Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 001 - Michael Chandler

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

UFC’s electrifying Michael Chandler talks, awaking a sleeping giant, the real value of “shiny objects” and how every man needs a dragon to slay.   Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Connect with Michael Chandler: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikechandlermma YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJA_fJwuyS9aJC7gmnpdnQ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MikeChandlerMMA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikechandlermma Website: https://walkonfit.com   Special thanks to our sponsors. MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com First Light: https://www.firstlight.farm Leupold: https://www.leupold.com Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Hoyt: https://hoyt.com Bass Pro / Cabellas: https://www.basspro.com   Timestamps: 0:00:00 Introduction of Michael and his upbringing 0:02:03 Michael’s early MMA career, Tyrone Woodley, First Blood Promotions 0:06:39 Michael’s evolution as a fighter 0:09:11 How bad does getting kicked actually hurt? 0:10:27 A fighter’s mentality, bouncing back from a loss 0:12:00 Dealing with public criticism 0:14:10 The evolution of MMA athletes, difficulties of staying on top 0:17:10 Fighting is a metaphor for life 0:18:45 The “fairness” of fighting 0:19:44 Most devastating shots 0:23:19 Other notable UFC hardworking fighters, Gilbert Burns 0:27:05 A fighter’s “Tells” 0:28:10 Michael’s fighting style, potential future matchups 0:31:00 Michael’s training App 0:33:33 Training camp diet 0:36:20 Running a marathon with Cam 0:38:10 A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats 0:41:50 Starting new journeys and putting one foot in front of the other 0:43:10 Don’t be afraid of failure 0:45:12 “A Shiny Object” for God 0:49:40 Michael’s faith journey 0:52:03 Pressure to be perfect 0:54:03 Instilling a hard work mentality in children 0:59:30 Working towards your best self 1:01:11 Blocking out haters 1:06:12 A war vs. a quick KO in the octagon 1:08:45 Wild at Heart, John Eldredge 1:11:29 Michael Chandler’s future as a bowhunter 1:17:11 Closing statements  1:18:30 Sponsorships

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I'm all about high-level performance, and the BCAs really help me perform. Black Rifle Coffee Company is a company that's very easy for me to promote because I drink coffee all day, every day. But more importantly, they are a huge supporter of the veteran community and are a veteran-known business so they have my full support. Use code Keep Hammering for 20% off your first order and 20% off subscription to the coffee club where you get exclusive coffee blends and merchandise. This is a Keep Hammering Collective. I'm here with Michael Chandler. You are my first guest. This is a huge honor and I'm very excited about this, not just for me to be sitting here for the next however long, but for the entire world to get to hear you.

on the microphone that you have dove into this and I'm excited about it. Oh, well, thank you. I mean, and it means a lot to me that you're my first guest because, you know, I've been a fan of what you do and I guess, I mean, the fighting, yeah, but how hard you work. I mean, just the effort you put into being the best, giving your best effort every day, bringing your best package to the octagon. Is that how you've always operated? Yeah, I think so.

You know, I will not take a ton of credit for it. I mean, we are a product of our environment. I am a son of a carpenter, a son of a mom who works two and three jobs as well. So it was, I was a product of my environment and I saw hard work. You know, it's a beautiful thing being the son of two blue collar, people who just wanted to be, wanted to be good, wanted to do good, and wanted to work extremely hard. And then I think as I kind of developed into the man that I would eventually become, I started to realize that I do have a lot of great gifts and to not completely dive into

and work extremely hard with those gifts that I'm really sacrificing those gifts. So I've just been getting after it now for 20-something years in athletics, and it's somehow turned into a crazy long career of me being able to provide for my family now. So it's been a lot of fun. Oh, I know. I mean, how long have you been fighting now? I mean, 13 years was it? Yeah, it's 13 or 14. I fought my first fight in 2009. I graduated May of 2009 from Missouri,

wrestled there, and then fought my first fight in August, didn't know how to really fight, didn't know, you know, I wasn't really trained in much. But I figured I'd dip my toe in the water, see how I liked it. And then I haven't looked back since.

It's kind of crazy to think that it started out as a, well, we'll see what happens here. I wasn't, I wasn't one of those guys who, you know, for half a decade was saying, man, someday when I'm old enough or someday when I get trained enough, I'm going to go make a career out of mixed martial arts,

dip my toe in the water, and then it felt right. And I felt like I was going to be pretty darn good at it, at least. And here we are a decade and a half later, basically, and still doing it. Yeah. Well, it's amazing. And like I said, it's been a pleasure to watch.

So your attitude, you see, I hearing that, and then I look at like Boe Nickel, who he came in, same type of thing, kind of a storied wrestling career, Penn State, I believe he went. And then he's like, now he's UFC and says he's going to be champion. So you didn't have that quick transition like that to setting big goals? No, well, I mean, I think I did once I got in, once I made the decision. I think I didn't, a lot of people make the decision before they get into mixed martial arts.

I was just kind of like, let me try it. You know, I got, I just graduated. I had my degree. I could have been a wrestling coach, could have stayed on at Missouri and been a graduate assistant. for a couple years and got a job somewhere. So I wanted to try mixed martial arts and just really loved it. And then about my second, third fight, I realized, okay, I think I could get a contract with one of these organizations and I think I could maybe take it to the top.

And then, you know, it kind of, you know, the rest is history. So I dipped my toe in the water and then turned it into a long career. Who was your first fight? My first fight was Kyle Swadley, who was actually another college wrestling. he wrestled in Missouri. And I wrestled at Lake of the Ozark, or sorry, I fought at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. First blood promotion.

Tyrone Woodley was, who ended up, you know, was a welterweight champion in the UFC. Ben Asker and I wrestled with in college as well. But Tyrone was my manager for a couple years. Like, you know, you know, kind of impromptu, right, unofficial manager. But he was, he really was, like, he was the guy who would talk to the promoters

and get me the fights. And then that's how I ended up getting my next, two or three fights in strike force because tyrant was signed with strike force so i was fighting under cards there um and yeah my first my first fight was like i said i didn't have much training so i went out there took them down in the first 30 seconds and then like just rained down about 225 punches in about a four minute period and they the ref pulled me off of them so oh man and like so what would that pay oh that was five hundred dollars 500 500 and just a flat fee no win yeah no win bonus it was 500 bucks and then you know before you know you're paying for your hotel you're paying for you know the food

and like you know i'm not going to make tyrant pay so i'm like here i'll pay for your food or whatever this is my fight or whatever um actually maybe back then he actually paid for himself like he was he was very uh he was very supportive and he was like my big brother like i said but um but before you know yeah i mean like 200 bucks net yeah you know well how did it feel though but you were making money fighting yeah well well it was kind of cool because i went from an amateur athlete amateur wrestler Never got paid a dime for, you know, wrestling, obviously. And then made some money as an athlete. Technically, I was a professional athlete, you know,

but even though I had made $200, but, you know, I, it was a cool transition. And it was also just a, you know, there's something about fighting that we love, whether you're there in the arena or you're watching it on TV or you get to do it, like I get to do it. or if you're just a guy or gal who trains at an MMA gym and does sparring or whatnot, there's something about it that we love, you know.

So I knew I loved hand-to-hand combat when it came to wrestling. I knew how to take a guy down and wrestle. And that was my background, obviously. But going into the gauge was going to be different, but it was going to be very similar from the hand-to-hand combat standpoint. And I just ended up loving it. Yeah. Obviously.

I hope I love it because I've been doing it now for a decade and a half. Yeah. Well, it is Manu, Manu, Man on. man and there's going to be one winner one loser so it is that that doesn't change from wrestling no so that must be different or i mean similar um but so the striking was probably a whole different discipline to learn was that has that are you still evolving as a striking or are you there does that ever do you ever master it or how do you think about that it's a good question because i don't know if you can ever really master it because there's different seasons of a fighter's

for a fighter's career. You know, you might be faster at 30 or slower at 30 than you were at 20. You know, you might have realized that you might have been training with one team and you were kind of emulating this guy's style and that style wasn't good for your body type, wasn't good for your gifts, wasn't good for your attributes. I think I did that. You know, I went to Alliance MMA, was great friends with Dominic Cruz. Dominic Cruz and me, Dominic Cruz and I fight completely different fight styles.

