The Rich Roll Podcast - How Charlie Jabaley Lost 120lbs & Overcame a Brain Tumor To Become An Athlete

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

He dreamed of being a professional athlete. But Charlie Jabaley was always the fat kid, picked last for kickball. No matter what, he just couldn't stop gaining weight. Resigned to this fate, he abandoned his athletic dream early. Throwing himself into business instead, it wasn't long before CEO Charlie was born — an alter ego he created at age 13 that would soon become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By his mid-twenties, Charlie had overcome tremendous odds to achieve extraordinary success in the music business, collecting Grammys and counting Benjamins managing a stable of major hip-hop recording artists like 2 Chainz. The very model of the modern millennial entrepreneur, Charlie's path provided the high gloss lifestyle of his wildest imagination — a world apart from his humble beginnings. What it didn't provide? Health, happiness, or an authentic sense of wholeness. On the outside, Charlie was crushing it. On the inside, he was dying. A life-long junk food addict, he had swelled to over 300 pounds by the age of 29. But he wasn't just morbidly obese. And he wasn't just chronically depressed. Charlie Jabaley was lost. His health in rapid decline, he tried countless diets, but always gained the weight right back — plus a little extra. He tried running. He even ran three marathons. Ironically, Charlie nonetheless continued to pack the pounds on, rewarding his training sessions with shame-inducing binges. Out of control, Charlie's waistline only expanded in lockstep with each successive 26.2 effort. Deep down, Charlie knew he would forever remain a prisoner to his seemingly hopeless food addiction until he could summon the courage to face the emotional dysfunction, mental imbalance and spiritual malaise that had been driving his unhealthy lifestyle choices for as long as he could remember. The inside job terrified Charlie. But it's always darkest before the dawn. At the nadir of his hopelessness, Charlie awoke one day to find his bedroom spinning before suddenly collapsing to the floor. A visit to the doctor only brought more bad news. Charlie Jabaley has a brain tumor. But rather than treat his diagnosis as tragic, Charlie decided to embrace it as a gift — the push he needed to once and for all to face himself honestly, take willing inventory of his life, and finally undertake the measures necessary to save himself from himself. Charlie Jabaley only had to change one thing — everything. One year ago, he walked away from the company he started, leaving millions of dollars on the table to decamp Atlanta for Los Angeles. Completely restructuring his relationship with food, he's lost over 120 pounds and kept it off. Without medication, his tumor has shrunk to almost nothing. And Charlie has finally achieved his lifelong dream, transforming himself from executive (CEO Charlie) to athlete (Charlie Rocket), training for his first Ironman in New Zealand this March. For the first time in his life, he's both healthy and happy. But mostly, Charlie Jabaley is free. What he did, how he did it and why is the subject of today's conversation. It's a powerful exchange with an everyman hero who wants you to know that you do not struggle alone. That it's never too late to change. And no matter how far you have drifted from the person you aspire to be, there is both hope and help. Welcome to 2018 people. This is the new normal. For those visually inclined, you can watch our conversation on YouTube here. Peace + Plants, Rich

I knew that every single thing I was doing in my life was wrong. Literally everything. Like I was a good person, but I had to change everything in my life if I wanted to live. And I did. And I had the courage and I wasn't scared and I knew I'm going to be fine. I'm not worried. Like if I just do what's right

for my dreams and if I help people, I'll have more blessings than I ever thought I would have in life. That's Charlie Jabaly and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. 2018 is here. Might as well embrace it. Embrace it with gratitude.

Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for dropping by. My name is Rich Roll. as well embrace it. Embrace it with gratitude. Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for dropping by. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome to it, the show where each week I crawl inside the brains of some of the best and brightest personalities across all manner of positive culture change. But every once in a while, I like to take a little bit of a left turn. And that's what we're going to do here today. One of the things that I do a little bit differently on my program, something that I think distinguishes this podcast from so many of the others out there, is that occasionally I like to sit down with basically an everyman, an anonymous everyman to share his or her personal story, personal journey. People like Josh Lajani, people like Adam Sud come to mind as really impactful conversations that I've had in this vein in the past. Essentially, average human beings who have basically faced and overcome obstacles, sometimes massive, almost insurmountable obstacles to basically just be better, to live healthier, to live a little bit more authentically.

And I thought it would be great to initiate 2018, launch into 2018 with one of these stories. And this story is the story of Charlie Jabalé. And it's really powerful. It is a saga that I think is really going to connect with you guys and inspire you to maybe set your sights a little bit higher, to aim higher, to dig deeper and really rethink the gauge that you've set for your aspirations and perhaps even recalibrate how you think about, embrace and practice gratitude in your life. And so to sort of set the stage, it is fair to call Charlie an everyman. He is very much an everyman in so many aspects of his life.

And there is so much about his story and his struggles and his pain that is incredibly relatable. But I think you also have to point out that this kid is also kind of extraordinary. This is a guy who grew up in the South, very business minded, very ambitious, who struck gold at a very early age by making his mark in the music business by managing hip hop artists, including 2 Chainz, who is a big time hip hop rapper who is a major recording artist. And this is a path that that line Charlie's pockets. It really provided him with a kind of high gloss lifestyle that he always thought that he wanted. But at the same time,

Charlie was a guy who on the inside was dying. This is a guy who had always been overweight, always the fat kid as far back as he could remember. But at a certain stage in his life, it had become intolerable. He had swelled up to well over 300 pounds. He was morbidly obese. He was depressed and really hopeless that he could ever change no matter what he tried. This is a guy who only continued to gain weight and it's a hole that just got deeper until he became so despondent that he felt like he was out of options. And then he wakes up to discover that he has a brain tumor on top of all of this. And he decides that he's just not going to take it anymore, that he is going to

seize the reins of control in his life and literally change everything about how he was living. Charlie's story is extraordinary. It is unbelievably impactful. It is inspiring, and I can't wait to share it with you guys. But before we get into it, We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing

and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide.

Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple.

Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Charlie, like I said, this is an amazing conversation. Charlie is, he's just an incredibly

compelling individual. He's a great storyteller. He's charismatic. And most importantly, I think his journey, his story, his struggle is very relatable. I think you guys are really going to connect with this one. I thought about breaking it all down and giving you all the beats throughout this conversation. But you know what? I spoil it. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Charlie Javale. You sound good, dude. You ready to do this? Charlie's in the house, man.

Get some good energy going. You're going to get it. It's going to be awesome, dude. I can't wait to share your story. It's so powerful. Thank you, man. It's cool to have you man it's cool to have you here uh you know the history of this is pretty funny man you were like peppering me

with emails for a long time like dude i gotta meet you i you gotta connect and i was like who is this guy eventually i just i just got worn out but also like your story seemed cool and we connected and i was like wow it's pretty powerful thank you what you've what you've accomplished what you've what you've had to face the obstacles you've had to overcome and and kind of where you find yourself now so let's break it down dude thank you what do you want to start with me bothering you because I saw I move when I moved I was like, I idolize you, obviously. Like, you really do have, like, some serious disciples. And, like, me moving to California and following your story, it was like, man, I have to know this guy.

Like, I just have to. And I told you a little bit about it after we had met. I called you and had to tell you the story. In my notebook, I'll show you a picture. In my notebook, I wrote down a draft board. You know NBA teams or any sports team, they who they want right on their team and i was like here's a draft board and you'll you'll see your name right there boom let me see i took a picture of it like i said rich roll i've got a draft rich roll into my life hold on a second like so weight loss motivation

yes yeah yeah and this was September. Right. So I was still like, I was just a fan. And boom, I wrote you down in my notebook. And then I got a DM in just the next week from this kid named Roberto. Like, he's a Mexican kid. And he's like, I'm in Venice. Like, let's link up.

And I'm mentoring a whole lot of people and I'm like just a guy who is like on your radar or what's I don't get it he just he just found me he I guess he knew somebody that knew me and he told him about me and he dm'd me so he came over to my house and I just was I tell everybody what I'm excited about and I'm like I'm really excited about like Rich Rich Roll because I want to be a vegan endurance athlete as well. And this is a week after the draft board. He said, oh, I crashed on Rich Roll's couch a couple years ago. Want me to connect you on email with him? I was like, yes.

I was like, that's it. I wrote it down and then boom, now the opportunity is real. The universe conspired to like make it happen, man. It's cool. Yeah. And then you told me that story. I was like, Roberto, who's that? I mean, we have so many people that like pass through our house and crash on our cat.

We're always like taking in strays. But then I was like, he was the guy who was riding his bike, doing some kind of global bike adventure. And I remember that he stayed at our house for a night or two. That's right. Yeah, it's cool. And we were able to connect the dots, man. And here we are.

We got together. You told me a little bit about your story. You shared with me a draft of this video that I hope you'll let me share. Maybe we can even share the audio of it in the intro lead up to this podcast, because it's really powerful. And it kind of really compactfully or concisely kind of shares this adventure that you're on. But it's really powerful and it kind of really compactfully or, you know, concisely kind of shares this adventure that you're on. But it's inspiring, man. I think for me, you know, people ask me all the time, you know, who are your favorite guests? Like, who are some of your

favorite interviews? And of course, it's like, well, you're asking me to choose amongst my babies. Like, I love everybody that I have on or I wouldn't have them on. But I think the people that really stand out as special for me are when I can shine a light or put a microphone in front of somebody who's an individual that perhaps isn't necessarily a public figure or somebody that everybody knows or that has a book out or something like that. Just somebody who's had to face and overcome like unbelievable obstacles and struggles in their life to persevere. And I find a lot of power and hope and inspiration in those stories.

And it's personally cool for me when I find somebody like that and I get to share their message. So I kind of, you're an extraordinary individual. I don't consider you like an everyman type person by any stretch of the imagination. But I think your story in the context of health is something that a lot of people can relate to and hopefully will be able to find their own strength in your trials and tribulations and victories.

