that simple. If we complicate it, then you're going to have an overcomplicated life.
And it's just not as valuable, I think. I live both.
Yeah. And the wonderful oversimplification has allowed me to, again, use the word retirement in my mind.
I'm just living a life that I want to live, that I deserve to live, that I choose to live and not be limited or rabbit hole or victimized by society or the country I'm living in or the neighborhood I'm living in or the job I have. I don't have any limitations because I'm making manifest everything that I have in my life.
And it feels great. I'm the captain of the ship.
It might take a minute to turn this bitch around, right? But I'm the captain of this damn ship. It's called my life.
And I think everybody has the capacity to do so. Well, that's another beautiful thing of living life by example that can inspire people because that's really what people want to do.
They want to live a life. And I think everybody has a capacity to do so.
Well, that's another beautiful thing of living life by example that can inspire people. Because that's really what people want to do.
They want to live a life where they feel like this is great. Like what I'm doing is what I want to do.
They don't, most people, they don't live like that. Most people, they have this dream in the future.
One day I will be able to live the way I want to, but I'm not doing it right now.

Right, right.

I think that's a trap, personally.

I think you're doing it already.

The journey is there.

There's no end result besides, yeah, you might. I know, but there's so many narratives that people adhere to.

There's so many narratives out there in culture where they tell you, you should be doing this and you should be doing that.

This is a concentrate on your 401k and you're this and that. What are your investments? And blah, blah.
Yeah. Blah.
And you fucking, at the end of the night, you need a pill to go to sleep. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's even crazier now with social media and all that.
That's poison. That's just white noise of garbage.
I mean, I've been off it lately for like the last few weeks where I literally just check it when I'm taking a shit and that's it. Yeah.
Apropos too. I look to see if there's anything crazy going on in the world just so I know what's happening.
But I don't ever get involved. I don't ever like argue with people or post things.
And I see people doing it and i'm like you're losing your fucking mind and i've had conversations with friends and they're like you know you know what fucking this and that and that and this i'm like why why are you paying attention this is like let's go outside look look at all the birds yeah look it's beautiful look at the clouds what a lovely day like you're you're alive in america in is like a magical time to be alive and you're concentrating on some shit that literally has no Effect on your life and you're making it your primary focus. Yeah, that is the definition of madness Yeah, it really is.
Yeah, you're freaking out about things that aren't even here. Yeah, well, that's where you get your way You.
You're giving that value. You don't have to, you know? Yeah.
But, you know, it's just like perspective is a very difficult thing to earn. It is.
It is, right? How do we get it? How do we get it? Experience, right? Experience, overcoming adversity, developing character. Servering.
Shared experience. That's a big part of it.
You know, like with people that you love and you really connect with. Who you surround yourself with.
Yes. That's most of the key to life.
Yeah. Like if you surround yourself with really great people, you're forced to become a really great person.
It's like you have to keep up with it. Yep.
This foundation, tell me how you started that. Initially started with a show that I produced and put on Disney Plus, which is called Renovations.
And it was taking, I didn't like to see a lot of vehicles go to waste, like purpose built vehicles, like a city bus or a fire truck and all these things that supposed to go long, long, long ways, but they just replace them even though they're perfectly good vehicles. So I wanted to repurpose those and help them, help, you know, communities in need.
And like, so it's taking, like I built one to be a water truck, like a box truck to be a water treatment plant to give kids in villages with terrible water and be able to, you know, reverse osmosis to their water and give them drinkable water at their school. Or take a...
There's a... It's like a city bus and turned it into a dance studio, a mobile dance studio for these kids in Mexico.
Just these creative sort of things. It's kind of like Pit My Ride, but with real valuable things.
Just take these really cool purpose-built trucks and make it something really spectacular for these kids, all kids driven to give them what their needs are. And then it just went into like, I didn't want to make it about just vehicles when I wanted to start the foundation.
It became a wonderful calling card. And then I started the foundation and my sister works for DCFS, which was Child Protective Services in Los Angeles County.
And one of my best girlfriends in Reno, she also works for CPS, Child Protective Services, there. So I've been working with foster youth for many, many, many years privately.
And now I just wanted to really get invested into the community. So I started small in northern, greater northern Nevada.
And my sister now is running it, and Shana is running it as well with me, and the whole family has now gotten involved, and it's been really wonderful to come back from the incident, have this be a central goal for us to celebrate our time together as a family and to give back to these kids that are in great need. And it has been a dream of mine that I've been wanting to do for a long time and now do it publicly.

