The Joe Rogan Experience - #1692 - Jason Wilson

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

Martial artist Jason Wilson is the founder and head instructor of the Cave of Adullam Transformational Training Academy. His new book Battle Cry: Waging and Winning the War Within will be released on September 21, 2021.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. Always an honor to meet you. Honor to meet you too. You know, I've paid attention to your videos and I follow you on Instagram and so many times I've watched your videos and said, that's an authentic guy. Like, I want to meet that guy.

I want to talk to him. So I was really excited that you were willing to do this. Oh, man, I was honored. You know, let me turn this, I guess. I was really honored. When I reached out to you on Instagram, I was surprised that you were following me. I was blown away, man. I just said, man, you know, I've been watching you for a while.

And I was just, you know, when you offered for me to come here, man, I just was just ecstatic. So thanks, man. It's an honor. Oh, my pleasure. You know, I think one thing that young boys and men as well need in this world is guidance and mentorship. And to get that from martial arts is one of the best ways and one of the most fulfilling and satisfying ways. So I found you from a video that a bunch of people sent me of you working with a young boy who was having a hard time dealing with the pain of like punching through a board. You know the video.

And just the way you were communicating with him and letting him know that it's okay to cry and that, you know, just express yourself. And it was refreshing and it was authentic. But it was also like you could tell like that kid is going to get a lot out of that exchange. And I was like, I want to meet that guy. Well, yeah, man. I mean, that video opened my mind up to really what men were dealing with inside. Because when that video went viral, our offices at our nonprofit had to shut down. Really? Okay. So the Cave of Adelam, the martial arts program you're

speaking of, is under the umbrella of our nonprofit, the union. And so when this video went viral, my wife calls me, who was our executive director. She says, Jason, is there a video that's going viral? And I'm like, what do you mean you mean 2016 I didn't really understand the terminology and sure enough this video started racking up a lot of views shortly thereafter our phones wouldn't stop ringing and it was men from all over the world crying to our staff calling and crying saying I want to be free I'm tired of holding all of this in I wish my coach would have talked to me that way when I was going through a lot. Yeah, that's it. Well, it's hard to find a good mentor. And I think every man

needs a mentor. And, you know, one of the things that martial arts does that I think is really important is it gives you these goals to work towards as you move through a belt system or whatever kind of system that each martial art that's different has as you develop your skills and you you get more proficient and you improve you you have like tangible progress and you can see it and i think there's a lot of people that go through life not exactly sure where they stand, where they're at. And I think martial arts provides you with real feedback in one of the most, I think, one of the most emotionally and physically difficult things that a person can do. Yes. And so many people don't realize the young boy in that video, Bruce, he was actually had a fear of failure. video, Bruce, he was actually had a fear of failure. He had broke that board easily the week prior, but because of this test and the pressure and everyone watching, he just froze on his

non-dominant hand and he couldn't break through. So he broke down crying and I welcomed his tears and said, look, we cry as men, you know, let this go. And men, and I love about martial arts more than sports, it makes you face your fears. And nothing like if a punch is coming at you, a kick, or if you're grappling and you're concerned if someone's going to take your back and choke you. I apply all these principles in life as well. And so when you give a man or a male a safe space to really be emotional and let go of the anxiety that he feels every day, the father wound, his fear of failure, his lack of confidence, where he can have a moment, we call it a moment on the mat, where you can stop the training and you can express what's overwhelming you in that moment.

They transform instantly, man, and it's a great thing to see. And I've never seen anything work like the arts. Even with my son, he's 13 years old. You saw him, you know, six, one and a half. Everyone says, you're going to play basketball. And it's like, no, it's other things that I want to do. And so even with sports, I say, son, it'll give you some confidence. But when we spar, we're training, the anxiety he feels, the voices, oh man, Chris hit you again. What are you going to do about that? How are you going to maneuver? maneuver? How you gonna respond? And I allow him to break down in that moment. I say okay cool now. It's time to recover

Reflect on it. What's the lie? What's the truth? Do you think this man is not supposed to hit you? He's a skilled fighter The goal is not for you to be the best the goal is for you to learn Mm-hmm All right So when I give them that freedom to feel to feel the fear So when I give them that freedom to feel, to feel the fear, now they don't succumb to it when it really happens in real life. And so that's why I love the arts, especially the grappling arts, which I hate. I didn't discover until later in my training because nothing like someone invading your space.

You know, we can keep distance striking and we're comfortable here. But when someone invades your space or when a problem happens in your life where it's so close and personal that you can't just shake it, you have to learn how to buy your time and maneuver and don't let it come around you or you can get tapped out by the stress of that situation. The arts is just amazing if it's taught in a way that men could apply it to life. It's amazing if it's taught in a way that men could apply it to life. I couldn't agree more. And I think one of the beautiful things about jujitsu in particular is there's so much failure. And you could call it failure or you could just, it is what it is. I mean, there's one person gets tapped.

The other person taps the person out. One person submits. The other person applies a submission. And it's constant. If you're training with really good people, you're experiencing loss on a regular basis. And so you understand how to process that. For some people, when they've failed in life or when something didn't go their way, they fall apart. It's devastating. They judge themselves as a whole based on

one moment, whether it's a moment at work or whether it's something in their personal life or whatever it is where they haven't achieved success the way they envisioned it should happen or they wanted it to happen. It's devastating. It kills their confidence and they don't know how to handle it. One of the beautiful things about jiu-jitsu is you achieve failure all the time. I mean, if you train with good people, you're constantly getting strangled and armbarred and leg locked, and it's just what it is. And, man, you know, I came from – I started with Shaolin Kenpo. Actually, I started with what they call the combat jiu-jitsu in Detroit. And it was more of an urban-type training.

And we didn't even have mats, man, because the instructor at the time said, there's no mats outside. So he was training us to do security. And these guys were so serious, they would shut down crack houses. And so imagine coming from that and then going to more of like a Shaolin Kenpo system. Even my instructor then was a very serious Vietnam veteran. It wasn't this touch magical stuff where you fall out, but still that type of training going from Aikido as well, and then going to Jiu Jitsu, Jiu Jitsu, there was never a day off. I hurt every time after training.

Yeah. And, um, I want to thank you real quick real quick. I was about to dive into Aikido. And this is when I first heard of you. OK. And so I'm Googling, you know, you're trying to make sure this is something you want to do, because I only study the arts, not necessarily to learn how to defend myself, because in my community, people carry guns. OK, so that's the eliminator of all of that. And so I would use it to help men and boys to navigate through their emotions so that they don't succumb to the negative ones. You had a show with an Aikidoka, someone who practices Aikido, and you said you think this would work against a D1 wrestler. And you showed the video and the D1 wrestler just overwhelmed this person in Aikido.

Joe, I always felt that way when I started training. It was called Yoshinkan. It was the real stiff. I said, this won't work for real. And although I appreciated the principles, but it was that show that you had that really said, look, go into something else. Then I tried Aikibujutsu, which is like samurai

wrestling techniques more. It was like a hybrid, a mix of jujitsu, judo, and then some aikido. But nothing was like jujitsu, man, because it made me face my self-doubt. When you think you're the greatest, you're humbled really quick. And then I had to overcome what I call false humility. Sometimes I, sometimes I would be bigger, majority times bigger than the person I would roll with. And as a teacher by heart, I would catch myself, Joe, teaching the person I'm rolling with how to beat me and what they're doing wrong instead of just dominating him. So then one of my coaches, Xander Heinen, who's a Marcelo Garcia black belt, he says, you're supposed to dominate. Don't worry about teaching them.

They'll learn on the mat. And that was something I had to work through as a teacher because I saw men when I was rolling with them, when they were really tight, my training and other arts allowed me to be soft and let that energy go past me so that I can control them. But I wanted to help the man because I knew inside what he was dealing with personally. And that's why he was rolling with me so aggressive. And so I had to make myself tap out, do my best to tap out everyone on that mat that day, which you know is a very hard thing to do in a good school. But God was telling me, you got to get past this because I need you to go to a certain space in life where you won't be fearful of being dominant.

And so many good men shrink back and become passive. And jujitsu makes you say you have to face this. You have to be strong. You can't avoid the difficult conversation you need to have with your wife. You can't avoid speaking up for yourself when someone took a position from you at work. And the arts, again, if taught correctly, it allows a man that pathway to really develop holistically. That's interesting. A fear of being dominant. Yeah. So you I see what you're saying, though, like you you're worried about like almost being a bully or something. Or just being just the best. I had a situation, my cousin. And this is where it started from trauma, because there's a cause and effect for everything that we do.

I had to remember the Sony Watchmen TVs, the little portable TVs. So he had let one of the gang members in our area use it, and he never gave it back. And so I was so upset. Before I knew it, I hit him on the side of where his temple was, and he went deaf temporarily and dropped in my kitchen floor. That scared me because I hit him on the side of where his temple was and he went deaf temporarily and dropped in my kitchen floor. That scared me because I loved him. And ever since then, for a period of my time in my life, I refused to be dominant. And that scared me in that moment. But one of my instructors

could- So you just hit him just because you were upset at him? I was angry, man. I mean, as a male, I thought I got punked. Yeah. We're not taught to really reason or reconcile. You disrespect me. You got to pay for that. Right. And here's someone I loved in front of me. I couldn't say, man, that hurt me that you sold something that meant a lot to me because then I would come off as weak. So before I knew it, Joy, I hit him and dropped him in my kitchen and he couldn't hear for a while. And that scared me. And that carried on in my life where I would pull back from just being dominant until one of my instructors, Kajana, we were sparring and he's maybe five foot two. And he says, you're not trying to hit me. I said, yes, I am. He says, let's go again. So we started sparring.

He puts his face in front of my fist, and I move my fist subconsciously. And I said, well, what was that? He says, your fear being dominant. He says, you have me outweighed. You're stronger in everything, but you think it's your fault. And so I see this play out even in kids in school or grown men who are big, and they tend to shrink down. That's why if you see a tall person, they tend to slouch down a lot.

And I tell all of my young boys, even the girls, raise your chin. It's not your fault that you're taller than everyone. And so I had to learn in that moment, it's not my problem that I'm dominant in this situation. That's the person I'm facing. That is an interesting thing. You see sometimes with really big guys, you see them get bullied and pushed around. And so you think that's what it is, that they have a fear? They know they could be dominant. I remember one scene in one of the Avengers movies,

Black Widow was talking to Bruce Banner. She says, I hang around fighters, but here it is, I meet a man who can win but doesn't want to. Something like that. And that struck a chord with me because I saw myself in that. He knew he could turn green and dominate, but that's why he always says, I don't want to do that. But as I talk about even in my book, I share with me, because so many men go passive when they need to be vigilant, when they need to be assertive. And there was another scene where the whole, this building was collapsing on Bruce Banner and the Black Widow. And she says, you're not going to turn green. He says, I don't feel it's a time for that or something like that

right now. So she kisses him. She says, basically, I admire this sweetheart, but I need the other guy and pushes him off this cliff. Then here he comes out of the cliff, dominant like the Hulk, and grabs her and leaps her to safety. As men, we have to learn how to become all things, be anything we have to be at any given moment. And so, so often the big men learn to be passive because they're always told, especially in martial arts, whether they say in the traditional ones, don't use strength, use technique and all this other stuff. But jujitsu lets you know strength at the right time is a very powerful tool. And so, so many of these big guys have been muzzled. And so when they get in life and a situation come, a little guy that's tough, he's used to going passive instead of being assertive.

And so in our academy, we teach assertiveness over aggression, because aggression, we say, is power out of control. You see it in boxing where a guy's just swinging. Then assertive is a calculated action. I know if I need to knock you out or break your jaw, I'm hitting you right here. All right. And so that's the difference. So we say, be assertive, not aggressive. Aggressive, you can't really see what's going on. You're reacting to your emotions instead of responding to the threat. And that's what I believe majority of big men struggle with. A friend of mine, Xander, he doesn't mind.

He's a Marcelo Garcia black belt, 6'7", and I always would joke he is the Hulk before he turns green. So he's Bruce Banner right in the middle. That's how big he is, and he's like 270 pounds. He literally can roll with you and lay on you and you probably couldn't breathe because he knows how to add the pressure, put the pressure on you. But we would talk like, man, you know, why do we shrink back? You know, we think, well, man, the only reason you won is because you're bigger. And so what if I'm bigger? Your job is to beat beat me I remember I was rolling with one guy he says

how much do you weigh you outweigh me by 50 pounds but yet Fabio Lima who's another instructor in Detroit he's half my size and taps me you understand yeah for sure yeah you see it in all the time but big guys it's like you're supposed to win you're big so when you lose it's time but big guys it's like you're supposed to win you're big so when you lose it's twice as worse you know well it is important for big guys to learn what it's like to face other big guys as well if you're in a big guy in an academy that only has small people you can get a very false sense of security absolutely yeah and then all of a sudden someone comes along and ragdolls you and you're like you're not accustomed to that i I mean, like I said, that happened. My first experience with jiu-jitsu, the guy was my size. So I'm coming thinking I'm going to do certain locks, armbar,

because, again, at the time I wasn't used to applying it against real resistance. So you look sweet if everyone is a ragdoll. I can go through techniques and demos and you look really great. Right, if no one's resisting. Yeah, but what happens when they're trying to stop you? Yeah, that's a problem with a lot of those sort of combinatory martial arts where they take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and then they do drills it's like you learn the movements of the drills but you don't learn when someone's actually resisting against you and that's that's aikido it's really

it is it is and uh oh sensei the the founder of the creator you know a lot of the techniques that are still done in Aikido are from his era. It's like, why hasn't it evolved? And that's another thing I loved about Jiu-Jitsu. It constantly evolves. Yes. And you'll see even blue belts make techniques. And it's praised amongst the entire community. And I'm just like, man, I wish I would have found this art a lot sooner, you know.

But that's what you see. And even in a cave, man, you can drill, even with our students, let them go through techniques so they can get the form, understand speed and pressure, but let's see what it looks like. He's trying to stop you. So we make sure after each class that that happens. And then the principle in life is you're going to face resistance. How do you counter it? How do you move? Do you stay up in front of it and try to block it? Or do you move and counter it so that you can win? How many years have you been mentoring young boys? I would say almost 16, 17 years now.

And how did it get started? In 2000, well, I founded our nonprofit in 2003. And from there, my father wasn't actively in my life. You know, he was around, but wasn't there. And I had what's called a father wound and basically just an absence of a male figure in my life, specifically my father. He was verbally abusive. You know, I could make if I knock this cup over, I would get cursed out, you know, things like that. So I had to overcome a lot of that. I would get cursed out, you know, things like that. So I had to overcome a lot of that. So in Detroit, I saw a great need for black boys to be mentored. And so at first I started the Cave of Adela with just martial arts. But then I quickly discovered after these boot camps, boot camp programs kept failing over and over again and scared straight programs was that our boys didn't need more discipline. They needed more love. So then I made the Cave of Adela more comprehensive.

So I still use the arts, focus on what works, but also give boys a safe space to release the trauma they're dealing with in their lives, the emotional pain, the lack of confidence, all these other things that they're dealing with, and give them this space where they can release it and become strong. So that started, I had my first pilot in 2008. And then after that, 2013, I was awarded a grant for just developing the cave. And that's when we just started going full time in our own location.

And we haven't looked back then. We have almost 500 boys on our waiting list. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting, Joe, I thought it was just a black thing, you know, because, again, if that's all you're around, you think that's the only youth that are dealing with these issues. I had a group one time. It was multicultural, which was great. It was my first time. And I saw white kids, you know, that I cared about, were struggling so much and weren't used to releasing what they

felt. And one of them direct messaged me, a 16-year-old. He says, Mr. Wilson, please don't ever forget about us because he was concerned because there was a lot of school shootings at the time. He says, a lot of times we're abused and we don't know how to process this emotion. Then we'll grab a gun. And it's the only way we know how to express ourselves. It's no different from a man who is volatile and abusive to his wife. You know, I used to hit things in my home, Joe. I'm not proud of saying it. You know, my wife would say things that would trigger me and I would knock holes in the wall just in anger because I didn't know how to express hurt or sadness or just feeling dismissed and passively dismissed for how I felt. And as a result, I became a very unstable man mentally, emotionally.

