Joe Rogan Experience #2358 - Chadd Wright

Narrator 0:00 (Drums playing) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (Rock music plays)

Chadd Wright 0:14 Yeah, I do too, man. I chew tobacco pretty much since I was about 13 years old.

Joe Rogan 0:21 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 0:21 But, you know, as you get older, you start to try to optimize everything because, uh, the world tells you everything's gonna kill you.

Joe Rogan 0:31 Is chewing tobacco gonna kill you?

Chadd Wright 0:32 Well, you know-

Joe Rogan 0:34 I've heard people getting mouth cancer.

Chadd Wright 0:35 ... a very bi- Yeah, that's the main thing is mouth cancer.

Joe Rogan 0:38 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 0:38 And it- it's pre- mouth cancer's pre- a pretty nasty form- all forms of cancer are pretty nasty, but mouth cancer can really screw you up. And I think it's the, uh, the, you know, like the chemicals that they spray on the tobacco when they're growing the tobacco. So I don't know, maybe if you grew tobacco organically and then you chewed it, it wouldn't give you mouth cancer.

Joe Rogan 1:04 Probably makes sense.

Chadd Wright 1:05 I- I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:06 Well, I was just reading something that 100% of California wines that they've tested had glyphosate on them, 100%.

Chadd Wright 1:15 Yeah, I believe it.

Joe Rogan 1:16 Which is just nuts.

Chadd Wright 1:18 You know, yeah, that stuff is everywhere. I mean, it's not-

Joe Rogan 1:22 Everywhere.

Chadd Wright 1:22 It's never gonna go anywhere because, you know, uh, when I was in the Navy, I lived in Virginia, and we moved out to a rural community. And, um, they grew corn and soybeans primarily in the fields, and nothing else would grow in that dirt. Like, you could walk the rows of those crops, you know, and there would not be a single weed growing in the field. Nothing would grow except for the genetically modified seed or whatever they put out there.

Joe Rogan 1:52 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:52 You know what I mean? And how long does that stay in the soil? Like, does that ever come- can you ever get that out of the dirt so that other things could or would actually thrive there again? I- I guess after many, many years you could.

Joe Rogan 2:06 Yeah, it's many, many years. I had Will Harris from- he's from Georgia, uh, White Oaks Pastures. You ever heard of that guy?

Chadd Wright 2:12 I- I actually listened to that episode that you did with him, man, because I've ordered a- a pile of meat from them.

Joe Rogan 2:17 He's great.

Chadd Wright 2:18 He is.

Joe Rogan 2:19 He's great.

Chadd Wright 2:19 That was a great episode.

Joe Rogan 2:20 And it's a great episode to educate people on like how much time it takes to take a- an industrial farm and convert it to regenerative agriculture.

Chadd Wright 2:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:29 It's not easy. It's a long grind, super costly, not nearly as profitable, and, you know, he did it over the course of 20 years. And we have two, uh, jars of soil out there that he gave us, and one of them is a soil from his neighbor's farm, which is an industrial farm, and the other one is his. And his is like a dark brown, rich, alive soil.

Chadd Wright 2:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:52 And the one from his neighbor's farm is just pale and dead and they have to spray shit all over it-

Chadd Wright 2:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:57 ... and use industrial fertilizer and, I mean, we've-

Chadd Wright 3:00 Yeah, it's ugly, man.

Joe Rogan 3:02 Um, and then it's gotten so far that, like, to turn it around and try to feed all the people that we have established here in this country in places where nobody's growing food, it's like it's almost impossible. It's almost like they're stuck with this system of industrialized farming.

Chadd Wright 3:18 Yeah, I mean, yeah, there- there's, uh, it's- it's- being here in Austin, you know, I don't go to the city much. I live on 700 acres in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Joe Rogan 3:28 Nice.

Chadd Wright 3:28 And, uh, I come here to the city and, you know, you see the result of packing so many human beings into one area. Yeah, how you gonna feed them people?

Joe Rogan 3:38 Right.

Chadd Wright 3:39 O- other than- other than the way that we've figured out how to do it? I mean, how you gonna feed them?

Joe Rogan 3:43 Right.

Chadd Wright 3:44 I don't know, man. Walking around the city, man, it's just... Coming from where I live, and- and don't take this as negative, I mean, s- people love cities. There's cool stuff in cities, right? Like, people get a lot... But me, when I come from where I live, you know, I- I- dude, where- I- I'm in the woods every day for hours and hours. I don't go to town hardly ever. I'm a squirrel hunter. I have a little mountain cur, you know, we go out and squirrel hunt for hours every day and, uh, but coming to the city, it's like the air burns my nose. It's like, I've been coughing all day today.

Joe Rogan 4:19 You really notice it?

Chadd Wright 4:20 I notice, I can smell it. It- it smells... Now, we're staying right in downtown. The smell reminds me slightly of Lagos, Nigeria, which it's 100x in Lagos, it s- it literally burns your eyes and your nose to breathe the air there. But even in Austin, I can kinda smell the sour, you know, on-

Joe Rogan 4:43 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 4:43 ... and- and then I'm looking at these poor people, man, like, these people lay- laying on these park benches and all this stuff, and I'm like... It just ma- it- it makes you think, it makes you wonder, the hu- humans' propensity to e- to stoop lower than an animal. Like, we have the propensity as human to stoop lower than an animal.

Joe Rogan 5:09 In the worst case scenarios.

Chadd Wright 5:10 In the worst case scenarios.

Joe Rogan 5:11 Right.

Chadd Wright 5:11 Yeah, I mean, I understand there's so much that goes along with the story-

Joe Rogan 5:18 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 5:18 ... that those- all the- all of those people have, and it was funny, I saw a lady sitting on the- the edge of the sidewalk today, she was smoking crack or something. And, uh, uh, and now my wife's in recovery. And I said, "It's- it's just mind-boggling to me, me being a man of the country, to see the humans' propensity to stoop that low." And she looked at me and she said, "Well, I've done it."

Joe Rogan 5:42 Wow.

Chadd Wright 5:42 I said, "That's good." I- I- man, my woman is so good, brother.

Joe Rogan 5:47 She came out of it.

Chadd Wright 5:48 She- she came out of it, right?

Joe Rogan 5:49 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 5:50 I mean, by the grace of God, but, um...

Joe Rogan 5:52 Well, I'm glad you didn't come visit us in LA. I would've showed you some real shit.

Chadd Wright 5:55 Dude, I went-

Joe Rogan 5:56 'Cause this is nothing.

Chadd Wright 5:57 ... I went to LA one time to- with my buddy, Jesse Itzler. He took me out there when all this stuff started, I got out of the Navy.... he said, "Chad," and he said, uh, he, he asked me to come coach him, teach him how to run a long ways. And I said, "All right, I'll come out there," and me and Jesse became fast friends. He said, "I'm gonna take you out here to LA." He said, "I'm gonna take you on a few of these interviews with these people." He said, "But I want you to realize that if you decide to do this, your life will never be the same." And I said, "All right, let's go."

Joe Rogan 6:30 You mean like do a podcast?

Chadd Wright 6:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:32 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 6:32 Yeah. We did a-

Joe Rogan 6:33 Jesse's an interesting guy.

Chadd Wright 6:34 He's one of my, he's one of my biggest mentors. He's one of... He's a close friend. Uh-

Joe Rogan 6:39 Uh, I like that dude a lot. I had him on.

Chadd Wright 6:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:41 I enjoyed talking to him.

Chadd Wright 6:42 Yeah, I love him to death, man. But he, uh, yeah, he took me out there, and, and LA was, uh, yeah, it, it put me back really, the, some of the places that we went were very similar to some of the areas that we deployed to, just in the smell and the sights and, you know, the way people were living. It was wild, man.

Joe Rogan 7:01 Yeah, it's a chaotic environment, and you get used to anything, and people that live there get used to it. They don't know what real peace is like. You know, like when I would tell people why I like mountain hunting, I'd be like, man, it's like a vitamin that you didn't know you needed.

Chadd Wright 7:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:15 You get out in there in the mountains, and you smell that clean air, and you just feel it.

Chadd Wright 7:19 Yeah, man.

Joe Rogan 7:19 Just your whole body just goes, ah, this is, this is so much better. This is so much better to live like this.

Chadd Wright 7:26 It is.

Joe Rogan 7:26 I just don't get a chance to do it that often, you know? I don't live in it like you do. Living in it is the ultimate, you know? If you could live in it and then go visit other places, that's way better, to live in nature.

Chadd Wright 7:38 The noise, too. The, the, the noise. I don't think that people who live in the city, they've become acclimated-

Joe Rogan 7:47 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 7:48 ... to all of the constant noise.

Joe Rogan 7:50 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 7:50 It's never quiet. But when I enter into that environment, like, that noise is doing, it does something to me, like the traffic and the, the constant humming and-

Joe Rogan 8:00 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 8:01 I, I, it just, I, I, I feel like I'm, I, I begin to hold this tension within me.

Joe Rogan 8:07 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 8:08 I don't know what it's doing to me.

Joe Rogan 8:09 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 8:09 I don't know, man. I'm-

Joe Rogan 8:10 It's sensory overload, yeah, and people in New York City-

Chadd Wright 8:12 But I guess you can become accustomed to it.

Joe Rogan 8:15 Well, people in New York City have to become accustomed to it, and they actually like it. They like that feeling of sensory overload. But everybody that I know that likes that is fairly unhealthy. I don't know any, like real fit, healthy, active people that really enjoy that environment.

Chadd Wright 8:29 So why, why do you, why, why... I understand you love what you do, but, I mean, you could build a studio somewhere out in the, out in the mountains somewhere. Like why, why do you-

Joe Rogan 8:40 We're gonna probably do that. We're gonna probably build a studio on a ranch next. That's the-

Chadd Wright 8:44 Okay.

Joe Rogan 8:45 That's the next move. I wanna have like a tactical course out there-

Chadd Wright 8:47 Good for you, bro.

Joe Rogan 8:48 ... and a bass fishing lake and have it set up and do fun shit with guests, too, have-

Chadd Wright 8:52 'Cause people are gonna come see you, man. Like-

Joe Rogan 8:54 That's what I think.

Chadd Wright 8:55 It's un- I mean, what you've done, man, is, is so cool. I tell people all the time, if you ever have the opportunity to go and see someone who is the best in the world at what they do, take that opportunity. Whether it's a, a runner, a fighter, a kayaker, or a podcaster, like it's so cool to be here and to get to witness what you do, how you do it, the level that you go to to make all this happen. You're the best in the world. Like that's, it, that's so cool for me, man. Like if we don't talk here but for 30 minutes-

Joe Rogan 9:36 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 9:37 ... I got to see the best in the world do what he does, and how cool is that, man?

