Ep. 1173: How to Travel Fearless and Far Revisited - Mike Corey

You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to

get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

This is Caleb.

In this revisited episode, Mason interviews Mike Corey.

Mike is a well-respected YouTuber who has built his channel around a life of adventure and

of facing your fears.

From an early age, Mike has been fascinated by facing his fears and the sense of accomplishment

and wonder that exists on the other side of getting past those fears.

So in this episode, Mason and Mike talk about some of Mike's adventures in the far corners

of the world about his experiences, what he learned, and about the value of being able

to overcome fear.

Hope you enjoy the episode.

Here's Mason.

Alright folks, welcome to the show.

You heard a little bit about Mike in the official intro.

Mike, welcome to the show, how you doing?

I'm doing very well, man.

I'm here in Tanzania, just finished climbing Kilimanjaro about a week and a half ago.

That was a hell of an experience and now just getting some office work done here and getting

some cut up and some calls.

Okay, so how is Kilimanjaro?

Well, I tell you, I don't do that much mountaineering and I guess Kilimanjaro is probably

the very bottom tier of mountaineering.

It's not going to be very difficult at all.

But I tell you, it was super cool.

There's different routes you can take, obviously, some are easier than others.

So it took probably the hardest route you can take, I'm sure you can just go up to any

side of the mountain and it's actually pretty hard.

But this is like one of the harder actual paths.

It's called the Western breach and it takes seven days up and two days down, so a nice

long nine, nine day journey.

And the weather wasn't so great.

It was kind of snowy, but ended up making it to the top.

And I guess it's, I should probably tell you this as well, I decided to carry a water

map.

A little bit crazy, it totally is a bit crazy, a little bit silly.

But I have a YouTube channel called Fearless and Far.

On that channel, I like to challenge myself in strange, unique ways.

That's part of the reason I'm on the podcast with you now.

I'm just finding these different challenges or different locations or these things happening

in the world that are a bit strange and different.

That's kind of my jam.

So I decided to try to see if I was able to carry a watermelon up on my shoulder at

the top and spoiler alert.

I did it.

It was, it was hell though, it wasn't a good time.

I don't recommend it to anybody, but it was a nice little personal challenge, although

it being a little bit silly.

I mean, hey, I think if I learned one thing in the past 12 months, I have to stop taking

a life so time seriously sometimes.

So this is my little challenge slash treat to myself.

Did you get to eat it?

Dude, we gutted that thing on top.

That was like the best part about it was cutting it in half and then then eating this, this

watermelon.

And I wasn't sure if it was going to rot or like explode from altitude.

I didn't, I didn't know.

All I know is that when we first bought it was a 15 pound beautiful thing and then by

the top, it was like brown and full of holes and scars.

But you know, like wagyu beef that that that Japanese expensive beef because they massage

it every single day and it's supposed to be very tasty after.

It was like, it was like the same thing.

I carried it all the way to the top for seven days and then it was probably the best

damn watermelon I've ever had in my entire life.

I mean, I love it, man, as a fellow goofball, you know, kind of always doing something bizarre

like that.

That's just a great challenge, you know, to go right up our alley is carry a watermelon

to the top of Kilimanjaro.

You might be the first, I recently talked to somebody a guest on the show who played

a game of soccer, almost at the top of Kilimanjaro, like an official size game of soccer

with official teams and refs, carried goals and everything.

And I just thought that was the something about that mountain just draws wacky goals

apparently.

That's a, I don't know, maybe see altitude.

That's cool though.

Actually, that would work really well.

So Kilimanjaro, especially like you couldn't attempt something like that or like my, my

little goal on like Akon Kagwa or like Everest or these monsters of mountains because they're

too technical.

Like they, you can actually really, really hurt yourself or die on some of these mountains.

Maybe is one of those mountains.

It's high.

It's like, well, in meters, 5,895, which I think is probably pretty close to 20,000 feet.

But it's not that technical.

So you can goof around a little bit without, you know, really risking too much.

But right before you get to the summit, there's like this big, like it's a volcano, right?

So this is like big crater in the middle.

That's really flat.

And then one edge of the crater is a Huru Peak is what it's called.

And that's the summit.

I totally see people playing a full game of soccer on that flat area in the crater because

it's just like a big open snowfield.

I think that's exactly where they played it.

It was right at about 19,000 feet and maybe it was right under the summit too in a crater

that kept mentioning that.

So that had to be where it was.

But man, you know, take us back.

I know you've told these stories probably a thousand times recently.

But you know, we just want to hear it again for someone that just takes a watermelon

up kilomagaro.

You know, did you have an interesting childhood or something like where did you grow up?

What did you grow up?

And what ultimately caused you to think like this?

You know what I'm saying?

Because it just doesn't happen necessarily.

Oh my God, that's the best phrasing of that question I've ever heard in my entire life.

And yeah, definitely.

It's someone who carry a watermelon up kilomagaro had a different, definitely an interesting

childhood.