And I was just what I call just a masculine male. I wasn't comprehensive at the time. I wasn't comprehensive at the time. And so I've saw a direct correlation when I allow a male that freedom to feel, to be angry when you're upset, but then teach you how to reset from that anger, how to use that anger for good because anger isn't bad. It's only bad when you allow it to make you do bad things. The greatest statistic I love in our academy is that over 78% of our recruits improve their grade point average by one letter grade without tutoring. That's because we allow them to be who they are inside, allow them to live from the good in their heart, allow them to talk about the things they're experiencing at home, the things they're experiencing at school. We don't just go into training and martial arts because then they could be great that day in training physically, but leave there still mentally traumatized or emotionally damaged. And so the cave is just that it's a, it's a, it's an institute or an academy where we allow

boys to feel, you know, our mission is to teach, train, and transform boys into comprehensive men, men who are physically conscious, mentally astute, but spiritually strong enough to navigate through the pressures of this world without succumbing to their negative emotions. So when you're doing this, you're learning yourself, and you're also teaching these kids. these kids. So how much of a process was it to develop the curriculum, to develop this program and to figure out what is the best way to address these, these boys and their insecurities and their issues and how to, how to give them, give them strength and give them love, but also give them discipline. Also teach them how to, how to get through get through work through pain work through emotions it must have been oh man a lot of trial and error it was a lot of trial and error um more so joe i had to become transparent um in that moment when that video went viral none of my recruits really ever seen me cry you know i was still was still just tough, man. And at the time, my mother was going

through dementia. So I'm still trying to develop this curriculum. I'm saying, OK, it's coming along, but it's still missing something. And what it was missing was giving men the freedom to be vulnerable at any given moment and for them to feel that liberating power. When my mother developed dementia, Joe, she was like my sensei, man. Meaning the emotions that I could hide in martial arts training, because where I came up, you couldn't express that. You know, they would, you know, once school I was at, they would just rush you. The instructor would say, everyone on Jason. And, you know, we would shake going into this school. Our hands would shake because it wasn't just grappling. We dealt with real knives.

You're getting kicked. No pads, none of that, man. You dealt with real knives? Yeah. So you're doing, like, knife retention? Yeah, because this whole thing is like everything. He's a masterful teacher. A lot of this stuff is choreography.

Okay, you see some of the gun defenses and things like that. It's like, come on, man, that wouldn't work. Right. The way he taught us is like, if someone has a knife, if you can get away, go. I think Jocko said the same thing. If someone has a knife, go the other direction. But if you have to defend yourself, first thing you need to realize is that they should cut you. If it's just your uncle drunk at a barbecue, they should cut you.

If it's just your uncle drunk at a barbecue, they should cut you. Can you deal with that pain and that emotion of seeing your own blood run down your arm and still eliminate the threat? So these things we would practice with knives because he says if it's plastic in your head, what happens when a real one comes? But I couldn't express really who what was going on inside of me that would make me feel the fear you know the cave needed that element it needed to say why are you pulling back why aren't you applying that armbar why are you scared to get thrown when your partner needs you to practice his own and we tie the throws especially judo throws to a fear of failure because as you know judo, if you're not relaxed when you take that fall, it hurts significantly more. In life, if you don't just go with it and allow yourself the freedom to

make a mistake or freedom to fall or freedom to fail, when you hit that ground, when you fail to hit that wall, it hurts that much more. And so what I had to do was first allow my students to see what hurts me. My mother had a stroke one day, and my wife comes in and said, hey, you need to leave immediately. Your mom had to get rushed to the hospital. I start breaking down. And all of my kids, imagine all of them and the fathers there, surround you, hug you, and pray over you, just hugging me. And at that moment, I said, just hugging me. And at that moment, I said, this is what they need. They need to see a comprehensive man, someone who's strong but sensitive, someone who's courageous but compassionate, someone who freely lives from the good in their heart and doesn't allow their fears to stop them

from living. When that happened, Joe, these boys became not only greater at martial arts, but greater sons, greater community servants, greater students, able to deal with bullies. One of my students, a beautiful kid, Josiah, short, curly hair, beautiful personality. He was getting bullied at school, but he thought it wasn't Christ-like, you know, or the Christian thing to do is to defend yourself. You know, you're supposed to take it. I'm like, I don't know where you got that from. I said, if someone is trying to harm you, you defend yourself. So the bully grabs him one day, Ogochi, he grabs him from behind, he throws him, kick the legs out, and slam the bully down to the ground. You would think he would celebrate just defending himself.

But what made Josiah the proudest was that before the bully hit the ground, he pulled up on his hoodie to stop his head from hitting the cement. Hmm. Wow. That's when I knew, I said, this is it. Where the good kids, the gentlemen, the kids who are bullied and overlooked can defend themselves, turn on the lion, but reset back to the lamb. No one wants to be prowling all around, defending and looking rough all the time, having to hit and being just in that fight or flight mode 24-7. Someone tries to harm you, you defend yourself demonstrably, but you reset. You don't ever allow your kind spirit to conform to something that's callous.

And so that's the main principle that we teach is do not live from your fears. Live from the good that's inside of you. And so that's how, you know, it all had to come about. And when my mom started getting worse and worse, I never had to wash her hair. I never had to do her nails. I never had to change her sometime. As a masculine male, you know, we allow masculinity to define us. masculine male, you know, we allow masculinity to define us. And it's just an adjective with a few attributes. But it hindered me from loving my mother. And so by faith, I prayed. I said, I can't deal with this. It's too stressful for me. You know, I'm used to just dealing with the bills or checking the pharmaceutical companies when they're trying to overcharge mom or things like that. That's masculine. I can handle this. That's a safe space for me. But he's like, no. He says,

in order for you to give your mother the care that you need, the most I was like, you're going to have to become comprehensive. You're going to have to run towards what you don't want to feel. And that's why I tell all of my men, you have someone in your life that needs you, but you avoid it because it makes you feel emotions that aren't masculine. And I say, find that person and run towards that. And then you can start finding yourself healing from what got you to that place. And so with my mom, I got free, Joe. You know, I became comprehensive. I was proud to be a nurturer of my son. You know, you met him. He knows I'm a protector, but he also knows I'm a nurturer.

And this world not only needs us to be masculine as men, but they need us to be comprehensive. They need our wives, our women. Society needs to see how powerful the love looks like coming from a man. And so that's why I'm here, man. When I get contacted by even people from the UFC, you know, fighters and other actors and people you would never expect who would say, hey, man, I want to break free from this. It's just an honor to be used to just share a message that I know can liberate so many men where we become better for ourselves, better leaders, better

husbands. And, you know, the suicide rate amongst men, what is it, three to four times we die by suicide than women. You know, how often I take pictures every time I'm out, Joe, I see an elderly couple and the man can barely walk and the wife is peppy. We allow ourselves to be identified by what we do instead of who we really are. And so for me, you know, I had no faith growing up, man. Like, you know, I was you call me an atheist okay and until i started having significant trauma after trauma two of my brothers were murdered my best friend dropped dead of a heart attack on the job with us just sweeping drops dead on the floor several friends of mine get shot and die and my best friend at the time of high

school gets shot in the head. All of this stuff had shaped my mind in a way where I didn't really expect anything good to happen. And so because of that, being only a masculine male for me was perfect because I could stay in fight or flight. I can guard myself. I didn't have to show any weakness. But when I allowed myself to feel, when I allowed myself to really be what I didn't see. So you say, how did I develop the curriculum of the cave? All I am to these boys, all I am to men like yourself, I became what I desired. I always wanted a male in my life that I can look up to, trust, and be a mentor, or be a mentor to me. Someone that I can confide in who wouldn't condemn me when I fail. That's all I am, Joe. And then

things I couldn't deny, like I hated the church, like with a passion. Jehovah's Witnesses would come to my door. I would study the Bible just to dog them, just to put them in check. Then I studied Egyptology, Hinduism, everything. I said, OK, cool. I said, God, if you're real, show me. said, God, if you're real, show me. A friend of mine who's in the NBA, well, he's retired now. We were going to the studio. I used to produce music as well. And he says, I can't drive, but you can take the car to the studio. I drive the truck, going on the freeway, a car stalls in front of me. So I swerved to get out of the way. It was a 4Runner, which was top-heavy at the time. The car truck flips over two times and lands back on all four. They rushed me to the hospital. Here he comes. He's the number one draft pick at the time. He comes in the hospital

screaming and crying like, where is Jason? He comes to me. I says, dude, I'm all right. Trust me, it's cool. He was like, no, you don't understand. My mother told me this was going to happen. That's why I didn't drive the car. I said, okay, cool. Wouldn't it be nice if he told you? Yeah, exactly, dude. And so that's a whole other conversation. But I don't know if he believed it either.

Oh, that's funny. But for his sake, like, I don't want to take chances, but you can go. I asked his mother, I said, did that happen? Is that true? She was like, yeah, that still wasn't enough for me. That was just a coincidence. I got so many stories, but the one that really transformed my life, I'm working at Coca-Cola. Twelve hour days, I'm angry.

My wife calls me and says, don't lose the faith. I said, if God is real, why am I in here all these hours? And I have all of this talent and I'm just driving a forklift. I said, he's fake. And I studied Egyptology. I said, the only sun that's coming through the clouds is the sun. And we, in Egyptology, that was Ra, the sun God. And I hung up. Within 10 minutes, I go to unload the pallets off of this truck and the driver didn't chalk his brakes. The weight of the high load pushed the truck bed away and I dropped with the high load to the ground. Two herniated discs in my back. I fall to the ground. I look up to the sky. I say, OK, you got my attention. I never go against you again.

I said, OK, you got my attention. I never go against you again. My son, you see in that lobby, my wife had five miscarriages after our daughter. And I had after my father died in 2007, I was in the shower and heard the Lord say to me, says, hey, after you, there is no more. I said, okay, what does that mean? Took me to Abraham, rich, no children. So when he died, all of his wealth goes to a servant. I get out the shower. I look to my wife.

I said, Nicole, do you pray for a child, specifically a boy? She says, yeah. And I get angry because my wife almost died from, she got pregnant before little Jay. And she has a bicochlear uterus, I hope I'm saying it correctly, where the egg went into a uterus that wasn't productive. So if the child would have been born, my wife would have died and the baby. So they were able to catch it. So we had, she had to have another, she had another miscarriage. They had to stitch up this bicornary uterus, but she could get pregnant. But again, she could deal with the same issue of dying because she only has half of her uterus. So I pray with her two weeks later she gets pregnant at the five month mark Joe I'm getting her something to eat she calls me screaming and

crying I said what's going on sharp pains in her stomach I said we about to lose another child I knew we shouldn't have got pregnant I go home as I'm home, a car pulls up to me. It's an older white woman. She looks at me. She says, hey, do you know where such and such is? I can't remember. And I told her. She says, oh, by the way, don't lose the faith. I said, what? She says, don't lose faith. It's going to be OK. Just randomly. Straight up, man. You know, so those things I couldn't question. Just randomly. Straight up, man. You know, so those things I couldn't question.

We go to the hospital. It's her appendix that ruptured. The doctor said the timing was so perfect it was scary. Only at that time in her pregnancy could he take my son out, then remove her appendix and put him back. He took him out and put him back? Yes. Yes, man. And so I'm like like so imagine now my son is in her we don't all these drugs going in my wife for pain and we like god right when he was born I didn't

want to name him Jason because the name Jason means healer and if you're a healer yeah oh yeah and I know being a healer it comes with great. So you have to be able to identify with people. So I said, I'm not naming him Jason. I'm going to name him Jace. When I saw his face and he was crying, I cried so much at the sight of him. The nurses and the doctor were crying. And I heard Mosai say his name is Jason. It's going to be tough, but that's his name. So it brings me to this place in my life where I run into people that are hurting. Last night, I'm at a restaurant here. My waitress is smiling the entire time.

And I'm like, wow, she's a happy person. But me dealing with people, I know she's smiling because she's hurting. Within seconds of our conversation, her eyes start watering. I said, what's going on? I said, you're hurting, aren't you? Her mother died of cancer, was her best friend. Her father had cancer. Her siblings are all falling out because of that. She's running from job to job, going from state to state to state. She's running from her trauma. And I says, you're going to have to let go and face it.

And I told her, I says, don't allow your trauma to time travel. That's what we do. We allow the things in the past to visit our present. And so it affects us from living free in the moment. And I what we do. We allow the things in the past to visit our present. And so it affects us from living free in the moment. And I hugged her and she really appreciated that I didn't just eat my dinner and walk out. She says, no one stopped me to say that. And she thanked me. So those things, my man, I just, all of that culminated into me creating the cave. I basically I try to be a healer for boys and men to help you work through what's hurting, to get you past this facade of just always being strong.

You know, some of the greatest fighters in the world, no one can be strong all the time. You know, we'll say to each other, stay strong, bro. We're subconsciously telling each other that when you feel weak, something's wrong with you. Yeah. The facade thing I think is very important for people to hear and talk about because men do like to put up that facade that they're never vulnerable. there's never anything wrong, and everyone knows it's bullshit. Other men know it's not true. So you're not tricking anybody. You're just posturing, and when you're posturing, it's really a weakness. There's more strength in just being who you are.

And just because you have vulnerable moments or just because you're emotional or just because you're sad, it doesn't mean you're weak. The way you overcome situations shows your strength. But situations are going to happen. You're going to have bad moments in your life. And if you're not a robot, you're going to have extreme emotions. You're going to have loss. You're going to have love.

You're going to have all those things. And you can't be afraid of them and a lot of men are afraid of them because they think they should just be this stone cold killer 24 7 all day long i mean that's like you know i guess we get that from movies we get that from my father's yeah yeah we get that from yeah yeah and that's why i love when i see i think it was uzman he had fought i can't think of the guy's name. I think it was not his last fight. It was his training part, and I can't think of the guy's name. Gilbert Burns? Yes.

And Gilbert was crying. Yes. And Usman dropped to his knees in respect. Blew me, I love that. Yes. Because it's showing comprehensive manhood. Yes. And how many men I'm guilty guilty of when my wife come home,

if I'm taking a nap, I jump up and start doing something. I mean, seriously, it's like we're not supposed to be. You pretend you weren't napping. I'm serious. I know. I know that feeling. Okay. And so when I shared that with her, she was like, is that what you do?

I'm like, yeah. She says, I want you to rest. But we, again, we identify ourselves with what we can do. Yeah. Like I couldn't imagine what it takes to run a podcast like this. How many hours you have to put in plus your comedy shows and then the UFC commentary. It's a lot of work. And then if we're not careful, our whole identity gets wrapped up in that. Yeah. And so when one of those things are too shut down, now we don't know how we can live.

Yeah. You know, who are we really? Who do they really love? Right. Who are you really? Yeah. A lot of people think that they are their accomplishments. Your accomplishments just allow you to learn about yourself.

That's a good way to put that. I like that. Yeah, any difficult thing that you're doing in your life, and it's one of the things that I love most about martial arts, is that, you know, you're struggling in silence. No one knows, you know. Your training partners know, but that's it. There's a few people in a room who know, and they all know, you know, each other,

and everybody's going through their own little struggles. But the struggles, the self-imposed struggles, one of the beautiful things about martial arts is those self-imposed struggles make regular struggles easier. They should. I mean, but you probably know several black belts in a gym who are white belts in life. There's a few of those out there. So for me, I was always baffled by that. Man, I got friends who could choke you out in a matter of seconds

or guys can kick cups off your head. But their relationships are a mess. Thank you. And I'm like, this is all for naught. And that's why I love the samurai you have out there in the entrance. Man, I took pictures and stared at it for a while. That's a real samurai.

That's a real armor from the 1800s. You know, I want one. That was a beautiful. I was like, so I thought about, because I talk about that in my book, Battle Cry, just waging this war within how the samurais love flowers. Yes. In the art of Ikebana, floral arranging art. They loved it, but their masculinity masculinity was or their manhood was never really challenged right it was okay for them to be fond of these beautiful flowers because

they because they had a short like span and the samurai's life was short as well because of the their their profession i guess as they're being a servant to whomever they served and then they're fighting and they possibly could die a lot faster than someone who wasn't a samurai. They had a they had an admiration for I think it was called the Sikor or the cherry blossom. But at the same time, it was OK for them to like flowers. Like myself, I would only buy flowers, Joe, for my wife or my mom. myself, I would only buy flowers, Joe, for my wife or my mom. But when I studied the psychological benefits of the colors of flowers in your home, I started buying them for myself. And so here I am picking out flowers and all these women in the store, like, are those for you? I'm like, yeah,

they're trying to flirt, but I'm married. But they said, whoa, what is this? I've never seen this before. Right. You're buying flowers for yourself. Yeah. And so my wife at first, she was like, oh, thanks for the flowers. I'm like, oh, that's enough. These are mine. So she got kind of offended, like, oh, okay.

