Regret Nothing, Forgive Everything | Rich Roll Podcast

[Music] welcome we're welcome back to the podcast got a great guest for you guys today the great Eduardo Garcia thank you no no he's got an incredible tale of overcoming adversity and really a journey to wholeness that I think is gonna really impact all of you guys so I'm honored to be able to be a steward a cipher for his story today what we talked about thank you yeah we what we discussed how I ended up with a prosthetic limb joking sort of who I was prior to that then going through this the making of a documentary about the worst day of your life I mean just nothing big really just a small thing we're gonna chronicle your life for three years and then how that empowers not just myself but you others to take someone else's story and roll with it you know make it investing attempted use that's well said so get ready for the next two hours you guys are gonna enjoy it so thanks for joining us today and enjoy my conversation with Eduardo Garcia Eduardo man so nice to meet you thanks for coming out at Calabasas great to meet you we were talking before the podcast I've been wanting to meet you for a long time man so it is a pleasure to have you in the studio it's my pleasure likewise honored to be here and really looking forward to it cool so you were actually born in Calabasas yeah do you remember or were you really young when you moved to Montana I mean that's what they tell me right yeah how many of our memories are formed by our true memory or by our sort of created memory through repetition and storytelling and you know whatnot but what I can't tell you is you know I remember frying eggs on the sidewalk when it was like hundred-plus you know and I did not do that in Montana much happening there no I remember I mean there's photos that prove it you know OshKosh B'gosh overalls somewhere on an ocean you know like so yeah we was the sea in this area until 86 to 86 so your your and your mom was like super into like a spiritual community right that was like she didn't know and that's move to Montana but that started here yeah there's a there was a spiritual community called Church Universal and triumphant that was founded in Pasadena and had their campus or their you know community headquarters in Pasadena and in the mid to early 80s bought property in Montana and you know so yeah everybody made the mass mass movement like everything in the vehicles drove north to largely this ranch property that was right on the northern border of Yellowstone National Park Wow is she still part of that community very much so and you weren't you grew up in it I grew up in it yeah and what was the kind of theological bent mm-hmm it's um it was like an all-purpose seasonings for spirituality in visiting I have to speak in chef metaphors right but like if you took this how I described it because how many times in my life have I had friends coming from the conventional or Catholic or Christian or you know route and being like so Edie what kind of crazy like commune or compound or cold like you know and so I mean when I was a kid I defended it like you know hey f you man yo like you don't say that you don't talk about me and my family like that and then at some point I started to question like well what is this anyway and and so what I would I could say to summarize is that I believe the church Universal and triumphant to be a a compilation of the world's religions so grow up knowing who mother Mary was and who Jesus was and also reading the Ramayana books while we ate chicken soup you know what I mean like on a Saturday night and and my mom being of Jewish descent so studying the Kabbalah and you know you factor in all world's religions all that the Bhagavad Gita the Quran absolutely humble I uh spiritual jambalaya yeah listening to BA Hons all my buddies were like listening to Bon Jovi like wow hey we were there we were the kids bringing like tempeh you know burgers to public school lunch right super hippie everyone yeah I never ones like trading their lunches at you nobody wants to [ __ ] trade right right a priest son and you know whatever did you uh have you watched wild wild country yet I haven't been told I need to yeah I mean it's impossible to have this conversation without me thinking about that you know obviously you know what you're talking about is different but the idea of like a spiritual community kind of moving West and creating like they create it's crazy you got to watch it yeah it's super compelling but anyway man that's wild so so now you're here and let's get into the meat of this because you know look at your a look at your arm I want to hear this story do you get tired of telling it yeah there was a period so it was a period right after my injury where it's not that you tire of it it's you question why you're doing it just like you question why are you telling the story yeah you know it's very rare I find myself tired of doing something you know I think that's like an easy out and so what is what is your why behind that yeah answer why you tell the story yeah so at some point you know where I tired telling retelling the story was is this still serving everyone including me like there's a certain amount of our time here that I think we give to others but we have to always give to ourselves I mean like I just saying this makes me grin while I'm talking to you because I'm just on the right up here I'm thinking all right and I've talked to my fiancee today like honey we need to focus on the [ __ ] that makes us happy that brings out our best bits just say no to that gig and I'm gonna say no to this gear whatever you know and so for for telling this story I will share my experience for as long as I'm on this earth as I believe it brings value to others and elevates my own like healing and continued education and being you know right by treatment I think that that what I like about that answer is the kind of commitment to continually healing and growing because I think it would be easy to just kind of stay in one place like I'm the guy with this and this is how I define myself and it becomes an all-consuming you know identity for yourself rather than a part of your story yeah that has value for others and informs kind of how you make decisions and live your life going forward but isn't the end of this story that's right right that's right and I feel like we're getting I may be getting ahead of myself for some listeners but the easy one here that's at that point is like at the end of the day it has to check out with me like whatever the action is whatever the story I'm telling if I'm gonna go on Good Morning America to talk about how my hand blew off whatever it is it has to it has to gel it has to make sense to Eduardo otherwise and that's what I found at some point I was like I'm not doing any more interviews where I don't have a certain degree of control in the finished product because it's not what I want to be a part of another article going out talking about how I did XY and Z which may not be true like I want to be a part of it if I'm gonna be interviewed I want to be working with you to create the best piece of content not working to just feel like some hype and a page you know mm-hmm we're gonna get into this story but but I feel like it's it's still a good time to ask you like you know what is it that that you want people to take away from your story like what is it that you want them to walk away with that they can use to impact their own lives in a positive way yeah quite simply it is - it is the to push for the understanding that everything that comes across our doorstep anything that comes through our wheelhouse on any given day can be used to impact your life to any end so it can be negative it could be positive you get to choose you get to work with it and that is that is my take away is it's it's not about being called the bionic chef and being an amputee and all these things it's that happened but that's no different than someone else's this or that happening it's what we do with it it's it's and and staying true to your convictions to true to your beliefs from that you know yeah it's about your relationship to obstacles and rather it and failure and whatever gets thrown in your path and rather than just looking at it from the perspective of anything from victimhood to annoyance to understand like these are opportunities for your personal evolution and growth which is easier said than done that's this that's I mean that's why I'm here today you know is is for me this is an opportunity to have sort of a no-bullshit I mean that's how I want this to be a no-bullshit sort of conversation that reminds me of where I've been who I am like what I'm doing and where I'm going and sometimes it's it's I mean I have been there where I look I'll catch myself in a moment where I need to awed it like immediately like quick and like wait a minute I'm still working on this two-year-old vision just or this one-year-old vision of Who I am or who I'm supposed to be then it's like no no no not so I mean that's the takeaway if I was a wrap it up for everybody is wake up every morning empowered by where you've been and encouraged with the curiosity and the Wonder lust and the possibility of where you're about to go in that day short term can be so impactful and super super powerful and so just focus on that you know do not be dragged down by however many years you've had behind you it's so hard you know we get in our growth like I love what I do but even reflecting back on how I've lived my life the last three or four days like I've just been in a work groove you know I feel like you know it's so easy to just like carve that line and you stay in it and it becomes wrote it becomes routine it becomes easier to repeat and it becomes there's more and more resistance it becomes more and more difficult to just stop and like be present and connect with gratitude and and wonder and all these childlike qualities that that when I think of your story and in watching the movie and all of that like that seems to be that's really like you know the beauty in what you have to share thank you so I don't know man I thought you know yeah I appreciate I've been working like around the clock the last couple days and it's like and that and then watching your movie and I'm like man you know I need to I need to hit pause in my own life you know that we all we yeah we I think it there's no negative there man no negative yeah yeah so let's so let's uh let's walk backwards and talk a little bit about where you came from yeah short long as it relates to this just yeah I mean so you grew up in Montana I mean you're outdoorsmen from the get-go yeah a little bit of a hyperactive kid yeah some scruffs in school uh yeah I mean the beyond that that's I don't know if it has moving to Montana at the age of six in 1987 was like a dream come true for a kid that didn't know he was dreaming about it right like it just like where am i you know there's wild animals and there's Mother Nature just whether I knew it or not between the ages of 0 and 6 is my beacon is my muse and so children are showing up in Montana is like walking into the hallowed halls of whatever your passion yeah it's gonna be and so you know I think I say in the movie you know moving in Montana it was like stepping into a National Geographic magazine for real like in real life you know and so for me I that was my focus was the outdoors I was a boy scout you know I was as you know as you say I had my mom says I had a lot of energy and for me I think there's a curiosity that was just untethered and that comes out in disruption and about and you know and then of course we've got to own it you know at some point you just start making shitty decisions you're a teenager growing up with a lot of single-parent home so in our community a lot of dads were not in the picture and so it was not just me you had a motley crew of guys and gals who we had we had good parents you know they were feeding us well we were we had all the things we may we may or may not have needed but we were well taken care of but they were hustling they were working me a lot of them weren't present and so we were self educating and that leads to you know chemicals drugs you know rebellion making poor decisions getting in trouble with the law whatever it may be how much of that do you think is is a function of you just being a kid who like wanted to be you know roaming around outdoors and you're forced to like sit in a chair you know in a classroom all day and it just becomes like an intolerable situation for somebody who's wired like that yeah a hundred percent that was the situation and again it was I like him must say this for the