Episode 403: Justin Wren - Fight For The Forgotten
Thirteen years ago, Justin went to the Congo in hopes of providing clean water for the Pygmy Tribe. The journey began with six failed wells, led to multiple bouts with malaria, and life threatening hikes in search of water. Justin’s life story is full of examples of overcoming what many would consider insurmountable hurdles, which is why he has gotten to where he is today. Justin and his team at Fight For the Forgotten (FFTF) will soon break ground on a new hospital to go along with the wells, farms, trees, sanitation and training they have provided. Justin believes strongly in providing opportunities along with teaching independence, which is a huge reason FFTF has been so successful.
Justin is a humanitarian and the founder of Fight For The Forgotten, he is a former professional MMA fighter for the UFC. He competed in season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter, is a two time All-American and National Champion Greco Roman Wrestler. Justin is about to break ground on a new hospital, which has been a new initiated along with many others that all began by drilling a well in the Congo.
Previous appearance - Episode 231: Justin Wren - Mixed Martial Artist & Fight For The Forgotten
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Episode Transcript:
I like your setup, man. Yeah. No, it's been fun. I think I'm trying to remember when I officially got it rolling. I think maybe like November, October, November last year was I, when I had all the equipment set up and ready to go, but, it's been cool to do in-person ones. They're just so much more fun to chat in person, which I'm. You've done many podcasts. I'm sure you've, you know, in person just feels I don't know, you're sitting across the table. Yeah. There's nothing in the middle. So I feel like, I don't know I feel like you can go deeper. Yeah. Yeah yeah I noticed the first couple in-person ones I did, I was like these episodes are just on average lasting maybe 20, 25 minutes longer than they would when they were just virtual. And I think it's just yeah, you just have more. You have you just go deeper into stuff. I think because it's just when you're in person chatting with someone for whatever reason, it just kind of sparks the creativity a little differently. Yeah. You get in the flow. And what is it? Just like whenever you're working out, maybe not so much for running, but when you have someone to go with you, you feel like you can take it up a notch. Yeah, that's a good yeah, that's exactly what it is. Because, yeah, you run by yourself, you can. You feel every minute of it. You run with a partner and all of a sudden you're like, oh, that was 45 minutes. That was 60 minutes. I felt like it just, you know, just started. It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, it's a good comparison, but. Awesome. Justin. Well, I'm stoked to have you back on the podcast. For listeners who are new. Justin, you came on back for episode 231 and I wanted to chat with you about your incredible story, which is just, you know, it goes way back to when you were a kid to today, where now you're you're changing the lives of thousands of people, probably at least, maybe millions, right? I don't know a lot of people I don't know. I don't know either. How do you put a number on it? But I feel very humbled. And what a privilege for me. What a pleasure to be able to share that with people, your listeners, your audience. I know you got very engaged, deep like just people that are passionate about you, human performance and, yeah, you're an outlier. And maybe, maybe I'm an outlier in a different kind of way if you're definitely an outlier. Okay. Thank you. You are the outlier of outliers. I'm gonna brag about you. Oh, thanks so much, bro. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. And I you know, a lot has changed, I guess, since or developed is probably a better word for it since you were on here last. I think last time you were on here, you still had a foot in the mixed martial arts world as a competitive athlete. Not just. I'm sure you still practice and use that as a mode for fitness, but you've kind of retired from that since then, right? I have, so I am officially retired. That's the first time I'm saying it publicly, though. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break. No no no no no no, it's not breaking news. Here we go. No, I, I've had years off so. Really it was a factor of my body, but also my body breaking down and not recovering the same way, but trying to avoid shoulder surgery or neck, nerves being fused and other things like that. And in my, what would you call it, the, herniated disk that I have. But really, I think that I found my fight. And so if I relate it to performance, I think I found another fight that was worth fighting. And I would never change or trade fighting against one person in a cage for fighting for people and seeing that impact and fighting is all about impact. And so whenever I was able to pair that with fighting for a purpose, it changed performance. So if we, if we go into a little bit of why people listen to this show, whenever, whenever I would get locked, there's that moment of truth. I don't know if I shared this last time or not, but when the cage door actually locks, whether that's amateur, your first pro fight, or your first time on the big stage for the UFC or Bellator or the many competitors, there's that moment of truth. Like, you hear that lock, and sometimes that's a moment of paralyzation for fighters where I'll go back to one guy that I know. And dude, he would beat UFC Hall of Famers five out of five rounds or four four out of five rounds, at least three out of five rounds. But on fight night, he never could perform. And it was that moment of truth, the cage door locked and he would get in his head. But whenever I was able to combine it with purpose, like, I'm going to fight to win and we're going to drill a water well, something flipped where it was like, I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me. And it just changed things. And so I think athletes or performers or, you know, even on these runs, you got to tap into that other thing, not just about you, but also like, how can you raise the stakes of necessity of why, why is it necessary for me to win or for me to go this long or to hit the goal today or. And so now I just don't know why I started with that, except for man when you can. I think if you look at a lot of Olympic athletes, the dark horse that comes out of nowhere that wins, there's some sort of story. And maybe it's the story of my mom who was diagnosed with cancer, and I really wanted to win this for her. Right. Or the kids from the inner city where this athlete came from. Like, they want to be an example where, like, give them hope, right? And so how can we raise the bar of necessity with anything that we're doing? And so. That's the new phase I'm in now. How can I raise the bar of necessity for myself and for the people we serve, for what we're doing now? It's expanded. So much was mostly focused on water, but now it's expanded into building sustainable communities for people that really don't have any of those resources. Yeah I definitely want to talk about that. What would you just describe though that in ultrarunning that's what they call the why. And it's a big topic within the sport because there's an intrinsic kind of motivation that I think everyone experiences when they first get into it. It's like, I'm going to run 100 miles for the first time. I've never done that before. Or maybe it's 50 miles, whatever happens to be. And that's kind of pretty powerful just to think, like, I'm going on this journey, I'm going to discover myself. There's a lot of kind of like draw there or motivation to to keep going when the going gets tough. But people who stick around in the sport for a long time, that y sort of evolves. So, you know, eventually you finish the race. Maybe you hit your main objective of running 100 miles. Maybe you've taken even another step further and you've run it like at the time you wanted to do it, or the place you wanted to get. You have to kind of keep reinventing what you're out there for, because that Y evolves and it changes. And what was powerful before maybe isn't doing it anymore. or it's just not right y. So like, for you, I think about just like, that was like your early time with fighting for the forgotten. Obviously you were passionate about mixed martial arts, and I mean, you were a UFC fighter for a while. That's like the big show for that stuff, right? And yeah, you were on Ultimate Fighter, I think two once in. Yep. Season ten with Rashad Evans, Rampage Jackson as the coaches. And then it was Brendan Schaub and Kimbo Slice and oh wow. Yeah, big country and West Sims, who was six foot 11 and had fought in the UFC plenty of times before. So it was my season that was a mix of UFC veterans and then the up and coming heavyweights. Yeah that's an awesome cast. It was. Those guys have really taken off since then. Yeah, yeah. It was wild to see. And 16 guys being thrown into a house. Yeah. to eat together, do dishes and laundry together but also fight with each other. Yeah. It was a wild time. That was at a point where, like, reality television was still, like really on its peak, I think. Yeah. And now it's like we've sort of I think reality TV is just different because it's people throwing up YouTube videos and Instagram stuff and going right to the source more or less, versus kind of having the production in the middle of it all kind of dictating the storyline a little bit. But I would imagine a reality TV show where you're getting an occasion to fight. There's only so much sensationalism you can draw into that, and that's pretty real at a certain point, at least, it is very real. There were ways that they fabricated. I forget what I can and can't talk about, but let's just say the AC went off in Vegas. Hottest, hottest summer in 20 years. And the AC went off for like five days. They said it was frozen. and really, someone kicked off the lock box and they just had it turned off. Oh, no. But they had to pretend people were coming to act like they were servicing, they were wearing the air conditioning and had the air conditioning van and stuff like that. And they're acting like they're doing something, but they're getting paid to really just pretend. And so they would do little stuff like that where it's fight day and you ordered your grocery list. And every week you have everything you want to prepare. And then, all of a sudden, all your stuff is gone. None of the steel cut oats or salmon or broccoli or brown rice or whatever you wanted to have that day is just missing messing with you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just poking. I imagine that works in your favor because you've been in much harsher climates. Given what you've done with fighting for the forgotten. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I hadn't done any of the fighting for the forgotten stuff yet. Okay. The Ultimate Fighter happened. but I would say that my. Why really changed. I think when I first started fighting, I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't that bullied kid anymore. And because I grew up getting very heavily bullied. And for those that haven't heard the last episode, like, yeah, I mean, I would literally get beat up at school and wouldn't fight back. And so when I found wrestling, that was like a light bulb moment. It was my outlet. It was my purpose. Like, oh, if I can be a good wrestler, you know, people aren't going to take me down. I could defend myself. and then when I got on The Ultimate Fighter, I just remember getting my hand raised or fights like it. It didn't do what winning a national championship in wrestling did. I won that for the first time. Like, man, I was flying high for quite a while, but then I needed to win a second. And so I won that second one. And it was cool. It was good. But then I was like, okay, now I need a fight. And so then I went into fighting. And what I say about The Ultimate Fighter, it was a really great learning experience. There were NFL veterans that had made the transition to MMA, and you see these guys that are living on a pension because they were in the NFL for like ten years, ten seasons, right? And won the Super Bowl. But now they've got to make a change and an adjustment and go after this. But then it wasn't what they wanted. And I was around these fighters that sometimes you know I think I think being a pro athlete in you as well, like you can do it at a high level and you can give back, right? Like that's what you do in your coaching programs and your website. Like I think it's beautiful. Like, what was your fastest time running 100 miles, 11 hours and 19 minutes? Yeah. Is that what it was? I got it, yeah, I remembered your homework. Yeah. And, I mean, that's incredible. But now you get to give that gift back to others. Some reason I haven't been much of a coach, right? For whether it was wrestling or MMA or jiu jitsu, like, I'm, I've I've been. Very fortunate to be around some of the best of the best, like Hall of Famers, and world champions and Olympic champions. But some reason giving that back to others that has never felt like the pool for me. And so this wild circumstance that got me to Africa and to these people that really have absolutely nothing. Being adopted into that tribe by spending significant time with them like that, that's my why. It's like, oh, man. Like, these are people who just want a fighting chance and they're willing to work for it. They're willing to do anything for it. And so if I can be some sort of spokesperson, but start this nonprofit and lead the charge that I get to really just be the spark plug. But they're the engine. They're the one that keeps it going. And, it's beautiful, man. Seeing what it's evolved into. And I know I'm bouncing all over the place. I'm going back from Ultimate Fighter back to fight for the forgotten, but perfect. Okay, great. Yeah, I, I want to, I want to ask you to tell a story that you told me last year. If you can remember it. It was, you went out to visit and you had brought Matt Vincent with you, and you guys were, I believe. I can't remember what the objective of it was, but one of the pygmies was leading you through some route that they had to do. And it was on like Cliff ledge and I think there was BS involved. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Killer bees, African colonized bees, which are killer bees. And they said do not disturb. And so I told Matt I'm like, don't disturb that. He goes, what? Why brothers are killer bees. And we walked by at least five hives, if not ten. And we're on the ledge of a cliff. And so this little footpath. We'll go back. So it all makes sense. But we drilled a well in a new community where they were told it was impossible to do. there was another NGO that had come out and said, we can't do it here. And we did six surveys to finally find a spot that would have clean water. But then you have to get the equipment there to actually drill the well. So we had to basically and we recently completed another portion of this. So it's come out to being more than 13 km of road where it never existed before. So we're having to go through a little bit of the rainforest and go around trees so we're not deforested, but then up this mountainside and yeah, it was a bigger task than what we thought, but we got it done. And so our well drillers are kind of like I would say, similar to the Navy Seals of well drilling, going to the hardest to reach places, the off the beaten path and most remote and rural places because those are the overlooked, those are the forgotten and. So to do this, we I, I always say let's, let's put ourselves in their shoes, let's do the actual water walk. And so I've done at least 15 of these. We've done more than 85 wells, for more than 52,000 people providing clean water. And, but the really hard places, the places where it doesn't take a few days, it takes a few weeks, sometimes a few months. And so we go on this water walk with them. And Matt said, I don't know if we're going to be able to do it. I'm like, ah, I've done this 14, 15 times. Like we're going to be able to do it. You know, it's what they do every day. So we can do it once, right? He's like, I don't know man. Like this. Yeah. Yeah sure. If you're confident you've done it before, we'll get it done. So we take two jerry cans, one jerry can, and 20l of water. That's five gallons, which equals £44 and full. And so we're trying to do it with two of them. But what I didn't know is that water point one would be dry water spot or point two would be dry, and water point three would be stagnant and filled with like different kinds of insects and just really disgusting. So what this community would do with this guy named Michael that was giving us the tour, and his wife Vivian, that went on the walk. And their child who was like, this is what we've done every day, twice a day. So we got water point one, it's dry. It's like, oh, we got to keep climbing up. So we're scaling the side of this mountain to water point to and from water point one to water point two was probably about 6 or 7 stories high. And we're literally rock climbing, not hiking. And so we're hanging off the side of this cliff. We get there, it's dry, we get to water point three. That's another dangerous one. They're like, okay, now we have to go down the mountain to Water Point four. And we're like, oh man. So it had just dried up probably over that night or the night before. So 1 or 2 nights it's been dry. So we have to scale around this mountain top and where their weight is different from our weight or my weight or Matt's weight. For people that don't know who. Both guys. Yeah, he's a two time world champion in the Scottish Highlands game. So he's a big old boy. Strong, strong, strong. And when we're putting our feet on these spots that everyone else is just walking over, fine, sometimes it would fall out from under us. And so we'd have to grab on to something or like put our weight back on our other foot, because now we're going to have to step even further because the footing fell out from under us. Anyways, we. This thing was supposed to take two hours. Three hours? It took us six and a half to seven hours. And we made an elevation change of five, six, 7000ft. And we go down to the bottom. And when we got there, like we had run out of water. So we thought we were going to be able to drink from water. Point four but then my team says, no, no, no, Justin, you and Matt can't drink that. Like we've drank that and we got sick for days. We had to go to the hospital because of it. Like you can't drink that water. So we're like, oh no. So now we're having to hike all this back up. So the reason they would hike up is because it's easier to carry water down. Right? Because of the weight, but once you get to water point four, you have to climb all the way back up the mountain, with two jerry cans each, £88. So we're trying to do it, and we're just. Oh, man, we were so stubborn for the first hour or two trying to get this back up the mountain, but we have like six men with us, so we finally start handing it off. and so we were always carrying one jerrycan, but we couldn't do it with two. And then we get back up to the top, and it is by far the closest Matt or myself have ever been to a heatstroke. And so we're dehydrated. We're exhausted. We're carrying this thing on our heads, in our hands, like kettlebells. And