THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Embrace the Pain - w/ Dave Sparks

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

One day you will regret NOT doing the things that made you uncomfortable! How does a young guy who grew up living in a van end up flying around in his backyard in a helicopter? Well, SUCCESS LEAVES CLUES and my next guest is telling it all… from inside his helicopter! You probably know him from his hit show, Diesel Brothers on the Discovery Channel. Dave Sparks aka Heavy D, is an unbelievably successful entrepreneur, TV personality, monster truck driver world record holder, custom vehicle builder, and social media influencer! He’s also a dear friend of mine and he has an AMAZING story I am so excited to share with you. This interview is packed with so much value. Dave is dropping knowledge bombs throughout the ENTIRE episode! No matter where you are, whatever circumstance you are dealing with, whatever doubt and uncertainty are standing in your way, take this lesson from Dave… “If a guy as untalented and as dumb as me can be flying around in a helicopter in my backyard, then literally every single one of you has hope!” THERE IS HOPE! Dave and I break down the importance and POWER of getting UNCOMFORTABLE, how to focus on the RESULTS over the RISK, and how SELF CONFIDENCE is all you need to achieve greatness! We talk about how we have both used uncertainty as a catalyst to accomplish our greatest feats and how falling in love with SERVING OTHERS and HARD WORK is the key to happiness. Dave also shares his secrets behind being a BEAST on social media and building a multi-million dollar following AND reveals his newest venture Nikola Motors creating hydrogen fuel-powered trucks with 900 - 1000 HP. This man is literally on the cutting edge of environmentally friendly technology! This is an interview you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO MISS! Do the hard things. Make yourself uncomfortable. CARE about people and there is no way you can be unhappy! Dave was able to turn his life into something miraculous and I TRULY believe you can too! After all, Dave was just a dumb kid who believed he could do anything.

This is the Edmmerl Show. Welcome back to Max out everybody. Today's going to be good. This guy's a friend of mine. I've never done an interview where I'm in my home and someone's in their helicopter. But we're going to do Okay, you said max out He's maxed out. He's at the top of a mountain interesting man

A really interesting man and it's gonna be a really interesting conversation because he's an entrepreneur He's a TD personality. Don't from the diesel brothers Uh, he's an innovator. He's a father. He's a man of faith. He's a personal development addict like I am And uh, and he's also father, he's a man of faith, he's a personal development addict like I am. And he's also, we're gonna talk about innovation technology, the environment. So listen to this entire interview or watch the entire interview because we're gonna go all over the place

with my friend Dave Sparks or Heavy D. So Dave, welcome to the program, brother, good to have you. Dude, it's about damn time, man. We would try and work before a code, something scheduled, and... One thing after another. But everything happens for a reason. Timing is everything, and I think there's a reason why we're doing it now.

I agree with you. Speaking of that, you're leading right in. How are you dealing with this business-wise? Co-Vid is a big thing as you develop or strategies you've done that are any different than non-COVID times you'd share with everybody? Yeah, Ed, let me tell you the biggest thing for me and my family at first, the way that we were handling this situation and then it started to spread

into my company is common sense. This is all about common sense. This is all about what does your gut tell you? Are you following the guidelines? Just follow guidelines? Are you going with what does your gut tell you? Are you following the guidelines? Just follow guidelines? Are you going with what your gut's telling you you need to be doing as far as your own well-being, your family safety?

So I've seen people on both ends of this, right? There's people who have just completely shut their whole life down. And then there's people who think it's a total conspiracy. Don't believe it in it at all. I fall. I find it, I fall my, you know, kind of right in the middle

there, but I found the only way to keep a level head is by just business as usual as much as you possibly can. And then that's when it comes to the point where it's in common sense. Am I sick? Am I going to hurt somebody? Am I going to affect somebody in a negative way? You know what, if I am, I'm going to change my plans. Otherwise, you've got to stay business as usual. We've worked too hard to get turned upside down and have everything shook out at this

point. I agree with you, man. I probably land about where you land too. You know, I know I don't know. And so I want to be respectful of other people's health and well-being. Same time, I've an obligation to win, to inspire, to grow my companies. And I'm worried. You know, last month, a third of all Americans didn't even make their mortgage payment. One third, man. I mean, that's a scary statistic, you know, and that's with some stimulus, with some people. I wonder this fall where we're going. So it's guys like you that are so important for people

to be listening to right now. A lot of you know who Dave is, but if you don't, I mean, he's really winning in multiple areas. And I was like, I got to know a little bit more, because I know this version of you. So I looked into your background, man. I'll prep for every step. Oh, boy.

Well, it's impressive to me and interesting because I think it might be easier for someone to sluff off your success and they, well, let's do just comes from the perfect family. Obviously, a very religious guy will talk about that later. But I started to learn about your mom and dad. And I'm both interested me a lot, particularly, I think how your dad made an impact on you.

And I don't always go into people's backgrounds, but I think it's telling about you. First thing is, I was struck to hear the back in the day your mom and dad bought some Tony Robbins tapes. And you were already trying to improve themselves, but tell them a little bit about dad's health struggles, almost losing him him then losing him how that impacted your family and maybe how it how it speaks to who you are now.