I don't mind answering the question because my entire life is kind of built my travel

style, my life, everything I'm passionate about.

All kind of stems around what happened when I was younger.

And basically I grew up as a curious kid.

I'm Canadian from the province of New Brunswick, which is right above Maine in Canada.

And very similar to Maine actually, like lots of forests, kind of like simple folk,

grew up in a family of animal lovers.

And so I always love nature animals too.

I was always like flipping over rocks, looking for snakes and salamanders.

And I guess my favorite thing as a kid was finding these misunderstood creatures and

trying to explain why they were so damn cool.

No one really listened, but I still really enjoyed it.

And then I grew up and I guess where I got the name Fearless and Far came from, it started

because in my life, I was fearful of most things.

I started when I was in grade school, I was in grade three and I had a teacher bring

me up in front of the class and basically ridicule me in front of the students.

Again, being a shy kid, I never was in front of the class.

I wasn't the class clown.

And that set me, that set my behavior is going forward.

It's set my, set the mold, you know, you're so impressionable at that age.

That was my interpretation of being in public was like people laughing and being ridiculed

and just like pain.

So actually I had a phobia of public speaking for most of my life from like grade three until

just damn man, like five, six, seven years ago.

And now it's my full-time job.

And so I mean, the alias is fearless and far, but I'm definitely far from fearless.

I'm actually probably one of the most fearful people.

I just found out that I, you can grow a lot by doing the things that absolutely terrify

you.

And there was no one more scared of me than public speaking, but now it's my full-time

job.

I'm a podcast host, I'm a travel YouTuber and I'm a host on a television show too.

My entire career is speaking and all it's various forms except for maybe singing at this

point.

And I'm just a living breathing example of what can happen if you do choose to pursue

the things that absolutely that terrify you.

And that's where the word fearless comes from, but not because I am, but I've realized

that fearlessness is a choice, not necessarily a state of mind or a state of being.

You can choose to be fearless and whether it be asking for a raise or public speaking

or whatever it is, these things that scare you if you lean into them with your hands shaking

and your heart quaking, an amazing thing can happen in your life.

And so that's where it all came from.

This event when I was a kid that could very well have been interpreted as a curse, right,

has now become an absolute blessing only because I decided to lean into it.

And I say I decided it was more like life beating me around until I decided until I did

something crazy, which was, you know, try to do these things I thought I couldn't.

And so now you look at some of these videos I do and some of the adventures I have and

they might seem a little bit silly, but I just really like doing things that I think

I can't.

I really like doing things that people say I can't because humans are amazing when they're

when it's down to the line like if you really want something in life, you can definitely

get it.

And the more opportunities I have to teach myself that and the more opportunities I have

to show other people that I'll take every single one, even if it sucks a little bit.

I know the reward is much greater later.

Well said, absolutely well said and it's so amazing to me that someone with such, you

know, charisma and just so great in front of the camera deals, it has dealt with that

or started out that way.

Do you still get that tingling that that sense of thrill maybe when you're getting in

front of a group of people, does memory still come back at all?

Yeah, of course, man.

I mean, I don't think it ever goes away whether you almost drown when you were 10 or whether

something like happened to me, these things stick with you and I don't know if you can

never really shake it.

But what you can do is you can change your relationship to the feeling, right?

And I like how you said thrill because very easily you can convince yourself, brainwash

yourself that these feelings aren't so different.

I mean, if you look at the physiology of being excited or being afraid, it's not too

far off.

And something I realized too in the throes of it all was that I was also just as scared

of being scared.

Like I would feel this feeling of panic come up and I'd be like, oh no, I'm getting

scared again.

Oh no.

And it would just be like a wheel of fire burning down a hill, you know, faster and faster

and faster.

And then it was just all about being like, okay, well, I know I'm going to feel this feeling,

but I know it's good.

Like I know, I know it's trying to help me, but I don't have to listen to it.

I know that it's here because of this thing that happened that I thought was a curse most

of my life.

It's actually a little bit of a blessing because it made me work on it much, much, much more

than anybody who is naturally gifted with that ability.

And so knowing this and expecting, you know, a little bit of a tingle or thrill, let's

call it because again, it's not so different.

I walk alongside it.

It'll never be gone.

Fear's a part of my life.

But again, we've changed our relationship.

And I think that's the most important thing.

How do you or let me, let me rephrase it, how often are you in a state of either fear

or not anxiety that's too negative, but just that, that, that discomfort, that being

uncomfortable, that's one of your biggest themes on your show and in your life, how much

of your life are you actually in that state?

Yeah.

Well, in all honesty, I've been doing this now professionally for like eight years, professionally

trying to find things that freak me out.

So after a while, you know, I don't have any natural phobia of spiders or heights or

any of these things.

I had a little bit one of claustrophobia and then I decided to bury myself in sand up

to my neck for 24 hours in the Philippines.

And that was miserable, but made it through and lo and behold, I, yeah, I'm still here

today.

