What the minimalist shoes and winning a reality show like Survivor Have in Common? Well, we're gonna find out that plus a whole lot more including some behind the scenes stuff from both Survivor and Shark Tank with today's guest on today's episode of the movement movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first. Wait, I gotta turn myself you on. There we go.
Starting feet first because you know those things are your foundation. And also we're breaking down the propaganda, the mythology sometimes the flat out lies you've been told about what it takes to run or walk or play or hiker. You go across whatever it is you like to do and to do that, enjoyably, efficiently, effectively. Did I say enjoyingly?
Don't answer. I know I did. It's a trick question. Because if you're not having fun, do something different to you are.
You're not gonna keep it up. It's not fun. Okay. I am Stephen Sashan, co-founder of CDO 0 issues.com.
I'm the host of movement movement podcast. We call it that because we are for we and that involves all of us are creating a movement about natural movement letting your body do what it's made to do without getting in the way. And the we part, what you can do is really simple. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com.
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Mike, pleasure having you here. Tell me who you are and what you're doing here. Hey, what's going on, Stephen? Thanks so much for having me, man.
I appreciate it. I'm Mike Gableter, the Allie Gableter from season 43 of Survivor. I'm the second oldest winner to ever win the show. And it was a fantastic epic adventure.
And I'm so happy. So many people were on it with me. That's what's amazing about reality TV is you have these big adventures and everybody gets to go on it with you. I mean, Stephen, you were on Shark Tank, so you were more comfortable.
I don't know. I'll be in front of those sharks. Maybe I'm also take starvation over that. I don't know.
Well, I can tell you, as a former professional stand-up comic, I thrive on situations where it's like a high-pressure thing with a seeming audience. So I had no problem. The difference between you and me, I mean, there are many, but in the reality TV context is, you know, we just taped the show and then we waited to see if it was an air. And then we had to once it aired, we knew what the results were.
Or no, once we had this work, once we taped, we knew what the results were. We couldn't talk about it until it aired. And that was about six months later. But we didn't have the ongoing thing that you did.
So what was it like? I mean, when did you, I mean, there's so many questions I want to ask. When were you taping? What was the delay between then and when things were airing?
So you could see how people were responding and then what was the delay, you know, from the final episode? Or from when you finally, when you taped the final episode, when you knew you won, to being able to say to everyone, hey, I won. So a great question. And it was similar, actually, even though it was a longer journey that I was on.
So last year, I took off in April, May, and they filmed it in April, May. I got back on June 1st. And I had to kind of zip my lip and keep it under my hat for about six months, because June, December 14th was the finale. So the difference with Survivor versus Shark Tank is, you know, you're on an episode and then, you know, we're on a season.
So yeah, it's like, we're one and done. One and done. And you know, you guys, you know, like, even though I'm sure your presentation was probably an hour or so long, you know, you had your 10 minutes on the show and you know, that got the ball rolling and got the word out about your amazing zero shoes. And me, it was like every week and what was weird about it too.
And you can relate to this. You know what happens, but you don't know how it's going to be edited. Right? So, right?
Well, I'm going to make a note because I want to come back to that. And I don't want to forget that. Hold on. Hold on.
Hold on. Okay. All right. Please continue.
Yes, you bet. I mean, the wild part was, you know, it's like watching, like knowing that the score is 32 to 30 and double overtime, but you have no idea what plays they're going to show. And every week I was kind of on the edge of my seat. And, you know, I'm like, what's the gonna show?
Are they gonna? You know, I think these things are important, but are they gonna show it? But you know, the producers of Survivor do a masterful job. They've been doing this for over 20 years, mean, 43 seasons is the granddaddy of all reality shows.
And, you know, what they like to do is they don't want to like to make it look like, Oh, you know, Gabler is winning. Gabler is winning. Gabler wins. They want to make it look like.
And they did. They had a great job where everybody at the end, like the finale had five people in the finale in which, you know, two got eliminated. Then he had the final three that battled it out. But it was, it's anybody's game.
And in honest, and honestly, it was pretty much anybody's game. This season, I thought was unique. And I know I'm a homer for 43 because I was on it. But it was unique in that they cast everybody on the show was a fan of the show.
And interesting. Every single person, Steven was a huge fan of the show. I thought I was a super fan. Owen, other people on the show, absolute super fans.
I mean, they knew like, you know, like Tom Brady went to college at Michigan and they know Survivor players. Owen would know like, Oh, Steve Sashin, he went to middle school in the middle school. And all the way his first dog was Dave Bruce. He just, he knew all that stuff where I was like, I've watched every episode.
I'm a huge fan of the show when I was out, outgunned by Owen on that one. And everybody on the season was. So I think the fun part was, you know, it's almost like a rollercoaster ride in the new era because it's, it's faster. Yeah, it's a condensed version.
But you know how like a roller coaster goes tick tick tick tick tick tick it to slow ride up. And then all of a sudden it goes, well, because everybody was so sophisticated on the game and the game played, you didn't have as much flumsiness as, you know, people that can be there and they're just like, Oh, that person's a villain or that person's really good at this. Everybody kept their cards pretty close to their best until the rollercoaster dropped and then it was just like mayhem and craziness and it really was a fun season to be on and to watch. So backing up to not knowing what the editing is, well, I'm going to back up a half a step.
