The TED Rumors are True... | Harry Miller

Hey, guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. Cool. So when Deep sent me this, I went and took a look at your Instagram and it's kind of funny in the sense that I used to be so on it with College Football and everything. I was such a huge fan and then when I got out and got a job and then especially when I started doing this like full-time, there's some things like what it'd be College Football, even like other sports like basketball. I used to watch all the time in the NBA. I never have time to watch this stuff. So in some ways like the last six, seven years is a bit of a blur to where it's like I can't remember who the best players were, who won the Heisman, who was winning the national titles. But this is when you were a major heralded recruit and playing at the Ohio State University, which is extremely impressive. Was it urban Meyer who recruited you? He recruited me, yeah, he recruited me and then switched to the head coach position, position switched to coach today as I was my senior year. So I was actually one of the first, I signed in December of 2018 and that was like Coach Day's first, I guess early recruiting period, early recruiting class. Coach Day was my, he was my first call from Ohio State and he called me after, yeah, he called me, he was the OC at the time and then that just began sort of my recruiting process. But yeah, I played from you for Georgia, played at Buford, which I think they're ranked number one now nationally in terms of just like high school ball, but ended up being the number one ranked center, highly recruited, offered by a lot of places and decided on Ohio State and then went there. And then, yeah, so I guess, and so you're so, yeah, yeah, we'll get in the story, but real quick, before we do that, was football something that you were great at and loved or just great at and didn't love? I think for a period of the same time, I think like, like fascination followed the form and like from a young age, I was just, I was bigger than the rest of the kids. And so, football made absolute sense and I had a lot of talent and I was able to express myself very well in football from second grade I started playing and then express yourself. Yeah, it was just, I was just, I was bigger, I was physical and I played well and so it made sense to keep playing. I played other sports, I played like lacrosse and baseball growing up, but football was what I was able to like be semi-professional, to play well and, yeah, getting to high school and getting recruited by my top five, Ohio State, Stanford, Clemson, Notre Dame, Georgia, among others, everybody was sort of like vying for that. Programs right there, Jesus Christ. And then, yeah, so got recruited and it's like, yeah, out of Ohio State, I was, you know, I was the number one ranked student in the country, but also I was like, I was the valedictorian at Buford High School. You're the valedictorian over there. Class of 2019, Buford Wolves. No shit, yep. Yeah, I knew you were a genius, but damn. No, that's, that's like, I feel strange even right now talking about high school makes me feel very, why? Hey, guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. To you, to you, to you, to help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early, uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link in my description or in the pinned comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the discord link in my description below. I just feel, well, especially now it's like, I feel very far removed. Well, I think in totality, 18, up until 18, I was, I was my adolescent self. And then college especially, especially in a different state is a step. It's a departure. And honestly, and I've written, I've actually, a lot of the stuff I'd be like sang today about this. I wrote in a memoir like last winter. I wrote like this like 200,000 word memoir in about two months. And, yeah, so I was like, I was just jotting out words and just lots of coffee and lots of just like I was just writing in my room while I was cold out, which really helped me process some stuff. But, you know, the formula that any successful college football program emulates is really of sort of is, is a cult in which you remove, you take children, it's the same because the men's and children, you take children from a different state, bring them to an exotic location, you know, Monterey's team colors, bonding through suffering. Lots of things that just help you sort of fulfill your self into this new identity, this new role. And, yeah, I was, I was all in and went to Ohio State and like really, really, really, blood sweat and tears literally into the program. And, had success there. And then, and then, yeah, I guess I just sort of, I'll explain and just sort of like how all that shook out, but highly recruited football player went to Ohio State was a, was a backup, my freshman year behind, so that was 2019. We won the Big Ten Championship and then lost in the fiesta bowl to Clemson that year. And, I was the backup, then COVID hit. And that off season, and then ultimately that COVID season, I was playing, I was the starting, I was the starting left guard as a sophomore. And that was sort of COVID paired with starting college football was a real, it was like, it was very sort of MK Ultra, it was very, there was no external human contact to sort of like ground yourself or like neutralize the what we were in, which was like high stakes, high stress, college football. It was like, it was like, it was very true and showing in which case, like football is a production, like football is a huge cameras, interviews, there's this it's reality television. With these like outlets on the weekend, and it was just very strange for, for months, where, you know, really the only human contact I was getting was physical human violence and context of the game. Being yelled at in meetings and coached in which case, like the meetings meetings being a euphemism for like sort of staring at a projector screen of your, of your fuck ups and like replaying them. And then it's just so it becomes really heavy, it becomes very repetitive. And so over the course of that, COVID season, you know, I really, my, my mental health diminished. Yeah, just because it was such a strange time and you were still like you said, a part of this whole production is going on. All the rules they had to have for you guys that first year had to be nuts, right? Like you couldn't even, you'd go to a meeting, you got to be masked up the whole time. Yeah, that was just like, just walk me in there. What did everything look like? So that was 2020. So I mean, so at first I was in Nicaragua when the school was closed. So I've got family friends in Nicaragua. Who who, I'll like, I'll leave their name out of it just for like for their safety, but they run programs on there and fantastic people. And I've been going there since a young age. And so I was in Nicaragua with a friend of mine doing just doing some like fixing up the school, doing some stuff like that. School got canceled. We got notification that school was being closed because of COVID. So this would have been maybe like last week of March, sometime in March. And so rather than flying back to Ohio, flew back to Georgia and we spent about probably a month, two months, remote at home, essentially doing nothing, just sort of treading water as we like wait to hear what's happening. Start of June, we're able to report back to campus and campus is essentially dead. So for that whole