Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Maintaining a Fighter’s Mindset While Battling Disease | Corey Coopersmith

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

This week’s conversation is special. It’s heavy, it’s rich, and it will change you. It’s a two-parter, recorded on two separate occasions, about a year apart.It’s with Corey Coopersmith, known professionally as PunkTheBunny - he’s a singer/songwriter and producer.Born and raised in New York, Corey was a competitive grappler and MMA fighter prior to embarking on his journey with music.For some background, I worked professionally with Corey, over a decade ago, in his MMA days. And let me tell you, he may not be doing it professionally anymore, but he IS a fighter. That’s just who he is.In March of 2020, Corey was hit with COVID19 and it left him with chronic symptoms... for over a YEAR.Part 1 of this episode was recorded in January of 2021. At that point, he had been suffering symptoms from “long haul COVID” for 10 months already... or so we thought.Even after we recorded Part 1, Corey kept getting sicker and sicker, and no one could figure out why.We stayed in touch after our conversation and then I connected him with one of our Finding Mastery guests, Dr. Fajgenbaum, - a ground breaking immunologist out of the University of Pennsylvania.In Part 2, we catch up and dive into what Corey’s journey has been like over the past year. I don’t want to say too much and spoil his amazing story, but his fighter mindset and insights shine through.I’m so honored to introduce Corey to you. _________________Support Corey's cancer GoFundMe page_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and training i'm a sport and performance psychologist honored to work with some of the most extraordinary thinkers and doers across the planet. And the whole idea behind this podcast, behind these conversations, is to learn from people, to pull back the curtain, to understand their psychology, to explore how the extraordinaries have committed to mastering both their craft and their minds. Our minds are our greatest asset. And if you want to learn more about how you can train your mind, this is just a quick little reminder to check out our online psychological training course, where we've pulled together the best practices to meet that unique intersection of the psychology of high performance and the psychology of well-being. skills for you to train your mind in the same way that we train world-class athletes. And you can find all of this at findingmastery.net forward slash course. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

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David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now, this week's conversation it's special it is heavy it is rich it will change you it's a two-parter it's recorded on two separate occasions about a year apart and it's with cory cooper smith and he's known professionally as punk the bunny he a singer-songwriter and a producer. And he was born and raised in New York. Corey was a competitive grappler and MMA mixed martial art fighter prior to embarking on his journey with music. For some background, I worked professionally with Corey, it was over a decade ago, during his MMA days. And I can flat out attest that while he might not be doing it professionally anymore, he is a fighter in the truest sense of the word. That's just who he is. It's how he's built. And in March of 2020, Corey was hit with COVID-19 and it left him with chronic symptoms for over a year. So part one of this

episode was recorded in January of 2021. And at that point he had been suffering with symptoms from what people are referring to as long haul COVID for about 11 months already, or so we had thought. Okay. So even after we recorded part one, Corey kept getting sicker and sicker, and his medical team couldn't quite figure out why. We reconnected during this time, and then I connected him with one of our former guests on the podcast, Dr. Fagenbaum. And as a quick reminder, he's credited as being a disease hunter, a groundbreaking practitioner and scientist as an immunologist and He's out of the University of Pennsylvania So those two connected and then in part two of this conversation when core and I reconnect who his journey is

This unbelievable. I don't want to say too much right now and Kind of spoil his amazing story, but he is a fighter. He has a fighter's mindset, a fighter's heart, a fighter's spirit, and his insights, they shine through. And in this conversation, he cried, I cried, we laughed. You know, there was frustration involved. Like there was a range of emotions, and I want to encourage you to listen, to feel, to imagine. If you haven't experienced something like this, to imagine what it would be like to put yourself into his shoes. I'm so honored to introduce Corey to you, and my hope is that you will feel moved to take action with the relationships in your life, to take action with the relationship

with your health, and maybe to take action to support Corey in unique ways. With that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Corey Coopersmith. Corey, how are you? I've been better, that's for sure. I definitely got my energy better than it was probably even a month ago i did some um experimental treatments that uh i don't know what they did or didn't do but the energy got that i couldn't have had this conversation with you even a month ago how long have you had covet I got, uh, we don't really know.

It's weird. So, cause when you look back, um, I don't, we don't know if I got hit with two different things at once. We don't really know. Cause I, luckily I get blood work done all the time cause I'm really analytical. And, um, uh, we in February things were off but it was really weird I was catching like neurological symptoms and like my ears were ringing and I felt kind of funny and I kept being like man I don't feel right and had very strange symptoms that didn't seem like what they were saying COVID was, which is like the flu at the time. And it didn't seem like anything else.

And I went and ran a couple of labs early and everything was kind of normal. So I was like, oh, whatever. And I pushed through and I was kind of getting, I would catch little fevers towards the end of February. Like I, my body temperatures go to a hundred and I was like, what? At that point you were as fit as you've ever been. Yeah. Yeah.

I was actually really fit. What's weird is I, I had slacked off the year before I got so deep with music, which is so cerebral and, and I'd spend, you know, 12 hours, 13 hours, just production and working. And I'd get obsessive. And actually, I was never unhealthy, but I was not this fitness person. Okay. Because prior to that, just paint the picture a little bit, is that... My whole life was fitness and fighting and health.

I mean, that's my whole life was that. And I've always gotten away with it like because of being fit. And that's a whole nother thing we'll go into where going through this, I realized it's a mistake to think that healthy is the same as fit. And I think that that's a mistake I made. And I got away with a lot

of shit because I was fit. You know, so yeah, I had like abs and I could go run six miles. But like, I didn't sleep great all the time. I pushed all the time. I my whole life. That's what I learned. Like, look, I know people that got COVID who are 65 with diabetes and smokers and they're fine. So there's other variables, I think, that we just don't fucking know about. We just don't know. And I've been working with all the top people and no one knows. There's got to be some genetic component. There got to be something else but i can only speak for myself looking back regardless of what caused what i yes i was always fit i was always fit i don't know if i was healthy i don't know if my mind was always healthy you know i've been

through a lot of trauma in my life i don't know if i slept well i i don't know if like now I have blue blocking glasses and I time my circadian rhythm perfectly and I make sure I wake up and get sun in my eyes immediately. I don't get any blue light after getting sick. I went deep. I never did this shit before getting this sick. I never. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And when I use fit, I'm glad you're course correcting to say healthy, that you are fit because you were 1% in the fight world and 1% in the wrestling world and jujitsu. And, you know, so you were, you were fit and you're saying, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I was healthy. I'm not sure I was healthy. I had like some gut issues that I didn't ever address. I had like weird things that I knew that like I could get away with and like push through. And we should probably do like the full story of how we met and all that to set the context because I got a random DM from you. And it was from, what is your handle? Punk the Bunny? Punk the Bunny. Yeah. you and it was from what is your handle punk the bunny punk the money yeah yeah i was like what

i looked at it was like and it was like dude i haven't seen you for so long and i'm like looking at the picture i go god i recognize you and then i look at and then i said punk the bunny the bunny right and this this is your music um yeah handle production and artist and uh yeah i i made a huge i chose a different way to play i i got to a place where um you know being a fighter and training all the time was everything like it was a drug it was validation you know it was everything and in good ways and in bad ways it was everything your entire identity was wrapped up in it was your fight you know you could I could be anywhere and it was like someone would be oh you're if I it's like just even if they didn't recognize you just the way

you're built the way you're built, the way you carried yourself, there was like this whole character that you create this whole identity and the way you walked and everything. But you were also highly skilled. You were one of the kind of prodigies for a legend, right? Yeah, that never made it. And I and it's really something I had to deal with, where always something, you know, there's other pieces beyond that, that play into how well you do or what happens with your story. And for me, my body, like injuries, and, and mental stuff and trauma stuff constant sabotaging weird things um just things didn't work out and it was to your point you have these top coaches even when I was in when I moved to Vegas and I'm at Drysdale's and I'm at Couture's and the top guys are like

he should he should be in the UFC like when you're in the gym and then every time you're like, I shouldn't, I got to hang this up my body. But then you go train and you're just like, I'm just going to train. And then you're training and they're like, why aren't you fighting? Like you're mopping dudes that are in you. You're literally highly competing. And then your ego gets the stroke. And then you're like, all right, I'm back.

And then you jump back in and then you get hurt again or whatever happens again. And it was this vicious cycle I was in for literally years. What was happening underneath the surface, though? Because you had the physical, technical talent. And then in training, you were great. Great. The greats were recognizing that you should be, you know, you're one percenters of the one percenters. Yeah. And then,

and then what was the inner narrative that was getting in the way? Cause this is my same story, by the way, this is exactly why I got into this field. Well, there's two pieces I would say. And I, and I probably can unpack it more, but I'd say probably, probably the two main things was just a pattern of self-sabotage that was just there. That was probably there from young of taught of like, oh, when things are right about to be good, take it away. Why would you do that? Why would somebody, why would you do that why would somebody why would you do that probably likely the feeling of uh

two pieces probably one um not thinking you're deserved like a self-worth issue and then i i would say i'm a huge that's a huge piece and then two back to what we were talking about before we jumped on uh being being afraid you're a phony like having some you know i think getting hyped up a lot at a young age you start there's almost like a pressure and you almost are like i don't want to find out i'm not this really dope uh you know you this thing and uh i think it was probably some of that i think it was some fear you know when you're in the gym it's different and not that i didn't love competing but uh i think it's different and i think that uh i think you can show up and you want to show up and you can you know like

it's different and i think that uh there's a huge mental piece to that that I went through literally for seven, eight years. The idea that you can't outperform your self-worth is a real idea. And so if you don't value who you are or don't know your inherent worth or even what is possible for you and believe that that is possible for you, you can't outperform it. And you might get lucky. You might get a victory here and there. But then what happens after that is it's not sustainable because the floor is so low that to touch the ceiling was actually like, oh, my God, it happened. Now, when people touch the ceiling, maybe sometimes they go, there's another ceiling. And you do get that flywheel effect.

But the essence is you cannot outperform your self-worth. And if there is a component there of the imposter syndrome, that's also with it. Yeah. Both of those together are, you know, they're like cousins, but both of those together becomes a bit overwhelming for sure. And you know it, you know it firsthand. And guess what? Most people that I know that are on the world stage wrestle with one or two of those together. Both of them, it makes it really hard as you know. Yeah. Really hard. And, and the fact is, is it was always like that.

Do you want to fill people in because you and I have a history. Do you want to fill people in? Because you and I have a history. Do you want to fill people in on that piece? That part? Yeah, absolutely. Just to kind of close the loop on it. Yeah. And listen, you're the first person. Okay, just because I want to be super clear, you're the first person that I've had on here that I've actually materially done work with. But that work was how long ago? Oh, my God. Like 13 years ago. Yeah, right. And so it feels like a lifetime has changed. And when you reached out to me on social media the other day, I was like, and so we're just texting back and forth. I was like, oh my God, you've got this amazing story that I want to capture and put it here if you're into it.

