The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #239 - Miesha Tate

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon:
Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I'm about to have. I may have the coolest guests right now on the show that has ever been on this show. I'm so, so excited. So the backstory on today's conversation. Last summer, I went to Dave Asprey's biohacking conference for the first time, actually, in Orlando, which was absolutely incredible. I planned to go every year from now on out, and I met so many incredible people. And one of the people that I met was the fabulous woman that I am here with now, Misha Tate. She is. Are you ready for this? The former UFC bantamweight women's champion of the world, which is, like, the coolest thing. And I've actually, misha, I've been. Now, I'm going on a tangent, but I don't watch, like, I don't have history with that. So I was like, well, I got to know. Dive into all of your work, and I've been watching your fights.

Miesha Tate:
It's crazy.

Melanie Avalon:
And actually, I want to give more of an intro for you, but you kind of need no introduction. But what I find so interesting is I've always been fascinated about how different people are passionate about different things. And, like, what I do, I'm obsessed with my work. I love my work. It just lights me up. And I've always felt that way since I was little. And listening to your interviews, I hear that same passion and obsession. And so I've always been so interested in why certain people become passionate about certain things, because fighting MMA, all of that has never appealed to me personally. So that was, like, one question I had for you was like, where did that passion come from? And if you always felt that way? But then my second thing is, so, like I said, I never have really watched this stuff before, and I've started watching it. I think I've watched your crowning moment with Holly Holm, like, ten times on YouTube. And I went from being scared watching it the first time, and now I watch it. I'm like, yes, I feel it. I get emotional.

Miesha Tate:
You're becoming a fan.

Melanie Avalon:
I am. Like, I got to go to one of these games. I don't even know what to see. That's how bad I am.

Miesha Tate:
Events, fights. Yeah. So now I'm like, is there, like.

Melanie Avalon:
A universal theme to why we love what we love? So, in any case, maybe that's a good place to start your personal story. Have you always been a fighter, like, passionate about this? What was that like?

Miesha Tate:
Honestly, I don't think so. I mean, I think there was an element to me that can't be taught. I think that there's something instinctual about all of us that if we get put in a fight or flight situation, how do we react? And I think those are our baseline reactionary genetics, if you will. And so I think I do have fight more than flight.  

Miesha Tate:
If I were just stuck in a random scenario before even becoming a fighter, I think that's just kind of like my personality more. But you know how you said earlier in this conversation already? I know it just started, but you mentioned something, and it stood out to me where you were. Like, I just would have no interest in that. I've just never really been a fan. I couldn't see myself. You kind of alluded to. I kind of picked up that you wouldn't ever see yourself doing that. And I literally felt exactly the same way before I did it. Like, to a t was not interested in fighting. I did not watch fighting. I had never been in a fight. I was the first person to kind of walk away. Like, if somebody started to try to talk crap or start shit, I was just like, I have nothing to prove. Like, I'll just walk away unless cornered. I was very laid back and not a violent person, not an angry person. And I never, ever thought that fighting would be a career choice for me. Now, I did like athletics, and I've always been fairly competitive. So I guess those are some precursors that you could say, oh, well, yeah, so you did know, or you had the characteristics. But I don't think those are characteristics that are unique to me. I think there are a lot of people who enjoy athletics and are relatively competitive. I don't think that singles me out as like, oh, she's going to be a fighter. But when I was in high school, I started wrestling because I did not want to play basketball. And it really came down to a very simple choice in that in the winter season in high school, there was only basketball offered or wrestling, but wrestling was only offered for males. So I remember the idea of going out for wrestling was kind of like, can we do that? And my best friend at the time, her name was sharon. And she's like, well, yeah, because they don't have a women's wrestling team, so they have to let us wrestle. And I was like, really let me go home and ask my mom. So I went home. I was like, mom, what do you think about me going out for wrestling? And to cut the story short, she was kind of like, well, I'm not going to tell you you can't do it. I don't think you're going to like it, so let me know how it goes tomorrow. So we went out for wrestling. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I left with matte burns all over my body, even my face. They literally just kicked my ass. And it seemed almost ritualistic for them because I know that there had been females that had tried to come out for wrestling before, and it was kind of this. Let's just get them out of their mentality. Let's show them how tough it is, how hard it can be. Let's make this introductory practice one of the most difficult and challenging, and just, they're going to quit. This is like, what happens. Girls just can't hang. But I was immediately enthralled with it. I was so terrible. I was by no means good. I was probably worse at that than basketball, which is the irony of that is hilarious to me because I didn't want to do basketball because I wasn't good at it and I didn't like it. But the difference was I loved wrestling. I was immediately invigorated. I was like, I have to come back and try to get better at this. I really do want to learn this. It's so challenging. I've never done anything this difficult in my life. So I stuck with it all four years. And then I went on to college. I went to Central Washington University, and there I was looking for something to do that was, I don't know, similar, I guess. I did not go to a school for wrestling. I think my parents kind of navigated me away from that, like trying to get me to. Yes. Stay a little bit on the calmer side of things. Well, little did I know that in college I was going to discover mixed martial arts. And I had a friend of mine, Rosalia. She was my neighbor in the dorms, and she was into karate. She was like, you got to come and check this mixed martial arts club sport out. These guys all wrestled. They're former wrestlers. You're going to love it. And I was just like, nah, that just doesn't sound like anything I would be interested in at all. No, thank you. But she kept bothering me about it, and I was like, fine, okay, I will go with you. I will humor you one time, and then I can say I did and be done with this. And I went, and I, on my very first day, learned how to choke people. I was hooked. I was like, this is so cool. What is this? Jujitsu. I had never heard of it. I was like, this is right up my alley. This can add right to my wrestling, because I went into that first training session with the whole idea of, I don't want to hit people and I don't want to get hit in the face. It just does not sound fun at all. And it's not my personality. I would never want to get hit in the face. And I'm not violent. It just doesn't seem to fit me. But it's so funny sometimes how little we know about ourselves. You just think you have this preconceived notion that this isn't going to be the right thing for you or the right fit. And I'm so glad that I went that day because it really washed away most of my preconceived notions. But it really wasn't until about three weeks later that I went to my first live amateur event, and I watched fighters just pour their hearts and souls out on the mat. I watched chokeouts. I watched them slam each other. I watched them knock each other out. And I was thinking, man, if they could do that, I could do that. And I had this visceral reaction to the fights. I mean, I really felt like I was a part of it. Like, I wasn't just in the audience, I was meant to be in that ring. And in that moment, I think destiny unfolded right in front of me, because as I was sitting in the stands, everyone was leaving. I was just kind of taking it all in. And they jumped on the microphone and said, hey, in another three weeks, we'll be having an all female fight card. If there are any women in the audience who would be interested, let us know. So I just made my way down there, and I signed up with no prior experience, and three weeks later, I had my first fight. That's how I got my start. It was wild. It was wild because I didn't choose the sport. It definitely chose me. I would never have thought in a million years growing up, even at 18 and 19 years old, ever, that I would be a fighter for my career choice. It just didn't seem like something that would fit me at that time, but it did, and I wasn't afraid to just take the chance. I think that's where maybe my personality might differ from some people, where it would just be a hard no. Like, I'm not even going to try this. I'm not even going to go watch the fights. I'm definitely no, like, saying no to my friends who are like, come on, just give it a try. Instead of a hard no. I was kind of like, all right, fine. What's the worst can happen? Fine, I'll go. Let's just give it a whirl. And I fell in love. Wow. That's incredible.