Joe Rogan 9:42 Oh, thank you.

Chadd Wright 9:43 And like the hospitality that you have, you know, given me since I've been here, it's just next level. And that's what you see when you get to witness the best in the world do whatever it is they are the best at. You just get to see this whole nother level of, uh, of proficiency, of skill, of technique, of mastery, and that opens up your mind-

Joe Rogan 10:07 Mm.

Chadd Wright 10:08 ... into like what's possible.

Joe Rogan 10:10 Yeah, this, I mean, you can go back and watch the beginning episodes of this. It was terrible in the early days. (laughs)

Chadd Wright 10:16 What, I'm a podcaster too, man. I mean, I-

Joe Rogan 10:18 I know you are. I watch your show all the time.

Chadd Wright 10:20 I, I've got like 400-and-something episodes out, and, and same here when I first started, uh, yeah, it was awful. But it's so much fun. I love it. I love it.

Joe Rogan 10:28 I think I found your show because of a video that you did on your Land Cruiser, 'cause I'm a Land Cruiser nut.

Chadd Wright 10:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:34 And you were talking about like have a truck that will fucking, like no matter what, will work. Like if, if they throw EMP pulses in the air-

Chadd Wright 10:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:44 ... and kill all the electronics, which is... People don't understand, like every car everyone is driving has a fucking computer in it, and if something goes on, there's some sort of a power grid failure or some sort of a, a solar flare that knocks out electronics, it could knock out your fucking car. You have a brick now, and it's not gonna work. If you don't have a carburetor, and you don't have a car... (imitates engine revving) Like a regular old-school car-

Chadd Wright 11:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:12 ... it's not gonna... You know, Tucker Carlson, he drives like a 1978 pickup truck. And I go, "Why do you drive that?" And he goes, "'Cause they can't shut it off. The government can't get... and it's got no GPS, got no..." (car screeching) He, he's super fucking paranoid. (laughs)

Chadd Wright 11:25 Well, the, the newest vehicle that I have, and yes, Land Cruisers are my favorite. I've become close friends with Daniel at TLC 4x4, and he's done two for me, a 100 series and a 60 series.

Joe Rogan 11:34 And they did mine, too-

Chadd Wright 11:35 And-

Joe Rogan 11:35 ... when they were in LA.

Chadd Wright 11:36 Yeah, man.

Joe Rogan 11:36 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 11:36 They're just awesome, and, uh, and like I said, my favorite part about driving the Land Cruiser is that it makes people smile. I, I'm not a very funny guy, you know? So there's not many... I don't get many opportunities to make human beings smile. But I can drive this Land Cruiser and people look at it and point at it and they're smiling and, like, that just, that's cool to me. You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 11:59 Yeah, especially 60 series, I think. There's just like a, a c- core group of people who love those things.

Chadd Wright 12:05 They, yeah, and you don't see them as-

Joe Rogan 12:06 I slow down when I see one. I slow down. I check it out.

Chadd Wright 12:08 Yeah, but the newest vehicle that I have, and I'm a car guy-... uh, now I was poor most of my life. I'm still fairly poor, but you know, I got enough money I can buy the cars that I want now. And the newest car that I have is a 1997, uh, Dodge diesel truck. I have two '97. I have an, a OBS Ford, it's a '97 with a Power Stroke diesel. I have a '97 Dodge Ram with the Cummins diesel because those are the two best diesel engines, undisputedly, that have ever been produced. Um, I have the 100 Series Land Cruiser. Actually, the 100 Series is a '98, but I kind of gave that to my brother, so I can't count that. The 60 Series is a '84. I have an '86 Toyota they call Pickup, it's a Hilux.

Joe Rogan 12:58 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 13:00 (sighs) I don't know if I'm missing something, but j- I love, I love old cars, man.

Joe Rogan 13:03 Those old Toyotas are bulletproof. They never break.

Chadd Wright 13:06 That's my squirrel hunting truck.

Joe Rogan 13:07 Yeah?

Chadd Wright 13:08 It'll go anywhere.

Joe Rogan 13:09 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 13:10 You know, why am I gonna go spend $30,000 on a side-by-side? I, I can get in this Toyota truck and I can go anywhere you can go in a, in a, a side-by-side.

Joe Rogan 13:20 That's true.

Chadd Wright 13:20 That's my squirrel hunting truck, man.

Joe Rogan 13:22 So, e- is squirrel hunting the most hunting that you do?

Chadd Wright 13:26 I love pro- it's, eh, I do it every day that I'm at home. I squirrel hunt every day.

Joe Rogan 13:32 How much squirrel do you eat?

Chadd Wright 13:34 Uh, well, (laughs) I eat squirrel on special occasions. Uh, I give away a lot of squirrel meat, you know? (laughs) I'm blessed enough in life now that I can eat rib eye steak. Um, I give away a lot of squirrel. I don't kill all the squirrels that we tree either. Uh, really, since ou- a young age, I h- I was introduced to hunting with dogs, tree dogs specifically, and it, there was something about a tree dog that just stirred this, this passion within me. It is the sin- it is the only thing that has stuck with me from childhood, young childhood. The first tree dog I ever walked to, I mean, I was, I didn't even know, I, I should, probably shouldn't even have been in the woods, but I followed my uncle to a coonhound tree down in a swamp, and it just, even at that age, it just stirred something in me, like w- w- this is some sort of primal instinct, a- of partnering with this dog in this chase. And, uh, I've done it even up until now, and, um, it's just a, it's a unique experience, man. A- and the great thing about dogs, hunting dogs too is, um, the breeding aspect of it. That's a lot of fun. So not only are, do you have your best friend, you know, my little mountain cur, her name's Wendy, she stays in the house, she's my best friend, we hunt every day together, but, but now I get to breed her. I get to select a mate, and over the course, I'm hoping over the course of the next 30 years or so, I can breed in these specific characteristics of this type of dog that I value. And so that's fun, you know? Not only is the hunting fun, but the breeding is fun, the training's fun. Everything about it's fun. And you take a group of guys out squirrel hunting, man, and it's a blast, because you don't have to be quiet. Look, man, you just, you're out there in the woods on four-wheelers, everybody's got shotguns, you know, you get to the tree. Here's this dog just hammering a tree on this tree. "Bow, bow, bow, bow." Everybody surrounds the tree, and that squirrel gets nervous and he starts timbering out, going tree to tree, and you got five or six guys with shotguns blasting away, and everybody's cutting up and laughing. I mean, it's just a blast, dude. But that's my thing, you know?

Joe Rogan 16:11 It's a funny thing. (laughs)

Chadd Wright 16:11 I like th-, I like the white, I like to hunt white tails, I like, I get to go on my first elk hunt this year.

Joe Rogan 16:17 Oh, wow, where you going?

Chadd Wright 16:18 There's a, there's a, a, a family out in Utah. Uh, they, they own some ranch out there, I think it's called R5 Ranch, and they wanted to put a hunt on for a veteran. So they partnered with an outfitter called G3 Outfitters, and they bought a tag, and s- for some odd reason, they selected me as their veteran that they want to take out on an elk hunt.

Joe Rogan 16:44 Wow.

Chadd Wright 16:44 Now, I've always wanted to elk hunt, man. I've just, you know, I've just never made it happen. There's a lot that goes into it, as you know.

Joe Rogan 16:50 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 16:51 And so they're taking me to New Mexico. They bought a, some tag from a landowner, and, uh, they're going to take me out there elk hunting.

Joe Rogan 17:01 That's a great spot. New Mexico's a great spot for elk.

Chadd Wright 17:04 He sent me some pictures of some of these bulls.

Joe Rogan 17:06 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 17:07 I said, "What an animal."

Joe Rogan 17:10 Yeah, and New Mexico's got some crazy genetics too. There's, uh, there's two, there's, there's a guy who explained this to me, that there's really two different, besides like Tule elk and Roosevelt elk, there's Rocky Mountain elk and then there's Yellowstone elk, and the Yellowstone elk are an older breed-

Chadd Wright 17:28 Hm.

Joe Rogan 17:29 ... that has a larger antlers, a bigger animal, and you find a lot of those in, uh, Arizona, and you find a lot of those in New Mexico.

Chadd Wright 17:37 So where we're hunting at is right, it, it, is on the border of Arizona and New Mexico.

Joe Rogan 17:42 Mm, yeah, so I bet you have great genetics out there.

Chadd Wright 17:45 You know what, man? I can't believe it.

Joe Rogan 17:47 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 17:47 I, I can't believe this is the first pl- that my, gonna be my first elk hunt.

Joe Rogan 17:51 Are you rifle or bow hunt?

Chadd Wright 17:53 It, it's gonna be rifle.

Joe Rogan 17:54 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 17:54 Now, now I'm a big, I'm a big archery guy too, um, when I hunt white tails, when I started hunting white tails, that was what I did was bow hunt, and still bow hunt quite a bit, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 18:07 I love it.

Chadd Wright 18:07 ... but this is a rifle hunt.

Joe Rogan 18:09 I love rife- bowhunting. Uh, rifle hunting's great, and it's the most effesh- effective, most efficient way to hunt, but there's something about having to get inside, you know, 70, 80 yards-

Chadd Wright 18:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:20 ... sneaking up, executing a perfect shot.

Chadd Wright 18:24 Now, you're a Hoyt guy too, right?

Joe Rogan 18:25 Yeah. Yeah.

Chadd Wright 18:26 I, I have been too all my life.

Joe Rogan 18:28 They make amaz- amazing bows.

Chadd Wright 18:30 My wi- my wife a couple years ago bought me that RX7-

Joe Rogan 18:34 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 18:34 ... with the carbon ri- uh, carbon fiber riser.

Joe Rogan 18:37 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 18:37 I always wanted a bow with a carbon riser, because I remember hunting so many hunts in the Southeast, white tail hunts, walking into the stand and your hand just getting so cold-

Joe Rogan 18:48 Right, right, right, yeah. (laughs)

Chadd Wright 18:48 ... carrying that bow around. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:50 Yeah, that's the difference. Carbon doesn't get cold like that, like, like aluminum does.

Chadd Wright 18:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:54 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 18:54 That's the main reason I wanted one, but it's been a great bow.

Narrator 18:58 This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures' Nobody 2. A couple years ago, Bob Odenkirk showed up outta nowhere as an action star in Nobody. Now he's back in the sequel to Nobody 2. This time, Hutch tries to go on vacation with his family and all hell breaks loose. It's a real delight to see a guy like Odenkirk kick some serious ass. Produced by 87 North, the same team behind hits like John Wick, Bullet Train, and The Fall Guy, don't miss Universal Pictures' Nobody 2, only in theaters August 15th.