they were handing them off. And we're trying to carry just one and wrestle this thing back up the mountain. I couldn't believe it. I've done stuff like, I know you're an endurance athlete, and I would never say that I can do the same stuff you do, but I've done Mount Kilimanjaro, and that's not incredibly hard. It's like a six, seven, eight day walk up the mountain. But summit day is still hard. Yeah. And this was by far twice as hard as Summit Day up Kilimanjaro. I couldn't believe it. Well, I'm just going to take the liberty and give you an honorary ultramarathon badge. You're an ultra marathon runner. I don't know if the listeners will like that. I don't know, it sounds, but if anyone could do it, I think. I think you qualify. It was wild, man. How hard it was. Because. We started too late in the day. And so it was from maybe 10 or 11 until like 5 or 6 p.m. at night. So in the heat of the day the sun's pounding down on us. We had these long sleeve shirts that we're alternating taking on and off and the sun's just pelting us in. The elevation changes with nothing being a real path, right. Like it's there's little footpaths that weren't as wide as our hiking boots were. Right? And I mean, we fell down a few times. There's pictures of me and Matt just at Water Point four before we carried it back up, where we were just spent ready to tap out. So coming back up, we're like, oh my gosh. So on that route, we crossed all those killer bees and we were just so grateful. Like we didn't disturb. They didn't come out to play. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would have died. Yeah. I remember when you and Matt were telling me that story. I was just thinking to myself. I was like, they just do that every day, essentially. Like, maybe not quite. I suppose they don't always get unfortunate enough to have to go to a water point. But just waking up in the morning with the essential necessity to like we may need to spend the entire day just meeting our first basic need of water. Yeah. So a lot of times husband and wife, they'll like spouses to share duties, or it'll be the mom and the daughter or the mom and the son. But whenever they said we would get to Water Point one and they would talk to us a little bit, or water 0.2 and water point three, and we'd take a small break where they would tell us we'd be like, what do you do now? It's dry. Like, oh, this is what you do. You have to go up there. And so because it's getting dry, like sometimes they're spending 30 and 45 minutes to fill up one jerrycan because they're having to scoop with a mug, basically, and put it into a funnel and then wait for that water point to kind of fill back up. Right? It's like a little spring, where there is a little stream or a little puddle. Right. And so it was just wild to think about all the things they have to do to where they said whenever it starts to become the dry season, there's a line of people. And so they'll wake up sometimes at three and four in the morning to go start so that they're the first one in line or the third one in line, or the 10th one in line, because then they have to start their day. And so and if you don't get it early, there might not be any. And so there's just this. And they're trying to do it where it's not in the heat of day. But then it's dangerous to do at night. Because women or girls can be stopped or assaulted or different things on that walk. Most of the time not. But sometimes, you know, you're out there alone in the dark and there's whether it's a wild animal or, you know, rebel groups aren't in that region because they're on the Congo side. But there's times that they've come across. And so it can be dangerous. And it's just wild to think about, like this was what they were doing every day, sometimes twice a day. And then for a family you're sharing 1 or 2 jerry cans for your water needs, right? So, cooking, cleaning, drinking, bathing. And so the amount of water they live on, too, is so small and that water is not clean. Yeah. I just, I like to hear you kind of break that down before we get into other topics because it's just when you just think of it practically like if I had to spend, let's just say eight hours of my day just finding water for, for basic purposes, like I'm just not doing a whole lot more than that. So when someone like yourself fighting for the forgotten decides to go in and build wells, you're essentially liberating such a large percentage of that population to the degree where now they can start investing their time and energies into other things. So it's almost like an exponential benefit for them to have a, well, close to where they're living, where they can just draw clean water and then get about doing the rest of the stuff and, and progressing, essentially. But if you don't have that, you're just stuck. Is that it's not like, oh, you're inferior because you didn't develop like these other countries did. It's like, no, you didn't develop because you were never put in a position where you could even get to the point where development was on the table. Right? You didn't have a fighting chance. Really? Yeah. and so. Yeah. It's wild. A couple years ago I went back, and we have long standing, long term relationships with everyone we've done work for. And so they have our phone numbers. We go back in and do water tests. Like we go just to check in from time to time. We'll go back and just sit down and eat and celebrate and check in. So we did that a few maybe three years ago in a community. And this nurse from the local medical clinic. And when I say medical clinic, it's a room about this size. Dirt walls, iron sheet roofs. And that's the only medical care provider in the entire community. One person. But he kept really great logs of every patient and what he saw them for and their name, the date, everything else. So he had three different years that he went to and he was in tears showing me this because the year before the well, actually he had four different logs the year before, the well, 90% of his patients were because basically nine out of ten were because of waterborne disease and illness. The year after they got water, it was like 11 or 12%, basically like 1 in 10 patients were because of water blueness. The year after that it was like less and the year after that was basically virtually 1 or 2 people. The entire year he saw it because of water borne illness. And so what does that mean when we go into a community and talk about drilling a well, we really sit down. We ask hopefully good questions, and they make really great suggestions about what they need. Like there's a typical thing that people need, but really understanding that is unique because some people can think, this water's clean. We drink clean water because it's clear, well, you know, we'll do a test and see if it's actually clean, right, that spring, is it clean or is it contaminated? but also we'll sit down and talk with them and be like, what would this actually do? How would it actually change your life? And so I remember we did this survey in a community where the average household was spending about $165 per year on waterborne illness treatment. So the pills, because they're getting these parasites or amoebas or viruses or bacterias, this water borne illness, and they're taking the pills, but they're washing it down with dirty water. So really, it's just to survive, not to get it out and have the opportunity to thrive. If the average household is spinning about $165 a year on treatment, that's about half their income, because normally it's a single income family and they're spinning about they're making about a dollar to $1.25 per day. Now what if you have clean water and clean water clothes. Okay. So you take the treatments once and you're done. But also could your wife go to work or your spouse go to work because they don't have to go collect dirty water from six kilometers away, or eight kilometers away or ten kilometers away. Yes. So now it's a dual income family. Where could your daughter go to school for the first time? Because you had to pick between your son and daughter. Who goes to school because it's her job to go collect water. And so, man, they can become they can make twice as much money just off a single income family. But if they become a dual income family now, it's four x right, 3X4X. And so they understand that it's like light bulbs turning on. And then to see how they progress. Like you're saying like now because they make more money. They can buy school uniforms and pay for school fees and buy the school books and send all their kids to school. And so if there's a school in the region, our next project, there isn't a school and there's 5 to 700 kids that aren't in school. So now we're expanding beyond water to like full. Community development or holistic community development to try to address every need and hopefully do a proof of concept where if we do it right, this one will be able to do this in multiple communities. You were telling me something last week that I hadn't thought of or was aware of that I found interesting, and it was because I mean, you think about when you tell these stories just like seems like this is something where you throw some money at it, wells get built, opportunities are had and then it's just spirals into positivity versus stock. But that's not always the case. Like there's one. It's one thing to go over to these places and build a well. It's a whole nother thing to build it in a way where it actually works and lasts. Yeah. And like I'm just thinking of a scenario where, like, if I was accustomed to, you know, finding water on my own and that was my, my reality in life, it'd be rough, but I at least would have the skill sets of knowing where to go on how to do it. Someone comes in and builds me a well and