Yet I was trying to kind of emulate him because it worked really, well for him and I quite frankly looked up to him right um but it wasn't exactly perfect or great for my style my gifts my attributes I'm a shorter stockier you know muscle bound guy he's a taller leaner less muscle bound guy and what do you like about his style it was just fun to watch unpredictable yeah it was unpredictable he was really good with head movement which I was not I mean I have never really been great with head movement I'm more of a cover up kind of guy yeah or get hit you think about that in the fight like got to move my head yeah yeah there's so many things we were talking about this on

our runs yeah there's there's is just so many things to think about you know and the best fighters or the best performances that we have a lot of times you're not thinking you're kind of just in that flow state you let your you let your training take over um but yeah you want to be able to think about certain aspects you know i always kind of there's always a couple cues before i walk into the the cage um you know hey make sure you you tell me to breathe because that's one thing we can forget to do as crazy as it sounds you can forget to breathe yeah and breath and oxygen is pretty much the most important thing in there right but you can forget to breathe you can and you can you can you can overdo things you can over wrestle you can

over strike you can over emphasize these certain areas where you could take a little bit of a rest take your take your take your foot off the gas a little bit um so just breathe and hands up is my other one you know, hands up. I think for me, hands up is better than head movement because you're fighting in four ounce gloves. It's better to be able to block something. You have a higher probability of blocking something than you do moving your head.

And if you, because if you don't move your head, you're going to get knocked out. Yeah. How, so that reminds me, as I always wondered about this is like when you block a head kick, does that hurt? Every time. I mean, your arm gets up.

And sometimes I'm thinking, God, that's got to, you got to feel that. Yeah, I mean, and you've seen, you've seen it too. I mean, guys get knocked out with their hands. They could have two hands up, and they still get knocked out. Head kicks are just, you know, the leg, the strongest part of your body coming up toward your cranium. I mean, it's, when it lands and if it lands, it could put you out even if you have it blocked, even if you had it blocked perfectly, you know. So that's a crazy thing about mixed martial arts.

We, you know, we talked about even like when our shins clash. Yeah, you know, two guys throw a leg here at the same time. where you throw a leg kick and the guy checks it. I mean, God did not create our bones to be cracking up against each other. You know? So it's funny that we created this sport here on earth. And you're just like, well, you're playing with, you're playing with fire at any given moment.

You're fighting in four-ounce gloves. You're fighting the best guys in the world. Yeah. It's completely unpredictable. Like we talked about, your 1,000-1 favorite 1,000-1 underdog. It actually doesn't matter. You know, we talk about the Kamar Usman, Leon Edwards fight, where he's winning 90% of the fight and all of a sudden gets caught and then wakes up and says,

what the heck, I'm not champion anymore. You know, but it's why we love it. Right. And even the way Kamar responded after that was this is why we love the sport. And that's the kind of the mentality you have to have or else you're just going to crawl into a hole and give up. Do you think he really does love that? Or do you think that people say what they're supposed to say? Because I don't love Lucy.

No, no. I mean, well, we talked about that too. I think it's hard because, no, you don't want to lose ever. But at some point, you know, we kind of talked about, Camaro and myself and a multitude of other fighters have been on the positive side of that. Yeah. You know, where it's you throw a punch or you throw a kick.

You didn't even really know it was going to land. And all of a sudden they're on the floor. You're getting your hand raised. You're like, holy cow, I love the parody of this sport. I love the unpredictability of the sport. I love how the fights can just be over and I can get my hand raised and go collect my paycheck and kiss my wife. So you can't love and accept that when it goes away. Right.

But not also be a little bit, you know, you hate it. And it might your inner demons start coming out. I knew I wasn't that good. I knew I wasn't going to be hang on, hang on for that long. I knew blah, blah, blah. You can't be accepting of the good and loving of the good and, you know, take all the credit for whenever it does go good without also having a little bit of intrope. introspection to look yourself in the mirror and say well sometimes you're just going to get caught sometimes you're going to be on the crappy side of it yeah i know you know and as we as we've mentioned

too the crowd can be fickle because i i see the comments and you know kamaro he like against covington they would be you know colby would be like more personal kamaro seemed like he's more professional and then i saw kind of the tide turn where he was champion defending champion and then he was he was like wearing the coats with no shirts and the chains and so then and that's fine i i have no problem with it i i i love that part i mean that's you know you follow these personalities these fighters because of their their uniqueness but then when you lose and you've had the the chains and the jacket then people are like oh see you you know you got too full of yourself you know is that as a fighter that's got to be difficult yeah it is i mean whether you win or

lose. I mean, it's, at some point, and I really did realize this when I came to the UFC because it was such a bigger platform. You know, and I've been signed with the UFC now for two, two and a half years. You're just left up to so much public opinion by everybody, just by millions and millions of people. So at some point, and, you know, you know my personality. I want people to like me. Yeah. I want to be, I want to be, I want to walk in two room and people like say, I like that guy. I don't think everybody wants that. Yeah, you know, want that right um and there's there's certain people that far and few between like you're just like doesn't bother them at all right i don't know how you do that i wish i had a little bit more of that but it is it is tough you know um because you are just left up to the court of public opinion you know and and

obviously we live in a social media age these days we live in we live in a we live in a day now where everybody has been given a voice with their little twitter fingers yeah they've been given an opportunity to make a comment on every single thing that you do. And you could choose to either just be like, well, I'm not going to put anything out there because I don't want criticism or you can live your life, be authentically you. The people that are going to love you are going to love you and the people that are not going to love you are just not going to like you. Yeah.

Yeah. That's true. And you know, I was thinking about that too. In a sport like your profession, losses are going to happen because if you look at it right now, if you look at the list of champions most of them are new champions with zero title defenses. I think

let's see, or not Sterling has one. Everybody else is pretty much zero. Oh no. Volcanozky has four. Oh yeah, Volknoffes. But the point is, it's like these are all people win,

people lose, there's new guys coming up. So, yeah, it's not like people are going on Anderson, Silva, type nine-year runs of undefeated 10 years, you know? Yeah, which is a crazy, kind of a crazy time. And I don't know, I don't know if it's because, you know, similar to what we've talked about too,

that the sport is continuing to involve. And it's getting very crowded with the amount of contenders that there are that are good enough to actually win the fights. You know, back when you were watching Anderson Silva, and you knew love Forrest Griffin, but there ain't no way he was going to beat him. Right. You know, you look at, you know, Chale got close.

But even before that fight, I was like, man, I love Chale. I just don't know if he could get it down against Anderson. You know, there was every time Anderson stepped in there, like, man, we're going to watch it, but Anderson is going to win. Yeah. Whereas now these fights are so competitive. There's the contenders, the number two, the number three, the number four guy or guy in the world is they can come in and win it on any given night. Not to mention the fact of the puncher's chance, not to mention the fact of this sport being over in a blink of an eye. Yeah.

Just get, you know, the night just goes, your lights go out and it's over. So it's, uh, it is interesting. Um, and people are going to lose. And that's why, I think it's why we like it too. You know, we, we know, we love, we love winners, but we also love to see how somebody comes back from a loss. How somebody pulls himself back up, how a guy like Kamara, who was so dominant, didn't look like he was going to, you know, lose to too many people recently. How does he come back? Yeah.

Yeah. Does that infant, I mean, is there an error? of invincibility, like for him. Like, I wonder if he thought that I'm not going to lose. Yeah. And these guys aren't on my level. And then all of a sudden, boom, whoa. I wonder if that, can that change how he approaches everything? Probably.

I think, I mean, that was the only time he's ever been knocked out. You know, and honestly, I think Leon just won knockout of the year, too, you know, in a lot of people's eyes. So it was a, not only did he lose, we got knocked out. and it was a pretty devastating knockout. But, you know, it's hard to talk about because, you know, you never want to see a guy who is, but it's just, it's a part of the sport. It's just, it's just crazy.

No, I know. But it's also, if you're pursuing anything worthwhile whatsoever, if you're trying to be a man or a woman of impact, if you're trying to do something that wells something up inside of you, that then in turn other people can see and it wells something up inside of them, you're leaving yourself up to not just criticism, but you're leaving yourself up to loss,

to the trials and the tragedies and the valleys. You're putting yourself out there. And ultimately, that's, what else is life if you're not doing that? So that's why I've always said that mixed martial arts and fighting is a metaphor for life. You know, the fights that we are in inside of an octagon in some arena in some city on any given Saturday night is a metaphor for the fights that we're all going through in our lives. And the way that we watch people overcome the odds or we watch something to be extremely dominant or we watch a nice, crazy back and forth battle it's it's a it's a it's a metaphor for all the things that we're going through in life yeah it's true it's um and i would imagine i'm thinking of kamro again but that losing at the

tail end of a fight it feels like would be might be better than if you get knocked out in the first 30 seconds yeah and you didn't really get a chance to show i mean i can't imagine going through a training camp doing everything and then having something land just right out of the gate i mean yeah how how Has that happened to you? That has happened to me one time when I fought Pitbull and Bellator. It was like, had a great training camp, just phenomenal 10 weeks of training. Everything was firing all cylinders. I'm 100% confident.

