How To Overcome The Worst Pain Of Your Life - Jeremy Renner

Are you sick of people asking you how you are? No, no, no. I mean, it's it's it's well, there's a real honest answer that comes behind it, right? Um whether they're asking or not, you know, you get a real honest answer. Mhm. And um and sometimes it's in the in opportune times. I remember I was doing a uh a podcast and but it was over Zoom, right? And the technical issues that were happening to set it up and the thing and how what mic to use and how to use this. I was I'm not the tech guy and I was getting very frustrated and I was getting probably pretty angry and like the beginning of this podcast was probably pretty awful. I was quite quite a but but they ask you look I'm sorry I'm just going to work through this and a thing I'm not going to check and I I just I just have this real realist honest way to kind of live. So I'm not sick in the long long the long way to answer this. Yeah. I'm not I'm not really sick of people asking how I am because I just really do tell a and if they do care about, you know, if it's if it's a about the recovery or if it's about just sort of my my health or even mental health, you know, I I don't care what how they intend it. I I just sort of explain kind of how I am and a really truthful, honest way. It's quite beautiful. Have you always been like that? Um I've always been pretty pretty direct, but I don't think I'd be as open and revealing. I'm much more open revealing because of having to focus on myself so much. Why do you think that is? No time to obiscate or sort of play the social moray game. Yeah, I was never good at that, man. I'm like I in a crowd of people I get anxiety and you know I'd have to like medicate with like you know alcohol or something to sort of calm the nerves of being around so many people. M um always think if it's going to be a fire, so many people are going to die and people are going to get hurt. People People are kind of terrible to each other in large crowds. They get the more people in a room, the the respect level for humanity kind of diminishes. Yeah. The more humans they are, the less humane they are. Exactly. And I just refuse to be in that environment cuz I think it's disgusting uh that behavior. I'm very affected by it and very sensitive to it. So I just choose not to be in those environments. It sounds like you've got, I don't know, a little bit of a nervous disposition. I think I would say that that's my kind of background, too. Uh thinking, sometimes overthinking, uh looking for potential errors and issues and maybe being a little bit sensitive to the energy of what's going on around. Definitely very sensitive. Always been an observer and um quite insular in kind of my thoughts and things. I'm not a talker of of small things. I can't really have any quite small trivial talk. Um I certainly can have a good time till jokes and da da da but most of the conversations I have are are quite in-depth or quite thoughtful um or spiritual or psychological um emotionally driven uh connective sort of tissue. Not just sort of like let's just talk about what the Starbucks order. I mean I just don't belong in that conversation. You know what I mean? But that's just me, right? So I just, you know, when I know those things about myself, I just try to put myself not in those situations so I don't set myself up to fail. Is there a a challenge with wanting that level of openness, that level of emotional connection, vulnerability, but also having an additional level of scrutiny, lots and lots of attention and press, people caring. So these kind of two things that are a little bit at odds there. Yeah. But not now. No, it used to be because um the the platform was to be a famous person talking about a movie or some some work you did. This is not that. Right. I I'm here today to talk about health and wellness and overcoming obstacles and it's nothing more human than so it feels much more personal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's more I think exciting because I think there there are willing ears. I don't have to force, hey, I'm here to tell you about this Avenger movie. And here I I There was a lot of willing ears for the Avenger movie. Yeah, there was a lot of willing ears, but I couldn't really talk about anything. And then, you know, you're kind of not you're selling something, but you're kind of selling something. Yep. This I'm not, man. I really am not. And and it's there there there's I think I still am not sure how and why there is interest in something and me dying, coming back perhaps. You know, I I don't really know what's interesting. I can tell you why it's interesting to me. Well, you know why it's interesting to me is that I'm not [ __ ] dead. That's why it's really cool, man. I don't know for anybody else. They're still alive. They're all doing great for me. I'm happy just to kind of keep moving through my days and getting better. And that's really exciting to me. That makes me feel quite alive. Did it feel it? It sounds like one of the byproducts of movie stardom is a bit of constriction then a level of constraint that must be dayto-day. Hello sir, you need to be awake in the trailer at this time. We need to have you in hair and makeup by then. These are the lines. These are the scenes. This is sit in the seat. Hang on. Sorry. The DP's [ __ ] it again. You're going to have to sit back down for another 90 minutes while he tries to fix the lighting. Yeah. But then as you spread out into the public world as well, it's this is pretty carefully controlled. We need to be focused toward the movie like box office. Box office. box office. In that way, has this been a uh sort of break glass moment that's allowed you to sort of really step outside of yourself and not feel so constrained by just being the movie person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's been that way for a minute, but now there's sort of a a sort of byproduct of this change, uh, this shift from, you know, being famous for XYZ, for whatever it is for people, and then now it kind of wipes wipes away at least temporarily, that it's more about the man that that I am, but I've overcome some obstacles and not that I I have a fake bow and arrow in a in a movie, you know? It's uh it it's something much more real and something really quite tender and beautiful. Uh I get these amazing um exchanges on the street instead of like the rude sort of in the middle of spaghetti dinner, you know, with my daughter taking selfies that that I owe them. Apparently, it's now like, well, glad you're here. Um you fought through something really amaz whatever. It's like really thoughtful, amazing, almost like sort of fortune cookie lines of like just beautiful um sentiments that that are connective and not like I deserve a selfie. Mhm. It's it's really flipped on its head. It's quite beautiful. It's see you, not the character. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what makes this kind of exchange so great. I don't know idea what I'm going to talk about or have anything really to say except I can have a conversation about real things. Mhm. And if you have certain things, you know, you write down like, I think this is interesting or let's talk about this and um I can do that because I I all I have to do is be me and that's that's the coolest thing to be. But I don't typically get to do that because I'm out like you're saying is it some other sort of kind of like when your life's planned out every 10 minutes and you know you get a bathroom break and I I can be me and go to the bathroom. Your bathroom breaks are scheduled. Yeah. You're kidding. Sometimes they're not right. Okay. Just hold it in. Especially like on press tours and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, like it's pretty it's pretty crazy, but you know, do the things you love, man. That's it. Just do the things you love and don't worry about it. I uh I wonder how many I wonder how many other guys and girls from your industry have this sort of odd cathartic daydream of something happening to them that kind of relinquishes them. I'm not Yeah, don't get few few of the What is it? What is it that you really admire about Jeremy's career? Well, you know, the Avengers thing was all right, but that bit where he got run over by the snow plow, that really was peak. It is. It is. It really is, man. I mean, I highly recommend it. At least if the outcome is is my outcome. Yep. Um I don't recommend it, right? It's it's excruciating. M um but the amount of gifts that came from such a thing I think are um I guess to me I mean it's it's all my my life is and and what what filled with gratitude and love and and truth and um pure joy like it's just really clear like all the white noise is gone and just for for someone to have that in their life. Do you have to die to do it? No. It's part of the reason why I wrote the book. There's a lot of things I did learn and maybe other people can and know there's a lot of people that struggle. I got some life hacks to help you with struggle and pain and um pain management um all those type of things like uh but even as a famous person there is some like probably I think could be some envious things to like you said from it because there is a lot of great things that that came from such a horrific moment. M but I'd again I' I'd do it again in 2 seconds for the right reason. M I'd probably not jump back on that machine this time. Uh I don't know what I'd do. What were you What were you actually trying to do? You were trying to stop it from hitting to crush from crushing uh my nephew. Nephew. Yeah. Yeah. From this big giant snowblade and just going towards him and he was at the truck that was perpendicular and just going to he's going to crush him. Mhm. So you jumped up to get cockpit tried to stop it, right? It knocked me some Yeah. It knocked me off and it hit the wrong button. It knocked me off and it went forward on him. I'm off on off from on the machine. Some machine's running on its own now. Mhm. That's never happened. So yeah. Yeah. So I probably wouldn't jump back on the machines or maybe I would, you know, you don't get the opportunity to think and reflect back on what you do. You know, you just do it or don't. And I'd rather be me than my nephew. You know what I mean? I don't want to deal with like the haunting images of on New Year's Day, my nephew split in half, you know? Yeah. It's strange thinking about these people that come up to you and they see you, they see something that's really true to you. And I don't know, I wonder how many people how many other people, even if it's not as performative as being an actor, have this sense of having to show up as someone. And when someone comes up and says, "Well done," there's a degree of hollowess to the praise because this is me, but it's me as a performer. It's not me. Right. Right. I'm aware that this is an artistic outlet for you. It's a calling that you have in life. You somebody's a musician. Somebody's a a presentation, a coach that goes into businesses. Somebody's a PT or whatever. You know, I really loved what you did with my wife's transformation for her wedding or whatever it is. Thank you so much. She's like, "Yeah, yeah, but like what about me?" That you you just have to Yeah. Look, if you there there's there's great things that come with being famous. It allows a lot of freedoms and a lot of more choices as hopefully doing you something you love to do. Hopefully you're not famous for like being a serial killer or something, right? But being, you know, in the in the world, if you're a famous football player, whatever the heck it is, you just have to sort of um take take, you know, yeah, that's going to be a feeling. you're not going to be seen and witnessed, but how and how they see you. Like, I like to be I'm glad I'm seen as the at least they're picking out the right roles. Oh, I love you in this. I love you in the Hurt Lock. I love you in the town. I love you. They're not picking out something from, you know, back in '94 or something. They're picking out the right ones. I'm like, good. I'm glad you like me for those ones. I'm happy about those movies, too. And yeah, there's there's I don't take emptiness with it. Like I look at it from like it's it you have to sort of uh filter through uh this is what they know you as. You know what I mean? And not and and then you go at at the end of the day and there's too much of it. You're like okay look I just need to I can only have much tolerance and to to deal with okay I'm still a human being. I can't I'm just not this cardboard cutout of me right that people know me as. So that's why you know I just but I make decisions about that. like I'll stay home more often or I I have unless I have a lot of tolerance in my tank of tolerance to like so I can emotionally accept this and have my time and I'm touched and pulled and fingered and all sorts of weird things happen. It's not you got to have enough tolerance to be fingered. Yeah. To be federed. Now I don't Yeah, it's not so bad now. I think people look at me or at least I feel they look at me with more