Get Uncomfortable, Build Your Relationships, and Thrive | Dave Sparks and Lewis Howes

I hate when people talk big picture and you know, what's the, people come to me and say, what's the best advice you can give anybody? And I'm like, you got a day? You got two days? Like, this is gonna be a long list. There's no magic button. There's no magic word that is gonna make you successful or make you happy. It's all these small little things.

In sports, we call that the fundamentals. It's just like going back to the basics of dribbling, shooting, arm position, whatever it may be, it's the fundamentals. okay, welcome back to Morning of the School of Greatness podcast. My man Dave Sparks in the house. Good to see you, brother.

Absolutely.

Doing good?

Dude, I am so happy to be here. I gotta tell you, I'm big into personal development, right?

Yeah.

People see me as the truck guy. I'm the truck guy on Discovery Channel. I'm the crazy monster truck guy on Instagram and social media. But man, I'm all about this growth. And it's what you do best, man. I started listening to your podcast. I'm good buddies with Andy Frisella. You're a mutual friend of ours. And he kind of turned me onto that world of podcasts and personal development stuff. And since then, I got into, I had great relationships with guys like Ed Mylett, all these different people. So what you're doing is a very good thing.

And I'm pumped to be a part of it. Nice, man. Well, I think anyone who is in shape like you, who's got a great marriage, great family life, got a great business. They can't achieve those great things without working on themselves, without personal development, without a growth mindset. You can't be stuck in this traditional mindset from the past. You have to be working on how can I improve. -But the problem is there's this weird.

Like social kind of like don't do that, that's weird. That's your parents. Like when I was growing up, my parents, they bought the Tony Robbins. What was the tape set? -It was like, Shine Within or something.

-Yeah, personal power.

-Yeah, personal power. That's what it was. I remember growing up seeing this big like padded cassette tape thing with personal power. And I remember when my parents got that, their friends like were laughing at them. They thought they were so dumb. And I remember thinking like, what are my parents getting into? Is this a cult? I didn't understand it. And so a lot of people don't understand. When you hear personal development or self-help, you think, oh, you gotta be sick, right? This person must have psychological issues or problems. Forget about it, dude. It's about taking somebody that's already great.

I'd be like, I'm a fine-tuned machine. But guess what?

I can still get better.

Well, here's the thing. We learned from interviewing great leaders and from leaders in the past that they're always working on themselves. They were never like, let me read because I need to, I'm in pain. They're like, I want to read to learn to improve. 100%. Let me go to a workshop to learn to improve what I already have. How do I take my current empire and make it bigger? Right. Right? It's not, I'm sick or I'm hurt or I'm depressed and I need help.

It's, I want to take it to another level. And I think that's, so depression, right? There's a huge epidemic nationwide with people that have depression because I think what happens is now I know there's clinical depression where people actually there's chemical issues and imbalance, but I also think a lot of depression is self-induced because people just stop growing. If you're not uncomfortable, you've always heard this, right? If you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing. And that's so true. So, you know, as we get into the conversation, I'll tell you about some of the things that I do to intentionally make myself uncomfortable. And I think that's actually how we met. you know, we have that in common with William Hoff and ice baths. That is not a fun thing to do. I hate cold water. I'm a tough dude. I can take pretty much anything you throw me, but ice water, that, you know, you can take the heat, but not the cold. Dude, I can take anything, but cold, like, that's rough. But you got to get yourself out of your comfort zone. So that's what my life is all about, man. And it has led to some of the greatest adventures and some of the greatest moments, you know, that I never.

Thought I would be able to experience, but.

By doing those hard things, it's led me there.

What are those things daily you do that are hard that you seek pain every day?

So here's the deal. I'm an average guy. I started with nothing. I literally started with nothing. -High school dropped out, right? -Yeah, basically high school finished done. I got... -One semester of college. -Not even, yeah. It was like half a semester of college under my belt. And I just left. I remember sitting there reading, I was writing a book about, or an essay on Easter Island. And I stopped mid-writing and I've always been a really good writer even though I don't do it that much. and I thought, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? When am I ever going to use this information? That day I walked up and left and I never went back. And luckily I've got a family that's very supportive. They're very intelligent. Both my sisters and my brother have their master's degrees. My brother's a professor at the University of Utah. Very, very smart people as far as academics go. It just wasn't for me. I needed to get my hands on things and be working on them. So ultimately what happened is you get, you become successful, you know, flash. Fast forward to where we're at today. My business has become successful through a series of wild events. I am who I am now. But once you become successful, and tell me if you don't agree with this, life gets easier. Way easier. And you stop having to do things you don't want to do for the most part. I mean, you got meetings and stuff like that, but you really don't have to be uncomfortable, right? Successful people don't. So that's the scariest part about becoming successful is getting complacent. Getting to the point where it's like, Okay, I'm good. I made it. You've never made it. And if you ever get that mentality where you've made it, you are gonna go downhill fast, in my opinion. I've seen it happen a lot. So I intentionally get myself uncomfortable in the morning by getting up and I go down to my office, my little quiet space, and I jump in an ice bath. And in Utah, it's an average of 26 degrees every day right now. So I take my big ice trough, put it outside every day, get down there.

You don't need ice.

Dude, no. I'm breaking through six to eight inches of ice to get in this thing. and you know how that feels, dude, you went over to, you did it with Wim Hof, that's why I'm super, super envious. I'm miserable. But you know that forcing yourself to do that, A, starts to create that self-discipline. You start training yourself that, yes, I can do hard things and it's okay to do hard things, and guess what? Hard things benefit you. How do you feel when you get out of the ice and your blood starts rushing back to your body, you start warming up? That's a perfect example for me of doing something hard has a huge payoff and you have to do things consistently. So I've done my ice bath every single day. I've done it on and off for the last couple of years. Every single day though for two and a half months and the benefits are incredible. I mean obviously that's been huge for me but funny story I tell. Another thing that I do to intentionally get uncomfortable. For some reason growing up, I always hated, let's say you're in the Apple store, right? And you're inside and everybody's in there, you're doing your thing. Apple store's super clicky too, you know how it is.

Sure, sure.

All the cool kids are in there. If I were to show up and the store closes at 9:00 and I grab the door handle at 9:01 and it's locked, for some reason in my life, that moment of everybody seeing me not be able to open a locked door is like, I hated it. I freaking, it's just a weird thing. I don't like people looking at me. I'm kind of an introvert. Sure, sure. And so moments like that where a lot of attention on me and I'm not able to do something, so I started playing with that a couple years ago. I was like, I hate this feeling. I don't like people looking at me. I don't like looking like I'm not capable of doing something. So I started going to the Apple Store at 9:01 and I would force myself, all the lights are on, everybody's still in there doing checkout, you know what I mean? Do the old door jiggle, like, and I just put myself in an uncomfortable situation because I needed to get over that uncomfortable feeling of people seeing me struggle. I don't like people seeing me struggle. I hate it. And so I forced myself to start doing those things. And man, I'm telling you, like, They're the dumbest little things, but to me that's personal development. That's figuring out what triggers me, what makes me uncomfortable, and figuring out how to just get over it.

Yeah, I think it's those uncomfortable moments, the fears, the insecurities, when we lean into those and we master them, or get to a place where they don't master us anymore, that's when we have freedom. Yeah. We have power. I've done that my whole life. For me, I tell the story all the time about how I was terrified to talk to girls.

Yeah.

All the way through high school. And it wasn't until my junior year, going into the summer of my junior year, I said to myself, I'm no longer gonna be afraid of talking to girls. I don't care if they all say no to me and they all reject me, I just don't wanna be afraid of it anymore. So I made a challenge for myself that whole summer. I said, anytime I see a girl that gives me butterflies, that's a little attractive. I'm like, dang, you know, butterflies when you're nervous and you're scared and you wanna run. I was like, I need to run towards them. And so every day, it didn't matter if I was like at the gym or grocery store or down the street, I would walk up to the girls that terrified me the most. And the first couple weeks, I'm just stuttering and stumbling and getting laughed at and girls walking away thinking I'm crazy. But then it's like you build the confidence over and over again. I remember at the end of the summer, I would go up to groups of like 20 women, 30 year old women and be like flirting with them and having fun.

I was just like, I don't even care.

Who cares?

Dude, that's it though because here's the deal. You told yourself, I want to do something, I want to get good at something but that's where most people stop. They say, I want to get good at this or I don't want to have that problem anymore and then they hope that thinking it is going to make the problem go away. You have to set little action items and this is something that I've, I live my whole life by this. So I'm a pilot. I fly airplanes, helicopters, all kinds of stuff. Part of flying is you have a checklist and when you get in the airplane, hit this switch first, hit that switch next, twist this, bop that, do all these different things. And it's in a very strategic order. And the reason why it's in that order is because if you miss one of those items, you could potentially crash and die. So you have to follow this small checklist. And it's not like you're doing big things all at once. You're doing small little things which ultimately end up putting you in a position where, okay, plane's safe to fly, I'm comfortable, everything, we're ready to go. That's how life is, dude. Everybody starts thinking about all these big picture goals and things that they wanna do. And I found that a lot of people just weren't getting there because they didn't know where to start. So we started a podcast called the Heavy Checklist, and it's just about checklist items. It's little things that you need to start implementing today and tomorrow, next week, to be able to not be afraid of girls, to be able to not have that social anxiety of, you know, getting caught by everybody at the Apple Store when the door's locked. Don't just say those big picture things though. Give yourself small little items. That's why I love you said, like.