I've been doing it privately for a long time.

And to really make a big splash and make a lot of movement for these kids.

And I think it's one of the reasons why I was brought back outside of all the other things.

But I think there's something working in my favor to come back outside just, you know, my family. And I think it is my reach to kids and my ability to have a great effect for them.
And it's been a couple years now, and it's already been moved the mountains for kids already, and will continue to do so. This is like me breathing.
This is easy. I love this.
This is a part of my fiber, my body.

I'm the oldest of seven in my family.

I've been changing diapers and living as the oldest.

It's sort of my birthright to be able to do.

What makes it even cooler is that I'm a Marvel superhero.

So I have like a reach and access to these kids

that they didn't even listen to, right?

They're like, oh, cool.

Let's go to camp with Hawkeye.

That's just dope.

And they all show up with plastic sacks, right? And this is like all their valuables in their life. And it makes me weep, right? And this is all their worth.
And they show up with hefty bags, all of them. So we give them rollers with their names on it and a passport.
It's like a journal and they can, I'm going to change the narrative of this. You're a traveler now.
You're a world traveler. You're not carrying your trash around for all your worth in it.
Your worth is much bigger than that. We're going to just planting seeds like that in their head and then creating community for them, creating opportunities for them, safe places for them, giving them more educated stuff.
We brought in a recording studio bus for them to touch all these instruments that they'd never have access to.

Who knows what that does?

I don't care.

Let it have access to things.

Give these kids opportunities that they deserve.

This is the future of our fucking planet.

Why aren't we giving more time and effort to that?

It's the future of our world, man.

Let's give them all the tools.

We need another Elon.

We need other super smart, amazing people, man.

We need that.

We need other leaders.

What do we give in our youth, especially our foster youth, man?

It's not a good look.

They've gone through a lot of struggles, these kids, man. And they're not going to struggle, not on my dime, not on my time.

That's amazing.

So it's an easy thing for me to do.

I love it's a great focus for me that's um outside of uh it's things i enjoy right i still do things that i enjoy i just get to do it with these kids and have they teach me so much i learn so much to keep me in a really youthful spirit i it's it's harrowing to hear what they've been through, Joe.

I don't like to know.

My sister knows all about it.

Shana knows all about it because they get the phone calls.

They have relationships with a lot of these kids.

They know, dude,

I mean, you'd probably react like I would.

You want to flip a table.

You want to hurt some people.

So I'd prefer not to know

how they got touched and who did it.

You know, this kind of stuff. I just try to choose to focus on let's give these kids a plant some seeds of hope.
And I'm good at that shit. That's awesome.
And I love it. So we're on jet ski.
They've never even been to this lake. So whatever the heck it is, new experiences, new joy, new friends.
They're all crying at the end of this camp because they had such a good damn time. One of them was getting adopted and she crying because like i can't come back because i'm not a foster kid anymore i've got adopted like no you can come back you know you know you did good then when she didn't want to get adopted like ah it means we're doing something right for these kids and we're going to continue doing it and we're doing it not only just as a camp but we're doing like lots of programs throughout the year to keep the community of the foster youth community together.
A lot of these kids are brothers and sisters that never get to see each other because they're in separate homes, separate cities. One's in Vegas, one's in Reno, right? Dude, you can't do that.
You can't do that. So we're doing our best to unite community, right? We need each other.
These kids need each other. Even beyond, they don't need me.
They need access and reasons to be together. So it's helping the foster parents.
It's helping the kids. It's whatever we can do.
We're going to start building youth centers as well. We'll be building homes as well in the future with the foundation.
But we're starting step by step, breath at a timeby-brick, and building camps and activities and education for them. I love it.
You can see how much I love it. I can't talk about this for days, man.
You lit up when you're talking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love it, man. We have these camps coming up here in June and July, so I'm pumped.
Can't wait to finish this job and go back home.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

It's kind of shocking that it takes individuals to be inspired to do something like this because society doesn't put any emphasis on this.

