Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Making the Best of Any Situation | Travis Pastrana

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Travis Pastrana.If you're a fan of action sports, you know the name.By four years old, Travis was already riding a one-speed motorcycle.At the age of 14, he won the world freestyle championship.Travis continued to display his versatility into the early 2000's racking up numerous Supercross and Motocross podiums as well a Motocross of Nations Championship title.In 2001, Travis was awarded Motocross Rider of the Year at the ESPN Action Sports & Music Awards.He has since accumulated 17 X-Games medals, including 11 gold medals, plus five golds from the Gravity Games, as well more wins at other events including Dew Tour and Red Bull X-Fighters.At the 2006 X Games, Travis redefined what was possible in Freestyle Motocross with his groundbreaking double backflip on a motorbike.As one of the founders and ringleader of Nitro Circus, Travis is committed to the progression of action sports as a whole and has set his sights on redefining the sport of rallycross with the evolution of Nitro Rallycross.Travis is highly skilled at risk – and I think you’ll be fascinated to learn why he’s comfortable in high consequence environments._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. I enjoyed the process of challenging myself. I enjoyed the process of figuring out if I had what it took to process of trying to be the best that I could be. And I never had that put on me that it had to be the best of anyone else. I never expected to make it. I just wanted to know. I loved waking up in the morning and saying, how can I be better at?

And that's why for me it's changed. How can I be better at for a while is racing motorcycles. How can I be better at doing freestyle? How can I be better at driving a car? How can I be a better husband and father is kind of where the process is now, where you wake up and you're like, okay, this is a challenge, you know, and it's not easy. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. This podcast, Finding Mastery, the whole design is to learn from people who have spent so much time understanding how to get better that they are on

the path of mastery. They understand the nuances of what it takes to become their very best. And what we're trying to learn is what are they searching for and what are the mechanisms that have revealed and how have they uncovered their purpose. We want to also understand what are the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft. We also want to understand how do they make sense of events in their lives. Now this week's conversation is with Travis Pastrana. So if you're a fan of action sports, you know his name. He is a flat out legend. And I mean, from a very early age, age four, he was already riding one speed motorcycles. So he literally grew up in motorsports. And by the age of 14, he won the World Freestyle Championship.

So I set the tone of that because he's been in his craft for years. And his legacy is ridiculous in the world of sport and action sport. But if you're not familiar with his work, I want to set the narrative right because people in action sports are very skilled at risk taking. They're very purposeful about how to get better because when they make mistakes, the consequences are real. So this conversation is really about the arc of becoming, about navigating risk, and really how one fundamentally organizes their life towards specific aims. So Travis, in his early career, he was collecting Supercross and motocross podiums, and he also won the motocross national championship title. And then back in 2001, he was awarded motocross rider of the year by ESPN action sports and

music awards. So he's familiar with winning as well. And since then he's accumulated 17 X game medals, including 11 gold medals, plus five gold medals from gravity games, as well as more wins at other events like the Drew Tour and Red Bull X Fighters. So he understands becoming, he's on the frontier setting tone. And there's this saying sometimes, when you lead, you bleed. He understands what that means too. And then as we keep going with his accomplishments in 2006 at the X Games, he redefined what is possible in freestyle motocross with, I mean, it's an amazing, it was a groundbreaking double backflip

on a motorcycle. Incredible. And then he becomes one of the founders of Nitro Circus. And if you're not familiar with it, I want you to look Nitro Circus up. Nitro Circus. And it's his commitment to push the progression of action sports as a whole and he's also got his sights set on redefining the sport of rallycross with the evolution of Nitro Rallycross. But go check out Nitro Circus

and see what he's done from a business model but also what he's done to infuse his passion in the progression of his craft and the craft of obviously many others. So like I said at the top, Travis is highly skilled at risk, and I think you'll be fascinated to learn why he's comfortable in high pressured, high stress, high consequence environments. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms,

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comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective.

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for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with the legend, Travis Pastrana. Travis, you're a legend. I'm so stoked to do this with you. Dude, I'm stoked to be on. Thanks for taking the time today. Yeah, of course. So before we jump in, how are you? Not doing good. I mean, it's really strange times right now. I mean, I don't have to tell you that or anyone out there that's listening.

But, you know, I was going to be gone for two and a half months and trying to work it out where, you know, my kids now just started school. And my wife, she won the world championships last year in skate, but it's really taken a step back from that to, to be a mom. Um, you know, she's volunteering and she's teaching classes and at the, you know, the preschool and everything. So it's, it's a big life change for us. And then with this, all of a sudden I get to be a father too. I mean, not that I wasn't before, but they've been on tour with like, my wife was on tour. My kids were on tour. We spent all this time together, but not at home. This is like the first time that I actually got to spend time with my wife, with my kids at home. Not that we can really go see go see anybody at this time.

But it's a it's a really neat to say it like that with with all the turmoil. And, you know, hope everyone stays healthy and gets back healthy and we can get to what we do. But, um, I've really enjoyed this time that, uh, that we've gotten to really just be together. You're not alone in that. And I've been getting questions a bunch from people like, Hey, is it okay that I'm really enjoying this? Like, I feel like I'm not connected to the, the essence of what's happening across the globe with loss of life and health issues. And I don't know, like it's going to affect everyone differently. And the way I know you from a distance is that you are a ridiculously anchored optimist, right? So you find what's good and what's possible, and you're going to do the same i imagine during this pandemic yeah well i mean not to go back selfishly but that's it's interesting because every time you

have an injury that's led me on a different path you know yes did i want to be a supercross champion yes uh was that my goal as a kid that's all i wanted to do but every time i got hurt i got to uh ride go-karts or four wheelers or stuff that ended up leading to rally and starting into rally cross and cars. And, um, you know, freestyle wasn't a sport, but I love doing tricks on a dirt bike. And, um, you know, just everything that, that happened led to the next thing. So every mistake I've made has been really the door opening for something else. And I feel like people are always like career ending injury. I'm like, well, we got maybe this career, but what can you do and what you have that that's helping you and what sponsors, what can you, what can you

take from what you've learned and how can you make that into something else? So, um, with this, yeah, no, it's, I do feel a little disconnected in, in that. Yeah, dude, I want the world to get better. I want to go racing. I love racing. And man, this year is going to be the biggest year. And I'm so excited. But you know, looking at the schedule, I'm like, man, I'm gonna get away for two and a half months. I love it. I would love every second. But man, that's two little girls, man. I want to want to be home as much as I can, too. So this has been a catch 22. Okay, so let's let's see if we can deconstruct what you just said a little bit. Like you said, this career, which I think many people get stuck in that smaller lens, but you've got this bigger lens, this bigger canopy that you're thinking about and meaning

that you could pivot to another career and another career, right? But what sits above it? What is the, what is it? What is the big purpose of your life? And that's a heavy question, you know, but if you think about purpose, what, what is the big purpose of your life? And that's a heavy question, you know, but if you think about purpose, what is your purpose? That is a really heavy question. But, you know, my dad said because his brother, my uncle, was quarterback for Denver Broncos, 69 and 70, and was, like my dad said, probably the greatest athlete that's come out of Annapolis and maybe even Maryland. You know, got knocked out a few times, had some blown out knee. You know, and he ended up working construction still with the family, a construction company in the summers.

