 This week's episode is sponsored by Change. Change is an online mentoring program that teaches people with no experience how to create a real profitable online business and e-commerce. I have been working with Ryan at Change for a few years now and attended many events and got to meet the amazing community of like-minded people. These guys are the best of the best. The support these guys offer is personal, no bots or employees. There's no experience needed but like anything in life it takes time as it's a real business with real results. For more information go check out Ryan on Instagram at RyanGybe and he will guide you through the steps to help build a successful business. You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you are notified for when my next podcast goes live. Boomerang and today's guest we've got Ebon Britain. How are you brother? I'm excellent man how are you? Yeah do you know what? I'm really good. Life is going good. Obviously you have your ups and downs but what the f*** can we do? We've just got to kind of get through it. Yourself, NFL star, your career had injuries but you were also co-host and one of the biggest podcasts on the planet with Mike Tyson, Hop Boxing, unbelievable. You've interviewed some of the biggest names on the planet, Eminem for one who I'm a massive fan of which we'll touch on in the interview but first and foremost I just want to say thanks for coming on the show and I hope you can understand the Scottish accent. Thank you man, thank you James. I can understand you just fine. You must be the only one name brother. Before we get into everything I always like to go back to the start with my guests get about understanding about you where you grew up and how it all began. Yeah well I was born in New York City. I lived in Brooklyn, New York until I was 10 years old. My parents got divorced when I was seven. There was a lot of chaos, a lot of alcoholism, a lot of heaviness man, a lot of darkness in my childhood and funnily when I was probably eight years old I was at my grandparents' house in Connecticut and this these clips on the news came up of the jets and the giants in training camp and this idea, this vision was planted in my mind with playing in the NFL, playing professional football and it occurred to me at that time as this, this way out, this way into the light you know. My mom would never let me play finally my freshman year of high school with the help of my dad convinced my mom to let me play football and it was just this rocket ship to the moon trajectory you know. Everything I did, how I carried myself, how I lived, how I breathed, how I ate, how I trained, how I walked, how I moved was all in alignment with climbing to the top of this mountain of playing professional football. American football. I'm sure a lot of your football for you guys and something else, American football and you know it was, I worked my ass off, blood, sweat, tears, made my way through the high school ranks, got full scholarship offers to universities around the country to come and play football. I chose the University of Arizona, started for three years, left early, went to the NFL, had a phenomenal rookie year and then started to deal with some serious injuries, had a bad herniated ruptured disc, L5S1 in my spine, dislocated shoulder, back surgery, shoulder surgery, torn leg events and muscles all over my body, concussions, the whole nine yards. I grounded out for six years, played four years with the Jacksonville Jaguars, played two years with the Chicago Bears. You know, by the end of that run, my second year in Chicago was really clear to me that my heart was no longer in the game of football and I made the decision to step away. Retire is a word that's used. I was definitely leaving football but not retiring. I feel like retirement is a very spiritual term, you know, that talks about sort of ending your professional life as it were and I certainly haven't done that. I definitely left football and when I left the game of football, I found myself completely shattered in a million pieces, lost no sense of who I was. You know, for 15 plus years of my life, everything I had done was all in accordance or wrapped around being able to play at the highest level possible on Saturdays and Sundays and so when football was no longer there, all of a sudden I had to figure out who I was and that was really the, that was the beginning of the long painstaking process that was finding myself in life after football and you know, that's sort of the two-minute, the elevator pitch of where I come from and what led me on the journey that I've been on for the last six or seven years, which started with cannabis advocacy, which is what really led me into meeting Mike Tyson. I got a call from one of my old team doctors and he said, well maybe we could get into that. If you're interested in that, we could go into deeper detail on that but cannabis advocacy and talking about how in the NFL, the way that injuries are dealt with is lots of pharmaceuticals, lots of pills, mycodine, painkillers, oxy-cotton, highly potent prescription anti-inflammatory drugs like Celebrex, endosend, things that wreak havoc on your gut, on your stomach, your intestines, your digestive system, your liver and kidneys and so I started shining a light on all of that and how cannabis had been a very powerful potent medicine for me during my football career, dealing with pain, dealing with brain injuries and how I had come out of my football career in better shape because of cannabis and had I not used it and in comparison to a lot of guys who have left football, you know, the day you're done playing in the NFL, you pack up a box of your stuff from your locker, you've got all your pill bottles in there with it, you walk out of the building and there's nothing else for you, there's no resource, there's no contact, there's nothing like that, it's basically like see you later, have a nice life, figure it out, thanks for everything and so, you know, one of the issues with that is that this system that's in place is a broken one so I started talking a lot about that and doing a lot of advocacy around cannabis and natural healing modalities and that's really what sort of began this thing that I've been doing which is speaking my truth, speaking about the experience of tuning into yourself, getting clarity, finding peace and that's really been the through line of everything I've been doing since I left the NFL. I'll take it right back though, see when your mum and dad, you talk about alcohol, when did you realise it was a dysfunctional kind of family, myself who struggled with addiction, I'm on a clean path now, family members and friends who have lost their addiction but you don't really realise it until I was in late teens when you realised, wait a minute, this is fucked up here, when did it realise, when did the realisation hit you that your mum and dad were struggling also? Well, one of the blessings of my childhood was my mum had been sober for like 20 years and then she relapsed when I was about 10 and then she got sober again and has been sober now for another 25 years plus and so she was, I was on, you know, my brother and I were on the journey with my mum of relapsing, slipping back into darkness, really struggling and then finding yourself and getting sober again and her journey in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous and 12 step programs and we were always going with her to these meetings so there was always this understanding that this was in our bloodline, you know, this was something that our families struggled with. Exactly and so that was a real blessing to have that awareness like the whole way through, you know, now that being said, I was still coming home after a long day of the grind in the NFL and drinking a case of beer, you know, not thinking that I had any problem at all. I was just soothing my own pain and, you know, really wasn't until after I left football that I had to take a look at my own life, my own addictions, my own dysfunction and then that allowed me this opportunity to really see the dysfunction of my family, the dysfunction of my relationships, you know, taking accountability, taking responsibility for my own part and wreaking a lot of havoc in my relationships, burning a lot of bridges, creating a lot of chaos and doing what I had to do to make amends essentially and that really didn't happen until after I came out of the NFL which was, you know, I was 28 years old when I came into that reality. See when you were drinking a lot, do you feel as if the plane in the NFL you could hide and mask your addictions more and get away with it more without anyone asking questions or did anyone see that you were struggling? No, it's easy to mask, you know, it's easy. I mean, every, I mean, alcoholism is a big, I would say it's a sleeper issue in the NFL and perhaps in all pro sports, honestly, especially more combat sports like football or hockey or fighting, boxing, martial, MMA, that type of stuff. I think in basketball it's maybe a little more, because of the nature of the game, that's a little bit more, there's more liberty, there's more freedom as far as the athletes go. You're dealing with a different type of person, the people that come into pro football, pro hockey, pro fighting sports, those are people who have really dark pasts who are fighting against a lot of