Melanie Avalon:
What's the worst that could happen? I'd be, like, a lot.

Miesha Tate:
Oh, my goodness. I know. Literally, I think I was very short sighted in what's the worst that can happen? And I think I've been that way many times in my life and my career, and sometimes it's caused me to literally take a big old bite right out of the mother earth because I've just landed right on my face and my teeth. And then other times, it's been the best thing, the best decision. And I would say majority of the time, it's been good decisions, because even when I have hit the ground, I've always learned so much in the process, and usually taking the risk was always worth the reward, even if there are some bumps or turbulence along the way. I've just really found that saying yes, more than no, has certainly served me well.

Melanie Avalon:
What's the worst? And it'll be exciting, because I would love to talk to you about recovery and biohacking and all that stuff. What's the worst injury you've had?

Miesha Tate:
Oh, the worst injury I've had. I think you would have to define worst because they're all interesting. So I broke my orbital bone. That was a very weird injury. It is the very eggshell thin bone that sits under your eye and holds your eye in place. And so I broke that in a fight. And so my vision was a little bit affected, actually, for the rest of that fight. That's when I fought Sarah McMahon. And fortunately, I didn't have to have surgery because I guess sometimes when it breaks, it can break in, like a v, kind of a crack, and the muscle of the eye can actually get stuck down in the crack, and then you can't move your eye. Like, it just stays straight and they have to go in there and take it out and stuff. So that didn't happen to me. But my face was kind of numb in the shape of Texas under my eye. I don't know why the shape of Texas, but it was. It was like my first three teeth here, and kind of up in this kind of triangular shape, if you will. And then when I fought Rhonda Rousey the first time, I refused to tap out to an arm bar. And so at my elbow joint, my arm was bent backwards 90 degrees, and I tore grade two and grade three tears of the bicep and tricep, and I actually avulged, I believe, is the medical term that they told me. I was learning this for the first time, too, the tendon from the bone, which means that it actually pulled chunks of bone out on either side. So the tendon where it attached to my muscle actually ripped the bone out off with it. But then the good part was that the bone will heal back itself, grow back into place, as opposed to if I had ripped it clean off the bone, then I would have had to have pretty extensive surgery. So that was an injury. I broke my ankle in wrestling. I've injured knees before my back, my neck.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you broken your nose?

Miesha Tate:
Yes, countless times. I almost forget about that because that's just, like, so common, like, so normal.

Melanie Avalon:
That's just, like, what you do.

Miesha Tate:
It's so common that you're like, oh, yeah, of course. I've broken that many times. I forget to even count that one. But that is actually one of the most annoying injuries because it affects how you breathe, and your whole face is so hot and swollen and miserable, and there's just not a lot of space for that much swelling. Actually, my first fight. Remember that fight? I was saying, oh, in three weeks, I signed up for it. I broke my nose in that fight. The worst break I've probably ever had. First fight. Yeah, my first fight. So in the first round, mind you, I didn't know how to fight. I didn't know how to throw punches. I had three weeks of training, essentially, and I pretty much was just a wrestler. So I was fighting this kickboxer who, her and her husband owned a muay Thai school, I think, in bC, in Canada, but I'm from Washington state, so she was just across the border, but they came down, and we got in the ring, we fought. I took her down. It was really. I remember being an easy, easy takedown because I was used to wrestling men. I wrestled against guys in high school, big, strong, young men. And so I remember that takedown being so easy, and I was like, that was so easy. But I forgot to even fight on the ground. I don't even know if I threw a punch on the ground the first round, I was just, like, pinning her the whole time. I barely knew any jujitsu. I barely knew how to stay in good position, much less punch while I was in good position. It was so green. And then in the second round, she put me in a muay Thai clinch, and I didn't know what it was, much less how to get out of it. So that's basically where they connect their hands behind, on the backside of your neck. They're in front of you, though. So, like, behind your head and behind your neck. And then they put the forearms on your collarbone, and they hold you in that position. So you can't really move back and you can't really move forward. And I didn't know how to get past this, but in that position. Then she began to throw knees to my face, which was still legal for amateurs at that time. They have since changed the rules. Quite a while ago, actually. They changed the rules that there are certain strikes, like elbows and knees to the face that are not allowed in amateurs because it's just too brutal and devastating. And now they wear. The gloves are a tiny bit more padded. And they're like our training gloves, amateurs. And they would have knee pads and shin pads and just a little bit more to protect, but at that time, that wasn't the case. So I took one knee to the face as a clean on blow right to the nose, and just smashed my nose, just mashed it. And I just remember bleeding like crazy. And I'm still trying to get past this lock that she has me in. That's what it felt like. And I'm just trying to grab her legs. And I think I kind of ended up diving down towards her ankles. And she spun around. She got on my back, and she was kind of trying to choke me for a little bit. And I was staying in a little ball. And I remember being on my elbows and my knees and having my head down and watching a steady stream of blood pool out of my nose and get bigger and bigger and bigger in front of my face until I'm looking at just like a big puddle of blood in front of me. And then she kind of sits up and she starts punching me. And one of them hit me in the ear and actually hurt worse than the actual breaking of my nose. I don't know why, but it stung really bad. It kind of like, was almost like a bee sting or something like that one just really clipped my ear and it stung. And I remember at that point losing my temper, which is the only time in my recollection of all my fights that I've ever gotten pissed. Like angry, really? Yeah. I don't get emotional in fights. I don't get. But I think in that moment, I was so just taken back by everything. I had never been hit like that. I didn't even know, really what I was there to do, to be honest. I mean, obviously, I knew I had signed up for a fight, but I just kind of dove in. I don't think I really sat back and thought about, how do you even fight? How do you even do this? How am I going to do it? Well, what am I missing? What do I need to work on? I didn't know any of that stuff, so I just really went in there and was naive, and I got my nose broken in that fight. And then I remember at that moment when I lost my temper, I just started bucking her, kind of like a bull, if you will, to bring her down in front of me. So now she is underneath me. And at that point, I just want to beat her. I really want to kick her ass, basically. I just want to beat her into oblivion. So I'm kind of standing up and she's still on her back, and I'm like, raining down punches, reaching from the ceiling to the floor, hitting her with everything that I have, and there's blood all over me, all over her. I think the audience was shocked because women's mma was nowhere near mainstream, so having a female fight end up so bloody and gory, and really watching us fight to the bitter end, I think was shocking, to say the least. I think people were like, oh, my God, this woman is covered in blood and she's insane. And that was the end of round two. And then my coroner didn't let me go back out for round three, unfortunately. But I respect it. I understand, and I'm glad that they didn't now because I can look back and I can let go of that. But for a really long time, I was very frustrated because I felt like I finally figured out what I was there to do. And I had moved through the worst of the fight. I already had my nose broken, and I was still winning. I was actually turned into a fighter. That was the moment that a fighter was born, really was in that moment, in that fight.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow. I actually had not thought about it, I don't think, until now. The delineation between fighting as a physical, evolutionary, non personal, non emotional thing versus the way we fight now with social media and identity and emotions, we call it all fighting, but it's very different. Do you find that in general, women in the UFC, and I guess men as well, have that mindset that you have where it's not emotional or personal or is it both ways?

