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Michelle Khare on Beating Up Andrea Botez | Creator Clash 2

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In this episode of Creator Clash 2, Michelle Khare reflects on her grueling preparation to face chess grandmaster Andrea Botez in a boxing match that defied traditional weight and height classifications. Standing at just 5'2", Khare faced an opponent who was both taller (5'6") and heavier by approximately 18 pounds when they first discussed the fight, yet she viewed these discrepancies as manageable obstacles rather than insurmountable barriers. Her training regimen intensified significantly after a verbal pact with Botez to prepare for the event, evolving into a rigorous schedule of six days a week featuring two-a-day workouts that included strength conditioning, cardio sprints, and sparring sessions. Khare describes this period as her most physically demanding experience since being a professional athlete, noting that she sparred roughly 30 times in an abbreviated eight-to-ten-week camp compared to other fighters who had months of preparation time. The physical toll was compounded by strict dietary management involving a private chef named Chef Bernardy, which cost between $150 and $300 weekly but allowed Khare to maintain precise calorie and macro counts without the mental load of meal planning. This intense focus on nutrition and exercise also served as a therapeutic tool for her mental health; she explains how fixing her physical habits helped alleviate feelings of depression and restored motivation, echoing an Andrew Tate quote about getting a six-pack to fix sadness. Khare contrasts this with her previous experiences in chess boxing against Botez's team member Deena, noting that while the breaks between rounds were longer due to chess matches, the current fight required sustained high-intensity output every three minutes without such mental respites. Beyond the physical preparation, the podcast delves into personal anecdotes regarding Khare’s wedding and her philosophy on comfort zones. She details how she planned an entire week-long wedding in just five days by batching vendor meetings and website creation to avoid stress, a stark contrast to traditional planning processes that often lead to burnout. The conversation also touches upon Graham's reluctance to step out of his comfort zone with activities like skydiving or selling tickets for his own wedding; Khare argues that while fear is natural, avoiding challenges one desires before dying can limit life experiences. She suggests that what feels easy for someone else might be a significant challenge if it lacks perceived benefit, using her own willingness to endure physical pain versus Graham's preference for stability as an example of differing value systems regarding discomfort and growth. Looking ahead, Khare expresses excitement about future projects, including potential videos involving Formula 1 pit crews or training with the Secret Service, though she acknowledges that not every high-impact video requires a year-long production cycle. She emphasizes the importance of mental fortitude during fights, advising against watching other bouts beforehand to avoid anxiety over injuries sustained by previous fighters like Haley and Michael Reeves. Instead, she recommends using headphones to zone out or visualize specific scenarios, such as getting hit in the face but recovering immediately, to maintain focus when adrenaline surges. The episode concludes with Khare hoping that her upcoming match will be a victory not just for herself, but also an opportunity to explore new types of challenges and continue pushing boundaries beyond physical feats into mental resilience.
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I'm 5'2, and she's 5'6. I'm getting hit in the face. That didn't go the way I wanted it to be. I have to get back up. Michelle Khare is known for her unbelievable challenges, where she's trained for NASA, the Secret Service, SWAT, and FBI Academy, 911 dispatch, and becoming a chess grandmaster among dozens of others. But today, she's undertaking her most difficult challenge yet, fighting the chess extraordinaire Andrea Botez in Creator Clash's boxing event. Today, you'll be getting an exclusive behind-the-scenes I have never trained harder for any video, any project I have gotten to when I was a professional athlete. right after you subscribe. But before we get into the podcast, I want to tell you about our sponsor Hostinger. Now, first of all, you may notice Graham is gone. That's because he's about to watch Michelle Khare fight. That's right, Jack. But even more exciting than that is Hostinger. That's what Graham says. That's right, Jack. 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And my personal favorite part is that Hostinger's AI logo maker, powered by ChatGPT, allows you to create a free logo in just seconds. Plus, if you use promo code icedcoffee at checkout, you'll save 10% off your purchase. So, check it out with the link down below in the description, or visit hostinger.com/icedcoffeehour. Don't miss this special discount and start building your online presence today with Hostinger. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. My name is Michelle, and you are watching this hopefully after I win Creator Clash. Ooh. Okay, so what prompted this? This is why we wanted to bring you back on. Talk about the fight. So, you're fighting Andrea Botez, right? Yes. Yeah. Chess expert Andrea Botez. Yeah. Thought she's taller. Like, how How tall are you? I'm 5'2, and she's 5'6. Is that How is that a fair fight? Well, you know, I don't think there really is any way for it any fight to be fully fair, right? You know, like someone is always going to be at an advantage in some capacity. I have my athletic background. She has the genetic advantage of height and weight. But I've been training my ass off, and I've been sparring people who, I guess I can say this now because it's after the fight. Mhm. Every person I have sparred is at least 6 in taller than me and 30 lb heavier than me. I have not sparred anyone who's actually my height and weight. Is that on purpose to prepare? to be. Yeah. Aw. So, the one thing I didn't realize is also no one is short enough. I my gym, like literally everybody's taller. You You should have fought Michael Reeves. That would be insane for the video. Don't Don't fight I would be the first one to fight. You just You just win. You just win automatically. Honestly, coming off a win last night, hopefully, Michael, you're next. He would He would honestly be perfect. He'd be a great sparring partner. I would love Honestly, like last year for Creator Clash 1, I was always joking like, I want to fight Graham. Really? Graham, would you fight god, no, I wouldn't. Why not, Graham? I just wouldn't do it. I never want to fight anyone again. Okay. I respect that. I'm a one-and-done. That was it. That That is it. But I also think like for what we're doing, it's such a narrow bull's-eye. Like, I need to find a female influencer with a following who also has like comparable boxing experience and like within the height and weight realm. Like, that is such a narrow target to hit. And at some point, I just sort of realized like if I really want to do a boxing match in like the influencer boxing space, I'm going to have to compromise somewhere, and ideally, I wanted to find someone like 115, 120 with all of those same specs, but you know, I I I think like life gives you obstacles that just aren't going to be perfect at the right time or the moment that you want them. And to me, when this happened, I was like, this is my opportunity. I just have to do it. Yeah. And as soon as you saw Creator Clash 1, did you know you wanted to participate in the second? Well, I actually wanted I I was actually wanting to participate in the first one. Really? Like, I heard basically So, it was really coincidental because I wanted to do an episode of Challenge Accepted where I trained like a professional boxer and um, you know, enter a fight cuz I was like, how hard could it be to get in one of these influencer things? Everybody's doing it. And so, I connected with Tony Jeffries, who is an Olympic bronze medalist. He owns a gym here in Los Angeles, and we started training, and he's like, you know, there's this event coming up in a couple months that I didn't know about. It wasn't even announced yet, Creator Clash. And we sort of had this like mini goal of like, maybe if we train, someone will appear, and you could get in. It didn't happen, and so like, basically, um, from there, like, when you don't have an opponent, you can only do so much. Like, if you don't have an opponent and a confirmed fight, you're not going to hard spar. You're not going to do two-a-days. So like, yes, we were training and training for the hope of something coming through, whether it's Creator Clash or another promoted event, but it didn't. So then, at a certain point, I was like, this is a lot of time and money and I got to stop. So, after, you know, several weeks of that, I sort of just stopped and moved on because trying to find an opponent was such an ordeal. Who is a perfect opponent for you? Who? Yeah. Like, height and weight? No, like what influencer, celebrity, or someone that you picked out. For example, Michael Reeves says he always wanted to fight Gary V. That's like his thing. He wants to take on Gary V cuz it would be funny. Exactly. For Graham, it was Michael. Oh my god. It was. Yeah. Um, hm. You know, I actually haven't like thought in that capacity of like who would be the perfect opponent. Um I mean, I think there are all They're always people who you want to fight that are Are they worthy of of a fight? Um, yeah, I mean, I was thinking of more to from like who's my height and weight and and that kind of perspective cuz the the pool is already so narrow, I think. Um Belle Delphine. Belle Delphine would be great. Yeah. Yeah, that would be crazy. That would break the internet. Belle Delphine. That would be nuts. Yeah, cuz she's Yeah, I think she's like 5'5, right? I have no idea. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, a little bit taller. Yeah. Um, yeah, so I mean, we did that for the last like spring, and then Creator Clash happened, and I was like, I just don't think this is going to happen. So, I Did you apply, or what was that process like the first time? You wanted to get into it, or was it sort of like you know, it was so close to the event. I'm We're talking like 2 months out from the event Oh, got it. Yeah. type of situation. And Ian and Anisa knew Tony because, you know, they did a lot of like press events at the gym I train at. And so, I met them. We trained together. And I think it was it's like a situation of like, this is literally happening in 8 weeks. Everybody is confirmed, but maybe next year. So, I stopped, and then I moved on to do like other things like I the other videos we had planned, like running a marathon in the desert and training with Secret Service and stuff. So, I wasn't like actually doing really any boxing of any kind. And then when the chess boxing event happened in December, um, I saw Andrea's fight against Deena, and I thought it was amazing. I mean, it was the most viewed section of the entire stream, the women's event. Um And they went hard, too. I mean, they went like harder than the guys did, I feel. Besides Dad, Dad just went like Dad went ballistic. So, besides that, And of course, you know, a big highlight of last year was Haley versus me. Yes. It's so exciting, um, amazing to watch. And so, after the chess boxing thing, I was like, hm, we're like not perfect height and weight, but I wonder if she'd be into this. So, I actually called her. Hm. Like, the week after her fight. It is when I When we're talking on the phone, she was coming out of a boxing class. This was like 3 days after her fight. She was like, I just got out of boxing class. Oh my god. not scare you, the fact that she like just like did boxing and then goes to a boxing class right after? She did her full fight. Fought. And then, you know, coming right into CC2, of course, that's something I take into consideration. Yeah. Um, but I mean, it was such an interesting conversation because like at that time, there was an even bigger weight difference between us. Um, probably like in our original call, I think we were at It It was a pretty big weight difference, like 15, 18 lb. Mhm. And we didn't have anything confirmed at that point. We were just kind of like, could we potentially work towards being opponents for each other and see what happens? Um, and she had also tweeted at Creator Clash, and I was like, you know, maybe maybe there's space for us in the event this year. It's 4 months out this time, not 2 months out. Let's see what happens. And at that point, it was a no if from from Creator Clash. It was like, we have too many fights. They're all full. Um But Andrea and I were hopeful. So, we made this like verbal pact All right. Yeah. let's just let's just like kind of start training and, you know, we'll be like kind of ready. Not fight camp. Not fight camp, but like, you know, obviously, she's going to boxing class two days, you know, a few days after her fight, which is crazy. Yeah. Um And you know, I was like, okay, I'll I'll call up Tony. I'll call up some people and see if I can just start going a couple times a week again. And this is me coming out of a, you know, pretty deconditioned state cuz my wedding was in October and you know, as you're preparing for yours, like it is extremely time-consuming, it's stressful, especially like the month prior and then the month after I felt like I was recovering. Like I had not been exercising Mhm. at all. Sure. And even though we're releasing videos of me at Secret Service, whatever, those were filmed way earlier in the year. Mhm. Um and so I was like, okay, I'll I'll start going to boxing a couple times a week. And then, you know, when we heard about um I did a thing and his um injury was when we were like, "Oh my god, it's go time. We can, you know, Anisa called us and was like, do you want to do this?" And we were both like, "Holy [ __ ] I guess so." Um and so it was it was a it was a special opportunity, still last minute. I mean, we found out about that um prior to the public announcement, but like I want to say that our fight camp like when we officially were like, "Let's do this." It's it was probably like 8 to 10 weeks prior to this event. Wow. Which is still, compared to like all the other Creator Clash athletes, they, you know, some of them found out the night of CC1. Like, "Hey, you want to do this next year? Start training." So, they've had a year, they've had 9 months. Um and obviously like she and I have unique and bizarre like forthcomings with boxing, her with chess boxing and mine with like this like little thing I did with Tony last year. Um but not preparing either of us for like a real boxing fight. I thought the che- chess boxing was like pretty real though. I know like taking a break and like did she win? I can't remember if she won that one. technically on the night they gave it to Dina because she won via chess, but then later, like two days after they're like, "Well, Andrea pretty much won by knockout." So, I think they technically won. right. Um yeah, I mean, the chess boxing stuff was extremely intense. However, it's it's different training, right? Cuz when you're doing chess boxing, the breaks between each round of boxing are significantly longer cuz you're playing chess, you know, the table's got to come down from the sky and you sit there, you play the chess, then you put the headgear back on. It's probably like a good 5, 6 minutes physical rest break. Obviously, your mind is going a million miles an hour. Right. Chess, which I can't do. I'm never going to chess box Andrea. Um but that's a different type of training from like going all out for 2 minutes, 1 minute rest, then back in, you know, like it is for our fight. Wow. So, how has your training been the past 8 or so weeks? It has been absolutely insane. I have never trained harder for any video, any project, anything in my life. I mean, this is the closest I have gotten to when I was a professional athlete, the level of training and commitment and time. And what does that look like for you? Well, I guess I can share now. share it now, yeah. I mean, for me when when we got the full green light, it immediately was 6 days a week, 2 hours a day, if not two-a-days. Explain two-a-days for us. Okay, so a two-a-day means you're you're going twice a day to work out. So, uh typically that means like early in the morning you go and you do uh strength and conditioning and then maybe in the afternoon you do boxing or sparring, but the the physical benefit, and I'm not a scientist here, but the physical benefit from my understanding and in my background in athletics is that you are training your body to, you know, have to recover extremely quickly and go right back into a workout. Um and it can actually have like even more benefit than doing 2 hours like back-to-back, splitting it up. There there are certain situations that that it makes sense to do that, but it's like putting your body in that state of agitation more frequently with a with a lesser rest period of, Mhm. you know, 8 to 10 hours rather than 24 hours. Got it. And so, what do your workouts look like? So, my workouts are I guess there are four different types of workouts. There is, you know, your classic boxing mitt work, like what you see in all the Rocky and Creed movies. Then there is cardio, so like get on a treadmill, run sprints. Then there's strength and conditioning, which is lifting weights, um throwing heavy things around, pull-ups, push-ups, um and then there's also recovery workouts, which is like, "What is a recovery workout?" That's like spending an hour um like doing stretching, uh foam rolling, visualization has been a huge component of this for me. Like literally, I'll spend 30 minutes listening in my headphones, full-on crowd like sound effects Really? blasting with a blindfold on. And then I visualize, "This is what it's going to feel like when they say, 'Hey, you're next.' You're getting your hands wrapped. You go into the tunnel. The walkout song starts. The walkout begins. Wow. for the first time. The bell goes off. Like every moment of that I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. also visualizing like I'm getting hit in the face. That didn't go the way I wanted it to be. I have to get back up. You know, like you visualize the good and the bad moments. And like that's something I didn't really do as much um in my com- competitive athletic background as a cyclist, but for this it's so much it's everything, I feel. Grim says that when he entered the ring, like all of the stuff that he trained for, all of the stuff he studied and prepared for just completely left his mind as soon as he walked in the ring. Right. Yep. So, part of me feels like you can spend all this time visualizing and stuff. All of that stuff helps, but most important is is, you know, that the boxing part. Like No, I didn't I didn't do any of the the mental stuff. I was just like block it out. Wow. Does it almost feel like a blur? Sometimes. Or like a blackout in a way? Kind of. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would say that the crowd and the adrenaline are two things that you can try to get close to. I mean, like for example, I guess I can say this now. When I'm sparring, Mhm. they on the on like the overhead speaker system blast crowd sound effects extremely loud to the point like our coach in the corner is screaming at the top of his lungs to try and communicate, "Try this, try this." So, to try and simulate that. But also like I know I'm in the safety of the gym. I You know what I mean? Like it's not the same as like you're walking out and you see people cheering for you, see some people booing for you. Like those sounds of like hearing someone else's name cheered when you're getting your ass kicked. Like you can't. You can't. And replicate that. Yeah, I don't want to say it was tough for me, but definitely I think the crowd favored Michael by like cuz it's Michael. Like I would be rooting for Michael. But it's when when like you get that punch and everyone's like, "Woah! Michael!" Like it it's it's tough to overcome that too, like mentally cuz you don't like you kind of hear it and it seeps into your mind, but you don't really focus on it, but it's there. Yeah. For sure. And I'm prepared for that, too. I mean, Andrea's audience is huge. Mhm. It's a streaming audience. They're extremely engaged. I'm sure she has plenty of friends, social media people who are coming to support her as well. Yeah. Um yeah, it's it's going to be tough. Yeah. And I would say at this point, like I am I'm extremely confident in the physical ability, the training, the conditioning, all of that, but that one variable I think will be the unexpected for everybody that night. What's it like for you to spar? Sparring? Yeah. How many how many times have you sparred? Like what's what's that process like? Like walk us through from the beginning to like the most recent. if I had to count, I'm sparring three times a week. Wow. times eight, 10 weeks. No way. 30 times? I don't even know. That's a lot. Yeah. Michael sparred like 12. And I was like four. Wow. Oh my god. Yeah, I mean, that's really that's really impressive for having only four times spar to get in there and do that. Yeah, well, I don't know. I don't know about that, but I think people this time are taking it way seriously, way more seriously because the first time we had no idea what to expect and we were just like, "Ah, might be a bit of a whatever." But this time I think people are looking back and and seeing how seriously they took it and like I got to one-up that now. Absolutely. I mean, the first time I sparred, and this is covered in the video that that I'll be releasing, I had a panic attack, fully. Like getting hit in the face and like you forget everything. I I don't think people get that like the when when you're working on the mitts, translating that across the bridge to sparring is a journey in and of itself. Like you could literally train the same thing on mitts as as maybe you experienced a billion times and then to apply it in sparring can take weeks. Yeah. You know, it's like when you're in there under the pressure of like I'm not just like hitting clean mitts with my trainer because now there's someone else's arms in my face, in my eyes, and coming back at me at the same time. Like so many other variables in when you're not in a controlled environment and working through that. Um but you know, I feel fortunate that that happened to me pretty early on and I adjusted and worked through it. So, now sparring, I feel at this point is more like it's a extremely intense workout and nothing compares to it. Yeah. Um but I don't have the like fear in that capacity. Really? Have you gotten hurt? Mhm. Throughout the past Yeah, again, I'm not going to share any of this before the fight cuz yeah, it's been strong. I'm perfect. It it's not been perfect in any capacity. I have um throughout the past 10 weeks, I everyone in our office had this crazy ass flu. So, I was sick for a week. Mhm. Um I have a few years ago I was in a car accident and so I have this recurring neck like nerve pinch thing where like I get searing pain all down my spine. Oh, jeez. It's fine. Yeah. But that happened to me during one of the sparrings. It reactivated that. Didn't post any of that. This is the reality of this. Yeah. What are we posting? Me and Andrea are like at the gym, like everything's going awesome. That's what you're posting and that's not fully the reality. Um so I had to go to PT for that. I rolled my ankle sparring. Um Yeah, I mean it's crazy. But that's part of it, you know? It's part of it and then also playing the poker face of nothing's wrong. Yeah. Yeah, that was a big one for me. Every time I was tired it's like, "No, you're not going to do that. You're going to be like getting up and like doing the doing the jumps a little bit." Yeah. Like you can't mentally just sit down or put your arms on the uh on the ropes because then it's like it's going to make you more tired. The day that I rolled my ankle, it was like round two of sparring and I think we had six rounds that day. They're like, "You keep going cuz if this happens in the fight you need to work through that." and I finished the whole thing. And then I went off. Couldn't that just make it worse though? Like that might prevent you from like sparring the next day. Correct. Um but I I feel like I'm so like at this point athletically in tune with my body, I would have known. But like I was like, "I can do this." Yeah. Um but I mean the recovery part is a whole thing. Like I sit in an ice bath every single day. I sit in a sauna. Hot tub. Like it's it's a full thing. Yeah. I mean Oh my gosh. So this is like a full-time job almost. Cuz this is like 2 hours of of exercising and probably another hour of like visual a visualization, baths, whatever. So it's like and maybe now we're getting ready for it. So that's like 4 hours a day. It's a lot. Yeah. And then the drive to and from the gym. And then when you get back you got to shower. It's it's extremely time-consuming. And so I feel really fortunate cuz we just hired a head of operations for our channel. So that allowed me to like give a lot of responsibility to him. Mhm. Like I literally could not do this without that hire and we also hired a second editor. So like we had a team meeting at the beginning of all of this Mhm. basically saying like this is what Michelle's life is going to be like for the next 8 weeks and this is how we as a team are going to adapt to it and support and what responsibilities still are mine versus not. Mhm. And that was extremely helpful. That's cool. Yeah. What's something that happened that was unexpected in your experience of boxing so far in like the 8 weeks and fighting random people and putting your body through this? I guess and I'm I'm not just saying this cuz like this is coming out the day after. We'll see what happens. Yeah. It's interesting to me because at the beginning of all of this, I was I was transparently extremely concerned about the height and weight difference. Um I mean I've had to gain muscle and she's had to come down. Um and that is a variable that I don't have control over. Um but and so when we when we set out to do this and like you're only going to be sparring people that are at least 6 inches taller than you. Andrea's 4 inches taller. And they have a longer reach. They're going to be at least 30 40 pounds heavier than you. That was really hard. It's really hard because like with that difference you are fighting uphill constantly. You could have perfect form and miss every time just because of the difference in the reach. Um you have to have even better cardio because you're running around the ring more. You're you know, have you have to have way better head movement um when when you are a smaller shorter fighter. And so that was a really big hurdle for me to overcome. But at this point I feel really confident with it only because I don't know what it's actually like to spar somebody my actual height and weight. Look at Mayweather and Logan Paul though. When they fought, I mean you saw a huge size difference. Like it was massive. That was what like 10 inches? And like 30 40 pounds. Yeah, it was nuts. But Mayweather was like you could I believe he was kind of holding back. Yeah, it was kind of almost like holding back a little bit. I heard though that I think Michael called it the turtle uh where you would crouch down and make yourself lower. Yes. Uh you have the advantage of being lower to the ground. It's harder to hit. Yeah, I hope so. I mean she if she's crouching down, she's more like eye level to you. Yeah. If you're crouching down, she's got to punch down. Exactly. I mean we've done a lot of work like getting on the inside, body work, coming off on an angle. That's like a lot of what I've been training. you'd have an advantage like get down underneath and then do an uppercut. Cuz she she couldn't she couldn't do that. It's all you got to do. Get down, do the crouch turtle, boom, come on up. I'm just going to like duck and shoot between her legs. That's going to be my strategy. That would be funny. So let's hear some predictions. Predictions? How do you think this is going to go? Yeah. I'm pretty confident I'm going to win. You're pretty confident? Yeah, I think so. Based off of just my intuition, I think it's going to be not even close. I think you're going to win. Oh, well thank you. You're welcome. I think biologically much be eating my words. We very well could be. You guys are going to make a viral TikTok of me saying, "I'm really confident I'm going to win." It's going to hard cut to like Bing bing bing. Yeah. Oh gosh. I mean um yeah, honestly at this point I think the the nerves of the crowd and the events leading up to Saturday are really the the one variable I'm most concerned for. Yeah. Do you meditate? I Yeah, I mean the visualization for me is meditative. Mhm. But this is a good I probably should like download the app or something. I think you absolutely should. Yeah. Yeah. Um but what's really cool is like I feel that when I was actually like assigned pro athlete, I did not have any of the resources that we have now when I am a content creator. Like being able to hand things off to other people. I mean as a as a female athlete, you don't you're not paid like that. You don't have the ability to to do that cuz you're just like the difference in pay is so vast between male and female athletes that like now I feel like I'm actually getting to experience what it's like to be not a pro athlete but like I get some of those luxuries by being a content creator. We all do. I mean pretty much everyone who's in Creator Clash, we have a huge privilege of having people to to support us. And we have like this really bizarrely warm and welcoming environment with Creator Clash which I have never experienced in any other athletic community. It's amazing. Mhm. We're like we're all in a chat and everybody's like, "You guys look great in training. How's it going?" You know, like The Discord group. Yeah, yeah. I I have never experienced that in any other athletic community. And so it it really feels like an amazing opportunity. And honestly, no matter what happens, like I am extremely proud of of what I'm extremely proud of first of all of Andrea being willing to do this with me so that there is another women's fight on this card. Period. And I want more more people to feel inspired to take on challenges whether it is against, you know, me versus Andrea. I'm going up against an opponent genetically advantaged over me. I want people to hopefully take away from that maybe I can attack this thing that I have been scared to do