The Code To Winning - LIFE'S BIGGEST BATTLE: MENTAL HEALTH & INNER DEMONS || CODY CHRISTENSEN || EPISODE 008

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

LIFE BIGGEST BATTLE #008   In this interview , we explore the remarkable journey of Cody Christensen, a car enthusiast who turned his passion into a lifeline for both himself and others. After battling severe anxiety and depression, Cody was shocked to learn from a counselor that he had all 10 of the top reasons people commit suicide. This eye-opening moment pushed him to seek help, which transformed his life. With a renewed sense of purpose, Cody combined his love for cars with his mission to support others struggling with mental health challenges. He created some of the biggest car meets in Utah, offering a supportive space for car enthusiasts to come together and find healing through community. Cody's dedication to raising awareness about mental health through these events has made him a beacon of hope, showing how passion and connection can lead to personal growth and help others find peace. Join us as we explore Cody’s story, his car meets, and the lessons he shares about resilience, mental health, and the power of following your passion. Whether you're into cars or looking for inspiration, Cody's journey is sure to ignite your drive for positive change.

Welcome to another episode of the Code 2 winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today we have a very special guest. He's a car enthusiastic. He's also a mental health advocate. Combining the two together, he's a complete stud. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio Cody Christensen. Thanks, man. Quite the intro there. Thank you so much. so far. So far, it's been the best. Yeah.

Awesome, brother. Thank you so much for taking the time and joining us in this episode right now. It's exciting learning about your background. It's exciting having you in the studio today. I know, I mean, you were a year like last week or so. Just a week ago. Yeah. It's an inviting studio, so I'm more than happy to come back to this studio for sure.

Awesome stuff, brother. If you could just give us a bit of a brief background about yourself and how did you start in this specific field and how do you end up combining both? car enthusiasm or car enthusiastic and also mental health advocate as well that's a great question actually and it's it's actually accidental if i was to say uh i found myself with some uh troublesome moments in life where i just needed to to finally get out and do something that i liked to do and so i took my car and i went to a couple of car meets and met some people at the car meets and uh That was just kind of the tip of the iceberg right there of just getting to the car meets, right?

And getting out of my mundane day-by-day life of finding something that I like. And I actually started seeing a counselor for some of my issues that I self-admitted myself to. It sounds like I checked in somewhere. Sorry. But I just kind of seeked out a counselor versus usually people are like, you should go see a counselor, right? And if you're forced to do it, you probably don't get the same results that I probably collected. because when I chose to do it, I found value in what this person had to say back to me when they absorbed some of my info. He'd asked me, he said, hey, Cody, help me understand something.

He says, everything you've told me so far in this session, or like three sessions. And he says, you're on the top 10 suicide reasons of America right now. And he says, you're not just one of those your top, you're all 10 of them. And I just need to know what's, what's keeping you alive. How did you even make it here today? And I says, well, I just keep telling myself, traffic heavy. And he's like, what is, sorry, but what does that mean? I'm like, well, to me, I just feel like the road of life has a lot of heavy traffic to it. And at the end of every traffic jam, it's just open roads awaiting us. 100%. And it's essentially what he said as well. He felt that. And he's like, wow, you have no clue how powerful what you just said is. I was like, what do you,

what do you mean? This is what I keep telling myself. And in fact, I'd been posting it on my, Snapchat's or whatever is I'm going from job to job or doing different things. And I'm like, hashtag traffic heavy to the point where it was for three years bothering people even like, quit with the traffic heavy stuff. And nobody even knew what it meant. I didn't even know what it meant. But this counselor says, hey, go to a car meet. Go tell some kids that. Go see what happens. That's powerful. And so that is the message with the brand that you currently stand for, which is traffic heavy. Can you tell a bit more about like, I mean, you gave a brief. grief synapsis and also just elaborate and like you know what traffic heavy is can you go in depth

and just talk about what it means personally for you yeah so for me it's uh it's just kind of my motivation statement it's that word that resonated well enough for me to to tell me that hey the long hours some days you work 18 or 20 hours to provide for your family and you miss out on the opportunities to see your kids and people around you can be negative and not support you in the way that you feel that you need this support. Maybe they are supporting you, but it's just not the way that you feel that you need to receive it. And you can get super depressed. And so it's, it's just a statement that I kind of created for myself to say, hey, man, just keep pushing forward because to the point of the kind of phrase, the paraphrasing is, I just started thinking, man,

my financial situations, my lack of seeing my kid, my issues with, you know, relationships or friendships or whatever it is, it's just like traffic on the freeway. And it's just congestion right now. And if I keep trying and motivate myself to keep going, I'm going to find the green pasture, so to say, right? I'm going to get there. I just got to keep going. And without any other wisdom of what I was telling myself, that's just it. I'd just tell myself traffic heavy. And so I went to that first car meet and I told a group of kids and one of the kids. Where was the car meet here in Utah? This was here in Utah. Yeah. It was in Sandy, I believe. Okay. And it was about seven kids and they're like, we got to tell our friend your little message. And I was like, okay, man.

So I told them. They're like, hang on, hang on. And they come back and I tell it again. And the kid kind of breaks down in tears and says, you know, I needed to hear that. And they're all, he needed to hear that. And I was like, okay. You know, and I felt it. You feel energy. And I felt it. And they said, his mom just killed herself last night. And we've been trying to convince him to stick with us and just be around us because they moved here from Arizona. And it was just him and his mom. So he really has nobody. And without his mom, we're afraid that if he goes home right now or does anything, we're not going to see him tomorrow. And the kid now shows up every meet that I host. He wears a wristband that I do, everything that I do. He purchases merch off my website.

He does everything you can to support traffic heavy because he's still alive today. Man, that's powerful. My question is, what is it that happens at those commutes that just makes people feel like they have to keep going or that just instills a bit of peace? and happiness that they and just away from the world and their troubles as well. I think when you earn something and you're proud of it and you like to show it off, that's what a car meet does for people.

