The Making of a Legend: How a Criminal Became a Champion | Frank Shamrock

27:24Like I say something like weird that's arresting. Because they were like, what? Did he just say that? And so I use like a weird psychological thing. But I'm honest with people. Hey, I'm not interested in that. And, you know, I'm uncomfortable. Can I buy you a drink? And I just try to flip it. And then if they don't, and I get real, which is if you keep messing with me, I'm going to kill you in front of all your friends. Like I just go real. And they're always like, he's either crazy or he's being real. I feel like that works for you because I could even see you're sort of huge. But if someone came up to me and was in my face, what should I do?

28:02If I don't want to fight, like I never want to fight, what should I say to get them to back off? I wasn't planning on asking you this, but I'm just curious. You looking at me, like what should I do? Should I run? Human beings should be able to de-escalate any situation. That's interesting. Human beings. So animals, you know, we can't negotiate with animals, but human beings should be able to have a conversation and you should be able to deescalate. But sometimes people are crazy, right? Yeah. So like, you know, someone comes into a bar, picks on you, and you say, hey, can I buy you a drink? And they just slap your drink off the bar.

28:41Like, no. Like, because I'm, you know, I'm clearly easy to fight. so what would I what would you suggest I do? Walk away Yeah, walk away So I'm not going to say hey buddy Why? You're not going to fight Think about the end game Right Are you going to fight? No If you fuck with me I'm going to fight Right And I'm going to crush you and I'm going to lead with that so I don't get messed with I think that's the difference So there's no bluffing There's no bluffing I don't bluff Because humans probably are pretty good at determining ultimately a bluff at that level Yeah And then it's no one ever comes up.

29:19I want to fight you. Like no one ever is doing that. It's all the, you know, I'm drunk. I was in this weird, you know, there's all these other circumstances that make people think they want to fight you. But when you get real with people, they just, you know, they just lose it. And then I do a lot of, and this is what I'd recommend you do, is I do a lot of psychology when I talk to people. You know, I'm not, you know, confrontational. I'm not, you know, if a guy bumps into me, I'm saying I'm sorry. Like, oh, I'm sorry. Because I don't know if he bumped into me or I bumped into him. But, you know, I wouldn't want to be me.

29:56So I'm the first guy like, oh, my God, did I step on your shoe? I'm sorry, dude. Whereas most people would just, well, whatever. So I'm just very connected to it. And then, you know, if I see a guy who's really drunk, you know, I'll just get all medieval and, you know, lower my voice and lean in and, you know, be like, listen, buddy, you seem like a nice guy. But you're about to die. Yeah, but you know, like I'm here with my family and, you know, you're now making me very unpleasant. You know, I'm a professional fighter and if you keep doing this, here's what I'm going to do. And you say it nice and quiet where they're not embarrassed and I lean right into their ear.

30:29But I'm also willing to fight. Like if you mess with me, I will fight you. Right. So, you know, but most people don't want to fight. That's interesting because you even… Almost all of them. And we're skipping around a little bit, but like, I mean, I saw in the documentary, on spike what was the name of it found by blood found my blood so what what once you started kind of saying hey i want to um i want to learn this i want to do this i want to compete in this what was your what was your initial regimen like how did you start getting better um well i i took the same kind of scholastic schooling approach because when i got to prison i kind of woke up and i was like wow i just screwed up my whole life i got three and a half years to do i have no education I have 20 felonies.

31:11Like I'm totally a screw up. And I realized then, you know, all that stuff the counselors were telling me was true. I was going to screw my life up. Crime was not a good tool. Like it was all just kind of fell on me. And what I did was, you know, I saw all my friends from childhood there with me. And I was like, this is not the way to go. So I went the other way. I went to college. I got educated. And I completely changed who I was as a human being. I changed my intentions, my beliefs. Like I, you know, I changed who I was. And my new intention was I was going to provide for my son. My son was, you know, a baby then.

31:42And I was going to, you know, not be a criminal anymore. I was going to educate myself and, you know, change my life for the better. And in that journey, Bob came along, you know, and was like stripping or fighting. And so clearly he was probably even joking with you. He clearly wanted you to fight. I think he was dead on the 50-50. I think he was into it because Ken had a very successful career as a stripper. And so he— Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, when he—so Ken was a professional wrestler. And then he, you know, when he needed money, he would do stripping. And then he would do professional wrestling.