Well, it's like, look, states have foster programs, right?

But there's gaps in the system, man.

It's like kids are forgotten.

And then some are, you know, it's tragic. But put a spotlight on something, put energy into something, it builds.
And I got a loud voice and a big heart, and I'm very actionable in what I do. And that's why the foundation is growing and making the moves and making the – paving ways for these kids.
So I'll keep doing it, man. It's easy.
How long have you been doing this now? Publicly, only a couple years. It's just started out.
So, you know, then it's like the other thing about the nonprofit stuff. It's like, oh, man, it's like going out and asking for money.
So I don't do that. I'll go do like voiceover jobs and like put money in the account for I hate asking for money for foundation stuff.
You know, I'll let somebody else kind of bother that. I do.
I stay in my lane. I work with the kids and work with the ideas and the programs.
And I let my sister and those guys on the board deal with, like, having to raise money and all those kind of things. It's just not my wheelhouse.
Well, unfortunately, when people hear nonprofit, they always think, okay, well, where's the money really going? Well, that's where it is. And that's why we operate at 8%, I think.
Oh, that's great. Yeah.
Nobody does that. That's the opposite of how they're usually done.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So, I mean, even if we got to – because no one takes anything except just basic operating costs. And if we're operating at 8%, I think maybe 13%, it's like all the money is going to the kids, man.
That's incredible. All of it.
All of it. So I'm trying to get the bank account to be full so we only operate off the interest.
Once we're there, then we can really start to start to move needle for building things and doing some stuff in the future. So I'm excited for that.
Are you going to expand this? Yeah, it'll grow. It'll grow.
Again, I think to keep effective for me is staying in the home area or just the state of Nevada, at least, and not going too far. So because I still I'm very, very hands on.
And it's important for me to be the voice for the foundation and for these kids and an advocate for them. And so Nevada is kind of the goal for the least maybe the next five years for sure.
And there's still a ton of kids that I have not reached and need to reach. So I focused on that.
That's amazing. Yeah.
Then there's like getting these youths that age out. They're getting back into being counselors back in the camp.
There's a great thing with UNR. They get a free ride at the university.
And a lot of them are going back into sociology and psychology and want to go help kids and foster. Like, this is so great.
So I want to give them opportunities to come back and help the youth and maybe give them guidance. God, this is awesome.
Self-healing and cathartic in its own way. Whatever we can do, man.
It's a wonderful, wonderful life. It's amazing because you light up when you talk about that like nothing else we've talked about so far.
Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, it's everything.
Again, I'm focusing my energy on all the positive stuff, you know, because I can't. I'm too sensitive to deal with the hardships that they go through.
So let me just be a guiding light for them or someone to laugh on. They have to sign my T-shirts, whatever they want to do.
I don't care. I'm their playground.
I love it, man. Again, I think it's the reason why I came back, Joe.
That's incredible. You could see that it means so much to you.
Yeah. And that's just, if you could find something like that in life, you're a winner.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, just think of the amount of positive energy you put out there in the world. Yeah, it's pretty exponential, too.
And then also how it cascades. Yeah, yeah.
The ripple effect of that is insane. It changed their life.
It changed other people's lives. Yes.
Yeah. And then it comes back.
It's pretty what you put out in the world is what you give back, you know? Yeah. I see it every day, and it's exponential, especially now since the incident.
