#179: Dom Thompson - Eat What Elephants Eat
Follow Dom on Social Media at @domzthompson
Today, I’m honored to introduce you to a fellow kale-loving athlete, Dominick Thompson.
Imagine growing up poor in Chicago’s west side, witnessing your first murder at age 5, doing whatever it takes to protect yourself and provide for your family, and going to prison at age 21 – all while still excelling in school, athletics, and work.
It’s a background that is so different from most, but such an important story to tell because, to understand Dom now, you simply have to look back on his past.
Today, Dom is a beautiful humble soul who defies every stereotype we have of a “tough guy.”
He’s an activist, bodybuilder, endurance athlete, dog dad, and social entrepreneur, known for his businesses, Eat What Elephants Eat and Crazies and Weirdos. It’s even more fascinating to learn that Dom went vegan during his first week of prison. Unbelievable.
He had a spiritual epiphany and the decision to stop eating animals completely transformed his life.
His mantra? “If it requires harm, then nahhh.”
Today, he gives us a riveting look at his past and discusses that spiritual shift that informs his present-day work as an activist and social entrepreneur.
“When you eradicate harm from your life, the universe has your back,” he says. We couldn’t agree more.
Episode Resources
Watch the Episode on YouTube - https://youtu.be/3cD-KXOAJ28
Follow Dom on Instagram - @domzthompson
Follow Dom on TikTok - @domzthompson
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Dom Thompson:
Everything that I decided to do because I stopped eating meat in prison, 22 years ago. My whole life really started ascending because I felt like the universe had my back and it just kept protecting me and kept opening one door after another for me.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your PLANTSTRONG journey and I hope that you enjoy the show.
One of the best things about hosting the PLANTSTRONG podcast is getting the opportunity to meet people that I otherwise would never have the opportunity to connect with. And not only connect with them, but really connect with them on a very deep and personal level. Today I'm honored to introduce you to a fellow kale crunching soul, Dan Thompson. Imagine growing up poor in Chicago's West side, witnessing your first murder at age five and having this mindset that you're willing to do whatever it takes to protect yourself and provide for your family. Going to prison at age 21, all while still excelling in school, athletics and work. And it is a background that is so vastly different from the one how I was raised. But it is a super important story to tell because to understand Dom Thompson today, you simply have to look back on his past.
OVERLAP 01:04-01:47:
Dom Z Thompson is his social handle on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and all of the other social platforms he has. You can also check out his site, eatwhatelephantseat.com. and of course craziesandwierdos.com. Now remember, we would love to have you join Tom, myself and about 150 others for the half Marathon Marathon 5k as part of the team PLANTSTRONG on February 19th, 2023. Simply go to plantstrongfoods.com/team and learn everything you need to know to take part. Keep the plant strong.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I want you to know that Dom is a beautiful, humble soul who defies every stereotype that we have of what it means to be a quote "tough guy". He's an activist, bodybuilder, endurance athlete, dog dad, and a social entrepreneur known for his businesses. Eatwhatelephantseat.com and craziesandweirdos.com. What's even more fascinating to learn about Dom is that he went plant strong his first week in prison, which is absolutely unbelievable because he had this spiritual epiphany, awakening and the decision to stop eating any meat completely was able to transform his life. His mantra, if it requires harm, then nah. Today he gives us a riveting look at his past and discusses that spiritual shift and informed his present day work as an activist and social entrepreneur. When you eradicate harm from your life, the universe has your back. Dom likes to say, and I couldn't agree more because I too have witnessed that in my own life.
And before we launch into our deep discussion, I'm thrilled to announce that Dom has joined Team PLANTSTRONG and we'll be heading to Austin for February 19th to run the 5K in person with over 150 other team PLANTSRONG brothers and sisters. And just so you're all aware, it's not too late for you to join this growing movement of athletes from around the world who are also fueled by plants. All right, today is a big, wonderful conversation with the beautiful Dominique Thompson.
Dom, this is a real thrill to have you on the PLANTSTRONG podcast. I've heard so much about you for a long time and I'm glad that we were able to make this happen. So thank you for making time for me today.
Dom Thompson:
No, thank you for having me, man. I heard a lot of great things about you too. And obviously we have a lot of mutual friends and mutual passions for this plant-based and vegan community that we both are involved in. So thanks for having me on the show.
Rip Esselstyn:
Definitely. You're definitely a kale brother and in fact without even planning ahead of time. For those of you that aren't watching on YouTube, I'm wearing my blue kale shirt and Dom is wearing his, what is that? Purple?
Dom Thompson:
It is a burgundy. Yeah. Burgundy kale shirt. I feel so comfortable in it. It's a good statement. It gets people to have a conversation about it. Usually I'm in the gym with a kale shirt on or a kale sweater on or one of my own eat what elephants eat shirts on. And it is a great conversation starter for guys seeing me, especially when I'm looking like a lot of heavy iron on a lot of plates. And they just like are you vegan? I'm like, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well and of course your kale is bigger than my kale today.
Dom Thompson:
And fairness, I did do chest this morning. Monday's is international chest day for me.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well I saw you're ripping it up. For those of you that don't know, Dom's got a really spectacular Instagram channel. Very enlightening, very entertaining. Highly recommend it. But I was watching some of your stuff and on chest day you get after it, after it. I mean level, down, up, you name it man, you're hitting every angle.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. It's important to hit a combination of shock the body and the pictorials and more. I think a lot of guys and people and general men and women that get in the gym sometimes forget to hit different muscle groups and different angles to help the growth. And I've been lifting weights since I've been in fifth grade, man. I had my first Joe Weider bench when I was in fifth grade and going into football, junior football my first year was in fifth grade. So I've been in the Iron game for man over 25 years it feels like. Yeah, it's been a while.
Rip Esselstyn:
Dom, I can't wait to unpack your story, which is, it's so inspiring. When you know your background, you seem like the last person that would ever be vegan and be an activist and plant based and be such a big hearted, compassionate, wonderful human being. But you are. Right.
Dom Thompson:
I appreciate that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so you're self described as all these different things and I want to ask you about it and then we'll talk about each one.
Dom Thompson:
Sure. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So one of the first things that you say is you're a son and I'd love to know what that means to you.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I come from a single parent home. My mother raised three of us. I'm my mother's only boy. I'm the youngest. I have two oldest sisters. And what that means to me, because she worked multiple jobs as a nurse, tried to keep food on the table and try to keep a roof over our heads, we stayed in originally a one-bedroom apartment on the west side of Chicago. I come from humble beginnings and being in this violent, excuse me, very tough neighborhood, like I seen my first murder at the age of five. And for my mother to do all she could to kind of protect me and my sisters from what was happening in our community, in our neighborhood, she did her best. And I'm a son to me means the fact that I can appreciate all the things she has done as a parent to do the best she could do with the hands she was dealt with. Whether she had to work two jobs and even sometimes working three jobs, she would work nursing homes in the evenings, third shift and even on the weekends to the point that me and my sisters wouldn't see her. And that's how I learned to cook actually because I had to do a lot of the fending for myself and cook a lot for myself. It's kind of hard having teenage sisters to depend on.
Growing young boy. But yeah, my mom was, and still is the rock of our family. She's an amazing woman. She's the most selfless human being I ever met. She would literally give her all, her last to a stranger on the street that needs it, her last piece of food. It'll be nights where she didn't go eat, she didn't eat so we can eat. That's how bad things was in the beginning. So yeah, I'm a son, proud son of an amazing, amazing strong black woman.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's her name?
Dom Thompson:
Maria. That's her name. Maria.
Rip Esselstyn:
Maria. And so you say you grew up with, was it two other brothers or two sisters?
Dom Thompson:
Two sisters, yeah. I grew up with two older sisters, my sisters Tanya and Yolanda.
Rip Esselstyn:
And are you close with them?
Dom Thompson:
I am. I mean, I don't talk to them every day, but if something happens or they need me and I need them, they'll be there for sure. You know what I mean? Without a doubt. Me and the oldest have a lot in common but me and the middle used to bump heads, just like the middle bump heads with the oldest. It's funny because me and the oldest are a lot like our mom. No nonsense. Straight shooters, very independent, just different. And the middle one is, sometimes act like she has the middle child syndrome. But I love her to death and she has my amazing nieces and nephews. I have three nephews and two nieces from her and she had enough kids in the family for me and the oldest. Me and the oldest we don't have any human kids.
So we helped raise the middle, the troop, the team for my sisters. So yeah, they're amazing women too. They've been through their own experiences. I always talk about, laugh about it. It's funny, before I signed my book deal, I was talking with my publisher. It's amazing how many incredible stories because they was really fascinated by my story. But you know, get jaded to that stuff. It's normal to someone like me. I know a lot of people that have been through similar experiences like I have or been through worse, but there's some stories in my family where those women from my sisters to my cousins can make some incredible books based on their own life experiences too. So looking forward to more of those stories coming out in the future too. Cause I want to help them. I want to be the catalyst that kind of helped them get their stories out there too. Cause I think it can inspire a lot of people.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well tell me this. So you just mentioned that you signed a book deal and so what's the timeline on that?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, actually next month we're turning in the master manuscript. It's my first cookbook. It's a hybrid, a mix of my origin story. It's mixed with over 60 recipes that a lot of those recipes I grew up loving where it'd be my mom's famous enchiladas, veganized that, to my grandmother's gumbo. We veganized that and I really, really proud and really excited about this book because it's really like the first of its kind. We signed this deal this time last year and it was such a good proposal of that they had a bidding war.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh nice.
Dom Thompson:
Between four of the big publishers. And we went with, well I went with what I felt was the best home because the publisher made it clear to me and they had a whole team on a Zoom call. And then I appreciate `that every one of those team members, it was about at least seven people on that call from PR to different editors and more marketing. But each one of them, I can tell read that story. They all had tears in the eyes and that moved me. I didn't feel like I was just a business transaction. And they said that they're in the business to buy alters not books and that kind of struck a chord. So I'm really happy with the home that I'm landed on with my publishing company and the master manuscript is being turned in actually next month. The principal photography is starting around March and so I want to say we should get it out there by third quarter of next year.
Rip Esselstyn:
Congratulations.
Dom Thompson:
Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's a huge hurdle to overcome. Turning that in, can you tell us what publishing house you went with?
Dom Thompson:
Absolutely. Simon & Schuster. Yeah with Simon & Schuster. Great team. The name of the book right now is Eat What Elephants Eat at the Morning Food Company. It's an incredible book with a lot of inspiring recipes and more. Had a great team with me working on this, my co-writer, she's amazing. I can't wait for the world to really see this because I'm feeling really good about it. I think it's going to go on to be a New York Time bestseller, so I'm really happy about that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Whoa. I'm confident it will. That's exciting.
