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338 of Behind the Shield podcast with their CEO Francisco Morales.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing.
And this week, it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show,
former UFC light heavyweight champion, Hall of Famer, and one of the co-founders of Umbo, Rashad Evans.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his turbulent early life,
mentorship through wrestling, his journey into MMA,
catch wrestling, his powerful mental health story, psychedelic journeys, functional mushrooms, and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of over 900 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Rashad Evans. Enjoy.
Rashad, I want to start by saying two things. Firstly, thank you to Del Jolly, whose name I almost butchered a second ago, for connecting us.
And secondly, to welcome you on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Oh, no problem, man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Anytime I get an opportunity to kind of
connect with you, I'm always happy to do that.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Anytime I get an opportunity to kind of
connect with you, I'm always happy to do that.
No problem, man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Anytime I get an opportunity to kind of
break down what I'm doing and just kind of give people some insight of where I'm at in my life.
It's always a fun experience.
And where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?
I am in South Florida right now, where I reside.
And it's hotter than Haiti's out here, but
it's South Florida.
Yeah, yeah, I'm only a couple hours north of you. So yes, it is.
Okay. Yeah.
All right. Well, then I would love to start the very beginning of your timeline.
I know you weren't born in Florida. So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about
your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
Yeah, I was one of seven. I'm born in Niagara Falls, New York.
And my mom was a nurse.
And she did that pretty much my whole entire life.
My dad, before he passed, he worked at a few factories. My dad was a really good athlete,
though. My dad was like a really good basketball player, could have went pro.
But life caught up to him. And at an early age, he had my brother, my oldest brother.
So he went the factory route. And back in those days,
Niagara Falls was pretty much a factory city. And, you know, getting a factory job is what you did.
So he went and got a factory job. But he stayed active. You know, he was a boxer, as well as a
baseball player. I mean, he was like Bo Jackson. He did it all. So I kind of got my athleticism from
him. But he was more athletic than I was. He passed away when I was 17 years old, though.
I'm sorry to hear that. When he was doing the factory work, was he working days or nights?
Well, he's on a swing shift. But most of the time, he'll work the night shift. And, you know,
growing up, I lived with my mom for like the first three years. And then I moved with my dad for like
four or five years. And then I moved back with my mom. And, you know, it was like they got a divorce.
And the three boys, my three brothers, we all went with my dad. And then my oldest brother,
well, my older brother, Lance, and myself went back to go live with my mom.
The reason I ask, we have an epidemic of disease, mental health, physical health issues in the fire
service. And as I have learned over the last few years, sleep deprivation is a massive part of it.
Now, when we think about, you know, our factory workers, our healthcare workers, there's so many
other occupations that are probably, you know, one of the issues that they're facing that's causing
ill health in them is actually the fact that they're awake when they should be asleep.
Well, yeah, well, he was definitely, so he passed away of a heart attack. He had a heart attack. He
was 43 years old. And, you know, he actually had a heart attack at work. And they didn't recognize
what was happening to him. So they sat him in the cafeteria. And he wasn't turning over, they
thought he just, you know, was getting used to the heat because it was really hot and that
department he was working in, he was working in DuPont. And, you know, he passed out on the floor,
they brought him to the cafeteria to kind of see if he would be able to rest up and get his
bearings with the heat, but he just never recovered. And then before he actually like started
to have a heart attack, they said, you know what, maybe we should take him to the hospital. They
took him to the hospital where he actually had a full heart attack and he passed away.
So sad. And when I hear DuPont, I had a lawyer on who was the real guy from the film Dark Wars.
And this whole PFAS conversation now, these forever chemicals and DuPont was making those.
So you have that element too.
Absolutely. And that's another thing too. And back in those days,
well, late nineties, you know, there really wasn't too much knowledge or understanding about the
PFAS and, you know, environmental hazards and things like that, especially in Niagara Falls,
the Niagara Falls region. It's a very polluted area. Like we have this dump called the Seacoast
Dump and we take dumps from New York City and pretty much all over the state. And even in
all over the state and even in Canada, we take a lot of their garbage and waste too. And there's
a place called Love Canal where the movie Erin Brockovich was kind of loosely based off of where
you know, it was, it was a contaminated area. Like there's this area, Love Canal,
this whole neighborhood where it was, they had pollution where the pollution was seeping through
the school floors and it was just grotesque. And they ended up having to abandon that whole
neighborhood. And it's crazy because it's like a ghost town and we used to go there as kids,
just like, you know, to run through an empty town. And it was, it was very eerie, but we were breaking
those houses and high parties, but it was like, it was, it was a very eerie thing just looking back
on it and realizing, having the perspective I do right now and realizing like how that and why that
happened. Yeah. I think this is the thing, you know, when, when people do pass away, the only
thing that we can do to honor them is to fix the things that, you know, were behind some of their,
their health issues, you know, so, you know, partially under the carpet is, is just unacceptable.
We've got to have these conversations and fix these things because they are completely preventable.
So many of these, so, you know, rather than just turn a blind eye and people keep dying,
what can we learn from these deaths to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm a strong believer in that. I feel like there's a lesson in everything. And
I feel no matter how bad the situation is, there's something in it for you because I believe that,
you know, you get in life, whatever you're capable of handling, even if you don't believe it,
even if you don't even feel it, but there's a reason why it's happening to you. And sometimes
there's a blessing in it. And when you're able to look at it, you can, you can decipher and pull it
out. Absolutely. Well, you mentioned about your dad being an athlete. What were you playing kind
of early in your childhood? And then what was that progression through the high school?
I started off playing football. I wanted to be a professional football player. I thought I was
going to be the one to break through to the NFL. I was pretty decent, you know, wasn't like a standout
football player, but I got into football just because we were playing in neighborhood football
and we, you know, it was like a passion, but football led me to wrestling and it led me to
wrestling because the head football coach was the wrestling coach too. And his name was Armand
Kachatori. And he says to us, he says, you know, if, if you really want to become really, really good
at wrestling and football, you gotta wrestle. You gotta wrestle. Wrestling will teach you the
tackling fundamentals. It'll give you the grit. It'll give you the toughness you need to be the
best football player. So, and that's how he really talked. He really talked like he was, like he was
Don Corleone, you know? So I listened to him. I listened to him and, you know, I ended up being
better at wrestling than I was at football. And wrestling ended up being my vehicle, my expression,
my way out of that region. Now, what about career aspirations? Were there any, you know, professions
that you're thinking of outside of professional football? Yeah. I wanted to be a cop. I wanted to
be a cop, you know, during that time when I was growing up in my adolescence, I was a little wild,
little, little, little bad, you know, being one of seven kids. My mom worked at night shift. My
parents were separated. So we had a lot of time to just ourselves. And, you know, we would get
into some trouble. So my mom got us into some karate. And after a while, it got kind of difficult
to pay for karate and everything else that she had to pay for. So I ended up working on a deal
with the karate instructor, this guy named Carl Bracino. He was a police officer for the town of
Niagara. And he was an amazing guy. You know, he was just a really warm, just down to earth guy who
really wanted to help kids out. And he took me under his wing and he showed me, you know, all the
things that I needed to know as a young man. And he gave me, helped instill in me a sense of
accountability and just how to be a good person. And I got to be a really good karate, a little
martial artist as well too. But it also fed into that whole wrestling dynamic too.
Well, we're going to obviously talk about your mental health journey and psychedelics.
When you look back now with this 2024 lens, I mean, obviously losing your father is going to be,
you know, a trauma. Divorce is going to be a trauma. Were there any other elements of your
upbringing that you kind of realized that maybe contributed to some of the struggles in your adult
life? You know, I would say, you know, when it comes to just the traumas and the things that
would kind of interfere with, or just kind of root their head in my adult life was just that
relationship with my father. It was one where I didn't, I was young when they separated and
I didn't really understand why he couldn't be there. And, you know, just, just splitting that
time between parents, you know, so I had a lot of resentment for my dad. And that resentment was,
was a big part of that, that fuel that allowed me to just hit that switch and just turn into beast
mode, just be an animal. And I was lucky that I, that I was able to find that as a way of channeling
that negative energy, because I had that bad streak in me. And I feel like if I didn't harness
that anger and that energy the right way, I could have ended up in prison because I wanted to,
you know what I'm saying? I wanted to be, I wanted to be a gangster. I wanted to be a thug. And that,
that's what I idolized, you know, watching these, watching these movies growing up. I was one of
those kids who, you know, had a little 22, you know what I'm saying? And just, you know, getting
into fights and all those kinds of things. But it, but it was when I really understood, like,
there was actually a pivotal moment where, where I decided like, you know what, I need to start
to change my life and do something different. I was running around getting into trouble.
Me and my friends, we had like this little 22, we had this little gun. And we used to love this
movie Juice, this movie Juice where, you know, Omar Epps, Tupac Shakur and those guys, right? He had
a, he had a little gun, right? And they had the gun, so they had the juice. So we got a little gun.
And I got into some situation with some kids, like I always did, and they tried to jump me.
So I escaped the situation. I ended up running and getting away. But I would, I would have fought
him and just took the loss. But the girl, the girl who I was there with in the wrong neighborhood,
she was like, no, don't go out there. They got a knife. So once I escaped, I went back and tell my
boys and I'm like, yo, these guys tried to run up on me. They had a knife and they're going to try
to, they're going to try to kill me. So we're like, okay. So then the next day we went to try to
find them. And we had this little 22. And thank God we looked all over for them all day. We couldn't
find them. They were nowhere to be found. We went to all their hangout spots. They were nowhere to
be found. So we just kind of, you know, resigned to the fact that we'll get them another day.
And we, and we go back to that, to the house and my, my friend, he was, he was playing with the gun.
He was playing with the gun, cleaning it out, just playing with it. He always used to like to be the
one to hold it. He had the most experience with guns. So, you know, he was always holding it and
playing with it. And then, boom, the gun went off, just shot. And I look over and I'm sitting like,
maybe, you know, three feet from him. He's sitting in his bed and I'm sitting at his desk and boom,
the gun just goes off. And I'm just like, oh, I look over at him and blood just all over the wall.
