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Welcome to Quirky Podcast, where I reconnect with inspiring individuals from my circle and beyond to explore their unique journeys. This podcast isn’t just about talking to the elite 1% but about connecting with relatable people who’ve found success on their own terms. Through these conversations, I hope to uncover insights and advice that can resonate with anyone navigating their own path. Whether you're seeking inspiration, guidance, or just an engaging story, you’ll find it here.
Join us as we explore the diverse paths to success, share a few laughs, and spark meaningful conversations. Don’t forget to subscribe, engage, and be part of the conversation!
speaker-0 (00:00.27)
I've seen welding robots and they are phenomenally good. gosh.
speaker-1 (00:04.98)
It's not as safe as I thought it would
speaker-0 (00:06.4)
No, they are coming. man. There are robots that will be welding in space. Yeah. They are coming. You know, I think everyone thinks they're John Wayne until the moment of truth. then it is terrifying when you see a 200 foot flame that's moving at 60 miles an hour. Sure. And you realize like this is a dragon you cannot slay. Well, it was just I sold to Paris Hilton's husband Carter Ruhn. I sold to William Dafoe's agent. I sold to the Goldbergs. I sold to like sold that. Lots of people started buying these things. John Wayne's son called me.
speaker-1 (00:35.902)
Literally shitting your pants? Okay, it's not a metaphor
speaker-0 (00:36.898)
Yeah, sometimes, yeah. Just like, no, no, like so physically exerting, just like, fuck. You know, I remember texting my rep at Patagonia, even when I was in the permit office and I'm sitting there in like my sandals, you know, and again, my like Patagonia clothing. And there's all these dudes who like walked out of a North Face store from like Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia, like professional mountaineers. I started getting...
I forget the name of the disease, but basically you start consuming your own muscle mass and it starts to poison your own kidneys. geez. And I was peeing brown. my God. You know, while I was up there.
speaker-1 (01:14.028)
Welcome back to another episode of Q's Quirky Podcast. Today I had the pleasure of talking with Chris Figuereda. I can't even fairly introduce this amazing human. He has done it all. We got going so long, I'm going to have to come back and do a part two to book in this conversation. So grab your popcorn, sit back and prepare to be wowed. I hope you have as much fun listening to this as I did interviewing Chris Figuereda.
Mr. Figurita, thanks joining me today.
speaker-0 (01:49.132)
Thank you, man. Peter said that you were looking for someone to talk to about stuff, I thought, yeah, he thought I'd be a perfect fit.
speaker-1 (01:59.662)
Yeah, well, Peter was guest number one. I kind of eased into this and I'm still getting my footing. But I figured what would be an easy first guess? And naturally, Peter came to mind. And then Peter opened the doors to other people, notably you. And then we've known each other in passing. been like, what, five, 10 years since we...
speaker-0 (02:21.154)
Yeah, since Avial's last, and then even before that, a few times at Peter's place or Hussam's old place.
speaker-1 (02:27.566)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's good to see you again. Part of my podcast was not only to get exposed to people, but to reconnect with people that I've crossed paths with. to distill some interesting information from their journey that is not the 1 % like your wife or your partner. She's definitely in a different space. So when I get a little more advanced, maybe I'll ask to have that introduction. But for more relatable people, because most of us don't have access to...
Jeff Bezos or these type of people so we get to listen to them. But I like to talk to more relatable people because everyone can find success in their own path. And however you wanted to find success, but Peter told me to start with this about magic tricks. So I'm curious to hear this. I know a little bit of the backstory, but kind of let's go from there.
speaker-0 (03:02.232)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-0 (03:16.718)
That's I've gotten I think kind of used to this over the years I get prompted a lot for people say Chris Chris tell them about your job. I just want to hear you say it tell them about your job and I'll be like, you know kind of it's a little bit of an act but it's also like reluctantly like, okay
speaker-1 (03:36.874)
Sorry man, this is Peter. So he said, start with the I didn't know it was gonna give like the reluctant, reluctant acceptance.
speaker-0 (03:43.926)
No, it's like I said, it's a bit of an act, but it's also I and this is how I describe it. Cause I know people want to hear kind of like this sensational thing and it is sensational and it is special. I usually say I'm one of about 10 people in the world who builds magic tricks for magicians. And if you've seen anyone levitate on TV, probably in the past 25 years, like I helped make that happen. If you've seen a magician,
Vegas or you went to a Broadway show and you saw Dracula, Mary Poppins, Into the Woods, Beauty and the Beast. I helped build the magic tricks for that show. Rock and roll stars, know, from, I think my very first job was actually, we'll start there in a second I guess, was working with NSYNC. Oh wow. And making them appear inside of an aluminum plexiglass pyramid. Yeah. In 2001. And, you know, that's...
That's what I do for a living, is I build these custom, very intricate mechanical apparatus that are for live theater, live touring productions, specifically magic. I don't do scenery, I don't do background work, I'm not making props. I make just the box that the woman gets sodden to have in there.
speaker-1 (05:02.26)
So you're telling me that it's not real then? I guess it's no surprise to a lot of people, but I think a lot of people may still hold out hope that... ...it's real.
speaker-0 (05:09.716)
The magic is real. Well, you know, it's not that it's not real. It's I don't do the magic. Yeah, I might have to figure out how it's going to work. But the real the real magic is still the magician. And the way the best way to describe it is that I have to build the race car, but the magician still has to drive it. And without the magician, it's just a box on a stage. without
speaker-1 (05:28.813)
God.
speaker-0 (05:34.12)
The magician doesn't want to go out there and just say, look, I bought this from a kid. Yeah, the magician is a master storyteller. They're convincing you of a story. They are showing you something that truly is unbelievable. And they're doing it in a way that does make you believe. like that, that's magic.
speaker-1 (05:39.882)
Yeah, yeah, they gotta be performative.
speaker-1 (05:58.582)
If you can captivate the audience and get them totally bought in, that's the magic of the performance,
speaker-0 (06:02.562)
Yeah, that's
Yeah, and they're so good at that. Magicians will rehearse five, six, seven hours a day, right, on the same card trick in front of a mirror and getting themselves dialed in. The best magicians in the world are truly professionals. And you can rate them comparatively to like, you know, a Brad Pitt, you know, or...
speaker-1 (06:32.526)
I listening to comedians how they just practice their routine and they go out and they'll comment some small club, they'll come tweak it and they're so nervous when they go out there. like, they'll just practice the same joke over and over. So they're really perfectionists. And it's, I didn't know that about, you know, there's so many people that can probably do this, but the story behind the trick or the perfection involved or the diligence in getting the audience sucked into the performance.
speaker-0 (06:59.342)
And there's various types of magicians. There's like the hypnotist, you know, and they're their own thing. There's the card magicians, and they're pretty much a one man show. They don't require me. And then you have like the stage magicians, and that's where I come in. And it's not just me and the magician. It's also, there's a director, there's lighting, there's sound, there's dancers. It's a whole team of people that are bringing this to life. Yeah.
speaker-1 (07:24.088)
It's like an intense choreographer.
speaker-0 (07:27.022)
We've had them come to the shop and rehearse to see the magicians and the girls and a lot of times I'm always more impressed by the dancers and the assistants. Yeah, because these are women who generally women it doesn't have to be generally they are Maybe they missed out going to like Juilliard or maybe they just missed that cut of being in a Broadway show or something like they are the very best of the best. Yeah, and they're like they found a job at with a magic show
and these are professional athletes. They're lifting weights two, three times a day. They're still dancing every day and then they're going out on stage and they're helping this magician put on this whole routine. When the curtain drops, usually it's these dancers that in high heels on a wooden floor are pushing the props back off stage, helping to...
speaker-1 (08:15.497)
They're doing the heavy lifting.
speaker-0 (08:16.994)
We lived in, yeah. One day we were backstage, I think it was at the MGM in Vegas, and the girls were, I forget what they were like, stretching or something, and there was a really 250 pound piece of prop on the ground, and the girls just like, they're so dainty and beautiful and flexible, and then they like go over and they just peck this thing. Whoa.
speaker-1 (08:40.075)
Force a board. you're like
glad I didn't offer thinking I could do that.
speaker-0 (08:48.238)
They're so strong. So yeah, I'm really impressed by the girls.
speaker-1 (08:53.038)
It's neat that you get to see behind the scenes and then see what fascinates you. A lot of people only see the final product, but the production that goes into this is, I think a lot of people, especially me, I didn't realize how much production went into one of these performances.
speaker-0 (09:07.662)
Those big shows, can, know, Copperfield's still making millions every year.
speaker-1 (09:12.148)
I was thinking when you talked about levitating, was thinking David Blaine. I know you probably don't want to name names, but are there any that you really enjoy working with?
speaker-0 (09:15.684)
yeah,
speaker-0 (09:22.734)
All the time. There's this one guy, his name's Alex Ramon. He's a magician predominantly based out of Tahoe. he has taken on just some of the most, I think, beautiful props, know, designs that no one's ever done before, tricks no one's ever done before. He's such a great performer. He's super charismatic. He was a Ringmaster for numerous years. He fooled Penn and Teller on the Penn and Teller show.