So Dom, huge congrats on the book deal. Having done a couple myself, especially getting that first one under your belt. It is fantastic. And not many people have the good fortune of getting an advance and let alone having a bidding war over the story because they know it is packed with so much fantastic information. So huge kudos to you.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, it's very humbling to be honest with you. To have that opportunity. Here I'm a kid from Chicago, never in a million years thought I'll be writing a book and it's nothing I aspired to do. Nothing that I do that people will learn of me through this podcast or people already are aware of me, but something I aspire to do, far as entrepreneurship, activism, everything kind of organically happened as we get through this podcast and you'll learn, which is a beautiful thing where things organically happens. And so I'm very fortunate, very humble, very blessed to have this opportunity to just present my story in a different format. And that's going to be an incredible book that I hope you all take a look at when it comes out next year.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh yes. All right. So there's a lot of different places I want to go, but I think the place I want to go first is you're vegan and from everything that I can see, you love being vegan and it speaks to you. And it's almost like this was kind of part of your DNA long before you kind of knew it was.
Dom Thompson:
It was. I loved animals since I was a kid. It was always in me. I was that kid growing up in Chicago that would break up dog fights and more. And young kids and boys being boys would like to experiment with different things that they're growing up. And I would have friends around me that would shoot all types or throw rocks at squirrels, stray cats and stray dogs and do these very harmful things to these animals. And I was always in the middle breaking it up or slapping them on the back of the head telling them that's not cool. I have always had a strong heart and compassion for basically the vulnerable. Humans or non-humans, even if it was a guy or a kid being picked on. I just felt like anyone being picked on, anyone in a vulnerable situation where they can't defend themselves, the natural energy in me wants to respond to that to protect them. So as long as I can remember, I have always been a protector for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so when did you first have that inkling that, you know what, I don't have really any interest in eating animals. Just something about this doesn't feel right.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. The infamous story when I was eight years old.
Yeah. My mom, as I mentioned earlier, she did all she could to provide for us and buy what she could and to put what she deemed in most people in the eighties and from that older generation deemed as food. And I have always been a picky eater, always been a really picky eater. And I never, chicken wings and pork chops was probably the two most meat-based type of servings that was placed in my home. The most affordable. Besides us eating a lot of carbs with or sandwiches just to make do. Because like I said, we come from very humble beginnings, my family. But I was always a picky eater. And up until that point, it was just this moment in time. I was eight years old and my mom was serving us chicken wings and I was looking at those chicken wings and I looked at her, looked at my arm, I just was going through a light bulb moment and those wings to me look like little bitty arms.
And I was just digging through the, because anyone that has had a chance to eat chicken wings, you can see all the tendons, you can see the anatomy of the wing itself. And I will always pick around it and dig around that and just eat what I can, detach the flesh, the muscle and try to go for the whitest part of the muscle. Because the darkest flesh to me just looked slimy and it looked unhealthy and it just looked gross. It was something that I just didn't want anything to do with. So I was always picking at those wings. But in this moment I'm looking at those wings and looking at her and looking at my arms and I just pushed back the plate and said, I don't want this anymore. She's like, what do you mean? I was like, they look like little bitty arms and I don't want to eat this.
And it's kind of hard to tell a very strong independent black woman that's no nonsense from the civil rights era that you not going to eat her food. But she, I'm going to chip off the old block. And my mom have always taught me to speak my mind even to her. And so she was like, you're not going to eat then. And I was like, well then I'm not going to eat. And we kind of have bumped heads in that moment. But to her fairness, this is not the 2000's, this is not 2022 where your child says, I don't want to eat meat and you like, oh okay, well maybe he'll like this plant-based option. You got this young growing boy in your kitchen and you can go out to the grocery stores to buy all these amazing different plant-based options or even look online for alternatives. But here we are in the eighties, and what do you do in that moment? So my mom went out to the grocery store and she came back with fish sticks.
She figured that it was an aesthetic thing for me. The masking of what exactly I was eating was bundle up. And similar to chicken nuggets where long as I don't see where it's coming from, I can view it as being edible. And I went on to eat a lot of fish sticks and a lot of chicken nuggets and stuff like that. So she was kind of smart by doing that. And that was that moment where I kind of, my first experience with realizing I don't want to have anything to do with meat. The problem with that is I didn't go down the rabbit hole as much as I should. And granted I was eight years old, but still, I should have continued to explore that because that memory is the same memory that would later on at the age of 21, 22, come back into my psyche, into my thoughts when I was on my knees praying in my jail cell when I was serving time to try to figure out what was I doing in prison besides the crime that I took responsibility for.
But trying to figure out was there deeper meaning and everything came back into my mind in that moment in time when I was praying to that little boy that was eight year old. And that's when I realized that you could be an eight-year-old Dominic or an 80-year-old Dominic or an eight-year-old Rip or an 80-year-old Rip. And if you don't follow through what karma shows you, it's going to come back to kind of repay you in some capacity. It could be through disease, it could be through economic hardships, it could be through a loss in your life, a health issue and pain and suffering.
And that was my moment where I realized that karma came back full circle and they wanted to remove me from society when I was serving time. And that's when I truly made the full circle connection when I was 21, 22 sitting in my jail cell and had that aha moment that created this mantra organically came in my mind that if it requires harm then all and I don't want to have anything else to do with it. And that was 22 years ago where I haven't had meat in 22 years and I never looked back. So yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So if it requires harm, then nah.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Then nah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nah. N A H, nah.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, nah. N A H H, nahh. If you're in the south, N A H or if you're in the north, N O, no.
Rip Esselstyn:
No.
Dom Thompson:
Just absolutely nothing. And that mantra has stuck with me to this day. And it's the very foundation of who I am as a human and the foundation of my integrity.
Rip Esselstyn:
Love it. Tell me this, because I want to know, and it sounds like your mom was, you're rock, just absolutely incredible. How did you get from being that eight-year-old that basically said, I don't want these chicken wings to being, I guess you call it a criminal and then getting put in jail. I would think that your mom somewhere along the line would've put her foot down and done everything she could to say, Dom, you're going down a bad path and we got to stop this.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I mean, again, being in an environment that I was involved in, there was definitely different influences that I just couldn't escape. There's a time that a lot of young black men, especially in the eighties when crack was introduced to our communities, sadly through our government. But that's another story.
There's a time where a lot of us hit a fork in a road and I certainly hit a fork in a road where sometimes you have to throw and go through as Jay-Z once put it, men have to do men things for men's salary. And I had to hit these bumps regardless. Regardless of the type of car I was driving in or the type of road I was in. Some potholes were simply unavoidable and we'll get over that pothole. But we had to experience that pothole, we had to experience that flat tire. We had to pull on the side of the road and change that tire to continue to go on to that role of peace and that role of compassion, what people know me as today. Yeah, I'm not innocent. I went through some things and I experienced some challenges. But sometimes you had to, to become a better person.
Without struggle, like Frederick Douglass used to say there couldn't be no progress. And that was my timeline, needing to go through what I needed to go through. And sure my mother was this very strong woman but it's only so much she can do to protect her kids from the streets or protecting the streets from her kids in some capacities, if that makes sense. And my experiences and who I was is not a reflection of who my mother was as a parent, as a woman. Those are two different experiences and we just live in a society and certainly back then where certain things was just biased and challenging for us to get out of. And I had to go through that and I have no regrets because it made me a better person for sure. I don't take that away and I took full responsibility. I'm not playing the victim, I'm not saying that's someone else's fault, but I did what I had to do and served time for it for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Can you tell me, so in high school would you say you were on the football team?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. I was a really great football player, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. What position did you play?
Dom Thompson:
Middle linebacker.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh man, okay. That's a good position.
Dom Thompson:
Now they know.
That's who I am through and through, head to toe, energy wise. Yeah I was that H-back, what we call the husky back, our mascots was huskies and I was a H-back in the middle. Started out as an outside linebacker, did an incredible job there. Used to destroy some of those guards. Try to pull on me and block on me. But I excelled so much as outside linebacker. And granted I was a little bit small, as far as height. I'm about six feet. But those boys I played for classic state high school. It was pretty big high school and we played in the big league, but it was some big boys on that line, some huge big boys talking about 300 pounds, 200 or 300 pounds in high school, which is insane.
But I still bang with them up until my junior year is when my coach was like we need to put you in middle linebacker. You too fast. You're strong. I had my fellow linebacker team. Because that's when people was experiencing too. Defensive ends converting over to outside linebacker. Its more so my body build, tight speed and intellect fit perfectly in the defensive system as middle linebacker.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so help me out here because I'm seeing you as this incredible football player, probably had a leadership role.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah I did.
Rip Esselstyn:
And so where do you get mixed up in gangs and I guess drugs and stuff like that.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Because that culture doesn't mesh with the other one. But I'm ignorant, right?
Dom Thompson:
This is Chicago, not Texas.
Yeah, it's different man. Football player. Yeah, I played football. But we have all season, then we also have the pressures growing up in a society where families need money, people need money for the littlest things. And football was something that I absolutely loved doing. Just like I did advanced architecture, I did advanced architecture in high school where I was killing it. I always had a creative mind, but it doesn't mean what I did outside of that high school. Again, you had two different separations and you still had to come home to an environment and still had the pressure to seed and provide in many ways. So my first experiences with streets, I wouldn't say groomed, but my older cousins, Booby, Walt, Matt, especially Booby, some of the most legendary dudes in the streets. Some of the most original, some of the original architectures to some of these gangs in Chicago.
And I was experiencing some of these things from as young as four years old, what they was going through. So I had these different outside influences and coming back to these environments and I had to do what I had to do, which is I've tried to do both. Try to exceed on this side and that's the fork in the road I told you about. You have the good side over here. Try to stay narrow and straight and you this side over here, let me try to cut some corners because we need money, I need money, we need to do this. I need to grow up fast. That's not like I have financial help from a father. I had an absent father in my life. So yeah, I did a pretty good job. Anything that, anyone that knows me, I do. Once I pick up something, I excelled in it.
Just like I excelled in school, math, english, I graduated early in high school, a couple semesters early. Excelled in football until I broke my ankle severely. And back then orthopedic medicine wasn't as advanced as it was today. Today if you break your ankle in high school, they'll open you up right away, operate on you and so you'll be okay in about eight months to a year. Back then, this is the nineties, they're putting a cast on you and saying you're not going to be fully a hundred percent until eight years from now. The bones had to heal on their own. So orthopedic medicine wasn't advanced as then.
In my football career when I broke my ankle my senior year, all those potential scholarships, everything. I had a lot of them schools that wanted me to play for them. The Bears wrote a letter to me trying to encourage me to go back, to play in college. Don't be discouraged because they learned of me and know that was a good player and stuff like that. But my ankle was just never the same. It took about six years for it to be a hundred percent solid again.
Rip Esselstyn:
Not a good injury. I actually broke my right ankle two years ago, mountain biking. But unlike you, I was able to...had the surgery, had some pins, plates, all that stuff. And it's been two years and I'm finally now about okay.
