Transcript

0:00:00 Intro Montage

[...]

00:00:51 Intro

I am the experiment. You can write your own story. Not stop trying and don't give into the fear. Before we get started, make sure you're connected wherever you listen. Follow us on Spotify YouTube. X so you never miss an episode.

00:01:07 Mark Irwin

Born and raised in — I was born in San Francisco, California. I grew up here in Southern California.

00:01:16 Justin McMillen

Okay.

00:01:16 Mark Irwin

These days I'm in Huntington Beach.

00:01:19 Justin McMillen

And you're from San Francisco. Did you go to high school there?

00:01:21 Mark Irwin

No. We moved down to San Diego initially at a very young age, and then Orange County soon after that. So I grew up in South Orange County. I went to high school at Capistrano Valley High School.

00:01:36 Justin McMillen

Okay. Yeah.

00:01:37 Mark Irwin

I ran track and field at Saddleback College.

00:01:41 Justin McMillen

You got brothers and sisters?

00:01:42 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I was the third of four. My mom had two kids from her first marriage. Then they separated and my father and mother had two more. Myself and my little sister. So we all grew up together, but I have two older half siblings and one younger sister.

00:02:05 Justin McMillen

How much older?

00:02:06 Mark Irwin

Let's see — ten years, six and a half years age gap between the older siblings. And then my younger sister is two years my junior.

00:02:19 Justin McMillen

So they weren't really — they were a part of your life, but probably not that much before you remember. The two older ones.

00:02:26 Mark Irwin

I mean, like I said, we all grew up together. I had a bunk bed with my older brother, so, you know. Yeah, we were — we all grew up together.

00:02:40 Justin McMillen

Nice, nice. And, mom and dad — tell me about your parents.

00:02:42 Mark Irwin

My dad worked in finance when I was a kid. He was the vice president for Bank of America mortgage. So he traveled a lot. He made good money doing that. My mom was a branch manager for Wells Fargo.

00:03:08 Justin McMillen

Bankers?

00:03:09 Mark Irwin

Yeah.

00:03:09 Justin McMillen

You didn't go into banking?

00:03:10 Mark Irwin

No. No I didn't. I dropped out of college and started fighting.

00:03:13 Justin McMillen

How were you in school? Were you a good student?

00:03:14 Mark Irwin

I did well on tests, but I struggled with motivation and focus and things like that. So I would cut class a lot. I started smoking weed and drinking and smoking cigarettes in high school. Getting into trouble, getting in fights. I got expelled from high school for smoking weed in my junior year.

00:03:27 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Were you like the misfit kid even in middle school or...

00:03:30 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I was always kind of a class clown. I think it was middle child syndrome, actually, looking back. Right. Because I was the third of four. I think sometimes it's easy to kind of get lost in the wash, so to speak. So I was always — I always loved the spotlight. Right. Which makes sense now, right. Explains why I wound up professional prize fighting. Because it's all about you, right? Like, hey, look at me. Yeah. Type of thing. So, yeah, I was always acting out, goofing off in middle school and high school. ADD kind of thing. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've never been diagnosed, but I think I definitely fit the parameters of ADD or ADHD.

00:04:09 Justin McMillen

Her mom and dad — were mom and dad like, were you just like a nightmare for them? Or was it just like, this is just how boys are and we have to...

00:04:09 Mark Irwin

Yeah. So, I mean, my dad was very strict, right? I kind of had sort of two experiences because I was my dad's first kid, so he was very, like, overbearing and wanted me to be like this perfect child. And then my mom — I was the third of four, so she was kind of a lot more relaxed. Or I was just like, I didn't have to even come home. Like it didn't matter. She was unconcerned. But I definitely gave my parents a lot of headaches. Like I said, I got expelled from high school. After high school, the drug and alcohol abuse continued.

00:04:48 Justin McMillen

Were you an athlete in high school?

00:04:49 Mark Irwin

No, I wasn't actually. In fact, I was the worst athlete out of all my siblings by far. I cried so I didn't have to play Triple-A baseball, right? Like, I was a terrible athlete. I played sports as a kid — like an outdoor swim team, baseball. I did a year of taekwondo. I did like a year of wrestling. So we played sports. But I was always a terrible athlete, and I didn't enjoy doing it. It wasn't until after high school I got into running and fitness because I was just chubby and overweight from drinking and eating fast food, and I didn't want to be chubby anymore. So I got really into running, and I got good at it, and I started to enjoy it.

00:05:30 Justin McMillen

Was this before college or was it like...

00:05:33 Mark Irwin

Yeah, it was like before college. I was like 18, fresh out of high school. So I started running a lot. I decided to try out for the junior college team. And ran at Saddleback, which was a great experience. I was a decent runner, but I wasn't gonna, you know, get a scholarship or anything like that.

00:06:09 Justin McMillen

But what does this runner look like? What were your events and what kind of times?

00:06:11 Mark Irwin

I did the 1500 and the 3000. And so, like, my 1500 time was like 4:20. But the real benefit of it was that it got me in really good shape. It taught me how to train like a professional athlete. Right. It was very regimented. You had to show up to all the practices or you didn't compete. We had recovery after training — would get an ice bath and see the trainers. So it really laid a foundation for my athletic life. After college, because I ended up dropping out and I was looking for something to do athletically, and one of my friends brought me to a boxing gym.

00:06:33 Justin McMillen

420 is fast as fuck though. I mean, I think that's a mile time, right?

00:06:36 Mark Irwin

Yeah. It's like 100 meters short of a mile, I think.

00:06:41 Justin McMillen

So at some point — there's clearly an athlete in here, right? Like, yeah, you're like, maybe there's something to it.

00:06:55 Mark Irwin

Yeah.

00:06:55 Justin McMillen

Well, running is good too because it'll make you tough. Right. Like, all running is, is pain. The faster that you run and the farther that you run, the more painful it is. Right? So when you get good at that, that's a very transferable talent that crosses over to boxing.

00:07:14 Mark Irwin

Well, right. The ability to endure pain and to keep going.

00:07:17 Justin McMillen

When you're in school, were you headed towards something where you like, this is the career I want to do? Or did you actually make the choice after high school?

00:07:40 Mark Irwin

I took classes at community college because I didn't know what else to do. But I never really enjoyed school initially. I did the film program because I liked movies. But in doing the work, I realized I didn't like the industry. I didn't like the actual work of being on set for like 16 hours a day and everything that goes along with that. So I switched to kinesiology as I had taken an interest in fitness and athletics. And that's what I studied until I dropped out. And it was about that point — working in gyms, competing as an amateur boxer, doing private training and managing gyms.

00:08:06 Justin McMillen

So I keep saying — no, no, you're too slow in your... yeah, there's a lot, right? For sure. I want to hear all the little nuance. I'm super curious about what builds people. Yeah. And I find even when I sit here, sometimes people don't even know until you start talking about it, it's like, oh shit. Yeah. Like something about running was really important. Or even the way you're describing your youth — it's like you've always run things your own way. You got in trouble for it. Yeah. And you've got a lot of energy, but nobody knew where to direct it. For sure. And I think it's really important for young men to have purpose and have somewhere that they can put their energy into. Right. Because otherwise they just end up getting into nefarious activities and causing trouble. Right. And that was certainly my experience as a young man after high school. What would you say to a young guy who's listening to this? Maybe like 15, 14, clearly been labeled a misfit — just constantly causing problems. What advice would you give them if you think back?

00:09:01 Mark Irwin

I mean, that's a good question. I guess just — for one, knock the fuck off, right? Get your head out of your ass and quit causing trouble. Right. Because my experience after high school was drugs, alcohol, jail, rehab. Right. Before I started going to school and running track and field and boxing and all those things. I had a lot of run-ins with the law, with rehab. I ended up in a major hardcore men's recovery home in Anaheim — Brookfield, I was at the men's Third Step House of Anaheim, I think it was called. It's very regimented, very disciplined. Right. I was in a room with eight other dudes. It was crazy — working at a call center, getting cussed out all day to try and make money to pay my rent, and going to AA meetings in between. So I know where that leads, right? Because you're in high school, you think you're just fucking off with your friends, ditching class, and that turns into getting picked up by the police and going to jail and getting kicked out of your place and burning bridges and all the things that go along with it. Right. And it happens fast. I train kids these days in the gym, and so I can recognize it right when I see it. Yeah. And because I see myself in them, I'm hard on those kids. I'll rip them a new one, you know, because I know where that goes. And I tell them where that goes. So I think it's important to have something that you're passionate about. I think that's another thing too. I think a lot of people, sadly, lack a passion in their life. Or maybe they lack the courage to go after and pursue something that they're passionate about. You know, for me, I started really late in life. I didn't start boxing until my 20s.

