Transcript of #2424 - Jelly Roll

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience.

I just really feel like we might have a chance here to, like, really help some people that were big. You know what I mean? Like, that in this pod we might have a chance to, like—

One million percent.

So I brought a bunch of notes about what I went through, so don't—don't look at me like a super nerd today.

No, I don't.

But I want to make sure I got my—I want to help people, dude. I just—man, I never thought I'd lose this way.

I like a dude with notes. Especially a dude who lost 300 fucking pounds.

Let's go, baby!

Let's go. Look at you, dude.

Dude, I feel great, yo.

You should feel great.

I feel really, really good, dude.

You're a totally doing human being.

It is, man.

When I—

You know what's crazy? I—I don't want to get super spiritual out the gate, but I will, because I think God wants me to right now, because of you saying that. There's a scripture in the Bible that says, uh, "In Christ all things are a new creation." Which I thought was interesting, because it didn't talk about restoring the old. It says that in God, we are a completely new creation. You know what I mean? So, like, I—I was looking at it at first like I'm restoring my heart. But then when you're saying that, I'm like, no, I didn't restore my heart, I got a whole new heart. This is a brand new heart, Joe. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It might be cloaked as the old one, but God touched it. It's a whole new heart, baby.

Well, it's—

It's a different heart.

Every seven years, doesn't every cell in your body get replaced by new cells?

I think so.

Isn't that what the number is?

That's crazy.

And it happens all the time.

Throw that into our sponsor, Perplexity, and find out if that's nonsense. But I think that's true. I think that's what happens. So you do have a chance to be a new human being.

And think that it would happen on a holy number like that.

It's a myth! God damn it!

No.

Shit. Every seven years is a myth. Uh, different cell types have very different lifespans, and some last a lifetime. I think neurons last a lifetime. Seven-year figure is a rough average estimate of cell age. Oh, okay, so it's not a total myth. Not a fixed cycle where everything's swapped out all at once. Some tissues, uh, renew very fast, while others renew slow—slowly or hardly at all, which averages out to several years if you look at all the cells together. So intestinal lining cells renew every two to five days.

All the time.

God, it's crazy.

All the time.

It's constantly renewing, baby.

Yeah.

Feels good, man. A whole different human being. We were talking about it. When I first came to your club, I couldn't even walk all the way up the steps without stopping, like, every seventh step. And today was my, um, me and Cam did my first 10K yesterday. We did a little bit over, we did 6:5. So today was recovery run day. I did two and a half miles. I'm just having a conversation with you while you're swinging kettlebells.

Yeah.

I was like, look at who I am, Joe. I'm a whole new guy.

Yeah, just chilling, doing two and a half miles on a treadmill.

It's chill, baby.

Wow.

Just watching the—

Yeah.

The Peter Yon fight again.

And you—you—fucking, you had a nice pace. You look casual doing it.

Yeah. Feel good.

Yeah. You could tell you've been working.

Yeah.

You know, it's not like a new thing. Your body's acclimated to it. You could really tell.

It's like—and I—I heard Tony Robbins once say that we grossly, um, overestimate what we can do in a year, and we underestimate what we can do in a decade.

Mmm.

And for people that might be listening to this that are dealing with severe obesity, I want to give you this game. You will grossly overestimate what you can do in 90 days, but underestimating what you can do in a year.

Mmm.

When it comes to your health. Like, it was right around my 30—I turned 41 three days ago, and it was right around my 39th birthday that I started really considering taking the step to try to make a major change in my life. And I thought about it around my birthday because I knew my next one was 40. You know what I mean?

Mmm.

And I was like, I don't think I've ever met a 500-pound 40-year-old.

They don't go around very often.

You know what I mean?

Usually that's when they drop off.

It's about it.

Yeah.

No, that's—that's when it—and it felt like I'd already cheated the game. I'd had multiple heart issues, you know? Um, and I was like, man, I should—I should really start trying to figure this out. And I felt like I—I could feel myself dying, Joe. You know? And it was crazy because I spent most of my life thinking that I—when I get to this point, or that if I—I never thought I'd get to this point. We'll start there, as far as success. But I—

But even your hands look smaller.

Dude.

You have new hands.

I've had to change my Oura Ring size five times in this process. I've literally—I've changed clothes for two years straight, dude.

I'm looking at your hands, I'm like, he has different size hands now.

No, dude, it's crazy.

It's crazy.

Everything, dude. It's just—

I haven't seen you in how long? It's been at least a year and a half.

It's been a year and a half we did the pod. I was—I was—I was in this pod bragging about being 420 pounds because I'd lost 120 pounds.

Mm-hmm.

And I was in here excited about those 120, you know? And I would have never guessed that I—I've lost, uh, Ilya Toporiya since then. You know what I'm saying? I've lost a whole nother—it's a whole nother—when Char—my chef said it best. He said, "When Charles Alivela fell off of Michael Chandler's back, that was what you lost in the last—since the last time you've seen Joe." Be like if a Michael Chandler just jumped off your shoulders.

Isn't that crazy?

It's crazy, Joe.

It's crazy. When I go, uh, walk with my dog, I put a 45-pound plate on a pack, and when I get done with the walk, I take it off, I'm like, "Whew."

Oh.

That ain't shit.

Dude.

You were walking around with an extra 300 fucking pounds.

Cam said this yesterday. It was so funny. He said—he said, "You know why you're inspiring so many people?" He said, "Think about how much David Goggins inspired people, because he went from 300 pounds to getting in shape." He said, "And you've lost David Goggins at his biggest." I'd never even thought of it that way.

Yeah.

I was like.

Right.

Wow. I was like, yeah, that's a whole.

You lost a whole David Goggins.

Dude. My surgeon said I have 35 pounds of skin on me now.

Wow.

I mean, you've seen it. I showed you my.

Yeah.

I showed you my showing all this stuff.

Wow.

But it's like, it's crazy, dude.

That's cra—just 30 pound pounds—five pounds of extra skin.

Just extra skin.

That's crazy.

That's just hanging off the front of me right now.

Crazy.

Whew. And somebody said, "Doesn't that hurt?" I was like, "Not as bad as the 500 that was hanging. I'll take these 35 over that all day, dude." Way, way fair exchange.

So what was—you—you knew you were doing bad. You knew your body was not—it was not going to be able to function at that weight for very much longer. And so what was the pivotal moment where you made this decision?

Here's—this is—this is why I wanted to do this with you. Thank you for letting me have this space, because this is what I want people to hear, is that every time I thought I had a critical moment, it was a—it was an emotional moment. So I'd get all fired up. I've been trying to lose this weight my whole life. And I—and I'd yo-yo 50, 70 pounds down, go back up. Me and my—my nutritionist, Ian Larros, were looking at notes yesterday. I spent most of 2022 between 480 and 560 pounds. Like, that year. That's how much I fluctuated in just a year, up and down.

560 is so big.

Crazy. You know? So it's like, I was just such a—so when I sat down to try to lose it this time, I said, "I'm going to take a different approach. I'm going to really take my time with it. And I'm going to think about what I'm doing and be intentional. I'm not going to let it be an emotional thing where you just jump up and go, 'I'm going to go run in the deer and do do do.'" And I was like, "Let me—let me figure this out." And clearly, I've dealt with drug addiction. So I was like, "Maybe there's something here." Like, how come, um, I actually have this in my notes. Overeating wasn't a failure of willpower for me.

That's a good way to put it.

You know what I mean?

Take a closer look at your own expectations and recurring thoughts. BetterHelp makes it easy to find the support that fits your needs. 90% of German members continue working with their counselor after their first session as of May 2026. Our listeners receive 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com/JRE. That's BetterHELP.com/JRE.

The problem with food addiction, as opposed to every other addiction, is that you have to keep doing the thing you're addicted to.

You have to.

It's the only one.

And it's everywhere.

Yeah.

Not that crack isn't everywhere.

Yeah.

And heroin isn't everywhere, but it's.

That's not—I've never—there's not heroin on this table.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

There's a cookie on here somewhere, probably.

Food.

You know what I mean?

There has been.

Yeah.

But food is something that you need to sustain you, to keep alive. Like, imagine if you were a gambling addict, but you had to play a few hands of blackjack every day.

Every day.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Like, you had to.

Absolutely.

Like, you got to play at least two.

To stay alive.

Yeah.

To stay alive.

But you can imagine, I started with that mentality. I said, "Well, the first thing I'll do is let me—you know, how can I cut back how much I'm eating?" And less—less eating periods. But the first thing I did was started, um, every time I said I was going to lose the weight, Joe, I said I lied to myself. We talked about this.

Mm-hmm.

I would tell myself, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to go do that." And then I'd go tell my family that. So the lie started with me, though. You know, there's—there's a big person listening to this right now, or a drug addict, or somebody who wants to change some part of their life that right now is going, "I'm going to start next Monday." You know? Or, "I'm going to start Friday." Or, "I'm going to start—" they have a start date. They, you know, they—and then that Monday comes and they never do it. I told you. I was like, "Every other fat fuck." Even when I finally did it, on Friday, I was like, "Monday, I'm waking up and changing my life." And I was like, but I had an idea. I was like, "I'm not cutting out food.

Yeah.

I was like, "Dana's cold plunging. He got in shape." I was like—and I reached out to Gary immediately. Like, right around that 39th birthday, I reached out to Gary Brecka. And I just sent a message to Brecka Blind that said, "Do you work with fat people?" Because I hadn't seen a real case study of fat people yet. And lucky for me, Alina, um, um, their daughter, Himansage's daughter, was a country music fan. So she comes in like, "You ever heard of Jelly Roll?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "You got to listen to this song. And then you got to help them." So Gary called, and Gary was like, and I said, "Gary, I'm going to start." But he said, "Just start by trying to get 10,000 steps a day and getting in a cold plunge."

Mm-hmm.

So now when you tell your body to do something, your body looks at you like, "Bitch, you ain't never meant what you said to me."

Right.

You've never followed through. What the fuck? You think I'm going to run because you tell me to run, dude? You lie to me all the time. And I was in that concept. And I came out that morning dressed up in my stuff, and I was like, "Man, that rains pretty hard." And my family—and this wasn't them being a lack of support, Joe. This was just—I think this was me lying to them for so many years. You know, that they wanted to save me my shame again.

Mm-hmm.

And my embarrassment. And they go, "It's okay." I think my wife's like, "It's okay, Papa." Um, or my—my daughter was like, um, "Just wait till the rain quits, or do it on the treadmill, or something." But in my mind, I was like, "No, I'm going outside." You know? And I was like, "I'm done lying to y'all, and I'm done lying to me. I told y'all I was going to go do this walk, and I'm going to do this walk." I didn't want to get emotional this early. But I'm good.

There's nothing wrong with emotions, brother.

I'm coming—I'm coming back from that walk. And I'm coming up my driveway. It's up a big hill. I'm bringing a camel, too. It's a huge hill. And I'm coming up the driveway to the hill, and all my family's out there. Cheer me on. Clapping. Hands up. I'd done nothing but lie to them for years about this weight. I had done nothing.

Yeah.

Like, I married the kind of woman that makes you smile when you're crying, Joe. You know? Um, and I couldn't—I couldn't even get aroused. I was so big. I mean, I was having to play—I was having to play Twister to have sex. Left foot here, right foot in the X.

Yeah.

You know, are we—are we in there yet? Tell me if you feel something. I mean, it was bad. You know, my daughter, I think about my son, um, you know, my brother would have to go throw football with him. I was too big to throw to football. And I was like, "These—that's what my addiction has done to these people." And here they are, cheering for me. Nah, dude, we're turning up. We're fucking—we're—we're going to figure this out. So then I knew it was a mental thing. And I read a book called The Fox, The Horse, The Mole, and The Boy. You ever heard of this book?

No.

