1 for 30: The comeback

We made it, damn. 

30 blogs in 30 days. All original content. Some more valuable than others. Nonetheless, the goal has been achieved and I can’t help but release a little sigh of relief. Relief, because I have reached a milestone moment where I can take it all in for a minute to reflect, appreciate, analyze, then prepare my mind for the next commitment. 

29 blogs in 29 days but I have been saving this one for last. I have a small announcement that I have refrained from sharing on social media, until now.

After making my grand appearance on Network television with my 30 minutes of fame featured on the Discovery Channel’s, The Wheel, I was stuck in Great Falls living in my Dad’s basement wondering what the hell am I going to do next. Only 6 months prior to this moment I was madly in love with a woman living the good life in a renovated Hawaiian tour bus on the island of Kauai. In a matter of half a year I went from knowing exactly what I wanted in my future, to have all the ideals of what my future will provide be swept away like dust in the wind. For as much as I love my Dad, I will say, living on a tropical island, traveling the world with the woman you love is a little better than worrying about getting caught naked eating out of the cereal box late at night. 

On the bright side, I was on TV! Right?!

There was a lot of good and bad from my time on the Discovery Channel. I have received mixed reviews and a lot of people’s true colors have been exposed. For me, no one will ever be able to take away what happened during my time in South America. The experience is forever priceless, it was the calling card that I needed. I wanted it to be my comeback, it was the opposite. It absolutely broke me. I was not even close to ready to take on 60 days now looking back on where I was at physically and emotionally during my time on the show. 

I froze. I lost 27 pounds in 19 days. I cried. I triumphed and I failed. I wasn’t ready, but, I took the leap. I jumped into the deep end not knowing how to swim. I didn’t “win” but it was losing, like really getting my assed whopped that was the beginning to a beautiful story. This story, I am my own hero. You should be just that too, your own hero. 

Completely wrecked last year, I decided to plot a spring trip through Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming. I visited Moab and had a magical experience making a 14 hour journey going 27 miles through Canyon Lands National Park. We partied our faces off in Las Vegas like it was spring break Havasu 2013. And I watched my childhood best friend walk across a stage that wasn’t displaying a wrestling mat. I began to realize that life really isn’t that bad, that, yeah, I have made a lot of mistakes and have come up short time after time leaving me disappointed. And yes, I have failed a lot, in all areas of my life. Some of my failures have been public, others, I will only know the pain. 

These things all definitely happened, but, I realized that our failures and fuck ups do not define us. We are not our mistakes. We are not our character flaws or any bullshit that society wants you to feel less about yourself for. We are human beings for christ sake. 

In a moment of clarity in my final leg of this trip from Laramie back to Great Falls, I remember looking myself in the sun visor mirror in a Town Pump gas station parking lot and tears began to flow. Tears, because at that moment I had realized I have had enough. I was no longer willing to claim victim to anything that has happened in my life to me or because of me. 3800 miles and this was the result, a conversation with myself in a Town Pump parking lot. This conversation laid the first brick in rebuilding the man I deserve to be. The switch was flipped and I made no plans to ever return to the low place I was allowing myself to resonate on. 

Upon arriving back to Great Falls, I immediately took massive action on the idea of starting our own supplement line of products. I cut all the bullshit excuses as to why it wasn’t the “right time” in my life, and got to work. The work was just beginning… Little did I know this would be the start of the rest of my life. 

Day by day I began to rewire my subconscious. I committed to developing the skills and habits of successful people. I got real with myself, stopped hanging out with losers and people who don’t want to see me win. And I moved. I moved away from Great Falls, my home, so I could find home, within. I know there are a lot of people still hanging around their home town because of various reasons often resulting in the feeling of being “stuck.” I was stuck. I was stuck in my Dad’s basement in the room my sister grew up in. I was stuck on sticking around to make other people happy. It took me realizing that my own happiness comes first, you have to have the courage to get honest with yourself in order to create the life you desire. 

I packed up shop and made refuge in Bozeman. The reason? This is the announcement I have never spoke of publicly. 

I moved to prepare for a college wrestling comeback next season. The comeback will never happen. 

What comeback will happen is me returning to competition. Yes, I am returning to the mat, this time, not a wrestling mat. 

After taking a close look at my health, 4 major back surgeries, 2 knee surgeries, 2 dislocated elbows, current double torn meniscus and plenty of other bumps and bruises to note, the dream of being a college wrestling national champion on any level is just not in the picture. Trust me, I have tried. Since June I have lived almost perfect. My diet is extremely committed, I have dropped my body fat down from 20% to 8-10% at all times. I don’t drink alcohol or pollute my body with processed foods. I train like a professional athlete, all my workouts are programmed to maximize output and recovery. I have a stretching routine I do every single day. I haven’t taken any days off… I have tried so fucking hard to get back that dream I have been chasing since I was 5 years old. It still burns me every day. I never got a true shot. I was cut short. All I have are thoughts of, “what if?”  

What if I never got injured? What if I had 5 years of opportunities to make a lifelong dream come true? What if…

What if has never changed the past, I started asking myself, what now? 

What now, Josh? Okay, so you have devoted almost a year to conditioning your body for a wrestling comeback and it’s not going to happen? What now!?

What now? No Gi Submission grappling. 

Yes, I am returning back to the mat in a sport I have zero experience in. Rookie is what you would call that, and I am so excited for the future of competition! I have no formal instruction in the BJJ realm but I am hungry and eager to learn and excel. I have developed a new vision of what my future of competition and success can look like. I will share those ambitions as I progress, I’m all walk no talk right now. Let me walk a little bit and I will start talking. 

With plans to return to the mat and ambitions to grow Fueled Supplements into a world national supplement brand, I am moving again. As the leaves change color, I shall follow suit. This fall I will be moving back to Arizona to most notably make home for Fueled Supplements, I have been working hard behind the scenes for a relentless finish to 2018, as well as start my training with high level competitors and coaches. 

I am going back to school… sike! School to learn about how to choke someone out! 

I am ecstatic to return to being a student. I have been coaching wrestling for four years now and I am ready to switch roles for awhile again. 

I may not be the athlete I once was, I am better. I have more mental fortitude than ever before. I cannot be broke. I have been through so much pain. There isn’t a single thing in training that I haven’t done before, I am ready to return to the madness. I am ready for the grind, the process, that is what I love most. 

I have always been a grinder. I have always loved the hard training. I have never been fancy. I have never wanted the flashy spotlight in my competition career. I trained at in an insane pace at all times, just ask my partners. This is just who I am, I can’t hide from it. I can’t try to be someone I’m not. I’ve tried walking away. Time after time I find myself coming back. This time, I’m on a mission. That is all that is needed to be said. No lofty claims of being a world champion someday, maybe I compete in one match and give it up forever. 

I will say, this time it’s all for me. Not my Dad, not my coaches, family, girlfriend or anyone else. 

It’s for me. This is my story to be the hero of. 

Are you ready to be the hero of yours? 

1 For 30.