The ripple effect of just – dude, this happened in my driveway. It was a private experience.
I woke up and it was a global thing. I didn't ask for that.
I'm so kind of glad it did. It allowed people to see me as the man I am and not the guy that slings an arrow.
Right. You know what I mean? It's a fake arrow because it's CGI.
Right. You know, so I'm glad it became a big pelvic thing.
But the ripple effect of just this narrative of the recovery is – like you said, it can affect a lot of people. And it's a beautiful thing.
It's a positive thing. And like the foundation.
And I see it and feel it every day. You really lead an exemplary life, my friend.
You really do. Well, what's the alternative? I know, but I mean, it's interesting that you have this perspective.
Like, I'm always curious to people that have such an amazing perspective. Like, how did you gain it? Like, how did you get to this place? Yeah, well, I mean, you have to, I think, you have to life and review, right? Yeah.
You know, it's a life and review. I think there's, I think, you know, there's birth order, right? There's also being in the 70s in a small town where I was a latchkey kid, right? I had a free reign.
I was seven years old and a key to the house. I didn't have to come home until the streetlights came on.
Right, me too. I made mistakes.
I broke windows and slingshots and stole shit and lighted up the cigarette butt of my mom's and all this stuff. I got caught, and sometimes I learned I reprimand myself.
I self-policed myself. I was a very honest kid.
You know, there's a lot of things. I had a bicycle, and then that was like freedom.
That's where I began, like, oh, I have real freedom. I got a fishing pole, got on my bike, and just went off into another county.
Like, that wouldn't happen today. I would never allow my daughter to go walk across the street.
I had a similar life. I was a latchkey kid, too, and I just think the heart.
Where was this? Well, I lived all over the place. When I was 7 to 11, I lived in San Francisco.
From 11 to 13, I lived in Florida. From 13 to 24, I lived in Boston.
Oh, wow. Then New York and out here.
Oh, wow. Well, L.A., rather, and then out here the last five years.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Well, that's a good mix. Yeah's a good mix yeah that's good mix right well the good thing about living in a bunch of different places the bad thing is i never really developed roots right and but i had to form my own opinions because i couldn't count on the opinions of all the people around me i didn't i didn't have like a core group of friends yeah so i always had to like sort of see the world for what it was yeah did that make you an introvert or an extrovert or both i think i was an introvert initially i don't think i ever even though i talk for a living and i'm a public figure i'm not really an extrovert which is really odd I don't really like attention, which sounds crazy for someone who gets a lot of attention.
Yeah. I don't need it, you know, which is probably why I get it in some strange.
Right, right. Yeah.
Some strange. Like I was very socially anxious when I was a kid.
Yeah. I would get super nervous when I had to talk to a bank teller.
I remember one time I had to deposit money in a bank and I was like, why am I freaking out like this? This is so weird. Right.
You know, but eventually overcame all that stuff. And then, you know, through martial arts, traveling around all throughout my youth from the time I was 15 until I was 22.
So all I did was travel around the country and competing. So I had very bizarre life in that i didn't have like the normal high school life of partying and hanging out no i was you know flying to california to fight right it was weird right it was a very weird life you know so i you know i still wasn't an extrovert Like I didn't really learn how to talk in groups of people until I started teaching.
So I started teaching martial arts. And then that's how I learned how to public speak.
But I was publicly speaking about something that I was very good at. So it was like I commanded sort of attention just by because I would demonstrate to them things that I was doing.

