On Why “Pain Don’t Hurt” and What It Takes to Overcome Extraordinary Obstacles

Life throws all of us obstacles. Everyone meets barriers. Nobody is immune from setbacks. It’s how we confront and navigate past the curve balls life throws that moulds character and ultimately defines who we really are. Do you crumble or rise to the challenge? Do you shrink down and become the victim? Or do you stand tall and walk through adversity like a warrior? And what do you do if everything just goes to shit? You are hard pressed to find a man who has met so much adversity with such a grounded sense of purpose and honest willingness to share about it as Mark Miller. Meet Fightshark. Just make sure you check your grousing at the door. Born with both Type-1 Diabetes and a congenital heart defect (CHD), Mark was reared by the back hand of an alcoholic abusive father. A World War II vet and notable professional athlete who played in the very fist NBA game ever, “Moose” Miller was a domineering force of nature who experienced the world as a dark, unfair and often violent place – and made sure he prepared his son accordingly. To escape the emotional and physical violence that greeted him at home, Mark immersed himself in the world of sports at a very young age. Thrown into a boxing gym at age 6, he quickly adapted, eventually mastering every sport imaginable by the time he finished high school. During his free time he worked in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room (from age six through high school), grabbing towels, taking grief and learning about sport and life from the hand of legends like Lynn Swann, Mel Blount, Jack Ham and Mean Joe Greene while also working on his pitching with guys like Barry Bonds. All champions that in some sense served surrogate dad duty for this evolving teen. By the time he was 18, Mark was poised to go professional as a major league pitcher. But Mark had other plans – he wanted to become a professional kickboxer. By 2007, Mark was a rising star in this emerging sport until a routine physical uncovered a serious cardiac condition that required open-heart surgery to replace his aortic valve. The crisis helped to temporarily reunite his fractured family. But everybody thought Mark's fighting days were over. Once again, Mark had other plans — the surgery just made him more determined than ever to return to the kickboxing ring. Astounded by the rapid rate at which Mark's heart healed, his doctors gave him the green light to resume training. Everything in Mark's life seemed to be getting back on track. But 2008 had little respect for Mark's plans. Over the course of that year, Mark lost both his parents and his drug addict brother to an overdose. A confluence of events that led Mark to lose himself in drugs and alcohol, culminating in a boozy accident that hurled his already fractured and fragile body through a car windshield and onto hard unforgiving Austin, Texas pavement. Eventually, Mark found the wherewithal to get and stay sober. Renewed, he set his sights once again on his kickboxing comeback. Despite being labeled damaged goods, in 2011 Mark returned to the ring in Moscow and shocked the fight world when he took out one of the world’s best with a knockout in just 8 seconds. To this day, Fightshark is the first and only combat sport athlete to return to competition after undergoing open heart surgery. Fast forward to 2013. Just prior to his fight debut in storied Madison Square Garden, Mark contracted pneumonia, which set in motion a devastating domino effect of health cataclysms that have left him with chronic kidney failure, blindness in one eye, and the need for not one but three organ transplants: heart, pancreas and kidney. Mark is currently fighting for his life. Literally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down. Like, what am I actually going to make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

• 1:13Rich Roll?

  Welcome to the Rich World Podcast, episode 108, with Mark "Fight Shark" Miller. Sponsor yourself, people. Today's show is brought to you by The Plant Power Evolution Revolution. We all want to be healthier, fitter, leaner, stronger, more focused, more self-aware, more grounded, more confident. But what to eat? When and why? How to meditate? Why should I meditate? And maybe, most importantly, how do we become more connected with our higher, highest self? And then how do we put all of that to work to properly set and achieve goals and optimize this connection between body, mind, and soul? So we can ultimately unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. That's the theme of the podcast.

• 1:57Rich Roll?

  That's the theme of basically every kind of product that I put out into the marketplace. So, towards this end, we have put together a small set of the highest-quality products, programs, and services to meet these needs. I've got a couple online courses. They're both at mindbodygreen.com. The first one is called "The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition." It's three, over three hours of streaming video content, broken down into five-to-10-minute chunks. And essentially, it's everything that you need to know. To launch yourself into this plant-based lifestyle. Maybe you don't want to go 100%, that's fine. But I think we all agree that we could benefit from getting more fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds into our diet. And this is my course, my offering on how to get there.

• 2:41Rich Roll?

  Now that we've cleaned up the diet, it's time to put it to work. So I have a second course. It's called "The Art of Living with Purpose." And this is about two and a half hours of streaming video, also broken down into little chunks. And it's all about how do we connect with the better self within? How do we do that inside work so that we can really figure out what it is that we want to do with our lives? And then, it's about how do we set and achieve goals that work towards that so that we can ultimately unlock and unleash that best self? Both of these courses also include an array of downloadable tools and resources. There's a robust online community where you can ask questions and the community members chime in. I interact with everybody there. So, really proud of both of them.

• 3:25Rich Roll?

  Check them out, again, both at MindBodyGreen.com. We also have a couple nutritional products. Our Repair Post-Workout Athletic Supplement Recovery Product is full of plant-based proteins as well as powerful antioxidants like resveratrol. It's got corset mushroom extracts in it, which I find very beneficial in increasing blood flow and improving recovery. And we also have a product called Ion, which is our electrolyte supplement, our electrolyte replacement capsule. It's sort of like getting all the electrolytes you need without all the sugar and the artificial flavorings that you find in all the gels and the drinks, etc. So, we're really proud of those.

• 4:09Rich Roll?

  You can find those at RichRoll.com. Also there, we have our GYSEED E-Cookbook, a downloadable recipe pamphlet with 77 awesome recipes. We have our GYRELIESE Meditation Program, which is a series of MP3s. It's a guided meditation program oriented around beginners, people that are struggling with the idea of how do you sit still and what exactly should I do to launch into a meditation program? We've got merchandise, we've got t-shirts, hats, so that you can wear, proudly wear your affiliation with this plant-powered revolution. And we have flat-rate domestic shipping on all our products, just $4.99, no matter how big the box is. So, go to richroll.com today, take your diet, your nutrition,

• 4:52Rich Roll?

  and your life experience to the next level. All right, you guys, let's get on with the show.

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, are you ready to rock? My name is Rich Roll, I'm your host. Welcome to my podcast, to the RRP. Thank you for listening, thank you for spreading the word with your friends, thank you for Instagramming all the cool ways and places where you enjoy the show, and thank you for supporting the show by clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for your Amazon purchases. As you know, this really helps us out, doesn't cost you guys anything, but it really helps us out. So, thank you so much to everybody who has and continues to support us and this mission in this way. So, as you know, each week, I have the distinct pleasure and honor of sitting down and picking the brains with some of the best, brightest, paradigm-busting minds in

• 5:51Rich Roll?

  health, wellness, diet, nutrition, fitness, creativity, even conscious capitalism, world-class athletes, doctors, nutritionists, entrepreneurs, artists, and even the occasional triumphant everyman. But the common theme is this: All my guests are here to share their experience and their insights solely to help you discover, uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. Life throws all of us obstacles, there's just no way around it. Barriers, setbacks, we all have them. And it's what we do in the face of these that truly molds our character and defines who we really are. When we get thrown a curveball, do we crumple, or do we rise to the challenge?

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  And when things go to crap, do we become the victim, or do we rise up and step into the shoes of the warrior? But what happens when it just all goes bad? Well, I've never met anyone who has faced so much adversity and come out the other side to share about it with such a positive and grounded sense of purpose as Mark Miller, today's guest, otherwise known as Fight Shark. You think you've had it bad? You think you've had some setbacks? Consider this and check your grousing at the door for good. It's pretty hard to encapsulate the life of this guy, and I can only capture certain

• 7:15Rich Roll?

  aspects of it in our conversation, so indulge me and let me try to set the stage. Mark is a guy who was born with both type 1 diabetes and a congenital heart defect, CHD. He's a guy who grew up under the wing of a physically and emotionally abusive, unreasonably demanding alcoholic father and a passive codependent mother. It was a dad that saw and experienced the world as a really dark, unfair, and often violent place. And it was his dad's mission to really make sure that he prepared his son accordingly, in accordance with this worldview.

• 7:54Rich Roll?

  And it was a painful childhood, to be sure, but to escape his circumstances, Mark, from a very early age, as far back as he could remember, aspired to athletic greatness. He spent his youth in a boxing gym. I think he was thrown into a boxing gym by his dad at age 6, and Mark went on to play every sport imaginable. During his free time, he even worked in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room, a place where he started working, again, at age 6, I believe, all the way through high school, grabbing towels and taking grief from football legends like Lynn Swan, Mel Blunt, Jack Hamm, Mean Joe Green. You know, this was the heyday of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

• 8:35Rich Roll?

  And also, he had the opportunity to connect with a bunch of pro baseball players and spent free time working on his pitching with guys like Barry Bonds. I mean, it's amazing, the level of athlete that this guy was exposed to at a very young age. All champions that, in some sense, you could say, became surrogate dads for this evolving teen. And Mark, indeed, became an outstanding high school athlete. In fact, he was poised to become a pro baseball player, a pitcher, but Mark had other plans. He wanted to become a professional kickboxer.

• 9:09Rich Roll?

  So, kind of a departure, not the biggest sport in the United States, but he fell in love with it and that was his life path. And he had some success, but in 2006, his CHD, his congenital heart defect, finally really caught up with him. His heart essentially went bad and it was only outputting at about 15%, which required him to have open heart surgery. He had a new aortic valve put in in 2007. He mended, he healed, and he set his sights on making a comeback in the ring. And everything started to seem like it was getting back on track. But in 2008, this year, had other plans for Mark. Over the course of that year, he lost both of his parents, as well as his drug addict brother

• 9:54Rich Roll?

  to an overdose. Then, he went flying through a windshield in a car accident. It was a confluence of events that led Mark to really lose himself in booze and drugs. Eventually, he gets a grip, he finds a wherewithal to get and stay sober, and launches his comeback. Despite being labeled damaged goods, in 2011, Mark nonetheless returned to the ring in Moscow, and I don't think anybody thought that he was going to be able to be victorious against a competitor who was, at least perceived at the time, to be far superior to what Mark was bringing into the ring. But Mark took him out in just eight seconds, knockout. And to this day, he is the first and only combat sport athlete to return to the ring, to return

• 10:38Rich Roll?

  to competition, after open heart surgery, which in and of itself is an astounding thing. But let's fast forward to 2013. Just prior to his biggest fight of his life, which was going to take place in Madison Square Garden, Mark suddenly contracted pneumonia. And this set in motion a domino effect of health cataclysms that included renal failure, chronic kidney failure, and now the need for three organ transplants. Right now, he needs a new heart, he needs a new pancreas, and he needs a new kidney. Imagine that, not just one organ failing, but three. And this is a path that has him fighting for his life

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  on a daily basis, and grounded in the only thing there is, the grace of the present, the only moment we have. Mark chronicles the insanity of his life and his adventures and is truly compelling, completely raw and at times sad, but totally engrossing and unapologetic new book called Pain Don't Hurt, which is published by Anthony Bourdain under his new imprint at Harper's called Echo. It's pretty cool. Anthony Bourdain found out about Mark and his story. He became riveted by who this guy is and he decided that he wanted to help Mark turn it into a book and so here we are. So even if you don't care at all for kickboxing or MMA or UFC, you will be hard pressed not

• 12:07Rich Roll?

  to be riveted by Mark's astounding tale of superhuman resiliency and what it truly takes to meet and weather adversity in its grandest scale. All told, I'd say Mark is a complete inspiration and he's a testimony to the incredible power of the human spirit to meet and overcome even the most impossible odds and obstacles. So let's quit your whining and let's step into the ring with the one and only Fight Shark.

• 12:46Rich Roll?

  First of all, your book is extraordinary. Thank you for writing it. It was quite an intense read and just trying to wrap my brain around all the sort of medical issues that you have to confront on a daily basis. I mean, you walked me through a typical day in your life right now and what does that look like?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Well, that part like currently we'll have to wait for the sequel because this all started literally like a week after everything was done with the book, when we crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is and, you know, and the publishers had signed off on everything. Then I ended up getting sick, which was last November. And right now, you know, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I get up at 3:45 and I go to dialysis for four hours. So, you know, that's always good times, getting all the blood taken out of your body to do the work your kidneys can no longer do.

• 13:46Rich Roll?

  Right. And it gives you an opportunity to tweet out your playlist. You're listening to a playlist while you're doing that.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yes, so, you know, I try to like at least do something to, you know, keep it out there because...

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Especially a- as, you know, an athlete and now an author, you're only as good as your last movie, like they say, right down the road in Hollywood. And I remember when I had the heart surgery in 2007, obviously I wasn't fighting. So to stay relevant, I was doing, you know, radio shows about fighting. People would keep me on and that was also the advent of social networks. So that was a good thing. It keeps your name out there. I mean, to be honest, you know, Twitter's kind of the reason I got asked to write the book

• 14:41Speaker 01

  because of the fact that, you know, Otavia Bourdain, Anthony Bourdain's wife, followed me on Twitter.

• 14:49Rich Roll?

  She's a huge fight fanatic.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Huge fight fanatic. You know, she trains at Henzo Gracie's in Manhattan. And that's the reason that, you know, Anthony came to me about writing the book was because his wife had, you know, shown him the blogs I was writing when I was coming back to, had my comeback fight in 2011. So I understand the worth. I mean,

• 15:15Rich Roll?

  The power is amazing. You know, I owe a lot of, you know, what I've been able to do, you know, over the last couple of years to Twitter as well. And it's been an incredibly powerful medium for connecting with people.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  And that's not really our, our age group. Let's be honest.

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  To us, it's like, wow, you know,

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  To me, it's crazy. I, you know, we were grown adults before there was an internet.

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Yes, we're old.

• 15:38Rich Roll?

  Fully formed.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  You know, the thing is, it is, it's a great, it's a great thing.

• 15:45Rich Roll?

  It's a really cool story too, because you were prepping for your comeback fight. And so she's following you and I think people were sending you video messages or something like that of support.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:56Rich Roll?

  And Anthony's like, what's going on here? You know, and he's, and then he starts looking into who you are. And he, he's directed to your blog and he's like, wow, this guy can write actually, like a fighter can actually write, who is very descriptive and compelling in, in, in sort of Out these narratives about what it's like to do what you do. And then here you are like publishing a book under his new imprint with Harper Collins. I mean, that's, that's, that's exciting stuff, man.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's not something you expect to happen because you know, I get people now all the time. How do you do this? You know, I want to, I want to get published and I'm like. Truth is not that easy. And this, this fell into my lap. This is a one in a million thing. Usually they don't come to you and say, how about you write a book? You know, I, I got unbelievably lucky and fortunate to be able to do this. So.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, that's why I figured. If I'm going to write it, I wanted to make it as, as raw as possible. Not exploitive, but just. True to what it, what my life story and, and how things are when it comes to. You know, actual training, just give a little bit of insight into it.

• 17:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's in, in, and you've accomplished that in spades. I mean, it's very gripping. And we were talking about this right before I hit record on the podcast. I told you, you're gonna have to repeat it. Cause uh, you know, I mean, your story in certain respects couldn't be more different than mine, but. But I was able to emotionally connect with it because of, because of the humanity of it and, and sort of. How you so eloquently describe how you approached all of these obstacles that you had to face over your life and. And. What it does is it allows you as the reader to. Connect like to get inside your head and to feel the emotions that you're feeling and. And you know, like yourself.