So let's do it. Again, so many things we do when we were in that interim phase between taping and airing where again, you know, we had no idea what it was going to look like. We've talked about the editing. The second, my favorite things were at a family event.
Like I can't remember what it was. And a bunch of my parents friends were there, a bunch of entrepreneurs and they were all coming up to Elena and me saying, you guys should be on Shark Tank. We'd be going, Oh, that's a great idea. And we just had to, you know, but you would already done it.
Yeah, we already done. And here's the thing, which difference with Shark Tank. They tape more segments than they air. So while we knew what happened, we didn't know if we were going to be on at all.
So we were, we took a vacation the end of December. And thanks to the magic of frequent flyer points, we flew down to Ecuador to visit some friends and while we're there, we can email saying, you're going to be on in two weeks, like, ah, so I'm doing PR from Ecuador where there's practically no internet connectivity. But we didn't know until the very end if we were even going to be on. And then there were some crazy things that happened.
I'll come back to that too. But that interim phase is so interesting. I had an experience of this before we were on Shark Tank with top, uh, top chef. So there's a local restaurant to a guy named Jose Rosenberg who was on top chef.
And we were watching, watching, watching, and he's decided to have a party at a local bar for the finale. And so we and Lane, a couple of other friends we went there and we're sitting like right next to Jose and the whole time, the whole episode, he's just not looking happy. And so we're thinking, ask her, you know, we're going to leave. We don't want to be here when everyone gets depressed and then they ask him as the winner and his roommates freaked out because they had no idea either.
So, I mean, he really held his cars close to the. Wow. And that was super fun. You know, you just had it super fun.
And I think that's what's really cool about it. So Jeff Probst, you know, the legend, the myth, the everything he is, he was the ultimate survivor fan and he's the host of the show. When we were leaving, you know, Jeff kind of gave us a little bit of counsel and, you know, we are contractually obliged, right? They will come after you.
Well, and you and I had the same contract. So because same producers and in fact, there's a clause in our contract that said we're not going to hold them like a look. We die on set and we said, what's going to happen on set that could kill us? They said, no, we cobbled this.
You know, we keep adding to our contract based on our existing shows and the first contract was survivor. So we had that same interest. But I was looking at myself and I'm looking at like, I mean, it's like, my was like 65 pages long, maybe longer and you just have a side all right. It's whatever.
But you're looking at it going like, okay, huh, that's sobering. Yeah. Well, so let's let's compare notes for us. If we told anybody what happened in advance, the show airing, we promised not that they could come after us.
We promised that we would pay $5 million. Is that the same for you? Yeah. $5 million.
And they were, you know, there's there are pages of basically stick with not much carrot, but Jeff gave us a carrot at the end. I thought was was really impactful to people like, you know, us because and your friend Jose, because he said, look, obviously, you're contractually alive. You can't just say anything about a lot, but just as importantly, and he said it, he goes just as importantly, you know, don't ruin it for your friends and family because you want, you want them on the journey on the edge of their couch doing what it is. And that was pretty, pretty telling to me about the person Jeff is because he's a cool guy and he would be the fan of the sheep's ultimate fan.
And he was like, you know, don't don't slip it out because you want your friends and family to be there on the edge. You're saying your host is restaurant and you wanted to make sure that he kept it quiet so that when it happened, everybody was like, wow, and it was Jeff was right. And Jose was right. And that's kind of how you do it.
I guess. So, you know, the only people I told when I got back was my wife because I have to tell somebody and she also signed the same stuff. And then I told my father who's in poor health. So I just want to make sure he would know and then I didn't tell him about the donation.
I just told him about the win. And then we were in Houston together with my whole family. My mother on one side, but down on the other side when the announcement was, of course, everybody erupts by liking the restaurant with Jose. And then we I was like, wait, wait, hold on.
There's something else coming up. Yeah. So it was really cool. I mean, what a heck of an adventure.
It was really neat. Well, for people who don't know, so tell them how much you won and what you did with your winnings. Oh, sure, sure. So the grand prize for being the sole survivor of survivor is $1 million.
And I donated 100% of it every penny to veterans that are need of help. I moved the million dollars into a direct access fund. So it's legally every penny I can even buy a pair of zero shoes with the money. So it's all in there.
And I got a lawyer and accountant to kind of figure out the taxes so that there was no issues with it. And that hopefully will get figured out here soon. And then we're going to start donating and we've got some amazing charities figured out. They're going to help a lot of veterans.
And it's just an ice gun on top of the cake. When we turned down at $400,000 offer from Kevin, a lot of people said that we were insane. Now we knew what our valuation was. We knew it was easy to walk away from.
But for a lot of people, 400 grand is a lot of money. Here's two and a half times that a million dollars. How do people react? It was on the set at the time because it was right at the middle of the council.
We ended it. And you hadn't warned anyone in advance that this is something you might do. No, sir. Thanks for making that clear.
I didn't want to tell anybody because I wanted to win on my own merit. I didn't want people to go, well, he's doing a good thing for people. And I also I would have felt terrible using a patient population that I care deeply about for my own gain. I wanted to win it clean and then do this clean.
And that's what I did. So, you know, the expressions on everybody's faces, the tears in their eyes were all genuine and real because I dropped it on them. Literally one minute after Jeff announced me as the sole survivor. It's brilliant.