He did a thing where he did a magic trick. I think it was like one magic one magic show a day For like 50 days straight in every state. like just did this whole huge production over two months and It was a huge commitment on his part to like put this prop this whole show together and like just like Marathon sprinting from state to state to state to state I watched him in a private show and
speaker-1 (10:00.93)
Wow.
speaker-1 (10:04.915)
like time's commitment.
speaker-0 (10:19.918)
about 30 adults in a beautiful home down in Venice Beach. And these adults all became like children. And he had them eating on the palm of his hand. And he would do a trick and you'd see 30 grown people nearly hit the ceiling because they were just like, oh my God, and they're standing between you and I. And he's just pulling it off perfectly. So Alex is fantastic. Yeah, I really like him. And he's really good at rehearsing and getting it right.
speaker-1 (10:41.837)
So
speaker-0 (10:48.258)
he does put the effort into.
speaker-1 (10:49.932)
You have to, I it's, I never, I never even thought about that. Like how much effort, dedication they have to have to their craft. Yeah. And they're truly special. So I want to go back though. How did you start conceptualizing building? How did you get involved in the stage or building the project?
speaker-0 (11:08.494)
I grew up in my dad's welding shop, a medium-sized shop. Mostly did structural steel, structural design, and a little bit of like oil field work. And that's kind of where I started. I was three years old pushing a broom in a shop. dad would, at the time minimum wage was $3.75 an hour and he'd pay me $3.75 an hour. But then he charged me $3.75 an hour to rent his broom. I remember I told grandma,
speaker-1 (11:34.35)
Thanks, Dad.
speaker-0 (11:38.03)
and grandma had to be by the hand into the office and gave my dad a lecture. Don't pay me for it.
speaker-1 (11:43.662)
Child labor, You're taking back the whatever you paid him. Yeah.
speaker-0 (11:47.47)
I up in that environment where my dad was an entrepreneur. He totally kind of self-made, hustled every single day and had this job that was full of mechanics and engineering. He taught me not so much about welding and how to really work with my hands, but more how to read blueprints and how to understand design and fabrication.
Fast forward, I was 19 years old. was actually working with the company that does offshore platform work at the time. I was that work because like, you know, you're offshore for two weeks and maybe you're home for a week and back and forth like that. So I'm one of my weeks off the my neighbor says to me, I just met this guy over at the YMCA or I've known him for a while, but he does build weird things in his backyard and he needs a hand.
Like he's got a rush project and he's just kind of asking around if anyone knows if he's just some extra labor. And I thought to you, you're home for the week. Go to his house. So I said, yeah, why not? And I go to this guy's house. It's like just a typical street, right? With just homes and gates in front of the driveway. And you walk through the gate and in the backyard, there's this 20 foot tall pyramid made out of aluminum tubing and plexiglass sides and all these people.
They were riggers and gaffers all dressed in black. Running around and in the middle of this chaos, this guy walks over to me and says, hi, I'm Willie. Just, and makes you feel like he's known you for 20 plus years. Come to find out he's like a big, grateful dead fan. Just been a rocker his whole life. sense. Yeah. But as soft spoken and as kind as can be, he's like, are you Chris? And I was like, yeah. He goes, great.
Can you cut me a piece of material that's 60 inches long? I remember I said, sure. And he kind of watches me. was like, where's the materials? It's over there. And I find the tape measure. I mark it, take it to the saw. I cut it. And he's like, great. Yeah, like we need 50 more of those. And I was like, OK. And just for three weeks, we just worked to help. I just followed everything, every command he did. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't really still understand what was happening. This pyramid was for in-sync. It was to go on tour.
speaker-1 (13:56.101)
wow.
speaker-0 (14:11.816)
and they were gonna use it to open the show. The pyramid was, you could see through it, and then there's lights inside. The lights would turn off and turn back on that fast. And in that half a second moment, the whole group could appear inside the pyramid. The four sides would open up like a big flower and they'd walk out and start the show. And then there was a whole exiting of the show where they would each go up their own individual flight of stairs about six feet high into like a cage thing. And then pyrotechnics would go off and they would disappear.
off the top of these little, this like stared platform thing. And that was how they exited the stage. And so I'm building this stuff and this guy is like, well, I'm like, what is this? And he goes, well, I make magic tricks. And your brain kind of does a short circuit for a second. You're like, what does that even mean? Like, what do you mean? Like, cause no one ever thinks that the magicians have to get this stuff from somebody.
speaker-1 (15:07.977)
I didn't even think about that until we just said it.
speaker-0 (15:09.986)
Yeah, like it's got to be built somewhere. Yeah. So I've ever been thinking like, well, yeah, your career counselor never tells you that you can build magic tricks for living. Yeah.
speaker-1 (15:19.326)
Dude, that was a sign me up, man.
speaker-0 (15:21.294)
And I just thought, my God, this is the coolest job in the world.
speaker-1 (15:28.706)
What an opportunity for you too, just because there's a random neighbor that introduced you to Willie.
speaker-0 (15:33.486)
Yeah, he's probably the number one fabricator of illusions for the past 20, 30 years. Maybe longer now. Much longer. I've been with him for 25 years. I'm thinking about it much longer. He got his start. He was just a lackey, a coffee boy for a magician named Doug Henning. And that's because his buddy was a carpenter on this show called Merlin on Broadway.
the star needed an assistant, a coffee runner. And they said, I know my buddy's getting out of high school while we hire him. And that was it. He got this job. And then in between running coffee and picking up errands, he would go into the workshop and tinker. And they realized really quickly this guy has just an innate mechanical ability. very quickly became the head illusion fabricator for Doug Henning, the biggest magician prior to David Copperfield. And probably the biggest magician since like the 50s with this hairy black stone and even Houdini before that.
So Willie is like the Ferrari. He's like father. Yeah. I got lucky really entering at the top of the industry. Yeah. So I think I call it like apprenticing. You know, there's no other way to pass on this trade. There's no school for it. Yeah. You have to fall in. Yeah.
speaker-1 (16:36.93)
God
speaker-1 (16:55.298)
That was my next question.
So you guys have this unique mechanical ability or to see blueprints having grown up in a shop for someone that's maybe going the more traditional route school, grad school or whatever. Do you think that they have the same skill set to come in if they were willing to apprentice or how, would you marry those two? If you were hiring someone that was like, Hey, I want to get in.
speaker-0 (17:20.046)
Those people definitely exist. There are guys who like, I studied everything about robotics and mechanics and, you know, electrical engineering. And I love magic. You know, I've done it since I was a little kid and they, there's a, there's a space for them. Um, I think that sometimes that rigidity though, that you have with, with school and can, can keep you very narrow in your options and like what you think is a solution. Part of my benefit is that I'm just not that smart.
So my brain goes to all kinds of crazy solutions. What are the options?
speaker-1 (17:53.742)
What are the options? Yeah, you're not you're not you're thinking outside the box because you have that built-in knowledge base
speaker-0 (18:01.262)
Right. that's the same with Willie. Willie just went from high school right into this thing. He grew up restoring like old Ford pickups, like 1940s, 1950s Ford pickups.
speaker-1 (18:12.398)
some prior mechanical know-how, you know, like you don't just go in one day and like, Oh, I'm going to start welding without like having some base of knowledge. Right. So it's, it's cool to hear that these people that just tinker and can still do this stuff, especially now with all the jobs kind of being replaced by mechanical, there's you're kind of like the recession proof or AI proof industry that really until I guess Elon's robots replace us all.
speaker-0 (18:28.354)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (18:41.888)
I have seen welding robots and they are phenomenally good. gosh. No, they are coming. There are robots that will be welding in space. Yeah. They are coming.
speaker-1 (18:46.366)
It's not as safe as I thought that.
speaker-1 (18:53.678)
I think they started employing them in the oil fields, right? Just to kind of replace some of the labor out there. I'm not sure if you know this.
speaker-0 (19:00.642)
Well, there's already pipe welding machines that you slide over and it welds a perfect bead around a pipe. the guy just has to stand there to kind of watch it and set it up. Which used to take 10, 15 years of learning that skill of welding perfectly.
speaker-1 (19:10.431)
Ugh.
speaker-1 (19:20.842)
Yeah, I've welded a little bit and man it is super hard. My brother taught me, he's kind of like, he taught himself, he's like, here, well, do this, do that. I'm just like, you have more mechanical know-how than, and like it's innate to him, you know, me, I'm like this, this and that. So there's definitely, I think a skill set that people either develop with time or it's just more innate to them. But I think it can be mastered with.
speaker-0 (19:24.021)
It's hard to get it right.
speaker-0 (19:45.518)
And that's yeah, welding is really an art form. Understanding how to make a straight line, that's not just, it's got to be both pretty and strong. And there's, you're thinking about both of those things at the same time as you're understanding how to articulate your wrist and your speed movement with your hand and how you're pivoting and all the mechanics of the electricity and the arc that's flowing into it and the amount of heat and the wire speed and all that.
speaker-1 (20:12.238)
So many things you only think of when you're watching someone do this. Yeah, it's like and then there's different welding types and different welding machines So kudos to you, man. That's yeah cool
speaker-0 (20:21.834)
It's the job. mean, what's nice about it is I've, I've never found any other occupation that brings in so much from the outside. Like it's not just welding to build a magic trick. Some of these tricks, which might be the size of
I don't know, just like a TV. Might incorporate fire, pyrotechnics. There could be glass, plastic work, brass work. You've got welding, carpentry, plumbing, electrical engineering, hydraulics. There could be exotic animals and birds and tigers. You can have fabric work. There's painting. There's understanding how to stress materials. There's just, To me, a good example is it's like a car. Like a high-end car.
speaker-1 (21:02.56)
So multidisciplined.
speaker-0 (21:08.896)
right, that has just the all the best leather work, the best woodworking, the best electrical engineering, the best, you know, fuel like all of that. And that's it goes into a vehicle somewhat like a magic trick. Yeah.
speaker-1 (21:21.23)
We'll have to ask Peter what car that is. I'm sure he's going to say it's a Porsche.
speaker-0 (21:25.23)
Funny enough, I just started working with them. Yeah, Porsche came to me asking for inspiration. For like, how do we inspire their engineers to think outside the box?
speaker-1 (21:28.364)
Wow man, congratulations.
speaker-1 (21:33.4)
speaker-1 (21:37.42)
So now you're consulting.
speaker-0 (21:39.202)
Consulting and bringing projects together. I actually had four or five projects that I'm working on where I thought they could we so we have a highlight where they could Help out and also test their engineers ability and do something that's non automotive related. Yeah, so there's like We're trying to make a dress
speaker-1 (21:45.486)
You have a guess.
speaker-0 (22:02.914)
that responds to the, like an actual gown that responds to the environment in a very specific way. That one's like for a big fashion thing. There's lithium battery technology that we're working with. There's, I'm doing a project that involves sealing lithium batteries so they're completely safe, hermetically sealed, and then using those batteries in data centers and helping Nvidia chips stay cool and helping them run better.