32:18And before the fighting got big, you know, that's how he kind of made his money. He was, you know, made money off his body. So it was perfectly natural for my dad to say, hey, you got this great asset. You know, here's the two avenues that Ken's made money. Pick one. And to be clear, this is not the dad that had been abusing you when you were 11. He adopted you as he got to know you when you were older and so on. So he adopted you and he adopted Ken, right? Yeah, Ken first and then he adopted me years later. And so just out of curiosity, what do you think comes first? Actions or intentions? So did you start, so you got, you realize, okay, I'm in jail, I'm screw up and so on.

32:56But did you start finding things that you were interested in studying and then kind of your intentions changed? Or did you say, I better, I don't know, go to college so I get out of this life? Or maybe there's only a subtle difference, but I'm just curious what you think about it. For me, it was real simple. I had a manila folder. I sat down with myself and God one day and I wrote down all the things I was on the front of that folder. I was a liar, I was a cheat, I was a thief, I was a criminal, like all the stuff that I was. And then on the back of that folder, I wrote down all the stuff I was going to become.

33:31world champion, spokesman, you know, all the stuff that I dreamt of becoming. And then all the things, all the actions, all the needs, and the things I was studying were the pieces of paper in the middle of that file. I see. So you kind of said for each action, would this action take me closer to this side or would this action take me closer to this side? And you chose to only believe the actions that would take you closer to the positive side. Yep. And every day when I opened it, I got to see exactly what I was now and what got me there, which was me being who I was. Inside was all the meat. And then every time I finished, I just closed it and went, and that's where we go.

34:23After Ken kind of beat you up that first time, did you say, okay, how did you start training and how did you start getting into, you know, mastering the field? You've mastered that whole art form. I mean, now things are a little different. Like you say, you know, techniques, training, everything sort of evolves. But back then you were, not so long ago, but you were the peak, you were the giant. So what was your regimen to get there, to get beyond where anybody else had gone? The first thing was I got a notebook because i was the only guy taking notes and drawing diagrams and pictures because when i read the jay kundo book it was all notes and you know it was bruce's drawings from his from his journey so um and i think i got that very much from going to college and stuff in prison i had a very scholastic you know experience so i was the only guy with a notebook for years and that's one of the reasons i figured it out was because i you know wrote it down ask a question create a theory practice apply it works you know put it in stone um but it was really the focus i mean i i put 100 of my brain to it to where every single night when i fell asleep i just continued training dreaming and going through the same theories and strategies and techniques as when i was awake so my brain just never turned off and that's how i was able to evolve so quickly in the sport is once my body got strong it's pretty strong anyways once my body got accustomed to the techniques and the energy needs.

35:50Um, I just, it all clicked. So, so, so, uh, talk to me more about the energy needs. So with each, so obviously again, it's back to the, you know, you want to use as little energy as possible to cause as much damage as possible. What were some of the things you learned really quickly that you didn't know before that would preserve energy? Uh, um, balance and leverage. Our theory, our system is based on leverage. So it's like a plate on top of a ball. You always want to be the plate because then your weight is the biggest weapon. So just learning that, you know, and how to use your weight as a weapon, I didn't realize, but Ken was just putting all his weight on me half the time.

36:34And I was going, ah, because I didn't know what to do with all of this weight. And for me, the effort that it took to move the weight was what was making me tired. Is that why in boxing, some i mean i kind of know the answer to this but is that why in boxing sometimes you see one particularly in heavyweight bites you see one of the fighters just like grab the guy and they're like just it seems like they're just sort of resting but probably what's happening is the the one guy is putting all his weight on the other guy and so the other guy has to expend a lot of energy even though it seems like nothing's happening hey lean on them you weigh on them and there's a million tricks to using your energy effectively and then um the other thing is because I was studying so much, you know, all the techniques, like I was telling you, they've evolved and they've changed.

37:16So, you know, I was learning techniques, but also learning better ways to do them because I was studying the whole time. So I was like, what about this and that? And move your leg there and try this. So one of the reasons why I continued to evolve, I became a teacher after six months, six months of training, I was teaching other fighters because I'd taught people in prison and, you know, I ran a bootcamp, like I, you know, all the areas of development that I needed or thought I would need for this career, I picked up, you know. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think the big difference is I didn't care about being tough.

37:49I didn't care about being, you know, the toughest guy in the room. Like I literally just wanted to figure this thing out and become the best at it. It sounds like what you were doing was, um, you, there, there's this, let's say, let's call it a meta skill fighting. And then you broke it up into, um, a lot of micro skills, like, like, uh, balance or footwork or punching or kickboxing. So all of these are completely different skills, but each one kind of had to be learned to be an ultimate fighter. And it sounds like that's what you were doing. Cause it seems like beforehand people would be either be a wrestler or they would do karate or they would do boxing.

