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- [00:00]
Chris Willx
Welcome back to life, dude.
- [00:05]
Ben Askren
Well, I've been. I've been living again for quite a while now. June 28th was actually the day I got to transplant last year. So coming up on a year for that, I think I believe I woke up on July 2nd or somewhere around there or, you know, like came to in my own mind. So, yeah, it's their process. But I'm here, I'm getting better, and life's pretty good.
- [00:28]
Chris Willx
So one year ago from now, you were really in the shit.
- [00:31]
Ben Askren
Well, I just made a post yesterday because on June 6, which was two days ago, Saturday, I got inducted to the National Wrestling hall of Fame. And when I went home or went back to hotel with my wife, I said, did I get airlifted June 6th last year? So last year, on June 6th, I was in Vegas and I went first, the first hospital, second hospital. And then we had some friends that came out that were. One was a doctor, was a nurse, and I said, you ain't get. He's not going to make it to this hospital. We need to get him back to Milwaukee because they have a good. It's called cvicu, Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. And they. They got me a flight. They put me on a plane, took me all the way back. And I said to my wife, why was that such a bad day? Because I don't remember. I was sleeping and she said, to transport me, they had to fully paralyze my body. And then when I got back to Milwaukee, they put me on ECMO. And with ECMO, there's. I think there's only like a 40% chance you come off ECMO. A lot of people go on and don't come off it. So they were hoping I wouldn't have to do that. I did have to do that. So June 6th last year, although I don't remember any of it, was quite eventful.
- [01:33]
Chris Willx
And then this year, you got to celebrate. So it's, you know. Yes, it's full circle for the people who don't know what we're talking about. Could you. Could you explain what's happened over the last 12 months?
- [01:43]
Ben Askren
Yeah. Well, May. May 20, last year, 2025, I went to the hospital. I actually went to the hospital on the day before. Also May 27, my back was hurting. Just a back pain. I thought it was a back spasm. That was it, you know. And on May 27, I tested. Everything was normal, did all the vitals, and. And I told my wife, see, I told you I was just a back spasm. And the doctor gave me medicine for a back spasm. And I went back to the hotel. We were at the bitcoin conference, and it got worse, and the medicine did not work at all, which. That's never happened. I've had, you know, a handful of the back specimens in my life, and the medicine's really good, and it just got worse and worse and worse. And then, you know, I was up most of the night trying to make it feel better. And when I woke up in the morning. So sometime in the middle of the night, I'd finally fallen asleep. When I woke up in the morning, it was a little bit later, and she had been videotaping me sleeping, and she had sent it to a few of her doctor friends, and they said, you need to get him to the hospital as soon as you can. So when I woke up, what was.
- [02:43]
Chris Willx
What was happening while you were sleeping?
- [02:45]
Ben Askren
I was, like, super. Like, super fast and hard breathing, right? And so when I woke up, my wife's like, hey, we're going to the hospital. I said, dude, you made me go. You may be possibly. I was like, I'm not going back to the hospital, damn it. You know, I got stuff I want to do today. I don't want to go to the hospital. And she's like, no, you gotta go to the hospital. So eventually they convinced me to go to the hospital, and it was the same place as the day before. We went there, and I remember walking in the waiting room, and then that's it. I don't remember anything. I woke up in July 2nd. I didn't know where I was. I didn't know why I was there. I don't remember anything. I was asleep for. I want to say I think it was 37 days, I believe.
- [03:24]
Chris Willx
Do you tran. You transported from kind of being a bit irritated that you were back at the same hospital for what you thought might be a back spasm for the second time and your wife being a little bit overbearing.
- [03:35]
Ben Askren
Yes.
- [03:37]
Chris Willx
To. Now it's July, and what the am I. Oh, and I'm in a totally different. I'm in a totally different hospital now.
- [03:43]
Ben Askren
Well, I woke up, and it was, you know, I say wake up. I was awake sometimes, but I. I. To my recollection, I don't recall any. Any of it. Nothing. And so that when I. When I, like, wake up the first time or when I come to some type of cognitive understanding of what's going on. Yeah, it was. It was the middle of the night. It was dark. I obviously quickly realized I was in a hospital, and I Started thinking, like, how did I end up here? Why am I here? I didn't remember going in Vegas. It was, how am I here? And why am I here? And then I couldn't speak at all. And so I don't even recall how it happened. But for some way, I signaled to the nurse, like, why am I here? What am I doing? And they told me I had a double lung transplant. And again, I couldn't talk. And it was like, okay, why do I have a double lung transplant? I have. I don't know. I have no idea what, how that would happen. I'm totally healthy. I've never smoked, I've never done anything. And then eventually my wife came in the morning, whatever that, you know, the next morning or whatever, and she had documented everything. So it was like a day by day journal of, you know, June 2nd this happened, June 4th, this happened. I had to read through it and I was like, oh my God, what? Like, how did this ever happen? And, yeah, so that was kind of my recollection of waking up and kind of figuring out what was going on.
- [05:02]
Chris Willx
So retrospectively I know that you weren't awake to be able to work out this from a first person view.
- [05:08]
Ben Askren
What?
- [05:09]
Chris Willx
You go into the waiting room and then what happens from there?
- [05:13]
Ben Askren
Well, so I had a staph infection on my elbow. I don't know if you've ever got one or not, but, you know, sometimes, like I. All my life I've only had to get on an antibiotic. A singular time, you know, you get a cut, you get a little infected, you put some antibacterial on there, you wash, you shower, you clean it up, and it goes away. And that was what happened to me. I had a little infection on my elbow. I washed a shower, I soaked it, I antibacterial, and within a couple of days it was gone. And I didn't think much of it, you know, and then I made no connection. But about four days later, my back was. Started hurting and I thought, okay, this is the back spasm. And everyone always said you would do it differently. And I said, no, I wouldn't. Whoever could guess, oh, yeah, my back hurts because my body's eating my lungs from the inside. Like, no one's ever heard of that. That's totally ridiculous. So the staff got into my blood and it turned into a network called necrotyping pneumonia, in which my body was essentially eating my lungs from the inside out. That was what the back pain was. So I dealt with that for about, I think, five days before I Ended up in the hospital. And that's when I was in the hospital. It was like, really bad, like sepsis and necrotizing pneumonia. And. Yeah, so they. They tried doing all they could to kind of like, save my lungs and. And keep me alive. And at some point it became the only way I was going to stay alive was to have a lung transplant, which, you know, again, I wasn't awake for any of this. And so I believe I was in the Milwaukee Hospital for about three weeks before that happened. And then I got the lung transplant. And I think I was still kind of like unconscious for about six more days after that. And then I woke up and there I was.
- [06:58]
Chris Willx
Me. Where'd you get lungs?
- [07:01]
Ben Askren
That's what I said. I don't know. I actually wrote the donor family. The donor family has not bonded, obviously.
- [07:11]
Chris Willx
Two from the same person.
- [07:13]
Ben Askren
Yes. Y.
- [07:14]
Chris Willx
You. You can't. You can't mix and match two lungs.