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:33:04]
Rip Esselstyn:
It's been two years and I'm finally now about okay, right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Not a hundred percent, but yeah.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. I would have pins put in me if they, again, the medicine just wasn't advanced then. It was, especially for teenagers. I think a lot of the medical providers in the scientific community didn't want to really operate on kids back in those days because it's still, they're going through that growth spurt and they don't want to have anything to interfere with them as young adults.
So I had to sit it out and it was troubling because I, like anybody that played football especially that was good at it, I felt like I would've been really good in the NFL without a doubt. But that's when most other areas that I was driving on that, again describing the fork in a road, I started excelling in those areas specifically.
Rip Esselstyn:
And so, did you go to college or no?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I did. That's when I got indicted, I was out of the dope game. I was done doing what I did. My experience in the street life and everything I did in streets was really in my teenage years. And here I am, going to college, have my first entry level position in healthcare, while, and again, these are two different timelines, so not sure the demographics, people that listen to your podcast. But to be a college student back then, and again, this wasn't just me, I knew a lot of people that was doing this.
You go to college for 12 to 16 hours, full-time and I knew people working 40 hours a week, including me. So my first job was 15, even though I was in the streets, again, I was smart about what I was doing and I always wanted to be better than what I was doing. I was trying to get away from that lifestyle and I thought I did successfully, until I ended up getting indicted.
When I was in college, I got indicted for some of that, those old crimes and got set up by a couple of informants and it was really challenging to here I am, never had a speeding ticket in my life, never had been arrested for anything, trying to do the right thing. Not even part of the streets like they was trying to paint me a picture out to be.
And here I am in college and working a full-time job, doing everything to bust my ass to be a productive person and a citizen to society. And I had to look at these papers that not said the people of the state of Georgia and not people of the county of Fulton, but the people of the United States of America versus you. That's pretty scary. You feel like a terrorist. Your government is indicting you.
It's one of the most, I tell people all the time, it's the most scariest piece of paper you can get placed in front of you. I was in custody, but anytime you see the United States of America versus you, you know you're in a bad situation, really bad situation right there. So I had to process all of that and I end up hiring a really great attorney that we both felt, like this was an entrapment case too and we wanted to go to trial, but he told me, and this is the first solid advice that I got from anyone because I never had a mentor growing up, anything like that.
But he was a solid dude. He was a brother too. And he was like, "Listen, if we go to trial and you lose, you're not coming home until in your '30s. You're only 21, 22, you're a young man and you're not coming home on until in your '30s." And that's kind of hard to process. He said, "You and I both know that you're not completely innocent. And this is what's called karma." That's the first time I ever heard the word karma. He had a heart to heart with me about it.
He's like, "The things you had done in the past, whether you think they were innocent or they could have been severe regardless, we arrived at this point where you had to face some consequences. Now, we can go to trial, but I'm just letting you know if we lose, the government feels like you're wasting their time, instead of taking full responsibility and they're going to throw a minimum of 10 years at you, as a first time offender." And that's kind of hard to process, and that's when... I was doing a lot in my life and I grew up fast in my teenage years. It was so many things I was doing at the age of 15, that I can write a whole book on, that even young men to older men to this day haven't experienced that I have experienced.
But in that moment I feel like I put on about 30 years of my life, because who wants to go do 87% of a sentence? Because that's what you're... In the Feds, you're doing 80% of 85 to 87% of your time. And that's kind of hard to process for someone that's a young man, but he was right and that's when I took full responsibility.
I didn't tell anybody. I didn't roll on anybody. I took full responsibility for my crimes and pleaded for possession with the intent to distribute. And we did what's called a blind plea. And we went in there and the government tried to recommend higher sentences and they felt like I wasn't cooperating, but we cooperated by me taking responsibility. And the judge ended up basically, because he had some guidelines and so only so much he could have done sentencing guidelines, which are bias towards when you look at the historic sentencing guidelines of the federal sentencing guidelines relate to drug and cocaine specifically.
A lot of those guidelines are biased towards young black men coming from marginalized communities. And I was in that scenario and he basically gave me a 10-year sentence, which was they wanted me to do five years, a hard time in five years of house arrest. So I did my time, I did a few years on a hard time, then I got a couple years off of my sentence for the drug program that I attended.
That gave me a lot of time off my hard sentence because it's like a resident program, you go serve your regular time, and then they shipped me to Florence, Colorado for me to be in the RDAP program that gave me up to 36 months off my time, I can't remember, so long ago. And then I came home and did two years of house arrest, was a role model citizen. I got back on my feet, basically spent my whole '20s dealing with the judicial system, trying to get back on my feet. Then we went back in front of the judge and even though I was on curfew and house arrests, they allowed me to work, and I showed and excelled in corporate America.
I was able to get that first entry level position that I had received in healthcare when I was in college. The health system MacNeal Hospital took a second chance on me. They was very supportive of me when I came home, and they allowed me to have that entry level account representative position back, and I took that for granted.
Here I am, a felon, able to get a job in a health system because they believed in me and I excelled, really, really excelled. And I was able to get three years off my house arrest sentence. So I finally got a chance to breathe where I didn't have any responsibilities. Paid my fees and my fines and restitution and served my time and really excelled in healthcare to the point that I went to the sister company, Chicago Health System and started negotiating the contracts for the hospital, for the IPA and the physicians.
Two different medical groups that I managed on the north side of the hospital and the west side of Chicago. And even excelled in that, to the point that a company called MultiPlan, recruited me in the south and they wanted me to run the south region. Parts of the market in the south far as business development and managed care contracting.
So my chart trajectory kind of went, continued to excel because this is one thing that a lot of people don't talk about when it comes to going through the same experience that I went through or even vegans talk about when they remove themselves from oppressive systems and supporting industries that are doing just harm to other living beings and ecosystems. They don't talk about the spiritual side.
And to me, everything that I decided to do, because I stopped eating meat in prison, 22 years ago. My whole life was started ascending because I felt like the universe had my back. And it just kept protecting me and kept opening one door after another for me. All because I truly was dialed in into this new lifestyle of doing no harm without, if it requires any harm, not doing any part of that or being a part of it, consciously knowing. And it has my back, up until this day.
And I just feel like a lot of people don't talk about some of the good things far as benefits of your life. Whether we talking in your working professional life or in your family life or your spiritual life. A lot of people that remove meat and remove themselves from just harming things, just simply don't talk about the other side of that coin or what it does to your mental health and then what it does to you as a human being. And everything has just been on the up and up from that point on.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, good karma.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Good karma. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
You say in one of your Instagram posts that if you had one superpower, it would be to protect every last animal in the world.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, and I mean that. I do. Every last animal and every last human that's vulnerable and can't defend for themselves, for sure. Because we do live in this thing called life where there are some humans and non-human animals and very vulnerable creations and communities that simply can use help and either won't get the help or will continue to experience these challenges, that there's just no way to get away from it.
And people will always say, "Well, you manifest what you are and you can live the American dream. You can be anything you want to be. Look at you, you came through." Not everyone, simply put is not going to make it. It's only so much, if you look at it logically like math, if all 300 million plus Americans want to be the president of the United States, that's not going to happen. There's only one position for that. Same thing when it comes to the executive branch and the Congress and House.
There's only so many positions, in so many different communities and industries and we just set up on in a system that's tripping by capitalism and other biased laws too, that's just set up to delay or even discourage people from achieving things or being the best that they can be. And we just need to think about that. We just need more kindness in the world and more people to be more empathetic too. Not everyone is dealt a good hand, and be more kind to that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If you don't mind, and just tell me that, "Rip, I don't want to talk about that." Growing up in a very privileged household, I have no idea what street life is about, is like, can you shed any light on that?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Look, I'm open book, that's one thing everybody knows about me. You can ask me anything you want to ask me, from my personal upbringing to my love life. You can ask me anything you want to ask me. Again, the growing up in the streets in the '80s and the '90s is a lot different than it is today.
I think, and me observing living in this day and age, I do notice a lot that still challenges and a lot of systems and from unfair housing to limited funding to public schools in certain marginalized communities and more, I do feel like there's better opportunities today, definitely than it was historically, because we have this powerful tool called the internet. Where almost everyone has access to it, no matter their economic background, almost everyone.
And so you have this wealth of information that you can become a self-starter too and do things and learn things even if you're not getting in through parenting, through mentorship, through your school, your teachers, long as you have that ambition and that passion. So if you want to be the best chef or learn how to be a chef or learn what schools offer the best engineering and architecture and how you can get started, all you need is a phone or a computer and access to the internet, and you can start to go down that path or at least explore it.
You know what I mean? Compared to me growing up without the internet. There's a different timeline. We don't have that wealth information. We didn't have those different opportunities. So growing up in the streets or being part of the streets was a lot different.
I was in a gang called a 4 Corner Hustlers. 4CH. That was the gang that I was involved in, and it was part of the original fraction of the Vice Lords. And one thing too, I want to preface this for people listening. Gangs, were originally created to help protect and empower black communities, specifically young black men. They was not created as the narrative that the government later put out to terrorize neighborhoods and duties, crimes and stuff like that.
Gangs didn't start transitioning into a negative type of practice until in the '80s. Again, when crack cocaine was introduced into a lot of black communities and a lot of marginalized communities. But the original gangs, were created to help empower the black community. It was the same model that followed the Black Panthers. And a lot of people don't understand that.
So a lot of the laws too, what we call nation laws and the values that they would instill into the young men from the '80s to the '90s, I don't know what's happening today, but the laws, I don't think a lot of these young men might be practicing some of the original teachings. It's almost like the Nation of Islam. They would teach you and hand you information just to learn to be a better provider, be a better community leader. Those are laws that was taught to a lot of young black men in gangs back in the day.
And other things just came into the fold, that when drugs was introduced in a way to make money quicker, sooner, faster, it kind of eroded the community and it caused a lot of heartache and pain and broke down a lot of families and destroyed a lot of communities from the crack epidemic that happened in the '80s.
So everything started stemming from that. And then you can look today, to there are still men and women serving federal time, even for crimes related to marijuana. Where now, marijuana is legal in a lot of states and they're still trying to push, even bipartisan push for it to make it a federal dismantle, and federally where it's not considered a drug anymore. But we, people from even our own, some of a lot of activists in the world.
But in general, our government fell these people, these young men and women coming from marginalized communities that are serving time right now or have served time from marijuana when they have given a green light to venture capitalists to farmers, to 90, I think it's over 95% of the dispensaries that are in America are ran by white men, specifically. And it's just a biased system where now that is socially accepted.
You forgot about those who exploited and demonized for trying to make money for their family through this community and industry that eventually destroyed that family and removed that father figure, remove that young son from that family dynamic, that could went on and been doing great things if it was more socially accepted.
