Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Top Fuel Dreams to Monster Jam Glory: The Bryce Kenny Story
Transcript
- 0:00BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
- 0:04all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
- 0:09designers, and everything in between.
- 0:11Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
- 0:16How did they get that job or become that person?
- 0:19The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
- 0:27Since his 2016 debut, our guest has earned multiple awards, including
- 0:32the 2021 outreach award for his work, helping those in need and making
- 0:37positive contributions to the community.
- 0:39He has also set a Guinness world record in 2021 for the.
- 0:42Fastest speed in a monster truck and was the first driver to hit triple
- 0:47mile per hour digits in the sport.
- 0:49Bryce Kenny is a professional monster jam driver piloting
- 0:53the great clips Mohawk warrior.
- 0:56In recent years, Bryce has become an inspirational speaker and travels
- 0:59the country, speaking to audiences of all ages by finding the courage to
- 1:02chase your dreams and overcome fear.
- 1:04His newest book.
- 1:05Geared for life, guides readers to become unstuck in life and
- 1:08shift into the next gear to make a lasting impact on the world.
- 1:11And he's here with us to share his road to success story with you.
- 1:14With that, let's welcome Bryce to Brake Fix.
- 1:17What's up, guys?
- 1:18Thanks for having me on.
- 1:19It's gonna be fun.
- 1:20Absolutely.
- 1:21And joining me tonight is one of our regular co hosts on Brake Fix,
- 1:24Mountain Man Dan, who heads up our Mountain View division, all things
- 1:28dirt, off road, truck, and two wheels.
- 1:30So welcome back to the show, Dan.
- 1:31Glad to be here, Bryce.
- 1:32Good to have you on.
- 1:33Like all good break, fix stories.
- 1:36There's always a superhero origin.
- 1:37So where does Bryce's story start?
- 1:40Tell us about the who, what, when, and where, and how did you get into racing?
- 1:43Especially the world of monster trucks.
- 1:45I grew up in professional drag racing.
- 1:47We owned a drag strip in clay city, dragster at eight years old and
- 1:56just fell in love with the sport.
- 1:57My whole life, until I was about 23, had to do with drag racing.
- 2:02My grandfather, who owned the track, actually sold it when I was 13,
- 2:06and he bought a Top Fuel Dragster.
- 2:08And he was one of those guys, too, by the way.
- 2:09He started off souping up Oldsmobile cars and all these machines
- 2:14back on abandoned airstrips.
- 2:16And so like, he just kind of was one of those pioneers of the sport.
- 2:20I loved top fuel.
- 2:21I started off just cleaning the car and then I was a wrench fetcher with
- 2:26the guy that was doing the bottom end.
- 2:27And then all of a sudden I was clutch guy on our top fuel
- 2:30car when I was 15 years old.
- 2:32And so the fact that I'm ripping out 1500 degree clutch plates and stuff
- 2:36like that, and helping with the tune up of it, I mean, I got a crash course in
- 2:40just the mechanical side of horsepower.
- 2:42And so I loved it.
- 2:43I mean, my plan was to become a professional top fuel driver.
- 2:46And then when I was 20 years old, I actually got the chance to get my license.
- 2:50And so we were running the IHRA circuit.
- 2:51IHRA was always traditionally more of the sportsman focused
- 2:55than the professional focused.
- 2:56And that was back when IHRA ran a lot of top fuel cars.
- 2:59And so we were trying to make that shift.
- 3:01Over to NHRA and running with those big dogs, you know, the Don Schumacher's
- 3:05of the world and John forces.
- 3:07So when I took over the driving and that was the end of
- 3:092009, that was my whole goal.
- 3:11And so I spent every waking hour trying to find money, trying to find sponsorships
- 3:16and man, I got my teeth kicked in.
- 3:18You know, I found a lot of small stuff that just kept us
- 3:22going for about three years.
- 3:23But I never could find that big sponsorship.
- 3:26And that was 2010, our last big recession.
- 3:28And I remember talking on the phone with the owner.
- 3:30He owned a massive construction company.
- 3:32And he said, Bryce, I just laid off 500 people.
- 3:35How am I supposed to give you a dime?
- 3:36Right.
- 3:37And I'm kind of like, well, that's a good point.
- 3:39At that point, I went to my grandfather who had built that over 40 years.
- 3:43And I said, man, don't keep this for me.
- 3:45If it's to be, it's up to me kind of a thing.
- 3:47Like sell it, get your money back out of it.
- 3:49I had seven different jobs at that time as well, all funneling into that dream.
- 3:53I was just trying to make it work.
- 3:54And so I just said, look, sell it, man.
- 3:56I'll go and rebuild it.
- 3:57And if it takes me 40 years to get into it, so be it.
- 3:59As soon as we sold the top fuel stuff.
- 4:02So I actually went into a corporate job after that.
- 4:04You can barely find anything about me driving a top fuel car
- 4:07online, because that was even before social media was a big push.
- 4:10Knowing what I know now, gosh, what a missed opportunity, but
- 4:13we just never really made it big.
- 4:14So I hosted a kid named Morgan Cain.
- 4:17He grew up with Ryan Anderson, who is the Hoonigan's son of
- 4:21a digger monster jam driver.
- 4:22And so he graduated with Ryan and the Andersons are the Gravedigger family.
- 4:26And so I hosted Morgan on his soccer recruiting trip to Campbell University.
- 4:31Think about a thin thread.
- 4:33You know, we just kept in touch and I was going, doing Top Fuel stuff.
- 4:36He started driving a truck at that point because the Andersons were like,
- 4:39Hey, you need to come and try this out.
- 4:41And I think it was Stone Crusher.
- 4:42And then a couple other trucks.
- 4:43He found out that we sold all the Top Fuel stuff.
- 4:45And he said, Bryce, you need to talk to Monster Jam.
- 4:47I was like, man, I don't know.
- 4:49I had never been to a Monster Jam event up until that point.
- 4:51Still this day, I've never been to a NASCAR event.
- 4:54My whole world was drag racing.
- 4:56I had that first conversation with Monster Jam.
- 4:58They said, man, timing's not really good for us, but if it ever is.
- 5:01We'll call you.
- 5:02We all hear that like in a job, we'll keep your application on file.
- 5:05And I just kind of laughed it off and said, no big deal.
- 5:07And I went on with my life.
- 5:09I went and got a corporate job and I said, look, I'm going to go grind it
- 5:12out for 40 years, try to create wealth.
- 5:14And then I'll just become a team owner and get back into top fuel.
- 5:17Well, four years into that plan, Monster Jam actually does call me back.
- 5:21So four years pass and I remember that voicemail, just like I got it yesterday.
- 5:25And Hey, Bryce, Kenny, this is so and so with Feld Motorsports interested to see
- 5:29if you'd like to come up to monster jam university and drive a monster jam truck.
- 5:33Give me a call back.
- 5:34And so like, I remember thinking monster jam university has got
- 5:37to be some kind of a prank.
- 5:39You know, I didn't know it was an actual college per se.
- 5:42I remember thinking, how much is this going to cost me?
- 5:44Because remember, I was dumping so much money into that top
- 5:47fuel dream, keeping it alive.
- 5:48And I just didn't know if I could do that again.
- 5:50And they were kind of got frustrated there.
- 5:51They said, no, I mean, we got all the equipment and stuff like
- 5:54that up in Paxton, Illinois.
- 5:55I remember thinking, so just like a flight and a hotel, man, a thousand
- 5:58bucks, I might actually do this.
- 6:00No, we will buy you a flight and a hotel.
- 6:03Can you just get off of work and be available to come to Paxton,
- 6:07Illinois and test in a truck?
- 6:08I'm like.
- 6:09Well, heck yeah, I can do that, right?
- 6:10I mean, who would say no to that?
- 6:12And I genuinely, I didn't know that anything would come of it.
- 6:14I just thought in 10 years from that point, I'd be in some Buffalo
- 6:18Wild Wings somewhere, Monster Jam would come up on TV, and I'd get to
- 6:21nudge a buddy and go, Dude, I drove one of those things 10 years ago.
- 6:25It was a whirlwind, man.
- 6:26That was eight years ago, and here I am, and it's my full time job.
- 6:30And by the way, they did give me a diploma.
- 6:32From Monster Jam.
- 6:33I thought that was a little bit much, like, come on guys.
- 6:36I think I left it in the hotel room as well.
- 6:39And now I've been hitting myself over the head because I mentioned it so much.
- 6:43It would be kind of cool to like pull up my diploma from Monster Jam
- 6:46University, but real place, real diplomas.
- 6:48And it was a literal crash course in learning how to drive one of
- 6:51these 12, 000 pound machines.
- 6:53So what you're saying is the housekeeper that picked up that diploma, they've
- 6:55got something worth money right now.
- 6:56They don't know it.
- 6:57And trust me, they probably had no assumption that it
- 7:00would ever be worth anything.
- 7:01So I'm sure it found the trash, but maybe man, maybe it's like the most
- 7:05secretive piece of history of Bryce.
- 7:07Kenny's life out there somewhere.
- 7:09Holy cow.
- 7:09What a transition you go from driving really fast in a straight
- 7:13line for not a lot of time to.
- 7:15Behind the wheel of a 12, 000 pound truck.
- 7:18How does that work exactly?
- 7:20We talk all the time on this show about how one discipline can influence another.
- 7:24And if you start in go karting and go to autocross, then you can be a star club
- 7:28racer and all those kinds of things.
- 7:29Talk about diametrically opposed.
- 7:31Yes.
- 7:32What was that transition like?
- 7:33And what was it like learning to drive one of these trucks?
- 7:37To your point, you know, when you're driving something with 10, 000
- 7:40horsepower, like a top fuel car, flying through the air is a really bad day.
- 7:42You know, when you're driving something that weighs 12, 000 pounds in a monster
- 7:45jam truck, flying through the air is just another day at the office.
- 7:47And so are the skillsets that I had in top fuel relatable to monster trucks?
- 7:51No, they're really not, except for the fact that I understand
- 7:55the application of horsepower.
- 7:56You know, whether you're on asphalt.
- 7:58Or whether you're on dirt, that's what the sport is all about.
- 8:01It's trying to apply horsepower in the most effective way.
- 8:04I've never been intimidated by any situation in a 12, 000 pound truck because
- 8:09I've always felt safer, but I'm only having to deal with 1500 That's kind
- 8:15of bizarre to say, but it's not easier.
- 8:17It's actually been a lot harder because.
- 8:18I am the powertrain guy.
- 8:20I know what that supercharger on a top fuel car was doing.
- 8:24And I've pulled cylinder heads in a thrash on top fuel car.
- 8:27I know what that motor is doing and when it's happy and not happy,
- 8:31I can come over the radio with my crew guy in monster jam and go, man,
- 8:34we're a couple degrees off here.
- 8:35Can you go and just put a timing light on it?
- 8:37And a lot of times I'm right, or I can just pinpoint things in the powertrain.
- 8:40Now that's all great, but monster jam, honestly.