But those are the things. So when I saw the samurai, and could you imagine that armor on one of those warriors and how fierce they look and how fierce they were but yet they still were the name samurai is just servant yes and even i studied the art for a short time yido the japanese sword art the teacher was telling us how it was even a dishonor to butcher your opponent if you were fighting someone. It was honorable that your cup would be as clean as possible so that they can die with mercy. So even in that, there was some kindness. And so I'm like, wow, this is missing so much from so many of the schools that I've trained in today.

from so many of the schools that I've trained in you know today and then you wonder why so many of us as men who are practitioners in the arts or whatever even like sports like football you're trained to let your anger out on the field yeah to hit things to release anger no wonder domestic violence is high in the NFL mmm okay I never to release anger or frustration, I don't use the arts for that. I sit still and meditate and release and breathe. Cause you know, especially in art, like a jujitsu, you can hurt someone really bad if you, you're not training and you're hurting and cranking armbar too hard or whatever, you know? So I've learned to release it in healthy ways. And as men, man, we don't, we don't release, you know, the anger and the frustration in a healthy way. And then

unfortunately, when we come home, the people who love us and don't deserve it, they end up getting that end of the stick. And, you know, me and I talked to allow someone to slay sly remarks to them in public and they won't say anything then they come home and their wife just ask a simple question about just say anything and they snap and so many good men feel it's wrong to check someone in the midst of a conversation in a respectful way. One thing I had to learn, I love fine dining, and my wife, we both love going out and enjoying each other's company. The worst thing that can happen is to have a waiter or waitress who is not good or just having a bad day.

I typically, prior to now, I would leave. We would have a bad experience. And on the way home, I would be angry in the car that I allowed that to happen. So now when I see a waitress who appears to be having a bad day or a waiter, I say, excuse me. I say, it seems like you're not having a good day today, so can you please shift us, switch us with someone else? Because me and my wife are paying for a great experience. Almost always. They say, well, I'm sorry, sir. Can I try again? I say, sure, but can you tell me what's going on? It's amazing, man, with the stories you will hear, the weight that they carry,

just being a waiter or waitress, and they have to put all of that aside just to make us have a great experience. And so I give them the freedom to talk and share with me. One guy asked me to pray. And I said, well, I don't want to be disrespectful of this establishment. So me and my wife grabbed our menus and we were acting like we were ordering. And I was praying for this young kid because he was stressed because he didn't think he could get into college. And so he couldn't perform his job well. But what if these people, especially men, knew it's okay for me to feel this way,

but I need to release it before these thoughts make me toxic? But just to have the tools to deal with adverse moments in your life and have the tools to deal with emotions. You know, the thing that you were talking about with the samurais, have you ever read Miyamoto Musashi's writings? Book of Five Rings? Yeah. Absolutely.

One of the beautiful things about it is this is probably one of the greatest assassins the world's ever known. I mean, he was a man who killed more than 60 men in one-on-one sword fights. Yes. But his whole approach to everything was balance, that you must have balance. There cannot be these moments where you are overwhelmed with emotion because that's how you die. That's how you make mistakes. And you cannot make mistakes in sword fighting. In every other situation, if you make a mistake in jiu-jitsu,

perhaps you could use good defense, you can get out of a bad situation. You know, you maybe get caught and someone takes your back, like, oh, I know what I did there. I muscled it, I rushed it. You cannot do that in sword fighting. And so because of that, he developed this incredibly balanced perspective that many samurais shared, that he studied calligraphy he studied poetry he he would yeah tea yes yeah that's well yeah and that all these things the the discipline to be delicate

the discipline to understand beauty in nature and beauty in nature, and beauty in prose, and that this was what made him balance, that he was not a brute, that he was in control of all aspects of his life, and that he approached them all with equal focus and discipline. Once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things. That was one of the great Miyamoto Musashi quotes. And the idea that I got out of that is that what he learned,

whether it's through sword fighting or through any of the other disciplines, that they were almost interchangeable, that the amount of focus that you put into each one of these things let you understand that there's a significant aspect of all things that are difficult that's similar. And what that is is that they become better, you become better at them with full concentration and a full understanding of what they are. And the best way for him and the way he described it in his writings was that he

had the same discipline, the same love, and the same passion for all these things that he did, whether it was carpentry or whether it was flower arrangement. And that is how he maintained this balance. But it was not an easy thing. It's a discipline. And he talks about how you have to focus and how you have to approach these various aspects of your life. But he's talking about it from the perspective of a man who's teaching you how to be a great killer, which is really kind of amazing. And for a lot of people, it seems counterintuitive. It doesn't seem to make sense.

But what he's saying is to be at your best, you have to be in control of all these things. He talked about, I think it was the principle of just being empty and being in a space where nothingness, that's what he called it. And so we train in that as well. Basically, if I'm fighting you, we call it combat communication. I'm going to download your tendencies so I can use it against you. But I also need to be in this space where I can allow things to happen, where my emotions really aren't in control. We had a saying, emotions are great servants, but poor masters.

And so I would tell my students, when is the, we would train hard and they're out of breath and they're tired. They say, shirath, which just means servant in Hebrew, says, I'm tired. I said, what does that have to do with right now? Can that emotion help you right now in this moment? They say, no, sir. I say, when is the best time to be tired? This is when I'm at home asleep. It's the same thing in fighting. When you're dealing with the emotions and all these other things that's coming and telling you what you

shouldn't do or who you are or you lost or he got a blow in or he got your back, it's hard for you to really be in a space where you can respond. Now you're in a place where you're just reacting to everything. In life, it's the same thing. I try to walk around in a meditative state. So meditation, if I only can sit still and meditate, it's useless for me. I need to know how to use that if someone's trying to rob me. A situation I had at our building with my son, a guy, I'm coming out of our building. We just purchased this 15,000 square foot building for a nonprofit. At the time, it had

basketball rims before we built the cave gym for the martial arts. I come out the door and I'm oblivious to my surroundings because I got comfortable. I hear a voice say, they're trying to kill me. I turn around, it's a guy on the cell phone, a younger guy, maybe in his 20s. And I see my son. I said, who was trying to kill you? He says, they're coming around the corner. So I draw my firearm. I said, you're going to bring them around here to my son? Joe, so this suburban is coming, three guys in there. I see him clearly. And I keep in this guy in my peripheral. So at this entire time, I had to steal my soul so I can have self-control and I can't have any emotions right now. The lock, we hadn't changed it, man. And for me, you know, those tricky locks where you have to pull it out a little bit to turn

it. Imagine a car coming. You don't know if they have guns or not. And it's circling around and your son, your beloved son is next to you and you need to get him in this building. But you have to steal your nerves enough where you can get that key out just a centimeter and turn that lock. I got him in and to see my son eyes look at me he's scared I said lock the door go to the back of the building I see you in a minute I didn't know if that was gonna be my last time seeing him but I couldn't entertain that emotion at that moment I got in the weaver stance when that truck came around and I used the my truck as a barrier just in case they did start shooting, they turned around again and went the other way. So the guy on the phone, man, starts running

across the street in their direction. I said, so you're going to run in the same direction they're going in? He said, well, I'm not. I just got to get away. I said, yeah, right. I realized at that moment they were trying to steal my truck out front. I was new to the neighborhood. But until I drew my firearm, that's when their plans changed. But if I had been emotional, say if I could have shot the guy and shot before they shot, whatever, you see it all the time. We make so many emotional decisions. Now we're doing life in prison or a situation in Michigan with two road ragers getting to an argument with their families, man. They both were licensed to carry. They pull over into a car wash and they get out and shoot and kill each other in front of their families. And so I wrote about that because I asked men, how would you feel in that moment? You're dying in your own blood. You're laying there.

What would you think? Would you say, was it really worth it? Was my ego worth protecting? And these two men died. Unfortunately, it was a tragic story. But I wish there was a way as men we could learn how to just de-escalate the situation yeah and so to your point about being in an empty space and and not allowing the emotions to rule you that moment was just a defining moment for me even as a teacher

that I practice what I taught. Then when I went home, my wife says, it seems like you're not cool. I says, I'm not. I need to release all that I just went through. I was cool in that moment, but now I'm really overwhelmed emotionally. So now I'm starting to feel, man, my life was in danger. My son, I could have lost my son. All these emotions started arising. But I allow myself to release or reflect on what happened so that I can release and then reset, man. When we as men, when we allow ourselves that time to do that process, we can respond to what's coming next.

But as long as we suppress and keep suppressing, next thing you know we're depressed or we're anxious we're angry when we shouldn't be so when where our capacity is here you know someone could blow the horn at us now we're cursing them out what do you do to reset if you're in a situation like that where you just had a life or death situation and now you're kind of overwhelmed are you using meditation yes so i i meditate breathe, I allow myself just to release what I experience. So basically, if I could hold on to it, I say, oh, mom, cool, baby. It wasn't nothing, you know, I'm used to that.

I have to release it, maybe even cry if I need to in some situations. I sit alone and cry. I pray, of course. I ask God's spirit to move in me, his Holy Spirit to purge away all the trauma I've experienced because it has helped me to get this far. And then to, again, have the freedom to feel in that moment. Breathing is essential. essential okay so when I inhale I in my mind I'm thinking of everything that's happening inhale through my abdomen and then exhale I'm exhaling everything that's negative that's really affecting me in a bad way but I'm very careful careful during that process Joe because some of these things I need to keep so it's a process we call casting and, excuse me, and keeping. And it's called Shalach meditation. The word Shalach literally means in Hebrew, just to cast

away. So the things that are heavy, like a death of a loved one or pressure on my job or marital discord, what it may be, in the moment, I may need to cast some things away, but I may need to keep some things. So say if I was a a-hole to my wife or insensitive to her at a moment during the day, I don't need to just dismiss that because I need to be happy. I need to think on that. Why were you impatient with her? Why did you talk to her that way? Let's stay here for a moment, Jason, and let's dig a little deeper. I was disrespectful because I remember how my father, I saw the way he would talk to my mom. Or I can go recently, I don't think my wife trusts me or something. She said offended me and I'm holding it against her.

When I released that, I released the negative to that, keep what I need to deal with and reconcile, go to my wife, Nicole, and say, hey, I'm sorry for talking to you that way. Please forgive me. You know, you know, my intention is not to hurt you. My day is completely better, man. I, like with my wife, I can't, I used to can go days, man, arguing, you know, or just not speaking. Then I saw it as something children would do. you know, or just not speaking, then I saw it as something children would do. Why would I go longer than some hours not talking to my wife? Right.

That's what children do. But as men, when we're not used to becoming verbal processors, we don't really know how to express what we're thinking in a way that doesn't come off combative. Right, right. And a lot of men do feel like it is weak to express those emotions and to admit fault. Yeah. Or, you know, I was telling the nurse out there, she was really cool, by the way. It's hard for me to hold my wife's hand to this day in public because of the way I grew up, you know. I see what you're saying. Yeah. So guys will rush you and test you. What you doing with her? She too good. She look too good for you.

That affected me. That affected me, man. And I'm like, so I and my wife is hilarious. I say, look, when I'm out in public, I say, can you remind me to hold your hand? She said, what good is that? I mean, it's not sincere, but I have to remind you. I say, Nicole, I'm asking you because I need help. I need you to say, Jay, you told me that when we're out in public to remind you to hold my hand. Here's an opportunity. It's literally a war going on inside of me, Joe. Don't hold her hand, man. You'll be weak. Remember what your brothers taught you growing up. She'll use it against you. And then the other side of me, it's like the cartoon you see the good and bad

angel on the shoulder. But the good in me says, love her. Love her from your heart. Caress her. Be romantic. It's like going back and forth. And eventually I'm like, okay, okay, let's go. I mean, seriously, that's what it is for me. That's funny because you're dealing with just old thoughts.

I let my trauma time travel. And I had to stop that. And it's a process me and say, well, man, how did you get here? I said, man, I'm a work in progress, man. That's why I stay transparent on social media. Yeah. All of us are, right? Yeah. I'm trying to grow. I don't want you to look at me like I've got it. I don't. I'm aiming for that. It's a constant, continual, it's a process of growing, learning, and keep growing. And when men see that, and I'm really encouraged. When I get stopped, I was just in Santa Monica, California with my wife. And I hear someone say, man, I love your videos. And I said, Nicole, did you hear that? And she was like, yeah. I said, I wonder if they're talking to me, but we kept driving. It was a police officer on the bike. He rides a

Hispanic brother. He says, hey, I love what you're doing. Thank you. It helps me make it through my day. Before I pull off, Joe, a group of white young kids pull up next to me. It had to be like 21 max. I love what you're doing. Thank you. I said, all right, cool. Thank you for stopping because it encourages me to not give up. So people don't understand with me and I'd be transparent with you. What I do with boys, what I do desiring to help men and families, I love it, but it comes, it's a heavy weight. Um, My desire was never to be here on your show or anything, viral videos or anything. I just wanted to shine my light in such a way that those who are in darkness can find their way out. What's heavy about it when you say it's a heavy weight?

The compassion fatigue, man, meaning that's what nurses experience or doctors at war. When you're constantly taking in trauma or people who are heartbroken, like the waitress last night, my heart, man, it breaks for people. So when you really care or you love hard like I do, you get worn out. Yeah. And then, you know, I'm not religious, man. I'm not. And then, you know, I'm not religious, man. I'm not that tradition.

All that stuff, I'm experiential with Yahushua, Yeshua, Jesus, who they call Jesus. I live it. You know my faith by what I do, not by what I say. And so because I do it, I take on a lot, man. And my wife, thank God I have her. She prays for me. She covers me. I can cry to her. She caresses my scalp because she knows I'm constantly under attack spiritually. I could build a rocket ship out of wood, no gas, and I have no difficulty in doing it. out of wood, no gas, and I have no difficulty in doing it. But let me try to teach, train, and transform boys. Let me try to stop a man from divorcing his wife or abusing his wife.

Let me try to help men express themselves in good ways where they're no longer toxic to society. I catch it every day. What do you do to try to mitigate that? What do you do to try to relax when you are dealing with sort of the compassion fatigue when you're on, obviously, you're on a path, and that path resonates. It's why I reached out to you. I watch your videos, and I see your sincerity

and I see that you're really accomplishing something. You're really reaching people. So what do you do to sort of like relieve some of the pressure on yourself and to relax? I love the guitar. You know, I want to really be proficient in it. It relaxes me, man. I can sit out in my driveway and I just play just a certain melody over and

over again and then when the birds chirp it's just I love just nature the beginning of was it gladiator yeah when he was walking through the fields and so I had never seen the movie till a friend of mine says that's you I. I said, what do you mean? You're in a constant war, but your desire is to be at peace in this environment. And so you saw him just running through the fields, just rubbing his hand through, what was it, like wheat? Wheat, yes. That's me, Joe. I want that simple life.

Like if I could just work at a hardware store. I used to own a construction company, I love building. I could just work at a hardware store, get off work, go home and love my family, I'm happy. But I know I'm called to something much deeper. And it chokes me up now

because it's not easy doing what you don't want to do because you want his will done through you. Um, I never chased anything, man. We got a documentary coming out on my life. I signed with Lawrence Fishburne's film company. When the video went viral, producer named Roy Bank reached out. It was like, man, man, the world needs to see this. I don't want all that attention, man. You know, it's going to be on one of the major platforms early next year.

I don't want that. Are you worried about the extra pressure that that's going to bring? The greatest pressure, I was telling my wife, is not necessarily me being canceled by the culture. Because I don't cancel me. It would be a blessing. I can go back to where I came and live my normal life, working with boys and loving my family.

The pressure, Joe, in a society where we're all in fight or flight, where no one seems to have integrity, is when as soon as I say, I represent the most high, everyone's looking at you like, uh-oh, I heard that before. I've seen that before. I don't want to fail. I don't want to give him another black eye. You know, I had a bad experience growing up with religious people. And it could be some of the most judgmental people in the world. people and it could be some of the most judgmental people in the world and the savior they talk about didn't die for religion he died for relationship and he tells us to love one another so that the

world would know that he is real i've never seen anyone run from love and that's, I know when you love hard, you're going to get hurt. I don't like getting hurt. I don't, I just want my life just like everyone else. I want to live my best life now. My best life is simplicity, but it's much bigger than me. but it's much bigger than me. Men are in such dire need for someone to model it in a way where they're not judged, they're not condemned, where even their wives can say, look at them different.