And Anne Arundel Community College, they call him Coach P still. He's up there teaching lacrosse and football. And my dad said, look, the chance of anyone making it at a hobby, if you can make a living doing what you love to do, if you can make a living at a hobby, you're probably not going to do that. But any day that you can wake up and you can be passionate about what you do, it doesn't matter what that is. That's better than 99.9% of the people out there. So for me, it wasn't about necessarily winning or accomplishing one thing or whatever. It was about getting out there and being able to wake up in the morning with a passion. So to say, what is your career?

My goal is to wake up and feel like I'm useful. Wake up with something that I'm passionate about. Wake up with something that I can't sleep because I'm thinking about. And if I'm not doing that, even if I'm making more money, like I turned down a huge contract in, in motocross racing, um, to go spend almost all of it and race cars through the woods. And then with surrounding yourself with the right people and meeting Ken block, who really want to do that as well, who had just sold DC shoes, you know, and then with Subaru and another tragedy that happened. But Mark Lovell passed away and he was the top driver in Subaru. So when Subaru pulled out, so did the TV time and everything. And the sport went down to

zero. But for me in 2002, I get to jump in to a sport where there's no real high level factory racing. It's all grassroots. So I get to start on the top level, but when no one's really getting sponsored, so I can work my way in with the slower cars and with guys that have equal budget that I do. And I can get in instead of spending, you know, one and a half million dollars just to race, you know, we can get in for 150,000 and still be competitive in the season. So everything, and I hate to look at so many things like that, but it's just kind of evolved to where I wake up every morning and say, let's do what you love and let's see how far we can make it. Throw me in the deep end. I love that you're saying this because in my life, when I look at you, you hold an emblem. There's handfuls of people

in my life that I know and don't know, but our public, which is, you know, we don't have, we've met a few times, but we don't know each other, but you do hold this emblem that of living with passion, what it looks like. And so when you say this, my hair standing up right now, because it's like, okay, so the calibration was right. And this is, I don't know if you would put it this way. I'd love, I'd love for you to chin check me if you think I'm wrong on this, but many people talk about passion this way. They say, um, they say, yes, if you can, I'm passionate when I play guitar, I'm passionate when I'm on a motorcycle, but then, then I don't have passion when I'm not on a motorcycle playing guitar or whatever. And I go, wait, wait, why not wake up and live with passion across every segment of your day? Like what, what is, why would we not want that?

And so how do you do it? Are you, are you, are you connected to passion just when you're doing the thing that you're passionate about? Or do you live with this under current of passion across everything? Um, you know, and it's, it's funny cause my uncle, um, who I mentioned before, with this undercurrent of passion across everything. You know, and it's funny because my uncle, who I mentioned before, Alan, who was my middle namesake, you know, and he gets knocked out by a high tower from police academy at NFL. And they just, you know, and he's like, football's too dangerous. You can't do football. So motorcycles, of course, of course seemed way better um but he had so much um you know that he taught me and you know so i blew out my knee when i was young and he takes

me under his wing coach p you know he's a health and fitness instructor and we're at community college and he's just going around he's like okay this is what you have to do this is your body this is and i'm like uncle al man i why we've been out here for three hours we're doing this we're doing that or i felt like it was it was like wax on wax off i'm like this has nothing to do with me winning races and he goes okay he goes we're outside right now he's like yeah he goes look day's beautiful yeah he goes you are healing your body right now to be able to do what you love to do. So he goes, think of this, this moment that you're thinking is wasted and think of how to make it to where you can come

back with something that you didn't have before. And he just being an instructor and a teacher and someone that has a lot of life experience and a lot of stuff that he looked back on his life and said, man, if I just would have done this different or this different, I could have been more successful when you're so as an athlete, you're so narrow minded into what you're doing. So I felt like that was a really interesting way to look at life. And every time that I was like, oh, man, this is horrible. You know, I broke my ankle. I can't compete. He's like, well, yeah. Or you get to be back and, you know, hey, look, worst case scenario, you work in construction with your family.

My dad's always like, no, I never have him. He doesn't know enough, but you know, it's just that, that kind of common bond of like, look at the bright side. How old were you? Yeah. I blew up my knee. I was 12 years old. So a little young to be kind of his full philosophy, but yeah. Well think about it though. At age 12, you started to pivot your life towards the beginnings of it, maybe towards being an optimist and then also celebrating passion in anything that you're doing. And it started at age 12. Does that sound fair to say?

Sounds fair. Really, honestly, there was the... So I broke my back. Well, actually dislocated both SI joints, which basically your back comes in and just it shattered my hips. I woke up two weeks later, intensive care. I was in a wheelchair for three months and man, I have so much more respect for the people that have to be in a wheelchair. I have a lot of friends that have been, and it's a

different lifestyle. But for me, like I was very fortunate because, you know, my dad, as soon as I could get in the kayak, I couldn't walk. And, but I couldn't go very fast and, or anything, but I started learning how started learning how to kayak and started getting out and doing all this other stuff that really helped me to be more well-rounded in my training. I could do – when something got hurt, I could do other stuff. Wait, you're in a wheelchair and dad says, hey, you can sit, okay? Let's get you in a kayak? Yeah, not the brightest idea looking back on it physically. But mentally, I think it was always kind of the goal. Okay, okay. Hold on. What was it like growing up? Because I've heard rumors from mutual friends that we have. What's up, Alyssa Roenick? You know, but I've heard rumors about the way you grew up is unique. And I'm curious if you're going to raise your children in the same fashion or how you're adopting that. Well, I mean, so my granddad, uh, he was golden glove

boxer, um, for the Navy. Uh, so tough guy drank a lot, but taught all of his nine kids, all of, um, you know, the sports that they played. Um, so they were all, all American lacrosse and wrestling, all the tough sports, football, rugby. Um, I wasn't good at any of it. Um, I was, I'm six two and I'm not, not athletic, but I was definitely the least fit of the family. Um, you know, I got paired up by like with the younger female cousin whenever we played, uh, for Thanksgiving football or anything. But that upbringing just with all of those uncles and all of my cousins and all being very tough family, like, you know, for instance, my grandfather passed away and I was five years old and all my uncles live on the same street. They all work construction.

They don't go far enough out of town or across any bridges. They can't come back to my grandma, her house for lunch until she passed away at 93. She was still dancing everyone under the table and just, um, firecracker or a lady. But so it was all about family and they weren't the brightest crew, but they all, they got up, they went to work early. They got off work before their kids got off school. And every one of them was the coach of all their kids schools or whatever. We all lived on the same road was Elliot, which my grandma's maiden name. But when my grandpa passed away, even as close as they were. My dad said, hey, pop up, dad, I said, what's for work?

And they didn't take off work. They't that was that was it it's a very um like whatever life throws at you you're not really allowed to show that in our family which is is interesting but it's helped a lot um in racing because you could take someone knock you down someone whatever and every time i got knocked down on the track and i come back upset my dad would be like well you put yourself there because you can't be taken out you have to know the people around you you have to know their intentions. Think about you if you were them or, you know, if you were and just kind of this mentality that no matter what happens to you, you are somehow in control of that.