And so whether you just bought the jankiest Nissan Centra or everybody's had an ultima, right? Or you know somebody with an alpha. So you're proud of yourself. You're genuinely proud of yourself. And so to go to a, congregation of people and cars that are similar. They feel proud of whatever they brought. And it could be from that center. It could be all the way up to a Ferrari who cares in between, right? But the point is,

you're proud of yourself. And when you show up to these things, whether people talk crap about it or engage with you in a positive manner, you're just happy to be. It's just that you find that escape. That's powerful. I've got this car. I want to just show it off, you know? That's amazing, man. But my next question though what was very intriguing to me you mentioned that when you were with the council i think you've been there for like three times and they said that you literally have all 10 or the top 10 suicidal reasons why people end up like just giving up my question to you is then what kept you going like what was it that's like i i have to keep going the reality that like i mean i've i've attempted suicide numerous times throughout my life. And once I had my son, I think about him often when I get

in my depression state to think tomorrow morning, if he woke up and I was no longer around, can I put myself in his shoes for a minute? And that's just too powerful to me. That's just too much and I can put myself in his shoes and I can't do that to my own kid. There's just no way. There's just no way. I could obviously, sounds like, obviously, if you can't hear me, I can probably do it if it was just me in this world. But my connection to him, and then it trickles beyond that. And then you start thinking, oh, my mom and my dad and my brother and my sister. And now over the years, and the messages that I get from numerous folks that, hey, you're keeping me going it's like man I would be letting down a lot of people a lot of people and it's broader than just

my kid and ultimately the answer to your question though is my son and I have two sons now but but my son kept me going for the longest that I just got to do better than than what I had you know what I mean and he's not going to receive that if I go well that's very very powerful then my question um I think I'm a bit of a hypocrite if you even asking this because I feel like I'm one of those people that I I really bottle things up like I I happens to a lot of people I I really bottle things up I don't talk about things that really bother me until I need to but I feel like that's very unhealthy because what I do I find a substitution to that by finding myself very busy doing things I'm not supposed to be doing. So I keep myself busy for 18 hours of the day. And then I know that six hours,

I just get just pass out, just to avoid. And so it's funny that I'm opening up right now. Look what you've done to me, brother. I mean this is the kind of story. I'm one of those people that often just bottle stuff up. So the reason I'm asking this, like, how many people have you come across that have often not opened up about their problems until it was like too late? Or or perhaps until they were at the borderline. I couldn't put a number to it. I genuinely have lost track. I wouldn't even know what to tell you there.

That happens more frequently than I ever fathomed when this counselor told me to go present this word to other people and tell them what it means. I've been doing this now for three and a half years. And I mean, it's just, it's wild the amount of people that say, I connect with that, I resonate with that. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, man, I've been going through.

And boom, and all of a sudden, they were in a conversation that I never fathom to be a part of. And I'm not a counselor or anything certified by all means. So it's nerve-wracking to me that moments have to stop people to say, there's a 9-88 crisis hotline. There's counselors nearby. They know what they're doing. But at the end of the day, talk. And I'll sit in the mud with you and I'll help you out as best I can. I'll just listen if that's all it takes.

That's powerful. I want to share something as well. So what happens is my boys and I, we have this one thing. I'll have to give the historical context. We call it Father's Day. It was actually initially when we were first freshman in college, one of our friends used to always invite a bunch of guys. So in terms of like mockery and just making fun of him,

we started calling it Father's Day. But then we end up substituting that to actually having our bro time calling it a Father's Day anyway. But just to cut the long story show. I find the fact that as men come together can be some of the strongest supporting group you can ever experience in this lifetime because I'm telling you right now there are times where we come together

and you can find out one of our friends is really experiencing problems within his marriage one of our friends is experiencing a death within a family one of our friends is experiencing all these different stuff and what is it that men have that just bring just so much peace among each other you find the group i don't know if i asked the correction yeah yeah no it's fine and i don't know that i'd to the way you're describing it it makes sense but i don't know that i'd

even segregated to man but i think it would be more of when people come together right and so when you're solo and you're stuck in your mind and you have all these things that you're bottling up when you get around other people and you even release one little piece of knowledge or something that connects with another individual then there's that power of two now right and then there's a third individual and there's a power of three and it just gets stronger and we just talked about energy felt right and so when you feel that energy and you feel that presence of others giving input relating to you maybe when you talk about separation or divorce or breaking up with people I don't think there's many people at our age and I don't know how old you are but like we're definitely older than 19 or 20

right yeah I don't know that there's many people past the age of 20 that haven't been broken up with somebody or something. So now you're talking about something that relates to others. And so now we're going to have a powerful conversation. It's just going to get stronger and boom. And I think if it was my opinion, that's that strength and numbers type thought. I love it. I love it. I love it, man. I actually have an interesting statistic, which was actually very shocking when I got to look at this. It says the number of male suicides in 2002 was obviously 2% higher than it was in 2021. But just to give you a historic context, According to the CDC in 2022, it was 39,255 males that committed suicide compared to the females that was 10,191. That is almost four times higher than women's suicides.

