Full Transcript – Rob Mattson – Wild Business Growth Podcast #360

This is the full transcript for Episode #360 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Rob Mattson – Walking the Earth, Aircraft Carriers, 2ndLap Podcast. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
Well, we’ll get to the procrastination part in a little bit, but.

00:18
Here, here, welcome back to Wild Business Growth. This is your place to hear from a wild entrepreneur turning wild ideas into wild growth. I’m your host Max Branstetter of MaxPodcasting. This is episode 360. And as if we’re not usually corny enough on this show, we’re coming full circle in this episode. Today’s guest is Rob Mattson. Some call him Robbie, some call him Gramps, some call him Rob, and…

00:48
He is a longtime friend, longtime fan of the show from the early, early, early days. He is a Navy veteran, served as an aircraft technician on an aircraft carrier. He has had a very successful sales career and he has walked the equivalent now of about one and a half times around the earth. He had a goal to the walk the circumference, circumference, circumference of the earth.

01:17
by age 50 and he’s still going. So we’ll talk about that in his awesome second lap podcast. It is Rob Robbie Gramps. Enjoy the show.

01:36
Alrighty, we are here with Rob Mattson, also known as Robbie Mattson, also known as Gramps, the man with three names as he’s known by anyone. uh Good friend, we’ve come back. We’ve actually never been in person, but feels like we have because we’ve been connected online. Shout out our mutual friend, your old Navy buddy, Patric Fransko for introducing us in the first place. Pat. What’s up, Pat?

02:05
uh This is episode 360 and we’re coming full circle with this podcast because not only have you been a fan of this podcast and a big supporter of this podcast from the early days, you are someone who literally has walked the equivalent of walking around the entire world. So 360 feels like a fitting episode for you. Rob, Robbie Gramps, thanks for joining. How you doing today? Fantastic. I’m grateful to be here. Thankful. And the irony in the numbers in my life, like when I finished walking the circumference and I don’t want to steal a lot of the thunder,

02:34
but I finished on Pi 314, 2022. So there’s these number of things that show up and being episode 360, I mean, it’s impressive. It’s great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Were you listening to Lateralis by Tool and got the Fibonacci sequence going when that ended too?

02:55
No, half of what you said, I’m like, what is he talking about? All right, that’s one of those songs and background of the songs, either know it or you don’t. So, we’ll spiral out of that one. And I’m a fan, I am a fan of Tool. So it’s surprising. Yeah, well, I’m sure we’ll talk music too, but I wanna start off with something that you and I haven’t really talked about before, but I know it’s a big part of your background, how you and Pat connect in the first place. Your time in the, I wanna say early 90s on the USS Kitty Hawk.

03:24
aircraft carrier in the Navy. I’m somebody who grew up loving Behind Enemy Lines, obviously Top Gun, those movies. I just think aircraft cooliers. Shout out. uh What’s the show? Full House, Dave Coolier. I think aircraft carriers are some of the coolest things in the world. Can you share what life was like on an aircraft carrier? I followed in my dad’s footsteps. And I was going to say, it’s kind of ironic, same name dad. When we go and you look at LinkedIn.

03:53
we have our names in reverse. like one has Robbie quotes in the middle, Rob Matson, the other one says Rob, in the middle is Robbie Matson, and I can’t remember which one of us did, but I followed suit because he had done it first. uh I’ve gotten his uh retirement envelopes for years, the supplies, like that. Anyway, so he watched,

04:20
And I struggled with meningitis in college. And so I was forced to, hey, this is going to happen or you could join the Navy. And I was like, Hey, I’m going to do that. went and because of Top Gun was very, very interested in joining the military all of a sudden. And I think it was the motorcycle and I did buy the motorcycle. And so I fulfilled all of that. think the leather jacket didn’t play volleyball as much as maybe I should.

04:49
Uh, but my humor is not going to get any better. Uh, but yeah, you did my podcast. You know that you still invited me the as VAB, which is the score or the test you take to decide what you could do in the military. I took it and basically I had, think it was a 99 out of a hundred or 98 out of a hundred and I could do whatever I wanted. So I actually decided at first I was going to do ET, which is electronics.

05:15
technician more nuclear. So, hey, I’m gonna do something different than what dad did. He did AT and then ultimately I got talked into doing aviation electronics technician, which is AT, same thing he did. And so I went and basically joined, went to bootcamp, went to A school, which is to learn how to do this stuff and then was stationed with a squadron attached to the Kitty Hawk. So I was never…

05:45
a black shoe as they call them, you the guys that are ship’s company. I was always a Brown shoe or an Airedale or, know, I had the wings of on all of our, ranks and ratings, um, showing that we were part of the squadrons. And so I was part of that. And then similar to like watching Top Gun, you know, not all of the pilots names are actually on the plane. They’re flying it’s on the squadron planes, but they rotate through the planes. And so it’s like, anyway, some of the things that they show.

06:13
in that movie ultimately are nothing like what it is. And then some things are very, very close to being like it. I met Patrick within a couple of months of joining the squadron. So call it just shy of two years in the Navy because I had to go to bootcamp school, then go to the other. then anyway, so it was quite a bit of time in just over a year and a half before. And then all of a sudden I was on the squadron and I Patrick.

06:41
He was in AT as well and it was like, hey, great, we met each other. But he was doing this cool thing called troubleshooting. And I was part of the, basically where you’re gonna do each individual shop. And so I was in the AT shop. And part of that is being in the military and the stuff that they don’t show you in Top Gun is you have to kind of earn different pieces. And so I did the first three months of the first six month tour actually

07:11
temporary assigned duty or TAD to the mess hall. And so I was washing dishes and serving food and things like that, getting scalded with hot water for the first 90 days of that. And then I moved in and had all these clean uniforms and everybody else was all dirty and nasty, because for the first 90 days they were working. And I was, as I said, getting scalded. But I did that, I worked nights. So I got to shift my whole body, and I would basically have breakfast

07:41
dinner and vice versa and that was fun and I enjoyed that. I learned how to drink a lot of coffee at that point in my life. And then I got to do at the end of that first one, so right before Patrick, actually it Patrick was leaving the Navy and I was transitioning actually into being a troubleshooter. My dad flew out to Hawaii and did a tiger cruise with me and got to spend a week after the end of a cruise with us, we did flight ops and

08:09
They get to eat in the mess hall and do all the things we do. And even though he and I did the same thing, he was a reservist, so he’d never actually get to experience it. So was kind of really cool to experience what I was doing through his eyes and actually learn now that I’m older what perspective is. He thought it was super cool. And I’m like, yeah, some of this sucks bad. I can see how you would think it’s cool. I guess what’s the misconception about?