Okay, I'm just gonna go out and approach girls.

If you hadn't said that, how would you have not been afraid of girls? Yeah.

I would have been thinking, how do I do this? Yeah, but you got to practice it over and over again. It's about the immersion of it. For me, it's about the immersion. I was also terrified of salsa dancing. I lived above a jazz club when I was like 22, 23, and every.

Week they would have salsa dancing once a week.

Why salsa dancing? Well, 'cause when I lived above this jazz club, they would have like jazz bands playing downstairs. But then once a week they would bring salsa dancers. You're from Ohio?

Ohio.

Was this in Ohio? This Columbus, Ohio man. Middle of Ohio. And all the Latinos would come out and dance. It was like their night to come out and dance. There'd be a live salsa band. It was amazing. So, I would go downstairs and watch this. And... How old are you? The only white dude that's 22, 23. I'm the only white dude there essentially. And you're 64? I'm standing like a foot taller than everyone, right? And I'm mesmerized by these these guys were just twirling these girls and making them, it just looked incredible. I was just blown away by how confident, how smooth, how it's just like they're making, it was unreal.

I think that's what it's about. I think that's why, so to me, I've watched salsa dancing as well and I spent a lot of time in Latin America, Brazil, all over South America. The men are very confident and it comes across in the way that they move and do things and that's what.

Salsa is, it's just confidence. You have control of your body, the movement and you can flow and you.

Can listen to music.

It's another level of confidence. Absolutely. I can go anywhere in the world and not speak the language, but if I find a salsa club, I can dance with the best dancers there. That is wild. I would have never guessed that. I never have to speak. Yeah, so I've been dancing for like 15, over 15 years now.

Really? Yeah, and I've gone all over the world traveling just to salsa dance. Like there's a professional salsa.

There's like salsa clubs. Like unspoken, you're on this level of salsa. Yes, if you go to a club, I mean, I get rejected a lot. When I go to a new country or a new club that no one knows who I am, and they see a tall white dude that doesn't speak the language. What I do for myself, 'cause I'll still get intimidated, especially if it's a new place and I don't know anyone, I'll go and watch the first song and see who's the best female dancer and then I'll go right up to them afterwards. Get outta here. More than 50% of the time I get rejected. It's still nerve-wracking, but I need that.

Because I am a confident dancer and I can dance with the best of 'em.

But if everybody said yes, it wouldn't be as much fun. It wouldn't be as fun. So it's like, it still gives me a challenge like, ah, no one knows who I am here. I'm like the one that don't think you can dance. So I have to kind of prove to myself. And so what I'll do is I'll finally find someone who will say yes. Sometimes like four or five girls will reject me. Yeah. Just 'cause they don't know me, I don't speak the language, whatever. And then finally someone will say yes.

To me and I will take them.

Right to the best dancer and dance right next to them.

Isn't that the greatest feeling? Until they come back and ask me later and I'm like, yeah, I'm good, thanks. How do you respond when people tell you that you can't do something or.

It'S just not possible? Are you the type where you're like, I'm gonna prove it? Yeah, in the past I used to, I had to prove everyone wrong about everything. So I would hurt myself just to make a point. Now I only do it to prove.

To myself, not to anyone else.

I don't feel like you have a lot of haters.

Is there a lot of Lewis Howes haters out there? I haven't seen a lot of negative comments on your posts. I don't see many. You're a likable guy.

I just try to not make it all about me. I try to make it about who I'm interviewing. Yeah, it makes sense.

So I try to facilitate conversations and not be the conversation. and you're not polarizing at all.

So I try not to talk about politics, about these other things. So sometimes I say stuff that people don't like and they have an opinion. And I just say that I'm always looking to improve. I'm not perfect, and I'm always looking to get the best out of people.

You'd be a great mediator. You know, I've been in court ordered mediation for losses and stuff in business. And mediator is funny, man. It's somebody who, like, even though you may see one side of the story is better than the other or somebody's clearly right or wrong, you have to be able to like stay biased enough to be able to get that conversation going. You're very good at that.

Managing energy. Yeah, absolutely. The whole thing and understanding people. I'm curious, what is the biggest, it sounds like you've overcome a lot of insecurities, you've done all these challenges for yourself, you get up, you do the painful ice baths, you do these other things, what is the biggest fear you.

Still have yet to conquer? Man, I'm not afraid of much. Honestly, like, I have so much confidence in myself that I don't really, dude, honestly, I'm not afraid of anything. You know what my fear is? Crabs. Crabs? I don't like crabs. I don't like how they can run sideways fast. It's weird, right? They're weird. I don't like deep, dark water. I love water and that kind of stuff, but like, picture a dive. I do, and I don't mind that, but my fear is- 20, 30 feet under, but not like- Swimming in a harbor late at night. Go to Long Beach, Port of Long Beach down there, and swim near a pier. Not a chance, dude.

You don't know what's underneath you.

I hate things touching my feet. But, dude, other than that, I'm not afraid of much. Simply because I've proven to myself over the years that if I want to do it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to figure it out. And it doesn't matter whether I'm meant to do that thing or whether I'm talented enough to do it, I'm going to figure it out. So, man, honestly, for me, and especially now that I've become a dad, I got an eight-year-old daughter, I got a five-year-old son and a two-year-old son. My biggest fear now is missing them growing up. You know, I don't want to be 10 years from now thinking, oh no, my daughter's 18. Like, where'd the last 10 years go?

So, man, priorities change once you have a family.

I bet. Because when did you have your first kid? How old are you?

I was 26. Wow.

When did you get married? When I was 25. So we got pregnant pretty much right after. So Utah's a different world, right? Yeah, you get married. I met my wife at church. We're part of the Mormon church, is whatever he calls it. Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints and it's pretty common for young people to meet each other at what we call singles awards. So you go there and a bunch of single dudes and a bunch of single girls and it's the greatest dude because first Mormon girls are super hot. Like I don't know if you've ever been to Utah but Utah is full of beautiful women because we live by this culture that makes you take care of yourself. You don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't do drugs, you don't have premarital sex, you don't have... Yeah, so people are clean, they're well taken care of, they've got good work ethic and so Man, the Pickens are very-- They're not slim. Yeah, no, they're not slim. And so I met my wife. She was 9-- 21. I was 25, 26. And we were engaged for a year, which is a pretty long engagement in Utah. Most people get three months. You're three months and married. We got married and six months later found out she was pregnant. And it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. We weren't preventing it or anything. And then we had our little girl, Charlie. And dude, that's when things changed, man.

Like, so you're 20, how old when you had your first kid?

26 or 27.

And you're how old now?

34, 35.

Did you, how hard has it been in the last 10 years to keep your mind focused on your wife and stay committed with the success? 'Cause you weren't this big, you know, TV star, social media star back then, but now with TV, with opportunity, Monster Jam, all these different things, how do you focus your mind on wife and kids and not allow yourself to get distracted with the shiny objects of other people. So the first five years of our.

Marriage, honestly, man, I give 100%, 110% of the credit to my wife. Had she not been the perfect person that she is, like just patient with me, and I think she saw the potential, right? She's like, this is a good guy, he's got a good heart, he's got good ambition. I'm just gonna go on this wild ride with him, and she put up with a lot of nonsense. Really? Not crazy, but just like, I worked 14, 15, 16 hour days. And that was normal for a long time. And so she was patient. But as I started to become successful and I continued to see this woman by my side, just my ultimate cheerleader, I was like, okay, I got something here. Like, this woman is very important. She's very, like, she is my support system. And she's never, ever, ever told me no. And she's never told me that I can't do something, which is really great. But also, as you become successful, now when she says things like, Hey, I want to take the family on a trip to the moon. I can't be like, oh babe, that's not possible. I can't do that because she knows who I am. She knows my capabilities and she's like, you,'re Dave, you can do whatever you want. Like she knows that I can accomplish things so she sometimes has more confidence in me than I even do myself. And I'm a confident guy. I know that I can do whatever I put my mind to. So having a woman by your side like that is, man, dude, I'd be lost.

I'd be a, I would be nothing. Now in the Mormon faith, There's typically no, it's really bad to cheat, right? There's not like, once you're married, you're focused. It's very much of it.

It's a big no-no. It's a big no-no and I think it isn't like just across the board, right? Of course.

But even more so in the religion.