That is extremely concerning. My question is it seems to be increasing at a rapid pace as well. Why is there a reason why so many men are committing suicide? I think about part of what drives me to do this is I am the head of the household. And we talk about single moms, but we also neglect to talk about single dads a lot. But regardless, there's that head of the household, and it typically does relate to the male figure, right? usually it's the dad. He does the planning and he does the budget

and he does this and that. And when we go on vacation, I booked the flight and I booked the room and I drove us there. And I chose where we're going to eat because nobody can make their mind up. And I think at times, I think there's just so much burden

that we fill on our shoulders, whether you're the head of the household or just feeling like the world's asking too much of you. And I think men feel that a little bit more. frequently I could be wrong but I just feel like there's that burden on our shoulders that we give to ourselves even that we're supposed to be doing more and when we don't feel like we're living up to it I feel like we go the other way really quick I like that brother I really like that and what are the ways that you can often encourage people from your experience

and what you've seen with the people that you've helped as well how do you how would you encourage them to open up because as much as you can say that they're up it's still not decreasing the suicide rates currently. No, I'm learning. I don't know what to do, to be honest. I don't know what to do. I think listening is the first opportunity that we can always take, right? And if somebody's still not talking or if they're bottled up or some, but you can see

that there's a change or something about them, I think the thing to do is to just, and it sounds so prideful, I guess, but ask, like, hey, you're doing okay. Hey, hey, is all well. Hey, are you still with so-and-so, right? And just talk and have conversation with people. I think when we leave them high and dry and all on their own, or if we let the guy show up and be quiet the whole time and nobody ever has a conversation with them,

that's probably going to be the guy that's probably most depressed, actually. And really just wants to talk, but he doesn't feel like he has the platform. So I think in general, just finding a way to hopefully make them feel comfortable. And if it's not with you, there's other people. right but like i think i think just creating comfort in the best way that we possibly can that's powerful man um one of my uh biggest role models is my father i feel like um if i go through the worst possible worst i just feel like he's the one person that knows me so long when i don't want to talk yeah and when i'm ready to talk it's just it's it's so he can leave you alone in the right

moments and he can come into you at the right moment. You know, and that's one of the things I can't stand is like, something, something wrong. I'm like, nothing is wrong? Like, it's something wrong? Like, whereas I don't know how my father just figure this out. Like, I mean, we still FaceTime regularly like in a weekly basis. He's still in South Africa. But he knows exactly when to intervene and say, listen, we haven't spoken to you and so

and so. And what I'm trying to get at is we live in a world right now where everyone has their walls up. Yeah. And you can't really tell those that are really struggling and we can't even tell to what degree they're struggling at as well. And so it's hard to really distinguish because somebody could be laughing with you tomorrow and then the next day they're in the news. You're like, right? I always, I always worry about that, of course, right? Yeah, I don't have a direct answer, but I'll tell you this, that for example, when I go to car meets and there's a bunch of us Honda people there or Accuras or Nissan Centras and whatever, my little Audi.

And then a Ferrari pulls up and you hear the kids say something like, hey, must be nice. I don't know what that guy's gone through to own that Ferrari. I don't know how many 20-hour shifts he's put in. I don't know how many wives that he's been through. I don't know how many kids don't see him and have his time. But I know that if any of that's true, it's weighing on his shoulders. And so it must be nice to drive that Ferrari with all the sacrifices that he had. But I also like the flip side of when you hear kind of the Lambo owners, or maybe it's not that, but maybe it's the guys that have really cool cars that have really invested a lot into their lancor with the wraps and the wheels and all that.

And some guy does pull up in his Honda and he's proud of himself like we just talked, right? He just bought that Honda and it's fallen apart to us. We see it just falling apart. But to him, he bought that Honda and he's proud to show up. And I like to remind them that we were that kid once too. I wish I had a dropping bomb thing. I was just like, boom. So I like that you mention these.

In fact, I avoided all these questions because I want to just have a conversation with you. But so what is it with men and like their cars? It doesn't matter what it is. I'm giving you historical context with me. When I was selling solar in California for like two and a half years and I'm not selling it like an idea. That sounds brutal to be honest.

No, I love that. I love sales. but at the time I bought myself like two, three years ago, like a Tesla, like Model 3. Oh, nice. And so the reason why I want to talk about this specific car, first of all, the market value for it dropped completely like, I think two years after like 40% low. I can't even resell it. It's actually making a loss.

Yeah, yeah. But the reason I want to talk about this, I've had a lot of bias remorse because of the amount of traveling I do and just look at time, how much I'm supercharging and so forth as well. Right. But this Tesla has been through me at my highest high and my lowest low. There's a connection. It's been with me like when I literally made like PR records, when I sold so much and lost almost everything. And so like driving in it, it's been on both sides of the spectrum where to the point where you're considering like what am I going to do tomorrow to like I'm on cloud nine.

And so it's one of those stuff that 10 years from now, I'm never going to sell this car because it's seen KG Von. It's seen cagey and it's super high as well. I'm sorry. My question is. You're okay. I feel like I got the right response for this. But we just built, we work hard to earn the things that we have most of us.

Some people are given these things, right? But even still, when you're giving it and you do what you just said, you spend time in this thing. You put efforts towards it. Who cares about the depreciation? I worked on it. I added the gasoline to it. I topped it off, well, you don't have oil or gas.

You sat numerous, how many countless hours at a charging station. You've invested time into that car. And that car has done things in return for you. It's gotten you places. It's gotten you around things. In some cases where we crash them, it's saved your life because you're still here to tell a story. In some cases, that's not the truth, right?

But like, what is it about the car that we connect with, right? it's it's the value that's non-monetary it's it's the value of all the experiences that we've had with this thing and I think the challenge there is you're saying oh there's like no value in it and I'm realizing I'm just spending a lot of money into it and I'm spending a lot of time at the charging stations but I just can't get out of the car right I It's because you're connected with so many experiences. And honestly, the car is still not doing anything bad enough to make you want to get rid of it. That's powerful.

It's just not there like that. But I think a car, not of us, all of us are 16 to 18 years old buying houses, but a car is our first real life experience of a purchase, a real purchase. Powerful, absolutely powerful, brother. I want to now talk a lot of bit more about like these meets. How can people join these meets? I feel like it's just so exciting. When I heard about it, I was like, that's actually very therapeutic because when I drive

sometimes I just want to just clear my mind. But sometimes you're in this world where you're like, okay, I just want to just clear and drive off. But like I feel like these meets, people are often in the same wavelength. And then when I try and I kind of engage in that form of act as well, can you just talk a bit more about these meets, a way they can meet and all that. Car meets. It's happen in every state.

