Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 384: Spencer Miller

Episode Date: May 24, 2020

Spencer Miller, actor and inspirational/motivational speaker who has worked with Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana, and George St-Pierre, joins the DTFH! You can learn more about Spencer at the Premiere Speakers Bureau, or follow him on Twitter and Facebook. This episode is brought to you by: Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site. Feals - Visit feals.com/duncan and get 50% off and FREE shipping on your first order. BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping. 

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Thank you for tuning in. I had some kind of epiphany today, or was it yesterday? I can't really remember. I think I was just in one of those pandemic-style, claustrophobic moments, this kind of teetering at the edge of some confusing panic that doesn't make any sense, because it's not like I'm starving to death or anything. In fact, quite the opposite.

I'm puffing up, because I've been shoving vodka and bread down my throat. Like I'm some kind of Russian farmer. But still, it happens. Maybe that's what makes it even that much more weird, is that all of a sudden I just feel this dark teetering sensation, a kind of flailing feeling.

It reminds me of drowning a little bit. I don't know if any of you all out there have ever had any encounters with drowning or coming close to drowning. I've had a few. One of them when I was a little boy and my parents gave me those floaty things, which by the way, I'm finding out now,

you're not supposed to really put that on your kid, because it teaches them that when they get in the water, they can swim when they can't. And so a kid who's gotten used to floaties will drown, because I'll just go fearlessly running into the pool or whatever, and they'll think that they're gonna float and they just sink right to the bottom of the fucking pool. Better to teach them how to swim

than use some kind of artificial inflatable arm rafts, even though I think they're adorable. And when I was a kid, I kind of liked them, though I think I knew that my life depended on the floaties. And this kid just swam up. It's like he'd figured out something you could do with toddlers floating in the pool. This terroristic little bastard came swimming up to me

and pulled the fucking, like the inflator out of my floaty. Just uncorked the thing, so I'm sitting there listening to the air hiss out of my floaty. He swam away. I mean, this is like probably by now, the kid's got a serial killer name and has probably murdered hundreds of people.

It could have been, who the fuck knows it? It could have been the Green River Killer, for all I know, as a kid. But the point is, this son of a bitch deflated my damn floaties and I started sinking and my mom had to come in the pool and pull me out. I could have drowned. That could have been the end of it all,

but thank God I survived. But I still remember that moment of panic, like that sense of just having no control over yourself as you sink into an area where you can't breathe anymore. Another time I had this experience was just when I was in Hawaii. I think I just swam out too far and got stuck in a, I don't know what you call, I don't think it was a riptide

because I think a riptide actually pulls you out into the sea. Whereas this is just some kind of current, but I realized that I was essentially treading water, even though I was exerting all of my energy to try to swim towards the beach. And it went from being like, wow, this is kind of fascinating.

I'm stuck in the water here. I can't seem to get back to the beach to like, I'm getting really fucking tired. My legs are cramping up to like, I think I'm gonna have to start waving for help cause I don't know if I can get back. And then of course that's the place where your ego starts saying like,

really you're gonna be that guy? You're gonna be the 40 year old hairy dude with fucking love handles. It has to get pulled to shore by some like svelte fucking lifeguard who's for sure on the swim back, gonna shame your ass for getting into some kind of riptide, which he's gonna have a Hawaiian name for.

And he's gonna tell you some obvious way to avoid it and you're gonna feel dumb. And then your girlfriend's gonna see you out there like trembling in fear and like scared and you're gonna have to be like, yeah, I'm just weak. I'm a weak, flabby thing. But then it went from that to like the beginning of panic. And somehow, obviously, I guess I swam back to the beach.

Either that or I drowned and this whole thing is probably the last few moments of my life on the planet, regardless as far as my current reality goes, it seems like I was able to get back to the beach. And both of those experiences kind of remind me of this thing that has happened to me a few times during the pandemic, a sort of claustrophobic, suffocating sense of being trapped in a kind of very least

and incredibly annoying part of fucking history. You know, this is just annoying to put it mildly, you know? And I don't mean to be like, oh my God, I'm being inconvenienced by global fucking pandemic because you get shamed for saying shit like that. But I don't know another word for it. It's fucking inconvenient, all right? And also, it's okay to not want things to be like this.

You know, we don't have to be all like whatever, stoic or whatever about this shit. Or we don't have to be all like, you know, optimistic all the time about this shit. Let's face it, it sucks. It's annoying. I mean, it's weird and it's like dark and it feels like some like clowns pissed all over,

wool blankets, put them in the refrigerator for a little bit and then wrapped you up and clown pissed soaked blankets. That's basically what the feeling was. And then this is when my big realization hit. I realized that the reason that I was feeling like this was because I have been gorging on the news, gorging myself on everything.

I go for, I run the whole spectrum. First, I'll start at, what's her name, Maddow. And then, you know, I'll take in her and it's funny to me because she's like scolds the states. So she like has this hilarious and really like passive aggressive weird way. It reminds me like a mom who's at the end of a rope with her teenager, but she's like not,

she's wanting to like guilt trip her or him into like being a better kid. It's like Maddow's doing that with whatever states have decided to open up sooner than they were fucking supposed to open up. And so she literally says things like, way to go, Georgia, way to go. She's so bizarre to hear someone scold a state.

So I, and then what I'll do is I'll jump from Maddow, you know, to head over to CNN, you know, see whatever they're saying over there, which is, you know, definitely like every, you know, they're fucking pissed at Trump. And then I'll take a dive over to Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity, who are there fucking pissed at China. And they're like, the whole thing is,

mind bogglingly confusing in the sense that you're seeing like data sets that maybe are identical, but are being interpreted in different ways, or you're seeing completely different data sets that seem to point to completely different possibilities. And I think the feeling that I've been getting could be compared to the time that I was stupid enough to get like mildly addicted to Taco Bell.

I look back on that part of my life and I consider it to be darker than the times I've been addicted to painkillers. Like there was a pretty romantically wonderful self-destructive time. I would not recommend this to anybody. I got really lucky because I didn't get physically addicted and didn't have to go through the fucking living hell

that many of my friends out there have gotten addicted and opioids have gone through and some of them are still in. I think I was teetering on the edge of it though, man, but like, yeah, I was like all brokenhearted, relationship had ended and I would drive around Echo Park and my mini Cooper listening to Elliot Smith eating fucking Vicodin.

Ugh, God, I'll constipate it and shit and just imagining myself to be some kind of like, I don't know, romantic existential like archetype or something where really I wasn't able to take shit and I was really uncomfortable, imploded and pretty numb and also teetering on the edge of so kind of physical addiction to painkillers. That being said, that was way cooler

than when I was going to Taco Bell like every other day, if not every day and getting this like quesadilla thing and eating it and like over time, I started to experience this cumulative effect from having in my diet Taco Bell on a daily basis. This was by the way, pretesticular cancer. I was also slurping back big massive gulps, whatever they're called.

I don't know what the Taco Bell name for it is. Maybe we should look up a Taco Bell menu here. Let's see what they call their drinks. You know, some places name their drinks weird things like gulps or smashes or splatters or let's see the menu here. And of course back down, you know why I'm looking this up. I'm just curious to see if they have like special names

for their drinks. No, they don't. Just fucking Pepsi, you know, unsweetened tea. That's a let down. I was hoping they were calling them like slammers but regardless, I was like eating this shit and like, you know, experiencing all the physical symptoms of that, I was starting to smell really bad.