But you know what?

No, no, I'm thinking about it and we're on the, you know, adventure sport podcast here.

One of the main things that changed everything is I was listening to a, a, a, a, a base

jumper named Jeb Corlus, who maybe some people are, are familiar with.

And he was talking about fear on some interview and it was some documentary or something.

And the reporters like, so you, you, you must be fearless.

You must not be afraid ever when you jump.

Again, the guy does like squirrel suit base jumping and stuff.

And he took offense and he was like, no, I get afraid every single time before I jump.

I can't get rid of it.

I'm, of course, you're afraid it's something scary, but you just have to learn to change

your relationship.

And then you know, you learn like some of the most famous pop stars are terrified before

they go on stage two.

And you realize that the biggest difference between some of these people and yourself is

just the decision to do it anyway.

You know what I mean?

So I'm still now like when I like, for example, right before this podcast, I just did quite

a big interview for a podcast I'm hosting called against the odds about tales of human survival.

And we were talking about the Thai cave rescue that happened in 2018 or these guys, one

one guy in particular, but several guys rescued these boys from the depths of a cave and

everyone said it was impossible.

So the guy's name was Rick Stanton.

And I had to interview Rick Stanton for the podcast.

And I was like, for me, he's a bit of a personal hero.

And of course, you get the butterflies, you know, of course, you feel scared, especially

someone like me who I don't have a strong background in this at all, actually quite literally

the opposite.

But again, you smile, you say the nerves are normal and you go for it.

And you know what?

I messed it up the first time, but I didn't say, Oh, God, I'm so sorry.

I messed it up.

You say, Okay, let's do it again.

And you do it again, like, like no big deal.

One thing I learned, I used to be a break dancer for like 10 years.

And one interesting thing that I learned there is if people only realize you mess up if

you mess up.

So you can be like, you know, spin around doing stuff, fall on your back and like kind

of slouch up and brush yourself off and they were like, Oh, he messed up.

But if you spin on your back and then land and then like do a little twisty flip and land

on your feet and be like, haha, then everyone's like, Oh, shoot.

Okay.

I guess you may.

Oh, amazing.

How?

That's so.

And the same thing is like life, man, presentations or whatever it is.

If you just act like everything's intentional and don't sweat the mistakes and don't dwell

on them and don't acknowledge them.

People often don't realize you've made a mistake.

And that's like my dirty secret right there.

You absolutely can.

You're one of your dirty little secrets is that, but I've also heard you describe another

secret of yours is just strictly perseverance.

How much of what you've built and who you've become has just been trying and trying and

trying again, even when it feels like, or if you've ever felt, what am I doing here?

Why am I doing this stuff?

But you keep going.

How much how much of your success has been just that?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, there's been a lot of people out there who have done a lot more life threatening

stuff than me where they really had to persevere against against the odds.

But like for a lot of my challenges and things I do and adventures I have, I, I, people

who know me well know that I meticulously plan a lot what I do.

And I think there's a word in stoicism called fear setting, which is like, you don't plan,

well, you plan for the worst things to happen without expecting the worst things to happen.

And that's a lot of, that's a lot of the adventures I do, a lot of the challenges I do

is I really take time to think about what could go wrong again, not expecting, not, not

with a pessimistic attitude, just be like a real attitude here.

Okay, so what are the real things to worry about?

And so often I'll find myself in these situations where I do kind of feel pushed up to my limit.

But again, if it's not a life threatening situation, you should kind of realize that pain

and discomfort are temporary, you know, and I guess I've got quite a firm on a tattoos

by now and it's a bit of a similar thing.

It could fiercely suck in the moment, but you know, it's going to be over in several

hours.

You're going to have any life threatening issues or lose a limb.

You can push through with various techniques.

But again, it takes practice that that perseverance is a muscle.

You have to believe in yourself and trust in yourself and also trust that you've done

the adequate amount of preparation to be able to get yourself in these situations.

You know what I mean?

Like, you can't just jump in.

And I guess that's the last thing I want is people to see some of the stuff I do and

jump in with no training or preparation and expect like, you know, success or a different

result or whatever, a lot of these things in life, you really have to prepare for it.

But once you prepare for them, you know, you can really play a little bit and that's kind

of what I go for.

And it seems like in your story, just as in a lot of stories, it's been a steady climb

to, you know, maybe not more extreme situations, but just, you know, bigger projects, more places

farther reaching experiences.

But so coming from Canada, let's just jump back a little, what were some of those stepping

stones for you to become a world traveler coming from New Brunswick?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, what were some of those major milestones that led to, again, carrying a watermelon

of Kilimanjaro recently?

It doesn't all happen at once.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, my parents always pushed us to be curious.

I've got three siblings.

And my dad was a biology grad and he had, he, like, was big into aquaculture, so, yeah,

like fish farming, but also big into the ocean.

