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This is I'm Don't It Life, man's podcast.
1:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:23
Let's get into it.
1:23
All right, guys.
1:24
Today we have a special guest on the podcast.
1:25
His name is Chad Robachow.
1:27
Chad is a retired force recon marine.
1:29
He was an Afghanistan veteran, pro MMA champion, third degree, BJJ black belt, best-selling author,
1:35
speaker and founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, which helps veterans and their families if they've suffered any combat trauma or things like that.
1:42
So this guy has a long resume.
1:44
He's done a lot of different things, and I got a lot of show notes for you, but I just got to tell you something about this interview, okay?
1:50
So typically whenever I set up an interview, I'll set up way more questions than I probably have time.
1:56
Because if they're very quick answers or if we end up having way more time,
2:00
I'd rather have more questions ready to go.
2:02
And I also like to kind of flow with my follow-ups.
2:05
But this interview didn't really go as my interviews normally win.
2:09
It was a very unique interview in that.
2:11
Guys, you're not going to hear a lot of me.
2:12
You're not going to hear a lot of questions.
2:14
And what's interesting is it's almost like Chad's like a little bit of a wind-up doll.
2:19
You just wind him up and you just let him go.
2:21
And so at different points, he's going to talk for a long time without interruption.
2:26
But I want you to follow where he's going.
2:29
Because the moment you think that maybe he's veered off and he's forgotten what he was talking about,
2:34
he does kind of bring it back to his central theme.
2:36
So that's one thing that I thought was interesting is I was listening to his answers, is he does bring it back.
2:41
And again, you know, because of coronavirus and things like that, we're not in the same room.
2:45
We can't see each other, you know, you don't have those natural breaks where you can kind of break in and ask a follow-up.
2:50
But he just kept answering the questions that I would have asked him, right?
2:54
And you can even tell at different points, like you can hear a noise in the background, like you could tell like he's probably fidgeting with stuff.
3:00
Like you could just tell this guy's like a ball of energy.
3:02
And so he's got all this information going on in his head that he can't just, you know, sit still in the chair and answer questions.
3:08
I mean, he just, he just wants to tell you his story and he certainly does.
3:11
And so I thought it was a very interesting, a very unique interview.
3:15
And for points of that, it was almost like it was a little bit of a therapy session.
3:19
And I mean that as, as a compliment, because he was just so comfortable that he could just continue talking about his feelings around certain issues and around the way that those things were affecting him and those different things like that.
3:31
So very interesting interview.
3:33
Guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
3:36
Chad Robocho, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
3:40
Thanks for having me on.
3:41
Absolutely, man.
3:42
We got a lot to talk about today, a lot of ground to cover. So let's just start with something that's really a big part of your entire story, which is the military.
3:50
So what made you join the United States military and more specifically, why did you choose the Marine Corps?
3:56
Well, my father's a Marine.
3:58
I had three generations of Marines in my family and my father, myself, and then my son, Hunter, who's who just got back from Afghanistan and, you know, all three of us are combat veterans.
4:09
It's kind of something we're super proud of in our family.
4:12
When I was, when my dad came back, you know, he's an infantryman, an O3 11 rifleman, a Marine in Vietnam, and then we came back.
4:19
I'm sure he suffered with a lot of the same things that many military folks suffer with today.
4:24
I don't think he was ever diagnosed with PTSD, but certainly his life reflected lots of hardships and inability to reconcile his experience.
4:33
He was a very angry man, very violent, a lot of alcohol, women, and just real poor decisions.
4:39
And so we had a very dysfunctional home growing up, a lot of physical abuse, mainly me and my brother, who was a year older than me.
4:47
And so early on, I think we decided like many siblings who grew up in a dysfunctional home to get really close and bonded together.
4:55
And in that closeness, we decided we would join the military to really escape the lifestyle we're in and start over.
5:02
We were 13 and 14 years old at that time, and we just started running and swimming and watching ABCO videos.
5:09
And we were from Southern Louisiana, so we wanted to do something in the water because we both love to be in the bayous in the water.
5:15
And that's kind of our plan was joined in military.
5:18
And even though my dad was, you know, not a very good person at that time, the one thing that always made my dad like happy, like the one positive thing he always had in his life was he was so proud of the fact that he was the United States Marine.
5:31
And so I think seeing that one good thing in his life made me, despite, you know, who he was to me at the time, maybe he wanted to be a Marine as well.
5:40
And so started looking at what it was, it was like a Navy SEAL, but could be in the Marines and my brother and I learned at a young age about Marine and Recon, which wasn't a very popular thing back then.
5:50
And so that that first year doing that, we were running, swimming, and we both were in the martial arts and just training. And about a year into that tragedy hit our family, my brother, he was he was shot and he was killed.
6:02
And it was completely devastating to me at the time. He's close person to me.
6:06
My life went into like this, what I had in the family broke apart. My dad took off and took a job overseas.
6:13
My, my mother just completely lost, you know, every bit of sanity, losing a child. And so by 15 years old, I was living on my own.
6:25
And really never let go that, I went in that road deep isolation, but I never let go that desire to join the military.
6:33
And when I was 17 years old, I probably wasn't going to graduate high school. I was living on my own and working.
6:38
I was roofing. And I went to a Marine Corps recruiter named Staff Sergeant Brown. Of course, I still remember his name and forever would be grateful for him and told him my situation.
6:47
And despite it wasn't going to, in a situation that graduated high school, he helped me get into Marine Corps without a high school diploma.
6:53
And on an infantry contract, and I made a promise to him, I graduated high school.
6:58
And then that first year after graduating boot camp, I got to 20 on Palm, California, my first duty station as infantry Marine.
7:05
And went to Copper Mountain College there, I got my GED. And all these years later, Jose, I have a MBA now and can't spell MBA, but I got one.
7:16
But, you know, I really look back at that time and how the Marine Corps for me was like that military success story.
7:23
They gave me that fresh chance of life that cleaned slate to start from the beginning again.
7:28
And at even a young age of 17 years old, I feel like I truly recognized that at that age, and I totally embraced it. And that first year, you know, I tried out and to be a reconnaissance Marine to fulfill that childhood dream that my brother and I had.
7:41
Obviously, if you know anything about being a recon Marine, a tradition rate is extremely high and very difficult to make it, especially a young age like that.
7:47
But I made it my first time through. And, and that began, I just had a whole new chapter of life for me, not just learning how to become a recon Marine, but just some great older guys that mentored me and showed me how to be an adult.
8:01
And so I'm just very grateful for the Marine Corps and the, and reconnaissance community for just giving me that, that beginning at new start at life again.
8:10
Well, you see that a lot with a lot of Marines, you hear that story because, you know, you hear about the Marines, they don't have the resources that the other branches of the government do, but they still recruit really well. And when you talk to Marines, they kind of talk about it with that same badge of honor and pride that you just did.
8:23
And so that's an incredible story that you're able to still overcome your circumstances in order to fulfill the goal that you had that you and your brother had.
8:30
And then right as you're, you know, you're a force recon Marine, you know, your special operations capable and now 9/11 happens. And then all of a sudden you're off to Afghanistan. So what was that like because I'm assuming you, when you joined the Marines, we were in peacetime.
8:43
And then now, you know, we're at war.
8:45
Yeah, I went in Marine Corps, 1993, so I had a, you know, I had eight years of peace being in a peacetime military. And I remember, you know, I was assigned a third force recon company at the time and watching those planes flying their World Trade Center buildings.
9:01
And remember sitting on watch with my wife on television and like, life's about to be different, you know, the world's about to change and my life's never going to be the same, you know, just because of my nature of my job in the military.
9:12
I thought we were going to play right away in the military, you know, for those who were in at a time when that happened. I mean, the military wasn't like, like, oh my gosh, we're going to war.
9:22
The military is motivated. It's like, hey, what's up, sir? Like, we're going to do this. We're going to set this right. And everyone wants to deploy. It was chomping at the bit to.
9:30
I thought I was going to go right away. We did not. I ended up in, ended up in 2003 trying out for a JSOC task force. The joint Special Operations Command Task Force.
9:44
And very, and I was already in a deployment workup, not for Afghanistan, but for Iraq.
9:50
And so I was going headed out to deploy to Iraq and got picked up by the JSOC task force. And then I ended up not going to Iraq and going to Afghanistan instead.
10:02
And subsequently went did eight deployments on that task force to Afghanistan.