- [07:17]
Ben Askren
Oh, I actually think you can. No, I know you can, because I talked to a guy in the hospital about it. You know, that's one. That's where you think about life and you think about gratitude and you never want to take anything for granted. And I always think about the people I meet in the hospital. Now, this is a while ago now, probably four months ago, but I was in for one of my kind of routine checkups in this. This guy comes up to me and, you know, I'm waiting to go inside the, you know, to meet the doctors. And so a lot of the stand similar type people in a similar area. So he had a lung transplant. And, you know, I think, okay, I was. I was unconscious for 36 days, and I was in the hospital for, I think it was 73 total or something, which is quite a long time, and it wasn't fun. But then this guy was in the hospital for nine months and he was sick, and he got a double lung transplant plant. And then almost immediately, one of the two lungs rejected. I don't know why or how. I'm not a medical doctor. I can't tell what happened. And he got a different lung from a different person, and he is now living with two new lungs from two different people. So I always. I always try to reflect on, yes, my situation was tough, but it could always be tougher. And at the end of the day, I could always not be here. So I'm quite grateful for what happened.
- [08:27]
Chris Willx
Where do they. How do the lungs come out?
- [08:31]
Ben Askren
It cuts you, right? I don't know if you guys can see this, but right there.
- [08:33]
Chris Willx
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:34]
Ben Askren
Yeah, they split you right in half. Yeah.
- [08:36]
Chris Willx
So they're not taking it from, like, under. They're not reaching under the rib cage and pulling it down. Are they cracking the rib cage open?
- [08:42]
Ben Askren
You know. You know what, Chris? I've never had the balls to go look exactly how they do it.
- [08:47]
Chris Willx
No way.
- [08:48]
Ben Askren
No, I don't want to know. I don't. It's called the well. I mean, you can Google, go look it up if you want. Called the clam selling. Clam shell incision is what it's called. Bald. I could see exactly where I've been cut. I know what it feels like. But, no, I've never had the balls to go look up and see exactly how they open you up, Nolly. I guess I feel like that'll gross me out a little too much.
- [09:10]
Chris Willx
Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I suppose so. I guess what's crazy is, like, they're gonna have. They have to reattach. It's like. It's like basically plumbing. It's human plumbing. You're, like, reattaching or human ac. Ac ducting, maybe more accurately. It's like, oh, there's a pipe that comes down. We gotta get rid of this pipe. That pipe needs to be reconnected. I mean, I don't know how. Again, if you haven't done your research, you haven't done your research. I want to know how when you're removing somebody's lungs, I need to know how they keep you breathing because you need oxygen to keep you fucking going. But there has to be a moment when there's no lungs.
- [09:43]
Ben Askren
Or there does.
- [09:45]
Chris Willx
There's a moment when there's four lungs. There's one of two choices. They either attach both at the same time and switch one out.
- [09:53]
Ben Askren
Yeah, you know what? I don't know the answer to this. I should know the answer. I do know. I'll tell you. This is gross. They said. The doctor did say it was the worst lung transplant she's ever seen because so many of my tissue died. It had, like, essentially said, like, stick like, glue to the walls of my ribs and stuff like that. So they had to, like, really scrape all the old lungs off the inside of my chest cavity because they would
- [10:18]
Chris Willx
kind of decomposing inside of you.
- [10:20]
Ben Askren
That's. That's what she said. So she said it was. It was one of the worst that they'd ever seen. I don't remember what the time was now because I was half unconscious for a lot of the first time I was awake, but she said it took them quite a while. To actually clear it out and then, you know, get the new ones in. So, you know what? I don't know how I was breathing at that point in time.
- [10:39]
Chris Willx
Do people have any idea where this comes from? It just randomly on sets. Is it a virus? Do you get it by being on mats or what?
- [10:48]
Ben Askren
Well, I think I got the original. Original staph infection, but to the point I made earlier, like, it cleared up and it was no big deal. And it wasn't like I had the flu or I was sick or I was coughing or none of these things whatsoever. And, you know, the Kyle Busch thing that happened, that was a couple weeks back, and it was weird. It was almost to the day of when mine happened the year prior. Sounded very, very similar to what I. What I went through. And, you know, I have not grilled the doctor really, really hard on why. Why exactly did this happen, how did this happen, or. Or that kind of stuff. I guess I woke up and I said, well, this is my new reality. How do. How do I get better? So I grill him a lot on how. How do I get better? But I haven't grilled him on how did it happen.
- [11:34]
Chris Willx
That's really interesting mindset. I. Yeah, I guess it's. It's really only important for you to understand what happened in insofar as it informs what you can do now to improve.
- [11:46]
Ben Askren
Yeah. And, you know, what happened was, I think, probably something that's extreme, extremely rare. You know, I guess I could go back and ask him. And honestly, part of me thinks and. And this is just me judging from what my wife said, because my wife is obviously awake and talking to them all. And she did a great job of kind of trying to connect everyone that could possibly help me. But it was one of those things where they were having a hard time figuring out how I got that sick. You know, she brought up the cut of my elbow. She knew about that. But then they were asking all kinds of different questions on, well, was he doing this or was he doing that? Like, they. They. I think they thought, hey, this doesn't make sense either, you know, also, okay,
- [12:29]
Chris Willx
so you wake up, you come around.
- [12:32]
Ben Askren
What next, man? So the first. You know what's really funny? You think you're. You're like, fully conscious, if you will. Once I woke up and, you know, now I look back on the first. I don't know, we'll say. We'll say 10 days to two weeks, and I was like, holy shit. I was out of my mind. I mean, now I get like, there's this one, two or three day period where I very vividly remember. I do remember some things that for sure happened because I went back and I cross represent with people that were there and I said, hey, did this actually happen? But then, like I thought I got transported to this hospital that was on the lake like half a mile from my house, and there's no hospital there that didn't exist. That was only in my mind for multiple days. And I know I kept threatening, I kept threatening the nurses that I was going to walk home because I was just on the road. Right. I couldn't even walk. I couldn't walk. You know, it's like the sun.
- [13:27]
Chris Willx
It's a lie. It's a lie from every different direction.
- [13:30]
Ben Askren
Yeah. So you know that the first couple weeks, like, you know, I think I was on so many drugs. I did get off pain meds relatively quick, but between the rest of stuff I was on and then they call it like delirium because you don't sleep enough in the hot, you know, in the hospital. Yeah, I had so many wild thoughts, you know, positive thing. I had a lot of friends visiting me. So that's like. I know some of the things that I thought happened did happen because I said, hey, were you there when everybody X, Y or Z happened? And they said, yeah. So I had a lot of friends visiting me. My wife visited me almost every day, my mom visited a lot, my dad. So yeah, just kind of like waking up and figuring out how to do everything again because I couldn't walk, I couldn't feed myself. You know, it's the long list of things you. I mean, I pretty much couldn't do anything by myself.
- [14:15]
Chris Willx
What was the lowest point that your health got to when you woke up? Was it immediate and was it relatively uphill from there?
