Full Transcript – Dr. Rob Yonover – Wild Business Growth Podcast #250

This is the full transcript for Episode #250 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Dr. Rob Yonover – Life-Saving Inventor, SeeRescue Streamer. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Dr. Rob Yonover 0:00
You got to charge you got to charge through everything and you can’t let little things bother you.

Max Branstetter 0:21
Hellooooooo I wanted to challenge myself to come up with the weirdest voice to start off this episode as possible. I don’t know why. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 250 5050. It’s tricky. And today’s guest is Dr. Rob Yonover. Rob is a geochemist and volcanologist who is also a serial inventor and he is one of the most fascinating people you’ll ever hear from. And he has created a series of incredible life-saving inventions, including most notably the SEE/RESCUE Streamer. In this episode, we dive into what that is, how it works, and how Rob’s life and career have had several different fascinating touch points including the ocean, surfing, volcanoes, the military, SpaceX, Hawaii, and flying fish. Just a heads up the first part of the podcast involves a story with a submersible. And just as a disclaimer, this recording happened well before the terrible submersible tragedy that happened earlier this year at the time of this recording. So if it sounds weird that we’re laughing and joking and lighthearted about submersibles, that is why. That being said, it is truly just an awesome interview. Let’s get to it. Dr. Rob Y. Enjoyyyyyyy the shoooooow!

Aaaaalrightyyyyyy we are here with Dr. Rob Yonover. The man behind SEE/RESCUE Streamer really just fascinating and life-saving business. And one of the most interesting backgrounds that super excited to dive into pun intended today. Rob, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining, how you doing today.

Dr. Rob Yonover 2:41
Thank you, Max, great to meet you. Great to be here. Thank you.

Max Branstetter 2:44
Of course of course back at you and super excited to as I just alluded to talk SEE/RESCUE Streamer. But before that you are the only person I’ve ever spoken to who has been two miles under the sea. What, what got you there?

Dr. Rob Yonover 3:03
I got to Hawaii to get my PhD working on volcanoes and the guy that my professor offered me a assistantship, a research assistantship to work on a project where we examine the ocean floor spreading center off Galapagus. And he goes, Do I want to work on that versus, you know, subaerial regular volcanoes and he said, By the way, we’re going down there and a submarine in the submerse. Fire. Yeah, I want to go. And as soon as I got the offer, I was all in and then when I got to the ship, they tested you to make sure you’re not claustrophobic because the submersible it’s the same one that they found the Titanic one with the red and white one. It’s in the it’s in the beginning of the Titanic movie. Anyway, you go in while it’s still on the ship, and they’re blowing hot air in there to test to see if you don’t freak out from claustrophobia. And I just muscled all my will together to not freak out, I wouldn’t freak out. But it was just tiny in there, three people fit. But I can only bend over like halfway. And there’s a tiny little window, the pilot looks out maybe five or eight inches across. And each scientist on each side has like a three inch window. So my strategy was just put my eye on that window, keep my notepad and my camera and just take pictures. And we had the robotic and hydraulic arms on the outside of the sub. So we took lava samples. And I ended up studying the lavas that came out of this spreading center and worked at MIT and at NASA Johnson Space Center using laser systems analyze the lavas well, that became my PhD work, which was pretty cool.

Max Branstetter 4:40
It sounds pretty boring. No, that’s that’s incredible. I mean, it talks about parts of the world that so few people have ever ventured to and you’ve got to experience it. I know I’ve done multiple runs like that. How would you characterize kind of what’s going through your head when you’re like, holy shit, we’re we’re Buried deep down here.

Dr. Rob Yonover 5:01
Exactly. And you know, I was a young grad student, so I didn’t get to dive till like the 30s dive out of 28. I got the 13th and 28th, I think or 27. And I was on a night shift. So their feed me I would wake up in the morning for breakfast, I mean for dinner work and then go to sleep after breakfast. And they weighed you before they go on to sub because the sub is all wait, there’s no tether. It’s not tethered anything, they just have freefall. And it takes two hours down to get to the bottom with all these weights, then they leave the weights on the bottom and they have little thrusters that drive around. And on the way down, it looks like it’s snowing because all these in Galapagos, the bioturbidity is so high, there’s so many like dying little micro organism, it looks like it’s snowing, and it goes from green, blue and green on the surface to gray and then black. And my pilots for jokers. And you know the first pilot played The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd only got to the bottom, which was pretty incredible because that’s what it looked like. And I’m not a biologist, but I saw some really weird stuff down there. Like, I know someone’s pointed out that knows the name of this creature, but it looks like an eel with a monkey skull. And you can look through the tails all clear and iridescent. It was crazy, just like it was lighting up in fluorescent colors. Just crazy stuff down there. And just an incredible and there were there are big faults and fissures, the spreading centers splitting apart. So I want to drive in there and but there’s like a, it’s like a big valley and you can drive in and the pilots like there’s no way we’re going in there because if you get stuck, that you they have a release where they can pull a release and let the metal part of titanium sphere you’re in from the submarine superstructure. But if they pull that they’ve never pulled that in the 30 or 50 years they’ve been doing it. And if they pull it, it’s like bobbing up from a tennis ball from the bottom of a pool. I don’t think we would have lived. But anyway, it was an incredible experience. And I of course, after working at NASA, I wanted to be the first man or human or woman whatever. I’m not a woman but a man to be in Inner Space two miles down and outer space because they were the Challenger was they were starting to take astronaut scientists up in space and right when I was trying to get involved in that the Challenger blew up. So that was that dream was shelved. I’m still I’m waiting for Elon Musk or someone to invite me to go up in space. Maybe. Maybe they’ll hear this podcast.