I'm going to there, beat this guy. And then boom, you get caught, you know, behind the ear. And then it's, you know, whether it be the ref's early stoppage or it's weird, whatever. You're just like, it's part of the game. Or you get injured. or there's there are these all these different things and that's that's what's unfortunate about makes martial actress there's so much time between the fights yeah you know and you can't write that wrong immediately it's going to take a while and it's just yeah you know and you train so hard and for me

me i leave my family for you know right eight weeks and you're just like you make all these sacrifices and then it just certain times it just doesn't feel unfair but what is fairness yeah you know we we all you can all get caught in that it's human nature to wander and it's human nature to to to just you know you know play the oh whoa is me yeah and then you're like wait a six just snap out of it and you're like yeah wait a second tomorrow is going to be another day the sun weirdly will set tonight yeah i get another opportunity tomorrow and what i do with tomorrow is ultimately going to prove or prove to the doubters or prove to the supporters and also continue to move forward in the trajectory of my life yeah um that's good points for sure um so in regard to fighting like when you're going

Obviously, landing a clean shot, K.O., that's good. What do you think is like the most, so if the damage is adding up, where do you see like the most devastating type shot? That's not a K.O. Is it a little, like, is it the low calf? Is it a body shot? Where do you, like, if you land something and you're like, that's going to, that's impacting them. Yeah.

So obviously that. Yeah, obviously that headshot, K.O. That's a given, of course. but the rest of the body I mean the liver can also be the same way where it's not unconsciousness yeah it's not unconsciousness but essentially your body just

your body just freezes up and seizes up it just hurts or what is it? It hurts really bad and you can't breathe but there's also like you know how you get the wind knocked out of you and it's almost like a panic right even if at your age you probably had your wind knocked out of you a couple dozen times you still feel like you might actually die

this might be the time that I'm actually going to die and then all of a sudden you can finally get your breath back the liver is similar to that but not in a not in a lungs type of way obviously but it but it does just yeah you kind of just like your body just seizes up um so that's more of a one shot KO type of deal as well but yeah I mean the the leg kicks these days the way guys are utilizing the leg kick and and we talked about this as well that that that uh that quad shot like your normal leg kick you can take a decent amount of those to the legs It's going to start impeding your movement, start impeding the muscle functions and the motor functions of how you're able to lift your foot and how you're able to kind of stagger back and forth in footwork. But those low calf kicks are something special these days.

Like there's guys who get good at them, there's just no, there's no fat and there's very little space for the capsule of the muscle to swell at all. So you take one or two of those, start swelling. It's also down there by a bunch of nerves, by your foot, by, and obviously everything starts at your feet. That's how you move. Yeah. You know, everything starts at the feet and you're bouncing around on your toes and on your balls of your feet. Yeah. And all of a sudden, that's taken away.

Then you start to become not only a moving target, but you also can't track the guy down. So I think accumulation-wise, leg kicks can be so much more effective than we thought they were, say, five years ago. You know, now the last five years, you're seeing a lot. Yeah. You've also seen a lot more broken legs, too. Yes, for sure. Because I think so many people are throwing more kicks. And then other guys are, we're also getting better at checking kicks because we know they're coming.

How do you decide where to aim your kick? Like low calf or quad? How do you decide? I'm more of a quad guy because I think it does take a, excuse me, it does take a little bit more length to go, even though. To go low? Yeah, it's weird because the foot and the calf seems like it's closer than the quad because your leg obviously, you know, bends back. back toward you. But you have to get closer to hit that low kick because it is low.

You know, you're basically got to lower your butt down to take, kind of tap them on the low leg. So I haven't really mastered those. We also talked about this too, like in training, you know, because you asked about the Tony Ferguson front kick.

Yeah. How do you train that? And it's like, well, you can't really train it because if you and me are sparring, I'm a pretty bad sparring partner. If I'm like, dude,

you throw one right up the middle and you're like, dude, what the heck? You know, same thing with elbows, same thing with knees. They're hard to train because you're not trying to hurt your training partners, you know. Those low calf kicks are kind of similar to. You're wearing shing guards, so you got a little bit of protection. But, you know, I'm not trying to hit a guy with 25 calf kicks in a sparring session.

Yeah. He can't walk and then it messes with his paycheck and his ability to train or provide for his family. Right. No, I understand. Is who, okay, that just reminds me something. Who do you think is the hardest training fighter beside yourself that you've seen? Um, it's a good question. You know, obviously I don't know them all.

Yeah. I can see some of them from afar. I can tell you the one that I have spent the most time with, who I know for a fact, trains hard, he's a good dude, fights hard. He's a guy of Gilbert Burns. Oh, yeah. Gilbert Burns is, man, just one of the most professional guys. And then I see him with his wife and his boys.

And then I see the way that he lives his life. And I just see, he just lives like a champion, you know, and not to say that, you know, a lot of people don't, but I mean, I have been around a lot of people. And I've been East Coast, West Coast, North, South, or all around the country, train all over. And you'd be surprised how many people have a decent amount of success without really living a real championship lifestyle. And who am I to be the judge, judge during execution or other?

Everybody's got their own. But from a standpoint of the whole package, Gilbert Burns is the whole package. And he's a nice guy. You know, you see him met him. You're like, man, he just seems like a really nice guy. And those are your favorite ones, the ones you were like, you know what? I could sit here and, you know, have a beer with you. And we could just talk about life and you talk about this.

And then all of a sudden you watch him fight. You're like, wait, that's the guy. Yeah. That's the guy that I, like, felt like I could be best friends with. And, like, yeah. I felt like he, you know, want to take care of me, you know, and like, wait, that's the guy out there in the cage. So I live in between the two extremes of crazy and humble.

That is amazing. But I think a lot of people have a different perspective of him after that Hosmot fight. Yeah. Because it was such a war. Yeah. And people, you know, everybody builds these guys up to where they're, you know, immortal, basically.

And, uh, Hosmot bled. Yeah. You know what I mean? He got rocked. Yeah. And, uh, that was, Burns looked so good in that fight. Yeah. Well, he showed who Gilbert is.

He showed that he was a champion, the champion and just a heart of a dog. Mm-hmm. But also taking that fight at a time where nobody else wanted to fight Hamzat, you know. Yeah. So he also had a decent amount. to lose because he was, I think Gilbert was ranked like number two or three. Pretty high, yeah. I think he had just fought Camarro for the title.

So he's number two, three, three max. And Hamzat was maybe top ten, maybe number ten, something like that. So there was a little bit to lose. And you're fighting Hamzad, who's just an absolute beast. He's giant, yeah. You know, and he's big. You know, you talked about you saw him. You were like, I was this going to make one seven.

I know. You know, so the odds of Gilbert taking, you know, taking the fight. that he probably shouldn't have been taking. He's taken on a lot of risk and then going out there to the fight the way they did. That's why we love him. Oh, man. And, I mean, he kind of showed a glimpse of that against Camaro

because he rocked him. Yeah. Didn't he knock him down? He knocked him on his butt. Yeah. So it's like people, because they talked about, I think he's known for jujitsu mostly. And so you always wonder about the hands

and where are they at compared to the ground game. And he showed that power against Camaro knocked him on his butt. And then showed that dog. that real heart against Hosmod and just a war and I almost, man, it was a close fight. It was close. It was close.

It was close. It's like, I can see him even getting that decision with a few more different exchanges going a different way, but yeah, very impressive. It was awesome. And that's two we talked about our coach Henry Hooft. I think he actually just posted a video today of the, when he knocked out Damia Maya. It was cool.

They were training that in the back in the back room before the fight. that just quick check hook, quick check hook on the Southpaw when he comes in with the jab. So there's these little, you know, there's these little habits and idiosyncrasies. Like tells? Yeah, little tells that you pick up on. How often does that happen where you see, I mean, how often do guys go back to the well on what they like to do?