Miesha Tate:
I think most fighters tend to fight without emotion because I don't think emotion serves most fighters better. I don't think it's better because when you're emotional, you just don't tend to stay as clear headed and focus on the goal and objective. So, for example, I think most people can relate to this. If you are entering a conversation with your partner and you have a goal of trying to get them to understand what it is that you need in this moment. So you're going to tackle an issue, right? If you at some point get emotional in that and your voice begins to escalate and you begin to say things that you don't mean, and it turns into a fight, the goal that you had was not better accomplished for you. Getting emotional emotions usually mean that you are losing control of your cool and fighting. It usually doesn't serve you well to do that because the fighters are so skilled. It's not just like a bar brawl where somebody gets lucky. Now, that does happen on occasion, but the fighters are basically playing chess with their bodies. So if you were sitting down to a game of chess and you had to strategically disassemble the opponent in front of you, do you think it would be better to do that when you are in a calm, Zen, focused, well rested, well prepared state of mind, or do you think that it would serve you better if you were on the verge of crying or if you were really emotional or you were just so pissed? Think at the moment, you've just been like, I am so mad right now. And to sit down and then try to play a game of chess, all those different versions, I think people could kind of understand that this is what we're doing in our sport. And typically, emotions don't serve us better. But I do think that there are certain fighters, and at certain times when emotions kind of kick them into the next gear, and I think that's very individual. I think, for example, sometimes Sean Strickland is somebody who you'll see kind of just get just a little fiery, a little even, I would say emotional, but I also think he's familiar in that territory. But I think most fighters are going to thrive the best when they can stay cool, calm, and collected.

Melanie Avalon:
That completely makes sense. Do you find in your life, and you mentioned this earlier, kind of your temperament, and even when I met you at the conference, and I don't want to make, like, stereotypes about what fighters are or are not, but meeting you, your temperament was not what I would have expected from what you are and what you do. And I remember you're traveling with your family, and they had lost your luggage at the airport. And for me, it's stressful enough just to go to a conference and show up. And I'm like, wow, she's with her family, like, traveling through. She has no luggage. And you are so Zen and so just chill about it. And I'm wondering, do you find that with the fighting, having those moments of fight or flight and activating maybe potentially, arguably, hermetic stress, that that makes you less likely to be in the sympathetic state in your day to day life? Or do you think that's just who you are as a person?

Miesha Tate:
I think that being a fighter has given me the ability to deal with stress better than most, but I also think that it's given me the tool of recognizing what stress is, what an actually stressful situation is, and what is a potentially stressful situation, but doesn't have to be. And I think that's a big difference. I think sometimes people allow themselves to engage in fight or flight over an email, or over a delayed flight, or over lost luggage. At the end of the day, there really isn't something hunting us. We're not in a life threatening situation. I think that is what stress was actually reserved for. And in that case, I think stress is beneficial because you should be stressed. If you're potentially facing death or harm to you or to loved ones of any kind, that should be stressful. And then cortisol levels will rise, and you will be able to deal with a situation that requires you to have a certain level of stress and stress response appropriately. But when we allow stress to be chronic and kind of consistently always there, I think not only does it lose its real purpose, but it actually becomes detrimental. And I have worked really hard on finding the balance in that, finding the moments where I say, okay, I am stressed right now, and that's my body letting me know that I'm ready for my final sparring session of this camp. And it means a lot to me. And I'm a little stressed. That's okay. I'm stressed a little bit. Right before a fight, the day before a fight, or the day of a fight, that's all right. My body is telling me that I am primed and ready to go. So I can accept that now when I find myself getting stressed out because one of my kids is melting down or I've lost luggage or whatnot, I just focus on my resets. I take a deep breath, sometimes three or more, and I just try to tell myself, look, nobody's dying. It's okay. At the end of the day, when I'm on my deathbed, or even tomorrow, or even a week from now or a month from now, this is really not going to matter that much. So I'm not going to throw my whole hormetic balance out of whack right now just because I don't have a suitcase. It's really actually not the end of the world. And I think I could treat it that way, that it's not the end of the world. And I think there is a choice in the way that I choose to handle the stress because life is stressful and it can be stressful, but we can also choose to minimize that stress and say, okay, I notice that I'm feeling stressed from this right now. Recognize that and label it if you have to, and then just say, okay, now I'm going to breathe that stress away because it's actually not that big of a deal. Let me get back to my conscious, non emotional brain. And that's kind of how I have looked at dealing with those situations, because I don't enjoy being stressed all the time and I don't want to find myself in a situation where I'm stuck being stressed all the time. I think I see far too many people suffering from chronic stress and it's debilitating and I think that it makes us sick. I think that when we are working outside of our balance, we don't function very well. And I really feel, like I said, it's debilitating and I think that it makes us sick. So I try very hard to deflect the stress that is not necessary and not going to help me. If it's not going to help me, then I don't need it. I don't have time for it.

Melanie Avalon:
I agree so much. And it becomes really evident to me when I think of dichotomies where there could be something that would really, really stress out one person and not another and then vice versa. So, for example, traveling, like I said, stresses me out. But for some people, that's like what they live for. So clearly it doesn't have to be stressful. Or like, driving in traffic doesn't bother me at all because I listen to podcasts, I listen to music, my mom will just freak out and it stresses her out so much. So it's another example where clearly, objectively, none of this has to be stressful. So in theory, we could not be stressed by any of it.