demons. And, you know, it's just these sports attract warriors, guys who would otherwise just go to the military and they find that they have a great physical talent to play a certain sport or an athletic, so they end up becoming a pro athlete in one of these combat sports. And I would say that alcoholism in particular is a big issue in all of those types of sports, because it's, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of darkness, there's a lot of self soothing that's going on. And so, you know, as long as you're not, I mean, there are, there were, there were guys who, I mean, what in particular, I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus, but there was a guy on a team I played for who really, it was obvious, it was completely obvious that he had really gone down a dark hole and came into the facility, drunk, was cursing at coaches, was literally like kicked out of the building and, you know, screaming at the top of his lungs while he's, while he's being escorted out, go fuck yourself to the, to the whole building. But outside of something being super obvious, you know, as long as, you know, we're dealing with people who are very good at putting on a good face, you know, as a football player, I'll speak from the football point of view, the American football point of view, you know, this is an environment where individuality is frowned upon and it's really a get in line or get out type of atmosphere, corporate atmosphere, and everybody's, everybody there is making, you know, for, for all intents and purposes, making life-changing money, whether they know it or not, nobody wants to lose a job, nobody wants to put that in jeopardy. So if you were drinking a lot of alcohol or consuming a lot of drugs or substances, you're going to do everything you can to keep that under wraps, to keep that underground and come into work and try to pretend to be a normal person, you know. So it was something that, and in doing that, you, you live in this false identity of, I don't have a problem with that. I don't have an issue with that. You know, I'm a pro athlete, I'm making millions of dollars. I've got a beautiful home and a great car and my dream job and all this stuff. So I don't have a problem, you know. People who have problems are living on the street, they're falling down face first drunk in the middle of the street. That's what having a problem looks like. I don't have a problem, you know. And then when you leave the NFL and you no longer have this, this veil of illusion, this veil of focus over your perception of like, oh, I get, I'm going into this, I go to my job every day and I'm being paid handsomely for it to do this job. Now all of a sudden that's taken away and you have to, you have to actually acknowledge the state of your reality, which may or may not include having a drinking problem or, you know, a substance abuse problem, et cetera. What was it like playing your very first game in the NFL? Were you excited? Was it a dream from a young kid who wanted more out of life? Or was it again, you know yourself, the addicts mind, we're never really happy. They're never satisfied. But how was it for you making your debut and running out in the park for the first time? The first game I played in the NFL was a preseason game against the Miami Dolphins in Miami. And I was fucking stoked, man. I mean, it was a dream realized. And I had a few really nice blocks. I pulled around, took a corner, buried him outside, buried him in the dirt outside the sidelines. I mean, it was a dream come true. You know, it was like everything I'd ever worked for in my entire life had come to fruition in this one moment. And it was awesome. I mean, it was electric, you know. How was your training regime in the NFL? Because you see them and they look faster, they look sharper. Their training seems to be on top. It seems to be one of the toughest training sessions you'll probably see around the world. I don't know, but it's like Mitch Marcel, that's a played soccer for years. But the training for the NFL always seemed extreme. It always seemed to push the boundaries and raise the bar every time. Did you feel that with the exercise and did you feel as if that kept your demons at bay as well? Do you ever feel as if what if you never had the NFL, how your life would be? You know, the training is world-class. The strength and conditioning programs are world-class in the NFL and in division one college as well. You know, you're dealing with in American football in the NFL, you're dealing with some of the biggest, strongest, fastest, freakiest athletes on the planet are playing football in the NFL. And the strength and conditioning programs are world-class. It's all, you know, and, you know, and there's degrees of that from one team to the next, from one place to the next. But for the most part, it's all very world-class. As far as that keeping the demons at bay, I mean, when you're dealing with, you know, I've said this thing before and every guy who's playing in the NFL, you've got some, you've got to have some screws loose to make it to that level, to be the type of person who is willing to put yourself through the type of punishment that it takes to play professional football. And, you know, not only are you looking to give as much punishment as you possibly can, you also have to have the toughness and the durability and the capability mentally, emotionally, physically to endure immense amounts of pain and suffering. That being said, you know, there's a spectrum, man. There's a spectrum of human beings that, of men that find themselves on those football teams. There are guys who are squeaky clean, you know, who are good Christian boys who don't drink, don't smoke, you know, get to bed on time and all of that. Then you've got the guys on the other end, which is kind of more where I was, who's fucking a wild savage who's at strip clubs and drinking alcohol and smoking weed and doing everything you can to bend around the rules and have fun and enjoy your life outside of this game where you've been essentially a warrior monk for your entire life, you know? So, you know, for me, it was like basically getting away with what I could to the extent that it wouldn't affect my play. And inevitably, all of that stuff, you know, did it help me in any way? Definitely not. You know, wasn't helpful for me to be breaking my body down using substances and drinking too much alcohol in my time off when I could have been getting actual rest and recovery, you know? So, you know, but that was where I was at at that time in my life. So, I can't really say, I can't go back and say, oh, I wish I did it differently. I did it the best way I could from the place that I was at at that time, at that moment in my life. And so, you know, for me now, in my hot yoga practice, that is really the thing that I wouldn't so much say it keeps the demons at bay, but when you find something that you're so in love with and so dedicated to, that everything else in your life seems to matter less, like feeling good was really important to me during my NFL career because so much of my time was spent in pain and suffering. So, finding these moments, these breaths of bliss, of peace, of the orgasm was so fucking vital and important to me. Now, my life is extremely peaceful and I would say the majority of my life experience is spent in peace and enjoyment. And so, I go and do hot yoga, which is part of my discipline, which makes it so that like drinking and breaking my body down through substances or alcohol is not appealing at all. It's very unappealing to me at this stage in my life, if that makes sense. Yeah, of course, everything stages and phases, and like you said there, hindsight's a wonderful thing. You were dealing with your life then with the resources that you had on how to handle things, whether that's external stuff from strippers and alcohol and drugs. We all do that stuff because we're searching, we're so searching to fill that piece, even though we're doing things that's full of fucking chaos and madness, even boxers, MMA, NFL, it was like a sense of self harming. You're breaking your body down every fucking day, but part of you enjoys that. So, it's the psychotic mind chasing something. You're chasing to break your body down to even though it's insane, it's making you feel sane because I interviewed a sniper. This man killed 88 people. He had the longest sniper kill on the world. His head is fucked that he's in peace. He wants to go back to a war zone because he feels more at peace in a war zone than he does in actual in peace. And I can resonate with that because it makes sense. It's like your life is so used to chaos that when you're actually at peace, you mistake it with actually being boring because you don't actually know what peace is. And it's to try and understand that a bit more that it's normal. But when you're living a fast lane, it's hard to find that bliss that you're getting from hot yoga, meditation, speaking right and try to do the right things in life. It's hard to live there because there's always that little devil there saying, don't be a pussy. Remember who you were because I still think about drinking and getting fucked up. I was at a friend's wedding in Saturday there. Haven't seen these friends in years. Party me inside for it. Fuck it, James. Have a drink. But that drink turns into a big bag of cocaine. I'm lining