08:36
besides working in mess halls. What’s the biggest mess conception about working on like an aircraft carrier and with these like crazy powerful, I think it was F-18s that you were working with? F-18s, yep. That’s the Hornet or Super Hornet? Yes. That’s all I know about planes right there. That was it. We were Hornets. The Super Hornet was out when we were in VFA 97, which is what I was in. And we actually have a Facebook group. So shout out, hey, whatever. I’m one of the admins.

09:06
But we were running, I think it was A, B, they then had C, Ds, and then the super hornets were E, Fs. And the different letters were one cedar versus two cedars. And so I believe ours were Cs at that point then. So anyways, we had like the oldest planes and all the new guys had that. And so there’s that kind of misconception like, you’re always gonna have the latest and greatest. And we were…

09:31
kind of like the bad news bears and that we were making these things limp along. Shout out, Patrick will know some of these terms, but we had a hangar queen, which basically means we had an airplane that sat in the hangar. The whole cruise, I think one time, just because we didn’t have enough parts to keep 10 of them going. Which, you don’t wanna advertise that because the enemy’s like.

09:58
Hey, whatever, we want to go attack them. And no, they’re really strong. I’ve been like, no, they don’t even have a full set of planes because they’re trying to keep limping along with old technology. anyways, shout out. I normally go really positive, but that’s probably the negative thing I’ve ever said on a podcast. I never thought about that before. That’s cool. I think the statute of limitations is that the hanger queen will forgive you. can you put into perspective the feeling of a

10:24
just being around a plane that’s either landing or taking off in an aircraft carrier. Max, it’s like incredibly humbling to be around, you know, an airplane. And I’ve been around airplanes and interested in airplanes. And, you know, when I lived in Alaska as a kid, my dad had tons of friends that had either float planes or small planes. And I’ve held the stick and flown and all that, you know, as youth.

10:54
You get around, you know, an F-18 and I mean, it’s like being around a Canon. It’s like being around a Dragster, if you’ve ever been around a Dragster or a NASCAR or some sort of high performance piece of equipment that is just, you know, if you get too close to a certain place, it’s going to suck you in like a Ginsu. You have to watch out for that as well as the back. It’s, you know, similar to like a horse. You’ve got to, you know, make sure you’re in the right place during the right time.

11:23
incredibly humbling. I’ve got permanent hearing damage just because they’re extremely loud. And for being a troubleshooter, you have to be able to have the muffs on and be able to communicate with the pilot. And so you can’t have double hearing protection. so at some point I’m to go in and they’re going to start paying me disability because I’ve had permanent hearing damage since I was 20 years old. But anyways, long story. You’re around a very powerful machine. You’re

11:51
kind of ducking under because it’s, you you’ve got them all stacked together. So you’re very conscious of space. They’re usually chained down. So you’re not only trying to avoid the plane, but you’re also looking or not looking. You’re not able to see the like trip wires, if you will, that are there. You’re kind of sometimes even feeling with your pants and you’ve got your pants that are stained with a brown from the chain rust at all these memories that you’re

12:20
you’re bringing up as I’m thinking about the life of that. But yeah, you’re ducking around and then if you’re up there during flight ops, then you’re also dealing with planes that are actually launching and landing and trying not to get vaporized as that’s all happening.

12:39
I’m glad you’re not vaporized. I’m going to, this is going to be a hard cut from, you know, the fastest machines on earth and above earth to one of the slowest things we can do as humans, which is walking. And so I think when I think about you and what you’ve done in your personal brand, and now you’ve got the second lab podcast, which I’m fortunate you had me on recently, really, really cool. You started walking at some point and now you’ve kind of made it part of your identity. And obviously there’s tons of positives that come with it, but you,

13:09
You’ve now turned it into media platforms as well. And so there’s a really cool story there. I actually don’t know what’s, why did you start walking every day in the first place? I’ve thought on this a lot while walking, you know, when walking as one does as one walks and thinks. Yeah, exactly. Well, I call it defrag in my hard drive when I’m walking, I’m actually fixing the realigning and things like that. But if I go back, I

13:38
I would go back and I would tell you that as far as I can remember, uh, we as a family live in Alaska, you know, elementary school, did cross country skiing, cross country running. We were doing five K’s and 10 K’s as a family, all of my youth. So it was always, you know, physical downhill skiing, uh, mountain bikes and living in Alaska mountain bike. And actually mountain biking kind of terrain off road and

14:05
different kinds of tires and just kind of craziness like that. even up to becoming part of my first business, my partner and I, would, in between sales calls, we would pull off and change shoes, kind of like Mr. Rogers, for those that remember who that is. And we would go for a walk for an hour and have a water bottle with us and just have kind of partner meetings, team meetings.

14:32
you know, talk through what did that sales call just mean? How do we, know, sort of a, you know, they’d call it like a post-mortem or a debrief or a, you know, an analysis. We would do that while walking. And that happened and progressed. And then I had kids and, know, I grew to as large as I think I ever was. I think it was probably 225 or 230 pounds, six foot tall. And I was like, why am I not doing this?