So there's just a lot of heartache involved when you talk about that part of street life, when it comes to drugs in the community, because now it's becoming more socially accepted, where before it wasn't. And a lot of people that was in those positions that was just trying to make money for their families were demonized and serve time or still serving time and just set them back where they still are trying to bounce back from their situations.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you went to prison when you were 21, is that right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I was indicted when I was 21. 21, 22 around that time. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. All right. And what was prison life like?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, it was, every day felt like a Sunday. A Sunday afternoon. Every day felt like a Sunday afternoon, meaning slow, you lose sense of time in there. A lot of times you got to stay busy. I stayed busy. I read a lot of books. I didn't have money coming into my commissary, again, I come from a poor family and my mom couldn't afford to send me too much money.
And so I had a little money on my books for just buying little groceries from apples to fruits and stuff like that because I stopped eating meat in my first week in prison. So I would trade my meat protein with my cellmates for their carbs. And they thought I was crazy and they thought I was weird for that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, before you go on, let me just, so the first week that you were in prison you kind of had-
Dom Thompson:
It is first week. Very first week.
Rip Esselstyn:
... this epiphany. But what was it that hit you that hard in the face that, "Okay, I'm not eating meat and I'm going to give up my meat and take my cellmate's carbs."
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, so like I said at the beginning of the podcast, I was trying to figure out, "Here I am serving time, first time I've been in prison, but I knew something was deeper than this sentence that they gave me. And here I am just trying to figure out why was I removed from society? Why didn't I get a spank on my hand? Why didn't I get probation?" And then I had to go to the law library to understand these biased laws, that no matter what I was going to have to serve time, coming from where I come from and on this very unfair judicial system that I had to deal with.
But to me, again, I felt spiritually wise there was something bigger going on. And that's when I got down on my knees my first week to pray on it. I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. I do believe in the universe in a higher energy, and I do believe there's just undefined power that none of us would truly comprehend or understand or has a monopoly on the truth. And I was just trying to search for that.
And everything pointed to that childhood memory that I described when I was eight years old. And it came into my thoughts right then and there like a light bulb and I was like, "I get it." And that was right then and there I did a hard reset and decided to denounce and not eat any meat. I made a promise to the universe I would never eat meat again, "Just get me home. I wanted to come home so bad." And it's not because I thought I was better than those guys in there. I just felt like I have never, and you're taught to suck it up as a man.
We wasn't taught about mental health, we wasn't taught about therapy, especially young black men. We was taught to suck it up and do what you need to do and get through and power through. And I just felt like every day in that environment just was going to continue to chip at my mental health. I already had claustrophobia as it was.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh gosh.
Dom Thompson:
From a trauma that I experienced as a kid. My cousins locked me up in the locker when we went swimming. I was the smallest of my cousins and the lightest of my cousin. And sometimes in the black community, they would pick on the lightest and the most fair skin, and I had to prove my point to them that I was nothing to joke around with. So I used to have to fight with them all the time to prove my word, but I still, compared to them, they was older and bigger than me.
And they put me in the locker one time when I was five years old and left me there for a long time where I just was screaming and kicking and had my knuckles was bleeding everywhere. And the lifeguards found me in the locker room. They had to cut off the lock and stuff and I was collapsed because I couldn't even move. So that's how I developed claustrophobia from that experience.
So here I am in prison. I didn't fear the men. I know how to handle myself really well when it comes to dealing with other human beings physically if I needed to. But I feared this phobia and feared my mental health and I just wanted to get home, and I had that conversation with the universe. I had a conversation with God and made a promise that, "I get it now."
You can't lie to the universe, if that makes sense. You can't lie. There's no one to be performer that in front of, it was just me and that source and that energy in that moment that I was having this conversation for. There's no cameras, there's no social media, it's just me in this conversation. And I felt like the universe knew that I was truly convicted and truly believed in this new life. And to this day I never looked back and it gave me a peace of mind. And I stopped eating meat and I denounced it and never looked back, and I was 22 years ago.
Rip Esselstyn:
And when you say the claustrophobia, how big was the cell and did you feel claustrophobic in the cell?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. The cell, so my holding cell during a detention center, because it's a process. You are at a detention center or a facility designated for people that still going back and forth between trial or people are waiting to be shipped off to their actual, to the penitentiary that they're going to serve.
So it's almost like a transitional facility, which is kind of worse because cells aren't smaller and it's a lot more crowded and it's a lot of other, it's an environment that can make your time worse because people are coming in and out, people are stressed, fights are breaking out. It feels like a county in a way, a county jail if you ever experience a county jail, know anyone that ever been to county jail.
But yeah, I was on deck when I did that. And then a couple weeks later I got shipped out to Minnesota to serve the first part of my time. My last part of my time was in Florence, Colorado. But I got shipped out to Minnesota to serve that time and that as you go through your time in the Feds, your security levels come down to when you become what we call a short timer after a while.
But I was able to get over my phobia. It did almost break me and challenge me, but what probably really did get me out of that experience of being claustrophobic was when I went to the hole, I was in the hole for exactly 40 nights.
Rip Esselstyn:
What is the hole?
Dom Thompson:
It's the SHU, segregated housing unit. You're separated from the population of the main population of the prison for fighting or whatever you in the hole for. To contraband, to-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. Why did you get put in there?
Dom Thompson:
I got into a fight, this guy I was playing chess with, I was one of the best chess players in my prison. I've been playing chess since I've been five. That's another thing, fun fact that people don't know about me.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice, nice.
Dom Thompson:
I'm really good at chess. Really, really good. And I probably, I don't know, one over 500 games in prison and lost probably a total of like 11. That's how good I was because there's some incredible players in there too. But this one game I was playing with this guy right before count time, we would have what's called count. You have to, five times out of the day, you have to be in your cell or at your work station or wherever you're designated to be at.
When the COs walk through the entire compound to count, make sure no one escaped. No matter where you are at serving time in the Feds, you can be in the hole, you can be top security, you can be low security. It's called count, everybody knows about count and everybody knows you do not fucked up count. You do not mess around with count, because if you mess up the count and someone's missing and they have to go recount the whole place, you are, not only other inmates are going to be pissed off at you, because you stopping the flow of, don't want to go eat and there might be dinnertime after the count or, you're stopping the whole scheduling of the prison system.
But the COs are switching shifts and you causing them to be delayed to go home. And these guys not making money, these are low paying officers and stuff. They're stressed and they're living in these small communities where these prisons are at, these big industrial prisons are. So it's a different dynamic you're dealing with. So you fucked up a count, you getting put in a hole and nobody wants to be put in a hole.
Only thing that, one thing I would say Hollywood painted right about the hole or being put in the SHU, is that's kind of accurate the way they did. Where you have these steel doors and no sunlight getting to you in that cell. It's a very small cell that's probably the size of a bathroom. The most average bathroom that you will have.
And it's usually about two doors to three doors to get to you. Doesn't feel like no ventilation. You sleep, piss, shit every day there. They don't give you any books to read. Just get a yellow legal pad, one, just and a piece of pencil if you want to write some letters if that, because they'll only give you a stamp a week or, I can't even remember, it's been so long ago.
But you are in this box where you stuck there for 23 hours and it'll let you out for one hour into another hole that just has a open ceiling where you can see the sunlight, but you're only in there for one hour and then you go put back in a hole. And then on weekends you don't get, no sunlight. You stay in that hole the entire time on weekends. So it's very inhumane, let's just say that. And you in there with-
Rip Esselstyn:
It makes every part of my body just kind of squirm and just freak out thinking about it.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. So imagine, in me and your community, when I tell people this, when I'm having my talks. I would never, and none of us would never experience what farm animals go through or animal agriculture. But to be in those conditions where it's inhumane and almost unbearable, it was the closest I can experience being considered property and not being able to do absolutely nothing about it.
You're just helpless in that scenario because most of the guys too, you're not just in a hole by yourself. Sometimes they'll, it's such an overcrowded system. You're in there with two to three other guys in this small hole and y'all are looking at each other, and the most wildest shit going through your mind where some people are losing it in there with you, it could turn violent. Somebody want to fight and it's so much talking, you can talk to someone. It just feels unreal and it feels, it's just insane.
So I was in there for 40 nights because this guy, again, playing chess, I was trying to rush the move and he beat me. So he was excited and was playing for what's we was playing for. You had two options. When you're playing chess in the system, usually guys play for money like commissary. If you beat me up, buy you some food on commissary or you'll play for a pushups. I never been a gambler. It's just not in me. I'm, have nothing in my DNA that likes to gamble, as far as money, monetary things. So I play...
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:06:04]
Dom Thompson:
... a gamble, as far as money. Monetary things. I play for pushups, and we play for a hundred pushups, one set of a hundred pushups. That's what we were doing, one set of a hundred pushups. I told him we had to wait until I had the count because we've got to get to ourselves. It happened... He beat me two minutes before count. It's like, "All right, I got you out the count." He's like, "No, I want it now." I was like, "Dude, we're going to fuck up count. What the fuck is wrong with you?" I was like, "Dude is out the count." Because we were in the rec room area, and we need to get back to ourselves. And he was so excited about the fact he beat me, and he was like, "No, I want it now." And in that moment you forget that you're in prison, you need to watch your back.
And I said, "What the fuck?" I cussed him. I was like... I went off on him like, "Dude, I get you at the count. Get the out of here." And I turn my, just like that. I just had a casual... Forgot I'm in prison. Because I've been serving time now I've been, I'm deep in the system now, this is halfway in my time now. It's not like I'm a newbie, and I turn my back. And it's not like anybody... You don't think somebody's going to fuck with you. People know who I was, and it's not something that you would just think you need to defend your life on. It's instantly like that. Always got to be alert. Trust me, sleep with your boots on, you be alert.
But I just got too comfortable in that moment. Turned my back after I said something casual to him like, "Dude, I'm not fucking going to count. Get the fuck out of here." In that way. Probably said some more words and next thing you know, blackout. He took a chair... So imagine a guy my size, I'm a pretty big dude, taking a chair with all his might, hitting you from behind with a chair, one of those metal chairs. You fold up. That's a metal chair. You fold up, and swing in like a baseball bat. And it hit the whole back of my head. Knocked me unconscious. And I woke up...
Rip Esselstyn:
It doesn't sound like you were fighting. It sounds like he just hit you.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. I didn't get a lick in. Yeah, no, I didn't see it coming. I turned my back, and everything was black. From there, I woke up to... I was going in and out of conscious, and it was a surreal experience. And I bullshit you not. I don't think I really said this on some podcasts when discussing this part of my story. But in that moment, I had a life, out-of-body experience where I was able to see myself looking down at my body and I was in the arms of my cellmate, Ty. He was holding me up, and then I went back into conscious, back in and out of conscious. And then I looked back up and everything was blurry and Ty was holding me. He was rocking me. He was like, "Hold on. No, hold on. I got you. I got you. Just stay with me. Stay with me." Because he found me. They were looking for me, my cellmates.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, the count. You had the count going on.