the fucking strip joint. I'm probably in the front page of the papers with a fucking dick hanging out somewhere. And it's, and people will be saying that's who it is because my podcasts are flying, brother. They're fucking doing amazing. But party me always feels like a fraud. I can never accept that I'm doing well when I hate that feeling as well because people always say, James, you're doing amazing. I feel inside. I think to myself, you don't know nothing. You fucking idiot. And they'd only been nice. The imposter syndrome, they're never feeling good enough. Did you feel that getting through your NFL career? I don't know, brother. Just maybe we're the life of chaos and madness where it's not that I'm never satisfied. It's just I don't feel as if I'm ever good enough sometimes. I'm always trying to prove to, I don't know if it's myself or the world or whoever. It's just that they call it imposter syndrome or whatever it is, but it's just, it's a scary place to be no matter what you're doing in life or how well you're doing. There's always that element of doubt. Absolutely. Well said. And for me, when I investigate, when I have investigated that feeling, when it arises, it's the same thing, man. Same thing. You know, when I investigate that, that sensation when it arises, and at one point in my life, man, that was fucking here. That devil, that fucking voice of like, you're what are you doing? Get out there, man. Don't be a fucking bitch. Work harder. You know nothing. You're nothing. You're not good enough. Unless you do this, you got to be slaying dragons and conquering the world, dude. What do you do with it? Like my whole NFL career was that, dude. My entire NFL career, my entire time in football was about proving myself to the world, proving how fucking big, tough, scary I was. That's what my whole football career was about. And talking with Mike Tyson, you know, you asked Mike, when you catch Mike in that moment of truth and you say, Mike, what was your boxing career about? You'd say, I was a trade. I was terrified. I was full of fear. Every fight he went into, he was full of fear, but he had that gift of unleashing that fear on his apartment. He turned that fear into his greatest weapon. Now, for me, when I investigate that fucking noise, and nowadays, man, that thing is like fucking, it's in another galaxy. I just hear the whispers of it. You know, it's like a shadow rather than this fucking heavy being that's just looming over me. But when I think about that, dude, I think about the language that I was brought up in, the language of the people that raised me, my family, my culture, the world outside society, all of that shit, man. It's all based on what are you doing now? What are you doing now? Have you done anything worthwhile now? Have you created anything? Have you done anything that's good? Who are you to do that? Who the fuck are you, man? Who are you to have a fucking podcast and say anything meaningful? You've been through nothing in your life, all of that shit. That all comes from all of this external fucking noise of people who are really broken down, people who have been told they're nothing their entire lives. And it's like a chain, like a chain that gets handed down from who knows when. We can't blame our father because our father was handed this from his father and his father was handed this from his father and so on and so on and so on all the way back until the fucking beginning of time. And so like, whose fault is it really? It doesn't even matter whose fault it is. What matters is what are we going to do right here right now? Are we going to fucking let the tidal wave of negativity, darkness, depression fucking destroy us like it's done to millions of people? Billions of people probably? Or are we going to stand the fuck up, speak our truth in the face of fear, be courageous, be brave, live with fucking love and joy and passion in our fucking hearts and be the warrior kings that we were all destined to be? That's really the tack of the current day. That's like every individual on this planet. That's your task. Resistance comes constantly. Resistance is around every corner. It comes. You wake up in the morning, you feel the fucking resistance. What are you going to do? Are you going to succumb to it? Are you going to be totally broken down by it? Or are you going to get the fuck up and do what you got to do to live in your highest greatness? Like that's the task. That's the challenge every single day. And so, you know, for me, it has to be simple. I have to simplify it because otherwise, like I was reading this book today. Oh, it's on the table. Vivekananda, he's talking about the mind, your mind, the average person's mind. Your mind, have you heard the term the monkey mind? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read the book Chump Paradox. Interesting. Yeah. So, in this little passage, Vivekananda, he likened the mind, the monkey mind, says, he says, imagine there's a monkey, and this monkey is already super restless by nature. You know, he's fucking jumping from tree to tree, swinging around, he's fucking, you know, got to eat, he's fucking shitting and throwing his buddies. He's doing all sorts of shit. Like, can't sit still at all, right? That's like, then you get this monkey drunk. So now you've got a drunken monkey, then the monkey gets stung by a scorpion, and then imagine that a demon possesses the monkey's body. That's like what your mind is like. That's what your mind is like. It's this fucking drunken, possessed monkey that's been stung by a scorpion. And you're drunk on desire, you're drunk on desire, you're stung by resentment, score, shame, guilt, and then you're possessed by your own ego, your own ignorance that makes you feel self-important. And so how, what is the process by which we get out of the monkey mind? We tame the monkey mind. And that's where yoga comes in for me. There's all sorts of ancient practices, meditation, yoga, breathing, essentially, because breathing is really the, breathing is the master control system of your nervous system. And all of this stuff, it runs on how your nervous system runs on your programming. And all of your programming is subconscious, and it's been implanted and programmed from way before you were even aware or awake, or able to understand what that even meant. But when you were seven years old, something happened, there was all sorts of things happening, something happened, and it programmed you with a belief about something, about how the world works, about who you are in the world, about what the world is like, what's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad, all of that shit. Okay? So then you grow up and you never face that thing because why would you? You don't even realize that that was important at all, but it's laid this whole programming. It's written the software of your being. And your nervous system runs on this thing. You know what I mean? So that's the thing about you can't, when you're out of the chaos, like the sniper who wants to go back to the war, because that's the only place he feels sane and at peace and like he's doing something with his life because his nervous system has been totally rerouted to understand chaos as balance and peace as border. And so you've got to go through this long painstaking process, maybe that's through plant medicine ceremonies like ayahuasca, using psilocybin, you know, DMT, LSD, all of these things, because that plunges you into your subconscious because anything that is uncomfortable or different or radically changes your perception of reality, like breath work or meditation or yoga, physical exercise can do it, but it's not so much specific enough to plunge you into the subconscious where you can have an experience, a confrontation with all of these beliefs, your subconscious belief matrix. And then you have an opportunity to acknowledge it and see it. Oh, fuck. I've been living my life in this realm, relationships or money or profession, whatever it is, I've been living my life on this programming because of this thing that happened to me when I was seven years old. And now I understand that. So you get to go back there, you get to rewrite the whole belief system, you get to let go of it because you realize that has nothing to do with me. That was somebody who, my mother, my father, my teacher, my priest, whoever that was, they had an idea about how things work. Right or wrong, it doesn't matter, it wasn't yours. It was their idea about it. They implanted that in you. And then that led to the entire way of your being for the next however long you've been living and up until that moment of coming into awareness of it, then you come into awareness of it, you come into acceptance of it, then you get to actually change what you're doing and you change what you're doing through the confrontation and then making a new decision, making a completely different choice about how you're going to function or do something here. So then you rewrite the system one moment at a time, one action at a time, one word at a time, you rewrite the programming and then you find yourself in a new way of being. This is the arc of the yogic spiritual, this is the yogic arc, arc of spiritual evolution, the evolution of your soul, which is essentially like what we're doing here anyway. I mean like all of this shit, like why get sober James? Who cares? Why? You