Thank you. And that's why I appreciate you so much for having me on because I always had this romantic relationship with a million dollars. You know, like that thought, like a million dollars. And then through my transformation, I formed a different type of relationship with the word a million.

And I'm on a life mission now. I want to transform a million people's lives. And like you have an audience that wants, like they create, because you are that story. Like you were the one that got away. And people need that so bad. Like you're the one that got away and people need that so bad like you're the one who got away like society like i i heard this story um i love this story so much rich it was about a golden buddha and in thailand uh there was this village and they all prayed to this Buddha. And this opposing army was approaching the village.

And they covered the Buddha in clay and rocks so they didn't want the other army to think it was valuable. So they covered it. And this opposing army posed a threat for many, many years. covered it and this opposing army posed a threat for many many years and generation after generation in this village they forgot that this buddha was golden and one day a boy went and sat on it on his lap and it chipped and cracked and he looked down at it and uh he saw it was golden he ran and got his friend and they peeled it all off and they saw that this this this buddha was was golden and i think that's how like people like you and and and stories like what i aspire to be as well is that when we're young, we're golden. And then society and the rules that everybody

makes starts plastering us. And then people like me and you, we get cracked at some point in our life. And then that makes us realize that we can see the golden again. And then we take off everything that society built on top of us, like with our careers and with alcohol or with food and the stresses and just what everybody told us we should do with our lives. But when we hit that rock bottom and we get cracked, we can see we're golden again. And I admire you so much because you gave us hope that we can get away too. So thank you.

Well, I appreciate that. I think you're giving me a little bit too much credit, but that's a beautiful analogy. And you did the work, man. You did the work, and I'm excited know share what that was all about so let's take it back to the beginning southern boy southern boy growing up maybe not in the best of circumstances like what was it like um love my family so much um never knew that we did without. My parents, they worked hard. Mom sold vacuum cleaners, father was a carpenter and a mechanic and played the bass in a blues band. And I always had a dream. I wanted to be an athlete. That was it. I loved basketball. I studied every move, read every Michael Jordan book.

You name it. So it was Michael Jordan was your guy? Michael Jordan. Then it went to Allen Iverson. And it was just like basketball was my life. I played 24 hours a day. But no matter how much I played, I never could lose weight. I was a chubby kid i was i was the

fat kid who loved basketball it's like a conflict of interest um and i just wasn't like everybody else um like when we they would play like uh shirts for skins i hated that oh my god because like if i got picked for skins it would be like i'd have to drop out. Like, because I'm too embarrassed to take my shirt off. How old were you at this point? This was between, like, 8 and 11. Like, this is those years. And then as I got into, like, that 12, that middle school, I was like, I need something to be good at.

You know, when you want girls to like you and just, like, you're getting to that age, it's like you got to be good at something. Those guys play sports and are good. Those guys can dance. Those guys are attractive. And I'm like, none of those. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to be CEO Charlie. Right.

Like I'm going to do business. So it wasn't, I mean, a lot of those guys turned to comedy, right? Like that's the other route you can uh pursue one of those guys but uh you choose business right you're gonna which isn't like when you're that age it's like is that the sexy thing to do to get girls i don't know well you know like i've always had a gift to see like where culture was going. Like at that time, it was cool to be a thug. Right. But I knew. And you're like outside Atlanta or?

Like I'm in Atlanta, DeKalb County. I grew up mixed. Like most of my friends growing up were black. There were a couple white guys, you know, Mexican. Like it was a very mixed area where I lived. And which ended up being a huge advantage for me that I got to experience that like I got to learn all different types of people from day one, which led to my career, you know, which was a good thing and a bad thing. So i became ceo charlie and i was

like did you start calling yourself that people started calling me that they did like in middle school because i like i always had a business every year was like a different business and i like wore a suit and instead of a backpack i had a briefcase like i took it serious. This is me. I knew in culture where it was going next. I knew business was cool. And now you see it with Shark Tank and Gary Vaynerchuk. And I saw Gary last night. He said, hey, by the way. Oh, you did?

You saw Gary last night? Yeah. Oh, cool. Awesome, man. Yeah, I was just going to say, you had the little Gary V hustle going on as a youngster. Exactly. So yeah, got good at business and I buried the dream. The athlete dream.

That athlete dream, which is the truest dream because that's what I wanted instinctively. That wasn't a dream I chose. That's just what I wanted instinctively. Business is what I chose to kind of cover that up. So business got good. I got fast forward a few years. I started a music business at 18, 19 years old. And I was just telling your camera guy, I was a camera guy.

Like, that's how I got started. I was Soulja Boy's cameraman. And I dropped out of college to become his cameraman. I remember my mom only wanted one thing. She said, get your college degree, whatever. She always knew I did business, but she said, just get your degree. And my first year of college, my business was doing kind of good. And I found out that if you, within the first two weeks at community college, you can sign up for the class and they'll mail your parents that you signed up. But if you cancel the class, you can cancel within the first two weeks and they don't send a notice home.

So you're buying time. So I dropped out of classes and i'm like i basically lost my scholarship so the second year i had to pay for school and i went up to the school and i was just like frustrated i remember like it was just like oh why am i doing this i know i'm so much better than this paid for my books and everything. And then I left, and I got a call from Interscope Records. And they said, there's this artist that is a fan of your work. His name is Soulja Boy, and he wants you to go on tour with him and be his full-time cameraman.

I'm like, oh, well, all right, we're going to go. And what had you done to date? Like you had done some work for him in the past, or was there other stuff online that he had seen? Like how did you get on his radar to begin with? I built a website, like a hip-hop website. Like all my friends started doing music, and I built this media outlet for them.

And in Atlanta, like it became the website for hip-hop in Atlanta. Wow. And I was running it out of my mom's basement and i had basically the whole underground atlanta hip-hop scene like coming through my mom's house like it was it was it was crazy times um so if you wanted to know what was going on in hip-hop in atlanta that was the site that people were going to that was the site like i would feature artists on the website and then like record labels would call the artists the next day. Anybody I featured, record labels would call.

The artists would call me, and they're like, Warner Brothers called me, or Atlantic called me. And then I'd feature another artist, and they would just call everybody who I featured. And so the website was big, and then when Soulja Boy blew up, he was like, that's who I want to be my guy. So that's actually almost a more interesting decision than the college versus Soulja decision. Because you're building this website that could have turned into like a pitchfork or something like that for hip hop, right? True. Yes. So you had to like walk away from that in order to take a full-time gig?

A little bit. It helped the website because it built my credibility. But it was tough because my servers back then were way more expensive than they are now. And it was costing me money, and I wasn't getting paid much from Soulja Boy. And long story short, I went back up to the school give me my money back so my mom gave me her blessing she said when doors open you gotta walk through them and and that's what I did I ended up getting fired six months later and and that hurt apparently I wasn't a good employee.

Well, most hardcore entrepreneurs aren't, right? Yeah. They have a hard time working for other people. Yeah. But maybe you need to have that experience to figure that out, right? Boy, rock bottom then was like, oh, man, we can't pay the bills. Like, it was tough. Like, I basically had to close down my website because I couldn't afford it anymore.

It was popular, but it wasn't generating revenue. And then I remember I told my mom, I'm going to get into management. That's where the money is. She said, what do you know about management? I said, nothing, but I'm going to figure it out because that's where the money is. And I signed this girl group, and they were young. They were like Nickelode were, they were like, like, like Nickelodeon hip hop. Like, it was like, they were awesome. And I got them a record deal in 24 hours because Interscope Records loved me.

Like they knew I knew marketing. So I got them this record deal. And three months later they left me for a huge like industry manager. They were like, yeah, well, we can't have an 18 year old manager i'm like i'm like i just keep falling on my face like uh anyways so business was interesting reasonable thing to say though right kind of yeah i mean i get it but at the same time you were delivering exactly like yeah it was but they didn't make it so it was you know if they stuck with me they would have yeah you know it's rare to find somebody who will take a bullet for you

like when times are bad and there's no money being made and that's almost more valuable than uh than than experience because you know times times get bad in the music game. But you have proof of concept here. You were able to, you know, drum up a record deal in no time. So you realize, like, hey, there's something here to pursue. And I signed another group, got right back up, signed another group, and it took off. And we did it.

I drove. I, like, really wanted it. i had to make it work and i told them i was like their name is travis porter and i told him i said just be loyal please i'm gonna do everything they were living in their mom's house i was living in my mom's house and they stuck with me we had uh three top 10 records in the country um and then we got so hot, we dominated Atlanta. And then that's when I was able to approach 2 Chainz. And then I had to convince him because I was young and my business partners were like, we were all just like rejects.

We weren't the superstar managers. And he had been around big artists like Ludacris and Lil Wayne his whole career. And we're like, we want to manage manage you and he just laughed at us and maybe explain for people that are listening who don't know that much about hip-hop who two chains is so two chains two chains is an artist we won a grammy this year that that really helps people understand um so we won a grammy we've had number one albums uh eight world tours uh 12 domestic tours um been on good morning america uh been on two broke girls that's something they might know um so yes it's it's been a, amazing 10 years that I was able to be with 2 Chainz. And to fast forward a little bit, to rewind and fast forward, so I got fired on October 4th, 2007,

the last day of Soulja Boy's tour that ended in Atlanta. When Soulja Boy fired you. When Soulja Boy fired me. That was my last job I ever had. And I retired from the music industry on October 4th, 2017, the last day of 2 Chainz's tour that ended in Atlanta.

Wow. 10 years to the date. That's crazy. Well, there's a certain poetry to that. There is. And a certain symmetry. See, the universe really is working in your life in mysterious ways that you can't comprehend, Charlie. That's right.

That brought us here today. That's right. So rewinding it, though, a little bit. So somehow you're able to convince this guy, 2 Chainz, that he should take a chance on you and your reprobate friends. And he did. And we just showed up. We went to work, and business got big. And like I said in the video— How big was he at the time that you signed him?