15:00
Fast forward, I started to kind of occasionally mowing the lawn or different things, never on a consistent basis. Then I basically got divorced and I think there’s this time where everybody gets sort of slapped in the face with something that was mine and with me and so I bought a Fitbit. This is probably my 12th one maybe or 13th and I’ve had this one. uh

15:27
The one right before this, the longest, I think I had five years and then it shorted, bought this one and then it started working again. So it’s down in the drawer and I have a backup to the, anyway, so 12 of them in and I started measuring sort of the walking and I was doing it and I was, hey, I wanna do this daily and it was passe. People were doing like contests, like a daily contest, hey, who can walk the most and.

15:52
You would do things to sandbags so you could be the winner and things like that. So that started going on and then eventually and fast forward to the meat that you’re looking for and you may cut right to this. So this may be the intro and boom. We’re gonna cut. gonna cut. We’ve been recording for 15 and a half minutes, but you were listening have heard four seconds. So thanks for, no, I’m just kidding. I would not be surprised. No, no, no, no,

16:18
We’re at minute three. I listened to these and I was gonna bring the headphones. I have them over there. I’m not gonna stand up and make you have to whatever, but I had wired in headphones at the time and I would bite on the cord because when you’re walking a lot, they would fall out of my ear. But if I would bite on the cord, whatever. And so I probably have some sort of cavities that came from all the electromagnetic impulses that I put into my face. But I started to listen to podcasts and I started to listen to…

16:46
books and I started to listen to people and David Goggins was on with Jesse Ixler on Joe Rogan’s podcast and talked about living with a seal, which was the book that he did. And I was like, is interesting. by the way, for those picturing like a zoo living with a Navy seal for, you for those, not the seal, the animal. So yes, yes. No, no. Thank you for saying it sounds like a kid’s movie, actually, if you first think of

17:14
If you get to see the cover of it, it’s pretty funny because there’s a, you know, curly head, stir crazy kind of, think Gene Wilder when I think of him and his wife actually refers to him as Gene Wilder like, but then there’s this guy screaming in his ear and that’s David Goggins. oh We listened to them talk and then with, and I was very fortunate to listen to all that. And then David Goggins book came out. And so I basically was probably the 10th book that I listened to on Audible.

17:43
in the time I was listening, been walking at that point three years, two and a half years, three years, and I listened to it and he was basically, the short version is when you get done the way that we are brought up as humans, when you get done and you’re winded and gassed and feel like you just gave the world everything, you’ve given 40%. You have that much more capacity, capability, you have more, but yet,

18:13
there’s things in circuitry and systems that want to protect you and save you and keep you sane and alive and all those other things. And I say that lightly. And so I took that and I was like, I’ve got this much time. It was 20, what was it? 2017, 2018, right in that timeframe.

18:40
And I had just over three years until I was gonna turn 50 years old. And I’d been walking and I did 2,500 miles the first year of my Fitbit without reading this book. I did 3,500 miles the second year without reading this book. And I think I did 4,800 miles the third year and I had read the book and this is when this all started. And I basically went to…

19:03
at the restaurant business would say, went through, I did a soft opening and I started to see how could I do this? I wanna do 12 miles a day, that’s how I can get to this number that I wanna do, which is 24,902 miles on my feet.

19:18
Max, I failed miserably. I couldn’t do it. Like I could do 13 miles and then I would do 12 miles and then would do 11 and a half and then I would do eight and then I would do 11 and a half and then I would do 15. And I’m like, damn, I can’t. And I’m a traveling salesman. Like, you know, your dad is a sales guy. uh Like I’m traveling, I’m at Southwest Airlines, I’m doing all these things and it’s like, man, I’m still trying to squeeze in four hours walking like every day. And how do I do that? And I realized I could do 84 miles a week.

19:49
I failed, I think once in three and a half years to do 84 miles in a week. Every other week I did 86 to 112 miles. I, I over, which made it so that I actually finished 28 days earlier, four weeks early. So instead of my birthday of April 11th, I finished, as I said, 314 high 2022. And now you brought up second lap. Now we’re sitting at 38,000, 100 and something as we speak.

20:18
So we’re halfway through lap two. Congrats on that. That’s. That’s a lot of walking. It’s a lot of walking. Call you Christopher walking, but that’s the best joke I’ve heard you say today. Thank you. It’s the only one. So, yeah. It’s really cool that you you started doing this. You obviously saw there were benefits and then you you set a goal for yourself. And this is like a.

20:44
big goal. This is not like, you I want to run a mile by the end of the month. You know, like this is it’s a lot, a lot of miles. And then you did the work to figure out, OK, what’s actually the equivalent of of walking the circumference of the earth? So congrats on making it this far, you know, one and a half so far. I have a few logistical questions because I’m just really curious, like behind the scenes. So first of all, schedule wise, how do you work this time into your day? I mean, you’re a traveling salesman. You’re busy with your day job as well. How are you still able to get everything done?

21:13
including work and walking. In the early days and through lap one, that completion, it was all hands on deck and it was get everything done. And it was sometimes walking on the treadmill until midnight and sometimes even till two in the morning because I could preload like I would wake up in the morning and I’d already walked two miles the night before technically, but it was that counted as that day. So that’s the

21:41
That’s the problem with their system is it’s a 12 to 12 and because it’s at midnight, it sort of throws things off and then in early days, and I’m not going to go down this tangent, but I’ve probably walked 290 to 350 miles that are untracked because of them and their technology. last mile. It’s like the last tapes, the last miles, secret life. What happened on those walks?

22:07
No, I’m just kidding. it didn’t happen because I don’t have it recorded technically, but I would get on a plane in Dallas at 10 p.m. and I’d have my 12 miles in. It’s like I’m going to get this done before I get on a plane. Well, I can’t sink at, you know, 33,000 feet. So when I land in Seattle, I’ve already gone past one morning in Dallas. So my Fitbit started to reset. So when I land, I get credit for 150 steps.