And in demonstrating and talking, it made sense that I was able to talk.

About something you knew very well and you're comfortable in.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's like I was really good at it so I could show them.

I'm going to demonstrate something to you.

And then I'd do it.

They'd be like, holy shit.

I'd be like, I'm going to show you how to do this.

And then if you listen to me, like I taught at Boston University when I was 19 and it was a real counter-tourge GPA. It was like pass, fail, A.
And I'd say all you have to do is show up and try and you get an A. And if you can't show up, call me, tell me you can't make it and you'll be fine.
If you fuck off, I'm going to fail you. But if you just try, you get an A.
And then it counts towards your GPA. This is like a legit thing.
Like, well, all I want you to do is like this can help your life. And I'm not thinking you're going to go and fight and compete.
But I can teach you something here. Yeah.
And it's difficult. But you'll get better at it.
And through getting better at it, you'll learn how to get better at other things the discipline yeah yeah so that's like how i got into comedy in the oddest way like learning how to talk to people because i wasn't comfortable talking to me i always felt like a loser and a weirdo and i always felt like an outcast yeah so for to to learn how to talk publicly like that's how I did yeah you know but all that traveling around just gave me this very bizarre like rootless sense of who I was as a person is there anything that you grabbed from from that experience that you hold on to I mean they too you know from this is some positive things that kind of come out from that, right? Yeah. Like,

I went to a different school every year of my life.

At least until I got to high school.

But I was in the same town. I didn't move around a lot.

Maybe just in the town I did.

Divorce and all that sort of stuff. Our schools were full.

Right. So I had to

either engage with people,

all brand new people, each grade, new school,

new grade. Yeah.

And then, you know, you're growing up. I was

more shy and I think more like you, like an

introvert.

So either I,

either there's,

Thank you. people, all brand new people, each grade, new school, new grade.
And then, you know, you're growing up. I was more shy and I think more like you, like an introvert.
And so either I was very gregarious or I just was an observer and I just watched. So you just make choices.
And that's why I became an observer. But with that, I don't know.
I like that part of me. And I can be extroverted like I'm an actor in a thing, but I'm still more insular and quiet.

Yeah.

Even though the two quiet guys are yapping their jaws off for hours. Well, I mean, it was hard.
But I wouldn't have wanted it any other way because I think it made me different. You know, and I think there's unfortunately unfortunately if you are in like a small town and you're you grow up in that town and you never leave that town your perspective is very limited yeah yeah and i moved around a lot and i think that was very uncomfortable i hated it when i was a kid like fuck we're moving again to another state like this is great, but That made me who I am And it again it made me form my own opinions instead of adopting a conglomeration of opinions that everybody around me had you know and I went from Very liberal and progressive San Francisco in the 1970s during the Vietnam War to living in Florida,

where it was like completely the opposite, like super conservative and kind of retarded.

And I remember just being around people like, why do they even think like this?

This is crazy.

It was so strange to me to have this like complete juxtaposition, almost like a cultural 180.

But it also made me realize like, wow, there's a lot of different ways to think yeah there's a lot of different ways to engage with life yeah you know well is it don't we like especially growing up right you're saying like seven eight thirteen fourteen all those years we those we look to our friends and friendship groups to sort of like kind of help develop ourselves and yeah kind of be a reflection upon ourselves and if you don't have it, you have other things that you, you know, you turn to. But, you know, there could be, like you said, it could have been a terrible thing if you stayed in the same place and you had the same core four do's and then how limited your life would have been to staying in San Fran or, you know.
Yeah. So it could, it's, like you said, there's a real good positive thing to take from being removed from stability, removed from – right? That's all anxiety-inducing.
Or it could be the perspective, right? The perspective could be – but if it's a positive perspective, you know, to lean on. Yeah, like you said, I like how I came in the thing and it drove you into all the things that you probably like about yourself today.
I think it's pretty interesting. Yeah, and it also – like I got picked on a lot too in which that's what I'm doing to martial arts yeah Boston days yeah I was like yeah I hate being scared of people yeah it just drove me nuts yeah I didn't have friends so like a group of guys would fuck with me and I didn't know what to do so I was like okay I gotta fix this and so I became obsessed with martial arts and then once I started doing that it was like the first thing that I ever did I was like hey, I don't think I'm a loser I just think I never figured out how to get good at something and now that I'm really good at this one thing I'm like the opposite of a loser and then I became obsessed with winning You know and then that was like my whole life until I was like I don't think I want to do this anymore.
And then I transitioned to

other things. But that period of time wouldn't have happened if I lived in a comfortable environment where I wasn't fucked with, where I didn't get bullied.
I wouldn't have that desire to do something that was completely terrifying because I was scared of physical confrontation. So what do I do? Spend my whole life getting involved in like voluntary physical confrontation with trained fighters, which is way more terrifying.
The most terrifying thing, you know, but that. But what's the alternative? Oh, just be scared and be bullied and beat the fuck up? That's what I had to decide.

