About This Episode
He’s asked where his mental toughness comes from, and he traces it back to the earliest years of his life. He describes growing up without stability, moving through group homes, and learning survival at a young age. Those experiences forced a mindset of endurance, adaptability, and staying alert — long before sports were ever part of the picture. He explains how the environment shaped him, and how perseverance became a built-in response to hardship. Watch full episode here: https://youtu.be/_3gM2NzIy1M #austinandmattpodcast #austinandmatt #podcastclips #podcast #MentalToughness #Resilience #FighterMindset #LifeStory #Motivation
Questions Answered in This Episode
What were the circumstances of the speaker's childhood before being adopted?
Before being adopted, the speaker describes a rough childhood, running around on the streets under the age of 10, getting into trouble, and lacking parental supervision. He recalls living in a car after running away at 10 and engaging in petty crime to survive.
What happened to the speaker when he was 10 years old behind a 7-Eleven?
At 10 years old, the speaker got into a fight behind a 7-Eleven with a group of other kids. During the altercation, someone tried to stab him in the neck, but he raised his arm in defense and was stabbed in the arm instead with a lock blade knife.
What happened after the speaker was stabbed?
After being stabbed, the speaker walked into the 7-Eleven and told someone he thought he had been stabbed. He then pulled the knife out of his arm, causing blood to spurt out, and was subsequently taken to a hospital.
What happened to the speaker after waking up in the hospital?
After waking up in the hospital, the speaker found himself handcuffed to the bed and began his journey through various group homes. He describes these homes as being poorly managed and unpleasant, leading him to run away frequently.
Where did the speaker end up after failing in multiple group home placements?
After cycling through multiple group homes, the speaker ended up at Shamrock Boy Home at 13 years old. He contrasts it sharply with previous placements, noting that the other homes were dirty and unpleasant, while Shamrock Boy Home appeared to be better.
Topics
Full Transcript
What do you attribute your mental toughness towards? Cuz you were well known for cardio in the octagon and obviously it was due to training, but that seems to be due to your mental toughness. So, how how do you where did you find your mental toughness and how where do you where do you credit that? Yeah, I would say the way that um uh my life first started, I mean, I came up uh I didn't have a home obviously. I was in a group home. I got adopted. I think most people know that. Uh but I started out at 10 years old and um you know prior to that uh it was rough. Um I was running around on the street quite a bit. Even at the even under the age of 10, I was still running around and doing things I shouldn't have been doing. Had really no parents around to raise me. At 10 years old, I ran away. I was living in a car. Um end up getting into some scraps and fights. Um ripping off stores, ripping people off. uh just making a living and ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd and was behind 7-Eleven. Got into a scrap with the a bunch of other kids. And again, this at 10 years old, got stabbed. Do you remember what the scrap was about? No. No. Cuz it was didn't have to have a scrap in those days, right? It was just somebody walked into your area, you know what's going off. What are you doing? Yeah. That's all there. You're looking for it, right? You're not looking for for just to be sitting around and, you know, hang out with one. It's always you're looking for trouble. and we found it. And uh one thing led to another and I had a a knife stuck in my arm. A guy tried to stab me and he was going for my neck. I put my arm up and stuck me with the uh this this lock blade. Stuck me in the arm and and uh once everybody realized what had happened, everybody took off. And so I remember walking around to the front of the store and going in and I was kind of dizzy at this time cuz blood was coming out. And I remember I said, "Hey, I think I got stabbed." And I there's a knife in your arm. I pulled my arm pulled the knife out of my arm and then blood just spurted out and then I don't end up in a hospital. And so it just kind of gives you an idea of what kind of kid I was at a young age and son of this my surroundings and what I was growing up under. Right. I don't think that me and and my spirit and the my person that I am deep down was that way. Um, I believe that that's just the circumstances in which I was living in and it was a way for me to survive and I just went with the flow. And so ending up uh in in the hospital and and obviously I woke up handcuffed to the hospital bed um I started my journey down uh the placement when placement um in the into different group homes and failed a lot of those uh homes you would go into. I just think back now I was like, "How in the world they ever get licensed?" I mean, these people were horrible. Uh, so you run away from there and you know, you get you get caught, you get locked up again. And then I ended up at Shamrock Boy Home at 13 years old after going through three years of constant in and out of different homes and stuff and failures. And my mindset was pretty much survival. Like I did what I I did and the things I did because I needed to survive. in my my thought process of of how I was surviving. And um so I ended up there and the it that was incredible because all the other homes I went to is like you talked earlier about the the the smell of piss and holes in the wall and everything is dirty and it just grungy and you just you're just nasty. To us it was normal though. I walked into it. It was a bed, right? It was people I kind of related to. The place kind of the home I kind of grew up. It was no no big deal. It was the same same. But you walk into those places and you realize, man, this place is just, especially now, you look at wow, how would they ever get licensed?