And Porsche has an aspect of this 800 volt architecture that Nvidia chips are going to require in the future. So pulling all this together, again, like a new
speaker-1 (22:42.03)
I see the different industries coming together. know, it's not just Porsche, it's Nvidia, and then all the small mom and pop operations. It's kind of the perfect confluence of different industries coming together to work on a common project. It makes me think, I read an article about how JPL hired outside people to test their scientists to try and think outside the box. So I think a lot of companies are like, OK, these smart guys are coming to work for us.
but how can we use other people to break their mold of just thinking within the confines of this is how things are done. So that's awesome. So that kind of, we were talking off camera about how you've parlayed this into another company you're working on and you were telling me about one of the local high schools around here that's kind of picking your brain about how to do fire suppression. So what's that all about?
speaker-0 (23:18.303)
And that's exactly what Porsche wanted.
speaker-0 (23:37.294)
Well, so I guess let's see 2017 there was the Thomas fire and that came right behind this. I was in after the fire department had cleared the hillside. I like stayed behind and I said, no, I'm going to stay and dumbest thing I've ever done. You know, I think everyone thinks they're John Wayne until the moment of truth. And then you see it there. It is terrifying when you see a 200 foot flame that's moving at 60 miles an hour.
speaker-1 (23:43.278)
3 ground zero from Thomas Vard.
speaker-0 (24:06.19)
And you realize, like, this is a dragon you cannot slay. And I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life when these flames are now coming. Luckily, they wrapped around the house and went just behind. And I mean, the fire department came, you know, they were up there trying to do their thing, but mostly they were also just standing out of the way, just trying to control the beast a little bit. So with that, a lot of friends, you know, locally had lost their homes, as I'm sure you know people.
speaker-1 (24:35.768)
Yeah, my brother was up in Upper Ojai. So he was in the same situation you were in.
speaker-0 (24:41.198)
Yeah. I another, so a friend of mine that's about eight miles away, he has, he's got a eight acre ranch. He was using these like, I think it was like a trash pump from Harbor Freight to suck water out of his pool. And that was the best you could do right? Fight the palm trees are on fire around his house. The grass is on fire and he's using this Harbor Freight trash pump to put out water. he's like, and he came to me afterwards and he's like, you know, this kind of worked. Uh, people have been asking me to make these things.
but I think you could probably make it better. Yeah. And he's like, why don't you see if you can make these things. And I thought, I looked into it, researched it, saw that there was an actual, there's a couple of products out there that are utilizing this concept, but they were ridiculously expensive. Like people are selling these pumps, which normally cost around $500 just to buy from Harbor Freight. They were selling like a complete little setup for around six grand. You're like, that's no wonder it's not more of a mouthful.
speaker-1 (25:14.542)
Yeah, you got the creativity.
speaker-1 (25:41.43)
tiering.
speaker-0 (25:42.252)
Yeah, and you're like, you want as many of these out in the public space as possible. Like that's too high of a cost for like the average homeowner to invest $6,000 is something they may not ever use.
speaker-1 (25:53.614)
It's kind like a generator, like, I might need it or not, but the break even point's like, mm.
speaker-0 (25:58.38)
Yeah, totally. And I thought, okay, I could probably make it better and cheaper. Yeah. And there were cheaper models out there, but they were horrific. They were like plastic parts.
speaker-1 (26:09.934)
You don't want plastic parts near a fire, right?
speaker-0 (26:11.776)
Yeah, it was just like, and I came up with this pump. found a pump that is just bomb proof made by a company called Northstar, which is a subsidiary of Northern Tool. I was able to figure out how to mount this onto into like a cart that's very compact. It's very super narrow so that you could just stuff it away in a garage. It comes with everything you would need from the oil to the oil funnel to the suction hose, a hundred feet of fire hose.
It's all there. comes out of the box. You pull the cord and it starts and you've now got 94 PSI that can shoot 200 feet of water. wow. And it's a killer setup. And I started selling these things for out the box with tax included for like $1,900. Wow. And nothing happened. I was like, you know, I set it a website, did all that, right?
I didn't think much of it. I was getting tired of it actually of like paying the monthly fees for the website and the domain and everything. Fast forward about a couple of years and I had improved it a bit. Peter actually bought the first one and he basically, forced him to pay me to R &D it. I was like, buy this Peter. I'll tell you how much it cost at the end. He's like, I don't think he was very happy with it but he was supportive.
speaker-1 (27:36.792)
strong arm. Yeah, I'm your friend.
speaker-0 (27:39.822)
Yeah. that helped me, helped me a lot. I really was able to tweak that and try to figure out how to make this thing.
Fast forward, there's the LA Palisade fire, the Eaton fire hits. My website gets discovered. At one point, I was through Shopify, At one point, I was selling eight carts per hour at $1,900 a piece. I mean, I didn't have the capital, I didn't have the inventory.
speaker-1 (28:01.27)
Okay.
speaker-1 (28:17.528)
That's why I was thinking, you're probably a one man operation.
speaker-0 (28:20.588)
I was a one man operation and well, and I just no one had bought anything for a long time and I even there was a guy who had started posting about he had bought something similar and he was using it in the palisades and he had a YouTube or a Instagram video of it and I just said well I make this too, you know, and I put this link out there Yeah for people to see like I can be like, where do I get this where to get those and I was like I make it I make it you know at first it did take a day because no one was like It's just too crazy of a time. Yeah, but then once it hit
It hit hard. I ran out of operating capital in like a day. I joked I was the richest poor person I ever met all of a sudden because I had all this income coming in but no income to put out. No capital at all. first thing I did was I called my dad and I was like, dad can I borrow your credit card? I was like, money's there. know Shopify.
If you haven't made a purchase or a sale with them for a long time, they freeze it for way too Each cart is $1,000 in parts. All of a sudden, you're like, I need 20 grand today. I ran through my dad's credit card really fast. I go to my buddy for a hard cash loan. He gave me like 20K.
speaker-1 (29:23.382)
Okay.
speaker-0 (29:46.754)
The bank, I went to the bank and I was like, I need this cashed now. And the bank's like, no, we don't do that. We're not cashing $20,000.
speaker-1 (29:53.262)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't know where it came from
speaker-0 (29:56.078)
Right and I and I knew the bank manager and I was like Christine, please like this is what's happening. Here's the sales I'm showing you the sales right here. Like I I need this money though Yeah, I have to make this and Christine goes look we'll do like half of it right today that money better be there I'm calling this guy and I'm calling his bank directly because there's still a transfer time But I will basically the bank loan me that ten that money for free Is to have a local bank, yeah by
speaker-1 (30:19.886)
Pays our relationships.
speaker-1 (30:24.943)
You are going to chase and like they're gonna like, yeah, get out.
speaker-0 (30:27.522)
Yeah. And that's all. I luckily with the I knew enough about fabricating to actually circumvent supply chain crunches. Yeah, I know how to go to places. I know every different fabricator of every different part and tool, how to get it locally from not just ordering on Amazon, but like, where's the locals shipping depot? Where is like the local metal supply? And I could I was starting to turn out those carts.
speaker-1 (30:48.654)
So you have the logistics already in place.
speaker-0 (30:53.366)
in a roughly seven day turnaround time. From purchase to delivery. And I was hand delivering them, because there was no shipping stuff. So I would build carts all night, drink a ton of coffee, right? And I would work until like six in the morning, load up my truck with these carts, would drive from here to San Diego, delivering all day, come back.
speaker-1 (31:16.558)
Not sleeping at all
speaker-0 (31:18.062)
I'm not sleeping, I would stop by every Harbor Freight and Home Depot and Lowe's from Ventura, Santa Barbara, all the way to Temecula. I was hitting them all. I'm just buying up. I need gas tanks, need hoses, I need pumps, I need this part, I need these funnels, I need this oil. And clearing out every place I went, come back here, build all again throughout the night. It was exhausting, so exciting though.
speaker-1 (31:40.332)
Rinse, Exhaust.
speaker-0 (31:46.936)
Well, it was just I sold to Paris Hilton's husband, Carter Ruhian. I sold to William Defoe's agent. sold to the Goldbergs. I sold to like, to everyone. Lots of people started buying these things. John Wayne's son called me. He's like, I live out in Pioneer Town, way the hell out there, right? Past Death Valley and all that stuff. I was like, all right, dirt road, eight miles in the middle of nowhere.
speaker-1 (32:10.21)
Meet me halfway, dude. Like, this is a little bit of a trick for me and I'm not charging delivery fees.
speaker-0 (32:15.282)
I know it, yeah.
speaker-1 (32:17.418)
My question is, did you fill the inventory? Did you get your data on board or you just did it all yourself?