- [14:22]
Ben Askren
Yeah, um, yeah, I didn't really have anything hugely negative, I guess, right before I woke up. So right after that, a day or two. Right. So not right before, like minute wise, I guess I spiked really bad fever and they didn't know why. And that was scary to everyone, including my wife. But what a. As I woke up, yeah, everything was like, I guess it moved in a positive direction. Probably not nearly as fast as I thought. You know, a lot of lung trans implant patients, they're on the list for a long time and their condition is not necessarily like immediately like scrubbing. Like eventually it would kill them, but it might take many years. So they're actually in kind of like a lot better shape than I was where I was like near very near death. I lost, like, 60 pounds, for example, of, you know, muscle. I was muscle. Body weight, mostly muscle while I was in the hospital. So when I woke up, it did mostly get better. There was a lot of things, like, I don't know if you know what chest tubes are, but it took me forever to get my chest tubes out. I was the first lung transplant patient that they sent home with a chest tube in because I was like, you got to let me go. You got to let me go. And then, yeah, unfortunately got infected. I ended up back in the hospital for two weeks. I don't think of any fault of my own. I think it just happened. And, you know, then I got stuck there again for a while. But, yeah, it was a process. It took a long time. Um, I didn't start walking on my own for, I think it was roughly two months, you know, and then even at that point, like, you know, walking on my own, like, I go four steps, and I'm holding onto a counter, and then I go, you know, three more steps. You know, it's like. It's not really. I'm not, like, getting around. Yeah. And there was just a process, and it was like, once I became more capable, it's like, okay, hey, today I want to try to walk for eight minutes. Walking for eight minutes is my goal. And then once I got the hang of that, then it's 10 minutes. That's 12 minutes. And then I, you know, kind of just keep building up, and then it's okay. Now I'm gonna try to do some squats, which was, you know, in the beginning, I couldn't get myself off the toilet. I had to have. Literally have someone help me get up. Um, yeah, so that was the process. And it's still a process where I'm. I'm actually getting better at. I feel, like, still quite a rapid rate, and I'm 11 over, 11 months out.
- [16:34]
Chris Willx
Mm. Mm.
- [16:35]
Ben Askren
Yeah.
- [16:36]
Chris Willx
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- [17:38]
Ben Askren
Yeah, probably flabbergal. I mean, I still think about sometimes still I wake up and think about, like, how did that happen? Like, I have a lung transplant. Like, I never smoked anything in my life. Like, how does someone like me end up with a lung transplant? So I think, like, that would probably be the main emotion of like, how did this happen? This is nuts. And then probably the second one after that would be like, okay, what do I got to do? Because again, this is my new reality. I can't change it, so I might as well make the best of it. So what is it that I need to do? And I've probably spent, you know, I can't tell you how many hours since I spent 11 months researching what do I do about this problem? What do I do about that problem? And just kind of like heavy, heavy chat GPT user. For real Chat GPT. If you ask my questions, you get a lot of information. And then I usually use the information I bounce off my doctor and I say, hey, here's what I'm gathering. What do you think about this? And chat feed GPT's right? I don't know, probably say 70, 80 of the time. Like, it's pretty good. You know, there's a few things where it kind of really gets it wrong. So I always obviously cross reference first.
- [18:44]
Chris Willx
Okay. So I, you know, the flabbergasted thing's so funny. I've got this, I've always had this thought in my mind, like, I've come off a moped in Bali. I've been in a couple of like, pretty big car accidents. Like a few things, sort of shock, kinetic incident or whatever. And you're right. One of the main emotions is surprise. Like, this isn't. This can't be. This can't be happening. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder how many people have died, you know, from. From something horrendous or accidental. Someone got shot, you Know, crossfire, somebody got shot.
- [19:19]
Ben Askren
Yeah.
- [19:20]
Chris Willx
And they just feel the thing go through them and they look down and like, have I been? Surely I haven't been. And that's it. And your last thought isn't, yeah, you know, the, the movie lying on the ground, looking up, telling your last rights, explaining your insights from. It's just, did I get fucking shot? Holy shit. And then it's done. And it's the same with you. The main insight, the main. Was it come back around and were you fearing for your. Do you see the, the beauty of existence? It's. I, I was largely fucking surprised, dude. That was my main sensation.
- [19:59]
Ben Askren
I would say that, you know, how, like, why am I here? How did this happen? And surprise of it. And that was kind of like me piecing it together for the first, you know, handful of days. And then the other one was what happened while I was asleep. Right. Like I've been asleep for 37 days.
- [20:17]
Chris Willx
What's the bitcoin price at, please? What's the bitcoin?
- [20:19]
Ben Askren
It was, it was good. At that point in time, I actually missed a whole bunch of really, really important wrestling events in late May and early June. You know, so there was, you know, catching up on all that because I was not awake for a single day of June. And then, you know, going through the kind of order of events of what happened to me and, and there was a bunch of really amazing things. Like there's so many people supported either through prayer or helping my family in some way shape or form or meals because, you know, my wife has been, obviously there's not a father in the household because I'm in the hospital. My wife is spending a large portion of her time at the hospital with me. So, you know, my kids are all on summer break. It's not even like they go to school. So you know, who's going to take care of them? Who can help out with them? So usually my wife, my mom, my dad would kind of like alternate who's at the hospital. But then we had a whole bunch of friends and family helping out with our kids and stuff. And we tried to keep it as normal as possible for them. You know, you don't want them at home thinking every day, hey, my dad might die, like you don't want that. So we, you know, we tried to tell them, hey, well not, I didn't do shit. My wife, I tell him, hey, he's sick and he's at the hospital and you know, kind of leave it a little bit vague and open ended like that.
- [21:34]
Chris Willx
Mm So I guess, you know, you look across at somebody that's had a career as an athlete that's over, overcome lots of challenges and difficulty in training sessions, from being a kid to being a teenager to a young athlete to a veteran athlete in all these different sports, wrestling and MMA and boxing. How much of that were you able to draw on when it came to recovery and resilience?
- [22:02]
Ben Askren
All of it. 100. I mean, you know, because the, the main thing is, I mean, it's been, I said it's been 11 months. I probably felt really good for, for a handful of those days, you know, like, you know, even today, I'll just say today I'm 11 months out, I'm having a pretty good day. But, you know, for a while before the show, actually, you know, it's like my breathing just wasn't as good sometimes. I don't know if it's the allergies or I don't know what the issue. It just feels weird sometimes, you know. And then obviously earlier on, it was, it was a lot more things than that. It wasn't, wasn't only that. So the amount of days I've felt really good since then has been very limited. And so it's, you know, even on the days where you don't feel good, are you going to get up and do something? Because if you just sit on the couch, you're not going to get better. And so even on the days you don't feel good, maybe you're not going to do as much as you had planned, but you're still going to do something. And that's kind of, you know, where, where I was at for a long time. And, you know, now it's like, I feel mostly pretty good. There's, you know, there'll be a little something here and there pretty much every single day, but it's like, okay, well, if I don't feel good at 10:00am, I'm gonna go get my workout at 2:00pm or, you know, like, I'm. But I am gonna work out. I'm gonna train and I'm gonna do my breathing exercises and I'm, you know, this handful of other medical things that I have to do, I'm gonna do them every day. I'm not gonna miss it. So I've been very disciplined and regimented in that. And obviously that came from my life as an athlete being very disciplined, very regimen in that it just crossed over kind of.
- [23:33]
Chris Willx
Exactly what did your weight get down to? What was the smallest, the lowest weight?
- [23:36]
Ben Askren
The lowest was 1 138. So I was like skin and bones.