also now I have clean water. Two years later that well breaks. Now I'm back to the other spot where I was before and hoping I still have access to and the ability to go and find water the way I did before. So to some degree it's like helping is not always helpful. If it's not something that's going to have a lasting impact. And you were telling me some stuff about how fighting for the forgotten tries to make sure that they don't become an organization that is going in there with a quick fix, and then all of a sudden, like creating a bigger problem down the road. Yeah. You're right. So helping can hurt. Yeah. Helping can hurt. Which is wild to think about. Right. If you can have all the right pure intentions and be good hearted and, but there's a difference between a hand out and a hand up, and you can't put a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. Right. And a lot of times that's what international development work is. That's why it can become a toxic charity. It can become crippling to the local community. People just don't know it because I call it the show up, blow up, blow out technique where it announces your arrival with a parade. throw a party, get your pictures, and then peace out like you're done. You go on to the next community and there's no real follow up or follow through. So there's over 230,000 broken wells in Africa right now, which should sound staggering. I know that's a big number. And what does that really mean? It means that's billions of wasted charitable dollars. But really what that means is probably tens of millions of people. Robbed of dignity and hope. Like it's like what you just said. Like you can have a water well and all this progress. But the reality of the situation is a well is going to need maintenance, just like your car is going to need an oil change. and if you don't like things that are going to go bad. So I think within the first two years, like 60% of the water wells go down. It might be 40%, but I think it's 60%. And that's because it wasn't a local solution to a local problem or the parts aren't locally available. Or if they are, it was built too expensive for the local need, which means it's not locally affordable to fix. Or there's nothing. There's not like a board set up or like a local committee that's like contributing to win. This needs a new coupler or a new pump or something. Like they don't have the money for it. They don't have contact with the organization that drilled it. And so basically it's just it's done. It's a graveyard of water wells. And that's the tough thing is like driving by communities that you see a dry well that really there's water underneath there. But like, it just needs a simple fix. And so that happens from time to time. I don't see them a lot because I go super remote and I'm not in the city a lot, but so. There's a different way to go about it. And that's what I think we've expanded into. And we've assembled, I think, 6 or 7 of the best partnerships in the world of like, how to really translate or transfer this impact or knowledge to where it truly becomes theirs, where they own it. And we've been doing that like they participate in drilling the well, or they contribute to the well and they feed our team when, when we're there. So they really feel like they earned it. Right. Because if you think about it, like if you give a 16 year old kid a car, They're grateful, right? But if that 16 year old kid had a summer job and worked for it and then bought it and then is making payments on it, then they're probably going to like, take that thing to the car wash. Yeah. Or or they're gonna, they're gonna I don't know, they're just gonna have pride in it and value it. Right. So when we go into a community, we go slow and it's slower than I would even like. but it's the right move because you want everyone to be on board and to be part of the solution. So the next phase. We've already bought land. We've helped buy back over 3000 acres of land for the pygmy people and their neighbors, like this community. This project benefits them and their neighbors. So there is no real distinction of who benefits. It's like if it's going to impact everyone there, like there's 5 to 700 kids that are going to be going to the school we're going to build. But maybe only 50 to 100 are the batwa pygmy children, right? So it's going to impact their neighbors more than even them. But how do you measure that impact? Because really, this is going to be the first time these batwa pygmy children have ever been in school. And then one day that will take away the final, what would you call it, excuse of the government? Because they don't have governmental representation. They don't have a voice. They're the only tribe that doesn't. And it's because the old excuse was they're not really human. They're half man, half animal where they're subhuman, where they're not, as you know, they're not smart. They can't speak our language or they haven't been educated. No one's gone to college. No one's gone to high school. So the real impact is there. Like, they're going to have representation on a governmental level. And so we're kind of lobbying and petitioning and on that forefront for them and with them where we bring them to everything we do with the government. But if I, if I'm going all over the place, I'll simplify it into what we do is build sustainable communities. We start with land, we go to water, we start farms so that there's food. Then we get into housing, better housing for the people on that land. Then we start health care. That's what we're about to do. and then so health care, education and sustainable livelihoods, basically that's what people need, is like land to call their own clean water to drink, food to eat, place to lay their head that's safe. and then health care medicine when they're sick, education so that they can grow and progress and then sustainable livelihoods, opportunities to have better jobs. And so that's what we're trying to do is build better lives. And that's what we're bringing all together in this next project. Yeah. It's incredible just hearing the plans that you have and the way you've gotten there too. I had a question that I was curious about. That kind of came up as like we were kind of talking when you have a scenario where there's a lot of like, kind of like failed attempts at helping and now you have the responsibility because, I mean, half your maybe more than half of what you do is going around and, and finding organizations and people who are willing to donate so that you can actually get these projects off the ground. Yeah. Is it more difficult? Like, I'm just trying to think of like, if I were the person that you're pitching to, and I'm aware of the fact that a lot of these projects are temporary and failed fixes. I'm going to be wanting proof of concept. Yeah. So that I know, like, you know, at times hundreds of thousands of dollars that are going to get donated are going to go to a lasting solution versus something that's going to be a pop and a fizzle. How is it? How difficult is that? Because I think you probably have proof of concept now, but that may not be the case. Wasn't always the case. No, it wasn't always the case. I mean, the first, I think, I think one being honest about it, like the struggles and the challenges, that's probably I think a lot of nonprofits find themselves in trouble because they act like nothing ever goes wrong or or not find themselves in trouble. But if you just cast sunshine and rainbows, then it's not being honest, right? Like there's going to be challenges that come up. Like, we've drilled my first six wells that we try to drill. We failed everyone. And so that was why I felt so defeated. And what was happening was I was a white belt, well driller trying to teach other white belts how to drill a well. And it just wasn't going to work. Right. I had a little bit of success in the US, and then I packed up everything. I took 15 check bags with me on a flight and thank God for Qatar Airlines because they heard what I was doing because I was on Rogan's podcast and some other things, and they're like, yeah, I'll bring your stuff. And I had augers and single pronged chisels and triple pronged chisels and winches and ropes and pulleys and chains and, and all these different like, construction equipment. You need more than the TSA for that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I had to I had to find the perfect bags that weighed the less that wouldn't rip these canvas bags that each one of them weighed £49.5 or £50 exactly, and went over and, you know, it was it was tough because I had held a young boy in my hands named Andy Bow that died in my hands. And I was like, you know what if I when I came back to the US, I was like, I, I can turn on a spigot and water my grass. I can give my dog clean water. I can honestly, when I'm urinating, I'm, I'm, I'm eating clean water, relatively speaking. Yeah, exactly. And so if, if then there's got to be a way, there just has to be a way. And so I might have started before I was ready, but I threw myself into it and, and we had a team of eager, hungry people that are my heroes, like, ready to go, ready to learn. And we learned the hard way through failure. But we would pick up and we'd fail in one spot, and we pick up a move, a football field, and we start trying to drill again. And we'd hit these in the rainforest. There's a lot of collapsing zones. And so there's so much moisture in this atmospheric or geological pressure underground that we drill 60 ft deep by hand and that would take 2 or 3 days. Sometimes because you're wrestling the earth, you can't see where you're going. but you'd hit a stone or you'd hit a sandstone layer, or you'd hit laterite, or you'd hit whatever it is, and then you'd have to put