38:26And, and none of those disciplines by themselves is going to let someone be, you know, a mixed martial arts champion. I feel like you kind of have to learn all of them. And so, and it was this combination that really makes the art form. It really made it really created the sport. So what made you realize you had to learn many, many different martial arts? Because certain people with certain skills would affect me. So, you know, a strong wrestler would be able to control me so that I'd have to, you know, learn to use my legs and my hips more. So I was very much, because I didn't know anything. I was just, if it worked, we used it.

39:03If it didn't, I just stopped using it. But it's the classic thing where you're doing, study it's almost like you're doing a scientific study on yourself and what just worked against you and like a wrestler you just said would do something to restrain you or hold you down and you'd have to figure out you'd have to really stay to figure out well how can i fight that and then the next wrestler comes along how can i fight that i mean it's the classic of not learning from failure but learning by uh because i don't like that phrase so much but learning from experimentation almost yeah and this is this is one of those sports where you're using your body like intimately so you have to experiment and you have to understand everything about it and we always say the best fighter would be um a ballroom dancer who was a gymnast because you'd never catch it when they could move their body in any position you wanted to like you know they would be so powerful with their being with their body um and the other thing which most people don't realize and I say it in passing because it makes people think, but I look at people's bodies and I do a complete diagnosis of your structure, your biomechanics, and what I think it would take to beat you.

40:12That all happens in like 15 seconds. So you just point right at my forehead and push me over and I'm dead. When I see people, because I've trained for 16 years every night at POCA. So when I see a human body, I don't see tall, skinny. I just see structures that have power. Okay, but the average person on the street is basically all the same in the sense that they sit in a chair all day going to work. They probably don't really eat as healthy as possible. They don't really exercise as much as they should. So the average person must look all the same to you, which is just I have to punch this guy in the gut and then knee him in the head when he bends over and he's gone.

40:47Yeah, but if you go deeper into it, what it really comes down to is I was studying the biomechanics of the human body. They were studying fighting. I was studying the human body and how to maximize it. And they were studying technical fighting. So that reminds me, I'm going to make a leap that might sound funny, but it reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci. So every artist was studying how to paint, but he was doing autopsies on bodies to understand really how, you know, how to depict a human body. He was studying, you know, how the sun would hit, you know, would shade the different parts of the body so you could really understand how to draw the body in a complex way, as opposed to just understanding how to paint, which is what most people were doing back then.

41:36And so it seems here is that you evolved the art form by going that one level deeper of not just how do I crush this person, but how is the body working so that I can cause the most damage? It's almost like these imaginary points, or I don't know if they're imaginary or not, but like, oh, if I touch this person here, they're dead. so that's how i look at the human body so it just it's an assessment it's like uh and i think it's just from all the training because i you know body mechanics work so i look at a human body and it's like okay arms are long you know structure strength and i make it just in my mind there's a mental assessment which has a numerical value and so if you see a guy in the street can you tell if they're a fighter oh yeah yeah i can tell anybody who who has the intention of fighting.

42:27And I think that's the big separating factor between people that want to fight and people that don't want to fight. 99 % of people do not want to fight. But there's a few people that want to fight. And you can tell by their intention. When I lower my voice and I speak, I speak with the intention that I'm going to break your face in two seconds if you don't stop doing that. That's why people go - Let me know if I upset you during this podcast. But that's why people go, oh, he must be serious. Because who else is speaking all crazy like that? so so i remember there was one guy you were fighting uh asian guy and uh the it was mentioned he trained with uh he was he was willing to die he had the will to die is how he trained so kind of kind of being i guess you you can set yourself up psychologically so that you throw yourself so fiercely into a fight without being worried about death almost this stoic way of looking at fighting and this was one of the initial people you fought when your career was moving up.

43:24Do you think that's a helpful way to look at fighting, to think that you could die and be okay with that? For sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's a good way to approach life. You know, I mean, one of the best sayings in Native American culture is today's a good day to die, which means you're in the right place and everything's taken care of. So go do it. so yeah i mean we always make a joke about it people always ask me you know how do you stay focused and what do you do to train your mind this and stuff and i would tell this joke but it's the truth um and i'd say it in a funny way i say this gentle gentle mantra to myself which helps focus my mind and they would lean in they'd be like tell me it i go it goes just like this die die die they're like what are you talking about i'm trying to kill every person that i'm in front of, and I'm willing to die to do it.