It's a children's book. Do you know what I mean? If you don't mind pulling it up, because it's, um, it's just—it's just—it's somebody kind of recreated Winnie the Pooh, but for our kids, you know? And it was a children's book. And I open it up, and it has a moment where it goes.

Yeah.

Yeah. The boy and the fox and the mole.

Oh, I have seen this.

Joe.

Yeah.

You want to talk about a seven-minute read that will change your life. But there's a quote in there that goes, uh, I forgot if it was The Mole, but the—the fox or something looks at the horse and goes, "What's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life?" And the horse goes, "Ask for help."

Mmm.

Yeah. It's just all these, like, really cool little things. But when it said "Ask for help," I was like, "Wow. I need to ask for help." It's like whenever I was addicted to drugs and I had to walk in that room for the first time and go, "I don't have control." So, um, I called a company called Onsight that does, uh, therapy. And, um, I went and spent two weeks with a lady named Mary B, who wrote the curriculum for food addiction in the world. Like, she is an 80-something-year-old woman with glasses, sweet soul of a woman. And we locked in a cabin.

Yeah.

I'm like, I'm like, consistency's the magic. But one, once I realized why I was eating 80, 80—here, here's the note I took from therapy. I had—I took—I had my wife translate all my notes from, uh, when I was out there. And it goes, "Change, uh, first of all, you change the way you think and talk." But because 80 to 90 percent of compulsive eating happens between the ears, not the teeth. So the average obese person that's that big—and I learned this from her—is that they're only eating 20 percent of what they're thinking about eating.

Yeah.

"There's two M&Ms over here. They have some Lay's potato chips over there." Like, I knew my way.

It was mostly sugar?

All sugar. Me and you were talking about, dude.

Yeah.

Sugar. Well, processed food. I—I didn't—you know how they said—so Gary was like, "Get on a keto diet or a whole food diet at first." And I was like, "I don't think I eat whole foods now at all anyways. I think I just eat processed foods with maybe protein in it." You know, I mean, I don't—dude, I haven't ate a piece of bread except for Thanksgiving in two years. Joe, I was color blind. We talked about this.

Yeah.

I was.

This is a crazy story.

This is a true story, Joe. I—my wife will tell you. This is—she asks about it now, but I couldn't see—I've seen shades of colors. Like, I—general concepts. But like, hunter green, emerald green, like, what? Green's green to me. I never realized there was nuances and prettiness and that some were brighter and tone different. I just seen them like shades. So bad that, like, that's why I wore black. Johnny Cash was a lot of it. But too, you know, I'd always have to ask people, "Does my shoes match?" You know, I was always off. Dude, I'd say nine months into no sugar, I started—I think I forgot what it was, but it was a plant in our house.

That is so funny.

It had to have been the sugar.

Must have been. It must have been just rampant inflammation through your whole body. Massive lack of nutrients.

It was.

And your body probably was like, "Fuck colors. Let's just keep this dude alive."

That's it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, fuck colors. Just keep him alive. Damn.

Yeah.

And it was—I'd never planned on living, Joe. Like, ever. Like, it was never in my plan, like, of life. Even as I was getting successful, I was, like, coming out here and, like, life was getting good for me. And in my mind, I was like, "Okay, good. When I die, at least my kids might be okay, and they won't be ashamed of me."

Wow.

That's how I was thinking, Joe. I was literally thinking that way. In my mind, I was just pushing, like, "If I could just get this machine down a little bit, my kids won't be ashamed of me. They won't have to be the dad." At least their daddy died of obesity because he had mental health issues. But he was a cool fucking dude, man, that did some cool stuff, you know? And it was like, I never would have thought I could have this kind of life. I never thought I could—even—even when I sat here and talked to you before, in my mind, I was thinking, "Man, I'll probably never see Joe again." I was thinking, you know, it'll probably go any day for me. You know what I mean? Like, my heart could quit in any day.

Yeah, please.

Well, let me—let me preface this. So, um, because I want to talk about the labs. You were talking about my inflammation. But I got with Gary Brecken, I did a blood test. And this is something else I encourage big people to do. And your basic provider will pay for it, more often than not. If you have just, like, a standard insurance, just tell them you want to run a just standard blood lab. But tell them instead of just your A1C—this is important—you want to see your insulin level. Because I was diabetic, but I wasn't insulin resistant. So my diabetic marker, when I first got checked, was a 6. My—my—my A1C was a 6.4, okay?

What's it supposed to be?

It's like, under 5.

Oh, Jesus.

Yeah. So what happens is, when your body goes to burn when you fast, it has to burn through all your insulin before it'll start burning through your—your—your reserved fat. So when you're at that high of an insulin level in your blood, it's—you're having a fast, so you're hardly ever getting to the reserved fat burn because it's just constant insulin.

Right.

So—and this is where GO1Ps come in. This would be a great time to talk about this. So Gary goes, "Hey, man, your insulin's high. We'll just give you a shot, and this'll change all this." And I was like, "Cool. Send it. Whatever. I'll try it." And then my, uh, my wife's manager, Mimi, started the shot. Did wonders for her. But she had the worst stomach issues. I have a bad stomach. I started calling people and going, "Hey, man, how's this shot working?" I was like, "Dude, we're losing weight. Food noise is gone. You got to try it." I was like, "What's the side effect?" They was like, "One bad side effect, it tears your gut up." And I was—I had a—so I had bad reflux.

Right.

It was, you know, you know, it's like—so I was just in a—I—I wanted to start being way, way more honest about everything in the process. And that was probably the biggest thing. So I would not lose the weight. And I'm like, "I'm—I promise you, Ian, I didn't eat nothing but what you handed me, bubba." He's like, "Just stick with it." And I just stayed with it. Stayed with it. And then, uh, Gary got turned into Gary Brecken and took over the world. And I was, uh, lucky for me. I bumped into your friend, a guy named Brigham down here in Texas. And he introduced me—you've met Denise, right?

Sure. I love her.

This lady's the lady who really—Gary started this journey for me, and I'll never be able to thank him enough for it. But she brought it home. And Gary probably would have, but she—she had a brick-and-mortar and was just easier to get to. Gary travels the world. And, um, I go to her, and she goes—she runs my blood again. And my insulin got down to like 37 by fasting. And she goes, "You're against the GO1Ps, aren't you?" I was like, "Well, I made it this far, and I don't want to do it with an asterisk now. Now it's just stubbornness." At first, it started out of a fear. Now I'm just fucking stubborn, you know? And, um, and this is where I don't want to hide anything that I did do because I think it'll help people.

Wow.

It was in the—like, the 50s.

Geez.

And you know, it should be in, like, the 750s.

Yeah.

My free test was 2.3, Joe Rogan.

Oh my God.

My free test—you know what it is today? 149. I fucking—do you remember that problem we talked about with my wife?

Yeah.

Not anymore. I'm walking around the house like a tiger. I'm throwing her over my shoulder like a caveman, and throwing her on the bed every time I see her. You know what I'm saying? It is awesome. You know?

Wow.

And it changed—these were—and I encourage people to, like, if you can get your blood checked, there might be something there. You know what I mean? It might not be something big. You know, I still could have lost the weight without the metformin, but it might have took another year. You know what I mean? If I would have just had to keep nicking it down a pound a week because I was just having to get that insulin down so slowly. And, uh, that helped a ton. And the test, of course, helped bring—because my estrogen was so high, my test was so low. It finally got the estrogen down and the test up, so the fat starts burning. I'd done the mental work. I'd started really figuring out, like, why I was eating the way I was eating.

There's some stuff that you can eat that does nothing. Like, you—if you just want to munch on something, man, get some celery and some radishes. Those motherfuckers have, like, zero calories.

Raspberries and blueberries were a big one for me.

They don't have zero calories?

They have calories.

But you could eat, like.

But it's actually good for you.

A bucket of them.

Yeah.

Before you get into the hundreds of calories.

But if you want to have some, like, raspberries with some salt on them—or not some raspberries, rather some radishes with some salt on them and some celery, there's nothing in that. You just eat it, and you don't have to worry at all. You're just getting some fiber and some nutrients.

Pickles?

Pickles are great.

Pickles are another one I'd get onto.

Oh, yeah.

And also, like, if you get, like, good fermented pickles, they're actually good for your gut.

Yeah. I—I did all the cheats early. So, like, when I say cheats, like, I was hungry, so I—I go to my nutritionist and go, "Hey, man, just feed me whatever looks like the most food." You know, fluff it up. You know what I mean? Like, just I want a big serving of food. Because it's my thing. And the cool thing is, now I'm in a place where I'm looking for density. Like, my relationships changed that much with food. Now I'm looking like, "Yo, what is—like, do I have to eat this? Is there enough protein in this, or can I only eat half of it?" And not because I have the—the weird relationship with food otherwise.

Right. Right.

You know what I mean? Like, I actually have a healthy relationship with food now, Joe. Like, I look at—and it's not unhealthy in a way that was like, if you cooked a big steak right now, like, "You want one?" I'd be like, "Yeah, absolutely. I don't want to miss a belt steak with Joe. I'm down." I'm not weird. If we went to dinner, I'd eat. You know what I mean? I just wouldn't eat bread.

Right.

There's just certain things I haven't—it's like a drug addict thing for me. It's like, there's just certain things I just can't do no matter what.

Yeah. The bread is the one. The bread and pasta are the one. Why does it have to be the ones that are so goddamn delicious?

All the good stuff, dude.

Oh.

All the good.

So delicious.

But, um, I learned how to make all the good stuff better, by the way. Like, not better, but Larios is really—so a lot of my weight loss has come from, like, I used to always hear you say that you got into podcasting and talking to people about stuff you were just interested in. Like, conversations you just thought were cool. And then I thought about, that's like the approach to life. You know what I mean? It's like, get, like, dig it, do it. You know?

Right.

Find—draw inspiration from there.

Right.

So I was watching.

That's a great dig it, do it.

If you dig it, do it.

Yeah.

You know, dig it, do it. And I was watching UFC one night, which I'm a fan too. And I was—this was six years ago. And, uh, I was like, "I wonder who's helping these guys get on the scale." You know what I mean? I was like, "Most of these fighters are poor." Not in a bad way. You know, they're coming up.

They're struggling.

I was like, "I bet—I bet I could pay equal pay." This was six years ago. I was like, "I wonder who it is." And I got introduced to George Lockhart.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Which famously, him and Mike Dochi, I think, are kind of both famously known for the guys who created the weight cutting protocol of today. You know? And, uh, I call him. He's in Georgia for the holidays. He drives up to Tennessee to see me. We end up hanging out. George—George and me are buddies to this day. And, um, you know, George is like, "Look, I'll—let me find you a guy." And that's how he found me, Ian Larios, who just came in to do nutritionist. He did a bunch of Bully Bees camps, but he's been with me. People say I had somebody tell me this, Joe. They said, "Uh, well, of course you lost the weight. It's easy. You got money." You know what I mean? I was like, "Buddy, money can't make you run these six miles."

No. Everybody who says that is just making an excuse for why they haven't done it themselves.

Yeah.

You can never say, "Of course you did it. You have this." Just fucking do it.

Just go do it.

Just do it. And yeah, it's going to be hard. And especially if your hormones are all fucked up and your insulin level's all fucked up, it's going to be hard. But you can do it.

Well, the biggest thing too is stick with it, Joe.

Yes.

That's my heart, y'all. It's like.

It's all momentum.

That's why I said, "Give yourself one year, not three months." Because if I'd have gave myself three months, I'd have been upset. I didn't lose enough weight. It didn't go the way it's supposed to go. I'd have went back into my shame spiral. We were talking about this. My whole thing was stress, overwhelm, food, shame, repeat. That's what I did.

Yeah.