Like, not that I smell great anyway, you know, especially these days, I do seem to have a very special stink hanging on me, but back then, man, I was really, really like, I just remember it was like a novel stink, like a new smell that was starting to ooze out of me, which was just my body trying to like eject as much of the Taco Bell quesadilla weird chips that I would get with a cheese out of me.

And so I started to smell really, really like industrial, I guess is the only way to put it. Like, probably if like the way like a mutant would smell, just a stink to me, like, you know, like the usual places that stink had a new stink to them. Didn't smell good. Of course, my breath didn't smell great. I attribute this time period also to when like,

I got my bald spot too. I mean, I'm not blaming Taco Bell for it. I'm blaming myself. But regardless, I think that if you're experiencing anything similar to that weird, dark, claustrophobic, kind of like freak out that I've been coming in contact with, then it might be that that is the psychic equivalent of the heartburn gastric situation

caused by eating too much fucking Taco Bell. Because the news, and listen, I'm not trying to be about Alex Jones here. I think the news does quite often cite data that is verifiably true. It's just the way that they're citing the data has whatever their particular political angle is and they editorialize.

And because they're saying something true, but from an editorial tone, then you can slowly start getting warped into whatever the particular version of the zeitgeist is that they want to illuminate. And so this long-term, the long-term effect of this shit right now, I think in particular is that you begin to get freaked the fuck out. I know I'm not like announcing some equals MC squared thing

here. My realizations are not that exciting these days, you know? But I did, suddenly I realized like, ah, fuck, you've just been on the news every day all day long. Like when I take breaks from working on the podcast, I go and I'll just turn on the news. Or at the end of the day, I'll turn on the news. Or even in the morning sometimes when I wake up

and don't want to get out of bed, I'll pull up the fucking news. And then really late at night, if I wake up in the middle of the night, one thing I've been doing is just diving into retic conspiracy. No offense to my friends over there. But Jesus Christ, this isn't exactly what you would call ingredients in a healthy mental salad, you know?

And so I'm not trying to be correct if you're man, if you're getting off on the news, I get it. It's in a fetishistic way. If you feel like just like raking your claws against the trembling back of your poor, psyche, go ahead and do it. I understand, but I will tell you this. I have not seen anything on the news that is actionable.

You know, there isn't really anything new there that they're saying. There's no reports I can find in there that are giving me any kind of marching orders or anything more than a general sense of low level despair related to this particular time in history that we find ourselves. So I'm trying to wrench my brain away from the news.

And I don't know if this is spiritual bypass or not, but I'm right now kicking around the idea that, well, maybe I can watch the news, but I just have to look at it as what it is, which is a kind of soap opera slash, you know, professional wrestling thing, where these like very charismatic people spew out some kind of infotainment

that the worst mistake you can make is to imagine that what they're saying has any kind of real value when it comes to your day to day existence. Unless they're telling you that like lizards have climbed out of cracks in the earth and are galloping towards your particular part of the planet, I don't think they've got much to offer us

other than their own weird snarky fucked up, you know, on stage persona, which is deeply entertaining. And on one level, incredibly hilarious. And it gets even funnier when you realize that they expect you to take them seriously. That's the part that is really, really hilarious to me is like they have to work themselves up. They're doing some kind of hardcore method acting.

They've got to be fucking pissed off to really deliver the kind of like news that people have gotten hooked on, you know? Like you can't have Sean Hannity all happy and you know, you can't have them come out and feel relaxed, you can't have Rachel Maddow, not like, you know, deeply insulted by the president. Like they've got to be really upset.

And then it conveys to you that if you're not feeling upset or angry or freaked out, maybe something's wrong with you, man. And then that I think is where they inject the poison into you. And I'm not saying they're nefarious people necessarily, it's just what they do, it's their job. I mean, what? You're going to get mad at like Alfred Hitchcock presents

every time he comes out. He's got to be kind of like dark and somber and silly or the way Alfred Hitchcock was. God, that's an old reference. What are you going to be mad at, a black mirror? There, see, I'm okay, kids. I watch somewhat modern things. You know, are you going to be mad

at the host of the fucking Twilight Zone? Srod Sterling, because every, like he seems like he's like, you know, been like snorting fucking rails of ketamine for the last few months before he does is Twilight Zone narratives, it's their job. You know, that's what they're supposed to be. And these fucking pundits are essentially like Rod Sterling slash Alfred Hitchcock,

like announcers who are presenting to you data sets that have been warped according whatever the particular agenda of their network and their networks perceived desire of its audience because they're selling fucking cars. We can't forget that. You can never forget that when you're watching the news that they're selling cars.

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your first order with free shipping, Fields.com slash Duncan. Friends, I truly hope it doesn't seem like I'm telling you the news isn't real. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm taking the hacky cliche angle that whatever you see that's being broadcast by the mainstream media is a false application of reality. I think the problem is a lot of it is real

but some of it isn't. That's not the news is fault. They take on the role of some kind of weird, ancient gatekeeper kind of thing that you can ask it questions but you know it's gonna tell you the lie and the truth simultaneously and then it's up to you to discern which is which

and that is exhausting work. When I go to Taco Bell, I'm excited because it means that I don't have to wait for that sweet quesadilla. I don't have to wait for the queso and the chips. I'm not gonna have to make it. It just they dish it out to me but also I know that there's some kind of price

for that instantaneous fulfillment that comes from it which is gonna look like horrific bowel movements, weight gain, puffiness, exhaustion, bad dreams and a thousand other fucked up results. Similarly, if you wanna go anywhere where you're getting the answers to your questions fed to you by somebody who already did all the work, who already did all the research,

who already looked at the facts or teams of people looked at the facts and then decided that they were gonna weave the facts together in a way that was their articulation of the truth. You can probably expect some part of you, the part of you that's rational, the part of you that understands the little too easy to have somebody in a suit and a costume

spraying what they think the truth is into your ears because you haven't done any work. I mean, you sat down and turned on the news and then if the idea is, this is something when I was at a Ram Dass retreat, I'll never forget Roshi Joan Halifax who was this incredible teacher, a Zen Roshi who was doing this amazing lecture

on the Zen Kowan, which is this infuriating method of inducing insecurity in people, putting you into a state of not knowing. The idea being all your knowingness is what's fucking you up. This is not to say that there's something wrong with the truth or that the truth is something

that is fucking you up, but it's just this thing where you think you know the answer. It's a mess. Anytime I get into that situation where I really feel like an expert and then you see somebody trying to do something that you've done a million times and then you might,

I've noticed that all of a sudden, I realized that in my quote teaching or whatever, because I think I know how to do a thing, I'm inhibiting their actual confrontation with a learning curve and that it's like letting them kind of figure out the pathway to truth on their own is way more beneficial

than to show them how I have done things. You know, I'm a new dad, so like that's the thing I have to deal with every single day. It's like finding that weird place between letting your kid flail and like not letting them flail too much or they'll hurt themselves.

So this is all I'm saying is there's something to be said for getting in there doing your own research a little bit about this stuff. Whatever it is, I'm not just talking about the pandemic. Let me give you an example. I was titillated by the recent news of a 6.5 earthquake, 6.3 earthquake, I'm not sure which, I think they upgraded it to a 6.5.