before or maybe people see someone like me or Andrea, a chess player going in to do this. It's I just hope that we can you know, follow in the immense footsteps of people like Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor who have really paved a lot of way for for women's athletics. And even though this is a charity boxing event, just like being there and being willing to do this, I mean I really got to give it to An- Andrea too that like both of us agreed to do this on such short notice is a crazy thing and I hope that regardless of the outcome the um of the fight that the outcome of the event is one that is extremely positive and inspiring. What's the scariest part about it for you? Ooh. Oh my god. I mean Andrea's hands. His fists. I think the scariest I think like my biggest fear is going in there and then feeling like I didn't give it my all in the end. Or I let the crowd get to me. Mhm. Or I saw, you know, her team in the corner. I heard them saying things like, "Michelle's tired. Go go go." You know, like if I let those things get to me. To me, that is going to be the biggest failure. Not like the the win or the loss, whatever. The biggest failure is to like leave that ring and feel like, "Shit. I I could have tried harder in that moment and I didn't." Mhm. What's interesting to me is I draw the parallels between obviously your YouTube series, the challenge accepted where you go and do all of these crazy things all the time. And then your ability to hop into the ring at such short notice. What do you think it is within you that gives you the courage or bravery or confidence it it may be to go and do all of these things? I think it's actually Excuse me. I think it's like a learned skill set of how to approach an obstacle in such a short amount of time. Because for me like having done so many of these challenges, like I know day week three probably going to feel this. When I start self-doubting, okay, I know this is part of the process. Whereas like other people doing Creator Clash, I feel like those might be newer experiences, but in the same way you guys can sit down and do a podcast effortlessly, or like Graham can like pick a stock and then make a million dollars in a day or whatever. You know what I mean? Like those are learned skills. Like those are learned skill sets. And And for me, I think my competitive advantage is just like the skill set of putting myself in an uncomfortable situation and knowing all those like random cues are part of the process. So, is Challenge Accepted becoming less challenging for you? No. I'm about to get in the ring with Andrea Botez. That's [ __ ] scary. Okay, but how do you top that? Like you can't just keep going down this rabbit hole doing crazy uncomfortable physical activities that you're putting yourself through. Like you said, it's a learned skill. And once the muscle gets so strong, any new challenge, physical activity, mental activity, something like that, could maybe become a little bit easier, right? I think approaching approaching the next one becomes easier, but the process is is still extremely hard. I mean It It It could um I guess what you mean about like what does this mean for future episodes? How do you Where do you go from here? And to me it it it means delving into parts of myself that are less comfortable to explore, such as uh mental challenges. Like when I did ironically my chest Challenge Accepted, that was actually the hardest one I think I've ever done. I I honestly think that was harder than boxing. Um and I I think it just offers opportunities for us to explore other types of challenges that exist in the world all around us. And what about diet for you? Oh, diet. Oh my god. Diet has been a huge part of this. I know both for me and Andrea, cuz Andrea's coming down in weight. I'm having to um you know, make weight at a certain point by gaining. Um so yeah, we have like a private chef that delivers meals every three days. And they're all like calorie, macro, carb counted, and I just eat it and go to sleep. Really? Yeah. How much is How much is that chef? Mm. That chef is probably $300 a week. It's pretty expensive. It's not as bad as bad as I thought. No. Yeah, when you account for like the level of training that you're doing and the the importance of that, yeah. I I mean it's amazing. Highly recommend. Her name is Chef Bernardy. It's not bad. I mean if you consider that you're not like Actually, wait, hold on. I was accounting for both myself and Garrett. Oh, it's I guess it's like 150, 175 a week. That's not bad. That's not bad at all. If you're not going out to eat like no dinners and stuff like that, it's not bad. it to like if I got every meal on Postmates, well lunch and dinner on Postmates, it's cheaper than that. And healthy, and I I don't have to think or like Like for example, when I when I was assigned athlete, I was sitting there like cooking all my meals and like putting stuff on a scale, measuring. Yeah. To have that mental load off is so great. Really? Yeah. I want to try that. A chef? You want to try a chef? No, it's it's that that sort of meal plan. Cuz for me, besides all you can eat sushi, I don't care about food. I just kind of eat to feel like to feel kind of hungry and But like if I could just be like this is just all I eat, these are the times, and I just do it without thinking about it. I I wouldn't mind it. The not having to think it's everything. Not having to cook Yeah, I want to get down to like under 10% body fat. Like that that is my that's my goal. That's crazy. Abs. Six pack. Have you had abs before? Once. Really? Yeah, once. Uh oh gosh, I'm sure I can I'm sure man, I'm sure I'm I'm sure I could find it somewhere. Yeah. But that was I was I must have been like 25. 25? I was 25, so it was in the like the best shape of my life, but that's when I was doing nothing but work and gym. And what were you eating? The pre-YouTube. Okay. But I was spending an hour to an hour and a half a day in the gym while also eating really, really, really healthy. Like I took it so seriously, I cut out carbs. Like carbs for me were a big one. The only carbs I'd have is uh oatmeal before a workout. Oatmeal and honey. And then everything else was just like chicken. really into nutrition. At that point, yes. How were you eating your chicken? Where were you getting it from? Uh I was about to say Trader Joe's. It wouldn't be that. Ralphs. Ralphs? You're just Were you baking it? What were you doing? No, it was like I think it was like that I think it was like that pre-packaged chicken. Yeah, and then oh lots of eggs, too. What? What do you do currently for food? Do you order? Do you Macy cooks for No, she cooks She cooks maybe two to three times a week. The other times, Chipotle. Sushi. Herbs and rye. Herbs and rye? Herbs and rye. I mean it's we're going out to eat way more often. Because if we're home all day, it's just like you want to get out of the house. It's like the one thing we could do every day together that I'm looking forward to after finishing work and like getting out of the house. So It's just I like all you can eat sushi. That that's for me the biggest perk, yeah. For $30, it's such a good deal. And Sushi Neko 10 Goku is the other one, but it's smaller. This is in Vegas, yeah. $30 all you can eat, yeah. Oh yeah, well well our treat. $30 all you can eat. I have a question. So, do you think during someone's life at some point they should get a six pack? Cuz I heard this quote. Now Now, I heard Andrew Tate say it of all people. I am not I am not ever one to quote Someone reached out to him and they were like sad or something. I saw it when I had TikTok 3 months ago. You deleted TikTok? Yeah. Deleted TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube off I deleted TikTok. You deleted TikTok? I did. Weeks ago, man. Weeks ago. Yeah, someone else does it, yeah. Shout out to Josh. Thank you, Josh, yeah. Instagram, too, is good to get rid of if you can manage, you know. No, I do a lot of networking on Instagram. Okay. Anyways, he said something like someone reached out, they were sad, and they were like, "What do I do to fix my my sadness or whatever?" And he's like, "Get a six pack, then come back to me." It was depression. So, you know what I'm talking about. I I kind of agree with it. You agree that if someone is sad that they should get to the point of getting a six pack, and then if their sadness has not yet been fixed, or at least not fixed, but like improved to some capacity, then you think it's Here's what I think, and then I'll let you share this. Um I think unless you have like a strong chemical imbalance, in which case whatever you do is not going to fix it. Like going to the gym could only make such a big difference. I feel like a lot of people, not everybody. I I think there are certainly cases where it's warranted for medication. But I think in a lot of cases people are down, they're just not motivated. I think going to the gym, getting that six pack gives them one focus that all they have to do is do that one thing, and and having a goal that they hit is going to give them so much momentum to hit the next one and the next one. Then you get that six, you know, upward success, like a success spiral. So, I think that helps. So, I'm glad that I don't sound crazy, because I actually kind of agree with that to a certain amount as well, because I was not taking care of my body at all. And I was in like one of the worst mental places of my entire life. Like I'm not working out, I'm not feeling good in my own skin. And then all of a sudden I start taking care of my nutrition, and I start working out, and all of those sadness and ailments and whatever, like they start not disappearing, but definitely becoming smaller and smaller. To the point where like they're not even a big problem anymore. So, it's kind of interesting. Like you take care of yourself, you know, you get a little bit of a six pack. I don't have a six pack at all. But I feel good in my own skin and I'm working out. And it kind of like it kind of helped it. Absolutely. I mean we The longest relationship you have is with your body. So if you're not It's like a car. If you're if you're not going to wash it or put the right gasoline in it, it's not going to function properly. If you don't get a tune-up every now and then. I definitely think like what Whatever I I