Max Branstetter 7:35
Yeah, I think so. Tuning tuning in weekly, but yeah, well, you definitely deserve to explore and explore and explore and you clearly you clearly fit for the job, whether that’s download or a pipe, but you mentioned that, you know, it seems like a very very claustrophobic space. How do you get over the claustrophobia when it’s not only a small space, but you’re so far underwater?

Dr. Rob Yonover 8:01
Yeah, especially like the second dive. There’s co2 scrubbers in there. So they, you know, if they don’t work, you die. And when they close the hatch, my second some submersible pilot for the young guy, and he smoked this last cigarette puff, blew it out the top, close the hatch, like, Oh, god, that’s encouraging. Then on the way down, he’s going all the co2 scrubbers at work and he hits it. It was okay, there it goes. I’m like, Oh my god. She’s so rinky-dink, but it wasn’t rinky-dink, it was just, you know, nerve racking. And the technique I used was to just put my eyeball on that three inch window the whole time. So even though if I look back into the sub, it’s the pilot and other scientists in this tiny space as big as a small it was a little ball basically. But if my eyeball I could see out for you know, quarter mile I could see out and see creatures and see lava. That’s how I did it and with between the camera, focusing on looking out taking photos, taking notes, and instructing the pilot where to take samples that got me through the eight hour day without freaking out, but it was it was a test. I mean, no doubt about it. I was I’m not highly claustrophobic, but it wasn’t really cool. Put me in a metal ball for eight hours.

Max Branstetter 9:18
I’m freaking out right now. I think I’m just gonna go outside and find a field and just walk around and breathe.

Dr. Rob Yonover 9:26
It was it was a trip but you know, what a situation like that. You’re so amazed by what’s what you’re doing that within minutes or an hour you forget where you are in terms of the claustrophobia. And you just go, you know, you just go for it. It’s just like a lot of great stuff I’ve done in my life. There’s measured risk, right? These guys have taken the risk we measured it, and it’s worth it because the payoff was huge. So it’s like okay, if I die doing this, right, in fact, the week before we went, we were on an active volcano in Costa Rica. And luckily We got there late, and it erupted while you’re on it and I’m taking photos. The old days when you actually a wild your film each each shots are click wine, click wine, and had like a 10 shot sequence of disruption getting bigger and bigger and this cloud forming above us and these huge rocks as big as cars hitting right near us. And we would have died if we got there earlier because we were macho enough, we would have gone to the top. But same thing as I’m flicking the pictures like I may die right here right now, but at least I’ll get my camera and I’ll have contributed to the vulcanology world somehow.

Max Branstetter 10:41
So I don’t know if you are James Bond or Aquaman or something in between you your superhero wild animal life. But let’s let’s get to something that that actually ties to that, that you start a business around. Let’s get to SEE/RESCUE Streamer. I know. That’s a hard segue.

Dr. Rob Yonover 11:01
Yeah, sure. I won’t get my PhD in Hawaii. We’re friends, a pilot, one of the grad students was a pilot. We rented a little Cessna. And we’re flying to Hawaii. And I looked down and I see all this water and the plane sounds like a VW that needs a tune up is how did horrible I’m like, we’re gonna go down. I looked down that water. I’m like, if we go down, I’m a good swimmer. I’ll live and my late wife was with me maybe she would live to possibly how to swim with her for a mile or two back for sure. But the planes gonna sink. And it really bothered me and I’m like, what do they have for that they have smoke signals, they have cdai marker, they have flares that just shoot up in the air and even if they have E pervs or locating devices or cell phones, which they didn’t have, this was the 80s. But even even then, even with cell phones that don’t get wet, or waterproof, you still need to get a visual when you see someone and then a week later I flew to Miami where I grew up and Christo, the artist had wrapped the Biscayne Bay islands and pink plastic. And I flew over that in an airplane I’m like, Oh my God, that’s it. If I could just get a piece of pink plastic. People could see us you can get a visual. So it took me years to figure out how to make it not curl up and twist up. And I patented struts in it airfields struts, like spreader bars every three feet. So as it pays out, it doesn’t twist up. It’s like a centipede. It’s segmented so it won’t twist up and curl up. And that became the sea rescue streamer. And one of the Navy guys I showed it to goes Hey, man, great idea, but lose the pink. International Orange is the color I stuck on and smartly because I fit it to the existing technology and I got it. Military approved got national stock numbers. It’s used all over the world. It’s saved lives. It’s I got on Shark Tank. Now they they’re flying with SpaceX. So Elon Musk. He’s a customer, a customer of mine. I never bought a Tesla, but he bought a streamer. So I like that every shot has a streamer under their ass, which I like.