Yeah, take the reins.

I had to decide that.

I just had to make this change.

Fortunately, it worked out.

Yeah.

It's very bizarre, the turns that life takes.

And when you look back, you're like, what if that hadn't happened?

What if I hadn't done this?

What if I hadn't turned left?

Yeah, the crossroads are so, so so so instrumental in who we become right and i'm in control of that like we're not steering any ship at that point right so much of it is luck yeah or whatever it is or fate whatever fate means yeah you know what i mean fate is kind of assumed once an outcome has been achieved oh it was fate yeah in hindsight Yeah, in hindsight. Was it really? In hindsight, you could say that.
Yeah, I'm not sure. Say that in a moment.
Right. I do think there's a certain power to following instincts, which I've always done for whatever reason.
There's a pull that you have towards a certain direction, even if it's massively uncomfortable. Sometimes you you have to realize like, OK, let's go.
This is what I'm supposed to do. And that is very hard to do.
But once you do it a few times and then you start saying that there's a little voice in your head like that motherfucker has never let me down. I'm going to keep serving that voice.
Whatever that voice is, I'm going to keep listening. Even though people are like, what are you doing?

And I'm like, I'm not going to listen to you.

I hear that a lot.

Yeah.

I think so do a lot of people that have accomplished great things.

Yeah.

I don't think anybody who listens to the advice of everyone around them ever steps out of line.

Yeah.

You know, I don't think you ever really try anything crazy.

Yeah. You got it.
Because most people aren't going to want to support you when you're trying something that seems insane, whether it's trying to be a movie star or whatever it is, trying to be a martial artist or a rock star or anything in life that's hard to do. Most people are going to tell you don't do that, especially people that are conservative in a sense of like to do something that is going to give you a good chance of success.
Yeah. Because the more fun things are very open-ended.
They don't really have a lot of – like what are the numbers of people that become successful actors? Oh, I mean – Is it like a tenth of a percent? Probably. It's probably not even that.
Yeah, probably not even that. It's probably less than that.
I mean, if you could get a chart of how many people moved to Los Angeles to try to make it in show business and how many make it, it's got to be an astronomical. The numbers are not good.
Insane. Those numbers have to be insane.
Yeah. But my thought was like, fuck, somebody's doing it.

Like somebody did it.

Like why can't I do it?

And then people would say, you know what, with the odds you're going to make it?

Like I don't know.

Why am I thinking about that?

Someone – it can be done.

People have done it.

But you have to be willing to just really fucking throw yourself into something.

Yeah.

And know that, especially in the beginning, there's no time to fuck off here.

If you really want to do something that's really hard to do, like, you got to be all in.

Yeah.

Because there's too many people that are all in.

Yeah.

And you're competing with them.

Yeah.

You're not competing with these, like, half-steppers, these people that are kind of dipping in and dipping and dipping out. They're there as an example for you to not live your life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, isn't there like kind of a selective hearing that kind of has to happen in anything for anyone? We have to listen and really listen to engage and really listen to learn and grow.
But then we have to have selective listening to like, how many times I was told no or told I was crazy. Oh, yeah.
Or to like, what are you doing? You out of your mind? I'm like, ooh, now I knew I'm on the right track when I hear that. Mm-hmm.
Because that's the words of a fearful person. Yeah.
Those are the words uttered from someone who's scared and not courageous and a lot of stuff's in their way. I'm on the right track when people say that.
There are those people that would try to sabotage you because they don't want you to be successful because they haven't taken a chance in their life. So they don't want anybody who does, who's courageous.
They want you to fail. There's people out there that want people that are courageous to fall apart because then it makes them feel better for their own choices.
That's okay. They got to live with that.
I don't, right? Right, right. They got to swim in that.
But again, I think that those things are just like you need the rain to appreciate the sun. Yeah, yeah.
You need to struggle to appreciate love. They have to coexist, otherwise they don't exist, right? It's like a truth and a lie.
They both have to exist, otherwise everything's just fucking true. Right right right so that you have to coexist together otherwise you don't that's the hardest part of life to truly understand like why is there evil right you need love you need good like why why did why can't everything be love well it can't it can't there has to be evil people for you to appreciate loving people you know there really has to be kind people for you to appreciate loving people.
There really has to be kind people for you to appreciate, oh, okay, life is not just all cruelty.