44:14And so, so, so you, you, you make, you say that that's could be analogous to life, but let's say, and so there, there's the cliche of, um, um, you know, live life as if today's your last day, but of course there's more nuance to it because if you have kids and you want them to grow up and, and, and I don't know, either go to college or buy a home or whatever, uh, you kind of have to save up for them. So you can't always live life Like, okay, I'm going to spend all my money today. I'm going to, you know, go crazy today because today's the day I'm going to die. Where's the balance there? How do you find that balance?

44:47Well, I think you got to roll it back because it's an expression of all things are right. The work is done. It's done. So, you know, when you're a warrior and everything's cared for, you can go out and go to the death because everything's cared for. I see. When it's not cared for, you probably shouldn't go out there and fight to the death. Right. So that, again, leads to that manila folder. Do you go to this side or to that side? So if not everything's cared for, okay, let's just today go in a direction where the things that are not cared for are cared for. So you could every day, again, make...

45:32So you mentioned the warrior's code just now and you mentioned it in the documentary. What does that mean to you? What are those... What's that code? Well, those are basically the principles of martial arts for me. So those are honor, respect, discipline, which applies to everything. Honor, respect, discipline. Discipline, yeah. Honor to what? What does honor mean? Honor is... Well, the first thing that comes to mind is honesty. I used to have a problem with honesty. So now I'm a thousand percent honest. So my word is my honor. If I give you my word, that's all you need. You know, if I tell you something, you know, I'm going to tell you the truth.

46:07It's because that's honor. You know, if I promise you something, I'm going to do it. That's honor. We do deal together. I won't screw you because I'm an honorable person. So I run everything like that in my life. And, you know, the factor of discipline is, listen, if you're not disciplined, you'll never be successful. You'll never guide people, lead people. like, you know, you'll never achieve the next level physically, mentally, spiritually. You just won't because you have no discipline. How do you determine what you should be disciplined in? Mind, body, and spirit. Plus, minus, equal. So what do we need?

46:39What are we looking for? What do we want? I think a lot of times people might be listening to the saying, I'm 35, I'm 40, I'm 45, I'm 50. I either don't know what I want because I've spent so much time, you know, just kind of getting through each day or 50 plus and I feel like it's too late for me to do what I want. What would you say to those people? If you're breathing, you can do anything you want. The problem is we get caught in all these lies and we get caught in all these roles that we're living. Most of them are just social obligations or stuff we think that we're supposed to be doing. The reality is you can do anything you want.

47:13Good, bad, it doesn't really matter. I mean, you'll have to pay the consequences or reap the rewards. The truth is you're in control of every action. You can do anything you want. I could wake up tomorrow and start living a convict again. Like I can still, I can start stealing stuff tomorrow. But that would go against my morals and everything that I've built up and everything I believe in. This, I see life is like a big journey. And I believe you're supposed to become the best human being throughout this journey. And you're supposed to help everybody else do the same. And if you don't, you're not that good of a person.

47:48You're an okay person. You're an all right person. But those people that go, no, I'm going to make myself the best human being possible. And I'm going to take everybody around me and do the same thing. That's how you move the world and change things. And that's how I live my life. And only because I went through such an experience, I know what the bottom's like. I know, I mean, we were laughing today. It was like, I stood in line for government cheese when I was a kid. And I remember standing in line and going, all right, we're getting the cheese. And And so I told the story to my daughter and she's like, she goes, what?

48:18Cheese? She goes, where does the cheese come from? And I'm like, I don't know. But, you know, I know what it's like to have zero. And you can always build up. You can always build up. But it starts by changing this. You got to change your mind. Change your mind to believe that it's possible? Yeah. And then what's the very next thing after that? Action. You got to take action. And here's why people get to 50 and aren't living the lives that they want to. They're not doing personal reflection. They're not writing their dreams down. They don't have a plan to accomplish it. So they're just doing what they do.

48:55But everything, I sold a movie. I just wrote it down. I'm going to sell a movie. I wrote two books. I just wrote it down one day. I'm going to write a book. That was it. And once I made the intention and talked to an author and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, a year later, we have a book. most people never write it down. They never take the intention because they're afraid they won't do it. I think that's right. And I think people also, they look too far to the end product. Like if you said to yourself a year from now, I'm going to have a book that might be too scary. I thought, but if you say to yourself, okay, a book, I, I value the idea of having a book in a year.