Max Branstetter 13:10
That’s a good that should just be your tagline. Yeah, I know. It’s you toilets and toilet paper about products under people’s asses. So that’s an incredible aha moment of like you had that moment of tension and fear about what if something happened, and then you see this installation, and it’s like, Oh, my God, that’s it. I love that. You mentioned that there was multiple years of testing just to get this just against the stone on fertile.

Dr. Rob Yonover 13:40
We’re all all of us humans are into survival just by nature. So that’s the most likely time you can innovate is when you’re under pressure. And if you take any survival classes, the first thing they teach you is the greatest survival tool of all, is your brain. So you got to take a step back, take a second and think about the situation, and then analyze it and go and make your solution. It took me years and that’s the only thing about inventing and innovating takes 10 times as much time and money as you think it is. So I always tell people don’t quit your day job. So you can quit your day job. If you quit your day job and put it all in your invention or innovation or new business. It’s too risky, because it takes so long. So that story I described of flying in the Cessna was in 1985 You weren’t even alive.

Max Branstetter 14:33
Yes, this is true. Okay, well, you call me

Dr. Rob Yonover 14:37
the store the story. The idea I’ve had I have a million ideas and I like to crowdsource them. I ask friends family, I go to Taco Bell when I need to be burrito, ask them what they think of this. I’ll ask anyone I want a whole a whole sampling of what people think of an idea. And then I keep on a lot of ideas come and go but that one never went. It never went away. way I knew it was a great idea. I knew it would save lives and be a good thing one day. So I kept I finished my PhD worked on that and even I even took a job with a guy that invented the smoke in the cockpit system. I helped them develop that, which is really cool. So when you when you’re flying a plane and smoke fills the cockpit, it’s an inflatable clear bag that pushes up to the windshields. So you can see through the smoke to land the plane. It was brilliant. Any any it’s on a bunch of corporate jets now and I think UPS and FedEx have it. The regular airlines don’t but should, hey, we had some he had some money issues at one point and I said, Hey, let’s pull the streamer in. And he goes, I don’t like that idea. I’m like, Okay, anyway, he couldn’t pay me after a while. And I just kept going on that one and did some side things, but just kept, kept plugging away. You know, it’s like, you’re familiar with the tortoise and the hare, right? Yeah, cuz I’m the ultimate. I’m the ultimate tortoise. I’m not I’m just, I’m just plugging away. I’m not giving up. And here we are, like, almost 40 years later the streamer. I licensed it for 15 years and got royalties and helped my licensee build the company worldwide. We have customers all over. And then that ended. And it’s like, This isn’t over yet. And I put a clause with my attorneys into the license, it says, when it ends, no matter how it ends, I want all my stuff back, because I’m not letting this thing die. And here we are seven years past the end of the license. And now I’m running the whole thing myself. And I got it on Shark Tank. I got SpaceX I got another. I can’t say the word the words, but it’s on a major military aircraft. And it’s standard equipment fighter jet all over the world.

Max Branstetter 16:42
So I mean, I’m excited not even knowing the words. I’m excited about that. Yeah, it’s

Dr. Rob Yonover 16:47
cool. I mean, it’s actually on a couple of them. But I don’t want to get in any trouble. Yeah, about military capabilities. But again, I’m on the safety and I’m not making weaponry, I’m saving people.

Max Branstetter 16:58
My wife Dana calls me a tortoise as well. But that’s just because I move so slow in everyday life. So the two pieces.

Dr. Rob Yonover 17:05
You’re you’re live longer, but it’s life is a long game. It’s not it’s not a sprint.

Max Branstetter 17:12
Totally. That’s That’s what I’m saying. So you, you alluded to some of your customers and you’re just in awesome spaces. I think it like pumps you up just hearing about like military, SpaceX, you know, anything in like the aerospace or defense space. overused word space is a is a cool and obviously meaningful place to be in how did you start to, you know, pitch in and get in front of these, you know, quote unquote, customers, which sounds funny in the first place?