Say, baby, come to me. I'm here for you. As men, when our mothers leave us, when they pass away, or when we get married, it was never intended for us not to have a nurturer. Our wives are supposed to be that to us, and they desire it, but we won't let them in because of, like you say, the culture and how we've been, I guess, conditioned. And when my mother died and left me, even though I did a great job, I left it all on the floor with her, I still felt like I lost something. And I allowed my wife to fill that void of being a nurturer and love me. But even in that, the pressure you talk about, the stuff you have to deal with, man. You know, I look at the media on Twitter,

and it's just like everyone is just aiming to hurt each other. I'm telling you, man, it's like the culture and world is in fight or flight where wisdom, reason is no longer even at the table anymore. You know, when you're stuck in that mindset, love will always look like conflict. And so I don't want it, man. I just want to do what I do. But I know the world needs to see and hear, I guess, the message I have to bring. And it came from a lot of pain.

The reason I can be transparent because I've been broken I prayed for it because I was in this way I didn't want to do this stuff man I ran I um I always thought selling drugs could be an option for me you know what I mean because if I didn't make it in music I could do that I didn't want to do this man man. It's a lot. But you realize the impact it has on people when that cop pulls up next to you on the bicycle, when those kids are walking across the street and they're talking to you. And I'm sure that's a normal occurrence for you. Yeah. So that's why when I see, especially a man, for a man to come up to you and say, hey, can I just talk to you for a minute? Thank you so much. They don't know that keeps me going.

It keeps me going because it's hard, man. It's like nights crying, and then you get tons of messages from men who are suicidal. I'm just at a track, man, and a doctor recognizes me. Very successful. Was going to kill himself. And I said, well, you know, have you talked to anyone? He says, yeah, but when I talk to him, they say, they always say, well, think about your family.

Think about this. He was like, well, what about me? I said, you're right. You're worth living. Yes, we want to be here for our families. We got to deal with ourselves first. And as men, we feel we're so worthless. Again, it's the point we were talking about earlier. If we base our lives around what we do instead of who we really are, we'll never live fulfilled lives, man. Yeah. And so to have men crying in front of you, strong men. I remember

I was at a conference at this church. It was a thousand men there. And so, again, I'm thinking this is just a black thing. It was only three brothers, black men there. The rest was my white brothers. So we have a moment to talk outside after my discussion. Men lined up crying. And you can, these brothers wasn't no joke. You can tell they were serious. One guy asked me, he says, man, my son, I'm training him in MMA. He was a fighter. And he says, but it seems like he's getting hard towards me.

Like, I can't. I went to hug him the other day and he just kept his arm down. I looked at him and I can tell, you know, you, you serious dude. I said, I was going to buy a dog called a Conor Corso or some people call them cane Corsos. And the breeder told me since I had kids, he said, listen, I need you. Whenever this dog puppy drinks water, I want you to cradle him and feed him through a bottle. I'm like, what are you whenever this dog puppy drinks water, I want you to cradle him and feed him through a bottle. I'm like, what are you talking about? I never heard of doing that. He said, what you have to understand about this breed, he's already wired to protect you. I need him to feel his other side. He needs to be a nurturer as well because you have children.

I told that man that because I said, right now, you're only bestowing upon your son masculinity. He needs to experience a father's love. He needs to experience a father's nurturing. He needs to experience a father's patience, guidance. This man broke down in front of me. So when I see that, Joe, I take that in. Yeah. And I'm like, and another guy, and another guy, and another guy.

Yeah. But when you go home, I grab my guitar and play. And I just say, I can't wait till, you know, it's my time. Yeah. In this day of negative shit online, particularly like social media, I think it's one of the reasons why your videos resonate so much because they are positive. And you are trying to help kids. You are trying to spread a good message for men.

You really are. And that's why it resonates so much because there's not a lot of that out there. A lot of what you're seeing online is either people being really negative about things or trying to show you how great they got it. Those are the two things you see a lot of on social media. And I think it feels very empty to people. So when they see something like that video,

you helping that young boy get over his overwhelming emotions or many of your other videos you have online, I mean you have tons of videos that are all about you reflecting about your path, reflecting about the meaning of these lessons and what you're getting out of things. It's very important for people because people don't, like that superficial shit and negative things in life, it's so easy to get sucked up in them.

It's so easy to get wrapped up in gossip and negativity and insults and all the stuff that you see constantly online, arguments. But they feel empty and hollow for people. Whereas things that you're doing, those kind of videos, they feel nourishing. They feel like some people are getting something out of them and it inspires them to want to be a better person. One of the best things that a person can do for others is inspire those people to try to be a better version of themselves.

And for you, being transparent is important too, because you're, you know, you're not pretending to be some perfect person who's always been this way. You're, you're explaining your own battles, your own struggles with your emotions, with life, with stress, with pressure, you know, but that's honesty like that was very, very important. It's very, it's very, it's very significant for people when they take that in. It really can improve them. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that.

I know to their defense, I was telling one of the producers of the documentary, I saw a piece of it. I said, wow, this is going to move so many people. I said, wow, this is going to move so many people. And I posted a video on TikTok of just me and my son. I'm benching and I'm teaching him how to spot me in the gym and in life. This video has almost four million views. And I looked through the comments and it was so many millennials and Gen Z just saying, I wish I had a dad. I wish my father was patient with me and teach me things.

And I called the producer. I say, I get it now. As a society, we've forgotten what love feels like and looks like. And I get why I'm in this place and position and why I can't run from it, and I'm not. But, you know, it gets hard. But that's what I'm saying. So things like this is something that encouraged me to keep going. When men stop me and say, hey, man, you know, I was going to get divorced, man, and I saw this video, and I wanted to,

well, I bought your book, I learned how to cry, and I want to wage and win the war within. How do I do these things? It's just gas in my tank. Keep going. I know it's hard. Keep going. The training, so much has been taken away from me, Joe.

My mother, my friends, my brothers. I love martial arts. Torn meniscus. My fibula head is unstable. It pops out when I'm in a kneeling position. The pain. It's like, my God. You know what I'm saying?

It's like these things I love. And it's like focus on what you can do. Your fibula head is unstable yes and what is what happens so when i get to a low position just say if you're grappling or if you're just in a kneeling position as soon as i stand up man it just pops out of socket and then it pops back in when when you look at the structure of the knee, where's the damage at? It's right on the side. You know where the – it's just right on the side of the knee, the fibula here. It's right there. But the meniscus is torn, but that there, it makes it worse.

And then I forgot a baker's cyst as well, which one therapist believes that is causing a lot. Yeah, I'm sure. So the cyst is bleeding bleeding inside a lot of that happens from a meniscus tear um so you can get that drained i've had cysts drained i've i've had my right knee drained like 15 times okay i tore my meniscus a couple years ago on my right knee and i had it drained a bunch of times it doesn't doesn't happen anymore it's it's sort of stopped i had a bunch of stem cell shots in there. But you can do some things to strengthen the knee that will keep it from being so unstable.

There's a – I'm bringing this guy up again. I bring him up all the time. Knees Over Toes guy on Instagram has an amazing workout. Have you ever seen him? I got that from you. Yeah, there you go. It's amazing. i did that today i did his workout this morning actually and it works man oh yeah it makes it makes perfect sense because

it really does i was we did i wasn't doing a crossfit era i tried that and the whole thing was to shift your hips back and knee stay behind the toe yes but it's not a functional movement right for us especially. Or for basketball players, and that's where he learned it from. I mean, he developed it because he loves basketball and he was constantly dealing with injuries, and he had multiple surgeries on his knees. And through trying to figure out what's the best way to strengthen his knees and figure out where the problems lie, he realized that there are

people who teach a different method of strengthening the knee. And he went all in on that and learned it. And now he has more than how many thousand success stories? He's got an incredible amount of success stories with knee rehabilitation and recuperation. But he's helped me tremendously. His workouts have helped me tremendously. the and he does it very slowly so 2,200 knee success stories um his name's ben patrick it's needs over toes guy on instagram and here's what i really love about this guy he gives away all these coaching tips on instagram for free. And he said the reason why he does that

is because he would want them to be available to him when he was 10 years old. And so he thinks about it the same way. So the guy is incredibly fit and he does all these, I mean, he performs all these amazing physical feats online. Like, I mean, the guy guy can dunk he can do this wild shit where he can jump up in the air and drop all the way down to his knees this is just his high jump but he he shows this incredible dexterity and flexibility and strengthening like this this is what I love the best he drops all the way down like this and then all the way back up. That's very difficult to do. And that's all, he's got this program where you start very slow. So

he's not pushing you in a way that you're going to injure yourself. You start very slow and he has steps and stages and you work your way up to what he calls dense strength in the knees and all the stabilizing muscles around the knees. And it's helped me, you know, Coleon, Coleon Noir, he does that program. I know a lot of people that do his program. Wow. I know, it's incredible. And again, here's a guy that's had many, many knee surgeries. So he's like, it says there, the human knee extension enters the equation in my third

program and provides a scalable route with four levels of getting stronger strong in the deepest knee bend which follows the clues of magic revealed by strength through length and his whole thing is about range of motion and strengthening your knee through the entire range of motion and he also he and I were talking about shoulder look at that's me and him talking about I'm Corey Sanhagen. I'm a big fan of the guy. A big fan of his also his philosophy of giving away all this information and letting people know that there's a way out of this. The traditional methods of strengthening the legs are great, but they don't stabilize the knee as well as they could.

And his methods are far better, I believe. So I can just go to his Instagram and learn about his programs? Yeah, a ton of his stuff is available for free online on his Instagram. And he talks about it in depth, and he explains why these individual exercises are good for strengthening different aspects of your knee. And there's a few real simple tools that you could get to work with. One of them is this thing called, well, he has a slant board, which is huge. And this slant board, it's just a small board that's at an angle so that your toes are pointed

downward so that when you bend forward, your knees are really over your toes. And it really aids you in strengthening that. Another thing he has, there's a product that he uses all the time called the, that's the Tib Bar. That thing's fantastic too. And it forces you to, you're doing like these curls using your feet, and you're strengthening all those muscles that are on your shins and beside your shins. That also stabilizes your knee. And then he's got this other thing that they use a lot called a monkey foot.

And what a monkey foot is, it's like it's a thing that straps onto your sneaker and it allows you to put a dumbbell inside of it. And from there you can do leg lifts, you do leg raises, you do leg extensions and curls. So it's like it allows you to grab a dumbbell the same way you would grab one with your arm where you could do like tricep extensions or curls and strengthen your biceps and triceps. But this allows you to do it with your leg. So it clamps on to the bottom of your foot, straps in place, and then you could use that for individual leg curls, leg extensions, leg lifts, which strengthens all of your hip flexor muscles. Amazing stuff.

What is that called? It's called a monkey foot. What is it? Athletic Truth Group. Who has that? Yeah, it's a stick thing. What is the company that has it? It's ATG.

It's right. Right. But what is the company that sells the monkey foot? And it's not expensive. Yeah. Yeah. Animal House Fit. That's what it is. Creators of monkey foot. And it's not expensive. Yeah. Yeah, Animal House Fit. That's what it is.

Creators of monkey feet. And if you see that, scroll down there, Jamie, so you can see what it looks like. That's what it looks like right there. I love that thing. Yeah, show if there's a video there. There's probably a video there. Yeah, see, there you go. So seriously, this woman doing leg lifts.

So she's standing on a platform. It looks like she's standing on a bench. And she's lifting up. And that is tremendous for kicking strength and for the hip flexor muscles. It's also great for running. It improves your speed for running. Yeah, yeah, leg extensions. It's an amazing tool.

And it's cheap. Not expensive at all, but really well engineered, well designed and the best thing that I've ever found for strengthening the leg as an individual unit the way you would do your arms. Look at how he's doing these leg curls. It's amazing. Amazing for strengthening. And you can go through a full range of motion.

Look how he's dropping down for a squat and then up with the knee. So many different exercises you could do. It's one of the best tools that I've ever found for just for strengthening your legs. He's doing it with the bridge right there. Yeah, yeah. Tremendous. Thanks, man. Tremendous.

Should I get two or just one? I just have one. I just use one at a time. But all his programs could really help you with your knee. I need that, man. And then, you know, we get a little leery of going in certain positions. And I'm thankful. I got a great coach. He's 20-year or more black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Tyrone Gooden.

And he really helps me out a lot. And he's a great teacher of principle. And so that's what I love when I do privates with him. He helps coaches me through a lot of that. And so, but i do need to do what you're doing because um you know again i'm leery it's like man you know i don't want to be in a situation that need pop out again and i need it i gotta go to work still you know i believe you know i get it man i've had three knee surgeries i've had uh both my acls reconstructed

surgeries. I've had both my ACLs reconstructed. I've had a meniscus surgery in my left knee. Did that help, the meniscus surgery? Yeah, I needed it at the time because I had what's called a bucket handle tear where it tore and flipped over and kind of locked in place. And they tried to repair it at one point in time, stitch it together, but it just kept tearing. So they eventually took a piece of the meniscus out, not too much, but then stem cells and platelet-rich plasma and a bunch of things helped heal it up. And you see a difference? Oh, yeah. It was pretty bad.

But my right knee, I didn't do that. It's not as bad a tear. My right knee, the tear, it's still there. But I have full function. So even with grappling, you're fine? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No problem. Yeah.

I have to warm up. That's a big part of it, I have to warm up. Because a lot of injuries you get, like I tore my meniscus just in a kicking contest with my friend, I had this machine at the old studio where you kick it and it registers how hard. That video is everywhere man yeah i fucked my meniscus up in that video i'm wearing jeans like an idiot yeah yeah

oh man 52 years old throwing power kicks without warming up so i'm 51 and i threw my back out on this trip to california recently i'm just trying to stay in shape, you know, so I'm running up hills in Malibu. Okay. Again, getting overhyped. Right. Instead of walking down, I run down. Oh, it's a lot of pounding. Yeah. Man, the next day I couldn't hardly move.

Thankfully, I found a good chiropractor in Beverly Hills who helped me greatly. But, man, the age piece is is really big. And then it's like, man, how much longer do I have being hands on in the cave training these boys? And so I have other young men. My assistant, Chris, who's been with me since 2011. The fighting piece, learning how the techniques we don't do a lot because, again, our goal is not to create martial artists but men with martial hearts men with martial hearts basically men who allow themselves to feel and will fight everything that will prevent them from expressing how they truly feel but yet still you want them to be able to defend themselves against bullying uh against a threat whatever so we got to make sure what we do teach them is solid and really works so you have to be active you have to be active. You have to be able to do it.

And I have to do it. And then the principles, how, you know, at any moment, you know, I got to take advantage of teachable moments. Like, you know, one video, one of my recruits, Elijah, we were training and I was teaching him just how to fall. With the kids, we bring them down gently and teach them how to break fall. And he kept saying, no, he stopped. He said, I'm hurt, sir. I said, where are you hurting at? And he says, he looks at me, and I look at him, I did like this. He says, I'm nervous, sir.

So at that moment, I say, okay, good. I say, now, as men, it's messed up that we can't just say we're nervous. We have to, like you say, put on the facade that everything is cool. I said, I want you to go back. So I said, go back to your corner. Now rush at me. And he grabbed me. I said, say I'm nervous.

He says, I'm nervous. I said, yell it. I'm nervous. And so I kept trying to sling him. Now his grips were stronger than ever, and he wouldn't fall. And I said, you see the difference? He says, yes. I said, always release it or not it's going to

control you don't hang on yeah so I don't want to miss those moments but then I think Henna Gracie said it really good talked about the older guys in his school how they have to pass the guard or something when you have to know when a certain season is over. And so for me, our academy is like, I got a great assistant. And, you know, sometimes as a leader, you can stay too long. And I don't want to do that. And I have to allow him to step into my space because I know I'll be 51 this year. And it's like my body, things have to change. I'm right there with you, man.

Yeah, man. You can do a lot, though. You can do a lot as long as you do it smart and as long as you strengthen all of the areas where they're vulnerable, like your back. One of the things that I do, I do a lot of core exercise. I do a lot of back extensions. I use a machine called the Reverse Hyper. I have a machine from, well, I have one from Rogue in my old studio, and then I have one at my house.