Joe Rogan 19:34 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 19:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:35 They make them better every year, and I don't know how the fuck they do it. Every year, they just tune a little bit of this and change a little bit of that and adjust the cams and just...

Chadd Wright 19:44 Yeah. They've probably got it mapped out for the next 10 years in advance. They just-

Joe Rogan 19:47 Yeah. Oh, they do. Yeah.

Chadd Wright 19:48 They could go ahead and make the best one. They just, you know... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:51 Well, yeah. They, it's incremental improvements based on, like, how the industry is going, but we went to the Hoyt factory. I've been to the Hoyt factory a few times, but we went recently and showed the, the process that they make those things. It's so incredible. It's all these, like, super sophisticated computers and machines and CNC machines. They're cutting the aluminum, and, uh, you know, they have, like, so many different steps to make sure that quality control is perfect. And-

Chadd Wright 20:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:15 ... you know, at the end, when you get it, you really appreciate it, and they're so smooth now. Like, I've been bow hunting for 12 years now, 13 years? 13 years? And just the difference in 13 years is crazy. Like, if I go back and pick up one of my old bows, it just feels archaic.

Chadd Wright 20:32 Yep. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:32 They're so smooth now. The draw cycle is so smooth, and they're so dead in the hand when you fire them.

Chadd Wright 20:38 And those parallel limbs, and they're so short and compact-

Joe Rogan 20:41 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 20:41 ... you know? The old bows we used to shoot back in the day, the, the old Viperteks and all that from Hoyt & Matthews, had the old SQ2s and Q2s, and they were just long and, and, uh, unwieldy in the, in the stand-

Joe Rogan 20:56 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 20:57 ... and, you know, Hoy- uh, you know, you can make, like you said, 100-yard shots now-

Joe Rogan 21:02 Oh, yeah.

Chadd Wright 21:02 ... with a compound bow. Back then, I mean, there wasn't nobody shooting them bows at 100 yards-

Joe Rogan 21:08 No.

Chadd Wright 21:08 ... 'cause they just weren't tuned, I think, so finely as the bows that we have today. I mean, that RX7, man, every time I shoot that bow, it, it amazes me at how that arrow is just flies like a laser beam.

Joe Rogan 21:23 Mm-hmm.

Chadd Wright 21:24 I'm like, "Good night, man."

Joe Rogan 21:26 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 21:27 Uh, it's, it's a cool... Have you ever shot-

Joe Rogan 21:29 I wish-

Chadd Wright 21:29 ... a stick bow?

Joe Rogan 21:30 Yes.

Chadd Wright 21:30 Okay.

Joe Rogan 21:31 I'm not good at it though. I w- I shot it on vacation once. I was, uh, shocked at how bad I was, 'cause I'm so good with a compound bow-

Chadd Wright 21:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:38 ... that I'm trying to figure out where to aim, where it goes-

Chadd Wright 21:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:40 ... and do all this shit and how to let loose right. It's, uh, I have a buddy who hunts exclusively. My buddy, um, uh, Ryan Callahan, he hunts exclusively with a homemade bow. He's got a, like, a longbow that he made.

Chadd Wright 21:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:54 I don't know if he made this one. I know he's made them before. But he, you know, it's those real simple bows. I'm like, "Why? You c- can't even get much energy out of that thing." But it's the extra challenge.

Chadd Wright 22:05 You gotta get real close.

Joe Rogan 22:06 You gotta get real close and be real accurate.

Chadd Wright 22:08 Yeah. I went on, I took mine on a mule deer hunt up in, uh, the Wasatch Range in Utah two years ago, and yeah, I mean, you, you got to get within seven to 10 yards of that animal with a, with a longbow.

Joe Rogan 22:24 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 22:24 I mean, I do-

Joe Rogan 22:25 Which is crazy.

Chadd Wright 22:25 ... I do anyways, you know? Fred Bear might, he might could have made a 20- or 30-yard shot, but, you know, you gotta get s- you gotta get right in their laps. And we were-

Joe Rogan 22:34 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 22:35 ... I was on public land. It was a wilderness area. That's where I like to hunt. I mean, I like wilderness areas. Uh, that's the highest designation of preservation that Congress can award to a piece of land. So, if you're in a wilderness area, you know you, there's not gonna be n- no horses, no mechanized tools, nobody's gonna be clearing tr- trails with a chainsaw up there. If you ever want to go in, in the back country, find a wilderness area, not a national park, not a national forest. Find a wilderness area. But we were watching these mule deer, and, you know, I'd watch them in the morning. They'd get up and feed. And then they'd, I'd wait for them to go lay down, and then you had to move on that mule deer and use the terrain, put the terrain between you and him. And they'd be bedded down, and you could get with, I, the closest I got to one was about five yards, and he was bedded down under a tree just kind of out in this big old rock. I was way up in the mountains, big old rocky area. Well, I stalked all the way up there to him, and I got about five yards from where I'd last seen, where I saw him bed down at. You know, I lost sight of him when I started to stalk, and, uh, I got impatient, and I got there, and I was laid down up against a rock, and that tree was right there, and I thought, "You know, it took me about an hour to stalk over here." I said, uh, "I wonder if he got up and moved." And I peeked my head up over that rock, and that big son of a gun was just looking right at me. I'm talking about eye to eye, five yards.

Joe Rogan 24:08 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 24:08 (laughs) He jumped up and tore out of there. That was the closest I got to killing one. But if I would have just laid there with that longbow and been patient and wait- waited for him to stand up off his bed-

Joe Rogan 24:20 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 24:21 ... I could have drew and shot him right there, you know?

Joe Rogan 24:22 Well, he's probably already alert-He probably heard you.

Chadd Wright 24:26 (sighs) I don't know if he heard me or not.

Joe Rogan 24:27 Yeah? We both were-

Chadd Wright 24:28 I, I had the wind. I had the wind. Uh, I-

Joe Rogan 24:32 Their ears are so good.

Chadd Wright 24:33 I had shoes on but, you know, I'm stalking across big, big granite, you know, rock slabs and stuff, so it was pretty quiet. I mean, there was no indication when I picked my head up, he was still laying there on bed. There was no indication that he knew I was there other than when he saw me peak my head over the rock-

Joe Rogan 24:52 Uh-huh.

Chadd Wright 24:53 ... and stand up and tear outta there, you know?

Joe Rogan 24:55 They're the most difficult to hunt, because they're just dealing with mountain lions all day long.

Chadd Wright 24:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 24:59 And they're just always, like ... And they, they'll jump the string quicker than any animal.

Chadd Wright 25:04 Oh, yeah, man.

Joe Rogan 25:04 Other than, like, the craziest ones are axis deer. Have you ever hunted axis deer?

Chadd Wright 25:08 I haven't, no.

Joe Rogan 25:09 Axis deer evolved with tigers. So they're, they move so fast. I, I had a video of an axis deer that I shot at, at 70-plus yards and, uh, with a lighted knock, and you see the arrow lau- I mean, this arrow's going 290 feet a second. You see this arrow launching towards this deer and this deer is feeding in a field, totally broadside. He hears the arrow within 10 yards, ducks down, hauls out, and he's gone by the arrow got ... by the time the arrow got to him.

Chadd Wright 25:41 He hears the arrow in flight?

Joe Rogan 25:43 Exactly. He had no idea. We were very far away. That's why I took the shot. It's one of the things with those animals, like you're sometimes better off taking a long shot than a close shot because they (fingers snap) hear that bow go off and they just duck and go. I mean, they're not trying to duck under your arrow. What they're trying to do is load up their weapons, or load up their legs rather, get super low so they can launch themselves forward and gone.

Chadd Wright 26:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:06 They're just trying to take off as quickly as possible and that means dropping down and when they drop down, arrows go right over 'em. But this one was so fast within 10 yards, he was nowhere near the arrow. His ass was over here. The h- the, the l- the vitals where I aimed for was right here. He was already over there.

Chadd Wright 26:23 Good night.

Joe Rogan 26:23 He was two feet away from it and he didn't start moving until that arrow was 10 yards away from him.

Chadd Wright 26:28 Where was that at?

Joe Rogan 26:29 That was in Hawaii.

Chadd Wright 26:30 Hawaii, okay.

Joe Rogan 26:31 Lanai is a crazy place, 'cause Lanai has no predators and it's a small island. It only has 3,000 people living on it, but it has 30,000 deer plus.

Chadd Wright 26:43 So they want you to kill 'em.

Joe Rogan 26:44 They want you to kill on 'em. Kill 'em as many as you can. They have people that are snipers that go out there at night and-

Chadd Wright 26:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:49 Everybody on the island eats good, 'cause it's the best meat. Axis deer is delicious if you've ever had it. It's right up there with elk. It's fantastic meat. And they're just completely overpopulated, so they have to do it, so people hunt them there 365 days a year. So high pressure, so they're used to, like ... They're always w- with their head on a swivel, always looking around for a hunter.

Chadd Wright 27:11 That would be a fun hunt.

Joe Rogan 27:12 It's a great hunt.

Chadd Wright 27:12 That would tune you up.

Joe Rogan 27:13 Oh, it's great before elk season. It's great.

Chadd Wright 27:15 Yeah, that would tune you up.

Joe Rogan 27:16 Because you'll get ... If you blow a stalk, you get another stalk in 10 seconds.

Chadd Wright 27:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:20 Like, you're on another animal and you're in these fields that used to be where, uh, the dole plant grew pineapples. So it's, it's kind of a weird ground. Like, I guess the way they would farm pineapples, they would put, like, a layer of plastic down and then the soil would be above the plastic, so everywhere you go, it's weird, you see, like, almost like g- garbage bag plastic-

Chadd Wright 27:43 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:43 ... underneath the dirt all over the place.

Chadd Wright 27:45 I'll be darned.

Joe Rogan 27:46 And these animals are ... You'll, you'll, like, you'll sit on the top of a hill and look down on a field and you might see 600 axis deer wandering around this field.

Chadd Wright 27:56 Good night, man.

Joe Rogan 27:56 Yeah, it's cr- it's crazy. It's crazy. It's so, it's so unnatural. But-

Chadd Wright 28:01 I- is there ... Are they, uh, they're not native?

Joe Rogan 28:03 No.

Chadd Wright 28:04 Okay.

Joe Rogan 28:04 They were given to King Kamehameha by, I think, the king of, uh, India. Whatever the l- ruler of India was in the 1800s.

Chadd Wright 28:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:13 And they gave ... And they've had them on this island forever and they're just completely overpopulated.

Chadd Wright 28:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:19 They're all ... Uh, like, all over the place and big ones too. Big-

Chadd Wright 28:23 That'd be a fun hunt, man.