• 17:51Rich Roll?

  I'm not a world champion at what I do. I'm not even a professional athlete. And when I was writing my book, I'm like, who's gonna, you know, why is anyone want, want to read this? They can go get. They could go pull any book off the shelf of some, you know, world champion athlete and read the story of, of, you know, what that life would be like. And I knew that the only reason to write it would be. Uh, or the value of it would be directly proportionate to the extent to which I was willing to be honest and raw and vulnerable and. Talk about ugly stuff and, and all that kind of thing. And, and you know, from page one, that's just screaming, you know, in your book.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we tried to. You know.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  And I'll make a bad fight analogy here to, to gut punch you. You know, right off the bat and. The way I wanted it to.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  I want it to be kind of conversational, like we were sitting here like we are right now, just having a back and forth and just, you know, it's kind of, the book is, is, is my part of that conversation. So it leads to, try to, you know, I enjoy cinematic writing, so that's what we, you know, that's what I wanted to accomplish, was try to have it like flow cinematically so you could picture everything you're saying.

• 19:08Rich Roll?

  Right, and, and in a, in a screenplay, they call the first ten pages, in the first ten pages, you have to have the inciting incident, you know, something dramatic has to happen, and I can't imagine anything more dramatic than the way you open your book, because it involves a helicopter crash on the grounds of a church when you're a young child and, you know, people are dying, and it allows you not only to sort of shock the reader with this incredibly, um, you know, sort of moving disaster, but it also introduces your parents and the way that they kind of react to this, uh, shows who they, who these people are, like immediately, you're like, I know who that guy is, I know who that woman is. And that sets the stage for, um, you know, the household in which you're, you

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  grew up in.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 19:55Rich Roll?

  So, let's go back there a little bit, like, tell me a little bit about what it was like being a kid in Pittsburgh, growing up in your house.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say this, and I don't necessarily, because I think people get the wrong idea, I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way, but it was, you know, eh, kind of lonely, you know, but not, not because there's a lack of human contact, but just, you know, the big thing I, I try to get across doing interviews and, and, and talking about my parents is, this wasn't meant to, to, you know, to damn them. The, the intent wasn't, you know, well, what, you know, crappy parents I had, you know, woe is me. The idea was just to give an idea of what, you know, I dealt with and how particular circumstances create, you know, who, who you become. And, you know,

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Whether it sounds like an excuse, whatever, my parents came from a different era. I mean, they had me at a very, you know, very old age. And they were both, you know, just kind of closed off people. So there wasn't, you know, there was my father over here, my mother over there. Their interaction was, you know, minimal. So obviously, interaction with me, you know, it was kind of like I was the go between. It's like in Fight Club.

• 21:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  You know, he, you know, Edward Norton's characters going back and forth, you know.

• 21:31Rich Roll?

  Between these two personalities.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Between these two personalities and between, you know, obviously, the, the, uh, the girl he's dating, but doesn't realize in, in his fictional character he's created in his head. So, you know, there was a lot up and down. My father spent most of his time in the basement. My mother was upstairs, you know, it was just like a back and forth thing. And there was never really any bonding between me and either of them. But as a family unit, and what people consider a family unit, yeah, there was no, there just wasn't that kind of, uh, there wasn't that kind of interaction. My father, however, was a, a pretty harsh disciplinarian and had his ideas.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  You know, he was a, a former professional athlete and decided that's where he wanted me to go.

• 22:24Rich Roll?

  So, right, so the book opens with this helicopter crash. I should clarify, you weren't in the helicopter.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:31Rich Roll?

  It crashes in front of you.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:32Rich Roll?

  And the takeaway from that is sort of, I mean, this is what I got out of it, or, you know, what I'm intuiting was sort of your interpretation as a young person at that time is, and what kind of the theme of the book is, or, or how you're parented, is this idea that the world is a very harsh place and shit happens, bad shit happens.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  That was my father's view.

• 22:51Rich Roll?

  And that was his view and, you know, whether you want to say it or not, he, you know, he was, he was a pretty abusive guy. He sounds like he was an alcoholic. Your mom, you know, sounds, I don't know if she was an alcoholic, but she was a drinker too, but it seems like there was a bit of a codependent relationship there.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:08Rich Roll?

  And she was emotionally handicapped. Um, but also. More forthcoming with you, like she was a caregiver to you. But your father had this worldview that was in alignment with this helicopter crash. Like, you know, the world is tough and I need to prepare you for the world and you've got to be, you've got to be tough and whether you like it or not, I'm going to make you tough. And that was his way of, you know, being a father, I suppose.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Right. He, I like to explain it that, give it a little pop culture reference. His parenting ideology was basically a boy named Sue. You know, if you know that song, obviously the famous Johnny Cash song. You know, he figured that if he made things really tough, that you'd be able to handle the world. Okay, I name you Sue, then you're going to have to deal with a lot of crap. So, you know, it'll make you inherently tough because the world sucks. And that's what his ideology was.

• 24:05Rich Roll?

  And there, and as a result of that, you have a lot of emotional and physical scarring because it was, it was a painful way to grow up as a kid.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:14Rich Roll?

  And there's a lot of damage there, but at the same time, you've weathered a shitstorm. Like, you know, you've gone through more in your life than most people could fathom. And so there is an argument that he did prepare you for that. And looking back, it's sort of like, well, how would you have, how would you have met all of these obstacles in your life, which we're going to get into for people that are listening who don't know what they are yet? Had you not, had you been prepared differently? Or had you had, you know, a normal or a more loving or a more emotionally available father?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  That's an absolute truth. I mean, obviously as a child, no, I didn't want to have that. I probably would have traded to something different. But in hindsight and in, you know, in extended view, if I hadn't had that.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  How would I deal with all of the stuff?

• 25:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, maybe you would have buckled.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 25:09Rich Roll?

  So you wouldn't have been able to, you wouldn't have, maybe you would have never become a fighter. I mean, you can't even begin to answer that question, of course.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:17Rich Roll?

  But it would have looked pretty different, I think.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That's, that's, there, there is no doubt about it, not one.

• 25:22Rich Roll?

  But it is very cinematic. I mean, I can picture it, you know, very succinctly in my mind, how, the way you've described it. And so your dad is, he's this incredible athlete. He played in the first NBA game in history, right? Like 1946?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:38Rich Roll?

  So it was a weird story. Like, is it just the formation of the NBA and the, how did that happen?

• 25:43Speaker 01

  What happened with that was, the NBA season was supposed to start on November 2nd, 1946. And it did. But the note to that is, because he played for the Toronto Huskies, which were the original NBA teams, and they were playing the New York Knicks, and the Knicks were playing in Toronto. Well, on November 2nd, Toronto Maple Leafs were playing in the Gardens. Now, I don't really have to explain, anybody who understands hockey, that you're not, in Canada, you're not overriding hockey. So what they did is say, well, we have a game scheduled, so you're gonna have to play November 1st, Friday night before. So that's how that ended up being the first NBA game.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  Oh, the very first game.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Because it played on the day before the schedule actually started because of the inner, you know, the schedule interference in Toronto Gardens. So that's, that's how that happened.

• 26:38Rich Roll?

  There was some weird politics, though, right? Because his career wasn't that long. Like, it lasted a season or something?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  He played one year, and then in 1947, got an offer from a rival league that was starting, two jump leagues, and played in Atlanta. And he made the jump, and what happened was, they offered these big contracts, which were better than the NBA ones, but by, like, the first few games, they had run out of money. So they folded and just disappeared into the night. And the commissioner at that time decided to blackball.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Every player to try to come back because he, the league folded, he was signed by the Boston Celtics. You know, that could have ended up being probably pretty historic.

• 27:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that would have been, that would have been.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  What happened was he practiced for a few days and then it came down from the commissioner that they were going to ban everybody that jumped leagues.

• 27:29Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  And that's what happened. He had black ball.

• 27:31Rich Roll?

  So do you think, I mean, a little armchair psychology there that, you know, he had this unfulfilled dream that, you know, he wanted to see realized in you because he, he didn't get to play to his potential?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 27:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, I can sit here and psychoanalyze him for days, knowing some of the stories, like knowing how his mother was, knowing that, you know, he, he had got, you know, at the age of 18, got physically, you know, had an injury that was so bad in World War II that it affected him the rest of his life. And I can understand the psychology of that. I mean, he had a lot of things that can cause certain people to become very bitter.

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  So, you know, it wasn't just one thing he was dealing with. He had multiple ones. So, you know, I think a lot of that also led to him being extremely pissed off.

• 28:22Rich Roll?

  And a lot of that's running downhill. But as, you know, you're, when you're like six years old, he's starting to try to teach you how to fight. And I think that's about how old you were when he took you to the gym the first time, right?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  I was five when he really started, you know, the, the basement training that we used to do. And then, yeah, it was six, you know, his ideas once again, I'm going to take you to the all black part of town, into the boxing gym and leave you there. Or I'm going to take you to the, you know, the basketball courts and the playgrounds and leave you there. That's going to make you tough because, hey,

• 28:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Let's do the math. You're the only white guy. And, you know, not that anybody was, was, you know, particularly bad to me, but when you're the white boy, yeah, hey, they're gonna, they're gonna do what they do. I understand the psychology.

• 29:12Rich Roll?

  You're kind of a skinny, skinny, tall kid too, right?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know.

• 29:17Rich Roll?

  But, but, but honestly, when you get dropped off at that gym, there's a part of you that, you know, the, the light switch goes on.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:24Rich Roll?

  Right? Like you were, you were, you were kind of home.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Kind of.

• 29:27Rich Roll?

  And you start bonding with these old guys and, and you start showing up more and more and, and you really take to it.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, you know, it was just kind of. It was an epiphany.

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  I mean, if you could have an epiphany at that age, but you know, I did, it just, it just, it just felt right. You know this, I mean, there's certain things in your life that they just fit. It's like, you know, it's your piece of the puzzle connecting.

• 29:53Rich Roll?

  It goes together. Yeah, it's not a logic thing at all. It just happens. So.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:56Rich Roll?

  So you start going to the gym and I mean, you start flourishing into quite the athlete. I mean, you're playing every sport, you're excelling mostly at baseball, right? As a young kid.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Baseball and basketball.

• 30:06Rich Roll?

  Baseball and basketball. But you're still, you're still going to the gym, you're learning boxing, you start getting interested in kickboxing somewhere along the line. Um, and, and, uh, you're spending, uh, your free time in the Steelers locker room, right?

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:23Rich Roll?

  I mean, I want to talk about that a little bit, but really, really kind of what I'm thinking is you have, you have your dad at home. Who's this incredibly powerful personality over your life, but you have all these surrogate dads, all these older men in your life, all these amazing athletes and trainers of all different kinds of personalities who are kind of these mentors to a kid who was really young. I mean, when you were in the Steelers locker room pulling towels, you were what, seven or something?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  I started that like when I was six through when I was 17.

• 30:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  18 years old, because then I worked with them after I graduated from high school.

• 30:57Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  I worked for them full time and didn't go to, I didn't go to college right out of high school because of that.

• 31:03Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  So, yeah, but you know, when I was at the young age, that was the era of, you know, the teams that won.

• 31:10Rich Roll?

  Those were the great teams. Yeah. It was them and the Redskins, I remember at the time, but the Steelers, yeah, I mean, that was, that was the heyday. So that must've been super exciting.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  In hindsight, yes and no. I mean, I didn't really have any idea that it was, you know, when you're a kid, it just, it is what it is.

• 31:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  I didn't see anything special, but it, but yes, it was, it was fun and that, that group of guys, that there are all these legendary football players. Like how many Hall of Famers obviously were on that team and how great that those teams were, but they were just great guys. There were so many great, like just great human beings.

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  I've had the pleasure of being in Pittsburgh on a home game day and that's something else.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:51Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like, there's nothing else going on in town when that's happening, so.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  You better not talk about anything else.

• 31:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right, exactly. And for you to be, you know, right there with it as a young kid, I mean, I can't imagine the impression that that made on you with these world-class athletes.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  It was just, it was amazing because the noise in the old Three River Stadium, the noise that would resonate, it was just, it's unbelievable. I mean, I've been fortunate to be at some pretty crazy sporting events and obviously to fight overseas in some massive events, but that and it's the fact that everybody would come together, like you said, you know, obviously there's only 60,000 people in the stadium and obviously there's a lot more people in the city, but it would just, it was like the whole city would come together.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  It's, and you don't see that. I mean, yeah, sports fans in every city love their team, but the way that they, everybody mauls together in Pittsburgh on game days, like I said, you've been there, so you realize it's pretty, it's a pretty amazing experience.

• 32:58Rich Roll?

  It's for real.

• 33:11Rich Roll?

  And spending all that time around those athletes, you know, we're talking about guys like Lynn Swan, I mean, what is, what did you observe and what did you take away from just watching them that informed your approach to excelling as an athlete? Like, what were some of the habits that you witnessed or?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Weirdly enough, I mean, especially with, you know, my father's ideology.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  You know, coming into play as well was just a work ethic. I mean, I think that's what instilled my crazy work ethic and my training ideology from a young age. And a lot of those guys, you know, because I was interested, would let me like work out with them. I mean, you know, I'm a kid and I think I'm doing awesome, but you know. I used, there's, there's a thing called three fifties where they run around the entire field. And you time it and you try to get faster in each one. And Jack Ham, the, you know, the famous Hall of Fame linebacker was just ridiculous at it. His conditioning was unbelievable and I saw that as a great thing and he used to let me run with him.

• 34:20Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  I mean, he would, you know, kill me, but at the same time, you know, being at that age to, to work with such a, you know, a level of, or excuse me, an athlete of that level was just, was unbelievable experience. And it just led to my work ethic because I wanted to be like those guys.

• 34:39Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  You know, and I think that's what gave me such a, you know, the foray into strength and conditioning at a young age before. You know, strength and conditioning now is much different than it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And that, that was 30 plus years ago.

• 34:55Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  But it gave me that idea that in order to be the best athlete you can in your sport, you have to be, you know, conditioned and strong outside of it.

• 35:05Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  You know, doing your sport won't make you stronger, won't make you faster. But there are other things you can do in order to achieve that.

• 35:13Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  So that's, that's, that's what it instilled in me.

• 35:17Rich Roll?

  And you're a kid who, I mean, from the very get go, you wanted to be a professional athlete. Like it's your, one of your, I mean, in the book, it sounds like it's one of your earliest memories or aspirations, right?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  The fact that I was around it so much, you know, I spent. My entire childhood, like, obviously in the Steelers locker room, but being at the stadium all the time in the summer as well, I'd be around the Pirates constantly, you know, and the, my godfather, who was the equipment manager for the Steelers, was a professional hockey player.

• 35:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  And then obviously, my father was a professional athlete. So, to me, I was like, that's

• 35:53Rich Roll?

  This is what it's gonna be.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  The coolest thing ever. You know, I, I, I would take batting lessons with, you know, not that this name's gonna mean anything to people now, but like Billy Williams, who was the hitting instructor for the Cubs in the eighties, was a Hall of Famer, had 426 home runs in his career. And these were the guys that I used to do, take batting lessons from, play catch with Barry Bonds, play catch with Andre Dawson.

• 36:15Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  That was just my childhood.

• 36:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  You know, so that, that, you know, and I'd see those guys performing, and like Andre Dawson almost wins a triple crown in 1987, and, you know, I'm playing catch with them.