speaker-0 (32:25.39)
Did it all myself. mean, it's just pure e-commerce. I had a spreadsheet and it was crude, but it was the best I could do in that minute of crunch. I had every order lined up. I had all my parts down the side and I just had check boxes. Do I have enough? Do I have enough? Do I have enough? Oh, I need more of this. Can I check that box for that order?
speaker-1 (32:48.896)
and how much fabrication time per cart, because I would imagine that's probably the hardest part trying to fill that inventory.
speaker-0 (32:55.074)
still trying to figure them out. You know, I really only built Peters and like maybe one or two other. Yeah. And so they're, they're still in this process of development. I mean, the first one, the last one did not look the same. Yeah. I would say once I got them all, you know, the stupidest thing, what took the most amount of time was unpackaging all the parts on all this cardboard. had literally tons of cardboard and packaging materials because everything was getting shipped.
speaker-1 (33:07.95)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (33:25.198)
And that would take me a couple, an hour or two or a couple of, even more just to unpackage stuff and break down boxes. Oh my God. There's a carbo recycler. You know, I couldn't fit them in the, they got pile, pile, even broken down flat. And then I would hoist them with a forklift into my truck. you know, hundreds of hundreds of pounds. And then there's a recycler that takes them directly. He's like,
speaker-1 (33:33.646)
you do with all the boxes?
speaker-1 (33:40.098)
Amazon size.
speaker-1 (33:47.426)
They're heavy, man.
speaker-1 (33:51.608)
Cool, he was your best friend. Yeah.
speaker-0 (33:54.03)
What are you making? I was like, don't worry about it. I'm trying to talk.
speaker-1 (33:57.896)
Yeah, yeah, gotta get back. So where is the company at today?
speaker-0 (34:02.158)
So that the fire kind of, you the people's sense of fear, right? Like peaks and then it starts to die down. I've the last car I sold was probably a month ago. Okay. And it got to a place where I, I just, I can't physically make all these and like, was like, do I want to scale up to where it's like, all right, contract manufacturing or is it overseas manufacturing? I don't know anything about that. Yeah.
I started to dive into it and I was asking myself, do I really want to go that route? Because that's not a business that you start on the side. Now you're really taking on a whole new full-time business. I love building magic tricks. I don't also build magic. Magic tricks is kind of the umbrella for everything that I do in that shop. I do stuff for UC Santa Barbara when the engineers and the scientists want crazy hydrogen fuel cells. I built a scientific app.
I built a basic potato gun for Sandia National Labs. That shot initially was gonna shoot one pound frozen chickens at spinning wind turbine blades.
speaker-1 (35:08.819)
my god. test the structural integrity.
speaker-0 (35:11.032)
Yeah, and I built this kick-ass cannon that would fire slugs at about... I got it up to 152 miles an hour and blew right through 3 quarter inch plywood and hit the 101 freeway.
speaker-1 (35:25.423)
Caltrans is like, hey man, we got frozen chicken splat out of your shop.
speaker-0 (35:29.614)
I was like, hope nobody saw that, we're shutting it down right now. I drove that thing all the to Texas, it was so cool. 600 pound air power cannon that could...
speaker-1 (35:41.088)
Whatever you want man, whatever you can fathom you can do it
speaker-0 (35:44.014)
And I love that. I love that people come to me with these crazy ideas. I've got people who ask me how can I build a secret safe in their house? You know, like I need to hide my Rolexes, but I want to hide it in a way where nobody knows where it's at. Yeah, it's not in a safe. It's in a compartment. That's magic.
speaker-1 (36:01.582)
in the wall or like in the floor or something.
speaker-0 (36:03.722)
Hidden by sense. So it's like I do that. I get artists that ask me like I want to recreate a pneumatic tube system from the 1920s that shoots mail all around an office building.
speaker-1 (36:14.318)
Like the old banking systems, right? You used to drive up and go, poof!
speaker-0 (36:17.932)
They want one a lot of plexiglass and brass and they want to it inside of an art gallery and send like little love notes back and forth. I'm like, yes, let's do this. You know.
speaker-1 (36:24.654)
Let's do it. What's the craziest idea that someone's come to you with?
speaker-0 (36:30.082)
Well, I mean, the hardest was probably the hydrogen fuel.
speaker-1 (36:34.798)
That's funny thing. Sorry to interrupt. I actually, went to the UCSB and I remember the fuel cells. Like there was a paper being written by the professor and he chose us to help research it. So I'm sure maybe we had a cross path. Well, this was, this was 2000. I know I got to think about it. So this was like 2002, three. So I remember when you mentioned the fuel cells, I was like, I if Chris and I crossed paths back in the day.
speaker-0 (36:49.614)
Yeah. When that goes right. Think about it.
speaker-0 (37:03.15)
It might've, mean, this, the hydrogen cell was, it's still on, it's an ongoing experiment. I can't give it away, but I mean, the material sciences that went into that, I've spent a good solid, you know, couple of years now of like trying to find the right material to survive this experiment. Cause the experiment just, destroys itself. That has been by far the hardest. The tolerances are through the roof.
speaker-1 (37:32.532)
You're talking like NASA level stuff, right? That's what powered a lot of the... Yeah.
speaker-0 (37:37.294)
Yeah, exactly. So that was, that's been the most like mechanically challenging. But then I think maybe the wildest was this guy. He's a magician named Franz Harari. He's really big in Asia. He wanted to have this, like he calls it a gondola, like where you would take up the ski slope, except it was more of like what looked like a yellow submarine.
and it was in a theme park in China. This thing would come down on a cable, land on a platform, three, you know, skiers, climbers, whatever, would walk up the steps, get inside this thing. They're waving to the crowd and like two guys are inside of it. One guy is kind of standing on the backside of this like submarine looking box gondola thing. And now it's being lifted back up. And while it's lifted back up, all of a sudden one cable breaks and the thing like falls like this.
And this one guy almost falls off, another guy almost falls out. They're scrambling, the parts are kind of flying off. They all crawl back inside and it's starting to get lowered back down. But then all of a sudden the whole thing just explodes again. And there's just pieces hanging in the air and all three men have disappeared. And then they come riding around on jet skis. Like land on the beach. And was show. that was wild.
speaker-1 (38:48.416)
my gosh.
speaker-0 (38:57.774)
And to test that, had to be, we took it down to the, the strawberry fields and we had a big lot out there and TNT crane came out and they were like, what else is this? Yeah. I'm like, are you assuming liability because we can't? And there's a person inside and they're like, no one's, you know, no one's tethered. It's this is like, yeah, yeah, just don't worry. It's going to be fine. And TNT would pick that thing up and I'd be inside and there was, it's like a pin I would pull. I would just.
pull this pin and the thing would go for this wild ride and stuff's crashing around. And doing that over and over and over and that, it worked. It was under such tremendous force that we had these bolts that were one inch thick. They were tempered to what they call grade eight, which is like 150,000 PSI. And we were bending these things. And we said, well, you probably can do, I don't know, was like 10 shows before you have to replace that bolt, you know.
speaker-1 (39:31.214)
You're the test of my man.
speaker-1 (39:49.08)
thing.
speaker-1 (39:55.946)
So each time it would explode, would they be able to reassemble it so you'd have to go build one?
speaker-0 (40:01.144)
Each time. The whole thing would actually cable back together. Yeah. And you could fit it all back and reset for the 2 o'clock show. Yeah.
speaker-1 (40:04.686)
That's cool, it's like a jigsaw puzzle.
speaker-1 (40:12.238)
only get 10 times, then you go order a new one.
speaker-0 (40:14.616)
Or a new bull. Yeah, we had a maintenance schedule. We had a magician who wanted to have, be on a Ducati motorcycle on stage and he wanted that bike to first, I think it was like do a wheelie, come out, or maybe it pop a wheelie, but, stay stable, go across the stage, turn around, stop on its nose, kind of do an endo for a second, come back, drive up a platform, but doing a wheelie onto the platform, land and then do a burnout.
And while he's burning out, all the smoke from the rear tire would envelop him and he would disappear out of the smoke.
speaker-1 (40:49.198)
It's a pretty talented writer.
speaker-0 (40:50.818)
talented, the bike, he didn't ride the bike. The bike did it all on its own. That was hard. And we were using a real Ducati. And that to make that bike do these things and a Ducati can put out so much like power, right? We had a rod through the axle of the front tire. And I remember like we're trying to get the bike to stop on its nose. And this is a like a three quarter inch stainless steel tempered steel rod.
And we were just bending that thing from the staccati bike and trying to keep that guy safe from not crashing.
speaker-1 (41:26.19)
and how powerful that bike is.
speaker-0 (41:28.126)
We had a track that we would put on the ground and the track was a hundred feet long and each section of track probably weighed over a hundred pounds, like a thousand pounds of track. And he would give it the gas and the bike would stay still and the track would shoot up. Would drag thousands of pounds of track. Those bikes are so powerful. We had a Lamborghini that we crushed on stage that would reanimate itself.
speaker-1 (41:54.678)
some cool stories man we could I could be here for if I take up your whole day and your your wife's gonna be mad because taking up her podcast in studio
speaker-0 (42:03.49)
Well, but that's, that's a,
speaker-1 (42:06.114)
fun things you get to work on, And it's kind of cool because you get to pick and choose and it goes back to do I want to invest this full time or I get to control where I want to spend my time and energy at right now.
speaker-0 (42:19.15)
It is. so with the fire carts, I decided I didn't really want to take it to that place just yet. And simultaneously, I was getting approached by other people in the fire space who were like, well, let's see if we can build something else. Maybe we can consult. Then you're not having to actually work with your hands all the time. Now you're just selling your idea. Yeah. And I thought, okay, I could do that. And we start consulting. Because people knew me from these fire carts and they're like, well, what else can you build? You built this cool little setup.
speaker-1 (42:37.398)
an economy of scale type.
speaker-0 (42:48.706)
we got approached by Harvard Westlake High School. they wanted us to build a, they're in Coldwater Canyon, and they wanted a suppression system that would cover that campus. So my partner and I, guy named Tyler Grasmick, he's a firefighter with the Malibu Fire Brigade. We went there, we assessed the whole school, we gave them four different options.