Now, you just alluded to two things that other people might not know. So one is what your actual profession is. Well, I'm going to do this. I can't do this as one question at a time.
It's too many thoughts on my head. What your actual profession is, what your connection is to this veteran organization. And, you know, the other thing people must think is that you must be a big, big, big, big, big, big, big. I'm a millionaire because otherwise, why would you give away a million dollars?
Sure. Sure. Those are all good questions. And let me just answer them in a row.
But so my profession is I am a heart valve specialist and I've been working in the medical world for about 20 years. I've been part of some new cutting edge technologies. I work on the device side. So, for example, like there's a little model right here of a transcatheter aortic valve and this is a pause right there for people who can't see this is too bad.
But that's the actual size of the aorta. That is your aortic valve size. And this is a 26 millimeter valve. So your valve in your heart.
And you're not even as either this big or maybe even a little bigger. The biggest size is a 29, which is just a few millimeters bigger. But this is a this is a very common one. And this is a fuzzy, dachron like shag carpet and it sits in the in the aorta like that and the aortic valve like this and your coronaries are above it.
And by turn it, the blood comes from the ventricle. The oxygenate blood comes through there and out the other side. And that my job is is I work with the heart teams and I read the films and I put together basically a battle plan for Dr. Sashin.
And I'm like, you know, I work with a very close group of folks. I go, you know, I believe patient Smith is a is a 26 millimeter valve. I think the access on the right side looks favorable and blah, blah, blah. And then you would look over it with your expert eyes.
And, you know, we discussed it if we had a conflict of opinion. But then you make the call and the case day, we do, you know, three to five of these a day. And I'll take this big old valve because you've got four valves in your heart and I will crimp it down so small that it will fit into something about that big, which will go over a wire into your femoral artery while you are awake. The procedure takes about 45 minutes.
And what we'll do is we'll snake the valve while it's all crimped down, tiny, over the wire, we'll cross the stenotic aortic valve. We'll rapid pace the heart because your heart is beating like this, right? And what we'll do is we'll rapid pace it to where it just kind of flutters for about 10, 15 seconds. And while it's doing that, we expand the balloon that the valve is on crushing the native one of the wall, take it down, remove the system, paste her off, heart starts again, two stitches in the groin, patient goes home the next day.
It's a miracle cure. It's a mean, it's it's it's absolutely amazing. This technology, it didn't exist 10 years ago. This is like brand new stuff.
Someone figured this shit out. I mean, this is incredible. It is absolutely groundbreaking. I mean, it I mean, and the data has come in where it is even it is superior to surgery.
So now, I don't think surgery is bad because if you need it, you need whatever you need. But if you are a candidate for this, it is as good or better because you don't have to have his turn on. Right. Going bypass and all that other stuff.
When I mean, we got two more questions are going to answer, but I got to enter this one. I was a pre-med for well, from being a high school through college. And then I decided not to do that. But in high school, I was in a program, two classes per day, every day, first two hours of the day, first couple hours a day for the entire year.
And we were working at National Label Medical. And one of the things we got to do is watch open heart surgery, which was mind blowing. Mind blowing. The heart is moving like that.
The person's heart right there. The first three pieces of open heart surgery were the freest thing I've ever seen. So first, they use a laser sample and just get the skin out and it just kind of peels apart and you smell it. Then they take a black and decker saw and saw through the sternum and you smell it.
And then they take the ribs spread the ribs apart and you hear the sound. The cracking. But as soon as that's over, it's like, Oh my God, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It gives you a mind blowing.
I've been doing this. I've been doing medical surgery for about 20 years now. And I still get geeked out about it every time I see it because it's just, you know, I just am amazed at what technology and the expertise and knowledge that's been building up over the years. It is amazing.
This new Transcatheter heart valve, there was a called Transcatheter-ing or a Battle Place or Taver. Taver is like, it's something that did not exist. And you saw like, sometimes you have to do the sternotomy and the ribs spreading and all that stuff. And there's nothing wrong with it.
My uncle had to have a mitral valve repaired and there are some endovascular techniques that he could have used. But the best for his anatomy and everything was open surgery and they did a phenomenal job and he's doing fantastic today. So it's like, I'm not against that. I'm just making you aware.
These are new things. And you know, it's so wild because Stephen, we have to be mindful about what we are talking about in the room because the patient is awake. Oh my God. We were saying they're like, hold on, sir.
You're gonna feel your heart blood. This is the part where it's gonna flood her and it just basically feels like your breath is gonna take it away a little bit. But we give them a heads up so they don't panic during that. Because it's like for 15 seconds, almost like you, you know, it's like, hold on.
This is the part and they're just okay doing good. And then the balloon goes up, takes down. You got your new heart valve now. You got your new heart valve.
They're just laying there like, I mean, it's freaking amazing. I've had some eye surgery in a couple of weeks and I said, they said, we don't have to do it for you. But sometimes we have to pull the eyeball out to do the thing and then put it back in. I said, if you pull my eyeball out and I'm awake for this whole thing, I go turn around so I can look at myself.
Whoa! I said, we don't have to take it out. So can you check it out just so I can do that? That is so, you know what?