- 8:44Is not really about the powertrain.
- 8:46I mean, it's all very basic power.
- 8:47You're talking 540 big block Chevy motors, Merlin blocks.
- 8:52They're running on methanol, the technology of the power we make.
- 8:55I mean, we were doing that in 2003 in alcohol, dragsters
- 8:59and top alcohol, funny cars.
- 9:01I mean, it's kind of dated technology when it comes to power.
- 9:04But the thing that still I'm learning every time I go out
- 9:07there, it is the drive train.
- 9:08It's the way that these knuckles are built.
- 9:10It's the shock systems, man.
- 9:12It took me three years just to realize that I shouldn't feel like
- 9:15I was in a car crash every weekend.
- 9:16I mean, it would take me three days just to feel normal again.
- 9:19I remember talking to Morgan, who was the guy from Campbell.
- 9:21He was like, why are you sore?
- 9:23I'm like, I don't, I don't know.
- 9:24Aren't you sore after each.
- 9:25Monster Jam week.
- 9:26And he's like, no, I'm never sore when you're never sore.
- 9:28And he was doing twice as much as I was doing in terms of
- 9:31bigger air and crazier stunts and having bigger crashes and stuff.
- 9:35And so I was like, okay, something's wrong.
- 9:36But going back to the drive train point I'm trying to make, it's almost as
- 9:39if I would get over the radio after a big jump or some move the truck made,
- 9:42and I'd have to say, Hey man, that.
- 9:44Front left corner feels a little crunchy.
- 9:47Like that's about as good of information as I was able to give, you know, I
- 9:51wasn't able to talk about the king pins or planetaries or anything like that.
- 9:55And still, I mean, I'm learning that stuff every weekend, but I could show
- 9:58them what bolt might be loose on the motor just from the way it felt in the way.
- 10:01Uh, you know, I could hear it.
- 10:02So.
- 10:03There is a lot of transfers when it comes to power drive trains.
- 10:05Uh, there's been a whole nother story for me though, to learn the learning
- 10:08process was basically like you were a cold trickle calling into the pit
- 10:11and talking about what's going on.
- 10:12Right.
- 10:12Come on down here and get some ice cream.
- 10:16I've never thought that, but I think you're right, man.
- 10:19May.
- 10:20Oh man.
- 10:20I hate to be cold trickle.
- 10:22But he got the girls.
- 10:23He got the big sponsors though, didn't he?
- 10:24I don't know.
- 10:25That's true.
- 10:26Yeah.
- 10:27So going back to the education a little bit from the outside, when we look at the
- 10:31truck midair doing flips, doing jumps, we go, Ooh, and the crowd goes wild.
- 10:36How many of those?
- 10:38super easy from inside the cockpit and which ones are actually really,
- 10:41really difficult that we wouldn't be able to tell from the outside.
- 10:44Everyone loves the backflips.
- 10:46If you hit our backflip container with some momentum and a little bit of power,
- 10:50it's easy to get the truck to rotate.
- 10:52My thing is I've watched a guy break his neck on a backflip from under rotating.
- 10:56I've under rotated.
- 10:57That is the most dangerous situation is under rotating.
- 11:00So I have a tendency to over rotate because as much as I plan to do it, When I
- 11:04hit that container and it starts rotating, I have a very heavy right foot because
- 11:08I'd much rather over rotate than under.
- 11:11So getting it to rotate is actually quite easy.
- 11:14What people don't actually realize is the more the sport has evolved, we're doing
- 11:17more technical moves like nose wheelies and you know, stoppies stuff, you know,
- 11:21this started in a super cross and we're doing that in a 12, 000 pound truck.
- 11:24And it's hard to learn how to do those.
- 11:25Now, once you learn how to do them, they're easy because you
- 11:28have to take the truck further than you think it needs to go.
- 11:31Meaning you have to take it almost past zero in a way.
- 11:33Like if you're trying to get the truck to stand up on his nose, you know,
- 11:36you have to almost feel like you're about to fall forward on the truck
- 11:39before you feel that balance point.
- 11:41That is what throws a lot of Monster Jam drivers off by doing some of
- 11:44the technical moves like that.
- 11:46But that's honestly pretty easy.
- 11:47I think that what probably coordination wise that.
- 11:50Takes a lot of drivers get used to is just dealing with the rear steer mechanism.
- 11:53You know, we steer the back tire separately from the front.
- 11:55I didn't have trouble with it.
- 11:57It was kind of fun because it was almost like you're driving with your butt.
- 11:59In a big long dragster.
- 12:01I was used to that part anyway, because it's like, I was kind of always
- 12:04having to feel what the back of the dragster was doing with my butt anyway.
- 12:08So that part didn't, but I think a lot of drivers do struggle with that, but
- 12:11I think people think the back flips are incredible to watch and think that
- 12:14it's scary and they think that it's probably difficult to do is probably
- 12:18one of the easiest moves to make.
- 12:19Even though it's not always the easiest one to land on all four,
- 12:23but it's definitely easy to get the truck to actually rotate upside down.
- 12:26Probably close to 20 years ago.
- 12:27I remember one of the first backflips done in motocross,
- 12:30and that was a phenomenal feat.
- 12:32It's one of those things where being someone who's rode motocross
- 12:34and everything, the bike is a lot smaller and you can feel it.
- 12:37How is being in the truck compared to like, if you want to bike, is it a major
- 12:40difference or is it similar to where you feel everything that's going on?
- 12:43We've learned a lot from dirt bikes.
- 12:45You know, those are the guys that change the pitch.
- 12:48All of a sudden you tap the brakes to kind of get it to nose down.
- 12:51We do the same things in these 12, 000 pound trucks.
- 12:53All of a sudden I hit a jump and I'm nose high.
- 12:55We just tap the brake a little bit to bring the nose
- 12:57down to try to flat land it.
- 12:59And vice versa, you know, if the nose is lower and we want to bring
- 13:02it up, you know, you just get on the throttle and get the big tires going.
- 13:05It's all a matter of physics.
- 13:06Tires that we have are 66 inches tall, weigh a 600 pounds each.
- 13:11When you control the movement of weight distribution, it always affects
- 13:16what the machine's going to do.
- 13:17And so there's a ton that we've learned and adopted, even though it's
- 13:21definitely gonna be easier for the dirt bike guys, motocross guys to control
- 13:24the machine, cause it's lighter.
- 13:26At the end of the day, they still do.
- 13:28If anyone just like what you're kind of alluding to, if you know the sport,
- 13:31you watch them work that machine.
- 13:33It's not just like that, you know, machines, not light, especially when
- 13:36you're attached to it and you're hanging off the thing, you got
- 13:38to get the bike working with you.
- 13:40We're strapped into this machines.
- 13:42That's our only option.
- 13:43We can't throw our body one way or do anything.
- 13:45We can barely breathe inside that truck because of how tight we are.
- 13:49We get all the best safety equipment because.
- 13:51We crash all the time, Simpson race equipment.
- 13:53They love coming to us because NASCAR can have a bad wreck and they'll collect
- 13:57a lot of data, but that might be once a weekend or once every other couple
- 14:00of weekends, they can come to us, man.
- 14:02We can try, we can put accelerometers on different parts of the truck and
- 14:05different parts of us and Simpson can go in there and evolve and innovate the
- 14:08next best piece of safety equipment.
- 14:10So actually we get the best equipment out there and that
- 14:13gives us a lot of confidence.
- 14:14Hanging off those bikes.
- 14:15Like the motocross guys do, I don't know how they do it.
- 14:17I just know a lot of them end up in monster jam.
- 14:19Cause that's the model of a lot of the older drivers that came from
- 14:22motocross are like with age comes a cage and they jump in one of
- 14:26these big monster trucks with us.
- 14:27That's how that's all the time.
- 14:29When we're out on track being in a car, I've got that extra layer of
- 14:33confidence being inside of something compared to be honest with you, if you
- 14:36can ride a bike, you can absolutely, you you'd be like a duck to water in a.
- 14:4112, 000 pound truck.
- 14:42Well, I think that's a great opportunity to take a pit stop and ask Bryce a
- 14:46little bit more of an opinion question.
- 14:48So Bryce, you know, normally we would ask a guest on our show,
- 14:51you know, what's the sexiest car of all time and things like that.
- 14:54But I think in this case, we need to retool that question.
- 14:56Putting your current truck aside, what's the best monster truck of all time?
- 15:01Oh, it's Grave Digger.
- 15:03And he's my nemesis.
- 15:04I love the Anderson boys.
- 15:06I've been on the same tour with Adam Anderson.
- 15:07I call him the Prince of Monster Jam.
- 15:09He's the son of Dennis.
- 15:10Dennis is the one that started Grave Digger.
- 15:12I am just so appreciative of them and what they've done and being pioneers.
- 15:15It's out of pure respect that I call them my arch nemesis.
- 15:19They are beyond legendary.
- 15:21I mean, when you think about what the brand has done.
- 15:23The brand has not only changed Monster Jam, but the brand has made a massive
- 15:28influence on motorsports as a whole.
- 15:30In a lot of ways, I think that they are the epitome of combining
- 15:34motorsports and entertainment.
- 15:36The motorsports out there that seem to be dying, and there
- 15:39are motorsports that are dying.
- 15:41The ones that seem to be dying are the ones that want to live on.
- 15:45Just competition alone.
- 15:47Competition alone will bring some fans.
- 15:49Times are different now.
- 15:50People want to be entertained.
- 15:52And it doesn't mean that you have to have one or the other.
- 15:54And I think that that's what the Gravedigger family knows.
- 15:56Like, Dennis Anderson, he created freestyle.
- 16:00The freestyle competition.
- 16:01That is Monster Jam.
- 16:02That's our crowning jewel.
- 16:03It's our last competition of an event.
- 16:05120 seconds.
- 16:06Driver gets to go out there and just do whatever we want to do.
- 16:09Right?
- 16:09Destroy the truck.
- 16:10That's where we'll backflip it in 45 feet in the air.
- 16:13That got created out of desperation by Dennis Anderson.
- 16:17It used to just be racing.
- 16:19They would go to a track and they would have crush cars and they would just, wow,
- 16:22you know, two trucks going at a time.
- 16:23If you won everything, you keep going, right?
- 16:26You'd make some money.
- 16:27Dennis went to an event and had no money to get home.
- 16:30He had no money to get home and he went to the track operator and said,
- 16:33look, I have not sold enough t shirts.
- 16:36to make it home.
- 16:37Let me go out there and for 60, whatever it is, let me just go out
- 16:40there and just be crazy because I've got to sell the rest of my t
- 16:44shirts to be able to live this week.
- 16:46And the track operator said, okay.
- 16:48And so Dennis goes out there and he talks about this.
- 16:50I had him walk me through his museum that he just built out
- 16:53at his shop in the outer banks.
- 16:55The truck that he did the very first freestyle with, with, I
- 16:57think they called it grandma.
- 17:00Kind of a funny truck name, but he says, yeah, I did that right here with grandma.