like a casing pipe down and use this caterpillar tooth that weighs like £50. And you put all this rebar behind it, and you make this thing as heavy as you can without slowing it down. So it can be like a bullet in a barrel, and you're just pulling it 2 or 3 ft and letting it go and pulling it 2 or 3 ft and letting it go. And on this tripod it just hammers the earth. And then you go down and you scoop out inches at a time of this rock that you're beating up and you're just like, is this going to work? Is this going to work? And if it failed, you're just like, man, I, I had my hopes up, our team had our hopes up, but really we got the hopes up of the people we're trying to serve. So until I found, like, an expert well driller in the method we were doing, who had over 100 wins under his belt, like he came in and I remember I called Papa y, and, I had malaria, and I was back in Uganda and I was going back into Congo, and I called and I was like, I think I'm done. Like, I, I'm sick. I lost £33 and five days of vomiting red and green blood and bile and I'm and I've all I've done is failed. Like, what do I do? Do I need to go back to the US? He's like, I'm going to call someone, they've had some success. Maybe he'll call you and give you some advice. Well, insert BTec who's our team leader in Uganda? He didn't just call me. He liked it, showed up and rolled up his sleeves. Wow. And he's like, I'm here, I'm going to show you what to do with collapsing zones. That's what you're hitting. But I gotta see it and feel it. And basically you're wrestling in the dark or blind with the earth and having to figure out what's going on under 60 ft underneath you, maybe 80ft underneath you. And so we finally had this moment where we got success. And I remember I was looking at him. Everybody was looking at him. We'd gotten further and deeper than we've ever gone before, and I was looking at him for some sort of sign because the auger just shifted and it kind of spun and it just did something different. And all of a sudden water came up and it just kept coming up. And I'm like, did we do it? I don't know, I'm looking for him for some sort of sign. And he cracks this grin and I'm looking out at everyone else and looking back at him, and he just let out this water warrior roar like he just. Ah. And then I started celebrating. Then everybody started celebrating. I just remember that moment. Being. I mean, it took three more days to, like, set the well and clean the well and like, purify it. And it's called, well, development. And so but on that third day, whenever we celebrated, we danced from night time until the sun came up. And that moment for me, I've been to the I've been to UFC 100, 203 like yeah I've been to him. The Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA finals, a moment of 150 people getting access to clean water for the first time. Like those celebrations, those cheers, like, drowned it out. arenas full of people. Like, it was just different. And I was just like, ah, this is it. Like, we can keep doing this. So to go back to your answer or question of is it hard to gain support? I think? Yes, it can be for sure, but I think we talk about how other models have failed and how we're having success and that it's sustainable success and that it's maybe slow development, but like it's happening and like, look at this and look at this story and look at this person's life changed and what we're doing now. I mean, over 5000 people are going to have their lives changed. I mean, not just land of their own and clean water to drink, but like, we're starting a nursery for native and fruit trees, like native trees and fruit trees to bring back this forest that's been deforested, that's been, like, wiped away from the earth. And it's like we're bringing that back. And the school, I mean, for you imagine 5 to 700 kids that just don't have anything to do during the day. I mean, they are they're working the field manual labor, manual labor at five years old or three years old even. And it's like that kid's going to be able to go to school for the first time, actually 5 to 700 of them. And think about healthcare like my last trip. Did I tell you this about the mother? I don't think so. So I was down the mountain with actually at my last trip, the second to last trip I went in December last year and March April. So in March, April, I got malaria again. And this was right before Amy came on my fiance on her first trip. And so I'm down the mountain with malaria. They don't have cell network. I took the working vehicle. One of our vehicles needed some repair, and there was no motorcycles in the area either. This mother went to labor early. It's a 2.5 hour walk to the nearest hospital to give birth. So on the roadside, they try to deliver the baby. And we lost both the mother and the child like someone I knew and cared about. So, like, that was rough. That, you know, there's preventable disease. There's also preventable ways. Like a mother and a child don't have to die during labor. And if they have to walk 2.5 hours there for care, like a lot of bad stuff is going to happen. We're probably having 3 to 4 funerals a month that are completely preventable in this community. And it's like, man, if we could, we already have a nurse outpost there, kind of a medical outpost. We're building this community center, so it'll be a community center, a health center, 12 staff houses, a school for 5 to 7 kids. And the fight for the forgotten, like, kind of headquarters, plus a nursery we're going to have. We already have two wells, but we're going to put one one deeper. Well, and that's going to go up to Water Reservoir. To where? Remember that walk I was talking about that crazy walk. Yeah. Now those 5000 people will be able to just turn a spigot outside their house so it won't be piped water in their home, but it'll be right outside their doorstep. And so when they want a cup of water, you know they can go get a cup of water instead of fill up a whole jerrycan. and then we're going to have on 56,000ft². It's going to be rainwater catchment. So that way there's multiple sources that it's not overloading the system. So the two wells that are there at one aquifer, we're going to go past that aquifer for the deeper well. So now there's two aquifers we're pulling from plus rainwater. So there's a checking account, a savings account actually. Really two savings accounts. And so it's just making sure it's well thought through, like in our community here, we don't know where we get our water from. Right. But I guarantee there's a backup. You know. Yeah they've thought this through right. Right. And so we're not trying to put, I don't know, 4 or 5 or 6 or 10 faucets and everyone's home. We just want to, want to get one outside of it. Right. And then make sure that we're protecting the water table. So we have these bio digester toilets that are going in at the school, the health center, the staff houses, the community center. There's going to be like, I don't know, 50 or more like public toilets, But the thing that's bad about latrines in Africa is they normally pollute the water table or the water wells. We're going to make sure that's not happening. So these bio digester toilets protect the water table, but also become fertilizer for the farms and then also become, how would you say it? They the methane gas, you can actually collect that and it can be cooking fuel. So we have like we're trying to think it all the way through to where we are building completely sustainably. And one of the things I think that is a little different is we're building with the environment, and it's got a 50 year guarantee on the buildings and it's earthquake proofed. So that way we don't have to worry about the maternity ward collapsing in on itself or when the kids are inside their classrooms, like it's not going to collapse in on itself and like people will be injured or die. With the school I'm interested in the curriculum that they're going to use there at least to start. I would imagine it's heavily based on teaching the youth how to maintain what you've built here, so that eventually it becomes kind of self-feeding where now, like they're able to do a lot of the things that would be involved in maintenance and repair and stuff like that. Is that kind of how that is structured? Well, so the curriculum is a good question. I can't speak to that entirely, like thoughtfully or meaningfully. I need to learn more about it. But we're going to have basically community learning gardens that are right behind the school. Right? So the kids are actually learning how to farm while they're at school instead of just doing manual labor for no reason, not no reason, but that like part of the curriculum, they're going to be learning how to farm maize or corn, cassava, and then being part of like the nursery is right there by the community center in the school is they're going to be able to learn how to graft fruit trees. So mango and papaya and banana trees. And then they're also so from the local community as well as classes at the school are going to be learning to prune trees. So I didn't know this until recently. But depending on how you prune a tree depends on if you get 400% more like yield from it. And so if you don't prune it, it produces a certain amount. But if you prune it like it will produce a little bit more. But if you prune it correctly, you get 400% more from that tree than if you didn't. And so we're going to be teaching things like that. And it's going to be culturally sound. So I know that we're going to celebrate the different cultures there. Big murals on the walls. But whenever we talk about the curriculum, we're actually working in partnership with the local government because it's going to be privately owned but publicly supported. So that