We just met, right? The fact that you would say something like that is like the coolest thing ever. You know, like you're interesting, oddball, but I love you. I think that is the coolest thing ever.
Like, I would say too. That is really weird. But I like it. Well, when I had my knee scoped after blowing up my meniscus doing gymnastics, 25 years ago or so, I said, you know, I want to do it with an epidural so I can be awake during this and halfway through the surgery.
I said, can you pull the instruments out? Because I'm watching this on TV and they look like they're the size of, you know, just giant. They're like, minuscule is like so, so cool to watch. And it's whenever I get a chance, you know, I want to see what they're doing to me.
When I had my shoulder put back together, I begged them to let me stay awake this and, nah, because if you move a couple of millimeters, it's going to mess with us badly. So they knock me out. Backing up. So that's what you, that's your day job, which leads us into, I'm going to get back to the connection of the veterans.
But that leads us into the thing where most, actually before I do this, I was going to say, it leads us back to the thing where people assume that if you're in any way in the medical business, you know, you have buckets of dollar bills, you know, sitting under your bed. But I wonder in the cardiac world, is there a similar, what's the one I'm looking for, a similar description for the surgeons who do this work that there is for orthopedic surgeons, where the line is in medical school, they're strong as an ox and half of smart. And if there's any orthopedics, guys listening, you know, it's a joke. I don't know who you are.
But I was going to, and that was my thing. I wanted to be an orthopod. So I take it, I take that personally. Is there anything like that in the cardiac world?
You know, there is, I would say that, you know, the cardiac surgeons are a lot like Tom Cruise on Maverick, you know, they're all like, you know, they have to have that. They almost wear like leather scrubs because they're so cool, right? That's kind of the cardiac surgeons. Whereas the interventional structural cardiologist, because a hard team that we work with or tabber, we have cardiac surgery, interventional structural cardiology anesthesia, etc.
But then the cardiology, those guys are kind of like, oh, I'd probably put them as more like, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the very, the first one with not Han Solo, what was his name? Yeah, that guy. I'm hard with names all of a sudden. Harrison Ford, they're Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lost Ark where they're like, I think we can get through this and because they don't, they're not the cutters right there.
They're kind of into a basket of wire catheter guys and the surgeons are like, we will do it. We can figure out. I mean, it's all good. So those guys are like cats and dogs playing together.
But that's one of the beautiful things about the Tapper procedure is is when we got FDA approval in 2011 for this, it was mandated that we do it with a heart team because it really brought where they were almost rivals back in the day because, you know, the surgeons will perform a coronary artery bypass graft and the cardiology put in stance so they can compete with each other. This was one where we realized the company I worked with, which is Denver's Life Sciences, they realized that the best care for these patients was a multi-disciplinary approach. And since we were the only people on the market with this, we were the first with FDA approval with this and still out of the leader today. But like, you know, it makes more sense for patient outcomes.
If you get an expert surgeon with an expert cardiologist with Exporti Mesthesia and they all come together and collaborate. And this thing we do, so every, my normal day is I do a valve conference in the morning where the whole heart team gets together. We discussed the patients that we discussed a few weeks ago that we're doing that day and we go through everything and then we discuss the future patients and we go through it and we're like, you know, their access. Are we going to go, you know, trans carotid?
Are we going trans femoral? Most people go 95% of the trans femoral. But there are people that have bad access and things. So it's just been, I know it's a really long answer, but it was, um, they've come together and what's beautiful about it is they become amazing respectful colleagues to each other and care has improved.
People are getting wonderful care. One of the other things like the other thing with orthopedic surgeons, like when I had my shoulder done, I wanted someone who couldn't carry a conversation, you know, just like, was just in the groove who did like in 10 of these a day. And that was my guy. And in fact, I mentioned that to someone who's a friend of his who cracked up.
He says, yeah, it takes a while to get him to be able to talk to humans. And when we, when we got out of surgery, he comes in and says, we get a lot of work in there. I said, I don't know how I feel about you being so giddy. Yeah.
I know you're like, well, it's a lot of their smiling. I mean, they're happy with the outcome and that's probably a good thing. Yeah. All right.
So onto your buckets of money. Yes. Okay. So, I mean, I have a house payment.
I have a kid in college, one more to go to college. I've got a car payment. I mean, could I have used an extra million dollars? Sure.
But, you know, my family is a military family. I've never had the honor of serving, but to have the honor to serve those who serve us is very important to me. And, you know, 1% of our country protects the 99% of us. And I have, you know, uncles, my father was a Green Beret and the special forces and my uncles were, you know, at CB and Vietnam.
They've done all kinds of things. And then I have a bunch of friends from high school that were in Afghanistan and Iraq. And, you know, we have an epidemic in this country where, you know, a lot of our veterans come home and they can't get all the way home. They just, they're stuck in the battlefield or they're stuck somewhere.
And you know, PTSD is just with veterans, by the way, I mean, the worst day of your life is whatever tragedy happens to you, it can be a car, it can be whatever it is. That's traumatic stress. And humans are very coping, capable creatures in that we can overcome a lot. But some things are just so profound or you're so young, you know, when you're 19 years old, dealing with some of the stuff that these guys go through, guys, and y'all go through, it's not easy.