I'm not going to agree with Andrew Tate on anything, but like you know, I understand the perspective of if you're if you're feeling mentally down, maybe taking care of the physical could help in that capacity, for sure. And it's interesting cuz it's not only just like feeling down, but also like motivation feeling like other random, obviously positive emotions. Like I was not feeling motivated at all, and I was trying so hard to force motivation on myself, but I couldn't feel motivated. But as soon as I fixed my like sleeping habits, my diet, and my physical exercise problem, then all of a sudden motivation was easy to find. Yes. It's like you can't necessarily attack all of these other like non-tangible things, such as being motivated or inspired in life or excited, right, and happy all the time. You can't chase those things. I feel like you have to chase the root problem, which could sometimes be nutrition, diet, and like water intake, and exercise. And it also like releases chemicals in your brain that that that make you feel better and you know, adrenaline, serotonin, all of those things are really good for your mental health, too. Yeah, I've always found that I have more energy when I work out. Yeah, not less. Ironically, I feel like I was worried when when I did this you know, training for Creator Clash that a lot of business stuff would get put on the back burner. And ironically, like literally like 30 things that we've been waiting on for a long time have just come through the pipeline. Because when I get home from training, I'm like bam bam bam. I'm in the headspace of let's go. And it's it's really interesting once you like turn up the heat in one area of your life, how everything else sort of rises to that, too. I agree. When I had the most energy I've ever had in my entire life and motivation, well not motivation, but probably energy, was when I was running cross country competitively in high school. And I was running like 12 miles at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday and then obviously be tired from like, you know, 11:00 after the run till 1:00, but then after 1:00 I'd have so much energy for the rest of the day. It's interesting. Uh what does your husband think about all of this? Oh he I was like, I don't know if I should do this and he's like, let's go. It's going to be amazing. He's extremely supportive. Um but then, you know, a couple weeks in I was like, you got to like how do you actually feel about this? He's like, obviously I'm really freaking nervous for you but I can't I'm not going to say that. You need to be in the head space of let's go. Um but he is the oh my god, most supportive partner, creative collaborator, business partner of all time. I mean, he he's the one I'm like, I get home I'm like, okay, it's noon and I need to get on my computer. He's like, you need to go lay down for a half hour. Go. And it it's it's really amazing. But he is so excited. He's going to be like he's going to be ringside. Oh he's ringside? of like cuz our production team is coming to come to the video. Okay. I'll be with them. Like sim like wherever the cameras are allowed. Got it. Not in the corner. Okay. He's got to be freaking out internally though. Probably. Yeah. And he's putting on a good mask of just like I you know what, I'm good. Macy cuz I was sitting right next to her in the first creator class and she was like like a Chihuahua. You know how they like shake uncontrollably? That's literally how she was just like I would I would I would feel the same way. It's always crazy they're not going to do this at creator clash but like in in pro fights when they cut to the families of the fighters. It's crazy. Yeah. I'd be I'd be a mess. Like mental mentally, yeah. I'd be so I used to be so worried. Yeah. It's just like cuz you never know like I always go for like that worst case scenario. God forbid like any if anything happens it's like I would just feel so bad and like I'm just nervous and like I get I just get anxious for things like that. Like anything that involves like getting hurt or punched. Like even for me I was like I don't want to get like any sort of damage at all. It's like not worth it. Yeah and I felt like honestly it was a blessing in disguise the first creator clash didn't work out cuz I was before you know, 6 months before my wedding and one of the reasons why even when I didn't have an opponent we weren't going like full speed cuz Tony was like if you don't get a fight it's not worth it and and your wedding is this year so That makes sense. Black eye for the wedding. to have a Yeah. a good looking nose for the wedding pictures. Yeah. What was that like getting married and you got a week to plan for the whole thing? Yeah. So I mean wed- the wedding stuff was was amazing. It was such a special experience. I'm so excited for you. And I I feel like a lot of people approach what like content creators approach weddings like let's do 28 vlogs on the process and you know, really get what we can out of it and I was sort of like, I feel like everybody's done vlogs and and whatnot and so I wanted to do something that would actually like if we're going to film it, let's elevate the process. So I had this crazy idea like what if we just plan the entire thing in one week? Like clear our schedules, forget this whole like after work we're on the phone trying to figure things out when we're tired. Like just take a week Mhm. plan the whole thing. We lined up all the vendors and it was literally the best thing ever. Highly recommend to anybody getting married Mhm. because Monday to Friday it was done. And then the rest of the engagement we were just like chilling. It was so great. Mhm. Every decision was done. We knew exactly the budget for everything. Like we went right from picking the florals to picking the centerpieces so it was all fresh in our heads. And But how far in advance did that week occur? The week occurred and then when did you get married relative to that? Um we filmed that I want to say in February or March of last year and then we got married in October. So we'd been engaged We got engaged right before the pandemic. And throughout the pandemic we couldn't really do anything and so we were waiting like for things to be I I guess like available to us to do so. Now I'm just curious because obviously I'm totally ignorant to you know, throwing a wedding. I don't want to be that guy but I'm just curious. I see that look. You knew exactly where this is headed. Because here's the thing. You pick a spot. You get a nice picnic area. Yeah. You call your friend that maybe is a part of of a band or something like that. They come along. Tell them some songs to play. You get a DJ. Find one on Craigslist. You get a florist of I I don't know. You get a florist. Somebody that can supply flowers. You call your local taco truck. They come if you want to serve tacos. If you don't, totally fine. I'm serving tacos. And then that's like and then you send out the invitations. How could it be a Monday through Friday process? Like what do those hours look like? Like our vendors reject you? 5 days? I yes. Absolutely. If you're doing everything. If you're like let's just say like you guys sit down to make your wedding website for your guests. There's a website? Yeah. You need a website for people to RSVP to and to collect their meal preferences and the registry for people to buy you gifts if if you want that and you you know, you need to have like here are all the hotels and the recommendations and for all the people who are you know, spending money to fly out to wherever. Collecting all that. Just making the website it's like a 4-hour process of going on you know, the knot or whatever entering manually every single person's name, address, email, phone number, dietary restrictions. Doing all like that's 4 hours. Then you know, driving somewhere in LA to meet with a florist. That's 2 hours just to pick the flowers. Oh you're like meeting them. Well, to film it for sure. Oh sure. And we go to you go to the flower flower shop and you're like, I like this tulip and I don't like that. Like that driving all over the city, going to the place where you rent chairs, sitting in all the chairs, picking the chairs. It's time consuming. Wow. Okay, so you're sitting in the chairs. You know what it's like when people talk about wedding details, this is why people get stressed out. I wanted to create environment like let's just only focus on this and get it done. That makes sense. I think just as a person I'm a lot less like like I don't have taste, you know? So I would just I'd say to the in any no other way to say it but I'd call the florist and be like, okay, pick out the flowers good for a wedding. Really? Pick out chairs that are good for the wedding. Well, it's a very guy thing. It's a very guy thing to say. that, they're going to be like, what do you want? They're going to ask you questions. for comfy yet funky. You should just give them a budget. It's like, hey I want to spend X amount. Just give me whatever this will buy. Okay. But then the colors. Okay? So like let's say they pick the flowers. And it's like Okay, everything's white. Then you have to communicate to all the groomsmen, all the bridesmaids, your you know, the wife like your outfit is impacted by that if you care about those things. You don't have to. You don't have to. I feel like my wife probably would, you know? Yeah. I I think women grow up and they have this vision of like having this wedding and they think about it since they're a kid and they want they want to live up to that. That was the opposite of me. Really? I could not care less. I was like, I just you know, marriage, what is it? I don't know. Like I just I was I'm I've always been so career focused that I just don't care and I was like, what is the point? It's it's so much money. It's so much time and everyone gets stressed out and it seems really stupid. Um and ironically Garrett was like, this is going to be such a special opportunity for us. Let's have fun and sure we'll make some videos about it and see if that helps cover the cost of it and everything. So. So how much did the wedding cost? I'm not going to tell you how much it cost but I can tell you let's say it cost one gold coin. Via the content we created, we not only paid for that one gold coin but made two more gold