I lived in that spiral.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And it's like, "Oh, I've been working hard. I'm not getting it. Sad me. I'm going to go to the pantry and punish myself. You know, I'm never going to lose this weight." Where it's like, if I'd have just waited for the year and really said, "No, man, I'm going to go birthday to birthday." Which is why when me and Cam ran on this birthday of mine, it was so important to me. Because I was like, "Two birthdays ago was the first day I even thought about changing my life." You know? And even last birthday, I was 400, you know, 380 pounds. And now this birthday, I'm—I'm running a 5K with Cam Haynes. You know what I'm saying? Like, dude, y'all can change it. If you hated your birthday this year, just give yourself a year.

It's hard for people because they want immediate gratification. You know, they really want it all to happen immediately, especially in the society that we exist in today, where everything—I mean, this is why GLP-1s are so enticing for people, because you can get immediate gratification. You know? And sometimes you got to just—you got to focus on little victories. These little tiny victories. Today I didn't eat cake.

That's it.

That's a little victory. You know? And momentum is everything. It's like that first day when your family was cheering you. That's what it's all about. It's all about you did it. You went out in the rain when you didn't want to. You did it. You came back. Now you've got momentum. You have that good feeling of success, and that will enable you to continue to chase that good feeling. That's the good—that's the good addiction.

Right.

I'm clearly addicted to exercise. If I take a couple days off, I don't feel right.

Right.

If I take a day off, I feel weird. I feel squirrely. Like, I got all this extra fucking weird shit. Leave me alone. You know what I mean? I get weird.

And your brother's off.

I get weird, man. I get weird. I feel weird if I don't do it. And I know people are like, "That's horrible. Something's wrong with you." Sure. But it's a good thing wrong with me. I'm addicted to a good thing.

Right.

I'm addicted—I'm addicted to staying healthy.

Yeah.

You know?

They say—they say addicts, um, addiction swap.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've never had a bad addiction, fortunately. But I've had a bunch of addictions. You know, I've had, like, video game addictions. I'm addicted to playing pool. I was addicted to martial arts. But I've been addicted to, like, things that are beneficial, luckily. Luckily. But I'm scared of all the other ones. I know that—I know it's the same thing.

How much of that do you think has played a part in your environment and friend group?

It's huge. Huge. Because if you can get around a bunch of other people that are addicted to good things, then you're all just doing good things. And you're all feeding off of each other.

Yes.

Yeah. That's—it's everything, man. You imitate your atmosphere, always. This is why I can't be around negative people. I just—I am too sensitive. And I'm around negative people. First, I try to help them. Then I try to coach them. Then I try to, like, like, see the world through their eyes. And then I'm reacting to them. And then I'm like, "Fuck, man. You're not helping me. I'm not helping you."

Right.

You're just dragging me into your vibration. And I don't like it. And if you don't want to change, there's not much I can do with this. And so I got to just ghost you.

Yeah.

I got to separate. Because if you save a drowning man, you know, sometimes you can drown yourself.

Right.

You know? And there's a lot of people out there that have wasted years and years of their life in toxic friendships.

Yeah.

You know? With negative people.

Guilty.

With all.

That's what made me bring it up.

It's easy to do, man. It's not—it's not a mark on your character. It's a normal thing that people do. And when you're around a bunch of people that are positive and that are inspirational, then all of a sudden you start holding yourself accountable. You're like, you know, "What would David Goggins do?"

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

Like, "What would Cam Haynes do?"

What would Cam Haynes do?

Yeah. "What would Jocko do?" And then that—that's a good thing.

"What would Rogan do?"

Yeah.

I know you don't like it when we give you compliments, but we think about it.

Yeah.

Um, I said that because, like, I wondered if that was for you. Because the biggest thing to my note here is, new playground, new playmates. You can't heal in the environment that hurts you.

Yeah.

You know? And it's like, I started praying for new friends five years ago. Like, on my knees to God directly. Like, "God, I've done everything I can for every friend I brought with me along the way. Everybody who came with me can go with me. Everybody's not growing at the rate. I'm growing."

Right.

I need new friends. I'm hanging around, you know, um, when I was cheating on my wife, I was hanging around people that were cheating on their wives. When I was drinking tons of alcohol and doing tons of cocaine, I was hanging around people that were doing tons of alcohol and tons of cocaine.

Yeah.

So I'm like, "I don't—I want to be a—I want to change." Like.

Right.

"Send me some friends. Send me—just send me some new interests." And then I'd start bumping into, you know, I guess six, seven, whatever it was years ago, guys like Cam Haynes, guys like Goggins. And I didn't realize it then when they came into my universe. It was just from a distance in a YouTube channel. Like, "Oh, this dude's fucking nuts. Who's this guy screaming at the camera running all these miles? Yo, who is this guy that won't quit his job? That's just like the greatest bow hunter ever and runs ultramarathons and, like, is refusing to quit his job? The internet's like, 'Cam Haynes, quit your job, Cam.'"

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? I was like, "Who are these guys?" Like, "These guys are awesome." You know? And, um, even then, my—then that's where the little scared kid in me comes out. Like, "Oh, man. But you'll—you know, you can't do that, dude. You know how far you are away from even, like, being able to talk to a guy like that or being able to run or, like, you're just too far. You know? Even down to bow hunting. I'm a felon, so I'm not allowed to possess a firearm or be within a thousand feet of one knowingly. So I've never been able to hunt. You know? Well, I didn't think about the loophole. Y'all know it. The bow.

Yeah.

I can bow hunt.

Yeah.

You know? But also, then you're 500 pounds. It's like, "Am I really going to bow hunt?" You know what I mean?

Right.

But it was new playgrounds, new playmates. You know what I mean? And, um, I started really believing that. And, like, just finding that my—my uncle always said, "If you hang around nine, you'll be the 10th." So just look at the nine closest to you. And even if it wasn't a friends at first, it was just me being inspired by different stuff. Back to digging it, do it. You know what I mean? Like, dig it, do it. And I got into this—I was into, um, I signed up for the Two Bears 5K because Bert was my friend and I thought their podcast was funny. I'd never even met Tom. You know what I mean?

That's crazy.

I was like, "This is a cool way to do it." You know what I mean? Like, you know, like, "Yeah, I'm on the internet, 500 pounds waddling down a back road going, 'I'm going to my first 5K in May, everybody.'" You know what I'm saying? It's like, it just—and I'm like, "I'm ready." And, uh, and I—and I called Cam because we're friends by then. And I'm—and I'm all excited. 470, walking my first two miles, a mile that day or whatever it was. I ran a whole—walked a whole mile. Called Cam, "I'm doing a 5K. Cam, Cam, I'm going to come support you." And Cam and Philip, uh, Franklin Lee walked that 5K with me. It took us an hour and a half, Joe. I mean, listen, I'm surprised Cam—Cam could have rolled faster.

Yeah.

Like, it was a guy that wanted to lift me up. A guy that—Cam used to tap me on the shoulder when I was 500 pounds and go, "Dude, we're going to bow hunt one day. I'm going to take you bow hunting, dude." And I would remember thinking, "This motherfucker's crazy." You know what I'm saying? Like, there's no way me and this dude are ever bow hunting. You know? And, uh, we're bow hunting. You know, I just came out of a blind this morning.

Yeah.

We've been—I've been down there bow hunting with Cam. Ran my first 10K with him yesterday. But it was—it was completely the—the new playground, new playmates thing for me.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. It's fuel. If you can get around people that are real positive and that are doing good things and they're excited about life, it's very contagious.

Yeah. It is.

I think that's one of the really positive things about the internet, that you can be introduced to the way these people live their lives. And you can see videos on them. You can hear them talk on podcasts. And you can realize that people like this exist. And then try to find them. You know? And try to find people like that. And try to become like them. You can. You can—you could assume those positive attributes and you can—you can incorporate them into your life. It's completely possible.

For sure.

Yeah. And.

It's real. I mean, I did it. I am an ex—somebody who's listening to this right now, and as crazy as this is going to sound, I was you eight years ago.

Yeah.

I was listening to the Joe Rogan podcast. It was the beginning of me starting to be like, "What I put in my body comes out. What I eat, I shit. What I drink, I piss. What I hear, I believe."

Yeah. Yeah.

And then I realized I was listening to a bunch of true crime, a bunch of negative stuff on my phone all the time. I was watching fist fights at bars. Like, this was my algorithm. You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? My algorithm was just completely fucked.

Yeah.

So it's like, "Okay, I need to start changing my—I need to find cooler stuff to put into my algorithm. Things—more knowledge, learning stuff."

Tell me, what have you done with the phone thing? So the phone thing is interesting.

It's been real interesting. I got one now. I got one two months ago. I took a year—so part of the weight loss. I took a year off of a phone completely. Well, you know, I used to get drunk and give my number to everybody at a bar. So I would wake up after an award show and have, like, 3,000 unread text messages of people's like, "Congratulations!" And I was just like, "Oh, God." I was missing, like, big messages. You know?

Yeah. That's a problem with me.

Yeah.

I got a—I got that problem.

Yeah. I could imagine where you look back and you're like, "The president texted me." Not me, but I bet that's happened to you, where you're like, "I missed an entire text from somebody of that stature." You know? And you're like, "Dude, this is crazy." And I was like, "I don't—I think that I was using it as another way not to connect." I have an avoidant personality. Like, I'll isolate. Or I can do it just right in a room full of people if I hop on the phone. And I was just like, "Man, I want to be more present." You know? I remember sitting doing stuff with my son and daughter. And I was, like, scrolling Instagram. Once again, watching bar fights. You know? Nothing—nothing that was helping.

Right.

"I'm just, like, completely disconnected."

It's another addiction.

It's really. It's another.

Yeah.

And with my personality.

Uh-huh.

I got to watch those.

Yeah.

So I got a phone two months ago and I just didn't put social media on it.

Yeah.

I have YouTube because that's my app. And I trust—you know, YouTube is where I get good stuff.

Yeah.

It doesn't give me 60-second bursts of shit I don't need.

Yeah.

It gives me long-form of good stuff. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I find channels that I, like, really dig. And it's like, back to new playground, new playmates. I never—I know I'm super late to the party. Never heard of the Outdoor Boys until last year. Okay?

Whoa.

I've been missing a whole new thing in life. You know what I mean?

He's back, right? He's doing it again.

He's back-ish, yeah.

He took some time off, right?

Yeah.

I think he felt like the whole.

Got overwhelming.

Yeah. The success of his channel got too crazy and.

Too fast.

He didn't enjoy the pressure.

But you know what I think he was doing? This is—do you want to speculate a little bit together about this?

Okay.

I think he was doing the coolest dad thing ever. Because he goes on there and goes, "Look, this has been a little overwhelming for me and my family. Me and my wife are out of this. And frankly, I got two boys that want to be YouTubers themselves. So I think I'm just going to help them." And I follow his son's channel. His son's got 3,000 subscribers. He camps by himself like his dad did. He's 12 years old doing solo camping trips.

Wow.

Dude, his name's Outdoor Tom.

Wow.

So it's like.

That's crazy.

And he's been posting. And his dad's on his channel. So I think the dad just built his channel, got big, and was like, "Dude, I think I'm just going to leave this legacy for the boys, man. I'll just help them out." But he's kind of been poking his nose back around here and there.

Well, he's got a.

He helped his friend out that had cancer.

That's the best.

I thought that was the coolest thing.

Yeah.

Who—what was the name of that channel, Jamie? I don't want to blow this. They deserve a shout-out. Because that was really cool.

Yeah. My Life Outdoors.

Yep.

My Life Outdoors. And so that was a recent video that they made.

Yeah.

Yeah. He's a very interesting guy. You know?

I wish he'd come talk to you.

I—I would, if he was interested. I'd definitely have him on. I really have—I watch a lot of those shows. That's one of a part of my YouTube algorithm is dudes who go out into the woods by themselves.

This is my new algorithm.

Yeah.

See, this is me trying to change my playground. Because this is all back getting into shape, Joe.