way we're not like shutting out their system and their teachers and things like that. We need help supporting that. For instance, like with our health center, One World Health is our partner and project cure. So One World Health has built over 30 hospitals in and around the world, ten in South America and 20 in Africa and about nine in Uganda. So they have this two years of self-sustaining model where they build it, they staff it, they set the operations in the quality of care. And in two years they're out because it's supported locally by people buying the medicine and paying for treatment. But on a like basically pennies on the dollar in comparison to like most of the places they would go. So we have their partnership there for 5 to 7 years, which is going to be awesome to have that support because it's our first rodeo. On building a health center. But when we raise a certain amount and actually have the health center built, that unlocks like $2.5 million of medical supplies, we're going to be we won't be able to use all that at our health center, but we have two partner hospitals, so we're going to be able to upgrade one there or there, operating room two, where we can send people from our community there for surgery and another rural community, a one world health facility. We'll be able to upgrade them as well with project cures like donated medical goods. That's incredible. Is. So you're breaking ground on the hospital this summer, right? July 30th. So it's really right around the corner. Yeah. Yeah, it's right around the corner. And, what's so great about that is, man, I didn't know this is the original vision. Like, 13 years ago, I sat down with the chief, and he had his grandfather's spear, and he wasn't using the blade side. He was using the kind of stick side of it. It was drawing in the dirt Land. Water. Food. Health care. Education. Yeah. And it's taken us 13 years to get to a point where we can do that. We can do that. And so we're super excited to be breaking ground July 30th. And then, this is probably why I don't know as much about the curriculum, because we're starting with the community center and then the hospital and then the staff houses. And then once we get all that up and running, then we can get to the school. Sure. So we're doing a phased approach, like there's actually four phases to it, but we're going to do hopefully in one swoop we're going to do phase one and two. I guess like I mean you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking through just like the amount of thought that's put in kind of the order of operations with this. And it seems like, yeah, the school would maybe be like it'd be better to have if for whatever, whatever like immediate support that you're going to give that is dependent on you is probably best done to get some of those things in place before the school. So then once the school is up, you actually have some things to embed into the curriculum. So it's possible that that's even in development I would imagine too. Yeah, totally. So the community center is going to be a vocational school as well. So we're teaching masonry, carpentry, welding, we're teaching English classes there because it's their national language. and so for the adults that didn't get to go to school, like English is the national language, but it's only taught at school. And so, like having that opportunity where we have, I think two, maybe three classes a week, and that's our most attended thing. Like, I mean, it's 50, 60, 80 people like they're outgrowing the space where we're teaching the English classes. That's why we're going to the community center there. But we have partnerships with the nursery or like reforestation with agronomy or like the crops. We have two partnerships at the health center. and I shouldn't be forgetting some, but we have another partner that's gone to five different communities in Uganda. And what they do is they build a small health center, a big school, and then they do a small farm. And so we're going to be talking with them about what's your curriculum and how do you do this at the school and do it really well because kind of that's their bread and butter. And so if anyone listening to this knows of a great kind of, nonprofit NGO that's really doing it the right way, not just kind of building it and running away, but actually, like, staying with the community and making sure that the impact lasts and continues. There's got to be a balance right where you don't build it and run or peace out and bail, but you also don't stay around indefinitely because then it builds up a dependence on you. Yeah, yeah. So we kind of have this kind of exit, but, yeah, it's an exit strategy where we get them up and running. We're always going to love them and support them. But in the next 5 to 7 years, we should be able to pull back our support and be able to go into these other new communities. It's almost like when you get to that point where the first community, you are making that exit. It's like. It's just like a grand version of that. Well, water breaking right where it's like you've you're like, all right, we did it. Now we can move on to the next spot. And I guess probably not. Start from scratch, maybe start from scratch, depending on where you go, I suppose. Yeah. So we already have our second community, selected and it's on the border of Rwanda in Uganda. And then our third community will be in Rwanda, and we'll probably do another community in Rwanda, and then we'll go south of Rwanda and Burundi. And so what fight for three. Orton's mission is. There's 8 or 9 African nations where the pygmy people are represented and or they live, and they're the first citizens of those nations. They're the first people of Africa, maybe the first people of the world. Right? They're anthropologists called them the oldest people group on earth, and also one of the most oppressed people groups on earth. So that's our heart and where we started. But everywhere we go, we make sure it's a beneficial thing for everyone in the community. We're building better lives for the pygmy people and their neighbors, and what we want to do is open source this to where other NGOs or nonprofits or communities like someone, if they do have internet access, hopefully they'll be able to go watch our videos or what we've done, what we've learned and open source it, or they email us and we'll be able to share like our dos don'ts or like our learning lessons, right? Like we thought this was going to work and, you know, it actually didn't. But, for the most part, we have, I think, really great success where because people want to be included, they want to know what father doesn't want to help build a home for his spouse and his children? Right. So when we open that opportunity up, like, here's the husband, here's the wife, here's the kids actually, like, participating. Yeah. Because they want a better future for themselves. Yeah. And I suppose once you get the first community finalized and it's comfortable enough to like exit, you have the blueprint then. So there's so much less mistakes probably be made in community two, three and so on that you can just sort of roll with it. I'm sure there's some variance from locations that you can't just necessarily rinse and repeat, but I imagine the mistakes are so much fewer at that point. Yeah. You always have to look into it. How would you say it? The interpersonal dynamics among like people, groups and tribes and, you know, you really want to attract the right people to the bus, making sure the bus is headed in the right direction and everyone's kind of seated in their right seat on, on the bus, like all, all this is where we're going, you know, board the bus. If you believe in this and you think you're, you know, you can contribute to this and it becomes yours. And so but for the most part, that's what we think we've found. The problem is that the traditional charity charitable model is broken. And so traditionally nonprofits have been super protective, protective of their programs, protective of who gets credit or possessive of who gets credit. And also weird about like, are you trying to take our donors or our donor base or, you know, whatever. Yeah. What's been really cool is that's not us, and that's not who we've attracted into this. Like, we have the most giving partnerships that they're like, we want to help. We want to contribute. Like, let us spearhead this part of it and let us spearhead this part of it. And so what we think is this could be instead of things being so siloed into, oh, this is. We're just a water nonprofit, or we're just building schools, or we just do this or we just do that. It's like, let's bring it all together and have this proof of concept together. And y'all go do it with some other partners in this area that you feel called, or we're going down here. Now if you want to continue with us, like come down here because we need your support here. Yeah. And so it's been really neat to have these conversations. It's taking years, years and years to get here. But it's turned into this beautiful thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible to think of how far you've come since I first heard of your story. And I'm sure that just is going to be exponential going forward. What's the price tag on the hospital? What if one were to build a hospital in remote Africa? What are we looking at? So we. Let me just sum it up to 56,000ft² is like the total project, like building infrastructure. And that is going to be $4.7 million total. But if you think about that, I mean, we're in Austin, Texas. What is that for, homes? Yeah. You're not exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's like four homes that 20 people live in. 30 people live in, and are going to provide health care for 5000 