00:11:04 Justin McMillen

Boxing, the amateurs, won a couple state tournaments. That was fun. It was like fulfilling. And how did you start — it cut you off. Yeah. How did you get — what was the initial introduction to boxing? Yeah. Take me to that moment. Like, how did it go?

00:11:24 Mark Irwin

Yeah. I had dropped out of college. I wasn't running anymore, but I was in shape, and I was looking for something to do athletically. I loved watching UFC and boxing, and some friends of mine had been taking lessons from a boxing trainer. And so they brought me along one day, and on like day one, they made me spar all my friends. I beat the shit out of all my friends, and I had fun doing it. So I started training regularly. The first gym I started training at was L.A. Boxing Aliso Viejo, which doesn't exist anymore. L.A. Boxing got bought out by UFC Gym. But it was a big chain in Southern California.

00:12:05 Justin McMillen

Do you remember rolling in there? Like, you see all the people in there?

00:12:06 Mark Irwin

Yeah. What was the culture of the gym like at the time? L.A. Boxing was — it was a hidden gem, right? It was in South Orange County, of all places. But when I started going there, Jesse Reed Sr. was training fighters out of there. He's a Hall of Fame boxing coach. He had over 30 world champions, and he was training Malik Scott, who was one of the top heavyweights in the world at that time, and then Reece Bennett, who was like one of the top amateurs in the country. And so they would make me spar Reece, and Reece would beat the brakes off of me. But it was like a really incredible experience to get to learn from such high level boxers and such a high level trainer. Right. My first coach was the assistant to Jesse Reed Sr. So he would hold pads for the guys because Jesse was up there in age. So I was training — I was having a lot of fun doing it. I decided I would take one amateur fight just for fun. Before that happened — the more, like, when. So when you're going in and you're hitting pads with this guy and you got this world famous boxing coach there, do you remember him taking an interest in wanting to teach you more?

00:13:30 Justin McMillen

Was there a moment where...

00:13:31 Mark Irwin

No, he was focused on his guys. But his assistant worked with me and was willing to corner me. And I decided I wanted to just take one fight just for fun, because I thought I could knock somebody out. And I thought it would be a funny story, right? Like, do it for the plot. So I did, and I won by knockout, and I had a lot of fun. And shortly thereafter, I got a job at the gym teaching classes. Right. So I was like, oh cool, I can train for free.

00:14:08 Justin McMillen

How long were you — because that was pretty quick. Was it within a year?

00:14:09 Mark Irwin

Yeah.

00:14:10 Justin McMillen

No shit. Yeah. So you're natural.

00:14:11 Mark Irwin

I mean, I could punch hard and I was in shape and I could take a punch, so I had that going for me. As far as footwork and actual technique — yeah, I started late, so I would definitely rely on my toughness and my punching power and things like that. I could beat guys that were better boxers than me because I would just break them down. Right. So I was knocking people out in the amateurs and having fun doing it. Like I said, I won a couple of state championships with USA Boxing. And then that was towards the later half of my 20s. I decided I didn't want to turn professional for all the reasons that it makes sense not to — like, you're not going to make any money. You started too late, you're going to get hurt. This, that, and the other.

00:14:50 Justin McMillen

Did you have it in your head though, like, maybe I'll go down this path? Was that at any point like, I'm going to go — were you looking at UFC at all?

00:14:51 Mark Irwin

No, I wasn't, and it was never really my intention to be a fighter. Like I said, I didn't initially even look to find the gym. I got brought to a gym, I enjoyed doing it, so I kept doing it. My initial goal was to have one fight just for a laugh and to see if I could. And then I got a job at the gym and they're like, well, you work here now, I should keep fighting, right? And so I did. I competed throughout my 20s. And again, that was very fulfilling. But ultimately I decided I was done with boxing. I spent a year as a referee for USA Boxing, like judging and reffing fights, which was a cool experience and very educational.

00:15:54 Justin McMillen

What did your banker mom and dad think of your life at this point?

00:15:56 Mark Irwin

I mean, they were cool. They were proud. They would go to all my fights — my dad would definitely go to all my fights. He was pretty good with the camera, so he'd film them and take photos and stuff. Yeah. But he always encouraged me to quit fighting and go back to college because he had multiple graduate degrees, and that was his pathway to success. And so he would always tell me to go to college, but I knew it was not for me. Yeah. But I mean, they were always supportive of what I did. And like I said, as a young man, I had a lot of struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, and I was very much separated from my family at that point. So after going to rehab and getting sober for an extended period of time and then going back to school, getting a job, getting my own place, getting back on my feet — that sort of thing. They were very proud.

00:16:39 Justin McMillen

Nice. Definitely. That's amazing though. So you were just like, some weird anomaly, because you're going in and you're knocking fools out right away and then you're not even into it. You're just like...

00:16:58 Mark Irwin

I mean, yeah, I was doing it for fun. I love doing it. Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I grew up watching boxing and UFC. And professional wrestling. So those were a lot of my first heroes as a young child. Right. And I think on some level, most men at some point in their life fantasize about getting in a professional prize fighting ring or a cage, right, and knocking somebody out and everything that comes with it. Right? All the rock star shit. And so it was really cool to get to do all that stuff. It kept going farther and farther because it was never something that I — I wasn't like, I'm going to be a pro. Like, that was never my goal. I just sort of did it and then I was just encouraged to keep doing it.

00:17:41 Justin McMillen

Did you bring that — so my experience, most fighters that I know, and I've had a chance to meet some amazing people — they're pretty calm. And there's like nothing to prove in everyday life. Yeah. For sure. Is that how you were at the time, or were you going to bars and trying to get in fights? Like, I'm going to carry this out into the street?

00:18:10 Mark Irwin

No, no. I mean, like I said, as a young man in high school and thereafter when I was drinking and using a lot of drugs, I was getting into trouble and things like that, getting into fights. But once I started training, I really left it in the gym. In fact, there's only one time I ever got into a street fight after I had started training. This was probably over ten years ago. I was like in my mid-20s. I had roommates. And, I was an amateur boxer who worked at the gym. My roommate, him and his friends are out drinking. They come back to the house and they're making a bunch of noise. My girlfriend at the time is sleeping over and she's like, I can't sleep. So I keep going out there, like, hey guys, could you keep it down? Right. Like, after like the third or fourth time, one of them — big buff guy — starts yapping at me, and we get into it and I hit the dude a couple of times. I accidentally broke his nose, his jaw, his orbital bone, one of his teeth. Right. Like, he attacked me. There's a whole sheriff's investigation — it was a whole thing that went on for like six months before I was absolved of any wrongdoing. But that was the only time I ever got into a fight after I started training. And that was a real wake-up call for me. Cause I was like, oh, like — I hit the guy one time, he went flying across the room, right? So I always made it a point not to get into trouble because, you know, I had that near miss. And I realized — there was some Netflix thing where it was like, one punch and guys were killing people. It happens all the time. And that's the thing — punch resistance is a physical attribute just like any other, right? Like, if you never run and you go run a marathon, you're going to get seriously hurt. If you've never lifted weights and you go to a CrossFit class, you're going to get seriously hurt. And if you've never been hit — especially by somebody that is trained and knows how to hit — right, you can get very seriously hurt. It's people hitting the back of their head on the way down — that's what happens. They get knocked out because they've never been hit like that before, and then they fall and they hit the back of their head on the concrete. The earth weighs trillions of pounds, right? So the impact of that can be very detrimental. Causes a brain bleed. And that's what makes people go into a coma and die.

00:20:18 Justin McMillen

Why do you think fighters are so peaceful outside of training and the ring?

