Jimmy Rex: Episode 506

Transcript

[00:00:47] HOST: Jimmy and Cameron, welcome to the Author Hour Podcast. It’s exciting to have you on.

[00:00:52] CC: Yeah. Thanks for having us.

[00:00:54] Jimmy Rex: Yeah, it’s great to be here.

[00:00:55] HOST: I’m particularly excited about your book topic. The book is You End Up Where You're Heading. As far as I would describe it, it's a book about really breaking through barriers and constraints about what you thought your life was supposed to be, based on what other people have dictated, and really carving out an adventure and a journey of your own. That's a purpose in a topic that's near and dear to my heart. What made you decide to write this book?

[00:01:24] CC: Yeah. You nailed it. I mean, I think that's the premise of the entire book. And I’ve always lived my life that way. Just never followed the path everybody else was going down. I started seeing over and over these rewards I was getting in my life for doing that. Then when I started up my podcast a couple of years ago, I noticed that the most successful — my podcast is all about exceptional people living extraordinary lives. I noticed that all these people were having the same result. They were having these amazing lives, or these amazing things happen to them, because of the same thing. Not going down the safe path, or just going and doing the status quo, doing the things that everybody else said that they should do with their lives. They really took away the expectation of what it was supposed to look and just honored their own path. When me and Cameron were just talking about — we were talking about some other — we've done some projects in the past. We'd worked on a TV show back in the day. He's like, “Dude, you got anything to work on?” I said, “You know, I got this book I think would be amazing to do, but I’m not really sure where to start.” He thankfully, and I’ll let him tell his story, but had some time. He had stepped away from his day job for a couple of years to go move with his family. He and I collaborated and that's how the book came about. Honestly, I always just, I just watched Jimmy. I just watched his life and then I back it off two notches and that's usually sufficient for me. He's an incredible explorer to the edge. Yeah, so about a year ago, I was living in New York and not really psyched about my subway commute anymore. And decided to again, take a big risk, go on an exploration and moved my family and I, my two kids and my wife, we moved to Costa Rica for a year. With any good exploration, there's always a few bumps in the roads and the ‘Road of Trials,’ as we talked about in the book. About three months in, I was planning to go there to retire and kick back and sit on the beach. Three months in I was like, “This is super boring. I mean, I need to work. I need to do something again.” That's when I reached out to Jimmy and said, “Please help me. Let me do anything for you. I’m dying here.” That's how we started, kicked off the conversation about the book.

[00:03:38] HOST: That explains the note I caught in your acknowledgements, where you write something like, “Thank you to Costa Rica for being so beautiful and boring, that I could do nothing but stare at the ocean and work on this book.”

[00:03:49] CC: Right. Absolutely. Nothing against Costa Rica. Costa Rica is an awesome place and like I said, it's beautiful and the people are amazing. After three months of sitting around on the beach, you go, like, “All right. This is not what it's all about.”

[00:04:07] HOST: Amazing, right? It's fitting with the thesis of your book that we don't know what lives are best for us, until we truly explore all the possibilities. Sitting on the beach sounds amazing, until you go and do it for long enough.

[00:04:19] CC: Absolutely. I think that's part of the book. You talk about you set out with this goal in mind and really, once you reach the goal, you're like, “Oh, wait a minute. That wasn't really what I wanted.” For me, going to Costa Rica, selling all of our stuff, realizing we could get up and move and do a hard thing and getting to collaborate with Jimmy, one of one of my best friends and all of that, that was really the reward. Getting to the beach was like, “Oh, this is not what — really what I was after,” which is cool.

[00:04:52] HOST: In the prologue of your book, I love that you start with telling a day of the life from these two paths. One, which is an ordinary Joe, who goes through an ordinary, stressful work day. Then a totally separate story, where a guy goes on what looks like a secret ops mission to stop a human trafficking ring. Then later in the book, it's so delightful the way you roll this out, because as a reader, you later discover — spoiler alert — that these are actual scenes from your own life, Jimmy. I was really excited to put those puzzle pieces together and I’m curious what it was like exploring the contrast between those two lives as you reflected on that for the book.