49:33That seems like a good intention to have. The first step is finding an author. Um, I think breaking things down into smaller steps. Like I'm sure when you studied what back in the day, kickboxing for the first time, you didn't say to yourself, okay, I'm going to kick a guy off a horse. You probably figured, well, what's the first things I need to do to strengthen my legs or whatever it is. I'm just making this up, but there's probably like micro steps with each thing that you have to learn. Yeah. And that is the beauty of the basis of martial arts, small incremental improvements to achieve a larger goal.

50:04And then that tying into what your body needs, protection, whatever, and what your community needs. And it's like, that's the martial arts journey. When you get that down, then you're cracking. I love that. You're so in touch with your being and the beings around you, and you're all on this positive growth mission. So it's like you can't help but come out of it a better human being. So I never thought of it that way. So the basis of martial arts is small incremental changes to what was the final part that you just said? To perfection, to excellence. to... And you're never going to achieve that.

50:38No. So it's always small incremental changes every day. But imagine if you went to a place every day and the whole conversation was, that's great. Let's make it better. Like, just the tiniest bit better today. And then we'll do the same tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. After a hundred days, you've got a hundred like mini improvements. That's how you build people up. You know, I did that myself because I didn't know. I just went, here's my intention. Here's what I have to do. The community came and supported me. The resources came out. But it's like until you make that intention, until you show up at the martial arts school, until you show up at class, nothing changes.

51:12And again, also, it's interesting that you're allowed to define it for yourself. Like there's no one school of thought from 3 ,000 years ago that's the school. I mean, again, you combined all these schools to create your own style of fighting. um so when you when you're actually kind of moving up through the ranks and destroying everyone in your path literally what was like the hardest fight you were in where you had to really use your brain to say okay he's presenting a problem and i have to figure out in real time how to solve this problem uh it was fighting uh ensign inouye in japan that big asian dude uh the one who had the will to die yeah yeah the and he's you know half japanese half hawaiian so they're very much the Bushido, you know, the Bushido way.

51:58And it was about seven minutes into the fight, he folded me over backwards and mounts me. He's like on top of me, elbowing my face in. And - Why didn't you just collapse then? Just give up. So he's huge. He's huge. It's not like just like a small guy doing this. Yeah, he's like, you know, 20 plus pounds on me. And he's, you know, got me in the most, you know, vulnerable position. And he's just elbowing away on my face. What does he mean he's pulled you over backwards? We're standing clenched up. I was trying to knee him so my hips were getting too close. And he went from a high grab to a waist grab.

52:30And then he pulled my waist into his and stepped forward. He took your energy of moving closer to him and he switched on you to kind of push that in. And so he folds me over backwards like this. Like I wrench my back and then he jumps on top of my chest and he's like elbowing my face in. So it was one of those moments where I thought I was going to die. Like I was like, there's no way I'm going to survive this. but I wasn't going to give up. So I was like, okay, well, there's a problem here. And that was the problem. So, but what I did was, you know, I just stayed true to my intention. My intention was nobody's going to kill me.

53:10So, you know, I just had a moment where I was like, he's going to kill me. And then I went, wait a minute, nobody can kill me. And I got up and knocked him out. And so how did you though, get out of that particular situation? He's in control of you at that point. I just hung on and kept moving. And I could tell he was getting tired of beating on me, actually. And then the other thing that I was doing was I had learned to use my skeletal muscles to hang off people. And we talked about leaning on them and applying weight to them. So even though he was on top of me, I was actually hanging off of his body.

53:44So he was holding up. But him slamming on your face wasn't enough to get here. like this and he's literally lifting me up to hit me but he's lifting my body weight so after about 10 times he's tired and so i had to kind of brave this moment where he's like you know how did you hold on for the 10 times i just um i i made that commitment i knew you know that here's the thing is you know i i was like they're gonna have to kill me to take me out of here and I'm never going to give up. Like, this is my thing. It's my chance. You know, I'm going to go all in. But you never know until you're at that moment.