- [23:41]
Chris Willx
And what did you fight at?
- [23:43]
Ben Askren
I fought at 170, but I was, I got, I'll be, I got. As a trt. So I got a little bit bigger. My normal walking weight was probably, you know, when I was fighting 185 ish, plus or minus a few pounds. And then as I retired, I was probably 195ish somewhere. Somewhere in there.
- [24:00]
Chris Willx
So best part, 50%. Best part of 50%.
- [24:03]
Ben Askren
Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, quite, quite, quite the drawdown in weight. And it was just like I said, I mean, I don't, I don't. My wife has pictures. Skin. Skin and bones really is kind of what I was.
- [24:15]
Chris Willx
Is that because you're not moving and not consuming any calories other than what they need to keep you alive?
- [24:19]
Ben Askren
Is that why I, I think they're not moving? Well, you know, it never looks all the way to this. I got some good guesses. Number one, you're not moving. I mean, I told you, like, they literally paralyzed me. But there was other times when I would wake up and I would just like, I don't recall this, but I would not be happy about that stuff. All of my arms, you know, I try to, like, move, and then that would spike my heart rate and then that would cause my breathing capacity and what is it called, oxygenation or whatever, that drop. Right. And that was really problematic. So I guess for a while they even have me strapped down so I couldn't really move at all. Yeah, so that was kind of the, that was kind of the deal with that. So. And then I do believe prednisone, which I'm still on, and so I'll be on for the rest of my life, probably. Unfortunately, I believe that has some, some capacity of where it eats your muscles a little bit.
- [25:13]
Chris Willx
What's that do?
- [25:14]
Ben Askren
That's a prednisone. Yeah, it's some, I don't know exactly which part of the immunosuppression it is, but it's an immunosuppressant. So with the, with a transplant patient, your body will see the transplanted organ as a foreign body and it will attack it. So they need to essentially tamp down your immune system kind of permanently otherwise.
- [25:34]
Chris Willx
Which is why flight for you and being in different places is more dangerous because you don't have an immune. If had an immune system that could protect you from getting sick, it would also be the same immune system that would attack your new lungs.
- [25:46]
Ben Askren
Yep, 100%. So I, I, you know, I try to stay out of areas where there's a lot of people where I don't like, have control of the area or what my surroundings are. Unfortunately, I wear a mask a lot, which is, you know, that's kind of COVID again, baby. I made fun of the mask people for sure. And I'm a math person. Yes, that's. That's no good. Yeah, yeah. But it is getting better. I'm. I'm coming down. Like the levels of immunosuppressant you're on, as you get further out and you get healthier, they, they do come down quite a bit. So you, you kind of hit a bounce back. So I've gotten the, you know, for example, last couple weeks, I've gotten lower on my. You guys, posaconazole and tacrolimus. I mean, that's fun talking about medicine, but I come down on those a little bit. So that means, you know, my energy and my immune discretion go off. And I think, you know, my year anniversary is coming up in about three weeks and I'll probably hopefully get food out even a little more. Potentially unreal.
- [26:41]
Chris Willx
Okay, what I'm interested in what matters to you more or less now than it did before?
- [26:51]
Ben Askren
Yeah, you know what? I said this. If I would have died when I went to the hospital, nurse, I walked in the hospital. I don't remember anything. If I would have died there, which I came pretty close to. I had a great life. Like, I really got to do what I love for, for a living and coaching wrestling, running the wrestling academy is. I think it's very meaningful work and that you're helping the next generation of young person not only get better wrestling, but get better at life. I love my wife. I have a great family. So I was really lucky in that I was. It didn't take me to die to figure out that, oh, I have a bunch of misguided priorities. Like, I think my priorities were, were pretty good. I was pretty, you know, reflectively. Second reflect on, hey, if I would have died, what do I think about what I had done to that point? So I felt really good about that. I do think I became maybe more patient, have more gratitude, for sure. And that's, you know, I don't think I was a category. Maybe I was lacking in prior, but I think maybe more. I feel even more strongly I became a Christian, which I would say prior I was kind of Christian adjacent. Like I went to church for 16 years or so, but just, you know, it didn't kind of click all the way so that would be, you know, a. Probably a big change, I would say, so kind of those things. But I was. I was proud of the life I was living prior to this. And I think all the positive things have just been kind of ramped up. And I think. I guess I think one other one that I would mention there is, you know, I. I invested in some businesses and I. I like all the people who are running them, but it. If it took my time, even if it was just, hey, I meet. I meet with the founder once a month or whatever, if it took my time and I wasn't, like, passionate about it, I said, I asked a few different people, like, hey, can. Can I get out? Like, I'll make a deal. Whatever, you know, whatever you feel is fair. Give me what's fair. And I just. I just want to take a few more things off of my plate. And I. I kind of feel strongly about that. And, you know, I get some officers to do things now, and I'm just like, is this what I really, really, really 100 want to do with my life? Is this worth the time away from my kids and my family? And if the answer is no, then I generally choose not to do it.
- [29:09]
Chris Willx
Have you seen Peaky Blinders, the series?
- [29:11]
Ben Askren
No, I haven't, but I know spongebob wrestlers are really big fans of it, so I've heard references, but I've never watched it.
- [29:17]
Chris Willx
Really cool BBC series. And in it, the main guy and his brother, they nearly die at the Battle of the Somme in World War I. And I think they're called clay kickers. So they dig tunnels to try and get into the enemy trench from underneath as opposed to going over the top. And sometimes they. The two tunnels cross over each other and then they have fights inside of the fucking tunnels. It's crazy.
- [29:43]
Ben Askren
And it is crazy.
- [29:45]
Chris Willx
He. Him and his brother basically nearly died at the Battle of the Somme. And they've got this line where they. They sort of turn to each other and say, everything after that was extra. Everything after that was extra. And it kind of sounds like that's how you see this period now that I was.
- [30:02]
Ben Askren
I was.
- [30:03]
Chris Willx
I mean, I didn't want to die. It would have been optimal for me to have not died. And I'm glad that I didn't. But had I have done. I'd lived a pretty good life up until then. But even though I'd lived a pretty good life, there's still some adjustments that I want to make in order to learn the lessons about prioritizing my time and What I was going to miss most now that I've got. Now that this is extra.
- [30:24]
Ben Askren
Yeah, no, yeah, that's true. That's pretty accurate with, with how I feel and how I view it. And I want to make the most of the extra. And you know what, the statistics on lung transplants now, I don't necessarily know that they apply to me for a variety of reasons which we can go, go through if you'd like to. It's kind of boring. But the median life expectancy is only six and a half years, which isn't long. I don't think that's going to apply to me fully because a lot of them are older, unhealthy people.
- [30:52]
Chris Willx
You mean an ex professional athlete who didn't get it because he was smoking and was like in the midst of some of the best health of his life?