He had a big song like three years prior, and he was dormant. There wasn't much going on, but he was respected was respected in the industry so it wasn't just like working with a no-name um so so business got big and and around that time it's like business brought two things business business brought success which led to food and it brought stress which led to food so it's like early in my life at eight when i buried my my dream and went into business this business thing was ultimately a trap for me because everything that happened every day is either a celebration or every day is some sort of stress. And it was extreme. And I had got over 304 pounds.

And I had always did diets. And my brain was fried of just data. If there was a diet jeopardy, I would be the all-time champion of the world, like 27 episodes in a row. You tried every diet. Every single one. And I was just, I was fried. And I got really, really big. Embarrassingly, you know, obese. What was the most weight? 304.

304, yeah. And I'm short. I've seen the pictures, and in that video, you can kind of, you know, you chronicled a lot of it, man. Yeah. So you can kind of see. I mean, it's kind of amazing because looking at you now, like I can't see that person at all.

It's quite a change. Thank you. But what comes across in that video and what came across when we talked, you know, when we first got together was the, you know, just the desperation that comes with that, like just feeling trapped in this compulsion, this addiction, and this body without seeming to be able to find any way to escape it. That's right. And you speak of your relationship with food as an addictive thing, right? 100%. You're clear that you're like a food addict, right? Totally.

I've never done any type of drugs or anything. I think I knew better because I knew how I was with food, and when I like something, I just overdo it, no matter what it is. That's why I guess endurance sports is good for me. I just overdo anything. So the food addiction, it sent me to a place where I was so desperate because it's one thing to not try and get bad results. I think it makes it 10 times worse when you try so hard and you get bad results. Like, I was never the guy.

I was very ambitious, so I was never the guy to give up. Like every day is like, this is the day. Like this is the game plan. I'm going to do this. And then I would crack, mainly because of like, I wasn't addressing my roots. It's like my tree that makes fruit is in bad soil. Like that's basically what it was.

Like I could prune the tree all I want above ground, but it didn't matter what I did above ground. My roots are in bad soil, so I was never making fruit. And that was my business environment and me not fulfilling my purpose. It was just bad soil. So a guy walked into my life, Scott Cameron. But before we even get into that, I wanted to just kind of explore one thing that you said in a little bit more depth, which is this idea of trying. I think there's a presumption or an assumption out there that if you see somebody who's obese, they've just given up. They've given up on themselves. They have poor self-esteem. They don't care. They've thrown in the towel. And maybe that's true for some people, but your experience is different.

You are actually trying to address this the whole time and just constantly frustrated with not being able to get results. Yeah. Oh, boy. Every day. Wake up. The most motivated person in the world, go to bed. The most depressed person in the world go to bed the most depressed person in the world repeat that cycle never was a day the towel was thrown in in the morning yeah but it takes a lot

of um what's the right word like uh perseverance i guess because if you're waking up every day saying, this is how I want the day to go. And then, and then meeting your inability to live up to that expectation that you set for yourself every day, you're taking down a peg and that's got to like, just wear on your soul. Wears on it. Until you are that person who's like, fuck it. Right. I'm giving up. fuck it right i'm giving up so my first my first rock bottom is when i decided to start running and i did a starvation diet and lost 100 pounds like so i starved myself what precipitated that bottom like what happened where you were like okay when the weight started coming back after i had starved myself down 100 pounds all the weight started coming back and i'll try to get

back on the diet that starvation diet and then it was like this trap of like like i was burnt i couldn't do it anymore and i would try and then i would like i would binge eat to where I knew it was so bad, Rich. This gas station had the Krispy Kreme donuts. And then I knew I would drive to another gas station because I knew they had the Mrs. Field cookies. And then it's like, okay, I beat myself down so bad. Like, okay, I messed up. Let me just go ahead and push myself down the rest of the stairs. I'll trip down one, push myself down the rest. And I would go to like Wendy's like, all right, like now I'm

just really going to mess up. Right, once the seal's cracked, like anything goes. And then you would just want to make yourself so sick because I'll be like, this is my last time. I'm going to make myself so sick that i'll never want to do this again and i would i would expand so much overnight from like i don't know maybe 10 000 15 000 calories like i'm talking about massive loads of food and i'll never get full for some reason i would get sick but i wouldn't get full and i'd wake up the next day and my skin all over my body would be bruised. Like, it would hurt to touch my skin. I've never heard that before. Like, what is that? I don't know.

I could never find anything on it. It was just, like, expansion, retaining so much water, like eating that mini process. Because I never ate real food when I binge-eat. I would never go to a restaurant. Yeah, you're not eating fruits and vegetables. Or even just mashed potatoes and steak. processed because i never ate real food when i binge eat i would never go to a restaurant yeah you're not eating fruits and vegetables like or even just mashed potatoes and steak like just like there was like it would be processed gas station junk food was the only thing i wanted because i

wanted to sit in my car where it was you know hidden and and another thing like it sent me into this depressed state to where like it would usually be on the weekends, like the binging would happen, that I was so terrified of Fridays and Saturdays. Like, I don't know if there out and they're going to the clubs and they're enjoying themselves. And I'm like crawled up in my room depressed. And they're going to the clubs to listen to the music that we make, like that we give them entertainment. And I'm just like, I'm scared of the weekend. I couldn't wait for Monday so I could just be accepted in the one place that I'm good, and that's the office. And, yeah, so. So the shame.

It was terrible. And you never, like, did you ever veer into eating disorder territory with, you know, throwing up or the bulimia? No. I mean, if you're doing starvation stuff, that's sort of tiptoeing around anorexic that was definitely tiptoeing um i went to like therapist like i was like really trying to like figure out how to mentally get over it but i had all the wrong information and i was like okay no more diets i'm gonna run so like scott walked into my life he was like I'm gonna stick with you trainer and yeah like best friend type trainer and he's like Charlie I know there's something special about you I see it in you and I know your brain is fried from all these diets and we're just gonna run

and when he said that it went back to like my childhood dream it was like an athlete how could anybody run a marathon and be fat like when i do this he challenged me to a marathon i said yes and we started training and we did one marathon santa rosa how long did it take you to train for that 10 months gained weight during the training during the training like i weight. During the training? During the training. How much weight did you gain during the training? Probably about 10 pounds. So you're keeping the same eating habits, and then with all the sort of exercise output,

there's the kind of reward mechanism on top of that. Well, I just ran eight miles, so I can actually eat more and feel fine about it exactly you're not addressing exactly habits and the attitudes around food and it just it just got worse you know it was appetite increased and i would wake up every morning and train i did a full marathon gained weight so i'm like okay we're gonna do another one let's explore that a little bit because I think that's news to a lot of people like the idea like listen if you're training for a marathon you're gonna lose weight no matter what that's

what I thought exactly what I thought and what did Scott think when you actually gained weight I don't know how he dealt with me because I was such a victim. Every day, I'm just like in this victim mentality. Like, what else do you want me to do? And he's having to deal with me and deal with the late night text messages that are this long. Me being depressed. Because what we were talking about, trying even harder and still gaining weight. Right.

Like, so, yeah. So that's like another bottom, right? Like what, yeah, what do you want? Like I trained for a marathon, I ran a marathon, I'm gaining, I'm actually getting bigger. So we said we're going to do another one. But this time we're going to do bike riding as well. So you're going to run another marathon, but we're going to do another one. But this time, we're going to do bike riding as well. So you're going to run another marathon, but we're going to train on the bike as well.

It's sort of like a physical version of a starvation diet. Like, let's just exhaust you. Let's just keep your body moving so much that your metabolism has no choice but to lose weight. Right. So what happened with that? Gained weight. Gained weight. Right. So what happened with that? Gained weight.

Gained weight. So. Uh-huh. And that was the Silver Comet Marathon in Atlanta. And then that was October. And then we're like, okay, we're going to do another marathon. But to be fair, like you're eating crap, right? I'm eating crap. You're not like, oh, I'm trying to like.

Well, I'm dieting kind of like i'm like every three hours like eat this but then i would crack there'd be a rubber band exactly and it would be like one day of binge eating would be would would undo undo six days of like doing good and i was always hungry and when i cracked it was just it would just be bad so so we did a third marathon the la marathon and this i was at such a heavy weight i don't know how i did it like my all my toenails turned black and fell off. I was pounding so much. And, like, when I run marathons, I don't walk. Like, it's like I see people walking. I'm like, uh-uh.

I grind. Like, I go hard. But when I look back at pictures of that marathon, I'm like, Jesus, I was huge. How did I do that? It's like, man, unbelievable. And that is what, like, at at that moment i went rock bottom rich and i i didn't think what is the emotional state of finishing a third marathon and and and continuing to expand and and feeling like there is no solution accessible for you to solve this problem

you you feel like there's no more road left what else can i do like i remember i would um like i'm like a figure stuff out type of guy i have my notebook i'm gonna come up with a game plan and it's like i'm going to come up with a game plan. And it's like, I'm going right back to that. Like, okay, what's worked for me in the past? Like, how do we do this? And boom, boom, boom. And I was being called to nature at this moment.

Like, I would always be called to nature. Like, just go sit down in nature and write and think and game plan. And then there was this voice. And it was like, Charlie, you can't figure this one out in your notebook. I closed the notebook, and I thought about it, and I was like, maybe I need to go on a journey. I was like, maybe I need to go on a journey. And I remember in the next couple of days, I woke up and the room started spinning.

Like something was wrong spinning. Not me hallucinating, but I'm consciously, I wake up, turn my head up to the ceiling, look up, and I'm like, wow, the room's spinning. This can't be good. How long is it going to last? I'm sitting there 15, 20 seconds later. It stops. And then I get out of bed, go pick up my shoes. Boom.

Pass out. I wake up. I'm on the floor. I'm like, yeah, this isn't good. This isn't good. Like something's actually wrong here. And how long after that LA Marathon was this? This was like eight months.

And what year are we talking about? This is, we're now last year. Oh, wow. This is just last year. Yeah, this is last November. And boom, brain tumor. That's what caused me to pass out. Brain tumor wrapped around my left optic nerve, wrapped around my coronary artery.