Miesha Tate:
In theory we could.

Melanie Avalon:
In theory, I know, theory we could.

Miesha Tate:
I mean, and that really is, I think just having the awareness of it is the starting point because some people don't realize, I think, how stressed they are. It's just become normal and they're kind of in this fog and haze, and they don't realize they're kind of continually living in stress. They don't even know what it means to be stress free. And I think we could all use a little work on our stress management load.

Melanie Avalon:
I agree. Now, I'm also thinking, because we were talking about the hermetic potential or like temporarily going in that fight or flight to help with the rest of your life. It's so interesting in the biohacking world that we have stressors. Like, people will do sauna, people do cold therapy. I'm wondering why we don't have at these locations the fighting hormetic stress option. Kind of like, I guess the closest thing would be people who go to. Aren't there places where people go and they just bang up stuff? It's like, hit things. I'm wondering if wellness centers should have some sort of fighting activity people could do.

Miesha Tate:
That's brilliant. I think you're so onto something right there, because what I've been talking about is about how to mitigate the stress. But I also think there has got to be a healthy way to release the stress, and that's another part of it, right? Sometimes we don't always need to suppress or control how we feel. I think there should be safe places in time and space where we can let those emotions out and really let them run their course and get through us. Because if we just continually carry them around, eventually they just get heavy. And I feel like that's been another soul searching and eye opening experience for me, is allowing emotions to consume me sometimes with the goal in mind of letting those things move through me. I feel like I've worked so hard and so long on compartmentalizing emotions, and it wasn't good for me. It didn't serve me well. And I think a lot of people do this. I actually think it's what I needed with the skill set that I had, the limited skill set that I had to become a world champion at the time because I had so many emotions going through me at any time, but I would constantly just put them in a box and put a really heavy lid on it and close the door on it and just choose not to feel, just to do and never to really be. And I struggled with that for so long where I finally burnt out after I won my world title. I lost it, and then I lost another fight after that, and I burnt out. I retired for five years, and I never thought that I would come back to the sport because I didn't know how to love it anymore. But I really actually didn't know how to love myself anymore. That's really what it came down to. And it wasn't until I started to reconsider how to reconnect with myself and really take some deep dives into my purpose and everything. So I think that part of that, again, has been allowing emotions to be present. And that's tough, because even being alone with yourself sometimes can be really tough. Sometimes. People, I think, constantly need noise or something going on to distract them. And then they get at night, they get to nighttime, and they lay their head down and their brain won't turn off. And I'm like, that's because it's the only moment of the day that your brain and self has had a chance to connect with you. And now it's trying to cram process everything. That's how I feel that that is. And I'm like, maybe if you took, like, a mindful shower or instead of turning a podcast on for a little bit, maybe the first ten minutes of your drive somewhere, you just kind of spent some time with yourself, like, connected. How are you doing? How are you feeling? What's going on? What do you need to process? What do we need to work through today? And I talk about myself like that sometimes. It's like we. Because I do feel like I am a team with myself. And that's been a big process for me, is instead of choosing to shut down the way that I feel, allowing myself to feel, but that's complicated in itself, too, because it's not always easy and it's almost never convenient, because we want to go go all the time. I want to be maxed out all the time. That's just the way that I think I was raised. It's the way that culturally, we are pushed. We want to maximize, we want to do more, we want to be more, we want to move at the speed of electronics now. And I don't think we were really meant to do that. And I think a lot of times it can just be overwhelming and it can just feel like so much. And so when we need a moment of downtime to just cry it out, it feels like I'm just losing time. Like, this is pointless. But it's really served me well to find that balance and to allow space sometimes for me to just lean into the emotion as opposed to lean away from it. Sometimes I'll just grab a pillow and scream to the top of my lung, like I'm just mad. I'm like, okay, I'm going to lean into it right now. I'm going to be as mad as I can be. Then I'm going to literally go, I don't know, punch my bed or something if I have to. And I teach my kids this too. Now I'm like, look, if you are angry, it's okay, because angry is not good or bad. Angry is just angry. It's a human emotion. Sad is not good or bad. It's just an emotion. Happy is not good or bad. It's just an emotion. It's okay for you to feel those things, and it's also okay for you to move through those things, let them through you. And that has helped me so much because I do the same thing. So I think my children have really motivated me to try to learn these things, I suppose, and undo some of the little traumas that I've had. I haven't had the most traumatic life by any means. I wouldn't consider myself a nine out of ten or a ten out of ten by any means. But we've just had shit happen, right? We've all had things that's just, like, hard to work through. And I think that's what I worked really hard on because I know that my ceiling is my children's floor. So I'm constantly propelled myself to elevate, to understand, to move through, to work through, to build, to deconstruct, to reconstruct, and try to be the best version of myself so that I can offer that to my children, so that they can become a much more better version of human beings than I could even dream of.

Melanie Avalon:
You are inspiration for moms out there. This is amazing. Well, it was really interesting watching because basically I went and I went back and watched and chronologically, so I watched a lot of interviews from around 2016 and then up until through today. And there's a major shift in you as a person. It's still you and the passion and everything is there, but you seem like a different person. You can tell that you had this shift that happened. I'm wondering, do you think that, because I also listened to an interview where you're talking about how when you were at your really dark place after losing your title, and then you went on a road trip and had a moment of finding yourself, do you think that failure moment was required for you to hit rock bottom and have a shift in you? Or do you think you would have ultimately evolved and experienced that? Anyways, what do you think is the role of failure and winning in identity?