Man, that's crazy. I expected just about anything except for that and I love it because I'm going to chance to talk about my dad nearly as much as I feel like I should. He passed away from a brain tumor in 2007. But that was after he had lived 20 years longer than he should have by miraculously recovering from his first brain tumor. Pretty much right when I was born. In fact, I said this on Andy's podcast a while back,

but when I was born, my dad and mom made these DHS tapes of my dad had to introduce himself to us because the doctors told him he had weeks left to live from his brain tumor and he was going to die. And so they had made all these takes for each kid that I was supposed to watch when I was older. You know, this is how he's going to meet my dad because he was going to be gone. Miraculously recovered and went on to have just, have you ever seen the movie Big Fish?

It's about a couple of old men who told big fish stories and everybody thinks that they're always lying. Yes. Yes. So that's my dad's life to a tee. He would tell these stories and we're just like, you did not end up in jail in Mexico for hitting somebody's pig. And then turns out there's a mug shot of him in Mexico for like everything that he told

us. So, you know, my dad, every time he would get up, he would just get dropped kicked to the ground and get my health issues. Just one thing after another, this tumor and the strokes and everything that he had, you know, affected him his whole life, but he just never would get down. He would bounce back up, Ed.

I'm telling you, this guy was so quick to recover from these negative things that as a kid, I'm watching, I'm thinking nothing can hurt us. My dad looked what he's doing. We're invincible. My dad's energized to bunny. And then ultimately, as he got older, he didn't have dying, but my whole childhood, I watched my dad just get his ass kicked and get right back up. And so, some of that's got to be inside me somewhere, obviously. And that's how I've approached everything, man. My approach to life is your worst case scenario really isn't that bad. You know what I watch you?

I love that approach. And I don't mean to overplay it, but there's a goodness about you that comes through your spirit role. Like a positivity, a goodness. I think people underestimate that. Maria Manunoz on a few weeks ago and she just smiles a lot. People think, well, that's that's a ridiculous life strategy. No, it actually is a real thing. And there's a thing about you

where I think people like and root for you based on that spirit. I was wondered, what if a little that came from his old man? Also, you know, another element I've noticed in you is you're a worker, dude. And it wasn't your dad like doing multiple things like you guys were homeless for a while, right? Yeah, we lived in a VW van for like six weeks because here's the deal. My dad was a green beret and he was in like the top one percentile of military service members as far as like fitness and stuff. Dude was kicking ass, and then out of nowhere, he gets his brain tumor.

And so from there, he got medically discharged and spent a lot of time out in Walter Reed Hospital. In fact, I was born in Cumberland, Maryland, where we've been stationed in the hospital for a while. I only lived there for six weeks until I moved back to Utah, but during those six weeks, they were in a van. And I was just, I was life.

And my dad installed car stereos and delivered a domino's pizza when he was sick and he couldn't work anywhere else. And then when he got too sick from chemotherapy, my mom would then go out and deliver his pizzas and install a car stereos for him when he was at home, you know, basically just riding and paying for him

from chemotherapy. And that's how they did it, man, my mom, neither of them have had thermal, you know, formal educations, and this has made it happen. That was blows my mind. Everybody, just listen to what you're hearing. Cause maybe you're going through one of these moments.

You know, maybe you're bored of lying homeless right now. Maybe you don't come from the, you know, sounds like you got a great family, but you know what I mean? Like the perfect nuclear family where everything's in place all the time. And I think it's funny, man, I, your dad created this environment where you felt safe, but at the same time, you knew he was sick. I made a lot of successful people, and I had this with my dad's drinking. Like, almost an advantage that there was anxiety or not certainty all the time as a kid.

I don't, I feel like that's been a catalyst for me to create certainty in my life to some extent. Do you know what I mean? Do you think you have a little bit of a... I couldn't agree with you anymore on that statement. When I, I've told the story before where long story short, me and my brother and sisters was one of the trampoline really bad.

It's all we wanted. And mom and dad didn't have the money for it. So we got together and so we're in both lawns, we're in to this, we're in to do all these different things. And we're going to save up as things, $200 that we need for a trampoline back in the 90s. And we got there, we were almost there, we were just shy of $200 and one day I went to go put the final $5 in there and the money was gone. And I was like, that's weird right back. Where'd that go? And I went to my mom and just said mom what happened to trampoline money? She said I

Needed a progressures and like just she just thought out how to just you know tell me and she wasn't She's just very matter of fact about it and and I remember thinking in that moment that was literally the moment I was like nah, I'm not gonna play this game when I'm older I don't want I don't want to do this. I don't want to see that I don't want to have the pain in my eyes that my mom just showed me and that was man I was seven years old but from from that moment on, I've been successful. Dude, I love this. I knew it was good, but I knew it wasn't going to be this good this early, because people see him, oh, by the way, it's also a monster talk driver. I forgot

to talk about it. So, a world record holder. World record holder. Yeah. Star. You look at this huge social media brand. I mean, guys, there's a lot here. And like, we're going to go everywhere. So I'm just going to go where I want to go with you.

So we're going to go forward backwards everywhere. But like I started by saying this real quick. And one thing I want to say is, the reason I'm sitting here in my helicopter, I was out flying around before the interview. And I thought, you know what? I could go back to shop or I could land right here and show the whole world, you know,

everyone who follows Edmila, that if a guy as untalented and as dumb as me can be flying around in a helicopter in my backyard, then literally every single one of you has hope. That's honestly, that's a big deal for me because I'm not, you know, out of 10 people in a room, I am the ninth on the smart list. Like, you know, I am not the smartest guy in any room, I am the ninth on the smart list. Like, you know, I am not the smartest guy in any room,

but I just want to show people on the list. Bragg, what are you the one? So you're saying smarts? Not self-confidence. Whoa, that's it. That, if you told me, if you told me I had to find, if you told me I couldn't find a way to fly the moon tomorrow, I would tinker all night long until I found a way to do it.