• 36:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  That summer. So, to me, it's like, that's what I wanna do. I see what these guys are doing.

• 36:34Rich Roll?

  How old were you, is this in high school, or even younger?

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Right before I was 16. Like, 1980, summer of, uh, uh, of 87 was I turned 16, that September. So, I was 15 years old, and, you know, and had just finished up my baseball season, and now I'm, you know, getting tips from Hall of Famers and, and playing catch with Hall of Famers.

• 36:55Rich Roll?

  Right, and, and one thing we haven't even gotten into yet is, is really the health conditions that you were born into, right? So, out of the gate, type 1 diabetes. How old were you when you were diagnosed with that?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Nine years old.

• 37:08Rich Roll?

  At nine.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  And then I was also born with CHD.

• 37:11Rich Roll?

  Right, congenital, uh, congenital heart

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Heart defect.

• 37:15Rich Roll?

  Defect, right, so explain what that means exactly.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Uh, general heart defect means you're, you know, you're born with, there's a whole list of different things it can be, but what mine was, excuse me, was I was born with a aortic valve that never formed correctly. So, from my, you know, young kids, they were able to diagnose it and knew that I had it. So, I mean,

• 37:42Speaker 01

  I can't say because in those days because doctors still do the same thing now because I deal with families every day that that have children with CHD and doctors do a lot of CYA on that, you know, don't do anything that can compromise you, don't work out. My father was crazy and that was one of the things where his craziness was good because he's like, you do whatever.

• 38:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  We're not gonna listen to them, we're not gonna let that hold you back, which you could say maybe that was bad parenting because he's sticking the middle finger up to doctors. But it's hard to argue with what I accomplished, you know, as an athlete.

• 38:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  So I'm thankful that he did do that and that he did, you know, let me just go and do whatever I had to do.

• 38:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and so when you're, you know, when you're a kid and you're going to the gym and you're learning about boxing and baseball practice and playing basketball, I mean, is this in the back of your mind all the time? Like, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I have this thing that other kid, or you're just not, you're not even thinking about it?

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Never entered in my mind. You know, fortunately, unfortunately, whatever, my mindset, the way that I I am, it just, it's like, okay.

• 38:48Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  What do I have? Okay, what do I have to do? Even from that, you know, from a young age, okay, so I do it. You know, somebody tells me I have to get up at six o'clock in the morning and, you know, take this pill to maintain health. Okay, so I do it.

• 39:04Rich Roll?

  Right. You don't think about it, you don't dwell on it.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Never did. And that was the freedom that my father did give me is, you know, with all the bad, there's always good. And he did give me the freedom to just, hey, do whatever this, this, this doesn't, this doesn't control you.

• 39:25Rich Roll?

  And to challenge authority, challenge conventional wisdom, and to not be afraid of, you know, somebody telling you, you can't, or you shouldn't.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:34Rich Roll?

  Right? Instead, it's the opposite, actually. Someone tells you, you know, you shouldn't or you can't, you're, that's gonna just motivate you to go the other way.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  I think I actually, I'm gonna see if, I, I, I saw a quote yesterday that I thought was really fitting.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Speak boldly and with intellect. Never hush your voice for someone's comfort. Speak your mind, make people uncomfortable. That's actually, you know, I think, I think a good one, you know, and then Muhammad Ali, I found this one yesterday as well. Impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration, it's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. And I've kind of lived my life that way.

• 40:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I like that. I hear impossible is nothing all the time, but I never, I don't know that I heard the whole.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the whole, exactly. Like, I've heard that the impossible was nothing, but that's the original quote. And I was like, it's amazing, you know, to come up with something that, that quote's probably, let's think, as long as he's been around forty, fifty years old, and, you know, I'm forty-three years old, and that was the first time I heard it. That makes me happy to find stuff like that. It's awesome.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's gonna go in the next book, right?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:55Rich Roll?

  All right, so by the time you're a senior in high school, you've become this pretty prominent baseball player, right? And the prospect of going professional is very real at that time, right? And meanwhile, you're falling in love with, with, with fighting. And so you have this decision to make, you know, are you gonna pursue baseball, or are you gonna pursue fighting? And it's pretty interesting how you decide to navigate that.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Well, I end up getting a scholarship to play basketball, and, you know, I do it my freshman year, but I just get more and more, you know, enamored with, with, with fighting. Plus, I also had an injury when, you know, after my, well, during my freshman year. And the fact that I played consistently, like, nonstop, you know, playing in the winter, playing spring, playing summer, kind of burnt me out a little bit. And I think, you know, as my sophomore year started, and I started playing fall ball again, which meant I was

• 42:05Speaker 01

  continuing the nonstop road.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  I think that it it kind of helped make me make that decision. Because you know, I'm also training in, you know, obviously still martial arts, but in kickboxing as well. And I think, you know, my love for that, wanting to pursue it more.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  The fact that it's becoming more and more real with, you know, being on TV, being on pay-per-view, you know, kickboxing, sport of the 90s, which was what, which was what, you know, Joe Corley, who was the big promoter, always said, and then it's also said in Say Anything, you know, "Kickboxing's the sport of the future."

• 42:45Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  I was the real-life Floyd Dobler. And I've told, I actually signed Cameron Crowe's book and wrote that in his book as I signed it.

• 42:52Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  So, I was like, "I'm the real-life Floyd Dobler."

• 42:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's kind of a running joke in your book, like, you know, because no one's ever heard of it, and then Say Anything comes out, and that becomes your anthem.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 43:02Rich Roll?

  You know, you're going around.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Come on, major Hollywood movie, see? They know, so, yeah.

• 43:08Rich Roll?

  But where does, where does the, the spark for kickboxing first enter? I mean, you're going to the boxing gym, really. This is not, it's not like there are kickboxing studios all over Pittsburgh.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  No, there are, basically nowhere. There's, there's hardly in the 80s that many martial arts gyms.

• 43:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  I mean, I used to do-

• 43:25Rich Roll?

  It's hard to imagine pre-MMA, because it's so everywhere.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  It's a 30-mile round trip.

• 43:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  But, you know, that's, I, I, that's where you had to go. So what happens is, obviously, I go to the boxing gym. So I'm, I'm learning boxing. I, I, I do martial arts, so I know martial arts. And I'm doing Korean styles a- as a youngster, which are very kick-heavy.

• 43:48Rich Roll?

  Why, why do you think you chose that over karate or something like that?

• 43:53Speaker 01

  I did, because that was the best sport in my area.

• 43:55Rich Roll?

  Gotcha.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  It was like, there wasn't any real decision, you know, now people can pick and choose. And I went with that because that was the good school that was in my area.

• 44:07Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  And, you know, there it was a kick-heavy style, so and I loved kicks. So then in the mid eighties ESPN used to have like Tuesday night fights, which were kickboxing. They had the PKA, Professional Kickboxing Association.

• 44:22Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Which isn't like kickboxing that I did. Obviously, it's the, you know, the early era style where everything kicks were above the waist. It was really point fighting, like point karate fighting with, you know, full contact. That's why it was called full contact.

• 44:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  And, you know, there were fights on Wild World Sports on Sunday afternoon. You know, so this was like, wow, I I can actually see people doing what I do and they're using kicks and they're using punches. I train both and.

• 44:51Rich Roll?

  And at that time, where were the great kickboxers? Was that in Russia or Japan or?

• 44:57Speaker 01

  No, it was it was basically an American sport at that time.

• 45:01Rich Roll?

  It was.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like full contact karate, which was what they called kickboxing.

• 45:05Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Was basically an American sport. Like, you know, you had Rick Rufus, was a great fighter out of Milwaukee. Then you had Maurice Smith out of, which they're all in the book because they all became my friends, weirdly enough.

• 45:17Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  You had, you know, Maurice Smith in Seattle. Out here, you had Dennis Alexio, Don Wilson was in Florida. John Uterio, there was a lot of good Canadian fighters, like especially Montreal, had a lot of great fighters. And then there were great kickboxers in France. Obviously, the Netherlands are the best countries in Europe. And those guys kind of adapted. What they were doing was Muay Thai or real kickboxing and they adapted to do that style. But out of the eighties, early nineties, mid nineties, then it evolved into what we really consider kickboxing.

• 45:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  By the. You know, by the late 90s. So it was, that was a different era. But you know, it was American. So they had to push Americans.

• 46:05Rich Roll?

  Right. So you're, all right. So you're getting burned out on baseball, even though, you know, you have these, these pro prospects. You're sure, you're having shoulder problems, right? Like you're a pitcher and you're burning out your.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Cause they, their, their idea was, you know, we're just gonna give them cortisone shots and you just keep throwing. So all it did was numb the pain.

• 46:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's not really solving anything.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  I wasn't healing anything and I'm, you know, I'm 18 years old. So they're like, just.

• 46:29Rich Roll?

  Just power through.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Just power through. And I did because, you know, my mindset, obviously, which if you read Pain Don't Hurt, shameless plug.

• 46:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  You know, that was my mindset. It's like, I'll just power through it. I'll show them. And that's what I did. And I literally, I don't think from the spring of my senior year in high school, until the fall of my sophomore year, I never stopped throwing. Cause literally I went from spring ball to summer ball to fall ball, back to spring ball. I mean, it just, it never stopped.

• 47:01Rich Roll?

  Who's throwing year round? I mean, that's, that's kind of crazy, right?

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that was, that went nonstop for like, basically almost two years. And by the, at that time, my arm was just shot.

• 47:16Rich Roll?

  It was shot. But I mean, really the, it seemed to me, and what I got out of the book, it was your decision to move away from baseball had less to do with, you know, sort of just being generally burned out on the sport. But really, this idea of gravitating towards a more individual sport as opposed to a team sport, right? This sort of self reliance.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  You know, which is kind of a theme of, of the book and your, and your story. And, and, you know, I find that interesting. I mean, obviously when you compete at the highest level in, in any discipline, it's a team effort. No matter how individual the sport is, you can't get there without, you know, the right kind of support people behind you. But there is a big difference between something like baseball and something like, you know, being, being a fighter and. You know, although I'm furthest thing from a fighter, you know, my sports are individual too, and I relate to that. And I think there's something about individual sport being a more attractive to somebody who is in, who's trying to work something out, like emotionally. You know what I mean? Because you're only relying on yourself. It allows you to kind

• 48:20Rich Roll?

  of isolate and, and work through your pain in a different kind of sort of self-exorcism.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you don't, you don't have to rely on anybody. And the sport's all about you, everything. I mean, you have coaches, obviously. But, you know, they, they're not going in the ring with you. So, and there's nobody else to rely on. And yeah, you're, you're, you're working a lot of shit out. I mean,

• 48:43Rich Roll?

  I mean, were you conscious of that at the time?

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yes and no. I mean, I mean, there was some part of me that, that was, was grabbing onto that. But in those days, I kind of like tried to, you know, push, I was fulfilling my father's prophecy. I was trying to push, you know, any kind of emotion out of anything. Like I just, I just do, you know? And I think it was more about just the challenge. Athletes love challenges. And, you know, when it's just you, and it's you mano a mano, yeah, that's, that's, that's quite the challenge. I mean, there's no other challenge in sports that's quite as daring, obviously, is I hit you, you hit me.

• 49:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Not that I'm putting, you know, that's not me putting the sport above any other sport, but it is different. Let's be honest.

• 49:35Rich Roll?

  It's very different. It's very different. And it's also extremely unusual that somebody who's specializing in baseball would move over to fighting, you know, which I think is a testament to your athletic ability, because it's one thing if you're a boxer and you go into kickboxing, but to go from something so different, you know, that requires such a different sort of skill set on certain level to, to fighting is, is a pretty big gap.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  A lot of that was ego, though. I'll, I'll be honest with you. I was one of those people that was so athletic. I was fortunately athletically gifted in that I could run fast, jump high, you know, do things like that, and that I, I wanted to excel in every sport, you know, if we were playing volleyball in the backyard, I wanted to, I was so competitive and just loved the idea of sports that I just wanted to be the best at everything, even when, you know.

• 50:24Rich Roll?

  Say I can do this and I can do this too.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 50:27Rich Roll?

  Watch, just watch me.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:29Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  It's one of those things, you're, you're a teenager and doesn't know any better. You think you do, but yeah.

• 50:35Rich Roll?

  So you commit to this, your dad's not happy about this though, his, his dreams of having a son play major league baseball, you know, taken off the table.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Which is weird, you think he would like something tough guy, you think he would like something tough guy like that, but I think it was more.

• 50:49Rich Roll?

  Well, kickboxing, I mean, if you said you were going to be a boxer, maybe that would have gone down easier.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  But it's not really that well-known of a sport, obviously.

• 50:56Rich Roll?

  Right, it's like, what is this?

• 50:57Speaker 01

  You know, so, yeah, I mean, I think the thing he loved about baseball was A, the longevity of the career and B, yeah, they pays a shitload of money, let's, let's be honest, and you have the most longevity of any sport, you know, it has, it has obviously way longer than, you know, football or basketball. So.

• 51:19Rich Roll?

  But part of your decision really also, and you, you're pretty explicit about this in the book, was this idea of saying F you to your dad, you know, because you knew that he was going to be the guy at the bar who's telling all his buddies about, you know, what you're doing on the field and, and you wanted, you wanted to deny him that.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:37Rich Roll?

  Privilege.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely, because, you know, I, I was also coming to my own at that age, it's, you know, your self-actualization as a, as a teenager and I was starting to rebel. He was getting older as well, so, you know, there wasn't that kind of, he could still talk a lot, but let's be honest.

• 51:56Rich Roll?

  The listening.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  How, how are you gonna, you're not gonna catch me.

• 51:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're not.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  What are you gonna do, you're not gonna, you're not gonna hand those beat downs to me like you did when I was a kid, and plus, you know, yeah, I'm, I'm doing something where I'm the ass kicker and tables have turned and he used to still run his mouth like, I'll do this, and I'm like, okay.

• 52:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  I'm like, you know, and that's when I used to start, I got to the point where I started like, would have been amazing to think of six year old me doing this, but I got to the point like, go for it. Bring your crowbar and I told him one time, I'm forgetting, he used to always give me the Susan Roebuck crowbar. I'm like, wow, okay. I said, what's it gonna look like when you have one of those sticking out of your ass? I know I told him, he got so livid with me, but it's like, what are you gonna do? You can't catch me. You know, and I used to, I, I got to the point where, yeah, before we really stopped, you know, having communication at all, that happened in my, uh, in my twenties. I, I, yeah, I started running my mouth. I absolutely did, but I, I think, I kind of think it had to happen.

• 52:55Rich Roll?

  Well, there had to be an incredible amount of pent up anger.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:58Rich Roll?

  Resentment that was eventually gonna come out.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  E- e- e- exactly. I, I think, you know, from an emotional standpoint, if I hadn't released it, you know, you'd probably be talking to me from a cell.

• 53:09Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  As, you know, I became, you know, a serial killer doing who knows what dumb shit. Because, you know, that, that, that was a definite possibility if, if I hadn't had the focus to do, you know, athletics.

• 53:23Rich Roll?

  Right, which brings up this, this idea of, you know, how fighters really, um, you know, work out their aggression in a, i- i- in some ways in a healthy way, you know, like, there's this idea that's promoted by kind of MMA marketing, like the badass guy walking around with the Tapout shirt and, and, you know, sc- scowling at everybody and somebody to be feared and like the fighters that I know are like the coolest dudes, like they're just grounded and mellow, cause they work it out in the gym.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 53:54Rich Roll?