Mm-hmm.

Like, now I don't look at that as an achievable task. I look at that like, "Next winter, me and Cam are going to go hunt somewhere. We're going to take a fucking tent." You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And we're going to go out there and get lost in the woods.

Camp on your back.

I think we can do it, dude.

Oh, you think?

I think I'm going to be in shape enough to do it. You know?

But you're probably in shape enough to do it right now.

I'm only going to get better, Joe.

Yeah.

I know.

I mean, I watched you on the treadmill today, man. You're in shape to do it right now.

Thank you.

Yeah. You could do it. It's, uh, that's a beautiful thing, man. It's a really beautiful thing. And just to be out in the woods like that is—it's a—I think it's like a form of vitamin that people haven't recognized yet.

It's medicine.

Yeah. There's something to it. I mean, that sounds hokey and new agey, but I'm telling you, man, if I don't get my time in in the woods at least a couple times a year, three—and I really want to do it way more often. I just can't. I just—I'm just too busy. But it empties all the bullshit out of my life. The mountains don't give a fuck what's going on in your life or how many likes your last fucking social media post got or who's upset at you. They don't care.

Yeah.

The mountains are the mountains. Those animals don't give a fuck if you just won the Grammy. You know? They don't give a shit.

No.

"Oh, Jelly Roll's here. Let me offer him my vitals."

No, sir.

Not the case at all. There's no charisma out there. There's no cult of personality. There's no—it's all—it's just wild. And it's beautiful.

You always been an outdoorsman?

No. I used to fish when I was a kid. I used to really love fishing. And, um, you know, then I got away from all of it for a long time until Rinella took me hunting. And that's when I got that mule deer, that one that's sitting on the table right there. That was the first animal I ever shot.

A bow or rifle?

Rifle. That was a rifle. And then Cam took me on my first hunt with a bow. I got a black bear.

That was your first hunt?

Uh-huh.

With a bear?

Yeah.

God. I'm trying to get him to take me one of those in May.

It's good.

And I want to do elk next year.

Bear is a good one. Because first of all, it's scary. You know? Which I think is good. And, uh.

Dude, that's fucking something out, Joe.

And then something about eating a bear that's just wild.

They're kind of fatty, right?

It feels crazy. Yeah. Well, not that bad. I mean, they definitely have a lot of fat on them. They taste good. They taste—that's a big misconception. I mean, I've never eaten a grizzly bear, which I've heard are pretty rough. But my friend Ryan Callahan just shot a grizzly bear and he says it's delicious. Um, I think the thing about a bear that's a little daunting for a lot of people is trichinosis. And, uh, you have to cook a bear, like, 100 and—I think they're—I think the number is 160. I think that's what it is. Where you—you know, you got to make sure that that meat is 160 degrees.

Yeah.

You know? So you don't get any parasites. Because trichinosis is rough.

God, I can't believe your first bow hunt was a bear. I'm on my first bow hunt as we speak.

Yeah.

And it's for a deer. And I could—I definitely—I needed to do this if I'm going to see a bear.

It's.

I am out there. I mean, stomach and, uh, heart and stomach, stomach and pants.

Well, I think Cam took me, um, bear hunting because, uh, in Alberta, the way they do it, uh, it's, uh, they do it over bait. So they, um, they set out oats and they use beaver carcasses and all these different things. So the animals—and people are like, "Oh, that's cheating." Listen, there is no other way to find these animals in Alberta. They're—you're talking about dense forest. Dense forest that looks like a box of Q-tips. Like, you can't see shit out there. You're not going to find them before they see you coming or hear you coming or smell you coming.

Oh, you smoked the bear? Was it the bear you killed?

Oh, God.

You could eat that one?

We definitely ate some of that too. And there's another thing that Rinella taught me, um, called bear candy, which was great. It's like—basically, like, it's like Chinese food. It's like sweet and sour bear.

Wow.

It was really good. Yeah. And then Cam brought over some bear sticks. He gets some meat sticks made at this one butcher that he goes to, this one meat processing place. But you—bear is—the misconception is that bear tastes bad. It does not taste bad. It tastes like beef. It tastes like a weird, beefy kind of animal. You know, here's a weird fun fact. When settlers or the pioneers first were making their way across North America, they didn't eat deer. They were eating bear. And they were using deer for skins.

No fucking way.

Yes. The term a buck comes from the price of a deer skin.

No.

Yeah.

And they were just throwing the meat away.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Wow. How long ago was this?

1700s, 1800s.

Okay.

They didn't know anybody.

Wow.

Not only that. You know all those buffalo that people shot? Like, buffalo is, like, very expensive meat. It's delicious. It's fantastic. I think it's superior to beef. They didn't eat the beef. They didn't eat the buffalo.

Wow.

They were eating their tongues. They were—they were killing them initially for their tongues. And then they would pickle the tongues and send them to New York. And people in New York were eating pickled buffalo tongues.

Wow.

Yeah.

They were throwing away thousands of pounds of buffalo, good buffalo meat.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Oh my God.

Thousands of pounds. And then they started using their skins. So buffalo hides became valuable. But it wasn't the meat that they were after. Which is crazy. Because they basically almost made them extinct.

Right.

They came, like, within a hair's breadth of making bison extinct in North America.

God, just by giving away tongues.

Well, also because they opened it up to the market. So market hunting was a giant problem with wildlife in North America. So what that means is they didn't have refrigeration back then, right? So you needed a constant supply of meat. And, you know, you could salt things down and transport them that way. And there's a bunch of different ways to avoid the breakdown of bacteria. But essentially, you couldn't—there was no fucking freezers. You know? And so market hunting almost wiped out all the white tail.

Wow.

And they shot them all and brought them all to market. You know, that was a lot of it.

Yeah.

And so then they made market hunting illegal. And then, you know, they designated areas, uh, public land. And, you know, this is the Teddy Roosevelt thing. And what they did was really an amazing, um, what they did, an amazing example of conservation in North America that really doesn't exist anywhere else is our wildlife management and also our natural resources, public land management. So we have public land in North America where you can—you could apply for a tag.

Wow. See, I didn't even know you could hunt public lands until recently, whenever Cam and them were fighting back about the bill that was trying to get rid of some of it.

Yeah, man. They were trying to sell off some public land.

Yeah.

It's a fucking dangerous, slippery slope.

Yeah.

And you can't let that happen ever.

It's kind of like freedom of speech, man.

Mm-hmm.

But any infraction of freedom of speech.

Yeah.

Is a complete infraction of freedom of speech.

Oh, yeah.

You know, so.

I mean, it's deteriorating really badly right now in the UK.

I'm loving the outdoors, though. I'm loving learning about it. Like, even hearing you talk, I'm just over here like, "Yes."

Oh, it's an amazing thing.

Because this is new to me, you know? I just got my first hunting license yesterday.

How?

You know what I'm saying? The day before yesterday.

Yeah.

So it's a big deal for me.

That's awesome.

I'm having—you want to hear my first big amateur mistake I made?

Sure.

This is a good one. I told you one of them, but I'll tell you the one I didn't tell you because it's way better. I'll save this one for the air. Um, we're in there the first night. And it's like kind of—it's not nippy, but it's like when the sun went down, it was cool. But it was still, you know, I was so adrenaline-up. The first night, a doe comes out, Joe. And I thought I was going to shit myself. I mean, I had to stand up. I farted. My stomach was bad. It was just so—it was every emotion I didn't think I was going to feel. And I'm doing it with, like, the greatest bow hunter ever sitting behind me. And lucky for us, Cam's a sweet dude, so he's just entertained by it.

Well, he really loves helping people get into bow hunting too.

Dude, I—you know, that speaks again to who he is.

Yeah.

Like, to be who you are in that—that'd be like me loving going and meeting first-time songwriters.

Yeah.

Like, I've never wrote a song and me being like, "That's my favorite. Let me sit down and show you how to start." You know what I mean?

Right.

Which I don't necessarily feel that way, to be honest. So it's like for him to care. But I'm sitting in there. And the next morning, we go. And, uh, it's fucking cold. And I'm shaking anyways because, you know, I'm nervous. And I'm shaking because it's cold. So when we go back that night, I bring my hoodie in case it gets cold, but I don't put it on. And we're sitting there. And as soon as the sun goes down a little bit, it gets cold in that blind bubble.

Yeah.

And I'm sitting there like.

Well, you're also not moving.

Not moving.

If you were walking around in the cold, that's a different thing.

No. We're just sitting. And I'm like.

Yeah.

And I'm like, "Cold, cold." And I don't even think about it. And now keep in mind, there's two does in front of us. And there's a buck maybe 80 yards away. Cam said this, and it's the most gangster thing. Bow hunting starts where rifle hunting ends. Bow hunting begins where rifle hunting ends.

Yeah.

The moment you see a buck when you're rifle hunting, for those listeners that don't know, you just shoot it. It's that easy. You see the buck, you better shoot it right then.

Mm-hmm.

As soon as you get a clean shot. The moment you see the buck when you're bow hunting, that's operation chill. Get them as close as you can get them and find the right shot.

Yeah.

It's the total opposite of rifle hunting, which I haven't rifle hunted since I was 10 anyways. But, um, so I'm sitting there. And it's cold. And there's—I see the buck in the back. And I'm like, "You know what?"

Can I ask you something?

Yes, sir.

You're not allowed to own a firearm? Are you allowed to operate one?

No, sir.

No.

Not at all?

So you can't rifle hunt at all?

No, sir. I'm on my first hunt pretty much.

This is an ad for BetterHelp. The holidays come with a lot of traditions: gathering with family, cooking those once-a-year recipes, and leaning into the little rituals that bring everyone together. That's something I always look forward to. But there's another tradition I think we should all start doing during the holidays. And that's taking some time for ourselves. This season, you do so many things for the other people in your life. You plan get-togethers around everyone's schedule. You spend hours picking out the right gifts and cooking the right food. But you also deserve just as much attention.

Well, this is interesting. Um, I am—this is a slippery slope for me. I am up for a pardon this year. My paperwork has been sent in to my governor. And he considers pardons in every December. So every day, I'm just kind of praying.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean? Um, but even if he gives me the pardon, unfortunately, Tennessee has a zero forgiveness policy for violent offenders. So I would be pardoned, but I wouldn't be, um, adjudicated. What's it called? Uh, um, when they, um.

Exonerated?

Exonerated. Um, I wouldn't be—the charges aren't completely gone. So what I'd have to do is—and this is my hope—is that my goal in this is that I want to reach out to legislation eventually and go, "Hey, like, if nothing else, I'd like my right to hunt." Like, it's done a lot for my mental health. It's done a lot for my physical health. Like, it's been a—being able to start going on that first bow. These are little markers that I put on the calendar. You know, when I'm 400-something pounds and I'm like, "All right. Next year, Cam said he's taking me on my bow hunt.

Yeah.

Like, "All right. Next year, I'm not going to run that 5 can in an hour and a half. I'm going to do it in 45 minutes." You know what I mean? Like, these are those markers. So I want to go to them and go, "Look, I understand if you've ever raped somebody or killed somebody. But I think that every—there should be some path to redemption, even if it takes 30 years." Put something unrealistic up there. You know, can't get a speeding ticket for 20 years. But, like, I think it's important for people to have a path to redemption.

Yes.

I'm a redemption guy.

Yeah.

And, you know, if God didn't just show me so many paths, you know what I mean?

Well, I think it's one of the more beautiful aspects of Christianity.

Right.

That it does offer you a path to redemption, like a true, legitimate path where you can become a different person.

Literally.

Yeah.

And people not judge you on the old person anymore.

It's just—

Judge you on the person sitting in front of you.

I get it for the public safety aspect of it. It's hard to know if a person's redeemed themselves. I get that.

It's hard.

And if you make the wrong decision, man, I couldn't bear the burden of your conscience of that neither.