One of those options was this trailer that has a 25 foot telescoping mast that you would hand crank up. There's a one inch sprinkler on the top of this with that can shoot water over 80 feet, like 45 feet up and 80 feet out. And we thought this is perfect. Cause now you can trailer this through like with a Polaris or little golf cart through campus and now you can get water on top of the buildings.
And it also has enough capacity that you can have two people down below with fire hoses still spraying other stuff while it's getting up high. And we designed this cart to fit that specific kind of niche. Simultaneously, they were asking us for firefighting foam. that firefighting foam in general is like super toxic. And we just couldn't recommend to the school of very, a school full of children.
speaker-1 (44:05.806)
Sounds like there's an environmental...
speaker-0 (44:08.18)
Yeah, don't want people coming back and suing you 20 years later because their kids got exposed to something. Yeah. At a small convention for firefighters in Vegas, there was a lonely little booth that said soybeans on it. No one is approaching this booth, but it caught my eye. It was the U.S. Soybean Association and they were just like Orville Redenbacher kind of farmers.
They had like a dozen different products made out of soybeans on their table. And of course, no firefighters are approaching them or anything. Yeah. On the side was this little pamphlet that said, soybean-based firefighting foam. Gosh. Nobody had seen it. Wow. It's the only green certified, like organic, like firefighting foam probably in the world. Yeah. It's in this company called Cross Planes. out of Georgia.
speaker-1 (44:39.764)
these guys are out of place.
speaker-1 (44:48.4)
my-
speaker-0 (45:01.304)
They got asked to make this stuff for a firefighting testing school, like up in New York state. Turned out it was an incredible fire retardant. They got it into a couple of fire stations in like, think Kentucky and the Midwest, and they just had no West Coast exposure representation. Immediately we jumped on it and became their California exclusive distributors and told them, look, we can get this into the number one school probably in the Western US.
Like they want this stuff. We can use that like leverage and market this. So we build this whole thing out, put the foam on it. Just this past week, we finally deliver it. Everyone is like now seeing this thing. The Malibu Fire Brigade sees it they think, man, maybe we should have two of these. The school on the spot sees what we built and asks for two more. The company that makes the pump, I sent them a bit of information. They are flying out, they're representatives now to look at this setup.
the company that makes the foam is gonna send out something, the company that does the US Soybean Board is gonna do a whole press release on it. That's gonna go nationwide. A lot of things are moving. from feeling inside of myself that maybe going with the fire carts was like, I just didn't feel it turned out to be a really cool thing. Because now instead of selling $2,000 fire carts, I'm now gonna be selling probably $30,000 trailers.
speaker-1 (46:08.366)
A lot of things are moving at once.
speaker-0 (46:25.806)
And I know, it's like, there's like Neil Young is like asking about buying one of these things. And because he's got his ranch in Malibu, you know, and we've had a couple of general contractors like we would love to kind of have something like this. People could see the value. We've also had a few people now try to get the phone and they call cross planes and cross planes goes, no, we already have distributors in California. Here's this guy, Chris. And it's like totally beat the punch.
speaker-1 (46:52.874)
Yeah, and you know, I was thinking like how those guys were so obscure, but you were curious about it. So just your level of curiosity, I mean, there are some luck involved, but like, what are these people doing over there? 99 people would be like, I'm not going over there. And you're like the one guy who was like, let's go talk to these people and see what's up. You developed a lot of opportunities through your curiosity.
speaker-0 (47:15.342)
Totally. Yeah.
speaker-1 (47:16.768)
And that, I could talk to you about this for a long time. I think we're going to have to do part two. But I'm trying to get through this list I have, man. I didn't, I thought this would be, you know, you just never know where these things are going to go. But I do want to get into some of the stuff you, you pointed me towards your LinkedIn. And I was like, that's when I realized like, I don't even know where to start with Chris. Cause you have so many.
speaker-0 (47:22.286)
We didn't even get into cycling.
speaker-1 (47:45.166)
diverse interests and I have some observations just like multifaceted, fearless, open. So I'm going to leave it up to you on how you want to approach this. What is one thing that when you were doing your stream of consciousness linked in, what's like one of the things that you're most proud of in that, that bio you have listed and if I'll link it so anyone wants to read it, it's really, really inspirational for me at least. I told you off camera, I'm like, you've lived like 10 lifetimes and you're in
amount of time you live one and a lot of people never be able to experience that so just it's so it's so interesting.
speaker-0 (48:19.566)
I kind of joke. I don't want to seem like not humble about it. But I've done more once-in-a-lifetime things twice.
speaker-1 (48:30.606)
This is true. And everything on that list is true. And a lot of people will be like, there's no fucking way. Dude, what the hell? you know, cycling across country 11 times to support your charity. Tell us about that a little bit.
speaker-0 (48:36.59)
People are like, it's fake.
speaker-0 (48:45.344)
So when everyone, when graduating high school, all my friends were going to college. And while I kind of felt like I had to do it, because everyone else was doing it, I just didn't feel it. I went to Santa Barbara City College for a little bit. I goofed off. I took all electives.
speaker-1 (49:02.35)
As what? Anyone that's in a barbershop called it's kind of what you do,
speaker-0 (49:07.052)
And it was great.
On the bone the me I remember watching girls come into like my accounting class like in their bikini Yeah, this is amazing It was yeah, I
speaker-1 (49:18.901)
How am I supposed to work?
speaker-0 (49:27.438)
I was there, I was running, I was on the cross country team and the track team and I was trying to just basically survive with academic eligibility. So I took like coastal fishing and edible horticulture and stargazing and stuff. I just took all my time.
speaker-1 (49:41.216)
like this?
speaker-0 (49:43.854)
But you know, it wasn't, my dad was wanting me, I think, to take over his business. I never felt that he was really going to actually give me his business. I think when you work for family, they expect twice as much and they pay you half as less.
speaker-1 (49:59.15)
Well, you told me off camera the story about sweeping your... Maybe you me off camera, yeah. You were getting paid minimum wage $3.75, but then you had to pay the room rental.
speaker-0 (50:01.783)
Yeah, I know.
speaker-0 (50:11.79)
So yeah, I have some clear trauma of past from the history to like this guy. Yeah, yeah, so he's like and I felt bad because I know he really kind of wanted that and I think he's in some ways still disappointed and still kind of buttered about it. you know 25 years later. I think he's still a little yeah But I what I really wanted was to be a professional climber. Uh-huh. That was my goal in life Yeah from when I was 13 my cousin came out of the army one year
speaker-1 (50:15.534)
It's a relevant concern.
speaker-0 (50:40.534)
He's like, let me take you rock climbing. Cause we had to learn rock climbing in the army and I just fell in love. And it from rock climbing to like basic mountaineering to like high altitude climbing. I just kept aiming, looking higher and higher. And I remember thinking, I just going to keep looking higher and getting to the highest peaks I can. So I thought, how do, how do I do this? I wanted to be a sponsored climber. When I tried to do that, I thought, well, I need to practice. So practice means let's
Practice not just being a climber but practice expeditions practice. How do you get to these big peaks? well, I should figure that and start going and create, know plans and create checklists and I like let's go to You know to Tanzania and climb Kilimanjaro. It's a really easy entry to seem like how do I perform at 19,000? Well, it's like an easy way for me to get up high, you know, because it's just a walk, you know on Kili
speaker-1 (51:25.358)
I'm gonna say it's easy, but...
People are copying,
Yeah. Okay.
speaker-0 (51:36.374)
and it's all supported. So I could see, I even tolerate that altitude, right? As I'm like becoming a better rock climber and other things, can I even survive up there? Because not everyone can tolerate high elevation. And you can only do so much in Colorado. And that's still not high enough. I started doing that. started like, well, I'm getting better at climbing these mountains. I know I can tolerate the altitude and what that feels like.
figure out expedition planning. had a buddy at the time like, well, let's go to Machu Picchu. Let's figure out how to traverse Peru. Let's go to Thailand and figure out how to get from the border all the way through Cambodia and like on the back of a pickup truck.
speaker-1 (52:19.598)
There's like a level of planning, but the execution, a lot of people will plan it, but not do the execution because there's a fear setting involved. Like you have to overcome that fear and you're doing that just by diving head in like, okay, let's roll and see trial and error system too.
speaker-0 (52:32.558)
trial and error, you can also say it's like, it's my sense of control. Like the more that I get out there and figure it out, the more I have control over like the unknown and the outcome. it's like, didn't, I've never made a, no, I can't say never. I try not to make a uncalculated risk. All the time. Especially when it came to like mountaineering.
speaker-1 (52:53.25)
you want to mitigate your risk.
speaker-1 (52:57.486)
because one mistake and it's fatal.
speaker-0 (52:59.704)
Totally. And what drew me to mountaineering was that it's probably the only sport where you are actively dying once you go above 19.5. And it doesn't matter almost how good you are. The mountain treats everyone equally. You can have a great day one day, the next day it's the worst day of your life. it's a sport where skill set and training alone don't matter.
speaker-1 (53:26.798)
imagine like mental component is probably the most.
speaker-0 (53:30.286)
Can you mentally survive? It's not about how I trained for 15 years and now I'm at the Olympics. That's not how you become a high altitude mountaineer. High altitude mountaineering, this is not my quote, is the art of suffering. How good are you at suffering? Can you maintain composure where you're kind of drunk, the environment is trying to kill you, and you're trying to execute these chest moves?
the wrong chest move is fatal. With 65 pounds on your back and 60 pounds, you know, hanging off you on a sled and a team of people who are also tied to you and everyone's relying on each other to be perfect. That challenge I thought was just immense. Maybe the only other sport like that might be the people who free dive down, right? That's a sport where yeah, you might be actively dying all time you're doing it. That's about it.