It's a no-no. Yeah, no premarital sex. You're not supposed to be involved in. You're supposed to like be faithful to that person because, you know, that's not just from a faith standpoint, but Just look at life. What happens when you're wasting energy on other people? And so having her by my side, I'm lucky because she's a beautiful, beautiful girl. So temptation, you know, it's always out there, but I compare everybody to this beautiful woman who's at home with my kids and she's beautiful. Like, I'm very fortunate that way. So it's never been-- you-'ve never been temped. You never had that. That's a huge issue for me. No, because, I mean, granted, we are successful, right? We're in the public eye a lot. you know, social media, TV, all this stuff. But I think I live my life in a way where people just know that I love my wife and because I put her as a big part of what I do and who I am. And so people know like when we go to, you know, public meet and greets or something like that, a lot of people will say, Where's Ashley? She here? Can I get a picture with her? And if she's there, she'll jump in. And yeah, they're there for her. And she's got a couple hundred thousand followers on Instagram. People know everything she does. They know my kids' schedules. They know where they're going next. And they love it. It's kind of weird. And that's one thing that I was never really prepared for. You need to come face to face. Yeah, absolutely, man. You just gotta be more careful. But people love real life. They love relatable, right? I think that's why people like you so much is because you're a relatable guy. You're not from some big wealthy family where you had things handed to you and you're not some, you know, starred in some movie and that's why you're famous. You're just a guy who made it on the come up and you grind it all the way along. And people are like, you know what? I think that's why I like talking to you because you're just a guy that you've done a lot of the same things that I had to do to get to where you're at. and that's why your podcast is so successful because people are pulling from that the confidence that they might not have in themselves at the time to be able to get through that hurdle or the obstacle that they're working on.

You just use your hands in other ways and like making things. I was an athlete using them like catching balls and grinding it out on the football field or the basketball court. I'm curious about who the most influential person in your life was growing up and the biggest lesson they taught you. that you still hold on to today?

Man, my dad. So my dad died 12 years ago from a brain tumor. This man, so he, man, he's just an incredible story. Like his life should be a movie. He, when I was born, he was a Green Beret. So he was like in the top one percentile of the U.S. military as far as fitness goes. The dude was just a machine. Right as soon as I was born, I'm the last kid of four, he got diagnosed with a brain tumor. I was like three weeks old when the doctors told him, you,'re done, dude. This is it. Say goodbye to your kids. He actually made a video, a VHS tape. Him and my wife, my mom recorded saying goodbye to the kids. 34 years ago. Yeah, I think I'm three weeks old. I don't know. I've never met the guy. So they're giving me an opportunity to know who he was as I've grown up. In our church we have what's called the priesthood, right? And men in the church have the priesthood and with that priesthood they have the ability to give blessings to other people, blessings of comfort, blessings of health, blessings of whatever you need at that time. Literally the man will put his hands on your head and basically pray and bestow blessings on you. So my dad got a blessing that basically said, you,'re gonna be okay and you're gonna live to see your kids grow up. Then you gotta realize, well my dad got that blessing, it's like, It was almost an insult because the doctors and everybody had said, you,'re done. See you later. He had a tennis ball-sized tumor in the side of his head. And so when my mom heard that, she kind of was like, that's not okay. That's not cool. Why would you say that? Don't lie to me. Don't give us weird false hope. And three weeks later, the tumor just was gone. No way. Yeah, they removed this lateral lobe, so he always had this dent in his head. And the doctors were like, we're just gonna get the big chunk of the tumor out, so his quality of life as he dies will be better. So it's not a huge thing pushing on his brain. Gone. Wow. And so that's kind of a weird thing, right? When you're supposed to die and then you don't. And so with that happening, he got a late start in life. I think he was 35 when he decided to go to college. And so I'm, you know, five, six, seven years old. My dad's delivering pizzas to make ends meet. No way. He delivered pizzas and installed car stereos. Yeah. Yep. And then as he was recovering from being sick, he would have chemotherapy and stuff like that, and he would still have downtime. And so when he was at the hospital recovering, my mom would then go out and install those car stereos like under freeway overpasses and deliver the pizzas. And so I'm growing up watching these two people that like odds are stacked against them and they just don't complain. Don't like I never knew that we had it rough. I thought everybody's parents made their pants. for school, like I just thought that was a thing. And so learning from my parents as they went through hard times, knowing that everything's gonna be okay regardless, like even our whole family lived in a VW bus for eight weeks while we were basically homeless. Two parents, a sick dad, and four young kids. And we didn't know any better. I just thought that was life. So growing up, I saw my dad just get knocked down over and over and over again. He graduated, you know, college, got his degree, went and got this job. Everything was great. Family was doing great. This age is like 8 to 15-16. Life's good, right? Finally, like family has extra money. We bought a trampoline. I remember buying a trampoline and thinking.

That was like... You're like the king.

Yeah, dude. Growing up having a trampoline was a big deal. 15-16 years old, my dad has a stroke, gets knocked down again. And then from there until he died when I was 21, It was like as soon as he'd get back on his feet, as soon as things would be going good, bam, get knocked down again. Really? And I never saw him complain. I never saw him get upset. He was always just he would just take it with humor. And so that's a big part of my life is humor is that's a good way to cope with things and deal with things. Like at my dad's funeral, we were telling like dirty jokes. I was giving the talk. Yeah, people were loving it because that's my dad's life. He celebrated it. So definitely my dad and my mom, very, very hard workers. I was taught to work from an early. I didn't know that there was another option. I didn't know that, like, did you get an allowance growing up? No. I saw a friend get an allowance, like, sophomore year, and I was like, hold on. So your parents did give you money for, like, what? How does that. I'm the kid that's getting free lunch at school. Like, I'm wearing these, these hand-me-down pants my mom made for my brother. Like, I just didn't know any better, so I'm super grateful for that, though. And let me tell you, Actually, you know, go back to my biggest fear, raising my kids, right? I'm well to do now. I do okay. I've done really well and now my kids don't have to worry about the.

Same stuff that I had to worry about. How do you teach them how to.

Have adversity when they have comfort? How do you teach them how to.

Appreciate like the, you know, what they have? You have this, you can fly a plane, you can do this.

It's like, what do they, how do you train them? My daughter goes to school, she went to school one day and she was talking about the weekend trip that we took down the lake in the helicopter. and she's talking to the kid, she's talking to the girl next to her, she's like, wait. So you guys don't take a, you guys don't fly to Lake Powell in a helicopter and her little friend's like, I've never seen a helicopter. And my daughter was like such a big turning point for her and for us as a family. When I heard that story, I was like, okay, hold on. Reality check. We gotta teach these little kids what real life is about. And so that is honestly one of the biggest things that I focus on, trying to make sure that We're grateful for what we have and teaching my kids that nothing is just, you know, handed to you. You can't just live your life, you gotta appreciate what you got.

Yeah, not just expecting the comfort, the luxuries.

Exactly.

Because it's so hard. I mean, how do you teach them to have a hard work ethic? So, they're just more focused on like school work and extra curricular activities.

That's the biggest thing. So, we've been given a lot and so with those tools, I'm going to use them. I'm gonna hold her to a way higher standard now than I would hold another kid because she has all the resources at her fingertips. And so now she has to perform better. Exactly. And better. And you have to learn things, you have to do hard things. And so rather than having to like save up her money for that toy or those new pair of shoes, like I had to, she has to learn how to like, you know, master musical instrument or just things where... Something. She's been learning a language. Exactly, exactly.

You're gonna send them on a Mormon trip when they're 12, not 18.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. You're going to Mexico, yeah. Biggest turning point in my life is.

My mission, 19 years old. Did you go to Mexico or where'd you go?

Bolivia. Bolivia. Yeah, so 19, two years, almost every Mormon does this, right? Yep, the boys go two years, girls go 18 months. And basically you tell them that you want to go serve and the church officials basically take your information. And then you tell them you want to go serve. You do what's called your papers. So you submit your mission papers, you.

Say, this is who I am, these.

Are my skills, this is what I do. I said I learned Spanish in junior high and high school. You were fluent?

No. But you learned the basics. I knew the basics and I was.

Probably a little bit ahead of my class. You were working at an auto shop.

Yeah, yeah, that's the thing.

I was by no means fluent, but I was a really smart kid growing up. Everybody in my family is really, really smart, so I just learned things quicker. So I send in these documents to the church officials and I say, I'm ready to go, tell me where to go. Six weeks later you get what's called your mission call and you don't know where you're going. You have no idea. I could literally go to Boise, Idaho or I could be sent to Timbuktu. You don't know. And you have no, you can't tell.

Them where you want to go. Is that intentional for them? Like, yeah, that's true. To not know.

You just kind of surrender to the process. Trust. That's the whole point. The lesson's gonna be, you're leaving everything for two years. You have to be 100% committed. So as a missionary, you don't talk to girls.