I mean, that's just I will do anything. That's that's that's people looking in like, man, that's scary. You've got too much confidence. And yeah, maybe so, but you know what? It's brought me a whole lot more good than bad in my life. In fact, I can't think of anything bad that's brought me. And so that's it. It's rooted in your your confidence that you'll just do the work required.

Is that what you're saying? Is it? It's rooted in my confidence that no matter what do the work required. Is that what you're saying? It's rooted in my confidence that no matter what happens, I'm going to get what I want. No matter how it has to happen, no matter. I don't think about the process, but I have a terrible process guy. I'm the end result guy. And whatever it takes to get there, I get there. My brain just doesn't, I always tell people I'm too dumb to be able to calculate risk. I just, I don't know how to do it.

When somebody says, look at this risk analysis for this business, whatever it is, I'm like, just go do it. And then you'll be fine. Okay, speaking of that, I already feel like we're early and I'm like, I know I'm going to want more time. So, you see, this is there. Dave's had all kinds of success guys. We're going to talk about some of the elements of that,

but I'm going to fast forward to now because I'm just personally curious because I want to buy one from you. I'm going to pronounce it wrong, but I want you to. You're an innovator now. Little, you know, monster truck dude or a diesel brother, you know, obviously you love to get your hands dirty and work with your hands and create things. create things, but I think you've moved now into like modern cutting edge technology too. With this, is it Nikola or Nikola, the badger that you're part of right now? Yeah, so it's Nikola. Nikola, I mean, this is nuts. So tell about, you know what, I'm going to take a drink before this one because this is, I'm going to get along with it right here because this is something I'm really excited about.

Okay. So, Ed, Nikola is obviously Nikola Tesla, right? Tesla has got his last name, we got his first name. It wasn't necessarily a rebuttal one to the other either, because both companies are, I mean, Tesla's three or four years older than Nikola, but it was really just, it was, you know, honoring Nikola Tesla, the dude who as a genius. And so that's where that came from, but Nikola was a company that was formed by a buddy

of mine named Trevor Mill. And Trevor and I, you know, we each other from way back before I even met my wife, we used to go to these big, you know, singles parties down in Lake Powell and just go have a great time. And we've been buddies ever since. And I've watched him just grind away over the years. and he's failed at multiple businesses. He's my bankrupt, he lost a bunch of friends and families money. You know, every store you can think of as happy to do an entrepreneur has happened to him. Well, fast forward to this time last year and Nicholas started picking up a lot of momentum as far as an electric semi truck company building electric, you know,

haul trucks for Budweiser and, you know, this morning We just announced that we've got a 5,000 truck order for electric garbage trucks So no more loud, you know, diesel garbage truck in your driveway And so Trevor came to me About six months ago a little longer than that like hey We got a solid problem with pickup trucks and this was right after the cyber truck came out. And he and I kind of approach each other at the exact same time. Like, did you see this? Like, what's happening here? Now let me preface this by saying Elon's a genius.

I love what Elon's done. He runs an amazing business. There's never going to be another Elon Musk. The cyber truck isn't a truck man's truck. It's a Tesla guys truck. And so we saw that one like, man, there's a Tesla guys truck. And so we saw that and we're like, man, there's a giant opportunity here. Jumped in, we did roughly 10 years worth of work in about four months to be able to design and prepare this truck and then launched it in February and started taking reservations

for it in just last month. And we are, let's just say it's doing really well. The truck is, the reservations are off the charts. And the reason why is because, like I said before, it's a truck built for truck people, by truck people. It's not a truck built for truck people by Tesla. And so that's the difference is we actually use trucks. And I won't put my name on it.

As I can take this thing out, I'll just absolutely beat the crap out of it and prove that it's gonna do what a contractor needs to do and then take his wipe out on a date on Friday and then go to church on Sunday. Because trucks are people's lives. Blue color America, it is your life, your office, your apartment, your home away from home. And a lot of guys live in their trucks. And so it's not a car.

You got to forget that. It's not a car. Man's truck is like his dog. It's his best friend. And so there's a lot of people that felt like they were left out electric truck market with the Cybertruck concept. And so we came in and the main difference between our truck and the Cybertruck is we have, we use hydrogen power as well. So I'm a big believer in hydrogen fuel. Not in the sense that you would burn it in an engine, but in the sense that you can create electricity by passing hydrogen through a membrane

And it's literally just generating electricity and all the byproduct is vapor just steam So hydrogen fuels coming the long ways technology is coming long ways So basically our truck right now can go 300 miles on a battery and then go in additional 300 miles using an 8 kilogram Hydrogen fuel cell basically a small like barbecue propane tank. And the truck will go 600 miles and the difference is, you've driven a golf cart when the batteries get low. You know exactly that feeling of it's lagging, there's no response left, you know your

batteries are dying. So that's what happens with, you know, Tesla. As your battery starts to get weak, especially with the truck, let's say you would go climb alcohol and get passed with a trailer with an electric truck, forget about it. It's not going to be able to handle it because the battery cannot keep up. That's where the hydrogen fuel cell steps in to basically supplements the battery. And so, guys can go on long hauls with heavy loads of steep hills with their electric truck and they'll do it just fine. They're not going to get passed. In fact, they're going to be passing people because this thing has a thousand horsepower. Yeah, you guys hear that?

