The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Extreme Entrepreneurs: Steve Jobs and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emerick Phd

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Extreme Entrepreneurs: Steve Jobs and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emerick Phd https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Entrepreneurs-Steve-Jesus-Christ/dp/197090125X Authortracyemerick.com The book explores the soul and how it projects to others. Two examples, Steve Jobs and Jesus Christ, are examined for what each did as an “extreme entrepreneur,” to provide a position that has changed and will continue to change humankind. In his words, Steve Jobs provided technology that provide a “bicycle for the mind,” putting complex technology in the hands of the non-technical masses. Jesus Christ converted living in fear to living in love as a way to tap the God within each of us. About the author Tracy is a retired business owner who spent over two decades executing, consulting and training in database marketing. He served one decade as a state representative and over two decades on the town’s planning board. He has been the moderator of his Congregational church for almost four decades. He has two children and five grandchildren. Just a citizen seeking to make the world a better place.

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for tuning in. amazing young man we're going to be talking to here on the show with his insights and some of the books he's written. He's a multi-book author and we're going to get into it with the book he has entitled Extreme Entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emrick. And he's a doctorate as well. So we're going to get into with him and his experience and knowledge and what he's put into it. Tracy is a retired business owner who spent over two decades executing, consulting, and training in database marketing. He served one decade. as a state representative over two decades on the town's planning board.

He's been a moderator of the congregational church for almost four decades. He has two children and five grandchildren, just a citizen seeking to make the world a better place. Welcome to the show. Tracy, how are you, sir? Very well. Thank you. How are you? Thank you. I am excellent to have you on the show. It's been wonderful to talk to you prior. Give us your dot-coms. Where can people find out more about you on the interwhips? Tracy Emrick, Ph.D.com. Also, author tracyemrick.com.

And then I tried the podcast game, and that's called the Leadership Frontier.com. There you go. Leadership Frontier. I love that title. So give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside this particular book. Well, that was my first book, and I wrote it. I wrote it from my son. in-law. My son-in-law is an agnostic. And so I, whenever organized religion came up, he was very uninterested in talking. So what I decided to do was, he's an avid Apple products user. And so what I decided to do was, it came to me to make a comparison with Steve Jobs as extreme entrepreneur, who really has changed humankind. And also then, Jesus Christ,

Christ as an extreme entrepreneur has certainly changed human kind. So I wrote the book, published it, gave him a copy. I don't know if he's read it, but it's kind of a touchy subject, no pun intended, because he's married to my daughter. So, you know, I don't want to get him off the rails. But the idea behind the book was giving a transition to talk about, the discussion to talk about to see. my problem, his problem, and a lot of our problems, is religion today, called organized religion,

is something that's over there. You go over there to do it. And so what I tried to portray in the book is that it's not over there, it's in here. We have God within us. We just have to listen and pay attention, and we get help. We don't know we're getting help sometimes, but we get help from God. and that's what I wanted him to understand. Well, I'm still working on that.

It's been probably seven years. I'll keep at it. I'll keep at it. There you go. But I thought the two personalities in the book, you know, both, well, Steve Jobs said he wanted to put a dent in the universe. And I think he did. Oh, yeah.

Because what he did was he put a front end on technology. you know, for people like me who, you know, I tried coding and it's like, oh, forget this. You and me. And so once I got into the world of point and click and drag and drop and all that kind of stuff, it opened up technology. I was in database consulting under old technology, and I couldn't even use the tools that I was talking about. Once the front end turned into, you know, icons and stuff,

then I could even set up a database. So he really changed the use of technology and humankind. There you go. Change the use of technology and humankind. You know, I mean, I think it's, I sometimes shudder to think what our role would be without Steve Jobs' contributions. It, you know, I mean, without him, I wouldn't have a successful podcast. Podcasting started out doing really well.

and then it kind of seemed to fade and fart a little bit. We took it like a year or two off and back in the 2010s. And we're like, well, you know, it seems like YouTube's really killing it. And there's other things that are doing better. And all of a sudden we, you know, Apple embrace podcasting and made an app for it. And then suddenly we started getting out of these notifications that like floods of people are listening to the show. We're like, what's going on over there? It hasn't been working for it.

What happened? Somebody someone turned the lights on over there. And finally, we just reached the point. We're like, we got to get over there and talk to those people because somebody's really actively listened to two to three-year-old shows. Maybe two. And so, yeah, we had to re-embrace it. But if it hadn't been for Apple stepping in,

I'm not sure a podcast would be a thing right now. And there's so many other examples of that through the iPhone and what it facilitated business-wise and social-wise. But, yeah. And now, you, I just want to make. sure everyone's aware of this. You have a whole series of books that you base this on where you're side by side, Jesus

Christ and so other figures like Martin Luther King Jr. And how many books total do you have so people know what to look for on Amazon? I have seven books total. Three up are in process right now. Four of them are in print and available on Amazon.