But you have to know that cruelty exists for you to appreciate kindness.

Yeah, yeah.

Weird.

Yeah.

It's a weird dance and it's—

It's strange.

Yeah.

Like if God is real, like what a strange game he's playing

yeah you could kind of when it all works out you see wisdom in it you know you're like i kind of

get it yeah like the life is not just utopia it's a strange mix of good and evil yeah and and love

and hate and and all these things that are in the way that you have to overcome. Yeah, those tests, man.
Those tests, don't they suck? They do. All the tests we have in our lives and everybody has them.
Everybody. There's nobody that's exempt from it.
No one. How much money, how successful, you are all, we're all susceptible to great tests and great suffering.
Yeah. It's how well you overcome that suffering will determine how well you love and deeply you love in your life.
And also the people that have overcome the most are the most fascinating and interesting and complex people. Aren't they? Aren't they? Have you ever met Amanda Knox? Do you know who she is? Yeah, I know she is.
She's that woman that was accused wrongly of a murder in Italy. Yeah, I remember that.
She spent years in prison in Italy. And she is so fascinating.
Yeah. She's so strong and so interesting.
And I asked her about this. I was like, do you ever think like you are this really unusual person with this like fucking cast iron integrity and character,

would you be this person if you hadn't been wrongly accused and spent years in prison

and publicly persecuted and then eventually absolved?

Like who would you be?

I mean, would you want it any other way?

I mean, I don't –

I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

But yet here you meet her.

She's so incredible. It's like life is very very odd yeah and there's choices that she could have made right in in that she could have been like resentful right you know i don't know how she is so i don't know she's not at all yeah but like you know there's and she could have been valid in any really kind of feeling she has about things because that all sounds pretty shitty.

Yeah.

But, you know, again, what's the alternative?

You want to hold on to resentment and that kind of – is that the life you want to live because it's your choice?

Right.

Or how – I like – fuck, she sounds like an interesting person to talk about.

But, you know, is it a choice or a choice for her?

Right.

Did she feel like it was a choice?

Like, you know, what was her –

It certainly wasn't.

Yeah.

No, I mean –

Did she feel like that that made her who she is and she's content with that or –

Thank you. Is it a choice for her? Did she feel like it was a choice? It certainly wasn't.
Did she feel like that made her who she is and she's content with that? I mean, she's certainly resigned to what it is, but she's very happy now. Right.
But not just happy, but complex, like a complex, compassionate, charitable thinker. What's the conversation if she's still in the joint? Oh, in the joint you know oh yeah i mean she's still in the clink and there's no hope of forgetting out well she learned a lot in there too yeah i bet people like what the the terrible choices that people make because most of the people that were in there were guilty you know and the and the terrible choices that these people make and like what happened to you when you were young like why did you become a Person who murdered your husband? Why did you become a person who you know robbed a bank? Why did you what what what went wrong? You used to be a baby, you know, this is something that I really changed when being a parent really changed my Perspecting of human beings in a very profound way in many profound ways.
But one of the biggest ones is I stopped looking at people as being static. I stopped looking at, oh, Jeremy's 54.
He's always been 54. That's how I know it.
Now I look at everybody like, oh, you were a baby. You were a baby.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I love my daughters dearly and they're very extraordinary people, but it's been fascinating to watch them as little babies become these really complex human beings and have conversations with them and talk to them and see how they interface with life. And then I, you know, meet people who are all fucked up and, you know, angry and fucking hateful and I'm like, God damn, what happened? What went wrong? What are the things that, and how do you get out of this? Yeah.
It's interesting. Yeah.
It's, you know. Well, I mean, it's, there's so many trials and tribulations in this wonderful existence that we all share.
And I think we learn a lot through other

people's, not just your own, but other people's.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, that's the hope, anyway.