know what I mean? I just felt as if it was wrong, I felt as if it was poison and it didn't make me happy, I felt as if, I don't, they says it was a spiritual awakening I had, but I read the book, I read the book The Power of Now, Eckhart told me, fucker, fucker changed my life man, he's a boring bastard to listen to, I listened to the audio book and the bastard put me to sleep so many times and there was another book I listened to called Outwitting the Devil, Napoleon Howe, unbelievable and it just talks about negative and positive and how the devil controls the world with the foods and the toxics, the cigarettes, the alcohol, pharmaceutical industry, money, because money's an illusion, but yeah, we need it to survive, it can be an energy currency. So what the fuck do you think life is then? Because I've interviewed so many different people and nobody's ever spoken when it makes sense, everybody's got different ideas, different theories, thousands of religions, thousands of gods, everybody seems all over the fucking place, people talk a good game, nobody seems to know what the fuck is going on, if we're really honest with each other, who knows what the fuck is going on, we can read a few books and watch a few videos, we can take our perception, everybody can see that differently whether it's negative or positive, but how do we know the books written a thousand years ago, a hundred thousand years ago or whatever, our humans have been here for billions of years, the sun goes round the earth, the moon goes round the earth, the moon is flat, the sun is flat, the earth is flat, who fucking knows, it's just the Truman show, I would imagine you've seen the Truman show, Jim Carrey. Oh yeah, one of my favorite movies there. Yeah, you just, what do you and your own perception of life, what do you think life is and why we're here? Have you read the book Journey of Souls? Yeah. I mean, dude, for me, this is all just an experience to learn and the meaning of life is to learn how to be and beyond that, it's about getting free, getting free from all of your own, getting free from the prison that you've built around yourself and like, you know, we're just here to have an experience and it's like that, that thing you've said man, like I ask you, why do you get sober and you said it felt wrong? Like it felt, I felt like shit, like I felt broken down, I felt tired, I felt toxic, I felt poisoned, same with me. I had this like swamp inside of me, you know, and the alcohol and all of that shit, not only was it clouding my perception, but it was it was affecting my relationship with myself and the outside world in a negative way, in a way that was bringing me down, it was heavy, you know, and so for me, the only meaning of my life has been to get free so that I can experience more love and peace, you know, and when I really look at it, dude, it's like all of that stuff aside, can I get good with just fucking being there? Can I get good with just being here today without that fucking exhausting voice in my head saying, Ed, you gotta be doing X? Can I get out of that bullshit? And like you said, you know, money is an illusion and we all fucking need it to exist here in this realm, you know? So playing the game, playing the game while we're in this, like you come into this, you're a soul and you come into a human body, you inhabit a human body and you go on this experience and in Journey of Souls, it really kind of blew my mind because it articulated in a very profound way that the human animal, which is essentially the nervous system, that is its own thing, that's one entity, and then the soul comes in and it's like co-living, it's like this co-creation, it's this co-experience, and the soul is like, if you want to imagine it in a certain way, the soul could almost be articulated as the highest self, your higher self, so the soul has this sort of beyond rational knowing about like right, wrong direction of your life, etc. If you make this decision, you go down this timeline, if you make this decision, you go up this timeline, etc., etc., and it's like this co-habitation of like ebb and soul that inhabits ebb. And so what earth, what planet earth and this realm that we find ourselves in, it's got a very specific set of laws, physical laws, natural laws, mental and emotional laws cause an effect, positive and negative, masculine, feminine, all of this stuff. These are all like, this is the structure that we get to work in, and so that creates like, you can't, the law of karma, which is something that I believe in, and karma isn't necessarily a bad thing. Karma is essentially the effect of all the causes you've created throughout your life that have led you to this moment. So like, what's your karma here today? Your karma can be really heavy and really a burden, or your karma can be super light and blissful and enjoyable, etc. Does that make sense? So karma is not necessarily a negative thing. Karma is the result of all the past actions you've taken to get to this point here, right here, right now. Now, you know, something that's interesting, a flip that a lot of yogi gurus talk about, yoga for me is like, it's just the, it's the science that really interests me the most, because it's probably the most ancient science on the planet. It's about, it's neuroscience, it's psychology, it's endocrinology, it's physiology, it's, it encompasses mental, emotional, spiritual, physical experience through the human life. So a lot of the gurus, sages, wise people, they'll talk about how we look at our past as, oh man, you know, fuck, our past or the future is predestined, right? In the past, we could have changed it. Like, oh, I wish I did this better back then. And then the future is like predestined. So it's like, you're, you're eliminating all these infinite possibilities of where your light can go. But if you, if you switch that, or excuse me, you switch that and you say, the past was predestined. I had to do that. Dude, I had to go through my football career and experience all of that pain and suffering so that I could be here. I could be here. The future is all freedom of choice. It's infinite possibilities in the future, man. You know what I mean? That a lot of people walk around going, I had freedom of choice in the past, dude, and the future is totally predestined. I can't change it. And the truth of the matter is right here, right now, where you are in this moment currently is the result of every decision you've ever made in your past. So why is in your future going to be the result of every decision you make right here, right now from this moment forward? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. When, when was your, when have you been at your darkest, when was your darkest moment? I know you spoke about leaving NFL at 28, but when did it really hit you? I was 30 when I thought something needs to change. I was here a life or death. I was starting to get suicidal thoughts. I would never follow through with it, but I just felt as if they drank the drugs and the lying, the stealing, the cheating. I was a bad gambler as well. It just, it burnt me out. I was tired of being tired. When were you at that stage of your life when you realized the drink, the pharmaceutical drugs, everything that losing your career? When was the darkest moment? When it was really, you had life or death situation? I was probably about 30 as well, dude. And I was screaming into the phone at my wife saying, I'm going to kill myself or I'm going to kill somebody. That's where I was. And the same thing, dude. I had hit complete fucking rock bottom. None of the escape valves were working anymore. The two hours in the weight room wasn't bringing me any peace, the fucking porno, the alcohol, the weed. Nothing was giving me peace anymore. I had hit complete rock bottom and I was facing the stark reality of my life. I was fucking, on a bad day, I was suicidal, homicidal, ready to fucking give it all up. And I got a call from my mom and she said, how are you doing? Could barely speak, you know. And she said, why don't you come over for dinner? Well, you come over for dinner. I was like, all right, mom. So I came over for dinner. And that was really this moment. I was sitting there with my mom, her twin sister, my godmother, my aunt, Martha, and my brother, Gus. I'm just started saying, hey, man, you know, we come from a family that was heavily affected by alcoholism. And the beautiful truth is we've got tools. We've got people around us that can help. We're not alone. And that maybe you want to try an Alenon meeting. Alenon is the 12-step program for the families of alcoholics, which is really my core machinery, essentially. I wasn't, you know, it was never really for me about the drinking. It was about the thinking. I had a thinking disease, not a drinking disease. Like the alcohol, I could put it down in a moment. And that, you know, it became a problem towards the end, but it wasn't like the thing that was ruining my life. The drinking was leading to really bad thinking or exacerbating really bad thinking, which is what I needed to really work on. And that's what Alenon provided me with. But it was about 30, man, you know? And I think that's, you know, you look around the world, James, and man, if you're 30 and you have that awakening, how lucky are you? You know? How lucky are you? That's a young man having a having a profound awakening about the