Joe Rogan 28:24 Oh, it's a great hunt. It's a great ... If it- if you have a rifle, it's a no-brainer. It's like you're 100% gonna get a deer. But if you got a bow ... I mean, I went out there with Cam Hanes and Remy Warren and Adam Greentree and all these just, like, bonafide killers who, like, world-class hunters.

Chadd Wright 28:41 Cam's the best in the world, man.

Joe Rogan 28:43 The best in the world. And we ... And John Dudley was there too, and we went out there and we were there for, like, six or seven days and everyone was successful, and then we made a podcast about it, blew up the outfitter. It's a great place to go hunt. You stay at the Four Seasons, uh, incredible food, amazing, uh, amen- amenities. Beautiful, beautiful f- resort. And then you get to go o- and hunt in this incredible place, but after we left, he said they had 150 people come within th- that season, from, from then until the time we went back the next year. One guy was successful with a bow.

Chadd Wright 29:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:17 One.

Chadd Wright 29:18 Good (laughs) night, man.

Joe Rogan 29:20 And you got so many opportunities, but they're so fast and if you-

Chadd Wright 29:24 That's bad odds. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:25 Bad odds.

Chadd Wright 29:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:26 Well, you have ... Here's the deal. Don't try the morning. I us- I've hunted in the morning and I've been successful, but it's too fucking quiet. You really wanna go in the afternoon, 'cause in the afternoon you get a lot of wind.

Chadd Wright 29:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:36 And, you know, you just gotta pick your spots and play your stalks correctly.

Chadd Wright 29:41 Have you turkey hunted?

Joe Rogan 29:42 Yes.

Chadd Wright 29:43 Okay.

Joe Rogan 29:43 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 29:44 Eastern or, or what, what type of turkey-

Joe Rogan 29:45 California. It was in California.

Chadd Wright 29:47 Okay. I don't know what's out there.

Joe Rogan 29:48 It was in, uh-

Chadd Wright 29:48 Merriam's or-

Joe Rogan 29:50 Probably. It was in the, the, uh, the wine country up there. I went up there with Steve Rinella.

Chadd Wright 29:56 Okay.

Joe Rogan 29:56 He took me turkey hunting. It was fun.

Chadd Wright 29:58 You know, his buddy's a big squirrel hunter. Steve's buddy's a big squirrel hunter. What's that guy called?

Joe Rogan 30:03 Clay Newcomb.

Chadd Wright 30:04 Clay Newcomb. Yeah-

Joe Rogan 30:04 Yeah, he's been on-

Chadd Wright 30:04 ... he's got a bunch of feist dogs. He ... I think he hunts off of mules.

Joe Rogan 30:08 Yes.

Chadd Wright 30:08 I'll tell you what we oughta do. We oughta set up a big squirrel hunt with everybody. W- me, me and you and Clay and Cam and, and we'll just-

Joe Rogan 30:17 Okay.

Chadd Wright 30:17 We oughta set up a big squirrel hunt one weekend.

Joe Rogan 30:20 I've done ... I've had squirrel once.

Chadd Wright 30:21 I- it-

Joe Rogan 30:21 With Rinella. He cooked some squirrel up for us. It was good.

Chadd Wright 30:23 A- boy, if we could get him to come in and cook too, that would be outstanding. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:27 (laughs) It would be.

Chadd Wright 30:27 'Cause I have a hard time making this wild game taste, taste worth a flip, you know?

Joe Rogan 30:31 Do you?

Chadd Wright 30:32 I'm just not a good cook, man.

Joe Rogan 30:33 I noticed that. Well, I was gonna talk to you about your steak cooking. We gotta work on that.

Chadd Wright 30:37 Yeah, I'm, I'm just not much of a cook, man.

Joe Rogan 30:39 (laughs) I watched you cook a steak on a Traeger and I was like, "Listen-"

Chadd Wright 30:43 ... the way to cook a steak on a Traeger is, you can cook a steak on a Traeger. Like, you could t- cook, like, if you have a roast, like, you can cook a good roast on a Traeger. But the reality is, you need to be able to sear it, and so you can't really sear things on a Traeger. And I j- I saw what you did, you tried to turn the temperature up real high and then cook at the end. The key is getting it on a frying pan. Like, get it low and slow on the Traeger, uh, like 225 degrees with the SuperSmoke, get it nice and smoky. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:10 Get it up to 120 degrees, and then cast iron f- skillet.

Chadd Wright 31:15 Okay.

Joe Rogan 31:15 Get that motherfucker hot. Put some beef tallow in there and s- (searing sound) like, 90 seconds on each side.

Chadd Wright 31:20 Yeah, seals it up.

Joe Rogan 31:21 Perfect.

Chadd Wright 31:22 Now, do you do most of your own cooking?

Joe Rogan 31:24 Yeah, I do almost all my own cooking.

Chadd Wright 31:25 Okay.

Joe Rogan 31:26 Yeah. I cook a lot.

Chadd Wright 31:27 Does your wife cook?

Joe Rogan 31:28 Yeah, she cooks too.

Chadd Wright 31:29 Yeah. My, my wife cooks. I'm so blessed that, that she cooks, 'cause I've got a long ways to go. I actually made a, a goal of mine I've been working on, I, I cook for her one night a week.

Joe Rogan 31:39 Mm.

Chadd Wright 31:40 And, uh, it's worked out a few times, but I'm learning.

Joe Rogan 31:44 You can figure it out.

Chadd Wright 31:44 I appreciate that tip on the steak, though, man.

Joe Rogan 31:46 Yeah, the tip on the steak, it's reverse sear, is what it's called. And, uh, I learned that, uh, from, uh, Whiskey Bent, my friend Chad, Whiskey Bent Barbecue, and he said, "If you really want to cook a steak correctly," he goes, "you want it to be slowly cooked and then seared the outside." A lot of people will try to sear it first. He's like, "I don't agree with that," 'cause I think the way to get, uh, the juiciest steak is to slow cook it and then sear it at the end, the reverse sear method.

Chadd Wright 32:11 Well, I'm gonna try that when I get to the house.

Joe Rogan 32:12 It's the move. It's the move, and that's what I do.

Chadd Wright 32:13 My cou- my cousin raises all the cows we eat.

Joe Rogan 32:16 Oh, that's great.

Chadd Wright 32:17 So, my mama makes all the bread we eat.

Joe Rogan 32:19 Wow.

Chadd Wright 32:19 My wife grows all the, the vegetables that we eat. I'm, I'm gon' say seasonally, you know what I mean, seasonally, uh, my cousin raises all the cows. You know, we get our water right out of the ground. I take buckets of water once a week, go collect water.

Joe Rogan 32:36 Wow.

Chadd Wright 32:36 Comes right out of a, a, a, a spring, some old rednecks found a spring back in there and ran a PVC pipe out of it, you know? And so we just go there and collect all our water.

Joe Rogan 32:46 So you're totally off the grid?

Chadd Wright 32:48 Well, you know, we'll, we'll order some stuff from the grocery store, you know, just y- it, it would-

Joe Rogan 32:53 But your home is totally off the grid.

Chadd Wright 32:54 It wouldn't be hard at all to, to ramp things up to the point that we were 100% eating what we could produce as a family unit. No, no one pers- like, no one person is going to produce everything that they need for them and their family to eat. Like, it-

Joe Rogan 33:14 Right.

Chadd Wright 33:15 It's, my cousin, he raises cows, you know? So we know where they're coming from, we know how they're living, we know what they're being fed. Like I said, my mama makes bread. My wife can grow anything. Uh, it's an effort. You know, I hunt. I can bring in wild game meat at any time. Everybody tank- thinks about when the apocalypse comes, you know, you think you're gonna be eating all these deer and elk and stuff. You're gonna be eating squirrel, buddy.

Joe Rogan 33:42 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 33:42 Squirrel and birds. Maybe a possum every now and then.

Joe Rogan 33:46 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 33:46 Them deer is gonna be gone quick.

Joe Rogan 33:48 Probably, right?

Chadd Wright 33:49 You know? Small game, a sm- a s- if, if you want a really subsistence, you know, get your meat from the wild, you gotta be able to hunt small game. Squirrels, rabbits, coon, possum, you gotta be able to hunt 'em. You know, you go out and try to hunt a coon without a dog-

Joe Rogan 34:07 Good luck.

Chadd Wright 34:07 ... you ain't gonna kill no coon.

Joe Rogan 34:09 Right.

Chadd Wright 34:09 You know? I can take a good dog and kill 10 coons in an, an hour if I'm in a good spot.

Joe Rogan 34:13 What does raccoon taste like?

Chadd Wright 34:16 (sighs) Raccoon's pretty greasy. You gotta, again, you gotta cook it right, you know? So much wild game, other than elk, I've found elk seems to be really, really good even if you're not a skilled cook.

Joe Rogan 34:29 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 34:29 You know? To me, anyways, it's the best wild game meat I've ever ate.

Joe Rogan 34:33 Yeah, I agree.

Chadd Wright 34:33 But, but, like, these squirrels, coons, uh, things like small game, even rabbit, they can get real tough, you know? That you can-

Joe Rogan 34:44 Is that raccoon jam?

Chadd Wright 34:45 Yeah, that's coon right there. You cook it in a Crockpot. A lot of this small game you, you, uh, slow cook it, you know?

Joe Rogan 34:51 Mm-hmm. Break it down.

Chadd Wright 34:51 And that kind of helps keep it moist and, and break it down.

Joe Rogan 34:54 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 34:55 But, anyways, man, I'm all over the darn place.

Joe Rogan 34:58 And you probably have to cook it to a high temperature, too. Raccoons probably get trichinosis, right?

Chadd Wright 35:04 I don't know if a coon does or not. I've killed a bunch of bears, and I know they do.

Joe Rogan 35:09 They do.

Chadd Wright 35:09 Yeah, that's the one thing I didn't like about bear.

Joe Rogan 35:12 Yeah, me too.

Chadd Wright 35:12 Uh-

Joe Rogan 35:13 It, it makes me uncomfortable.

Chadd Wright 35:14 I killed, I've killed two black bears, both of them with my bow. Uh, both of them about 500 pounds.

Joe Rogan 35:21 Whoa.

Chadd Wright 35:21 And, uh-

Joe Rogan 35:22 Those are big black bears.

Chadd Wright 35:23 They're big, big black bears. I-

Joe Rogan 35:25 Are these Georgia black bears?

Chadd Wright 35:26 No, these are Virginia.

Joe Rogan 35:27 Oh.