It's from Sorenex. It's called, he calls it like a Frankenhyper. So it's like you can do chin-ups and leg extension, chin-up and back extensions this way, and then the other way it works. Do you know what a reverse hyper is? Oh, yes. Yeah. So the beautiful thing about the reverse hyper is it allows your

body to use weight to actively decompress your spine while strengthening the muscles around it and it was created by louis simmons from west side barbell because louis who's a mad scientist genius with power lifting and stuff he had a bulging disc in his back and they wanted to operate on him and infuse his discs. And so him thinking about things like, okay, something's compressing it and that's what's causing this disc to bulge. I need to figure out how to lengthen it. I need to figure out how to decompress it and then strengthen all the surrounding tissue to make sure that stays in place. So he developed this machine called the reverse hyper. Since I've been using that, I have

had no back problems. Or if I do have a back problem, it's very minor and it goes away quickly. So I thought you were talking about just a regular hyper extension. No, this is, well, this is, he's using it here with, this is with his upper body, but find out, is this the Sorenix one? Yeah. So that's the back extensions, right? You can use it that way, but then you use it as a reverse hyper where you're facing the other... See if you can find it where he's using it the right way. Nope. Nope.

Nope. He's just got a bunch of different exercises. Pull the Louie Simmons one. There it goes. That's the Rogue Donkey, which is the same sort of thing. It's a reverse hyper with more shit on it. Oh, Rogue has one as well? Just find a reverse hyper. Just put in reverse hyper.

So this machine that Louis... That's it right there. So this machine that Louis created, that's Mark Bell. Shout out to Mark Bell. So he's going to get on and show how it works. So during the descending, your back is actually decompressing. And then in the ascending, as you're lifting up, it's strengthening all those lower back muscles.

And then as you're dropping down, it's actually pulling on your back and separating it. And so really good at strengthening all the back muscles, but also decompressing the entire spinal column. I love it. You don't have an inversion table at home. That's great, too. That's great, too. Yeah. I've never seen that, man.

Yeah, that is the shit. That thing is huge. It's really important because it's the only way you could actually add weight and decompress naturally. And then on the ascending, as you're lifting your legs up, you're strengthening all those muscles. So on the descending, it's really pulling and stretching, but it's also strengthening. Amazing.

Amazing piece of equipment. That's a thing I have at home, too. That's called a Dex inversion. Well, you could definitely do back extensions with that, too, but that thing is tremendous. That's also by Teeter, the same company that makes those inversion tables. I'm a giant fan of that company. But this is my favorite machine.

I have one of these at home. You could do all kinds of things from it. But the hanging part like this is the best. So you put your legs like that, like a leg curl, curl and you lean forward and it hangs you right from your hips it just really decompresses the spine like when i get in there i hear it go like pop pop like it's all just relaxing and loosening up tremendous tremendous piece of equipment i may need to replace my inversion table because i get the same benefit but it's more compact right it's more compact and you can do other things like you

can do back extensions and exercises with it i prefer that i have an inversion table as well but i prefer that dex over the what is that called the dex2 is that what it is yeah the dex2 it's uh from the same company teeter dex2 inversion core training system i'm a giant fan of that and what also i like about that is it allows you to completely relax, whereas when I hang from my ankles, although it's very beneficial, I feel like my legs are tightening up to try to, like, support me, and it's more difficult to completely relax my back and let it stretch out. With that, you're hinging from the hips, and so as you hinge from the hips,

your weight is really on your upper thighs. And so from your hip forward, you can go completely loose. And you really feel it, like, stretch out your back and relax everything. Thanks, man. I love it. I got a lot here, man. Yeah, but that's what old guys like us have to do, man. We have to keep everything strong.

Do you still float? Do you still float? Yeah, floating is giant. I haven't done that in a while because I don't have a tank out here, but there's a few places that you could do where you could rent space out here, and they're actually putting one in right down the street. Well, there's a place in Michigan called Inception. It's the first mental health gym, and that's when I first got hip to it.

And he's a big fan of yours, David McCullough. Shout out to it. And he's a big fan of yours, David McCullough. Shout out to David. Yeah, I was in the tank, and it's amazing how my entire body was able to relax. I never experienced anything like it. And then he couples it with brain training, neurofeedback. So now I'm able to let my mind release a lot. And so I'm thankful to NeuroOptimal. They gave me a brain training unit for free.

Oh, nice. Because of the work I do with boys in Detroit. And it allows me to reset. It's like a mirror for your brain to see what's going on, and it allows your brain to reset. And those things, that's what I also do besides playing the guitar that helps me reset. Floating. Floating, the brain training and the guitar. But the key thing is, and I don't know if you experienced this, is again, I'm not perfect, you know, where

I'm at. I'm striving to become better each day. I catch myself again, fighting to pull out of this work is my identity mode, you know? And then next thing you know, I only give myself two minutes to play three minutes to play the guitar because you got to get back to work there you go and it's like man jay you know better than this stop it and and do better and that work is my identity thing is a real trap right it is it's major man i mean i used to work for a non-profit like 16 hour days man and it's like you're killing yourself you know it's just it's just too much you know and so think all the the men that don't have a platform to share this and

what they're going through and some men have two jobs three jobs just trying to make ends meet or men who run companies you know being entrepreneurs a lot of work and scared the business is going to fail and how that would make them look. And so they don't rest. Yeah. That's a, that's a big factor. And that's why they die of heart attacks in their fifties. And I often say, uh, like, I don't know if you notice a statistic says that, what is it? Um, people who live over a hundred, nine, nine out of 10 are women. So even if you're on social media i've seen especially on facebook you'll see grandma celebrating 101 right you know birthday and things like that when have you seen

an old man a hundred and anything super rare yeah yeah and that's because we work ourselves to death man you know i talk about you, rest now or rest in peace. And so we don't do it a lot. And so people say, I want to wage the war within. You know, I'm like, and when? I'm like, well, you got to rest. Yeah. You know, you got to recuperate.

You wouldn't, if you had, who was the best, I don't know, basketball player? I don't, let's just say LeBron right now or Giannis. And they're injured. You wouldn't throw them back on the courts. They were injured. Right. But we as men feel that we can keep going and keep going. And it's not healthy for our brains.

That's one of the biggest problems with jujitsu guys is they'll train injured. They love jujitsu so much that they got something wrong with their shoulder or something wrong with their knee. And they just wrap it up and try to train light or try to train around it and like at all times yeah there's times where you have to back off of sparring and just use that time to rest yeah you gotta relax gotta heal again this i do it for my mind more so than my body a lot of times and then um taking naps man a power nap does great like does me great benefits because 15 minutes or 20 minutes, I feel like I slept for three hours and I'm invigorated. You know, I'm more focused. And I tell my brothers, just take a, go in your car, take 15 minutes.

But again, it's like kryptonite for us. You know, it's like, well, no one can see me take a nap because they think i'm weak you know and so the tank for me is way more beneficial than even just a nap if i can get in a tank for an hour i feel like i slept for eight hours like and there's also the epsom salt aspect of it because of the salt that's in the tank your body gets all this magnesium that absorbed through the skin yes and so everything just feels loose and comfortable. That's amazing. Isn't one hour equivalent to four hours of deep sleep?

Supposedly. I mean, but I don't know how they're doing those. I got you. They might be just saying that to sell tanks. So you have your own? Yeah, yeah, I have my own. That's awesome, man. Yeah, I love it.

But again, I'm one of their ambassadors because of the work I do. I can go at any time. That's great. But I don't. You should, I'm one of their ambassadors, you know, because of the work I do. I can go at any time. That's great. But I don't. You should. I'm just being transparent. I get it. But again, we all deal with this like it's out my way. It's another 20 minutes.

And I got another hour there. But I'm worth it. Right. You see? You just got to schedule it. But even with the schedule, man. Once or twice a week, just make it a thing that you have to do it. Put it on the schedule.

I have to fight myself. Yeah. I'm serious. It's like, you know, the time. And then with the cave, it's just so big, man. I just be like. So you have 500 kids that are on the waiting list, huh? Yeah, almost five.

Yeah, pretty. Yeah. How do you deal with with that it seems like for a guy like you that would probably really eat at you that there's 500 kids you can't reach so think about we purchased the building to open it up so we can bring more kids in then covid happened so that's why it kept growing so i'm hoping that things don't go crazy again and we can do in person because it's, they need that interaction. And yeah, so that was a big deal. And so, yeah, of course, you get the emails from parents. I've been on the waiting list for four years, things like that.

And so it was imperative that we created a 24-week curriculum so that the kids can come in, get the training, and then we can bring more kids in. So once COVID relaxes, you think you'll be able to accommodate all those kids on that waiting list at the new facility? We can start the process, absolutely. And again, the kids now, they were fortunate. They were there in the beginning. So I have kids that's been there since 2013 that don't want to leave. But the goal is for you to reach a certain age. We said manhood at 12.

We turned 13. And now we need you to take this training and apply it to life. Anyone can be great on a mat, you know, but can you apply this in life? Can you become a better son? Can you keep a job? Can you excel at that job? We teach dining etiquette as well. You know, how do you

dine at a table? You know, what belongs on the right? What belongs on the left? Then we do job training skills. We do teach them how to make drones. So the CAVE is just a foundation where we can send these boys out into other fields. If you want to be an intern, we have lawyers say, look, I take one of your boys because I know i don't have to worry about them being disciplined that's excellent and so that's really amazing yeah that's such a great service to provide for the community and so important for young men you know and the martial arts aspect of it is so critical you know i was very fortunate when i was younger that i found a very good martial arts school. And I was at the

Jaehyun Kim Taekwondo Institute in Boston. And one of the things that they had on their tenants of the school when they're explaining it, they said that martial arts are a vehicle for developing your human potential. That's good. And that through the difficulty of martial arts, you'll find out what you can do in life. That's the that's the truth i'm living proof and it's amazing you know the benefits especially in taekwondo because there's a lot of katas how it helps kids with adhd symptoms focus yeah you have to remember and you know and so i don't i think a thing that's not good in the martial arts community is how we you know label certain martial arts um and you know i i i don't dismiss anything like because

everything every art every system has a benefit you know um and so again i've seen kids with severe adhd symptoms take up taekwondo and it's amazing how their focus improves yeah you know and so even martial arts that people think are useless they have some application if you understand the other martial arts. There's a lot of people that talk shit about Wing Chun and they think that it's not an effective martial art. But there are moments where Wing Chun would be effective. You just need to learn takedown defense and leg kicks. There you go. You need to learn all the other aspects of martial arts.

and leg kicks. There you go. You need to learn all the other aspects of martial arts. But there are times where linear punching like that and the ability to block like Wing Chun and then block and counter. There's a guy, a top flight guy in the UFC, Tony Ferguson, he uses Wing Chun a lot. I saw that, yeah.

All the time. You see some of his fights, he'll use techniques that you will drill on a Wing Chun dummy. And he'll use those in fights. Trapping hands and delivering punches at the same time. It does work. It can work. And even, what is the saying, the shortest distance between two destinations is a straight line?

Yes. And that's one thing, one of my instructors in Kenpo, the Shaolin Kenpo I had studied, we would do like round blows, but he was saying that straight blow blow that thrusting punch straight ahead is so fast yeah it gets to you and it's devastating because the the directional flow of that blow everything is aligned if you can get it to happen sure you know and so straight jab yeah straight jab is one of the most effective yeah sure but the issue is a lot of the schools or the teachers it's the pride that don't want to let go of the tradition to bring other styles in. I think that's unfair to the child as well or the man who's learning it because you want to know takedowns and submissions and throws. You just want to be well-rounded as a fighter.

It's just unfortunate that they want to pretend that the art is effective on its own against a skilled fighter who knows other disciplines. Because it's not. But if you're a guy like Tony Ferguson that knows all the other things, like he's a great wrestler, he's great submissions, he's a great striker, then you can apply those techniques. It's the same thing with Taekwondo. Taekwondo in and of itself is not a good martial art for like mixed martial arts but it's good if you know the other things if you know takedown defense and jujitsu and you know leg kicks then taekwondo can be very effective definitely anthony pettis who's a great fighter as a taekwondo practitioner or even you see them guys take your head off with the kicks it's like

and for you to be able to do that like this but But if you don't, again, I've seen it, great fighters. If you don't understand how to deal with someone coming in, all of that is nullified. I've seen it like in clubs everywhere. It's like, man, it's amazing. You can be a great striker. And I've seen some guys put people down who just have their hands like a boxer.

Yeah. But when you deal with someone who knows jujitsu and can come in, it's a problem if you don't know what to do. Yeah, once you get grabbed, if you don't know how to defend, if you don't know how to grapple, you're really helpless. You're done. You're helpless.

And I remember the first classes I took, you know, I thought I was a good martial artist. I had done some kickboxing. You know, I fought a lot of Taekwondo tournaments. And I was like, I know how to fight. I remember just getting mauled. By people my size. They weren't bigger than me.

Fabio, he teaches at 313 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Detroit. I think 5'3", maybe. Don't be mad at me, Fabio. I don't know. The fact that he controlled me when I first came to their school. Yeah, it's humbling.

Yeah. And so, of course, you say in your head, well, I'm not punching him. Right. And so, of course, that brings a different dynamic, you know, which I like about, you know, Tyrone Gooden is that you put the gloves on, you're grappling, and you can get hit too as well. on you're grappling and you can get hit too as well because he wants to make sure if you're grapple only and you don't know how to take a punch right you may be shaken in a real situation you also might not know where you're vulnerable in grappling scenarios where someone could punch you and so you have a false sense of security that's very good you know I mean the body shots and then you know in Detroit you deal with weapons you know and so I tell my recruits, act like the mat is 400 degrees high.

We learn how to fight on the ground, not to stay on it, but how to get up. Because a friend may come with a champagne bottle if you're at a party. Another guy may have a gun because I haven't seen a fight in over a decade in my city, everyone pulls guns. And so if you think about the best self-defense being a handgun and you go grab someone. So the no-no is you put two hands on someone who has two hands free. Right. So I'm always cautious of that if I ever have to engage like that. I have to remember, like, wait a minute, both of my hands are on him.

Right. And so he has his hands free. Majority of people, I go to the gun range, it's amazing how many people carry guns now, in my city especially. So that's why it's imperative that I train boys how to fight before the fight, before the fist is formed, before the bullets are fired. Because if not, you never know where that can take you. Say you choke someone out one day he's coming back exactly and that's the thing that i keep telling people like people that think that you can just get in fights like listen man unless you kill that guy he's gonna remember and if you don't if you if you do kill him his friends are gonna remember so it's a lose-lose yeah don't

if you can avoid fighting avoid avoid it every single time. When I did security, the majority of the time it was psychology. Yes. You know, a guy was getting hostile, and I knew I couldn't embarrass him, man. Right, right. So I'd go over and say, hey, my man, always keep my hands up. If you see any of my recruits, their hands are like this because psychologically it's telling your brain I'm not in danger. So once you clench that fist, it's sending signals that you have to defend yourself.

Also, it's nice to have your hands here in case some shit goes down. You can at least get up to block. It's better for me to have a hand open just in case you rush me. I can grapple or I can close my fist to strike. Pretty quick. But also we have to look out for cameras. Right. So if you had your fists up and my fists were like that, my hands were like this and the camera saw that in court, it looks like I'm not the aggressor. Isn't that a fucked up thing you have to think about? Yeah, but it's true. It's true.

And so, you know, it's I tell the guy, say, hey, look, man, I don't want to be embarrassed, and I don't want to do anything to you to make you look embarrassed, but I got to keep my job. Right. I say, let's just walk out here. You can stay mad, yelling, you know, save your face. I said, but you do have to exit this area right now. Always. Because I approached him with respect.

Right, right. We walk out. Yeah, it's amazing how the wrong person can force a situation to escalate, but the right person can smooth things out and calm things down. Man, I was at a school in Detroit. They brought me in, a charter school, beautiful. And the first, I think, three months or something was 17 fights. And they said, could you come in? I said, well, I don't want to just do security. They said, well, look, you can come do mentoring as well. So this is when our nonprofit was just getting off the ground.