And we'd always go down to, like, the rocky beaches of Southern New Brunswick, which

is, there's a place called the Bay of Funday that's in between Maine and New Brunswick

and it has the highest tides in the world.

If you can imagine 45 vertical feet of water rising and falling twice a day, that's what

happens there.

It's incredible.

And so there, because all of the water gets, like, that's like a bellow is from, from

the bottom of the ocean.

It's all cold, nutrient-witch water.

There's lots of sea life, but again, it's not that great for swimming because it's like

10 degrees Celsius, not sure what that is in Fahrenheit, but freaking cold.

And it's really rocky and everything.

So we used to grow up in, like, playing in the freezing water, catching crabs, crawling

up and down these, like, slippery seaweed, rocky slopes, and just adventuring and exploring

and getting dirty.

And that was a lot of my childhood.

And again, going back to what I said about, like, really loving lifting up rocks and finding

the creepy crawlies, looking in tide pools, same thing.

And I just kind of, that, I didn't realize, didn't realize this connection just until

about last year.

But it's kind of the same thing I do now, going to these misunderstood places, doing

these misunderstood things, and really trying to show people it's not exactly what you

think.

In the past, like a couple of years, I've been to Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Mauritania,

Venezuela, Bangladesh, some of these countries that people wouldn't touch with the 10-foot

pole.

But again, with this whole fear-setting idea from stoicism and, you know, a good travel

skill set as well, being able to see what it's really like in these places.

There's still places I would never go because I do feel they're very dangerous, but there's

lots of places that you can go.

If you have the right contacts and know who to speak to, I guess what I was always

compared to is, like, if there's something terrible happen in Seattle, will you still

go to Florida?

And the answer is, like, of course I would, right?

Because it's a massive country.

Well, why do we think that way about most other countries in the world then?

You know, like if something happens in Indonesia where all of a sudden the entire country's

off limits for, like, 10 years and tourism drops forever, you know, it's not a logical

way to think about it.

But I'm a really logical guy.

I do some kind of crazy things, but most of it's quite calculated.

So I took this idea of, like, you know, the creepy crawlies, but the misunderstood things.

I just love showing people, and I kind of transfer that into the travel world.

And here we are going, like, and riding on the back of an iron or train through the

Saharan Desert in Mauritania for 20 hours or, you know, some of the other crazy adventures

I've done.

So you following fear, fearless and far going fearless or going far being fearless, what

is a legitimate fear that you had going into one of your experiences, one of the projects,

maybe an area of festival that you legitimately were afraid of?

And then you get into it and realize, oh, this isn't, this isn't, you know, something

to be completely afraid of.

And it started to make more sense to you.

Do you have any sort of example you could share?

Whenever I go to some of these more sensitive countries, like, again, when I went to Venezuela

or went to Turkmenistan or Mauritania, or actually I was in Yemen, just geez, like a body

year ago, early February, whenever, like, the thing is, like, before I go to these places,

I have, I set up cool local contacts, I make sure the situation's okay.

I really do my research.

And then if everything looks good, I go, but you can't fight that perception of a location

that's been infecting your brain through media, you know, like, and, of course, you say

you're going to, like, Turkmenistan and all people do is say all this concerning stuff

to you.

But they've never been there.

They don't know.

They've seen a couple of news articles over the past decade or two.

And they're just kind of giving you their advice.

But it's not very helpful because what, you know, it's not, they've never been there.

They don't know anything.

Right?

And so whenever I go to some of these countries, like, for example, Venezuela, I went there

during the height of all the craziness.

And that might sound crazy.

But the thing is I had a friend there, another Canadian guy who had been living there for

two years at the time.

And he had still been there, and he bikes his motorcycle around the entire country.

And he said, like, hey, man, I know things aren't great in Venezuela.

I'm leaving soon for other reasons.

But if you want to come down, I can't promise you everything is going to be okay.

But I've been, I know the situation here.

We can, we can stay in my place.

We can bike around a little bit.

You can see angel falls, all these different things.

And he was really integrated in the community.

And I really trust him.

So I went down.

But I wouldn't have gone down without a contact like that.

And quite often it is the contacts.

But of course, I get a little bit nervous before that happens.

And every single time it's always the complete opposite.

The people are always the friendliest and that go out of their way to like make you

tea and invite you over into their house over for dinner.

It's always like that every single time I go to one of these countries that's tourist

unfriendly.

I'll tell you one a bit of the opposite story, though.

I went to this festival in Mexico, just north of Mexico City.

And it was called the Bulls of Fire.

And it was at the Mexican Pyrotechnics Festival.

And you can imagine how safe a Mexican Pyrotechnics Festival is.

It's not safe at all.

The main event was this thing called Bulls of Fire.

And so basically if you took like the Spanish running of the Bulls, yeah, where you go down

the streets of Pamplona and you have to outrun these Bulls, it was like that.

But instead of actual Bulls, the village has got together in little groups and cities

and things.

And they made these like giant steel rebar and paper mache Bulls all bigger than cars.