Miesha Tate:
Well, I know for a really long time I identified as a fighter. And that means when I won, I was a winner, and when I lost, I was a loser. And that was a really tough pill to swallow because nobody wants to feel like they're a loser. It's one thing to lose at something, but at the core of who you are, to feel like you are worthless is a really heavy, heavy feeling. I don't wish that on anybody. I think that it's so difficult to navigate when you feel like who you are is tied to how you do, how well you do something. And I think I was at the worst point, my lowest point, when I lost my last fight before retirement. And to your question, do I think that I had to experience that low in order to evolve? I think given the tools that I had at that time, I wasn't going to change my trajectory until I had no other choice. I was going to stay that course. I was going to be the plane that was headed for the mountaintop and not going to change my flight path until I crashed and burned. And I believe if I had the skills now, if I had those skills back then, I don't think it was necessary, but I would have done so many things different. And I think that I could have been much more sustainable and much more even in my ascend to the top, as opposed to it being so rocky and so turbulent and so difficult. But it's what I had. It's what limited skills that I had. Nobody ever really worked on connection with me. I mean, my mom was a great mom. She loved me. She was a very busy mom. She was a very stressed out mom. She certainly did her best. They don't teach this stuff in schools. They don't teach us how to love ourselves on a deeper level. They don't teach us breath work. They don't teach us connecting with ourselves, others, or even earth purpose. And that might sound a little, I don't know, granola for some people, or a little earthy hippie whatnot. But I do believe that there is an energy to every single thing that's proven. It's science. Everything has its own vibration and its own energy that it puts out. We just choose to tune most of that out, like it's just not important. But I just think that there are layers to our level of connection to everything around us. And if we choose to cut ourselves off from most of that and just function like, and just drive ourselves forward and into the ground or whatnot, then we can do that. But it sucks. I've been there and it's very lonely. And it's very dry and it's just ugly. It just doesn't feel good. There's just no life being breathed into you. It's just like everything's just sucking from you. And I feel like once I realized that there was a deeper connection, not only with myself, but with my purpose, which I consider kind of like the universe, the energy that I put out is the energy that I get in. And I discovered that, and that changed my life forever. I will never be as disconnected as I was before, but I just didn't know that that connection could be as great or as deep as it was. So I think at that time, I had to hit rock bottom. And I knew that if I did not change what I was doing that I was going to end up in a suicidal predicament because I was that distraught and stressed and depressed and alone. I was isolated and I was alone. I didn't think anybody would understand me because I didn't understand myself. Like, how could I even ask for help when I didn't even know what the fuck was wrong? Excuse my language. I didn't even know what was wrong with me. I thought something was just wrong with me and I was just a broken person and I didn't even know where to start. And when I hit rock bottom and I retired, I thought, I just know that I have to do something different than what I'm doing right now. That's all I know. And so I just took one tiny step at a time. It was like having a pinhole of light in eternity of darkness. And I was like, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm just going to take one more step towards that little pinhole. And I'm just going to see it out. I'm going to get to that pinhole and I'm going to see what that pinhole is about because it's the only thing that I can really focus on right now. And that really was it. And eventually what I did was I went on that road trip, I took my little dog with me, and I just did whatever, put energy back in me, put gasoline back in the gas tank, so to speak. I reached out to old friends, family that I hadn't ever even met before. At points, I met great aunts and uncles and cousins and extended family, and I just tried to learn about my lineage. And I drove and slept on the beach, and I just did whatever I could to help myself feel better in that moment and reconnect. And I think that's when I started my journey of soul searching and trying to better myself and understand myself. And then I fell into the world of biohacking. My first experience also with really understanding the world of biohacking. Now, I think as an athlete, we biohack anyways, but I'd never heard the term, nor had I met the people who were really in that world, who have all these amazing ideas and concepts and even science and all these things that can really benefit us to live better lives, because we live something like 95% of our time indoors now. I mean, we're working in that pill paddle. So when I learned about all that stuff at Dave Asprey's biohacking conference in Beverly Hills back in 2022, I think was when I went. Or 2023? 2022, yeah, it would have been. And then I went to the one in Orlando where I met you, and that was fantastic as well. And I've just really enjoyed this world because I think there's so much to offer. People don't even know that they're living, like, suboptimally. Who wants to do that? We only get one go around, so why not make it the best that it can be? I'm just a big believer in that. So my goal is to help people understand and strive towards their personal best, whatever that is. That doesn't mean you have to be a professional athlete. You could just be a regular person. It doesn't matter to me. I love people in general, and I want to help people understand that there is a better way to do this and to find their own personal journey through life. Because for me, that has changed everything. And it's enriched my life. It's enriched my children's life. It's enriched my relationship with my fiance. It's enriched my life in the sport of MMA.

Melanie Avalon:
I don't know if you got a.

Miesha Tate:
Chance to see my last fight.

Melanie Avalon:
I didn't. Or did I? I watched the pre part.

Miesha Tate:
Yeah. So my last fight this December, it had been about a year and a half since I had fought. I had lost the fight before that. And along the way, even though I had started this new journey, I didn't know about mindfulness. I didn't have anybody that was teaching me about it until after I lost that fight the July before. And I was like, I know that there are tools I need to evolve. And I learned about mindfulness. Boom. This is like another life changing moment where I just. Yeah, I would take, like, mindful showers, mindful meals, quiet time, time with myself. I know I talked about this earlier, but for about a year and a half. I worked really hard on that and manifesting, and it came back to be the most amazing, rewarding experience of my life. Going into a fight, knowing exactly what I wanted and exactly what I was going to do, and being nowhere else but right there in that moment, that was so cool. And it was the best performance of my career. Best performance of my career. And I'm so looking forward to my next fight. Although I don't have anything scheduled yet, it probably won't be more until the summertime. But that was the proof in the pudding for me.

Melanie Avalon:
I was wondering the timeline of when you started all of the biohacking stuff and how that related to the timeline of your career. So that's really interesting to hear. So if we took the biohacking aspect out of it, do you think that coming back and retraining would be harder or easier than the first time around? Because on the one hand, I don't even know how much this affects it. I don't know the timeline of age when it makes it harder or easier as you get older. Because I was going to say, on the one hand you're getting older, but on the other hand, you've already have these skills, like with muscle. Is it harder to get muscle the first time? There's like the beginners, the beginner's luck, where they get muscle really fast, but then also it's easier to regain muscle when you've already had it. So it's kind of like a paradox. I'm not sure if there was a question in there. I guess the question is, coming back out of retirement, was that harder or easier? And I guess, what role, like, did biohacking has it just made it way better for you physically?