record as I loved loved education school you know I mean I'm right now I'm 36 years old and I'm thinking about what is my next continuing education you know to sit and be educated as stimulating and exciting to sit and be told to sit to raise your hand and and and maybe I didn't know how to say it at 12 but I you know hey got a question Hey and I would say kid with the hand up but I was trying to say is like I'm not learning what you're saying mm-hmm and I'm not dumb but I'm just not getting this well you're somebody who's learns experientially right absolutely or you know that just sitting I wasn't getting to me through with one question I was allowed every ten minutes or else I was being nice wrapped it right uh-huh and so then that what do you do you know you get cornered by I'm not learning this and I should be so now I know I'm behind the eight ball mm-hmm now I'm also being labeled disruptive and all I'm trying to do is learn and you got to do one of two things you you either some one hand like throws a hand out lifeline you shouldn't happen or you just give the middle finger and you're like all right what's good okay I don't need any of this and how much of it do you think is ooh was because you had an out your dad was gone like your dad left when you were super young right yeah yeah dad left what we were actually still here in LA I think I was about two months old and you know in so many ways i I'm glad he did you know what I have under stand is my mom you know my dad has had a problem with alcoholism and my mom was like I don't want my kids growing up with and maybe let's just say alcoholism is the banner that we'll put up but there's all the things that fall under that under the disease which is alcoholism and so all of those other attributes are attributes that she chose to not have her kids influenced by and then I think her fourth you know it meant she had to work harder it meant she had to do three jobs it means she had to sell her jewelry and clothes to put us into school but she was able to raise us with morals and values and in this way you know that was free of the disease of alcoholism you know we grew up in a home that was free of a free of that and many other support parental traits that a lot of kids grew up with yeah yeah yeah so I'm grateful for that yeah he comes back into your life later yeah yeah and that's a thing so yeah and you know yes I didn't have a dad growing up and I'm certain that that impacted me negatively or that impacted me in a way that was not really beneficial considering twelve-year-old kid just doesn't know what to do with the fact that they don't have a dad around you know but dad did come back in the picture when I was 14 in 93 and grateful my little sister's a byproduct of that sort of remarriage and and I think that was a second time married and and dad we fade out how to be friends right you know one of the things that that I loved about the movie was that as much as it is a story about like what happened to you and the other sort of recovery and the rebuilding of your life and the you know sort of struggles that that are packed into that it's really a it's really a movie about your relationship with your dad or reconnecting with your dad and and also with Jen you know is really kind of you know a protagonist in the movie but the evolution of kind of how you find a way with your father was like a really beautiful like thematic three line throughout the whole thing and I feel like the movie is as much about that as it is about anything else yeah it is the director the director the film's Philip Baraboo and film were talking about as charged and I chose to not produce the film I chose to not be a part of that was we were Jen and I both were highly encouraged to not produce this film and so we didn't and what's beautiful is that a team of creative storytellers took all of this footage like 386 hours of footage and edited it and built a human piece compelling and worth sharing at the tune of 86 minutes edited and cut and you know at some point they had to make a decision do we cut out like all sudden twiddle down where when it was a two and a half hour film it was too long and it had this super beautiful long story line of Eduardo and his dad in that story but then the directors ended up cutting that out because it's them in the film isn't about it order his dad it's about this guy's journey through all of these things which include the dad right but you know my journey with my father like I believe I the time I did get with him on this earth taught me everything I needed to know about how to not make the same mistakes he did mm-hm and I apply those you know I mean not I got 36 years but you know I got 20 I'll take him mm-hmm yeah and you're you're the legacy of his experience I mean you know he has this love of the outdoors and the water and you know the fishing and he was a chef as well and those are all things that you know are defined you you know something and I and I'm Manuelo Fidel Garcia's kid I grew up without him in my life and I'm in love drop dead and fated with mother nature and the outdoors and when I do finally meet my dad twelve or thirteen and then over the next 20 years of having a relationship together we almost get to connect as two devotees to the same practice we both love nature yeah and he's been doing it 40 years long but we both get to connect on it right you know I can't sit in the lineup without Pelican fly's over I like talk to it on my dad's back oh yeah oh yeah like I can't oh no so where does uh where does cooking come in you know cooking cooking found me at an early age it was not you know me on the buckboard counter with Grandma on the apron stirring the pot you know like that was not part of it you know my mom like I said did a lot of great things for us cooking was not one of her skill sets even though she's she's great in the kitchen she was busy hustling you know so we would have like 10 p.m. chicken soup and we'd have that for like you know five days or something so cooking for me was hanging with the homeboys in the summer 14 years old and 13 years old 12 years old and no one no one available to cook so what do you do you just open the fridge you start making it happen you burn some things you botch some things yeah most people just eat Fritos they like peanut butter say no but yeah I know man but we we had like five pound tubs and miso paste in the fridge and like you know yeah you know they mean like we didn't even catch incense burns for like the communal dinner at the commune we had Bragg's amino acid and like bags yeah you know Tony said like and so whatever will we ate those things and but you know so cooking for me professionally was being 15 and I'm just needing a job you know like I kind of say I was I got I got tired of stealing quarters from my mom's purse that she didn't have yeah you know and got a job at a local place for burgers throwing pizzas yeah like Lauren cook yep totally and it was fun I mean there's a tourism industry in Montana so you're 15 and you're with your buddies 15 and you know you're slinging burgers and watching all these you know cute girls from out of town cruising through and it mean it's like a fun the summer and I realized well I'm naturally I can keep up in a kitchen and you know it was an easy transition into saying alright well I don't think I have it in me to do four years of committed college type of a post-grad work I don't think I can you know like I couldn't see myself sitting for four years and but I knew I knew food is something I keep doing and so culinary school wasn't easy all right well let's get educated let's let's go get a degree in this let's make this legit was you what you're thinking like I'm gonna you know be like a fancy type chef or just want to learn how to cook better or like what was that did you have an ambition or like an idea of where you want to take that I didn't know not if not at the first no not even and and it's interesting how many times in my life have I tried to sell myself on this false sense of self and knowing right and the very be like first notion this will never work but you try to sell yourself on it for sometimes a day and sometimes 10 years or longer you know of being this thing and for me I always knew like I don't you know I don't I don't believe I'm going to be that chef who the way I envisioned it anyway was I'm I don't think I'm gonna be the chef that has 10 restaurants all over the world but but not knowing what was in front of me was my motive was my impetus was well I don't know what it's gonna be but I'm just gonna focus on doing food and doing it as well as I can yeah like an adventure a hundred percent way you head out on our expedition uh-huh I mean so so then where did my career take me you know was either gonna work three jobs and pay off student loans and you know knock-knock-knock I got a phone call from a yacht that was in Seattle saying hey we we need a chef overnight are you interested in I was graduating culinary school I was looking for work and you know I guess humorous and I turned that job down at that point I did only five months later to have the same cabin call me one final time and I did take that job so the adventure began you know had no idea what I was gonna do with this degree in cooking but at that point I'd been cooking in restaurants for six years I knew the rhythm I knew the drill and knew I was gifted enough to do well in the industry in regards to palate and flavors and all of that and I think I fell into a dream job on so many different levels and you know it took me a while to realize the passion for food but but then the ability to travel the world and you know learn about cuisine and all these crazy places and right now I think I read like you would you take your skateboard and you do every port O'Call you'd cruise around go to the bakeries and various restaurants and now it was so again that I always say like you know during my 20s it was an opportunity to explore but I traded the mountains than the rivers and sort of the grizzly bears and all that stuff in Montana in for you know the map of the world and you know instead of riding a horse or hiking I was skating or surfing or wakeboarding or diving I mean I went to the water and I did that Jam for ten years as a yacht chef and we didn't cover the whole globe but we did a lot of it right yeah so yeah ten years so two and a half years on on dorothea right and then there's total yeah two and a half years on the yacht dorothea which I mean that was Captain Mark trullo who lives down in Encinitas and just south of us here and talk about an influential friend mentor a person you know he he was the type of guy who had adventured in his life and wanted to continue adventuring Arabah ed there go by opening the door for others to do the same so you know what the option was to sit on the dock in Point Loma for you know two weeks or explore Baja for nine days and once we got on the dock hustle to get it clean and ready for their owners or something and like hand would go up be like adventure yeah like you kidding me I mean it sounds it sounds amazing you know what do you what do you take from that experience like what was the biggest like lesson that you learned from just yeah literally a decade of constant travel yeah it's uh it was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on my first I did four different crossings of the Atlantic Ocean on different vessels but on a sailboat we crossed we got we started in Majorca Spain in the Mediterranean and we crossed to Antigua and it took us about 30 some days when we stopped along the way and at some point from halfway I guess between the Canary Islands and Antigua you know you're in the middle of the ocean you're about as in the middle as you can be and and I don't actually I don't believe in my memory that it was a typic it was a stormy day or you know I'm not gonna paint that picture I think it was just a day at sea and there was motion of the ocean we're cruising along and yet there had been rough weather on either end of it and probably rough to come and I remember sitting out and looking at the horizon line and just kind of having it hit me that there's no control like the whole notion of control is kind of out the door you're sitting you're surrounded in a floating body of water you cannot breathe er eat it drink it anything and you are on this man-made vessel that is your lifeline but ultimately your peace and your salvation and all of it just starts within yourself yeah and like that's the control is like a misnomer for presence and a night present it's like being within yourself being seated it's so beautiful yeah I mean it's a humility right yeah it almost