10:07
And so, yeah, I mean, going Afghanistan after so many years of, of peacetime and being an older person, say older, I was probably just, it wasn't quite 30 yet, but I would consider myself older having a lot of military experience and understanding that I was getting to.
10:24
It was really weird because, you know, he's like, wow, we all this training all these years and it's finally, finally going to get to do my job.
10:33
And I remember landing at Bagram Air Base was that's where I landed and I left from North Virginia from our first deployment to see 130 stop the Germany landed a bottom air base in the middle of the night.
10:44
I kind of walked off from everyone. And went out to the, the, the Haskell barriers and constitutional wire that was a perimeter of Bagram back in 2003.
10:53
And just so it was a, it was pretty primitive still and just look, just look at this middle of the night kind of reminded me of being a twin at poems, looking at the stars and kind of orientate myself like, okay, there's a big dipper in our start.
11:05
I'm kind of thinking I'm like, man, this is like very real, like across those Haskell barriers, like the Taliban, the bad guy, and they're going to try to kill them and they're going to try to kill me.
11:14
And this is like very real. And I think in moments like that, you kind of pause and ask yourself if you're ready.
11:20
And for me, at that time, I was extremely, I was just extremely confident, you know, military talks about the pillows of resiliency, mind, body, spirit, social, like I was mentally tough.
11:31
I was physically tough. I knew my job really well. I was, I was fit socially. I was, I was with the best, like the single best special operations unit you could be assigned to.
11:42
That's where I was. So like socially, I was like, had the right people around me in a spiritual piece. I felt like I had to wear a Christian stamp on my dog tag.
11:51
You know, but the truth is, it was like a check in the box that it really didn't even know what that meant.
11:56
And I believe that I reconciled, I couldn't reconcile like a person of faith in combat.
12:02
And I really felt like when I first, maybe not the first day I got to Afghanistan, but in the first moments of being there and trying to wrap your mind around your job and what you're going to have to do.
12:11
And your peers and all these things, like, I really believe that I felt like I had to make a choice between being a person of faith, like a man of God, a Christian, or being a warrior.
12:21
I felt like I had to choose between the two. Like, you know, I want to be this person of faith or do I want to be a warrior? Of course I'm going to choose being a warrior.
12:28
And, and, and I felt like I made a deliberate choice to put faith out of my life at that time, put it on a shelf. I could do this when I get older, but right now I need to be this more cool warrior.
12:39
And, and honestly, I believe outside of combat, just doing ministry now.
12:44
I believe I see that men fall spectrum of life, whether somehow they feel like they have to choose between their Christianity or their masculinity.
12:53
And I don't think it's any bigger lie from the enemy. When I say the enemy, I mean, the spiritual enemy, the devil, I don't think it's any bigger lie of the enemy than that.
13:00
They feel like we have to choose between being, being a people of God, a man of God in our faith. Because if it's not for men of God in this world, you know, who's going to stand up and fight the difficult fights that need to be fought in this world.
13:14
And I wish I wouldn't knew that because I think I made a deliberate choice to take God out of my life and it left a giant hole inside of my heart that over the following years, I would feel with hate and rage, anger and bitterness.
13:27
And like this darkness kind of came over me. I didn't live, you know, went to Bagram and landed at Bagram and I live on Bagram. I ended up, because of my job, ended up living out in the communities with the local national Afghan Afghans.
13:39
I lived in their homes, they didn't wear their families, they played soccer with their kids. And I began to hear like the stories of what a Taliban had done, a true like oppression and a sexual molestation of children and physical abuse and just the evil things that Taliban did to the people of Afghanistan.
13:56
And I went from this like patriotic sense of patriotism, retaliating for 9/11 to this like really just hard for that for these Afghan people in the oppression that they were under.
14:07
And, and just hearing those things at first and then seeing them firsthand, I really developed a real hatred towards the towards the Taliban.
14:16
And the guys I worked with on my task force, so there's like blacking war culture mentality and the Afghans that I worked with the former North Alliance guys like really hated the Taliban. So I just like bought into this.
14:26
And, and I just had to grow a deep hatred that drove me and it was a very intense guy and didn't want to be honest with you that intensity and kind of anger and rage it seems to work really well in the battlefield but it's not very sustainable.
14:39
And it doesn't really work well when you in Afghanistan doing that performing that way. And then 24 hours later, you're home, and you can't flip a switch, at least I couldn't then you have to be like husband and father and Mr Rogers the friendly neighbor like I couldn't be that guy I was still like this angry
14:55
intense person. And I look back at that kind of phase of my life. And, and it's actually pretty shameful. I look at my coming home and to a family that was excited to see me and missed me.
15:08
And then, you know, it was just a turret to them. My wife and kids walked around the eggshells. He was worried they were going to set me off and me just flipping out, cursing and punching things and throwing things and breaking things and slamming doors
15:23
and, and just screaming at my wife and children like I was a Marine Corps drill instructor, you know, that's, that's kind of how I behaved and, you know, it wasn't a good place, probably wasn't even a safe place for my family at a time.
15:33
Remember one time, my daughter was, she was just so excited that that was going to be home from Afghanistan for her birthday. And, and so she, she moved to birthday party for me to be there and, and she's very opinionated. My daughter, she's, she's still in. She's just left to, you know, just state her mind. She's really, really outspoken
15:52
and she in like the icing on her cake, like something super simple. And for some reason, I just like totally flipped out and I grabbed the handful of my little girl's birthday cake picked her entire birthday cake up in front of everyone and threw it against the wall and destroyed my little girl's birthday.
16:06
I remember like when that happened, like everyone like staring at me, of course, and, and my daughter crying and me thinking like, like who does something like that? Like what kind of, what kind of dad behaves that way.
16:15
And the truth is, this is one example. That's how I behaved all the time. I was just completely out of control. I knew it, but instead of like admitting I was wrong, like, you know, when you're doing something, you know you're wrong. If you admit it, you kind of like conceding.
16:27
So instead of admitting it, I just, I just started distancing myself for my, for my family, my wife and kids and realizing myself and just being like, well, I could deal with this later right now. This is just who I am.
16:38
I have to be this way because I have to be back in Afghanistan. And it's just, I was really justifying that inappropriate behavior and just kind of recklessness with my family.
16:49
And so I just continue to push, push on and keep my distance from them stays busy and I could be in every deployment I could get on every between deployments, every school or training I could get to.
17:01
And eventually that anger and intensity started to manifest in these physiological symptoms. I started having these alarms go numb.
17:11
My face will go numb. Sometimes I feel like my throat was swelling shut. Even I have like moments where I feel like I have like a thousand pound weight on my chest and my heart's like, feels this pressure.
17:20
I mean, I know now those who like early signs of panic attacks. And I didn't want to admit that's what I was dealing with, but deep down I knew this was anxiety coming on.
17:31
And so I didn't, I didn't ask for help. I didn't speak up because I thought the guys who, who I worked with in this little special operations community, I thought they would think I was weak.
17:41
And I'm probably not a paranoia, by the way, that's, that's exactly what would have happened because if someone told me they were dealing with that, I would have thought the same thing. I would have thought they were weak and couldn't hang and I would really classify them that way and it probably wouldn't have been able to do my job anymore.
17:55
And so my reaction to that was, okay, I got to suck this up, push it down as far as I can, and just deal with it. So that's, that's exactly what I did.
18:03
And it worked for a little while, but over time, those, those symptoms started to get much worse. Now, now I was getting these points to where I felt like, you know, not only I could not breathe, but I had these moments where I felt like my body was shutting down.
18:18
I was dying. I had these moments to where I forget things like I've like asked us a memory and kind of snap out of like a fog and then I had these moments during intense, very intense times in Afghanistan to where I feel like my body was, I know now it's because this association,
18:33
your mind feels like it leads your body and you almost have like a bird's eye view of yourself.
18:37
So that was a very extreme reaction to the stress that I was under.
18:42
Towards the end of, towards the end of this, I had a, had several team members that were killed.
18:49
A good number of them were Afghans, which I know a lot of people might think less on a bigger deal as, you know, fellow U.S. servants members, but to me it was these guys were like, these guys were very close to me, 10 of them that worked for me for three years.
19:04
They knew their families very well and their wife and children and they were my brothers, you know, they was not, for me, I would have died for them. They were, they were just like any other teammate.
19:13
And for me, like the loss of them and me being responsible for them, if there was a thread that I was holding on to, that was probably the, the last, last thing to hang on and it broke.