Is that, can they help it? Does it just happen all the time in a fight? I think a lot of times it happens. Yeah. I mean, there's just, there's certain habits and tendencies that you're going to have no matter or what you know same thing with you we were just talking about on the way back on the breakfast how how you run you know it's like I might strike on the outside of my foot right ask you and you're like well I don't really know but there is a way that you run whether you pay attention to it or not

and how hard is it going to be to change that you know especially when you're you know mixed martial arts that's why we talk about boxing like those guys just have to focus on boxing we have to focus on six different techniques if you will yeah um but a lot of guys have a lot of guys have a lot same habits yeah and then do you see that in a fight where you're like when you see a window and you see what they're doing how how do you try to take advantage of that right away or do you wait for a better better time good question there's probably a lot of guys who wait i'm just going to go you know i think yeah you know i think i'm just uh i train so hard and so disciplined and i'm just like kind of just like a coiling of a spring yeah i'm just like coiling and coiling or do

like as soon as that button gets go. Yeah. Bell rings and Bruce, Bruce gets done. The cage door closes and bing, it's like, okay, let's go. Yeah. A shot out of a cannon.

Yeah. And the way you go in and your punching style is we're talking about, because I asked if you prefer fighting guys your height or taller guys. And you said your height. Then we're thinking about it. And it's like you've caoed people taller than you. So I was wondering how you punch, how it comes in like a little high.

Maybe they're, that's their heads in the sweet spot for, taller guy for you. I agree. Yeah, I think we started talking. I was like, well, maybe actually. Because I always have had to somewhat train for guys that are a little bit taller than me. You know, I had to wrestle a lot of times wrestling guys who were longer than me as well and then now fighting guys who were a little bit taller than me. So yeah, just by tendency. And also my coach is a little bit taller too. So yeah, my punches are probably a little bit higher. So Hoyt archery has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005. And personally, I really don't care what bow you.

shoot what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mind because I know if I get one opportunity with my Hoyt, it's going to pay off. First Light Farms has been a great sponsor of the podcast because bottom line, not everybody gets their bowl every year. So some people's freezer isn't filled with elk meat. For people like that, they want an option of how can they eat elk meat that's great tasting and really as close to wild as you can get because if you look where these elk are raised in new zealand it's mountainous country so if you're looking for an option of great tasting lean high quality protein check out first light farms so how do you think you match up against is he's the champion of your weight

division right now he is yeah he's and he's good he has uh you know he has continued to prove that he is better than i thought he was for sure and uh man he's he's good he is i think he is i think he is i think, you know, he's not going to be, he's not the greatest striker, if you will. Obviously, we know, and I only say that because his grappling is so good. You'd say the same thing about, Kibibib Strikey isn't that great. Yeah. But it's only because his, his grappling is so good, you know. So obviously that Dagestani wrestling grappling is, is a bear.

Yeah. It's something that people crumble underneath. You know, so we'll see what happens with him in Volcanowski here in the next couple weeks. And I think Islam has the ability. to hold the title for a little while, you know. Do you like that match up with you and him? I mean, do you see, like, things you could take advantage of? I do because I do think I could turn it into a, you know,

keep it on the feet if I wanted to because I, you know, Islam's got great wrestling and Islam is very strong. He's a little bit tall than I am. And he gets guys down. He finds a way to get guys down because similar to Khabiby, he already makes up his mind, okay, we're standing right now, but it's only until I want to take you down. It's only until I shoot.

On his terms. You know, I think, especially with a training camp where I really focused on wrestling a ton and wrestling defense a ton, I think I could stop a decent amount of the takedons and keep it more of a standing fight. And I think in a standing fight, I think I'm a little bit, have a little bit of the edge there, both in power and just willingness to engage. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that would be an amazing fight. Oh, we good. Yeah. But, you know, I lost a poor year last fight. So it's like, well, now I'm a couple of fights away from that. So I got to freaking work my way back up. Well, let's get a big payday with Connor. I don't see.

I like that. That's a good idea. Connor, July, International Fight Week, anybody? Oh, man. How sick would that be? So in regard to training, you have a new training app. I do. Yeah.

And tell me about that. Yeah, so I, you know, it's been kind of a vision, 10 years in the making. Ever since I really started putting out a lot of fitness videos and people even, you know, MMA fans give me crap too. They're like, man, do you ever train MMA? I'm like, well, I do train MMA, but it just so happens that I do have a passion for fitness. And I do think fitness, fitness just translates better to social media as well because somebody can watch it, look at it, write it down and use it.

Whereas if they watch me hit pads or they watch me spar, might be entertaining, but I'm not really adding them value. And that's what I've always wanted to do with my platform, similar to you. It's like, how do I bring people value? What words can I say? What lessons can be taught? or what actual practical things can I pass along to people to help them live the best life possible. So over the last eight to 10 years, people will just say, hey, when are you coming up with

your training programs? When are you coming out with, you know, program, diet, mindset, all that kind of stuff. So I created an app walk-on fitness. We just finally got approval on the app store and Google Play and all that kind of stuff. It turns out it takes longer to build an app from scratch and it takes longer to get approval than you think it's going. to. Okay, I see. So we started off.

We have four fitness programs. One that's just a, I put you through 20 minute workouts, 20 minutes circuit workouts where there's, it's 12 total workouts, 20 minute workouts, no body weight only, no equipment needed. Then we have a four week upper body program, four week lower body program. And then there's a six week kind of train like me, more of a higher level program that certain amount of people are going to want, but we really are a fitness. out for everybody. If you want to just do a upper body program, you don't need to do the weights that I do, but just do the reps that I do and do the exercise that I do and you're going to see

results. And then we're going to continue to add more diet, more nutrition, eventually, you know, supplements, eventually an online, kind of an online store where you can get all your supplements, get all your meal prep, everything that you need to become happy, healthy, and harder to kill. And then we're also going to have a lot of mindset stuff on there because you are what you are and where you are because of what goes into your mind. That's right. Yeah. I mean, Also with the training, you talked about meals and you can't outwork a bad diet. So I know I liked what you were saying about like when you get into a fight camp and those last eight weeks, I think the first four, you've got a 12 week camp. First four weeks are just kind of getting dialed in.

The last eight weeks are pretty strict with the meals. And you just see exactly what you have a meal program sent to you, right? Yeah. So I use mega fit meals and I have four, shoot, like six, seven years now. You know, it's just they're the best tasting ones that I've used over the last, you know, a little while because I've tried a decent amount of them. You know, either they got too much salt or like extra water or some kind of like just weird rubbery chicken taste. Mega fit meals is close to me as well. So it's an easy, quick ship.

And then I can just tailor my custom meals to whatever I want. If I want eight ounces of protein and two cups of vegetables, I can do that. Or if I want lighter ones where it's only four ounces of protein or six ounces of protein and one cup of vegetables. And then, yeah, I kind of wake up. Like we talked about I fast in the morning until after my first workout, eat my first mega-fit meal. A couple hours later, have maybe a little snack, and then have my second workout and then have my second mega-fit meal,

and then go to bed and do it all over again. Groundhogs Day, get down to 155. And so you're consuming around 2,000 calories or under? Under, yeah. Usually, I think I think I'm usually sitting between like 12 and 1,500, which me training. as hard as I do twice a day for that eight week period is definitely working at a calorie deficit.

So I definitely wanna make sure I increase my fats. I'm gonna get a lot of my energy from fats. I don't do a lot of carbs in camp. Right. I don't know if that's necessarily the right thing to do, but it's kind of worked well for me. You know, so for me, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yeah.

Done it for probably six, seven years now. And then, yeah, just the first couple weeks is a little tough. Yeah. Which the first couple weeks of anything is tough. Right. Like we talked about running, you know, my legs don't feel great from the running that we've done because I've done more running,

you know, yesterday than I have in the last month or so. But it's like, if I continue to run, eventually I get used to it. Eventually, I get better at it. Eventually the pain goes away or the, you know, with the diet, you get less hangary. You get your body just adjust. And I think God created our bodies to be extremely adaptable to what we want it to be. Make the body, literally make the body like your servant. And you can make it that way if you just continue to do what you want it to do.

Discipline. Yeah. And I've said that that your body will give what you ask of it. And if you don't ask much, it's not going to give you much. But if you ask a lot, just like we did yesterday and like you do in camp, your body responds. It's an incredible machine, if you will. But it's just I did was thinking, too, it's like I might have screwed up my entire podcast potential because we started off yesterday. And we didn't plan this, but as my first guest, it's like, okay, let's make this memorable.

We ended up doing a marathon and lifting weights. And it's like shooting, you know, you did a great job shooting the bow at 74 yards. And so now I'm like, okay, now this is a standard and everybody else is going to be looking to this going, are you, you expect me to do this? So I might have screwed myself on the podcast. Yes, to all future guests, because I know you got a list and I know you already talked to people. You don't have to do what we did. It was partly my idea as well. I was like, I think you and I have been chomping at the bit to get this.