Okay. Your specifically. But here in Utah, basically you just get on Facebook and you just type in like Utah CarMe or you type Idaho CarMe, right? And I'll only be broad for a second year, California Carmi. But here in Utah, once you've done that, you'll find a car meet. And if you go, what you'll experience is other cars showing up, but you'll experience an opportunity to network.

And even if you're an introvert and you don't like to talk. if you find yourself in the parking lot sitting in your car, windows up so nobody talks to you. Maybe you don't have the coolest of cars. But you're sitting there and you show up to one or two or three of these because you didn't see it the first time. You didn't see it the second time. But nobody bothered you and you were in your peaceful place and you saw some cars. But then that one car, you've just been dying to see one of these in your lifetime. Or maybe you see them all the time, but this one's now here up close to per.

Oh, he popped his hood. So you're going to get out and you're going to go. up and you're going to go check out that Camaro. And what that Camaro just did is gave you an opportunity to say something that's relatable to the next person because that's sometimes why we don't talk because we think whatever I have to say, he doesn't care, right? If I go open, I'm like, does I have the 5-7 in it? Because I know about this car just a little bit, right? And the guy's like, actually it's a 6-3. Oh, what did you just do? You just engaged in conversation. And guess what's going to probably continue for another minute to 10 that conversation between you and that individual.

And so going to car meets enables that networking that you never thought was possible for a lot of introverts, right? Extroverts all day. Why not? But an introvert, they don't go out and do things. They don't get out of their car. But when they finally do see something. So here in Utah, you just search, seek out some of those. And once you start going to a couple and you meet a couple, couple of people you'll find more but what I've given is that opportunity to to just not have to search so hard and so on my Instagram for example I have a channel that's dedicated to Utah car meets people have found value in sending me their flyer whether it's a small little car meet or the largest in the state and that flyer as long as it's within seven days

because I like to keep things current on this channel, I post it. I don't care if I don't even like you. I don't care if I've been to your car meet and you're rude to me. It's still a car meet and it's still an opportunity for people. I don't care if there's seven car meets going on at the same time on a Friday. I'm not going to pick. That's for you to choose, you know? And so here in Utah, if you were to just follow at Traffic Heavy on Instagram,

there's a channel there with like 1,800 people in it right now. and everybody sends me their car meets, and I just posted in there. So that's here in Utah, how you could find them really easily. Wow. So you don't have one specific one for yourself? I do them on my own as well.

It's becoming less possible for me. And the reason is, when I host a car meet, I've hosted enough good ones now to where people know that it's going to be a good car meet. So the issue now that I face, which is what the others face, And we'll just name drop a little bit.

There's Utah weekend car meets on social media. There's Cars and Coffee, Utah. There's Cars and Curry Pizza and myself and probably a few other groups as well that really do good with their car meets. And our problem is we can't find parking lots big enough. And when we do, people show up and they over-extensuate their vehicle. They want to burn out. They want a two-step, which is a rev limiter and shoots, makes loud noises.

They want to drag race through the thing. And they leave trash everywhere. So they become reckless and careless. And it's a concern to all of us in the car community. Like, how do we combat that? Because if we didn't have so much of that, the police wouldn't show up and say, hey, where's your permits or get out? And now we can never go there again.

Now the police frequent that spot. and until somebody has, you know, the affordability to be able to, or the means, I should say probably to be able to afford to get all the permits and everything else that you need, we just got to keep skipping parking lot to parking lot. The thing is, we could probably just chill at one individual parking lot if we could keep the noise down and get the nuisance away and such. But that's what made my car meets a little bit different. So I'm like, okay, since that's not happening and people are disrespectful,

how do we host car meets that allow them to do that? and one in particular I just did a couple of weeks ago was a place called Lake Town Speed and Sound and Draper it's right off state street in Utah and they have a private parking lot and it's a sound warehouse like audio shop for cars so they're used to making noise there

so we are able to now go there when I host these meets and do the two-stepping where people are shooting flames out of their car and pop pop-paw-paw-bang-bang you know Like too fast, too furious kind of style. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, we're not drifting around doing all that, but we're making noise and we're, they're, and it's allowed without permits?

Yeah, it's without permits because we're on private property and, you know, so the key is a couple of things with the permits. But essentially, yeah, I'm just trying to find locations now like that that let us, the next one we want to do. And if you're lucky enough to watch this episode and hear. about this uh we we want to get like a lot of parking lots if you sit there and you burn your tires out and you just keep the tires burning it rips away at the at the surface there and so private property owners who pay for the surfacing don't want to deal with that so we're trying to get steel plates that we can do that on so that we can do burnouts and other so the car's capable of doing things but a lot of car meets people just show up they park and we look at a parked car

and then we watch you hopefully drive away casually because we don't want the ruckus because so how do we how do we expose the car and utilize the car and for me collect the cinematics that i'm looking for you know what i mean powerful powerful um i know you mentioned a story earlier on with one kid and and like the passing of their mother have you had any personal um experiences of people that have been part of your car meets that have had a positive feedback to what they shared regarding like their state of mind to what they were and what they are right now. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few and I mentioned the one in particular last week on the episode as well that I did with Community Cures. But my friend Kay, Ms. Kay, I met her at a sink of a

mile so it's going on two years now that we met and we actually didn't even meet through somebody who either of us knew. Well, I knew him, but neither of me and him knew Ms. Kay. But he, He's like, oh, you got to check out my buddy's car and hear his message, and she comes and hears it. And still to today, a couple years later, she's helped marketing me. She wears more wrist bounds on her wrist than her wrist can probably even handle. But she tells me numerous times, every opportunity she gets to see me. She tells me she loves me and she's grateful for me because she's not sure if she would be here without me. That's powerful. Absolutely powerful.