22:37
I don’t get the 25,000 that I did the whole day before. So it did that a bunch in the early days. I think they fixed that glitch. So there were a lot of matrix-y kind of learning things that it went through, but it’s, as I said, started to say all, all, all times. Like I would get up in the morning and it’s amazing, which you can do between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. You know, can get a couple, a couple hours of walking. And then I would walk during lunch. As time went on, I learned because I create my own schedule as, know,

23:05
a sales guy that I would do, you know, the two-ish hours a day of the mandatory either training or sales profile, you know, the, the, people are sitting like I’m doing now and sitting in front of a screen, those people, instead of doing that, I would have my phone in my pocket and I’m walking and I’m participating that way. And I would do that, or I would have, you know, just where I didn’t have to have a presentation.

23:31
I can talk through pretty anything. And so if my S and engineer, I was gonna say SE, a systems engineer was there, he could drive a presentation and I could talk while I’m walking as well. So I would just prioritize walking. When you get to the grocery store, would park as far out, if not walk to the grocery store as possible. Anytime, anywhere that I actually had to get in a car, I would end up walking maybe close to 500 steps from the car to get into wherever I was going.

23:59
Anyways, because that’s just what I would do is you, you find ways to do it. My house has a central part where the stairs are and I can walk in circles. And so in an hour I can walk a lot. Like I can walk a lot and I would do like patterns on the floor because we have tile floors. I’m going to give you the warped sense, you know, kind of like things because I’m

24:23
trying to keep going. But yeah, you just walk anytime it’s possible and to the point where we set, we’re one car family. We sold the car because it’s like he’s made this goal and he’s not going to ever get in a car by himself. Next you need the Fred Flintstone mobile where you can get your steps in while moving in the car too. I could see this, the whole Tesla and self-driving. I could see you sitting in the passenger side of a self-driving Tesla.

24:51
with one of those pedal things that you have. So you could be actually moving while you’re doing it. I tried doing it. So my equivalent of that, so where my brain goes, during the circumference of the earth walk, or circumference earth 50 is what my tagline was, when I was doing that, I flew to India. So I traveled for a day and a half. So I was walking up and down the aisles of the airplane. While we were flying and people were looking at me and you know,

25:20
all of the stuff about people and the whatever, I was like, hey guys, I have to keep walking. I’m literally walking around here. So like, and in any case, like I said, it’s sporting events. I would walk around the field while everybody else is sitting down in the chairs watching soccer. You know, those kinds of things, Max, like literally, if it’s possible, I would be on my feet. Speaking of feet, I know that you’ve gone through.

25:49
lots and lots of shoes. What tips do you have for keeping your feet in good shape, keeping, you know, just like your joints aren’t aching too much. Cause like you’ve, I’ve heard stories of, especially those who do like ultra distance stuff. And I mean, well, Goggins is one of those like super ultra distance marathons, things like that. some of the blisters and you know, it’s almost like you can get trench foot at some of these tough matters, stuff like that. Like how do you, how do you keep your body and your feet and your mind intact for doing these long distances?

26:18
I take a lot of my life from the movies that I’ve watched and the lessons and the learning that we’ve got there. This is why you run like Forrest Gump does. Lieutenant Dan, it’s amazing the miraculousness of you choosing that movie. Lieutenant Dan, he basically says to Forrest and to Bubba when they’re there, he holds up a pair of socks and he says, socks, take care of your feet.

26:47
That’s the magic. I change my socks on average four times a day. Like every time I go for a distance of walking when I come back, I put those socks in the laundry. Hey, they’re gonna get cleaned up. I buy socks and I’m all tangent. You buy the kind of socks that have a lifetime warranty that if everything goes wrong, you just write the thing and they exchange them. So we’ve been, instead of, I used to throw them away before I knew that was the thing. Like I would wear socks out, cause I’m walking all the time.

27:16
And then we found that out. so when I wear them out, my wife does this program and sends in, we get like eight at a time because we just sort of both use the same brand and, and do that. But I changed my socks after every walk, which is roughly four times a day. Um, so there’s nothing there. Uh, I spent a lot of time in bare feet when I’m not wearing Brooks. So Brooks is your, your running shoe or walking shoe brand of choice.

27:41
Brooks Glycerin is my brand and I’ve had, I think I started with 12s and now they’re in 25s. So I mean, I’ve gone through all these model changes. For a second, when you started saying that I interpreted that as shoe size and I’m like, your feet are just growing, you have shack feet. That would be so awesome. My shoe size is actually a 12. It’s, think it’s 11 and a half, but because you so much, learn, you always get a little bit bigger for your feet swelling.

28:12
Especially when you’re walking 12 miles a day or 16 miles a day at point sometimes How often do you switch those shoes up get new get a new pair? That was the for the joints I can start to tell where when I’m getting close to four Probably 450 to 500 miles. I know that it’s time to get the shoes I’ve gone past when it is and so I can I’m you can’t see me But I’m rubbing my knees my knees and ankles like that’s where you can feel it and it’s achy and you’re like man

28:41
and a new pair of shoes, then we go through new kicks day and you wear those and those are, it’s an amazing day, super comfortable. I tried the tricks where I bought two pairs and I would alternate days. So I would wear a shoe and then I wouldn’t wear it the next day and then I wouldn’t wear it the day after. I got no extension of life. All I did was have to manage which pair I wore yesterday by leaving one set tied and the other one untied and things like that. So I wouldn’t.

29:08
you know, break the system and it gave me no increased effectiveness in the shoe. So it, at the high point of my walking, it was literally 29 days. I had 29 days and needed to do a pair of shoes. You’re like on like a lunar schedule there, pretty close to it. Yeah, exactly. It ties just into all your walking, but as we hinted at before, so you started over the past couple of years, the second lap podcast, which I think is brilliant because you were

29:38
I mean, we talked about it when you had me so kindly on your show, but ah we had talked in the very, very early days about you doing this and what you’re doing and your goal. And I want to start a podcast, but I’m not sure the best way to go about things like that. Something that anyone who starts a podcast goes through those and you had so many great ideas. And so it’s really cool to see it come to life now. But I second lap is that much cooler because, yeah, like

30:05
it would be great to start something along that first lap and kind of follow you as you go through your goal and of course, you’re posting throughout, but there’s nothing wrong with having this. You’re doing the second lap again and now you’re talking about what you’ve learned the first time, you’re talking about what you’re doing on the second time as well. For anybody, like I highly recommend checking out your show. You literally walk and talk. So it’s like while you’re walking, while you’re getting closer and closer to your goal each time and you’re having these amazing conversations. I also have to say that you’re some of the best I’ve ever seen at.