coins. Wow. for it three times over. Yeah. It was it worked. Is that is that through sponsors or discounts on the wedding because of okay. Mhm. Okay, so Graham has this this idea. Okay? He wants to sell tickets to his wedding. What? To like a viewer or somebody who wants to come to the wedding. Yeah. Just like to viewers. So he wants to have like a a viewers table or something like that. I personally don't like the idea. But Here's the here's the thing. It's going to be the wedding cost got to be like 30 grand, 35k, like something like that all in for everything. That's your budget is what you're saying. No gosh, the budget initially was like I wanted to do this for like 15 but very quickly we realized you can't do that. My my thought, I can't make a profit from a wedding doing like sponsors or selling tickets to it. I couldn't do that. If I were making videos about it with with a sponsor in the video I could do it but not like the wedding itself. I just wouldn't feel right about monetizing that. that. Like this is my wedding video. It's going to be three times the cost of what it normally is. If you want it if you want to be in my wedding video. I don't I I don't want to monetize it though. It's it's it's something for me that it's not like an interest to like film it and have to think about like making a video on it. Absolutely. And that's why like we sponsored the and monetized two of the videos but like the actual video of the wedding is like there's copyrighted music. Like we were like, this is Martial arts. Yeah. But my idea with tickets was to sell like really expensive tickets but just make that go towards charity. So it's like if it's like 10k a ticket or something like that. Cuz what we want to do instead of gifts is is have everybody donate to an animal shelter. Or like adopt an animal or something like that instead. Yeah. It'd be weird if it's like, "Hey guys, I want pots and pans and like" There's no There's nothing. It's just claw at that point. right there with you. We're like, we we don't I don't know what we You know, we're I think you know, all of us at this table are extremely privileged to be in a different position than I think many people getting married are. So, um Yeah, I love that idea. But it might be different if I could make a video about the wedding and then write it off as a business expense because because then I could be like, well, this is a production for YouTube, the channel. I will say that that is definitely a strategy to employ. Yeah, cuz cuz we could have like a like a wedding wedding. You know, the marriage itself, but then like, hey, this this is an event that we are hosting for a YouTube video. Everyone agrees to be on the YouTube video. Yeah. That's smart. Yeah. And then you like don't have to pay some videographer to make a wedding video. You just have Alex do it. You know, Alex, we need to post this Imagine Alex with the 3:30 deadline. We need to post Then I hate this video review process. I hate this thumbnail. The thumbnail should be like Macy like running away from the wedding and me like left at the altar. It'd be like, it went horribly wrong. Would you wear a hat that just says public on it? Flip it backwards when you go in for the kiss. No, you wouldn't do it. I mean, people do that. We didn't do anything. I was like, this is crazy. I mean, people have like elements of their weddings sponsored. For us, like we were like no brand is going to touch the the picture. It's about the wedding. Yeah. Yes. But like, sure, if you want to pay premium for a mid roll in in this like wedding planning video, Mhm. makes sense. Right before the kiss occurs. Now I pronounce you husband and wife. Imagine this. I now pronounce you husband and wife right after we announce today's sponsor. And then it's like What is it? Raid: Shadow Legends. You know, every happy marriage is uh you know, you guys are playing Raid: Shadow Legends. I mean, listen, you got to make your your penny somewhere and I don't knock anybody that does that. Not my personal way of approaching it, but No, I I am I'm probably more on your side. There's a lot of options there. We got a year, you know, so Hmm. Lots and lots to think about. You said you hired a head of operations. So, what exactly does that position look like? Yeah, so I mean, hiring the head of operations was like a huge process and decision for us, but it was actually inspired by Yes Theory. So, Yes Theory, I I just think that the way they have run their company and organization is really admirable and something that I feel like we as creators occupy this unique space where yes, we're talent, but we're also business owners and running like a a production company um or a commercial company in a way. And so, when you are represented by like like a like a traditional capacity where someone's taking a percentage of something to help you grow your career, at a certain point that number exceeds the cost of a full-time employee and we were sort of at this like crossroads where it's like, we want Challenge Accepted to develop into its own brand, clothing, activewear, and operate more like a production company. And so, a head of operations for us was like a really exciting hire and we actually um you know, someone that we know worked for Lorne Michaels who created SNL. Um Created SNL? Yeah, and like all of the ancillary films from SNL properties. Um so, he he worked at his production company and we somehow convinced him to join our team as our head of ops. Geez. Um which was a crazy process, by the way. Um but basically, what a head of ops does is like oversee the operational aspect of the business. So, like um how to like there's like a whole sheet of responsibilities he has, but they range from like scheduling our weekly meetings, making sure videos get out the door, one-on-ones with all of our employees, anything like like editing oversight as well or something? Um not in a creative capacity, but in like a let's sit down with the editors and develop like schedules for everything. So, he like previously, it was me sort of running and overseeing, making sure everybody was hitting their mark, and now it's him. And he's also I'll be like, "Hey, can you reach out to this brand to do this thing?" Or let's you know, rather than always going through like a traditional ad agency type thing, we have an internal person who's thinking about that 24/7. an And this guy will manage them or whatever or Yeah, he he like oversees all of our brand deals. He like any client interaction is through him, which is really really nice. Huh. So, what kind of crazy challenges do you have coming up in the future? Do you have any idea? What do we have coming up? Let me think. So, boxing, and then after boxing, I think I told you guys about the Butler Academy last time. You did. Yeah. It's finally coming out. I can't wait for that one. It's been a long time in the making. Graham's going to hire one of I would just be like churning these videos out. Well, I mean, That's too long to wait for Butler Academy. is. Jack, you should take that Butler Academy. It would help you out a lot, man. Yeah, I mean, part of part of the struggle for us was like hiring. Hiring was an incredibly long and arduous process and now I feel like, okay, we've got two full-time long forms. We have Olivia doing short form, Nick, head of ops. It's uh new era is about to happen, which is really exciting. And then after that, we have I went to CSI Academy. So, I solved a crime scene. Did you like a real crime scene or like I don't What? When you say solve a crime scene, I'm like Could be a real crime scene, Jack. Lee uh I think we asked if we could do like when we were filming, we're like, "Oh, if if something happens tonight, can we like go with you guys and film that?" And they're like, "Absolutely not." Obviously, we wouldn't just, you know, for uh for the sake of the victims and the families and everything, it doesn't make any sense. Um but so, we did the mock crime scene and then one of our friends went to Juilliard and he is like extremely good actor. He was actually on Dexter as like uh the new season. Are you guys familiar with Dexter? I'm Okay. But you know how Dexter like finds criminals and kills them himself. He is like one of the people and it has like an arc as a villain and gets stabbed by Dexter. Can you share who it is? Yeah, his name is Steven Robertson. He's extremely talented. So, we called him and we're like, "Would you like be our bad guy?" So, the last part of the video is me like with a detective partner interrogating him in character. It's crazy. And we sat there for two hours cuz, you know, like there was a coach there who like briefed him and they're like, "This is your character and this is like only give them info when they really push you in this way." So, it's a challenge for me and also like, you know, he's acting his ass off. Being a crazy person in the chair is awesome. That's really cool. Yeah. You should do LAPD for a day. I did a SCPD is one of our one of our one of our videos, but um police academy is crazy. Absolutely crazy. How does that compare to boxing? I would say that when I went to police academy, I was tased and pepper sprayed and I would never do either of those again. I would I would rather I would rather fight somebody. Let me say this. What was worse, getting pepper sprayed or tased? Pepper sprayed. By a million miles. Because when you get pepper sprayed, I hope no one watching this has ever experienced this. It lasts for 48 hours. 48 hours? tell you this. You think, "Oh, you just get pepper sprayed and then like wipe it and then it's gone." It activates in your eyes and then you start crying. Then it's in your tears and it burns your skin and goes down like your whole face. And then that lasts, I want to say, an hour like searing pain. Really? And then it starts to subside, but then when you shower, it reactivates in water. How? And then when you're showering, it goes down your body and burns a lot of other places further down your body. Yeah, it's awful. I don't like I see them just like drinking milk or pouring like milk on their face. Does that work at all or no? Um I'm sure milk helps. I I was not given milk when I went to the police academy and it was it's crazy. nothing that neutralizes that? I feel like there's like but again, they they didn't they didn't have a you How come no one's invented something that neutralizes that? Like you get pepper sprayed, sure, but there should be like like a serum or something that is like spray it on top of it and it's just like That that's probably I wish I had that, whatever it is. I'd be just curious cuz like, how are there no long-term ramifications of like a searing pain on your eyeballs? I feel like that's just not what human bodies were made for. I'm sure people have had, you know, you know, long-term effects from this stuff. I didn't, but it it it was long I thought it was going to be like a 5-minute ordeal. 