I created a term called relational security. Man, within a matter of weeks, I had students there close to me like I'm their dad. They would actually call my phone or text me and say, Mr. Wilson, a fight is about to happen over here. And because they trusted me, I would come and these two kids are ready to fight. And I say, neither of you really want to fight. You're doing this to save your face, your ego. And we keep talking. Eventually, the hands drop and fall to their sides because I gave them a way out.

Majority of times when we're in a situation, if we're out to eat and we're two different mentalities, just wild, and we're with our girls, we're not going to back down from each other. But when you allow a person to escape or to have an option to get out of a situation besides just striking or using a weapon, in high school it's helped me really become great at what I do

in helping kids de-escalate a situation without resorting to violence, man. That's so important. And also that they respect you. So they don't want to disappoint you. They don't want you being upset at them. And if you can communicate with them in that sort of calm voice that you have, that's an amazing way to de-escalate things too. And also like yelling.

People say, well, how do you get the boys to move and respond so much without you having to yell all the time? I said, well, yelling is a great tool because you'll see coaches use it. I said, but it only works if they know you love them. It only works if they know you got their best interest at heart. It was a gym packed of kids. The teachers couldn't get the boys to leave because lunch was over. I simply walk in, I say, hey, it's time to get back to class. They dropped the balls. Just let Mr. Wilson walk out because I care about him. I won't humiliate him. If it was a six-year-old boy, I'm not going to yell at him. I'm not going to demean him. I wouldn't do that to you or any man. So why would I treat a young boy? Yeah, but we talk to our kids in such a demeaning way. You know, it's like, no, I talk to a young kid like he's a grown man. Right. And he, it's

just the respect level. He starts believing in himself and, and he improves. That is an amazing thing to talk to a young child like they're a grown man, to treat them with respect instead of like, you have to listen to me. Or, up, you know. Shut up, little man. I was in a school, a teacher slapped the kid's Cheetos out of his hand in front of everyone. And he was losing it. She started yelling at him. The principal comes out the office, looks at me, and I'm not working there. I had a meeting with the principal. He said, can you please handle this? Because he was meeting with someone in the higher ups. I said, come on, young man, let's go. Let's talk. I said, she shouldn't have talked to you that way.

That was wrong. I said, I know that embarrassed you. And so he was hitting the walls in the bathroom. I say, I understand. Let it go. I say, but you need to reset. I say, understand the way you feel is legitimate. way you feel is legitimate. I gave him permission. I, you know, when you, when you understand, when you allow a young man to the freedom, not only to express himself, but don't dismiss how he feeling, not to say, you know, Hey, you should have never responded that way. Like this woman literally just embarrassed him and slapped his food out on the floor because he didn't respond in a timely manner. That was unacceptable for an adult to treat him that way. And because of that, he calmed down and we were able to reset and get him back in class. But unfortunately, because, you know, many of us as adults, we don't know how to

process our emotions either. And then you may have a class of so many kids and our teachers are overwhelmed, which is why, you know, I feel sorry for many of them. In many cases, you have good teachers who care, but you have one person trying to teach 38. Yeah. You know, that's a lot. And so then they bring their own stuff to the classroom and they're hurting. And then if you don't know how to release it, what's going to happen? Yeah.

And that's why our kids, you know, both sides are really suffering. But I've learned when you talk respectfully to a young man, I don't care if he's 5 or 15, they respond accordingly. And so that's what really helped me a lot in my journey working with boys, especially men. People are not individuals that are not, they're uninfluenced by others. You know, people are influenced by the people they're talking to. If you're talking to someone who respects you, it immediately lowers all of your

tension and relaxes you. And you go, okay, this guy respects me. He's treating me in a, in a, in a nice way. I'm going to calm down and I'm going to try to treat him in a nice way too. And you can deescalate so many situations. Whereas someone who comes in and just barks and demands respect without any thought whatsoever about how the other person's receiving them. And it's a common thing. I've done it. Other people, we've all done it. We've all been in a situation where you yell at someone and you're not even thinking, how

is this person receiving what I'm saying? You're thinking, I don't like what this guy's doing, so I'm just going to yell. I'm going to get angry. But you're not thinking at all about how is this person receiving my words. And it's such a common thing with us. We want a person to either stop behaving a certain way or we want them to behave a certain way, and we think we're going to do that by escalating,

by being angry and loud and most times that's the wrong way to handle things it is and even with my own son you know i had to learn that the hard way like maybe two years ago my wife i love amish grill amish wings but they're small but they're healthy what are amish wings amish made by the amish thick amish chicken wings they're what do they do? What's the difference? They're supposed to be organic and not shot with a lot of steroids and things like that. You say, what do they do? Well, yeah.

I thought they're cooking them in a certain way. Oh, no. No, it's just they're manufactured in a way where it doesn't have a lot of steroids and things like that. Okay. And so they're small, though. They're very small. And so my son, I come home. I couldn't eat dinner with him and my wife.

And so she had my plate fixed to the side. So my son, I come home, I couldn't eat dinner with him and my wife. And so she had my plate fixed to the side. So my son's washing dishes. And I noticed one of my wings were gone and he was eating it. And I said, dude. And so I had to check him, you know, you can't, cause that's disrespectful. You don't pay a bill in this house or anything. And you just ate dinner, but you want to take one of my wings. Instead of me yelling, I messed up with my daughter, man. You know, I would yell at everything and it scarred her greatly. I learned not to do that with my son. So while I was checking him or putting him in his place or explaining to him why that action was wrong, I was forgiving him at the same time.

why that action was wrong, I was forgiving him at the same time. So as soon as I finished speaking, he apologized. We reset and started watching the game and laughing again. And that's the whole thing of staying calm and not getting led by your emotions. It hurt me and it angered me that you took one of my wings and you just ate and I'm hungry. However, I need to teach you how that is wrong in a way where you can receive it and grow from it. With my daughter, it was yelling, don't do this, don't do that. And it, man, I had to do so much work just to get us back where we're close now. Because as a father, especially I was young then, I was hyper-masculine, just, and then I was wounded and always angry and holding on to so much.

Every little thing, man. I regret it so much. Like if her room was dirty, why isn't this clean? Make sure this is done this way. This is that. Instead of looking, why is her room always junky? Why are things disorderly? That's a sign to me that something else is going on because typically we keep our house in order.

But maybe there's some pressure she's experiencing that I'm not engaging with her on. And I blew that, man. And so, you know, I, with my son, I'm very gracious to him, you know, um, of course I have to get at him sometime, you know, if sometime I raise my voice sometime like, Hey man, you know, that's not right. You shouldn't have done that. Or if I catch him say something to his mom that I don't feel is that she's the queen in the house. So it's like, look, none of that. You're going to your tone. Everything needs to be correct with her. You know, but he knows I love him. I don't. I'm able to share with a man. I don't I'm able to share with them man it hurts me son I wanted to take you

go kart racing but because you didn't perform in school now it's ruining my day as well instead of saying man I was stupid I pay all this money for the school you supposed to do your hell of your business no more games no more this no more that now he's

internalizing everything and then at his age the brain doesn't fully mature until you're 26 so he's internalizing everything. And then at his age, the brain doesn't fully mature until you're 26. So he's a great interpreter, but he doesn't know how to process. So my actions are sending him so many signals that aren't even true. And then it affects him in a negative way. So I say, look here, son, it hurts me because it does. That's the honest emotion behind what I'm feeling. And it's actually a good tool for the men who are listening or watching. It's called the feeling wheel and you can Google it. And it's a three tier wheel where it has in the center of the core emotions. Then it goes off into the next tier where it shows the other emotions that are rooted underneath those.

And then the outer tier is probably what you're really feeling, but you fear really expressing. Because I tell my son it hurts him, it opens him up to another emotion of feeling bad and sorrowful for not doing his best or doing what he should. And he recovers so much faster than me just being irate or disciplined dad only. And he can't, he doesn't, he doesn't feel the love or the disappointment. The reason as parents, we're upset and angry because it hurts us. We want the best for our children, but we respond the way our parents, you know, in most cases, how they taught us. And even with my wife, it's funny, we're joke like my daughter. I don't believe in my kids struggling. Life in and of itself will challenge anyone.

The last thing I need to do is add another challenge to it. And so I'm not going to enable you, but I'm going to support you. My wife is funny. She's like, look, she'll make it and do this and that. I'm like, no. When I talk to her mother and dad, it's interesting. My wife and them didn't have a lot growing up, but that wasn't her parents' desire. If they were where they were now, all of them would have everything that they needed to get

the support and love. But they had the love, but just the additional things that they could have. So as parents, we're taught that this tough love works. I've seen it damage more than it helps. And so, of course, I want my daughter or son to be responsible with what I give them. But I'm not going to have my daughter or son struggling somewhere. And I have the means to make it a little easier. And I learned that and I felt real convicted one time. I'm like, man, easier. And I learned that and I felt real convicted one time. I'm like, man, if she did or he did everything the way I laid out, I would give them the world. And I asked, I did a survey with other fathers. They said, yeah, that's true. If he followed what I say, I give him everything that he needs. I said, okay, cool. I said, well, what if what they were created to do is not in

line with what you're telling them? Would you still give them everything they need? And they just got quiet and was really like, man, you're right. I didn't think about that. And so as parents, you know, our children are like our hearts walking outside of our bodies. And we're guarded. We want to protect them. But at the same time, the millennials that I talk to, when they feel abandoned, when a parent says, go ahead, you do it on your own, you got it, you know, and just dismiss them. It's nothing like having a parent there to support you.

Now, if you can't, you know, it's tight. What you can't do, you can't. But when you can and you don't, it sends a very hurtful signal or it's telling the child that they're really not worth that sacrifice. And it's hurtful. I get messages from kids on TikTok and they say the same thing, Mr. Wilson, I wish you were my dad because I really would like for him just to understand and listen to me more, you know? And so that is a major turning point in my parenting was when I stopped yelling and processed the real reason why I felt the way I did instead of just saying, you pissed me off, you know? Same thing with men. If me and you get close and good friends and we have some conflict, I won't say, Joe, man, you pissed me off. You shouldn't have did that. I say, man, that hurt me, Joe, because you know I love you, bro. And now it's a different conversation.

Right. Yes, it made me upset. But the root cause of that was you hurt me because as your brother, I give you anything that I can give you. And so when we learn how to articulate our emotions that way, without fear of being admonished or condemned or embarrassed, man, you'll see this whole society change. For real. Yeah, that's a very, very important point. I think it's awesome, too, that you're describing your journey as a parent and being honest about your mistakes that we've all made and that learning from these mistakes is a part of the process it's a part of the thing but a lot of people can gain a lot of understanding of their own process through listening to you talk about your mistakes yeah our children come with manuals man yeah so we didn't come with manuals so we're gonna mess up yeah and so the key thing is a parent don't

condemn yourself right just continue to do the best that you can, man. And for me, you know, I don't hit the bullseye a lot of times, but I'm right in that whatever the next color is. You know, I'm always trying to be right there with my son. Yeah, exactly. So, but that's the goal. And then if you don't get healed, you're going to end up hurting your child more. Yes. Okay. And so now they're going to need therapy to get over what you did to them. Right. And so as parents, all of us have experienced some trauma at some point in time. Could you imagine if all

of us just took a moment just to get some therapy, just to talk to someone, to release something that causes us to parent in a way that we don't desire. You know, especially a lot of single mothers. Man, my mom was the best to do it as a single mother in my eyes. And I couldn't imagine carrying the weight that she had to carry by herself. It's overwhelming. It is, man. And you think about how many women are doing that right now.

Exactly, man. I tell my boys in the cave, I say, look, imagine your mother being a quarterback, no, the center, the quarterback and the wide receiver. That's a single mother. She has to not only hike the ball to herself, she has to drop back and pass the ball to herself so that she can take care of you. I say the last thing you need to be is a burden to her. can take care of you. I say the last thing you need to be is a burden to her. That woman should be honored to the fullest. And I always tell them, I say, if she died, who would take care of you? They get quiet. I don't care what ethnicity, it's just because they never really have opportunity to really someone talk to them in that way. Like, hey, I want you to really reflect on how important this woman is in

your life. Then you have the fathers, on the other hand, who want to be there. But because of the conflict with the mother or other things going on inside of them, majority of fathers I know are great dads. But because of the hurt and pain or don't even believe in and believe that they're good men, they're hurting because of all the years believe in and believe that they're good men they're hurting because of all the years of being condemned and told their failure they don't even feel that they can really be great for their own sons right and so in our academy you know i've never really seen a father that doesn't care about his children when i see a man not active in his child's life, as soon as I talk to him, I see trauma. As soon as I talk to him, I see the cause and effect of that relationship and why it's there.

So as men, you know, it's time out for just brushing that aside. Like, you should just do better. Yeah, trust me, he wants to do better. But can he have someone that he can confide in that actually care about him doing better? You know, it's cool to command someone. That's why I don't, you'll never hear me say, I challenge you men. If I speak, I never, because the last thing we need as men is another challenge. I try to encourage my brothers to become stronger and better and to break free from what I call misconstrued masculinity or a misunderstanding of what masculinity truly is. We are more than

masculine. When Kobe Bryant died, we started seeing the hashtag girl dad go viral all over the world. And fathers started showing pictures of themselves being nurturers with their daughters. We're all nurturers as men. And our children need us to be nurturers, and they also need us to be, what, protectors. But as men, we have to have and get past this just suppressing everything, man, because it's not only destroying us, it's destroying what we love the most, and that's our families. I think, man, we also need positive examples to mirror.

And I think there's many men that don't know anyone in their personal life that's a positive person that they can mirror. They can look to that person to aspire to be like them. So that's where a person like you is super valuable. You come into play, and they see what is possible like i don't know anyone like him but here he is and he exists and he's doing his best and he's being open and transparent about both the good aspects of his behavior and the things that he wish he had done differently in the past that's everything and i'm and i'm thankful to thankful to play that part, play my part in encouraging men and especially boys.

And, you know, it's, you know, again, we believe what we see. Yeah. Okay. Right. And that's why social media, I look at it as it's actually sometimes like my journal. look at it as it's actually sometimes like my journal and it's a cyber journal where I allow myself to just process it publicly because I know someone else is dealing with it and it gives me hope like okay cool I see him with a beautiful wife he has a great family and kids he's successful but I also see the struggle because when you only look at people's highlight reels, because that's all you see on social media, you don't see the struggles, the having to do it over and over again, the times

when I wasn't loving to my wife. You know, we were about to get separated in 2015, man. You know, I yelled at her so demonstrably in the kitchen, I saw my wife literally shrink before my eyes, Joe. And here it is. I'm her protector. And she's scared of me. Well, not scared, but the way I talked to her just tore this beautiful woman down. When I saw her, I said said this can't happen again God was like you don't know how to deal with your emotions man

you got to learn how to deal with yourself something so precious that I've blessed you with just because you're feeling a certain way doesn't mean that you speak to her that way Because you're feeling a certain way doesn't mean that you speak to her that way. I got help from a psychotherapist, you know, Dr. Tim Brough. Been walking with me, helping me learn how to process and release. And through experiential, like, counseling, man, could you imagine this guy, he put my wife in a box on the couch because she had said that she feels like a prisoner. And as a father, a man, I try to be a good husband, man. And to hear that the woman that you love feels that she's just.

So he had her get into a cardboard box on the couch and close her in. Wow. And so, and before she did that, he laid out a map on the floor so that she can understand why I was reacting the way I was. At the time I was under tremendous stress with my, my mother passing before my eyes and he had a skull was on a, this little map and it was some other things. each piece I got to he said tell me what this mean what does this represent when I got to the skull he says what does this represent I said my mom is dying and I broke down crying so my wife didn't see that because as a man I was still she only see the protection right she didn't know really what I was I was really dealing with. Yeah. She didn't know because I hid it from her. Right.

And so my anger from that transferred to her as you're doing something wrong again. That conversation, Joe, she literally was just telling me, I say I desire I need to spend more time with little J. This is what she said that triggered that response. She says, I wish you would spend desire to spend time with me, too. Like that. That's what she wanted me to have that. Right. That type of desire.

Right. I heard something I'm not doing right again. Right. I heard, you know, put me spend more time with me than your son. But I didn't hear her heart she was this is a woman saying man I long for you to long for me that way as well nothing was wrong with that right but I exploded because I was hurt if I would have just says man Cole I'm hearing it as I'm doing something wrong are you saying that me spending more time with little Jay isn't good?

