[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, Captain, uh, Smithers. You know, they, uh, they, they, I'm about to run through that gate, you know, from the beach unto the compound. I was like, Adelaide, could you come here? The Mass. Chief was like, yo, you ain't moving from all of these guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was, it was my pride. I mean, uh, that conversation that, uhm, uh, Mark Lee had with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Time had passed and I didn't, and he, and another thing about Mark, he was always holding me accountable throughout that whole process of us going through first phase in the hell week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes it was just a look, like you're getting a little ahead of yourself, right? And I didn't have that accountability anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was in rollback land, I had a lot of time on my hands. And so after we would get off at like 12 o'clock, we'd just have to do our swim PT and then I'm out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hanging out, going downtown, doing all these stupid things, and then on the weekends, it was party time. And right after I passed my first swim and first phase,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was on. I was just like, I'm making it through buds because now I'm going to die phase. Nobody can tell me anything. And the instructors would show up on the weekends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To help anybody with anything, this is post hell week, you know, whether you were struggling with swims, even if you were struggling with runs, if you were struggling with, if you anticipated that you would be struggling with anything dive related, they would show up on the weekends at like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 8 o'clock in the morning, a reasonable time, nothing too crazy, work with guys for a couple hours and then go, and I, I never showed up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I'm too busy partying in the gas lamp district and chasing girls and doing all the stupidity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I'm too hungover to, you know, to show up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's good to show all the glamorous things and all that other stuff, but I wanted to show, I was, I was in a bad place. And it was all mine, it was all on me. And I wanted people to see the mistakes that I made and see, hey, I even told foolish lies like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But for me, I'm already negative. No body fat. Jump in the water. I go down anyway. With that, it's like I'm drowning. As a matter of fact, when I did uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, drown proofing in first phase and part of, part of drown proofing is a float. I didn't float. I was literally kicking the entire time because I'm so negative. So multiply that with, with, uh, the dive tanks and the tread. And that was horrific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, for me it was, it was like I felt like I was drowning and I failed that four times. And again, here was an evolution that the instructors would show up on a weekend because they knew it was coming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to learn some techniques or, you know, some ways to pass this, show up and we'll help you. And I wasn't there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I needed that to happen. I wasn't ready. And I know for unequivocal doubt that if I would have made it through and you know, went on with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With Mikey and those guys and, and to the teams and all that, I would have been an out of control monster. And going back to Mark, Mark saw that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what Mark was trying to rectify in me, you know, throughout our time in first phase in the Hell Week. Cause he saw what I would potentially become if I got to the team. So that moment was necessary, me getting kicked out, but even more so me getting that lesson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Extreme ownership. You take responsibility for your actions. You can't grow. I don't think, there's no way I could have grown.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't know if I was going to get the opportunity to come back, but I knew that if I did, I would be ready.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He gave me a recommendation letter right after that. When I was walking across the Grindr, a lot of this is cut out because my publisher was like, uh, you didn't want it to be a shorter book, so so much is truncated and cut out. But when I, uh, right before I got off the Grindr, Senior Chief Hitchcock was like, come here. One of them was like, dude, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's a, as a matter of fact, I ended up going to SWIC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's uh, that's the all out. That's not even in the book? That's not in the book. So, so, so, so afterwards he, Hitchcock pulled me aside and like two other instructors like, yo dude, we want to kind of keep you in the community. Um, um, maybe you should consider going SWCC and then, and then coming back and going to Buds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was in training, well I got put back in Roan Brown's for real back land, and then I was in training for maybe like a week and I was like, this ain't for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went back to ARB board and I was like, and the proctor, I can't remember his name, bad with names, but he was super cool and he told the, uh, there was a CEO, I can't remember that dude's name, but he was a CEO, he was the ops guy in charge of both classes and he was like, listen,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, we, we, we were, well, we were just gonna do the Paycom thing and then the guest report came in, hey, our sister battalion was getting, taking heavy losses and so they needed us to come in and reinforce the command, battalion, whatever it was. So the Pellaloo pulled into Kuwait, we all offloaded and moved to the Iraqi border.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you know everything that's gonna happen. So when the instructor's like, we're gonna keep you in the water for another...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I knew it was going to suck, but I knew I was prepared this time because I, you know, the very next day after I left Swick, I was in the pool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, working on my swims, I was, I created this exercise to strengthen my hip flexors and, and my quads and, and just all the muscles that needed to be strengthened for the tread. And I was, I was good to go. I was aging, I was locked in and I didn't fail any swims in first phase.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it sucked. I mean, it was, it was, it wasn't, like, yeaah, it was, yeaah, it was fun. I mean, uhm, in the sense that, uh, I was able to enjoy it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After they called time for the five minute tread, I went swimming down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then on my, uh, and the strap was, got loose and wrapped around my neck. But they, I was still technically...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Second one, did the five minute tread, swim down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, which is, that's a miracle in there. So especially the way I was horny, it was like, you know, I had an encounter that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Traumas that I created for myself, scars, and I searched for other things to bring me to healing that I needed, meditation that helped to a certain extent, um, women, relationships, affirmation from other people, but it was almost, it was just like putting a bandaid on a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gushing wound, you know, and then it was finally when my brother would tell me all the time because my brother became a Christian like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was in college, and I used to make fun of him before, cause I would fluctuate between atheists and agnosticism, depending on the day of the week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, and my brother would always tell me, Remy, when you hit rock bottom, not if, but when you hit rock bottom, just remember to cry out to Jesus. And I just remember mocking him for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when I was in that very, very dark point in my life, uh, in Alaska and then even coming back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And nothing worked. And I just, I just kept on hearing these voices. I just, I was just in such a very dark, dark place. And I said, alright, Jesus help me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're real, help me turn this around, help me. And I'm not saying turn my situation around, but turn around what's going on in here because what's going on in here is really tormenting me. And that's when it, that's when I felt for the first time peace. I felt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like God was saying to me, the father that you had always been searching for has been right here with you. Uhm, and I am here with you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything changed from there. You know, me and my wife were talking a couple nights ago before I left for New York and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was sharing a story that one of our neighbors was sharing. It's a park by where we live and the neighbor was telling her that her, her, uh, her daughter was getting picked up, picked on by another kid in the park and the parent of the other kid wasn't saying anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The parent was just allowing this kid to just, not just pick on her kid, but pick on other kids as well. And finally the mother said something to the kid who was picking on her kid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the actual mother who had not been doing anything ran over and screamed at the woman and said, how dare you ever correct my, my, my child.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as soon as my wife shared that story, I was reminded of the same exact situation that happened in the same park years ago with my oldest son. He's nine now, but he was five at the time. And uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was, he was a bigger kid, but he was like pushing kids and making funny kids and just doing things and he saw my son. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, like, tapped one of his friends, like, he's next. This kid's next.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he beeline towards my son and I was sitting on the bench watching and I just stood up and all I said was, Hey, that's my son. And in an instant that kid stopped, looked at me and went in the other direction. And just the power of having a father say, Hey, that's my son.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meaning, I'm his protection. I'm his source. I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm the person that he can cry on if something happens. That was what I felt when


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had that transformation when I, when I, when I cried out to God and said, help me. And it was as though he said, you're my son and I've always been here and I'm gonna always be here now and cover you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's something that can't really be explained in words. It was real heavy. And even to this day, like, it's heavy. Even now when I go through stuff and, uh, struggling mentally, uhm, I always, like, I have that source to go to. And that gives me peace and it gives me hope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just horror stories that I hear, uhm, and feeling hopeless and then also even