But even if you're not and it's completely out of your control, you're still in control of how you react. And that allowed me to kind of not have too many enemies along the way and not having enemies in racing is, is a really good thing. So, yeah. Sorry if that was the abstract. Oh, no, no, no. It's actually super concrete. Like it leads to an image in my mind of, and I want to ask how your dad did it, but at least to the image where you're like stomping off and I'm making this up from my imagination, but you just got taken out on a corner and you're kind of pissed off or stomping off or, or you get to the end of the race and

you know, you're, you're, you're upset that you got taken out in corner 14 or whatever it was. And, um, all that being said is I, I want to know how your dad delivered that message to you. You know, was it like, like matter of fact, or was it gentle? Was it overbearing? Like how, how? Cause the message is psychologically sound and brilliant. And it actually snaps to two theories. If you care about them, self-efficacy and self-determination. Yeah. So you've got two theories, self-efficacy, you know, which is efficacy is a fancy word. I don't even know what that word means. I know.

It's a weird word. And so one of the greatest psychologists of our era, Albert Bandora, he's like 90-some years old now, he coined it. And he's got a whole theory around it. You might really like it because I think it's important for kids. Your dad inherently knew it. But what efficacy is a fancy word for feeling powerful. And he was helping your self-efficacy. And he was also helping with locus of control, which is, Hey, know what's in your control. And your response is always 100% in your control. So both of those are inoculations

to anxiety, to fear, to stress, to frustration. They're inoculations to the stuff that hold us back. And so Pops gave you something really strong at an early age, but to the art of it, how did he share that with you? My dad was, he rarely got upset. You could make him upset by being lazy and by not showing respect. That was really his only two rules or guidelines. I mean, he was a drill sergeant in the Marine Corps, so he knew how to, he could make people cry in a second just with a look. Um, you know, they say once Marine, always Marine. Um, but what was interesting about that is, you know, I'd go racing and every other dad is yelling at their kids faster faster i was

racing justin buckaloo i was 7-11 class i can remember this clear's day we're going for the national championships and we're both riding so far over our heads and just about to crash and my dad had slowed down on the pit board and i remember because he's like you're gonna get hurt and his mentality was always dude i will support you and your mom will support you. You get good grades in school. You get good work ethic. You have fun. He goes, if you're not having fun, he goes, shoot, I sold my boat. I sold our boat. I sold my Harley. We got two mortgages on the house like we're doing this because I believe that this is going to teach character. But I don't want to see you risk the rest of your life because of it.

And from his brother, Alan, he's like, look, I saw him his whole life. Like he's a different person after the last concussion. And I didn't know him before. He's still he's awesome. And he's on top of stuff and he's great. My dad said, I don't want to see anything bad happen to you, but I want to see you push yourself. And if you say you're going to do something, I want to see you put everything you got into it. And he goes, if you put everything you got into it, I'll put everything I got into you.

But it was never about winning. This is why most of the other Pastranas never made it anywhere in sport because they couldn't focus on the long-term goal. Wow. But continue. Yeah, no. My hair standing up, that's how I measure success. Like daily success is how many times does my hair stand up on end? Because like there's a moment of awe. And so, you know, what you're describing right now is the classic trap is son, I double,

you don't know what I've done. I put a double mortgage. I sold, I sold, we're all in and you're going to hold back. Like, what are we doing? Don't you really want it? And whether it's explicitly or implicitly said, that creates so much tension, you know, and your dad demonstratively did the opposite, which is like, like, hey, I want you to be safe, but I want you to put everything into it as well. So there's an art in that that is, I guess it's an indication of his core values, right? Like I'm imagining, stop me if I'm wrong, that dad and your uncle were major forces in your core values. Yeah, no, all of my uncles, for sure, without a doubt. And yeah, family was a family was very big. Finding mastery is brought to you by momentous when it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why

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Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Grey is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to Felixixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. I want to hit this note, which is, what are your core values? What are the, what are the values that you hold dearest to you that are hopefully present in everything that you do? If you could hit like three of them, the core ones, what would those be?

Um, you know, off kind of off topic a little bit, but, um, accountability, I feel like has gotten me the furthest, like understanding what you can change instead of worrying about my bikes, not as good as it could, or they didn't do this, or I got unlucky here. It says, okay, what can I be accountable for? Um, and let me make sure that before I do anything else, like let, let me be accountable for that. Um, and I think that's something that that's been very helpful because a lot of times once you're doing your job, everyone else tends to do, there's a lot better around you. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Um, but my dad, this is one that he always put in me that I really think if you say you're going to do something, you do it. And that he always put in me that I really think if you say you're going to do something, you do it. And that's got me in more trouble. It's been my biggest success and my greatest failures. Cause a lot of times you say you're going to do something and you know, more physical, like for instance, I was 10 years old. I was at my hero's track. His name was Guy Cooper. And I told him I was walking by and I saw him and we're both on Suzuki and he's outside and autographs. And I'm like, I'm going to jump that jump at the time.

Like there's like two of the top 250 CC professional guys that do it. Like Kevin Windham's doing it. And that's pretty much it. And I'm on a, I have a one 10. So it's like a modified mini bike. And he's like, you can't make it. I was like, no, I'm going to do it. He's like, I'll be watching.

I was like, oh shit. All right, now I now i gotta do it and i was heading up that jump and i thought you know what i can't make it like i am physically not going fast enough it's about 120 feet and i'm gonna come up for it and on the last lap he said well that's the best run i'm gonna get and i hit it and i landed and it folded the whole front tire and it bent my forks and handlebars had two black eyes and my dad's like what the hell are you doing because we had a you know pretty much spent all our money to get there now the bike is completely broken in two and uh i was like literally blood bloody nose two black eyes like instantly swelled out like limping off the track and he's there like confused and doesn't know what's going on i'm like dad i told told guy

cooper i was i was gonna do the job because well that i'm one i'm proud of you for following through and two that that was just stupid so you know yeah you live and learn yeah good yeah um on that note like the things that you do not everybody lives like you freaking jumped out of a plane without a parachute you know and had some dude grab you and i know you got in a lot of trouble from it um from i'm assuming faa but maybe that's just part of the marketing i don't really know that but i read it somewhere as it turns out uh puerto rico is a territory of the u.s which kind of completely blew that one on the way down there i was like oh we'll go out of the country yeah sweet but yeah still kind of black blacklisted on the fa but yeah uspa every

we're all good we figured it out okay so you can still jump yeah you can still jump okay but but my point was that you do things where you can die, right? Like, uh, was it your first double black, the first double black Phillip, right? Like, was that, that was in the X games, right? And if I remember the story, Alyssa Roenick shared it with me that she was there and she's like, it was crazy. Cause people were saying, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. You're going to, you're going to kill yourself. Don't do it. How did you manage that? It's the first ever to do a double black flip. No one thought it was possible. Like, how did you manage that? Well, the interesting thing

was, um, you know, how do you overcome your fears? And that's, it's easy. It's practice. It's knowing every possible outcome that can happen. The scariest thing you could ever do is something you aren't prepared for. Um, but you know, for that, I'm like, okay, yeah, it's not ideal conditions. No, we didn't get the practice we needed. I'm eight for 10, but nine or 10 would, would be a broken neck or worse. But you're looking at that and you're saying, okay, if this was all you had, and that was your one event a year, but I was currently trying to transfer into rally. My all-time hero, I mean, like pretty much my god for rally cars was Colin McRae. And I am one-tenth of a second behind Colin after all the stages.