Yeah, no, no, I am. I am. I'm beyond into it. It was everything to me for you to offer that and to, to, uh, come on here because, um, going through what I've gone through, I felt, I don't know what's going to happen to me. Like, if you looked at my blood work right now, no one knows what, it doesn't look good. As much as I look like maybe I'm semi healthy right now, maybe even though I've lost like 20 pounds. My blood work looks like I'm truth, like not to be morbid, like I'm slowly dying. It's not good. I got low T cells, almost no B cells, which are how you make antibodies.

They don't know why. I have really high inflammatory markers that are like scary high and they don't know why. And it's only getting worse, not better since COVID. So being able to come on here and at least tell my story, my whole story and this story, because there's no one trying to solve this harder than I am. And it would make sense when you know my whole story, why I'm obsessively trying to figure this out and fight and survive. My hair, my hair standing up. Yeah. You've been doing that your whole life, my whole life. Yeah. When I met you, yeah. So when I met you, um, I had just moved out to California from New York. I was, you know, training under Henzo Gracie and, um, we won a bunch of like amateur fights and grappling tournament.

I had just taken second or third in the world in no gi and, um, Sean Williams was like, come out to LA. And I was basically making a decision to fight professionally. And that was like it, I was fighting no working no nothing and uh i through vladimir matyshenko got sent you know got hooked up with velocity which was a training center for a lot of pro athletes and stuff and got connected with you and um and i mean it the work that i did with you changed my life to where everything I've gone through including uh this that I'm going through so many things of the work you made me do uh I use and and I think

of they like I mean like are embedded and it wasn't just stuff you said um it was stuff you got me to say at an age you know I was like 20 at an age where I didn't know that that was there you know all this ego and all and all this stuff and I didn't know and and you're the first guy like cry you know you got me to really i mean like snot nose cry yeah heavy shit and acknowledge that you know i was afraid of being a phony i'll never forget it that was like i mean it was in a nutshell my biggest issue i've always had probably and uh you got like whatever work we were doing it like was like an exorcism. I'll never forget it. Oh, very cool, man.

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Just head to Felixixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. I think part of that work is it requires incredible vulnerability slash courage for somebody to say the truth, to even orbit the truth requires some vulnerability and risk, and then to actually kind of sit in the soup of it and then to put words while you're feeling it in it. So me included. And I could see that with you i remember it clearly because that was it's my issue too you know and so i rest i grappled with i don't know

if you knew that at the time because i don't do a lot of i didn't i don't do self-disclosure you know yeah you know it's because it's about you and so i didn't know that yeah i could see it and i could feel it and i was like oh he's and then come to find out Corey is like this is called 13 15 years ago the best of the best that I spend a lot of time with same issue I would not have known it I would not have known it if I could record which obviously can't because of you know all the confidentiality stuff like these beautiful conversations with beautiful people like yourself that would that are really working at a deep level and also mechanically want to do the

mental skill stuff like at the surface i think that people this is why i started this podcast too is to say because we've had extraordinaries on and i can't tell you amount of them say oh yeah the imposter sim oh yeah so um welcome to the club yeah you know what's funny is the first day i met you i i mean dude it's like and i've got crazy like weird dementia stuff going on where half the time i can't remember where i put anything after covid because of covid yeah yeah the brain fog stuff is really gnarly. But man, these things, they're so deep. The first day I met you, I was in an office at Velocity. I'll never forget this.

And I started telling you my story, like something. Hold on. I'm so nervous right now. I am so nervous right now. Yeah. I started telling you about when I got stuck up when I was 14. I got stuck up at gunpoint. I was involved in some stupid shit.

I was a young kid. Didn't live in a good place. And I was telling you about it. And you totally, like, this was like the first of the work. You called me out on how detached I was from what I was saying about this like you you were your whole the whole thing of the work that it's funny because you've created a monster because I do this to people now when I feel that they're not being genuine

the depth to which I had to dig in to those authenticities of like, well, how do you really feel? You know, I had gotten used to telling the story so much in this like very detached, protective way. Just shit like that. I'll never forget. Like all those moments of those things and you like that work. I never even knew what that work was before I met you. So anyway, yeah. What was, let's go right before that.

What attracted you to do the work? Because I think a lot of people that are hungry to know that they've got more inside of them. They've got this thirst or this hunger that I know there's more. I mean, I'm craving it. And I say that with a deep wink to a Buddhist idea, which is like the craving is actually part of the sickness. So I don't want to speak out of both sides. But this, of my mouth, I guess I should say, I should finish the thought. But you wanted more. You wanted to unlock.

You knew there was more inside you. And a lot of people think the same thing. And then for whatever reasons, don't take the extra step. And then when they're actually those that do, don't take the extra step inside of the work when you did both. So maybe you could illuminate why you wanted to do the work and then why you actually went deep into the work when you did both so maybe you could illuminate why you wanted to do the work and then why you actually went deep into the work and because i think people are going to resonate with this yeah i think i can i can i can tell you three three things that i thought about that a lot and i would say uh and tell me what you think of this, but I think some piece of it is, is programmed. If you hear

my dog snoring. So one piece of it is, is programming. I think that I got taught at a young age to do work with coaches, like I think sports. And I had a mother um as uh you know there's like the song pink floyd song mother and there's some issues with that we all we all had a mother okay right but i will to her credit to this day to what's getting me to survive through what i'm going through no matter how poor we were she didn't want me to know it and she and my father but my mother heavily but both of them to a degree I had to have the best teacher I had to have the best coach like they taught because my whole life I I sought out like as I got older, I was like, John, John Donahar, everyone knows who John Donahar is.

He's one of the greatest jujitsu coaches in mind in the world. He was my coach, but he wasn't my coach by luck. I mean, maybe on some, I sought him out. He, there was five teachers, six teachers at Henzo. How, okay. Because you're still doing that now with covid i dm'd you again for help like i knew i know i my mother i think my childhood taught me this is one one piece i think taught me that that programming taught me to always look for the the best like teacher or coach oh my hair's standing up again summarize all of the times your mom had said something

potent towards this this axiom but if you were to summarize it in a sentence or two what what was that general consistent message like that you if you're gonna like if you're gonna do something, it should be the best with the best and of the, like, if you're gonna do it, it was always that it was like, well, if you're gonna like, and when I was in third grade, I'll give you an example. For whatever reason, personality, I don't know, you know, everyone's in band. When you're a kid, you take band in school. And if you're kind of like a knock around kid,

you get put in percussion. It's just like, if you're a bad kid, you didn't waste your time with you. You held a fucking, a symbol or a. Somewhere Travis Barker is laughing right now. Yeah. So you got put in percussion. And my best friend, cory his name's cory too was playing saxophone and i did not like that i why aren't i playing saxophone i wanted to play saxophone i didn't want to be you know i was like what and my mother got me the best teacher this girl in high school,

who's this like prodigy to teach me lessons. And no one had gotten lessons where I was living. Then everyone was getting lessons from her, but she, she's like, you're, do you want to play saxophone? Okay. You're going to take lesson. I ended up being the best. I ended up being first chair, jazz, all that shit. But there was something, I think, ingrained in me to do that. That's such a gift because so the message was, if you're going to do it, do it right. And do it with the best towards being the best.

And I'm not sure if it was the best or your best. I want to hit that in a moment. But then your mom actually backed it up. And that's what you have done in your work. Like you're backing it up. You back it. Always. And like when I met you,

there was like these, you can feel it. There's something you learn. You learn to, it's important. I think it's one of the most important things you could teach a kid that a lot of kids don't learn. I think it's one of the most important things you could teach a kid that a lot of kids don't learn. I meet people all the time, how to seek out proper teachers,

prop, like how to go get it, how to go get the information, how to go. I'm doing it now with doctors and with researchers. And it's something I know how to do that other people don't because I'm on a support group of thousands and thousands of people like me post-COVID who are lost, who are going to their GP, who's offering them antibiotics and lose empathy because i don't realize oh shit like i'm very lucky that i have this skill not everyone has it so can can you open that up a little bit like what are some of the ways that you can spot or sense somebody who is going to be able to help or somebody who is like maybe just kind of putting it on autopilot or just people yeah or they're faking it yeah yeah oh that's a really good question i think it's so uh intuitive like it's so a feel but a little bit of it is is uh bet hedging what i one of the things i'll do a you can see it you can kind of see it you can do

you kind of got her so like at Henzo's right when I was at Henzo all the guys are every teacher there was great do we all see who John Donahue is now when I started training with John he was not the guy he was but he was not the guy he is now he was like a secret he was like henzo's best kept see he was a secret like no one knew this guy was this super brain of judo what did you see and people that don't know jiu-jitsu these names are not relevant but if you're in the in the in the mma world at all you go oh henzo and oh you know and john i mean john is the guy yeah yeah you know my grandfather when was a guy, you're bringing things up that are making me connected deeper. It goes beyond my beyond my mother. My grandfather, rest in peace, was a hero of mine. He kind of raised me. And I always looked up to him and he had this, he was a psycho perfectionist. I'm talking with, and he could build anything and make any, I mean, like on a high level,

carpentry, electrician, like anything. And I used to watch him when I was a little boy do anything. I'm talking about the way he buttered fucking bread was perfect. Like, and it's funny because it ties to something you used to tell me in our work. He would butter bread and I would get chills as a little boy. I would get goosebumps. He would be so focused and not one part of the bread could be, you know, it was that kind of focus and that kind of intent in everything he did. And you like felt like something special was happening like there was something and and you used to we used to in our work used to say like being a champion is how you

brush your teeth it's not just it's everything you do you used to always and like grandfather was like that so i think even that like you see john and when john is working or drilling or teaching there you nothing else exists but what he's doing that's it and it's so you get chill and if you if you can't see that in somebody else i say sometimes there's some of my friends like hey there's a difference between a swan and a duck you know they kind of look at the same you hey, there's a difference between a swan and a duck. They kind of look at the same, but there's a deep, deep difference between the two. And so if you can't see that deep committed focus in even a conversation, you're probably not going to get it in other places.

Yeah. Facts. And to carry that into doctors, researchers, it's the same there's some people who are like you know this is what they do that they you know they probably don't have a dog they might not even have this is what they do like there's guys like that and when you're chronically ill you want that guy or girl you don't want anyone else i'm telling you that now it's a surgeon like you there's a certain demeanor and you know what they don't have to unfortunately have good bedside manners no right but but it's nice when when they have both skills eq and technical skill it's awesome and i would never abdicate saying that you can forego, you know, your, your emotional, social skills to be great at your

craft. It's actually obnoxious to me that somebody can't, um, unless you've got a disorder, like, I don't know, autism or something where it's really hard to connect, you know, but, but, but, you know, all that sometimes that happens. Yeah. Yeah. And so you give that a pass because it's a real thing, but just because you're good doesn't mean you get to be a jerk.

But what you're saying right now is like, you can see and smell and hear and feel and touch those that like have that thing. You're like, I, I, it's palpable to me. And there's another piece to touch on with what you're saying. I love this conversation. Um, uh, is that those people that you just described, I find even this is like a weird, subtle thing, but if you know, another thing I think is important as a young person to learn, which I learned, which I can go into how, is how to formulate and ask the right questions. Doing that develops mentorship with people like that, even when they're ornery.