like it's preconditioning you it's it's like push-ups for what you're gonna have to face later mm-hmm right yeah I love that you know like like that experience problem I would imagine came into play and helping you whether what you had to get through must have yeah master I mean on a prior crossing really really rough weather bigger boat really rough weather everyone still has to eat I still have to get food done and there was a German and ginger cook with the boat oh it's no it's nice man it's nuts you know I mean you're you're asked against the wall and you're you know you're kind of like just trying to find stability and but anyway the German engineer in the middle of a very gnarly storm he brings in a little speaker setup but there's I mean this is before iPhones this was with his iPod or whatever it was mp3 player and he puts on hardcore like trance electronica music not my usual Johnny Cash genre you know and and I roll with it and I realized that he brings a storm into the kitchen right so he like brought all of this energy and this music in this impact into the kitchen instead of it just being this chaos around me he's like you gotta dance with this bro I brought it into the kitchen and all sudden as you're cruising and grooving with it you realize like you forget that the boats getting tossed around you know you but you elevate your movement right to match immediate yeah so like meet that vibration so rather than fight it or resist it like hey let's it's not evenly not only accept it but like I'm gonna take you one step further right yeah yeah yeah you know my fiance's uncle was a very well renowned rock climber Todd Skinner and one of his quotes I love is we cannot lower the mountain therefore we must elevate ourselves that's the jam yeah that's like I said Cohen so good yeah cool all right so you get back you're cooking you're doing your thing man and so so you know lead me up to the life-defining expedition yeah so you know yachting was a ten eleven year career I realized I don't want to sleep in a bed that's two feet wide by a foot and a half tall for the rest of my life are there people that do it like their whole lives so I guess that's guide Encinitas right yeah no I mean mark mark did it for ages I have friends who are chefs that started the same day I started in the yachting industry that are still doing it and you know like for me I mean I saw on the way up here I listened to Podcast you just put out with you and Julie right and one of the things she's she mentioned is only committing to do and be the thing that is love like that brings you and creates love like you know and at some point I realize like look we can force ourselves to do all kinds of things and yet that's not your true self and for me you know for me it's whatever gets you screaming and jumping to get out of bed in the morning that's what you need to be doing more of and at some point I realized that cheffing on the boat I was kind of sleepwalking I was I knew how to do it I could crush a meal for however many people or however many days in any country but I was really looking forward to my off time when I was building a food brand and writing a TV show and focusing on my home back in Montana and at some point is like you know what I can no longer continue to work without the passion I need to chase the passion which is no longer being a yacht chef but starting these other businesses and moving home yeah that was 2010 and yeah 2011 March was making that jump off the boat right mm-hmm and so let's let's talk about the accident how would so this was what when are we talking about 2000 2011 a lot left you know 10 11 year career in the auditing industry in March was signed with William Morris Endeavor pitching a TV show had incorporated a food brand that was supposed to be like this farmers market fresh salsas and guacamole Brianna Mexico versus something but Montana max yeah Montana Mex stuff right here dude yeah so before me thanks for sitting no drama on no president tried it yet but like I'm looking forward to so prior to these products that are sitting with us you know Montana Mex was a food like the farmers market fresh movement like perishables yeah yeah and so that's what we were gunning towards during the summer of 2011 and my business partner and ex girlfriend Jennifer Jane by my side through all of this in the creation of companies with our other partners my sister and brother and and yeah you know what's interesting is we could get into we could spend two hours just talking about the day of my injury but really what was happening in that point in time was I was transitioning from being a yacht based person and having a career in the Outing industry to being a business owner right entrepreneur being a host of personality how did you go from like yacht chef to like getting an agent at William Morris yeah yeah one of the guests was Ari Emanuel's elementary school bro oh really uh-huh yeah and we sent we we sent our sizzle reel to Ari Emanuel and he immediately sent it on the same day in the same hour to both offices in North America in New York and in LA office and they FaceTime door skype video to each other and we're like WTF what is this thing like why what was it about the sizzle reel like it's like okay you're a chef like what's the spin like what made it unique we filmed the sizzle reel ourselves with it well we know we hired a production team and we directed the the shoot and it's the concept if show was called active ingredient mmm and my and the premise was that I believe and I still do that we all we are the active ingredient in our recipe in our life rich role you are your own active ingredient and through all of the other ingredients which could be our partners our friends our lovers our kids that we are the necessary component to activate all of those into gelling into like yeah yeah like this is this is the thing we're sharing this is the prana this is the food right yes this sounds like a motivational inspiration well first the cooking for no totally but so the cooking the cooking was was the based on my lifestyle which is if you and I are gonna go surf or hike or head out into the woods recreative or be out in the field even vacationing another country I want to cook a meal and I want the day out to incorporate Ella to bring in elements that we incorporate into the dinner mm-hmm so active ingredient was saying like hey we all can find our truest best selves this show is about me doing it and I hope it serves as a metaphor for you in whatever your active ingredient moment is for me it's about food it's about cooking and it's about making it's about bringing others who are sharing a meal with me and the low-cal whether that's in the ingredients or the weather bring that into the meal maybe I'll take an experiential a hundred percent yeah that's what I'm doing I'm ready I want to watch that I want to see that show what happened I know right we were pitching it right now you are good well we put mean I mean it's tragic right so we we had a we had a meeting with the buyer at the Food Network set for October the 15th and I was flown to the ICU in Salt Lake City on October the 9th so four days before that meeting which you know like contracts had kind of been drawn up and just we needed to seal the deal right so bittersweet but you're resurfacing it again now we have not let go of that concept and repackaged it called The Hungry life and we're pitching it right now so fingers crossed that's cool man you should have a TV show yeah thanks I mean I think you're the perfect person to do it and especially you know the as an ode in the legacy of Anthony Bourdain with somebody with your level of not of life experience and world exploit with the travel that you've done but also what you have gone through to get to this place like you're you're sitting in a place where it's not just about the cooking and the food it's like you have all of this wealth of information and insight that you could bring to an audience that makes it much more dynamic thank you yeah yeah I appreciate that I have not let go that we'll see what happens you know did you ever did you ever meet Anthony Bourdain did you know him at all no I knew him how most of the world knew him through his book sent through through his voice and influenced me greatly yeah influenced me greatly that's a lot of people oh yeah tough man oh yeah all right so so you're this is what you have all this momentum happening yeah life yeah and walk me through the day yeah so I was I was out elk hunting yeah you know as a the shed there's a there's a part of me as a chef that loves to know where my food comes from whether it's the carrots in my in my garden or whether it's you know an animal-based protein like I want to know I want to know more the story about it and I want to be involved in that so hunting is has always been a part of my life and I it's interesting you know I as a hunter I often prior to a harvest take a moment to connect with the animal in life and the and and just you know I don't need to make this sound all woowoo but in the line you're talking to a vegan see yeah yeah well you know but IND I don't know who's listening and I just wanted a lot of vegans yeah so a lot of other people so but I bet I'd so I do this when I you know like I'm putting a garden in on Saturday so when I get home tomorrow and it'd be in the garden all day so even when I'm pulling a plant up is it thinking about it like is this strawberry ready has it done its thing is this have I over harvested this asparagus patch of whatever it is anyway the morning I'm out hunting I pass on an animal I decided not to harvest that animal for my reasons and I end up resetting what was it about like something just didn't feel right to you you know I I had had kind of told myself I want to harvest this I want to harvest a younger a younger cow elk or you know a younger female elk not what I saw in front of me that day which was this huge beautiful male elk which 99% hunters around the world would be like why in the heck didn't you you know wasn't what I wanted and I think intention right reason right motive right cause like intention is huge you know like you know that wasn't my intention for that day so although I could have been seduced by how big and beautiful this thing look no so I decided to keep going hiking later on the afternoon and I come across a I'm just to put this in perspective for everyone I'm in a valley about 5,000 feet and I'm heading from the sage sort of valley floor winding my way three miles up into the conifer or evergreen forests and within those that forest there's we're still you know everything is sloped you know gentle rolling up and I'm in a little drainage small small drainage and I see a can like literally a 50-gallon oil drum cut in half on the ground and curious I walk up to it and when I was a weird thing to see which is a weird world which is a weird thing to see except you know except in the Rocky Mountain West and even in many parts of California here there is a lot of debt richest there's a lot of left over a mining camp sheep camp homestead junk out in the woods from our predecessors you know from the folks that were here before us and I just assumed like that's an old camps camps something you know and I look inside and there's what literally just envisioned a black to pay everybody with like a claw r2 and some bone you know the size of like a volleyball like deflated that's what I see in the bottom of this can and I'm like what the heck is that you know and growing up you know a student of the outdoors I mean I've picked up every feather I've checked out every animal dropping like you know I study at all and so I think huh that's interesting and part of me thinks well it looks like a very like two to three year old dead like been here for three years dead baby bear cub or something and so I pull a knife off my right hip and I put it in my left hand and my plan is just to take a cloth off just like you would harvest you know a interesting branch or something that's you know fallen and I'm gonna take the claw and you know put in a curiosity case or make it a necklace or give it to my friend who works at the Boy Scouts and is always collecting to teach with you know and I mean I don't even get within 15 inches of the base of this can before 2400 volts of electricity arcs into the tip of the knife I'm holding and into my body you didn't even touch mm-hmm it's just jumped at the metal it arced into it at art and its interests I had both hands going down to this barrel I'm on my knees I'm leaning over I have both hands and you know because like the knife is gonna pop the cloth in the right hand it's gonna pick it up and