sort of 2020 season, classes are remote and classes are remote, but football is doing football. And so it was very, it was a ghost town in terms of, in terms of campus, really was only student athletes. It was a really big like essentially just college was just athletics as we were moving through that very limited in person capacity. And yeah, I mean, it was sort of like, and as, as you remember, just sort of the, the hysterics, the confusion, there was a point where we were trying to like play football with gators across our face. And like guys are essentially like waterboarding themselves with sweat and perspiration and like, with the blood across the gators. So like gators are like, just like those you could order on your neck and then pull it up. Shisties, yeah, like shisties, we got a few in the back. They were trying to put like glass glass over the mask. They were trying to like like plexi, like not like just like, yeah, they were trying, they were just throwing everything at the wall. Were you guys just talking like this is so fucking yeah, we all, I mean, yeah, we all knew that it was pretty stupid. I think the big 10 was probably the strictest because I don't think the SEC ever got close to canceling their season for a time we did cancel our season. And then I guess everybody at the big 10 saw that the SEC was still going and playing games and making their money and doing everything they had to do. And so then it's like, well, of course, well, now let's we can play ball now. So we played ball, but then now we're playing in stadiums empty, but with cardboard cutouts of fans to look full weird. So now you can hear like, you can hear the opposite sideline talking while you're talking and then you're having to like simulate artificial crowd noise. Oh, they were doing that too. Yeah, so it was like so like we had an away game in Penn State and be a stadium and what would have been a wide out was just cardboard cutouts and then and then fake static coming from the from the PA. system. And so it was just very, it was just very bizarre world upside down. And yeah, I was playing ball, and I was starting my sophomore year. And it was, and that's an extremely, I mean, that's why it's called the sophomore slump. Like it's very hard to go from a freshman backup who comes in during trash time. Like I played with the, I played with the transfer from West Virginia, named Chris Chuganov, who was like very, he was very like, um, blue mountain state, like just super lovable and like a real like an elder for me as a, as a young guy. And um, he was, he was, so he was a fifth year from West Virginia. I was a freshman, you know, do good from Buford Center. He was the quarterback. Um, and so we would do CQ exchange. She was the backup quarterback. And we would call it the graveyard shift because like everybody would leave the stadium and we were just like closing out the fourth quarter, running zone left, zone right, um, ground game, just like trying to burn the clock out as we were up 40 points or whatever. And that's how to go sophomore season. There's like no fans. I didn't really have a spring season because the spring ball had been canceled because of, um, COVID. And I felt very behind in terms of like, I just felt very unconfident as a player. And I really, I really, I played that entire sophomore season and I really didn't feel, um, I really didn't feel like I was playing football. I think that's it. And I think play is a very important verb because you know, in high school, um, it's very easy. You know, being more gifted as a football player to just like beat up on kids and you feel like, you feel like just cock of the walk. It's just, you feel so powerful. You feel like a demigod. And of course, the talent equates when you get to college football. And, um, you know, that's when like savvy and skill and game IQ and all these things really start to like matter. And I was still, I was still so young. I still had so many things to learn. And I was always as a perfectionist, as a valedictorian, as a, as a, as a kid who took these things very seriously, too seriously, I would say really. I, um, I just really got my head about it. And that whole season, I just felt very, uh, dejected that whole time. And that's when it really, the cracks started to form. And in my relationship with football and my relationship with myself. And it really wasn't until we, we played the 2020 Big Ten Championship against Northwestern. And, um, we ended up just having to run the ball of bunch and our, our running back trace sermon, I think had a record breaking like ground game in terms of rushing yards. And that was just that really felt like just football again to me for the first time. It's no secret. The studies are finding microplastics in blood, brain, heart, lungs, and immense reproductive organs. I've started to make some big changes over the past couple of years in reducing the plastics I use, whether that's in the cup side drink, you see, I don't have any plastic red solo cups anymore, or in my daily water bottle, which I got rid of any plastic I was using there as well. But there's one place even I haven't thought to look. My clothes. That's why I started wearing underdogs hemp blank teas. Underdogs blank teas are made with their patent pending Duraflow fabric. It's 51% hemp for durability, 31% bamboo for breathability, and 18% organic cotton for comfort. Zero polyester, zero PFAS, just natural fibers built to last. Believe it or not, the government banned hemp in 1937. We've talked about that before. For decades, the clothing industry replaced it with plastic polyester. Now, underdog is brought back one in nature's safest fibers. Even people who really care about their health don't realize what wearing harmful microplastics rubbing on their skin all day long can do to their health. To go check the tag on the tea you're wearing right now. Does it say polyester? If so, it's basically melted plastic bottles spun into thread. Underdog is a blank tea made for real men, not runway models. It's going to grip your arms to show off the guns and give you a little extra room around the midsection. It's super comfortable in the kind of fit that makes you look jack. Ain't that right, Donald Thomas? Oh yeah, baby. And the best part about underdog teas, they have a lifetime warranty. If one ever rips or wears out, they replace it. Free forever. For a limited time only, our listeners are going to get up to 30% off at underdog.com. That link is in my description below. That's you and drdog.com link in my description below. We're up to 30% off. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them I sent you. That was 2020. Were you able to make like get a lot of friends outside of playing football? And the reason I asked that is because I think a lot of people don't understand is you guys in D1 football have a depending on the program, a 60 to 80 hour week job. Yeah, no, I mean, I did. I don't think, and I think in the case of most college football players, I'm probably not the rule. I studied engineering at Ohio State and so I had a pretty rigorous academic schedule outside of football, which made me, if you, in special engineering, if you don't develop a competent friend group, who you can like float homework back and forth and like compare answers and like work together, like you'll get just absolutely just creamed if you're, if you're not ready. So I had a really close friend group just because my academics were so rigorous. But you feel like you're being pulled away from things. Well, I described it. It's really sort of like, it's then he's sort of like heroic double personality where it's like if Peter Parker and Spider-Man have Peter Parker doesn't show up to the spelling bee because Spider-Man had to save orphans from burning building or vice versa. Peter Parker's got debate and so Spider-Man misses like an old lady getting crushed by the subway. Like either way, he's, he is receiving the brunt of some sort of responsibility that he can't control. There's just not enough of him to go around. It was a very demanding schedule for, but for me, like I was able to, I kept a 4.0 in engineering and I was a Rhodes finalist as well. I played Ohio State football. You had a 4.0 in fucking engineering while you're playing at Ohio State University football full time. Yeah. There's a bit of a complex story. Well, now it's complex story. Well, I've been wanting to talk about this for a long time. It's funny now in retrospect, but when I was like an anal nerd, it was really important to me. But so 2020 wraps up, I end up getting COVID. No, you want to talk about sort of like the asinine enaneness of the policies. We were eventually getting, so we were probably PCR testing twice a day near the end of the season. So we're getting like these swabs up the nose. I remember those. Very frequently. I don't know if this was ever confirmed or not, but the talk in the colors football world was that some programs in the SEC had intentionally, like, and notculated themselves to COVID. They had all gotten COVID early in the season because you would have immunity shortly after. And so the rumor that you would, the logic that was, yeah, the logic got it like fucking 11 times. Well, I think if you got the policy was if you got it, you wouldn't be tested again for however long, however period of time. And so the theory, the theory was that some programs were like getting kids sick early to miss non-essential games. We ended up getting hit right before the national championship. I got it over new years and Christmas. And we ended up just getting sort of like picked at near the end of the year. And what was crazy was we were eventually you could get a rhyme and reason for this COVID stuff. And you would realize that like a guy would get it and his roommate or his friend would test positive like four days later. So there's this weird lag through prox 70 where you knew if a guy got it that the next guy if he hadn't gone yet would be getting it in four days. And so it was so funny was before the big 10 championship, one of my best friends tested positive for COVID. And I knew by the logic I had COVID. But I wouldn't test positive. So when they test me a test negative played in the big 10 championship, the next day, it's thought of been a Saturday. The next day on a Sunday, we're doing our meetings and we're doing our recovery lifts and all that stuff. I test positive and gets at home. And so like even in that sort of like lowered trust and the sort of like infrastructure we had going on. But we were playing catch up that whole year. And so I ended up testing positive COVID over Christmas and I guess part of New Year's. Yeah. So I watched the fiesta bull from my home that we won. And then we played in the national championship against Alabama. I was a backup in that case because I was coming off of COVID. I don't think I had any full pad practices before the national championship. But because of injuries, I ended up going in in the fourth quarter. Also maybe 10,000 capacity, mostly cardboard cutouts. And I ended up dislocating my shoulder against Alabama, left shoulder toward my labrum got that repaired. And yeah, so you got like a letter J. Is that a letter J? Yeah. Two, three, six, these over there. For what you get yours? For the labrums. And then they got the labrum was completely torn. Three, six, what are you doing? So I tore it when I was like a kid and didn't know it. Okay. It always bothered me when I played basketball. Someone hit me like that. It bothered me. So I finally got it checked when I was like 20. And they're like, well, you know, you could get it fixed. I'm like, yeah, we'll let it ride. And then I dislocated it. We're down here. Well, right. And then it just starts like dropping out, right? Like it. Oh, yeah, I dislocated 15 times before I got the first surgery. Yeah. It's nasty. Mine was just fortunately on the poster. So I think like my arm got sort of pulled across body on a block and it hurt bad. Got to repair. And then hence, now that I was trying out the 4.0, I was like, this is a bit, this is going to sound like end coherent. I took my grades very seriously. I read my syllabus thoroughly. And like in the physics class before, there was a thing about like siding work or whatever. Long story short, I'm coming off this labrum surgery. I'm still on like whatever many oxys of like coming out of the surgery. But I wasn't like, I wasn't missing school. I was still taking my quizzes. And on oxy. Yeah, and this was and so So I was now in Static. So this was like Static's 2010, and so this was just like intro stuff. And long story short, because I cited a piece of work in a way that was like I wasn't supposed to want to quiz, this led to a whole sort of like, co-am, academic misconduct thing where they essentially, I finished with like a 100 in the class or like a 90, whatever, 98, 99, whatever, but they gave me like, they demerited me and sort of killed my, so it's not a 4.0, it's a 3.997 GPA. I'm so sorry. Which rounds up. I know. Which rounds up. Oh, one of you just do two digits, two significant figures. But that's that, now this, then, they really hit you for the oxy citation. That's kind of what I'm saying. Well, I never even got a day in court where sort of this set me on the path of like, I felt like John Rambo, I felt like, I felt like, I had just received a surgery. I was, I said blood sweat and tears, blood sweat tears. I did your first blood, that's what I'm saying. And I was like, that's what really sort of like broke my illusion of the sort of like, what's going on here? That broke your illusion. That broke my illusion. That's a little strange. You know, and so yeah, so then, so that's sophomore, I recover. So now, I've started my sophomore year, I ended up being a third team, all big 10. So I got like an accolade, but I really, at that point, like sort of hated myself. I hated. You hated yourself. I didn't think I was a good player. You were third team, all big 10 is a sophomore to Ohio State University, playing in the national title. Yeah. And you didn't feel like you were a good player. No. At that place, and like, this is not, this is not, none of this is a condemnation. None of this, this is just the way that it is. Like, there's no, it makes no sense to try to make some like moral claim. If anything, I say this because I still have like friends who are professional players now. It reached out to me for advice on like, how to like contextualize things. And for me, this eventually foreshadowing got so bad that I was like willing to self, to not have to deal with this. But especially like that COVID was a perfect microcosm of, of these sort of containment. And the, um, and the mentality that goes into a thing like that, where, and it's so funny now because like now I don't even consume college football. So I haven't watched college football since I, since I stopped playing and, and no, because for a, for a moment, I couldn't watch it because it hurts so bad. And then now it's just I, I just, it's, it's just in the past and it's like, I can't, it