Dr. Rob Yonover 17:42
It’s a good question. I knew that it had a military government Coast Guard angle to it. I mean, that’s I invented it to be a mandated product. It should be on every lifejacket and love your life raft. And every flight jacket. That was really the idea. It was never like consumers. There was this wad. They used to call it w ad world aviation directory. And this is again, before internet. We had these big books to give their directories of information. It’s like Google. And so I went into this big book and I said, I’m going to just cold call. I was famous for cold calling people are cold facts and people are cold letter writing. And I just went right to the top. I went to the head of the Navy, Air Force, Marines Coast Guard, and I wrote letters and then in parallel, I faxed every magazine outlet there was in the world almost and here. And this is totally foreign to you. But in the old days, the full rates changed at 11 o’clock. It was cheaper. Which is funny. So and I had a fax machine I wrote a cover letter. Yeah, whether it was to military guys or to media editors. My brother who was in marketing and advertising told me it was look, editor’s are sitting on their ass all day wondering what to write about, and you need to tell them like okay, so I wrote a press release. And I made it one page. So it was a cheap fax, one page, fax, and an 1101. Every night, I would send like 50 faxes, 100 faxes, there was like a fishing expedition, I put out 50 or 100 lines, I get a bite. Then I get an article. The Miami Herald was the first article that wrote about the Streamer. I photocopied that made data release. And I sent that out 100 times and I kept doing that. And the other thing is, I’m a I’m a polite pain in the ass. If I want something, and I think you got it, you should you should do this. Like if you’re an editor or writer, and I believe there’s a good story for you. I will call you endlessly. And it took me three years to get outside magazine to write write a story about it. And they would say, we can’t do now maybe now goes well, should I call you back in a couple of months? I said, Yeah, that sounds good. So I make a note of it. And I call them back in a couple months. After three years they finally wrote something and I also really good about letting people run with it, and customize their take on it. So for instance, I think Men’s Journal and they wrote about it, they said Gilligan’s Island would have been one episode if they had the sea rescue streamer. And that was great. I didn’t think of that. But because I give them leeway. And of course, you really don’t have no choice. They’re gonna write what they want. So I kept writing. And one of the big breakthroughs was a guy called me and he goes, Look, you live in the state of Hawaii, you have a powerful senator, senator, and boy, he was a very powerful senator. He was like the number two in the country, and you have a piece of survival gear for the military. He said, I could get you millions of dollars every year, you just need a lobbyist to talk to the senators and the congressional people and the military. And I had to take a royalty pay cut from my license fee, because he made me contributed to the price of the license of the lobbyist. And again, lobbyists get a bad name. And most of them should, but in this case, they’re doing a good thing. We’re saving lives. And they basically made the military aware, that’s all they really did. And then they put customer and money together the customer, the military wants something to improve their safety and survivability, and congressional can. So we got a couple of those that really helped launch it into the military in a larger scale. And just like the first couple successes, once you get in, with an air force, or navy approval, the Navy improved and called the only passive and continuous signalling device. And they like it because it was discretionary to. So you could put it out on your raft and go to sleep, and it’s still working for you 24/7. On the flip side, if the enemy comes around, you can pull it back in, and then redeploy it, none of the other signaling devices, were passive, discretionary, and redeployable. Like that. So there are great advantages to it. And there still are. And, you know, I’m not giving up I’m going all the way. And I always used to say that I’m going all the way who’s coming with me? And you know, some one thing you learn is you’re probably gonna go alone.

Max Branstetter 22:10
The Long Haul I’m coming with all about you got me at least. Right? Well, yeah, I

Dr. Rob Yonover 22:15
mean, I can convince people. But talk is cheap. Everyone talks smack till it’s time to write a check. Just like the sharks on Shark Tank. They all loved it, but I couldn’t believe it. They didn’t, they didn’t want to invest in it. I’m like, okay, you don’t want to save lives. You want to invest in cupcakes or whatever you’re gonna invest in, that’s fine. Guys all care about money only. I care about bigger things. And I thought I got I made a real low offer, because I thought I was trying to get a bidding war. But it worked out for me, because, you know, the earring went off and they rerun it every every month or so on CNBC. It’s been on 50 times, in addition to the ABC earrings.

Max Branstetter 22:57
That doesn’t hurt from a marketing or PR standpoint. So you see, you’ve had, you’ve had all the deep sea diving experiences, you got volcano experiences, you got military as a customer, you got Shark Tank, and then why not get the attention of SpaceX as well? How did that come about?

Dr. Rob Yonover 23:14
Like 30 years ago, I started going to trade shows with the military. Safe association is the big one I’m involved in. It’s an International Association for safety and survivability, their ejection seat people and life raft people there and all the different militaries air from all over the world. And I’ve been a big part of that group for 25-30 years now, random people come through there to go to that meeting. It’s open, you know, if you if you prove you’re not a spy from a bad country, you can get in. And it’s funny, because over the years, even when I did, I did a presentation for Boeing with the smoke in the cockpit guy, and then the NASA guys and even SpaceX. It’s funny because I’m older now. And you see these I call them punk kids come by the booth. And we’re from SpaceX. I’m like, Yeah, okay. Sure. Have fun with the rockets, you know, but you never know if anyone or not. And sure enough, like, the first manned flight was about to happen a couple of years ago, and I got an email and they said, Hey, by the way, you have a safety material data sheet on your stuff to make sure it’s not explosive I yeah, I go, why they go, Well, that’s what’s gonna go up. We’re gonna fly with it. I’m like, what? That’s huge news. And it was so casual to them because they’re populating a rocket. So that was it. I basically they came to my booth and I’m a, as much as I hate trade shows. I love trade shows, because that’s how things happen. I don’t really like to shave, but when I go to those meetings, I shave I put a suit and tie on and, you know, I’m all buttoned up and my booth, you know, I have all this good credibility. So people come by and I do my pitch, my little elevator pitch. I tried to get them interested and see Easy, it’s a visual product that save lives. And I’m passionate about it, because I totally believe in it. You know, that’s people and you gotta be, you gotta believe in your stuff, you know, and that I have no problem with. But that’s how it happened. And I don’t even know it. I don’t even know how they got it at first, because I have so many reps, military reps, and consumer reps all over the world. And reps don’t want to tell you their end customer because they’re always worried that I’ll go around them or they’ll go around me. So I sell it to reps and they sell it to someone. But it was from that meeting that they bought it from one of my reps. So I don’t even know which of our products goes goes up and up in the States. And I called them after I said, Hey, can I get it back? And they laughed. Everyone asked aside they said, No, you can’t.