00:20:19 Mark Irwin

That's a good question. And that's something I get asked a lot, actually. I think it's one — kind of like you mentioned — you don't have anything to prove, right? Like, if you want to watch me fight, you can YouTube me. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not trying to prove anything to people at a bar. Because you have an understanding of violence. Like I said, that fight I got into — I didn't even realize I hit the guy one time. I crushed the dude's face, and I was like, oh, like I have to be more responsible because now I'm a trained fighter. I could seriously hurt people if I'm not careful. There's that. And then I think because you're training all the time, right? Like, you're constantly pushing yourself against other elite athletes. You guys are trying to kill each other all the time in the gym. You're so tired afterwards a lot of the time, like you don't have the energy to get mad or fuck with other people.

00:21:18 Justin McMillen

Yeah.

00:21:18 Mark Irwin

So yeah, that's serene. Just like the post-workout. Just like you're just, not in the mode. Yeah, somebody gets all chesty and you're just like, whatever, man. But I think a lot of that — just in this, as you refer to people starting fights with people — that's individuals trying to prove themselves, right? Because I think on some level that is like a primal urge or instinct of ours — to fight and defend the tribe and things like that, to be a warrior. And so when you don't have a place to exercise those demons and scratch that itch, right, it's going to start to manifest itself in other areas of life that are not appropriate, like at a bar.

00:22:05 Justin McMillen

That's right. What have you — I think that's true. You think every man should learn to fight?

00:22:07 Mark Irwin

I think every person should train martial arts. And I'll tell you why. Martial arts is a life skill. Just like swimming is a life skill, right? You could live your whole life and not know how to swim. Just don't go in the water. That's fine. But if your ass falls off a boat, you're going to wish you knew how to swim, right? And it could save your life. Fighting is the same way. You can be a pacifist. You can go out of your way to avoid problems with people. But statistically, 1 in 4 individuals are victims of violent crimes. That's 25%, right? And that's just reported. It's probably higher than that. So the likelihood of you getting into a physical altercation at some point in your life is high. And like we discussed, a lot of people get hit one time and they die, right, because their body didn't know how to take it. They didn't know how to behave and react in that situation. So yeah, martial arts is a life skill. Just like swimming is a life skill. Everybody should know how to do those things because God forbid you need to use those abilities — it could save you.

00:23:05 Justin McMillen

That's really good. I'm glad you said that. It'll be a good clip by the way.

00:23:05 Mark Irwin

Yeah.

00:23:05 Justin McMillen

Yeah. I think — I mean it's — we're getting farther and farther away from just our natural selves as a species. Right.

00:23:23 Mark Irwin

Yes.

00:23:23 Justin McMillen

I think about this all the time. As far as biological evolution. Right. And anthropology. Yeah. The way that we were designed in nature tens of thousands of years ago is very different than how we're living now. Right.

00:23:42 Mark Irwin

Talk more about that. What do you think about that?

00:23:43 Justin McMillen

Yeah, I do actually. Right. Like, we've built these artificial ecosystems to insulate ourselves from the outside world, which is great because you don't have to worry about a bobcat eating you or your family and loved ones. Right? You can control the weather with heating and cooling and things like that. You don't have to worry about storms. But it's not natural. You weren't designed to sit in a chair for 8 to 12 hours a day and stare at small screens, to make imaginary money, to buy shit that you don't really need to impress people that you don't really like.

00:24:25 Mark Irwin

Yeah. Right.

00:24:25 Justin McMillen

And a lot of the health problems — physical, mental, and emotional — are a result of the fact that we're not living naturalistic lifestyles that we were designed by nature to live. Nature is brilliant in its design. Right. Like it doesn't miss. But through our own meddling and tampering, we've gotten so far away from how we were designed to live. And that's why obesity and mental health is an epidemic globally. What do we do about it?

00:24:54 Mark Irwin

I agree with you 150,000%, by the way. And anyone who knows me and hears you saying this is like, man, these two are meant to be on the same show together, because I say the exact same thing all the time.

00:24:56 Justin McMillen

But what do we do? How do we address this?

00:25:13 Mark Irwin

Well, as you know, I'm a big advocate for plant medicine. I think plant medicine could benefit virtually everybody because it addresses mental, emotional, and physical trauma in the body. We all experience trauma over the course of our lives. It's inescapable, suffering traumatic events. Right. Like, everything that you love will come and go. You know, it's part of the process. And psychedelics can be greatly beneficial in that area, right — as far as helping people heal. It's been hugely beneficial to me in that respect, as far as healing from all the injuries that I've incurred in the ring, all the injuries that I've incurred in life outside of the ring through drug and alcohol abuse. And like I said, all the violence and craziness that I got caught up in as a young man. So I'm a big advocate for plant medicine and I'm a huge advocate for fitness, health and wellness, nutrition. Right. Like healthy living. And that's what I really try to focus on these days — being healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Plant medicine and exercise are two of the cornerstones of that foundation.

00:26:54 Justin McMillen

Got it. That's a — I mean, I'm really curious to hear more about that, because I know that's part of your journey as an athlete, which we'll talk about. Yeah. So jumping back into your story though — you were going to quit. I'm loving this by the way.

00:26:54 Mark Irwin

I appreciate you, my friend.

00:26:54 Justin McMillen

Yeah. So you were going to quit boxing. You're like, I'm not — this is not a life. You're in your late 20s. So what did you do then? This is right around Covid time, roughly.

00:27:14 Mark Irwin

Yeah. I spent a year as a USA Boxing official — judging and refereeing. And again, that was cool. It was educational. I learned a lot about that side of the sport. But it really didn't set my soul on fire. At the time I was in a relationship. You know, we lived in the suburbs. We had a dog, we went to brunch. I was like, bored, you know?

00:27:33 Justin McMillen

I was like, fat and — right, I'm a ref.

00:27:33 Mark Irwin

Yeah. And I started microdosing because I read that it was good for people who have had traumatic brain injuries. I'd had lots of concussions. Yeah. For sure. As a result of, you know, fighting throughout my 20s, it's inevitable. I had countless concussions. I don't even know how many.

00:27:49 Justin McMillen

As far as your style when you're in boxing — where you just...

00:27:51 Mark Irwin

I would block punches with my face.

00:28:06 Justin McMillen

I was curious about that.

00:28:06 Mark Irwin

Yeah. I would take one and keep going. The good Lord blessed me with a hard punch and a hard chin, and so I would lean on those too much, right? I didn't develop the defensive skills that I should have, which is why I had so many concussions. And, you know, we've become more and more educated about concussions, traumatic brain injuries, CTE over the last ten years. But again, it's been a progressive thing — as far as becoming educated and training smarter and things like that.

00:28:33 Justin McMillen

You know, you remind me — I don't want to piss you off in case you don't like them, but, you know, Nate and Nick Diaz.

00:28:53 Mark Irwin

Yeah. Yeah, I'm familiar with them. I've met Nate in passing once or twice.

00:28:53 Justin McMillen

You've got a similar vibe. Okay. Like, his is way more Stockton. Yeah. For sure his thing. But the amazing endurance. Right. And the iron chin. And just...

00:29:09 Mark Irwin

Yeah. I mean, Nick Diaz was one of my favorite fighters as a young man. And he was someone that I wanted to be like. I wanted to go in there, just throw a million punches and flip people off and... yeah, you know.

00:29:30 Justin McMillen

Yeah, I get it. I could see it. Yeah. So, okay — so your traumatic brain injury, concussions. Were you feeling the symptoms of that?

00:29:30 Mark Irwin

Definitely. It wasn't too pronounced at that point. But my memory was not what it used to be. Definitely. I think it had a little bit of an impact on my speech, things like that. So I was — and then I just didn't want to be afflicted by this down the road, right. Because I know it's a progressive thing that accumulates over time. So I was looking for something to help get ahead of it. I had read that psilocybin was good for traumatic brain injury recovery, so I started microdosing.

00:29:52 Justin McMillen

What did you read about it? Do you remember?

00:29:56 Mark Irwin

You know, it's been so long now. This is over ten years ago. Yeah. Right. You just heard that people were doing it, right? That was...

00:30:11 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Yeah, I've heard the same. It's like, yeah, potentially new neural pathways, right? There's activity and blood flow in the brain. Maybe that's different or I don't know.