Right.

But then you do have cases. And I know I'm not the only one of people who have, like, even little things. Like, I mean, outside of hunting, Joe, it's not that I'm a big, you know, I don't have a—I just wish I could protect myself.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's like I'm a million dollars plus a year in security. I'd cut that bill in half tomorrow if I had a right to carry.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Right.

For sure. You know?

Yeah.

But, um, but at least let me hunt. I mean, my heart's right. I just want to feed the family and go out and spend some time with the boys and do some population control.

Yeah.

We don't kill them deer in Tennessee. They're taking over anyways.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Sure you got a lot down there.

They're every—not like these monsters down here, but they're everywhere.

Yeah.

Well, that place that you're at is a particularly unique place.

Cactus Jack.

Giant deer.

Dude, it's called Hunt Cactus Jack. Or it's, um, I found this out. Do you remember the old vice president from here was called Cactus Jack?

No.

Will you look this up, Jamie? This is a cool story. So the vice president, I think it might have been during Roosevelt's term maybe even? Or one of those? Uh, maybe Teddy? But his vice president was a Texas governor or something. And the guy was famous because he's the one who tried to make the cactus plant the Texas state plant. So they called him Cactus Jack because of that. And then Cactus Jack, yeah, this is it.

Yeah, here it is. There he is.

That's Cactus Jack.

Look at him.

Look at him, dude.

He looks like a cactus.

He looks like Cactus Jack.

Yeah.

Jim Nance Gardner.

Wow.

Yeah, he was a lawyer, a longtime congressman. Uh, he was the one who tried to make the cactuses, uh, the safe flower for Texas.

Safe flower. Wow.

Yeah. Who was he? A vice president to Roosevelt? Yeah.

"The effort failed in favor of the blue bonnet, but Cactus Jack moniker stuck with him throughout his long political career."

Wow.

So, so when he opened this place, uh, how many years ago, the guy who bought it from him was super excited to—he told me the story last.

Yeah.

Look at how gangster that is.

That's Cactus Jack, dude.

That's the guy with two pistols.

Yeah.

We could never get away with that right now in politics.

I know, right?

Um, but Cactus Jack, he's a—but the rants is great. The guy who owns it, Mr. Jerry, was telling me the history of it last night. They kept true Texas deer genetics. A lot of the Texas ranches will have import genetics.

Mm-hmm.

And he was like, Cactus Jack was big about making this a tried-and-true Texas ranch. And he is dead set on dying by keeping it that way, this guy Jerry that owns it.

Well, it's like especially South Texas, hunting white-tailed deer is like a religion.

It's a religion, dude.

Yeah. It's a big thing for those folks.

Big deal.

And to grow big deer down there and to make sure that you manage the genetics correctly, like you don't shoot any animal that's under like six or seven years old.

Yeah.

And, you know, there's a place that I hunt in, uh, Utah that does that with elk. It's like they—a really well-managed place does that. They make sure. So like there's some places where when they have hunting season, everybody just goes out into the woods. Kids get a day off school. And they shoot everything they can, which is great. You get meat. It's great. But the problem is, if you want very impressive animals that are mature, which is also better for the entire genetics of the herd, because these are the animals that have lived a full life.

Yeah.

At the end of their life. So they've had a long, full—and by the way, when you're getting an animal that's seven, eight, nine years old, they really don't have much time left.

Well, you know, they were telling me.

Reality.

You're so right about that. They were saying some of them, they'll try to wait and let them have another year. And they won't make it anyways.

Yeah. They won't make it through the winter.

Sometimes they'll just, you know, they just won't make it, he said. So they've, uh, yeah, no, they're dead at this guy is doing it. I mean, obviously, I'm not the case study. Cam should talk about it because I've been on one hunt. But the deer I see on my property back home compared to these deer, these deers would eat those deers.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Like, these deer would fuck those deers in the butt.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? It's like it just, it's a totally different thing, you know?

It is a different thing. But that's a very exceptional place.

So I go to put my hoodie on. That's where I fuck up, Joe. I'm cold in this fucking blind. And I go, I say, "Cam hold my bow." And I should have said, "Cam, can I put my hoodie on?" Because Cam would have been like, "No." You know what I'm saying?

Right.

But I was like, "All right." And in my mind, Joe, I was going to slide one arm through.

Uh-huh.

And I was going to wait 30 seconds to slide the other arm through because I didn't want to be shaken if I got my shot. And I seen my buck across the field.

Right.

But I put first arm through. And I looked up. It was like a movie, Joe. All three deer in the field went right into my soul and ran away.

Yeah.

And I looked at Cam. I was like, "That was me, huh?" He was like, "Oh, yeah. They don't like that stuff." I was like, "Fuck."

You can't remove.

Never came back. No, never came back.

The sound is like they hear everything like 10 times louder than you do. Look at their ears.

Oh.

Their ears rotate and turn and do this. Those are antennae listening for predators.

Oh.

So they hear the ruffling of clothes. They're like, "What is that shit?"

They were like, "That's a human."

Yeah.

That's a fucking human. And when they're down there, that's the main predator.

Yeah.

The main predator is us.

No.

You know?

It was amateur hour at the Apollo, dude. At least Cam got a hoot out of it. I learned a big lesson, of course, too, you know? But.

Bro, they look at you too. When a white-tail busts you, they look at you like it's a weird look.

No, it's like it's almost like he when I say they looked right up at me, Joe.

Yeah.

It was like from feed to eye contact with me.

Mm-hmm.

I was like, "Oh, fuck."

You know what I'm saying? I felt like a deer in headlights.

Yeah.

I was like, "Oh, shit. He caught me."

Well, people put felt on the rest just so that when the arrow slides, it's not making any sound.

God.

You got to be real slow in how you draw back.

But it's something else. It's like rifle hunting, which I can't rifle hunt. But we have a bunch of stands on my property. And I'll go sit in them just to watch a deer with my little boy. And, um, you know, that thing will be there are two football fields away from where the deer are. You'll be sitting up there with the heater on, listening to a podcast, smoking a joint, watching a deer like, "If I had a gun, I'd kill it." You know what I'm saying?

Right, right.

So I showed up first day with Cam. And I got my little weed pin in my pocket. And as soon as we sat down and I seen a buck from here to a little bit past Jamie from me, I was like, "Oh, yeah. We can't smoke in here."

Is it?

Or talk.

Different thing.

I was like, "This is real, dude."

It's a totally different thing.

It's a different fear too.

Yeah.

Like, you get excited when you see one out of a blind from 100 yards, 200 yards, you know, 50 yards, 70 yards. But when you see one 20 yards, 30 yards away from you, and you're sitting there with just a stick with a piece of metal on it kind of.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And a string. Ultimately, you got a glorified what came right after the slingshot.

Right.

You know what I mean? And you're like, "This is me and this animal right now."

Yeah.

It is the fucking craziest feeling I've ever felt in my life. Dude, I wrestled at SummerSlam. It felt like that. It felt like when Logan Paul was going to jump through the table. It was that feeling the whole time.

Yeah, this is it.

Oh, wow. That's a big fucking buck.

Look, that was me really shaking, dude.

That's a big buck too.

Oh, dude. We had so much. We were having a I'm having a time-out right down there.

That's a tiny little hole you're shooting through.

You see what I'm going through here? Look at him. But I just.

You have a light on your pins? Do you have a sight light?

No, sir.

Okay. Um, are you using a spot hog? What kind of sighting?

I think so.

You've got a beautiful bird.

Cam set it up for me. Cam and I.

It must be a spot hog.

Is it Wayne? Is Wayne his name at the bow rack?

Yeah.

Cam, Wayne, I love you, Wayne.

Shout out to Wayne. Yeah, you got a spot hog.

Oh, by the way.

That's a booner.

Your bow shop just dropped me off a kickstand for it though. What do y'all call it?

Oh, beautiful. Archery country.

Yep, yep, yep.

Yeah.

Thank you for that, by the way.

Oh, please. We love you.

Because in the stand, I'm having to hold it on my lap.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So Brigham hit him for me. I was like, "Yo, while we're doing roguing, can you just drop off a kickstand for Jelly?"

Yeah.

So he dropped one off for me.

Those Hoyt has it set up so that they're retractable too. The way it's set up, it's perfect. You can just set it down. It's perfect.

I bought 200 arrows. And I put them 100 on my back porch in a bucket. And I have like 30 targets in my backyard now. And I set the 100 of them on my farm's back porch with like 30 targets. And now I literally wake up, let my dog out, and just let 100 rip first thing in the morning.

Nice.

Just rip a whole 100.

Nice.

It takes me like 45 minutes. Good exercise.

Oh, yeah.

And I only have to pull them once.

It's also the concentration clears your mind because it's so hard to do to hit a target, especially at a distance.

Yeah.

You're when you know, your whole thing is just everything's got to be like coordinated and synced and on that release.

Yeah.

When that arrow flies and goes right into there. Ooh, I love it.

It's a it's.

I love it.

You talking about concentration. It's one of the only things I've ever done that when I'm standing there, even over a target.

Mm-hmm.

Especially over a deer. But even over a target, and I pull that bow back, it's like you said about the mountains. Like nothing in the world matters right now.

Mm-hmm.

I can't.

The world goes away.

I don't hear I don't even hear my inner monologue.

Yeah.

All I see is that little green pin.

Mm-hmm.

On that target.

Fred Bear had a great quote about a troubled mind. Like nothing clears a troubled mind like shooting a bow. And it's so true. It's like there's something about how difficult it is that it really requires everything of you. It requires all of your concentration. You can't have like distracting thoughts like, "Oh, I forgot to pay that bill. Oh, I got to call that guy back. Oh, I got to do this. Oh, I got to do that."

No.

You can't have anything in there.

No.

And because of that, it's like a moving meditation. Like it forces you to be completely present in the moment.

Sure.

And that cleans the mind out.

You talking about moving meditation? I was thinking about when you were saying that. Even down to the breathing.

Mm-hmm.

Like the importance of the.

It's also you're going to learn how to manage your nerves, right? So there's going to this is a process. And it's a journey. And so along the way, you're going to have some moments where a deer comes in or an elk comes in where you're you see your body shaking, freaking out. But then in the future, you're going to know, "Okay, I know when this is coming. Now I know how to stay calm. And now I see this coming." Like, "Nah, bitch. We ain't getting there. We're not going there. We're staying right here."

Yes.

I call it going dead.

Right.

Like you go dead.

Yeah.

Like all this anticipation and what if I miss and what if I do this and what if he runs and what if he turns. Nothing.

Nothing.

I don't let nothing in. You don't let nothing in. And you just like exist. Like a cat.

Mm-hmm.

Like you're like a cat, like staring at the thing you're about to kill. Just locked in. There's no negative at all. You don't ever let those emotions creep in. You know, I ask Cam, I'm like, "Do you ever check your heart rate when you shoot?" And he's like, "Yeah, it doesn't even move." I'm like, "Yeah, because he knows how to stay in that moment."

Yeah.

He knows how to stay calm. Afterwards, it's like, "Yay, everybody's great. And everybody's happy. And oh my God, look at this. This is incredible. It worked out. What a perfect shot."

Oh, okay.

"5,000 hugs."

Yeah.

Oh, I feel it.

Can't think about that though. Can't think about the result. Never think about the result.

Okay.

Always think about the process.

Okay.

Always think about the process.

I'm having fun with the process here though.

Process is amazing.

Cam was saying that. I felt so mad. I looked at Cam and I said, "Cam, you're not mad that we sat four times and I haven't got one yet, especially since I fucked it up once and twice. I had to pee today." But, um, but we'd been in there four hours. I mean, I was like, "Cam, that buck's not coming back."

Well, especially if you're staying hydrated.

I got to pee.

Yeah, I'm staying hydrated. I'm like, "Cam, I got to pee."