just makes no sense to me anymore. One of if not the most common DMs I get on Instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are. Well, today's your lucky day, because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter, I'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now. Also, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make money producing content from the show, you can do so via the Discord link in my description below. And finally, you can join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes via the Patreon link in my description below. As always, please take one second to hit that subscribe button. If you haven't already, I really appreciate that. Also, the like button's a big help and you can join my newsletter via the link in the description below. Think you described it was really interesting how you described it earlier, plucking kids the way you put it from around the country to go to one place where it's one team, you could join each other through suffering and you described it as cult like. Is there a part of that that you can't did the facade's been removed? So when you're watching, you know, a 12 o'clock game on a Saturday where all of us are drinking a beer and having fun, you know what we're going into it. I think if you ask any former cultural player, and there's a very interesting overlap also with, I would say, the veteran community where it's like, there is the Hollywood production that is American sniper, that is any given Sunday, where, and even me, like, I want to indulge in the dream that it's like, man, if I work hard, I'll get, I can become something and make a name for myself and my body will stay together, my mind will stay together, and I'll make a million dollars in the meantime and become a demigod. And you know, I mean, even just recently, like a few weeks ago, there was a, there was an offensive lineman who committed suicide, and they don't, they donated his brain to CTE research. Um, I don't know. I think it's too early to say, um, but I think if you ask any, uh, and this is the sort of, I open my memoir, the preface opens with like me and a bar watching, the national championship of Ohio State, the year or two after I retired, where I'm fully a civilian and like, someone didn't recognize me, um, and you know, especially as a big guy, you get the like, oh, you're big. Like, did you play football and it's like, it's like, and they, and it's, and it's, and it's just sort of funny, um, especially there's, there's the popular question of like, oh, you didn't want to go pro as if like, as if the, it's behind the verb want, as if I didn't want to, as if, but there's just so much between wanting and having and wanting and having. Oh, yeah. And for me, ultimately, I even think, I got to the place where even, you know, having would have been easy, but I didn't want it anymore. And so the summer of my junior year, um, I had always been in, and I'm just to talk about like disillusion. I had had my first suicidal thought when I was like seven or eight, um, what, what sparked that? I remember being in the bathtub and my, I was talking with my mom and this might have been before that, but when I was a kid, I was talking with my mom and I said, you know, oh, a hundred years from now, mom, like, we're going to be best friends and I, and I, I didn't know what death was yet and then she explains me what death was. And from the moment I knew what death was, I had like a really macabre fascination with what death was. And I remember even after that, like we went to like publics, we went to like the supermarket and I got a pack of chrome hot wheels and I asked mom, like, mom, can I have this? And she said, of course, honey. And then like, like death just flashed my mind and I know it's like, I don't even want it anymore. So like from a very young age, the, the topic of death, like really gripped my mind, um, it receded. Yeah. So I saw a psychiatrist at a young age, um, come high school. Life was good. So when there's no stressors, there was no like the foundation was never being tested. And, you know, the downside of having a faulty foundation or a cracked foundation is that it only becomes worse the more you build on it. And so I had this huge edifice of like, I'm Harry Miller, Ohio State football player, uh, potentially going to be a Rhodes finalist, kind of, yada, yada, yada. And I got to the summer of my junior year. That's when agents start reaching out to you. And that's when they start telling me about how much money you're going to make and like all these things, you can be, the plan was play junior year, start, be a center, um, declare declare all American, um, millionaire, yada, yada, yada. And you know, I was just sort of, I was having all of these conversations and it was just this thing where again, you, you, uh, you just can't want what you want. You can't decide your want, like the, the will, the want, my, that's a very like, sharpened Harry and idea of like the will, like I, I, I couldn't will myself further anymore because I didn't believe in it. And especially, I didn't believe in it. I just didn't believe in it. Yeah. So like, you know, it's, it's one thing. It's one thing to be hated for what you are. It's one thing to be hated for what you aren't, but it's, it's an entirely different thing to be loved for what you aren't. And I couldn't, it just wasn't me. And I was like going down this path and I could feel just like I couldn't maintain appearances. The way that I was and, you know, so that, so that junior year, I'm getting, I was the strongest I ever was. I was the fastest I ever was. You know, we voted for team captains. There were six captains voted. I had the seventh most votes. I had a really great off season looking to be a big contributor to the, to the program. And then I, but I was like lying to myself so hard. And it's, and it's crazy how easy it is to deceive yourself because I would just get home and I would ignore it. But then like when it was a week away from the first game of the year, and I just thought about like being in the stadium and like I just, sometimes the stadiums would get so loud that it would make my ears crackle. And I just like hated it. I didn't want to be in the crowd. I didn't want all that sound in my head. And like I would rather would have died than to, and then to have to go in there. But before we dig into that because I think it's going to be really important to get to where that got to and like how it, how it manifests from a thought to get in all the way there. But like I've always had a belief that there's a price paid for genius, right? So you look at great people who do great things. Even if we can't always see it, there's some sort of price they pay for that. I'm not just talking about like years of hard work. I'm talking about like something in life to not to be a pun with your tattoo, but to bounce the scales a little bit. And I know you scoffed at me calling you genius earlier, but it's very clear when I watched your speech of you talking about this and then read your writing. Like you and listening to you talk, it's crystal clear to people out there. Like you have an innate genius about you. You think about things in a, wow, what's the word I'm looking for? And in almost very existential way, I don't mean much as a pun. And I kind of wonder sometimes if because you are seeing things and considering so many things around you that wouldn't even occur to the average person, if you wonder if sometimes it's like going down those rabbit holes of