19:26
And then, so other things happened that really amped up the intensity of what I was dealing with. And I went on, one last operation and I didn't remember, I came back from it and it was about two week gap that I couldn't remember barely anything.
19:40
It was like if I woke up out of a dream and I just had this moment of clarity where I realized like, I wanted to put myself in danger, but I was beginning to put out the problem of danger as well.
19:49
And so I finally spoke up and said something. Just as I suspected I was, I was brought home. And I ended up sitting before clinical psychologist and a member of my wife and I sitting in front of them and being diagnosed with a severe chronic post to my extra disorder PTSD.
20:05
I didn't even really even know much about PTSD at a time. I definitely don't. I've written several books about it. I was speaking. I testified before Congress on PTSD. I'm very much aware of PTSD is now because I didn't know then that I've been on a lifelong quest to uncover the truths and realities of it.
20:23
I've written a book called The Truth About PTSD. I understand what it is and what it's not and how it's not a disorder. Our body does exactly what it's supposed to do in times of stress and anxiety seeing things and doing things we're never created or tended to see and do.
20:36
And while I don't believe it's a disorder and I don't believe it's what a lot of people think it is. I could tell you that the symptoms that I and many people are facing were very real.
20:47
The level of overwhelming anxiety that I was under is very hard to explain and I've experienced this several times in my life at that time and since then when I get a panic attack it's not like people say, "Oh, you know, it's in traffic the other day and I had a panic attack."
21:05
I don't know, you just got stressed out but when I say I have a panic attack it's my hand just in time behind my back I have a plastic bag over my face that like that level of panic. Like if I'm in a swimming pool and my ankles handcuff to the drain and I'm drowning and the air is like the surface like one foot above my head like how desperate would you be for one breath of air where you're just drowning but you never die.
21:25
You're like that 24/7, like that level of panic don't, you know, I think you know in those moments maybe you don't want to kill yourself but you just want to escape that and it's like being in a burning building you just jump for the sake of not burning.
21:39
That's the level of panic attacks I was under on top of that extreme level of panic.
21:44
I did not like the medicine they were giving me when they gave me the medicine I was convinced it was going to kill me which was a big part of that the fear of the medicine I was making was amplifying things and then on top of that I was completely
21:58
drained. I felt like I had let down my friends, my team, like my country like I felt like I had worked my whole life to have the opportunity to be a Marine to be a recon Marine to make it a force recon to make it over to a JSOC task force to get given this really
22:15
important mission and responsibilities and and I let everyone down that's what I felt like it was like if I played football my whole life and then finally made it to NFL which I never would by the way because I'm 5'3.
22:27
I made it to the Super Bowl in the middle of Super Bowl you know I missed the game winning the game winning play that's that was this level of shame that I felt that's completely ashamed.
22:40
All the people that are closest to my life my friends I was really cut isolated from that group of people it's me and my wife left the deal with it.
22:48
I was in a really really bad place and my wife and my children and you were trying to do everything they could to snap me out of it and it was actually my wife my counselor had sat me down and they tried to give me to do something physical but I really felt like I'm going jogging or something I would have a heart attack
23:05
and die that's what I believed and so they taught me in the getting on a mat and doing Jiu Jitsu which by the way it's I'd say I did it since I was little but like I said earlier I'm still little like I did it since I was old.
23:18
It's been my lifelong thing I've done judo and Jiu Jitsu traditional Jiu Jitsu wrestling and I was already a professional and a firefighter at the time I was fighting on the side when I was in the military and at that time I was I was a groundbow Brazilian Jiu Jitsu I hadn't had gotten my black belt yet.
23:32
But I was really you know something I was really big part of my life so they convinced me to get on his mats and I felt like when I got on his mats for the first time I felt like I found a cure because you can't think about Afghanistan and anything that's bothering you and grapple at the same time you can be focused
23:49
or anybody's going to beat you up right so you got something to focus you and focuses you and to be honest with you like I said I felt like it was a cure because I couldn't think about anything else had to be unplugged and in the moment and I figured man if I could do this 24/7 I'll be good to go
24:06
and that's pretty much what I did I got on those mats and didn't get off and doing it and I think Jiu Jitsu is good for you. I still do it to this day. I'm a third-degree black belt across in Gracie and I teach Jiu Jitsu up in Prescott Arizona and I train with my friends and I train every day I can and when I have a bad day doing working with veterans which is very stressful to do a ministry and work with my veterans.
24:29
I go to a gym and I find like some 20-year-old stud and I choke him out. It's very therapeutic to me but I do believe that you can have something that's good for you like a medicine for being sick and you can abuse that medicine.
24:44
And that's what I did with Jiu Jitsu. I took it out of context and I put 24/7 every waking hour I could and just dove into this sport and didn't really deal with my problems and when you put a lot of time into something you should be pretty good at it.
24:58
If not you should probably find something else to put your time into but I put a lot of time to this and so I opened the school and ended up with like a thousand students in my school so I'm making really good money.
25:07
I started fighting professionally again. I ended up at the end of my career ended up with 18-2 professional record. At my highest ranking I was ranked number 6 flyweight in the world and number 14.
25:20
So I had pretty good world rankings. I won a world title belt like a CFC world title belt and I fought in Strike Force and Melator and in a pay-per-view and all the big shows.
25:31
And so when outside it looked like everything was good but I did this really fake facade of success.
25:38
I wasn't, I hadn't dealt with my panic attacks. I hadn't dealt with my instability in my home.
25:45
I was still screaming at wife and children. I was still having these panic attacks again and I was having a very difficult time sleeping.
25:53
I had nightmares. I didn't want to go to sleep. I don't even know how functioned as an athlete because I didn't sleep much.
25:59
But going to sleep was like nightmare on Elm Street. You kind of don't want to go to sleep because you don't have dreams or anything.
26:06
I was refusing to take a lot of the medicine that they were getting me.
26:11
And so that's my life looked good but it was really in a bad state.
26:16
And my marriage was falling apart. I'd say many nights and sleeping in the gym or at a friend's house or my kids' bedrooms.
26:24
I lonely this place. My wife and I would say we've been in our own bed with our backs turned towards each other and it's a dead marriage.
26:31
Our marriage just really just over. We were coexisting for the kids.
26:35
And didn't take long for me being in a sport where you get in a fight on television and lots of girls around to walk out of her marriage and to full blown affair.
26:44
They didn't really care. At a time I had zero empathy for anything.
26:48
And my wife found out we sat our family down until we were getting divorced.
26:53
It would be better like you wouldn't have to hear a fighting and you could get two Christmases.
26:56
All the things that the boys and couples tell their kids to make it sound better.
27:01
And we moved forward. We found for divorce. We sold our home.
27:07
And my wife and I signed two separate 12-month leases on apartments.
27:12
And we really handled that decision two very different ways.
27:18
My wife, she went into a church. I don't think she was going into a church.
27:22
Because we had already went to church but the truth is in the past that took my family to church really to control them.
27:30
If my wife was a church she would be like faithful and loyal and the Christian guy, the woman and the kids in a Sunday school.
27:35
But I'm not going to engage with those men at church because they wouldn't appeal to me.
27:41
I'm not going into a softball team hanging out with those nerds.
27:45
It's kind of my mentality. I just had a really cynical view of men in masculinity and Christianity.
27:52
And some of that's actually true I believe because there's a lot of passive men in the church.
27:57
One of my missions in life is to turn that around.
28:00
But at the time we were going to church.
28:02
My wife went to a different church because she wanted to be with a place where there was just positive people who wouldn't be toxic and be like,
28:10
"Yeah, your husband's a jerk. She just wanted to be around positively." And so she joined this church.
28:15
I talked to people that said she was talking to some mutual friends and they said she was going there every day.
28:20
And I was like really had a bitter attitude towards her about it.
28:23
And she wasn't going there just on Sunday. She'd go there and just pray for me.
28:27
And people said she was standing against this whole wall and I even had a vision of where she was standing now because I was standing there.
28:33
And she just collapsed crying and praying for me. Of course I'm asked since and what were you praying for me at those times and I was just portraying her that way.
28:41
She said she would pray, "God let me see Chad the way you see Chad. Let me love Chad the way you love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way you forgive Chad."
28:48
And that's what she was praying for me.
28:50
She said she was trying to reconcile our marriage at the time.
28:54
She was just truly worried about me praying for me.