And then you come back and, you know, being having PTSD, because I've actually had some from the operating room and that's an interesting story. So one of our patients, and this is the veteran tie in right here. Okay. So there was, we've had many veterans that have come through that need the heart valve replacement and we've helped them.
But there's one person in particular, his name is Lester Tenney and he was a World War Two veteran. He survived the baton death march, 75 miles, no water, no food, no nothing in the jungle after he was ordered to surrender 75 miles. Then he went to a prison camp, which, you know, notoriously bad from everything we've ever watched about that. Then he was put on a slave ship and taken to Japan where he worked in a slave labor camp for a couple years and was on the brink of death in 1945 when his slave camp was across the bay from Nagasaki.
And he literally was his own eyes witnessed. He didn't know what it was, but he saw the mushroom cloud. He writes about it in his book called My Hitch in Hell and he writes about his entire experience. And what's really amazing about Lester is, you know, 1938, he's going off to war was brewing everything.
You can kind of see what's going on with, you know, Germany and Poland and everything was going on on that side. And Japan was, we were at an oil embargo against them. So you can see that right was on the wall rather than just get drafted. He decided he was going to sign up and so like many young men at the time, we went, got married to his high school sweetheart before he took off for war.
And he thought out every day when he was in the prison camps and the slave ship and the slave labor camp, but he could not wait to get home and see her. They get home and see her. They told her in 1942, he was dead. She had remarried and, you know, so he opened the door.
She opened the door. He gave her, you know, she was, they were obviously emotionally overcome. It was a shock to her. And then I mean, imagine if your wife had been told that you were dead and moved on three years later and then you showed like a ghost.
I mean, and she was crying and was really, you know, obviously very, very sad about the whole situation and breaks out. But Lester being Lester was like, you saved my life. There's nothing to be sorry for. Oh, then he basically moved on with his life and created an amazing life on his own.
Got a PhD remarried, had children and he wrote another book. That's why I love laughter, right? I love laughter and I got to meet Lester. And in 19, oh, I don't know, it was about 2000.
Japan had finally come around and said, look, we're going to offer a apology to all surviving POWs were mistreated. And we're going to fly you in Japan. We're going to do this. And Lester's like, hell, yeah, I'm going to that.
But at the time, he had critical aortic stenosis and was not able to travel. And he was not a candidate. He was 80, 89 years old was not a candidate for open surgery because he was just too frail. But Lester's a badass, obviously.
So Lester's like, I'm going to find. So he went, he was living in Southern California. He got online and he realized there was a sapien trial at Scripps Hospital. And he basically would not take note from answers like you're doing me with this new Transcatheter valve thing.
And we did. And he went over to Japan to get his apology. Then he came back and he helped us petition the FDA for approval. And thanks to Lester and many, many people, over 800,000 people have now been treated with Transcatheter heart valves and Lester, he lived about seven more years without he lived at the age of 96 and just an incredible human.
And that was part of my my motivation. That's a mind-blowing and wonderful story. So first of all, thank you. Secondly, I don't think people can understand a lot about how I'll say it this way.
So I was in China during the 10 square master. I got shot at and held captive with six guys pointing machine guns in my head. My best friend was there. Same thing happened to him.
We both together, I'm abbreviating the story dramatically where I'm abbreviating significantly his dramatic story. And after so we got caught in the shooting spree, then held captive and blah, blah, blah. The point is not that the point is after they let us go realizing we were not Chinese, not reporters or spies and basically yelled go or we'll shoot you. God, as we're riding our bikes that had bullet holes in all the tires.
Oh, my God. We're riding away. And I felt this endorphine wave. Like when you're standing in the ocean facing the shore and you feel the current water kind of behind you and then you get hit by the wave over your head.
That's what it felt like in my brain. And I was and like the endorphine rush was so profound. I was like, oh, wait, I don't want to what this happened. I don't want to lose this feeling.
I don't want to lose what was going on. But then my next thought literally was if this happened to me a couple of times, let alone a couple of times in a month or a week or a day, how would I ever come home and hear someone say something like, honey, the washing machine's broken and not lose my mind. Right. Right.
And you're older. You know, although that was that was 27, 28, I think. Right. Yeah.
Nonetheless, I mean, you know, this is a physiological thing that also, you know, your frame of reference for what's important changes so dramatically. Yes. I'm amazed when people can come back. Not with.
It is amazing. It is amazing. And that is we will have to talk about that another time because I am my dad traveled a lot in oil and then we're in the oil. So I was in China in the 80s just for a short time.
And I had a pen pal that I used to write back and forth to because we'd practice English and talk about stuff and I never heard from him after Tina Men. And he was a regular writer and he's it just ended and I don't. It's just really tragic. So that's I mean, that story to me that you told me is that you were there.
Yeah. Oh my God. That is unreal. What I can say is it's not what people heard in both directions.
I mean, it's the way it was presented here was very different than what actually we saw on the ground and who knows what happened to him. It's it was it was really weird and wild time. I mean, I can't I'm grateful for it finally. It took a little while, not that long, but it took a little while.
I mean, we were there, you know, the famous picture of the guy with his grocery standing from the tank. We were in the Royal Palace or whatever the hotel was at Blackman now watching that go down and it was like, whoa, shit. And it wasn't the way people presented it like, oh, it was a big democracy. It was literally coming back with groceries, crossing this major, major, in the street and then sees the tanks and was just sort of overcome at that moment.