  In the ring, and when you meet them out of that context, you wouldn't even know that they were fighters.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  And, yeah.

• 54:01Rich Roll?

  And it's so different.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  I hear that all the time.

• 54:02Rich Roll?

  It's so different from that MMA, UFC kind of.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  But let's say UFC, I'm, I'm gonna put that out there. I'm, I'm gonna take MMA out of it, which, you know, unfortunately, but that's the UFC marketing model, you know, and.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  They they love going up to the eighteen to thirty four market, which, you know, they've already cornered, but yet let's continue to market just to them.

• 54:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's it's very WWE in my opinion.

• 54:31Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm never gonna get, you know, offered anything with the UFC, so I'm I'm

• 54:36Rich Roll?

  You can talk out of school right now.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  I'm gonna be brutally honest. You know, I mean, I've I I I've dealt with them. I've dealt with a lot of I know a lot of fighters that that that fighter have fought for them and, you know, I don't think it helps us in the long run. It doesn't help the sport in the long run if you're gonna market it as that. That's just, you know, in my

• 54:55Rich Roll?

  As that being what, like this?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  As that being the thing that that's the idea, the idea you wanna give people fighters. Fighters have enough a tough enough time because they're fighters. There's there's always that like, oh, because you hit people for a living. But, you know, to market it as this this savage thing and everybody's making these faces, you know, I'm scowling now for since we're on radio, but it bothers me as a fighter with, you know, a shred of common sense. And I know it bothers most fighters because it's like, oh, come on, dude, really? You're gonna market us like that? And, you know, Chris Leibn, the ex UFC fighter, had a great quote where he said that, you know, strippers and fighters, we're all working out something up on stage or in that in that cage or in that ring. And I

• 55:43Rich Roll?

  Lot of daddy issues.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Exactly. I I I agree with that. But the the way they try to to market it as this like, you know, this savage ass kicking thing, come on. Like you said, you've met fighters. No, no fighters think like that. Are there a couple? Yeah, that's it's gonna happen in any any sport or any job. There's always

• 56:02Rich Roll?

  I think the higher you go up in level and accomplishment, the less

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I talk about that in the book. I mean, you know, there's I've had people say that, like, wow, you know, I remember taking the guy that I I ran a gym with in the the late nineties, early two thousands. I took him to a K one fight in Vegas with me. He meets all these legendary fighters from overseas. He's like, these guys are like the coolest guys in the world. Why don't they have any? They're not like, oh, I said, because What do I have to prove?

• 56:29Rich Roll?

  They don't have anything to prove.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  I have nothing to prove. It's like, I know I can kick the toughest guys in the world's asses. Why would I be a jerk to you? And it's like, I think a lot of people forget at the end of the day, it's sport. It's a sport. It's no different than football, like football players, basketball players. They're trying to prove they're the best at their sport. That's all fighters are trying to do. This isn't like, you know, a tough guy contest.

• 56:54Rich Roll?

  It's a little bit different though, because if you're, for example, if you're in a bar and a fight breaks out, you know that you have a very specific, well honed skillset that could, you know, take these guys down. And they may not be aware of that. So that, I think that carries a certain responsibility with it as well. Like where, when are you gonna use that and when are you gonna refrain from using that?

• 57:19Rich Roll?

  You know, and so that, I think that makes it a little bit different from, yeah, it makes it a little bit different from like a basketball player, for example.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Well, he doesn't, he doesn't have that, you know, when, when, when a basketball player goes out, unless you're Charles Barkley, you know, there, there's not that inherent, there's two ways people approach you, which is so strange to me. They either think you're some superhuman ass kicker who can do things that are just, you know, mythical, or they want to challenge you.

• 57:48Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Both are wrong. You know, you, you don't want to challenge me. That's ridiculous. And I'm not this invincible ass kicker. Neither of those are right, you know. So I think, yeah, inherently, there isn't that position you're put in as a professional basketball player, you know, going out, you know, or a baseball player, or even a football player. Football players are big, strong guys, but I don't think it's the same, that same mentality where people, you know, think, oh, it's a fight guy.

• 58:21Rich Roll?

  Well, it's weird too that in, it's not even really like that with boxers. Like boxers are not marketed with the scowl that, you know, the sort of UFC image that comes to mind is. You know what I mean? Like, like you think of the hardcore UFC guy, that's very different than how you think of a boxer. Because of, because of marketing, not, not in reality.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, and I tend to. I tend to be more in line with that, that marketing. They're, they're still athletes. You know, they don't, you know, there's just this inherent tough guy thing that, that UFC likes to push.

• 58:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  You know, I'm like, I, like I, I say many times, you know, I'm not a tough guy. I'm just a good fighter.

• 59:04Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. You're an athlete.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 59:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right. So let's get back to that part. So he, so you start kickboxing and you go pro. You're starting to travel the world and you're winning some fights. You know, what's going on with you around that time? You're in your, I don't know, I guess, early twenties?

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, like most of the success, like it was mid twenties. You know, I really didn't have

• 59:30Speaker 01

  that much of a life outside of like, I obviously have my hobbies and my.

• 59:34Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. You, well, you moved to, you moved to Seattle and this is where you really start to train and take it seriously.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  I was so.

• 59:40Rich Roll?

  You're just living and breathing training.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  That's all.

• 59:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  You know, I was one of those guys that like I'd fight on a Saturday and be back in the gym on Monday.

• 59:46Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Like even if you say, I'm going to take a little time off. I never did. And I was just so, especially with the fact that K one was trying to grow and it was obviously so massive overseas, but then they, you know, they tempt us with the, we want to come to America and then we want to build an American fighter and, you know,

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  you know, historically Americans had not done well in that type of fighting. There was a handful of guys that have ever even done it, let alone excel at it. Nobody, you know, Maurice Smith at that time is the only American that has fought in the grand prix final, which is the final eight that they have every December. So, you know, when they say that in 98, they want to come here and they want to start building. It's like, oh, okay.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  Right. So you're seeing like a real career path ahead of you, if you play your cards right.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So, you know.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  I, you know, I went to the, the, the creator and promoter, he was Kazuya Suishi. And we're in a nightclub in, in Vegas the night before the fights and I went right up to him. He spoke a little, very little Japanese, or very little, uh, English. And I went right up to him, I told him, you know, you said you were looking for American Fire. He goes, yes, yes. I go, I'm your guy. I said, tomorrow night, I'm gonna prove it.

• 1:01:10Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  And I went out and got, you know, had a big knockdown on the fight. So it was like, yeah, you know, this is.

• 1:01:16Rich Roll?

  This is going in the right direction.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Going exactly as I had planned it, all the training and, and everything that I have, all this, you know, blood, sweat, tears I've put into it is starting to come to fruition. And the problem, you know, became, besides, you know, my, my mental issues that I started, you know, suffering, cause I lost a fight. You know, a little bit more down the road. And then the fact that, you know, one of the big fighters ended up dying and it kinda became a freak show. Cause Japan can very easily become a freak show. Cause, you know, big people are such a big deal over there that, you know, when, when Bob Sapp entered the, the arena a- as a fighter in Japan,

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  it became a freak show and it was like, let's find guys that are.

• 1:02:04Rich Roll?

  Fanatical, like fanatical fandom.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Let's find some seven foot, four hundred pound guy to fight. And, and the real fighters kinda started taking a backseat. And the combination of that and, you know, my own, you know, issues that, that I was suffering. Cause I could not, like, I ended up losing a fight and I could just not, I could not get over it mentally, which was weird to me because I was always, you know, that was always my thing, mentally strong, get through anything. But at the same time.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  I had a real issue with living in the past. Like, I would sit there and dissect the fight. If I would have done this and wouldn't have done that, this would have happened. It was like, I just could not get over the fact that I had lost. So, I think that became, you know, that and then, you know, that was still before the heart issue stuff happened.

• 1:03:01Rich Roll?

  Right, which we're starting to inch up towards right now. So, so you're doing well, but you're having some setbacks. It's not like you're, you're going, you know, 10 fights in a row without losing a fight. You're moving up, but you've got, you, you, you still have some Achilles heel, right? And so this, this idea of like, having difficulty getting over a loss is kind of like your hamstring. Is that fair or no?

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes and no, because, you know, at this point, I have, you know, still fighting a lot of, you know, the top Americans as opposed to any of the big overseas names. So, in actuality, my metal had not really been tested in that way. But, I just think there, there, there were so many, how do I say? Extenuating circumstances going on in my life. And, and, and with training, like trying to find a home. Because I was kind of jumping around by that point with who I was training with. So I was just trying to find the right fit.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  So, if this didn't seem right, and I would find at that point, and that was part of, you know, the mental issues was, I could find like one little thing. It's like with a girl, dating a girl, but you find like one little thing and so,

• 1:04:19Rich Roll?

  You just focus on that.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  I can't commit to that.

• 1:04:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  So you focus on that and then it, it starts messing with everything else. And I was doing things like that. I was playing mind games with myself. I mean, it was self-created, but those are the worst kind of mind games.

• 1:04:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:45Rich Roll?

  Alright, so this is around 2006, right? When you're kind of mixing it up with these fights.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:53Rich Roll?

  And heading into 2007, this is where kind of the whole, everything starts to shift.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Well, it was right at the end of 2006.

• 1:05:00Rich Roll?

  End of 2006. So, you're getting ready for, you're getting ready for a fight and you have to get, you know, you have to get a medical exam, right? You have to get sign off. And so, yeah, walk me through, you know, what happened? Because this sort of, this is where everything kind of shifts into a different gear.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  This is where the bottom.

• 1:05:17Rich Roll?

  This is where the real story?

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Rich Roll?

  This is where the real story begins.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  What happens is, I'm training in Arizona. I'm working with Rick Rufus as like his trainer to help him get ready for fights. And then I end up getting an offer from an organization out of Thailand called S1, which is a massive organization in Thailand. They run all the biggest fights. And they let me know they're gonna do their first event in the United States, ever. They're gonna do it in Miami. And it's gonna be in August of 2006. This is like, April. So, they offer me a fight in eight man tournament. But it's gonna be full Muay Thai rules. Which to me is cool because not many heavyweights have fought full Muay Thai rules.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  I have, so it's like, cool. I got a big advantage here. So, you know, I start getting prepped and getting ready. And, you know, I'm running like, South Mountain, which is in, in, just massive mountain outside of, of Phoenix, which like if you drive your car from the bottom to the top, it's 3.2 miles. And it's all up, like snake run. And I would run that. A mountain, which if you've seen, if you've watched football games, they show Sun Devil Stadium, it's the one with the A on top of it. It's like, where the lights are on top. And it's like a straight climb. If you ever do it, it's literally like this.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  So, I'm running that. So, I'm having back issues. And it's bothering me, so I decide to fly back to Pittsburgh to see my orthopedic surgeon, who has done like my shoulder in the past.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  He worked with like the Steelers and the Pirates. So I go back there to get my back looked at and they tell me you just gotta rest. I mean, it's just, you know, you had surgery on it in the past. It's just, it's getting a little worked over. So I'm like, yeah, okay, doc. So.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, if that's not gonna work, you're getting ready for, this is a huge opportunity.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Absolutely. But while I'm there, I also go to get my licensing testing done for the fight in Florida. Cause you have to get, you know, licensed by the Florida State Athletic Commission in order to fight in said state. And they have certain things they have to have you run through, tests, it's, you know, it's very common. And what happens is when they do the tests, my EKG comes back a little funky. And knowing that I have this pre-existing condition from having the, you know, the CHD. They're like, they recommend that I go see a, you know, a cardiologist. So to make everybody happy, I do.

• 1:08:11Rich Roll?

  Right, but you're like, you know, I've been dealing with this my whole life. This is no big deal.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  They're like, we're gonna do an echocardiogram. Cool. As long as this gets you to sign off and I'm able to proceed forward to get my license, that all works out for me. So I get the echocardiogram done. All right. I have the appointment in Pittsburgh with the orthopedic surgeon. He tells me that, yeah, I'm okay, I gotta, you know, sure, I'll rest. Literally as I'm walking out of the hospital, my phone rings. It's the nurse for the cardiologist and she goes, um, let me ask you. You, you, can you talk right now? And I'm like, uh.

• 1:08:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it doesn't sound good.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  I'm like, I just know it's weird being around doctors my whole life. When the doctor doesn't call you himself, you know, he needs to see you in the office tomorrow morning. You can't just tell me over the phone? He needs to see you in the office in the morning. I knew something was up. So I went to that appointment and he told me that, you know, my, uh, my cardiac output was like just ridiculous and.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  That, you know, basically I'd have to get surgery.

• 1:09:22Rich Roll?

  So the, yeah, the car that your cardiac output is at 20%, whereas a normal human being is at like 65%

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:09:30Rich Roll?

  Or something like that. And for somebody who's on, so, I mean, what does that mean? Does that mean that you're not pumping blood as efficiently? Like, I don't

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Means you're not, you're not, your output isn't efficient at all. But what was happening with me was my heart ended up massively enlarging because it was pumping really hard in order to compensate.

• 1:09:50Rich Roll?

  Compensate for that, right?

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  And then it blew up, but because it blew up so much, now how it was compensating and letting me train was now going to kill me if I continue to train.

• 1:09:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  So it was, you know, like

• 1:10:01Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  One thing led to another. So of course I

• 1:10:04Rich Roll?

  So all the training, all the training was actually contributing to making this a bigger problem.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And of course I was like, no, I want a second opinion. So I go get the second opinion. They do a esophageal echocardiogram when they go down your throat. And it comes back even worse.

• 1:10:21Rich Roll?

  Guys like it's 15, right?

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  It's 15. He's like, you have to get surgery right now. And of course, you know, he had a crappy bedside manner. So I was like, you know, screw this guy. So of course I didn't listen. And, you know, I met with my cardiologist and he's like, dude, no, you can't do this. And I was like, well, I'm going to. So I even get my eye test done.

• 1:10:47Rich Roll?

  Stubborn, stubborn like your dad.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  I get the eye test.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  I get the eye test done, you know, so that passes with the state. I go, decided to go to Austin, Texas to train for this fight. And I, you know,

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  I trained one day, second day I go in, I'm training, first round of pads, I'm doing pads all out. Get done with the first round. Bell rings, round's done. Trainer goes, we're done. I'm like, what do you mean you were done? He goes, fuck you, go look at yourself. And I'm like, what? He goes, go in the locker room, look at yourself. I go in the locker room, I'm literally like blue. I'm like a shade of blue. He's like, I'm not doing anything for you. We're done. So I was like, wow. He's, he's probably right. So I actually called my cardologist like right then.

• 1:11:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think I'm rethinking this.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  And I told him and he's like, I'm gonna be honest with you. I've actually done some research. And he goes, cause that was like my big spiel was I can't fight. I wanna be able to fight. He's like, but you could, you know, you could die while you're training or in the ring. I go, so I die happy. That's exactly what I told him. And he goes, I've actually done some research and there is a procedure that if you're eligible for it, they can do where you'll be able to come back to fight.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  And he said, there's a guy that played for the 49ers that did it in 1997. And I was like, wow, really? And you know, big ups to him for doing all that research and finding out what, what was possible. And that's what started the road to getting, you know, the surgery. I ended up getting the surgery a month later.

• 1:12:27Rich Roll?

  Right. So you go back to Pittsburgh, you have this surgical procedure, which essentially what do they do? They, they like, uh, it's like a aortic, they put in an aortic valve or something like that?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  They just completely, they completely replaced it. Completely.