reality of his life. I mean, some guys, some people are in their 50s, 60s, 70s have never had that awakening, you know? And so I feel super blessed, you know, to have been surrounded by people who care about me and to have been introduced to tools that have been incredibly healing and transformational in my life. Yeah, it's crazy life. Like I said, I was at a wedding at the weekend and I loved my friends to bit, but it was, when I started making changes at, it was such a lonely journey. And I was so scared because I thought, is this the right move? Am I doing the right things? And it's not that I hated my friends because I never spoke to them, but it was just safer for me to not be around them. And it was safer for them not to be around me because I was a bad influence. I was always getting people fucking on it and drinking drugs because I was, I didn't want to do it alone. So I was always a life in soul of the party. So I was me coming out of everybody's lives potentially saved theirs as well, but it became such a lonely journey and my life, I look at my life now and it's going amazing, but I still struggle, I still overthink, I still overanalyze, I still get myself down, I still worry that I go back to the old James because I know if I go back there, I've not got another recovery in me. I'm not getting out that I'm not getting out this time. There's no fucking way because I've already feel like a fraud. So if I'd done that, I would probably deny it and hide from it for a few months before the anger kicked in and then the lies and the deceit. And then that's where I don't know where the fuck I would be. And that's what keeps me on this path of trying to find enlightenment and blessing. Only thing I struggle with now is eating. I seem to have a sugar problem just now when I seem to eat my emotions. I seem to, that's where I seem to get my kicks. I'm fucking not human. I'm a human. I make mistakes, but I just, I feel to lead by example, I should be in the best shape of my life. I'm 40 in a few months and I feel as if, I feel as if I can lead by example and show people how to get out and how to have a better life and no drink, no drugs, no porn, thinking straight, affirmations, cold water therapy, yoga, breathing techniques, and most importantly is exercise. I think with the key elements in your life, I feel as if you can conquer anything and that's what people need to realize. At FETI, me making changes, I thought I was too old. And now I'm turning 40 and I realize, fuck me, my life's only just beginning. It's still scary. How's your relationship with your mom now? It's amazing, man. It's amazing. Such a blessing. I went and did a yoga class with her this morning. We just went on a family trip. I couldn't even have imagined having this relationship with my mom, you know, 20 years ago. It was, do you see a lot of yourself in your mom though? Now? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're very similar. Even my father as well. I mean, on this family trip, I was observing myself and I was like, oh yeah, I see. I didn't see a lot. I picked up a lot of tools. I picked up a lot of tools good and bad from both my parents and being a father myself. You know, I have an 11-year-old daughter and that was very enlightening for me. It's like it's hard being a fucking parent, you know? Yeah, it's fucking torture. Kids are pains and asses, let's be honest. My daughter's 13, she's in the next room, but fuck me. She's a pain in the ass, brother. And that makes me sometimes want to go fucking back on the drink because it's easier not giving a fuck. The thing about being a loser on a bum, you don't fucking care about anyone. When I was doing the shit that I was doing and if I gave a fuck about anybody, but now you're cleaning your sober, the responsibilities are there as well. You can't do this responsibility. So everything I do. I just retired my mom. My mom's 60-odd. She's an amazing woman, lost two brothers to murder. She lost her husband to leukemia. I was a fuck up and I just retired her from her work, paid her mortgage and she's... Love that, man. Yeah, she's... I feel as if a lot of people get alpha roles mixed up, masculine. I believe the most alpha thing you can do is look after your family and it took me 30-odd years to realise that and I had five goals written down over the next five years and one of them was retiring my mom. I paid off her mortgage, I put money in her bank and now I'm giving her a monthly wage and for me, that's a sense of confidence. I felt good that day, but then it goes away and then it's, you're a scumbag, James, you're useless. If I have having a great day, brother, I'll go to the gym, I'll meditate, I'll go for my formations, I could be skittin' down the fucking park, birds chirping, but a negative thought will come in and it'll fucking ruin my whole day because it'll remind me who I was in the past. Do you ever feel that? Yeah, man. Well, this is where, honestly, I mean, because look, James, you said it, we're humans and we're gonna feel. There's no meditating our way out of feeling, we're gonna feel and the next step in the game, you've gotten yourself sober, you've gotten yourself clear, you're living a really positive life, you know how to do it, you know how to generate positive energy in yourself. The next part of it is learning how to love yourself. How do I do that? When that negative thought comes in about, I was a fuck up, I was this, I was that, this is what I do. Ready? You ready for this? I imagine that guy, that guy in my head that a part of me wants so badly to get rid of. I see myself, that guy standing at a doorway and rather than try to run away from it, I just, I literally, I go up me, I imagine myself going to that version of me and giving myself a hug and saying, brother, I love you, I appreciate you, thank you. Because without you, I would never be here. I would never be here. And that's the truth. And that guy's not going anywhere, dude. Like we can't kill that guy to get away from it. So we might as well love every fucking aspect of yourself, man. And so I like to say just pour love on it, bro. Rather than like try to try to push it away and say, fuck that, I can't. That guy's a fucking asshole who doesn't deserve to live. Bro, I love you. I love that guy. And that's all internal. That's just, that's the next practice. It's like a meditation. It's like an affirmation. Because that stuff's there, man. It's never going anywhere. In the fucking, in the psychosphere landscape of your consciousness, that version of you, all the infinite versions of you are never going away. They're always going to be here. And so we might as well reconcile with it and get good with it. Because then you really start to generate peace. Then you really start to generate this fucking unshakable peace in yourself. Because it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what it looks like. Our ideas about what's good or what's right are meaningless. Because at the end of the day, it's all here anyway. So we might as well practice unconditionally loving ourselves, just as God does, just as the universe does. If you had to be a certain way to exist, you wouldn't exist. You know what I mean? If you could only have your life, if every single thought in your head was pure and good, you wouldn't be a liar. So you might as well, it's going to be there anyway. You're going to be walking down the street through the park, high as a kite, birds chirping, sun shining. And the negative thought comes in. It's like, oh yeah, I remember that too. I remember that. And for me, go ahead. Sorry, bro. On you go, brother. Finish up. No, I mean, I was just going to say, meditation is such a powerful practice in that because all sorts of shit comes up during meditation. Fucking crazy things, crazy ideas, insane thoughts can arise in meditation. In meditation, you really just get to have this experience of watching these things come up and recognizing that like in the abyss of your being, there's all sorts of fucking hideous things in there, man. All sorts of hideous things, like things that we really don't want to look at, that are almost too ugly to even put into words. And if you're really fucking doing it, you're going to come to terms with those things and you recognize that that's just part of the human shape. That's part of this. And when you come to terms with your utter darkness, man, you become a really powerful being. Why do you think so many men and female male and female are struggling just now on this planet? Why do you think there's so much blood loss? What do you think that is? Do you think that's the system? Do you think that's from birth, scurrying? Do you think we're from the porn and alcohol and drugs that's on site? We'll just normalize that fucked up life and we'd realize once you actually come out of that very, very dark bubble, you realize how beautiful and amazing if people could actually see the potential they would fucking hate who they were. Well, I think that people are really lost and disconnected and it is the holistic system, the whole reality that we've been, the whole matrix that we've been plugged into from the time we come out of our mother's womb. It focuses on all the fucking wrong things, dude. All the fucking wrong things. Feeling good, making lots of money, that's the idea of a successful life. And neither one is going to lead to you feeling whole