Living Your Best Life in the Shadow of Death

Chris Albert 00:00:01 (link to this point)

Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel as you always do that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, I haven't touched you yet. That's a quote by Carlos Castaneda from his book Journey to Ixtlan. It's a really, really awesome book.

And that man, he had so many amazing thoughts. And this is another one. In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions. And I think, you know, a lot of times, for those of us who are here on this earth, we often think as if we're here forever.

We think that our lives aren't going to end. We know that we're going to die, of course, but, you know, it's those times when we face every small problem in our lives as if it's a tragedy, or we stress out needlessly over minuscule things. We seem to forget that we're just here for a little while. In the grand scheme of things, we're just specs in this vast universe. Someday, we're all going to die.

In fact, you know, about a hundred years from now, everybody listening to this podcast, everybody that we know, everybody that we have in our lives right now, this world as we know it, it's gonna be dead. I'm not talking about the world ending or anything like that, but we're not gonna be around unless there's some sort of miracle of science. And for a lot of people, that's a grim thought. It's really, really grim. And in my younger days, used to torture myself over this.

I used to think about death a lot. I used to think about not wanting to die. But as I got older, I came to understand something, and that is that knowing you're going to die is a gift. And the reason why it's a gift is because it helps you to understand something. You don't have any reason not to take risks.

You don't have any reason not to take chances, and you really don't have any right to lay down in misery and to keep yourself there, because you only have a little bit of time here on this earth and if you're going to die anyway, you might as well be trying to make this life that you have, this precious gift that you've been given, into something that's worth living. My guest today is a gentleman I came in contact with a few years ago. His name is Michael. And he's had brain cancer twice now, and he's going into his second battle. He's he's had a few brain term a brain tumor before this that was non malignant, then he had a a cancerous tumor, and now he's he's dealing with a glioblastoma.

And he is approaching it in a way that I think can give us all a real appreciation for this life. And some things you're gonna get from this episode, it's not a grim episode, it's not a tragic episode, I guess you might call it. It's it's not like that at all. Mike considers his cancer to be a gift, a gift from God. A gift that's allowed him to appreciate why he's here, and a gift that he believes has shown him his mission in life.

And the reason why I really wanted to bring him on to the show is to give you all a sense of appreciation for what you have right now. What you have are options. You have decisions. And with every day, you can decide that you're not going to change anything. You can decide that you're going to be depressed.

You can decide that you are going to be down. And that's not to say that I think that depression is is something you can just get out of that quickly. But but it is to say that, no, you have the ability to make a decision about the things that happen to you in this life. You have the ability to make a decision about whether you're going to allow them to affect you negatively or whether you are going to allow them to help you to grow. And this brings, you know, my thoughts back to something that our current secretary of defense and a great man said, James Mattis, he said that when it comes to something like post traumatic stress disorder, we shouldn't be characterizing it as a disorder.

Because a lot of times you can get something called post traumatic growth, post traumatic stress growth. And I think that this is a real example of how we can actually take horrible things that happened to us in our lives. Take the tragedy, and we can turn it into something that's a gift to us, but more importantly, a gift to those around us, a gift to the world, a gift to others who are dealing with hardships. Because as I've said before, and the the reason why I do this podcast is because I truly, truly believe that the veteran community, those who are listening to this podcast, they're the sleeping giant in this country. We have in our community great leaders.

We have in our community warriors. We have in our community talent. Talent that can make this country into a place that's going to have a gleaming future. A place that is going to experience growth, a place that's based on values. But I think that a lot of us in this community need to make that decision that regardless of what's happened in our past, what's happened to us that's kept us down, that we're gonna make the decision to truly live.

So just before we get into this interview, I just wanna give you guys a couple of notes. Number one, if you like this podcast and you like the content we produce here at Warrior Soul, you should definitely consider joining the Warrior for Life program. Now what this is is program that we put together to create a community around everything we do at Warrior Soul. And that is delivering tools, tactics, ideas, and covering concepts that'll help our listeners to help The US military veteran community and anybody else who's willing to listen to live their best life. And so what you're gonna find in there is some of the best information you can get about fitness, about nutrition, about optimizing yourself, about becoming mentally stronger, and about basically training yourself for all the difficult things that you're going to encounter while you're here on this earth.

Beyond that, what you're going to be able to get is connection to a community of other like minded individuals who are also trying to make the best out of their time here and going after goals and making their lives better, whether it be through career, whether it be through relationships, or whether it be through better life practices. Everybody who signs up is going to get a free twenty one day testosterone optimization workout and a free testosterone optimization checklist. Now, I know that there's a lot of women who probably want to sign up as well. The issue is this, guys. Most of our listeners are men, and one of the biggest barriers to entry for men in living their best life is hormonal deficiency.

And so if you get one of these, definitely hand it over to the man in your life. Or if you have friends who are men, definitely hand those over as well. But gentlemen out there, you're going to be able to get some of the best information you can get on optimizing your testosterone levels naturally without falling prey to some of these pills, powders and potions that the supplement industry is trying to shove down your throats right now. So if you guys are interested in joining, both veterans and non veterans are welcome. And you can sign up over at www.warriorsoulagoge, that's agoge.com, and just click the main sign up link there.

Like I said, it's completely free and you are gonna get tons and tons of value out of this. The other thing I wanted to mention is that this podcast is sponsored by F Bomb Nutrition, absolutely awesome company run by two of my favorite people in the world, Ross and They have been so supportive of us and they're so supportive of the veteran community. Ross and Cara have been sending packages of their product overseas to the veterans, active duty military members so that they can use them to supplement their MREs and to get some good nutrition and some good healthy fats in their diet. My favorite product of theirs are their macadamia nut butters, and they mix them up with chocolate, mix them up with sea salt, mix them up with coconut butter, and they're absolutely delicious. They taste like absolutely amazing.