Literally, like shocked everybody, including myself, and have a chance to win the X games in cars. No one even knew I drove before we came in here. I mean, obviously I've been driving for years and really working at it, but for me, that's where I want to go. That's where my future is. So if you get hurt here and can't make it to the final stage, basically rally is done. They did it at X games where we did the, all the stages, like 100 miles of driving roads for times and it was one tenth of a second off. We went back and forth. It was so cool.

But that all happened before the X Games started. And then we had the X Games and the last event was going to be the final showdown where Colin and I and everybody else would go but all single, one at a time. And I had to beat Colin by a 10th of a second, which I was like, probably won't happen, but at least like you got

a shot to do this. Sorry for the long winded explanation, but this was just to put it in perspective. Like, this is where I'm going. This is what I want to do. I'm too hurt. I've already kind of dropped out of racing. Like freestyle is fun, but I love racing. I love challenging myself. Like I want to be a rally driver. I'm racing my biggest hero and I got a chance to beat him. And I'm over here doing a trick that doesn't need to be done. I'm sitting third overall in the competition, which is still like, I don't know, you get $15,000 check to just not do your last run. You still get a medal at the X games.

It's not a gold medal. It's, you know, so yeah, I kind of give that up. But I've got my best two events coming up with rally or with rally, which I'm sitting second and with freestyle motocross,

which are my babies. Do a good job in freestyle motocross and you're set for the rest of the year. And after all that and everything on the line, I'm still like,

you know what? I'm going to do it anyway because I think I can. And I would rather get hurt doing this than to not know if I could have. And it turned out to work out. Yeah, well, I want to get into that. But pause that because that's an important note. I learned that from all the years that I spent with Red Bull in the back country and doing projects and stuff that that thought right there is pervasive, which is, and there's a, there's an art to this as well, which is I'd rather get hurt and go for it

than walk away because of fear. But there's an art, which is no, if I'm too scared, if I have too much adrenaline or the conditions are too bad, then I am going to walk away because the conditions are not favorable enough and I don't have enough command of my mind. Right. Like, so that I want to hear, I want you to finish the story, but I also want to hear about how you manage adrenaline, how you manage your mind because, and maybe I'm wrong for you, but do you walk away if you have too much adrenaline or does that, do you love it? Like, are you an adrenaline junkie as many would imagine you are? So pause that second question and finish the story if you could. No, no, that was, that was the whole, the whole story was basically like you come down to everything you're, you're dreaming of, of accomplishing in the future is sitting right in front of you. And you're going to do something that could possibly jeopardize everything that really in the scheme of things doesn't make you any more money or anything different.

You do it because you believe it can be done and you believe you can do it. Okay, so let's go back to the top of the ramp. Let's intersect these two questions. You're at the top of the ramp. You've got somebody whispering in your ear, don't do it. It's not worth it. You know, like you hear somebody in the crowd saying you're going to kill yourself. I'm kind of being dramatic here.

But all of that. No, well, that was the hardest part was that my mom, every time she had to walk away because all the reporters kept going up to her saying your son could die tonight. How does that make you feel? And she was just breaking down crying. So I'm trying to console her and trying to make the decision. Do I do it? Do I not do it? And I think the reason everyone's telling me not to do it is because there's so much, I just, everything that I made in racing, I'd put into being a car driver. I'd put back into myself.

You put back into this one opportunity that's sitting right in front of you. And do you throw that down the drain for pride? Because you believe you can. Because you believe you can do the double. For me, yes. So how did you manage your mind in that moment? Let's go one to 10 scale. 10 is like, I got way too much adrenaline. A five is the sweet spot. Where were you on that adrenaline scale? Now, the problem for me is not when I have too much is when I don't have enough adrenaline. Okay. Um, you know, like Eckhart Tolle and everybody, I was kind of interested this, you know, people that say you can sit on a, um, you know, a park bench and you can slow down time. I can never do that. But every time that I've been in a car crash,

which sounds bad, that's been a lot, or a motorcycle crash, or every time you feel like you could possibly die, time, I don't know that it necessarily stands still, but your senses and your reactions get so much faster and so much more clear. The smells of, I dropped in for the double backflip and i once you for me making the decision is the scary part after that it's just making the best out of whatever happens to hurt

the least so no matter how bad it's going it's never oh shit this isn't where i expected to be it's how can i make this situation the least bad or the best if you know depending half glass full or half empty but i dropped in and i've never had where slow motion kicked in before anything bad happened i hit the bottom of that ramp and literally i'm coming up to it and everything i could tell you who was sitting where in the crowd the smells the sound the sound, the feeling, the, the everything just stopped for me. And I just smiled and I was like, all right, that's a 10 of 10 on the fear factor. And that has slowed down everything enough that I know I'm going to get this just right. I'm going to get the snap just right. I'm going to get the pull. And if I don't,

I'm going to make do, I'm going to do the best. I'm not going to, the pull and if i don't i'm going to make do i'm going to do the best i'm not going to the worst thing you can do in that situation is to panic and just lock up and i think that's the difference between um you know the guys that make it and even the nfl or any contact sport um or racing it's not that you're able to make better decisions. It's that you're able to make decisions when most people lock up. And that's a pretty cool. You're describing, you know, the science and the experience of flow state, obviously the zone as athletes call it, but you're also describing the ability to make micro decisions to be able to adjust. And when you're in that state, the micro decisions become more obvious, you know, like a little tweak here, a little bend here, a little whatever. And then those actually allow

you to complete this radical task in the face of consequence. So how often do you get to that state to that? Let's call it flow state. Well, I should ask, ask, ask you that question. If you talk about flow state and you talk about this, have you ever, like, have you ever gotten to the point? Like, and can you do this for me? I, my biggest question is can you do this without the adrenaline? I haven't been able to do what so many people say they can, but you experienced it. Yeah. So one of the preconditions to get into flow state is challenge slash risk. So some sort of consequence increases the likelihood of flow state, but it also increases the likelihood of getting punched out because of fear. So there's like this small little window to enter. If your mind gets too away from the moment,

meaning you're thinking about what if, what if, what if, what if, then you miss that window because to capture that window, your mind and your body have to be in the same place, which is like your mind's focused on what you're doing is basically what it is. And your skill has to be high, you know, in the world that we're talking about. Now take, take that out. It is possible to get into flow state with, with the mundane. And so the mundane, uh, even though there's no challenge or risk, and it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, there's a complete absorption in the mundane, but that's the purpose is to get locked into the mundane. And that's harder for me too. And so the transcendental folks, they'll say, uh, they'll say, no, no,

what you're talking about is mindfulness. You're talking about being mindful, being present. And that can happen the 18 hours that you're awake. That can happen. And so there's a little slight difference. What you and I are talking about is flow state, the zone, which requires risk and challenge for the most part. So, you know, I can share like there's high flow and low flow. So for me, high flow, like about 25, 30% of my time, I can get into it.