teamwork and what's interesting is had I not been holding that knife like nothing would have happened but that knife curated a conduit for that electricity Jarnell so had you just had you touched it with your hand though you it would have conducted the electricity wouldn't it or was it it was you had to have Medellin yeah I think it was the metal and so what what what was going on was there was a there was a an exposed power cord beneath the tank it was a bear it was a buried line that was going to a backcountry cabin and this can was sitting on sort of a point where the line had like it was like it was a ground junction access point and the lid had many you know and so what I come to understand you know and what I can share is that you know this junction box had been compromised by weather and neglect and time and was not maintained and the lid became unsecure and fell off it should have never been exposed I mean it should have been labeled and fenced and the whole thing so you know in that moment I knew none of this right now Morris I mean how would you think like better not touch that like there's there might be an exposed wire underneath I mean you wouldn't do it contrary it's it's you know the the only thought would be should I touch that it look as gross like that's the thought you know so how many volts 2,400 2,400 volts yeah and does it just hurl you like what hot was so I wait so I wake up right so I wake up on on my back staying I wake up staring at the clouds in treetops and I you know I at this point all I know is that I'm staring at the clouds did you know that you were electrocuted and now what it if knowing that knowing that moment in the moment I got electrocuted it was like someone had inserted me into inside the speaker cable of like a yes con or something it was just straight up electronic symphony in the back of my head with heat with like the gentle warm flood of heat lights out my eyes open up I don't know how many minutes later and I see clouds and dappled blue sky and treetops and and I think to myself get up get up what are you doing now roll over and I'm on my knees in my hands hands and knees and I say get to your feet in this so this is all I remember is just talking to myself to get to stand up and I must have stood up and I'm next to this barrel all my gear my backpack my bow my things and the next memory I have is just me is is the next memory I have is of the sound of gravel and I'm on the dirt road I'm no longer in the trees I'm no longer next to that can I don't have any of my things with me except in my right hand I'm holding the can of bear spray in my left hand I looked down at it and it is blackened and burnt and seized into like a claw shape you know right and and what's the pain like not anything or you know in this weird adrenaline yeah like no dream mode total total dream mode total jury mode I mean I I gathered where I was okay I'm in this part I'm in this valley this I'm walking downhill why am i walking downhill why is my hand black and then of course like oh yeah I saw like I saw that like dead baby bear I went to get a claw I put a knife and then it's like oh man that noise that he didn't like it I must have got zapped I mean we've all been zapped through static electricity or the random one time where you get a little too close to something and it was you know it like zaps you back and I think again life experienced those small little tidbits of being in touch with electricity in my life definitely all sudden come fall Center I'm like wow I think you actually just received I think you just got electrocuted like bad and now I take account now now my heads on a swivel and I look I look at the hand and it's grotesquely disfigured in black and gripped into a claw I look at my leg on my left thigh and I see that my pants are black and I kind of poke a finger through there and I can see it's just charred flesh and I don't have to look anymore now I realize that I am walking down this road to get help and this was a subconscious decision I made when I was know like not in my body you know in our unconscious mind just went into survival mode hundred without any memory of that hundred no one I don't I don't think we remember the day that the day the moment were born and take our first breath outside of our umbilical cord you know but it happens and how do we know to do that that's the miracle genetically wired to do it yeah so do you have like a Sat phone or a cell phone soon there's no service or anything like that like you're way out back country right the cell phone the keys to the track the water daughter stayed tilt back it's all it's all on the ground and how far are you from like civilization either help I'm about three miles I mean I've gone back to the site many times I've retraced all these things and I'm about three miles from where I received help and and was what's just interesting is that I'm carrying my bear spray somehow in that collected moment of getting to my feet and leaving the site I make a decision to not carry anything but bear spray like just think about that first thing it's like Morrow it's like anyone ever packed for that trip where you're running out of time and you need to get out the door by this time or you will not make your flight or something and you just have to decide what to take and what not to take it's like triage it's like I just got to get there well it's all the more remarkable I mean when you see the movie and you see we're gonna talk about this in a minute but like when when you see the condition that you're it's not just your arm like it's the right head it's your like the fact that you could do anything is shocking like the fact that you walked three miles well you see what your body look like it's it's just unbelievable that you didn't just die on the spot yeah it's it's the flipside of watching the Olympics you know those folks are training and putting everything they have for decades into being their most Max and myself and I think dying and surviving an experience like that is the flip side is you are using everything in your tank every facet of every ounce of energy you have to towards salvation mmm like no doubt mm-hmm no doubt it's the flip side but it's also similar you're tapping into every reservoir that you have to accomplish your goal and that goal may be a gold medal on a podium or in hate beaches living yeah right no and it's I mean okay so here is here's the million dollar question which is like how do we access like that type of clarity that type of conviction and that type of follow-through and execution I call me on the daily bro yeah I mean I would like to know the answer to that are you here to look reveal this secret to me well I'm hoping that charged the film somehow inspires all of us to at least be aware of it and recognize that deep within all of us there is a almighty power like deep inside and yet it's time you know that that we we cover ourselves up in all the layers that you know are shed immediately when it's time to fight or flight like it's immediate but when it's kind of everyday life we are held back by all the stuff man yeah we become myopic I mean you know my story is about change forged through pain a different kind and certainly not as severe and I think that that you know like I said earlier like these these obstacles that are placed in our path are teachable moments to help us get closer to who we really are and I think that's a big part of your story in a very extreme way but why is it that you know I can't change and tell I'm in pain or that pain is required or obstacles are required or hardship is required or overcoming these things is required in order to get in touch with the fact that it is about the moment that it is about gratitude and love and appreciation and service and sharing and all of these things that are innately part of who we are and available to us as a choice on a daily basis to use as guiding principles in our life and and in our behavior and yet are so much more difficult to access when we're just when things are okay yeah you know it's true it's true and that's I mean you can fast-forward or however we want to do this but I mean that that was part of that was most of my reasoning to be available and agree to have a documentary made about this tragedy in my life was just that sort of the to be a part of creating something that serves as a reminder to others and myself included that this is just part of the this is part of the jam this is life man this is how it this is what it looks like this is what it feels like and and actually what's for charge for the documentary I mean we as collectively as a group we're in a very unique position that we were filming this TV show right and so we had footage well professional you know like quality capture footage from years prior leading up until the day of the injury mm-hmm and day four of being in ICU and you know Rosa lon the production company were working with citizen pictures at a Denver you know they show up not to document but they showed up to be like holy yeah are you okay into you know respectfully and lovingly show up but of course they you know we talked to him and jenni arranged and they brought a camera they brought a light and then a friend drove down with our camera and you know Jenni Jane rolled rolled that camera through and captured still photos and video that I think all the way through the fifty days of I see you and then in the next couple years she continued document and then even a friend of ours Phil Baraboo who ended up being the director on the film not knowing why we're capturing rice except maybe Jen Jen Jen I think knew there could be something to salvage from all this and I think Phil as being I mean he's a documentary Stewart filmmaker he's had you know he probably saw that coming and for me I was just I remember naively saying well we're capturing this because you know my hope is it never happens again and I don't want to have to remember it through experience like I wanted I'd like to be able to for posterity for your cell phone yeah you know like I don't need I don't want to have to get zapped again to remember this and so that but that serves us like we serve back to like why this film what do others get from it and well we're we're creatures of story I mean that is that's part of who we are and there's nothing that that can move the human soul more than an incredible story well told right that's how like you as an experiential learner I think us as creatures we can read text books but when we hear when somebody shares their experience and they do it in a compelling way and it's an extraordinary story I think it has the ability to connect with us as animals in a certain way that other information cannot and you know your story is a perfect example of that and it's so I mean that's the thing when you're watching the movie you're like oh my god like there's a gate like I think there were a couple places where it looked like okay are they like they had to recreate you going you know touching the knife and all of that but like post-accident like they're right there like it felt like day one through the entire process and I want to work my way up to that because that footage in the hospital is is excruciating to watch when you see the physical condition that you are actually in I mean in occur in a very graphic way I've never seen anything like that you know I think you're obviously when people meet you they see your arm your hand immediately and it's like okay he lost his arm his forearm in his hand but your torso I mean it's it is just charred to nothing like half of your upper body is essentially gone and it looked almost like like the ribs were just black it looked there was like just a hole into your into your organs right there I mean it was unbelievable oh yeah and there you are and you're like you got a smile on your face and you're like cracking jokes on my house this guy even hit haunches right now rich has on so many drugs Manatee yeah those are wrote down like ask him what everybody must be you know we're gonna get administer ketamine mr. Garcia hmm well what's that you probably hear I've known it a Special K hey what are you trying to imply you know like they say that in ICU they have a really big issue with folks who have severe recreational you know chemical dependency recreation tolerance is so hard their tolerance is so high they can't medicate it you know but I you know I look I think obviously the my care team did a phenomenal job keeping me at a threshold that was tolerable mm-hmm I don't know why I have a hard time talking about this or to like get wrapping my head around like the whole concept that we all had different tolerances