Chadd Wright 35:27 There's a place in Virginia called the Great Dismal Swamp. It's, uh, about 110,000 acre continuous block of land. That's what's left of it. It's eat up with bears. I mean, I would take my coon dog down the, down the, the, the swamp bottom, we called it the run, and, uh, during springtime, when them bears were out with cubs, I couldn't even hardly run my coon dog up and down through there, there were so many bears in there. And them sows would get, they would get f- you know, mad at us for being in there and start popping their teeth and making racket. I took a young man with me down in there one time, first time he ever been coon hunting. I was hunting a dog called a leopard cur, and I cut that dog loose in there and he went down in there, ah, boom, slam treed. I thought, "All right, this is good," 'cause coon hunting can be rough. We walked down in there and I had this ma- this young guy with me, he had the rifle. We got up to the tree and I walk up to that dog and leash it up and I'm fooling with the dog, getting it leashed back on the tree there, and he said, "What is that?" I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "Stop and listen." And I stopped, and that dog quit barking for a second, and all of a sudden I could hear bark raining down on the leaves above my head, 'cause it was summertime. About that time, about a 300-pound black bear comes sliding down out of that tree like it was-

Joe Rogan 36:47 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 36:47 ... on a fireman's pole, landed, I'm talking about that joker landed right in the midst of me, him, and the dog, and he's standing there, he's just frozen, 'cause he never been coon hunting before. He's got the gun-He's just frozen. And about the time that bear hit the ground, I snapped the leash off of that dog, 'cause the dog was my only chance to run this bear out of our vicinity. And those, these cur dogs are real gritty. They won't back up. They're, I, I mean, they won't back up for nothing. They're like a, a, like a game cock, man. And, uh, that dog tore out after that bear, ran him out for ... I looked over at that boy, I said, "What, were you just gonna ... You've got the gun."

Joe Rogan 37:32 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 37:32 "You just stood there and didn't ..." He said, "I, I, well, I thought that happens all the time."

Joe Rogan 37:37 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 37:38 But that's how many bears was in this area, man. So I'd be out there whitetail hunting, you know, and a big old 500-pound boar or bear would come up, you know. I've had 'em climb the tree that I was sitting in, the tree stand. But a bear ... You know, if a big one came by, it's hard to, it's hard not to shoot-

Joe Rogan 37:56 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 37:56 ... a big trophy bear, especially with a bow. Um, so I've killed two. But when we'd kill them bear, I would just, uh ... There was a lot of poor, real poor people that lived around in there. Well, I ... there was one man named Zachariah. He was about a 90-year-old Black man, he had one eye. He hunted year round, because he had to hunt to eat. We'd see him out in the field deer hunting middle of summertime, wouldn't nobody say nothing to him because they knew he had to eat. But I'd call Zachariah when I killed that bear. Well, then he would call all of his people in the community, and we'd take that bear down to the skinning shed, and within 10 minutes, we'd have 50 people lined up at the skinning shed with grocery bags. And so we would cut this bear up and process this bear, and these, you know, poor people, they'd come down there and get them a big piece of meat. Well, by the time everybody was done, they wasn't maybe but one piece of meat left. You know what I mean? 'Cause I don't like bear, but I sure do like killing 'em.

Joe Rogan 38:56 Have you ever had it cooked well, done well? Just-

Chadd Wright 38:59 We've, we've cooked some at the house. But I haven't ... I mean, I haven't ... That, that's what I'm saying, I'm not a good cook, man.

Joe Rogan 39:06 Yeah, you just have to learn how to do it. My friends John and Jen, they run, uh, an outfitter in, uh ... They're outfitters in Alberta, and they're bear hunters.

Chadd Wright 39:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:13 And, uh, I've been bear hunting with them, and they take, like, a roast, and they'll cook it on a Traeger. They brine it. They put it in, like, uh, they marinate it, and it's fantastic. It's like some of the ... Like, better than the best roast beef you've ever had.

Chadd Wright 39:28 Oh, I know there's a way.

Joe Rogan 39:29 It's amazing. Yeah.

Chadd Wright 39:29 There's a way to make it taste good.

Joe Rogan 39:31 It's al- it's also in what they eat, you know?

Chadd Wright 39:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:34 If you get 'em and they've been eating, like, a dead moose, and, you know, and they've been feasting on that for a couple weeks, and then it's rotten, and they just ... They stink, and that's not good.

Chadd Wright 39:43 Yeah. No, they-

Joe Rogan 39:44 You wanna get acorn bears.

Chadd Wright 39:45 These bears we were killing, what they would ... They, the reason they were so big, they were eating corn and soybeans.

Joe Rogan 39:51 Yeah, perfect.

Chadd Wright 39:51 You know? (coughs) They'd ... Now, they'd eat a pile of deer guts, too. I mean-

Joe Rogan 39:55 Yeah. They eat everything.

Chadd Wright 39:56 I, I would, I would gut a deer out there, you know, if I killed a deer, I'd gut it in the woods. I don't gut 'em back at the house. I just gut 'em in the woods, and you come back an hour later, and they wouldn't be a ... Not a, not a speck of them guts left.

Joe Rogan 40:09 Crazy.

Chadd Wright 40:09 I mean, they would eat the fire out of 'em.

Joe Rogan 40:11 Do you know that the early pioneers preferred bear meat, and they used deer just for skins?

Chadd Wright 40:17 No, I did not know that.

Joe Rogan 40:19 Yeah. The, like, Daniel Boone and all those fellas, they ... Those guys, they were bear hunters, and what they ate-

Chadd Wright 40:25 They wanted the fat.

Joe Rogan 40:25 They e- ... Yeah, they wanted the fat, and they ate bear meat because they thought it was closer to beef.

Chadd Wright 40:30 Huh.

Joe Rogan 40:31 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 40:31 Well, it is closer to beef-

Joe Rogan 40:32 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 40:32 ... I would say, than, than deer.

Joe Rogan 40:34 Yeah, I would say so, especially if ... And if it's cooked well, it's delicious. It's just, you gotta get a bear that's not eaten rotten meat and not eaten-

Chadd Wright 40:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:42 ... fish, and, and cook it right. But if you cook it right, it's fantastic. It's really good. Bear sausage is fantastic. It's all just in how you get it prepared-

Chadd Wright 40:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:51 ... how you do it. Renell is really good at it.

Chadd Wright 40:52 Well, see, I gotta start running in the right circles with people that can cook.

Joe Rogan 40:56 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 40:57 That's my problem.

Joe Rogan 40:58 My friend Jesse, who owns this, uh, restaurant out here called Dai Dau, what is Jesse's, uh ... He's a ... He runs a school that teaches people how to shoot hogs, how to, how to butcher them, how to cook them, and, you know, he, he likes old, rutty old hogs, and he really knows how to do it correctly. So this is it. Um, this is a new school of traditional cookery. So Jesse will take people and he'll take them out there, teach them how to hunt, teach them every- everything about it, how to, uh, how to stalk an animal, how to dress the game, how to cook it and prepare it, and what- the cuts you're looking for, and he teaches classes on this.

Chadd Wright 41:44 How cool is that, man?

Joe Rogan 41:45 It's amazing. I mean, it's a small class because he wants to do it correctly, but he's incredible. And that restaurant, if you ever get a chance to go to it, Dai Dau in town, it's amazing.

Chadd Wright 41:56 I'm gonna go-

Joe Rogan 41:56 Amazing.

Chadd Wright 41:56 ... ahead and tell you, if you can make an old boar hog taste good-

Joe Rogan 42:01 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 42:02 ... you have gotten to be a master.

Joe Rogan 42:03 Oh, he's a master. He also, like, cooked diver ducks for us, which everybody says are d- disgusting.

Chadd Wright 42:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:09 And they were fantastic. And he's like, "It's all just in the preparation."

Chadd Wright 42:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:13 He marinated 'em, he slow cooked 'em on a, on a smoker. They were fantastic.

Chadd Wright 42:17 All that stuff just takes time, you know?

Joe Rogan 42:19 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 42:19 It just takes time. It's so much easier just to, just to cook a rib eye.

Joe Rogan 42:23 Oh, yeah.

Chadd Wright 42:24 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 42:25 That's the easiest.

Chadd Wright 42:26 It's the easiest.

Joe Rogan 42:26 The easiest is ... Yeah. It's just ... There's something about wild game, to me, that's ... It's a different kind of food, it's-

Chadd Wright 42:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:35 It's ... It feels different when you eat it. There's more energy to it.

Chadd Wright 42:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:39 It's like it's just so nutrient dense. You eat it and your whole body just goes whoo, whew.

Chadd Wright 42:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:46 You feel it, you know? Like you cook a elk steak and you eat that medium rare, and you're just biting into it and it's juicy and argh.

Chadd Wright 42:54 I can't wait, man.

Joe Rogan 42:55 Oh, yeah.

Chadd Wright 42:56 I hope I get one. I, I think I got g- a good chance of getting one. These boys are serious.

Joe Rogan 43:01 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 43:01 So, um-

Joe Rogan 43:02 Well, with a rifle, your chances are a lot higher. And I know you're a real good shot, so y- you'll probably ... And it w- ... A guy like you also could shoot-... accurately at a distance, which is huge.

Chadd Wright 43:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:13 They'll have no idea you're there. You know, you could m- I'm sure you could make a 500-yard shot easy. And if your rifle's tuned correctly for something like that, it's like, you got a pretty good shot.

Chadd Wright 43:23 Have you been, uh, have you been up to the Yukon Territory at all?

Joe Rogan 43:26 No. No, I haven't.

Chadd Wright 43:27 I just got back.

Joe Rogan 43:29 What were you doing up there?

Chadd Wright 43:29 It's been, it's been, you know, it's been quite the journey, both on the m- on the macro and the micro level, (laughs) to wind up here at this table with you. I, I spent the last, about the last month sitting with a good friend of mine, one of my biggest mentors in my life. I'd si- I'd sit with him for hours on end while he was dying. Uh, and, um, then I, I, I had to leave him, and I went out to the Yukon. Sorry, man. Uh, we need to talk more about that, by the way. A- and, uh, I had a, I've got a teammate that I went through SEAL training and all with. He was paralyzed 14 years ago. And, uh, he wanted to go on a, a, an, an adventure. And I said, "Well, there's a race out there. It's a 1,000-mile kayaking race. It's the longest kayaking race in the world on the Yukon River. Totally unsupported." He said, "All right." Well, it took ... He prepared for about two years. And, uh, we went out there and did that on the Yukon River.

Joe Rogan 44:40 Wow.

Chadd Wright 44:40 And then, uh, I came home and my, my buddy died the day I got home. And so, uh, it's been a, man, it's been a wild last month or so. Have you ever got to sit with anybody-

Joe Rogan 44:54 While they're dying?

Chadd Wright 44:55 ... important to you?