- [31:00]
Ben Askren
Yes. Yeah. So you get it. So they actually the longest living person post double lung transplant is 38 years. So that's kind of my goal. 39, at least 39. But yeah, everything now is extra and it's kind of reformatted me. So the number one thing I, I love to do is my brother and I have wrestling academies. We have nine of them now in the state of Wisconsin. But the very favorite part of that is actually coaching the athletes. And so, you know, that's the thing I want to spend the most time on from a work perspective. And then obviously you know, with my, my family and doing that type of thing. And it's one of those that was weird because, you know, I never really thought twice about. But, you know, part of the wrestling academy thing is you travel on a lot of weekends sometimes to go coach kids. And I, I understand it's this weird thing because I love it and I miss it a lot and. But then it's like, well, I realized how much I was kind of missing at home or when my wife had to be, you know, especially a single mother. If I go to a big tournament now, it's not saying I'm never going to do that again. I am going to do it. I'll probably just do it a little bit less than I had previously. So to make sure I'm around for more my kids stuff. And then obviously now my daughter's 13 and she really likes wrestling, so there's going to be a, probably a good opportunity for me to spend a bunch of time with her through that. Um, but yeah, so definitely not going to waste my time on things that, that I don't love and that I'm not really passionate about. And that's kind of probably the biggest thing.
- [32:30]
Chris Willx
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- [33:34]
Ben Askren
You know, I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, because I don't know if you saw or heard, but I'm. I'm wrestling next month. And the reason I was wrestling was they told me so I actually worked for Raf, and it's going tremendously well. And one of my life goals, and this is something where it's like, I'm not going to work for Raf forever because it's not the number one thing I want to do. But one of my life goals was to start a legitimate professional wrestling organization in America that could run on its own and give athletes the opportunity to compete as professionals. Raf is doing freaking amazing job. I mean, they're. They're doing better. I should say we are doing better than I ever could imagine. This quickly. It's fascinating, but when they told me they're coming to my hometown on my birthday, something I write, it's like, okay, I got to get out there, and I got to. I got to make it happen. And so that's kind of been a really big driver for me. And a big part of it is me helping other people. And I listen, I get messages Pretty much every single day on Instagram at this point of. Hey, your journey has inspired me, and I think I was giving. Sorry, I'm giving a very long winded answer, but I think that's okay on this podcast. So your journey inspired me. I've been saying the same things for 15 years, but I think, you know, when I'm on top, right? So I'm winning MMA titles, and we got the best wrestling academy in America. I think people. It resonates with people one way. And then they see you dying and on your deathbed and trying to climb out of this hole, and you're saying the exact same things. I think it resonates and motivates in a different type of way. Not. This guy doesn't just talk about it. This guy is about it, right? He. He understands what is, what adversity is. He understands what hardship is. And when he had met adversity and hardship, he reacted the exact same way that he said he would. So I'm not just talking about it. I am about it. So me being able to climb my way out of this hole and live a, I will say, relatively normal life, you know, it's never gonna be all the way back to normal, but as close to normal as possible, I think that's very inspiring for people. And the. So then my thought on that was, I don't know how you feel about this guy. He's very controversial. But rfk, if he thumbs up or
- [35:51]
Chris Willx
thumbs down, I've been to dinner with him. He was a nice guy. Like, he's got some. He's got some wacky beliefs, but he's also managed to get the food pyramid to be the right way around for the first time. Hey, there we go. You know, it's. It's same as everybody.
- [36:04]
Ben Askren
So I would think, well, one of the things I think about him is this guy has an immense amount of courage and fearlessness. And I. I say this to people. I say, think about if you grew up and you watched your father be murdered and you watched your uncle be murdered, and you still had the courage to put yourself in the line of fire, right? Because there's a lot of people who don't like him right now. And you. You watch that happen to your father and your. Your uncle, and you still are willing to have the courage to do that. That. That's amazing. I don't. I don't care what you think about the rest of what he says. That is. That's very powerful. And he always references Sisyphus, right? Where the guy Rolls the bowl uphill, only for it to roll down every single day. And then he starts over. And then, you know, the kind of message of it to me is that there's something very powerful in just showing up and having a great attitude and working hard every single day. Even if you're maybe not going to get the fruits of your labors at the end of it, right? Because every day the boulder rolls back down and he shows up and he works again every single day. And for most people, they're not going to end up without any fruits of their labor, right? So, you know, they roll the boulder up the hill, it's generally going to go somewhere. And they may not get every single thing they want in life, but they're gonna. If you do that, you wake up with a great attitude and you work pretty hard every day, you're gonna end up with a pretty good life that you're pretty proud of. So I think about that a lot.
- [37:26]
Chris Willx
Why do you think wrestling produces such mentally tough people? Compared to a lot of other sports,
- [37:32]
Ben Askren
I think it's the best. I speak on this topic a lot. I may be biased because I run wrestling academies, but I think there is no greater impact on a child's life than wrestling. I think wrestling is a microcosm of life. I think there's a few qualities that maybe you don't get from wrestling, but most of them you do. And that is you are going to have hardship, you are going to have sacrifice. If you're going to lead any type of meaningful life, it's not going to be sunshine and rainbows. It's hard at a time. And so, you know, going through wrestling, it's a level of humility because you're never gonna be the best one in the room. And if you're the best one in that room, you're gonna go find another room that you're not the best in. And it's not like, hey, you're not the best. Go sit on the bench and go watch everyone else. It's like, no, you're not the best. Now you're gonna get your page rubbed in the map by someone who's better than you. And they're gonna force you to be humble. So I think, you know, hard work, discipline, perseverance, because you're inevitably going to get knocked down and have times of hardship and adversity. Self reliance is a big one. It's only you out there. There's no one else to save you. There's no team, there's no nothing else. Humility I think all these qualities can make a really, really well rounded human being.
- [38:52]
Chris Willx
Yeah, I mean, I look at a lot of other combat sports, a lot of other sports in general, and everybody learns something, especially the consistency, the routine. But maybe it's a selection effect. Maybe it's just that the sorts of parents that put their kids in, or the sorts of young guys and girls that decide that they're going to go into wrestling, they just, whatever it is about making that decision, select for a particular cohort of people that are kind of stubborn and routine eyes and insane. But I don't know, look at even the ufc, which is, you know, I
- [39:27]
Ben Askren
can speak to that for sure. I'll tell you on that one for sure, because I obviously had trained at a mixed martial arts gym for a long time, and we run wrestling Academy. The expectation of the parent coming into those two different places is totally different. Right. So the expectation of a pair coming into asking wrestling academy is, hey, I want my kid to learn how to wrestle. I want them to learn some discipline and some hard work and get a little tougher. And you know what, if they do really well, maybe they'll win a state title or get a college scholarship or something to that effect. And in MMA gym, so many times I saw, oh, my kid, he's really tough and scrappy, he's going to be the next star on TV and make a whole bunch of money. And so. Right. The expectation of the two different parents doing the two different things is, is immense. And I think that's probably a big part of this. What I would guess, what would be
- [40:14]
Chris Willx
your advice to a parent hoping to make their child's fame and fortune by getting them to do mma?