And, you know, he ended up, I look at him and he just like falls forward. I'm like, oh my gosh.
And I felt like he was dead. And I grabbed him, I pulled him off the bed and then he kind of starts
to come to, and, you know, he started talking and then we rushed into the hospital, but he ended up
surviving. What happened was a low caliber gun. It went right up here and just kind of scraped the
skull. But that was one of those pivotal moments where I was just like, yo, this is serious. You
know, because all the street fighting and all the things that I did before, that was just a lot of
fun. But when that situation happened, it was kind of, it was one of those things that was like,
that could be you, you know, where do you want to go with this? And it just made me really start to
put that energy that I had going towards bad things to something positive. Because, I mean,
we would do stuff like we would rob people, you know, we were strong on robbing, beat them up,
take their stuff. And we would just knuckleheads. But then once that whole situation happened, I
started to really understand that this wasn't a game, you know, that you can be playing for keeps
out here.
I think that's what, you know, Juice did a really good job, especially Boys in the Hood. When you
actually watch it, they tell such a great story of the environment that these kids are raised in.
And we've seen it as firefighters and paramedics, we've been in these houses. But, you know, then
you see the tragedy of someone who's just about to make it out and go to college and go to
college or be signed for the NFL. And then they, you know, that environment catches up with them.
And so I think this is, this is the shame is that there was, you know, that it was such great
storytelling. But for a lot of young people, they just see the gangster side. And it's the same in
England. We have a knife crime epidemic at the moment. And these, these drill kids are running
around with ski masks and stabbing each other in the street. And for what, like you said, it's
almost like you used, you could just project the reality of, you know, what you saw that day, what
we see in our career onto these kids and they drop those weapons straight away and go, nah,
I don't want any more of that. Absolutely right, man. I mean, once, once I started to, once I've
seen that, because I wanted to be a cop, that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a cop. And
once that situation happened, it got hard for me to even hear a gun. I will, every time I heard a
gun or heard something loud or anything like that, I would get a panic and it will put me in like
this grip of anxiety would just take over me. And I still thought that I could be a cop though. I
still thought that, you know, I can train myself to get over it, but it was something for me that
had me super scared of guns afterwards. And it was like one of those scared straight things. And
I then started to want to be like, get my life together and start to go down a path where it can
actually be constructive. And I went to, like, I went to a couple of scared straight programs in
high school and going to prison and hearing what they say to you as you're walking through as a
little kid is like, yo, this is for real. Like it's, it's no joke. So seeing where I was going,
you know, having a chance to have that experience and actually go to prison and see what it's like
in prison. I was like, Nope, not for me.
What you were saying about your father, it's amazing how many times I've had almost a thousand
interviews now, over and over again, whether it's, you know, like my, my ex wife, her dad just
packed up when she was five, went and started a family from scratch. She never heard from him
again. And I know that took its toll. I think the sub, you know, the subtext of this in a child's
mind is why wasn't I good enough? Why wasn't I good enough for you to be there? Even, even if
you're physically there and now you're an alcoholic, why wasn't it good enough for you to be sober,
you know, whatever it is. But on the positive side, more often than not, a mentor comes into
someone's life. It could be a female history teacher. It could be a wrestling coach, whoever
it is, and turns a child from just like you said, right at that crossroads from a bad path to a
good path. When you look back, who were the kind of mentors that helped you kind of get down that
good path in the end? You know, it was Carl Brasino, the cop, and there was also Bill Dixon.
Bill Dixon was my wrestling coach and Bill Dixon, he's seen something in me when no one else seen
anything in me. And I would, I was a good wrestler, but I didn't, I was just a naturally good athlete,
good wrestler, and he's seen the potential in me, but I didn't like wrestling because wrestling was
way too hard. Like before we even started the practice, we had to run around, you know, the
school for about an hour just to even just to warm up. And I'm just like, I signed up for
wrestling, not the track team. So for me, I wasn't really feeling that, but I would try to skip
practice. I would skip practice, I was supposed to go to practice, and then I would just blow them
off. And I was like, skip and just go home, get on the bus and go home, hang out with my friends,
smoke a little grass, just be chilling, right? And then what he did was he would send one of
the seniors to come and pick me up. So now a senior who was, need to be focusing on himself
in training, they would have to come and get me. And then they'll bring me back to the school,
and then I would train and it would just be me, the coach, and the senior that picked me up.
And then sometimes they'll pick me up, it'll be after practice, he'll let the senior get out
probably about 30 minutes early so he can come and pick me up. And then they'll bring me to
practice right as everybody else is going. And the practices that I had with my coach, just him and I
were 10 times harder than it would have been if I would have just went to practice. And I couldn't
get out of not going, like I couldn't even quit the team because he went to see my mom, my coach
Bill Dixon went to see my mom. And my mom is all about the discipline because she understood
that she couldn't be everything that I needed being the fact that for one, it was just her
and she was from the mindset, it takes a village to raise kids. And she was also from the mindset,
was like, there's things that a man can teach you that I just can't teach you. So when it came time
for him to, for him stepping up and be like, okay, he's going to go to practice. My mom be like,
and Rashad, look, if you miss wrestling, I'm telling Bill, he can come and get you Rashad.
You ain't going to just be sitting here just ripping and running these streets, getting in fights,
Rashad. That's what my mom told me. So once he heard that, that's all he needed to hear.
And then he just kept coming to pick me up. And after a while, I realized that there's no way I'm
getting out of this. And then it was, then that was, that was, you know, me going to practice was
backed by, I started to get results. I started to do really good in wrestling. I started proud of
myself. I could be pretty good, but there's one pivotal day I remember before I've truly turned
the corner. And this is probably the thing that, that made me turn the corner. It was the gym full
of us at the end of practice. And I'm in the back playing around with my friend and he's talking and
I'm just, you know, doing what I do, clowning around. And as he's talking, I'm kind of listening.
And then he says, you know, there's somebody in here that is going to go on to do some amazing
things that has an amazing bright future. All he just needs to do is he needs to tap and he needs
to believe in himself. And I'm sitting there listening, then like, you know, some of the
singers are kind of puffing their chests out, getting proud, like he's going to say them. And
then he says, and that person is Rashad, Rashad Evans. And I'm like, everybody looked at me like
Rashad, you know, just like totally confused and totally surprised. And him saying that was that,
that turning point for me, because he believed in me and he went on record to say he believed in me.
So I couldn't make him look like a liar. So because he believed in me, because he said that
he believed in me, I did my best to make him be absolutely right. And it's funny when you put that
faith in somebody and you say, you know what, I'm not going to feed you the negative that you
probably think or the negative that you may feel you deserve or that you're trying to get. I'm
going to feed you positivity and I'm going to let you feel what that feels like. And once I felt
what that felt like, that's, that was my currency. That's what I wanted. I wanted to feel that.
I wanted to make him right.
I mean, just to take a step back at that whole principle, I've talked about drug prohibition a
lot, which obviously ties into the psychedelic conversation we're about to have, but you know,
the way that we viewed addiction, which arguably is a mental health crisis, as a crime. And so,
you know, we lock up people who are addicts and then obviously, you know, the ripple effects of
broken homes and, you know, some of these struggling areas that again, I've seen my whole
career, it's shame, it's guilt, it's, you know, lock them up, keep them away. Instead of the
compassion kindness, which I would argue is taught by a lot of, you know, religious doctrine, but
ignored when people walk out the front door, that you actually need to solve the mental health
crisis to keep kids from going into gangs and other areas that are plaguing our society at the
moment.
But that you even even being able to penetrate to the kid, you have to be able to meet them on a
level. And you have to be able to understand what their currency is, because we all have different
currency. We all have different things that motivates and moves us. And being able to tap
into what that is, it takes some time to just sit in with that kid, having a conversation with that
kid, and kind of suspending your judgment on that kid until you hear where this kid is coming from
and what is truly that thing that he may not even be able to verbalize and say is the reason why
they're acting out. One thing I've had a discussion with when people have played individual
sports and team sports is, you know, each of those has has lessons, obviously, the individual sport
is the ownership, it's that kind of mental quitter that you're fighting against constantly. You know,
and obviously, if you're actually fighting, then you got the person trying to kill you in front of
you as well. But then the the team sport, you know, it's more for the collective. Talk to me about
how this this mentorship, you know, the respect that you had for your coach factored into your
success on the mat. Because I had that respect for him. And because he believed in me, I couldn't
lose in front of him. Losing in front of him. It was like twice the loss. So when I felt like whenever
I lost in front of him, he'd be like, hey, it's okay, we'll get him next time. But the disappointment
was was so much that I didn't want to bear it. I didn't want to I didn't want him to be disappointed
in me. So I worked hard. I worked hard and I want to be everything that he thought I could be.
And I would do anything just to be like, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna prove it. And
then what ended up happening is, is that the confidence that he instilled in me, I started to
feel myself, because I was doing the extra things that was required. I wasn't in an attempt to make
in an attempt to make sure he wasn't disappointed in me. I had to do more than what was just required
in practice after training was over. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna run.
You know, during my off time, I'm not going to go hang out with my friends, I'm going to go and do
some kind of training exercise, something that's going to make me better. And when I started to
put that extra time in, when I started to really personalize that that grind, I knew when I stepped
on the mat, that the person across me hadn't done what I'd done. So that translated into confidence.
And because that relationship that I had with him, that belief that he instilled in me,
that ended up being belief that I had in myself. And that set the standard for me, not taking a
step back and really believing in the extra work that I'd done and having a confidence to stand on
my two and say, I'm better than everybody. And not being cocky about it, but just being confident
about it. And you need to have that confidence when you're going into sport, mano y mano. Yes,
it's sportsmanship. Of course, but understand this, if you're in front of me, my job is to break you,
because we're in a competition of wills, and we can't get it twisted.