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The division in our country, you know what I mean? It's like sickening to me at times because, you know, I came here with nothing. Absolutely nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's only possible because of the freedoms that America has allowed, allotted to me. Uhm, and so to see how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Divisive we are as a nation and I understand that part of it is outside forces that understand the concept of divide and conquer and the plan is to conquer our nation and the way to do it is from within.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And say, God, I know you got me. You've brought me through worse. I know you'll bring me through this. And I know that you'll bring my kids through whatever's gonna come their way. So, that's why, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was like, now it's just, they're putting the terms behind it. You know, because I mentioned earlier, like I had to learn how to read people, especially when I'm hustling and doing certain things. And it really set me up nicely for when I got into the course and then went back on a deployment was actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Deep into the human stuff and running sources and having to keep track and having to be a different person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fob, not fob, but keycard. Keycard to get in. So somebody had to do, but even that was like. You thought you were James Bond?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and so all of that stuff was eye-opening. And even just being on the, just being on that side of the compound, because we were always...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, we had to run through the park a lot to get to the old course, but for the most part, we were always separated from, from that. So to be able to be, actually be there and see, and, and, uh, see the Mark Lee, um, trade at center and all of that was like, it was, it was, it was surreal for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah. And here's a cr- I didn't know who he- I didn't know anything about him. Yeaah, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, it's surreal, because like I said, for me, I wasn't supposed to, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a world that I never envisioned being in and that not many people who come from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the city the Bronx end up in, you know, or Compton, or other places. So uhm, that was, that was, that was eye-opening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, and that's the craziest thing. I get opportunities to speak at like suburban schools all the time. No red tape, no nothing. Inner city schools.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the red tape in the world. Uhm, even when I, when we've done stuff at an inner city school here in San Diego, all the red tape we had to cut through just to get inside. It's, it's, I think it's saddening. I think it's, part of it is, you know, they want to keep


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, this is my theory, I could be 100% wrong, but like in these inner cities, they want to keep the cycle going because then that'll


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that's my only explanation for why you wouldn't allow a person who was quote unquote a criminal but was able to rise out of the situation that he was in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come back and tell these, look these kids in the eye who I can identify with and they can identify. I've gone to prisons and spoken in prisons and you'd be surprised if the guys that come up to me and be like, I wish you came and spoke to me when I was, when I was this age.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Crying, guys in tears, crying. You know what I mean? I get guys who read my book in prison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and, you know, and I hear, you know, they don't write me, but I hear from, you know, the counselors, man, he was moved. I never saw, I've never seen such and such inmate cry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or show emotion. He's a hard dude. He's in for murder, in for life, never getting out. And you read your book, came to me in tears.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was that exposure. And that's, you know, like my brother's another good example. He ended up not going down the path I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he was exposed to engineering. You know, my dad was an engineer. And so, I forgot what age he was at, but he, how old he was, but he came across my dad's blueprints and all my dad's engineering stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that one instant of exposure in his mind, he's like, I'm going to be an engineer. And then to graduate in high school for three years, in three years, Kennedy High School, which is, was a hard, worst


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Genius. And he knows a lot about what's going on with the water drying up in, uh, in the country and Colorado and the west coast, blah, blah, blah. But I say all that to say, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That changed the trajectory of his life. And that's what a lot of these kids need, especially these kids without fathers, they're so, they're easily influenced. And if you can have somebody come in and influence them in a positive way, somebody who they can identify with, and it doesn't have to be a long, drawn out speech, it could just be one moment of somebody saying, dude,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at where you are. Look at where I'm at. You can be there. That's enough for a lot of these kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, I went, I went to, I went after


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, no kidding. Yeah, so I was a corpsman. So I did the corpsman thing actually before we went to ULT. Uhm, I went to a soft OEMS.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And did that course, and then I was the corpsman. And then, uh, and then I went to humid after.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if we can say the name of the school, but we'll just say human for the sake of confidentiality. But I went there after ULT. So went through CQC. Loved CQC. No factor. Yeah, no issue at all. Aaron Vaughn. Yeah. Never forget. We were, uh, doing, uh, we were doing our FTX.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, there was somebody on the other side of the room that cleared all the rooms and in the last room there was somebody like on the other and it was like these paint, I don't know what it was, these guns that had like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was painful and I remember we got to the last part and we opened up the door and it was like a machine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a bunch of bullets coming down. And, uh, we all kind of got back behind the corn hours appointment and it was another guy on the other side of the door, on the other side of the hallway. And, uh, Aaron was yelling, somebody get


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally I took one of the, uh, the blue, uh, grenade things and I tossed it in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, I enjoyed it, man, and, and, uh, I'll never forget that. Again, it's these moments that always come to my mind, especially with guys who pass away, like Aaron Bono, what happened on Extortion 17. But, you know, Mark Lee, Mikey Monsoor, it's just those moments of encouragement that always...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That kind of gave me that push to keep going. It gave me the confidence to keep doing the job and so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, I, uh, yeaah, I didn't have a problem. They had to diving, skydiving, did it all and easy day. And then, uhm, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, went to, went to human school and, uh, got out, you know, got in and got through that. It was kickin' nuts, the writing side of it, cause it was a lot of writing, uhm, and then pumped out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was good man, we're doing a lot of DA's, so it was like, I would say, maybe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three times a week we would go out, you know, uhm, and then there were times when we would get like the random, hey, we need you to come in and help out with this or come up to, come up to Ramadi or go up to Baghdad. And I was always busy. I mean, I was always like either in a source meat or, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking to the source to get with another source and then going up to Ramadi to have a meeting with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't be careful with specific terms, but to have dialogue with the guy that is my boss on that side of things, or the guys who are our boss, and even going up to Baghdad, and I'll never forget Cinco de Mayo one year, on that particular deployment, they made me tear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Publisher suggested I take it out the book. I didn't say it was harmless, but where we were at the agency compound in Baghdad and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We did, that whole pump was like a vampire ah, hours. So we were up at like 5pm. Out the door maybe like around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even know, be careful what I said, but they made me take out certain terms in the DOD. We'll just say more deployments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My kids, man, my oldest son was born in 2014. My second son was born in 2015. And having had my dad die when I was five, I wasn't fearful of death. It was more so, you know how it is, work up, deployment, being gone, I mean, gone is almost as


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, she graduated from medical school in, I want to say June, no sorry May of 2011 I want to say. Oh okay, so she was a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah, yeaah


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, cause she had, she had her residency got extended cause she had my, my, my son during residency. She had to take a break in residency. They allowed her to graduate with her starting class, but then she had to go back and finish her ULT.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instead of buying a flashy car when I came back, put it in an account, let it, you know, save it. That's how I was able to buy my first house when I got back from that, uh, second deployment, uhm, uh, in 2010. I was able to buy first house by myself before I even met my wife. And so by the time I got out, we had a good cushion and then I was, I already started, uhm, I finished my bachelor's while I was in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was still in grad, I was able to use a post 9-11 GI bill. Got it. So that was providing some cover for us as well and I was planning on going into business consulting full time because my wife's brother is a YPO guy and I'm sure you work with those guys a bunch of times and so he was getting me like side consulting gigs with his