thought takes your mind away from the presence of what you have. Absolutely. At a very young age, that's all it was, it was pure contemplation and contemplation without action is just like terror, it's slavery. Like if you, you're being subjected to the forces And you have no power yourself to stand up against it. So you just feel, you feel small and you feel powerless. You feel when you're presented with the ideas and they're like just staring at you and they're laughing at you laughing at you. I think that's that's like the language of like I do believe you know in thought like and I've made a video about this about like thought forms and egregors and egregors are like collective psychic beings and you know what you isn't it's so interesting that you could spend you could do nothing all day but think really hard about something or be really anxious about something and devote all of your psychic energy to something and you you eat food you consume calories and the energy goes somewhere but it hasn't on anywhere in the material plane. There's something when you think about something so hard that you endow it with this sort of this psychic this mental body. I mean so an egregor is when you when a bunch of people get together and think of something and if you if you endow it with too much power it can run away from you and I think similarly like so like Plato talks about like genius is a gift of madness and actually genius is the Latin word for the Greek demon and demon isn't like the the most recent christianized demon you can be an agatha demon a good demon a demon is just a lesser god like it's it's a it's not material but it's not god it's just this sort of spirit and like a mantis and maniac come from that same root of like a man of mind so genius a praying mantis a maniac all of that mania mania is madness is genius we're 40 trillion in dead and most of us below the boomer generation don't own a home and don't have a lot of money in the bank account but for the few pennies we do have it's nice to have a tool that can show you exactly how to money's all being spread around and that's where my friends and monarch come in monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything accounts investments saving goals and spending like I can get a nice full picture of exactly what I'm saving up for a little down payment on house eventually and always have that right friend center based on everything that I'm spending and all the money that's coming in I can also find all the little patterns where money's going out and maybe I can scale back and save at the end of the day it really takes the mental load off track of my finances for me monarch has great tools like their weekly AI recap and they're easy to read visual diagrams that together show you exactly where all of your money's being allocated and you can even use their investment view to compare your portfolio to the sp 500 like the monarch AI insights tool because it also shows me where my spending's going up and also what can be chalked up to inflation because the fed is devaluing the dollar and f***ing all episodes so write your own money store today with monarch use code julian at monarch.com link in my description below to get your first year of monarch core half off at just $50 that's 50% off your first year at monarch.com link in my description below using code julian check it out today and I think you know especially that a young age you know I think I imagine that there's a lot of people who feel this way where you know the passions whether it's from your from your chest from your head like play to would like to vibe that up but the the thoughts and the passions come upon you and they feel like animals sort of like knowing at you or pulling at you and when you're young and when you when you have no personal spiritual muscle it it will pull you onto your face like the leash like it'll it'll dislocate your shoulder it'll dislocate your your mental limbs from your from your body and so you're just sort of like reeling in pain and so at a young age you know I had these like really big ideas and I was confronted with these things but I had none of the spiritual muscle I had none of the vigor to defend myself and so I was very beholden to these things and I was also a sucker like I'm just such a sucker for um I I I love freedom I love liberty I love sovereignty I love being what I am and you know there was just I couldn't tolerate I don't want to be yelled at anymore I didn't want people interviewing anymore I don't want people asking me questions anymore I don't want to wear a number anymore I didn't want agents thinking that I was theirs anymore and so for me absolutely I felt I just felt I'd spent 20 years being created into this thing that I was and um and again you you asked and it's very interesting you asked at the beginning like why did I get into football or like did and I said you know like the the the fantasy followed the form like I remember the first time when I was in high school and for a long time I thought I'm going to college scholarships to get an education but then there was a coach from Texas A&M who talked about the NFL and I didn't know that was an option and then so for me being so young I didn't have the discernment to know what I wanted so I I wanted what people showed me and that's a real that's a real brief I think this is this is somebody I've been reading a lot recently um Renee Gerard he has this idea of like the the triangle of desire where there is the subject and the object you being the subject the object what you desire and then there's a third there's a model and it is the the other who if they want it it'll make you want it I know if they prohibit you from having it it'll make you want it more yeah and that's how you find so many so many times you want something you want something that you don't even want but it's because other people want it and I think that's how people end up like you were talking about whether it's like studios or whether it's like the the people on your arms the fancy cars or the money you just want it because other people have it money power payments money yes sex fame money money fame sex power like it's like it's almost like a sold out for me right um and I got to this point where I was like looking at it and I've always been a real drama queen I was joking with with Cooper how like I would for a lot for like two years I'd cry like an every podcast interview because it was also so fresh and so raw that the tears would come out well I think people are gonna understand why right yeah right and that's just the way it was I thought that was like I said I saw that I haven't seen podcasts interviews but I saw that one speech you gave and like that was the Ted talk yeah they chose not to publish that by the way yeah that's why that's why yeah so I actually why don't they choose not to publish it because of the and like I understand like they it's sensitive material it's like it's talks about so what that's what I said um you know they ended up you know they sold their tickets they got their money I spoke of their thing and it was a big ra ra Ted what the fuck this is incredible what I said I appreciate it yeah everyone go you have it on your Twitter right it's on yet so much Twitter and it's in my Instagram bio um yeah it's and it dude you know they we I complained and then they sent me they sent me like a pamphlet about like how to talk about like mental health and stuff oh and they sent me like a PDF oh Jesus Christ but um yeah but I like I get you