Joe Rogan 44:56 Not while they're dying, no.

Chadd Wright 44:57 I highly recommend it. It will teach you so much, man.

Joe Rogan 45:04 About what's important?

Chadd Wright 45:04 It has made me grow, like, I don't know, man. It just gives me the doggone chills thinking about it. And the crazy thing is, is the type of person I used to be, I woulda thought, you know, going and sitting with someone who's dying is a waste of time. Like, I got other things to do, right? You do too. We got busy lives. (sighs) Well, this man, he mentored me, uh, hunting and everything, working, all that. His name was Don Tidwell. From the time I was about 13 to the time I left to go become a Navy SEAL. Well, I did my whole Navy thing. I got out. I reconnected with Don for a while, but then I started this company now that we have, 3F7 Project. Got busy. I have a curse from my military service, is, is I have this unique ability to be able to forget you ever existed. Uh, when, when I, you know, when y- when I get on some sort of mission, and you're not part of that anymore, I can forget you ever existed. And so I lost touch with him because of my own selfishness, and been doing this thing for the last four or five years. Well, his wife called me and said, "Look, he just wants to see you one more time. He's got pancreatic cancer. He's got maybe two weeks left. He just wants to see you one more time." (exhales) Good night, man. Took a lot of courage for me to go show up in front of him, and sit down with him and say, "Mr. Don, I'm sorry I haven't been the friend to you that you deserve. Will you forgive me?" He's laying there dying. He looks back at me and says, "Son, there's nothing to forgive." I, I mean, just like ... A- and then from that point, I'd go sit with him twice a week for eight or nine or 10 hours, just sit right there by his bed. I'd read the scriptures to him. He only had a third-grade education. We read about the Gospel, and we read about the resurrection, and we read about creation and ... You know, we don't ... The first thing that you learn, I think, when you sit with somebody that's dying is that death is the great foe that, that sits above mankind and scoffs at our wisdom. You get what I'm saying?

Joe Rogan 47:51 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 47:51 He, he s- the death is this great foe. It is the enemy that sits above us and mocks the wisdom of man. Uh, Mr. Don had c- built a, a, an e- basically an empire within the e- within the community he lived in. He had made millions and millions of dollars as an entrepreneur, couldn't read or write. But, um, he still had to succumb to this process that's coming for all of us. Like, I don't know, man, that was like ... That, that just hit me. Like, we think ... We wanna look up at the sky and we want to explain how the cosmos began, and we can't even solve our own biggest problem? We can't solve our own biggest problem. Which is death, right? It's the b- it's the biggest problem for all of us.

Joe Rogan 48:50 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 48:51 We can't figure out how to solve it, how to overcome it. Like, we don't think about this enough. Like, have you ever thought, why are you dying? Have you ever thought about that?

Joe Rogan 49:08 Sure.

Chadd Wright 49:09 Like, like, not ... Like, I get it. Like, all of us, we understand death as, you know, we go along through this life, but, and then something happens. We get hit by a car, one of our organs fail, cancer happens, whatever, and we say that killed us, right? And that thing did kill us, but your entire life is leading you to that point.Like, why do you have to die? Like, it's, it's by necessity you must die. Why? What's killing you? What, what are you, what's killing you?

Joe Rogan 49:44 Well, age. Your body stops reproducing correctly, your cells don't reproduce correctly anymore.

Chadd Wright 49:48 So, why does that happen though?

Joe Rogan 49:50 Well, every animal.

Chadd Wright 49:50 What's causing that?

Joe Rogan 49:52 Every animal, almost every animal on this planet has a, a timeline that it exists in. It's probably, it's probably, uh, a natural function of keeping a balance. Like, all of nature has a balance.

Chadd Wright 50:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:06 And I mean, can you imagine if mosquitoes lived 1,000 years, what a fucking pain in the ass that would be? No, they get a couple but, you know, how long does a mosquito live? A week?

Chadd Wright 50:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:15 How long does a fly live? A week? Good. 'Cause, uh, otherwise we'd be fucked, you know? Or a deer, a good deer, a good deer that's like, the best days of its life, it's like, 13 years, it's done, it's over-

Chadd Wright 50:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:26 ... it's gonna, it, it's limping, it's gonna get torn apart by coyotes. Whatever gets it. Everything has a time because if it didn't then there'd be too many people.

Chadd Wright 50:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:36 There'd be too many animals.

Chadd Wright 50:37 The balance would be-

Joe Rogan 50:38 The balance would be all fucked up.

Chadd Wright 50:39 Yeah. That's, that's a great answer, man. Like...

Joe Rogan 50:41 The thing is, there's a lot of scientists that are working on that. A lot of scientists-

Chadd Wright 50:44 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 50:44 ... that I've talked to that are treating aging, uh, like a disease. So instead of just accepting the fact, like, "Oh, you're 50 now. Things are slowing down." Like, well, why are they slowing down and what can we do to reverse that?

Chadd Wright 50:55 I love thinking along those lines, man.

Joe Rogan 50:58 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 50:58 Like, yeah. I, I love that.

Joe Rogan 51:00 At the very least what it does is improves your performance radically as an older person.

Chadd Wright 51:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:05 Improves your physical performance.

Chadd Wright 51:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:06 It's what, what was, what people would be capable of naturally with no supplements 20, 30 years ago. It's a very different world today.

Chadd Wright 51:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:14 Very, very, very different.

Chadd Wright 51:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:16 And with all the different modalities, all the different things you could do like hyperbaric treatments, NMN supplementation, red light therapy, cold plunge sauna, all these different things radically change the composition of your body and your overall metabolic health. Radically changes it. And then with hormone therapy and all the other different things that you can do, I mean, it's just a, just because of science and because of people figuring these things out, it's, it's a radically different world than it was in the past.

Chadd Wright 51:48 But is, is there a solution? Like, is there a fix for death? Like, is anyone searching-

Joe Rogan 51:55 Yes.

Chadd Wright 51:55 ... or even contemplating that?

Joe Rogan 51:57 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. David Sinclair is all over that. He's a guy from Harvard that we've had on the podcast a few times. That, that he's, that's his primary study. They're, they're treating aging as a disease and trying to figure out what different types of medication, what different types of therapies, what's the root cause of the cells aging-

Chadd Wright 52:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:17 ... and not reproducing correctly. Yeah.

Chadd Wright 52:19 It's an ugly thing, man.

Joe Rogan 52:21 Oh, it gets rough, especially if you don't take care of yourself.

Chadd Wright 52:24 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 52:25 You know? That's the rough one, when you see people that have been drinking their whole life and then they, they quit at 75 and you're like, "Pff, it's a little late." You know, you've been torturing your body, forcing your body to process poison for decades.

Chadd Wright 52:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:39 You know? And the w- and also just living in cities alone, you knew, you were talking about that smell. That, that weird smell that you get in cities? That's fucking brake dust and tires and exhaust fumes.

Chadd Wright 52:52 And doo-doo.

Joe Rogan 52:53 And doo-doo. There's a little bit of doo-doo. Not bad here. Go to San Francisco.

Chadd Wright 52:57 I found a turd on the side of the trail today.

Joe Rogan 52:59 A human?

Chadd Wright 52:59 A human turd.

Joe Rogan 53:00 Ugh.

Chadd Wright 53:00 It was a turrible log too, man.

Joe Rogan 53:02 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 53:03 Yeah. My wife took, went back, took a video of it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:07 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 53:07 You might see it on YouTube in the next couple of days.

Joe Rogan 53:10 Okay.

Chadd Wright 53:10 Uh...

Joe Rogan 53:11 Your visit to Austin.

Chadd Wright 53:12 Um, but yeah, man. Just sitting with him make, makes me contemplate these, these things. And, and, and for me, obviously because of, uh, my world view being shaped by scripture, it makes me go to scripture and bounce these questions off of the scriptures, you know? And, and even, (laughs) it, um, I, I think it was powerful too because, you know, I'm sitting with a man who's important to me, who is bearing this burden of death. And by the way, he bore it well. It was amazing to me that I could go and sit with him and he would talk to me and take time to spend with me even in the midst of this terrible, uh, process that he was going through. Uh, I told him, I said, "You could've just laid there on, on this bed and not said a word to anybody and nobody would've blamed you." You know? It's scary. It's, it's, you, you're... He couldn't sit still, you know, and, and, uh, 'cause he was in so much pain. It's, daggone cancer's rough, man.

Joe Rogan 54:14 Pancreatic is a bad one.

Chadd Wright 54:15 Yeah, it's rough. But, but then, uh, you know, he had these same questions that I'm thinking. Like, "Why does this have to happen?" You know? And then for me then to have to go and search the scriptures and then come to him with the scriptures and share the scriptures with him, to, you know, give him some of the answers that he had, you know? It's like, I would read a scripture to him and he would say... 'Cause again, Mr. Don had a, uh, a strong faith in the message of what we call the Gospel. Uh, but he didn't know all the other stuff because he couldn't read.

Joe Rogan 54:59 Right.

Chadd Wright 55:00 (laughs) So I would read a scripture to him and, and then he would say, "Read another one. Read another one." And I would see, it was the m- it was the wildest thing, dude. I, I've never seen it, I've never seen anything like it before. I've been, I've been following, uh, the Lord Jesus for, uh, 13 years now. I was reading these words off of the page, not even explaining them to him. I was just reading him these scriptures and they were manifesting, like...... power in him. Like you could see, I- you- you witnessed a change in his expression and his, his attitude. It was like these words I'm reading are manifesting power and hope, and like literal energy. Like I would come over and read the Scriptures to him, and he would been in bed for the last four days, wouldn't get up for anybody. I'd read the Scriptures to him, and then next thing you know, we'd be out on the porch. Like he'd get out of bed, and we'd go walk out on the porch. I'd have to help him walk, right? And his wife kept saying, "You're the best thing for him right now." I'm like, "No, you don't understand, it's not my presence, for somehow I'm reading to him from these Scriptures," and it's like manifesting some sort of power and hope in him. And it- it like would give him energy in some way. And, uh, I- I can't expl- I never seen it happen like... Uh, like I've never s- witnessed that before, you know?

Narrator 56:32 Well, it's probably even more profound because he can't read, so you're reading it to him.

Chadd Wright 56:36 Ah, dude. Dude.

Narrator 56:37 Right?

Chadd Wright 56:38 Dude, it was wild, man. Like and I would read these Scriptures to him, Joe, and, uh, he would say, "Yeah, I- I understand that now." And like we're reading complex things. Like we're reading about the resurrection, like the- the bodily resurrection of all the saints at- at- at the- the second coming of Christ. And, you know, he asked me, one of the questions he asked me, "Has any- has anybody ever really explained to you what happens when we leave here, you know?" 'Cause he's wondering these things, like, "I'm about to-"

Narrator 57:10 Right.