- 17:03And we went out there and after 60 seconds, he said, I just
- 17:06kept trying to break the truck.
- 17:07It wouldn't break.
- 17:08It would not break.
- 17:09I was like, I cannot believe this is still going.
- 17:11He said, I went for about 90 seconds, smoke coming out of the radiator
- 17:14afterwards, out of the motor, everything was fried and the truck was destroyed.
- 17:17But he said, I sold every single one of those t shirts and
- 17:20that's how Freestyle was born.
- 17:21And so I love those guys.
- 17:22I think that yes, Bigfoot was the first monster truck.
- 17:26Bob Chandler was the first to put tires on a big truck and call it a monster truck.
- 17:29But Gravedigger has changed the entire game for years.
- 17:33And you know, here they are, they do a hundred million dollars in
- 17:35merchandise a year globally in just Gravedigger merchandise.
- 17:39Just Grave Digger merch.
- 17:41That's insane.
- 17:41That shows you that they're not just playing a game.
- 17:44They changed the way the game is played and they need all the
- 17:46credit they deserve on that.
- 17:48In the 80s.
- 17:49I remember watching, it'd be Saturday, you know, around lunchtime when ESPN, you
- 17:53know, I was a kid and my stuff, I'd throw ESPN on to watch the monster truck races.
- 17:56Then it was, they'd do maybe, you know, one pass or they'd do
- 17:59like a loop where they'd start on opposite ends for the race.
- 18:01And when they were done, they would just go back off to the side.
- 18:04And I remember when Dennis Anderson started doing stuff, like
- 18:06afterwards, if he won, he go into the center, start doing a donut and
- 18:09get it up on two wheels and stuff.
- 18:10And the crowd was like, what's he doing?
- 18:12This has never been seen before.
- 18:13You know, just got people on the edge of their seats.
- 18:15A lot more people going home talking about it made the masses
- 18:18want to come see it that much more.
- 18:19And like you're saying, What they've done for the sport was tremendous.
- 18:22Secretly.
- 18:23A lot of pro drivers, like a lot of people in a profession, when you go
- 18:27home, the last thing you want to do is do what you do at work as a racer.
- 18:32Is there another discipline of motorsport that brings you enjoyment
- 18:35and entertainment that you watch?
- 18:37I think it's all just.
- 18:38horsepower stuff for me.
- 18:39You know, I've got a 1970 Mustang out in the garage.
- 18:42I've got a 1942 Dodge rat rod.
- 18:44That is my current project that I've been messing around with.
- 18:47I think the most fun you can have with your clothes on is taking some
- 18:50side by side, some razors out to West Virginia, you know, and not
- 18:53like hitting the trails and stuff.
- 18:54I never get tired of driving a monster jam truck.
- 18:57I ever, I get tired of travel.
- 18:59I get tired of the pit party stuff that we do, not because of the fans.
- 19:03I love the fans.
- 19:04I love the lines.
- 19:05I think Monster Jam is amazing at our ability to engage with the fans.
- 19:08We do more than any other motorsport out there.
- 19:11Probably most of them combined, to be honest.
- 19:13Ultimately, when I'm home, I love getting the RC cars out there with my son.
- 19:17He's six years old.
- 19:18He loves it.
- 19:19And I love trying to pass the torch to them.
- 19:21You know, we got a junior dragster now for my daughter and son who are eight and six.
- 19:25Yeah, of course, my two year old daughter also thinks that she's 13 and stuff, but
- 19:29here, my kids are getting into racing and that's a lot of fun for me, you know, and
- 19:32they're crawling up underneath the cars with me when I'm fixing them up in a way.
- 19:35I feel like I'm trying to preserve history.
- 19:37I feel kind of a duty to go out and make sure this 1970 Mustang
- 19:40has been in my family since 1983.
- 19:42You know, here's been in my family for 40 years.
- 19:44Like, I feel like I have a duty to keep the thing alive.
- 19:46I think we're excited about that.
- 19:48You know, taking some razors outside, taking them on some trails, man, that's
- 19:51the kind of memories that I think that we all should be making together.
- 19:54So no, it never gets old for sure.
- 19:58And that's a big thing.
- 19:58I said, GTM try to do, because we see that where if we don't get the
- 20:01youth involved in it and excited about motor sports, it's going to die off.
- 20:05Yes.
- 20:05We see it all across the country, tracks of every discipline, you know, closing
- 20:09here, closing there, getting restrictions.
- 20:11And it's like, we need to get the youth involved in it to fight back against
- 20:13everybody closing up these places that allow these events to happen.
- 20:16Yeah.
- 20:17The problem with sitting around watching Drive to Survive is
- 20:20you're still sitting on the couch.
- 20:22Well, I mean, I'll be honest with you, Drive to Survive was
- 20:25my first entry into Formula One, for a lot of people too, right?
- 20:29But I love that Netflix and prime and all that stuff.
- 20:33I love that that stuff's coming around now to doing more motorsports stuff.
- 20:36I'm very critical of NASCAR.
- 20:38I'm very critical of NASCAR drivers.
- 20:40That formula one thing.
- 20:41I'm still critical of them only because I don't think the
- 20:44return on investment is there.
- 20:46I cannot believe that it takes as much money as it does to run an F1 team.
- 20:50And the drivers don't sign autographs.
- 20:52Like I'll never understand that when I hear NASCAR drivers complain about
- 20:55having to go sign a hundred autographs.
- 20:57And I'm like, I signed like 2, 500 a day when we do our monster jam
- 21:00events and don't get paid any extra.
- 21:02But the reason is, is, and that's not a pat on my back.
- 21:04It's because Monster Jam drivers are built different in the sense of when
- 21:10Dennis Anderson did all that and still to this day here, he's been
- 21:13doing it for 40 something years.
- 21:14He still goes out there and understands that the fans are the employers.
- 21:18Monster Jam, even though I'm a W2 employee with Monster Jam, they're not my employer.
- 21:23The fans are.
- 21:24They're the ones that if I'm not making my employers happy, I am their employee.
- 21:29I work for the fans.
- 21:30And if I'm not making the employers happy.
- 21:32Then I don't deserve to have the job I've got.
- 21:34You know, all these NASCAR guys, they still think they
- 21:36work for Richard Childress.
- 21:37Because that's who's on the check.
- 21:39I just fundamentally disagree with that.
- 21:40I think, to your point, Dan, if we're gonna pass the torch, we gotta
- 21:43get these kids not only excited about it, but we gotta make them
- 21:46feel like they're a part of it.
- 21:47It's one thing to inspire the kids.
- 21:49It's another thing to involve the families at a level in which
- 21:53they're making so many memories that that's all they talk about anymore.
- 21:57You're right.
- 21:58And now it's not just because they want the newest toy when it hits the shelves.
- 22:01Monster Jam to me, in my opinion, is a lifestyle brand.
- 22:04And that's the power of it.
- 22:06And that's why it's growing globally.
- 22:07No one's growing globally like us.
- 22:10Maybe Formula One, when you think about what Netflix did for Formula One.
- 22:13I mean, I think it opened up all of our eyes to it.
- 22:16That really just wasn't ever around it much.
- 22:18And now I am a Formula One fan, right?
- 22:20I like those guys.
- 22:21I like watching what's going on, even though I still have never sat and
- 22:23actually watched an entire F1 race.
- 22:25I can tell you that, but that's going to change.
- 22:27Yeah.
- 22:27Most of us sleep through them.
- 22:29It's okay.
- 22:31Like you were saying, all the pit pass stuff where the kids are coming
- 22:34in, families are coming in getting pictures with the trucks, the drivers,
- 22:38a lot of sports don't allow you to get up and close with the drivers.
- 22:41Then being able to do that, it's more inviting in my opinion.
- 22:44And I remember as a kid, we were down at Maryland international dragway
- 22:48and they were having a signing.
- 22:49And of course, Don Garland was big back in the eighties.
- 22:51So I make my way up probably about seven, eight years old at the time
- 22:54and seen them on TV a million times.
- 22:55I'm making my way up to get an autograph, you know, and that was a big thing for me.
- 22:58That's a memory.
- 22:59With my daughter, when we go to events, even if it's a small time event, I'll
- 23:02take her out into the paddocks to meet the drivers and stuff like that, because
- 23:06there might be that one interaction that she has with the driver's like,
- 23:09okay, I want to do something like that.
- 23:10So I talk a lot about this in my book geared for life.
- 23:12I talk about one of my favorite gears.
- 23:15That I discuss and, you know, my gears are foundational beliefs, right?
- 23:19I have seven gears that I go in and out of because I don't
- 23:21think there's a seeker's life.
- 23:22I think that there are gears and the reason why people feel stuck and
- 23:25feel burnt out is because they've been just trying to live off of
- 23:28the same gear for far too long.
- 23:29They need to find the next gear.
- 23:30One of my gears is make memories, not egos.
- 23:33And that started by.
- 23:34Me getting my teeth kicked in in Top Fuel because I remember showing up
- 23:39to finish out my Top Fuel license.
- 23:41I joke about this belt that I had.
- 23:43It had a gold belt buckle and like I had a polo on with kind of black slacks on.
- 23:47They weren't like real dressy slacks, but it was like this outfit that you're
- 23:51going why you're not there to work.
- 23:53You're there trying to look cool.
- 23:54At that point, as a 21 year old, I wanted to be able to walk
- 23:57into a room and everyone gasp.
- 23:59Oh my gosh, that's a top fuel guy.
- 24:01Oh man, he's so cool.
- 24:03He goes 300 miles an hour for a living.
- 24:05Like, my ego is so wrapped up in my ambition because I was always inspired
- 24:10by the Don Garlands, to your point.
- 24:12I was always inspired by these guys.
- 24:13I wanted to be them.
- 24:14And they never dressed like that or anything like that.
- 24:16I just was so anxious at 21 to be viewed as the guy that I always dreamed to be.
- 24:22It's funny because since I got my teeth kicked in through that period
- 24:26of my life, and if I would have looked at things a lot differently, and I
- 24:30remember having kind of the weekend blow up in my face a little bit, not.
- 24:33Literally, I guess you got to qualify that since you're driving a top fuel car.
- 24:37That could actually be just a part of the day, right?
- 24:39The day overall just kind of got blown up in my face a little bit and nothing
- 24:42was going well and I was frustrated.
- 24:43I was mad at the track.
- 24:44I was trying to finish up my top fuel license and I went up to my grandfather.
- 24:47He was my mentor.
- 24:48He was my guy.
- 24:49He passed back in 2016, but I loved that guy.
- 24:52He taught me so much, you know, a lot of my gears that I discuss my
- 24:55foundational beliefs that are in my book.
- 24:57A lot of those were started by stories from the road, stories and
- 25:00racing that I learned from him.
- 25:01But I remember going up to him after that day, it kind of blew up in my face.
- 25:04And he goes, Bryce, look, you're not going to be able to do this forever.
- 25:07The lights will shut off.
- 25:08You know, your name's not going to be up in the stadium lights, all that stuff.