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winning.store. Remember, in this game of life, the only way to lose is to stop playing. Here at the winning store, we're all about playing to win. So visit us today, winning dot store. Get your merchandise today and stay victorious. The question, it's funny. I don't I haven't even asked a single thing. I just feel like that's just been such a great flow of him. It's whatever you want to do. The question I wanted to ask you, there has to be, and if you don't know, it's okay, but there has to be, in my personal opinion, a correlation between addiction and depression.

The reason why I say that, and often people always think addiction, drugs, addiction, alcohol, but there's a lot of stuff like eating addiction or disorders or pornography, all these different stuff. do you feel from the people that you've encountered have often had an addiction that has been severe and intense to the point where it's contributed to their anxiety and eventually depression? I'm not licensed or professional in this field, but I will say absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Okay.

And I can't think of a single person I've ever met. And to your point, it doesn't have to be substance abuse when we talk about this, right? it could be that addiction to racing your car. It could be that addiction to food. It could be addiction to lots of things. But I think the depression comes when you aren't capable of feeding your addiction in the moment. Yeah. And so the reason I also even ask that,

it's often people find it easier talking to a council, a complete stranger, and often people they know because they don't feel, open and vulnerable enough to communicate with them. Did you have that experience when you spoke to a counselor? Did you not have anyone to talk to before then or how did that work? People that you talk to that you know, know you. And so whether they say they don't or not, they do and judgment arises.

And even if they're not, the feeling, the perception that you're going to be judged. And that's probably why we don't open up to people that are closest to us. counselors are one avenue but also meeting random strangers like you said how many people have come to me and just all of a sudden opened up to conversation i'm not a counselor i'll reiterate time and time again but i am i am not their friend that's known them i'm not their mom that's known them i'm not that i'm not that i'm i'm a stranger and and so that's part of why i think people do open up to me is because I'm just, I'm not judgmental in the moment is how they feel, right? They're like, oh, I can open up to this person because he's actually going to hear me.

And he's not going to be like, oh, you're depressed. Well, weren't you just yesterday? And when they know you, they can relate and they can call things out. And you're not looking to be called out. You're looking to vent. 100%. Right. And so I think that's why people do open up to people that they don't know, whether it be a counselor

or just some random Joe Schmo is because, uh, because the lack of judgment is that comfort that we need. I love that so much, man. I really do. Another thing I wanted to go into, I feel there's pros and cons. There's a new train that's been happening in the last three years of, you know, the masculine man.

And I feel like sometimes it has positive, it has positive intentions, but may have a negative outlook, because with this masculine macho man mentality that's been pushed, especially across social media, it's making it less and less more vulnerable for men to actually even open up because it's viewed as a sign of weakness. And like I said, I think yes, it's very important to embrace your masculinity. It's very important to embrace all these different characteristics. At the same time, it's when it's taken extremely overboard by what's viewed as today's masculine man to try and compensate.

for what's been happening previously to what isn't you know you get what i'm saying i totally get what you're saying uh people often say things like um that's not manly right or that's that's uh men don't do that or man up or we don't cry it's not okay to cry because you're man you know and and uh my stance on that and and you're human you're totally human what's what's so shameful about being human because humans have emotions. And so, I don't know, I hear exactly what you're saying. I think that's very, very predominant in our world right now, that a lot of encouragement to just man up, it'll be all right,

just brushed off. And I'm over here like, it's okay to cry. It's okay to open up. And it's okay to be vulnerable for a minute. Maybe not in front of all, everybody, right? And do it maybe for the right people if you want to continue to stay manly or whatever, you know and uh but but honestly it's it's not attractive it's it's actually something that would detract a lot of when you can't emotionally connect with people because you're hiding all of your

emotions um i think i think people see that and when i say people i'm trying to stay gender neutral here because you know it's not always man and a woman type of but but i think I think people will kind of shy away from that and think, man, I don't know what it is, but it's literally their lack of showing emotion. And so I encourage emotion a lot. I encourage it a lot. And one of the things I did love a lot

that you mention is that you avoid judging people and they also feel that level of trust. It's hard in today's world because social media has just been causing so much depression to people because what you see within that specific 10 second of someone's best

is only what you see and now you hold them to that specific standard and lifestyle and what they are rather than actually seeing the background you're not there when they wear the pillow at night you're not there figuring out like what you mentioned those 20 hours

or the hours they put in you're not there when they're not even talking to their son or daughter You're not there when they're experiencing all these different things ever. And so it's always important for us to embrace what we're embracing today rather than just looking at people and having those envious eyes because there's always a story behind each individual and each person in today's world. And I think it's very important we get to fully understand. What are your thoughts on those?

Yeah, that's exactly what social media does, right? I didn't post how I got there, but I post the house. and post what happened before, but I post me and my kids standing in our Halloween costumes. I don't post, you know, all the paperwork and all the people that I had to speak to to get the co-signed to go get the car, but I post the car. We shy away from the negatives and we take it as an opportunity to post the positives. But some people do actually use social media to kind of as an outlet and they say what they're depressed about and such.

And I think what happens is is people chime in. Because I've done this myself. I've gone live on TikTok in a depressed mood and kind of anxious and, you know, let down state or whatever. And I have people join my live podcast say things like, oh, what a, who is this guy just coming on here to act like a little baby? Like, who does that? It's like my approach on social media is not to just show the highlights of my life,

but to show me as a person. And it's rare that you find that. But what you usually will find is either the person who's always just negative, negative, negative, and we always end up either like muting that person or unfollowing, or you find the person that's just positive, positive, positive, right? And so I wish more people embraced the social media to say, hey, look, you know, and you could use on Instagram, for example, on the messages pages, the notes or whatever, and you could say, just having a bad day.