[00:05:33] Jimmy Rex: Yeah. The first example we give isn't necessarily something for my life. I would like to think that there was a time in my life I was just sitting and living an ordinary life, but it's probably never been the case. We used that as the reader, as any person that is coming on here and seeing that that they would maybe go, “Shoot. There's a little bit of my life in that example.” Then I just used an example of my life, which is, I had the opportunity to go work undercover with some groups and help rescue kids that are being sex trafficked all over the world. Yeah, those experiences to me, I had to do so many things that made me uncomfortable to ever get to be in the position to actually go on one of those ops. It's the most extreme example I could think of, but it's been the greatest reward of my life, and is being able to be a part of that. They come by making those little decisions that you have to. That's what we talk about in the book is it's — you have this path. It's called the ‘Hero's Journey’. It doesn't just happen. All of a sudden, you find yourself on the top of this mountain or whatever. Along the way, you have all these different trials and these different things that come along and these things that help you. We call them ‘Trail Markers’ in the book. Where, essentially, you have to pay attention, you have to find those mentors and you have to find the allies and you have to cross the bridge. You have to go into the cave, which is the scariest one. Which, you know — go inside and tear yourself up and really figure out your own demons and insecurities and all those kinds of things. In order to have this extraordinary outcome, you really have to go through that exploration. I wanted to contrast that and Cameron did such a beautiful job of putting those two side by side, to really show, “Here's how 80% of people are probably living their lives and here's how some people get to live their lives.” It's done with the object of trying to get people to go, “Wow. There's truly no limit of what I can do.” That's in the book. We highlight so many people, because when you're a kid, I remember thinking all the time, “Well, that couldn't ever be me.” I remember my dad, I wanted to be a famous baseball player. My dad was like, “Well, that's not real. That doesn't happen.” I know dozens of famous baseball players. It does happen. It happens for people. I know dozens of people in every aspect of life now that have been able to actually honor this journey they've been on. Obviously, there's a level of talent and things like that, but I think that too often, we really squash that ability, that dream way before it even happens. If you would have told me, one day I could have gone with a Special Forces team undercover to foreign countries and rescue kids being sex trafficked and I went on 11 of those ops in a two and a half year span and rescued over a 100 kids, I’d have been like, “What did I do with the rest of my life?” The honest thing is is I just started exploring that unsafe path, if you would, and that's what led to all those adventures.

[00:08:13] CC: I think to add there too — I think the thing that Jimmy does really well and a lot of the people that we've highlighted in the book is that they embrace this uncertainty in their lives as delight, instead of danger. I think that that's something that we highlight a lot is that the settler versus the explorer is really digging in and being okay with that uncertainty. And knowing that there will be some uncomfortable times, but that there's a lot of delight on the other side of that. There's a lot of growth. Jimmy does this better than most, is really just yielding to that uncertainty and finding the corners of delight that come with it.

[00:08:56] HOST: Yeah. Jimmy, I’m curious what your emotional experience is with that uncertainty. To you, is it that you embark on these experiences and that you can't predict the outcome, but you know that it's the right path? Or is there also uncertainty along the way of like, “I’m not even sure I’m on the right path right now”?