Max Branstetter 25:47
I’m gonna call you Mr. tradeshow. Oh, totally.

Dr. Rob Yonover 25:49
I mean, I hate him. And I love him. I wrote a book on trade shows that includes trade show, called hardcore inventing. And one of the lines I have is, it’s it sounds a little creepy now. But you can follow some sometimes it’s like I used to go to shows where I didn’t have a booth. And you’re walking around, you’re poaching guys from other booths. You can read you gotta yell, learn how to read name tags upside down, you got to prioritize who to who to talk to who not to. And if a big guy or woman is their woman, obviously you can’t do what I’m about to tell you. But I follow him into the urinal and get if that’s your pitch option. If it’s an elevator pitch, it could be a urinal pits. 40 seconds to get to get 20 More seconds from the get 20 more seconds for them to get a card from them or give them a card. That’s the beauty of trade shows as you get to mix with the really successful movers and shakers in whatever field you’re in. Right? And if you polish yourself up in a respectable and you have something interesting and valuable to say to them, they’ll listen,

Max Branstetter 26:54
you’ve got it down to it down to a pee and not down to a tee.

Dr. Rob Yonover 26:59
That’s very good. Yeah, sounds.

Max Branstetter 27:02
How else besides, you know, these huge, you know, well known, you call them famous customers. And you know that awesome, you know, publicity and appearance on Shark Tank. What else would you say has been the biggest driver to the growth of your company?

Dr. Rob Yonover 27:18
Well, necessity I needed to make money. I live in the most expensive place in the country. And my wife unfortunately, got MS. Like, when she was 37, like 30 years ago, she’s passed away since but she became paralyzed and was in a wheelchair for 19 years. While we had little kids I had to raise so it was like it was almost an impossible situation monetarily. timewise and I actually wrote a book about that experience because of caregivers Survival Guide because first of all, men are rarely caregivers. And when the New York publisher went for a picture for the cover, they couldn’t find a suitable picture of a man. Pushing a woman in a wheelchair was always the other way around. So to have a male and an inventor, so I invented all these ways to cope and deal with I’m a problem solver. I take problems. And the overriding thing and all of this to answer your question really is I’m a hardcore surfer. I surf big waves on the North Shore. I dreamed about ways when I was growing up in Miami. When I first served little one inch wave I’m like I was hooked for life. And getting to Hawaii 38 years ago, I had to do my hardest work to keep in the game to stay fit enough to stay up there and not get killed on the North Shore and not have to move away from Hawaii because I couldn’t afford it. So that was the driving force behind all of it. And it’s a passion. You know, I have passionate about science and invention, innovation. Even outreach teaching I love that but surfing. I like fishing boating snorkeling, I like anything ocean related and for me being near and in the ocean is a driving force. And it’s a lot of where my good ideas come from anyway, I used to fish I fished 25 miles out and rough water tied to my boat so if I fall out I don’t die and out there you got a lot of time to think there’s no interruption it’s me and the birds and the fish and the whales and I start thinking about contingencies okay if the motor breath the other mode if both motors break what do I do? I get cut really bad what do I do if I get tangled really bad what do I do if this fish Spears me in the chest? What do I do if this breaks you know or just start thinking about regular my life on land I think about problems there and just kind of work it out in your mind and just go through all the iterations to see if you can come up with a solution and then test it science. I’m fairly human at this point. I’m pretty much part fish that’s by design.

Max Branstetter 30:02
If you yourself are finding yourself part podcasting and part entrepreneurship, then you will love the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship. And it is a short and sweet email from me every Thursday, it goes straight to your inbox and also has some terrible jokes that I should hire Rob to write the jokes because he’s got a better sense of humor. But anyway, Podcasting to the Max newsletter, you can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. And it’ll change your life. No, it won’t directly change your life. But I think there’s some pretty good insights there that I put together for you. Now, let’s get to the most impressive speediest quickest, promptest Rapid-Fire Q&A You have ever heard in your life. You segued this perfectly, because we’d love to wrap up with some Rapid-Fire Q&A. You’re ready for it? Okay, sure. All right, first one this I’ve been planning this for weeks, and I’m just gonna, I just thought of this question that thanks to you, if you’re a fish, what type of fish would you be?

Dr. Rob Yonover 31:11
I would be a Marlin or ahi because that’s those are the apex predators. Ah, he’s a big yellowfin tuna, or marlin. Although I do like what we call Malolo, which is a flying fish, because they’ve mastered the water and the air. I don’t know if you know about flying fish.