fragility so they don't come and like throw me around or like smash me around a bit and pull me. Um it feels a little different now which is which is great. I'm glad. I'm great. Okay. Happy about that. Yeah. So I I the kind of elephant in the room I guess and I I didn't know that you'd gone through your accident. I didn't know that that had happened. I was like you know they Yeah. Jeremy must he did the and then there was series and then the Avengers finished and then maybe that come back and there was a series for that and oh yeah it just you know you kind of weren't there and then you were so if you hadn't seen this bit in between if you'd just been watching like the wrong kind of headlines right nothing would have occurred. Yeah. Uh so for the people that sort of weren't aware of what happened there something to do with the snowplow can you give the the the overview? Yeah, the overview. Um, it was it's a um uh well, how do I overview? It was hard enough to recount to write the book, you know, but where you know, now I could write the trailer. Okay. So, and the settings in Lake Tahoe and uh it's New Year's and we just have my family uh in New Year's and we were snowed in for a few days um sort of Armageddon, Snowageddon we called it type of type of thing. So, we had no power, no electricity or nothing. And we were having a great time, but New Year's Day it was going to be sunny so I had to clear the driveway so we can get out and get some fresh air and that type of thing. And uh in the mountains uh you know it's you're at 8,000 ft elevation, you get a ton of snow. So we have like probably 10 12 ft of snow. So that's like sand. You know, you got to move this stuff to kind of you get it out. We're supposed to go skiing and all that stuff. Ends up I'm taking the snow cap, which is used a snow cap. If you don't know what it is, it's like a like a tank. It moves on the snow. It's about 16,000 lbs wet and it's got a big shovel in the front of it and it usually drags behind it, you know, stuff, but it's like like a tank and it turns like a tank or a skid steer. Um, so it's pretty nimble and it floats on the snow cuz it has these steel tracks and they're wide so kind of like snowshoes if you will, right? So you don't sink in it, but which is great for that. happened. We took it up to the end of the driveway, which is about half mile long. We were taking cars that were stuck in the snow and things that were buried. You don't even know what's underneath all that snow. So, you have to be very careful. So, we're dragging all the stuff out of there. So, we have a driveway so we have access to maybe go get food, supplies, something, anything, right? So, we we take the snowat and drag all the stuff out. The final one was my truck and we got it to to the top of the the mountain where there's a plowed driveway and where it's hard and we can actually can maneuver a bit better. And then my nephew this takes the help of my nephew Alex and um so and we've done this a thousand times. I mean it's this is like mowing the lawn for us up there in the mountains. It was just they were on this it's kind of a slope and it was very icy and we were sliding and I didn't like I was sliding towards him as he was trying to unhook a chain from this giant machine and uh so I turned it around to try to talk to him and couldn't see him and I was sliding towards him so I backed up but again you have to understand this machine you have to see this machine to understand but you have to step on these giant tracks of things that roll and move to get in and out of the machine anyway there's not form there's ladders, there's no nothing. You just have to jump onto the giant metal tracks and then you jump into the cab to start driving this thing, right? Kind of a design flaw if you ask me cuz it's really unsteady anyway. It's not really a pedestrian uh type of vehicle. This is a commercial for commercial vehicle for for ski slopes. Right. Right. Typically people aren't hopping in hopping out and hooking a whatever. It's a shift. Yeah, exactly. And uh so it's just one of those things. I have to step out to try to talk to him to hear them and all these things. At any rate and there's a little toggle switch on the steering column and that's what'll move it forwards and backwards and and put it in neutral. And I just keep going backwards just so I could I don't slide into him because I can't really see him. And then in doing so, I'm stepping on the tracks. Hit the button wrong. It threw me off and now the machine's rushing towards him. I have no idea. I know he's within between the truck and that's 10 feet away. I get up as quick as I can and I just quickly jump back on this machine or try to jump back in the cab leaping up and over 3 ft these spinning tracks and then, you know, I don't make it and I get caught underneath this machine and it crushes me. It rolls over like a tank would run over a log. Just, you know, doesn't think, does it? And uh and it didn't crush my nephew, which is great. But uh that would have been a real double whammy. Oh, yeah. That would have been terrible. Yeah. I mean, it's Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't my body slow it down a little bit? Probably. Probably not. Probably not. This thing's This thing will climb up a tree. This thing it's it's gnarly. The power of this machine is is quite insane. It's impressive. It You need it. It's the only thing that'll kind of operate in the that kind of snow. that kind of those kind of crazy conditions, you know, and so at any rate, um you can you can edit this the way you want, but then at the end of the I break like 38 bones, my skull cracks open and I my eyeball comes out. I can see my eyeball with my other eye. Uh I can't breathe. I'm awake the whole time during this thing. And I have to survive for 45 minutes on the ice till I get hella lifted out of there. And a lot of the book is about tells you about that experience because there's a lot of things as a death and coming back and uh there's a lot there's a lot of mindset stuff a lot of fortitude mental acuity is what got me through physical I mean there's a lot of things that got me through but the the power of the mind and the body is wonderfully responsive to your thoughts to heal itself to hurt itself whatever but it's it's uh pretty pretty amazing what the mind can do. Did you have a practice meditation? Did you have this prior? Yeah. Right. Okay. How how do you think this situation would have been different or how well do you think that your practices in advance contributed? It's it's hard it's hard to know. I mean that's why I had to reflect. And that's one thing was very cathartic about this book is just reflecting back on what prepared me for that situation. I've been in not near-death experience situations before, but I've been in like um high adrenaline situations. How do you react? Well, just how do you react to like things that you know car crash or something, somebody gets hit on the freeway and what do you do or you either react or you know you you go into shock or how people deal with the flow of adrenaline rush through their body, right? And I've always been challenged and I've always come out clear-headed in all those adrenaline rush situations. So, it's hard to know because that's how I've always been. I like roller coasters, but I'm not like a thrill junkie really, right? I'm not like an adrenaline junkie, but it just I just know how my mind reacts in those situations. I'm always very very clear-headed about it and an actionable person. So, that helped. And then um you know there was like breathing. Breathing was like you say meditation. Well, I was in LA class when I was 12 years old when my mom was pregnant. So, and that all lama is is preparation for birthing a child. Man, mitigating, you know, pain, managing your pain as you, you know, is very, very painful for a woman as she's giving birth. So, you use these short breasts and all these sort of things. You're mentally feeding ice chips and getting their attention away from their cervix, right? And right, and do all these sort of things. I learned that at 12. I didn't know that that was going to save my life on the ice as I got ran over by a snow cat. Right. But that was huge in it. That's all I was trying to do. Look, if you can't breathe, what are you going to do? Look for your next breath. You need to breathe. I saw my eye. I'll worry about that later. I saw my twisted legs. I'll worry about that later. That'll hurt. Didn't then I have to find my next breath or this is all I'm a goner, right? Everything will start failing. I'll lose consciousness. My organs will fail. I'm dead. So, you know, yeah, there's a lot of things I think prepared me, but I can only reflect. I can't say for certainty, right? How could we? Um, but yeah, I think there were a lot of things that uh that prepared me, but it was definitely the mental thing through anything, you know, even into the recovery. It's like it's it's the only thing you have control of is your perception of something. That is it. You think you could control your body. You think you control something, but it starts with your brain in your mind and and your your spirit of what you believe in. What you see, how you see something is all in your control. It's and I'm not like the half glass half F half empty kind of dude, right? But it's a version of that. I could have made it I could have whine and complain and like, oh god, I'm never going to worked again as an actor. None of that. I didn't care about any of that, right? That had no value to me. The value is the the mental acuity to to get through to find my next breath to zoom out so big and so wide and I keep my perspective there. I live in a very comfortable loving pure life with a where I oversimplify the simplicity of life because it is just that simple. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentous. If your workouts feel flat, your recovery is slow, or you've just been feeling off, it might not be your training plan or diet. Might be something a bit more boring like your testosterone. 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How long did that 45 minutes feel? Wow. It was probably the first 25 that were the toughest cuz I don't think I don't think an EMT or fire department can get there until like the first half hour. So the first half hour is rough and I died in that time because I got tired. I just got because doing the equivalent of breathing that we all don't even think about breathing. It's not even conscious, right? It's just sort of reflexive. It just happens in our body. But I had to like work and it's like doing like a one- arm push-up. It took every piece of physical energy I could do just to exhale a little bit so I can get a little bit more back in. I was suffocating. Yeah. It felt like it felt like drowning. Yeah. in a way. Yeah. Yeah. I was still getting air. You can't do that in the water. But I was it was it was like a bullet constrictor kind of feeling like it just squeezes more. You s blow out air. It's squeezing you. And it's because my whole rib cage, my shoulder, all this side was just collapsed on my lung that was already collapsed instead of suffocating myself. So I got once I had my nephew lift my arm up enough that lift my rib cage off my lung, I could get a little bit more air in. It wasn't like suffocating so much. So I can it was still excruciating but to breathe was quite quite the effort and if if you just to take deep breaths for a minute you you feel lightheaded you might pass out but like this is just it's just it was just exhausting and with each exhale exhalation and then inhalation it was just like so did it feel long? I don't know. I can't answer that. It was just like I was waiting for my next breath. I was never sure it was going to happen but I was going to will it to happen. We got tired and I got tired and that's you know that's when I just everything just started slowing it actually probably I guess maybe it felt like a long time cuz it start things started to get slow and consciousness was there the neighbors got here by this point um a lot of things transpired um it was me and my two neighbors I never met and my my nephew Alex there for the first half hour. They're on the phone call with 911, whatever, and um trying to they're trying to do everything they can to keep me alive. And I just got tired and that's when I was gone. And then came back and I was pissed about it. Like there I saw my eyeball again. I'm like, "Oh, cuz it was so great." I'm like, "Oh, it was so great. I was having such a good time because I because I was going because I did sort of regulate breathing and then it just started to slow the heart rate started to low slow it was like 18 beats per minute. It was it wasn't just sort of like I just croaked right it was just smoothly into it like just gently away like later everyone it was great and something brought me back. God damn it. And I saw my eyeball again. I'm like, "Ah, dude. I'm in this busted body. I'm in this busted body again." I'm like, "All right, here we go. Let's get back into it." So, it wasn't uh