And we're like, I don't care if there's cameras here or we're doing this. We just want to do this. This is going to be fun. Yeah. So it's like what we talked about this too, the essence of who you are and how you've built this platform and how, you know, you didn't necessarily try to do it. You're just, you're just being campaigns and I put my camera on me here and there and people love it. People love it because it's, it's authentic. And also people want to see people doing things out of the ordinary and do things that are hard.

You don't have to run a marathon for it to be your hard. your hard could be something else like we talked about but just coming here and getting immersed in the experience having an awesome conversation doing something a little bit hard but also you know challenges you spiritually mentally physically and every i think it's great that every single time it will be different it is like hey this is what we do every time this is that's right this is the first one this was me yeah and i i even for me for my personal i don't know i i i wanted to be able to finish the marathon like i you know i was like well we kind of were like we know we're running again later we're at least going to be at what 15, 16, 17, 17. I was just going to 26. Let's just deal it. Yeah. So last night was a doozy. Yeah.

In the middle of the night, basically. It was great. It's like, but I think you made a good point too. It's like when you're around people who that's, okay, here's what we do. Then it changes your mindset. It's like you wouldn't have, I probably wouldn't run a marathon yesterday either by myself. You wouldn't have for sure back at home because you haven't. But together, you get around these people that elevate your game.

You know, I made, I know you made a reference of it yesterday that a rising tide lifts all boats. And it's like that was a snapshot of it just two guys. Two guys training is like, hey, let's push each other. Let's do a little bit more than we otherwise would have. And then sometimes magic happens. And we're on top of Piscuit, 10 o'clock at night or whatever it was. Of course, nobody else out there. And we had just finished a marathon.

I mean, how great a feeling is that? It was really, really cool. You know, and like I said, even for me, I wouldn't have done it on my own, you know, but I could do it with you by my side because I know, well, A, you've been there and done that. And B, if you, you know, if you can do it, it gives me the permission that I can do it, you know. And then of course, yeah, of course. But I think that's what we, that is the essence of our human existence, you know, like God created us for community.

God created us for relationships. and we can be inspired by those around us. And I honestly think running a marathon was easier than I thought it was. But I think it was easier than I thought it was because you were there. Right. You know, next week if I'm like, hey, I'm going to go run a marathon by myself, it's going to be a lot harder actually. Right, right.

But because I was watching your feet go just watching them and I could just go with your cadence and just like, okay, we're here. And we have a little bit of conversation here and there. And a couple of those times we got Harry when we were actually climbing the mountain. I'm like, Cam, don't talk to me. You know, but you unlocked my running potential by not even trying to. You were just running it out, but you weld something up inside of me. Right.

That it was actually easier than I thought it was. Now, granted, I woke up this morning and, you know, a little sore, but it was good. We did it. We finished. Well, I think people, they get so used to this narrative where, so if you, say, well, I'm going to run a marathon. People, the natural inclination would be like, well, have you even been training? Yeah.

You know, they want to shoot it down before they know anything because it's like we're ingrained. It's like, well, that's hard. That's, you know, you got to take six months to recover from a marathon. That's been a thing people will say. So they give you all these reasons. Do you have the right shoes? Do you whatever? It's like, just ignore all that and like, no, we're going to run a marathon.

It might take, you know, a few hours. We're going to cover the distance. and it's going to be okay. Yeah. And at the other side of it, we're going to have a whole different view on running, I guess, or what we're capable of or if we're around certain people, what we can do together.

And it's like, but at all, you have to get going. And yes, there are excuses you can make. You can say, well, I haven't been preparing.

You know, as you said, it's been a holiday season, it's Christmas, it's new years. I haven't been doing this. So he had plenty of, of opportunity to say,

yeah, I'm not really prepared for this. How about if we just do 10 and I would have been sweet, let's do 10. No biggie. But instead, your mentality and us together, it allowed us, as you said, gave us permission to do more, to dream bigger. Yeah. And I also don't want to have people here because they know who you are.

And if they watch mixed martial arts or they see mixed martial arts or they look me up, they're like, okay, this guy's a little bit kind of crazy too. Maybe you're maybe you aren't, maybe you are just starting your fitness journey or listen to a guy who runs a marathon. a day often and a guy over here who fights every day every single day, 2 a.m. You know, like, but you got to start where you're at and also just get around people. Maybe for you, for me, a huge win was running a marathon yesterday with your hands. And part of it was uphill. But maybe for you, if you're starting your fitness journey, you're starting your weight loss journey,

you're starting your spiritual journey, whatever journey you're starting, it's just putting one foot in front of the other without sounding cliche, just like we're talking about running. It is, maybe for you it's it is a walk around the block and then a month from now it's a couple of walks around the block and then starting to jog a little bit and then starting to change this and then getting around people who say you know what I believe in you yeah you know you didn't have to tell me hey I believe in you that you can do this marathon right but it was but it was you were unlocking that potential in me just by being there with me and it's it goes back to community and relationships and also being around people and be inspired by people because we could

also get so caught up in this social media age where we're like, well, I'm going to watch this guy do, this guy out here is pushing himself and live at his dream and how I'm inspired, you know, but then you just, the inspiration goes away until you look at the next guy and then the next guy and the next guy and you never actually do anything, right? You know, you got to, you got to take the action. And the other thing, too, is just like I gave the kind of the example of, I'm a little bit less sore than I thought I was going to be and it was actually a little bit easier than I thought it would be, but I would never have known that. Yeah. Had we not tried it.

Right. And I think this idea of people being so afraid of failure. Because there was moments there where I was like, shoot, dude, like, I'm about to finish this marathon. Because last night we had a nice little dinner, some elk and stuff. And I'm like, okay, I got 15 miles ahead of me. Yeah. Like, what if I got to tell Cam, I got to tap out here? But I was willing to do that.

Number one, because of who you are, I know you wouldn't judge me and it would have been just fine. But also, you don't know what you're capable of unless you're willing to fail. put it out unless you're willing to fall flat on your face and be laughed at and pointing fingers pointed at you know so no matter where you're at on your fitness journey or your any journey that you're on a get around the people that you want to emulate and be around who or somebody that wells something up inside of you and b don't be afraid of failing because if you ain't failing you ain't trying right that's right I mean I think that's a good point too about surrounding yourself with the right people I mean I remember growing up nobody was telling you

me I could do more and be more. And so that was hard to overcome. When you have to overcome people wanting to keep you down makes it tough. When you're around people who actually want to see you succeed, it's like, this is how it could be. Yeah. This is how life could be. It seems like a whole different life to me. And so now that's what I've tried to cultivate as people, the whole point to this podcast

is being around people who instead of the reasons not to, it's like, no, these are reasons. These are people who are dreaming bigger and really changing the world. And you are too. And that's why this is so valuable to me to be sitting across the table from you and just learning from you. You know, a lot of what you say in your demeanor and just how you present yourself, it reminds me of my buddy Roy. And in that, and I want you to talk about your faith too because Roy would say he was a great hunter. He was amazing in the mountains.

He taught me how to bow hunt, taught me how to be tough. And he would say that bow hunting is his missions field, that God gave him certain talents that he can use hunting to reach people with his faith. That otherwise he wouldn't have, they wouldn't have listened to him. But because he's out there and he's kind of a beast in the mountains, they're like, wait a second. So this guy is saying this. And now what are you talking about God and Jesus?

and your faith, but they'll listen to them because of that. And you remind me of that. People will listen to you because of your line of work because you're a complete savage and, you know, you're like now a household name. I mean, Michael Chandler is a household name. How has faith helped shaped your journey? Yeah, well, no, well, number one, thank you for that comparison.

That's really awesome and an honor. But, you know, I call it the, the shiny object as well. You know, mixed martial arts is what I do, but it's not who I am. It's not who I be. Yes, I am a fighter, but ultimately, you know, it's my shiny object that gets people to look and say, okay, oh, wow.

But then, oh, wait, there's some layers to this guy. There's some layers to his existence. There's some layers to his mission and his platform. It's so much different than the punches and the kicks and the knees and the elbows and get my hand raised and being under the bright lights and being known as a, quote, unquote, UFC fighter. There's layers to him. How does he treat people or how does he love his wife?