- [40:21]
Ben Askren
That is about the worst job you could. I mean, I tell, I tell everyone that MMA is, is an awful job. You do it and you do it. In my, this is my estimation, I did it because I wanted to fight people, because I like fighting people, because I love the combat. That's why I did it. But if I wanted to have a real profession, a real job, I for sure would have done something else. I always walk through someone, if you say, Chris came to me and said, hey, Ben, I want to be an MMA fighter, what do you think about that? I say, number one, it's dumb. Here's why, Chris, you're gonna start training, you're probably not gonna take a fight for a year. Okay, good. Then you take an amateur fight. Your amateur fights, that's gonna take you probably two years to get through. Okay. Once you become a pro, now you're going to have say two to three years of low level professional fight. Okay. If that six years goes perfect, now you're going to sign to ufc. And in your first year in the ufc, if you win all your fights, this is, this is seven years of perfection. Nothing went wrong in seven years. You're going to make like $80,000. Okay? But of the $8,000, you got to pay your gym, you got to pay your manager, you got to pay taxes. So you're, you're walking home with, I don't know, 35, $40,000 at that point, am. Well, if you don't live in California. California, I'm like $27,000. That's not a good job. So, you know, I've only ever recommended two people and it's relatively well for them because I saw they had a small amygdala and they were just a little different. They wanted to fight people.
- [41:45]
Chris Willx
How, how much of your success do you think came from talent?
- [41:50]
Ben Askren
Zero. I don't believe it exists.
- [41:53]
Chris Willx
You don't believe that talent exists?
- [41:54]
Ben Askren
I do not. And this is, you know what, this is hilarious. I'm thankful. My wife, my wife is off. You know, we're, we're in Kansas City. We came here after I got inducted hall of fame in Oklahoma and came to Kansas City. My wife has 104 year old grandfather, so we're visiting him. So they're actually playing bingo with him right now. My kids, fantastic. I know, great, right? Yeah. So I, my main argument life is to talent one. I don't, I do not think it exists. I think obviously human bodies have predispositions to certain things and there are certain sports which are very predisposed. But when I think about talent, I think of the ability to do a complex task really, really well. I don't think you can do a complex task really, really well without a high level of training. And one of the things before we argue this, I don't know if you're going to argue with me or not, but one of the things I always argue prior is if we were to test talent, we would need to test talent out of the womb. When they pop out of their mom, we need to test it because I always say, hey, if I give you two kids coming to ask Wrestling Academy. One kid has been sitting on a couch playing video games, his parents feeding him snacks all day, never teaching him discipline. He's a roly poly. Listen, he needs some wrestling. We're going to take care of him, we're going to give him what he needs, but he's starting way over there. If you have another 7 year old who's never wrestled, both of them wrestled, but he's got older brothers, they type, eat him up. His parents live a very active lifestyle. They're outside, they're hiking, they climbing trees, he's biking, he's playing games with his brother. He's not sitting inside. They have healthy, nutritious food. These are two seven year olds. Neither have ever wrestled, but they are worlds apart right now from, from John, you know, so that's kind of how I like to think about it. So we can debate if you'd like to know.
- [43:42]
Chris Willx
Look, I, I think that especially in the sport of wrestling, perhaps something that you begin with so early on in life. I mean, look, some people are literally built differently to others. Some people will respond to training in different sorts of ways. When you really start to ask what is involved in talent and if you were to think about something like desire to train as a kind of talent, some people just really like wrestling. They enjoy the idea of that. Other people might enjoy something really short, they might enjoy something that's less aggressive. Right. They might be a world champion classical musicianist.
- [44:22]
Ben Askren
Right.
- [44:22]
Chris Willx
A classical pianist or violinist or something like that. I don't think that if you just give those two people, even with their desire to work hard and their stubbornness and all the rest of this, if you don't have the desire. So it's an interesting question. Is desire to train part of talent? Right. People have a disposition to.
- [44:38]
Ben Askren
I would say, I would say yes. I say yes. That's been, that, that, that argument's been proven by the sled dogs. Do you know this one?
- [44:46]
Chris Willx
No.
- [44:47]
Ben Askren
The, the Iditarod sled dogs, right, that they run that big race across Alaska. So they, they breed, obviously breed the dogs and the dogs I think can have a baby like every year or something. So they don't breed the fastest ones and they don't breed the strongest ones. They breed the ones with the most desire to keep running. And so to your point, there's, but so, so what I would say, what I would say to that is it. And so again like 100 meter dash or something, that's a really, really simple skill. Like that is not a very complex task, but a complex path. There's likely a multitude of things that it's going to take to be world class at that. So you're gonna have to have, you know, work ethic, perseverance, the desire to work. To your point, right. Some level of intellect helps Some level of hand eye coordination helps. Like, you know, there's just going to be this really large basket of, hey, you need X amount of this skill set. But which ones do you need? Like in wrestling for example, I was incredibly slow. Twitch muscle fiber. My, my fastest ever 40 yard gas was like a five day. Like I am, I am incredible, incredibly slow. But I found a way to make it work. There's also wrestlers who are incredibly explosive and fast to find a way to make that work. So you know like of this basket of things that you can have, you may need I will say 20 of 25, but you don't need everyone and you can kind of pick and choose from them. So yeah, I, I think it's an interesting topic. So obviously I would absolutely, I would say people obviously predisposed being born differently. But I, I also think the early period in life is often neglected. There's another one you guys. You know about the Polgar sisters?
- [46:24]
Chris Willx
Nope.
- [46:25]
Ben Askren
Oh man, we. So the pole guard. Okay, let me make sure. I'm, I'm pretty sure I'm 100% right. This, let me make sure. So this guy. Yep, I'm correct. Okay. So this guy, he said I don't think talent exists. And I'm going to prove it. You know how he's going to prove it? He puts an ad out and he says, I need a wife who wants to help me make babies to be chess champions. And he finds, and he finds one, right? So he finds a wife to agree to these terms that. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna procreate and then my kids are gonna be chess champions. So he, he, he calls his shot. He says it. But before he even has kids, he says, and his, his three girls, I wanna say were the three of the five highest rated players of all time.
- [47:06]
Chris Willx
Wow.
- [47:07]
Ben Askren
So he called him before he.
- [47:10]
Chris Willx
Jesus Christ. Okay, well yeah, if you, if you can pick the pocket before you pot the eight, that's fair play. Jared, you ever considered that you might have a drinking problem? I don't consider a lot, Chris. Well, you drank an entire case of Athletic Brewing Co last night. But they're non alcoholic and that's not a problem. Sorry man, I, I just kept chugging. Wait for the regret to creep in. Never happened. See, most people like Jared don't want to change what they drink. They just don't want the next day to be a complete write off. And that is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing company. They make the best NA brews. On the planet. You can find Athletic Brewing Company's best selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you. Or best option, get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped direct to your door right now. Get 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or. Or heading to athleticbrewing.com ModernWisdom using the code ModernWisdom at checkout, that's athleticbrewing.com ModernWiry at ModernWisdom at checkout near Beer terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company Fit for all times. Bottoms up. So I'm interested, like looking back at your career, you went undefeated for 87 matches in a row.
- [48:31]
Ben Askren
Yeah, my last, my last two years in college. Yes.
- [48:33]
Chris Willx
Yeah. What, what goes through your mind when you're on a streak like that? Like, do you get increasingly more scared of losing it? A pressure sort of over the top of, of things like that?