30:35
just getting people to have real conversations and genuine and oh you don’t need to plan out like a 20 bullet point outline or scripted questions, anything like that. Like I think, you we can all agree conversations are good for people and good for connection. And so that was one of my favorite parts when you had me on was of course, yeah, we talked some podcasting stuff. We would talk some technology stuff and that realm, but probably two thirds of that podcast was talking about how I became a

31:02
a father over the past year and talking about how Jamie’s doing and how my outlook on life has changed. And that stuff is so fun to connect upon. And I’m sure it was fun for you to look back at that time in your life too. So for sure, we’re just going to talk for 10 minutes about, you know, compliments for your podcast. no, I, for you, I think what does it mean to you to be able to kind of add this layer where now not only are you walking, but

31:26
You’re also connecting with people during it and you’re talking about all sorts of things and it’s kind of all under this second lap brand or second lap podcast. I think, you know, when we started talking about doing a podcast had, you know, a plethora of ideas and you throw in ADD and you throw in, you know, all these things that you’re doing and, you know, I’ll put a pin there and I’ll pause that when people are getting excited about people and their goals, their

31:56
They’re really excited as people are getting close to their goals. So when I started this whole process, I got to walk this in three and a half years. People, they lose interest in 20 minutes. You know what I’m saying? And I’m trying to be funny and human, I’m being serious as shit. Like people get, even without ADD, they’re like, oh, okay, no. And I’ve learned that as a sales guy, if at 20 minutes people start looking.

32:24
at their phones or they start moving around, it’s because you need to tell a joke or get them to stand up and sit back down and do something. We’re just, a domesticated wild animal. And I was two and a half and then one and a half and a half a year. And so I was always far enough away that that never really entered my mind as that’s gonna be the identity. I’d have to, once I get there, I can have that identity, but it kept me from, I never had a shoe brand or Brooks’s,

32:53
Brooks has taken between me and my bride before she found a bigger toe box and she’s not a Brooks person. We could talk about that. But before she changed, she was Brooks for probably 50 pairs and I’ve gone 130 pairs. So they’ve gotten more out of me than they will get out of a lifetime of most individual runners. And I’m still walking. But I got nothing from her, no endorsements, no free pair of shoes. And I even started this whole campaign.

33:22
Walkers are people too, because their tagline is Brooks running. So I then got an Instagram and I made it Brooks walking and I tried all those things to get in their face and nobody cared because I wasn’t there. And so I got past that. became, hey, I accomplished 25,000 miles on my feet. I did most of it in 12 miles or 84 miles a week, 12 miles a day. I did it in these things. I had a broken toe. I cut my foot.

33:51
traveled around the world, I went on vacations and what one week didn’t even have the Fitbit on my body and that was during the, you know, the thing. I did these things to throw landmines in my own way. In addition to the landmines that are just there as a natural human. And then all of a sudden I was there and I had it. And so I started to do these podcasts with, he goes by Food is Fueled New York City. uh Ryan, I started talking through V Friends.

34:21
Big into web three. And so we started talking. This was the podcast that he did. He interviewed me as a podcast before I even started doing my own. And so I did his and he and I had kind of a jam. And so we did kind of what I’d say, probably probably close to 26, 28 episodes. So we did half a year where we did an episode a week and we just talked to each other and we kind of went back and forth. And that was on the, for those listening, that was on the V dads podcast, right?

34:50
Yes, it wasn’t, didn’t, we hadn’t moved it in and it didn’t have really its own identity. So we were sort of, you know, triaging and helping each other. And as we said, I’m feeling around in the dark a little bit. I don’t know exactly what I want to do. And this is, hey, I’ve seen some people where it’s like you and me, we could just do a weekly podcast and just talk and that could be what goes. And then it’s like, well, how does it be different than other people? How do I do something that’s different? How do I do something that people are going to remember?

35:19
And other than the technical difficulties, which you are going to remember, cause I’m moving, wireless is not ubiquitous. And I’ve been in wireless since 1998 and experienced it. It is so much better than it was, but it’s still not perfect. And if you’re moving, you’re going to deal with those things. But anyways, long story short, Ryan had some changes in his life. And so I found myself sort of an island and I

35:48
had met Ronnie, my current producer, current, you know, better half, 51 % of second lap, met him at VCon through Patrick. So back to the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Of Patrick Fransko, yeah. Of Patrick Fransko, for sure. But Kevin Bacon makes it so that the people will pick it up and we’ll get more likes on YouTube. I’m trying to tell you, I’m trying to learn these things. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate you. I all your movies.

36:18
Footloose. That might be a maybe a clip. We might start that the movie with. Oh, I thought you’re gonna ask me to cut it. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. We’re now at the six minute mark, um This is Oh, Ronnie and I got together. Yeah, we had talked to Vycon. We had touched skin. We had become friends. We had shared some NFTs. We’d done some things and he had a podcast and

36:47
I don’t know if he took pity on me, but he sort of, hey, I could help you with some of these things. I could help you with this. And I was like, hey, if we’re to do this 50 50, I can talk to everybody in the world. I can do whatever, but if it doesn’t go in the right socials, if it’s not the right tags, if it’s not the right product coming out the other end, and you and I talked about this, this was the magic sauce that I had to come to terms with. And most people that I do the podcast with don’t fully understand yet.

37:16
the parts are worth more than the whole. Like the whole YouTube shorts, the back to the whole people have 20 minutes worth of attention span. My podcast, a lot of times are 45 minutes. I’m defeating my own rule. I’m going too long. Yet Ronnie can cut it up into 50 clips of Opus, through Opus Clip or whatever it is, and he can start posting it on different socials. he’s slowly, as you said, you don’t wanna get flagged and stuff, so he slowly turned the spigot on.