And they won't be ornery with you. And I've learned that firsthand, and I can attest to that, that sometimes people that are really in their work, they just can't be bothered with people wanting things to be just handed to them. And they really appreciate it when you want to really understand because that's what they did. They spent so much time wanting to understand this thing that, oh, you want me to just give it to you gold gold court yeah you know you want to be just jujitsu you just want to get it they don't like that shit so but if you know how to formulate it learning how to ask a good question you know i grew up being taught that the smartest kid in class wasn't the one with the right answer it was the one with the best question and I got taught that by my rabbi as a kid and he always encouraged me that was another huge piece growing up was with my rabbi I got more out of that than school and he always

encouraged me to because I was so curious and he really nurtured my curiosity. And I try to stump him all the time with questions. And that's, maybe I'm on a tangent, but like that's the other piece I'd say with seeking and then like securing those people who are going to help you. It's probably a survival mechanism as a kid that's important to develop is how do I get someone to mentor or take me on? How do I foster that? And a big part of it is knowing how to ask the right questions and showing true, true interest and true, like I want to, you know, John always said, you know, technique without principles is just a bag of tricks.

Right. So if I just show you how to do an arm bar, big fucking deal. Like if you don't know the nuances and the, and the technique and the principles around, not the technique, the principles around setting that up, who gets it?

You know, this is where like, you're going to get me fired up right here that, cause the same on the mental part of the game, there's no tricks. There's no, I can't give you any tips. You know, there are core fundamental first principles to understand and fully embody. And then from that place, which is a lifelong pursuit. It's not like you just read the book of principles.

Like you've got to really understand some stuff that's true for you. Right. And then, and then you work from that place out. And sometimes it's accidental that you learn an armbar before, and then you go, Oh, this is how I actually fricking apply this. You know, sometimes it goes the other way, but the orientation, the fundamental orientation is first principles first. So here's, here's the thing that like, let's go some of our work before that with your training work and then finding mentorship and then later finding solutions in medical. There's a through line here, which is first principles and great questions and mentorship, you know, like submitting to like these six people that I can identify have something that they've studied their life for it's deep it's rich it's true and i want to be closer to that because i need to solve something here too right so okay that's okay money is music all of it all of it done everything it carried into it music scene you know it was like

like everything's a puzzle yeah keep going keep going like every f for me it's all like changing what the game is but it's all this puzzle. And you're looking for, I think, for me, I was always looking for something that felt like magic. Like this thing where I have really high pattern recognition. And I liked when I had to discover a pattern. And music was, I mean, to get into, I mean, just guide guide me if you want where you want me to go but like how i got to music was all the injuries and this and that and i kind of felt i was always musical i got photos of you with guitars when i was like three years old but what woke it up was finding an outlet and i got in the studio and i and i was wanting to i saw music as like a code to break

like how do i make a hit song how what is it like and it's literally like you know the most magical thing there is like it's it's something we we have quantum computers, we won't get how that happens. It's too many variables. I wanted to, I wanted to understand your COVID story, but here we are talking about your life journey, which I I'm, I'm, I'm a fan of the life journey, you know? And then you say, it's like a puzzle. And it's like, what I love about the puzzle, putting the puzzle together is one part of the puzzle are people and principles and application and when i can put those things together then i get that that aha like oh and so you're you're almost organizing your life efforts towards the ahas and right and so the aha if we

go if we go spiritual for a moment the aha is called insight so looking for insight deep truths that are not surfacely available is an insight and the only way to get to insights is to really do the internal deep work to be fully present to be fully absorbed whether it's in conversations or craft with people or self and then when you get into that place then then you go, Oh, that's how that worked. And it, and then our brain be a nerd for a minute, our brain lights up with gamma brainwaves. So our brain has this really unique signature for aha. So it's called gamma brainwaves and I'm oversimplifying all this. And then when we can string together a couple of insights, then we start getting into wisdom. Yes.

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Yeah. so when i made that this is what's crazy and you know so i've made i don't made thousands of songs. And I'll tell you, and I bet you people making, you don't know how many artists, I know guys, I know that go through this. I don't know if it's the same for everybody, but for me, it's this puzzle. And the puzzle isn't just like, oh, how do I make like a hit? Because what is that? But things have to do a thing.

That's what I say. It things have to do a thing that's what i say it's got to do it do the thing and when it's doing the thing you know it there's it's undeniable it just does a thing and you just know it's doing the thing you did it dude i listened to it and i was like man is that him is that cory because i know cory is like you know like a scrappy fighter like is that corey you know and i thought maybe you produced it because i couldn't recognize your your voice in it yeah and sure enough it's you produce it in you did the whole thing yeah the whole thing the whole thing yeah and uh all right so where can people find that because i'm sure they're buzzing right now um uh spotify itunes um so songs calledicide Kid Punk the Bunny is my uh stage name and uh producer and writer and did you go through a suicide phase um yeah I did I went through

a really dark phase with that and uh a very heavy phase and And, but what's, what's interesting is I didn't, I wasn't going through that when I wrote it. And I'd love to quickly speak on that because it's really important that people know that about music and, you know, John Lennon talked about it all the time and Rick Rubin talks about, you know, you kind of have an antenna when you're doing it right and the songs kind of write themselves and um my process when I do a song uh is I mumble Kanye I heard does this a few people do this I kind of freestyle and I mumble melodies and then

as I'm doing I'll be in the vocal booth and I'm mumbling kind of and then words start coming out and you start hearing work I mean it's not everyone does I don't write it I kind of mumble and then I'm trying to catch a melody and an emotion and in the chords you play with the guitar and there's a feeling you're trying to like capture a feeling and then once you feel the feeling that's what makes the word like it's like it's like you have this feeling from the chords and from the music and then the words come out of you from something it's not even always you sometimes it's your brother or it's someone you talk to one it's in your and your antennas like you're like a conduit it's magic it's

it's the most beautiful magical thing of all the things I've ever done I do it right yeah I'm dude I'm inspired right now because i've always wanted to yeah i've always wanted to be part of making something special in music i'll hack around on a guitar and say that purposefully um but then i listen to folks like yourself and other folks that kind of change the rhythm of the world based on the music that they've expressed i go man and that's not my craft i mean i don't know anything about it you know and but um if the question were um if you could know all the languages in the world or know the language of music which one would you choose i was asked that by somebody

and i was like music music totally like i love language i love language i love i love finding the right words for the right expression but then when you can hit the emotional pieces across the planet, because not everyone speaks the same verbal language, but that musical language. You can see it's a feeling, right? Oh, yeah. That's what got me into it. And to touch on one other piece of it that I think is important is there was

three years where I was making I had I got a meeting with Sony early through my cousin long story short and I was like oh and they're like oh you got to make music like this or like that and for about three years I chased a sound and I was trying to make music that sounded like other people and it would do, but I never did the thing ever. And I couldn't understand why. And music, this is my, in my experience, doesn't let you do it. It won't allow it. If it's not authentic, everyone knows and feels it.

And there's just something not vibing with people. And it's like, that's the other thing i love about it is you can't bullshit if you do everyone knows maybe you'll have one hit and then but there's something about when you're trying to make a song that if you don't just let it really be authentic uh it won't it won't let it's like a firewall and it's it's kind of there's a weird physics or magic to that that i became addicted to too because i had to get more and more authentic to make it sound good like if i tried to do anything else it just wouldn't work so anyway yeah okay so let's do this let's let's get into the um your condition with covet i mean this is going to feel like shifting tracks pretty radically

because we're talking about amazing insights and less lessons learned and you know beautiful pros to hear and then you get coveted you still keep training you thought you had like an allergy for about two weeks okay about two weeks i was like boxing and working out and i had like little fevers and i i just didn't think it i was like ah and then for a moment i was like did i because it was just coming out in the news and i was like nah i'm fine And I kept like coming and going. And then I woke up. It was March 22. It was a Friday morning, freezing cold with like 102 fever. And this is when no one could go to the doctor. Everything was shut down. There was no COVID tests. There nothing it was hysteria and you were forced to stay home and quarantine and isolate and recover and I couldn't breathe I felt like I had like

an elephant sitting on my chest and a friend of mine got it at the exact same time as me we might have got it together not sure and so we're on the phone we have the identical symptoms and we're both like feel like we're dying we must have either got a high low dose of it i don't i don't know because i know it's so variable but maybe being run down and this went on for 12 days i lost like in those 12 days i lost like 10 pounds um couldn't eat was was couldn't breathe well didn't have a pulsometer yet and the nurse that i would call would tell me if you can hold your breath for more than 10 seconds don't come to the er like that was literally where we were at okay and i would just go

and try and see i mean it's like the worst dumbest thing ever so anyway on the 12th day of that and everyone's telling me oh two weeks so i'm like all right man i just got to make it through this shit like two weeks all right and i get to like day 12 of this like massive info it felt like it felt like someone was beating me with baseball bats like 10 people like the aches and the the inflammation and uh i had a seizure on the 12th day my whole body was convulsing i lost consciousness who's taking care of you cory. I was by myself at this point. I was by myself. I was still having to walk my dog

with this twice a day while I was dying. I had to walk her. No one can come near you. It was crazy. I didn't have anything. I didn't have enough stuff and the right supplement. And I didn't have anything. I didn't have like enough stuff, you know, and like the right supplement.

I just, it wasn't ready. It caught me like off guard. And I went to the hospital finally. My friend drove me, wore a mask. I sat in the back, wore a mask. And I had a seizure. I couldn't remember my name. Everything was like warped.

Couldn't remember my date of birth, nothing and uh I get there they kind of stabilize me run some labs blood work looks like I'm in an infection like my lymphocytes were kind of low and he's like yeah you got an infection probably they weren't doing COVID by the the way. Literally every symptom I had was COVID. And they sent me home. They're like, you're young. You got to go home. We need the beds. So I go home.

That night, I was like, my arms, everything was like jerking and twitching. My whole nervous system, something was wrong. And I recognized the feeling from when I got concussed pretty bad in a fight it was a similar feeling where I felt uh kind of like if I closed my eyes I'd have hallucinations I remember being afraid to go to sleep but I was like if I don't sleep it's going to be bad and I had to kind of roll the dice and like go to sleep and I woke up the next day and I felt a lot better and I was like oh shit I think I'm to kind of roll the dice and like go to sleep. And I woke up the next day and I felt a lot better. And I was like, oh shit, I think I'm coming out of this.

And for about a week, I would just get fevers at night, but my appetite came back and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm coming out of it. And we're posting on my Instagram, like I think I'm coming out of it. I don't want to jinx it. Lasted about a week. I was just having low-grade fevers at night

and then that sunday like another wave came and uh i got into my lungs like different i got a cough felt like pneumonia and uh i fell asleep that night and my fevers came back high again and i fell asleep that night and woke up in the middle of the night. At that point, I had a really expensive oximeter and a heart rate monitor I was wearing. And I got up to pee in the middle of the night and I felt like I was having a heart attack. And my heart rate monitor was reading like 220, 210, 130, 180. And tons of long haulers, the way have this story like it's pretty 20 is max for most the the heart it's a max heart rate yeah yeah and i wasn't doing anything right

and um at this point um i'm i'm sitting there like like i think i'm having a heart attack i put a blood pressure monitor on and it's really high my the blood pressure. It's like crazy high. And I'm like, all right, I need to go to the hospital, like right now. So I, I felt my arms, my legs were like going numb. I'm trying to like do everything I can to stay conscious, get to the hospital. They run on EKG, all this stuff on me. And they're like, all right, yeah, something's not normal. They put me in the COVID wing because of all my symptoms. And things kind of stabilized, but not really heart rate.