900 to a thousand horsepower. You guys know why I want to dive on because you got this dude, got the beard, got the muscle shirt on, he's flying around in helicopter. He seems like this real blue collar dude. Now you're finding out like,

you're talking on the cutting edge of technology. By the way, environmentally sound technology as well. He's a super interesting dude. And then, so I wanna skip around, that's a little bit of your business piece. We'll probably come back to it. The other thing you've done, everyone listening to this would like

to grow their social media. Yeah, everybody would. You're a beast on social media. And you've had some strategies that have worked. Like it's not just because you have the show. So like is it the giveaway strategy, something other people should be considering? Like what has been some of the,

undo the secret dude, you never cover this stuff. What is one of the secrets of building up a multi million dollar following for you on social? Just what work? Just keep this in mind on social. What you think isn't gonna work is probably what's gonna work. With all these different posts and videos and everything like that, I posted a little video a month or so ago of me teaching my little girl how to shoot an AR-15.

I wanted her to learn gun safety and you know this wasn't a political post. It wasn't anything. It was just saying, hey, this is how me and my family spend time together. Look at my eight-year-old daughter handling this rifle, you know, safely. And I put it up thinking, you know, friends, family, whatever, I might get a couple hundred thousand views, which is low on my page. Next thing you know, this thing's like spiking over a million views overnight, and I'm just like, what is happening? I did not expect this. But you know what it is, it's because people just want to relate to you. They just want to feel like they could be with you for a day or be somebody like you. And I think a lot of these high profile social media pages don't get me wrong, they grow well, but they become so disconnected.

And I think this is why a lot of big, big celebrities like Hollywood A-listers don't do well on social media because they're not used to being relatable. They want to be as far separated from the fan or the viewers possible. And so the more relatable you are, the more yourself you are, the more people just thrive on it. You see some of the crazy blogs and videos and things that go popular and people just can't get enough of. And you're watching, you're like, there's nothing really special to this.

It's just a person who I actually enjoy watching and engage with. And I feel like I'm hanging out with a friend. So that's why I want people to feel like when they follow me on social media and Instagram. I want them to feel like a friend or a family member and that's kind of the way my page is. I've got a lot of people that are just, they know my kids' names and that to me is saying something. It shows that they believe in who I am and I give them the respect and dignity that I

can when obviously communicating with them And it's it's it works that way But if you want to accelerate your growth right first step on be yourself. You're relatable step two give people a reason Give them a reason get just don't ask them to do something for you Give them a reason to do something for you. I mean, that's that's it That's you go out there. So that's why these giveaways will take a prize or a concept or something or an experience.

That's my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know, my world revolves around creating experiences for people. That's, that is my ultimate form of happiness. You know, nothing, nothing else gets me as excited as giving somebody else a helicopter ride for the first time. I mean, for me, that's just the way that I enjoy it. I really, really enjoy doing that. So that's where we've offered people these prizes and experiences and things like that. And they feel like, okay, this is mutually beneficial.

They know that I'm going to eventually sell them a product or a server, so I'm going to promote a company or I'm going to do something like that. But they know that it's been a two-way road. It's not just me asking, asking, or selling, selling. It's, hey, you know what, loyal followers. I like you guys. You're great. Here's 10-free, you know, whatever it is. For no reason, that's the kind of stuff that if you can get in tune, you can do it regularly. I mean, you do it really well in your page. Your engagement is through the roof, but that's because you guys go on there, you go on there, and you sit there. I mean,

that's how UNI First Community Start communicating. You're responding to people's DMs, even though there's so many frustrating, stupid messages that you have to sift through to get to something, somebody who's being sincere. So, I think that's, if you can remember those principles, you're gonna dominate on social. So I watched yours and learned. And so I wanna go to someone listening to this,

I just wanna say what Dave said for those of you that have 2000 followers right now. You're like, how do I do that? Maybe they don't want to be me. I want you to hear what Dave does. Dave's page has a lot to do with reciprocity. Meaning like he just gives and gives and gives and gives. And then he almost doesn't have to have a call to action

because he's built such a loyal following. So like there's a lady in my financial company right now. She's got a few thousand followers. And I said, start to do things where you can give value. So she said, hey, if you comment or tag somebody or DM or my post, I'll give you a budget analyzer. It's just a free thing. It wasn't a nothing, it was of value,

but for her it didn't cost anything, and it up for engagement, right? And then she actually got business for her financial company by giving away the free budget analyzer. So I'm trying to get you all to think if I was a fitness trainer, you know, DM me for a diet on losing three pounds in a week or DM me for muscle building, DM me for weight gain, DM me for shredding and some tools, some analyzer, some gift that ups your engagement if they do something else.

So I just think Dave's really good at that. And he also, when you watch his page, you do feel like you know him and you're going on some of these experiences and journeys with them too. He does a lot of what I call documenting his life. And yeah, his life is probably a little bit more interesting than everybody else's. But I also think people start to like to follow you just what's going on with your kids, document your existence. So Dave is super good at that.