The rest is somewhere between low flow and kind of a mess, you know, like somewhere down. Right. And so that, that's how it breaks down for me, but I really don't want to taint your answer. Like what percentage of the time do you find yourself into that high flow state? Um, very little. And that's, what's so unique about when people say I have to be able to, um, to ride my bicycle, my motorcycle, my skateboard, I have to be able to play to whatever it is that they do. Um, because that sets the mood and the feeling that you're going to carry for the rest of that day. So what's been really

interesting is with nitro circus. Um, you see some guys that need to not think about stuff. They know if they think about it, they get too worked up. They're going to pull too hard. They can do something wrong. So they just, they get on the bike and they just do it and some people can some people need to sit there and visualize it and visualize it if they can't visualize it my cousin greg as soon as he could visualize himself doing it he could he could do stuff that was so far beyond what anyone else and he would try to explain it and i'm like it defies physics like nothing makes sense but it but it made sense. And then the same thing, if it didn't make sense in his head, he could never do it. Whereas some people can just repeat and repeat and repeat. So I find it interesting that everyone has a different way that they do something.

But to get back to flow state a little bit, and this was more just fear and panic. But it was interesting because I crashed the car and it straight away going about 120. We knew we were going to crash for a long time before we ended up crashing. Starts flipping and friend or just rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling on. And when the window broke out and then did my – I dropped my – so he's saying this to me. So we're both in the car. He goes, yeah, the G forces were so strong after the fourth flip that when we hit, I dropped my notes. And he's like, yeah, then the notes. I'm like, yeah, then they came flying out of my window because my window just broke. He's like, yeah, but I thought it stopped. I'm like, I did too.

That's why I asked. I was like, are you alive? And then we hit three more times because we were disoriented on the roll and it was so loud and obnoxious. And then we went and we were in the air still rolling, but it was quiet. Um, so we thought it was done. And then we rolled three more times and we're like, Oh yeah, I think it was like, I was like seven or eight flips. And the guys were like, Oh, there's no way you guys saw that happen. Like that happened like that. And they had the in car and it happened exactly

to a T as we described, but you would have to, the way we described that second and a half was like, there was 30 seconds of information that came in, which was pretty neat. Finding master is brought to you by cozy earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature.

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that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. So I don't want to beg this question, but what are you chasing? Because you might not be chasing anything. You know, what are you searching for? What are you hunting for? I don't want to put the wrong word in there for you, but what are you, what are you chasing? Because you might not be chasing anything. You know, what are you searching for? What are you hunting for? I don't want to put the wrong word in there for you, but what are you, what are you chasing? Nothing. I'm chasing, I guess that is something I'm chasing that these are the good old days that we're living right now. I'm chasing to not lose that um and it changes risk reward changes my job

is analyzing risk and deciding what's worth it now does the risk change when you're 16 years old and you need to make a name for yourself and you don't have a dime in the bank you know if you don't make this jump or win this race that you're not going to have the money to make you the next one or you've won 10 championships you have two kids at home that race isn't going to mean anything um as far as your overall like how most people would judge success or what you're doing um but it doesn't matter to you and if i can keep whatever i'm doing whether it's editing whether it's um helping provide you know safety kind of back to the question that you had the beginning my job now is to make sure that my friends, my wife, my kids don't die doing this stuff.

From the mistakes that we've made, how can we make these sports safer? How can we make them more exciting? Because it's not gymnastics. If we're pointing our toes and doing the exact same thing, these sports will die. Not racing will always live um but freestyle action sports skateboarding uh bmx that kind of stuff snowboarding um you know with the tricks and stuff you have to keep progressing but in order to get progress you have to up the safety for instance uh josh sheehan comes to the house and after four years of me trying to do a triple backflip and you know since 2006 when you land the double, the first question, well, what's next? When are you going to do a triple?

Like, all right, well, let's work on it. And Josh Sheehan finally got a ramp that's 44 foot tall and he's going over 100 feet off the ground into a landing bag where he's knocked himself out and he's actually pissing blood for two days on an airbag. And I'm like, well, what's going to happen if he does panic? What's going to happen if the pull isn't just right? He's 100 feet. The landing is 60 foot tall. But even if he comes up short on that, he's going to fall back down to the ground. Like this is – we can't physically – that's too much risk.

The reward is just to prove you can do it. And the risk is too high. So we developed an airbag that's an airbag that we could put on the landing so he could do it to the actual landing over and over and over again. And then it just took two hours to move the bag and the landings in the exact same spot in the exact same angle that it was with the airbag. And that just gave that little extra confidence to know that there's no doubt in his mind that he was 10 for 10 this is going to work i just gotta you know obviously there's still a lot of risk there and yes could have still done a horribly run could have died easily but it's to make it as safe as he possibly can along the way and right now with nitro circus and the company there and you know with red bull and so many great sponsors yeah there's a lot of conflict a lot of

overlap it's it's walking a fine line between who does what and who has the rights to what um you know how to pay so and so for doing what but most of the guys in nitro circus it's not about the money it's about the experience it's about being able to push the limits and prove not to anyone else but to yourself that you can in that moment, do what you know you can do and make the impossible become a reality. And that, it sounds so cliche, but that's my job now is not to be that guy. My job is to make sure that that guy, not me pushing him to do it, but that guy that comes to me that says, I'm going to do it anyway. And I say, okay, if you're going to do it anyway, how can we do it the safest?

How can we give you the best chance to not hurt yourself? And it doesn't always work. Okay. So I would have said 10 years ago, I would have bet a lot of money that you approached your craft in life as a risk taker. And now what I'm hearing kind of as the wise man, I'm kind of, I'm surprised I'm hearing this from you, but like we all, this is your growth arc, you know, and I think it's super healthy, but tell me if I'm wrong, but you're now maybe mitigating risk. So is that a fair framework or? No, I think my job was always to mitigate risk. That's what's interesting. Everyone says you have to be crazy to be an action sports guy, but the end of the day the crazy ones never get good enough

to be they get hurt too fast to be good they never become great all the top guys yeah they had a tick about them they had something they were almost everyone on tour you know or we're, we're ADHD. We, um, it was interesting, uh, cause, uh, basically being somewhat diagnosed with a lot of different stuff that we're going through, um, now, but, um, narcoleptic, I can fall asleep on a dime. Um, and I have tendencies towards mania, which is a maniac, not something you're typically should be proud of or anything. And not something that, um, you know, I'm necessarily think that I am it's, but this state of just wanting to make, make something work no matter what, and kind of figuring out, um, you know, being a little too focused on some stuff that most people would say is trivial.

But it's been a really interesting kind of dynamic because between my my parents and how they brought me up, you know, and given so many opportunities through sport and Red Bull and working on stuff, you can be this person that's so involved and take stuff so far. I mean, you can see most of the guys on Nitro. It's not that they weren't smart, but they might not have been the smartest in class or they didn't do team sports, not because they weren't the best athlete, but because they liked trial and error. They don't like someone telling them and they will sit on the trampoline by themselves with nothing going on, just hours and hours and hours and almost not say autistic, but that, you know, there has been a lot of phenomenal, like autistic athletes and, you know, or Allsburgers or whatever, whatever that just something that gives them when other people say, this is something that that's hindering you.