But again, you're at this hospital. They have nothing. No treatment. There's nothing then. You couldn't even do hydroxychloroquine. There was no treatment. There wasn't even like, there was nothing. They just give you an IV and they tell you to go home. This is what was going on. Okay.

So I got sent home again after like nine hours in the hospital and my heart rate was like one 20 sitting in the hospital bed and the doctor's like yeah i mean you're not gonna die it's fine it's normal i said my resting heart rate's 55 this isn't normal and they don't give a shit and they send you home you're young you'll be fine send you home that week i had like episode after episode like that of these weird what seemed like heart attacks it's like they call it dysautonomia that's the term your entire autonomic nervous system because of possibly likely neuroinflammation becomes damaged and haywire digestion heart rate respiration there was moments during that week where it just felt like I'd stopped breathing, like

almost like my brain forgot to breathe. And again, lots of long haulers experience this, which is what we're called, people who have long COVID. And how long have you had it since March? 11 months now. You're still in it now. Yeah. I'm still in it now. Yeah. I'm still in it.

Yeah. Certain things got better. Other things have gotten worse. Are you independently wealthy? Like, did you kind of crack the... So how did you manage your finances? No, not at all. A lot of help.

A lot of help from a lot of people. I was very reluctant reluctant to be honest um i still didn't really put it out there put it out there to be really honest i i had i was very reluctant to do like a go fund me i didn't want to ask for help i had a lot of ego i don't want people to know, you know, where I was at or wasn't at. And I thought, you know, you kept thinking it was going to end. Like, all right, it's going to be three months. All right, it's going to be. And then each month would go by and I'd be doctors and supplements. And, you know, it's like two grand a month for the supplements you need to be healthy when you're chronically ill and um IVs and all these treatments and none of it's covered by

insurance even if you have insurance which I do it's not covered so you know you go to a regular doctor it's antibiotics and steroids that's all they got by the way um there's no antivirals there's no none of that um And they don't, you know, none of that. So you want to get your gut biome checked. It's $600 to see what's going on in your gut to see where there's imbalances to maybe get better. You want to get ozone therapy. It's anywhere between $806,000 depending upon the type of ozone you get high dose vitamin c three hundred dollars in iv you know so um at one point i was finally like all right like i need help so um we did a gofundme and we need a decent amount um and then privately a lot of good friends um believe

it or not like i wish i was telling you before people with the lease gave me the most you know there's outliers there's a couple people i know who do really well who sent me a lot and i was grateful but uh the people who had the least across like on the average gave me help the most and check in on me the most because you're a service provider so you got paid when you were working and right and so then this idea that people with the least gave the most why do you make sense of that um i believe two pieces i believe when people need to survive and aren't in this kind of up in their tower, I think they understand community and understand, well, if I help, someone's going to help me too.

And there's a piece there of reciprocity. There's an awareness of that. Um, and, uh, I think the other piece is, is people who have less, uh, definitely know what it's like, like in one way or another and empathize more. I think in a lot of cases, and I'm, I'm generalizing sadly, but people who have a lot, a lot of times they have a lot cause they're that way and they don't give and they don't, you know, not always, of course not. But that's, that's been my experience a lot of times. What have you lost and what have you gained? If you can find something. everything. I had to get rid of my car. I had to get rid of my mic. I had a really, really expensive mic I had to sell. I had to leave my place. I lost my place, another place.

I had a really, really nice place that I worked really hard for it that I, you know, had to leave. I lost my health. You know, I lost my quality of life, like the ability to do things that simple things like breathe. You know, when I'm talking, I don't even hear the hoarseness in my voice. There's right now it's not horrible, but it's like this inflammation that goes from my stomach all the way up to my throat. And it gets to the point by nighttime where I literally have a hard time breathing. And just that, just not realizing how special it is to not realize, you know, you can just breathe air. Like to just be able to breathe air without thinking about it. I have to kind of think about it.

I have to like consciously think about breathing when I try to go for a walk. I haven't been able to exercise in 11 months. If I try to, this is something where my whole life, you rocky shit, like, all right, I'm going to beat this. This does not allow you to do that. It will punish you. Every time you try to fight out of it, it pummels you into bed for weeks. All your symptoms come back. So it took all of that away. The ability to use expression. Which in return was your first craft,

your first expression to your point, but also the way you were making money by training. Everything. Oh my God, Corey. Everything. your first expression to your point but also the way you were making money by training everything oh my god cory everything and just to be able to have that outlet for whatever your trauma you know you your rage your anger you have these ways of moving that energy that you've now that have been taken away from you um and the the luxury of not having to immediately deal with your mortality has been taken away. And probably every day I have to think about what's going to happen when I die, just to prepare. Because if you looked at my blood work from a week ago, it looks like I have AIDS and cancer and I'm not exaggerating and I have the labs.

And that's what they thought I had. They still think I may have some kind of lymphoma and they want to run more tests because they just can't understand why my blood work looks like this. And they don't know enough. So I would say in that way, all that's been taken what have i gained um i have gained so much wisdom uh and appreciation for such simple things that I was too ambitious for before.

I couldn't be bothered with going for a walk because I had to work on this music or I had to whatever the fuck. Like I would say if I could go back, the lesson that I've learned from this is it's a huge mistake, in my opinion, to think you've got to fill this hole. You know, there's this hole that you're trying to fill. I'm going to be a famous fighter. I'm going to be a famous fighter i'm gonna be a famous musician i'm

gonna it's like this kid that never grew up that's gotta fill and when i do it'll all be better and it's not it's not true you know so i realized that going through this uh i think i always felt that and i would like shove it down during my path like fighting music you know i'd be studio studio studio i gotta do this thing i gotta do it i gotta do the thing but it wasn't just about doing the thing it was there was another piece that was not healthy even with music it wasn't for me right i had to prove some something and i spent so much energy and time and lost lots of relationships good ones or didn't enjoy enough relationships good ones friends exes whatever because of this need to fill this fucking hole and where i'm at now i would give anything to just play. Like I'd go back to, you know, when I was at Henzo's, man, I could have had three jujitsu schools by now.

I could have just been like, wait a minute, I've already got it made. I'm like a surfer. I get to come to these mats every day. I have this full community of people. I was talking to Jamie Crowderder another really famous uh bike coach he's a striking coach and we were he's one of my best friends and we were just talking and i was saying this to him i said man i said you were smart you you were smart man he was like there's like some more buffett shit like he saw it and he stayed teaching and coaching and and it's sustainability that's the other piece I think I understand in my wisdom I never as a young ambitious you know uh athlete whatever with

issues I didn't realize that sustainability, that's wealth. That like having a thing you can do until you're, you know, I look at like Laird Hamilton. It was like, man, I messed around in the water. I can do this till I'm 70, you know, even with all the injuries. Like I didn't think like that. And I wish I did. There's a lot of pieces like that where if it wasn't, and I mean, this isn't for everyone, but if it wasn't, but this might connect with a lot of, you know, those things are so short lived, those things you're chasing. And there's all this abundance around, like, I didn't even see it, man. Like, to me, jujitsu, it was about being a fighter. It wasn't about where it should have been. Okay, I'll go for this. But like, this is what it's about being a fighter. It wasn't about where it should have been.

Okay. I'll go for this, but like, this is what it's about. I have a community. I have a business I can end up doing because of who I'm under. And I can be barefoot all day, every day on the mats and like teach, which, you know, you thought, you know what I'm saying? Music, all of it. It's like, man, you've got a playground given to you. And none of it's good enough because you got to go. You need to be this thing.

And if you're not this thing, you're nothing. And it's a joke. It's not real. None of that's real. And if I could get to the other side of what I'm going through, I'm so grateful either way. But I'm so grateful because whenever it comes, and I'll do everything I can to get there, what I know now, like, what I get now about what it's about, oh, man, dude, it's simple. It's so simple, you know, what do you think you're going to do next? Is it,

are you too deep in the weeds right now to kind of, you know, muse about next or do you have a sense of what that might be? It's a really good question. Um, cause I think about it, but then I don't think I give myself permission to, cause I'm afraid to get my hopes up. It's a weird battle I go through. Sometimes I think, okay, I need the carrot. You know, I went through a moment during this on that Instagram where I changed it to my name. I was like, I'm going to help everyone. This is what I'm going to do. I tried to motivate myself and I was bedridden, you know, just tried to post about supplements and what I'm doing. And I tried to post videos and I was wrecked and I was like, shit,

I can't even do that. So that's an interesting space to be in to try to decide between do I create a carrot to motivate me or will it hurt me to do that? And that's what's weird about this. This is unlike anything that people don't understand if someone has chronic illness chronic fatigue me ms long coveted chronic lyme like all these weird things that get written off and it's a small percentage of people i'm very lucky my blood work is so shot that it's undeniable that something is wrong um because you look at me and it's like, well, is he sick? And it's like, yeah, really sick. People with lupus don't look sick on the outside. So, and their kidneys are failing, which I have really funky kidneys now. Like I have weird stuff going on in my kidney. All my organs are shot, like weird stuff. So I don't know that's it I would ask you too what you think like which is healthier to stay just day to day which is what I try to do I try to just

okay today and I try to like find joy whether it's cooking when I can or or, or even just watching a good documentary or whatever. Or do you, it's just with this, it's unlike anything in that you can't rocky it. You can't go, I'm going to fight my way out of this. And it's all I've done my whole life. And it doesn't allow you to, you got to almost accommodate it. It's this thing inside you, whether it's the virus, that virus, or they think there's theories that it reactivated late and like Epstein bar. And there's a theory that you get really sick and these other viruses turn on. And that's, what's happening to me. That's a theory, whatever it is,

you have to accommodate it. Cause when I try to push through, oh, dude, wrecked, I mean wrecked. Which is your model from when you're, from fighting, from whatever, yeah. To answer your question, I think that a key ingredient will be hope. And so whether you think about later

or you're interpreting now i think hope will be foundational as one of those first principles you know this idea this optimistic idea that um something good's going to come down and I'm going to be prepared for it, either in mindset and approach or present moment experience or whatever. But that hope piece is, we're not born with it. And so just kind of keeping it present, honoring it, I think is an important piece for people that, because it'd be so simple for you to be hopeless right that depression hopeless i mean what's the difference so simple yeah and and you go through it you go through these uh going through this is there's so much trauma