There's no sugar in them, and you can get 20% off of your first order if you head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and you use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. With that, guys, let's get into this interview with mister Mike McClintock on living your best life in the shadow of your own death.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible with one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

I mean, you had a lot of challenges ahead of you as far as things went. And you tell us a little bit about those challenges. What's happened to you over the past couple of years? It's been about how long since you started dealing with what you're currently dealing with?

Mike McClintock 00:12:45 (link to this point)

The spring of two thousand and five, I started having what came to be known later as epileptic seizures. I had no idea what they were because I was not diagnosed epileptic ever. And so they progressively got worse over the summer, I went to the doctor and was sent directly for a CAT scan, and about the next day that I, in fact, had a brain tumor and would have to have that surgically removed. So that was end of summer of two thousand and five, August. And so I was told that I had plenty of time because it was a low grade, slow growing type of tumor that I could wait basically as long as I wanted to have it cut out.

So I waited until the following June and had it cut out. And I was off work for twenty days and I was back at full work, unloaded, no restrictions driving a semi after twenty days. So, I went yearly for a follow-up MRI to make sure nothing was coming back. And in August 2010, they found the tumor coming back. And because of the first operation and follow-up went so swimmingly and smooth, I dove right in and said, well, let's get the team reassembled and knock it out.

And they did, and the second recovery was twice as hard as the first. And I was having seizures, like in the Recovery Room, somebody would come in the room and turn a light on and I would have a seizure. I was real photosensitive for a long time. It took about three weeks in the hospital that time, two and a half at least. And I was sent home and started recovering and I had to go through chemo and radiation that time because the pathology came back as cancerous, whereas the first one was a real slow advancing benign tumor.

So, I've gone every year since and had a six month or twelve month scan every year. And I always go as close to the same date as possible to keep an even spread on the images. So, this year was the first scan in eight years that they found something coming back. So, they've all been the exact mirror image for eight years where no change, unremarkable change. But the mystery was a very remarkable change.

It went from being basically a black hole in the sky, if you can imagine looking at telescope pictures, to all of a sudden a huge constellation of stars that wasn't there. So I knew right away when the doctor called and said that if they needed me to come in, that they weren't calling for high fives and balloons that I passed this test. I've been down it enough to know that they only call you when it's not good news. So I got my wife and my mom and some other family members together. We went out there and talked to the doctor and gave me the news and I said, all right, well, let's set up surgery and cut it out.

And I just sent my wife and kids away for two weeks and I sat in my garage for two weeks, turned on some music, did a lot of meditating and soul searching and focused every ounce of positivity that I could muster, and basically built a Jenga statue inside of my soul out of positive energy and focused on that when I was young and how I used to have compassion and the fire that just burned inside you. Anytime you wanted something, you just tapped into yourself and went and got it. I just focused on me. I decided it's time to be selfish, and I'm gonna take everything I've got and build myself up and get ready for this and do everything that I didn't do last time to prepare for the fight. Just like a boxing match or any MMA fighter would do.

This is for the title. So I'm training like I'm fighting for my life, for everything as I am.

Chris Albert 00:16:53 (link to this point)

So let me ask you this Mike, because you've got, so this is the third time you're going through this. The first time was benign, right? Yes. The second time was cancerous and then right now you're going through, it's called a glioblastoma, right? Yes.

Right. And this

Mike McClintock 00:17:11 (link to this point)

I think it's called glioblastoma multiforme recurrent, which just means it keeps coming back.

Chris Albert 00:17:18 (link to this point)

So the first time when this hit you, the very first time when you were told you had cancer and brain cancer, what was going through your mind that very first time?

Mike McClintock 00:17:31 (link to this point)

You know, I've never one time had the, oh no, why me? What did I do? It's never been like that, Chris. It's just the first time that I got it and got told the news, was in shock and disbelief. How do you I've never even heard of this type of cancer.

How do you get this type of cancer? I've heard of lung and liver and kidney and testicular and all that. I've never heard of brain cancer. How do I have brain cancer? What did I do that caused me to get brain cancer?

It kind of confuses you. Like if you had lung cancer, you would know, Oh, I guess I shouldn't have smoked all those years, or whatever. You could be like, Well, I guess I should lay back on the drinking when the doc told me that, but no one ever gave me warnings about anything I was doing that might cause brain cancer. So I was just in a lot of shock and trying to process that, like, it doesn't make sense. Really turns your world upside down.

Chris Albert 00:18:28 (link to this point)

But you got through it. What was the biggest thing that helped you get through it the first time it happened?

Mike McClintock 00:18:35 (link to this point)

Well, I'll tell you honestly, being raised by Marines and having the short amount of experience on the island that I do, I am full of esprit de corps, and I know how to dig deep and pull out things out of myself when you think you got nothing left to give, and there's always something in the tank for you to grab ahold of and pull up. I believe that. I've always, my entire life, when an obstacle gets put in front of me, if I'm going for something that I want, I'm getting it. I just have to make it over, under, through, or around the obstacle, and that's gonna happen because I don't, when my eyes are on the prize, I don't stop until I'm holding it, putting it up in the air and showing it off that I got it. I leave no doubters behind.

Chris Albert 00:19:22 (link to this point)

And so you go through that first time, and you come back, you beat it that first time. And then second time, right? So you have a wife, you have kids, you got people who love you, people who depend on you. I know going through that yourself, it's very difficult for the people around you. That's gotta be extremely difficult as well.

How is it? How'd they take it? How did they get through it with you? And then how did they take it the second time?

Mike McClintock 00:19:58 (link to this point)

Well, I think most importantly, I think, you know, they feed off of me and my energy, So obviously I try to stay as positive and upbeat for them as possible because if they see dad falling apart and losing his stuff, that's not gonna keep them tight and keep them boosted up, the whole morale thing. They see the captain falling down, it's okay, let's all fall down. So that helps keep me motivated to keep up, to keep them going, but it's not easy, man. I'm here to tell you, you know it. It's not easy, but I just keep on doing it.