And they pushed them through the city streets.

At the end of the day, they'd all get into the main square.

Everyone was very drunk at this point off this drink called like Pulque, which is a

fermented cactus sap.

That's like so viscous.

It's like paint.

It's super thick.

And they anyway, they'd fill these bulls full of fireworks, like model rocket engines,

things that are like up there with like commercial level fireworks.

And they'd run them at people and you had to run away and dodge the rockets, dodge

the fireworks.

And people get hurt there every single year and it's crazy.

That was something I wasn't scared originally, but then I got there in the thick of it all

and I was scared.

I mean, I was able to get good footage, but I'll tell you why I was scared.

I knew what was going to happen.

I knew the fireworks were going to be shooting around.

I knew there was a high chance of getting burned.

I knew that they were going to try to run you over with an exploding steel bull.

So I had like ski goggles, like a Baclava on.

I didn't drink anything because I wanted to stay sober.

I had my camera and everything.

But then what happened is about after four hours of this craziness, I got hit in the chest

with a tequila bottle.

Someone whipped it from over the crowd and hit me right in the sternum.

And then I got scared, man, because that's an element you can't control.

I can control where I am for the most, I can't control exactly like where the fireworks

are, but at least I have the protection on to know that I'm probably going to be okay.

I stayed sober and then I took a second tequila bottle to the back of the shoulder and

I was like, I'm out of here.

Because then you can't, you know, then the bad thing's going to happen.

You can't control that.

It's just chance.

It's just debauchery.

It's just humans going a little bit too far with the party and so I had to bow out right

there.

And I was legitimately scared because in the pure chaos that that's one thing I could

not control.

And that those things scare me.

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That is plenty of that for now.

Let's get back into the episode.

I'm so glad you said that because I was going to ask you, and I don't like to totally

focus on negative things necessarily, but I was going to ask you an opposite direction,

like is there a place that you weren't originally afraid of, then became afraid of?

And I'm glad you shared that example because that can happen anywhere, people getting too

rowdy out of hand through alcohol.

That's obviously a worldwide thing, and so it doesn't have to be, you know, if you

can avoid that in your own hometown, chances are you can avoid it anywhere in the world.

And if that's the biggest problem you're facing, jeez, you know, that's, that makes the

rest of the world seem a lot less scary for someone who has the desire to go see it,

but maybe not the experience.

So that's really interesting, man.

Also kind of another unique festival you were talking about, I'd love for you to tell

us the story about the exploding hammers festival.

Do you have time to tell us that?

Yeah, of course, and I guess which country that's in as well.

That was going to say that's right there.

That's right there.

Mexico.

Oh, my goodness, Mexico.

So I first, I end up moving to Mexico, Mexico City for three years because there was

just so much incredible stuff and a massive disregard for safety and regulation in that

country that I just absolutely fell in love with.

And I'm like, Florida.

So yeah, exactly.

I was someone, I don't even know how I found it, a Mexican friend of mine or follower sent

me a small crappy cell phone video of this guy with a hammer that had homemade, like

a sludge hammer that had a homemade explosives on the end of it.

And he was slamming it into a loose rock field.

And it was like really, it was like Lego potato quality.

It was horrible.

And they're like, oh, we have to find this in Mexico, but no one knew the name of it,

no one knew anything.

So I was just kind of googling around like Martíos Explositos, like again, exploding hammers.

And this little town came up with a festival called Carnival.

That's what the festival was called.

And there was like a little like Mexican blog right up about, it's only in Spanish that's

like, oh, you know, this small town, just north of Mexico City again, has this festival

every year.

And it's called Carnival and they have hammers.

And I was like, are you serious?

And so I had a, another Mexican friend who had contacts in that area with the local

tourism board.

And so I spoke to her and I got the contact there and I asked like, this is actually

exists.

And they go, yeah, it does exist.

But normally we don't take tourists there.

I'm like, well, you're going to take this tourist there.

So we organized the plan and I went up there and it was a really, it's a really kind

of a crazy story.

So the village itself is named after John the Baptist and like from the Bible.

And this is their version of a festival for him.

And I guess how it came to be the exploding hammer festival originally it was just a parade

to honor the guy and with fireworks and stuff.

And then one day someone put a firework on a hammer and then one day someone like wanted

to make their own explosives because they're too expensive to get fireworks something.

So made their own homemade explosives by buying like home hardware powders and liquids

and stuff or whatever.

And then put that at the end and start slamming these hammers down the street in this

small town.

But they kept them blowing out windows and like setting off car alarms so that they decided

to kind of acts the parade and just have the exploding hammer festival aka carnival

in this rock field and it's been going on for decades now kind of like incognito.

And so I went there again didn't know what to expect and it was it was crazy man.

At least there they there's a firm rule not to drink.

But basically so like I said these guys take and they make these homemade explosives out

of some kind of powder and it's not like an explosive you can light like they were showing

you put a lighter to it it doesn't light it's impact sensitive.