The news story was that this earthquake was happening in area 51. And had I not looked up where area 51 actually is versus where this earthquake happened, then when I would have thought for the rest of my life that an earthquake happened in area 51 and I would have naturally assumed that they were testing some kind of weird,

new destructive technology out there. When in fact, the earthquake didn't happen in area 51, it didn't even happen in the Air Force testing base. Now some people say, well, yeah, it's an underground base. It's underground nuclear explosions. Underneath area 51 is a massive underground bunker. I don't know. All I'm saying is, for those of you who've been saying

the earthquakes originated in area 51, and I don't blame you, it's an exciting idea that some scientists were fucking around with some UFO technology and screwed up and created some micro wormhole or something like that. But the sad truth is that earthquake happened on a fault line. And so it's probably just a goddamn earthquake.

It wasn't somebody touching the wrong wires together. It wasn't an alien barfing some kind of new form of plasma into our biome that caused like a higher density. I don't even know, I'm trying to make up a scientific explanation for, it's just an earthquake. But I wouldn't have known that if I didn't do the research. I think things might be a little more boring than we're comfortable with, unfortunately.

The stuff isn't quite as bad as some people are making it out to be. And this stuff isn't quite as good as some people are making it out to be. That it's just somewhere in the middle, kind of boring, not that exciting, other than the fact that we are made of matter and DNA, which is pretty miraculous.

But if that's what you're made of from the moment you open your eyes, it's a little on the boring side, isn't it? Well, anyway, maybe this rant is getting a little boring too. My point is I'm gonna do every single thing I can to pull the rusting needle that is the news from my information vein. And if I do find something disturbing on the news

or if they say something that seems too good to be true or more fucked up than could be imagined, I'm gonna research it and just make sure it's real. See how they interpreted it. And then, you know, form my own conclusions. And I'm sorry if this is some shit you might read on the side of a cereal box, but I'm naturally lazy. I like Taco Bell.

I just don't like the way it makes me stink. And similarly, this psychic contagion that seems to be happening based on whatever way you're getting your information. I think, you know, I'm definitely not gonna be coming up with a vaccine for COVID-19, but I think that I could do something about the fear infection that seems to be directly related

to not creating enough distance between me and the motherfucking news. Friends, we have got a fantastic podcast for you today. We're gonna jump right into it, but first, this. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. Whether you're deciding to create some boutique diner in Brooklyn called Spoon and Cup,

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It's just a cool place to be. So if you wanna really thrust yourself into the trembling, sweet, perfumed loins of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast, or if you wanna open your loins to the thrusting glory of the DTFH podcast, or if you wanna do both or neither and you just wanna hang out and take a walk,

what's this loin bullshit? Head over to patreon.com forward slash DTFH and subscribe. Also, we have a completely brand new shop with a beautiful selection of all kinds of incredible stuff, including mystical face masks. If you happen to live in a place where you're being told you have to wear the damn things. By the way, man, listen, one of the most liberating

experiences of my life was walking through an airport wearing a bandana Johnny Pemberton had given me and like there were free sneezers all over the fucking place and knowing that I was at least somewhat protected from the sick droplets of the free sneezers that used to plague our society prior to this pandemic. I don't know if you remember, but there were people in public,

they would just fucking sneeze. They would just sneeze. You know, we have cultural standards when it comes to farting, shitting yourself, pissing all over the place or vomiting in public for whatever reason, it was still okay to sneeze. And if there is some silver lining in this rotten pandemic, may it be that free sneezers feel shame

anytime they blow out their vile, viral poison into the world. Regardless, if you wanna find some really cool masks, you'll find them at the shop located at dunkintrustle.com. One of the many cool things about being a human being in this dimension is that you never know when you're gonna make a lifelong friend. And years and years and years ago,

when I used to feature for Joe Rogan, I would also, as part of getting to open up for him, get to get like Illuminati seats at the UFC, like insane seats at the UFC that nobody deserves. And during this time, I became friends with a lot of different people who are part of the UFC family and of all of them, the one that I continue to speak to to this day is today's guest.

He's an actor, he is a inspirational slash motivational speaker. He's worked with some of the great world leaders, athletes and celebrities from Princess Diana to George St. Pierre. I honestly think that he might be the leader of the Illuminati, I'm not even joking. It doesn't matter if he has cerebral palsy,

you don't notice it after two minutes hanging out with him only because he is such a powerful being. All the links you need to find them are gonna be at dunkintrustle.com and now everyone please open your hearts, your souls and send that cosmic astral light blasting through the ether sphere to come gushing down on top of today's Nobel guest.

Welcome to the DTFH Spencer Miller. No. All right, we're rolling. Spencer, welcome to the DTFH. My friend, Spencer. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Well, pleasure.

Do you think we could start off with you telling everybody how we met? Yes. We met at a UFC. Don't ask me what number it was because it was a long time ago, about 10 years ago almost, I would say. But I went to a lot of UFC's

because of my relationship with Frank and Lorenzo Ferdida, who owned the UFC at that time, along with Dana White and stuff like that. And for all of the fights, I sat right next to Joe Silva, who was the matchmaker, who also sits directly beside your good buddy and my buddy Joe Rogan.

And the former voice of the UFC at the time, Mike Goldberg. Yeah. Because of my manual wheelchair, and because we were cage side, I needed to be one of the first to show up every time so that they could set up the cameras and the lights around me and everything like that.

So once I was in my spot, I couldn't really move for like seven hours. So I was there and that's where I was. And yeah. So then when the main card started of this given UFC that I can't remember which one it was, this guy come walking over and sits with me, a guy named Frosty Rogan.

And we're all just sitting there chatting and it's you. And that's how we met. And within the first five minutes, we were busting each other's chops. Yeah. As we did today. Or I should say, I should clarify, I was busting your chops.

I think that's way more accurate. Correct. And that's- I saw you just, suddenly I looked over, you just started attacking you, but you looked over me and just started attacking me. Well, look at you.

I mean- Beautiful. That's what you're saying. You're saying, listen man, I feel really, I feel insecure to be around such a symmetrically beautiful human with a deep, powerful voice. I think at first you were wondering if I was a fighter.

I believe that was the first thing you said to me, is are you like an unannounced fighter? Either that or a ripoff version of Bob Bila. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Horrible. Why am I having you on this show? What are you doing? Because you needed to class it up for once.

Yeah, you're right. So, yeah, we just became friends in the UFC. How did you end up meeting those guys? Like how did you become friends with the owners of the UFC? So, in late 2009, beginning of 2010, I knew Tom Wright, who was the incoming president of UFC Canada.

And I went to his Welcome Introductory Press Conference, which was held here in Toronto. And Lorenzo was there and Dana was there, and we just all started talking. And one thing led to another. And bang, like I do with everybody, I'm an intoxicating encapsulating figure, if you will. And one thing led to another, and we became fast friends.

And that maintained all the way through. And I also have done some work with one of the greatest fighters of all time, George St. Pierre, who is a fellow Canadian as well. So I've done a lot of motivational work with him, preparing him for some fights and different things like that. And then it also branched off to other fighters as well throughout the years.