- 25:11If we only have a limited amount of time doing this stuff, we
- 25:14better make them worth it.
- 25:15We better make some memories while we're here.
- 25:18For whatever reason, it just took so much pressure off of me and I
- 25:21didn't really get the lesson then.
- 25:22I got the lesson after we sold everything and my dream died.
- 25:26And then now in Monster Jam, I go back to that all the time because I'm
- 25:29going, man, I don't think there's any career more fragile than motorsports.
- 25:32If you get a three year contract with something, my gosh, like
- 25:35that might as well be like a 30 year in corporate America, right?
- 25:38Being able to have something that's stable is so unique and rare and
- 25:42doesn't really happen that much.
- 25:43So why are we always trying to make ourselves feel cooler?
- 25:47It's like, why don't we spend the time slowing down long enough to
- 25:50make enough memories, even though when I'm on the road, sometimes I
- 25:53just want to sit in the hotel room.
- 25:54I don't want to go drive and see something local, but if there's
- 25:57another driver that I can make a memory with that day, I need to take it.
- 26:00And I don't want to say I'm a hundred percent perfect at that, but I can
- 26:02tell you that 80 percent of the time I remind myself, man, are you here
- 26:06for yourself to build your own ego or are you here to build memories?
- 26:09And memories are the things that we're going to have 35 years from now.
- 26:12But that's why we all love racing.
- 26:14You just said, you know, going up and meeting Don Garlet's,
- 26:17man, that's a core memory.
- 26:18And we all want to say that to ourselves, like, Oh yeah, I got to make some memories
- 26:22today, but do we truly believe it?
- 26:24And if we do truly believe it, then you will, you'll go out there and all of
- 26:27a sudden your eyes start to see ways.
- 26:29To build memories instead of build up your own ego and to make yourself
- 26:33look better or something like that.
- 26:35And here we are, we're all looking at each other and having more fun
- 26:38or being more creative and we get more excited about the future.
- 26:41I think happiness falls on the backside of a lot of those memories that we make.
- 26:45But a lot of times that's a gear that we got to find is, and it takes that
- 26:48conscious decision to say, Hey, I'm not going to do something for myself right
- 26:51now, I'm going to do something to go make a memory and that's finding that gear
- 26:54more often than not, man, that's powerful.
- 26:56You also mentioned several times making shifts in the gears and things like that.
- 26:59It's a foundational principle in your book.
- 27:01And I want to now shift gears and talk a little bit more
- 27:05about your book geared for life.
- 27:07We've had other authors on the show and I usually ask them a journey of
- 27:1280, 000 words is super challenging, but they're already an author, right?
- 27:14They're a writer.
- 27:15They wanted to be a writer, but you're coming at this as a
- 27:17professional motorsports driver.
- 27:19How did you make that transition?
- 27:21You know, journey of a thousand miles, probably a lot easier
- 27:23than a journey of 80, 000 words.
- 27:24And why write a book?
- 27:26What was the catalyst that made you start Geared for Life?
- 27:29I wanted a book to be able to leave my kids.
- 27:31Because I told my grandfather for years to write a book.
- 27:35Thankfully, I had a lot of miles in a race rig with my grandfather to listen to him.
- 27:40And I wish I would have taken more notes and gotten to pick his brain
- 27:42and gain some of his wisdom and I could still reference today.
- 27:46And I still reference a ton of lessons that he taught me.
- 27:48I wanted to have something to lead my kids.
- 27:50I didn't know where to start.
- 27:51I'm not an author.
- 27:53I am an author now, but I was not an author.
- 27:55Everyone thinks about the concept of like, maybe I'll write a book one day,
- 27:59you know, but, but none of us feel qualified that we should write a book.
- 28:02Well, I did not either.
- 28:03My brother came to me a lot and he was like, man, you can do it.
- 28:06You can do it.
- 28:06And he, he gave me this brain mapping exercise where, you know,
- 28:09you kind of start with the main idea.
- 28:11You kind of have the supporting ideas around that.
- 28:13And then you break down each of the supporting ideas and
- 28:16the topics around that concept.
- 28:18All of a sudden, before I knew it, I had my seven foundational
- 28:21beliefs all written out.
- 28:23I had all the supporting subchapters, if you will.
- 28:26Then I just started writing each subchapter, which kind of
- 28:29collected into that chapter.
- 28:31And I wrote the whole book in two weeks.
- 28:33And again, I was not a writer, but when I put all that together,
- 28:36it really was not as daunting.
- 28:37Now I've rewritten it quite a bit.
- 28:39I got a developmental editor that came to me and we worked
- 28:42with him for a little bit.
- 28:43And, you know, he said, Hey, this story is kind of weak.
- 28:45Do you have anything else?
- 28:46You make a point right here, but you don't really talk about how you learned that.
- 28:50Can you add a story?
- 28:51So it sounds less preachy, all those things that were so invaluable to me.
- 28:55And so I went back and I felt like 60 percent of it, I had to
- 28:58either change a story or add a story or really polish it up.
- 29:01And so it started this rough, I mean, I would be embarrassed that for that
- 29:05book, I wrote the original copy from two years ago that I wrote in two weeks.
- 29:09It can never find the light of day.
- 29:11It was terrible.
- 29:11What's turned into this book here.
- 29:13It's a beautiful book with, you know, amazing endorsements.
- 29:16You know, I got Dennis Anderson that endorsed it for me.
- 29:19John Force, Chris Angel, Mind Freak, The Vegas Magician.
- 29:22He's become a buddy of mine.
- 29:23He endorsed it for me and a lot of others.
- 29:25And the whole reason is just that it's like, man, yeah, that's what
- 29:28the first thing Dennis Anderson and John Force both said was.
- 29:32There's no secret to success.
- 29:33It's a lot of hard work.
- 29:35It's a lot of stuff.
- 29:35People want to ask that all the time.
- 29:36How do you get into monster jam?
- 29:37How do I become you?
- 29:38I'm like, dude, I don't have a clue.
- 29:40It was a hard road.
- 29:41And you just like you win the lottery time and time again.
- 29:43But what I'm an expert on is not running at this speed that anyone can run at.
- 29:49I took failures and lessons and things I learned along the ways.
- 29:53And I just found the next gear.
- 29:55I didn't have all the answers.
- 29:57And it's just like going down the road, man.
- 29:58You're going down the highway in fifth gear.
- 30:00And if you take an exit and all of a sudden you're on a path with a lot
- 30:03of ruts and stuff like that, what are you going to do if you're in a manual
- 30:05transmission or even your car, right?
- 30:07Even if it's an automatic, it's going to shift down into first.
- 30:09But here we go through life.
- 30:10And a lot of people, they spin out, burn out, whatever car theme you want to use.
- 30:14And they never find first gear again, because it kind of scares them and
- 30:17they end up living most of their life and then just die in neutral,
- 30:20or some people have been in first gear, second gear their whole life.
- 30:24Can you imagine running down the highway and first gear 7, 500 RPM?
- 30:28How many miles are you going to get for the rods come flinging out of the block?
- 30:31But here we treat life like we should be able to survive.
- 30:34Oh, I can't, man, I can't, I can't hardly keep my head straight here.
- 30:38Well, yes, cause you're in first gear at 7, 500 RPM.
- 30:41Like you've got to find second, you've got to find the next gear and that's
- 30:46the way you keep moving forward.
- 30:47And that's how you build momentum.
- 30:48And that's how you go from one opportunity to the next.
- 30:51And I'm a big believer in that.
- 30:52And that's what the book's all about and how I found those seven gears
- 30:55and shifted from one to the next.
- 30:56But now it's not just about running in seventh gear.
- 30:59There's times that I shift back down into first, just like a car
- 31:02and just like a race car, man.
- 31:04And so ultimately, if we're going to hit the finish line with any momentum
- 31:08and any power, and hopefully getting a chance to win the race of life, we're
- 31:11going to get used to shifting and finding the right gear at the right time.
- 31:15And that's what I've become passionate about doing.
- 31:17Our listeners have unknowingly been part of one of the underlying
- 31:22guiding principles of the book, which we've already talked about, which
- 31:25is capitalizing on those moments.
- 31:26You just mentioned the word momentum and how that can be the difference
- 31:30between success and failure.
- 31:31Another guiding principle in the book you also just happened
- 31:34upon, which and how to get.
- 31:37Out of that and how you're faced with moments of panic and uncertainty.
- 31:40So let's unpack the book a little bit more and talk about some of the
- 31:45critical modes, imposter syndrome, you know, tactics for surviving burnout.
- 31:49Some of those kinds of things that you also address as part
- 31:52of the other gears in the book.
- 31:53I think the biggest thing that we underestimate is we bought
- 31:58into this desire for happiness.
- 32:00And I think happiness is the worst gauge.
- 32:03I think it's a cop out and you get all these celebrities going on and
- 32:06saying, do whatever makes you happy.
- 32:08It's like, oh, well it makes them happy.
- 32:09So I'm, I support them.
- 32:10Like what?
- 32:11Happiness is a terrible gauge.
- 32:13The disclaimer I'll say is unhappiness is also not the goal, right?
- 32:17First off, like People have got to stop buying into the fact that
- 32:21their goal should be happiness.
- 32:22Get it out of your vocabulary, shift your focus because in my opinion, and
- 32:27what I've come to realize over the last really 12 years that I would say that
- 32:30my life has gotten a lot better and like I've begun to build momentum at times
- 32:35and momentum, by the way, never lasts.
- 32:37And I really do believe that the difference between success and failure
- 32:39is your ability to keep momentum as long as you can when you got it.
- 32:43And then when it goes away, you rebuild it.
- 32:45And are you willing to rebuild that momentum?
- 32:46And then once you got it, keep it as long as you can until it goes away.
- 32:50But if we can understand that happiness should be a byproduct, and this is a
- 32:54perspective, but this is a big shift right now because culturally this didn't
- 32:58happen in the eighties and nineties.
- 33:00Happiness was a byproduct.
- 33:01They got it, man.
- 33:02They wanted to work hard.
- 33:03They wanted to grind it out.
- 33:04They wanted to provide for their families, man.
- 33:06There was an honorable feeling about becoming a man and doing something to
- 33:11provide and be built for other people.
- 33:13But nowadays, it's just like, well, it doesn't make me happy.
- 33:15And we hide all this under the guise of mental health.
- 33:18And I do think that mental health is a thing.
- 33:20There are times we've got to unplug.
- 33:22I am at that point.
- 33:23I need a break.
- 33:24The mental health aspect of our world, if we just ignore it, it doesn't get any
- 33:28better, and then it ends up getting worse.
- 33:30But now, you got guys that are unhappy, and they're saying
- 33:33their mental health is suffering.
- 33:34It's like, no, you're unhappy because you haven't pushed yourself, and you've
- 33:37been in neutral for the last five years, and you're mad at everybody because...
- 33:42Life hasn't been easy.
- 33:43Everything good in my life has come on the other end of my comfort zone.
- 33:47Every time.