- [48:44]
Ben Askren
Don't think about it if you did, if you did, go ahead, you did, you're going to lose it, you know. So I actually I, I wrote two, I've written two books now with assistance of course, because I am not a great writer. One is about my life, one is about my sports psychology ideas. But my junior and senior year I actually tried writing another book which is about. So it would have been my first book. Right. Never published it because I didn't think it turned out good enough. I worked with this sports psychology PhD and one of the things we did, we sent a questionnaire to every Division 1 NCAA champion in the past 50 years. So at that point it was 1956-06 was a 50 year window because I said, you know, I know what I think, but I want more good opinions. So we sent them this questionnaire. I think it was like 12 questions. And one of the questions which was this was really enlightening to me because at that point I already had one NCAA title. I was going on my second and one of the questions was, when did you go from good to great? And we were looking for some form of my training change. I got a new coach, I had a new mindset, just something, something like what made this happen? And you know, when did it happen for you specifically? And it was really funny because that the question was simple question was we want this and we got something totally different. And it was the mo. It was a question that was answered the most similarly of any questions. Right. So if we got a hard questionnaire, 120 questionnaires back, you know, it's oh, they're all open into questions. So you're going to get things that are, you know, across the gamut of what's going on. So many of them said, your question assumes I was great. I never reached greatness. But. Right. So there are all these people who were. And if you want to look at wrestling, a division one state champion is, like, in the 99.99 ninth percentile. You know, we're talking like one of a hundred thousand. There's. There's roughly a million people wrestling in America today. There's ten NCAA champions, one in a hundred thousand approximately, or something. So if you're going to label greatness, they're clearly in it. And they all were saying, not at all. Okay, not all of them. A very large percentage saying some form of, I'm not great. I was never great. And so as we read through those answers, it struck me, okay, well, I want an insane title, so by my own definition, I would be great. I've never even thought about it. I never thought I'd ever considered it. All I was thinking about was, how do I get better? How do I beat this next person as badly as possible? And so it's one of those things where the. I realized that power was in not thinking about it, like, to just be focused on the task ahead of you as opposed to. And, you know, like, one of the things that I. I get annoyed about is if people say, what is your legacy? My legacy is not determined by me. My. My legacy will be determined by what all the other people think about me. I'm going to focus on every single day what I think I need to do to get better. And what I need to do is for what's best in my life. And whatever they want to think of me, they think of me. So that's kind of how all these people are thinking is like, I've just focused on getting better, and I'm not worried about being great, as you would call it. And I think that's, like, really, really powerful.
- [51:49]
Chris Willx
Yeah, that's fascinating. I. I guess the obsession to just be riven by always wanting to improve is exactly why those people are separated out from the pack. You could probably ask, you know, it would be interesting, would be to ask people who didn't become NCAA champions but were maybe in the top 2%, and ask them when they think they became great, and they might be more likely to answer, oh, I became great. At this point, perhaps the lack of thinking that you're great is what actually induces greatness.
- [52:24]
Ben Askren
I mean, that's what you You, I'm sure you've heard the phrase, oh, man, rest in peace, my old coach Duke. Group issues say this. If you're, if you're green, you're growing. Oh, what was this phrase? It was essentially, if you're green, you're growing. So if you're, you have a white belt mentality. Dang, I can't believe I just forgot what he said all the time. Oh, my goodness. Essentially, if you're, you're green, you're growing. Like, if you, if you believe you're a white belt and you're open to knowledge and learning people, you're going to continue to get better. But when, when you think you know it all or you're good enough, then you're going to start declining. And so, you know, with our wrestling academy now, we've been open for 15 years, and especially in the early days before we were as influential, because now a lot of times we have kids from the time they're real little five, six, seven years old. But previously we saw certain kids say, oh, I want a sectional title. I don't need to listen to you. I'm really good. I want a sectional title, or I want to stay titled. I'm really, really good. When, you know, we talk about stats, state title, then state champion. These are, these are, they're not even in the same ballpark. So, Yeah, I would 100 agree with. Once people think they made it or that they think they know everything or know enough or they can't be helped, then generally there's some type of either plateauing feature or decline that happens in their skill, ability.
- [53:40]
Chris Willx
People, I think, even have a sense of this when they look at the trajectory of a, any, any person that's on a pursuit's life. The difference between being someone who has fallen off and someone that never made it is kind of fascinating to me. There's a. Obviously the person who fell off by virtue of having fallen, it means that at some point they were up pretty high.
- [54:06]
Ben Askren
Yeah.
- [54:07]
Chris Willx
There is a kind of additional disparagement of, oh, you had it and you lost it, as opposed to you never even got it, even though, like, objectively you did better. But we're so seduced, and we are, we're so enamored and enthralled by the prospect of momentum and potential that if the direction of travel is declining, if it's going from you were great to now you're less great than you were, as opposed to, you were average, and then you became better than average, and then you kind of stopped yeah, in some ways, yeah. The person who never made it but didn't get chance to fall off is in a preferable position sometimes.
- [54:53]
Ben Askren
Man, that's one where I would just say you just gotta ignore everyone else because I agree. You know, so many times people use term washed up. To your point, that means at some point they had to be significantly better than they currently are. But times undefeated, no one's been great forever. And so, you know, I, I did retire. I retired for the first time in 2017. I never got to fight the better guys. So I said, if I ever do, I'll come back out of retirement. I unretired 2018, then I hit issues, so I retired relatively quickly again after that. But I always just, you know, if someone wants to continue fighting, which, listen, I'm not fighting is a very tough sport. So let's go to football. Let's say Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady, if they want to continue to compete, like, what's wrong with them? Continue to try to. Yeah, they're not going to be as good at 43 as they were at 28 or 32 or something, obviously. But who cares? Like they're still, they're still elite enough to be in one of the top 32 positions in the NFL, right? That you got to be top 32 quarterbacks to play on the field. If you're not, you're not going to be on the field. So that's something I was like, well, that's an opinion of other people. And if you want to keep playing football or whatever sport it is where you're doing, then by all means, like, have at us.
- [56:07]
Chris Willx
Yeah, well, I kind of on that. I suppose you were nearly. You, you were undefeated for almost a decade, right?
- [56:13]
Ben Askren
Pretty much, yeah.
- [56:14]
Chris Willx
Almost a decade. But many casual fans remember you for one five second knockout.
- [56:19]
Ben Askren
Yeah.
- [56:20]
Chris Willx
What's that taught you about reputation?
- [56:23]
Ben Askren
I ignored it in the first place and I continue to ignore it. So, yeah, I just know, I never thought too much about it. I mean, for me, I love to compete and I wanted to prove I was the best and that's why I, you know, I retired and I said the only one coming back out is if I get to fight someone ranked higher than me. So, you know, I, When I was fighting through the Bellator and one championship days, I fought a fair amount of highly ranked guys. Jay Haran was fairly highly ranked. I fought him. Douglas Lima there was kind of a handful, but I never got to fight anyone who was in the top five. And so I was like, I think I got stuck at 6. So when I came out, you know, I retired, I said, well, I only want to fight someone better than me. I don't want to fight anyone's worse than. Because I want to try to prove I'm number one. And so, you know, right away, it was Robbie Haller who was. I don't know if he's number two or number three in the world at that point in time, but, yeah, and that was one where I think a lot of people, and some people did advise me, well, don't do this. If you lose, people will think differently about you. And I said, I don't give a damn what people think about me. I never started MMA to care about what people thought about me. I started MMA to see if I could be the best in the world at it. And that's what I, that's what I want to do, and that's what I'm going to do. And I was, I didn't get there. I got pretty freaking close. But, no, I'm not ashamed about that at all.