Yeah.

But, um.

That guy has amazing patience.

No, he said he smiled. He was like, "This is what I'm here for, bubby." He said, "I'm glad you're getting the journey."

Yeah.

And I was like, "I think if I had come here and just shot one, it wouldn't have been I've sat four times. I'm really I'm working for this deer."

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I pulled on him three times this morning, Joe, and just could not. And Cam was proud of me though because I was like, "I just don't have the shot, Cam."

Mm-hmm.

Because he whispers in my ear. He goes, "You got a shot?" And I've been, um, I forgot who wrote it, but it's a little book called Lying. Have you ever seen this book?

No.

It's like a Jamie, it's like a little bitty book. It's just called Lying.

Mm-hmm.

But it's like some author. You got to check it. It's a really cool book. And it just talks about us lying. And it was the book that talked about me lying to myself.

Mm-hmm.

And right then, I had to fight that urge to lie because it wouldn't have been a lie if I'd have said, "Yes, I got a shot."

Right.

But I didn't I didn't have a good shot.

Right.

So instead, I go, "I don't got one I like, Cam."

Mm-hmm.

And Cam goes and he just put his hand on my shoulder. He said, "I'm proud of you for that."

Yeah.

And I just let it down. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like I was at least even in the moment of like, "I want to kill this deer so I would be so cool." Imagine if I went on Joe Rogan's after killing my first buck this morning. And I was like but I was like, "This ain't the shot." You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like I want the first one to be the shot. I want to be proud of it.

Mm-hmm.

You know what? I don't want to harm an animal.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I don't want an animal to suffer.

Yeah.

I want a double lunging. I want to drop it like a movie.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And if I have to sit here eight more times to get that shot, no problem.

Yeah. It'll just make it the sweeter.

I'm just getting better, Joe.

Sweeter than how I'm learning more.

Yeah.

I'm learning how to listen for stuff. I'm seeing things.

Yeah.

Now I know when they're looking, what the wind means. I learned what barometric pressure is and what it does to them.

Yeah.

It's all kind of cool stuff, dude. I'm like a little nerd there. I'm like the little kid walking around asking questions all day.

Well, there's a really big learning curve to hunting, particularly bow hunting. And it's really interesting. Like you just keep learning stuff. Like I've been doing it now for I guess I've been bow hunting for 12 years or 13 years. I guess 12 years. And I'm still learning.

Yeah.

I learn all the time. I mean, I'm you know, it's one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done, you know? And especially in terms of like getting pretty decent at it, getting proficient at it, and having a bunch of success and success begets more success.

Yeah.

I love it. And then when you eat it, it's different than any other meal you'll ever eat. When I pull an elk steak out of my freezer and I thaw it out, and then I throw it on the tray again, and I throw some olive oil on it. And I like this Saskatchewan blackened Saskatchewan rub that they have. It's my favorite for elk. And I get that sucker up to 120 degrees. And then I bring it inside. And I sear it on a cast iron frying pan. Then I eat it. Oh, man. It's magical. I remember I remember the whack when that elbow hit him in the lungs.

Ooh.

That whack.

Oh.

That sound. Swack.

How crazy is it hunting elk?

Oh, it's crazy.

They fucking scream.

Oh, that would scare them.

They shit out of me, Joe.

It's magical. I hunted with Cam this September. And I got this elk that was he had he was coming over the mountains with his cows. And we saw him. We were like, "Whoa, that's a good one." And like, we got to try to get to him. So we had to go over the top of this ridge and go down into this valley and go through the woods. And as we got to where he was, another elk stole his fucking cows. And so by the time we got to the woods, we were trying to like we were following the screams because he was still screaming.

No.

He's like, "Something's going on here. I don't see the cow. What the fuck is happening here?" So he went around sideways to try to get our wind. And as soon as he went around sideways, as soon as he got clear, I saw him put that pin on him. I saw swack. I hit him. He was dead in 15 seconds.

Ooh.

15 seconds. He he he he he got hit. He's like, "What the fuck?" He he he he turned, started going downhill, and then fell and rolled. And it was over like that. And then I think of that moment every time I eat it. Every time I'm cutting into that steak, I think of that crazy moment, you know?

God, that is a wild moment, dude.

And it's also after miles and miles of trekking up these mountains. You're at 7,700 feet above sea level. You fucking.

And you have to hunt, hunt elk.

Yeah.

You don't sit for them, right?

No.

You got to kind of go out and find them.

Yeah. There's no sitting.

Yeah, you go find them.

You're fucking exhausted every day.

Let's go, baby.

Yeah. It's crazy.

That's what I'm training for at Joe Rogan.

Oh, 100%.

That's what I'm getting in shape.

When June starts rolling around, that's when I start really ramping up the cardio. That's when I start ramping up the aerodynamic bike and ramping up the steps. When I start doing step-ups on boxes and I start doing like.

When is elk season?

Body weights? September.

Wow. Okay.

So right around June is when I really just kick in the leg strengthening, leg conditioning, and cardio time.

Right.

Because you know you're going to have to go they live in the mountains, man, which is interesting because they didn't used to be like they were more like living in the plains until people start fucking with them. And then they like realize like the best way to get away from people is to get way up where it's difficult to get to.

Right. Yeah.

So if you want to get them, you got to go where it's difficult to get to.

Yeah.

So you got to get in shape.

Yeah. That and that's the stuff. Like I hope somebody's listening to this right now going, "Man, I'll never be able to elk hunt." Yeah, you can.

Yeah, you can.

I promise you can.

Can you walk?

Yeah.

Then you can do it.

Yeah, you can do it.

You can start walking tomorrow, babe, and start going for it.

Yeah.

And even then, don't you know, it's your big goal. Put little goals in between there.

Yeah.

That was another big one for me. It was like I had these big goals, but I didn't get they were so far I realized I'd lose sight of them sometimes.

Mm-hmm.

So you got to set them little them little baby goals in the middle.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean? Those little like, you know what? I'm going to walk a mile.

Mm-hmm.

Five days this week, no matter what the weather is, I'm going to walk a whole mile. You know, I'm going to walk to my mailbox and back, whatever your starting point is. And then I encourage you to start making the decision that's hard because me and Cam talked about this when we ran our 5K. There's a hill. My driveway comes down a driveway, comes down a hill, and you bust a right, Joe. And then you can go left into a neighborhood, the same run I run every day. Or you can go right up a hill. And it is a hill, hill, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And the first day, I came out and I looked up that hill and I looked to the left. And I took two steps to the left. And I stopped. And I told myself. I was like I'm learning about stories we tell ourselves. The story I've been telling myself my whole life was take the easy way out. My entire life, Joe, I have always looked for the path of the easiest like A to B straight line. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, "I break that today. I turn right. Fuck you."

You woo.

You feel it, don't you?

That's big.

Right then big.

That's a big move.

Big moment when you're like, "Nah, I'm hitting that fucking hill."

Yeah.

You know, because how big fat people hate hills.

Yeah.

Stairs. We hate all that shit. So I'm like I'm like, "Hit the hill." You know, and I'm walking and I'm stopping. And I'm walking and I'm stopping. And I'm walking and I stopped. I just kept going. And when I got to the top of it, there was a telephone pole up there. And I went and slapped it.

Mm-hmm.

I just slapped the shit out of it. Ugh. And I was just I felt so achieved. And I came down the hill. And then I took a left. And I was going to go straight down to the stop sign and back. But if you take a left, you can go up another hill. So I was in my mind, I was like, "I'm going to the stop sign. I hit the hill." But as I was walking by that other hill, I was like, "This is the new you. You hit the hill, dog. This is the new you. Today is the new you. You hit the hill. Left. Hit the fucking hill.

Mm-hmm.

Come back down." On my way home that day, look up, see that hill. It's right by my house. I go, "Fuck it. I'm going to hit it one more time." You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

And then it started becoming a thing where it's like I started adopting that philosophy in life now, Joe. I hit the hill first. Whatever the hardest thing is, whatever scares me the most, whatever I think's going to be the most daunting of the day.

Yeah.

It's like, "Put that motherfucker on the table right now."

Yeah.

Let me see that bitch first.

And it makes the rest of your life easier too. That's what's really important. When you elect to make these decisions, conscious decisions to do a difficult thing voluntarily, you elect to do that, then the rest of your life becomes way easier because the most difficult thing of your day is always the most difficult thing of your day, whether you decide to do it or whether life throws it at you.

Mm-hmm.

And you can decide to give yourself some shit that's way harder than anything life's going to throw at you. And then the rest of life becomes easy.

It makes you ready to deal with life.

It's also very important for famous people.

Yes.

It's very important for famous people because for famous the pressures and the weirdness of fame, most people don't understand the psychological burden that they that that carries, that that how that hits you. And it can really fuck with you. And one of the best ways that I've found to keep it from fucking with me is to make the hardest part of my day my choice.

Yes.

I put myself through. So other stuff that seems difficult for other people that don't work out or don't take on challenging tasks.

Yeah.

It's not that difficult for me. It's easy. I'm already torturing myself every fucking day.

Yeah.

And it's like.

And I feel weirdly more qualified to deal with shit when I do, though.

Yeah.

Like when I have a really hard run, I walk into the house that day like, "I don't care what comes at me today."

Exactly.

I am on fire. I'll give you another quick story.

There's nothing harder than what you're doing.

No.

You're barely alive, right? You're breathing so hard. Your heart is pounding. Nothing in life is giving you that. Nothing in life is giving you that kind of burden.

No.

So if you can do that to yourself, it'll make the rest of your life way easier.

It'll be and then it believe it or not, it gets funter.

Yes.

Like it goes back to my first year walking was miserable. I won't lie to people that are listening to this. I didn't enjoy one of those walks. You know what I mean? Not one. I didn't have one time. But when the weight started coming off and I started being able to breathe a little better, like I wasn't just fighting for oxygen every single step.

Mm-hmm.

And that moment happens, though, if you're patient. The next thing you know, you're running with your friends and y'all are talking about the football game.

Yeah.

And you're firing on all cylinders.

And today, when you were on that treadmill, you were talking. We were watching the Volkanovsky.

Yeah.

Excuse me, the Piotr Jan.

Yeah.

Marab Dwabishwili fight.

We were giving commentary.

Yeah.

We were doing that.

It's like you do it. And it makes.

Like as you were running, you're like, "Oh, I remember when that kick landed."

Yeah.

I was like, "Oh, that was loud."

Yeah.

I'm telling you, dude.

Yeah.

I'm like.

As you're running.

Just running and.

Yeah.

And it makes me mentally ready now because I go out and I know David talked about this a lot, Goggins, but I go out there and beat that bitch every day.

Yeah.

All them negative thoughts, I deal with them on my run and my workout.

Yeah.

Every one of those, you can't do it. And you know what else I've learned? If I have a chance to eat bad today, it's going to happen on a day I didn't wake up and run.

Right.

If I'm going to go off my program because the days I run, I don't want that shit.

Right.

I know I earned it.

Right.

And mentally, it makes me better. I woke up the other day and ran my farm. And I come back and my son, I'm all excited. We're going to the Titan game. And I'm getting to connect with my son. And I go, "Hop on a four-wheeler right up to the top of the hill. I'll run up there and meet you. I'm going to get a little more exercise in." And when I'm running up to the top of the hill, I look up and he's stuck he stopped somewhere going down another hill that I thought he was going to go down. And right then, I realize it's the hill that he fell and broke his wrist on riding a four-wheeler last year. And he stopped up there because he's scared. And his friend already went down.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like we blow them and you look back and go, "Oh, I wasn't ready for that one necessarily."

Yeah.