48 hours. And I I was like literally like crying in the shower. I was like, "Oh my god, it just won't stop. It's so bad." Um but getting tased is actually way better because when you're tased at police academy, it only lasts like 5 seconds. What does it feel like to be tased? It feels like you are being electrocuted and riding a jackhammer at the same time like on a construction site. Your whole body is violently shaking and all of your muscles are cramping. Does it hurt at all to for those little prongs that go in your body? So for mine, I didn't actually get shot. They clipped it onto me. That's much better. Before. Under your skin? Yeah. Uh no, onto my clothes. Okay. Yeah. But then the current goes between the two prongs. Right. Wow. in between, I think it was like my shoulder and my calf. Yeah. Like literally, I'm like like you it's it's it's a um extremely violent sensation. Right, but the immediate pain of when you're actually being tased is more intense than the most intense part of pepper spray, but the pepper spray is a problem cuz it lasts longer. Hm. Yeah, pepper spray is a problem because it lasts longer. If pepper spray only lasted 10 seconds like what I experienced when I was uh voluntarily tased, um I I guess I would have done that instead. But uh getting tased in that moment is is extremely scary. blank. Yeah. Yeah, it it it uh like you hear them count down and then it just throws you back and you're just shaking and all your muscles are cramping and it's like extremely painful, but when they stop, you fall to the ground. And obviously like you're in shock afterwards, Mhm. but physically it's over when it's over. Do you have any other like random phobias or trivial fears? Like I'm scared of getting my blood drawn. Do you have anything like that? You know, when I had to get my blood drawn for Creator Clash, Oh, yeah. in the chair and I was shaking like a Chihuahua. Oh my god. Terrified. Well, I just I just don't like I don't know. I I I Does anybody like getting your blood drawn? I Some people just don't mind it. Yeah. Yeah, but I okay. I don't know if I want to get tased. Not a fan of that. I don't like heights. I don't like heights. But like I've skydived and stuff. was that? I feel like terrifying. What I've heard from people that are scared of heights that have skydived, if that's past tense, is when you jump out it's such a surreal experience. It's not like hanging over like the glass railing at like the mall, the second story of the mall. Like that's different cuz it's actually a feasible height, but when you're jumping out of a plane, your mind just cannot comprehend it. So it's not even like fear, which is what you're feeling, it's something completely different, like a out of body out of mind experience. It is because the view is the same when you're in a plane. I I'm a person who feels safe in planes. I don't get plane anxiety, but when I look out, I don't think I'm going to fall there. So when you're in the plane going up to skydive, yeah, it's really freaky stepping off, but once you're in the initial freefall, it's like this is the view I have out of plane. Maybe that's not the right way, but like whereas when you're standing on a cliff or like over the railing at the mall, you can see the bottom more clearly. You can Yeah, you can relate. And I feel like bungee jumping is 50 times scarier. Oh my god, I'm never going to do that. You know what I mean? You see it. Whereas skydiving Also just getting like whipped like that. I'm not I'm not into that. Yeah. What's the initial feeling like when you're jumping out of a plane? Like your stomach just go Pretty much and I and you it's like you're screaming, but nothing's impacted. Like if I were to scream in this room, we'd hear the volume, it would echo off the walls, but when you scream falling out of a plane, you can't even hear yourself. So you feel completely powerless. I've no desire to do that. Come on, let's go. The highest I've ever jumped was a body at a roof like this and then had a pool. You jumped from there? I jumped from the roof to the pool. than skydiving. I didn't I didn't think so at all, but I remember the feeling of just like your stomach just go Yeah. But then it lasted longer than I felt like it should have. Yeah. You know, like a roller coaster kind of goes away. This was like still falling and I'd imagine that to feel somewhat similar. It actually really hurt to hit the water. I bet. I was not expecting that. Yeah. Gosh. Not expecting that. We should go skydiving in Vegas. Would never. Yeah. I've no You guys No. I won't do it. Come on, let's do it. I won't I would not I I have I've no desire to. No desire. So what do you say to someone like Graham, where you are very comfortable being uncomfortable? Graham is extremely uncomfortable to get uncomfortable. What would you say to him? Do you think it's fine for him to live this life? Do you think it's okay in comfort, right? Not venturing out of his box. What would Andrew Tate say? Uh I have no He would He would probably say sign up for his course or whatever, which is also probably a waste of money. But um you know, if if you were scared to go skydiving, I would call Jack and say, "Buy the tickets. Let's all go." And you probably have Graham's credit card and then Graham would be like, "The investment's been made." credit card, but I I just what I probably should not. Um so you What would you say to Graham? Do you think it's, you know, I think it's fair to be scared of skydiving. I I am scared of it. But if it's something where you're like, "I want to do this before I die," you just got to sign up. Like I don't. Okay, well then don't do it. I don't want to feel pressured. You shouldn't feel pressured ever to do something that you don't see finds value. I'd rather go to Japan between the two. I know that sounds like But I want to I want to go to Japan. Why did you Why Why Why Japan? I'm saying feeling I've always wanted I'm saying if you like something to do before you die, I want to go to Japan. Okay. That would mean that would mean way more to me. Yes. Not Not tomorrow, but Why not tomorrow? When is your next vacation? Do you vacation? Uh well, Tampa. That's not a vacation. You are working the entire time. No, I'm not. You are literally making video vacation for me. So, this is a fun little exercise. I think about this quite often. So everybody like they look at Graham, they look at Gary V, they look at certain people like that like, "You grind. You put yourself through challenges every single day, right? It's a 24/7 gig." Stuff like that. And people see that as extremely challenging and uncomfortable, right? To work at such lengths, right? Every single day. For Graham, it's not challenging at all. For Graham it would be challenging to do the opposite because this is now what has become easy for him. This is his preferable life, right? So that's what I think and I think for Graham, even for you after putting yourself through so many different challenges except this, you probably have like this very high standard of like the next one. Wouldn't it be extremely uncomfortable and challenging for you to do something exact like on the other end of the spectrum for the same way that it would be uncomfortable for Yeah, maybe something like that. In the same way that for Graham it would be extremely uncomfortable to like lounge for a day, you know what I mean? Mhm. You could do a video eating McDonald's, Burger King and doing nothing but watching TV for a week. would that be for you? Compared to all the other challenges. That would be really challenging for me. Because I don't And I think in the same way that I think skydiving would be challenging for you is because I think both of us in these unique situations don't see a benefit in the outcome. Right. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. Tampa's a vacation for you? It is. I can't. Like are you going to at least like, I don't know, go to Disney World, like drive over or something? No, no. We were there last year. Okay. Yeah, there's nothing to it. You You go to Disneyland here. It's like the same thing. It's the same thing. Yeah. Oh, we are going to be staying by the way with Ben Mallah for 2 days. Really? Yeah, really. Oh, that's nice. That's cool. Is Are they in Tampa or He's in Clearwater. Oh. Yeah, so I'm doing a I'm doing a video with Ben. A 4-year update video with Ben Mallah. Yeah. I love Clearwater. Oh, and he's going to give his old clothes to Alex. Oh, that'll be exciting. Yep. He's a real estate mogul guy. He's like He looks like an Italian mob boss from the '50s. He's huge both in height and in size and he chain smokes cigarettes, but he's a total boss. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So Clearwater. Clearwater. Real estate there is pretty nice. Some of it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's not as I mean, the thing is I compare it to LA and so everything there is like, "Wow, everything is like half off." But it is nice to be on the water. Oh my god. It's cool. So he's right on the water. He's right on the water. He's got this like $20 million house that takes up three lots and the home is got to be like 20,000 square He has a lazy river. He's got a lazy river that goes through his backyard. Wow. massive and it's right on the water. a a river and an ocean. He's got all the different waters. Oh, and he also has a bowling alley. Wow. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah, I mean, that place is it's literally an idyllic town. It's where The Truman Show was shot, so Is it? I think so. Yeah, Clearwater and uh Wow, that would be interesting. But yeah, they filmed it. I'm pretty sure. That was great That was a great movie. Yeah. Yeah, and guess who did um some of the music, Jack? Oh, your man. Philip Glass. Oh. Who were you thinking? My man. Who else is my man? Danny Elfman. No, no, no. Philip Glass. Oh, okay. Yeah. So how long are you going to be in Florida then? Uh A week? Uh 6 days, 5 days. Okay, yeah. I get there on Wednesday, come back uh you know, that next week. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. So do you have any questions for me or Creator Clash or anything, really? Yeah, I mean, what's your advice to me ahead of Creator Clash? Yeah, uh I would say it's the mental aspect. I didn't treat myself that well. Like mentally I was just like, "Tune it out. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it. Like just get it over with." And I don't think that was the best mindset to have. I was so anxious that like the entire day was just like yes, it's finally going to be over. I was more focused about just getting through it than I was about like doing well I feel. So looking back I focus a lot more on doing well. Yeah. Wow. I just wanted it to be over like I was so relieved afterwards and I was like finally. I think I'll be relieved too. I think I think we all I think we all will be. Yeah. But it's a different experience than what you would expect. I think just like the crowd but then again like you're listening to the crowd cheering and stuff like that but like that's different. It's seeing it like walking in that room seeing all the people. And then I felt self-conscious knowing that so many people were watching me and like everything I do like someone was going to see it and it's being filmed. and be like this was this and that was that. Exactly. And then I went into thinking like if I threw more punches then I might have an advantage but I just tired myself out way too fast. Wow. So conserving energy. Yes. You almost want to be a little bit more conservative in the beginning. Just I guess feel out your opponent a little bit more versus me just like going in and like I got to do this cuz if I threw more punches like I'm not going to get hit. I hope that I have that opportunity too because I you know I would love for the first round to be like feeling it out but I have a feeling it'll be she wants an early knockout. It could be. The other thing just make sure to keep your hands up. I thought the same I thought the same thing. I was like everyone's putting their hands down. Why are they doing that? Like cuz again you forget everything. But the most important for me was like the right hand. I'd put my right hand down or when I would do a jab like I would naturally jab right hand down. It's just like an instinctual sort of thing but you It's crazy how when you're watching it's so easy to be like why didn't I do this or why didn't this boxer do that thing and then when you're in there Yeah. Oh I'm also going to say it does not help to watch the fights before. I think I would have done Like in your when you're in the waiting room? Yeah yeah. I think I would have done much better if it were just I had no idea what's going on. So I think I would have done better. Was watching the fights before that freaked you out more? It did. It just stressed me out. Yeah because I saw everyone that was going out was coming back and like they all had an injury and I'm like what's my injury going to be like? And so That's an awful head space. And like you know yeah in the moment like obviously now looking back no one was seriously injured and like everyone recovered. But just watching that I think it stressed me out even more and I just got in my head about it. evokes um like in Gladiator movies That's how I felt. are waiting to go like fight a lion or whatever and then they bring the body back of the person before and you're just like Yeah in front of everybody. Yeah that's how it felt to me. Yeah cuz everyone you'd see them come back and like I I forget the one guy's name but like he had a broken nose and I was just like oh man that's nuts. [ __ ] Oh my god. Yeah cuz um Hayley who fought last year Yeah. Um she and I trained at the same gym and so one of the wonderful things about this extremely abbreviated fight camp has been I've gotten to train and spar with her which has been Oh that's fantastic. Yeah. But um you know we'll be you know one of us will go first and the other will go second and Oh my god I I am Like I feel like we have a unique bond the two of us. Oh for sure. And we we we share some of our we each have different coaches but then we each share some as well. Mhm. And so I I really hope that you know whether it's me going first or her going that we can feed off of each other and support each other rather than be like oh my god you got a broken nose and now I got to go like that. Ooh. Exactly. So if you could just avoid watching I think that would help. Do they have like TVs backstage? did in mine. Yeah and of course everyone is huddled around the TV. It's it's hard like cuz you hear it. And and you can also it on the TV and then you hear the crowd. because your room at least my room was like 60 ft away from the entrance of the for the walkout. And so it's like you just walk down a hallway turn right and you're there. And so we were kind of going in and out you can kind of peer out and see like what's going on there but like and it's weird with the delay too because you would hear that like a few seconds before you would see it on the screen. So it's like you hear a thing and you're like what just happened you see it on the screen. Oh my god. Yeah. So if you can it might just hype yourself up to like put on like music or like airpods tune it out be by yourself. Yeah. But then again in the guys locker room there were like 20 people in there. there's going to be like three in mine. For you guys yeah it's going to be a lot easier. Alana There are a few other female fights. So it'll be like five of us I guess in each locker room. Yeah. So it might be a little bit easier than than ours like 20 people in there. And then every fighter had like two to three people with them. So that's how we got like such a big group. People are all like you know doing their warm-ups and stuff like that. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. So if you could just headphones in just zone out meditate just visualize it I think that'll go a long way. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh my gosh I I'm like getting butterflies just thinking about it right now. That's crazy. butterflies like remembering this stuff. That's why I'll I'll never do it again. Yeah I'm glad you'll be there though. I feel like you're a friendly familiar face I can be like Yeah. And you'll be like get it together. See I'm going to be doing that video. If they allow me in your locker room I have a feeling they won't but if they do I would love to get your take like before all of this or like You're going to see me vomiting in a trash can before. Oh the the one thing I will say Michael Reeves said the issue and kind of so did I. I was very nervous my mouth was getting very dry beforehand so I was drinking water. And I had the sensation of having to go pee once they wrap once they wrap your gloves and you can't do anything. And so Michael was talking about yeah he had his trainer pull down his pants for him That's going to be me. went to the bathroom. So for me I think it was more of a mental thing cuz I once I knew like these gloves are wrapped you have like 30 minutes and and you want to be like on your game and it's like if you feel like you have to go to the bathroom like it's going to throw you off and I was like oh crap now I like this is going to throw me off. Is there anything else you guys want to talk about? Yeah we'll just wrap it up with something light. Um what do you think is the meaning of life? Oh my god. light some light discussions yeah some easy questions. I think the meaning of life is different for everybody. I guess for me it's similar to how I'm approaching this boxing match where I don't ever want like days or a month or a year of my life to go by where I feel like I could have I I could have made it more of what I wanted. So not necessarily like like the idea of I I wish I could have done more but I think for me it's like is everything I'm doing in every day and every moment fulfilling and exciting. Cuz at the end of this I mean we're all going to die and nothing after that matters to me as as an individual. What do they call it the the age-old adage where it's like if you're on your deathbed you want to look back and and be happy with with all of the decisions that you or that you said yes to something rather than just that you said no to something. Absolutely. I just really want to like have a rich and exciting life of all of whatever life has to offer. There. How do you one-up this? Do you know what's next? Yeah do you know what's next after? I mean we we definitely have like a lot of fantastic videos coming after this. And this is going to be the longest video. I mean this is over a year of footage which is crazy. Um I don't know exactly at this point like what the next like massive project will be but I mean I've also learned like some of the the best performing and most impactful videos we make don't have to take a year to make. They can be shot in a day so Yeah. I'm really open to whatever honestly. Do F1. I want to do that and I also want to do pit crew. Ooh. Because they have these facilities where pit crew are trained and they like practice like throwing the tires and you know all that. Yeah. I would do both of those. I think that would be so cool. Yeah. Anything else you want to talk about? I guess I just want to say future me I hope you're a winner. Oh I love it. I want to shout out Eric Carrick from Tri Carrick for letting us do this video. Yes Eric thank you so much. Eric Carrick to shoot him to shoot him out to shoot Yeah We shot We shot him out. We shot him out. We we shoot him out here. man. Thank you Michelle for coming here on the Ice Coffee Hour. All of your links will be left down below in the description. If you want to shout anything out if you want to shoot anything out go ahead. What do you want to shoot out? You can shoot me out by subscribing to my YouTube channel. There we go. So with that said you guys thank you so much for watching. Links down below in the description feel free to check them out and until next time. Cool. That's fantastic. Lovely.