And so that's how that started. Do you think of yourself as a motivational speaker? Like, if you had to write that on a description, would you write that down? I think of myself as a jack of all trades, or jogging. But I'm a motivational speaker and an actor and just somebody who wants to make an impact and make a difference in people's lives.

And that's always been my motivation and inspiration to do the best that I can with whatever it is that I'm given in front of me. What is a motivational session with one of the great fighters of all time look like? Like, what kind of stuff would you say to him? A lot better than a motivational session with you, I can tell you that.

What the fuck, man? Yes. What kind of motivational speaker are you? Right now you seem like a demotivational speaker. Correct. It really just depends on the mood of the fight or what is writing on the fight with somebody like a George St. Pierre

because he was always either in the title picture or defending his title, which he did a long time. You just gotta get in that championship mindset. Yeah. But every fight took on a different attitude. For instance, UFC 124 in Montreal was one of the most hostile crowds that I have ever been in front of

because it is coming off of a season that George coached of the Ultimate Fighter reality series at the time with his opponent, Josh Koshchak and the amount of trash shock that came out of Josh Koshchak leading up to that fight, the hometown crowd in Montreal wanted to legit kill him. And I wanted to legit kill him on behalf of George too. So, you know, going into a fight like that,

you need to sort of calm yourself down and refocus on what you're actually there to do as opposed to getting caught up in the emotion of it all. Yeah. How much does that trash talk and get to a fighter? So that it actually eats people up a little bit, huh? That's a legitimate tactic if you're preparing for a fight. Certain people, yes.

It never affected, well, I shouldn't say it never affected George, but it never affected George deeply. George had an innate ability to take the trash talk and legitimately utilize it towards the fight. He took his fighting ability and the fact that he was always adapting and always enhancing his training to stay on top and put that into once he steps foot

in front of the cage, all his trash talk come through in his kicks and his punches as opposed to verbally pour the fight. Right. Yeah. It seems like there's almost like two schools of thought when it comes to trash talk, you see certain fighters who just remind me of, you know,

these are like people who've won the Olympics and there isn't really any much emotion that they, they're not emoting a lot. They just are pure professionals. They're really, they're not putting on a show like, like, you know, WW, worldwide wrestling or whatever. You call it, you know, they're not like doing that. They're just fighting.

It's like watching shot put or something. There's almost a sterility to it. It seems that's weird. Whereas you get people, you know, the other school of thought is I'm also an entertainer. I'm a performer. I'm going to try to sell tickets to this thing. And to do that, I feel like I need to create a real feud

with my opponent because it's going to make the fight that much more exciting. Yeah. And the two greatest examples to me of, of that end of the equation are Chale Sonnen. When he was going up against Anderson Silva, it was some unbelievable trash talk and helped sell the fight,

even though Anderson was still at the top of his game at the time. And then in recent years, nobody has done it better than Connor McGregor. Yeah. That guy is the quintessential showman and ability to sell, you know, water to whoever. Fish, water to water molecules.

But he's also, but he seems authentically deranged. Like, you know, this isn't method acting. He's like throwing chairs at buses and shit. The guy is like legitimately scared, right? Or not. You know, you know, here's the thing. Success does a lot to people and has different sides of the coin for everybody.

You know, going back to George St. Pierre for a second, he had unbelievable success for the vast majority of his career and still maintained being that level headed guy that was still the same guy. Whereas you have the showman in Connor McGregor who came from a Poverished situation in Ireland got all this success,

realizing he needed to build a character around it was very successful in building a character around it. But in doing so, I believe his character has now taken over his fighting ability. Yeah. Yes, he will still draw, but he cares about the show more than the actual fight. Right. I mean, this to me, you just summed up

one of the great sand traps that any performer can find themselves stuck in, whether it's comedy, music, I don't care what it is, that you'll find yourself falling into the role of this character that you're putting out into the world. And some people get stuck in that role forever. They can't, you know, they're afraid to experiment with a new style, a new way of being.

And it doesn't just apply to art either, right? I mean, we're talking a person's life. In your own life, you could start playing a character and not even realize that's what you're doing. You just think it's who you are. And then you're afraid to change because of that. You and I, we have the good fortune of doing what we do and being in entertainment and doing the things that we do.

But what comes with that is, at least for me, it's hard to be able to just be spence, if that makes any sense. Yeah. You know, I can be myself with you, for instance, because we've been friends for a long time and you get it and I get it and whatever. And there's a handful of other people

that I can do that with. But the vast majority of the time when I go out, whether it's to a restaurant, to the grocery store, whatever the case may be, people are expecting, you know, spence the guy on TV or spence the motivational speaker. And I get that and I appreciate that. That comes with the territory that I chose to take on

when getting into this business in the first place. But you definitely see the fact that you need to be on more than you don't a lot of the time. Yeah, it's just, I mean, I think there's different types of people who end up in our line of work. I wouldn't consider myself a motivational speaker though, but I think that like in your line of work, there all of a sudden there seems to be like

this added pressure when it comes to putting on this benevolent positivity, this kind of whatever the particular thing that you're teaching people, you know, because a motivational speaker, it's not like you're really, it's more than that. It's, you know, how would you define what you do? It's just one part of who I am. Yeah.

But it never stays the same because my clients aren't all defined in the same box. If I was doing a motivational speech for Duncan, before Duncan goes out there to do a half hour set of a special or whatever, I would be approaching that vastly different than if I was meeting up with Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels before a big baseball game type thing.

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That's B-L-U-E C-H-E-W.com promo code, Duncan, to try for free. You just pay $5 shipping. Now back to the podcast. Do you have a nucleus or like a kind of touchstone idea that informs your method of coaching people or working with people? At the end of the day, like my whole thing is,

you know, I like to inject humor and make it light and make it fun. Well, at the same time, hammering home those principle points, whatever they happen to need to be with that client at that time, while also intertwining some of my own story of overcoming obstacles and overcoming the fact that I've been in a wheelchair my whole life or that type of thing, you know?

Let's jump into that part because I think that, you know, this, I'll tell you, my encounter with you has really been transformative in the sense that it's forced me to look at my preconceived notions about people who are in wheelchairs. And for example, you know, I think I told you about this. This is something one of my teachers, Ramdas, taught me,

which is I went to one of these retreats with him and this is a person who's had a stroke. He's in a wheelchair. He, you know, he's an elderly person and he's somebody who, you know, you look at pictures of him when he was younger and he's got this like, almost Jesus quality. And suddenly here's a body in a wheelchair

and I remember I was looking at him and I didn't even realize I was doing it, but he looked at me and he said, but he said it kind of to the whole group of people. It was a small group, but he's like, don't look at me like you feel sorry for me. Don't, you're putting all of your own stuff on top of me. I'm doing fine, but this is not my body is what he said.

You're looking at me like this is all that I am is this thing that's in a wheelchair, this body in a wheelchair. And don't look at the thing that you're in either. It's just a temporary vehicle that you're in. But I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit. Do you get, did I do that to you initially? Do you get people looking at you in an uncomfortable way

or do you have to, do you find yourself having to like cross people's expectations in some way? At least once a week still to this day in 2020, I get people, whether it's on the sidewalk or in a grocery store or in the pharmacy or wherever the, once a week, once every couple of weeks, I get people who come up to me still and they're like, hi, how are you?