And doctor said it could start corroding the top of my spinal cord. and uh doctor said it could start corroding the top of my spinal cord and that was i thought i was rock bottom before but then when you feel like it's over like like i'm gonna die i realized what that whole you need to go on a journey thing meant. It's amazing that that was just one year ago and that the trigger occurred on the heels of you kind of making this promise to yourself or this decision that you were going to go on this journey. this promise to yourself or this decision that you were going to go on this journey.

And you were rewarded with that decision, with this unbelievable news. Best thing that ever happened to me. Did you have to take a hospital? How did you find out that you had a brain tumor? MRI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so what's the prognosis at that time? What's the doctor telling you you're going to have to do?

Medication or chemotherapy. Medication, body acted a little funny with it. They wanted to put me on higher levels, and they said that would affect my heart. Like my heart valves. They said, well, this medication has one downside. This is the same brain tumor that Tony Robbins had when he was my age. A pituitary tumor. So it throws everything in your body off, the pituitary gland and all the hormones.

And that's when the journey started. And I didn't want to listen to people. And I moved to California. I didn't tell my, my family or my business partners that I was moving. I said, I'm going for a few weeks. They knew you had cancer though. I didn't have cancer. It wasn't cancer.

It was brain tumor. It was, it was, it was benign. Thank God. I see. All right. But not, okay. All right. didn't have cancer it wasn't cancer the brain tumor it was it was it was benign thank god i see all right but but not not okay all right so they knew something was wrong they knew i was in a bad place and i said i'm gonna go to california for some meetings you know boom like i'm going out there for a few weeks. I knew I was gone, but I didn't want a big, like going away, like people scared and none of that. So I went for a couple of weeks and they said, oh, meetings are going great out here. You know, like, I think I'm gonna stay a couple more weeks. And, um, by Christmas they were like,

have you moved? I'm like, you know what? I think it's good for me because, you know, it's really healthy out there. And I decided to go vegan. And this is another thing. So I went vegan and I gained 20 pounds. I had no idea what I was doing. I was eating at Edgy Grill every day, getting like hamburgers and stuff.

And I was like, well, if I go vegan, it's impossible that I'll gain weight. Like this is going to be the answer. Yeah, not true. Especially this day and age with so many yummy, you know, non-animal versions of your favorite junk food. Yeah. yummy you know non-animal versions of your favorite junk food yeah and i had got back up i'd gained 20 more pounds got up to about 260 270 again and this was march and april this is you know like less than a year ago less than a year ago and Less than a year ago. And I was like, okay, let me stop everything. I tried to leave my company in April. They wouldn't let me.

They said, Charlie, just go figure out whatever you need to figure out. We'll be here when you're done. And I just went on a journey to learn. But this impulse to leave your company and go on this journey and the processing of, you know, having a brain tumor and your inability to kind of, you know, manage your own physical being. I mean, where is this, where is this leaving you emotionally? I mean, obviously there's a lot of turmoil in your life for you to just up and go to California by yourself and not really feel

comfortable enough to be honest about what it is that you're, you're actually doing or seeking, like, where is your head at this point? Are you like having this reassembly of what's important to you or, you know, what is occurring to you at that, at that moment? At that moment, I was, I was gone. I was gone out of business like i was gone like it wasn't like you don't care like you don't you don't care about all this other stuff that you thought was important nothing mattered anymore nothing mattered money business the cool winning grammys all that stuff just didn't matter i i had to reconnect with the dream. And I said, I'm going to be an athlete.

I'm going to fix this once and for sure. I mean, once and for all. And I'm going to do everything. I'm going to do an Ironman. I'm going to change my eating. I had this. I boiled it down to something very simple. And I needed simplicity because I had all this data from dieting like everything every three hours and eat this don't eat this like and i was

like i need something simple and that's what i liked about vegan but then i needed like even more simple than vegan i needed even more rules to just like just do this and. And I came up with this in my head. I said, if what they're saying is true, you are what you eat. And I'm dying. Is what I'm eating dead or alive? And when I thought about it like that, I was like, okay. I started asking myself questions. Oil. Okay, that's probably dead.. I started asking myself questions. Oil.

Okay, that's probably dead. Salt. That's probably dead. Banana. Oh, that's alive. Potato. Alive. And that became-

The dead or alive diet. 100%. Just because something vegan, it was like, I got rid of the oil. I got rid of the salt. I got rid of just fruits and vegetables that rid of just, I just, I eat fruits and vegetables that are like living all day. Well, not 100%. Like probably like 60, 70%. And the brain tumor started shrinking.

My hormones in my body leveled up. Like the food caused it. Because with the pituitary tumor, it's all hormones. And all I was eating my whole life was meat because I was doing ketogenic diets. Like most of the diets I were doing were like ketogenic diets. And I would eat tons of meat, almost no vegetables, like very rarely. And processed foods when I binged and like diet sodas and all that type of stuff. And I know that's what caused the brain tumor.

Yeah, it just jacked your endocrine system. Yeah. Threw everything off. Body just deformed. Formed a tumor. And then when I started eating food that was a lot, it started shrinking. Doctors are like, right like how long did that take this is when did you first notice that it was shrinking so i haven't taken my medicine in almost five months and my hormones coming down lower like like the prolactin level is like super high and it's coming all the way down and it's shrinking.

And like the testosterone is leveling out on its own, like no medicine. Like doctors were prescribing me like testosterone stuff, prescribing me stuff for the, like the hormones, like that's what controls it. And I started just like eating living foods and a lot of raw food yeah like a lot like i eat like george knows like i eat like six oranges a day like in an hour like because because i'm exercising a lot too i'm training for the iron man so that's amazing so what did the doctors say when you went back in and they were seeing these kinds of results in you and i mean were you the one to say like did they tell you like it's okay for you to go off the medication or were you just saying

i'm not going to do that or like how did that go down i made my own rules there wasn't much conversation but were they surprised that you were balancing out in that way and that there was some evidence of shrinking? Yes. Mm-hmm. Totally. Is that like normal? Is that like, does that happen? No.

No. The idea that food could have an impact on the growth or regression of a tumorous growth in your brain is probably something that a lot of people would tell you can't be the case. I mean, I'm not a doctor, but I mean, what were these doctors telling you? They didn't want to talk much. Like, it was in and out like kind of absurd like i go in and i get my blood work done and it's like everything looks good that's it like that's the bedside manner they don't want to talk what do you think that's about it's just that's the system that's set up to see as many people as possible yeah i mean i mean they're prescribing medicine doctors you like where are your doctors

at like cedars or someplace like that i don't want to i don't want to expose them i don't want to cause a fury but good doctors you know one here one in atlanta so you're you're doing this self-styled uh dead or alive diet the tumor shrinking uh i mean first of all what what inspired you to as somebody who has done a million different diets like what was it that got you excited about trying this which sounds like it's something that you hadn't tried yet i just needed something that made sense i just needed like i'm starting to just boil things down in my life like what makes sense and when i would watch these documentaries on veganism and stuff and i was like that makes sense and the oil and everything i was like okay like let me get rid of anything that's dead and i just i do good with rules like i haven't cheated on my dad like it's like it's easy for me because it's it's like i used to celebrate food. Now I like celebrate taking my shirt off at the beach for the first time in my life.

I celebrate this morning, you know, I ran eight and a half miles. And it's my fifth day of working out without a rest day. And it's like, wow, I crushed it at one of my fastest speeds at almost under a nine minute pace. And like I used to run, like when I did my marathons, it was like a 12, 45 pace. It's like, you know, like, it's like, wow, like that's what I'm celebrating now. So people are like, is this hard for you? Like, no, like it's actually easy.

It's way easier than a diet because the relationship, when I look at an orange, like now I look at it like, wow, like this is alive. This is alive. Like I wish like food had like a label on it that had like the level of energy that the food puts off. Instead of like people thinking about like food gives you energy, like an energy bar. Like that has zero energy. Like it's a dead thing that can sit on a shelf for four years. Like that's not energy. You know know like let's look at energy differently this thing is alive it means

there's frequencies and energies coming off of it we're like something that can sit on a shelf for four years that's like very low frequency energy yeah the chi the chi you're gonna get all like new age now on it. But it's true. It's like, yeah, what is, I mean, everything is energy, right? So what is the energy? What vibration is this thing vibrating on? I'll show you what I carry around with me.

Let me show you. So, George, you already know. It's in here somewhere. It's in here.. It's in here. Here it is. Boom. I carry this guy with me. Yeah, Einstein.

Einstein bobblehead. It actually doesn't bobble. I wish it bobbled. I don't know what it does. But, quantum physics. Energy. He described everything.

He described how me and you met, energy, the entanglement. Like, it's actually all backed up by science, and I've been studying it. George introduced me to a quantum physicist. Oh, yeah, I think you told me when we met you were rushing off because you were going to meet this guy, right? Yeah, that's right when I met him. Tell me about this. rushing off because you were going to meet this guy yeah yeah that's right when i met you about this so all these crazy things started happening in my life and i didn't feel comfortable talking to people about them but when i cleaned up my diet it was like it was like i had superpowers

and i like didn't want to tell people because i didn't want to seem weird or like hippie or whatever like i'm just a good old southern boy and but i had these superpowers like i could think of I didn't want to tell people because I didn't want to seem weird or hippie or whatever. I'm just a good old Southern boy. But I had these superpowers. I could think of somebody, and then they'll call me. And then there was this girl who I hadn't seen in 10 years, and I went searching for her on Instagram, and I couldn't find her. And then the next day, she liked my page and direct messaged me.

And I was like, oh. And then this started to happen a lot. And then I was like, I thought, like I said to my friend, I was like, I want to help Oprah with her health. And then tomorrow, I have a meeting with Oprah's producers. Like, this is like happening fast. And it's easy for me to do now. And I had all these questions on how this is like happening fast. And it's easy for me to do now. And I had all these questions on how this is happening. And the quantum physicist explained it to me.