know well into you know they were putting a hard position I get it but now you're being nice I'll say fuck I'm trying I appreciate it it was great and but the reason I'm bringing up is because like it is so raw and yeah that couldn't have been how long after was it we're going to get to what the conversation that was I know 12 to 18 months yeah dude like it was raw and again the the point was I was always a very honest like talking about like talking about freedom liberty sovereignty um the to be what you are which I think is good like goodness is like is is to pursue your nature and to fulfill your nature and to not be prohibited and I knew what I wanted to be I feel like I couldn't be it and there's a reason there's a reason why every law is written in the negative tense like whether it's the 10 commandments or the the Bill of Rights Congress shall make no law thou shall not kill freedom only exists when you can say no if you the freedom to say yes is just is permission and whoever's giving you permission is your sovereign that's who rules you and the only way I felt I got to the point where I could assert myself and assert my freedom especially you know when I viewed myself when I when I viewed myself as property of the television of the institution of media and managers and all these things when I viewed myself as property suicide became the destruction of property became vandalism and I wanted to show my contempt so much that it's like I'd rather die than do this um and so that became a really dangerous headspace where and of course thank God now I've learned that I have a voice and that was actually for a long time in my dreams I had no voice in my dreams I would be yelled at by people and I would have this frog in my throat and I couldn't speak just like in real life just like in real life so until I wrote the book I couldn't I didn't speak in my dreams for like years I couldn't speak and I was always being talked to in my dreams and taunted and then when I wrote it and like reclaimed my voice and that story I developed yeah sorry go ahead no I just I developed the ability to speak and um and again that's why I think you know thank God because now I mean all of this I started sharing stuff online a year ago essentially to the day almost and um you know it'd be a shame it's just like I think about how talking about brainfully forming at 25 I didn't know anything that's such a young age and I was so and and I also the reason I was so wrong my TED talk was because there is nothing I hate more than sort of the infantilization or the cuddling of talk about suicide because talking about madness talking about genius like it made sense to me I wouldn't do something that doesn't make sense and so that was the point of the TED talk was like why did this make sense to me and as you can see when you when looking at through the lens of of destruction of property of retaining sovereignty and then of course it starts to make sense and the context of like um sepaku and like ritual suicide and like and choosing to to go out on your own terms sepaku That was like the like the Japanese disemballment of like this like San Mar like a bichito. Yeah. Yeah um and you know there's actually a there's uh I think it's Walt Whitman um song of joy as he says like along the lines like along the lines up to struggle against great odds to face enemies undaunted to be entirely alone with them and to find how much one man can stand um to face prison torture strife and popular odium face to face um to mount the scaffold to charge the muscles of guns with perfect nonchalance to be indeed a god there's this idea that and yes there's this idea that um if you if you doubted he nailed it if you charged I knew we had a bar for bar word for word if you charge the muscles of guns with perfect nonchalance that's how you become that's how you become a god to be indeed a god godship it's so that's why I think it's so beautiful where lots of animals get killed but only a god would choose to suffer um bacteria run away from high temperatures um cattle will run away from wolves but there's something that only a mannequin there's something divine or even I guess you see you'll see a scared animal defending its child where when you when you charge the muscles of guns with perfect nonchalance um that is godship that is there's divinity in that hey guys if you haven't already subscribed please hit that subscribe button it's a huge huge help thank you and so I say all of this not to romanticize or to justify because I do think life is more romantic I do think life is more justified um but that's where my headspace was that was you know when you feel powerless that becomes this huge well well spring of power and I think anybody listening to this right now who is negotiating with those things that's probably the great temptation um and you know there's I I sail of that to to confess that it's a very good argument like it's very damning and that's why you know as you've seen my as my TED talk like um you know for me I ended up dragging a box cutter across my throat because like I just wanted to be done with it um and you know evidently like it wasn't able to do the damage necessary to to not be her anymore what do you think that was that you didn't you didn't I mean obviously like if you wanted if I wanted to I think like they say there's that like there's that like I don't know if it's like a you know the the folktale of like it only takes it's like a baiting eating a baby carrot to bite off your pinky but like your brain won't do it because it's like self-harm so like the neurology can't overcome itself to destroy itself um I think there was an element of that to it I mean I was of course like very scared and and again it's like it's not like I wanted to it's not like I was going out of my way to do it it was I wasn't really I was I was reluctant I was I was scared um and so I wasn't eager by any means and uh I didn't have the date circled and scheduled with a birthday cake waiting for me um I was I was reluctant and I and so of course like I didn't I didn't create the force necessary to produce the damage that would have done it thank god um well let's go back to the timeline because we we got off that and skip forward for a second so was after after the championship game you were 13 all American which was supposed to mean something but you didn't feel like yeah you're 13 all big ten I'm sorry you did you didn't feel like you were a good player and you kind of internalize this whole thing and I guess you're headed into your junior year at this point it's like junior year yeah and this I believe what you said 20 minutes ago was that that was when it's not like it was the first time in your life you had that ideation but that was when it started to creep in that like you know what yeah I'd rather not be here yeah no because I mean I mean just to speak very plainly and I get I like I'd prefer to speak as plainly as possible because I think it removes any like room for deception or dishonesty but like I mean I felt kind of like just bitch made layer it's like I don't like you've you've spent 21 years your parents have spent this money getting year you're the agents the agents the coaches like everybody had invested in me um did you have a good relationship with your parents fantastic relationship like I love my parents so there was no yeah there was no like um I mean I felt bad but of course then again that's like the sort of like the persuasive demon of suicide is that a huge obstacles people love me the the