for pain and you know maybe I have an issue with if I say like hey rich I have a really high tolerance for pain I think I've heard that and it's hit me as this like ego lace-like macho type of thing but in reality I think I have a higher tolerance for pain than a lot of folks and I also I've experienced a lot of pain and I've been in ICU a lot maybe not for my own experience a few times from my experience but I've had a lot of a few yeah you know with my dad when he had heart surgery in 2005 like that one time when I did this when I broke my wrist three times like I've been in and out of those scenarios a lot and then I got to say like look I know this sounds strange but I don't I don't fear death you know like I understand the process here I get it is that a result of that experience or did you have that before this occurred I think it's compounded through this experience but it's been around and it I think a lot of it has to do with killing a deer for the first time when I was 11 years old and watching life disappear and and and then working in a garden a lot of my life like I stopped I mean I'm this all like I stop pulling live flowers off of stuff because I was like man I don't see a die I'm gonna find ya like I've been a I just been a so closely connected with life and death through my lifestyle for so long that look I'm not saying that changed the game but I think it wasn't new the scenario wasn't new right so my approach was alright this is a job this is what's happening and I have a role to play here and so I did that yeah part of that the humility cycle of life being in nature understanding it's not personal yeah right yeah and look I I have never actually offered that as a as a conversation point when asked like how was your experience and I see you I just hit on that right now here with you because of how we're talking and you know the way it came to me but I I do want to say that I think one of the greatest prescriptions that you know I didn't I didn't I didn't have given to me was ignorance is I just didn't know how close I was to death I like so many times Eduardo you know shows up to the scene or shows up to the moment of and through the whole way I am I just didn't know I didn't know and therefore if you don't know you're about to die mmm-hmm you know I'm gonna take it as seriously as I think that comes across in the movie I mean I got ya cuz I'm watching you and I'm like this guy doesn't realize the severity in the situation that he said I mean anyway skull is missing yeah and you can like literally see inside his torso oh you know and and your thigh I mean a giant literally like you put your hand inside your thigh at one point like when you're laying in bed right you lift up and it's like somebody had just carved you know just this massive chunk out of your leg yeah and you're like this guy's not gonna make it I mean I felt I felt supported you know and I think here I mean that's the that's the thing is supported by your community Jan your family or supported in and like a like a more broader spiritual sense all of the above you know I I felt so the only I came out of a surgery - so you're talking about the hole in my torso my ribs so indeed right so like in front of it right now right which is missing a bunch of ribs I'm still missing those ribs I'm like pushing on my torso and it's like bobbing like a beach ball right now but I had four to the three inch sections of ribs removed and coming out of that surgery there was a miscommunication was with the anesthesiologist and I came off of that surgery on a lower epidural dose than I should have had and I was an excruciating pain I was in the most pain I've ever felt in my life coming out of that surgery and a friend of ours who just search and rescue with his dogs all over the world happened to be coming through Salt Lake and came into the ICU on that day to say hi to me and his name is arturo Hakuna a good friend and our doodle knelt by my bed as I'm just out of the surgery and starting to feel pain come on because the indices of surgery is wearing off and Arturo I'm in so much pain I can't speak I can't let alone just focus on breathing for hours I did this you know and our tutor whispered in my ear about the earthquake in Haiti you know almost what ten years ago now or whenever that was and he shares a very short story about his experience in Haiti for maybe a minute or two just to tee up the lesson which is hey be grateful for what you do have you're in the best house possible you have the best care possible you're surrounded by loved ones there's no lack of blood for transfusions there's no lack of care it could be worse so for that anesthesiologist you scream yeah yeah you know exactly yeah exactly in in it but that just that hit me like a ton of bricks you know I'm just like that's right I I'm doing I'm doing great all things considered the thing that I think struck me the most in the whole movie is and you could chalk it up to naivete or what-have-you but there's something about you like throughout this whole process you're in ICU 40 48 days yeah not once I mean maybe you did off-camera but like not once did I see you complain or play the victim like you have a smile on your face you're making everyone who comes in to see you comfortable and you have this this not just hope like optimism and just sense of joy and gratitude about you and I want to know like where that comes from because that's not faked and I don't think that that was learned through the the tragedy the tragic accident I think that's just part of who you are that's core now that's that's that's core to Who I am that's core to Who I am and I am I can lead and I'm also a really good soldier I'm a really good team player and in that scenario the only thing that I was leading was attitude if I could smile if I could grin if I could twinkle and I if I could really share that my genuine effort with everybody around me they were gonna leave my recovery in that moment and I was conscious of adopting that perspective or was that just natural yeah both I mean natural it naturally occurred and came out of me and then I was aware and encouraged by my own actions like oh yeah this is what I can do this is how to the point where a nurse you know a couple my nurses would be like hey don't be afraid it's okay brave a little bit and be emotional and let it out you don't want to be repressing Brighton's either and that was her concern in that one moment but but like I will share too that that's my mo that's how I choose that's my typical approach however there is a Jekyll and Hyde in this guy and you know to give my family credit and definitely my ex-girlfriend Jennie Jane who flew back from England to be my caregiver and held me and be by my side you know there were durations of time where I reflect back now I'm like I was really nasty I had no patience I had no tolerance and yeah but that's to be expected sure but you know and so so it's to be expected and but I think at some point I think that no matter like you know you get a cough or a cold or when we are out of sorts our patience drops our tolerance level drops that doesn't mean that's an excuse to take the piss and just kind of do that every time we still owe it to ourselves and those we love and those around us to make the effort to be pleasant etc which I was but I'm just saying that even though the film shares I never made an edit on the film like they did a masterful job however I have had comments from folks say like hey like when did you struggle because we don't see it in the film like we need a little but you know what I saw was I mean the first time that you see you struggling with this is the day that you get out of the hospital and you're forced to like okay now it's time to go back to your life and it felt like and I don't know how much of this happens in the Edit and what's real versus like you know creating a narrative but that's the first time where we see you break down and it feels like it's all dawning on you what has actually happened like you had to remain like it's another type of fight or flight survival mode okay your NICU for 48 days like you have to keep it together to survive this and then once they release you it's almost like a pressure valve release and then you're like oh wait and it felt like a ton of bricks just landed on you and you're like oh my god that's what just happened and this is where I'm at my life a hundred percent that was that that was the second that was the second sort of wake-up call emotional wake-up call I had and I was scared I was freaked out I was scared you kidding me leaving ICU after 50 days of almost dying and knowing that it's just me and Jen and not 20 nurses and an on-call staff and a medication team and what were the doctors telling you like when you first came in and they have to say like you know what's the prognosis here what are we looking at yeah dr. William Morris who was the surgeon on call that did save my life I think he's quoted as saying that's a bag of bones with a heartbeat basically like oh man chance yeah like what you were literally toast toast yeah you know and and so I I only now realize how close I was to dying that day and even for the next three days pretty dicey you know but for the emotional part I just want to share you know Richie mentioned that scene where I'm walking out of the hospital I'm being discharged and I break down and that's the first time we really see there's sort of the beginnings of the emotional dawning of what's happening and there was one there was one moment prior because we talked about being strong and like the heat of the fire and how you you know how to smile and be courageous in ICU and how that happened and that was very much my personality but there was a moment where Jen and I were watching a movie she was on my left side and so that's the so it watching a film on our laptop so I'm in my hospital bed Jen is either in the bed with me or sitting next right next to it we're watching my laptop watching a movie and in my mind I am caressing her knee like I have my hand on her knee and I'm like just you know touching it just like you would kind of put a hand on your significant you know and then at some point I look over and it hits and I realize like I don't have a hand on my left arm anymore and what I was feeling was thirty years of memory that when you sit next to someone you care about to watch a movie you throw an arm over and and you just touch them on their leg or their shoulder or the Phantom yeah it was it was in my mind it was so real and I and I remember just breaking down in that moment that there was gonna have to be a whole mental shift that right you no longer have a left hand guy so they they amputate up to like like halfway up your forearm right yeah that where it is mm-hmm and what do they do to your torso and your and your head and your thigh yeah graft skin on there like what was the process of like healing from that yeah I mean the for the most part that 48 day stay was you know up to 12 surgeries which was every other day every three days every four days a surgery grafting skin harvesting skin from a healthy part of your body and using it to cover and rebuild skin on a wooden site you know and that was that was every day you know and actually we stopped my surgery short we stopped my surgeries short because it was let's say it was mid way through my stay one of my exit wounds was in my scrotum and as the surgeons through their process are cleaning up all the dead tissue on my body I go into a surgery and they come out of the surgery and they're like you know you get a report or a debrief and you know hey we couldn't save your left teste or whatever it was and you know I'm losing so many body parts and bits and pieces that it's just kind of like okay yeah yeah I mean something you didn't think that was on on the menu for oh man I bet there's some listeners been like whoa whoa whoa what about like you think it's bad and then it's like all right you know you're gonna lose this - yeah like but that wasn't part of the deal no it wasn't and and yet so the doctor leaves right and and my brothers in the room and and Jen and I don't know who else and I and the nurse there's a nurse in the room and I just kind of share to the room maybe my brother who ever like huh well I never never liked that one anyway that was one that always gave me problems and I don't know if my brother asked well what do you mean by problems or if I shared but you know years prior while yachting years years prior I remember having a pain in my groin I remember having a doctor check it out squeeze squeeze pull pull you look fine you know you're on your feet 20 hours a day you're probably just