I tried to become this Mountaineer by experience, by getting out there. And what I found was that companies weren't willing to sponsor me for more than like, well, here's $5,000. Here's $10,000 maybe. And I'm like, I am not going to nearly kill myself for 10 grand. It's just not worth it. And there was a hundred guys behind me who were willing to do that, to put themselves way out on the line and just do the most epic climbs.
speaker-1 (54:49.506)
my life a little more than that.
speaker-0 (54:59.086)
for, you know, be dirt bag climbers. Yeah. Going totally. Yeah. They're like, I don't care if I got to live in my car. And I just, I was defeated. felt like I, I'm like, dang it. I can't, I can't do that. And I was, I remember being in Kenya. We had finished with like Kilimanjaro and we were touring Kenya and
speaker-1 (55:02.774)
juckeys right? They're just like, if I find a way to go for free I'm going.
speaker-0 (55:28.544)
I met this woman named Bonnie Dunbar. She was a virologist and from Baylor University out of Texas. She had gone to outside Nairobi to a little place called Karen. Karen is the village named after the Dutch author Karen Blixson, who wrote the book Out of Africa, which was the Oscar winning movie with Robert Redford and stuff. She bought Karen Blixson's original coffee gardens and turned it into a hotel and also a place where she runs her own nonprofit.
I was 25 years old at the time.
speaker-1 (55:59.222)
Damn, only 25.
speaker-0 (56:01.006)
I'm only 25, yeah. And I'm like meeting this woman and she is showing me how she's like using this setup with this hotel and her connections to help people with like HIV AIDS, to help the local, there was like an animal orphanage thing with elephants and giraffes and stuff. It was super cool, we went and checked it out. But like she...
was showing me how she was volunteering and trying to do good in the world. And I think at 25 years old, it was the very first time I'd ever been exposed to that concept. don't know, it shifted my perspective on what I should be doing in the world. And I thought, I need to be doing something for somebody else. At 25, you're very selfish. You're like school, friends, girlfriend, you you're just kind of really thinking about yourself and having fun.
speaker-1 (56:50.484)
I I'm thinking back when I was 25. That thought never entered my head.
speaker-0 (56:53.998)
Yeah. And I, so I, that kind of inspired me and I thought, well, I could do something. And my original thought was to help her. So I came back to the U S and I thought, well, I could, I could talk to kids maybe about like maybe ice climbing or something. And I, as I thought through it, I was like, that's a dumb idea. Cause no kids can relate to ice climbing. And I, I don't know. And I thought, well, maybe I like, I like
being an athlete, maybe I could talk to them about health and fitness. And then I started to chew on that idea and I thought, well, what if I bicycle across the country? Granted, I didn't own a bike.
speaker-1 (57:34.36)
It's one of those ideas, man. Outside the box again. You have this ability to think outside the box.
speaker-0 (57:39.314)
I wrote a 25 page business proposal based on this idea of a professional cross country cyclist, something that didn't even exist. Like how do you take something that maybe 2000 people a year do recreationally, but actually turn it into something that could get sponsored, could get funded. I wrote out everything, like what camera I was going to use to film myself, how I was going to meet every single...
a newspaper and TV station. What was the value of that? would measure advertising space in magazines and newspapers across the country and like try to figure out how much that space was worth.
speaker-1 (58:11.086)
did you figure this out being 25, man? That's a level of... I wouldn't even think to do it now. That's a very, very involved, diligent planning on your part.
speaker-0 (58:23.918)
I think we can go back to control. I was trying to control it all. And I wanted every minute detail to the minute figured out.
speaker-1 (58:33.846)
I'm learning you're more detail oriented than I gave you credit for.
speaker-0 (58:36.526)
It's good for magic trick. I imagine so. so I did, I created this plan and I sent it out and I would say my response rate was 6%. But I just said, fine, I'm going to send it to a hundred companies. Yeah. And I got six. Yeah. Right. And people like Kane Creek was my very first sponsor at Fletcher North Carolina. They make all kinds of cycling gear and products. One dude just said, yes. Like what can we do to help?
speaker-1 (58:39.522)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (59:03.288)
That's good.
speaker-0 (59:03.534)
Cool. Right? Another like cascade designs like, I wasn't a cyclist. was this adventure. So I was approaching not just cycling companies. I was approaching outdoor companies and other fitness companies. And then I needed, no one had ever heard of this woman named Bonnie Dunbar out in Karen Nairobi, Kenya. And I thought, okay, that's not a good enough. I need a better backer. Yeah. So I approached the American Heart Association. Okay. And they thought I was totally crazy.
They actually had me on. what I later learned is when I called the caller ID would say crazy Chris. They, they were reluctant, but they're in the business of like, right. Maybe we can get something out of this. They like, you can, and they, can use our name and our like logo, which was worth a billion dollars. Right. Sparingly. we'll watch you. We'll help you with a couple of connections. and like,
We'll just see how this goes, like just tiptoeing into that. But that was enough. I ran with it.
speaker-1 (01:00:05.294)
Crazy Chris and it was all positive.
speaker-0 (01:00:07.17)
Well, this is what I did. I guaranteed my schedule across the US on a bicycle. I said, I will be in every one of these places, not at this day, at that time. No matter what the weather, no matter what the situation is on the bike, I guaranteed it. And I figured out, I mapped out every street, every mile. So this was in the age of MapQuest. I had a 50 page document of turn by turn directions from my house all the way to the East Coast of Maine. And like,
I knew where I was supposed to be every second based on how fast I could ride. So I started training, right? I would train every day after work. I would bicycle from here to Santa Barbara and back. Or I would do from here up to Ojai and up to the mountains and back. And I had this whole circuit and I would just push myself harder and harder. And I would put a trailer on the back of the bike and fill it with gallon jugs of water and just tow it uphill as fast as I possibly could. And just for three months, trained and trained and trained. The holidays are approaching. Christmas time is coming up and I started to...
Mention this concept to people like this is I'm trying to do and I knew this is something I think I'm really proud of when it comes to being an entrepreneur I knew when I was on to something because people started to respond back to me in a really positive way Okay, not just like that's cool. But like hey, how can I help or like that's really amazing? I know someone yeah and That was my first instinct of like entrepreneurship of like building something and knowing when the iron is actually hot. Yeah, when to strike. Yeah, and so
Christmas gave me the confidence of like all these parties that people talk, talk to them. Like I've got something like just keep going full steam. And this is also when everyone else around me was telling me that I was absolutely crazy to the point where I started to wonder, am I crazy? Like enough people have said it. Maybe I am. Maybe this is actually totally nuts. And I started to have these like doubts about maybe I'm just not seeing the picture here.
speaker-1 (01:01:59.214)
How did you overcome those doubts?
speaker-0 (01:02:01.676)
I told myself not to believe them. I was like, well, either I'm crazy or stupid or, I don't know, but I'm gonna just, I'm gonna keep pushing. Just blinders, yeah. And I think if I detail this enough, if I rehearse enough and I train hard enough that I can overcome this. You know?
speaker-1 (01:02:12.907)
Liner's on.
speaker-1 (01:02:23.822)
It's not like you're just jumping on a bike and be like, hey, I'm just going to ride. You have practice and you put in that itinerary, the research. So in your mind, you already knew what you did. Most people probably didn't realize the level of memory you had already put in. Kind of like building a magic trick. You're laying out a game plan and minute by minute details. you know through past performance, it's going to get done. So this was probably the first indication like, this is my first true test in life.
speaker-0 (01:02:33.742)
Preparatory.
speaker-0 (01:02:49.644)
Exactly. The Vintner County Star did a story on me and they wouldn't run it until I was already, I think in Barstow. They wanted to make sure I'd actually got it. Yeah. They called me and like, did you actually make it out past, you know, end of the county?
speaker-1 (01:03:05.922)
This is pre-social media. You're not checking in places.
speaker-0 (01:03:08.622)
No, exactly. And they called me and I was like, yeah, I'm out here on Route 66 camping by the side of a shed. Yeah. You know, and I, that trip, that was 2007. I rode from here in Ventura all the way to the most Eastern point in Maine called Lubeck. Exactly. No, he's in the far North. He's up in potato country by the French. I got hit with a snowstorm in Flagstaff.
speaker-1 (01:03:24.504)
Peter Sousenot.
speaker-0 (01:03:37.442)
I had my face busted open by hail out in like the Midwest. I nearly got killed by an F5 tornado in Kansas, a place called Greensburg, which killed 11 people. Jesus. We were on camping in a tent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the most terrifying nights of my life was I was so scared because you can hear this tornado thing going by and I'm in a tent in a ditch and like water's filling up around me and I was terrified. I was so paralyzed of fear. I didn't know to leave. I didn't know to stay. I survived.