and uh you know you're getting told one day you might have cancer and then they're telling you this, then they're telling you that you're, you know, uh, you, you go through a month where your oxygen is down to 78% and there's no one helping you and you're falling asleep at night. You, you just, everything becomes trauma. Right. And I, you know, I was saying to you uh before i used to there was a huge period of like anger like why me you know i i said i got a friend whose dad's like 68 had a massive stroke smoked four packs a day diabetic and he's like got covd spot and i'm like why me why me i'm angry and then i i said to you i was like of course me you know because i'm like i love to solve puzzles i was like here you be like you know uh whatever it is out there uh right in this thing possibly because i realize i'm in no control

gave me the biggest puzzle of all and And if there's anybody driven to, with all the tools and all the characteristics I have, it's me to try to figure this thing out. And I've gone to the edges of the earth, man. I've gone, I've tried every treatment. I've run all the labs you can run. I mean like a pin cushion cushion like 30 vials each time and the three things I've learned from it uh which is pretty valuable is a

uh we don't come close to mother nature like it's like it's so much more sophisticated than us on a level where we're still cavemen um to like to add to that uh for people to understand this what i've learned we know nothing about the immune system okay i go to immunologists okay that's their title they don't have a clue what's happening to me. And they couldn't explain it. We know our world. We do not. I don't think we direct money into that or whatever. So the thing you learn from all this is, which I would tell people if they're chronically ill, be really careful. Because when we're sick, we want snake water bad we want the cure we want and you will spend a lot of money for that and there are a lot of people who pray on that and i would be really careful

and like to your point i would have hope and I would be patient with yourself and trust the body. I don't think I did that enough. I think I was like, I need to get better now. And you don't have a choice on that. Okay. As a reminder, that was just part one of this conversation recorded in January of 2021. Now let's jump right into part two recorded recently. All right, Corey. So it's been about

a year since we last spoke. We've exchanged text messages and, you know, been up to date as much as I can through text, but bring me and the audience up to speed since we last spoke. A lot's happened. I'm not sure I remember the date, the exact date, or if you do, but I know it's definitely been at least about a year. And at the time, you know, we were still trying to figure out what was going on with me. And, um, there was a lot of confusion because of COVID. And, um, you know, I was experiencing so much long COVID symptoms and I was in these support groups and I was matching so many things with long COVID.

But I was like the sickest person and not from an energy standpoint. That was the weird part was, you know, all these people had this vicious, like fatigue and like chronic fatigue and i didn't i was kind of hyper actually um which i later learned why i was hyper uh just through research and uh and watching the huberman podcast a lot and understanding dopamine and understanding the adrenal system and when you're in survival mode and things can in certain people i think who are pre-wired, um, that didn't, that wasn't happening to me. I wasn't tanked like that. I was sick. I was like chronically sick. And if I exerted myself, I'd get more sick, which is a form of ME and CFS. Um, but it's different. It affects people differently. This is a whole thing that's very um not looked looked at deeply by the medical community enough i think there's just not enough money in it okay

so did you have is your experience because of your your diagnosis or your your um you got covid or is it you got covid and are these like are these like a hundred percent, like, like 100% who had COVID and right in the beginning, two of two of my clients were positive. I didn't have a test because there was no tests. They had some high end doctor who had access to it. We all were sick at the identical time with the identical symptoms, vicious fevers, couldn't breathe, you know, desatting, pneumonia, the whole thing. I got really, really sick, really fucking sick. Okay. So fast forward, though, to the. And then I'm like, and then when we spoke, I had been just chronically sick, fevers,

weight loss, the whole thing. And I'd get bouts where I'd start feeling better. And then I just boom. But again, I was so my, my blood work that I was getting done was so much worse than every other long hauler. It didn't add up. And I don't remember, but I'll recap it. I don't remember if at this point I had seen the oncologist or not yet when we spoke, but I might not have brought

it up on the last interview. I don't remember on the last part, but this is an important piece. Now at the time, maybe it wasn't because I didn't think I had cancer. So after the fact, so I'd done all this research, doing all my own labs. And I was like, I think I have cancer. You spend enough hours of the day researching and going through PubMed journals. And you read all these weird things with copper and my copper levels were high. My C-reactive protein, all of my inflammatory markers were like through the roof in a linear progression of elevation month after month when everyone else post-COVIDs were like normalizing. My T-cells were tanked still where

everyone else's were coming back to normal. My immune system, it looked like I had HIV or cancer. I went to an oncologist in Las Vegas, brought all my paperwork, told her everything, the whole story. She told me I was crazy. No way I have cancer. I had lymph nodes bulging out of my neck and my armpits, everywhere. She felt them. She's like, oh, I've seen this. I've seen this with Epstein-Barr. You're young. This is post-viral. You read too much. Why do you do so much blood work? You're going to drive yourself crazy. If this was cancer, I'd fall off my chair. Refuse to biopsy me. I'm begging her. She thinks I'm just neurotic. Which you are, by the way, let's be clear.

Completely. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Good. By the way, my neuroses, I've saved my life. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Well, I was saying at that point in time, you were neurotic, you know, emotions were through the roof. Like you were searching for an answer. I have a obsession with detail. Obsession. There you go. A psychotic. It's probably a mental illness that saved my life like i have an obsession with detail and with subtle awareness of self like i

have such a and this is real it's my kinesthetic awareness is so deep possibly a combination of being an athlete trauma as a child whatever it is like so like neuroticness plus deep neuro muscular neuro body awareness to a degree that i catched i've this entire. I caught things months before anyone else and no one listened to me. And this is a theme in medicine that we're seeing constantly right now. You know, the big term gaslighting and all this that doctors are doing.

Well, hold on real quick before you get onto that. What you're talking about is interoception, right? Which is this idea that you, yeah. Like you've got that word. That's new for me, but yeah, I, I, I heard that word recently. Yes. My, my experience of the nerve, my nervous system experience outside of my brain of correct interoception. Yes. Yeah. So it's just, you're highly attuned. Yeah. Okay. So, and you add that with some neuroses and you add that with a heightened state of pain and you add that with a very, uh, explanatory reason why everything is on tilt, including your emotions and your need to find a solution. Survival mode, lockdown. No one wanted to see you. I already went through months where like

I'm being sent home and fucking can't breathe and all that so yeah i'm in this state of fight or flight it's like sympathetic nervous system non-stop and so this is when you reached back out or it's not like we lost track yeah i don't remember but i just know that it was in august i can tell you the date when i saw the oncologist it was august 2020 she sent me home told me i was crazy right i went on a witch hunt this sounds like the best of medicine doesn't it you're fine don't be so neurotic and it's a cancer doctor yeah that's right it's like if you have lymph nodes now knowing what i know now you check you fucking

check so i go on this witch hunt i start seeing every infectious disease doctor i'm being tested 40 vials of blood every week every virus every autoimmune disease i'm negative for everything so the infectious disease guy that i'm speaking with this is after we spoke he calls her because he's like, I think this might be cancer. I'm between, I'm between seromegative lupus. I think it's that, or I think this kid's got cancer. She's like, this ain't cancer. She tells him, she was like, oh, he added labs to the labs I ordered. I don't want to see him again. Like she was just really the worst of the worst human being to be completely honest. And, uh, told him no way it's cancer. This is in

November. No way it's cancer. I went, then I went, whatever. I went to that other guy, did all this special treatments, tried to do all these things. Nothing was, everything just kept getting worse. So anyway, I start calling. I talk with you. I'm like, is there someone out there? You know, you connect me with David. Dr. David Fagenbaum. Yep. David Fagenbaum. And before I get connected to him him before me and him speak i actually get to talk i get an ultrasound done that shows tumors basically in my stomach in my chest all over so this guy's like now everyone's like this is either cancer or it's some crazy fungal infection so we're back to cancer another doctor by the way called me there's a saying these doctors all say so now i'm we call me the zebra so zebra is a shorthand for for you're in north america and you hear a stampede chances are it's not zebras so he's like everything about he's got

covid really yeah you maybe have some crazy rare cancer but the chances come on come it should be a horse it looks like it's probably a horse but when you take a double look at it it looks like a horse but if you squint a little bit you're like wait a minute that horse has stripes i i call i so i start calling all these other oncologists in las vegas some reason none of them will take my case i come to find out they're all under the same umbrella so no one would see me in vegas i'm calling every top oncologist you people referring me google whatever and none of them would take my case so i'm starting to really go into freak out mode because i'm sure at this point i can just feel it i'm like i got cancer although i'm real

sorry to interrupt but they wouldn't take you because she would label this right but clearly my interaction with her whatever her notes were they're all they're all into the same group they're all psychosomatic he's he's actually neurotic and you know he needs to work with a psychologist not yeah then add some labs at the lab that i didn't order you know whatever she said about me yeah or just the fact that even if i had cancer maybe to cover her ass i don't know all i know is no one and in vegas it's like there's one place so i call ucla i find out my insurance sometimes does these one-time approvals without a state and mine does it with stanford and ucla so i just scramble i'm you know i'm scrambling every day is like another day

that this shit's spreading in my body i I get on the call with an oncologist, Dr. Shin. This guy is the most amazing angel human ever. Shout out Dr. Shin. And gets on a call with me. Within four minutes of the conversation goes, Corey i'm gonna say 95 you have lymphoma no ct scan yet no biopsy yet just a conversation he said you were right i'm telling you that now you were right you break down in tears immediately don't you immediately yes relief relief in love you know like hope the whole thing grateful you need a ct scan immediately yeah hey so i go do a ct scan come to find out it's everywhere long stomach my entire spleen was diseased stage four whole spleen was completely replaced with multifocal disease so it was just tumors

my spleen so my spleen wasn't working um get a biopsy state uh hodgkin's lymphoma very rare disease um like super rare usually young people with more active immune systems so he calls me and he's like it's cancer it's stage four and for p and for folks that don't understand stage four so stage four is once it's above and below the diaphragm once it is spread and metastasized to a degree outside of a more local area is when it's stage four if it gets to the bone marrow it's also stage four but it doesn't have to once it's outside of the lymphatic system and it spreads to an organ it's stage four also like i said above and below the diaphragm so this is this is problematic this is like yeah it's no joke yeah it's it's serious shit now fortunately with hotchkins you have a better shot

statistically it's better than like other like you know lung cancer stage four it's like 30 stage four hotchkins it's like 70 you know um but it depends on a lot of things i had a lot going against me because of how long so a lot of the prognostic markers that mean not as good of an outcome were at that point. So my LDH, remember that number you were talking about? So high is 230, right above 220 is high. Mine was 230 when that oncologist said I didn't have it. By the time I got to chemo before we started, it was 420, which is like not good. Where's Fagenbaum in this? So he comes in.

Yeah. Literally, and goes, he says, so he, before I got diagnosed, we got on a call, and he said, this is either Castleman's. Which is what he's known for. Yep. He's so, and so for, for clarity, for folks listening, Dr. David Fagenbaum, he was on the podcast legend.

He's known as a disease hunter. And so, um, as soon as you and I connect, I'm like, hold on, let's pull in, you know, the legend and you, you guys sink. And so then what, what happens? What's the next step for you? So talked to fadgenbaum right and he's like i you got you know i get diagnosed the guy do the you know biopsy then i had to have a bone marrow biopsy which was gnarly it was like days in a row and one after another. And then we start chemo and this is crazy.