54:25Like you never know until death is right there and you're looking at it. And, you know, I thought that was my moment. So I just had this, you know, I had this moment in my spirit, which was, am I really ready? And then I went, not only am I ready, this guy ain't going to kill me. And I got, you know, I wiggled out and, you know, went into a firefight and end up knocking him out and and that kind of um sort of so-called rope-a-dope style this one where where they're like just wailing on you and you do things to get them tired until finally you can switch you did that again with uh tito ruiz yeah ortiz yeah yeah yeah ortiz and because he was like a like he was just out there hungry for to kill you and uh and he was very play it about it later you know he's on the documentary talking about it but you were holding on against you know uh into the edge like what was happening there he was just you know the next size of athlete and he's really he's really a heavyweight but he's able to drop down into the middleweight um the middleweight category uh and he was just so big he was so strong you know he was so he was the next size up it just took so much energy to to battle with were you afraid getting in the ring or no?

55:40I knew I could beat Tito. This is how confident I was to beat Tito. I signed a four-fight extension to my contract and put in the clause if I ever publicly retire, the rest of the contract is Nolan Boyd because I knew I'd beat Tito, stand up on pay-per-view, retire, and become the first free agent. So you knew you would beat Tito even though in the middle of that fight, you probably also knew that you would have 30 or so punches on your face at that moment. Yeah. But he was just so big. Like, if you see us together, it's silly. And when we did the poster for the fight, they literally slid out an apple box.

56:18They're like, I'm so sorry, Mr. Shemmer. And the guy slides out. Can you stand on this? It just doesn't look right. Because I'm like this. You know, I'm staring up at this giant man. But he was just the next size up. And the next level in, you know, physical needs. And I was the first super athlete guy. but that's what really, you know, I needed that super athleticism and the technique to beat him. So you were talking earlier about the warrior code. We did honor, discipline, respect. What comes next, if anything? Well, let's see. So the mind, body, and spirit are the way. The how is the honor, respect, and discipline.

56:57And then there's a few minor mechanics of it. The idea of consistent improvement is either wrapped up in the journey to excellence or we also call it Kaizen, small incremental improvements or practice. And it's really those like three concepts. What about people who know what the right… Like let's take an obvious example. Someone who smokes knows that it's probably wrong to smoke but they don't stop. And they would like to stop even. Let's assume every possible thing. Their intentions are good. They want to stop. They're addicted to it. But, you know, there's ways to overcome addiction. But they just don't stop.

57:39Or I'll use an example personal to me. I know I should go to the gym every day. Or I should exercise probably more than I do. I have just recently started going to the gym. But for the first time in like six years. So I should probably be exercising more than I do. But it's hard for me because I don't enjoy it. And now, you shouldn't enjoy anything that's worth having is probably not enjoyable. Like when your brother first beat you up, I'm sure you weren't having a fun time and yet that propelled you to worldwide success. So it seems writing a book is not enjoyable and yet when it's done, that's what you did a good job.

58:16And, but sometimes you can't do everything that's not enjoyable in order to achieve many different kinds of success. So I don't know, how should I think differently about lifting weights? Make it fun. How do I do that? Do something you like to do. I guarantee you there's a physical activity that you enjoy doing that's fun and that will give you a good workout. I got a dog. I walk my dog twice a day. I got you walking. So I'm walking twice a day. I'm like hiking and I'm walking twice a day. And even though I work out, it's still another chance for me to do a little more. But here's the thing is we all know what's good for us.

58:55It doesn't mean we're doing it. I knew when I was about 13 or 14, like i was a total knucklehead and that i was screwing everything up didn't mean i stopped you know what i mean like you really need those big wake-up calls well what's some what's something for you right now that you i mean because because also we can't do everything that we would like to do in our lives what's something for you that's right in that gray area or you would like to do more of but you haven't yet uh had enough intention or motivation to actually start doing it mine is even stranger because when i was 16 i was diagnosed with a spondylethiosis my right leg had gone numb and started to drag behind me so what that means is one of my little vertebrae is broken off in my lower spine and i have no stability in the left side of my lower spine so throughout my whole career i've had this problem um yeah somebody just starts punching you in the left side of the spine yeah just hit me on the left side and i'm like oh no I know, we know.

59:54But recently, I met this doctor who's like, gave me a whole new understanding of my spine. Basically, he's like, listen, you're just a wussy. I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, you're thinking you have a hurt spine when you just have these muscle imbalances. Like, let me rebalance you. Let me show you the exercise to do. And I guarantee you'll never have pain again. I'm like, this is amazing. So he unlocks my back, does the thing. Everything's amazing. Shows me the exercise. He's like, you can't do this exercise enough. Do it every day, all day long. I do it every third day. So you just don't, you just, it's not fun for you.