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanted to get my master's because I didn't want to just rely on the team guy side of things. I wanted to have it, but I also wanted to have that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Theory and academics as well. And so, uh, I was in school and my plan was to just, you know, finish out school and then work with my brother-in-law full-time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw it on the internet, but I don't know what it is. It was like, uh, it was on TNT.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a TV show? Yeah, it was like a TV show on TNT, so I did like some extra stuff. I don't even want to call that acting. I don't even want to call that acting. I just literally just showed up at the base and sat on a boat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, I know. You can't pass this one off. I know. Yea, this lady at my church, she was like, uh, hey, uhm, they're doing a play down in, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, pretty much right in the mall area. And uh, he was like, I just need you to be a pastor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the play. So I went and did that. But I was like, I don't wanna have anything to do with this anymore. How many shows did you do? It was just, it was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was just one show. Oh, okay. Yeaah, it was just one show. Yeaah, it was like, it was like a big build, like a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like a big training, I don't even know what they call it, but like a training, but I didn't show up most of the time because I was in school. I was just like, showed up, I just memorized my lines and then all I had to do was give a speech at the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I got out in January and then I was in grad school and then, uh, in May of 2016 is when I got the phone call. I was actually in my office writing papers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, there was a woman who worked with a guy by the name of Kevin Kent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, so she, I guess Kevin Kent had given her my phone number. Okay. And so she reached out to me and she was just like, hey, you know, Kevin Kent told me about you and Bay's looking for some frogmen to work tomorrow in LA. Mhm. What's your schedule looking like? And I was like, uh, I wasn't interested in doing it, but she was like, uh, you know, it's a good opportunity. So I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, like a fanboy or something, going, not knowing how to act on set and stuff like that. But, uh, but yeaah, I, uh, but yeaah, you know, I said, she finally said, hey, send me some pictures. I sent her some pictures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She said, hey, uh, uhm, alright babe, approve your pictures. And, uh, come on to LA tomorrow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that one day, turning in three weeks after that one day, she calls me back and said, hey babe,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the same one. Okay. This was the same one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, that one week turning one day turned into three weeks. I met JP. He went out to London with us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He went out to London with us. That's right. That's right. Now remember. So he wasn't in Arizona in Michigan. He came later in Michigan. Yeah. He would.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wasn't in Arizona, but he came out later to Michigan and replaced a bunch of other team guys. And then I stayed on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And went to London with him in Wales. And then, and then came back here in San Diego and we filmed some stuff in December, uh, down in, uh, on base, on, uh, Naval Air Station base.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that didn't come until later. That came like into 2021 is when I did my first season of Who Dares Wins. Uhm, we did that out in Jordan. Did two seasons of that out there. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bank robbers. So we knew that. I mean, was it really?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Explain much in the script, but essentially we got intel that the bank robbers were gonna rob this particular bank. So, it's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, this dialogue doesn't make sense here or doesn't make sense for this to happen in this part of the screenplay because, you know, tactically that wouldn't happen that way, you know. Uhm, so that was kind of how I got into the, would later get into the WGA and end up becoming a WGA writer in Hollywood is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I adapted a book called Slave Stealers into a limited series, uhm, and so it hasn't shot yet, but uhm, uh, it's to Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard has...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A book called Slave Stealers where he jumps back and forth between his story and a woman by the name of Harriet Jacobs. So Harriet Jacobs was a slave in the 1800s and she was doing all kinds of, she, I mean, her story is crazy. She was doing trade crap before anybody even knew what trade craft was. And she was a slave and she like intentionally got impregnated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In order to be able to use that to escape slavery, it was, her story was crazy. She was wearing disguises and after she escaped, she came back to the town and eating to North Carolina. I mean, her story is just ridiculously crazy. And she's the first known slave to have written an autobiography. And so, uh, called uh, what was it called?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Incidents of a, incidents of a slave girl or something like that. And so Tim kinda did a, did a book where he jumped back and forth and took techniques that she used to rescue


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other slaves and how he applied those, applies those techniques in what he does or what he did at the time in OUR, Operation Underground Railroad. And so uhm, I adapted the flashback chapters essentially into a limited series.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A streamer hasn't signed on yet, but it's being made for a streamer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holy fictionalized, right? So like the plot and the characters and the places and even Kali Kent is very loosely based off of me. The name is based off of a kid in the Bronx by the name of Khalif Browder. So Kali's full name is actually Khalif Browder Kent. There was a kid in the Bronx who grew up not too far from me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, he was unjustly, uh, uh, accused of stealing a backpack, sent to Rikers Island Jail at 16, held in, at Rikers Island for three years without trial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, he was put in general population with adults, beat up, he spent 700 days in solitary confinement, and then he was so tormented after he got out that he committed suicide two years later. And the only reason why he got out is because a judge finally looked at his case and said, oh, uhm, there's no evidence here to charge him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, uh, they dismissed the case and then, you know, let him, let him free. So anyway, the, the character's main name is Khalif, uhm, Browder Kent, uhm, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very good method actors. Uh, you have ghost agents who are people who are able to get in and out of places like a ghost. Uhm, you have aberration agents who are a combination of, of chameleons and ghosts, but they do it for a decade plus. Then you have wind agents who are pretty much swift. They could drive any vehicle like the wind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are trying to find the identity of a South African mastermind that's manipulating worldwide stock markets in order to cause economic collapse so I didn't want to go with the traditional


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, at least to the general population is more plausible with everything that happened financially after COVID and even where we are, uhm, with the recession now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, then pending recession and all of these things that are happening financially, I wanted to be able to portray a villain that is using his brain to essentially destabilize, uh, the Western world and Western economies and cause even more chaos and in some cases, you know, a bomb can sometimes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'll buy stock in a specific company and then he will have his team essentially take somebody in that company hostage and then uh, essentially force


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the antagonist and what he's doing. And then the substratum of the book is, uh, is national unity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I'm writing a story, whether it's a screenplay or whether it's a book or whatever it is, I always try to put some type of inspirational, educational, motivational message in there. Otherwise...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two hours on a book or, sorry, two hours in a film or eleven hours on a book and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they invest that time and all they get out of it is our thrills and laughs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I truly believe that as a storyteller, my job is to kind of engage them in a different way or challenge them in a different way. And so the, uh, again, the substratum of the book is the importance of national unity and what happens when we don't have national unity. And I also dive into the fact that the reason why