So if you if you hit it with a rock for example it'll go bang so it's not really flammable

it's just it makes a massive massive shock wave.

And I watched these guys put like these little like packets there maybe the size of like

barbecue charcoal and they put one on and makes a pretty big bang they put two and three

and they were getting up to like 15 of these packs and when you're blasting these things

man like you see the shock wave like you know those slow motion ripples you see in

like these these these explosion videos it was like that and like the dirt would come out

of the rock around these explosive places and it wasn't just one circle like there was

many of these circles so I'm here with my like construction grade earplugs these dudes

are just balling up Kleenex and putting them in their ears and my ears were throbbing

I can't imagine the dudes actually exploding these hammers and I was talking to like the

tourism lady who was there with me kind of very shocked that I was enjoying this at all

and I was like so people could hurt like yeah that guy lost his arm last year and all

of a sudden like a hammer starts spinning up overhead and everyone starts laughing because

again if the explosion is too big and the guy doesn't hold on the sludge hammer will

go spinning off into the horizon right and so you really always have to be watching

I watched the dude blow off his thumb because he didn't you know when you swing a sludge hammer

down you kind of keep your hand near the hammer part and you slide it up the handle he

didn't slide it up so we blew off his freaking thumb couple guys with ruptured ear drums

as well and then at the end I wanted to try a little bit so I put a couple little packets

on I think only two on this little hammer and exploded it and like it rocked me like

two little packets some dudes were doing like 15 to 20 like it's incredible and also all

these like boys who were maybe 12 or just rocking themselves with these homemade explosives

and all these like little like Latina girls are there with like their short shorts and

their skirts and their little crop tops all watching the boys see who they can blow

up the biggest hammer one of the craziest crazyest moments of my life man yeah and I was

the first one there to I think make movies about it since then it's gotten a bit more popular

it's kind of like the curse of this job of you find something cool and make content

it kind of changes it forever but yeah that was definitely a wild experience that is freaking

chaotic is what that sounds like that is definitely unbelievable blowing off fingers and

arms and and you know happy birthday John the Baptist or whatever it is you birthday

celebrate yeah I'm sure he I'm sure he'd be proud he'd be super super proud nuts that is

wild man that is absolutely wild and so that you know what's interesting is you mentioned

that you found that from like a fan or a friend that just sent you this you know this

potato quality video you know is that is that your creative processor about what to do next

about how you find the next either project or the next thing to go film is it just you know

this this constant flow of inspiration about things you hear about or things people share

with you or is it or is it more strategic than that like what how do you choose what you

do next yeah no that's a great question because I I really don't do what I'm not going to be doing

the top five beaches of Bali or anything I really take time to find these these things yeah

because a lot of the I have this this if I'm doing if I'm there was a crisis point in in my

life a few years ago when I was doing like travel filmmaking and not so much doing this fearless

and far stuff and I was like thinking I was trying to get in my own personal YouTube and I was

thinking about oh you know if I if I do the top five taco restaurants in cancun then I'll get more

views and I just wasn't happy man and I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like why are you choosing

to do the things that everyone else are when you are very willing to do the things that people aren't

you're always the guy that's going to eat the bug you know go in the abandoned building whatever it

is finds wild adventures that no one would even dream of or touch the 10 foot pole why you why are

you obsessing over you know using clicks of of this commercial stuff and then I trained I changed

my travel style I honestly unapologetically I got a sleeve tattoo I decided I wanted to go film

like some of the grossest foods on the planet which I I think at this point in my life I I don't

know who has the crown of eating the grossest things in the planet but I can guarantee you I am

pretty close to having the crown of of all time congratulations I guess exactly my girlfriend

isn't so thrilled about it but but I just really love finding the things that no one no one has

found before and and showing the world how cool it is and I guess I say that I could probably add

some context to the food thing so for example just in the past two and a half months I went hunting

with a hudzabi tribe just a couple weeks ago here in Tanzania the last true hunter gatherer tribe

in in Africa actually and they're true to it we went out baboon hunting believe it or not

and we were these guys are incredible they like know every chirp in the forest and and they can

read the the landscape and read read the wind and all these things to define these animals and so

we were looking for baboons and on on the way this guy found a beehive like African killer beehive

and there's four of these hunters and they jump up in the tree and start digging out be be honeycomb

and I'm like I was like they're gonna get stung they didn't care they like made a little fire

put like some leaves and it smoked the beehive a little bit and we're taking out like

massive honeycombs out of a out of a killer beehive and so I'm there they weren't getting stung I kind

of got in there too got a little bit stung they got a little bit stung but it was fine and then

they handed me honeycomb when I took a bite and it wasn't actually honey it was just pure beehive

so they were they were eating that oh they were harvesting the honey too

but the bugs were just as important the week before that I was hanging out with the Messiah

which are a very different tribe here they were like the iconic shuka like red blankets they