Everybody that I see, they're like, Man, you're amazing. You got some of the best or some of the worst news anybody can get, but you're just running around smiling and singing and talking. I'm having a blast. I don't know how much longer I got, but I know I'm gonna get everything about every day that I've got left. I'm gonna squeeze every drop of sunshine and love I can out of it, and I'm gonna do whatever I want, you know, within reason, obviously.

I can't go rob banks or nothing, but

Chris Albert 00:21:10 (link to this point)

Yeah. It's I think, you know, one of the things you're getting at here is that, you know, this world is crazy. Right? The the it's it's a crazy freaking world that we live in. Yeah.

And and, you know, a lot of us, we go through our lives with a lot whole heck of a lot of fear. Right? We go through our lives with a whole heck of a lot of fear that that this can happen or that that can happen. And and a lot of us develop bitterness because of that fear.

Mike McClintock 00:21:39 (link to this point)

Or we're just cynical and jaded.

Chris Albert 00:21:41 (link to this point)

Right. Right. And and whenever something happens to us, it's it's, know, why did this happen to me? Or why do bad things always happen to me? Or I just can't win.

You know, those types of victim mentalities.

Mike McClintock 00:21:58 (link to this point)

I've never had that mentality, though. I mean, the way that I grew up, I grew up in a really rough household, oldest of five kids, mom and dad that were like old school parents that if dad came home in a bad mood, he might toss mom around a little bit just because she looked at him the wrong way. You know what I'm saying? The way stuff used to be back in the day when, you know, in the 50s and the older generation. We didn't grow up in this soft, manky, pandy, PC, you know, let's hover over our kids and make sure they have everything we didn't have as kids, you know. We fought for everything.

So that's helped me become the man that I am. I still have to fight for everything I am. I've gotten a lot of stuff out of my life, but nothing was ever given to me. I have a deep appreciation for working to get the stuff that you want. It means more. Yeah. And it also helps you develop a determination and a drive to accomplish goals and get stuff that you want out of life.

Chris Albert 00:23:02 (link to this point)

Yeah. And I really think it's that perspective of not automatically defaulting to, oh my god. This this is this is the world's fault. The world is always coming after me, but but really, you know, getting that idea of understanding that it's not what happens to you that happens. It's how you respond to it.

Right?

Mike McClintock 00:23:29 (link to this point)

Exactly. That's like people you always hear people talking about. Just want to be happy. Well, there's plenty of stuff to be happy about. Just be happy.

You are in control of what makes you happy. Anybody can give you something that makes you happy temporarily for a moment or five. What do you do when that feeling goes away? Are you just gonna never be happy again? Are you going to go find something that makes you happy and focus on that and get more of that and build up your fire and you're happy and find a passion that something that really drives you?

Maybe you're out of it. You're not into the same stuff because we age and interest change and stuff like that. Find a new interest that drives you and relights that fire inside you. You know, it works for me, oddly enough right now. And it might sound silly.

I prune trees and bushes in my yard and I dig. I dig it. It helps me calm down and appreciate stuff more, focus on stuff. It's relaxing. It's creative.

It's an artistic outlet. I mean, just find something you dig doing, you know, do it.

Chris Albert 00:24:37 (link to this point)

Yeah, that's definitely good advice.

Mike McClintock 00:24:39 (link to this point)

You might learn new things about yourself that you wanna share with other people and they might like it, and you might have common interests with people that you've lost touch with and start doing new things with each other again. Who knows?

Chris Albert 00:24:51 (link to this point)

Yeah, you know, and that's one thing I'm trying to get this message out there that, you know, if you're in a really dark place, there's a temptation there to isolate yourself. Right? Right. There's a temptation to to you know, in the Marine Corps, we called it cocooning. If you're out in the cold

Mike McClintock 00:25:10 (link to this point)

Yeah. You wanna go get that dark spot and there's a hideout.

Chris Albert 00:25:14 (link to this point)

Well, not only that you're in a mentally dark spot like when you saw when you saw Marines not talking, we're in the freezing cold. You saw Marines not talking to anybody else. They're just sitting there. They're call it cocooning up. And that's when you know that person's person's in a bit of trouble because they're they're not dealing with the cold.

And I think that that's the temptation when you when you're falling into depression, when you're falling into a bad state, when you're falling into darkness. The temptation there is to cocoon. I think, you know, the thing is, people need to. You need to move, number one, right? You need to get out of the house, you need to get some exercise and you need to get some oxygen, you need to take advantage of that natural pharmacy that we've got going on in our system.

But two, you got to you got to do something to put your mind on something that's going to be creative rather than putting your mind on all the negativity.

Mike McClintock 00:26:16 (link to this point)

You got to keep the temple clear. You only get one.

Chris Albert 00:26:21 (link to this point)

Yep. No, absolutely.

Mike McClintock 00:26:23 (link to this point)

There is no replacement in this one. If you break it down and destroy it, you're done.

Chris Albert 00:26:28 (link to this point)

So you just came through surgery, right?

Mike McClintock 00:26:32 (link to this point)

Yeah, July 16 was the last surgery.

Chris Albert 00:26:34 (link to this point)

Tell us about the experience you had while you're going through your surgery.

Mike McClintock 00:26:39 (link to this point)

Well, it was, I believe it was about the longest surgery I ever had. The first time I had the surgery, the tumor was about the size of an egg. This is right above the right ear. So when they did the cut, it was really cool, like a question mark, almost like the red there from the old Batman show. They had a really cool question mark scar right here.

And when it came back, it was slightly smaller than the first one, but they went in the same way. And because bone being what it is, they can only take stuff apart, put it back together so many times before it's like drywall. It's just not happening. We need a piece of drywall. So they had to go in through the back this time, and so I had another cool scar, you know, and this time the tumor was encroaching on the optic nerve on the left side, so they weren't able to cut all the tumor out because as they were cutting the tumor out, they were paralyzing my left side, and they knew that.