28:58
She wanted peace with me whether we got to be back together or not.
29:03
And so it was really a selfless kind of effort in her part.
29:06
Meanwhile, like I'm in this apartment, like within two days it's like a blown out bachelor pad.
29:13
I don't have to deal with this woman anymore. She never understood me anyway.
29:16
And I had this big fight on showtime on Strike Force.
29:20
Follow MMA back before the UFC won the Moutre Strike Force for the second biggest show, UFC acquired it.
29:26
And it was a huge fight.
29:29
I was undefeated. I was fighting this up and becoming a kid named Roberto De Leon.
29:34
And in front of 10,000 people in the Toyota Center.
29:37
And that fight was like knocked down.
29:40
So I have 18 and two. I have 18 wins.
29:44
17 of my wins are a finish to people and submissions.
29:47
This was my one decision.
29:49
And it was like if you're a fighter and you want that rocky bubble of fight, this was like my rocky bubble of fight.
29:54
Like every round we knocked each other down.
29:57
It was back and forth.
29:58
And I remember when I went to the judges and it was more out of my ego because I believe I could have submitted them in the first round.
30:03
But everybody was talking crap that I couldn't submit him, that I couldn't, that I wouldn't stand to strike with him.
30:08
And instead I just tried to submit him.
30:10
So I still haven't been in a ring with this golden glove boxer and got punched in the face and kicked him in the face.
30:16
This is back and forth.
30:17
But I remember when they were like, given the announcement and decision, I was like, I couldn't remember anything.
30:23
I remember I won a loss.
30:24
So they raised his hand for one, raised my hand for the other.
30:27
And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a split decision. I'm going to lose this fight.
30:29
And then they raised my hand and an announcer announced my name and I win this fight, this battle of fight.
30:35
I remember like all the pressure came off and everyone's cheering.
30:37
There's like 10,000 people in there cheering.
30:39
And you get your hand raised and you feel like you won.
30:41
You know, every time you win a fight, it just feels like you know.
30:44
It just kind of comes to me.
30:46
You can get into work.
30:47
And I remember in that moment, it was almost like time kind of stopped.
30:50
And I remember thinking like these 10,000 people cheering like Kathy wasn't there.
30:54
She was there for all my fights before.
30:56
You know, she was like, oh, it's my cheerleader there.
30:58
And I remember thinking like, wow, like I just fought like so hard.
31:02
Like willing to die in this ring over a sport.
31:05
No one will win in my stupid record.
31:08
But meanwhile, like my wife isn't there.
31:10
She's probably at home like just devastated.
31:12
My children are devastated.
31:14
And you know, how much effort I was putting into this sport and not where it mattered most.
31:19
And that thought led me to go home by myself to my apartment that night.
31:25
Of course, you can't go to sleep after a big fight like that.
31:27
Some of mine's like spinning, spinning and spinning.
31:29
And I'm thinking like, I blamed everyone else for all the things that I had.
31:36
I did through like living my father from my childhood and people in the military and my wife are never in the standing my situation.
31:42
But when it really looked at the destruction around me in my life, like I was the common denominator, like the problem was me.
31:48
And this thought came over me that maybe my family would be sad about me, but they would be better off.
31:54
And that unfortunately, that same hopeless thought funds a home in the hearts of 22 veterans every single day.
32:01
And maybe my family would be sad without me.
32:03
And maybe my wife would be sad.
32:04
My children would be sad.
32:05
My friends would be sad about me.
32:07
Because the world is going to be better off without me.
32:09
And at that time, I think I really believed that.
32:13
And I wasn't about to cry out for help.
32:15
Like I'm going to take my life. I made a decision I was taking my life.
32:18
But it wasn't like I'm going to let people know so they could talk me out of it.
32:23
Like I didn't want anyone to know if anyone talked me out of it.
32:26
So it was like to myself, my own little silo.
32:28
And I had a Glock 22 pistol.
32:31
So I started like going to my closet in my apartment and I put my family pictures under the floor in front of me.
32:36
And I tried to build up the courage.
32:37
You know, because at this time in my life, I know what a gun does.
32:40
When you pull that trigger and the trigger breaks, I know what happens.
32:43
So I tried to build up the courage and look at these pictures to pull that trigger in my life.
32:50
But every time I put that gun against my head, this thought would just come into my head.
32:56
This overwhelming thought of how it was going to be found.
32:59
And I knew that the only other person had a key in my apartment besides me was my son Hunter, the one that's in the arena.
33:06
And every time that thought would come in my head.
33:08
And I'm like, I can't let my son, whether he opens the door and finds me or he lets someone in,
33:14
I can't let him find me that way.
33:16
What do we do behind him, you know?
33:18
And I didn't want to leave that last impression on him.
33:22
And so that would be enough to like help me pump the brakes.
33:25
Then the next day I was back trying to pump myself up to do it again.
33:28
So I was like, it's kind of up and down, like roller coaster emotions trying to build up the courage to do it.
33:34
And I go out that way and decided to do it.
33:36
And it was one day, I guess me and my wife had this big argument on the phone.
33:40
I don't really remember it, she does.
33:42
And she said she felt something was wrong, so she came to my apartment.
33:46
When she came to my apartment, I was literally in the closet with that pistol trying to build myself up.
33:50
And she knocked them into what I heard them knock, but I wasn't going to answer it.
33:54
And then she yelled and announced herself.
33:56
And when she did, probably like a five year old getting caught doing something.
34:00
I took that pistol and hit it under blanket.
34:02
She would have never found it, but for some reason, really got a shame.
34:06
I actually hit that pistol.
34:08
And I went and answered the door.
34:10
And we got in this argument.
34:12
And during the argument, she asked me a question that radically changed my life.
34:16
She asked me how can do everything I did in the military.
34:19
You know, she saw me become a recon marine trained for these schools, the deployments, go to Afghanistan, do these crazy things.
34:25
She saw me do all that.
34:27
She was trained for these fights, like make weight, lose like 25, 35 pounds for fights, looking like a Holocaust victim.
34:33
Like the amount of discipline it takes to do like all the stuff that I did in my life.
34:37
She's like, how could you do all those things?
34:40
And it comes to your family, you'll quit.
34:44
And I don't know about the listeners on here, but to me, there's no more soul cutting work to me than we call the clutter.
34:54
She knows that, and she said it at the right time, and I knew she was right.
34:58
And so I'm pretty radical decision maker.
35:00
As simple as it may sound, it was pre-profound for me.
35:03
I made a decision in a moment that I was going to get back in the fight and turn things around.
35:08
I didn't know how to do it, but I knew I couldn't do it with the people I had surrounded myself by.
35:15
And I knew I couldn't do it alone.
35:18
I knew I needed some accountability.
35:20
Yeah, so I'll go back to accountability.
35:24
Like nothing against the people in my Jiu Jitsu school, because I like surrounded by like a thousand students in my school.
35:31
But I had intentionally surrounded myself by people that told me what I wanted to hear and I wouldn't need to hear.
35:37
And I needed some accountability in my life.
35:39
And again, I knew I couldn't do this, but make these decisions by myself.
35:43
So I asked my wife, is there someone at your church you're going to?
35:47
That could help some man that could come up with my life and help hold me accountable with his decisions I was making.
35:53
You know, making decisions to try to get my life back on track, to finally get healthy.
35:58
I mean, she called me a quitter and she's right.
36:01
I've been successful at professional things.
36:03
When it came to the most important things, being a husband, being a father, being a young 17-year-old kid that raised his hand
36:08
and took advantage of the opportunity to do something important.
36:11
I quit and all those things, so I'm making some big decisions to get back on track,
36:15
including my own health.
36:17
And I just needed some accountability.
36:19
And so she introduced me to this man named Steve Toth, who went to church she was going to.
36:24
And Steve wasn't an MMA fighter or military guy or anything like that.
36:28
He was like, he happened to be an elder on call to the church, which he called.
36:32
I met him in a Starbucks coffee shop.
36:35
And literally I look back now and I know that I was very manipulative.
36:39
So I was looking for someone to be more like to use, to try to earn my wife's trust back.
36:44
And so I look at Steve and like his biggest gift to help me as the fact that he is ADD, like really bad.
36:51
I mean like the guy has no patience for anything.
36:53
Like if you go to lunch with him, he doesn't walk his car, he runs his car because like walking is wasting his time.