37:46
you know, four a day and now five a day and six a day. we’re, you know, trying to hit the right people, but we’re, really trying to spread the news and we appreciate you highlighting the podcast, but we’re really trying to spread the news and help a younger generation to, you know, have conversations, to learn the lessons, to hear some of the, you know, skinning of the knee or bumping of the, the forearm, you know, the scars that we have that

38:16
keep you from becoming maimed or worse, you We wanna be able to share those and we try to do it in a humorous way. I think one of the things that I find most curious is curiosity. Like I really have become more and more and it’s getting faster and faster and I’m wondering when it can slow down and.

38:42
And I can’t remember if it was you, somebody that I was talking to as the podcast things were kind of come into terms. And I don’t know if I credit you, might’ve been Brian, another guy was in the Navy with Patrick. But they were like, you’ve consumed all of this stuff. Like it might’ve even been Dr. Danita who was a guest like two depots ago. They’re like, you’ve consumed all that. You need to get it out. You need to share it with some people. you’ve.

39:10
It’s not like I was going to boil over, but you know, they do share with you that, you know, to learn the best things in life, you get to the point where you’re, you’re teaching, like you’re, you’re a mastery of it. And I’ve been waiting a long time to say this. I’m glad your podcast is where I’m going to use it. They say 10,000 hours of anything makes you like a professional. I’ve walked for like 15,000 hours now or whatever it is. I’m like,

39:40
I’m a double platinum professional procrastinator and walker. Like I’ve got a couple of, you double majored in both those. Well, we’ll get to the procrastination part in a little bit, but I think that was my best joke ever. Start the whole thing with that. That’s the clip. Half the people won’t understand what you just said. So you might have to go back. They’ll get there eventually.

40:09
So I guess whether it’s whether you’re doing it, you know, walking and talking to a podcast or not, just high level, if you kind of zoom out, why would you recommend walking, you know, for anyone who can to add as part of their daily repertoire? We all talk about health and we talk about mental health. We talk about how to be a better person. We talk about all these things. All of them require action. So I equate walking to action and it gives you

40:39
That ability for me, I locked in when, and I don’t know if he’ll be a bad guy at some point. So if the future, he’s a bad dude. Remember that we’re all in this. Yeah. Disclaimer. Yeah. Disclaimer. But I, I watched an HBO special. I think it was on with in Bill Gates brain or something like that. And he would take these pauses in life where he would grab a bunch of books and he would go off and he would consume them and walk and.

41:08
think about them. And so that was part of what I was thinking as I put the earphones in and I started to do the circumspect the earth by age 50, you know, challenge with myself is I started, I want to be like Bill Gates. I want to be smart. I mean, he was the richest man forever. When I lived in Redmond, Washington, going to Redmond high school, he would be Bill sightings that you would see working at Microsoft. And so was like, man, I want to attain that. and so

41:38
Walking gives you that time. I said earlier, defrag your hard drive, which is, you you do all these things and you’re in the midst of something and all of a sudden, your kid comes up and you have a kid now, so I can use this as an example and you understand, you’re in the midst of, you know, dicing onions and this beautiful human comes up and grabs your leg and you go off and do this thing and you come back and hopefully your onions aren’t stinky because you were gone for too long, but you finish up kind of doing your thing. in our mental world, we rarely come back.

42:06
Like, so it’s like this garbage in your head. And I think it’s why we have certain dreams or nightmares or we don’t sleep well or we eat bad or we do all these other things have anxiety because we have these thoughts in our head that never get to end. I use the walking to have that, you know, way to clear that out. But it’s really been me going to school. It’s been my ability to learn that curiosity thing I said.

42:35
My big thing now, I’m kind of a snob when it comes to it. I wanna listen to autobiographies read by the author, read by the guy that it’s about and listen to their tone and inflection where the humor comes from their body language that comes through because it’s them that they’re reading. And I want it to be over four hours because each book costs $12 and so it’s like a financial thing. It’s just really hard for my brain to get around. Hey, I can just listen to a three and a half hour Joe Rogan podcast and it’s free.

43:04
I don’t have to do this four hour book over here, but I wanna get as much out of each as I can. I think that is so walking for me and why back to your original question is it gives people an excuse to go out and do something that’s gonna be good for their mental health and they can take the opportunity through AirPods or wired headphones to do something else or go with a partner and have a conversation like I do with you do somebody that’s stationary.

43:34
On second lap, that was the last plug.

43:40
Well, that’s a wonderful note to end on and would be a perfect place to wrap this up, but I’m going to screw it up because I really want to do some rapid fire Q and A with you. Please do. Yeah. You ready for it for this? All right. Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s get wild. We’re stretching. We’re doing some, some tibia dorsiflexion. That’s my favorite workout from high school football. remember. Uh, well, it my favorite workout. It’s just a fun thing to say. It is. It’s when you, when you’re stretching someone, uh, I mean, it’s usually with the partner when you’re, you grab the

44:09
the front of their feet and like pull wait the top of their feet and pull it down towards you. it stretches your shin. Okay. muscles. I guess. Yeah. I guess you dorsiflex your tibia. Anyway, more where that came from Alaska. So super cool. I mean, I’ve always been fascinated by Alaska. I haven’t been there yet, but I definitely want to go there at some point. It just seems endlessly beautiful and also endlessly huge when you see the

44:38
realistic maps, it’s almost intimidating. Genormous. Yeah. What’s like your elevator pitch for why someone should either visit or move to Alaska, live in Alaska? So I moved to Alaska as a kindergartner, spent the year, a fourth grade in Utah, and then I left Alaska in the ninth grade. So was there during the youth. I give that as context of if you’d asked me then, I’d have said,

45:07
want to be here. I want to be back in California with my friends. I want to go swimming. We would go to Hawaii on the dividends from living in Alaska every year. And I would love to be at the beach. So I’m a beach person. So I would have said that I did cover it as a, as a sales guy in my early fatherhood. So I would go up and I would sell industrial products and drive around up to Fairbanks, things like that. And going back as an adult, I would tell you that it’s so awesome. I mean, it’s like, you know, untarnished world.