So they had to stop and make the decision that after we sew him up and patch him up, he's just gonna have to do chemo and radiation again to finish it up. We're done cutting. If we cut any more, he's gonna be permanently damaged and not recover. So I was like real happy he made that decision because so far it's working out. I had the first twenty four hours in the ICU, the pain was way worse than the previous surgeries.

I mean, it was so bad that I'm describing pain to the doctors that they're telling me you shouldn't even have known because the way the brain works, it doesn't have It's not like when you cut your arm and you're like, Oh, shit, that hurt. The brain doesn't respond that way because it doesn't have those kind of nerve endings in it. It just has transmitting and receiving, like an electrical type of contacts. So the pain I was describing, these doctors are like, You shouldn't even know that type of pain. And the description that I was giving them, they were just fascinating.

Were like, We need to be taking notes on this. So I'm laying in that bed and I was crying like, Oh boy, it hurts so bad that I was just literally sobbing. And they're hitting me with everything they can hit me with, fentanyl, Dilaudid, morphine, and whatever else they could cram in there, and they're like, nothing's working. And at one point, my wife or my mom asked them, you know, can't you just give them something? They're like, you know, look, if your husband was a Clydesdale horse, he would be on his ass laid out right now from what we've given him.

We can't give him anything else. So they started talking about medical coma and they're like, there's a really high probability that if we do that, he's not coming out, period. That'll just shut him down. So it was at that point and the amount of pain that I was feeling that I just said, I'm done. I've never been a religious guy at all.

I've just always kind of been like one of those, I hope there's something, but I don't know until we're done. I've had a very basic, limited faith, but it's just been basic and limited. So I'm in that bed paralyzed on my left side, and the pain inside my head was so excruciating that I just gave myself up to God. I said, I'm done. I'm tapping out.

I can't fight this fight anymore. And I put my arms out and I just said inside my head as loud as I could. I didn't want my mom to hear me say it because I already knew her heart was breaking watching her little boy being in this condition. So I just, as loud as I could scream in my head without her seeing it or hearing it, I just put my arms out and said, Take me home, God. I'm tapping out.

I can't fight it anymore. And I just kind of let my arms go and drop my arms, and then the most magical feeling I've ever felt in my life happened. I felt a set of wings, like the presence of wings opening up underneath the bed and coming out like this, And they came up and embraced me like that. It was all one fluid motion. It opened up, and as the feathers opened up, I felt this just huge release of hot, like gas energy pulled up above me, and it kind of swirled around for a second, and then I felt like a bed sheet slowly being dragged off and snapped like that, like when you're making the rack in the morning.

And when it snapped, that cloud, that presence was gone. Everything was gone. Everything went back to normal. The machines, the pulse rate, blood pressure, everything started dropping back to normal, and within a couple hours, the pain was really manageable. It wasn't nearly as bad as it was, and they put me in a regular room, and the next day they were shipping me to an inpatient rehab center because of the paralysis, and going to that place was crazy.

I got dropped off there like a pizza. I literally, I couldn't move, so I had like four guys carrying me from the ambulance to a room and dropping me on a rack and walking away, and then, they set goals for you when you show up to one of these centers based on your condition, what they expect out of you in a certain amount of time and everything. Because of my age and because of whatever they use to figure out their formulas, they set goals for me, and within a week, I was literally just smashing all the goals that they had, and that was blowing the doctor's minds because they hadn't seen somebody recover as quickly as I did, and they're all punted up to the amount of positive energy I had when I came in there. They could tell when we brought you in that you had a smile on your face, and most people are crying and bummed out, you come in with this big, huge smile telling everybody, I'm gonna be fine. Everything's awesome. I'm good.

I know in my head I'm gonna be fine. And here I am three weeks later, I was in that place and they sent me home. I walked out of there as much as I could with a walker, but I mean, I walked out of the facility. I'm back home, I'm cruising around in a wheelchair, I'm doing some PT every day, getting my muscles back in shape. I'm putting on weight before I start chemo so that I know last time I went through chemo, I was one hundred and ninety nine pounds, and I was not as buff as you are, Chris.

Mean, who is? No, seriously, I had a pretty good thing going on. My physique was all right, but when I got sick from the chemo, I really got bad. And I dropped down to probably about one hundred and thirty five pounds from one hundred ninety nine. So now I got weight coming back.

I got a good 2,200 calorie diet going. I'm eating six squares a day, all evenly spaced and about the same protein and calorie intake. So I got a good level of stack going on. And a PTN. Right.

Everything's holding good going together. I'm just trying to do everything I didn't do to prep last time. That way, when the chemo comes back and wants to take from me, I got some weight to donate. That way, it'll make sure it will help me recover. Yeah, I got a plan in place, I kind of think if I follow it, all these doctors are going along saying I got a good plan, so I got a good plan and a good attitude.

So as long as I keep that stuff together, I should be good to go. So.

Chris Albert 00:34:21 (link to this point)

In terms of of everything, as far as, you know, your recovery going through that surgery, going through that that horrible pain that you're going through. What's driving you to fight right now? What is the thing that gets you up every day and says, all right, I gotta do everything I can to get better?

Mike McClintock 00:34:46 (link to this point)

I think honestly, and some people might go, this guy is crazy or whatever. I think honestly, first and foremost, it's God. Since God came down, that totally changed my outlook on everything. At first, I was kind of like, I didn't really see nothing or hear nothing. I just felt it.

And you can't help but ask yourself when you see people sitting around looking at you telling the story, do I sound crazy?

Chris Albert 00:35:11 (link to this point)

Right?

Mike McClintock 00:35:13 (link to this point)

Because some people think anybody that believes in something might be a little crazy.

Chris Albert 00:35:18 (link to this point)

There's definitely people out there who are gonna be like, oh, it wasn't God or oh, it wasn't this or oh, it wasn't that. It was the drugs. Yeah. It'll get we'll get those kind of comments anytime anybody mentions God on any and you

Mike McClintock 00:35:32 (link to this point)

know, thing that submitted it and made me really believe 100% in it. A real good friend of mine emailed or texted me a picture of a quote from the Bible. And it tells word for word the story that I just told you about that hospital bed.