Can I get that for you? And start talking to me really slow and like I'm five years old and I want them. And I'm like, come on, take five seconds to talk to me, realize what this scenario is and then judge how to approach the situation. Don't go into it blind and automatically think that I'm an absolute idiot.

And I have to deal with that a lot. You know, but I laugh it off at this point and to be perfectly honest with you, if it happens to be an extremely attractive woman who does it to me, my response is always the same. My response is, I'm fine, thank you very much. Would you mind leaning down a little further so I can look directly down your shirt?

Good God. Hey, but do you get, let me, this, okay. When I, okay, when I get testicular cancer and I got one of my balls snipped off, and then, you know, obviously there's no real, it's vaguely related to the experience of being, it's not even related to the challenges you've dealt with physically in your whole life.

But just as like someone who's like privileged with, you know, not being in a wheelchair, I guess you could say, I was born in a body where my legs and my, I can walk around. So suddenly that was yanked out from under me. And not just that, but the- Literally yanked, by the way, quite literally yanked.

Quite, yeah, I hopefully gently pulled out of the cut they made in my abdomen that they pulled my decaying testicle out of. I would have, I hope he didn't yank it, but I don't know, I was completely out. But suddenly, like I've, man, I like, you know, up until that point, I'd had injuries and stuff, but usually there were injuries you could sort of push through.

You know, there's, you could exert yourself a little bit and push through. But I remember suddenly realizing like, I've got to be able to park in fucking handicap spots because I can't walk. Like, and it's hard for me to get out of my car, like pulling out of the car. At one point I was realizing like,

I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of the car. Cause if my legs weren't working right, my body was in so much pain, it wasn't working right, man. And like, that was a big moment for me. But I'm going to be honest with you, man. I didn't, when, like I realized there was someone parking in the, cause I had like a temporary handicap thing. And when I realized there was someone parking

in the handicap spot, there was a handicap. And then because of that, I was literally probably not going to be able to go and get food. Cause I didn't know if I could walk that far. Cause I was, I remember feeling rage, like, furious rage. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Did you, you said these days I laugh at it, but was there a time when you felt bitter or angry or like?

If I'm sorry to cut you off. No, please, thank you. If I'm being completely honest with you, you know, it just, it is my life and did I get frustrated? Absolutely. I did at certain points when I was younger and different things like that. But it goes back to that Kelly Clarkson song,

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But to be honest with you, you were talking about rage earlier and the fact that you felt rage sometimes in those situations, two things. Number one, that is one of my biggest pet peeves still to this day is if I go to the airport or, or, you know, to the train station or whatever they get. And I see people parked in the handicapped spot

that clearly don't need to use it. I literally put my head out the window and I'm like, hey, motherfucker, you know, I'm actually handicapped. I have a legit chair in the back. I need it because of XYZ and F and you're just parking there for convenience and because you want to be lazy.

So, so that still is one of my pet peeves today. With regards to rage, and I've never talked to you about this until right now, with regards to rage, about, about 16, 17 years ago, I went to bed one night and woke up the next morning. And ever since then, I have been allergic, slash intolerant to like 98% of foods and drink. And since then, I've seen, you know,

numerous naturopaths, numerous gastroenterologists, people that are supposedly at the top of their given fields. And I've had everyoscopy you could think of, everything stuck everywhere that it needs stuck to try and figure it out and nobody can figure it out. And as awesome as I am, I still believe that I don't defy medical logic. And yet here I am a decade and a half plus later

and I'm still dealing with that every day. So to be honest with you, the fact that I'm in my wheelchair is minuscule because I think about that for 0.2 seconds of any given day because it is my life and you know, I do very well for myself, but the most quote unquote handicapping thing for me has been the fact that I haven't been able to quote unquote,

live my normal life for a decade and a half because of whatever reason. And to put it in even more perspective for the people watching slash listening to this, and again, you didn't know this and not a lot of people at the UFC knew this until right now, but anytime that I would travel to Vegas, Houston, anywhere in the world

where we were doing a big fight, I legitimately had to go two and a half days or three days sometimes without eating. What? What? And just drinking water and stuff like that. So nobody knew that, but I had to train my body to do that because in the States,

they do things different from state to state as far as food prep and things like that. And I didn't want to worry about cross contamination or have to worry about an unnecessary flare up during a fight when I am supposed to be there doing what I'm doing. So I legit had to go two and a half, three days without eating

and just relying on ginger ale of all things. And water. So that was very difficult for me, but... I think that's a testament to how much you love the UFC. I mean, you're like a real sports fan. Mike, you are deeply, not just that. I mean, you're like in that community. Correct. Correct.

I have a huge love for anything that it is that I do and anybody that I work with, you know, whether it's the UFC and the wonderful opportunities that they gave me or working with George St. Pierre and those opportunities. George jokingly calls me the Terminator because all the stuff that I have to deal with.

Or, you know, you and I talk about this as well from the acting perspective side of things. You know, Kiefer Sutherland has been great to me when I worked with him on the show Designated Survivor because I would have to show up on set and go 17 hours again with no eating and things like that and trying to remember your dialogue at the end of a 17 hour day without food

and stuff like that is remarkably difficult. Yeah. Wow, man. Well, I think this is what puts you in the perfect position to do what you do. Because, you know, I think one of the things that, you know, every single person in their life encounters is a place where it feels like what you want is impossible to achieve.

That there is no way to get it. What you're, you know, whatever the reason may be. I've certainly been there before where I've thought, you know, that, you know, I had this sense like, oh, man, I really want to, I want to do comedy. I want to be a comedian. But I was bombing hard over and over and over and over

and I just started getting this feeling of like, I'll never get the amount of stage time I would need to get good at this at all. I might not be equipped to do it, you know, I might, and somewhere in there, you know, I made it work. But it was fucking hard, man. But I think you can really speak to how, I mean, really, you are giving people an example that anything's possible.

Like you're working with Kiefer Sutherland, you know, you're working with one of the great fighters on earth. And also you have, is it, I don't know what the, what, what there, this is something I keep hesitating. I feel embarrassed. Can I, what, what, what, what do I say? Do I say you are handicapped? Do I, what is the word for it?

I have cerebral palsy. That's the disability that I have. And every disability has different similarities. I'm lucky that on the scale of two and a half, do I need help with certain things throughout the course of the day? Yes, but everybody does. And, and so yeah.

And, and the thing about this, and you and I didn't talk about this prior to coming on here, is I don't talk about this stuff ever. Okay. So the fact that I'm talking about it with you, speaks to my respect for you and my respect that I have for our friendship, because I've always thought, you know, it's nobody's business really.

And, and, you know, I just go about my business and do my job. And only a few people know about it, like GSP, like, you know, my best friend who travels with me through a lot of my major things. His name is Sean. You met him at a couple of flights as well. He knew about it, obviously, because he knew how much

the difficulty I had to go through with not eating and whatever for that length of time. But up until now, the masses never really knew that that's what I deal with all the time. Well, we don't have to put it in the show. I appreciate you opening up about it, but if you feel like it's something you want to leave out, no problem, we'll cut it.