I just want to acknowledge that before we kind of shift gears. And he said something about church on Sunday. And I didn't know I was going to go there with you, but it's part of you. I want by the end of this hour they go, okay. A dude grows up, he's got a sick dad most of his life, a wonderful family, but dad's delivering pizzas mom's helping install car audio car

Car stereos not a lot of stability there says he's not got the highest IQ in the world It's become one of the most high profile Celebrity entrepreneurs in his lane and now he's creating new lanes how the heck does this happen? And so I think part of it when I think think of Dave, I think of his personal development, because he's friends with Andy, he's friends with me, he's into that stuff, that's about an element, he's told you self-confidence is a key, we've covered his social media,

and I think your faith is part of it. And so if we could talk about that minute, Dave's Mormon, you did a mission. Did you not? Did you go on a mission for your church? I did, yeah, That was funny real quick. When I first started listening to you, I wasn't 100% sure your background, I just started listening.

You and Lewis Houser, two guys that I thought, like after the first couple of episodes, I got, these guys Mormon, these guys, I mean Mormon. You live a very clean lifestyle and that's what obviously Mormonism is all about. That's what I went on my mission to teach about. The insight that my let's not a Mormon is the tequila sitting behind my head. Other than that, that's usually the giveaway. One of the things I love is the transformation

that I watch these young people go through. I was just saying men, but it's not just men anymore. They go through on their mission. Most of them go away, boys, and just saying men, but it's not just men anymore. They go through on their mission. Most of them go away, boys, and come back men. I want you to talk about it because from two perspectives, everyone's going, well, I'm not more than my kids not going on a more of admission. No, I'm talking about challenging the young people in your life if you're young being challenged, if you're young or have young people doing something of complete, unselfish sacrifice and how that

can transform a young person's life. So would you discuss that experience and what it did for you? So my whole life, I thought, you know, I heard stories about my mom and dad. They both went on missions to Germany and I thought, let's just who I am. That's what I'm going to do. You know, I'm gonna be a missionary. And that's ultimately, you know, as a young Mormon, that's what most of us think. That's all we do.

We just assume that we're gonna go serve a mission. And then when it comes time, when you're 19 years old, all of a sudden, packing up and leaving and not having a girlfriend and having no money and having no phone and going to a country you've never been to before, man, it's like, all right, well, I'm sure I want to do this because I could either start my life or I could go put my life on hold for two years. And so that's

a, that right there is a big decision. Luckily, since I was a kid, I knew that's something I wanted to do. And so I powered through and did end up going. And dude, that is, that's, that's 90% responsible for who I am today. Packing up all my belongings, taking no money, no nothing, and going down to the jungle of Bolivian Brazil and knocking on mud shacks and teaching people about, you know, Jesus and God and people who don't, they've never heard any of this before. And it's not that they, not that we're really changing

a lot of people's religious beliefs, we're giving them religious beliefs. They're finally learning that all this stuff makes sense and where they came from and where they're going. And so that right there is a big deal for a 19 year old kid to go forget about everything and go worry about. I was genuinely, I was a mess.

I was just a puffy face, you know, just scruffy look in 19 year old kid. They didn't care about myself. All I cared about was the work. And that's how most missionaries get. If you're a good missionary, you know, just scruffy looking 19 year old kid. They didn't care about myself. All I cared about was the work. And that's how most missionaries get. If you're a good missionary, you'll see, they just get lost in the work. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta jump in. Cause there's a similarity here.

Guys, success leaves clues. So first off, I don't want any DMs from someone tell me I'm promoting a religion or, and I thought you were a non-denominational commission. Now you're promoting this. I've had Muslims, Jews. I've had every faith on my show. I've had people that are are agnostic and atheist. The lesson here guys is this, Dave went through an experienced young that he chose to do by the way

that was completely service oriented. This is the lesson. At my lab, mine was different. My old man comes home from an AA meeting, and my old man gets me a job at an orphanage. So my form of a mission, my form of sacrifices a young man was at 21 years old with orphan boys for the years that I spent there. That transformed me, it transformed me rather. I went from being someone ego and selfishly driven to falling in love with service of other people. Dude, that's awesome. I didn't know you did that. That's really cool.

I just feel like there's such a gargantuan lesson. And it's one of the things that's so wonderful that I respect so much about the churches. They ask for sacrifice from young people early in their lives. And I don't think enough parents are asking their children to sacrifice in the service of other people early in their lives. And I don't think enough parents are asking their children to sacrifice in the service of other people early enough

and you're sewing into your children a disadvantage later in life. If you're a young person listening to this and maybe you haven't found happiness or peace of mind or your purpose, find somewhere you can serve unsalphishly for people. And I believe it'll begin to turn your life around. This is a part of the interview everybody,

where you send this clip to people you know that have young people that are struggling or young people you can look at. There's so many winners that I know who did something young early in their life in the sacrifice, their own personal time in the service of other people. One other little element of the church

I'd like to talk about that might surprise you that I know about. But everybody listening to this for the most part wants to raise a great family. And one of the things the Mormon church does, I believe still, is what they call family home evening. And I've adopted this price of pricing about this but that's awesome. Family. And I think this is a lesson anybody from any faith can garner from you. So what is it and why has it been so powerful for you and your family?