Max Branstetter 31:29
Unfortunately, I know more about Flying Fish Brewery in New Jersey. But I’ve seen clips of them. And

Dr. Rob Yonover 31:37
yeah, they don’t really they glide really they don’t fly, but they jump out of the water at fast speed and these big old fish. They’re small. They’re like, you know, as big as your hands and then they fly with their fins. They glide. I’ve seen him go hundreds and hundreds of yards. Pretty cool, but I’ll still take a Marlin or a tuna. Because it’s nice to know that no one’s really hunting you. Except maybe if you asked me water creatures, I would have gone with Orca, because they’re the Kings king of the beasts, killer whales. Those are those of the apex because only because water you know the ocean is a scary place. So I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder all the time. And if I’m one of those fish, not a flying fish, flying fish, mahi mahi the dolphin love you know when you guys call them dolphin, they love eat Mahi. Flying Fish, so I don’t want to be one of them. Really? Because you’ll end up getting eaten eaten on your third month of life or whatever.

Max Branstetter 32:34
Alright, so Aquaman your Aquaman and tradeshow man? How about on the surfing front? You mentioned how much you love surfing. What’s your tip for somebody who has either never served or like has very minimal experience surfing what’s the most important thing to remember if you want to get into

Dr. Rob Yonover 32:52
I’ll give you the same tip I give all my buddies who are long standing surfers surfing is 99% paddling. So before the inflatable, before the paddle boards and the inflatable paddle board, which I actually have a patent for. From the rescue board perspective, one of my other inventions and you stand up with a paddle before that there was a thing called a pro it was just called the paddle board. But now it’s called the prone paddle board, which means you lay down prone on it and you paddle. It’s the same exact motion for paddling a surfboard. And like Mr. Miyagi, what what was his name on? You know the wax on Well, yeah, if

Max Branstetter 33:30
Mr. Miyagi, Mr. Miyagi,

Dr. Rob Yonover 33:33
that wax on wax off. My advice. If you want to be a good surfer, you give me six months of prone, paddling. 20 minutes, half hour a day, when you can paddle really, really well. Then you’re ready to learn how to surf, not the opposite. If you really want to be a real good surfer, that’s what because paddling is everything. That’s your motion, that’s your motor. And, you know, most guys and the thing I do and I add a dimension to it that I really like which is a couple of years ago, I caught I got caught inside by 2020 foot waves in a row. I had my 12 foot long gun, big pointy board and a 20 foot long leash on my leg. And that I just kept me in the same spot, a 20 foot wall of water, kept breaking on my head, and only had like 10 seconds to go underwater, six or eight feet down. The big water passes, you come up for a breath. And then there’s another one. I did that 20 times in a row. I was so tired. I got to the beach. I kissed the sand. And I was tired for a week. Literally that’s how close I was to dying. But again, I analyzed that situation retroactively. And I said, I’m not doing that again. I’m training for that. So now on my paddleboard, I paddled for lunch, my lunch break every day if I don’t serve, I got a 20 foot lease. Lease. It’s a piece to string in my pocket I typed in my paddleboard and flip it over. And I started with 21 breath free dives. 10 feet down, come up, just I replicated that situation. And now I’m up to 50 times in a row, I could do it 100 times that or I could swim. Like if I go intense 10 feet underwater, take a breath, 10 feet underwater, take a breath. 10 feet underwater. Keep doing that. And now, when I get caught inside, I just gotten caught inside this week. And I look at I go, I know what to do. They’re not going to be 50 waves, I can handle 10 or 20. But they’re not going to be 15 and underwater, it’s mellow with all the violence of the crazy waves blowing up on top of you go over you. So that’s my advice for more advanced surfers, but it’s the same thing. To many surfers, and people in general, take up a water sport, and don’t get good at swimming and diving. And addition to the 51 breath free dives I do a whole medley of swims. And again, no mask. I didn’t say it yet. But no masks, no snorkel, no fins just straight away, get used to being underwater, with your eyes open. And swimming. Because that’s how you are surfing, you don’t have a mask on things you don’t have snorkel. So don’t don’t wear all the crutches. So that’s my advice for beginning at Advanced surfers. And it works. I mean, I’m 60 I’ll be 60 for a couple of months. And I’m still in the game. You know, I’m an old man, but I’m still surfing big wave. So

Max Branstetter 36:28
you take it back, I’ll call you young man. But I know your hobbies are inspiring. Like it’s you truly, you know, know how to live life to the fullest. I know that’s cliche, but that it’s awesome. You do so many things like that. Like you mentioned earlier, you get a lot of your ideas when you’re outside or in the water. What is it? Like? Is there is there something in common with, you know, ideas, potential businesses that you think of that are like common themes that makes you have that aha moment of like, oh, this is something that’s worth pursuing? Like, what is it that stands out?

Dr. Rob Yonover 37:02
Absolutely. Well, for me, it’s, it’s always around survival, because I’m putting my foot self into positions and even working on volcanoes. I mean, if you’re always close to dying, again, I’m not doing it on purpose, but I’m doing shit that’s dangerous. So you’re in the water, you can die quickly. So a lot of my inventions are in that same theme. I invented a portable pocket desalinate or a portable flotation device, an inflatable paddleboard a video search and rescue device. I mean, those are my real ones that I have patents on. But then I have a whole range of stupid inventions either. Stupid, stupid, simple, that solve everyday problems that are not necessarily marketable. But I get great gratification from solving a problem. For instance, my back was getting pretty bad from paddling and I can’t really reach the middle of my back to put sunscreen on. Now I use a little paint roller. You know, people laugh. But the early story was when I did serve with other people when I would go with them now I just need people in the water because it’s too much of a hassle to push people where you want to serve and vice versa. But my friends, I said to my friend Hey, can you put your purse I don’t have a beautiful woman in a bikini that wants to wax you know, put lotion on the all the time. A fantasy that’s not happening. So my friend my surf buddy, I go, Hey, man, put some sunscreen on me. He puts lie as I do my back and he had this gnarly, hairy back. I’m like, Okay, I gotta invent something I’m not doing sometimes it’s out of necessity.