Miesha Tate:
Yeah, it was harder at first. I wasn't in the biohacking realm when I made my return, so I still had a lot to learn. But it was harder because I had had two children as well, and I really felt like I had to cover a lot of ground to get back to even just being an athlete level shape. Then I had to work on the skill building, and the sport has been continuing to progress for the past five years, and it was really challenging. But I came back and I won my first fight and I dominated. I got a tko, and then I went straight my next fight into a five round main event against the top five ranked woman. And I lost a close decision. And then my next fight, I tried to drop a weight class down to 125. Well, I didn't try, I did, but it wasn't a good decision for me. I really think I just took too much from my body and my emotional mental state. It was so hard because I had to diet for so long, and I'm already really lean at the weight class that I'm at, so making 125 pounds was really tough for me. Yeah, I didn't enjoy the process, and that was the whole point of me continuing to fight. At this point, I don't have to fight. I like to. I like the challenge. I like the competition. But the drop in weight was an added pressure that just made it not fun. It was so difficult, and I had to be so strict and weigh every single thing that I ate and put it in the chronometer, balance it all out, and I was like, oh, my God, it was just such a headache. It was terrible. So I blamed the weight cut on a kind of lackluster performance. I think I was just exhausted by the time that I got to the scale, much less to the fight. And then I continued to learn. I got better at mindfulness. I got better at the biohacking. I got better at everything. And now I think at my stage in my career, you would be expecting somebody to taper off, like, not be as physically in the prime. But I really have found that biohacking and staying on top of regular regimens when it comes to recovery, like, I'm in my hyperbreg chamber very often. I use red light therapy. I use brain tap regularly. I use the mark pro. I am on top of my supplements, and even the quality of those things. I personally eat more red meat, grass fed. I have just more information. I eat grass fed liver. I eat a lot of things that are very rich in vitamins and nutrients. That's, for me personally, works well. And, I mean, there are so many other things that I feel like I do on a consistent basis. Cold therapy, sauna. You mentioned those things earlier. There are so many great things I do intermittent fasting now that have upped my physical stamina in ways I didn't have when I was younger. So I feel like my body is able to stay younger, and therefore, my performance is staying, quote unquote, younger than what we have seen in prior generations. This knowledge that we have now keeps us functioning as though we were still in our late 20s, early 30s, which is kind of like a nice prime age for an athlete, at least. And for me, it's made such a big difference because you look at somebody like Tom Brady, for example, and you're like, well, he's just an anomaly. I'm like, no, he just is really smart, and he works really hard at maintaining his physical, because as an athlete, you cannot have the experience and the repetitions that a veteran has as a young person. You just don't have enough time yet. Hours on the map. You couldn't do it if you even stayed 24 hours a day, which wouldn't even be recommendable. But you can't make up for the years of experience. But where the veterans typically tend to lose it is that they don't take care of their bodies. So when the body starts to fall apart, it doesn't matter how much skill set they have, their bodies can't keep up with it. The wheels are coming off the car, it's falling apart. But if you could keep your body functioning young and have the experience and the repetitions on the mat, well, then you have a recipe for success. And that's where I feel like I'm at.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm actually shocked that there aren't more athletes that find their way into this world of biohacking. It just seems. I mean, I'm like, saturated in it. So when I'm like, it seems obvious, but I am surprised.

Miesha Tate:
Yeah, I feel the same way. I think more athletes do need to understand. I think more people need to understand, but I'm especially surprised that athletes don't. But I do see a little bit more seeping in here and there. There's a little bit of a cultural shift, it feels like, around the whole idea of putting back in. I think people are tired of being tired. I think people are tired of feeling like shit. I think people are tired of feeling depressed. And we're starting to ask questions, and the information is presenting itself. Scientists are studying what happens to you when you are vitamin D deficient. And why does it affect you in so many ways? Well, maybe because it's a hormone. Maybe it's actually important to be outside. Maybe we should use a little less sunscreen. Where is the balance in all of this? And I find that the information has probably been out there longer than I've been looking for it. I know a lot of it actually has been out there longer than I have personally been seeking it out. But I think more people are able to access this information in easier ways than ever before. So I'm a huge fan, for example, of Andrew Huberman, the Huberman Lab podcast. He breaks down research and studies for the layperson. So I would not be able to take a paper, a research paper per se, and tell you if it's a good study or if it's not because I'm not formally educated enough in that way to be able to say, like, this is a credible study and this one isn't. I don't know. I can't tell the difference. Thank God for someone like Andrew, who's a neuroscientist and a professor at Stanford Medical, that he can do that. He can say, hey, what makes a good study is a double blind study. And this one was solid because they controlled for this, this, and this. That makes it a good study. So I'm going to take this and I'm going to pull out the information so that anybody can understand it. And I love that. I love that he does that. I listen to his podcast regularly and I think that he's just fantastic. So that way of accessing, having that information easily accessible for me on a podcast to just listen to is ideal. So the fact that this information is more accessible than ever, I think people are starting to be able to learn about this stuff better and have more access to this information, which is nice to see.

Melanie Avalon:
It's so nice to see. And I know even last year, the Fox health editor for all the Fox online Health stories, she for some reason decided I am a good resource for her. It's been so mind blowing to me, but she had me in, I think, probably ten articles last year. So I was basically getting to talk about biohacking and mainstream health media. And it's just been so encouraging to see that. It's like slowly finding its way. And people like Huberman, like you said, are amazing because he has one of the top podcasts now for all the podcasts, and so many people are. I just, I love it for the fasting. What type of protocol are you doing? Or is it regimented or is it just what you.

Miesha Tate:
Oh, somewhat. I'm friends with Dr. Mindy Peltz and I think she's just a fantastic woman. I'm so glad that she explained to me and probably millions of others, but how to fast for my cycle as a woman. So I have done the majority of my training as an athlete and everything that I do according to male model because that's what's studied. Wow. Yeah. It's what's studied, it's what's known. And I feel like as women, we have found ourselves kind of getting the short end of the stick when it comes to how we actually optimally perform. And so I had my last fight actually scheduled according to my cycle.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow. I was going to ask that. Okay. I was going to ask, do women fight is it just random on their cycle?