00:30:18 Mark Irwin

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely more of an expert on this than I am, for sure. But yeah. So I started microdosing and I started using it with my workouts and I loved it. I got really positive results. And like I said, psilocybin gave me the motivation to turn professional. It made me — I think — a much more optimistic and brave person. For a long time I was very much a realist and a pessimist, and I was like, it doesn't make sense. You're not going to make any money, you're going to get hurt, this and that. But when I started microdosing, it kind of awoke that fire in me to want to get in there and compete at a high level. And I stopped worrying about the end result. And I thought, like, what if I just had those experiences just for me, you know what I mean? And those experiences being — fighting. Yeah, boxing professionally. And so I decided to turn professional. I made my professional boxing debut in Tijuana, Mexico in September of 2020, because they weren't doing fights in the US.

00:31:18 Justin McMillen

If you go to Mexico to boxing — yeah, because everything was shut down. Right. About — that sounds so sketchy, right? Yeah. Everything was shut down and the government was sending me checks, so I was just training all the time, right? I got in shape and I was like, cool. I'm going to chase a dream, right? And I'm going to check that box.

00:31:36 Mark Irwin

I'm going to box professionally. So I get it, because I think people hearing this are thinking like, you're jumping in your truck or your car, whatever you're driving, going over the border, going to some weird back alley place — bars, boxing and bars. Yeah. My first fight, actually, it was in the parking lot of a baseball stadium because it was September of 2020, so it had to be outside. So they built a ring in the parking lot, and then people drove their cars up to the ring and parked all around it like a drive-in movie. And they sat on top of their cars and watched the fights.

00:32:14 Justin McMillen

Oh man.

00:32:14 Mark Irwin

Yeah, the referee had a mask on. It was crazy. But yeah, that was my first pro fight.

00:32:16 Justin McMillen

And then by 2021 they moved it back inside. Oh, is that like — what was — you remember?

00:32:25 Mark Irwin

Oh yeah. Absolutely. I remember that whole week really well. We would go stay in Rosarito for fight week, cutting weight. My coach Bobby Chavez — his family had an apartment down there. So we'd stay in Rosarito.

00:32:32 Justin McMillen

Let you go down there?

00:32:34 Mark Irwin

Me and my two coaches.

00:32:35 Justin McMillen

You're like, I'm the next guy.

00:32:39 Mark Irwin

No, no, we really did the thing right. I made a decision that when I was going to turn pro, that I was going to give it my very best effort so that whatever happened, I could live with the result and not have to think, well, what if I did this differently? So yeah, like we'd go down there, fight week, stay there all week, cut weight, make weight, fight. This is bare knuckle? No, no, this is glove boxing. Glove boxing. Okay. Yeah. Fight. And then afterwards we'd go to the strip club and get tacos and beers and celebrate. It was a great time. I was having the time of my life boxing in Mexico.

00:33:12 Justin McMillen

Who are the other fighters? Were they all Mexicans?

00:33:14 Mark Irwin

Yeah. Yeah. Fighting guys from Tijuana. And then, gringo guy shows up. Yeah. And that's how it works — guys in the States often go down there to get fights, because it's easier to get fights in Mexico. The athletic commission will fast track it. They do the same testing. Yeah. It's all professional glove boxing. But yeah, so my first couple fights were down there in Tijuana and that was a lot of fun. It was a really rewarding experience. I got to have those experiences of being a professional fighter. And I wanted to travel more, so I got to do that. But ultimately I knew it wasn't going anywhere. You know? I wasn't going to win a world championship as a professional boxer. And then one day I saw on my phone that BKFC — Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships — was having open tryouts in Tampa, Florida. And I had seen it the day before on YouTube. I was watching fights. I was like, oh my God, this is crazy, right? And after watching some fights, I thought, I could beat most of the guys that I just watched, you know, like I'm better than a lot of those guys. And then the next day I see they're having open tryouts. I was like, is this a sign from the universe? Said, fuck it. I bought a plane ticket. I flew to Tampa. 50 guys showed up. They said they were going to sign five guys, and I was one of them. And that was back in like January of 2021. So after that point, I started traveling the country with the bare knuckle boxing promotions here in the US.

00:34:56 Justin McMillen

Let's talk about this transition. Because it's wildly different. I mean, if you just say you're hitting a heavy bag and you've got gloves on versus not — yeah, really different experience. How was that for you?

00:35:01 Mark Irwin

I definitely made a lot of changes to my preparation. The biggest ones being I brought on Ian McCall, who's a former UFC fighter and MMA world champion, because the rules in bare knuckle boxing are a little bit different — you're allowed to hold and clinch a lot more. It's called dirty boxing. And Ian is a world class grappler. He's a jiu-jitsu black belt. So we brought him on to the team to help me learn how to fight on the inside more effectively. And then we started training primarily with MMA fighters and UFC fighters.

00:35:48 Justin McMillen

As far as training — you're training bare knuckle?

00:35:51 Mark Irwin

No, no — you're training with gloves. You can't, because you'll get too badly injured. Your hands, your face, everything. Right. One of the first things that happens when you get hit with a bare knuckle punch is you're going to swell or you're going to cut, like, instantly. I would cut every fight. It's inevitable.

00:36:07 Justin McMillen

Is it — so Luke and I — Luke's the producer — we were talking about this the other day. My guess was that having the weight in your hand would create more momentum and actually cause more of a concussion. Maybe not as much of a cut, but it seems like you wouldn't be able to get the same force bare knuckle.

00:36:26 Mark Irwin

I disagree. Yeah. And people say that bare knuckle is allegedly better for your health than glove boxing. The reason being accumulated trauma, right? Because subconcussive blows cause CTE and traumatic brain injuries as well. And because you're wearing gloves, you can take more and more punches — like hundreds and hundreds more. However, my own personal experience — I always found that I got the most seriously injured in bare knuckle boxing. I broke my nose. I broke my jaw. I had one of the worst hematomas. My eye would always cut. I've had my eye swell shut in like two fights. Right.

00:37:13 Justin McMillen

So how do you not break your hands?

00:37:13 Mark Irwin

A lot of people do. I never did — I was fortunate. I don't do knuckle conditioning so much, but I was fortunate to have one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in combat sports — Corey Beasley. Shout out to Corey Beasley. And he would have us work on grip strength. Right? Because the stronger your muscles are, the stronger your bones will become, the more dense they become. So building up my hands to become harder. What kind of stuff are you doing for grip strength? Nothing like a farmer carry. Really heavy farmer carries. And then we would take a bucket filled with sand and then a handle with blades on it — you stick it in the sand and just twist it. Things like that.

00:37:56 Justin McMillen

That's cool. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. You start getting that — like, yeah, that road. Like the all-the-strength-turning-wrenches guy. Yeah. Exactly. Same thing. Yeah. So we did a lot of that. And then we would use — what's the name of it? I forget. But he has these devices that are really cool.

00:38:20 Mark Irwin

The harder you pull on them, the more it pulls back. Okay. Right. And so you're doing a lot of explosive, fight-centric type movements with these devices as well. Yeah.

00:38:47 Justin McMillen

Short shout out to Corey Beasley, he sounds cool. So — not breaking your hands. I'm asking just because I think there's a subset of the population that knows a lot about bare knuckle boxing. I think a lot of people don't know anything. So asking these questions is just — yeah, of course — for people to learn.

00:39:05 Mark Irwin

Of course. So you're not breaking your hands — some people do, yeah, all the time. And when people get hurt, it's almost always some sort of injury. It has a 90% finish rate. Most fights end in a knockout, which is not the case in mixed martial arts or glove boxing.

00:39:28 Justin McMillen

So yeah. What was the biggest difference for you between glove boxing versus bare knuckle? Like what was the thing you noticed the most?