they're like the grazers of the syringetian and gorongoro area and cattle is like what they

use is currency and also like it's dowry it's it's all these things also they use it for food

but they don't like killing them because it's kind of like their wealth and so one thing they do

is they make small incisions in the cow's neck and they put the blood into a gourd and they drink

the warm blood for breakfast and so on our first day they invited me for a nice Messiah warm blood

breakfast out of a smoky old gourd and not for everybody I have to say yeah not not for me

holy yeah I can't even how do you stomach this stuff man but I mean it's incredible the

experiences is it hard work for you to say yes to some of this stuff to some of these

spontaneous either interactions or you know snacks I guess you could say

snacks yeah it's kind of like snacks the thing is like I have like a sick pleasure for doing this

honestly dude I have no desire to drink blood that's like on my list of things to do like there's

like getting shot in the face and then that's like one up above that at the very very very bottom

but you're there you're you're spending like three four days these amazing people they do this

obviously you know doesn't kill anybody they're like healthy amazing people and they tell you the

story and why and they're so excited to have you try it I know like everyone has a different

perception of what gross means and it's only your world view you know like some people

half this world thinks peanut butter's gross you know what I mean I think that

that Australians eat vegemite or marmite I think that stuff's gross and so I think we think

blood's gross they don't think blood's gross so they drink it right so who's right and who's

wrong here I mean you could probably argue that drinking blood might be a bit more wrong than

eating peanut butter but it's still so subjective right so I just don't like to turn down

limitation and when it means an opportunity to explain to the world and also challenge

myself and my preconceptions and I go for it right I go for it so it's led me to do that it's

led me to eat spider cheese in in Germany it's led me to eat it tag in the Philippines which is a

pork that has maggots in it which is pretty crazy as well and I'll look all kinds of good good

little bits man she's not so good she's my guy it's just awesome it's awesome what you do I see

you abandon you know explore abandoned places too which is something that's so much fun so cool

can I ask you this you know you've got this this incredible YouTube channel that you've built

over time and just have all this incredible content on there what would you say one of the biggest

misconceptions people have about you and your lifestyle that you maybe hear a lot on social or

on YouTube that uh that you're constantly trying to correct or reframe I guess I think it's

really easy to think I'm some kind of like jackass wannabe you know I do these stunts I eat these

crazy things and it's like I think it's easy to maybe for people to think that it's just for shock

value I'm just like another bro with a backwards hat trying to make people go oh

and it's not really that like I guess I probably at first and I mean you see you see the content

you're like wow this is very extreme but I am doing it like again I like I do things I know

that aren't going to I mean hey I might get diarrhea for a week or two that's happened a lot

but I don't do things that are that are reckless I don't want to come across as the reckless guy

that'll do anything for a stunt or for a million views that's not me at all I'm really

cautious with with a lot of what I do and also I've been traveling for a long time I've eaten a lot

of stuff I've done a lot of things and I guess I I train quite hard to be able to do things

always within my ability and if I feel like it's starting to get outside my ability I abort

I'm out of there so for me I like to take these extreme things and then kind of trick people into

learning something you know they may oh my god this guy's going to drink cow's blood and then

like trick them into learning more about the Messiah and a bit more about the world and a bit more

about their their assumptions and their misconceptions and their you know judgments on another

culture I like to tease all that into with maybe something a bit more clickable in the beginning

let's take a quick message break in here from the folks that help make this show possible

that is plenty of that for now let's get back into the episode

having seen some of these bizarre practices unique festivals and and interesting people

what can you tell us about what kind of people the world is filled with are people good from your

perspective man what yeah no I can't speak highly enough about the experience that I've had in

this world I've been to 75 countries or something again some of the ones that people would never go

to and I don't have I don't have bad experiences I don't have any like you know crazy you know

kidnapping attempts or like being arrested or anything like that it doesn't exist the the the

crappiest experiences I've had have always been in like Paris or like Amsterdam or like you know

these places that are really touristy and you're taking advantage of because there's lots of like

I don't know let's call them like predators there trying to scam you but in these countries that

you think might you might not have a good time in it's like the opposite man the world is filled with

kind people who just want to be appreciated just want the same things as us and we'd like to

divide ourselves based on language and religion and skin color but do we're all the same freaking thing

and I wish more people would travel to know that because once you start seeing that

um we're all exactly the same um you just change how you treat people um and you just you can

empathize with with everybody's situation and we're all like life has struggled man we all being

a human on this planet is is just rising and falling and twists and turns and we all have our own

little heroes journey doesn't matter where you're from and if everyone could see that I think the

world would be an amazing place so I have I have no bad stories to tell from around the world that

aren't from like you know the main drag and Paris or something right right now we find that so

often with with the folks on the show that we bring on to talk about travel it's it's it's a huge

misconception um yeah well I'm some of my worst experiences have been on the street I live on or

in the town you know at that waiting and you get in gas or something something random where you're

not thinking about that stuff but the times you're kind of ready for something bad to happen it's