And I think the three are in process right now. Do you have anticipated a release date? So you can be aware of those? Probably by the end of the year. Mm-hmm. All right. I'm impatient, and I like to say sooner, but the wheels of progress in the publishing business move pretty slow. There you go. Yeah, they move incredibly slow. And you know, it's a necessary process, but man, it's sure. Yes. You know, it's hard enough to write it and then you've got to go through editing where they throw out. They're like,

Yeah, those 50 pages a row, we threw a 49 amount. That one page is really good. So could you just rewrite all 50 pages? Thank you. Grow another tree. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, you just threw away like a whole month's worth of blood sweat and tears like it was nothing. You know the editing process.

I mean, you can at least throw me a funeral or something for the, what you just threw. That's true. Very true. All this, all this you just wrote is. entirely crap except for five paragraphs. I'm being a little bit facetious, but still, it's hard because, you know, you're at, you've done the love of your work and you've put it all down on paper, you've spent the time and hours and blood, sweat and tears, and then they're just like, nah, me.

Well, and you look at it as your baby, and you say, look at my baby, and they go, boy, that's an ugly baby. They go, that should go out with the bathwater. That's right. That's better. Yeah, that's an ugly baby. What did you save that one for? I think my editor said that to me.

Anyway, so you've got all these books, people should search for them, watch for upcoming books and stuff. I can't remember if you had a website. Do you have a website where people can begin on a mailing list with you? You know, I get a lot of emails, but I don't recall. Now that you said that, I believe I do on the author tracyeermerich.com. Okay. But I don't want to say absolutely. Okay.

I'll say a bib fat maybe. All right. We'll put the website on the, we'll put the website on the, Chris Vos show on the, on the post. And then that way they can follow up with you and stay in contact. It's pretty easy. It's my name at gmail.com. Tracy Eermick at gmail.com.

So pretty straightforward. So let's get into Steve Jobs. data here. Now, Steve Jobs wasn't the nicest person in the world, if anybody knew personally. He didn't do charity either. He was a very, in fact, he didn't even recognize his own daughter that he had, with his, I believe his first marriage or first relationship. I don't know if they ever really did. He may have reconciled with her late in life, but he was pretty vicious. I mean, he even refused to support the woman with money, as the mother of his child.

You know, what were, I guess let's do this. Let's go through some of the, I'm probably leading off in the dark way. Let's start with some of the similarities that you found between the two that were good. Well, both of them had a mission and they stated their mission. I mean, Steve Jobs' mission, as he said, was to put a dent in the universe. and he did. He had a lot of truisms of his own. Like he wanted a computer to be as easy to use as riding a bicycle.

You just go pick it up and you ride off. His biggest problem was trying to convince his own team of what he was trying to say. They kept looking at the engineering, and he's looking at the user. And I think that was one of his biggest challenges was to get them thinking about, about a happy user, not a great technology. So I think that was why he was pretty much of a pain in the butt with his own staff, because they weren't getting it. It's a very similar story to Jesus and his disciples.

He was trying to give them the messages to take forward, and they weren't getting it. So he was pretty direct with them, too. that they weren't catching on. And if you think about it, at that time, the primary communications was storytelling. I mean, that's why Jesus was such a great storyteller, because if he just told people the bottom line, do this, do that, something else, it wouldn't go anywhere. But he wrapped everything in great stories and parables and head scratchers.

I mean, today we're still scratching our head over some of those things he's supposed. supposedly said. So he was tough to work with, even though he was a nice guy. Steve Job was tough to work with, but he wasn't a nice guy. But he was effective. And I interviewed on my podcast, I have an interview with one of the co-founders. I just lost his name. Was in at the ground floor had 10% of the company and then sold it for like 700 bucks or something yeah 780 he said he said the one thing i'll say about steve is don't get in his way yeah he said if he had if he had a goal he had an objective don't get it go don't get in this way because he was focused on what he wanted to accomplish there you go yeah it was uh it was it was

it was pretty interesting. And, you know, he did have some he, well, he was pretty rough edged in pretty much all sorts of ways, privately. I mean, most people know him privately. He knew he was a jerk and asshole a prick.