00:39:29 Mark Irwin

The pain of the punches is significant. It is a huge contrast taking the glove off. And then the speed of the punches is very fast because the hands aren't weighed down. They're hard to see coming. They come flying. Right. It's a very fast paced, very violent fight. I would not recommend it. Yeah, it was really cool for me. Right. Like I promised my coach Ian McCall — who was one of my favorite fighters growing up — I promised him I'd win him a world championship. And to get to do that and fulfill that promise that I made to him was very, very cool for me personally. To get to travel the country and fight on big stages and train with some of the best fighters in the world — those were some of the greatest experiences of my entire life. And I'm very grateful to have had them. But I'm also grateful that I don't have to do that anymore, because it's a hard life. You're constantly training, fighting a lot of the best fighters in the world in the gym on a weekly basis, getting punched the crap out of you. You're always hungry because you're constantly starved, trying to make weight, trying to fit into these weight classes that are very unrealistic. You know, I weigh 175 pounds today. I won the world championship at 135. It almost killed me to get down to it. Oh my God. Yeah. I'd weigh 135 on a Friday, and then Saturday night after the fight I'd be 155. Like that — you take your shirt off and it's just skin and bones.

00:41:02 Justin McMillen

Skeleton man.

00:41:04 Mark Irwin

So I'm glad I don't have to do that stuff anymore. And I'm glad that I get to do what I do now, which is the research that we're involved in. And I never would have gotten involved with it if it weren't for fighting, right? There's this idea that life gives you all these different moments and then it brings you to where you are. And I think something about realizing that is a pretty spiritual thing. Absolutely. To be here in this moment now — all the things that led to you and I sitting here. It's like, if anything was different, you wouldn't be here today, right? Exactly. If you change anything, you change everything. Yeah. And I'm so fortunate to get to do what I do now. I think it's my true calling and purpose in life. I think it's what the universe wants for me. I really believe that the universe — God, whatever you want to call it — it has plans and designs for us, and it has wants for us. And it's up to us to be able to read between the lines and see the signs. You know, the more I have thought and reflected on things and spent time soul searching — you know, like I said, getting into bare knuckle boxing, I was like, is this a sign from the universe? Yeah. When I spend time really looking for it, I can see the way and I can see what the universe wants for me. And I'm very fortunate to get to do what I do now. I love doing what I do, and it's very rewarding and fulfilling.

00:42:45 Justin McMillen

I want to — yeah, definitely want to get into that in a second. I'm curious, in terms of you fighting the best people in the world — were there any guys that you met where you were just like... were you ever afraid? Yeah, definitely. Who do you respect? Who is it — just like, that guy is just unbelievable. Did you run across a guy in your career — as far as sparring partners, training partners — anyone?

00:43:10 Mark Irwin

I'm sure you're meeting people from all over the world. Yeah. When I made the decision to start fighting bare knuckle, I started training with a lot of MMA fighters. I moved from South Orange County in Dana Point to North Orange County — the Huntington Beach area. And instantly I ended up training with a lot of top UFC guys because that's where they all live and train. Moving to that area put me in that environment. So all of a sudden now I'm the head sparring partner for Cub Swanson, who's a former UFC title challenger. We would spar twice a week for like 5 or 6 weeks when he was getting ready to fight Frankie Edgar and I was getting ready for my BKFC debut. And he would beat the crap out of me. Dude, he absolutely beat the brakes off me. And it sucked. And some days I'd be like, fuck, man, I really don't want to go to the gym today. But I did every time, right? I never skipped out. I never missed a session. And then as a result, going into my fight, I was like, this is going to be easy because this guy's not going to be that good. And I beat the brakes off the dude I fought. It was a huge performance for me and really validated what I was doing and the path that I was on.

00:44:43 Justin McMillen

How did your career — it continued to elevate. What was it at its height?

00:44:45 Mark Irwin

So I made my debut with BKFC. I had a big knockout — this was right when the sport was emerging, I was like 2021. That was in Wichita, Kansas at the Hartman Arena. I knocked out Drake Hatfield in round two.

00:45:03 Justin McMillen

Is there money in it?

00:45:04 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I got paid. I never made great money. It depends on who you are, right. I was a nobody coming into the sport, so I didn't get paid great. If you were a big name from the UFC, you obviously get paid a lot better. But for me, I never really worried about money. I never really have worried about money in life. I think that life is too short. You can't take it with you when you die. And I'm more of an experiences guy, so I do things that I want to do because I'm passionate about it. And then I find ways to make money doing that. But I never do anything with the intent and purpose of making money.

00:45:54 Justin McMillen

That's wise. That's — I don't know anyone who makes a lot of money that doesn't actually do it that way.

00:45:54 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I think it's counterintuitive. I think if you're chasing money, mastery sort of disappears. And if you're chasing mastery at anything — you're trying to be good at something — money follows. Yeah. You know, definitely. I think a lot of people do fall into the trap of chasing money for the sake of having money. And they do things that they don't love. I don't know who has a burning desire in their heart to be like an insurance salesman, you know what I mean? Like, you do that because you make money doing that, and that's okay. It's not a knock on that. We need all kinds of different people to do all kinds of different things to have a fully functioning society. But for me, I never understood that, because I can't do anything that I'm not passionate about. And that's why I struggled with school and would get into a lot of trouble — because I didn't know where to put my energy. And combat sports was really beneficial to me because it gave me a place to put my energy and my passion.

00:47:04 Justin McMillen

There's a question — traditional boxers, bare knuckle boxers, and UFC fighters. Which one is the toughest and why?

00:47:04 Mark Irwin

I mean, I think professional boxers are probably the softest of the three, right? Mixed martial arts requires so many different disciplines — you need to be able to grapple, wrestle, do Muay Thai, punch, kick, elbow, knee, choke. So it requires a more varied skill set, and it's more painful as a result. I think bare knuckle boxing by far is the most painful because there's no protection. That's why gloves were invented — to protect your hands and protect your face. So it's the final frontier. Like there is no protection. And I know a lot of high level guys that are like, man, you're crazy. I would never do that.

00:47:52 Justin McMillen

Yeah, I think a lot of people probably see it that way. Where do you think the sport's going?

00:47:54 Mark Irwin

I mean, from what I understand, it's the fastest growing sport in the world right now. I think it will continue to grow and become more popular in America and abroad. I think that, like everything, things become more and more intense over time as people become more desensitized, right? If you watch television, movies, or listen to music from the 1950s, it's very different than music, television, and movies in the 80s or now. Pornography, all these things — we get desensitized and it resets our baseline, and then we require more and more in order to get the same type of reward, whether it be serotonin, dopamine, that sort of thing. So movies become more violent, music becomes more aggressive, combat sports becomes more brutal. It's the nature of things. So it's heading in that direction in general.

00:48:48 Justin McMillen

You obviously still follow it.

00:49:14 Mark Irwin

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

00:49:14 Justin McMillen

Who are you watching right now?

00:49:14 Mark Irwin

You know, I love to watch the UFC, and I love to watch professional boxing. I don't watch a lot of bare knuckle — it's a little brutal for me personally. It's so violent. It's grotesque. It's hard to watch sometimes. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible sport. And I think if you've never seen a bare knuckle fight live, it's a whole other ball of wax. As a combat sports athlete, it's definitely something to see and experience. But I love watching the UFC. I have a lot of friends that I've trained and competed with. Cub Swanson just retired — I think last week — he was someone I trained with a lot and who had a really big influence on my career as a fighter. So shout out to Cub Swanson.

00:50:05 Justin McMillen

Nice. Nice. I've seen — I mean, you were right about this — this whole community is just filled with fighters everywhere you go. You can't go anywhere without running into somebody from the UFC.

00:50:21 Mark Irwin

Yeah.

00:50:21 Justin McMillen

Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach are two huge fight hubs worldwide, right? Some of the best fighters in the world live in these two towns. There's a lot of the best gyms in the world. So again, that's why I moved up to the area when I was getting ready for my bare knuckle debut — because I wanted to be in the midst of it so that I had more access to training partners, coaches, and gyms. Do you know how that area became the sort of mecca?

00:50:46 Mark Irwin

That's a good question. So in the early 90s, when the UFC began, there was — Paul Herrera — he was running the wrestling program at Golden West College. And he knew the matchmaker for the UFC. And so he was sending wrestlers to go fight in the original no-rules UFC tournaments — guys like Tito Ortiz, Rampage Jackson... shoot, I'm drawing a blank. Tank Abbott — one of the original UFC guys — was a Huntington Beach local. So as a result, a lot of the first MMA fighters came from Huntington Beach. And so a lot of gyms — Brazilian jiu-jitsu gyms, Muay Thai gyms — started popping up in the area as people were looking for places to train. And it just kind of became one of the first meccas of combat sports for MMA.