So we start chemo and I'm ready to fucking go. I'm in ketosis, which again is theoretical. But the concept behind that, by the way, is that cancer feeds on glutamine and it feeds on sugar, glucose. That's why a PET scan is a like radioactive glucose. So if you have glucose in the body, cancer can feed on it metabolically. So the theory is if you starve the cancer cells of carbohydrates, you have a better shot at letting the chemo do its thing. Not going to cure you without chemo, but they keep growing. So if you slow down the growth, plus hit it with chemo, which just fucking nukes it, you got a better shot. All the other cells in your body can run on ketones. Cancer can't. Do you have, um um do you have your fingertips

on some of that research that i could take a look at 100 oh yeah oh yeah and okay i'd like to read it and then i hear you what you're saying is like it's not like it's um the golden standard or the gold no so you know but i would like i'd like to read it but if you ask any you know if you ask an oncologist if it's not a double-blind placebo study they they're not going to tell you to do it but you know valter longo's work on cancer which is mostly with mice i don't know if you know about valter longo his research was on cancer patients and having a fat and by fasting around chemo similar. When your body's in a starvation state, all the other cells in your body go into like a protection mode.

Cancer cells don't know how to do this. So it's the idea of that is that by doing that around chemo, you're hoping the chemo doesn't fuck up your own healthy cells and it only gets to cancer cells. That's the theory. And in mice, it works. And they've had good anecdotal results in small trials on people. So I was doing both.

Keto. And then I would water fast for three days around chemo. Just no joke. It's not easy at all. It's pretty intense. So first chemo, go through it. I feel awful. I didn't know about tumor lysis syndrome. Essentially, when you got a big tumor burden in your body, the first few chemos, they, they hospitalized. Some people die. There's such a toxicity release of cytokines from the cancer cells when they die. So if you got a lot of cancer, you get really sick when those cells die.

So the first, first one or two chemos, if you've got a heavy tumor burden, I was like this close to going to the hospital day three, because you got steroids in you. So the first two days aren't horrible. They're manageable. But when they, when that dexamethasone starts wearing off, that's when you feel it. was like shaking and i it was almost like uh what i've seen when you see like someone detoxing from like heroin or actually like alcohol i was kind of like shaking and had these vicious headaches but i mean i have a crazy pain threshold and this was like unbearable to where I almost went to the hospital. And I, you know, I researched while I was shaking, curled up in a ball.

And I found this tumor lysis, I believe it's called tumor lysis syndrome. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like once I knew what it was, I'm like, let me try to ride this bitch out. And I just sat curled in a ball and it passed after like six hours and then it was kind of and you kind of come out of it after a few days and dude i felt so good about five days after the first chemo i felt better than i had felt in a year. It was insane. I was like, Whoa, I was like, I can do this. Okay. Three days of hell, four days. And then I feel like this. All right, let's go next chemo. They fuck up kind of, and I caught it. I don't want to say fuck up, but they did again, details.

I weigh myself every single morning, naked after I pee, I know my weight. And then I pound a bunch of water or whatever. So the one drug, which is the most neurotoxic, they do it based on weight. So the first dose I got was 80 milligrams. And it, let me put you like this. Before each round, they recheck your blood, all those markers we talked about, which there's more. My LDH was 420, right? It came all the way down to 210 from one chemo cool yeah geez my sed rate was 85 just crazy above 15 is high okay it came down to like 14 one like it was almost like all the cancer

died so anyway i called the doctor i was like man i feel really good is this normal he's like yeah you all that inflammation's come down so anyway next round they upped the dose because they thought my weight went up they're weighing me in a in a in shoes in clothes and i drank a bunch of water like with drugs like this, again, this is something I see with medicine, with everyone's kind of robotic and not detailed enough. And I'm really sensitive, I guess, to shit. So they upped the dose of the drug because they thought I gained some weight back. I didn't, I was the same way. It hit me way harder. And I didn't know they upped the dose. First two days, I was fine. I'm sorry. It's the third day. I got really bad bronchial

inflammation and you can still hear, I have a hoarse voice. My voice was almost gone. Could barely talk. And I was really looking forward to singing because like after the first chemo, I'm like, oh, I can make music through this. This is going to be great. I'll just fucking ride out those three days and then I'll make music and this will be fucking great. Voice was gone. Like I mean gone to where I was like scared, like I couldn't talk. And then it kind of was coming back and I got hit really hard that round like I mean like I just felt like I got electrocuted like my whole

brain my body but again after about four days you kind of shake it off and then I felt great other than the voice that was gone still but just just my energy. So, uh, we do another round at the higher dose and I wake up with what feels like bronchitis. My lungs feel really inflamed. Voice is shot, shot, and I'm really fucked up. I can't walk good. My balance is off. I feel really, my nervous system got really wrecked. Call the doctor. And I'm like, Hey man, did you like up the dose or something? And he's like, yeah, the last two rounds, your weight went up. I said, no, it didn't. My weight's been the exact same weight every morning. I'm like, you guys are weighing me when I come there. And

I'm like, that's not an accurate, I'm like, we need to lower the dose. I said, I think I have, I think I have bronchial like damage or inflammation. Cause like, I'll get an x-ray of your lungs. I said, yeah, but it's not my lungs. I think it's bronchial. I can feel where it is. Sure enough, x-ray diffuse bronchial wall thickening, suggestive of airway disease. So now I've got this like chronic, this went on for the rest of chemo, like asthma. Voice gone.

We lowered the dose. I start getting neuropathy at this point a little bit. My fingertips like numbness. We keep going. Next round, next round. Hair, my hair's still long. They couldn't believe it. I wasn't losing any hair.

I was like, oh, it must be the fasting and the keto. Wasn't losing my hair. We got to the halfway point. So three months in. And I'm shadowboxing and walking three miles a day. Uphills. I didn't do that all of post-chemo, post-COVID. I thought my immune system was tanked. That's why I think there's an autoimmune component. My immune system was so, my white blood cells were so low. I wasn't getting getting infections though probably because of all my protocols and i felt better than ever it was weird and then they this is when things

went south so i started noticing some things some neuro neurological and nerve things but very mild and he's like we're going to give you this bone marrow stimulant because your white count's really low so i'm like okay um and mind you i'm like traveling back and forth from vegas to la this whole time it's a lot of stress which couldn't have helped with my nervous system like Like a lot, like the whole time I'm in, like, I'm not in a Zen space. I'm in like war mode. This isn't like, you know, I get to stay in once I have to go back and forth. I'm getting Airbnbs and then I have to come back. Cause it's like five grand each time I'm trying to raise money and do it was insane it was very stressful the whole thing was not easy and i was all you know so anyway they give me this injection

and right away i felt like i was paralyzed like within four hours my whole spine felt like inflamed and i couldn't move i mean i couldn move. It felt like I was in a car accident. And I called the doctor and I'm like, I'm like, I'm, I literally, I can't move. I said, it feels like my whole spinal cord is, is like inflamed or something. And he's like, let's see if it calms down. Sure enough, within about three or four days it chilled out and i kind of bounced back but then my my nerves didn't feel right like in my my arms my legs i started getting weird weird pains in my legs weird things started happening each round we had to keep doing those shots to keep my white count up. What is your spiritual framework? Um, after, before this. Oh, interesting. Before, before this, my spiritual framework was, uh, I definitely had more belief in, in things that were conspiring. I had the, you know, the alchemy belief. And if I can be candid, not to be a bummer, but it's not, it's not a bummer to me from my perspective of what I'm

going to say, but I think it's literally algorithmic chaos. I think from what I've seen and what I've gone through and what I've seen now that I've been in it and I've been around other really, really sick people that people don't see when they send their vibes and really good people who suffer unimaginable things. I can't anthropomorphize a God, which is what I think people do. So therefore I don't know, but I know that it's an algorithm of chaos. If there is a God, it's not something that I can give human characteristics to because if it had them these things wouldn't happen so i it's beyond i'd be i'm i think it would i'd be insulting to it to give it human if there is something it's so beyond me

that i i refuse to be like oh there's a god but he's an asshole you know like i refuse to do that it's like it's what we do with dogs you know we anthropomorphize we make everything human oh, there's a God, but he's an asshole. I refuse to do that. It's what we do with dogs. We anthropomorphize. We make everything human. And so not everyone's going to be familiar with that phrase, but really it's when you take characteristics and you make explanations and put them into human terms. I see that. Having human i see that having human characteristics something

has human characteristics what i see in my experience now which again i it's only right now right from my perspective now which can change is everyone's hedging their bets it's like everyone is a handicapper and the people who really kill it in life are better handicappers. They're better statistic. And look to be the best sports better. You only got to win like 54% of the time. And you're like a millionaire and you're like the shit. I think doctor, everyone I've meet everyone in life, I think you're going outside and you're interfacing with the most quantum, most complex fucking algorithm of chaos ever. And your job is to hedge your bets and act accordingly. And I think that's something I didn't understand. I really believed I was

entitled to everything. And I really believed, I really truly believed that the universe conspired for me. I don't believe that anymore. I believe that you are given, whether it's by randomness or there's a creator, whatever, you're given these rules in this game and this system and this computer and this brain and this body, and you need to act according, you need to follow, and then you need to play the math. Like, I think math is like the true language of it all. And it's all statistics. I mean, that's what I see. I see it in everything I've gone through. Everyone's guessing. Well, the science is born out of hypotheses, which is like, I think in my most educated kind of creative way, I think this is how it's working then we run some research

to say no or yeah you know like that's how we go from you know theory to fact you know right but even when it's back they're playing numbers like with cancer we're we're 2022 right they're still have no clue if you're gonna have cancer not until you're done they have no clue if you're going to have cancer or not until you're done. They have no way of knowing. Even the most sophisticated testing that we have, they don't know. A PET scan does not tell you if you still have micro cancer cells or not. That's why you have to do it every six months. So therein lies why you're saying that this idea of anthropomorphism, which again, for clarity is the attribution of human traits on something that's not human. I think there's too much suffering and too much randomness to give a creator a human. If there is, it's beyond my, that's where I'm at. It's so beyond me that I'm like, it's randomness. It's chaos.

Be really nice to each other and be really, really fucking grateful. Sorry for cursing. Be grateful that you can walk. I can't walk well right now. I have days where I'm falling in the shower. I have to try to get home care. I can't talk good. My hands go numb. I'm having really strange vascular issues. I had to have neck surgery two weeks after my last chemo. Emergency surgery because of the neupogen shots. And they caused all this damage in my spine i'm all kinds of fucked up and you want to celebrate right you want to

say oh i'm can't because by the way cancer free we beat that shit so no cancer for now according to my pet scan it's all gone you say do you say for now as a hedging of the bet or hedging of the bet because we you you can relapse They can't see the microcells. So you don't know if you wiped. All it takes is cancer is one stem cell. That's how it starts, is one cell. So if there's one left, it can come back all over again. Okay.