Chris Albert 00:35:48 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Mike McClintock 00:35:49 (link to this point)

And that when I read that, it was like the words were jumping off the page into my eyes. Yeah. And so that further convinced me. And that's one of the things that gets me up every day and gets me maybe it doesn't give me up, so to speak, because my eyeballs are automatically click at four, you know, but it does. No one the mapsters came down. That motivates me to get up and just tell people about it. Sure. It makes me want to share my experience because I know there's at least one, maybe two, maybe 200.

There's 200 people out there looking for somebody like me to fire them up. And excuse my language, but you can't sit around and wait for somebody to come and square you away. You got to unfuck yourself sometimes.

Chris Albert 00:36:36 (link to this point)

Right. Right.

Mike McClintock 00:36:39 (link to this point)

Sometimes you're the only one that can smack yourself and get through yourself when other people can't. So square yourself away and grab yourself and shake yourself and wake yourself up and get that passion inside you burning again. Don't shake shit up.

Chris Albert 00:36:56 (link to this point)

I think that, you know, one of the things because I live out here in a blue zone near Loma Linda. They got blue zones around the world. Right? It's people it's there are areas of the world with the most centenarians, the people who who live past 100. And Right.

You know, they try to they do statistics on on what people what people do in those blue zones. Right? So I've lived in two of them now. I lived in Okinawa and now I'm living out here near Loma Linda, California. And, you know, I think there's a few others out there.

But the things that they're finding doesn't it's not always diet, right? Because the diets are mixed. They're they're different. But but they have lower rates of processing in their diets. They're eating whole foods.

They're they're doing that kind of stuff. But the one thing that they all share in each of these areas is is they have a positive mental practice that they do, whether it's prayer, whether it's it's, you know, meditation, whether it's anything. They all have a spiritual sign to them. And I think it's really, really important because I think that's something we've adapted and evolved as human beings to help us cope with a lot of the things. Like I said, if you look around this world, it's hard being a conscious being.

It's hard being a conscious with rational thought and everything like that. You if you did start every day. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I don't think we'd be where we are today.

I mean, you can say all you want about religion and everything like that. And yeah, religion might have caused a lot of horrible things, but I don't think we'd be where we are today as a world so much comfort and so much anything without religion.

Mike McClintock 00:38:49 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Chris Albert 00:38:50 (link to this point)

Or spirituality or God.

Mike McClintock 00:38:53 (link to this point)

Religion is the basic establishment of the basic rules of life when you think about it, the 10 commandments. That was put out there for a reason. It wasn't just to control people. Was like, Jesus, go ahead, dude. It's not cool to just go around killing people.

Right. Is the greatest There's all these different religions, right? But one thing that we all can agree on, no matter what the differences are, they have the same basic fundamental agreement. Their God, they might say their God's better, but at the same time, all their gods just want us all to love each other. That's the most important thing.

Don't want us to hate each other. They just want us all to love each other and do the golden rule, man, treat you how you want to be treated. You don't have to be an asshole all the time.

Chris Albert 00:39:42 (link to this point)

Right. Right. And that's that's that's

Mike McClintock 00:39:45 (link to this point)

all the time is you can never take a break.

Chris Albert 00:39:50 (link to this point)

No, you can't, man. You can't

Mike McClintock 00:39:51 (link to this point)

don't have to practice to be miserable.

Chris Albert 00:39:54 (link to this point)

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the I mean, that's important for people to remember because one thing I can't this stuff. Yeah. One thing I can't stand is when, you know, if if somebody's got a spiritual belief, if somebody's got a spiritual practice that they're doing, if they have faith, I can't stand when I'm sorry, there's an emergency alert going on over here.

We just got a flood warning. No, it's a flood warning to talk about warnings from God. But but I can't I'm your guy.

Mike McClintock 00:40:26 (link to this point)

He call me yet. So I'll give you a heads up if I get a phone call from him, right?

Chris Albert 00:40:33 (link to this point)

Yeah, no, but I can't stand when you get get people who don't believe in God looking down on people who do. And at the same time, if you don't believe in God, I mean, I'm not gonna come out to you and say and try to impose my beliefs on you or anything like that. But I I think that that if we're denying that faith has a really powerful role in our society and in making this country what it is, then then

Mike McClintock 00:40:58 (link to this point)

your body says visiting me in the hospital after that experience. I don't mean to step over it, I just wanna tell you this real quick. I had some family members that they cannot understand why I'm so happy and upbeat, and I keep telling them, you know, after the whole experience with I feel God was in the room with me and setting me free from that pain and everything, I said, I feel like God blessed me. This is not a curse. I didn't do anything.

I'm not a bad dude. I didn't do anything to have this given to me. God gave it to me as a gift to go out into the world and tell my story and motivate people for whatever reason, whatever they need help with. I feel compelled to talk to people and help learn how to lift themselves up and be self reliant. You don't have to rely on somebody to come and do something to make you feel better.

You can find it. You just have to learn how to look for it. It's like anything when you were giving me tips on how to meditate years ago, you just got to figure out the best way for you to get there. And once you get there, you're going get really good at it. You will do it without even thinking about it.

And ten years later, here I am. I could meditate right now.

Chris Albert 00:42:07 (link to this point)

You know? Yeah.

Mike McClintock 00:42:09 (link to this point)

But it's like anything, if you dedicate yourself to finding you inside of you, the old you, the new you, who do you want to be? It's all there. You just got to grab a hold of it and put the pieces together.

Chris Albert 00:42:21 (link to this point)

Yeah, I think it's

Mike McClintock 00:42:23 (link to this point)

it's not a big, huge, huge hidden secret. You just have to figure out what works for you.

Chris Albert 00:42:28 (link to this point)

Exactly. Exactly.

Mike McClintock 00:42:29 (link to this point)

I got there. But it's up to you what trail you want to walk down. Right.