So a family home evening in the church obviously is something that the church has every family in the world on Monday nights to make it a priority to spend time together and talk, learn. You know, it didn't have to even be church lessons. It's just, you know, let's learn how to balance a checkbook, you know, this family night, whatever it is. And it's basically an opportunity for the family

to just get together and open up different lines of communication rather than I'm hungry or do your chores or do this or do that. It provides an environment where as a kid, I used to be able to think like, oh man, like, that was probably the time I can ask my, you know, dad, did Jesus really walk on water? And these different things, and it's not a weird time

to ask it. So for us at family time, you know, family home evening is rough because I'm a busy guy. I'm all over the world, you know, all the time with our schedule. And so we've learned that we have to make family night happen when we can. And it's still just as effective as if it were, you know, every Monday night. If not more effective because we're getting an in at times when, you know, my kids are young, they're impressionable. The family needs this time together now. And if we were to overlook this stuff, I know that, you know, a few years from now,

I'm going to be thinking, man, I really wish I would have taught my daughter this, that, and, you know, all these different key principles. I don't want her to learn that stuff anywhere, but at home. Yep. So regardless of your faith, everybody, why did I want Dave to speak to this? Regardless of your faith, I think having a priority where you gather your family for an hour or two hours on a consistent basis. You'd say, well, obviously, no, as busy as the world is, when's the last time like three weeks in a row, you and your family got together and talked? What are your goals? What do you have planned? What are you working on? What are you excited about? What are you grateful for? Right? It's

side-to-the-face time. I think it's a structural awesome thing that you do that people that coach you and people say, a lot of my people that ask me for advice are like, ah, well, we're, you know, we're split family now. We've been divorced. If you're on good terms, if you are, how powerful would it be once a month for you to have a family home evening where both parents are with the children for that one evening for two or three hours and you spend time even if you're no longer married. Huge lesson. Listen, more and more what's going on in the world, the outside distractions. You need a family that's strong. You need, and by the way, what's your system for your strong family, right?

Everything needs a system. I want a strong family. Great. That's a great thought. It's a great belief. What's your system? Name me three things you do to have your strong family. You may say, well, we go to our church every Sunday. Wonderful. That's an awesome thing for you and your family. Celebrate that.

Is there anything else? Could you take advantage of just a scheduled evening that you do once a week? And, you know, 50 years ago, people did it almost every night, right? They're dinner together. Everyone sat around the table. Everybody talked. Now you got a schedule.

It's so awesome stuff. Okay. Next thing. I want to go back to the self confidence thing with you. You kind of do this checklist deal. Yeah. Right. This, guys, this is like, get your pen ready type thing.

So what does that mean? Like, and, and, and, and is it something like officially new or is it just a thought process? So it's funny you should ask. I'm sitting in my helicopter obviously right now and I've got, this is my checklist, all right? This list right here, I have to, I have to like systematically go down it

and check off every item before I can put the thing in the air. Because if I don't do that, there could be one dumb little switch on here that I miss that could ultimately end up causing me to crash or cause issues or whatever. And so they say that, you know, checklist items are written in blood.

They're on there for a reason. If somebody died because they missed it before. And so that's why, you know, following a checklist, I had a podcast, you know, called heavy checklist, because it's all about giving very simple basic marching orders. This checklist right here, Ed, is not hard to read. It's just read the line item, go over and do the task. But I think we overcomplicate things so much and people start looking like,

what's the risk and what's my, what's going to happen and how what happens if it doesn't go the way that it's supposed to. Don't worry about about that just follow one step at a time and give yourself a systematic process to be able to Move ahead. I think in this day and age the hardest thing to do for our generation is Hard things we don't like to do hard things and and in not doing hard things We are telling we're basically evolving backwards. We're telling our bodies, it's okay to be comfortable. You don't have to be uncomfortable. You don't have to be uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is hands down the most powerful tool

that we have. And what that means is, you know, every morning I get my eyes fast because I'm a big whim-huff guy. I love the breathing. I love that. I hate cold water. I'm telling you I hate cold water. But now every morning I crave it, my body thanks me for it. And it's something that I start my day off doing something really hard and miserable. And from there on out, everything else gets easier. So, and I think that two things can bring people happiness. Providing service to other people and working hard. I've never seen anybody unhappy doing those two things. I just, I don't have you. No, it's genius.

This is a guy on my show named Andrew Huberman. He said, actually, that he's attracted dopamine in your brain. It turns out that you actually get a greater dopamine hit when you're doing hard things and when you actually achieve something Absolutely, he's proven it as a neuroscientist. I think there's going to be a great book. Maybe I'll write it That eventually someone's going to prove and this is the most ironic thing in the world As human beings because we used to live in caves right I think as human beings I think we think happiness is the absence and avoidance of pain. Oh, dude.

Could it be more wrong? The opposite. Happiness is found in the pain. That's your happy zone. It's the great, I'm not talking about get into your comfort zone. That's where all the things are. I mean, deeper. I'm telling you, the absence of pain is a formula for no happiness.

And the pursuit through pain is the pathway to bliss, to dopamine, to happiness. Isn't that ironic? It's insanity. But I mean, if you think about it, it's so simple. If you don't know what pain is, how do you know what pleasure is? I mean, it's a biblical concept, right? I mean, this is as old as time, but I feel like a lot of times we become so focused on just trying to become happy that we forget to be happy. Like it's like you said, you know, blissful dissatisfaction is one of the most powerful things I've ever heard anybody say ever.