It's interesting how that parallels what I'm seeing in the first spawn of professions at the
moment. You have a lot of motivated firefighters and police officers and paramedics who dreamed
of serving their community. But if you don't have the mentorship, the trust, the buy-in of the
department, the actual organization that you work for, you don't eke that high level of performance.
You don't have that extra bit, like really understanding, like you said earlier, it takes
a village. That's the same in a fire department. It's the same in a police station. And so I think
this is a great conversation is when we really support, for example, our police officers,
and we give them the right training and leadership. And we're having this conversation
two years to the day that the Ovalde tragedy happened, an epic failure in leadership.
When there is that intact, it creates better police officers, better firefighters, because
you believe in the mission. But conversely, if there's organizational betrayal and your tribe
kind of turns their back on you, or they have no empathy for the fact that you're having to work
all this forced overtime and not seeing your family anymore, that has the opposite effect.
And you see a lot of firefighters and police officers hang up their uniform and leave when
they could have been incredible people if they were given the right environment.
Absolutely. There is a quote that I like, and it says, how you do anything is how you do everything.
Right? And I kind of changed that quote a little bit to say, why you do anything
is how you do everything. Because it's that why. Why am I doing this? And when you're connected
with that why, that why should be something that you're willing to die for. Because it's that thing
that gives you, that makes, it's that thing that, that it's your energy, it's your energy box.
You know, it's the drive that you have to push through on the hard days, because there are hard
days and you need something to push you through the hard days. Because life gets tough sometimes.
You know, there's a lot of things that can happen in a day. And, you know, there's 180 degrees of
parallel on any given positive or negative situation in an instant. And if you don't have
and if you don't have your why intact, you can be swayed by the motion of those parallels.
And being able to stay like the monk, right? And just say, you know, in the middle, we'll see,
we'll see. That's that why. That's being connected with that why. That's being connected
with that purpose. Absolutely. Well, speaking of purpose, I want to get from your transition
from wrestling to MMA. I had Dan Severn on the show probably about five years ago now.
And then I did one of his workshops probably a couple years ago. He came to Ocala here.
So talk to me about your journey from from high school wrestling onwards and then that transition
into the world of MMA. Yeah, so I went to junior college, became a junior college national champ,
I was a junior college at NCCC, went to Michigan State, ended up being a captain at Michigan State
University, was a Big Ten runner up and not a runner up Big Ten to third and Big Ten and fourth
and Big Ten and then almost was an All-American beat this really good, amazing one of the best
collegiate wrestlers of all time, Greg Jones, at the NCAA tournament. And that was kind of very
telling of like, you know, when you really have your mind put together and when you're
really tapped in and believe in, you can be the best in the world. So that left me with this
unsettled feeling inside of me. And once I graduated from college, I didn't have a place
to really let that out. You know, so I started to coach high school, but I was a little too
competitive with these high school kids. And I knew that I was impeding their growth because
I wasn't allowing them to grow because I was too busy trying to win. And I was very lucky to have
some of the best coaches. And I am where I am right now because of the fact that I've had great
mentors and I had great coaches and I had great teammates. I had great teams. And I wanted to be
able to be that for these guys. So I'm like, I need to find something else to let this out of me,
this unsettledness, this unfinished nature that I have that I really can't quite put my finger on.
So I was working at a bar in Michigan and a fight broke out. I break it up being a security guard.
And then one of the guys, one of the patrons was like, wow, did you see that? Talking to his boy,
he had him in a rear naked choke. Now at the time, there's not a lot of people who knew what a rear
naked choke was. And there wasn't a lot of people who understood what that whole, that was kind of
like an underground thing, right? Because that's when MMA or at the time it was called NHB, No
Holds Bar, it kind of was in a dark ages. Like it was over in Japan and there would be some fights
in Vegas every once in a while, like a couple of times a year, but it just wasn't anywhere,
nowhere near. So I asked him like, well, yeah, what do you know about that? And he says, yo,
I trained at this gym in Lansing, Michigan. So he gave me the exchange information. And then the
following Monday, him and I, we went to this gym and it wasn't a typical gym. It was in this building,
this building called the John Bean building in Lansing, Michigan. And this building was
an old factory that they started to just rent out rooms in because they didn't want to waste the
space, but it wasn't very well kept. It wasn't very well kept. It was just, it was kind of nasty,
you know, kind of look very seedy. And I go to this place, this building, I'm feeling, I'm maybe
about to get robbed. Good thing I was broke. So it didn't matter. So I'm walking up the stairs and I
get to this room and the room is, you know, I opened the door and like a wave of funk just hit me.
And I see like, you know, six guys just training in a room is small. It's probably like nine by 12
and they're training. And I'm just like, my mouth is on the floor. Like I just never seen anything
like this. This is, this is what I watch on TV. So I was like, yo, I was automatically just locked
in. I had my first training. And after that I was just hooked. And that's what I did for about a
year. I did that for like a year, just, you know, just locked in and training. And then I then had
my first fight. I had my first fight after about a year and I went to go sign up for the fight.
And I go to this promotion is called the danger zone promotion. And it's in Angola, Indiana. And
to my surprise, the guy who's putting on the show is Dan the Beast Severin. It's his show.
Dan happens to live in Coldwater, Michigan. So I was like, wow, this is cool. You know,
meeting a legend, a UFC legend and Dan Severin. So I felt like I was like in grasp of just being
close to being in the UFC. So I was like, all right, cool. I'll fight in this organization.
And the first, my first fight, I wanted to sign up for one fight, but they didn't have,
they didn't have, they were having a tournament. So they say, you know what, why don't you just
jump into this tournament and just do one fight and then be done just so we have enough people.
So I'm like, all right, cool. So I do one fight and it finished fast. So I'm like, dang. So then
I do another fight and then that fight finishes fast. So I'm like, well, I'm in the finals now.
So I might as well just do the last fight. So I do the last fight and then I ended up, you know,
winning and become a tournament champion. So after that I was hooked. And then after that,
I got doubly blessed because Dan Severin was like, Hey, where do you guys train at? And I was like,
you know, we train in Lansing, Michigan. So he was like, why don't you come out to Coldwater?
We got some guys that train out there and we can get some, you know, you guys get, will be a great
asset. So it was really cool because we only had about six guys that we can train. And out of those
six guys, these guys weren't like, they weren't real fighters. They were just guys who like to
train. One was a lawyer, one was a cop, another one was like a nurse or something like that. It
was like the village people, right? It was like a true, it was like a real, it was like a real-
The construction worker in India? Yeah, I swear to God, it was like a real life fight club, like a
real life fight club. And we started going there with Dan Severin and I established that relationship
with Dan Severin. When I look at some of the stuff that Dan was teaching and there's actually a
British guy, I forget his name, but he's got a, like a catch wrestling, you know, Instagram page.
There's, it's such a brutal way of wrestling, but you don't see it very often in MMA because
we tend to be either, you know, like wrestling, specifically collegiate wrestling or jiu-jitsu.
What is your perception of catch wrestling and is it, has it reached its potential or is there an
opportunity for that kind of philosophy to find its way in there again in modern MMA?
I think that catch wrestling can definitely be that next nuance that fighters implement in a
game and they start dominating. I watched this guy on TikTok, Eric Paulson, who is a, is a G.
Eric Paulson is absolutely amazing and watching the things that he does from a catch wrestling
perspective, I'm just like, ah, damn, I wish I would have had him when I was, you know, doing my
thing. But I, I, I did have kind of that catch wrestling background under Greg Jackson because
Greg Jackson has his own style of jiu-jitsu, which is called garu jitsu, which is an exact,
it's a mix of jiu-jitsu with that catch wrestling influence in it. So I did get a bit of it, but
learning it from somebody like Eric Paulson, who, who's just a master at it, at it would have been
amazing. But I see that there's definitely, you know, a chance to really bring the game to the
next level by just implementing a lot of those catch wrestling techniques, because it, they find
a way in catch wrestling to simplify movement and really make it about just one thing, making it
uncomfortable, bringing pain. You know, it reminds me of one of my favorite wrestlers
that I used to study all the time in college and this guy named Doug Blueball. Doug Blueball
was an old school guy, nasty leg rider. One of the things that he was really good at, he was good at
just inflicting pain, making it uncomfortable. So you give up points, you give up the pin and
that's what I see in catch wrestling.
I had Eric on and it was amazing because he started in Jeet Kune Do. He started kind of the
Bruce Lee philosophy and then, and then found himself into catch wrestling. And yeah, I mean,
seeing some of the stuff that they teach and seeing the way that it's evolved where they,
they combine the striking with, like you said, wrestling and the cranks, you know, when you do
jiu-jitsu and you think about, oh, it's a clean arm bar or a clean choke. Yeah. Well, sometimes
if they just turn your leg this way, it really sucks. Just rip it, you know? Yeah, exactly.
Well, speaking of Greg, I had him on the show as well. One of the things that I thought was really
interesting is he said there was two types of MMA competitors. You had the martial artist and you
had the fire. Which of those two do you think you put yourself in, in your journey into, to MMA?
You know, I felt like, I felt like I could wear multiple, both of those hats, but I would even
add a third one and it's the entertainer. You know, I would say I would, I could tap into
I could tap into either of those. The entertainment side would give me the, the ability
to allow that part of me to come out. The part of me that enjoyed the spotlight, the part of me that
enjoyed to put on a show. And that part was Sugar. Sugar liked the entertainment spot. Sugar would
say some crazy stuff. Sugar would go out there and he would talk himself into a fight where,
you know, where I would have to bring the dog out. So it would bring out that fighter in me,
you know? And then because that fighter was in me, you know, the competitor was there as well,
too, trying to make sure that it just wasn't about a fight. Sometimes I go into a fight and I realize
that this guy's probably better than me. He's got probably better striking. He may have better
wrestling, but I would go in there with one thought, that motherfucker is going to feel me.