And it was not, you know, some deliberate thing. It was, oh, no. Yeah. That's what made it even more amazing.
It was holy. You should do it the right thing. You put it live in the right thing. It's amazing.
Yeah, it was there stories. Sadly, I had a lot of photographic evidence of things that no one's ever heard of. And when we were captured, they got my camera and removed the film. And there's no way to describe what it was.
But anyway, you know, that was my little bout. In fact, here's a weird flashback, pun intended or metaphor pun intended. Everyone got home and went to the movie theater and saw the first Batman movie. And there's a scene in that movie where the where the muggers who killed Bruce Wayne's parents, they he points the gun at Bruce kid, Bruce Wayne, and the shot they cut to the guy holding the gun.
So the gun is facing you and the audience. You follow you. I had to run out of the room. Yeah.
And that's PTSD right there. I mean, that's really because I can only imagine how stressful that would be. And to your point, you know, what if that happened to you for months on end? Well, and here's the weird part, just to dive into this for the fun of it.
While everything was happening, from the moment we realized they were shooting at us till the moment we we got on our bikes and had that endorphin wave. In fact, what helped me clear up any of the difficulty I was having dealing with emotionally was realizing the following thing. It was the most lucid and clear I have ever been in my entire life until I'm on my bike and I had the thought, wow, we almost died. That's when the endorphin rush kicked in up until then I couldn't have been calmer and clearer and more direct and more.
I mean, it was fascinating. And literally the only thought that I had was kind of a funny one was actually had a lot of funny ones as well. Share those when we were running down this road, it's like, you know, really, really wide and goes on forever. It's chanam and suddenly we're here automatic weapon fire behind us, which by the way, sounds like popcorn.
So part of my brain says, oh, it sounds like popcorn. And another part of my brain says, show them, run, you idiot. And say I'm running. In my next lot, I'm hearing bullets going by us.
And my next thought was I spent 26 years denying my Jewish heritage. And here's my potentially last thought guilt because I think I got my friend involved in this. So so and then my next thought was if I die, my parents are going to be so mad at me, which I'm actually looking at. And and then while we were captured, they couldn't open my fanny packs.
And two zippers, you know, you see, open up and split up. They would just grab both and just move them back and forth. And I remember thinking just like you did, I was thinking, this is funny. Don't laugh.
And then I opened the bag. They find my camera. They get very excited. And I think I got a lot of stuff on here.
I want to try and rewind the film. So I start to rewind the film and then they hit me with a gun butt in the side. I had another post-China moment where someone bumped into me in that same spot. And I kind of collapsed.
But but as soon as they hit me in the side and grab the camera, it's like, oh, right, they make those here. They know how that works. So there's like lots of things. Yeah.
But the thought that I had from the moment we like hit the ground and waited to see what was going to happen to the moment we got out was in Buddhism, they say your next rebirth is determined by your last thought. I hope I just want to know that I'm dying so I can get a good one. That was like the only thought I had. It was weird.
And that I had to keep my friend, you know, within visual distance. I didn't want to get separated from him. Yeah, right. But again, it's there's so many pieces to that puzzle that are I mean, this is every one of those is reshaping your brain.
Yes. And there is a physical, you know, the endorphin rush you talked about. It goes to the amygdala and there's other parts of your brain that literally light up and you know, right now, one of the one of the groups we're going to be donating to is Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions. And what they're doing is they're experimenting with like, you know, suicide and I have a friend here in town who's a former Air Force pilot, fighter pilot, his wife one day said, and if I die before you, do you think you'll cry at my funeral?
And he goes, now, he's like, wait, slow down. She goes, what? He goes, I don't think so. She goes, what are you talking about?
I've watched my best friends get blown up five feet away from me or flying a mountain. I mean, I've watched a lot of people die. It's just not my thing anymore. And she's like, I think you'll cry.
I just believe whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. But he's actively involved in that research.
He started out doing meditation research for PTSD. And then once they started being able to do civil society research and other compounds as well in DMA, et cetera. Yeah. He's all in on that.
Well, it's helping people talk about the worst day of their lives. It's helping them open up because you can't talk about things that are just too painful. Some of them are and they would use anything that will unlock the door and put you at peace to talk because you can't talk about it. You can't get more than that.
I think it's more than that because, hey, you can talk about it. You can bring it up and bring it out without the same emotional attachments to it. And it's that phenomenon. It's being able to bring it up where you're not getting in that neurological loose.
That's what you're literally again, you're reshaping your brain again. Exactly. Stephen. So like before I was talking about Lester and I was getting, we were both getting a little bit choked up with that story.
I could be able to tell that story clearly without getting that emotional trigger that's going with it at the same time. For some of these men and women coming back is so profound. And so they just it's just they just bury it down or they'll try to, you know, self-destructive behaviors or other things. Well, and even let's let's let's put a let's not turn that into something blamey and I know you weren't.
No, no, no, no. I'm so my best friend at the time was with me for this thing. And the differences in our experience were dramatic. He could barely remember it.
So it was not a conscious thing to bury it just for whatever reason, his neurology. I mean, he couldn't remember what happened. It was just gone for him in many ways, which was part of the it made our relationship sort of dissolve for a little while till we reconnected about 20 years later. And because I just found it very difficult when I was having a hard time with it that I had no one to.