That whole conversation would have been different. That whole situation wouldn't have happened. Anyway, make a long story short, after we went through that in his office, so she's in a box closed up, man. On the couch. Yeah. He says, go rescue your wife. Something happened in me, in my mind at that moment, when I went to get her out that box and I hugged her.

The session, man, was seven hours. Whoa. And it didn't feel like it, but that's how thorough this guy is, him and his wife. But when I hugged her, I said, never again will this happen. And it doesn't happen now. We reconcile immediately. Like the arguments and stuff, if we have a disagreement, I apologize immediately. I say to myself, I can't live without you.

And then when we figured out this is what helped us in a major way, I knew and she knew that our intent for each other wasn't to hurt each other. When you know that, when things happen that are offensive, you say, OK, cool, maybe. You talk it through. Yeah. Yeah. So now those long arguments, the stints of just not talking for two days no longer happen because we reflect, release and reset in our home. because we reflect, release, and reset in our home. And because of that, we finally can experience peace, man,

real peace where it's not based on an environment but what's inside of us, man. And so that's what keeps me going to help my brothers. And it's just I want men to be free, man. Like we're emotionally incarcerated, and I want us to be free, man. Like we're emotionally incarcerated and I want us to break free from that so that we can really live full lives, man. And stop living from the fear, you know, how you're going to be perceived. Live from the good in your heart, man, and watch the world around you change. That's worth the compassion fatigue. That's worth the tears. That's worth me saying,

I'm tired. I'm ready to go with my father. It's worth all of that because it's my first time meeting you, but I care about you, who you are outside of Joe Rogan. It doesn't, this doesn't mean, I mean, I walked in, I'm like, wow, this is cool. But as I talk with you, I care about Joe. All of this stuff here could go tomorrow. Don't mean anything to me. I meet people who are millionaires, even a billionaire. Once you take away the money and everything and you talk, it's a common ground.

They're just people. And we're hurting and people just want to be accepted for who they really are. Now that doesn't mean that we accept the bad. Like, I can't just say I just want to be who I am

and some of that is some bad things, things that aren't good. I need to change that. But the good in me, I want to let that shine stronger. I don't want that

to be hindered anymore that's a beautiful message thanks it really is it's a beautiful message and it's so honest you know and that's that's that's going to help a lot of people it really does thank you brother the way you express it too it's uh again like it's what I said about all your videos they resonate you know they really do what was the process like in uh writing book? And what what did you want to accomplish with it? Well, Battle Cry. So my first book, Cry Like a Man, was to teach me how to break from break free from emotional incarceration and attain the freedom they desire. Battle Cry is to teach you how to fight to keep it. And so everyone kept saying, man, I love your memoir it's great but how do I do this in real life that's what battle cry is it's teaching you I'm giving you

everything all the weapons that I've used in my own in the war daily to help me win this war within and when your your process of writing this did you think about it for a long time before like cry like a man before you wrote that before you wrote battle cry before you wrote Battle Cry? Is this something that you, you know, you had in you, like you knew you had to write a book or a couple books now? Well, yeah. So Cry Like a Man, I knew I had a story to be told. And so that was a draining process because I had to revisit so much trauma in my life. And that just, it drained me just emotionally and mentally. Battle Cry, I wrote during COVID. And that just, it drained me just emotionally and mentally. Battle Cry I wrote during COVID. And I said, no other time in history will I ever have this much time to really flush

out of me all the tools that I can give to my brothers out here who are losing the wars within. All right. That's how that book came to be. And then just the areas in life. I did a survey online. I asked men, list the things that you struggle with, like the emotions, lust, fear, anxiety, abandonment. And so I took that list from all the men and I wrote around that as well. And I didn't want to just make a write a self-help book. A friend of mine who was a pastor, he says, look, you see this shelf here? He had tons of books. He says, all of those are men's self-help books. He said, if it worked, he says, I will only need one. He says, what's going to help you get this message out to the men in need is your story. From your story, you be vulnerable and

transparent and share with men how you had the test, how you failed, but how you triumph and then make it very applicable and simple to where you can apply it. And so that's what I do throughout the book is help men in each stage, how to navigate through what they're dealing with, their failures, their fears, even our, you know, misogynistic behavior. You know, I have a chapter called sexual self-control. When I was in eighth grade, man, when the bell would ring, me and my friends would go to the back of the classroom and just grope the girls. You know, I was ashamed to even write about it. But again, I wanted to be transparent. And the girls would get offended and angry and they would yell and we

would say, don't say nothing to the teacher. And so I wrote down how many women today are in that same situation where a guy offends them in that way and says, please don't say nothing. And here it is now, our sisters, our mothers, our daughters are being assaulted and they can't even say anything. And so as men, I don't believe that subject is talked about enough because we treat them as objects. And that's what I used to do. You know, I struggled with masturbation growing up. And so I had this I could have any girl at any given moment, any way that I want her. Eventually I started treating women like that, like they were nothing but objects. And then I would get, have the nerve to get upset when a man would treat my mother that way.

And I quickly saw like, wait a minute. This isn't right. I went to prom with one girl, beautiful spirit, everything. And my goal was to have sex with her, you know. And I promised her father, you know, I wouldn't touch her. And what's crazy, her dad, this is how crazy this is, man. Before I was leaving Joe, his house, he says to me, tell your dad I say hello. I said, oh, OK. I'm like, why did you wait till now to tell me you knew my father? I get back to the barbershop because my father was a barber. He said, oh, yeah, I know who you're talking about.

He had the nerve to leave me at home alone with his wife while he went to play the lottery. And basically he had sex with his wife. And this was his friend. And they joked about it in the barbershop. My father was offended that his friend let him stay alone with his wife like he was a punk. That's literally what he told me. Like I'm a punk, like I won't F her.

And that's what he did. When I heard that story, man, I was so conflicted. Not only is it a violation of friendship, but it's adultery. I said, I'm not going to treat this girl that way. I wasn't, I didn't want a relationship with her. I just wanted to have sex with her. I left my condoms at home, picked her up, escorted her to the car treated her like she deserved to be treated that day and my life changed from that point on and I started seeing women differently when I pursued music man I was in Atlanta a friend of mine had a gentleman's party these guys have money and the girls come over you do whatever you want I'm in the studio I didn't want to be around that because I was dating Nicole, my wife now.

My door knock, girl comes in, stripper, beautiful. I says, I'm straight. I don't want to dilap dance. I don't want no sex. She was like, I ain't in here for that. And she just sat down. She wanted to escape what was going on. So I'm making beats. I didn't give you permission to sit here on my bed to talk to me, but she was heavy hearted. And so I stopped doing what I was doing and I said, what's going on? She got caught up in the dark arts trying to make money for a business venture and she couldn't get out. Instead of me taking advantage of her, I just helped her create just some small steps to get out of it. You know, she left the party right after we talked because I treated her

like a sister and not an object. And as men, you know, that mindset comes from low self-esteem. You know, I speak for myself. You know, it was a power. I had control over them, you know. And when I really found love, when I found real love like I have in my wife, I realized all of that fornication was just feckless attempts at attaining the affirmation I really wanted the right way. And once I got that, prior to that, but when I got with Nicole, it was special. This woman affirms me so much, man, that there's nothing a woman could say to me that I haven't heard. affirms me so much, man, that it's nothing a woman could say to me that I haven't heard. I see women attractive, you know, and they try to, you know, flirt.

It's nothing you can say to me. My wife has already told me everything that I need to hear. And as a man, that's what we desire. But as long as we treat our sisters as objects, we will never really receive what we really long for, man. And so that chapter took a lot out of me in Battle Cry, but it was one I had to wage and win because I wouldn't be faithful to my wife now. And are you writing, when you write, are you writing longhand? Are you writing on a computer? Are you writing by yourself? Computer by myself and a computer. I had a great editor, which I needed to.

Again, I'm not trained. I'm not a professional writer. OK, so I grammatically a proofreader. I needed that. And a great editor. I had Alice Crider. She was amazing. but the process my agent Chris she was like these men Jason don't write a book talk and write what you're saying on paper or on the computer that allowed me to write in a way whereas a man has me personally as a a coach with him so are, but this is my question, do you record things out and then write it out or are you just type? I pray. I pray when I feel anxious. I say, you know, father, you got to speak through me because again, I know I'm just a vessel, man. I know I'm not, I want nobody looking up to me like I'm all that. Look, I struggle just like you. I just win a lot more than I lose. Period. Okay. I say, please speak through me what you want heard to these men.

Because I don't, you know, I know my story, but what exactly can help these men of different backgrounds across this world? I let go of the anxiety, and I just start. It just was flowing, Joe, and just flowing coming out of me. Then I remember the story to tie in so that I can teach the principle to the lesson. And that's how it all came out. It's an incredibly time-consuming process. Major, man, yeah.

Because I know you're so busy already. I mean, you're saying you barely have time to get into a float tank. Yeah. How do you have the time to sit down and write these books? Again, understanding, like you were talking about, my purpose, okay, why I'm here, what's important. So you had a calling to write these books. Oh, understanding, like you were talking about my purpose. Okay. Why I'm here. What's very, what's important. So you had a calling to write these books. Oh, ain't no question. So especially this second one in the midst of COVID, I lost a lot of friends. And so imagine not being able to

go out. We all experienced it and to have to pour out more seven, eight hours a day writing, but I didn't have to go into the office the cave was shut down it was only virtual right so i had this time but i knew i did not want to sit on my gift and waste this time and so i took advantage of it and i actually recorded an audio book which i didn't want to do because hearing yourself back speaking and then you write books to be read, not necessarily heard. Right. So you can have it in front of you and you're reading it and you start inserting words that aren't there because you're speaking it like you're speaking. Right.

Man, it was it was a challenge. But when I finished it and I sent some samples to my friends and posted some on social media, they were like, I have to get this because I need to hear you. Right. And so. Especially with your message. Could you imagine being a pocket coach for a man who's just going through a tough time in his life where he can just push play. Yeah. And listen to me as if he has a session with me. As if you're in the car with him as he's driving.

Or you're at the gym in his headphones. Yeah. I couldn't pass up that opportunity. That's gigantic. And also, you would not want another author or another, an actor, a word actor doing that for you. Someone voiceover actor. You got to have it in your own words.

Yeah, you know, I cry like a man. We had a different guy and it was cool because it was my story. But you're absolutely right when you're teaching someone. Can you go back and redo it? I guess I could if the publisher. You think I should? Yeah, fuck yeah. I may consider it.

But Battle Cry was cool, man, because I didn't want to speak monotone. I wanted to be like we are now, animated and everything. And I'm thankful that I had a great engineer, and he coached me through everything. And I'm really hoping and praying that this book really inspires men to start taking that journey. The hardest thing for us to do as men is to go within. Someone come up to you, I've seen the leg kicks,

I know your experience in martial arts and jiu jujitsu. You can handle yourself very well. Majority of us men can defend ourselves. But when we have to go within and deal with the pain, go introspective. What's really warring inside of us, we don't want a part of that. Yeah. We go get something to drink or have sex with someone or whatever we have to do. To avoid. To avoid that. Yeah. I tell men to run to it like firemen. They run towards the fire to put it out. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, when we go towards that fight, we start feeling emotions again that aren't just masculine. Right. So if you had abuse by your mother or whatever happened to you that's traumatic and you want to cry, oh, I got to get something to drink. Right. Dr. William Frey, he's a biochemist. He discovered

that tears not only contain 98 percent water, but actually stress hormones that get excreted from our bodies when we cry. So when we tell a man don't cry, look what we're doing to his body. That's why typically after we cry, we feel a little better. And so he discovered that we release stress hormones through tears. So look how many men are suffering mentally because we can't yeah i never heard that before but it makes sense yeah and so i'm like dude you gotta you gotta run towards it yeah and i i wish i could be here for a lot of men you know i wish there was a way um i could talk to men you know where they could say you know this week we you know we could talk to men, you know, where they could say, you know, this week, you know, we could talk about this because so many men are alone, man. And let me rephrase that.

So many men think they are alone, but they're not. But when you have a platform or something where men can say, whoa, he just said what I'm dealing with. Then they just said, and this survey says this, now it doesn't seem so daunting. It seems like a war you can actually win. So when men, when we can come together like that in a room where race has no place and we're just brothers and we can really talk about what's really going on

man i've seen it you know me and you think would never cry break down yeah because they carry in the world man it's like you can't be strong all the time it's impossible it is impossible it's impossible and to have a guy like you express that gives them the license to access those emotions. You know, that's why I think your audio book is going to be so important because so many people, that's how they take in books these days. Like if you're driving, you know, normal driving is like you're just sitting in your car either listening to music or you're not getting anything done. But if you can listen to a book, a book on tape, you can actually learn something. And you can actually enhance your perspective on things while you're driving your car. You're right.

I didn't realize how popular audio books are. I like reading. But my friends were like, you're doing an audio book? And then I posted the little clip of it. They were like, this is great. And then I'm like, you're doing an audio book? And then I posted the little clip of it. They were like, this is great. And then I'm like, wait a minute. I bought one recently, and I listened to it while I was doing cardio. I'm like, I see why this is the way to go.

Why people like this now. That's great for cardio. Yeah. A real good involving book. It's great for cardio because you just can zone out into the book and just get your work done. Yeah. I saw you recently on the Steer Master.

Yeah. I can't stand that machine. I hate that fucking machine. Oh, man. And when you was on, that's why I clicked like. I said, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's rough. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, man. You talking about, that's a good way. You said you deal with your inner B. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same way. I just use everything to wean my soul, man. Yeah.

And just so that I can stay in control, man. I can't be led by my emotions every time I do. I mess up, man. Yeah. Being led by the emotions and also being led by the seeking of comfort, like the desire to seek comfort, desire to relax. Like, I don't, I'm't, I'm not fond of that. I'm not fond of that at all.

What do you mean? Well, when you were lazy, when you don't want to work out, there's that feeling that everybody deals with. You're like, I don't have to go to the gym today. Maybe I'll just take a day off. Maybe I'll just have a cup of coffee and watch the news. I should watch the news. I mean, who knows what's going on in the world?

Maybe some crazy stuff that I need to be aware of. But I know what's going on. That's real. Yeah, the general in my brain is like, shut up, stupid. That's real. I got what you're saying. Let's go. Let's get it in.

Let's go. And then once you get it in, you feel so much better. The feeling that I've – and I have blown off workouts before when I probably should have worked out, then I do not, I do not appreciate myself afterwards. But when I put the workout in and I get it over with and I'm done, then I can relax. Man, that's so true. I, my wife would tell you I beat myself up when I don't stay consistent. Yeah, we all do, I think.

Yeah, that's deep. And it's just like, man, let me get at least 30 minutes, you know. Yeah. And that's a very good point. You're absolutely right about that's deep. And it's just like, man, let me get at least 30 minutes, you know? And that's a very good point. You're absolutely right about that, man. I feel accomplished when I leave the gym. And then it gives you momentum. That's the other thing.

The more you can do that, the more that's what you do. Like your brain knows your habits. Right. Your mind knows your habits. This is what I do. Like I might complain, but i'm gonna go i'm gonna go and i'm like oh i don't want to do this but i'm gonna and then after it's over i'm like yup because this is what we do we get in the work i remember i was going to say you force

yourself exactly i was with little jay you know and we were curling so he's just starting to work out he's tall but he's just 13 and it starts burning He's tall, but he's just 13. And it starts burning. And it's funny. He was like, Dad, it's burning like something's wrong. I said, that's what you need. Keep going. And so he's so stoic, man. I'm just like, what can I do to get this boy to sweat?

I want to hear that. I want to hear that, you know? He's just. I said, this cat is a machine. So I had to explain to him the purpose of that burn and the fibers breaking down. It gets bigger and bigger. And so I was curling one day and I said, you were talking about that inner voice saying, I want to do this today. So, you know, you need to hit a certain rep and you stop too shy.

Like, that's good enough. One day that happened. I said, just because of that, we're doing 20 more. I say, son, that's what enough one day that happened i said just because of that we're doing 20 more i say son that's what you apply even in life yeah when you need to study and you're tempted to play that playstation 5 yeah when you feel that check your emotion and say you know what because of that we can't play the whole day today and the good thing about that is when you do force yourself and you do develop that sort of a relationship with your body, if something is wrong, like honestly wrong, like if you're fighting off a cold, you'll know. You'll be putting in the effort, like, okay, this is not laziness.