speaker-1 (01:04:06.331)
Analysis paralysis,
speaker-0 (01:04:07.754)
Yeah, exactly. And I never thought of tornadoes in my whole life. It just never occurred to me.
speaker-1 (01:04:13.718)
We in California, we think of earthquakes, but not tornadoes.
speaker-0 (01:04:16.758)
right and there I was in the middle of tornado alley in tornado season. it's an actual season. You're going through. No yeah all my planning. Yeah. God had I messed up. Yeah. And every day there was a tornado. mean this was like a I'd pull into some little town and there the the grain silo had just been exploded and it's all shrapnel across the road and all the old folks are out there going my god.
speaker-1 (01:04:22.218)
I didn't think this one all the way
speaker-1 (01:04:39.847)
That's a good point. You can plan for everything, but there's always something unexpected that's going to come up and test your forties.
speaker-0 (01:04:45.326)
Yeah, something way outside my experience. just had no concept that, yeah, there's weather in other parts of the country. Yeah, I was 25. I'm impenetrable, right? Yeah, yeah. I had floodwaters in Mississippi. to push my bike across. Cross levees had been broken and like through waist deep water and fish flopping by.
speaker-1 (01:04:52.408)
Plus your 25th.
speaker-1 (01:05:08.888)
Did you keep the timetable? Were you on time every time?
speaker-0 (01:05:12.234)
never missed a day. Damn. I met with politicians all across the US. I got recognized at three different state capitals, like brought me in like here's Chris on his bike for heart health and fitness talking to students. I spoke to 6,000 students at and 13 different schools. Wow. Gave him a 45 minute interactive presentation when we're jumping and running and we're checking our heart rates and our pulse and you know, it's this huge thing. Sometimes in front like
in front of like 500 students at a time. From kindergartens to fifth graders to sometimes high schools. I get to the East Coast, there's a tropical hurricane that turns into a tropical storm, like nearly wipes me off my bike in Rhode Island. And I do eventually make it all the way to the East and to Lubeck, Maine. It's this candy cane striped lighthouse that's the easternmost point of the US. And you can see Canada on the other side, Campo Bello Island, which is like the home of this Roosevelt.
speaker-1 (01:05:42.947)
That's all.
speaker-0 (01:06:10.888)
I was like, I did it. I felt completed when I got there. You know, and turned around and basically started bicycling towards Bangor to get an airplane. And I was like, okay, I did that. The American Heart Association was like, hey, you did really well. We got a lot of response. I think they changed it. They also bumped me up.
speaker-1 (01:06:35.967)
Did they change your caller ID name?
speaker-0 (01:06:40.098)
to like, here's, you're now contacted with the vice president of the HA. And made that connection. The people all across, representatives of the HA all across the country were like, that's really exciting. I come back to Ventura and people are like, maybe you should do that again. And I thought, okay, maybe I should. And like started planning trip number two and the Heart Association got even more involved. I went and gave a talk about it at Patagonia. And as I'm giving this talk, Yvonne Schnard walks out of the bathroom and sits in.
speaker-1 (01:06:44.318)
nice.
speaker-0 (01:07:10.574)
watches my whole presentation, my little slideshow, and then mumbles something to me afterwards. The next day, a guy that I knew there calls me and is like, hey, Ivan was just in my office. He says, give you anything you want.
speaker-1 (01:07:24.206)
For those who are listening, tell us who Yvonne is.
speaker-0 (01:07:26.656)
Yvonne Chouinard is the founder of Patagonia Clothing, epic reluctant businessman and epic world climber. Yvonne Chouinard. Yeah. And now philanthropist galore. He's a legend in the space. Yeah. And for him to say, you can now have anything you want, all of a sudden I was like...
speaker-1 (01:07:50.702)
You just get like tingles and like, my God.
speaker-0 (01:07:52.59)
I asked him, what does that mean? Like, do I just come down to the store and pick up six of everything? And he's like, if you want, it comes from Yvonne. I was like, I'm going to hold this card for a second and like, I'm going to think about this strategically. Turn that into like, let's become a Patagonian ambassador. Let's like figure out how to make this another sponsorship, you know, and actually do good for all, for you and for me.
speaker-1 (01:08:16.75)
when I get one those 40 % off cards.
speaker-0 (01:08:18.894)
Exactly. I know I feet. I have so much Patagonia gear. My buddy was in, his dad was in the Rotary Club and he told his dad about what I was doing and his dad said, we could help you out with places to stay. There's Rotary Clubs around the world. We could help you out with funding. We can donate to the Heart Association. And so the Ventura Rotary Club now steps in and starts contacting Rotary Clubs for me all the way across the country. I just gave them my route and here's all the cities I'm in. And they were like calling up Rotary Club presidents.
our sponsored kids coming through, can you put them up for the night? Can you give them something to eat? Can you fund them, give them money so that he can give that money to the hardest of. Yeah, and it was like, by trip number two, 2008, I rode from Neah Bay, Washington outside of Seattle all the to Key West, Florida during the election of McCain and Obama. And I got to cross the country during this moment of like, we're electing the first black president.
speaker-1 (01:08:56.684)
Go Sleepy in Ditches.
speaker-0 (01:09:15.87)
I could have done like a master thesis on like sociology and American, you know, dynamics and politics of that one ride. It was phenomenal. I was privy to every back country cafe, truck stop conversation, major metropolitan conversation. Like it was, I had this incredible amount of exposure to Americana and what it meant to be.
speaker-1 (01:09:23.864)
You should do that,
speaker-1 (01:09:44.9)
You could write man
speaker-0 (01:09:45.934)
That alone was incredible. I think people should always cross the country during an election year. That was wild.
speaker-1 (01:09:53.678)
wow, it's funny, like that's 2008, where we're living now, it's like, man, it'd be another time to get back on the bike and do it again, huh?
speaker-0 (01:10:00.974)
I could, I did it 11 times and we can talk about it in other trips, I got tired of actually crossing the country. Each one a different route. I started trying to be fun with it. It was like, well, let's go to Brownsville, Texas, the most southern point. Let's go to the most Eastern point. Let's go to the most top tip top of Minnesota or something. And then I was like, proposed to Patagonia. was like, look, I want to bicycle other places. And I still in my heart, wanted to be a mountain climber.
speaker-1 (01:10:10.038)
Imagine 11 times is this
speaker-0 (01:10:31.18)
This was bicycling thing, was supposed to be temporary.
speaker-1 (01:10:32.878)
Maybe you could go from Alaska to southern tip of Chile.
speaker-0 (01:10:36.366)
That was an idea. I'm sure it was, Well, I looked for the highest mountain that I could climb safely by myself. Yeah. That was outside of Asia. And it's a place called Aconcagua in Argentina. OK. It's about 23,000 feet high. it is one of the seven summits. And I thought, well, I'll fly to Buenos Aires and I'll bicycle to it and climb it. And I'll take all my gear with me. my I told Patagonia. said, this is my idea.
I was like, here's all the clothing, here's all the gear, here's what you need. I packaged my bike up in a box, you know, I flew to Buenos Aires in the airport, just cut the box open and rebuilt my bicycle in the airport, it all together, left the box and bicycled out of the airport and spent, you know, weeks trying to navigate myself across a place that's not known for bicycling across the country, across the Argentine desert getting
I just ravished by mosquitoes, by heat stroke. didn't realize the ozone hole is above Argentina. Just getting massive amounts of UV radiation, just turning lobster red every day. Eventually getting all the way to Aconcagua. I had needed to prepare for myself to do this climb. This is right. There's no social media. There's no way to contact people. I told people, like, if you don't hear from me, I think it was like in 25 days, like send help.
Yeah, there's a lot of people back here who are like, all right radio communication out. Uh-huh. you in 25 days. Yeah and 25 days worth of supplies was 90 96 pounds of food equipment fuel It takes a lot of fuel because you're having to melt snow to create water at that elevation And I hiked that that was two-thirds of my body weight and I hiked about
speaker-1 (01:12:04.332)
That's comforting.
speaker-0 (01:12:32.526)
25 miles with two thirds of my body weight on my back up to around 12,000 feet. And then from there, started shuttling that gear up to like 16,000 feet. And then again, up to 18,000 feet and started making these camps all by myself. there was other people there. these, there are these guys, they'd come by with like, you know, they're like porters for other groups that were also climbing the mountain. They'd be like at me and they'd be like,
Oh, you're strong. And I was like, yeah, I guess.
speaker-1 (01:13:04.047)
They're like, local Chris. Crazy Chris is back.
speaker-0 (01:13:06.978)
Crazy Chris, I didn't realize they were making fun of me because you could just hire a mule. What do you do? Yeah, you're so stupid. Trying to cross this waist deep, you know, glacier fed river with all this stuff on your back. They got mules.
speaker-1 (01:13:26.798)
One other thing I didn't plan for. I know how to do it next time.
speaker-0 (01:13:29.992)
Yeah, he's like, I didn't know you can get a mule. No one told me it's not in the guide. That mountain, I was there and one night, I was going to do this route called the Polish Glacier and it just started dumping with snow. There was actually two Alaskan climbers that were up there and they got stuck to the point on almost
Almost on the summit. They were just shy. They got stuck way up there and they started getting pitting it They got edema in their face and in their lungs. They had to be rescued I mean, these are big burly men and I'm just this little dude in like in a Patagonia Hawaiian t-shirt
speaker-1 (01:14:08.6)
Hey, you and I aren't big and burly.