Chris Albert 00:42:35 (link to this point)

Right. And a lot of it, mean, lot of it, you need experience. You need to get out there into the world and you need to see how other people live. Right?

Mike McClintock 00:42:45 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Chris Albert 00:42:46 (link to this point)

Need to see how other people live. And I know, you know, one of the things that a lot of the people who listen to the show up, obviously, are veterans. Obviously, a lot of them have been to places where people don't have it so well. And, you know, when I when I was in Iraq in 2003, know, whenever it started getting to a point where it sucked like and I couldn't stand being because my experience with war wasn't exciting. It was boring.

Right? It was boring as hell. Right. And a lot of hurry up and wait. We're sitting here.

Oh, God. You know, everything. Stand by. Stand by. It's hot, you know.

And the the thing that that always got me though was, you know, I'm here. I'm complaining because it's hot. I'm, you know, thirsty. I got a headache. But I'm looking at this kid over there who who, you know, is playing in a sewer or fishing in a in a in a polluted river, the Euphrates River.

He's gotta live here. He's got to go through his adolescent years here. You know, he's got a he's got a deal with the lack of water, the lack of clean water and all that stuff. And, you know, I always tell people we live even if you are even if you consider yourself not well off. If you got a cell phone and you got running water and you got a refrigerator, you have it better than so much of the rest of the world.

Have. Yeah, those little things, man. And I can't believe what people complain about.

Mike McClintock 00:44:19 (link to this point)

And that's some of the stuff that has been awoken inside of me. And that's why I decided after that, I put a smile on my face and I grabbed ahold of that wheelchair and I started owning it, Chris. Every morning when I got my child about 07:30 delivered to my bedside, I grabbed my phone, I threw on some Motivate music and just started listening to it every morning. And I didn't give a shit what the volume was like. I was going to act first and beg for forgiveness and for permission. So I started putting my music on. A real good friend of mine from work sent me a text one morning and he used to work on the CH-47s in the Navy. Was that sea scouting seat mate like the Chinook?

Chris Albert 00:45:06 (link to this point)

Yeah, yep.

Mike McClintock 00:45:08 (link to this point)

So he's the guy that when I started my job a year or two ago, he started being my trainer. So he's like, knows exactly what's going on. He texts me all the time. He'll text me videos and songs and shit, motivating stuff. And one dude or one morning the dude sends me a text and says, hey, bro, I've been thinking about you a lot.

And I heard this song made me think about you even more is that new Bulletproof song by

Chris Albert 00:45:32 (link to this point)

Godsmack.

Mike McClintock 00:45:34 (link to this point)

I don't if you heard it, but it's pretty cool. You might wanna check it out. And so I listened to it and I was like, immediately, it felt like I wrote the song. I heard the words for the first time and it hit me like when you're a kid and you heard the song, you got all fired up. It was one of those, and I was hearing the words and it was just coursing through my veins. I was just like, wow, felt great. I felt like I was twenty one, ten feet tall and bulletproof all over again, ready to attack the world, seeing everything through the eyes of a child. Remember how excited you used to get looking at simple stuff when you were little? I have that feeling again, and it's amazing. And one of the posts that I don't know if you saw it or not, but one of the posts I've been trying to put like a daily motivational type of thing to get people fired up, you know? And one of the things I posted a couple of weeks ago, and it's genuine, dude, that I would never ever in a million years push this on anybody. You know how people deal with somebody, I wish that guy was dead. I hate Just in jest for whatever reason.

I would never wish this medical thing on anybody. But what I would wish on everybody that I come in contact with is that you could feel a very small percentage, even if it was 0.99% of what I feel about life in general right now. I wish that I could just give that away to people and make them sick like I am. I've got the zest of life that I've never had. I'm always smiling.

People say, how are doing, Mike? Awesome. And I mean it. I'm not just being sarcastic. I don't like to talk just because the sound of my voice is good.

Actually, I don't like the sound of my voice at all when it comes out to it.

Chris Albert 00:47:16 (link to this point)

I hate mine too, man.

Mike McClintock 00:47:17 (link to this point)

But I really wish that I mean, if it takes me talking and talking and talking to get people to open their eyes, I'll do it. But I think that's what God gave me as far as to spread the word and get people to realize, you you hear people all the time, Oh, I'm looking for proof. I'm proof. I couldn't walk a month ago. And I'm up walking around.

I can show you right now. I can stand up if you want to see it. You know what I'm saying? I couldn't do this three weeks ago. I was paralyzed.

My entire left side was paralyzed. I had to have people with a belt picking me up and supporting me and I can straight up walk now. It's still a work in progress, but being dedicated to not just sitting around and doing PT to build out my strength back up, it's coming along. It's coming along faster than they thought it would.

Chris Albert 00:48:09 (link to this point)

I think that's, you know, again, it's it just goes back to understanding that that as a human, we have a lot of complicated facets to our brains a lot of complicated facets to our minds. One of the things we need to be doing constantly is motivating ourselves to be in control of ourselves, motivating ourselves to understand And motivate others.

Mike McClintock 00:48:35 (link to this point)

Everybody's got talk now and then.

Chris Albert 00:48:37 (link to this point)

And to focus on the things we can control because Exactly. So many people are out there, they're worrying about the things they can't control. They're worrying about politics. They're worrying about CNN. They're worried about Fox News.

They're worried about Exactly. Whatever's popping up on the Internet these days or or whatever's popping up on Facebook. Right. But if you could start to take charge of the things in your life that you can control, Your mood, your body, what you can do to take care of your body the best way possible. The way you approach things, whether or not you're gonna let some asshole who said something to you ruin your day or whether or not you're going to just keep going on with your life and working on what's going to move you forward.

Those are all choices you make.

Mike McClintock 00:49:25 (link to this point)

That is a prime example of one of the tools that I've been using as I test this out. It's kind of gauge where people are at and how they're going to react to what I'm going to throw at them. I'll ask them just a general question about what do you care about? And everybody kind of looks at me like, what do you mean? What do you care about?