Max Branstetter 38:38
That’s that’s survival in terms of just living with yourself after going through that experience. Yeah,

Dr. Rob Yonover 38:43
exactly. Anyway, so it’s to me, it’s just, we’re a bunch of apes running around on earth with all these accoutrements of life and technology. But when you dig down enough, we’re just animals trying to survive and thrive. So if you’re challenging yourself for survival, whether it’s survival financially, or socially or environmentally, or you know, in terms of your dangerous activities, whatever it is, it’s easy to think about it. It’s the same reason why, you know, if you go to Africa, and you do the statistics on percentage of kills, a lion only gets its kill, like 10% of the time, some low number all the animals only the hunting dogs. I think they’re only like 30 or 40%. You know why their kill rate is so low. Because they’re chasing a gazelle. The Gazelle is running for his life. The Lions running for a meal. That’s the difference. And the same thing and inventing for survival gear. If you have to invent something that’s going to save your life, right in that moment. You’re gonna you’re gonna work hard, you’re gonna think hard and you’re gonna try hard, you know, versus casually thinking about something in the comfort of your home and it’s air conditioned. under whatever you wherever you live and you know, cushy, scrolling around on your phones, you know, this world that we live in.

Max Branstetter 40:09
So as as we sit here in a comfortable home with AC/heat on what final question, something else that you spent a lot of time with? Volcanoes? You I don’t think I knew volcanology was a word let alone field of study before today I can I can guess what it means just knowing the root word and Suffolk ology, like was there anything in your childhood and growing up like anything that foreshadow that you would want to work with volcanoes one day or study volcanoes?

Dr. Rob Yonover 40:42
I think it was twofold. One is I grew up in Miami, which is flat. So I never saw a mountain. So you know, every summer we go on trips in the car, you know, road trips, but I started to see mountains and then volcanoes and little you know, storybooks as a kid, you start to see volcanoes yet. I’ve never seen one. I’m like, I would like to see one. That’s the first thing. And then when I was about 13, and started surfing in Miami, I had like a triple curse, which is, the waves were horrible. The women were mean. And there were no volcanoes or anything exciting in the, you know, in the science and Earth world. And the other thing is that 13 or 15, they used to have surf movies that would come to your town. And every great surf spot is next to a volcano, you know, Fiji, Hawaii, Costa Rica, every good surf place. You know, it’s near a deep water and a trench or open ocean like a hotspot like Hawaii. And then in college, I had this wacky professor in geology 101. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And he was like, I knew I was good at science and math. And he just blew my mind. He’s still a he’s a great close friend. And now we’re really tight. And we always have been since that day, I took his class, he thought I was an idiot. And then two years later, there’s an optical mineralogy weed out class and I aced it. He ended up hiring me to be his teaching assistant, I got a master’s working with him. And he worked at NASA. We worked with lasers. Anyway, he was a wild man. But his, his lecture was incredible. And I just the whole geology one to one. And I was sick of people asking me, What are you going to do? What are you going to be? Because where I grew up, it was like, You got to be a doctor or a lawyer. Those were the two options, right? There wasn’t anything else or business. And I didn’t want to do any of those. So in geology, there was volcanoes, diamonds, gold oil, so any of those, I could shut people up, you know, this is what I’m doing. I’m interested in this. And then the volcanoes, it’s just, I actually worked on a gold deposit with him. And for my masters in Nova Scotia, Canada, we uh, we dream about volcanoes, weird flow, I went to Florida State, he was a professor there. And again, no, no volcanoes in Florida. So and he took a trip. And the other the other rule I have in life is if you talk to someone after they take a trip, and when they tell you about it, their eyes light up, and they drool a little out of the corner of their mouth. That makes me want to go there. And he told me about a volcano in the Caribbean. I’m like, Oh, he just was all lit up talking about I’m like, I’m going there. And then he told me about African sea and animals. I’m like, I’m going there. He was real, influential. And he really was the first and then of course, as you start learning about him, it’s just they’re incredible. I and I always tell people, I’m more impressed by natural wonders than human wonders. I’m not looking to see the pyramids, or the Great Wall of China, or Machu Picchu, or churches built in Italy that are built by 1000s of years of slavery. I mean, it’s all all that stuff is done by keeping humans down. And you know, that’s great achievement. And I’ve been to a lot of these places, but I’d much rather see a volcano, or a waterfall or anything incredible in nature, wild animals. I don’t know. And I think as a kid, I was always kind of a loner, I couldn’t sleep that late. So I get up at six in the morning and just start raging. So my parents threw me at the other end of the house in this carport converted room. And I got to just get out that they wanted me out of there because I’d wake everyone up. So we lived on this little lake in Miami and I would just go fishing and exploring and I just always felt at peace and calm in nature. And that’s when my mind can fire you know, like even talking to you. It’s it’s hard to think when you’re talking a lot, you know, I mean, and I talk a lot so I have to shut up and the only time I could shut up is when I’m alone. You know?