Miesha Tate:
Most women don't even know that it makes a difference. You take a fight and whatever. So I think most women don't even know that there are more optimal times for certain types of training or performance versus not. That is information that was not out there for most women to understand this kind of stuff. And I think this is even really helpful, even if you're not competing. It's so helpful to know that these hormone shifts are normal. And when you're feeling like crap a few days before your period, and you're super emotional and you want to bite off your partner's head and you're just, like, not happy, that's normal. It's normal in the sense that we don't need to feel guilt about that, because in a couple of days you'll be fine. And I think normalizing that, for me has helped so much, and also recognizing that has helped so much in that I don't even get to the point where I'm so frustrated anymore. And I definitely don't feel guilt where I used to feel a lot of guilt, like, I don't know why I feel like this. Something's wrong with me. I used to feel like that a lot, and I didn't realize that it was according to the hormones that were present in my cycle. And now I've alleviated it to the point where I'm just like, oh, yeah, I'm being a little more irritated. My hormones are not in the most ideal place. Hey, let me take a breath. I'm going to reset. I'm going to check myself. That's still not acceptable to be rude to other people or my children or my fiance. Let me calm down. Let me give myself a place of acceptance and realizing that it's going to be a little easier for me to get triggered. Let me warn my partner, too. Let me set him up for success. Hey, I'm having a little bit of a hard day. Today is not a day that I want to add things. So if you have something hard, that difficult that you want to talk to me about, couple of days, like, not today, today is not the day. I will not receive it well, because I can tell I'm already maxed out. Today is not a day that I can add things, and it's so nice. Then you just move through the day and you're like a normal person. You're not this crazy, emotional woman who doesn't understand herself and feels like no one else understands her either and that something must be wrong with her. It's so nice to feel like oh, it's okay to be a little slower today, a little off, a little bit. Like that's okay. I can still move through today and be a functional person. I'm just not going to put 110% on my plate. I'm going to knock it down to 70 or 50 or ten if that's what I really need. I think everyone's different but that also goes in with my training, it also goes into with my fasting. So typically I practice a 16 eight fasting. I try to stay pretty regular with that but depending on where I'm at in my cycle, sometimes I'll be like, I just don't feel like fasting today. I'm just not going to 730 in the morning. I'm going to eat and normally I don't eat till eleven. I'm like I'm hungry, I'm just not going to. And then some other times I'm like, I'm feeling great today. I know I was planning on eating at eleven but I think I'm just going to wait until like three. I'm good and I just try to listen to myself, listen to my intuition and really focus on that. The longest I've ever gone in a fast is 46 hours. So that's my longest fast, which is really fun to kind of dip into those extended fasted states. But I don't do that very regularly because I'm an athlete and I need to be able to pull from resources that I have well stocked. And sometimes fasting can make that really challenging when it comes to for me at least any anaerobic workout, anything where I need to be explosive, that gets really challenging for me. So yeah, I would say that's kind of how I vary my fast. I listen to myself primarily stick to a 16 eight hour fast. And one thing I almost never break though is that I do not eat at least 2 hours before going to sleep and preferably three. Usually I'm hitting three on a bad night, an off night, a cheat night, I'll hit two. But I very rarely eat closer than 2 hours going to sleep because again, I learned from Andrew Huberman that you stunt your growth hormone or you mute it entirely when you go to sleep if your resting blood sugar is high. So a really simple way to combat that is don't eat close to going to bed and maybe move after eating. But if you eat 3 hours before going to bed, granted you didn't just eat a whole chocolate cake, your resting blood sugar should probably be okay if you're not suffering already from diabetes or anything like that? Obviously, everyone's different, but this is the protocol that I follow generally, because growth hormone is so important, and I want to maximize it as I age and it begins to drop off. You do not want to work against it. You don't want to mute it. Is that bite of cake right before bed or that little sugary? No. For me, it's not worth it. If I want that cake, I'll eat it tomorrow at noon when I have plenty of time to burn it off before I go to bed. So it's not that I say no to things. It's just that I have times when I allow it and when I don't. And I really stick pretty stringently to not eating close to bedtime.

Melanie Avalon:
For scheduling your fights, do you try to schedule them in your follicular or your ovulatory phase?

Miesha Tate:
So, yeah, for me, I try to do right in the middle. Right in the middle of the cycle.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. Okay. That is so cool. I was wondering about that.

Miesha Tate:
Well, now I do. Anyways. I had one fight where I actually paid attention to that, and it was his last fight, and I performed very well to my best effort will be my theme moving forward. I don't know if it will always be perfect because obviously, there's different fights on different dates. And sometimes it's like an opportunity to be on a great big fight card against a great opponent. And it might be a less ideal time in the cycle, and I'll still be like, yeah, I want that opportunity, and I'll be fine. But as much as realistically possible, I will do everything in my power not to schedule a fight during the worst time of the cycle, which is, like, a couple of days before your cycle. That's just the worst time. Even for cutting weight, you don't want to be trying to pull water and add stress to your body when it's at the Netflix and chill kind of phase. Body doesn't want to have stress right now. So, yeah, I try to be mindful of that, and I'm so thankful for Dr. Mindy for letting me know that this is a thing. I'm like, this is a thing? How did I not know this? My whole life, this is a thing. I did not know this. So, yeah, it's a thing.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm so excited to interview her. I think I'm interviewing her in a few months for her book, so that'll be amazing. Are you haunted by your nickname, cupcake? Where did that come from?

Miesha Tate:
Cupcake originated in a couple of ways. But I'll tell you, cupcake is the last thing that you want to be called in a combat sport. And the irony of being called a cupcake, to be underestimated, to be judged by your cover, that was the story of the beginning of my career. Like, women would be like, yeah, I want to fight her. She's feminine. She wears dresses. There's no way she could be good at fighting. No way. Not possible. That's just women. No, she obviously doesn't take the sport seriously. So, I mean, they would literally call me out and want to fight me because they thought that I was too girly and there was, like, a prejudice against that and being a fighter and being feminine and, yeah, they would basically call me a cupcake, and I was like, okay, well, let's lock the cage door behind us and let's see how much of a cupcake I actually am. So it used to really bother me. It used to really piss me off, really burn my cookies when somebody would say something like that about me, that she's a cookie or she's a cupcake, or she's just whatever. I was like, who in the hell are you to judge me? You don't know my story. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know anything. And here you are calling me a cupcake. Who the hell are you? Who do you think you are? And then eventually I started to just let it roll off my shoulders and be like, you know what? I'm just going to embrace it then. If that's how people want to think of me, then let them. That's fine. It doesn't define me. I'll take it on as a nickname then. That's kind of what I did. I just said, hey, I'm going to embrace the irony of this. And cupcake it is.

Melanie Avalon:
It's amazing. I'd be like, I'm a gluten free, nutritional cupcake in your face, like, the best cupcake.

Miesha Tate:
Yes. And then the other side of that is. It kind of fit me already. Well, anyways, because my mom is a professional baker, so I grew up, like, making cakes and baking and cupcakes and all that stuff, too. So that's the cute part of it. Not really why I got the nickname, but I also like to remember that that's also a part of what cupcake means to me, is where I came from and my mom and our memories and her strength in that. So that's kind of what I took it to mean for me, is when I took that name on was, like, the strength of the women in my family and carrying that on, that even if we're judged, that it doesn't have to mean what it means to everybody else. It can mean whatever it means to me.

Melanie Avalon:
That's amazing. Yeah. The stereotypes. All the stereotypes with women in the world is just so crazy and insane. I know. The stereotypes I deal with is being blonde and I can't be smart, apparently, literally, people would say that in reviews. In the beginning of when I launched the show, I was like, okay, it's just crazy, but it's nice to prove people wrong. Wow. Well, this has been so incredibly inspiring. I'm just so in awe and inspired by everything that you're doing, and I am so grateful for you. And you have a wellness center in Vegas, right?

Miesha Tate:
I do.

Melanie Avalon:
And is it, like, biohacking type stuff there? And do you plan to expand?

Miesha Tate:
Let me clarify. So I did have a place in Las Vegas. I recently sold my shares back, and I am committed to partnering with next Health, who is a brilliant company in the La area. And they also have some in New York and one in Hawaii. But they're going to be franchising into Las Vegas, and I'm going to be a part of that. So that will be upcoming. And in the meantime, I'm just seeing what other opportunities meet me on the horizon. Awesome.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, I'm putting it out there for you to make some sort of, like, biohacking, fighting, hormetic stress thing people can do where they go and get their fight in and then leave.