• 1:12:41Rich Roll?

  Replace the entire valve. So what do they replace it with?

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Originally, they were gonna do what's called the Ross procedure, which means they put, put a cadaver valve in. And they said I could do it because I was in such good, you know, physical condition. That was, that's their big concern. And that's why they do it mostly with athletes. They decided that they didn't have to do it like the week before and decided to go with it's a bovine valve, which is a, you know, a, a, a, a pig valve. It's because they're very similar to ours. So they basically put a pig's aorta into your, into your.

• 1:13:23Rich Roll?

  Into your heart. So what is that? Why is that better than a cadaver? Like, what is the difference?

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  I guess the deal is they don't have to, like, they use, they prefer to put mechanicals in. But if I want to come back to fight, I can't have a mechanical valve because they would never, because I have to be on Cooperon.

• 1:13:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  For the rest of your life and they didn't wanna, they did, you know, they can't take that chance. So I, the trade off was I'd be able to come back to fight. But I have to get to surgery again within fifteen to twenty years. They told me straight up. So my trade off was,

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  okay, fifteen, twenty years.

• 1:13:56Rich Roll?

  Fifteen, twenty years is a lifetime.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  I was thirty five at the time. So yeah, I'm not gonna be fighting. So let's do it. And they were like, okay. And they're like, but there, there's this catch that even if we do this, you might not be able to come back to fight. Because your heart has gotten so massively enlarged that it might not come down, even with the procedure being done. It might not come, you know, the, the ventricle might not come back down. I was like, at this point, it's fifty fifty. It's worth it to me. You know what I mean? So

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  I, I ended up, you know, saying, let, let, let's do the procedure and, you know, we ended up doing it. And the, with the catch was we have to do, within twelve weeks, we're gonna have to do another echocardiogram. To see if the, you know, heart rate has come down and what's your ejection fraction is, you know, to see if it had come back up from fifteen. And I was so focused at this time with everything, just do everything the way they want it to be done that I was moving so quickly ahead of schedule with my rehab that after, six weeks after surgery, like, we're gonna do the echocardiogram. I was like, you guys said twelve weeks. They're like, well, we're gonna find out. So they did the echocardiogram and like that day was just like,

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  and I had started actual rehab too as well. Like, you know, I'd go to the hospital and they would put me through a bunch of different things. And

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Next morning, I get the phone call. He goes, he goes, I'm just gonna say you're a freak of nature. He goes, he goes, not only has your, you know, left ventricle come back down to normal size, he goes, your cardiac output is already 60.

• 1:15:38Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  He says, so.

• 1:15:39Rich Roll?

  It's almost essentially normal.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:41Rich Roll?

  Right. And so you get the green light to go train again.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Well, I.

• 1:15:45Rich Roll?

  I mean, what is the?

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  They, I didn't do anything because they were so worried, but when they rip your chest open, they get very touchy about that.

• 1:15:50Rich Roll?

  I mean, let's be clear, they cracked your chest wide open. This is not a small.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  They saw it in half, they opened it up.

• 1:15:55Rich Roll?

  This is not like orthoscopic surgery. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  So the big thing was they told me nothing for 12 weeks. Can't lift more than five pounds, can't do this, can't do, there's a whole list of can't do's. So they said 12 weeks, right? So being somebody that always never listened, I'm like, I'm listening this time. And they told me 12 weeks. So guess how many I'm gonna do? 13. I give them an extra week. So that's what I did. And I ended up getting cleared for training. And that's when everything else started. Like, you know, with my father and my mother.

• 1:16:26Rich Roll?

  Right. So you're thinking, all right, now I'm gonna train and I'm gonna fight again. And then you get hit with a whole slew of other things coming your way that you gotta navigate. Both your, your, your, your father passes away, your mother passes away shortly thereafter. And we haven't even talked about your brother, or I suppose it's your half brother, correct? But you grew up with him, older brother.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:47Rich Roll?

  Uh, who is essentially, you know, a lifelong drug addict in and out of your life, who eventually sort of does what you all expected him to do one day, which is overdose.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:59Rich Roll?

  And.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Which it was.

• 1:17:00Rich Roll?

  The book is, it's so painful to read the book and to hear about, you know, how he comes in and out of your family's life and to, and to see that decay just happening before your very eyes. And, and you just, you know where it's headed. Right?

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where I, this sounds terrible, but.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, how did it take this long? I mean, he was an addict for thirty years. And the one thing I will say that I was happy about is at least he waited till both my parents had passed. That was the one, you know, good thing. I mean, if that sounds selfish, whatever, I'm just glad that they had passed before it finally happened with him. And I mean, that was a rough thing for me because I always had a very weird relationship with him. I, you know, I really looked up to him as a kid, but then seeing his constant trouble and his ability to make bad things worse, never get out of his own way. You know, it was saddening and it's kind of like, you know,

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  seeing the downfall of a hero. Because you don't know, it's like, that's your older brother, that's a kid, as a kid, that's a big deal.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  And he was cool. He was like the cool older brother because he did cool things. He was into cool things, you know, gave me ideas on music and just things, you know, popular culture as a as a kid and he, you know,

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  he was a rebel. I mean, yeah, he was, he was really screwed up. Obviously because of his, you know, his addiction to drugs and the lifestyle that he led, but he was a rebel. He did his own thing. You know, much like my father is much of a, you know, jerk as he could be, still he was very, you know, his own person.

• 1:18:51Rich Roll?

  Right, this iconoclast.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:54Rich Roll?

  I mean, as somebody who's sober now and you kind of, you know, I would imagine, you know, as a result of being sober a number of years and kind of what you've learned as a result of being in recovery, I mean, do you look back on your brother and perceive it differently or, you know, was there ever a moment where he tried to get sober and it didn't stick or you don't even know?

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  He did, but his were always bullshit attempts, do you know what I mean?

• 1:19:19Rich Roll?

  For somebody else.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Exactly. You know, so.

• 1:19:25Rich Roll?

  He never reached that moment where he really wanted it for himself.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  No, no. And like, you know, his idea was, well, I'm just drinking now. Or I'm just smoking weed now because, I mean, he was a garbage pill addict. I mean, he did. You know, he did everything. He was one of the people.

• 1:19:40Rich Roll?

  I mean, in the end, was it heroin or what was it? Cause you weren't very, you weren't very descriptive.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  It was heroin i- i- at the particular, you know, a- at the moment when he, they, they found his, his body. So, you know.

• 1:19:53Rich Roll?

  But it was, you know, different for each day of the week.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Whatever he wanted to do that particular day or whatever he get a hold of, you know, and, and it was rough for me because, you know, a week before, we had talked on the phone and we had had an argument and he had done his thing. Cause he was, he was, he was lit up at the time and I knew it. And like with most, you know, addicts, when they're trying to tell you they're not, it's like, dude, I know you are, I can tell. And we're arguing, he's saying some really, really just terrible things to me. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Cause I know you're lit up right now. And he keeps pushing it. And he's in DC. So I'm like, and I had come back to Pittsburgh. Cause you know, there's a lot of back and forth at that time.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  And, you know, he starts running his, i- his mouth about things. I'm like, really? Okay. And I'm having a tough guy moment. So I'm like, really? Okay. Why don't you come up here and say it to my face? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, this, that. I said, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna send you some money. I said, well, I had had sent him some money. That was part of what the argument was over. And I said, why don't you take that money I sent you? Why don't you go find one of your dealers? And why don't you get really, really lit up? Guess what he did?

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  That's exactly what he did.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  And the next time I heard was a couple of days later when he ended up coming back to Pittsburgh and was, wasn't even aware.

• 1:21:19Rich Roll?

  Right. He turned up, he turned up dead of an OD, right in your, he wasn't in DC. He was in, outside of Pittsburgh.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  He was literally about a mile from my parents' house. He was shacked up with some girl and it was like a mile from, you know.

• 1:21:35Rich Roll?

  Why do you think he came, do you think he came back to try to find you or?

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  I think he came back because he was, that, that was familiar and he had still a lot of people in those circles, you know what I mean? In his drug circles that he was comfortable with. And he liked to BS his girlfriend at the time a lot that he was trying to get sober. And I think it was just easier for him to kind of go off on a bender there.

• 1:22:04Rich Roll?

  What I thought you did really well in the book is show, it's easy to, you know, paint someone like that very one dimensionally as just somebody who's a taker and, you know, is always trying to scam money off of people and all that kind of stuff. But, but you really got the, the extent to which, uh, you know, an addict like that is so good at manipulating other people. Like they know exactly what to say. Even when you see through it, it's still pulling on your heartstrings. And you end up like doing the thing you said you were never gonna do, you know, and, and being kind of codependent in that relationship. And it just how difficult it is because, you know, he is your brother and, and you did

• 1:22:46Rich Roll?

  look up to him and he was the cool guy and how all of that plays into making it like, it's, it's hard, man. It's confusing.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:54Rich Roll?

  To navigate that. So, um, so, so he passes away and all of these, so you have these three deaths that happened in a really short period of time.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Four months.

• 1:23:04Rich Roll?

  Right. So you've had this, you've had heart surgery, your entire family is suddenly gone. You're back in the house that you grew up with, but now you're the only one there.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:13Rich Roll?

  And, and this sends you kind of into your own tailspin of sorts into, you know, basically drinking a lot and, and, you know, kind of following a little bit in the footsteps of your dad and, and your brother, which I would imagine your whole life you've been trying to get away from.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, I did. I mean, you know, you can count the amount of times I had a drink on one hand until I hit my thirties.

• 1:23:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  You know, and I had never done any kind of drug, none. And then it was like, oh, well, the heck with that, you know, because it was just.

• 1:23:48Rich Roll?

  You just had the rug pulled out.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. As a way to, you know, I thought I was in control, but of course you're not. And, you know, it, it sounds so cliche, but it was a way to numb all the pain. And I do everything big, you know, and I do everything, you know, balls to the wall. It's been my whole life. So it was like, okay. And much like the rest of my family, I had a huge.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Um, tolerance.

• 1:24:19Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  I mean, so then it became, oh, really? You, I became that guy. Now that I'm not able to fight to release those challenges or train the same way to release that, you know, to get that challenge fix on. It was like, I'll just drink everybody here under the table.

• 1:24:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  I'll do this. It's like, oh, you do six shots, I do eight. And it, that became like my, where my competitive nature was, was going out. It was just, and I was doing just dumb shit.

• 1:24:50Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  You know, I'll, I'll drink everybody. I'll drug everybody. I'll get more women than you. I'll just, you know, that's what I'm gonna do. I was, you know, it was ridiculous.

• 1:25:00Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. And you're kind of bouncing around. You're do, it sounds like you're doing a couple of geographics, right?

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:06Rich Roll?

  Pennsylvania, and then you're in Austin, and then you, you're, you moved to LA, like, that seems like Vegas, too. I mean, moving to LA seems like a bit of a wild card. Like, you were bouncing around these other places, but LA was kind of a new.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  LA was actually, that happened in, in, uh, like, late two thousand and eight as kind of, let's try to get my, you know, my shit together. Because there was, you know, the trifecta was really Vegas, Austin, and, uh, and, and Pennsylvania. And I would go, when, when I was in Vegas, I'd go back and forth between LA and here because it's a quick drive. But, you know, what happened was, I was in Vegas, then I got an offer to, to train guys in State College, which is in Pennsylvania. So I was gonna do that for a little bit, but that kind of fell apart. And I was like, this isn't.

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  Training guys at the time, but you're not really, I mean, are you, you're kind of training yourself, but you're not training to fight, really? Like, you, you just lost the spark for that.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  I, I'm saying I am, but I'm not committing the way I should. And then, you know, I'm doing, I'm doing all-nighters all the time. But I'm going to train, like, I'll, I'll drink all night into the early morning. Then I'll sleep, wake up, go to the gym, and, you know, somehow think that, yeah, I'm actually training.

• 1:26:29Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Well, there's a weird kind of like addict-alcoholic ego thing with that, too. You know, I, I used to remember, like, I would. I'd stay up partying all night and I'd still show up for 5:30 a.m. from practice. And it's like, and I try, you know, and I'd get a good grade in the college class. You know, it's like, see, I can do, I can do all this and, and I can stay up all night partying. So there's a weird kind of false pride. That's just bullshit, really.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Because a part of you says, because a part of you says, you know, there's that, that, that smart part inside you go, come on, dude, what are you doing? And then, you know, the ego comes out and goes, but look, I'm doing so good and I'm doing all this stuff. Screw everybody. I can do it.

• 1:27:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Get off my back.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But then what happens, like with every addict in the history of ever, the bottom falls out. And you're like, yeah, maybe I was a little bit full of shit because, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot of, of self, you know, how do I say, you're tricking yourself if you think that's, you're not screwing up.

• 1:27:30Rich Roll?

  Right. And it's a question of how long are you going to be able to perpetuate that denial? You know, I always say like, you know, you hear this all the time in the rooms, but you know, the elevator's going down, you know, how far is it going to go down before you get off? You can get off at any floor.

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:27:44Rich Roll?

  Right. So, um, so this elevator's going down and then you even, you know, we even talk about the car crash. You go through the windshield in this car in Austin. Like there's, there's ramifications happening, you know, basically your world is roding around you.

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I'm dumb enough to get in. It's like people like you were driving. I'm like, no, I wasn't. I was the passenger. But then again, you're like, but I was willing to get into a vehicle with somebody that was equally as trash as I was.

• 1:28:08Rich Roll?

  Right. And you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  And I wasn't wearing a seatbelt. There are like so many genius things that I did in this particular situation. So.

• 1:28:16Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and so you find yourself in LA and, you know, was there one moment where you were like, I'm done. I just, I can't do this.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Actually, I wasn't in LA. My, I was, I had flown back to Pittsburgh to see my kids for Christmas. And it was like December 23rd and I decided to go get a tattoo. I hadn't had, you know, it's like, I haven't had one since 2009. I mean, it's a pretty sad to believe, but, uh,

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  I decided to go get one, so we go. He just decides to like touch up one that I already have. And like, you know, I'm just not into this. And he's like, well, I've got, you know, a bottle of vodka. Okay. So we kill a fifth of vodka between me and him in like a half hour.

• 1:29:05Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Then let's go out drinking more. So we go out, start drinking more.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  You know, I talked to my girlfriend, she's, you know, back at our place.

• 1:29:17Rich Roll?

  Right, Shelby.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  In LA, Shelby's in there and she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, don't worry about it.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  You know, and some things went back and forth. She's like, I'm not talking to you. So she like won't answer my calls. So I keep drinking and drinking. And it's one of those where, okay, we all know drinking slows you down because it's natural to present. So I'm like, I gotta wake back up. So guess how I wake back up? I do cocaine.

• 1:29:45Rich Roll?

  Cocaine.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  So now I get back up, so I drink some more. Then I realized I gotta watch my kids at like seven in the morning.

• 1:29:53Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  I'm supposed to go over and watch my kids, so

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  I decided to leave. I have a key to my ex-wife's place. So I let myself in.

• 1:30:06Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  I sit down on her couch because she's getting up early for work. And I'm so like where I don't even know where I'm at. I pass out. I'm like watching TV. I pass out.

• 1:30:20Rich Roll?

  But it's like, what, like three in the morning or something like that?

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  I finally, I like wake up and like, oh, it's only been two hours. I look at my phone. All these text messages, all these missed phone calls. And it's Shelby like, what happened? Where'd you go? What's going on?