And I walk up to him. And I credit this to running. I walk up and I go, "What's up, buddy?" And he goes, "I think this is the hill, Dad." I go, "It is, buddy." He goes, "I'm scared." And I go, "Dude, I've been scared for 35 years and I never admitted it. So you're already way better than me." I was like, "You're already twice the man I am." I said, "Now what we got to do is know we know what we're feeling. What are we going to do? It's me and you, buddy. What are we going to do?" He goes, "Well, I don't want to drive it." I go, "What if I ride with you?" He goes, "Will you sit on the back of this?" Now, he's on a 90.

Yeah.

You know, for people at home, this is a nine-year-old four-wheeler. And even then, I start just thanking God in my head where I was like, "I'm ready for this. For the first time ever, I'm not too fat to get on this thing with him."

Right.

Probably going to rub a little bit. You know what I'm saying? But I can get on the back of it.

Yeah.

And I sit down on the back of it. And he says, "Will you grab the steering wheel?" I go, "No, buddy, but I'll grab your waist." I said, "You don't need me to touch that steering wheel. You just need me with you."

Mm-hmm.

Crushes it down the hill.

Nice.

You know what I mean?

That's awesome.

And then you get to have the moment where you get to go, "Now what did we learn there, buddy?" He goes, "I learned that I can do it as long as you're with me." I said, "No, buddy, you learned that you can do it. You just need you just thought you needed me with you."

Right.

I said, "But here's the good news. Jesus is always with you, bubba. You got this. Like just go. Like don't be afraid of this, man."

Yeah.

He drove it back up the hill. So then I said, "Do me a favor. Just ride up top of the hill and ride back down. I'll be sitting here waiting for you. If you starts to go south, I'll run and jump on you. I'll do whatever. I'll save you. I'll go I'll I'll I'll die for you, boy. Just come down that hill." He drove right up the top of that hill, turned around, came right down to Joe.

That's awesome.

And it's like I was ready for it, though. I'd already did the hard stuff that day.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Having an emotional moment with my son was the easiest part of my day after that. I'd already ran three, four miles. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I'd already woke up and got myself in a headspace of like, "I'm going to pour into my son today. I'm going to I'm going to take him to get his favorite sweet from the Titan game. I'm going to get him a Cam War jersey." I'd already had a thing of ways I was going to connect with him.

Mm-hmm.

And then God gave me a whole new opportunity.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like God gave me a real opportunity. I was making ways to connect, like, "Oh, we could probably do this and this will be fun." But like it just naturally came.

Yeah.

I wasn't ready for that at 500 pounds. One, I would have never been like, "Go up the hill." You know, 500 pounds. I'm like, "You want to sit here and watch a movie?"

Right.

No kid wants to sit and watch a movie at nine years old.

Yeah.

For all parents out there that are 500 pounds. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I'll answer for them.

Right.

But to be in that kind of place with them, it's like the joy of life. Like I I want somebody to hear this podcast. That's why I keep saying it this way and understand that you're not living the life you can.

Right.

And it's so, so possible. It's not easy, but it's possible and it's worth it. It's so worth it, Joe.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

The things that are not easier are worth it. It's it's important to do things that are not easy. It's really important. It's like if you you want real peace, peace doesn't come from rest. Peace comes from struggle.

Peace comes from struggle, man.

It really does. You you have to. You have to.

Yeah.

Peace comes from challenge. It comes from being excited about something, doing something difficult, figuring out you could do it, building resilience. You know, building resilience is so important. It's so important because there's just too many people that are afraid of resilience. They're afraid of confrontation. They're afraid of anything that's difficult, anything that's struggle, anything that's going to test them. They're scared of it. They don't want that discomfort. But that discomfort is when you find true peace.

There was a guy that there's a there's a famous old tale that reminded me of that. The guy goes a young man looks at a rich man one day, rich happy man. He goes, "How did you get where you are?" And the rich happy man looks at him and goes, "Good decisions." Two words. "Good decisions." You ever heard this story?

No.

He goes, "Good decisions." And the kid goes, "Well, well, how did you make good decisions?" He goes, "One word. Experience." And the kid goes, "Well, how did you get experience?" And the guy goes, "Two words. Bad decisions."

Yeah.

You just got to go do it, dude.

Yeah. Failure. Failure's critical.

Go fail.

Failure and the the pain of failure is also very important. It sucks and it's hard. In the moment, you don't think you're ever going to live past this. You're going to live in this moment forever. And I can't do this. I'm going to I can't live like this. I can't do this. But get through it.

Get through it.

Get through it. And now you have resilience.

And you'll become a whole you'll become a better person because of it.

For sure.

Like just just taking an I I used to be that way and I'd get in shame about stuff. Like shame was a big thing for me. I'd be embarrassed and I'd get into a spiral where I just wouldn't deal with things. I'd be like, "Oh, I'm just ashamed of that. I didn't do it right." Or, "I'm going to fuck up." Or, "I'll never do it right." Or, "I'll never be able to do that." I use this kind of language. It goes back to how we talk to ourselves.

Right.

You know, it's like this is and your body believes it. You tell your body enough, you're never going to do nothing. Your body will start to be like, "All right, we're never going to do that."

Mm-hmm.

You know, but it's like I realized that it was more about actually just starting to go, "No, man. I can do that." You know what I mean? Like I can figure that out. And now I get motivated. Every time I've left that deer blind without one of them bucks, every time we get in the truck, I'm all I'm smiles. Cam goes, "How you feeling?" I was like, "Dog, I am going to get good at this." You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like I look at it different.

Yeah.

I don't look at it like, "Oh, I suck." I look at it like, "Dog."

Yeah.

I am 8 hours into 10,000 of these hours.

Yes.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like y'all be patient with me. I'm only on hour eight.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like but I promise y'all, I'll be a whole different dude.

But God, 8 hours into something like that is so nice because you know you have so much to learn. And if you just look at it that way, like what a beautiful blessing it is to have so many opportunities to do things, so many times that you're going to be able to learn, so much time to grow, so much time to get better. You have so much room.

Yeah.

I mean, if you're already Cam Haynes, boy, it's so difficult to get better when you're the best.

Yeah, for sure.

It's so hard.

Yes. 100%. All you can do is help me.

And you know, he's just challenged by moments. So he just experiences a lot of challenging moments and he rises to the occasion because he knows because he's got 30-plus years of experience doing it and he knows how to do it.

Yeah.

But for you, it's like you're in this beautiful place where it's all learning. Every day is a new lesson. Even mistakes, like putting your hoodie on. Okay.

Yeah.

Now we know.

No, no.

You know?

I'm going to wear the hoodie. I tell you what, tomorrow night, I'm going to wear the hoodie if it's 80 because I don't care.

Yeah.

I'd rather sweat in it and then when it gets cold, I'm ready, than be not ready when it's cold.

And you're going to have a bunch of those. I I had one elk hunting this September. We we were going after these elk that were in this thickly wooded section and we were in this open area and we were we were trying to figure out where this bull is because he was running cows through there and you would catch glimpses of them. And so we decided to move around to this new spot. And as we decided to move around to this new spot, we were like, "You know what? We're going to have to go up this ridge and go around this way and come at him from another direction."

Yeah.

It's like, "Okay, now next time."

That makes me feel better. 12 years in, that makes me feel good.

Oh, God. I'm not even close to knowing what the fuck I'm doing. You know, I I need a lot of lessons.

I'm great as a pool table twice a square.

Yeah.

It's bad. I'm out there so lost, Joe. It's got to be at least entertaining for everybody to see it.

It's exciting. It's so exciting, though. And you'll get that success. It'll it'll come.

I'm having so much fun.

Yeah.

You know, I was like I I think I'm going to get a buck this week. I believe it. But if I don't, I got so many lessons and I'll be back the next week. They'll let me back to try.

Yeah. You'll find.

You know what I'm saying?

You'll find the moment.

Yeah.

You'll find the moment. It's going to come. It's going to come with persistence and just putting in the time. And I feel like the universe just gives you these opportunities and let and when when it's there, you'll have this big burst of like this breakthrough moment, like, "Okay, I did it. I fucking did it. I did it."

It's got behind me.

Okay. I'm going to cook this deer. This deer is going you're you'll be salting that thing and slapping it on the grill and watching it sizzle.

Ooh. Stop it, baby.

Smelling it. Oh, the smell.

Oh.

Oh. And then when you go to cook it, you're like, "Oh my God, this is the best food I've ever eaten in my life. This is the best bite of food." Because it's a bite of food with an experience attached to it. It's not just a bite of food. And it's the best meat on planet Earth, the healthiest food you can get. You want to talk about like density? You were talking about like density of nutrition. There's nothing more dense than wild game.

Yeah.

It's like twice as much protein as a piece of beef.

Yeah. It's so good.

Twice as much for the same amount of ounces.

Wow.

Yeah, it's it's so good for you.

Same calories?

No, like probably less.

Wow.

You're eating an athlete.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

You're eating like an athlete, you know?

Yeah. That's correct. I never thought of it that way.

Yeah, man.

I've never ate a bunch of game, though, obviously.

Yeah.

This is also new to me.

Game is the best thing for you by far. There's no better food than wild game.

I've never had an elk steak. I want one.

Oh my goodness.

You got to try one one day.

Oh, I wish I had one right here to cook for you.

Oh.

I wish I had a grill.

We'll do one. The good news is we'll do it the right way. We'll cook one I kill.

Yes.

That'll be the big moment for me.

Yes.

If I if I waited this long, I might as well go smack my butt.

It'll be so exciting. It's and then you're then you're going to be fully, fully, fully, fully hooked.

Yeah.

Yeah. Once you actually do it.

I'm already sure.

When I shot that that mule deer that's on that table and you know, Ranella did the same thing that Cam did for you. You know, he took me, he showed me what to do. He took me out there and. Completely green. I never even shot a rifle before. I only shot a rifle like three. Luckily, and I'm not saying rifle hunting is easy for people that rifle hunt and think it's really very difficult. It's very difficult, but it's not as difficult as bow hunting, and which is why I was able to be successful on my first ever rifle hunt. You know, being successful on a bow hunt for mule deer, good fucking luck.

Super fast too, right?

We were eating this animal. We we we shot it. We we packed it out. We started a campfire. We were cooking it. And I remember Steve said to me, "What do you think?" I said, "I'm doing this forever."

Yeah.

Forever.

Yeah.

I knew at that moment, I was like, "Well, I'm going to be a hunter now." Like that's what I'm doing forever. Because I was on my way to being a vegetarian. I was like, "I don't I watch too many pita videos and I'm like, 'Oh my God, factory farming is so awful. It's so terrible.'" You know, I I didn't understand like regenerative farming and ranching and I I eat beef now. I I mean, I I never stopped eating beef, but eating wild game is a different thing. It's it's a different like I said, it's food with experience attached to it.

Yeah.

There's something very spiritual about it. And it's also it connects you to a part of mankind's history that is is it's intertwined in your DNA. Like there's something about it. You know, like for people that have never experienced before, you know the feeling that you get when you catch a fish? Even little kids, man. I remember my daughter caught her first fish when she was like six. She caught a bass and she was so excited. You get it? That is in our DNA because that means that you're going to live.

Yeah.

You're going to eat. You're going to feed your family. That's why that is so exciting to catch a fish. Shooting an animal and and killing it and eating it, knowing that you can eat it for months is that times like 100.

Yeah.

Shooting an animal with a bow is that times 1,000.

Oh, it made me think about when I was thinking about animal killing and bows especially now because I'm thinking about this a lot, obviously. I'm in the middle of it. But there's this thing that's happening there where it's like the concept that back in the day a man left with this stick and piece of metal or just a stick back then, a shaved stick and a and a string. It was like, "If this goes good, I will come back with enough to feed our tribe."

Yeah.

This entire village of people. I will bring a deer and we will all eat together. That's crazy to me.

It is crazy.

That that was once the way it actually went, you know?

And it was the only way. This is from here. This who knows how old that is.

Wow.

Yeah. A friend of mine got that on his ranch and gave it to me.