- 33:48If I was sitting down with somebody across the table with a cup of
- 33:50coffee, that's what I'd tell them.
- 33:52You've spent the last five years of your life trying to do everything conveniently.
- 33:56Just do a test.
- 33:57Could you do something today that was inconvenient?
- 33:59Just look For ways to inconvenience yourself, if it's in your job, then
- 34:05that means you're taking on a little bit of extra work here, or maybe if
- 34:08you're running an awesome podcast, you do it at 8 PM, you know, you're
- 34:10taking your evenings up here, you know, like you guys are doing, can
- 34:13you do something that's inconvenient?
- 34:15Cause guess what?
- 34:16It's not going to make you happy to inconvenience yourself, but
- 34:19the results that come because most people out there are not willing
- 34:23to inconvenience themselves.
- 34:25They're chasing happiness.
- 34:26And guess what?
- 34:27I shouldn't say any of this because that is a competitive edge that I have.
- 34:31I look for ways to inconvenience myself because everyone else
- 34:33is just chasing comfort.
- 34:35They're chasing happiness.
- 34:36And by the way, I'm one of the happiest people you'll ever meet.
- 34:38But I don't look for it.
- 34:40And it comes as a byproduct of trying to kill my comfort zone and trying to stay
- 34:45focused on where I want to go long term.
- 34:47And most importantly, who I want to be.
- 34:50Maybe that's what the perspective should be for a lot of us.
- 34:53We're so busy worried about the what we want to do, or we're freaking
- 34:58out about the what we're not doing that we've totally forgot who we've
- 35:02wanted to become along the way.
- 35:04And so I think that the perspective, and I call it in the book, it's one of the
- 35:08very early chapters called windshield, kind of like wipe your windshield off,
- 35:12like clear off where you're looking, because if you're looking to just
- 35:15change what you want to do in life.
- 35:18It's not enough.
- 35:19If you have a crystal clear picture of who you want to become, what does the
- 35:23best version of yourself look like?
- 35:25If you have a clear picture of that, then the what seems to kind of fall along the
- 35:28way, just like writing the book, trust me, none of this process of learning about
- 35:32writing a book and getting it out there and publishing it and printing it and the
- 35:34investment, none of it has made me happy.
- 35:36But what's made me happy are the people that have come back and said, Hey.
- 35:40This book really impacted me.
- 35:41Why?
- 35:42Because my who I want to be, my focal point has been, I want to be
- 35:46someone who uses the platform of motorsports to impact the world.
- 35:51So then the what, which was the book was a tool to do that, to become the better
- 35:57version of myself that I want to be.
- 35:59And I think that that's a massive shift in perspective.
- 36:02And I think that can be a major difference maker because I'm not unique.
- 36:05You know, a lot of people have gotten their teeth kicked in by life.
- 36:08And simply put, they just forgot who they wanted to be along the way.
- 36:11And maybe that's a big shift.
- 36:12That's like, man, when was the last time you really sat down and thought to
- 36:15yourself, who do I hope I am by the time I leave this earth, who do I hope I become?
- 36:19Who do I hope that people see me as, and can I become that better version?
- 36:23And so many people don't realize when we push ourselves out of our comfort
- 36:25zones to do that thing that we don't think we can do that byproduct of
- 36:29happiness by achieving something, or even when we fail at something that
- 36:32we're not prepared to do, but we learn.
- 36:35Happiness from that is so much more powerful than the happiness
- 36:38of doing something the easy way.
- 36:40My daughter, I push her hard all the time.
- 36:42Constantly pushing her to try to do things she doesn't think she can do.
- 36:45I'm like, I know you can do this.
- 36:46You just have to try.
- 36:48By doing that, she's got, in my opinion, very good confidence.
- 36:51And I'm hoping to build that even more as she grows.
- 36:53Isn't that the key to being a great dad to your daughter, by the way?
- 36:56Is because you see her for who she can become.
- 36:59Then the what is like, well, if I know who you can become and her best version,
- 37:05then it's easier as a dad then to like support her with the what, you know,
- 37:09and then be able to like, oh, this is what she should do differently because
- 37:13you see her as that better version.
- 37:14Wouldn't you agree?
- 37:15Oh, definitely.
- 37:16And I tell her all the time, my goal in life.
- 37:18is for you to be a million times better person than I could ever achieve.
- 37:21Cause I want you to learn from all my mistakes and improve on
- 37:23the stuff that I've done wrong.
- 37:24It's where you don't make those mistakes and you can excel
- 37:27farther in life than I ever will.
- 37:28Man, it's like a barn find.
- 37:29I mean, here we're car guys.
- 37:30Imagine that moment.
- 37:31You're driving down the road.
- 37:32You look up on the hillside and you see it.
- 37:35There's headlights poking out underneath that tarp.
- 37:3769.
- 37:40Camaro and you pull up and all of a sudden the old man's out there and he buys barn.
- 37:44And he's like, Oh yeah, he tells you the history about it.
- 37:46And you finally get to ask him, like, would you look at selling this?
- 37:49And he actually agrees and you get to purchase this and you rip that tarp off
- 37:53and you kind of like push it off because the motor hadn't been turned over in
- 37:5610 years, but you kind of push it out of the barn there for just a second.
- 37:59It's 10 years.
- 38:02My wife would look at that and see it as an absolute pile of crap.
- 38:05They call that patina in the collector car.
- 38:07Yeah, that's right.
- 38:09Yeah.
- 38:09Patina here.
- 38:10We're all talking about.
- 38:11Yeah, we love patina, but I can see that 69 Camaro as its best version.
- 38:16I don't even see the dust on top.
- 38:18I can see the fresh paint.
- 38:20I can see that motor humming.
- 38:21I can hear the tire squealing as I'm doing a burnout in it, but yet.
- 38:26Someone that has a perspective of just what it is for what it is that
- 38:30moment sees it as a pile of junk.
- 38:32How on earth can we look at a car for its best version, but we can't
- 38:36see ourselves as our best version?
- 38:38And I think that's the first step in being able to make a life a little
- 38:41bit more productive and being able to chase after this and really run at
- 38:44our top speed that we can in life is, man, we got to start finding ourselves
- 38:48the ability to step in there and see ourselves as our best version.
- 38:51Even though we know we're not there yet, but it's all about who we want to become.
- 38:55We want to become a man that's built for others.
- 38:58I want to be someone who is the best dad I can be.
- 39:01Those things are going to drive me to go play with my kids more when I'm tired
- 39:04and exhausted after a trip on the road.
- 39:06I mean, is that going to make me happy to get off the couch?
- 39:09To go play with my kid.
- 39:10No, in that moment, it will not, but it's the, who I want to be.
- 39:13That's going to get me up off the couch.
- 39:14And guess what?
- 39:15Like we're saying, the happiness is going to come after I go out
- 39:17there and play soccer with my kid in the yard, but we just are chasing
- 39:19happiness in all the wrong ways.
- 39:21And I think that that's the biggest lie of our generation right now is
- 39:24that happiness is the worthwhile goal.
- 39:26It is not another important topic that exists in mental health.
- 39:31In our generation.
- 39:33That wasn't something that was talked a lot about in the eighties and in the
- 39:36nineties too, you made mention of how they developed happiness in the eighties.
- 39:40And I go back to the movie Wall Street with Gordon Gecko up there, greed is good.
- 39:46And you know, that was that broad brush picture of the eighties before the first
- 39:50recession, how money drove happiness.
- 39:52Mm-hmm.
- 39:52. And so you still see a lot about those times.
- 39:55Times have changed.
- 39:55I mean, money does bring happiness, but not in the same way.
- 39:58With that somewhere along the way, imposter syndrome came out.
- 40:02And I hear that term quite a bit in different communities and different
- 40:05verticals, I want to expand upon that thought a little bit more about people
- 40:10that feel that way, that they're not good enough, or they come into a room.
- 40:13And I don't want to say something because I'll be seen as a fool.
- 40:16I'm just an imposter.
- 40:17How do you deal with that?
- 40:18How do you work with that?
- 40:20Because the old adage is fake until you make it right.
- 40:22Yes.
- 40:23You just took the words right out of my mouth.
- 40:25It's like you read my book.
- 40:27What you just said is exactly what we tell ourselves.
- 40:30Fake it till you make it.
- 40:30The imposter syndrome is real.
- 40:32By the way, imposter syndrome is not all bad because it allows us to look
- 40:36at ourselves and say, we can be better.
- 40:38Like, how can I not feel this way?
- 40:40The things that are bad about imposter syndrome is that sometimes it'll cause
- 40:43us to freeze up and not move forward.
- 40:45Because we're like, oh, I can't do this.
- 40:47Some people have a straight up anxiety attack in that
- 40:49situation of imposter syndrome.
- 40:51I'm a big believer it's not fake it till you make it.
- 40:53It's believe it until you become it.
- 40:54If you're going to believe something until you become something, just like
- 40:57with driving a monster jam truck.
- 40:59Man, that first time going out there in Birmingham, Alabama, I was in monster mud.
- 41:03And I saw the crowd and I'm like, oh my gosh, all the eyes are on me.
- 41:06You talk about feeling like an imposter.
- 41:08I am not supposed to be here.
- 41:10And I went out there and wrecked and all that stuff.
- 41:12But I remember after that, man, that was a big lesson for me.
- 41:14It's okay.
- 41:15It's not bad to have that mentality of like, fake it till you make it.
- 41:18Fake it till you make it.
- 41:19Just do it.
- 41:20Fake it till you make it.
- 41:20A great mindset and a powerful mindset.
- 41:23What I think is the right one is just that.
- 41:24Believe it until you become it.
- 41:25I had to believe I was a Monster Jam driver.
- 41:29And worthy of driving that truck in front of that crowd until I actually
- 41:32became someone who was worthy to drive that truck in front of that crowd.
- 41:36You do, you've got to believe it until you become it.
- 41:38And the same thing with writing a book here.
- 41:40I was, I was kind of saying that same thing at the beginning.
- 41:42Fake it till you make it.
- 41:42No, I had to believe I was an author.
- 41:45Until I've actually became an author and that fits right in line with what
- 41:48we're saying about when you see the who you want to be, believe that you
- 41:52can be that who believe that you can be that best version of yourself until you
- 41:56become that best version of yourself.
- 41:57And that's as hard as it gets.
- 41:59We want to find our meaning.
- 42:00We want to find our purpose.
- 42:01And we've made all that harder than it should be.
- 42:04We feel like finding our purpose is like hiding in some dark alley in downtown
- 42:08Chicago, like where no one wants to go.
- 42:10It's really not that hard.
- 42:12It's.
- 42:12Finding what you're passionate about and equipping your passion.
- 42:15I'm a big believer.
- 42:15If you equip your passion, you'll find your purpose.
- 42:18But a lot of people have given up on their passions because they don't
- 42:21know who they've wanted to become.
- 42:22And they're so focused on what they're not doing that that's why
- 42:26they're in this imposter syndrome.