No, we're not going to cut it. We're going to keep it because it's informative for people and it opens people's eyes up. And, you know, because I always get people asking me why I never eat at restaurants. And so now anybody that watches this or listens to this will know that. And so if they see me not eating,

it's because I don't want to take a chance when I'm out because of cross-contamination and stuff like that. Wow. Yeah, man, that is so heavy. You know, my son has a peanut allergy that we're just starting to learn about right now. And it's, man, it is terrifying because we have to keep an epi-pin around all the time.

And like, you know, it's so scary because all it takes is one, we're still, you know, because of the damn pandemic, we've been talking to an allergist on the phone and stuff, but we still aren't really certain exactly what the thing is he's allergic to. So, and it's scary because just all of a sudden, you know, he'll get like a rash and he'll start coughing.

It is, and like, you know, at some point we might have to like plunge a needle into his arm. Are you having to do that like with an epi-pin? No, thank goodness. But, you know, for me, what sucks the most is this didn't happen to me when I was a kid. So I had the wonderful ability to eat and or drink whatever I wanted.

And then it was literally yanked out from under me for no apparent reason. So all my stuff that I enjoyed doing before, whether it's, you know, going through an event that I spoke at or whatever the case and having the occasional glass of wine or, you know, a nice beer or scotch or what, you know, I was never a heavy drinker to begin with,

but having a social drink in our business is somewhat mandatory in some circumstances. So to be able to do that, that was great. Some of the food that are at some of these things, as you know, are our common old common and then to have it yanked out from under me, it was a real, you know, pardon the pun, but it was a real handicapping feeling.

Yeah, man. Yeah, I get it. It's, I mean, that's such a huge part of just being, life is being able to like go out and eat. It's, you know, it's a ritual. It's a friendship ritual. But listen, I feel like I want to get in, like if you're giving an address to people,

what are you telling us? I want to get into like what your teaching is in particular, because I've known you as the guy who roasts me mercilessly at the UFC's, not as the motivational speaker. I've known you as the person who when we're FaceTiming during the UFC, you're taking shots at me with my wife right there, embarrassing me. So I want to talk about the motivational side.

Give me some of what you give people when you're on stage giving a presentation. Right, before we do that, you know, because we're talking about in-depth stuff right now, before we transition into my motivational message, one thing that I wanted to clear up and talk about just for a moment or two is a giant misconception that pisses me the fuck off

every single day of my life. Okay, and that is that people, a lot of people over the years have come to their own conclusion that because I'm in a wheelchair, I cannot date, you know, period, slash, quote unquote, able-bodied individuals and- Hey, you're not going to sleep with my wife.

If that's what you're getting at, it's not going to happen. You know, I wouldn't want to do that to Erin because she would never want to go back to the miners after going to the miners. But, you know, it is unbelievable to me the amount of preconceived notion that we'll still have today, you know, just because I'm in a wheelchair doesn't mean shit.

Like, if I'm attracted to somebody and whatever, that's fine. You know, one of the biggest pet peeves that I get is I consider myself to be an open book so you can ask me any question that you want, put it out there right at the beginning just so that we can clear it up and it's all out there and you understand what's going on.

So a lot of the time in a dating situation, you know, I can see in their face the wheels turning and them saying to themselves, how am I going to ask him if he can have sex or if he can have some what? So then I make a joke of it and I'm like, oh yeah, everything works fine, blah, blah. Just don't ask me to run around the bed

at any point, whatever. And after that, a lot of them look at me with that, like sideways, you know, dog from up, look on their face like he told me what I need to expect, but is it bullshit? Right. Why would I lie about my own capabilities, especially in that area?

Right. It would just be an insult to me and you. Right. Like, so the fact that I've had to deal with that, my whole life is just ridiculous. And it's also ridiculous because people look at me in a negative light because I don't want to date another person in a wheelchair.

Because I've had people ask me, do I want to date somebody who is also in a wheelchair? And my answer is always no. And they look at me like I'm the worst person in the world. And what I have to say in response to that is, it's all about preference. Some people don't like dating black people. Some people don't like dating Indian people.

Whatever the case may be, it's the same thing for me, just in the case of another wheelchair-bound individual because of logistics and because, you know, thinking about two-handed cat people trying to have sex, it'd be like two piranhas flailing on the ground. It wouldn't be a good situation. Two piranhas flailing on the ground. There's gotta be a better analogy.

Two piranhas flailing on the ground. That's not what I was thinking of. He's maybe like more like some kind of like car fender bender. I don't know what it would be, but two piranhas. Why two piranhas? I don't know. When have you ever even seen two piranhas flailing on the ground?

Okay, now I'm gonna roast you. That's a terrible analogy. Two piranhas flailing on the ground. You get my point. Yeah, I get your point, man. I think what you're saying is, you know, it's like just the purely like you need somebody for the thing to work.

The very least, if you're hooking up with someone else in a wheelchair, you're dealing with like many more extra steps in between humping, right? That's what you're doing. Or tread marks. Tread marks. Yeah, yeah, you're dealing with like, what? Wait, what do you mean?

Because you said extra steps. When it's too handicap people, there are no steps. So it would be tread marks, you know, tires. Gotcha. Okay, okay, I got you. Yeah, man. I mean, look, I think, listen, I think that that's really honest of you to like just say that.

And also I think, listen, for me, you know, before I was with Aaron, you know, or, you know, any time dating has always been hard for me. And like, if I had to add to dating somehow in the midst of a conversation over dinner or whatever, getting across them like, you know, I can, I can fuck. Like I'm capable of fucking. I just want to make sure, you know,

I don't have to say that's what's going to happen, but I can fuck. That's just an awkward moment, man. And they're, of course, they are thinking that too. Because like, you know, so, and yeah, I get it. How does it work for you? If like, where do you meet people? How often do you find yourself going on dates?

I mean, before the pandemic, none of us are going on dates right now. Well, you are with Aaron, because you guys are in close quarters. And I told Aaron this when we were watching you at C the other week, that she deserves her own version of a Purple Heart or metal.

Yes. Two piranhas flailing on the ground. To answer your question, you know, unfortunately, a lot of it has come to online dating and different things like that, which is a whole other horse of a different color because you never know if you're dealing with a bot

or like a real person, or if it's a guy posing it, you know. So all these things are going through your head. You hope for the best and things like that. And I will say that I've had quite the eclectic dating history updated everybody from, you know, business executives to strippers,

to the actresses, to you name it, I've done it. And without naming any names, there's been a couple of situations already where I know that I fucked up royally and looking back on it, I'm like, God damn it, if I did a couple of things differently, you know, maybe I'd still be with that person but hindsight is-

How do you fuck up? Just, you know, sometimes, you know, philosophies don't necessarily meet on certain things. And, you know, by the time you realize that you could have compromised on your philosophy and sort of met in the middle, the damn has been done and that's what it is.

Right. You could have, yeah, I see what you're saying. You're, yeah, I think you should beat yourself up too much, man. That's just part of growing as a person is like realizing you can be a little more flexible philosophically sometimes and your ego wants you to be.

Cause typically handicap people are not that flexible but whatever it's fine. I knew you were going, you know what? Honestly, I was sitting here trying to think of another word besides flexible because I knew you were going to do that. So I'm like spinning in my head like, what's another, like, I'm trying to go, I get it's like, fuck it,

I'll just do it. Yeah. Now, getting back to your initial question of what my message is that I give out to people. Is I'm only being proof that no matter what your situation is or what your circumstances are, if you believe in yourself and your abilities, you can accomplish anything because I had a lot of people

in school tell me that I should just give up and I would never amount to anything. And I very eloquently have told them to go fuck themselves and done my own thing and it's gotten me to where I am now. And it's allowed me to work with some of the great world leaders over the years, including Princess Diana and I got to work with Nelson Mandela and some other people.