Max Branstetter 44:45
I love it and we’re here to hear you talking and share your insights and stories. No, I really appreciate it and no problem. My pleasure rob you you officially got my juices flowing and I’m pumped to visit Hawaii.

Dr. Rob Yonover 44:59
Welcome one out, everyone should come out. I mean, yeah, it’s an incredible place. I mean, it’s if you haven’t been here and the thing that people don’t talk about is the most basic thing about this place, which is the air in the water. There’s cool trade winds. So it’s not like Miami where you have to run for air conditioning all the time. Cool, it’s cold, my high house don’t even have windows. It has just ceiling fan, no AC, no heat yet, all year, I sleep for two blankets you around. Number one, and then the water is just like silky wine. It’s just incredible. And it’s cool. It’s not hot. And it’s not cold. So it’s really the best part about Hawaii is the air and the water and the people, the people are great. But you got to show respect. You can’t come here like your own in it. You got to respect the local people. And they’ll respect you.

Max Branstetter 45:49
Definitely where it’s where it’s to Hawaii. Rob, thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast and just love your story. And yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. My pleasure. And I know that you can if you’re interested in SEE/RESCUE Streamer that I can’t pronounce right now. You can go to SeeRescueStreamer.com. Rob, is there any other place that you want people to connect with you online or anything else? You want a shout out?

Dr. Rob Yonover 46:14
Yeah, I mean, you can just go to Amazon and the streamers there. It’s the best streamer and a bunch of my books are there too. If you want to hardcore inventing caregivers Survival Guide, I even wrote a kid’s book, brainstorm islands, you don’t remember curious? George? Yeah, I wrote a little book for kids. You know, I really I do a lot of outreach education. I’m really into inspiring kids to be innovative, and shut off those phones. I’m really anti cell phone, smartphone. And I wrote hardcore health another book, I’m really into fitness and take care of yourself, you know, we’re all gifted with these beautiful bodies, and 80% of us abused the hell out of them.

Max Branstetter 46:51
Well, I just I just threw my smartphone out the window. And I’m just gonna, but definitely went the It feels great to unplug.

Dr. Rob Yonover 46:59
So, yeah, but anyway, on the internet, and just, I’ve done some crazy stuff. And it’s fun to share. And it’s fun to try to I try to inspire people to do to dig deep and see what’s in them. You know, everyone has an invention. And we’re all inventors. So and the saying no to or teach what you know? Or what are the invent what you know, I had a kid once. I said, solve a problem. If your if your brother’s bothered in the car, ride to school, build a barrier, you know, there’s just little, everyone has problems every day. So attack those problems. And try to find a solution. And one of my themes is function over form. Don’t worry about how pretty it is. We’re worried about how it works first. And, of course, for commercialize and make sure there’s a market. You know, I mean, a lot of my inventions I never even tried to market because they’ll get laughed out of existence. But it’s just good to solve the problem anyway, even if it’s personal.

Max Branstetter 48:02
You read my mind yet again, any of those were good candidates for this. But we always wrap up with final thoughts. Is there just one quote or one line of parting advice that you want to leave us here with today? Okay, it could be about anything, but it really excited here, we have to say here.

Dr. Rob Yonover 48:20
I’ll just go with my mantra, which is, well, we’re 13-14 year olds, and it was a cold winter night in Miami, which didn’t used to get down in the 50s. We got to go surfing in the morning. But we were afraid because it was so cold and might be big. And this guy, Joe vezo, a little older surfer. He had his little draw, and he looked at us and he’s got, you got to be hardcore. And that was the mantra and it still is you got to be hardcore, meaning you got to charge you got to charge through everything, and you can’t let little things bother you. And you have to take the fear and hesitancy you have and just go for it. Go charge ahead. And even if you fail, you know, even my kids, I used to root for them to have little tiny failures. So they learn how to deal with it. But if you’ve ever tried it, and you’ll never know. And that’s it, you got to charge and be hardcore. That’s my mantra. And I’m not, I’m not changing. And I think if people thought more that way, they would be less hesitant. And it’s in all of us. I know it’s easier to be a cog on the wheel and work for someone and do that. But always charge something you have a passion for in your spare time. You know, you got 40 Hour Workweek you got 40 hours asleep, you still have 40 or more hours to invent something on nights and weekends. So get off your smartphone dumb phone and do something whether it’s write a song, write poetry, invent something to anything. So a sweater, make beadwork, whatever, do something, make something

Max Branstetter 49:58
I think do something make Something is my new mantra. Thank you so much Rob, Dr. Rob, for coming on the podcast, sharing your incredible life and career story, and all you do to inspire and educate. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and go do something, make something with them. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are really, really good podcasts and podcast recommendations and podcast people and setting alliteration records with all the P’s and for any help with podcast production – see, I did it again – you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That’s at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!