No one was I mean, CPR would have No. Yeah. No, no, no, no. It It wasn't for very long. It was only like probably, you know, my neighbor cuz it just happened to my neighbor the day before when she saw her uncle die. What? Yeah. Or Yeah. I think it was her uncle or No, it wasn't her brother. I think it was her uncle. And it just happened to her then. and she and she happened to be worked in the medical medical field anyway. So, it's kind of a great thing having kind of a nurse be your neighbor. But, um yeah, she said you Yeah, I saw I saw you go and uh yeah, cuz all your face turns all these colors and it's like a lizard or chameleon or something. At any rate, um so I don't think it was gone for very long, but it doesn't really matter, I suppose. I guess not long not dead enough to have, you know, brain dead, you know, or whatever. I don't know. Maybe I'm brain dead now. What does uh I've always I've always wondered this. What does looking at your own eye look like? Uh you know, it's it's one of those it's a queer situation, you know. Um just like it's looking at your foot facing the wrong direction and then your other leg that's not a joint. It was broken, shattered. Like there was twisted all like a pretzel. I knew that was supposed to hurt. Did it? No, it hurt later. I'll worry about that problem later. And just like the eye. I'm like, "Oh man." I And I rolled my face on it. It's like, "Let me at least me put that thing on ice cuz I was like laying on the icy asphalt. So, let me ice that thing." You know? I thought about that, dude. Right. Yeah. I said it is funny, right? But that's what I thought about. I'm like, "Oh, think let me put that on ice." And and I had my nephew lift my arm just so I can breathe. It was like conscious my hyper hyperfocused conscious stuff was to survive. So you had and I and I went through every checklist of my body. I have a strong strong awareness of my body as well as an athlete, as a stunt performer, also as an actor because it is my instrument to to even act. So I'm very very aware of my body, how it works, all the things. So to my knowledge, I don't know all the things, but at least I know the basics of how my body should operate. So I'm just constantly going through like you know what it really initially felt like for my breathing was like when you get when you lose your wind you get kicked in the stomach or punched in the stomach it's that suffocating trying to find your breath right it's what it sounds like on the 911 college it's like just but it's just you can't can't get air in right it's like you're cramping in your diaphragm so I kept like if I get this cramp out of my diaphragm I can get a deep breath in I mean this is never coming but I keep telling myself as Let me relax. Let me relax. Let me see if I can just get this. The immediate is get that air in. If you're not getting air in, your immediate thing you need in your life is air in, right? Pretty obvious. So, start there. So, just trying to work through that and getting my body to be in a place so I can get air in. And eventually, it got to that place where he had to hold it in a very specific my arm up in a specific way so I can breathe. I could start regulating the painful way to now I the new way I breathe. the one arm push-up breathing type of thing, a lot of effort and uh yeah, it's uh that but all the mental part of that is is is the main thing that got me through initially that sort of mental focus. No one was going to help me breathe. No matter who was there, who who could have done it or not, nobody could have. I was the only one that was going to be able to make myself breathe and any way possible. No one knew exactly what was wrong or how I started I just I was kind of flattened and my head's crushed. You know, there's blood everywhere. Um, so they're thinking of a lot of different things. I'm like, "Fuck, oh, yo, I just need to breathe in so I can breathe out." I'd even use expletives to help me laugh. Didn't swear once. Oh, I see. I had all these Yeah. It was hookers, [ __ ] and hamburgers. And that I would scream out because of the the huffing of the h sound would make me laugh. Hooker, right? I had to do that to get air out so I can suck air and also have a laugh. That's my eyeball. That's my twisted ass legs. Uh yeah, I already died. What else needs to happen? This is my body. It's my body. I'm owning it. So that's those are the sense of humor I even had. if you can in that horrifying, you know, drawn out 45 minutes, you know, and then you get it. There's there's no there's there's no like rule book. There's no like directions and like how to how to overcome something like that, right? We're not taught how to do anything like that. You didn't have a blueprint. You just you just do what you can do. What do you got and every say yes to everything. Do whatever works, right? It's fascinating how much mental clarity you had. Yeah. Yeah. You had to had to. I was dead. If I passed out, I would have been dead. I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd be dead. They're too far high up in the mountains. No one could have gotten to me. Oh, of course. You're so high up in the mountains that even breathing normally I imagine, is a little bit more difficult than most people. 8,000 ft. Yeah. So, maybe my body's also prepared for it. I also have um you know, higher high amounts of oxygen in my body cuz I do work on that stuff. And but there there's no one thing but the mental part of it was the one thing that did get me through at least to the next exhalation. Mhm. And then that got me it bought some time. You know, I came back for whatever reason and then the paramedics got there shortly after and then they had to, you know, do the crazy thing in your chest. They stab your chest like it's some movie or something. And what do they they're trying to reinflate the lung. Either that or release pressure, right? Don't ask me. I'm not I didn't go into the details of it. Yep. Um even after the fact, I had to worry about other things than the scar on my chest. I could care could care. But they come in. It's the guy that's choking on something and they put the hand in the neck. It's pretty much like that. And like, oh my god, that happened, right? Um but yeah, then they could also get, you know, fentanyl and all that stuff into you and and sort of mitigate the pain. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's when things got a little when they were when they started cutting my clothes off. I'm like I relinquish my duties now. I'm in someone else. I give my body to you because I did the best I could. But now like you know so I think they already had me regulating my breathing or using a a pump to kind of regulate the breathing a bit more. So I didn't have to like consciously fight for every breath. So I just said I give my body up. I'm done. And I just let them go for it. And thank God for them. And one was my friend or a friend of my friend. One of my best friends. Uh he was a firefighter. He is a fire. He just retired. And then the guy that that jabbed me and stuff, he had to call my buddy and be like, "Look, Rener just got hella lifted out of here. Sorry. We did the best we could." Dude, you get that phone call, you know? It's brutal, man. so brutal that my friend had to get that phone call. But any rate, all these little little moments that come keep flooding back talking about it, you know, uh such great they're all it all represents love to me, you know, if I get if I catch any feelings, if I I um like I don't get triggered with rage. I don't get triggered with disappointment or sadness ever. It's a trigger with an overwhelming sense of love, gratitude. Something um I hope never goes away. I can't imagine it will. Kind of like alchemy. Yeah. To take something like that and to see all of the love that came pouring back in. Yeah. I mean, it's it's the ultimate thing that got me through. It's the it's the only thing you take with you when you die. is the love. It's such a beautiful, beautiful space, place in a loving space. And then you come back around in the ICU, presumably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh I was pretty much I was Yeah. They had to put me in a coma and um get to work. There's a lot of life-saving stuff they had to do initially. Don't know about any of those things. Even to this day, I don't know all the things that they had to do. Probably don't care want to know. You know, you have to move my ball eyeball back in. I know there's duct tape on my eye because again, whatever works, dude. I mean, what's in my body is just hammers and screw hammered screws and a pipe that they've hammered through my knee and down here and screws and plates and it's very like sort of just carpentry work. So putting duct tape on my face to put hold my eyeball back in, you know, is just as, you know, is how you do it. You got to use what you've got. You use what you got. And that's what they had. That's what we did. And that's what worked. My eyes, my vision in my left eye is better than my right eye now. You're kidding. It's better. Yeah. It's amazing. I don't recommend it. So, what I'm what I'm interested in is when uh and you've sort of hinted at this already, when the pain starts to kick in. Yeah. Well, that was the initial the from all all the every every synapse is firing. Every everything in your brain is lit up because when you crushed like everything was I I didn't never experienced a feeling like that in my life. It's like a It's like if you hit a a hammer on your thumb, you're like, "Ah, motherfucker." But like on every inch of your body, it's like what is going on? There's so much information you don't know what to pay attention to. So that was very confusing. The pain was everywhere in everything. Even like in your spirit, like everything was you don't know what's going on. So it was very confusing. It was very bright. Um, a lot of flashing, you know, because when there's like a lightning strike that happened when my skull cracked and they the eye came out. So weird that I'm talking about this. Yep. When my skull cracked in my eye. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, cuz I don't look like it happened, right? Yep. Yep. Um, there's like a lightning strike and you know the you start messing with I don't know. It was there such an overload. Felt like it was like you know you got to turn off the power because there's an overload of information, overload of pain. All your nerve endings are like on fire. Like it was like a fiery hot lava. It was like all these things were happening. So it's and and again the worst part of it is like you got stepped on by an elephant and you can't breathe. That's what it you just can't breathe. That was the worst of it. It's like who cares about the rest of this stuff. I mean all of it hurt. But I don't even know what that is anymore. Like pain pain became my [ __ ] a long time ago. How so? It it's it's because it's it's it's all a construct in your mind anyway. It's your body's way of saying, "Hey, it's trying to preserve itself." Your body tries to preserve itself by saying, "There's pain. Oh, that's hot. Don't touch it." Or, "This is that. Don't do this. Try this." Right? So, again, mind you, this is not during the accident. This is after the accident. And I started to deal with pain in a different way. And I had I wrote a whole chapter on it called the agreement about having you can re neuropathways that can change them for your brain. How I receive pain is different how I received it before. I can still stub my toe and ow [ __ ] Yes. Right. But I understand what it means. What the body is really trying to tell me. Like when the body gets a break, it instantly swells, tries to create its own cast and do all these sort of things to protect itself. The body just tries to preserve itself. It's a miracle what the body does. is fantastic if you are in alliance and what the body's trying to do and the body realizes ah you you are listening to me okay I won't bother you so much anymore and that's where we came the agreement of like you can't tell me that's painful anymore because that's a metal piece of metal now you're not even a bone you can say it's broken so I have to reprogram my brain from receiving those pain signals in that way and it takes a time it takes like about 28 days to really re really reprogram Yeah. Explain this 28 day cycle. Yeah. It's it's um it's like a lot of cycles like from a menstrual cycle, a moon cycle, human patterns and behaviors, a lot of lot of toxicities to leave your body take around those times. But it's just something about that. 28 days seems to be something congruent a lot of different versions of our lives and um with with patterns um to really create a a positive pattern or take a negative pattern into a positive pattern. uh like 28 days and then you don't have to think about it. It's not a conscious thought anymore. You don't have to be be grudged to stretch every morning. You're just stretching every morning after 28 days essentially. It doesn't have to even be that long. It could take be less. But to um it's it's all within your brain and the power within your brain and your mind. And it takes fortitude. It takes trust and faith and a whole lot of other bag of goodies that you you can't be weak in spirit. You cannot you have to be if you don't believe it then no one's going to believe it kind of attitude you it's not going to get done if you're not going to do it right you have to do it and believe it and the there was it was a lot a lot of that came through cuz cuz I had to walk on my leg and that my leg had a spiral fracture spun around it was shattered and so they had to hammer a a big u piece of titanium in and just plates and screws and plates and screws And he said, "You're going to have to walk on this thing otherwise it's going to be pretty much just like a log stiff thing." I'm like, "All right." To keep it mobile. Yeah. To to move it. All the scar tissue, right? I have to, as you know, right? You got to keep this thing rocking and moving. So, I got the okay from the doctor like, "I have to move this thing otherwise it's going to be just a club leg." So, I start doing it and my body is screaming at me. Ow. Ow. I just stepped down. Ow ow ow ow. [ __ ] Ow. Ow. Ow. It's broken. my body's telling me like, "No, it's not." So, I start yelling at my foot and my leg. I'm like, "Look, motherfucker." Sorry about my language, but I'm just like, "Look, we got to we got to we got to work this out." The doc says, "You're not broken cuz you're a piece of metal now." Like, I'm literally talking to it like it's a like my appendage of my body is like a like a like a scorned lover or something or like a like a bad dog. Old dog. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, "What are you doing? How would why would you cheat on me?" You know what I mean? You're it's you're betraying me essentially. It's such a betrayal. And so to be so crazy enough to like to talk about my appendage as a separate thing y you know um it was it was opened up to this idea that I I have to really change I have to change it cuz I know all the things I'm telling you I knew before I like I have to really work this out. I'm literally arguing with my leg every day. I'm arguing with my leg many times a day. Every times I go I have to go move it get blood flow through it. So for blood clots that right scar tissue all this stuff. So otherwise I'm threatening dude I'm going to lop you off. I'm going to chop you off. I'm going to get a wooden peg. I'm going to get a [ __ ] parrot and an eye patch and go live a pirate life [ __ ] Either [ __ ] do it or don't. Like I'm screaming right. I'm saying it like I'm saying it now. Like no joke. But saying with that intensity and that belief, dude, because I did also was okay living the pirate life, dude. I was totally okay with it. I was just happy I was alive. I didn't care about acting again. I I was I'm just happy to see my family there with me, all the people I love around with me. I didn't care about what the future held for my body in that sense. You know what I mean? Or I was willing to do it. So I'm threatening my leg that I'm going to chop it off. I mean, it's like it's the most insane thing ever. And I know I'm I know that as I'm saying it. And I I reflect back on it sometimes at night and I'm like, "Dude, that was a good talk. We had that good talk." You know what? You It's pretty It's a lonely business recovery, right? When you're in a bed alone, you're the only one recovering no matter how many doctors you got, how many people love you giving you tea, whatever the heck it is. Oh, that's amazing. But you're the only one that can make you get better. And that's it, man. And me and me and my leg were were partners of crime at the time. And uh yeah, I'm talking to curtains. I'm talking all sorts of things. And you're It's quite lonely space but um it was a thing that helped me reprogram the neural pathways and how I receive pain and it took about 28 days took about a month of me yelling at my leg as I'm doing physical therapy. I do I'm doing it every day. I did it as soon as I got home. I was in two ICUs for six days a piece soon as I got home because I was breaking out of them every day. Get me home. Get me home so I can sleep. And as soon as I got home, I'm doing physical therapy. You know how painful it is. I don't care. So, I got on it real quick. And uh so, so after doing that, this having this agreement with my leg, all the other things like my ribs and all that stuff kind of fell into place much better than I anticipated. I my lungs were like plastic suitcases for all the goop and things to kind of come out of it. Blood and all this like stuff. It's so weird. It was quite a hot mess. But it was the leg that was really quite quite the issue. Um cuz it was the physical therapy part of it and that's where um that's where I focused all my energy and then the rest of the body just kind of fell into place. Um so I focused on one one bad dog that was pooping on my pillow or something, right? Just I'll just focus on the leg. And um and then it just I just pain became just something that I can manage because I know my body sends signals to my brain, but it doesn't mean I have to receive it the same way. What's your advice to somebody who's currently dealing with pain? Uh, you know, I'm not going to say you have to yell at at the thing. I think getting an understanding of it. I think there are other ways. You know, I think modern medicine is fantastic for the short term, but to for long-term and chronic pain, I think there's got to be other ways. I deal with it all the time, but I certainly don't take pills. I I I do I do injections of peptides, amino acids, vitamins, uh maybe I try some natural anti-inflammatories, things like that. I think everybody's got to deal with inflammation. I think there's um a lot of great science that's coming out. Um I get a lot of access to people that um have been dealing with it for a long time and also been doing it for a long time. Um but none of that matters. What matters is what your body says. I listen to my body. My body tells me what it needs and I listen to it. I pay attention and I also tell the [ __ ] off. Like no joke. It's it's a it's it's a it's a part of me. It is what I am. But it is just my spirit living in this vessel. So I'm going to take care of the best I can. So I'm going to listen to it and it's going to listen to me. And it does. And that agreement I have with my body gets me through every day. How do you know when to listen to it and when to tell it to [ __ ] off? It starts to scream at me a bit. It's a volume that it Yeah. Yeah. It gets a little louder or it's it's actually not even that. It's more It's repetitive in nature. Not just something like it's not just an afternoon or or a stiff morning. It's just like, oh, this has been a week of this repetitive thing. I'm like, "All right, I got to I got to help my body out here. I'm not doing something right. I'm doing something wrong. I'm putting something in my body or I'm not that it's something else, right? the body, like if you have an injury, usually some other part of your body overcompensates and that kind of stuff. So, you have to really kind of watch watch the whole thing. We'll get back to talking in one second, but first, this episode is brought to you by AG1. I've been drinking AG1 every morning for years now, and it just got even better. AG1 NextG keeps the same simplicity, one scoop once per day, but now comes with four clinical trials backing it. In those trials, AG1 NextGen was clinically shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels within 3 months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times even in healthy adults. Basically, they've upgraded the formula with better probiotics, more bioavailable nutrients, and clinical validation. AG1 genuinely care about holistic health, which is why I've got my mom to take it, my dad to take it, and tons of my friends, too. And it's why I put it inside of my body every single day. And if I found something better, I'd switch. but I haven't, which is why I still use it. Plus, if you're still unsure, they've got a 90-day money back guarantee. So, you can buy it and try it every single day for three full months. And if you don't like it, they will give you your money back for the lot. Right now, you can get a free year supply vitamin D3 K2 and five free AG1 travel packs and that 90-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag.com/modernwisdom. That's drinkagg1.com/modern wisdom. Just sink into the uh that reframing that mental reframing around pain a little bit more for me again. Somebody I've again not run over by a snowcat. Uh full Achilles detachment. Yeah. Yeah. [ __ ] out of here. That was a [ __ ] Um well, here's the thing. See, any in singular any one of those, it's way worse than getting ran over by the snowcat. I because there's there's only Yeah. There's only one thing and and it's it's it's I was tested to my limits to my death. So nothing else can I don't pop both my Achilles tendons right now like whatever I'll limp out of here or waddle out right because the worst thing that's happened to you is the worst thing it's like all right this is going to be a terrible year I know that already but you know they'll reattach they probably do in six months now they got they're in Rogers machine they can do Yep. Yep. Yep. you know, but my point being uh uh with that for me I resonate an awful lot with the loneliness. I think Oh yeah. I think this is one of them one of the things I really want to get an insight. Yeah. Patience from around you. Yeah. The the role of patience and how you deal with loneliness, how you remain sort of mental fortitude and you think into that. That's interesting. I think Yeah. Especially for you talk about you know the Achilles tendon because it is such a long ongoing thing and then recovery, man. It's a real injury. Yeah, it's a it's a real damn injury, dude. It's And it's like no joke. Like, you could break any bone and you're done in a month and people aren't really that conscious of it. And because usually you're just playing sports or you're just getting out of bed, it could pop, right? It could happen anywhere. Usually you're doing something kind of athletic, just playing pickle ball. And mine was cricket, which is a much more British way to do it. But yeah, either way, usually it's not a sexy way to to to have such a gnarly injury. But anyway, so so people aren't caring like people care a lot about my injuries because they're very aware of what happened like oh yeah you're playing cricket you know whatever they kind of may make fun of you for it but there is a real loneliness in in in that. So I gify recovery I gify my pain. I gify that loneliness meaning I set set goals. I I uh daily goals was always like as long as I'm better than I was the day before. And I don't it don't have to be a high standard. It's like I move my elbow an inch more than I can move it the day before, victory, right? So at least it's progress. It's this then the setbacks are fewer because you don't set such a crazy high goal. I'm going to start I'm going to run a 4540 at the end of the year. You know, come on. Then you're going to set yourself up for disappointment. But um so to gify things and and give myself confidence and self-confidence in in my loneliness is like getting better. I I I'd always push myself even after the PT leaves. I'm doing stuff on my own. It's a 24-hour job. It's a 24-hour job. As long as I get my good sleep, then the rest of it's like what am I putting in my body and how do I get better every day? And then I hit higher goals and I find ways to to heal my family in me getting better. That helped immensely. I can remove myself out of the equation in my pain and my recovery because I'm getting better to heal my family. If if I get better, my family gets better. I'm not getting better even for me. That was a huge perspective that I had as soon as I woke up from the coma. I apologized. I was in the accident. I said I was sorry and I promised my daughter if you wait for me I'll get better. It was like it was I relieved myself of the duties of me wanting to get better for me. I was getting better for them to heal them cuz I hurt them. It was easy. It was a one-way road of recovery. There's no other direction to go. I have to heal my family. Isn't it strange that we find it easier to do something for us for other people than do something for us for us? Yeah. And that a strange quirk of the humans work. Yeah. It's the same thing. You've probably been in movies where this is actually a scene. um the bad guy wants to get the information out of you, so they're torturing you and they're doing stuff and you're like, "No, it doesn't matter." Then they bring in someone you love. Yeah. He's like, "Ah." And you that always breaks everybody, right? And um there's an interesting stat around the likelihood that we ensure that we complete a course of antibiotics is around about 50%. Uh maybe a little bit less. The likelihood that we ensure that our dog completes his course of antibiotics is like in the '9s. So we're significantly better at looking after an animal than we are at