And, you know, at the end of the day, we're all people. I think a lot of individuals today and in society today in general, forget that when you put everything aside, no matter what level of status you come from, what level of success you come from, at the end of the day, when you strip all of that away, we're all people.

We put our pants on one leg at a time and for those who can put their pants on, both legs at a time, that's where the true talent lies in my opinion. But, you know, as long as we never lose belief in ourselves or our abilities and surround ourselves with great core groups of people that have our back through everything and anything,

we can accomplish anything. And that's another thing, you know, that I like about us is that you are one of the few people that I can count on one hand, where it doesn't matter how long the period of time is between our conversations. When we get a chance to get on the phone, it's like we just talked five minutes ago.

And, you know, you have all different guests on your Dunkin' Trussell family hour here and I'm privileged to be a part of it now. But more importantly than that, I'm just proud to be an extended member of your family period. Likewise, and you are. I mean, we have a word for it in my community.

It's called the satsang. It's like a community that transcends a lifetime. And I love the idea. I don't care if people think I'm a woo woo hippie, but the concept is really quite beautiful, which is that, you know, we all, we keep hanging out together. Like whenever we reincarnate, we find each other, which is why when you run into members of your satsang,

the weirdness is that like when I met you, it was like, it's the exact same thing like the other day when you reached out and we talked again after all these years. It was like that, except we'd never talked. We still pick up the conversation, but in this case, when did we even start talking? We didn't.

So it's something from another life. And you've just, and you've probably been roasting me for many incarnations now, but I do believe that. And I love that feeling. And I think it's one of the real, it's a sign to me that if you're, when you're getting to, whenever people, whenever we find each other again,

it means you're doing something right, you know? And, you know, you were on my Instagram with me not too long ago, and we had an interview similar to this. And, you know, we don't have to go into too much depth of detail yet because we haven't ironed it out yet, but why don't you sort of explain a little bit of that idea that I had that I threw out at you

that got you really excited? Oh, we can't, here's the thing. Not gonna talk about that. Not because I wanted to be secret, but because should, and even though they can listen to your, but I'm not gonna do it, ma'am, only because it's the kind of thing where after, I'll tell you later, man.

That's the kind of thing I just wanna like, for a little bit, but, Did you wanna close so you can take that part out then? Oh, no, I don't want to take it out. It doesn't matter. But wait, man, I wanna talk, this is to me, the like high school fucking sucked, man, for me. I didn't like it, nobody fucking liked it.

It's brutal, but like to experience high school in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy and to literally have people telling, in some way or another. And I imagine, maybe you could tell me a little bit about this. I imagine it's not like people are actually coming to you and saying, give up, right?

Isn't it just more kind of like an implied give up and implied sense that whatever your expectations are for your life, they shouldn't be the same as a person who isn't in a wheelchair's expectations for their life. And the thing is, they stuck me with an assistant, obviously, to help write, cause I can't write without a computer and things like that.

But that assistant was literally over my shoulder all day, every day, instead of just taking notes and compelled to chime in when, didn't really need to chime in. And then I had special ed teachers coming up to me and saying, maybe you should do this work instead of that work. And I'm like, what do you think I'm not capable

of doing that work? And then they would backtrack in front of me and try and cover up their own ass. And it was funny to watch them try and do that because I always knew what I was capable of. And no- How do you know that? How did you know that?

Where did you get that from? Was it your parents? Was it some influence that gave you this spirit? Working with the people that I have worked with over the years, even from a young age, it made me grow up quick. And I had a handle on what I thought I could achieve. Obviously, was I still growing up and still a teenager?

Yeah, did I do some dumb shit? Absolutely, like we all did. But I always knew what I was capable of and I knew how smart I was because my goal would be to hold conversation and get the information the way that I retain information and give out information at the same time. You're really charismatic, man.

And you're also, you're just a powerful person. And this is something I think people who have that spirit inside of them and feel it, if you get around the wrong people, which is why I really appreciate what you're saying about that, if you get around the wrong people, they will attempt to suppress that part of you.

That part of you will make them uneasy. They don't like it. If you get around the wrong person and they sense that you have discovered that part of yourself that feels indomitable, that feels like it can't be encumbered by anything, and sometimes that is completely paradoxical to someone's life situation.

And it can be really make you feel crazy to have this feeling inside of you that you can burst past whatever your particular obstacles are. But if you get around the wrong people, they will try to put poor water on that thing. And some people, I'm afraid, let that happen. And then they end up becoming like human bonsai trees. They could have grown into this massive thing,

but they end up like in someone's little garden, there's a cute little thing. And we were talking about high school and things like that. I made it a mission of mine on the first day of high school, on the very first day of high school, to become friends with the senior football team. So I did, and that helped me not get picked on as much and different things like that,

because the senior football team was thought of as on this pedestal, as most senior football teams around the country are. And, but one thing is for sure, is that for my senior prom, I remember that everybody was like asking people out and different things like that. I didn't get that because, you know,

people were feeling sorry for the fact that I was in my wheelchair and I didn't want to have a date that was just with me out of pity. Right. Whatever, because that would ruin their prom experience too, until I met this one woman

who didn't go to our school. Her name was Jamie Short. And she was really nice and we hit it off. And she ended up being my date to my senior prom. And the funniest thing about that, it wasn't funny at the time, but it's funny in retrospect now. The funniest thing about that was,

it was at this big old converted train station that was now a banquet hall. So it had this big giant like gargoyle-like staircase in front of it. And then it had a wheelchair ramp on the side of it for me to go up. And then so Jamie goes up this huge gigantic staircase. I go around the side to go up the ramp

and meet her at the top. There's a group of guys standing at the top of the ramp drunk out of their minds. And I'm like, excuse me, guys, nothing, excuse me, guys, nothing. And then I'm like, fuck it, I'm gonna try and go around these guys. And as I try and go around these guys,

one of the drunk guys stumbles back and stumbles into my driving arm. And I end up tumbling down 14 stairs. Are you fucking kidding? Yeah, 14 stairs attached to my wheelchair, still my electric wheelchair. And it lands directly on top of me. So I'm halfway down the staircase now.

And it took three cops to pick me up with my chair and put me back to Miranda. And I felt so bad and whatever, because my date had just watched this happen and had just gotten there for my senior prom. So I went into total macho mode and the cops are like, hey, are you okay? Blah, blah.

I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm fine. And we go in and we have the senior prom and I'm dancing and things like that. And I get home and it was like one o'clock in the morning. And then I find out that I cracked three ribs and I couldn't move for like two weeks after that. I was gonna let some drunk idiots ruin my senior prom especially when this wonderful woman

saw me fall directly in front of her and was like, oh my God, my date has officially died. That's badass, that's badass, man. That's, you know what? That's broke, cracked ribs are one of the most painful fucking things. But you did it, that's badass. I would not, I mean, look, man,

just going to a fucking prom, that's like a cracked rib to me. I was on acid in the forest for my senior prom. I was like, fuck that. I'm just gonna go on the woods with my friends and get high as I can get. If you saw how attractive this Jamie was, you would do everything you could

to keep the promise. So cool, man. I don't know what I'm saying, wherever she happens to be. But that definitely seems to be kind of your, that's like your karmic momentum in this particular incarnation that you've taken on is you seem pretty unstoppable, man.