[00:09:19] Jimmy Rex: Yeah. That's the thing is, when you're in the journey, you don't really know essentially where this thing's going to end up. I think for me, I grew up in a very religious community, very religious household. Everything was designed for you. This is where you came from. This is your purpose of life on the Earth. This is what you're supposed to do, step-by-step, here's what you're not supposed to do step-by-step, here's where you're going afterwards. That used to drive me insane. I actually embraced the uncertainty. Even then, I hated this idea that this was all mapped out already. I started to play with the uncertainty and I found that there's so much beauty in the mess. Too many people, when we feel pain about our lives, or we feel pain about what's going on, the emotion that we feel behind that, it's usually because we're not living up to the expectation of what we think our life needs to be. Whether that's somebody else's expectation, which it usually is, or even our own expectation. I discovered that if I learned to embrace the beauty of the mess, that I didn't have bad days, I didn't have — when things go wrong, or things go off, like we've had things — I mean, some of the most serious things you've ever mentioned. We had an op one time where we were undercover and everything that could have gone wrong went wrong and we ended up finding ourselves in the shadiest part of one of the shadiest cities in Latin America. We’re getting arrested and these traffickers are trying to help us. It was an insane experience. You could see that and most people would be like, “Oh, my gosh. That thing went so wrong.” It was like, “No, no, no. There was so much amazement in that entire thing.” The way it ended up turning out, we ended up still being able to do part of the op and all this other stuff, but it was like, that's the thing that I look at. I just like, that's our favorite story to tell now. I always said, I want to be on the plane that goes down as long as I don't die. I want to be in the bank that gets robbed. I embrace this weird uncertainty of, like, who knows what my life's going to be today? I think if you can understand, like once you do it enough times, you realize how fun it makes your life. I think as Tony Robbins has said this, the amount of fun that you'll have in your life is equal to the amount of uncertainty you're willing to handle or deal with. The more you can actually embrace it, it's just the more fun your life becomes. You really get to meet some amazing characters and amazing people and have these experiences that you just wouldn't otherwise.

[00:11:29] HOST: Cameron, I’m curious about your take on that, given that you've said for your life, it's Jimmy's notched down two levels. What's your relationship to uncertainty?

[00:11:39] CC: Right. Again, yes. Jimmy minus two notches. I personally don't feel compelled to go put myself into those types of dangerous situations. Jimmy and I, we talked about this before. We take different explorer risks in different ways. A year ago, I quit a super comfortable job at one of the top companies in the world and just walked away from it. Everyone — my grandparents were just appalled. They were like, “What have you done? You've ruined your family.” Picked up and folded all of our stuff and moved to Costa Rica. That, to a lot of people is just, like, it probably gives them more anxiety than say, going on a special op. Or many years ago, I threw all my stuff into a U-Haul after college and just drove to New York and showed up and I was like, “This is going to be fine. I will totally find a job and I won't have to borrow tons of money and almost have to move back to my parents’ house.” I think, it really comes down to listening to the — Jimmy and I have talked about this too, like looking for the — listening to the whispers, or looking for that little poke in the ribs that the universe gives you and saying like, “Look, you need to follow this path over here.” It's not going to be the same path for everyone. It's not going to look the same. Jimmy and our paths and our explorations definitely do not look the same. Looking out for the thing that's pulling you in and being okay with that uncertainty and knowing that no matter what happens, the experience and what you get from that, you're going to grow and you're going to change and you're going to be a better version of yourself on the other side.

[00:13:18] HOST: Does it really feel like a poke in the ribs? How do you know which instances, or which potential experiences in your life are the universe pulling you into a path?

[00:13:29] Jimmy Rex: For me, yeah, it usually is honestly, like a poke in the ribs. You have these moments where you're trying to make a decision on what you're going to do with your life and then something will happen. If you're paying attention — I think the universe is always listening. This is the danger that a lot of people get into, because if you start saying, like, “Oh, I don't want to be rich,” or “Rich people are this.” Then all of a sudden, the universe gets confused like, “Oh, he doesn't want money.” It's going to do things to keep that away from you. Or if you say like, “My wife is this,” or “My husband does this,” and you start complaining and talking about all these things that they're not. And then the universe will start showing you more of that. It also works for you in the same concept of where, if you start saying, like, “All right. Where am I supposed to go with my path?” You should really start listening to what you're supposed to do and — “What purpose do I have? How can I be of the best good today?” I literally woke up for years in a row and I would pray and just say, “Show me somebody, or some sign today of somebody that I’m supposed to help. Put me in somebody's path.” I just believe that I was guided. It's not like it always is this huge nudge, but every now and then, all of a sudden, you'll be sitting there and somebody will start talking about something you've been thinking about. Or they'll start exploring an idea that you've had and you're like, “That's your nudge. That's your key to go and do that thing.” I think, some of these will be subtle, some of these will be huge neon signs, slaps in the face. I mean, I think in the book there's a lot of the people that we highlight have different varying degrees of whether this was trauma, like their partner died, or that it was just — it was a small thing that happened where they put up some product on Instagram. And somehow this is like, the universe came in their favor and it became super popular. I mean, I think there's a range of what that poke in the ribs can look like and sometimes it's a little more forceful than others, but I think Jimmy's absolutely right. You have to be open to it and attuned and ready for where that frontier is going to open up to you and be willing to cross into it.