That would be that would be difficult, right? And I'm sure that there's veterans that are the same way where somebody remembers something happening and somebody else doesn't. And it's it's very complex. The mind people are very complex things.
And, you know, we to be able to get through that. And so Lester wrote that one book called my hitch in hell about his entire journey there because I love Lester. I read his second book. He wrote a second book.
I found out I'm like, oh, there's a second book called the courage to remember. And it was about his PTSD that he went through because he was in a prison camp and slave labor camp for five years. And was tortured. Everything else happened.
Somehow the guy became an amazing. He would not his attitude was amazing. It's a shining light. But he wrote this other book and, you know, when I was reading it, I was like, oh, you know, that's that sounds like me on some of this.
So this is some like me. You know, I'm looking back and I realized that they were I've been part of this cutting edge technologies for 20 years. And when we were doing head to vascular enterism repair, there was a high morbidity and mortality rate. And you know, when you have these new theory new things coming out, part of it is, you know, it's good, but it's like your first generation shoe versus your one now.
They're better and you get better as you learn. And they were some and we used to do also, they were these one of the scents graphs that we would do with car crashes because your seat belt goes right across here where your order is. And a lot of times if you survive the car crash and you were all banged up, your aorta would be like not torn because then you would die, but it would be like it would sort of swell and it would pop and it would pop. You're done.
It's like a garden hose. It's that big around. So we would go in and be caught in these trauma cases and we would put the end of the graph, which is like a covered stent, a patch from the inside of the aorta, the big artery in your body. It's as big as your thumb, by the way.
And we would go in there and we put them in there. And there was this one 16 year old girl that I won't go into the whole case, but it was traumatic and it stuck with me for 17 years before I read Lester's book. And I, you know, you come home from that, you work all night on that. It's a horrible experience all around.
And she couldn't even anesthetize her because she was so broken up. So there's a lot of sound that comes with that. I'll just leave it that and I was up all night working on that, got home. And it's my kid's birthday party and I'm not really there because, you know, I'm just drinking in the corner.
So I mean, it's just so I didn't. So there's a lot of things in medicine right now. There is a doctor named Dr. Bill Lombardi who is leading this charge where because they don't really talk to doctors about coping with loss and things that are very important.
It's like, you know, it's like, how do we fix it? We don't do it again, but it doesn't really solve it. It's the science of it, not the art and the human part of it. So Bill Lombardi is working on that.
Walter Reed is working on that. I'm working on it within with my company now that we're working on. And Larry Woods, our president, he's been a guy that's been, you know, he was there in the beginning. Larry's got started in the mailroom at our heart valve company.
And he's been there for 20 something years. And Larry, you know, being in the early days when we were only operating on inoperable patients, high, high, high risk, super high risk, because we were testing all this stuff out. And you know, Larry, when I was talking and he's even been through a lot of, you know, there were things that came up and, you know, our eyes were getting full and stuff because, you know, trauma, trauma, but our service people right now, there's an epidemic in this country of suicide and self harm. There's some statistics I saw that was 22 vets a day, take their own lives.
And that is intolerable. That has got to stop. So the million dollars is going to go help a lot of people. Once again, thank you on behalf of people that I don't know, which is a horrible stupid thing to say.
It's like when people get offended on behalf of other people. So I'm appreciative on behalf of other people. So flip side of that coin. So this will be the most awkward transition I can think of to get back on to things that we were talking about before.
Let's talk about survivor now, too. So going back to survivor. Wait, hold on. OK, wait, hold on.
Let me tell you where I want to go. You tell me where you want to go. I want to hear more about the difference between the edited version of you and the real version of you at some point. I thought it was a good edit.
I thought it was a very good edit. I think you know me if you watch the show, that's me. I think they did an excellent job of showing me. The only things that they did is maybe they they hide some of my strategy and some of the things because they wanted to keep because I'm like, I'm on the couch.
I'm like, what about that conversation? I have a chest here. You're whatever. So, you know, but that was part of the theater of the show.
And I get it because, you know, they film 18 of us as Twiddles Down, but 24 hours a day. Yeah. And the show is one hour a week. So in 45 minutes, we take up the commercials.
So you got to think that they they have to leave a lot of the country floor. But I thought they had an accurate portrayal of every single person out there. Interesting. Really did.
That's who they are. And I think survivor has come a pretty long way. And it's not there's no like it's not like a gotcha show. It's this they show the organic experience of what they what what happens out there.
And, you know, good bad or otherwise, it's it's true. It's a real experience. It's the real show. Things are all real out there.
It was just they were so grateful for CBS and survivor because it was such an amazing, amazing experience for me. And, you know, being an older player, I wanted the adventure. I wanted to go deep into Gabler, me. And I did all that.
I came out the other side, a better person. I get I've still got growth and learning to do, but I'm better than what I went in. And that's all we can ask of any experience that we put our heart and soul into. And then to be able to do something positive with the the winnings is even better.
But, you know, if you go back to. Wait, hold on. You've ruined the show. You know that right.
Also, because whoever wins season 44, if they don't donate that money, they're going to look like complete assholes. I'm the first person in the history of the show. 42 seasons on the 43rd to donate their entire purse. And, you know, maybe it will continue it.