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We are so divided is because it's actually, it's not just coming from outside entities, but a big part of it is coming from the top.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Politicians and people in Washington DC that kind of needs us to be divided in order to maintain power over the groups that they want to maintain power over. So that's like, it's not just an espionage thriller and an action thriller, but it's also a, uh, it's also a political thriller as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's trying to engage people's mind and get them thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What am I doing that's, that's contributing to the disunity? Not just in our nation, but in my family or in my community or, you know, in my state and what can I do better? So it's essentially holding up a mirror kind of like what has happened to me and you talked about where I've had to have a mirror.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Proverbial mirror held up to my face to show me what I've been doing wrong. So I'm hoping that the book acts access that and brings the healing that plays a role in bringing healing that's necessary to our nation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, for me I have, uh, my writing starts long before I actually get to the computer and start structuring out and putting, you know, proverbial pen to paper. So, for example, Chameleon has been in my head for over 10 years and I have a notepad, not a physical notepad, but a digital notepad where when certain things came to me, like the idea about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it had to do with insider trading and what's going on there and how people are getting rich. And I was like, huh, it'd be interesting if there was a, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three act structure. He's where this is gonna happen, he's where this is gonna happen, he's where I'm gonna introduce the villain and so on and so forth. And even now, like, for Chameleon Book 2 and Chameleon Book 3.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, uhm, ideas come to me, I drop them in. Even with screenplays, ideas come to me. When I was writing the Transform screenplay, like I had the book as a reference, but there were so many stories that didn't make it into the book. As we talked about how to be truncated and changed, I was like, oh, maybe I could take that part and put it into the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] into the, into my notepad. And I would put it into notepads and then when I got to writing the screenplay, a lot of what I needed to essentially, the meat was there, now I just had to massage it. And then my, my process is just sitting down and, and, and write.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, I'm not, I'm not regimental on it. You know, it's not the gospel to me. So when I take all of these ideas and put it into this space,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even if it's structured, I don't hold to it. I like, cause I like characters to tell the story. For me, it's always about character driving plot and driving narrative versus plot driving characters and what they do. So once I get a good sense of, of the character I'm writing, whether it be Collie Kent, whether it be Nevaeh, whether it be Thayne Macklin, whoever it is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How they would react is going to drive where we, where we're going to go into the story. So for example, if, if Kali is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, conduct an interrogation in a way where he's not going to go straight in and start screaming or yelling, or he's going to be a bit more calculated, then that's how that scene is going to be driven, because that's his personality. And there's times where I don't know exactly what's going to happen in the scene that I'm going to write, whether it's a book or whether it's a script.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I allow that character with the attributes that I've kinda given him or he or he or he or she has shown me begin to fill in the gap. And then before you know it, you have like a very cool scene, especially with dialogue and stuff like that that comes together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, I, I, I could write for a long time. Yeaah. Yeaah, so for me it's, it's, I can go for time because, you know, my nanny starts at 8.30, gotta work out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and so, uh, so, you know, I work out and then after that I come to my, I get to my computer and I'm, I'm, I'm at my computer from say about 10.30 until my nanny gets off at 4.30 and I write for time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dang. And then sometimes, uhm, like if I'm on a time crunch and I need to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love him man, I don't mind, uh, it's just, that's what, that's what drives me man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, right now I'm following the main character, Chameleon, so I'm gonna do two more books on Chameleon for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ghost agents are in, so part of the team in book one is made up of a ghost agent, another chameleon agent, a few aberration agents, and then a win agent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so, we're gonna keep following Kali and the Chameleon, uh, in book two and three and then maybe we'll branch it off, you know, into a graphic novel, maybe, you know what's going down with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It started out as a screenplay, you know, I, uh, I wrote the screen, it was the first screenplay I wrote in 2019 and then, um, uh, long story short, my agent shopped it around and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were three production companies that won it. We won one of the big ones. And, uh, went through a year of rewrites on the screenplay. And then after that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He started, my agent, the producer started shopping the screenplay around to directors to get a director attached.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got the same, kept getting the same message. Great screenplay, but I'm booked up for the next two years. Great screenplay, but I'm booked up for the next three years. And that was when I was like, you know what? I'm tired of this. I wanna, I wanna teach myself how to direct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, which is a, which is a 32 minute short film, uh, that really dives deep into the intricacies of organ harvesting rings and how they operate, uh, which organ harvesting is a billion dollar, multi-billion dollar industry globally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, it's nuts. The more you go down a rabbit hole and learn about it, Cairo, Egypt is considered to be the organ harvesting capital of the world. Uh, there's been so many stories coming out lately of Westerners getting caught up, you know, going to other countries to get a kidney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, via organ harvesting ring because about 6,500 people die every year on, uh, on transplant waiting lists. And so there's a, there's a big need for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so uhm, the more I started going down a rabbit hole and reading these articles and doing more research, that's when I was like, okay, I need to make this film.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just made it just to get it out there, you know, not to, not to, for it to get distributed, but it got seen by some people in the industry. Now that's what got, got picked up to be a feature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, just actor film. Actor film, yea. Right on. It's a short film. Picks up five years after the events of the short. Sweet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I uhm, got a new, I got a, well I was working on Special Forces Fox, not doing that anymore, but I got a new project, can't get into just yet, but we start shooting that uhm, two weeks, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All aspects of the military. And then, uhm, yeaah, it got a, uh, transform. Hopefully after, after the Rider Strike we can get that into production as well. Outstanding, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, I stopped partying in a gas lamp around 2008, so from 2004 to 2008. Okay, so that was my time too, by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you know somebody's out there when they name the sin. Like S-I-N sin. She had it tattooed on her back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Epic podcast and uh, thank you for, you know, your service and your leadership and you always.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're always in my head pushing me from the time when we were out in, uh, nylon and you were getting at us talking about how much more we can go. There's always more, you know, and so I, I try to follow that, um, that, that pattern in my life. So I,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I realized I had to give you like a heads up, like in the future, right? So, we'll watch that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you know, we'll find out on the mats or whatever. And he added.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's a medic, I don't know, but he's working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever, I would have been looking for the keys too. No. So, wait, but if I buy like, remember like Arnold Schwarzenegger had that big homie? I'm sure they're-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, you guys talked about the, uh, what's it called, the freakin' talk, or the man talk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm thinking back, that might have been the time when I realized who he was. Like when I brought him together, cause I met Jimmy, man, like trained with him a bunch, cause he'd come during the day and that's when like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't get a, especially back then there was no huge groups of people training during the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you didn't tell me right when it happened. In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, I told you about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe he came up or something like that and then you were like, oh, let me tell you this thing about and then I think that's why I think that's and then I put them all together. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was just training with him, he was just going, he was like, oh yeaah, I'm like a Navy SEAL, but you know, back in the day, I freaking I know about, remember Igor, like all these guys, my friends and stuff, like, okay yeaah, everyone that I meet, like, Navy SEALs all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm like cool, and he's freaking good at jiu-jitsu, and so I was always really happy to see him, so nice. He has a, to be honest, he kinda has a scary look.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In his face, when you look at his face, he looks like, oh, but he was super nice, he tried, good training, really, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Slowly but truly, freaking, Conver, you tell me that story, I find out all this stuff, Greg tells me some stuff, I'm like, freaking, that's the guy that I used to train with, cause I didn't train with him for a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was thinking, but that doesn't make sense cause he doesn't seem like he's that guy. Cause he's just a normal dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew he was in the teams before I knew about all the stuff he did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I called him Jimmy before I knew he was Jimmy May. You see what I'm saying?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't go into the whole like hip, his hip scenario.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's true. Also that pre-workout's out. That's the new hotness right now. And I am back on the pre-workout. You're back in the game!