Dom Thompson:
The count going on, my cellmate... Yeah, fucking [inaudible 01:09:05]. Because you don't fuck with the count. They found me in the rec room just lifeless. Just on my face, because I fell on my face. And he flipped me over and trying to get me back to conscious yelling for help.
And I finally came to, and then the COOs rushed over, and then they grabbed me up, and then I just blacked out again. And next thing I know, I wake up, I'm in the hospital with handcuffs to the bed with tubes on my nose and shit. And I could feel like all this pain in the back of my head, like, "What's going on?" And I didn't know who I was. I had amnesia. It's like, "Do you know who you are?" I was like, "No, I don't. What? What?" I couldn't even form words. I was like, "Ugh..." I couldn't even understand what they were talking about, comprehending... And they were like, "Just rest. Just rest." And they pushed me back down, and I just went back to sleep, and then woke back up looking at the ceiling and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.
And I looked at the handcuffs again to the bed. And then I see two [inaudible 01:10:26] at the end, in my room, in the bed, talking to the doctors. And then I closed my eyes and then... I kid you not, it was like a computer drive being uploaded. And then I woke back up and I felt this warm sensation from the back of my neck going all the way up to the top of my head, and all these memories, thousands and thousands of memories just started shooting through my head. It felt like bass in my ear, my ears were ringing. Like, "Doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo." It was the most craziest experience I have experienced to this day where these memories of being uploaded into my mind, my thoughts. And I started hyperventilating and I just started shaking the bed violently. Like, "Yo, get me the fuck out of here." And up until that very last memory that got inserted when I turned my back on [inaudible 01:11:14].
Because now I'm violent now. I'm the most violent I ever been in my life because the first thing on my mind is revenge. I wanted to kill him. Literally kill... I have never to this day had that experience have ever in my life where I wanted to literally kill this dude with my bare hands because he tried to kill me. I didn't know who I was. They were like, "Yo, calm down." I'm just shaking the bed. I was reacting from... It's like my brain came back to reality, but then put me back in that last scenario, that somebody just tried to take my life. You know what I mean?
I'm just on defense mode. They're like, "Inmate, do you know where you are?" I was like, "Yes, I know where I am." They were like, "Where are you?" I was like, "I'm in Minnesota. Get me the fuck out. Get me out of here." They were like, "What's your inmate number?" I gave them my inmate number. Everything like that. I'm just shaking it. They were like, "Calm down." Like, "Yo, you need to calm down." They were holding me down. Like, "I know." They were like, "Yo, what happened to you?"
I was like, "Yo, I'm calm now." I was like, "Just get me back, get me back, get me back." I want to be put back in general pop. I want to go after this dude. They were like, "We're taking you back to the Lieutenant." So they took me back to the prison, and the docs were like, "Yo, he needs observation. He just suffered trauma, serious trauma. He lost his memory." And they were like, "No, we ain't taking him back. They ain't give a fuck. They ain't give a fuck." I don't think you can get away with that shit today. I think there's... It's not...
Rip Esselstyn:
[inaudible 01:12:45].
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, it's a different life now. But back then, they didn't give a fuck. So we went back to the prison, and I'm steaming. I'm pissed. My whole side of my face is swollen because I fell on my face, so my tooth went into my jaw. My jaw ballooned up. My forearm was kind of sprained because I fell on my forearm and my elbow. And so I was in a sling. And I got back to the prison and they sat me down with the Lieutenant, head of the COOs, because... And he was like, "Okay, so what happened, Thompson? What happened?" I was like, "I don't know, I was just playing chess with this guy, this stranger, that's a guy."
"You don't know who this guy is?" I was like, "Nah, I seen him once or twice, I don't know who he is."
"So you don't know who you were playing chess with?"
They know who it was. They wanted me to make him out, but I didn't want to make him out. I didn't want to tell on him. I want to get to him first because in the federal system, you are not allowed to put hands. If you're caught fighting with another inmate, it's an assault charge, and extra time too. It's almost like it's... It is worse than if you trying to fight a COO. They do not play that. You are not to touch each other. You will get more time added to you. But they wanted me to say it...
Rip Esselstyn:
So you didn't care that you were potentially looking at more time? You just wanted revenge on this guy?
Dom Thompson:
Not at all. Not at all. I was ready to throw my whole life away at that moment.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's crazy.
Dom Thompson:
Because, again...
Rip Esselstyn:
So, did you meet the guy? What happened?
Dom Thompson:
[inaudible 01:14:14] So, keep in mind. We all forget. Yeah, we're humans. But humans are animals, and the most violent... I was violated, the most violated thing you can do to a human being happened to me in that scenario where I didn't have a chance to defend myself. I'm right now, just walking away and you hit me from behind, knock me unconscious, and you're steadily kicking me while I'm unconscious. My roommates, my cellmates end up telling me they found me. This dude was kicking the shit out of me while I was just unconscious. Can you imagine that? Can you that, where everything in your...
You can be the most kindness, nicest person. There's some things you just can't forgive, and there's some things you just as a human animal will naturally respond to. We're not thinking clearly about the consequences. And I wasn't thinking, I was a young man, not thinking about, "I'm getting ready to throw my life away, trying to kill this guy that tried to kill me." I wanted revenge. I wanted revenge so bad that it was just running through me. But I was also conscious enough to realize that if I told on this guy I would never get revenge.
Rip Esselstyn:
And so, did you ever encounter this guy again? And what happened?
Dom Thompson:
So I didn't tell on him, and they were smart about it. They were like, "Well, since you're not going to tell us who did this, we've got to keep you separated from general population until we finish up our investigation so we're going to put you in the shoe." I was like, "The shoe?" And it was like, "Yeah, the hole. We've got to protect..." And I was like, "Fuck. Here I am." They were like, "We don't have to put you in the hole." They were playing that good cop, bad cop shit. "You can go back in general population if you tell us who did this." I was like, "Mm-mm. I can't do that." Because I can't go back on general population, where people are like, "Damn. He came back on general population. This happened to him. He must have ratted." Two, you can't have that reputation. So, I went to the hole. I went to the hole.
I went through the hole, and I think I was going to be in there for so long. I'm thinking like, "Okay, I might be here a day or two, whatever. Let me just sit this one out." And what ended up when I thought it was going to be one night to two nights ended up to 40 exact nights. They let me out July 12th, on my mother's birthday. I remember when they told me, I was like, "What day...?" I lost sense of time. I lost sense of everything, and they told me what date it was. I was like, "Today's my mother's birthday." I lost a lot of weight up in there but they let me out.
Rip Esselstyn:
Were you able to eat vegan while you were in the hole?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. I was eating... Well, keep in mind. So when I stopped eating meat, I was vegetarian in prison. I wasn't vegan in prison, I was vegetarian. So yeah, I was eating the sides, and stuff, and shit, that they... Nasty shit they were sliding through the doors of the hole. But they let me out and they told me that they shipped him. And said, "We concluded our investigation and we shipped the guy to a different prison. So he's not in general population. Anytime there's a severe fight like that, we have to keep you guys separated." They end up telling me that and I was like, "Huh?" I was like, "Okay."
That's when I went back to my cell, and went back to my time. And my cellmates told me everything that happened that went down and it was crazy. So yeah, never to this day seen him again. To this day. But what I did hear that the prison that he ended up going to serve his time to, those Chicago boys, he got into a scuffle with them. From what I understand, they found out what he did to one of their fellow Chicago boys and there were some consequences from what I understand. Something that I didn't green light. But, hey. It's called karma. That's what happened in that time. But to this day, I never seen them again in my life.
Rip Esselstyn:
That was quite a rabbit hole we went down.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, yeah. It was a rabbit hole. It was an honest rabbit hole though, too.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, no. Yeah. Thank you. So you became... Eating plant-strong, plant-based, eat like an elephant. You became one of the strongest people in your prison community.
Dom Thompson:
I did.
Rip Esselstyn:
And how did that feel? And how did they react? And were any of them like, "Man, I want to eat the way Dom eats?"
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Again, I had already... A lot of people had a lot of respect for me considering what I just went through. And it takes a lot. Not many people would go the route that I went through, staying true to my core and more, coming out of the cell and more. So yeah, they called me crazy and weird for the things that... They thought I was crazy. "You would trade your chicken on your plate for... You want my pasta and my carbs and all that?" Because I ate a lot of complex and simple carbs. But they didn't mean it in a demonizing way. They just thought it was funny. Like, "Man, I can't believe that, you're crazy dude." In that way. But we will have what's called liftoffs. And this is a population of over a thousand inmates, and I will always come in the top 10 of these liftoffs. I was benching heavy, heavy iron, over 400 pounds. Squatting.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you were weighing, what, 200?
Dom Thompson:
I was weighing at that time about 195. Yeah, about two... I was fluctuating between 200... The lowest I ever got in prison was 187. I was 187 when I came out of that hole. [inaudible 01:20:17] strong, because I was so dehydrated, didn't have access to general resources that we had in prison from drinking water whenever I want to. The water that we would drink was coming out of the same machine, same design that we had to shit in. So naturally, I wasn't really trying to drink too much water from that water fountain. Only when I was really, really dehydrated. But yeah, the lowest I've been was 187. But when I was pushing that weight, I was about 195 to 200. It fluctuated.
Rip Esselstyn:
A 400-pound bench press or more. That's insane.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. And we didn't have supplements, nothing like that. This is all natural. Just pushing heavyweights, squatting over 500, dead lifting over 500. It was nothing. We were wrapping boys up with the straps, pull-ups... And I can do sets of pull-ups like for 50 reps. That was the most insane, being in shape I was in my life. Because I went from, when I went in prison... Keep in mind I had a lot of inflammation, and I was overweight, how living that drug dealer life at the time. And I was over 250 pounds when I went into the system. And then when I stopped eating meat that first week, within a couple months, it started shrinking. All the inflammation, gone. All the fat, everything like that. I was a husky dude, and went down from a husky dude to a solid dude. And I started working out and just became strong as fuck.
The science wasn't out there. We didn't have social media, we didn't have books, we didn't have [inaudible 01:22:00] organized and stuff like that. We didn't have any of these things that can teach us what the food you eat does to your body. I was like my own human experience. All I just know that I did it for ethical reasons. I love animals. I didn't want to have anything else to do with it. I didn't know what the hell was going to happen to me, if I was going to wither away or die. All I know is just, this is my decision to stop eating meat, and this is my conviction and I just excelled in it.
Rip Esselstyn:
You must have loved the way you were feeling. I mean, that sounds like...
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
You're lean, mean, and you're strong as an ox.
Dom Thompson:
I tell people to this day, it's the first and only time that I felt like a real life superhero. You know that superheroes, like Clark Kent? Or, a better way to put it, when they're like... You remember He-Man, or Thunder Cats, and they transformed to these stronger human beings, these super people, when they pick the sword up, or whatever the case may be? But just to feel that transformation, where I was seeing my abs and feeling so strong. I felt supernaturally strong. It was such an incredible experience that I wish so many more people could experience to this day when they eat vegan and go completely plant-based. One of the best experiences in my life for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Are you still friends with any guys that are in prison?