You don't touch girls.

You don't hold hands. You have no relationship. So I had a girlfriend in high school. You have to break up? Basically, yeah. You call, it's basically, yeah.

What if you're married?

You don't get married. If you're married, you can't go on a mission. Really? They can do what's called couples mission. So me and my wife in 5, 10, 20 years from now, we can go together and serve, but you have to be single, you can't have kids, you can't have any sort of commitments like that, and they ship you out to wherever the church needs you. And so they pray about, you know, who you are, what your skills are, and my mission call came back and said, you, got to go to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. and I thought, Bolivia, that's awesome. That's right next to Russia, right? I thought it was, I annoying you. And so, I get shipped down in the middle of the Amazon jungle, dude. Not knowing anything about anything. I'm 19 years old, dude. I'd never, I'd only had a couple real jobs, even up until that point. Left my girlfriend, left all my everything. And as a missionary, one of the craziest things is you have to have a companion with you at all times.

It's called your mission companion.

Another guy. Yep, you cannot, like, you can't go solo anywhere.

Dude, you can't leave.

Like I have to be visually with inside of this person the whole time for two years. You can't be alone.

You're in the same room sleeping in.

Bunk beds or next to each other.

The only time that I ever saw.

Like maybe in the bathroom. Yeah, when I'm showering.

That was literally it.

So why is that? Is that for safety reasons? Yeah, it's because it's there's a lot of temptation out there obviously. Keeping each other accountable. Safety and yeah, exactly. Like when you get sent out on your mission, you can partner with a senior missionary, somebody who's been out a year or so. And they basically show you the ropes. They show you what the neighborhood is, who the people are, what you're teaching. And so I get dropped into this.

Middle of South America country. He had been there for a year and then after his two years was.

Up, then you were doing that for someone else. You get a new companion every six months. No, no, no, every six weeks. It's called a... It's rotating. Yeah, it's called in Spanish is Combio. It's a transfer, a change, basically. But you can stay with the same companion for two, three, four, five, changes at a time, but it's pretty uncommon to stay with somebody for more than two or three of the six week periods. So anyways, you're, you're my first one.

New people, you always connect.

Dude, he was like a 26 year old little Peruvian guy who had never really dealt with, you know, Americans. And so he was, yeah, from all over the world. They get shipped out there. So basically, I get dropped into this third world country, not knowing anything about the culture, not knowing anything about it. And I just basically went and said, all right. I'm going to become part of this culture. I'm going to learn everything I can about it and I'm just going to let myself basically become just a total servant of the Lord, right? Go out and teach the gospel, help people serve and just do everything I can to learn. And dude, that's why Mormon missionaries, returned missionaries and the younger LDS people in general are really good workers. The work ethic, dude, the workforce in Utah is Incredible. You can pick up a 21 year old kid who he's responsible, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, knows two languages.

It's been door-to-door sales essentially for 20 years.

Yep. It's wild. It is wild. So best moment of my life, obviously, they call it the best two years because without those, dude, I don't think I would have learned the self-control, the self-discipline, and more importantly, the love for other people. At 19 years old, who are you focused on? Yourself, right? Like all you care about is just going out and taking care of yourself. Get the girl, get the girl, get the car, get the...

The money.

Dude, you lose all that stuff for two years. You don't have any money, you don't have a car.

They give you like a stipend for food or...

Your family pays basically into this fund and every two weeks you get like, for me it was like a couple hundred bucks. No extra cash and you're just going door to door teaching people, serving. 100% service. You're not worried about yourself at all.

What was the greatest thing that you learned from those two years that you still apply today?

To love other people, especially other cultures. Man, I love, love, love the Latino culture. Like obviously you've got a good connection with it with Jeanette. I learned to love those people because it's a very different world down there.

Different man.

It is a completely different, everything about Latin America is different than America. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions. And I wish everybody here in the States could go just experience a little bit of time down there and understand how much Latino people really love each other, how accepting they are. Like we would show people's homes and give you anything. I'm talking grass shacks in the middle of the Amazon jungle. These people have maybe this family, I think the average income for family down there was like 50 bucks a month. They have nothing, but they will give you literally everything that they have. Crazy. And then some. And so I learned like, wow, like these people have no connection to me. Why are they so open? But they don't just do it for me. They do it for their neighbor. They do it for everybody. So I learned that it's okay to love other people like more than what you might have been taught was okay. As you're growing up and American culture is like, you know, don't brush against me. You know, keep giving me my little space.

Don't touch me, don't hug me.

Right. They kiss me, they hug you, yeah. It's okay to do that. It's okay to show the people that you love them. And Latinos are the best at it because it's so funny.

My wife met Jeanette at Monster Jam.

She's like kissing her and I'm like, oh. So she went in and she went to say something like, what's your name to Ashley? To my wife. And she kisses her. Ashley says, Ashley. And she thought that Jeanette didn't understand her. She didn't hear her so because Jeanette went in for the kiss. She goes, Ashley. It's just like we're not used to it, but it's so good, dude. It's so good to be able to show people that you care about them. And that's why I love that culture. And that's why I'm a big advocate for, you know, fixing the immigration problems we have here in the country. And, man, every time I go to an event like Monster Jam, I'll speak English and Spanish. I have a tremendous Latino support group I'm following because they know that I love them just like they love me. It's been the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Dude, it's been the best thing that's ever happened to me. Now, Mormons in general don't drink, is that right?

Once you're married and you're older, you're allowed to drink. We live by what's called the word of wisdom. And the word of wisdom is basically a gospel principle that we're taught from.

A very young age.

No tobacco, no alcohol, no coffee, no tea, no drugs. No coffee, no tea, even like non-caffeinated tea? Non-caffeinated tea, by herbal tea, that kind of stuff. Yeah, basically, and it's not even necessarily, they never came out and said no caffeine. Although the law is kind of written. I mean, I drink energy drinks. So I do that. I've never tasted alcohol. I've never smoked a cigarette. I've never done any of that stuff because growing up, I knew that I wasn't supposed to do it, and so I stayed away from it. And so you'll find in the LDS culture, like I said, healthy people. Sure. Because it's not, you don't drink, right?

I've never been drunk or high.

That's wow. And you're not LDS. But not Mormon, that's pretty cool. Dude, I thought you were Mormon. When I first started reading your stuff and hearing your podcast. I was like, this guy, He's gotta be LDS, or maybe he's like just drifted away.

My parents never drank or smoked, so there was never like a thing to look at. My brother went to prison when I was eight for selling drugs to an undercover cop. My sisters drank a little bit and smoked a little weed and cigarettes here and there, but it wasn't like that prominent. But I remember when I would go to the prison every weekend to visit my brother, because it was kind of visiting room hours you could go to. So we would all go, And I think that kind of just scared me a lot.

How much older was he?

He was 11 years older. He was 19 when he went in. So when you entered your mission, he.

Was in prison for four and a half years.

So you learned really quick why to do it. I learned quick by just being there and seeing all the other convicts and their families and how much pain youn didn't want that. The people were in from just, you know, selling a little bit of LSD on the side. Yeah. It's just like, why even tempt myself? Why even like flirt with it? Even if it's fun, it was just like, It's not for me. I don't care if other people do it, as long as they're responsible and they don't get sick or whatever, but it was never for me. So I was the only guy on my football team that didn't drink. That's impressive. And I would go out and party with them and I would just have.

Water and it's crazy. That's been the weirdest thing about it. I'll go to these meetings, obviously in this business, you meet a lot of people that are smoking. And so we'll go to dinner and they'll be like, all right, I've already ordered their drinks and I'm the guy that's just ordering, you know, a Sprite or whatever it is. Exactly. But my thing is like, what's your craziest lemonade? Give me the one with like the crazy fruit around the rim. And that's just, that's not just me. That's all my partners and everybody in the business.

Like, Utah. Grew up that way. Yeah, that's the LDS culture.

And, man, LDS people have always been really good. Always kind, loving, caring. We learned how to work, giving. At a young age, we learned that it's okay to love other people and that we should like love other people more than more than society teaches us and we learn obviously very healthy lifestyle. Don't drink, don't smoke, follow that word of wisdom that I'm telling you about and look at me, I feel great, I'm a healthy person. Yeah, I've been very blessed and I don't have to do much to take like as far as like workouts and stuff like that. I do work out but there's a lot of times with my schedule where I don't have the opportunity. I know that God's given me this healthy body because I follow those rules and that's just the way it is. That's great, man. And I live my life by that. I say, obviously very deeply religious person. And it doesn't even matter if you're religious or not. I think there's people who listen to this who may not have a God. They may not have that being that they report to or they're accountable to. Whatever you have that drives you, if you're religious and you have that God or if it's the universe, best advice I could give anybody is make deals with them. Make deals with God, make deals with the universe. And what I mean by that is, I'll do this, you give me that. And that's how I met my wife, man. I was 26 years old and in Utah, that's old being single. And I was just ready to be done. I dated all the cute. Oh, wow. Yeah, the dating scene. I was just, I didn't want to be single anymore. I wanted to start my family. And so I told God, I made him a promise. I said, God, here's what I'm gonna do. I know what I'm supposed to be doing at this age. I'm supposed to be going to church. I'm supposed to be helping other people. And so I made this list, basically just a contract. I said, God, I'm gonna do these things. If you'll in turn put this girl on my path and let me get married, I'm tired of being single.