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The tingling actually, I shouldn't, cause I didn't do like a full length workout, but my workout was 35 minutes. I still felt the tingling on the way down there. Oh yeah, that's when you know right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ten. And here's the formula. And I went over this with Kerry, by the way. So if I'm working out right when I get up, here's the formula. It's the deluxe formula for pre-workout. Creatine. So it's water, right? Water. Creatine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Scoop and half creatine, one hydrate, jockohydrate. You'd think...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It actually doesn't matter the flavor of hydrate. And then, one scoop. I'm at one scoop now. I started with half scoop. Oh, you're already- I'm already at one scoop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pre-workout. Those three all mixed. Some people like the greens, which I dig. I advocate for the greens for sure, but that's not the deluxe formula I'm currently on. Boom. Perfect, bro. Perfect. Lands perfectly 10-15 minutes before the workout. Boom. Go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, I see it. I go from banana to chocolate. I don't so much do the vanilla. Do you do the, uhm, the blue razz, or go? Blue razz going out. Yeah, yeah, do you like it? It just came out. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know the mega mix too. I don't know if you heard me explain this to Kerry. The mega pre-workout mix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But with a go. But with a go instead of water. Oh yeaah, so you get the Blue Razz, you stack the Blue Razz all day. So you Blue Razz go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh huh. Blue res hydrate, blue res pre-workout. Triple. Boom. Threat. Boom. Oh yea, then, I mean, I don't know if that's, you know, you put the greens on the creatine. That might not be legal, bro. Yea, yea, you gotta cut it. Well, you gotta put creatine as well. So that's the mega mix right there. But, I can't take responsibility for the results on that one, cause you can be wigging out. Jacked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, Origin USA, boom. So we're doing jiu jitsu, we're working, or what are we doing, not working? Oh, we're working. So look, doing jiu jitsu, you're going to need a gi, once you go with these Origin gi's, you're not going to go back to the regular, conventional, uh, sweatshop gi's. And you are working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shirt Locker. Well that could have been slightly cryptic because yes, it's from the Shirt Locker. Well the Shirt Locker is part of Jocko's store. It's our program. So yea man, you wanna get on that. The Shirt Locker program. It's one new shirt every month. That's just one of many that you can get. Good news too, that is a past one. That one's from last year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like 2022, last year. Can you still get it? You can still get it. So if you're a member of Shirt Locker, boom, we give you a little account, you just log in, you freaking buy whatever one you want from the past. So you have access to all that stuff. But yea, new shirt every month, people seem to like the design. It's funny because a lot of people don't know about it. Or put it this way, less people know about it than I thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you guys. What a pleasure to be here after seeing you guys do so much good work with the podcast and everything else you guys are doing. So thank you Echo for helping pull this one together and thank you Jaco for that amazing forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're spot on. Uhm, so when the Gracie brothers, my father, my grandfather being the youngest one, uh, were introduced to jiu-jitsu in Brazil in the early 1900s, uh, my grandfather was actually restricted from participating. So only his older brothers were allowed to practice these Japanese techniques that they had learned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, he suffered from vertigo, dropped out of school in the third grade, convinced his mommy he couldn't go to school. So he was a frail young man, uhm, was not really allowed to participate in any type of physical strenuous activity. So he would watch his brothers practice jujitsu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Several years passed, watching his brother's practice and teach. And one day, his older brother, Carlos,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The oldest of all the brothers was scheduled to teach a private class to a student and Carlos was absent. The student had showed up to participate in the class and Elio, my grandfather, had showed up to observe the class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Carlos wasn't there, so Elio at that time offered to teach the class in his brother's absence. And he's, you know, 16 years old, give or take of the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not one who had practiced. So my grandfather at that time went through a class with this student.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Purely based on what he had memorized from watching his brother's practice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were successful. By the end of the class, Carlos eventually showed up late, apologetic. The student said, no worries, I actually had a class with your little brother. And if you don't mind, I would like to keep taking classes with him from now on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the student in that moment promoted my grandfather from nothing to being a teacher of jiu-jitsu. So my grandfather was thrust right into it. Of course, loved that he was able to perform what techniques he was able to perform, but then realized, uh, soon thereafter that there are many techniques that were not suitable for his limited physical ability.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And began modifying and adapting the techniques. His brothers were involved in this process as well. Uhm, but he just dove in head first. It's almost like one of those things where because you can't have it, you want it more, right? You're, you're in the desert dying of thirst. The water tastes a lot better. So for him, I feel like the deprivation from not being able to participate in it made him go gung ho.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it turns out he becomes the champion of the family. He starts fighting in challenge matches as a, as an older teenager and becomes the guy of which basically they're organizing now ValiTudo challenge matches for my grandfather. Carlos being kind of the manager, older brother figure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coordinating these fights, and then my grandfather's out there fighting anyone that can get their hands on to demonstrate the efficacy of jiu-jitsu, and like you said, he was a small guy, right? I guess, 5'9", 140 pounds, give or take, and he's defeating giants with these techniques, and that's really the beginning, uhm, if you want to go all the way back, that's really the beginning of, you know, MMA and Vale Tudo and these Gracie Challenge matches in Brazil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was successful and the name became very, the Gracie name, my grandfather and his brothers became very well known in Brazil at this time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fast forward, you know, 20, 30 years, 1950s when he fought Kimura. My dad was born, uhm, soon thereafter. And now October 23rd, 1951, I think it was when he fought Kimura. Uhm, and I think my father was born in 52, born into this legacy of fighting. And this is what we do. Everyone does jiu-jitsu and my grandfather had nine children.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, my father grows up in that environment of jiu-jitsu for everyone from day one. Everyone's choking each other all the time from as early as they can remember. And then, uhm, you know, he decided to bring it to America in 1978.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He landed here in Southern California and, uh, everyone he met, he invited for a free class. If they told their friend, the friend got a free class and the referring person got another free class. So everyone told every friend so that they would get all these free classes. And before you know it, 1978 through 1989.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, throughout this entire time, there are challenge matches happening in the garage. These original Gracie challenge matches in America, where, you know, these students of the garage would go out to their professors of other disciplines and say, hey, to their karate coach or their taekwondo or kung fu coach,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm training this jujitsu stuff in the garage with these Gracie brothers and it really works. And you're gonna, I think you would love it. And of course in their ego and pride, the instructor of the other discipline says, no, I don't think that works. And in fact, if they tried it on me, I would just knock them out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the student would go back to them and say, Hey, you know, to Mr. Gracie, this karate teacher doesn't think it would work. And then that would go back and forth two or three times before eventually my dad says, look, if they want to test it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They can show up whenever they want. We'll be happy to just see what works and what doesn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And those happened and many of them were recorded and they're on YouTube as Gracie Challenge matches. And that was really the precursor to the actual creation of the UFC, which was of course my father and Art Davy, his partner, who were like, dude, if this is so powerful, the display of jiu-jitsu in the garage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you have these masters of other disciplines getting strangled unconscious or tapping out in 30 seconds, 60 seconds. If we're doing this in the garage and everyone who watches this is just absolutely enthralled by the display of truth and effectiveness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What if we put this on pay-per-view television in UFC one, you know, November 12th, 1993 and the rest is history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I agree. And people ask like, what do you think the biggest impact was? And I think that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, when you talk about Hollywood and you talk about Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and like the era of the 70s, the 80s, early 90s, pre-UFC, there was very much a belief of flashy punches and kicks from that range, that striking range, and that's where men fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stand in trade blows and you hope to get one on them before they get one on you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what the Gracie family kinda came and said was, no, you know, intelligent people don't stand in trade blows 50-50 and risk getting knocked out. We stay too far where you can't hit us, and then when you think you're gonna hit us, we get too close where those hits have no more power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we changed the fundamental distance from which a fight is fought and it was cheating. It really was cheating because once the person who doesn't know jiu-jitsu is in that close range, not only are they not effective with the strikes that they learned from watching television or from years of practice, right? Depending what their source was, not only are they not effective,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're actually counterproductive because there's nothing more energy depleting than throwing strikes that don't land. That's like one of the most exhausting things imaginable and yet when you're in a close range and you pull someone, even if you're on the bottom, you pull someone on top of you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're striking and not landing. They're just pleading so fast. And then it's 30, 60 seconds later, we just pick up the pieces and decide what opportunity we want to take advantage of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, you know, so that's, to me that was the biggest shift. It changed what was acceptable in terms of the distance. What a fight looked like. Changed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to me it's like, when you talk about what makes jiu-jitsu so addicting, what makes jiu-jitsu so