Dom Thompson:
No. A lot of those guys, I forgot some of their names because we used to just go by last names in there. It's just, a lot like the military. We didn't go by first names. It'd be like Thompson, or Johnson, or Taylor, or... Some of them, we went through different street names. I'm only cool with one of them. Mike. Mike and I are still cool to this day. He still lives in New York. Mike was in my car, what we call our workout car. And Mike was the dude always pushing me and two other guys. It was four of us. Everybody that had a workout car, had three to four guys in the car. And we call it a car, because you guys are in a car, and it's got a driver. This is what we going to do for the day.
It's a whole system routine. Everybody that's on that bench press for the day, and the whole... The waist was outside. This is old school body building weightlifting setup, where you've got heavy iron plates that was up to 100 pounds of plate. They don't even make those too much anymore. You still got these 45, but you have 100 pounds of plate here and there, you have some 45. But everybody's getting in there, man, because it kept your stress down. It just kept you from thinking about the outside world. But you were in... Your car was your crew. You eat together, you work out together. And so Mike was the only one that we kept in touch with because he was a good dude. He was a solid dude. And we kept in touch, especially when I lived in New York City, because that's where he originally from, New York City. And he was able to find me through social media. He was like, "Yo." He found me through social media.
Rip Esselstyn:
What about some of your old cousins, you said that were some of the original street people, like Booby?
Dom Thompson:
All of them are dead. Yeah, they're dead. I have probably over 10 people that I grew up with, from family to friends, that are all now dead. Died at very, very young ages.
Rip Esselstyn:
All murdered?
Dom Thompson:
Most of them. But he was executed from the back of his head playing... He was shot in the back of the head, and so was Walt, Dre, playing dice, and more. But yeah, only two of them survived. Not passing away, per se. That's Matt. And Matt just came home actually a couple years ago. Matt served time as an adult from the age of 15, he didn't get home. He served about, Matt served about 20 years of hard time, too. Not even... State time. They had that boy in the hole for a while. So he just came home last couple years after serving 20 years at the age of 15. And my other cousin Derek is doing life. And everybody else's dead. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Is your mom just proud as punch of where you are and what you've able been able to do with your life now?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I think she is. I mean, I know she is. But yeah, we went through my entire family, not just with me, just the fact that most of the men from my generation and up are deceased. Or went through similar trajectory than I did. And I did everything I could, which I'm proud of to have the younger generation under me, they didn't have to go through that. I have been very, in good ways, that asshole of an uncle that's just on you about things because I want you to do better. And you have me as a mentor and have me to educate you about the do's and the don'ts. The nice uncle, the cool uncle. That's the title that I probably wear, that my nephews have not had to walk in the same shoes that I had to walk in, because I had something to say about it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Do you feel any kind of responsibility to get out and try and talk to some of the... I don't know, schools, prisons, whatever, about your experience as kind of a telltale that can help them out?
Dom Thompson:
It's not that I feel responsible to do it, but I definitely do want to do that. I just have not to this day been introduced to an organization or a group of people that are genuinely trying to invoke change. A lot of these... You and I both have worked with nonprofits before, and there's a lot of them that are performative. But I have yet to be introduced to a group of people or a nonprofit that I feel good about doing that type of work to go into those systems and speak at those prisons, to tell these young men that there's a such thing as second chances. And in some scenarios, third chances. The outside world is moving very fast, but there are people like you and I, that are making changes. And you can definitely turn your life around like I did. And I definitely want to be involved in it. I just have yet to be introduced to that network. It's only so far my own network goes through that I'm connected to, but more than willing to look. Absolutely love that opportunity to get more involved in that. For sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think I read in reviewing a lot of your Instagram posts and stuff that you're saying, I think it was, "Saving animals is so gangster." If I'm not mistaken. And I would hope that that would resonate with people and they go, "Oh, you know what? I've never looked at it that way." And you're also incredibly entrepreneurial, and as you've said, creative and you've got two different companies that you've started The Crazies and The Weirdos and the Eat What Elephants Eat, right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. The food company Eat What Elephants Eat is very special and dear to my heart, because I was causing a lot of disruption, whether it be through speaking engagements or forms of activism or even online disruptions where people would come to me say, "Hey man, I want to be vegan and I want to go vegan. How do I start?" And I would refer them to different nonprofits or for-profits or websites and companies that I knew of, but I didn't have a chance to vet them myself. I just felt like there were good men and women working at these companies. I didn't have the time or the bandwidth to really go down there. And then they would come back to me like, "No, man, they don't understand me. They don't look like you and me, and they want me to do this, and that." Or, "They're not very empathetic to the fact that I have a limited budget." And I was just hearing a lot of negative feedback and I felt bad and I was like, "That makes sense."
So that's when I created Eat What Elephants Eat and our mission, our primary mission is to make plant-based eating not only accessible, but more importantly, affordable. And for as little as $14 a month, or a $100 a year, which is less than $10 a month, you can have access to this amazing meal planning program where you have access to over 3000 recipes and great food coaches, and RDs, and people. You go through this onboarding process that... It's just incredible, through this amazing, amazing team that a few of us in the PB community share. So that was important to me to get that program off the ground and have... We have thousands and thousands of happy people that have converted over to a plant-based because of this.
And that's Phase One. That's our nutritional wellness program, our meal plan program, and Phase Two under Eat What Elephants Eat is our super food lines. We're coming out with that next summer. And then Phase Three and Four in the next couple years, we're going to have a juice and smoothie bars and a couple restaurant concepts where we're going to do food farm to table and partner up with local urban farms and teach new locals a new farm skillset while serving on these un-served communities of color. That will be the biggest customer, where we take the vegan organic farming directly to the counters and be farmed to table. So I'm really looking forward to the next things we're going to be doing in the next two to five years. And they're Eat What Elephants Eat brand.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it. So that'll all be under that brand, which is the same... Tentatively, the same title as the book that'll be coming out.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, it's a great synergy. Yeah. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And then you also have sustainable clothing line, what is it? Weirdos?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Crazies and Weirdos. That was my first company that I started when I first got on the Gram 10 years ago. I wanted to create a... At that time, I had the largest vegan meal account, and things were in chronological order. Engagement was 30% up. It was a different time of social media, but it was a lot of initiatives happening and a lot of just problems happening with animals. Specifically, the elephants in Africa were going through a hell of a huge poaching crisis, and the rhinos, and they needed funding for drones and rangers. So I thought, "What cool way then to create a T-shirt to help raise some type of funding? A percentage of sales can go through some of these nonprofits." So I created this shirt and I'm always telling people to eat plants. And I was always telling people that the largest elephants in the world are elephants.
And that's how the trademark, the moniker of Eat What Elephants Eat was for them. I designed the fonts and all of that, but I put the saying, "Eat What Elephants Eat," on our first T-shirt and we sold over 5,000 units. Within the first quarter. I didn't think I had any type of impact. It was crazy. I put it on my [inaudible 01:34:43] at the time, and the shirt went viral where it became the number one selling vegan shirt in the world, where we killed it. And I was like, "Oh, shit, this is incredible." So I was like, "We need to do another one, then continue to do this every quarter." So I created, "Clark Kent was vegan," and designed that shirt and that rivaled "Eat What Elephants Eat," shirt to the point that Miley Cyrus slid into our DMs like, "Yo, I'm a big fan of your clothes and your shirt."
And I didn't have a social media manager at the time. I'm still trying to learn social media. Again, this is like eight, 10 years ago. And she's like, "My boyfriend, Leanne, is a big fan of this guy, Dominic Thompson." And I'm acting like, "Oh, okay, that's cool." I'm typing behind the scenes to these messages where she was messaging me directly. She was messaging Crazies and Weirdos, but I'm Crazies and Weirdo's manager, right? Social media manager. Because I would brand... I would wear Crazies and Weirdos clothes as if I was a brand ambassador. I never had that ego to be like, "That's my brand," or "Buy my shirts." I was just always like... This right now. You would never know this comes from a company that I own or anything like that. I just never promoted myself in that way or exploited, "Me, me, me, me."
I think I always kind of knew in the back of my head, people may adore me or hate me as a public figure, but they may love something that I created for as a product, as an entrepreneur, or a restaurant, or food. And they'll support it, but they know I'm behind it, and they hate me. They're not going to support it. So I just always separated myself away from that. Let me just be a face of the brand. Brand ambassador of the brand. And here I was still trying to figure out social media and this A-lister is in my DM and asking and fangirling over our clothes. "Hey, can you send us a gift package?" And I was like, "Sure, okay." She gave us her private Malibu address... Well, me. And here I am, working full-time in healthcare. So I'm working, this is before I went on full-time as an entrepreneur, working 40 hours a week in healthcare and busting my ass, staying up to two or three o'clock in the morning, fulfilling these orders by myself.
I didn't have any help. It was just me, in my New York apartment and my ex at the time, she was a lawyer, she hated it. She thought this was beneath us saying she would have an attitude about it. It's a whole different story. But here I was. It was a surreal moment that we were hitting every continent with these shirts. It was crazy. Shirts were going from New York, to Canada, to Austria, to Japan, to South Africa, to everywhere, Italy. We were like, "What the fuck? I can't believe I had this impact." And then this A-lister is in my fucking DMs like, "Yo, I'm a big fan." I was like, "All right, cool." Didn't think anything of it. I shipped it to her Malibu address.
Two weeks, later on a Saturday. I remember it was yesterday. My phone lights up like a Christmas tree with these notifications. She posted it to her 30 million Instagram followers. She had 30 million at that time. She has over hundreds and hundreds of millions now, but 30 million back then was insane. To her Instagram followers with a blunt in her mouth. "Clark Kent was vegan" hoodie saying, "Go vegan," with middle fingers up.
Shut our website down. I couldn't even keep up with it, it was just crazy. We were already popping. We were already doing good as a company because our customers were our brand ambassadors. People would love... Back then people loved tagging the shirts. It's different now, and social media's different now. But then people were excited, and they were happy about these shirts. And then we have this A-lister. That's when I knew I have a ride where I couldn't keep up with orders, that I had to resign from my position in healthcare and never looked back.
Rip Esselstyn:
And how many years ago was that?
Dom Thompson:
That was about six years. Six, seven years ago. Yeah. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. Nice. It seems to me, in looking through your Instagram, I just want you to know... A, I love your taste in music. I just...
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:39:04]
Rip Esselstyn:
No, A, I love your taste in music.
Dom Thompson:
Appreciate it.
Rip Esselstyn:
I must have listened to Kicking It 15 times since I heard it on one of your Instagram posts.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But it also seems to me like you got a nice balance between not taking yourself too seriously and knowing how to focus. But you got that sign in your kitchen, that "this kitchen is for dancing".