You catch one cold. Yeah. And they have no clue other than keep checking with this intense amount of radiation every six months. And it's another thing, by the way, to the defense of oncologists, to the defense of science and Western medicine. You know, another phenomenon that I encountered during this is don't do chemo, man. It's toxic. Don't do that shit. You know, Joe Dispenza can meditate your cancer away. Take CBD to, you know, all this bullshit. Okay. And let me tell anyone who's listening,

if you have stage four cancer, good luck with that. It's no joke. And it's really easy. Everyone, by the way, who sends me that shit never had cancer. Not one cancer patient reached out to me and said, dude, don't do the chemo. I had stage four cancer. I didn't do chemo. I just did, you know, meditation and CBD and then it cured not one human ever. What do you hope people get out of this conversation? Because you're, you're, you're

going to pay some taxes for this. Yeah. Um, and it's so hard to get it all in, right? There's so much I want to say, and there's so much to this experience. There's just so much, there's so much i want to say and there's so much to this experience there's just so much there's too much and um i don't know what's going to happen to me i don't i think i you know i with the neuropathic severe neuropathy i you know i woke up two round two rounds till the end i all of a sudden couldn't walk it was like i was paralyzed and we stopped one round early because of that um we did one more round after that and we removed the one drug it didn't help and i literally couldn't couldn't use my hands dropping things i still have trouble i'm so amazing i'm holding this phone and uh the only thing keeping me going that was the thing i really when you asked me that question

the really important thing that i'm still figuring out is like what's keeping me going, that was the thing I really, when you asked me that question, the really important thing that I'm still figuring out is like, what's keeping me going, right? Like truth, like where's the quality of life at this point? Most of my day I'm in bed. This is like the highlight of my day. This is amazing. And I'm waiting and I don't have anyone here. I'm trying to get home care. I'm trying to raise money for therapy because the type of physical therapy I need likely is going to cost cash. It's not going to be covered by insurance. I need nerve. I want to be really clear. You do not embody, since I've known you, a victim mentality.

No. A victim approach to life. A woe is me. If anything, it's's been the opposite like i'm an ass kicker i you know like i figure things out and you know bet on me so i want to be really clear because i'm about to ask our community to chip in you know and to find uh do you do you have a way yeah i have a gofundme and which i was really reluctant to do um which we did during chemo just to car i mean like i said the airbnbs alone were five grand for you know it's for like a week and a half while you're in la and then we're going back and forth and uh yeah i have a gofundMe. And what I need now, which I'm doing, yeah, no, there is no victim here.

We're going to fight until we beat it, everything, and I'm back hiking and walking and running and laughing and I'm able to function or I'm going to die trying. That's it. That's what I've done through all of this. I haven't stopped. I'm not going to die trying. That's it. That's what I've done through all of this. I haven't stopped. I'm not going to stop now, but I think what I, what I, where I'm at now, and the thing that's important is a few things, which is, it's a lot. I know it's so hard to, you know, but I'd say gratitude. I see everyone every day, just, you know, and, and I think myself included prior to this, I made my life so fucking, I probably said this on the last part too, so much more complicated than it needed to be so much more stressful than it needed to be. And it's really basic get amazing sleep wake up with the sun go to bed you know what i mean like

eat eat ridiculously healthy food i mean which is another conversation of what that means because everyone's like really disoriented with that but like like, if knowing what I know now, which is always the case, sadly, I would have done everything different. And if I, I think what's keeping me going is the chance, the hope and the chance to get to a place where I can actually fully realize and exercise all that I've learned. Cause the wisdom now is on another level and I would do anything. I'd give anything to just get to a place where I can go for a long walk, where I can have that, where I don't have all this weird, these weird issues where I can't just go do those basic things and enjoy it. Cause it's all I want. Like, I don't give a, I don't give a fuck about anything

else anymore. It's like you strip it all down. This was the most beautiful gift ever. I guess either way it was regardless of what happens to me. But the truth is, if I can get back to a reasonably functioning state, this was the greatest gift ever. Because I give no fucks about all the things I used to consume myself with. self with and life has become so clear about what it is and what it's about and it's like take care of yourself because you don't hedging right you don't know your genetics that well and you don't know what's underlying and we all like push it and it's always until you end up like this that it's like oh my god i figured it it's like, I don't know if the human condition will ever get to a place, but if in some way I can, with everything I've been through, the biggest message I would say is gratitude on a daily fucking basis and simplify, like psychotically simplify and watch how much happier you'll be.

Like, like an antidepressant even with everything i went through by following those rules of getting sleep with the circadian rhythm getting sunlight in the morning eating the way i was eating i killed it considering the doctors couldn't believe it it still got got to me. This stuff is toxic. I was in it for six months and I'm wrecked now, but I'm going to do the same thing as long as I can to try to rebuild. But like, that's the message I guess that I would give that I, that I truly learned from all this is like, you're given this thing. And it works on a quantum level with all of everything around you, your environment,

light, your mind, your body, your nervous system, what you were talking about, the nervous system and the autoimmune disease. I'm on that right now. I realized that I was in this sympathetic nervous system state, which a lot of people are in that don't have cancer constantly. And by the way, for people who don't know, sympathetic is not calm. No, it's fight or flight. So it's called sympathetic dominant or eventually leads to some sort of adrenal burnout or adrenal fatigue.

Yeah. Which is obviously going to create massive health compromises. But I hear you saying gratitude, simplification. Like those are two big bright things and then if I were to if I were to double double dip here on on this type of thinking say how do you finish this thought um my heart is yearning for peace

peace peace peace and then life is a gift act accordingly don't take it for granted. Act accordingly. It's a gift. You're lucky. And you're not special. You're lucky that you even have one. So just act accordingly. That's what I would say. Jesus dude. Okay. Um, it's so sobering coming from you

I'm so sobering it's like a friend of mine a friend of mine said you know this is a huge one she said I've never heard an artist like admit this and I was like

I'm probably done with music she was like what do you mean I was like I'm just done I was like I'm done and she's like what do you mean i was like i'm just done i was like i'm done and she was like why and i said well it was never about the music so it was never about the music it could be cooking it could be painting it could be anything i said um for me there's two things that were music was about. And it wasn't

music. My brain loves to like figure out puzzles. And for me, music was like the hardest puzzle. It was like to make a song do what it's supposed to do was just, I was obsessed with that, with figuring that out. And my brain just finds things like that. So it could be anything. And music is part of what put me looking back and other things. Cause they were the same thing in that overly sympathetic nervous system state. I wasn't balanced. It took away, you know, I was an athlete. I was way healthier before me, you know, music put me into this purely because of my personality, whatever. I spent 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, not sleeping,

trying to figure it out. Maybe I'm an addict and it's just not heroin. You know what I mean? And so I need to stay away from all that shit, you know? And I see that now. You know, it's like, let me tell you my response is that I'm laughing right now, but it's because of the journey you just took me on which is it's not about the music now my first reaction was so selfish dude just now i was like oh no i i loved what you created the first the one song that i know and i'm like oh no i'm i want more of that and then you're like yeah it wasn't good for me and And then I kind of went, yeah, okay. I kind of hear him. And then I'm like, wait, hold on.

What are you doing, Mike? This is my inner experience. Like, what are you doing, Mike? Because like, yeah, what you did was you created something that moved me. And I don't know who it moves, but it moved me. It moves every person. Like that song. Yeah.

Of all my, I did the thing. It's the one. You did the thing. It's the thing where any person, old, old young that hears that it moves them and they and it's and it's felt and uh sorry i have to lay back down kind of sit back down but uh you cracked the code it took it took you that's what it took me five years and 12 hours a day day in like totally lit rooms, hunched over, not eating, drinking, whatever. Yeah, right. Yeah, like back and forth trips to LA, not eating well.

You're in the studio. You're looking for dopamine all day. You're eating candy or anything, you know, drinking tons of coffee. But I did it and then i was like and i i could get do the same thing again and i i really could like but i know what how imbalanced it makes me and with everything i went through when i just got sick i didn't give a shit about that i cared about walking i cared about breathing i cared about eating i cared about walking. I cared about breathing. I cared about eating. I cared about being able to laugh and hug people. I'm not fucking around. I'm not being dramatic. I'm not

being romantic. I genuinely, I tell people this, anyone I can speak to, you will not give a fuck about any of that shit. When, when you are really staring at death you won't you'll care about people you love and you know you hear this i've heard it never hit me until i didn't care yeah i cared that like i told people hey make sure my song gets streamed like crazy if i if i go yeah of course that's the ego you know remember me but uh the truth me i regretted i didn't regret that i didn't get to make more music i'm just being fucking honest this bums people out that think i'm like rock star till i die which i am in a different way but the truth is yeah i regretted not spending more time with really good friends because i had to figure this song out because you know my ambition was just

so important and i was so self-important i regretted being that way, even in relationships. I regretted not walk, going for more walks. Like all I want to do is go for a fucking walk. And when I was able to during chemo, it was like, it's like my dog, you know, and my, which I, who I had to give away because I was so sick. But, you know, you see a dog, it's like the happiest time of their life. You take them for a walk. Just go for a walk. It's sun on your face. Like I didn't look back and go, dang it. Like all I looked back and I thought, I wish I walked more. I wish I laughed more. I wish I spent way more time with my father. I wish I spent way more time with my good friends and i mean that with every cell in my body and my only thing keeping me going where i'm still

fighting because i'm gonna get there or die trying it's so i could do that not so i can make another song and be all alone and obsessed with myself it's so i can do that because that's what i think life is about so you've you've heard me talk about the doing and being parts of of the human experience yeah and we're in reverse order which is what you're describing which is most of us have consumed a model which is or digested and swallowed and having a hard time metabolizing this model which is i need to do more right i need to be more yeah right yeah so and then yeah it's flipping it and so i need to be more and let the doing flow from there whatever that doing is yeah and so this is what i hear you talking about. It's what I've learned from people of wisdom is the being is the foundation. Now you have some say in how you are going to be you. You have say in that. Not to be too philosophical here, but we co-create our life you know yeah right we co-create it yeah so you can figure out

for your model who the co-creation is with yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm with you on yeah you build it you you that's like you're still an artist that's what i meant it's not about the music now my my painting my song the obsession is the is that life what i where i'm at now in here what's what's what's giving me any dopamine left if the if the adrenals aren't fully tanked is the visions right like why i would be manic making music is i have this carrot now it's fucking you know it's nature it's the farm it's it's the wife it's the possible kid it's the family it's the it's the community it's tribe it's all the things that actually strengthen us and sustain us all the other shit is is fleeting you know okay so we're speaking the same language and I,

I have a hard time actually, uh, getting to it. Sometimes it's not an intellectual exercise. It is actually kind of moving some of the stuff out of the way to get to the truth of it. And it was one of the reasons why we fired up the podcast was to get to this part of the conversation.