and at peace and full of love and joy in your life and content. Neither one. You can make a million fucking dollars, dude. I had millions of dollars in the bank. There was still a fucking god-sized hole in the middle of my soul. I was not happy. I was still not content. So it had to be about something else. I've had my dream job multiple times. Dream fucking job, dude. Playing the NFL. I've been a wellness consultant for massive companies doing teaching breathwork and yoga and being a fucking motivational guru speaker. I've had multiple times I've had my dream job. I'm living it out, making good money. And both times I've walked out of the building of where I'm working that dream job going, man, you know, this ain't it. This is not the thing that's supposed to, that's going to, that's filling me with contentment and joy. So it's got to be about something else, dude. It's got to be about something else. And for me, that's hard to articulate, you know, because I was having this conversation with my buddy Jarrett the other day and he started talking about, so what is it about? It's not really about a thing or a practice. It's not about meditation. It's not about going to the beach or going outside or moving your body. It's not about any of those things. Those might bring you momentary happiness, bliss, joy, peace, all of that good stuff, but as far as like that being the thing that then your whole life is just joyful and blissful, it just doesn't work that way, you know? So it has to be about something else. And for me, to articulate that is essentially the only way to cultivate lasting joy and peace and contentment or wholeness in yourself is to get really fucking good at listening to what you need. What does the heart need? What does the soul need? And getting good at following that direction. That might look different every single day, but it's in here. It's in here. And people are, I saw this, I don't know the exact statistic, but it's basically something to the extent of the average American today is dealing with more anxiety and depression than a 1950s psychiatric ward patient. So like someone who was committed 60, 70 years ago to an asylum, that's the average person walking around today is dealing with that level of mental illness. Is that a fucking trip or what? How did we get there, dude? How did we get there? You go into your doctor's office, you tell them you're dealing with X, Y or Z. They just throw pills at it. There's nothing about how are you living? How are your relationships? How is the relationship you have with yourself? Are you, are you doing something that fills you with joy? Most people would say no because they spent their whole life chasing money and chasing this illusion of success, which has nothing to do with feeling good inside. Do you ever think about going off grid? I think about fucking off, staying in the woods, fucking growing a beard, growing my pubes, just fuck off everybody, growing more fruit and veg, but then there's always an element of, but then how can I help others? But I just know for my own mindset, it's been off grid and living that spiritual grounding and eating fucking fresh foods and just nature. I always feel it's my calling. I love animals. I love dogs. I love dogs more than humans. Me too, me too, brother. I just love all that animals to be fair, but I just feel I would love to go off grid, but I just feel as if it's not my time to go off grid yet. I feel as if I've still got a lot more work to do because I leave, I believe these interviews have got watched 20, 30, 50 years down the line with so much knowledge of people trying to, I feel as if they're not underappreciated, but I feel as if there's so much shit getting spoken in these people don't understand them yet. I feel as if people get more appreciated when actually they're gone or when actually, when it makes more sense, because if people are talking about sun gazing and nature and getting all pharmaceutical drugs and trying to work within and exercise and breathing techniques, it's so a lot of people think it's hocus pocus. No, yeah, yeah, but it's not. Do you ever feel about going off grid? I'm going, brother. Yeah, I'm fucking coming with you, bro. Come on, dude. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm actually in the midst of radically changing my living situation. And I'm going for more peace, man. And I am committed to continuing with my events and continuing with my podcasts. And I love helping people. And like I have, I have less and less capacity, less and less bandwidth to deal with the average, the median level of noise that's happening out in society, you know, and I think you can do both, man. And I understand exactly what you're saying. For me, I'm really being called out to more country, more peace, less people, you know, I can connect with people or, you know, I'll be close by to an airport. I'll have a car. I can, you know, travel. I'm willing to do that. But I'm definitely, that's the direction my life is moving currently, like right now. Yeah, hopefully it goes the way you want. What about the relationship with Mike Tyson? How did that begin? Mike, I got connected with Mike through one of my old team doctors from the NFL who had been paying attention to my cannabis advocacy. And he hit me up and said, you know, I think it looks like you're really the tip of the spear in this cannabis for athletes movement. And I've been connected with Mike Tyson and his company. And I think you'd have a lot to offer there. And so I got linked up with Mike and his business partners. And initially, they brought me on as this athlete's liaison and spokesperson for his company, Tyson Ranch, to talk about cannabis for as medicine for athletes. I helped him put together an entire panel that was shot and distributed to all the major news outlets. I'm not sure like where that ended up airing, but I got a bunch of pro football players, pro hockey, MMA fighters, UFC guys, Olympians. And we did this incredible event and launch of Mike's cannabis company, Tyson Ranch. And then they said, Ed, we want you to stay on. Not exactly, you know, we just love your energy. We love who you are. We want you to be a part of this company. So I started showing up there. And then one day they said, Ed, we want to start Mike's podcast at the time I had my own podcast called the Mindful Warrior podcast. And they said, Ed, we want to start up Mike's podcast and you help us do that. And so that's how that started, man. I brought in the sound guy. There was another guy who had come into the company who was coming from Hollywood and film. And he was really interested in getting into podcasts. And it was just this perfect storm, you know. And when I met Mike, he was very much in the midst of like his own struggles and you know, through the process of starting the podcast, Mike had his own spiritual awakening experience. And the podcast ended up being this really incredible journey of Mike finding himself and me being a little bit of the shepherd along the way of him, you know, his support system. So it was it was an incredible ride, man. And I'm super grateful for it. Mike and I, I mean, I don't, I have, you know, honestly, I don't talk to Mike. I haven't spoken to him in a while, but our relationship has always been really great. We're definitely brothers, soul brothers from many lifetimes back. I had, I, we had a handful of really interesting experiences together during that time that it was like, oh, we've done this before. We've been here, Mike and I have been here many times in many different lifetimes, doing this dance of supporting each other, coming into contact with each other, you know, and it was a really interesting spiritual trip to be on. You know, and here's Mike Tyson, you know, a demigod, our modern day Hercules essentially. And I got to learn a lot from him. I think that I was very, I was a big part of his own growth during that time of reconciling some really dark things for himself. And it was a lot of fun. It was really deep. It was really powerful. And something that I'll never forget. That's for sure. And we made a lot of great content in the process. Yeah, the content was unbelievable. That's the biggest guest on the planet. And I think it was you. It says that there was a quote, which actually still see on social media today where you says, no one will ever know the violence it took to become this gentle. Yeah, yeah. That's a fucking unbelievable quote that. Where did you get that? Is that yours, or did you just get it from someone else? A guy came up to me and said that. And in the podcast, I say that, I say, you know, I heard this thing the other day that a buddy of mine told me, which was no one will ever know the violence it took to become this gentle. That was the story of my life. And, you know, and clearly it's the story of many people's lives, you know, and it's the truth. It's the truth. I mean, it's why I've been seeking peace my entire life, essentially, but it took a lot of chaos, a lot of darkness, a lot of violence to get to the place where, like you said, man, I was fucking tired of it. I was fucking sick and tired of being sick and tired, you know, and I had to make a change. I had to change how I was living, how I was existing. And, you know, it's an ongoing journey, dude. Yeah. What was Eminem Lake? Eminem was a really interesting dude. He was very quiet. That was the