And that was all, that was all I said. It wasn't about any X's or O's. It was about, he's going to
feel me. And when I say that he's going to feel me, my mindset was this, I'm going to go out there
and fight in such a way that it's going to make it so hard for him that he, if he's ever presented
with an idea or a thought of fighting me, he'll say, nah, I don't want to fight this guy. Even if
he beats me, that's how I want him to feel about me. And whenever I went into the fight with that
mentality and I fought at that kind of intensity, I would always find in the fight, my opponents,
they gave me that look in the eye. And I'm like, there it is. There's that moment. There's that
doubt. I got their ass. And that was the win. That was the win for me, bringing them to that point
where they were like, they wanted, they knew. That's the best part of the fight. Forget getting
your hand raised. When I'm in there and I feel my opponent and he just, it's very subtle. It's very,
very subtle. But to me, that was the best part when my opponent knew that I knew that his ass was
done. What is that the dividing factor? So you get someone who on paper is more athletic, a better
striker, a better jujitsu practitioner, whatever it is. What is that thing? Again, is it that burning
why? Is it understanding truly what you're in there for? And if there's any kind of self doubt
of the why you're kind of cracking it at that moment. It comes down to allowing yourself to
just totally surrender to the moment. A lot of times when I went out there, I would find myself
still feeling this tension. And the tension was just me not being able to know what's going to
come out on the other end, what's going to, what the results are going to be. So what I would do
is I would find a way to just allow myself to let go. And for me, it was embarrassment, right? I
would be, I would have a fear of just being embarrassed. So what I would do is I would try
to find a way to embarrass myself just so that way I got it out the way. And then now I could just
fight. So I will go out there sometimes and I would just, I'll pinch my nipples. I'll do something
absolutely ridiculous, something absolutely ridiculous, something that would make you kind of
blush or make you kind of, you know what I'm saying? But it was, it became my thing to be like,
all right, I embarrassed myself. I got puffy nipples. I'm twisting my nipples and I made a
fool of myself. Now I can fight. Now I can fight. Now I can let it go and allow myself to
let my training take over, allow myself to be free enough and be loose enough that now
I can just be and I can react in time because I'm not holding on to anything.
Interesting. You talk about showmanship. You ended up on the Ultimate Fighter show. I've had a
couple of fighters on here that have been on there. Correct me if I'm wrong, the era that you were in,
was that when they were still, no televisions but a liquor cabinet full of booze, which was
a liquor cabinet full of booze to try and eke out as much drama as they could for the TV show?
Yeah, there was no television. There was no magazines, no books other than a religious book,
like a Bible or whatever your religion happens to be. And that was it. No radio, nothing. So
they wanted us to drink. They wanted us to party. And for me that was kind of crazy because
they wanted it both ways. They wanted to be able to kick our teeth in in training,
right? But then expect you to drink at nighttime and it just wasn't, it didn't go hand in hand. So
you just kind of learn that if you're going to be there, then you need to have some kind of discipline.
But being on that show was a test. Everything was a test. Yes, the alcohol was there by design to
get you to act crazy on TV, but it was also a test to see how you handled yourself.
Were you really professional? How did you take this sport? And all of it matters because
getting that contract and getting to the UFC, all the temptation is going to be there. All the
things that can have you off your goals are going to be right there. But what are you going to do?
Are you going to be that professional? And that's what that show was about. And it was
what that show tests. When you're on that show, it tests your heart, it tests your skill, but it
tests those intangible things that are really hard to quantify just off of watching someone fight.
There's more that makes Tom Brady, Tom Brady. It's his work ethic. It's his mindset. It's all
those things that added up to him being one of the best quarterbacks to ever do it. The same thing,
if you go MMA, you look at Habib Mammaka-Madoff and GSP. GSP was a teammate of mine. I watched
it firsthand. There are things that they did in order to make them what they were, and it's those
intangible things, those things that are not quite about the accident nose of fighting, but it's about
a lifestyle and how professional you are. I've never looked at it that way, but yeah,
I mean, it's a discipline test, isn't it? I think there was one guy, I don't know if I've got his
name wrong, Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan someone, and he were thinking four out of Central Florida
originally, but he was kind of a white guy. He had dreads and he would just be out in the
garden meditating the whole time, whatever, almost drinking and getting into fights in the house.
And I was like, and when you look at that, it was obvious at the time too. Yeah, I mean, he was
clearly in control of the journey that he was on, but if you were derailed by alcohol or getting
into fights outside the oxygen, then yeah, you're kind of exhibiting maybe some of the weaknesses
in your pursuit for the belt. Yeah, absolutely. And then also too, it's not even about just being
always into that monk mode as far as outwardly showing, because you had to bring the entertainment
too. You had to be able to be good on camera. You had to be able to make people want to watch you
because your career is predicated on how many people are going to come to watch you. How many
people are going to tune in to watch you fight? What do you say? What do you do that separates you
from everybody else? And that's where the entertainment side goes. So being on the Ultimate
Fighter show is truly just testing grounds and it's training to be a media trained,
great fighter, and also an accountable professional athlete. Where is that happy medium? Because I
remember early UFC, you didn't get a lot of that flamboyancy in the weigh-ins and that kind of
thing. And then we've had some people obviously that have gone all the way to the other side,
but as you mentioned, there are people that we love to fight, even Jake Paul, we all want to
watch him get his house kicked, but that's the character of the show. And then there's the
caricature he's created that obviously has sold a lot of tickets at the moment, even though as a
professional boxing match, obviously it's not a high level. But where is that happy medium between
creating that excitement for a fight, but not ending up being disrespectful and kind of
deviating from the kind of martial way that a lot of this environment is centered around?
You know, it all comes down to, because it's a relative thing, right? You want to keep that
bushido and that's the most important thing. And one of the most beautiful things about our sport
is that respect, that camaraderie that we have for each other. But at the same time, you do
want to bring the fight to your opponent even before the fight happens, because the fight is
physical, but before the fight is physical, it's psychological. And you have to be able to
psychologically battle with that person without being pulled into the psychological battle
yourself. So you kind of got to divorce yourself from some of the emotion that you have towards
anything they're going to say to you. You almost got to be like Eminem on 8 Mile, say all the bad
things to yourself that he's going to say to you. So it takes this thing out of it when he says it,
right? And that's how you got to approach it. But then there's another part too of not going too far,
because even if you do, when you do go too far, even if you don't feel bad, the backlash that
what you're going to get from saying something too far is going to interfere with your focus.
So the line is where when it starts to impede your progress, and that's when it's like,
okay, I can go and say something terrible about my opponent. But other people are going to hear me
say something terrible about my opponent. And all the questions and everything that I'm going to get
about this whole situation is going to be about this terrible thing that I said. And now I'm having
to find myself defending what I said, or even wearing egg on my face about what I said. So now
I'm distracted by what I said to him. So now my words are coming to work against me. Because now
I'm having to defend what I said. And I'm getting my mind on that instead of the task at hand.
So you find yourself winning the ultimate fighter, and then you go to Albuquerque and work with Greg,
walk me through again this southern uptick from finding yourself in learning MMA after
acting as a bouncer to now the pursuit of a belt in the UFC itself.
Yeah, it was quite the transition. Going from Lansing, Michigan, I went in the ultimate fighter,
training with my Lansing, Michigan crew, which is Joaquin Rodriguez out of team Mercy Lago,
which is a really good team right now. Him and I started that team way back then. I went to go see
him after the ultimate fighter show. He was working at this gym, Crown Gym, where it was a boxing gym
for wayward youth, like a PAL organization. And he was just volunteering his time. And I came there
and just begged him to give me lessons. And he put me through the wringer. And then finally he said,
all right, I'll give you a shot. And then that's when he became my coach. And I worked with him
for a while. And when I was on the ultimate fighter show, I realized that I had quite a skill gap.
Those guys were training with Greg Jackson. Some guys were working with Matt Hughes and
Pat Millichich gym. They were part of professional gyms. And my training up until that point has been
primarily with this guy named Matt Torres out of Lansing, Michigan, which he was a great teacher.
But he was around my age. He was around my age, but he'd just been in the sport for a long time.
And he was mentored by a guy named Noe Hernandez, who fought Chuck Liddell. And they debuted
together. So that was our way of understanding MMA. But it wasn't anywhere near where the level
had gone since then. So when I was on the ultimate fighter show, I realized I had a skill gap.
And Keith Jardine, along with Rich Franklin, Keith was like my coach. Keith would show me all the
things that Greg Jackson was showing him and help me to stay out of this submission and look for this
and do all those things. Keith was coaching me. So after him and I fought and after I won the
ultimate fighter, Keith Jardine, being a coolest dude he is, he said, I want you to come down to
Albuquerque and train with me. And Keith put me up. I stayed in Keith's house for the first
probably 10 times I went to Albuquerque. And he gave me a key to his house. And I would go there
and I would train. But it was finally my first chance to be in a professional training situation
where everybody I trained with were not, they didn't have a vocation in anything else. They
weren't professionals and a doctor. They were fighters. Everyone was a fighter. And that was
my first experience with that. That was my first experience having a coach who was just totally
an MMA coach. And it was a wild experience because the intensity in which Greg brought,
the mindset which Greg brought ended up being that thing that put me here. And Greg made us animals.
Greg would train us and take us to the Sandia Mountains and take us to the sand dunes and
kick our teeth in, whoop our ass in training. And you better not cry or we're doing it again.
You know what I'm saying? And the mindset was, hey, this is what you want to be, right? It's
that Dana White. Yeah, you want to be a fucking fighter, huh? You want to be a fighter? Okay.
This is what you got to do because you're not going in there to play a game. This isn't a game.
You can get hurt. So if you're not willing to be that nail, you better be a pretty damn tough,
I mean, if you're not willing to be that hammer, you better be a pretty damn tough nail.
So that's what Greg did to us, man. He instilled that mindset, but that growth from one aspect
to the other from being in Lansing, Michigan and trying to grow as an athlete to now being
an ultimate fighter, winning and now training with the top level guys was a crazy transition.