[00:15:26] HOST: I love that you share so many stories and experiences from others in your book too. It gives this real variety of how these journeys play out for different people. What were some of the ones that resonated, or surprised each of you?

[00:15:42] Jimmy Rex: Cameron, you pronounced that better than me. I mean, they're all my friends and myself, my story, so none of them, I guess, I would say surprise me, but maybe I don't know. Maybe that's a better question for you.

[00:15:52] CC: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think they run such a variety of experiences. Again, like I said before, there are people that, like Amberly Snyder, who became paralyzed and went through this. She was a world-class barrel racer. She went through this struggle of, “No. I’m going to walk. I’m going to get on this horse again.” The first time she gets on a horse, she's like, “Nope. I’m done. I’m never doing this again.” Her struggle and her family helping her get back and realizing that she's going to get back on the horse, but it's not going to be what it was before. It's going to be something different and it's going to be something that will impact people in a significantly different way. I mean, the impact that she's had on the community, people with paralysis, I mean, she's had a huge impact there, where she couldn't have seen that before, I think. Jane Ann Craig is one where again, her partner passed away and she tells the story of just being in the hospital room, literally walking over the threshold of the hospital room where he had just died and just making this decision. She's like, “I’m going to provide a type of life for my son now.” She had lost her father and didn't handle it very well, but she made this movement over the threshold and was like, “No, I’m going to do this thing.” Quit her job and started a business in a super highly regulated industry. I think there are stories in the book that everyone can resonate with, whether you're down on your luck, whether you struck it rich and now are fabulously wealthy and what do you do with that now, or you're on welfare and you're going out there collecting aluminum to start your business. I mean, there are stories that just run the range of loss and growth and heart-wrenching, digging into your soul. Sean Whalen talks about this too, just being super vulnerable and telling the truth about who you are and admitting some of your failures and being able to live a different life. I learned so much. I joke with Jimmy that I feel like I know all these people. I’m going to meet them and talk to them and pretend like I know who they are and they're going to be like, “Who are you?” It’s very funny.

[00:18:21] HOST: Yeah. You bring up an excellent facet of all of these stories, which is really the vulnerability, I think, we all feel when we step into something that feels new. We feel vulnerable, because we know it's not the safe path anymore. We also feel vulnerable so often, because it's really a moment where we have to present ourselves to that path. We really have to be honest about who we are and why we're there. I’m curious, what experiences you each have had maybe with — when have you felt resistant to that vulnerability?