You're like not gonna let a bunch of drunk shitbags fuck up your prom. And that seems to be going a pattern that emerges through your whole life. This revelation about not being able to, like having to fast during UFC's seems to be another example of that. But do you ever worry that sometimes maybe

you can become a little imbalanced in your, as you put it, kind of machismo sensibility when it comes to approaching some of these challenges? You know, one of the things that kind of bothered me, I guess you could say about my father when he was very sick, is he didn't tell us how sick he was until very close to his passing. Because he didn't want us, he didn't want to burden us.

And I wish he had asked for help a little sooner or at least conveyed to us what he was going through sooner than he did. But he was, he felt like, you know, he had to like, he wanted to stay tough, it's up to the very end. I respect it. But do you feel like sometimes you're not maybe asking for help when you should be out of a sense of like,

wanting to be that person, the motivational speaker, wanting to be that heroic figure? Well, yeah, and there's an inherent sense of embarrassment for me too. And that happened a lot and has happened a lot in terms of, you know, whoever it is that I'm dating at the time, to sleep next to them, but then realize, hey, I may have to get up

in the middle of the night because of a flare up or whatever, you know, that always plays in the back of my mind. What do you mean a flare up? What does that look like? What do you mean? Meaning like, you know, if my stomach says to me in the middle of the night, hey, we gotta get up

when I, you know, to wake that person up and be like, hey, I know that you were just in the middle of a sound sleep, but, you know, do you mind helping me for five minutes? I think, and a lot of them were very accepting of it, but that still take away from my inherent, you know, sense of pride and embarrassment, you know. Yeah, it's always been there and it's still there.

Yeah, I imagine, that to me is like, gotta be a weird tightrope for you to, oh, damn it. You know, I was gonna say a tightrope walk and I'm sorry. That's gotta be a, you know, I caught myself before you caught me, but that's gotta be like, you know, finding balance there has gotta be a real challenge for you, man, because, yeah, you know, I get it. Like a lot of times, you know,

I end up not taking care of myself because of my ego, you know, and sometimes, but you're in a situation where you are going to need people to help you. That's just the way it is. Like, you know, all of us are, but for you, this is like the kind of thing where, you know, yeah, if you're sleeping with somebody, don't you think that they already understand

that they're gonna have to be there for you in certain ways that maybe are gonna be different from being with other people? No, 100%, and they were very understanding of that, but that doesn't take away my own thoughts and the fact that my voice in my head is going, you're being a fucking inconsiderate asshole, you know? So that's my own fight that I have in my head.

And, you know, I'm a very independent person by nature, you know, so I don't like asking for help. And so for the last decade and a half, while dealing with this unknown situation that I've dealt with, I've had to ask for help a lot. And it's bothered me so much because it really is the only handicapping thing about me. Like I said earlier, my disability is not my handicap.

Gotcha. It's this thing. Well, you know, maybe some folks listening, I don't know. You know, like I can't even, that to me is just, it sucks so bad because, you know, at least with a diagnosis, you know what the fuck is going on, but if you've mystified people so much, it's just like, it must just be the most frustrating thing

that I have to deal with that. Right, it is. And there's only so much of the same story that you can hear before you throw your hands up in the air and wave them like you just don't care. But to answer your question from earlier, like I like to think of myself sometimes as the lyric from the one hit wonder band, Chamba Wamba from the 90s.

And that is, I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down. Yeah. And so that's my philosophy is I can get knocked down and I get knocked down a lot, but you're never gonna keep me down and I'm gonna keep going. Man, that's so beautiful. And it really is inspirational.

And I'm sorry that I'm even saying I'm sorry. I think that what you're doing, I mean, I just know just being friends with you has been, has really improved my own life. And it's really like, it does give me a perspective. You have such a perspective on things that, you know, many of my friends are great teachers and I love all of them and all, but only like you

and Ramdas are the people I have known who have sort of transcended their physical limitations in a way that is so powerful and really, really like is a reminder. So I wonder if you could just, if we could wrap up with you. I'm not asking you to like given motivational speech here, but just for the folks listening right now, you know, cause we all feel fucking in some way, shape or form right now.

I think we all feel a little handicapped, so to speak. We're stuck in our fucking houses. You know what I mean? A lot of people are freaking out. They're scared. A lot of people have lost their jobs. A lot of people don't know what's gonna happen and after they open everything back up again.

We got folks with autoimmune disorders who like can't do anything anymore because they, you know, are in a lot, like there's this new virus out there. You know the situation. Can you give us a little micro sermon to maybe to put some fire under our asses or to like help us figure out a way to navigate

through this bizarre pandemic situation? Absolutely, first and foremost, for those who are listening because we haven't talked about it. If you are interested in finding out more about me, feel free to go on to Instagram and look up the Spencer Miller. That's T-H-E Spencer Miller

and you'll see a lot of stuff on me there. And I got some other cool things coming up as well. Once this pandemic settled itself, like Duncan and I were talking about and we'll fill you in more on that when we can, if we can. And that is, and secondly, before I go into my micro sermon, I wanna say thank you to you

because for me to be able to come on to your family, our podcast like this and have a discussion with one of my really good friends in you and talk about a wide variety of things has been very cathartic and very informative for everybody I hope listening. So thank you. My pleasure, man.

I love it. And thank you for being my friend. Likewise, man, I'm so glad we reconnected. Yeah. And yes, we are going through unprecedented times right now around the world. But the fact of the matter is, if we continue to follow the guidelines

that we need to follow in order to permanently flatten this curve, we will come back with a vengeance, the likes of which we have never seen because. Oh, shit. I lost you, we'll come back with a vengeance. Start there. Yeah, and we will come back with a vengeance

because up until this point in our lives, a lot of us took advantage of the fact of just sitting on a patio on a nice day with some friends talking and shooting the shit and things like that. And because we haven't been able to even do something like that during all of this, we will come back with a greater appreciation.

We will come back with a greater appreciation for work and for what it is that we do creatively in terms of Duncan and myself, because I miss working so much and I miss being able to work with my colleagues, work with my fellow athletes and different things like that. So all of that being said is always, always, always have an eternal amount of hope

within ourselves because as bad as it is at any point, when we get on the other side of it, it is gonna be that much greater and that much more successful and that much more appreciated than it was before. Ah, beautiful, hallelujah. Spencer, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. I really appreciate it.

I love you and it's been a wonderful conversation and you gotta come back on again. And I'll have all the links. People need to find you at duckatrustle.com, including our Instagram when I went on your show. Thank you very much, Spencer. Yeah, I'll be talking anytime. Thanks for listening, everybody.

A huge thank you to Spencer for being on the show. All the links you need to find them are gonna be at duckatrustle.com. Much thanks to Blue Chew, to Squarespace and to Fields for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. The offer codes are also gonna be at duckatrustle.com. And much thanks to you for continuing to listen to this podcast.

I love y'all and I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna. We are family. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JCPenney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style.

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