• 1:30:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  And she ended up freaking out. And we ended up having a whole discussion and it was like, it's, it's gotta stop.

• 1:30:44Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Because I, I was completely out of control. And then I wake up, you know, I don't know if you've ever done cocaine, but what your mouth tastes like when you wake up in the morning?

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  And you gotta watch your kids and be in your nose. It just, it was like, what the am I doing?

• 1:30:59Rich Roll?

  Right. So that was it. That was, that was the moment.

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  That was it?

• 1:31:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and you've got, you've got three boys.

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:06Rich Roll?

  You got a son and twins. Yeah, we didn't even talk about, you know, your marriage. There's too many things to talk about.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:13Rich Roll?

  It's like, wrapping my brain around your life. And, and we skipped over the part where when you move to Los Angeles, you meet Shelby, who becomes, you know, your best friend, your partner, and ultimately your, your writing partner in this book.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:31:28Rich Roll?

  And that's, you know, that's, that's a pretty pivotal aspect in your story. Like she really, she comes in and like any, you know, great woman, starts to, you know, have an impact, a positive impact on how you're living your life.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:42Rich Roll?

  So you come back and you're like, I'm getting sober. But, you know, so you, you end up going to a meeting and you kind of get into recovery and, and really embrace that, right?

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  I was fortunate. I had neighbors that I had become friends with, two guys that lived, you know,

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  they were in the building next to me, but we were able to like, if I opened my windows, because you know, I had one of those old night, you know, buildings, built like a hundred and.

• 1:32:09Rich Roll?

  You were like living, or you had a loft downtown?

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  Right. And they were like right across the way. So we used to talk and then we, you know, we ended up hanging out. They were both in recovery. So they invited me to a meeting. So I went and that was like the first step in, in. I'm very good at cold turkey because I'm an athlete. So, oh, really? Okay, I can do that. But I knew that at that point, all I'm really becoming is, you know, the, the old term of dry drunk. So, I mean, addiction isn't about substances. That's just a, you know.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  That's just an effect of what you do. There's whatever.

• 1:32:47Rich Roll?

  Substance is the cure to the problem for a while until it's not, right? You take that away, you still have.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. You know, addiction is addiction. And hence why you can recover, you always say, you know, I'm an addict. Because, yeah, I haven't had a drink or done drugs in almost five years, but I'm still an addict. You know, because it's a personality trait. It's actions that you do. And so I was able to actually get to the, you know, the crux of it. I, you know, I decided I have to do this.

• 1:33:19Rich Roll?

  So. And it's just you've been in ever since then? No relapses?

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:24Rich Roll?

  And, you know, just basically into the program?

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  Yes. And between, you know, the program and seeing a psychologist weekly, you know, which if you had told me that at 20, you know, that's for weak people, whatever, you know. The change has been just, you know.

• 1:33:44Rich Roll?

  Changed everything.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  Ridiculous. I mean, it's been, it's been the greatest, you know, part of my life.

• 1:33:49Rich Roll?

  And so when does the idea of getting back into the ring start to crop up? I mean, you have a clarity of thought now.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Seriously, like, at that point, you know, it's, it's, it's getting more and more serious in, but especially, you know, spring of 2010. And it was, it was actually, I was going to come back to MMA, which was, you know, you know, the fact that I ended up being able to come back and kickboxing overseas, which is what I had mostly done in my career. Excuse me, that was, that was a great thing. And, you know, it was one of those things that kind of, like many things in my life, fell into my lap. But it was a good thing.

• 1:34:38Rich Roll?

  Right. This opportunity to go and fight in Moscow.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:34:41Rich Roll?

  Right? And, and tell me about this guy that they'd lined up for you to fight.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Honestly, I had no business fighting him. I mean, this is a guy that is, you know, active, is fighting, you know, is a world-class fighter. Like, the fight he had just had was at the time against like number two heavyweight in the world. And he had a, had a war with him. It was a three-round war. And, you know, I had no business. But at the same time, what am I gonna do? Say no? You know, and, and everybody was like, oh, it's just nice that he's coming back. They would tell Shelby that. And, you know, everybody expected me to get,

• 1:35:15Rich Roll?

  Get your butt whipped.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, let's be honest, I hadn't fought at that point in almost six years. I mean, my last fight had been on my birthday in 2005.

• 1:35:29Rich Roll?

  And we're in, we're in 2011 now.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  This is May 28th of 2011. So,

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a lifetime in the career of an athlete.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  The ring rust was ridiculous. But, to be honest, I mean, you know, my ex-wife had said it, a lot of people had said it. I had so much pent up in me over all the BS that occurred over those almost six years.

• 1:35:51Rich Roll?

  Unleashed in one fight.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  And I said, it's gonna come out. And it did. You know, so the fight only lasted, you know, I was officially, it's eight seconds, but there's word that it was three because, you know, there was a water bottle in the corner, so they, they, he had stopped this from coming out, but it was basically, you know,

• 1:36:10Rich Roll?

  You went out, took him down and it was done.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  And then I hit him with a, a right hook and the fight was over.

• 1:36:15Rich Roll?

  Right. And, uh, did you have problems getting cleared to fight with the, you know, you were the only guy who's ever-

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  That's the beauty of overseas.

• 1:36:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:23Speaker 01

  And we knew that was gonna be a problem fighting in the States. And it was gonna be a long, but that gave us a little more leverage when we did eventually fight in the States. And that, not that I ever did, but in that, we knew that even with them going, well, nobody's ever done this. But, yeah, but I fought here and you can watch the fights. I mean, the fights were on TV as well. So, you know, it gave it a lot of, it just gave us something in our back pocket. It's like, we fought, so I'm good.

• 1:36:53Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. And to this day, right, you're the only guy who's ever stepped into the ring after open-heart surgery?

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  As a professional. There's now an amateur that's also done it.

• 1:37:03Rich Roll?

  Does that include like boxing and MMA?

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:06Rich Roll?

  Like all of those disciplines?

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Any combat sport. Yes.

• 1:37:10Rich Roll?

  But actually, you are, the way you describe it, you feel like you were less at risk because you actually fixed the problem. Like for you to have, if you had gone into the ring before the surgery, that, that's much riskier.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  People say that all the time. It's like, I fought for how many years with the issue?

• 1:37:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  You know, so I don't have the issue anymore. I understand people see, you know, a nine inch scar down the front of your chest, so they get very.

• 1:37:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  But the fact of the matter is, the problem that you licensed me, that I had for years, and you licensed me with it, I don't have anymore. So other than, you know, this like, you know, physical thing that you can see.

• 1:37:45Rich Roll?

  It's a better story, though. Come on, man. It's a better story to say you're, you know, you're the only guy to do it and take all his risk.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  You know, I'm the first guy. Like, you can't ever take away that I'm the first guy, but at this point, still, you know, what, three and a half years later, I'm still the only guy. So.

• 1:37:59Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. And so, you're, you must be thinking at this time, like, I'm back, man. I'm, I'm in. It's, it's full on now.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Yes and no. I mean, there's that part of me, you know, that, the ego fighter part still, but at the same time, I'm going, I was still off for almost six years. I knocked the guy out in eight seconds. They're throwing me like right back to, they want to put me, they're like putting me in the words with like the top guys right now.

• 1:38:24Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  And want me to fight the top guys. And my whole thing is, that I didn't fight for almost six years. Eight seconds does not get rid of ring rust.

• 1:38:33Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  So I'm just asking to get a bunch of fights. I'm like, I'll fight every month. I mean, give me fights in Germany. They're like, yeah, but they're not going to be for as big a money. I'm like, I don't care. I'm like, just make me active. Let me get all the ring rust off. So I have that fight. I knock out Phelan. I don't get another fight for 10 months. The fight they end up offering me is one of the best heavyweights in the world. And not only is he one of the best heavyweights in the world, he's six foot five, 270 pounds.

• 1:39:04Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  And we're going to fight him in Moscow, and he's from Moscow. And the deal was, I mean, they, there were so many games that were played. I ended up having a three week camp from when they offered me the fight. You know, they sent a, a Dutch coach over here to train me. And then it was like, oh, you shouldn't do S and C. Just do kickboxing training. I'm like.

• 1:39:24Rich Roll?

  What's S and C?

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  Strength and conditioning.

• 1:39:26Rich Roll?

  Oh.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  So he didn't want me doing anything outside of sparring and working pads. I'm like. That's a little strange. I mean, to be honest, and I'm saying this out loud, yeah, I dealt with some, you know, at that time.

• 1:39:39Rich Roll?

  There was a lot of bullshit, basically.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  They're shady gangsters. That's just a fact, you know, and I'm fighting in Moscow, so I'm gonna let you know who puts those fights on. You know, where do you think all the Russian money comes from? I mean, come on. It is what it is. I understand that, but you know, the fight with him, I was coming off this big knockout, the fastest heavyweight knockout in heavyweight kickboxing history. You know, there's stuff all over TV, there's TV in France, all over Europe, but you know, anything I hit goes to sleep. I had this super fast knockout. So you know what's in my mind? I'm gonna knock him out.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  And I actually, you know, I had a better game plan for him because he didn't like leg kicks. He didn't like movement because, you know, so I could have stuck with that. Hurt him with the leg kick, but then what happened was I hit him with the right hand and it really hurt him. So I poured it on, trying to go, and I got in a gun battle with him, which is the absolute worst thing you can do against Sergei Haratonov. And I paid for it, you know? He hit me with a right hand in my neck, like shut me off for two seconds. I drop, get back up, and I'm like a little this, trying to straighten myself out. Ref waves it off. Fight's over.

• 1:40:57Rich Roll?

  Fight's over.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  So, you know, once again, my, you know, trying to push forward, that mentality didn't work in that fight. I tried to, you know, you don't get into a, that's a fighter you don't get in a gun battle with in close quarters. And that's what I tried to do. You know, I was 220 for that fight and I'm giving him 50 pounds.

• 1:41:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:41:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're seriously outweighed in that fight.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  So that was tough.

• 1:41:25Rich Roll?

  And you weren't going to your strengths, like you should have been, it sounds like you should have been, you know, on your kick game with that.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I should have been leg kicking him and moving. And just kept doing that. I mean, I hit him with one leg kick and it hurt him, but yet, the right hand is what I focused on. I was like, I'll hurt him with the right hand and knock him out again. You know, sometimes, you know, even with all my experience.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  You you still fall for the same tricks in your own mind.

• 1:41:58Rich Roll?

  Well, maybe if you had been fighting every weekend, you know, or just had a bunch of fights, you know, to get up to speed, you wouldn't have made that decision.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  That, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and make excuses, but that's, that's, that's a ring rust issue where, you know, probably if I had worn off the ring rust, I wouldn't have chosen to engage in the way I did.

• 1:42:21Rich Roll?

  Right, to just, just battle a bunch of guys that are kind of below your level, or at least on, on par before you go hit the guy who's, you know, the king B.

• 1:42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  You, you, you're fighting like, you know, top guys in, in, in their backyard, you know, that, that's what I wish would have happened.

• 1:42:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  That's what I wanted to happen, but, you know, unfortunately, with whatever issues I had with my former management, yeah, because that was the thing, I got signed after that knockout by, you know, the most prestigious management fight team in the history of kickboxing. I was the only American that's ever been signed by them, it was like such a big deal. But at the same time, you know, they, they played that whole fight like Rocky IV. They did, literally, literally, not just like, you know.

• 1:43:09Rich Roll?

  Right, big Russian dude, you know.

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  Against the American, and I'm like, come on. So, I, I thought it was ridiculous, but what are you gonna tell them? But they, they were playing a lot of games and they had, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and get into the politics of the fight game, but there, there were a lot of things at work that are outside of fighting and outside of a fighter's control. So, it is what it is. It's in the past now.

• 1:43:34Rich Roll?

  Right, alright.

• 1:43:34Speaker 01

  I choose to move forward.

• 1:43:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so moving forward, I mean, the big next seminal thing that happens is you get this opportunity to fight in Madison Square Garden.

• 1:43:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:43Rich Roll?

  And this is 2013?

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  Yes, 2013. The fight was supposed to be in, uh, November 23rd of 2013.

• 1:43:52Rich Roll?

  Right, and this is a big deal, I mean, fighting in Madison Square Garden?

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  As, as a lifelong fight fan, you're fighting in Madison Square Garden, and...

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  You know, it's the first time I fought in the United States since 2004. You're talking nine years. So that was a big deal to me and it's on, it's on national TV in the US. It's on Spike TV. Cause it was the second fight that was on the new TV contract that the organization I was fighting for Glory had with Spike TV. So I'm like hitting on all cylinders. And boom, the bottom falls out again.

• 1:44:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  So at least I had experience. At least I had experience in dealing with the bottom falling out.

• 1:44:35Rich Roll?

  So the bottom falls out. You get, specifically you get pneumonia, right? And, and, uh, and this pneumonia is, leads to kidney failure.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Well, what happened with the-

• 1:44:48Rich Roll?

  So you have all these things going on with your pancreas. You got your pancreas, you got your diabetes, you have your heart issue. You've got all these things going on. It's hard to keep track of what's related to what and what's causing what.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Well, exactly.

• 1:44:58Rich Roll?

  The drugs that you're taking and all these sorts of things.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  This is how this works. I get pneumonia or I get sick. I generally get over having a cold in like a day or two. So it continues for like almost a week. So.

• 1:45:14Rich Roll?

  How, and how far ahead of the game?

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  At this time. This is like-

• 1:45:18Rich Roll?

  Not the game, the fight.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Middle of October. So we're still like five weeks out.

• 1:45:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Five, six weeks out. Go to, uh, come out here to, cause I was living in San Diego at the time. Come out here again to, uh, see, uh, Shelby's family. And decide, let's go to, uh, urgent care. Cause I don't have, I don't have insurance. So go to an urgent care, see what's up.

• 1:45:38Rich Roll?

  Which is something I want to talk about too. I want to talk about the whole healthcare thing.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  They say I have bronchitis. So they put me on antibiotic.

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  Take the antibiotics for a couple of days and doesn't do anything.

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  So come out here again for Halloween.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  And decide to go to the doctor again. And they look at me again, x-ray, x-rays this time, like you got pneumonia, full blown pneumonia. So they're going to put me on a strong antibiotic, but they're also going to put me on prednisone.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  And because I had the, you know, inflammation of my lungs, whatever. So what happens is they say, we're going to do blood work. They do blood work on a Monday night. Everything's cool on Tuesday. They go, but we want you to come back on Friday, get blood work again, because I want to see how you're progressing. So I keep taking the drugs, come back on Friday, get my blood work.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  You know, that Saturday morning, it's what, November 2nd? Because, you know, Halloween's on a Thursday, whatever. Packing the car up to go to San Diego back. And my phone rings and it's the doctor, one of the doctors at the urgent care, Karen. You need to go to the emergency room right now. I'm like, what? She's like, yeah, you're in renal failure. What are you talking about? Yeah, we got the blood work from yesterday. You're in renal failure.

• 1:47:06Rich Roll?

  And you'd never had kidney problems prior?