[00:18:55] Jimmy Rex: I think it happens a lot. I think every one of us feels the resistance. I think the key is not getting paralyzed by that resistance that you feel. On most of the big decisions that I’ve made in my life, there's this moment of for sure resistance. We call it the ‘Threshold Guardian’ in the book. There's always something that's going to come up, or somebody that's going to come up. There's going to be reasons why you shouldn't do whatever that thing is. I think where a lot of people get in trouble is they don't trust their instincts. Our gut is another brain and it tells us things. It gives us more advice than we want to recognize. I think the key is when you feel that resistance, or something comes up and says, “No, you can't do this.” I mean, every single thing that exists today was impossible, but it didn't exist until it did, or nothing ever happened until it did. You look at how advanced the world is today and if you told somebody a 100 years ago half the things that are going on today, they would never believe it. I think too often, we just have this idea of like, “No, you can't do this thing.” I’ll give you one example. I invested my life savings in my buddy's company about five years ago. It was every dollar I had. I put a half a million dollars when it was an idea in his head. We talk about him in the book. He's the founder and CEO of Nikola Motors. It's a 10-billion-dollar company today. I was one of the seed round investors. I talk about in the book the reward I got is obviously huge monetarily, but I also — this guy was friends with about 20 of us and the other 19 people, every single one of them told me I was insane. I think what helped me get through my own, because I started questioning myself like, “Man, am I insane? Is this crazy to do?” Which by the way in most cases, it probably would have been. I was able to trust my gut, because I’d read about geniuses. I’d read about technology, these things that were happening and I knew that my friend was a genius. I knew that he would be able to pull this off. I just had this weird uncertainty about it, because I was prepared for that. All my friends passed on and they all — now today they're like, “Man, I can't believe you didn't pitch us harder on that. I can't believe you didn't tell us.” “Guys, I was trying so hard.” What happened is they didn't trust their own instincts, or maybe they did, but they didn't prepare themselves for that. I think part of being able to trust your instincts is doing it enough times, where you see. Here's the other thing is I was truly okay losing that money, but I knew that if I wanted — my goal was so big, what I wanted my life to be. I knew I couldn't ever get there just selling house after house. I needed to make some huge investment at some point. I’d made investments that I’d lost before, none as big as this, but I knew to change my trajectory, my whole life, I needed to make a giant move. Because I was very clear on what my direction my life was going to be, I was able to look at my target and see and I said, “I can't get there just selling houses.” I made this giant move thinking, “Hey, this is my opportunity to really go for this. If I lose it. That's okay. I still have the life I have.” We talk about it at the beginning of the book. Cameron puts this beautiful quote in there from Tommy Boy where he says, “I still have the meat lover’s pizza in the trunk.” It's a quote from Tommy Boy, my favorite movie. It makes so much sense, because that's how I honestly think about it. I get past that Threshold Guardian, because I’m willing to go, “What's the worst-case scenario here? I have the life I have. That's okay. That's great.” Or maybe I’m a little bit — have a little bit less money or whatever it might be. But that's how you get yourself to take those risks, is you play out like, “What's the worst-case scenario? What's really going to happen? I’m not going to die if I go talk to that pretty girl and she rejects me. I’m not going to die if all of a sudden, I don't have any money. I’ll figure out how to make money again.” I think understanding that really helps you get past that initial hesitation that we all get and that comes up for everybody.

[00:22:22] HOST: Yeah. It really comes down to self-confidence in knowing that you are capable of a rebound. I think so many people struggle with that.

[00:22:31] Jimmy Rex: Yeah, and that comes from doing it though, right? The problem is people read about other people, or they just think about other things, but they don't actually try — and it starts with little things, like, instead of taking the same classes that make you feel safe, maybe take some that maybe you're like, “Ah, I think I could really struggle at that class.” Or I had a mentor that told me, he said, “The number one thing you can do in life is to be versatile.” He said, “Jimmy, if you, instead of when all your buddies are going to the sporting event, go to the symphony, or go to the orchestra and put yourself in uncomfortable positions.” That's the whole idea behind cold showers, or waking up early. It's like, do things that make you uncomfortable. I remember when I was in high school, in college, I made this rule for myself. If I saw a pretty woman or pretty girl that I wanted to go talk to, I would just do it. I had three seconds to go approach her, because I took away this idea that I wasn't. Every time you do it, you get these little rewards. You get her number, you get a date, you end up getting a kiss and all these things. They add up. Or I did it with sports. I did it with my business. I tried things that nobody else was doing in my business and one after another, they kept working and I was like, “Wow.” You get those little rewards and it allows you to take the bigger chances later on.

[00:23:36] HOST: I love that. You mentioned just now, mentors. That's a big topic throughout the book too, is really finding a guide who can help you harness who you are. Jimmy, I know you share examples of how people found their guides and when that went well. Do you have any examples of when you had the wrong guide?