Chadd Wright 57:10 ... "I'm about to depart this tent, buddy."

Narrator 57:13 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 57:13 "What's about to happen?"

Narrator 57:14 Right.

Chadd Wright 57:14 And I'm like, "Well, the only answer I can give you, Mr. Don, has got to come from these Scriptures." And, uh, so- and I would read these complex Scriptures to him, First Corinthians 15, and 2 Corinthians 5, and, uh, he would- he would under- like it would make sense to him in his mind more than my mind could comprehend the truth of what I was reading.

Narrator 57:38 Mm.

Chadd Wright 57:38 Like that was what was wild. It was like-

Narrator 57:41 'Cause of that stage in his life where he's taking it in.

Chadd Wright 57:44 This veil, this veil between this realm and the next realm was getting thin. And he was taking in the truth of this word, and processing it logically at a level that I can't process it, because this veil for- for us is still so thin, unless you hit that DMT, right?

Narrator 58:08 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 58:08 (laughs) We can talk about that later. But, uh, but right-

Narrator 58:11 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 58:12 And so I'm witnessing... It was wild, dude. And- and two like crazy things happened, like when I'd sit with him, like every, you know, couple hours I'd get up and go check in with his wife or something, and- and we had a camera in- in the room with him. And, uh, we could watch what he was doing. And when I would walk out of the room, you give it a few minutes, and you would see him start to look above him, and he was- he would be reaching like this for stuff above him. And like we didn't know what he was doing. We never even asked him. I wish I woulda asked him, like, "Mr. Don, what are you seeing? Like what are you reaching for?" Well then back when I would come back in the room with him, he would stop doing it. Um, and then toward the end there, he had a stroke, he was paralyzed one... His whole left side of his body was paralyzed, and so he was just, you know, he couldn't m- sit up or do anything. Uh, and then finally, at the very end, when he passed away, he literally sits up out of... He sits up erect in his... Out of his hospital bed, reaches both of his hands straight up like this, and then lays back down and departs the tent.

Narrator 59:37 Whoa.

Chadd Wright 59:39 So I started researching this. Wha- what the crap is going on here?

Narrator 59:43 God, I wish you asked him what he was reaching for.

Chadd Wright 59:46 You- you watch, there are... You- the... I found this hospice nurse on, uh, Instagram, I don't remember her name. But she's l- she's like posting all these videos of people doing this exact thing. They're... And they're reaching for stuff and- and she's a hospice nurse, so I-

Narrator 1:00:04 Did you save it? Do you have it on your phone?

Chadd Wright 1:00:06 I- I don't... Nah, I don't have it. Uh, I don't remember. It's a y- she's got a lot of following. She's got a big following, just look up...

Narrator 1:00:14 Jamie will probably find her.

Chadd Wright 1:00:15 ... hospice nurse on Instagram or whatever, but she posts all these videos of these people.

Narrator 1:00:20 Is this her?

Chadd Wright 1:00:21 Yeah.

Narrator 1:00:21 Oh, they're reaching.

Chadd Wright 1:00:22 They're like calling out... I don't know if, uh, that's not her, but this is another one. That's not the one I watch.

Narrator 1:00:30 Calling it a death reach.

Chadd Wright 1:00:31 It's a very common thing, and they're calling out a lot of times the names of loved ones that have passed before them.

Narrator 1:00:39 Whoa.

Chadd Wright 1:00:39 They're seeing something, like the- they're seeing into the other realm. Oh, it's that lady on the far right over there, that's the one I watch. She's a little crazy but-

Narrator 1:00:50 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:00:50 ... I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, she puts out some wild stuff, man. This is common stuff, man.

Narrator 1:00:56 What's her name? What's her name, Jamie?

1:00:58 Uh, it says below.

1:00:59 It says below, "Hospice Nurse Penny."

1:01:00 Happens weeks before their death, when they're able to tell us what they're seeing. When they're able to tell us about these visions, they're almost always above them or up in the corner of the room. But sometimes as they get closer to the end of life, and they're no longer able to communicate, we start seeing them reach into the air. So I'm convinced that when they are reaching into the air, they are reaching towards those people who they love who have died before them.

Chadd Wright 1:01:28 Uh-

Narrator 1:01:28 Whoa.

Chadd Wright 1:01:28 That- this woman's not a believer, and, uh, as far as I know. I- sh- I don't think, I don't know what her, you know, uh, what how her worldview is- is on in terms of what happens after this. But she's just sitting here showing you, saying, "Hey, this happens."

Narrator 1:01:44 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:01:44 "We can't figure out why. We can't figure out what's going on."Obviously, for me, when I see that happening, when Mr. Don sits up in the bed even though he's literally paralyzed by a stroke, he sits... it's- it's an impossibility. He sits up in his bed and reaches both hands in the air, and then lays down and departs the tent. Wh- what do I... I have to believe that, like, his transportation had arrived.

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:02:20 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:02:21 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:02:21 And to witness that, how does that not, like, strengthen-

Joe Rogan 1:02:25 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:02:26 ... your- you're- you're witnessing something that's tangible. It's like, how does that not strengthen at least your faith that there is something-

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 Beyond.

Chadd Wright 1:02:39 ... coming after this? You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:02:41 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:02:41 And...

Joe Rogan 1:02:42 There's so many stories. And the thing is, people have this arrogant assumption, and this is a lot of based on academics and science and this un- this belief that we have all the answers to- to reality when we don't even really understand consciousness. We don't. Consciousness is a massive mystery. So the- this idea that we've got it solved, and when I- when I hear people say, "When you die, that's it. It's over," like, how do you know? You're just saying this.

Chadd Wright 1:03:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:12 You're just saying this. That- that is as much of a belief system as any religion. This- this belief in something that you have no evidence of whatsoever, but there's so many anecdotal stories of people with near-death experiences, including Sebastian Junger. Do you know who he is?

Chadd Wright 1:03:29 Oh, uh, I've heard the name.

Joe Rogan 1:03:30 Brilliant, um, journalist. He... great author. He's written some incredible books. Uh, he did Restrepo, right?

Narrator 1:03:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:39 Uh, documentary about the war. And he's just an amazing, interesting, very, very intelligent guy. And the last time he was on the podcast, he was telling us a story about he had a medical emergency, some sort of a... it was like a- an artery burst, right, Jamie?

Narrator 1:03:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 Something inside of his- his abdomen, and he was bleeding out on the inside.

Chadd Wright 1:04:01 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:01 And he was dying, and he got to the hospital and had this near-death experience that, like, very, very vivid experience interacting with his father, like, just beyond anything that he would have ever comprehended and came back with a completely different perspective on life and death and, like, what this is and where... that there is something else. There's something out there. And people that have had near-death experiences or died and been resuscitated, they come back with the same fucking story over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It's not... there's not a lot of variation. There's different interpretations of what they're seeing, but it all fits within the same framework.

Chadd Wright 1:04:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:45 It all fits within a framework that this is... there's something there.

Narrator 1:04:48 Did you see the video of this kid ru- like, a couple weeks ago?

Joe Rogan 1:04:51 No.

Chadd Wright 1:04:51 No.

Narrator 1:04:51 He's having a wild experience where he sees Jesus. He sees his dead father.

Chadd Wright 1:04:55 Come on, man.

Narrator 1:04:55 He's like... says it's beautiful.

Joe Rogan 1:04:56 Wh- why is this kid...

Narrator 1:04:57 I miss my father. Oh, my hair, Casey.

1:05:00 I think he was sick and he's coming out of, uh, surgery.

1:05:04 Oh, my goodness.

1:05:04 I don't know the exact story on what was happening to him.

1:05:06 Hi, Jesus. (crying) (laughs) ............................ Oh, my God.

1:05:09 This video goes on long.

1:05:10 You're so beautiful. Oh.

1:05:10 It's a 10-minute video, but...

Chadd Wright 1:05:12 Whoa.

Narrator 1:05:12 Oh, baby. ... oh, my gosh. He's in a dream. He's dreaming.

Chadd Wright 1:05:20 Yeah, he's dreaming all right.

Narrator 1:05:21 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:05:21 He's seeing into a different... he's seeing into the next realm.

Narrator 1:05:25 That's so cool.

Joe Rogan 1:05:26 Yeah.

Narrator 1:05:26 I want this hot chicken.

1:05:27 (laughs) Yeah, this is-

Chadd Wright 1:05:29 Well, you know-

Narrator 1:05:29 You could dismiss that. You could dismiss that if you wanted to.

Chadd Wright 1:05:32 Yeah. Yeah, you can. You can, man.

Narrator 1:05:33 But-

Chadd Wright 1:05:33 But look, man. Uh, I- and- and I don't even need all these signs and wonders. Like, I- I don't even need all that, man. I mean, i- it's great when you get the opportunity to witness things like I got to witness with my friend, Mr. Don, and- and just see his faith and see that the Word manifest power in him. Like, it's great when you get to see it, but you can get c- too carried away with all that stuff too, you know what I mean? It's like, uh, r-... (sighs) I don't know, man. You know, I'm wondering, Joe, if the Almighty ain't calling you.

Joe Rogan 1:06:05 Calling me how? On the phone?

Chadd Wright 1:06:07 Calling you, man.

Joe Rogan 1:06:08 What do you mean? In what way? (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:06:10 I'm just wondering. I think a- I think a lot of people are wondering what the Almighty is doing, uh, what He's working in you. Um, (sighs) see, scripture is dripping with something that's called election. Uh, a lot of people get mad about me talking about this, but the- this- this truth that we will never choose God the Almighty, we will never choose to believe. Uh, as a matter of fact, scripture actually says over and over again, the- the whole message of the cross is foolishness. It's foolishness! I mean, seriously? Some dude died on a cross? What does that represent to man? That represents weakness. That represents defeat. That represents death. You're gone. The- the message of the cross is foolishness to man. W- we will never choose to believe in the message of what we call the Gospel, that is that Jesus Christ died on the cross according to the scriptures, he was buried, and that he rose again by his own power according to the scriptures. That's foolishness.And the only way that we can or will ever believe that, like truly place our faith in that and everything that's contained in that statement right there, 'cause there's a lot there. You could literally spend the rest of your life meditating on that right there, the Gospel, the what was done on the cross and by way of the resurrection of Christ. You would never get to the end of it. You would never comprehend everything. You would never search it to its bottom. You will never believe that, and the only way that you can believe that is if The Almighty, in His grace, basically makes you alive spiritually. Because these things are spiritually discerned. They're not logically discerned; they're foolishness to man. These things must be spiritually appraised. And so The Almighty, by His grace, makes you alive, literally spiritually alive, so that then you can discern the truth of not only the Gospel, but everything, the totality of what is contained in Scripture. It's called the Doctrine of Election. And so when I say, "I wonder if The Almighty's calling you," what I mean is, I wonder if you are one of The Almighty's elect.