rebuttal to that and I describe you know suicides like sort of like fighting like a mortal combat bot that like learns your moves and starts to like react to you like like a new side bot mortal combat like it's a ghost that just learns your best techniques um and it makes mockery with them it just laughs at you just as you thought that breathing technique was going to save your life you thought that mantra was going to save your life like this thing has been here longer than you know this this this power this force this like call of the void and um you know you really don't know until you and like a Kirchgart says that like to learn sort of the grace of God you have to wrestle in the infinite and to learn the grace of God that's a paraphrase yeah but he he talks a good paraphrase yeah he talked but he talks about you you until you exhaust yourself of your own powers you will rely on your own powers and that's why you know one of my favorite images is the um the story of Jacob um going up on peniel going up on the mountain so Jacob and the bible this is in Genesis Jacob is the second born twin to Abraham um no Abraham Isaac Jacob to Isaac um Jacob and Esau Esau is the Esau is the red one the first born twin Jacob comes out second snatching his ankle grabbing his ankle as he comes out of the womb so he's called the ankle snatcher or the righteous deceiver he's the one who makes others stumble and so he spends his whole life sort of as the second son and so he has no birthright he has no claim to the house to to um the lineage but he um ends up tricking Esau out of his birthright Esau tired after a hunt each he trades Esau a bowl of soup for his birthright and then Isaac who's now going blind Esau is very hairy so Jacob covers himself an animal for us to resemble his brother's hairy skin um covers himself in his scent goes to his blind father and steals Esau's blessing and so because he sort of he he's the righteous deceiver he deceives his family to earn this blessing and when they find out he's banished and spends years away from his family and when he comes back years pass he comes back and he goes up on this mountain and their waiting for him has led the Elohim and so you'd like a god angel um and I like to imagine just this sort of like this this aura the celestial being just sort of like sitting there waiting there smoking a cigarette and Jacob gets up there and they start to wrestle and it says they wrestle all night um and then Jacob and then the angel dislocates Jacob's hip and uh the angel tries to leave but Jacob says like I will not let you go the angel says let me go Jacob says I will not let you go until you bless me and so you've got this guy fighting on one leg telling god to blood I'm not I'm not giving up they've wrestled all night the angel says what is your name and here I think is a really beautiful image because Jacob his name means the deceiver the snatcher the the the stumbling or the ankle snatcher and he said the pride to fight all night but when confronted and when the angel looks at him in the face and says what are you he confesses what he is he says I am I am Jacob and then the angel Elohim says from now on you will no longer be known as Jacob but as Israel he who fights with God and so he he redeems him that's what the word redeem redeem he renames him and so his name of the deceiver gets changed to he who fights with God so his his combat with the infinite becomes a an affectionate name it becomes a kudos and uh there's an interest and there's also another verse where he says like and Jacob says then what's your name and then the angel says why do you ask my name and just leaves and so there's this it feels very sort of like older brother where it's like you know who I am and then the angel leaves and then Jacob goes reconciles and that that becomes the the twelve houses of Israel is his is his lineage and so just I say all of that to to reference yeah so that's the I think that's Gustav Dore one of his etchings I love this guy and so references it's great no it's great that guy Gustav Dore it's beautiful right yeah and there's look like you see the struggle in him and then the angel is just pep just plain faced yeah in power the higher ground the art is so good that you can pick that up and want in split second and so Jacob walks the rest of his days at the length um and for me I had I had a very similar story so like to return to the junior season and so yeah I resolved that like I'd rather die but you resent your coaches and the trainers and the people who were part of this program who were you know y'all in it you so much and telling you what to do or no no no and for the most part it was just pure love I mean there's there's cases where um and honestly like you have to operate from forgiveness because no I don't um you believe the intentions were good for the most part absolutely and like even especially coach day coach day his father committed suicide and so he was actually very initiative on he was very initiated on on treating this. Um, I really do think, you know, talking about agriculture and like psychic entities, the every Saturday there is going to be a game with 100,000 people in the stadium. You're not stopping that. It's too big. It's too powerful. You're not, you could scream into the midnight sky or like go to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. You are not stopping ESPN College Game Day from coming to your town and fireworks going off, right? And so you can't put like, what are you going to be mad about? And I think maybe I realize the sort of like, the futility of what, and that's what's crazy. It's like this, this whole saga of me, there's always going to be somebody else wearing 76. There's always going to be somebody else wearing the number and whatever. And I think, you know, for a lot of times, so like, so I told Coach Day, you know, I wanted to get myself in. So I said, you know, we're about a week away from opening against Minnesota. And I tell 'em, I, I-- - Before your junior year. - Before my junior year, yep. And again, this is the plan is, with swift harms, the gods cut short the follies of men. Remember that. - I've heard that one before, yeah. - That's, I think it's like a fuck. - Sophically, is there something? - That's not your fire. - I'm fired, was, yeah. And I think, I think that's in take any. And so, with swift harms, yeah. So everybody has plans. My plan was junior year play All-American. Make money, cool. Professional football player. That was the plan. And so that's the plan. So I go and talk with Coach Day. And he's, I say, can we meet tomorrow? He says, he's probably thinking like, how are we going to pick up Moscow? Or how are we going to pick up shop, which are like blitzes or whatever? And I sit down and he's got his game. He's whatever, he's busy. And honestly, I kind of probably like roomed his day and I'm like, I think about killing him. Every time I go home, I think about myself. And he didn't flinch. He sort of, you know, we quickly, he had, again, him being familiar with it. We put the things in place. - What were those things? - I started working with sports psychiatry and psychology. And we started having, we had a, you know, probably like every other day we were meeting, my mom came up for a period. And I tried. So like, we had that-- - Did you tell her? - Yeah, my mom was actually, that was, I left that out. My, I thought about, my first thing was what do I do? Call my mom. I called my mom and I told her. And again-- - Before you met with Coach Day. I asked her what to do. And she said, yeah, meet with Coach Day. - And he handled it right away. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, he said, you know, if you feel this way, you should probably sit out today. And I said, like, Coach, I felt this way for a long time. The only difference is now you know about it. And so I tried to play. I think I practiced for like two more days or maybe it was just that day. Like I just, I kept going. But again, it's so weird. Like you want to talk about disillusionment. Once you, once you sort of like, prepare to, it's just like now it's like what are, someone screams at you. And it's just like, it's just noise. It's just like this means nothing, bro. And so I was out of it. And he knew that. I ended up taking, I ended up sitting out. And I think at that time in my heart of hearts, I knew I was done playing football. - But he's still, that's interesting. So he got you help right away, but he still let you practice. - Yes, but I insisted. That's what I'm saying. Like when I, when I was just, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's the way though. - No, I think, well, I think to talk about care. And again, this was a huge point with my mom for a long time. People still thought that like football was my outlet. As it had been my entire childhood. So they think that there's some other symptom. I'm depressed. - I didn't tell them that. - You didn't tell them that. - No, I didn't say why. I didn't say why. It was just, I want to. And I think, you know, it's stress. It's the same way where it's like, it's stressful. Like, I mean, yeah, it's a stressful job. But it's not the job itself. It's the things that surround it. And I think, and that was why with, you know, for my mom for a long time, even afterwards, it took a lot of, and I didn't realize this until we had this sort of like breaking, this is also fast forwarding. But there came a point where that was a long fall. And my mom and I kept arguing near the end of it where I was like, there was this failure to communicate. And there came a point where like I said, like, I'm not gonna come home for Christmas. I was so fed up because we were operating under two entirely different assumptions where I had made it my mind like I can't do this anymore. And she kept saying, when you feel better, we'll get back to playing football. And so she, so I was trying to like escape from the madhouse. And she kept saying like, you're gonna get better and things are gonna continue. And ultimately, you know, when I communicated, we eventually had the realization that, you know, perhaps this is irrecoverable. And that wasn't until after the fact. So I think everybody sort of was operating under that assumption. - How were you doing in school at that time? - 4.0, still. - So the day after I, the day after I like cut my throat, like I went to class, that's the gators when we talk about the gators, that like go up of your face. I would just like, I just put that over my throat and just like I went to, I just continued, took my exams. - Took that in the fall. - I was in the fall. Yeah, so that was after the conversation with Coach Day. - Yeah, so I took some time off. And then again, we, there was the, after like four weeks, there was the talk of like returning to play. And, but again, like I was just so out of it. I was like, it was just like in dream world that entire time where it's like nothing felt real. What did you talk about with the psychiatrist? - I hope for was that. - It was very helpful. I mean, I had world class, Candace and Joshua, where my two, where my two people. And again, a lot of that. And again, this is the function I serve to a lot of athletes. Reach out to me is you just need, and this is why I love Nicaragua. Like you want to talk to somebody who doesn't even know what the shape of a football is. 'Cause you get to the point where it's like everybody, again, Saturday. Everything goes down to Saturday. How do you feel? It's about Saturday. Are you okay? Can you walk on that? Saturday. Everything is Saturday. This Saturday, are you good or not? Saturday. Saturday. And to just talk to people who, who it doesn't matter, that's when you can really start unpacking stuff. Because otherwise, everything is in preparation. It's a very adrenal and sympathetic nervous system. And it's just action and it's just survival. And you can't really slow down to process things. And so if a thing is broken, it's just pure epinephrine. It's just beyond you, you know? And so yeah, it was extremely helpful. And then four weeks pass, and I'm like sort of back. And ironically, I was like, I returned in the position of being like a backup guard. I was like in the second strings. And I was honestly having so fun just practicing. Because then I was back to being a kid, just playing football without any consequences. Because there's not the pressure of you having to perform on that. I was just like, I was just playing ball on a beautiful leg. That was, so that would have been October. I was just playing, I was playing football in October in Ohio. Leaves are changing. It's 6 p.m. I get to try to down block on my on my teammate. What gave up? Does Mike, are we good? Was he still out? All right, we'll be, we'll be right back, we're gonna fix it. All right, we're back. We got the might fix now. Okay. You had been saying like the leaves are changing. You were having fun. Yeah, you're playing ball like you're a kid. And like, it's just now there's like, there's no fans. There's no critics. There's no production. It's just, it's just football. And that I loved. But again, the problem had not been solved. Because I still, I had more courage to harm myself and to say what was wrong, which is like a terrible irony. Did it feel like you almost had a band-aid on a bullet wound and you just couldn't see the wound? Yeah, I mean, that was, it was like the primordial crack. Like I had never addressed, and for me, I had always planned on like playing football, making a lot of money and then becoming a writer. Like I always wanted the endgame was to create things and art. Wanted to be a writer all the way back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're an engineering school, but you want to be a writer. Yeah, I figured I would like do a degree that like, I could get a job if I needed to, was the plan. So you didn't love, I was gonna ask you about that earlier, but I didn't want to get you off the thought. You didn't love engineering. You were just really small. I did love engineering. I love a lot of things. I did love it. I did love it. And I think engineering really informs my style as well in terms of, you know, it gave me the procedure. It gave me a way of looking at the world. In terms of mathematical and theoretical, but also very practical. I think, and I think again, it's all about what is practical because these theories, and I think that's where a lot of people get like messed up. It's like in theory, ultimately like my philosophy now is about action, it's about what empowers me, what helps me move and progress. And self-actualize and self-overcome. And so yeah, so I loved engineering and it's sort of shaped how I, and I'm very proud to like to be able to say like mechanical engineering. It's a nice flip. - Yeah, and I like feather in the cat from the Ohio State University. - Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help. And if you'd like to check out this clip, full podcast episode, that link is in the description below, or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.