Right. With hopefully. Yeah. But with all humans you know it is like but here's what i found i'm sorry the extraordinaries right and the idea is that you know they they they're coming back from a mountaintop or they're at the mountaintop or they're close to the mountaintop and like what is your psychology about like how are you experiencing life and i say all that because i am um highly sensitive to and nauseated by the performative aspect of life and you say wait mike you say you're a high performance psychologist like what are you talking about

um when something is pure and true the performative aspect has faded away and it is absolutely a beautiful syncopation and it's the syncopation that i go i'm amazed by and i'm i'm captivated by and so when somebody and when i do it too like i'm i'm not immune to this what I would say much smaller part of me as a relative to when I was younger, which is like, I want, um, I, I want to present favorably and I, I, I gag, I get internally first when I noticed that I'm doing it, I'm getting, I'll start to gag. And then this is a long way of me saying that I would love to watch your days because I know that you are not going to perform. Even if there was five, 10, 15 cameras, I would love to watch the purity of you making micro choices and acting in complete alignment with your quote unquote true self. And so that seems like I'm just getting a sliver of it right now. And it is intoxicating and refreshing and sobering is the word I used earlier. Um, many of us, I even contemplated

changing, and this is a silly thing i i'd love to you know this is and it's a silly thing but it's not a silly thing because this is something humans do right because who the fuck am i but it's like this do i change my instagram me you know like even something like that and i want to but everyone like all you know it's like this weird wait what is it what i don't get it punk the bunny is my artist that's my artist that's my artist name and not just you know for production for writing i created this alter ego punk the bunny by the way which i don't know if i explained it in the first half but it was because my vision was an animated character was going to be the front person and this came from a really my ex's father who is a pretty famous producer um shout out tom rothrock what type of produce he produced

back he produced foo five he's he's he's the real deal. He did Loser, man. He did that first album. He's a genius. And I hope this stays in because shout out to him for this. He said to me, you know, ZZ Top was brilliant because they started old with the beards. So they could go on forever. and their look was the same they didn't look like they got old and that stayed and he would kind of meant we'd have these little talks and he'd mentor me he was great i do i didn't get to have a lot of them with him he traveled a lot but the few you know i'm a sponge and i was like i know what i'll do i'm in my 30s i'm not one of these 17 year old tiktok hip-hop kids but i can make all this dope music i'm gonna make a bunny animated

character i still want to do it if some i i did it twice with two animators just you know if you don't have pixar money getting someone to get that really realized in a dope way is hard it's not easy but we almost did it while i was sick with covid i had two different animators try to do but that was my vision that's what punk the bunny is for anyone who's wondering was i wanted to be able to forever do this like character like the simpsons who never age so I could just make music forever that was the reason marshmallow yeah exactly there's a genius to that so anyway digression aside I I was like oh should I change it to just choreo me

and uh I wanted to put like mastering the art of becoming nobody because that's my goal now my beautiful vision is to like blend to my entire life was this narcissistic i have to be this to be loved i have to become this thing and now i just want to blend in i just don't want i want to like achieve the mastery of being like regular and being completely happy with that good luck humans that's fucking badass that's a fucking rock star do you know what i mean and i get that now and it makes me want to cry sometimes because i'm hurting and i can't go do that yet most of my day this is badass most of my damn laying on this bed and i that i'm just on fire right now. And this is great. And I'll take two days of bedriddenness after this for this talk. But that's where I'm aiming for.

To just realize that, dude, this whole fucking thing around you is a giant, like, beautiful playground for you. It's meant for you to enjoy. I didn't enjoy shit because i was so ambitious it all just goes by you where all you gotta do is walk outside and it's all here for you people sun trees fucking i could go you know whatever you know what i mean it's all just here and like yeah anyway i'm going but you get you i know you get what i'm saying i dude i'm so wanting that for you like so it's all i want mike it's like that's my goal now that's the carrot you know that's it so i'm like i'd rather use the platform to express this and find a way when I get the energy.

Because I have to wait and heal first. So I can't be like trying to post every day and put pressure on myself. But I wanted to share this. I want this message of, yo, like, it's cool to be regular. It's cool to just be. That's cool. Fuck being lit. Fuck all that shit. You're going to waste so much time because there's an algorithm. You're hedging. You still,

you can be the most talented whatever person in the world. It's like 0.001%. Play better odds. You know where there's better odds? In people, in your family, in your friends. The likelihood of that reciprocity coming back to you when you invest in that is so much higher than becoming a famous musician, becoming a famous athlete. I'm not saying some people go for it, whatever. I'm just saying play the odds better. And there's so much more happiness. Well, your purpose is clear.

Yeah. Yeah. Your purpose is really clear right now. The last thing I'll say, cause I can just, I have so much to say, but the last thing from going through this, you know, it's like so much clarity. I got to say, you know who i envy now mike i watch these envy i'm saying that tongue-in-cheek but i watch these documentaries and i see guys like um david deffin and i see guys like uh blank uh i just went blank interscope but uh i went blank chemo brain sorry man super famous

he was this you know ceo of interscope um they did a whole the defiant ones that documentary on him and dr j i'm just blank jimmy ivy thank you buck chemo brain so jimmyine, and you know what these guys did? And a lot of people I'm starting to admire were guys who at a young age were in the vibe, in the scene. And they were smart enough and humble enough, or maybe they had just enough, like, I have to survive mentality. Huberman, Dr. Huberman, his his story is very similar i don't know if you know him or of him he was around a bunch of skateboarders his whole is in that vibe in that scene but he had some estrangement with his family whatever and he was like i better go to college and follow this path because i'm more likely to succeed and I can't afford not to. Jimmy Iovine, I'm not going to be a fucking musician. The guys I envy now

in these stories, and maybe that's just right now, and not to become them, by the way, but the mentality of hedging your bet better and being more realistic and being cool with that they ended up being so uber successful freak more than all the artists that they represent by just being actually like more grounded it ended up taking off anyway they weren't chasing anything other than like shit i gotta like be okay and it turned into that anyway i don't know if that's gonna come across or translate to people but my whole life was this whole like i gotta be this thing meanwhile that thing doesn't even reward you that much. You're isolated and alone because you're on this fucking crazy, impossible journey. And like, yeah, anyway, I'm going in circles about the reinforcing, the invest in your

friends, real good friends, invest in people, invest in your community. So that's the message that I hope this can get in is what I've learned from all this shit. Once you're left all alone with yourself, facing death, facing all this shit, I realized none of that meant a fucking thing. Instagram did none of it meant a thing. I missed Jamie. I missed you.

I missed the talks. I missed the laughs. I wanted more. Anyway, that's the thing. I missed Jamie. I missed you. I missed the talks. I missed the laughs. I wanted more. Anyway, that's the thing. That's what life is. And everyone's lost that. That's dope, man. That will give you so much antidepressants, so much better sleep, so much better than any of this bullshit. And it's proven even in science that the immune system does better when there's tribe not in isolation what's the worst punishment in prison isolation you know what's the worst what's the worst thing you can do to another human ignore them it's one of the most aggressive things you can do

and meanwhile myself included tons of people are weirdly doing that to themselves because they need to be more yeah and they don't you know yeah yeah all right corey i hope that all like you can no man what a gift dude and so i want to you know i want to check back in um you know on the pod obviously we stay in touch but i want to check back in the pod in a little bit and just allow people to you know be part of your adventure here uh yeah and i just want to encourage right now folks to like I want to speak right to our community for a minute which is I hope that when you listen that you're putting yourself into a position to not only feel what Corey's feeling but feel the pain and disconnect you have in your life. And as maybe a way to make a commitment towards healing is you

can do two things. The first is to invest in the quality of your life by being more of who you want to be, who you know you are capable of being, which is always available to you in the present moment. However, you need some clarity. And that clarity is to know what are capable of being, which is always available to you in the present moment. However, you need some clarity. And that clarity is to know what are the guiding principles in my life. Corey has spent a long time explaining some very clear guiding principles about relationships, about gratitude, and about being present with wherever he is and with whomever he is with. And I think that's a first place I'd love to just put a really sharp stick gently into your back is to say, remember this part of you. And the second is to make an investment in Corey's adventure.

And I don't say this lightly, but I hope that you can be part of it and support him and um there's a gofundme page that the link is going to be available if you you know if you can find the link uh in the show notes and then also you know cory will you just share the best place that if people are only audio right now that they could stop right after you say it and go punch over and and you know get the credit card you know connect yeah it's on gofundme and um gofundme.com slash it's uh cory coopersmith's cancer fund okay spell it all out cory c-o-r-e-y c-o-o-p-e-r-s-m-i-t-h-s so cory coopersmith's Cancer Fund. Yeah. And our goal right now with where we're at, it looks like the doctors are saying it's going to take about six months to a year, if at all, for the nerves take a really long

time to heal. I'm suffering from pretty severe peripheral neuropathy and autonomic dysfunction. Basically, the chemo just destroyed the nerves everywhere in my body. And my goal is to seek out the top neuro retraining specialists, physical therapy specialists who want to, you know, be part of this journey because I will do whatever it takes to get back to fighting form, so to speak. And I, and it's going to cost money. So we're trying to raise anywhere between another, you know, 20, 30, even $40,000. So that over the next six months to a year, I don't, I can just focus on healing this so I could get to a life of helping and

healing others who are going through this. Cause I will, I, that I will 100% do. I will make so much of my life about guiding people who are going through cancer, going through chronic illness and, and learning and developing myself, whether it's through psychology resources and, or physical therapy resources to be able to coach people and help people through this, because I've been through it and I see how broken the system is. And I know how much fire and how much of a sponge I am of learning and understanding and teaching. So to get me there, I got to get back on my feet and I got to get functioning and it's not going to be an easy task. There's a lot of broken parts and pieces.

So that's why we need the help and anyone that can donate and help, it's going to go towards that. I will be posting on my Instagram, all my progress. And I'll be updating the GoFundMe with all my progress every, you know, where every time, every session, every physical therapy session, every, everything. So yeah. So greatly appreciate it. And that's felt. I'll also want to add a third thing maybe folks can do is, um, make a difference in your life. Maybe add some, uh, support to Corey through the, the go fund me. And the third is to use the power of your own consciousness, the collective consciousness and, and whether you, whatever your spiritual framework might be, or the idea of focus concentration to be able to at, at mass at scale, send you love, send you healing,

send you, you know, the, the, the good stuff. And so say it again. I, you know, I, I hope it didn't get lost in translation and I don't know if this will make it or not, but it's fine. I just, even if it's a short part, but I, I, I don't not believe in positive energy, positive thinking. I believe it's been proven. I don't need to believe again. I think that's the point where I'm at now is it's not a belief thing. I believe it's been proven. I don't need to believe again. I think that's the point where I'm at now. It's not a belief thing. I like when things are where mechanisms are proven. We know for sure the immune system, the nervous system, all is regulated by positive versus negative thinking. So yeah, positive energy, good vibes, that stuff's all beautiful and i don't not believe in that i just don't woo things

anymore and i like when mechanisms what we're seeing is mechanisms are being uncovered more and more that these things work but we now know why and i like that more that's all i like it too all right corey thank you for your presence i love your articulation oh yeah dude i love you too man these are the biggest gifts man you don't even know it's everything it's everything okay appreciate you we're following and uh i'm so excited to see i'm excited to see how it gets put together it's a lot it's a lot lot. Hey, listen, you're a lot, dude. That's so good. All right, brother. I'll talk to you soon. I love you, man. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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