36:58
And the reason this was helpful for me, because I was totally going to manipulate him and get him on my team.
37:05
But he just had no patience at all for anything like that.
37:08
I had written like this five paragraph order like military operational order of how I was going to fix my life.
37:14
And I was like super proud of it.
37:16
I sat down at Starbucks and I probably like really smugly like slid it over to him.
37:19
Okay, check this out.
37:20
And he even looked at it and he slid it right back over to me and told me I was going to end up right back where I was.
37:26
And he told me I was going to fail.
37:28
And I'm like, I remember being like really offended.
37:29
Like you didn't even look at this thing.
37:30
I put an effort into it.
37:31
Like I've given you my time instead of the other way around.
37:34
My thinking is like I'm giving you my time, not him giving me mine and give me his.
37:40
And you didn't even take a look at this thing.
37:42
And he tapped on that paper and he said something that I'll never forget.
37:45
He said this thing doesn't have this plan, doesn't have anything to do with your relationship with God.
37:50
I'm not going to waste your time and I'm not going to let you waste mine.
37:54
And you know at that point in my life, I had tried everything.
37:58
I had been on all the medication.
38:00
I had been through counseling and veteran programs.
38:03
I had been through, I had professional success, jujitsu, MMA, all those things.
38:08
I had tried everything and nothing at work.
38:11
And we have a saying at Mighty Oaks Foundation, the foundation that I run for veterans.
38:15
And what you're doing is if what you're doing is it working, then why not try something different?
38:21
So if what you're doing isn't working, why not try something different?
38:23
I had tried everything and that's it worked.
38:25
So it's time for me to try something different.
38:27
And while I had those pillars of resiliency I talked about when I got to Afghanistan, my body, spirit, social,
38:32
the one thing that I knew deep down was missing that I left a long time ago was that spiritual peace.
38:38
And when Steve told me that this thing doesn't have anything to do with your relationship with God,
38:41
that he wasn't going to waste my time, I knew it was time for me to give that a chance.
38:47
And to give it a real chance, a real effort.
38:50
I figured like what I had to lose.
38:52
And so I trusted this man, Steve.
38:54
I surrendered my life to Christ in a pretty authentic way.
38:58
So authentic, I didn't really know what it meant, but it was all in.
39:04
I'm like, I'm going to try.
39:06
If I'm going to try, I'm going to put my time into it, I'm going to do it for real.
39:09
And so beyond that decision, I really let Steve have access to my life and have some input in my life.
39:16
And he mentored me for about a year in biblical manhood and really systematically calibrating my life
39:24
to the life that I was intended to live and the way I was intended to live it.
39:28
And what happened through that process was pretty profound.
39:31
One is, I think the most profound thing for me at that time was that I realized all these things that happened to me
39:37
as bad as they may have been, child to that Afghanistan, all those things that, you know, losing one of my best friends,
39:43
foster Harrington, we were friends for 10 years at Third Force Recon before he was killed in our first deployment.
39:48
And just all these bad things that happened, as bad as those things may have been,
39:53
those things did not lead me to be in a closet with my pistol man.
39:56
It would lead me there with the choices I made in response to those things.
39:59
And the realization that I didn't have to, that I could choose differently moving forward.
40:05
And as cliché as it may sound, it was this revelation in my life that I didn't have to let my past define my future.
40:12
I could choose a different future moving forward, and I did.
40:15
And through that decision to choose, to not be a victim, not let my past control my, control my present and my future,
40:22
I found restoration in my life and all brokenness and my marriage and my family.
40:27
I found restoration there.
40:28
I found hope for the very first time in a long time.
40:31
And I found what I think most of us seek their whole life.
40:35
And I certainly did.
40:36
And I think most every man seeks their entire life.
40:39
And that's purpose.
40:40
Purpose is important.
40:41
We were created to that purpose.
40:42
And when we don't, we kind of wither up.
40:44
If you really want to know why 22 veterans take their life every day,
40:47
it's not because it's something they seen or did in war or, or anxiety and depression.
40:52
It's because they were important one day.
40:53
They had a very clear, it's fine purpose one day.
40:55
And then the next, next day they wake up and they feel like their purpose was gone.
40:58
And they don't have a reason to wake up the next day.
41:01
That's the reason we were intended to have purpose.
41:04
And without it, again, we wither up and we feel like we're dead.
41:07
Mark Twain has one of my favorite quotes about this.
41:10
He says, "They're two most important days in a person's life.
41:14
The day that they're born and the day that they find out why."
41:18
When Steve Toath introduced me to life that God created me live,
41:22
I felt like I discovered that why for me.
41:25
And it was to share what I discovered in my life with other people.
41:29
And I felt a calling, really a calling from God to be frank and candid with everyone.
41:35
I felt a calling and a really a burden on my heart to share what I discovered with others.
41:41
I realized that I wasn't the only one that was struggling.
41:45
For a long time, I thought no one can feel the way I feel.
41:47
No one can be as depressed as I am.
41:49
No one can feel as hopeless as I do.
41:51
I realized that it wasn't the only one.
41:53
Other people, in fact 22 people a day were actually taking a lives from my community.
41:58
The Vorsh rates were astronomical in some basis, like 80% for combat veterans to worsen their families.
42:05
And people were being diagnosed with PTSD and struggling just like I was.
42:09
So many other people were struggling, I wasn't the only one, but yet I had found the way forward.
42:13
I found the solution.
42:15
And so I felt that obligation to share it.
42:17
Like if I was dying of cancer and this guy Steve Toath gave me the cure,
42:21
I didn't want to share it, I needed to share it, and I needed to share it right away.
42:25
And so when we started Mighty Oaks Foundation, it wasn't like,
42:28
"Hey, it'd be a great idea to leave our job, you know, a six-figure job in our careers.
42:33
You know, career worked my whole life for it to be a professional athlete.
42:36
At the peak of my game, let's walk away from that and give away a martial arts school in our livelihood."
42:40
It was a terrible idea actually.
42:42
And I had no idea about the nonprofit world and veterans service, but I knew it had to.
42:48
And so my wife and I made a decision to walk away from our lives and everything we had.
42:52
We had really worked for in business in my martial arts career.
42:58
And to share what we discovered with others.
43:00
And we started Mighty Oaks Foundation in 2011.
43:03
And even though it was a crazy decision and one that I wasn't ready for,
43:08
it's been the most phenomenal thing I've ever been part of in my life.
43:12
God has really opened just impossible doors for me.
43:16
I've been partnered, we have the most amazing team of people
43:19
that I don't even deserve to be friends with much less get to work with.
43:22
We have just incredible staff of people that work at Mighty Oaks Foundation,
43:28
who many of them have been through the same thing.
43:30
They've been through and got another side of it and want to share it as well.
43:33
And we do a couple of things.
43:36
If it's okay for me to kind of share where we are right now.
43:42
We really help people recover the way I did through a program called Legacy Program.
43:48
We have four different ranches around the country.
43:52
We have a ranch in California, Virginia, Texas, and Ohio.
43:55
Ranch California, for example, Skyrose Ranch, your partnership with ServingUSA.
44:00
We have 25,000 acre ranch in beautiful wine country California.
44:05
We run 30 in one week camps a year.
44:07
So 30 times a year, we have a one week camp.
44:09
People with active duty from all four branches come on military orders to us.
44:13
People from the veteran community come.
44:15
We have a spouses program.
44:17
We even have some first responders programs.
44:19
And when they come to the programs, they're there for a week.
44:21
It's peer-to-peer mentorship, so there's no clinical psychologist there.
44:24
It's a peer-to-peer mentorship.
44:25
But people who've been there before, fell in their face, got back up, began sharing the
44:31
way forward.
44:32
They got it for the life they got and tend you to live.
44:34
And it's just been incredible.
44:35
We've had 3,500 graduates go through the program and just had amazing life changes.
44:41
By the way, we do all those programs for free.
44:44
We don't charge any tuition to come.
44:47
And we even pay for airfare.
44:48
So we cover all the travel, we have a scholarship fund for travel as well.
44:52
So 3,500 people we've have come through.
44:54
And again, we do 30 of those a year with this Corona thing on.
44:57
We stood up a virtual program.
44:58
So we have that available as well for people that can't come to do the program's virtual
45:05
live online.
45:06
Another thing we do is resiliency programs.
45:08
We go to bases around the world and speak about combat resiliency, spiritual resiliency,
45:14
PTSD, suicide.
45:15
I've spoken.