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. I'm a firm believer in... If you are a human being that takes yourself too seriously, I'm not going to take you too seriously. That's just who I am. I mean, I like to have fun and I definitely am serious on a lot of serious issues. But again, when it comes to this social media that we are involved in, in many capacities, a lot of us didn't think this was going to be around to this day. But it has created careers, it has created opportunities. You and I wouldn't have met each other and be talking right now, if it wasn't for social media, where it has definitely had a big impact on society.
And I think it's a beautiful thing. You have pros and cons to social media. But it's changing now, too. The algorithms are not really showing your content to your core audience, different challenges when it comes to a brand in itself or a creator in itself, or entrepreneur in itself, however you want to deem yourself specifically. And I have always, since day one of being on social media, I've been doing this now for about 10 years when I first opened up my Instagram account.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey Don, let me interrupt you. Can you remember what your first post was on Instagram?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. It was a post in my New York apartment. Well, I can tell you, one of the first couple posts. I think it was...
Rip Esselstyn:
I can tell you because I looked it up.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Which one was it? I know a few of them. One was a picture of my nephew and my fur daughter. I can remember that. Because he was visiting me in my New York apartment at the time. But probably the first couple was either me doing an arm curl or her, Soca, my fur daughter was all over my Instagram. But it was something around that time.
Rip Esselstyn:
This was your first post and it dated August 15th, 2012. It says you're doing, I think, pull-ups. It says 340 pounds of pull-ups.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Yeah. I had...
Rip Esselstyn:
You had a belt on with some weights.
Dom Thompson:
I had a belt on, with about three or four plates of 45's.
Rip Esselstyn:
Exactly.
Dom Thompson:
And I had a combination of my weight. So it was over 300 pounds. Yep, yep. I was doing a lot of weighted pull-ups back then. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Woo. Hey, so you also have an Instagram post and you say it's Barry White, waking up to pancakes on your mind.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And this morning, what did you wake up with on your mind?
Dom Thompson:
As far as food?
Rip Esselstyn:
As far as food? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dom Thompson:
Oh, okay. I was going to say, I woke up with... Again, I went to the gym. Let me get this in. I know I was joking earlier when we was doing the testing, about oatmeal.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dom Thompson:
I didn't have oatmeal though. I had a really good fat smoothie made with maca powder, bananas, dates, strawberry, peanut butter powder, because that's less fattening.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Dom Thompson:
Some hemp seeds, maple syrup, about a scoop of plant-based protein with that, with some mineral water. I usually like to make my smoothies with mineral water instead of plant-based milk. So yeah, I had one of those. It was really good.
Rip Esselstyn:
So when going through your posts, too, I have also noticed, and you said this, that growing up you cooked, right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I cooked a lot. Yeah. I'm a really good... I cook every day. Every day.
Rip Esselstyn:
And in going through your posts, I'm like, oh my god, this guy is the real deal. He walks the walk. When it comes to cooking. Like you just said, you put in, did you say mineral water?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, mineral water. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mineral water, because it creates a certain something. I saw you make this dish, it's your favorite dish for four or more people, where you take cauliflower and you do something insane with it.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, man. So I have a really incredible... Most people are really hard critics on their cooking. Most chefs are. I'm one of those too. Somebody be like, oh my god, this is amazing. I'm like, it's okay. Because it's your own cooking. You're going to criticize your own cooking. You know what I mean? It might be amazing to somebody else. But there are some dishes where I'm like, hmm, I hit that one. And that's my buffalo cauliflower. I make it gluten free. I don't fry it, I bake it. I use a combination of chickpea powder with almond flour and cornmeal. And mix it in with paprika and some other spices that's unique to that. Use an egg replacer from Bob Mills and mix that in. A little bit of maple syrup. Coat those cauliflowers.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh yeah.
Dom Thompson:
Up and bake it. And make my own hot sauce. And it's healthy. All of it's healthy. It's nothing fattening about it or processed about it. It's gluten free.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you try and do low fat?
Dom Thompson:
I try to do gluten-free, completely gluten-free and pretty much low fat, as much as possible. This what I was telling you about the smoothie, instead of spoons of oil, peanut butter, I use peanut butter powder.
Rip Esselstyn:
So do you cook with much oil or not? [inaudible 01:44:54]
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, so as far as cooking, like if I want a sauté tempeh, I do use oil. I do use olive oil, seed oils and stuff like that, because that's nothing wrong with oils. But as far as processed foods or oils that is more full of preservatives and more, I stay away from those as much as I can. Now granted, I'm not going to lie to you, I do love me a good junk food vegan meal every now and then. I do love me good vegan burger. All of us do. I'm a guy's guy. I love to have a big-ass sandwich with some hand-cut fries, but I don't do that every day. That's a once every two weeks thing.
Rip Esselstyn:
You made, I saw a whole plant-based mango Alfredo sauce that you made.
Dom Thompson:
Oh yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I'm like, what? A mango? Mango is the base? Get out of town.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, man. It's so many crazy recipes that I can't wait to share through my book. But also I'm looking forward to sharing more with the world, man. I would love to highlight... One of my goals. Right before the pandemic, I was in talks with some production companies. They been begging me to do these stupid dating shows and I'm like, I'm not doing a dating show. And I get it because my online personality shows every part of me. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm very transparent. You can't put me in a niche. I'm considered just a pretty versatile dude. So I like to show a lot of my whole entire lifestyle, who I am. But since I am single, they try to, five years in a row, put me on the Bachelor and all these other dating shows. So they even went through some of the people in our community that are into production companies to say, hey, can you get Domz Thompson to do this? And they reached out to me.
I was like, no, I'm not doing these dating shows, but this is what I will do. I will do. Especially after I did Duck Dynasty, I taught the Duck Dynasty family, Keeping Up with the Robertsons, how to cook plant-based. I was on their first episode. So I'm okay with doing shows like that. But ultimately I do want to highlight the fact that you can be a guy's guy and break these stereotypes, and eat plant-based, and still be big, strong, and healthy. And cool, and not take yourself too seriously. So one of my goals is definitely to have one of those amazing cook shows on one of the streaming platforms. And we were in talks about it, then the pandemic hit. So hopefully we can get that show back.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, it'll all happen. You just keep it real and stay authentic and it'll all happen.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you're pretty happy. I mean, you're happy, you are a happy man. You're a single man. You love your dogs. So you're single by choice.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you've mentioned how people pressure you, like hey, why don't you start dating or whatever? And you're like, I'm good, I'm good.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I can tell you, and you talk about this, but there's so many people that are in miserable relationships, right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. They are.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I watch you and you're just kind of marching through your life, and you're happy, and you got your sidekick, Pretty Boy Roc. Let me tell you how sorry I am to hear about...
Dom Thompson:
Scruff, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Scruff McFly.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. That's my baby. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I'd love for you to talk about her and Roc, but do you love being single and just the freedom you have?
Dom Thompson:
I do. It's amazing, where the last relationship I was in, we were together for five years. And again, that's with my ex, when we lived in New York.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Dom Thompson:
Amazing woman. I had nothing bad to say about her. Incredible woman. We just outgrew each other in many capacities. And I made myself a promise that one, obviously... And I left her. When I left New York, I left her, I left corporate America. I just did another hard reset. We, as human beings, can either accept evolution and evolve with it, or we can remain stagnant and miserable. And I'm built and engineered to want to keep growing and progressing. And here I had these opportunities of a lifetime that I needed to see through. And some people want you to be traditional and stay in that traditional role. And I get it. Here I am, ex-felon, making six figures in corporate America as a healthcare executive. She wanted me to stay in that role. But here's these other opportunities where something's going to hit the fan. And that's why I had to leave corporate to focus on the entrepreneurial side of things, to see where this role would take me. Because again, it wasn't like I told you at the beginning of this podcast, it wasn't strategically planned. This all happened organically.
And I believe to the core of my body that this is the universe doing its magic, and I just have to continue to follow those instructions. Because last time I didn't listen to the universe, my ass ended up in prison. So I'm just going off of what the universe is showing me and I'm going through that path. Now when it comes to dating, like I said, I've been single, I call it self-partnered, by choice, because so many years I have always put others in front of me and loved ones in front of me. But now it's the time for me to knock out these milestones, to break these generational curses, and to help set up this family tree that I belong to, where generations could say our relative, Dominick Thompson, did some amazing things and he left behind some amazing resources for us to have a head start in life. So that's what I'm mainly focused on, specifically. Me and my fur kid and my businesses.
Now if something comes organically out that for me dating, fine. But right now that's not my primary goal. That's not a priority to me. I enjoy being self-partnered and dating who I want to date. And having those experiences, but not relying on a timeline or a construct that society said, you need to have kids by now, you need to have a family by now. If it happens, that's a beautiful thing organically. But right now this is my choice to not jump into something exclusively, seriously, because I have goals and milestones and I like being single without the responsibility. Because it takes a lot to be involved in a marriage. And I respect people that are married and happy, just as I have that respect for fellow other people that are single and happy. Now I enjoy being single and happy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You describe all that very eloquently. Thank you. What about Pretty Boy Roc and before Roc, Scruff McFly?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Did you have dogs before these guys?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Yeah. I did. Growing up in Chicago and in a black family, in the black community, I always joke with people about... I feel like in my fifties I'm going to do standup comedy because I got a lot of funny stories to tell.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah.
Dom Thompson:
But it wasn't uncommon for families growing up in the hood, or poverty or more, to take on a stray animal. Stray animals were always showing up. And I don't know who started this coin of adopt, not shop, or adopting animals, but we kind of, in the black community, been adopting and rescuing animals since the fifties, to be honest with you. It's been nothing new. That's just what we do. Okay, whatever we got left on the scraps, that stray cat, here you go, little one, Fido or some neighborhood dog bouncing around house to house. You can feed them or they'll start coming in the house, and before you know it, they had a family dogs. So I grew up, we had a lot of different dogs in those capacities that came from the streets.
And I raised, actually, two, a couple German Shepherds. All rescues, pretty much. Again, we commercialized the word rescue and adopt, not shop, so much. But we was doing it from the beginning. Now with Roc, I adopted him two years ago. He came from a very unpleasant background, where I had to go negotiate his surrender from some family in Chicago. And so I had no desire to take on a big dog or another dog, because Soca, my fur daughter, she was the senior dog and she was a Shih Tzu mixed with a Pomeranian. So she's a smaller dog, and I've been accustomed to small dog life. And I'm a busy guy and she would travel with me. But the heart knows that sometimes you have to step in a scenario. When I learned of this scenario and the way this guy was being treated, I had to intervene as much as I could. And I ended up intervening. And he's been with me now for two and a half years.
Rip Esselstyn:
And Carrie, if you're there, if you could maybe go to Dom's Instagram page and pull up a photo so we can show it, also McFly. Okay.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. You go directly to both of their Instagrams without me being on the photos. If you go to Scruff McFly, that's her Instagram and Pretty Boy Roc is his Instagram.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it.