You know, I mean, the guy routinely parked in the handicapped spot because he hated. And didn't have license plates? He didn't, he didn't run license plates. There was some blue pole he would use. You know, and it was kind of this thing that Stilbio, Sam, I'm a billionaire, I'm above the law, and I'm above everything.

But, you know, no charity whatsoever. I mean, not even Apple would contribute to charities, if I recall rightly. And I think that changed a little bit after he was gone, but I'm not sure how much I have never really measured it. But, you know, he was an interesting dichotomy of a human being. Sometimes to be able to create at such a high level, there is an amount of destruction that takes place or the amount of destruction that's left in the wake. You can't make an egg, you can't make eggs without breaking eggs.

Right. An egg sandwich or something like that, whatever that apparition is. And people at his intellectual level are fairly lonely. Yeah. There may have been some, there may have been some autistic things. I'm going to have to ask my friends if he was on the spectrum. He may have been on the spectrum. Could have been.

A lot of brilliant people are, because they, You know, they're kind of savants. And they're usually on the autism. And now that I think about it, that really, man, I just had a light go off. And now that I think about it, he may have really been on the spectrum. Yep. Because of his antisocial nature and how he was. I mean, my friend, I'm so bad remembering every name's.

Welcome to the club. Yeah, I'm a face person. Like I love faces. If I see your face once, I'll probably know it from here on out. But names, not so much. But to me, it's that interpolarity where I care about people, but I need to work on that. So anyway, you know, he called him fuck chop because he was presenting wrong. He uses vicious.

I mean, he would, if you went in to pitch him on something, because they would have these pitch meetings, where everyone would bring in their stuff and pitch him. And he would viciously tear apart people and make it personal. It wasn't about your work. It was personal. You know, at one point he told him when he wanted to leave to go to Palm. He told my friend that he was in basically, you know, a kind of mob family set up. And, you know, you're not allowed to leave the family, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And he threatened to destroy my friend and his family. And if he left. And it got really personal because, hey, it's one thing if you have a beef with me, you know, you and I are both men. If we have a beef with each other, we'll be talking. or settle it in some sort of way. But when you're going after my family or I'm going after your family, you know, that brings it to a whole no level of

of craziness. So, you know, it was what I was. And he didn't like PowerPoint. You couldn't use PowerPoint, you know. And for some people, that's like the right hand. Yeah. In presentations. But he wouldn't look at a PowerPoint.

Yeah. I mean, my friend did get revenge. He had, he gave us, he had a business card made with his title Fuck Chop after Steve John called him a fuck chop And I have one somewhere It is buried somewhere And he gave it to me

I was like that is just freaking amazing dude And you can hear Some of my friends comments on some of the documentaries And Steve Jobs But yeah I mean he did change the world He did impact in a way that I can't think of what this world would be like without him You can probably see the same for Jesus

And the impact his story has had on people and what they've done. You could probably even do the good, bad, the ugly of some of the darkest times of Christianity were probably not the same times. They weren't as ugly as Steve Jobs was to people, you know, but I don't know, maybe you compare those to the dub side and the dark side, you know, there's one on everything of that. So what do you hope people come away with when they read your books or this book in particular?

What do you hope they come away with? My intention is to help motivate people to think. I'm not, it's not a lecture book. It doesn't lecture people. The idea is to help people find a transition or a bridge into an area that they're not comfortable with. I mean, my son-in-law is my target market, and he is not comfortable with what he refers to as organized religion. So that's what I want him to ask questions. about. And that's what the book introduces is to say, have you thought about this? What about

that? How do you entrepreneur? Maybe your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, you're, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, people at the same time. So it's, it's, it's, it's intended to have some, something personal come out of it. And hopefully, they'll ask questions of somebody. I'd be happy to answer my send all those questions if you ever ask them. But all of my books are the same approach when I'm asking people to think about themselves, their relationships with others, their relationship with a higher being, if you will. And again, I don't lecture.

If you elect not to find that or don't want to find it, that's your business. My role is not to solve your problem. Yeah, sure. My role is to give you a tool, a thought process to maybe answer some questions you might have. There you go. Kind of bringing, kind of modernizing Jesus a little bit by bringing them up and comparing with modern heroes or modern figures in history. Well, that's been the biggest response I've gotten is people saying, how can you put the word entrepreneur next to Jesus?

And I said, well, he changed the world. He took a world that was in perpetual fear of the Romans, of their synagogues, and he said, forget all the fear stuff. Love is the key. And all of his messages were love your neighbor as yourself in some form. And so what he did is threw out all of the fear stuff and said, love. That's it in all its forms, nothing else. and if you can get to that level of basics, it gets easier to understand.