people or more. It's growing. It's providing a market where they can do business, to 5000 people, a school where 5 to 700 of their kids go, clean water for all of them, food for all of them. Yeah. And so it's really creating a better life for an entire community. Excuse me, I burped, but for $4.7 million. So the first phase of the project is 1.5 million. And that is the entire community center, which also has a basketball court and a vocational school and rainwater catchment and the toilets and the farm coming off of it and the nursery. And then it's 70% of the health center. So that's 1.5 million. And basically we have a $200,000 match and we have a $1 million match. So basically what that means is whoever we get to contribute up to that first $200,000, it's basically a two for one donation, which means that becomes that 200,000 becomes 600,000, and then that snowballs from there to where once we get 1.5 million, which we're we're on our way to do, that unlocks that 2.5 million, because then we can actually build the other 30% of the health center and stock it with $2.5 million of medical supplies. I'm throwing out a lot of numbers. What I should really say is it's going to change lives, yeah I will. The interesting thing that I find too, because like you, you hear like some of these like pretty impressive numbers of donations. And one thing you taught me was that a lot of times, it's not just like a clear check. A lot of times it's like, we will put up this much for every dollar that's contributed. So they're matching up to. So like let's say someone decides they're going to donate $200,000 and match. You still have to go and collect or attract donors up to that 200,000, in order for them to contribute all 100,000 of that. Yeah. So what I should do is tell you a pretty cool story. walking into this, actually driving up to the studio to do this podcast with you. I got the call that we have confirmation of the first $200,000 match. This comes from a guy named Paul Milburn. Paul Millburn passed away. Boy, could it be ten years ago. maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Paul passed away. But what he did was he put a lot of money. millions and millions of dollars into an endowment. And so that endowment gives its interest away every year. And so I honestly never met Paul, but I just hear story after story of how incredible of a man he was. And what he wanted to do is give to infrastructure and help build better lives in Africa. And so they heard about what we were doing. We got to tell them and they're like, man, Paul would have really wanted to give to this. And so they have a board. They selected us and they've been with us for the last, I think, five years now since 2018. This wouldn't the land wouldn't have happened. The homes that we've already built, the water wells that we had already drilled like wouldn't have happened without Paul. But isn't that a cool legacy? He's. He's gone. Yeah, but like, his impact lives on. He set it up in a way. Yeah. When you think of just the way the money works, especially here in the United States, it's like that's the move to keep the gift giving, have a large enough sum of money that's going to collect interest. And don't tap into that generator, tap into what it's producing. And then you have that rather than one gift. You get continual gifts, right? Every year for five years. We've benefited from that. But what they do is they only give matching gifts. So what that does is it motivates me to go out and tell the story and motivates, hopefully, new donors to be attracted to say, oh my gosh, like if I give $10, it becomes $20. So basically, if someone were to go to our website, fight for the forgotten.org and they sign up for $45 a month or $100 a month, it would be $200 a month, really, that we're getting because it's going to be doubled. It's going to be a match. And so it's pretty awesome. We also have seeds of change. And this is the biggest donation I've ever received. But they committed a $1 million matching gift to us. And so basically we have a $1.2 million match right now. But for the first 200,000, if someone were to donate $100, it's actually $300 because we have two people matching it. Yeah, yeah, that is a great model really, when you think about it. Because they keep. Not that you wouldn't personally need the motivation to keep going, but it definitely gives you inspiration, I would imagine, to say, hey, you know, for every dollar I'm able to to generate, there's, there's two more sitting here with it. And, that has to be powerful. Yeah, I love it because I'm starting to learn this. You know, going from fighter to nonprofit founder, you know, executive director and fundraiser, it's been a massive learning curve. But I think I get to stay super grounded in what it actually does and the lives it's going to change in the lives it will potentially save, like I've seen, I've been at. At least five funerals of kids under the age of five that I helped dig the graves. and like, that will always stick with me. but talking to these people of significant donations, they're like, hey, I want to give this, but I want it to be a match. So that way my money is doubled or, you know, you get to double it and it does double the impact. And so let me teach you this or show you that, or let me give you this, but it's got these stipulations. But once you get it it's twice as much. I'm like, ah, well, this is awesome. I would love to do this. Like yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask you too because it's, you know, there's the setting everything up and getting in a position where like, you have the proof of concept, like we talked about in like the pitch that's going to really sell. How do you end up getting in front of people that are, that are making or I guess it's probably corporations for the most part, that are putting up bigger donations. Is that something where you just have enough spotlight now, where you're getting interest from these places? Are you cold calling them or people recommending you, and then you're getting kind of connected through them? Or how does that work usually? Yeah. Well, that's a big learning curve too. But yeah, because if I go on like Rogan's and right, 10,000 people donate and it's a one time gift and it's incredible, it's like, oh my gosh, are all 50 states represented in more than 60 countries? Like, wow, that's like the Midas touch. Like, holy smokes, there's people that believe in us. This is awesome. But whenever we don't have a we didn't have a model in the past, it's like, oh, monthly donors. If we actually have people that are giving monthly donations, then we can grow scale. You know, look at our budget, see what impact we're going to have because of these monthly donors. Those are priceless to me. People that are donating five bucks a month, ten bucks a month, 40 bucks a month, like that's incredible. I love that because we get to double that and we get to keep it going. When we get to plan right, we get to dream and we get to take action. Then the opportunity, like the seeds of change that honestly came because when I retired from fighting earlier this year or in January, I was just like, you know what? I'm not even going to entertain that anymore. Let's shut that chapter, or close that book and like this. And so I started getting asked to do keynote speeches. My first one with the Speaking Bureau was, speak, Inc., and they're incredible people. They heard about growth energy. Growth energy is the ethanol industry. And so they put farmers to work, and they turned that into basically sustainable fuel. And so, they had me come be their keynote speaker because a lot of them were wrestlers or fighters or fight fans. And so I got up there and I was looking out in the crowd and I'm like, whoa! Weren't you the Nebraska heavyweight? Like, I recognize you as name's Mitch. I'm like, are you Mitch? Like from Nebraska? He's like, yeah. So it was a bunch of good old farm boys and and and their wives and their spouses and just incredible people. But I got to share my story. And afterwards, some of the people from Seeds of Change said, hey, we have a board meeting in June. Would you come out and share to our board of directors what you're doing because we want to support it, or we might want to support it. And so because I spoke at this event, some people were the right people in the room and they were able to give a significant donation. That's our first seven figure gift. And it's not necessarily in the door yet, but they've pledged it. They've committed it. I have an acknowledgement letter like it's there. The second you raise it, we're going to release it. And so it's I would say that knocking on the doors has been one thing. It's like coming up in conversation like we are cold calling or we are trying to devise a plan, but really podcast, get on stage, tell the story, impact people with my personal story, with the story of the people we serve, the story of the nonprofit. And then from there, like opportunities come. Yeah. Yeah. It's just such an interesting storyline and it comes from such a unique place. I think with like I can't, I can't encourage listeners enough to go back and either relisten or listen to First Time episode 231, where you share kind of your story of just, you know, your youth and how you got into everything you've gotten into and you know how you even, like, came up with the idea of helping the pygmy tribe in the Congo versus some other group that would need help? Yeah, it's a really, really a special story and one that I love to share whenever I can. Thank you so much. Yeah, I forget if I've told you my names. Have I told you that? I don't think so. So fossa was the first name I was given. That means the man that loves us. And I cherish that one. So that was by the far pygmy people, then the name Mobutu. And so Mobutu means the big pygmy. That's the, Yeah. So that's my Instagram handle is the big pygmy. and then recently, or last year in December, the king, King and Zito named me Olin Gamma. And so Olin Gamma was actually his father's name. And so we went down to his father's grave. He collected dirt from it. we came back up, and after everyone went to sleep, him and the elders got together, and they got the dirt out, and I didn't know what was happening, but they painted my forehead and my nose and my cheeks and my chest and my arms with dirt and ash from the fire from his father's grave. And they gave me Olin Gamma and the project, the land they have they named Olin Gamma. So anyways, I just, I feel truly honored. It feels. It feels like, whoa. Like, if I could have written the story, would I have? Or if I could have dreamed this up, would I have if I could have imagined like, no, I just it was never on my radar. But by fate. And taking the next step and putting one foot in front of the other like it took me on this wild ride where, I mean, what a what a privilege for me to be able to learn from them. And if I could leave people with, a couple things I've learned from them is, you know, they have the Swahili proverb, if you think you're too small to make a difference, try to sleep in a closed room with a mosquito. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, like, this story might sound a little grandiose or big plans or or however you would say it, like it doesn't need to be that for the like. Anyone listening. It started with me at the Children's Hospital in Colorado. They started volunteering there, and then it spread to the Denver Rescue Mission with the homeless, and then went from that to like an at risk kind of inner city youth group and just putting one foot in front of the other and having my head on a swivel, looking to just contribute wherever I could, wherever I felt led or or whoever asked. Like, it literally led to Halfway Across the World or this people group that told me everyone else calls us the forest people. We call ourselves the Forgotten. And I remember thinking like, I am so small and this problem is so big, what can I ever do about it? Like, would it ever make a difference? And I actually told the guy that I took on the first trip with me, or he actually took me with him. I said, it's like trying to empty the ocean with an eyedropper. Like, is anyone ever going to notice? Am I? If I spent my whole life doing this, would I notice? Would they notice? And I remember he snapped me out of it. His name was Caleb. He goes, bro, that's the wrong perspective. I go, what do you mean? And he said, every one of those drops represents a human heart, like somebody's name. And there was a kid smiling in the distance, and he goes, that child's smile, that kid's smile. He also doesn't matter. Like, yeah, every single drop matters. Yeah, it matters to them for sure. Matters to them. It matters to me. It matters like so. I guess if I could encourage anyone listening, it's like. Like I'm not asking anyone else to, like, uproot their lives and move to Africa, like, You know, frankly, they don't want us all there anyways. Yeah, but we've got too many bad ideas as well. Yeah, yeah we do. We have some bad ones. But I will remind us that we can all make a difference, in some way. for something or someone, we can all fight for something, right? And so this is my fight, and it's called fight for the forgotten. And anyone that wants to contribute is more than, like there's an open invitation to, like, if you want to donate, it'll be doubled. it might be tripled, right? Like, we have those two, two matching gifts. But what's the difference that you can make and the lives of somebody else? Like, what's that meaningful impact that only you could make if you only knew you could write? And you can. You absolutely can. Yeah, yeah. And the reality is, the way you have things set up, like you may have started with the eyedropper, but you upgraded that. I dropped a bucket in that bucket to a larger reservoir, and then a pump that's pulling water out of the ocean. An incredible rate. So you may not empty the ocean, but you're going to get a lot of water out of it at the end of the day, man, it's mind blowing to think of where it started to where our first goal was 20 acres of land and two water wells on it. Now it's over 3000 acres of land. Yeah. And like. Anyways. It's just snowballed. The ripple effect, the ripple effect has just gone on and on and on. And so now it's just trying to ride that wave. Yeah. And saying this is going in such a great direction. Like we're going to keep going. Yeah. What year was it when you first visited before 2011? I was 23 years old. Now I'm 37. There's only 13 years ago. Yeah. And you're already building a hospital. Yeah 13 years. You went from finding a group of people that most people, the vast majority of people in the United States, didn't even probably know of. To build a hospital. That's a huge amount of progress in 13 years. Yeah, man, thank you for saying what the next 13 is gonna look like. Right. Is this exponential? Yeah. Yeah I, when I did this pitch and presentation for the big donation, I wanted to show him the 50 year plan. Like the 50 year vision. And I know in 50 years I'm going to be, what, 87? But hopefully I believe this thing is going to outlive and outgrow me and continue. And I know it's going in the community. I just hope that the support that's coming from here continues. Right. So we built an awesome, solid team to keep it going. But I had this. Have you ever seen the corporate, you know, you walk into someone's office and they have the iceberg of success. Yeah. And it's like success at the top. And then underneath the water, it's like long nights and, you know, sleepless worry or whatever. Hard work and and and the grind and all these different things I, I wanted to show him like this isn't a one and done like community. Like if, if I put up at the top we see the Batwa pygmy people in Uganda. But what's underneath that is Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, the other Congo. There's actually two Congos, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea. And also that's not just the battle, it's the booty, the for the booty, or bamboo tea, the aka the baka, the baka. Like that's who it is. And so, Being able to really cast that vision of love, we've been doing this work for 13 years. We're really ramping it up to like, do this amazing thing that's going to go so far. But we're, we're we're going to do this over and over and over again in the 8 or 9 African nations where they are amazing. So if the listeners are super motivated because they listen to your story, where's the best place to find you and find ways to support you? Yeah. So its fight for the forgotten.org is like our home base. You can sign up for a free newsletter. We'd love for you to do that. we'll keep you up to date. We're really ramping up, like, video and social media content on social channels. It's a fight for the forgotten. Or if you want to follow me, it's at The Big Pygmy. And let's say our greatest gift came out of a speaking engagement. If someone happens to work at a company and they're throwing an event and they need a speaker, you can go to Justin Ryan speaks Justin, and then Ryan speaks. Com and you can see a little bit of a demo reel of me speaking. And I could come in and speak at the conference and, and share a deeper part of the story, like the origin story, and take people on this journey. And then at the end, I just, I feel people like, you know, you hear the laughter, you see the tears, but you really hear the stories of what people are going to go do. And man, that amps me up. That gets me fired up, like here in the cause or the purpose or the impact they want to have. And so that helps fight for the forgotten, raise awareness and help us raise funds potentially too. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm focused on building this community and speaking and sharing the story so that other people will feel led to give. Yeah, yeah. I can't imagine this would be the case, but if anyone was looking for a guest speaker and wasn't interested in supporting the fight for their gains, they're going to get their money's worth and then some. Just having you come in and share your stuff for an hour or however long your presentation happens to be because. It's as good as they get. They won't find a better one. So hopefully you get some, get some more momentum in that world, too. Because I know that's been something you've been working on quite, quite hard the last couple of years. And I'm sure that's a big, big mover for the fight for the forgotten when things start kind of moving well in that direction. Yeah it is. Thank you bro I love you man. I loved having you over for the 4th of July. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's always fun to chat. Always fun to chat. So, Yeah. I was excited to have you back here. And thank you. And more to come. Yeah, it means a lot, man. Thank you to everyone that listens to the show. Keep supporting. Get some coaching from Zach. If you have some goals coming up to crush, like he's going to help you. Yeah. When are you going to run a marathon? Justin, I'm going to ask you. No, no. That was a quick and decisive no. Yeah I usually ask that question. Maybe I have maybe the quickest, maybe A5K. Can I do five? Yeah. You do not have to do a marathon okay. You can suffer plenty in A5K. Awesome. And it doesn't have to be a suffer fest either. You can enjoy five KS. Maybe one day I'll try to run across Texas. Yeah, yeah. Stay tuned for that one. Yeah. Awesome. Justin. Well, thanks again for sharing some time. Yeah. Thanks, brother.