Yes. But it's also giving you something else that no one else might think of. It's giving you a different approach to things. Um, so for me being like having this, I like narcoleptic, basically I can fall asleep within, if I lay down there, I'd be asleep in 15 to 20 seconds and i can just turn off um no matter how stressful anything is so that's nice um but then kind of that mania side i can't focus and override that yeah right it's kind of nice too yeah so i mean i don't necessarily agree with all the psychological examinations that between red bull and the head stuff they had me go through. But it is interesting to see what they find out or think they find out. Okay. Yeah. I remember

you did some, this was maybe like 15 years ago when I was spending some time with them and we're, we're heavy on brain performance. Do you remember that? We're looking at the electrical patterns and all that. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. Yeah. You were there. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. Now it all comes, it's all coming together. I'm were there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, do you remember? That was you. All right, now it's all coming together. I'm so sorry. All right. It took me only, what, two hours to put that together? Yeah, no, no.

Well, I was like a second cousin to the brain work. Like it was myself and Leslie Sherlin. But I was part of that time when we were doing those things. It was pretty fun. Like we were learning as we were going because nobody had measured your population, you know? So, and it was different. Your population is different for many of the reasons you just described. All that being said, let's go back to risk. So, so there's five different types of risk. There's physical risk, there's emotional risk, there's financial risk and moral risk. So do you like if you thought about risk on those five factors, are you are you high on them?

Are you low on them or is it scattered? That's interesting. I think if you break everything down for me and risk, it's what you're willing to live with and not what other people are going to judge you. It's more responsibility to my wife, my best friends, and my business colleagues. Obviously, there's something that you hold a responsibility to them. And I take advice from my parents to say, hey, you're getting out of line here, out of line there. But what I hear on the internet, what people tell tell or say about me, what they think about me doesn't really have any bearing on my decisions for risk. So if you look at that and you say, OK, public speaking, well, were you scared? What's the worst that could happen? A trip on the way up the steps? Everyone laughs, has a good time. That sounds all right. Like there's no there's no real risk there. And that's, you know, what I'm trying to teach with my kids now is they're not afraid of so much.

They should be. And you're like, do you understand that this and this could happen? This is a possibility. You have to think outside of what has happened and think of what could happen. But also, you're so scared of X, Y, and Z. My youngest daughter's afraid of heights. We're over an airbag. And you think, what? You're going to jump. Why are you afraid we're going up? And actually, it's funny, my friend Jim DeChambe, he was so afraid of heights, but he would go skydiving. So we're getting out of the helicopter. We're over our drop zone. And we're climbing down to hang, so we can hang next to each other and we can do the count and he is petrified and you should see him he takes 20 minutes climbing down we probably spent an extra hundred dollars in gasoline for him to get out of the helicopter to climb down

to hang on this rail and i'm like hanging there i'm like what are you doing he's like ah i might fall you have a parachute who cares? But it's that people are innately afraid of things. And most people are either innately not afraid of anything or they're afraid of everything. And they can't justify their fear. My job in everything that I've done. And to get back to your initial question is what do you take risk on? Is it moral? Is it physical? Is it emotional? I'm just not afraid of what other people will think. Um, I know who I owe my moral guidelines to. And as long as we're on the same page, as far as that goes like that and my kids and what do you expect? Like, I think maybe I simplify my life way too much um

but there's just not a lot of things that bother me oh man the flight got canceled okay well that's out of our control so what are we going to do we're going to drive we're going to like just in general my wife always says sorry to go on another tangent but like we were stuck somewhere we were out we're probably going to miss our practice and whatever was going to happen. I was like, it will all work out. She says, you just think everything works out. I'm like, well, we don't have a choice and everything does work out. Well, not how we want it.

Well, give or take. Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. Okay. It will work out. And you know, at the end of the day, it will work out. So that sounds like that's one of your core philosophies, So it'll work out. And you know, at the end of the day, it will work out. So that, that is sounds like that's one of your core philosophies that it'll work out.

Yeah. I mean, do everything you can that's in your, within your ability. And I'd also say that you're probably highly skilled at risk, meaning that you understand it, you understand your mind, your body, your craft, you understand the environment. You can map those against the consequences potentially that could take place and that you're able to like fine tune decision making. It sounds like you're highly skilled at risk, but you're not burdened with the same perceived risks that many people have, which is the risk of what other people might think of you. Well, I think perceived risks in general, there's so many perceived risks that that aren't accurate

and i said well you know how could you know like we were jumping from one building to another building um we were on the top of uh um it was one was 64 stories tall and the other one was 62 stories tall um and we had a ramp that we had built and we're all on the top and we're like can we make it i'm, we should drop in here. We should be good. And my cousin was like, but how do you know? I'm like, well, this ramp is similar to that. And that's similar. But if it doesn't work, I'm like, right. But if it doesn't work, it's always going to suck. Like if you come up short on a hundred, you know, like it's yeah. Okay. This one, you're going to pull, you know, you're going to have a long time to think about

your death. You're going to break your wrist if you mess it up anyway. Are you not afraid of death? That is not one of your fears of dying? Of course. But I'm not going to be too afraid to live. There you go. Thinking about stuff. But here's an interesting point.

My friend Andy Bell, redneck Canadian. This guy, he's good at everything, not great at anything. But he has an innate ability to stay alive. He's that one person that no matter what happens, I would be in a car with with him, no matter what was going on, because he has only self-preservation but an understanding of what his abilities are and what the consequences are so even if he's going to crash he's going to make that the least bad he's not going to make a decision that's going to be worse than anything else that he could have done and um you know it's funny because we're not funny at all but um it's magical and it's one it's it really so one of my friends phil um he went for a world record on on a razor and this was something that i was like or side by side um and he was such a good athlete and good all around and understood jumping didn't

have nearly enough experience in in that looking back on it one of my my biggest um mistakes biggest regrets in life was to say yeah yeah this is this will work um but it's because most of the people that myself and the people that i'm around like andy bell you come at a jump and you say okay what are my guidelines okay if i go off the side of the jump, this could be bad, but if I go too fast or too slow, that's my main focus. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure that I'm within three miles an hour, no matter what, even if I miss the ramp, cause I'm looking at my speedometer, that's my goal. Um, or when people get nervous, they tend to, they focus in and, um, you know, it's one of those things that you have to understand that not everyone is built like Andy Bell is built.

Not everyone is built like I'm built. Like even if they're amazing at what they do, maybe it's because they have so much practice at what they do that the muscle memory takes over. When they get scared, they can come out of what they're doing because they have repetition. Where I can put, I shouldn't say I can put Andy Bell can be in any situation and he is going to have that situation for his ability level. It's going to come out really, really well, at least as far as physical injury or that kind of stuff. Whereas some people just can't analyze what the worst is going to be and make those decisions. So it's, it's interesting how people. And myself, especially now being in this position where people trust my opinion,

when I say, yeah, you can do it, you have to understand, yes, physically, you can do it, or mentally and physically, are you going to be able to do that? And if it goes wrong, are you going to have the mental capacity and the, um, the information that you need as a human to, to make it out of that? Okay. And I can't answer those questions. And I have too often in the past answered those questions on, can you do it? Yes. Hit this number, do that, do that. Your skillset, you'll be fine, but that's not always the case what was the regret so my friend phil um was basically trying to go for the world record on a side by side which is um you know like an off-road buggy and i jumped the jump first not quite to the world record distance but

had the the speeds and uh he didn't have the amount of time in, in one of those buggies, but you say, okay, well, if he hits the speed, right. You know, worst case scenario, it might roll a landing. We've got a really good roll cage, good suspension be okay. Um, and he went for the jump and it was just outside of his comfort zone. Um, he was good with it. He was excited, but when it pushed, came to shove and stuff started going wrong the panic overcame and Phil's a guy that he works mostly on trials which is is real technical and he's really good at at figuring things out that he has a lot of repetition on and he's one of those guys that practices a lot he's over and over and over again he's not a one of those guys

who just sends it and then makes it work and I guess it was really eye-opener for me to see how everything one thing that went wrong added to another went to another went to another and um i met a back later and um you know he couldn't he lost all his feeling he was completely paralyzed he said you'll never ride again walk again you'll never ride again, walk again, you'll never write again. And then because of his positive attitude, um, he's able to come back and, and he's taken this and he's been so much a bigger inspiration with this than he could have probably ever been before.