Well, we talked the other day on the phone in 2000, I think it was either five or six,
I joined Shootbox. They opened one in LA and one of the athletes there was this black guy built
like a damn superhero and that obviously ended up being AJ, Anthony Johnson. So I trained with him
for, and when I say train with him, we were in the same room, we would do sparring, like mitts and
stuff together. I was never ever sparring probably with him, but it was incredible to see his rise
as well. So talk to me about when your paths crossed. Well, I knew AJ when I was training
over at Greg Jackson's gym, but it was kind of like, hey, what's up? We'll talk to each other
whenever we see each other, but we weren't really that close. When I left Greg Jackson's gym, where
the whole thing happened with John in like 2009 or so, I went to South Florida to start my own
team because like I'm done with this team bullshit, no more super teams. I want to be the best
team around me, have my coaches pay for my trainers to come and train with me and that's it. So I
start this gym and I'm training and I kind of jump in and already moving gym as far as like guys
doing their own thing with Yuri Villa Ford, Danilla Villa Ford, George Santiago, Jaseous Cavacante,
and Bigfoot and even Alir Latifi. All those guys were training at this gym called Imperial.
And I was like, all right, this would be a good place for me to just kind of set up camp and
bring guys in. And as camp started, because I was supposed to fight Phil Davis, I started
bringing guys in and one of the guys I brought in was Anthony Johnson. And Anthony Johnson came
down and you know, he was getting things set up from over there in California. So I was like,
I'm going to let him use my car because I had an extra one. So I let him use my car and then we
established a really good relationship. And you know, AJ was my number one training partner.
Him and Alir Latifi were my number one training partners. And you know, back in the early days of
Black Zillion, it was just us just getting that work in and it was very reminiscent of the old
times back at Jackson. Because before Jackson got super populated, popular and super
hyped up. It was a place like, we're going to come and get our work in. As the popularity came,
it became a very intransient place that lost a little bit of the lore that it had from before.
But here I was at Black Zillions, you know, starting up another team and it had that same
quality, that same fertile ground that I know champions grow from. So we just all put our heads
down and we just started training and we started grinding together.
When MMA fighters, you know, go from A to B, usually there's multiple times where injuries
are shelving them for, you know, three months, six months, a year, two years. When I look at
the impact of an injury in my profession, it can be very, very difficult to get a good
job. It can be very, very jarring for the firefighter, the police officer, because it's
our entire identity. It's our physicality. You know, I'm a strong firefighter. I kick in doors
and run into burning buildings. And then I'm also part of something. I have purpose. And then one
day you're lying in a bed and your back is completely fucked up and you can't even put
your shoes on no matter how you pick up your child. And it's, you know, mentally crushing.
As you progress through, because I know you had multiple injuries, you know, were there any times
where maybe some of the things we discussed early on started kind of seeing their way back when
this physical path that you were on was being challenged?
Yeah, you know, a lot of the things that some of the things like, for instance, you know,
I mentioned before that being able to tap into some of the things that upset me about my dad
as a kid was a great fuel for me because it wasn't easy growing up, you know, and I attributed to him
not being around. So it gave me that motivation. But, you know, one thing about that pain is that
when you really don't face it and address it the way you need to, it masks itself in different
kind of ways that you don't really recognize and you don't really pay attention in which ways that
it's really revealing itself. So during my rides in the sport and throughout all the success,
I felt myself getting pulled into just the whole life of it all, you know,
kind of getting off of my bases a bit and really losing that
losing sight of that why, losing sight of that why in more than just a competitive nature,
but just in life in general, you know, just from a family situation. I was married before.
I was married to my college sweetheart and, you know, she was a great woman. She was a
really good woman. Had my back no matter what. If you watch some of my old fights,
you hear her screaming like crazy. They reference her all the time. She was a good woman. But,
you know, during that time of my life, it got really hard to be in that situation, in a marriage,
because I just wasn't right. You know, I wasn't right because those old things, those old resolve,
unresolved feelings were there. And the resentment that I had for my father,
it started to mimic in my life. I became what I believe my father was. You know, I ended up,
you know, getting a divorce from my wife and, you know, we had two kids and as a result of us
getting divorced, I was separated from the kids. So then now I'm not growing up. Now the kids are
not growing up with me in the house. So effectively, I ended up passing that resentment
that I had for my dad. And it's crazy because it really taught me a lesson
that when you behold something, and you got to be careful what you hold on to,
and you got to be careful who you criticize and the way you do it, because the resentment
that you hold for somebody else, one day somebody might hold it for you for doing the same exact
thing. And you may not even see that you're even doing it because you're blinded by your own
resentment. You're blinded by your own pain. And it shows up in different ways that may be
unrecognizable to you until the damage is already done. And then you're just like, damn it, I see.
The whole multi-generational trauma thing, I think, is a massively under discussed element of a lot
of the problems that we're going through. If you are able to process trauma when you're younger,
I believe that becomes a strength. I believe that is resilience. And you're able to stop that last
domino from falling onto your child and grandchild, etc. But this is the issue that we see a lot is,
you know, like you said, if you don't recognize it, you know, you're not going to be able to
see a lot is, you know, like you said, if you don't recognize it, you know, people, you can't blame
someone for not understanding that deep down, and there's a phrase, a Mexican proverb, they try to
bury us, they didn't know that we were seeds. So it's growing in there, you've pushed it down,
it is going to manifest. So you have kind of one or two paths, either the child does the same thing
as the parent, whether it's, you know, alcohol or infidelity, or whatever the thing was, or that
there's there's some sort of growth early on, again, just by accident, by luck, that they're
like, I'm never going to do what my father did, because I know how it feels. So you know, this is
this is a really powerful conversation. Because now, like you said, you're not only feeling the
kind of the resentment from your father, but now you got the shame and guilt that you feel having
passed it on to your children. Absolutely. And that's the thing about it, that shame and guilt.
It took me down a path of self destruction. It took me down a path of me not being proud of who I was.
And it was a shame that I carry for the longest time. And I'll be lying if I didn't say even a
part of me now still didn't feel that shame that that sense of failure, you know, and it's something
that I've I've I know that I'm just going to have to live with, because there's there's no going back.
There's there's no going back. And that's, that's the only thing that I can do. And that's the only
reason why I'm even speaking about it, because maybe somebody at home, you know, maybe somebody
listening to this can hear it, and not make the same mistakes. I've had friends who've
been in situations, marital situations, and, and things have been rough for them. And I, and I,
and I just, and I just tell them, I just tell them straight up, I tell them that, you know,
perspective blinds you sometimes, most of the time perspective blinds you. And you got to understand
that you feel like this now, but you may not feel like this, you know, you're not going to be able
to make the same decisions. You may not feel like this, when it when when those when rent is due,
and the rent. And by that is, is a ramifications of those decisions. Because it always comes due.
And no matter if you can get away with not paying that debt, that karmic debt, one day you will have
you want to repay it when you have the ability, right to repay it, versus when you emotionally
broke busted and disgusted. Because then if you if you get it then if you get that, that bill,
that receive you get it then when you have nothing left, you might put a gun in your mouth.
And that's not to make light of suicide or anything like that. But that's just
the reality of the situation. That's what brings people there.
100% on that same kind of vein, you mentioned obviously about this, you know, this early life
kind of fueling your path, you hear a lot of people that get to the pinnacle. And you not only
knocked out Chuck Liddell, who's been on the show, too, I want to say he talked about that fire,
if I'm not mistaken. But then you know, then you have obviously the the other side of the curve
with Anthony Smith at the end. When you were ascending, did you feel a sense of fulfillment?
Or was it like you hear many, many times that you kind of get to the the top of the hill,
and you were like, Oh, I thought this was going to be it. I thought this was going to be
happiness at the top. And there's actually a sense of unfulfillment underneath.
Yeah, I felt the latter. I thought it was gonna be different in my mind
when I got to the top. I thought I was gonna feel different. I thought that it would be
a lot different than than it was when I got there. Because when I got there, what I didn't realize
is that there's a recalibration that needs to happen. See, because I made it there,
because of the why that I had there, that the why that I had to really force me to get there,
right there, they're really pushing me to get there. But once I made it there, I needed to
reconstruct my why I needed to sit down with myself and say, Okay, I'm the champion now.
What what, why, why do I still want to do this? What do I want? You know what I'm saying? And just
ask myself the hard questions and really get personally in touch with with my feelings on
those things. I used to have a book that I will write things down. I used to write these, just
just my feelings. And I write my thoughts down, I write my fears down, I write it down. But
as I started to have more success, I just stopped having time to do those things. I stopped drawing,
I stopped drawing, I stopped doing all those things that allow me to have, you know, some catharsis
and work through some of, you know, some of this pain and some of this unsettledness that I had in
me. Once I got away from that, it became hard for me to connect with myself the way I used to. And
when I did that, fighting became hard for me. You know, at one point, it was super easy to the point
where it was never easy in a sense where like the actual fight was easy, but to fight was an easy,
I enjoyed it. I loved it. I dreamed about it. I watched, I was obsessed over it. You know, it
wasn't about the violence. It wasn't about, you know, taking someone's consciousness. It wasn't
about any of those things. It was just, I just loved it. Everything about it. I just loved the
raw nature about it. But then as I started to get further and further away from myself,
I became almost a little too civilized in a sense where I got away from that,
that savagery that you need to tap into in order to be at that level.
When I think about mental health in your world, you know, Paddy Pimmel did that very
powerful conversation when he lost one of his friends to suicide. And obviously that wasn't
a fighter specifically, but I had Angela Lee on, she lost her sister, Victoria, and she herself
had actually had a suicide attempt that she survived driving into a bridge. And then you got
Stefan Bonner, you know, and then there's the addiction side. I mean, you know, John Jones,
for example, clearly, you know, no, no, not judging whatsoever, but there seems to be
symptoms of some sort of addiction there, which is happening. Both of those happen in my community
as well. When you look at this journey that you had, where were the darkest places you found
yourself? And then let's walk through to finding psychedelics as far as the therapy.