But we don't address it. We just don't address it. It's mind-boggling to me because I'm just different. I do address mine, you know? So, but yeah, usually social media is just to use for the positives, right? It just shows all the highlights of a person. And it's discouraging to everybody watching because I don't have a house. But I don't realize they just went through three years of 20-hour shifts to get that house.

All I see is their house. I'm like, damn, bro, we're the same age. How am I not in that house? How am I not doing things like that? What is he doing different than me? He didn't show all the different things, but he also didn't show his crying at night at 12 when he got home because his kid's already asleep.

And he knows he's going to wake up at 4.30 in the morning to get to work by 5 and his kid will still be asleep. He didn't post any of that. But you're over here saying things and you being the person who's complaining. Why can't I have a house? I'm the same age, you know. That guy's probably just working his 9 to 5 and coming home and saying, you know, I'm a little too tired to go.

do anything more today. But the other guy got home and he says, man, I'm beat. That was an eight-hour shift doing construction. But I've got to go to my other job doing more construction. And all we see is that he has a house. We don't see all these extra hours he put in. So I don't know, I get distracted sometimes by the people who are kind of nice saying, like, I wish I was, we're the same age.

How do I have that? How does he? It's like, well, I'm sorry, but like, I'm sure if you just work 12 hours a day, you could go have that house. Like, yeah, we don't, we don't display that part of it, right? 100%. Extra work that we put in. 100%.

Somebody out there is watching this and is really getting overwhelmed and stressed and just can't bear just the burden that they're currently facing right now. what would you encourage them the first step to do, just the first step from your experience? First step to do is take a deep breath. That's important. I like that. I wasn't expecting that answer, but sorry. I genuinely feel like, and I tell my kids this often, I feel like breathing is the key to life.

Whether my kids are crying or angry or upset that things didn't go their way or over-anxious and happy, a little bit too. overwhelming. I just often say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, buddy, hey, take a deep breath with me. And they do that. And they kind of slow down their crying and they reduce their anger a bit. And that breath of fresh air is kind of that first step. But then it's, hey, identify kind of what's got you here. What is built up? What are all these stressors? What is all that's overwhelming? And identify it all. And then see, hey, where, what am I doing for myself? And if you have nothing in that, that's for yourself.

Going to work isn't for yourself. It really isn't. That's working for, even if you own your own business, it's working for money so that you can go buy more things and end result, you benefit yourself. But if it was all for yourself, we'd all be on the beach drinking those martinis we talk about, right? Like that living the life, right?

What do you do for yourself? Is it doing a puzzle? Is it crocheting? Is it watching your favorite show? Is it driving a car? Is it doing a podcast? What have you done for yourself? And if you can't answer that,

then I think that's the moment that you should probably take is where can I squeeze five minutes? 30 minutes is ideal, but five minutes today for myself. And I'm just going to be TMI here, but even if it's five extra minutes on the pooper, just saying. So the reason I look at.

Five extra minutes for yourself. That's what you do. deserve it. You deserve it. I was telling Kyle earlier today, there are two places that I feel super comfortable in. I said one of them is the seat year. Every time I have like podcast, I gets over like just sitting here. It's just like everything just engaging and learning about like their life and just like their their career path and whatever they're in. Like I just love it so much. So the podcast for the listeners, but it's mostly for me actually. Oh yeah. Number two, is the stool.

When I'm sitting down every single day, it's that one moment where I don't want to take no calls, no nothing. It's just like my me time. The wildest place, but people don't think about it. I mean, I'm sorry, we got into treacherous waters here, right? Glad you connected. But ultimately, I mean, the idea is,

where can I find that extra five minutes, right? And even if it is there on the stool, it's your five minutes. You deserve that five minutes. And then go get back to it, Tiger. You got this. You know what I mean? You got this. Yeah, man, that's super powerful.

Now, I'm grateful we've shared, and you've shared insight on that. I want to talk as well now, just shifting over. You shared something so amazing when you came in earlier on in the studio. You were talking about just your merch and how you support other businesses and how you actually make a loss of that. Like that was that was fascinating. That's like the most Christ-like thing I've ever heard somebody do in terms of merch. Can you just dig deep into that as well and talk about that?

I mean, my wallet and bank account hate this part. But I invest into merchandise. And the investment is finding things that I like because I'm a tall guy. I'm a little over six foot. And a lot of shirts and stuff don't fit me. So getting things that fit me and then something that I'd wear, right? And that's step number one, taking care of myself. But step number two is, man, like, how do I help support local businesses to the best of my abilities?

And so where do I get my merch? And you were talking like, hey, do you use some online places to help you manufacture your merch? And I've tried those. I have. But that that wasn't the answer for me. And supporting local businesses is kind of the answer for me. So I'll go and I'll purchase my merch from local businesses. but I think what really hits home for me about the merch isn't the sales.

I told you, I'm like 20% of my merch gets sold. And so that means that 80% of the rest of the merch that I come across. I go to car meets. I have a duffel bag or I have an arm full of stuff. I'm handing out T-shirts and hats and sweaters and wristbands and, you know, beanies or whatever I have on me for the day. And I'm, and I'm given away like 80% of my merch. And I mean, there's, there's two purposes behind that. One is, one is that, you know, gosh, now my merch is out there. That's, pardon, I'm breaking my mic. One of them is, is that now,

now my merch is out there and people get to see it, right? And so you're marketing, right? And so that's cool. What about marketing, 20% sales. So, but the other, the other part is, is people tend to connect with the message behind traffic heavy. The road of, life has heavy traffic, blaze through your traffic jams, right, and get to the end of that traffic jam, because the end of every traffic jam is open roads awaiting us. And if that's connecting with people and giving them an opportunity to feel heard or cope with some of the things they're dealing with, or maybe even have somebody ask, hey, what does that shirt, what does traffic heavy mean, create a conversation around mental health? To me, that's, I'm winning. That's the goal is to help people

with their mental health as best as I can. And if this is on your shoulders and on your chest and somebody then asks you, what are you trafficking? What are you trafficking there? And you'd be able to turn around and say, I don't know, positive spirits, good mental health, conversation.