[00:23:59] Jimmy Rex: Oh, yeah. For sure. Unfortunately, there're a lot of people that especially nowadays — it's very popular to be a guru on the internet. I see these kids in their 20s that are talking about — they have these courses they're selling on how to make money. I’m like, “Dude you haven't even —” I run from any of those people. They just haven't experienced enough life yet. I guess the easiest way to put it is you always want to try to find somebody that is where you want to be and then you want to do what they're doing. Unfortunately, a lot of people can fake that. I had one guy, he was a mentor early, that I thought. His name was Herman and I was 21, 22-years-old when I met him. He's the guy that I started — I got my first job, essentially, from — real job, where I was selling steak and chicken door-to-door. We ended up partnering. We ended up becoming co-owners of this business. I put all this money in my name, all these loans in my name. I took all the debt on and everything else. I found out after about a year and three months that Herman was on drugs. I’d never been around anybody that was really on drugs. Money was disappearing. I didn't know where it was going. One day he disappeared. When he came back, $35,000 was gone out of our bank account that he'd pulled out. I just had to shut that business down. I actually got stuck, at 23-years-old, with a $120,000 worth of debt. Herman, I thought was a great mentor and honestly, here's the beauty of — even bad mentors become examples of what not to do, or they become — they always say like, you can at least learn that you don't want to become that person or whatever else. There were so many things I learned from that guy, good and bad, that I can still, actually, kind of consider him a mentor. That was an example where somebody was taking advantage of me and I didn't know it, just because I was young and naive and things like that. There's definitely that out there. Unfortunately, we live in a world where people will take advantage of you. I mean, I gave away my first million dollars investing. I just assumed people were honest. I was 24-years-old meeting with 55-year-old guys in my brother's church group. All of a sudden, they're pitching you on this investment deal. I can't tell you how many bad investment deals I made in my 20s. I was just trying so hard to get to this place. I mean, I once invested almost a 100 grand in a dental clinic that never even existed. You can't get that money back. I invested in a Ponzi scheme. I invested in all sorts of real estate before the crash. I had a lot of unfortunate things happen to me, because I didn't have the right mentors early on. I think that's why I value mentors so much, because once I found the right mentors and I educated myself, I haven't made a bad financial move at least in over 10 years. That was all because of the lessons I learned, the things I now knew what to look for and the mentors that I had that helped me, that I had to go out and find. Doing it myself or doing it with the wrong people definitely cost me a lot.

[00:26:40] HOST: Cameron, do you have any experience that you want to share about mentorship, or finding a guide?

[00:26:45] CC: Yeah. I mean, I think most of my bad mentors were 80s movies characters. I think a lot of my — I set a lot of my success criteria based on Michael J. Fox characters. I think where, and Jimmy and I were talking about this the other day. I think I’ve actually personally, under-invested in mentors. Jimmy is the king of going out and finding mentors and coaches. I’m a little more cerebral, so I think a lot of my mentors have been through books and I think some of this gets highlighted in the book as well, I think. Joseph Campbell and also Maslow, who we talk about early in the book. I’ve found a lot of my mentors through writing and reading and some of the core group of friends that we've had growing up even, since junior high. I would say that my mistake is actually, it's probably been slower for me to reach some of my goals or potential, because I have closed myself off to mentors and seeking help. I think that's even the middle-ground between good mentor and bad mentor is apathy towards mentors. Just going like, “Yeah. I got it. I can handle it.” That's probably where I land. I can't say, again, my life is like Jimmy minus two notches. I don't have any Ponzi schemes, or drug dealers that I’ve had to manage, but —

[00:28:24] HOST: Bummer.

[00:28:26] CC: Yeah, I know.