Like, give me an example of something you care about. Like, for instance, somebody walks into your office and they look at you a certain way. You don't know the guy. You've never seen him before, but he looks at you a certain way and you don't like it. And you automatically have this preconceived, I'm not gonna like this dickhead.

I can tell by the look on his face, it looks smarmy or it looks cocky. You just automatically have that preconceived notion, I'm not gonna like this guy. And you might be right, but you might not be right. So what if you see somebody on the street and they're doing something that has nothing to do with you, they're not looking at you, nothing. But they say something or they make a noise that you don't like, why do you care?

People will let stuff like that ruin their day or at least a few moments of their day, just caring about something that doesn't mean shit. But then they've got all the stuff in their life that they should care about and they don't give a shit about it. You see where I'm going? It's like, why do you care about this more than that when you should actually care more about this than that? Energy focus.

Chris Albert 00:50:48 (link to this point)

Right. You waste energy on stuff that's not not important at all or that shouldn't be important or that shouldn't be taking up that much of your time. Exactly. I always wonder about these people, who make comments like negative comments. It's like they make career out of making negative comments on YouTube videos and things like that.

And it's like that person who made that video is going on with their life. They're probably not paying attention to your comment. They're probably not paying attention to you. But you need to come on here and spread waste your energy on on on, you know, spreading your own dumb idiocy. And, yeah, world is so much better if just focus on that

Mike McClintock 00:51:30 (link to this point)

gets people thinking when I ask them, what do you care about? And they're always like, what? What do you care about and why do you care about it? And that really twists people up.

Chris Albert 00:51:40 (link to this point)

People should think about it. People should think about it. What do you really care about? What's really important to you? What's in your code?

What's your code as an individual? What's your standard? What are you going to tolerate? What are you not going to tolerate? What are you going to spend your time on? What are you not going to spend your time on? And I think that's something you should think about every single morning. Absolutely. I write that stuff down in my journal every single day when I wake up before I'm starting.

What am I going to do? What's important for me today?

Mike McClintock 00:52:16 (link to this point)

What's not important? Don't have goals. What do you be doing? Right? How do you know if you're getting where you want to go?

Chris Albert 00:52:23 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Mike McClintock 00:52:24 (link to this point)

And if you're not getting where you're going, why are you alive? If you don't have goals and stuff you wanna do, then why are you here?

Chris Albert 00:52:30 (link to this point)

Yep, yep.

Mike McClintock 00:52:32 (link to this point)

I mean, that makes people question it. I want people not to question it. I want people to find their goal and go after it and give themself a reason so they don't doubt why they're here. I know why I'm here and I'm taking advantage and I'm I'm training and I'm trying to grab a hold of handles and pull myself there until I get there. I'll know when I'm there, when I get there.

Chris Albert 00:52:54 (link to this point)

Absolutely.

Mike McClintock 00:52:54 (link to this point)

I know I'm not there yet.

Chris Albert 00:52:56 (link to this point)

Why are you here? Let me ask you that. What does that mean to you? What does life mean to you?

Mike McClintock 00:53:02 (link to this point)

Life means everything to me. It's more now than it ever did. But I think the reason that I'm here is to help people ultimately, and get them up and awake and walking around and appreciating life and everything that it has to offer. I mean, we're surrounded by miracles that we walk past blindly every day. You know, people are always talking about, I need proof of God.

You're surrounded quite literally by proof of God. The fact that your organs are wrapped up in skin and your stuff's not just hanging out falling on the ground is a miracle. The air that you're breathing right now is a miracle that you're not a fish because you'd be drowning right now. You know what I mean? So we're surrounded by miracles, but people still have to question the most obvious things.

People need to kind of climb into themselves and back out of themselves and rediscover the world around them. I don't think it's too late. I think that if everybody picture themselves as a rock being thrown in the water in that ripple effect, I'm trying to be a rock right now and cause a ripple effect. We could all be a rock and cause a ripple effect in the water. We could change the world If we kept waking people up a little by little, we could change the world.

Chris Albert 00:54:25 (link to this point)

Explain that analogy a little bit, the ripple effect with the water.

Mike McClintock 00:54:30 (link to this point)

You know, when you throw a rock in the water, nice calm, flat water, it's not doing nothing. It's just flat like glass. When you throw a rock at it, you see a splash and that's the effect. And then there's the ripple or shock wave that is an explosion and so on. Well, that ripple goes on and it touches things as it's spreading outward.

So if you're positive energy and you make a big impact and send off a bunch of positive ripples, it's gonna make contact with a whole bunch of stuff and maybe spread that positivity around and cause other people to wanna be a rock and make an impact in their community. I'm just hoping to get people up and active and wanna be involved and not be an isolated hermit and leave me alone. Go outside and be friendly, get to know your neighbors. I've got wonderful neighbors that I didn't used to know, but they have always been nice to me, so I've always been nice to them over time, and we talk at the fence all the time. It's almost like a thief at the beaver.

We wave at each other and give each other their Christmas gifts and things that, baked goods at Christmas time. A lot of people don't even talk to their next door neighbor at all. That's not cool. I mean, you're supposed to love your neighbor, you know? And I mean, I understand people have conflicts with their neighbors.

Obviously, stuff happens, you know, but at the same time, there's no reason that I used to walk past people and they would try to be polite and say hello, I just had an attitude and ignored them, wouldn't respond, wouldn't even acknowledge them with a look or nothing. And then this is one of the things that I realized about myself that that's rude as shit. It really is rude. If someone's taken a second out of their time to say hi to you, the least you can do is return the favor and say, hey, how's it going? How are you today? It doesn't cost you anything.

Chris Albert 00:56:28 (link to this point)

Absolutely.

Mike McClintock 00:56:29 (link to this point)

But too many of us just say, Piss on it. I don't know them. What do they want? Or whatever you're Maybe you're just miserable and just don't want to participate. I don't know, but I'm hoping that maybe I can reach a couple of people and let go.