- 42:27If you get your mind off of the what, and you focus on the who,
- 42:31the imposter syndrome settles down, but it never goes away.
- 42:34I still have moments where I've got to battle that.
- 42:36And I still have that fake it till you make it mindset that kind of creeps in.
- 42:39It's a gear.
- 42:40If you're aware of it.
- 42:41Whenever that imposter syndrome comes up, just like a transmission, you got
- 42:44to push that clutch in and pop that gear shifter into that gear of who you want
- 42:49to become and find that best version.
- 42:51But that's what it's all about.
- 42:52And I think that's the way that you do regain traction, and that's the
- 42:55way that you can continue to move forward and have these pieces set up.
- 42:58And also, I don't think any of us can get it all figured out.
- 43:02And that's why I say that, like, there's no secrets to any of this.
- 43:04And if someone's out there battling imposter syndrome at their job right now
- 43:07and what they're trying to do at work.
- 43:09Man, just take a breath.
- 43:10If you're out there trying to go from first gear to fifth gear, just
- 43:14like a car, it's not going to happen.
- 43:15It's not going to work.
- 43:16You just got to find the second gear.
- 43:18And if you do that, you can go in motion.
- 43:20You can build some serious, serious speed.
- 43:22What's interesting about this is There's some other things wrapped
- 43:25up inside of this sentiment, especially with imposter syndrome.
- 43:28There are people that suffer from anxiety and then it does wrap up into
- 43:32that because we get nervous and analysis paralysis and all those kinds of things.
- 43:36But I think sometimes maybe we get stuck in the past and the imposter
- 43:39syndrome comes from the fact that we thought what the what we were
- 43:42expecting as you phrase it, that what.
- 43:45We didn't get that.
- 43:45What?
- 43:46We got something else.
- 43:46We got a different what, or we got a why, or, you know, we became that
- 43:50other who that we weren't expecting.
- 43:52I personally look at it as iterative.
- 43:54I subscribe to the same sentiment that Enzo Ferrari always said, which
- 43:57is what's behind you doesn't matter.
- 43:59They are life learning lessons, but you can't fix what happens in the past.
- 44:03You can fix what's happening right now.
- 44:06Maybe people have to grasp that idea too and say.
- 44:10It doesn't matter if you don't think that you are or you aren't just try to
- 44:15be you are you, you have talents, you have gifts, you have whatever, just be.
- 44:20And that's more important in some ways.
- 44:22And that'll bring you to the what, the why and the who.
- 44:24I got it on this sign right here.
- 44:25Sometimes you win.
- 44:26Sometimes you learn.
- 44:28A lot of people subscribe to the, Hey, sometimes you win.
- 44:30Sometimes you lose.
- 44:31Hey man, take the good with the bad.
- 44:32Keep rolling on.
- 44:33I disagree with that.
- 44:34If I'm learning, I'm not losing.
- 44:36And if I'm still learning, then I have not lost.
- 44:39And if I've not lost, I've not failed.
- 44:41If you can just adapt that and hey, sometimes you win.
- 44:44Sometimes you learn you're excited for the next run.
- 44:48One of my gears is fail faster.
- 44:50I learned in my corporate job in a sales role.
- 44:52I was in not in racing.
- 44:53If I had 120 calls to make a sale, let's say everyone's so focused on
- 44:59the what, and what we're talking about, which is what the sale.
- 45:02I made that shift in my mind of going, it's really 119 no's
- 45:06that I've got to get through.
- 45:07So I started just saying, how fast can I get through the 119
- 45:11no's to get to the one yes?
- 45:14I started getting mad.
- 45:15I'd get to 45, let's say, and I'd get a yes.
- 45:18I'm like, man, this guy's messing up my string of nose,
- 45:21but it's a whole mindset shift.
- 45:23And if we're just willing to get through the failures to get those lessons, cause
- 45:27that's what ultimately is valuable for me.
- 45:29You know, I talk about failing and top fuel and my top fuel drag racing
- 45:33pursuits and my family even gets a little uneasy when I say that.
- 45:36And I'm like, no, I did fail and it's okay because I learned.
- 45:40So many lessons through that chapter of my life that I apply right now to
- 45:45Monster Jam that is changing the way a brand ambassador works with sponsors.
- 45:50I truly believe that.
- 45:51And this is not something I'm saying arrogantly.
- 45:53I think about and do more work as a driver for sponsors and like
- 45:57thinking through how to grow it.
- 45:59Than any driver across any motorsport.
- 46:01I firmly believe that, but that's also what I want to go and do.
- 46:05That's who I want to be.
- 46:06And so I'm pursuing that.
- 46:07And that's a vision of mine, a passion of mine because of the
- 46:10failures I had in drag racing and what I wanted to do for a sponsor.
- 46:14If I ever got the chance to be sponsored by a big company that has shaped.
- 46:18What I've done with Great Clips and what I've done for sponsors across
- 46:22Monster Jam, I'm telling you, man, we're not just playing the game.
- 46:25I'm not playing the Monster Jam game.
- 46:27I'm changing the way the game is played.
- 46:29When people get mad at me or when people get frustrated because I'm not
- 46:32just the guy that goes out there and drives the truck and goes home, that's
- 46:34the pinnacle for a lot of drivers.
- 46:36Like, and it is, it's a sweet gig, but I'm not here just to play the game.
- 46:40I want to change the way the game is played and if they're mad about
- 46:42what I'm doing now, they're about to get really aggravated and pissed off
- 46:45because it's only going to get better.
- 46:47It's only going to get bigger.
- 46:48You know, you asked why I wrote the book earlier.
- 46:50This book also should be a tool.
- 46:51I'm tired of people thinking monster trucks and monster jams are redneck sport.
- 46:55It's not.
- 46:56You know, we got tons of families that come out to this and I want people
- 46:59to say like, Oh, I'm on, you know, I do a lot of speaking engagements.
- 47:02I just got back from Phoenix, was in Pittsburgh, just did something in Orlando
- 47:05and Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago.
- 47:07Some people think I'm going to get up on stage and sound like Larry, the cable guy.
- 47:10Sure.
- 47:11I'm from North Carolina.
- 47:12You know, I got a little bit of Southern drawl, but let me tell you, man, I'm
- 47:15passionate about trying to make sure that I can communicate effectively.
- 47:19And this book is going to be a tool to do that.
- 47:22And this is just another spoke to the wheel.
- 47:24And it's not the ultimate.
- 47:25I do hope that people buy the book.
- 47:26You know, I don't want my kids to eat ramen noodles only for a few more weeks.
- 47:29Is that acceptable?
- 47:30But I'm just kidding, but I do want people to buy the book.
- 47:32I believe it's going to change a lot of people's lives.
- 47:34Not because I think that I'm some amazing author and that my message.
- 47:38No, it's because by the end of my book, two things are going to happen.
- 47:41Number one, people are going to steal some of my gears.
- 47:44They're going to realize, like, man, that second gear, I love that gear.
- 47:47That is, that's something I believe.
- 47:48Because our beliefs drive our actions.
- 47:50And so if we know what we believe, our actions really fall in line with that.
- 47:54And the problem is, everyone walks around life not knowing what they believe.
- 47:57And this isn't just about, do you believe that God is real or not?
- 48:00You know, it's not just about those core beliefs.
- 48:02It could be as simple as, should animals be treated well?
- 48:04If you're a big animal person, you're probably not holding
- 48:06dog fights in your backyard.
- 48:08You know what I mean?
- 48:09That's what I'm saying.
- 48:10As simple as it sounds, it's like our beliefs drive our actions, but no
- 48:14one really understands at their core.
- 48:16I also think that's what drives a lot of people's anxiety because they don't
- 48:19know at their core who they want.
- 48:21When I've been, we've sat here and talked about who you want to become.
- 48:23A lot of people don't know who they want to be, but I
- 48:25think it's because they don't.
- 48:27know what they believe in.
- 48:28They don't know what they think is good or bad or right
- 48:30or wrong or any of that stuff.
- 48:32And they wonder why they're just floating through life.
- 48:33But I think they'll steal a couple of my gears.
- 48:35But number two, I really think that they'll discover their own.
- 48:39And that's what my hope is for that book.
- 48:40That's by the time they get through the end of that book,
- 48:43they know who they want to become.
- 48:44And they understand what they believe now, and that's going to drive their actions.
- 48:49And if you take the time to find your belief set and you take the time to
- 48:53find out what's in your transmission, what gears you've got at your
- 48:56disposal, you'll never be stuck again.
- 48:58And shouldn't that be the goal?
- 49:00If we want to live a life of meaning of purpose, shouldn't that
- 49:02be the goal to never be stuck?
- 49:04Well, how do you do that without having a really great transmission and
- 49:06knowing when to go into the right gear?
- 49:08And that's what I hope that Geared for Life does for people.
- 49:11Just so long as it doesn't end up like a Fast and the Furious movie with 20 gears
- 49:15Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Touché We've been touching on how a lot of these principles
- 49:20of your book apply to life and our daily lives and everything, but how would you
- 49:24think these principles can apply to racing and how could the message be adapted to
- 49:29people that have performance anxiety, redness, burnout and pressures of racing?
- 49:34I don't think that they're mutually exclusive from one another because.
- 49:38Motorsports is such a lifestyle anyway, when people are trying
- 49:42to make their dreams happen.
- 49:44And there's two types of people that are in motorsports.
- 49:46The people just love it and are fans.
- 49:47It's almost like a commercial break from their lives.
- 49:50They want to plug in.
- 49:51They want to fall asleep during the NASCAR race on a Sunday afternoon, right?
- 49:54And that's okay.
- 49:55It can be an outlet.
- 49:56And then there's people that are probably listening that they
- 49:58want this to be their career.
- 49:59And I think for both of those.
- 50:02Whether racing is a pit stop for them, it's where they get refueled.
- 50:06It can be that mental break that they need to be able to go and now
- 50:09be more effective on Monday morning when they go into their careers.
- 50:12That's totally fine.
- 50:13The other group that's wanting motorsports to be their careers.
- 50:16It's the same thing, man.
- 50:17I find my different gears when it comes to working with sponsors.
- 50:21Then I do driving a monster jam truck at our monster jam world
- 50:25finals at the beginning of July.
- 50:27And man, that was my chance.
- 50:28I firmly believe before we went into that week that I was going
- 50:31to win a world championship.
- 50:32I had it in my heart and my mind.
- 50:35I, man, we were good in racing.
- 50:37This was going to be our chance.
- 50:38Go out there.
- 50:39Qualify fourth, by the way, in racing.
- 50:41Man, we're smoking everybody.
- 50:42I got a bye run.
- 50:43I came out for the second round, smoked the other truck in the other lane.
- 50:47Came into the quarterfinals, and as soon as the truck came off the starting
- 50:51line, hit the dirt, the EFI system deleted the tune from itself and died.
- 50:56And I'm sitting there in this man, I'm furious, you know, I'm sitting there
- 50:58like, I cannot believe this just happened.
- 51:00I couldn't get the truck to refire, of course.
- 51:01Right.