[00:28:27] Jimmy Rex: No, but guess what? It's been so much fun to have this a part of it. That's the part where I’m probably thick in the head. I think it's all the beauty of my story, right? I wouldn't have it any other way. For two-and-a-half years with Herman, the guy that stole my money, I had more fun selling meat door-to-door with that guy than most people have in their life doing the thing they enjoy the most. It's like, I can just see the beauty in it all. I love it. I love that that's the way my story went. It caused me that downfall in meat selling is why I was so motivated to start at real estate. It’s why my first year, I was able to sell 60 homes, because I was backed into a corner with so much debt that I had no other option. I love joking about it too, but it's fun that that's — my path has been. I don't think everybody wants to go down the path. Learn from mine if you can, but it's fun in its own little way.

[00:29:16] HOST: I think that's probably the defining characteristic of an explorer, is someone who can approach their life just thinking at every turn, like this is fun, or this is beautiful, or I’m really curious about this. Even if the circumstances are looking more difficult and more confusing than you've seen before.

[00:29:36] Jimmy Rex: Yeah. No, I agree 100%.

[00:29:38] CC: Yeah. I think Joseph Campbell talks about that. Forgetting the exact quote, but ‘yielding to the fall’. He's essentially saying, like, “Look, you can turn around a bad situation.” If you're falling off a cliff, you don't just go like, “This is awful.” You just go like, you lean into it. You yield to the fall and make that part of the journey is — and embracing that fall and embracing the uncertainty.

[00:30:06] HOST: I love that. Thank you. Well Jimmy and Cameron, it's been such a pleasure talking to you about your book. If there were one or two things you wanted listeners to take away, what would they be?

[00:30:20] CC: The one thing that I want people to, or two things is one, be aware of where your next frontier is. Really listening to those little whispers, or the pokes in the ribs from the universe and not ignoring them. It's super easy. If somebody's poking me in the ribs, you just move one foot over to the left and now you're comfortable and you're fine and you're good again. But really turning towards that poke and saying like, “What is this? Is this actually where I need to be heading?” And exploring that, I think is something that will bring incredible rewards to people. I think that's one, really listening for those new paths and not being afraid of what's on the other side of it. The second one is, once you've reached your goal, looking back and realizing that the thing that you've attained, the thing that you set out to attain is not really the most lasting reward. It's looking back across that journey and seeing how you've grown and the people you've met and the things that you've overcome is really that lasting reward. Then to not stop there. You have to keep going. This is a cycle of once you've gotten to the top, you have to come back down that mountain and start again and do it all over.

[00:31:37] Jimmy Rex: Yeah. What I would say is on their deathbeds, the number one regret of the dying is, it's never the things they did, it's the things they never did. I think too many people, unfortunately, society is designed right now to keep us distracted and to keep us in this weird fog. Like, we can just sit and watch Netflix and sports and all these things that we feel are good, but they're just taking away so much of this opportunity to go and explore and see the world and do these things. People always ask me, “How do you have time for this, or how do you have time for that?” It's like, I just make it a priority. I make it a priority to do those things. I would just encourage people, whatever is on your list, don't wait. Don't hesitate to do that. I have so many people even hit me up. They’re like, “Dude, I’ve been waiting to travel. Now who knows if we'll be able to with the coronavirus and all this?” I’m like, “Exactly.” I went to over 60 countries the last four years and was able to go do all these things. I plan to keep doing that. But my point is just don't wait to start to live your life. Again, it all comes back to me as like, play out the worst-case scenario. You have no money, you're broke, you're homeless, whatever. It's going to be a beautiful, beautiful story of how you got out of that place. Don't be afraid of falling back there. I’m not afraid to go in there again. I don't care if I do. If I do, then I’ll come out of it again and that'll be part of my story. Embrace the idea that your life doesn't need to look like anything. This expectation of what your life needs to be, kill it and you won't have bad days. You truly will be able to embrace the messiness that is your beautiful life.

[00:33:06] HOST: I may be opening a can of worms here, but Jimmy, what does you being an explorer look like in our current coronavirus world?