only episode of the podcast that we did. We did that in his trailer when he was shooting a music video with Dr. Dre. The mic was in the video. And so it was like, dude, it was the podcast. We must have recorded that thing at 1030, 11 o'clock at night, you know, and was a huge fan of mic, obviously. And there was a lot of love and respect all the way around. He was very quiet. He was very humble. You know, he had been through a fucking nightmare of his own, you know, and sober as well, I believe, and really like, really gracious, man, like a really, really incredible human being, you know. And that was one of the cool experiences of doing that show was meeting some of these characters who are really larger than life. I mean, Snoop Dogg and Tony Robbins and LL Cool J and Jimmy Kimmel and Eminem. And it was interesting too. I mean, all of those guys that I just mentioned, they were as good or better human beings than they are artists, superstars, you know, like Eminem, massive superstar, also a very deep, humble, gracious human being. Snoop Dogg, fucking superstar, also like an incredible human being who was one of my favorite conversations ever. LL Cool J, just an absolute, you know, superstar on every level, same with Tony Robbins. And then it's interesting to see like some of these other people who I can't exactly name names because I just, like it's sort of all blends together. But you know, it would be interesting to meet someone who had, who was considered like a superstar celebrity, but was like a very shallow, empty human being. And there were definitely those experiences as well. You know, so it was a really interesting experience of behind the scenes of, you know, superstar celebrity psychology, if that makes sense. Yeah. And Mike, I mean, Mike is one of the most intelligent, deep, sensitive human beings that I've ever come into contact with. I mean, for everything that he's been through, for the fucking warrior that that dude is, the first time I met Mike Tyson came up to me, was like, what's up brother? And he gave me a hug. And it was like, you know, it's such a powerful thing to see this guy who's like the ultimate alpha warrior be like so humble and sensitive, you know, and Mike has had his ass kicked more times than he can even say, you know, and had to pick himself up off the ground more than anybody probably on the planet. And, you know, he carries that. It was a really, it was just like a really powerful experience of seeing that side of that world. You know what I mean? How when you were smoking weed and taking mushrooms, psychedelics, was that, I mean, you're trying to do an interview. Sometimes I'm on a fucking great path, but sometimes I struggle to get through. And I smoked weed for 12 years. I fucking loved it. It made me sleep. It made me just it was my life for a whole that period where it saved me probably saved my life because I replaced that with cocaine and the weed. I was more of a close but I felt I was losing myself because I wasn't doing anything purposeful. But to do something when Mike Tyson's eating mushrooms or whatever the fuck he's taken, how could he conduct an interview? Did you see a different side to him? Or was he late that 24 seven? He was like that a lot. You know, Mike's a different creature. I mean, for me, I would definitely do mushrooms in low doses going into most of those podcasts. At one point though, I really had to stop smoking weed because I'd find myself just totally disjointed. Like I'd be on another planet. Like my body would be in the chair trying to do this thing, but my spirit would be fucking in another galaxy. And I had to stop, I just had to stop smoking the weed in particular. You know, cannabis is super potent, man. It's a super potent medicine and THC works like a scalpel in your psyche where it really separates it separates your ego from your consciousness. And so or even more so separates your consciousness from your physical body, which can be super terrifying. And so it wasn't super conducive for podcasts. I mean, you know, a lot of those conversations, for the most part, Mike would be super tuned in. There were definitely times, I mean, that was, you know, my role was really to hold it together, you know, and allow Mike to just be himself and allow the guests to, you know, be interviewed or, you know, a lot of times, man, it was like the guest was so fascinated and Mike that it just was like them asking Mike questions. But my role in that room was really to be the glue that kept it grounded, that kept it, you know, cohesive. So for me, I don't know when it happened exactly. And if you watch the show religiously, you know, I don't maybe you could tell when that shift happened. I know there was a point when we were releasing episodes and people started asking like, Hey, is Evan, did Evan stop smoking weed or something like that? And I had, because it just, I couldn't, I couldn't do what I had to do and smoke. And I'm a bit, you know, I'm a, I started, I came out of football and was an advocate for cannabis. I'm a big fan of it. But as far as like trying to sit down and have a focused conversation or trying to drive a conversation somewhere or dive into certain topics, like it was impossible for me to do that and be consuming cannabis. So Mike was always doing it though. Yeah, because from what he's came through and to what he's doing now, but sometimes when I see him doing like the mushrooms and smoking all the weed, sometimes I see a lost soul as well, just like a lot of people. Like it's okay, everybody's saying it's Mike Tyson, this and that, but to be doing that much and we say it's a plant, it's a herb, I've smoked it for 12 years. I loved it. I always stuck up for weed. I always stuck up for it, but I need this and it's not that bad. It's a plant. Every plant on this planet has a purpose, positive or negative. You look at heroin, you look at cocaine, it's used as it can be a negative, but it also can be used as a positive. MDMA, they're scientifically proving that it's good for the brain and there's so many drugs out there, good for you, but it's just a few, same as ayahuasca, I don't know ayahuasca, fucking mind blowing. I went to Costa Rica and but I just know people who goes back and does it six times a year, 12 times a year and I think I just feel as if it's could it be another form of an escape, Evan? Of course, of course, man. Absolutely. I mean the difference between a poison and a medicine is in the dose, you know. So, all of these things have the potential to overtake us and become a poison and you know, you're right. That's part of Mike's journey too, you know, and anybody who becomes just like, you know, you're eating a handful of mushrooms every day. What are you looking for? Like what are you looking for? You're looking for something because obviously you're not finding it when you take it, you know what I mean? Like what are you looking to do? What's your intention behind using it? And these things are super potent, they have a great intelligence, you know, they come from the earth and they have a really deep intelligence that goes beyond anything our mind can really understand and when you're going back, you're dipping into that well over and over again and you're not really using it as the tool that it was given to it, that it was provided to us as, it just becomes another escape valve, like you said, it just becomes another thing that you can escape your reality with. And that's not really helpful when it comes to coming back to the what I would consider to be the meaning of life, which is to get free and to be and to live with more peace and love because that takes living in your reality. And when those things, when you're constantly escaping your reality, you don't ever have an opportunity to actually face what's real in your life. Yeah, because if you look at a baby coming into this earth, they come in pure, they don't come in intoxicated by drink or drugs or alcohol, they do obviously drugs when girls get drugged up to give birth, but the purest form is the natural form, I believe, and that's not with anything in your system except, as we all know, as cheesy as the answer, the fucking key to this life is love. And it's to find that meaning and get to that purpose of truly loving yourself, which is so difficult. I've been trying to get there over the last six, seven years, and I think, shit, this is hard to get there because there's always, it's like a fucking minefield up here. The voices, like you say, there's something here. But when I do the right things, they're just quieter. They're not as, the monkey mind, they're not as loud. When they show, you were amazing on the show, by the way, and like you say, you're like the gluing, there's so many benefits, the things that you've said, and you can see that you are keeping Mike, not on a straight and narrow, but trying to, it's like trying to guide it, but it's like, you talk about the monkey mind, that show was like that sometimes, it's fucking people eating mushrooms, you've got everyone smoking fucking weed. It's the same as Joe Rogan, he's got a massive platform, and when they're smoking the weed and drinking alcohol, and I feel as if it can promote the wrong message, but everybody's on their own little journey. If it was me five years ago, I'd be smoking with them and drinking with them. It's just because I've made a lot of changes and sacrifices. I