Yeah. There you go. There you go. You know, it's an inspiring story. I think we talked one time about another book that you had. I believe it was the, I think it was Jesus Christ and let's see here, Mr. Rogers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Mr. Rogers.

You know, what a great guy. If there was anybody who's so much like Jesus Christ, definitely Mr. Rogers. I mean, he lived and walked his talk. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was, he was an icon for my, for me, for my kids. Because my kids would watch Sesame Street, and it was all, you know, wow, wow, all kinds of stuff going on. And then they'd sit and watch Mr. Rogers, who was very mellow, very low-key,

very friendly and he talked about every issue that kids worry about even though their parents don't think they worry about it the kids do worry about it and you know he did almost 900 shows

so there's not a lot of topics he didn't cover but he was also an ordained minister so he lived his ministry and he worked He worked a lot. And he also had some very interesting, you know,

interpersonal issues, even with his staff. The gentleman that played the police officer was a black gentleman. And at one time, blacks were not allowed into white-only swimming pools. And Mr. Rogers had an episode where he sat on the side of a, little pool, you know, a little baby pool, and he put his feet in it, and he invited the officer to come put his feet in it. And behind the scenes, there was a lot of dynamics going on there. I won't get into all of them, but basically he, the black gentleman ended up putting his feet in the pool with Mr. Rogers. Yeah, it did, it did raise some eyebrows at that

particular time because there was, you know, black only toilets and there was, you know, segregated swimming pools. And all he said was, you know, why don't we share this? And the police officer said, I don't have a towel. And Mr. Rogers said, I'll share mine with you or you can share mine. So that was tearing walls down like crazy. And he did it, he did it mild mannered, a matter of fact, not a lot of fanfare, and he worked very hard not to embarrass anybody. Yeah. So, or try to look superior. He was truly trying to be a nice guy to everybody.

And he kind of came across that way. Yeah, and he found a way to educate and so without having to beat people over the head or, you know, really push a message like, well, you should do this, you know, in a condoning. sort of way. I mean, he had a way of fleshing out the idea, the concept, and presenting it to you. They gave you, you know, still your choice, but he showed by example. Maybe that's

what I'm looking for. Yeah. And, you know, he was also a storyteller. Yeah. Very good storyteller. And I remember watch the documentary on him, if you haven't watched it, I highly recommend to go see it. I took my mother and went and saw it in

in theaters. and it was a beautiful tale. And he walked, he walked the talk. He wasn't, you know, some people are one way, many people are one way on camera, but in private life, they're completely the opposite. And sometimes the morals and ethics they espouse in front of the screen, they're not doing.

Go out the window. Yeah, got to see that with reality TV shows. And, but no, he walked to talk, but yeah, that episode, I can't remember what event, there was some sort of event that happened that was racial in America between black and white people at the time. And he was speaking to that as to, you know,

because children would probably watch, you know, what was going on at that period of time. And they're trying to conceive of it. You know, when you're a child, you don't understand a lot of things. But also to put it into Jesus Christ-like format where he presented it. Let's touch on another book because I want to try and get a couple of these in here. Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ, Tell us a little bit about the parallels there that you liked.

Well, that book has the strongest parallels because both were spiritual. Both had tragic deaths. Both knew they were going to die. But they decided to have courage. Courage in the face of power, courage in the face of fear, courage in the face of disappointment, and nonviolence. so that I mean they shared a lot of characteristics but they also

walk the same walk to you know to disaster so to speak so that one it was the easiest one to have parallels and I think it's the most comfortable title because people look at the Martin Luther King and have an attitude about him you know as a peacemaker a troublemaker

no doubt about it I mean he was a master of PR and getting front page spreads with, you know, dogs barking at him and all kinds of stuff. So he, he knew how to use the media. And so he was very talented in that area, but he was also very, very difficult on people that decided they were going to take action. He was death on that. He said, nonviolence. If you lift your fist, you're gone. And he kicked some people out of his inner circle because of that. So, well, and Jesus did the same thing. You know, when Peter cut off

the year of the guard, Jesus was not happy about that. That's a hell of a thing to do. What was the context one then? I don't remember. It was at the Garden of Gassimony. It was a breast.

And he put the ear back on. He put the ear back on after it got on. Oh, Jesus fixed the ear? Yeah. Oh, okay, well, that's a good deal. That would kind of suck, you know. I'm trying to think of, you know, I have a lot of enemies. I either want them dead or, you know, I just would like to have them suffer financially maybe

or just take shame for what they do. I've never really found the in between of like, well, I'll split the hairs and just cut off an ear. I think that's kind of a Mike Tyson thing. Yeah, yeah. Or something what you do with a sword. Yeah. I mean, really, if Mike Tyson chews off a part of your ear, isn't that kind of like getting an autograph out of the guy? I don't know. Right. Could be wrong.