00:51:33 Justin McMillen

I think Tito's on the city council in Huntington now, right?

00:51:34 Mark Irwin

He was. He lives in Florida now. Yeah, he owns a restaurant. I think it's called Tito's Cantina. I got to train with him a little bit when I was getting ready for my BKFC debut at the world-famous Rockey Training Center. He was getting ready to box Anderson Silva at the time. And Tito was the man. He was such a nice guy and a great training partner, and someone I really looked up to as a young man watching UFC growing up. It was very surreal to get to train with him and to meet him. So shout out to Tito.

00:52:08 Justin McMillen

Nice. Yeah, nice. He's made that transition, right? The transition across the line. He's become an entrepreneur. He's figured out how to make money outside of the sport.

00:52:11 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I think he's doing well now. I'm always happy to see that. Definitely good. That's good.

00:52:35 Justin McMillen

So you — in transition — that's like part of what we'll talk about here, because I think your story became this model for how to go from fighting into something else. And you had to make that transition from bare knuckle boxing to another thing in life. Your research that you're doing is a big part of that, and definitely a big part of why I wanted to have you on the show. So can you take us there? How did you go from bare knuckle boxing into Athlete's Journey Home?

00:52:58 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I'd love to. So my coach, mentor, and dear friend Ian McCall was a UFC fighter and an MMA world champion, and he helped coach me to a world championship. He founded Athlete's Journey Home, which is a nonprofit scientific research group.

00:53:24 Justin McMillen

By the way, between you and Ian — who's the better fighter?

00:53:25 Mark Irwin

Ian. Definitely. Yeah. If it's a boxing match, I've got him. But in any other kind of fight — if we're throwing kicks or grappling — he's going to beat me up. So yeah, we'll give him that. But if we're just throwing punches, I've got him there. But that's about it. Yeah. Shout out to Ian. But so he founded Athlete's Journey Home. It's a nonprofit scientific research group that provides psychedelic therapy to fighters and athletes with traumatic brain injuries and associated symptoms. And then we have a scientific team that does data collection before and after — with brain scans, bloodwork, gut biome, saliva, and cognitive testing. We test over a million markers in the human genome, and we do that so that we can measure the effectiveness of the treatment and prove the medical and therapeutic benefits of it.

00:54:12 Justin McMillen

Wow. Yeah. So — what you just said — your focus is on healing traumatic brain injury.

00:54:13 Mark Irwin

Correct.

00:54:13 Justin McMillen

And the medicine you're using is psychedelic medicine.

00:54:14 Mark Irwin

Yes.

00:54:14 Justin McMillen

And you're measuring the hell out of this and studying it to learn more.

00:54:16 Mark Irwin

Yes. And publishing scientific papers on it. Our first retreat is currently under peer review. But we have a multi-site, multi-medicine agreement with the University of Lima in Peru, which means that we can study any medicine anywhere. So we investigate the medical and therapeutic benefits of all different psychedelics and plant medicines as they pertain to traumatic brain injuries and associated symptoms. Our first retreat — we did a psilocybin study in Portland, Oregon one year ago. Portland, because it's legal there. So we partnered with Daniel Carcillo, who owns Experience Onward. And we had our first retreat there. We had high profile athletes, including myself, a UFC fighter, an Olympic gold medal bobsled champion, and a world class surfer — all of whom had traumatic brain injuries as a result of their athletic careers. And we underwent psilocybin therapy at the Experience Onward center and then did our data collection before and after.

00:55:35 Justin McMillen

What is that like? Are there therapists and clinicians there? How does it work?

00:55:37 Mark Irwin

Yeah, we have people onsite working to help all of the athletes going through this therapy if they should need it. There's integration coaching before, during, and after to help people prepare for it, set their intentions, understand what to expect, and then to help them process things that come up afterwards. And during this study, I was actually the only athlete that wore a cap during the ceremony. So we were actually scanning my brain while I was undergoing the medicine. So we're able to see the changes that take place as it's happening as far as activity goes. Yeah. So it's very cool. Like I said, that study is currently under peer review. But it showed lowered levels of inflammation in the brain of all the athletes. It improved — or lessened — the asymmetry of the prefrontal cortex, which means it basically bounced the brain back out to a more homeostatic level, which is associated with improved emotional regulation, decreased depression, anxiety, PTSD, all those kinds of things. And that's what everybody reported — like they self-reported after the experience. And we can see how that's happening physically in the brain as a result of the scans. So very positive results as far as that's concerned.

00:56:57 Justin McMillen

That's incredible. So you're scanning the prefrontal cortex and you're seeing activity change. You're seeing a homeostatic balance in the frontal cortex, which is resulting in better impulse control, emotional regulation, probably a little more ability to think about your thinking — executive functioning in general. That's ideal.

00:57:21 Mark Irwin

Yes.

00:57:21 Justin McMillen

It's literally healing the brain. Okay. Yeah. Amazing. Right. So that was your first retreat. Have you had a person where you could visibly see — like through an MRI or something — a major... you know, if you scan someone's brain, you can actually see complete inactivity in that area. Have you seen areas come back into activity after going through one of these retreats?

00:57:44 Mark Irwin

We've had incredible results. So after our second retreat, we took a number of high profile combat sports athletes and UK rugby players to Cancun, Mexico, where we underwent what was called ibogaine therapy. That has recently come into mainstream news because President Trump just passed a bill to fast track ibogaine therapy in America. But we brought a former UFC fighter that had early onset Parkinson's, and his neurologist in Irvine told him there was nothing they could do, and they were waiting to perform his postmortem autopsy so that they could cut the top of his head open and look inside his brain to more accurately diagnose what parts of it were misfiring. Yeah. How was he showing up? Not good. Yeah. We had a lot of preliminary phone calls leading up to the event. He was very emotionally distraught, right, because he was having a lot of physical problems, suicidal ideation, depression. And we took him to Mexico and he underwent ibogaine therapy, and it completely eliminated all of his Parkinson's symptoms. We had to help him get on the plane at certain points. It was so bad. And then coming back, he was like a new man. Wow. Absolutely unbelievable. Right? We helped reverse symptoms of a disease that's supposed to be incurable. Mike Guymon — "Joker" — as we referred to him. That was his nickname when he was in the UFC. He's now a big part of our organization. He comes to all of our fundraisers and is helping us spread the word.

00:59:38 Justin McMillen

Do you guys have any idea what's causing these symptoms to go away?

00:59:40 Mark Irwin

Yeah. So with ibogaine, one of the benefits is that it regenerates brain tissue, which is supposed to be impossible. It's the only known thing that's been shown to do that. So it can regenerate up to three millimeters of brain tissue with a single treatment. They have done brain scans on veterans. There's one individual who had ten millimeter holes in his brain from blast impacts, and after ibogaine therapy, the holes shrank to one millimeter. So it literally regrows dead tissue in the brain. So yeah, it was really incredible to get to see those results firsthand. Mike Guymon — he's someone who very publicly has struggled with his physical, mental, and emotional health. It's been documented in the news, documented in documentaries where he publicly admitted that he was suicidal and really struggling. And as a result of the treatment, he's now absolved of all those issues. He doesn't have Parkinson's. He's actually undergone two of our studies. He did ibogaine in November, and he just got back from doing ayahuasca in Peru, which was our fourth retreat — the fourth and final up to this date. Yeah. He's absolved of all of his depression symptoms. Everything — he's a new man. And he attributes Athlete's Journey Home and plant medicine to saving his life and giving him a new lease on life.

01:00:58 Justin McMillen

That's amazing. So — how much of it do you think is the sort of having an epiphany and changing the mind versus changing the brain — so the brain being like physical tissue. Do you think it's both?

01:01:08 Mark Irwin

It does both. It certainly does. You know, I have a lot of experience with psychedelics myself. I've undergone three of the four research projects thus far. I was a participant in the first three studies — psilocybin, ibogaine, and ayahuasca. We can show observable changes in the brain and in the body — lowered inflammation levels, things like that — through all of our testing metrics. So there are physical changes transpiring as a result of this medicine. It's certainly beneficial from a mental and emotional standpoint as well. And I think there are a lot of benefits to psychedelics and that it can have a profound impact on people's perspective. I know it certainly has on mine.