How does he serve his wife? How does he love his kids? How does he serve his kids? And man, just I think operating in gratitude for the blessings that God has given me has been the biggest. That's what makes me feel the most like Superman. You know, I think we get so caught up in the ego and so caught up in the me, me, me, when really there is no me without God having me in the palm of his hand my entire life. every single season, every single relationship,

every single person that's come in, even the people that have had to leave. It's been the essence of who I am and to not operate in the gratitude, realizing that we are where we are because of the blessings that we have had and the people that have been put into our lives and the ways that God has spoken through people

or the ways that God has spoken through tough times, great times. and you know living in these different seasons that have been tough you know we talked about i lost three fights in a row 688 days without the win back in 2012 2013 you know losing losing the title multiple times in bellator and then still coming back now being in the ufc has some highs and some lows in every season you know i was actually just doing a little bit of studying like jeremiah 29 11 we see we hear you know for the plans i have for you i know the plans that i have for you i know the plans that i for you plans to, plans to prosper, you know, right? But, but a couple of verses before that,

the, these people had been exiled to a place that they did, they didn't want to be. But instead of complaining about where they are at or saying, oh, woe is me or being mad at God that they're in exile in a place that they don't want to be, they were commanded to, to build a community, to have sons and daughters to live in the moment and be grateful for it and wait, wait upon the Lord, right? And that's the plan that I have for you is to prosper. But at some time, maybe it's just not the right time. The door needs to be closed for now. And then eventually the right doors open at the right time and then you were able to walk through them. And I think that really happened to me. And it's happened to me in my, my marriage. It's happened to me when we talk about

building a family with my two sons now. It's happened to me in my career. And just being grateful for the blessing of being able to do what I do. You know, and at some point, you know, you get to a point where you're like, wait a second, I don't, I mean, I deserve a little bit. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this much. Right. This is a, I feel so, I just feel so grateful for what I have. Right.

You know, and a lot of times the most grateful among us are the ones that continue to get more and more and more. Yeah. Blessings, you know, and I don't know. I've been an egotistical, you know, maniac here and there, you know, but, but ultimately, always trying to go back to, um, just gratitude for what God has done for me in my life. Is it, have you always been like that? Or was that a change? I think it was a change.

You know, I kind of grew up, I grew up Catholic and then really started going to church when I was kind of in high school. I got saved in high school. But yeah, I mean, ultimately, I always wanted to be, I always wanted to be a good little boy. I always wanted to be, you know, follow the rules and do the right thing. I always wanted to, I cared a lot about reputation, cared a lot about, you know, the way people looked at me. But it wasn't until, you know, I really, probably this last 10 years or so where I've really realized, because, you know, you start to mature and you start to really, it's hard to have a lot of gratitude until you've been through a lot of stuff, you know. You, without the bad days or without the valleys, you can't really enjoy and be grateful for the peaks and be grateful for being on top and be grateful for the triumphs, you know. So when you've gone through, you know, some tough seasons and, you know, and even as you grow,

when you find the woman of your dreams and then you start having a family and you realize how big this thing is with this life that we live and how much responsibility you have, especially as a man, you know, especially as as a man who, you know, men, we want, we want to be admired. We want to be, we want to be looked at as Superman. We want to be respected. We want to be looked at it in certain ways. And you realize, you know, you got a wife who looks at you that way or you got, I got two boys now and I have the opportunity to be Superman. I am literally Superman to those kids, you know. And it's, So you have such a crazy responsibility that, you know, you're going to fail. You're going to have bad days.

You're going to make wrong decisions. But ultimately trying to become the best man that you possibly can be. And I think with to whom much is given, much is required. Right. You know, and that's, I think that's the culmination of with each year and each new rung that you climb and each platform that gets bigger and bigger, you start to realize, you know, I have been given much. So therefore, much is required.

to be obedience and perseverance and then also just trying to live a life, live a life that people look at and say, okay, I kind of, you know, I value that or I want to maybe be like that or, you know, and you just, I take pride of being a guy that hopefully people look at and say, okay, or a mom says, okay, I would want my daughter to marry a guy like that. Right. You know, I want my son to grow up and be more like that. It's been a journey and it's been a lot of fun.

Do you feel pressure to be perfect? to not not fail yeah every now and then I do I mean I think I there's in the athletics no you know I mean it's I I know I train hard I know I do everything right or at least what I think is right you know because we all have our own truths you know maybe what I'm doing I think is right but it's actually the wrong thing right who knows in actual like the technique and stuff yeah but no I mean I think once I now have a family and I have two boys, you know, it's, I talk about this masterpiece that I'm painting, you know, that someday my, my sons will, you know, they'll read the headlines and they'll see the fights or they'll see the interviews and they'll, they'll see

it all and they'll say, okay, my dad was, was this to all these different people, you know, so I think I feel a little bit of that pressure and I think, I think to feel that pressure is to be human. I think some of us, you know, we want to be our best. Right. I think we were called to we were called to be so much more than just little wandering generalities and in people of mediocrity on this on this earth and there's you know different seasons for different people and there's going to be times of of extreme accomplishment there's going to be times of idleness but ultimately trying to move forward towards the man or woman that you want to become i think i think ultimately accomplishing things is great and you know making making an impact and having a platform

or making money or business, whatever it may be, is great. But ultimately, it's the man that you become on the other side of it, the woman that you become on the other side of it, that you can look yourself in the mirror and say, man, I'm proud of what I've built, the life that I've built and the person that I've built. No, I agree with that. As a father, how do you see that going down?

Because I know as a dad for me, it was hard with your attitude about pushing hard and you know nobody's gonna outwork me type thing i know i question myself whether i was pushing my kids too hard too because everybody's different so it's like how do you how do you see because how you are your personality how do you see that translating to how you raise your kids yeah no it's true i mean i think uh that's a hard balance it really is because ultimately you want to uh you want to make them earn things because that's that's what happens with each generation that's that's what success is your your generate your next generation having it better than you did right better doesn't necessarily

mean easier you know like i just heard uh i think was dam and john interviewing shack the other day it's like well shack's got hundreds of millions of dollars how do you how do you make your kids have the same work ethic that you did and you're like well make them earn it you know um so i don't know what the right answer is there but finding these little ways that you can make them earn things or give them responsibilities or you know I think they're going to know who my wife is a grinder as well you know she she likes she likes to work she likes she likes going to work and creating something and bringing home a paycheck she gets she gets value out of all of that and I would never take that from her so I think our sons are going to see the way that we kind of push ourselves

they're going to see the way that we love our lives and I think ultimately they're going to drawn to it whether they want to or not right um you know there's going to be instances where i step up and i just go do and i lead by example right and don't say it don't say a word and then see how they respond i think you know i do that right now we just got a dog a couple months ago too and it's our son hap said well i you know i want to i'll take them out and run them every day and and take them out to go to the bathroom and whatnot there's times every now and then that he doesn't and instead of every now and then it's like hey well hey buddy this is it's a good opportunity to say, hey, this is your responsibility that you said you would do. And it's

very important to be a man of our word. And that's what Chandler's do. We are a man of our word. But then there's also times there's like, you know what, buddy, I got you. I got this one. Right. And then he can see, which which is funny. I think it's happened probably now five, six, eight times. And the majority of the time, I'll take them out there. And a couple minutes later, that door opens and here he comes. And he's like, kind of like, I realized that I didn't want you to do this for me. And it was. a lesson in and of itself that I didn't have to say anything aside from well number one that's what that's what that's what god does for us all the time to hey son just sit here i got this right

and then it makes you feel that gratitude right that the love of a father right and so even here on earth and me doing that and this is just one small example but i think that's a that's a pretty good little kind of metaphor if you will that sometimes there's the hey you need to be you need to be told that this is your responsibility and you have to do this. And then sometimes it's like, you know what, I'm going to do this one for you. And you're going to watch me, you're going to watch me do it. And then you're still probably going to come around anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's. So it's a tough, delicate dance. It is for sure. I mean, I think the biggest part is that you're leading by example because I think as parents a lot of times people say what they want done and they're not doing that themselves. Yeah.