Oh, yeah. This is crazy.

Yeah. So some Native American, probably Comanche because it's here.

Yeah.

In in Austin. And that guy who made that, made it himself, attached it with sinew and and and twine and put it on a stick that he had shaved down and put feathers on it that he had got from a bird and and, you know, glue that they had made from they made glue from all kinds of different things. And and he he shot that probably into an animal and it fed his family.

Yeah.

And then that was lost in the dirt and then 1,000 years later, somebody found it.

It still stands.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

And it's here. Yeah. It's crazy.

And then he came home like a hero.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Like, man, you're right. That feeling of catching that fish. My daughter felt it too when she was six. I took her bluegill fishing.

Yeah.

We had a little I had a little spot in the lake where you could just drop and catch a bluegill almost every time. You know, they're pretty little fishes. Easy catch.

It's so exciting for them.

She would have a ball, boy.

Yeah. It's so exciting.

She would have. I took my wife to a fish for the first time when she came moved down from Vegas. And I thought I I wasn't thinking, Joe. This was a user error. But I was like, "Oh, my friend's got a stock catfish pond." I was like, "This is great. You just throw it out there. She'll get her a big old hog of a catfish." I wasn't thinking about how brutally hard it is to unhook catfish.

Oh, yeah.

Like compared to a bass or a bluegill. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

And of course, I get a bass that swallows the fucking hook.

Oh, no.

So here we fight this bass. I mean, there's a catfish in and she's all excited till it gets there. And it to this day was the most brutal ripping out of Joe. She's never went back. She was disgusted. She was all in until after. Like once we caught I should have just clipped it, threw it back in, but I was just determined to get you know how you are when you're stuck. I was fucking coming out and it was just horrible.

It was.

Yeah.

Yes.

I looked like, "Ugh."

Yeah.

But the good news is I think I've got her talking to want a deer hunt after I do because Rion and Goes, Cam's assistant.

Mm-hmm.

And she loves bunny and and and I think that'd be digestible for bunny. Like if she went with another chick, that was cool. You know what I mean?

Rion's a big time bow hunter.

Big bow hunter.

She'll she'll show her how to do it. Maybe she'll get hooked too.

Dude, I know she was good because she was talking about hitting one yesterday. She was like, "I had a shot on one at like 40 almost I had one at 40 yards out, but I didn't have a shot." And right then, I was like, "You were going to take a shot at 40 yards if you didn't have one? That's crazy bow hunting skill." I was like.

Yeah. This the ability to shoot at distance is really tricky because you got to take into account wind. You got to take into account the movement of the animal. You got to be assured that that because like like there's a do you see that elk that's on the wall out front with a photo of Cam and and I?

Oh, yeah.

That was 67 yards.

Whoa.

Yeah, we got a video of that. So this elk was standing at 67 yards and he just stopped. He had fought off these other elk and he was tired and he just stopped. And that arrow, I'll never forget that arrow. That arrow's like right in the 10 ring. It was a perfect shot.

From almost 70 out.

Yeah. And he ran and he just piled up. He just ran right over the top of this hill and boom. And he was done. But it was that was years and years and years of every day in the backyard all day long. I mean, I I I shot so many arrows. I fucked my shoulder up. I fucked my lower back. I was because I'm obsessive.

Yeah.

I I will shoot for four or five hours a day and I'm pulling an 85-pound bow like 150 times a day. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's like on your body. It's your body's like, "What the fuck are you doing?"

For sure. I'm only pulling 45 pounds.

But when you do that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, it becomes a part of your central nervous system. It's like your brain just gets locked in. Your your eye immediately goes to that peep site. It lines it up immediately with the sight housing. You balance it at all out.

You put it in the same place every time too?

Always. Yeah, you have to.

Yeah, you have to have anchor points. I've got a little I've got a Bomar nose button. It touches my nose. I feel that on my nose every time where the string touches my nose. This little thing just kind of pinches at your nose. Yeah.

Let you know you're in the right spot.

Yeah. I'm going to go get Wayne to redo mine. He did it. We had it where it just sat on my nose perfect.

Mm-hmm.

And then I lost that weight. So I mean, more weight. I lost like 80 pounds since I got set for the bow.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is like the never-ending problem in my life right now. Clothes are either super baggier. I got one size too early, so it's tight, you know, because I'm just having to constantly chase whatever's next.

Right.

I can't wait until I'm just a normal person. I get down a normal weight and, you know, put on a holiday weight like everybody else, and that's the fluctuation.

That's wild.

I'm close though.

You're so close.

I got now I'm I'm in like the 260s right now. 30-some pounds of skin on me. I'd like to lose another probably 40 is probably my goal.

You're going to be under 200 pounds. That is wild.

That's the goal.

That's the goal.

I just want to see it once on a scale just like as an adult male.

See 190.

Just see like 199. Just be like, "Wow, baby."

That's crazy.

It still feels weird telling people I weigh something that starts with 200. I haven't weighed in the 200 since I was like 12.

Well, you know what? As you put on muscle, you might stay in the 200s, but it'll be a different 200.

Dude, I'm I am I'm packing, man. My I didn't my shoulders are like I'm proud of them. I am.

Yeah, you look different, man. Like in in every way. In every way.

No, it's like my posture is better. Like I sit better.

You're not burdened by a you're you're rucksacking 300 pounds everywhere you went.

All the time.

That's crazy. Your legs must be so powerful. I used to say that to Ralphie May. Ralphie May unfortunately never lost the weight and did wind up dying young. But I used to say to Ralphie, I'm like, "Ralphie, if you ever lost weight, you get kicked through a fucking building with those legs."

Yeah.

Like his legs were carrying around 500 pounds everywhere he went.

Oh, yeah. And everywhere and he he stands straight up and do a whole hour.

Yeah.

Pacing the state and killing it.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's crazy.

Yeah.

He was one of the best too, man.

He was a fun dude too.

Was he fun outside of the stage too?

Oh, yeah. He's a sweetheart of a guy. He was he was a great cook too. And unfortunately, after a while, um, you know, he had a he had done it with surgery and it didn't work. He, you know, like a lot of people that have that addiction, he couldn't stop. And he thought like surgery was the answer. So he got his stomach done and then he ate through it and then had to get it redone. Like he blew it out. And so it got to a point where, you know, when they when they cut your stomach down, they shrink your stomach, the gastrointestinal bypass, he got to a point where he couldn't digest meat.

Wow.

Yeah. Because his his body wasn't it wouldn't process the meat right.

And that's and that was after the bypass, right?

Mm-hmm. I think after the second bypass.

See, that's um and once again, it's like my heart hurts and you know, not that not that anybody could have made a difference maybe, but man, I just wish.

Yeah. I mean, maybe maybe if he knew you and you guys did it together.

I could have just sat down and been like, "Bro, I know." Like I I think that's why me and you doing this pod is so important to me. It was like I know there's going to be people that are going to see clips of this that are 300, 400, 500 pounds and I want them to like you can do it.

Without a doubt.

Like you really can. It like it's it's actually worth it. It's small steps. It's telling yourself the truth, doing what you say you're going to do, meaning it, keeping your word, but most importantly, food, food, food, food, food, dude.

Yeah.

Like I just now started showing the runs and stuff like because I think people appreciate seeing the work, but it's like what was important really? The weight's not lost in that that running. The running's what makes me feel good. It's fighting the demon.

Right.

The weight's lost whenever I sit down at the dinner table and I eat like a normal human. I don't eat seven plates and six desserts. You know what I mean? Like that's where it's at. And that's that it's anytime I I used to see guys like Ralphie and I would think at watching. I'd be like, "Man, there when you get to that size, that's there's a mental component. There's something happening there. There's some trauma attached to it or there's a story that you're living in in your mind that's just a you know, your body's just reacting to a pattern it's always had that you haven't been able to get it out. It's there's something you've got to really go in and roll the sleeves up and find of kind of find it.

Yeah.

That's crazy. You know what I'm saying? So which is awesome, I guess. But you know, and I just remember like not knowing what it meant, but just knowing it was different and knowing that like I felt different. Like I felt like I felt ashamed even at that age a little bit being in this section. You know what I mean? Like and I didn't understand why.

Well, kids are so brutal too.

They're so brutal. And then I talked to my sister the other day and I go, "Shelby, man, um, do you remember the first time that you that you thought I was an overweight kid?" And she goes, "Oh, yeah. I'll never forget it, dude. We took you to some store and they had a husky section and you you couldn't fit the jeans and you had to shop in the husky section." And she said, "Dude, it tore you apart." And I was like, "Wow." Okay. So, I lived in that shame forever too.

Forever.

You know what I mean? Like just that constant shame. But I did that work in therapy. You know what I mean? And had had related. That's why I said earlier, sometimes when I'm in the pantry, Mary B would be like, "Who's what version of you is in the pantry? Is it the kid you or is it the adult you that's not answering an email?" Because sometimes this is how deep addiction runs. Sometimes that relapse will be caused by literally an unresponded email that you just let sit there and torture you, but you don't notice it because it's just nagging at you. Just that why don't you just tell that guy that you're not interested?

Oh, yeah.

So like um distract yourself.

Distract yourself. Even whenever I first got through this, I had to sit my wife down. Bunny, who is I talked about a lot of this podcast. She is my anchor, Joe. She's the best thing. I think I've said this every time I've been on your podcast. The single best thing that ever happened to me was marrying the right fucking woman for sure. You know what I mean? And um Bunny, I I sit down with Bunny and I'm what was we talking about? I'm sorry. I got so excited about my wife. Well, you were talking about being husky, shame, why you don't answer emails, distracting yourself. Distracted. It's like you're just constant the food is um a way of not having to deal with or even say so I sit Bunny down, I go, "Baby, I'm probably going to start give me some grace."

Yeah. So, I was like, you know, if y'all just give me some grace and what I need y'all to do is just be be a mirror for me and just go, "Hey, I got you, but think about the way you said that. Just just put it back. Just make me see it. You know what I mean? Just mirror. Make me mirror it." And uh they were so patient with me. Bunny Bunny's a gangster though. She'd be the first one to be like, "Oh, there goes little little snippy there, aren't we? Little asshole her." I'd be like, "Fair." She'd be like, "We probably she's like, 'I got it. Probably could have said it different. Love you.'" I'd be like, "Fair." You know what I'm saying? But it was just me learning how to communicate my thoughts. And now it's like but it was so many of these little trigger things that I found that would be what would send me back into I call I keep saying the pantry.

Right. Right.

I just give it a place. It's like a Pam Pam was telling me about the pain cave idea the other day. It's like to me that's what the pantry's always been. Not the pain cave, but the idea of it's a it represents a lot. You know what I mean? But when I'm in the pantry now, I know why. I can literally once again reset, reconnect, re-engage. You know what I mean? In any situation. If I'm at a party now and I I think about eating or I think about drinking, I can go outside. I can hit a joint twice. I can reconnect with myself. What do you think about drinking for in there? What do you what do you need to prove? Who who who who are you embarrassed that you you're not being cool enough around right now that you think it'll make you a little more loose?

Right. Right.

And then you get it. You're like, "Yeah, fuck. I'm being weird, dude. I don't need to go in there and drink. I'm cool." You know what I'm saying? Like you're becoming a different person.

Yeah, man.

Yeah. A better version of who you really are.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a beautiful thing because you're not just doing it for you. You're doing it publicly. And you doing it publicly is going to change the lives of countless people. There's there's probably a million people right now that are listening to this that are changing some aspect of their life because of what you're saying.

That's why I didn't hide and do it, Joe. I've seen too many other celebrities go get go go in the dark and lose a bunch of weight and try to come out with a big reveal. And it always just felt superficial and like it just didn't feel right. I was like, "Yo, man, we should just like post about this." Like every workout every day. It's like it's also good because it makes you accountable.

Makes you accountable.