don't want to leave a negative message to the people who listen or watch, to then think it's normalized to do all the mad shit. I just see everybody's on different stages of their life and so be it, but what happened with the show and you're not going back on it? Was that difficult for you, especially being a big part of your life at that moment, another chapter? It wasn't difficult, man. I mean, what's interesting is COVID happened, it all got shut down, and they started to talk about bringing it back. It basically fired everybody that I started the show with and asked me to come back and co-host it again. Even that, they were being squirrely with like, these are like the business people around Mike. Mike loved me to death. I don't think he didn't have any, I think he would have loved it for it to continue as him and I. I had had a feeling inside long before the end actually came that this phase was coming to an end and so when all of this shit went down and like everybody got fired and they were starting the show back up and doing all this stuff, I went there and we recorded one new episode with Jake Paul and this new production company. I was sitting in that chair, man, and I was thinking to myself, what am I doing? This isn't for me anymore. This ride's come to an end. I'm not really interested in doing this and so that was it. The business couldn't get the business details worked out which is a reality of a lot of things in life and that was it. It had come to an end of its own accord in my heart at least and I think we did a lot of great work together, you know? I mean you look at the original hot box and that's like a fucking, that is some incredibly well done content. Black and white. It's in that room. It's fucking real. It's raw. It's like a Scorsese film. You know what I mean? Yeah. Was people ever fucking stoned leaving who didn't smoke weed? They must have been fucking blazing. You know yourself, whenever all the windows are locked, doors are locked. When I used to smoke it, people used to come and visit me and they used to leave like with the giggles that you could tell. That motherfucker's high but that was part of what I wanted to do was just fucking blaze up and shut the doors and the windows. Yeah. Did you see any guests who didn't smoke leaving high as a motherfucker? Oh, just about everybody, man. Everybody. I love that shit, mate. Yeah, yeah. So what happened? What happened with life after that, then, Evan? Because that was what four years ago, five years ago? I had, it wasn't five years ago now. It's amazing. No, because it was 2020. We were recording up until COVID and then it all fell apart and then they tried to, they brought it back like fall of 2020. But I had started my own podcast, The Evan Flow, and I was really just moving on my own direction and leaning into my whole thing. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a big transition out of there. I had been building my own thing and starting to move in my own direction like pretty much as soon as COVID hit and we weren't doing the show anymore, I had started building and working on all of my stuff, which has been great and it's just continued to blossom and grow, which has been really fun. Did you ever have Whim Hawthorne? I'm good friends with Whim. The Iceman. No, but I would love to if you made that connection. Yeah, I could set Whim up for yourself for your own podcast. I'm good friends with Whim. I went to interview him in Amsterdam. He is a mad bastard, mate. Yeah, yeah. Because we do the cold water here. I do the cold water for a lot of people who's battled with addiction and with the cold water therapy and raises the dopamine levels 250% strengthens the immune system, the white blood cells, the heart, the kidneys, the skin, the hair, because we're animals, we're hunters, we should be in fucking nature and the wild, but we're living luxury. One house, jacuzzi, everything's fucking luxury. How's life now? Going through everything in all your journey and all the chapters and the happiness, the sadness, the pain, the addiction, how the fuck, how's life now, brother? Life is a miracle, mate. When are you your happiest? Talking to me? Absolutely. I'm at my happiest when I'm around the people that I love the most and I feel really blessed to be in a place where I'm good with wherever I'm at. I've got the tools, I've got the ability to be very good with just about anywhere I'm at. That includes feeling deep sadness, feeling completely lost. It's not comfortable, but I've got the fucking foundation laid that allows me the opportunity to ride the waves, whatever they look like. It's taken me a long time to get here. What's your plans for the future, brother? Well, I've got my pod, the Evan Flo podcast, continuing to do that. That's a lot of fun. That's my bread and butter. I've got my healing flow event coming up in next week, August 12 and 13. We do yoga, breath work, ice tubs, have great food, great supplements, incredible people. Today, actually, I'm launching a six-week men's group called the Wild King. That'll be a lot of fun. Then that's about it, man. I work out every day. I'm working out more ways to connect with people in positive ways and make a positive change in the world and help people live in their highest greatness. That's what I'm interested in now. How can people get involved with you, brother? How can people message you, reach out? Obviously, we've got a big UK audience. I know you're American-based, but how can people maybe watch your social medias and how can people maybe come to one of these events who's maybe thinking that's for them? How can they contact you? Do you have a website and stuff? I have a website, ebbandbriden.com, which houses all the information. Then you can always hit me up on Instagram, at edsbritten. Yeah, man. That's the main hub. Then you can get into all the things that you can connect with all the things that I've got going on through Instagram. What's your daily routine like, brother? Because you've been in this struggle now, you're kind of on the other side, still trying to make changes. For anybody that's watching, a lot of people, I believe that everybody struggles in this life, no matter how successful it may look from the outside. But what's your daily routine like to kind of keep everything at bay? Daily routine. I wake up in the morning. I have a big glass of water with lemon and salt. I meditate. I breathe. I pray. I do some sort of movement. Maybe take my dog on a long walk. Maybe go to the yoga class. Maybe lift some weights. I work. I get my work done, which is recording a podcast, creating a program, sending emails, do it all that. Work through till about two or three o'clock by that time. Get outside again. Go for a swim, go for a hike. Do something out in nature. After that, if it's my day with my daughter, I'll pick my daughter up, spend time with her, have dinner with her, watch a good show, and without time for bed. I usually read a book, do some reading. I'm always reading some book. Right now, I'm just finishing up for whom the bell tolls by Ernest Hemingway. But I always have a good book going, man. That's a typical day for me, though. Breathing, meditating, prayer, movement, connecting with my favorite people, eating good food, getting out in the nature, doing purposeful, meaningful work that drives everything I'm doing forward. Yeah. Just before we finish up, we've got a couple more questions. For anybody that's watching this and this struggle right now, doesn't know how to get out, what advice would you have for them? Good question. First thing I would do, reach out to somebody who you trust. If you don't feel like you can trust anybody, look online, find yourself a 12-step meeting to go to. Doesn't mean you're an alcoholic, doesn't mean you're a drug addict. You go to an Aledon meeting, find a 12-step program. You can walk into a room anywhere in the world and connect with people who are struggling. I'd say that's a good starting place. Then from there, take it one day at a time. Take it slow, take care of yourself. Lean into eating good foods, slow your life down, first things first, one day at a time, and take it from there. That's what I would say. From all the years you've been on this planet, the ups and downs, the highs and the lows, what's the greatest life advice you have from at all? Greatest life advice that I have. I would say easy does it, man. I'm taking one day at a time. Hi, brother. Listen, Evan, I've actually thoroughly enjoyed this interview. It's been a little roller coaster of our own lives, our own journeys, pain, misery, success. Just trying to get fucking through life. Would you like to finish up on anything, brother? I think that's all I got, my dude. Thank you so much, James. Really enjoyed it. Yeah, likewise. Anything I can ever help with this end of the water, then you know where I am, brother. Stay in touch. I'll send you, I'll try and get the Wim Hof sorted for you. I'll also send you the Ayahuasca documentary that I've done. We're going back over again to do it. If you want to get involved, I can get you involved. But yeah, stay in touch. And like I say, anything I can ever help with, my end, brother, you know where I am. Thanks, James. I appreciate you, bro. Yeah, likewise, brother. Listen, send in love. Have the best week, and I'll speak to you soon, brother. Perfect, man. Thank you. Sounds good. Stay.