Yeah. The other book you have that I think is interesting because, you know, he's been referred to as Darth Vader and the Dark Lord and all sorts of other negative connotations. But he's kind of earned him by being a quiet, stoic sort of coach, Bill Bell. And Jesus Christ is another one of your books. Tell us about that for everyone who hates the Patriots. Well, I mean, Bill Belichick represented a talented manager, a strong character developer. People that were on his team showed up talented and left more talented. Because that was what one of his precepts was, when you show up, I'm really happy that you've got to.

these skills, but now we're going to go higher. And so he was very attentive to all of his players and their skills, and he would meet with them. I mean, he was very personable to the team, to the fans, not so much. Yeah. But he was a very talented coach. You can't take that away from him. You can't take that away from him.

And what are your thoughts on, I mean, this is kind of NFL chitter chatter, football chatter. It did seem like he didn't do his well after he lost talking. I mean, you can probably say team effort, but Tom Brady did go on to win, what, one or two more Super Bowls after? He won the next year. Super Bowl. He won the next year, and I think didn't he almost win the other one? And that was without Bill Belichick.

So you almost have to wonder if maybe Tom Brady was the goat the whole time. Well, in part, he was. He was definitely a team leader. I mean, there was, because when they were behind in the Super Bowl with the, who was it, the, uh, I can't remember the team with Philadelphia when they were behind like 23 to 3 or something in the fourth quarter. Then they won it. Oh, that was. That was Tom Brady.

That just, yeah. I always hate him for stealing my Raiders Super Bowl with that tuck rule bullshit. But I always, anytime they, it was Tom Brady, I was ex-numbered ring. No, he doesn't. One of them was stolen from the Raiders. Right. But that game finally made me have to start saying the man is a, fucking God and a goat.

And I, and he kicks ass and takes names. He still stole the Super Bowl, but I guess no one cares at this point. And he's helping my Raiders, so I guess I have to. Well, that's true. That's true. He's a part owner now. Yeah. And so I, I'm

sure he's, hopefully that settles our debate. I'm still sorry about it though. You know, until he can get my Raiders to win a game or maybe two in a row, I'm still sore. Someday, someday.

The thing that we do that's so great that other organizations in the NFL don't realize is that if you can get four or five coaches on your payroll, you can't hire good players anymore. And therefore your team sucks. You guys should try it sometimes, especially the Browns. Anyway. I don't know. Are they included in the salary cap?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I clearly have given up on the NFL. over the most recent years. I'm not sure that's been part of the Salar Cup, but it's definitely part of the money pot, right? Oh, no, I know about that. I mean, the fact that we have four or five,

I think John Gruden is paid for like 10 years, $100 million a year or something bloody. I don't know what it is, folks. I'm just going, he's still out there just partying with the money. And he's suing the NFL with it. That's the kind of half the irony. There's some irony there. We just have to build for it.

Yeah, he's living his best life, and he's not coaching. So, but he's getting paid to coach. I don't know who he's coaching that he's paid to coach. Maybe it's coaching his attorney is suing me. I don't know. Jokes, folks. So, we'll look, now, it teases out, there's three books you're working on, you said.

Can you tease out the titles, the subject to those? Okay. The titles are Soaring Souls, Oprah Winfrey and Jesus Christ. Oh, Oprah Winfrey is a wonderful person. Yeah, projecting power, Donald Trump and Jesus Christ. And the last one is fantastic. futures, Elon Musk and Jesus Christ. Oh, there you go.

Did Jesus Christ ever take ketamine in a... I don't know. We should check into that, see if there's a parallel between him and Elon Musk, the ketamine cowboy. That or, I don't know, was Jesus on the autism spectrum as well? You never know. You never know. Sorry those of you on the autism spectrum.

I mean, insult you by comparing you to... Elon Musk. Anyway, there you go. Well, we'll look for those books, and you expect to try to get those out by the end of the year, correct? Right. There you go.

All right, well, thank you very much for coming the show. We really appreciate Tracy. Give us dot com's, websites, emails, wherever you want people to find out more about you. Well, at authoredracyermick.com, at Tracyermick, Ph.D.com, or at the leadershipfrontier.com.

Mm-hmm. There you go. Well, thank you very much, Tracy, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. And folks, pick up his other book where refined books are sold. Let's see.

Extreme entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs, and Jesus Christ. Thanks for tuning in. Be good of each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Wall Show podcast. can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy.

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