pulled of something taking ibuprofen and I just put that idea to bed that I needed to look into my physical health but in that moment when they're like oh you just lost your left teste I thought to myself like that memory shut up and I was like oh wait years ago I had an issue with that thing like good riddance my brother chases the surgeon down the hall and it's like hey just want to throw this out there after you left the room Eduardo mentioned this and I don't know what you do with that and so that kind of set an alarm off and the doctors head or the surgeons and they so they went to every body part that every piece that leaves you goes to the lab and they run the results so he had that test II ran and came back with positive tumor markers or seminoma testicular cancer so you just can't get a break yeah right yeah yeah there's that fun there's a funny scene in the movie where Chan's like yeah you know because you you had your ups and downs in this relationship and and she's in a position where she has to sign off on the removal of the testicle of her ex-boyfriend you know she and she also is like good riddance yeah yeah exactly right yeah exacting her little like revenge as she's taking care of you 24 hours a day yeah totally she jen is a is a voracious screenwriter and sticks to comedy stand-up comedian as well and so just that actual reality that the girlfriend that got cheated on gets to sign away right the ex-boyfriends you know testicle is like I mean how good does it get yeah you can't you can't write you can't talk about I mean come on like alright you're literally hanging on for your life yeah it's like oh by the way you have testicular cancer and then they find it in your spine so they're so then of course I mean the red lights go on the sirens blare and and I get a whole panel done and cat-scans and there was a mass of tissue in my lower abdomen right up against my spine that was just assumed to be trauma related to the electrocution but not of concern and now all of a sudden they're like wait a minute that could be a second stage tumor and so I mean it was just insane you know I'm I don't even know how to talk about it in short verse you know because I'm in the hospital having my life saved limbs are getting chopped off left right and center I'm losing all these pieces of my body and and I'm just trying to make it through these surgeries man you know like I am just trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel to be courageous to not give up to believe that it's all gonna be cool and then oh and you have testicular cancer by the way and so at that point I was just I remember being frustrated and I mean it's frustrated that's that's it right but frustrated because I was eagerly anticipating knocking these things out and getting back to life like just getting back to what I wanted to go do et cetera and now I have to stop my surgeries I go do rigorous chemotherapy in Montana for three months I got the choice Salt Lake City go home I went home how where were you in the process of you know recovering from all the injuries at that point like right so I mean halfway I still had pending surgeries to reconstruct reconstructing my scalp so I stopped you know we stopped kind of closed all my wounds up got myself stable went through chemotherapy and then when I finished my last round of chemo took up remedial surgery on my amputated forearm to clean up that that site and then did another years worth of plastic surgery work scalp so we really I mean it's slowed things down and extended another 12 months of recovery and surgeries you're trying to your body's trying to repair itself from these cataclysmic injuries and then you know okay so now we're gonna just bombard it with chemotherapy and right crush your immune system and right I can't imagine like you know the the body must have just been like shut down yeah you know yeah it it that I mean it was I mean that is not what chemotherapy does it kills all your rapidly producing cells and I I had a goal if I hiked every single day that I've sat in that infusion chair I would like keep it was like me against chemotherapy and I may not win at least stay above it but I was gonna meet it toe to toe every day right yeah and your cancer for you now yeah as I'm told I get a check-up once a year right right right Wow so so how many surgeries all told about 21 yeah yeah how did they fix your head it's amazing I have a listen and a plastic surgery you know it's such a misnomer that I mean plastic surgery is for all of these you know we use them for whatever we want plastic surgery to be but I mean never forget walking into quarry a grocer jhin's office and there's all these different breast cup sizes on her counter as a display you know like dozens of them and you know that's her work so she you know she's talking about what they are and I realized that classic surgery is is a in incredible piece of technology that allows people to return back to their most complete physical sense and you know and so for me I had two giant like the size of an orange wounds in my scalp where my skull was intact but my scalp was gone on one on my forehead which you can't see and went on on the right side of my head and and they basically inserted baggies and stretched my skin out and when there was nothing last isset II in that stretch skin they pulled it over the chunk of skull that no longer had scalp I mean just extra ordinary process yeah cuz I can't looking at you right now like I can't see anything but when you watch the movie you're like like you know and your torso you know it's in the movie you see without your shirt on like once it's healed it's remarkable how normal it looks the surgeons did an incredible job keeping my torso symmetrical so my my latissimus was is connected from your hip and runs up to your scapula and they removed they disconnected it from my hip and and brought it basically out the side and then what's called a muscle flap and they used it and pulled it over my torso and my abdominals to cover that lack of a body matter right that was you know my obliques half of my obliques half of my pectoral muscle my less I were all removed and the way the surgeon says he's like we just removed all this muscle from you and we have to fill it back in with something yeah and but you still have unbelievable range of motion considering you you're lacking all that that's those structural muscles on one side of your body like how are you even able to like move your arm and your shoulder so I asked that are you doing pull-ups like how does that work without laughs I asked I asked that question I said so like how does this work you know you're telling me half of my obliques all left side half my obliques half my pectoral my down abdominals my latissimus all all being removed and and either is gone or being you know my latissimus is still there but it's brought over and no longer serving the production place yeah it's just at your feet as a filler and my doctor just you know it's like well you have all of these subsets of mine subsets of minor muscle groups below the major groups and with the big group not present or that large muscle not present those smaller muscles are going to kick into gear and start working and developing and growing stronger in lieu of big brother no longer being there and that's what I've experienced I mean it look when you know I'm missing a huge chunk of my left quadricep and I don't know if anyone out there believes in karma or what it is but I'm like all of these things are left side on my body whether it's the hand the testicle the muscles everything is all left side for the most part and so you'd think that the entire left side of my movements would be totally off and I am just grateful that the way I was put back together that I can run and jump and bike and swim and do my thing without really with with no noticeable skew to the left height move yeah which isn't crap when you're running it looks totally normal yeah which is crazy I mean the amount of muscle removed from your quad is like you know a giant sirloin yeah and yet when I hike you know if I'm going vertical up a hill or if I'm by any if I'm locomotive I'm moving I don't feel that and and I truly believe that whatever they all these supporting muscles just rallied on that side and said this side needs to be as strong as the other side let's go it's interesting that the only real injury on the right on your right side isn't is in your head to the brain but the right side of the brain controls the left side right that's wild that is well yeah and we should say just because I don't know that we've made it clear these injuries like it was the electricity leaving your body right the electricity like exiting your body literally through your skull through your torso and through your quad yeah not 9 to 5 in your hand yeah yeah yeah that's crazy and what you have but you have some scars on your right hand is that from something different no that's exit that's exit 2 they're just a little less severe then yeah the ones yeah they it's not something you know you look at those scars you know and and and I always say that our scars are sort of the road map that shows us how we got here you know emotional scars physical scars yeah I think you know that's that's sort of how you end the movie like how do you you know looking back on this experience like how do you process it and like how do you think about how it informs your life yeah I thought I was just saying he's quite simply I'm still working on that every like [ __ ] you know I woke up today in LA and came out here and my morning was spent talking to my fiance about our future plans right now and I'm reminded every single day in a very positive welcoming way about this injury you know it's like I don't wake up every day say oh man I wish I wasn't an amputee or oh man you know like I wish I had in the last three years of my life to that it's rather like oh man what am i doing today and I'm gonna be sure to not agree to do anything or to put myself into any scenario that's not exactly how I want my life to be mm-hmm so it's you know in so many ways on the outside and at first glance if you we've never met and you never heard the story it's like that's the most tragic thing I've ever heard and then on the other hand it's like a blessing because it's a daily reminder to just go get it do you wish that it hadn't happened or do you feel like in some weird way by having these things removed that it has completed you I I i do not wish that this didn't happen hold on a second you don't wish that it didn't have wait what like some folks are like oh would you go back yeah would you would you go back if you could go back to 2011 and not get electrocuted would you do it and at this point absolutely like no I love the person I am today and I am blessed with the opportunity to still be alive and share my experience with others like mine but that it it enriches my experience here you know and yeah it enriches my experience my mom my mom says something along the lines of we all need to we all are better well served understanding humility and look I'm not saying anyone wishes something like this on anybody the point being is that humility can be found through so many different ways and I could tell you right now that I am better off today than I was prior to this injury given sort of my connection with my heart my true self my desires my physical person in the world prior to that probably little imbalance probably getting a little too far ahead of myself with like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna be this and I'm gonna go this way and and more so today in large part because of this injury I don't get so far away from that like hey don't forget who you are I mean who you need to be in this world yeah you've literally been forced to slow down physically like there are those sequences in the movie where it's like you want to go in the kitchen and like Bam Bam Bam and like do it the way it was like no it's not gonna work out I do you're gonna have to like yeah chill like chill bro right but that compulsion on a physical level to slow down seems like it then makes its way into your kind of emotional spiritual you know body and perspective to go hey man let's just like be here right now yeah how can we honor this moment in a different way yeah we started this conversation talking about a show called active ingredient whereby pre-injury Eduardo believed that there you know that we are all the integral part of our own best recipe of self right and like I wrote that show you know like I believed that and yet post-injury I get like I live and walk that now way more that's we're interesting because yeah