- 51:02And once the tune's deleted from that EFI system, it's toast.
- 51:05And so I'm sitting there and they finally brought out the crane of
- 51:06shame, as I like to call it, that hooks the truck up and pushes us off.
- 51:09And I'm looking at that going, man, okay, well, we still have freestyle.
- 51:13So suck it up a little bit, get the truck back there.
- 51:15Let the guys look at, let's, let's just figure out what happened.
- 51:18And come back out for freestyle and let it all hang out.
- 51:20We went out, we thought we found it, got it to hold the tune and all
- 51:24that stuff came out for freestyle.
- 51:25I turned the corner and line up for my very first jump.
- 51:28And this is the biggest stage of our whole sport.
- 51:3160, 000 people in Nashville, people come from all over the world, you
- 51:35know, all on TV, all that stuff.
- 51:37Truck dies again.
- 51:38I wouldn't refire.
- 51:39I'm sitting there hitting the dash.
- 51:41I'm trying to, I'm like, maybe it'll just be a loose connection.
- 51:43The 0.
- 51:45001 percent chance that this is going to work.
- 51:46But at that point I didn't care.
- 51:48I was hitting the dash and then I was trying to refire the truck, hit the dash
- 51:51more, refire, nothing was happening.
- 51:52I finally got the call.
- 51:53They called it and said, Hey.
- 51:55Uh, you're done.
- 51:55Pop my belts, I'm furious, man.
- 51:57I'm heartbroken, but I'm angry.
- 51:59This is not the way this was supposed to happen.
- 52:01This is not the story that I was going to have my world
- 52:04finals championship go in 2023.
- 52:06This is, we were supposed to win, right?
- 52:08And here we finished dead last in free socks.
- 52:11We didn't even get to compete and got knocked out of racing and in a way that
- 52:14wasn't anyone, it wasn't our fault.
- 52:16And I remember going back to the locker room and I'm furious, you know,
- 52:18I'm, I got blood on my helmet because I punched the dash so hard I cut
- 52:22somewhere on my hand and there's blood all over my helmet, blood all over me.
- 52:25And I got back to the locker to collect myself and I had that moment
- 52:28of feeling real sorry for myself.
- 52:30And I had that gear shifting moment where I said, look, you can do this.
- 52:33You deserve it.
- 52:34You can be mad.
- 52:35This was a horrible situation and so unfair.
- 52:38Or you can find that gear about being built for others.
- 52:42Not just yourself and I did that I had to mentally make that shift into my
- 52:47built for others gear take my eyes off myself And I said, you know just because
- 52:51you had the worst day of your monster jam career today on the biggest stage
- 52:55One of your buddies is about to have their best So why don't you get your
- 52:58eyes off yourself go and be the biggest cheerleader in the entire stadium?
- 53:02And that's what I did.
- 53:02I went up to the main stage.
- 53:03I cheered as loud as I could.
- 53:05And every time I cheered, it hurt a little bit inside knowing that I had
- 53:08to cheer for them because my day suck.
- 53:10But at the same time, like it also brought me out of that where I was like, yeah,
- 53:13okay, even though this is somehow painful to do, it was also freeing because if
- 53:18I'm willing to find that gear about being built for others, then you can't lose.
- 53:22And so we took that and Colt Stevens ended up going out there.
- 53:25My buddy won his very first world finals championship.
- 53:28He won freestyle that night and I was the first guy to give him the biggest
- 53:32bear hug of the night and just screaming, you know, cheering for that guy.
- 53:36Because why?
- 53:37Because in that moment, we can choose to stay in the reaction, stay in the emotion.
- 53:41Or we can choose to shift into a different gear.
- 53:43And so when someone is trying to make that career in motorsports,
- 53:46they've got to find that gear.
- 53:47You know, they got to figure out what do they want to do when they're
- 53:50standing in front of the sponsors?
- 53:52Who do they want to be whenever they're trying to figure out
- 53:55how to interact with fans?
- 53:56What about when the day goes bad at the racetrack and what happens when
- 53:59they're sitting in their boss's office and they finally say they're fired?
- 54:02How are they going to react because of performance?
- 54:04What gear are they going to find then?
- 54:06And so instead of being so reactive to life, whether motorsport is a
- 54:10hobby, an outlet, whether it is their career, I'm begging you find your gear.
- 54:15And once you know your gears, man, never let it go and you'll never be stuck again.
- 54:19So earlier we talked about kids and family and passing the torch and keeping
- 54:24the young ones involved and things like that because motorsport in general is
- 54:27very male dominated and being a father of daughters like myself and like Dan,
- 54:32you know, we have to look at things introspectively sometimes and ask
- 54:35ourselves the question, how do we make.
- 54:37motorsport more inclusive.
- 54:38How do we create more diversity and especially how do we invite
- 54:42more women into the sport?
- 54:43So Bryce, if a young lady came up to you and asked the question, which you answered
- 54:47earlier, I don't know how I became me.
- 54:49I don't know how to become me.
- 54:50But if they came up and asked you, how do I get into monster jam?
- 54:53How do I do this?
- 54:54How do I get involved in motorsport?
- 54:55What would you say?
- 54:56How would you guide them?
- 54:58The nice thing is, is monster jam.
- 54:59Kudos that they get is the fact that the women use the exact same
- 55:02equipment as the men and drag racing is that same way too, right?
- 55:06My daughter loves Britney force.
- 55:08She thinks that Britney force hung the moon and I like Britney force too.
- 55:12So it's nice to actually be able to send my daughter and to be able to like,
- 55:15look up to somebody that I respect.
- 55:17Ultimately, if someone was asking, let's say that they're
- 55:2116, it's all about social media.
- 55:22Man, if people can just start leveraging how to communicate, a lot of the
- 55:27girls and women that Monster Jam bring on, man, the first prerequisite
- 55:31is their social media stuff.
- 55:33If someone has 100, 000 followers, it's a lot easier to get them involved.
- 55:37And I think it's way easier.
- 55:39Women in motorsport, they build a social media following faster than men.
- 55:43No question about it.
- 55:45And so the big question about.
- 55:47How they want to build that really does wrap back into who they want to become.
- 55:51But I think social media is a massive opportunity for women
- 55:54that want to break into the sport.
- 55:55And if I was sitting there coaching my daughter on making a career out of
- 55:59motor sports, it's people skill books.
- 56:01It's ridiculous how the difference between the women in monster jam
- 56:05that do really well and the ones that are just there driving a truck.
- 56:09Some of them cannot look in front of a camera to save their life.
- 56:13Like they freeze up.
- 56:14They're not confident and I'm not knocking them for it because all
- 56:17of us were there at one point.
- 56:18And it just takes a lot of work and lessons.
- 56:21Go join an improv class, get a local community college or something.
- 56:25Go to Toastmasters, learn how to communicate effectively, and that'll help
- 56:28with social media and all that stuff.
- 56:30And you notice I'm purposefully not saying go race more.
- 56:33It's a skill based sport and I don't know how to make it in Formula 1.
- 56:35I don't know how to make it in NASCAR, but I do know.
- 56:38That we're going into a time where if you cannot become a business asset, and a
- 56:43business asset is somebody who is able to make a sponsor, a business partner, sell
- 56:50things, motorsports is a marketing tool.
- 56:53She did a three part series on pathways to monster jam on YouTube,
- 56:56because I get asked this all the time, like, how do I become a driver?
- 56:59And I got so tired of answering it.
- 57:00And I said, you know what, I'm going to actually break this down in detail.
- 57:03And I have these categories where I'm like, are you an asset or a liability?
- 57:07Think about it this way.
- 57:08Where do you rate yourself on communication?
- 57:09Where do you rate yourself on this?
- 57:11What do you rate yourself on that?
- 57:12And there's like five categories I give.
- 57:14I would strongly encourage any bikes.
- 57:15It's not just monster jam.
- 57:16I think it's categories are good for any motorsport.
- 57:18I think we underestimate communication.
- 57:20I think people need to buy the book, how to win friends and influence people.
- 57:24They need to understand how people are wired and dealing with people.
- 57:27And once they understand that, they'll be able to actually interact
- 57:30with people in an effective way.
- 57:32And that's where you become an asset.
- 57:34You know, people say, Oh, well, if you had 3 million bucks and you can
- 57:36go to Richard Childress racing, you can get a seat maybe, but that's
- 57:39an asset to Richard Childress.
- 57:41None of us are having 3 million bucks we can take up to a driver.
- 57:45So we have to find the way to be an asset to a brand in a different way.
- 57:49I don't know Casey Cain personally, but Great Clips is the thing that
- 57:52they tell me all the time, cause they used to sponsor Casey Cain and they
- 57:55were in NASCAR for like 20 years.
- 57:56And they said, Casey would like shyly walk up on stage with a microphone and,
- 58:00Hey guys, thanks for sponsoring the car.
- 58:03And here I'm up there like, what's up everybody.
- 58:05I'm showing them slides.
- 58:06I'm doing all this stuff.
- 58:07And I'm not saying everyone needs to be a professional speaker.
- 58:09It's just part of who I wanted to ultimately become part of the,
- 58:12what that fell in line with it.
- 58:14But the way of the nineties where, you know, a decal on the side of
- 58:17a race car, that's not enough.
- 58:18That's not enough return.
- 58:19And why some of these motor sports are dying is because there's
- 58:22not enough return on investment.
- 58:24The fix to that, it is the ambassadors.
- 58:26It's the drivers and it's the driver's marketability, the value
- 58:30that they can bring sponsors.
- 58:31It's outrageous that we don't have 500 companies begging
- 58:35to get into motor sports.
- 58:36And the reason is because.
- 58:37You know, they're not having the type of effect and the type of
- 58:40ambassadors out there that we can have.
- 58:42And if my daughter wants to decide, and I'm not convinced she's going to want to
- 58:45become a race car driver for a career.
- 58:47If she decides to do that, I'll support her 100%, but you better believe she'll
- 58:50become an asset first with her voice.
- 58:52Along the way, I'll help coach her in the what, which is driving.
- 58:55Driving can be taught, even though there's a lot of heart that
- 58:59comes in with being good at it.
- 59:00Like, you can drive, doesn't mean you're going to be good at driving.
- 59:02Anyone can learn how to drive.
- 59:04The best are the ones that have the heart, that almost have that natural skill set.
- 59:07But that's the same exact thing with our voices, and our
- 59:10voices need to become a tool.
- 59:11Not just something that...
- 59:13People bring out every once in a while to cuss out some driver they don't like.
- 59:16It's like, okay, that worked in the 90s.
- 59:17It doesn't work now.
- 59:18And we got to make that shift as a sport as well.
- 59:20And that takes care of gender.
- 59:22It takes care of minorities.
- 59:23It takes care of all the things that we need.
- 59:25It's not about genders.
- 59:26I don't think there needs to be this focus on gender.
- 59:29Or diversity or anything like that, it needs to be focused on people's passions
- 59:33and hearts and ability to go out there and use it as a tool, use their voice.