looking after ourselves despite the fact that if we are not functional the animals [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Um and again with this it's so interesting that we can use somebody else other people group of other people as the motivation for our recovery. Yeah. In that way. Yeah. Well, I think that's it's it's something in the I think it's within the limitations of in a perspective. It seems like it's the limitations of of a human experience, right? But it's also an act of love. I mean that the fuel behind that is all love. So in a spiritual form that is that is just what you know we are to be anyway. In the human form it's us protecting ourselves. It's like the body's trying to protect itself, right? And you know, we try to protect each other. We were social creatures. We're a thing. We try to, right? Want ultimately people are good. We're just not in situations for us to be good to each other. Right? Even if you are uh doing this because you're going to help to heal your family. You don't want this to be the uh defining lingering memory of of of what happened etc. The recovery is still on you. Finding the solutions is still on you. You're going to have And it's also still my body. Like I don't want to I'm not going to hobble around this spinning rock for the next hundred years cuz now I'm titanium man. Get out of here. What? You know, you're you're laid awake at night, a couple of weeks, a couple of months in. It's just one of those normal days. It's been an all right day of rehab. It's been an all right day of whatever, but you're just you're kind of deep in the hole. And what where was your mind going to keep your motivation to keep driving you forward? I I always focused on on the things that were better. Now, not every day all all of me was better, but some part of me was getting better and that's all I cared about. Just setting up was like a giant milestone for me. Not peeing in a jar. That was a great victory for me to go bathroom on, right? Just whatever it was. I kept things really simple and and and I made it okay that be that's an amazing thing. So, because there are days that aren't great. And there's a lot of people that might get stuck in a rut of you don't even have to be in in recovery. I mean, you can just have a bad day and just like but your brain, right, it's not you can't let it wallow in that. Just get up off the couch, move, go move your body oxygen through your your system. It'll help you navigate something just to make a different choice. And it' been easy for me to like not have any positive thoughts about things, man. there's there's not a lot of help or or hope to grab on to. So, I just built the things that I could grab on to. Like I said, I kind of gified things. And I, you know, I guess there's I was just filled with such gratitude, but I wasn't going to ever have a low bar set, right? There's that duality of it. Like I wasn't going to like, oh, as long as I can just kind of walk or like No, no. They said if I walked again, if I did, I'd walk funny. They said, "You're never going to run again." I said, "I wish you would have told me that." I heard it from my family later on. I would have been running faster earlier just that at that challenge, right? I'm also that guy, you know, that [ __ ] you energy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that or to challenge challenge me cuz I know what I can do and I know what I can't do and I know my limitations and sometimes I'll I'll try to I always try to exceed what what um I can or can't do. I have to you have to go to such extremes of your obsessions to really grow like what cold plunges do for the body and like even even extreme hot does the nerve endings in your body used a lot of heat vibration for pain. talking about pain, heat, high heat, high vi high vibrations. Great for pain. Were you using uh uh power plate stuff? Power plate stuff because that get really really intense um vibration. That's great to like just numb the nerve endings. A really hot bath and that's the reason why when you bang when you stub your toe like you said earlier on, why do you rub it? It's because it's really difficult for the body to receive multiple signals at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. And it just just confuses all the nerve endings seemingly and I don't feel it. It's like it's it's like it's why I got off a pain medication like that. Yeah. What was your relationship? You know, a lot of people have injuries way less bad than this and that's the beginning of their road down the dark. I'm glad I'm glad I had it. I'm glad it was there. It was It was necessary. Um I mean god damn was it necessary but I it wasn't I think it was like when I got home switching from epidurals and IVs and all this stuff of right in introvenously you know to to to to deal with your pain management uh and then going on just now just taking pills taking oxycottton you know that you know you get behind on that you're you're kind of screwed because then you realize oh it's going to take a minute to get through your system and yeah what's the the the bit of advice I was given after my surgery. Uh never chase the pain. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, don't you've got to get out ahead of the pain. Yeah. Yeah. You got to stay ahead of it. Otherwise, you get behind. Oh, man. It's a It's going to be a bad day or so. Uh yeah, it was. So, that happened like that happened once, maybe twice. But, but then it was like maybe four weeks in when I was home and I had a night tear at my in my like my mouth was broken. everything. So many breaks in my face and my head and my teeth don't align. So I had a night tear and then when your teeth don't align, it's easy to crack a tooth. Yep. And I cracked a tooth. Then I felt pain. I'm like, wait, I'm on oxycottton and this is breaking through. I like Yeah, it was breaking through. So I'm like, well then what do I need that uh Oxycottton for? And the Gabby Penton like I'm out of here. So I went emergency extraction, put in a post, take the thing. crying just cuz so happy that my pregnant dentist would come in and do this for me. Wow. And um got home and I said, "I'm I'm getting off. I'm I'm not taking this stuff." I took it for the next day for the tooth. Uh and then when that felt good, I just said, "I'm I'm cold turkeying this stuff." Mhm. And then I cried for like three and a half days straight and shivered in cold sweats and the whole thing coming off coming off the pain meds. It was tell It was way worse than the accident. Why? Cuz how bad coming off that stuff is. It was just like uncontrollable crocodile tears. So emotionally just out of control crying. And it wasn't sad. I was just crying. I was doing PT, just doing these bands and stuff. Just just sobbing. I just couldn't stop sobbing. And you know, I was shivering. I was so cold. I got all these electric blankets on me like I was coming off heroin or something. It's actually because I guess what it is or something, right? Oxycottton. Anyway, after the three and a half days, I talked to the pain management guy, the doctor, and he's like, "Yeah, you can't do that, dude. No one does that. You got to wean off. You need you need two weeks at least to kind of wean off of it." Both Gabby Pent as well. All your nerve endings are like feeling everything right now. I'm like, "Yeah, I know. I'm freezing. I'm shivering and I'm crying." Well, why don't you It's okay if you, you know, do a little bit. Ah, I'm done with it now. So, I'm just going to stay off of it. Thank God. I got to shake it. But wow, what a terrible thing to to be hooked on. Wow. I mean, if you need that because you then your body gets numb to that kind of stuff anyway and then you need more of it, which is the terrible thing to it. So, it's like you need to get the [ __ ] off that stuff as soon as possible is my recommendation. Find other ways. And high heat, high vibrations do tremendous things to your nerve endings to mitigate your pain. And it allowed me to sleep. That's why I love I'd take a super super hot bath as much as I could stand. And then vibrations like on my the parts that were really kind of just giving me some achy achy sort of feel. You sitting on a power plate or um I mean I was too fragile. I was still too fragile at that time. I do it now. Y um but uh I do I did like the the roller that's a vibrating roller. Okay. Super intense. I put both my knees on put it under both my knees or both my ankles. Ankles and knees. Boop. Night night going to bed. Amazing. Wow. If you have any ankle or knee issues, as long as not breaks, as long as if you're healing from a break, you can do it. But, um, great for for nerve endings, tendons to get blood flow, circulation for for things that are hard to get blood flow through like tendons, you know, right? Um, pretty tough. All the cartilage areas, um, all our joints, you know, are all going to fail us anyway, but I just got every joint screwed early on. What were the uh take me through the big recovery modalities sort of what contributed to your to your rehab and because you seem to recover very given how intense and and and sort of catastrophic the injuries are you recovered really quickly. Yeah, I I I became obsessed. I had to become obsessed at recovery. It had it was my main focus and it was awesome because my life was freed from any other obligations even parenting. sadly. So, I have to get this. So, then I can go back to being a parent. So, I can go back, right? So, I became obsessed at it's like I said, it was 24 hours a day. That's all I focused on. That's all my brain energy went to. That's all my thoughts went to, were all recovery, healing, getting better, even dreaming of my bones growing over this metal pipe that all this stuff. I was just all that was I was all in with every part of my body, even in my damn dreams about recovering. So the obsession and then it got to a place maybe just a few weeks later I didn't have the the the the plastic suitcases for my lungs and then I'm sitting up in a thing and I'm in a wheelchair and I'm moving around and I got mobile I'm get more blood flow in a now I just getting better faster and now it's maybe 16 hours a day of obsession and it reduced to 12 and it's kept getting less by the summertime it was eight hours a I'd have to start my morning da da routine and da da da all the things and just keep going, keep going. And then my what my body allowed me to do that was just sort of like not recovery stuff. I would do life stuff that was like recovery stuff. I go walk in the sand. Great for your ankles and stability and my hips and knees and all that stuff. But at least I'm outside in the sunshine at Lake Tahoe, breathing in the air, getting my feet cold. That's the biggest cold plunge in the world. That that thing is freezing. And just go in that. That's awesome. Right. So I can do that. So now I'm just doing eight hours and I reduced it to maybe four hours by the time I started going back to work. I'd have to commit to four hours a day. Hyperbaric chamber, put O2 throughout my body, red light therapy was huge. I I still do these to this day. Um and all the I mean between the high heat stuff and the vibration, the red light infrared beds and the hyperaric chamber, I'll do this for the rest of my life. Mhm. What uh peptides were you using? Thyson Alpha, Thyson Beta, BBC, BBC 17, Matsi, some I love Matsi. Huh? Matsi is great. Yeah. Yeah. And there's TB500. There's uh guys, just a long long list of stuff. I I had to I had to do I had to do hormone replacement stuff cuz my testosterone was at 200. I had to get that up because I was going to get some energy. So then I get in the gym instead of falling asleep in the gym. Um, so that helped getting regulating that because again I'm 54 and at that time you know I didn't no one tells you how to get old but I guess my testosterone was super low and uh that affects a lot of things in your body. Mhm. Especially your energy so um yeah and there's there's a a whole list of of different peptides and I rotate them in and out. It's not like I do uh them all the time. I I just kind of rotate them just like supplements. I do the same thing with supplements. I rotate him in and out of my life. It'll go for a stretch of two months or 3 months on, three months off or that kind of thing, you know, just to get your body to regulate, challenge it, let it sort of produce its own HGH, its own testosterone, all those type of things. Um, really, really great to work on your body from a cellular level. Uh, out using the NAD, any Yeah. Yeah. I do that every day. Wow. Every day. Uh, subq. Yeah. Subq and also IM. And I don't do it through the uh IV. IV cuz it just takes too long to go through that suck, you know? It's not nice. It's not nice. Uh, subq NAD is I feel that, dude. I It's like a shot of coffee. It's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I also feel like the light version of it uh in the can do your stomach like Oh gosh. But it's only for 10 seconds. It's nice once it goes. I had this I had this theory about NAD that one of the best parts of NAD was it finishing. It