45:16
I've personally been able to speak to about 150,000 active duty warriors and bases around
45:21
the world.
45:22
The Marine Corps lets me speak at Marine Corps Boot Camp every quarter.
45:25
So for the last 5 years, I've got to speak to all the recruits coming through Marine Corps
45:29
Boot Camp.
45:30
And writing several books, give them away.
45:33
There's a book called Path to Resiliency that I've given away about 100,000 copies.
45:37
I give those away to everyone at Marine Corps Boot Camp on the West Coast.
45:41
And then the other program we have is our aftercare program.
45:45
After we care for people, we put them in aftercare and make sure they have sustained care to move
45:50
forward with.
45:51
And then just recently, through our efforts of in a lot of advocacy work, me testifying
45:57
before Congress and for veterans care and faith based, faith based initiatives for veterans
46:02
care, I was just pointed to be the, one of the chairman for the faith based veteran service
46:08
line alliance, FPVSA, working with the White House in Congress for faith based veterans
46:14
care to work with hand in hand with DOD and the veterans administration.
46:18
And so lots of success working there and collaborating with other amazing veterans service organizations.
46:25
Mighty Oaks is mine.
46:26
Just bringing these other amazing organizations together to serve, working directly with the
46:30
White House, the President's, the administration, President Trump has really went out of his
46:35
way to set up some great executive orders and to make that happen.
46:41
And Secretary de Wilkie at the VA, he's doing a really good job in that area as well.
46:47
The VA, I know there's lots of veterans on here and the VA is not perfect.
46:50
Probably one of the biggest critics of the VA, but in this area, they don't have it right,
46:56
but they're headed in the right direction and working with us at the FPVSA is one of the
47:00
best steps they could do because we have the track records of how to help people with faith
47:05
programs.
47:06
And so I'm super proud of the government for doing that, and then one of the things I get
47:11
to do it quite a bit is a lot of public speaking and raising awareness, bringing in support,
47:19
bringing in support to pay for these programs that are free of the veterans, and I've written
47:23
several books.
47:24
One of them, an unfair advantage is being made in a motion picture film right now without
47:31
due entertainment.
47:32
So lots of great stuff going forward to continue serving veteran community and anybody out
47:38
there who are veterans who heard this and really struggling maybe, wanting to connect,
47:45
definitely reach out to us, MightyOxPrograms.org, you know, all of our programs are absolutely
47:50
free.
47:51
Awesome.
47:52
Well, hey, man, thank you for going into such detail on all those different things.
47:56
What's funny is a lot of the stuff you covered were questions that I was going to ask, and
48:00
so that worked out really well, you kind of kept it all going there.
48:04
And so what I wanted to do right now is transition a little bit into talking a little bit more
48:07
specifically about MMA and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, because I feel like you gave us a lot of context
48:11
on the military and the PTSD and some of those other things.
48:14
So I want to ask a few questions there, and then we'll do a couple of lighting round questions
48:18
there at the end.
48:19
But you mentioned starting your career 11 and O, you were actually five and O as an amateur
48:22
before that, and you lost two fights in a row after you started your MMA career 11 and
48:28
O.
48:29
So what was that like mentally for you?
48:31
Because again, this is, you know, I'm not sure where this is at in the timeline of when you're
48:35
having problems at home and when you're kind of dealing with your PTSD, but there's a lot
48:39
of guys that listen to this podcast that like MMA, that train, that compete.
48:43
And so I'm sure they would like to hear from a guy like you that's accomplished so much.
48:47
When you lose a couple of fights in a row, if you don't mind, just tell us kind of what
48:50
that did.
48:51
Yeah, it's kind of crazy because you look at my amateur career, you know, five, not career.
48:57
I mean, at the time, you know, five amateur fights and then at the time when I, you know,
49:02
when I fought at like 21, 21 straight wins and and being undefeated like that, you kind
49:09
of feel, you kind of feel like you can't be beat.
49:13
And but when I fought Zach Mckowski at Bellator, at Bellator main event, I knew that it was
49:19
a huge step up in competition.
49:21
I had fought some tough guys before, but Zach Mckowski was a, he's a world record champion
49:27
wrestler.
49:28
You know, he's like one of the best wrestlers that in MMA.
49:31
And so, you know, I knew that I was facing a different level opponent.
49:35
And that's what I wanted.
49:36
I wanted to taste.
49:37
I wanted to face the best best fighter in the world.
49:40
I believe at the time, at that time, Zach Mckowski was probably the best, best banning
49:44
weight in the world.
49:45
I was a flyweight, banning weight, hard to get flyweight fights.
49:48
And so when I went up against him, I knew it was really testing myself and it was my
49:52
first loss.
49:53
He beat me.
49:54
And a lot of people had excuses when people get beat.
49:57
For me, that was the best I had to offer.
49:59
I was in the best shape, I had to feel like I had the best camp.
50:02
I felt like I performed everything I wanted to try to perform, that I did.
50:06
That was the best version of me at that time that I could have put forward.
50:09
And I still lost.
50:11
And so even though it was my first loss, a lot of people were like, wow, how do you take
50:14
your first loss?
50:15
That was my favorite fight.
50:16
But I'm all my fights for my first loss, because I felt like I competed against who
50:21
I consider to be by the best fighter, banning weight fighter in the world at the time.
50:25
And that gave up pretty competitive fight, and I was happy with my performance even though
50:31
I came up short.
50:32
And so it wasn't a hard hit, that felt like I needed to get right back on a horse.
50:40
And this was, by the way, that fight was as things were turning around in my life, Katherine
50:44
and I were already back together, Steve's mentoring me at the time.
50:47
I was in a pretty good place, emotionally, mentally, at that time when I fought at my
50:52
Costco and Bellator, and then when my next fight, even though I fought a guy named John
50:57
Tim Mackels, even though he had a 14 or two record, which is a really good record, I felt
51:01
like it was a, I felt like it was an easy win for me.
51:04
I felt like I could beat him 10 times out of 10.
51:07
And I probably could, no offense to him, but I just, I was just a better fighter than him.
51:11
And it was like a slipping up an antefield fight for me.
51:13
I just got caught.
51:15
And I got hit, I went to sleep, but kept fighting and I woke up in a choke.
51:20
So no excuse for what happened.
51:22
I just don't remember what happened, but I remember waking up kind of like not even
51:26
sure where I was and the fight was over.
51:31
And so I was really bummed on that one because I really felt like, I really felt like that
51:35
was my rebound fight.
51:37
But I look back at it now and people always use the cliche terms, you know, things happen
51:42
for a reason.
51:44
If I would have won that fight against John Tim Mackels, you know, talking to Matchmaker
51:48
at the UFC Sean Shelby, like he lost his act, Mackelsky and Bellator wasn't a big deal.
51:54
But to lose two in a row, you got to come back from that.
51:56
And if I would have won that fight with the timing, I may not have started Mighty Oaks.
52:02
I don't know that because I don't know how things work out.
52:05
But I had I won that fight, my career would have had this crazy trajectory.
52:09
I'd have been, I'd have probably been ranked in the top, you know, top five fighters, fly
52:13
weights in the world.
52:15
And I would have had a lot of opportunity.
52:19
And so I traded opportunity for a place that had to come rebound from MMA-wise.
52:25
And I felt like MMA was over for me at that time.
52:30
And it really closed doors from opportunity.
52:32
And it was probably needed to be closed at a time to give me a clear runway to start
52:35
Mighty Oaks.
52:36
And so I'm actually looking back now and I'm thankful for those two losses in a row because
52:40
of where my life is.
52:41
And I thought, I thought MMA was all over, start Mighty Oaks in this small little town
52:46
called West Gulf, Colorado, elevation of 10,000 feet.
52:50
No way there's a Jiu Jitsu.
52:51
I mean, the county had 800 people in it.
52:53
That's where we started Mighty Oaks, the whole county had 800 people.
52:56
So what's the chances of them having MMA and Jiu Jitsu?
52:59
I thought it was a sacrifice I'd have to make, not about do MMA and Jiu Jitsu anymore.
53:02
I ended up in this little town and I'm walking down the street one day and somebody sees
53:07
my cauliflower ears.
53:08
And he said, "Hey, do you know Randy Couture?" and I'm like, "Of course, I know Randy Couture."
53:13
But natural.
53:14
Who doesn't know Randy Couture, right?
53:15
I mean, this is super popular at that time.