Joe Rogan 1:09:20 Oh, boy.

Chadd Wright 1:09:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:23 That's a lot.

Chadd Wright 1:09:24 And if- and if you are, you better hold onto your britches, son.

Joe Rogan 1:09:29 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:09:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:31 I oftentimes wonder what's going on and why me. Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:09:35 You- you must, man.

Joe Rogan 1:09:36 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:09:36 You must.

Joe Rogan 1:09:37 It doesn't make sense.

Chadd Wright 1:09:39 You must.

Joe Rogan 1:09:39 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:09:39 And I ha- you know, that's a personal thing, man, and I- I don't- I- I hope you don't take that as any disrespect.

Joe Rogan 1:09:46 No, I don't.

Chadd Wright 1:09:46 It's just, um, for me, seeing ... It's- it's odd how much we have in common, seeing what- what a, uh, special human being you are. Like, it's exciting for me to be able to hope that The Almighty is indeed calling you. Like, that's exciting, dude.

Joe Rogan 1:10:12 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:10:12 Like I pr- like literally, I prayed for you last night.

Joe Rogan 1:10:15 (laughs) Wow.

Chadd Wright 1:10:15 Like I- I literally, on your behalf, I begged The Almighty to basically make you alive spiritually so that you could have discernment and be able to appraise these things that are in Scripture that s- have seemed like foolishness for so long to you. You know what? They seemed like foolishness for me- to me for a long, long time, dude.

Joe Rogan 1:10:42 What changed?

Chadd Wright 1:10:45 We're talking about a bunch of wild stuff, man, and I want-

Joe Rogan 1:10:47 Can I take you back while we're in the middle of this? I- I'd like to take you back to, like, how you got on this journey of being a podcaster and then to that. Because I want to know, like, what is the transition from the SEALS to becoming this guy who's very outspoken on YouTube and starts putting these videos out and things get interesting, and then you, very, very religious and- and spreading that in your YouTube as well. Like, how did this whole journey get started for you?

Chadd Wright 1:11:17 Well, I had, uh ... I decided I wanted to become a SEAL because I wasn't really good at anything else in life, and I, you know, didn't wanna go back to school and all that stuff. That's a whole long story, but I decided I wanted to do that. Uh, uh, finally, I went to join the Navy. Had- I- they disqualified me, sent me back home after boot camp, wouldn't let me go to BUD/S, told me I never would be able to become a SEAL because I had a pericardial cyst on my heart, seven-centimeter cyst on my heart. You can look it up. Research "Navy SEAL pericardial cyst." You can read the whole medical journal. I'm the only one. Came back home, paid for my own heart surgery as a civilian, showed back up in the Navy less than a year later, made it all the way through SEAL training unscathed.

Joe Rogan 1:12:04 So what'd they have to do? They have to remove the cyst?

Chadd Wright 1:12:06 Yeah, they had to cut my chest open and take a big old cyst out of my heart.

Joe Rogan 1:12:09 How big is the- did they have to open your ribs, the whole deal?

Chadd Wright 1:12:12 About from here to here.

Joe Rogan 1:12:13 Oh, so they go through the ribs?

Chadd Wright 1:12:14 Yeah, they peeled my pec up.

Joe Rogan 1:12:15 Ooh.

Chadd Wright 1:12:16 Peeled it up, cut me open right there, went in there and took that cyst out.

Joe Rogan 1:12:19 How long did it take to recover from that?

Chadd Wright 1:12:21 Took me about a year. I was back in the Navy about a year after that surgery, uh, you know. But- but I- i- if it- if it wouldn't have been for that, I wouldn't have made it through SEAL training, man. I didn't even know how to swim, dude. I didn't even know how to swim.

Joe Rogan 1:12:33 That's crazy.

Chadd Wright 1:12:34 I- I- I- I was the most unlikely person to ever make it through SEAL training. Okay? Hands down.

Joe Rogan 1:12:41 Did you have any background in physical fitness?

Chadd Wright 1:12:44 No.

Joe Rogan 1:12:44 Nothing?

Chadd Wright 1:12:45 Lord, no, I didn't, man.

Joe Rogan 1:12:46 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:12:47 It took me- it took me two or three months to pass a mile and a half run.

Joe Rogan 1:12:51 Wow.

Chadd Wright 1:12:52 Yeah. Made it through SEAL training, all this and that good stuff. I had a very colorful career. Uh, started off real good, got real bad. I mean, I've been through it all. I've been ... I- in SEAL training at the end of our BUD/S prep phase, you know, I was awarded the Hard Charger Award, you know. Everybody selected me. The instructor cadre said, "You're the one that's gonna make it." I was actually the only one to ever receive that award to make it through that training pipeline. Everyone else they had selected up until that point all quit. But they selected me not based on my physical abilities, but based on the fact that I had had a dang heart surgery just to have a chance to toe the line, to try something that everybody quits anyways.

Joe Rogan 1:13:38 So did you train for the SEAL training? Did you, like, give yourself enough time-

Chadd Wright 1:13:42 Af-

Joe Rogan 1:13:42 ... to get physically fit?

Chadd Wright 1:13:43 After that heart surgery, when I went in the first time, I could barely pass the physical standards test that I needed to pass to get the SEAL contract. If I woulda went straight through and wouldn't have had that heart surgery, there's no way I woulda made it. I wouldn't have been able to meet the physical standards once I actually got to BUD/S. There's no way. But when I had that heart surgery-And then I finally got to where I could, you know... Okay. Man, I wa- At that point, I wanted it so bad because I had to go through all that. You see what I'm saying?

Narrator 1:14:13 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:14:13 I didn't want it that bad until I had to go through all that pain and, and fear, and have my chest cut open and all this crap. But, man, when I came out the other end of that, like I said, man, I was like a game rooster, man. It was like you look into the eye of a game rooster and he's got one burning hot desire is to fight. Man, you a man who appreciates combat sports, you ought to go watch a cockfight one day.

Narrator 1:14:39 I've seen.

Chadd Wright 1:14:39 I mean, just, that's what I had.

Narrator 1:14:40 Yeah.

Chadd Wright 1:14:40 I just had this burning hot desire to- for this thing. Nothing was gonna stop me. Made it all the way through. Man, I had a, a lot of ups and downs in my time in the teams. Uh, that's a whole ... That's, that's a three-hour-long story. But basically-

Narrator 1:15:00 We got plenty of time.

Chadd Wright 1:15:01 Basically, man, I, I got to my SEAL team and they had slotted our entire team to, uh, cover down on Africa and a couple other European countries, and, uh, I got so pissed 'cause I'm like, "There's a war happening." Like, that's the reason I joined. Like, everybody that joined wants to go and fight in this war, and here now I'm wind up at this place that's, you know, not gonna go where everybody wants to go. I got so hateful, and, uh, through the course of a couple of years, I just got involved in all manner of what I would call sin. All manner. Drunkenness, uh, sleeping around with women, hurting people on purpose. Hateful, terrible person. I didn't love anybody. And, uh, the, the, the whole down- the- what, what the downfall of it is I was overseas, I was on a- I- w- and we had a range day. The night before, I had went out and then just burned it down, son.

Narrator 1:16:23 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:16:24 I had no business going to the range that day, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you. But what do you do? You get up and go to the range, right? I'm sitting over there on the range, messing with my gun, pretty out of it, and I have a negligent discharge, and the guy that's standing beside me is my gunner's mate, and it barely skims him in the side of his leg.

Narrator 1:16:47 (exhales)

Chadd Wright 1:16:48 The- it was pointed down, thank God. Pointed down. That happened, and that was the thing that, like, like, stopped me in my tracks. Like, "Holy crap, Chad, if you keep going the way that you're going, you're gonna kill somebody." You know what I mean? I mean, I was involved in all manner of sin, buddy. Stopped me right there. I had to go through a trident review board, a, a disciplinary review board, a captain's mass, the whole nine yards. Luckily, I had a good enough reputation up to that point that I had guys that, that vouched for me, specifically my sea daddy, Jake Hubman. He, he, he wrote a whole long thing. "Chad's, Chad's done well. He's this is..." You know, this and that, and they presented that, and the Navy let me stay in, keep my trident. Well, went back home, moved in with some lesbians-

Narrator 1:17:44 (laughs)

Chadd Wright 1:17:45 ... still continuing on this, this path or this just trajectory of just ugliness, just hatefulness. You know what I mean? But I had kinda started hiding it a little more, (laughs) you know, while I was at work. I was like, "Okay, if I'm gonna have to go to work, I'm gonna have to square myself away a little bit." Um, you know, tell you how hateful I was, this man, Jake Hubman, my sea daddy, he, uh, um, he started struggling with alcoholism shortly after I had that big mistake. Well, I- I got back in the platoon and, uh, they told us, they said, "Well, you know, Jake's struggling with alcoholism. We're sending him off to this rehab program." They said, uh, "Just leave him alone." Well, remember I told you I can forget people exist? I just forgot he existed. A couple months later, he killed his self. That's what kind of friend I was. That's what kind of person I was. Here's this guy who... That's the kind of person that I still am sometimes today. What a, wha- there, there is, there's literally nothing good in me. I'm convinced of that. Here's this man who had poured so much into me, literally trained me up, taught me the ways of war. It's on account of his mentorship probably that I was able to stay alive throughout the course of my career, and I just turned my back on him when he was going through the hardest time of his life. He kills his self. I don't ever get to make that up. I just ignored him. Uh, that's the kind of- does this describe to you the type of person that I was?

Narrator 1:19:24 Yeah, for sure.

Chadd Wright 1:19:24 That's pretty bad, ain't it, brother? I mean, that's pretty bad. That's pretty ugly.

Narrator 1:19:28 Understandably selfish given the circumstances.

Chadd Wright 1:19:31 So I get back in a platoon, get ready, deploy again. I'm keeping my wickedness c- under control, you know, outwardly, but it's still all there, man. Well, we go up to Tunisia and North Africa, and Arabs attacked the embassy up there when all that Benghazi and that stuff went down. Uh, it happened all over North Africa. So we went up there, re-secured the embassy. We came back.

Chadd Wright 1:20:03 We left there and came back to Germany.... to re-jock our equipment because that mission was over in Tunisia. Came back to Germany to re-jock and then we were going out to Nigeria. And while we were in Germany, the only way for me to tell you this in- in just simple terms is we were staying in a barracks that