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  Never. And I go to the emergency room and I, you know, I'm not going to get into names. You know, since we're on air, but, you know, they tell me where to go because I don't have insurance. So like, this is your best bet. So I go there. I'm not doing the research, you know, like I would do because they're like, you have to go to, you know, emergency room or you're going to die. When they tell you those words, like, yeah, maybe, you know, I'm not worried about doing research. Subsequently, I did research on the hospital and it came back terribly. But the problem was being that I'm a type one diabetic. These geniuses in the emergency room assumed that I was in, in chronic renal failure. Because it's something that can happen after many years of being diabetic. They don't check my labs.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  They check nothing to find out like what, you know, what my history was. Well, being that I didn't have kidney issues. My hemoglobin A1C's, which is how, which is the big way we find out about how type one diabetic is doing are in the sixes. Which if you, for somebody that's been type one diabetic for 30 years is pretty ridiculous. Like that's very low.

• 1:48:15Speaker 01

  Instead of looking into this, they decide he's type one diabetic. So they assume I'm in chronic renal failure. End up doing the houses, doing all this stuff. I'm in the hospital for nine days. This, that, I ended up going to a nephrologist.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  A couple of weeks later, because I'm trying to get things figured out and I'm not liking the doctors that I'm dealing with. So I went to one at Cedars-Sinai, who's like a one of the foremost nephrologists in the United States and he's like, looks at all my stuff, asks me a bunch of questions, goes over everything, he's like, this wasn't chronic, this was acute. And they're like, it was the combination of the drugs they put you on and pneumonia. The infection and the drugs they put me on, kinda like I got one of those nice, one in a million chances, it combined, and that's what shut my kidneys down.

• 1:49:03Rich Roll?

  And it had nothing to do with the heart procedure, it had nothing to do with type one diabetes?

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  But the other funny thing is, guess what else it did? It shut my heart down. Had nothing to do with my previous heart issue. So now, after I get my kidney transplant, which is the first one I get, they're gonna then, six months later, do a pancreas transplant, but then I have to get a heart transplant.

• 1:49:28Rich Roll?

  So essentially you're-

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  And it had nothing to do-

• 1:49:31Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Right. So Madison Square Garden, off the table, and now you're looking at needing three transplants. That's, that's the current state of affairs right now. So where does the, what, where does the pancreas come into it?

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  I'm a type one diabetic. Pancreas hasn't worked since I was diagnosed.

• 1:49:50Rich Roll?

  Right. So, but why is that, why are you now needing a transplant for that?

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  Because I'm such a good candidate for it because of the fact that I've taken such good care of myself as a type one diabetic, and it actually will help the acclimation of the kidney. It'll give the ki- make the kidney work better.

• 1:50:07Rich Roll?

  So-

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  And it'll make me not be a type one diabetic for about five years.

• 1:50:11Rich Roll?

  Right now, you need, you need three organs.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:50:16Rich Roll?

  That's, that's the hard fact.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  That's the hard fact.

• 1:50:18Rich Roll?

  And if you don't get those transplants, how does this, how does this play out? I mean, how does it, you know, how long can you go? Which one needs to come first? Like, how does this all work?

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  The kidney's gonna be the first. I mean, obviously, if you don't get that, they would continue me on dialysis, which, you know, it's like, basically being in prison as a human being. But, the problem is, the heart, I have an aortic aneurysm, which kinda means-

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  At any time the kid goes.

• 1:50:50Rich Roll?

  Ticking time bomb.

• 1:50:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. My heart could just, just decide to pop.

• 1:50:53Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  I mean, they had me on massive amounts of, of different medications to slow my heart rate down. My blood pressure when it's high, and you gotta remember, I'm tall and I've lost a lot of weight since I got sick.

• 1:51:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, you're a pretty skinny guy now. Like, I would imagine, you know, how much do you weigh now versus when you were fighting?

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  I've lost over fifty pounds.

• 1:51:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  I've lost fifty pounds since November.

• 1:51:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  And I'm, right now, I was still about one, you know, I'm about one seventy-five, one eighty, depending on before or after dialysis. But my, the highest my heart or my blood pressure would probably get is probably about ninety over sixty. That's how many meds they had me on to keep my heart rate down because that's, they had to keep my heart rate and my blood pressure down so it doesn't get my heart excited.

• 1:51:39Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and because of the blood pressure issue, you've had problems with your eyes, right? Like, you get blood in your eyes and I know you were wearing an eye patch for a while.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  The, the, the rear of my right eye, the blood vessels exploded. They popped because it was, the blood pressure got so ridiculously high. And it caused me to go blind in my right eye because you, my eye just fills with blood. So, yeah.

• 1:52:04Rich Roll?

  So can you see out of it now or you're permanently blind?

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Now, what happened was they did surgery on it. So it's come back. I mean, it's obviously not back. It was, it was back to like twenty forty, but then unfortunately, because I'm young and healthy, which is really weird, like, the eye doctor told me, like, when we do these procedures on older people, they don't have any issues. Because with younger people, since you're actually young and healthy, you know, it, another one popped again. So they had to go in with a shot and clean it up.

• 1:52:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  But, yeah, I'm back. I'm, I'm, I'm not back to my, what my left eye is, obviously, but I'm up to like twenty forty now on my right eye.

• 1:52:40Rich Roll?

  And the, so you had this acute renal failure, but now this is a chronic situation, right? That requires you to be on dialysis ad infinitum.

• 1:52:52Speaker 01

  What happened was, and this is exact words from the nephrologist, is when you went into the hospital into the emergency room, they had a very short window because it's acute, which means it's reversible. But they have a very short window in which they can act and follow protocol. Since they didn't act and follow protocol, that protocol...

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  By not doing that, they put me into chronic renal failure.

• 1:53:21Rich Roll?

  Oh my god.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Now I also have to deal with that from a loss, you know.

• 1:53:25Rich Roll?

  And this really all boils down to these medications that you were prescribed when you had pneumonia. That really was how that set in motion, it was like this domino effect that's now contributed to all these situations.

• 1:53:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:53:38Rich Roll?

  So is it that the renal failure had a negative impact on your heart? Or why did the heart suddenly start to falter and put you into this position?

• 1:53:46Speaker 01

  Because it's the same thing. It's the, whatever perfect storm of those medications and the infection, it happens. It's known to shut down kidneys and it's known to shut down hearts.

• 1:54:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  So I got lucky.

• 1:54:04Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. So, so right now you're on donor list for these three organs, right? And is there?

• 1:54:11Speaker 01

  Actually I have live donors.

• 1:54:12Rich Roll?

  You have live donors?

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  I have live donors for the kidney and they, the testing got done last week with the first live donor. So we should actually know this week.

• 1:54:24Rich Roll?

  Oh wow, so this could be happening really soon.

• 1:54:26Speaker 01

  This could be happening really soon. We should know what's gonna happen.

• 1:54:28Rich Roll?

  I read somewhere where there's a vegan triathlete in Arizona.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:54:33Rich Roll?

  Is this the guy? Is this the person?

• 1:54:34Speaker 01

  No, actually, that's, that's another story.

• 1:54:38Rich Roll?

  It's like, I probably know who that, I probably know who the guy is.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  Mark Rawlins is his name.

• 1:54:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  And he offered, he offered.

• 1:54:44Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. That's amazing.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  I never met him, but the gentleman who's doing it now, a gentleman named Lucas Duran, he's 26 years old. He's straight edge, so he's never done anything and he's been doing Muay Thai since he was 17, super athletic. So I'm getting, you know, with a really good kidney.

• 1:55:02Rich Roll?

  He's literally, he's volunteered for this.

• 1:55:04Speaker 01

  I didn't meet him till, I met him last Tuesday. I'm gonna see him again tonight. Never met him before.

• 1:55:09Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:10Rich Roll?

  That somebody would just come out of the blue and say, "I'm gonna give you a kidney." Like what kind of person?

• 1:55:15Speaker 01

  I can't even put that into words.

• 1:55:16Rich Roll?

  It's incredible.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Both Mark, who's the vegan triathlete from Arizona and Lucas, of the three people who have, who have offered, there's been a lot of people that offered, but they've actually started the testing procedures. Out of the three who have done it. Only one guy do I know personally, who is one of the people I told you about that lived across the way for me that was in the program.

• 1:55:39Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he, he's a close friend of mine and he offered to give me his kidney because he's like, I'm never gonna drink again.

• 1:55:44Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:55:45Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:55:46Rich Roll?

  Amazing.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:48Rich Roll?

  Amazing, so, you know, this brings up kind of, you know, healthcare, like, how many medications are you on right now on a daily basis?

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  I take sixty-four pills a day.

• 1:56:00Rich Roll?

  Right, and this adds up to about two thousand dollars a month.

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:04Rich Roll?

  Costs, and, and because these conditions that you have are pre-existing conditions, I mean, this CHD, you've had your whole life, right?

• 1:56:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:13Rich Roll?

  So that's really kind of a bar to even entering into the discussion about getting insurance at a rate that would be even manageable.

• 1:56:21Speaker 01

  Yes, but what, what, what is fortunate is, one of the things about Medicare, and it's actually, there's actually a form with Social Security that, that, on the bottom says ESRD, which is end-stage renal disease.

• 1:56:34Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  There's like five different forms Social Security does, and one of them actually has that on the bottom. I was able to end up getting Medicare because I'm an end-stage renal failure. I mean, none of the stuff before, like, all the crazy stuff that happened before they gave me the Medicare, which was February, none of that is covered.

• 1:56:55Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  So all those medications I bought, the, you know, the hundred, thousand-dollar, you know, hospital stay, the ridiculous amounts of, of dialysis, that's not covered, but everything since February

• 1:57:10Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  has been covered.

• 1:57:11Rich Roll?

  So now your dialysis is covered

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:13Rich Roll?

  And this transplant, the kidney transplant

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:16Rich Roll?

  will be covered. Oh, that's great.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  So I got really lucky, but yeah, that's one of the things, like, one of the things, it, it, it becomes kind of like, right this way, Mr. Miller, when you have end-stage renal disease, that the government does, does indeed cover, so I got lucky.

• 1:57:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's good, but, but, but that's not gonna cover

• 1:57:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:34Rich Roll?

  a heart transplant

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:35Rich Roll?

  or

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:36Rich Roll?

  a pancreatic transplant.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  No, the, you know, they can probably tie the pancreas in because of the way it works with the kidney.

• 1:57:44Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  But no, the, the heart is gonna be

• 1:57:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  a different story.

• 1:57:48Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right, so you're, you're racking up quite a bill here.

• 1:57:51Speaker 01

  Right, I believe what they do is It covers you for up to six months after you have the kidney transplant. They'll cover you and then you're done. So there's, yeah, it's, it's great that they cover you, but it's very specific.

• 1:58:07Rich Roll?

  Right. And so I saw that you have, you have a GoFundMe campaign, right?

• 1:58:11Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:58:12Rich Roll?

  You did, no longer? Cause I saw it, but it was like referenced in a blog, but I didn't know that if that was still going on.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  When the book came out, I, listen, the book came out, I just felt a little weird about having a book out and then still having a GoFundMe.

• 1:58:24Rich Roll?

  Saying, yeah, right, right, right.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  And I was also fortunate that, you know, Shelby got a very, um, she got a very good gig. She's a personal trainer, but she actually got an exclusive client who's, you know, ridiculously wealthy. So she has that gig now. So that, that's also helping.

• 1:58:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's good. That's good. And I guess you're just playing it day by day, right?

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  That's pretty much, you know, it's kind of like the program, one day at a time, right? So I get to really live it out.

• 1:58:55Rich Roll?

  Right. So, so when you're not in dialysis, you're, you are coaching some people right now, right?

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  Actually, the, the cardiologist that I now have at Cedar Sinai, and I quote, when did not being active ever help anybody from a medical standpoint? They didn't let me do anything for a long time. From like, you know, when I got sick in November, they were so worried, like you can walk, but that's it. And his whole thing was, I'm gonna let you do things. Now, do I want you running sprints? Do I want you doing what you used to do? Hell no. But, you know, working with people, doing some light things like shadow boxing, he's like, I allow you to do that. So that's been great. And being able to start working with people again, you know, I'm right up the road from where we're sitting right now doing the podcast.

• 1:59:40Rich Roll?

  Right. Where, so where's your gym?

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  It's right up on, uh, Via Colinas. It's, uh,

• 1:59:45Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  Next to the CrossFit Fast.

• 1:59:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know exactly where that is.

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  It's a performance gym. It's owned by an ex NFL player.

• 1:59:50Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. You met my friend, Andrew Pescuella. He's an artist. He's got a, he's got a space up there.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:59:57Rich Roll?

  I'll introduce him to you.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  Oh, very cool. Very cool. Yeah. There's that like Under Armour place and then there's the CrossFit gym and then. It's called the factory. We're right, we're right there.

• 2:00:06Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. That's exciting.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  And I do some stuff out of bosses as well.

• 2:00:09Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 2:00:09Speaker 01

  Boss Root has a gym right over there.

• 2:00:11Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. But you, you gotta, you can't get in and mix it up too heavy.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  No, I can't really do anything myself. I mean, I can show things. I can shadow box, but I can't. Cause like obviously with my catheter, their big concern is I can't sweat on this thing.

• 2:00:24Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  Because I'm still, I've refused to get the, you know, the stint put in.

• 2:00:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  Cause I want to get a transplant and that thing is, that's a whole nother story.

• 2:00:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:00:34Rich Roll?

  So in kind of just looking at your story and, and, you know, and then reading your book, I mean, you know, you have this onslaught of obstacles, health and otherwise, you know, abuse of upbringing and, and everything that we've talked about here today. And yet, you still have this, you know, positive outlook and you still seem like, you know, you're, you're an optimistic guy. Like you're looking, you're living in the moment. You're, I mean, you're forced to live in the moment, obviously because of the circumstances, you know, under which you're, you're dealing with right now. But how do you, you know, what is your approach? When, when, you know, again, you know, something else comes up and, you know, how do you, uh,

• 2:01:11Rich Roll?

  how do you kind of, um, maintain your composure? And how do you take that step forward? When you just think, I, you know, I-

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  Same thing I said earlier about, you know, oh, this is what I have. Okay. So what I've got to do. It's the same thing.

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  There are, you know, ends in sight to what I have. Do they suck? Are there a, a lot of problems that I'm dealing with? Yes. But at the same time, I'm able to say, if I do this and do this, I'll get to here. And they're able to give me this surgically or whatever. So that's all I do is I say, okay. So I follow those guidelines, you know? They have very specific diet, specific ways you're supposed to do things in renal failure. So I do exactly what the doctors tell me. They say, take these medications at this time. I do it. And I know that I'm going to get to the end. And to me, you know, no matter what stuff has happened

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  in my life, my, one of my mantras has always been, it could always be worse. And it can't. No matter how bad it is, let's be honest, it could always be worse. You know, I, I, I'm not some kid growing up in the streets of Calcutta. So, yeah, this sucks, but at the same time.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  It's perspective. It's all, it's all, it's all your perspective.

• 2:02:31Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. And I think it, it sounds like it's helpful to you to just be in the present moment and ground yourself in what's happening now. I mean, as you know, in recovery, it's like, do the next right thing. You know, what's, what's right in front of you to do right now?

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  And, and be of service. And that's the other thing. This gives me an opportunity to be of service because, you know, I can focus on that. And, you know,

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  it, it's just, I've kind of approached this like I'm, like I'm getting ready for a fight. Okay. It's like, I, I know what I have to do. I have to be disciplined and there's certain things I have to do in order to prepare to be my best for a fight. So I do the same thing with this.

• 2:03:13Speaker 01

  The fight right now is the first transplant will be the kidney transplant. So how am I best going to be in my best shape? Everything's going to be absolutely the best for when I get the kidney transplant. And that's how I treat it. That's how I treat being the sickness.

• 2:03:26Rich Roll?