53:18
And they pointed to me on the side of the sail and they said, "That's his house over
53:21
there."
53:23
And so Randy had a house in West Gulf, Colorado, he has a plate, he has a plate, a house in
53:29
Las Vegas too, of course.
53:30
But he had a house in West Gulf, Colorado and he used camps up there and they had a guy named
53:34
Brad Anderson who was an Olympic wrestling coach who lived there to kind of care, take
53:37
the house for him.
53:38
He had a group of really tough, really tough staple of fighters there.
53:43
And so what I thought I gave up and relinquished, it was willing to relinquish for ministry,
53:49
for what the call got out of my heart to lay that down, I believe God came in and replaced
53:54
it with the opportunity to train with some of the best fighters in the world, the best
53:59
coaches, Brad Anderson and Randy Couture.
54:02
And come back and be able to finish my career, do two more fights.
54:06
It wasn't for me that was for promoting mighty oaks and veterans.
54:11
And the pressure was off of that, the win or lose because I didn't care about a career anymore.
54:14
I just cared about competing and representing something bigger than myself.
54:18
And I ended up in my career winning two fights against two incredible opponents, Joseph Sandoval,
54:25
UFC fighter, fought him, Randy and Randy Couture and Brad Anderson got me ready for it, felt
54:31
like it's my best performance ever, 58 seconds I submitted, submitted Joseph Sandoval, then
54:37
got Simon World Series and fighting on NBC Sports, fought undefeated 24 year old when
54:42
I was 38, Andrew Yates, he was eight no and submitted him at the same choke and put him
54:47
to sleep and just a great kid, awesome kid and I said kid, he's just a really, really
54:54
good athlete, a lot younger than me and so that was what, and that was the end of it
54:59
for me.
55:00
I feel really happy with my career, not regretful for those losses because they couldn't change
55:07
the course of my direction of life, but really happy to get those two wins at the end and
55:13
the way that they happened and I got to really promote mighty oaks on both the HD net with
55:18
legacy fights and then on NBC Sports with World Series fighting.
55:23
Right.
55:24
I mean, you get a lot of guys that don't end their career on a win and you see this and
55:28
I think Chelsea and said this before, it's like, you know, I plan on going out unconscious,
55:33
face down bloody and embarrassed.
55:35
Like that's how a lot of guys leave the sport of MMA, but you were able to leave on a, on
55:40
a win streak.
55:41
Well, I mean, if you're a competitor, you either want to redeem that loss or you want
55:47
the next opportunity that comes with that win, so it's never a good time to leave.
55:51
For me, the, the, the business of mighty oaks, I would have had to sacrifice something in
55:57
mighty oaks for me to continue fighting.
55:59
And so it gave me a good reasoning.
56:01
Absolutely.
56:02
Well, hey, we're going to transition to a couple of lightning rounds.
56:05
Okay.
56:06
So the first lightning round are going to be kind of like quick hitter MMA questions.
56:09
And then we're going to be getting into some kind of an interesting category that I like
56:13
to do.
56:14
Call what would you say to someone that said?
56:16
So with all these, since it's lightning round, you've got 30 seconds or less to answer all
56:20
these questions.
56:21
So we're going to remove the fluff, all the nuance again.
56:23
Like I told you all fair, you're not going to offend anybody if you give a quick answer.
56:27
You up for it.
56:28
Yeah.
56:29
Let's do it.
56:30
All right.
56:31
So here's your first lightning round MMA question.
56:32
Who is the toughest fighter you ever faced and why Zach mccoskey is because of his wrestling.
56:38
All right.
56:40
Next question.
56:41
Out of everyone in MMA history, who would you have wanted to fight the most?
56:47
Um, you write a favor.
56:50
All right.
56:51
I'll, I'll let you give a little follow up.
56:52
Why are you right?
56:53
Cause he, cause I'm a, I'm a scrambler and he's the best, one of the best scramblers
56:57
in MMA.
56:58
That's right.
56:59
That's right.
57:00
All right.
57:01
Next one here.
57:02
So obviously you fought at 125 pounds, two of the greatest ever were flyweights as well.
57:05
That's Henry Sohudo and Demetrius Johnson.
57:07
How do you think fights would have gone between you and both of those guys?
57:12
In my time.
57:13
Maybe not right now.
57:14
Yeah.
57:15
Not right now.
57:16
When you're in your, you're prime and they're in their prime.
57:18
Yeah.
57:19
I, I, I really wanted to fight with me.
57:21
Um, I think at my time I would have been a rare competitive.
57:25
I think I would, I think I would have, I think I would have submitted Demetrius Johnson and,
57:29
uh, and I think I would have, I think I would have beat, beat Henry Sohudo.
57:33
I think I would have beat both of those guys at 125.
57:35
I've never lost at 125 by the way.
57:37
All right.
57:39
Next question.
57:40
Who is your favorite fighter to watch of all time?
57:44
Suzuki Sabra, Sakaraba.
57:47
Absolutely.
57:48
It's so funny.
57:50
If you say Sakaraba, most of the fights I saw Sakaraba were at the end of his career
57:54
when he was basically having to like duct tape himself together in order to get into
57:57
the ring.
57:58
And so I wish I could have started with his earlier fights, but it kind of sullied me
58:01
a little bit, but that guy's amazing.
58:03
Next question here.
58:04
Who is the most overrated fighter in MMA history?
58:08
Henry, cause you know, all right, why do you say that?
58:12
Cause I don't think he's, I don't think he's as good as a, I think he's just got, I think
58:17
he's just kind of had a few lucky, lucky, lucky, uh, I hate to take away from any athlete
58:23
when you resort luck, but I think he just been pretty lucky and, uh, and I don't think
58:28
he's as good as he's being held up to be, he's just not.
58:31
All right.
58:32
Who is in your MMA Mount Rushmore and to give you a second to think about it, I'll go ahead
58:37
and tell you mine.
58:38
I always like to give you a little bit of a second to think about it.
58:40
So mine is George St. Pierre, cause I think he's the greatest fighter ever.
58:43
And then I've got John Jones, cause I think he might be the most dangerous person on planet
58:46
earth.
58:47
And I mean that just about every way you can say that about John Jones, um, I kind of
58:50
go back and forth.
58:51
Yeah.
58:52
Yeah.
58:53
Exactly.
58:54
I kind of go back and forth on Daniel Cormier and hoist Gracie, uh, but I've, I put Daniel
58:57
Cormier just because of the, the, the resume of people that he's beaten.
59:01
And then just for his importance to the sport and elevating it to a level that no one thought
59:05
possible, Conor McGregor.
59:07
So that's my MMA Mount Rushmore.
59:10
What's your MMA Mount Rushmore?
59:11
Good big.
59:12
Well, you got to think you got four guys on Mount Rushmore.
59:17
So you, do you think Khabib is the goat?
59:18
You think?
59:19
You have no knock them out of his.
59:20
Okay.
59:21
Yeah.
59:22
Uh, that's Khabib, um, oh gosh, let's see.
59:30
Hey, Khabib, I hate to say it.
59:35
John Jones.
59:36
I know it's like you have to, but we're taking everything into consideration.
59:41
And considered he's still one of the John Jones, Daniel Cormier, uh, George St. Pierre.
59:46
All right.
59:47
Sounds good.
59:48
We're going to transition to our last lightning round here.
59:51
And like I said earlier, it's this, what would you say to someone that said, and then I will
59:55
fill in the blank.
59:56
And these are things that maybe I've heard said online, maybe I've thought, maybe other
59:59
people have thought, but these are just quick hitters, 30 seconds.
1:00:03
Give us your thoughts.
1:00:04
So first one here, what would you say to someone that said, I'm thinking about joining
1:00:08
the military, make sure you pick the job, pick the job you want to do every day.
1:00:16
All right.
1:00:18
What would you say to someone that said, only paranoid people can seal Carrie.
1:00:22
Idiotic.
1:00:23
All right.
1:00:24
Next one here.
1:00:25
What would you say to someone that said, and remember, you got 30 seconds.
1:00:34
You don't have three seconds.
1:00:35
I mean, you, you can, you can give us a little more context.
1:00:36
If you want to, what would you say to someone that said, only paranoid people train martial
1:00:43
arts?
1:00:45
I think only paranoid people that train martial arts, well, I mean, I think it's irresponsible
1:00:52
not to train more.