You know, I've caught myself in that too, you know, where, or even just the wounds of your past or the way that you were parents. or these different things that irk you about how your child responds or acts or you know so you you you really got a it's it's funny too it's like we're leading them and we're taking care of them but we're also learning at the same time as well you know where i can learn things by how i respond or react to the way my my son is doing whatever he's doing and i can learn things about myself because there's it's still new to me you know he's six years years old. So I'm still, and with each new season and each more, you know, each year that goes by,

he's changing and he's growing and there's going to be things where I'm like, oh, shoot, okay, I might need to look at this and look at myself in the mirror about why that one thing kind of bothers me. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting. It is. It's like, I know as a young parent, I remember, you know, nobody ever asked me about my grades, right? Nobody never came up. Didn't matter if I failed. gastrate days never was never thing so then as a parent you're like oh I'm going to be on my kids about their grades they're gonna so this like so then it's like why'd you get a C why did you get so then you're like way overboard is like okay all all we needed to do is show that we care yeah and we want them to succeed don't have to be a tyrant about it to offset that nobody ever

cared but so it's like that seems like the overcorrecting part is the mistakes I made anyway as a parent. It's like nobody ever cared about me. I'm going to care so much. I'm going to drive these guys crazy. These kids crazy. That's interesting. It's a, it's a perfect example of, you know, like what, what you just said. Your experience and your, because we all have these things that we're working through, no matter what, no matter what age that you're at, you know, and that's why it is so important too. And obviously, the fact that your parents didn't care about your grades, I don't really think that's a wound that you needed to really heal necessarily. it just created something in your parenting,

in your parenting style, right? But I think it's one thing that as human beings that we don't address enough is that we do all have these wounds. And we do all have these things about us that we need to fix or that we should fix. And maybe it doesn't need to be today. Maybe it's going to take time

or maybe it needs to, you know, things need to work themselves out. But really working on yourself and working on working through the things that you've been through, whether they are traumatic or they're just little things about you that, you know, could be improving, you know. And I think that's one thing about, I mean, obviously you, the way that you live your life.

I mean, you lift and run and shoot every single day, but it's all, it's all in order to continue to get better. You know, there's all a A plus B equals C. If I do this, I'm going to be more capable in the woods. I'm going to be more capable on the trails. I'm going to be more capable in life, you know. So it's trying to find your best version of yourself. with each new season that comes along and that's what growing up is yeah crazy well i i just know for me i don't feel like i have any natural talent but it's like nobody can really question hard work

it's like what can you say you're i mean you're expending too much effort you're working too hard you shouldn't work so hard people don't really say that they can they can criticize a lot of other things but that's like if they're going to say hey you're working too hard i'll take that yeah exactly I'll take that all day. That's one criticism I'll take all that long. You're doing too much. Well, yeah.

That sounds like someone, sounds like something that's someone who's not doing enough would say. That's usually how, but it's still, you know, words still impact us. It's crazy how, you know,

you know, well, this person, you shouldn't care about what this person says, but just how we're built as humans, words have, have impact, have meaning,

and they shape us and can influence us. Yeah. It's tough. Well, yeah. And it's kind of what we were talking about this the other day, about just since we all are so connected now via social media, there could be someone all the way across the country that I will never, ever step foot within 100 miles of, a thousand miles of who could write a comment that would somehow I read and it will affect my day.

And it's how we kind of talked about, too, going back to God created us for relationships, created us for community. We used to be in these small communities where, you know, if you and me are both living here in the same city and we're friends and we're hanging out and we're getting coffee a couple times a week or whatever, you say something, it's like that means something. Yeah.

Because we are in community. We are in relationship. You are a part of my life. And now there's just, there's so much outside noise from so many people that, well, A, we talked about too. I don't even know if half of these accounts are even real on social media. You know, you're like, is this a real person or a bot or whatever it is. So it's hard.

And words are, you know, the most, kind of the most impactful thing in our life. They really are, especially the ones that are the closest to us, said from the people that are closest to us, but even just the chatter, you know, because you can read something enough to where you actually believe it. Something completely fake, false, not true about you or whatever, and you can read it so much that it becomes a reality. And it's just that that human nature is scroll past,

all the positives and then you stop on the negative. And what I do to myself to try to justify it that I shouldn't be listening to this guys. So I'll click on their profile. And normally it's nothing, like no post and whatever. So it's easy to write that one off. But you have to click on it to see like, okay, who's saying this? And is there any weight to this at all?

Usually there's not. But then if it is somebody, then I'm like, hmm, why this guy seems legit? Why is he saying this about me? So it's like this whole process of like validating whether it means anything or not. Yeah, well, number one, you're kind of embarrassed of yourself that you even did the click to even check it. Because I do the same thing. I'm like, oh, zero post. This wasn't even a real person.

Right. I had to talk to my wife about that. I'm like, hey, sweetie, just so you know, every now and they click on some of these things and see how many of them are most likely fake. But then on the flip side, when it is a real person, I mean, it's kind of what we talked about too. It's like, man, I feel like I try to do things right. Why don't you like me? Exactly. It's like if, let's just say you're a mixed martial arts fan and like, I'm not saying I'm the cat's meow or I'm, but I'm like, I check all the boxes of the guy that you probably would like to like watch fight, you know, I fight pretty hard. I'm kind of entertaining. Like I don't, you know, so then you're like, then you start scratch your head. But then all of a sudden you catch yourself like, wait, who is this? Joe from Joe from freaking Bikipsey, Mississippi. I were ever going to meet him in my life. Like, you know, then you kind of get embarrassed to yourself a little bit like, gosh, dang, dude. How should mean anything.

How shattered is your ego right now about this person you'll never meet? I know. That's what I think that's what we were talking about with the community and letting people have a say that don't really deserve it. But it's so hard. And it's like I don't want to talk about that that's negative because the positives part is that that's a big reason why we've connected or like I've connected with a lot of people.

So there's a lot of blessings with social media because it has expanded our world and allowed like-minded people to connect. and become friends. So it's like, yeah, there's negative, but there's a lot of positive too. It's just the key is just making sure you're assigning the right weight to all of it.

Yeah, well, if anything, I guess if anything, it really does give you an opportunity to really become more and more resilient with negative comments. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, like, you know,

you growing up however many years ago before there was social media, you never had to deal with all these other things. So it only happened within your small little community that we lived in. Now everything is expanded worldwide. So if anything, it's maybe given you more resilience and be like, well, you know what, if I'm able to just push that one off to the side, I can be a little bit more resilient in all these other areas of my life.

I don't know. I try to find a positive and everything. But it's still tough. It's definitely made me thicker skin for sure. I mean, now it's like it's really tough for somebody to say something that I'm going to care about. But yeah, it was hard at first, you know, but I think it's because that you said, start with that small circle where everybody knows you and so their words actually can sting you know because they know they know there's truth to something that they say there there might not be truth

to something some random stranger says so anyway it's definitely made me thicker skinned um so i was i had this this vision in my head or not this vision but a question i was going to ask if you're in your perfect fight do you like if you went out quick ko take no day take no day damage or do you like being in a war where you win? Oh, man. You know, these days I'm like, man, I've been, I've had enough, I've had enough wars, you know, like if, uh, I see, I see a lot of character on your face there, a little, a couple scars.

He's a guy, my face tells a story. Yeah. You know, uh, I would love to just be able to go in there and just knock a dude out real quick. Yeah. You know, I mean, get out of the out, collect my paycheck, kiss my wife go home to my boys. Like that's, yeah, that's ideal for me, you know, not be able to sleep that night because I'm so pumped up about the performance that I just put on and how everyone's buzzing.

And it's just, it's part of it. Yeah. So I would much rather just go in there and knock someone out. Yeah. It's just because even though, because as people have said that, man, you train 12 weeks to go out there and knock this dude out in 30 seconds. Do you feel like you wasted time? No.

I trained that hard so I could do that, you know. And it's much better than, you know, 15, 25 minute war, peeing blood afterwards and all that stuff. Yeah. you know yeah i mean i think if i think of myself not as a fighter but just as whatever to me i don't know why but maybe it's my ego i do like being banged up like i'll do a race i like hurt my feet are kind of torn up there's some part yeah sucks could hurt but there's some there's a badge of honor a little bit in the damage so it was like the reason why i asked that because i was wondering i mean having a black eye and cuts and you know your ears all messed up and you know you're

It's like it's kind of cool a little bit also, isn't it? No, it is. Well, it's like we said this morning. I woke up and you're like, hey, how are you feeling? I'm like, well, you know, my knees are a little bit sore. ankles are a little sore from the run yesterday. But it's like the gooos, you know, sometimes you bleed just to know you're alive. Right.