01:01:57 Justin McMillen

So I think there are a lot of benefits for psychedelics for a multitude of reasons. As a — I think the reason I ask that is because Athlete's Journey Home — a lot of it is traumatic brain injury, but it's also this transition from being a pro fighter and moving into another area of life. And we see this with military folks too. Psychedelics are huge in the military. It's blowing up in that community. Right?

01:02:32 Mark Irwin

Right. And we're actually partnered with a veteran nonprofit — the Heroic Hearts Project. Ian was mentored by some big SEAL Team Six operator type guys, and they encouraged him to use their model and apply it to his community, which is combat sports athletes, because there are a lot of parallels as far as the issues that they struggle with.

01:03:01 Justin McMillen

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I think the headspace shift — you know, it's like you talk about ego death and these sorts of things, and how it affects perspective. I think you're shifting your perspective enough to be able to transition into a different way of seeing your whole life.

01:03:22 Mark Irwin

Sure.

01:03:23 Justin McMillen

So what do you think this is going to do to pharma?

01:03:23 Mark Irwin

That's a good question. You know, the more I get involved with this research, the more I completely lack any type of faith in the current medical industry. Right? Big Pharma, by my own personal observations and opinions, is not invested in your wellness or your best interest. It's not in their best interest either, because there's not a profit model in curing people of diseases, right? They're in the business of treating symptoms, not curing them. Because when you have someone getting treatment, you have a client for life. You know, a third of all medications that go to market get recalled. And the only reason they get recalled is because the cost of the lawsuits is going to be greater than the profit made. So they take it off the shelf. Otherwise they leave it on the shelf. And that's why when you watch Fox News or CNN, they have all these commercials — brought to you by Pfizer. This medication has side effects including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, death. Right. You're like, what? Like, yeah, I would rather have whatever the issue is than sexual dysfunction and a stroke and suicidal thoughts. Homicidal ideation. Yeah. But again, these products cause those reactions in people and they continue to sell them because they make a profit doing so. It's not about your health and wellness. It's about making a profit.

01:05:13 Justin McMillen

And, you know, the good news, Mark, is that right at the very tip of the spear right now, HHS has been run by RFK, and he's saying exactly what you're saying. And his entire front line — all of the folks that he's put into positions in front of him — they all say exactly what you're saying. They're like, we need to stop profiting off of people being sick. We need to come up with better solutions. We need to focus on wellness.

01:05:34 Mark Irwin

Some of them. The problem is that a lot of these congresspeople and senators are beholden to lobbyists. And they're being financed by major corporations that are, again, just here to make a profit. So a lot of these companies are working together to give you cancer and then sell you the treatment for it. Right. Like Johnson & Johnson got found to be putting cancerous chemicals in their sunscreen. And then they're also creating the cancer treatment for skin cancer. So how does that work? Yeah. It's a great business model actually, right? Create clients and then bookend it. Yeah. You know, they say that the COVID vaccine was man made, right? And so was the virus. Like, they created the virus, and then they created a vaccine to help cure you of the virus that they created. It's crazy. So people need to realize that the health care industry is not going to take care of you. You have to take care of yourself. And that starts with, again — like we talked about — exercise, nutrition, plant medicine. All these things go hand in hand as far as being a physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy adult.

01:07:00 Justin McMillen

What do you think about peptides?

01:07:00 Mark Irwin

I love peptides. I've used them quite a bit myself. I started using peptides because I tore my ACL training for a big fight, and while I was coming off of surgery, my organization offered me the world title, but it was going to be an unrealistic timeframe as far as my ability to rehab and then come back. So I started using peptides as part of my recovery, and that helped me get healthy. Did you use BPC-157 and — what's Forex? Forex is — it stimulates the pituitary gland so that your body creates more human growth hormone. There's a bunch that do that, right. Yeah. Yeah. Peptides are also huge right now.

01:07:51 Justin McMillen

And that's not why I have you on here, but I'm just curious. Yeah. So — you hear about it constantly. It's one of the most searched things on the internet right now is peptides. Yeah. And psychedelics, right. So yeah. And my partner is actually founding his own peptide company that's about to launch — called Bio Motion.

01:08:08 Mark Irwin

Okay. So yeah, we're definitely big into compounds and everything. Yeah. All here in Orange County. Nice. So we're big believers in the benefits of peptides and psychedelics.

01:08:29 Justin McMillen

Do you know that they can't control peptides either?

01:08:31 Mark Irwin

I heard this whole story about that — that's why they don't want it to be legal. Anything that they can't profit off of, they don't want to exist, because it threatens their industries. Right. If I can get healthy doing BPC-157 shots, I don't need aspirin. I don't need cortisone injections and things like that. I can manage and treat my pain in more cost effective ways and they can't create a profit model off that.

01:08:54 Justin McMillen

So I think, Mark, we're moving into a time where the US is starting to take its health into its own hands. Right? But because we're so unhealthy, we have to. Yeah. We're the fattest country in the world.

01:09:13 Mark Irwin

Sickest.

01:09:13 Justin McMillen

Sickest. Yeah. That's — I think it's the foundation of everything. I mean, I'm — people don't know me that well, but I'm always in DC. This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about on a regular basis. I sit on panels and talk about the health of the country in different ways, specific to my little niche. But I actually think that addiction — understanding how to treat addiction — is really the key to understanding how to deal with a civilization that has grown so abundant that we overindulge in everything we do. The worst version of that is addiction. So if we figure that piece out and we figure out how to get people healthy there, it can be applicable to everyone. And so yeah, I'm all about it. But you know, addiction is a buzzword too, right? I think a lot of people associate addiction with drug and alcohol abuse, but addiction comes in many forms.

01:09:52 Mark Irwin

Yeah, it's very prevalent in modern society. People are addicted to food. People are addicted to devices. People are addicted to a sedentary lifestyle. Constantly receiving dopamine from social media validation and all kinds of things. Dopamine monsters. Yeah. Right. And that's what's creating it — it all kind of converges to create this perfect storm of obesity and mental and emotional ill health.

01:10:26 Justin McMillen

What do we do about that — besides everyone doing psychedelics, which is what you said last?

01:10:26 Mark Irwin

Well, besides that, I don't know.

01:10:27 Justin McMillen

How do we get everyone to think differently about their health?

01:10:49 Mark Irwin

I think that we need to stop gaslighting people. I think that's a big problem. Right? Like, body positivity is great, but don't lie to people and promote obesity and morbid obesity and tell these people that they're beautiful and that there's nothing wrong with them and that they're healthy — because it's just not true. Right. You are pre-diabetic or diabetic, and you have all kinds of other health disorders as a result. Obesity is one of the number one killers in America. So we need to stop celebrating obesity. We need to start treating it like a medical condition, just like we treat drug and alcohol addiction.

01:11:32 Justin McMillen

Right. Because it's the same thing. People are addicted to foods. They put addictive chemicals in the foods that are completely lacking in nutrition, vitamins, and minerals. And so people are completely devoid of all the things that their body and their brains need. So you're exactly — you couldn't be more right. I think they're all symptoms of modernity, right. Like the modern world — we're not built for this environment. We keep creating technology to make our lives easier. The thing that's a challenge — and I've been trying to figure out, and maybe you can tell me what you think about this — but you know, every human is built for survival. We have to survive. So there's this calling, right? This drive. That drive is the dopaminergic drive. It's just — more, more, right. Because we want to collect as many resources as we can to make it through the famine, or kill as many antelope or whatever. Right. So we all have this desire for more. But as we solve abundance and we get all this technology, what the fuck do we do with that drive? Because it's still there. It ain't going to go away. It's built for famine. It's built for scarcity. It's built for not having what you need. What do we do with it?