No, that's powerful, man. That's really powerful. I'm grateful you mentioned those because often the case, you gave a perfect blueprint and outline in how these meats work. because it accommodates for both those that are super loud and extroverts and are super like, oh, I like, I like that, I like that.

It also accommodates for those that are like, I'm going to just stand the car right now and play it safe until I can read the room and the environment and I can feel super inclusive. How important is it that people gain those attributes? I don't think it's natural. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but to be easily approachable. I was speaking to Kyle earlier today and I was giving advice and I was talking about how he's got such an approachable personality. Like I'll sit down with him and I just rant for like one hour straight and he's just like

Yeah yeah Such a good listener I don't get that often sometimes I'm the one that's orders on the receiving end And I think I'm relatively getting better at that But like how important is it to just be approachable And be ready to listen to someone That's not for everybody I'll just say that Not everybody has a listening ear

And not everybody is approachable but the more we enable ourselves to be or find our will to do, I think creates opportunities in your life that you would have never fathomed. And so we go back to that guy who's like, oh, I'm the same age. How does he have that house? That guy's just taken a few more opportunities, maybe. He just put himself in vulnerable spots where he was uncomfortable

and tried. And guess what happened? His comfort level was, and he found what he was looking for and he continued to drive himself to do it and so that's how that guy has that house because he he got out there and he just did right and he went against the grain so to say for those people that just don't know how to do it but even if you don't even if you are that guy that pulls up with the car meet sits in your car with the windows up he doesn't want to be bothered it just takes me right back to the stool that's his five minutes and

If nothing else out of it, that guy deserved five, ten, 20 minutes to just sit in his car peacefully, quiet in an environment that wasn't typical job, kids, life, you know, life. He took that moment. He did nothing else, but do what he was enjoying his new car or whatever it is, right? Yo, this is more like a therapy session. Oh, God. He says, I am not licensed, but man.

this guy has given more insight than some of those licensed professionals. But anyway, I love everything we've discussed. I love the insight you've given. I feel like it's just very enlightening. It's very encouraging. It's very raw and it's very like just transparent as well. And in the world we live in today, it's so hard to come across those relationships that are super transparent,

those people that are raw and real because I don't know, man. Like, Instagram with Sla Ruff is a very positive thing, just taking a photo. And now it's just like it's just accumulating so much pressures in our life. And in today's world, all the stuff you mention that I look at these statistics and it's just increasing ever so more, especially in first world countries. Right, right. More than any other places because the expectation is super high. And the pressures are super high.

And I feel like that is completely contributing in a negative aspect. because it's like, I mean, in my specific, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter they're saying, so Utah is a very, very big portion of it. And so even growing up, there was just all his expectations, like, and just a certain thing you had to take off. Like, I had to go on a mission at a certain age. You know, you have to get married at a certain age. And if your marriage ends up like falling apart, something wrong with you at a certain age,

all these different expectations just bring so much. pressure to the human like and just the person and I feel like that's been contributing so much this so much sorry I've been talking so much and ranting but like what are you just your insights on just trying to just let go the pressure yeah um I'm not a fan of expectation I do it so I'm a hypocrite I have my expectations but I think I think the best thing you can do is if you if you're going to feed into expectations it should be of yourself and nothing more You can't expect your friend to show up on time. You can't expect the relationship to go the way that you want it to go.

You can't expect to make a million dollars off your idea. You can't expect, you can't. You just can't expect. You can hope. But if you have that expectation, you might be setting yourself up for some disappointment. You know what I mean? Now, what you can't expect is more of yourself because you're driven.

you can expect that you're going to make that million dollars because you're going to go do it. You can't expect that you're not going to drown because you're going to learn how to swim. The expectation should only be of yourself. And expectations from others of you should almost be ignored. It's just not fair to you to have to live up to somebody else's expectation of you. I mean, are you royalty? That's where that's where that would come into play, right? like oh you're you're the you're the queen of England or king of England or whatever like

there's a lot of expectation of that person and you you took on that role but most of us are just individuals in this world and even as leaders if you are a leader then you're a leader because you fulfilled some of the expectations you had of yourself doesn't mean you expect anything from anybody around you actually most of the time the leaders never expect anything of anybody around them they expect more of themselves but they know they know that you hire the best guy in the world and there's just that one day he got sick and it's not like he did anything egregious to try to not show up to your expectations but but he's sick and he just couldn't and so now you had this expectation because you know this guy showed up to drive me places or he showed up to do this or that

you know and where's he at today and now you're disappointed because you had an expectation that somebody was going to be there always and it's just not real it's just not real that's so powerful would you encourage any um people to read any books that you feel like could also be of self-help meditation self-improvement there there are some uh i'm not a book reader audio book reader i don't i don't do any book reading and so it's it's it's one thing that i've always had interest in trying to get more involved into. But I just don't. If I do a, if I do an audio book, I find myself waking up.

And I'm like, oh, crap, I just missed. Oh, 35 minutes of the story. Okay, great. If I read a regular book, I tend to kind of get distracted and I lose focus. And it just doesn't work very well. But I will say that when it comes to, I don't know, self-care and stuff like that, I don't know the books per se, but I'm sure we could list some on the YouTube when you post it. I'm just kidding.

There was there was some that were very particularly recommended to me when I went to this counselor. And I read a couple of those books. And for example, I think I don't remember the name of the one, but it really resonated with me. gosh, I'm trying to think of the name of the book, but again, it's three years ago now since I've read this book, but it talked a lot about, gosh, I'll have to reference it. You guys are, you guys are going to hate me. This guy doesn't even know what the hell he's talking about.