45:35
There are some dense populations of humans that you can go and get your supplies and be around, but you can easily get on a float plane or get in a car and be gone and away. We’d spend all weekend from Friday night through Sunday down on the beach in Alaska in a camper that my parents left there. And we’d go fishing and just outdoors and downhill skiing and riding up on this chairlift above the clouds and then skiing through the clouds. mean, just.

46:04
All of that stuff, being in rivers and hip waders and a moose walking in while you’re fishing for salmon, all that’s happening. Like a bear standing up against the outhouse of the cabin you’re renting, out of Lakeia to fly into a thing and somebody pulling the trigger of a gun so the bear would run off and not maul us all and eat us. And that all happened. Rapid fire, I tried to rapid fire back to you. Let’s hope you weren’t in the…

46:32
I can’t imagine how scary that is if you’re in the, if you’re sitting down at an outhouse where we’ll talk about what doing, but a bear scratching at, oh my God, geez. We were, we were at the campfire and the outhouse was up behind us. So no, the guy that would have been, that was a shitty situation. All right. All right. Sales. haven’t, haven’t, Diven dove, dived much into it, but I mean, you’ve had an incredible sales career.

46:59
a lot of big name companies, especially in like the tech space, the cybersecurity space. For anybody in sales, what’s like your best sales tip? Just quick tip on sales. The oldest one is two ears, one mouth, listen more than you speak. Them talking is you winning. Ask open-ended questions so that once again they’re talking. I the ultimate goal is to get them talking. I use it to get my biggest secret hack to ADD.

47:27
which is in the midst of the presentation, there are times where I will go to Bermuda. And then I come back and there’s still a room of people and I’ll look at the room of people and I’ll be like, what was I talking about? And they’ll either know, and if they know, I know they’re listening and hey, it’s a cue and I can’t, whatever. And if they have no idea, I start over, I go somewhere else. was like, we don’t remember you. And then it’s like, okay, I used kind of my…

47:56
What does it say, using my negative as a positive? So I would say that. But sales really is about people liking you, people buy from people they like. That’s why I think, and I’ve had numerous conversations, thousands of conversations with adults, and we do all believe that AI will never take over the job of a salesperson because people wanna talk with people. They wanna human interaction. And I’ll say this to you.

48:23
I hate talking to these automated systems on the phone where you just. it’s the worst. Yes. It’s like, I just want somebody to hear my voice. Oh, we just did a, um, I actually mentioned it on, uh, when you had me on your show, you know, we had this cousins get together in the city a few weekends ago and then we had a big family style meal at car mines after, which was great. And it all worked out. I’m not kidding. I, I had five or six different calls with car mines to get that reservation and make sure there were enough high chairs because car mines has some automated system.

48:52
where how can we help you? What are you interested in? All these things. to be, to specifically be like, all right, we have a group of this many, we need this many high chairs. It eventually got to the point where they were just like, sorry, I can’t help you. You know, it’s like, and so you need to, you need to talk to the host or hostess. They changed the systems where it used to be, I’m gonna show my age here, but you used to say zero and you come up and say, no, but I want you hit zero again. would know zero again. And then would, it would hear you.

49:23
the third zero. And then it was like the pound sign. And then it’s like, you have to know Morris code now in order to get past. Or you can’t get to a human ever. And I just, anyway, so I don’t think salespeople will ever be replaced. You’ll get replaced by a bad salesperson or one that can’t use the technology or the tools or the things, you know, can’t get behind the times, but you’re always gonna have a human because people just, as I said, they just want it. So listen more than you talk.

49:53
War movie, you mentioned Top Gun was very inspirational for you. Besides Top Gun, what was your, and I know that’s kind of romance as well, but what is your favorite, if you could watch it on repeat on a plane, what’s another war movie that you put right up there? Max, I don’t like to watch the war movies as much as I did when I was youth. really have, I take my TV time and I give my TV time to have acts or Twitter for those of us who are old enough to know there used to be a bird.

50:22
I kind of give my time to a different way. Yeah, I’ve tried and I really, my thing is lead with love, leadwithlove.eath, if you’re into Ethereum, I’m really about either fear or love, you get to choose and I’m choosing love, so I’m leaning in that way. I have sons, you look at war movies differently after you’ve had a son, you’ve had a daughter, you maybe look at differently after a daughter. I can’t remember that far back anymore, because the daughters were first.

50:50
I’ve seen all the ones that I would say are worthy of the awards they have, Saving Private Ryan, I think the first 20 minutes, no real conversation, just those doors opening and the guy next to you’s head exploding and the realism of being that I’ve been on an aircraft carrier and around people and thinking all, you know, I’m very.

51:15
much because I listen to books more than I watch movies. My brain is a better movie projector than that. Whatever. I kind of shy away from, but I would also say that I grew up in a family where my parents were huge, like dirty dozen, uh Magnificent Seven, anything with the Duke.

51:38
all those Telly Savalas, I’m trying to think of all the guys. mean, I just, all the old war movies, my mom was really big into those and even with a son. So I just kind of contradict myself really crazy. But, or Clint Eastwood, you know, all those kinds of things, you know, those are kind of dating myself. I don’t know, the new ones like Full Metal Jacket. Now you’re dating yourself because you called Full Metal Jacket a new one. And it’s probably 30 years old, right? It was a…

52:05
Yeah, I mean, it’s got to be 80s from the 90s. It’s got to be the 90s. I’m trying to bring it. I’m bringing it north. New ones would be. uh Oh, I actually really liked Warfare. You watch Warfare. Warfare was really good. I watched it on a plane a couple. It was it’s just in one of those classic movies where it’s so innocent at the start and then it just spirals out of control. But it’s like all pretty much in one setting. It’s crazy. And that’s our that’s our version. My wife just watched all seasons of Homeland in a.