- 59:37If the best voice that we can use is a black female, absolutely.
- 59:41Like how do we support that individual?
- 59:43I don't think it's going to affect the sport to not have more females in it.
- 59:47The question needs to be asked that.
- 59:49isn't being asked is why aren't we seeing and hearing the female voice as
- 59:54powerful as we've traditionally seen the male ambassadors and that's what I
- 59:58love to change like I think the female voice and the female ambassador can
- 1:00:03be way more effective because of the engagement they get not just on social
- 1:00:07media and tv and all that stuff but their ability to break through some of the
- 1:00:11noise that us guys tend to put up there that's not productive from a business
- 1:00:14standpoint so I'm going off on a whole nother rabbit trail but I think that
- 1:00:17the voice needs to become an asset and that's what I would do with my daughter.
- 1:00:21If she decides to do it, that's where I'm going to start.
- 1:00:22What's next for Bryce Kenny?
- 1:00:24You're still running the Great Clips Warrior in the 2024 season.
- 1:00:27Any goals to try any sort of different disciplines in motorsports
- 1:00:31and maybe some bucket list items?
- 1:00:33I've got to win a world championship.
- 1:00:35You know, I want to go into 2024.
- 1:00:36That's our key for our world finals.
- 1:00:38It's going to be in Los Angeles in May.
- 1:00:40I want to write.
- 1:00:41Our names in the history books, I'm also doing a lot more speaking engagements.
- 1:00:45I'm passionate about this book geared for life is going to really help
- 1:00:48people because it helps me every day.
- 1:00:50I'm still trying to become someone who embodies it.
- 1:00:53I don't have any of this stuff figured out personally, but 2024, I've been
- 1:00:57describing it as a tectonic plate shift.
- 1:01:00I think everything's changing for everybody.
- 1:01:02I don't think that you can go in your job and your careers.
- 1:01:05I don't think I can go into 2024 with a soft focus, soft vision.
- 1:01:09My vision is to take things like this book, things like my speaking
- 1:01:13engagements, my relationship with Great Clips, my relationship with
- 1:01:16Monster Jam, going across the country and doing what we're doing.
- 1:01:19I wanna shake up the motorsports world.
- 1:01:21I actually believe it's happening in 2024.
- 1:01:23We're gonna change the way the game is played and we're gonna give
- 1:01:26people a new opportunity, a new idea on how to make value outta this.
- 1:01:29'cause.
- 1:01:29We need more sponsors.
- 1:01:30We need people that get excited about podcasts, just like break fix.
- 1:01:34And we need people that understand the dynamic that we
- 1:01:36can all go in there and create.
- 1:01:38So yeah, for me personally, I'm grinding right now.
- 1:01:40I'm creating, I'm finding a creative gear that I never knew I had,
- 1:01:44trying to develop new content.
- 1:01:45And wanting to get a good message out there to hopefully,
- 1:01:48you know, make a difference.
- 1:01:49So 2024 though, it's going to be a tectonic plate shift.
- 1:01:52And a year from now, my life won't look nearly the same as it does today.
- 1:01:56And I say that in a good way, like everything's about to change.
- 1:01:59And I think it can for anybody that's got the courage to just find that
- 1:02:03next gear they never knew they had.
- 1:02:04I like that.
- 1:02:05I think we just found your eighth gear, as you mentioned it, right?
- 1:02:07And maybe that's the title of your next book.
- 1:02:09If there is one grabbing the next, I like it.
- 1:02:12So let's tell the audience about where folks can pick up a copy of your book.
- 1:02:16And you mentioned some personal appearances, you know, speaking,
- 1:02:18engagement, things like that.
- 1:02:20Any places that they should be aware of in the 2024 season where they can come
- 1:02:24and see you, maybe some book signings.
- 1:02:25We're actually trying to play with the idea of doing some book
- 1:02:27signings in the monster jam cities that I'm going to be attending.
- 1:02:30And my schedule is on monster jam.
- 1:02:32com.
- 1:02:32Buy the book anywhere books are sold.
- 1:02:34Everyone loves Amazon.
- 1:02:36The last.
- 1:02:36Six books I've bought are on Amazon, but I'm also on Audible.
- 1:02:39I know that a lot of people are big into audio books.
- 1:02:42I actually voiced over the book as well, so is my voice in there?
- 1:02:45Maybe that's a good thing.
- 1:02:46I don't know.
- 1:02:46Maybe it's a bad thing.
- 1:02:47Maybe by the end of this podcast everyone's like, there's no way I
- 1:02:49could do four hours more of this guy's voice, but it's on Audible and
- 1:02:52anywhere books are sold, it'll be there.
- 1:02:54So check out Barnes and Noble and Amazon, all those things.
- 1:02:57But yeah, look me up on Monster Jam.
- 1:02:59Go on my Instagram, which is, At warrior Bryce, I do probably my most stuff.
- 1:03:03They are probably the most followers of my platforms is on Tik TOK.
- 1:03:06So that's more the silly stuff and the memes and whatnot, but yeah, follow
- 1:03:10along with that stuff, because I do want to do some more book signings, but
- 1:03:13man, even my publisher said, you know, anything about doing a book launch event.
- 1:03:16And they kind of described it as going into Barnes and Noble.
- 1:03:18And I'm like, what, my mom and my aunt are going to come walking in.
- 1:03:21Like that's a waste of time.
- 1:03:22So I said, no, I said, let's actually practice what we
- 1:03:24preach become built for others.
- 1:03:26And we had the biggest pediatric cancer fundraiser in the history of my area.
- 1:03:30Back in September, when we launched the book, we did a
- 1:03:32huge cruise in 600 plus cars.
- 1:03:35My monster jam truck came up from Florida was there and probably had
- 1:03:382, 500 to 3, 000 people out there with live music and all that stuff.
- 1:03:42And that was kind of our book launch event, right?
- 1:03:44It was kind of a secondary element to the day.
- 1:03:46But that's really what I'm interested in going, man, what if we did this
- 1:03:48where we raised a ton of money for pediatric cancer, everywhere we went
- 1:03:52and did a book signing in quotations.
- 1:03:54So yeah, we're playing around with some of those ideas, but follow
- 1:03:57along on social media and stuff.
- 1:03:58If I'm coming anywhere close, I would love to meet you.
- 1:04:00Would love to sign your book if you get one and yeah, I would love to
- 1:04:03hear the story and just find out what gear that person's in next.
- 1:04:06Well, with that, Bryce, we've reached the point of the episode where you
- 1:04:09get to tell us about any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
- 1:04:13to share that we haven't covered thus far.
- 1:04:14The only promotion I'll give is in thinking about what I want to
- 1:04:19do that aligns with my who and the impact I want to make, I want
- 1:04:23to encourage anybody to go to my nonprofit, which is livelikewarriors.
- 1:04:27com.
- 1:04:28and join my warrior chain.
- 1:04:29It's like a bat signal up in the sky.
- 1:04:31And we crowdfund for very specific needs for families
- 1:04:35that are going through cancer.
- 1:04:36When those specific needs pop up, I'll send a note out to our warrior chain.
- 1:04:40We've done things.
- 1:04:40It's been everything from a 1, 500 piece of furniture to a 20, 000 vehicle that
- 1:04:45we were able to give a family that we found out was Ubering two hours one way
- 1:04:48to the little girl's cancer treatments.
- 1:04:50And we were like, no.
- 1:04:52Not going to happen.
- 1:04:52I put it out on social media thinking, does anyone just have
- 1:04:55an extra car laying around?
- 1:04:56You know, your kid just got out of school.
- 1:04:58You don't need it anymore.
- 1:04:59You want to donate it, get the tax write off.
- 1:05:00That's where Chris Angel, mind freak, Vegas magician, we've
- 1:05:03become buddies over the years.
- 1:05:05And he texted me and was like, Hey, that's outrageous.
- 1:05:07I'll send you 20 grand.
- 1:05:08Just go get them a reliable vehicle.
- 1:05:10So we've done things small.
- 1:05:12We've done things big, but I would encourage anybody,
- 1:05:14man, get off the sidelines.
- 1:05:15You can do way more.
- 1:05:16And even if it's just being a part of it from a logistic standpoint.
- 1:05:19Be part of our warrior chain.
- 1:05:21Go to live like warriors.
- 1:05:22com and sign up for that.
- 1:05:23It's totally free.
- 1:05:23Of course, be part of something bigger than yourself and bigger than
- 1:05:26me and bigger than any one of us.
- 1:05:28And we're going to go out there and make a huge impact for
- 1:05:30families that need our help.
- 1:05:31We have all had that feeling like we're not enough, not worthy.
- 1:05:34Should keep moving forward, doing the norm.
- 1:05:36But what if we had the tools to better understand ourselves to not only gain
- 1:05:40a new perspective, but also learn what you actually want and how to get there.
- 1:05:43And Bryce's new book geared for life, making the shift into your full potential.
- 1:05:47He shares stories of winning, losing, and learning to fail forward from
- 1:05:52the perspective of a professional monster truck driver to help others
- 1:05:55understand that we are so much more than we allow ourselves to believe.
- 1:05:59To learn more, be sure to visit www.
- 1:06:02BryceKenney.
- 1:06:03com or follow him on social media at Warrior Bryce on Facebook,
- 1:06:07Instagram, and TikTok, or stop over to visit his YouTube channel.
- 1:06:11At Bryce Kenney.
- 1:06:12Well, Bryce, I can't thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and sharing your
- 1:06:15road to success story with everybody that's tuned into this episode.
- 1:06:19And I have to say, what I took away from this experience and what I think
- 1:06:22is super important is that sometimes, especially guys in motorsports, we
- 1:06:26don't take the time to really delve into self help or mental help or
- 1:06:31really treating ourselves, right?
- 1:06:32We're always on that hamster wheel of competition, right?
- 1:06:35Chasing the next trophy, chasing the next event.
- 1:06:37And I think bringing these important stories.
- 1:06:40Lessons learned and the rules and guidelines that you've set out in
- 1:06:44Geared for Life is really important.
- 1:06:46And you've done it in such a way that it communicates to all of us
- 1:06:49in a way that we can understand.
- 1:06:50It might be harder to read some other books, but I think yours
- 1:06:52is a great one for all of us to pick up and really learn from.
- 1:06:55So thank you for doing what you're doing and keep up the great work.
- 1:06:58I appreciate that guys a lot.
- 1:06:59And even though.
- 1:07:00Some of my answers were a little long winded.
- 1:07:02I can tell you, I certainly enjoyed just hanging with you guys and excited
- 1:07:05about where the podcast is going.
- 1:07:07You guys are doing it right.
- 1:07:07This is a whole nother gear that I know that you guys have
- 1:07:10been finding in yourselves and developing this kind of content.
- 1:07:13I'm certainly proud of you.
- 1:07:14I'm a break fix fan, so let's keep it rolling.
- 1:07:17There's ninth gear right there.
- 1:07:18There you go.
- 1:07:25We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast brought
- 1:07:29to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
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