you it's almost like you literally had to burn in this fire to become that person that you sort of thought you were beforehand that you were trying to embody but you actually weren't that guy now you are that guy you can carry that vibration in a way that when because I'm sure it's gonna happen this show happens that you can be that impactful voice that you always want it to be that perhaps you thought you were before but now you actually really are yeah like in recovery and they always say like you can't transmit something you haven't got you could talk about transmitting something you haven't got but if you're not backing it up with actually who you are and your life experience like if you haven't lived it enough then you could talk about it but it's not gonna connect with anyone else yeah like unconsciously we know you know like is that guy full of it or is that guy like the real thing yeah yeah exactly and um across the board right so like whether it's you know the Eduardo pre the injury wanted to share my love of life with the world on the largest platform possible okay I'm gonna be a TV show host and I'm gonna create and sell a TV show the why behind that was genuine and authentic but like Oh like it just didn't maybe it didn't have that level of understanding and like authentic experience to add to it you you know and you know as well as with the food company you know with Montana Mex like I had been cooking for most of my adult life and I had been cooking for the last decade for families for kids like really really inspired by the fact that I was a conduit between life and death for people like we got to eat everyday you know and so being a part of how people eat was a beautiful part of my life and like going into that injury but coming out of that injury still having the food company Montana Mex I only came out of that injury stronger in every single conviction like yes I still want to share my passion with the world and my belief that we are our own active ingredient yes I want to talk to the world on the largest scale possible about how national food companies can be free of all of this junk of all of this stuff can be philanthropic can give back can make better business sense I mean in every step in every sense of the word stronger your your your a literal conduit between life and death in a very different way than what you described you know you could carry Pryor right yeah yeah in an emotional way yeah charged I mean what's funny it's like grounded to like you literally like you know the word grounded like from you know in an electrical sense you know but grounded in a very emotional and spiritual sense as well like you can own your you can own your footing in a way that you couldn't before and look you don't do especially as a young person like you don't like aspire to have a TV show unless there's some ego involved right so what is the and and that's fine egos fine unless it's out of balance so what is the balance of ego in that equation versus from then versus now yeah yeah I think there's a certain amount of maybe I mean you can and may help me out you know maybe there's a word outside of ego that is that thing within you that knows it is desirable knows that it is capable knows that it is valuable and you know I think we associate you go into the sense of I I am this I am that and and yet at some point I needed a certain amount of whatever that was just to make it through that time sure I needed to believe that I could do this I was gonna be okay like I could add value to the team around me but the humility that is often not present with ego is definitely something that I pulled out of that fire yeah it's like I can believe myself all day long but you need to be like be yourself to you and yourself is not that guy that you left behind ten years ago or at that you know yeah I would imagine that it's some combination of like the strength that comes from self belief that I guess on some part it's derived from ego and if there isn't a word from what you just described there should be balancing that against deep humility and really like a surrender to the fact that you have so little control over this right like like you're in that boat being tossed around by those waves and urine and I see you you know at the behest of a team of doctors who are doing their best but like there's very little that you can do what are the things you can control you can control your attitude how your how you're acting towards you know your medical stuff and the loved ones that are that are caretaking for you and your frame of mind yeah where your your optimism or pessimism about what is actually occurring in real time yeah it's true but the surrender part and I think this gets I'm interested in your thoughts on this I think what gets lost when we talk about surrender is that we we sort of think that that means giving up or you know that letting go is a weakness hmm but in my experience and I'm interested in yours like surrendering creates like a freedom and a different kind of strength to approach a problem from a more empowered and humble perspective that ultimately in my experience leads to better results yeah I agree and I think from my perspective nothing is stronger than truth right like there's like truth is that rock and for every every opportunity since this injury and and and moving forward because you know post this injury there were a lot of moments that challenged my truth and and I've had to recognize them and and decline to engage in whatever those were and you wake up at 30 something and you're missing all of these body parts right and you're no longer who you were and you just can't lie to yourself like you can't you don't have that left hand you are no longer symmetrical you are no longer the person you were prior it's just not true and so owning the truth of this is the me going forward is also becomes sort of like the foundation of all right do I want to do that thing I don't know is that Who I am is to say yes to that or agree to that or is it to decline it and say no and so to your point of giving up it's not like honestly I think it's nothing to do with giving up it's it's actually a super strong bold powerful move is to just make a decision based on truth mm-hmm you know and yeah I don't that is the power for me anyway mm-hmm I think the hard part for a lot of people is is trying to define what that truth is though sure and and yet I think if you boil it down though and you look at yourself naked in the mirror and it's like well here's what it is somewhere what makes you happy what makes you sing what fuels your fire do something small do something small you know on like by the hour by the day by the week by the month and for me go you know in in in chemo when I was going through all my treatments for three months for me it was reading and it was hiking outside and and I could maybe only hike for ten minutes on any given one day and then all sudden it was 15 minutes and then it was two hours and then you know it was half a day but I knew that that here's the thing though to is I knew I needed that I knew that that was going to just keep me moving but at some point I recognized that I was taken advantage of that too and I wasn't growing I was just comfortably being like oh I'm gonna hike every single day and this is gonna solve everything this is gonna keep me cool and at some point I had to push out of that well I think part of the lesson you know as somebody who hyperactive kid wants to be outdoors can't sit still you know in the kitchen you know I would imagine like you know sort of thriving on the chaotic you know like environment of being in a kitchen like all of that is like that's your that's your like mana like that's your whew all that dance and here you just get you just get sidelined where you have to stop and you cannot do these things that are part and parcel of who you are but I would imagine on some emotional level are almost like ways of escaping or not dealing with things that you really need to work through if you want to become fully actualized to become a whole person and you have to have these body parts removed in order to confront that and become whole so that you can sit here today and do the things that you that you do yeah I think it was interesting is like that moment Central Park 2013 with a group called the Challenged Athletes foundation at a San Diego the group that kind of got me involved in triathlon sports and it's incredible organization oh my gosh they check them out if you haven't they do terrific work and a friend is a big supporter and recommended I check out the Challenged Athletes foundation and they invite me to their big fundraiser event on the East Coast and there's a fun run in the morning Central Park and I show up you know kind of you know t-shirt with my prosthetic on wearing like skate shoes and skate shorts like I don't know not really ready to run maybe a head tension first like kind of like the sort of legit structured race type of that kind of thing yeah this is yeah and this is a fun run but this is what it is this is the first time that I have stepped into a room of people's not all of who have disabilities but into a room that recognizes the the person with a disability and says like you're an amputee and it's not a bad thing it's like that's how they're just defining like cool you're 13 years old in your mail or you know oh you're an amputee below the elbow cool you know what sports did you do or it was like it was just like boom it was like saying what's your name you know and I and for me it was that like I had to give up or I had to throw my hands in the air and say I give up on this notion that I can hide and protect the old Eduardo like when my hair was falling out going through chemo my sideburns stayed on for some random reason so I could wear a beanie and maybe it looks like red hair you know and then I whatever I look at photos of that now and Psyche what were you thinking you didn't have eyebrows man yeah but you don't strike me as a guy who's like trying to hi mean like in the movie you're like having fun pulling your hair out with Jen and I was like wow like that you know written and so to be fair the rich that was in my home that was in private like I didn't go out I didn't you know like I beat other than my family like I remember I remember having Passover in Montana and my grandparents were there and I like I didn't ask my grandmother but I kind of just told her how I was considering not wearing my hat at dinner inside but I always wear my hat because my head's got this big divot and I haven't finished all these surgeries because my surgeries were put on hold so my head was like bald no hair big big big open like you know divot in the back of it really like disfigured looking and she just looked at me she was like Eddie we don't love your head we love you take the hat off you know and so forth so when I went to that run with a challenge at these foundation in Central Park I gave up the idea that I needed to hold on to the old me and an 18 year old kid Thomas Kane was my catalyst he came up and he was like hi I'm a Thomas sounds like hey I'm Eduardo and he immediately just zeroes in on my left hand he's like you gonna run with that on and he's pointing at my prosthetic it's like saying hey rich are we gonna go do a marathon tomorrow or you bring your backpack you want your backpack you know like you're not gonna run with that on and I just had never considered that I could comfortably take off my prosthetic in public and just have my forearm exposed yeah and I did in that moment I surrendered and I just owned it I said I need to own whoever I am right now today like I need to love this person and you'd be proud of this person and I need to be an active part of whoever I am moving forward not stuck in this old concept of self and how did that feel to take it off in it I don't run cash and I was like you hadn't run without it or you hadn't like you just never you're always covering it up I hadn't moved without it being on like I got into bed and take it off the end of the day and I go to bed but I hadn't really done anything active without it on and it was you ever seen like a you know an animal frolic sooth it feels it's like Bing you know I feel free yeah it was liberating and you know it I cried it was like man like not I can do this like I can see I can still run well how far can I run and so I mean immediately that night at the fundraiser you know it's in the Waldorf Astoria downtown Manhattan 800 people in the room and someone like nudges me they're like Eduardo we gonna see you at our triathlon and I was like yeah and then I woke up the next morning I was like wait a minute what's