01:12:36 Mark Irwin

Yeah, that's a great question, because you're right. It's important for survival, it's important for success. But at what point does it become excessive? Right. We have the greatest wealth disparity of all time right now. We have billionaires, and we have people living off less than a dollar a day. They say that the 1% is anybody that makes over $30,000 a year, which — I mean, you're going to be on the street in California if that's what you're making. But that's 1% of the world, right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It just goes to show you the disparity there. And again, that's greed — people constantly wanting and needing more. And again, I think one solution to that would be plant medicine, because shifting people's perspective changes your perspective on what's important. Right. One of the benefits of psychedelics — and it's an observable change that we can see in the research that we do — is it shuts down the core part of your brain that's responsible for your sense of self. Right? What does that mean? It means you become less concerned with yourself and your identity and your ego. Right? Mark the Shark — who the fuck cares, right? And you realize that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity, that we are all a part of this thing. It's so beneficial for improving relationships — for me, all bonds, friends, community. That's one of the things I really like to use psychedelics for — to spend time with loved ones and to connect with people on a deeper level. And I think that if more people did magic mushrooms and ayahuasca, they would be less selfish and less greedy and less concerned with their own wants and needs, and realize that there's more to life than money and cars and whatever the fuck. Alister nice watch — who gives a shit, right? Because again, you can't take that stuff with you. They're not going to put it in the grave with you when they bury you. So all that you have at the end of your life is the experiences that you've had and the memories that you made in doing so. And hopefully you had some good ones.

01:14:41 Justin McMillen

Yeah, we got to straighten our heads out.

01:14:42 Mark Irwin

Yeah. For sure. And like for me — again, I can only speak from my experience — but psychedelics have been profoundly beneficial to me in that way. It's made me realize the benefit of community and brotherhood and relationships and things like that. And made me less concerned with vanity and money and materialistic things and all the bullshit that is so prevalent here in Orange County, California.

01:15:11 Justin McMillen

You can tell. Yeah, you're a good man. I appreciate you, sir. Yeah. I think the mission you have and the journey you're on is really important. And I hope we can check in again, because I'm definitely curious about where this goes. I'd love to talk to Ian and hear a little bit more about how the process works. And I'm super excited about all advancements in health care. And the field I work in specifically — substance use disorder treatment — has a lot of fear around psychedelics. And we have to be cautious, because the number one cause of death in this country is overdose, right? So we always have to be cautious. But also, the only reason I got here in the position I'm in is because I've been open minded and listened. Right. So I'm always curious. And I want to know what people are seeing and what works. So I'm forever a student. I think a lot of people expect psychedelics to be a cure-all for whatever it is that they're looking to fix. Right. And a lot of that is drug and alcohol addiction or addictive behaviors. But if you just expect the plant medicine to do all the work for you, it doesn't work like that. Life doesn't work like that. Nothing works like that, right? So having a positive environment set up for you where you can make the necessary changes — post therapy, post ceremony.

01:16:42 Mark Irwin

Because one of the benefits of psychedelics is that it creates neuroplasticity, right. It creates new neural pathways in the brain. And what that means is you're more susceptible — you're more able to implement lifestyle and behavioral changes after that treatment for a short period of time, whether it's 36 days or 90 days. There's a window.

01:17:03 Justin McMillen

Tell me more on that. You think it imprints more in people's minds?

01:17:04 Mark Irwin

Yeah. And it's been shown in the research, right, that there is a window where you're better able to quit smoking cigarettes, slamming dope, gambling, sex addiction, whatever it is. But again, you can't go back to that same environment. So if you're addicted to heroin, let's say, and you go and you do ibogaine thinking that that's going to fix you, and then you go back to the same environment where you're hanging out with the same people that are using — you're going to fall into that same trap and those same behaviors. So it's really critical that you have proper integration and you have a healthy environment to return to so that you can implement the changes that you're seeking to make.

01:18:04 Justin McMillen

Yeah, I think that — so if I understand you right, it's like you think going from some sort of ceremony like this and then into some sort of treatment environment where you're actually able to work on all the things that are now open — it's time to work on it. So do you think that's where this will fit into the mental health model or addiction treatment model? Is it going to be somewhere at the beginning?

01:18:28 Mark Irwin

I think that they go hand in hand together, to answer your question. Yeah. I think that again, they need each other, right. Because without systems in place, we're just doing plant medicine for the fun of it. And some people fall into that too, right? Because that is one of the dangers of psychedelics — some of them can be used recreationally, some of them not. Ibogaine is not a recreational drug. Ayahuasca, although it can be enjoyable, can also be rather unenjoyable at times too. But that's the interesting thing — these plant medicines aren't necessarily enjoyable. I know mushrooms is its own category for sure. Yeah. But ibogaine — I've never experienced ibogaine. It's not fun at all. Most people report it being a difficult experience. Honestly, I've done it and I actually rather enjoyed it, believe it or not. But I typically have really positive experiences with psychedelics. I rarely have what people refer to as a bad trip or a bad time, and even the difficult journeys — I can find the silver lining in it and how it was beneficial to me.

01:19:25 Justin McMillen

You're kind of an outlier. But like the average person — ibogaine is not something people want to do over and over, right?

01:19:45 Mark Irwin

No. And logistically it's not very feasible either, because it has to be done in a medical setting — in a hospital — with doctors, nurses. There's serious preparation involved as far as diet, lifestyle, things like that. Because there are certain health risks associated with the treatment. There's some stuff with the heart, right? Yeah. You could have a cardiac arrest as a result, because the medicine drains the magnesium out of your heart. So there's a lot of testing before, during, and after. You arrive hooked up to an EKG machine to monitor your heart. And then you're also hooked up to an IV that's giving you a magnesium drip to supplement the magnesium being taken from your body as a result of the medicine. So you can't safely do this at home. Right. You have to do it in a medical facility. And that's actually one of the reasons it's getting fast tracked — because it's patentable and because it's profitable. Right. And that's again another issue with Big Pharma. Ayahuasca and DMT — you cannot patent ayahuasca. It is not patentable. And it's not something you could provide to people as a product. There's no profit in it. So I doubt you'll ever see ayahuasca becoming legalized, for that reason alone.

01:21:01 Justin McMillen

Why are people afraid of it, you think?

01:21:01 Mark Irwin

Because it threatens other industries, right? It threatens Big Pharma. Magic mushrooms has been proven to be statistically far more beneficial for depression, anxiety, and PTSD than any of the pharmaceutical drugs currently on the market. And it has far fewer risks and associated side effects. And not only that — mushrooms are practically free. You can buy an ounce for 150 bucks. They grow for free all over the place. Right. So it's very hard to make money off of them. And unlike normal medications, which require you to take them for the rest of your life, the more you take mushrooms, the less effect you get from them and the less desire you have to continue taking them. So there is a sort of anti-addiction benefit to it as well. That makes it again not profitable from a consumer standpoint.

01:22:18 Justin McMillen

What about the — so one of the challenges that I have — I was saying this to you earlier. It's like I'm in a position where people look to me and look to my organization to give them answers about addiction specifically. And it's a big question right now — where does psychedelics fit into the addiction space? Right. Because it doesn't fit into the traditional AA model.

01:22:44 Mark Irwin

Definitely not the traditional AA model. But it also is like — here's what we're seeing. And this is just my experience — people that have multiple years of sobriety will decide they're going to have a psychedelic experience. So this is not in healing, right? This is after treatment — recreationally doing it. And then that becomes this sort of gray area where it's like, okay, I used to say I didn't put any mind altering substances in my body. I'm a sober guy. Now I do this one psychedelic — harmless, just like you said. But now I don't have a line anymore between non-psychoactive and psychoactive.

01:23:09 Justin McMillen

So now what's on the line — especially with like an opioid addict — is potential overdose and death. So this is where it gets weird. So it's like putting it at the beginning of the equation and in treatment — that's interesting. I think there's a lot to look at there. Saying that psychedelics could be part of an ongoing experience afterwards is the part where I'm cautious, out of a need to care for so many people, right? Thousands of people. We have. Yeah. So I'm not sure where it all fits, but I think about it all the time. Yeah. I love talking to guys like you because I can continue to learn, and I want to get better and better at understanding this. And certainly if we figure out that there's a way — as a society — that this is doing things like healing traumatic brain injury, it needs to be done.

01:23:54 Mark Irwin

Yeah, I mean, for sure. So what you're doing right now and the path that you're on is highly commendable. And I love it. And I want to hear more.

01:24:07 Justin McMillen

Appreciate you brother.

01:24:07 Mark Irwin

Yeah. You too. Thank you.

01:24:07 Justin McMillen

Awesome. Thank you.