Oh, man, the darkest places that I found myself, you know, of course, you know,
of course I did drugs, you know, I did those drugs. I never really did like coke or nothing
like that, but I would do like party drugs and, you know, the kind of stuff that and lots and lots
of drinking, you know, womenizing to the, yeah, womenizing and just really not being considerate.
And, you know, those were my darkest, just being super selfish and just getting to the point where
I became so self-absorbed that it was hard for me to even see it, even realize that I was that
self-absorbed until, you know, you have that downfall, right? I lost, first it was a series
of bad things and it was like, I broke a mirror and I had, you know, a
rain of seven years of bad luck. You know, I blew my ACL out one year in 2014 and then 2015,
re-injured the same knee, blew the ACL out. That was a graft and had to get another graft. And then
when I came back, I lost, you know, a fight to Ryan Bader. And I'm like, shit, I know I'm better
than Ryan Bader. And then I lost to Glover Tashir and then I dropped down weight class and then
I lost to Dan Kelly and then I lost to Sam Alvey and I lost to Anthony Smith. And it was like,
I just kept losing. And every single time that I lost, it was just more of a boom, boom, boom. And
it was more of unveiling because people treat you different, you know? And that to me was a hard
adjustment because they were like, oh my God, you know, they used to treat me so different. And the
different, the way that people treated me, it hurt. It hurt. And it's nothing that people were
doing, you know, people were just peopling, you know? And it's just the flow of life, you know?
It's just the flow of life. And, you know, sometimes you're it and sometimes you're not it.
And when that spotlight moved and that's the thing about it, like when you got that spotlight on you,
no one owns a spotlight. It's always in motion, always in motion. And the only thing you can do
is when you got the spotlight, it's just shine as bright as you can and just embrace it and do right
by it. Don't, you know what I'm saying? Do right by it because when it goes, it goes. And you got
to be okay with that. And I had a hard time adjusting to that, but I was able to find my way.
So walk me through then how you found the toad.
So I just lost my last fight with Anthony Johnson. And I kind of felt like
the last few years of me competing, something was happening inside of me. Something was happening.
It's like some kind of internal revolution that was happening, like all the things that I've done
in my past that I wasn't so proud of. And, you know, the relationship with my ex-wife and
the relationship with my kids and how things were. And that way it started to hit me.
And I started to feel a way that I just never really anticipated. And I remember like making a post
on IG and it was like, it was like a, just it was, it was a video. I don't know if you've ever seen
this called I Pet Goat. And it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like,
go and it's like that. It's something on YouTube. But I posted that on my IG, on my platform.
And my boy was like, yo, you all right? You know, and he's, and I was like, yeah, he says, you know
what? I know what you need, man. I know what you need. And he told me about the toad and I'm just
like, okay. And I just kind of kept it in my back pocket. And then I went and fought Anthony Smith.
And after I lost that fight, got knocked out in like 30 seconds, I'm just like, damn, you know,
I was feeling crushed, crushed inside. And I just didn't know what I was going to do because
I was a full fighter. Like if I can't fight, then what? Then I'd rather be dead. Like I got to fight.
It was just who I am. I got to fight. And when that happened, I spoke to my guy, Dale Jolly,
one of my best friends. He says, are you ready to go on that trip? And I was like, yeah, I'm ready.
So there was a ceremony planned already. And I ended up going there. It was I fought Anthony,
like June 6th and then June 23rd or 25th or so, June 25th, we were out there in Colorado.
And I had my toad experience and it was life changing. It was a chance for me to wake up
and really start to put things in perspective. And when I think about my toad experience,
I just think about, you know, I feel like I woke up in the middle of my life. Like I've been dreaming
all up until this point. And then when I had that experience, it was just so raw and so visceral that
I was like, oh, so this is what this is. Now I remember. Because it was more of a remembering.
Do you remember not who you are, but what you are? Everybody wants to find out who I am, who I am,
who I am. But the who I am is all defined within this societal matrix that we have going on,
which has a bunch of other things that you can't take with you. And most of the things in this
societal matrix, it's everything is based in materialism. Everything is based in this material
understanding of existence and not the true existence in which we emanate from, which is
consciousness. And we emanate from this, from a totally different experience versus what society
gets us to focus on, the material aspect. From the moment we wake up, the world does not exist
unless James opens his eyes. Because it's a relative thing. The world does not exist if when
I wake up and I'm not making sense of the things that are in front of me, it doesn't exist. So
consciousness is supreme. And once you start to realize that we're struggling in this world,
because we're trying to solve what is a conscious problems through material means, it'll never work.
I know people call 5-MeO-DMT the God molecule. And the way you've described what I am versus
who I am, when I think of, for example, the documentary, The Weight of Gold, you've got all
these high level athletes and they're on the same level. And you're talking about the weight of
athletes and they're on the podium in the Olympics or the world champion, whatever it is.
But then one day they're not, whether they've aged out, whether they then start losing as you were
talking about. And it's no different than the firefighter. Whether we get hurt, whether we get
fired, whether we retire, if you have just seen yourself as a firefighter, that's who I am. I'm a
firefighter, but you're not. You're a person who then has to make the decision and that's what you
do. And it's a beautiful calling. But the moment you get lost in that, that becomes your identity.
Now that's taken away from you, that can be crushing the people. What did your Toad experience
do to the identity piece? Rashad Evans is a world champion UFC MMA fighter versus who you actually are.
It smashed it. It showed me that I was nothing, that I was no thing,
but I was everything. And that this experience that I'm having,
because when we talk about this, it's the difference between tapping into the ego
and then tap it into the beyond conscious aspect of yourself. This higher self. And
the dance between your higher self and your ego is one where you're not just a person,
and your ego is one where the ego really wants to hold the floor. When I say ego,
the ego is Rashad Evans, the name Rashad Evans, the story Rashad Evans, this experience.
And the higher self is more akin to the I am, the I am Rashad, the I am that goes before James.
It's the I am, it's that conscious I am that I am that we tap into from source. So when you're in
that position where you're going from that higher self to the egoic self, there's always that feeling
that the egoic self has of death. And it's afraid to die. And it's afraid that it's going to be
annihilated. But then once you get on the other side of that, you just laugh your ass off and be
like, Oh my God, I can't believe that I was so afraid. Because I was never that I was never
just that. I've always been so much more. And for me, it really got me to
it really got me to just enjoy the experience. Because this experience, I do believe that it has
a purpose. I do believe this experience is is part of this web of existence that makes up this whole
body of existence. So I do believe it has its purpose. But I wasn't solely trying to live there
anymore. I realized that I didn't have to solely define the who I am and feel full and just being
that I'm Rashad Evans, a fighter and I accomplished this because that's a story. Those are things that
I've done. Those are things that are passed and they're already done. But the part of me that I
learned to lean into more, I would say is more in that in between of the higher self and the ego
itself. And I and the ego self still needs to be there because I want to have this experience. I
came here to have the experience. I came here to forget. I came here to forget just to see if I
could remember again. And this game of hide and go seek that we play with ourselves that we don't
really know that we're playing. It's the beauty of life. It's the thing that that makes life
as sweet as it is. And sometimes as sad as it is. But it's that dualistic nature,
that dualism that truly defines existence as we know it from an experiential point of view,
from the egoic sense. But there's only one and we are it. We are it.
I've heard several people talk about terminally ill patients that have used, I think, five year
MAO DMT and or psilocybin and found peace, you know, in that palliative care phase,
because obviously, I mean, I know, I'm sure I would be terrified if you were told, hey,
you've got X amount of days left. But to be able to bring peace to someone and give them an insight
into exactly what you've talked about. What a beautiful tool to bring into someone who
has such a terrifying diagnosis. Absolutely. When you have that experience,
I remember that when I first took that hit of five in the.
As soon as I exhaled it, the minute I exhaled it, I was gone. I was no longer here. I was no longer
human. And the first thing I thought was, oh, shit, I just killed myself. And no sooner that I felt
that there is this knowingness. And it says to me, you've died countless times. This is what you do.
And on that realization, because that's what it is. It's a remembering. It's a realization.
Because all of this is written inside of you. It's written inside of all of us. But we're so
materialistic in our world that we're taught that everything of value is outside of us. So nobody
looks to the inside. Very few are afraid to go inside. Some people don't want to try to set the
doubts. I don't know. I don't want to release what's inside of me. But when you go what's inside of
you, there's a peace that's beyond comprehension. And once I was in that space where it was like
you died countless times, there was a peace that just me just relaxing. And when I let go,
the beauty was there. It was like I was in the palm of God's hand, like just cradled. And I knew,
I knew not psychedelically experience is a knowingness that's beyond truth. That is the
very essence of truth. It was absolute truth. Absolute truth is written in the depth of our
soul. And when you tap into that, there's nothing that you fear in life.
Amazing. One more area we're going to psychedelics and we're going to functional mushrooms.
I've heard a lot of extremely promising things about psilocybin and TBIs as far as actually
starting to repair the damage. Now, you know, anyone in a profession where you're getting
punched in the head a lot, kicked in the head a lot. I mean, I was a weekend warrior and I've got
dislocated jaws and broken noses. So I can't imagine what's going on in your head. Have you
had any experience with that kind of therapy and the neurological cost of being a fighter?
Absolutely. I had a TBI injury that was kind of brought to my attention when I was trying to
fight in New York State. I was going to fight Tim Kennedy had a great training camp showed up to
New York to fight first fight in New York. And I go there and they say, Hey, you're not going to
be able to fight on this card. I'm like, what do you mean? This is well, something came back on your
MRI. And you have something going on in your frontal lobe. And you need to go see a doctor to see
what it is. But as of right now, you can't fight in New York and you honestly may never fight again.