Wow.

I was two weeks into that deal when my wife popped up, like, instant. I don't care if that's your relationship with God or the power of manifestation, law of attraction, it's real.

I just think intention is a powerful thing. You know, whether you're making the intention or the commitment to God universe, but just intention for yourself and your own soul. When you say, I'm intending to follow through on these commitments, you're gonna start to see things opening up in a different way.

100% because it changes everything about what you do. You start making subtle little changes, working towards a goal that you normally wouldn't be able to make it unless you had that vision or that goal. So that's why I'm big on small things. I hate when people talk big picture and you know, what's the people come to me and say, what's the best advice you could give anybody? And I'm like, you got a day, you got two days? Like, this is gonna be a long list. There's no magic button, there's no magic word that is gonna make you successful or make you happy. It's all these small little things.

In sports, we call that the fundamentals. It's just like going back to the basics of dribbling, shooting, our position, whatever it may be, it's the fundamentals.

I wish our schools would teach this though to the younger kids. I wish my daughter had a class where they taught her how to make a vision board. Things where it's like setting these goals at an early age, instead she's learning, they're learning how to play hot cross buns on a recorder. It's just the stupid stuff that, you're not, kids are, schools are never gonna put that, they're never gonna implement it. So do it at home. If you're a parent, teach your kids and your family that. If you're not, if you're still single, work on yourself. Make that vision board. So, you know, these are like cliche words that you hear in this world, this vision board and manifestation and law of attraction. Well, they're overused because they're real.

Because they work.

Yeah, they're powerful things that you can do today and tomorrow. to make your life better and make yourself happier?

-I'M curious, what is the, what's the thing you're most ashamed of that you've done? That you really don't want people to know about you or that you are just like, I wish I would have never thought that, said that, done that. -The thing you don't want people to know about you.

-That is a very good question, man.

Seems like you follow a lot of the rules to yourself and the religion and your great dad and husband.

I would say that there's been times in my life where I've been ignorant.

To.

The importance of certain rules. In my business, the automotive world, there's emissions laws, there's things that you're supposed to do to vehicles and things that you're not supposed to do to vehicles. And I think there was a while there where all I cared about was doing what I enjoyed to do at that time. And I was less concerned about what the overall effect was. and we would modify vehicles, and this is a very specific example, but it applies to pretty much every part of my life, where I've maybe thought the overall rules didn't apply to me and I had my own little program, but we would modify by vehicles and it would create a huge amount of smoke and it would affect the air quality where I lived.

And so things like that, I look.

Back and I'm like, man, that was more for selfish reasons. Yeah, I didn't care about anybody around me. All I cared about was what I was enjoying in that moment, what my vehicle was doing for me and I could care less if I was polluting or whatever it was. And like I said, that applies to a lot of different things. I think, you know, just not being aware of other people's feelings. I'm a very, you know, focused person. When I get set on what I want, I go for it. Well, the problem with that is there's casualties along the way, like people that are like a victim of your being just oblivious. I'm not a bad person. I've never maliciously, you know, tried to hurt anybody. I don't have that kind of energy. But along the way, there's been things that I've just overlooked that I should have paid more attention to. My partner, we call him Diesel Dave, he's very intuitive when it comes to like how what he's doing right now is affecting everybody around him. I'm not, I have to work really hard at being able to know like the tale of the dragon is this long, not this long, and my actions are gonna affect people not just today and tomorrow but long term. And so, that's been my biggest struggle man throughout life is just making sure that I'm aware of the consequences of what I'm doing and how they're affecting other people. I don't care how they affect me. The risk to me is not a real thing. I don't even take into consideration. I don't know how to calculate risk. People always ask me like, why are you successful? I'm like, because I'm too stupid to know better. And so you just go after these things and so, Trying to become aware of how you affect other people, man, that is a big deal. And it's hard for somebody like me.

-What'S the thing that's missing in your life to help you get to the next level of all of your dreams? What do you need to learn, acquire, let go of, become more of in order to step into your fullest?

I said, man, this is... My dad used to call this the shotgun approach. I would go after a lot of things. I would do this and this and this and this and this and this. I would do all these things kind of good. It's taking your talents and skills and being able to say, okay, you know what? Yes, I can do a lot of things kind of good, but maybe I should take my time and energy and focus on this and that and just go full speed ahead until I master that area. And that's it, man. And I'm learning that and it's been so hard, man. Opportunities everywhere.

I mean, I'm the same way. I'm 80% good at so many things. And I want to be great at all of them, but it's really hard to put your attention on 20 different things. And Tony Robbins said this to me last year. I did like a little private mastermind thing with him where the group of us got to ask him questions. And I was like, man, I was a decathlete. So I was 80% good at every event track and field, which made me an all-American decathlete. It's the reason I became, I would achieve my dream 'Cause you're almost good at everything. I'm almost great at everything.

Yeah, almost great at everything.

But I'm really good at a lot of things. And so I transferred that skill into life, into business. Like, we can do a podcast, we can write books, we can do events, we can do coaching, we can do courses, we can do a documentary. We can do merch, we can do all these things really good. But what's the thing that's really gonna take the mission to the next level of serving the maximum amount of people, which is our mission.

Yep.

And he was like, yeah, you gotta, you know, do you want to be really good at a lot of things or do you want to be known great at one great thing? Yeah. And then when you break through at that thing, you can then kind of spread it a little more.

And you've now become aware of what the consequences are of that 20% that you're not being the best at. So if you're not giving 100%, there is still some casualties. There's bystanders, whether they be people or circumstances, whatever's in your life. Just your dreams. Right.

You're doing a disservice to your dreams.

Dude, so I'm big into motorsports, right? Trucks, anything, aircraft, whatever it is. And so when I got to the point where I could actually afford to like do some of my-- Crazy stuff. Yeah, crazy stuff. I went and did everything. I raced this, I raced that. You put it in front of me, I was racing it. And I would go maybe once a year and race trophy trucks, and I would go race semi-trucks, and I'd go race motorcycles and four-wheelers and boats and whatever it was. And I would just go do it because it was an experience. I wasn't getting that great at anything. I always thought, I'm the best driver in the world. I can show up and drive and win. Anything, no. I can show up and drive, but I was getting smoked by 12 year old kids in trophy trucks. And I'm like, how'd that happen? I'm the best. And I realized that I needed to focus. And so, those last couple of years, Monster Jam is a good example. You know, driving monster trucks, everybody looks at a guy that, if you say you drive monster trucks for a living, they're expecting you to be like a WWE type, person that's just like, you know, beer smashed cars and, and, and, you know, wear my American flag bandana around. It's not that man. Like, Monster Jam is, it's become a motorsport that I believe is gonna replace the circus and I believe it's gonna replace NASCAR. It already is well on its way because if you combine all those elements of like a big performance and a stadium, dude, I performed in Petco Park in San Diego two nights ago. It packed the place. Sold out. People were like lined up outside trying to get in there. And so I decided I want to become one of the best there is. And so I got into the sport a year and a half ago, showed up, thought, yeah, I'll be fine. My first show, I did good. I'm like, told you guys, like, I took a first and freestyle or whatever it was. There's three events in a show, and I was like, I got this. Next event, I just got destroyed. And then I got destroyed for the following 12 to 14 months of I would do okay here and there, but then I realized, like, okay, wait, there's guys that do this every single weekend for years. Yeah. Of course they're gonna be better than me. They have more seat time, they have more experience, and so I wanted to get really good at it. And so you have to pull back a little bit from things that maybe seem like a good opportunity or a good idea to be able to get really good at those things that you want to become good at. It doesn't mean that you have to do one of the, like, I can still enjoy all the different types of motorsports, but I don't go compete in anything right now other than monster trucks, and maybe it'll get to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm a champion. I did that, move on to the next. But don't hang up your hat until you have 100% mastered that. And don't let yourself judge whether you've mastered that area of your life or not. Make sure that people around you, your family, your friends, the industry that you're in, also agrees that you have made it.

You've made it. We were just talking, Tiffany was just mentioning today about the book Essentialism, which is about, what's the tagline again?

The disciplined pursuit of less.

The disciplined pursuit of less.

I like that.

A book called Essentialism, which, who's the guy? Edwin something or McGown or something. What's the guy's name? Greg McGown, I think is the author's name. Dude, that's a powerful book. Yeah, the pursuit of less, which is mean going all in on less things.

To maximize that thing.