You should go, you should get the Nobel Prize for that. Or whatever the prize they're given out, you should have that one, because I've shared that with more people than I can count because dude, it's so simple. It's so simple. Just enjoy the ride. Enjoy the ride. It's not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. It's always going to be fun. And you're going to have to do hard things. But if you can just remember that the ride is probably going to be more fun than the destination, then you're going to have a really, really

good life. That's so true, man. More and more science is proven. It's like, I think one place everybody can relate to this. If you've ever trained or worked out, obviously Dave certainly does. You're a trained or worked out. Man, when you're just obliterating yourself in the gym, aren't you happy?

You know what I mean? You're like, it's some of the most physical pain you can possibly go through and you're like Awesome, so that's a metaphor right dude. I have gone on hikes and up and mountain runs where I literally at the end of the run Fall on my face. I can't even I can't even catch myself and I'm like in this you fork state of bliss because I I just did something really really hard and I think it's my body saying, dude, we did it. We can do hard things. Like, what's the next hard thing that we can do?

Like me and my body were a team, right? We got to approach things together knowing, okay, I think I can do this and my body's like, well, I guess I can try to keep up. I mean, that's ultimately why I don't calculate risk very well, because my body and brain are always just like, do it, just go. And then when you'll deal with the consequences,

but man, it's stopped trying to avoid trouble. Stop trying to avoid the obstacles. Go hit those obstacles and find a way to get over them. I promise you, it's way more satisfying than hiding from them. You know that. This is becoming like a masterclass, or I'm going to splice this in a multiple clips, but I just got to add one thing.

Because of my show, it's kinda like two people talking. And I've been talking to my dad lately, my dad's in chemotherapy and, you know, he's fighting the good fight. And but he's at that time in his life, I think to some extent where you look back on it. And it's interesting, everybody, what Dave just said about do hard things.

My dad's achieved and accomplished a lot of things in his life and I know he's very proud of that. But he's also told me, I regret some painful risks I didn't take. And even if I had failed at them, at this stage of my life, I would look back with not regretting the effort of them. And I think, I think there's a lesson there, everybody, that even if you do fail, you'll live with less regret than if you didn't attempt it later in your life. And someone at my dad's stage, if he's got 20 years left or 20 months left, he would tell you that. And so Dave's not only right as a young man and the throws of doing it

and he's telling you this and I'm telling you this, if you can ask somebody on the other side of life and I think they would acknowledge and agree with him as well. Do hard things. I mean, Ed, look at our bodies, for example. It's a great example. When you fall down and you bang up your knee and you start bleeding, do you bleed out forever? No, your body repairs itself. Your body says, no, I can fix that. We'll get back up and get going.

It's such a primal instinct. Even our bodies are designed to be broken down and hit and fail and smash and come back and the body says, no, we're good. We're going to keep growing. If our bodies naturally doing that, why can't we do that with our brains? Whoa. I don't know what it shows, man. No one said that before.

That's really good, brother. That is real. You mean, think about it. It's just basic. It's so basic. It's human nature. And I think sometimes, I think, the biggest thing is sometimes we just need

to uncomplicate things. Just simplify, go do, figure out, and then you'll know what to do next. You said you don't calculate risk a lot. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid all this is gonna go away and you're gonna lose it? Is there something you're afraid of?

I don't like dark water. I don't like, I don't like, for example, if I were to go away and you're going to lose it. Is there something you're afraid of? I don't like dark water. I don't like, for example, if I were to go down to the harbor, like San Diego harbor around the piers, and I have to go in the water at late at night and dangle my feet down there and don't know what's there, forget about it. That's like the only thing. And crabs.

I don't like crabs at the beach. Other than those two things, I'm good. Crabbs and dark water at night. Yep. Don't you want an island or something somewhere? I do. I own a 3,000 acre island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake, which is, you need to come see this,

because you step on this island and you step back into 1820 when the grave robber who was robbing graves in downtown Salt Lake got banished out there and it was his own Alcatraz. That's the last person we ever lived out there. And so you are stuck in the wild west and it is the most hard place to live and hard place to build and hard place to keep equipment, but it is one of the most rewarding and cool places, I think in the world because it's a private island in the middle of the great

Salt Lake and it's huge. So if you do something like that, it means you're nutty like me and Andy are looking at cool things all the time, right? And one thing Andy does, we do it with each other. Andy for sell our mutual great friend. Is Andy and I sell each other to dream regularly. There's another little key guys where like he'll send me some property and, you know, Turks and K-Cost or whatever, go, hey dude,

someday I'm getting this. I'm like, well, here's one in VG, you know, and- Dude, I just got the text from Andy 30 minutes ago saying, dude, look at this property. It's right over the hill here in Park City. It's a five minute helicopter ride for me. I mean, that guy's like you, guys like him,

are the people that I surround myself with because you give me pumped up and the thinking thing, like I can do things and I probably shouldn't be able to think I could do, but I can now I can do them because you told me I can believe in it. That's exactly it, guys. Next layer, you've got to have people around you things like I can do things and I probably shouldn't be able to think I can do but I can now I can do them because you told me I can believe it. That's exactly it guys.