52:34
seven week period and I got to watch all of it and it was like very reminding of the whole Saddam and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I have one. I know keep going back to this, but one more military adjacent question for you. What is the song that was either like your guys like pump up song or that you listened to before you got deployed? Like what song do you think about when you think about that era and when you were serving? There are so many pieces of music that take me back.

53:03
to that time because not only was I in the Navy and hair on fire and being that whole thing, was having two children and becoming a father as that’s all going on. So that’s happening and it was 1996. Michael Jordan is winning the NBA champion for either the, was it the second three Pete? It’s like, so I’m trying to think when Space Jam came out and then-

53:32
Yeah. Yeah. So back up from there. know, what year was he a baseball player? That’s what you got to figure out because that’s kind of the defining thing in there. But I have these shirts where I had to wear it, you know, because I was a CL Supersonics fan and my other family was in Chicago. And so the rivalry because they were in the better. But back to the music. I can always come back around the tree. I would go to either anything on the Top Gun album.

54:00
just because you’re gonna take why it’s the association. Kenny Loggins stuff. Yeah, Kenny Loggins. For me, I would listen to, while I was reading books, because I didn’t have audible at the time, would listen to Discman, so I’d have the CD and I’d have the earphones, I, R.E.M., the Smiths, I grew up on everything ACDC, everything Van Halen, everything, you know, sort of that guy, and I just…

54:28
It was anything but country western and I would tell you with Kenny Chesney and a couple of these guys that have gone in and bastardized David Matthews I’m even listening to a little bit of country western now So i’ve you put music on and i’m probably gonna start moving my head. Well that answer was tnt. It’s a dynamite so I think one of jamie’s favorite uh post-bath songs by the way, so fantastic Rob, thank you so much. Uh, oh I had one much later one to throw in just because you mentioned it

54:58
Are you a crier when you chop onions? I’ve tried every single, what do call them? Mama’s lesson or whatever. Wives, wives tail. Yeah. Nothing stops it. A good, a good onion. When that’s going to be really good in your flavor. Cause I like onions. Like I like raw onions. I like sauteed onions. like burnt onions. like all that’s a whole, that’s a whole other thing. Cause that

55:24
I can’t stand raw onions, but I think sauteed onions are some of the best flavored and smell in the world. My parents tried to punish me with onions. Didn’t work. Joke’s on you. I love them. Yeah, jokes on them. Because I lived in Seattle, showing my days before I graduated in high school out of Southern California, moved a lot. We were home of Costco. And you go to Costco and you get the ketchup and a row of raw onions on the top of it.

55:53
You get the flavor and the heat and the crunch and all. It’s just sorry. Awesome. No, that’s that’s great. I love little like quirks like that. I have the same. I I cry like a lot when chopping onions. Also in general, but yeah, chopping like like I’m the same way where it’s like you there’s nothing like you can kind of try to close your eyes, but that’s not safe while chopping. So.

56:20
I don’t know, I just learned kind of recently that not everybody has that. Like some people don’t cry while chopping onions, which blows my mind. So crazy stuff. So. can of duck your head out. Like if you do the kind of duck and dive. Yeah, but all this is not safe for chopping stuff. No, no, no, no. Everything. Like I was thinking when you started doing the, I know what this is, but you’re right. I was like, no, you’re right. Everything is knife safety avert. Like anything you do to try and avert. mean, I mean, guess you could put the whatever is.

56:47
cotton balls or something up your nose. I’ve never tried anything like that. That doesn’t sound, yeah, nevermind. Don’t do that. Well, as Bill Raftery says, audience. So Rob Robbie-Grams, thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast. I know it’s been a long time coming. Thank you for having me on your show and for, know, obviously that naturally led into this as well. It’s like, it’s long overdue you coming on here. So appreciate all you’re doing. uh

57:14
Strongly recommend everybody check out second lap podcasts. I know you’re you’re on all the platforms. You’re on Apple You’re on Spotify on YouTube as well YouTube even do live streams, which is awesome more power to you That’s a whole other bag of worms in terms of tech issues and all sorts of things, but you’re up for it So where else Rob, you know, whether it’s social media or anything else you’re doing, know, what 3.0 space like what’s your main CTA? What do you want people to check out to learn more about you?

57:38
The best way to find me, because in my world, especially when we’re looking at web three and a lot of these X people is I want to be a doxed real human. You know, you’re not talking to some bot. And so I am R H M A T T S O N.

57:57
at all of the socials in a blue check mark fashion so that you know it’s me. And I only say that if I type R-H-M-A-T-T-S-O, you should see how many people are trying to look like they’re me, all the way down. so I guess it’s flattering because they’re doing that, but yes, just check me out. I’m on Instagram and Facebook, both as I said, blue check mark, just to make sure people know that in this sea of

58:27
digitality of people that you know that you’ve got a buoy of me over here that you can know that you’re talking to a 54 year old man that’s got Einstein and Johnny Cash telling you what you can do for the world. And smooth sailing and uh you know hopefully a lot more smooth sailing than uh a blues from a fulsome prison or anything like that but Rob. Good one. Thank you. I’m grateful. Appreciate you. Back at you. Final thoughts just literally one line take us home here could be a song lyric could be your outlook on life just

58:56
Send us home. Hug the human every day. Make sure it’s 20 seconds. It’s when you get the best amount of positive events.

59:08
Rob, you are lucky that this episode wasn’t edited down to 20 seconds. Rob, no, thank you so much. Absolute blast. Long, long, long time coming. Really, really appreciate all you do. Make sure to check out his 2ndLap podcast. And for those of you, Wild Listeners, Wild Viewers out there, make sure to subscribe to Wild Business Growth on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter for the video versions.

59:34
And you can find all things MaxPodcasting, the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, anything else about the show at MaxPodcasting.com. I hope you all have a nice Memorial Day weekend in the US at the time of this recording. And until next time, Let your business Rob Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!