The Exchanges

Q increasingly there's like a nation of, of men and women who sort of feel purposeless and a little bit powerless. And when I read your story, I was really inspired by the fact that you started and self-proclaimed are a everyday man from a small town who became something a little bit bigger. And so, I'd be curious to hear from you in your words. What was that journey like?

A Well, I think eventually every big shot is just a small shot. They never stop shooting. You know, you just gotta keep on going. I was, I was a small guy from a small town. I was taught to do small things. The people I was around, my closest of kin, my closest of community. There wasn't a lot of, ah, gumption heading toward the outside of those county lines, you know. It was even a, a gamble for me to go two hours West of me to go to Mizzou and walk on to the University of Missouri wrestling team when everybody said, you know, why are you going to go do that? Why are you going to go ride the bench? Why are you going to go? What if you never wrestle? What are you, what if you quit? What if you come back with your hat in your hand and we can all say, I told you so. And I think so many of us have been put into a box, whether it be our upbringing, whether it be the people around us, whether it be our, our own self-sabotaging self-talk or self-sabotaging vision and view and Self-image and self-concept of ourself. And I still battle that little guy from the little town every single day. He's still inside. I've just got really good at duct taping him to the basement of my mind and continuing to believe that if I work hard, I operate with integrity. If I meet the right people, if I'm nice to and serve the right people, they will in turn serve me and it will in turn serve me, my greater …

AI assessment note: “I was a small guy from a small town. I was taught to do small things.”

Q obese than ever. Uh, we have more chronic disease than we ever have, and we have more mental health issues than we've ever had. So, why walk on fitness? And if you could say in, like, three words, like, what do you think, if you were just a normal human who didn't get paid to have, like, 36 abs, what would you be telling them they need to do today?

A You've gotta start somewhere. You know, and I think that's, and truthfully, you know, obviously I've been in, you know, organized athletics since I was 13 years old, and I've now been a professional athlete for 14 years, so I get paid to be fit, you know. I get paid to, to work out, essentially, right? And it's so, fitness is so intimidating to so many people, and they say, well, I'm overweight now, or I got bad knees, or, well, my mom and dad were overweight, and their mom and dad were overweight, and this family tree is just a bunch of overweight people. You know, and that's, we tell, we tell these stories, and it's, We think I'm not going to be able to see the results that I want to see, so therefore I'm not going to start. I think if we wait to start whenever the conditions are perfect, or we have a perfect plan, or there's any kind of uncertainty whatsoever, if we wait until you have the perfect plan or it's going to be certain, you're just never ever going to start. It's just part of it. So that's why I created Walk On Fitness. I, you know, the, the hardest part for me is the fact that I did create one that is for higher level, Fitness. Higher level. Yeah. Higher level athletes. But our leg program, anybody can do it. Our, our, our upper body program, anybody can do it. My guided, uh, on camera, body weight only circuits, anybody can do those. Any fitness levels. It doesn…

AI assessment note: “You've gotta start somewhere... So that's why I created Walk On Fitness.”

Q really intense, I remember being at the McGregor Poirier fight and hearing people yell and scream when one person gets hurt and feeling what that energy feels like. I've never felt anything like that before. And so you have such vitriol directed at you. How do you handle haters? How do you handle people that say bad things about you? Is there something that you go to when that happens?

A Admittedly, I do read more than I probably should. You know, I probably should just post and not worry about what they say. But I think For me, it could be 20 negative bad things, but then there's, there's one that's just, like, one of those ones where you, you get it, I'm sure, as well. Whether, whether they're talking about me helping them with their self-image, me helping with them with confidence, me helping them get in the gym, or the way that my fitness app has helped them and gained the confidence, or lost fat, gained muscle, all of these different things. So, I want to be in tune with the people that are, that are in tune with me, and, you know, I am convinced that a lot of those negative comments sometimes, too, come from bot farms across the Across the world, social media is a weird place. Um, but also, I do, you know, I, I'm not naive to think that there's definitely some real people behind those comments, and it's, ultimately, it's, it's, uh, you just gotta keep doing what feels right to you, and the people are gonna comment with the way that they comment, and, you know, there's been, there's been those haters, and there hasn't been social media for, for, you know, hundreds of years, but for hundreds of years, thousands of years, there has been people that are not gonna believe in you, They're going to trash you at every single turn. They're going to say things abou…

AI assessment note: “you just gotta keep doing what feels right to you”

Q So as I. Per fight? Or do you have a standing salary with UFC?