Perfect example of your podcast, right? Exactly. So, I've been eliminating things in our business, which is like big moneymakers. to have energy and mind space to focus on this. You know, it's building out a production here. There's a brand new set. It's like just trying to go all in on how can we maximize the one thing? -Right. -Why not screwing ourselves and not having money coming in other places but really trying to put as much effort into this?

-You'Re really screwing yourself in the long run by doing all those things. -Yeah. Because you know, you... Yeah, I mean, I look at the numbers of what your podcast does and I know what.

That can turn into as far as revenue dollars. it could be huge if I just went all in.

-You have to focus on it because if you're out there doing a mastermind next weekend, you might miss the opportunity to interview Kobe. You had that opportunity, that huge interview. What would have happened if you would.

Have been out focusing on something else?

-That'S the only time. -You're screwed. You'll miss those opportunities. -Miss them. So, you have a lot of influence that listens, right? -Oh yeah. -So, I think that's a big deal as far as people like, what is an influencer? Don't call yourself an influencer. Call yourself like Figure out what it is that you want to influence people to do. Figure out what that industry is, what that goal is, and work towards that. Don't try to become an influencer because guess what? That bubble went like this. It's over. The days of getting 50 grand for a post is just generic. Like, I love Coke. Dude, they're gone. Companies are gonna spend money with you. They want to know exactly who you're talking to and why you're talking to them and why you're the expert in that space. That's the best advice I could give.

Somebody who is trying to become an influencer or a YouTuber or whatever. Instead of trying to become an influencer, try to become become someone of service.

Become an expert.

Become an expert and then serve people who need that expertise. My whole life revolves around service, man. That's it, man. I'm curious now you've got this Tesla just came out with this, I don't.

Even know what the truck's called.

Cybertruck, is that what it's called?

Yeah, the Cybertruck. Cybertruck did something like 11, 12 billion in pre-orders, is that right? You're a Tesla owner, right?

I am a Tesla owner. I love it.

You love your Tesla. It's a great experience, great car. It gets hard. Point A to point B, comfortable. You don't have to worry about service. I haven't gone to the Rastation in two years. Yeah. It's a great experience for you. So, there's a lot of guys like you. A lot of people like you who have had great experiences with Tesla. And now Elon came out and said, I'm going to make a truck. Well, when he released that truck, first of all, I still don't believe that that's real. I still don't believe... You think it's a PR campaign? Listen, I'm a truck guy, man. I come from... My life revolves around trucks. I've used them for work. Now, I use them for entertainment.

And it's my living.

When he comes out with that, that.

Doesn'T look like a truck.

It was frustrating to me because Elon and Tesla, they're very, very smart people. Elon's one of the brightest men that ever lived. And then they released that. It's the car you drew in kindergarten. They tried way, way, way, way too hard to be different and they ended up, I think, really hurting themselves.

So here's the deal.

Well, they got a lot of pre-orders.

They did get a lot of pre-orders, but guess what?

You know who ordered those?

Tesla owners.

Yeah. Guys like you.

Not truck owners.

No. The F-150 guys, the guys that use their truck at the job site, they didn't order that truck, I promise you, because those are my people, and I'm hearing from them. And I'm a very, I consider myself open-minded for who my demographic is. My demographic is very blue-collar America. You know, it's very... Work, work hard. Exactly. And I like this, I hate that. That's my people. It's just very black or white. and so I feel like I'm kind of more on the Progressive side of my demographic. I'm. I'm okay. I'm open to new ideas. And so I thought, you know what? I'm gonna give the electric truck a chance. Anyone he came out with, I was like, man, that is an ugly truck, but I'm still gonna try to maybe support it. But there wasn't a lot of people like me that were gonna buy that truck.

There was a lot of people like.

You, especially Tesla shareholders, people who own stock. We're excited. They're like, okay, let's get the. Let's get the price up, because guess what? Tesla They just became the world's most valuable car company to ever exist. $150 billion market cap is what they hit the other day.

What's their stock at right now?

800, I think. It's bouncing between 750 and 800. A couple years ago, I bought my car. Dude, a couple years ago, Elon was saying, I'm gonna take the company private. Remember when he was talking about that? I'm gonna pull it off the market. We're gonna go private. That's when they were like 400 bucks a share.

It's a good thing they didn't, because.

Now they're worth $800 a share. The company doubled in value, and it's because they released that truck. So it doubled since they released that truck. the company. I don't know what the shares were, but I know that I think they were like 90 billion market cap roughly when that truck came out. Now they're 150 billion. Wow. And the truck is, is not, I'm not okay with it.

It's not, it's not for your, for your, your community. You're not okay with it.

Dude, that truck is, is what it represents.

I don't even know how that's going.

To be legal for the Tesla Community. They're okay with it. I don't think they are.

And it's, I think they're okay with, they support Elon.

They support that. You love what he did.

The uniqueness, the different-- being a different, you know, a symbol on the road that's different than everything else.

250,000, 300,000 pre-orders at $100 a piece. That's not a very serious deal, like, and it's fully refundable. And the truck's not going to be built for another-- 2021 is when they're going to start delivering the first models. 2022 for the loaded model. I just don't think that truck is going to become-- I feel like they're going to have to change it. And I'm still waiting for Elon to come out and say, Just kidding. Here's what we're really gonna make because all the Tesla owners thought like the truck might look like a Model X with like a bed. Something cool, sexy body lines. But guess what? I love opportunities. And when I see an opportunity pop up, I'm like, game on. I saw him release that truck and I was like, well, he just dropped the ball. He just missed the mark big time. And now there's a bunch of really excited like people in the automotive world that want an electric truck and they're not gonna buy that. So, a buddy of mine, a kid that I grew up with 10-12 years, we've known each other for a long time. Trevor. He's been running Nikola. Yes. He has, yep. Yep, he started a mission in Brazil. We met each other in that single world where I met my wife. And it's funny, he started this company called Nikola. Nikola Tesla, right? Yeah, yeah. Nikola Tesla. And he's been around for seven or.

Eight years and they started in the.

Heavy truck world, semi-trucks, electric semi-trucks. Electric semi-trucks. Yep. He had no desire to get into any other vehicles other than semi-trucks and then UTVs, like side-by-sides, Polaris Razors, that kind of stuff. He built an electric UTV. It's funny, his semi-truck design, he was the first one to have an electric semi. And then Tesla came out with theirs. And they basically knocked off the Nikola design, and now it's a $2 billion lawsuit, Nikola versus Tesla, which is just ironic. But anyways, I went to Trepper and I said, Dude, do you see what's happening? See what Elon did? He came out with this and I wasn't part of the business or anything at the time and he said, yeah, it's an opportunity. And he had no desire to get into, in fact, it's funny, when Tesla released the Cybertruck, Trevor, my buddy that runs Nikola, he's the CEO, he had an initial concept, a sketch drawn up of the truck, the Nikola truck that we just released and he tweeted at Elon and said, Hey, Elon, Sorry about your launch. Here's a design of a truck that we were gonna, you know, playing around with. We're not gonna make it. So here you can have our design just to like kind of tease them a little bit. And then Trevor and I started talking and we decided, you know what? We need to provide the F-150 guys. We need to provide all your buddies in Ohio with a truck that they'll actually drive to the job site. A truck they can take their boat to the lake with. And it's not something you're just gonna drive around Hollywood. And that's where we created the Nikola Badger. and it is going to dominate the US truck market. I'll tell you that right now. When Trevor and I first started talking, we're like, all right, what's our benchmark? What's our goal? Our goal wasn't to beat Tesla. Our goal was to surpass them and go straight for the F-150 market, which sells 1 million trucks a year. The F-150.

1 million F-150s.

There's 3 million trucks roughly sold every single year in the US.

What's the second biggest?

It's probably split between the Chevy and the Dodge, half tons, and then you go into the diesel market, which is what our niche is all about.

So a million F-150.

One million F-150 sold every single year. Best selling truck of all time.

And so I thought, you know what?

Why is it such a great truck? It's just a great all-around truck. It's called, it's what they call a half ton. So it's designed to be able to, if you got a boat, pull to the lake, no problem. If you got a bigger trailer, you know, talking like 12,000 pounds plus, you're not gonna use an F-150. Gotcha. But if you are a carpenter and you got to go frame a house on, you know, Monday through Friday, Take your F-150, got all your tools in the bed. Saturday, you're gonna hook your boat up, go to the lake, and guess what? On Sunday, you can take the truck to church with your whole family. They're comfortable. Trucks are luxury cars. You know what? Ram 1500 just won the Motor Trend Luxury Vehicle of the Year. Not truck, not SUV. It's a truck. Luxury car of the year. And it's a freaking truck. How do they sell those? Ram's probably 3, 400,000 a year. So F-150 was our market. Obviously, they're selling the most. And Ford, you know, big company, and they released an electric version, the F-150. And it was kind of like, yeah, it was, it was, that's exactly, you didn't know. I don't even know. Not a lot of people knew, because it was just kind of like a lack of electric. Yep. Not that exciting. Because here's the deal. I want people who are excited about electric vehicles, and I also want people who would never consider an electric vehicle to be my customer. So what do I got to give them? I got to give them a truck that-- Sexy. It's got to feel futuristic, right? For you guys, for you Tesla owners. Sure. But my blue collar guys, We're not gonna drive a spaceship to work. So we had to find this weird fine line between building a truck that was sexy, sleek, new, futuristic looking, while at the same time being rugged, felt like a truck, didn't feel like a doorstop, like Elon's. And that's where we came up with the Badger, which is basically, it's our answer to the F-150. But here's the deal.