1:00:25It's not fun. And it feels weird. It's uncomfortable. But it makes me better. Like night and day better. Is there some benefit from doing it every third day? Or are you kind of, you're just losing all the benefits? The benefit would be to have it every day, several times a day. And it takes me three minutes to do it. Like most of us, it's a very short period of time. But I'm like, oh, and I need a table to lay on. Like I make a million excuses not to do it. I know I need to do it. It's kind of important because, you know, you're not getting any younger, Frank. That's so true. You know, at some point, this becomes degenerative, right?

1:01:00So you have to start doing it. But we all know, like, we know why we're overweight. We know why we're stressed. We know all these things. But what are we doing about it? And it's like, you know, I was very blessed in that I found martial arts. And it became my way to connect with the community, learn about myself, explore things. You know, it became my world. And, you know, very few people have that where you can walk into a door and you're just suddenly part of this amazing, you know, personal development community. So to me, like it was just such a powerful experience. I didn't even know it existed.

1:01:32Like I didn't know you could go to martial arts schools and all that stuff, you know, even happened there. Right. Because, again, it's not like martial arts, as you've described in this podcast. It's not just about being able to kick a guy in the face. It's all this kind of method of excellence that could be applied to any area of life. Anything. And you see that really in a lot of Asian cultures that, you know, like imagine the Japanese tea ceremony is almost like a martial art, just the way every aspect is ritualized and it's sort of this movement towards perfection of the tea ceremony. So it seems to apply the same principles.

1:02:08So your career lasted a really long time. I mean, you went, you know, I don't know the exact number of years, but you were really kind of at the top of your game for a long time, for at least, I mean, it's hard to constantly fight for 10 years. It is. Or longer. I did 16 years straight, and I went undefeated for 10 years. Undefeated for 10 years. Yeah. What happened the first time you lost? Ah, I got disqualified. Okay. Because I need Henzo Gracex from New York. Oh, yeah. I beat him in the back of the head, which I thought was perfectly legal. But it turns out it wasn't. So what about the first time you lost-loss?

1:02:45Was it Diaz? First time I lost-loss was Kong Lee. He broke my arm. Oh, yeah. I remember that. I couldn't continue. That was the first time I really got hurt, too. Like, you know, wake-up call. And that was when I started planning my exit. And then kind of after one of your last fights, or maybe your last fight was, I forgot his first name, Diaz. Yeah, Nick. Nick Diaz. And there's this real sense that, okay, you're handing over to the next generation. What do you think he was doing differently? Or let's even take it a little further. This recent fight that happened in the past few weeks, and I don't follow the sport at all, but like George St.

1:03:26Pierre at GSP, what's he doing differently where he's just so clearly vanquishing his opponents? He's just a martial artist. and he hasn't stopped studying. I think that's where, you know, his value is. You know, in this one, you only are as good, in this sport, you're only as good as your study. So if you leave studying, everyone just keeps learning, getting better. You wouldn't think that though. You would think you're only as good as your ability to kill somebody. This one's literally because, you know, you have to stay on top of this thing. And then the, you know, the styles and the moves and stuff ebb and flow with popularity.

1:04:03Who's winning, who's doing this. So you really have to kind of stay on top of the art. And he stayed on top of it. And when you watch him now, are you like, oh, I see what he's doing there. That's really interesting. He's doing the same thing. But the sport has de-evolved technically. So that's the weird thing about the sport now is because television and because, you know, these mediums have gotten so big, the level of athlete has diminished a little bit. Really? Because now you need character, personality, presentation. There's a lot more to the presentation. So we're drawing from a different crowd.

1:04:42It's athletes and other people that want to be on TV and that want to be in that type of sporting experience. I see. So often charisma or some type of weird charisma is driving people to the top, but you have a guy like GSP who kept studying, so he's able to destroy that guy. He's a martial artist, and he's a super athlete, then, you know, he's still focused on martial arts. If I tried to do it, I'd be like, I'd get my ass kicked. I don't dream about it. You know, it's all out of my head now. Where do you see yourself going in the next 20 years? In martial arts? No, just in general. In general?

1:05:21I mean, you've hit the top of the world in one area of life. I'm going to keep working on my community. I live in a wonderful community. looking for ways to impact it. You know, our family is so blessed. We're healthy and we're doing really well. And really my next thing, what I'm focused on next year is this mental health awareness campaign and this mission. I've been greatly affected by mental health and a lot of my clients in my community have been affected by mental health. Tell me how. One of my best friends is bipolar, you know, and I've been caring for him for about seven or eight years.