And I think we don't, you know, we don't push ourselves enough as human beings today in society. I mean, I wonder how many people out there haven't even been sore. Yeah. broke a sweat or gone through something where they're like, man, I worked, you know, worked so hard. It wasn't like I banged my knee on a coffee table, like a, yeah, an actual like, hey, the result of the workload that I put in resulted in me feeling this way. Yeah. There's a lot of people that never have felt that in a long time, you know, since high school football and they're like 50 years, 50 years old. Yeah. Like, dang man, I need to do something. But so I think

there is this, there is this, you know, we talked last night on our run to one of my favorite books of all time was John Eldra's wild at heart. And every man, it's a book about how God design a man's heart. And every man needs a battle to fight, an adventure to have, and a beauty to win. And these days, the battles to fight are far and few between. The adventures that we have are far and few between. And obviously the beauty to win is, you know, finding the woman of your dreams. But the battle to fight and the adventure to have are far and few between. for men and just human beings in general. And, you know, a guy like you, you're basically going on a, having a battle to fight every

time you run a marathon or every time you run Mount Piscay or having an adventure because even though you're running the same trails, it's an, it's an adventure every single time. There's something different every single time, whether it's the way it's yourself. Yeah. You know, and that's not to your horn or my horn. Like that's the other thing too is it could be anything, you know, just as long as you're, you're just changing up the everyday mundane part of life because that's what people complain about. Every day is the same and Groundhogs Day.

Yeah. It's like, well, the world is your oyster. Yeah. You know? Right. And especially if I'm sure a lot of your viewers are American, you live in the greatest country on the planet and it's a free country and you can literally do whatever you want. Yeah.

Aside from breaking the law. You know, you can do anything that's legal. You can do whatever you want. Yeah. You know? Yeah. That's true. So I guess it'd be like, so maybe.

maybe a little damage. Not like I'll bust it up where you got to wear the mask and for the kids. Like I've seen that before too. The way I look at it is like I've wanted to be attacked by a bear, not killed,

but like just a cool scar here. So it's like we just want a little bit, a little bit of bang up, little sacrifice shown, but not too much. Don't take my arm off, please. No, I like, I like that. Yeah, I think a first round,

I think a first round quick knockout, but like maybe like a little black eye. Yeah. That tells a story. There you go. Like I was in a fight. Well, you have that iconic photo, too. I think it was after a Bellator fight where the blood's coming down.

That was cool. That's a badass picture. Yeah, I mean, you know, a picture like that. We're just like, okay. Yeah, I can live with that. I live to fight another day, but I got a cool little blood scar, you know, or blood, blood photo. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know when I look at you, do you seem like the prototypical fighter?

I mean, just when you think of MMA these days, if you put up Michael Chandler, it's like, that's a fighter. And it's like, it's pretty cool, I think. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I try to be. Well, you do a great job. I mean, you're always putting on a show. So I want to end up this because we did get out there and shoot a few arrows yesterday.

And I saw a few questions come in from people. They want to know about bow hunting. Okay. Yeah. So what's your thoughts on do you ever see yourself bow hunting? I do. Yeah. I think, I mean, I, you know, as we talked about, you said, hey, do you hunt?

and I've been a wrestler since I was 14 years old and now I fought in the in the wintertime the last 14 years and I also travel away from my family to go to my training camps sorry so the last thing I'm going to do is be like hey sweetie I'm going to go on this five-day hunting trip so yes I I'm excited for post-fighting career definitely bow hunting definitely you know gun hunting possibly probably Probably actually, but shooting the bow yesterday was awesome.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, when you got the best teacher in the world, and you're like, there's a little bit of extra confidence that you get. I'm sure when I go shoot by myself, I'm like, dang it. I can't even hit this thing in 20 yards, let alone 74. You got to remember Wayne's hand. Remember the release hand? The release hand.

I know. That one picture that Rihanna showed us that one picture. I'm like, don't show that to Wayne. Yeah. Yeah. No, Wayne. But I definitely would love to bow hunt. We went and got Chandler dialed in at the bow rack.

set up is a brand new keep hammer and bow and he's just wayne's just taught thousands and thousands of people how to shoot a bow so he's going through all the techniques with uh with uh michael on how to do it right and that's a key part of actually i think it's a key part to why you shot so well yesterday is because you had the basics set up it's just like fighting or anything else once you learn the basics then you can build on those but the basics have to be a solid foundation and so with wayne you know that foundation is going to be solid however it is still a learning process and there's so much to keep track of between the bubble and the anchor points and the release hand and the bow hand even you know wayne put that the allen wrench in your hand to show

where that handle the bow handle needs to go and sit there a lot to keep track of and chanler had his hands curled up on the you know the trigger finger on but then the other ones and way he's like no keep the all four of those fingers together it's like a lever anyway well when it was good to because i haven't shot up shot a bow in a while So it was good to kind of start over with the foundation. You know, the one, two, three, four. Yeah. Simple things that are very important.

Instead of me going out, you know, if you send me the bow and I'm like, okay, I want to go shoot it. I'll shoot it for a couple days by myself. And then I have to unlearn the bad technique that I've probably created over the last, you know, a couple times that I shot. Because ultimately I would probably shoot a couple good shots. I'm like, okay, so I'm pretty good at this. But then I come over here.

And he's like, okay, you're doing this. this and this wrong. Right. Those are pretty important things. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's another big part of what I want to do here is just sharing archery and what it means to me with my guests. And, you know, going down to the bow rack, which is, you know, where I learned to shoot a bow.

And then getting out there and getting a good visual, putting that balloon on the target way out there and watching that arrow fly. Oh, so cool. Yeah, it's so fun. It's just such a powerful visual that watching that balloon. pop after a long shot. It's pretty fun. I know. Yeah. I watched the video about 25 times. I'm like, it's so cool. It was so funny too. I showed my wife and she goes, oh my gosh, your face. Like she could see the exuberance on my face. I was like, you know, and I think even my, my caption was like,

whenever Cam Haynes says you can, you can pop that balloon at 74 yards, you believe it. Yeah. Because I was like, I think I might actually do this, but I didn't really believe I was, I thought it might take like eight shots to do it. I'm like, holy cow. Nailed it. It was like, you know it was of course we had practiced before that before we put the balloon up that we were we were kind of getting dialed in yeah i didn't make sure we're in the area because because what we set up the bow yesterday or the day before at the bow rack was we shot out to 20 yards so once you take that out you know four times that distance just got to make sure everything's still working like it's supposed to and it was and that bow shot shot great but it's because you were making perfect releases and it was so accurate even after the balloon popped i mean we didn't that a few times but then you kept shooting and making great shots and in the lung area of the big horn target at long distance time after time it's very impressive that's pretty cool no it was

and once again just trying new things trying new things with people that you know are good at those things ultimately brings your level of awareness your level of ability up it's kind of it's kind of crazy you know almost like this weird supernatural thing you know because if I was out there by myself there is no confidence with the you know the cues that you were given me and and even me also haven't watched you shoot on that range a thousand times yeah social media you know so it was cool it was so fun man oh it was great because i mean i don't there's a lot of long time archers that if you put that target out there at 74 yards they would miss it multiple times i mean it's a long shot it's not not easy so i mean for you to build a master that as quickly as you did was i mean it's a

Good Testament to I guess your hand-eye coordination, your ability, but also you're, I think following instruction is a key part of learning any new task. Yeah. And having, you know, like Wayne as the right teacher, definitely made a difference. Yeah, it's kind of how I've made my living the last, you know, since I was 14. It's like, hey, you're the coach, you're the expert. Yeah. You tell me what to do and I will, you know, I'll do it. You know, I'll trust you. You know, if you say run through that wall, I'll run through the wall. It's probably going to hurt. I probably know it's going to hurt, but I'll run through the wall if you want me to, you know, so. Yeah. It worked out well, the balloon popped.

Yeah. Oh, I loved it. Well, Michael, one way that I'm going to end each podcast, because it's such a huge part of my life, but this is how we're going to do it. I'm going to give you your keep hammering bow. Oh, my goodness. And welcome you to the Bowhunting Brotherhood. This is amazing, dude. Let's go.

Yeah. It's beautiful, by the way. Absolutely beautiful. Oh, that origin camo's looking sick. Origin camo. Yeah. The old fast daddy spot hog.

Yeah. It's so funny. To all of us and the millions of listeners that you have, too, it's like, they know all these, all these little things, the release you use, the products you use. Yeah. It's so awesome. You mentioned the release. Yeah.

I mean, the wise guy. Yeah, that was funny. But yeah, so that's your very own. Keep Hammer and Hoyt. And now that's the biggest part. Now we just need to make the hunt happen. let's go. I try to get you,

hey, let's go tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. I know there's nothing in season right now, but let's just go walk around the woods with our bows. I know the bulls don't have antlers right now, but... I don't want to feel like a man. Yeah, we did talk about that too, how they lose their antlers every year.

So, yeah, it would be tougher to find a big bull right this time of year. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. This is an honor. Oh, likewise. Let's talk about optics. Loophold is the optic manufacturer I use and trust. And loophole knows that when it comes to performance in the field, trust is earned.

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