Here's what I'm most excited about.

What's it have compared to the F-150? So pretty much specs are identical. If you were to measure the trucks.

As far as width, length, very, very.

Similar to an F-150.

With different modifications.

Yeah, and that's kind of the whole half-ton market. Like everything-- the same size. In the world, yeah. Every truck you see running around here, especially like Hollywood, LA, they're gonna be that 1500 half-ton model or smaller. You're not gonna see a lot of full-size trucks.

But how far can it go? All that stuff?

Dude, that's the cool thing about what we've got.

If my Tesla goes like 280 miles, I think. Maybe a 300 fully charged or something.

What's the furthest you've driven it?

Without charging it or just. What's the furthest you've taken it?

I took it to, I took it to Big Bear.

Okay, so. But it took me like, what if.

You wanted to drive to Ohio for Christmas?

You want to go see the family?

It would take me forever. What would you get?

What would you have to plan around? I don't know.

I probably have to charge it, like, 10 times. You get what's called range anxiety because you're stopping every.

You get range anxiety because you know.

That your car's not going to go. Yeah, we have to go to different places. Where's the supercharger? Where am I to get this thing keep going. Whereas if I'm gonna drive any other gas powered vehicle to Ohio-- Gas stations are well-- Gas stations are well, exactly. It's not a big deal. So what we've developed is-- it's-- so in the world, this is a whole new world that people, these terms aren't really mainstream yet. BEV, battery electric vehicle.

That's what you drive.

Okay. Full battery, full electric-- no gas. Yep. We developed the Nikola Badger to be a BEV as well as an FCV. CEV, fuel cell electric vehicle. Do you know what hydrogen is?

It's a gas.

Hydrogen is the most abundant molecule in the universe. This right here, I got water in this cup, right? This is H2O. Hydrogen and oxygen mixed together becomes water. Well, half of this molecule is flammable. Do you know that? Hydrogen, gas, it's very flammable. So the problem is, water's not flammable. So to be able to get hydrogen to be able to combust, you have to basically separate it from the oxygen molecule. And then you have a very, very potent fuel. Hydrogen technology has been around for a long time. People have been pushing, pushing. Yeah, except the Hindenburg. Yeah. Exactly. Not, I mean, it's a very, it's a very light gas, but it's also very volatile, very flammable. So hydrogen is a very viable fuel source. The problem is, It's got a bad rap over the years because people have tried to use it to power vehicles and it just never has kind of quite worked because the problem is to be able to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, it takes a lot of energy. In fact, it takes more energy than it produces. So to be able to split those molecules, I have to use a lot of electricity or a lot of gas or whatever it is. And the result is, yeah, I get hydrogen fuel, but at what cost? It cost me more to make that than the... So, Technology is getting better. And now it's gotten to the point where hydrogen fuel can be split, you know, and basically stored more cost effectively. And the technology is literally getting better every single day. So we have our battery, powers our truck, right? This goes inside the chassis. And then we have our hydrogen fuel cell. Our hydrogen fuel cell is basically a compressed air tank with eight, I think ours is eight kilograms, is what the volume is. So you basically take the hydrogen hose, you fill your tank, bam. You've got your hydrogen fuel cell. It stores that compressed air basically inside that tank.

Now, what do you get?

Where do you get the hydrogen? There's filling stations all over the place. But they're-- Hydrogen stations mostly or not? Yeah, it's not mainstream yet. That's the biggest hurdle is hydrogen fueled vehicles. People are like, well, where do I fill it up? You're lucky in California, there's quite a few hydrogen stations. In the wild, I bet you there's maybe one. One. Yeah. And they're not very common. But guess what's gonna happen? As the market starts to demand it, Gas stations will say, well, yeah, we'll carry hydrogen, maybe we'll sell it, because it's clean, 100% zero emissions. You run hydrogen in a vehicle, the only result, the only, you know, tailpipes, big nasty, smoky, the only result from hydrogen is like vapor, steam, just water vapor. So what we have is a battery that powers our truck, and then we have the hydrogen fuel cell that basically acts as like a backup to that battery. So battery technology sucks, dude. It's come a long ways, but still lithium-ion batteries.

How far would the battery go?

You go about what your Tesla will do. It's 160 kilowatt battery that'll go roughly 300 miles in an electric truck. And then the-- so that doubles your range. Really? So 600 miles is what we're getting. But here's the best part about it, is the hydrogen basically passes through, there's a fuel cell hydrogen, and then there's a regular combustion engine that's powered by hydrogen. We're not doing combustion engine. We're talking about running a fuel cell. Hydrogen runs through it and it creates basically static electricity. That static electricity is then captured, pushed into your battery, and your truck can use that power. So where your battery, you know, throughout the day in your Tesla is dying.

We'Ve got a hydrogen fuel cell that's.

Continuing to charge it. No way. Yeah. So we can charge it back up how far? As far as like 600 miles. So, but here's the deal. Nobody's ever gonna go through a full tank of hydrogen in a day. Unless you're on a road trip or something, then you're gonna plan around those those filling stations. But what it does is your Tesla does not have the ability to hold all of its power for more than eight to ten seconds at a time, which isn't a big deal for you unless you're drag racing it, which it's a fast car, right? Zero to 60 in two something.

It's fastest car on the road, I feel like.

But guess what? Off the road, it'll only do that once or twice. If you try to do those pulls over and over and over again, your battery says, we can't keep up in your electric I think most motor say, nope, we're being asked to do too much because there's not enough power in the battery to support this. Well, hydrogen comes in and says, nah, we're good. We're going to continue to basically power that battery. So whatever you want to do, you want to take your truck and trailer and haul it up, you know, El Cajon or whatever it is, you're going to be able to maintain your speed and your power under a heavy load. That's why we're different. That's why we're going to dominate the market. And especially since Elon calls Hydrogen fuel, he calls it a full cell. So it's a hydrogen fuel cell, he says it's a full cell. And he doesn't believe in it. He thinks it's just, you know, never going to catch on. Well, I disagree.

And I'm putting, I'm betting on that big. Most people also didn't think electric would catch on. I guess they were just like, they're never going to transfer over from gas.

They like the sound, they like the feel of like a gas car, but it's like how many electric cars were sold in the last few years? And now it's the most valuable car company that ever exists. Tesla.

Really?

At $150 billion, so obviously it's caught on. So hydrogen-- There's a market for it. The hydrogen will catch on. There's a market for it. Technology is getting better every single day, and it's good for all of us. Because going back to what you asked me about being ashamed of with the emissions of diesel vehicles, I've been guilty of blowing black smoke out of my truck. I hate that. Now I look back, I'm like, man, that was dumb. But there's a whole world of people that still think it's okay to have their truck spit black smoke and their vehicle create these emissions. Well, whether you believe in global warming or climate change or not, that's not what this is about. This is about making life better for all of us. This is about, you know, the smog as you're pulling into LA here, let's get that down there. And you know where that's coming from? It's coming from engines. Engines that are burning fossil fuels, creating that smog. So we have the ability to literally, in my opinion, and this is because I'm an overconfident idiot probably, but I believe that with the technology that we're working on, I can get rid of LA smog. I believe that I can make the air quality better all around the world. And if global warming is a real thing, which I'm not even, I honestly don't even have an opinion on it. If it's real, I'm gonna slow it down. And that's gonna happen because we're gonna start burning something that creates zero emissions. And we're gonna use the most abundant molecule in the universe to do it.

Wow. It's crazy, man. It's exciting times.