- [57:39]
Chris Willx
I kind of been, as I was thinking, watching your journey, seeing that first video you posted, which was, like, inspiring and harrowing and equal parts.
- [57:49]
Ben Askren
Mm.
- [57:50]
Chris Willx
You have this opportunity for your life to be defined by a variety of different situations. You had the opportunity for your career to be defined by being a NCAA champion in 87 undefeated fights in a row. You had the opportunity to be defined by being only the six best in the world in one championship and not pivoting onto something else. You had the opportunity to be defined by the fastest knockout. The opportunity to be defined by boxing. Jake Paul. The opportunity now to be defined by being the guy that overcame death and got two new lungs and then went back and wrestled within the space of only a year. Each of these junctures, you, the world is sort of offering you this opportunity to make your life about a thing. And I, it seems to me like you're continuing to, like, stick your middle finger up at the handshake of taking off a scene.
- [58:42]
Ben Askren
Yeah, that's, that's, that's how life is about. Like, legacy is defined by other people if they want to, and if they don't want to think about me, I don't, I don't really care. I hope they have a great life, and I'm going to continue to live life the way I want to and as full as I can. And, you know, I, I, I, I don't know if people consciously think this about me, but I think there are a lot of people who I don't want to say inspired might be the right word by how not bashful I am towards that. Like, I'm going to take a chance if you offer me a chance, I'm gonna take a chance all every time. And I'm gonna tell you, I don't need anything given to me in life. All I need is an opportunity. Have you given. Give me an opportunity. I'm gonna take it. And am I gonna win every time? No, I'm not. Are any of us gonna win every time? No, we're not. And you know, there's, there's actually this really good book. Have you ever had you read? I don't know if you, how you feel about this guy, but I like him and I got to meet him and he's very cool. His name's Josh Metcalf. He wrote Tablet Carry Water. Really good, really good book. And then, but then it was funny because he's written a handful books. His most notable with Chocolate Carry Water. But then he wrote a book called Finish Empty and it was Life from a Deathbed's Perspective. And it came out right around the time I was died. And so I got to read it with literally a deathbed perspective because I woke up, I want to say it was May, you know, I don't know. I don't know the exact date it came out. I got it maybe a month and a half to two months after everything went down. You know, and one of the, one of the really amazing quotes that just, it just sticks in my head so I better get it right, is the point of life is not to arrive safely at death.
- [60:25]
Chris Willx
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- [60:58]
Ben Askren
That's why I plan to make my
- [61:00]
Chris Willx
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- [61:38]
Ben Askren
Yeah, and there's another good one. There's another really good one in there. Hopefully. Worrying is like a rocking chair. You can move all day, but you ain't going anywhere. Right? So stop worrying about things. Go make it happen. And that's kind of, that's kind of how I live my life prior to this. And now it's even like, dude, yeah, that, that's how I'm gonna do it. And you know, I, like I said, I take my medicine every day. I wear my mask when I have to. I'm gonna try not to be reckless with my livelihood. My plan is to be the longest living double lung transplant person ever. That is my goal.
- [62:10]
Chris Willx
Do you know what the record is?
- [62:12]
Ben Askren
38 years. So I'm going 39, baby.
- [62:15]
Chris Willx
Wow. And how old would you, how old would you be?
- [62:18]
Ben Askren
80. So, you know, yeah, that would be, that'd be, that'd be a good, good life. And you know, I honestly, I figure if I make it like 15, 20 more years, there's gonna be some new technology. They're, they're already starting to build organs with your own stem cells, I believe, is what they're doing. And so that would also get me off the, the immunosuppressants because those, those over.
- [62:41]
Chris Willx
So you're suggesting that you would get another lung transplant? Yeah, you'd be, you'd be down for that? You'd go through it again?
- [62:48]
Ben Askren
Oh, absolutely. I mean, because the immunosuppressants are, they're a decent portion of the reason why life expectancy is not that high. Because when you kill your immune system, you cause a whole bunch of other problems. Right. And so I don't know that, you know, they're, they are, they're literally building organs with stem cells and your, your own DNA. They're probably not very good at it. Yes.
- [63:12]
Chris Willx
But dude, I get this sense if, if, if there's a list of people that they want to test this on as a good case study, I reckon an ex professional athlete is probably pretty high up. And I don't know how many ex professional athletes at your level have had, like, no one's going to be. I'll volunteer. I'll volunteer to have the lung transplant from my real ones to my fake real ones.
- [63:33]
Ben Askren
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, my doctor, Irish Chris, I told my doctor, I said, hey, man, one of my doctors is pretty young and he's a progressive. Like, you could tell he wants to make it happen and he wants to make, you know, life better for all the lung transplant patients. And I said, hey, man, you got any ideas that you think are going to work, run them by me because you're not going to find anyone more disciplined and I'm down for it. If you think it's going to help me live longer, I will, I will run that protocol. So you just let me know.
- [64:01]
Chris Willx
Yeah, dude, you're, you're an inspiration, man. You always were. But this is, it's another level. So I'm, I'm really, really happy that you're still here. I'm really happy that you're doing this. Good luck with the fight. I'm going to be watching. Going to be watching and enjoying.
- [64:14]
Ben Askren
Thank you.
- [64:14]
Chris Willx
What else have you got going on? Where should people go to keep up to date with all of the things?
- [64:17]
Ben Askren
Oh, man. You know, I don't post on social media that much anymore. Once Instagram and Twitter and just my real name, it's not Twitter anymore, it's called X. Sorry, I, I, but I actually, I have a movie coming out this fall. Also about this, this going to be exciting. I don't know exactly when it's coming out yet, but so my wife's, one of their family friends in high school, was a movie producer and he was watching my stuff last summer and he said, that looks amazing. You Would you guys be open to it? My wife had filmed so much stuff, I was in the hospital and he shopped it around and the, the Henry's, I don't know if you know them at Novo Studios, picked it up and so we've done a whole bunch of filming on it and I think it's be great and I hope it's really inspiring to, for people to lead a life where just like I said, they're fearless. They live the life that they want to live, not the one that they're afraid what other people are going to think of them. So they don't do things, they don't take chances and to live their life as fully as possible. So that's kind of what I'm hoping to inspire people with.
- [65:22]
Chris Willx
Unreal, man. Unreal dude. Let's keep in touch. I'm excited to see what you do next and let's talk when the documentary comes out.
- [65:31]
Ben Askren
Awesome. I love it. Thanks so much man.
- [65:32]
Chris Willx
Appreciate you, dude. Catch you later on. If you're wanting to read more, you probably want some good books to read that are going to be easy and enjoyable and not bore you and make you feel despondent at the fact that you can only get through half a page without bowing out. And that is why I made the Modern Wisdom Reading List, a list of 100 of the best books, the most interesting, impactful and entertaining that I've ever found, fiction and non fiction and real life stories. And there's a description about why I like it and there's links to go and buy it. And it's completely free. You can get it right now by going to ChrisWillX.com books that's ChrisWillX.com books.