the traffic like you know no no I had no concept of what I had just done other than I was just super jazzed with the freedom to be me again yeah and you've gone on and done lots of stuff with CA off right every year yeah every year every year do a handful of travel ons or events and support them in any way we can you saw I saw I noticed that you but you somehow strapped like a big hand paddle on your left forearm to compensate a little bit like yeah you make those adjustments yeah for swimming and I'm still working on my bike adjustment I do you have a different sort of attachment to allow you to grip the handlebar how does that work yeah it's a imagine like a Pac Man hand you know so you can just kind of flex it around the round handlebar mm-hmm they I mean they're the in there's there's a lot out there for amputees and then I mean that's what the challenge a fleet foundation specifically what they do is they're like you want to be a Paralympic snowboarder you want to be a rugby you know basketball player or a wheelchair rugby player for kids to you know adults of all ages so for me I have a hand in a special carbon-fiber attachment that I use for biking specific and yeah they help get those very specialized athletic advantages to to those people yeah and so now like lucky me right like now I'm in a beauty I get to understand this whole new part of being human which is living with a disability or whatever you want to call it and so then I know it impacts every part of me like I'll talk about our food company Montana Mex and just that like we've always wanted to be a company that was organic was free of preservatives was free of colorings was free of any chemicals was transparent was not you know doing its best to be a great contribution to people's lives in the world around us that's pre-injury and like you said like you know you can't rinse transmit something until you have it and then after my injury I mean we kept the company open while the whole company was in ICU with me brother/sister myself you know we had one employee still running the show you know and now Montana Mex represents so much more in that it's living and breathing like the before my injury why we wanted these products to be the cleanest best they could be for people and now they still are those but now we partnered with the Challenged Athletes foundation put them on our label so now we get to be like hey we don't just want this company to succeed from a business point of view we want this company to really add value and you know by the end of the year know that we have executed our business successfully enough to actually give back to others not just from food but help a kid yet that rugby wheelchair mm-hmm so cool she diverts some of the revenue towards CAF every year about five percent in school yeah I was in the proceeds that's awesome man what what I saw some video of you with like the actual button the hand the Bionic hand hmm do you still have that I do like I know oh my gosh my how come you don't wear that I get a drawer full of them do you I do yeah there's a great story of my girlfriend my now fiancé moved in and she discovered the hand drawer I was like dad like kicked it closed and you know I guess I forgot to mention that the lower drawer to the right master was the hand room yeah and what she just stumbled into some weird circus or something I wasn't home so she you know but you know I found that I have friends who are bilateral amputee so they have missing both limbs and it really serves them well to have a prosthetic that is powered through a motor and that communicates with sensors to the muscles in whatever part of the body is affected and for me I I've had those I've worn them and I never really progressed far enough to a place that I was really excited to use them for me it was just like it's too slow it doesn't really work as well as I want it to yeah and I found that what I'm wearing right now is a I would say this is your more typical prosthetic you used to sing upper body people so there's a hook and it's pulled and powered by a cable that's attached to a harness on my shoulder so it's all body powered movements right and the beauty pirate beauty of this is that I can get it wet I can beat it up I can fix it with what's in my suitcase yeah it's indestructible and if it breaks it's not one hundred thousand dollars to repair yeah and also you're diversifying your your your dexterity because that can do things your hand can't do you have two hands they do the same thing but that can probably get to a bunch of stuff your hand yeah is sure the hook has come in handy yeah I had a do you know Paul de Gelder uh he's a a double amputee who survived a shark attack mmm and I'm on here's got a crazy story he got attacked by a nine-foot bull shark in Sydney Harbor and he's he's the equivalent of like a Australian Navy SEAL and now he does shark preservation and his right stories different than yours but also similar in the way that he's like using what happened to empower other people but also give back to causes and you know this is cool that that he still goes and dives with sharks and he's all about like preserving this animal that literally almost took his life should have taken his life right but he had actual hand and it was amazing that how you can you know make all the finger like the level at which this technology has developed to is really quite shocking a hundred percent a hundred percent a freedom it's giving people yeah now I and so you know I'm 36 years old and you know the eye the way that my body now works with a prosthetic left hand is not how it's supposed to be I have to put a lot of pressure into making this hook work every day right and you know I feel that my joints and so one day I may shift to a myoelectric powered hand but for now it serves me I can beat it up and use it as a hammer in what has been the most challenging part of this whole journey for you like what gets lost in the narrative that we see out in the world about you or what do people not understand and you know something that that has been difficult for you yeah you know I I think that there's a certain level of I keep wanting to say confusion but it's it's it's it's there's there's a certain amount of me that feels I owe everyone and everything so much to the point that I it's really become a challenge for me to make sure that I'm still focused on what I need even though I've said that so many times just over the last hour with you in that I mean how many times when this film like this film came out of nowhere like let's say there was no documentary I would you know gone back to work you know to worked on the food brand and worked on the TV show and Eduardo in his life this documentary kind of came out of nowhere so I feel like there's a part of me that anyone who's witnessed this story watched the film or you know follows follows me through whatever public medium just the part they don't see is the struggle to present continue to present this life because I'm very proud to still be alive I'm very grateful and I feel like sharing this film with others sharing my story with others is beneficial to many and I know it I've heard it I get the feedback every day by the dozens but then there's a part that really struggles with saying like I to her mitt up I want to go find my retreat and what I'm working on right now is is not doing the extreme of either and rather just finding the balance of how much time do I need to work on preserving my sense of self in my own energy and my own compass north so that I can still be in service of others yeah well if you lose sight of that then you don't have anything to give anyway none you know no but I can't yeah I can imagine that the the the demands on you to show up here and there and they're probably all cool and sound like fun but your tank will quickly empty well and like it's tough man I you know so my dad passed away last November and the film has offered me this incredible two-year time period where I'm being interviewed with my dad and we're putting together content for this documentary without which I would not have liked incredible incredible pieces of pearls of wisdom in the form of video or written or editor or or recorded and so like I'm I'm all for this process I'm all for sharing charged I'm all for sharing myself out there with the world but at the same time I just I feel like I get a little lost in I'm I'm hungry for things so like if I want to go do something I'm really want to go do it and and it's still continually very hard feeling guilty of not giving myself to others when I'm just like I'm falling apart in here like I need to be at home I need to tend to my own tools I need to tend to my own field here I need to like get myself in order so I can continue to give for the rest of my life to others yeah that's a hard balance yeah but you live in Montana be harder if you lived here maybe or like New York or something you get to go home to your retreat and take care of yourself I say no a little bit I do I mean I did 200 for you I did 200 fancy agency telling you you know what I mean I do yeah what is what's been the most kind of interesting or impactful experience that you've had in sharing the movie and going around and screening it the this isn't an example this is a nonspecific example of what's happened many times but when when an individual watch is charged not knowing what it is but they just it shows up on their feet or they what they're at a festival and they just you know the festival uses a poster of me with a fly rod this literally happened and a guy and his gal went in and thought they were going to a fly-fishing film all right hello you know not a fly there's some fly-fishing in there yeah and and yet this guy raises his hand in the QA and he's like I'm I'm a veteran I was you know in Afghanistan and in Iraq and these wars I have lived in this town my whole life and nobody is the first time I've ever said this publicly but I struggle every single day X Y & Z mm-hmm and I thought I was going to a fly-fishing film today and yet through you're through watching your journey and I am inspired to stand up right now because I know that my communities in this room small Film Festival in Martha's Vineyard any luck Sean he's like I feel empowered to share my true self which is I'm this guy he says his name and I struggle every day and it feels really great to say that right now after 15 years that's it yeah that's that's the first step in healing that kind of share your story powerful yeah share your story I think that's a good place to wrap it up dude it was pretty good I'm grateful how do you feel yeah I I'm inspired to get home playing my garden my dad well we'll get you home and I really appreciate your time especially even more now knowing that that you have a tricky relationship with coming out and talking so I don't take it for granted man it's really powerful and I know that everybody listening is is is gonna be really impacted by it so thank you my pleasure if you want to connect with Eduardo you can check out his incredible line of food products montana mex montana mex calm right that's it definitely checkout charged it's all we've been talking about the last hour and a half you can I know you can see it on Amazon and you can see it on Vimeo are there other places to check it out Amazon Vimeo iTunes itunes all those places cool charge the movie and if people want to connect with you directly what's the best place for them to do that or maybe you just don't want them to you know please say hi either on instagram at chef eduardo garcia or go to chef eduardo calm and say hi and i'll be looking for that new TV show yeah when it happens to come back and talk to me about it i will i'm hoping to see you at a challenge athletes foundation oh I try so I know body I'm sure you know Bob Babbitt absolutely yeah I know Bob I would love to I've been invited in the past and for whatever reason I haven't been able to make it but but I would love to you so I can make that commitment to you yes right on man peace nice plants [Music]

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 27,656

Rating: 4.8045602 out of 5

Keywords: rich roll, vegan, health, fitness, diet, nutrition, athlete, podcast, inspiration, motivation, spirituality, mindfulness, self-help, eduardo garcia, bionic chef, charged, electrocution, survival, camping, montana mex, chef, food, wilderness, adventure, caf, challenged athletes foundation, triathlon, perseverance, mindset, regret, forgiveness, service, amputee, amputation, disability, disabled, handicapped, documentary

Id: SLj9Nqtx3lU

Length: 114min 30sec (6870 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 08 2018