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Like, we're in. Right? We're sold. It'll be part of our lives for the rest of our lives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there's a massive population out there that know nothing and have no participation and have nothing to do with jiu-jitsu, but the people who are in are all the way in. And when I think about why that is, I feel that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? And why is that? Because when you practice Jujutsu, there are three distinct and incredibly profound


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second is how they deal with other people and the third is how they deal with themselves, how you face yourself. When you talk about how we deal with problems, conventional wisdom says, if two people get into a fight and the fight goes to the ground, the person who is on the bottom is losing the fight, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in jiu-jitsu, not only is that not true, in many cases the opposite is true. If you were to send someone,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Down the street to the nearest bar and find the meanest, baddest beard you could find. 300 pounder. Drag him over here. Put any one of us on our back and put him on top of us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then let the world take a survey and say who's winning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone who doesn't do jiu-jitsu and doesn't know of our skill sets would say, that guy's, the beard is winning, that guy's losing. It's automatic that that would be the assessment and the conclusion the world would come to. But we know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's crazy. And in a matter of 30 to 60 seconds, he's tapping out with any number of choices that we make from underneath him to end his life or to, you know, dislocate a joint if we go all the way with it. But we wouldn't because we're compassionate human beings. So, with Jujitsu, we often hear this saying,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And why we love it so much, it teaches us to be comfortable in uncomfortable positions, right? It's a very common one. But I think it's much bigger than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what the world perceives as unwinnable worst case scenarios, we look at as absolutely winnable situations that we can optimize to our advantage. So that affects the practitioner in a very profound way. The second one is how we deal with other people, right? And when you talk about kind of the evolutionary way of things, and you look at members of a species,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A larger, stronger member of a species will consistently defeat a smaller, weaker member of the same species, right? The larger silverback defeats the smaller silverback for a mate or for territory. The larger squirrel defeats the smaller, weaker squirrel for the nut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But humans are unique in their ability to kind of go against the natural order of things and learn skills.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And process information that will give them a strikingly consistent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Effectiveness against members of their own species who are larger and stronger than them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And jiu-jitsu is the fastest way for a person to accomplish that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Such that, if two people saw, if people, if the world saw us standing side by side with the monster beard that we recruited, and stood us next to that person, they would go, oh man, the same way we looked at hoice in UFC 1, what did you feel? Poor hoice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he simply doesn't have the resources to deal with the techniques that we will bring to the equation. And the fact that humans can do that, we can learn and violate the natural order of things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once you tap into that, you're on the inside and you don't leave because it's too rewarding and it's too special and it changes the way you deal with adversity in every aspect of your life. And then the third one is how you face yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm too young, I'm too old, I'm too, I'm too tall, I'm too short, I'm too fat, I'm too skinny. You name it, they've used it as an excuse not to do jujitsu. Even though they've heard you about it ad nauseum over so many podcasts, right? Like, they hear about it but they're still, I'm not good enough. Now what's crazy is for the lucky few who take your advice and venture onto the mat,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not only do they realize that their initial fears were almost entirely unfounded, but they realize that their body


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is so much more capable than they ever imagined. You unlock your secret potentials when you do Jujutsu. And the best analogy I've come up with, and there may be others, but it's a Swiss army knife. Imagine if everyone was equipped with a Swiss army knife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People who do jiu-jitsu know that there are, I looked last night, what's the Swiss army knife with the most instruments, it's 33 instruments. So the knife plus 32 others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To increase our effectiveness and decrease their opportunities against us, it's, it's, it's infinite and it's amazing to tap into that. So I look at the world of people with Swiss army knives only relying on this blade and I go, man, what a sad existence. You only lived your entire life only using the knife function.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it makes me so happy when someone starts suing jiu-jitsu and they realize that they are too a swiss army knife. They aren't too old, they aren't too young, they aren't too fat, they aren't too skinny. So for me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every single time you step on the jujitsu mat and you practice this incredible art, you're reprogramming your brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Number two, the people, the opponents you thought were unbeatable are beatable. And number three,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then naturally that does something to a human being and then it changes eventually how they live their life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Initially, you're learning techniques. Every technique you learn, it's exciting because you see a new move, it's a new solution to an old problem. And you're like, wow, that's awesome. So the addiction is to individual techniques. Initially.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you learn hundreds, eventually thousands of moves, but somewhere between blue and purple belt, maybe a little bit after purple belt. A dedicated practitioner shifts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? A rather limited list, a relatively small number of principles that make all of those thousands of techniques possible. And once you tap in and you have a relationship with these timeless and universal principles that make everything possible in jiu-jitsu,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You separate from that obsession with individual techniques, and then once that relationship with those principles is true, profound, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Labeled and totally real for you, then it starts to translate into your everyday life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at that point, jujitsu isn't just a fighting system for you anymore, it's now an operating system for your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why I chose to write the book. Because I realized that these 32 principles were not limited to my combat effectiveness. They were as relied upon in my own life and as effective


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Entrepreneurially, right, from a family perspective, relationship perspective, business perspective,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the glory land of these 32 principles being available for them as life tools.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I said, what if I could write a book that makes those principles, right, it kind of distills the art down to those principles and gives someone with no martial arts experience the ability to understand what they are and how they apply personally and professionally