So you guys pre-launched already. How's it doing so far? Are you guys taking in Pre-sales or how-- We're creating basically a reservation list right now. We have not started taking the orders yet because we're waiting to confirm a couple of small details as far as like who's making the truck for us. Which, it'll hold it. Building a truck, building any vehicle, not easy. A lot, yeah. And the margins suck. Like you're talking maybe 10-15% on from when Ford sells a truck to what they're actually making. Because you have to pay warranties, dealers, all that kind of stuff. But so yeah, we've got that stuff dialed in. We launched it a couple weeks ago and we've got a few hundred thousand people that put their name on the list overnight that said, I'm interested. Yeah, tell me more. And so we're gonna open up reservations here in the next couple of weeks and this is what I do best. This is my business. My business is going out and telling everybody why something is so great, how it's gonna benefit them and what the next step is, meaning how do you buy it? And my business has been formed around incentivized orders and sales. We give away a truck every month. I was part of our business. And so I'm taking what I've learned, this little grassroots social media business, and now I'm applying it to a multi, multi-billion, a trillion dollar industry in the automotive world. And I'm not a guy two years ago, three years ago. I'm not a guy that could have been making big waves in the automotive world. Neither are you. I don't care. Neither could Dwayne Johnson. Nobody could. You couldn't because it was controlled by the manufacturers. Well, this whole twist as far as like zero emissions and everything goes. Now I'm a guy that has no business, you know, making these big ripples and effects. I'm doing it every single day and I'm telling you man, within the next year or two, the entire automotive world is going to change. Every manufacturer is frantically scrambling trying to get a hold of electric technology.

They're on a version of electric.

They're not car companies anymore, man. They're tech companies. Tesla's a tech company. It is. You should compare them.

I've been updated every week with my new software and how it's improving.

Like the car is improving. Compare them more to Apple than you do Ford. Because you're right, the car is constantly getting better. It's getting better. You don't have to buy a new car to get better. So the value in the company right now is not $150 billion. It's an automotive company. It's $150 billion as a tech company and what they've created. So that's why it's so exciting and that's why this truck is gonna dominate the market. Obviously, we've got a ton of interest in it already. already because I've been able to take the tech side and bring it over to the Blue Collar America and the guys that are actually gonna be able to use it. If you were to tell me how good your Tesla is and why it benefits you so much, I really don't care because I don't need a Model X to do whatever it does for you. But I do need a truck and I need it to be able to be more cost effective and I need to be able to drive it further and spend less. So that's the problem that we solve, dude.

It's exciting, man.

It is very exciting.

How do we find it?

How do we... So, nicola.com forward slash badger. No, nicolamotor.com if you Google, like if you type in Nicola Badger, it's all over the place, press releases, Nicola Motor Company or you can see it on my Instagram page. It's @heavysparks and we're just barely getting started. We barely just trickled some of it out and no influencers, no media outlets, no paid media yet. and we've got like hundreds of millions of impressions, people that are excited because like I said, Elon kind of left like this gaping hole in the market. And I'm glad he did because how do you not have done that?

I'm not concerned with that. I mean, he's concerned with his market. He's probably not like, I need everyone.

To buy the truck. He's gonna be now. He has to be because ultimately, if his truck is not a hoax, if that's real, right, people are, once he starts selling those people, they're gonna be like, wait, he was serious. Like this is actually on the road. Like it's kind of fun in games right now, but now that he's got real competition out there.

Because other people are trying to do it too, right? Other people are not.

Yeah, there's Rivian, which is a company that's making electric trucks, but nobody's using the hydrogen. So we have the ability to run a truck that's just on battery. Say you don't believe in hydrogen, fine. I'll sell you a truck with just a battery. But if you believe that you want double the range, double the power, and you know, renewable fuel, well, you buy the truck with the hydrogen fuel cells, this exact same truck just has a fuel cell in it. So that's where we've made a little bit of a difference and it is just so fun right now watching this industry change. The industry has been the same for 80 years, the automotive world, like nothing major has come in and changed. There's big technology updates, but nothing's disrupted it like this. And you're about to watch some major, major, like I, two weeks ago was sitting in a meeting with the CEO of huge car companies. I'm talking the biggest car companies in the world. And they were just like, what's next? I had to sit back and be.

Like, why are you asking me these questions?

How do you not know this? And we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It's good, man. Yeah, it's been good. It's exciting. So obviously you can tell I'm passionate about it.

I love it, man. I love it. I'm curious, so make sure you guys check that out. Check out your Instagram. You're also doing, I got a couple.

Questions left for you, but you're doing Monster Jam.

What, once a month, a couple times a month?

How many times are you doing it? Yeah, so we have a tour that goes to a new city every single weekend. My schedule's so busy that I can't drive every single one, but we do drive, I've got Miami, Florida coming up this next weekend, and then we've got Detroit. But if you go to monsterjam.com, if you haven't been to a Monster Jam show, yeah, it'll show everybody's schedule. There's anywhere across the country at any.

Given time, there's six or seven different Monster Jam tours. That's crazy, man.

Yeah.

You saw, you experienced it, and you're not even a monster truck guy, but now you you probably are. It was fun. I'll come watch you again. -Absolutely. -Yeah, it was good, man. I got two final questions for you. This one's called the 3 Truths. -Yeah. -So, imagine it's your last day on earth many years from now and you've achieved every dream you could think of. You've seen your family, do what they want to do. You've achieved everything. Whether it's the car world, truck world, whatever. You've done it all. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all the information you put out into the world. You've got to take with you to the next place wherever you go. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about your life experience for the rest of us. Three lessons, what I like to call three truths. And this is all we'd have to remember you by. What would you say are your three truths?

Number one, your worst case scenario is nowhere near as bad as what you think it is. Meaning that that bankruptcy, that breakup, that divorce, that failed business idea, you're not going to prison for it. You're not going to get put in jail because you failed a business. I mean, obviously, if you're on the Ponzi scheme, that's a different story. But worst case scenarios are really never that bad. They're always worse in our head than what real life is. And so with that, you need to approach every situation where you could potentially fail and just say, you know what? I'm not gonna let myself talk myself out of this because of what I think it could be. Let me figure out what it's gonna be and experience that and just know that all those bad things that you thought were gonna happen, they might be bad, but it's like, oh wait, that wasn't, that was it. Like when you get that shot in your arm when you're a kid. It's the thought, the side of the needle that kills you. It's when you get the shot, you're like, no, that was it. So worst case scenario is not that bad and approach everything that. Forget about risk. Just push it aside sometimes. That doesn't mean that you need to be reckless. You gotta be a little more calculated, but don't overthink things. Number two goes right along the line. If you would ask me this question a year ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell you this, but it goes back to what we talked about a minute ago, which is focus, figure out what you're good at and get your sights set on it and get that and become really good at what you're going after and then move on to the next thing. Don't try to do 100 things kind of okay when you can do 10 things better than anybody else in the world. And that's like, focus on, I'm proud of you for doing that with your podcast, dude. Masterminds, that's a big money world.

I'm good at it.

You're good at it. You're great at it. You're great at talking, but dude, you're better, this is your role, this is your position, this is where you need to be right now. And maybe it won't be that way in two years, maybe But you're focusing on it and you're sacrificing and it's okay to make those sacrifices. So yeah, take that focus and just get laser focused on something that you're trying to become good at and become the best.

And then third thing.

Third thing is like, it goes, it's okay to love other people and not only is it okay to love other people, but even if you don't have a reason or understand why you're supposed to care about somebody, do it for selfish motives at first because just know I promise you this, every time you give, you're gonna get back more than you gave. And that's, it sounds bad, I get it, but once you learn that law and you see how you can make a positive impact on other people's lives, you start doing things for different reasons and your motives will change. I now give to others because I see that it genuinely like makes them It's what life's all about, dude. It's the golden rule. Literally, it is okay to love other people more than what society tells us is okay. And find ways to embrace, like maybe you're not in, maybe you're in rural Ohio where you don't have a single Mexican guy in your town or, you know, it's just find opportunities to dive outside your culture and learn another language. learn about the people in Mexico, learn about the people in other countries because you'll find that you really like in loving other people, it's proving that you love yourself. So that's man, for me that's it. The more I love other people, the more I love other cultures, the more I'm out there doing good, I come back, check in with myself and I'm like, man, I feel good. I love myself and it's a byproduct of loving other people. It's golden rule, man.

That's it, man. Dude, I love it, Dave. I want to acknowledge you for constantly leaning into your curiosity. I feel like your entire childhood, you're just like, Let me figure this thing out. Let me do the next thing. Let me try this thing out. And you kept leaning into it to improve your situation, your situation and other people's situations around you. You're doing that now with the car company. You're doing that with so many different things. So I acknowledge you for leaning into that. for embracing all cultures, all people, falling in love with everybody.

Curiosity is a very powerful thing. It's huge. And if you have it, pursue it. It's okay to disassemble that radio and maybe never put it back together because guess what? If you didn't, then you wouldn't know. You wouldn't get to the point where you were able to start building and creating.

So curiosity is very powerful. Yeah, man, I acknowledge you for everything and I appreciate your passion for life and your inspiration for so many people. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is never stopping, never being complacent. Ed Mylett says it best when he says, Blissful dissatisfaction. You've never made it. You can be okay with where you're at but just know that you're capable of so much more. And when you see somebody that actually lives their life by that that standard, that's greatness. All your biggest guests, the most popular people, the most successful people you've interviewed, have they plateaued?

No.

They're still going. You're still trying to find ways to become better. So that, to me, is greatness.

My man, thanks bro. Appreciate it man.

Absolutely.