They had a say it wasn't us coming in and saying we have the answer get out of the way we're going to do this for you.

It was hey let's come up with a solution together we say to make up a moja and so he would basically means let's work together on this.

Welcome to the art of charm i'm your host Jordan harbinger today we're talking with my friend Justin Ren.

He's an mma athlete who fights for the forgotten it's literally the name of his charity is made a family of pigmies enslaved in the Congo I didn't even know that those were real thing until he told me and showed me on youtube.

He's buying them land with his fight purse winnings and drilling wells in the jungle so they can have clean water and his own story of coming back from addiction induced retirement and finding purpose and helping others is not only inspiring but super interesting.

I'm really glad to have you here with us for this episode of the show and by the way if you're new to the art of charm we'd love to send you some top episodes and the aoc toolbox that's where we study the science of people and discuss things like reading body language and having charismatic non verbal communication the science of attraction negotiation techniques social engineering networking and influence strategies mentorship persuasion tactics and everything else that we teach here at the art of charm check that out at the art of charm calm slash toolbox or in our iPhone app at the

art of charm calm slash iPhone also at the art of charm calm you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show we're glad to have you with us here today at aoc and enjoy this episode with Justin Ren.

Well, thanks for coming out by the way.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I mean you really do fight for the forgotten we can talk about that in a bit but I watched the fight this morning which is weird watching mma in the morning.

I don't know what it's kind of like having a beer in the morning. Yeah, we're like I don't know it feels too early for this somehow it's like I'm eating oatmeal and watching you just nail this guy with pink hair in the back of the head over and over and over.

The commentator said this is a far more aggressive Justin Ren than we've seen so were you not as aggressive before because I feel like the line between not aggressive and aggressive in mma has to be pretty fine.

Yeah, so I had taken five years and two months off from the sport so I started fighting professionally at 19 years old to do well and I was always that guy that you saw this last fight that you just watched so I was always more aggressive but then coming back after the layoff it was a learning process because I had had five years off the muscle memory was gone there was ring rust and I was just trying to win what's ring rest that sound I mean it's probably what it sounds like but yeah explain that ring rest is probably where just there's the loss of muscle memory and just everything.

Everything's a little slower and you're trying to work out the kinks and get back in it you know these competitive fighters are fighting two three times a year sometimes four and then they're training five six days a week two to three times a day and so that muscle memory is just firing and then when you come back after a long layoff even a year is a long layoff and had five years off so let's guys don't come back.

It sounds like you retired and then just unretired versus taking a break in your training.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so coming back and then those five years off I wasn't training at all I was going back and forth to Congo living there for a year and I rushed back I mean I had basically six weeks of a fight camp to get ready for a professional fight again on a big stage.

I tried to outbox the boxers and I'm a ground guy.

I'm a wrestler and a jiu-jitsu guy next.

And so I was striking with these guys that grew up striking and I had to beat him at their own game and so the aggressive part trying to beat a guy at his own game if I made a mistake you're going to pay for it especially at the heavyweight division.

So anyways I got back to my roots and it just started to flow again.

So you kind of slip back from unconscious competence things are firing automatic because you've trained so much versus ring rust situation where you go.

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