wasn't actually the effect. It was like I've just been in so much discomfort. Yeah. Exactly. Precisely. Precisely. Precisely. Exactly. Yeah. It's Yeah. Cuz I don't know many things that you put in your body that im immediately make you feel good. Like an IV or like a like a an IV that's an instant thing. You're getting hydrated pretty instantaneously. You're getting great vitamins. You could smell the vitamins, vitamin C in your push. Yeah. So that you feel pretty instantly and you feel good. Not much else I can think that I've done and I do everything. Everything. Maybe a hot bath and that's only because you get out of it. You're like, "Okay, I'm not in pain." Like a pull plunge when they say like, "Oh, yeah, dude. You feel so good getting out." Yeah, you feel good getting out of that because you're not dying anymore. That's why it feels good. It doesn't feel good ever. Does it feel good? No. It feels like hell. So by getting out, you're just not dying anymore. Your body's screaming, "I'm dying. I'm dying." Cold proteins release. cold shock proteins, right? We all know this that do it. Um I don't do a lot of uh cold plunges because I think you have to kind of I do those um when needed. I do there's a crowd chambers, you know. I'd rather do that crowd chamber I felt um being a little bit more effective, you know. You like the hyperbaric hyperbaric I love I love it because it does take a little bit more time, but I can do Yeah. I can do emails, a cup of coffee. I because I can sit in a chair just like this and um not just sit there and be like I'm in some treatment. I'm like, forget it. I would never do it. But I'll I'll I'll just bio stack in there. I'll do red light mask in there. I'll I'll do whatever I can to do multiple things cuz I do many things all throughout the day, you know. How uh how is it? Like again, I would have these things on right now. Yeah. Well, but it'll mess up the mics. Um how is it that your face looks like your face? Why does your face look like your face if a if it's so much destruction reconstruct? Interestingly enough. Interestingly enough, nothing. The only skin that broke was on the back of my head and that's where all the blood was gushing because it it when it got ran over, it went to my cheekbone pressure and the back of my skull here. That was where the rollover pressure went. So that's why I broke this cheekbone and it floating around. Broke my orbital and then my jaw. So this and then my jaw broke in three places and then the crack here. All the other marks on my body are scars from the surgeries to put the metal in. So it was more it was more the the insides of my body that were crushed. And it luckily like the one of my ribs poked my liver but uh that cuz it broke in two spots. So there's a couple gaps like there's like 14 breaks and and only six ribs. So several pieces of my rib cage were just gone floating. Yeah, just musing around. So, um, what was it we talking about? I can't remember. Oh, yeah. My face. Yeah. Yeah. So, once the swelling went down, they can see where the the real damage is really just to my jaw because it's hard to fix your jaw apparently. And also, my teeth got pushed in the mers. So, nothing sits right. Um, that's still the same case now. Yeah. Yeah. Forever. Wow. Yeah. They can't pallet expand. Uh, I I think I I I think we'll risk lo losing the teeth. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to lose them all anyway from all that trauma. Mhm. Um, hold on to them for I'm going to hang on to them while I can. And I still got a decent smile. Everything's fine. It's just when I bite down, it's like chewing and eating is just not that enjoyable. You got to be careful with what foods you eat then. No hard. I'm only careful with foods I eat. Just um just what I want to put in my body, you know? And I'm not really a stickler about things, you know. I'm just I'm just conscious about what it is. Yeah, I I like I like eating steak, but you know, I don't try to chew on stuff too much. Like gum, I'll never chew gum. Like I put a gun on my eye. What a price that you can have. Yeah. Uh I I'm interested in how but so anyway, the swelling with your eye, how does that go back in? There was so many ways that that I should have an eye patch or a glass eye or something at this point, right? Because of the orbital nerve didn't get pinched in the in the crack. uh any nalial tension, no damage to like essentially anything behind the eye or any of the the uh the nerves. It's a miracle the best way that this could have happened. It's a miracle. Essentially, it's just like moving it back in and duct taping it and just swelling went down and it started operating again. Yeah, it was it's crazy. Um yeah, so I think uh I mean there's I don't know there's there's a little unevenness with I don't care. My face is my face. just I still look the same I guess for the most part and uh didn't there's no like plastic surgery or anything that had to happen. Um it was all internal like they put in they put the plates in my eye and my my cheekbone. He said we don't have to do it but because your face is you know your your living we're afraid maybe you'll you'll lose your cheekbone if we don't support it with a metal plate. And they just went inside my mouth and cut open all under the skin and put these plates in. Wow. you know. So then then I had screws in my my skull and then my jaw to kind of rubber band it to put to heal the jaw and then that was it. And then that was it. It's pretty harrowing how they get these screws out though. They just like get a screwdriver from Home Depot and they just rip them out. Before we continue, if you haven't been feeling as sharp or energized as you'd like, getting your blood work done is the best place to start. which is why I partnered with Function because they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it in a simple dashboard, and give you actionable insights and recommendations to improve your health and lifespan. They track everything from your heart health to your hormone levels, your thyroid function and nutrient deficiencies. They even screen for 50 types of cancer at stage one, which is five times more data than you get from an annual physical. Getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands, but with function it is only $500. And right now, the first thousand people can get an additional $100 off, meaning it's only 400 bucks to get the exact same blood panel that I use. Just go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com/modwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. I'm interested in how you avoided becoming a victim of this. How would I ever be a victim? Well, you've had this thing happen to you which you didn't choose to. I wasn't even victimized. How could I be a victim? You understand how this uh Yes. Yes. narrative plays in people's minds. I'm telling you I'm telling you my perspective. Mhm. That's how if ever I have been victimized as to never be a victim. Certainly doesn't even apply to this incident. I made the choice. I don't regret my choice. I'm only saddened and um by that I put so much terror in my family's life. My nephew cannot unsee the things I did not see. He saw the blood gushing holding my arm squat squatting to hold in a certain position for 45 minutes. My eyeball out, legs twisted up, just calm, cool, collected, partial shock. But you can unsee it. along the long list of all the other things that have happened, transpired because of it. So there's no there's no um it's it's always my perspective and that's what I have control of. And there's it's I I'm refuse to be haunted. I refuse to hobble around. I refuse to and it's not going to happen. My will will not let it happen. But I what is I I it's not going to happen. Like if I believe I can fly and sprout a propeller out my ass, trust me, a propeller is about to come out. I'm going to propel around this room. I believe it's physically impossible. So, I don't believe it. But that will the reality is you build it. You can build your own reality. If you don't, you be you can become victimized or a victim. But you have to be sort of active in your believing in your doing and your in your heart and your will. Your will is a thing is your life force. So it and it started with not wanting to to to hurt my family. You know, I wouldn't want to been on their side looking me in the bed or hearing about it. My mom heard about on the phone call. How about that phone call? Had a 13-hour drive to get to my hospital bed in the snow and the eyes. It's brutal. So yeah, there there is no me in any of this, man. Except getting better version of me, you know? There's no being victimized or victim mentality in it. There's impossible. It's impossible. It's just a square peg round hole. It doesn't fit here. Doesn't apply. Or at least I make it not apply if it does. How's this changed your outlook on life now moving forward? Uh, it's quite the same. It's a lot better because there's less obstacles and that's where the white noise is gone. The things that I give I gave credence to or or gave great value to are wiped away. What? Um everything outside the basic things that I want in my life. time, shared experiences with people I love, laughter, just a really when I oversimplify my a simple life that again very complicated busy life I have, but I keep the white noise out. I don't listen to the it's it's like the idea of like reading the comments or reading your reviews or like I never did really anyway but a version of that you know what that is for an individual um what it is for me is um not giving so much energy to my career I do obviously I mean I was working a year after the incident and I'm on second season right I mean fourth season right now but I give energy to it Right. But maybe how much energy? Maybe I'm more married to central part of my life is my health and wellness. Everything else falls into place. I'm filming in Pittsburgh right now to get better. And then I happen to be filming Mayor Kingtown season 4. But I'm there to get better. My garage is filled with workout equipment, hyperbaric chamber, my red light, but all these things. My fridge. I brought a a a sack with my peptides and things like I'm committed to my health and my wellness. It is a central part of my being and it has to be and I like it and I love it and I want it to be. So that simplicity like it it doesn't make then I don't get busy doing a bunch of other dumb stuff, you know, whatever like what I would normally might do and it's way better because life is much simpler. And that that's the only changed is just like I I just don't give so much energy and give myself away to just things that I don't want anyway. you know, I already have everything I want in my life anyway, you know, especially as like I have like had many careers. I have many careers and I do a lot of things and like so I always had that drive to do stuff, right? As a independent sort of be my own boss and go do things, right? And um you you know what that's like I think any athlete knows what that's like. I think any businessman knows what that's like. But when do you stop and really to get to enjoy it? When work becomes the central part of your life, but then you don't get to reap the benefits of all the hard work. Then what the [ __ ] is the point? So now I'm doing the point. I'm working hard still, but I start with living the life first. Mhm. Doing the life first that I want to live and then, you know, prioritizing what, right? I rep prioritize it, I think, is the best way to say it. It's like I just put the priorities of me and my health that I didn't do before. I might wash my face once a week, you know. Yeah, I go to the gym, brush my teeth, basically, but like now I do like complete opposite of that. Now I do so many things to uh for my health and my wellness from the cellular level on out, you know, and it feels good, dude. Oh my god, feels amazing. And then I'm so much better with everybody else. I can sit in this room and not be in any pain. I can be in a good mood with you. I can do this all day long, you know. Is that different to how you were before? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This would be a chore. This would be work. This would be time away from my daughter. I'd be here with a chip in my shoulder. I should be with my daughter right now. No, she's with me all the time now. I have her in my pocket. I give her a little little peanuts down there once in a while. I just take her, you know what I mean? It's I spiritually she's with me all the time. So, I have that perspective. I'm not and not in angst of not being with my family or loved ones. um pretty pretty amazing sort of perspective to have and I try to hold on to those. Um it's a much much lighter more loving place and space to be. I'm interested in [Music] uh the way that your mindset changes going from going from having to be so self focused to selfless focused to that and then sort of moving between these two, right? Because there's attention. It feels like there's attention here. You're showing up to make yourself better, to help to heal everybody else. You've got you that also needs to be served. Yeah. Yeah. An an awful lot. And uh yeah, it feels like there's a a dynamic that's going on here between the two. Yeah. I I I don't know what the future holds to be honest with you, brother. Um the the giant shift was which is it's hard to say, you know, cuz cuz it's to me it's like it's like an airplane, right? And you lose use um pressure in the in the c in the cabin, right? And the things come down. You're supposed to put it on yourself, then your kid. Well, every parent's going to be like, "No, you put on your kid first." That's been me, you know, raising my daughter. I'm always going to look after and do the best for my daughter. And just like you we brought up earlier about how we like to take care it's easier to take care of everybody else instead of yourself. And it's such like such like a martyrdom kind of thing. It just it doesn't it doesn't really help us. But if we fill our own water first, we fill us first and then we can serve others better. It's so I have to work that every day. I work that every day because my instinct is to always do something for somebody else first, right? So I the practice is that I told you like the idea of like, oh wait, I went to Pittsburgh to film Mary Kingston. No, I didn't. I went there to go work with a great PT there. They got a great medics there and da da da do all my health and wellness and then I got to go back on set and create jobs and have a lot of good time on the show. Like all that. It's secondary. That's just the way I think about it. You could look at it like, yeah, I went there to, of course, I went to go film there. Otherwise, I wouldn't be in Pittsburgh. But no, I'm going there because I, you know what I mean? I I take control of like it so I don't feel like I'm victimized by my job. Mhm. Like my job is removing me from my health and wellness. No, I can't do that. Um, same with anything. So, I think starting with taking care of myself cuz again, cuz I have to again, I wouldn't do this if it didn't get ran over. If I didn't [ __ ] die, sadly, my health and mental health and and spiritual health would be depleted, no matter how much I tried. So, thank God I got crushed cuz now I take care of myself very well and I take care of others even more. So, it's interesting what you said about uh the hamster wheel that you get on the priority of a job, of a calling, of something that's really important to you. My friend Bill wrote a great book, Die with Zero. And in it, he says, "Delayed gratification in the extreme results in no gratification." Yeah. And I think a lot of people that are super super driven, they get caught in that trap, right? I get lots of positive reinforcement from the job that I do. I get accolades. I get recognition. I get you along. It Yeah. It keeps you hooked along. Correct. Yeah. I'm spinning on this hamster wheel waiting for the day when I arrive. Yeah. At what? At at something. I'm gonna continue to mana. mñana filling my cup. I'm going to keep on pushing down, taking a little bit of time. And I wonder as well whether a good bit of that is that a very busy life, a very chaotic life doesn't actually force you to turn inward and go, is this actually what I'm supposed to am I am I spending my life in the best way that I can? It's like, well, look at how important I am. Look how busy I am. I can't be wasting my look at how back to back the calendar is. I've got my toilet break scheduled in 12:05. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you know you see different countries where capitalism isn't like the forefront of your existence some monetary thing some status some job some car some object right where some more you go to Japan you have more sort of Buddhist sort of thinking and there's capitalism there for sure but you go to Italy there's capitalism there too but there's also a love of life way more cigarettes yeah exactly there's wine and they close their shop at two and go take a nap or there's just you there's a there's a balance that can happen. America doesn't America has s such a strong sort of sense of capitalism but it's also you know a strong country for for that very same reason from industry is one thing but then we I think we lose sight of like you know the American dream is is it it needs to can shift it can shift we don't have to it's it's you know it's it's um just it's interesting time just this this time of information that we have we could get so connected to everyone on the planet with all this information and you know I found, you know, not disenchantment with um the American dream that maybe I knew in the 80s, which is like go to college thing and get a thing, maybe even get a Porsche and whatever the heck it was as a young dumb boy in the 80s, you know. Um it certainly shifted as I've matured as a man and and now, you know, gotten older. But I like I have no regrets. And that came from dying and being in the hospital. I said I wrote two goodbye notes, one to my family, one to my daughter. And I had no regrets. And I was so ready to go again because I was on machines and I'm like, "Oh man, I think they're gonna pull the plug on me at this point." Um, but I, you know, it's nice to get that confirmation that you didn't you don't have regrets. So, I'm going to keep going with that idea and keep living. I must be doing something right. M um so I'll continue with the um the ways the ways I was thinking because the that confirmation was just a great great gift to receive along with no bad days. You know, I'm not going to get any bad days the rest of my life. That's pretty awesome. I want to live a long time cuz I know what a bad day feels like. I can have maybe a bad moment. I could find frustration. I You'd be hardressed to get any rage out of me. That's just was that something that you had before? No, I wasn't a read guy. No. No. No. Me neither. But just like you know just the idea of like you know what you when you see you get you have to know the limits right and then reach beyond the limits tested beyond my limits and dying and coming back. It's like all right there's a different sort of oh also I I got to see behind the curtains you know I know what happens and like it's super exciting wonderfully peaceful super electric magnificent it's everything there's no time place or space it's like all that you know it's like ah that's just a knowingness just in the back of my mind wow that's that's amazing and there's a long list of amazing gifts that kind of came with that but going from like oh way your capitalism or thing that like that's spinning rock that we're on. I kind keep zooming out. That's where I start. Then I can get back in once I find I'm I'm too too microed into something like my my blinders are on and information is limited. I'm like, what am I doing here? I'm giving too much credence to something that has no value. And that's what I did a lot. And I think that's what a lot of us do all the time because we have the freedom, the luxury of where we are in our lives of, you know, to to pay a lot of attention to stuff that doesn't have value. You know, how many colors of toenail polish are there for God's sakes or whatever that the minutia of what are we doing here? So, let me zoom out. Let me zoom out a little bit. Let me aggregate what actually matters here and uh then then go back in. Re-engage into conversation. re-engage into my life, re-engage into, you know, whatever I was doing before. Because we can get a little caught up. We can get caught up. I feel like there's a ticking clock and the things that pressure and all these things either we put on ourselves or society can put on us. And uh I relieve myself of all those duties. I I'm relieved. 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And if you don't like it for any reason, they give you your money back and you don't even need to return the box. Plus, they offer free shipping within the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklnt.com/modern wisdom. How do you think about balancing your desire to be professionally a very competent actor pushing your limits creatively in terms of the way that you show up? Because that does require obsession with the micro, right? win in the weeds when it comes to stuff like that. Uh especially I'm sure there'll be more movies and and yeah, I think that I think that'll take time. I think I'm I can swallow the idea. Um I didn't think I was going to go back to work. I had to live life in reality, not in fiction. It's hard for me to go back. But it meant a lot. I was around a lot of love. So then that felt What was the first day back in set like? Um, I mean there was it was very difficult. All of it was very energy levels were very low. I had like a couple good hours where I was awake enough to perform as a character I knew very well and and uh so that part was easy enough was I had to do a stunt as well. Um little challenging but worked through it. But all the working through with stunt guys and even the director all set up the cameras do that. It was all just acts of love. So that that was what felt great. Everyone was was happy that I was was was back and but um so yeah. So I I took it as it felt it felt very loving and a very loving set and amazing group of people. So that's why I'm back again. Mhm. You know, and uh it's pretty awesome. And I think it's it's just it's a to me it's also to make a statement. I was tired of you know just doing recovery. I got recovery down to eight hours at that point a day and I had to reduce it to about four hours to to start working. But I said, I think I'm ready. I think it's time. I got to get back on the world. I can't just be, you know, some like gym rat recovery rat like a gym rat. It' be like a recovery rat. I mean, that's all I'm doing. Obsessing on recovery. I got to do something else. I got to participate in life and like why not do it with these people? There's a there's a kind of fragility associated with that focus on recovery that never actually leads to you going back out into the real world. You know what I mean, right? Well, that's also yeah becomes kind of futile at that point, right? Well, what do I got to set my goals to do? You know, I think I'm I was ready. I was definitely very social all throughout that, you know. So I was getting that I was getting fed that part. But yeah, just kind of get it back out in the world and and and the world was really wonderful to me, you know, insularly with the the set and then even people I met out about, you know, I got wonderful treatment by people uh wherever I went. And uh wow what a that just that love that I would get just further it just filled up my gas tank to get better get stronger do better be better and uh but all starts with me I'm not doing it for anybody right I'm filled with the things I need to do for myself and there's zero selfish bone in my body you know what I mean and I always had that and I don't know if you too or if it's just a general thing it feels selfish to take care of yourself so that I need to take care of everybody else, right? I don't know if that's but it certainly does it doesn't even come across. I never there's not a selfish bone in my body and I know it no matter what how much time I spend on myself. You know what I mean? What would you say to someone who is deep in the hole, some sort of recovery, complex illness, injury, and they just haven't got that same fire that they need? Yeah. I I I know, man. I If like if you need people around, you need a support system emotionally support you. Even if they're just there in the background, you hate them. You hate hearing their voices in the other room as they're playing games. And my family was doing that. I didn't resent that. I would just love hearing their voice there. The rumblings in the other room as I was in there with rubber bands and stuff and doing my thing. They'd be happy if I wheeled out and joined them. But I had there's always love and support, you know. You got to have you need a community almost, you know. Um maybe that's why they had they have like, you know, treatment centers. There's lots of other people you go through struggles. There's, you know, but you know, you're not alone, right? You have to believe that you're not alone and you can't do anything all by yourself. And um that kept pushing me to keep going because I I had a lot of help and that help I interpreted as love and that was just all the fuel I needed. So I would say find find support. Um if I mean if you're gosh if you're a person alone in a hospital you know wow you got nurses there. You got you got a team there. He's trying to help you, you know, help them help you. Help your body help you. Create a create you're not alone cuz you have your body. Create that as a separate thing. It's a new girlfriend or new boyfriend or whatever you want it. New dog. It's a new separate entity that you get to work with. Separate your body from yourself from your from your mind. Then you can work together to get better because they work together wonderfully. If right that's a great dialogue to have. That's that was very clutch for me um in my loneliness