And he told me about this study where they took human DNA. The military did this study. They took human DNA, put it in a dish, and have um the instruments study the energy coming off of the dish they took that human being put him in another part of the building had him watch like an emotional video that like made him like emotional and the dna changed the energy changed it increased the dna that had been extracted that was in the other room was being impacted by the stimulus that the human being was exposed to. Yes. Out of sight. What quantum physics says, and this isn't me.

This isn't me, guys. What quantum physics says. This is what the guy is telling you. Is that atom particles can be in two places at one time. And when they did. That's definitely a fact they've done those studies double split particles are like on opposite sides of the coast and are being impacted by each other exactly and that's how me and you got connected i said i want to meet rich

roll a kid dms me and introduces us just like that i said i want to help oprah boom i have a meeting with her producers like like i think think of somebody, they DM me. Because the particles are, we are entangled. And I started studying the quantum physics just to make sure I wasn't crazy. And it all says that, yeah, like, your body is clean. You're eating living things that have high frequency. So your antenna goes further than when you were eating bad things. You got rid of all the negative things in your life.

You cleaned up and your antenna just reaches further than it used to. I was like, that makes sense. I get it. Thank you, Einstein. I can vouch for that. You know, and it is a weird thing because you don't want to come off as sounding crazy. But I can certainly attest to the fact that cleaning up my diet and starting to eat living things had a much larger impact on my life than just slimming down. And even beyond just being able to be successful as an athlete.

Like it changed everything about who I am and how I interact with the world. And my daughter just turned 14. So we had a little birthday dinner for her the other night and we were going through like old photos, you know, like old photos from like when she was a baby. And, you know, I was never morbidly obese like yourself. I wasn't 300 pounds, but I was like a hefty, you know, I was from like when she was a baby and, you know, I was never morbidly obese like yourself. I wasn't 300 pounds, but I was like a hefty, you know, I was like 50, 55 pounds overweight. And so we were scrolling back and I saw some of those pictures from like 2004, 2005. And my daughter's looking at them.

They're like, who is that? You know, it doesn't, I don't look like the same person. And I even said to my wife, like, man, like that was a challenged time. And she was like, yeah, it wasn't fun. And that hurt to hear her say that. And she wasn't saying that because she wasn't physically attracted to me. She was saying that because I was carrying around like a heavy energy that had nothing to do with what the scale said, like a certain density, right?

And my journey with cleaning up my diet is actually a journey of self-discovery and self-actualization that begins with the foods that are on your plate, right? That's the opening portal. Like that's the opening to the cave that you're like walking into. That's right. Right? And what gets people through the door is the idea of like, oh, look at Charlie's before and after pictures. Like, that's what I want because I'm struggling. But what it delivers is so much more than that. It is. Like, the weight is nothing compared to the impact that it can have on fundamentally every aspect of how you live your life, how you see yourself, your relationship with yourself, your relationship with others.

And it is a very esoteric thing. And I'm glad that there's a quantum physicist out there that can apply some science to it. But my own personal anecdotal evidence is simply that I am aligning myself with a higher frequency with which, you know, this earth or this environment in which we inhabit is, is vibrating. Like it's, and you're, you're in tune with that in a new and different way, which sets you on a different trajectory for your life. The idea, like I'm not sitting here having a podcast with you and doing all the things that I do because I vision board it and I wrote it out and said this is my plan and my goal that I'm going after.

These things have occurred as a result of my commitment to always trying to improve myself, right? And that journey towards the center, towards the heart, has deposited me in this place despite my self-will, which would have chosen something else for myself. My ego would have chosen a different path because it doesn't have the breadth of vision that this life force has, right? I don't think I described that very well, but I think you get where I'm coming from. 100%.

And you're on a very similar journey with that. And I've seen this in other people. I've seen this with people in sobriety who get cleaned from drugs and alcohol. And I've seen it with people who have stepped into the dead or alive diet, for lack of a better phrase. I mean, it's essentially a whole food plant-based diet tipping towards a lot of raw foods, right?

It's essentially what you're doing. And I've seen the lights go on in people in a way that you would not imagine that extends so far beyond the waistline. It's insane. There was a second part that I think some of the viewers might like. When I uh simple rules um i had another simple rule other than the dead are alive and it was eat when i'm hungry stop when i'm full like literally if i'm hungry there aren't rules like the body is smarter than

we ever could be like it's so beautifully designed and miraculously designed when it says it's hungry i eat and i only stock you know my refrigerator with like low calorie dense things i was like oh like sweet potatoes i eat them all day like baked potatoes i eat them all day put a whole bunch of sauce on it when i learned that um a pound when i looked at calories differently i stopped counting calories i said oh how many calories are in a pound of something that's all i want to know because if i think of like me filling up like if i ate two pounds three pounds or something i'll be stuffed so i was like okay if i ate a pound of strawberries it's like 145 calories per pound or if i ate a pound of cashews there's 3 500 calories a pound if i eat a pound of sweet

potatoes it's 350 calories per pound if i ate a pound pound of baked potato, I mean potato chips, it's like 3,000. So I'm like, oh, let me just fill my stomach up and always be full. And if I'm always full, I'll never have to diet again. And I'm always full. I dieted my whole life where it was like, restrict, stick within these calories. Now I naturally stick within the calories because I only eat low-calorie dense foods. Like if it's under 500 calories a pound, oh, I'm stuffing myself with it. Right. Low-calorie dense, but nutrient dense.

You know, Chef AJ, she speaks about this a lot. I can turn you on to some videos where she breaks that down beautifully. But that's exactly what you're doing. You're eating foods that are really high in fiber, that you're getting full, but you're not. And lots of water. Yeah. So it's like, you know, either you can have a teaspoon of oil. Yes.

Or you can eat like two baked potatoes. Right. Exactly. 100%. You know what I mean? Exactly. And I think there is something to this idea of rules. Like I work really well with rules too. And I think it's important to have rules, not too many rules, but enough rules that it takes the decision fatigue out of how you're going to approach your day.

And that's true of me in how I approach my professional career. It's true of how I approach my training. Like when I'm not working with my coach and I don't know what I'm supposed to do that day, then who knows what I'm going to do. And I wake up and I'm like, well, I could do this, but maybe I should do that. Well, then I'll move this around so I can do that. Like all these decisions you have to make as opposed to, oh, I look at the calendar and like, it's a two hour bike today. That's what I do. There's no, there's no debate. There's no whatever. That's the way it is. And similarly with respect to diet and nutrition, you know, there are a few rules.

It's like, I don't eat any, it is a dead or alive thing. Like I don't eat any animal products, pretty basic rule. It's really simple. It's sort of like in sobriety, I don't use drugs and alcohol no matter what. Like that's just the rule you don't break, right? So that's fundamental rule number one, no animal products. And then you go down the scale of like,

eating these plant foods as close to their natural state as possible there's gradations within that but when you just kind of approach it from that fundamental perspective it doesn't have to be that complicated and it's freed up so much mental space for me not having to make food decisions anymore because every day used to be like there was fear of every meal every meal was scary to think about like oh lord like i'm hungry i have to eat like oh my god like and then we'd be planning meals and celebrating meals and then like it was always every day multiple multiple big decisions especially when you're scared of food it's like it's like I talked

about in the video like I envy people who like addicted to drugs because like you can call turkey a drug and never have to deal with it again with food like you have to deal with it every day and when you're terrified of food that's when it gets scary to make decisions. Well, one of the things you said earlier is that you weren't, when you were struggling with your dietary proclivities and choices and trying out all these different programs unsuccessfully, you weren't dealing with your core issues. You were like pruning the branches, but you weren't getting to the soil and the roots, right? So I take it now, fundamentally, you know, diet choices aside that you are kind of dealing with the roots so what you know what are those issues

and what is that journey um towards you know you know reckoning with that been like first thing was from a child i wanted to be an athlete and i had to address that and it's interesting sorry to interrupt but it's interesting that with all your success as a music manager I mean most people would look at that like Grammy's you know successful making money

going to crazy parties whatever like who cares about the athlete thing man like all the athletes want to be doing what you're doing right

like you're fine let it go and I let it go I let that whole life go and it was easy for me to like like some of my friends are like is it hard for you to walk away and i'm like no like i know i can never truly be successful if i don't have my health when you're looking at your death it's like what does this mean anyways and i would always have these dreams only only one it's not like a bad dream but it's like what does this mean anyways and i would always have these dreams only only one it's not like a bad dream but it's a reoccurring dream with a negative feeling of

i died before i got to realize what it was like to be fit like that's my fear like i want to know what it's like to have a six-pack or to able to, like, not be afraid to look in the mirror. And if that was always my underlying root, it's like, I made lots of money. But now I live with four roommates. And I don't mind. I live with four roommates and I don't mind. I'm living my dream and money and impressing people. And I could be honest and humble.

I'm a successful guy, but I know that no money is coming in, so I need to live with roommates. What am I afraid of? I'm chasing my dream. I'm going to be an athlete. And I'm going to do this Ironman. And then me and my best friend, we're going to bike across America and allow people to bike with us. Like with this interactive map where people can see where we are. And then I'm going to do a relay race across America.

And it's going to start July 4th in New York. And it's going to be a torch. And we're all going to get this torch across America. And it's going to be America connecting together. And different people like me and you and other people who want to be like us and want to do better with their life and reinventing their life, they're all going to get this torch across America. And we're going to be connected.

And that's my dream. I love marketing. I'm a good businessman. But now I can apply my gift to, like, okay, we value a dollar so much. Like, people jump through hoops for money. Like, that's what they think about all day and then i'm like a a human life is more valuable than a dollar but i

like i talked about in the beginning like a million dollars i did that whatever now i want to help transform a million lives that's the new type of millionaire. Like, and there's people like you that exist that are doing it naturally. You know, like you inspired me. Now I want to do it and I'm going to reach my hand back. And then there's just going to be more and more of us. And I'm going to take what I learned with marketing. I look at it like God wanted me to go do the hip hop thing so I could learn how to influence culture. He just sent me over there, go learn how to market really good and influence culture. So when you come over here to do good for people and be of service to people. You're ready to go.