Miesha Tate:
I love that. I think that's so powerful. I always say all the time that women need to hit things. I mean, it's like this no brainer. Like, men are this preconceived notion that they can be violent or they can go do combat sports, and that's normal and natural. But I'm like, but there is an element, like, women do need to hit things. I'm just saying it is healthy and it feels good and it makes you feel accomplished and powerful. So I always encourage women to try a cardio kickboxing class. I don't know, give it a whirl, just see if it feels good, because I think for most women it does if you're brave enough or bold enough to get on the mats. And I don't mean to play into feeling timid about that because I really feel like most women would get over that barrier very quickly. But some women do have a very difficult time with the feeling comfortable on the mat, rolling around being in somebody else's space or having someone in their space and understand, I think there's a primal difference a little bit there where sometimes women feel like, this is a very vulnerable thing, and I'm just not comfortable with it. And that's okay. Then try cardio kickboxing, because nobody really has to be in your bubble or anything. You don't actually hit each other, but you can hit the heavy bag. You'll have people holding mitts for you at times, and you can just feel your power. You can feel strong and empowered. And I think it's good. I think that doing activities and sports like that gives women a different kind of confidence when they walk to their car. I think they just carry themselves different. They don't carry themselves like a victim. They're not shy. They don't look down. It's just that they are aware of the strength that they have versus having this untapped power that they're not connected to. And I think that's sometimes, unfortunately, what people look for, or they look for to take advantage of. So, yeah, I recommend it to everyone. And I say women need to hit things all the time. But I love your idea of in a wellness center, having that aspect of like, hey, let's lean into the crazy a little bit. Like, we're all a little bit wild. We all have these emotions that come out of us as humans, and we're so busy just trying to put them in boxes and never let them out. And that doesn't work. In my experience, it doesn't work. And I think most people I've talked to who have moved through that realize that it doesn't work either. Could work for a certain amount of time, but it's going to catch up to you eventually, and it's going to be really heavy and exhausting at that point. So I love the idea of having something like that in a wellness center where you think it's just totally about Zen and leaning into the. What about leaning into the. Let that part. What's the right word for it, Melanie? Leaning into your. I don't want to call it crazy. I said crazy earlier, and I just don't feel like that's, like, a good.

Melanie Avalon:
Fitting term and it's not aggression. Physical energy, intensity. We have like a brainstorm session. Hit all the words at the wall.

Miesha Tate:
Yeah, no, I like that. I like all those. I think that physical energy, that intensity, like, leaning into that, I think allows us to kind of set the cup down instead of carry it around all the time. So I really like that.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, putting it out there to the universe, there's so many ways it can manifest. That's amazing. Well, thank you so much. This has been so incredible, so amazing. I promise. Very short last question I ask every single guest on this show, and it's just because I realize more and more each day how important mindset is. Like, we've been talking about this whole show. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Miesha Tate:
I am grateful for my self awareness and my connection to myself because I went through life so long being disconnected, and it was such a disservice to the true potential that I have. It hindered me from being the best version of myself by a long shot. I am so much more complete now and balanced and healthy, and I'm able to serve myself, my kids, my partner, my community, my teammates, my fighting warrior spirit. Every element of me needs me to be connected and self aware of what it is that I'm going through, what challenges this day, tomorrow, yesterday, all of it. I'm always moving through space and time and kind of just trying to be as aware of how I am in that moment as possible and what I want out of that moment. And transitioning sometimes between work mode or doing an interview, like when I get off of this podcast with you, I'm going to take a moment, I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to reset. I'm going to say, okay, now what am I going to do and what hat am I putting on and how well do I want to do it? And I think that takes a certain level of self awareness. So I'm going to go downstairs. I'm going to see my son who was melting down with grandpa and didn't want to get out of the car at the grocery store. And I'm going to engage with him. We're going to decompress. We're going to move through what happened, and then I'm going to go pick up my daughter, and we're going to talk about her day at school. And I'm in mom mode. I need to be the best mom that I can be in those moments. I need to be the best interviewee that I can be in those. I need to be the best fighter that I can be in those moments. So it's like, how do I get the most out of each individual moment? And it's by being self aware, not being two places at once. Be here now. That's what I'm grateful for.

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much, misha. This is amazing. I cannot thank you enough for what you are for, honestly, for humanity, for women everywhere. I mean, I'm inspired and I'm like, I got to go start doing this. I've never even remotely contemplated going and doing something physical, like one of a lot of the things that you mentioned. So just thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll be eagerly following you. How can listeners best follow your work? I mean, it's kind of self explanatory. You're like, everywhere.

Miesha Tate:
No? Yeah. I think on my social channels, I think I'm the most interactive on Instagram. I do try to hit all the platforms and be interactive. I've been working on being a little more interactive on X even, which is so interesting that it's not Twitter anymore, but it's just my name. M-I-E-S-H-A-T-A-T-E. That's where you will find me on most of my social platforms, and that's really where I am most present. Other than that, if you wanted to book me for something or whatever, you can reach out to my management. It's khimanagement.com. And that's really it. I am looking forward to doing more public speaking in the future. I will actually be at the biohacking event in Dallas, though, the one that's going to be in Miami coming up in February.

Melanie Avalon:
Biohackers Congress, or is it, which one is.

Miesha Tate:
So this is what I love. When you want to think of the name of it and then you're like naming.

Melanie Avalon:
You can't.

Miesha Tate:
Yes. Don't you love it? That's literally the way that my brain works, and I love that about myself. It's like before this, you could think of it. After it, you could think of it. But when you want to think of it right now, you can't.

Melanie Avalon:
I know which one you're talking about. I saw the email the other day. Somebody was talking about it, too. So you're going to be speaking there?

Miesha Tate:
Yes, I'm going to be speaking there. It's in Miami. It's like Biohacker Expo or biohacker event, something like that. So I apologize for not being able to pull that right off the top of my head. I should know it, but I think it's Biohacker Expo is what it is. So I will be speaking at that. Gary Brecka will be also speaking there. There'll be a cool, it seems like it's going to be a really fun, engaging time. So I'll be down there and looking to do more of that.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome.

Miesha Tate:
Well, again, thank you so much for.

Melanie Avalon:
Your time and for this moment and everything that you're doing. And hopefully we can meet again in the future at one of these conferences.

Miesha Tate:
I'm sure we will. Take care, Melanie. Thank you for having me today. Awesome.

Melanie Avalon:
Thanks, Misha.

Miesha Tate:
Bye.