No, you're good. It'll come to me right when we're done with this podcast. Oh, yeah, I know the name of the book. But basically the book talked about how I basically am the type of person, to do things for others. And I always have to appease others. And by the end of the book, it kind of talks about how I just got to break free and just be more about myself and maintaining myself.

And it was great. It really connected with me. But I guess what I'm getting at isn't about the book as much as you can Google these days. It's a great tool. It's something that we wish we had when we were probably in school, right? Instead they say, go over to the encyclopedia or the dictionary, and you're like, what if they don't have the answer? They're like, it'll have the answer. And it's like, well, it's 2002 now.

And I don't think that 1996 book has the answer. But Google, and you can Google. And if you have depression, you can Google books about depression. And if you have anxiety, you can Google books about anxiety. And if you have anything else, you can kind of Google about those things. But I would say, ask those around you, you know, that are into books. See if they have recommendations. but the best recommendations that ever came to me for books

was after talking about counselor. And every time he recommended a book, about the third, fourth, fifth session, he recommended another book and another book. He's like, you should check out this podcast and you'd check this out and that. And I would always just subscribe. I'd jump right on Amazon after he told me

and I buy the books. So I've got a bookshelf full of books, but I've only read a couple of them. And his advice was spot on because he's a counselor. So he listened to me. He absorbed and he knew what to recommend. It wasn't just a random Google search.

It wasn't just a random book that I could state, right? But it was a tailored, customized recommendation of a book that was going to help benefit me. That's powerful. The next question, I know we're going to be having to conclude, but the question I wanted to ask you is, do you believe in manifestation? Yeah. And how important is it? Oh, gosh.

The power of manifestation is unreal. And if you just put it out there, you'll never get it. And so some people will post or say or whatever. I just posted this Porsche GT3RS because I'm manifesting it. And I'm putting it out there in the world. And 20 years later, they still don't have that Porsche GT3RS. And there's others that post the, GT3RS and then you see the next post I just got another job and you see the next post

I really want this Porsche GT3RS that would be manifesting the one guy who posted a dream was just a dream the guy who continues to post and works towards it and sets his mind to it and goes to get it that's manifestation and that guy is going to get his Porsche GT3RS that's powerful and I think that's what manifestation is. It's not just saying one thing and channeling your energy with the universe, but it's actually work in progress. Understanding that's a goal in mind and every single day is one step closer to us. We can fill the screen with a dream list. You know what I mean? I got a dream list. I got so many cars on it, but manifestation and reality as well, right? The reality right now for me, I couldn't even want to manifest a Porsche GT3RS. And the reality is I

I'm in my life, evolved in my life well enough to understand where my finances are and what it would take to have to get to that. And having kids and a house and cars and everything that I have right now. Trust me, if I wanted to manifest it and go get it, then I could sell my house right now and have the equity. I could pull up in a Porsche GT3RS just right now if that's really what I wanted. But I think my manifestation isn't quite that. And because of that, I'm getting the things that I want. and I sacrifice some of the things that I dream about. 100% man.

So I want you to answer this question for me. It's the hardest question of them all. Who is Cody Christensen? Man, he is just an individual. He is a person who just lives life and just does it, wakes up every day, I appreciate it's the breath of fresh air. And I have all my history that's built me to who I am with no regrets because of that.

I meet a lot of people and they're like, oh, you know, you shouldn't have regrets in life, blah, blah, blah, and they say it, but they don't, they don't mean it. And I mean, I've been through a lot and as has everybody and that's what makes us human. But Cody Christensen is just a human being that engages with others, finds his peace and satisfaction and see another smile and is grateful to just wake up every morning and breathe a breath of fresh air. And that's so powerful.

That's so powerful. I know you spoke about one of your friends. They call him Big Sean. It reminded me of a rapper, Big Sean, who had a line that was actually very similar to what you're talking about. It says you're not winning until the whole team is winning.

And I think people need to understand that winning comes at a price of uplifting others as well because that is the true winner if those around you are being uplifted by your presence, by your lifestyle, by you just being part of their life, that's, I think, the definition of winning personally for me.

So your story and what you've done, I really thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's very positive and uplifting, especially in this very vain world we live in. Right. You know, so the last, question. You said that three questions.

I promise you. This is the last one. I haven't even used any of these questions over there. That's how that's how. Do you want to like random shoot from the hip and just be like quickly answer? You know what? But then there'll be my second last question. So I want to keep you way, way longer than you.

I'm fine. You know what? I'm going to any mini money more of this one. I'm telling you right now. But ask me the question you had before you jump into that. Okay, fine. So the question I wanted to ask. So the co-twinning, we always ask every single guest.

this specific question. In your opinion, what is the definition of winning? The definition of winning is, oh gosh, the only thing that comes to mind is like running through the rope first, right? But that's not it.

I think the definition of winning is that feeling of success and you can succeed in second place. You can succeed in 10th place. Some people trip at the end of the race and they get up and they finish it off. And that's still a winner. Powerful.

I actually don't want to ask any of these right now. You're all good. I'll look at them. I'm like, you answered this by what you said. So if you could tell the viewers where they could get a hold of you, if they want to reach off of the car meet, social media platform, anything you want to back, you know, your merchandise, whether you could get that as well?

Could you just share that with the viewers? We'll make it super easy on you guys. So just right up here on the screen, you'll notice traffic heavy at the top there with the K. Traffic heavy, you can put that into any social media platform, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. You could also put a www.w in front of that with AdoptTrafficheavy.com. And you'll be right at the website as well where you can check out a little bit more of what I'm about and see what kind of cool merch that I have to offer.

Awesome. The co-to-winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Cody Christensen thank you so much sir thank you for having me