And, you know, I don't know, maybe if I was 25, I would have donated half of it. But I mean, I don't begrudge anybody for anything. And I think that, you know, we're all on our own journey. And, you know, for my journey, this was the right, the right turn for me, the right, the right turn to do it.
In fact, a funny story, my wife and I before I went on the show with a veteran and everybody, it remained in mind from college. We were joking around about like, oh, Stephen, you're not, you're not, you're going to win this thing, whatever you do, what are you going to do with the money? And we were joking, like, I want to buy a zap to throw cookies out to people and whatever. And we started laughing and then we got kind of somehow we got on a more serious now, we go, you know, we donated the money.
And, you know, you've got a military family and, you know, we got a lot of friends of mine. I'm like, that's an amazing idea. We started talking about it. So I go on the show, I come back, see my wife, I'm like, I'm skinny because I lost, I was £2, going in the show, it was £168 coming out.
So I lost £38 in a month, basically. And I, you know, she's super skinny, she's putting her arms on my right around me and I'm like, I want to know, and she's like, no, we're going to go. And I hope you're also okay with what we talked about because I did that too. And what was your response?
Obviously, she was, she laughed. She's like, no, I'm basically so cool. So it's been really great. And the amount of positivity and love that's come back has been tenfold to what I've given.
So I'm grateful for that. And, you know, survival was a real journey to get on to the show. So I want to ask about that, but I want to pause. Have you set up any way for people who are inspired by what you're done to add on to what you're doing?
So I haven't in that I thought about creating a foundation. Yeah, but there's so many good foundations out there that I am. I created a fund instead and the money's parked in there and I'm going to be donating two foundations. So what I'm going to do is I'm on Instagram and I'm on Twitter now, which is kind of new to me, but I'm on those things and I'm going to post once I'm still figuring out the taxes right now because I've got to get no W2, I've got to learn on a cat and figuring out once I get it all figured out, I'm going to post the organizations we're donating to so people can donate to them.
And I'm also going to be posting updates as we as we are doing things for veterans and people in need, we're going to be posting that to where people will see that experience. I've got another idea for you and I can't help doing things like this. If there was a moment from survivor, something you did, something you ate, something you ate, whatever, you could basically do something sort of ice bucket challenge-ish when you get to that point of like do that and then spread the word for whatever your idea. Yeah, awesome idea.
I love that idea actually. That's a new idea. I didn't think of that. I mean, it's like, I think that's a really it's a fun idea.
So I like it because it's fun. I like it because people can also experience it and be a part of this. And I think when you're inclusive and you're having fun, good things happen. Yeah.
No, well, in my pleasure, that was an interruption to what I was going to ask was you were saying something about the audition process. So it's a quite a process and then with COVID going on, because you know, code was doing a thing of it during this. So I turned 50 a couple of years ago. I was a huge fan of the show.
One bucket was things was put an audition tape together and submit a survivor by the time I'm 50. So I was trying to get these on my back against wall against this year. So if you Google Gabler survivor, you'll see my audition video. It's three minutes of power.
It's pretty fun. So I put this video together more for my friends and my family to have fun with it. Because it's just like me being crazy. And it starts off with me with my goats.
I've got a couple goats out there and the goats are like right in the foreground. I have motorhead with Ace of Spades plans. So it was all cool. And then sure enough, they called me and I was going to be on 42, but they canceled one of the seasons because of COVID.
So then rather than put all the people that were going to 40, what would it be in that group instead of releasing them, putting them to the back of the line, just put them to the front of the line, which is the right thing to do. And they said, Gabler, we're going to call you back in a year. If that's cool with you. And I'm like, yeah, call me back.
I'll be ready. So I just started training. And you know, and then you know, the next year they get called me back. And then I was, you know, I finally got the nod of February 20th that I was going to be taking off on April 1st.
And but I had been training the whole time, which is where we are connected. So this is a great backstory we've talked about, but that's kind of where. So I bought a slack line from my backyard and tied between two trees and I started trying to slackline. And you know, you're you need to be I was at first doing I've got a few problems with me, but I'm trying to slackline and something like this, right?
That's not going to work. People listening, that was I won't mention the name of the shoe by brand. I'll say it rhymes with Mocha and it's a big, heavily fattitude. It's the typical, you know, running shoe from the 70s that everybody's kind of thought was, you know, the more padding you had, the better.
And, you know, the problem is, is it completely changes your walk. It changes your balance and your core strength. So I experimented around, I was experimenting around with other shoes. I'm like, this is, you know, I get to bring, you know, they allowed you to bring two pairs of shoes to survivor.
And one was like a water shoe and one was another shoe. It's up to you, whatever you wanted to pick. So I was like, I know how important your shoe choice because I stand on my feet all day in the opera. So I'm like, your shoe choice is very important.
And then from being an athlete, you know, younger years, all the way through now, I'm, I know that your shoe choice is very important. So I was looking at different shoes and different things. And I think it was my sister or my wife, but somebody sent me the zero. Either that or maybe when I was looking for all these different shoes, zero popped up on my feet or something, somehow I'm so foggy about how I kick.
I was checking out all these different shoes. And I went through like a dozen or more manufacturers to figure out the best shoe to bring. And I'm actually holding this is the pair that I brought. And there's even some dirt on them.