of it. But it's very very effective for for uh neuropathways and and um making new pathways for yourself to treat your body like something that needs instructing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or or to treat it with respect like I I saying it's a bad dog. I think it's a bad analogy, but it's like you know it's just like it's just a partner. But you are you're not helping me out here. So you got to listen to me. I'll listen to you if you listen to me. But treat it as as a as a respect. It's still I respect my body, but I'll tell it the [ __ ] off once in a while, you know? And it's like, I got you. I got you. I got you. But, you know, I give my body a personality like it's a you know what I mean? It's uh I see it. I see it in my head and we we have this relationship now. It's just like almost unconscious thing that happens and nothing nothing I get no flarebacks or setbacks or anything. I mean the worst and also I never use the word even pain. I'll use discomfort. I'll use inflammation. Stiffness. It's the worst thing I can ever say about my body. But not pain. No, I don't know what pain is. That ain't pain. Inflammation, stiffness, walking, whatever. My back's like all out of whack and out of control and whatever. It's hard for me to get up and down sometimes, but like it's all temporary. It's temporary. You move through that. It's a bad afternoon. It's a rough morning. Whatever. Who cares? You move through it. It's temporary. It's all temporary anyway, isn't it? Your time on this planet, it's temporary. So, make it the best you can. Work through the work through the obstacles as best you can. Right? We all going to get obstacles. No matter how rich you are, how poor you are, how strong you are, or whatever, we're all going to have problems and obstacles. How good you are getting over those and through those, how fast and efficient you are with those, you're gonna have more joy in your life. It leaves a lot more room for for joy and laughter and all the things you really want. I'd be remissed if I didn't bring up what at least to me as a total noob in this world, a muggle outside of the industry looks like maybe one of the biggest productions of all time, which was the Avengers series. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like looking back on that, what was being involved in that production like? You know, it it removed it initially. itself from you became s part of something so collective. It's right such a collective type of narrative. The movies I was doing before were pretty more like I I was a lead of a movie and the story is told us through my character. This is such a an ensemble sort of piece. So you had to rely upon so many things and so many things that didn't even exist. It was fantasy and you know this all green screen and like people are dressed in checkerboarded outfits and you know so this fantasy world And then and then there's something that became really powerful in knowing that how how much it meant to kids, right? How like you know the wideeyedness of of hope with kids like I don't know it's such a great sort of conduit to to kids and I love kids. I'm the oldest of seven and it's sort of my birthright just to you know to have them or to be with them. That's why I have a you know renovations foundation. And I I mean to give hope and opportunity as a kid is really really important to me. So like it started off there. We're dressing in costume. You know it looked ridiculous at first. We're all dressed you know. There's Hemsworth. You look a lot like a Hemsworth. And you put him in he's got a wig and he's just but he's got like a latte in the store. He's got this this foam hammer rubber hammer and this bow and arrow. We're all trading around our props like some Halloween costume. I was going to say we What's it feel like when you step out of each your respective trailers and you come in and everyone's got the it is kind of like Yeah, that's when we all cuz we're we're all figuring out is that the beginning, right? In the first Avengers, we're all kind of figuring out each other and then each other's characters and costumes and uh and then it's just grown into, you know, a family, you know, a personal family. We have our own private sort of chat and we all gone through like marriage and divorces and kids and all these things happened over these last 13 years we've been together and it's also shared on a stage that's almost a sign culturally significant sort of 22 giant films to make the last one that all led to endgame right it's quite uh a significant thing to have happened over the course of you know was 12, 13, 14 years. And it was awesome to be a part of that. And I get to take away again, like I said, it's the great friendships, lasting friendships. We have matching tattoos that sort of signify our our bond that and this extreme narrative, crazy narrative of superheroes and a strange fantasy world brought us together. And now I have like really really amazing, loving friends. And I have great conduit to children to be able to help them. And um cuz being famous before kind of sucked. It ripped away your sort of uh well I would say it's totally sucked but like it just it it takes away your privacy. All the things you know you don't get to do just normal things. I'm just a normal dude from kid from Modesto California. I want to do normal [ __ ] I just don't get to do. Fine. But I can do other things. Great. But, you know, having a voice to kids because I took my daughter when Endgame came out. She was five years old and I dropped her off at school for the first time and she was in kindergarten. And then as I dropped her off in there, it's kind of nerve-wracking. Uh, I hear my name Jeremy Rener be called by some like third grader. I'm like, why does this third grader know my first and last name? That's Jeremy Rener. Like you, they're not even saying Hawkeye. Like some, oh, that's Hawkeye. And I had like 30 kids come chasing me down with cell phones out. I'm like, "What are you doing with cell phones?" First of all, you Anyway, so I take pictures of them all like, "Get back in. Get back in your classroom." I went home kind of freaked out that all these kids chasing me. I thought, "What a cool thing that is now to have I can use a celebrity, have a real voice, and use it in a proper way, use it for a good thing." So, um, that forever changed my life and that's where the the foundation came involved and I can really make a difference for kids. It's usually foster youth and disadvantaged youth and but to put a smile on kids' face is just the best feeling anyway and hard to do if I was playing Jeffrey Dmer. Hard to do couldn't do it if I was doing this role or doing that role or doing that role. But because I did some something that kids could watch, like my daughter never saw any of this stuff, but these kids were were old or whatever. So anyway, I had anyway I had such conduit to kids and that became such a beautiful payday for me. It was the greatest payday for me uh doing doing anything in Marvel was my access to to to give love to kids to inspire kids to give them especially this this foster youth and disadvantaged youth some opportunities and uh plant some seeds of hope for them. Can you remember what your last scene was in the filming schedule for the entire sort of franchise so far? What was what was the last thing you did or the last day that you were on set? Were you there for the final day of of filming overall to give the big Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had Yeah, we had all that. We got all of us together just to do press. We had to get all the Avengers together. It's because it got quite big at Endgame. Um, so that was like a big sort of high school reunion kind of feeling. I'm like, "Oh my god, nobody's nobody's in costume this time." Um, but I Yeah, the last day of filming, yeah, it was it was a it was a re-shoot, I believe, for uh for Scarlet and I um her death scene, which is brutal. Um but but I also did the Hawkeye series. So then that continued on. Kicks it on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of continued on. And you know, I cuz I love I love to continue on, but mainly continue on cuz um I like the character and I think we can do a lot for more with kids with it and I want to affect a lot of kids. So, was there ever a uh sense of poetic irony that Hawkeye given that one of your eyes was out of your head and on the floor? Did that pass? Probably other stuff to focus on during that 45 minute period, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't cut in my head. Uh, so what are you focused on now? What's coming up next for you? Well, I stay really quite present. Um, I I kind of try not to let my future get a hold of me. Uh, cuz it did in the past. So, I focus uh the Renerations Foundation. I have a couple camps that I'm doing. Um, it's grown quite significantly is which is great. A lot of support, a lot of community support. So, I'm really focused on that as a outside of my mental health and physical health and uh the the foundation is uh probably second in line as far priority. That's that's a bigger scope of something. And all my family's involved in the foundation as well, which is so killer. It's given them, you know, real direction in life as well. My passion to to help kids. So, it's really easy. and my sister, you know, running it. And then work-wise, yeah, there's a have a movie coming out um later this year. Um I'm excited about The Knives Out. Um this third one in that. And then Mayor Kingtown's continued on and people seem to really like that one. Um it does well for Paramount Plus and I'll probably do one more season for sure it seems. If people still like it, which I think they do is going to be a pretty killer season. But outside that, I I'm building a house. I stay, you know, I'm always bu building and designing and doing those things. And um trying not to get too busier than just that. That's a pretty booked year. I'm trying not to work anymore for the rest of the year so I can go focus on the the foundation and and helping that grow and that sort of stuff. So that's those are the important things to me. And my family, of course. You know, I got to go. I can't wait to spend the summer with my daughter. She loves working uh with with the foundation and helping the kids and it's pretty cool. Pretty cool to see her growth as an emotional um emotionally intelligent creature. Just a lovely lovely human my daughter's become out to be. So very proud. I'm happy for you, man. Yeah. Thanks, man. I'm really happy. I'm really happy. Jeremy Raner, ladies and gentlemen, dude, you're you're awesome. Uh I think being able to see uh somebody sort of publicly go through a a challenge like this is Yeah. is really important. It really really is. Yeah. I'm I'm glad I'm glad it it became a public thing. I'm glad. I mean I never wanted to be cuz I woke up and then it was like you know but I was gone for a while but by the time I woke up it was like it was everywhere right? And like that was a private moment between me and my nephew with my family on my driveway. It's none of your damn business. And I, you know, but I guess I just kind of leaned into it and just made it a they made it public. So then I shared a private experience with everybody and it was wonderful. It's it's it's where a lot of the narrative grew from me being a man or a brother or just a friend or I wasn't the actor anymore. I was just somebody that went through something something they might be curious about or not or just someone that's had a lot right. So that was I'm really glad it became such a public thing and I'm glad me being very private typically shared a lot of sort of milestones that I had through social media or through the press. The press is very like whatever I said on social media they just went out and and printed everywhere. I'm glad I created a lot of wonderful relationships with the public with fans. um that you can't just I mean I'm glad I'm so glad for it. Um, but I tried I tried to do the Diane Surya thing and then say, "Okay, here's what happened. Now, let's move on. Let me get back to No, no, no, no. That just just the beginning. Write the book. Do the interviews. Speak to Oh, yeah. An album. Do Yeah. All this stuff. So, so even like with this book, it's not going to be it's just only going to be a chapter. It's not going to be I'm letting this go for the rest of my life. I'm never going to let this go. It's just always going to be part of now my DNA. I mean it is for me and you know the importance of it will be maybe less in public which would be good but it's it's something I was I can't just shove away anymore. It's just now become a central part of who I am and I'm thankful for that. Maybe don't do it again. I'm not going to do that again. No. I'm on the snow cat again but you know I'm just you know I'm I'm not let that thing haunt me. [ __ ] not happening. Jeremy, I appreciate you man. Yeah. Thanks brother. Appreciate it. Oo, tasty. Jeremy Rena made it all the way to the end of that episode. Well, why not watch the Indian Hawkeye Naval Ravikan right here.