People sometimes ask me, “How is it to work with your brother?”
I have to say that I am the luckiest guy ever. Mas Nate and I, have lived together, worked together, been on this mission to help blind people, and help the world for so long. It’s kind of interesting to look back to where we’ve come from and how that happened.
Growing up in a rural community and not having a whole lot of entertainment options, we were always playing in the woods, playing with animals, with our horses out in the hay barn. Doing country kid kind of stuff. But I’ve got to be honest, Mas Nate was kind of a mean big brother, which I think is part of the game. That’s what big brothers do. As the middle child, I also have a younger brother, Mas Luke. I definitely understand that sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit mean to your younger brother because that’s part of being a big brother and figuring out who you are.
One of the most incredible experiences that I ever had with Mas Nate was when I was in first grade and he was fourth grade and he was good friends with a neighbor kid who lived on the corner where our bus stop was. It’s the middle of winter, and we were down there waiting for the bus, and the neighbor kid hit me. I was sitting there crying and afraid because he was way bigger than me and three years older than me. Mas Nate turned, looked at him, and POW! He punched him right in the face, knocked him down, shook his finger at him, and said, “The only one that beats up my little brother is me“.
At that moment, I had a mean older brother. But I knew that he actually loves me.
But it took about another 10 years or so before we really integrated and everything came together for us. I was 16. I was a Brown Belt and I’d been fighting in tournaments for years at that point. I was quite an accomplished fighter. I had barely got my license. I was driving us to a drive-in movie theater in an old beat-up 1977 Ford F-250. Long bed, extended cab. It basically needed a football field to turn around in it. I had all of our other friends in the back of the truck. I’m going forward and backward and forward and backward and popping the clutch as we went ahead.
Mas Nate leaned forward and told me, “Hey! Knock it off.” And right after he said that I popped the clutch real hard and he fell and hit his head on the tailgate. We finally arrived at the drive-in, and we pulled into the parking lot. Nate wasn’t happy. He got out and flat out hit me. I took it as a challenge because I had grown up always having to fight in school because I was a little scrapper, and then I’d get home and always have to fight him. I thought to myself “Okay, fine. I’m an accomplished fighter now. Let’s go. We’re going to do this”.
We went full out, in the middle of the drive-in movie theater parking lot, while it was still light. We were all still waiting for the movie to start. We had just shown up. We must’ve put on the most incredible spectacle because I was doing all kinds of aerial kicks. We were going at it for reals. 100% full boar.
I’m going to hurt you. You’re not my brother right now. I’m getting payback right now. Meanwhile, he was coming back to me.
By this point, I’d fought in so many tournaments that I knew that fighting seems to take a long time, but is actually over really quick. It had to have been three to five minutes that we were going back and forth, just belting each other. Full-tilt boogie, as hard as we possibly could. Mas Nate was really, really good at martial arts as well.
I can just imagine it now. I wish that we had cell phones back in the day and people could record that stuff. I would pay top dollar to see that fight today. After three to five minutes, we were both really gassed and really tired, both bloody, and we looked at each other.
“Hey, are you done?
“Yeah, I’m done.”
We walked over to the snack bar and we both got cups of ice. I can’t even remember what movie it was playing, but we’re sitting there watching the whole movie-going, “That was kind of dumb, let’s not do that anymore.” At that moment, we made a friendship and a bond that basically has held us together until now and into infinity and beyond.
I feel like sometimes we have to do that to understand ourselves, and to understand our other partners as well. You know, it was rough. We had tension stretched out over 16 years of growing up together and then it finally came to a head. After that night, we’ve been best friends ever since.
I can honestly say that (except for our little brother Luke) I am the luckiest brother there’s ever been. Mas Nate is absolutely amazing. Going through that experience of really defining where our boundaries were, his strengths, and my strengths. Learning how to integrate those two, has definitely been one of the greatest experiences of my life and I’m so very grateful for it.
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