Um, that's his choice. And that's something that he's been able to, to do. And, you know, he's working on backflips again on a dirt bike. He'll never be at the same level he was. He had to switch riding with a different hand with just where the injury was. And it's one of the, it's probably the he didn't want to do it. Uh, but it was interesting for me to understand that I shouldn't say interesting. It was a horrible, uh, for me to, to realize that

it's not, if someone can do it or if someone wants to do it, um, but also understanding, um, when stuff goes wrong, are they going to be able to adapt to that? And that's something that I can't answer. That's something that you would be a lot better at judging. That's probably, you know, Red Bull would have you along on, on that. And I'm sure they did a lot of those times to say, you know, and that's why I feel like we did so many tests at Red Bull. They wanted to know what their athletes were capable of. They wanted to know when those bad situations happened, are they going to, um, come through? And they did a lot of physical and mental training and it was a really, and then with you guys, everyone helped us understand how to improve on the areas that were weak. Um, but with that, you just realize that

people aren't all the same and just because you can do something and want to do something doesn't mean that you were mentally capable of doing it. Thank you for sharing. Sorry. No, because that's a heavy phase in life that you went through. And it sounds like the resilience that both of you have sorted out is one of the cornerstones. And so if resilience is the ability to deal with hard things, difficult things, do you have a sense, like if I knew what you knew or our communities knew what you knew about dealing with hard things, how would you tell them to go about dealing with difficult information or difficult experiences that are ridiculously, maybe even catastrophic,

like, or potentially catastrophic? How would you teach resiliency? You know, it's interesting. I feel like the human, um, humans in general are able to deal with, with really, really bad things. Everyone that I've noticed, um, you know, when, when, when shit hits the fan, they're able to, if they have control over what they can help, they, they generally, they take control and it written can help they generally they take control in a really positive way um the hard part is when they don't have anything and that's what i find in normal life most people let when there's nothing that should be bothering someone that's

when they're bothered the most and i feel like that's when i feel like the most alienated just me personally because no one can relate to why that's a problem. And a lot of like racers and stuff like, dude, you get to drive a million dollar race car as fast as you want to go. And you're depressed because you got fourth. You know, it's something that other people can't relate to that mentality of that. So it's, it's interesting, but, um, I feel like humans are, maybe tell me what you think, but really resilient on dealing with problems. Um, when they feel like they can be a part of controlling the outcome and it's, it's, it's big, they can do it.

Yeah. I think you're right on the money from the research perspective is that, um, there's three C's that are important. And this is out of the research on hardiness. So being, you know, being tough enough, if you will, to do difficult things. So it's commitment. So they stay committed to the vision that they hold. They run to the challenges, like they're not afraid of them, that like they understand that challenges are really important. And the third is control is that they are working on mastering or controlling what's in their control, which is your thoughts, basically, and your behaviors, you know, those two, which it's not easy. None of that's easy, you know, but it's a fundamental approach to life. It's not like you just kind of hang it on a

bookshelf somewhere and read it. Like you have to practice these things. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Listen, I want to talk about nitro circus because you've built this amazing career, um, about being transcending your sports. And I know you won't say that. Um, but I want to say it, um, for my community, like in my mind, you've transcended your sport, not in the ego way, but because you keep, you've kept a progressive approach about yourself. You've been incredibly physically and technically sound and your mental skills, all of those three wrapped together, you have kind of pushed and transcended a sport. And it's amazing. That being said, you've created a business as well, Nitro Circus. And so can you just describe it where

people could watch how they can support you, how they can be part of it. If they're, you know, just describe that. And you built, this is a big business now. This is not some little rinky dink thing. And I don't know how many partners you have. I don't know where you are in the business structure, but just give a quick pass at it and how people can follow along. Yeah. So Nitro Circus started out with a group of friends, basically just having fun, filming some stuff.

Every time I'd get hurt, I'd build some jumps and film. And we got picked up on MTV when Evel Knievel passed away. Johnny Knoxville called up and said, hey, we're doing a 24-hour takeover of MTV. What can you do? And I wrote him a 20-page list. He said, gave me a call. He's like, can you do any of this? I said, I don't know if we can do any of it we'll

try it all it's good enough for me and um got a show on mtv then we got a live guy um in australia they were having some trouble with uh they had an action sports tour and they said man these guys are just they're destroying everything it's a bad image for action sports it's a bad image for you know we're not getting the kids involved that we want to get. Um, so Nitro Circus is kind of based on, it was, um, a Mormon, Greg Godfrey. Um, you know, no drinking, no swearing, no, like everything was, uh, it was real, real clean cut. Um, still, still is, but he was definitely, um, really good to keep us on that route when all of action sports was going a different direction. Um, so we got picked up by this, uh, this awesome Torrigan company and was able to go around the world and picked up more and more like-minded people from all over the world, um, that really just wanted to have fun, to innovate, to progress.

Um, met my wife on Torrigan. She was the only girl in the world that would go down the ramp that we had and we hit it off. I just um really really cool life situation and you know for me right now my biggest focus with nitro is uh world games which is taking all the stuff that we learned with ramp safety and innovation how to make it bigger and crazier but also keep the riders um healthy from night to night doing shows in different places um and bringing that into a world championship of big air it's pretty much the big air of action sports you don't see the biggest craziest tricks that no one's done before um in the safest way possible um the world games is is the place that

where everything new happens really and that's it's an honor and something that's it's been really awesome it's a event built by the riders for the riders and the ramps change every year it's not like you know x games or olymp Olympics are really great about what they do, but they, they make everything exactly the same. So everyone has a fair shot of practicing. Well, fair, not fair. We want the best guys to do the biggest tricks. And if you have something new, we have a qualifying system that anyone could get in. So it's not invite only, which is really cool. It feels like a big family. But for me, with that innovation has been turning rallycross, which started out awesome. And it came over and one guy got hurt on a jump that wasn't built correctly. And they took

jumps out of it. So rallycross, for those that don't know, is basically motocross with a roll cage. It's racing cars, six, eight, ten cars on a track at once um and you're just basically doing huge jumps and caledonia bank right turns and left turns um it'd be like bristol motor speedway with nascar except for you got huge jumps and dirt and burns in the middle and that's basically like every kid's video game or uh erector set they've ever built for uh for for playing with uh their toy cars but we get to. Uh, these cars do zero to 60 in a two point or 1.8 seconds. Uh, so they're faster than any street car on the road. And, uh, it's just so much fun. So my goal was to build this back up where rally cross could be as big in as safe as possible. Um possible and exciting as possible for the fans to watch.