[00:33:16] Jimmy Rex: Well, right now, I’m trying to plan the next phase of my life. I’ve got so many different moving pieces right now between the book, YouTube stuff and my real estate business. We just moved into a new building. We're expanding that. Some investments that I’m doing — with the investment with Nikola Motors, it's opening up a lot of opportunities. All these different things. I have some big goals. I have a goal to get to a 100 countries by my 40th birthday. I got about a year and a half and I’m 31 short, so I’ll be going after that hard, as soon as possible. I just got back from Turks and Caicos. We had to do two coronavirus tests. I had to take a flight to go get one the day before, because the only place that did it — we flew down and back that day to get it, so that we could go do this amazing trip in Turks and Caicos. That's what I’m saying, like, there was a Threshold Barrier. There was this Threshold Guardian that came up. There were so many reasons why we should just bag the trip, but instead, we literally got on a private plane, jumped in, went to this other place, came back the same day and went and had this amazing trip with some close friends. That's what it looks like for me is just, it's an extra barrier to entry. It's an extra thing that's in the way that makes it a bit harder, but I think if you can get past those and just try to, just try to get past whatever your fears might be, or whatever the obstacle in the way might be, you'll discover that almost every time you get past the thing if you just try it.

[00:34:31] CC: Yeah. I think this time of uncertainty with COVID is actually a perfect time, where a lot of people have been forced to sit down and look around and reevaluate and evaluate what their lives are like, “Am I leading my life, or am I being just led through momentum through my life?” I think this has caused a lot of people to not only do a lot of work in their yards and build a deck outside, but also look inside and say, “Is this a path I want to — when everything opens up again, when the gate opens up and the world is changed but open again. Do I actually want to keep heading down the path I was? Or is this the perfect time to make a change?” I think this is a perfect opportunity. Again, not everyone is able to take advantage of this and everyone has different situations. No matter what situation you are, you have the opportunity to make a different choice. I think this is a really interesting time to think about how to explore your life.

[00:35:37] Jimmy Rex: Yeah, and I think it's given so many people a chance to have a reset and to actually nudge them. This is a giant nudge, is what it is for a lot of people. I hope they listen and they — I have friends that are like, “Yeah, I don't really want to do that business anymore anyway.” He's like, “I’m going to do something else.” I have another friend that shut down his business. He still doesn't know what he's doing, but he's like, “I just knew I didn't want to do that anymore.” Anyway, it is a giant nudge from the universe to help us.

[00:36:02] HOST: Yeah. The universe is poking us all on the ribs right now. Well, thank you both so much for sharing your wisdom today. I so appreciate that you're putting this book out in the world. Again, the book is called You End Up Where You're Heading. Besides checking out the book, where can listeners find you?

[00:36:21] Jimmy Rex: Yeah. I’m easy to find. Instagram is the best way to get a hold of me. My Instagram is @MrJimmyRex. I’m very active on that. I do a lot of stuff on my stories, all the different videos I come out with and all the different events I’m doing. It's a very easy way to get a hold of me is through Instagram, @MrJimmyRex.

[00:36:39] CC: I am near impossible to find on purpose. I’m not a social media guy, but yeah. If you want to get a hold of me, talk to Jimmy. My wife has to show me things on Facebook. She's like, “Hey, Jimmy wanted me to tell you that this happened, or your friend had a baby.” I’m mostly like a old-timey man. You have to go through, send me a fax. I’ll get a fax number.

[00:37:07] HOST: Love it. Well, thank you both. Yeah, we'll all go find you Jimmy.

[00:37:13] Jimmy Rex: Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you again so much. Yeah, if anybody wants to reach out, I’m happy to answer any direct messages that are actual questions, or things like that. It's just exciting. Please as you get the book and you read it and you start exploring your own journey, reach out to us and let us know what you're doing. Tag us in your photos when you start exploring and doing these cool things.

[00:37:32] HOST: Great. Thank you. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find You End Up Where You're Heading on Amazon. A transcript of this episode, as well as all of our previous episodes is available at authorhour.co. For more Author Hour, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time, same place, different author.