Dom Thompson:
But yeah, having Roc come into my life...
Rip Esselstyn:
And Roc came into your life while McFly was still alive, right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, yeah, he did. He did. And he was very aggressive. Very aggressive. He had no respect for no dogs, whether they're a senior citizen or a puppy, he was ready to eat them on site. Roc was real aggressive. He was acting like a wolf. But fortunate for me, I think he was a really great mix and a fit for me. And I was a fit for him because his dad, me, have a lot of experience with animal advocacy, and volunteering at farms, from domestic animals to wildlife, you name it. My entire resume has a pretty incredible background involving animal care and welfare. Not to mention, directly under my care, I'd have big dogs, from the former German Shepherds I used to have, to little dogs. And me being a former Ironman triathlete.
Rip Esselstyn:
Woo!
Dom Thompson:
As you know, Huskies are ultra endurance athletes in a breeze. Your domestic huskies, they can run up to 20 to 30 miles a day for 10 days straight, without recovery. The most seasoned huskies, and ones that are pulling the sleds, which is inhumane in my opinion. And we are actually going to be working with PETA to do some public service announcements about that. But those sled dogs, they do 100 miles a day for 10 days straight. So it's in their DNA. And Roc, he's a natural alpha. He loves to lead the pack, he loves to run. He's a natural runner. And so luckily for him, he paired up with the perfect parent and we found each other. The universe introduced him to my life. It's almost as if the universe did, in fact, know Scruff was going to be transitioning when she left us. And yeah, she transitioned last year.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and I know that it broke your heart and your heart is still broken from it.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I think about it every day. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
How did Scruff find you?
Dom Thompson:
My mom actually used to go to... Once every year or two. Her husband is from St. Thomas Island and they would go visit his family in St. Thomas Island at least once a year. And so, as you know, when you visit islands, there's a lot of stray dogs and cats, or family dogs that have... Those dogs are just not fixed. They don't practice the same type of policies that we do in America, at least back in those days. I don't know how it looks now. But she had discovered Scruff being part of this litter of a friend of his, and it wasn't planned. And so she fell in love with her. She was just this little cute little teddy bear puppy. And my mom fought like hell to get her through customs, and paid all these fines and penalties, and brought her back to the states. And this is when I came home, I was on house arrest. But Scruff as a puppy was getting picked on by my mom's husband's dogs. Three Chihuahuas. They was not... Chihuahuas are, they built different, man. They could be evil.
If you've ever seen the movie Gremlins, imagine gremlins picking on Gizmo. And they was picking on little Gizmo and she couldn't defend herself. And my mom was putting her in the bed with her and fighting with her husband about it. And he was like, well, if she can't be down there with her brothers and sisters and she's always going to be in the bed with us, they all need to be in the bed with us. Because those were his dogs, that Chihuahuas. And my mom's like, I'm not putting those damn, she called them rats. I'm not putting those evil-ass rats in my bed with me, with my baby. They would fight about it, like playfully fighting, but not playfully fighting. My mom was having issues about it. And she told me about it. I was like, yo, look, I'm on house arrest.
Granted, I was living, I had my first apartment after I got out of the halfway house and it was in the hood, but it was my apartment. It was a big apartment. Three bedrooms. In the hood on the west side of Chicago. But I had all this time on my hands because we didn't have social media back then. Only thing we have, as a former entertainment was Blockbuster Video. That's all. I couldn't even go to the gym on house arrest. I was only allowed to go to work. I had a curfew. And they would check my vocal chords, they would call me all types of the hours. I had to have a house phone. They recorded my vocals at the probation office, so if it didn't match the computer, they'll send the marshalls to come get me. So I had to be on point.
So I was like, look, I got all this time on my hands. Bring her to me, I can raise her until she's a dog. Give me six months with her. I got nothing but time on my... I had no idea what type of dog she was talking about either. She was just like, okay, fine. She brought over on a Saturday morning, I was like, open the door, she knocked on the door, and I was like, where's she at? And she pointed and O looked down between her legs. It's almost like a Pixar movie, these big brown eyes that opened up and looked right at you. The biggest, prettiest brown eyes. And I lifted her up. And that's the first time my mom seen me smile since me coming home from prison, and my mom started crying because she thought prison took my soul. I had not cracked a smile since coming home from prison. And we was inseparable ever since then. We spent a good close to 15 years together.
She died two weeks shy of becoming 15, due to the kidney disease that had progressed really aggressively to the point that I couldn't reverse it. And she died in my arms. Passed away naturally, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you have a tattoo of her on your arm, right?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, I got the tattoo done about four or five years ago of her, before she passed away because she always meant a lot to me. She'd been at triathlons with me. She always been my good luck charm. I would always kiss her on the forehead. And now anytime I do like a heavy lift or go for a heavy run, and when I start back competing in the future, I always would kiss my bicep as a reminder of my baby girl watching over me in heaven. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And is Roc jealous of that tattoo? You got a tattoo of Roc coming down the...
Dom Thompson:
I do got a tattoo of Roc coming down the line, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Those are my two kids. They both are one of one. I've been around a lot of animals and a lot of them have similar personalities, but like my mother said, I know how to pick them. Roc and Soca are just, they're just one of one. I have not met any dogs with the same personalities like they do.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it. Got it. Hey, we got to start winding this thing down.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But tell me, do you have a favorite piece of fruit? If you had to pick one fruit for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Dom Thompson:
This has not changed, but I'm still a big fan of watermelon. To me, it's an underrated fruit. Keeps you hydrated, it has tons of protein in it that people don't realize, those seeds has a lot of protein in it, specific. I love juicing it. It's like a shot of supplements going through your bloodstream. Keeps you hydrated, gets you energy bouncing off the wall. Great for endurance training and more. As far as favorite fruit. Definitely watermelon. Followed by mangoes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. I love watermelon, but I'm picky and the watermelon's got to taste just right, otherwise I'm like, oh, this is a bad watermelon.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. So that's the beautiful thing about me living in Georgia. We produce some of the most amazing homegrown Georgia watermelons, from some incredible farmers out here that locally do it. We have the perfect climate to produce it. So yeah, you got to taste some good Georgia watermelon.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. What about a veggie? Do you have a favorite vegetable? Whether it's a...
Dom Thompson:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
What is it?
Dom Thompson:
What's on both of our shirts? Kale.
Rip Esselstyn:
Ah.
Dom Thompson:
To me, it's just... You can create it and reproduce it in different ways, from making some amazing pasta, to some amazing smoothies, to juicing it. It's just such an incredible, amazing veggie. I just love all leafy greens, and I'm so glad that I found leafy greens and plant-based eating in general. Because I grew up in a community, a food desert where we didn't have those options and stuff like that. So a lot of the fruits and vegetables I eat as an adult, never heard of it as a kid, never was introduced to it as a kid. So it's pretty cool to.... It's kind of like a new experience. It has been a new experience for me as an adult and I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's interesting, you just triggered a memory. I was on the Dr. Oz Show, I don't know, a couple years ago, and he asked me to take three Chicago firefighters and to try and reverse some of their health conditions, high blood pressure, overweight, cholesterol meds, all that stuff. And he gave me two months to do it. And so I went into their households and I discovered that... Two of them were black, one of them was white, but I discovered that these guys, they never had, some of them had never had a mango, they never had a bell pepper. I mean, it's crazy when you realize how many people haven't been exposed to the smorgasbord of different options that are out there when it comes to plant-based.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially, again, I think it's also a generational thing too. But now it's so many different markets and so many different ways to be introducing so many different fruits and vegetables, and it's a beautiful thing, now, if you have the resources, because the accessibility is there in a lot of capacity. Sometimes you just got to do the extra work to find it. For sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey Dom, your middle initial Z, what does the Z stand for?
Dom Thompson:
It's actually not. Everybody think, and I blame Rich for that, Rich Roll.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh really?
Dom Thompson:
Shout out to Rich, man. Good guy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah.
Dom Thompson:
We both know Rich. But when Rich first introduced me to his audience in that podcast, that was, at the time, one of his most download podcasts. He said, Dom Z, and I told him there's no Z, Rich, it's just Domz. The Z is on the end of the M, so there's no Z as in the middle initial. I have no Z in my middle name. But when he said Dom Z, a lot of people to this day, because when I created my account Instagram account, Dominick Thompson was taken. So I was just like, okay, let me just use my nickname Domz. Some people call me Dom or Domz. So that's where the Z come from, Domz. And I just made Domz Thompson. So yeah. Rich is to blame for that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it, got it.
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. People think it's a Z in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
So any last words before we check out here? And also let's be sure to let people know, and I know we've been laying it out here, for people that aren't watching on YouTube, where can they find you, and can you share all your Instagram and social media handles and all that?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah. So all my socials are the same. It's just D-O-M-Z-T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N, Domzthompson. I'm on Instagram as Domzthompson, I'm on TikTok as Domzthompson, I'm on Facebook as Domzthompson, you can turn search through that. Twitter as well, as Domzthompson. It's all uniformed. And my company, if any of you guys are interested in meal planning or just want to find out more information about eating plant-based, just go to eatwhatelephantseat.com and you can get started there. And other than that, those are the best two ways to get in contact with me.
Rip Esselstyn:
What if people want to eat what elephants eat t-shirt, where do you go for that?
Dom Thompson:
Yeah, so it's hard to keep those shirts in stock. We have been receiving complaints for a while, the fact that we haven't restocked them yet, but we're going to relaunch with a huge inventory, and also do some pre-ordering this coming first quarter of next year. So if you guys want Eat What Elephants Eat, go to craziesandweirdos.com or it'll be on the eatwhatelephantseat.com website too, as well, in the first quarter next.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it. All right. I'm going to let you close this out. What do you want to say to the audience?
Dom Thompson:
Just continue to live your life as peaceful as you can without harming others. But more importantly, be appreciative of the little things, because me waking up with a roof over my head and being able to put food on my table is something that I think we all take granted for it. Because not many people have a roof over their head today. Or woke up today. And to me, it's simple things like that that are special. And I hope you guys remember that's special to you too, as well.
Rip Esselstyn:
Awesome. Hey Dom, will you give me a fist bump?
Dom Thompson:
Gotcha.
Rip Esselstyn:
My kale brother.
Dom Thompson:
Yes, sir. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Domzthompson is his social handle on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and all of the other social platforms that he has. You can also check out his site, eatwhatelephantseat.com, and of coursecraziesandweirdos.com. Now remember, we would love to have you join Dom, myself, and about 150 others for the half marathon, marathon, and 5K as part of Team Plantstrong on February 19th, 2023. Simply go to plantstrongfoods.com/team and learn everything you need to know to take part. Keep it Plantstrong.
Thank you for listening to the Plantstrong podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants. Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything. The Plantstrong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr, and Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