Next layer, you've got to have people around you who are selling you the dream and you're selling it for them and if you don't sell it to yourself, like you don't end up with a 3,000 acre island and at least it's on a radar to consider at some point. You're a crazy person if you do that. You're literally a crazy person in the best possible way. Another little layer and I'm always selling myself the dream friends Of mine sell me the dream. Hey look at this. What about that? You could do this. I'm sending Andy Jets from time to time You know and it's not all by the way

Material things I have other friends when I'm like hey look what these guys just did in this mission work They just did in Mexico because my other friends are inspired by a jet But I'm selling on the dream that hey name we could fund that mission trip down there. So another layer of this is huge. We're going to run out of time and I don't want that to go do you do not worry this is all going to go away the show people knowing you you don't fear that that's not in there with the dark water. No it can go away tomorrow and I'll get it again the next day. I mean that it's one the part is, once you've had success, now everything's compounded.

Things begin to compound. So if I had to go start over again tomorrow with nothing, well, all the years of failure have built me this nice little nest egg of experience and it's all compounded on top of itself. So if I had to start over what happens so much faster because I don't have to make all the same mistakes that I made before. I already have this knowledge. I have this information. But man, I just it's not going to

happen. I mean, as I know as as truly as I'm looking at the sun right now like if I don't want it to happen, it's not going to happen. If I want it to happen, it's not going to happen. If I want it to happen, it's going to happen. If you can have, if you can wake up in the morning and look yourself in the face in the mirror and just say, I'm going to do literally anything I want today and I can do anything I want today and you actually truly believe it. That's a powerful thing. I can tell you I got, I don't know when or how that happened to me, but it happened

years ago and, you know, people looking at me. The hardest part about this being so confident is having a wife. Because when the wife asked you to do something, and a guy like you says, I can't do that, my wife's like, well, that's horseshoe because you can fly to the moon if you want to. And so don't tell me, you can't get away

for a piano recital or whatever it is. And so I'm just like, all right, I appreciate you got me. Let's do it. And so, I mean, Ed, that's biggest things I can tell you as far as, you know, parting words for your listeners is start to embrace hard work, like learn to love hard work. And maybe you're going to hate it, but you're

going to love yourself after you do it. Do hard things, put you should put yourself in uncomfortable situations. I honestly think that I know depression and mental illness is a huge, huge, huge problem all over the world, but I also believe that something that could put a big dent in that epidemic is if people would just make themselves uncomfortable. And just because you can't be in your head

having anxiety and having a mental breakdown while you're shoveling, you know, a hole with your bare hands. You just can't. Your brain doesn't allow you to do it. You're in a state of stress where your brain says, no, we're working right now. We don't have time to deal with that bullshit. And I just feel like if people would take the time

to do the hard things to make themselves uncomfortable and, you know, on top of that, worry about making sure their neighbors okay, worry about if the guy that they just passed on the front of the side of the road might not have a ride coming to get them. Do those little things, man? I don't know how it would be possible to be sad. I just don't. What's the purpose of this advice? And by the way, if you have a tendency towards depression or worry or anxiety, it's always happening when you're sitting still. It's exactly Not active it brings it on. Hey guys, by the way Dave

Unbelievable conversation and like maybe the fastest flow by interview we've ever done before Maybe it's because you're in a helicopter Watching this sees this but if you listen to some of the keys Dave you guys go fall Dave on Instagram You know check out his show. We'll put that in the keys, Dave, you guys, by the way, guys, go fall Dave on Instagram. You know, check out his show. We'll put that in the notes. But I want you to remember this, guys. What you just listened to is a man in his helicopter.

The view is unbelievable. If you're on audio, just trust me. This man grew up, his parents made his clothes. Yeah. He lived in a VW bus, guys. And he's able, and he's a young man. And he's been able to turn his life into something like this. And we gave you the five to six, seven, eight keys today and he's able, and he's a young man, and he's been able to turn his life into something miraculous.

And we gave you the five to six, seven, eight keys today that developed a life he's got for himself. You want to show him again? Just do a quick walk around here for you. So this is, look at this, this is the helicopter here. This is the Red Bull helicopter. This one does backflips. I just learned how to do backflips a couple of weeks ago. This is the Red Bull helicopter. This one does backflips. I just learned how to do backflips in a couple of weeks ago.

This is my backyard. You go down this ridge line and it goes right into the backyard of our new house that we just built. And there's the island out there, way out in the middle of the great Salt Lake. There's downtown Salt Lake. I mean, this is all, guys, this is like, this is just a dumb kid who thinks he can do anything.

So I knew it. People will do it. I mean, right dude. You fired me up right there. That's going. That was awesome. Hey guys, from a BMW bug, Mom and Dad are doing car stereos of pizza's making his clothes to what you just saw or there. And you got the lessons from it today. God bless you, man.

It was so good. You exceeded my expectations. I kind of, I knew it was was gonna be awesome. It was so good I just flew my guys max out two-minute drill on Instagram every day when I make a post 730 Pacific I do it every time 730 Pacific every day if you make a comment Within the first two minutes, so your notifications need to be on or you just comment on all five posts I make every week just comment any time every day and reply to comments I pinned the top three comments every day now. So you're getting notoriety and followers and we pick a winner every single day

that wins a trip to come see me max out take a see me speak here they meet my guests fly on the jet all kinds of interaction coaching call with me things of that nature so follow me on Instagram turn on the your notifications for the two-minute drill. Dave Sparks, thank you so much. Awesome interview. Thank you, brother. And max out, everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. This is the end of my show. Yeah. you