I used to be that way. And if you change yourself a little bit, you can be a little bit like I am right now and really tell people when they say, How you doing? You can look at them and go, I'm awesome. How are you? And I mean it.

You know what I mean? I really mean it. That's my new career. I'm awesome. You can be awesome too.

It's on you though. I can't make you awesome. You gotta believe in yourself and just light your life up and be awesome. Fight like Mike, you know.

Chris Albert 00:57:16 (link to this point)

I love it. I love it. So. We're coming. We got to wrap it up in a second, but I want to ask what does so so what's ahead for you?

What's what's coming up for you?

Mike McClintock 00:57:29 (link to this point)

What's ahead for me? Yep. You know, to be honest with you, I hope I hope big things are coming. I don't know what, but I'm always out for changes. I love change, so whatever it is, I'm gonna embrace it with both arms, wide open.

If it means turning into being one of them guys that stands up on stages, getting speeches, audiences, trying to get them fired up, I'll give it a whack. I'm good at talking. I've been told anyway. But I'm not sure. I mean, I've got plans here and there about stuff I would like to do. I'd like to tie this journal up that I kept from the last fight and what I've got going on now. Maybe I'll turn it into a book, who knows? I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes and ears open and see what happens with that.

But right now, my ultimate goal is just to get it through the chemo treatment and the radiation, which starts next week. And that's a seven week treatment that'll go through the twentieth or twenty first of October. And I'll keep you posted on that, how that's going.

Chris Albert 00:58:38 (link to this point)

Definitely keep us updated on that.

Mike McClintock 00:58:41 (link to this point)

Yeah, as you and I talk and email and stuff, I'll keep you up to date, but it starts next week and goes through October, so seven weeks. Know, I've already done it once, so it's just one of the things I gotta gear up and get the mind right to head back out on rotation and take care of business.

Chris Albert 00:59:01 (link to this point)

Well, Mike, number one, I wanna thank you for coming on here and

Mike McClintock 00:59:09 (link to this point)

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Chris Albert 00:59:11 (link to this point)

I wanna thank you for your story because I think a lot of people out there don't they don't appreciate what they get here in life. And I didn't use to. Yeah. Took it off from here. Took it off from here.

And I think it's the the good things and the bad things that we really gotta be appreciative of. And I'm not saying, you know, when you get kicked in the ass, say thank you for the kick in the ass, But but be grateful for the opportunity to learn a new lesson. And and

Mike McClintock 00:59:41 (link to this point)

I was just gonna say everything that comes your way has a potential lesson to teach you if you study it and absorb it, you learn it. The next time you're not as surprised by. Yep. You know how to do it.

Chris Albert 00:59:55 (link to this point)

Yep. And and that's what something I wanna acknowledge you for. You know, you're you're you're taking this on. It is what it is, but you're taking this on as a lesson for you, as something that that you can learn from, that you can grow through, and that you can spot and inspire other with others with. I think that's amazing.

Mike McClintock 01:00:14 (link to this point)

I've got big there's a group called Imerman Angels that a gentleman by the name of John Imerman had a very similar part of mine. And so the doctor that I first went to see to get my stitches out heard my story and asked if I had heard of this group. It's a cancer mentorship. So they take people like me and they use kind of the same technology that match.com and the dating sites used to put people together that are real compatible. So he's like, I think you'd be really good for this group to inspire other fighters and survivors.

So I joined that group. I do any of that stuff last time. I didn't utilize any of the support that I had being given to me for free, like counseling and stuff. I relied strictly on family and friends, which I'm lucky enough that I have a really, really strong support network through family and friends that I didn't feel the need to use the professional side because the personal side just made up for it. But now that I know that the doctors are like, Hey, we recommend you try this because it's free, but it's not gonna hurt me to talk to people about it and share my experience. So sure, of course I'm gonna try it out.

I know as well as anybody, that's another great way to make contacts with people that you otherwise wouldn't normally, and that might broaden their horizons or my horizons or make both our lives better, who knows? Every difficult situation has sunlight and every dark tunnel or cave has light inside of it. Sometimes you just gotta dig through it to find it. And once you find it, you just keep going till you get all the light and boom. That's all about, you just gotta have strong belief and drive to succeed and drive till the mission's complete.

Mine's not done yet, I know that. So that's what keeps me going.

Chris Albert 01:02:23 (link to this point)

Absolutely. To everybody out there, you know, no matter what you're going through, whether it's it's, you know, something big or something little, whether it's relationship issues, whether it's disease, whether it's injury, whether it's financial trouble, just understand this, no matter what it is, it's absolutely not about that thing happening to you. But it's the opportunity you have to overcome that thing, the opportunity you have to to grow the opportunity you have to to to put it behind you to get up off the ground and to make your life better.

Mike McClintock 01:03:07 (link to this point)

Exactly. That's the message right there, Chris. That's the message right there. Just tied it up with a nice little bow. That's exactly the message right there, brother.

Chris Albert 01:03:16 (link to this point)

Thanks, man.

Mike McClintock 01:03:17 (link to this point)

I could get that through to a handful of people and have them tell to friends and have them to tell two friends and so on. It could be a wildfire and spread, you could get a whole bunch of people contagious, uplifted, eyes open, walking around awake, appreciating life again. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Chris Albert 01:03:35 (link to this point)

Would be an absolutely new world.

Mike McClintock 01:03:38 (link to this point)

It's a daunting task for sure, looking at it, but I think it could be done. I think there's enough people in the world that still have enough good and wise enough in them to do it. It's just gonna take work. We gotta put work in.

Chris Albert 01:03:53 (link to this point)

Yep. You can't be scared of the work. Exactly. Mike, I wanna thank you for coming on today, man. Absolutely inspiring.

And for everybody out there, matter where you are, no matter what you're doing. Appreciate this life and get out there and live your best life. Absolute best life. Why?