  And it's, it's putting the serenity prayer into action really, because there's only so many aspects of it you can control, right? So you can control your physical wellbeing going into it. You know, you can't control what's going to happen when they put anesthesia and put you under. And you know what I mean? You can't control the donor list. You can't control, you know, any of these things.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  And be smart enough to know the difference.

• 2:03:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right. And how do you find serenity with the aspects that you can't control, which are terrifying?

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  For me, the thing is this, I still have, I have an awesome girlfriend. I have three awesome kids. Everything with them is go awesome. And, you know, yeah, the other thing is, as, as I go through this, how many people that are going through before you have a book that's getting critical acclaim that's out as well? And I have all these interviews that, that I'm doing right now. So it takes my mind off of it and I can focus on doing that. You know, we're in the realm now of, of movie offers. Those discussions are happening. They want to turn just the, the book into a movie. And when you think like, you know, I'm going through the same things now. Like who wants to see this? Like, you know, I'm no, I'm, I'm,

• 2:04:33Speaker 01

  I'm no superstar, but then I look Michael Orr, pretty, you know, he's a run of the mill. I don't want to, he's a professional football player, but he's not an all pro, one of the top offensive lineman. They made a great movie about him. And my thing is,

• 2:04:50Speaker 01

  How many people have those opportunities?

• 2:04:51Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, I'm going through all this stuff that sucks, but like I have other things that I can focus on to get me through the day. That are, you know, that are bigger than me. So that's where I'm at.

• 2:05:02Rich Roll?

  Service, man. The more you just ground yourself in that, then the other stuff works itself out. You know, and, and your book really is, is, is of service, you know, and I think that we talked about it before the podcast, like, you know, you wanted to be of service in this book. And I, I think you've accomplished that. It's a, it's a great act of service. Um, and what has been, you know, what's been the response? Like, how is it, how has it changed? You know, you sort of your, now this is out there and a lot of people who, you know, in the fight world, people know your story, but not so much outside of that.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's crossed over into that more people know about it than when, obviously when somebody like Anthony Bourdain tweets about it.

• 2:05:41Rich Roll?

  Tweeting about it. He's talking about it in interviews. He's bringing it up and I mean, that's.

• 2:05:46Speaker 01

  That brings a whole new world of people to, to it. Cause people always would say about this story, like, you just gotta get the story out there. But yeah. And I had so many people saying, all these big things are going to happen with this. And it's like, you know, it got to the point where like five years later, I'm still waiting, but it just depends on who decides to put your story out there. And that's why I was very fortunate and somebody like Anthony Bourdain, that he's a guy that all eyes are on him. He has a very successful show, you know, great writer, just.

• 2:06:17Rich Roll?

  And his imprint is new. So he's, he's going to want to make sure that these first offerings that he puts out there are going to be consistent with kind of what he wants his, his publishing company to be, right? So what was that process like of, of working with him? To put it together?

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  It was kind of awesome.

• 2:06:37Rich Roll?

  How involved did he get in, in kind of, you know, the editorial aspect of it, if at all?

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  Well, he, he would get involved in drafts, not so much even like, you know, in his recommendations on this, but you know, I was able to stay with him. You know, in the Hamptons.

• 2:06:52Rich Roll?

  Hmm, that's, that's pretty sweet.

• 2:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. But we would stay, you know, he would cook for us and we'd stay up late night, you know, just talking about things. He was able to like, you know, pick his brain to get his ideas on certain things and that helped from somebody that's actually been there, done that. And that was, that was great for the, you know, for the creative process. And then it, it gave me, like I said, somebody who has been there, has done that and has been ultimately successful at it.

• 2:07:18Rich Roll?

  Well, he's a great, he's a great storyteller. You know, that's what I think his truest gift is in his ability to, to really tell a great story. You know, it's like, is he the, is he the greatest chef in the world? Like there's other, you know what I mean?

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  He'll, he'll tell you that.

• 2:07:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, but it was his ability to tell a story. They transcended and passed all that and made him into, you know, kind of the cultural icon he is today. People want to watch his shows and he travels all over the world. I mean, on his Twitter page, it says enthusiast and couldn't, nothing couldn't, you know, a statement couldn't be truer about a person. He really is genuinely interested in like cultures, different foods, everything. He just wants to learn about everything. So, yeah.

• 2:08:00Rich Roll?

  Right. And that's infectious.

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:08:03Rich Roll?

  I mean, when you were writing the book, what were your kind of ground rules for how you wanted to tell your story?

• 2:08:11Speaker 01

  I wanted it to be, and I've had people say how, you know, it kind of reads like a screenplay. Cause I, I didn't want any fluff. Going back to that Sugar Ray Robinson book I talked about, I didn't want it to read like a Wikipedia page. So I didn't want a lot. It just was raw, bare bones.

• 2:08:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The chapters are short and they cut out all the middle stuff. It's just, you just go from kind of seminal aspect of your life to the next one without, without all the, how do you get from that place to the other? That's the boring part.

• 2:08:40Speaker 01

  I don't try to like have a lot of fluff, you know, you know, you, you remember like when you're in school and you're writing, they talk about padding. I never wanted to do that. I personally don't want to read books like that. So to me. You know, it's like you're very, you're very self-aware when you're reading a book and it's like, come on. I'm not saying this isn't a good book, but you're padding some of this right now. I don't want to read that as a reader, so I didn't want to put that across to anybody to read. And I think that's why it's been such a success with people who are like, I never read books. Or I've never, haven't read a book from cover to cover in 20 years, 25 years. How many people have said that to me, have come to me online and said that? That's a good feeling, because that's what I wanted.

• 2:09:25Speaker 01

  I wanted to be able to relate to people and, and let people actually read it. Or I read the whole, I got so into it, I read the whole thing last night. That's what I wanted.

• 2:09:34Rich Roll?

  Well, it's really well-written too, you know, and it's, it's the rare athlete. You know, I don't know how much, you know, you wrote and Shelby wrote, but there's no ghostwriter here. You know, usually the athlete, it's not a writer, they bring on a ghostwriter. Whether that person's name is on the cover or not, I assure you that most, most books by an athlete, you know, there's somebody else who's writing on that book.

• 2:09:56Rich Roll?

  And I know that, you know, they approached you and said, do you want that? And you said, no, I'm not, I'm not going to do that. So this was written by you and Shelby and it's incredibly well-written. And I think that that, you know, goes back to what Anthony saw when he was reading your blogs and he could tell that you were a storyteller. And, and, and he said time and again in these interviews, like, anybody can write about what it's like to punch somebody, but what you really bring to it is what it's like to get punched. You know, like the human experience of like what that feels like. And when you're in these fight sequences in the book, like you really, you feel the fear, the terror, all the conflicting emotions that are going on, you know, that, that, you know, are circling in your brain as a fighter in, in that precarious situation where, you know, your life's on the line.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  And the thing is, I mean, I'm, I'm fortunate that I have a supremely, you know, talented girlfriend who can, you know, has to be able to translate my voice. You know, and the two of us working together while it was, it was trying at times. Because it becomes, you know, especially, especially with the subject matter that we were talking about. But at the end of the day, it worked out. You know, just, it, it, it worked out. I mean, there were some rough times.

• 2:11:12Speaker 01

  But we got through, you know, so that, that's what I'm happy about. You're able to tell the story. In the raw fashion that I wanted, they didn't screw with it in editing. Which I was thankful for and, you know, now, now moving on, uh, apparently we're dealing with, you know, producers in Hollywood who are going to be willing to let this story get told. And as I told him straight up, I don't, I don't want Rocky. This isn't a Rocky story. I want it to be raw and I want it to be what it is. This isn't the feel-good movie of the year. You know, because that book wasn't the feel-good book of the year. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, are, are there parts that are uplifting? Yes. But there are some parts that are gonna have you going, Jesus, why am I reading this?

• 2:11:57Speaker 01

  So, I just wanted to be what it is and not get, you know, I'm gonna say this excuses to French, but I don't want to get too fucked with. And I'm, I'm glad that-

• 2:12:07Rich Roll?

  You have to be careful, Matt. You gotta, well, you're gonna have to have Anthony on your side. You know, it's pretty easy to, you know, being in Hollywood, like you see-

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:12:15Rich Roll?

  These stories just get churned through the, the mill with the studio system and end up on the other side looking nothing like what.

• 2:12:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. So that's, that's been like one of my concerns. So, we'll see, you know?

• 2:12:27Rich Roll?

  Listen, Matt, these are quality problems to have.

• 2:12:29Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:12:30Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:12:31Speaker 01

  You know- Third, third, uh, first world problems, as they like to say?

• 2:12:34Rich Roll?

  You could be drinking right now, so-

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:12:36Rich Roll?

  Uh, it's pretty awesome. Um, and, uh, yeah, we gotta wrap it up here. Wow, we're two, we're two hours.

• 2:12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:12:43Rich Roll?

  Um, yeah, you gotta get out of here. I gotta take my son to a soccer game. But, um, listen, this was, uh, this was amazing, man. Thank you for taking the time.

• 2:12:51Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. This has been great.

• 2:12:53Rich Roll?

  It took us a while to get together and do this, but I'm glad Ginny hooked us up. She's cool. How do you know Ginny?

• 2:12:59Speaker 01

  Shelby knows her.

• 2:13:00Rich Roll?

  Ah, that's cool. She's awesome.

• 2:13:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:13:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, very cool. Well, uh, you're an inspiration, man, and, uh, I'm glad to be able to-

• 2:13:07Speaker 01

  So are you. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna let that out there. Come on now.

• 2:13:10Rich Roll?

  I'm really, uh, I'm proud and honored to be able to share your message with everybody. Uh, so everybody should go check the book out. It's called Pain Don't Hurt by Mark "The Fight Shark" Miller, right there. We didn't even talk about why you're called Fight Shark, so you're gonna have to read the book to find that out.

• 2:13:26Speaker 01

  You will. It's in there.

• 2:13:27Rich Roll?

  With, uh, Shelby Jones also. And, um, what do you have coming up other than dialysis?

• 2:13:35Rich Roll?

  You doing any like, you go around and speak?

• 2:13:38Speaker 01

  Not yet, just because it's a little, I'm actually supposed to talk to the wrestling team at Westlake High School.

• 2:13:43Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool, man.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  That's gonna be one, but it's just a little tough because of the dialysis stuff and the fact that the transplant's coming up.

• 2:13:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, but there should be, there's gonna be, I mean, that's the next, that's the next.

• 2:13:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you gotta get out, you gotta get out and share your story, man, and.

• 2:14:00Speaker 01

  I mean, they're finding that out through the book signings when they let me talk.

• 2:14:04Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:14:04Speaker 01

  They're like, we have no idea.

• 2:14:07Rich Roll?

  He can talk?

• 2:14:08Speaker 01

  I, all writing is, is me talking.

• 2:14:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  Into the page, so, yeah, I can do that too. I've told them, I said, please, you gotta understand, I have a history. Since I'm a fighter and doing this stuff, I've done this for years. And as a fighter, you know, I'm my own brand. I have, if I don't promote me, nobody else is going to.

• 2:14:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:14:26Speaker 01

  So, you know, yeah, stand in front of people talking, I told them, like, that's like me, you know, it's not ego, but it's like me walking down the street.

• 2:14:35Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:14:35Speaker 01

  Not real hard for me to walk down the street, this stuff is not gonna bother me. They're like, wow, and they're getting, you know, when, like, book,

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

  uh, Book Soup told them, like, wow, like, his, he had this huge, you know.

• 2:14:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, a big signing of Book Soup.

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and when he talked, like, people were just like, wow. And there was actually a Hollywood producer there that was like, yeah, we need to do more with this, you know, which is something outside of even turning the book into a movie, so, yeah, it's afforded me a lot of opportunities.

• 2:15:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool, man, that's exciting.

• 2:15:07Speaker 01

  So, for sure.

• 2:15:08Rich Roll?

  So, uh, we'll have to have you back on when the, when the movie's.

• 2:15:11Speaker 01

  Let me know when.

• 2:15:12Rich Roll?

  We can talk about it.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 2:15:13Rich Roll?

  Cool, man, so, uh, if people wanna, uh, dig on, uh, Mark and find out more, uh, you can, you're on, you're on Twitter at at FightShark underscore com, right, and on Instagram at FightSharkMiller.

• 2:15:25Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:15:26Rich Roll?

  And, uh, any, anywhere else you wanna direct people to go?

• 2:15:29Speaker 01

  Uh, there's the Facebook fan page, which is just Mark FightSharkMiller.

• 2:15:33Rich Roll?

  Right, cool, man. Dude, thanks so much.

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 2:15:36Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 2:15:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:15:43Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, that's it. We're done. This is the end of the show. I hope you enjoyed Mark. At a minimum, he should leave you reevaluating your own life, how you deal with obstacles, and more importantly, how those obstacles determine your resulting actions and your perspective on yourself and the world around you. So don't forget to check out Pain Don't Hurt. Use the Amazon banner ad, of course, to purchase it. Link is in the show notes. Please, if you haven't already, give us a review on iTunes. Again, we're approaching 1,000 reviews, and it would be great to hit that in the short run, not in the long run, in the short run. So do me a solid. Take the two minutes it takes. Go to iTunes and make it happen. I appreciate

• 2:16:24Rich Roll?

  that. If you're in LA, don't forget to check out Joy Cafe. Feeling awesome, as is the cafe tagline. It's right in the heart of Westlake Village in the West Valley, off Agora Road and the 101. You can find me there at lunch probably three or four times a week. So come by, say hi, get some delicious food, be feeling great. And I'm really proud of this new restaurant, so just excited to spread the word about it. If you want to stay current with all things plant-powered, subscribe to my newsletter at richroll.com. I will not spam you, but I will be sending out weekly podcast updates and some exclusive content, deals, sales, discounts on products, stuff like that. Along those lines, again, go to

• 2:17:06Rich Roll?

  richroll.com for all your plant-powered needs, merch, nutritional products, et cetera, and go to mindbodygreen.com for my online courses. Thank you so much for supporting the show by telling a friend. Continue to do that. Use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. You can donate to the show, subscribing on a weekly or monthly basis, any dollar amount you choose. Thank you so much to everybody who has gone that extra mile and has done that. And keep on Instagramming. Please keep sharing how, when, where you are enjoying the RRP. Don't forget to tag me, @richroll, so I can see it and share it and give you a thumbs up. Okay, the assignment for this week.

• 2:17:46Rich Roll?

  I want you to make a list of the top 10 worst things you think have happened to you in your life. Draw a line down the middle of the page, on the left-hand side, I want you to write those things down, one by one. And then, in the second column, on the right-hand side of the paper, I want you to write down how each one of these experiences has informed how you acted as a result, how it defined who you think you are, and the story that you tell yourself about who you are. If you do that, you do it openly, honestly, a pattern should emerge. Maybe it's good, maybe it's not, but it will tell a story. Now, I want you to take out another piece of paper, and I want you to write down a list, the same way, draw a line down the middle of the page, and on the left-hand side,

• 2:18:28Rich Roll?

  I want you to make a list of the 10 obstacles you are currently facing. And in that second column, I want you to write how you are dealing with each of those. It would be great, add a third column even, and write how you can change how you're dealing with them, to deal with them in a more positive, productive manner. I want you to think about Mark, and I want you to reevaluate whether there might be a better, more positive way to approach and move through each of these obstacles. That should keep everybody busy for the week. Alright, you guys, until next week. Peace. Plants.