You are a legend, a great business person, a progressive human in the field of potential, like you're on the frontier of human potential. And this is like, get a couple of final questions here. One is, if you imagine the next generation thriving, what would be the two things that you would hope they get right? And then if you could double click, what would be the two skills that they would need to practice to get that right? So the first part is like, what do you hope they get right? The next generation.

The next generation of action sports? Are we going broad? Yeah, we're going broad. We're going humans. I see you on the frontier of human performance, not in the lane of action sports or are we going broad or? Yeah, we're going broad. We're going humans. Like I see you on the frontier of human performance, not, not in the lane of action sports. Like, like you're, you're showing us what's possible. So go big and broad the next generation. What are the, the two things that you hope they get right? And what would be the skills that sit underneath of it that they could practice? Um, well for me, I mean, I make a living on social media now and i understand the importance of it

and i see how great it is that you can be connected um but i also see how distances and it's putting in people and um making everyone really feel like the fact that they don't have what someone else has or you know the um the entitlement uh and i know our our father said it about us and their father said it about them, but I feel like every generation gets more entitled. We see more of the amazing stuff that goes around. But even if you look at our videos that we make, we don't show the 10,000 failures, the Thomas Edison's of the light bulb world. You know, we show the successes and they think, oh, well, it just comes natural to these guys when it doesn't. So if they could get anything

right, um, I would hope the next generation understands that nothing comes easy. Um, and that you have to be appreciative for what you have, because we have more than any generations ever had before us and our kids will have more than we had. Um, but if we don't appreciate it uh you know i see it in my kids all the time where if one kid gets something a little more than the other kid get it doesn't it doesn't matter what what addy has or what bristol has but the other one has more than they all of a sudden feel gypped um and for me i i think i say this way too often addy always my oldest is she always looks at me.

She's like, I know, Dad, the world's not fair. I'm like, it's not. You got to make it what you can. So that was a very long-winded one thing. But I think, if anything, it's to appreciate what you have and not feel entitled because we're given a lot of opportunity to make anything out of anyone. People say, how do you get picked up on Nitro Circus? I said, you got a phone, right? Do something that no one else has ever done. We'll give you a call. Okay. We don't need a second one. I love that. Like,

yeah, put in the hard yards basically. Right. Like it's not easy. Put in the hard yards. Thank you for saying that better. Yeah. No, no, I'm right there with you. Yeah. Work hard, you know, but, and then the skill underneath of it is like, put it, put in the, put in the work where you're going to make mistakes and you're going to learn from those mistakes and stay true to the idea that you hold to be possible. How about it? Is that close? That's really close. I feel like my biggest success is that I'm, I'm not afraid to fail. And Evo Knievel actually said that. He said, you're not a failure until you fail to get back up.

And I took that one step further in that the only way to fail is to never know if you could have made it. I mean, that's not a quote, but that's a thought. That's awesome. Okay. If you were to sit down with a master, someone who's a master of craft and you had one question to ask them and they don't have to be master of craft, but just a true master of self slash craft, wherever you go with that, what would be that one question that you would want to ask them? And then obviously maybe who is that person that you're asking the question of? The question would be, do you still enjoy the journey?

Because if they're still in it and they're still a master of it, I would assume from my experience that they enjoy the process. You're probably never going to win the Tour de France if you don't like spending millions of hours on your bicycle and pedaling, even when everything hurts and you're sore and you're miserable. But people actually enjoy that um for whatever reason some people enjoy whatever but for me um you know i enjoy the the journey and i would want to know is that the way to success or was I just lucky? That's really cool. And if you did, if you added a word, the process of like some people would put at the end of

that, the process of winning, the process of being the best, the process of being my best, the process of growing, figuring out like what is your, the process of what for you? It could be anything for me. I enjoyed the process of challenging myself. I enjoyed the process of figuring out if I had what it took to process of trying to be the best that I could be. And I never had that put on me that it had to be the best of anyone else.

I never expected to make it. I just wanted to know. I loved waking up in the morning and saying, how can I be better at? And that's why for me, it's changed. How can I be better at for a while is racing motorcycles. How can I be better at doing freestyle? How can I be better at driving a car? How can I be a better husband and father is kind of where the process is now where you wake up and you're like, okay, this is a challenge, you know, and it's not easy. God. Okay. Last question. And then I'm going to ask where people can follow you and track. How do you define or think about or articulate this concept of mastery?

I think for any buddy that I know that's mastered anything is that they would agree. They're not a master of what they do. And I feel like the second you feel like you are the best, someone that you've never heard of does something that you've never thought of. So I guess it's a constant process and it's always evolving. Epic, epic. And then I didn't ask you who, who was the person that came to your mind that you'd So I guess it's a constant process and it's always evolving. Epic. Epic. And then I didn't ask you who, who was the person that came to your mind that you'd like to sit down and have that one question with?

Um, dead or alive, dead or alive. It doesn't matter. That's the thing. So alive would definitely be Matt Hoffman. Um, someone that me too. Yeah. Yeah. Matt is unbelievable.

Like I've, I met Matt for the first time at your first, the first one I was part of, the Evo Live One. Yes. He is a truly extraordinary human being. What a legend. He took the most risk when there was nothing to be gained out of bicycling and yet found a way to figure to to make a living and still making a living in the sport, even though his body is completely destroyed. It's a guy that wouldn't give up. He wouldn't wouldn't have traded a moment for it, which is pretty cool. And I guess Shane McConkie would have been the one person that I always looked up to that I never had a chance to. He just he was what I based so much of my life around. would have been the one person that I always looked up to that I never had a chance to, um, he just, he was what I based so much of my life around and it scares me that,

that he passed away doing what he loved to do. Um, and you wonder the mindset there as well, like was like Eric Rohner, when he passed away, um, was taking less risk and he passed away doing something that should have been so easy. Um, and, and, and same with Shane was, was a gnarly thing, but in, in the world of Shane McConkie, that should have been simple. So is it that they backed down doing the crazy stuff and then they lost focus and passion and what they were doing because it wasn't challenging enough? I, you know what I mean? It'd be hard to ask someone after they died this question, but that's, I, if I could ask anyone, any question that are alive, I would ask him now that question.

Oh man. He, um, yeah, he was, uh, uh, he took up space for me too. I never met him. I didn't know him, but I will tell you every time. So I ski Whistler bunch and McConkie's run. I think McConkie's run is probably on every Hill at this point, but, um, just the run scares me, you know, but the way he lived his life inspires me, scares me too, you know? And so I love that you hold him in your consciousness too, you know? So listen, I, Travis, thank you. Thank you for the conversation. Your authenticity. Really appreciate your time. Yeah. I mean, incredible. Where can people find you? What's the best way to connect with you? You know what? Everyone says, how do I, how do I know anything about you? People know more online about me than, than I know about myself, but go to nitrocircus.com. Honestly, we just, we have such a rad crew there. That's always pushing, um, and just a lot of cool events

to check out. So if you guys ever have a chance to do that, check out nitro circus, check out nitro world games. If you want to see the craziest stuff done in what we hope to be the safest way possible, that's where to see it. Oh, that's awesome. And then what is your social handle? Is it at Travis Pastrana? Yep. At T R a V I S P A S-S-P-A-S-T-R-A-N-A. There you go. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Really appreciate it. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday.

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