And I can market the best of them and make movements worldwide with what I know. But instead of doing it for money like before i was just a consumer now i'm a provider you know me just being able to tell my story i can help somebody it's an amazing thing like george like chris collins said like we can talk into this microphone and this internet thing it can go like like we're gonna like say something into here with just our mouth and somebody's life which is a valuable thing is going to be saved like yeah it's common kind of like electricity is common that's an amazing thing that like like we can't forget how amazing this internet thing is like because somebody's listening and their life is going to change like like when when i hear your story help change my

life somebody's gonna hear my like somebody's life that's a valuable thing like somebody is depressed and thinking of suicide or addicted to drugs and going to kill themselves. Like, we can just use our mouth to talk. It's just an amazing thing. Well, I get crazy emails every single day from people that are impacted profoundly by the messages and the stories told by the guests that are sitting in the chair that you're sitting in right now. So I'm familiar with that. And I think we're only tapping the surface of what's possible. We're in the infancy of this internet age.

And it just feels good to be part of the solution for people in whatever small way that we can. And look, there's nothing more powerful than an extraordinary story well told, you know, and your story is, your story is very powerful. And so that's why I wanted to have you here to be able to share it because I think it does hold within it the potential energy to catalyze change in other people who feel stuck, who feel like they've tried every diet, they can't see their way through it. They're ready to give up whether it's drugs or alcohol or relationships or food or gambling or shopping or whatever it is, you know, the idea that somebody has pulled themselves up from the abyss from that vicious cycle of being unable to, um,

unable to, to, you know, be the person that they always wanted to be to now be meeting that, you know, full on with the embrace that, that, that embrace that you have at the moment is empowering. And it's infectious, I think, you know, it's as infectious as a terrible virus, you know, in the most positive way. And what's great about your story is that it's continuing to unfold. It's a story that's still being told. I mean, this was nine months ago when the brain tumor thing came and you decided to get serious about your food, your relationship with food. I mean, that's not that long ago.

I look at you now, you don't look anything like those pictures. I mean, you've lost, what, like 100 pounds or something like that? So I've lost a total of 125. 125 pounds. But in the past seven, eight months, 80. That's crazy. That's not a very long time. And I think what's interesting also about what has allowed you to make it work this time is something that I've heard on this podcast before with my friend Josh Lajani.

He's a guy who lost a tremendous amount of weight. Lajani. He's a guy who lost a tremendous amount of weight, but a real fundamental sea change for him was when he stopped thinking about and focusing on what the scale said, and he fundamentally changed his relationship with food, and he started considering himself to be an athlete. It's not about weight loss. It's about how do I become the athlete that I always wanted to be? And the more he put his focus on that and less on like, what is, you know, what's my weight or what is my waistline look like instead of, but rather like, how can I be a better runner? How can I get faster? You know, what do I need to do?

It almost was like a release valve that took the pressure off because suddenly it wasn't a ticking clock. It's just, this is your life now. Right. And I see a similar kind of, um, approach or kind of shift in decision-making and perspective in, in yourself. Definitely. And there was a little trick that I found out in business and finally applying that to my health was it's just easier to go bold like saying you're gonna wake up and run every day is so much harder than saying i'm gonna do an ironman like going bold is easier because now like when people introduce you to somebody, they're like, oh, he's training for an Ironman. They would never say, oh, he wakes up and runs every day.

Like it ultimately becomes you. That's why like being vegan for me was easy because it's like, oh, I'm accountable. Like I'm vegan. Everybody knows it now. Like my friends, my family. So going big and bold is easier. And when I think about you, it's like, man, you do superhuman things. And I bet doing those superhuman things is easier

because you're just mentally ready to go bigger than just saying, oh, I'm going to wake up and run every day. Well, that doesn't mean anything to me. Exactly. And what is the accountability factor with that? Like you need a goal that scares you enough so that you hold yourself accountable. And I think there's something also to be said

for the sort of exotic nature of it. Like the more, the bolder the goal, the less crowded the space, right? It's like everybody's kind of clamoring around like running a 5K or a 10K. Less people, a marathon, even less people, an Ironman, and then upwards you go. And it gets scarier as you notch it up, which increases the level of self-accountability. But it's also exciting you know that's what gets you out of bed in the morning like pumped for your day part of that is fear a healthy fear and part of it is is the thrill of not

knowing exactly what's gonna happen that's right yeah but why do you like I want to explore a little bit, like why you felt the need to walk away from your career completely, because I'm sure people will say, look, you want to do that. You want to like eat raw food and you want to like train for an Ironman. That's great. Well, you don't, you don't have to quit your job. It's like, you know, a lot of people do Ironmans, you know, they still, they still work. Like, why did you feel i i know the answer to this but i want to hear you say it like i want i'm interested in how you're going to articulate this like why was it important for you to really like draw this line in the sand and make this dramatic

like basic pronouncement about how you were shifting your life this is why your podcast is so good yes good questions that are not easy to answer um i knew that every single thing i was doing in my life was wrong literally everything like i was a good person but my actions like give me an example i i i made a choice and a choice will set you down a road and when you're somebody like me who is loyal and is committed like it leads down long, long roads. And I made a choice when I was eight that I was going to go into business. And that's where it started.

It was like, okay, I put something under the rug. I just swept something under the rug that should not have been swept under the rug. I should have dealt with it. Emotionally. Emotionally. Subconsciously. It was always there. I want to be an athlete. I want to be fit. not have been swept under the rug i should have dealt with emotionally emotionally subconsciously it was always there i want to be an athlete i want to be fit i was the chubby kid let me i should have addressed that then and then i made the decision i'm going to get into hip-hop and hip-hop

was amazing to me hip-hop was a love-hate relationship changed my life made me extremely successful allowed me to you know take care of my parents and take care of my family and you know myself and but it was tough as well it was i had i had an artist get shot and killed at my studio. I was breaking up a fight one day and bullets flew right past me and we were all running. Two chains got shot at in San Francisco. Another one of my artists, Young Dolph, he got shot at a hundred times in Charlotte and then he got shot four times here in LA

about a month ago. Are you around when these shootings are going on um i was around during one of them um but it's it's that it's that like i live the real like i'm a very soft-spoken guy just an entrepreneur you know hip-hop i knew like like i said like i always had a gift to see what was coming around the corner of culture. And when I was young, I was like, this hip hop thing is going to be big. And now it's the biggest genre in the world, the number one grossing genre in the entire world. And I saw that years ago. And that's why I got into the business. And it was good and it was bad. And I had to change everything in my life if I wanted to live.

And I did. And I had the courage and I wasn't scared. And I know how to make money. I'll go make money again. I'll jump into a pool and I'll learn how to swim. And people will want to help me along the way. And like right now, yeah, it's scary. I don't make any money. I'm going to be fine.

I'm not worried. Like, if I just do what's right for my dreams and if I help people, I'll have more blessings than I ever thought I would have from Him. That's the truth. I mean, again, that's my experience. And the money will come. It's probably not gonna come the way you think it might or when you think it might or to come the way you think it might, or when you think it might, or in the amounts that you think it might, but it doesn't matter because you'll be taken care of as long as your focus is on service and self-care, right? Taking care of yourself,

making sure that your actions are in alignment with your values, that you are being true to this mission, that you feel is really like this instinctual call for how you need to be in the world and express yourself and sharing that freely of yourself in service to other people in a real profound and fundamental way, everything else will get taken care of. Like that's a promise.

I know it. You've been a promise. I know it. You've been. Yeah, I know it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it was, you know, that's, it happened for me. It took a freaking long time, you know, like I had to go through a lot. But ultimately, all of those experiences have value and make it

all the more meaningful to me now, right? And for some reason you're being called to serve in this way and you could intuit or construe your brain tumor as this ultimate kind of reckoning moment of trying to get you to finally pay attention to this thing that you've been ignoring your whole life. That is obviously so important to you. That's right. And you're in the nascent early stages of wrestling with and trying to figure out how to move forward with this in a productive way. And it's cool to see.

Yeah, man. Yeah. When's the Ironman? March 3rd, New Zealand. Yeah, that's good. I did a half Ironman. It's coming up quick here. It's coming up quick here it's coming up quick i got like

uh seven weeks left of training like intense training so i'm feeling good i still got some weight to drop i still got a gut you know but it's all right man i'm uh this is for your life you know exactly you know that that race will come and go whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen but it's not gonna impact like how you're living moving forward, right? I'm so excited because it's like I'm going to allow people to go on the journey with me. And I'm like, I'm no superhero. You know in my video I talked about Charlie Rocket. The superhero I relate to, and George knows the story um that i relate to is is it's

kind of like spider-man because he was like one of us you know like like spider-man was just a regular guy and that's how i am like i'm not like some superhero like i'm just like you know a regular regular guy but like i wanted to be able to find my inner superhero that would save my life because there's two of me there's the there's there's there's the guy who has the flaws but then there's this like inner superhero and i gave him a name charlie rocket this like inner superhero and i gave him a name charlie rocket and and every morning like i i i turn into him when i'm working out because it's so fun to be a superhero and i had just came up with this recently like this was like four or five months ago like and i'm like i'm gonna be a superhero when i work out. I brought my headband. You got a Charlie Rockets superhero headband?