This is something's going on with my body. That's a great point. And if you don't have that relationship, like there's a lot of folks that don't exercise, and they don't know when a cold's coming on. They really don't know. They just feel lackadaisical. They feel tired. But you don't know how your body is really feeling unless you're used to exertion.

When you're used to, like, hard exertion on a regular basis, and then you show up, and you're looking for that full gas tank, and your body's like, not today, man. Something's up. And then you go, all right, today, you know what? I'm just going to break a light sweat here today and maybe stretch out because something's legitimately wrong. This is not laziness. This is something wrong. And you can avoid colds that way. Because a lot of people, one of the ways they get colds if they work out all the time is by not listening. You hear your body's tired and you're like, no, no, no, we're going to push through this, we're going to push through this. That's a good way to get sick.

That's a good, you know, I would get sick often in the gym and you're hitting it on the head typically when I overexert myself. You feel it and you're like, no, no, no, I'm going to push through. But you can't push through when your body is already doing work. Your body's doing work because your immune system is trying to fight something off. Yeah. Isn't it called when you're in a catabolic state, basically, your body releases cortisol and it's like the stress hormone, I believe. And actually, a friend of mine, you'll see guys in the gym who lift constantly over and over again, putting their bodies through stress and you never see any improvement. Right. So one of my trainers

was telling me many of those guys are in a catabolic state basically where your muscles your body starts feeding off of your muscles because you're not allowing your body to rest and i hope i'm saying it correctly i don't know what catabolic state means yeah yeah that's correct yeah okay great yeah um that's a good word to use, though. It makes you sound very smart. Glad we got confirmation here. Catabolic state. There it is.

Catabolic response to sepsis, severe injury, and burn is characterized by whole body protein loss. Mainly reflecting increased breakdown of muscle proteins, in particular myofibrillar proteins. Oh, try to say that word. I'm not. Glucocorticoids and various pro-inflammatory cytokines are important regulators of muscle proteolysis in stressed patients. Yeah. Overtraining. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of people that do that. And again, you got to know when to rest. Yeah, that's very good. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, but knowing your body is so beneficial to understanding when your body is actually fighting something off. And people that don't know their body and don't push themselves, they really don't know. And then all of a sudden, bam, it hits them like a brick shithouse

because all of a sudden they're sick and they didn't see it coming at all. Man, that's a great point. I mean, if you don't work out, you're not used to your body being in a certain shape. That's a very good point. You don't really know when it's not performing the way it should. You don't know your vehicle. Yeah, that's very good. I lost my best friend, Daryl.

He was like a super strong guy, could bench press the 200 pound dumbbells with each hand like for reps. so with Darryl he had stress in the gym because he always lived heavy but when he left the gym he had stress in real life and so it was compounded when he left the gym and so I said so what do you do you know he says when you're in those moments where you're so stressed he says I prefer that you just do cardio don't lift heavy just do cardio it's better for your body and your heart and I didn't I didn't think I prefer that you just do cardio. Don't lift heavy. Just do cardio. It's better for your body and your heart. And I didn't think of it, but it is stress.

You're basically taxing your body if you're lifting heavy. And so Darryl, what was happening to him, it was just compounding over and over every day. And his heart broke down one day, and I lost a very good friend of mine. one day and you know i lost a very good friend of mine you know but um i just i just it's very it's very important that we know our bodies and know what our bodies can take and what they can do and like you're saying the best way to do that is of course creating a habit if you can just do something daily you know which we all should with our bodies we feel so much better and then we know proactively you know i need to pull back right now yeah you'll have an understanding of how it works yeah you know your body well and you could you can tell you can tell

when there's an issue that's that's that's good yeah i um it helps me a lot man when i'm feeling compassion fatigue or stressed i don't lift i when i do cardio i feel feel amazing. Yeah. You know, like, but I noticed when I was lifting heavy, I really wasn't as strong as I typically am or my joints were hurt a lot. But when I just say, let me just do cardio today or some functional strength training, man, I feel amazing. Yeah, cardio is fantastic for stress relief. Yeah. Just get on an exercise bike or elliptical machine or stair climber or something or treadmill, just go, just go. And then, you know, really push yourself. And then when you're done, it's like the stress of pushing yourself through a difficult cardio workout is so much

harder because you really can only do it for a short amount of time. You only do it for an hour or so, right? Whereas like you could handle stress for a long ass time but if you can just get that really difficult cardio out it alleviates the pressure of whatever the other thing is because it can't be as bad as what i just went through yeah for sure that's good that's good man yeah that's that's a good great way to look at it actually yeah man because you know you're pushing yourself especially if i do like the wind sprints on the treadmill, you know, when you leave there, man, you just feel like you can take on the world. Yeah. You know, and more so difficult.

Yeah. And for me personally, it's like I didn't neglect myself again. Right. Helping someone else. Right. You know, so it's like, okay, cool. Jason, today you are important. Yeah.

And you matter in this, what you do. So take this moment to take care of yourself and that cardio to spend an hour you know i like i have a lateral elliptical at home i love it man it just no impact yeah and i feel great afterwards man you know and sometimes i have a pump man even though i haven't lifted any weights man so it's amazing how the cardio um for our stress relief versus just lifting weights you know so they say that lifting weights though is really good for anxiety really yeah they yeah for some people they get a good uh anxiety relief from lifting weights and uh i think some people what their anxiety is,

I think there's a lot of, obviously there's a lot of sources of anxiety, but for some people it's actually a lack of exertion that's causing anxiety. Because some people, they just live the sedentary lifestyle. And in these sedentary lifestyles, I think you are, you're trapped in this situation where your body wants to do something, but it's never happening. And you create tension. You create stress. And sometimes people get anxious from that, and they get anxiety.

And they say that lifting weights, because lifting weights is just a real force of exertion. That alone is great for anxiety i think there's different kinds of stress different kinds of stressors whether it's uh emotional stress or just just existential angst like just some weird feeling that you need to just go out so i don't think that lifting weights is necessarily a bad tool for alleviating stress, but it's not the only tool in the box. Yeah, I guess what the doctor was saying is if you're really stressed, and again, it's no one size fits all. And I've learned that as well as I've gotten older. I used to tell guys, take this type of protein, this amino, this and that, and you'll be pumped.

I don't do that anymore because everyone's body is different. And so I guess he was just trying to advise to me like, look, man, if you're very stressed, let me just tell you what happens when you're lifting that heavy weight and what it's doing. It's actually adding more stress to your body. But in the case you're speaking of, people dealing with a certain type of anxiety, for them it may be different and they may release anxiety and need that weight to get them to exert an energy that they don't typically do. And so that's, again, being in a space where you don't know it all. Yeah. And being cool with that.

It's like I just learned something else in this moment because I'm open to learn. Right. If you try that one size fits all, even when I work with boys in a cave, I don't teach off a template model. I teach each boy individually because everyone is dealing with things differently. So I won't just have a blanket. I have a plan, don't get me wrong.

But when a certain student is dealing with something, our whole class shifts to them. Yet another kid, it shifts to them, it shifts. And so, I mean, you're right about that, man. It's like, but could you imagine if I was a doctor? I said, well, look here, you know, for you, I know that stress does this and that. And now that person can't release the anxiety that they need to, that that weightlifting would do for them.

And so. And I'd imagine that with you and teaching all these different boys and talking and mentoring all these different boys, you see different scenarios. So that's probably very educational for yourself as well, just to get a broader perspective on what different people are going through. You know, glad you brought that up. A friend of mine, his son has autism. And one day I'm tired leaving the cave and I get a call, you I'm like hey what's up Greg he's like hey man I need to see you immediately such and such he won't do his homework and I'm stressed and goes back to when you asked me like you know how do you keep doing it because I know my calling

I'm tired I want to go home and eat dinner but I said no let me help my friend and more so let me help his son. I said, come on. So he comes. I had no idea what kids who are autistic have to deal with. One day I went to a conference and they had a virtual reality headset and it was of kids who have autism. And when I put it on man it was like the slightest sound was and the the sound the lights and everything it was like chaotic almost and when I took them off I'm like I asked the professor I said this is what an autistic kid has to deal with he says not all of them but the majority this is their senses are heightened to this level. Joe, you know, as humans, we can be so insensitive and impatient. I learned this with my mother with dementia.

I had to learn how to become one with what she felt and not dismiss what she felt. If she forgot something, I used to say when we first started taking a journey, Mom, you just said that. I heard you. I learned eventually to say I would just answer the question even if it was 100 times. When I have a term in a book, Battle Cry, I talk about don't get on the emotional roller coaster. So my mom, emotions would go up and down. Every time I would get on that emotional roller coaster with her, so would I. Now we're yelling, she's cursing me out, everything.

Now when she would get on it, well, when she was here, I would allow her to ride the ride, but I was, as a caring parent, I would walk watching her till she gets to the end of it and then grab her hand gently and walk her off till she gets her mental balance back I say this about the kid my friend bought when I saw that he admitted that like man he's different now now that I love him in a different way because as a parent of an autistic child and I have a one of my close friends has his son that's autistic, it can wear you down, and it does. And so for me to support him was a blessing to him. And then for me to have empathy for his son because he was just scared.

And so what I did, Joel, he was looking at me like you are. I go to his side. I said, hey, what do you see? And he just started talking. I said, wow, man, that must be scary. Really? No way, dude. How do you deal with that? Man, you're, oh, man, you're strong. Well, let's practice right now of just releasing what you're feeling. So I grabbed two staffs. And actually, before I gave him one, I said, I'm going to bring this staff to your head. I want you to move at the same pace that I'm swinging it at you. At first, so when I was going slow, he would just jump down fast because he was scared.

I said, no, let's just go slow. Match my timing. Man, he starts slowing his thoughts down. It was amazing. And my friend just videoed it. I said, stay in the moment, son. Stay here. Stay calm. Whatever you're seeing is real because it's real to them. You never want to dismiss what they're seeing or what they're feeling. That's what we air. That's what everyone, man. You know, if a friend of mine had a fear of balloons, I'm going to look at it like it's rattlesnakes or bats or whatever. You know,

that's, I want to support you through that process. When that happened, Joe, I was like, wow, it's the empathy. It's the understanding. It's like, and I'm going to be patient with you through this process, man. It changed him. And then to see my friend, again, everyone has their own battles, but to see my friend grow as a father and then as a man and to become a patient and just, it's just a great thing to see. And to say, man, you should feel this way. Okay. You should be a little scared right now. A lot of this stuff doesn't seem like it's playing out the way you want it and to see my friend like walking that and love his son love his wife his daughter through his anxieties and then to be there for him it's it's amazing man but it all starts when

we're empathetic toward each other yeah never. I don't dismiss anyone what they're feeling, man. It's just it makes it much worse from my experience. Yeah. I don't think there's any benefit in dismissing someone's individual experience. When it comes to autism, one of the things that obviously everyone's case is different and different people have different symptoms and different ways it expresses itself. But a lot of times kids can find a thing, like autistic kids in particular, can find a thing and dedicate themselves to it and be extremely good at it. Like I know a few kids that are on the spectrum that are into jujitsu and they are assassins.

They're so good because it gave them purpose and it gave them something to focus on where they can just think about that. And they just, and where it's the world of jujitsu, although it's very complex and it's, it's, uh, it's, it requires a lot of intellectual capacity as well as physical capacity. It's still contained in the world of two bodies interacting with each other with submissions. And so for some autistic kids, the fact that it only exists on that mat, that it's contained there, and then they have all these complex interactions to go over they can really focus on that and i just know several kids who are

autistic who excel at martial arts because of that very reason interesting particularly jujitsu wow i have one kid who's on the spectrum and we would just practice a steel drill. That's what we call them. We would just sit in front of each other, legs crossed like an Indian pose, and just stare into each other's eyes. And we would just sit there and sit. Eventually he was able to start because at first he would just move. Every time we're in session, he couldn't sit still. And gradually he started just calming down and being okay with being in the moment. But then when we were able to talk about, like, hey, how are you feeling? You know, what are you thinking? And then to find out what was really going on in his mind

and then not to dismiss it. It, you know, I've seen it work, man. It just changes our kids. It just does, you know. And I just keep praying for patience with these boys because I don't, you know, it's a great responsibility that I have when I have someone so young in front of me that trusts me and wants me to help them. And it's my job and responsibility to to you know take my time and I want to feel what they feel so that I can help them overcome it you know um same thing with kids with ADHD symptoms you know uh being hyperactive and losing focus you know we have a drill we put balls on top of both staffs shorter ones and they have to sit there and look at the ball and not move and it's amazing i have a video of a kid couldn't sit still

just me teaching him my breathing techniques he was able to sit still after just two minutes because i said i'm going to try something and i'm going to be patient with you through the process. And they feel that you have hope in them. Like you can do better. I got you. And when you say, man, what you feeling, you can't tell a kid who's autistic or not autistic, what they're feeling isn't real. Right. Because you're not in them. You don't know. That's the worst thing you can tell a kid. You're wrong about that. Right. The way you feel. Of course, we can guide them down the path about what's right and wrong, but if that's what he feels or she feels, help them work through it, you know. And I mean, you know, I speak for myself prior to my son Jason. I didn't have patience, you know. My

mind, I'm too busy thinking of other things instead of what was the most important thing was my daughter in front of me. And so I've learned that and the fathers in the academy, I'm humbled when they come to me and ask me, you know, what can I do to be closer to my son or my daughter? Am I yelling too much? Am I too tough on them? You know, and I told one father, great man, I mean, beautiful brother, and he says, my son says I'm too tough on him. I said, well, I said, I don't think you're too tough because you want him to, you know,

be successful and you got to help him with his discipline and everything else. I says, but you're imbalanced. And he says, what do you mean? I said, well, typically when I say balance, I kind of don't really believe in the concept. What I mean is that if I had my family and my, I just say my family on one side of the scale, and the other side is my job, what I do for a living, and everything else, I will always want this scale to tip in favor of my family. So I really want that unbalanced. I don't want ever my family, the responsibility of caring for them,

to be equal with my profession. That skill should always be here. And so after I explained that to him, I said, now what I mean for balance for you is that you don't nurture him. He was like, because he's been through some significant trauma. And I don't want to share because I didn't ask permission, but he and his son are family. I said, so now when you go, they was going to play a game somewhere. I said, all right, when you go, don't teach him.

Just have fun. And he laughed. He says, thanks for telling me that. Because he would have went in teacher mode because why he wants his son to be successful. Right, right, right. But his son just needs dad right and so many good men struggle with that i struggle with it you know everything is in the teachable moment with your son i don't have to teach a principal about the condensation on this water

in front of us you just enjoy your time there you go yeah yeah and so that's what i, my man, to see men take hold of that. And it's humbling when a man listens to me. It's like the most humbling feeling ever because I look in the mirror daily. But for a man to say thank you, it means the world to me, man, because someone just trusted me. And then what I gave them would help them. It just means the world, man. It means a lot, you know. And to know that I'm just like you, man, just a little more experienced in a different area,

gives them the confidence and they don't condemn themselves like they're just messing up. I said, have someone ever told you to do this before? He says, no, stop beating yourself up then. Have you ever, someone ever told you to do this before? He says, no, stop beating yourself up then. If you've never been told this advice and this is new to you, run with it. Now you know. Yeah, that's it.

Don't say, man, I should have did this. No, no, no, no. Run with it. And that's what we have to do. Jason, I'm glad you're out there. I really am. I really appreciate you. I appreciate you coming here and sharing your time with me. And I really appreciate your message that you put out on social media. And you're doing a great service.

Thank you. And not just with the cave, but also with everything else you do with your books and just the way that you can express yourself here today. I really, really appreciate it. I really appreciate you, you know, even offering an invite, man. I'm humbled, you know, and when I walked in, I'm like, wow, this is really cool, man. And thank you for, you know, all that you do. I appreciate that you're, you know, a free thinker. You know, you make it some flack here and there for that. But man, you know, I admire your stance and what you believe in, you know, for so long I would be a people pleaser. And it made me the most miserable person in my life. And when I learned to really walk bold in my convictions, not condemn people, but just walk in my convictions without hurting people or whatever, just standing bold in what I believe in, I started finding some peace.

You know, I started, became able to really walk out in what I believe in, started helping more people. Then a video went viral and now I'm here. And so I'm hoping that, you know, that continues. This is just the beginning, my friend. All right. I'm going to be calling you. For sure.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate you, man. For sure. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it, man. My pleasure. Thank you, man. Bye, everybody.