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then hope that after they read a book like this, we bring them in the back door and we go, Hey, you now love the principal. So let's go do some jujitsu. I'm just saying the last page of the book might nudge them in that direction. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] UFC 1. Okay. So 1993. Cause prior to that, when you're born in a house and in the garage is the thing that's happening. I think this is happening in every house, right? Like everyone just does, they wear pajamas and they do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jiu-jitsu in their garage. This is a normal family thing. Little did I know that was totally not the case. And, uh, growing up around this and seeing these challenge matches when I'm seven years old and there's guys fighting in the garage and I'm just standing there by the rabbit, like this tiny little rabbit car, that brown rabbit that we have and I'm just watching and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People are fighting and it's totally normal and we're desensitized to that very early and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then we moved to the school in 1989, we outgrew the garage, we moved to the school, and in 1993 when the UFC hits, and this is gonna be on television, and I'm like 10 years old, and I remember begging to go to the UFC, UFC 1, Hiron was 12 years old, 2 years older than me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And boy, it was very contentious and boom, he don't got to go and Henner stays home for his 10th birthday, which was two days before UFC 1. And I was watching at home with my mom and I was so pissed and I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, so he don't over there and then to make matters worse in between the fights on UFC 1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Hedon and Hawkson, Hickson's older son, were in the ring with rags and little spray bottles and they were cleaning the blood off the mats between the matches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I did not get to be a blood boy, I just got to walk around and get a bunch of autographs backstage. But anyways, after UFC 1 and 2, those early UFC's, I'm at school, it was on TV, and then like a substitute teacher comes to school, and is like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reading my name off the list and goes, Gracie? He's like, yeah, I just saw the Ultimate Fighting Championship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The world is waking up to something that is not familiar to them, because our magi- what we've been doing as normal for the last 80 years, 70 years,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's magical to them for some reason. And everyone thinks Hoyce is gonna lose, but then he defeats these larger opponents. That's normal for us. We expect him to win. We would be shocked if he didn't. But to everyone else, they're shocked that this little, you know, pretty Brazilian guy in a gi, 6'1", 178 pounds, is defeating Ken Shamrock. They don't understand that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, that's when I realized, okay, this is a, this is a special family. This is crazy. Not all families are doing what we're doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so yeaah, as a kid, it's an interesting thing, it's a, it's a, it's a, and I'm dealing with this with my own kids right now. We're careful because, because you're born into it, it's easy to overdo it, right? It's one thing for a parent to bring their child to the school at eight years old and the kid's motivated and wants to go do it and falls head first in love with it. It's another when you're born without a choice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be around this thing. And this thing is to some degree what takes your dad away all the time to go to work. And what keeps your parents from being around you and playing with you. It's kind of the culprit on the other side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's this give and take relationship, but eventually, uhm, around 10, 11, 12 years old, I'm training, you know, every day, an hour or two doing a class, a kid's class, uhm, but there was, around 12 years old, there was a time where,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So my nightmare is a girl named Terry who's kind of a stocky athletic girl and she was just a little bit bigger and had trained consistently and just had my number. So I would go to class and it would be a bad day if Terry was there. So there would be times where I'd say, Dad, I don't want to go to jujitsu. And he says, Henry, you have two options. You go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you sit in your room until I get back in six hours. Cause he goes and works all night and then comes back at 10 o'clock. You guys know how that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm like, man I can't do that anymore. I'm gonna go to class even though it sucks. Get beat up, get beat up. And then everything changed at 13 years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When there was a man who came in with his son, his son's name was Robert Mendoza Jr.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Five year old kid getting bullied, like a targeted bullying case. Right? Not a general thing, but a specific incident this boy was dealing with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my dad said, okay, let's do some private classes with Henner. And I'm 13 years old, right? Never had a job and never really just training and just doing my thing. Still in school, the whole thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hannah, you're going to be his teacher. It was like $10 a class to train with Hannah for a private class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I start teaching this kid Robert Mendoza Jr. and it's successful and we build this kid up and he no longer has problems with bullies and he's confident. And several months pass and I'm like, wow, this is awesome. And I'm having this rewarding experience as a teacher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's when I found my other wings, right? One is the technical proficiency, self-defense, my own ability, you know, to be effective in jiu-jitsu. The other is what I can do to empower other people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now I'm like, I kind of got that addiction where I'm like, this is crazy. I can be a source of improved quality of life, of confidence, of really rebuilding someone from the inside out. I could be the architect of that. This is amazing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's go for this. So more students, more students. Before you know it, 14, 15, 16, more students privately. Eventually I'm teaching kids group classes at 14, 15. I'm teaching adult group class by 16 and 17. I'm teaching Delta by 18 years old with my dad. You know, in North Carolina at Fort Bragg. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, it went all the way, you know, and I'm like, this is wild. People aren't doing this. Kids of my age are not having this opportunity. Uhm, and then soon after, uh, around, yeaah, 18 years old, he'd almost 20.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is when my hoist and my father split, hoist decided I'm gonna go do my own thing, have his own organization and move on. They were teaching kind of shoulder to shoulder that whole time, uh, post UFC all the way until like 2001, 2002.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when Hoyst went to do his thing, now it's me and Hiron, who are 18 and 20 essentially, who are thrust into leaderships of head instructors of the Gracie Academy in Torrance. And we're kids, I was, I was still a brown belt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's, you know, 200 students and I'm like, this is crazy. There's guys who've been training here who are black belts since I was seven, six, five years old. And now they're supposed to trust me as their new leader.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How is this going to go over? So naturally we lost a couple of students, but it was a, it was a very testing time for me and Hiron and for the business for Hoist to leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hickson slips out and pulls guard, and then Thomas in the guard, natural wrestler equation, he's, we're going to be on the bottom, they're going to be on top, and Hickson arm bars him from the guard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And anyways, it was a, it was not a striking challenge match, but it was a challenge match of like this amazing wrestler in the South Bay against Hickson. Hickson defeats him, all respect, all good. Fast forward, I don't know, 20 years? And Tom Hazel is the wrestling coach at West Torrance High School, where I go to high school. And uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm over there playing basketball for two years. I was tall. I could dunk as a freshman. So they liked that. And then after two years of wrestling, every single day Coach Hazel saw me on campus. He would come to me and say, Henner, when are you going to play a man's sport?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every single time he saw me, because he wanted me to wrestle. He said, when are you going to play a man's sport? Just always digging in, and finally after two years I, I'm like, alright, let me give this a shot. I shifted to wrestling, did two years of wrestling, and that was a change of pace for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good, I, I won, uh, first in CIF, right, Southern Section, third place in Masters, and much as most of Southern California.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, um, ranked fourth in state, went to state, lost to some stud, went to nationals. I think I got like ninth in state and then went to nationals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was able to hack the whole system because I'm over here with my butterfly guard and my hooks and my guard and my mount control and my back control. So I was able to put a spin on wrestling that really they weren't used to. It was like wrestling an alien. And I told Coach Hazel, I said, here's the problem. I'll wrestle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I can't practice every single day because I'm running the family business. I leave school, I have lunch, and I go to class at four o'clock. I'm teaching kids all the way till nine o'clock group classes and private classes because I'm running this business with my brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he goes, all right, Hannah, as long as you keep winning, you don't have to come to practice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just show up at the meets and if you win those meets, you just keep showing up to those. And I said, we got ourselves a deal. So I did two years of wrestling with no wrestling, jiu-jitsu and hooks. And there were many times where I would pull guard. He's like, don't lay on your back. And I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it taught me, it was, it was a beneficial shift in my timing and my energy and my explosiveness, uhm, that I was, I was grateful for that to show up when it did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was crazy. Like I didn't even do homework at home. I would go at lunch, I would go to the library to do my homework because I knew I had to go run the family business at night. And I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Took pride in getting good grades in school. He don't, not so much, but that was his choice. So I like, I cared about doing well. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then I graduated and the idea of going to college or not was a very tough decision as well because here I am running this family business, but also I'm in a position where academically I would qualify. I got several colleges interested in scholarships for wrestling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because my academics were there and the wrestling performance was there. So I was like, man, there's opportunity to go to college. I'd be the first one here in the US to do it. My dad went to college in Brazil. Should I do that? So there was all these mixed feelings about it, but the conclusion was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hoise and Kaiki were the ones teaching most of the classes. So when they stepped out, he was not really a figure on the mat in a prominent way. So the people aspect of our business was really just a void. So me and he don't fill that void. And then since we were the ones interacting with the students, he was largely on the administrative side. He's there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, he was there as a supervisory role, but in terms of what are we gonna do to grow this business to a level that it will allow us to stay together and prosper compared to what you see so often in jujitsu, which is like, splintering, splintering, everyone do their own thing, everyone spread, everyone move off and leave each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was my thing. I'm like, look, 18 years old, we started running it by 22, 23. I had kind of popped my head up. We had built our confidence. I was a black belt now. The students who stayed loved us and the students who left left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But after three or four years, we were still around 225 students. And that's what I was like, hold on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really kind of rattled me because I said, we took over. We had about 200 students when we started running this. We're at about 225, but several years have passed. What is going on? So that's when we started asking all the right questions of saying, wait a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How is the student experience in this building? How are we treating these students from the first phone call, from the first interaction, the first class, certainly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how are, where are we losing them? So we started running the business like an actual business and really asking ourselves the right questions. And then everything started to change. We rewrote how we teach beginners, we rewrote how we teach kids, we rewrote how we introduce people, how we talk to people on the phone, everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After 17 years in the first location, we moved to Artegia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and it was a larger school, larger mat, we needed the space. And then we kind of found our rhythm and we were so successful in our revamping of how we run a jujitsu business that we finally decided to start licensing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our programs and our methodology to schools all over the world, and that was in, you know, 2008, 2009, and now we're 250 schools deep, and our school in Torrance has 2,000 students. So we figured out, we, we,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We jujitsu'd jujitsu school operations, right? Like we really just started to be analytical and technical and seeking more efficient processes and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Learning from our mistakes, and uh, I'm very happy with where it's landed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he was cool. He was really kind, but I think I choked him a couple of times. He was a strong guy, man. He's awesome. Great base and just like so stable. Uhm, so Jeff a couple of times and then, uh, the Pan Ams, I fought a former world or world champion, Fabio Leopoldo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beat him as a black belt, very early in my black belt career. So nothing too crazy. Uhm, you know, I scratched that itch. And then it was interesting because around 19 years old, I actually suffered a herniated disc from training incidents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in my L5S1 lower back and I had surgery and then that prevented me from doing Jitsu for 10 months. So that was kind of for me a big paradigm shift where I said wait a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I suffered an injury as a teenager, as a late teenager here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That will affect me for 10 months. What happens if this happens when I'm 30 or when I'm 40?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where I suffer an injury or something happens in my life that will prevent me from using this Swiss army knife to make a living every single day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I believe I need to. So for a Jutsu teacher, your body is the only tool you need and the only tool you can't be without.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I really, at a very early age, I started asking questions about, wait a minute, this is, this, this doesn't work. Like I can't get injured and be sidelined. This is crazy. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's when I realized, okay, what's the landscape right now? Because remember, growing up in the UFC,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of the reality of our families fighting, hoists fighting, UFC's going, my dad was involved in all that, my dad sold his part, but it was still happening and all these people are fighting. Very much the question in my head was, is my future a fighter?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you go fight? And that's how you pay your bills. That's, you entertain and you fight and you train every single day to go fight some other guy and you beat him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that my destiny to do that until I'm 40 and then retire and hope to have enough money?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you really assess the landscape, two factors played it. Number one was this injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you look at the landscape of who was fighting in the UFC when I was 19, 20, 21. Now we're talking 10 years after the UFC's inception.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you look at who's fighting now, it no longer was a matter of karate versus taekwondo versus jiu-jitsu. It was karate, taekwondo and jiu-jitsu and wrestling and kickboxing all blended into the same person fighting each other with all very much the same skill sets with slight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Variations from person to person based on their historical kind of upbringing in martial arts. So I'm fighting against guys who very much believe what I believe, which is Jujitsu is the best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then we're good, like yo, I believe too, cool. Unless it's a personal thing, right? Unless there's a bad blood and there's a personal thing. But really when it comes to the Gracie Challenge matches, it was bring me someone who doesn't believe that this is the best and let's prove it to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm not even fighting for jiu-jitsu anymore. I'm fighting for me, only me, to make my money to pay my bills. And I thought, listen,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's commendable and the people who do that requires a level of discipline and dedication and, and, and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Expertise in their craft, that is, right, it's unbelievable what it takes, we've all seen that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I don't know if that's gonna be, if that's the end of my road here, if that's the, if that's the path I wanna live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So instead I looked at the landscape and said, man, jiu-jitsu is known worldwide, but there is no really structured dissemination of this art. Anybody can teach, anybody knows this, if I know a friend who has a friend from Brazil,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it was clear that there was a demand for jujitsu, but there wasn't a supply, an effective supply chain. So I thought, man, if we could really organize.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, in the wake of this accident as well, if I could organize jujitsu in a way where everything that I've ever learned could be put online.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In linear fashion. So that anyone, anywhere in the world could log on and watch lesson one. And once they finish lesson one, watch lesson two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which builds on lesson one and do that all the way through every skill that I've ever learned in this family. I would be doing a great service because if I get hit by a truck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then someone can log in and see Henner's path through Jujitsu and Hiron's path through Jujitsu and learn the art very much the way we learned it. And it's forever, right, immortalized in this online linear curriculum. And that's where Gracie University was born. But it was fueled by this fear that if something happens to me where I can't do Jujitsu anymore, how can I preserve everything that I've ever learned?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, especially in the wake of that accident and that, uh, that injury that sidelined me for so long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And today, you know, Gracie University is really the central communication medium, this website, where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of our certified training centers, that's where they get their information. People who don't have a school near them are learning in their garages for all over the world. 390,000 students in 196 countries learning. They open up a room, they put some mats down and they do jujitsu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That all came out of this realization that someone's gotta be responsible for organizing this and letting people have access all over the world. And if I get injured again, at least I can say I documented everything I knew.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So once we refine the curriculum internally for one school in Torrance to a degree where we felt comfortable, this is how beginners should learn Jiu Jitsu for the greatest retention and for the greatest