And, you know, you talk about your roller coaster going from high to lows and, and just,
you know, your shocks. I was distraught and, you know, I wanted to figure things out. So I did a
bunch of different tests to try to figure out what was going on and what I needed to do in order to
get myself cleared to fight again. And I even went to go see the guy from, from, from concussion in
Pittsburgh. And he looked at my results and he, you know, he's like, okay, well, you know, from
what I see, you had a bit of this from your first NRI that you ever done with the UFC. And this is
the one we have right now, which shows that it's gotten a little, a little, a little worse, but,
you know, it's, it's on par with what you had before. So I was able to get the clearance and
continue to fight. But when I was retiring, that was lingering in my mind. And I was like,
that was lingering in my mind. Like, what am I going to do? That was part of my fear because I
was an analyst and I still am an analyst. And I'm like, dude, what am I going to do? So I ran into
an interview of Joe Rogan and Paul Stamets. And Paul Stamets was talking about this protocol that
he does with psilocybin, niacin, and lion's mane. And, you know, this trifecta, and he was talking
about what it does and how it helps people with concussions. So I'm like, all right, shoot, you
know, I'll give it a try. And I started to give it a try. And I couldn't even begin to tell you,
like, how effective this was for me, that it truly started a revolution inside of me. Like I started
to not only start to feel better from a neurological standpoint, not even from a, even from a
cognitive standpoint, but spiritually, and also my diet and everything, it even, and even
my whole morality and that whole being a better person, you know, I stopped doing the things that
didn't serve me anymore. All the things that didn't serve me. And this is with the mushrooms
and that toad, all of that, everything that didn't serve me, it just fell away. I lost
interest in them. Like a kid lose interest in toys. You know, I just lost interest in it.
Nothing judgmental. It was just like, all right, I'm done with that. And it was quite amazing.
But those mushrooms started to heal me in ways that I didn't know I needed to be healed.
And having that experience of what those mushrooms did for me, I became a blabbermouth. I'm like,
dude, I gotta tell everybody about this, man. You know, everybody's got to experience this.
But, you know, it takes some time, you know, I feel like now people are starting to
really want to explore and starting to really want to take their own, take their health into
their own hands and start to look at more holistic ways to change the body. Because with these
mushrooms, they're adaptogens. So what they do is they bring your body into balance. And all your
body needs to do is be in balance to heal itself, because your body is absolutely miraculous. It's
amazing. What God done creating our body is, is a thing of amazing artwork, and just of precision
and all every kind of amazing accolades you could throw at it. And it has this ability to heal
itself. But it's got to be brought into balance first. And these mushrooms, they bring your body
into balance. And it's been, you know, a journey ever since, but I'm still on it.
The psilocybin portion, is that a micro dose?
Yeah, so it's a micro dose like is a like 0.5 that I do. And here's here's what I do. I do like
0.5 for like four days, and then I have like three days off. Or then sometimes I'll switch it up and
do it like every other day. So that way I'm getting a little bit of a better body. And
a little something every other day, but you have to give yourself a chance to allow your your
receptor, your receptors to kind of flush themselves out. So that way you just don't become,
you know, too used to it, right. And I also do have a protocol where if I have a hard sparring day,
and I got hit in the head a bit, what I would do, or even a hard training day, what I'll do is I'll
take like a little like I'll take like two grams to like 2.5 grams. And I'll do that right before
like probably about two hours before I go to sleep. And some people can't sleep on mushrooms, but for
me, I just go right to sleep. But what I find that does happen is the next day when I wake up, my
mind is clear. My body is feeling amazing. The inflammation has gone down. And it's been one of
those things that I've been able to do that's helped me to recover because when it comes down
to it, competing in a sport where you're constantly tested, it gets hard to take anything that
that can help you recover because everything that works is illegal.
Yeah, which again, we won't dive into the prohibition laws, but I talk about that a lot.
We got people that come home from fighting for this country that have to go overseas to get the
therapy for you know, what they brought home. So yeah, and again, I think that's inspiring to
hear from the TBI side, but also for you know, the fire service and a lot of the other shift
working professionals, even your dad, ironically, it's a shame, maybe that would have helped him
back then in some way, shape or form, but absolutely a neurological damage from shock
work mimics TBI is a breakdown of the myelin sheath. So I would argue that that same protocol
would probably be great for our first responders to absolutely and just in even just, you know,
first responders, I used to work in a hospital, and I used to be a security guard in a hospital.
And it's quite the traumatic experience you deal with death like it's nobody's business. And
sometimes when you're dealing with death, the way you deal with death, you become a little bit
cynical, just because you see it so much, you know, so, you know, and everybody and everybody
handles death differently, right? I might have a guy that was like, oh, you never believe what
this num nuts did. And you know, just was just kind of very, I don't know, just like, yeah,
very callous, very callous about about the way you're talking about the dead. So that
trauma is real. And that the pressure that comes along with that is real as well, too.
And when you are on a good program and a good routine, it starts to dissipate. Because what
the mushrooms they do is they light up your brain, and they get your brain out of its normal
thinking pattern. Because because we're creatures of habit, we, we tend to do the same things. And
you know, we because we do the same things, our brain is used to thinking a certain kind of way.
And after a while, that's the way your brain function is the way it moves. And that's how
it lights up. And this would does that. And if you don't use it, you lose it, right? So
you're not you're not sharp in certain areas where you could be sharp at. But when you start taking
these mushrooms, it lights your brain up like a Christmas tree, all over the place. And what ends
up happening is you have to build new neural pathways and, you know, all kinds of things to
really get that signal in their brain. And you have neurogenesis, you have neuroplasticity,
that ended up happening as a result. So you start having this, you know, this, this, this,
having this amazing ability to get perspective. And perspective is one of the key things in life
that helps us to, to move forward and to make great decisions. Because the only thing that
normally can give you perspective is time. But when you're able to use these modalities,
it kind of gives you a shortcut because it gets your brain firing in different kind of ways. And
as a result, you get different perspectives. Well, you mentioned adaptogens, that was kind
enough for you guys collectively were kind enough to send me one of your kind of intro boxes. So
I've been taking the umbo tincture. And then I literally just did jujitsu this morning when I
drove home, I had one of your recovery drinks, and then I've been snacking on the bars at night,
if I'm being completely honest, too. So talk to me about that. You mentioned lions,
Maine and some of the other nutritional mushrooms. What was that journey for you using them yourself?
What were you seeing within yourself? And then what made you kind of join, join with two other
men and create umbo? So when I was doing that, that trifecta with the psilocybin, the lions,
mania, the nice and I started to really, you know, learn more about the mushrooms in general.
And at first I'm like, okay, so aside and so aside and so aside, but then I started to
really go down the road of just all of the functional mushrooms and realizing that
it's the whole mushroom, as Jake calls it, queendom is the whole mushroom queendom that
that is just full with all kinds of medicinal benefits for the body. So I started with the
cordyceps and with the turkey tail and and with the reishi and the lions, Maine, all of it, it was,
it started to rival the results that I started to have with just the psilocybin. You know, it was,
it was very powerful result that lions, Maine, man, it was bringing back memories that I thought I
forgot about. And it was just giving me so much more than I expect from a cognitive level that I
was really dumbfounded. And then even the cordyceps too, you know, the cordyceps for me was one of the
ones that it made me feel like I just couldn't get tired. Like I would be going with guys who
are in the gym training consistently day in and day out. And I would just, you know, going there
every once in a while, I'm on some moonlight and stuff. And I would be able to hang with these guys
and be able to push at a high level. And I wasn't getting tired and I had gas and, and I'm like,
dude, this is crazy. So, you know, I started doing my research and I started to understand just the
power of these mushrooms. And, you know, around this time where I'm really digging my teeth into
the mushroom and getting the results of such, Del introduced me to Jake, and Jake was kind of going
through his own experience as well and his own transition out of the line, right now in the sport
and finding himself and we gave him some mushrooms and, you know, it was, it was quite,
it was quite one of the exciting to see Jake start to get the mushroom. We gave him a box of
Lifecycle. Lifecycle is another brand of mushrooms, great company as well. We gave him some Lifecycle
mushrooms and, you know, he started using them and he started to have results too. And then,
you know, we all start, we're singing the praises of mushrooms. And, you know, as a pandemic started
to approach me, like even before, you know, Del's like, man, we need, we need to find a way to
really give back and find a way to package this in a way that, that people can get some of the
results that we have. So we decided to start a function mushroom company called Umbo. And the
Umbo, we call the Umbo because Umbo is just that little cap on top of that mushroom and that's
called the Umbo. And we came up with this company and we said, you know, what we want to do, we want
to do things a little bit differently. We want to, we want to do things from the perspective of an
athlete because all the other brands, they, you know, they had their way of doing it, but we wanted
to put our own twist on it that differentiates us from everybody else and really lean into what we
are, which is athletes. You know, I need, I love the effects of mushroom, but I want to hit, you
know, I want to hit at that level. I need to hit it as an athlete. And that's what we did. We
formulated our mushrooms and we came up with a great brand. And, you know, here we are, I think
almost four years later, just pushing away and really just diving into it at another level and
still passionate, but it's great to see that everyone is starting to, to catch up. You know,
people are starting to really be like, Oh, okay. The mushrooms are, are more than we ever thought.