Oh, yeah. There it is. Oh, yeah. It's like a kamikaze. I made it. I had my friend print it up, and then I had this seamstress stitch it together. But if you look on, there's little rocket emojis. And then I put this on in the morning and then i put my head down it's like it's either that or you're like you work at benihana

and then it's like boom like like and and it's interesting when i when i bike and run down the boardwalk in the morning like people like see my energy because i'm having fun like everybody's usually in their own zone but like like people high five me and like people are getting to know me now like in santa monica and venice and they ask me what's your name i'm like charlie rocket and then the next morning they'll be like rocket you know and it's just it's just fun to transform into the superhero that i want to be and i think everybody should practice that like like you know how on podcasts they'll ask like what's your inner animal spirit you know and i'm like what's your inner emoji spirit like i'm the rocket like

you know i want to be a rocket like a rocket takes off real slow but then it gets fast like once it and but it just keeps going and then at some point it just gets fast and my weight loss journey my fitness journey started off real slow but i'm about to get fast because i'm about to hit that that's 62 miles also because the resistance is very high initially like there's so much force pressing down on you to prevent you from you know reaching uh you know cruising altitude right but as you start to you know get higher and higher up the resistance is less and less and less until you're in space and the world is the universe is just open to you right that's right without very little force you can go a very long way right but i like that story and it's it reminds me of the iron cowboy

who i've had on the podcast a couple times i don't know if you listen to those episodes people who are listening he's the guy who did 50 iron mans in 50 states in 50 days and he's the iron cowboy and he has a very similar relationship with who the iron cowboy is versus james lawrence right it's like the iron cowboy is his superhero you know doppelganger and when he wakes up in the morning and goes out to train or he goes out into the world he adorns the trappings of this superhero character and then he inhabits that character right it's like it's like this thing there's there's james the flawed human being the normal guy or whatever and then there's the hat and the cape that he puts on to go be this person and achieve these amazing things

and there's something about that relationship that seems to be um like a springboard for achieving things that you didn't think you're capable of achieving, right? Totally. Yeah, because, I mean, how long ago would the idea for you of tackling an Ironman have seemed just ridiculous and impossible? Nine months ago. And I made the decision to do it eight months ago. It would have seemed ridiculous.

And then when I made up my mind, and I wanted to ask you a question about this, like mastering your mindset, because I still deal with like smaller thinking, even though I'm doing something bold, like two months after starting to bike i was so ignorant to what was possible that like i was like i'm gonna do 112 mile bike ride today and i did it you did yeah and i'm like because i was ignorant like i was just like

but emotionally and mentally perhaps there was something inside of you that needed you needed I did it. You did, yeah. And I'm like, because I was ignorant. Like, I was just like, oh, let me go big. But emotionally and mentally, perhaps there was something inside of you that you needed to prove to yourself that, like, before you even invested yourself too much in this, let's just see if, like, I can bang this out, right? Not the smartest thing in the world, but emotionally there was some reason why you needed to do that for yourself. Right. And it wasn't even hard, but it was i said oh 112 yeah and then i started telling all my friends i'm gonna do it and then i knocked it out and i was done and now like where i kind of struggled just on some days is i just think too small and i'm like if i just thought bigger like well i just be will my body magically like yesterday was my body magically uh struggling with the 40 miles just because i said i'm gonna do 40 miles like why was the 112

the same difficulty as the 40 like you've done like super extreme things i get what you're saying though you know when you decide like, this is what I'm trying to achieve for the day and you put a cap on that, then it always seems like you struggle to the end of that. Whereas if you would double that, then would that first half of it just seemed easy? Like there is something to that, I think. In terms of how you envision yourself and your ultimate capabilities and potential as an athlete or as a human being. I kind of look at it through the lens or the context of a big wave surfer. So if you've never surfed before, or maybe you can surf a one foot wave and do it with some level of mastery, that doesn't mean that you're going to go out to Mavericks or, you know, to the North shore of Hawaii and drop in on a 20 foot wave. That would

not be smart. It's possible that you're capable of handling that, but there is a whole lot of work that has to take place in between, you know, uh, that one foot wave and tackling that 20 foot wave because the people that are great at those huge waves, the Laird-Hamiltons, they inch up to it very gradually. You know, the one-foot wave to the one-and-a-half to the two to the three. But by the time they're dropping in on a 50-foot wave, they've surfed a 45-and-a-half foot and a 40-foot. They've been doing that for years, so it doesn't seem that different. It becomes more accessible.

And I think in the context of being an endurance athlete, it's not a one-year plan. It basically takes about five years, I think, to really develop some level of mastery in endurance and ultra endurance. And within that five-year period, you're gradually increasing your volume with your runs and your rides and stuff like that. And I'm sure you know over the course of a season as those rides get longer and longer, it used to be excruciating to ride your bike longer than two hours. Like, oh my God, I'm going insane. What do I do with myself?

It's like I got to get off this bike. By the end of the season as you're ramping up and getting ready for something like Ironman, you're on your bike five, six, seven hours. And you're like, oh, just two more hours on the bike. I've been on six already like that. They ain't nothing but a thing like time bends, you know, back to the quantum physics of it all. It's a relative thing.

It's your relationship with that period of time shifts based upon your proficiency. That's right. And so I think as you as you as, as you immerse yourself more and more and more, yes, you set higher goals for yourself. Yes. You, uh, you remove those caps, but I think there is something to be said for doing it in a, um, in a kind of responsible manner so that you don't hurt yourself too. You know what I mean? Right. So yeah, maybe you can do 50 Ironmans in 50 states in 50 days. I'm not going to tell CEO Charlie he can't, but you probably can't do it tomorrow. Right. Oh yeah. That's all I'm saying. Definitely. Yeah. So, so let's talk a little bit about the service aspect of this. Like you're on this personal

journey for yourself, becoming an an athlete but where does this idea of like okay i'm not a music manager anymore i want to share my story like and and you've alluded to like this torch thing relay you're gonna do and all this other kind of stuff like this is news to me like tell me like in your marketing genius, you know, manner, like, how this is unfolding for you. So it all is stimulated by me wanting to have a community. Like, I moved out to California, and I'm not going to lie, like, I'm pretty lonely. Like, because I'm very protective of my energy now, like who I'm around. And I'm not like a super social, like networking type guy.

So I'm just going to build the community that I wish existed in my life. Like, I'm going to do awesome things, put that out to the world, and then the awesome people I want to attract will just come to me. And I'm like, if I go big, I'm going to attract the big people. Like, I'm going to attract the people who want to, like, I want to bike with you. Like, I'm prepared to go by myself across the country. Like, that's fine. But I know if I go by myself across the country. Like that's fine. But I know if I put that out to the world, then people are going to be like, man, I want to do some of it with you. Like I'll do the first hundred miles or I'll do the first thousand

miles with you. And I just want to surround myself. I want a community. I want friends who think like me, who talk like me. And i figured the best way of doing that is if i if i do it if i just lead and everybody will come and i want to do these things to to to to let people know that you know like what we talked about like my story isn't over yet. That's a thing. We all feel that way. You didn't come this far just to come this far. That's a thing. I heard this motivational speaker.

His name is Jeremy Anderson. He was giving this analogy between a caterpillar and a butterfly. And he said the caterpillar is ugly because the caterpillar is just a consumer. And he said the butterfly is beautiful because it's of service to the earth. It transplants the pollen and trees get planted because of the butterfly. And the caterpillar just eats stuff. And I'm like, wow, the butterfly is beautiful. It's doing something for the world. And I've always wanted to be, you know, attractive. And I figured like, I figured if I give, that makes me more attractive.

Like I want a wife, you know, like you have, you know, I i want to i want a beautiful family like you have and i don't feel any of that has come into my life yet because i wasn't who i was supposed to be so i transformed and now i'm gonna put out and then all the right people are gonna walk right into my life the lighthouse the lighthouse that's the lighthouse the lighthouse doesn't move around up and down the shore looking for uh looking for a crowd it just stays right where it is right that's what i'm gonna put the beacon out man i like that that's the goal um well i'm excited for you dude it's cool yeah it's cool it's cool to um see you on this journey and i and i like the you know i like the the quantum physics uh spiritual

component to this because there's more at play than than we can see you know we tend to think as human beings that that our senses are attuned enough that we can perceive the world exactly as it is and i think we don't appreciate the extent to which that is a very false and limited assumption um and you know your energy i'm sure is very different one thing i wanted to ask you about the extent to which that is a very false and limited assumption. And your energy, I'm sure, is very different. One thing I wanted to ask you about is, so what's going on with your homeboys back home? And did you just go off the radar to them?

Or where are they with your life changes? They're rooting me on. They're rooting me on. They're like, hey. Because I remember when I told 2 Chainz, I was like, this isn't my practice life. This is the one he said that really stuck with him when I said that. Like, this isn't my practice life. And when I told them what I want to do, like, in the roots, like, I want to be an athlete. They were just like, man, go for it. Like, you know, like, we're disappointed that, you know, like, we're not going to be, you know, a part of your life of that. Like, I separated from the business.

But, you know, we're friends and brothers and I love them to death. And, you know, they still have my mind. They don't have my hands, but they have my mind. And my mind is actually going to be better for them now than it ever was before. And I can help them market and help them come up with great ideas. And it's nice being in a position where I'm not asking for anything in return. Like I'm mentoring like 30 different people right now. And I'm like, wow, this feels amazing. To help somebody and not ask anything in return.

Oh man, I could get used to this. And I never experienced that. Everything was always about money. But yeah. So in the context of mentoring people um you know a good way that i always kind of like to close these these conversations down is to talk a little bit about you know what you're you know what what you say to somebody who is stuck who's in that place where you were in that vicious cycle like you tried all these diets you couldn't find

your way out you're running you, but you're gaining weight. You go vegan, you gain weight. How do you speak to that person who's in that place? And how do you speak to these people that you're mentoring to kind of kickstart them into a new way of thinking and behaving? Okay. This is a conversation I had with a young lady who lives in Louisiana. I was helping her, and I told her that she was put on this earth for a reason. And she's a Christian, and she believes in God. And I told her, God put you on this earth for a reason. And she's a Christian and she believes in God. And I told her, God put you on this earth for a reason.