1:05:58And in the journey, I've learned so much about it. And I've learned so much about how public feels about it and, you know, how he survives. And I mean, I've literally read, you know, 50 books on the subject. And, you know, like, I feel like I'm really educated on it in my desire to help and care for him. You know, it's I didn't know that about you and your friend. I knew you were focused on on mental health. But one of the closest people in my life is affected by bipolar. and I didn't realize until I saw it in person, face-to-face, how different bipolar is from how the movies, say, portray it.

1:06:35They sort of portray it like, okay, sometimes you're sad and sometimes you're really happy and maybe even really energetic. It's not that way at all. When someone's in mania, it's like the person you knew has checked out and something new and sort of very horrible has checked in. And that's why a lot of these people end up homeless because they create a scorched earth of community around them. And also a lot of them end up dead. They end up committing suicide. Like bipolar is almost a terminal disease. So why don't you think most people realize the severity of mental illnesses like bipolar, borderline personality disorder?

1:07:16Like these are real, you know, neurological disorders. Yeah, I mean, we've just in the past decade started paying attention to it. And before that, look at the culture of having mental issues. It's just been portrayed to be crazy people, violent people. You know, the portrayal, the general message of it, it's just not good. People don't know what to do. People literally don't. when I talk to, cause I talk like this and they're like, I don't even know what to say to you. Like, how are we talking about this? Like, we have to talk about it. You know, this is a real thing. You know, what we see that, you know, the human development of your brain, your brain can handle just about anything, but you need to learn in doses and you need to, you know, your brain's made of plastic.

1:08:08It'll consume, change, do anything you want it to, good or bad. But, you know, people don't understand their brain. They don't know, you know, when everything you put in it is a computer. You're just recording everything you do. It becomes who you are and it becomes how you are. People don't think about that. You know, people don't think of your mind as a, you know, as a space you need to develop. But with mental illness though, sometimes it goes one step further, which is that that computer has faulty programming. Yeah. And the person who's the, let's call it the person who has the illness, he or she can't necessarily control how that input is coming in anymore or what the output is, or they're having problems with that.

1:08:58And, and I think, I think awareness of that's very important. For instance, you know, there's been a lot of news, uh, in the past year about, uh, police brutality and police, you know, killing people. Um, and you know, it's the whole, um, you know, very important issue of black lives matter. Um, but what a lot of people don't realize is that 61 % of those lives are mentally ill people and, and that were, you know, killed because the police didn't realize they were mentally ill, uh, a serious issue. so so how can we all work to raise awareness of this well i think it starts by um repositioning the conversation you know we're we're all talking about an illness that nobody can see you know a lot of people don't believe it yeah some people don't believe it some people are against it some people culturally can't accept it it's not okay like you know and you know where where I was affected was understanding it's an idea.

1:10:00It's not anything other than an idea. Your brain is different than my brain. And, you know, some of these people are super high functioning in some areas and some areas they can't, you know, do much, but we're all the same human being. We all have the same needs, desires. Like we all are the same person. We all want to be useful. We all want to be valued. We all want to have purpose. We all want to have a community. and you know when you say okay you're sick you're never going to get better take these pills and by the way we're not going to hang out with you because you're weird you're literally giving them a death sentence you're putting them off to pasture and it's like nobody in their right mind understanding mental illness would do that because the idea of mental illness is hey we need to pull them in this community we need to get them involved we need to get them purpose we need to get them activated because how else can we maximize that human being he's not sick they're just different right and it's like until we start having the conversation of difference and idea you know yeah there's an illness there but it's a human you know malady that can be treated with human interactions it's not like you know my legs falling off this is literally something where two people can start making progress now just by hey you need some help you look a little down You want to go for a walk?

1:11:19Like, it's so easy to begin the actions, but no one wants to talk about it. Like, I talk to people and they're like, we can't talk about that. I'm like, why not? You know, we have to talk about it or it's going to become, it's still that thing. And then as long as it's that thing, you know, people are going to disparage it and people are going to believe silly things and people are going to spread, you know, rumors and, you know, people are going to, you know, give it what it's been given. which is a real bad, you know, a bad face. Well, Frank Shamrock, who I've stolen so liberally from over the years.

1:11:59No charge for that, Joey. No, I'll give you full credit from now on. Plus, minus, equal. It's actually the greatest learning technique I've ever used for my own self. But all these issues we talked about, up, you know, including the mental illness, so important, so fascinating to meet you and see the arc of how you've sort of transformed yourself again and again to conquer these battles in your life. An honor to meet you. And I'm so glad you came on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Thank you.