1:00:53
It's irresponsible not to train martial arts for the safety of yourself, the safety of the
1:00:57
people around you, for your overall health.
1:00:59
You've been given one body and use it for, you should use your body to, you should take
1:01:05
care of your body, first of all, and, and always take care of your body mentally, physically,
1:01:11
spiritually.
1:01:12
I think nothing else does that was like martial arts.
1:01:15
All right.
1:01:16
What would you say to someone that said Chad Robocho has so many submissions because he
1:01:20
has pillow hands.
1:01:21
Yeah.
1:01:22
I'd say, let me, let me give me, give me one shot, actually, I have bricks in my hands
1:01:33
and I just, I just prefer to use my strength.
1:01:38
Yeah.
1:01:39
Prefer strangulation.
1:01:40
That's a good answer there.
1:01:41
All right.
1:01:42
What would you say to someone that said people in the military just want to kill people?
1:01:46
Yeah.
1:01:47
I'd say that is 100% just opposite.
1:01:49
I think people in the military want to help people that can't help themselves and serve
1:01:54
others.
1:01:55
And, you know, and I've seen some amazing Americans give their life for the, give their, literally
1:02:01
give their life for the sake of people that they never knew or, or people that maybe even
1:02:05
hated them as well.
1:02:06
So.
1:02:07
All right.
1:02:08
What would you say to someone that said, I don't need to train martial arts.
1:02:12
I'm big, strong and athletic.
1:02:15
Hmm.
1:02:16
I would say take a, take a one hour fundamental class of bursary Jiu Jitsu and come talk to
1:02:22
me after, after they get done puking in the trash can, and after they get done getting
1:02:27
tapped out by 150 pound person, that's not very athletic looking.
1:02:31
So all right, next one here.
1:02:34
Next one here.
1:02:35
What would you say to someone that said, I never remember soldiers from World War two
1:02:39
complaining about PTSD.
1:02:42
Modern soldiers are just soft.
1:02:43
Yeah.
1:02:44
Uh, I need more than 30 seconds for that one, but I'll, I'll try to summarize it.
1:02:49
Um, World War two is a different time.
1:02:51
Uh, I think there's a lot of contacts in it.
1:02:55
One is one is that they had a lot of time to come home to integrate, took a long time
1:02:59
to come home.
1:03:00
They had a lot less exposure, even though in more extreme exposure, they had a lot less
1:03:04
duration of exposure to combat.
1:03:07
Um, and they can, and probably the most important thing is they came home to such a grateful
1:03:11
nation with ticker tape parades, the data placed to reintegrate to, uh, in a different
1:03:15
way.
1:03:16
The culture was much different then.
1:03:17
And I think that's one of the biggest factors, uh, with that, a lot of them suffered, a lot
1:03:22
of them suffered silently and, uh, and very tragically, uh, didn't get the help that they
1:03:27
needed Vietnam veterans did not get that welcome home.
1:03:31
And they suffered silently because, um, they felt isolated too.
1:03:35
You know, I'm, I'm thankful for both of those generations that we've learned lessons
1:03:39
of how to care for our warriors that we're doing it differently now.
1:03:42
All right.
1:03:43
I appreciate that answer.
1:03:44
Just a few more left here.
1:03:45
What would you say to someone that said God can't use me.
1:03:49
My story isn't dramatic enough.
1:03:51
Well, I think, uh, I've been a lot of Christians that feel like, cause they're like me speaking
1:04:00
and speaking about brokenness and redemption.
1:04:02
You think that they, their story isn't, isn't as relevant.
1:04:05
Uh, I think God could use, God could use anyone.
1:04:08
In fact, he does have a plan of purpose for everybody's life.
1:04:10
The Bible clearly tells us this.
1:04:12
And, uh, so I, you know, everybody's story may be different, uh, it's a story that someone
1:04:16
needs to hear.
1:04:17
Maybe it's, maybe it's, maybe for those who lived a not so tragic life as a story of,
1:04:22
uh, when you do things a certain way, then tragedy doesn't come in, doesn't come in
1:04:26
your life.
1:04:27
Um, you know, that's not a, not a blueprint for how that's going to play out for anyone.
1:04:33
But I believe that we all, uh, we all were created by God.
1:04:36
We were created for the plan of purpose and the most significant thing to do in your life
1:04:40
is seek out and identify the plan of purpose God has your life and live it out regardless
1:04:44
what your story is.
1:04:46
All right.
1:04:47
So a couple more here.
1:04:48
What would you say to someone that said, I can't train jujitsu, I'm afraid I'll just
1:04:52
get hurt.
1:04:53
Hmm.
1:04:54
I would say find the right school because while there are jujitsu schools out there that
1:05:01
do have bad players and people that don't care about your safety and, and there's egos,
1:05:05
uh, for every one of those schools, there's probably five or six schools that have people
1:05:10
that do care about you will give a safe training environment.
1:05:14
And so even if you had, even if you have that fear or maybe you've had a bad experience,
1:05:18
I would say, don't stop looking, find someone that can maybe give you some, that's indigestive,
1:05:24
they can maybe help you find a school that's safe and appropriate, uh, to train in a safe
1:05:28
environment where there aren't egos involved.
1:05:30
Look for a place as a fundamentals class.
1:05:33
That's usually a good indication that, that, um, a fundamental beginners class is usually
1:05:37
good indication that the school cares about new people and building up future teammates.
1:05:41
All right, Chad, last question of the day.
1:05:45
What would you say to a veteran that said, I will not get better PTSD owns me?
1:05:51
Yeah, that there's always hope you're not alone, even though you feel alone.
1:05:57
And, um, and despite how dark your past may be, maybe, maybe, um, there, there is a future
1:06:06
for you.
1:06:07
You know, the one advice I would say as in is kind of just a catchphrase.
1:06:12
Don't let your path, don't let your past to find a future and don't make a permanent
1:06:16
decision and a temporary problem.
1:06:17
And as deep as your problem may seem, it is temporary.
1:06:21
The way forward is to surround yourself with the right people and lock arms of people that
1:06:26
you could trust to move forward and near yourself out there.
1:06:29
All right.
1:06:30
Well, we've, we've covered a lot of ground today.
1:06:32
I certainly appreciate your time, but, but that's all for me.
1:06:35
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:06:37
No, sorry.
1:06:38
I took a ram with the interview with Nick and let you ask you questions.
1:06:41
I just figured you'd interrupt me when you wanted to.
1:06:44
Well, I, that's the thing is I will let you go as long as you want to go.
1:06:47
And like I said, you pretty much checked all my boxes off that I wanted to do that.
1:06:51
So Chad Robocho, thanks for coming on Undaunted Life on Man's podcast.
1:06:55
Thank you so much, man.
1:06:56
God bless you guys.
1:06:58
All right, there you go guys.
1:07:02
I hope you got something now that we certainly enjoyed our time that we have with Chad Roboch
1:07:05
o.
1:07:06
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
1:07:08
As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience.
1:07:12
Specifically, we do that by providing content like this podcast that helps you forge spiritual,
1:07:16
mental and physical toughness.
1:07:17
So for today, the links I've got for you, I've got a link to the mighty Oaks website so
1:07:21
you guys can go check that out.
1:07:22
If you're a veteran or if you've got veterans in your family, this is a great website for
1:07:26
you.
1:07:27
It's a great resource.
1:07:28
I've got a link to the Chad Robocho bio.
1:07:29
I've got a link to the, I am second video that he did, which is fantastic.
1:07:33
He's Amazon book link, so if you listened about any of the books that he was talking
1:07:36
about there in the podcast, you can find those there.
1:07:38
And I've also got links to his Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
1:07:42
Thank you guys for listening to the podcast.
1:07:43
We really do appreciate it.
1:07:44
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1:07:48
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1:07:51
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1:07:55
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1:07:56
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2020 in the beginning
1:07:59
of 2021.
1:08:00
So if you want me to come speak on your podcast, at your men's event, in front of your team,
1:08:03
whatever, hit me up info@undaunted.life again, that's INFO@undaunted.life.
1:08:08
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1:08:11
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1:08:16
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1:08:18
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1:08:19
And as always, we want to thank the band August Spurns Red for allowing us to use their entire
1:08:23
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1:08:25
The intro outro track on this podcast is our song defender, which is off their latest record
1:08:29
entitled Guardians.
1:08:30
The links are in the description.
1:08:31
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:08:33
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical
1:08:39
toughness, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:09:00
Peace!