And that's your purpose. And you have a gift and that's your purpose. And I have an extreme view of what a distraction is. A distraction is the devil that's dressed up as a distraction and it's evil because anything that takes you away from your purpose in life is evil. Anything that takes you away from your purpose is evil because we were put here to do something and and and god or the universe wants you to fulfill that and first you have to know what that purpose is you do most people are are very far from understanding that i think that's a that's a deeper subject this this this girl she knows that she has a talent of music.

Like she's very talented. And she just doesn't know how to go about it. But she's been distracted. And she's been distracted by herself. She's been distracted by the people she allows around her. Like there's so many things taking her away. And when I put it in the perspective of oh that distraction is evil i was like okay you got to make a decision well which one are you

going to do you're like you're a woman of god like you're going to you're going to side with evil today the satanistic distractions yeah like it might be a it might just be on instagram like just like scrolling through and now she's going to be able to have a conversation with herself like, is this taking me towards my purpose? It's like how I did the dead or alive. She's going to be like, well, is this purpose or is this that evil thing Charlie said? Oh, this isn't. Oh, yeah.

Boom. I need to go that way. Yeah, there's something about the binary aspect of that and the rule thing that we were talking about earlier. And really understanding that this idea that our lives can be static or that there is some form of stasis in our lives, which I think to some extent we all kind of carry around and believe on some level, is a myth. It's an illusion. on some level is a myth. It's, it's an illusion because every thought that you entertain, every conversation that you have, every interaction, every decision that you make, every behavior that you engage in is either moving you in the direction of fulfilling that purpose or helping you to become healthier, more self-actualized, helping you to grow,

or it's moving you away from that, right? It's moving you into a regressive state. And so scrolling through Instagram, is that really a productive use of your time? Well, it's kind of benign, but is it, right? If you're time crunched, time is the ultimate commodity. This is what Gary Vee always talks about. It's about time, right? How are you how are you exercising yourself in the limited confines of time? And when you know what your purpose is, even if you don't, I think that that that having a level of mindfulness, an extreme level of mindfulness around that is the differentiator between people who actually achieve their goals and people who end up sort of settling. Because those are the people who will say they don't have time. And we do have time. It's a question of what is important to you and how you're prioritizing that allocation. Definitely. And something just popped up in my head about the purpose thing and

i think i know how to solve that issue for everybody uh-huh you or charlie rocket because you're wearing the charlie rocket headband both so actually neither neither of them is me um it's just uh my marketing mind going to work. So my friend asked me yesterday, we were talking about, he was like, Charlie, like, you really got it. My roommate, actually. He's like, Charlie, you really got to help people find their purpose. And he's like, you should put together like a step-by-step guide. And I'm like, a list or a guide can't solve this problem.

And then it hit me when I was explaining it to them, and it took me back to the example of the four-minute mile example of like, oh, it's this impossible thing that nobody could do, everybody's tried. And then once one person did it, everybody else just broke that record. And I was like, oh, okay. So if this purpose thing for a lot of people seems impossible to find or do, people just have to see it done. So I was like, how about we just tell a whole bunch of stories? Find, okay, if there's like 12 different personality types in the world, like me telling my story might not affect a woman who has a different personality type.

So it's like, okay, we need to take every personality type in the world, and then we need to find stories of how certain people, success stories, of how those people found their purpose. And if somebody who's sitting behind the computer screen can see somebody like them, who they can truly relate to, and just see that that person found it and how they did it through a story instead of a list. Like we're reading like a nonfiction book, but just like a story. Then once somebody sees it, then people can do it all the time. Just like the four minute mile.

Well, it goes back to what we were saying before. The most powerful thing is an incredible story well told, right? And that's going to always trump some list of things to do. You know, the quest to finding your purpose or unlocking what is most important to you so that you can live a meaningful, purposeful life of service is an incredibly personal thing. And, you know, there may be 12 personality types,

but there's an infinite number of specific, unique life paths. But you know what's the beautiful thing about stories? Yeah, but the story is like the permission. So I look at like Google and data or books or anything you search on Google as information for the mind. Like it's a search engine for your head, right? Gaining knowledge. But when we hear an amazing story, it's like a search engine to the heart. And it's not verbatim what that person is saying, but it starts conversations inside of yourself.

And that's what we need more of. We don't need more information. We need more things that start inner conversations. And that's where the purpose comes from. The purpose doesn't come from, oh, this person did this. The purpose comes from, wow, I'm starting to have an inner conversation, and then I find the answer within. And I think that's what stories do. I agree with that.

Purpose is entirely a heart thing, and it's about connection with self. And the heart is the conduit to that. I think most people are very disconnected from their heart and disconnected from themselves. And when pressed to decide or articulate what their purpose is or what their mission is, they're just grasping at straws and choosing something that is very likely not correct because of that disconnection.

And in order to make that connection, that again is a very personal thing. There is no list like, oh, sit down and connect with your heart. Like you can't tell somebody to do that. You have to impact them in a fundamentally emotional way. And storytelling does that. You know what did it for me? And I realized it this morning.

What's that? Moana. Moana? Moana. I realized it this morning because that that movie i loved it so much but i watched it this time last year when i was really sick and moana kept being called to the ocean and then it was pulling her back but she wanted to go but everybody kept pulling her back and then she went into this distant land away from home.

And she had to essentially slay the dragon and figure it out on her own, away from everybody that had been trying to help her. And she went and conquered that. And then she came back to save everybody else. I'm like, that's my story. That's the hero's journey. Yeah. You know, that's a very Joseph Campbell. That's the hero's journey. Yeah. That's a very Joseph Campbell archetype of the hero's journey.

And that is your story. And that's my story as well. I mean, I think that's the story of everybody who's done that internal search and had to wrestle with those things themselves in solitary. with those things, you know, themselves in solitary, you know, to figure out who they are so that they could come back to the world and have something to give. Yeah. Right? Man, thank you for being you. Thank you for being you for this world. I appreciate that, Dan.

We really, really appreciate you. Like me and my best friend Scott Scott, we idolize you. And we're like, man, where does Rich Roll run? We just need to run wherever he runs so we can see him. Because we look at you as like a superhero in himself. Yeah, that's the thing, man. I'm just a dude, too. Don't project too much.

But we'll go out and do some running, man. I just told you. Like Dirt Mahon, I was just out there this morning. Can't wait. We'll meet you up there. We'll do a little training. How does that sound? Deal.

Yeah, right on. My man. Cool, dude. All right. Well, that was great, dude. How do you feel? Amazing. You feel good?

I was just on Rich Roll's podcast. It was powerful. You know, that's a big deal. No, it's going to be good, dude. Thank you. So if people want to connect with you and cheer you on yes what's the best way for them to do that instagram uh charlie jabberley on instagram uh that's c-h-a-r-l-i-e j-a-b-a-l-e-y right and uh if if people want to learn more about

this like torch relay thing and all of that is that just gestating in your mind? Or is there anything online where people can tap into your scene, dude, and help you to create this community that you seek? So I took a one-year social media fast. I got off all social media to reinvent in 2017 uh i did this uh post-it note and i put it on my refrigerator and it was contract to myself and i said um i'm gonna do an iron man and i'm gonna become top one percent of athletes in the world and um i got off social media and uh and i'll be back on social media January 1st, 2018. So yes, if you follow me, everything will be posted, and you'll see a lot of my missions that I'm on in life.

Cool. And just to close it down, maybe one last thought to the person out there that still struggles. If you're rock bottom if you're if you're rock bottom and in a really really really bad place please email me i will help you um ceo charlie at gmail.com um i will i i really want to only deal with people who are severely rock bottom like I was and um this is this is this is my new life so I I would love to help anybody who is where I was because I didn't have anybody who was like me like I couldn't find anything on the internet of like

people who exercised and gained weight like i didn't have any answers so if you really really are rock bottom please email me and i'll be there for you you might be getting quite a few emails that's perfectly fine i got plenty of time all right man awesome dude you're an inspiration uh can't wait to see where you take this and i'm excited for you charlie thank you thanks for joining the podcast for sure sure. Great talking to you. Yeah, man. Peace. My man. How'd that one land for you? Are you feeling inspired? Are you feeling a little bit more energized and vital? Are you rethinking your goals and your aspirations for 2018?

Are you connecting with your gratitude in a more meaningful way? I hope so. I am. I can tell you that. I really love that kid. I look forward to getting to know him better over the coming year. And if you enjoyed that,

it would mean a lot to me if you reached out to Charlie on social media and let him know how you felt about our conversation. Also, I would encourage all of you to check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com for this episode, particularly a couple of videos of Charlie that kind of tell Charlie's story in a visual context where you can really see his transformation. And it really is quite something quite remarkable. Again, I'll put links up to those videos in the show notes. Also, you can watch this entire podcast on video

on my YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash rich role. If you want to just sit in your home and watch it on television, we have now made that available for you. If you would like to support my work, the best way to do that is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. That really does help with the program's visibility. It helps extend reach. It helps grow the audience, which in turn makes it easier for me to book the very best people for future shows. But you can also just share it with your friends on social media. You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel. We also have a Patreon setup for people who would like to contribute to my work financially. I'm going to be doing a live

video. Ask me anything AMA for all of my Patreon supporters in the coming month. I haven't scheduled the exact date for that yet, but that's coming soon. And I will keep you guys posted exclusive content for people that support me on Patreon. You can follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at Rich Roll. And what else do I want to tell you? I think that's pretty much it. Aside from thanking everybody who helped put on today's program, Jason Camiolo, of course, for audio engineering, for production, for interstitial music, for help with the show notes. Jason is like an ace of all traits. He's really helping me out in many different ways. Sean Patterson for help on

graphics, Michael Gibson for filming today's podcast and editing it. Michael's new on the team. He's doing a great job. Thank you, Michael, for that. And theme music as always by Annalama. Thanks for the love you guys. So excited to be in 2018. Can't wait to see what this year is going to present for all of us. The challenges, the beauty, the successes, the obstacles, all of it, embrace all of it, you guys, and I'll see you back here soon. Peace plants. Namaste. Thank you.