speaker-0 (01:14:10.638)
Yeah, I was thinking like, maybe I bit off more than I could chew. Yeah. You know, like once again, is this, is this something I can do? This might be crazy. Yeah. And that storm, I hung out, I remember being in my tent at around 16,000 feet and it got so cold one night that I started looking at my watch for my thermometer, watching the temperature drop to like 20 degrees, 10 degrees, 15 degrees. Oh, jeez.
just plummeting and it's down to like negative 10, negative 15. And I'm starting to cry. It's like, I'm thinking it's going to get so cold. I'm going to freeze to death overnight. I, that was a rough one. Just shivering through the whole night wondering if I was going to die. Kind of. I got so tired just from the elevation. I eventually just passed out and I just didn't know if I was going to wake up. It was cold.
speaker-1 (01:14:53.538)
Were you scared to go to sleep?
speaker-1 (01:15:04.558)
How do you in that moment not like panic and be like, fuck it, I'm down there.
speaker-0 (01:15:08.622)
It's too dangerous also to do that. Once again, I'm in that tent and the tornado is coming past. I'm kind of stuck. It's like you can't leave a tent when there's a tornado going past you. It's your only shelter. And I was stuck in this position. Like you bit off this bite. Now you've got to chew it.
speaker-1 (01:15:11.767)
Okay.
speaker-1 (01:15:26.99)
That what comes to my mind is like fight or flight. Some people you have this mental composure. Like I need to stay, but sometimes your reptilian brains, it's like takes over and people are out. Like if I was up there, I'd be like, I wouldn't make any rational decision. would try to get like, this is the smartest move. How do you keep, how do you resist those doubts and overcome them and stay in your rational mind when you're suffering like
speaker-0 (01:15:55.278)
Part of think being a good climber, what makes me the aptitude for that is being cool, calm, collective. I knew that going down that mountain was going to be unsafe. Yeah. And because it was cold and dark, right? The safest thing I could do was be inside and just utilize everything I had. I think, I mean, that's and that was just.
at 16,000 feet, right? And then as I'm doing this and I'm trying to survive, that storm is dumping snow on this glacier that I was going to go climb up. It gets to be where it's too thick. And I thought, well, now I need to traverse the whole mountain side in order to get to the other side of this mountain to like find another route up and find that's also my exit point was on the other side. I was to up and down, right? But now I'm like, I can't go up anymore. So I just.
Kind of with the map and the compass, know, like look, like I need to head that way and start route finding my way across the side of this peak at 18,000 feet. I might have only had to.
speaker-1 (01:16:55.438)
anxiety right now listening to.
speaker-0 (01:16:57.46)
It was, I was post-holing. was so, I was, you you're, you're so physically tired. I still have all of this weight on me. Cause I had just started the expedition. I'm only maybe a weekend and physically I was tired from the elevation. was, tired from staying up all night scared of, you know, my life. And now I need to make this really hard traverse.
I remember post-holing and using all my muscle strength to like climb out of the hole like shitting my pants at times because I'm like just losing my ability to even like maintain my own strength. Yeah, sometimes yeah, it's just like no no like it's so physically exerting just like fuck. And I
speaker-1 (01:17:35.916)
Literally shitting your pants? Okay. It's not a metaphor,
speaker-0 (01:17:49.132)
That might've been about a mile total. I mean, it seemed like a mile. It took me a half a day to get to the other side of the mountain, which was the normal route where every, all these other campsites were. I was by myself and I come around the corner and you all of a sudden, there's people, you know, and I can go camp in a safe space. So I reestablished myself there. The next morning I see all the climbers who are heading up towards the peak. They're starting their ascent.
And I'm watching these big guys go up and they, oh, about two hours later, they turn around and you can just see them running down the hillside. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? And it was the, there's this thing where the wind can come over the top of the peak and it drops really fast and it's super cold and it can blow people off. And so these huge guys are like running down the mountain and I'm just thinking like, what am I doing? This is crazy.
You know, I remember texting my rep at Patagonia, even when I was in the permit office, and I'm sitting there in my sandals, you know, and again, my Patagonia clothing, and there's all these dudes who walked out of a North Face store from Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia, professional mountaineers, and then there's little old me. My God, I think I'm in the wrong place. I eventually, I kind of wait for the weather to get better. There looks like there's a good window.
speaker-1 (01:19:09.474)
place.
speaker-0 (01:19:17.998)
I remember doing like a goo packet and a couple days ago, but yeah, I do a goo packet and I was like in the morning and like, I'm going to go for it. I start my scent. It turns out to be like still bluebird day. I am just amped. My adrenaline is pumping. I'm like record breaking speed, at least for me. I'm just flying up this hill and I felt fantastic. I'm getting up to around 20,000 feet.
doing awesome. I'm at 22,000. I get to the ridge line. I'm super hypoxic. And I think, there's the cliff. I want to look over the edge because it's one of the biggest walls in all of South America. It's a 5,000 foot drop. And so I just walk over to it. I'm do this. I'm realizing that I'm just not thinking because I'm actually so hyposic and so excited. I just have my ice axe in the ground. I'm looking straight down a vertical mile. Not really. That could fall at any time. And I get up to the summit.
And I got up there and I was so proud of myself. And I just thought, again, I'm young and dumb and I'm like, I'm going to do push-ups. And I started doing push-ups at 23,000 feet, you know, and I do 25 and I get, and I'm like, I'm going to pass out. should probably stop. I mean, again, like there was a dead climber who had passed away up there and like they hadn't gotten the body off yet. It was like,
speaker-1 (01:20:33.71)
Yes, rational mind-fuck.
speaker-0 (01:20:45.418)
I'm excited. like, I remember I pull out my camera and I start talking to the camera of like how I just bicycled all the way here. I carried all my gear across the continent or the country at least. And I just did 25 pushups on the summit and I am like bawling, I'm crying into my camera screen and I'm just hypoxic. And you know, and I come down from that and I like, I made that. know, and I was like, I can't believe I just solo summited this huge peak.
speaker-1 (01:21:13.78)
and it's an adventure.
speaker-0 (01:21:16.11)
You know, it takes me three days to get all the way back down the mountain. I actually wore off the skin off of my feet, like my heels. I have pictures, like the skin just were snuffed off just from like constant moving downhill, downhill, downhill for days. And I was like running.
speaker-1 (01:21:34.51)
It's like you a snowboard at that point.
speaker-0 (01:21:36.238)
I wish. I did not bring enough protein. I was not eating enough food. My body started to cannibalize itself. And I went into like, I started getting, I forget the name of the disease, but basically you start consuming your own muscle mass and it starts to poison your own kidneys. And I was peeing brown, you know, while I was up there, I was probably burning 10,000 calories a day and I was maybe consuming like four.
Maybe five on a good day. So I was losing about a pound per day and So when I came off and yet the whole time you're there you never take your clothing all the way off I've never I didn't see myself for like three weeks and I finally got to the bomb I take my shirt off and you can see every rib bone my clavicle you can see it to my stomach a little bit I was fully emaciated and Robbed in my lysis. That's what I had and I
I remember calling my doctor at the time and I was like, look, this is what's going on. And also when I sat down, my legs would swell to look like elephant legs. And I was having pitting edema and my doctor's like, you need to stop moving now and you need to get as much like food and protein into as you possibly can. And so I get myself a hotel room in Mendoza, Argentina and I find a store that was selling inshore powder, a one month supply of inshore. And I just start scooping it into my mouth dry.
and squeezing water into my mouth and I ate a one month supply of inshore in about three days. I was eating a kilo of ice cream a day and then these like steak, ham and egg sandwiches, I was just pounding these things. They were like called, I thought they were called wolf sandwiches. I was saying, I was like Lobo. And they're like, what, Lobo? What are you talking about? It was called little meat dough speed bump. I think that's how they say it. And then one guy's like, that's in Canada, man.
Like, we don't have wolves here. I was like, no, you have them here, I swear. And I need them, please, I'm dying. I need protein now. Yeah. And my doctor was like, you can't move. You gotta like get a bus, flight, whatever, you're done. And I was like, ah, you're right, you're right. So I my three month supply of inshore and get back on my bike. And I started trying to bicycle back across the Argentine desert, which is, you know, 120 degrees.
speaker-1 (01:23:33.25)
No, They're like, local Chris again.
speaker-0 (01:23:56.374)
I make it three days out into the desert before I collapse. a passing bus picks my ass up. And then I thought, okay, I'm finally done.
speaker-1 (01:24:08.49)
I have nothing left to give. Wow.
speaker-0 (01:24:12.686)
And then that just spurred like, well, where else can I bicycle? Where else, what other mountains can I do? And then we'll get into it the next time. But then I was like, well, let's bicycle across Africa. Let's go across the North Slope with polar bears.
speaker-1 (01:24:28.206)
Good, this is a good foreshadow of part two, what's to come to literally leave us on a cliffhanger. No pun intended, actually. Totally intended. But some things I took away were like, you can always plan, you're a very diligent planner, but you also have the ability to improvise. And there's gonna be some things in your path that totally present an obstacle you can't plan for or you can't have the experience for.
speaker-0 (01:24:35.267)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (01:24:56.342)
You have to have the mental calm, composure and collectiveness to be able to navigate around it. So I look forward to part two, But for now, Chris, thanks for joining me.
speaker-0 (01:25:06.678)
I appreciate it. was really nice to speak to you today. Thanks.
speaker-1 (01:25:08.856)
Good catching up. Thanks, dude. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Corky Podcast. I hope you enjoyed diving into another inspiring journey and found some nuggets of wisdom to take with you. If you love this episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a conversation. You can find all our episodes on your favorite podcast platforms and on YouTube. Until next time, stay curious, be inspired and keep carving your own unique path. Catch you on the next episode.
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