it's not there because it's a because it's not real and it doesn't really happen so um sorry

let me add let me add one more thing I did this little like social experiment once um where I was

in uh chaos and road in in Bangkok I did it one two places chaos and road in Bangkok which is like

the part of the street in all of Thailand and also I did it in uh Rome in in Italy and what I did

is I took a wallet and I stuck it half out of my back pocket with like a couple small bills half

out of the wallet so basically like prime pickpocket territory and then I um I got a friend

to follow me from afar with like a stealth camera like filming so there'd be nobody who could

snow that I was being filmed and I I wanted to see how long I would last before I got pickpocketed

so chaos and road would be like prime spot to get pickpocketed you think because it's just like

drunk people and crazy chaos and then there was a bus that was called the pickpocketed express

in layman's terms bus number seven or something they went to all the tourist locations in Rome and so

I walked around took the bus and had this friend like stealth filming from a distance and do you

think that my wallet got stolen on either one of those uh either one of those things all right might

be a trick question I'm gonna say I'm gonna say no I don't but you might be like of course it did

but I don't think it did I don't think it did it wasn't and do you know do you know how many times

people came up to me to tell me my wallet was half out of my back pocket like 20 times 20 times

man like the amount of people the amount of good I was I didn't realize it at the time but it was

like a social experiment showing how many good people they're out there versus people who are

gonna steal your wallet there was like 20 times more maybe even more than that because no one

jacked the wallet but there was 20 people who said hey excuse me so your wall is half out of your

back pocket that and it just showed me that the world that's like a prime example that like the

world is good and that was in a spot where it was supposed to get stolen like I was fully expecting

it stolen it was the exact opposite man that that that that that that story that theme just has to

be told in today's world it's just over and over we do we try to just pound that home it's like

get out there see it for yourself don't just trust this onslaught of negativity through the

news through just you know these attention grabbing mediums get out there and see it for yourself

and we're all gonna realize you know the world is full of people just trying to live just trying

to be good people and I just appreciate you reiterating that you have a few minutes just to tell

us about what you're doing now obviously you're gonna continue you know your YouTube and continue

traveling and I know you travel a lot even in 2020 can you tell us about your most recent project

yeah so I have been fortunate enough to travel for the past few months I don't really have a home

either so I've kind of been floating around during this whole Covid time trying to figure out

where I can go but the the most recent project that just launched so I have the YouTube channel

which of course is one of my main things but I'm working with the podcast network Wundery who

have produced some really really good podcasts like Dr. Death and like the original Tiger King as well

before it was the Netflix sensation was actually produced by Wundery and so we just launched a

podcast called against the odds and against the odds is telling these stories of these human

survival stories where humans roll up to the occasion and to survive again against the odds and

so it's now alive it went live just a few days ago on the 23rd of February and we'll be doing

five episodes about the Thai Cave Rescue and we got to interview like I told you Rick Stanton

which was so cool so so cool that one of the main divers who rescued the cave the kids out of the cave

and I've got a co-host girl named Cassie the Pickle who is a Guinness World Record holder for

fastest time to all the countries and she's telling a story a different story and then I'm back

so rotating back and forth four five episodes each for this podcast but I love it man because

anytime I get to talk about stories of perseverance survival people using grit determination to

to overcome obstacles in their life and these are like some of the best ones ever told well I say

told like their fiction their fact and I have to keep on reminding myself that they're not

stories that are made up that's like these are real things that people did that are just absolutely

unbelievable so it's really cool to be a voice in that podcast and because it's inspirational for

me and I hope it's also inspirational for other people too oh man I cannot wait I love human survival

stories you know so I absolutely we've had a handful on this show over the years and they're just

always so exciting um but it's like uh it's a treat so to have a whole podcast dedicated to it

is going to be gonna be really cool um especially yeah by wandering what a great what a great

network so that's that's that's going to be fantastic I just subscribed so I'll be downloading

those and listening um and I will encourage obviously all of our listeners to do so and we'll

be plugging everything you know your YouTube your Instagram uh it was or anything else that you

wanted to share before we uh will we head out no that's it I mean if anybody really wants to see

any of the adventures I spoke about they're all on my YouTube channel uh fearless and far and

and yeah check out the podcast it's premiered in the top 10 list uh on on on Apple this week which

is awesome I mean I'd lend to my voice there there was so many other talented people who did sound

design and the writing and I'm just one piece of the puzzle but it all turned out really nice in

the end the wondered people do such a great job so YouTube feels so far and also against the odds

on anywhere you get podcasts thanks so much Mike uh your professional just great storyteller

and appreciate you being on the adventure sports podcast it's a pleasure man thank you

first of all thank you so much for listening it means the world to us that you

choose to listen to this show if you'd like to help us further you can leave a review on iTunes

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and also if you have an idea of who could be a good guest for the show we're always looking for

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email us at info at adventuresportspodcast.com and until then get out there and have some fun