A No, no salary. You only get paid if you fight, you know. Um, and it's usually, you can sign a four fight deal, you can sign a six fight deal, an eight fight deal, and It'll be, say, you know, two years or six fights. Whatever happens sooner. If you get your six, if you got your six fights in in one year, your contract's over. Or if you had three fights in a two-year period, your contract is over. So it either goes by term, which is the time, or the amount of fights. You negotiate those terms, your manager or your, your agent, manager, or attorney. For me, I have, I've had one manager my entire life who was also a criminal defense attorney who has We've negotiated thousands of contracts at this point, um, and a lot of NFL, NBA, and UFC contracts now. We've done the best that we could to protect me, also leave enough meat on the bone for the current promotion to always make, make them feel like they're sometimes getting a deal, if you will. You know, I think that's, you hear a lot of people who would never, ever say that. They want to get as much as they possibly can, and they're going to dig their heels in, and it, Usually doesn't work out because one thing that you have to realize, this is not just mixed martial arts. This is you. This is everybody in this room. This is everybody in every endeavor, every single scenario, besides a very, very, very tiny fraction of the entire po…

AI assessment note: “No, no salary. You only get paid if you fight, you know.”

Q you're in this octagon, you're in this cage, and, you know, it's getting towards the end of the fight, and you are out of breath, and you've taken a few hits, and you can't feel your legs anymore. And you're maybe vaguely aware of the audience shouting the other guy's name. Like, what does it take mentally, and what do you say to yourself in that moment to keep going?

A Yeah, well, I think it's, I think it's the decisions that I've made leading up to that moment, you know, whether it be my five years at Mizzou Wrestling, where I turned myself into a mixed martial artist, or like, or at least a, the spiritual being of where I needed to be to go into mixed martial arts, then work and work on the tactical stuff. All of the work that I've done over the last 14 years to get to that moment. And a lot of that goes back to a couple different things. Gratitude. I do believe I'm operating My best when I'm extremely grateful, when I wake up every single morning, I thank God for another day, the blessings in my life, what I do have, two capable arms, two capable legs, an awesome platform, a voice to speak, people that look to me and admire me, all of these different things that we can sometimes forget about. I'm very good at just going straight, blinders on, and just running my head into a brick wall, and you tell me to go, and I'll go, right? If you're my coach, say, okay, I'll run through that brick wall if you tell me to. But ultimately, being grateful for what I have, and then thinking, too, it all started, too, with Mike and Betty Chandler back in High Ridge, Missouri, my mom and dad, who worked two and three jobs nonstop to make sure me and my two brothers had every opportunity to be successful, to be to where I am today. Sitting here on this chair,…

AI assessment note: “I think it's the decisions that I've made leading up to that moment”

Q he's sold his tiny little whiskey company for five hundred million bucks, right? You know, we've had The Rock, not quite a fighter in the exact sense, but, you know, sell his, or not sell his, grow his to be worth, I think, close to now a billion dollars, right? What do you see for you? Do you want a business empire? And if so, what would it be of?

A You know, right now, focusing on this fight, Building my platform and then continuing to rub elbows with, you know, like, like the guys we have here and doing business with them, doing good business with good people, whether it be real estate, whether it be in actual businesses like, like cram, having my fitness app. Cause ultimately it's, for me, it's always about the people behind the product, if you will, valuing the people over profit, um, valuing My voice going out to people and making them feel something. You know, I don't, what I want most when I'm fighting is to make people feel something. Make them feel something about their life. Make them feel something about what they're going through. Make them feel something about what they can accomplish. If, if a small guy from a small town who was taught to do small things, little old me can do it and somehow end up on that big stage, so can you. And I want them to feel that. So making investments in real estate, into companies, building my platform, I'd like to speak on stages and do big events, and really get that one-on-one connection like we have here at Operation Blackside. I mean, the, the people that we have here, and they're all successful in their own right, you know. They all have businesses, and they're entrepreneurs, or they're all doing awesome things, but to get this opportunity to, to hang out with them. I mean, …

AI assessment note: “whether it be real estate, whether it be in actual businesses like, like cram”