We can, right? Yeah.

Well, I think a lot of people

are going to learn a lot through you. And without having to

do it in a fearful way, or scare tactics,

or, you know what I mean? That doesn't

really work. Yeah, yeah, but it's used

everywhere, in media, right? Right.

Advertising, all that kind of stuff.

Right, right. But like's used everywhere in media and advertising

and all that kind of stuff.

Right, right.

But like to do it in an honest way or it's like,

I hope I still learn by talking about my experience, right?

I still learn by looking through the book

or listening to the audio.

I'll be listening to the audio soon

when I have my daughter and all my nieces, nephews around.

They're going to listen to it. We're all going to listen to it together because I'm not going to have them go off reading this thing.
It's too harrowing to do it alone. But like, I'll be listening to it.
I'm going to learn through it. And with that experience and that exchange with these beautiful young creatures.
Yeah. You know? So you'll be learning for so long.
It's only been a couple of years, which is really crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll keep trying and testing the limits of my body and my mind and my spirit

and what I can pass on to others, what I can give on to others, what they give me.

I mean, it is a vibrant, high vibration that I'm living right now.

And I'm so blessed to have it. And so much gratitude at every breath.
I almost feel like I don't have to walk anymore. I sort of love it.
I just feel so lucky. And I think it has to do with all the love and all the goodness that this world has to offer.
I think that's gotten me through. And the attitude of it, that perspective of that.
Because it can be a very bleak, dark place. Yeah.
But know? But I choose to, I choose love, I choose action, I choose my perspective. It is my choice.
And I've been in dark places where it wasn't quite so positive and so lovely. It was well before the accident, you know, where it's just like, you know, just kind of grumbly and grumpy and don want to leave my house.
And, you know, I don't want to go sign autographs. I don't want to be around people or, you know, just kind of whatever, you know.
Not a really great, happy place, perhaps, you know, like everybody has the right to be. But if that doesn't exist at this point, you know, I don't get any more bad days, Joe.
That's amazing. Right? You're like, fuck, I wanted that.
Isn't that incredible? I can guess at the snowcat for you one. I can make it happen for you.
Isn't that incredible? No more bad days, brother. Right? Wow.
It's a perspective that is mine and a truth and reality that is mine. Because I have a barometer to like, yeah, I know what a bad day is actually like.
And I was tested to my limits. And I got through it, luckily, somehow, someway.
And it's just almost science at this point. It's a factual that it's just not going to happen.
I can't. No matter if I tried so hard to have a bad day, it's just not going to happen.
I can have a bad moment. I can have frustrating times.
But I'm just not going to have a bad day. And for the rest of my experience here on earth.
That that's amazing and i think that experience this this perspective that you're sharing is contagious i think so too dude yeah i know actually i know so i know so yeah for a fact for a fact it's it's it's a it's sort of make manifestation of what your existence is you want to be yeah and you can do it yeah. You got to do it.
Yeah. Both those things.
I think that's why it's beautiful that you wrote this book. Yeah.
My next breath. Yes, sir.
Thank you, Jeremy. It was awesome.
I really appreciate you. Yeah.
Likewise, brother. You make me happy, man.
You bring out a lot of good stuff in me. You reaffirm a lot of good things in me in a really, really meaningful way.
And I appreciate you. I appreciate you, too.
Thank you. It was a lot of good stuff in me you reaffirm a lot of of good things in me in a really really

meaningful way and i appreciate you i appreciate you too thank you it was a lot of fun yes sir

thank you yeah i'll see you at the ufc's too man absolutely okay go buy this book folks yes sir

bye Thank you.