You know, it's starting to feel like now how people felt about cannabis before the whole CBD
craze and, and before everything was legalized in the cannabis world. And now people are starting
to understand that in mushrooms that, wow, these mushrooms are powerful and these mushrooms can do
quite a bit. But when you look at Chinese medicine and when you look at our uvated medicine, you see
the fact that they've been using this for thousands of years and they have protocols that they use
behind these mushrooms and there's mushrooms that they use for all kinds of diseases. And
then I'm not going to make any claim with, with that, uh, with, with what they treat, but
people just have to research it for themselves because of the way things are, you know, um,
there are no claims that we can make, but when you look and you, and you start to, uh,
look into what mushrooms do for you, you will realize that everybody needs to be taking
mushrooms, especially when you realize as we get older and what we call old age is nothing more
than neuropathy and, and, and neuropathy can be, I guess, put off a bit or, or treat it a little
bit better if you're under a program that really treats your neurological body like mushrooms have
the ability to do. Well, I can testify because I'm pretty good at self-experimenting. Like I just
started using a company called Transcend about five months ago now, and that's a peptide and DHEA and
some of these things. And with them, actually it was, it was over prescribed and I got rid of some
of them and then found that beautiful happy medium. Like, okay, I can totally feel this
CBD when I got into it, which was probably six, seven years ago now. Um, I was amazed again,
seeing the results, but with Umbo, what's interesting, I just finished writing a book.
So I literally to, to, to get it finished, I sat down for three months. Um, didn't even,
I barely even saw the inside of a gym at the jujitsu just once a week for the last two months
or so. And then last week was game time. Again, I gave my script to the editor. I'm like, right
now I've got to get back in the gym and get back on the mat. So in the first week, I did four
strength and conditioning days and three jujitsu days. Now, 50 years old, I'm expecting to be dying
from muscle soreness. But you're 50 years old. Oh man, you looking good, man. Damn. Okay.
Oh, I look terrible two weeks ago. No, but it's true. But so I'm, you know, being an athlete my
whole life, I know, you know, Dom's and all these things, I know how I should feel. And I didn't.
And I was like, wow. And this is definitely partly due to, to that. And then understanding,
like you said, and I've talked about this a lot, the arrogance of modern medicine.
And what I'm talking about is the kind of chronic disease management, not the amazing innovators
that are in modern medicine, but this downplaying of holistic and functional medicine, chiropractic
and, you know, Chinese medicine and herbs and things like that. I think we've gone full circle
and we've gone, you know, trauma medicine. You're amazing. You know, some of these other modern
things we need you. Thank you. Come on in. But we're actually going back to, oh, you can leave
pain just by getting a chiropractic adjustment and then figuring out where the imbalances are
and doing foundation training that you don't need painkillers and, you know, muscle relaxers. And I
feel like this is where this revolution is now with mushrooms as well. It's just like you said,
we're finally turning around to our ancestors and going, okay, sorry, we were distracted for a few
decades by these assholes. Can you teach us again about, you know, this medicine that you've been
using for thousands of years? Absolutely. You know, there is a, I guess, a realization
once you start to really look at allopathic medicine and you start to pay attention to,
to, to, to just the medicine that, that they're putting into people's bodies.
And you start to realize that these, these medicines, they're not healing people,
you know, they're, they're, they're managing a symptom, a disease is just management,
but it's nothing that's going to ever cure that person. And you start to realize,
I've seen people who start off with just, I'm going to get, you know, I'm going to take this
because I have high blood pressure. The next thing you know, they are on like eight different
medications and it's just, you know, once you get on one, you need a medication for the medication,
then the medication is affects this part of your body. Then you need a medication for what it
affected in that part of your body. And then now that's setting off something. So it's just such a
chain reaction of all these different debilitating, sometimes problems that you have with your body
that comes by way of, by way of going down the way of allopathic medicine. And the sad thing about
it is the fact that these medicines people take for years, for decades, and don't realize that
it may be the medicine that's keeping them sick. It's, it's a hard discussion and it's one that
many people would debate you on, but those that have had the experience and those that have woken
up and decided to take medicine into their own hands, they see it for what it is. And like you
said, there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water because, you know, trauma based
medicine is, is, is very good, but, you know, pain management and everything that comes along in
between that is, is something that definitely people need to take a second look at and really
find a way to hear the body in a way which, which stems from bringing their body in balance.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. All right, one more area before we close out. I want to make sure that
we fit this in as well. I think one of the most powerful things in my profession is when people
find other things that they're passionate about. And I always encourage people that are still
working as a firefighter or a police officer, for example, to start some sort of entrepreneurial
venture. It could be just mowing lawns, it could be painting or playing a guitar or whatever it is,
but having that next thing. So your transition is going to be more, more fluid and you're not
going to just be jarred by that identity piece. So Umbo is obviously one of the companies you're
part of. Talk to me about the vending machine industry. Yeah, so, you know, along with that,
I also do broadcasting, but I got, I got into a, unattended retail space. You know, I got eight
machines and I'm, you know, going to have a fleet. I want to have maybe grow to maybe have like a few
hundred eventually one day. But, you know, what I find fascinating about the unattended retail space
is the fact that when you look at retail and you look at the brick and mortar stores and you look
at, you know, um, online buying and everything like that, you start realizing that there is a
certain trend that's happening with, with retail. And as we get further down the road with technology
and AI getting better, there's a face of retail that's changing. We've seen it with the online
market and how that's emerged and really pretty much, um, it's crushing brick and mortar,
it's crushing brick and mortar. Uh, there's yet another revolution as well too, which is
in the unattended market. Whenever you go to a store, there's more and more key, key things
that you can do. There's more and more kiosk, self checkout lines to the point. Now you go in most
places, you may be lucky to find one or two registers open with actual people on it. So we're
being groomed for this unattended market space. So me trying to find what, where I need to be so I
can find myself, uh, uh, better for the future and, uh, have a better chance at survival and just
being able to, um, being able to be happy in life. I, uh, I ran into unattended retail and I, um,
it's been, it's been one of the most amazing things that I've been a part of because not only
do I own machines, but I'm also part of the company, which is called naturals to go, which is an
vending, uh, retail solutions place. And naturals to go is honestly one of, one of the best, uh,
things that have happened to me since I've, um, retired because, you know, there's, um,
there's this great team aspect and there's a great culture at naturals to go that it makes
diving into all the things that is unattended retail and trying to find different, uh, innovative
ways to expand unattended retail market, uh, and bring it in different ways is, uh, it's been fun.
It's been fun. So that's been one of the things that I've been working on. That's been one of
things that I've been transitioning and, and trying to help other people transition into,
because, you know, as an athlete, sometimes it's feast or famine and trying to find a way,
somewhere to put your money that allows you to actually grow your money instead of hoping for,
you know, uh, this stock to do well or do this, you know, you can actually go in an unattended
retail space and, and kill it because everything is going to be unattended, everything. No, no,
no, I mean, machines are going to do everything, but being able to be a stakeholder in that
unattended retail space by understanding it and, and being able to be at the forefront with these
great minds in the unattended retail that are re-imagining the space in different kinds of ways
have been an amazing experience for me. Yeah. I mean, it makes perfect sense. It really does.
Even I lived in Japan in 2001 and there was so many, you know, this was vending machines specifically,
but there was just so many places that you could buy stuff that what, even, even if you got ramen,
you bought tickets at a machine first and then people just hand out ramen in the kiosk, you know?
So, yeah, I mean, it does make a lot of sense. If people want to learn more about that, where are
the best places to go online? You know, you can go to, uh, nationalzago.com and you can find, um,
information on that. And, uh, even if you go to, if, if you go to some places, uh,
you know, like, um, a brokerage form where they find you franchises, you know,
well, they have, they have us there too as well. But I think it's just a great opportunity for
people to really, um, be a part of something, be a part of the change, because we're never
going to be able to beat the technology. We're never going to be able to beat the technology.
And, uh, people are always going to buy stuff. So it's, it's not so much about, because when I
tell people about vending machines, they're like, oh yeah, vending. And sometimes I see them like,
kind of like, you're selling snacks, you know what I'm saying? But it's, it's snacks. Yeah. But you
can sell anything in a vending machine, anything. So at the end of the day, it's just, you know,
it's just retail. I've always said recently, not always said, I've said recently, I've watched the
American mall kind of disintegrate, especially the department stores. I mean, they're falling
left, right and center, but I think there's a beautiful opportunity for those communal spaces
to be replaced and not the consumption. Cause you think about the height of the American mall,
people were going to clothes shops and going through racks and DVDs and you know, all those
things, but they weren't talking to each other. Really they were consuming. So now with this kind
of, you know, model that we have, whether it's machines, whether it's, you know, Amazon, you can
get all your things there, but then now these spaces can go into the more bespoke, you know,
the barbershops, the breweries and you know, whatever you're into where people sit down and
actually communicate like the village, you know, high streets that used to be a hundred plus years
ago. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's something that is going to happen a lot more as we start to
come together. And I feel like there's this coming together of all of us. Cause I feel it.
I feel it. I've been there. There's more and more people asking me questions about some of the things
I talk about on a metaphysical level and they started to understand. I'm starting to, you know,
what I'm saying is starting to resonate with the deep part of them and there is this coming together.
So I truly believe, you know, exactly what you're saying. I do as well. All right. Well,
then what about Umbo? Where are the best places to find them online? Yeah. So you can go to get
umbo.com and sign up for our newsletter and that way you can find out all the great things that we
have coming down a pipe and also, you know, you know, find out what it was, the latest deals.
And then lastly, what about yourself? Websites or social media?
Yeah. You can find me at sugar shot Evans on Instagram. And that's primarily where I'm at on
Instagram. I'm also on Facebook, but I'm mostly still on Instagram. All right. Well, Rashad,
I want to say thank you so much. You've been chatting for two hours now. It's been such an
amazing conversation. And I've said this many times before when a, and I'm doing air quotes,
alpha male comes on and talks about, you know, vulnerability and, you know,
overcoming trauma and healing. It's so important because, you know, I, I could go on and go,
yeah, well that guy's kind of a pussy anyway. But when it's a USC champion or a member of the SAS,
it kind of rebukes that bullshit that we were raised on men don't cry, suck it up, all that stuff. So
to add that with the, with the solution, with the therapies that I've heard so often. And I hope that
this will go full circle and, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll bring you and your, your family back
together and there'll be forgiveness and healing from that side too, and get rid of that, that guilt
and that shame. But I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your time and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today. Hey James, thank you for having me and to your listeners.
I thank you and I hope I was able to impart something that you can take with you and be loved.