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Preservation of these, right, fledgling jiu-jitsu journeys where they're so fickle, right? Someone has a bad experience, they're gone. You see it here, I'm sure, where it's like one bad training day on a third or fourth class and you'll never see that person again on the jiu-jitsu mats.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So once we cracked the code on how to avoid that high attrition so commonly associated with jujitsu, then we began licensing those programs out to these other schools, the Certified Gracie Jujitsu Training Centers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two thousand and eight. Yeah, we changed it internally. Two thousand five, two thousand six. We changed it, it was successful for a couple years, and then we licensed it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, initially, the very, very beginning, we didn't have online. So we said, look, we want to certify some people. And a lot of these people had other martial arts backgrounds. You might own a karate school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We want to certify you to teach just a curriculum for beginners. 36 techniques, very much like we do with law enforcement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, you're not a master, you're not a black belt, but you can teach someone a beginner curriculum, and then as you evolve your skill set and grow, you can grow your level of certification.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So someone comes in, says, hey, I want to offer jiu-jitsu at my karate school. You learn 36 Gracie combatives is this beginner program, 36 techniques. Once you learn those 36 techniques, we then teach you how to administer and teach that program and only that program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they learn that material, they go back and now they're teaching it. In the very beginning, they were white belts. We feel left us as white belts with a few stripes and say, hey, just go teach these beginner techniques and nothing else. But what happened is once Gracie University, the online came into play, we said, look, instead of someone coming here, spending, you know, 80 hours to learn these 36 techniques, learn them on your own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Learn wherever you are, cuz then you don't have to leave your family for so much time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once you learn the material, demonstrate proficiency either by going to an existing school or by sending in a video where you show me that you know these 36 moves and then you come to California only to learn how to teach them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now someone can take a year, 6 months to a year to learn this little basic curriculum and then they come to California to learn the teaching methodologies and then once they do that they're level 1 certified training center. Now many of these schools are brown and black belts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much higher skill level, but they don't have the structure. They suffered from what we suffered from. Which is, Henry, I've had a school, I've been under so and so, member of the Gracie family, affiliated for the last 17 years, and I have 112 students.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How is that possible? You're teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in America, the hottest martial art, in the hottest market, with the number one promotional vehicle, the UFC, and then you and Joe's podcast, number two and three, right, in terms of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bring in attention to jiu-jitsu and you can't get more than 112 people to want to practice this art in your community.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something is wrong, not with Jujitsu, but with how you're delivering it. So many guys would come in with lots of Jujitsu background, but no business acumen and no knowledge of how to deliver Jujitsu in a way that makes it safe and structured for beginners.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they would come get certified and they would go back and someone like that could be a higher level of certification because they had that previous knowledge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on the website, they'd be listed differently than someone who's only teaching Gracie combatives and only teaching children Gracie bullyproof, like simple basic beginner curriculums.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gracie Garage, so people, Gracie University online, hundreds of thousands of people want to learn from home. Most of them don't have a school near them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, some of them will go to just a random local BJJ school, right, where they'll go in and say, hey, I want to learn, I watched the Gracie University online, I want to train with you guys. Can I train here? Yes, great, they become a student and we never hear about them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I want to do that because that's what I believe jujitsu should be for me. I'm older, I'm out of shape and it feels safer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or the curriculum emphasizes what I care about. So then they'll say, hey, even though there's a BJJ school here, I wanna learn on my own because I wanna follow this curriculum. So they don't have a training partner. So what we created was the opportunity for anyone at home, anywhere in the world, who has access to the curriculum,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a, it's a, it's a, yeaah, it's a totally networking play, and it pays homage to the Gracie Garage, but none of these have certified instructors. Now the beautiful thing is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the absence of a school that they want to train at and they're building. And then in many cases this has happened where these garages exist for 12 months, a year, year and a half.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Level one, basic. They go back, they open a school, those 17 garage members, they get a discount on the membership for the first year and then they start paying full price after that. They have all these built in students. They tell all their friends and it turns into a for-profit business. So Gracie garages has become that Gracie garage classification has become the seating program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For so many certified training centers today that started, and then guys grow their businesses like this. Apple Valley, California, uh, Johnny Vasquez is a great example. Corporate America, full on, well-paying job, starts at Gracie Garage, starts training, moves out of it to open his school once he gets certified as a blue belt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then in the first three years, as a blue belt, after opening his certified training center, surpasses 350 students as a blue belt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Vinny gets his purple belt, continues to grow, changing locations, and now, I just talked to him last week, he's pushing 750 students as a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not only Johnny's hard work ethic and dedication to the process, but these systems that we developed that then we said, hey, we can't be the only ones. And I gotta say, like, coming up in this family, there's very much a feeling of if we don't do it, it's not right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only we can do it right. Only we can do it the best. Only we can deliver. So I have to say that there was certainly some mold breaking that me and Hedon had to do.